#49 - Sarah Lewis: Following the Signals in a Creative Life

Creative ideas can arrive as whispers through life experience.

Sarah Lewis is a London-based filmmaker, artist and designer whose work moves across documentary, moving image, installation, craft, handbags, curation, teaching and embodied creative practice.

In this Natural Genius conversation, Sarah speaks with Samantha Bell about intuition, place, making with her hands, sexuality, shaving her head, ageing, listening with the body, discernment, her documentary "CUTS / NO IFS OR BUTS" and having a deeply experimental and creative life.

They also speak about Bouffant, Sarah's evolving new art project, with an encouraging invitation for women everywhere to submit anonymous bouffant photos as part of a shared, playful and intimate archive at: https://bouffant.me/

This episode explores:
• Creative ideas as felt signals and small whispers
• What handcraft, filmmaking and design each bring to Sarah's practice
• Bouffant, female sexuality and anonymous shared experience
• Shaving her head, identity, femininity and being seen differently
• Ageing, aliveness, shadow work, discernment and creative freedom
• Listening, attunement and discernment in conversation and creative work
• CUTS / NO IFS OR BUTS and the cultural life of a long documentary project

Guest bio:
Sarah Lewis is an international independent filmmaker, artist and designer based in London. Her work spans documentary film, artists' moving image, installation, curation, teaching, community projects and design. She completed an MA in Artists' Film & Moving Image with Distinction at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her feature documentary "CUTS / NO IFS OR BUTS" premiered at BFI London Film Festival and was later selected for Locarno Film Festival Pro's First Look on UK Cinema, where it won the Jannuzzi Smith Award and Le Film Français Award. Her wider practice includes Bouffant, Felt Culture, National Gallery of Victoria artist films, The Staring Girl, Crowded House, The Boy Who Wouldn't Die and collaborative work across Australia and the UK.

Guest links:
• Sarah Lewis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahlewisfilm/
• Sarah Lewis Studio: https://sarahlewis.studio/ and https://www.instagram.com/sarahlewis.studio/
• Sarah's "CUTS / NO IFS OR BUTS" documentary: https://sarahlewis.studio/no-ifs-or-buts-previously-cuts-the-movie/ and https://www.instagram.com/noifsorbuts_movie/
• Bouffant: https://bouffant.me/

Chapters:
01:03 London, place and creative belonging
09:13 Creative whispers, handcraft and life experience
14:57 Bouffant and female sexuality
20:11 Shaving her head and being seen differently
41:25 Shadow work, ageing and aliveness
52:13 Listening, discernment and CUTS / NO IFS OR BUTS

Explore further:
Women are invited to submit anonymous bouffant photos through Sarah's Bouffant project: https://bouffant.me/
Explore your natural genius: https://naturalgenius.com.au
Learn more about Sam: https://samanthabell.com.au
Subscribe to hear future episodes.

About Natural Genius:
Natural Genius is a podcast and listening platform hosted by Samantha Bell. It explores the many ways people find, trust and express their natural genius through work, life, creativity, leadership, relationships and the signals that call them forward.

Credits:
Hosted by Samantha Bell in Violet Town and London, 27 March 2026.
Produced at the Violet Town and Kiama offices, 27 March - 21 May 2026.

Natural Genius Podcast https://naturalgenius.com.au

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:02

Welcome to the Natural Genius Podcast. We're here to help you tap into your natural genius. Let's go. When I was thinking about Sarah Lewis and our conversation today, I felt that Joan of Arc energy. She is a unassuming, beautiful, inside and out, determined, kind, gracious warrior. She's an artist, a documentary filmmaker, a craftsperson, and a jolly great conversationalist. Enjoy hearing from the amazing Sarah Lewis. Sarah Lewis. Welcome to the Natural Genius Podcast. What a delight to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

That's great to be here. Even though we're across the world, like completely um different spaces, but it's not really about that. It's about kind of how you connect on a heart level with someone.

SPEAKER_03 1:03

Oh Sarah, what a great lead-in. And so I'm in Australia where you're originally from, uh, with beautiful British heritage, and you're in amazing London. Yeah, London. I love London. I really love London. Tell me, did you always aspire to living in London, or how did it come to be from growing up in Australia?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

I mean, I I just feel like you know, places are like people, and that um some people you kind of resonate with, you know, when you first meet them, or they have different kinds of love affairs with different people, um, platonic and you know, all of that. And and but places for me are the same type of vibe. It's like, you know, going to a place, I will often um just resonate with that place straight away, you know, and really feel like a connection there. And London has always been that for me, and I lived here all during my 20s. Um, and then uh I came back again, I think it was 11 years ago. So I spent about 14 years back in Australia, and then I came back um 11 years ago to London. And I also think because my parents are English, and so they're I didn't realise this, but we were an immigrant family because we're white, you know, I didn't really think of myself as an immigrant family, but um they had me quite soon after they got to Australia, so they were um, you know, they had an English accent, and I think I'm probably a bit more European in my sensibility than my siblings, uh, because the Australian kind of nature of the Australian sensibility kind of really started to set in more as time went on, I think, in our family. So I've just loved London. I love the diversity of it, I love the you know, the experiences, there's something for everyone. You know, it's just it's just like a really thriving city, I think, you know. I really love it. And you can run my bike everywhere, it's great.

SPEAKER_03 3:10

Oh gosh, I love hearing this. And when last you're in Australia, was that January? Uh when did we last Christmas time? And uh and then you were on your way to New York. How does New York sit in your mind and heart compared to your hometown of London?

SPEAKER_00 3:32

I love New York. I love it, like I love New York, like I love Melbourne or um London. And it feels like a city where people are on the streets, you know, and I like that. Whereas LA always feels to me like, you know, it's kind of behind, you have to get into the rooms. It's like everything's kind of behind um doors almost. Uh, you have to drive everywhere. New York, I just I really love it's it's interesting because there's a much bigger hustle in New York, but I'm not so I don't think I would like to live there because um I'm I don't resonate so much with that, you know, that transactional nature of things sometimes I feel a little bit in New York. It's kind of you can be in an elevator and someone will like hand, you know, give you the five-minute pitch, like oh no, the 10-second pitch or whatever, and um whereas you don't really get that in London, and you certainly don't get that in Melbourne with the people that I know you know did you did you ever uh did you ever aspire to living in New York, like in your 20s or 30s? Um I've visited a few times, but I um I just love London, yeah, and I've got a British passport, so that's kind of made it possible.

SPEAKER_03 4:46

And when you were talking about place before, a couple of things came to mind. I was lucky enough, both London and Florence were places where I turned up and I felt an instant uh what you were talking about before, just an instant instant sort of comfort or like awareness or familiarity with the place. And I I always put London down to being a bigger version of Melbourne, but sometimes London to me felt just the same sort of size as Melbourne, which is is sort of odd because the population is so different. And uh as a tiny sidebar, I do I've got to say, like, I think it's so funny people don't know which side of the footpath or sidewalk to walk on in London. Like there's so much like European, I always think that the foot traffic follows the car traffic. And in London, I still remember like being on Oxford Strait or someone, and everyone's on a corner, like die like bumping into each other because some are on the left of the footpath and some are on the right place makes me have a bit of a gig.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Crazy, and there's so many people there. But I the thing I love about London, and that's why I ride my bike everywhere, and it relates to what you're talking about, is that like a whole lot of little villages that expanded and then became a big city. So, you know, all these kind of kind of different areas um bleed into each other, and so it doesn't feel like a grid type system that's being created from scratch, it feels like an organic representation of the society that exists here is how I feel about London.

SPEAKER_03 6:27

Yeah, and it took me a while, Sarah, to realise that catching the tube was not the way to go, the bus or walking, or as you do, ride is is the way to go in London. Like, I mean, being on the top of a bus and being able to just see it at bird's eye view is amazing. And then one time when I was there, I was in and out of uh workshops and work and catching up with friends, and I would so often be walking somewhere, and I'd be just, oh, go through that park, go through that park, those gardens, that and it was just such a beautiful way to be in a city. I was lucky enough to be in Moscow one time, and I was with a French, I was with a party of us that had caught that Trans-Siberian Railway across uh from Beijing to Moscow, and we'd gone out for the night and it was the dawn, and we were walking across the red square, and this French woman that we were with, she was walking barefoot everywhere. And in the Red Square, it was kind of, you know, it's like it's not flat, the pavers aren't flat. And I just was I could feel it through her feet that um, you know, exploring a city, and then also even at Federation Square here in Melbourne, there's there there's that lack of flatness, it's it's it's textural. So um sometimes exploring a city that way and being able to be in it and feel it. Um and the second thing that came to mind, Sarah, is um just recently I was chatting to Anibar Brandle and her husband, Uncle Bob, as an Unganou elder in the centre of Australia, she reminded me, and I've said this already on the podcast to another, um she reminded me that uh when they were going places, he would call people instead of text or chat or whatever, and he would say, Where are you? And she said, because place was the number one, place was the most important. So I love that into the conversation too. And tell me, um, we just started to talk briefly about Buffont, a recent exhibition, and you always have so many things on the boil, Sarah, to you absolute credit. And from bag making to filmmaking to something with your hands, to I was telling friends this morning about your amazing jeans that uh are ripped that have silk showing through them and your beautiful sense of style. Tell me, what do you want to talk about? Tell me what you're up to at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Um, I feel like life is just for me, um it I'm very intuitive, you know, with how I live my life. And um it's like I don't think that these, you know, intuitive feelings come through huge moments. Like it feels like I get little whispers of creative ideas, you know, it's kind of like and they're very powerful whispers, but but they're kind of it's not it's like a felt sense in my body or something, you know, and that's my connection to um how my life kind of develops really. And so I my father was a um he was a boat builder and then he was a builder, and so I think I've I never knew that a boat builder. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He started off as a boat builder, and so I've kind of been working, you know, making films, but I also I've got this very, very deep connection working with my hands. And so when you know I like sew or when I make my bags, I feel very competent in being able to do those things, you know. Whereas filmmaking for me is a much vast, much more kind of complex. I'm not saying it's complex objectively, I'm saying subjectively it's much more complex for me to be able to work with that material and and um the way you know it's like a mind intuitive creativity, but it's a different form of it, whereas working with my hands, I feel very um confident, you know, like I can do it, I know I can do it, and um, and so it's lovely, you know, and I always kind of miss it when I don't, if I'm not doing something with my hands. Um, so that's kind of with the bags, and um and talking about intuition, you know, um I had this exhibition called Goofon, which was in Lithuania, um, and I had this big love affair about three years ago, and um basically, you know, my ideas, my creative ideas come through my life experience rather than through uh, you know, some artists are very strategic about how they build their careers. I don't, in fact, I did a master's at Goldsmiths in London uh about I think it was 2015, and it was so interesting because up until that point I'd always thought that my creative practice was just like Wims Hill, or you know, like it was kind of in it didn't have substance or something because it was so ingrained in who I was as a person. And when I did my MA, I suddenly kind of the insight occurred to me that you know this has been a practice, this is my creative practice, and there's a huge context of other, you know, a huge context with within this practice sits, whereas I'd never really thought of that before. I'd always thought that I'd just you know kind of floated around or something, and it's not true. So um that was really interesting to to kind of see that through a different um lens, and that was very helpful to me. So I had this experience, you know, this really kind of very um profound and transformative kind of love affair about three years ago, and I was put in touch through the experience, I was put in touch with my sexuality in a way that I'd never experienced before, because I had I realized through this experience I'd taken on this idea of what it is to be a sexual woman in our culture through the eyes of the patriarchy or the the uh you know the kind of male gaze. And so that is you know kind of created and women conform to it because it's it's kind of often um uh embedded within the culture and individually internalized to such an extent that to actually that it's kind of like it it kind of replaces, I think, sometimes, you know, this deep connection to sexuality and sensuality that um this experience put me in touch with. And so what happened was it felt so free and so grounded, you know, it did wasn't like high sex, which I'm sure you know a lot of people have had this kind of you know, it wasn't that, it was very grounded, and I felt unfuckable with to in a way that was in life, Sarah?

SPEAKER_03 13:39

Yeah, it was like in life rather than not not just in the in the internet.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Yeah, no, it was like with this sense of um kind of I felt like my own power, uh like empowered in my body, you know, as a as a woman. And I thought, oh, this is really subversive, you know, this this kind of power, this energy is really subversive because what it does is it this it takes took me away from what I had internalized, which is a faux, it's it's kind of like a pseudo-sexuality, you know, really, this kind of performative almost performative in you know how I need to look to be deemed as a sexual person, as sexual women. Um, so anyway, so at the moment at the moment I wanted to like take a kind of capture it. So what I did with this um partner I had was I got him to take a photograph of the back of my hair every time we had sex. And so um it's and I called it Buffon because it was like this crazy like bird like nest type vibe. And I think he didn't take it as a challenge.

SPEAKER_03 14:50

I wonder if sometimes it was like, I'm gonna make sure that hair is extra.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

I mean I think I think he also was quite flattered, you know. He's kind of like, yeah, that's my work. But I I I was like, that might be your work, but it's also this is not about you, you know, which is I I don't mean that in a a kind of a uh majority way, but I just kind of felt like this is about female sexuality. And when I've shown this work to a group of women, say, like in a uh kind of a workshop context or whatever, the women all understand exactly what that image is, you know, it's the it's the back, but it's they've never spoken about it, but we all know what it's like to have crazy hair, you know, if you've had these passionate. And so I thought, oh, this is this kind of interesting um language, you know, this kind of invisible language never spoken about. And so I had this show in Lithuania, and um and it's also interesting because it takes it outside the male gaze. It's so difficult to express female sexuality without referencing the male gaze, you know, because it's so embedded in all of us. And it's it's it how do you, you know, it's kind of these tropes of what we need to be like to be considered in any way sexual in this culture. So that was really interesting. And then um, and you know, it's like an effect rather than a representation rather than a presentation of it, you know, it's like you kind of get what that image is. So I had this show, and it was um I had lots of interesting feedback, you know, and then I thought what I really want to do is have women from all around the world sending in images of the back of their hair after they've had sex. So I I originally called it well fart, you know, because it's kind of like after that, but because I think that was how fun for you, Sarah.

SPEAKER_03 16:47

I don't think them as they came through, and then obviously the collation process and then the exhibition.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

I think it would be incredible because also women don't need to show their faces, so it can all be anonymous, you know, and yet it's kind of like this shared um celebration. Yes, celebration, yeah, right. Shared um kind of experience, and um yeah, so I'm kind of pursuing that at the moment. That's one of my projects. But it didn't come from me kind of strategizing, it came from life experience type thing, you know. So it was good. So send them in, Sam. I'm expecting lots of photographs from you. Oh sorry.

SPEAKER_03 17:37

Oh my gosh, that is great, Sarah. And why Lithuania? Why why would it be there rather than London headed that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Um a curator invited me there and he had a gallery. So um I went there and it was really interesting experience. Just the feedback. You know, art is very interesting when you have an idea that's kind of incubating within oneself and then out into the world and then get feedback on how it's being received and whether that matches up or mirrors with you know the kind of intention, or often I learn more from you know what people are feeding back, also. So it's not about telling someone what they need to be thinking about something, it's more about presenting and um something that then has some kind of response, you know.

SPEAKER_03 18:28

And then liming back to uh you said the word whispers earlier around that you get whispers of different things to work on. Do you think that you had that when you were a child? Do you think that those whispers came and they've just gotten louder as you've gotten older?

SPEAKER_00 18:45

But yeah, I feel like um I've always, always kind of lived my own life uh through the I feel like that's the only way I've lived my life. And so the the shadow side of that is it can be I've had experiences when it's been very um frightening because I haven't had the um kind of the experiences or the symbols that people you know experience to then feel part of the culture, you know, as in um I haven't chosen to get married or have children or you know, all of that. And and uh so all I feel that I do have is this very strong connection to my intuition. And so at times that can be um you know di um disorientating. But I don't mean it in a negative way. I I think it's part of the process of of kind of living that kind of life, you know, without uh without knowing where the goalposts are, but it's more just kind of following the breadcrumbs of what what I'm where I'm being led and you know, taking action certainly. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

And does that describe a duality, Sarah, in the freedom and also in sometimes terror that you just described?

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Is that what you were alluding to? Well, I think it's all part of the same package, you know, and it's um but I had this one experience which was a life experience, was about maybe three years ago, and I got this sense, this kind of this whisper that about shaving my head, you know, to shave my head, and my hair was below my shoulders, and I just said, no, no, no, I'm not doing, you know, I was I was so scared about doing it, and the night before I did it, I was filled with um I woke up and I was really kind of um scared because the thing is we present in a certain way, and that is people rely on that, and and I it feels like it carries a lot of weight with regards to how we connect with others, you know, and so am I going to be unrecognizable, you know, am I gonna be abjectly kind of unattractive because I didn't know what my uh hair looked like without hair, you know, we don't as women, and and it's hair signifies such a kind of it's so it signifies you know the feminine and this is often what we are uh are valued for in our culture, you know. So um that that's the example of when I had a whisper that and at first I'm like I can't, you know, like I'm fighting, fighting, fighting, and then but I can't fight it because I know that and so what I felt would happen is that I would lose that I would lose everything, all the connections in my life. It was that extreme, you know, for me. And actually, what happened was I create it created a whole new life, really, because I found that a lot of people with those signifiers being removed of I present like this, and so therefore. You know, there's kind of unconscious ways that we get treated because of that. That all kind of left in a way. And so I felt like I was being treated and responded to more like a human being than as a gender-based, you know, kind of person living out something. So it was really, really fascinating. It was really it was so liberating. It was extraordinarily liberating. And it was like, you know, they talk about kind of um where they used to do rituals of you know, death and rebirth type type rituals that we don't have so many of those in our Western culture now. And that's what it felt like. And it was really liberating because it just I just kind of burnt off the old identity and then um and and went into the unknown, you know.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

So oh Sarah, I love as usual, I love uh conversations. Tell me with Buffont and what you just described, some of what you describe sounds like heading into eldership or helding heading into those uh next sort of stages of human development, I say quite loosely. With Buffont, do you think that some of the strengths that you got uh through that process and through the love affair that you describe, do you think that's available for women younger, or do you think that some of what you're describing in this conversation is is going through the experiences to then have both the courage and the awareness and the um incredible strength that comes?

SPEAKER_00 23:42

I I feel like it's both. Like some women, I think, can be very young and very in touch with their life force because Audrey Lord speaks about you know the erotic, not just as sexuality, but as the life force, you know. And so, but I also feel that, you know, something I've been reading about a lot lately, or it's been coming into my path, is about the emotional labour that women do, you know, to hold our whole kind of culture together and that whole society together, and it's invisible labour, and it's done um in ways that has never really been acknowledged before because it's it is invisible and it's also kind of conflated with love, you know. So it's often and it it is connected to love, but um it it can be exploited, you know. So uh I feel that so talking about this guy, I mean it's going into the kind of like I'm moving more into the chrome type archetype, you know, and so which I really don't want to be, it's very difficult to not be sucked into this idea of what we need to be as women to kind of still have a place because the crone is is um an archetype that is not really appreciated so much in our culture, I don't think, as compared to other cultures that really embrace and value that older women's wisdom. And um so I also feel like it's a letting go of the ways in which um you know we I've learned to survive as a female body person in the world, uh, and and seeing what's there when I don't do those, when I don't, you know, kind of resort to people pleasing in a way that's really in offensive or you know, if I feel sorry to interrupt you, Sarah.

SPEAKER_03 25:35

Uh the that's such an interesting comment, comment, as always, with you, Sarah. The crone archetype, I I hear you on that. And I also I think uh this is not to sound arrogant, but I think that you and I might debunk that a little bit because we're good role models to different people. We've got enough people around us that the crone in the past may I think partly because of the Western society and the uh I don't know, Industrial Revolution, the um kind of construct of society for maybe the last 50 years versus now. Now is with every generation it gets more complex. And I feel uh like uh you and I have both traveled, we're both um, as you said before, people who have decided not to get married and not have children. And we've gone deep in our own selves. And so as a crone or going into those sort of elder years, we've got a lot of life experience and a lot of depth to portray and to talk to. So I I love what you just uh uh voiced that I mean even the word crone, it's been so in the images that we've seen, it's it's often often really ugly. And yeah, and there's so much like I still laugh about when I turned 50. Facebook decided to tell me that I needed to change my outfits and what else was it? You know, my like my style was terrible pretty much, and then the Australian government sent me a bowel cancer test. So it was just all shit. There was no letter from the Queen at 100. There was no there was no like, wow, you've done a lot in life. Congratulations on reaching 50. It was just all shit. And um and and bad outfits.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Which is not true. It was not true. Thanks, Sarah.

SPEAKER_03 28:03

I still do love your beautiful jeans with the silks showing through.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

Um, just my pajamas, waking up in the morning and anything you wear.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

I think you always it's you know, you cut the trend, uh, you bring about the trend. Um, everyone's scrabbling to go to the upshops to find the uh the rich jeans so that they can put them silk through them, and you're just oh yeah, I just woke up like this. Talk about the most stylish crone I know.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

It's true. Do you know? Um I've got I had an insight about that too with the crone. It was really interesting because um I realized that a lot of women around my age, you know, who um their children were leaving uh the home, you know, leaving home because there was an age and and they were having, well, they often speak, you know, women have children, they speak about this empty nest syndrome and all of that. But I think there's something else in this, which is that for eons, you know, women have when they've served their purpose to society, which is having children, you know, in the eyes of our culture, then they're kind of discarded, you know. It's like and what I kind of started to realize was a lot of women took in that because they had done what what you know, I'm not saying they'd done it, but they chosen to have children, but I think sometimes what comes with that is the cultural pressures and often unconscious pressures that is part of the way that the culture, you know, uh society brings up children or whatever. And so I found that some women I know have also taken on this idea and they've had to fight this idea that it is now my time to be discarded, you know, because but I because I haven't done culturally and societally what was required for women to do, I think I've had those better battles earlier, you know, because it's like so, in a way, even though it was difficult to say, because I didn't really know where I fit at some times in my life, it's also liberated me from feeling like I am now going to be discarded. I have no feelings like that whatsoever. Occasionally, you know, if something, if I see a representation or I kind of connect to a representation that's very negative around aging women, then um I'm not immune from being affected by that. But I do think there's a liberation in not having done what society kind of you know says we should do. And and it's a continual liberation. So now as you know, entering into the second part of my life, and I don't feel those pressures to just become invisible, you know. I I've got no sense that I'm going to become invisible because I just feel like I haven't, you know, yeah. So there's something in the liberation of that, which I think is very helpful. And I think that our culture needs it, you know, it needs women to be visible and to be vocal and to be present in the conversations, you know, um, because there's a lot of wisdom there, and there's a lot of um that we all have, and we have different, you know, connection to our wisdom through our bodies also.

SPEAKER_03 31:34

And I I think back to being involved in developing products in the yellow and white pages at Census in uh the late or the early 2000s. And as I've started to need glasses, I look at uh labels on bottles and I can't read the ingredients unless I have glasses on. And I think back to those times at Census or Yellow and White Pages, and I'm like, oh, it would have really helped to have somebody my age on the team that's like, no, no, no, no, no, we're not going with that font size eight or six. No, no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Yes, 100%. Yeah. And I love your pink glasses, by the way, Sam. They look great. Thanks, darling heart.

SPEAKER_03 32:18

I uh yeah, I quite enjoy having the different glasses. I must remember when I was younger, speaking of uh image, I was always like, Oh, I'd love to wear glasses. Everyone looks so much smarter when they've got their glasses on, and then obviously everyone's like, No, you don't want them, they're gonna be a pain in the neck. And you're like, oh yeah, probably right. Um Sarah, what a joy to talk to you. And also you and I in our friendship, we it's not the main topic of conversation by any means. Usually depth is the topic of conversation between you and I, delightfully so. Uh we do have a camaraderie in a way, because we haven't had children and hadn't haven't gotten married. And I don't have I've got a couple of friends like that, and I love what you say. Um also I was so so lucky in navigating that for me because I had a beautiful friend and a yoga teacher in my late 30s, and she was just that little bit older than me, and she said, I'm not gonna have children by myself, and I'm not going to, I don't have a partner right now. And so there's no question for me, there's no decision to make around whether I have children or not. I'm in my late 30s, I don't have a partner, I'm not having children. And that was my through line through my late 30s and early early 40s, because I was of a similar similar mindset. And so sometimes I think the machinations in my mind or having lots of thoughts, it can be some simple truths can really just break through that. And that was one of them. And I've passed that on a lot to different women who are going through an angsty period in that um 10 years or so, even perhaps longer into the 40s now. And I think that that's quite helpful. And I I think it's um that invisibility, Sarah, what's coming to mind now is I had to go through a little bit of that in my 40s and 30s because I didn't have children.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the side that doesn't know what to really do with women who don't have children. It's kind of because it's set up, you know, for that's for women to it's that incredible song. I can't remember what it's called, but it's anyway. Um there's a couple of other things I want to say about that. Like my grandmother, who lived, I think she was about 103 when she died, but she, when she met me when she when I was 17, because she lived over here in the UK. And so um we'd met, she'd been over to Australia for a holiday and whatever, but when she met me when I was a young adult, like 17, 18, she said to my dad, that that girl will never get married and never have children. So, and it wasn't a negative thing, it was more just something, you know, like a sense that she got from me. And I'm not someone who has ever regretted either of those things. And I think that's good kind of role modeling for you because it's not like so many people who I kind of know as acquaintances over the years have said, oh, you know, have felt a bit kind of sorry for me or whatever. And I have just been like, no, I I I really it was not my path, you know. I'm a wicked auntie, like a wicked auntie.

SPEAKER_03 35:48

Wicked auntie, you certainly are. I love hearing, I can even just sense it in you, Sarah. So no, no, I've got so many questions around that. Did your grandma did you hear that when you were 17?

SPEAKER_00 36:00

No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 36:02

How long were you? How old were you when dad told you?

SPEAKER_00 36:05

I reckon it was becoming evident that it was pro se that was true in my maybe late 20s or even in 13 so I wondered because I wanted to know if it was something that you in a in a way you could have grown into.

SPEAKER_03 36:19

But um, yeah, that's so interesting. Uh yeah, so many things came to mind as you said that. It it's nice to talk about this, Sarah, especially in a recorded conversation, because I I feel like women who don't end up by having children, it comes back to the role modeling that I was just talking about before. It's nice to have people a bit similar to you, actually. Like I just always assumed that I would have children because it was part of the society that I was in, and it never came to be, and I did I don't know whether I I still feel young, so it's not like I have I really regret not having children because it was never on the plate for me. So it's not um but I definitely have had those moments where people have felt sorry for me or have have alluded to and the number of times I've been asked why I haven't had children in a public setting has been embarrassing for the other person. I just think like seriously, don't don't embarrass, you know, you're here with your wife or your husband, and he's a single person, and I'm pretty sensitive. It's like seriously, don't don't put the spotlight on me, like be kind.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

But it's also I think it shows about other people's limitations in a way, in that I I also can say that I'm sure that it is the most extraordinary experience, you know. So it's not that, oh God, you know, oh I didn't want children or whatever. I didn't, I didn't, and I wouldn't have been a good mother, I don't think, because my but I know that I'm a great aunt because that role really fits me because I like being, you know, challenging the way that people, the kind of um ways that you know, the conditioning that's passed down basically, and to really put a spanner in that works and then say see but and you know, so it's kind of like that is a perfect role for me. And but yeah, I just feel like um it's good to see women who have got a full life and don't feel like like I don't feel like something missing because I haven't done this thing that you know biologically I could have done type thing, you know.

SPEAKER_03 38:47

Yeah, and plus Sarah on the auntie side of things, I think that you would expose you would have and you will do exposed um your it's nieces and nephews, isn't it? I always think of nieces um two things, like it's not just uh yeah, I think to provide that um breadth of exposure is um is great to be able to show I I think this next generation they're getting exposed to uh uh so many more things earlier. Yeah. I I yeah, I think that that's a lovely role to be playing, to be able to pr afford, uh provide that.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

Yeah, and and I like what you say about you know feeling young because I think that what I was talking about before, this sense of you know, when people do have children and then their children grow up and and leave home, and then it's okay, it's time to be old now, you know, this feeling. I think some some women feel like that. I've I've spoken to women about this. Whereas for me, I don't feel that. You know, it's not like I'm an eternal teenager, I'm trying to be young. It's not like that at all. It's more just I don't have the signifiers to tell me that it's time to feel, you know, to get old now and and kind of disappear. So it's more just like it's how do I feel in my body, and you know, my and the liberation of the conditioning that I used to live by, you know, these kind of because we can't see it. It's it's just like it's completely in embedded in conditioning, and you know, and then I think there is as we get older, there is if you do do that work and the shadow work especially, you know, because I feel like the spiritual journey is for me, is kind of based in the shadow work because the shadow work is what blocks the connection to, you know, um kind of a life force, and and by looking at that, you know, the the byproduct is just feeling much younger and much more present, you know, because the conditioning can really drag us into the past or keep us in the past and keep you know, there's a heaviness around also. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:09

You've you do so well to articulate it, Sarah. You talked about life force before, and the connection to that is what you're describing. And how do you describe shadow work to people who have never heard those words before?

SPEAKER_00 41:25

I I feel like um they talk about you know spiritual bypass, so so people who always want to be in the light, you know, and and that is I'm a spiritual person because I'm always in the light. My experience of being a spiritual person is not that at all. It's like understanding and not dwelling and not self-flagellating, but understanding the blockages that I have to love, the blockages that I have to receiving, you know, the blockages that I have to intimacy and presence and all of that. And and without understanding that, I'm being controlled by the things that keep me stuck in those places where I can't fully experience, you know. And so it hasn't, it's not like I sit there going, okay, I'm gonna do shadow work now. You know, it's more that I seem to attract kind of experiences that I then work through like hit me straight in the face, like you're looking at this, you know, that then because I work with it consciously, I can then understand, you know, what um I can see something about myself that isn't present or you know, that then ultimately liberates me from myself. And so, and it's very, very helpful, but I think it's a difficult path too, you know, because the it's difficult to look at that type of thing, and you know, the difficult emotions that our culture doesn't like to um engage with or acknowledge, or you know, and I I just think without it, we we're living at the quest of you know the kind of unconscious forces that we don't really know there.

SPEAKER_03 43:03

I think and Sarah, one of the natural aspects of you as an observer, and no wonder you've done documentary filmmaking. And I I think uh in different ways you and I are similar that that observation, like I'm just curious about people. I want to no wonder I'm you know, yeah, in conversation before I did this knowing each other over the decades, that I'm just curious. So I'm often in question um or questioning. And I think that means that I have had more capacity not having had children and not being and being single in and out of relationships through my life, through my adult life. I've been able to observe friends with children and with partners and breaking up and then kids growing and staying together and all this sort of stuff. What you were just talking before about markers is really interesting because I've noticed that when the kids hit teenage years, it's like a constant with a lot of friends that the kids are constantly telling their parents that they're old. And so that stage that I've seen in a lot of friends that they start the adults in the family start to feel like they're getting older and then the kids leave and then they as you said like empty nesters and then suddenly it's time to be old. I um I've been like flying the flag so often of please don't say that you're old. You're not even in your 50s yet. And um I've joked and and I've said it on this podcast before because it's just it was quite profound to turn up to number one to turn up to the Nerd Hotel last year and a nerd hotel is a reference that other people used and I've just adopted it but to turn up to Malaysia with a whole lot of like amazing um people that are uh technic technology experts and then for people to refer to me as I'm the oldest there which was a real surprise like I'm like what do you mean are you right? Aren't we doing push-ups just the same and uh and to reach the reach that next stage of life start to be the crone amongst the tech bros how's that Sarah that's quite the life story isn't it and then the juxtaposition of that is great. Yeah and then also well you I mean there's a lot that we could spend a whole time talking about that because it's quite the the the rare uh experience and I st I still love flying the flag for being yourself being different and aging uh and I still love being fit I've been so fortunate with snow skiing because I feel the cold weather heralding and it's it's saying Sam are you fit enough yet mate if you're not enough you've got to get fit because you're about to be on your skis again and so if I haven't had a fit um 10 months or so then I've got to get back into work a couple of months out from snow season and between that and yoga I've been lucky to stay fit through my adult life.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

You're an amazing skier but also um talking about curious you're also an amazing listener you know and that is a real skill because often uh you know interviewing especially is really kind of an underappreciated or like it's a skill that is not validated so much in our culture because it's really it's only certain people can hold space for other people you know and so and I think it's it's often the people who look who are taking up the space you know whether it's in a in a kind of an unhealthy way or in just taking up the space you often get the attention or whatever but actually without people who can be present and hold and hold space for other people and be able to listen with curiosity it's not possible to do an interview. And interest you know I don't think because it's really not there's no authentic attunement and connection that actually creates a um an authentic conversation you know um and talking about aging I also feel like it's it's it's connected to what I was talking about with the shadow work because understanding these things that hold us back based on very very early decisions that I made when I was young you know that we all make when we're young is a way to survive in an environment connect in an environment and you know in the process abandon part of myself you know that then has to be retrieved much later on but what I think about aging is if we do that work and retrieve those bits through a process that's often difficult it's like becoming it's like aging backwards. I'm not talking about looks or whatever. I'm talking about getting rid of the things that that are heavy in our lives you know and being able to liberate ourselves from these decisions that we made when we were very young about how I need to be to be be connected and to survive and you know to be loved or whatever. And often these decisions are not they don't serve us in our you know as we get older in our adult life.

SPEAKER_03 49:03

And having dare I put words into your mouth Sarah but having that ease that comes from being connected to life force is the two words that you used before I might adopt talking about life force from here on out because I think sometimes spiritual spirituality or words like around them they just don't people don't connect well I find people that I'm chatting with that spirituality and it's sort of like when I used to do project management project management was just this bastardized word because it people it meant different things to different people and as such it was helpful.

SPEAKER_00 49:42

Spirituality I think especially religion but spirituality is so loaded you know in a very not in a helpful way.

SPEAKER_03 49:49

So um yeah yeah I think that um being that ease that hopefully you feel with all the work that you've courageously inner work that you've done the ease that you now feel and that connection to life force is extraordinary. I had a an experience just recently of oneness and I had this feeling of the mosaic of me through all the many people and all the many discussions through all the different aspects of me and then every person that comes to around me or is part of it it like it makes up the mosaic that is me and then the mosaic that is around me. And so that is my you know one of many versions of being able to describe the oneness that is in the world. And I really uh I don't downplay how much effort it takes to be able to get to that um those sorts of exposures to ways of seeing the world and to ease and to connection to life force I think that there's many many roads to it in many ways to feel that sense of ease um gosh there's just so many different um avenues as usual that I would love to go down. One of them is any tips for listening because there was such a compliment to hear you say about listening um the interpretation you have of me and through this podcast my through line is Rick Rubin because I listen listened to his tetragramatron many times and I loved how he would throw in a really great question sort of a learned question or a kind of a useful question and then shut up. And so through this process because I can get excitable I have through the podcast I'm constantly learning to uh shut up. So tell me about you with your documentary filmmaking and other things that you've done because my interpretation of you is that you're a great listener too.

SPEAKER_00 52:13

Ah thank you yeah it's um I've just got an innate as you have curiosity about people so um it's not something I have to perform or whatever. It's like truly I'm interested you know in and I think the other thing is this attunement you know emotional attunement to someone so not so not in a codependent way you know not but actually holding a space um for and so someone can feel in their body that you are emotionally kind of have their best interest at heart as well as connected to their experience so not trying to enforce someone else's you know my perspective onto them but actually um uh like bringing using the space to bring out their experience you know and their kind of identification and um and expression of that you know in ways that and I think it reminded me what you're saying with Rick Rubin that it's a bit like being an auntie you know like throwing like throwing the bomb question in or you know like that totally um subverts what they've been told in the past or whatever because it helps for them to think you know in different ways and um and yeah it's a similar thing in a way because it's you know it's always it's about an unpicking of a system that we've just taken on when we're young and so you know it's really important to challenge it and and question things, you know.

SPEAKER_02 53:47

But I think it's you know the listening is you listen with your body too you don't just listen with you know the mental the mind um you listen with the whole kind of being really oh I love that is the spunk that you are as an auntie and I love that you've filled it out a little bit more for me in this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 54:07

I also think I also think it's about discernment you know like the more the older I get the more I think life is really about discernment and understanding what's going on in the situation and how am I going to engage in it you know and how am I going to withhold my energy from this am I going to give to it you know before when I was younger I had no discernment so I'd overgive and I would just be available you know all the time.

SPEAKER_03 54:33

And Sarah welcome to the land of AIs because discernment is key right now. Ah right yeah because what do you put into your AI yeah it's about quality it's about discernment input in you know you can get lots of noise out if you don't think about the refinement or the discernment beforehand. I I really that might just be my interpretation in the way that I use or try to use AI agents and I also think that that's it's bringing a refinement it's bringing the uniqueness of Sarah the uniqueness of Sarah I really do think it's it's bringing that out so um I think that that's an exciting aspect or potential of um the technology that's so much in our psyche these days yeah it's like kind of embedded in there yeah mate that's a very interesting time what else are you finding interesting in these times Sarah what are you what are you going to be working on tomorrow when you wake up well I'm finishing I'm actually finishing a very long project that I've been working on for decades.

SPEAKER_00 56:02

It's a documentary film. Oh my god in the conversation we haven't even mentioned yet I'm happy to not mention it because it's it's been mentioned way too but um so I'm working on like the cut is finished like it's locked and so it's in with the sound designer now so that's kind I'm doing all those what New York was the what we were talking about at the start of these calls.

SPEAKER_03 56:29

So just give me the little quick give people context as to the project.

SPEAKER_00 56:36

So it's a documentary it's a a feature length doc film about a small hairdresser's in London that's had a very big cultural impact um in the UK as well as kind of around the world in in a way and I've been following it for almost 30 years the people who worked there and and it's really interesting because we captured this incredible youth culture in the late 90s um and it was I shot it all on 16 mil at that stage and um it was pre-digital it was pre-phones and so when people see the film now the young people they say that they feel nostalgic for a time that they were never part of because they see they relate to the youth culture they see that there are no phones there's no going back we didn't know what was coming you know after that um and so it's just really fascinating to have captured that at that moment and then and then after you know and see seeing what's kind of happened since then.

SPEAKER_03 57:42

And Serena so amazing because I'm looking at fashion now like leading celebrities and the fashion to me is like early 90s um like even the even the brown leather shoes and like the kind of bigger size blazers and stuff and I'm like hang on this is this is not high fashion to me this feels feels like stuff that we moved on from um but you just put it into a bit more context for me I think that that's so it's almost like zeitgeisty 30 years ago or 20 years ago when you were doing it. You didn't realize how on point it would be right now.

SPEAKER_00 58:26

Well yeah and and I have never understood why it's taken so long to finish this film you know but I think it's probably that there's yeah you can actually yeah you can see how our culture how society has changed completely through this microcosm you know of this place. And uh yeah that was not an original intention of the film at all. So it's very interesting to kind of see and you see people you know it's universal in its themes because you see these people aging getting older you know because there's still some of the same people who were there when I was filming at that time and so um yeah and it was it it went it showed it um Lakano Film Festival as a work in progress and it won a couple of prizes there. So um I'm just really interested and excited about getting it out into the world.

SPEAKER_03 59:18

And um what's that process Sarah? So you're doing it's you said it's in did you say sound editing what was sound design yeah sound design sorry and so what's the process from here to then getting it out into the world?

SPEAKER_00 59:31

So then after that um we have to do the post-production on the film um do all the grade do the DCP and then we are we're doing like festival strategy at the moment so it's kind of like having a premiere at different festivals around the world and see how that goes. But you need luck as well as you know as well as strategy.

SPEAKER_03 59:55

So and you are so on point at the moment but well in in uh your wording Sarah because there's so much commentary out there about um even someone said me sent me something of diary diary of a CEO who's a fellow who's done very well as an influential business um youtuber and beyond and uh somebody was dispelling the podcasts that are all like successful business people saying this is what uh this is how you do it and the um person was saying they're missing half of it which is luck so yeah you uh you're very much on point and the and I had a lovely conversation with Corinne on this podcast as well and she was saying that um as a leader an idea needs to have its time it can't it doesn't always work so just know that an idea has its moment so I think that that's a kind way of being able to soften blows for people yeah it's really I just want to say thank you so much what a lus conversation as usual is there anything that we haven't covered well there's plenty of things we haven't covered but is there anything else that you want to say at the close not really I mean I think it's been rich and it's been what it what it was you know what it is the conversation so it's um yeah it's just an intuitive like unveiling of what needed to be said in this moment so thank you so much it's always great to chat it's always lovely to see you Sam I will say darling right back at you thanks for listening to the Natural Genius podcast please share this with anyone who came to mind and visit us at naturalgenious dot com.au thanks so much