Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #427 We Don't Talk About COVID

Transcript

#427 We Don't Talk About COVID · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: It's the podcast for.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: The time poor parent who just wants answers. Now I'm
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: not afraid of the dark anymore. It's been hard to
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: sit in that dark place, but for the first time
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: being willing to confront it and to just acknowledge that
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: it's there, not against me, it's actually there for me.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mum
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: and dad.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Well, last week was fun. I had Kate me joining
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: me and we walked through a whole lot of really
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: great conversations. But it's different today because my name is
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: doctor Justin Coulson. I'm here with my wife again. Kylie
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: is back. Hello, Kylie, I'm back, everybody, I'm back breathing
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: Aside for RELI, I mean, it was great spending time
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: with Kate. I don't want to downplay the great work
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: that Kate did with this, but there's something different when
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: I get to hang out with you.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Oh you're too calm.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty excited. So we are back. The Happy Families
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Podcast is are we really?
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Are we really back?
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: What do you mean by that?
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Seriously? All the changes that have happened with kids going
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: back to school?
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I was well, somewhere in Queensland kids are
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: supposed to be back at school today. This is the
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: never ending holiday because they've got another couple of weeks.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Is like, oh, come on.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: I know that parents love their kids, but you get
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: to a point when school holidays have just gone on
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: for long.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Enough, you know, I think more than anything, it's the uncertainty.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Our kids feel it as well. Yes, it's like we're
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: supposed to be back at school now we're not.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: It just drags on and everybody feels not so good
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: for it.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: I read a quote the other day from Winston Churchill.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: I'm going to paraphrase. I can't remember if I've got
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: it exactly right, but Churchill said, and it made me
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: think of the school holidays and the fact that they're
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: still going.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: And it made me think of COVID and.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: The fact that it's twenty twenty two and it's still happening.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: In fact, I saw a funny meme it said, think
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: about it, twenty twenty two actually is twenty twenty two
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: All I'm doing twenty twenty all over again because it's
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: still here. But this Churchill quote that made me think
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: of COVID and the kids in school, holidays, and it's
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: this sort of thing he says, when you're going through hell,
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: keep going. I don't want to say that about what's
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: going on, but I'm kind of a.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Bit over it.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: And everybody that I talk to, Like last year, we
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: were talking about this thing called COVID fatigue, but now
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: everyone is just well, I don't know if you've had.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: The stages of grief, is there not?
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, moving through the next stage.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Can we just get on with our lives?
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: Can we put and not being political, but many many
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: conversations that I'm hearing people say is can the government
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: just leave us alone and make up our own mind?
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Now?
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: Like, depending on where you sit on the fence, there
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: are some people who are saying, thank goodness, the government's
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: protected us, and there are other people who are saying
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: not the government's job to protect us. Government's job is
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: to put structures in place for.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Us and then we get to choose.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: And more people than not seem to be now saying, oh,
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: I just want to make up my own mind.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting And when when the pandemic first hit,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: there were conversations around do you know anyone do you
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: know anyone who said COVID. Yeah, yeah, and now just
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: about every person week you had it, and not only
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: have they had it, they've had a mild coal right. Yes,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: you know, the symptoms are so manageable, and yet our
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: medical teams are just being worked to the bone to
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: have tests done for mild symptoms.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: And to be fair, not everybody's having mild symptoms. There
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: are still people who are dying from.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: But if I've got the flu and I've got a
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: sniffle and a cough and a sore throat, I stay
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: home and I take care of myself, right the doctor.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: We didn't used to call it going into isolation either,
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: We just like am had a couple of days off.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: But now if I.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Have the flu and I've got heart palpitations and I'm
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: struggling to breathe, yes, then I seek medical attention quickly.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I reckon. There's a couple of things
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: that we can do to help make this better. First off,
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: I think we just need to keep it in perspective,
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: like what we are going through is absolutely bizarre. I've
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: been a life for nearly five decades. Never in my
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: life have I seen stuff I can't believe. I just
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: never seen life like.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: This, like what is this? This is okay?
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: And for our kids, this is really hard for them
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: as well, and as parents, I feel like we need
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: to really provide leadership on this and be there for
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: them and let them know that this year, especially kicking
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: off the year, whether you're a school teacher or a parent,
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: or a student, a child, whatever, that you should expect
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: some level of distress because like there are people. In fact,
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: we probably need to talk about something that you've been
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: through after the break, we'll talk about your last few months,
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: because they've been pretty rough.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: And we kind of set ourselves up and we think if.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: I do all of the well being practice, if I
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: do all of the wellness practice, my life is going
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: to be fine and I'm going to be happy because
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: I'm going to be meditating or reading or well.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: I think it goes a little bit deeper than that.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I actually think that what we often fall into the
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: trap of believing is that if I'm doing all the
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: right things in my life, then.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Life should should be rainbows and unicorns.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Rains and unicorns.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, let's not talk heaps about COVID. Let's actually
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: talk about life and just acknowledge that things are pretty
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: bizarre right now.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I'm up with that, okay, or I'm down with that.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: We are out down and that's what it's been lately.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: So after the break, we're going to talk about some
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: big news about the podcast. We're going to also talk
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: about some big news about our family, and we're going
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: to talk about why we had the worst Christmas ever.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast.
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: Our Screens Creating Tension at Home betweens, teens and Screens
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: is a webinar to guide families to healthy, safe superscreen solutions.
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: Bye today at happy families dot com dot are you
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: slash shop?
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast, the podcast for the time
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: poor parent who just wants answers now and you've just
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: put your foot on it. Yep.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: It's Justin and Kylie with you for this conversation. Some
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: good news, some bad news, and some other news as well.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: Let's start off with the good news. The podcast last
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: year had one point nine to five million downloads.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I can't believe we didn't make two. I know, I know,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: so close, but how amazing one point nine five million
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: download Thank you for allowing us to be in your life.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: I just just I feel like this should be confetti
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: and you know, balloon down from the ceiling right now.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: So excited.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: So this year I reckon two and a half okay,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: maybe three?
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Are you putting it on loop?
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: It's what you're doing? My phot on silent and just
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: keep playing the podcast on feet.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: I think though, that you you're going to have to
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: lift your game missus happy families.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, me, well maybe me too.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: So that means you need to let me talk more.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, you got me there. So that was the first
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: bit of news that I want to share.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: The second bit of news we're going to talk more
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: about this on Friday, is we've made a decision across
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: the summer that we're going to move house. We're going
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: to relocate. We're out of Brisbane, we're moving to the coast.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: It's time for a sea change.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: And you know, COVID has been a pretty significant catalyst
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: to that decision. But we're going to share that a
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: bit more with you on Friday.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: So much want to dive into the story right now
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: because there's so much to it, but we'll save that
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: for Friday for I'll do better tomorrow.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Let's just say if things sound a bit crazy on
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: the podcast over the next few weeks. You'll understand we're
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: packing boxes, we're unpacking boxes, we're living.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: In separate houses.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: We don't even know where we're going to end up.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: We literally haven't chosen a suburb or a school.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: But we're doing life.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Helen Keller says, life is a daring adventure or it
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: is nothing.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, you've channeled that our whole married life. We're taking
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: it to the instigree this time.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: All right now, the last thing we need to talk
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: about is why we had the worst Christmas ever. I
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: teased it before the break, and we need to talk
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: about this because so often, and this is I think
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: I think it's really important that we talk about it
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: because we're justin Kylie Coulson, I run Happy Families dot
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: com dot au. We're talking about how you can make
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: your families thrive and flourish, and how you can make
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: your relations and ship's perfect and wonderful. And we talked
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: about before about rainbows and unicorns, but life isn't always
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: like that for us or for anybody. We've kind of
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: had that conversation in the first half of the podcast
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: today and over the summer. In fact, just before summer,
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: something started to change for you, and for people who
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: were listening closely to the podcast, they might have heard
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: that your energy was not where it used to be.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: And I kind of had to drag your kicking and
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: screaming into the studio so we could record podcasts, and
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: you had to breathe deep and really push through. And
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: it wasn't because the podcast was getting you down.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: It was life.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: It's interesting you get to a certain point, I think,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: or at least I have, where you recognize that maybe
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: the way you are responding to the people you love
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: is not the way you want to, or situations that
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: arise around you seem to really just get a rise
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: out of you that normally wouldn't. And I'd got to
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: that point where I just kind of was like, what
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: is going on on? Why do I respond like this?
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Why do I treat the people I love like this?
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Why do I feel in spite of the fact that
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: I am doing all of the things that I would
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: normally do to keep myself upbeat and happy, Why do
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I actually feel like I am literally the lifeblood is
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: being drained out of me.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: So I'm always talking about how the best in me
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: needs to speak to the best in you. But what
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: you were basically experiencing is that you could not find
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: any best in you, and you definitely couldn't find any
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: best in anyone else either.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so for me it's always been when I
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: get into those harder, challenging places, it's look outside yourself
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: because there's always someone else who's having a harder time,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: always someone else struggling. And service has been a way
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: that has lifted me and you know, just kind of
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: helped me to put perspective around everything that's going on.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: But the more I served, the more drained I felt,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the more empty I became. And then I resented having
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: to do it, and I resented the kids needing me,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: entered you wanting help, and he.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Resented me wanting to record a podcast with you.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: It's really important to help other people and to run
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: our business and do what we do.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: And so, for the first time I think in probably
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: my whole life, I sat back and went, you know what,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: I don't like this. I don't like how I'm feeling,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: I don't like how I'm responding. I need to understand
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: this a bit more. And so I took a week away.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: We had that conversation last year, and that actually was
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: the start of a pretty big unravel for me.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: You came back and I was like, hang on, You've
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: just gone and had a week away. You're supposed to
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: come back refreshed, energized, happy, healthy, and you come back.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: And you're more miserable than ever.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: And we went through I would say two or three
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: of the hardest months of our lives we.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Have, and through that process that you didn't even want
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: to put the Christmas tree up, No, I didn't.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: You didn't want to have Christmas lunch, there was no
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: family coming over. You set boundaries and said don't want
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: to see anyone. And it was a really I'm going
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: to say dat couple of months.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it really was. And so grateful that, in
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: spite of how dark it was, that there were a
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: few key people in my life who helped me to
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: recognize that, even though it felt like I was literally
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: drowning in this dark space, that if I would be
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: patient and I would just sit in that darkness and
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: be willing to see whatever came out and acknowledge it,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: that I'd actually have the capacity to work through it.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: And so that's what I did.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: And there's an old saying that sometimes you have to
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: have a breakdown to have a breakthrough.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I feel like that's exactly what's happened. I
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: feel like I needed to go through that, I needed
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: to sit in that place because the one thing that
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: had led me to this was that I had this
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: sense of complete emotional overwhelm all the time, and as
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: a result, I pretty much only felt two or three emotions.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: I was happy, I was sad, or I was angry, oh.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, or your physical exhaustion is not an emotion, I guess,
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: but I was going to most of the time, you're
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: exhausted while you're having any of those three as well,
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: I'm not trying all of that.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: And so starting life coaching and recognizing that there's more
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: than three emotions in the human experience and being able
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: to articulate what the emotion was that I was feeling
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: in any given moment and expand it and understand that
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: if something happens, a circumstance takes place, I'll have a
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: thought which creates an emotion. Ye, what's the thought that's
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: creating the emotion I'm feeling right now. And as I
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: was able to work through that, then I started to
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: understand a bit more, and then a few beautiful aha
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: moments where it was just like that, I do X,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Y and Z because of this belief system. This belief
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: system is not even mine. It's been sitting in my.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I inherited this from my parents.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: It's been sitting there my whole life, and it's been
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: allowed to be on autopilot and I've never recognized or understood,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: and now I do. It's like it literally, when I
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: had those aha moments, it was like standing in the
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: middle of a football stadium in the pitch black and
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: those floodlights go on, and all of a sudden, it
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: was like, Oh, that's why I do what I do.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: I just I can't help thinking, Kylie, that there will
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: be so many people who are listening to what you're sharing,
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: even though you're mainly talking fairly abstractly about it and
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: tapping into and saying yeah, I've.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Been there or I'm there right now, And.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: There are probably some people who are going, wow, you
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: only had it for what three months, two months, and
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: I'm in my third or fourth year or third or
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: fourth decade. But I think that's really important, really brave
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: of you that you shared it. So I'm really glad
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: that you did that.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Thanks.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: You know. One of the biggest lessons I learned out
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: of all of this, and I recognize that this will
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: be an ongoing pursuit of mine through life, but the acknowledgment,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: for the very first time in my life, I'm not
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: afraid of the dark anymore. It's been hard to sit
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: in that dark place, but for the first time being
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: willing to confront it and to just acknowledge that it's
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: they're not against me, it's actually there for me. And
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: if I'll be open to seeing what the darkness has
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: to show me, it actually gave me a light.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: The Happy Families podcast continues tomorrow. We're going to talk
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: about Oh no, we're not COVID, well not really, we're
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: going to do We're going to talk about kids.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: And needles.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Because I can't make any promises, No you can't.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, We're going to be talking about not COVID,
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: but kids and needles because there's going to be a
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: whole lot of children who are, if they haven't already,
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: being expected to line up and have their first shot
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: between the age of five and twelve. How do we
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: get that done later in the week is well, we're
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: going to talk about how to make your morning's magic
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: and a whole lot more on The Happy Family's podcast,
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: which is produced as always by the fabulous Justin Rulan
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: from Bridge Media, with Craig Bruce as our executive producer.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: If you'd like more info about making your family happier,
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: by the way, you can get every thing you needed
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: happy families dot com.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Dorie you
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Mm hmm