Latest / The You Project / #1725 Healing Through Play - Dr. Sam Casey

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#1725 Healing Through Play - Dr. Sam Casey · The You Project

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I'll get a team. Welcome to another installing the You Project.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's bloody harps, as it is every time. I hope
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: one day, one day, maybe it'll an episode will happen
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: and somebody else will be here. They'll say all those words,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: but they'll say it's Brian or it's Tip. It could
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: be anyone who knows. But for the time being, you've
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: got me and what you're not here yet, you just
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: pipe down. But for the foreseeable future, Doctor Sam, they're
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: stuck with me. Hi, doctor Sam, Welcome to the You Project.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Thanks Craig, thanks for having me here.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well we I did not know about you until recently,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: but you're a bit of a rock star. And I
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: tried to have a little I've got quite a few
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  Speaker 1: followers across my platforms and like a hundred thousand or something,
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  Speaker 1: and so trying to try to know everyone who follows
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: me is an impossibility. But I probably don't look much
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: on Facebook, but a period I look at just who's
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: commenting or liking to see to get an idea of
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: who's interested in my stuff. And I was just scrolling
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  Speaker 1: down the other day and I saw doctor Sam Casey PhD,
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  Speaker 1: and I went well, first I didn't know if that
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  Speaker 1: was a boy or a girl, and it's you. It's well,
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  Speaker 1: not a girl or a boy's woman. It's a grown,
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  Speaker 1: grown ass woman. And I looked at your Instagram page.
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  Speaker 1: Tell people your Insta page. We normally plug at the end,
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  Speaker 1: not the start. But what's your Insta page?
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  Speaker 2: You simple? Yep?
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  Speaker 1: Now, tell people what kind of doctor you are, and like,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: give them what kind of doctor you are. You're a PhD.
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  Speaker 1: But what's it in and and what do you do?
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  Speaker 1: Like you and I meet in an elevator, We got
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: forty seconds do we hit the ground floor? I go,
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  Speaker 1: what do you do? What do you tell me?
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  Speaker 3: Oh gosh, that's a hard one. Well, can let me
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  Speaker 3: explain the doctor bit? Sorry, Yes, I have a pitch.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: So it's a research degree, so not a medical adopt
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  Speaker 3: my field of education with psychology, specifically around play therapy,
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: so that is by PhD.
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  Speaker 2: And yeah, what do I do?
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  Speaker 3: So I'm I'm a child therapist, reach to play therapist.
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  Speaker 3: And I really wanted to make play therapy more accessible,
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  Speaker 3: So really take it out of the playroom, take it
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  Speaker 3: out of the therapy room, and get it into the
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  Speaker 3: hands of the professionals. And the parents who are actually
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  Speaker 3: around kids all day every day.
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  Speaker 2: So that's what I do. I teach.
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  Speaker 3: I guess how you prescribe play for you know, common
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  Speaker 3: childhood and parenting issues and making it really I guess
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  Speaker 3: more of the lens in which I look at that,
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  Speaker 3: and so going through all the different parts that I
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  Speaker 3: would be thinking as a child therapist and what's important,
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  Speaker 3: and then giving those tools to professionals so that they
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  Speaker 3: can use it as like a decision making tool on
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  Speaker 3: how to use play best for the child in front
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  Speaker 3: of them.
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  Speaker 1: Wow. Wow. And so when you say play therapy, what
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: to I don't know is treat the right word, but
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: to treat what? Or to assist with what? Or to Yeah?
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: So how is it a therapy? What does it treat? Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: Good question.
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  Speaker 3: So play therapy is actually an evidence based treatment and
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  Speaker 3: it's a preventative model as well around emotional and behavioral
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  Speaker 3: issues in children. So you know, even things like mental health,
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  Speaker 3: you know, so anxiety, depression, but also things like school refusal,
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  Speaker 3: blended families, stress, anger, like all of those kind of
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  Speaker 3: issues that you see arise in childhood. And I think
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  Speaker 3: the greatest thing about play therapy is that you can
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  Speaker 3: start from like age three, because play is so accessible
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  Speaker 3: for kids. It's their language, it's how they process the world,
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  Speaker 3: and that's how they use, I guess, a tool to
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  Speaker 3: be able to figure out what makes sense in their
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  Speaker 3: world and what's going on for them. So they won't
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  Speaker 3: use language and talking like we do. We can talk
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  Speaker 3: things out.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, play it out, yeah, kids, play it out.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: All right. I'm trying to get my head around this.
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  Speaker 1: This is new for me, So thank you. This is
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  Speaker 1: actually will you'd be pleased to know in seventeen hundred
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  Speaker 1: and something episodes, we've never had this conversation. So well
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: done you, Matt. Yeah, no, it's good. This is interesting.
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  Speaker 1: So can you give us and us as me and
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: a bunch of others listening, can you give us, me
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  Speaker 1: and the gang an example of a problem or a
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  Speaker 1: challenge or an issue and then a prescription to treat that,
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  Speaker 1: like just an example.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, perfect.
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  Speaker 3: So if you had a child and you're seeing a
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  Speaker 3: challenging behavior. So for example, I had this little boy
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  Speaker 3: and he was heading animals, so in really being really
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  Speaker 3: aggressive towards animals, and so the professionals around him. So
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  Speaker 3: as teacher, you know, his speech therapist is really concerned. Obviously,
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: his auntie who was his carel was really concerned. And
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  Speaker 3: so because I don't the root of that just yet, right,
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  Speaker 3: I took a non directive approach to what that means
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  Speaker 3: is like a child, let approach, let them kind of lead.
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  Speaker 3: And it was really interesting because a child straight away
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  Speaker 3: went to being a vet and caring for animals. And
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  Speaker 3: so that was session one, right, this child was being
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  Speaker 3: the one caring for the animals. And so as the
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: sessions played out, what actually came up was that it
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  Speaker 3: was really stemming from jealousy. So that was his way
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  Speaker 3: in order to be able to connect with his care
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  Speaker 3: and he didn't know how to ask for those needs
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  Speaker 3: being met in terms of getting the connection, but he
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  Speaker 3: knew that if he was to hurt the animal, the
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  Speaker 3: care really cared about the animal. And so when we
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: started to do work with the care around that, those
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  Speaker 3: issues went. So imagine if I went at it from
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  Speaker 3: a this is how you treat animals and we need
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  Speaker 3: to be kind and we need to be this, I'd
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  Speaker 3: be assuming something that the child actually already knew.
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  Speaker 2: And so it was really about.
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  Speaker 3: Creating a therapytic space so that the child could actually
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  Speaker 3: process that himself, and then obviously all the other issues
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  Speaker 3: came out, and so we were able to, I guess,
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  Speaker 3: work with the people around him to directly do that.
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  Speaker 3: The on the other flip side, right, you could have
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  Speaker 3: a child with anxiety, and so I had this child
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  Speaker 3: with anxiety, and post Halloween, he was really struggling. He
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  Speaker 3: did not leave his mom's site because he saw these
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  Speaker 3: obviously characters come out, you know, knocking on a stel
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  Speaker 3: trick of treaders, and he believed that was real. And
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  Speaker 3: even though the mum was trying to show him, hey, like,
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  Speaker 3: you know this person behind the mask because it was a.
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  Speaker 2: Neighbor, he was too scared.
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  Speaker 3: And so in the PlayStation I took more of a
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  Speaker 3: directive approach because this was an issue that had come
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  Speaker 3: up and it was really, you know, like he had
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  Speaker 3: generalized anxiety, but that had really obviously peaked to the
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  Speaker 3: point where he couldn't be learning in the house. And
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  Speaker 3: so what we did is we played a game, and
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  Speaker 3: so I re enacted a Halloween seed. But then I
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  Speaker 3: was putting on the mask and taking off the mask,
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  Speaker 3: and I was talking about how scary it is and
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  Speaker 3: how it looked so real to me, and so I
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: really kind of reflected right how he was feeling. But
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  Speaker 3: then I worked him through that next step and so
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  Speaker 3: that child went home from that session and he was
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  Speaker 3: okay again. So it kind of shows through the power
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  Speaker 3: right child landed?
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay. So right, so you're you are, So somebody's
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: shows up with a problem or a challenge or an
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  Speaker 1: issue that needs to be treated, but then you design
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  Speaker 1: play or you design some kind of game. Not the
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  Speaker 1: right words, but you know what I mean around so
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  Speaker 1: it's not like, oh, here's the box of games over here.
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  Speaker 1: You know there's or here's one hundred different play options.
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  Speaker 1: Pick one of them. So is it your are there
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  Speaker 1: certain things that you would use consistently or is every
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  Speaker 1: need in every kid in every situation kind of case by.
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  Speaker 2: Case good question.
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  Speaker 3: So usually in the playroom, especially that first example that
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  Speaker 3: I gave, where we are just trying to explore, right
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  Speaker 3: and letting them lead, we'd have a range of toys
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  Speaker 3: that actually have a therapeutic I guess goal points. So
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  Speaker 3: we'll have aggressive toys, we'll have nurturing toys, we'll have
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  Speaker 3: real life toys. We'll have a lot of open ended toys,
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  Speaker 3: so things like you know, art, materials, or they use
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  Speaker 3: it for a number of different things, you know, kind
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  Speaker 3: of construction type toys. But to be honest, the main
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  Speaker 3: toy in the tool in the toy box is me.
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  Speaker 3: It's it's the person. It's the adult there to facilitate that.
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  Speaker 3: I could do this in the sand with sticks, right like,
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  Speaker 3: or I could have the best of toys and still
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  Speaker 3: not be able to do it if you just don't
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  Speaker 3: have the skill and the intention behind what you're doing.
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, I very much believe that we as you know,
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  Speaker 3: the adult is the best tool in the tool box.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well that is true. That well, that makes sense. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: there's so many things I want to ask you, so
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  Speaker 1: many things. Oh my god, I said to you forty
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  Speaker 1: five minutes. I reckon this might go longer. I'm writing myself.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: This is not very professional everyone, but I'm writing notes
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  Speaker 1: as we go because.
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  Speaker 2: Oh I love it.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: I don't want to forget the shit in my head
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  Speaker 1: to ask Sam. Okay, so I'm going to jump around
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  Speaker 1: a little bit. But what was your PhD project? Like?
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  Speaker 1: What did you research for your PhD?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? So it actually evolved as I went.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, so this is really interesting, and this is what
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  Speaker 3: I love about doing a PhD like that and having
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  Speaker 3: supervisors that support that because I'm so curious and what
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: would you come with obviously shouldn't be what you end with,
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  Speaker 3: and being able to call out things in the industry.
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  Speaker 3: You know, you could obviously go two ways with that.
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  Speaker 3: So when I started, I obviously am multicultural, and so
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  Speaker 3: I came out from a I'm noticing that a lot
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  Speaker 3: of multicultural families don't get therapy for their children, and
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  Speaker 3: I want to know what their barriers are. I want
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  Speaker 3: to know why there is this potential resistance for it.
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  Speaker 3: So I started off with interviewing a bunch of parents
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  Speaker 3: and I'm saying, where is this resistance? How do you
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  Speaker 3: feel about therapy? How do you feel about play? What
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  Speaker 3: would get you to go? What would not get you
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  Speaker 3: to go? And so they were like, I actually have
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  Speaker 3: no issue with my child going to therapy. That's fine,
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  Speaker 3: But I'm just really worried that when I talk to
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  Speaker 3: the therapist, they're going to judge me. They're gonna, you know,
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  Speaker 3: have a different view worldview, They're going to be just
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: like discriminating against me. They're going to have these negative
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  Speaker 3: views about my culture. And I'm like Okay, interesting, so
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  Speaker 3: let me talk to the therapists. So then I interviewed a
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  Speaker 3: bunch of therapists and I'm like, so, what would be
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  Speaker 3: your barriers around working with families and children? And they're like, oh,
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  Speaker 3: the child in the player room, no issue at all.
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  Speaker 3: But I really struggle with the families, you know, because
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  Speaker 3: they do have these really strong views. And then as
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: the therapists were talking, they had all these negative bias
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  Speaker 3: and I was.
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  Speaker 2: Like, wow, that's really interesting.
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  Speaker 3: So what the parents are worried about is actually a reality,
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  Speaker 3: Like that's actually what happens. They had this bias and
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  Speaker 3: they didn't realize that they had it, and they all
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  Speaker 3: had very different ways of looking at it. So they
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  Speaker 3: were like, in order to be respectful, I need to
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  Speaker 3: talk about culture, like I need to bring that up
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  Speaker 3: straight away, and other ones would be like, in order
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  Speaker 3: to be respectful, I need to leave culture out of it, Like,
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  Speaker 3: let's not even go there. So they all had really
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: different views of what respect looks like. But no one
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  Speaker 3: was checking in with the parents, right, So the children
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  Speaker 3: wasn't the issue here, it was the parents. And so
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  Speaker 3: I could have gone two ways with that, right, I
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: could have directed it back to what I was looking for,
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: or I could say, wow, like there's just not enough
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: in trainings. It's all a tick box, right, which is
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: learn about how to work with this culture. Now you've
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: attended the training tick versus what are your beliefs, what
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: everyone's got biased? What do you think about this, what
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  Speaker 3: triggers you like, let's get deeper into this. So then
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: I created a train from both of those two research projects,
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: so I actually published. I was publishing as I went.
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  Speaker 3: So I published both and then I created a training
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: and I talked about this and I said, often what
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  Speaker 3: therapistic they need is knowledge, and what we need is
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  Speaker 3: more understanding of ourselves. And we need to have that
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: self reflection, look at where our blind spots are and
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: be willing to work on those. And so I created
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: this training, and a lot of therapists you know, gave
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: me feedback around that. They were like, wow, I did
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: think that I needed more knowledge, But in actual fact,
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: I need to think about my views. What do I
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: define as respect? Why do I believe that, what are
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: my experiences of being a minority? If I am like
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: unpacking it all? And so that's what I came away with,
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  Speaker 3: and I guess That was really the foundation of my playprescription,
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: which is we have to be doing it in a
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: work ourselves, Like if we're going to be working with
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: kids and families, we need to check in with ourselves
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: constantly about what's that bringing up because a lot of
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: the time play brings up stuff for us.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow, my listeners are listening to this, I can
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: tell you twenty eight percent fifty percent agoing. Fuck, she
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: talks fast. Has anyone ever told you talk fast all
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: the time?
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  Speaker 3: And I really hope that they can slow it down
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: on the you know, the podcast thing, because I do.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Sam, wow, you you are. You remind me
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: of a guy called what's his name American? I think
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: it's Ben Shapiro. He talks fast. You remind me of him,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: but so not excited at all. That's interesting. So what
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: were so you said that some of the therapists had
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: unconsciously had biases? What were they.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: They had the negative views about the family, So, you know,
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: for example, it could be like something as simple as oh, well,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: you know, in their culture, you know, usually the men
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: make the decisions. So I was just going to talk
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: to the dad and just let the mom kind of
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: you know, just be there because she would be making
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: decisions anyway. Like in their eyes, they thought they were
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: being respectful to the dad and the beliefs of what
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: they perceived to be the family, rather than checking in right.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: So it was just again intentionally that there weren't trying
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: to be malicious or anything, but it was just coming
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: out in the way that they saw things based on
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: obviously their own experiences.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Right now, this is a little outside the professional kind
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: of specialized focus, but as someone who works with kids
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: all the time and tries to understand the mind of
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: kids and also in conjunction with the adults in their world,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: it's just something I'm curious about. Tell me about Halloween.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: What the fuck do you think of Halloween? Like, what
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: are you doctor, Sam? Do we need kids going to
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: strangers houses asking for lollies in twenty twenty four? Is
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: this what we need? Don't like in any other context? Imagine, Well,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: I keep my gates shut, so I'm not firstly, I
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: don't know them. Well I'm not fucking handing out lollies
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: to children, And to me, that's just the whole you know,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: that's me though, That's I'm not saying I'm right, I
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: don't necessarily think I'm right, but just to me, the
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: eye idea of giving children a whole fucking handful of
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: sugar and then sending them on their way, and with
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: all the shit that's going on with diabetes going through
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: the roof and obesity going through the roof, I know
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: we're not allowed to say it, but it's fucking true, right,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: So I get offended or whatever, So it is so
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: just true, right, This is not an opinion. Like we've
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: never been We've never been a more obese nation, We've
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: never had more diabetes, we've never had worse fucking diets,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: and now we're sending kids out to strangers to get
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: lollies and fucking sugar, and no one's saying I don't
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: know if this is a good idea, but I'm just
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: a grumpy old man with them.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: I'm pretty big a nutrition and stuff too, especially for kids.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: And I think a lot of the time when you
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: see a lot of diagnosis is really young, right ADHD
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: things like that, no one's looking at the sugar intake
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: at all. And so I think Halloween, Yes, that's kind
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: of goes against everything that we're saying, but I think
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: the bigges she really is in the schools because you know,
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: at least in Australia we're still using lollipops and icy poles,
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: is treats for kids, Like it's still the rewards that
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: are given, and then it's rewards for good behavior. So
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: it's like, okay, so for a child to get rewarded,
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: you're giving in something that's going to spike their blood
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: sugar right up, Like it doesn't make sense.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Well, and I think it's no secrets that there's a
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: correlation between obviously diet mental health and IDHD and kids'
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: ability to focus and putting fucking sugar in their bodies.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: And then you know, anyway, you're not here for that,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: but doesn't matter. We can talk about whatever we want.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: It is all related though, it is all related, even
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: for parents. I say that too when they're just like, oh,
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: I'm just losing my shit in the afternoons, like teaching
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: me how to be patient, and I'm like, well, have
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: you eaten?
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Like are you having protein you.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: Know around that time, because of course you're not gonna
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: feel great if you've like starved yourself all day or
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: just ate you know, the leftovers of kids snacks, Like
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: that's not yeah, it's not good for.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: You, So tell me how. I'm just cured if anyone
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: else's pious with this, but fuck it. How does your
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: job work? Inverted commas? In inverted commas to people? Do
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: you go to people's houses, do you have a facility,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: do they come to you? Do you go to organizations?
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: How does it work your job?
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: That's a good.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: Question, and it's evolved over the years. So I was
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: a mobile play therapist for a while. I was going
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: into schools and you know, doing it that way, and
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: then I had an office and really right now, I
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: do it online. And that's the reason why I do that,
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: and it's very intentional is because a lot of the time,
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: as the child therapist, people will be like, here is
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: my child, fix this problem? And a lot of you know,
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: people are still operating in that way. But I know
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: from the research it is way more effective to teach
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: the professionals around them, to teach the parents, to teach
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: the you know, the teacher, whoever else. To support a
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: child's mental health, it does not have to be me.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: So I have purposely moved online to be able to
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: access that and going Actually, I want to work with
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: everyone around the child they have a lot more power
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: and influence over the environment. So it's important that they
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: feel a quick because it's not going to be a
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: ten session quick fix. You know, this is for life.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: Kids have mental health for life. So yeah, for me,
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: it's online. I meet with him online and do it
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: that way.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Amazing. Yeah, by the way, did you know Ryan Holiday
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: follows you? No?
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: I did not know that. Really?
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Did you not know that? I did not know that?
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, I lot all his books.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm like Ryan Holiday. Now if you
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: don't know, he's probably I mean, he's probably the biggest
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: author on Stoicism in the last decade or so in
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: the world. He's always banging on, and he's a very
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: good writer, and he's a very good researcher. And obviously
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: he's no Socrates or Marcus Aurelius or Epictetis or but
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: he talks about it all.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: And he's he makes it make sense though.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: Like I was actually recently in Greece and I was
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: getting all up into the Greek philosophers, and just his
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: books always come back at me.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Well, he follows you, doctor Sam. And I'm a little
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: bit jealous because got a little bit of a crush
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: on him. So you were talking about the assumptions that
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: people make based on you know, uh, parents and families,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: culture and stuff. What what's your background if you don't
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: mind me asking, Yeah, no.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Not at all.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: I'm so I'm Anglo Indian, so it's like Indian mixed
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: with Irish and English. I was born in Australia though,
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: and my parents came here when there were six, both
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: of them. So yeah, I feel like i'm culturalise and
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: part Australian.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're an ass You're an aussy dude. Yeah, you know. Yeah. So,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: And it says on your I just wanted to ask
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: you this because I found the interesting. It says on
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: your IG profile recovering good girl. What what does that mean?
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: What is recovery? What's a recovering good girl? Did you
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: used to be a good girl and now and now
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: you've bed.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Pretty much with the cause?
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: What so you're now you're a good girl? And you
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: were a trade? No? No? No? Were you a straighty one
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: eighty you like the perfect No?
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Well I was and then I wasn't so well kind
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: of so growing up I was like.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: Probably like the good little Indian child, Like I was
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: really quiet, yes, thank you please, so polite, did all
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: the right things. Was just you know, and this is
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: probably the outer though, because you know, my parents talk
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: about how I was like a bit of a rebel
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: at home, but you know, that's kind of how I
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: grew up going I want to do you know, I
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: want to be good and do things the right way,
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: and I was always worried about being nice and you know.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: Again pleasing others.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: Obviously lost a bit of that when I was a
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: teenager and I left school like halfway through year ten
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: because that's what I wanted to do. So there was
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: definitely a steering away from that. But then I continued
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: that in my adult life.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: You know, I was my marriage.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: I married a Muslim, and you know, he had a
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: lot of obviously strict rules around certain things, and I
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: was like, Okay, I'm going to be like this perfect
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: wife and I'm gonna be this perfect mom. And then
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: I became a mom and I was like, I don't
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: want to be a perfect mom. That's not authentic. That's
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: not what I want to teach my daughter, and that's
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: not like the message I want to be sending. And
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: so then I had to go through this like I'm
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: I guess this whole inner work stuff of who am
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: I and what do I want and how I can
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: be more authentic.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: In my own power And to be honest, it was
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: actually my daughter.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: So she's seven now and my first one is nine,
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: But it was a birth of my daughter that really
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: shook things up for me because she reminded me of
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: me when I was little, Like she had this power
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: and like this little fire sorry in her and she
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: knew what she wanted and she like just wanted wants
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: to go after it. And I was like, I can't
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: actually support that and foster that. I'm if I've shut
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: that down within myself, like I have to. I have
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: to get that part of me back that determines them
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: that you know, persevering through things. But in ways that
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: made sense to me, right, that honored you know, who
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: I was, And so yeah, that was a whole journey
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: in itself.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Wow, that is super interesting, like trying trying to figure
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: out the self in the middle of our own life.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Like my PhD is in self awareness but love it. Well, Yeah,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I'm always talking to people about you know, it's funny
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: when you ask somebody to tell to tell them for
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: them to tell you about them. So I'll go, you know,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: sometimes I'll just sit down with someone and go, all right,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: tell me about you, and then they tell me where
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: their house is and where they went to school, and
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: you know what star sign they are or what car
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: they drive, or I'm like, well, none of those are you.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: They're interest that's interesting, But tell me about you though,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: not your car, not your job, not how many fucking
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: followers you've got. Don't tell me about your height or weight,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: or you don't even tell me about your body, because
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: that's not you either, Like tell me about you, like,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: not your brand, your business.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: My point because I think a lot of people even
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: use relationships.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: They're like I'm a you know, I'm this person's partner,
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: I'm a wife, or I'm a mother or like they
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: just have these labels. But it's like, well, that's a
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: relationship that's not necessarily you.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: And I can hear my listeners going no, that is
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: a big part of who I am, And of course
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: I agree. But it's like, I think the kind of
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: philosophical question and is trying to figure out in the
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: middle of all of the busyness, mayhem and roles, and
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: you know that whatever. Oh, I'm an academic, or I'm
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: a bricklayer, I'm a fucking astronaut, or I'm a pisces,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: or I'm a vegan, or I'm a crossfitter, or I'm
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: a whatever. You know, it's like trying to figure out
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: the self in the middle of all. So can I
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: feel free to tell me to buck off with any
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: of these inappropriate questions? Doctor Sam? So did you become
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: a Muslim when you married a Muslim man? Was that
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: that's part of the deal.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: Right and not something I identify with now? But yeah,
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: at the time I did.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Right, right? Okay? And so how is I don't want
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: to talk about that in depth for obvious reasons, but
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: now being a So the kids live with you all
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: the time full time or no?
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: We share fifty to fifty customers, okay?
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: And so do you get to take any of your
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: therapy and theories and ideas around play for a test
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: drive with the kids? So they are they your crash
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: test dummies?
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: Of course, like, not in the way you'd think, like
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of the time people, you know,
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: you'd probably be thinking, I'm doing some sort of like
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: structured activity and I'm trying to teach them this. No,
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: it's like dance parties like every night, right, Like that's
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: my thing. I love having dance funnies with my kids.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: But yes, definitely, play is is a language. That's one
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: thing I focus on and in such a I guess
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: it's really potent. I think it's just so powerful, you know,
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: when they're going through something or if there's any stress
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: or whatever we're doing, it's just the perfect way to reconnect.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: So yeah, love it.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: I'm very playful with them, but also even just for
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: myself too, like it's just a way of life.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: There's a very famous quote by I think it's by
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: George Bernard Shaw and you would have heard it, and
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: most of our listeners would have heard it, and it's
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: we don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: old because we stop playing, right. And one of the
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: one I mean this is like one of my favorite
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: things is laughing at stupid shit. Is hanging out where
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: I generally it's my male friends, sometimes you know, females,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: but male friends, talking shit about not much, riding my motorbikes,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: not thinking, not having a serious conversation, not working on business,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: not working on my study, not just just hanging out
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: and laughing at stupid shit, which I know ladies don't
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: love that as much.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: I know I actually do it.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: It's funny because my kids they like the number one thing,
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: you know, when we're hanging out in the evenings or
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: ask like tell me more embarrassing stories about what you
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: did when you're little, they just love it. Or even
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: now right, they just love hearing embarrassing shit that I do.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: So I gotta always like keep tab of that.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: But I wonder why as we I wonder why we
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: stop prioritize, prioritizing having fun, Like I know, it's I
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: even ask grown ups, you know, I go, so, you know,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: and we go through everything we talked about last time.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: We talk about you know, we talk about excise, and
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: we talk about purpose and focus and relationships and career
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: and lifestyle, and we talk about all the big ticket items,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: you know, all the jigsaw puzzle pieces that make up
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the fucking puzzle that is you. Right. But I often
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: say to people do you like having fun? And they
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: look at me like, well, that's the dumbest fucking question ever.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Of course, I go, what's your fun plan? They're like what,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: I go, what's your fund? Like what are the.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Things that fun plan I want to use that now.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Well one hundred percent, Like I think grown ups do
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: not have fun. I intentionally, I intentionally do things that
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: there is no purpose other than laughter or fun. That
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: is that. Yeah, And I just like there's a component
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: of me and people who know me well, like I'm
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: a sixty year old, fucking twelve year old, Like do
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean? And it's yeah, Like if
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: you're ticking all these boxes and hustling and grinding and
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: fucking whatever, but your life is devoid of fun or
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: laughter or joy, I reckon, you got it wrong?
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like are you even living right? But I think
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: a lot of the time it's the stress. It's not
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: just the stress, but it's also you know, our minds
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: are put up either in the past of the future,
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: so it's worrying about future stuff that may or may
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: not happen, or worrying about past mistakes or past shit
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: that we can't really change.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: In it, we're not really present.
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: And I think a lot of the time people think
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: of presence as like meditation or yoga. No, it's played
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: like if you're in the moment and you're having fun
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: and you're laughing, like you're present, like you're yeah, just
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: loving life.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Maybe with adults that like it's not so much typically
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: a childlike play, but Martin, perhaps more creativity where we're
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: creating something like I'm People would think I'm much more
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: science here because of my work and my degrees and stuff,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: but I'm actually more of a creative Like I love
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: conceptualizing something, coming up with an idea and turning that
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: thing in my head into a thing in the world
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: that intersects in a three dimensional way with humans. You know,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: it's like and whether or not that's whatever. You know.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: It's like, I opened the first personal training business in
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Australia and at least fifty adults told me not to
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: do it, people who knew more than me in inverted commas.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Right, they said, the first one in Australia. That's incredible.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, So that was in nine ninety. That
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: was thirty four years ago, when you weren't even born.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: That's annoying.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: I was actually born in nineteen nineties, Oh were you?
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: So that's yeah, so what the year you were born?
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: And I'm not saying aren't I great because it would
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: have happened anyway. But I had, you know, I was
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: training people that were virtually like I started training pting
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty six, which is, you know, obviously nearly
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: forty years ago, and there was pretty much no one,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: if anyone, doing that Australia. There was no qualification, there
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: was no course, there was no registration, there was no insurance,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: there was no industry, there was no personal training industry.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Right, wow, you and the dumbbells.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just me and the dumbbells. And I basically, you know,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: had this idea and I'm sure somebody else would have
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: had the idea, but to conceptualize that and to start
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: doing appointment only training with people and you know, figuring
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: out the shit and then you eventually and yes, of
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: course it would have happened despite me, but it so happens.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: I got in on the ground floor. And then to
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: watch this idea that I had four decades ago become
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: this flourishing thing that it is, it's like, you know,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: and then whatever it is, you know, it's like you
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I just launched a new workshop tonight which is called
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: as We Record. It's the third of December. It's a
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Tuesday night called pre Season twenty twenty five, right, And
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: so even with that, I go, all right, I'm going
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: to do a workshop about helping people get their shit
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: together so that their New Year's resolutions actually turn into
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: something tangible, not just to fucking another year roles by,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: where they have these conversations and set these goals and
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: have these wishes.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: That never nothing changes, you know.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: Of course, to bring that, you know, back to the
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: pt stuff, I think weight training is the perfect thing
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: for that. I absolutely love weight training. I think it's
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: been such a game changer for mental health, for everything.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: But it's also a way to show up for yourself.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: And you're having to like sit with the weights, right,
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: and you know, some exercises I'm like, oh, I can
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: go heavier. Others I'm like, oh, I think it's too much.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: And you're having to find that perfect balance of growing
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: your muscles. So you have to push yourself obviously not
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: to the point of injury, but then obviously not to
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: the point if you're not feeling anything. And it's just
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: that constant again presence with yourself. And I find this
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: year in different exercises, different days. Feel stronger one day,
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: feel a bit weaker the next. But you know, when
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: you're tracking that. It's really exciting.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: I think weight training is amazing for that.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and also I mean also you can So when
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: I train every night, I'm with one of my best
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: mates and another mate and sometimes there's a third one.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: So I trained tonight with John and Mark, two of
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: my mates, and that for me, that's play.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Because we are playing my playground.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Well, it's like a big fucking grown ups playground.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: It is heavyweights in itself is like a prescription, right.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: It's amazing so much.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: So I can't really say it too much anymore because
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: people roll their eyes and go, well, of course you
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: fucking say that.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: Can I say them? I'll say it. Yeah.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: I've noticed quite quite a few grown ups, more women
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: than men, I think. But that's just what I've seen.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: So it could be wrong getting into grown ups getting
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: into coloring coloring books? Have you seen that?
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: I have mindful coloring books. That's a thing.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what what is that? Is that? Just? Is that
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: like a is that a meta? Is that a throwback
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: to childhood where it creates neuro associations with good taptivity.
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: It's one of the things to help people be more mindful,
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: to be more present, you know when you're coloring in
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: and there's obviously this light design. You're actually you're sitting
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: there and you're coloring, and it kind of brings you
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: back to the now. So it's just another tool. But
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: I can you got to find your thing. Like for me,
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: that's not a thing. I don't enjoy that. I mean,
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: I'm sitting down a lot of the day. So for me,
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: it's with the weight training. I need to be able
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: to move. That's been me be mindful. But for some
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: other people, yeah, it's the coloring in books.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: They love it.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: So I think it's about testing different things, experimenting and finding,
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: you know, what works for you.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: I'm interested to hear about the girl who dropped out
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: in year ten who is now a fucking PhD. Like, what, right,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: that's a bit of it. Well, I don't know, you
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: might be the first one I've met. I don't know
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: too many people that finish school in year ten. And
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: even so, let's say year ten, you were what fifteen
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: or something? Yeah, I mean two thousand and five ish.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: There weren't too many people finishing school at year ten, right.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: No, but I definitely was the first out of there.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about that. Journey from wanting
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: to get out of school to getting Obviously, you went
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: back and did did you do year twelve? Or you
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: just started an undergrad as a mature aid student or
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: what did you do?
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: So I'll go with the getting out first, right. So
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: I was failing school, like I couldn't focus. I was
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: just there to socialize. I wasn't retaining stuff, I wasn't interested,
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: Like nothing made sense to me.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: And so I was like, well can I do like
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: leaving year ten? I can be a hairdresser. I love
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: doing my hair. That makes sense. So that was my plan?
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Why not?
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Right? Quite the master plan, doctor Sam.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: I was pretty impressed with myself. I was like, this
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: is it? Of course, you know, life at other plans.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: And I found myself working at a shildcay center because
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: apparently that's one of the places you can get a
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: job without any tape studies.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Because even wouldn't take me.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: So I actually take, for those who don't know, is
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: like a higher education, not quite university, but that little
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: bit lower. And because I didn't finish there ten, I
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: couldn't get in there. So I started working at this
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: childcare center and I came across this little boy and
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: he had just visited his parents and he was in
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: care child protection, right, so he was with foster cares,
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: but he had just visited his parents and he came
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: back and he was super aggressive, and I had all
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: of the childcare workers telling me how to handle the behavior,
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: and just a part of me was like, I think,
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: I just need to be around, not too close, but
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: just be there and let him play out what he
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: needed to. And I saw how therapeutic that was. It
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: was like a release, and I was like, this must
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: be a thing. So I went home. Obviously there was
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: no Google, it was like nine MSM. But I was
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: like play therapy. And then I found this huge world
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: of play therapy, which was massive in America, not quite
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: big in Australia yet. And that's when I was like,
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: I'm going back. So I did a trainee ship, so
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: I did like a certificate three in children's services while
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: I was working at the childcare center. And then I
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: did a university preparation course and then I did in
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: undergrad in psychology children Family Studies and that was just amazing,
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: Like I absolutely loved everything about what.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: I was learning.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: I still didn't know though, the next step, and I
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: started doing play therapy studies and that's when I discovered
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: I could do a Master of Social Work and work
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: intop protection because I really wanted to experience that but
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: then still keep going with my play therapy. So did that,
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: and then I actually wanted to do more play therapy studies.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: I became a wretched to play therapist. And thankfully it
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: was the lecture at the university that was like, well,
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: you want to do your research, why do another master's
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: do a PhD?
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: And I was like, I can't do a PhD.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: I don't have the grades for that, and she was like, no,
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: you know, you start off doing research and you know
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: you prove yourself, like you show that you can work
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: at that level. And so yeah, I ended up getting
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: into this PhD program. I ended up getting a scholarship
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: just by you know, being a credit average student. I
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: definitely didn't ace university and anything, but I had this
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: vision and it was amazing how many doors just kept
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: opening when I just was like, I'm going to be
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: an expan play therapy, like that is why I'm here,
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: and so it almost like it sparked this huge internal
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: drive within me.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing, that's amazing. Isn't it funny how the
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: girl who couldn't focus, the girl that was failing, becomes
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: the woman that gets a PhD and can focus. And
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: so how old were you when you started your first degree?
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: So I was nineteen.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Wow. Well that was a quick That was a pretty
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: quick turnaround. Yeah. I mean it went from wow wow.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: And so you figured out at fifteen or sixteen how
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: to manage this kid that was for most other people unmanageable.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: And it was this intuit like it was weird because
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: it was this intuitive thing of like, I know everything
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: I've been taught. This goes back to the good girl
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: conditioning right of wanting to be a good childcare worker.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: I knew everything I was taught. I knew all the
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: strategies and how to redirect the play and distract and
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: all of those things. But another part of me was like,
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: he's really struggling right now, and I think he needs
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: me here to take over, but just to really hear
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: what he's saying. And he's not using words, but he's
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: playing out something. And so when I did that, and
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: I saw the benefit of how much that just released him,
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: and then he just came back into the fold of
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: everything I saw. I witnessed that power of play, and
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: I was like sold. You know, before I even learned
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: anything about it, I was like, this is the thing
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: I need to get out here. I need to show
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: other people. And I was using it and all other
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: you know, when I was working int our protection, I
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: started to use it. I used it in all different settings,
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: and I think it's just so powerful when we know
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: how to sit back and not take over and let
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: the child play.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Is this kind of therapy potentially going to help some
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: kids avoid being medicated?
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: I think so.
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: I think very much though, because what ends up happening,
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: especially if the parent's doing it. We have obviously the
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: play therapy models where we teach parents this, but when
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: parents get to know their child's needs, it's not so
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: much a a we need to squash this, but rather
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: what do they need? And then they go get that
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: need met. I mean, I was the person studying and
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: then taking a break on the trampoline. I'll go or
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: you know, going for a quick ride and then coming back.
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: Like I was able to figure that out for myself
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: doing a PhD, because I did that online. But for
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: a lot of the kids at school, they don't have
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: that environment. So I think having caregivers around where they
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: tap into their energy would definitely say kids from getting
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: medicated because they're actually being able to build the other.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: Things right in learning how their brain works well.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: And you think about like when you take a drug,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: it's changing your brain chemistry. When you bounce on a trampoline,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: it's changing your brain chemistry. When you lie on the
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: floor and cuddle a dog. If you love dogs, it
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: changes or even if you hate them, right, but in
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: a different way. But it's all about how do I change,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: you know, how do I change what's happening in my body?
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: You know, these anxiety responses, or these dopamine or this
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: serotinin response or this you know, like cortisole response, or
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: you know, there's so many ways to manipulate the one
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: of the more scientific the inner workings of the body, right,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: you know, hormonally, nervous system, all of those things that
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: don't necessarily and by the way, everyone this is not
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: a recommendation or a prescription. This is just a conversation.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: But I think you know, like even we've seen in
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: grown ups, the comparison between people who use the right
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: kind of exercise to treat depression versus an antidepressant, and
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: in nearly all of the studies, while all of the
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: studies that I've looked at anyway, University of South Australia
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: did a big one this time last year, I think
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: it was November twenty twenty three, UNISA came out with
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: these massive this massive paper around how exercise outperforms or
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: in their study it outperformed you know, antidepressants. And again
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: we're not telling anyone to get off anything or on anything,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: but it's at the very least it's worth, you know,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: if we can do something to our body, or support
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: other people to do something which is fun based or
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: play based, or you know, something that's actually going to
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: change what's happening in not only their brain and their
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: mind but also their entire body, it's worth at least exploring, right.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: Oh definitely.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: And I think we we just don't get the power
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: of things like exercise. And I think even for a
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: lot of women, I hear this where they're like, oh,
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: but I don't like to run, and I'm like, no
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: one said you have to run. You know, there's different
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: kinds of movements, but I think it's comes down to
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: us taking responsibility as well, really for our lives and
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: our habits and going okay, life came feeling depressed, Yes,
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: medication could be one piece of that puzzible What.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: Else, how am I spending my time? You know? Am
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: I moving my body? Like you said?
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: What am I filling my body with? And then being
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: able to continue to tweak those things and get to
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: the root causes of that, you know, the emotional eating,
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: whatever else is going on. So I think for me, anyway,
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: I think it comes down to taking that responsibility for
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: our lives than our habits, and like you said, they
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: rewire our brain like it's so powerful.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Also, here's another idea, doctors. And you know I don't
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: like running, Well, it doesn't matter. You don't have to
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: like it, like you're like like not and I'm not.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm not trying to be a hard ass,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: but we don't need to like everything. Not everything needs
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: to be fun or painless. Right, Sometimes the things that
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: are really fucking effective suck for a little bit of
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: time that.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like it's uncomfortable, like no one likes to do it.
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: I wasn't like super like Joyce the whole time I
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: was with my PhD or even exercising. I still don't
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: want to do it sometimes, but you'll never regret doing it.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: And I think when you know that, then you develop
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: that self discipline right where you're like, yes, I don't
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: feel like it, but I'm going to do the thing anyway,
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: and that builds self trust, which is really important.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean the other thing is too. You know,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: when you go for your run whatever, you're doing something
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: good for your heart and your lungs and your body
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: and all of that. But you know what else is
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: interesting is you know, it's that whole kind of that
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: old chestnut about it's not about getting to the top
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: of the mountain. That's about who you become on the climb, right,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: who might becoming like when I do these you know,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: and Andrew Human talks about the anterior mid singulate cortex,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: the part of the brain that literally gets a bit
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: bigger when we do things that are hard that we
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: don't want to do right, And it's that like when
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: I lean into the suck, right, when I do the
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: shit that I know that I need to do to
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: create the outcome I want, but in the moment, I
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: don't want to do it. I don't feel like doing it,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: but I do it nonetheless. Apart from ticking the box
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: and creating progress, what I'm doing to myself is I'm
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: building competence and resilience and strength and cognitive fitness. Right
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: I'm actually changing. Just like when you go and lift
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: heavy shit, you build muscles. Well, when you go and
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: lift heavy shit with your mind, metaphorically, you're building decision
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: making muscles, You're building resilience muscles, you're building calm and
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: the chaos equanimity muscle. You know. So sometimes we've just
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: got to do shit that in the moment we don't want.
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: To do definitely, And I think often when we're in
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: situations like that, we can just blame the external like
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: I'm too busy right now, or I've got young kids,
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: or I've got this work schedule, I have no time.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: But if we honestly sat there in a room with
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: just us and I don't know the book or you
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: know us, and the ways we realize it actually just
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: really hard. We're just blaming external stuff. We take a
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: lot of that out, it's still hard.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: And this is part of you know, self awareness, Like
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: real self awareness is painful because you know, like when
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: you really do and I said to Melissa, who runs
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: my life. We're having that chat the other day, and
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: everyone thinks everyone says to me, not everyone, that's bullshit.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: A lot of people have said to me, Sam, Yeah, oh,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: you work so hard, you work so much, you work
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: so many hours. You know, you're doing this and that,
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: and you know what I kind of do. But also
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: I fuck around, like I waste time. Like, yes, I
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: that too. Yeah, I do a podcast every day of
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: the year, right, but I mean that's an hour a day, Like,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: it's not exactly ten hours a day. Right. Then I've
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: got to write some copy and come up with a title,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: So that's a little bit of time. And yes, I'm studying,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: and yeah, I do like quite a lot of corporate
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: gigs a year and all of that stuff. But honestly,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: also I waste a lot of time. And I was
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: talking to Melissa about this the other day and I said,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: everyone thinks I work harder than I actually work, and
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: I don't. I kind of let them think that because
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: my ego likes it, right, But it's actually not true,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: Like it depends on you know, what the baseline is
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: or what the comparison is. But you know, and I
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: just think that this in this whole space of you
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: know what we're talking about now, which is you know,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: like training our mind or training our body, or and
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: then owning up without beating yourself up. No, not self clothing,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: self awareness, but owning up and going, you know what,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: I'm wasting my time or I'm the problem. It's like
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: we like everyone else to be the problem, because if
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: everyone else.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: Is the problem, we need to change, right, I.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: Don't need to Well, it's Sam's fault, clearly, and if
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: it's Sam's fault, then Craig doesn't have to change. So
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: that suits Craig, you know.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you're so right about that.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: And it almost like it keeps us stuck, right, the
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: avoidance of that keeps us stuck rather than calling ourselves
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: out on our shit in a really loving way, but
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: in a like this is I'm getting in my own
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: way here, like what am I doing? Like what needs
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: to shift? And I think that's really empowering. I mean
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: it's uncomfortable, but it's empowering.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: And how many of us, so I know we've changed
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: tact in the conversation doesn't matter, but how many of
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: us really waste potential waste time? Waste energy. And then
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: I mean you've not you, not you clearly, but you
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: know I and I don't mean it in a judging way.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: I meant it in a supportive way. Like I meet
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: so many people who are one hundred percent smarter than me,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Like they're smarter than me, they've got more talent, they've
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: got I'm like, fuck, I wish I had your genetics.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: I wish I had your creativity. I wish I had
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: your brain and your memory. Like I meet so many
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: people who have got so much potential, but they're either
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: paralyzed by fear or they're trapped in some kind of
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know, well I don't know oc D or
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: or laziness or avoidance or a bit of all of it,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: or and they just kind of hope an opportunity comes along.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: I'm like, here's an idea, create an opportunity.
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, go On doesn't say no, You're so
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: right about that. I Like, I say this all the time, Like, I,
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: you know, do not get the best grades in university,
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: And there was so many students that are like fully
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: surpassing me in terms of their intellect, and even PhD
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: students that were working double the amount as I was
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: I doing, and yet I was making more progress. Why
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: because they were really struggling with failure, any any perceived
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: bit of failure.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: They just couldn't take it. It was just too much
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: and they didn't know how to.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: It's almost like they were on level ten and they
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: just had to write up their level one and they
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: just couldn't do that anymore.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: It was really tough.
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: So I realized that's actually a benefit, right, when we
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: can call ourselves that our own ship. But also when
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: we're used to failure, when we see that as part
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: of the process, we then don't fear it. We just
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: keep up leveling because we're like, cool, I'm on the
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: right track.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: I read I read in your notes that you work
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: in prisons. Is that right? Or you did What does
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: a play therapist do in prison?
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: Well, see, I'm not just a play therapist. I'm a
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: mentor health social worker. So I do counseling. So I've
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: done counseling you know, with moms, wait in private practice.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: You know, prison is another environment. Yeah, so not doing
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: play that's a.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Big cross section of the humanity. Yeah, it is.
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: But I think when you work with adult it's right
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: we're always working within the shift and even with ourselves,
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: like there's always that you know, kind of core childhood
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: wounds that we all have and it still runs our
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: life because that's where a lot of our programming was
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: really set down and that's how we see the world.
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: And so I think that that lens is really helpful
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: too when working with adults.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: What do you think This is just an opinion, but
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: what do you think gets in the way most people? Like,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: most people are not where they want to be. It
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean they hate their life, but most people, if
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: you say, who'd like to be make more money, or
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: be leaner, or change your body, be healthier, fitter, or
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: you know, like, most people have got something or some
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: things about their life that they really want to change,
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: but at the same time, they're not doing anything to
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: change it. Right, Yep, what do you think that's about?
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, there's so much there, But I think it comes
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: down to how they see themselves really.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: Right, go on, yeah, go on?
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: Expand exad Okay, so how they see themselves. They have
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: really limiting beliefs and so like let's just say exercise. Okay,
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: someone you know wants to get healthier, they're gonna. What
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: they do is they got all or nothing. So they're like,
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: I need to be that person that's at the gym,
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: you know, for an hour a day, and I need
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: to have all the right clothes and I need to
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: do it in this way. And the second that they don't,
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: they're like, it's all I can't do this. I always
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: do this, I always fail this, and they just go
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: back to living their life. It's almost like the shame
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: kind of takes over.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: So it's either like I'm also more on horrible. There's
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: nothing in between, and so they're not psychologically flexible in
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: the sense of going, I need I need to call
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: myself out in this I keep getting in my own way.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: What are my barriers?
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: I need to show up for myself every day. I
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: need to believe that I can be that person. And
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: so it's closing the gap between who they want to
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: be and where they are now. And so imagine this going,
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: I'm actually that person that shows up for myself every
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: day and I do movement could be ten minutes at home,
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: it could be an hour long gym sash, but every
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: day I am that person. Then it becomes a part
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: of their identity and so again, when they believe in
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: themselves like that, they they're able to do that, and
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: I feel like a lot of people aren't.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think I think also okay with fucking up.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: You know, like so many people that I've worked with
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: over the years, they'll say to me something like fell
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: off the wagon on the weekend. I'm like, what is what?
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: What wagon? What wagon?
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: Is it? Fucking up? Though?
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: If there is no wagon, Like I'm renowned for going
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: out right on and on a Saturday night and having
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: the cock downs and having a late night, and then
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: I'm at the gym in the morning. I'm like, you know,
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: I've recovered from that, and I don't see this fucking up.
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: It's probably not the best workout. I mean, I would
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: say like eight out of ten times it's a pretty
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: weak performance. But I show up, and for me, it's
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: like success. That's all I want to do. I want
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: to show up for the fun, but I also want
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: to show up for the accountability part. And then every
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: now and again, I'm actually stronger, probably from all the
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: extra food or all the extra things. But I think
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: it's people perceiving I've just fucked up. I've gone off track.
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: Versus I don't see this getting off track. I see
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: it as you know, part of a very balanced life
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: is that when you're present and you can have fun
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: and you know how to, you know, be able to
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: put all that aside. But then when it's time to
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: show up for yourself and be disciplined, you can do that.
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: So I'm that person at work where I've got my
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: little typerway container and I've got my meal prep. But
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: I'm also that person that can go to an event
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: and just be present and eat whatever's there. Do you
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: see what I mean? And both serve a purpose. People
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: aren't good at doing that. They kind of see that
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: as contradictory, versus I see it is very I'm a
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: walking contradiction, but I see it's very in a child
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: healing where we can do both, we can be both.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: And I think that's the thing. It's like if what
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: I was kind of alluding to is people will eat
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: grape for four weeks and then they'll have a tymtam
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: or two timtams and they go, oh, fucked it up now,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: and then they go on a six day bender because
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: they ate two tymtams. And so it ain't about the timtams.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: It's about the psychological and emotional reaction to the two
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: tympamps because the two tymtams don't fucking matter.
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: They don't And like the ability to get back on
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: track as quickly as possible. And that's what I think
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: about on the weekend right, a lot of people wipe
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: out their weekend versus if you really take it apart,
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: Yes you can have an all night and a great
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: night and you can do all the things, but then
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: you get back on track the next you know, day,
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: or the next even like if you've had a big lunch,
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: you could still then you know, be more conscious for dinner.
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: Like I think people write things off too much, and
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: that comes down to what I said before, the all
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: or nothing mindset, rather than just being a bit more
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: flexible with life.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: Trying to manage us. That's the ever present reality. I
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: should start a show called the U Project where we
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: talk about how we can manage ourselves. There's a thought, what.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: A great idea you should get onto that, Like asam.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: I'm the ideas guy. Hey, your ace, we're going to
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: get you back and talk about more things. We might
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: need to adjust your speed down to point eight zero
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: point eight just so my sixty year olds can keep
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: up with you. But how do people find you, Sam,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: connect with you and potentially do some work with you.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: How to just steer our audience where you want to?
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm mostly active on Instagram, so that's doctor
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: Sam Casey. They can find me on my website, which
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: is doctor Samcasey dot com. Or I'm on Facebook as well,
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: but yeah, Instagram is, I would say, my go to.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: So check me.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Out on your fun and interesting and clever, and congrats
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: on what you're doing. Congrats on you know, leaving school
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: in year ten and then doing your PhD and being
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: a mum of two I'm sure awesome kids, and just
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: being the energetic inspiration. You are high energy. You are
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: high energy. And it's eight thirty as we speak, and
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, this is a lot, but it's great.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: It's great.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: Appreciate that I was wondering.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: I was wondering how I was going to be with
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: a seven thirty PM podcast. Thank god it was you,
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: because you dragged me out of my slumber. We'll say
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: goodbye affair. We'll say goodbye affair. But Sam, thanks so
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: much for your time.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much. Graig appreciate it,