This episode was recorded on Cameragle Land. Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Laugh on Cut.
I'm Laura, I'm Brittany.
Brittany has gastro no. I.
Firstly, I just had this thought. I often forget the stuff that we talk about on here.
I forget them.
My biggest fan in the world is my dad. Puny listens shout out. He listens to every episode.
Does he listen to every single one? Still every episode.
He gets up at four thirty am every day to work out, to do his pull ups yep, to do but big big tomes. He's keeping fear and he listens to the podcast. And I often get messages from him, you know, if he is inspired by an interview, or he gives me really good feedback, like he genuinely listens.
He's like, hey, Britty, I loved what this such and such sett in this episode and was really thought, Perican, it was interesting to hear your guys opinion on this, and it's always like quite deep, you know, good feedback, solid feedback.
We stand as supportive daddy. That's nice.
The other day it was like, ah, heard you had a little bit of fun at the laser clinic.
Sorry.
So remember when I was talking about laser getting laser and the blowing air was on my vagina and I said it was ticklish, and he's like, excuse, like, hey, bringing, it's just good to know what you're keeping maintenance down there, and like he just jokes about it. I'm like, I just forget that. My dad listens to me.
We kind of different version of the audio that your dad will cut of anything to do with body or sex with Ben, Like we're just an amended version.
But also it's game of your dad to say anything, like you can listen. They're the conversations you don't bring up.
They're the found mention.
Nah, there's My family is one of those families, the six of us. My parents been married forty eight years or something, and that would be a dinner table conversation, like there's nothing that is off limits, like the idea of talking about sex and all that stuff. We were such an open family, which I love now I love and I didn't realize it was so open at the time. I thought it was normal, Like it just created an
environment where you could talk about anything. And like my parents, it used to make us cringe, but we would know when they'd had sex growing up, not as kids, but as teach.
I'm disgusted for you.
Laura and I shudder in divorced parents totally.
But as teenagers you just know that come out Dad give like mom a little hit on the bottom and you'd know. And I'd be like, you guys had sex, didn't you, And Dad'd be like, yeah we did, Mo'm and be like, tell me of the kids, Like it was just that kind of a family. And I get now as an adult that that I was a minority. And actually I drove my friend to work today and she said, you know how rare it is to have your family unit these days, Like to have parents that are still together for so long.
And that's still like each other and still like each other, is still attracted to each other.
Yeah, lots of parents like live amicably and like they co parent and they're like, you know, they're in the comfort stage.
I've never related to something you've ever said less same same. I literally have broken home, Like I've never once seen my parents even thinking all the way back when tap each other on the bum in a cheeky way.
If anyone wants to talk about parents fighting over child support, like I can really relate to that slide into my DM.
If anyone has like a three month period where they didn't see their parents speak, I'm with you.
You know what's so funny.
I can't imagine my dad.
You guys will know Terry Byurn. He lives on Magnetic Island. He lives with the Koalas. He's like one with the koalas. No wi fi, no, no, absolutely no wi fi. Oh, actually he might have it now. He's definitely got a mobile phone. Every day I get a nature update from my dad. He still doesn't really understand what a podcast is. He calls it a pod book.
I actually love that so much.
And I never ever have to worry about him hearing or knowing anything that I say or do.
So that's fine. I'm in the clear with Terry Burrn.
You're in the same bone.
And my dad doesn't know that I have ADHD. He created a whole timpart mini series about it.
But I was like, it's fine.
He doesn't have Instagram or he doesn't know how to listen to podcasts, So I'm in the clear.
Should you just maybe send him, would you? Yeah, it's probably.
Things in it.
Kusha doesn't want him to hear to be honest it Yeah.
Well, like that time that you got the liplip and couldn't give a blow jobs. I don't want you to hear Dad, you don't want you hear that.
This is my.
Career, aren't you for us?
Something else I did want to say is and I know that Laura, you're gonna hate what I'm about to say. I was, well, I was because it's about like manifesting.
I don't hate manifesting.
We can talk about that in a second, but like, I don't hate it, I have reasons to dislike the version of manifesting that's kind of touted.
Yeah, well this is like the it's like an anti manifest manifest probably isn't the word, but you know how a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about how I had said Delilah's never been to the hospital, she has never been sick before, and then three hours later I was taking it to the emergency VET and I was like, wow, I wieled that into fruition. That day. I did it again. A couple of days ago, so on the weekend, I was talking to a girl and
we were talking about food poisoning. That day, I haven't not talked about food poisoning in it's not something that comes up right. And I literally said to her, She's like, care if you don't get it when you go to Balley and I said, oh, yeah, I've been to Bili loads. I don't get it. I was like, I actually don't get food poisoning, like I couldn't total last time I got food poisoning. And she's like, wow, you're so lucky, and I was like, yeah, I must have guts of steel.
So then all of us go out as a group that day on National Carbonara Day.
Mind you, it was also the late celebration for my birthday, but I think we were celebrating Carbinara Day.
It was a week later celebration for Laura's birthday, but it was also National Carbonara Day. I only know that because carbonara would be the meal that I had on my deathbed. Anyway, So we went to this amazing restaurant, like quite high end, quite classy, quite expensive, and I was like, the Carbonaro is going to be amazing. Waited an hour and a half for it. They were very slow.
We did have a five point thirty booking because it was so it was actually so busy that that's the only time we could get in.
It was like a geriatric booking, isn't it. We were like, we'll take it.
It's not a it's a parenting booking.
Well, I had five thirty or eight thirty when I went to book and I knew us well enough to know which of those options.
Five thirty is the mum time slot.
Okay, five thirty is also my time slot. I don't want to go out and start the evening at eight thirty. It was quite expensive, like it cost me a couple of hundred bucks for the meal. And then I got home and that Carbonara did me so dirty that about four hours, almost to the minute, I got this pang in my stomach and I was like, what's that. I was like, oh, that doesn't feel good. Within ten minutes, I was on all fours in the bathroom, both ends like heaving.
They are the moments where you're happy you live on your own, no.
There the moments yes, like I don't want Ben to be seen that, but also someone to help you in those moments would so be good, like don't come in the room, don't see it, but like sliding stuff on the door.
I'll never forget I'll never forget when I used to it.
I mean, so everyone, we have a new videographer, Vanessa.
Keeping here in the background for a couple of weeks.
Our video edited Vanessa. So, Nas and I have lived together for I mean we were housemates, like when I went to the Bachelor, right, So we lived together for a really long time.
Yeah, this job's nepotism.
Yes, she's my child.
We've been We've been like the closest friends for over a decade now decade, he almost a decade.
Yeah.
And Nessa's wife, Jess, we all lived together before that. They were like a married couple. And one night Jess got food poisoning so bad. But I was like, is she okay?
Opened the door up.
There was just like poor thing in the midst of both ends dying. And she still hates me and will probably hate me telling that story.
That's okay. I love her.
It's been seven years six She was like looked at me like she was an animal.
Was like, god, yeah, no one needs to see that.
I pictured column from Lord of the Rings.
No, it's like it was another type of ring any of us.
Well, I did message. So I was heaving in the bathroom for a long time, and then it sort of faded down a little bit and I crawled back into bed, like my column, and I messaged the group and I was like, is anyone else scuse anyone else feel sick? Message Keisha privately. He She's like, are you sure it's food poisoning not something else? And I was like, Bro, if you saw me right now, you would not be questioning that.
The only thing, though, is and like, you can't say that I'm going to hate this. I don't think you manifested fantasting. These moments, to me are coincidences. I know that there's been two of them recently. Even someone who's really into manifesting would say that that's not how manifesting works.
What's also I'm joking it's the anti manifest anyways.
Like doing bad things and bad things will happen.
Yeah, yes, there's got to be something in that, but I've been doing it a lot lately.
For anyone who's really into manifesting, please don't think that I don't think it has a purpose. I just don't like the simplified version of it. I don't think that it is like think good thoughts and you're going to get out of situations. I think there are a lot of complexities in the lives that we all live, and I think that it is a luxury in a lot of times to be able to prioritize manifesting. That's not to say that I don't think you should have goals and work towards achievements and whatnot.
The thing I don't seem to resonate with is that I often will hear people and I think it is like a different type of goal set.
Right.
You know, you've got the thing that you want written down, or maybe you say it, or however you actually go about manifesting and then if.
You achieve it.
Sometimes I think that if you label it as manifesting, I'm like, are you taking it away from the fact that you worked really hard towards something like you are the reason that that happens. So don't put it down to like some spiritual thing you made that happen for yourself. And does it maybe take away from like your sense of pride about that or your sense of feeling like you had determination to reach a certain goal or achieve something that you wanted.
Well, I don't look at manifesting like it's spiritual. I look at it as a step in achieving goals. It is just another step. Whether it's subconsciously, it makes people chase that goal harder when you've written it down and you're working towards it and you're thinking about it all the time, because that's a big part of manifesting, right, It's like thinking about it, looking for it, working for it. Then you see opportunities that you might not have seen before.
You take opportunities you might not have seen before, and it all comes back to that idea of like really putting into fruition what you want. So it's not that you you sit at home and we've spoken about this so much, but I believe Ben's new football job came off the back of manifesting. And that's a whole another chat, and that's not just manifesting. But I taught him how to do it. It was definitely a move that was not on the cards in any capacity, and we didn't think
was possible for a multitude of reasons. But I taught him how I do it, to write it down and think about it, and then off the back of that he did things that he probably wouldn't have done otherwise, just because it's in the front of your mind. So it's just about another step in the road to achieving a goal.
Yeah, And I guess maybe it is the difference in how people describe it, Like I look at it as it's a goal setting activity. I think I struggle with some people who agree with me, and some people absolutely won't. And that's totally fine, Like, please know that me disagreeing with it is not me shitting on people's beliefs around it.
If it works for you, fantastic, totally. But there is like a lot of conversations if you've really gone down the manifesting research about like raising your vibrations and like you know, putting it out into the universe, And there is a spirituality element to it for a lot of people. And I think that is probably the side of it that I struggle with.
Don't get me wrong.
I think like good mental health is important. Having all of your goals set out is so important for keeping it front of mind and achieving things. I just don't use that terminology. I don't use high vibration low vibration. It doesn't resonate with me and with my skepticism.
That's all. There's also that thing I've just googled it because I couldn't remember what it was actually called. It's I could be mispronouncing this the beta Mainhoff phenomenon, also known as the frequency illusion, and that's when you think about something then suddenly you notice it everywhere totally like it's a proven psychological concept.
This is very similar to the theories around angel numbers. And don't get me wrong, like I said, some of this stuff I do believe it, and some of the stuff I like find it contradictory in myself. But angel numbers, if you start seeing you know one one one or one one one one or whatever, that there's quite a few of them.
They all mean different things.
They are meant to mean different signs, and there's this belief that it is its spirits guiding you the universe, showing you that you're on the right path, or trying to redirect you or to reassure you. There's loads of different the kind of affirmations around it. But it is also something that when you become very aware of your brain is wired to look for it. There's this amazing I think I've done it with you guys a while back,
but I might even try it now. I went through a really really shitty time in my early twenties, like a really bad mental health space. I remember I was sitting at my work desk and I was just crying at my laptop and my boss came over and he was like, what's going on? Had just gone through a bad breakup, but it was like a lot of my mental health, I think at that age of my life
was revolved around my relationship, which wasn't particularly good. And he took me into a boardroom and he was like, Hey, I just really want you to listen to this experiment, this activity, and I was very negative. I was like, very upset about everything that was going on in my life, not just my relationship, but the flow and effect that it had had in every facet of my life. And So, unless you're in a car, do this activity with me. Now, close your eyes.
Well, this is fun closure.
Don't be on a cliff walk now either.
Yeah.
Same, if you're somewhere safe, like in your house, in your room, whatever, close your eyes. Okay, on the count of three, I'm going to ask you to open your eyes and look around the room for every single thing that you can find that is brown. You have to really focus close your eyes cicature. Focus on everything that's brown. Really remember the specificness of it, the textures, the colors of the brown, because I'm going to ask you to recite them. So you've got like three to four seconds.
I'll tell you when to close your eyes again. Okay, open your eyes. Look for brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown. Look around behind you, look everywhere brown. Close your eyes. I want you to tell me everything that you saw that was green. Keep your eyes closed.
The only things that I can label that are green are because we're in this room consistently, and I just know the things that are green. I know that parts of the podcast machine and green. I know that there's a plant behind me. I would not have if we were in an unfamiliar room. I wouldn't be able.
To tell you those things.
Can you think of any one thing that's not something you see every day that's green? No, Okay, open your eyes and then look around the room for things that might be green that you wouldn't have necessarily noticed, Like over there, there's a green thing on your coffee cup, there's a green tape on the camera. The thing is you train your brain to only see what it is that you're looking for so, if you're looking for the brown in your life, i e. The shit in your life,
you will only see that version of it. Your brain doesn't have the capacity to focus on multiple things. And so when we talk about this idea and this is I guess my version of manifestation, it's retraining your brain to focus on the things that are positive or are good and are not saying, you know, toxic positivity, but like really looking for those things, because if all you're seeing is brown, you will only see brown.
You will never see the green.
But that is the psychology behind manifestation. It's the whole thing. Once you've written it down and you're thinking about it, you are looking for those things and those opportunities when they present themselves that you wouldn't normally look for. If it wasn't front of mine.
I'd be so interested for anyone who actually just did that activity, Like, let me know how it went, did you, Like? Because when I did it in the room that day, I looked around and I recalled all these brown things, and then I opened my eyes and like, right in front of me was this little pop plant that had been there the whole time, this plastic green pop plant, and I just hadn't seen it.
I hadn't seen anything.
And the more I looked around the room, the more I was like, oh, like I really had just completely discarded all of those things, and it really helped me to rewrite how I see things when I'm going through challenging negative times in my life.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean that was a weird tangent.
We didn't even plan to talk about manifestation today, but here we are.
No.
But then, like, just so we know, I am joking when I said I manifested my your diarrhea and my popping in.
Like that, Just to be clear, I had a bit of your carbonara and I also felt a little bit sick, and that's why I asked you.
Yeah, I was like, oh, we're food sharers. I don't know if I do want to completely like shame and blame the carbon era because we did also have prosudo that it could have.
I ate the precuido and I was fine, dam was a cab and Ira girls.
God.
Anyway, something has been going on in my life from I feel like there'll be other parents out there, particularly probably mums who can resonate with this. It is Easter Hat Parade week.
I wish that we did.
These kind of thing for work.
Remember last Halloween?
You want to here. I just want to add a little.
Bit of novelty, Like how cute wouldn' it be if we were all sitting here in at easter hat guys, it would be good social content. Okay, It's like that time it was Halloween and Keisha wore little little ghost buns and I didn't.
I didn't My people loved them. I didn't quite know what they were.
It took me so long, and it was halfway through the record that you were like, do their ghosts?
And I thought you just kind of dressed out like little Lamb and the prairie for the day. And I didn't know what. I didn't want to Rakish.
We're not stopping you. If you want to come in here in an easta hat.
Do it myself.
I'm thirty one years old, it look like.
But even if there's three of us doing it, we're all still thirty year.
Olds doing these. I'm almost forty. I have a hot glue gun at home. I'm ready to go. Come on over, you can rumble tonight. I would love to do arts and crafts with So it's Easter hat parade we are.
I've got to go back to Kmart tonight to go and get more things so that I can do Like the most epic Easter hat tonight is the hot glue gun night.
It's the whole thing.
I've got to make one for Lola, even though she doesn't even have one at her preschool. And then Marley's got very specific theming. I feel like the Easter hat in our household is turning into the cake creation in like the Hamish Blake's household.
It's like the equivalent.
Who has put the specifications on Marley's the school or Marley Marley.
Oh, so what is she at? The creative genius. We've bought all these different toys that are getting stuck on the hat. She wants green crepe paper to go around it so that the bunnies look like they're sitting in a field. Then she wants Easter eggs. She wants plastic ones, but also real ones stuck onto the hat.
The whole thing is just like what do you do with them afterwards?
Right? You sit them in the cupboard. I have like a one cupboard that's just full of fucking Easter hats.
Last three years, I don't. I don't really do.
I have a business idea we could have, like no, like a exchange easter hats each year.
Easter hatswap, yeah, because then you never have to make one for your kid again. You just get one. That's fuck yeah, that's brilliant.
Cycle recycle.
It could be like the sister of the Traveling Pants, but the Easter hat.
And you've got to leave like a letter about your experiences in the year.
I love this.
Did you win the year? Priorly? Where did you place? Because it's competitive, Where did you play?
Yes, we want top three, but it's got to be tiered because if you're a really good easter hat maker and then you swat with someone who's a shit hat maker.
I'm creative and competitive, So both of these things they take seriously. But actually, the reason why I wanted to talk about this isn't so much about the Easter hats, although I'm sure we all have very fond memories of being in school and the Easter hat parade. It is the duality of being a working parent and also having your kids do something that they're really excited about at school. And we had a moment this morning, so obviously we're
making the hat tonight, excited, excited, excited. The parades on Friday, it's at nine forty five, and I can't go because I have a photo shoot for Tony Mayon that's been planned for ages, long before I knew that the Easter Hat parade was on, and it's all paid for it and I can't cancel it.
I explained that to Maley and she was so upset.
But then, to make matters worse, Matt also has something that he can't move, so she was in absolutely hysterics.
The solution is Nana is going to go.
We're very lucky living with Ellie that Ellie steps up to the plate in the instances where we're not able to do it. But I think that there's this increasing expectation on our generation of parenting to be available, ever present, to be ever present at things that are in working hours.
And I try so hard, like I would say that we do make it to ninety percent of them, but the disappointment that they feel, and the disappointment you feel as a parent when you aren't able to move work things like you feel like you're not doing a good job and you feel like what kind of trauma am I creating in my child that I wasn't there for these key moments when every other parent is going to be there to see their kid do something that they're so excited about.
Yeah, but I don't think every other parent is going to be there. And I think it's an unrealistic expectation to expect parents to be available consistently through school hours. It is not the norm, and I know the expectations are increasing, but I just think that we probably need to take a step back from that and say, hey, you know what they're Most families that I know are duel workers. Both parents go to work. Not everybody runs
their own business. Not everybody has the luxury to have one parent stay home full time and still earn enough to live in the economic climate they were in.
Like, it's not a luxury some families.
It's actually financially more viable for a parent to stay home and take care of their kids then put them in daycare. There's so many reasons why people have the setup that.
They have totally, but there's so many people that do have to go to work as both parents, and that is just like I just think to my childhood one of four kids, and my parents both worked jobs that meant that they had to go to work. If my parents were leaving every time one of the four kids has something to attend, neither of them would work, Like you would be impossible, and they came to the things that were really important or if they could move their
work around. But I turned out just fine, Like it doesn't it did.
I guess the thing, though, is is with that And this is probably like the big question that you ask as a parent is what to find something that's really important. The Easter hat parade is something that's so important to her. Mollly doesn't care about sports. She's got cross country on Wednesday. She's like, I'm not running, don't come. I'm not running around the school. I hate running. But an Easter happ parade is something that is like deeply exciting for her.
But she is absolutely stoked on it, and it's something that we're doing as an activity together, Like she's really proud of it, and she's been talking about it for weeks and so I guess in this instance, this is something that is important to her and normally I would move mountain and earth to try and be there, but this one I physically can't move like there are moments where you just have such immense guilt and you're like, I know that I'll make it up in other ways,
but it's a really shitty thing to try and juggle when you've got to do it all.
I think this is actually a flow and effect. Like we know that we're the therapy generation. We like to psychoanalyze everything. We'd like to unpack out trauma, and for some people that that is real trauma. For some people
bullets trauma with a little tea. I think that there's been this shift in the way that our behavior can be, you know, in our romantic relationships, before we had an absent parent or if we had, you know, a parent that wasn't emotionally engaged with us, and we we kind of know what the flow and effects of that are.
But also that has a scale.
You can have a parent that is completely emotionally absent and completely physically absent, or you can have a parent that's not able to go to one little thing that their child is wanting them to be at because they have other responsibilities or other commitments that they can't get out of. And I think that we've kind of almost equated them to be the same, and like the flow and effects for the kid are going to be the same.
And that's probably why you feel guilty because you're like, oh, you know, I'm not able to be present for every single thing that she wants me to be. Therefore, you even made a joke of like, how's this going to fuck her up in the future?
You know.
The reality is when we were growing up, our parents.
Missed a lot of things because it was just the that was just the way it was, you know, and we kind of just had to accept it.
And I guess the other question is is, like, disappointment is a reality of life. Obviously, you don't want to be disappointed by your parents. That's the terror to feel that down by. But have we almost overcorrected in some ways where we're so fearful of ever allowing our kids to feel a sense of disappointment. And maybe I'm saying
this to make myself feel better. I am probably self soothing with this anyway, But like, is that something that is like if it is meted and it is infrequent, a level of disappointment is something that every kid has to experience from a resilience perspective, because people aren't able to show up for every single thing, every single time, one hundred percent. I'm sure this parents will disagree with me, but I get that I try to make myself feel better.
Guys agree with you reports on it. Kids need to feel levels of independence paying discomfort. They need to be able to feel emotions so they know how to correct them and what to do with them. Like if we are telling them how to feel all the time and how to do things all the time. If a kid's trying to tie his shoelace and we don't let them figure it out and we just do it for them, like all of these little things matter, but part of life is feeling discomfort and trying to work it out
and disappointment. Like you, just perspective is really important, and maybe that is what people teach their kids more because there are kids that don't have families at all, so it's about maybe putting things into perpective. There's kids that don't go to a school that would never have an Easter hat parade, or kids that don't have everroof over
their head, or so maybe it's just broader conversations. Having said that, maybe something you could tell her is that Ellie will FaceTime you or something, so without physically being there, you'll watch it live. You're going to see her walking down, but just from a distance, so she knows that you're
still watching it happen, but you're physically not there. And maybe that is like a way to meet in the middle, so she knows you're watching because you'll feel that pride when she's walking down in a hat.
Let me say though, like thank God for excellent grandparents who step up, Like that's the village, right, that's the village that you need around you because it is so hard to do it all when you are working full time and you have kids and everything else. I'm no busier than anybody else, like everyone else is juggling so much as well. But when grandparents want to be grandparents and they step up to the plate and they can play that maternal role in a fair it's all paternal role,
you know, it's fucking wonderful. And you know I know that, Like obviously, so Ellie's lived with us for like the last year now almost, and at the start, so many people.
Were like, oh my god, living with your mother in law. That's crazy.
And to be honest, I was cautious about how it was going to be. You know, I was unsure that the benefit and the love that those kids get because they had their grandparent in the household. It's been the most incredible experience. Like I love it so much.
I feel very, very grateful.
Something that I wanted to talk about, and it really ties into the conversation we were just happening around having the village around you or a sense of community. I came across a substack article and I sent it in the group chat because it really hit me the content of this.
It's written by a woman, Fluorine Tideman.
She's a writer who contributes to Pop Sugar Murray Claire and it is titled enough with the Boundaries Already Losing my stepfather showed me the community we are sacrificing for our so called boundaries very much. I would say that we are the generation that speaks so much about boundary setting and the importance of boundary setting. We're also a generation that has had some of the highest rates of
loneliness and disconnection. I really wanted to read you some of this, but before I do, just to set up what this substack was about. Florine she recently lost her stepfather, and she helped support her mum through his battle with brain cancer, and she was there side by side caring throughout his palliative care journey. And what she witnessed was the incredible community that her stepfather and her mum had
around them during this time. Neighbors popping over to walk the dog, people dropping off food, people just really showing up in droves. And I guess it made her ask the question as to whether that would be something that she would receive if she was in this position. Has she built a community and this sense of community around her? And I'm not talking about your best friends. I'm talking
about your neighbors. I'm talking about people who were within the same street as this couple who lived there, because they had this real sense of localized community as well. This is what she had to say about it, and it is this conversation that has a cross comparison of generations. She wrote, I have amazing friends in my life. Don't get me wrong. I am privileged to call such strong and interesting people my friends, and they were there for me throughout this time. I'm not trying to imply that
they are anything less than a solid support system. Rather, I'm trying to share an observation about millennials and especially GenZ as someone on the cusp of both of these generations. While we have close friendships, besties and more, we don't quite have that community. We wouldn't drive each other to the airport. We'd expect someone to take public transport or get nubah. Why give up more time than it would
take them. We just don't see the sentimental touch of dropping someone off or picking them up at the airport. We look at the cost of our time. We prioritize practicality over sentimentality. And I guess the big question I had around this is definitely about community. But do you think that we are the generation that is so obsessed with this sense of convenience and boundary setting over a sense of collective community.
So funny you say that, because I had this exact argument with Ben last night. So when you said the airport pick up, we don't take people to the airport anymore. We've missed that sentimental touch. The argument, believe it or not, that I'm having with Ben is so tomorrow I'm flying to Italy. I'm playing twenty four hours. It's a big flight and it's two and a half hours drive away from where Ben lives. And Ben's going to drive two and a half hours to Milan to the airport to
get me. But then the airport's an extra hour fifteen minutes from Milan, so it is a huge effort. So he's trained all day, he's doing all this, he's driving to Milan, and he has said, let me know exactly when you're landing, and I will drive the extra hour and a half to get you. And we had this argument about him saying I love you, I'm going to come pick you up, and me saying I love you, I'm not going to let you come and pick me up. But I absolutely think that is a product of what
we value in this generation. And for me, I think time and convenience definitely, whether it's right or wrong, definitely is at the forefront of what's important to me other than that sentimental touch.
Well, I think one of the things I really love that she wrote in this was that she has the privilege to call such strong and interesting people her friends. And there is no doubt that in hard times, our friends rally around us, and our friends are there for us. But I guess this idea of having accessibility to our friends whenever we want to is something that we definitely
don't have in our generation anymore. For example, if your friend was just to pop over unannounced, completely unannounced on a Saturday, not text, I think the majority of us would find that very odd, or we would find it in an inconvenience. I'd find it intrusive, because almost every day we've got plans, we've got things that we've organized. We're such a busy, hustle culture. I don't want to say of a generation, because I don't think the gen
z's any different to millennials. We are constantly doing things and constantly have plans. We are like absolutely diarized to the nines. So I think that for most people, we know that it would be an inconvenience mostly to just pop over to someone's house. But I think that that's very different from generations and go when that was something
that wasn't necessarily seen as an inconvenience. I would say, for the most part, a lot of people listening to this podcast wouldn't even know their neighbors, wouldn't know who their next or neighbor is.
Yeah, last night I saw there. I went down into my garage to park my apartment building. And it's not huge apartment building. I don't know, one to nine, maybe nine. And there was a girl in the downstairs that I had never seen before, and she was trying to close the garage door and I could see you looking for the button and I.
Was like hey.
She's like sorry, do you know how to close the door? And I'm like yeah. I was like, did you just move in? Like welcome? She's like no, I've been in here two years. I'm upstairs. And we had never seen each other. We never spoken. We introduced ourselves to each other, and she said we should get you up for a drink sometime, and I was like, yeah, you know what we should. And then I went inside and I was like, wow, that's weird. No neighbors ever invited me over for a drink.
I think it depends on where you live, obviously, Like if you're in an inner city and you live in an apartment building, going to be different to people who live in suburban areas or people who do live in it.
There are neighborly streets.
I don't want to discredit everything I've lived in, every version of it.
I know who my neighbors are.
Now.
I've lived in incredibly friendly streets, and I think COVID changed that slightly. I think people who lived in maybe you lived in a could a sac or you lived in like a quiet street because there was nothing else to do. People became friends with their neighbors during that period. I think that that was like a pivot point for a lot of people. But I would still say that the vast majority of young people don't have any idea who a lot of their neighbors are.
Yeah, I think it kind of comes down to the convenience piece that you were talking about, and yes, if you flip it, like the reason I don't necessarily want to go and knock on my neighbor's doors is because I don't want to be an inconvenience to them, Like I don't want to impose myself on them and force them another part of this article.
Force them.
I also think it's because nothing's fixed these days. We move around like whereas back in the day you might live in a house for nineteen twenty years.
People, we are far more.
Transient in terms of how our living arrangements work, especially at this period.
Of our lives.
There was another part of the article, she said, wouldn't it be nice to know that you don't have to arrange a pet sitter, to know that a neighbor could come over just to water your plants and not see it as an intrusion. We have apps for everything that we once relied on neighbors for, and it's because it's an exchange. I think we now don't want to feel indebted to people. We don't want to feel as though we're putting them out, and that they might be able to hold well at least this is how I feel
they might be able to hold that Over me. I would kind of in most situations, I would rather just pay someone and have that exchange be very very clear. But I think it's in the convenience of that and the lack of having to feel an emotion about that interaction that we really have had this decline in a sense of community.
I don't think it's comparative, like I think it's very hard for us to sit here and compare and say the community aspect has changed, because of course it's changed. A lot of what it comes down to is the fact that our parents' generation, when you finished work, you finished work, you didn't have the You did not have apps. You didn't take your work home. Some jobs obviously did, but most people that went to a nine to five. When you got home, you were at home for the afternoon,
your kids were playing in the front yard. When you saw your neighbor's kids in the front yard, you knew your neighbor was home. Like it was just a different time. Now everyone is on a hustle. Everyone has something else to do, and they have access to the ability to do it. Like Laura, you run your own business. You're always going to be working on that. There's always something for you to do at home.
You said something interesting for it when we were talking about the unpacking of this concept.
You said, we have community that we opt into.
Now, if you want community, you go to the gym and you see your friends there, or you see the people that you want a touch base with, or you might go to a sporting thing or whatever. You opt into your sense of community. The response to that is something that was written in the comment section of this sub stack. And to have a village, you have to be a villager. And I guess the problem with having the opt in communities it means that when something big
happens in your life. If you do go through a tragedy or a death, or let's say you have a baby and you're going through terrible postpartum, if you have always had an opt in community around you, then they don't opt in when you're in a time of need because you haven't been there to support throughout the other times when other people required it. They probably have their own sense of community elsewhere.
Yeah, I think what I mean by that is we want community that is convenient, and when we opt into it, I don't mean we opt into it. It's like, hey, I need help now, so let me That's not what I mean. So I'll use my gym as an example that I go to because I think gyms and like running clubs and exercise clubs or tennis well, I think that they are probably the main place people go to get their community in our day and age. And my
gym it's called Vertus, it's in Bondi Beach. It is an amazing gym for community and I've only discovered that in the last year. But what it is is everyone goes to the gym every day, right, so the community is there. It's not opt in, it's opt in that you get to choose what time of the day you go totally, but when you are there, and I have seen it at this gym. This is why I'm using as an example. When somebody needs something or is going through something, the people all the way that they turn
up for each other. It almost is cult like, but it's like, hey, these are one of our own and they need this, Like let's all jump in and help them, let's support them, let's raise money for this. And that is when everyone does opt in because of the community. But it's not opt in like I need something, now help me. When I say opt into your community, it'said. It's like, hey, it's six pm. I'm ready for some community. I don't want my neighbor to pop over, but I'll
go to the gym and I'll meet these people. And that's what I think we mean as a generation, We're not going over to our neighbors to sit and have a tea anymore and form the community. We're forming it on our own timeframe.
I think also, like I mean, we can talk about navally versions of this, but I think religion played a massive role.
People went to church, they had their church communities.
You know, a lot of people and a lot of our generation have you know, moved away from religion. I know, not everyone, obviously, but there is definitely a push towards being more agnostic or even atheist.
There's actually a start that we got about this. Historically, church of synagogues, mosques and temples provided a strong sense of community, but in the twenty twenty one census, over thirty eight percent of Australians reported that they were non religious and that they didn't attend any of those institutions.
I think when I read this like it definitely made me question my behavior, and not in a way where I was like I need to radically change everything so that I had this community around me.
He's starting a church.
I have my own cult of Laura Burn.
I guess my thing is is obviously I have my husband. I have a really like we are so close. We do everything together, my husband, Matt. That sound weird, you guys know exactly is I have really good girlfriends in the same way that this woman Fluorine describes that she has really close friends around her. But I definitely am someone who is guilty of prioritizing convenience over you know, I'm not the one who's putting my hand up to run to the airport to go get someone if they
can get a NEWBA. You know, maybe I feel like slightly guilty for that in some ways, but I think it is because we stack our work schedules so heavily, we stack our life schedules. We make excuses for it because we've got two kids and we're parenting, and everything's always busy all the time, that it's hard to make space to be inconvenienced, I guess, and I think like that's something where I read this and I was like, oh, I am guilty of being this person. And I don't
say that as though that's an isolated thing. I think a lot of people would read that and go I would do the same. I have friends over for dinner. I'm not cooking them dinner. I'm ordering Uber Eats.
You know.
I know that that is fine, and I know that no one's judging me for ordering it. But there wasn't the sense of time. I didn't spend time creating something that was a really well thought at me, or that I knew my friend was gonna love.
I was just like, come over and I ordered.
I think I often opt into convenience because it suits my life at the moment.
Yeah, I think.
I mean what you're talking about is that you prioritize other things. And I think that that could be because of the particular life stage that you're in, because that was my immediate thought when I read this too, I was like, how am I showing up as a villager. I will actually put my head up and say, I'm pretty good at doing the airport pick up and drop off.
I think you're a great village a case.
If I was out of all my friends, you're the first person to go, I will do that for you.
And I'm like, but why you don't need to?
And I personally have a S and so I don't want to inconvenience you and I and exactly what you described earlier on, I don't want to be indebted to you, so I will not ask for things because I don't want to exploit that either.
Yeah.
I mean I was thinking about this last night. I so appreciate you saying that because it's something that I really I guess I did grow up in a church, so maybe it's actually because I had those values and like that sense.
Of community was really instilled in me.
My mum was incredibly social as well, so we had family groups around us all the time growing up.
I would just say, you're a good friend. I wouldn't give the church that credit, to be honest, I think you're just a good person. That's maybe you've been raised well because you were at the church. Maybe, But I think it's a.
Value system that is like a lot of religions, This isn't specific to the religion I grew up amongst.
I think that this is across every religion, you know.
I know that in the.
Bible there's a lot about you know, doing things for thy neighbor, and it's all about caring about each other and having a moral code that you will operate under so that you're not hurting the people around you. And maybe it is the fact that we've had this increase in technology that has made us feel more connected through the technology rather than physically connected to other people.
There's a lot of research on the fact that that's not the same.
You know, there's a lot of research on the neurotransmitters, the release in your brain, and they're not the same
as when you're in person physically sitting with someone. But I also think that you develop this really deep sense of community with people in the moments you don't expect the gradual hanging out with each other, and you know, we drive to work together, and that's when I have some of my most deep and meaningful conversations with you, because it's just in the accidental nature of things happening
and things coming up. And I really do think that I've lost that in almost every other aspect of my life. But keep you have a question for you, and I think it comes into the conversation around boundaries. In this would you define yourself as a people pleaser? I hugely would have defined myself as a people pleaser. In fact, I only feel as though I've been able to create boundaries in my life in the last year to year
and a half. And I would say that since leaning into this concept of boundaries, you say no to things more often that I'm saying this not as a criticism. I'm saying this as like it was an eye opener to me.
I feel like I'm someone who has a lot of boundaries in place to preserve my time, and that's something that I worked really hard on. Don't get me wrong when I say like I'm not going to go out of my way to do X y Z. Don't please, don't think I'm an asshole. I also never have expected anyone to go out of their way for me. It's not a take situation. It is a completely unreciprocated like I'm fine, I'll get a taxi.
I'm fine, I'll do this.
I'm so deeply independent that I don't expect anything from anyone else. And I guess, like what I took from this substack, and what I think is so interesting is that people who don't have this willing sense of like strong boundaries that we've all been told we are supposed to have still are the people that show up in this way because they're so much more open. And it's exactly how she described herself in this first paragraph, a chronic people pleaser.
They's so much more open to do things.
For other people for the joy of how that makes the other person feel.
Yeah.
Actually, I was thinking about this last night because a lot of the whole boundary setting and that kind of thing, if people haven't listened to Cloud. I became more aware of it when I learned that I was masking in a lot of situations and that perhaps the reason I was doing those things for other people, or I was at least offering was more so about because I didn't want them to view me in a negative way. I don't think I did it for the most genuine reasons.
I don't think I did it because I was like, Hey, this is a village, and this is what we do for each other.
But I read this one thing and I was like, Fuck, that's what it is.
It's a term that researchers call crowded loneliness. So it's the emphasis on hyperindividualization and personal boundaries that may lead to prioritizing yourself over shared responsibility. Basically, it means that you can be around people a lot, and you can kind of be in these crowded environments, but you don't actually feel a meaningful sense of connection. And I think that that's maybe where I am now learning to put boundaries in place in a much better way, and it's
leading to much more meaningful connection. I'm more specific with the people that I want in my village and that I will bend over backward for.
I don't know.
If that's because I realized throughout the course of time that maybe things I would be willing to do for other people they wouldn't be willing to do for me, And so I've kind of started to create a little bit more distance in those situations.
That seems like a bit of a selfish way to think about it, but not really.
Well, I think it isn't just natural that if you don't feel it's a two way street, you're probably going to be like, oh, actually, if you're not going to show up for me, I probably don't need to show up for you as much.
But yeah, exactly, which comes back to the whole to have a village, you've got.
To be a villager.
Yeah.
The last thing I wanted to question you guys on is whether this is a life stage thing. Do you think that it's fundamental shift in the way that we now connect with each other because of technology and because of this, you know, therapy culture that we've got, or do you think it's just more reflective of the stage that we're in and when we get older, we might have more free time and therefore we will kind of put more time and effort into community.
I can't wait to play long bowls every day when I like seventy.
I hope that as my life is less busy because I feel like I am currently in the thick of my life life, Like I can't imagine being fifty and still running at this pace.
I think I'll have a heart attack and die, do you know what I mean?
Like I don't imagine having little kids and running multiple businesses and trying to keep a husband happy, and like living with my mother in law, Like I already feel like I'm so overstimulated by the requirements. And I would dare say that so many people who are at our phase of life feel the same. I hope that when I'm fifty or sixty and my kids are older, I have time to put into these things, and maybe then
I will have more accessibility to it. The only thing is is do we become a product of what we have conditioned ourself to be for so many years?
You know?
Do we just become a product of Like Okay, well now I have time, I still don't have.
Community and I'm just lonely. Like is that the end goal? I don't know.
I don't know. I think it's a really interesting one for so many people to have a think about. And please go, Like I said, We're going to link it in the show notes. The substack, so that you guys can go and have your own thoughts on it as well. But it's a really fascinating read. I have a suck and suitet. What is your stuck of the week?
My suck of the week is, and I mean I'm a very blessed.
Suck, but sitting and vomiting orife obviously that was it.
But no, we can't use that twice. I am flying to see Ben in the morning. I'm getting picked up at three am in the morning, so I have to get up at two am, and I have not packed. And I don't know why I do this. I just have this aversion of packing. I detest it.
I wait just to take you to pack. Surely packing takes like one hour.
No, not when you're going for a couple of weeks and you're taking so much. I've got to take so much equipment over for the podcasting, cameras, setups, lights.
How long do you reckon it takes you to do.
I am my last minute packer, but I will pack for my entire family myself maximum. If I've got to pack for everyone two hours maximum.
It'll take me a couple of hours for sure. And then you've got to get your house ready. You've got to throw everything in the fridge out. You got to make sure everything is warned, and you've got your plant food and all this stuff. Got to get Delilah out and pack up her stuff. It's just like one of those things that I put off to the last minute, and I hate it and I don't know why I do it, because now I'm going home tonight to sort out my life.
I've just realized.
I know I've got Delilah, but am I also expected to water the plants again?
If I call you can okay?
If I call over, I'm not responsible.
You need to stop taking responsibility because then it just means that you have to replace You replaced it last time. That's expensive. That's like that's a debt. You don't want to get a bargain though. That's a debt you don't want. Okay, what's your sweep for the week?
You bok are out of water in my plants.
We just spoke about community. Yeah, but when did you ever walk to put it outside in the garden? We do?
Can you put it outside in the garden.
It's been raining a fair bit. It'll be fine.
I mean, I can I guess.
Your fiddle fee will do better underneath a tree in the garden. The water will do in your house while you're gone.
They don't want it to be moved anyway. My sweet is I'm seeing Ben tomorrow.
Well on that. We'll be doing a record next week.
So we are taking a holiday break at the end of next week. But next week we'll be doing one record with Britain in Italy.
Yep, I will be coming to you from Italia.
Yeah, and with all the kabanarah and no gastro that you can possibly have, what is yoursf my suck for the week, to be honest, I don't have a suck this week, and the reason for that is because the weekend just passed. We got to go down to Ala Dalla and spend two nights in the house. We wanted to go so like, as if you're not across it. We've been doing this renovation. I'm sure you are. We've literally not talked about anything else. For me, I think
they're across and I reckon everyone's across it. But we like the house is almost finished, we've started to get furniture in, We've like all the appliances have been installed. So we went down there on Friday, and we spent Friday, Saturday, Sunday down there with the girls so that we could test everything out and make sure that it was like Liverpool and things actually worked the way that they said they were going to work, so that we can spend
our Easter holiday down there. So where I'm so stoked. I honestly it felt like a dream walking into the house and seeing it finished and like seeing it so so close to completion because I haven't seen it since Matt was in the jungle. I went down there while he was away, so it's been for me like almost two months I've seen the house.
Yeah, so and it was amazing.
The girls have their own sweet bedroom and like it's all really come together. So next week I'll be able to update you guys properly on how that is going down because we're going to be recording from.
All bla amazing.
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