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What I've Learnt - Em Rusciano · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, over the past few years, M.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Rossiano has found herself navigating the end of an 18-year marriage, dating again in her 40s, single parenting, rebuilding her career independently, and questioning many of the beliefs she'd carried since childhood about love, worthiness, approval, and what it means to be a good woman.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's exciting to chat to Em because she has a new national tour called Addicted to Love, and I'm very excited to talk to her about this.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: The show grew out of the experience that she's had recently, but also the conversation itself, which is really about what happens when the life you built no longer fits you, and you're forced to start listening to yourself again.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, Em, welcome to the What I've Learned podcast.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Can't wait to chat about all of these issues.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you so much.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: What I've learning is that the more I know, the less I know.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: So and you would be amongst many of my guests.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: We all share a similar vision and mission to actually keep learning and keep growing and keep evolving, which is really where this started five years ago, this podcast.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it's really interesting what you're doing.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me a little bit, first of all, I have given in the intro a little oversight into your journey of late, the last few years.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Everything from ending an 18-year marriage, which is huge, to dating in your 40s, single parenting, all of the above.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Many of our listeners have actually been on similar but different journeys.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about what has been, shall we call it, a highlight of the last few years for you?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: What has really, and there seems to have been many that you've been through.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: They're not some are good, some are bad.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, look, I think for me, the projects that I've been able to make after I've learned the lessons.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I wrote a book called Blood, Sweat and Glitter that came out at the end of last year.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a huge achievement for me because the five years leading into it, as was for everybody, COVID lockdowns, I'm in Melbourne, so it was a marathon.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I found out I was ADHD autistic.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: I learned about perimenopause.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that book, I never thought I'd get there.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: I never thought I'd be in the right headspace or have the attention or the patience to finish it.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I did, and I know it's helped a lot of people and made specifically for people going through perimenopause.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: And if they wanted to send it to somebody so that they understood what it was like, the absolute hellscape.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess the highlights for me of have been kind of surviving the trials that life has thrown at me and then being able to make something useful out of it.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: I always try and see what the lessons are out of all the the trauma.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Clusterfucks I find myself in.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you call it clusterfuck, I call it trauma.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, same, same.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in some ways, though, from what you've outlined, I mean, I don't know whether your ADHD was diagnosed as part of your perimenopause assessment or whether it was separate to that, but it seems to be quite a common experience.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, now everybody's talking about it much more than they did five years ago.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a blessing.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: But at least we're all on that journey, and people are actually saying, wow, this really does transform our trajectory.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: So for you, did this whole experience that you went through, was that where sort of the deck of cards changed?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you see them as separate experiences?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: No, definitely all intertwining.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think the ADHD symptoms presented because I was in perimenopause, but the ADHD came first.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I I learned about that and I learned, you know, how to ways to cope and ways to get through it, and I went through all the grief that you go through with the late diagnosis ADHD.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I did an actual press club address about it, which was also hugely life-changing.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I really was passionate about changing the conversation around neurodivergence in our community, especially the way it affects women.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: And the largest cohort being diagnosed are women over 40.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: And there's no coincidence that women over 40 are also the ones going through perimenopause.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: And also the largest drop-off of professional workers of women in work environments are women of that age.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like we are all these Venn diagrams and it's hormonal chaos that is causing all of these things.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: So everything I've gone through is definitely linked to my hormones.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the way that it's affected me being a neurodivergent woman, we are far more sensitive to hormone shifts than our neurotypical counterparts.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's everything has blurred into everything else.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's no way to separate it out.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: But the big, the first kind of domino was the ADHD, and then everything else came after, but it all overlaps all of that.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's a credit to you because I think writing a book, for example, as you've done, is quite challenging anyway for most people.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, part of the ADHD symptom can be a distractibility, the constant need to sort of anchor is quite challenging.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And while I haven't been diagnosed with it, I relate in some ways, although I think there's a real, I personally think there's also a big crossover.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Often it's creatives that some of the best creatives have extraordinary ADHD, but it's not necessarily that they've been diagnosed specifically.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that it's sort of like a blessing and a curse.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a question of how you use it.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And clearly what you've done is you've learnt the lessons and you've tried to use it to empower your journey.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: What was the revelation at the press club?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: What was what did you find so I suppose uplifting?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Was it?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think in response to it, yeah.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was really hesitant to kind of come out as neurodivergent because I don't meet everyone's stereotypical, especially at that time, it was 2022, maybe.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: So like four years ago, no one was talking about ADHD women, and I didn't meet everybody's preconceived ideas of what somebody with ADHD looked like.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm not Bart Simpson, I'm Marge.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: So my big fear was being accused of faking it, there was a lot of, yeah, I was I was afraid of public backlash.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And because I had masked it so well, and I'd also, I guess, landed in a career that does take advantage of some of the attributes that being ADHD presents.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I also have suffered greatly because of my the way my brain is wired and the environments I've put it in.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And but speaking about it publicly, you know, I spoke about poststandal depression on radio in like 2007, and nobody was doing it.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody was talking about it, yeah.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now they have it was the last time.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I had a full thing.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: It was this public, just a wave of love and support.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: And the same thing came after Press Club, especially speaking about my son who's autistic, and I found out I was autistic through his diagnostic process.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: And again, telling people I was autistic was really I had a lot of fear around it.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: I know that a lot of people are coming to it now, even and speaking my truth.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, speaking your truth, and there's a there's an honouring of authenticity, yeah, which I think that is what you're saying is that there is a space that wasn't there before, that is there now.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: So you've been through a lot.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you talk about so the end of an 18-year marriage is massive and quite daunting, but at the same time, you talk about how it's also in some ways been liberating.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, can you talk to me about whether that was related?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, these are multifaceted experiences.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: But whether you coming into yourself and finding an understanding, was that a factor?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And how so?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we we were together 25 years, so it was an 18-year marriage, but a 25-year relationship.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: He was like my second ever boyfriend, and I was with over half my life.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was a huge thing for me.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: It was world-altering, and but I did.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: I I woke up one day, and so many women tell this story, and I I think it's to do with the oestrogen leaving my body.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I truly looked around at my life and realized I'd built everything around other people choosing me, and I'd never chosen myself.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I was exhausted.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I was just exhausted and I was furious.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was the fury and the rage that came.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of marriages, a lot of women are initiating relationships ending and divorce, because oftentimes you'll go to your partner and you'll say, Look, I don't want to play this role anymore.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to do everything.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to plan Christmas, all the holidays, all the school lunches, carry all the domestic load and the mental load.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Please help me.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so tired, right?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of the time the partners go, of course, I'll lean in, I'll come with you.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: But part of that was my fault.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: This is not all my ex-husband's fault.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: I did it all and I built up the expectations and standards in a way that was absolute lunacy, but I just wanted to make everyone like me.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted everything to be the best.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was just unsustainable.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I did hit midlife perimenopause, exhaustion, ADHD, autistic burnout, and I said to my family, things need to change.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: When you put boundaries in with people who benefit from you having none, there's going to be some casualties.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: And my marriage was one of them.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: I totally hear you.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's a lot of people, and I have interviewed a lot of people, particularly recently, a lot of women who are experiencing a very similar process.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: So whether it's, yes, as you mentioned, the estrogen dropping is one factor, but in some ways that minimizes the awareness because the awareness is also an understanding of, in some ways, we're probably from a similar generation where we were raised as women to accommodate, to seek approval, to be conciliatory, to try and find ways to listen, be kind, be in, you know, embrace all of those words, all of which are beautiful things and very things to honor.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: But as you point out, in some ways, I think, what are we forfeiting?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly, I mean, you talk of the rage.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's very interesting because there's a lot of women talking about this.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: The rage that comes from years of resentment that has just been pushed down and down and down and down, and there's nowhere for it to go.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it just explodes.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not healthy.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So things have to change, not just on a one-on-one level.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: But I think in the way that we raise our girls and the women in our lives.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: I know I've got daughters, I'm very clear, they're very strong.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: They have beautiful two are married, but they've, you know, there's a sense of we have those discussions.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure that you can be a giving, kind, caring mother, wife, whatever.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: But you also have to hear your own voice.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: And quite honestly, sometimes I think we all agree it's very hard to hear it.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's very hard.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: It goes against everything we're conditioned to do as women in society.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: We are not encouraged to pick ourselves first or listen to our intuition or, you know, listen to that for first voice that comes in or back yourself.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's not something that women are naturally told to do.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Boys are encouraged to be leaders and climb trees and be brave, and we're told to be good and helpful and subservient.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it really goes against kind of the natural order of things within your body and biology to choose yourself.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: We feel guilty.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: You've often got to push through this kind of feeling of I'm going to get in trouble.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: You're worried, the anxiety, yeah, the judgment.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: How was your family?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, did they respond in an understanding way in time?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, my girls, you know, they're 24 and 19.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: So they saw what was happening with me.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: They could see I was struggling.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we all have a pretty honest relationship, and they could see that their dad and I were just on completely different pages.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I mean, it's awful when anyone's parents split up and not to minimize it, but you know, I think they just want us both to be happy.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: And Scott and I wanted two different so my seven-year-old, my son, you know, it's it's a whole different thing for him.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: He misses his dad.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: And but again, I have pretty Elio's the smartest person in.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: I can have pretty frank discussions with him.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just we're still a family, we're just a different shape.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: And dad's gonna live here, I'm gonna live here.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: We all still do things together, we're all still a family.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's it's not as part of the reason women stay in relationships, and I certainly stayed for longer than I probably should have, is that you don't want to do wrong by your kids and by your family unit, and but at what cost, you know.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I was not a nice person toward the end, and I was exhausted and angry all the time and not being the best parent I can be, and not showing up, and that that was hurting my family.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I think now that I'm kind of working through it and I'm not all the way through it, I'm I can show up in a more authentic and and better way.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's it's a tough decision.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: In the end, I'm I'm glad I made it.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it sounds from what you're describing as if you've learned a lot about yourself in the process and about your your strength and your courage and your capacity to actually, because often we're sort of once again back to the enculturation and the way that we're all raised, which is be a good girl, be accommodating, and don't hurt anyone in the process.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds to me as if you have listened to your voice and you've heard yourself.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And in doing so, that meant that for you, an exit was the only way to actually probably survive emotionally, is what you 100%.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was not going to survive it emotionally, and I I, you know, I barely did.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because leaving that type of thing, like we weren't arguing, we weren't, there was no affair, there was no big, like dramatic moment.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was truly just a choosing of I am, if I stay in this spot in my life, I'm walking so far away from the woman I want to be and the woman I see I could be.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I have to keep walking away from it, even though everything was pulling me back toward it.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it is a quiet courage for anyone to leave.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of women are not just leaving marriages, but they're leaving jobs and then maybe they're getting friendships, or maybe they're going no contact with their parents, or whatever is their large source of trauma, that quiet bravery of going against every instinct you have, except the one voice shouting at you, is again, yeah, it is a quiet kind of bravery.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: And this show that I've written, that my standup show, Addicted to Love, it's kind of my love letter to those women.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's my empowering of women who are almost those women.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I just wanted to give people who are at the same point in their life as I have been at and am at something to look forward to, something to be at with their person.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been trying to encourage everyone to bring the person they call it 2 a.m.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: when they're crying, to thank them, you know, to bring their person, that could be their mom.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: It could be their husbands, like bring them in, of course, but I just I know what it is to feel utterly alone in the world and it's the middle of the night and you and you're desperately looking for for something to tell you what to do.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I wrote this stand-up show as a way forward.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I'm dating for the first time since the late 90s, and that's I was about to say, oh my god, tell me I'm very interested in that.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: How's that going for you?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because there is this whole midlife mama dating phase.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: How's that going?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know women doing that, and they're actually some are loving it, and some are like not loving it.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, what is your experience?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going, I go through like waves with it.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think initially you come out and you like I'm never, I'm I'm swearing off all relationships.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm just gonna do me.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then after, you know, a year or so or six months, whatever, I went in.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I was like, right, I was going on so many dates.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was dating young men, really young men, and it was great.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I'm out here living my best life.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: And and now I feel like the more you kind of get to know what's going on out there, and the more you learn about, you know, men my age coming out of relationships are coming out of relationships for a reason, right?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm always interested to talk about their relationships with them and you know why they think it failed.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's the greatest test you can give a man on a date is so how did you negatively contribute to your last relationship?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like what would you have done with that?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and what have you learned to do that?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good test.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: But it's been good and bad.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of sad, lonely, broken men out there.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: There really is.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: And as you know, it's it's a reality we can't ignore.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we keep getting told it, and we, and you know, some of us, you know, the hardcore feminists in like which I count myself as one will be like, oh well, we've been lonely for years, poor men.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: But it's true, and we can't ignore it.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it's and women are angry and fed up, and men are bewildered.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're a heterosexual, like it's it's all over the place.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm learning that as I, you know, even just looking at dating profiles is wild, and the difference between male and female dating profiles and the effort women go to and the lack of on the men's side.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's really that's a contrast, is it?
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you find truly.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's like when you look at the news at night at the male and female newsreader, just apply those to hinge profiles.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: That is actually hilarious reference because you know, one is sort of like got the side part with the the you know, cool suit, and the other one's all glammed up.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And is that what you mean?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's that sort of it's radicalized me.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's Ed Shear and Beyonce.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's it's the the difference in effort.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and also probably when you I mean, I'm the same, but we're not really from the genre of dating apps.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is a whole other world.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: How have you found adjusting to that particular resource?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's not great for people with ADHD because it's like a pokey machine.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can really just go in there and get like, you're just swiping, you're not really like, ah, yeah, no, not with those eyebrows, no, no.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you and you find it, I find myself becoming quite shallow.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: And there are men there that I'm sure if I saw them at a bar, I could get a vibe of them and then like hear their voice and smell them.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure I would love to chat to them, but on the apps, it's so flat, and men don't know how to take photos as previously discussed.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I mean, it's okay, but and I've had all of my dates have been off the apps, to be honest.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Is there no like I'm is there no live dating opportunity that you can explore where you actually go into you remember the days back in the in the day of like going to the pub or go to the club not happening anymore?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what you're saying?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: We are coming back for my daughter's age.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: I know that there's like singles nights happening, like line dance, but I don't know, like like I my whole kind of really make my life so great that and and this show is about encouraging women to that meeting somebody is a bonus, but not a lifeline.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: And and now if you're also if you're dating in your 40s, you're not looking for somebody to have children with or buy a house with or you know, do all the signposts that we're meant to do.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: You're actually looking it's a whole different phase.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: You're actually looking for somebody to spend the next, you know, maybe 10, 20 years of your life to have adventures with.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: And you don't need a man to provide or protect.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's a whole different world.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: That is actually a very important point, too, because it's a it really is a very, very different chapter in that sense.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you're right.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: So therefore, the things that you're looking for, I suppose that narrows it down.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and in this show, Addicted to Love, which I do love the title.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me some of the themes that you tease out.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I I'm assuming they relate to the notion that we do have an addiction to love, and sometimes that addiction can be at all costs.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: And whatever totally is that sort of the and from the moment, it's kind of like you know, it's more an addiction to being chosen, I think.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, after after everything, after all my research, after thinking about it and writing about it for over a year.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's the being addicted to being chosen, and it's not just romantic love either.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's in any way we've got to make ourselves the you know, the most beautiful, best version so that somebody will stand and say, Yeah, I pick her.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's something girls are trained to value very highly from the get-go, and boys are not, and it is to our detriment, to both genders' detriment.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: And the show really kind of focuses in on challenging that notion of putting it on us to find the man, to get the man, to marry the man, to have babies with the man, and all of that, and and trying to recent out love that isn't romantic and all the things I've learned from looking at the hinge profiles, from being single in my 40s, from choosing to end a long-term marriage.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: And also just I had Boomer parents who largely ignored me because that's what Boomer parents did.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm the eldest daughter of an Italian immigrant.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: I just wanted them to choose me.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: And all this overperforming and over-functioning doesn't serve any of us.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to help women not set themselves on fire to keep everyone around them warm.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: So this show is it's got original songs in it.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: It got three five-star reviews at the other Cataray Festival.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it seems to people seem to be resonating with it.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to send women and you know, AFAB people, all people into the night, just with a better understanding of how women show up in love and what's expected of them.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you're sort of redefining.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I suppose if we look at the culture, whether it be books, films, everything is set up very much.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's there's still a lot of that.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm surprised actually how much.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what's that show everyone's watching?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was watching it the other day that everyone's obsessed with.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's been huge.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's the American US.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's aimed at the 30, 25 to 30 year olds, but it's massive.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's on Netflix off campus.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's actually, I was watching with my daughter or one of my I watched it, I do it.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's so and it's got all these huge followers because it's actually engaging in very actually old school, old-fashioned, sort of archetypal romantic notions.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the biggest hit ever.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's sort of interesting to me.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: I was watching it going, this is so interesting.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we could have been in the in the 80s watching this, and it's sort of But the difference is the boys in those shows are written by women.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: So that this is the big difference.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: I would happily engage in romantic love and center romantic love if that's how men actually showed up.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like cried at one of the orbit just sings a song and he's looking through the window and I'm like and everything's there's consent and thoughtfulness and like it's like emotional intelligence and they talk about their feelings.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: And if that's how men, if men were written by women in real life, great, but they're not.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: And my girls know, you know, all these men on telly now.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: All of the shows are written by women, truly.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank the Lord.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, women need to write romance for other women.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because for so long we got romance through the male gaze, and you could tell.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: You could so tell.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was just sex.
• 23:17
  unknown: Yeah.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: And now you can always tell when a show's been shot with a female director or with a female DOP or female writer.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: You can just tell.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: They like it's it's so different, and all the men are very in touch with their emotions.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, yeah, no.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's definitely a change in that lens, and I think it's actually good for men too, because it sets their expectation differently.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: You can't be what you can't see.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: So if men could watch a bunch of shows where men, you know, talking about their feelings and being vulnerable and not afraid to ask what they want from their partner.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of men of my generation were shut down by their fathers for having any want or need whatsoever.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: So they get into a relationship with a woman and they don't know how to ask for what they want in an emotional way.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then they start to secretly resent the woman because she can't read his mind, but he doesn't want to talk about feelings because he doesn't feel safe.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then the relationships got, you know, and that's a big swooping statement.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: But from most of the couples I know, that would be an accurate kind of summation of what went on.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: She felt neglected, he felt ignored, but neither of them.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: She was talking and talking, and he just was a stone, like just couldn't do it.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: So such a common story.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's frighteningly common to hear that.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: It is and so are you feeling liberated?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Are you feeling a sense of freedom?
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how are you feeling?
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I just as a really small example, I recently traveled on my own for the first time in quite a while and found it.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: I love hearing so liberating, right?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, this is great.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, like it was but I was apprehensive, haven't done it for a while.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about just traveling to like a book launch or whatever.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about traveling a long way away.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I just thought, this is incredible.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I met so many amazing people, and I there was a lot of there are a lot of women in midlife wanting to do this because they're trying to actually feel that sense of liberation over and above obligation.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah, and this is the challenge.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: You have to train, like it's a it's a hard, you have to, I know it sounds silly, but you have to train that bravery to actually say, what do I want?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: If I took everyone else out of this, if I didn't consider anyone else's needs, which is nearly impossible for me.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: Nearly impossible, man, me.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I find it hard to even articulate it because it's such a wild notion.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what what?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so what do I actually want to do right in this moment?
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that is something you have to train.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm still practicing it and I'm still I'm not there.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: I feel a sense of I feel a bit scared because this is not what I thought my life would be.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I had a certain life planned out with my ex-husband that, you know, we were gonna raise the kids, grow old together, travel, you know.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: I I never thought it wasn't gonna be that until 18 months ago, all of a sudden I'm in free fall, and the future I had planned out until I peacefully passed away in my sleep at 99.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because I I don't know what the future holds for me.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm a planner, and for yeah, someone with my personality type, that's terrifying.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I hear you.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: I hear you.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's not uncommon.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I also think that often our role in family life or as wives or mothers or whatever is to plan, is to be the planner, to make sure that we actually do get certain things done.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so not having a specific plan, although I do have to say, I look at everybody from Reese with a spoon to like some of these extraordinary women, and there's just like a whole list of them who've just stepped out of their comfort zone and and done this and found extraordinary strength, liberty, creativity, connection, community, right?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: This this tour is the first one.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: I've gone out on my own.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm financing it myself, I'm backing myself.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: And at the moment, the arts is scary and people aren't buying tickets, and I'm I'm really afraid.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, probably not the best time to choose to do it, but I've done it.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope that people see that and want to support me.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it was time.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was time I backed myself.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and I've been doing that in so many different ways in my life, not just with my marriage or my but my work, especially.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, well, I've spent my career telling other women to back themselves, so it's probably time I took my own advice.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's a scary time to be backing yourself in the arts, but I'm sure it's going to be okay.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: I hope it's I hope it's gonna be okay.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds like an amazing opportunity and also a big there is a big push for women getting together in this sort of community-oriented theater where people feel uh they feel connected and not isolated, just sort of like watching Insta and and removed.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: I feel there's a really big pushback towards community, whether it's retreats or whether it's going to something like your show.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's my impression.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Although I know there's a whole Instagram world, which of which I am part of as well.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that there is hope and scope, and I hope that this is something that for you becomes a positive.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds like you're gonna be so you're it's a national, you're in all states.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so for you, are you hoping that you're gonna get mainly women or you think you'll get some men?
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: No, I want oh no, I love bring the men.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: I love it with men.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: Men often buy the tickets because they know their partner likes me, but they've never really seen me live.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: The show is definitely for the men.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Bring the men.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's good.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Bring the men.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, actually, yeah, I I've interviewed somebody recently.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: She does menopa menopause workshops in corporate the corporate sector, and she says she has more men turn up to the menopause sessions than women sometimes.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because men want to understand, right?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: But their brothers, their sisters, their mothers, like what's happening, right?
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Emma it's been an absolute joy talking to you, and I'm very excited and I'm looking forward to seeing the show.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you and if you could be a trailblazer in this arena, I think the more the merrier.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: We need more and more of this.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's great that you're so authentic and honest about the lessons you've learned because that's really what this space is about.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for supporting it all, and yeah, I'll see you at the show.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, looking forward.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Take care and good luck with it all.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: See ya, honey.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for joining us on the What I've Learned podcast.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed that interview because we are so privileged to have a wonderful platform where guests come on and share lessons learned as crossed mountains climbed.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: We love our shared humanity, and we are so grateful to have such a beautiful community.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: So remember to stay curious, kind, and connected, and we'll see you next time at the What I've got Podcast.