Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / The Science of Chronic Stress, Grief & Burnout (and how to fix it!) - with Lisa Walker

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The Science of Chronic Stress, Grief & Burnout (and how to fix it!) - with Lisa Walker · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

0:00
Lisa.
0:01
Hi.
0:01
Hi.
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Welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast.
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Thank you for having me.
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I'm
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excited to be talking to you today.
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Yeah, I feel like it's been a while, like it's been
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coming for a while.
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Yeah, I can't believe we're actually meeting for the first time
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in person when it feels like I already know you.
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Yeah, lots of conversations on screen.
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Lots of conversations, yeah.
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The best.
0:21
Yeah.
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We are having a conversation about grief and
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stress, chronic stress, nervous dysregulation or nervous system regulation, I guess you could also
0:31
say, through the lens of your own personal story and the journey that you've been on,
0:37
but also through that scientific lens now that you've gone on to study the science behind
0:43
stress and nervous system dysregulation and psychology and all these types of things in women.
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All the fun stuff.
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All the fun stuff.
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All the fun stuff that we need to know.
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I sound like a barrel of laughs right now.
0:54
I mean, we're laughing.
0:55
We're fine.
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We're fine.
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Yeah.
0:58
How do you like to introduce yourself?
0:59
What's your like one-liner these days?
1:01
My one-liner would be, hi, I'm Lisa and I exist
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to help people feel more alive in this world.
1:12
Oh, that's beautiful.
1:13
Yeah.
1:14
Why is that the answer?
1:16
I think that's kind of, it's a culmination of everything that I've been doing in the last
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four years and obviously the business as well with AIR, but also like you mentioned, all of my
1:26
personal, um, or the grief and everything, the story of the last four years.
1:32
And it's really
1:33
how I see people and see how I live my life.
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And, um, if I can encourage other people to live,
1:41
you know, be more alive, then that's what I want to do.
1:45
What would that answer have been 10 years ago?
1:49
10 years ago holy moly I would have been you know a mom with young kids and I was probably
2:00
surviving each day and that's that's definitely not what I want to be now
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do you think that's normal for women who are raising young children yeah definitely and
2:11
professional lives and managing family relationships, the gym, the supplements.
2:17
Yeah.
2:17
Well, if you think I'm 52 now, so 42, I had a four, five-year-old and a three-year-old.
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I was working full time, you know, just running from one thing to the next.
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I had,
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we just started a media company as well.
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So we were going through a startup process
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with that company and all of the other challenges that we had
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with my husband at the time.
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And so it was, you know, and I thought I was coping.
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I was teaching yoga on the side.
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You were like, tick, I go to yoga.
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Exactly.
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And, you know, and I know what I'm doing.
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Yes, but it was survival mode and that's where so many women get to,
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particularly now that we're having kids later.
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and, you know, we're trying to, I always said,
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we were the first generation that were told you can do everything.
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You know, have the career, have the family, have the amazing house.
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And what I've learned is you can't have everything
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and survive it at the same time because something will give.
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So it's you can have everything with an asterisk caveat,
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meaning you cannot have everything.
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Either not all at once or not very well or your system will crash at some point.
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Got it.
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Which is why you have a lot of women in their mid-40s suffering from burnout as well.
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I mean, I'm not in my 40s yet and I reckon I've had a decade of chronic on and off burnout.
3:53
Yeah.
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And then there's a lot going on.
3:56
There's a lot going on.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So for agenda for today, I would like to kind of go through into your story and that kind
4:04
of background piece and then go into the scientific lens of what's actually happening inside our body
4:10
and kind of ask all the dumb questions that are on my mind.
4:13
Yeah.
4:13
And then kind of move into the
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practical state of what we can actually do.
4:17
What are the scientific based rituals, tools, protocols,
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practical things from your own experience or even, you know, since having that experience now,
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what the new research shows and new things that are emerging.
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Yeah.
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But first I want to ask you, if anyone's listening today
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who is kind of suffering from anything to do with the realm
4:38
of chronic stress or burnout or grief or trauma,
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someone who is feeling like their insides are a bit frazzled,
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what is the one thing you want them to walk away with
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by the end of this conversation?
4:52
I think the very first thing is to understand that you're not alone and that there are ways that you can help heal yourself.
5:07
But there is not one fix it that is the same for every person.
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And it's not always easy.
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And it's not always easy, but it's not always hard either.
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And it's not a big thing.
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There can be many multiple small changes that you can make to your life that all add up in the long run.
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Yeah.
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It's like it's an easy thing, but actually staying consistent and disciplined is hard.
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Yeah, definitely.
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But I also believe that well-being literacy is the number one.
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So understanding what's going on can be enough for most people to actually identify it.
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Because a lot of people don't.
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They're just spinning around, little tazzy devils spinning around and not knowing how
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to stop or why they're spinning.
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And that's the number one thing to do.
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Yeah, I think that's an interesting point because I even feel like for me in the journey
6:03
of understanding myself better and understanding my brain better, I've pretty much lived my
6:07
whole life just thinking that, you know, that's just the way things are or that's just normal.
6:11
And then you kind of learn or pick up some kind of insight from someone else or something
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you see online and you're like, wait a minute.
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and that kind of yeah the literacy around it is such a critical piece to understanding who you
6:24
are and why you are the way that you are yeah and it's like anything the more knowledge you have
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the more power you have you are a beautiful writer you've spoken publicly about your story
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and I've read the written word and we've definitely talked about you know your story
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online when we've been chatting and things like that but this is probably a deeper conversation
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that we're kind of going into that I don't know all the details around and how you coped and,
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and kind of that side of it.
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Do you want to take us back to kind of life before your husband died?
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And, you know, when you were kind of thinking you were fine, but you were actually like
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going around and doing all these things and being super busy.
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Yeah.
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Kind of take us on the journey
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of the story from there.
7:08
Um, oh gosh, I don't know where to start with that one.
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Um, I think
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It's a big one.
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It is a big question and it's multi-layered and there's not a simple answer.
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I truly believe that not even just as women, part of it is who I am,
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part of it is being a female and part of everything is the show must go on.
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And part of what we do is we just get on with it.
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And so it doesn't matter what's going on in the background
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and what's going on around you.
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Your number one in my case was always my kids.
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And I will say that nobody I worked with or most of my friends didn't realize what was
7:54
going on, would never have noticed that there were any problems in my private life.
8:02
And, you know, yes, I have spoken about it.
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And my husband was a lovely man, very well loved in the media world, in the community.
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he would have done anything for anybody.
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But unfortunately, he had a problem.
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And part of
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his own issues were around his own regulation of stress.
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And, you know, the more I've gone down
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this path, the more I've understood it and understanding that he didn't have the tools he
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needed.
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And his way of dealing with stress and I guess the business and everything else that was
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going on around him was to find a way to numb feelings, not the pain, but numb the stress.
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And, you know, it's a little bit of an easy way out.
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And these things, you know, for him,
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it was alcohol and that became, it's an addiction.
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And when you're already predisposed to that,
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then, you know, it's a really easy way to get through each day.
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And, you know, he wasn't the
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kind of guy who got up every morning and started drinking.
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But, you know, by the end he would come
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home and it would be the first thing that he did.
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And it was a problem for our family.
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And,
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you know, ultimately that was his health that suffered.
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But like I mentioned, no one that
9:24
he really worked with, no one that I worked with, no one would have really known what was going on
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at home.
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Yeah.
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So there's kind of the, there's a piece of grief that comes after, but actually
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in the lead up and before there's a different kind of, I guess grief is the wrong word,
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but there's some kind of emotional kind of dysregulation happening at this point in your
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life already.
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Yeah.
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And grief is the right word.
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And in fact, it wasn't until a while after when
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I sat down with a therapist, psychologist, and she pointed out to me that, you know, everyone,
10:01
And I think I was going through quite a difficult stage after he passed.
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And the main reason for that was because I was much further down the path
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than everyone else around me.
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And she pointed out quite rightly, she said, you know,
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you've been grieving him for a long time.
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Everyone else is just starting now.
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So they don't understand that your process is different
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and, you know, grief isn't linear.
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There's no, you know, one day I'll feel this and the next day you go, you know, it's all over the place.
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But I'd already been through all of it.
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And so, you know, I'd already lost the man that I fell in love with and married and had kids with.
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And it was just a little bit more challenging for other people to see that.
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and also I can imagine managing grief of the external people in your life but also then grief
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in the household and grief with your with your children and managing how they kind of are you're
11:00
trying to manage the toolkit how you need to cope but then a toolkit for children yeah and they were
11:08
always kids first and kids my boys you know they're smart boys and kids know what's going on
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you know, they saw it.
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They, you know, they loved their dad, but they also could see that things
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weren't, you know, necessarily right.
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And one thing I picked up really quickly was that as long
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as I was okay, they were okay, you know.
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And I guess the other part with grief, because you
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spoke about it, is usually when we're grieving, it's not always the person you're grieving,
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the life you thought you were going to have.
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And that happens in many different situations.
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It's
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not just the loss of a person.
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It can be loss of a job, a marriage, any type of those traumas.
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The grief you're going through can be much more to do with grieving the life you had envisaged
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because that's what's disappeared.
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And you've got to really reassess everything that's going on.
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I was listening to a podcast, I think it was on Huberman Lab, and one of the doctors was talking about how when you're trying to process grief, there's kind of an exercise where you have to sit and feel the emotions and this kind of thing, which as an ADHD brain, I'm like, what does that actually mean?
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How are you sitting and feeling the emotion?
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Explain it to me.
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But he was talking about how, and it's very difficult to do, you have to kind of practice and build the muscle of moving away from counterfactual thinking.
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Because when you are envisioning the future, that isn't fact and it's not your episodic memory of things that have happened in the past.
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It's that forward thinking.
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And I'd never actually heard that before.
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And I was like, oh, yeah, it's kind of stopping that loop thinking, which is difficult when you're thinking about the future life that you would have had or the lives of your children and their dad and that kind of thing.
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And for you, I mean, did you do that process?
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Did you go through that as a practice?
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Well, that's where I really believe that the yoga practice that I had really helped because
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I was quite comfortable to sit and meditate and feel my feelings.
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And one thing that you can do within meditation is understand where the emotions are hitting
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you.
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How do you feel them in your body?
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Where are they coming out?
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You know, for me, it was this heaviness and feeling like my solar plexus was going to
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explode.
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But for somebody else, that can feel quite different.
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And it's not necessarily tears or anger.
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And it's really identifying how that can be in each person
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and understanding in yourself as well.
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So I could sit there and say, you know, I'm really feeling this.
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And I would allow myself to cry or feel anger.
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And I had a lot of anger.
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Anger was probably the biggest emotion that I had.
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And that took a long time.
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And is that part of the kind of, you know, when you speak to experts or since doing the kind of research into scientific, you know, the science behind it yourself, is that standard?
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Is that common?
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Is that part of the grief process?
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Anger can be a big part because, you know, I was angry at him.
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I was angry that he didn't change the way that he could have
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and that I was angry that my kids, my boys don't have a dad anymore
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and that there was so much on me now and there was a lot to be angry about.
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But then they're my feelings.
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They're not other people's feelings.
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And I have to acknowledge that those feelings exist
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but learn to let go of them as well.
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And that can be the hardest thing to do for anybody.
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Yeah.
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to just accept and let go and forgive.
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It's also forgiveness.
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Yeah.
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Even when you're talking and you're saying, you know, you were doing the yoga practice and
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you were feeling in your body, I still don't really understand what that means.
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Because
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let's say I've gone through, you know, a traumatic experience or some kind of awful thing,
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even if it's just to do with stress or burnout or a breakup or, you know, those kind of that level.
15:20
Yeah.
15:22
I struggle to understand how I'm recognizing feelings in like the sensation in my body.
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I
15:29
don't know if it's because I feel more like numb to things or ADHD, busy brain.
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I'm not good with
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the neural signals or something.
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I don't know what it is, but I struggle with that.
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And I even
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remember when I was at Techstars, we had this amazing coach kind of doing this, I guess, like
15:44
a guided, shut your eyes, kind of think about things.
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And I was like in the process trying to
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do it and I was like but can you give me examples of the kinds of things that people say so I can
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understand and try to identify because I have no idea where to go with this like I don't know what
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to even identify kind of thing and so I'm a bit like how how do you how do you figure it out
16:05
it's a really good question because everyone is my broken no of course not but sitting in stillness
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might not be the best thing for you so for you and you know for a busy brand there's one way
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People forget that yoga exists to prepare for meditation.
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And that's where yoga started.
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It's to get that movement and get that nervous energy out of your body
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so that you can sit in stillness.
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And so not everyone can do that.
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So for someone, for you, it might be better off to do a walking meditation.
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Or meditation in motion.
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Love that.
16:38
Absolutely.
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Or just walk on the beach in bare feet and feel the grounding under your feet.
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or breath work, which again is so transformational.
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But everyone's different and is finding what's good for you.
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And that's where I think right now in society everyone's talking,
16:59
just go meditate, go sit and, you know, find that stillness.
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And stillness can be counterproductive for many people, you know.
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And from a clinical perspective, a psychologist would never say
17:11
to every single person, you need to meditate because it might not work for you.
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And it can,
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if you're not great at sitting in stillness, then you need to find what works for you.
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But as far as feeling your emotions, it's, again, you might feel it, you might get a stomachache.
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You know, kids often will get a stomachache when they're feeling stressed or anxiety.
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So it's where you feel it in your body and your body might send it anywhere.
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Yeah.
17:40
But, I mean, I'm not a doctor or a psychologist, but, you know,
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there are, it's really understanding that no one's the same.
17:47
Yeah.
17:48
And what works for me might not work for you.
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That's interesting.
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Maybe I get stomach aches.
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Yeah.
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Maybe I actually do get stomach aches.
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Little kids often will get a stomach ache or throw up in the morning
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if they have anxiety.
18:02
Yeah.
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And that is, you know, it's often a signal for parents.
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This is a good segue into kind of, you know, what's actually happening in the body scientifically.
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And this is where I want to ask you all sort of silly questions.
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Okay.
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You know the answers.
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I don't know if I will.
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When we're thinking about, you know, grief and emotions in general, and then we're thinking
18:24
about stress in like this category and emotions over here, and then we've got nervous system
18:29
over here.
18:30
Can you try and give me like a very simple breakdown of how these are all kind of, all
18:35
these buckets are interacting with each other like in the body like what is the system at play here
18:40
from like brain and mind and thought and soul to like where stress and anxiety and like neuro yeah
18:50
the neuro kind of like how does it all fit together like and I know it sounds like a dumb
18:55
question but I'm kind of like how do we unpack like what is actually physiologically happening
18:59
between like your brain and your body in these moments of crazy emotions and grief and stress?
19:06
Well, I'm not a neuroscientist, but everything is connected.
19:11
So, you know, we know now that our gut
19:14
affects our brain, our brain affects our nervous system.
19:17
So one of my biggest pet peeves is when
19:20
you sit in a yoga class or meditation class and say, let's work on the body-mind connection.
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Well,
19:25
they're already connected.
19:28
So once you're stressed, you've got all different hormones
19:33
running around in your body.
19:33
You've got cortisol, everyone's biggest topic of the moment.
19:39
But chronic stress, which is ongoing, relentless stress without recovery,
19:47
is causing wear and tear on your body.
19:51
And that's called the allostatic load.
19:54
and it's true when you hear from people who say I've aged 10 years in the last 12 months
20:01
and that is true because our aesthetic load is aging us so the next big frontier is always
20:08
is going to be how do we help reduce stress but more importantly how do we build in recovery into
20:17
our bodies and how do we build stress resilience and capacity in our bodies?
20:23
Because the more
20:24
capacity you've got in your body for stress, the more you can come down from it, you can recover
20:31
and be healthier because stress affects every system in your body.
20:36
So you've got heart disease,
20:38
um you know cholesterol you've got sleep stress affects all parts of your body
20:46
and is accelerating our aging so is the way that it kind of like works you have an emotion
20:53
i.e grief i.e anger this triggers the stress response in the body between gut and the brain
21:00
and then that causes your overall nervous system to be defiled yeah so where so you
21:07
it comes down to fight or flight.
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So, you know, if you're in chronic stress,
21:12
then you're in a chronic state of fight, flight, fawn.
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And what's happening if it's chronic stress
21:20
that's not coming from, you know, like sometimes I'll feel, I have that feeling of chronic stress
21:26
or chronic anxiety, but I'm trying to pinpoint what is the actual reason why I'm feeling that?
21:32
Like, where's that coming from?
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And I can't even think of something.
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I'm like, there's nothing
21:35
there.
21:35
I'm just feeling that.
21:37
Yeah, because our body just gets so used to being in that state and
21:40
it may take a little trigger.
21:43
It might be an extra coffee that day can then just send your body
21:48
spiraling again.
21:50
So, and because your body's doing the right thing, a body is designed to
21:55
have stress.
21:56
Stress is good for you.
21:57
And it moves us forward.
21:59
It's what has kept us alive
22:02
and has got us to this point in humanity.
22:05
Where we need to focus though is on that recovery piece.
22:10
And the biggest superpower you have is recovery from your everyday stress.
22:17
And chronic stress is when it's everyday stress or stress at high load
22:23
for a long time without any recovery.
22:26
And is that when it kind of enters this like dysregulation
22:29
because you're just out of whack?
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it's like just that permanent kind of, it's almost like your brain and your body just
22:37
can't get to the recovery or can't switch back to regular, even though there's nothing,
22:41
like there's no threat to you in that moment kind of thing.
22:44
Yeah.
22:44
So, and at some point your body will stop.
22:46
Your body will force you to stop.
22:48
And that's what
22:49
burnout is.
22:50
Burnout is when you get to that point where your body is, I've had enough and it shuts
22:55
down.
22:55
Your body will literally shut down.
22:57
So we don't want that to happen.
23:01
We don't like it when that happens.
23:02
We don't like that.
23:03
It's not the nicest feeling.
23:05
So when we talk about like emotional dysregulation and nervous system dysregulation,
23:09
this is still where I'm like not super clear on like what's the difference?
23:13
Is emotional more
23:13
like your mind and your thoughts and nervous system is like the physiological side of it?
23:18
So there's...
23:20
Because I'm like, am I emotionally dysregulated or am I, my nervous system is dysregulated?
23:25
Like I don't know how to enter it.
23:26
Okay.
23:27
So they can be the same thing.
23:28
So if your nervous system is dysregulated, then your emotions will be dysregulated.
23:34
Oh.
23:35
So that's how it works.
23:37
Right.
23:38
So it's like my nervous system is fried.
23:40
I'm frazzled.
23:41
I'm chronically tired or burnt out or whatever, or that's the feeling that someone has.
23:45
and then that also can cause your emotions to be like,
23:49
I'm angry even though I don't know why.
23:51
Yeah.
23:52
Got it.
23:53
And does then when we add in to the layer hormones,
23:56
does that also just add another spanner in the works
23:58
when we're thinking about the differences between men and women?
24:01
Absolutely.
24:02
So then the next layer that you have for women,
24:06
particularly in perimenopause, is you've got progesterone
24:09
slowly coming down, which is our calmness.
24:12
You know, progesterone is what, you know, because that's when you say, for instance,
24:17
PMS every month, if you're going through a monthly cycle, you feel that anxiety and the
24:24
anger and that's progesterone dropping.
24:26
Is that also that feeling of like, oh my God, the world is ending.
24:29
I need to like shut my business down.
24:31
Like I'm done.
24:32
Do you have that every month?
24:33
I have it often.
24:35
But at the same time, you've got your estrogen, which is up and down.
24:40
so but those sex hormones help affect every other hormone so there's cortisol which again is the one
24:48
everyone's talking about so progesterone helps counteract your cortisol and so at the moment
24:55
once you've got women hitting their 40s so their sex hormones going up and down and their cortisol
25:02
is slowly going up because it's harder to manage and then that's affecting every other system in
25:07
your body.
25:08
So, and that is why you've got women who are having more heart attacks in their forties.
25:14
They're, you know, and it's the biggest killer of women in that age group is usually heart issues.
25:22
Wow.
25:23
Yeah.
25:23
It's all fun.
25:25
God, it's, there's a lot to like, there's a lot to know.
25:28
And I also get
25:29
stuck in that trap of like, okay, well, I want to know all the things and I want to understand,
25:33
But then you're kind of like, okay, well, then there's just so many things in different directions that we're needing to be taking care of when it comes to our health and our wellness and our mental health.
25:44
And then you kind of get lost in a bit of a vortex of like, okay, so where do I start?
25:48
Like what's the way to like zone out and understand how to access the toolkits that are like helpful for where you are right now?
25:58
Yeah.
25:59
Yeah, and that's not to say that men aren't struggling in that age group as well
26:02
because there's more to hormones in midlife for men and women
26:08
because it is, it's families, it's jobs, it's old ageing parents,
26:14
it's younger kids.
26:15
We've got kids everywhere, any age from young toddlers
26:20
to grown-ups still living at home in all of my friendship groups.
26:24
I've got friends that are grandparents and I've got friends
26:26
that have got three-year-olds because, you know,
26:30
we have kids at all different ages now.
26:32
So you've got so much happening and the world
26:35
and the medical system is still very focused on hormones
26:39
and there's so much more to perimenopause and menopause
26:42
than hormones.
26:43
And what we need to understand more is how do you actually flourish
26:48
through that time of life?
26:50
And that's one thing that we talk about at AIR and, you know,
26:53
obviously we're a supplement company, but we want to help women find more joy in this time of life
27:00
because everyone is fear mongering.
27:03
It's all hormones and fear and the world's going to end,
27:09
but it's not.
27:10
It's an amazing time of life.
27:11
It's a time that we rebuild who we are,
27:14
where we're growing through a different phase of life.
27:17
And, you know, that's something that
27:19
should be celebrated as well.
27:21
So I think there's so many amazing things with this time of life that
27:26
we should be focused on.
27:28
What's been the best decade so far?
27:32
Well, actually, that's a silly
27:33
question.
27:34
There's probably not a great decade there.
27:37
No, I think this one is shaping up to be
27:40
amazing.
27:40
I think once you hit, actually, I've got to stop saying I think.
27:44
I know that this age,
27:48
I know so much more about myself.
27:50
I can understand other people better.
27:52
I have more
27:57
ability to do what I want.
28:02
Less, as I always say, less F's given to other people because you become
28:07
a little bit more sure of yourself.
28:09
You've lived through a lot.
28:10
You can't get to 50 and not have
28:15
lived, had some type of grief or trauma or, you know, a multitude of different things.
28:22
You've
28:22
lived life.
28:24
I loved, I love my twenties.
28:26
My twenties were travel.
28:28
You know, I backpacked,
28:29
lived overseas.
28:31
You know, I was finding myself.
28:32
I had a great time.
28:34
My thirties were definitely
28:35
revolving around work and, you know, cementing myself.
28:41
My 40s were pretty much a schmozzle of, you know, survival.
28:49
40s were survival.
28:50
But amazing things came out of my 40s.
28:53
But 50s now, I'm super excited about.
28:59
You know, it's a fun time.
29:01
Stop being scared about growing older.
29:03
It's amazing.
29:04
Growing older is awesome.
29:06
And I truly wake up and think every morning I wake up is a gift.
29:10
And more people should feel like that as well.
29:15
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30:00
What do you think the kind of myths or misconceptions about entering perimenopause and menopause that exist kind of like the old way of thinking versus what the new research and science shows?
30:14
I think the biggest one is a mental shift because we've always – you grow up thinking that perimenopause and menopause is old.
30:24
So you've got to come to terms with –
30:27
That's so true.
30:28
When I was little, menopause was like a big deal.
30:30
It's like, oh, my God.
30:32
And we're not like that.
30:35
Even you see people on TV now, we're not portrayed the way it used
30:39
to be when I was in my 20s.
30:41
You know, it's fun and, you know, we've just got to embrace being
30:48
the amazing women full of joy and life that we are.
30:53
So we're not packing things up.
30:55
So the biggest one is mortality and ageing has been, you know,
31:00
a big one for perimenopause.
31:04
But the good thing is that people are talking about it now.
31:08
So people weren't talking about it 15, 20 years ago.
31:11
And you've got an influx of Gen Y hitting perimenopause now
31:16
and they've lived half their life on social media.
31:19
They've talked through marriage and fertility and kids
31:23
and they've lived that.
31:24
And now they're coming into perimenopause.
31:27
They're talking about that too.
31:28
And that is brilliant.
31:31
It's joyful.
31:32
It's amazing because no one's going to put up with shit anymore.
31:38
It's, you know, we want to find solutions.
31:39
We want to live life.
31:41
We want to have the knowledge and, you know, again,
31:48
it comes back to knowledge, having that.
31:49
Absolutely, yeah.
31:50
We have access to the toolkits before we even know that, like,
31:56
that's the toolkit we might need.
31:57
But there's more discussion and dialogue around all these different elements
32:02
and aspects of the journey of life or, I guess,
32:05
the experience of human behaviour and what happens.
32:08
And sharing.
32:09
Community is the biggest part of flourishing in life.
32:14
So sharing everything that's going on and understanding
32:18
and having that feeling that you're in a community with other people
32:23
is an absolute blessing.
32:27
What do you think for you when going back to kind of grief
32:32
and how you were processing grief in the early months following,
32:37
what were the key things including community like that made a difference
32:41
for you or how people showed up for you during that time?
32:49
hmm I feel that I was more just taking control and that's who I am I'm not saying that's the
32:59
best way to cope with things but my natural instinct in any kind of situation is just take
33:08
control and move through it and that's what I did and it's not necessarily the best thing so I don't
33:14
know that I had a community that was really strong.
33:17
I had some really great people around me.
33:21
I mean, in the first 12 months, I moved house.
33:25
I moved to a new, well, we sold our company.
33:28
I
33:28
moved house.
33:29
I started a company.
33:30
I moved my boys to a new school.
33:31
Oh, wow.
33:32
Lots of change.
33:33
I did a lot.
33:34
And that was what I needed.
33:37
And the boys just had to go along with it.
33:41
but they see now why I did all of that.
33:43
And there was an element of me wanting to get away from
33:46
elements of the life we were living that were unhealthy.
33:50
And so I had to do that to move
33:51
forward.
33:51
That was the way I moved forward.
33:53
And again, everyone's different, but, you know,
33:57
I think the next one was after I moved, I did my year of yes, where I said,
34:05
I just thought I've lived in this darkness for a while and I was quite insular.
34:13
I just moved
34:14
and I felt closed down and I just set myself a little challenge of I'm going to say yes to
34:21
everything.
34:22
So what did you say yes to?
34:25
What are some out there examples?
34:27
That's when I started
34:28
pole dancing.
34:28
That was one of them.
34:29
Oh, okay.
34:30
Yeah.
34:31
So I did pole dancing.
34:32
I...
34:33
I'm pleased with the poll, Debra.
34:34
I didn't know that about you.
34:36
I feel like everyone knows that.
34:37
Not well.
34:38
Let's get one thing straight.
34:39
Not well.
34:40
I said yes to just little things.
34:42
Like my first one was walking down the street and saying hello
34:46
to everyone walking their dog.
34:47
I said yes to every coffee that was asked of me, you know,
34:51
at new school, new mums.
34:54
Yeah, I said yes to coffees.
34:56
Someone invited me to a ball, like dress up,
34:58
and I didn't know anyone.
34:59
And for me, you know, social anxiety, saying yes to some of these things weren't that easy.
35:06
I went on a few dates, which I never thought I would do.
35:12
And I bought a mini convertible.
35:15
Okay.
35:16
And I, everything, like all different things.
35:20
And that was probably that first, I don't know, I felt like I was rebelling against myself.
35:30
which was fun.
35:32
That is fun.
35:33
Yes, that was a year and it finished on my 50th birthday.
35:35
Okay.
35:36
And I had the biggest party for my 50th and it was at my new house and I had everyone that
35:43
I loved come, you know, who'd been on the journey for want of a better word and part of my life.
35:51
A
35:51
lot of people have been all through my life and we had this big come as your alter ego party and
35:57
And it was.
35:58
Come as your alter ego, Fadi.
36:00
I love that.
36:01
I was the absinthe fairy.
36:03
Okay, you were an absinthe fairy.
36:05
I was the absinthe fairy.
36:06
I don't know too much about the absinthe fairy.
36:08
She's fun.
36:09
She's fun.
36:10
People kept saying, oh, the tinkerbell.
36:12
I'm like, no, I'm meaner than tinkerbell.
36:16
Yeah, and a friend of mine paid for this eight-foot drag queen
36:21
to come and perform for us.
36:22
And it was crazy and fun and, you know, not something I ever thought I would do.
36:28
And that was my end of my year of yes.
36:30
And I think that's what set me on the path for all of this and the study.
36:36
That's where it started.
36:37
That was my next question.
36:39
Did that year of yes change, you know, ongoing?
36:42
Did that bring in kind of a ritual or behavior around really starting to think, you know,
36:47
not always saying yes to everything but being more open
36:50
to different things or pursuing things that instead
36:54
of it just being a little bit, oh, I wish I could do that,
36:57
or imagine if you were like, oh, I am going to do that.
36:59
Yeah, absolutely that changed my life because I started, you know,
37:04
I travelled, I took the boys to Canada, I've taken them to Kenya now,
37:08
we went to Lapland, and I'm so fortunate that I could do
37:12
that with them.
37:14
but you know a few years ago we might not have done any of that and so that was and that's again
37:23
when I started studying it was it all came about because of that year of yes it changed my whole
37:28
focus in life my view of looking at life and it kind of just escalated we got to the point where
37:37
I would have friends one friend sent me a message saying I think you should go and have a snail
37:43
facial and I said no to that and but people got to the point like my business partner Kate would
37:48
say I'm too scared to even suggest things now because I know that you'll do it and that I
37:54
would because then I had to put in a new rule that was yes sure I'll do it but you have to come with
37:59
me because you suggested it oh okay that's kind of fun though it got a bit got a bit out of control
38:05
yeah because I didn't tell anyone for the first six months it was purely a me thing personal thing
38:10
And then I started saying, oh, I've been doing this year of yes,
38:13
and they're like, what?
38:17
What?
38:17
Let's do stuff.
38:18
Yeah.
38:20
Is there any, like, you know, R-rated examples that you even said no to?
38:30
Oh, not that I said no to, no.
38:33
There was a few different things that I did, yeah.
38:37
Pushing the boundaries?
38:38
A little at times.
38:40
pushing my boundaries not everyone's other people's boundaries but probably mine yeah
38:44
do you think that people listening who maybe have gone through even if they're just going
38:50
through a bit of a low low season bit of a shitty time should they adopt the year of yes
38:56
I mentality well yes of course I would say that but you're gonna do what's right for you and it's
39:04
gonna it can be little thing I think it's like everything I mentioned it's it's not changing
39:09
your life in some big grand gesture of movement it's the it's all those little things that add up
39:17
to change and I think it's also the it kind of like reinforces within yourself that you can do
39:25
these different things and you can push your own boundaries or you can kind of put yourself out of
39:30
your comfort zone and see what's on the other side which is also kind of around we've spoken
39:35
about this before on the show, that notion of the cost of success is embarrassment.
39:41
You do need to
39:42
say yes or just try a little harder and be prepared to fail and be prepared to be embarrassed,
39:47
but see what's on the other side.
39:48
And then one day you wake up and you're there.
39:50
And I think a lot of overlap between those.
39:53
Absolutely.
39:54
I mean, even starting a business,
39:55
the hardest thing for me has always been putting myself out there, like even doing this and
40:03
social media.
40:04
That was the hardest thing.
40:05
And I've got used to it now.
40:07
And I love talking to
40:09
people now.
40:11
But that was really hard.
40:13
And that had to be part of, and it wasn't until someone
40:16
said to me, oh, it doesn't matter.
40:18
Because if someone doesn't like what you're saying,
40:19
they're just going to keep scrolling.
40:21
And if they like it and they're interested in what you've got
40:24
to say, they'll stop and they'll listen.
40:25
And I thought, oh yeah.
40:27
Why should I care?
40:28
Yeah.
40:29
You know, when I started the podcast, I, I, I mean, my internal version of me is so like
40:37
negative in a dialogue, like very, um, internally shy and awkward, but I can present as very
40:45
extrovert.
40:45
And when my husband and I, like in 2019, I was just starting to do this, you know,
40:51
silly little interviews.
40:53
And he was like, you should start a podcast.
40:55
And I was like,
40:55
absolutely not.
40:56
Like, I want to vomit just at the thought of you suggesting that.
41:00
Like,
41:00
I feel like I had an allergic reaction.
41:02
I was like, God, no, no.
41:04
Do you know me at all?
41:05
But then the deeper feeling was that I wish I could do that.
41:09
And I wish that I was someone
41:11
who had the confidence to talk publicly to more than two people.
41:15
Like, I wish that I could talk
41:16
on stage.
41:17
And then because I had that feeling of like, I want to try to be someone that is that
41:23
person and that version of what I would want to be.
41:26
Look where I am now, 700 episodes later,
41:30
but if I had have let that fear just keep me down, I guess, all the things that are so great
41:37
in my professional career that wouldn't have happened, like what a tragedy.
41:41
I think it's
41:42
so important to challenge yourself and to be like, but what if, and then take the step or
41:47
take the action or say yes.
41:49
And the podcast is good because it's one-on-one.
41:52
So it's not that
41:53
But even that, I was so nervous about it at the beginning.
41:56
I mean, I can get up and speak in front of a group of people on stage,
42:00
but put me in a room where I have to interact with 30 people
42:04
that I don't know.
42:06
It's hard.
42:07
That freaks me out more than anything.
42:09
My mum used to say, my mum said that, we were talking about this
42:13
the other day, my mum was like, it's just so mind-blowing to her
42:16
that I have a podcast or that I'll go and speak in front of people
42:19
or whatever it is because she's very shy as well as a person.
42:24
But she said that I used to be the kind of person that the school
42:27
would have to call her and have to come and pick me up
42:30
because I wouldn't be able to stand in front of the class
42:31
and do my presentation.
42:32
I'd be crying or hyperventilating or something and then mum would have
42:36
to come and get me and take me home.
42:37
And she's like, it just blows my mind that that version of you
42:41
to like today you, that's a big change.
42:45
Yeah.
42:46
I know.
42:47
We're crazy.
42:48
I want to kind of get into more of the practical tools.
42:53
And my thinking is that there are different tools when we're talking about grief and trauma at a certain level, and then the bucket of kind of stress and chronic stress and burnout, but there would be overlaps.
43:07
So I want to kind of understand more of the practical tools that you've kind of adopted outside of what we've already touched on.
43:16
Yeah.
43:17
And also kind of what the new emerging research is that is kind of like, you know, the present day.
43:25
Okay.
43:27
Do you want me to give you some ones to start with?
43:28
I've got a bunch here that we can talk through.
43:31
Okay.
43:32
We can do it either way.
43:34
I mean, it's just a really complicated one to answer because everyone's so different.
43:38
Okay, well, let's talk about you.
43:39
Let's talk about you dealing with, we can start with you dealing with grief specifically.
43:45
And we've covered the year of yes, but was there also kind of other things that you were
43:51
doing based on what your therapist or experts were telling you?
43:55
I meditate every day.
43:58
That has been big for me, game changer.
44:00
What type?
44:02
I do Vedic meditation.
44:04
Um, I can be a bit lax.
44:07
I mean, I'm definitely not perfect.
44:08
The last couple of months I've
44:09
gone through a renovation, final assessments, and it's definitely gone by the wayside.
44:17
So I'm trying to get back into that again, but it's finding that ritual that sits with it.
44:20
So
44:20
for me, it's coffee when I wake up, sit on my balcony, meditate.
44:26
Journaling has been massive.
44:28
The best thing about journaling is you can just write whatever you want.
44:32
Let's talk about journaling.
44:34
I've only just started and it's been a bit of a challenge.
44:39
The main thing is just... What do you actually say?
44:42
You're a beautiful writer though.
44:44
Oh God, not in my journal.
44:46
Half the time I couldn't even read it.
44:47
If you looked at the
44:48
writing, you couldn't read it.
44:49
It is just getting...
44:50
The way I explain to people is
44:51
journaling is a way to get out what's in your head without having to actually tell somebody.
44:57
Yes.
44:57
So it could be just a stream of nonsense.
45:05
Right.
45:05
And so it's fine to be just jumping from one thought to the other and this
45:09
and that and this and that.
45:10
Yep, because no one's reading it.
45:11
So I think of it as a way to just clear the noise out of my head
45:17
to start the day.
45:18
So sometimes you might have feelings towards somebody or be worried
45:23
about something.
45:25
and because you're thinking about it, it's rolling over and over in your head.
45:31
But sometimes just writing it all down, it gets it out of your head
45:35
into something that's tangible.
45:37
And I know people who, you know, you can burn it after you write it.
45:42
It doesn't have to sit there forever and it's not something to read.
45:45
It's not something you'll go back and say, dear diary.
45:48
It's just write it down.
45:52
Get it out.
45:52
You could just say, dear, whoever, I hate you today.
45:58
I'm having the worst day.
45:59
This is what you've done to me, blah, blah, blah.
46:01
You can just get it out and it's done.
46:02
No one's going to read it.
46:04
Feelings are so weird and the narrative of, like,
46:06
how we tell ourselves things are so weird because even you saying that,
46:10
I'm like, ooh, I don't know if I feel that I could write that, you know.
46:13
You have to allow yourself.
46:13
Then I go back to feelings and, like, thought when, like,
46:17
that to me seems like, you know, quite because there's some layer
46:20
of like, you know, whatever story I tell myself in my brain.
46:24
That's so interesting.
46:25
Rip off that bandaid and write it down.
46:27
Yeah.
46:28
Because it just gets it out there.
46:30
Yeah.
46:31
I did read recently because I was struggling with the journaling and I would set a timer of
46:35
like 15 minutes to be like, okay, I'm just going to build the muscle first and then we can figure
46:38
out the specifics later.
46:40
And I was struggling with it.
46:42
And someone had said to me, or I read
46:44
somewhere instead of, I was writing too much like factual about the day.
46:47
So like I did this and then
46:48
I did this and then I did this.
46:49
And they were like, you need to be thinking about just like
46:51
pick an emotion and start with emotion around, you know, something might've happened and I feel
46:57
this so that I was trying to like move away from just being like documenting every single point
47:03
in my day.
47:04
But that can be some days.
47:06
Some days it might be, oh, I did this, I did this, I did this.
47:09
So what?
47:10
It's like you said, it's a mental muscle or you might, I don't know.
47:16
I mean,
47:16
it can be a record.
47:17
It can be a record of what you did that day.
47:20
But like you said,
47:21
it's just starting somewhere.
47:23
You don't have to, I leave my journal mid-sentence.
47:27
Oh, okay.
47:28
And just go put it down.
47:29
And some people love journal prompts.
47:31
And in my experience and knowing
47:33
what I'm like as well, it's about being that perfectionist.
47:35
I want to do journaling and I
47:36
want to do it right.
47:37
Yes, same.
47:38
I'm like, here's my timer.
47:40
Yep.
47:40
What am I going to write about?
47:42
And then already you're putting pressure on yourself.
47:44
Yeah.
47:45
So think of it as clearing the noise.
47:48
It's just clearing the noise that's in your head.
47:51
And then that in itself gives you more space for creativity,
47:55
which is what I love about it because I can then just forget it.
48:01
It's written down somewhere so I don't have to go back.
48:03
It doesn't have to ruminate for the next week.
48:07
It's gone.
48:08
How long do you think until like for a newbie,
48:11
until you would start seeing a real difference in your like overall spirit
48:19
I'm like give me a timeline please you want me to just give you a yeah um I need a gold star
48:27
yeah see I think this is coming back to this is good insights into you more than me at the moment
48:33
um what is your expert professional opinion yeah I don't have one um it's
48:39
It's just do it.
48:42
Just write it down.
48:42
But again, it might not be right for you, right?
48:45
You know, a really good thing, a really good place to start is write down three things
48:49
you're grateful for or three things that made you laugh yesterday.
48:53
Oh, that's a good one.
48:54
Yeah.
48:54
I like that.
48:55
Three.
48:56
It's like, you know, a friend of mine used to do these questions.
48:59
You must be able to pull them out somewhere.
49:00
And they're questions to ask kids.
49:02
So who would you put in a rocket ship today and send to the moon?
49:06
Oh, that's fun.
49:07
Yeah.
49:08
So make it, you know, make it right for you, whether it's fun or it's, it doesn't have
49:13
to be so serious.
49:14
Everyone makes everyone, everything so serious.
49:16
Oh, I love that.
49:18
I'm going to look up that version of it.
49:20
Yeah.
49:20
And that's what I journal.
49:21
I think it's card games or.
49:24
And it gets you, but it gets you into the flow.
49:26
It breaks the first barrier of just being like, okay, well now what?
49:29
Yeah.
49:29
I have a blank page here and I don't know what to do.
49:31
Yeah.
49:32
And particularly I think if you're creative, it's kind of, I like creativity.
49:35
I like things that I think, oh, that's different.
49:39
That's how I want to do it.
49:41
On the kind of, you know, same thread as journaling, you are a writer.
49:46
You do write publicly and share kind of longer form content.
49:51
Is that also part of a healing process for you?
49:55
It has been, yeah.
49:56
So I did a lot of writing.
49:59
I'm a bit haphazard about it.
50:01
I have my substat that I write occasionally.
50:04
and that's more just I might not write for three months
50:09
and then I'll have this thing in my head I just want to get out
50:14
and I'll sit and write till like 1am and then publish it
50:18
before I can talk myself out of it.
50:22
And, you know, that's just practice.
50:23
It's a muscle.
50:24
I want to do more writing.
50:25
I love reading really beautiful, glorious writing with amazing words
50:33
and that's what makes me happy.
50:35
So if I can try and do that better, then that's my challenge to myself
50:40
is learning how to write more strongly in my own voice.
50:45
What are some of your, like, favourite words or amazing words
50:48
you've seen recently that are out of the norm?
50:52
I love it when people kind of make up words.
50:55
Oh, okay, like what?
50:57
I don't know.
50:58
It's just, I mean, I love the words like glorious
51:01
and fantabulous and just I like words.
51:05
Like extravagance to words.
51:06
Yeah, I love frivolity.
51:08
I love people who write with abandon and use those types of words
51:16
because well now with AI too, everything just sounds the same
51:22
and you can really hear when someone puts themselves into it
51:29
And that's, I don't know, just brings me joy.
51:33
Yeah.
51:34
I think it's, his name's Alan.
51:37
What's the guy who wrote, he's the philosopher who wrote The Course of Love.
51:41
Oh, gosh, I don't know.
51:43
I feel like he's really great with words.
51:44
He just says beautiful words.
51:45
He writes with, like, elegance, even if it's not a complicated word,
51:49
but there's such a flow of elegance to it.
51:51
Yeah.
51:51
And you read it and you're like, oh, that's nice.
51:54
It's nicely written.
51:55
Well done.
51:55
Yeah.
51:57
Yeah.
51:58
What is your relationship or mindset now, you know, having kind of like time to reflect on grief?
52:06
Mm-hmm.
52:08
Um, I, oh, my mindset with everything now is to feel it, live it, let it go.
52:19
And I don't know, use it.
52:21
Does that make sense?
52:22
I don't think that makes sense.
52:24
It's more,
52:25
No, but I understand the sitting and trying to process to then find the way forward versus trying to cover it.
52:32
I try not to overthink at all anymore.
52:36
I find that for me, creativity is really good for me.
52:44
And so I now have that with dancing or writing or, you know, I want to do, if I had more time, I'd be doing more creative things.
52:53
You know, I love pottery and just doing things.
52:58
It's kind of a computer.
52:59
Yeah, and I feel like that's something I need to be better at.
53:03
And if there's anything in this world I'd love to be better at,
53:08
it's being creative.
53:10
Yeah, it's good for the soul.
53:12
Yeah.
53:12
I started doing singing lessons and that's made a big.
53:16
Oh, my God, it is so brave.
53:18
let me tell you the first the first session I'm like sensory sensitive right so like I am just
53:27
someone who likes a mood and I like a vibe or whatever yeah I walk into this singing place
53:33
and it was like bright bright lights like middle of the day I could hear the people next door so
53:38
I knew they would be able to hear me at my first singing lesson and I'm a terrible singer I'm just
53:43
someone who loves karaoke.
53:45
I love how it makes me feel.
53:46
And I love serenading people in a car,
53:49
you know, to the radio.
53:50
Yeah.
53:50
But a terrible singer.
53:52
Anyway, I walk in there, I didn't know
53:53
what to expect.
53:54
And I kind of knew that we were going to actually sing stuff, but I didn't know
53:59
what to expect out of a lesson.
54:00
And then... See, that terrifies me.
54:02
Yeah.
54:03
Oh my God.
54:04
I was so
54:05
stressed, like sweaty stressed.
54:08
And the woman, she was like maybe 23, so a lot younger than I was.
54:14
And she was like, oh, you need to pick a song that you're going to sing now, like after we'd
54:18
done some warmups.
54:19
And I was like, well, how do I pick a song that's like right for my voice and
54:22
like my capabilities?
54:23
I don't want to pick the wrong song.
54:25
And that's what I'm paying you for.
54:26
Yeah.
54:26
I was like, what song do you think?
54:27
And she's like, just pick a song like on your Spotify.
54:30
And I was like, help me pick.
54:30
And she was like, oh, like a Disney song.
54:32
And this is where I was
54:33
like, oh my God, you're a lot younger than me.
54:34
Like, I don't know Disney songs.
54:36
Like what songs
54:36
are you talking about?
54:38
Anyway, so I opened up my Spotify, pick a song.
54:41
It's like the theme song of
54:43
Coyote Ugly by Leigh-Anne Rimes.
54:44
I can't remember what it's called.
54:45
Yeah.
54:46
Impossibly hard song to
54:47
start with.
54:48
I sit there or I stand there.
54:51
We're looking at each other in the eyes, like face to
54:55
face like this.
54:55
I sing the song.
54:57
I would just cry.
54:58
Well, we're nearly there.
55:02
I sing the song going
55:03
from like looking at my phone for the lyrics to looking at her in the eyes.
55:07
And she's just looking
55:08
at me the whole time.
55:10
I finish it.
55:11
I burst into tears.
55:14
And I'm like, I'm so sorry.
55:16
And then she's
55:17
like, oh, my God, I'm so sorry.
55:19
And I'm like, no, it's not you.
55:20
It's me.
55:21
I was just so stressed.
55:22
and I can't believe I sang that song, Can't Fight the Moonlight.
55:26
That's what it was.
55:27
It was, like, hilarious and absolutely horrific at the same time
55:30
because I was so embarrassed.
55:32
And it was, like, such an insanely, like, hard, weird,
55:38
weirdly, like, close connection type thing to do.
55:41
But afterwards I was like, whew, well, that's out of the way.
55:45
I'm not going back there but I'm going to keep going to singing lessons.
55:48
Like, I'm proud of myself.
55:50
Well, maybe that was you breaking through that whole nervous system.
55:54
Oh, my God, yeah.
55:55
You had that release at the end.
55:56
The tears are good.
55:57
Yeah, that's another thing I wanted to ask.
55:59
It's on my list.
56:00
Oh, gosh.
56:01
Crying, the benefits of crying or the scientific kind of evidence
56:06
behind crying or emotional sighing and what that does to the system.
56:12
Two different things.
56:12
So sighing is natural to the body.
56:14
Like I said, I'm not a neuroscientist, so it's more,
56:17
So what I've studied is more the systems and, you know,
56:20
what makes life worth living is more the science I'm into.
56:26
But sighing is huge because it's a huge stress relief
56:30
because we take a big breath in and then we're sighing
56:33
all of the old breath out.
56:36
I sigh all day.
56:38
Yeah, but what they know now is that looking at our phones
56:41
and screens reduces the amount of sighs that you have.
56:44
Does it?
56:45
Yeah.
56:46
Didn't know that.
56:47
It does.
56:48
So if you're scrolling or sitting on the screen,
56:50
you'll notice you're not sighing.
56:51
So naturally we sigh every couple of minutes,
56:56
but we don't so much anymore.
56:57
It is big.
56:58
And crying, yes, absolutely.
57:00
It's a nervous system release.
57:03
It's amazing for you.
57:04
Don't hold it back.
57:05
Holding back emotions is not great.
57:10
I cried yesterday.
57:12
Yeah, good.
57:13
I felt better after.
57:14
You do.
57:15
Yeah.
57:16
So when we're thinking about the science that you're really, you know, interested in right now and having a better, living a better life and specifically, what does that mean to you?
57:25
Does that mean things like nature and creativity and the act of doing those things or?
57:33
So that's more around nervous system regulation.
57:38
Okay.
57:38
So all of those elements.
57:40
So whether there's things like nature bathing, meditation,
57:43
walking meditation, yoga, breath work, you know,
57:49
there's so many different tools that you can call upon
57:52
for nervous system regulation.
57:54
So the science of well-being and positive psychology is that
58:00
how to flourish in life.
58:02
So it's, you know, what makes you, it's not necessarily, the big conversation now is around longevity.
58:10
So living longer, having a better health span, a longer health span.
58:14
But the flip side to that from a psychological perspective is what makes life worth living.
58:21
And that comes down to, you know, different frameworks.
58:24
You know, one of them is PERMA, which is positive emotions.
58:28
And it's that, you know, relationships.
58:34
It's feeling like you're good at achieving something.
58:39
It's finding purpose in life.
58:41
So they're the elements that we talk through.
58:46
And for me, health is a big part of that as well.
58:51
So it's bringing together all of the psychological side
58:55
as well as the physiological side.
58:58
and so how do you answer that question what makes life worth living now I really believe now
59:07
particularly after the life that I've lived through to date that what makes life worth living
59:16
is having that bravery to actually live that life and that's to be open to experiences to love to
59:26
feel emotions, to try new things, to, I don't know, it's complicated, but it's,
59:36
the biggest one is just bravery to live your life.
59:40
Because a lot of people become really closed in
59:43
and they become closed off to opportunities, to growth, to learning, to people.
59:50
You know,
59:52
we all know people that have gone through a really terrible divorce and are so closed off
1:00:00
to love.
1:00:01
And, you know, I've been through my own trauma, you know, separation and then a death.
1:00:06
And I never want to be that person.
1:00:10
I want to be the person who is brave enough to put myself on
1:00:13
the line and say that I love somebody.
1:00:16
And that is bloody the hardest thing to do at times.
1:00:22
And that's what I mean with living a really good life.
1:00:27
It's how to flourish in life.
1:00:30
And for some, that's travel.
1:00:31
For some, that's constantly learning.
1:00:34
For others, it's, you know, relationships.
1:00:36
You know, just look at the blue zones.
1:00:39
You know, so much of that is around food and lifestyle,
1:00:43
but there's so much around that that is around community and belonging.
1:00:49
You know, every blue zone is in a region where family comes first.
1:00:55
So it's not self-identification, it's family identification.
1:00:59
And they're happy when the people are around them happy,
1:01:03
whereas Western culture is very much around the I as happiness.
1:01:09
I'm happy.
1:01:11
So, you know, the happiest people in the world are those
1:01:15
where they're actually making sure the people around them are happy first.
1:01:19
So there's really interesting research around Eastern and Western culture.
1:01:23
And, you know, there's so much that we can learn from our ancestors and from other cultures.
1:01:30
And that's, I find that fascinating.
1:01:33
Yeah, I love that.
1:01:34
Rich in life, but in terms of health, wealth, wisdom, not material.
1:01:39
Yeah.
1:01:40
Not material wealth.
1:01:42
Yeah.
1:01:42
And there's so much research around, you know, people want, they think that money makes them
1:01:47
happy.
1:01:48
And there's so much research that shows that that's not the case.
1:01:51
You know, money does
1:01:53
not make someone happy, but it does take away things that makes them unhappy because it takes
1:01:58
the stress away.
1:01:59
Yeah, it can solve problems.
1:02:01
It can absolutely solve problems.
1:02:02
But unless you're
1:02:03
happy on the inside, you'll never be happy.
1:02:05
And then there's a million other things like, you know,
1:02:08
you're happier if you earn that money yourself.
1:02:11
If you haven't earned that money, if it's given
1:02:13
to you, you won't have that same level of happiness.
1:02:15
Oh, that's an interesting one.
1:02:18
It's like people who win the lotto often are really unhappy
1:02:23
because they haven't earned that money.
1:02:25
Oh.
1:02:26
And that's why they often lose it all within the first five years.
1:02:29
Yeah.
1:02:29
Yeah.
1:02:30
That's what I've read about that.
1:02:31
Yeah.
1:02:32
Yeah.
1:02:32
Wow, that's so interesting.
1:02:34
So many levels.
1:02:34
My mum and I, you know, she's a single mum.
1:02:38
I was her only child.
1:02:39
We grew up, as I would say, dirt poor on the side of a mountain.
1:02:42
yeah but my mum always says that she was and she has always been rich in life but for anyone like
1:02:49
looking outside in you would be like yeah that woman has no money for me I'm like yeah we had
1:02:52
no money yeah but rich in life because we had such a beautiful peaceful idyllic upbringing that was
1:02:59
just based around nature and love and animals and you know such a beautiful upbringing so I like
1:03:08
when I think about that now.
1:03:11
That's important.
1:03:12
Yeah, absolutely.
1:03:16
We've covered a lot of things.
1:03:18
We have.
1:03:19
We've covered a lot of things.
1:03:20
Yeah.
1:03:21
What do you want to leave us with, anyone who's listening
1:03:24
that's maybe dealing with stress, burnout, grief, trauma?
1:03:30
um find find your joy is and that can be really hard to grasp and I'm not really sure what to leave
1:03:43
someone with but I truly believe that one phone call can change your entire life
1:03:51
and once you've had that phone call or you've had that moment you'll never see life the same way
1:03:57
again and kind of make myself cry now and you can cry no it's good for you it is good for you
1:04:05
but my makeup won't like it um you know you have to take hold of life with gusto and live as you
1:04:16
know I want to live as hard as possible and that's healthy in a healthy way but it's so precious and
1:04:24
And, you know, I like to say that I live with radical aliveness
1:04:29
because I feel that we need to be more radical about it.
1:04:32
We need to appreciate every day more.
1:04:36
And to do that, you need to take note of every little thing
1:04:43
that's around you and appreciate everything and be grateful
1:04:48
for every moment that we have because everything
1:04:52
could change in a heartbeat.
1:04:55
Thank you so much.
1:04:56
Thank you.
1:04:56
This was so beautiful.
1:04:58
Thank you.
1:04:59
When I see other people cry, then I want to start crying.
1:05:02
I haven't.
1:05:02
It's just a tear in there.
1:05:04
I can see it.
1:05:05
I can see the tear.
1:05:08
Oh, my goodness.
1:05:09
This was so nice.
1:05:10
Thank you for coming on the show.
1:05:11
Wow, thank you for having me.
1:05:13
It's fun.
1:05:13
It's an invite.
1:05:14
Come back any time.
1:05:15
I know.
1:05:15
I feel like we could sit here for hours.
1:05:16
I know.