Latest / Spacious Success / 028 | The Unspoken Load: Perimenopause, Grief & Permission to Be Fully Human, with Lisa Corduff

Transcript

028 | The Unspoken Load: Perimenopause, Grief & Permission to Be Fully Human, with Lisa Corduff · Spacious Success

• 0:05
  Hi, I'm Dr. Christy Goodwin, a neuro-performance scientist, speaker and executive coach who learned the hard way that chasing success can come at a cost.
• 0:16
  After burnout landed me in hospital, I made it my mission to help ambitious women who are done trading their health and happiness for high performance.
• 0:27
  On Spacious Success, I share science-backed strategies and real stories to help you flourish as a female at work and beyond so you can stop paying the success tax.
• 0:41
  So Lisa Cordoff and I met way back in Marie Forleo's B-School days.
• 0:46
  I don't know if you remember, Lisa.
• 0:48
  I think I joined in 2012.
• 0:49
  Were you at 2012?
• 0:49
  I was 2013.
• 0:50
  Okay.
• 0:50
  Yeah.
• 0:50
  Um,
• 0:53
  And I had the privilege of watching Lisa from afar.
• 0:56
  Lisa built this incredible online business while she was raising three kids and at the same time supporting her husband battling addiction.
• 1:03
  But I didn't know that at the time.
• 1:05
  And I was just in awe of this business she was building around her babies and their nap time.
• 1:11
  She was always sharing stories with courage and candor.
• 1:15
  Over the years, I joined many of Lisa's programs.
• 1:18
  I joined her healthy food.
• 1:20
  I was at small steps back to you, her small steps back to Whole Foods and her storytelling programs.
• 1:26
  And I've always admired Lisa's fierce love for her kids, her brutal honesty and her deep belief in women.
• 1:35
  When Karen...
• 1:37
  My beloved operations manager, who'd also worked with Lisa, suddenly passed away in 2025.
• 1:44
  Lisa was the first person I called.
• 1:46
  I remembered walking along the beach, feeling lost and heartbroken.
• 1:51
  And Lisa really got the grief, not just as a colleague and a friend, but as a woman who's walked through her own enormous grief too.
• 1:59
  I've listened to Lisa speak and I heard her deliver her harvest talk.
• 2:03
  And I sat in the audience and I wept with pride and
• 2:09
  I wept with reverence for the woman that she is.
• 2:12
  She even gave up one of her very rare child-free nights to come to an awards night for me in Melbourne a couple of years ago when I won a speaking award.
• 2:21
  She hosted my virtual book launch and she apologized profusely because she couldn't make it to Sydney for the actual book launch because her eldest son was starting high school.
• 2:30
  Lisa is the true definition of a woman who genuinely supports other women and encourages them to thrive.
• 2:38
  I really wholeheartedly welcome Lisa to the podcast.
• 2:43
  Bloody hell.
• 2:44
  Sorry.
• 2:46
  Let's start with tears.
• 2:47
  Let's start right there.
• 2:48
  That's a beautiful introduction.
• 2:50
  Thank you, Christy.
• 2:50
  No pleasure.
• 2:51
  And thank you for being the champion over the years.
• 2:55
  It deeply is really, really deeply appreciated for me.
• 2:57
  And I know the many women that you supported over the time as well.
• 3:03
  I love us.
• 3:04
  So do I.
• 3:04
  So I want to start, I want to go back.
• 3:08
  I watched you, as I said, build this incredible business with three young kids in tow.
• 3:11
  You had no family support whilst you were living in Brisbane.
• 3:15
  Can we go back to that chapter in your life when you were juggling kids, a business and a marriage that was dealing with addiction issues?
• 3:23
  Yeah.
• 3:24
  Yes.
• 3:25
  And because it's so interesting, I shared many times when I was interviewed on podcasts at that time, how are you doing it?
• 3:35
  And I was saying to everyone, I'm building this business in nap time.
• 3:39
  But I always had to say, so I had, when my eldest was born, I've got three children.
• 3:44
  And when the eldest was born,
• 3:47
  When the youngest was born, the eldest was still three.
• 3:50
  So that was an intense few years.
• 3:54
  And they did actually sleep.
• 3:57
  So because my audience was mums who were watching me feed my family and do all the things,
• 4:05
  I kept saying all the time, like, there's no way I would be able to do this if I was being woken through the nights.
• 4:11
  I don't know.
• 4:12
  By some gift, I was just given children that loved sleep.
• 4:16
  It was unusual.
• 4:18
  I acknowledge that.
• 4:19
  And also, I really have to put that into the story because I think we expect so much from ourselves as women and then as mums expecting ourselves to operate as though we don't have children when we do it.
• 4:33
  But it was a really big thing.
• 4:37
  I had capacity.
• 4:38
  I could wake up an hour before they woke up and knew I'd have that hour.
• 4:42
  You know, that's.
• 4:44
  Anyway, but I also was very, it was a really exciting time to be starting a business, especially online.
• 4:52
  We joined B-School because we're like, hang on, is there a way that I can actually do important work that means something to me whilst raising my children and having a more flexible arrangement than going out to work nine till five?
• 5:09
  And my business in the beginning was just an experiment to see if that was going to be possible for me.
• 5:15
  And lucky enough, it took off.
• 5:18
  And so I've always, and, you know, through losing Nick, have been able to have this flexible arrangement.
• 5:27
  But it's not easy to run your own thing, especially when you're the only person at home and when you're the only person at work.
• 5:37
  Aside from, you know, amazingly supportive team and family and all of that sort of thing.
• 5:42
  But I think a big driver for me at that time was wanting to be able to give my husband, who we didn't know it was addiction at the time.
• 5:53
  Well, I didn't know it was addiction, but it was definitely struggles with mental health a little bit more.
• 5:58
  He was an aerospace engineer, so had a big job, quite anxious, like a lot was going on for him.
• 6:04
  And I thought, well, if I can build this thing to be the support for our family, then he doesn't have to.
• 6:11
  Wow.
• 6:12
  work.
• 6:12
  So I had this other driver in the background, you know, essentially I was wanting to save him and, uh, you know, there's a lot to unpack in that, but yeah, it was, it was exciting.
• 6:25
  I felt purposeful.
• 6:27
  My kids were asleep.
• 6:28
  So I had some capacity.
• 6:29
  It was, it was crazy, but I learned a lot during that time about my own capacity and when I could push and then when I, my body would
• 6:42
  getting shingles was a perfect example.
• 6:44
  And we learn the lessons, Christy.
• 6:46
  Yeah, we do.
• 6:46
  I've often heard you say that, is it that we get a rock in our shoe?
• 6:50
  And if we can ignore the rock, what else do you say after that, that it becomes an elephant?
• 6:54
  Like we can... Well, no, it's like we get a tap on the shoulder.
• 6:57
  Yes.
• 6:58
  Like there's a little tap on the shoulder and it's like, hey, hey, hey, we might be going a bit hard right now.
• 7:04
  And then you get a slap across the face and it hurts, but you're still standing.
• 7:10
  And
• 7:10
  If you do not pay attention, a Mack truck will come and will just give you no choice.
• 7:17
  But you are down tools.
• 7:18
  And I think becoming a widow has been a really interesting experience for me knowing that there's no backup here.
• 7:31
  It's literally me.
• 7:33
  And I think that it's almost...
• 7:37
  like a secret weapon in self-care when, when, when there is, there's no one to complain to about not getting free time.
• 7:46
  There's no one to complain to about me having too much on my plate.
• 7:49
  It's me dealing with me and my three children.
• 7:52
  And so I've gotten so much better.
• 7:55
  at recognizing, hang on, whoa, this is too much.
• 7:57
  There is too much on my plate or I can feel my glands going up or I'm getting really ratty at the kids.
• 8:03
  I just need to put myself to bed and I need to say no for a little bit.
• 8:07
  So it has, there's definitely been, that's been a gift of going solo, has been, yeah, getting out of the blame game for not getting what I need in terms of,
• 8:22
  my own self-care and just taking responsibility for it.
• 8:25
  Yeah, radical responsibility.
• 8:27
  Uncomfortable but necessary.
• 8:29
  Yeah.
• 8:30
  I see a lot of women who put on, I call it, like, the female facade, like the performance of coping when they're really under the surface cracking or crumbling.
• 8:42
  And I think what you've articulated there is that we really have to prioritise our rest and we need to listen to our body because, as you said, it definitely keeps score and,
• 8:52
  And I often say to people, our body doesn't lie.
• 8:54
  You know, shingles was probably telling your body, you know, that you needed to work at a slower cadence, you needed to exhale.
• 9:01
  And I think for many women in particular, I think we've still got in many regards that martyr mode, you know, martyr mum mode that we try to keep perpetuating.
• 9:13
  And I think it's doing all of us, like it's doing women a disservice.
• 9:16
  It's doing our kids who are seeing this.
• 9:18
  So I think there's so much for us to take from, as you said, investing in our self-care and just listening to our bodies.
• 9:27
  I know you probably remember I did a survey on women back in 2022, I think it was.
• 9:35
  And because it was after the COVID years and I was like, hey, what's going on?
• 9:39
  Like, how are we actually really?
• 9:41
  I think I called it stress-reported.
• 9:44
  sleep, sex, and more.
• 9:46
  And it was so revealing.
• 9:49
  I remember there were 1500 survey respondents.
• 9:55
  And when I asked about tiredness, like how tired do you feel?
• 9:58
  98.2% of women felt tired at some level.
• 10:05
  Wow.
• 10:06
  And it's like, what are we doing?
• 10:09
  What are we doing?
• 10:10
  And, and
• 10:11
  And I think a lot that I've learned over the years has been, yes, there's personal responsibility for sure.
• 10:19
  But also there is just this system that we live in and these expectations on our energy and our capacity that are absolutely unrealistic.
• 10:31
  And we hold ourselves to these unrealistic standards.
• 10:35
  Like literally no one.
• 10:37
  Like who's really thriving here?
• 10:41
  And unless you have like a lot of support around you, modern motherhood and, you know, this expectation to hold all the balls in the air is burning us out.
• 10:57
  And so, yes, there's heaps of things that we can do, but it's structural.
• 11:02
  It's systemic.
• 11:04
  And we exist in it and we're just trying our bloody best.
• 11:07
  And the thing that upsets me the most is,
• 11:10
  having worked with thousands of women over more than a decade is how hard we are on ourselves.
• 11:19
  We think we're failing.
• 11:20
  Yep.
• 11:21
  There's this, there's this, like, I'm just, I'm a loser.
• 11:24
  Who's not coping.
• 11:25
  I can't be seen to not cope.
• 11:27
  So I must, you know, just put on a smile and,
• 11:31
  And put on the lippy and off I go.
• 11:33
  Yeah.
• 11:34
  And that's what you're talking about.
• 11:34
  Like that is, we are, it is a disservice to womankind that we're not being more honest about this because unless we are, we keep ourselves trapped here and we're not as angry as we need to be.
• 11:50
  Yeah.
• 11:52
  Yeah.
• 11:53
  It just, it just keeps the illusion that everyone's, everyone's fine.
• 11:58
  Yeah.
• 12:00
  And they're not.
• 12:01
  No, they're not.
• 12:02
  And they're slowly starting to say that.
• 12:04
  I think many of us are.
• 12:07
  And we haven't made full progress by any stretch of the imagination.
• 12:11
  And I think that's one of the benefits of social media.
• 12:13
  You know, it certainly has its pitfalls.
• 12:16
  But I think if we can share our stories and I mean, you know, the whole transition to perimenopause and menopause is a prime example of how social media has given a platform to a topic that was once never discussed.
• 12:30
  It was once considered taboo.
• 12:32
  So I think there's real power and potency in women sharing their experiences, but also permission to say I'm not okay.
• 12:40
  And I have learned that, you know, over the years through sharing my story.
• 12:44
  You know, I ended up in an emergency ward in a hospital and hooked up to a ventilator.
• 12:49
  And it took me years to share that because I felt so much shame and guilt.
• 12:53
  But sharing that story in keynotes and conversations.
• 12:56
  at speaking events has been the catalyst for other women to say, I need to prioritize my health because I can see I'm going on a similar trajectory.
• 13:05
  And sharing stories is everything.
• 13:08
  Yeah.
• 13:09
  And I just, I think, well, we do.
• 13:11
  The research tells us we have this really pronounced gender well-being gap with significantly more females than males experiencing stress, exhaustion, and burnout.
• 13:20
  You know, that study that you mentioned with, was it 98% of women saying they felt
• 13:25
  tired like we're seeing this in study after study um you and i spoke the other week and you said something that you're seeing women simmering on stress mode so not only are we exhausted i think that we've established that women and obviously there's a symbiotic relationship between stress and fatigue why do you think women are feeling really stressed why are we feeling it more than men what what do you see from your community
• 13:52
  I think that we've normalized a level of stress that our bodies are screaming at us that we can't manage.
• 14:02
  And it's not, it's, we are, stress is a normal part of being a human.
• 14:09
  We have amazing abilities to cope with
• 14:13
  with stresses that enter our lives, but they're not meant to be there like all day, every day.
• 14:19
  So it's just, it's the jumping straight in.
• 14:22
  Oh my God, hang on, it's library day.
• 14:24
  Did you remember your library?
• 14:25
  Like our body doesn't know the difference between that
• 14:30
  And, you know, something really big happening.
• 14:33
  So it just activates the stress response and we can't beat it.
• 14:37
  Like when that's activated, I mean, this is what you talk about.
• 14:41
  It's like all body systems are responding to that big stress.
• 14:46
  you know, stress response happening in our body.
• 14:50
  And, and I think just normalizing low level stress, even in the way that we talk to each other.
• 14:57
  Yeah.
• 14:57
  It's I'm so busy.
• 14:57
  I'm so stressed.
• 14:58
  I'm so stressed.
• 14:59
  It's, it's like, hang on.
• 15:01
  What, what have we normalized here?
• 15:03
  It's not normal.
• 15:05
  And it's impacting everything.
• 15:08
  All of us want to be present to our kids.
• 15:12
  All of us want to be producing great work.
• 15:16
  When we, you know, get down to it, we want to be showing up for the people that we love.
• 15:22
  We want to have capacity for our parents who are getting older and need us in different ways.
• 15:29
  And it's like we have,
• 15:32
  We have this underlying simmering stress that is impacting all of those things without us fully recognizing how significant that is on every single system in our body and also how we're operating in the world.
• 15:48
  Yes.
• 15:50
  And it's coming at us from all directions all the time.
• 15:55
  The mental and domestic load that a lot of women carry in their households is...
• 16:01
  It's unsustainable.
• 16:04
  It is, I mean, the studies are out on that as well.
• 16:08
  And it's a conversation that is uncomfortable for a lot of people to have.
• 16:12
  And I have worked with women for years and years and years.
• 16:16
  And I think, you know, sometimes when I hear women talking about the lack of support at home and what they're holding up, it's like, is it just because I'm getting older, but my tolerance to be able to hold that conversation?
• 16:30
  Yeah.
• 16:31
  And not just get really, really angry and cross.
• 16:36
  Because once we actually acknowledge that the support is not there for not all women, but in a lot of relationships, then you have to ask yourself bigger questions.
• 16:47
  And I don't think people love doing that.
• 16:49
  No, it's uncomfortable.
• 16:51
  It's very uncomfortable.
• 16:53
  Yeah.
• 16:54
  It's a real issue.
• 16:54
  It's a real issue.
• 16:57
  Yeah, it really is.
• 16:58
  And there's so many things I want to double click on.
• 17:00
  I want to go back to when you said like we are designed for stress and, you know, we really are.
• 17:05
  I call our brains our HOS, so our human operating system.
• 17:08
  And we were neurobiologically designed for little bursts of stress and we were designed to close out the stress cycle.
• 17:15
  But today, as you said, we wake up and it's bombardment, you know, it's the digital avalanche.
• 17:20
  And then it's
• 17:21
  know back-to-back meetings and I call what women are experienced especially in midlife the stress superstorm it's like the collision of all of these factors you know women often hit if they've chosen to have a career the peak of their career demands at the same time as often parenting demands where the intensity of the caring and the domestic load steps in at the same time as we said aging parents
• 17:46
  We now know from research, not just what women are telling us, is that we absorb the bulk of the digital burden.
• 17:52
  So they're calling it the double digital burden that women tend to absorb.
• 17:56
  So there is this collision of stress super factors that mean that we and we also know that women experience a longer and stronger stress response than our male counterparts.
• 18:08
  we physically feel it differently.
• 18:11
  So we are really, really struggling with this.
• 18:15
  And given, then we add in some hormonal changes through to perimenopause and menopause.
• 18:21
  And I love what you said just before about how you have sometimes lost your tolerance for indulging in conversations with some women lamenting the situation that they've got.
• 18:31
  And we know that
• 18:32
  as women go through hormonal changes in their midlife years, that when estrogen fluctuates and then drops, estrogen is often described as our hormone of accommodation and servitude.
• 18:45
  And when that's not there, neither is our filter.
• 18:48
  So that's why we send the terse response or we snap.
• 18:53
  That's why we see our mood fluctuations.
• 18:55
  That's why we see rage.
• 18:56
  But it's also where our tolerance for topics that we once would have
• 19:02
  allowed just isn't there any longer.
• 19:04
  I love this for us, Christy.
• 19:07
  Yes.
• 19:08
  It's exciting.
• 19:09
  It is.
• 19:10
  I am happy to be here.
• 19:12
  Happy to arrive.
• 19:15
  Yes.
• 19:17
  I love that.
• 19:18
  Now, I'm sure you've seen this.
• 19:20
  Nicola Jane Hobbs shared a caption on Instagram that deeply resonated.
• 19:24
  Did you see this?
• 19:25
  She said, growing up, I never knew a relaxed woman.
• 19:27
  Yeah.
• 19:28
  Successful women?
• 19:30
  Yes.
• 19:30
  Productive women?
• 19:31
  Plenty.
• 19:33
  Anxious, afraid and apologetic women?
• 19:35
  Heaps of them.
• 19:37
  But relaxed women?
• 19:38
  At ease women?
• 19:40
  Women who don't dissect their days into half-hour slots of productivity?
• 19:44
  Women who prioritise rest, pleasure and play?
• 19:48
  Women who aren't afraid to take up space in the world?
• 19:51
  Women who give themselves unconditional permission?
• 19:55
  Yes.
• 19:56
  to relax.
• 19:57
  Without guilt, without apology, without feeling like they need to earn it, well, I'm not sure if I've ever met a woman like that, but I would like to become one.
• 20:09
  I've read that so many times.
• 20:11
  It gives me goosebumps.
• 20:13
  You see this too, don't you?
• 20:14
  And I love that you often will share like an Instagram story from your bed.
• 20:19
  You will invite women into the rest that you experience.
• 20:24
  Why do women battle with resting?
• 20:28
  Guilt and conditioning.
• 20:30
  So it's a total...
• 20:35
  I've talked about this for a very, very long time because it became apparent to me leading these groups and communities of women that it was the internal dialogue of.
• 20:52
  fascinates me around rest.
• 20:55
  And of course, I felt it the same too.
• 20:59
  I never saw my mum chill out.
• 21:01
  If she was watching TV, she was ironing.
• 21:04
  And there was always a lot to do.
• 21:05
  Like, you know, she was always on the go, super productive.
• 21:10
  And so when you don't have a model for it, it's really hard to know.
• 21:16
  And then I think we just, we fill lives so much.
• 21:20
  Yeah.
• 21:22
  That to not be doing the things and ticking things off a list, that whole productivity kind of matrix.
• 21:30
  Yeah.
• 21:30
  That we've all grown up in.
• 21:32
  You feel like you're wasting time.
• 21:36
  like you're lazy and it's, and we have to give ourselves, like we only get rest as a reward.
• 21:42
  So when I've done all the things I get to relax.
• 21:47
  Now, I don't know about you, Christy, have you gotten to the bottom of your to-do list in the last 20 years?
• 21:53
  No, no, no.
• 21:56
  Right.
• 21:57
  It's like, we need to, to really challenge ourselves with the narrative in our head because.
• 22:04
  Like we were designed for stress.
• 22:06
  We were designed for rest.
• 22:09
  For both.
• 22:09
  So for the effort and recovery, effort and recovery.
• 22:13
  So, yes, stress, but we were designed to deregulate from that stress, not be stuck in sympathetic mode like so many of us are.
• 22:22
  So you know how at the start I said that my kids slept and that was kind of like my unfair advantage, being someone building a business with young kids.
• 22:31
  I would say that managing my life now, people are like, how do you do it?
• 22:35
  You've got three kids.
• 22:36
  You're on your own.
• 22:37
  I'm like, I go to bed.
• 22:39
  I chill out.
• 22:40
  I rest.
• 22:41
  I do puzzles for fun because it sits me down and it just gives me this space, like just brain space.
• 22:49
  I just, I don't know how to describe what it gives me, but once again, I knew no one was going to give me.
• 22:58
  And so in amongst the craziness of this life that I live right now, rest would be my number one priority.
• 23:07
  And...
• 23:08
  my own pleasure.
• 23:09
  I'm sorry.
• 23:11
  I am not ready to accept that because I'm raising kids on my own and running a business that I don't get to enjoy my life.
• 23:19
  Yep.
• 23:20
  And exploring what that means through different stages has been amazing.
• 23:26
  I tell people all the time.
• 23:28
  And even when I was, when we were going through recovery with Nick, I would wake up every morning and ask myself, what?
• 23:38
  What do I need to feel good today?
• 23:42
  And sometimes it would just be sitting down in a cafe and having my coffee there instead of getting the takeaway.
• 23:49
  Sometimes it would just be, I just have not spoken to my best friend for the longest time and I just need to hear her voice.
• 23:55
  Sometimes it would just be sitting in the backyard on my own, just not even doing it, just staring at me.
• 24:04
  And but because I kept checking in with myself, it became this muscle that I flexed.
• 24:09
  And I think when it comes to rest or pleasure or enjoying our lives on any level, I think that there's a lot of women who haven't given themselves the time and space to just ask themselves, what do they enjoy doing anyway?
• 24:25
  And.
• 24:27
  And when you do sometimes like, you know, even a program I'm running right now with women in midlife, it's like, could you give some strategies for figuring out like what you enjoy?
• 24:40
  That's where we've gotten to.
• 24:42
  It's like, hang on, how do I work that out?
• 24:45
  How do I reconnect back in with myself, with my.
• 24:49
  joy with my little spark with what lights me up because life has been about everyone else for so long i forgot i forgot myself and i think that you know just that one question just checking in each day can really set the tone for what you get to explore for yourself in this like one one life that we get to live yep i often say four thousand sundays if we're lucky right that's right
• 25:19
  Yeah, and I love that you share that it's micro moments.
• 25:22
  Like, yes, grand gestures and day spas and weekends away with your girlfriends are lovely.
• 25:27
  And you can derive recovery from, like you said, laying down, closing your eyes, going outside.
• 25:36
  Putting on an 80s banger.
• 25:38
  Oh, yeah.
• 25:38
  What would you play?
• 25:41
  Waiting for a star to fall.
• 25:42
  Oh.
• 25:48
  Oh, I like that.
• 25:49
  But I'm like, I'm a big fan.
• 25:51
  Heart, anything by heart.
• 25:53
  Like just, yes.
• 25:56
  Yeah.
• 25:56
  But those little, because we often convolute this.
• 26:00
  And again, it's giving ourselves permission.
• 26:03
  And I often say rest is a right and a responsibility.
• 26:06
  It's not a reward.
• 26:07
  And I think many of us think we have to earn our rest or we have to wait until we're depleted to get it.
• 26:13
  Like we wait till we're sick and then we're in bed or we end up with, you know, an illness that we have to confront it.
• 26:21
  And that's, you know, I often say we were designed to flourish, not just function.
• 26:26
  And tapping into what brings us pleasure, I think, is so important, especially for women.
• 26:31
  Yeah.
• 26:32
  I mean, would you, as a mum, run your children into the ground, just watch them getting more and more and more?
• 26:39
  It's like we can see how it affects our children.
• 26:43
  We're the same.
• 26:44
  Like, what point did we not become a human being?
• 26:47
  Yeah.
• 26:50
  And when we can see it for our kids and we like, they need a big sleep.
• 26:56
  Like the same for yourself.
• 26:58
  Put yourself to bed.
• 27:00
  I love that.
• 27:02
  To bed.
• 27:02
  Do you know what?
• 27:03
  In my keynotes towards the end, I talk about how we've got to reframe our relationship to rest.
• 27:08
  Like recovery is, I call it a peak performance pit stop.
• 27:11
  So if you want to achieve sustainable success, if you want to have spacious success, like, you know, hit your KPIs, meet your goals, but not pay a tax along the way.
• 27:20
  I call it the success tax.
• 27:22
  then you have to invest in rest.
• 27:24
  Like it's not optional because our human operating system was designed for effort and recovery.
• 27:29
  And if we're just constantly efforting, constantly hustling and doing, we're working against the way we were neurobiologically designed.
• 27:37
  And the one slide that gets the most number of people taking photographs, and I don't know if it's a reminder for them or if they're sending it to their partner or to a colleague,
• 27:46
  is one that has a statistic from Gartner on it that says that if you take proactive recovery, you are 26% more productive.
• 27:56
  So if you invest in recovery, so it is a performance mechanism, but let's get rid of that.
• 28:02
  It just makes us feel good as well.
• 28:03
  Like, I don't want us to get to our deathbeds and look back and say, wow, I was so exhausted.
• 28:10
  Yeah.
• 28:11
  we've missed the moments.
• 28:12
  Like how many of us are living life, not only just listening to podcasts, but living life on one and a half speed and it literally whizzing past our eyes.
• 28:22
  One of my biggest fears is that people will get to the end of their lives and realise they've lived as a low res powered down human.
• 28:29
  And like, that's not okay.
• 28:32
  I shared this post a while ago that ended up getting shared a lot.
• 28:38
  And it was me reflecting on
• 28:41
  what my 80 year old self would be proud of.
• 28:45
  Like she's my North star, 80 year old.
• 28:48
  What is she going to look back and be like,
• 28:51
  out of you.
• 28:52
  Like that was, and it was literally, I was thinking it while I was out for my morning walk.
• 28:57
  So for years and years, um, as a, as a sole parent, the kids didn't want to wake up with me, not there fair enough.
• 29:04
  And at the end of last year, they, the youngest was like, yeah, no, I'm fine.
• 29:08
  I'm fine.
• 29:08
  I'm fine.
• 29:09
  You can try it.
• 29:10
  So I started.
• 29:11
  And so I've spent all this year and some of last year being out in the mornings and, um,
• 29:18
  It's like my favorite thing in the whole world.
• 29:21
  And I just, I have my stuff next to my bed.
• 29:24
  I roll out, I put on my, you know, dorky active wear and I walk and I listen to music.
• 29:31
  And I thought 80-year-old Lisa would be so proud that in amongst all of this time, I took that for myself.
• 29:42
  I created space for that and prioritized me myself
• 29:46
  And my body and moving and getting to see the morning, which is my favourite time of the day.
• 29:52
  Yeah, she'd be proud of that.
• 29:53
  She is who I want to impress more than anyone else.
• 29:56
  Oh, yeah.
• 29:57
  Oh, I love that.
• 29:58
  That's such a powerful reframe.
• 30:00
  I'm going to shift gears now and I want to talk a little bit about...
• 30:04
  The Gift of Perimenopause, you recently wrote a Substack article about losing your voice.
• 30:11
  And I have to tell you, it hit me so hard.
• 30:13
  I sat there reading it, nodding and hearing myself actually verbally saying, oh, my goodness, this is me.
• 30:19
  Um, despite for most middle, you know, middle-aged women, our social media feeds being absolutely saturated with perimenopause and menopause content.
• 30:28
  Now, don't get me wrong.
• 30:29
  I love a menopausal meme.
• 30:31
  Like they are quality.
• 30:32
  They give me a good giggle.
• 30:34
  Um, many women don't actually realize they're there.
• 30:38
  And that was the case for you.
• 30:40
  Why do you think that's the case?
• 30:41
  I think that there's a few different reasons.
• 30:44
  Um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um,
• 30:46
  I think that it's like a slow burn sometimes, isn't it?
• 30:51
  It's not like you finally arrive.
• 30:54
  I think for me, I'd been waiting for more of the really obvious and talked about physical symptoms.
• 31:01
  I was waiting to wake up in bed covered in sweat or experience the hot flushes and all of that sort of stuff, and that hadn't happened.
• 31:09
  So I was just waiting for when it really hit me.
• 31:14
  Yes.
• 31:14
  Without recognizing that there were so many other symptoms and I have an amazing GP, thank goodness.
• 31:23
  But I think also, and I did outline this in the Substack article, is I have this kind of unfortunate personality quirk, which is like, if everyone's going one way, I'll be like, no,
• 31:39
  I'll go the other way, actually, thanks.
• 31:41
  I'm like, no, I'm not just going to be, you know, jumping on the train.
• 31:47
  Yeah.
• 31:48
  I am a researcher.
• 31:50
  I wanted to cover all bases.
• 31:52
  I thought I'm going to sort of do this naturally.
• 31:54
  I'm not...
• 31:55
  I was on the pill for eight years from 16 to 24.
• 32:00
  Like many of us, I was given the pill for really painful periods that no one actually investigated why.
• 32:07
  And when I came off it, I was like, I am never, ever doing hormones again.
• 32:13
  Nope, nope, nope.
• 32:15
  But back in that time, it was for contraception.
• 32:17
  Yep.
• 32:17
  Of course.
• 32:19
  And I've really had to sit with and challenge people
• 32:23
  my beliefs about what is right for my body being in a brand new stage of life because holding on to that refusing the potential benefits of mht yeah i hadn't realized that what a bloody psychiatrist diagnosed as clinical depression
• 32:47
  was my estrogen falling off a cliff.
• 32:50
  Because as soon as I started the MHE, that's really what made me go, I'm like, I'm not depressed.
• 32:55
  I know I'm not depressed.
• 32:57
  But I definitely know I have really, really struggled with this low-grade mood for longer than...
• 33:04
  And I was doing all the right things, Christy.
• 33:06
  I was doing it.
• 33:07
  Dialed in my food.
• 33:08
  I looked at stuff.
• 33:09
  I was lowering inflammation.
• 33:11
  I am moving my body.
• 33:12
  I am connected.
• 33:14
  I'm like, you know, seeing someone, like all the things that would normally raise me up.
• 33:19
  I was just like, no, it's just not working.
• 33:21
  Nothing's working.
• 33:23
  And so it was almost instantaneous.
• 33:25
  I reckon it was sort of seven, eight days after starting.
• 33:29
  I went, oh.
• 33:31
  I'm back.
• 33:35
  What's this?
• 33:36
  What the hell?
• 33:38
  And I had just thought maybe, you know, my best years were over.
• 33:44
  I should just stop talking altogether.
• 33:46
  No one cares.
• 33:48
  You know, I really was struggling for quite a while, but also because of what I've been through in my life, I put it down to those things.
• 33:56
  Yeah.
• 33:57
  Like maybe this was an extension.
• 33:59
  Maybe I just hadn't moved through grief.
• 34:01
  Maybe blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 34:03
  And bloody hell, just getting my hormones on track has had this extraordinary impact.
• 34:13
  Isn't it?
• 34:14
  Well done.
• 34:14
  And thank you for sharing because I think I hear a lot of women that I work with say, I just don't feel like me, but they can't necessarily pinpoint what it is.
• 34:24
  They feel like a low res version of themselves.
• 34:28
  And you wrote that I absolutely flatlined mentally and nothing shifted this low grade mood.
• 34:34
  And I know when I was embarking on considering MHT as well, I was also reluctant because I convinced myself I'm a neuro performance scientist.
• 34:43
  So all the protocols and brain based practices that should work weren't working.
• 34:48
  And then I would make myself wrong for that, you know, all of the sleep hygiene and I would still wake up.
• 34:54
  between 2 and 3 a.m. and I was managing my daytime stress.
• 34:58
  The brain fog, not being able to remember words mid-keynote.
• 35:04
  So like you, I didn't have some of the more obvious or the more popular, I guess, popularized symptoms.
• 35:11
  And I was also very reluctant to go down a medical path because I thought I could protocol my way out of this.
• 35:20
  I'm here for transitions.
• 35:22
  I talk about change a lot.
• 35:23
  I'm like, look, we're getting older.
• 35:25
  I want to experience what this feels like.
• 35:28
  But I think, you know... With your sanity intact.
• 35:32
  I'm also responsible for children.
• 35:34
  Sanity and sex drive intact.
• 35:36
  Like, that would be nice.
• 35:37
  That would be amazing.
• 35:42
  And you had a positive response, I'm assuming, when you shared that article.
• 35:46
  Oh, people.
• 35:47
  This is a thing.
• 35:48
  I...
• 35:49
  I think when we do share honestly our own stories as women, it just gives other women permission to share.
• 35:58
  There's been so many times and I've talked about topics that aren't super sexy, grief, addiction.
• 36:06
  Whenever I do.
• 36:08
  I am just flooded with DMs from people saying thank you for giving voice to what I haven't even been able to express to myself.
• 36:17
  Or you just put that in a way that helps me make sense.
• 36:21
  Or I've just shared what you said because...
• 36:24
  I would never have those words, but I want the people around me to understand how I'm feeling.
• 36:30
  It's our superpower as women.
• 36:32
  It is.
• 36:33
  And honest conversations and stories, even although we think that they might be boring to us, heal.
• 36:42
  They heal people.
• 36:43
  Yeah.
• 36:44
  Yeah.
• 36:45
  Yeah, I don't know if you remember it, but Jim Fortin, it was a program we were both in years ago, and he used to talk about what is most general.
• 36:52
  How did he say it?
• 36:53
  What is most personal is most general.
• 36:55
  Yes, and, you know, in an era of online, you know, social media, highlight reel, you know, showing just the edited, curated, polished versions of our lives, when you strip back the veneer, and that's why I agree, sharing, you know, potent, powerful stories,
• 37:12
  is just such a way for women to connect.
• 37:14
  And as you said, to heal.
• 37:15
  And we're aching for it, aren't we?
• 37:18
  We all know.
• 37:19
  We all know that this is a joke, right?
• 37:22
  Yeah.
• 37:22
  You know, I think especially at our age, we're just like, come on, cut the bullshit.
• 37:27
  I am not interested.
• 37:28
  That's why I love our conversations because you've got that real science base and it's like it's educated and understood, but real life expression of the work and understanding the nuance that we all are like,
• 37:47
  I really want things for myself as well.
• 37:49
  I really, I love doing this.
• 37:51
  How can I make this work for myself?
• 37:53
  And, you know, it's complicated.
• 37:55
  There's no silver bullet answers to any of this stuff.
• 37:58
  If there was, we would be pressing bloody go on that.
• 38:01
  I agree.
• 38:03
  So you've also spoken about being diagnosed as an autistic ADHD-er.
• 38:08
  What did that diagnosis open up for you?
• 38:10
  What company is that?
• 38:11
  I just, okay.
• 38:14
  So, I mean, just like perimenopause and menopause is having its day, I think that the explosion of neurodivergence awareness in all different levels has been a fascinating thing to be part of it.
• 38:30
  It's really impacted so many people and been wonderful for so many people.
• 38:36
  And like many women...
• 38:39
  I was watching this stuff.
• 38:41
  I was observing things in my children.
• 38:43
  I had a good understanding of autism when, you know, when my husband was seeing a psychologist and I remember it was probably about 2016, so a while ago now, and he took, he discovered Asperger's, which they used to call that sort of high-functioning autism, which is not how we talk about it anymore, to his psychologist and said, I think,
• 39:09
  I think this is me.
• 39:09
  I mean, when I saw the list, I was like, tick, tick, tick.
• 39:12
  Oh, my God, this fully explains your experience of the world.
• 39:16
  And she just looked at him and said, sorry, I mean, you've got a really great job and a loving wife and kids.
• 39:25
  And you can look me in the eyes when you talk so you don't fit the profile of an autistic man.
• 39:31
  And I think if he had been validated as autistic in that moment and we saw his recovery journey as accommodating his actual genuine needs instead of medicating him for things that weren't actually wrong, I would say he would still be alive.
• 39:49
  Oh, Lisa, that's heartbreaking.
• 39:51
  There is a lot of addicts who...
• 39:55
  do not understand that they are using to regulate and haven't been taught all of that stuff.
• 40:01
  I mean, there were heaps of signs.
• 40:03
  He used to walk around our house with little, with earbuds in his ears to just dull the noise a little bit from the kids because obviously it was sensory overload.
• 40:15
  And so he'd just have a drink.
• 40:16
  Like neither of us really knew we were dealing with addiction until it was fully sort of in.
• 40:23
  And so I had done deep dives on this, you know, for myself.
• 40:29
  You know, when we had our kids, there were things that I was starting to see, especially after he died, actually.
• 40:35
  And the COVID years really sort of, I mean, everyone's nervous system was shot in Melbourne.
• 40:41
  But never, ever did I think it was me, Christy.
• 40:45
  No.
• 40:46
  So when we travelled, when I took the kids travelling for five months in 2023, we went on a big overseas adventure.
• 40:54
  Yeah.
• 40:56
  very ADHD decision to make.
• 40:58
  Impulsivity.
• 41:01
  It's like, it's got to be exciting.
• 41:03
  What are we going to do?
• 41:05
  So let's just get some backpacks and go.
• 41:09
  But when I was traveling with them, I definitely saw things with my son, who I was schooling at the time he was in year seven, and also my youngest, who...
• 41:18
  is very similar to her dad in a lot of ways.
• 41:21
  And so when we got home from that, I thought, right, I'm just going to, because I could see the value that an assessment and a diagnosis, for want of a better word, or an understanding of neurodivergence would have had for Nick, I want to do the same for our children.
• 41:38
  And I just felt like I should go first because by that stage, all the ADHD stuff and women, it was all out there.
• 41:47
  And I was like,
• 41:48
  I mean, that's obviously me, had never picked it up.
• 41:53
  And then I got the assessment and I was confirmed ADHD.
• 41:57
  But while I was in that assessment, the psychologist was like, so have you ever looked at yourself through the lens of autism?
• 42:06
  I was like, no, it's just that a lot of people I love.
• 42:13
  Some of my best friends are autistic, but I just really like them.
• 42:17
  I just love autistic people.
• 42:19
  And she's like, you know, there is something in that.
• 42:21
  And all of the sensory things that you've described to me in this, that's actually autism, you know, so that's not actually ADHD.
• 42:27
  And I sort of thought, well, that's interesting, but whatevs.
• 42:31
  And then I was, you know, once someone sort of puts that to you, obviously I'm going to be sort of doing my own research and I've always felt not fully ADHD.
• 42:43
  I think it does definitely describe a lot about me and my personality and how I experience the world, but not everything.
• 42:50
  And so I did.
• 42:51
  I finally got the autism assessment as well.
• 42:55
  And that just made a lot of things make sense.
• 42:57
  So for me, yeah.
• 43:00
  experiencing life has always been this duality so I want novelty excitement and
• 43:07
  I need challenges.
• 43:08
  I need deadlines.
• 43:09
  I need competition.
• 43:11
  Like all that, you know, good ADHD stuff.
• 43:14
  My mind does go fast.
• 43:16
  I didn't realize that because you don't really know that life could be any different.
• 43:22
  But there's also this side of me that I just, I really need routine.
• 43:27
  I really need downtime.
• 43:29
  I really get over people.
• 43:33
  Even although I love people so much.
• 43:35
  And there's this duality.
• 43:40
  Like I am always up against myself.
• 43:43
  It feels like if life gets too simple, I kind of, and routine, I die inside a little bit.
• 43:51
  But then too much chaos, I lose myself totally.
• 43:57
  And so I just, I walk that kind of path.
• 44:01
  I think in a very big way.
• 44:06
  like I've always thought at a really high level.
• 44:08
  I studied international relations.
• 44:10
  Like I like to understand how things work.
• 44:12
  I like to understand how people work.
• 44:14
  It's formed everything about...
• 44:17
  My job, I don't find it difficult to break things down into teachable parts, I think in stories.
• 44:27
  So I write stories.
• 44:28
  So I love my brain.
• 44:30
  I love it so much.
• 44:32
  And also it's brought a level of complication to my life that I didn't fully understand until I was going solo.
• 44:39
  Yeah.
• 44:40
  when there is no partner to take the reins to, you know, come and just be the things that you aren't naturally good at.
• 44:48
  I mean, there's strengths and weaknesses in everyone, but there's deficiencies that I really feel in my life that I've always, I've had partners who can take me to.
• 44:59
  And on my own,
• 45:01
  floundering.
• 45:02
  And I had to get really honest with myself.
• 45:04
  Learning this about myself has given me more agency to think of the support that I need and how to set up work and my life for a way that I can thrive instead of beating myself up against these standards that I was perhaps holding myself to that were never going to work for me.
• 45:24
  It's more playful here.
• 45:26
  It's fear here, understanding
• 45:30
  And I, again, really appreciate that you've reframed this into a superpower, but also acknowledge the shortcomings.
• 45:35
  And, again, look for rather than lament the situation or, you know, have the pity party.
• 45:42
  What support can I bring in?
• 45:43
  You know, what scaffolding do I need?
• 45:45
  So, again, not that you can just get by, but so you can thrive.
• 45:49
  And that's such a quantum leap, I think, in people's thinking.
• 45:52
  Yeah, I mean, but it was, it's wonky, the process of realizing this about yourself.
• 45:58
  And there's parts that I'm like, oh, so I'm just never, ever gonna be really great at opening the mail.
• 46:05
  Oh, dang.
• 46:06
  It's overrated.
• 46:07
  It's usually just bills these days.
• 46:09
  No one sends you a postcard.
• 46:13
  That's okay.
• 46:14
  I just didn't know the mail for a long time.
• 46:15
  But anyway, so, yeah, I do.
• 46:17
  I think that there's just one, like with everything, there's just a process that you go through.
• 46:21
  And because also I think having lost someone at, you know, when he was 40 years old and experiencing loss, I just don't feel like I've got time to stay in.
• 46:35
  stuck in certain places i always be trying to seek out the next thing i know is it seven years since nick has passed he just we just passed the seventh birthday that he's missed but it's six and a bit years yeah he died in september 2019
• 46:57
  I'm so sorry.
• 46:58
  And I know you once wrote that we don't move on from grief.
• 47:01
  We just move forward with it.
• 47:03
  What's it been like?
• 47:05
  I mean, what has grief taught you?
• 47:06
  And what has it been like parenting in pain?
• 47:11
  Yeah.
• 47:13
  Just like with you trying to beat perimenopause with all of the tools and biohacks and all the things that you know.
• 47:23
  I thought at the time that he died, there was a lot of mindset work that I was doing.
• 47:30
  And I thought I could perhaps out mindset grief.
• 47:33
  I thought perhaps I had tools that were going to help me get through that.
• 47:38
  And for sure, I did.
• 47:41
  And you can't beat grief.
• 47:43
  Yeah.
• 47:45
  You just, you have to feel it.
• 47:48
  Yeah.
• 47:48
  It's like.
• 47:51
  I really tried to keep myself very productive and distracted post his death.
• 47:58
  I absolutely did not think if I let myself feel the depth of pain that I felt that I would literally survive it.
• 48:06
  How would I get up each day and parent?
• 48:08
  How would I keep showing up to work?
• 48:11
  It was all on me.
• 48:12
  I've got to keep going, going, going.
• 48:14
  And it just put off the inevitable, really.
• 48:18
  Yeah.
• 48:20
  And I feel like I have befriended grief over the years.
• 48:25
  It's like my pal.
• 48:26
  It arrives.
• 48:28
  And I feel it intensely.
• 48:30
  It was his birthday last week.
• 48:31
  And I thought seven years, like it's, I'm going to be fine.
• 48:35
  I always give the kids the day off school on his birthday because we celebrate him.
• 48:40
  So it's not the anniversary of a death.
• 48:42
  It's a celebration of his life.
• 48:45
  And we do things that he used to love.
• 48:47
  Like I take them op shopping or we go for a swim.
• 48:50
  This year, I took them to the place where we had our first date and.
• 48:56
  Oh, special.
• 48:57
  It was Cinema Nova, like art house-y kind of film, like...
• 49:02
  cinema place in in Carlton in Melbourne and we saw the Bruce Springsteen movie and Nick was he he wrote songs recorded songs and it was so good Christy and sad you know it's sad that he's not there I woke up I woke up just devastated that he's not here he never saw 47 he he
• 49:28
  And I was thinking about our daughter who's going into grade six next year and he never saw her in a school uniform.
• 49:34
  God, like what the hell?
• 49:36
  And then we get home from having this beautiful experience, the kids and I.
• 49:40
  We had a lovely day together and my daughter gets out Nick's old guitar and starts strumming it and she writes a song called My Missing Piece.
• 49:50
  Oh, please.
• 49:52
  About her dad.
• 49:53
  And I just sit there and the kids have such great emotional range because we just cry together about it.
• 50:02
  They see me cry.
• 50:03
  They're not afraid of that anymore.
• 50:05
  I'm not afraid of showing them that.
• 50:07
  They're not afraid of feeling it because we know it's part of life is life.
• 50:14
  loss.
• 50:15
  And, and so I allow those moments now, and I'm not afraid of them in ways that I used to, I used to try and like hurry myself through it.
• 50:24
  Now I just, I almost just indulge it.
• 50:26
  Cause it's like, Hey grief, you're here reminding me of how much I loved that man.
• 50:33
  What a loss it is to me and to the children that he's not here and we're okay, but it still sucks.
• 50:42
  And I'm,
• 50:43
  And the grief is like my reminder.
• 50:50
  But I don't think I've had more like posts that I share about grief.
• 50:57
  Whenever I write about grief, talk about what's most personal is most general.
• 51:04
  We do not talk about grief enough at all.
• 51:08
  We have like in our particular culture.
• 51:13
  We don't have rituals.
• 51:15
  We don't have processes.
• 51:17
  We go silent.
• 51:18
  We expect people to show up to work.
• 51:22
  And...
• 51:23
  It's like my brain went offline for a while.
• 51:27
  My whole system needed to calibrate to a new reality without a person.
• 51:31
  And it doesn't stop.
• 51:33
  I mean, my son is 15 and he's going through puberty and he's like going to party like he's got a girlfriend.
• 51:41
  And all this stuff I wish like every single day I wish Nick was here to help steward them through these years.
• 51:47
  So, but I've accepted it.
• 51:49
  This is my path.
• 51:51
  And I talk a lot about like the tapestry of us as humans.
• 52:01
  Like we aren't, like I'm not just a white linen shirt person.
• 52:09
  I am this patchwork.
• 52:10
  I am, there is a tapestry and a richness to me because of what I have been through.
• 52:15
  I wish it wasn't so, but I also don't want to deny it.
• 52:21
  I'd prefer to embrace it.
• 52:22
  Yeah.
• 52:23
  And see it for the gifts because there absolutely has been gifts from grief.
• 52:29
  And I get asked to keynote on that because I think when you're going through it, when you feel that depth of despair, really, and sadness, you can't see it.
• 52:40
  No.
• 52:41
  But always, like anything hard that we go through, there is something on the other side.
• 52:48
  There are things like, you know, even yourself, when we lost...
• 52:52
  KGH, I always called her.
• 52:54
  It's like a rewiring of our understanding of life itself and how we are going to choose to live out these midlife years with her as an inspiration.
• 53:09
  Yeah.
• 53:09
  Well, she's the reason that I'm finally doing this podcast because Karen and I used to talk about the women that were, you know, quietly cracking, that were crumbling, that were not making the most of their lives.
• 53:23
  Karen's unexpected death was tragic and awful, but one tiny bit of solace I've taken out of it is that Karen made the most of her time.
• 53:33
  Like she lived her life boldly.
• 53:36
  She prioritised pleasure.
• 53:38
  She, you know, had fun.
• 53:40
  She had lots of fun, we found out at her funeral.
• 53:45
  She just, she really made the most and her weeks were too short.
• 53:50
  There is absolutely no denying that.
• 53:53
  But there is some sort of peace of mind knowing that she just made the most of the gift of time.
• 53:58
  And I think that's what grief illuminates.
• 54:01
  It's the ultimate, you know, any sort of grief or tragedy or challenge that we're presented with, I think it's the ultimate recalibration tool.
• 54:08
  It's the recalibration of your values, of your priorities, and it's the ultimate recalibration tool.
• 54:13
  And I think it forces us to strip back all the superfluous, redundant things that we worry about and just hone in on, you know, what are the simple abundances in our life?
• 54:24
  Like what are the things that really matter?
• 54:26
  And then you are forced to prioritize the potent.
• 54:28
  And I think I agree.
• 54:30
  There are gifts in grief if we're willing to sit in it.
• 54:35
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 54:37
  Thank you.
• 54:38
  Well, I think also people need to know that grief is not just death.
• 54:43
  No.
• 54:44
  Grief is the end of a marriage.
• 54:46
  Yeah.
• 54:48
  And the end of a life that you thought that you were going to have.
• 54:52
  People grieve deeply for their pets.
• 54:55
  Yeah.
• 54:55
  People grieve the loss.
• 54:57
  Riches.
• 54:58
  friendships, careers and jobs that they loved, roles that they've had.
• 55:04
  There is so much.
• 55:05
  And something that I'm really fascinated about as we all walk this path of AI, you know, walking into a very new climate reality is we are going to need to be collectively grieving what we're losing here.
• 55:23
  Yeah.
• 55:24
  And I, and I, I, it's something that I feel really passionate about actually is almost just like an awareness that this is grief and that you get to feel it.
• 55:36
  And it's not a bad thing.
• 55:37
  It's not like there's no good or bad emotions.
• 55:41
  There's just emotions and giving yourself permission to feel it just makes the tapestry of you richer.
• 55:49
  I love that.
• 55:50
  What a great way to finish.
• 55:52
  So I
• 55:52
  One quick rapid-fire question before we wrap up.
• 55:57
  What does spacious success look like for you in this season of life that you're in raising three kids predominantly on your own?
• 56:05
  What does living a life, like if Karen KGH was to look down and say, look at Lisa, she's living a life of spacious success, what might she see or hear?
• 56:14
  Yeah.
• 56:15
  Or does she not want to see those things?
• 56:17
  No, she used to, you know what?
• 56:20
  I have a book that she sent me.
• 56:25
  the house that Joy built.
• 56:26
  It's on my, it's because what she was always a really big proponent of, and what I am very into as well, is life as a creative project.
• 56:43
  It's like, I love thinking about, and it's interesting that you mentioned that awards night that I went to with you.
• 56:51
  I can remember sitting in that audience and watching...
• 56:55
  winner after winner get up on that stage and thank their partner for allowing them to have this amazing career as a speaker because it takes you away from home right it's like thank you you're my rock thank you like i couldn't do this without you and i just sat there going okay so life as a speaker is probably not going to be for me right now and i felt really sad about it and then i was like well still love speaking
• 57:24
  still have things to say.
• 57:26
  So that was what created Harvest, which was the spoken word event.
• 57:31
  I booked a venue around the corner from my house, wrote a story that I toured and is now available as an audio recording.
• 57:43
  And because I decided to do it on my terms, I'm not going to fight what my reality is right now.
• 57:49
  My reality is three kids on my own.
• 57:51
  And how like,
• 57:56
  I just don't think this season in particular for me is about big, huge, crazy growth that's out of control.
• 58:04
  Teenagers are a whole thing, Christy.
• 58:07
  They require a lot of boundaries, a lot of being present to.
• 58:13
  They're hilarious and funny and challenging.
• 58:16
  And they are experiencing the world in whole new ways.
• 58:19
  I don't think I've ever been more needed for my children.
• 58:21
  It's all true.
• 58:23
  And so for me right now, being able to be present to them, to be able to do good work in the world, that, you know, is paying the bills and, you know, keeping me going.
• 58:34
  I feel like there'll be time for me to, you know, do all the traveling and getting my little suitcase out.
• 58:42
  While my part of me aches for it, that's not for me right now.
• 58:47
  So how do I get creative with the life I'm living?
• 58:50
  How do I...
• 58:52
  you know, add more good stuff into the context right now instead of just feeling like a victim of it.
• 59:00
  Do you know what?
• 59:01
  I actually can almost hear Karen.
• 59:04
  So for listeners, Karen worked in Lisa and my business over the years.
• 59:09
  Karen was just a phenomenal human.
• 59:11
  And there's an earlier episode, actually episode zero, where I explain why this podcast has finally come to life.
• 59:18
  And Karen, one of the things she used to say to me and that I will never, ever forget is she always used to say to me when I would come to her, so we'd have our weekly meetings,
• 59:28
  And each week I'd turn up with these lofty ideas and she'd come to me with some speaking engagements that would mean I'd have to go from Perth to Melbourne to South Australia, back to a book week parade at home and then to Brisbane.
• 59:41
  And she used to remind me, what does success in this season of your life look like?
• 59:47
  She used to challenge me.
• 59:48
  She was my handbrake.
• 59:50
  She was common sense when, you know, creative, crazy Christy stepped in.
• 59:54
  And I think for many women, we look at like conventional models of success and often I'm going to say patriarchal models of success and we try to emulate them.
• 1:00:03
  But we need to stop and say, well, in this season of life with the constraints that I am facing, you know, be it, you know, the absence of a partner to help you with kids.
• 1:00:14
  be it caring for an elderly parent, dealing with a family member with some health challenges.
• 1:00:22
  Like whatever it is, what does success look like?
• 1:00:25
  And I think there are so many people climbing mountains that they think will get them to the top and they get to the top only to realise they've climbed the wrong mountain.
• 1:00:34
  So I think it's just such a beautiful way to end and one that Karen would be proud that we've both learned.
• 1:00:40
  She's coming through us.
• 1:00:41
  She's...
• 1:00:42
  Channeling, page EH, what does success in this season look like?
• 1:00:47
  And it sounds like you've defined that for yourself.
• 1:00:49
  It's a constant work in progress.
• 1:00:51
  It's a constant push and pull.
• 1:00:53
  And, yeah, she would be very, very proud of you.
• 1:00:57
  She'd be tickled pink that we're both here now on this podcast that you've created.
• 1:01:02
  She was, I mean, talk about champion of women.
• 1:01:06
  That was her.
• 1:01:07
  She was the...
• 1:01:09
  Yeah, she was the wind beneath many people's wings, wasn't she?
• 1:01:13
  And we miss her.
• 1:01:15
  We miss her.
• 1:01:16
  We do miss her.
• 1:01:16
  But she'd be like, yeah, Christy.
• 1:01:18
  So thank you.
• 1:01:20
  Well, Lisa, I have really enjoyed our conversation.
• 1:01:23
  Thank you for sharing.
• 1:01:24
  Thank you for the work that you do.
• 1:01:25
  Thank you for supporting women, for tackling toxic and taboo topics.
• 1:01:30
  topics, the ones that we often shy away from, from encouraging women to rest and to prioritize pleasure and play.
• 1:01:39
  You are a gem and I'm really grateful that all those years ago we met in B School and have continued to keep in touch.
• 1:01:47
  So where can listeners find out more about you?
• 1:01:49
  If they want, can I encourage you to buy Harvest and listen to it?
• 1:01:54
  Put your ear pods in, be prepared, take tissues.
• 1:01:59
  Lisa has a gift for storytelling and this story will move you.
• 1:02:03
  That's all I'm going to say.
• 1:02:04
  But where else can they find out more?
• 1:02:06
  Very generous.
• 1:02:06
  Well, I mean, I hang out on socials at Lisa Kordoff.
• 1:02:11
  And my website is also lisacordoff.com.
• 1:02:15
  I do lots of different things.
• 1:02:17
  So you just got to keep up.
• 1:02:22
  I love it.
• 1:02:23
  Well, thank you.
• 1:02:24
  I'm deeply grateful for your time.
• 1:02:26
  And I can't wait to share this with lots of people.
• 1:02:28
  Thanks, Christy.