Bridging Loneliness with Nature and Community: Sharon's Story

Please note: This podcast may contain references to, or feature images, videos, and voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who have passed away. 
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In episode 8, "Bridging Loneliness with Nature and Community: Sharon's Story," we invite listeners on a profound exploration of healing and connection through the lens of Sharon's life. As an Indigenous woman who has navigated the challenging waters of loneliness and trauma, Sharon's experiences illuminate the powerful roles that both nature and a compassionate community play in the journey towards emotional and psychological well-being.

This episode is not just a story of personal triumph; it's a deeper dive into how reconnecting with the earth and finding solace in a supportive community can offer a pathway out of isolation. We explore the intrinsic bond humans share with nature—a relationship that transcends cultures and has been a source of comfort and recovery for countless individuals across generations. Sharon's narrative is a testament to the ancient wisdom that recognises nature as a healer and a teacher.

Furthermore, we delve into the essence of community—not just as a group of people living in proximity, but as a network of support, understanding, and shared experience. Sharon's story sheds light on the importance of being part of a community that truly understands and accepts one another, highlighting how such connections can serve as a powerful antidote to loneliness.

Listeners will be inspired by Sharon's resilience and moved by her journey from a place of pain to one of peace and connection. This episode aims to spark a conversation about the importance of nurturing our relationships with the natural world and each other, encouraging everyone to take steps towards bridging the gaps of loneliness in their own lives and in their communities.

Join us in episode 8 for an enriching experience that not only tells Sharon's story but also invites us all to reflect on the importance of bridging loneliness with the healing power of nature and the warmth of community.

Support services:
➡️Impact.org.au 07 4153 4233 or 1800 179 233
This service is available to residents of Bundaberg, South Burnett, North Burnett and the Discovery Coast visit https://impact.org.au/support-and-wellbeing/disability-mental-health/mental-health-services to read more 

➡️13YARN – 13 92 76
Free confidential service available 24/7 run by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Connect with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Crisis Supporters.

Other support services:
➡️Lifeline - 13 11 14
➡️Beyond Blue - 1300 22 4636
➡️DV Connect - 1800 811 811
➡️Parent Line - 1300 301 300
➡️MensLine - 1300 99 78 78
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Transcript

Welcome to Stronger Together, a powerful podcast series hosted by Impact Community Services. I'm Tanya O'Shea, managing director of Impact, and I have the pleasure of Frontline in this little passion project to about. In the podcast, we dig into some of the many social problems that people are facing within our communities. And we chat with guests willing to tackle the hard conversations. 

We want you to be kept informed and updated on the latest information. Yeah, they're also aware that some of the topics address sensitive issues that could be triggering or distressing for some listeners. 

If you find any of the content challenging, we encourage you to pause the episode and seek immediate support. Information on where to seek help will be provided at the end of each episode and also on Impact's website. Impact.org.au. Please prioritise your well-being while listening. 

Before we begin, we would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we live, work and meet. We pay our respects to the elders, past, present and future that they hold the memories, traditions, the culture, hopes and values not only of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but of all Australians. Now let's delve into the important conversations awaiting us in today's episode. 

Hello, my name's Tanya O'Shay and welcome to this episode of The Stronger Together Podcast. Today we're talking all about loneliness and social isolation, which actually is quite surprising to me that almost one in three Australians are feeling lonely today. I reflect on that because of the amount of information that's available. People talking about followers and friends that they have on social media and interestingly, it is social media that is causing the greatest amount of loneliness in people's lives. 

So that's what the research is telling us. Now, when I'm referring to loneliness, what that is looking at is that unpleasant or distressing feeling that people are experiencing as a result of a lack of connection with other people. We know as human beings, we are social beings. We like to be or feel connected with others. Some of us look to do that on social media and it doesn't have that same level of impact for us that we experience when we're actually dealing with people face to face. 

And I think as humans, that's where we actually get the most fulfillment when we're talking to people, when we're connecting with people, when we're sharing with with other people. Now, as I said, right at the get go with this episode, one in three Australians are experiencing loneliness at the moment. When I think about my own experience, I guess throughout life I have had moments of loneliness. 

I've felt disconnected from other people. I've had fights with family and friends, but I have been fortunate enough to be able to find a way to resolve them or find a different outlet or path that I could actually start to reconnect within community part of that through my work, but part of that through my personal life as well. 

I was having a conversation with a lady called Sharon last week, and Sharon made a really good observation. Sharon is an Aboriginal woman, not from the local area, but has strong roots within the local area. And she said, You and I have come from very different worlds. You have been on a path where you've been educated, you've been to school, you've probably been to uni, and she was right about that observation as well. 

You've got a family, you've got a house. So for me that experience has been very, very different and it felt like a bit of a parallel universe happening, a bit of a sliding doors moment right at that time for me. And I thought, you know what, we've got to explore this further. There's there's a real story in here. 

And Sharon has been wonderful enough to join me here today. So thank you, Sharon, for coming in and sharing your story with us. And it's 510 now, so it's lovely. It was really lovely to meet you last week and talk through some of your story. And you've talked to and shared with me some of the social isolation and the loneliness that you felt in your life. 

Now, we touched on my experience for you, you, your mother, when you were born, your mother handed you over to your grandparents. Are your grandparents loving grandparents. Your mother then removed you from your grandparents. You went into a a violent, isolated environment and where you were then further removed from welfare and totally disconnected from your family. You then went from family to family. 

Education wasn't the focus for you, so education was looked very different. And then you found yourself in later years in a relationship where you again experienced significant isolation, not able to get your driver's license and not just one relationship, a number of relationships, because because you take what you can get. Again, it's part of that isolation because you no longer have you don't have your own identity. 

You don't know who you are. So you will stay. You will have a series of domestic violence relationships. They're always the same, you know, the need to form a partnership or bond and have a family with somebody. Yeah, they seem inherent in you, so you just roll on to the next one. But because that's what you're used to, you don't like the domestic violence when that's all you think that you're entitled to, that's all you let your life know. 

And those learnings for you started in childhood. So. So tell us about that turning point for you when things really started to change for the worse, for the worst. I was nine years old and my my biological mother had married a white man that was not liked by my grandparents or me, and I had been away on the honeymoon, whatever. 

And she showed up at the house one day, my grandparents house, and said, You're coming to I've come to get Sharon, you're coming to live with me. And I said, no. And my grandmother said no. And then there was a physical fight where my biological mother had told one part of me and mum when grandmother had all of you on the stage, she's trying to drag me down and almost trying to drag me back up. 

And in the end my grandmother let go and I was taken. She took mother, dragged me down to the car where her new husband was waiting outside the fence, threw me in there and was looking at the back window. That's when I went to live with the mother and her new husband and the abuse started there. So prior to age nine, it sounds like you have those that really vivid memory of being removed. 

What was it like prior to that with your grandparents? Was it was what I would assume is normal. Normal. I, I went to Sunday school because my grandmother was a church organist, so I had to go. I was a member of the DFS, which was the girls friendly society to do it. The church I was in, the swim club, I was a Highland dancer. 

I had medals for my dancing and certificates. I played the organ, I had friends, I had cousins, cousins that today, if I fell over, administrator wouldn't know who they were. But it's not just them, all their children below them. So there's big families there that I've never met. I was good at school. My grandmother had the early primary school reports, school reports, and they were all lies. 

And by the time two years taken away, I was getting F's. I was failing. But life was what I would call was normal. And, you know, you see children, what do you want to be when you grow up? They were always asking me and I would say things like a vet or they were all behind, you know, that they would have sent me to uni. 

There wouldn't have been a problem like when my grandmother's family were settlers of that small town. They were one of the first families say, Yeah, well, but my grandfather came from England, he came over in 28, but they were well known in the town, well established in the town. They lived a lot of little country towns are divided. 

There'll be a divide and invisible divide. And this one was the railway line. You know, don't mix with those over the line or she leaves over the line. Don't go there. So my grandparents are on this side of the line, But you were still part of the community. You were so connected with family, you felt like you had friends. 

I can remember Christmases. Yeah, I can remember my grandmother for weeks beforehand, cooking, cooking and hanging up a boiled puddings under the house. Yeah, in cheesecloth and. And always cooking. And you know, in the families, the cousins in that come in, in Christmas Day there'd be tables that big. Everything you know then are in apron and you know, I cannot remember, I can only remember one Christmas after that I went to, after I got taken away, I only remember one Christmas. 

And that was at a first of what they call the trial placement, where I was sent to work in a business that they owned and lived at. And so come Christmas Day for them, I was there. I was doing all the cooking in the oven, you know, it was what, 14 going on? 15 And I had to set all the table at nine. 

You remember because it was a big job. Yeah. And I was on my own. I was thinking why am I, I'm not part of this. It's not Christmas for me. Why am I doing this? But I do not remember a single Christmas with my mother or anything, so I don't know whether I block those out or we didn't have them. 

But yeah, there was plenty of cousins. There was one was just what I would I don't like the word normal, but it felt it was it was normal. Almost the only look I didn't even realise until I went to grade one that my grandfather was actually my grandfather. I wasn't told to call him dad. I called him Pop, so I was conscious that he wasn't my actual father. 

But it wasn't until one day in grade one, when the teacher asked us to draw pictures of what our fathers did for work. So I drew a picture of my grandparents house with my grandfather up there and his big belt and a rope leading to me on the roof. And I said, All right, he does this some roofing. 

And one of the kids said, That's not your father. That your grandfather. And it wasn't until that point in time that something sort of shifted a little bit. My brain that that's not normal. You know, everyone else's. That was Dad day. What had happened with this is my grandfather, but it didn't change anything. They were still not mum and dad, but that was like the only thing with them that sort of went wrong. 

I was just, you know, I was always his granddaughter. I went everywhere with him. We went to the dog shows. I went to the talk. So whenever we were Nana out of that community. Yeah. And then, and then at the age of nine you were removed. So from taking my mother to my logical mother removed, you took you to another town far away from where you were, and then into an abusive household. 

the house itself was shocking. place. I was used to my grandmother. Maybe I was a bit spoiled my grandmother, but she used to tuck me in at night. Always had clean sheets and things like that. There was no clean sheets over there. It was just the house was cold when used to. Well, it's one of those houses that had been patched up over time of furniture. 

The bloke she married had two children older than me, a woman, a male and a female, and they had been raised by their grandmother as well, but they at least had each other. And I was tossed into this situation with two strangers and told, This is your new sister and your new brother and this is your new father. 

And I understand he's not my father. They were different. Yeah, they stopped me swimming. They stopped me dancing. They. There was nothing else to know. So for you, I think. I think one of the big things is here we can all live in. We don't have to live in a palace, right? We can live with a roof over our head in in conditions, I guess that some of us might go, Well, actually, that's not as good as you know this. 

But. But if it's a really happy connect, do you feel like you're part of something and you can still participate in community? We can all get on with life, can't we? Well, that's why I signed about the house was only 30. So try to show. Yeah. That it went from one extreme yes to the other. Yeah. And I'm nine. 

I'm working with a nine year old. Right. I can look back now as an adult and see what I should have done or could have done. But I was nine at the time and nobody was giving me any answers. Why did I have to leave my grandparents house? I was also forced to change my name to fit in with her new husband, so they took even my name away part of their identities. 

Right. And stop doing so. All my old friends were back in the other town. Yes. Because the man my mother married, I was not liked by the grandparents who were the top of the family here. That meant Marnie, my uncle, all of those there, they wouldn't have anything to do with him. So she wouldn't allow me to have anything to do with the cousins either. 

So not only were all my friends in another town, my cousins were in another town. It was a complete different life. And from the time I was nine, I basically had to fend for myself. She went to war and he went to work, the two older ones and they went to high school and I was just there. I had to make my own lunch if I could. 

Do you would reengage with school like you did in school? Yes. I think it was great for a grade five. I did see primary school. I had a few instances there A for fighting at school, which I didn't used to do, but I was angry because as time went on, he my mother's husband decided I was eating too much of his food, so he put padlocks on fridges and food cupboards. 

So I had nothing treat on this island. Girl and Donna, she used to bring me an extra vegemite sandwich because she knew I was hungry. So she actually got me through with these Vegemite sandwiches in grade like grade six, I think. Wow. And I have met up with her since, but I was failing. I started to fail at school because I didn't have clean uniforms. 

I was tired. Sometimes if I went out, sometimes, like when I come home after school. But I didn't finish work until like. So if one of those other two children weren't home, I couldn't get in the house All You were locked out of the house. Well, I was locked out for years, coming over and over and knocked out overnight sometimes. 

goodness. So I couldn't do. I'd be in trouble with the school for no homework. Well, where was I supposed to do my homework? I got in trouble with the uniforms. Were all wrinkly and that I couldn't do. I didn't know how to iron them because I had to wash them myself if I wanted to clean them, because she was just not there. 

She was there for her husband and his children and I was at the bottom of the pecking order. Ironically, they didn't last very long. Their eyes, I think the boy was gone 12 months later and the girl not long after that might even have been 12 months. But they went to the mother. Their mother was still alive and my father was still alive as well. 

But my mother wasn't like normally he was or anything. Have that connection. Yeah. So. So there was abuse in that relationship and welfare stint. Yes. Yeah. And removed you from that family, is that. No. They did what they called voluntary. I don't know on whose side was voluntary. A voluntary supervision. Okay. For a period of time. Small country town. 

So you didn't have your own children services. They used to come once a week from a large town. She’d come down and talk to you and then talk to them and then talk to the school and tell you what you should be doing. See, they the, my mother and her husband always had the answers like I remember the social worker early days asking where did I get all the bruises from? 

Was those bruises on my face, my neck, let alone one You couldn't see? And they said, the bruising. she gets them from fights at school with other children. Those bruises were from the other children. And she has reported a few times on my father's social worker that it was obvious I'd been hit by Mr.. His name all around the face. 

I have warned the local police again. But the local police, they believe the parents say you were allowed to kick the child up the back of they. Okay, we're doing wrong. Thankfully, things have changed and come a long way since then. And so that loneliness and isolation was the that's when it cracked in at nine because I had to fend for myself and there was nobody there. 

I couldn't I did run away a couple of times and ran to my grandparents place and the police would come and get you and take you straight back. Then take me back to the parents. At that point, there was no court order there. I came at that point. I also I had never went to bed at my grandparents place that I can ever remember. 

I started wearing the bed at this new place tonight would have been 12 months in. So they took me to a child psychologist who helped me make a chat with gold stars on it for every night. You didn't wet the bed, but it didn't work because it was it was just the fear in them. I was living. His answer to wetting the bed was to put another padlock on the linen cupboard so you couldn't change your sheets or anything, see? 

So it was starting to take a lot physical and mental. So by the time I was 12 or 13, I didn't intend, you know, like because if I tried to do the right thing, I would be punished some way. So you think to yourself, I have next time in that situation, don't do it that way. Do it another way. 

You do it the other way and you get in trouble anyway, because he would change the rules and not tell you. So I didn't care if I didn't want to go to school. I never went to school and had big decisions to make at the age 910 aren't things. If I didn't want to come home, I wouldn't come and no one really, you know, worrying or keeping an eye on where you're at. 

So eventually the police just decided to take me to court and charge me with be uncontrollable. And then what happened that made me a state ward until I was 18. Not foster care, a state ward, all up and always taken to an institution down in Brisbane, an institution which treated us as some sort of psychiatric problems. It was stopped by psychiatrists and psychologists and therapists and I went with it. 

I was anti-social, so I had an antisocial personality. So the regime was treat that with drugs and behaviour modification. And so I talks heavily in my files because they kept like a ledger. At the end of the day, the nurses would write down things, I'd observe, do dungeon and day. And it quite often, it says then doesn't mix well with peers. 

So they'd send me from there out to what they call trial placements. So you'd go to these different places, Mundubbera, Juliet Creek, all these outback places to do jobs that, you know, were an adult's job. For starters, Julia Creek was a station. There was no other females on board. I ended up running away. How old were you then? 

I was 14. So 14. No other females around. I sent me out there as cook and fencer. So my domain and the property is only 19 miles out of Julia Creek. It's still there today. But I wasn't staying. There was all those men and none of them were. You know, today you have approved foster parents. It's police checks. And that didn't happen back then. 

People wanted workers and that they just contact child services and get them. So wherever you went, you knew you weren't staying. You knew it wasn't permanent. Whether you liked it or not. It didn't matter. You just move you one at any given because these different ones wouldn't want me. And I'd go back there and then they sent me back. 

They had some strange epiphany in them. I don't know where that I should go home to my mother nor my grandmother, but my biological mother. I think it was a shift in the thinking of at that time of, you know, where family should be reconnecting as family. Yeah. So they tried that one that lasted 24 hours. I was just going on 15, I think 14 and a half or 15. 

I was sent back to the biological mother and her husband's house. The social worker was coming down the next day. She was first supposed to meet me at the airplane, but she did it and just to come the next day, I only vaguely remember her arriving before I fell off the chair unconscious because I'd taken an overdose. I was about 14 and a half. 

And you would that disprove to get out of that? I mean, that that you felt like that was your only option? I didn't want to be back there. And you love when you when you go indicate you don't you don't think about you don't know about suicide. You know, you learn all this in care. I was in a dormitory with another young girl. 

She was ten. She tried to hang herself in front of me one night. She was ten years old. Now a ten year old shouldn't even know what that is. It didn't work. She only had a bath too. But that's not the point. She was deadly serious. She was killing herself that night. So it gets very bad with children. 

And so they sent me home to their I had a series of overdoses, cut wrists and other things. Then the violence just started it. It it started from almost the word go back day. So I just ran away. I went to a big city. I was I think I spent my 16th birthday on the street. We lived in a big squat. 

We owned nothing. There was a group of us and you own nothing. So even that is a form of isolation in you. Sometimes you didn't even own the clothes that you had on cause it pinched off somebody's clothesline the night before, you know? And okay, we might have all been criminals, but we had to survive. Was there a sense of connection within the others? 

Yes, there was. But you also knew in the back you had you couldn't trust them because they were looking after their priority was number one, too. So if you had stuck to some food or something for a light and they saw you do it, they would take it, right? You know, there was no real loyalty. They no one had each other's back. 

You know, the holiday you had and you had to look after yourself. I had a couple of friends that we did for a while until we had a fight about something and never spoke again. So there was nights when you'd be sitting there. And I used to think back, how nice it would be to be back at my grandmother's house and the clean sheets. 

And you could almost be allowed to go off to sleep on the floor there if we had a dirty old mattress or whatever. And we were actually still in the care of children's services and yeah, so Sharon moved around during her childhood, removed from family, experienced violence, isolated. You had basic essential needs removed, like access to shelter, access to food, access to clean linen and laundry, and being able to wash your clothes. 

You were removed. Access to family, to friends, to connection to community. Let's fast forward to adult food and what you then took in. So all that while you were embedding and learning these skills around how to survive, but also relationships with other people. So what did you take forward into your relationships basically that you could there's only one person you can rely on and that's self. 

And sometimes even then you get when you get to question in yourself, then you start to lose it. You know, you have to make a decision and stick by it. But we knew that there was you learn there are nice people there, but you can't trust them. You couldn't let them in. If you let them in, they will find a way to hurt you. 

So the more some of those people and there was only a few but and know older older adults but the more they tried to actually do for you. I don't know why they were doing it, but the more they tried to do for you, the more you would sort of rally against it a bit because you were testing them out. 

You're trying to push them away because you did like the change and you did want their help and you needed they help, but you just didn't. You always thought it would come at some sort of cost. You learned that relationships came at a cost, a bad cost. Always, regardless. I know. You know there's a cost to everything, but there was always there would always be a bad something bad. 

And so you learn not to trust 1 

It's a clear decision that you make to protect yourself because over time it just it gets to you. You can't, you know, because there was no way to go if you were upset. This is no one to talk to. You know, we had phone lines like Lifeline and that, but we didn't have a telephone. There was no mobile phones and things like that. 

And a lot of times those sort of centres didn't cater to kids. They would ring the police. If we were under age. So you couldn't even go to those sort of authorities that weren't supposed to help to get help from them. You'd have to put yourself back in the system and you didn't want that. So it just and for everything that went wrong as you grew up, it just reinforced that that that bit of right. 

You're always offside with somebody, you know, wanting to be friends with them and you'll be friends, but you'll never be right. Always guarded, always got the hackles up. Always. And always questioning them. Why are you talking to me? Why? What is it? Why do you want to be my friend? What do you want from me? That's the one, you know. 

And that went into your intimate relationships. That the menu you learned early on. My grandparents weren't violent. The other violence I learned when I was taken from them. And then into the system that became the norm. And you learn to live with that violence again. You questioned it. You knew in the back of your brain it wasn't supposed to be like that, but it was also a bit of your safety zone. 

It was something you knew. Yeah. So you expected the old man. It was comfortable to it was comfortable as a communal space because you safe for every time you woke up with a black eye or split liberty or not never going back there. But you did because you had nowhere else to go. You know, we had women's shelters, but they didn't also did not have the things like they have today to house you, to move you from town to town to help you. 

They were just off a stopgap measure and I couldn't go back to my own family, to my grandparents. I tried that and a place would always come and get me because I was engaged and I was 18. I had a child. I was pregnant when I was 14. Then when I got pregnant again because I wasn't given any birth control or Tania. 

I was pregnant again at 15. I had a son they tried to take him. I had him with me for two years. They couldn't fault it. They said in my file, Other than Sharon's life being chaotic, she does love her baby to clean. He's looked after and then when he was two years old, they managed to take him and bang, he's back in the system. 

They took him. They gave him to my biological mother. He got bashed, he got flogged, He got the same. I got. And then he went into care. Two years in court, got him returned. The damage was done to him. He yeah, he was 12 years old and then the damage was done and from then on he just roamed around the place. 

We never knew where he was when state school I had a phone call from the police, from the Adelaide police and he was dead in the park over. They didn't even know he was in Adelaide. He was living as a homeless person in Rose Park over there because it was the same system that isolated him as well, just the way that was. 

So that trauma that that you've obviously taken through your life, that that fear that you walk around with, around relationships, that unwillingness to connect with others and you know, you want to isolate, to keep yourself protected when you were in intimate relationships as an adult. So you said, you know, I've been living with a number of men, though. 

Those were also relationships where you were isolated. So you have only got your driver's license in the last five years, about five years, because that was about you then, not having independence, not being able to. So, Sharon, do you mind me asking how old you are? 58, I think so. Nearly 60. Yeah. Yeah. So five years ago was the first opportunity that you had to get your driver's license. 

We could always drive, always did. Didn't get caught a few times and charged with Unlicenced driving, but it was like we didn't think you had any. I didn't think I had any choice there either, you know, because your fear of the police is pretty big too. But that was built from a very young age, wasn't it? Yeah, that was all part of his. 

And we lived on properties out of town, which I didn't mind, but that was all part of that, keeping you away from everywhere else. All the time he had, he had the only vehicle and the only license and he used to keep the keys on a clip on his belt all the time. And then when you went inside, he take that off, put it with his wallet, put it in his drawer. 

Even when they had the old bank, books used to lock his bank books, I knew he never knew how much money. So did you have access to money? Yes, I used to get money. There was a short period in time, though. Once when we had no money, Centrelink wouldn't give me any money. They said he owned too much money, so couldn't have any money for the kids. 

And that was like policing. And I said, I did argue with Centrelink. They said, you've got to get it of him. You'd have an endowment, or you'd have if they kept changing the names. Children's and I did work a few times. I did work in the Territory in that. So I had my own little bit of money, but mostly it went on the rent and the kids. 

Yeah, I just one here. Five years ago the washing machine broke down again and I was just it was like the straw that broke the camel's back. And I walked out where he was sitting there having his coffee and I just said, you get out. And he looked at me and I said, Well, I'll ring the police. And he just up and gone and come back, got the car and that I can afford. 

Fortunately, one of his had had two children to him. One of them decided that they'd go to live with him and then live local. I hadn't seen my youngest son for about three years till the other day. I saw him on the street and said, hello, how are you? But he's never been to visit me. He tells his sister strange things, but I think he's listened to his father's vision so that so isolated. 

Well. So, he has no contact with you or the other members of his own. The only one he talks to one of them, I'd say. I had hoped when I had my children because I had five all up, was to try to break that chain. I wanted to keep them all close and I used to read them the writing when they were fighting, you know, stop your brothers or brother and sister or whatever. 

And when it all boils, that's all you got each other. But all this other stuff got in the way and now they're all split up. Two One lives in Brisbane and no one doesn't talk to the other one that they've seen here. And families, families are quite complicated sometimes, aren't they, In the dynamics within families. So on the final day my daughter lives with me around a house. 

I don't have any real friends, I have people to talk to, but I don't let them in either. And I don't do anything else much. I just hang out at home. And it's interesting, when I when we were having this conversation last, you talked about needing to to get out. Sometimes even though you were isolated, you created connection through getting back in nature, going through for walks in nature, reconnecting with nature. 

And I had this, I don't know, for me it was just this sense of, yes, I've gone through this very privileged, you know, had my family's support and felt very connected through work and family and through my journey. But but other people like me experience the same sense of loneliness and isolation. And we don't know how to always put good strategies in place to deal with that. 

Intuitively. You knew what to do. You went out, you went right. This is this is what is working for me, reconnecting with nature. Talk me through that. Now was always something. Even when I was a child, it was I used to camp out in the yard of my garden, my grandparents house. And it's like when out there, everything out there is real. 

And this is going to sound funny, but it's real and it's innocently real. It's just doing its own thing. It's nature, it's just growing. And you watch the animals go on about their own little day and then, you know, and it's just a whole different other sort of little world. But if you try to do that here in town is just noises that artificial noises and hear the insects. 

There's actually a lot of noise. People always say it's so quiet out there, but it's not quiet if you listen, it's actually fairly loud. And that's just knock out. Yesterday went for a drive out bush. But since I've had these leg injuries and that I can't get out and walk okay, very far. So I can draw him out there, but I can't get out and walk on Four Mile. 

So that's a bit of Obama. This is why you can still reconnect. I can still go out there, you know, And I just I used to walk for miles and yeah, that form of deep listening, I think. And you referred to tape listening and I'd like you to sort of tell us a little bit more about that. 

But some for some people they pay to go to medical station classes or they have apps on their phone around meditation. This is a form of deep connection and meditation, isn't it? When we talk about deep listening, tell us about that. What I see, it's the same thing. I went to a couple of meditation classes once and that's all they were doing, clearing their mind and listening for any to what comes through sort of singing. 

And that's all you do. You go must find a place. You'll want to sit under the tree and just sit there and create your mind. And sometimes don't know, maybe it's just me, but sometimes you can feel energy comes through the ground on your feet. And again, it's about me. It's about being real. It's not artificial. It's a love that it's real, you know? 

And there are places that are still relatively untouched. You know, you can go to and sometimes you find treasures. And I'm a terrible one for bringing home stones, sticks and things that just say, Hey, take me. And so they always remind me of my little trips out. That was a real it's natural. It's and you get to say something. 

Well, I think your mind's just clear and only you can hone in on the actual the noises, the sounds and crickets and insects and what have you. And I know from my own experience, I love taking the shoes off, putting my feet on the ground. And I actually love nothing more than just being by myself in those sorts of environments and the connection that you feel, it's quite it feels a little bit yin and yang in saying, you know, or contradictory that you've by yourself out in the middle of nowhere and you're actually going on feeling connected. 

It's yeah, it's hard to sort of wrap your head around until you actually do that, right? I guess we're all part of the earth. Yeah. One world and you know, all the ancient cultures, they all did that sort of thing and been connected in one way or another to the earth and just. Yeah, so simple. We can overcomplicate things sometimes and I think, can't we all easy. 

Yeah. Something so simple, you know, as a way of reconnecting just to go out in nature, go for a walk. And I take my writing pad with me. I've written sometimes it's just sit there and you just write. It can be like random thoughts because they do pop in the end. I don't know where they come from, but sitting in the middle of nowhere and you know, a few words might flicker through. 

So I write them down and I don't sit there and concentrate on trying to write anything. They just And then you go home and you read back through them and you find any can build on them. It's almost like these things come to you from there because you've got the space. I think sometimes that you've created just that spaciousness within your mind just to allow things to come without judgment. 

My mind can be very actually noisy sometimes I think. I think we can all relate to that. Too many voices, too many noises in there. And yeah, so silence is really good. I love that. Sharon I was doing a little bit of research prior to our episode today and looking at a talk I've talked a lot about from the Western perspective, Maslow's hierarchy. 

You know, we talk about meeting, you know, getting our basic needs met and it turns into this pyramid where it's about self-actualisation and the comparison because Black Foot wisdom was in place before, you know, Maslow's hierarchy. Abraham, Abraham Maslow learned from Blackfoot wisdom, and it's actually flipped on its head when we're taught it's in. So self-actualisation is actually at the bottom. 

It's this belief that people come with everything that they need and the wisdom, self wisdom that they need to create the pathways that they want to create. And then that next level is around the community, then supporting you. It's not about the person having all the answers. It's about how we connect back into the community. Have you had any thoughts around Blackfoot wisdom and and how you might have, you know, reflected on that during your own life? 

Maybe part of saying, like my grandparents that I came to what I saw is that, no, they never would have seen the different pathways in community or the who could have reached out for help or took part of something, but not in the way I did. And not because you had that real world community up to the age of nine year. 

You had you know, I've heard that too, when of other times I've left and I've gone to the community communities, you know. So I lived in Redfern for a few years. So there's that same community there. But, but that is different lifestyle altogether. Same at Walgett. So I have been part of those communities for some stranger reason that is different. 

But if I am on an Aboriginal community or with Aboriginal friends, I don't know, it's a bit of a there's a difference, different feeling, a different. I don't feel like I'm getting judged, I don't feel I've always belonged, but I don't feel like that's a judgment call either. And I guess it really highlights that we've all got our own unique path that we go down and however there's always options there, know that for you there was isolation, but you found an option to relieve some of that by going out into the bush or reconnecting with people who you felt like you couldn't connect with. 

But there is this common thread for you that the relationships were hard to form because you didn't have those bonds. And there was that lack of trust, but also that willingness and that decision to isolate yourself from relationships due to fear or as a protection mechanism because you felt like eventually you were going to be let down. 

For some of us, that's not as that's not as real yet. We still have these feelings of isolation that we live with every day. And imagine that. Yeah, because everybody's got that. What is it. You should be nice to everybody you meet because you don't know what demons they fighting, you know. Yeah. So and sometimes even other ones other times when a bit lonely or whatever and I used to go I'd sit here or other, tend to sit in the seats on the main street or something like that. 

And then eventually somebody comes and sits down you saying, you know, here you go as the weather and you sit there and have a little chat and sometimes that's all you need just to library is a good for that. But hello, good morning. How are you going? It's as simple as that, but it makes your day a bit more pleasant. 

You know, everyone's not just the people who walk their dogs up the street in the morning because I get up early and give them a wave and, you know, they. But again, you'd never I would have no idea how to form a relationship with any of these people, you know, like, or do you want to come to my house to have coffee? 

Yeah, that's weird. And yet for other people, that's pretty standard, you know, that's that, that's the M.O. I believe it's going to get worse because of all these scams that are going on. People are being told every day not to trust a little bit in this thing with the mobile phones where the kids today not always just kids, but young adults, although they can't say hello to your face, they stand there with their heads down and they shuffle their feet. 

And because as parents, I tell the kids don't talk to strangers. Right. It's funny, I just reflecting on you, talking about society and the changes and those levels of trust around scams, there was some sort of video I was watching where this guy's gone into a lift because he said, You have people that talk to each other and this could only be two people in there and they just don't want to make eye contact or they're on their phones. 

So he took in a it was part of a social project. He took in a box of chocolates into the lift. He's eating them, but he's offering them to people. And it's like, No, no, I'm good, thanks. And they sort of turn away from him like he had three hits, but just something so simple where he was doing a gesture of kindness to go, I'm eating these chocolates. 

Would you like one? no, no, thank you. And then that just to watch them turn away. It was actually on the space. I think it was a social project just to see the behaviours. You've absolutely nailed it. You know that we are becoming more programmed to have this heightened response and fearful response with other people who we don't know we're living in now. 

But I mean, years ago, everybody knew their neighbours at least knew their name. They'd hang out over the fence and same thing they’d have a yarn, or whatever. That's who you should be able to rely on for a certain, you know, a certain extent, like a disaster or something might sound weird, but some of which my daughter likes to go to old graveyards and read. 

It's not more, but she just likes to read the history. Some find it. Yeah. And some of the old cemeteries that we've been to and I look at the graves are all breaking down and they and I was saying to my least with the family, wait, there must be somebody left. Do they even know where this grave is? 

Because it's just left to crumble like the people didn't exist, you know? So, Sharon, we will. We will finish up. Thank you so much for your time. Have you got any words of wisdom, I guess, around building connection, building that sense of community within our communities? Well, what would you like to see from people in the future? Well, I'd just like to see people be, you know, like a little bit more friendly. 

Like I said, say goodbye to the person in the street. You know, if you see that somebody is struggling, I'll try and help them. You know, something as simple as if you just see people walking, struggling with putting their groceries in the car. Sometimes when you do just a simple little thing like that in, you feel good too. 

So that's a win win situation. Just take some time, you know, slow down and listen and look and just and look after yourself in the meantime, that's about. And so hearing those suggestions from you, I guess, and knowing now, you know, the background that you've shared with us, that can't be always easy for you to step outside of that and be willing to speak to people knowing that you've got already got this protective armour wrapped around you in protecting yourself. 

But then sometimes I look at these people and I think, you know, they just look so sad or and so you say hello, you know. Yeah, beautiful. Yeah, I've been told off. I've been called names, you know me. But other people seem to have a tattoo. I just think they, the elderly ones are getting more and more isolated. 

But you need other people. You're ahead. A human being is herd animal that were never meant to live alone. They shouldn't have to. But, you know, if everyone can get on, they just everyone's got to learn to bend a little bit. So, yeah, that's great advice. So a big thank you to Sharon for joining us. What a powerful story. 

If you or anyone that you know is feeling isolated or would need support, we will put these resources at the end of the podcast. So please feel free to tap in and check these out. Friend-line supports anyone who's feeling lonely or needs to reconnect or just wants to have a chat. You can call them seven days a week on one 800 424 287 or you can chat online with one of their trained volunteers. 

E-friend is a free service that allows people to access up to 15 virtual peer support sessions per video or phone call. Their peer workers can offer insight, provide hope and empathise from their own lived experience. Whether you're looking for support or just someone to have a chat to. Beyondblue support Service offers a free, confidential and counselling service for all Australians looking for a little help with their mental health. 

You can call them on one 300 224 636 or access their webchat or email support 24 seven. 

Thank you for listening to this episode of Stronger Together. Sometimes the issues we discuss and stronger together may be triggering for some people. If you've been affected by the topics we have discussed today, please reach out for help. You can call Lifeline 24 hours a day on 13 1114 or you can use the chat option on their website. AC 

If you live in the Wide Bay BURNETT region, you can also reach out to offset impact Community services. Go to Impact dot org, dot HQ and click on the make a referral button at the top if you wish to self-refer. We hope you've enjoyed today's episode and if so, please remember to hit the subscribe button. Until next time, remember, we're stronger together.