Hi guys, and welcome back to a litle bonus episode.
Well is it a bonus?
That's a year in review.
We're doing like a little sum up, a little rear in your view.
That's why I just went to say, I'll give you a little.
Rear in your view, a little view of my rear.
If there's anything that describes the year, that is it a rear in your view.
That is what I.
Literally just said.
Britt has completely checked out, she's not even here.
We're doing a year in reviewer.
We just thought we would take a little look back at twenty twenty one, some of our favorite.
Moments, some of your favorite moments, some of the.
Shit that went down, some of the memorable things, some of the things that we thought we just have to immortalize here forever. I think we've spoken so much about how I've said it, and I kind of take it back. I've said that twenty twenty one was a dumpster fire of a year, and I think for so many of us there were some very challenging parts of twenty twenty one.
But when I sat back and listened to the podcast and listened to so many of the episodes that we have covered, I also have loved so much of this year, and I think we can often in life choose to focus on the negative, or we can choose to focus on the positive and the way that we perceive what's going on around us, our reaction to situations can definitely form our own personal feelings towards it, and looking back, I was like, Gosh, we've had such a It's been
such a huge privilege to interview some of the people that we've interviewed. It's been such a huge privilege to engage with so many of you from the community, and so we wanted to put together this little episode a highlight real looking back on our favorite interviews, our favorite moments in time, so we can walk down memory lane together twenty twenty one hand in hand.
One thing that did happen in twenty twenty one.
That I think we can look positively on is we welcomed producer Keyshirt to the team.
I like to think of that as a positive.
Laura, do you it's really been a highlight.
I would say that it is my suite.
Of twenty twenty one, But we actually are going to trust her a little bit more than ever here and she's going to take over this episode, she's going to go through some of the highlights this year, You guys have had nothing but praise and love for Keisha, much like us, so we are so stoked be taking Keisha into twenty twenty two as well. And also we just want to say that we hope that you guys had
an incredible Christmas. We hope that you have a cracking New Year, and we'll be seeing you red hot and ready back in twenty twenty two. Well, actually we'll see you with a few bonus episodes before then, but we're we back and in twenty twenty two, we're giving you an extra episode a week. Now. Don't say we are not good to you, but that is in the form of our radio show. So we do have a radio
show coming every Saturday ten to twelve. We expect you to tune in because we're going to really need those ratings coming out of the gate, so that would be great.
Please just go.
And sit in your car, even if you're not actually in your car. Just run your car, turn the radio on, and listen Striving on your laptop.
I do do it on an app. Put on an app.
Okay, get everyone you know to sit in their car.
Turn the car on, get your apps, everyone tuning just for the start, otherwise they might come down on its heart. Yeah, but there's only one other female led radio show in the country. It's Umi Steins and Kate Longbrook, which is the three pm pickup.
And they're against the big guns.
The big Guns.
They're great.
Have been so incredibly fortunate to be given an opportunity to be the second female led radio show, which is why we need you, guys to listen on every fucking device you have. Anyway, that episode from the radio will drop into the feed so you can listen to it at a later date, but we prefer to listen in real time.
But here we are.
We will hand you over to produce Akisha to give you a little walk down memory lane. We hope that you love this as much as we did creating it.
We can't wait to see you in twenty twenty two. Hey, life is it's Keisha here.
What an absolute pleasure it is to be hanging out with you and looking back on the year that was twenty twenty one and thinking about all the highs and the lows.
They're definitely worse and sucks. Maybe this is something we could.
Do actually I thine we should start a thread in the Facebook group.
It's not a wedding.
Hashtag, don't worry, it's also not a photoshot request. Maybe you should start a bit of a thread of our suck and our suite of the year. I think for a lot of people myself included, Suck of the year would have to be lockdowns, and my suite of the year was for sure joining the Life Uncut family.
I'm so lucky.
I get to hang out with my two bosses who feel more like sisters now every day of the week. And we have absolutely loved making this podcast.
It's just been one of.
The best things I've ever gotten to do in my life. So let's jump into it. The very first person that we are flashing back to is someone who has written a book or two in their time, sold fourteen million copies if I'm being more specific, it is Mark Manson, who is the author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.
Now. What I love about Mark Manson.
Is his no bullshit kind of attitude to life.
I really really enjoyed this chat.
I loved what he had to say. So let's jump into it.
Puck for anybody who hasn't read The Subtle Art of Not Giving a fuck? Can you give us a quick sort of run down on what is the philosophy of not giving a fuck? What does that mean?
The subtle are not giving a fuck? It's a little bit of a trick, you know. It kind of it lures people in by by making this promise of like, oh, yeah, all your stress and anxiety, like you can just not give a fuck anymore. But what the book quickly kind of flips on you is the point that we all have to care about something. You have to give a fuck about something, and whether you realize it or not, you're always choosing what you're giving a fuck about. You're
always choosing what you care about. And I think that realization of that, that constant process of choice is an extremely profound one because it calls in the question a lot of things all across our life, you know, like if you're not happy, why aren't you happy? Like why are you not choosing the things that will make you happy? If you feel like a failure, why are you not choosing the things that will make you feel like more
of a success. And so it's kind of this, Uh, it's strangely a book kind of about radical responsibility, but it's also about you know, I wanted to write a book that was very much against kind of all the traditional cliche, positive thinking type of stuff. Life is full of suffering and hardship, and that's fine, Like it's there's no way to avoid that. It's actually the suffering and hardship that makes life feel meaningful. No matter what you do,
you're going to fail. Every relationship you have is going to hurt you at some point it. You know, that's the cost of having close intimate relationships. So there's there's literally nothing good in our life that doesn't have some sort of like negative association with it, and so a lot of the book is aimed at helping people learn to accept that instead of try to run away from it.
One of the things why you sort of said, like the question isn't why do you care about things that are trivial, but why don't you have more important things in your life to care about? Like you've got everyone's got the same amount of bucks to give, So why are you giving yours to such small, insignificant inconveniences is actually a reflection that you don't have anything big and important happening in your life, and that's the real problem.
Yeah. Absolutely, And you know, it's probably the most common question I get from people, especially people who read that book, is how do I stop giving a fuck what people think about me? And my response is, you can't. You have to care what people like. It's good you care what people think about you. You know, we have a name for people who don't care what people think. It's called the psychopath. You should care what your mother thinks, you should care what your friends think, you should care
what your coworkers think. The problem is not caring what people think. The problem is that you don't have anything more important in your life than what people think. That's what's missing.
Oh good, I just want Mark Manson. He's so incredible. He also has a really good website if you are the type of person who likes reading articles. I tend to find myself on his website quite a lot. So there's a little something for you to do over the holidays. If you really enjoyed that chat with Mark Manson. Coming up next in a Year in Review, This is one of our favorite segments of the podcast. It definitely provides the most laughs. It's called accidentally unfiltered and it's where
you write in your most embarrassing stories. And we did an entire bonus episode of your Dating Accidentally Unfiltered, and the episode was called we Don't Fuck on Weeknights.
And here's why.
We did the call out for you to send us your most embarrassing accidentally unfiltered dating stories and we will get into them in a second. But one of you, and I'm gonna keep you anonymous because I you know we.
Do that for you.
You're all anonymous, You're always anonymous. No one needs to know this. However, one of you, you're a fucking rock star. You sent us a synopsis instead of sending us one accidentally unfiltered story. You just went through your whole dating list. And I'm gonna read this out because this just had me in hysterics. And I also think this really encapsulates.
Dating in the modern day.
So if you think you're having a rough time in alone, Todd couldn't get it up and sent me fake flowers to work. Andrew g Andrew g shocking sleep apnear and I had to sleep in another room Jane's. He got locked out of his house and I had to break in him as koona guy caught a blue tongue lizard and played with it for ages. Tim Age rocked out to first date of Vaga and Coke. Turns out he was married Tim Mel. He could only come when I told him I wanted him to come in my mouth.
Where does this girl get these days? Josh won't fuck on weekdays?
There's so many more that I was like the first five, man, I feel for you, but I also I can relate things. Two things. Did he bring the blue tongue lizard or did he catch the blue tongue lizard on the day? I think he like they maybe they went for a bushwalk and he caught a blue tongue lizard and then he was like, well, this is more interesting than date played with the day. Who doesn't fuck on weekdays?
Is that like a superstitious thing?
This could be like a new motel don't fuck on weekdays?
Do you know what I was thinking?
As you're reading that, I was like, I could write one of those, I men, it would be so long. To be fair, I think I only have sex on Saturday night. That's when the kids are in bed. You know, I don't think that's because it's a rule. I think that you just exhaust it and like that's the day of the week you get to do it.
Fuck, where do I start?
That's literally this girl, Where do I start.
I'm well known for liking my older men, the silver foxes, and I'm also by. Anyhow, there's this guy that I got set up with on a blind date from a workmate. I've dated two people in the last eight years, so you can imagine how nervous I was. I reluctantly go on this date and this guy, Oh, my fucking god, he was sexy as fuck.
There's a lot of fucks in this It's like I thought they saw a lot.
Like instantly I got the fanny flutters ladies, you know, the kind fox. We started getting to know each other and we go on a couple of days. We had that big oh several times every time we hooked up. I'm talking with sex is mind blowing, incredible. This is why I like older men. The floodgates were definitely opened.
Eventually, I tell him.
I'm by and that I've had threesomes in the past. My friends now, I am very open with telling them what I get up to. I tell them very intimate details of this guy, and they are hyping me up. I was just loving it. They were like, yes, get a girl fucking hard. Have those all chasms? They were asking me every single detail. Everybody needs a woo girl in their corner. Everyone needs a sex wo girl. One night, we were at his house getting very very saucy.
We didn't hear anyone.
Coming side, so we kept going. When we finally realized someone was there, we stopped. We went to check it out. To my absolute horror, one of my mates was in the kitchen.
I was so confused.
I was like, girl, what are you doing here?
But she just looked at me like a ghost.
That's when the old silver Fox came out with a towel around him. Oh shit, I'm really sorry. I forgot my daughter was crashing here.
This is hello.
That's when I realized that's been my friend and I realized simultaneously that she's been hyping me up to.
Fuck her dad.
Ummy, is that you? How do you ever recover from that?
I had like, where does your friendship go?
What happens? She was hyping me up?
And I had just thought that the day before I was telling her how good he was going down on me.
I couldn't see him.
After that because it was all And she's still funny with me sometimes, but hey, he was amazing.
Oh my god, could.
You imagine that moment daddy's in the towel you were in the middle, that she has just heard you having sex, So it's bad for everyone. The friend's like, oh my god, my dad's pounding someone. Then it realizes they've pounding your friend. Then you realize you've said how good your daddy's are going down, and you to your friend.
I can't.
It's just like the most awkward triangle I have ever come across. Well, I imagine if they stayed here and then they got married and then she became a stepmom.
Hey mama, Oh.
My god, I have one for you. Guys, try to keep this short and sweet. I went on this Tinder date with a guy and we decided to meet in the city. I drove he caught an uber, thinking it was going to be a big night. Guess that was the first red flag. I decided to have a couple of drinks and we ended up playing pool and having a pretty good time. Anyways, it was late and I decided I wanted to head home. He walked me to
my car and awkwardly waited there. Me being me, I couldn't help myself and I offered him a drive home.
He lived forty minutes in the opposite direction.
That was very kind of you.
Anyway, we hopped in the car and I was driving. Oh my god, I'm cringing already that this happened to kiss my neck as I was looking dead into the window. But then he proceeds to whisper into my ear, I just love your titty witties, clearly thinking this.
Was a turn on.
Oh my god, I'm still scared to this day. I ended up pulling up to his house and I told him to get out. He then turns to me and says, come inside and play some battleships with me in a sexy voice. I could not believe what was happening. Cleard did not get the picture. I still have secondhand embarrassment for him this day. Okay, shout out to any men listening, please never refer to them. It's titty wittyes, so he's
not gonna get you anyway. I once had a guy on a first date say to me, you're so beautiful.
I think he was pretty drunk, but I'm gonna.
He literally sounds like this, You're so beautiful, I'd slay a dragon for you.
And then stared at me really blankly. Then I still had sex with him.
Of course you fuck of course you did. You're like, okay, so are you giving me attention? Oh my god, we're going They're in love, We're gonna have children.
You had be a dragon.
The last date I went on before Jordan told me I slept with him too. He told me that I had a really masculine energy and that I was a boy in my boy thinks I was a man in my past life. I don't remember you telling me this, And then he said you had strong legs.
I still hooked up with him.
This is Brittany and Laura just reinforcing bad behavior since nineteen eighty six.
Okay, I've got one. Okay, this one's pretty cooked.
I was on a third date and we decided to go camping for a night not too far away.
This is cute, I thought.
I pictured toasting marshmallows over a fire under the stars and making love outside. I've watched too many movies. Obviously. Firstly, it rained, so all that went out the window. We went to bed in our separate sleeping bags, which at first I thought was a little off. I thought we would just be super cute and snuggle all night. This thought process soon changed drastically. In the middle of the night,
I woke up feeling really uncomfortable. I have ibsu see, and I felt a pain in my tummy, so I was thinking, ooh, I probably need to go to the toilets. Then I felt something wet in my pants, thinking oh, great, now I have my period too. I reached into check, wanting to be sure.
That it was my period.
I know this sounds gross, but I didn't want to get up in the cold and wet if I didn't actually need to. I touched it and pulled my hand out, only to discover I had shit in my sleep, in my undies and in my sleeping bag. My date was literally lying next to me, and I was a ship burrito. We shit on one hand. I tried to frantically escape my sleeping bag with only one good hand and find my way out of the tent. I made it out and ran through the rain to the toilet. So now
I was a soaking, wet ship burrito. I cleaned myself up, threw my undies out and tried to sneak back in, thinking out I escaped successfully. In the morning when we woke up, my date said, oh my god, all I could smell was shit all night.
The baby next door must have been eating a dead animal.
Haha.
I'm ashamed to say I blamed the baby. We've been dating for eighteen months that I can't bring myself to tell him. Maybe one day after I've locked him down and married him, I'll tell him. I shat my pants when I said date. That's so uncomfortable. You know, I was trying to think of embarrassing things that I've done on a date, and the only thing I could think of, well, I'm actually it's a lie. The only thing I could think of that I hadn't shared with you guys yet.
So this is the guy.
If you've been a O Dear listener, you will remember I told you the story about a guy I dated for like a year.
We were in a situation ship.
He never ever actually wanted to confirm to be my boyfriend. Surprising why Yeah, sure, he was dating five other people.
No.
I think it was just because I was such a hot mess of a person at the time.
So at the.
Time, like I went through this period. I didn't have IBS because I had all the tests done. But there was something wrong with me. Okay, shatt, there was something wrong with me. I don't know what it was. Anyway,
I'd gone over to his house for a date. We'd only been dating for a couple of weeks and it was very casual at this point in time, and he lived in a tiny one bedroom studio where the bathroom was in the bedroom, so like the bathroom there's no escaping, and then the lounge where the TV is was directly outside the bedroom was this time a little contained apartment. Anyway, we were sitting there watching a movie and he cooked dinner.
He was a chef, and I could feel my stomach just doing backlits, and I was like, oh God.
Oh god, God, play for me.
Anyway, I was like, I'm so sorry, I'm gonna have to go to the toilet, go to the bathroom. Like, unleash the fury.
Did you have music on? No?
I turned the tap one to try and like mask it anyway, so unleash the Fury.
The fucking window wouldn't open.
So I was like, oh my, oh my, you've got to be kidding me, So I just like, you know, you put some hands soap around, like trying to like fan it around. Anyway, nothing helped, and then I left, like I shut the bathroom door, I shut the bedroom door. I opened the bedroom window just in case. And then I came back into the little loundroom area, which was like attached to the bedroom, and I sit down next to him and we keep watching the movie and like I was gone for twenty five minutes, like I knows
what I was doing. You're obviously doing a shit and he would have heard it because I was like, oh, I was like, never go back in the bathroom.
You need to renovate please.
Also, don't like imagine anyway, we're sitting there watching the movie. He doesn't say anything to me. Ten minutes later, it's the middle of fucking winter, right. Ten minutes later, he just gets up and opens the balcony door, saddle fred subtle. I think I need to go home. Anyway, that happened. Turns out he never wanted to date me.
It was so weird.
So I think that segment encapsulates what dating in twenty twenty one can be.
Like, am I right next up for the.
Year in review is what I considered to be one of the most powerful interviews of life uncut. Laura and Britt had the pleasure of sitting down with India Oxenburg, who was a part of the Nexium sex cult for seven years. This sex cult was run by a guy named Keith Ranieri, and he manipulated people for twenty years under the guise of self improvement workshops and seminars, and he even recruited some people like Smallville actress Alison Mack. They formed a separate kind of subcult of Nexium called
DOSS And this is India's story. Now, just to heads up before we get into this segment, we are going to be speaking about sexual assaults and coesive control. So if that's a little bit troubling you please give ahead about four and a half minutes and you can always call one eight hundred.
Respect Well, there's what DOS was, and there was what we were told DOS was, and those were two entirely different things.
So what DOS was was a.
Recruiting mechanism for Keith to enslave and use women for his own benefit, whatever it was financially, sexually, for power, whatever.
That's really the basis of what DOS was what we believe DOS was was a women's empowerment group that was going to be one on one coaching and that was going to help us grow and become stronger empowered women, using a sort of sisterhood to achieve that, and that it was going to be a secret because there were going to be things that we were going to do that was uncomfortable and kind of fringe that I was okay with because I was open to it, but I was also riding on the tail of five years of
grooming to get me to that place of saying yes to something so vague and so nefarious. Ultimately, I never knew anything about the details of the brand.
When I was recruited.
I was told that there would be a brand or a tattoo, and that it would be small, and I was okay with that.
I have a couple tattoos myself.
There were so many things that were concealed from us in the recruiting process that it was difficult to actually make an informed decision, And we were also made to give collateral in order to receive more information about the secret group. So you're already compromised before you've said yes.
I think it's important for us to highlight that if you haven't watched it yet, we do mention the name Alison Mac a few times.
Mac was an actress.
Alison Mack was an actress, someone that I watched growing up. She was in Smallville. I knew her, I loved her. But I guess she was this person that introduced you to this secret society DOS and she was your master. She was under Keith Ranieri. She was ultimately the one that was grooming you and putting these restrictions on you.
And I guess did you ever hold any resentment towards Alison Mack or did you just see her as a loving guiding friend, like a mother figure, someone that looked after you, or was there a part of you that was like, why are you doing this to me?
But at both.
I was definitely afraid of her punishment and her disapproval. And because I'm an EmPATH, that really was an easy way to manipulate me. Like her being upset or unhappy was terrifying to me because I was in this in the Doss construct, her slave. She was my master. She was ultimately in charge and in control of anything that I could do. I didn't understand the gravity of that until later on, But there were moments where I thought she was my friend. It was not a natural relationship.
We were forced while I was forced to live with her, and then from there I became her friend, but really out of necessity. There were things that we bonded over. But I look at it now and I have a lot less judgment for myself because I was surviving that and I was trying to make the best of an unpleasant situation and trying to cherry pick and make, you know.
Make those even more better than they really were. I was really trying to make it better than it was.
So how did things change for you once you had joined DAWs.
Well, I felt like I had just been given this amazing secret, and I admired Allison because she was excelling so quickly within next and I was kind of stagnant.
I wasn't moving as a coach.
So once I joined DAS, I started to see things change in my life.
And I thought that it was because of DS.
I didn't realize that it was pretty much arbitrary and that it was being decided by Keith and Allison was just.
The one, you know, doing the orders to me from him.
I didn't really understand the connection early on, but I thought that I was growing and I thought that I was improving, and I actually believed that it was because of DOS so was it was hard to make the distinction.
Another one of our favorite moments from twenty twenty one comes from the vibrant and vivacious M Carrie. And Carrie is the girl who fell from the sky at twenty years old. She was skydiving in Switzerland on what was meant to be an adventure of a lifetime, and her parachute child and it left her paralyzed from the waist down where she was told she probably wouldn't ever walk again. This chat with EM it really shaped the way that
I viewed my body. You know, I think all of us at some point in time would have struggled with a part of body image or maybe not liking a particular part of ourselves. And after listening to EM's chat, I just felt so damn grateful for everything that I have and for what my body could do for me.
Here's the chat with M Kerry.
There's a chance you're not going to walk again? What's that like?
Well, they didn't even say there's a chance. They were just matter of fact, like, no, this is permanent, this is how it's going. And it was tricky because they the doctors could speak English, but we definitely weren't having affluent conversation, and it was harder to understand exactly what
was happening. But yeah, when they said you'll never walk again, I just couldn't wrap my head around that because of just yeah, because of how fast things changed and how fast it went from a fun holiday to the worst thing I'd ever been through. I just couldn't wrap my head around that. And I didn't believe it. And I don't say that in a way it's like, oh, I never believed I could walk again, which is why I
can walk again. I just mean I literally couldn't wrap my head around the fact that I would never get back on my feet and walk.
Were you angry?
Did you feel resentful?
Like? I mean, I guess when you're in in a situation like that, it could be so not that it's easy. Nothing about that situation is easy, And I can't even put myself into your position to really understand what that would feel like. But I can only imagine there would be a part of you that's really fucking angry at the instructor or at the system that something had gone wrong.
Weirdly, no, I mean I've felt anger, but only maybe in the past two years that all came up for me. But in the beginning, I never I'm not sure why, but I never had that mentality of like, why me. I just kind of thought, why not me? Like I chose this gud. I've that was a risk fair enough, so I.
Didn't feel angry.
I more so felt like the instructor was also so badly injured, and he, I imagined, would have felt so much regret and so deeply apologetic for what he had done that I thought that that's enough.
I don't need to be angry as well.
So no, I molso just hoped that he was okay, and I felt really bonded to him, weirdly, thinking that we'd both gone through this thing that no one else would ever, you know, experience like every element of what I knew obviously couldn't work anymore.
I couldn't do the.
Hobbies that I loved, So I felt like every aspect of who I was was taken away.
So I thought, who, like who am I?
And I guess going through a breakup when you know you go through something like this and you think the people who love you and around you're going to support you, and then being thrust into and I know that the breakup shouldn't be the thing to hone in on this, but I think there's a part of that that must leave you feeling like, well, now I'm fucking unlovable as well, you know, and then having to deal with like, Okay, I have this disability and the person who I thought
wanted to be with me it came with caveats. He doesn't want to be with me anymore because of this.
It's what I was in hospital in Australia, so it would have been within three months, maybe two months later, I'm not sure, but while I was.
In hospital, but yeah, I did feel that.
And being so young as well, he was my first serious boyfriend, so I didn't have Yeah, I didn't have anything else.
To compare it to.
And I thought, oh, if he's not gonna let me through this, and he knows me well, like who will When I really put in effort to healing emotionally and thinking I'm going to make life good regardless of what the outcome is with me physically, I just started to just notice things that I hadn't before. Like this sounds really dumb, but I don't think I ever realized that the sunset every single day and that I could choose to go outside and watch it like I I had
just never thought about that before. And I think what really helped me, even though it was hard to go through at the time, was the fact that I was awake for the fall and that I have full memory of that, and I have full memory of me thinking I had ten seconds left to live. So going from ten seconds left to live to realizing I have the rest of my life, it just gave me such an appreciation and such a different perspective to look at life through.
When I thought about that and I thought about how lucky I am, I was like, yeah, like, there's still a lot to be grateful for here.
So I switched the perspective.
From whatever I lost, like what, Yeah, I've lost my legs, I've lost my boyfriend.
I stopped thinking about that and instead thought, what have I still got?
And I realized I still have the use of my arms, I still have my brain, I still have my mind, I still have my family. And then I even started wondering like, Okay, is there anything I've actually gained from this? And at first I thought, no, of course not, there's nothing good that's come from this. But when I really thought about it, I realized I'd gained heaps, Like I'd gained so much strength that I never knew I had. I'd gained appreciation for my body, which I never took
the time to think about. And I'd gained the knowledge that I survived something unsurvivable. This is maybe like a harsh truth, but so here's what I don't know. See for me, since my accident, I have not at all had any body self conscious issues like I like, I think I look great, love that. No, But let me tell you why. Because when I was in hospital, No, when I was on the ground after the accident and
my leg weren't working. Before my accident, I was only twenty, but I was super fit, loved the gym, love to go running, so I had quite muscly legs, and I remember pre accident being like, oh, I wish my legs weren't so mustly. Whereas when I was laying there on the ground and my legs weren't working, I was like, I couldn't give a fuck what my legs looked like. I would take any legs regardless of what they looked like, as long as they worked. Like all I wanted was
a body part that worked. So from that moment, any time I did have an insecurity on my body, I would straight away and be like, okay, but what does that body part do for me?
And I would change.
I would like flick the switch from just instead of looking at my body as an object to looking at it as like the vessel.
That lets me experience life.
So like if you don't like your eye color, think of what it enables you.
To see, you know what I mean.
It's just changing the perspective of what your body can do and realizing that the way it looks is the most like irrelevant part about any of it. And it's like you would never walk into a spinal ward and complain about the way that your legs look, or you would never go up to a quadriplegic who can't even move their hand and complain about a part of your body, or you never go into a burned unit and complain about your skin, you know what I mean.
So it's just I don't know.
I just gave me this confidence not to think like, oh, I'm the hottest person in the world, but just more so that it doesn't matter, Like it doesn't matter what I look like, so I don't put a focus on it.
It doesn't even cross my mind.
Man, she is so right. Em Care is just such a ray of sunshine. I absolutely loved that chat with her. Next up in our Year in Review. How could we possibly even contemplate doing a year in review without doing a big old shout out to our guy Maddie Jay for the Batch Uncut episodes that him and Laura did. Now to bring you behind the scenes a little bit for these ones. Man, they worked so damn hard on
these episodes. They were often up I'm talking like early hours of the morning, late recording these and editing them so that you could have them in your libraries on Friday mornings.
I could be a little biased. I think significantly funnier than the show. I don't know, you could be the judge of that.
He was one of my favorite episodes of Batch on Cut, featuring the one only Maddie.
J episode number eleven, Let's just jump straight to it. Hot and ready and sexy and can't wait to get unpacking.
And The budget restraints continue here on The Bachelor, because on this episode we're going camping.
It's nice that they've kind of pitched this is like, we want to know if the girls are outdoorsy, and they liked, you know, just.
Get one with nature and get out there and get amongst it.
But really it was the arts department being like, fuck, hell, guys, we cannot work under these restrictions. What have we got left alson tar poland and a couple of blow up mattresses. The goal camping, Get the jackals ready, I'll do us for a full episode.
No one's gotta notice.
Oh it was literally a full episode of camping.
My school camp had more budget than this.
Oh well, you know, like normally every episode it changes locations.
Like you'll have a day that'll be on a yacht.
And then you'll have it at the Batch mansion, and then you'll have a group date that's somewhere else entirely, like even just the traveling to and from dates costs money.
They didn't have to travel.
They literally just went pitched a tent and stayed there for the duration of an entire episode.
I'm like angry for Jimmy.
One of the scenes you can see the Batch mansion in the background.
They're in the paddock.
They're not really.
You can see Asher sitting there in the driveway of the Batch mansions.
Smoking a cigarette. He's like one of these idiots.
Make them dance.
When Jay and Jimmy are coming back to the cocktail party, they're coming back to the bonfire.
The bush Dove.
Is DJing, the glow sticks around, it's all kicking off.
Flora Sheldon m.
Alright, episode twelve, let's do it. There's only six girls left in the mansion. How did that happen so quickly? Oh, I've got an ideas. Because they keep doing double bpers.
I mean, the sad thing is Laura. With all these double episodes, it does mean the amount of bat chunk cut episodes that we do together is going to be cut short.
It also means that these episodes have to go for a very long time in order for us to cover everything. So I hope that you are maybe going for a long walk, maybe you're you're working at home and you just need some background noise and I don't know, maybe you just need some friends in your ears for an hour. Everyone needs a friend. Matthew Way laughing, at that. It wasn't even a joe.
I know, I just didn't know. I didn't know where you're going with that. Everybody just needs some friends, everybody out there, Laura on a four class of wine. The thing about friends is that you need them, Okay.
And everyone shoots the messenger because just going to get shot.
People know, people in the long walks being like, what the fuck is Laura talking about mersengers and friends.
Another favorite moment of twenty twenty one is when we got to meet the bloody legend that is Kath Kochal. Kath was a professional cricketer who broke her back twice, who had to learn to rewalk three times. She's also someone who has a bit of a tragic love story that led to her creating the Kindness Factory and really
realizing how kind apps can change your life. But I didn't want to start with that story because Kath brought us what I would consider to be one of the funniest, accidentally unfiltered stories I have ever heard in my high life. So we're going to kick things off there, but just a bit of a heads up before we jump into this segment. There are mentions of suicide, So if that brings up anything for you. Please call Lifeline on thirteen eleven fourteen or skip ahead about seven minutes.
We want to start the way we start every interview, and that is with your certainly unfiltered, your most embarrassing story.
It's a great way to break the ice. Well, I feel like I'm just on a brain scan. There's so many to pick from. This could take up the entire podcast. Now, a good one that my friends love. Actually sounds really kind of wanky, But I'm motivational speaker. So to my day job and we'll get into waget a really unique story.
But I was in the US. I got invited to a pretty exclusive event in the US, and I didn't really know what it was about.
The way that the woman had explained it to me was that it brought together the world's most powerful and influential people and brands.
And to me, it's sound of like a cult.
And I was a little bit apprehensive, Actually I should do this event.
But they said that'd fly me and my assistant.
I didn't have one at the time, so my best friend got a junket to the US with me first class.
All this kind of stuff and bells should have started.
Ringing at this moment when I'm sipping champagne in first class and all that kind of stuff. And I get to this event and we're having a sound check the day before, and again things should have been making sense. The screens were bigger than any house I lived in, and I looked like an aunt as a four thousand strong audience it was going to be the next day because all these seats were there, and I was like, okay.
The brief that I.
Got were these people have everything they could ever want and neat, so you just bring humility, So bring yourself humble them.
I can do that.
And they said to me, I said how long have I got for this talk? And they said You've got eight minutes? And I said, wow, that's a big story to fit.
Into eight and I normally get forty five.
Any chance I could have fifteen just in the prep And they said, look the Dalla Lama and it gets twelve, so and I thought they were joking. I thought they were joking. I was like, oh, good one, I guess eight will do. And so I get there the next day and I'm in the green room and the Lily snacks and I love snack there's this woman sitting there like an African American woman, black woman, beautiful, stunning, and I was like, geesus, looks familiar.
And I said, good a. I'm Cath and she said, Caath, really nice to meet. I'm Michelle and I was like, awesome.
Fuck.
I was like she's so beautiful and I go, it's really nice to meet you. And she said yeah. Likewise, what are you doing back here?
And I said, I'm speaking today, I'm opening the whole conference.
Said what are you going to talk about?
I said, well, I guess my life's but essentially kindness. She said, it's one of my most favorite things to hear about and to learn about it.
I was like, oh, that's truly lovely.
I said what are you doing and she said, I'm on after you. And I was like, what are you talking about? And she said, oh, this is in twenty eighteen. And she goes and I don't watch TV or anything like that, and she says, I'm going.
To talk about the Me Too movement. And I said, wow, I've heard about that and she said I'm sure you have.
There.
So she's sitting there.
And she goes, she goes, hey, I'm going to go out the front. Do you mind if I watch I'm going to leave you here. I'd really like to listen to it you're going to talk about And I said.
Of course, Like I said, I'll do the same.
This is the finish, I'll run around like I really want to hear what you got to say. And I was like, what a wonderful woman. So I sweat starts and I'm like, where am I? Like, what's going on?
I get out and I'm two minutes into.
The eight that I've got start sort of sharing everything's gone really, really well. And then I look off center on stage to the right, and I was like everything just started to make sense.
She's sitting next to her husband, Barack Obama, and I'm like, and I just go, holy fuck, that was Michelle Obama. What the fuck did I say? Did I swear? Oh my god?
I'm my god?
And I was like, where am I? And I looked to the left and it's the da la Lama. See You've ready all like the who's of the in this room? And I just shout myself like this like the sweat was dripping off me, and I nearly ruined the whole thing. And I was just like, so I finished the talk and had to apologize to her for basically saying, I'm a fucking idiot.
I'm so sorry.
I didn't know, like, of course I know who you are, like, of course it I just like I was so nervous.
And she was like, it's fine. I loved your story.
I got this like standing ovation and everyone's like on me. But I was like, holy shit, how has this happened? And yeah, my parents hate me for that. So like, how if you should bowing down to this person? I was like, yeah, I didn't really think so, but.
She one hundred percent would have loved the fact because she would have thought you knew who she was and just didn't care or didn't clock it.
She would have loved that.
You treated her like normal. But I think this is so fucking.
At least you didn't say you look familia. At least you didn't ask her what she did for a job.
I was like, she's tout.
I was like, she's stunning, like she's she's so beautiful when she's got the runaway so like people like that have an aura, but she genuine I've never really experienced setting on. I'm like, this woman is stunning and her voice and all that, and I'm like, yeah, she did look for me. I'm like, maybe it's just because she's so beautiful.
Was there any kind of explanation or do you think he just wasn't ready to face a life on the outside, like starting again? Was he still not walking or where do you think it's stemmed from? After he's done? He seems to have done all the hard work. You literally, like you said you'd sign at leash, you're one day away from your life.
What do you think happened?
I don't know, And I think I've heard from a lot of I think we're called survivors of suicide, you know, when someone very close is passed away in that way, and there's so many different responses and it's such a relative experience, and I think it's such a personal experience. For Jim, it was so inexplicable. He was never going to be the guy that did that. Like Jim was never going to be the guy that did that, And so many stories out there like that, right, you know,
smiling depression, all that kind of stuff. He didn't have an existing mental health condition, he didn't seem to be struggling. There was support available all those sorts of things, but there was so much going on for him that I'm still learning about today that still just gives me so much empathy for him and his struggle and all those
sorts of things. And I think, even individually for both of us, we never know what another person is truly thinking, right, Like we can think that we do and we can say that this person is my everything and I know everything about them, but we all have little secrets like I do. I haven't told a lot of people certain parts about my life and things like that, and that's just because they're our own.
And I don't think.
He wanted to share that outwardly with anyone. His mum and I were incredibly close, and she didn't see it. There was no warning sign or anything like that. His friends, you know, I feel like I just I exhausted them post his passing just by calling them going. But when that moment happened, could he have meant that? And it's like, well he could have, cath, but we don't know mat like it's you know, And so I think he can run yourself into the ground, honestly, asking so many questions.
All those photos that we've got together, are they and he's smiling in them.
Does he mean that smile or was that moment as special to him as it was to me? And you rack your brain and you're never going to have.
The answers to that.
For Jim, A lot of people say you must be angry, and I was like, absolutely not. Angry is not an emotion that I felt towards him, certainly at all. I felt a little bit of anger towards myself. You know, why did I not see that coming? And this is a fair while ago now, But no, it was. If anything, I probably loved him more, not for any other reason than I just it was just so special.
Kath is a really impressive woman.
Her episode is something that I've found myself going back to quite a few times. I think I've listened to that episode about six times myself, just because I seem to get so much out of it.
I think she is amazing. Coming up next as.
A part of our rear in your View, as Brittany Hockley would say, is actually the girl who started accidentally unfiltered as a segment. It is Britt's sister, Sherry Hockley. Cherry is a nutritionist and she doing life on cut to talk about our somewhat complex relationship that we have with diet culture and with food in general and exercise. But her accidentally unfiltered was as Britt would say, a volcano. It was actually themed with coconut oil. I just think
it's absolutely brilliant. Here is Sherry Hockley.
Yeah, my at home loob story.
So I'm gonna throw j under the bus here because it's happening to Jay, my my new fiance.
Everybody.
Sorry, Jay.
We were getting getting.
Down and dirty one night and we were doing massage Mondays, which is where we you know, is exactly what it sounds. We do a massage every Monday, which always.
Leads to like beautiful, beautiful sex.
We didn't have any loob, and I said to him, oh, babe, there's some there's some coconut.
Oil in the pantry.
Go get that because guys, and I'll give you a pro tip, coconut oil is not healthy for you. It is not a super food by any means, but it is a great lubricant. So I sent him to get the jar of coconut oil and he comes running back into the bedroom and I said, oh, hold on, like, I actually use that for cooking. Sometimes, so just put a small amount into a tupperware container, bring it back into the bedroom, and leave the rest in the pantry.
So he does.
He scoops it out, he puts it into a tough ware container. But I've really got to set the scene for you guys.
So we use it.
It's great, it's fine.
It's a really good lubricant.
Use it a couple more times.
And then next time massage Monday rolls around. I'm in the dark, I'm naked. We're getting down to it. We're using the coconut oil. It's really great, you know. He gets the container out. It's everywhere, it's on me, it's in me. And then I was like, Jay, I feel funny, Like I feel really bitty, Like I can feel like there's stuff all over me.
And it wasn't just coconut oil.
What do you mean bitty?
Like you know when like when you rub your hands really fast together and bits of skin come upon your hand. Oh yeah, Like I felt like there was sand, saw something on me everywhere. The little boobies were just like covered in bumps pretty much.
And so I was like, just put the light on and so I'm laying their.
Stark naked and he puts the light on and I am covered head to toe in black mold, the coconut oil on moldy in the.
This is wrong on so many levels, called black molds literally toxic. You had that shit all over your body.
He's fucked.
It is so fucked.
It had gone mold in the container and it was a dark and I couldn't see and he had literally massaged mold all over my body.
It was in chunks all over me.
It was disgusting. Thanks Art for our Year in Review.
We are chatting with Hugh van Kylenberg. He is an author, he is a motivational speaker, he's a podcaster, and he's also the creator of the Resilience Project. Laura and Britt had a really can a conversation with Hugh about something that I think impacts all of us every day, whether we are aware.
Of it or not, and that's comparison culture and the way that social.
Media plays a role in.
Our everyday life.
And I just absolutely loved this moment with Hugh Van Kylenberg.
It's because we do live in a society that is very consumer is driven, where advertised to constantly, like we are told you get the next newest best thing, you will be happier. I mean, there's every time that Apple brings out a new phone as a line around the street. Every time you know, added As brings out in new shoes, there's a line around the street. Like, we are very, very consumer driven in the society that we live in.
But how do you think and I think just going on for something that you just said, Britt, this idea of comparison culture. It's something we talk about a lot on this podcast, and I think because we both work a lot in the social media world, we really do see how fake it is and how much people put on this.
So fake facade.
But at the same time we even get sucked into it from time to time. What role do you think comparison culture plays into into the mental health battles that people are having in this day and age.
It has an enormous impact on us. It's an example. I was changed to someone the other day about this. If a friend come up to us and said, oh, I've got a promotion. I've been promoted at this job, Like they said it to us and they sat us down and said, I'm so excited. We would say I'm so happy for you that's just so, and we would feel that. But the way it's presented on social media, I think our first thing is to go, I'm not a promotion in ages, or gosh, I'm not getting paid
that amount of money. The way that Instagram or whatever it is whatever on Instagram is probably the most common one. The way it's presented and packaged up. We just can't help it. Compare ourselves because we compare ourselves to everyone. So then we don't look at our friends and go, oh, my friends are promotion great. We go, that's someone else's doing better than I am. But if that sat down and told us face to face the good news, we
would feel joyful them. So there's so much happening. And a very good friend of mine, Ben Crow, was talking to me about this the other day and we were talking about three main places we get our information consuming information from right now, social media, the news, and advertising. And if you just think about the three roles they play on what they do to us. So the news
is skewed massively to the negative. So I think it's something like there's an index that measures positive to negative language in the news, and I think at the moment in twenty twenty one, it's something like eighty eight percent of what we hear in the news is negative. I could be a bit off there, it's close to eighty eight percent, so we got a lot of negative news. Social media is predicated off shame, so whenever you jump off social media, you feel regret and shame. You feel
like I'm not enough. Basically that's what you feel like. And think about the amount of hours we spend on social media, that's the main thing we get from it is I'm not enough. And then we have advertising, and the role of advertising is to make us feel like if we had this certain thing, our life would be better.
Now.
According to research done not too long ago, the average amount of advertising impressions we receive a day is five thousand, so we get five thousand reminders a day that our life could be better. Plus we spend, however many hours on social media feeling like I'm not enough because I'm not like this person, and then we have this negativity on the news. I think that all adds up to the amount of anxiety right now in the world is just it's off the charts, and I feel like these
three things have are a big part. I'm not saying turn off the news. We need to engage in what's happening, but just be aware that that that's like a deliberate like there's a lot of good news happening in the world as well. We got a tune into that as well.
To finish off our review of twenty twenty one, we're going into an episode that was recorded quite recently, Laura and Brits that down with Chanel Bryan. Chanel Bryan is a life up.
She's a member of our community.
She's a mom of two, she's a wife. We're so incredibly grateful for the time that Chanelle took, which is something that she doesn't have very much left of because Chanelle has terminal cancer. And she joined the podcast to talk about grief, about leaving a legacy for her family, about advocating for your own health, to talk about gratitude, to.
Talk about love.
It was an incredibly powerful and moving conversation. So I can think of no better way than to wrap up twenty twenty one than by thanking new Chanel and really telling you that we are so grateful for what you provided for life.
On cut, She's like, it's not good, it's a really bad prognosis, and I'm so sorry to do this to you. And you know, I don't want to be doing this over the phone and in this way, but it's terminal. Life just stops, you know, hence the docu series called Life on Standby. It just stops. And but yet when you're a young mum, it has to fucking go on. My kids are inside waiting for dinner, you know.
Liked, I'm so sorry, Chanell. I just can't imagine what it's like to be in that moment. And like you just said, to know that someone has just literally told you that there's an end point for you and it's probably not far away. But you're like, well, I just got to get back into the spaghetti on the stove.
Like my kids are waiting.
That's it, and that's far off flight. I guess like, okay, I can't be around the kids right now. I know that, And luckily we've got a really good community around us. We did move away from family and we literally call the neighbors and the kids over right at the neighbor's house straight away, and Luke went and did that, and whilst he was away, he was trying to set all
the kids. When he got there as well, so he was gone for about half an hour and I was just sitting there and the person I want to call his mum, obviously, and I can't call her. So I'm sitting there just with this intense fear, not knowing what to do, and desperately wanting Luke to come home, feeling alone, shaking. You know, You're just it's so difficult to explain. And I found myself getting drawn to write this death list.
It sounds so morbid and so weird, but I just wanted to write notes in my phone of things that I needed to do, like and I think it was that mum and that like maternal part of me. It's like, if I'm going to die, my kids need all these things. And it just kicked in and I tried to almost block it instinctively. I'm like, God, just relax, just try and settle into this news. Don't focus on your death. Just yeah, and it just kept coming, and I was just like, honor this, it's coming for a reason. Just
write down what you need to write down. And in that moment, I've still got it on my phone, you know. I wrote down things like writing letters to the kids on their wedding days and recording videos.
On ye like me.
You know, it's like it's just all those things that you know you're going to miss.
Shelle, and you saying that you wrote this like this, did this death list come in this half hour that you're waiting for Luke? Yeah?
Yeah, literally, such a mom shit.
I couldn't not do it.
I just I had to, and I felt like I wasn't honoring myself if I didn't. And you know what, It's grounded me. That list has grounded me so much through the uncertainty of his time, and I keep going back to it. And you know, I did that the other night. I had a night at Accommodation. Someone had booked me this beautiful night, and I was like, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna fucking write these letters and record these videos and do these things.
It was hideous.
It was the worst thing I've ever done in my life. And I didn't even last the whole night. I ended up calling Luke. I started getting hysterical and I was like, I can't do this, and then I couldn't breathe very well. It's in my lungs, so it's kind of everywhere in my lungs and they're just waiting for them to fill up with fluid effectively, so my breathing is a little bit more labored, and the cough, it's just gonna progressively get worse. And because I was so emotionally upset, it
was triggering the physical parts of me. And until Luke said he's like, I'm just gonna come and get you, I just couldn't calm down.
Until he was there.
I just felt so far away.
I was ten minutes up the road.
So I've been told if I don't have treatment, I'll be lucky to see Christmas. So that's weeks away.
I'm so sorry, thank you, Like.
What can you do?
You know, it's fucked, It's so fucked. But I can't control it. You know, I can control writing letters to the kids. I can control bringing forward our wedding vow and Yule to this weekend as opposed to in five months time. I can control my goodbyas and creating memories and traditions with the kids now, taking videos.
So they're the things I'm.
Controlling, and you know that's that Mum and me and I'm doing that, and that's all that I can do. So then Once I do that, I have to let go like it's the ultimate lesson in surrender, ultimate lesson. But yeah, look, I'm still hopeful. I'm realistic. I understand the type of cancer that I have. I understand the prognosis.
I've accepted it.
We're still looking into some interesting alternative treatments that I'll be starting literally tomorrow. There are very limited mainstream options, but I'm very much at a point of there's a clinical trial. I might be able to get into slim chance, but it will do anything for me, high chance that's going to impact the quality of my life, and there's no crystal ball. It might last months. You know, they get this shit wrong all the time. They do, they
do they do. You hang on to that, but I have accepted that it's correct, and we'll see where we end up. But it's that limbo land of like quality over quantity, making special memories. I want to go out in my way. We're setting things up, having those fucked conversations. I want to die at home. I want the kids to be around. I want them to experience death in
a way that's not mainstream. I want them to have these beautiful little traditions and things that they can do to be a part of it and to really understand what death is as opposed to mummy gets wrapped with a you know, as she comes over and then she's wheeled out of the room and then you go back home and she's just not there. That's not what I
want for them at all. So putting the work into that as well is also another thing that's bringing me calm and ease at the moment in knowing that again, I'm doing all that I can to set them up to cope with this and deal with this in the best way that I can.
You know, But you said something to me about boundaries, and you were like, do you know what? This last period has made me very very aware of my boundaries. It's made me very acutely aware of what's important to me, and if I didn't want to do it, I wouldn't fucking do it. And I was like, Yeah, there's nothing that's going to cut through the shit in life like knowing when the end is coming. Like what has this
been like in creating priorities in your life? How do you navigate this next part and this next phase of life.
It's so difficult to explain. It's the highs are high and the lows are low, and they're both there simultaneously, and the highs are phenomenal. I can't explain. I wish I could explain to you how beautiful the moments are right now. Like I've done therapy for years, I've been working on these things for myself, and you know, you have a breakthrough in therapy and you deal with these things and you're like, this is great, I can see
where this has come from, and blah blah blah. And I spoke to my therapist the other day and I was like, we've been working on this issue for like a year. It's gone, It's instantly resolved, and all those things are just everything's just clear. I've never let love reach me in this way before, and I never knew
that it was accessible in this way. Like I feel like I have been cracked open to my care like literally like a morbid way of saying it, but like corpse on a body, just cut open, and every single ounce of love is penetrating my entire body, my entire being, and to fully allow that in is magnificent. It is the most glorious thing I've ever experienced in my life. And to be able to share that with my family and my kids and to actually fully let that reach me.
A bit of a take home message with that, and I'm trying to share that with people at the moment is this is actually accessible all the time. People around us do have the capacity to show us love in this way, but it's all our shit that gets in the way to block that.
We block it.
So many intricate moments that I've had that are just so beautiful at a time like this, when life is just fucked. To have the beautiful moments like that so clearly and so frequently just allows such a sense of calm and ease and peace into leading into this next transition for me. The more at peace I can find with this, I can come with this, the better it is for everyone around me.
Wow, Chanelle is just a phenomenal woman.
We actually have never received as many messages on our social media as to what we did after that episode with Chanel. I think she made a lot of us look at life through a different lens and we're so so immensely grateful for it. And with that, we are wrapping up our year in review twenty twenty one. That's what it was it was a whole lot of things. It was filled with a lot of good stuff. It was filled with a little bit of bad stuff as well, but we got through it together and I'm very, very
grateful to have done it with you guys. That's it for twenty twenty one. We cannot wait to be back in your ears or your earholes, as Laura would say. In twenty twenty two. We've got a whole bunch of incredible guests coming your way. We got a few topics, and we will have an additional podcast to drop in the form of our radio show that is starting January fifteenth, I think is the dates, So we're going to catch you in like two.
And a half, three weeks something like that. I hope you have a wonderful end of the year.
And I just thought I would wrap this up by letting you know that I am recording this in a loundroom. It's my loundrooms and not bricks lund room. But I'm in my underwear in true life on CUF form, and I don't see much of that changing in twenty twenty two. You know the drill, tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend, particularly a self isolating friend, tell them about life on cut. It might just get me through some kind of lonely days that a lot
of us are experiencing at the moment. And share the love because we love love.
Bakandaba tagabata berbay karabayo.