Latest / Spacious Success / 018 | Back Yourself: Body Confidence, Big Courage and Showing Up Anyway with Taryn Brumfitt

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018 | Back Yourself: Body Confidence, Big Courage and Showing Up Anyway with Taryn Brumfitt · Spacious Success

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Hi, I'm Dr. Christi Goodwin, a neuroperformance scientist, speaker and executive coach who
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learned the hard way the chasing success can come at a cost.
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After burnout landed me in hospital, I made it my mission to help ambitious women who
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are done trading their health and happiness for high performance.
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On spacious success, I share science-backed strategies and real stories to help you flourish
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as a female at work and beyond so you can stop paying the success tax.
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I often say we get about 4,000 weeks on this planet.
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That means we get 4,000 some days if we're lucky because I've learned the good health
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is a privilege and it's never ever a promise.
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I often remind my audiences of that in keynotes and every single time I say it, the weight
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of that number really hits me.
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And so today's guest, Tarant Brumfit, reminds us of a very similar truth, but in her words,
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we only get about 28,000 days, if we're really lucky and we're not meant to waste that
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at war with our bodies, bravo.
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I first encountered Tarant through her viral body image advocacy work.
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And like many of us, it was her work behind the viral moments that I've come to really
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deeply respect and if truth be told admire.
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She's a global speaker, a passionate mum and someone who reminds us of just how precious
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and fragile our time is.
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I'm joined by the extraordinary Tarant Brumfit, 2023 Australian of the year, does that ever
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sink in?
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Does that mean no?
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She is a filmmaker, an author, a speaker and a global advocate for positive body image
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through her embrace movement.
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She's spoken everywhere, including Outback Australia, Harvard, Google and the White House.
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And she's inspired millions of people with her courage, her clarity and her conviction.
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And for me, that inspiration is actually really personal.
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I first heard Tarant speak at a mum's society event.
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I don't know if you remember this, Tarant.
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I don't actually remember a lot of it because I was there with a three month old baby.
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My boobs were leaking.
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I've made the fatal error of making a wearing a lemon dress with lactating leaking breasts.
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It was not going well, but I sat there and I vividly remember it back in 2019.
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I was stepping on to bigger stages myself.
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And when I watched you share your story with honesty, with power, with conviction,
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it planted a seed in me that maybe my own story was worth sharing too.
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Maybe I could dream bigger and do this too.
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And that moment helped me to propel my speaking journey.
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And so Tarant, you were the catalyst for me to confirm that I wanted to become a global speaker.
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And you are proof that one action taken from truth can literally,
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not just metaphorically, change the world.
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Your story is a masterclass in what happens when we stop waiting for permission
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and we just start backing ourselves.
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You encourage us to get off the sidelines of our life
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because no one's going to deliver a eulogy about our fire gap.
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And so I'd love to dive in.
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Welcome to the show, Tarant.
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Oh, thank you for those lovely words.
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And it's really lovely that you say that about propelling you on to bigger stages,
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but it's just what we do for each other.
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It's like what misrepresentation watching that film in a cinema did for me.
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It gave me permission and a little nudge.
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Maybe I could make a film.
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It's just what we do, but it's really nice to hear that
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because I've admired your work for a long time.
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And you know how obsessed I am with your book and how many copies I buy people
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and take sex around.
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I dream that look back, look like it's my book.
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I'm like, here, have a book.
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Thank you.
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That's a very game changer.
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That's very kind of you to say.
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And I love that reminder because I think there's such power in humans,
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encouraging others to dream big to live big.
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But I also particularly think that women supporting other women,
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cheering them on, saying their name in rooms when they're not there,
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is just such a such an important topic
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and something that we need to keep talking about.
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Yeah, agreed.
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Okay, so I'd like to take us back.
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Let's rewind back to 2013.
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You uploaded some what we call at the time,
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certainly not today, but there was some unconventional before and after photos
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and it was on Facebook. Was that was a correct?
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Then you went to bed.
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What happened next?
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It just went so viral.
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You couldn't you couldn't have planned what happened next
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and it was the catalyst for everything that's happened since over the last 12 years.
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The photographs were unconventional because they're back to front.
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Normally we see before and after there's a person before,
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in a larger body in their sad and then there's weight and miraculous.
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They've become happy and really I just wanted to share it with some friends
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to help them to appreciate that health is not just physical
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and it's not anything that you can actually see.
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It's emotional, it's spiritual, it's mental, it's all of those things.
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So it was pretty wild.
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I was a photographer at the time.
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I had three young children.
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I had no interest in being a public figure.
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My closest friends would say, that's BS Tyron.
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You wanted to be a singer and I'm like, yeah,
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act karaoke on a Saturday night.
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I'm all on it, but I didn't want to talk.
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I didn't want to speak.
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I remember the first interview I did on the today show.
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It was like the biggest deal in the whole world for me to do this.
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It was massive, but one foot in front of the next is what we do
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and I've had some really good counsel around me.
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I've got great family and friends who are always really grounding,
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but very quickly I acknowledged that this was actually not about me.
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This is about creating change and that pivot in my own thinking.
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Even talking in front of big stages,
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you know, I remember right at the beginning doing a business chips tour
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and I said to my friend Nigel from the film Embrace,
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I was saying to him, oh, I'm so nervous.
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The crowd, there's like a thousand people out there and he's like Tyron,
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it's not about you.
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It's about what you're saying.
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And I was like, aha, we need to get out of our own ways to do the things.
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I love that.
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So you'd be an accidental thought leader.
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And who would have thought that one mouse click literally,
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a mouse click would have become a movement?
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And I love the way you've reframed that it's the message and the conviction in your message
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and your purpose that drives you.
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It's not necessarily the accolades or the stages.
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And do you think that's what helped you achieve the success that you have?
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You're one hundred percent.
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Yeah, I mean, sometimes I think like I'm a conduit to the pain in the story
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and what we can do next.
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And I think the fact that I'm not really phased.
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I mean, I had a good grounding with my dad always taught me that people,
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we're all born the same.
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We all leave the world the same.
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We treat everyone with equal respect.
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And that was a very core value of mine.
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So that means that, of course, I flip out when I get an invitation to the White House.
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And you know, like that's the real moment where I'm like, oh my God.
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But for the most part, 99.9% of the time, I just couldn't really care less.
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I care about every person and about their humility, their generosity,
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their humour, not how much they've got in the bank or who they're showing up
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with at parties or if they're on TV.
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None of that stuff matters.
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It's about who we are as people.
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I have three sons and we have, I call them car chats.
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So when they're trapped in my close proximity on the way to school or sport training,
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I go heavy on the mum philosophy and the life lesson.
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And this morning's car chat was actually one of my favourite all-time quotes,
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Mayor Angelo, who I found through Oprah Winfrey growing up as a, you know, a personal
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development junkie in the 1980s and 90s.
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Mayor Angelo used to say, people will never remember what you said,
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but they will always remember how you made them feel.
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And I think if we all remember that, that our actions and our intentions are so important.
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And in a world where we can be anything, I think choose kindness.
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I just think it's such a...
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Yeah, I agree.
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Yeah, okay.
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I'm glad someone else has the car chat too.
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They did get the good track because I had 14 ages.
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Oh, and it's where I do my best work.
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Absolutely.
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And there's neuroscience behind it because we know, especially adolescents,
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they don't particularly like face-to-face direct eye contact conversation.
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They love side-by-side, or I don't remember, don't know if you remember,
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do you remember Dickie Ney from Hey, Hey, It's Saturday?
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The characters.
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Kids love Dickie Ney conversations.
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They love talking to the back of your head.
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This is why they divulge their biggest secrets and worries when you lay down next to them in the
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bed and why when you go for a walk, they start to talk to you.
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So there's actually signs behind that, but we digress.
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Now, I've heard you say before that having a healthy relationship with your body
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is like having a superpower and everyone deserves that.
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I recently watched something on social media and I will admit it stopped me in my tracks.
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It said something like this and I unfortunately didn't save it.
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It was one of those great posts that you scroll past and it hit you,
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but you never hit that damn save button and you can't retrieve it again.
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But it said no one is going to stand at your eulogy and talk about the amazing thigh gap,
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how amazing your thigh gap was, or the effort you went into to fit into your size 26 genes.
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Why do so many of us, but particularly women, have such a challenging relationship with our bodies?
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Yeah, I mean, that's a big, complex question because there's a lot of reasons.
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You know, it goes right back to when we started marketing products to people,
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to make money off their insecurities. I think if we could distill it down,
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when we feel bad about our bodies, there are a trillion dollar industry,
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beauty, diet, cosmetic that are making lots of money.
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So making us feel bad is good for them and they are very powerful,
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but I think what we need to remember in all of these conversations is that we are in actual control
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and we get to choose the relationship that we have with these messages.
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And I think for a long time, I mean, that's what the whole, how this all began,
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was when I shared my story about how I felt about my body and then 7,000 emails and messages
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later from people all around the world sharing how they felt. It was almost like it was something
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that we weren't talking about it. It was tucked away and now over the last decade,
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we're really talking about it. And now we've got to push back and actually put ourselves
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in the driver's seat and go, it feels really shit. And when you're constantly trying to change
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your body, how can I focus more on functionality of my body over my appearance? We're not saying,
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you don't even, not to care about what they look like, you know, do your hair, wear the clothes,
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get the makeup, do whatever, do whatever you want to do with your body,
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and longer that feels good to you. But I think the key message is focus more on how you feel
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than how you look. And if we could just simply get that balance, we'd all be a whole lot happier.
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Yeah, wouldn't we? I'm also going to say it's really hard, like I would like to think that I'm
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quite intentional, you know, I've curated my social media feeds, so I only follow people that
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lift me up or inspire me or challenge my thinking. But I will admit in the last few months,
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given my age and obviously my demographic profile online, the algorithm has served me up a plethora
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of menopause, perimenopause content. I love a good perimenopausal meme. I'm just saying,
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I'm not opposed to that. So Instagram, if you're listening, please keep serving the funny ones up.
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But I've also been inundated with sponsored posts about GLP1 medications. And I feel like even
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if you are intentional, it is a constant and incessant battle to tap into exactly what you just
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said, focusing on how we feel rather than how we look. Any advice do you see this as well? Anything
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that we can do to try and tackle this? Yeah, I mean, I guess that I think it's great that you've
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curated your feed and I still meet so many people that actually don't do a lot of that. It's
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almost like, oh, it's happening to us. Yes. And we've just got to remind ourselves that,
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no, no, no, when we used to read magazines way back when we have really had no control over what
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was there, but now our worlds are digital and we get to decide who we let in. Jamila Jamile
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in the embrace kids film says four words that were really powerful for kids to hear and good
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for adults to hear too. She said, block mute, delete, repeat. And I just think we need to stay
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on top of that just four simple words, but also I think it's good to recognise the messages
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and what they do to us and how they make us feel and actually just some of unpack it from the
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perspective of what are they trying to do when they make me feel this way? And then am I going to
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engage in that? What can I focus on other than that? It is complex and I think it's very noisy.
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I think is when we're having our human being relationship and interactions, I think given the
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bombardment that we have online, that we should make packs with all of our friends to not talk about
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our bodies every again. Let's not talk about GLP ones or let's not talk about diets or let's not
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talk about how someone looked at their bodies. Let's stop all of that. At least we can control some
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of the spaces that we have in real life and that is really powerful to do that with friends.
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I love that. And again, I love what you said there about our analogue relationships and particularly
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as females. We know that females regulate stress through tending and befriending. Let's make sure
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that even if we can't necessarily have full control, we do have, I agree, some control over our
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digital interactions that our analogue offline real life, you know, our IRL interactions are
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rich and refueling and we skip that dialogue altogether. I love that. I think that's so. And how often
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do we, like not necessarily judgment, but we pass comments on somebody's physical appearance?
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And often we're good intentions, but I agree, shaping that conversation to be about bolder,
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bigger topics is so important. Yeah, it's the least interesting thing about us as the way it is.
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Isn't it? It's the very least interesting thing. And so I'm not talking about it.
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How to eulogy, like that's not exactly that's right. But I have seen this work because I've
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actually, it's one of the strategies that I've asked for people and groups in schools, but with
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adults too, to have the conversation with your girlfriends, what a great time to do it,
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wrapping up the year of the snake here, we go the year of the horse, sit down with your friends
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in January over a drink and say, how about this year, we try, never talk about anyone else's body
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or our bodies in a negative way again. Let's just stop talking about bodies. Love that. I would
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love to hear what that feels like at the end of the year. Lots more energy. I've been completely
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aware. I love that. And such a simple thing to do. That's not cumbersome or time consuming.
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We know that a lot of us get stuck in the compare and despair phenomenon, especially women.
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And we know that social media definitely fills this loop. But why do we keep comparing our behind
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the scenes chaos? I'm going to speak for myself here. My life is often chaotic. And we compare it
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to everyone's highlight reel, you know, the sponsored, filtered, edited, unattainable life.
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I can say, I think we need if we are going to be on social media to share the shiny and the
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shabby parts of our life. Do you agree? Do you think that's not a fair thing? I'd love to hear
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what you think in that regard. No, oh, hard, leery. There's a great quote by a man called Steve
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Ferstich who says, don't compare your behind the scenes with everyone else's highlight reel.
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And I've used that in every single keynote and people like the penny drops people like,
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oh, I think I do a lot of that comparison. And as you would know, we are wired to compare.
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It's something that just it happens. And it's what we do with it next. And it's about catching
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the comparison. And I think it's good to build little stories around it because that's been
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helpful for me. If I've compared, I'm like, oh, comparison, I just hear again. And I think it's
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important to catch it, but also recognizing that comparison moves us, it moves us outward.
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And then intentions bring us back to ourselves. And I think what do I need? What can I give myself
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right now? What do I feel might be lacking that I'm observing in somebody else? Sometimes we can
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use the comparison artist in a positive way and go, oh, I feel like that person who's in nature
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and seems to be so peaceful. Maybe there's something that I need here that I could do more.
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Yeah. Yeah. But I think it's really important for everyone who's listening to understand that
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we do so much of that. We compare our partners and our relationships and our holidays and our
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bodies. And it can make us feel really craft. Yeah. I will say, though, the most important thing
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is online and on social media, we know that as little as seven minutes on Instagram can make
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you feel depressed or anxious. Wow. If you're looking at bodies. Yeah. But if you're looking at cat
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videos or dog videos or anything else other than bodies, then you're not going to have that
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great despair. So again, I think it's about being really responsible. If there are things showing
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up in your feed that make you feel a bit lousy, especially bodies, because we're going to go,
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how do I compare how my body looks to how her body looks? Yeah. And then we're going to find a
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problem to fix that wasn't even there. Yeah. And then we know we know where we go from there.
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Yeah. So I think get really discerning about the video. Yeah. And I like that you pointed out,
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you can have positive advantages too. You know, if we're following things that inspire us,
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that uplift us, that elevate or challenge our thinking, I also like what you said. And the
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science behind it is we have a negativity by us as humans. So we are hardwired. You know,
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that's how it helped us to evolve as a species to be on the hunt or the lookout for negative or
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detrimental or harmful things. So we will hover over, you know, the video on the algorithm of
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something that catches our interest. And then we fuel the algorithm to service even more. So it
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becomes a vicious cycle that we literally can't escape despite our intentions. Yeah, that's right.
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Now you often talk about us needing to tame doubt and to choose courage. You've obviously had to
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do this throughout your unexpected career as a global thought leader. What's helped you to do this?
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How have chosen courage? What's helped you to do this? And obviously you've had to do it repeatedly
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to evolve into the speaker, you know, a filmmaker. What are some tangible things that listeners could
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take away? Yeah, so here's the thing about doubt. Is that I often would just try and push
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doubt away and ignore it and battle with it. And that didn't work. And then when I realised,
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and this is many, many years ago, when I made peace with the fact that doubt is a passenger
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in life with me. And it's important too to have doubt otherwise we've been making really reckless
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decisions. It's just having that relationship with doubt that, okay, so you're not in the driver's seat,
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but you're on the bus and you can go to the back of the bus because I've kind of got this.
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So I think, but what I also love about doubt that in the word doubt is do. I just, I love that.
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So in your closest moments of vulnerability and like, oh, the whispers of, can you do this?
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Should you do this? What are people going to think? There's a little do in there as well.
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And then in terms of courage, what I love about courage, it's not something that you either have
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or have not got. It is something that you can cultivate. And going back to that first interview
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that I talked about before, like on Channel 9 on the Today Show, the first time I've ever been on
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TV and I'm like, oh my, my wheels were spinning in ways that took so much energy and thought and
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overthinking it. And it took courage to lean into that. But I did. And then now 10, 12 years down
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the track, it's a lot easier. But we've got to acknowledge and recognize that those little moments
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along the way where we're practicing sort of small amounts of courage, the small wins are really
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important for the big ones. I mean, people have seen me deliver a speech, you know, whether it's
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the Australian of the year or whether I was at Harvard, when I was at the White House, it just
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just happened. There was many things along the way that supported the confidence to do those
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big things, which my view was still a little bit scary. But it's also just having that relationship
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with the feelings and the thoughts as well. Oh, doubts here. Just like comparison, it isn't here
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and that's okay. What do I need to back myself in this moment? Also, I gamified my life a lot.
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So when I was at the White House, I remember having the worst case of imposter syndrome.
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I was standing with its group of men, world leaders, big heavy hitters. And all I could think
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was someone's going to ask me what I do. What am I going to say? I teach people to embrace their
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bodies for a living like it's just I felt so out of place. And I remember being there and I wasted
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that first half an hour of the White House because I was so consumed and so in my head.
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And then I said to myself, Tyrone, here, let's have some fun here. I want you to go find the most
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interesting person in the room. So off I went, I found someone very sparkly. It happened to be
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one of the B-52s. We ended up singing Love Shack. We had this really awesome moment and I just
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thought that little gamification moment. But I actually not sure that we all do enough of.
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I think it's a really sweet, powerful pivot out of this scary, you know, the imposter thing.
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Or whatever you want to call it, that there's always opportunity to have a little bit of fun
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as well to get yourself out of the stuck zone. I agree. And I think, you know, I have the privilege
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of working with a lot of ambitious women in a coaching capacity. And when I often ask them what
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they do for fun or what they do to play, they look at me almost with a blank expression. So I
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completely echo what you're saying that we need to bring fun and play back into our lives,
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especially in those challenging moments. And you know, if you hadn't done that, you wouldn't have
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had your B-52 sparkly dress. No, that's right. I would have only had drunk B-52s, not some with a B-52.
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Some listeners might know what I'm hearing too. I do. I know exactly what you're talking about back in the day.
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I've had a remodery splice. Oh my god. And I love what you shared here because obviously you've had
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moments in your life where you contemplated pulling back. You know, when you're talking about
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feeling intimidated in the White House, what's the self-talk? Is it the looking for the elements of
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fun? Is it saying, you know, that do is in the word doubt? Is there anything else that you do that,
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you know, when you're second guessing yourself when that imposter syndrome hits when you're really
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in a moment of self-doubt? Is there anything else that you do or say that shifts you out of that?
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Yeah, I mean, I have a couple of certainly before speaking, even though I've delivered hundreds of
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talks and I love speaking and I'm really good at speaking. I still get terrified before I go,
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I still have little moments of dancing. So I have things that I do to anchor my body physically.
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I also have practices like John Farnham. I use that to pressure down in my 2023 year. A friend of
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my nail and hoop was like, we knew that I needed some real support in that year and so I would play
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it in the mornings when I was feeling under pressure and I'd literally just dust away the pressure
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out. I just get it out of my body. So I do, I have some different rituals, but I think probably
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the most important one is, you know, when you, um, never spoken about this, so let me see if I can
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get the words. I'd like a, like a computer data analysis, like a, like, I don't even know, okay,
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you know what I'm saying? I do. It's almost like in moments where you're feeling something,
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it's been, it's knowing yourself so well that you can do a really quick analysis go, okay,
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where is this coming from? Yeah. And what do I need to do? Yeah. To compensate or support that
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emotion? Almost like a body scan, like a somatic, somatic scan would be the scientific term I might
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put around it, but it's tuning in. Yeah. And I see it really is tuning in. What do I need right now?
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Why am I feeling this way? And I think it's also not when the, you know, what hits the fan that we
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always want to go there. I actually think the, I think the key to being sort of successful,
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what that means to people is the work in the leader. It's no, it's the foundation, it's like painting,
26:02
you know, it's the 80% of all of that prep. Yeah. And I love that you spoke about rituals because
26:07
there's so much science, but you know, our brain is constantly scanning the environment and it's
26:12
processing 11 million bits of data a second, which is mind blowing. And so our brain needs us to make
26:18
what I call congruent cognitive associations. So it needs to have repeatable signals, whether it's
26:23
what we drink or smell or taste or listen. And that's why I love that you use music. But those repeatable
26:30
systems send a cognitive trigger to your brain that this is about what's going to happen next. So
26:35
your neural pathways get activated. And so you feel much steadier. And there's actually been some
26:40
studies done. And they tell us that just nine minutes and they are so precise that it's nine minutes,
26:46
obviously, you can do more, but the minimum threshold, nine minutes of listening to music. And it
26:50
can be whatever tickles your fancy. It will elevate your mood. It will put you in an alert focus
26:56
state. That's so achievable for all of us to do. So when we're about to, you know, tackle something
27:01
and doubts creeping in when we're about to step on a stage, when we're about to pitch something,
27:05
we're going to tackle that tricky conversation with our partner. There are things like rituals we
27:09
can put in place that will help us to anchor in. I love that. Yeah. I think this is making sure
27:14
that everyone who's listening knows that rituals that work for me won't work for you, but really
27:18
putting the time to work out what they are. Because I didn't have the John Farnam take the pressure
27:24
down ritual until 2023. But now I use other songs to support that. But I didn't know about that
27:31
in before 2023. But it's constantly evolving. Yeah. Brilliant. So I'm assuming as a working
27:38
mum, you're probably applying some of these strategies to help you get through the day. So you're
27:43
a working mum and you're a public figure. How have you navigated personal and professional
27:48
life school drop-offs and global stages? Are you super woman? Do you like that term? How have
27:54
you done it? Like share some of the mechanics with our ambitious female listeners.
27:59
Well, I definitely am not super woman. And it's something I don't want us to hope to be.
28:06
I want to become woman or peace woman. So it's really funny because I've got 14 ages home
28:12
because with school holidays, I just heard one go out the front door and bang it on the way out.
28:16
I was like, just as you asked that question. So there you go. The juggle. It is perfect timing.
28:22
And the drop-offs and the globalness look, I think for me, it's been really important to have
28:28
people around me, supporting people that get it as well. But the transition between them,
28:34
I don't know, it's when I'm with my kids, I'm just mum. And I actually try and do as much
28:42
compartmentalising as I can, like I'm here wearing this hat. And then I take it off, I might do
28:48
something again, a ritual, mum is home, which often means like from work, the bras off,
28:53
the trampoline as well. That's my body's signal that I am just I'm here now and I'm really present.
29:01
But yeah, to be completely honest, we all just have 24 hours in the day, seven days a week and
29:09
we work, we have many hats. I try not to overthink it too much. Yeah, I love to be completely honest.
29:17
I don't know what sort of answer that was. No, that was it. Let me tell you, the rules fall off a lot.
29:21
Good. That's this part of me. And we need women saying that because I totally
29:25
briefed Superwoman's a myth and we should stop using it as a, I know we often use it as an
29:29
endearing term or as something that we aspire, but it sets women up for failure because no one
29:34
can manage all the tasks all of the time and the wheels do fall off. So I applaud you for saying
29:39
that. And I totally agree that it's my mum always says this to me, be where your feet are.
29:46
And I love that idea of what you were saying, like when you're at home, you're at home.
29:50
I also love the reference to the bra. We've got some group chats with some friends and we've come
29:56
up where we're quite direct now. So if we get us to go out and we don't feel like going out,
30:01
you can literally text back CBF. So can't be, you don't even need to tell me I knew that one.
30:07
You knew that one or the other one is I can't be bothered. I'm not willing to pay a
30:12
bra tax. And the bra tax is when you've taken off your bra at the end of the day. And in order to
30:16
go back out and be socially respectable, you probably should put on a bra and if you just couldn't
30:21
be bothered, you can tell everyone you're not willing to pay the bra tax. So my god, I'm so
30:26
god. Your list is want to hear something really funny just because they do keep the juggle.
30:30
I was going out on Saturday and I was doing my hair and I had the curly iron and I dropped them
30:37
onto my nipple and my breath. I have a burn that big. So took it down and wearing a bra for two days.
30:44
Yes, I've been out in the world parlors for two days. So hot tip people. Hot tip literally.
30:51
I'm sorry, I'm the party on a rope when you are curling and using hot iron for a row.
30:59
Oh, that's funny. Oh, thank you for sharing that. I'm worried.
31:05
You obviously work in your online programs in the speaking work. I'm assuming you interact
31:09
with a lot of women. And I'm hearing and I mean the research is definitely corroborating it,
31:14
but with the women that I have the privilege of speaking to, the women that I personally have
31:19
the honor of coaching, I'm hearing and from friends. We have a really serious gender well-being
31:25
gap, significantly more females and males are experiencing stress and burnout. Are you seeing
31:31
this hearing this as well? I just love any anecdotal insights that you might have there.
31:36
Yeah, there's just, yes, I hear it. It's just so much pressure. I would say though, I feel like
31:42
the pressure is right across the board just being a human being because I see it in my teenage
31:47
boys. I see it in my girl. I see it in my husband. I see it in my friends who are a mix of women
31:52
and men. And so I just think it's not an easy time to be a human right now for a whole bunch of
32:00
reasons. And I think given what you do in this space, I think tech has a lot to do with it.
32:05
Yeah. I just, I think, I mean, this is your, this is your real house, but from a everyday punter,
32:12
it just feels like it's just happened to us. It's just come on. We're doing it.
32:16
And it took over our lives and everyone's trying to extract themselves.
32:20
Yeah, I agree. And it's just, and it's, and it hasn't felt good.
32:25
And we've felt really disconnected. So I just think it has been, I think it's been a bit of a
32:30
struggle for lots of people. But we need to keep talking about it. And I think what women don't do,
32:36
I think, as well as men, is that we don't, we're getting better at it though. Let me say this.
32:41
We are so used to being of service and looking after everyone else's needs and not putting
32:45
our own first. Like I think we've heard that narrative now. Great. We've got it. We've acknowledged
32:50
it. Yeah. But now it's time to really voice that next step towards that true equality,
32:57
which is asking for what we need. And having boundaries being really comfortable with saying,
33:02
no, even something as small as what you and your girl gang have done with the
33:07
car be bothered, whatever it was. That's important. It's important to be truthful.
33:13
And instead of continuing to show up and be shiny and be everything for everyone, it's
33:19
not, sorry, can't do it anymore. Actually, in fact, not even sorry, just not doing it.
33:24
Yeah. Sorry, full stop. Or no, full stop. No, sorry. And I find, and this is just observational,
33:31
but a little bit of science woven in is that this, we tend to become more comfortable as female
33:37
saying this as we hit middle midlife. And that has a lot to do with hormone changes. You know,
33:43
Eastergins often described as the hormone of accommodation and servitude. And when that begins
33:48
to fluctuate and then decline, we lose our filter. Like we often will start to say things
33:53
we're more direct and we do start to say no. So I think that's, and I know there's a lot of
33:57
narrative about midlife being chaotic and being terrible. I think that's one of the benefits
34:01
that we get the courage to actually, as you just said, speak our mind and say what we really want
34:07
and decline things. Yeah, me too. And I often think about our mother's generation who just didn't
34:15
even talk about these. Like how did they even survive? Like we now we're going to the other end
34:20
of the spectrum where we're just talking about it so much. But I wonder whether this is the
34:25
opportunity in the evolution of women that we talk about it and our young girls hear it. And
34:32
it doesn't take them for the estrogen to start slipping away for them to start using their voice.
34:37
But they use it from a really young age as opposed to the mums that were like armoring up.
34:44
I mean, my mom's a classic. She had a full couple of months ago. She's like, could you pick me up?
34:48
I'm a bit hurt, but I'll be okay. And my husband's a nurse and he's like, I think we need
34:52
a hospital. She's like, in the backseat of the car, she says to me, oh, how pathetic is this?
34:58
This is it. She had five broken ribs, a broken jaw, a broken wrist, and had five stitches.
35:05
And she was going, oh, I don't think I need to go to hospital. So we have grown up in this
35:12
kind of, you know, this, this era of armor and toughness. But I really like the feminine softness.
35:20
And I want more of that. And that comes from boundaries. I agree.
35:24
Listening to what we need. Yeah, I'm about to share a post this week saying that the mother
35:28
martyrdom era is over. Like it's done. We need to stop emulating that, like depleting yourself
35:34
and exhausting yourself and having nothing left in your tank is not a sign or a marker of your caring
35:40
and, you know, your value. So I really challenge that notion. I look forward to reposting
35:46
and I also loved what you said. And, you know, we were never designed. I can say our brains. I
35:52
call our brains our HOS. So our human operating system. We have ancient paleolithic software.
35:58
Like our brains and biologies wouldn't build to live in a world where we're always on,
36:03
really focused and never recovered. Yeah. HOS is not evolved. And so I think further to your
36:08
point before, so many of us are as humans, not just as women, but are really struggling
36:14
because we are living and working in ways that are completely incompatible with how our HOS
36:19
was built. And I think I wanted to call that out. Now, I just want to shift gears here.
36:25
We know that 58% of women and girls globally will experience some sort of tech-based violence.
36:30
And for high profile women, celebrities, sports stars, women in a leadership position in
36:36
organizations, the risk we know is even greater. Taryn, you were a really powerful voice several
36:41
years ago on the cost of online bullying. And you stood in solidarity with Elena Dockick
36:48
when she was subjected to absolutely horrific body shaming during the Australian Open.
36:54
You've seen this play out firsthand. What do you see in terms of the body acceptance work in the
37:01
online space? Yeah. I mean, I've been subject to myself chose right from the very beginning and
37:08
then had another good second goal at it for Australian-of-the-year experience. What it's
37:14
like to experience people's hatred and comment, you know, when Elena was bullied, I didn't know
37:24
Elena at the time. I've met her a few times since, but I just wanted to support her. And I think
37:30
we just need to continue to do that when we see behaviour that's bad, that we call it out.
37:35
But we also in our workplaces in and out every day live is we need to stop treating
37:42
online abuse as part of the job, you know, for women who show up and lead or have an opinion,
37:49
heaven forbid, it is not the cost of visibility. And it's violence and it needs to end.
37:59
And I think, you know, sometimes when I start talking, I even feel that like despair in my
38:03
body because it feels like something I can't control. But then I go back to the very simple things
38:09
that I can control and that we as women can control. And that is what we say about, I've said it
38:16
before, other people's bodies and what we say about our own bodies. I'm not saying that we give
38:20
permission to others to be mean when we say mean things, but I don't think it's a great part,
38:25
I don't think it's a great narrative for us as women to continuously put ourselves down
38:32
and pick ourselves apart and be mean to ourselves. I think we need to be really responsible with our
38:39
words. And I think in the workplace, online abuse needs to be taken really seriously. You know,
38:48
there needs to be policies, there needs to be dedicated support, there needs to be leadership
38:54
training or all of the things that we know because it has a big impact. I have the broader
39:00
shoulders, literally, in the world. And I'm a pretty tough cookie. But I remember in 2023,
39:06
reading the comments. Of course, like an idiot. Sorry, I should have at stake, Tyrone, you're
39:12
a good person. But at the time I was like, idiot, for reading the comments, I should have known
39:16
better. But I read them and I remember sitting, you know, the day after what should have been a
39:21
really amazing time in a hotel in Sydney, falling my eyes out. And my, my then fiance, you know,
39:28
he's a nurse who doesn't know anything about any of this world. He's no any violence.
39:33
Beautiful. But he was like, oh, what do I, what do we do with this? So it does impact. We can't
39:39
say that we don't care what people think or what people say. We do. We have these big feelings.
39:45
So call it out. Yeah. Call it out and support other people that you see going through it.
39:50
And I love what you said. Yes. I want to message and just, you know, people raising them,
39:56
you know, even if you think, I don't know them, even if it's just, I do that a lot and just go,
40:01
hey, we don't know each other just wanted to say that was a big shit. And he's my number. I've done
40:05
that many times. Yeah. Sometimes it's nice to pick up the phone. Absolutely.
40:09
Call it for somebody. You sent me one of those DMs. I am pleased to say when my
40:13
fabulous executive assistant passed away unexpectedly, you sent me a successful unexpected
40:19
DM and it was a genuine support. And I just think championing, cheering on, just supporting people.
40:26
And I loved what you said before about our language. Again, my wise mum often will say,
40:32
your words are your wand and they are and we can use them as a wand to create great magic.
40:38
But as you said, you know, they can be hugely detrimental and damaging to people as well.
40:43
Yeah, they can. Thank you. And I'm so sorry, you know, it disappoints me to think that at a time
40:49
that should be one of the happiest of your life, like such a huge professional and personal
40:53
accomplishment to be announced as Australian of the year that you spent it dealing with, you know,
40:59
vitriol, unkind, unnecessary comments. And we know, you know, type of bullying is prevalent. And
41:06
part of the reason is the dissinhibition effect that when the person who is typing it is sending
41:10
the unkind post, they don't see you sitting in the hotel room in the fetal position, you know,
41:16
sobbing uncontrollably. So we need to reach out and we also need to take it seriously.
41:22
And workplaces also need to be kind. Just see if you get the old fashioned.
41:27
If you got nothing, I just say don't say it at all. I'm all for challenges that it's got.
41:32
I'm all for raising points and having different opinions and all of that, but when it starts
41:36
to get nasty, that's when it becomes the problem. I'm actually about to, it's taken me,
41:41
I haven't looked at it. Almost three years to respond, but I'm about to respond to that because
41:46
I just, it's not about not being able to let it go, but it's about making sure that the next
41:54
woman and the other thing, how I was treated as a woman, were very different from my other
41:58
colleagues who were friends Australians of the year. It was a bit chalk and cheese at the time.
42:04
So I just want to make sure that we are mindful as a nation to give, you know,
42:10
what we say we are, yeah, have a fair go, like give the person a fair go.
42:14
With day one, guys, yeah. Well done.
42:16
Only who? Yeah. Now Glen and Doyle often says, share from your scars, not your wounds,
42:21
and it sounds like you've given it enough time to heal over, and that three years post this is
42:27
a good time for people to live up to think that Australian of the years. All right,
42:32
we're going to close out now. I love this conversation, and thank you for sharing candidly.
42:37
I love the humour that we've managed to weave in. What does this podcast is called spacious
42:43
success? What does that concept mean to you just now? Like at this point in time in your life,
42:50
if you were to live, experience, aspire to have, do you have it? Like what does that term mean,
42:56
spacious success? It means not rushing. It means being a master of discernment,
43:03
and my sort of next phase of life has been getting a little more discerning about what I do.
43:09
Success to me means peace and grounding and presence and joy and fun and playfulness and all
43:18
the things that they're my core values. Yeah, I think that's what it is. Not doing,
43:23
no, I think it could be doing what I want when I want how I want. It's even saying it feels a little bit
43:30
so I've been living that for a while now, and I just have to make peace with even saying,
43:36
because it sounds very, I don't know, no, doing what I want, how I want, when I want. No, that's
43:42
what I want. Yeah, full stop. I had to practice saying that one more to myself. Actually,
43:49
not a full stop. I'm going to put an exclamation mark at the end of that one.
43:54
Totally. Taryn, I am so grateful for your time. Where can listeners find out more about the work
43:59
that you do tell us a bit more about your digital platforms? Yeah, sure. So they can find me at
44:06
tarangbrumpet.com or bodyimagemovement.com for free resources, and we have six pieces of research
44:14
now to show the efficacy of the work we do with young people in schools and sporting clubs in
44:18
the home, go to theembracehub.com for those resources. And of course, LeapDin, I love nothing more
44:25
than someone sliding into my DMs on LinkedIn, so it's a great place to connect. Awesome. Well,
44:30
thank you. Oh, I need Instagram and this and that, just keep going. Just in my mind. I will see you
44:38
in the next video. I will eat a bowlies when I'm shopping. Yeah, come and give me a hug. Done.
44:44
Well, thank you again. I appreciate your time. Yeah, lovely to chat. Thanks, bye. Thank you.