Piece Of Mind Podcast
Welcome to Piece of Mind, where we piece together the parts of your mind to help you live a life that’s authentic, unapologetic, and absolutely fulfilling.
I’m your host Ashley Badman, a mindset coach and psychology student, here to guide you through the world of subconscious re-programming, relationships, belief systems, and patterns.
This isn’t your typical mindset podcast. We’re diving deep into the core of who you are, tackling everything from self-sabotage and people-pleasing to attachment styles and beyond. We’ll uncover the deeper shit that makes you who you are, so you can grow, evolve, and build a life you’re obsessed with.
Expect a mix of evidence-based insights, energetic shifts, and a touch of chaos as we explore how to heal, optimize, and re-program your life.
This podcast is for those who refuse to settle, who are committed to living life fully and getting the best for themselves.
Get ready for straight talk, practical strategies, and a few surprises along the way. If you’re ready to stop hiding from yourself and start living unapologetically, you’re in the right place. Tune in and let’s get into it.
Piece Of Mind Podcast
Ep 21: *Vulnerable Episode* Poor Body Image, Disordered Eating + My Son's Health Battles
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We get personal in here guys - also trigger warning as we do discuss eating disorders.
Navigating my path to holistic health has involved confronting disordered eating, societal pressures, and personal struggles.
I share my experiences to inspire others to redefine their relationships with food and well-being, fostering a more nourishing life for ourselves and our families.
• My journey amid diet culture's impact
• Childhood struggles with food and body image
• The complexity of pregnancy and body expectations
• Descent into disordered eating patterns
• Transformative experiences during my son’s health crisis
• Shifting towards whole foods and nutrition
• Detoxing our lives from processed foods and toxins
• Embracing holistic health in daily life and family dynamics
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hello and welcome back to the podcast. You guys. My little peace of mind is I'm trying to think of, like what is a fun name that I can call you for my regulars who are tuning into the podcast, because I love you and I love the opportunity to sit down and have really cool chats with you guys and, as a collective, just all genuinely wanting to be the best versions of ourselves, is pretty fucking cool. So if you have any name suggestions, let me know. Let's come up with a name for our little podcast community of what you guys, the listeners, can actually be called Today what you guys, the listeners, can actually be called Today.
Speaker 1:We're going to go down a little bit of a journey, of my journey now to holistic health and optimal health and why I'm doing it, what I'm doing, all of the different things. This can be relevant to you if you're kind of wanting to explore this journey for yourself, if you're already on the journey or if you're just curious about my thoughts on this topic. I can't really get into this of like what I'm doing without telling you the deeper why behind what I'm doing and a little bit of a backstory to my journey. When it comes to food, body health. I'm not going to like dive deep, deep, deep into it, because I do want to get into, like what I'm actually currently trying to do and a little bit more of a reason of what actually created the shift, what actually was like almost like the light bulb moment to be like enough is enough and I need to actually do better and be better when it comes to my physical health and not just like, oh, I'm going to be healthy by, you know, tracking my calories and all those different things which we'll get into I'll have a bit of a conversation around that but like actually truly healthy, actually truly educating myself on what I'm putting on my body, what I'm putting in my body and just the things that I'm doing that are maybe impacting my health in not so great ways. I do want to take it back a little bit just to give you guys a bit of a rundown of my journey and my story, especially if you're new here, if you've been following me on social media for a while, you probably know this story a little bit, but we'll cover it real quick. Anyway, I basically have had a really rocky journey when it comes to food and body and my relationship to those things. I will do a bit of a trigger warning because my relationship to food wasn't the greatest and I am going to talk about it.
Speaker 1:But I also know, for women my age, or women in their 30s, women in their 40s, diet culture was really running rampant when we were young and I know a lot of people, a lot of women in particular, really struggled with disordered eating, eating disorders, relationship to body, just restriction when it came to food or just not really having a good understanding of what health for women actually means, and it was more just about how small you can be, how skinny you can be, and when it comes to, obviously, disordered eating and eating disorders, yes, diet culture played a really big role for women in our era, if you know. You know, but also we have to know that, like, trauma plays a role and sometimes, when it comes to disordered eating and eating disorders, it can be a way to get control back in your life. So if you have had a traumatic upbringing or you've had a childhood where life just felt completely out of your control, controlling your food can be a way for you to feel in control of your life. So it is really, really complex we're not going to really get into that in this episode because it is quite a big topic, but I thought I would just cover my basis with that and know that this is a complex topic and there are so many nuances and so many different things. This is more about me sharing my journey and what you guys can maybe take from that.
Speaker 1:But if you were in that era and you have struggled with food and body, I see you, I get it, I know what it's like and I know how all consuming can be to your life and who you are and what you achieve in your relationship to yourself. For me, I remember my relationship with my body and food kind of starting at the age of maybe 13,. Which is wild to me now because I look at my daughter who is 12 and she's turning 13 this month and it kind of makes me feel sad for me at that age. I'm like I look at her and it's just like it's such an innocent time. It's such a time of self-discovery and all those different things body changing and you know friends and all the things and I just remember being 13 and being uncomfortable in my body.
Speaker 1:I remember like growing up to set some context I don't know if this is like most households or just our household or if it was just that, that, like I was born in 1993. And I just feel like maybe there was a lack of resources, education, whatever it is, on what health actually is and I know that for my mom she's in her 60s I know that diet culture was very, very strong for her as well and my mom didn't have the greatest relationship with food. But just in regards to overall health, health, I feel like we just didn't know much and like growing up. Obviously I did grow up in government housing I think I've told you guys that plenty, plenty of times because it is a really big part of my story but we did grow up in government housing, which also is an indication that we weren't really we didn't have financial abundance, if that's how we'll put it. We didn't have financial abundance and I feel like with lack of financial abundance maybe comes a lack of health knowledge or making the best choices. Sometimes I think maybe my mum just genuinely thought she was making the best choices, like she would think the food that we were eating, because it was cooked in the kitchen, automatically meant that it was healthy. So I don't necessarily think it was like a choice to be unhealthy and we did have, you know, home cooked meals and all those different things. I just think, maybe a lack of knowledge about what healthy food actually is and you know, now we know a lot more about seed oils and we know a lot more about processed foods and all those different things, or we're starting to get that way, which is really, really cool.
Speaker 1:I also just want to preface like like I'm not coming to this episode as an expert in this area. I'm not coming as an expert for you guys to like take this as gospel and like this is what you should be doing. I definitely think if this is something to interest you see someone or learn from someone who is like an expert in, like, gut health and all those different things, which is what I did. I'm more just sharing my experiences. I remember coming home from school and this is so wild, but like I remember going to my freezer and getting out like a packet of meat pies, because we always had meat pies in the freezer, which is so weird why did we do that? And chucking them in the microwave or the oven and eating two meat pies after school, like as a snack is just like. It's just kind of wild to think about it now.
Speaker 1:And I just remember my weight fluctuating a lot in high school and I vividly remember this one time I think I must have been like 14, possibly maybe grade 9, 14 and I was sitting at Macca's because Macca's was across from my high school and I'd recently discovered and I thought it was really cool to tell my friends and I think it must be my mum was doing it or she was talking about it with her friends and that's how I discovered it. But it was like I think it was Weight Watchers or something like that. It was the one that did points like I don't know if you guys remember that and you're listening to this being like, oh my god, lol. I remember, but I remember being like I know how many points this hash brownieies and like I'm gonna get skinny because I'm gonna like count these points for my, for my food, and I remember doing that from such a young age, obviously not sustainable, obviously did not stick to it. I also just remember like and I don't want this to be like blaming my mum or anything like that because I feel like you know she did the best she could, with the knowledge that she had and all those different things.
Speaker 1:But I think, like her insecurities about her own body were projected onto me as a young woman and she was very hyper vigilant of me gaining weight or me getting like having pimples and things like that and very big on, like I have to look after my appearance and I have to be skinny, and commenting on my body in ways that made me feel really insecure, and my brother did it as as well. So I just remember being insecure. I remember being young and not wanting to wear swimmers or a bikini and wanting to cover up and like comparing myself to girls that I went to school with who were really skinny and obviously saying this I'm like this is actually so sad for me. I just want to go hold younger me's hand and be like you're fucking perfect, you're amazing and you need to stop worrying about your body because, like, you're so fine and that's the least interesting thing about you. But I didn't really have that at that time. So it kind of like it was just in my own mind. And when things are stuck in our own mind and we form beliefs about them and we form truths, it can become quite big in our mind. So that's kind of like how that started.
Speaker 1:And I went on that journey of just battling with my weight throughout all of high school gaining weight, losing weight, gaining weight, losing weight, having losing weight, having a terrible relationship with food, not eating well, not knowing how to eat, finding weird diets that I would try and start. I remember starting running in high school just because I wanted to be skinny, like I was like if I just run more, I'll be skinny. So even my relationship to exercise was just really, really poor. And then I felt pregnant at a really young age and, as we know, when we are pregnant, our body changes and I feel like I just wasn't in the right headspace, right mindset to really deal with those changes. I thought I was going to be fine. I'm like I love this, I want a belly, it's going to be so cute, all of the things. And I remember my mom saying something to me once which was really like it really just sticks with me. I remember she just goes like Ash, like just be really careful about how much weight you gain because you are only 18. You do want to bounce back because you're still young. You don't want to be one of those women who's just really big after pregnancy. And now when I think back at that I'm like, okay, fucking brutal, like it's so savage, but it's just like. These are the things that were in my mind and I was obviously probably already worried about that. But then having my mom say that it obviously made it worse for me. So I had my daughter at 18 and then within 18 months I had had my son.
Speaker 1:I remember during this period I wasn't too fussed on my body. I was kind of loving being pregnant. I really enjoyed pregnancy. I know like, don't come at me for saying that, because I know some people really hate being pregnant and really don't enjoy it, but that just wasn't my experience. I really loved being pregnant but I didn't have morning sickness and I didn't have any like really bad things that had occurred during my pregnancy. So I feel very blessed and very lucky and I'm very grateful. And I was also a baby like I feel like the younger you are, maybe your body is more able to to deal with the stress of pregnancy. I'm not really sure, because I haven't had a pregnancy in all in, like my later 20s and 30s but my body just did handle it quite well at birth. I didn't. I'm not gonna say I loved giving birth. I know people do say that I feel like I would have loved giving birth if I was more informed. But yeah, I was 18.
Speaker 1:So like I remember walking into the, into the because I was induced into where you give birth, into the, whatever you call it, the room suite I actually have no idea what you call it now walking in there and I had like a little like a nightie on and my knickers and they're gonna put the cannula in and induce me, and I was absolutely terrified and I was so scared I was gonna like literally shoot myself in front of my fucking boyfriend, who was also 18. Lol, what a problem to have. Um, that's the things I was concerned about and I remember being like, um, excuse me to the nurse do, do I have to take my knickers off? Like she was like, yeah, sweetie, like that's where the baby's going to come from, you got to get those things off, which was so funny. Like I was so innocent and just so fucking blissfully unaware of, like everything that was about to happen. And then you know, obviously within birth, and my fucking ass is up in the air, my vagina's out to everyone. I don't give a shit, I'm in pain, like it obviously changed very rapidly, but I just remember that innocence of like do I take my knickers off?
Speaker 1:But yeah, anyways, my second birth I actually enjoyed a whole lot more because I did feel a little bit more informed still. I was only 19, so I wasn't like super informed, but that was like really dark room. I was in the shower for most of it. I laid on the bed to to when I was, when it was time to push, and I actually got to like pull him out. So the midwife that was there, she was like do you want to deliver him? Do you want to pull him out? So I pulled my son out and put him on my chest, which I think is really really special and and really really cool. And it's such a contrast to when my daughter was born, because I remember they're like do you want to? Do you want a mirror? Do you want to have a look? And I was like, fuck, no, don't show me that standard teenager just being like mortified by my own vagina. But it was what it was.
Speaker 1:It was until after I'd had the babies that I remember seeing a photo that my brother-in-law took of me which, lol, men, they just don't get it. I'd literally just given birth and like they had come to visit me in the hospital room and they were taking photos to upload to Facebook. Because I was excited, bless them. And I remember I had Isaiah laying in between my legs on the bed and I must have like laughed or something. And my brother-in-law took a photo and that's the photo they upload to Facebook. I use it quite a lot now on my social media because it's such a great reminder for me to like where I was to where I am now and and how I felt in that moment and how I felt seeing that photo versus how I feel about myself now. And I remember just being mortified, like I was like who is that person like? Why do I look like that? I look like some other person has eaten me and I'm inside there trying to escape. Like I was just mortified. I had just given birth and now I'm like babe, cut yourself some slack. You literally just birthed a child and someone took a photo of you at the worst possible angle because I was laughing. So I'd like double chin all the things tired. It just wasn't a vibe.
Speaker 1:I still didn't really do anything about my health. I would say it actually got worse. My go-to snack and the thing that I ate as like a meal quite regularly was Coco Pops literally Coco Pops, I'm sorry, like what that's not a meal mate like. And I remember one time my partner at the time, the kid's dad, and we didn't have the greatest relationship and he wasn't the kindest to me, but I remember we were saying one time like what is something we think about when we think about each other? Like what do we? I kind of remember what it was. I kind of, but it was. It was an opportunity to say kind things about each other like. And he said to me um, I think, uh, maybe Coco Pops. I'm sorry, you think of Coco Pops when you think of me. Great, this is fucking fabulous. So my self-worth was low. It just like I was in a in a toxic relationship. We weren't good for each other, but that's a story for another time. Or I did a podcast on that when I was a guest on someone else's podcast. If you want to find that, you can hear about all of that story.
Speaker 1:But I remember one time being at my mom's house and someone took a photo of me, and this is when the kids were a little bit older, so I hadn't focused on my health. I'd a little bit lost. I did love being a mom Like I really truly did. I loved being a mom. I loved being around my, my kids and my babies, like it was. It was so good. But in regards to like my identity as a person, as a human being, it was just like what was that? I didn't even feel like I fucking knew myself at all. And then I saw a photo of myself and I was just like again, the fucking photos, who's taking these photos? And I was just really really upset and it was from that point. Maybe my kids were like maybe I was 20, maybe I was 21., I don't know.
Speaker 1:Around that time I started to go hardcore, like I'm going to fucking get skinny and I'm going to lose weight. But I had no fucking education around health and I did it in the worst ways. I basically starved myself until I had lost a lot of weight, and the problem with that was that no one really knew how I was doing it, that I basically just wasn't allowing myself to eat, or when I was eating, it was just really, really, really small meals, but I was getting complimented so much like you look so amazing, you look great. What did you do? How did you do it? You're a mom and you have kids and look how good you look and you know all the motherfucking things like. My ego is just like oh my god, I love this, obviously enjoying the compliments as someone who felt quite insecure and didn't realize at the time, because of lack self-awareness, that I was trying to get self-love through other people's validation of me, which now I know is like the complete wrong way to go about things. But I had a lot of trauma that was unhealed and I had a lot of belief systems that I was completely unaware of. And thank god I've done the fucking work now and and that's not the case, but it was definitely the case at this time I'm trying to remember the timeline. I'm obviously going to miss things and skip things and and we just have to roll with it and that's going to be okay.
Speaker 1:But I remember at some point signing up to a challenge and it was, um, like an eight-week challenge or something like that. By this point, I already was feeling like I was definitely binge eating, but I didn't know that that's what I was doing. So, still unaware of the terms and things like that, I did eight of these challenges. In this time. I had, like the kids had gotten older, I've joined the police, so this was a few fucking years.
Speaker 1:And then I started, like the challenges came with meal plans. So at this point I wasn't tracking calories, I was just trying to be as strict as I can to the meal plans. I lost all the way. I was like shredded, ripped, all things, then I would gain it back and then I'd be like, oh my God, I need to do it again if I want to be skinny. And I just kept going through this cycle. I did eight challenges, you guys, over a period of time and I was very much commended for being so like fucking fit and disciplined. I even became an ambassador for the for the people, um, who own the company who I was doing the challenges for, because I had such great before and after photos, because I kept fucking gaining the weight back.
Speaker 1:And obviously I now know that's not the vibe. Quick fixes are never going to help us. They're not going to work, they're not going to solve our problems. They're not going to fix the deeper thing that is at play, the deep, like the root cause of what's actually going on and why you actually can't lose the weight and why you actually have shit relationship with food and shit relationship with body. But again, I didn't know that. I just wanted to fucking be skinny because I thought it was going to solve all of my problems.
Speaker 1:I so much was happening in my life at this time Like I'm not going to go into all of it, but you know, police, workplace bullying. My relationship ended after nine years with the kid's dad. He left. I became a single mom, working full-time in the police. All this is kind of playing out and my life is still playing out as I'm kind of going through the trenches of my relationship with food and getting skinny and getting ripped and developing really bad relationship with food. So I ended up getting to the point where I developed eating disorder and I was making myself sick.
Speaker 1:I feel like I'm being really vulnerable now and I feel like I almost am like, oh my God, why am I sharing this? And I almost want to stop sharing it. But I'm not going to because I think my job and my role here and what I want to do with my life and my business is to share, and that involves me sharing openly, transparently and honestly, even when I feel like so unwell about it and so scared of how it will be perceived. But this is life and you guys are going to perceive it how you want to perceive it. But that was my journey, that was my experience and that went on for a few years not all the time, but more regularly than I would like to admit or that you know I would like to occur at all Like, obviously, when I look back at that, I wish that never occurred and I wish that wasn't a part of my story in my life, but unfortunately it was, and I think it was a such a combination of different things.
Speaker 1:I think it was the poor relationship to my body, the deep seated fucking trauma that I hadn't looked at, not looking at the root cause of things. Traumatic like a, not a traumatic a, like a toxic relationship that was just not going well, not knowing my identity, having low self-worth, not understanding my beliefs. Like I just had no self-awareness, I just had no idea, and it's like I almost didn't want to look at it, like I would feel so much shame and I would judge myself so much at the moment and then I'd be like but I'm going to be better now, but I'm not going to do that again. I would convince myself it would be fine and inevitably I would binge eat again. So I was doing the binge eating but then obviously progressed into like binge eating to the point where I felt physically, physically unwell and then actually actively choosing to go and make myself sick because I was panicked that the amount of food that I ate was going to make me gain weight or lose my progress. So I guess this is why I do hold so much passion around like being mindful when you're tracking calories and the right way to go about it and having the right coach supporting you if you're going to go down the path of tracking calories. I don't think tracking calories is bad by any means like that's definitely not where I'm at here but I think it can be done in a way that is bad for people, depending on that person. This is why I get really passionate about quick fixes whether it's with your mindset, health, nutrition, whatever it is because quite often quick fixes are a bandaid and a mask and maybe can actually make the deep rooted, deep seated thing worse and then we can be filled with a lot of judgment and shame, and we know that we can't grow from shame or judgment.
Speaker 1:I'm going to fast forward now to basically when all of this stopped and what basically happened is I was going to do a bodybuilding competition because I thought that I could mask my shitty relationship with food with discipline and fitness. I went to the gym six days a week. I would never miss. I used doing bodybuilding competitions or I was a nutrition coach at this time. So, being a nutrition coach and needing to be like fucking fit to have a business and all the things, I used that as a way to justify my clear fucking problem with food.
Speaker 1:Like I remember going to a restaurant with my family we're going to like a pub or whatever and and I was so anxious Like I was like, oh my God, I'm not going to be able to track the food. Like I was so fucking panicked and it kind of like I'm like that's so sad, and I was so worried that they were going to cook the chicken in oil and I wasn't going to be able to weigh the oil, so I got them to cook the chicken different, without the oil, that I got to put them a salad on the side without the dressing and just like everyone else was just ordering whatever the fuck they want, enjoying themselves like. And I was just like. I remember just being worried. I remember just like being worried about, like, what I just ate. Is it gonna fuck my progress like, is it gonna make me gain weight? And it was just such a like a.
Speaker 1:It just took up so much brain capacity and this is what I think people don't realize when it comes to a poor relationship with food and body constantly diet, dieting, yo-yo dieting, constantly being worried about your appearance and what you look like is the amount of brain capacity that it requires of you. And it's like our brain is responsible for so many things keeping us alive, keeping us breathing, keeping us just fucking like existing, all the things Like it has so many jobs in our body, so many, and we're having tens of thousands of thoughts all of the time. Our brain actually does have only so much capacity to think the things that we know are going to be beneficial to us. So if you are so consumed by all these negative things to do with food and body, there's not really much room to think of anything else. It really impacted my relationship like with Dave, and bless his little soul. He has been through so much with me and he's just so fucking like patient and kind and compassionate, but also like my parenting, like when you're hungry, you're angry.
Speaker 1:And keep in mind, I still hadn't worked on healing myself at this point, healing my nervous system, understanding my nervous system, understanding, understanding myself. So I was still very, I was like a snappy, hungry, fucking devil, like how is anyone around me? I don't know, but I was like. But I have abs, so like slay, like my life is so good because I look amazing. Um, and that's kind of where I was at we live in my parents like I'd quit the place, move back with my parents, so so much as life is laughing you guys.
Speaker 1:During this whole thing, um, and I truly did think I'm like I've healed my relationship with food, like I'm no longer binging, I'm no longer purging, I've healed my relationship with food. But I was tracking every single calorie gram. I was stressed about it, I was obsessed with looking lean and skinny, so I hadn't healed, I just masked it with another form of control. That actually wasn't that healthy. So that's kind of how that played out when we moved to Queensland three years ago. I don't know what the fuck happened in my mind, but I was just like I need to stop tracking calories. I don't know what the fuck happened in my mind, but I was just like I need to stop tracking calories. I need to stop doing this with myself, and the day that we moved into our house in Queensland, I literally stopped tracking calories and I basically went cold turkey with no longer doing that.
Speaker 1:Prior to this, I was also weighing myself daily and I told myself that the reason I was doing this was for data. Like, I just want to collect data. I just want to collect data. I just want to, like you know, just be informed. But no, it was just because I was fucking terrified of gaining weight and if I saw the scale go up, I knew that I could just eat less the next day to make it go down. So it was a form of control and had nothing to fucking do with data. I just convinced myself of that. It's so funny what we convince ourself of to like justify something that we know is actually not good for us, but we don't want to stop it because we have so much fear around stopping doing the thing. So we'll justify it.
Speaker 1:But I stopped tracking calories and then, maybe like six months later, maybe even 12 months later, I stopped weighing myself. So it was a bit of a process. I felt like weighing myself was the safety. Stopping tracking calories was really scary for me because, as you've just seen, it was a long fucking journey of this whole fucking, this whole thing. Why do I swear a lot when I'm just in flow of talking? Sorry about that, sorry about the swearing. Um, yeah, where was I now? I've just lost my train of thought. Yeah, no, I needed the safety. I needed the safety of the scales, and I think that, just like it just helped me stop tracking that a little bit more, knowing that I still had this little form of control, this little way to kind of see where I was at.
Speaker 1:And then, after 12 months, I chucked out my scales. I was like fuck these fucking annoying things. Like I don't want to weigh myself anymore. I don't want to know this. I can trust myself, I can trust that I'm going to be okay and if I gain weight I'm also going to be okay. But, like, I know what I, what I'm doing, I know how to eat, I know how to feel my body. I know that I have to move my body and all the different things, which is funny because, like, basically after that point I went on a huge healing journey, like for the last four years I would say has been a real healing journey for me, where I have focused on the inner me, I have focused on rewiring my brain, I have focused on really uncovering my subconscious belief systems and how they're playing out. I've really gotten clear on my triggers and just who I am as a person and what limitations were subconsciously in place for me that were limiting me from being the person that I want to be, or growing or living the life that I want to live. Like people pleasing and self-sabotage and procrastination and just having a really deep understanding of where that has come from and how I can have compassion for myself.
Speaker 1:Healing a lot of trauma when it came to my childhood and my relationship with my dad, even my relationship with my mom, like I did the work, like and I'm so grateful for that time. But what kind of happened is to really, really heal, I had to really let go of that part of me that was focusing on food and focusing on movement, which I know movement is good for us. But like this is just the journey, this is just where I was at and I kind of like I kind of started to hate the gym. I was like I I don't know, it's kind of hard to explain, but I really wasn't moving my body that much. I maybe went too far the other way. Like there's this thing where it's like we have this pendulum swing where we kind of go from one extreme to the other and then we need to find our equilibrium, like we need to find our center, but we almost have to go from one to the other to find that. So I went too far the other way, where I really wasn't focused so much on health, like really focusing on what I was eating and all those different things. So that story was a big contributor to where I am now and the decisions I'm making now, which we're going to get into.
Speaker 1:But another big contributor was my son getting sick. I have contemplated doing a I was going to say a doco. Why would I say that? I was contemplating doing a potty episode on the journey of my son's sickness diagnosis, like just the whole thing with that. But I just don't know if I found the strength to do it because I'm still kind of at a point where, if or when I talk about it, it brings up a lot for me and it makes me very emotional. So I do want to share it because I think it's an important message to share, especially the experiences we had with the hospitals and being turned away and trusting my intuition and like, yeah, it was a lot. So I do struggle to talk about it, but I'm going to talk about it a little bit because it's relevant to the topic of my health journey at the moment.
Speaker 1:But basically, when my son got sick and I thought we were going to lose him, oh, I can't see. It makes me emotional. Shit. I've never experienced fear like that in my life, like thinking that we were truly going to and that's not even being dramatic. Like you know me, a dramatic gal, like I am dramatic. This was not that like we genuinely were like is he gonna come out of this? He was like rapidly declining in health. He was losing weight. There was no diagnosis, no one could figure out what was wrong. It really truly felt like it was, like we were like in a doomed situation and it is the most heartbreaking, painful thing that I've ever experienced in my whole entire life.
Speaker 1:And now he has, like, his diagnosis and the the things he has are not curable. So it's something that we will manage with him for the rest of his life, which I think is why I struggled to talk about it, because it's not like it's something that's resolved. You know, like it's not like we had this experience. We came up with a solution. He was like healed and now we've moved on with our life and it was like a distant. It's a memory that is really shit memory. But we're moving forward and whilst we are moving forward, we're moving forward with him now having but we're moving forward and whilst we are moving forward, we're moving forward with him now having two diagnosis that have no cure and he's on lifelong medication, lifelong testing, all these different things. So it still hurts me. It still hurts me that this is his life, that these are his experiences.
Speaker 1:Obviously, as parents, we just want to protect our kids at all costs. We never want them to go through pain or suffering or hurt, um, and to know, just like the uncertainty with these two diseases that he has, that one day he may need a liver transplant or it just pains me a lot, yeah, it just causes me a lot of pain, so it's hard to talk about. Um. I'm saying I'm a lot now because I'm like, oh, don't, don't cry, so I'll sing instead, um. But that was a big wake-up call for me. Especially, part of it was the system itself.
Speaker 1:Like I was so naive prior to Isaiah getting sick because none, no one in my family had ever really been sick like to the point of having to go to hospital and it being a big thing, like my kids had never been sick. I had never really been through anything like this. Like I just didn't know anyone that had been through something like this I maybe had just seen off of, like TV shows. So in my eyes prior to this it was like you get sick, something's wrong with you, you go to hospital, you see a doctor, they tell you what's wrong and then, like they fix it. You either have like medication, surgery, something like a process. You fix it. Um, and I quickly learned that is not the case at all.
Speaker 1:It was so not like that. No one had any fucking clue what was happening with Isaiah. I had to beg for so many tests, like I had to push so hard to just get good quality care for him. We ended up having to fucking call Ryan's rule, which in Queensland is the rule. You call it. It means that the the medical support that you're getting is not adequate and you fear for your son or your child's um safety. And you call this and basically they have to give you a whole new medical team and have whole new eyes on it, because someone named ryan, a child, uh, had died and it was because the team that was working with him didn't diagnose him correctly and didn't give him the care that he needed. So now they have that rule. We had to use that with Isaiah and then we got helicopter like in a helicopter taken to Brisbane Children's Hospital, because where we were at our local hospital it just wasn't it Like it just it just wasn't helping. So for me it was like this whole process of just like having a distrust in the system, because we did get sent home four times and that fuck was painful and just like we've had so many.
Speaker 1:I do want to preface we have had really good experiences with nurses and doctors and I love them and I'm so grateful for them and specifically those ones that have given us amazing care and amazing compassion. Like I love them and they have honestly just touched my soul so much. But we've also had some really fucking terrible experiences and just the sickness itself like it's made me look at health in a different way, which, unfortunately, you know I. It sucks that it's kind of come to something like this for me to be like fuck, we need to change something in our house. And it's not to say that I think we were to blame. We aren't a very we're not a super unhealthy family. No one smokes in our house. We don't drink much alcohol, we don't eat like just fucking takeaway and shit all of the time like we're not like unhealthy. But it just was a wake-up call to me that like we can be doing better, we can look after our body better.
Speaker 1:And having Isaiah now have a liver disease and a bowel disease, I was like what we eat, what we have in our home, what we have in our home, what we have in our environment, surely has to have an impact. And it's funny because, like when I try and talk about that with his medical team so he has a whole medical team now in Brisbane Children's Hospital it's just like give him this medication. There is no talk about like how we can improve his nutrition or lifestyle. None of that, none of that, which, again, is like it's just so upsetting. So I'm like cool, we're going to take it upon ourselves to try and be as healthy as we can. It's a bit of a process and, again, why I'm finding it hard to talk about is because he is on daily medication at the moment which, at the time when he started taking that medication, I was just like trust in the system, trust in the doctors, like they know what's best. And now I'm kind of like I do want to trust in them because I have a child who has a lifelong disease, who requires medical support, and I feel so grateful that we live in a time and we and we live in a country that he is able to get that support. But I just want to be more mindful of like doing my own research, research, research and ensuring that we are doing the most as a family to be healthy. And that's led me to here my holistic, optimal health journey after fucking 32 minutes. It was a bit of a backstory and we are here now so I hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:But my own journey with relationship with food, disordered eating, eating disorders, my son getting sick, all the things has opened my eyes to wanting to make better choices as a family. So this isn't just about, you know, getting as lean as I possibly can or as skinny as I can or as like all those different things. But my fitness and my physical appearance is something that is on my mind, like I don't want to lie and be like, oh, I don't care, I would love to look like, be fit and strong, and be one of those people like that enters their forties and fifties and is like a little fucking beast. I do want to be that. I want to be strong, I want to lift weights, not even from the point of just what I look like. I think it's okay to care about your appearance. By the way, like I don't I will not demonize that I've healed my relationship with food and I've healed my relationship with my body, but that doesn't mean I can't care about my appearance.
Speaker 1:I think sometimes with you we can go too far the other way with that, where it's like now you can't care about your appearance or you're back in like diet, culture and all the things. That's not my personal opinion. I know we have like the, the what's it called body positive movement, which I think is brilliant, by the way, and very necessary and taking us leaps forward in the right direction in women's bodies, and I think it's a hundred percent necessary. Anyone who says that that's woke and like it is silly, and I have talked about this before because I think we can be too woke I don't want to use that word anymore because I've recently been doing more like research and more looking into this and I think, like how people use the word woke is actually taking us backwards. So I don't want to be a part of that narrative. So there's that. But I do think that we need that.
Speaker 1:But I also think that we don't need to demonize wanting to take pride in your appearance or wanting to feel fucking hot and sexy in your body. We just have to be mindful of it. What, how people feel hot and sexy, is very, very different. Like for some people it is being like, you know, strong and like muscles and all the things for women, and they feel hot and sexy. For others, it's like I really want to feel curvy and soft and that's hot and sexy. So it's just like we actually just get to decide that for ourselves. So that's just a little bit of a tangent, but here we are. We go on tangents here. That's on that.
Speaker 1:So a part for me is, yes, I want to be my fittest healthiest self and I want to show myself that I can be the fittest healthiest version of me without needing to track calories Not that I'm demonizing them, this is just my personal experience and what I'm doing for myself and my journey. I want to be able to get to the fittest healthiest me without going down the path of restriction and disordered eating and hyper-focused on food and it becoming my whole life. I want to show myself that I can do this from a place that is healthy. And I want to also show others, like you guys. I want to show you that we can do this. You know what I mean. Like I want to show you that we can focus on being our fittest, healthiest selves and making the best decisions for ourselves. And I want to show you, based on all of the work that I've done on my mindset, I want to show myself that healing my mind, changing my beliefs, doing all of that deep, deep, deep, deep, deep inner work has set a beautiful foundation for now for me to focus on my health and nourish my body and have a nourishing life based on a place that is healthy for me, my body and soul. So I do want that. Another part of it is actually just focusing on being healthy humans from like the inside, and by that I mean more like toxins. So I'm going to quickly chat about just a couple of things that I've been focused on.
Speaker 1:Again, I'm not an expert in this. I am still very much learning and I'm still very much making small, gradual changes. I would say that is the key. You don't have to overhaul your whole life. I think it is small, gradual changes and I'm very much in this journey right now. So if any of you kind of want to take this journey with me, amazing, let's do it together. But it's not about overhauling your whole life, because I think that's really impossible, and I think it's about gradually informing yourself and not feeling that you need to overload yourself with information.
Speaker 1:So, for me, I ultimately had some health issues the last year, which I'm not really going to get into super a lot because I still have no idea what the fuck was going on, but I was dealing with a lot. I was seeing a lot of doctors. There was a lot. I got diagnosed with something that then ended up being told oh no, you don't have that Like it was, just it was absolutely fucked. Again, very hard for me to trust the system after what happened with Isaiah. Doctors and GPs seem to let me down and let my family down a lot. I don't know if that's everyone else's experiences, so I can only talk based off of my own experiences with this. So I went through a lot of health issues. It was a lot, it was hard, it was scary and based on everything, I was just like we need to do better as a family. Me and Dave sat down and we chatted about it and he was like full fucking on board and I was like let's go slay, like let's do this, and it's just been gradual things.
Speaker 1:So, um, I ended up booking in with a gut health specialist and I sent my bloods to her because I was doing blood tests with GPs and I'm like, yeah, everything looks great, everything looks fine. And then I've later learned that, like, how they gauge everything looks fine is off a very low standard and it's just not super accurate. Again, this is my own personal. I'm gonna keep saying that I think let's let's just all know that it's just not super accurate. Again, this is my own personal. I'm going to keep saying that. I think let's just all know that it's my personal opinion. It's my personal experiences. I'm not speaking gospel for everyone.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I got blood tests and I sent it to a gut health specialist. She went over it and I had so many deficiencies I was almost embarrassed. I'm like, oh my God, how am I even alive? I just had so many things that I had to work on. I got a protocol of her which was like supplements and like a guide of like different foods and all the different things, and from that moment it just feels like something clicked inside of me of like I really need to do this, like for me, for my family, to be the best version of myself. I feel like I've really worked on my mind and now I need to bring my like body into that. And it's not like I was in a bad place and super unhealthy or any of those different things. I just I wanted to be my body, to be the healthiest it could be.
Speaker 1:One of the switches we made was water. So I learned a lot more about tap water and again, we live in a very privileged country where our tap water is like it doesn't make us unwell. Like we're not in Bali, where we drink the water and we literally are like fully fucking sick, but it's also not the greatest. Like there are toxins in there. There are things that aren't just really good for our body, and for me that wasn't like a really hard shift. You know what I mean. Like it's not like I'm like losing anything. The only shift I guess that makes it hard with that is like price. Like obviously tap water is free, so that's like slay and buying good water for yourself costs money. But for me it's just like can you put a price on your health? Like I don't think so. When you've been sick or you've witnessed someone in your family be really, really sick, like you are just like willing to do whatever to be the healthiest versions of yourself. So the kids and like all all of us are drinking this other water. I think it's called purea, purea, purea. Um, I think that's what water we've been drinking. Eventually, when we own our own house, I'd like to do filtered water throughout the whole house, including what we shower and wash our clothes and all the different things, but for now, this is. This is working well for us.
Speaker 1:I started to focus on just more whole foods. So. So what I mean by whole foods it's like the food is the ingredient, so like a potato is a potato, a piece of steak is a piece of steak. We're trying to be more like grass fed organic and all the things with the whole foods, but less processed foods as much as we can. We are not perfect with this. We have realized very, very quickly how much we eat processed food, more than I kind of realized. Like I was kind of like oh, like I thought we're pretty good but like we're not that good. So really just trying my best to eat a lot more whole foods, being more intentional with the food that I'm eating.
Speaker 1:So prior from my story before, it was like if it fits in your macros, I ate like shit. I was like I'm eating healthy because it fits in my macros and I'm eating enough protein. Babe, you're filling up on fucking protein custard. Like that's not it and if that's you right now, I love you, I'm sending love. I'm not judging you. That was me like. Did we just hear my story? I was not fucking like I was in a really bad place with food. So I'm not judging, but it's just like maybe this is an opportunity to be like cool, we're gonna clean this up. But for me I was like, oh my god, like I ate so much processed food because it fitted in my macros, whereas now I like, how is this food going to nourish my body? How is this food going to nourish my brain, health, my nervous system, my hair, my nails, my skin? Like, what is this food giving to me? Is more kind of the approach that I'm taking.
Speaker 1:Seed oils is another one that I've. I'm still kind of like trying to figure this out. Like I feel good about it, like I feel like I'm in a good place with it, but it's like I didn't realize how much food seed oils is in. The hard thing for me, I guess, with this is like I'm learning as I go now and that means that my kids, like they eat pretty well. They eat fruit. They're not as good as I would like them to be with their veggies, but they're getting better, like they're not really really bad, but like I feel like it's a challenge now because I'm not just trying to switch up my diet, I'm trying to switch up my kids diet, but they're like 12 and 11. So it is a little bit more challenging, but I'm doing my best and they're being really open-minded and I'm just kind of explaining to them, like why we're doing this, why it's important specifically around Isaiah and helping him, but also just as a whole for all of us.
Speaker 1:We have switched what we our dishwashing tablets. We have switched our washing like our actual washing machine tablets to go to like chemical free, low tox, low ingredients or whatever you want to call it. We were making our own for a little while, guys. We really did try, and after about a month I was like I'm fucking over this, like I don't have time for this. I don't have time to make my own fucking washing powder. And then we found one that we really like. I'm actually in the process of changing this one because I found an actual, better one that's cheaper, low tox. I'll try and find the brand so I can actually tell you guys, but that's what we're going to be doing.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to look at what other things I've been doing. So more movement, more nature, getting out in nature, a lot more focusing on um. I've been charging my phone outside of my bedroom, so not bringing the phone in the bedroom and making sure that I'm not going on my phone at least 30 to 45 minutes when I wake. So the first light that is going into these eyeballs is from the sun, not my fucking phone screen. Another thing we've been focusing on is our sleep. I've been like a fucking sleep, like crazy person, like wanting to get on top of the sleep. I also love sleep, so like I need it, otherwise I'm crazy. But we've been really really focused on sleep. Also the like our nighttime routine.
Speaker 1:So the kids do not watch telly within an hour of them going to sleep. So basically they don't watch. They watch a little bit of telly when they come home from school if they don't have afterschool sport and all those different things. But it's like we have dinner at around 6, 6.30 PM, then they're like brushing their teeth and like doing whatever they need to do to get ready for bed and then they'll just go quietly color or draw together in one of their rooms. They'll usually do it together. They'll do that for about until usually like quarter past eight, maybe eight o'clock, and then they basically go to bed and go to sleep.
Speaker 1:I was finding Isaiah was finding it really hard to fall asleep and we were kind of like watching the telly right up until they went to sleep and like that's how I grew up. And it's so interesting how, like what we grew up with, we normalize and like watching TV when I was growing up was like super normalize. We ate dinner in front of the telly, like that was just our norm. And then I could see like I'd kind of created that as a norm for our kids not eating in front of the telly. We eat at the dinner table because we ask it, we do our gratitude questions and all those different things every single night. But how much TV. I was like I didn't realize. I didn't realize we were watching that much TV. So we changed that up and I was finding Isaiah was falling asleep like basically immediately when he was going to bed. So that was really helpful.
Speaker 1:Also, me, I literally like when it gets to 9.30, because that's like our time mine and Dave's time to like, we're like we're going to get ready for bed when it gets to 9.30. Now we've been doing this for about eight weeks. My body's like done for the day, like for the day Like I can't even keep my eyes open. I put my head on the pillow at 9.30 and within two seconds I'm asleep, like dead asleep, like we have had to change up our sex life to be able to still have sex, because I'm literally like 9.30, dead asleep, like I can't stay awake. So now we just have sex in the shower earlier. Oh, this is going to be so. Tmi, you're welcome. But yeah, like we, I'm out and then we wake up at 5.30 and then I go for my walk and all the different things. Don't wake up, don't go like to go on my phone, just wake up and go outside in nature. If you can't go for a walk, just go in your backyard, like it's free, it's easy and it changes so much my sleep, my like, oh my God, my body when it comes to sleep. Now I'm like on such a good body clock and it took, I reckon, eight weeks of being really strict with our bedtime and really intentional with our bedtime. That really really helped. That also intentional with the morning routine of not going on the phone, getting out in nature, getting out in the sunlight if I don't go for a walk, I go sit in the backyard, no sunnies on, and let the sunlight into my eyeballs has been really, really helpful.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I have done is I have quit these. I was addicted, was addicted to V's. Like I just could not stop drinking them. Oh my God, I love them so much. The pink V's were like my life and that was probably one of the hardest things to shift. I'm like I can just be good at everything else. I'll just be really like I'll be learning all the things, trying to be better with my diet, trying to be better with my skincare. Also, I've changed my skincare. I'll talk about that in a second, if I don't forget.
Speaker 1:But I was like but I just love my Vs. You know what I mean? I just love them. I don't want to let go of them. And I held on. I held on to those fuckers. Like I was, like I was having two a day. You guys, that's being really honest. I'm ashamed of that.
Speaker 1:I was having two Vs a day in the morning and I was like I would wake up and have a V. That was the first thing. That was touching these lips Like don't kiss me, dave, get this V into my tummy. I mean, I'm surprised I wasn't just injecting it into my veins no, I'm kidding but like I was obsessed. It's been seven weeks since I had a V. I went cold turkey with that and it has been so good. It has been so good.
Speaker 1:I think they were draining my energy, which is so funny because they called it energy drinks. I had a lot of brain fog and was very tired. I can't just put it down to ditching the energy drinks because obviously, as you've heard, like I'm changing a lot of different things, but I do think it contributed. I'm not judging you if you drink energy drinks. If that's your thing and you love it. I fucking love that for you. You do you.
Speaker 1:This was just something that I felt like I had to change for myself, to be a better version of me and have more clarity in my mind so I can show up better for my clients, better for myself, better for my kids and better for Dave. Also side note, before I get into skincare, because I haven't forgotten, since we have been doing this, dave's and I've relationship Dave and I's relationship has gotten so much better. Like I was doing all the nervous system regulation things, but this is like I am so regulated since focusing on, like more optimal health as well, dave is so regulated. Our sex life is so much better at the moment, like our irritability with each other, and I'm not going to like lie. Of course we get moments where we're frustrated with each other, but it's like it's just. It's just so different, so different. And how I parent the kids like I'm just so much, I'm just so calm with them. Like they annoy me sometimes but I deal with it better without like snapping or lashing out at them, and I think I'll just finish it up on like I'm just trying to learn as much as I can. I've probably missed out like heaps of things here, but I'm just trying to learn as much as I can.
Speaker 1:Like we're going to start buying our eggs from a local farm. I would really like to start buying our meat from a local farm so we know where it comes from. I don't want to buy a meat from Woolies and Coles that will probably next switch and even like fruit and veg. We currently aren't buying from a market, but I really want to buy it from either a market or directly from farm. So I found a farm that we are able to go buy the eggs from, so they have all the chickens, they just run around their free range and you can go buy the eggs from there. So I'm really excited about that, and the next will be like researching where we can get meat from.
Speaker 1:So it's all just about gradually like researching for me, making gradual lifestyle changes for me and the family. I have been going for daily walks for like six or seven weeks now and that was really important to me to integrate movement back into my life, because I just fucking was being a potato. And now, as of this week I don't know when this is going to be released, but as of this week, I'm now integrating the gym back into my life three times a week. So I really want to work on my physical fitness. I want to eventually. At the moment, the gym that I'm integrating is a focus on healing my back and working with my back because I have back injury, and then I really eventually would like to get into running again and from a place of like challenging myself and being proud of myself, not from a place of where running was always a way to lose weight for me and that was my relationship to running. So really shifting that up, which I'm really excited about. It's like it feels really fun to explore all of these things where it's not focused on being like a skinny, fucking human and just because I want to be healthy and fit, which feels really, really good.
Speaker 1:The last one is a bit of controversial one Cause I feel like when women say they want to be like low tox and all the different things, what they really get slammed in their face is like, if you still get like Botox and things like that, then you're a hypocrite, and I want to talk about this for a sec. Also, my skincare I did forget, but I basically just use Lus Minerals cleanser and then Tallow as a moisturizer and that's basically a beef tallow on my face. Those are the two things. That's all I use. I'm going to be shifting and I am slowly shifting my makeup to be more low tox. So that's the whole thing.
Speaker 1:Talking about Botox, I do get Botox and I also fake tan sometimes, which is also a toxin, and what I want to say with this is something I was saying to to the person who I do the gut health coaching we all do the gut health consult with is it's about picking your poison. This is something she said to me. Her name is Sim Sullivan, by the way. If you don't follow her, you should, because this is poison. This is something she said to me. Her name is Sim Sullivan. By the way, if you don't follow her, you should, because this is her area, this is where she's an expert and that's where you should really listen to the advice she's actually going to come on the podcast, so I'm going to ask her all the good questions that are going to really help you guys If you also want to make this shift to focusing on your gut health and more of a holistic, optimal health. But it was your poison and this is something that I'm still sitting with and deciding for many different reasons, not just because it's a toxin being injected into your face.
Speaker 1:Also just the, I guess, idea of having to do it forever and like aging and I might do another podcast on being 30 and starting to see some changes in my body, my skin, just you know, just aging and how it's actually felt and being really honest with you guys, because I know it's easy to be like, oh, I don't care, I don't care that I'm aging, when, like, there are some challenges that come with seeing your body age and your skin age and your face change and all the different things which I'm going to talk about, and Botox is a tricky one, so I have gotten Botox a fair few times. I couldn't tell you how many, like, if I counted not like fucking 50 times, but like a fair few times. I think I started getting it when I was like 27 was the first time, and I'm 31 now and I think you get it like every four to six months. I have not got it every single time, so I haven't been like every four to six months religiously. However, last year no, maybe the year before 2023 I was kind of getting more religious with it, like not wanting to miss getting it, and that was interesting for me. That was very, very interesting for me.
Speaker 1:I have not had Botox in maybe six months now. No, four or five months, no, I don't actually know but like it's worn off now. Like I have my, my forehead wrinkles and I just like for all of time, even when I was younger, I just had a lot of skin on my forehead sounds gross, sounds like I'm talking about a penis, but like they weren't really wrinkles. It was just like excess skin. I'm not sure, but it was. Like you know, I'm a very like I have a lot of expression on my face. So I feel like because I like raise my eyebrows a lot and I have a little big expression. I just had like lines and skin there. But now but now that I'm getting older, it's like I pay more attention to it, even though even when I was fucking 18 it was there. And when you get Botox, if you've got it, you know your forehead is so smooth, so shiny, your skin looks so amazing, like you just look like, it just looks good. It does look good and that can very quickly become addictive. But then when it's worn off, you can think you don't look good because now you've been used to seeing yourself with like this smooth, amazing forehead.
Speaker 1:I was actually booked in to get it last week but my car tire popped if you guys didn't see on my Instagram and I had to cancel the appointment because I couldn't actually get there. And I haven't actually rebooked. I think I will, but I was chatting to Dave about this and I think I I may still get Botox, but only when I feel like, maybe because I have an event coming up in two weeks. Maybe I'll only get it when I feel like I have an event, like maybe I'll limit myself to like twice a year only and then see how I go with that and see, like you know, if, if anything changes and my view on it changes, then obviously I can shift and change. But I want to be transparent and honest with you guys and what I don't think we need to approach this journey with is like an all or nothing mindset that if I'm still getting Botox and there's no point of like doing all of the other things because that's actually not true all of those other things are still benefiting you so much and like whatever you like in quotation marks pick your poison, whatever that is for you that you still want to continue to do.
Speaker 1:I will never be 100% low tox I don't think anyone can but like I won't be 100% low tox, I will not be 100% optimal health and holistic health. Like I'm going to do my absolute best, I'm going to get educated, I'm going to get informed and I'm going to make the best decisions for me and my family, but I'm not striving for perfection and I will still make decisions that I feel are best for me and I completely respect and support people that make decisions that are best for them. I think something is better than nothing and I also think that it's just like. I just don't think we should judge other people for what that they choose to do with their bodies or with their health if it doesn't directly impact us. So I will never judge someone for getting Botox or not getting Botox, or being holistically and optimally healthy or not, or being organic or not, like I just think each their own and I just think you make decisions based on your own values, and that's okay, and our values change and mine may shift to change in regards to Botox, and if I do get this next appointment, if I don't, if I decide to get it, if I take a longer break like I'm not really sure yet, but I just think it's important not to like write off everything else just because you can't be perfect with something.
Speaker 1:I'm going to wrap it up here. I hope this is like. I hope you got something out of this. I'm going to try out something new where I'm going to put a link in the show notes for you to submit questions or topics that you want me to talk about. I am an open book. I want you guys to be really curious. I think, like having the opportunity to hear someone else's stories and thoughts and opinions is really really valuable and I personally love it and I want you guys to be curious and like however I can help you or my thoughts or my views, or my education or my journey however that can help you, I want it to help you. So be really curious. Ask me what you think is going to be interesting to talk about or what you will get something out of. Like nothing is like out of question for what you can ask me or what you want me to talk about.
Speaker 1:On this podcast, I want to be able to deliver a really fucking epic podcast for you guys.
Speaker 1:I want you to enjoy it. I want you to get so much out of it. So I'm going to put that down there, because I want to be covering topics that you love. If you do enjoy the podcast and you do enjoy the topics, please reach out and let me know, like DM me, tell me you've enjoyed it, because I just sit here riff on my own. I don't know if anyone's getting anything out of it or if you're actually fucking loving it or not. I'm enjoying doing it and if you really feel generous, take a screenshot of your screen of you listening to this podcast, share it on your stories and tag me at AshleyBadman underscore and let's spread the fucking word of this podcast. Let's have fucking cool conversations. Let's all focus on being more self-aware, more curious, being a better version of ourselves. Let's normalize these types of conversations with the people that we love, share it and, if you're feeling extra generous, leave a rating for me, because it truly does help so much, and I'll see you guys in the next episode.