CRAIG

Hello, and welcome to Desperately Seeking Wisdom with me, Craig Oliver. This is a podcast for those of us who want to lead a wiser, more fulfilled life, but are tired of all the snake oil and dubious life hacks that are out there. I talk to some well-known people and some experts about what life has taught them, as they share the wisdom they gained, particularly during the tougher times. Our guest today is Lyse Doucet, the BBC's Chief International Correspondent. Lyse is a force of nature, which she combines with being one of the kindest and warmest people you could ever meet. The hallmark of her reporting is a deep-seated empathy for ordinary people, often in terrible circumstances.

LYSE

War is not just the troops in the trenches and the tanks and the armour and the bullets and the bombs - that is part of war. But war is also the mother's anguish when she says goodbye to her child in the morning, never knowing if they're going to come home. It's the anguish of a student whose school has just been destroyed. It's a family's pain as they're forced to go on the run. All of those things are also part of war. In the most inhumane of times, are also deeply human times.

CRAIG

I wanted to understand what motivates her, when on a surface level, her life seems full of contradictions, not least her love of home and her wanderlust, that still continues to take her to some of the most troubled places on Earth. Get ready for more words per minute than we've ever had on this podcast.

Lyse, it's lovely to see you face-to-face in London, because I was used to always talking to you down the line when you were in some war-torn part of the world. So how long are you in London for and how's it going?

LYSE

Well, on a lovely day like this where the sky is blue and the temperature is warm and the city looks magnificent, I always said that, used to say that London is the capital of the world. I'm not sure it still is in factual terms or statistical terms. But it always has a lovely buzz about it. Don't you think it's all about the past and all about the future as well?

CRAIG

No, I love London. But what was it you said? You said that Canada is your home, London is your city?

LYSE

Yes. Identity has suddenly in our time become an issue. And first of all, do we define ourselves, and how do we define ourselves? Whether accident of birth or destiny, should that influence how we think of ourselves and my editors - not you - but some of my editors used to say to me, Lyse, stop that identity thing, get a British passport. And I would think, you know, at the end, I want them just to say she was born in Canada but travelled the world, you know in my little Twitter bio as you think was you know, I felt at home in many places. But we have this great Canadian novelist called Robertson Davies, and he talked about what's ‘bred in the bone’. And I love this expression. You know, it's about our ancestors. It's about where we came from. And I think because most of my reporting career, part of which was involved with you, as my boss, remember? #justsaying. I often went to places where they live their history as if it happened yesterday, they were often former British colonies. And so I began to realise that I too, had to know my own history if I was going to travel the world where history is very much lived in the present.

CRAIG

Yeah. And it's really interesting, isn’t it, because I think Theresa May in a different context said ‘a citizen of the world is a citizen of nowhere.’ I mean -

LYSE

Oh, that became, see, it became toxic.

CRAIG

It became toxic, but you-

LYSE

Yes, yes, it was politicised. It was weaponized by some people. Identity is a very personal thing.

CRAIG

But you, it seems to me, are a citizen of the world, in the truest sense of the world, you seem at home in lots of places and love the cultures and that sort of thing. But you still feel able to be rooted in Canada.

LYSE

I think being rooted is really important. It's like a tree, isn't it? If the roots are strong, then you can grow tall and your bows can spread out and, think if you are strongly rooted or anchored, then you can go, you can travel far and wide, because you always know that the roots are there holding you.

CRAIG

I'm always worried about saying these sort of things to you, what I'm about to say, because you're unbelievably modest, and you protest so you have to take it on trust that there are lots of people who think you're an extraordinary person and do extraordinary things. And some of the people that are involved in the podcast are like, excited about you coming on. And I want to understand how you became who you are now, the person who's reporting from Afghanistan and Ukraine and Syria. You came from a sort of corner of Canada, the eastern corner of Canada. How does that happen? How do you become the BBC’s International Editor who's in all of these places?

LYSE

Well, first of all, I do have to protest and you know, maybe what people see in me, they see something of themselves because in some way, I'm very ordinary in the sense, and I certainly, I regard myself as that, that I decided what I wanted to do, and I got on with it. And you asked how it is, in some ways, it is extraordinary that I came from a very small town on the east coast of Canada, even in Canadian terms, it is regarded as a bit of back and beyond which I discovered when I went to university, at a quite an elite university in the centre of the country. And people would tease me to say, oh, really, you're from New Brunswick? I just thought Canada, you know, Canada ended at Montreal, ha, ha, ha. And I thought, you know, you say it's a joke, but actually, as all jokes, there's something serious in it. So that it's the kind of, it was, you know, the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, the poorest part of Canada, People say, well, there's only eight people from New Brunswick at this university To this day of all the places I've been, it was the biggest culture shock, going from small town, Canada, to the big city and to a very different culture. I was, from very beginning, very, very curious, in fact, too curious, in fact, it became a problem. When I did my BA Honours, I was in the department of politics, but I was taking all these courses, and professors were offering me, you know, reading courses. And at one point, about six months before graduation, the head of the department said, how many courses is Lyse taking? It's impossible for her to finish all those courses in time to graduate. So there was this huge kerfuffle, so that this reading course was cancelled, that course was cancelled, so that I graduated. And I remember that day where there was the graduation, was in this big, huge arena. And the head of the politics department is conferring the degree. And I got up there and he said, Lyse, you made it. And the microphone was such that I then laughed, and the laugh went all across this huge arena. And I tell it to graduate students now, take it in your stride. And I wanted to be a journalist, and I wanted to be a foreign correspondent. And I didn't want to spend a lot of time on a desk, I just wanted to go and be a foreign correspondent. So I got to, after I did my MA, in International Studies at the University of Toronto, I got a volunteer assignment - which was a genuine thing - I went to West Africa, I taught in a school to this organisation called Canadian Crossroads International, which sends young Canadians abroad to work on short term assignments. And then people from Africa, the Caribbean, mainly Asia, they then come to Canada. So it's a kind of an exchange. And the Ethiopian authorities said no, the attachment for Lyse Doucet won't work, because we see she wants to become a journalist. And because my, because I have French ancestry they said oh, Lyse Doucet, she can go to Cote d'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, she can work in Adzope - what a great name, Adzope - and, you know, to this day Craig, I'm so glad I started in a village. Because I lived in the rhythms of the village, I got to know the villagers, I lived in the school, where I was also teaching. So it taught me that it's, you know, from that face-to-face, and the heat and the dust from the ground up, where you really get to know how people live and work, what they believe - was my first time, it was both a Christian culture, pagan culture, Muslim culture. And so I was living within all these different cultures. And that came to define my journalism, I wasn't the kind of journalist who just went here or there: I spent five years in Africa, five years in Afghanistan, Pakistan, with some trips to Iran, five years in the Middle East. When I went there, I went there to stay, to get stuck in. You know, one of the first things I do wherever I go is I go to a grocery store, I want to see what they're selling at the shops. I want to be, you know, like a flâneur, going around the streets, finding out the rhythm of the place. And I think that's what's defined my journalism.

CRAIG

And I think that's an interesting insight into your success is that you basically don't busk it. I'm interested, though, like your parents. So they're living in this sort of like quite remote part of Canada. And you say, right, I'm off to the Ivory Coast, and I'm gonna go and be an international correspondent. How did they react? What did they think?

LYSE

Well, first of all, we left home to go to university because there were no universities in my small town in the northeast of New Brunswick, and I went to Kingston first and then to Toronto, my sister, that's close as an age, 11 months after me, she also went to Toronto to study, so I think they got used to putting us on a train. And my mother now says to me, my goodness, I just put you on the train? I can't believe I did that. Because you see now, and I'm sure you did, your kids go to university, you put everything in the back of the car, you drive your kids to the university. You're there with them the first day, of course it wasn't possible in Canada, it’s very long way to drive from and it seemed a lot longer there. So she just put us on a train. And also I come from a Catholic family. And growing up in my parents’ generation, it was that you either gave a son to the priesthood, or a daughter to the convent. And so I had an aunt, Aunt Gloria, she was a missionary. So she travelled all around the world. And we used to get postcards and lovely little knick-knacks from Japan when she was based in Japan. So we had that ardent sense that people do leave, and they come back after a long time, you read those lovely blue, thin blue pieces of paper and the envelopes with the red [crosstalk] yes, Par Avion! And so we grew up with maybe, that was partly that fascination with the worlds and cultures beyond. And then after that, I started to become a journalist. But it did strike me when I first came to Britain in ninety, God, back in the [unintelligible] ‘87. And then I worked for a few months in 1988. And even then people would say to me, oh Lyse, I would really like to be doing what you're doing. And in that case, I just had five years freelancing in West Africa and then got a work permit, with some difficulty to work in the BBC for six months. And I would say to them, well, why don't you do it? And I think it's something, I was partly connected to British culture, you still hear to this day that people feel trapped by their, where they came from, or their education or their sense of themselves in their place - and is it about growing up in small town Canada, where you grew up in a small place, you're rooted, and you feel the world is there to explore? So -

CRAIG

But isn’t that like, you know, a top gymnast or an amazing sprinter saying, why don't you just do it? I mean, some people can do it, but other people can't. And I think you may have perhaps struggled to understand people asking you that, because it's very natural to you.

LYSE

It hasn't been, not for me, not for anyone, I think, and I think this is the message that comes from your profoundly moving podcast, because people have gone on a trajectory trying to get from one place to the next, and you stumble along the way, one step forward, two steps back. And you know, I mean, I did show up in in West Africa, there I was, wrong accent, wrong CV, no experience, no money and you know, joking, I say, you know, God, that the heavens opened and God came down and said, give Lyse a job. It was a classic right place, right time: the BBC was looking, it’s set up its first West Africa office and there I was. But you know, I had to fight the prejudice about accent, about who I was and where I came from. And but I think I just remember from very early on, I think I've just got to keep my eye on what matters in all of this. And then after that, I started to become a journalist. And here I am.

CRAIG

And do you feel still Catholic? Or is it…?

LYSE

I think, I still feel religious. So the first, I was in Ivory Coast, and I went and lived six months in Senegal, which is predominantly Muslim. With friends, I would go to the mosque, obviously with women friends, to the women's area, in the mosque, when I lived in the Middle East, I would go, when I lived in Afghanistan with women friends, I go to the mosque, when I lived in Jerusalem, I go with Jewish women friends and go to the synagogue. Obviously, these you know, the religions of the book, you know, Islam, Christianity, Judaism. So I think of it as - obviously I grew up with the symbols and the rituals, which I'm still taken by. I'm part of a Bible study group, actually, with the Church of England, not with the Catholic Church here. So I don't see it as being tied in a strict or orthodox way. Also, I became very interested early on in the nexus between religion, culture and politics. And I think that was partly because religion for me was, although it has rules, I mean, I, you know, when I was growing up, there was, you don't eat fish on Friday, there was Lent, there was Advent, there was all these rituals, if you like, and I became an altar girl, even before the Pope decided that girls could become altar girls - or altar boys, so I was an altar boy. And so it was within those rules and rituals. But religion was more a sense of community. When someone died within the Catholic community, all the women of the city, we all got, they baked, you know, they did the sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and they did little squares, and they had big urns of tea, everyone got together, Or if it was with the Protestant, the Protestant community did the same thing. So it was the ties that bind, in a very positive way, I went to Sacred Heart School and I don't remember any Muslim family - so now I go to my little hometown, less than 15,000 people, there's people, all kinds of creeds and colours and… and there would have been people also from the indigenous community too, because there were reservations around as well. So there was mix of everything. So it was part of community, I never thought of religion as something oppressive, something which takes away but rather something which gives.

CRAIG

And you’ve been drawn, I think, in your journalism to some of the poorest parts of the world, or certainly places which have real issues with conflict. I just wonder why that is? Some journalists just don't do that, they go into political journalism or economic journalism or whatever. But you went to some of the poorest places. Why is that?

LYSE

It's so interesting, you asking me, because you're thinking, Lyse, how would you be interested in anything else but what's happening in 10 Downing Street?

LYSE

I had to decide early on that I couldn't have my life in one corner and my work in another. I had to go to a place where I was interested in the culture. And I had a university professor who said, choose the country where you're going, buy their food: because if you don't like the food, you're not going to like the place. I give a slightly different version of that to young journalists who come up to me and they say, oh, where should I go, I want to freelance here and there - I said, listen, take a step back. Yes, you want to go to a place where you're gonna be able to report. But you also have to go to a place that you're interested in, that you’d like the food you'd like the culture, you're fascinated by the history. So I've gone that has -

CRAIG

But I want to pick you up on this, because I think that it's great, yeah, you like the food, whatever. But the thing that I'm interested in is you go to places where there is often war and there is often danger, and why? What is the thing that draws you to that? And you're consistently in dangerous situations. So why?

LYSE

What happens, there I am in the early 80s, and suddenly, in Liberia, in Nigeria, in Burkina Faso, in Mali, there's all these coups happening. And some of the coups are really violent. Now, I didn't choose to go to a region of coups, I went to an area where I taught in a school. But that's what started happening. Then, when I got back to London, spent my six months in my work permit, and I had a friend who was fascinated by Pakistan, and said, Lyse, you've got to go to Pakistan. And I went around the BBC, and they said, oh, thank you very much Lyse, we've already got people in Pakistan. I went to the Urdu service, the Pashto service, the English service, ‘oh thank you very much, Lyse, we don't need anyone in Pakistan. But then what this friend of who said, Lyse, Pakistan's in your karma, you have to go on with it! Yes. Yes. So I just went without, again, without anything, without a job, without money, without anything. And I went to Quetta, which is in southern Pakistan, where the BBC didn't have anyone. And I started filing from Quetta. And people and people went, oh, whoa, look at Lyse's file from Quetta. Oh, that's so interesting. And that's where I met these politicians, like would-be politicians, Mujahideen at the time - fighters - against the Soviet occupation, Hamid Karzai and others who then went to play a role in Afghan history. But in 1988, I met them there because I took - I always say to young girls, take a calculated risk. But I didn't go there. I was fascinated, again, my interest in culture, religion, politics drew me to Pakistan, because these are real issues, which then took me to Afghanistan, took me to Iran.

CRAIG

West Africa, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria. Spot the commonality.

LYSE

Syria. So I went to Jordan in 1994, to open the BBC office in Jordan. My first big story there was the peace talks between Israel and Jordan in Wadi Arava, you know, along their border in the desert. So I went hoping for peace that was the year after the Oslo Peace Accords. And of course, it's all history now, the Oslo Accords, they weren't perfect, but it presented a hope that perhaps this age-old conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, between the Israelis and the Arab world could be resolved. I went a lot to Syria then, Syria was an authoritarian state, but it wasn't a country at war. And then fast forward to 2010-2011, the Arab Spring, and suddenly it descends into the war of our time. And I didn't choose Syria, but I was drawn again to the food! The great food-

CRAIG

I’m not buying the food thing!

LYSE

No, no, so it just happens that - no, I'm doing, it's an element, I get your point, point taken. But that sometimes you go to places that do tumble into a conflict, and you're there or have been there or, you know, have spent time there, have friends there. I realised I had to start checking my language, because one time I put on Twitter, I went back to Damascus, and I put ‘oh, great to be back in Damascus’. Because what was I thinking? I'm gonna see the friends I know here, I'm going to be able to go to the streets I know so well - obviously, to cover what was a horrendous war, but I had a connection to this place. And the reaction was WHAT? Why you saying that? And I thought oh, and I realised I had to stop saying that. It's like when the BBC says ‘you're going back to Afghanistan’. Of course there is the danger and there have been many dangerous years. But what do I think of? I think of the friends I have there, the people, I'm going to see, the places I'm going to go. Because all of these places, these stories, they became part of my own personal life.

CRAIG

I think that that's really very, very clear from what you're saying. But let's talk about those moments of danger. I mean, there have been moments, you must have thought I am in serious danger here, or there's a real problem. Talk about that kind of experience, and why having experienced it - because I know quite a few foreign correspondents, who've had terrible moments, and they've gone, I'm not doing this anymore. You've continued.

LYSE

Well, as you know, from your time at the BBC, Craig, the BBC thinks very carefully about risk, we have to do these risk assessments now at the most dangerous of places. And that would included in recent time, Ukraine in this last year; Afghanistan during when the war came to the cities, we'd have to have high-risk advisors with us. And because of the kind of job I do, I'm working in a team. And also because of the nature of my work, I'm always working with someone from the country. So in Syria, working with a Syrian, in Afghanistan, working with an Afghan, often working with drivers, who have our back, who are part of our family, if you like, part of the tribe, we work together, so you feel very protected, and you take decisions collectively as a group. Should we go here? Should we go or not go there? I'm not someone who loves war for the sake of war. I know, there's all this sort of stereotype of the adrenaline junkie people drawn to war. I'm not that, I'm not. You know, war is not just the troops in the trenches and the tanks and the armour and the bullets and the bombs: that is part of war. But war is also the mother's anguish when she says goodbye to her child in the morning, never knowing if they're going to come home. It's the anguish of a student whose school has just been destroyed. It's a family's pain as they're forced to go on the run. All of those things are also part of war - in the most inhumane of times, are also deeply human times. And I think now we're in a time when war reporting, it used to be, in the Second World War where the women were often done, go to the hospitals, do the human side of the war. Well, in the wars of our time, which are not fought in the trenches, which are fought from street to street and house to house and sometimes room to room, that side of the war is front and centre. The war, I often say that women and children, to use the phrase, women and children - civilians - are not on the front line: they are the front line. Yeah. And so that's the kind of reporting, horrific, but in those moments, you also see these extraordinary moments of humanity, of light, and what keeps people going. And that's what we've seen in Ukraine.

CRAIG

Yeah, And I'm, it's very interesting watching you, and how passionate and animated you are for those people. And I think that that is a mark of your reporting, is that you get a real sense of empathy and concern. But you can leave, that's definitely the case you can leave, but it's gonna have an impact on you. So talk about that side of it.

LYSE

Yes. Well, when you live in war, war lives in you, most of all for those who can't leave. How, you know, I and my colleagues are often asked that question, what helps to keep those demons away? Well, first of all, working as a group, and when you see terrible things, or have been through moments, you work through things. I remember when we used to go to, when we managed after great, great effort, and argument, getting into what was called the besieged areas where people were literally imprisoned inside areas where no food, no water could get in, it couldn’t get in, and no people could get out, and to go inside there, and you'd come out and you would collapse in tears. And we would talk together as a group, you know, Syrians, non-Syrians, what it felt like what - and that helped a lot, helped us to deal with it. And perhaps that, you know, we talked a little bit about this before we started recording, because like, in that case, we were with Syrians. And we knew that however deep and painful our own pain was, it was nothing compared to the Syrians, because this was their country.

CRAIG

And I totally… that is clearly the case, isn't it? That is definitely true, and I'm not diminishing that at all. And yet, you are somebody who persistently is going to be going in these situations. And there was, I was very struck during the research for this, that you described a recent trip to Afghanistan, where you said that there wasn't a day where you didn't cry?

LYSE

Yeah.

CRAIG

So I mean, it is having a psychological impact on you. Do you ever worry about that? Do you ever think sometimes this is too much, or…?

LYSE

I think you're referring to what happened after August the 15th, 2021, which was, to use the expression, when I find - I had been in Kabul, I had to leave to go to Washington, then I came back as the the Taliban were sweeping into the Capitol, and just landing at Kabul airport and seeing all of the… it was like a scene from Mad Max, that every corner of the tarmac was these hulking grey military transports with the whirr of the motors. And then these queues of people, coming, of Afghans coming from all directions, men, women, children, only each of them carrying one case, silently going away into the maw of these aircrafts. And when I came off the plane, it just hit me like a brick, a gut-punch. And that stayed there, that pain of seeing so many friends being forced to leave, so many friends not just leaving their country, but leaving so much of who they were, who they wanted to become, all of their dreams and aspirations, having to leave them behind at such short notice. I found it extremely painful. This was like a breakdown moment for so many people. And that took a long time for me, I couldn't even read articles about what happened on August 15th for a very long time. And I would always think, if I feel like this, and I'm an outside observer, nevermind, I'd been there, I've spent more than 30 years going back and forth to Afghanistan, I have so many Afghan friends, but my pain was nothing compared to people's who's literally, the bottom fell out of their life, and who they were, their identity was simply ripped away from them. So I knew that - so it's that expression, ‘I feel your pain’ - I felt their pain. And you'd have to have had a heart of stone not to. But was that trauma? So I didn't go back for a year. Because I found I just couldn't. Well, in the first place, Ukraine happened, so I, obviously, editor said you have to go to Ukraine. But once I came on to Ukraine, I said to my editors, now I should go back to Afghanistan, because that is a big story, too. But did I have PTSD? And I don't think I did, you know, my dear friend Lindsey Hilsum of Channel 4 International Editor, you know, she laughs that you know, people come up to her and say ‘you must have PTSD, you must, you must, you just don't understand!’, you know. And I think it's important to be conscious of it, that if you do have it, but you can feel a little bit wounded inside, which is not the same, as I don't have recurring nightmares, I don't have, I sleep. But maybe I just have this stubborn belief that something good can come out of bad, and is bad and you would never, never, never wish for some of the bad, some of the horrendous things we have seen. But I just… you have to get up in the morning and live with faith that at some point, it's going to get better.

CRAIG

[unintelligible] of you experience, and I clearly, I don't think that you're, you know, you're a very, you're a very [crosstalk] -

LYSE

She's such a wacko, she must be -

CRAIG

No, you're a very balanced person. But what I think is interesting is that the point of doing these conversations is to talk to people who've often been in quite extreme circumstances, and then talk about their lives and their experiences and what they learned from them. And what I think is interesting about you is that you seem to be saying that you have to find a kind of positiveness, and you see in humanity, a positiveness even in the darkest circumstances. And you also talk about gratitude, which is a word that just comes up in virtually every conversation I have with people, they talk about gratitude as a way that they learned to get through it. So that positivity, and that sense of gratitude, do you want to talk a bit about that, having been in these dark circumstances?

LYSE

I think if you live a life where you're aware and empathetic about what is happening around you, like even, I mean, some people gonna think like, she really is a bit of a weirdo. You know, just, walking down the street, you know, this is a terrible testament to the kind of situations one has been in, you know, I've got two arms, two legs, the sun is shining, I love the city I'm working in I have my health, I have a job, I have friends, I have family. And I just feel that's should be #normallife. And I just, I always feel really, just really grateful for all that. So many people don't have that and you're so p- I'm, I think, look at where we're living now in this, you know, you and I can sit there and it's such a glorious day but we're living in a city where mothers are making decisions about how much, when to heat the house and when not, how are they going to pay their bills, children going to school without breakfast… I mean, how can you not if you, whatever you have, you don't hold fast to it and say, wow, you know, but for the grace of God, that could be me. And maybe you know, back to our tree, the Persians have this great expression about that the tree with the heaviest fruit has to bend the lowest. So when you have, you can see this tree and the bows are so heavy, you know, the pears, the apples are falling from - so in a sense you have to try to do whatever you can to alleviate, you know, whether it's volunteering, or, in my case, I'm a journalist, so you know, I do it through my reporting, or through charity, or through helping different other charities, to be very conscious that we should, you know, do unto others as you would like to have them do unto you.

CRAIG

Yeah, interesting, you use that quote, I was thinking of the other quote, which is, from the Bible, which is to much is given, much is also expected, which is not, I think, an entreaty to say that, you know, you've got it good, so you just have to balance it out a bit. It's basically saying that if you want some sort of sense of contentment and calm, and some sense of connectedness to the world in which you're living in, this is the route to doing it, it's not through the great accumulation of wealth and material possessions, it's actually by sharing what gifts you have with the rest of the world.

LYSE

One of your previous podcasts, Michael Hastings, talking about the gift, the gift of giving, is actually that you give to yourself. Anytime you do something like that you feel so much better about yourself, you feel this warmth, you feel wow, that, you know, hopefully that made them feel good. And you're not doing it in that kind of crass way. But then you feel good. I always feel, maybe it's growing up in that Catholic household, maybe it's having missionaries in the family, it's back to what's ‘bred in the bone’ and the things that you grow up with, you know, all through university, I always volunteered that I should spend some of my time doing something, you know, outside of what my normal rhythm of life is, for some charity, some group, some, there's so much percentage of your income should go to charity, I don't want to take that, pretend to be taking or give the impression of taking the moral high ground. It's about your talk, your podcast, Desperately Seeking Wisdom is about being human. Yeah.

CRAIG

So one of the things as well about what people have learned and techniques that they have to, you know, feel better and live a better life. And so we talked a bit about meditating. And I've also come to meditating. And there's a lot of nonsense talked about or assumptions made about meditating as if it's sort of some kind of woo-woo spiritual thing. But for me, actually, what it is, it's about helping you slow down a bit. And how do you get to a state where you slow things down enough, that you're not just reacting, you're responding to the world, and it's also about calm and peace and that kind of thing. But it's not the kind of weird and wacky thing that I think some people associate with it. How have you found it?

LYSE

I think now in the year that which we're talking is that meditation has… people have looked at meditation, scientists, doctors have looked at meditation. And obviously, you and I are not scientists. But I did look at the material about how you know, focus, concentrate, sustain meditation, over time, can change your brain structure, you know, the right and left side, and can help strengthen your thinking capacity. There seems to be enough scientific evidence now that meditation can have a tangible impact on your brain, the health of your brain, your thinking, you know, ordering your thoughts. And then there's a whole other schools which looks at what you referred to, the calm. And of course, it's individual, there's some, there's mindfulness now. You know, I started with transcendental meditation, which, interestingly enough, was, ever since I went to university, I was one of those very purposeful ones, that every year you should be learning language and learning a new thing. And in my first year of university, I thought, I'm going to learn to meditate, and I went to a class to learn how to meditate. But it wasn't until much later, when I was a foreign correspondent that I decided I wanted to meditate. And it's partly also to take the noise out of your brain, but also to centre. Journalism, as you know, can bring out the best in people, but it can bring out the worst in people - it can be very competitive. It can be very backstabbing. And I don't want to be drawn in that direction. So I find if I meditate, it helps to centre me. It helps me, I would hope, at least to aspire, to be a better, more centred, more centred person. And I sometimes also find, it was, actually I was just talking to the DG of the BBC, Tim Davie, he runs and runs and runs. And for him, that's his form of meditation. And you know what, we were both saying that we find, you know, when I'm meditating and I know your thoughts are not supposed to wander, but actually ideas come to me and I run into what you find Craig, like, ideas come to me, problems that I was thinking about, they also are resolved. And so if it works, I mean, some people say to me, oh God, I fall asleep wether I'm meditating or not, it takes a while to get to the point where you feel it's having an impact. And if it works for you, that's good. But I think meditation, you know, some people do what's called tree bathing now, and we all love going into the forest, whatever works for different people. There's no one, I don't think there's one prescription, and I would never worry, you know, force it on - I heard, there's one time in the BBC, one of my colleagues, yeah, he came up to me, I also love essential oils, which when I was asked on a desert island, what I would bring, I said essential oils, I find them for me, they're very calming, and they bring the energy and I bring them with me when I go in the field, and in little vials so I'll give them to my producers. And you'll be in the most god-awful hotel somewhere with the stinking toilets and everything, and they'll come into my room and they'll smell the essential oils. But anyway, I gave it to one of my colleagues, and said, why don't you try this? ‘Cause he said he was nervous and not being able to sleep. And then I arrived what was then [unintelligible] at the World Service of the BBC. This guy comes running up the stairs, hair all dishevelled, papers falling up, ‘Lyse, Lyse, the oils work fantastic!’ And I said, oh, and that's not the best advertisement for the oils. And I gave to all my family, for their Christmas gift. And so people find ways. And I think that was the great thing about your podcast, people- I don't use the word journey, it has become associated with Strictly Come Dancing - which I love - but people find their own path, their own way of living this life.

CRAIG

I think that's right. But I do think there's a moment where you do have to have a thought, like, do I want to continue down a certain way, approaching life in the way I have? Or do I want to actually try and find out, are there other people who can give me other ideas. Just one final thought on meditation. When I try and talk to quite a lot of people about it, they say, oh, I can't do, it doesn't work for me, because my mind, just so much going on. And I tried to say, well, I think that's sort of part of the point, you have to keep sticking at it. Because that's what helps finally the riot of noises and voices that-

LYSE

So how long did it take for you then?

CRAIG

A long time, I remember the first time I was doing it, that you're sitting there and going, after a few seconds, I just need to get up or like you start thinking about things all the time. And then somebody said to me, look, the point is to allow the thoughts to just pass through and try and find centred calmness. And now it feels much more natural and easier to do. It's still, it's still difficult. But I do notice that the big change for me is that I used to like, be driving a car and somebody cut you up and you react and, or like just little things in life bothered me. And now I'm much better at saying, I'm not going to react, I'm going to respond, I'm going to take time. And it sort of gives you that, even sometimes just that second or two extra, that means you're not just a reactive person who's going around, almost not thinking.

LYSE

But I have to say though, I think we should say, because this has become an issue now, we know both of us live very privileged lives, that we don't worry, when we get up in the morning, about paying for our electricity bills. We don't worry about where the next meal is coming from. And I think maybe that's also part of the lives that we live. I mean, no one can say now oh, I didn't know that was happening. Oh, I didn't know that this was having this impact on people. It's just literally in our pocket in our phones, and maybe that's why I often talk about gratitude is that, you know, all of us could have been dealt a very different hand. And no one is dealt a perfect hand. And as in cards, it depends how you play the cards, but some people have been dealt really, really really terrible hands. And, you know, just it's so unbearably painful to see what some people are going through. I remember I used to talk to my aunt who was a missionary about, you know, Christians often have this, I mean, people of many faiths who say their faith is tested when you see such famine or disasters, people losing everything. And sometimes people lose their faith. If this has happened, how can there be a God at the end? You know, what is it, touch wood whatever, you know, you and I could walk out the door and something really terrible and life- changing - God, I'm feeling terrified even saying this - could happen to us. So every day I get up, it's one foot in front of the other. Just taking what's good in the day and trying to accept things can and will go wrong. I always use this expression about - only God is perfect.

CRAIG

So I'm so interested in what you're saying. [crosstalk] No, no, no, not at all. And then what's interesting doing this podcast is when you ask people to talk about their lessons and stuff. They feel very nervous because they sort of think I might be attacked for it or I might sound like I'm being a bit basic or pious about it, but you know and-

LYSE

Yeah being preachy or… Everyone finds their own way, and what works for some doesn't work for others. You know, since I was very, very young I used to get my grandmother gave, who was a poet, she was a farmer and a poet, and she gave all of my sisters, she gave us all diaries. And so I think I've always used diaries, I regret now I haven't used them as a great chronicler, I just, they're more for you know, getting rid of anxieties and writing things out. And a lot of people do this now, they write things out. And so what we're doing today, and you see how long I resisted coming to talk on your podcast-

CRAIG

You were hard to persuade!

LYSE

I deal with it personally, you know, I write it down and I deal with that, rather than lashing out at somebody or imposing all my problems on someone else, I write it out. And in the same way, meditation can help you sort things. So that's been a way too, of dealing with things of trying to become, you know, again, this is one of those new age kind of words, about centering yourself, but you know, all of our conversation keeps coming back to the same principle about the roots, feet on the ground, rooted. And I always wear very sensible shoes - you're looking at them.

CRAIG

I suppose another thing in your life, just looking at you, and hearing you, you're incredibly exuberant, there's an energy just flowing for you. And I think also feels like there's also a kind of contentment, you feel like, content with life, but you haven't had a traditional life? I mean, I don't think you've been married or-

LYSE

Close, a few times.

CRAIG

Close a few times, but you haven't. And I just wonder at this stage in life, it's like, it's so interesting that you have that contentment. And a lot of people would say, well, but you haven't done the things that people would traditionally associate with that, like having children, that kind of thing. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

LYSE

There's some… in life, we either make choices or choices are thrust upon us. And one of the emotions I tried to avoid is the R-word, regret, not living with regret. And this question is often asked to women like me, who are not married, who don't have children. You know, on the marriage, I did come close a few times. But then in no way, you know, for me, relationships have to be, they have to add, not subtract, you have to go into relationships being who you are. And of course, in coming together, you can be even more. So I think a lot of them were at the 11th hour, or some of them ended earlier. But in all of them, when I would later reflect I would think, well, I wasn't ready yet for marriage. I wasn't opposed to it, but I wasn't ready yet. Because you're supposed to grow together with the person. And I wasn't quite sure, in some of the cases, and definitely, my high school boyfriend, assumed we would get married. And I thought, no. And then when at university, sort of thought and I thought, no, you know, life is just beginning, I don't know where it's going to take. And then with children, I have a lot of children in my life, I love my nieces, and now grand-nieces. When I travel, I did a few documentaries on children, because I saw them as important to the storytelling and they could tell their own stories. But I knew at a certain point, I thought about this, is that I would have to be as committed and fascinated about spending time with my children, or my children with whoever my partner was, as it was about my work. And when I see now the choices, and women who do have children, or, you know, work as correspondents, and it's great that we now have women who are both mothers and foreign correspondents, and fathers who are, and I think there is, we still have that gender discrimination about that, I would have found it too hard to say to a child, I'm leaving you, and I'm going to Afghanistan, I would not have been able to make that choice. And I think it was a considered choice. I thought, I want children in my life, but I don't think - I'm not ready to end the life that I'm living because, any journalist that you've interviewed on your programme makes it clear, and you yourself known, well you're still, in effect, a journalists, you're still - much as you run away from it, Craig, you're still asking questions on a sofa with me. And it's not a nine to five, and you do go away for long periods of time. And I would just, guilt… I wouldn't have been able to do it. So that was a life that was partly a result of circumstances. If the circumstances had been different, and I did end up getting married or being in a long-term partnership, you know, perhaps there would have been children, because you would think, you know, I've never met a reluctant mother that will have, or father that, especially now people spend more time on bringing up children, both father and mother, which is terrific for children, then people know about the cost since other people have been able to, to square the circle or to jog… to balance both, I would have found it hard.

CRAIG

So I'm interested in the regret thing, because I think increasingly what I think it means is, your life is your life. And the person that you are now is because of the things that have happened to you. So there's no point in sort of dwelling on that.

LYSE

Yes.

CRAIG

And there's no point in like, beating yourself up actually, and it goes back to your thing, which is, you know, live your life Now. I think you said, try and make every day your best day.

LYSE

Either we're dwelling on what happened in the past - I should, why did I say, should I say that? And you know, I still worry, oh, my goodness, did that person think that I ignored them when in fact, I didn't see them? Or did I offend someone? We all do that, and I'm sure everyone listening go, oh yeah, we dwell too much. Or we worry about what's going to happen in the future. And that became another sort of thing people said, focus on the now. You know, our brains, our thoughts have a life of their own. And I suppose you and I both, and anyone listening who's been looking at meditating or looking as if you can - that's the strange thing about… we have to contend with what confronts us in real life, the people around us because, of course, what we do is also a function of our relationships and what we come across and just day to day, things happen. But our thoughts also have a life of their own. And we could, you and I could be just stewing over what happened yesterday, or worrying about what's happening tomorrow. And I still, I think it's a lifelong struggle for all of us, to stop worrying. Let's stop worrying. I do, I also worry, but meditation also is to stop me from worrying.

CRAIG

And I think a lot of it is also about learning - and it's very, very hard to do - to let go, to just let something be or that that happened. And so much of our pain, in circumstances is like as you say, ruminating on something that often isn't isn't the case. We're coming to the end of the podcast-

LYSE

And people are thinking, my God, I didn't learn anything from Lyse Doucet yet about wisdom!

CRAIG

People came to learn a lot from what you've said. But I have struggled sometimes to get a word in edgewise, but that's a good thing The one question we ask people at the end, is that if there was one piece of wisdom that you could pass on, what would it be? What would yours be?

LYSE

I think what I already mentioned, which is do unto others as you would like to have done unto you. We all want to be treated with kindness and respect. And if you think of what's, that's what matters, what would you value, what makes you feel better - others are going to be the same. And so to be conscious of the people around us. And I think you can only do that is that if you again, back to, you know, feet on the ground, one foot in front of the other. Yeah.

CRAIG

And I think if we all live by that, you can imagine the, just dramatic impact in terms of the world, how things would be if people tried to live by that, and they might not always get it right. But if they tried, it would be a lot better.

LYSE

I always think what happens to us as individuals, in our interactions as individuals writ large, that is the behaviour between states, and one of my hobbies or something I'm interested in, because I do spend a lot of time in places where things are falling apart, where there are conflict, wars disasters, I do spend a lot of time with mediators who try to end the wars - obviously, I don't cross the line, because I'm a journalist, not a mediator, but I spend time with them. I help them sometimes at conferences. But it's the same thing, because often, you know, when people look down to, why are these nations fighting, it comes down to leaders, and personalities, and personal vendettas and insecurities. And even that adage that I began, or we were ending with, could go a long way to helping people understand what matters to the other side, the different story of the other side, because war is sometimes fought over who you are, who your nation is, what your neighbour is. And if we had a better understanding of the other, the enemy, the adversary, that would go a long way to helping us resolve not just problems between each of us, but between our neighbours and people who end up taking up arms against each other. I think so, that's… what's good for us is also good on a on a wider level, I'd like to think.

CRAIG

And that's a good place to end it. I mean, what I -

LYSE

Can I just have the last word?

CRAIG

No!

LYSE

I just want to say, Craig, it's really nice seeing, you were my boss for some time. And one of the other things which when people ask about my trajectory, and I may not have completely answered it, but if I look back there is one constant. And that is the kindness of strangers, or the kindness of people to you. And you came in, you were my boss and you said, Lyse, you need a title, and you need a producer, you are working too hard. And you may remember I said, no, no, no, I don't. I don't need to be just, oh, title, I don't really. And you insisted. It took a long time for the BBC to come up with my title. And I remember when I was first given my producer, because then I got a producer because you insisted on it, which was professionally the right thing to do - I don't have one now, but then because the BBC changed the system - we laughed, because we were saying, really, that's your title? You know, we joked about it, a bit self-deprecating. But you decided, and you perhaps, you did it with a lot of other people. But in a way you actually, at a certain juncture in my career, you did something, but actually moved me a little bit forward in my career in ways that I hadn't asked for, I hadn't looked for. But I ended up being very grateful for and so I'm gonna use this opportunity to say thank you.

CRAIG

That's incredibly sweet of you. But I'm not going to allow you to have the last word. One of the things I think there's one of the things that is incredibly charming about you and since I, you know, all those years ago, when I met you and talking to you now, is your insistence on modesty. And I think that that's a lovely thing, because it's what makes you so incredible at your job. And I genuinely do think that as long as Lyse Doucet’s in the world and telling me about it and reporting on it, then the world is a better place. And I mean that very sincerely-

LYSE

Oh you’re so kind. That’s very sweet.

CRAIG

So it's very great to have you on. I mean, it did take ages to persuade you, and I thought, why don't you just say, yes, do it. But you are here. And it's been a great conversation. So thank you.

LYSE

It's very nice, because it's uhm, all of our discussion has been about the paths people take and I was very interested and moved to find out how you went from the head of one of the biggest, most important broadcasting corporations to the heart of political power. And then you've took some turns, and now you're doing this podcast, so it's really nice to meet again. Isn't that the lovely part of life that we, people's paths cross again, so that…. life can sometimes bring up things we wouldn't want and didn't expect and certainly wouldn't have wished for. But then sometimes life takes corners, and we're back sitting with someone that we used to sit with before. And it's just a nice moment on a nice day.

CRAIG

It definitely is. Thank you.

LYSE

So you've had the last word!

CRAIG

I know!

I always think the world is a better place when I know that someone with the enormous emotional intelligence of Lyse Doucet is reporting from some of the world's toughest places. Her piece of wisdom, treat others as you would want to be treated, has the capacity to change everything for good. Next week we have David Baddiel, one of the UK's best loved comedians. He's also made a name for himself recently as a deep thinker, with books like Jews Don't Count, and the soon to be published The God Desire.

David Baddiel

When I've been asked what my motto is…I don’t know if people have mottos anymore, do they really. But if I did have a motto, it would be: the truth is always complex. I think we live in a time where people look more and more and more for simple truths to explain the world, I personally would put God.

CRAIG

It's a fascinating conversation about the deep impact family has on us all, and why he wants there to be a God, even though he's a convinced atheist. If you haven't done so already, please subscribe to this podcast and even write a review. Desperately Seeking Wisdom is produced by Sarah Parker for Creators Inc. Until next time, goodbye.