Episode 12: Bree - Becoming, Unlearning, Returning

Some conversations don’t tie themselves up neatly.

They crack things open.
They challenge perspectives.
They bring discomfort, honesty, reflection and vulnerability to the surface all at once.

In this episode, Bree and I explore relationships, emotional triggers, communication, self-awareness and the complexity of being human.

A conversation about connection, growth, accountability and learning how to sit with the parts of ourselves we’d often rather avoid.

Raw, reflective and very real 🤍

Intro & outro music: Flip the Script VIP by Ashez (used with permission, and gratitude)

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Alright. Thank you for joining me. Cheers. Let's start as we well, we've already started. Let's keep the energy going. Keep the momentum and see what comes up. I'm sitting here with my friend Brie and who actually is my coach. That's how the relationship started. That is a few years ago now. Mmm.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

When you were in a different space and time.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Yeah, it's funny to look back on where I was when I first engaged with you.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

We were both in marriages that we're no longer in.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

We both lived in towns that we no longer live in anymore. Were you in the city then? No, I was in Snails Beach. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

I mean ten minutes away. Oh god. Different houses?

SPEAKER_01 0:52

We were.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

That we don't own anymore?

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

A lot can change in a small amount of time.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

I know. Look, you were going through a lot in that time period. Yes, but you didn't know that. No, I didn't.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

You you kept that to myself. Yeah. Imagine if I dumped that on you far out. Wouldn't have been the right thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

No. I mean it just goes to show really, I think, that you never know what anybody is going through, you know? No, you really don't. No.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

And I think that's yes, quite often I can hear in my coaching room, you know, like, are other people really going through the same struggles as me? And I reply, yeah. Yeah. They are. And and things that you would never quite imagine. So many of the things that we move through, like grief, um all the different kinds of grief or health issues, so many of them are are invisible.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

You just see a person, you're like, Oh, I saw her just yesterday. She seemed really happy. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, well, she could have been in a curled up in a ball on her floor last night, absolutely sobbing her little heart out.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Yeah. Well, it's just minute to minute, hey. It's like moment to moment. It is. Like this morning I had a moment of tears and stuff, and then it's like you'd never know that you know, half an hour later I was in the supermarket.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Like I know you just never know. Yeah. You never ever know. And so I think making assumptions about other people's lives is probably one of the least helpful things that you can do for yourself and for others.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Yeah, very true. So you've had a f you've flipped a lot of big scripts in your life.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Yeah, I have. Many many a time.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I one script that I know of is your uh journey from the corporate advertiser media media. Yeah, that's right. Media into the work that you do now.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

Yeah. So interesting, eh? Because at the time it feels like a monumental decision and quite abrupt. But when I look back at it, it it was like in motion for such a long time without me even realizing the change. I was already um subconsciously figuring out ways to enrich my life more when I was in the corporate world. So I had been working at my job, which was in um billboard sales, for I think maybe three years, and it was just getting so stale and boring for me. I felt like my brain cells were dying. Yeah. So I um asked I just I wanted to do something more meaningful, and so I asked my boss if I could um mentor the younger girls in the in the office. If if they were open to it, you know, if it was something that they were interested in, because a lot of them were more uh what's the word, introverted types um and I and I knew from being their manager that they really wanted more confidence. But in my job as their manager, it was like that's wasn't so much a part of our day-to-day work. It was like, yeah, I need your help in getting these briefs out and doing this, you know, admin type work. But yeah, he said yes, and they were all keen, and I still work with some of them today as clients. Yeah, so that kind of started it. So, yeah, it's like sometimes you're moving towards things without even realizing that you're moving towards something, but it's like your your soul is being led, um, and you're not and and you're not even aware of it when you're in it.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

Of where the pebbles are leading you to, as we just talked about before. Yeah. Like, where is this podcast leading you to? You don't know that you're doing it.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Yeah, well, exactly. Or even a conversation, you know. I'd go in with some intentions, but you never know.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

You never same in a session in my room or online, you know. You could come in, you could come in to see me with the best, like, okay, I'm gonna talk about this and I'm gonna go through this and we're gonna do this. And does that ever happen? It's like, no, we start and then we flow, and then we get to a so unexpected same in our lives, and you could never have imagined what life has in store for you. But is it perhaps better? You know, it's like, oh my gosh, we could have never had planned for that. It's like just let's just be in the moment. Yeah, be wherever we are.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

So, did you I'm guessing ask me whatever you want to ask me.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Yeah, like when you put your stuff out there, we've just got a background noise issue. Someone's decided to do the weed whacking, as is always the case. Why does that happen? Every time I used to sit down with a client.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

I'll just pause stop and COVID. Okay, we're back after that short little interlude of the uh weed whacker. Thanks for that, neighbour. Of life. Same time. Exactly. Um so what I was doing was asking a question, and that is I'm sure it wasn't like one day your media brie, and then the next day your coach brie. Like, what did you have to let go of in amongst all that in order to go down this new path?

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Oh, so very much. And I will just say it was probably like my in terms of career, probably like if I don't know, pivot number four or five. So there was like a chain of events that had led up to this next moment in my life, but when I I kind of see everything as a transition. So my dad died of lung cancer, um and that was like this big turning point for me in terms of perspective and also just what I had to give, energy-wise, and what I cared about. And I know I no longer cared in the same ways anymore that I needed to to be a salesperson. So to be a salesperson, there's so much that you have to push down and suppress to show up for those relationships all the time.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Yeah, well, I guess you're always having to present a certain version of yourself, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:36

Every day. It's like you're playing a role, and you can only be one version of that role, pretty much. Um this turning point came, it was at the end of the year, they had asked me to host a client dinner uh drinks, sorry, at a bar, and then they said there's there's 40 of them coming. And that was probably two months after he had passed, and I had never been in this situation before where I had literally nothing. I went and I hid in the toilet cubicle for 10 minutes because I couldn't fake it. I I I just had nothing.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

I don't blame you, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

And thankfully, two of the other guys from my work had ended up joining, and I just said to them, I'm gonna have to leave. And then um come fast forward into the new year, I I got promoted to like this really incredible position that I had been pushing for as a woman in this company, like with so every fibre of my being, I'd been pushing for this promotion. Then they said, then they pulled me into the room and they told me that I had been promoted. And I went home and I balled my eyes out. I just and it felt like grief.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

And I was so confused. I was like, why am I crying? Having received this thing that I cared so much about. And weirdly, before my dad died, he had been coming to see me at work, like spending a lot of time with me in between his chemo appointments and going up to the hospital, of which there's heaps, you know, as you're entering your end of life. There's a lot of things that you have to go to. And he and he started saying to me, I don't you need to leave. I don't, I don't think you should be here in 18 months' time. He was like, You you need, you know, you have so much to give, Brie. Like, this isn't the right place for you. And I was like, Yeah, yeah, dad, sure. But it I think it was starting to give me goosebumps. What part?

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Just what what your dad said to you that you need to leave.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

Yeah, yeah, you need to leave. He was he was basically saying, like, you're such a beautiful person, like you're wasted. Yeah, yeah. What you have to give. And that felt really beautiful, I think, to be seen by my dad in that way. Um, especially at that stage. Him and I went on an incredible healing journey because our relationship was a complicated one. So him dying brought me a lot of healing, not just with him, but with men as well. Um that I digressed. So uh I actually ended up having a bit of a altercation uh thing with my boss, which um I just thought, nah, that's it. Like, I'm just dumb. I'm dumb, I'm out. And this is this is the third time that this has happened. I I left, like I gave them lots of notice, but I left and with no idea of what I was gonna do next. So I I've always been reasonably good at like having an emergency fund, not reasonably good, I have been good at having that. So I knew I could take three months off, yeah, just to really be. And so when I left, I was really committed to that. I was like, you're not you don't have to think about a thing until the first of June, essentially. But the change was so massive to go from being in an ad agency where it's all just like um it's quite intoxicating. Is it kind of like mad mini? Yeah, it is like that, yeah. Yeah, it still is like that. I mean, not to the some things have slightly changed, but pretty much and I don't know what it's I've been out for seven years, so I don't actually know what you're basing on back then, yeah. Yeah, and I had been in the industry 10, you know, 10 years earlier as well, but it was even worse. Um, so it was kind of like going from this intoxicating every single day, can't wait to get out of bed, can't wait to go to work, and just it's addictive, you know, being around people and and you're wearing your best clothes and you're going out for lunches with the credit card, you're not paying for anything, it's just like you're all caffeinated. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I I wasn't, but I was trying to, I was just keeping up on all the buzzes and yeah, um, and then moving to walk worth and just nothing and everything coming to a grinding halt, and I just remember it felt actually quite excruciating being in my own skin.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

I was like I'd gone from fifth gear to first, so I couldn't I I didn't adapt to that change like that. It took me it took me such a long time to get used to the slow living.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

And now I'm fully in slow living, and I'm like, come on, Brett, if you can pick up the pace a little bit. But yeah, I really had to let go of the I don't want if there's a word for it, it's like the it's like a sparkly adrenaline.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

I had to let go of all of that and just learn how to be in the moment.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Yeah. So um, and then I remember saying to my then husband at the time, I figured it out after like doing a little meditation practice every day for all that time. Um I said, I'm gonna become I'm gonna become a coach. And he was like, didn't you already know that?

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

And I was like, Oh yeah, well, maybe I did, maybe I've known ever since, you know, when I was like 18.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

Crazy. That is crazy, and my and but I think going from a really ego-driven world, completely ego-driven world, to then setting up my business. The remnants of that were still very present in the way that I tried to do things, but like life just wouldn't let me do it. Like, I tried so hard.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Oh, I I'm I'm feeling it. I know you're I've been feeling it.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

You're like beaming at me and nodding, like, you know exactly what I'm talking about, and it was just like, yeah, Bri, like that's not the direction that you're moving in now.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Do you think that you know sometimes you're like forcing energy into things to move at a specific pace or whatever, or do things a certain way, and then it's like Gemma, my whole adult life.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Yeah, I is there like not a person that couldn't relate to that? Like whether it's I must make this relationship work, I must get, I don't know, do this by this time, I must make this business work. You know, for me, I've just been on this whole fertility journey, I must have a baby, and then it's just like oh, it just causes so much suffering. And it's like, at what point can you just let go?

SPEAKER_01 14:43

It why why is it so hard for us to just like surrender and just be in flow with the universe?

SPEAKER_02 14:52

Well, we could go really deep on that, but essentially I would say it's not our fault.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

No, yeah, definitely I agree.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

I would say that, you know, if you look at the history of time and what's happened in each uh segment of time, whether it was, you know, the industrial revolution and then I guess capitalism really starting to um become a part of the modern world that we live in today. It's like our way of living now, in terms of the whole nine to five thing, which is actually shifting and changing massively at the moment. We're undergoing like a huge uh shift in those patterns. But like people kind of think that that's the norm, and I'm like, that's actually only been around for like a couple of hundred years. You know, like the way that people used to move and go through life hasn't looked the same throughout history at all. It's constantly changing and updating. So anyway, I'm just massively segueing, but like I would say that the way that you know, as you the way that the world's set up at the moment with school and university and then get a job, it's like that's why. That's why it's so hard for us to be in flow and surrender because the world has constantly put us in boxes and said you're this or you're that and you pick this and you're that and that means you're this, and it's like that has got nothing to do with who I am. I need to unlearn all of that so I can figure out who I am.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Yeah, that is a big thing coming up for me at the moment is like labelling things. Do you know what I mean? Like uh in terms of not labelling things, like What's an example?

SPEAKER_02 16:32

Well What are you labelling?

SPEAKER_01 16:34

I don't know, friendships, you know, like putting people in boxes or connections, romantic connections. It's like let's put you in this box, you know, or even myself, like you're weird. Putting myself in a box of like, oh, but I'm this, but it's like actually I can be both, or I can be something in the middle, like yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

It's quite funny actually, you've making me think of a conversation I had with James this week because as I said before, I've been married before, I did it in the traditional way, as in like I was proposed to said yes, we had a wedding, um, and then promptly that disintegrated. But I said to James the other day, who's my partner now, and who we had a commitment ceremony last year. Um so beautiful. Yeah, it was really beautiful, just a day for just us. And I must have seen something on TV or had a conversation, and I go to him, hey, would you ever propose to me? And he has like off the cuff, you know, in Thailand, but not like a big dramatic, just like he was just like, Oh, I just really want to ask you to marry me. I've just you know, I'm just feeling so much love in my system at the moment, you know, in my in my body. Um, he wouldn't have said in my system just being like, I absolutely did not say that. Um and then he looked like he just looked at me and he was like, ah, and I was like, yeah, nah. But it was just like this moment of like, should we put ourselves in a box? Like, should we do that? And then me just recognising like our love is not like that at all. It's based on so much just like wholehearted choosing of the other. There's just no need to um distill it down to this here, take this ring, will you be my wife? It just goes against not goes against, it just is not reflective of our relationship. Yeah, and so I just caught myself in that moment being like, wow, how funny that our human behavioural reaction is to wanna reduct something. Yeah, I want to reduct it down to something.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Why? Why can't we just be in the beauty of how happy we are?

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

But maybe I've just answered it. Maybe some people aren't happy, so they do need the the they need that as something to anchor themselves to.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Yeah. Well, wouldn't maybe it's the again like some weird conditioning or whatever, you know, like everything sh must fit in a box, like everything must have this label.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

I don't even know what to. I was just having this conversation this morning. Someone said, Are you a therapist? And I said, Well, yeah, that is pretty much what I do. Like I am a qualified counsellor, like that's that is the work that I do in the room. I don't have a word for it.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

For the ways that I work. It's so creative, it's so dynamic, it's so different depending on the person. I guess the best way to sum it up is a therapist so people know where to place me. But then the same thing with James, I'm like, I don't know what to call him.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

I have no appropriate word. I like the word partner.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Because it's like partner in life, you know. Well Partner in moment. Yeah. You never know, right? Partner and moment.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

I can get any but then yeah, I I do. Partner is probably the most um across the generalized, you know. But what I mean is like it doesn't It doesn't explain it. It doesn't say all of it.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

No.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

But I mean what word does? No. That's what I mean. I guess it's just a way, it's just a way for other people to make sense of it. Who is this person to you? What do you do for a job?

SPEAKER_01 20:28

All of this. Yeah, that what do you do for a job? I have come to dislike that question a little bit. Like I know that I ask it too, and I don't mind it being asked of me, but it's like that doesn't mean who I am.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

Can I tell you what happens in my body when someone asks me that question? It stops me in my tracks, and then I have that feeling of trying to get smaller and smaller and smaller to try and make a reduction.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

Or justify your existence. It's kind of in a way it comes up for me. It's like what do I do? Nothing. So are you gonna look down on me? Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

I can understand what would feel that way. I think for me it's like, but I do so much that I I don't I don't have an I don't have a word for you. So that's what happens. I just I stop in my tracks and then I start to like trying and go smaller, smaller, smaller to try and find it. Yeah. And so then I am like nothing's I don't know. Then then then the weird feelings of unworthiness perhaps creep in of like why am I thinking so hard about just I could just say, you know, I run a life coaching business.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

And I'm like, even that does not sum it up.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

No, it doesn't, because you're a writer. I know.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

And there's so much I'm a creative being.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

You are a creative being.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

No, I there's a part of me that um a lot of my work is around. Provoking provoking's not the right word. Encouraging reflection or insightful thinking. Um, it's a way, you know, like a lot of what I do is processing my own experiences and then giving that out so other people can process something of theirs in my writing is what I'm talking about. Um, but how the you know I can't sum that all up in a in a very small talky way, but I I'm not a big small talk gal, like yeah. I like going deep, and so but I know that some people don't like going deep, so for them it's just easier to be on the um easy skating on the top of the surface. Yeah, I just don't really know how to exist very much in that realm.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

Neither do I.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

I don't want to have a chit-chat about the weather, but I used to be able to immediate because that was my environment, you know, it was like that all the time. Bing bada bing bing bing. Yeah, and now I bet you I could have a conversation with someone and they'd literally be like, I have absolutely no idea of what that girl just did.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Leave him bamboozled.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

Yeah, I think that I speak in quite uh if I go of what ChatGPT's told me. I think I it's like I can think quite broad in terms of and quite abstract, so I have to remember to be like, okay, what is it that I'm actually saying? Because I know what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

I do it very similar thing. Yeah. Yeah. We've just got um we're big thinkers. We are big thinkers, and it's hard to try and put it all into yeah, one specific. Yeah, exactly. It's like, oh, my brain's off on this tangent. Oh, but what about this detail, you know?

SPEAKER_02 23:38

So you're perfectly designed to have a podcast.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

Imagine if you were just doing a show, what do you do for a job?

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

And what's your marital status?

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Yeah, no, no, not interested in that. Do you have a partner? Not interested in that kind of chat.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Um well, yes, I mean that's what drew me into you, is the fact that you how you um communicate, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

What I was moving through.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Well, I can't remember exactly at the time, but on social media it would have been, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

Yeah, I've always been quite comfortable with self-expression because I grew up in a family where that was really encouraged to express yourself, and it's my way of understanding my own brain and it's my way of uh making sense of the world, but as I said before, it's also about connectivity, so I put it out there because I think I bet you there are so many people going through the same experience, and if I can put words to it, then someone else can feel less alone. And that's always been that's always been there.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Love that, and that's something that I feel like for myself I've really gotta anchor into because I'm not used to self-expression in in a deep way. It's not how I've come across in the world, I don't think, up until recently.

SPEAKER_02 25:21

Well, you're doing a really incredible job of it. Thank you, and um And that makes it even more amazing that you didn't come from that environment.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

So I think anchoring into the why is very important, right? Yes. Yeah. Big time. Because I know for myself it brings so much um visibility anxiety. Sure. Like even though the intention, yeah, to work through that back end of stuff after I do the do or whatever. So I think it's um yeah. Did you experience that when you were first putting yourself out there?

SPEAKER_02 26:03

Yeah, I just want to say to that, what you've just shared, that that is just so cool that you're feeling that in doing it anyway. You're not letting it stop you. Yeah, because the reason why I'm one of the reasons why I'm saying that is because it never felt vulnerable for me.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

Really?

SPEAKER_02 26:26

Not not back then. So it was like uh just a I don't know, I think back then I was just in this weird uh self uh like uh to complete oblivion of like I don't know, I'm like untouchable in some way, like but but you know that my life burned down majorly after that, and so a lot of that sense of secure I think having a really strong group of like a strong tribe to belong to can buffer you in a big way, but when you lose but when you lose that buffering, you become you feel so vulnerable, so exposed, and that's why I'm like I'm kind of interested in people who don't have that buffering.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

I don't I don't have that buffering. There you go. I mean I do now through we're growing up. Yeah, yeah I do now through the friends and groups and collectives that I've you know that I've connected with along the last couple of years, but uh no, not really. I don't underneath it all have a very strong support system.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

No, that's why I don't really admire my self-expression from then because it wasn't vulnerable to me. And then only after going through that thing of like losing that sense of total security in the world because I wasn't my tribe, it's I don't have a better word for it, so um then I was like, oh, this is true vulnerability. True vulnerability is when you feel that feeling that you were just describing before about that visibility anxiety when you're literally out over there, yeah, away from the tribe, yeah, and you're trying to speak your truth or whatever, but you're just so alone. So alone. And I feel that those feelings of discomfort that we have are, and I'm not talking about terror, I'm talking about discomfort, are such a great sign that we're stretching ourselves somewhere new. So it's a really good sign when you're feeling that sense of like, say you put a boundary in and you feel so guilty, so bad, good, you're learning something new. Yeah, do it over and over and over and over again until you don't feel that guilt anymore.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

Yeah, something along the I saw something the other day, it's like just because you feel like shit doesn't mean it wasn't a good decision or wasn't the right action or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

Absolutely 100%. I think people get very confused about that, particularly after relationships break up. They think, oh, why I don't feel better? Like I should be back with this person. I'm very confused. Um, I'm just thinking of a situation with a client, it's a it's a bit more like everyday life type of thing, but she came in to see me and she was like, Oh man, last weekend, like I went to this gathering and this party, and I had such a good time, and I was really outgoing and and like having lots of conversations with lots of different people, and she's a really introverted girl normally. Um, and she said, I woke up the next morning and I had that anxiety that everyone talks about. She was like, So now I'm just like replaying everything that I did in my head, and I said, Can I just point out that you behaved in a new way for yourself? And then your system, your body, is like rad alert, rad alert, rad alert. This is not safe. This is not safe, but what you actually did was you were trying out something new for yourself, and that's actually, you know, not a bad thing.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

Yeah. Do you so you said you didn't feel it so much then? Do you feel it a bit more now? Constantly. Okay. Why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_02 30:04

I just don't have that same like sense of security, I suppose, in a I I think look I think I I actually almost don't have the word for this.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

When you either uh Is it the word excommunicated from a I think so, I know what you mean when you say that.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

Yeah, so like when you've been taken out of a tribe or when you've taken yourself out from my own experience, the the scars from that are pretty deep. Yeah. And so yeah, I guess it's um but it's so badass when I look at it because I'm like fuck, that's so cool that you're still paving your way, you're being a rebel, you're doing things really differently, you're you're you're putting yourself out there vulnerably, um even though there's you know potential judgment, um all of that. And I just think wow, that that's something to be proud of.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:14

Versus back then I was just kind of in my own, I don't even know what I was on. Yeah. Just and I and it's not to say I was going through incredibly painful things. Like my marriage was dissolving, and it was the hardest thing, you know, to go through making that decision to leave my marriage, and you know, I was absolutely wracked with grief, but yeah, there's something about the way that I am now with without my buffering that is um that feels more truthful, I suppose. Because I well, actually, I think I've just nailed it. I'm living a very truthful life now, and that feels very vulnerable.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

Wow, and it is, that's awesome. It is a very you know it's not the you it's not the standard. No It's not the societal norm, is it?

SPEAKER_02 32:14

To No, and it's certainly not the societal norm to um share your what you're moving through in a um appropriate way. Yes. That's not the norm. No, it's not what you see.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

I mean like Yeah, no, it's not. And that in a creative process. Exactly, and that's what bothers me a little bit. It should be the norm.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

Yeah. Can I ask you a question? Sorry, we can come back to that. You know when you said it's what connected me to you back then? Can you remember what it was, what the feeling was that it gave you when you found whatever it was that you found, or read whatever it was that you read, or saw whatever it was that you saw, what was the feeling that you got that you experienced?

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Well, I can tell you, it's that I was like, I'm not alone.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Yeah, that someone is speaking about things not speaking, you know, putting it out there, yeah, about things that I think within myself and yeah, didn't know that anyone said it out loud or put it out there out for the world.

SPEAKER_02 33:27

I feel so much joy when I hear you say that, because that's the that's the main intention. It is for me of why I create for people to feel like, ah, like I'm not I'm normal, like this is normal, because I see it all the time in in my room of you know, people just feeling so like they're moving through life alone, yeah, and I'm here to tell you that you're not.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Yeah, and I think that's kind of my mission too, is to create space for people so that they don't feel alone. We're all in this human experience together, right? Like I know.

SPEAKER_02 34:05

I had this like young uh I've got a younger friend in my life, and she had said to me once, must be hard to pee with friends of people who are a lot older than you. Like, I just feel like I can be such a pain in the ass. But she like when you're a bit weathered, a bit bitter, like a little bit cynical. Anyway, she asked me one day, do you think it's possible to get through life like kind of unscathed?

SPEAKER_01 34:32

And I was like, My face is like hell no. You know, like without would you want to?

SPEAKER_02 34:37

No, but she was meaning like without any big losses. She was like, I've seen you girls go through, you know, really big losses, and I and I just looked at it and I said, I don't think so, unless you die young, which is a loss and of itself. It's just that you're not here to experience it, right? Yes. But like to be alive is to know loss and is to know love. Yeah, you can't have one without the other. Yeah, more and more so as you go through your 30s, I think, is a big decade of loss. It can be loss of identity, loss of friends, loss of partnership, loss of career, you know, moving into different there's so many different kinds of loss, but yeah, I think that that's a big decade for people. You're nodding because you you've all you've lost yeah, yeah, you've lost things.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

Because yeah, my 30s has been a complete frickin' flip in the script. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

I think it is what happened. Like you're so well, and I oftentimes people in their 20s are so intent on how life is gonna look and what they're building and what needs to happen, and then you get to your 30s and you're in that whatever that life is that you've created, but then you're discovering who you really are, and so holy shit, then um some of that life starts crumbling or falling away, particularly if you're doing the work, like um, or it can just happen to you because life's got another plan, and then you get to a 40 and it's like, whoa, for me, I just really feel like it's such a crossroads, such a big crossroads of like, particularly when you don't have children. And maybe for people and for people who probably do have children that are like getting to be leaving home sort of age, and it's like, yeah, what am what am I doing with my life? Like, I know what I've where I've been, but like what what next?

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Yeah, it's a real rebirth. It is a real rebirth. And I think like for me, like sometimes I go, Oh, like I'm becoming somebody new, and it's like actually you're not becoming somebody new, you're becoming who you were meant to, like who you are deep down underneath it, or before you, you know, were too influenced by your friends and by your family and society and yeah, just you're really going down to like who what are my values underneath all this noise and blah blah blah, right?

SPEAKER_02 37:08

Yeah, you're becoming who you've always been.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:13

But it's some underneath it all.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

Sometimes for some of us though, it's a very kind of the word that comes to mind is torturous, but it's not torturous, it's just a very challenging I think the more you fight it, the more torturous it is.

SPEAKER_02 37:33

Based on my own experience over the last few years, I've fought what I haven't wanted to be true. Yes. Like coming away from my friendship group, I'm like, I fought that so much within myself because then I had up if I don't, like, I'm acknowledging that it's real. Yeah. Same thing with like, you know, trying to have a baby. It's like I've fought so much of like and been so single-minded around it. Um, even though before I was like super casual and fine, but just sort of sort of like jumped on this gravy chain. And so I think the more that we can accept life as it is, there is nothing to fight against.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

Yeah. Well, comes back to again is like flow and surrender and doesn't it?

SPEAKER_02 38:21

Sounds easier.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

Yeah. It does.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

But I do think for me reaching um for me reaching 40 has been like a massive process of that um coming out of the torture now and just being like, oh, oh, okay. Like I can just accept things as they are. That's the place that I've reached after a good few years of torture and and yeah, seeing what's next.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

I don't really know, but I don't know if you had this feeling. I have always felt like I'm guided by something else. Yeah. I always feel that at play in my life. I'm like, I'm doing something, I have no idea why I'm doing it, but I'm doing it. That's how I feel with my writing.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

I'm just being guided.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

I do feel that. Yeah. Yeah. I think that we all have a path. Like, or we all have a kind of plan or whatever. What is it? I think that we all have a path. A main path, and maybe we don't we could go down multiple different roads, but I think it's still gonna eventually take us to where we're supposed to be.

SPEAKER_02 39:41

You know what they say sometimes, you know, people who are, I suppose, into philosophy or um who are into past life stuff, or which, you know, I'm definitely one of those people, but Me too. That there is, you know, the the pathway that you have chosen before you even come here, and then um, but that you have free will. Yeah. So you can fuck it up at any point. And I and I feel like I have fucked it up, and then it's just gotten to this point where yeah, like I feel like I've had really, you know, divine intervention where it's been like, someone's gotta go get her out because she might die if we don't.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

I I anchor to that thought myself when I like do something, then I'm like, should I have done that? Should I have not? And then I'm like, fuck it. It's all gonna, it's all gonna lead me back to the path.

SPEAKER_02 40:32

What a great way of making peace with it. It's all good. I'm on the path. We're not in the same place.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

We all love a funny story as well, you know.

SPEAKER_02 40:41

Oh yeah, if if nothing else, the story is the but you're like, yeah, I'll just torture myself to get a good story, why not? Just to give other people a good chuckle.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 40:56

Oh life, life, man. It's a real roller coaster ride. Twists, turns, inclines, highs, lows, screeching holts, uh, no seat belt, flying out.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Yeah, exactly. What are you fit really feeling into at the moment?

SPEAKER_02 41:15

Like, yep, that's a great question. Uh I have just moved through a lot of acceptance and letting go. Uh yeah, so it's still it's still emerging and formulating within me, but I just sat down and said to James about an hour ago, um, oh my god, I said, It's so weird. I haven't allowed myself, uh hang on, I just want to collect my thoughts of how I said it. I said, I've always known almost more so that having a life and being not having children would be a great life. I said, but with all of the stuff around trying for a baby, I really suppressed that because I didn't want to be responsible for if I didn't, you know, my thoughts making me not have a baby. And so I was kind of like in this phase of denial. I said, where I where I've really arrived at is recognizing that I can still be honest about those feelings and know that I'm missing out on the kind of love, you know, and and the experience of even knowing what it is like to have a child, and I've been massively processing that grief as well. But like it's okay for me to think that life's okay without one, and that's where I was at the very beginning, but I kind of felt like I had to expel that part of my thinking or that experience just in case I was responsible for not having a baby. And I'm also really recognising that he's okay if we do have kids or if we don't, whereas for a while there I I think I just decided to not believe him. I was like, no, deep down, he really wants to have a baby, even though he's told me so many times. He's like, My life, it's just amazing either way. You know, that's big when when men can, you know, have babies for ages longer than a woman, and and you're like, Oh, do you really mean that? But yeah, I guess that there's just such a freedom in arriving that in arriving to this place after these three years that him and I have been through of like, gosh, it's okay to imagine a future without a child, yeah. It's okay to imagine one with one. I just don't know what's gonna happen. So yeah, I kind of am feeling like I'd like to write an essay on it, but it's so layered, and it's so there's so many l um junctures throughout the whole experience that I just need to either just free right or spend some time thinking about how I want to articulate it so that people who are in a similar because like having children's the norm right in society that's like um the majority yeah so it's just like how do I articulate this like I'm not gonna do IVF I don't want to adopt a child if like I just want to be with where I'm at.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

Yeah yeah and I think it's awesome that you are sharing some I'm sure there's a lot of the process that you know we're not seeing or hearing or whatever but I think it's awesome that you are putting out there what you do want to share.

SPEAKER_02 44:54

Yeah thank you yeah can I just say and this is like a I'm you know hate to use a spiritual term I do generally hate to use a spiritual term but I honestly feel like this is the biggest ego death that I've actually ever had ever of like because it's like well what is it what I've probably been fighting against is like but if I'm not a mother then like I'm not good enough. Yeah so it's like is another dissolution of my ego but it just in such an ass kicking way particularly coming from a family where there's so many children and so many women there you know and like I'm doing it differently. Yeah it looks different and I just want to be a part of the herd let me be a part of the herd so I can be the same and I'm like oh shit Bray well you've never really done things like that so this is another way where you just yeah but it feels good to have finally reached a point where I'm truly letting it go and like also having moved through the the darkness that well not the darkness sorry moved through the deep heartbreak that I've been feeling around okay shit I just yeah I might I have to let that go. Yeah I have to let it go. It's not up to me. And I don't want it to I don't want to put it in my own hands. Yeah and I'm sure it's something that's gonna keep you're gonna have to keep you know I know it's such a light roller coaster right it's like um yeah you you reach a moment and then you're like oh cool you know like I'm feeling this real sense of liberation and then like a new that arrives.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

Yeah because it's everywhere it is it is and I think but it's all like anything in life and that's probably the yeah that would be the biggest and hardest one of the biggest and hardest like any kind of healing or grief or big life kind of processing it's like you don't kind of just arrive at a place well you do you kind of come out the storm a bit maybe and then you're like yeah it's a the oh the sun's coming out you know and then it's like oh here comes another frickin' rain cloud.

SPEAKER_02 47:21

Yeah but there's no I yeah I think you're right it's like there's no getting to a new awareness without experiencing it. So reading about it doesn't compare to experiencing it. It's a totally different kind of knowledge. And so but I feel like once you do have the the um the new awareness in your body I don't think you can unlearn that even if you might still have little stumbles and falls and yeah it's just it it always just the sensation of it in my body is like a flower unfolding. Yeah. Truly like just oh there's a new bit there's a new bit my my petals are unfurling there's a yeah just bit by bit by bit by bit I'm getting this I'm getting this picture but I can't have it I can't go from seed to a flower and bloom overnight. So yeah I I don't know but but the journey has just been so so rich like I have had the most incredible insights throughout these three years that I would not have experienced had I not gone through it. But if you'd said to me at the beginning okay you've got two options we can just give it to you or you can go through option B which is like where you you are going to gain so much wisdom through going this experience but you we're not gonna give it to you um well and I still don't know if it's gonna be given to me but um I'd be like back then my little ego would be like option A option A just give it to me give it to me yeah I just want it yeah it's like it's actually a really good thing to go through to not get not get what you think that you want I think that's a really important thing to go through.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

It is yeah you really have to like um figure some shit out with yourself yeah big time yeah I mean I can only imagine what it would be like to go through what you've gone through the last couple of years.

SPEAKER_02 49:28

Yeah it's been it's been a real um here we go it's been a real it has been a real spiritual awakening for me just having to really trust life yeah yeah the more I rage against it the more it I mean maybe it's fucking stubborn like me it's like she ain't getting the listen yeah we're gonna dig in boys yeah yeah I don't know I yeah I have no idea but it's just like well we're not just going to give you that because you're a toddler having a tantrum saying I want that doll yeah doesn't work like that lady we're gonna get to the bottom of it yeah you're obviously here to learn a lesson you ain't got it yet yeah I think I'm getting it yeah sometimes it's like fuck the fucking lesson I know yeah oh we did this listen I trust you I promise I've learned please still doing the top you know what's really weird one it's all the things that I was a bit like um worried about in terms of like what I would lose if I became a mum are all the things that it have happened to me over the last three years of trying I lost all of those things anyway wow so I was like I stopped this is gonna sound let me just think about this like oh what if it affects my relationship with James you know it's going to it's gonna change it I d you know I want our relationships to stay you know as beautiful connected and connected as it is oh um what's my relationship to myself gonna look like what's gonna happen to my independence and autonomy and so just by nature all those fears became real over that time you know like you know of oh gosh my my presence with James is different because I'm totally distracted by this goal you know my aliveness is completely shut down because I'm so focused on the one thing that I don't have yeah I'm not living my life in the way you know in this full way yeah so everything that I was afraid of happened so now I'm like nah you you know it's I'm letting it be and so then I've like oh my god all this vitality's coming back all this attractions coming back all this and love feelings coming back and I'm like okay good sign I'm back in the juice of life again yeah I'm not like a strung out old tea towel it's like what on earth you didn't even have a child and then you ended up doing that to yourself yeah by trying to become a mum yeah again it's like just flowing with today when we're trying to like we're not living in the kind of now on what we do have and we're like oh but what if when this happens and it's like well that hasn't happened. It hasn't happened yeah yeah wake up it hasn't happened yeah wake up to your life yeah wake up to what you do have yeah but I just want to give so much compassion to anyone who's in that experience because it is the biggest head fuck. Yeah it's just huge oh and you know what bothers me as well it's like the most deserving people yeah it doesn't work for them sometimes and it's like but they deserve it way more than what I'm seeing over here I know isn't that bizarre so weird but when I used to worry about whether like I was like I worked with this amazing coach and I was like I'm just I'm worried that I it's because I don't want it enough that's why it's not happening and she said Brie so many people have children who don't want children and that really hit home for me I was like oh phew I was putting all of this you know of course that's what I do pressure and responsibility on myself and it's like it doesn't work like that. Mmm yeah it's not how much you want it you know and maybe it's like well why are you wanting it? You know why are you wanting this so badly and you know what a big part of it for me was like feeling because I because other people wanted it for me so I wanted to make them happy.

SPEAKER_01 53:41

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 53:42

Isn't that crazy that that would go with the vibes of my whole life I was like oh you know but like you know my sisters and my mum really want me to have a baby and so I'd be letting them down if I didn't and like they've never put any of that pressure on me.

SPEAKER_01 53:56

Yeah articulate just because they are and I'm not and I'm like oh you know yeah they just yeah I guess feel the love in that situation and they want it for you too exactly they want me to experience you know what it's like to be a mama thank you for sharing no problems and didn't think I'd talk about that but that is what is very alive for me at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 54:24

Just like starting to get my spark back and let all of that go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:30

Yeah well thank you for sharing because I'm sure there's a lot of people out there in a similarish situation that are you know battling with this. Absolutely because I I could only imagine that it is a battle.

SPEAKER_02 54:46

Yeah so and it's you know it's it's a very confusing one when it's such a normative experience of society today. Still it is and and and what the messaging that women get around aging and the age and age 40 and what that means. Um yeah we there's so much that's like you're drying up your dye you know like yeah your time's coming to an end it's like what I might only be not even halfway through my life yet.

SPEAKER_01 55:26

Yeah I mean for me personally as I'm nearing like heading into my four fourth decade I feel like life has just bloody begun again.

SPEAKER_02 55:37

Amazing yeah good yeah and I'm sure when we look back that it will be what it is.

SPEAKER_01 55:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:43

Yeah for me it's almost like I'm turning 21 again. That's the feeling of like beginning again.

SPEAKER_01 55:49

It's just so much I mean yeah if yeah there's so much hope and possibility in ways that you just didn't know. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 56:01

I know we just And isn't it weird because you'd think that you'd feel like that at any stage.

SPEAKER_01 56:06

Yeah but like what is it about the beginning of decades that makes us just yeah get into such a different or different headspace And I think for women you know like we've 'cause we've gone through the 30th the f yeah the third decade and gone through the identity crisis and the relationship and the friends loss and all that kind of stuff flint friends switching up and and then it's like um you have a lot more wisdom well hopefully a little bit have hopefully a lot more wisdom. Experience a lot a lot more yeah and you're just like I don't this is me and I don't give a fuck kind of in a way like a bit more and you know you know what's so weird there's like two parts to that for me.

SPEAKER_02 57:00

Yeah. Because there is I don't give a fuck as in I am being me regardless. But there is also a part of me that gives more fucks than ever.

SPEAKER_01 57:09

Okay. Yeah yeah interesting eh of like yeah I don't quite know how to describe that of like and maybe that part of me is still dying but yeah and even as you said that I was like I'm glad you said that because there's one part of me that's like I don't give a fuck and then the other part that I like try to shut down that's like but we do give a fuck you give a fuck of course you do like I I deeply give a fuck I give so many fucks that it like um I could do with giving less you know it's overwhelming how it's overwhelming exactly I feel so deeply and I could it would be nice to feel a little less deeply but obviously with whatever path I'm on in life this is how I am made and it's a blessing and it sometimes can be a curse.

SPEAKER_02 57:58

Yeah yeah yeah for sure thank you I think that's a lovely place to end it thank you so much for having me and just allowing me to share some of the it's uh to share some of what I've been moving through. I haven't gotten to do it in this sort of a space that's been through my um writing which if anyone's interested you can find that on Substack under my name Brie Nichols um but yeah it's great to do it conversationally thank you for the opportunity just to share some of what I'm moving through.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

Thank you thank you for sharing with us