I just spent three days at an incredibly expensive hotel, which I would never have paid for but Ed (husband) won it in a raffle. I can only relax knowing that I'm not paying - it's part of my heritage. So I'm sitting here jaw-dropped, looking at a mile long drive, lined with gigantic horse chestnut trees, pastures of horses, a story book sky and what am I thinking? I'm thinking about how angry I am that someone in London fixing my bathroom has put in a shower tray rather than a flat-tiled floor. I'm sitting in this perfection, attempting to practise being mindful, focusing on the beauty before my eyes but no, I'm dragged back to the shower tray saga and getting more and more angry. I'm trying with all I've got to not hate myself for being so shallow. (The self-forgiveness is a big part of mindfulness). I try to bring my attention to the physical sensations of rage rather than dwell in my unanswerable ruminations on why the plumber is an idiot and I need to kill him.

If I concentrate on exactly where that feeling of anger is in my body, the words start to fade and change and even dissolve. At first I feel that old familiar burning ball in the middle of my stomach, my jaw-ache from the Reptilian grimace and the throbbing hot metal bar across my eyes. This sensation is as familiar to me as the taste of chocolate. It's so familiar I almost love the taste. It dawns on me, sitting in this blissful English setting, that maybe the shower tray isn't what's making me angry but my habit of feeling anger. Duh! Suddenly I realise that when the shower tray ordeal gets resolved, I'll replace it with another problem that pisses me off. I get it that I'm addicted to the feelings and the explanation (words )comes in later. How great it would be if I was in the habit of feeling joyful, I probably would have a stream of positive thoughts like, "Gee, aren't I lucky to be able to afford a shower tray?" Or "It's so great so-and-so didn't call me back, now have more 'me' time?"

What keeps me practising mindfulness is even though each time I'm face-to- face with my own heart of darkness, I know (see brain research) that I'm incrementally unwiring the neurons that lock me into my habits. I picture one neuron unwiring after another. This is just an image not an actuality). Even in my imagination, I have to be patient because we have 100 billion neurons so I know it takes time. I have to admit (a positive thought) that there has been progress. In the past, I would have hunted down the shower tray guy and torn him from limb to limb. About an hour later, I would have suffered the remorse that goes with the limb tearing. Then I'd be sick with a bad hang-over of the poison I just flung.

So, I sit here feeling of the anger change shape and intensity and with it the words that I have glued on. As I get some space in my brain rather than the red mist, I focus my attention on a branch of a tree in front of me. I really see it without commenting on it and gradually the thoughts demonically creep in, "Why did he put in a shower tray?" So, I gently send my focus back down again to the location of the anger and the words disperse and then back to the branch in its clarity and then the thoughts come back and this is mindfulness in action.

I'm still on tour with my show "Sane New World" where I've zigzagged across and up and down the UK and Ireland and Wales and have never been happier, in spite of the four hour train journeys between 'gigs.' (Not a word I've used much having not been a rock star). Part of the joy is that I stay in the most bizarre hotels; one had a wooden stage coach as a wine bar in my room and a white linen dining table set for two with numerous wine glasses even though it was only me staying in there. In another town I found myself in some 'frozen in time' 50's café. I overheard the waitress say that there was going to be a 50th birthday party for a gypsy that evening. Of course, I had to invite myself and after the show I had a night with them all, a family of 200 gypsies living in a camp together; some in caravans, some in log cabins, all dressed to the max. The party took place in a ballroom-sized log cabin with a country and western theme, photos of bucking broncos and cowboys on the walls. Their kids were all on a bouncy castle somersaulting into the early morning. The women were dressed for "Come Dancing" with hair up to the ceiling, all vying to read my palm. The men, tattooed up the wazoo, the size of bulldozers, stood around looking tough which wasn't hard as they were known for their bare knuckle fighting.

In Buxton, I found myself in a park with a professional falconer with his band of birds. He took a shine to me and put a half a frozen rat on my head so his falcon could land on my hair as it swooped down from a tree. I was not prepared for the claws in my scalp with the half eaten dead rat. I then bought a pirate ship about six feet long thinking I got a bargain for only £125 and it was probably worth thousands. I carried it on the train - changing at two stations - only to be told by my friends it was hideous and looked like it cost 80 pound.

Besides the mingling with the wonderful and weird, I love doing the show; all the theatres are tiered like wedding cakes and the audiences are smart and quick to get what I'm talking about. It's such a great feeling to be onstage and not feel the usual desperation to get a laugh.

This show is a joy to do, I think because I'm not focusing on myself but talking about something I'm passionate about and obsessed with; the brain. It's based on my book Sane New World where I've stolen the research from some of my heroes in neuroscience and spun it in comedy (so they won't sue me for plagiarism). It seems wherever I perform people want to know about how this mysterious thing on top of their necks works; after all, it's who they are. I think people are becoming more curious as to why they do what they do and why they live the way they live. It's because we're being dragged to death by a life of busy-ness and we live our lives with no brakes, only breakdowns. To 'know thyself' is coming back into fashion. I guess we're also starting to realize that no matter how much money you make, how famous you are or how powerful, if you aren't awake at the wheel or spend your life trying to achieve some goal without even enjoying it; you have nothing.

I love talking about the fact that technologically we're at the top of our games but as far as knowing how our brains work, we're in the dark ages. It's like we have this Ferrari on top of our head but no one gave us the keys. It's amazing to me this information isn't shouted from the rooftops and on every headline of all newspapers, which is that our minds are malleable, like play-dough we can intentionally change the structure and therefore the way we think and behave. We can unwire neurons and rewire new ones to break our old habits of thinking and create new ones that might give us a more flexible outlook and dare I say, happier life. And this is called neuroplasticity. Gloria Gaynor was wrong when she sang, "I am what I am." We aren't what we are, we have many possibilities so she's going to have to change those lyrics but it's going to be hard because not much rhymes with neuroplasticity. This gives me so much hope and I hope that spreads to the audience.

I went to Westport, Ireland, to sell my books and do their small literary festival.  I arrived at Knock airport. I have been to Knock before to see the shrine of Our Lady who appeared as a vision August 25th 1946 to a common person who hopefully wasn’t drunk. Anyway this person had a vision of not only Our Lady but some sheep hovering 3 feet above the ground and so a humble shrine was built holding about 2,000 people and gift shops with holy water and Jesus in different outfits.  

This time I went beyond Knock to the tiny town of Westport where everyone acts like you’re a long lost relative and they are thrilled to welcome you giving you a “Top of the morning” greeting even when it’s not morning. They talk about having a crack which I didn’t get until I left. (I thought they were on the stuff).  And just when I was thinking the town is so provincial and I was getting snotty, they take me to a pub: and there is the reason why we should all live in Ireland. 

 In the corner of the dark smoky, wooden-floored pub are several fiddlers, three flautists, a singer and someone banging a drum. They’re playing that Irish music that makes your heart bleed, it all sounds the same but it’s fantastic.  One guy from The Chieftans (a brilliant Irish band) was playing along with them and I was told this happens most every night.  Everyone in there was dancing; old, young, totally plastered but everyone totally happy.  I was thinking how much we’re missing in London.  Here the whole community get together and have these evenings like they’re one big family. I was told when someone dies in the town everyone piles into the house of the bereaved and they take care of the cooking and cleaning and there’s music and crying and drinking. How much would I love to live there in my next life.  I probably would fake that someone in my house died just to have people come over and cook and clean for me.  Then I’d get caught and then they’d probably throw me out of town. Better I’m in London.   

I’m lying here in Byron Bay freezing to death in the rainforest after doing a show last night where the sound system turned my voice into Darth Vader half way through but like a trooper I played on because that’s what you do on a stage when all around you is chaos; play on and think to yourself  “Fuck it.”  How I got here was I was booked to go to Sydney to do a talk on the brain and the what it can do to you if you don’t whip it back into it’s cage, which lasted an hour (I have never gone that far to do a talk so this is a record).  I thought it might be stupid to just get on a plane for 27 hours do a hours talk and fly back. Call me crazy but I thought: That’s nuts. So I’ve wanted to come To Byron Bay for 20 years and they just had a book festival so they said I could come and do some of my show and sell some books. 

I’ve imaged Byron to be some hippie enclave where all the shops are beach huts, there’s drumming in the town square and everyone’s happy and beautiful living in a palmed paradise. It is stunning; everywhere you look is a perfect thousand mile white beach with surfers riding on wave after curling wave and the scenery is emerald green like “Jungle Book” but the town has done what all artist towns do; sell out.  One rainbow, tie die, dream-catcher, plastic Buddha, surf shop after another and my beloved hippies burnt to a crisp in the brain department. There’s one wandering down the street carrying a stuffed dog in an afro wig and his pants around his ankles, there’s another playing a folk song on one note with a back-up flute player imitating dolphin sounds dressed pirate-ish.  I went to a tourist site called Crystal Palace where you pay 30 dollars to wander around landscaped gardens dotted with crystals; not tiny ones I’m talking the size of a big walrus which in the gift shop go for (You’ll be happy to know there was a 30% sale)  only $7,000.  If you couldn’t afford that, luckily there were cheaper dream-catchers and your compulsive plastic fairy or Buddha.   It’s good to know the dream is still alive, though it’s probably better if you’re stoned.  I have also always dreamt of seeing a whale and was told there were hundreds of them podding or whatever they do. I go to the lighthouse and see a fin.  I’m trying again today so I’ll get back to you.

While I was LA doing my show, I had a walk-in day each Monday where the public could come in for free (an almost unknown word there) and have the a-list (this time not celebrities) of neuroscientists and other experts to give the latest information about what works and what’s coming in the future as far as treatments.  We had Andrew Leuchter, director of the Laboratory of Brain, Behavior, and Pharmacology and Senior Research Scientist at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. (In other words a big gun)  He uses brain-imaging techniques to examine brain function and predict which treatments are most likely to benefit individual patients by  measuring brain waves so he can read immediately if a drug is going to be effective or not. Now you won’t have to sit through those agonizing months waiting if a drug is going to work and if it doesn’t, start again.

We also had the head of NAMI (national alliance of mental health) Sharon Dunas (an angel) who informed everyone where to get free help, not just for those with mental illness but for their families and friends. There were also free classes to learn about drugs and what therapy does. She told us that when her daughter went to University (she had been the brightest in her class before that) she suddenly refused to eat and mentally shattered. Sharon said she made a deal with herself, if her daughter lived she would build a centre where anyone who needed help could get it free. She also organizes yearly walks (Something I always wanted to do in the UK) where about 5,000 people march to bring awareness as far as stigma. It’s exactly what the gays did and look where it’s got them; free at last, free at last.

With those heavy hitters in the room, it was as if the floodgates of questions we all want answered opened: how far away is the cure, why the stigma, what really helps drugs or therapy? The reactions in the audience were that people loved it; they were so grateful in a country that seems to have everything yet still can’t find help or even admit to needing it. And boy do they need it.

It’s so strange being in LA where I had my first major breakdown about 25 years ago. I came here full of hope and joy and was sent home in a box. I thought I’d just skip into town and be snatched up by one of those sit coms about perky people who say inane things and giggle a lot . The problem was, I wasn’t perky and it was obvious; my eyes were dead, I didn’t fit in and being permanently miserable, I was dark and no one wants to be near someone who’s seems depressed especially in this weather.

To avoid re-visiting that trauma I thought this time I’d buy one of those dog collars to block out the familiar sights that drove me to my bed where I watched “The Love Boat” on T.V for 7 months and starting to think it was a really good show (a sign of madness)  before being shipped back. If you aren’t famous or rich you’re treated like an untouchable (lowest rank in India). You really are abandoned and left on your own.

Also LA can really stoke up your envy because people aren’t visible on the streets and so you imagine the lives these people must have in those ‘fuck off’ houses the size of continents; the infinity swimming pools and I mean infinity as in endless.  What do they do all day?  I’ve been told the wives have lunch for a living and still manage to look like a starving person from a third world country, their faces held up by thread. You see them stick insects eating a lettuce leaf.  One street after another is loaded up with mansions rammed next to each other, all imitating different periods in history. A fake thatch is next to a faux White house next to something Medieval with space to joust.

But this time these people are coming to my show and in the second when we have a discussion they’re telling me all is not well. Many of them are coming to the free Monday night walk-in sessions  with Professors from UCLA telling them what is known so far about depression by looking into the brain and possible cures in the future. And they seem troubled and have the same problems underneath as we all do not just the 1 in 4 who suffer from some sort of mental illness but everyone. It’s such a twist, I left here depressed 25 years ago and now they are.  How the world turns. 

In Ireland for the last 24 hours plugging book –“Sane New World” (another plug).

I thought the Irish would be the last to speak about mental illness-I thought they were a ‘keeping it to themselves’ people.  Last night I did a live interview in a theatre for a large audience and during question and answer there were no questions only a large number of brave souls standing up to tell their stories because maybe they’re too ashamed to tell their friends or families. But here in the darkness one woman stood up and confessed she had both cancer and then depression and the depression was far worse.  With visible signs like loss of hair you get sympathy, with depression no one wants to know and if they find out they tell you to ‘snap out of it’.  To me this is like slapping someone with Alzheimer’s to buck up and remember what happened yesterday. Another woman stood up to confess she’s terrified that she passed her disease to her daughter. Another says their kid is suffering from the stress of exams and he’s scared she’s going to do something drastic. (In Ireland there are twice as many suicides for young people). Everyone wants to talk in the dark and spill his or her stories because we have no other place to talk. Again I harp on that we should have walk-in centres similar to AA where the 1 in 4 can talk drugs, symptoms and bitch together to unload the shame. (It’s healing to unleash rather than hunker in a hole in fear of being caught with something mental).

They thank me at the end but I should thank them for being brave enough to come out of the darkness so the rest of us don’t feel so alone.

I have not been to L.A. since I had a big big nervous breakdown here many moons ago. So I'm here doing my show"Out of Her Mind" (ironic) I thought on the first night I'd just start screaming "Please don't make audition for a sit com" and be re-traumatised.  All those years ago I came here all bright and bushy tailed and went back to the UK in a box.  

In years to come, anyone consulting the class of 2012 photograph from Oxford University’s Kellogg College will see among the dignified students looking earnestly into the camera, a very mature (in attitude not years) student looking demented with happiness - that would be me.