Life un Cut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never seeded. We pay our respects to their elders past and present.
Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land. This episode was recorded on Drug Wallamuta Land. Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life on Patna. I'm pretty holy dully, it has been a morning.
It has been. I mean, we always say we driving chaos. We always say how chaotic life is. Today was probably the most chaotic it's been in as long as I can remember.
I'll tell you why things are going wrong. It's because producer Keisha is still in Europe sucking down.
After all spirits. Oh I think you're gonna say sucking someone else.
She's probably tatter it.
She is down in opp Rol Spirits. She's there for another week and she's left us to our own devices. Now, we for over two years by ourselves, once upon a time. God knows how we did that. You know why? Because it was simple. You know the old kiss saying keep it simple stupid? You remember that from school?
Right?
Yeah?
With life, they're like, just kiss it, keep it simple, stupid.
I don't think anyone said it as like a life mottol but like I did sure my entire life.
I thought your life model was risk for there it was, and then it was kiss, which is why risk it for. The biscuit was mine. They're playing to each other. But it was so easy for us because we were at home. We didn't have fancy equipment. We didn't have like all these cameras and like zoom recordings and desks. We didn't have desks, we didn't.
Have pants, We literally had nothing, and it was easier than what it is now between Britain and I we're both so technologically challenged that in order to be able to record today's episode, they have everything here like we're at the.
Podcasting studio, I guess you'd call it. But we brought our own equipment because we don't know how to use the equipment here.
I came with my suitcase.
I brought a suitcase.
It still has like my virgin stickert attached to it. I put all the equipment in it and I wheeled it on in. We set it all up. Let's not like talk ourselves down too much.
The floor is on lava, but everything is fine.
The floor is on lava.
The floor is lava.
We're back from your honeymoon, not honeymoon.
Guys went to Fiji for five days. I'm sure we probably knew that if you listened to the last week's episode or saw it on the socials.
Did you ask him if they wanted to see it on socials?
I didn't. I didn't say, hey, guys, does anyone want to see my honeymoon on socials? I just made you.
All view it.
But what I would like to say is taking your own children along with your sister's children and your sister and her husband on your honeymoon. I think it makes it less of a honeymoon and just a holiday with family.
Well it's not ideal, but correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't you say that Matt thought he was going on a honeymoon. He didn't really know that you'd invited the rest of.
The No, no, no, no, he knew, he knew. Alicia thought it was her fortieth birthday present. That was a different thought. We were going to celebrate her fortieth and then I was like, hey, I know you're turning forty, but it is also our honeymoon. So I just combined and joined things. Where we stayed had the best freaking kids club, Like it was amazing, and I expected that the girls were going to get there and then not want to go to kids club and complains they wanted
to be with us. They woke up every morning and they ran out the door. They were like, well, going to kids clubs on their own as they didn't want a bar of us until it came to like four o'clock in the afternoon. And it was possibly the best holiday I think I've ever had.
So did they? Kids club every day?
Kids club every day?
Man?
They made T shirts. We like out making grass skirts, they were collecting eggs. It was their holiday. We just paid for it.
It was an expensive honeymoon, wasn't it. It was a whole family.
Yeah, a fair. That's what happens when you have children, and especially when your youngest one is over to and you got to buy them a ticket. Laula didn't sit on that fucking seat for one second. When do you have to start paying for a kid at one, two two? Yeah, and then it's full price at ever. Yeah. There's no intermission phase where they're like, oh, that kid's too but they don't take up that much of the seed, so let's just charge them a quarter of the price.
Do you still get like when you walk onto the plane and you've got, oh your shit, and you've got two kids and one't Lola's. We know, Lola's wild little potato head. Do you still get like the subtle looks from people down the corridor being like, oh fuck, please don't sit next to me, Please don't sit next to me. Like do you feel down the corridor?
It's it's kind of okay when you fly to somewhere like Fiji, because I feel like majority of the people who are flying they have children.
Yeah, because they're kids club are known worldwide. I need you get known for kids clubs.
They're known for kids clubs. And also the Fijian people are so beautifully lovely and they are they are like born to be parents, Like they are just the kindest, most patient and lovely people. And so everybody takes their children there and are like, hey, have my kids for a week. Here they are, and so we offload them. The one thing though, it did happen to me speaking of romantic honeymoons, is the curse, my tropical holiday curse. What's that hit me again?
I don't know if that's a real thing.
Isn't every time I go on a tropical holiday and you know this bread. Basically, we flew in to Nadi. We got on a little boat that took us over to where we were staying. The second the second my foot touch land, I was like, you've got to be kidding me. Period.
Oh.
I was about to say diarrhea rain or u TI rain rain in my pants?
Period, blood rain. The second flood, it was a blood flat. The gates opened, the damn flooded honeymoon blood flood. That's exactly what happened. I took the.
Honeymoon blood flood. Shall hear me known from here? For that you have the curse of the honeymoon blood plot.
I took one step onto the island and I was like, oh, I didn't even pack or in a remote island somewhere, I had no tampoons.
Would you not pack a tampon?
Because I got them a week early? Didn't I It's literally like my body was like, oh, you're going on a honeymoon, cool.
No sex for you?
Period? We're really going to fuck Matt's stream side.
You can still do period section.
He is not a stand of it, he lied once on the podcast. I remember once we interviewed him and he said he doesn't mind. He was like, oh, I'm all four period sex. And then as soon as I actually had them, and I'm like, do we call them with them? I don't know when they're actually here, and I'm like, hey, baby, let's get jigg they show up. Yeah, they came. Anyway, well she she arrived.
They came. You didn't.
They came and I did not. That's definitely the moral of the story. But anyway, apart from that, we had a beautiful honeymoon. It was a great time. Matt swam many laps underwater. I saw them.
That's all I saw of the holiday was just matt' sween underwater pretty much all I like. It's like the kids, they're like, mum.
Watch me.
That was like what Matt was doing. So what was the highlight?
Laying on my back. I woke up in the morning, I went to the breakfast buffet, I shipped my kids off to kids club, and then I went to the gym, and then I laid by the pool And that was pretty much my entire day.
But that's what a holiday should be, or what you're describing is that you were on a holiday. You're like, believe it or not, you've probably never done that before.
Well, no, The problem is is that once you have children, you just parent in a new location. That's all you do. So it's their holiday and you just chaperone them on it, and kids club is a game changer. And prior to this holiday, my kids have been too young for kids Club, like Lola has a little melon head, it has been too little. And this is the first time that genuinely she got up every morning and she was like, yeah, kid club and she ran out the door.
So does that mean the only holiday you're ever going to do again is back to Fiji, back to the kids club.
We're only ever going to places with kids club from now on.
Imagine Europe or something that kids club couldn't do it.
Could you need to go to kids club? I don't care about your posatana. I don't want to go and sit on a beach with my children around there.
We did that Mali right when she was like.
She was a fotis a little blob. She was literally she'd just come out of me and she was still a fetus.
Why did you do that? As a new you just like fuck it?
No, this is a misconception. Traveling with newborn babies is actually completely fine traveling with like a three month old baby because they just sleep all the time. So we went to Europe when Maley was only three months old. We had the most amazing trip, but once they hit about four months, five months, six months, goes rapidly downhill. We are not going back to Europe until they're seventeen.
Yeah, and then they can pay for themselves.
Yeah, how that's why you send them over there. Do you know what? One thing did happen to me though, which I thought I had my own little accidentally unfiltered moment. I was. So we went out for the dinner this one night and there was a couple who we met, and they were very proper. They were very lovely, but they had a proper domestic sitting next to us at the table. But started off with a little bickering fight between the two of them.
How old are we talking?
They were probably in their forties. Nationality yeah Aussie's, Like I'm pretty sure they were from Sydney. Anyway, they were having a little bit of a bickering fight and then it turned into him being like I could overhear it. It was so it was so inappropriately loud for how close we were sitting to each other. He was saying, you know, I'm we're not doing this shit again, Like I can't believe we're going to rehash this. So they were having a full on argument and then she sat
pretty quiet for the rest of the dinner. And it was awkward because we'd just met and like we'd had a really nice chat and then it was kind of like, oh God, I wonder what's going on there.
But it is awkward when also you know that they know that, you know, that's exactly yeah, when everyone in the situation knows.
So the next morning I get to break and they're there. They're sitting at the table, rub it lecture us. No, no, it's a different restaurants, are sitting right there, and we sat down next to them. I was like, oh, it's a bit awkward, you know, like we heard them having a fight. They know that we heard them having a fight. They were looking at us. We didn't say we did like some like cordial like is that what's good? We were like hellos, you know anyway down were like, hi,
how are you if? It is it cordial like the drink or is it cordial.
It's said the same, but it's spelled it ha ha.
So we sat at breakfast and had some cordial and then said hello and then cordialed, and then we cordialed, so we said a low exchanged like a little bit of you know, pleasantries. And then I was like feeding Lala and they were staring at us, and I was like, this is weird. But then they kept staring at us and I and I said to my must be really awkward for them because we heard them having that fight
last night. And then I'm feeding Alla her wheatbits. And this goes on for a good fifteen minutes, no exaggeration, and then I look up again and they're still looking at me intermittently like they're back to their breakfast. And then they look up and stare at me oddly, and then they look back down and like.
When you're seventeen, you would have said take.
A picture at a last literally give it simple, stupid. So we get to a point where I'm like, this is very They're making this very uncomfortable now, like what's like, what's the problem anyway, I just do a bit of a face, like like a what's like, what's your problem face? Yeah, that's your problem face.
Yeah, I know, the one like little eyebrow raised. I haven't had enough bowtox to freeze.
It yet, just a little like, hey, I've got some use of my forehead again. And he just looks down and then looks back up, and I was like, what are they doing? And I looked down my entire tit, the whole left tit. I was wearing a button up shirt and my entire left tit was just sitting out of my shirt half. It was like hovering a centimeter
above Lola's weet my knee. Yeah. I had been sitting there at breakfast the whole time with my button up shirt done up and just one entire tit which I wasn't wearing a bra, and it was hanging almost in Lola's wheat bits. And they had just been staring at me like, surely she will realize this. And I didn't.
Minute as Matt not realized that your tit was out.
No one did. He was sitting next to me, and they were sitting directly in front of me. No one told me the whole of breakfast, just a whole boob. You know, there's a difference with like someone not telling you that you tags out.
But when you tits out like someone needs to give your heads up, like you fucking did me dirty. Hey you've got a bit of green on your teeth. You tag down your tits out.
You gotta tag a tea.
Hey, I'm just tagging you. That is so funny.
They think maybe they thought I'd done it on purpose.
No, no, I mean it is weird that you didn't feel the breeze.
On it or it was beautiful and warm. I was moist everywhere, So weird.
You didn't feel like the wheatbits and the milk lapping up onto the bottom of the breast.
They weren't in the wheatbecks. They were hovering a very small amount above the wheat pits.
They probably thought, you're still breastfeeding and you're putting your milk into the whetick.
To beat it to lower for some extra sustenance. Anyway, So, speaking of highlights of the trip, that was that was one of them.
Really, that's so funny. Do you know what happened to me nowhere near is they're still okay, there's one thing that happened to me that I'm still debating if I'm going to tell you so maybe in the coming I'll think about it.
Just tell me now.
I might tell you on Thursday next week. I'm just gonna think about it for a minutees pretty gross.
Are you going to bread crumb this to hope that people listen on Thursday?
Yeah, sure, we'll do that.
I'll break r Okay, what does it have to do with give me, give me some cou something.
The rankest thing that, one of the rankest things that's happened to me happened to me, barling. But I'm going to sit on it for now. You know what, we're doing live shows. Later I'm weighing up whether I say it for a live show. It was disgusting anyway.
Did you just announce without it being an official announcement that we're doing proper live shows.
Well, we've sort of done that a few times. We've sort of mentioned live shows. Everyone knows we're doing them, right.
Well, if you didn't know that we're doing we've done that.
We're doing a live show.
But we're not just doing one live show this year. We have literally just confirmed that we are going to be doing live shows all across the country and that is going to be happening in October and early November, which is naturally too.
Yeah. Bring on the Life one Cut baby tickets and not on sale yep, so don't go looking for them. We'll let you know, but they are going on sale very very soon. So keep your ears and eyes and titties open.
Yeah, keep everything ready to accept the Life on Cut live show. If you want to know when it's happening, Yes, you can listen to the podcast. But a way more effective way and you will get the tickets straight away is go and follow us on socials at Life Uncut Podcasts because we will absolutely announce it on Instagram when that is all happening.
One hundred percent. Look, you're gonna know about it. You will know about it. We're gonna be screaming it from the rooftops. No, something super annoying happened to me in Balle. Annoying on multiple levels because one it was inconvenient and two it just made me like an idiot in front of Ben. I had been you know Ben you know hates, not hates, but he's scared of every animal in the universe. So we had been everyone knows in Bali monkeys are everywhere, right.
Is this the story that you're bread coming to Thursday and you're just telling us now, no, this is a different story. Sorry yet cool. Stay tuned for Thursday's episode. When what happened to life?
No, it's just this is just it was just a funny situation. I didn't think it ever happened to me, but I've been to Bali so many times, so I was like, you know, when you're like showing off, I was just like, babe, just like, I'll show you the ropes of Ballei.
It's my backyard.
Yeah, stick with me, like I know everything about Ballet. I had been hounding him a lot about the monkeys because you know, they can be very cheeky in Bali. They steal a lot of stuff, they can break in. And so when we arrived at this villa in Uluatu, it was up on the mountains on the cliff, there were monkeys everywhere, and the owner had been like, you know, the monkeys do come in sometimes whatever. So I kept saying to Ben, like, be really careful because it just
like leads stuff around. And I was hounding him constantly
about it. Anyway, I we were out some baking and I watched this happen in slow motion were some baking and I were eating lunch on this deck by the pool, and I took my hat off to go for a swim, and I took my visial line out because I was eating, and I put my vizil line in my hat and I left it on the beach chair and then we dove into the pool, and in slow motion, I watched a monkey jump off the roof walk over to my hat and I was like, oh my god, you little shit,
no took my inbizzle line, took my hat. You could not write this and fucked off the little fucker. So I have lost three mizzle lines now, one buried by Delilah, two of them to Dela, and one of them to.
This monkey.
Is gonna have the best smile in all all the why.
Too, And he knew it too because the monkey took them. You know when you look at a kid right and you're like, don't drop it. You know when a kid steal something and they look at you and they do it anyway, the monkey did that. He literally locked eyes on me and I was like, oh, don't do it, and then took it. Ben watched the whole thing. He just thought it was hysterical. Because I've been riding him
for a month. So that's my fucking viziline in. Visilin's not something you can just lose because it's made for your teeth, so you don't just go down to the chemists and get another visilin.
No, it's very annoying, you know what it's because it probably tasted like food, which is disgusting to think about it. He said, you'd just eaten and then you know, you took it out and he would have just been like Mike and smell some left over some curry. Yeah, that's what he's like. That's a bit of a beef rain. Dang right there, run off into the mountain.
What would he do with it?
Though?
Like just annoying. What are you gonna do with that?
He's gonna throw on the ground and litter little shit, little shit. Well, with all of our holiday updates, I don't feel like we actually told you any of the highlights. Really, we both had a great time with our holiday updates out of the way. I want to tell you what today's episode is about because I feel like it's one that is going to relate to so many people, and it's going to relate to people in a variety of
different ways. Now, when I say we produce a Kisha and I actually recorded this episode it's all about purpose anxiety whilst brit was away in Bali and we interviewed. She's a psychologist. Her name is Sabina Reid. The reason why I found this so interesting is because I think at different times in life, so many of us have struggled with what is our purpose? What is it that
we're supposed to be doing. Often I think this can relate to our careers, our career choices to work, especially for people who may be finishing school or going through university. You have those moments in life where you're like, what am I supposed to be doing? And it can feel very pressing, like there's almost like a timeline in which you need to make these decisions up about your life. But I also think it hits us at different times
in life as well. I think for me, the time where I really struggle with purpose anxiety was just after becoming a mum and feeling like my identity had change so much and I wasn't sure what my role was, what was supposed to take precedents in my life, what was supposed to be the most important thing to me, and I think for me it was juggling a career
alongside motherhood. But I think that there's so many times in life where people struggle with what is the thing that they're supposed to be doing with their life, whether it be in relationships, whether it be around having children, whether it be about their careers. And that's what where I'm packing on this episode.
I'm genuinely shattered that I wasn't here to record it, but I'm really keen to listen to this episode as like a consumer, because I think purpose anxiety is something that every single person experiences, and what you just said is right. It doesn't matter where you're at in life or how old you are. It can come at any time. It's something I know I've battled with all the time. I battle with it at the moment now, and I don't know if that's because I've got a long distance relationship.
I don't know if it's because I'm about to officially go into the second half of my thirties. I'm going to say that I'm still thirty five, but next month I roll over where I'm closer to forty than thirty and that's a big moment for me. But I'm doing the same thing now. And sometimes I don't know if you ever do this, Laura. I get really deep in my mind and I'm like, what is the point? We wake up every day and we stress and we're tired, and we don't sleep when we go to work, and
I'm like, is there a greater purpose for me? And it comes back to the purpose, like, am I doing enough to help people? Am I contributing enough to society? Am I contribute enough to my family?
Like?
I start to think about all these things and you get so deep into this hectic cycle in your brain that sometimes it's hard to get back out and sometimes you need a shock to say, hey, everyone experiences this and you're doing okay.
Well. There were two parts of this that I really loved. I really loved that Sabina talked about the privilege, the privilege that comes from being able to even worry about your purpose, because being able to worry about your purpose means that every single basic need that you have as a human has already been met, Because if you're worrying about putting a roof of your head, you're certainly not
worrying about what your purpose is in life. And the second part for me that I thought was just I had this humongous a harm when we were speaking is Britain and I have talked a lot about attachment theory throughout the podcast. If you've read our book Attachment Theory or something that has really been a feature that's kind
of reared its head several times. But we've spoken about attachment theory in relation to relationships, how our relationship with our parents impact the way in which we relate to our romantic partners as we grow up. The thing that I loved about what Sabina spoke about is that attachment theory also hugely affects the way in which we feel purpose in the world and the way that we had it modeled to us, the way that we were able to lean into the things that brought us joy as children.
All of that impacts our ability to feel purpose and also it impacts what we think we should be doing versus what we are actually doing.
Look, I wanted to talk to you about something that it's no surprise, it's something that the whole world is talking about the last couple of days, and that is Jonah Hill. Now I know Laurcles. We've spoken about it off there, but I know you've seen the texts that have come out from his girlfriend ex girlfriend, sorry Sarah Brady, So a couple of days ago. Sarah his ex girlfriend of one year. They dated for twelve months back in twenty twenty one, so a few years has gone past.
Jonah has just had a baby with his current partner. But she has come out on her Instagram. She released a series of screenshots with text messages from their exchange in their relationship, and she just put the caption fuck it and then started sharing and what has turned into many, many, many, many Instagram slides and posts. It's gone to TikTok, has gone to every news site, It's gone viral about the way he treated her and spoke to her in that relationship.
Now, this wasn't just a couple of messages that were shared. This was a fucking takedown, Like, oh yeah, Brittainy went really deep on this, because there are so many layers to this conversation. It wasn't just a sharing of one or two messages or a few images. This was so many text messages and so many instances of controlling behavior throughout the course of their relationship.
Yeah, we will say allegedly through this because it is allegedly. He has not commented and his representatives have not commented, so that's very important. But she has come out and detailed the alleged emotional abuse in that relationship.
Well, this is what she had to say when she started posting these screenshots. The first thing was, this is a warning to all girls, and I'm sharing this publicly now because keeping it to myself was causing more damage to my mental health than sharing it ever could do. Now, she went on to say that he was a narcissist. This is what she said, Just another narcissist and you
make me sick. One of the text messages that she shared of Jonah Hill's was him laying down and I'm gonna say, quote unquote the boundaries that he has in his relationship. But the boundaries were more rules of which she needed to abide by. And this is what it said,
plain and simple. If you need surfing with men, boundaryless inappropriate friendships with men to model, to post pictures of yourself in a bathing suit, to post sexual pictures, friendships with women who are in unstable places, and from your wild recent past beyond getting a lunch or a coffee or something respectful, then I am not the right partner for you. If these things bring you to a place of happiness, well I support it and there will be
no hard feelings. However, these are my boundaries for romantic partnership, my boundaries with you based on ways these actions have hurt our trust.
It's important to note before you go on that whilst the number one thing was surfing with men, she was a pro semi pro surfer, like her job was a semi pro sofer, and she modeled a lot for surfing companies and bikinis. So the two things that he says.
At the start are actually an occupation.
It's her occupation. Yeah.
I mean the other part of that that's so important to unpack is like, we all know that surfing is such a male dominated industry, so to say that you can't go surfing with men, firstly, it limits her ability to do her occupation. The thing that I think is the overarching part of this, he's saying, these are my boundaries, and he's smart, he is educated, he has been to therapy for a really long time, and instead of acknowledging
that this is really controlling behavior. He's dressing it up as though, but these are my boundaries, which absolves him of any sort of manipulation.
Almost he did it very well, especially to say these are the actions that have hurt our trust. Her existence. She hasn't done anything wrong, but her existence has hurt his trust. So of course your immediate response or her immediate response, and it was. She says that is to try and work around that, try and say, okay, well,
what else can I do? And she goes on to show another conversation about allegedly Joying to making her delete a bunch of photos from her Instagram, and she did repost one saying I'm reposting this again, you know, to fuck you narcissist kind of thing, And we go on to learn because she reposts them, we're going to learn that some of them were are literally standing there in clothes like clothes. Some were bikinis that he would say they show too much ass, like just the control over
what she can wear. But one in particular was a video of her surfing, trying and you can see her in this text exchange. She's trying to meet him halfway. She's trying to respect these boundaries that he put in, which is why. But when you're in it, you're in it, right, You don't know. You want to please your lover, the person that you think is your safe haven in your home.
So she started to delete things, and it got to the point where he wanted it to delete this one video and she says, you know, this is literally my
best surfing video, my favorite surfing video. And he keeps trying to get it to delete it because she's in swimwear, believe it or not, in the ocean, to the point where she's like, please, can I even just change the cover photo, like well the cover, like, don't make me delete the video, And again he goes on to throw around the words of boundaries and trust and respect.
One of the hypocrisies of that is so this video that he was asking her to delete, that he was telling her it was breaking the trust of the boundaries, this co opted word boundaries that he's using as a weapon. It actually was a video that before they were dating, he commented on and used that video to slide into
her DM. So he commented on that video sent her like a cheeky little DM, and that was like how their relationship kind of started, and so it's very interesting that now that same video that originally kind of drew him into her is something that he felt threatened by and was using that, as I guess, ammunition to tell her that she needed to doctor and censor her Instagram.
Now we've spoken loads on this podcast and many many times before about how not okay it is for a partner to try and sensor or tell you what you can and can't do and what you can and can't post, because it is a real overt way of controlling someone, of treating someone as though that you're their property. But like we said just earlier, I think the really interesting part of this is the way that he's branded it as boundaries, as though it's something that he it's a
limitation within his relationship. But something they think is really important for us to unpack is this idea of what constitutes boundaries in a relationship. So boundaries are limitations that you put on yourself. These are the things that I will and won't accept. Now, obviously there are going to be some things like I won't be with someone who cheats on me, I won't be with someone who lies to me. But when it kind of gets down into the nitty gritty around I won't be with someone unless
they behave in a certain way. If if you do this, then you're breaking my boundaries. That's when I think it crosses over into very manipulative behavior. And that's why Sarah has said that it was very emotional manipulative. In this instance, what Jona Hill is actually doing is he's telling her what to do. He's saying, you need to behave in this way and follow these set of rules. It's not boundaries, it's a rule book that he's given her.
Delete this picture.
Yeah, And if you don't follow this set of rules and these guidelines for how I want you to behave, then you can't be in this relationship. And that in itself is very manipulative.
Next week on the podcast, actually we're speaking to the CEO of Respect Victoria Emily Maguire, and the episode's actually all about non physical violent forms of domestic violence, and this falls into it. This is gaslighting, it's manipulation, it's coercion, it's control. And I think a lot of you'll find that's a really interesting episode and we do touch on it in that episode as well.
Now, something I think is really important to touch on. And now this in no way excuses his behavior, which I think we can all look at and say that if those alleged techs are real, then it is hugely problematic. But I think it would be remiss of us to not talk about his own insecurities and where this might actually come from. Because Jonah Hill back in twenty twenty one did a documentary. It was called Stuts or Stuts,
which is the name of his therapist. He created this documentary alongside his therapist, and what he described in that is the self loathing he has in terms of his body image, in terms of his weight, and how in his own words, and how that left him being incredibly fucked up. The reason why I bring this up is because it's so easy to paint people as one dimensional and to paint him as being this evil person. But I do think it's interesting to unpack where this type
of behavior has come from. And Jonah Hill has been in the media for a very long time, and there has always been discussion around his weight, There's always been discussion around the way that he looks, and he has spoken very publicly about the insecurities he has as a person and how that public scrutiny has created once again this incredible self loathing that he has. No part of me is saying that this behavior from him is okay.
But I also do think it is very interesting to unpack the why behind what may motivate him to want to have control in his relationships, and in this instance, I think it comes from this deep insecurity that he has that has been created by self loathing and the public scrutiny around his body and the way that he looks.
Yeah, the way he's been treated in the media over the years is horrific. No one deserves the level of body shaming that he has experienced, and he spoke about that openly. And I remember celebrating him when he came out, you know, when he said, I'm done with this. You're not going to make me feel bad about my body anymore. I remember being like fucking Bravo, like live your life. But I think the thing here for me is as a level of learned misogyny and trauma mixed into one.
Does that mean it's an excuse for his behavior. No. And the really alarming thing is this all happened after his years of therapy. This happened after he was celebrating how great his therapist was and how far he's come. That's the problem for me because he's pretty much saying like my therapist is the best here, I am a new person, while simultaneously treating his partner like this, So there's something that isn't adding up here.
And also using all the therapy buzzwords as a weapon to further control and Brady went on. She went on to say, emotionally abusive partners do not necessarily mean that they are terrible people, and it quite often emerges from their own trauma. But at the same time, one has to keep in mind that it is not okay. The only other thing I wanted to add because there has been some really interesting tweets that have been happening off the back of this. As we said, everyone is talking
about it now. Doctor Nicole Badera who's a psychologist, said she's been tweeting a lot about it, and she's been getting a lot of mixed replies from men who feel triggered by the fact that maybe it is holding a mirror up to their own behavior in the way that they are in their relationships. But this is what she wrote in my replies, I see a whole lot of entitled, jealous men who feel called out by this Jonahill discourse. And just so you all know, women are not required
to live smaller lives because a boy is jealous. That is controlling and there is no nice way to be controlling. And the last one that I really enjoyed was this Twitter and it said, if your boyfriend says not to post that bikini pick, then you should ask him if that's the jonah Hill he wants to die on.
Yeah, that's such a great parn I love a pun. That was good one boom, Yeah, like fuck off.
If you are somebody who's been in a relationship where you have dated somebody who has controlled the things that you posted, controlled the things that you wore, tried to control your friendships or your relationships, it's so important to see these conversations had in mainstream media because they think it really holds a mirror up to how problematic this is, how misogynistic it is, and how manipulative it is in relationships.
Also talk about it whenever the hell you want, the people that are coming for us, saying why would you bring this up two years later because she feels like talking about it two years later. This is her story to talk about it, and she can talk about it whenever she wants.
All right, well it is time for accidentally unfiltered and now because he is a very innocent one. But the reason why I loved it is because it is just so unbelievably awkward that when I read it, I had a visceral reaction for this poor person.
I love those ones, the ones that really make you feel like you're there, like you feel like you want to dig your own hole, or dig a hole for them.
And bury yourself in it.
Yeah.
Ever, Okay, I was at work and I had just had a somewhat very awkward conversation with my boss. We'd had a meeting and it had ended, and then we both had to do that walk, or you walk in the same direction but kind of separately towards your desk. Anyway, she'd stopped to speak to someone, and I decided that I needed to go to the bathroom, so I took a little detour and there I was in the toilet. So I was on the toilet doing my thing when
I heard somebody else walk into the bathroom. I work in a massive office, but I just got a feeling that maybe it was my boss, and I didn't want to have to wash my hands in the basin and dry my hands and have another awkward meeting with her because the meeting we just had was bad enough. So before I left the cubicle, I ever so slightly and graciously just bent over and had a little glimpse underneath
the cubicle. Nah wait, because I wanted to see if I could recognize her shoes that she was wearing underneath the toilet door, so then I could wait for her to leave. Here's where it gets bad. My boss was doing the exact same thing, because we made eye contact underneath the toilet door. Why what is wrong with you both while sitting on the toilet. I was so fucking mortified that I didn't leave the cubicle for a good ten minutes, and then we both just acted like nothing happened.
Imagine making eye contact with your boss underneath the public toilet after just getting in trouble in a meeting.
Why just do the old I'll flush the toilet first, like you know how you really aggressively like pull the toilet paper y, I'm wrapping like the meeting the toilet meeting is winding enough, the toilet paper's coming out the zip, Like, do the zip, do the buttons? You flush the toilet, you give it a second. It's normal worldwide toilet courtesy to give them that like one minute grace to get out.
Just do that.
Why did you both look under the duney?
It doesn't matter who the It doesn't matter if it was your boss or not. No one is going to the basin and washing their hands at the same time. You wait. If someone's flushing, they have right away, you let them go.
It is standard.
Yeah, you never have a bathroom collision ever. And you also never make eye contact with your boss underneath the cubicle door.
Bro hot take, don't look under anyone's cubical door.
All right, let's get into the chat with Sabina. Joining the podcast today is Sabina Read. Sabina is a psychologist, a speaker, and co host of the Human Cogs podcast, and today we're talking about something that I think so many of us have experienced at different points in our life, and that is purpose anxiety. Sabina, Welcome to Life on Cut.
Thank you for having me.
I reckon we.
Would probably get almost a message of day Laura from people in our in our listeners, or people who follow us on social.
Media at a bit of a crossroads where.
They're kind of thinking, I don't really know if what I'm doing is what I'm supposed to be doing.
All the other side of it.
Is more I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. I feel quite lost. And so it got us talking amongst ourselves about what this actually could be, and after doing a bit of googling, we found out that it was called purpose anxiety.
So could you explain to us from.
A psychologist's perspective, what is purpose anxiety?
Where you can see I'm trackling away, because don't we have a label for everything. Clinically, there is no such thing as purpose anxiety. You're not going to find it in the DSM as a clinical diagnosis, But of course it is what it sounds like. It's this feeling of frustration, sadness, searching, wondering, uncertainty around am I doing or am I living the way that I think I should be? Is my life filled with purpose and meaning like I think it should be?
And I think the word should there's pretty key because in a way I think this has become too overcooked for a lot of people. Of course, meaning and purpose has been a part of human behavior since the dawn of time. But this eternal search for it, or being able to articulate it so neatly and wrap it in a box tied in a bow, I think is probably doing us a disservice.
How does someone know if they have spent too much time worrying about what their purpose is or allowing it
to overtake too much of their happiness? I guess because we have been sort of fed this narrative that everybody has a purpose, and that you should be able to love your job, and you should be able to be so happy, and everything feels very aspirational, and when you're falling short of that in your own life, or even if you're young and you're at university and you're thinking, fuck, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing with myself.
How does one know whether it's a normal amount of stress versus really kind of sitting into this category where they've kind of overcooked it.
Well.
I think this idea that there's only one destination of purpose, one destination of meaning, is what's not helpful to me having a life with meaning and purpose means that we hit moments across the lifespan, small moments, big moments. But we don't have to build an orphanage. We don't have to save the whales, we don't have to invent the yellow sticky note. We find meaning and purpose in sometimes
the smallest parts of our lives. And I think it's this search for the one eternal point of meaning that is what trips us up. So we may find that we have a moment of meaning when we have an exchange with another human who we never see again, who we don't know. We may find that we have time of meaning and purpose when we have an exchange with our child or a colleague. To me, actually, if I had to define what really bolsters meaning in our life,
it's impacting the life of another human. And that doesn't mean thousands of other humans on mass We don't need to be a motivational speaker with millions of followers. The fact that at one point in our day we've impacted someone else's life is meaningful. If you ask any human what is meaningful in your life? Someone who's searching, someone who may be experiencing purpose anxiety, what's the purpose in
your life? Usually people who are able to articulate form of purpose telling us that they've impacted or touched or connected with another human in some way, even for that little moment in time. And I think we have this idea that there's one perfect job for us, that there's one perfect soulmate for us, that one house is going to be the house that feels our heart and feels like home. And I think that's unhelpful as well, And rightly or wrongly, I think there are thousands of partners
that could make great partners for each of us. And by great I mean probably partners that hold a mirror to us. I think there's multiple jobs that would show us. It's why a career change is not uncommon and why we move jobs. So I think if we think that meaning and purpose is a destination, we've got it wrong. I think it's really the journey that we're on that is peppered with moments of purpose and meaning.
What does it look like if someone's listening to this right now, thinking oh, some of this is kind of ringing a bit true to me. But what does it look like or does it vary depending on the person and what it is that you think they're trying to find purpose in.
Yeah, I mean you alluded to it earlier, Kesha, that we either have this idea. It kind of comes in two forms. It's either I don't have the purpose that I desire in my life. That's part one. Part two might be that I do have a sense of what brings me purpose or what I'm here to do, if you like, but I don't know how to put it into action. So both of those can be I guess in invitation to explore further, you're asking what does it
actually look like? What does it feel like? I mean, it's just this sense of disease, I would call it. We're comparing ourselves to others. We're feeling lost, We're feeling uncertain. We might feel apathetic. We might feel a paralysis for some people, like a stuckness, like I don't know what to do next. So those are probably some of the feelings.
We might feel anxious, we might feel depressed. But this is why it's important to note that this is not a clinical diagnosis, because a lot of those emotions we feel throughout life for a whole host of reasons, and they're not all because they're a clinical diagnosis. They are emotions. Emotions are an invitation to explore and perhaps an invitation to do things differently, not a red flag that the world's gone to ship.
Yeah. I mean it's interesting, isn't it, because so many people, and I think for myself when I've had moments of this in my life, and They've come at different stages of life too, when I've had big change, whether it's been I know we touched on earlier university, but I also had it when I became a mum. Do you think as well for people who experience this, that it comes from comparison, And I think increasingly so we have so much access to people's lives, We have so much access to comparison.
Of course, we all know social media, and there are the forces in the world that men that were always continual in comparing ourselves with other people. But Laura, I think what you said earlier is really important, and that's that our meaning and purpose looks different across the lifespan. And if you ask a twenty two year old what is meaningful or purposeful in your life, you'll get a very different answer than if you ask a fifty two year old or an eighty two year old or one
hundred and two year old. There's probably something we can learn from that in some ways. You know, I love the work of Ronnie Ware, who's the palliative care nurse who talked about the five Regrets of the dying. So she sat with people who were dying and listened to their main regrets. And I think there's some lessons in those regrets because those are people who are at the end of their life. And no one, not one of those five top regrets was I wish I had more
purpose in my life. What they were talking about, perhaps is I wish I had spent more time with the people that I love, or I wish I allowed myself to be happier. That was another one of the top five regrets. But of course, if you ask someone in their twenties or younger years, they may express purpose as perhaps linked to their job. Looking for a job. What should I be doing? I don't know what I should be doing. I don't have a career, I don't have
a passion, so I feel purposeless. And so I think the fact that our purpose and connection to purpose changes across the life span indicates again that there's not one ideal place of arrival the constitutes purpose or a purposeful life.
Something I've heard Laura and Britt speak about a lot on the podcast with a variety of guests over the years is like the happiness trap, that idea of thinking that your happiness is at a particular destination, and how often if you kind of reach that point, you can go, oh, fuck this did this actually doesn't feel like what I thought it was going to feel like.
Or it makes you happy for that little bit, and then you get accustomed to that new thing and then you need more.
Yeah, like the goal shift, that kind of thing.
But I guess the other side of it is, I mean, I would consider myself quite a driven person, particularly in my career for the past you know, ten years, and I guess having that sense of purpose has made me feel a sense of worthiness and a sense of validation. And maybe not always from the right sources of validation, but it definitely has brought me a sense of validation. What are the positive aspects of feeling a sense of purpose or maybe even achieving that sense of purpose.
I'd like to say two things on that casion of why is let's talk about what well being looks like. Well being to me, the model that I refer to all the time. The perman model of wellban has five factors to it. Meaning and purpose is one of those five factors of well being. But in addition to those
is achievement. You've just talked about achievements. So in order to live a life filled with well being and to be a well being, like in the case of being a noun, a well human, a wellbeing, we need to have a sense of accomplishment and achievement that I set goals and I meet goals. I set goals and I meet goals. Plus, we need this idea that we're connected to something bigger than ourselves. Really, that's what meaning and purpose is. That's how I would define meaning and purpose.
In addition to those two, to live a life with well being, we need to feel a sense of positive emotions that might be lightness, humor, connection, joy. We need to also feel a sense of engagement in what we do. And one of the ways we feel a sense of engagement is to tap into our natural strengths. Our natural strengths are the things that we were probably doing when we were four or five or ten years old. No
one was teaching us to do them. They were a part of who we are, and if we let go of those natural strengths in our adult lives, our sense of well being is going to deteriorate. And the fifth ingrediental factor of well being is relational, so our connection with other humans, whether it's an intimate one on one
relationship or friendships, or family or colleagues. So I think it's relevant that you asked about achievement because achievement is very much tied into a well being, but not necessarily as directly correlated. I would say to meaning and purpose and the second thing I wanted to say about that you were talking then I think about extrinsic drivers. Of course, an extrinsic driver is when you are validated by something
outside of yourself and by someone else. Usually so someone says great job, someone says I want to give you a pay rise, someone says you really nailed that. Then we feel better about ourselves and there's nothing wrong with it extrinsic validation. But we also need to look for intrinsic drivers as well that come from within. Why did that feel good to you? Because you learned, or you grew, or you impacted someone else, or you overcame a challenge
that you didn't think you could. Those are intrinsic drivers, and I think their scope for both.
Do you think it also comes down to like, it's slightly privileged to be able to have so much time to think about purpose.
So for fear of sounding like a psychologist, because I'm throwing a few theories your way, but it just I'm throwing the theories in to say I haven't made this shit up.
That's why we have you on. We can talk about this stuff. Did the Cows Come Home? But better that you do it?
No, Well, I like doing it with you. And I don't have a theory for everything, and I certainly don't have all the answers, but you're talking about some topics that I'm pretty passionate about. So another theory that I think is really relevant here Abraham Maslow, who was a psychologist in the nineteen forties. So we're talking, you know, eighty years ago. Many of your listeners will be familiar with,
if not by name, his hierarchy of needs. And he proposed eighty years ago that it's kind of a linear sequential meeting of needs or hierarchy of needs. So first of all, we need the most basic needs met. That's shelter, that's food. Sex is in that very basic physiological needs. I think what he was getting to there was to pro create is a basic need, and then he went on to talk about more needs of safety and security
and employment, and then upper guys up the hierarchy. Relational needs come next, and at the top is what he called self actualization, which is really what we're talking about today. And if you are worrying about where you're going to sleep tonight, not who you're going to sleep with, but where you're going to sleep tonight or what meal you're going to have, then you're not going to be thinking how can I live my best life? And what is my purpose? So there is something about meeting these most
basic needs first. But I don't think this is just due to the fact that our lives are automated and you know, there's a lot of technological advances. Because since the dawn of time, I mean, reeks were looking for what the meaning of love? Aristotle was asking these questions. So I think we're all been asking these questions forever. It's part of the human condition to be trying to make sense of why am I here and what's my
purpose and what's my meaning. I think the other thing that's important here is that even if you are struggling with some of those more basic needs, you can create a sense of meaning and purpose if, like we talked about earlier, you think about how you will impact the life of another. So even if you have no money to support anyone else to donate money, you have a smile that you can offer other people. You have a voice that you can say to someone, how are you
going today? Every one of us can do that, and through those small exchanges, I think we do create a sense of meaning and purpose, and I think we overlook those. We look for these big, bright sparks where people are applauded and really seeing for what they've done that's created meaning and purpose. But we all have the capacity to create meaning and purpose or to impact someone else's life, which creates meaning in our own life. And we can
break it down. You were talking about careers. I don't know if you're familiar with the idea of job crafting, but job crafting is the sense that even in the job that you have, you might not want to be the CEO, you might not want to be the top of the tree. You might not be really driven or really motivated. One of my favorite stories that came about through the research in job crafting was when they researched some cleaners in a hospital setting and they were asked,
what is the point of your role? What do you do in the hospital? And some of those cleaners, of course said well, I just mopped the floor, and I wipe the bench and I disinfect her. But others took it upon themselves. They even use language like I forget what it was, but someone like I'm a human connection officer or something. I don't know what the words were.
But what they had done in the job that they held as a hospital cleaner was to take it upon themselves to move artwork around in the woods so that a lot of the patients to a bed ridden got to see different art from their beds. They took it upon themselves to walk visitors to and from the car park. They were the hospital cleanness, but in their job they found a way to impact the life of others, and through doing that, they created meaning and purpose for themselves.
They didn't want to be the CEO of the hospital. They wanted to make sure that what they were doing had meaning and purpose.
To others in the terms and the ways that you're speaking about purpose and how it comes from this connection with people. But if I was to have someone say, oh, you know, I'm lacking purpose in my life, initially, my very first thought would have been job. And I say that because they think that there's this real drive at the moment to own your own business, to be an entrepreneur, to you know, have something I don't know, whatever, have
an Etsy store, whatever it is. There's always got to be something that's the side hustle to the main job, and that if you're doing a nine to five job that you don't love, you must be settling and then therefore your life is a bit purposeless. Do you think we sometimes place too much important on a very specific, stylized type of living life out in terms of career ambitions.
Yes, I do, Laura, and I think so many jobs and what you just described is out there in social media, so everyone's showing you at their side hustle looks like, and they're showing you how much fun it is and how they look in the process. I think employment is
really important. I mean research tells us that when people aren't working, who have been working, or they take time off either to look after their physical health or mental health, orerhaps they've lost their job or they are needing to care for someone else, that there is a dip in purpose in our lives. So sometimes I think we avoid work when we're really feeling fragile, or perhaps it's not
by choice either. And the research is telling us that being engaged in employment brings a sense of meaning and purpose, and I think the hospital story kind of highlights that. But perhaps, yes, we do have too much emphasis on finding one love of your life, the soulmate, the one person that walks this earth that was made for you. If you have that idea in your personal relationships or you have that idea in your job, I think some of us who hold on to that idea will be disappointed.
That doesn't mean that the relationship that you're in that fills you up isn't wonderful. It doesn't mean that if you're in a job that is full of meaning and purpose and growth and impact and development, but that's not wonderful. It's not the only place you can feel that, And it's not with only that person that you can feel that. And when we believe it is, and then we don't get there, we don't grasp it. We fell out, We've failed.
You know, there's a story that my grandma told me. It was when I was about to go to university. And she grew up a pretty working class in a small country town in the north of England and she moved over to Australia about sixty years ago now. But she when she moved over here, you know, she had two children and she raised them and then when they were in high school she started her job in retail at what was called Great Brothers then it's now Maya.
But I remember her kind of taking my hand as I was about to go to UNI, and she just said to me something along the lines of like, I want you to.
Grasp how lucky you are to be able to go and get this education, because I would have done anything to have an education, like I would have done anything to be able to go to university.
So I guess it can be a bit of a double edged sword, though, And I'm interested to know your thoughts on whether the opportunity to be able to do whatever we want has overwhelmed us, you know, has it given us too many options?
Almost?
I don't think, I mean it's a beautiful story, and it's a good reminder of the lessons that you've gleaned from your grandmother. I don't think we do our kids, or the next generation, or anyone a service when we tell them you can do anything, the world's your oyster, you can be whatever you want to be, because that's overwhelming. If a child internalizes that, literally, many children unconsciously will think what happens if I don't what MS if I
can't what ams if I don't deliver that? And I think we've seen a real rise in anxiety, not due to that topic per se, but to that sense of overwhelm and needing to deliver and not knowing how So, of course we want to support our children, and every well meeting parent, everyone who's ever said you can be whatever you want to be has said it from a
well meaning place. But I think it would be better for parents or teachers, or educators or friends or community members to ask some of the questions instead of what do you want to be? What do you want to feel? How do you want to feel in your life? Not what do you want to be? And through those feelings, through that exploration, through understanding what energizes you and how you impact others and how you would like to spend your time. You may come to a place of understanding
the way that you want to be employed. Now I don't have stars in my eyes. You're right, there's a level of privilege by having the choice. That's again why I go back to the hospital cleaner story. That's not a glamorous job. It's not a high paying job. But some of the happiest people, some of the most fulfilled people, some of the people that have the greatest depth of meaning and purpose in their life, are not doing big, glamorous things. And I think we need to head that reminder.
It's not the big accolades that bring a sense of meaning and purpose for everyone. For me, I've got a real portfolio career. I mean I speak, and I write, and I pod and counsel, idio media, radio, TV. What I love about that is the diversity and the challenges and the growth and the connection with other people. That's what I love about it. If I was doing the same thing every day, that wouldn't work for me, but
it will work for someone else. So instead of pretending that there's a right way or a wrong way, it's what parts of your day? How do you want to spend your day? And it kind of goes back to well what lit you up? A good question to ask is when I was a child, what lit me up? Another good question to us now is what do I spend most of my time talking about with my friends? These are good questions for people who are thinking what the fuck is my perpose? Similar so, what do you
spend your time talking about with your mates? What did you do as a young child by choice? Not because someone was telling you you're a good boy or a good girl for doing it, but because it's how you chose to naturally spend your time. When do you feel most energized? Not at work, not at home, not with it, but just when? What are you doing when you're feeling energized?
It's questions not those that help us tap into what we are naturally connected to, and when we have a natural connection to it, we're probably going to feel some level of meaning and purpose around it.
How profound is our blueprint as a child? I mean I would have thought the things that I did as a kid probably don't have that much impact on me. But even as you said it, I was like It's so interesting to me because the things I used to do as a kid is I used to entertain I used to do little concerts for my family, and now I work in entertainment. And you know, it surprises me just how much when you said that that that actually
was the stuff that I did as a child. I was super creative, and I wonder if that's the case for everyone. The things that we love now as adults are truly were always there.
You said, how big a blueprint is our childhood are that? You said, it's mind blowing how big it is. We're so influenced by our young gy years the way, not just we're talking about career and meaning and purpose now, but we could talk about our relationship with money, our relationship to love, our relationship to conflict, to anger, to avoidance,
to fame, anything. We learned so much in our younger years, consciously and unconsciously, and we seek to bring the best parts with us, but of course we don't because we're a flawed spacis. So we often bring some of those things that happened served us well as kids, and we repeat them. I often talk about repeat versus repel, and we repeat and repel patterns and learnings through the generations,
sometimes consciously sometimes unconsciously. So we might say, well, in our home, we were really driven and education was highly regarded, and I want that for my children. That's a repeat. But we could also say there was so much emphasis placed on education in my childhood, and I want my children just to have the freedom to explore without that lens or that pressure put on them. That's a repel. Then you marry someone else who's doing their own repeat
and repels, and they've got a repeat repel. Kind of clusterfuck, really, because everyone's pushing and billing between where they came from, what they want, where person B came from, and what they want and welcome to married life.
I think a lot of people in their kids or as they're growing up, they ignore those parts of themselves that they loved as a child because maybe they weren't encouraged, or maybe they were told that they weren't things that could turn into a career. I know for me, we found all my report cards from when I was a kid, and I was always in trouble for talking too much. I was always in trouble for distracting people. Now you
get paid to people pay me to distract them. But the thing is is, for me, it was always talked about as a negative. It was something that I felt shameful of that I couldn't concentrate enough. I would always distract other people. And so I guess this is probably the first time that I've thought about it. It was a joy for me, like I love talking, and I'm sure it was very annoying to a lot of people, but it was truly something that I loved.
So I think one of the things you're tapping into there is that sometimes we're criticized for being USh. Often we're criticized over the years for being us, And so if you want to get deep from a psychological perspective, I would say that we have what is the little child in all of us is learning to cope in the world. And one of the things we look for is to be praised and loved and seen to be safe, because if our can givers don't love us, w's for it.
So we're learning all the time how to please, how to do what's required, how to do what's expected of us. That's what I would call the adaptive child. They've adapted to the environment in order to survive. The wounded child is that time in your life when thets of you that are the natural parts of you are not seen, not accepted, not celebrated. So there's a hurt there around that, and the adaptive child comes along and says, let's adapt somehow so that we can get on in this life.
This is a really normal, natural experience for me, every young person, I would say, every child. But it's what we do with that wounded child and that adaptive child as adults. What parts of those do we bring and replicate and what parts do we realize we can leave behind. Thank you, adapted child for keeping me safe when I don't need that now. So thank you for keeping me safe by telling me at school to shut up, because that's what the teachers were doing. That's kept me safe
in that time. But I don't need to do that now. I don't need to adapt anymore. I can go back to the natural, organic, authentic me before I became the wounded child, before I became the adaptive child, to get on in life. Is that too deep?
No, I think it's perfect. And I'm also glad that you mentioned you know, it can be something that you carry throughout your life. Because I think a lot of people get into relationships they feel like they have to bend and flex and be different and dull certain parts of their personality to appease the person that they've chosen to be in a relationship with. And these are things that we do as kids and the things that we
continue to do as adults. It's not that we become adults and it just all of a sudden, Oh, we're allowed to be or able to be the most authentic version of ourselves. I think a lot of us still feel like they have to kind of shape shift or be a bit of a chameleon in certain environments.
Of course we do, and sometimes we do. Sometimes we just have to edit just to do the right thing wherever we are. But if we continue to do that, no wonder we have the levels of anxiety and depression we have because we're gagging ourselves. We're pretending to be someone we're not. We're seeking validation, approval, acceptance, and love where we're not really showing the world who we are.
How much can what we are naturally good are and what we really want to do in life? And feeling a sense of purpose be impacted by your responsibilities both of you are mothers, and I assume that not only do you get a sense of purpose when you have a child, and that's to raise a good kid and whatnot, but both of you are career women. Did you ever feel the need to kind of suppress your desire to feel a sense of purpose in your career because you had a bigger responsibility at the time.
If I give everything to my children, I can't give anything to myself. I can't explore a career. I can't feel good about whooping it up outside the home, whether that's personally or professionally or socially, because I've made a decision to give fully and holy to my children. And then, not surprisingly, when that happens, you're like, oh, I want to do this all the time. This is not bringing me what I thought it would. I've always wanted to
do other things alongside parenthood. And now, in the fullness of time, I'm in a different stage of life to you, and I'm entering the empty nest sort of years my kids. I've got two daughters who are twenty two and twenty, and I've got some peers and friends and people my age who I observe have been fully engage with their children, but their children are leaving now, and so talking at this is relevant to the conversation we're having today around
meaning and purpose across the lifespan. If your meaning and purpose is fully and solely defined by your parenting role, of course you're always a parent, but you're not hands on when your kids are adults. So what them do
your meaning and purpose? So I would hope that we're able to give ourselves the grace, give each other the grace, and woman to woman and man to man, parent to parent, human to human, give ourselves the grace to acknowledge that we're made up of parts and all of these conflicting parts need different things. But to pretend we don't have these parts again, it's I think a big contributing fact.
I'm getting quite philosophical my soapbots now. But to why we see anxiety and depression in the rates that we do.
Well, I mean, we cover more that I even thought we would in terms of this conversation, and I do think that's so much of this. When we first started looking into it, we were like, oh, yeah, university students, they're the ones who really feel like they you know, when you had that period of life where you finish
school and you're not sure that. As we've established, it's something that people experience at all different points of life, at all big transitions, and I think it's something that we won't stop experiencing for as long as there is big change that happens, which there.
Always will be. So we have to lean in, we have to be curious. We have to bring acceptance and surrender and hope and purpose and movement and action instead of thinking what the fuck's happening? Now?
That's what I love every single day, you know.
I think that there was a I'm so terrible for saying this because it's a quote that I'm going to have to paraphrase at best because I can't remember the actual words of it, and I don't even remember who it was from.
That's great, he's just going to butcher this completely. Let's put it at the end of the PODT.
It went along the lines of like, people won't remember what you earned, they won't remember what you wore, but they will remember the way that you made them feel. And I think that.
Putton, you're not quite on it almost.
Because you nailed the sentiment that people remember how you make them feel, not what you say, not what you look like, not what you do. I reckon the takeaway, it's not just connection, it's what's something bigger than yourself. Something bigger than yourself is how we carve out meaning and purpose. And I think something bigger than yourself is nearly always the way you impact others. So connection infers that we've actually had an exchange and we've connected, but
we can impact others who we haven't connected with. So that's why I'm splitting hairs on that one. Even though you had a ripper quote that a river half.
Well, you know, we never finished an episode without our sucking our sweet the highlight and the low light of the week. I will kick it off. I actually had a few to chew from this week, which doesn't happen often. Usually I'm scrambling, but there the.
Sucks are for sweets. You're like, my life is so neutral, nothing good or bad happens, you see.
I'm just platoing, like I'm just cruising along. No, my suck's actually so dumb and no one's ever gonna know. Like she's not gonna know. But I forgot a birthday this week, who's a very important person delight. Delilah, Yeah, on the fourth of July, and I should remember because it's such a like the fourth of July she turned two years old and I forgot it. But she doesn't know because she's on holiday with my parents, so she doesn't know I forgot the birthday. She also doesn't know
because she's a dog. There's that as well.
Do she realize that she's been shafted off to her parents? At your parents' house, she's.
Having the time of a life. She's on a beach vacations up in Port Macquarry. There's two other dogs to play with. They get videos that She's not gonna want to come home. She is going to hate me. But I got a message yesterday from producer Keisha middle of the night. Oh my god, I forgot Delilah's birthday. She said that, and I was like, it's okay, I forgot it too. Let's not let's let's agree to not tell Delilah. So I guess I made a packet. Delia will never know.
Are you gonna be okay? I don't know.
Hopefully.
It's pretty bad to forget your own child's birthday, Like if I just forgot Molly's birthday entirely. I think I should feel pretty bad for that.
And my sweet for the week is also everyone's gonna hate me because it's so stupid as well. But my sweet is all the moms are gonna hate me because I don't have Delilah, who is like my child I've been sleeping in.
Now.
I know you're all gonna laugh because it's not a real child. But I also have to get up early to take her outside.
Oh that's a legitimate she wakes up so early totally like he walks straight away.
I feel like it's like the real, real, low like entry level to what maybe maybe one percent of having a child is like, because I do have to wake up super early so she can go and empty a bladder because I don't have a dog it or because I live in a Bondae apartment.
And you do sometimes breastfeed her, so that's sometimes the breastfeers.
She really needs to fuck you. What's your suck?
All right?
My suck for the week, I mean, apart from getting my period day fucking one of my what do we call it again? The period? Blood flood, honeymoon.
Blood flood, blood flood hashtag honeymoon blood flood gate.
Okay, that was my main suck. I genuinely don't have a very big suck this week because it was such an amazing week with my family in Fiji. I had such a beautiful time, and it was also Matt's birthday, So I'm going to say that my sweet for the week was Matt's birthday, which was the sixth of July, two days after Delilah's. Didn't forget it, and we got to go snorkeling, and the thing that was so beautiful.
So the place that we stayed at in Fiji was the same place that we stayed at for our baby moon, and it's where Matt proposed. So the last time I was there, I was seven months pregnant. We went snorkeling and kind of did all the things that we did this time, except it was so beautiful to revisit it reflect on the fact that life has changed so much
in the past four years. But something that was really special and completely has nothing to do with my family is we went snorkeling along the reef there four years ago and the reef was almost completely white wall like, it was really badly affected by coral bleaching and over the past four years, something amazing has happened in that area and so much of the coral reef has actually
come back to life. And so we went snorkeling in that same area and it was incredible to see just how beautiful, bright and colorful it was, which.
So cool not only to see like how far you guys have come as a couple, but how far the reef has come in that time.
You truly we've all made so many changes for the best.
No, that is in all seriousness, that's amazing, because we are close to losing a lot of the natural wonders and a lot of the reef, especially in Australia.
Well it shat all over the Great Barrier reef, Like I mean, I've done snorkeling and with a Great Bearrier reef like beautiful. Yes, sure, but this was phenomenal and it was such a nice day. We put the kids into kids clad and we Matt and I went and had a little cute day together as a couple, just the two of us, and it was so much. That was my sweet for the week.
Do you feel like because before you left you had made a comment on the podcast and said, you know, like you really needed to connect, reconnect with Matt. Do you feel like you got what you came for or did he spend too much time doing laps underwater?
Did we connect as much physically as what I would have liked?
Did the penis connect with the Virginia?
No?
No, there was there wasn't as much of that connection. But look, you know, if we're working on it, it's a work in progress. Everyone.
That is it from us guys. If you love the episode, please leave us a review, let us know, share it with a friend, and send in your accidentally unfiltered and your embarrassing stories, your confessions, literally anything that you think we want to hear. We want to hear it.
Yeah. And also, like we said, go and follow us on Instagram, our laugh on Cut podcast. We've also got a TikTok and if you wanted to get ticks to the live show, please go and follow the social media because you'll be the very first to find out when goes go on sale. Don't forget to your.
Mum, tea, dad, teet old, Tweet friends and share the love because we.
Love love
The bal Blan