Spiritual Awakenings - How a crises can be the best thing that ever happened to you...With Dave the Blind Poet
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Hi guys, welcome back to the podcast. I'm here with the award-winning Dave the Blind Poet. And we have an odd story about how we connected, but that might come up at some point, but it feels very serendipitous that he is here with me like the universe doing its usual thing.

And Dave is a poet, an author and an advocate for the blind. In 2014, he was diagnosed with RP, which is retinitis pigmentosa, and it's left him severely sight impaired, which is how I kind of got in contact with Dave was I saw some of his poetry.

And here we are now. Hi, Dave. Welcome. It's a pleasure to actually meet you face to face, as it were, as much as we could be, although you are in Manchester. So this probably could have been a local one compared to most people I speak to. How are you today? I'm very good. It's not so much of a rainy day here in Manchester, which has been unusual, especially for this summer. But no, great to be here. Thank you for inviting me. And I'm glad to be connected with you.

It's an absolute pleasure. I mean, I'd love to hear a little bit more about you and your journey, Dave, because obviously 2014, we saw your life completely change. Would you like to tell us a little bit more about who you were before this happened to you? And then obviously what happened with your losing your sight? Yeah, absolutely. So actually, when it all kind of happened, I was at the beginning of a new kind of cycle of my life.

In 2011, end of 2011, I split up with my ex, who is the mother of my daughter, who lives in Scotland. I've got a 16 year old, almost 16 year old daughter, I should say now. She's 16 in November, Ellie. So she was born in 2007. I was with her mum and in 2011 we split up.

And I moved back to Manchester to kind of be near family and restart my life again. I was still working as a singer. I'd worked as a singer for the best part of 20 years. I also worked in car sales as well on various times in my life to kind of work two jobs.

uh everything i did involved me getting around independently and driving i was driving up to glasgow every other weekend and picking ellie up and bringing her back down to manchester i then met my now wife amy um and on christmas day of 2000 and

i asked amy to marry me um we just had a son uh austin who was born in june of 2013 but on christmas day i proposed i'd say me to marry me she said yes

We set a date for New Year's Eve 2014 and started off 2014 all excited, a new family. Amy had two boys similar age to Ellie from a previous marriage and we kind of just all fit. The family just kind of worked and, you know, we were saving for a wedding, excited about our New Year's Eve wedding for 2014. And I went for a routine eye exam.

because I used to get my eyes checked every couple of years because as you said, I have something called retinitis pigmentosa and what that basically is, it's a hereditary disease. So there's lots of different genetic mutations, lots of different gene types, lots of different ways you tend to lose your sight. But the way mine goes is what they call, if you're gonna get technical, autosomal dominant, which basically means there's a clear trace through my family. It comes from my mum's side.

my mum had it who passed away last year, I've got two sisters that have got it, I had an uncle that had it as well. So I always knew we had it in our family but I was always told it wouldn't affect me until I was much much older to just kind of get on with my life and forget about it which I did. Worked as a singer from when I was 18 and as I said this new circle of my life went for this routine eye exam and when the optician looked into the back of my eyes they said oh you know there was kind of this pause

and I'll never forget it, you know, it was like it was yesterday, it was just kind of this pause and they said, okay, there's been a bit of a change since the last time we saw you, there seems to be a lot of pigmentation on your retina, we need to run some further tests. So they put me on this machine to do what's called a peripheral visual field test. So I had to put my eye in, you know, each eye in this machine, look into this machine, hold this button and every time a light went off in my peripheral, I had to click the button

So the test started and I realised that the longer this test was going on, the more I was sat there not clicking the button. And I just wasn't seeing anything. Oh, bless you. And as that kind of test went on, this panic just started to kind of come up through me, this realisation. Amy was sat out in the waiting room with Austin, who was in his car seat at the time. He was about six months old. And I had to go out and tell him what was happening. I was referred to a retinal specialist.

Two weeks later, I was declared severely sight impaired, which is the equivalent of legally blind. And that was kind of the start of this kind of process of me going through this whole coming to terms with losing my sight thing.

Yeah and what a massive change for you you know particularly to go from having so many happy things happening you know having a child and getting engaged and like you know seeing your life in a certain way going forward to having what must have felt like your world caving in on you at that point I mean what did it feel like when you had the news? Yeah 100% I don't know if you've ever seen the film um have you ever seen the film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels? I have yeah. Yeah

There's a scene at the beginning of it where the main character loses all his friend's money in a card game. And they play this card game with this gangster in a boxing ring. And his friends are waiting for him in a pub just down the street and he has to leave

you know, to let them know that he's lost all the money and they're in serious trouble with this gangster. And the way the scene's shot is him kind of walking out of the ring and everything's kind of spinning and it felt like that almost slow motion would be coming out and kind of, you know, Austin being there in his car seat, we were due to go away that weekend and just kind of hurrying everyone out of the opticians because I was, you know, filling up with tears and then having to say what was happening.

And what kind of happened after that was a kind of blur for a few weeks up until that moment of being actually officially diagnosed by the retinal specialist.

you know i said i lost my job um i was working car sales at the time as i said and my employer said that because i could no longer do test drives uh that they had to let me go uh so i lost my means of employment i could no longer do the gigs that i was doing anymore doing car you know as a singer i could no longer drive up to scotland and get my daughter down which you know meant not seeing her for a little while also you know on the income side of things we couldn't afford the rent in the place that we were staying in and i felt kind of

responsible and anxious and struggling with depression not just because of the sight that I was losing the fact that I was told I was going blind to a condition that there was no treatment or cure for but also you know the financial pressure that it was putting on my family my family that you know we were saving to get married I had these young children that depended on me and you know we were going to potentially move house and start again and it was just a lot of

a lot of guilt that kind of came on me with it all. And that added to the stress and added actually to my sight loss because stress can speed it up. And what happened was I actually lost a big chunk of my sight in those first eight or nine months. The way you lose your sight with RP for those people who aren't familiar with it is it generally starts off with night blindness.

So struggling from light to dark places. So, for example, anyone who's fully sighted when they walk into a cinema or a dark room, it'll take them a few seconds for their eyes to adjust. For someone with night blindness, their eyes won't adjust. So what seems like dim light to most can seem like complete darkness. Sunlight seems like extreme glare. So you can become very light sensitive as your photoreceptors kind of, you know,

die basically and then after that your peripheral vision starts to go so they call it tunnel visions like a tunnel closing inwards so I lost all my peripheral within that first eight months and the way I kind of see now is I have no useful vision in my left eye anymore so basically if I cover my eye my good eye or good-ish eye I should say I all I can see is kind of movement I can't see any shapes I can't I can sense movement but it's all blurred

my right eye, I lost all my peripheral, you know, right at the beginning of that journey, eight, nine years ago now. Uh, and just recently the last kind of six months, uh, I started now to lose the last part of my central vision to the point where I can no longer see faces clearly anymore. Um,

I have to use these readers to be able to read text and the very, you know, the kind of reading glasses that you put on and you think you're on drugs because of that strong. So, you know, it's, so I'm at that stage now where the last part of my vision is going and it'll be gone pretty soon where I'll have no, no useful vision whatsoever.

And it's like such a huge journey, you know, and obviously, you know, you know what I do, which is kind of help people with healing trauma and working through really big life stages often, sometimes bereavement, sometimes it's a loss of, you know, a family member or a partner or something, you know, and something I find when people are going through these stages is that they can sometimes get stuck in the trauma and

And something it seems that you've done has been able to kind of move yourself out of that. How did you go from having this absolutely crushing life event to obviously becoming the man that you are now that has really become quite successful and has taken that pain and turned it into something that's really beautiful?

I think you know everyone has that ability to do that we just we just kind of find it you know you don't know what you're capable of facing until you're actually faced with that challenge itself and one of the many things that I've learned through all of this is that I am a great believer that everything kind of happens for a reason yeah I'm a great believer that the good things and the bad things sometimes especially the bad things that we go through in life

give us the tools and the armour to face the things that we're yet to face going forward. So actually when I look back on my life now, there's a lot of stuff that happened in my life previously. So I had quite a number of years from my late teens into my early twenties where

I was homeless, struggled with depression, suicide attempts due to not having a real family kind of network around me and working in entertainment and working seasonal work and then being homeless during the quiet times and, you know, traveling with all my stuff in back. So I built up this kind of resilience and also this kind of openness of being able to kind of talk about my feelings.

and actually just tapped back into that when I needed it the most, when I started to lose my sight. And, you know, and that's obviously the way I became, you know, to be where I am now and known as the blind poet through my connection of music, which poetry and music are the same thing to me. It was a series of events that kind of took place, you know, eight or nine months into that journey from that diagnosis that really kind of set me on the path. And it was a very kind of, you know, it was fate the way it happened.

So just kind of tell you briefly, kind of put into a shortened version is when I was probably at my lowest, really, really struggling. I'd not left the house without my wife or she was my fiancee back then for about eight months. Really, really struggling with anxiety and depression because everything we were going through.

I got invited to a support group through speaking to people online. In fact, it was my sister who was the first one to be diagnosed officially with RP in my family, who said to me that the best way to come to terms with what you're going through is to speak to other people online, which seems obvious when you say it like that. But, you know, until it was actually said to me, I didn't realise. So I joined some support groups on Facebook for RP and, you know,

very similar conditions, low vision and blindness, and started speaking to people and then through that got invited to an actual face-to-face support group in Newcastle and when they heard, the organisers of the group heard that I was a singer, they said to me, "Would you come along that day and be the entertainment for the support group?" And immediately I said yes because I was actually really anxious and nervous about going to the support group

I was going to be my first time being around other visually impaired people, people with canes and guide dogs. It was like a glimpse kind of into the future for me. So I was really anxious about doing that. And then when they asked me to be the singer, because I've worked as a singer for many years, that's my stage, that's my comfort zone. I said yes, because it took away that kind of feeling for me.

So the night before going to this support group I was in bed going over ideas of songs to sing and I just thought it'd be really cool if I could take a song that everyone knows and change the words and talk about my experience so far with Low Vision. So I chose the song Stand By Me by Benny King, rewrote that in bed in about 20 minutes and when I performed it that following day that was kind of the catalyst to it all. I got this reaction in the room of people saying to me that the words that I'd written made them feel less alone but also

that it was helping them kind of understand the things that they were going through as well and that was the first time since that diagnosis that I thought

I've got a purpose in the world. This is something that I can do to help people and not only that, it'll help me come to terms with it as well. And I just kind of, that was the start of it all for me. - Yeah, and I think it's such a blessing when people kind of understand that in helping others, we help ourselves. This is something that has been a real proponent for my journey. And we have quite similar backgrounds in some ways. I had quite a lot of, you know, childhood trauma, a lot of pain growing up, lots of bullying, spent a very long period of my life suicidal.

And then I kind of got to a stage where I found I wanted to go and explore music. So I went into college to go and do music. This is at 23. I'm at the college of 23. You know, to go and study music with 16 year olds. And it was one of the best things I ever did. And that was

that way that you can pour your pain into something creative that not only helps you but um you know kind of gives gives a voice to people that maybe aren't as able to speak in such a beautiful manner you know and i find that this is very common for creative people that that they're able to voice things people that they have that other people can't voice you know and that's clearly that something you're continuing doing and you know i think there's a beauty in being able to

you know, turn that pain, turn our suffering and instead of, you know, allowing it to destroy us, you know, creating something from that. When you began this journey and you kind of, obviously when it's happening to you, you're really in it and it's really painful. And when I look back, I think I'm really blessed for what I've been through. But obviously when I was going through it was hell and probably the same thing for you. You know, when you look back now,

How do you, what would you kind of advise somebody that's going through a big life stage, something that's very tumultuous, very painful? What advice would you give somebody in general? For me, it's a few things. So first of all, when we have our bad days, as everyone does, despite disability, sight loss, you know, everyone has good and bad days. That's what life is, you know. First things we've got to remember is, you know,

the bad times and the hard days and those moments don't last in the same way the good ones don't. Nothing lasts forever, it comes and goes. And actually, you know, when we have those bad days, the thing that we do that makes them even worse is we kind of, we beat ourselves up about it. We harden ourselves and

what we've got to remember is that actually, you know, to feel the way that we're feeling in these dark times is actually perfectly normal and perfectly natural. And it's okay to be anxious and it's okay to be, you know, to feel depression and those kinds of things. It just makes us human. And the minute we can kind of realize that those things are perfectly normal and go a bit easy on ourself,

and actually remember that these things are actually as i said a few minutes ago were given us the the tools to to face the things we get to face going forward it's amazing one of the great things about poetry and music as you were saying there you know the best

artists and songwriters, the people that we're kind of drawn to, or certainly I am, and I'm sure you are yourself, are those people that really bare the souls and share the deepest and darkest through their art. And those are the storytellers that really draw people in. And I'm in a position now where, and I've been for quite a few years, is when I'm having my bad days, as I still do, I can channel that into a piece of poetry

and then click a button and send it around the world, which is gonna find somebody else and just say, look, you're not alone and help somebody.

And that is an amazing thing. And knowing that is enough also to get me through those dark times as well. Yeah. And that's like such beauty that comes from it. You know, I often work with people who are in the beginning stages that are still very much suffering in whatever their transitionary stage is. You know, in the spiritual community that I'm in, we call this the dark night of the soul. You know, it's the catalyst. It's the

the fire basically that the Phoenix goes into before it is reborn. And this is such a kind of phenomenon I see so many times that some people just get stuck in the fire. You know, you're like, no, that's not the end. That's not the end. You know, that isn't the end of your story.

And I think something that I teach my clients is that feeling is healing. Healing is feeling even, that you need to kind of feel what's happening to heal it. And something you mentioned there is that it's okay to have bad days. It's okay to have good days. We shouldn't get stuck in our emotions. We should view them almost like the weather, I think. That some days it's a sunny day, sometimes it's a rainy day and we should just enjoy it whilst it's here. And it seems a funny thing to say to enjoy

the bad times but something I've noticed in my life is as dark as my days have been are as bright as my days can be and you've probably experienced this you know that when we radically accept that sometimes life throws really bad lemons at us you know and it can be really painful actually as far on the scale that we go into pain is actually as high as you can go into ecstasy and I've met a lot of people that have

I would say beige lives, rather than every bloody colour of the rainbow that some of us have experienced. And I almost feel sorry for them in a way. And I know that sounds like a crazy thing to say. No, I'm 100% with you there. I understand that.

But I'm getting chills. But I feel sorry for them because they only experience this much of the world. They've only been able to experience this much of emotion. And although I would never wish some of the terror and horror that I've been through on some people, on anybody, on some people, that's something I could wish on some of them, but, you know, on anyone, actually, it's a gift.

And it's such a blessing to have experienced terrible things because not only are there silver linings in there and lessons and joy to be found from that, it also gives us this mission. And I find that people who have got beige lives, I mean, maybe it's me kidding myself and trying to give rhyme and reason to the things that have happened to me, but I truly believe that the things that have been sent to me to be tested

testing of me has actually made me like that phoenix coming out of the fire it's forged me you know and that has allowed me to become the person who I am today which is somebody that really helps others and and loves doing that and is really able to help people because I've been through it do you feel that too I mean is that does that give you that gumption to get up in the morning as well um so well yeah I mean I agree 100% with everything you said there it's funny when I actually first kind of started having my

you know big success in America with my poetry and around the world and start doing events out there and things like that. One of the pieces of poetry that I used to finish my events with, I haven't read it at an event for a little while now and I'll tell you how I came up with it. It's funny actually, a brief story of how I actually found this piece of poetry inside of me. I got, I think it was back in 2018, I was lucky enough to be given a few awards

And there's a charity here in the northwest of England called Henshaws, a big charity that not just look, they don't just look after people with sight loss, but they look after people with a whole range of other disabilities across the northwest of England. And I got I got an award from them at this award ceremony. And they told me I was getting this award at this nice hotel in front of all these dignitaries, local mayors and things like that. And they said to me, look, you know, we're going to present you with this award. I was already an ambassador for them.

as i still am today and uh they said oh you know we need you to write a speech for the award and i was like i've never written a speech in my life you know so i sat down and started to write this thing and just had complete a mental block and then i just thought what i'm going to do is

Instead of writing a speech, I'm going to write a piece of poetry that basically tells my story. And I'm not going to read the full thing, but the opening line of the lines of that poem, you know, really reflects what we were just talking about. And it says, all the tears that I have shed and these scars upon my wrist have made me who I am today. Prepare me now for this.

and it kind of goes on from there i wouldn't be so strong if i had never failed before i'd still be isolated scared to step outside my door and and more of it coming now and and it really talks about you know actually one of the things that we need to remember is when we're having these times is we need to remember the dark times of yesterday and remember all the things that we faced from before and remember that actually all those things all those times where we thought we could never see tomorrow

We actually survived. And the fact that we were still here shows that we were capable of surviving anything that, you know, life throws at us.

Yeah, and human beings are like some of the most adaptable species on this planet. You think about all the adversity that our ancestors survived for us to be here, you know, from much, much, much more adversity than any of us in this modern world are experiencing. And I always think my ancestors are behind me being like, not today. You're not going to falter at this. They survived famine and hunger and saber tooth tigers, you know.

it's given me that thing now and i think you're probably the same the more you tend to go through in life it gives you this ability to when everything starts to fall up fall you know apart around you i go into this complete like calmness yeah i did them a couple of years ago now my wife uh who you know gets anxious going on planes

decided she wanted to do a parachute jump and I said okay you know skydive so yeah I'll do that with you so we did it in the Aida Henshaws and was just talking about and we went to this place up in the lakes in near Lancaster and like we got up there we did from the highest you can go to we paid extra to go 15,000 feet and I was so calm

It was ridiculous, you know, my instructor was saying to me, are you nervous? I was like, not even one little bit. I felt so chilled, but there's not many things now that I'll get really nervous about. I think a part of that also comes from my entertainment background as well, being used to kind of being in front of audiences or crowds or speaking, all these different things that people find terrifying.

I just, nothing really phases me anymore like that. - And I think it's, you know, not so much, you know, not so much that you become superhuman, 'cause I have a lot of clients, when I talk about things, I've been on a 20 plus year, you know, self development journey.

that's a long time to be really working on yourself but you learn a lot in 20 years you know and I sometimes kind of forget where my clients are that come to me in the beginning and I feel sometimes that we can portray a slight sort of superhuman quality to us in a way and I think something that's really important is to recognize that actually it's not necessarily we don't fill these things maybe that it's we've kind of

got the coping mechanisms, the strategies that we've learned how to deal with them as opposed to being, you know, it's like the, what do they say? Being the organ grinder instead of the monkey, you know, often when people are ruled by their emotions and their external environment, they've, they've, they've dipped into that monkey mind. Whereas

It feels like the more that you experience that chimpanzee, that kind of monkey mind that wants to rule you, the more you really become the organ grinder. I mean, presumably you still feel these emotions. It's just that you know how to deal with them now.

one of the things that i i made when i started writing the poetry um you know talking nine years ago eight nine years ago now i made a promise that i was gonna not hold back i was gonna be completely open i was gonna share the good days the bad days and share absolutely everything through the poetry because what i what i find is the reason well one of the reasons why you know it's had the impact and it continues to have the impact that it does is because you know i i do tell everything

I, you know, I've been able to say to somebody that, you know, I still struggle in the same way that you're still struggling. Despite these things, I'm able to do X, Y, Z.

you know there's a lot of influencers out there who you know put themselves out there as you say it being that kind of superhero thing and that's not life yeah that instagram thing that's not reality and actually what's more powerful is actually being able to say to somebody look you know see what you're going through i feel the exact same way and and that's what i try to do in everything that i write

And how do you find the strength to do that? Because I think that's quite, you know, I call this the beginning of the age of authenticity, which I feel like we're walking into at this time. You know, we've had maybe 20 years of kind of narcissism and, you know, this kind of having things very,

perfect for social media and perfect within TV and things, you know, the rise of like things like, you know, Beverly Hills and 90210 and these kind of identities that have been crafted for modern day representations of humans have often led us to feel like we have to be perfect. And I think this is something that's quite insidious within our society that, you know,

social media has propagated this to everyone now. So a lot of us are refusing to be vulnerable, refusing to say that we're having bad days. You know, go and look at any of these Facebooks or social medias. You'd think that they were having a perfect life. And the truth of it is, is most of us are truly suffering. I mean, how do you find the strength to keep coming back every day and being that vulnerable? Because it's something I practice and I find it difficult as a woman. And I think that we've been kind of, you

you know we get the grace to be vulnerable I think to be a man in society now and being vulnerable is there's still a lot of shaming I find for that how do you how do you get over that yeah I mean it's an ongoing process really you know there are times where it really does drain me yeah um but also I recognize how important it actually is you know you touched on it there from uh you know for a man to kind of put themselves out there um is isn't you

you know it's not it's not done nearly enough you know that we i'm sure you're well aware of the the male suicide rate and you know how people you know men really struggle with anxiety and depression because they don't feel like they can talk about it they've got a front on and and you know women have that as well you know but obviously men just find it more difficult i think

you know, if you're looking at low vision and blindness, what tends to happen is with men in particular is because there's so many misconceptions out there surrounding low vision and blindness. Most people think that if you're blind, you see nothing, or if you've got a cane that you could see nothing, there's actually, you know, there's no shades and,

blindness is actually a spectrum. There's lots of different ways you lose your sight, the eyes are very complicated things and often when we're out everyone who has low vision, blindness, disability will have those moments where they're being judged by the misconceptions

So what tends to happen is because people don't realize that if you've got a guide dog, which I have, or you've got a cane, long cane, which I use, that 93% of people affected by low vision blindness have some kind of useful vision. It's only 7% that see nothing at all. But yet that stereotype is that blindness is blackness and it's not.

But so what happens is when people are out using the cane, if they make eye contact and the way they're judged and all those misconceptions, a lot of men, because of the fear of being judged, isolate themselves.

And don't go out or won't use a cane because you don't want to be seen as being vulnerable or weak. And all these things that are apparently not masculine. Yeah. So they do the worst thing you can do, which is they isolate themselves. They become bitter. They become angry. And the mental health suffers. So knowing all those things, that's another reason, just one of the many reasons that I put myself out there, that I remind myself that I have to bear it all and talk about it.

because actually, you know, we need to start this conversation more than actually using the cane or getting out there, taking the help that you need is actually a sign of strength. Yeah. Not a sign of weakness. It's a sign of not, you're not going to sit back and let your life go by. You know, you're going to get out there and do whatever you need to do to put your foot outside the door. But, you know, like you've seen for your original question, it is still a challenge. There are times where I have to do just shut off because I,

I get messages from all over the world of people relating to my poetry and I always say to people that I don't just write the words, I mean every single one and if you relate to something and if you're struggling, message me and I promise I'll message back. I make that promise.

to anyone and it can be challenging but at the same time I wouldn't change it for the world. No and I feel the heaviness of that because I'm the same, I do the same and like you know I think it's really vital that one we're very honest about our situations, that we're very honest that you know that still there's days you know you saw me on TikTok the other day crying for four parts and

So, you know, and I think, and it's taken me a long time, you know, I think the beginning of my business, I did do that whole kind of superhuman thing, you know, where you don't want to be vulnerable. And I found that really difficult because, you know, I worried that people would take advantage of me or would see my, you know, my vulnerability as a weakness. I can remember one person saying to me once, like, why would somebody come to you as a coach if you're still crying?

And I was like, what? It's this idea that we're supposed to just dissolve all of these human emotions and somehow-- - Why would you go to someone who's never cried? - I know. - Do you know what I mean? - And I think some of the best people have been through the worst things, and they've been through all the adversity, that's why you can help them. How do you look after yourself

from a self-care perspective, because I know what it's like when you've got lots of people that want you, when you're like a guiding light, you know, there's a lot of people that want your attention. There's a lot of people that want your energy because you help people. How do you protect yourself from what I could say maybe is the curse of success in a way?

that's a real difficult question because a lot of times i don't know it no yeah i know i was like got any tips because i'm no no i mean there's not really any tips i'm still trying to learning how i'm learning how to do that every day you know a couple of the things that i do is you know having the time with my family going to the gym you know is a big part of me actually you know normally when the schools are in because my wife works at a school i go and walk my son to school in the

I could get the bus, but I prefer to walk because I see it as my kind of warm up and mentally getting in the zone in the place. And I go and train every morning. And that is a big part of kind of the mental relief. And obviously, as I said to you before, the opportunities and the things that I get to do because of training.

in what I do, you know, I get to go and do events in places like America and travel and see these places and get to do things that I meet people that I wouldn't normally get to done. And also it's a hell of a legacy as well for my children. You know, them being able to see these things and learn those lessons for them going forward is a huge thing for me.

And what a blessing, you know, I think, you know, as I said, some people get very stuck in the trauma that they experience and they lose that there is a silver lining somewhere, you know, and I think that both of us have really big kind of, well, you even more so, I would say, definitely been through like what I would view as much more difficulties than I've been through, but we shouldn't do that. Don't compare trauma, terrible. No, absolutely not. Terrible habit. I just abandoned myself there in a minute.

my clients would be like don't do that laura you're always telling us not to do that yeah exactly yeah sorry i know you can see that it's never perfect always progression never perfect but uh you know i think i think it's very hard for us to kind of protect ourselves to look after ourselves to do all the things that we often tell other people to do and i still struggle with that and with the self-care side of things that's very difficult and

With going through these traumas, we kind of sometimes forget when we're going through actually that there's a silver line coming, you know, a silver lining coming. When did this all start to come together as a blessing for you? Like when was it in your life that it turned, that that pivot changed from being something that was this atrocity that you were having to survive to be something that actually became part of your thriving in your life?

do you know it's funny actually and i've spoke about this previously it was it was almost instantaneous from that support group i throughout my younger years you know i kind of touched on kind of my work as a singer and traveling all over you know i worked in cruise ships i did musicals and and you know watching all the parks and all you know travel as an entertainer all over the world and for quite a number of years all the way up really all the way up until that diagnosis

I had like a life where I went from one disaster to the next. I did. Honestly, I felt sometimes like I was cursed. Yeah. Nothing ever seems to go right for me. Just when I thought things and people out there listening to this, I'm sure will relate to this.

I think I was on the right path and just when I thought things were settling down it would all go wrong and I'd be back where I was or you know it was horrible and when I was faced with this biggest challenge that when I found that poetry and found this ability to write and help people through it I have this uncanny kind of thing of being in the right place at the right time it's like I found this kind of lane

the minute I found this kind of lane of where I was meant to be, what I was meant to do, I always thought I was meant to be a singer but actually in the 20 years that I worked as a singer I never had anywhere near as much impact in the world as I did from starting writing the poetry and the minute I started to do this it was uncanny and I'll give you a brief example and there's lots of little stories like this throughout the whole nine years. 2019

uh i october november i was out for like the best part of two months in america doing this whole usa book tour on the east coast of america and i was doing an event in a place called rhode island and i was at rhode island university or right out of rhode island college i should say doing two events one one session in the afternoon one session in the evening it was like an hour presentation of me telling my story reading poetry and then a book signing and then a q a at the end

And all the way through this session in the afternoon, there was this one guy in the room in his late 20s, early 30s, who kind of looked out of place. I was being drawn to him all the time. I kept looking at him. He had a high-vis jacket on. He looked out of place, like a workman. And so he joined the line for the book signing. And as he came past, I said, oh, you know, what's your name? He said, oh, it's Derek. I said, hi, Derek. Pleased to meet you. Dave, what brings you here today? He says, oh, I was diagnosed with RP two days ago. Yeah.

And I was like, oh man, wow. So just do me a favor, come here a second. I took him to the side out of the line and I said, look, you know, tell me your story, what's going on? He said, well, you know, I thought I had a cataract. So I went to my eye doctor. They looked into my eyes. He said, we think you've got this thing called retinitis pigmentosa. There's no treatment or cure. It's hereditary. Your kids might have it. Started lumping all this information and all this weight on him. He walked out of the appointment, his head spinning,

upset and crying one minute angry the next went home started researching retinitis pigmentosa on google yeah found one of my pieces of poetry and it started to resonate with him straight away a lot of things that had happened to him with his sight and i started to make sense when he was reading this poem and anyway he was in work that day and his wife called him and she said you're never going to believe this but dave steele's in america

and not only is in America, he's in Rhode Island and he walked straight out of his work and he came straight to see me. - Got chills. - Yeah, I was the same, I still get them now. And he was stood there telling me this story, he'd come straight from work and that's why he was there. And we're still in touch to this day. I've met him a couple of times, took my family out to Florida last year and we met up with him in Orlando

I support him and his wife and his kids. And yeah, little stories like that, loads of them throughout it. And it's just an absolute, those are the things that keep me going on the times when it's really hard for myself.

And do you, I mean, obviously, you know, I'm coming from a very spiritual background. That's what my business is. You know, I kind of, I definitely see that there is a divine hand doing things, you know, and you've mentioned fate and destiny a few times, and you just said that you're getting chills. And I like to call them God pimples because it feels like when that happens to me, there's, you know, it's that for me, I feel like it's confirmation of something else going on in that moment.

And I find that throughout my life, I've had this,

very strange synchronicities and serendipities with certain people in certain places that I feel like the hand of God is moving me in certain places to be able to do like its work you know when I say God I don't mean sort of a religious God I think kind of like you know a source or something some form of intelligence higher than ourselves as it were but

But, you know, do you feel that? Do you feel like there is some form of destiny, fate, divinity that has led you down this path? Yeah, 100%. And, you know, I still think there's a long way to go with it. You know, I don't like...

talk about ego in in anything that i do because i'm completely open to you know the vulnerability of everything but um i honestly believe that there is really some importance to the work that i'm doing with the poetry and that it's going to be be there and you know around a long time after i'm gone um

And, you know, a lot of people say it to me. I'll have, you know, to the end of my days, I'll have no idea actually how far my words have actually reached. And, you know, one of the most amazing things for me is, you know, there's a lot of people out there that read the words that I put out there that, you know, don't send me a message and don't contact me.

but I hear little glimpses of stories and how it's impacted people's lives in the way that music and poetry can. And it's just, you know, it's incredible to be able to do that. - And it's such a remarkable gift again, Tina, come back to something that is so horrific, you know, to be such a horrific experience for you, such a gift to have come from it that you, without even knowing,

this strange phenomena of the internet and books and things where there could be somebody on the other side of the world that could be in the darkest moments of their days and you've pulled them out of it and you don't even know it's happening. Like I feel that it's such a strange phenomenon. It's funny, I was talking about this this morning actually, I had this experience that somebody sent me myself

on their phone screen and I was like, this is somebody I've not even met. It's such a weird thing to experience. And you say about ego, how do you keep your ego out of this, Dave? Because you're actually very successful. When you're going up and you're getting awards and you're being hailed as somebody that is not only helping people but saving lives probably in some way, shape or form, how the hell do you keep your ego intact? Get it out of the way, not keep it intact.

Once again that's a difficult one because you know if you just get to the average person that kind of just meets me they'll see me as this real kind of super confident person and it's actually only those people that are really close to me or really take the time to actually get to know me that realize I'm a lot more than that that you know that I am you know I'm not you know I'm an introverted extrovert or yeah the other way around whichever way it is so you know some people will think that you know

I'm cocky or whatever. It's funny, my latest book, Austin's Amazing Adventures, which is based on my son, I did a TV interview for local news when it first came out. And the reporter said, you know, how is your dad getting on with it all? And my son Austin went, well, he is a bit of a big head. It was a joke, you know what I mean?

I don't take myself too seriously with that kind of side of thing. I know I can come across that way, but that's just a part of the confidence. And I need to show that confidence to put me in that zone to be able to do what I do. It's that same, you know, it's the things I learned in my entertainment days. It's, you know,

Like I said earlier about all the things we go through and all the things that we do in our past give us the ability and the tools to face the things, you know, where we're meant to be. So all those little things that I learned in entertainment as a singer, you know, and also that helps me write the poetry. You said about spiritual kind of intervention. I've I've actually, you know, I've written about 3000 poems.

And I've never taken longer than 15 minutes to write a piece of poetry. Because if it's not coming from the heart, it's not worth writing. And actually some of the best poems I've ever written

some of you know my favorites i've actually just written without stop you know without stopping i write on the phone yeah they literally it's like someone sat on the folder yeah pause i have this with music and i haven't ever met anybody else who writes like i do because most i don't write i just sing and the song pours out of me and if i don't record it it's gone and you're probably the same with your poetry if you don't somehow get it down it's gone and something i've written

So, no, sorry, I was just going to say, if it's coming from the heart, if it's something that you're really passionate about, and also, I think one of the first conversations I had with you was I actually talked about being an empath, and I think you're the same. If you have this ability to be able to kind of put yourself in somebody else's shoes and really feel what they're feeling,

that helps you to be able to write as well. And I've always had that ability. So I tap into that. So for example, I write about my children because there's a hereditary side to RP as a one in two chance with them. And I sort of spoke about my daughter Ellie.

So my daughter, Ellie, she is from a previous relationship. I don't see her half as much as I would like to. We only actually just saw her a couple of weeks ago after not seeing her for two years. That just happened a couple of weeks ago. Now she's now coming back into the family, which is amazing. But I wrote a poem for her about five years ago now called The Secret about when is the right or is there a right time to have a conversation with a child or a teenager to say,

that you could have this potential thing one in two. How do you do that? The internet is what the internet is. She's gonna research stuff and everything else. So I wrote this poem and I wanna quickly read it for you now. And I wrote this in, it's one of those that just sat on my shoulder, spilled out of me. It goes like this. It took me years to come to terms with how my eyes declined through stages of acceptance of slowly going blind. But nothing I could ever do would allow me to prepare

To tell my little girl a thing I still don't want to share. It's tortured me through sleepless nights, consumed my mind with guilt. The secret I have kept from her could break the trust I've built. I pray that she will understand the things I've tried to do and why I never told her that she could be one in two. 'Cause she is still a child and far too young to burden with a fate that I might pass to her for now is her time to live. But soon will come a moment when I know she must be told. When all the battles I have won I'll pass for her to hold.

But for every unheard question, there's an answer I've prepared. They're written in each line, each verse, each poem that I've shared. For every page I've filled, I've emptied out my heart and soul. So one day she would know the way. That's always been my goal. So Ellie, I hope years from now, you'll be there reading this. Know you can do amazing things, whether RP, hit or miss. My inheritance to you won't be a passed down faulty gene. But knowing all life's beauty that this VIP has seen.

Oh my gosh, don't. You're taking me straight to an empath live on camera. You're like, don't cry, don't cry, don't cry.

So, yeah, so I mean, that's an example of when I do events and, you know, read the poetry and tell my story, you know, for people out there, one of the proudest things for me is people out there all over the world use my poetry, as I said, as a way for them to feel less alone, but as a way for them to explain to their loved ones and their friends and family how they feel when they can't find the words themselves. So it's a tool.

but also for those people who have no experience of low vision and blindness or disability, they're able to close their eyes, listen to a piece of poetry in that rhythmic style

and really you know feel it and for a second understand and that is just an amazing thing to be able to do within a room or you know on a zoom like this yeah and it's like something you said earlier was that it resonates and you know when when I talk when we talk about spirituality we talk about vibration a lot and um I had a woman comment this morning she said when you said that it just

felt like it was true you know it just felt like it was truthful to me and I was like yeah that is what I would call gnosis it's about knowing thyself and being able to understand something from within rather than from without this logical mind that we often get stuck into you know where we think about feelings it's like you can't think of feeling you have to feel a feeling and I think one of the beauties about like you know some of the creativity like music or poetry or art

is that it kind of circumvents the logical mind. It goes straight to the heart. And this is why it resonates with people because they feel what it is that you're feeling. And I think for some of us that are natural empires and we, again, it's a blessing and a curse to feel what other people are feeling so heavily sometimes. But I feel like it's a way

You know, I find most empaths are creative people and maybe that's the blessing. Maybe that's the blessing that we can share our power with others by allowing us to kind of really resonate into their souls in the same way that those words or, you know, the music resonates. Something that you said earlier,

A moment ago, you found the poetry inside of you, you know, and you talked about having like something on your shoulder talking to you, like a muse, you know. And I find that the muse talks to all of us. It's just some of us that answer the call. Do you feel like this was something that you answered the call to? Because there's many people, there's probably loads of people that have gone through what you've been through and haven't, you know, made progress.

a wonderful lemonade from that lemon, you know, you've really answered the call with this and decided to become a strength, a figurehead, a proponent for this, an advocate, you know, as you say, you're an advocate for this. How did you do that? How did you answer this call? What was it that made you just go, I'm not going to be a victim here. I'm going to

be something amazing from this. Obviously you're saying the poet for Ellie, but that was part of it. Was there something else? Was there anything else that drove you to have this courage? It literally was from that, from the Stand By Me RP song. It was, you know, the minute I got that reaction from people, I just thought, you know, this is something I can do to make a difference.

and i think you know looking back on my life now you know even going back to when i was a an entertainer you know when i started off at the holy parks was a blue coat for pontins everything that i always did was about you know

you know, making other people feel good and helping people and, you know, helping someone have a great holiday or, you know, it's always been the base of everything that I've done, you know, even working in car sales, you know, I wasn't one of these car sales people that was trying to rip people off. It was about finding someone and really helping a family find the ideal car for them. And that came across and it was part of the reason why I was so successful is people bought from me because they liked me.

And I was able to adapt myself to every age of person or different type of person and relate to different people in different ways. And that's part of being an empath. So it was taking all those things and then realizing that I could. I think my wife actually said it best in an interview a few years ago. She said that.

this is right at the beginning as well when she said this she said dave what you try and do is you try and be there for people in the same way that you wanted someone to be there for you when you needed them the most now with it and that's that and that you know when i heard that i went yeah yeah that's it uh so every day you know i try i try and do that and replicate the impact and and and it's so varied as well it's like it can be you know

elderly people who are losing the sight it could be someone my age it could be you know families with young children who have just been diagnosed you know even

Even outside of low vision and blindness, it can be disability, it can be anyone that's struggled with anxiety or depression. During the pandemic, I started to reach a whole new audience because everyone through the lockdown was going through things that people with disability go through on a day-to-day basis, that having to think twice before you step outside your door, feeling isolated, feeling social anxiety, all these different things.

that people have faced for years, but the whole world was facing it. So actually, you know, it wasn't just anyone. You know, I did an event in New York, in Baltimore in 2019 as part of my USA Book Tour for a veterans weekend. And it was amazing. You'd loved it. It was this whole veterans concert. And initially I was supposed to go there as just a guest. And I ended up being asked to go and stand on stage and read a piece of poetry.

and I went on stage and in front of I think it was about 500 veterans, all the marines in full dress uniform, all the American gospel you know army choirs and all that kind of stuff and got a full standard of action from all these soldiers that have had things like PTSD and you know gone through all these things because what I said was just resonating with them and that was just you know it's an incredible moment.

And that's the beauty of these scenarios, these situations that we go through, you know, when you decide to step into being the light, as it were, to guide people from their darkest hours, you don't just guide people like you.

you guide everybody that's in the darkness. And I think something that is really important for people now that have experienced adversity and have maybe remedied it is that they start to shine their light. And something I've noticed through my spiritual journey

process is that me stepping into my authenticity and into my power and being vulnerable and being honest and being open not only models to people that it's okay to do that but it also allows them to do it because it's like when we're vulnerable when we're honest when we're open when we talk about our experiences it gives other people the

the floor to do that. It's like, okay, yeah, they're doing that, Laura's doing that, we could probably do that too. And it's such a big mission. I mean, what a crikey how I feel like we've definitely earned our wings, but I will continue working for them for sure. You know, I feel like

how lucky we are to have experienced what we've been through to be able to get to where we are. And you've got so many wonderful blessings, I think, that are coming out of your situation. Where does the future, what does the future hold for you now, Dave? I'm excited to see and hear.

and here obviously i'm at that stage now where as i said you know for a lot of people it's the hardest part is that i'm transitioning to being completely blind yeah um i know that's gonna happen um i know it's happening now it's happening pretty quick you know uh i i now can't see um at all without you know when i'm

obviously without these glasses, which obviously I only use for reading, but when I've not got them on as most of the time I don't, everything's blurred. So, you know, it's actually at times like this where the things that I do within this kind of blind poet

persona that you know has been created and the work that i do actually gets me through even more and you know it makes me more focused to do things now and experience things now and actually i think once again that's another huge thing that i've learned and one of the biggest blessings actually um from the very beginning of this journey is um to do things now and appreciate now and

I think we spend far too much time worrying about tomorrow and how things are going to be in the future that sometimes we forget to like make the most of today. And actually, you know, I see more in the world now than I did when I was fully sighted. So, you know, as far as,

You know, the future for me, the things that I'm doing, you know, speaking at more events, obviously that's going to happen. I've been blessed. I just got nominated or shortlisted, I should say, for something called a National Diversity Award. Over 90,000 people were nominated and I've been shortlisted and I'm going to the event in Liverpool on the 15th of September. Then I'm back out in America doing some events out there.

I'm hoping to get my next book out over the next year of the, I've got it here, my Austin's Amazing Adventures books. I love it. Which are already being used in schools in America and in the UK to teach inclusion. And the idea with these books is that Austin's the main character, who is a young visually impaired boy based on my son.

But in the books going forward, you're going to have characters within the stories that represent all children with additional needs within

schools. You walk into any school, you're going to see children with autism, mass perjury, ADHD, all these different things. But we don't have enough representation of these characters within children's stories for them to see that they're normal and that there's other people out there just like them. And also for other children to see that, you know, these kids are just like them as well, despite the challenges. So I would normalise

additional challenges, additional needs, disability is what I want these books to do. The second book which is going to be coming out is going to be really really close to my heart. Tomorrow is the anniversary of my nephew on my wife's side passing Josh. Josh was 18 when he passed a few years ago to a condition called Duchenne muscular dystrophy which is for those who don't know is a terminal muscle wasting disease. He died just after his 18th birthday Josh

and I made a promise to my sister and Laurie's mum that I was going to put Josh as one of the characters in the next story. So I rewrote, I wrote the second book and in the second book which is going to be released, Austin's in school, this is obviously all told in poetry, Austin's in school, they know there's going to be a new kid joining the class, they're all waiting to see who it is and the door opens and in comes Josh in his wheelchair

And Austin being a kid with low vision and blindness, decided that he's going to be the one to help him settle in because he might be nervous, anxious and all these different things. But what becomes very, very apparent very quickly is that Josh isn't nervous. He's confident, he's cheeky, he's funny, he's all these things and we flip the stereotype and he's got some really strong messages in it. And I think it's going to really help a lot of families and a lot of children around the world. So there's that.

you know, obviously speaking at more events and continuing to replicate the impact that it's already had. Oh, I love it. And you're going to make me cry again. What a beautiful, like, just, it's beautiful. And I'm really like, I'm, you know, I used to be a teacher for additional learning needs. So, and I myself am a neuro spicy. So, you know, there's not very many representations of it. And again, it's, you know, I think that

it's beautiful that you have so many fingers and so many pies as it were, and so able to represent so many people again, to be able to create a legacy for people who aren't here anymore as well, that wouldn't be able to kind of create a legacy for themselves because they've obviously passed away. I mean, what a beautiful, I mean, I just think you're a wonderful man. I think that what you've done is,

very, very admirable. I think that people that meet you will be very lucky to have met you. I feel very grateful to have you here to talk to me today. It's been an absolute blessing to talk to you. Where would people be able to access access more of you, Dave, if they'd like to kind of get into contact with you, email or

or absolutely all my links for everything that i do my poetry all the videos every event you can find through my website which is theblindpoet.net all the books are on there as well so people can order books and and support so yeah theblindpoet.net

That sounds fantastic. Well, it's been absolutely amazing to talk to you, Dave. I really am truly honoured to have you here. Likewise. I'm sure the honour is all mine, but I very much appreciate it. And yeah, it's been fantastic to talk to you. Thank you so much and I wish you all well with everything that you do in the future. My pleasure. Thanks again for having me on.