Last night I performed my personal development comedy show ‘The snotty inner child at Christmas’. When performing, I use content from the last show that worked well and got laughs and then I mixed that with new ideas and improv.

I have a fast-moving mind and sometimes things come out of my mouth that I learn from as if it wasn’t in my head in the first place.

I was talking about my discomfort with small talk. It’s not just a psychological discomfort I’m physically uncomfortable with it. ‘Ants in my pants’, gangly awkward uncomfortable.

I guess this is called ‘socially awkward’.

It always amazes me how an audience can relate to what you’re saying when you think you are the only one. Then BAM connection happens, with me and the audience and the audience and each other.

I feel a meaningful connection to others is the juice of life. I think this is why small talk makes me feel so uncomfortable, is because it’s connectionless. Like eating food with no nutritional value.

For many of us, we haven’t had the same level of connections, and personal moments that we had before COVID. I’ll be honest this has had a negative effect on me. I miss sitting on large armchairs talking to clients with a think pile rug under my feet as I had in the therapy room in London.

Our identity isn’t who we are as a single entity. Our identity is made up of all the different selves we become when we are inspired and formed in the company of other people and places. I think this is why loss hurts so much, we lose aspects of ourselves within the loss. I also think that’s why we travel to find ourselves, we don’t find aspects of ourselves we didn’t know we had, we create them.

My 2022 wish is that I deepen the connections I have and welcome new ones. And try and be less gangly awkward in small talk conversations!

What’s your 2022 wish for yourself?