Life Uncut podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander peoples today.
This episode is recorded on Gadigal Land of the Aurora Nation. Hi guys, and welcome back to a very freaking special episode of Life Uncut.
I'm Laura, I'm Brittany.
We did say that last week was the last episode, but we told you we'd have some special little morsels lined up for you, and well this is one of them.
This is officially we're not putting out anything else.
I know we always say we're not doing anything else than something else kind, but maybe we will.
No, we're not holiday.
This is officially the last episode of twenty twenty two. We did want to end it on a bit of a high and a little bit of a walk down memory lane to some of our favorite moments, guests and.
Episodes of twenty twenty two.
Do you know what I had to listen to the one of these that we did in twenty twenty one, and we started off by saying twenty twenty one was a dumpster fire of a year.
Do you remember? That's because we were stuck in COVID. It was a dumpster fire.
It was a bit of a fucking shit show. But twenty twenty two was a mighty good year.
It was such a wonderful year.
And I look, we did live shot for a bit of Lannina whatever it's.
Called lan Nina La Nina.
That thing stuck around for a bit too long, didn't it.
You know, everything has its ups and downs. But when I look back, I just think we just had such a wonderful year together, you and I, with the audience, with you guys, the listeners, We did our live show. Who would have thought we'd still be sitting in your bedroom recording this, and.
You think we'd get a studio on office by now.
So we think it's never changed in the bedroom.
You know why.
It's because we're creatures of comfort.
Change is scary.
Oh yeah, well, okay, this is how much we are creatures of comfort. We have to every time we record, we sit at the same sides of the desk, we sit in the dark.
Everything's the same.
But I'm gonna say it now because I'm gonna hold ourselves accountable for it now. I think we're gonna get maybe a studio next show or somewhere to record.
Nah, this is good.
I could be in my underwork and naturally my own space, which is your space. But you know what my highlight of this year, there's been a lot. We're gonna hand this episode over to produce Akisha soon and she's going to walk you through what are some of our favorite episodes. But one of the things that I feel really really freaking proud of, and something that so many of you still tag us in of like daily, is we Love
Love the Book. I just honestly can't believe. I went into came up the other day in the midst of boxing day sales, and.
There it was.
I saw our little book right there on the bookshelf. Wasn't on sale, unfortunately, but it was there. And I still can't believe that, after all the work and all the energy that went into that, that.
This little podcast has its own book out there.
Yeah.
So looking back for me, I mean, I love so many episodes, but my two highlights, okay, I have three highlights. One was the live show amazing. It was just amazing. You guys were just incredible. The energy was incredible, Laura and I love sharing that part with you too. The book again exactly the same thing for the reasons we just said, it's something that we feel really proud of
and we just love. And three, which isn't podcasts related, but it's you know, it's in that realm, but it's your wedding to Mandy j Obviously my sister's wedding too, but seeing you and many j Ti than not. And you know, you guys are the Life un Cut family too. Mad Aj is a part of this.
Life on Cut. Well, I didn't realize we were doing like life highlights.
I'm like the book. Yeah, of course my wedding was also a life highlight. I'll throw that one out there as well. In terms of podcast episodes, I mean, this year has been truly amazing in terms of who we've gotten to speak to. And it's not just been the celebrity esque interviews that we've done. For me, the ones that stand out the most are the interviews of people who are very ordinary people who have extraordinary stories. What was your favorite interview of twenty twenty two.
Well, it's funny you say that because one of the ones I wanted to start with, and it's so hard to pick any Every single interview we do, we walk away and we're like, that was the best one I've ever done.
That was amazing.
Like I mean, not all of them, well most of them, well for me, most of them blow me away for different reasons. But the first one that jumped out at me that I just was in awe of and hooked on was Jess Buchanan, who was kidnapped in Somalia when she was working there as a humanitarian worker. She was kidnapped for three months, and her story and the way she tells the story, her resolve, I really was on the edge of my seat.
Well, my favorite one is going back to February, and it's one that has stuck with me. A conversation that I love so much. Not did I just love the conversation, but I also loved that Eldi brought her baby into the studio with us. Hey pull Eliti Pullen, and I got to hold her little baby whilst we did the interview. Now it is from February. It's called Grief is Love with Nowhere to Go uncut with Eliti Pullen, A lot
of you may know Eldi's story. She was the girlfriend of Chumpy Chumpy Pullen who passed away, and Elidi has an incredible story around her own motherhood journey, how they went through sperm retrieval to get sperm from after he'd passed away, and how she has brought her little baby into the world without her partner by her side. She speaks about being a widow, but she also speaks about motherhood in a way that I don't think I've heard anybody else speak about it, and it's a story that
truly just stuck with me so much. We are going to hand this episode over to produce Akisha in a second, but we wanted to say the biggest thank you to every single one of you who have joined us for the last year, who are like well and truly on the life Uncut ride. We have some incredible things planned for you next year. There are more live shows, there are some other very fun, little secret squirrel things that are in the works.
At the moment, we're really looking.
Forward to it.
We're really really looking forward to going away having a little break and twenty twenty three is going to be absolutely wild and I'm really looking.
Forward to it. Well, that's it from us.
Keisha is going to take you for a little walk down memory lane. Also, Keich, thanks for being just such a rockstar part of the Life Uncut team.
Yeah, there is so much work that goes on behind the scenes in Life Uncut that Keisha producer. Keisha is so so deep in that. Sometimes she's up to her neck.
Sometimes she's like, get me out, I don't want to be here anymore, but here she is, and we love her for it.
And Maddie Jay, there's my sister Sherry. We have a wonderful girl, Taylor that works for us as well. There is a very small but it's a very mighty team that works for Life un Cut and we're such a cute little family. And Keisha, thank you for everything that you have done in this past year.
Thanks guys, I can't wait to go through last year. We called it the rear in your View because one time when we were saying year in review.
We couldn't get it out.
I can't remember who fucked it up, but one of us fucked it up and said rear in your.
It was Britt. It was just the episode. Do you know what?
Maybe that should be what we call every Rearing review.
Yeah, it feels fitting.
This is the twenty twenty three Rearing Review and that's it from us.
Guys.
Hello, Hello, how are you going? If you had a wonderful Christmas. I'm very excited for us to go through the.
Rearing Review or year in review for.
Twenty twenty two together.
These are some of the best moments of the year, or some of the standout moments you think, And I'm very.
Grateful for all of you that wrote in with your favorite moment.
It made it a lot easier for me to package these up, for me to decide, I think that was like the hard point was actually deciding.
Which ten we wanted to put into this.
But this entire episode is just some of our favorite moments over the course of the year, and I'm going to be walking.
You through them and kind of giving you a little.
Bit of a behind the scenes to some of them, some stuff that happened like off Mike or maybe what led to the interviews.
And for each of.
The episodes, if you like the little snippet that you hear, but maybe you missed the whole episode, I'm going to put a link to that episode in our show notes, so you can find that there. Kicking it off for this year is none other than Rebel Wilson. Now, I think for some of us our career paths they take a few different twists and turns, but maybe not as big of a twist or a turn as Rebel Wilson's. One of my favorite moments from this chat was finding
out what disease not a typho. What disease led Rebel Wilson to becoming an actress.
And here's that chat. So I always thought I would go into Laura politics.
I got into like the best law school after I got my HC results and was like yep, and then I was selected. I was a youth ambassador for Australia, which was a program that Rodari was running at the time. They sent one boy and one girl to different countries and I got sent to South Africa and had like a life changing experience going to Southern Africa for a year and not knowing anybody, and it was crazy. Then
I got the malaria there, which was really bad. You got malaria, had a vision that I was an actress.
Hang on, you were speeding through this story.
I know, well, there's home.
So you're in Africa yeah for a year.
Yes, you get malaria.
Yeah, it was terrible. I got a really bad strain, so I was hospitalized. I caught it in rural Mozambique, but it takes about two weeks to develop in your system. And then I was very, very sick. Got hospitalized with another girl that was on the trip as well, and then.
It was bad.
It was like this, it's hard to describe. It's not like a cold or flu.
It's like you out of your body kind of thing and you're like hallucinating and everything. And then I was like, I had this vision that I won an Academy award, that I was an actress, and then I was really good and I came out of hospital saying, guys, I'm gonna, I think, think I've got to leave Africa, like immediately go back to Australia. I got an audition for the Drama School. I'm gonna be like the next Dame Judy Dench or something. So you're like rebeling, no, like you're not an actress.
Like beause I definitely didn't.
I wasn't glamorous like I was, you know, an academic girl like I wasn't glamois. I didn't look like Nicole Kidman or Cate Blanchette or something.
So your catalyst for getting into acting, your catalyst that was the driving force for you to go cool, I'm going to take this and pivot my career seriously.
Was malaria?
Yeah wow, Because sometimes they say if you get really sick, if you have a life changing event like that, it can really change the course of your life. And I used to love Oprah well.
I mean, obviously I still love Opra.
I shouldn't. I used to all the time.
And I used to watch her every day in Africa because it was really hard. There was a lot going on in South Africa at the time and post apartheid and a lot of violence and everything, and there's a lot going on, and so I would watch Oprah every day, love it. And she'd say, oh the UNI like sometimes it gives you a whisper and sometimes it's like a full blown rick wall falling on you with the message. And I was like, this is a message, like this is like this is what I should do with my life.
So even though I was still in law school, I went back and I auditioned for drama. Like no one would take me at the drama schools.
Who'd you audition for nighter?
Yeah maybe that.
Firstly, only just night because I thought, well, better the child, but yeah, just go to the best one. And because my law school was across the road, I thought, oh maybe I'll do both.
I am such an overachiever.
Then yeah, they didn't accept me, so I just did.
I did law and arts.
So I did theater and film subjects at my university UNSW.
And I think we all know that things ended up pretty well.
Rebel in the acting world, she's gonen to do magnificent things. Up next in A Year in Review is Australia's funny man, someone that I think we are all very very proud to call one of our own, and that is Hamish Blake. But really hit home for me with Hamish was his perspective on hustle culture and what gave meaning to his life. I mean, arguably he's Australia's fun biggest person. He's Australia's entertaining person. His podcasts always at number one in Australia.
He host TV shows, It rate really well. He even won the Gold Logi this year, and so I think a lot of us were kind of like, oh, you know what's next for you, Like what's the next thing that you want to conquer?
And here's what he had to say about that.
But even before when you were like, you know, why would you go? You were you could earn lots of money on radio?
Could I don't know?
My answer to that now is a forty year old person with if I was like, I'm not gonna bely going to do TV anymore, with people like but why not, like then you won't be famous or you won't make money. My answer that legitimately, I know this is a privileged position to be in, having sort of like done it for a long time. My answer that was like, yeah, that's great, I will let's I look forward to seeing how that goes. Those aren't the reasons that.
I do anything.
Yeah, they are kind of like their flow on effects of doing this thing that I enjoy doing for now personally for me, So twenty twenty two, you know, like my workload is actually not that intense. Like I got podcasting with Ando, we.
Got forty episodes of You pisodes a year.
Grueling, then the Government Mandata break. If you're familiar with the show.
Twelve weeks I'm terrible.
Then you know, kind of legs at the end of the year. But my as I sort of said before, my goal is to be unbusy because the kids are little. And again, I know how lucky I am to be in this position, but I'm like, if I'm going to use what we've worked for for anything, I will use it to buy time. And I love saying no. I spend my whole time saying no to other shows or ideas because I want to be at home. I want
to be doing more living. I want to be doing more enjoying life stuff, especially post you know, after two years lockdown again, total luxury. But that's my this is how I want to spend the time I do. I'm not interested in leveraging as hard as we can. I'm just I'm not really interested in the next level. I'm not trying to rapidly like ascend.
Which I think is like such.
I mean, that's it's such a great thing to hear in terms of like you would think that someone who's just come off the back of winning the goal. LOGI is like, what can I like, what's next? What's the biggest piece?
How can I wriggle out of pretty much everything that gets.
Asked of me being in that position and winning the goal LOGI I think a lot of people's expectations would be like, well, what's next, and having the agency and the ability to be like it doesn't actually have to be a next. Yeah, I guess is that in the same way.
I guess it comes into meaning and like I really enjoy what I do and I love that it makes people laugh and that people enjoy the shows, and I do take that seriously. But to just do stuff to be famous or to be on TV, it doesn't mean anything, Like it doesn't mean anything to me. I don't care about it at all. But what does mean something is like walking to school or with your kids by yourself, not as fine from down the roads back again, I
forgot the kids. But that's what means something to me, Like being able to go on family holidays, Like that means something to me. Again, I know not everyone's in that position, but for me, that's that is one hundred percent of the filter I'm putting it through, Like does this have meaning? Working TV is? And is it a really enjoyable way to have a job, But it does not mean everything to me at all, because just other things.
Do now to take you behind the scenes a little bit of this particular episode. We ran into him at a coffee shop around the corner, and I'll never forget We had such a nice chat about expectations and he gave us some really good advice on.
How to view things like expectations.
Of the medial world and living up to what people want from you, and that that was a really special moment for me. Actually, we were then interrupted by someone who ran past and asked him for a dollar, which is a joke that you'll get if you are a ham Shanani fan. Up next in our Year in Review is a very special episode. This is actually the one that Britt referred to in the intro as being one of her standout moments from the year, and this had me glued to the speaker, and of course talking about
Jessica Buchanan. Her story of resilience and pushing through trauma is one that I think it's quite hard to actually believe unless you hear it straight from her mouth. She was kidnapped b Somali Lampards, where she spent ninety one days fighting for her life in the desert. While the kidnapp has tried to negotiate her ransom with the American government. Jess was eventually rescued by the same team that killed Asama bin Laden. And here's just telling the story of how they initially were taken.
About fifteen minutes into the raid, somebody comes up along the right side of us, another vehicle and cuts us off so that we can't proceed, and splashes mud up all over the windows in the windshield, and I'm just like, you know, I'm used to like crazy driving and stuff in this part of the world, but I'm like, God, what a jerk drives like that? Come on, like, let's
get moving. And then I hear the butt, the crack of the butt of an NK forty seven on the car hood, and I start hearing all of this angry screaming men screaming in Somali and some other language I don't understand. And then my door is pulled open. Abdu Rizak is dragged out. This van dressed in a police uniform gets in and he has an n K forty seven. He puts it to my head and you start screaming at the driver to drive, and we just take off like you know, baths out of hell, you know. We're
up on two wheels, We're down. We're up, you know, on these these really rugged, rudimentary roads. And then we're heading south, which does not make me feel good because south like the further south and smaller you get the closer you get to al Shabab Islamic extremists. I don't know who these guys are. I don't know what they want.
I don't know where they're taking us. I'm thinking at this point, maybe they're just carjacking us, right, like maybe here, like take my wallet, take my passwork, here's all my rings, like take everything, and just drop us out on the side of the road and we'll walk back to town.
So you're still feeling optimistic at this point, you're still feeling like, Okay, I'm just going to be robbed in.
It'll be over soon.
I mean, I'm hoping. I don't I would not say I'm feeling optimistic. I'm like trying really hard not to have a panic attack, because really all I can think is like, whatever this is, it is even if they do just drop us off and we walk back to town.
Like everything has changed from this moment on.
And then the other thought that keeps going through my mind is just like this is bad.
This is bad. This is so bad.
This is so bad.
It was like in my memory.
I don't.
I think it's just because everything was so like traumatic that, you know that like weird like circus music, you know, like a scene from a movie where like everything's going
weird and wacky and like all everything's spinning. Like that's what it felt like, right Like he's sitting back there, it's like going through all my stuff, like throwing it behind him, my passport, my lovely wallet from Ethiopia, like all this stuff, and I'm just like watching my whole life be like emptied out in front of me as I'm being driven through the desert, and I'm thinking, like,
what the fuck is happening? And Paul finally turns around and to like check on me, and I whisper to him what is happening, and he looks so sorry for me, like gives me, oh my god, you haven't figured it out yet, and then he just says, we're being kidnapped.
As I said, all of the links to these episodes, if you happen to have missed them, are going to be in the show notes. And this is one that I can't recommend more going back and having listened to you, it is just it's one of the most incredible stories I have ever heard in my life. Next up in our Year in Review was the event of the year, at least for us. It was something that was five years in the making a reality TV show later, And of course I'm talking about Laura and Maddie Jay's wedding
it now. It was hard to pick a moment from this because there were just so many. Just the wedding was the best.
It was just so much fun.
But this particular moment, I remember looking over it while we were in the ceremony, and you know when you're at a wedding and like you're trying not to cry because you know that it's going to make you make up just run all over your face.
It was kind of as though everyone.
In the crowd just let that go, and everyone I looked at was tears, everyone, particularly Matt. Matt definitely didn't have dry eyes during this moment.
It was a very special part of Laura's vows And this is what happened.
I wrote this, It's a story, and I wrote it into my vows. As I wrote this, I was like is this a really weird thing to put into your vows? And then I was saying the story out loud, I said it I think. I read it out to my sister, and I read out to fe other friends, and they were all a bit like, where are you going with this? But then it ended up being like the one thing that everyone was in tears about because I think the message of it is important. It's still important to me,
but okay, I'll read a bit of it out. This is my wedding vowls, which is weird?
Okay, do we have some music weekend overlay?
Okay, this is what I read to Matt, I wrote the other week I was telling you about a podcast I had listened to where Hugh van Kyleenberg was in his kitchen this one morning, stressed out over the kids and work when his nanny came in and asked her how her morning was. She said she'd been for a run and had breakfast with a girlfriend, all before eight
am on a Tuesday. After the nanny walked out, he then said to his wife that he felt genuinely jealous and a little a bit resentful of people who can just get up in the morning and have no responsibilities. Hugh's wife then showed him this article that she had just been reading, and it was about how life is made up of seasons and how whenever we are in a season of life, we often spend much of it wishing that we were in a different season.
It'll make me cry again.
I told you this story, and you asked me if I felt like that, to which I replied sometimes. You paused, and then you said, I don't relate to that because I am in the season of my dreams. I have thought about that a lot since then, especially when it came to writing these vows, and I want you to know that I am in the season of my dreams with you, and I promise to never take that for credit. As I know life doesn't get any better than this.
I will cry.
I feel like I'm intruding on a moment.
I have right here.
But honestly, for me, let's leave because I can't endit that out. But if you want to leave the room for about five or maybe six minutes, I heard it too.
Next up in our year Interview was a very special episode that we recorded with Elerdie Pullen, and this is the one that Laura spoke about in the intro as probably being like first standout moment for her. This year, Elerdie lost her partner Alex Chumpy Pullen in an accident while Chumpy was spearfishing near their home in the Gold Coast. The family has decided to go down the path of something called posthumous sperm retrieval, which is what led Elitie
to having their beautiful baby girl, Minnie. This recording was so special because Eldie was in Sydney and we said, oh, you know.
Just bring Minni along if you want to, And so.
She brought Minnie along and she was there for the whole recording. She's just such a beautiful baby. And in this clip, Elle speaks about how you try to keep your life moving forward while you're experiencing grief.
We as a society were so adverse to talking about grief because it makes people uncomfortable, you know, like seeing somebody else's pain and dealing with somebody else's grief. Often we will avoid asking big questions that result in them being upset because we kind of don't want to.
We don't want to upset someone.
But the hurt is still there regardless of whether you talk about it or not how do you start. I don't even think you start, but like, where do you start to work through that grief?
I think, And everyone obviously handles these situations completely different.
I've got widow friends that I've now met.
That have also lost the loves of their life, and I've met them on social media, and so we've like banded together and we sit up late at night in chat and that's how that's literally how I got through at the start. But I remember the first I mean, I don't know if it was like the first night, but I just remember in general thinking how can I go back to our house and sleep in our bed and go back to like our life and our things like? But then also how can I not? Would I want
to be anywhere else? Do I want to pack up everything and move?
You know?
There was like all that going through my head.
But the safest place for me felt like my room in our house was like my little sanctuary, and that's where I felt safest to grieve and to process everything. And I didn't want to even leave my house. I
didn't want to do anything but be in our space. Weirdly, I don't know if it was because I felt like he was there or I just felt like this protection in the house in such a vulnerable time where like I was just completely broken into pieces, and I was so glad I felt grounded in our house because I couldn't imagine and this would happen to a lot of widows or you know, people going through massive loss they
need to up and move. And maybe also because COVID was around, I couldn't just fuck off overseas and like restart, and I had had our dog, and do you know what, my life essentially, apart from Chump being completely gone, I just kept doing what we would do every day. I just kept going to the beach in the morning with my dog and walking her and just keeping some sort of routine in my life. I had all my friends
and family around me constantly. I was barely alone, you know what, you just keep going like I just didn't have a choice. And people are always like, you're so.
Strong, You're so amazing, Like I'm not amazing. I'm not strong. I just actually don't have a choice.
And I think I think I'm such a rational, realistic person. And I was just like I either die here today with Chump, like let my or not maybe not physically die, but like let myself just die or I just pick myself up.
And I just keep going. Well that's my only option, right.
Like you said, everyone experiences it differently and no one is ever gonna be able to understand what it's like. But were there ever moments where you felt guilty, like in terms of you were having fun with your friends, or you were laughing, or maybe you weren't thinking about him for ten minutes while you're doing something. Did you have moments of guilt like I shouldn't feel this reprieve and relief when he's not here.
It's such a catch twenty two.
So I'd find myself like out with friends, laughing my head off, having a great time just months after.
But don't get me wrong, people would say like.
Hey, if you don't mind me asking like you know, or bring up Chump or uk something, and I'd be like, hey, you're not reminding me, Like it's always here, it's right here. So yeah, I would be having fun and I would kind of feel guilty. But then when i'd go home and crawl into a hole or say, whether I'm alone or with someone, and I'd like how or like just be super to have a really depressing day, or like a big wave of grief would come and I'd just be debilitated.
I'd feel also so guilty about that because I don't want him.
I just I don't want him looking down on me, like just kind of dying, you know, or yeah, so I don't know.
I'd feel there's just literally no right or wrong. I felt so guilty about anything I did.
I think that episode really struck a chord for a lot of people.
Especially ones that have experienced grief in their own lives. Ellena has a book and a podcast of her own if you would like to hear a little bit more from her. Something very massive that happened in twenty twenty two was.
That Laura and Britt wrote a book.
Now, that book was actually written over the space of a year and a half, and as I think a lot of us would relate to, a lot happened.
In that year and a half.
It was when we all in COVID lockdowns across the world. Lots and lots changed. And one thing that particularly changed from the start of writing that book to the end of writing that book for brit was her being in and out of love. Now I know that the side of writ that we see on the podcast a lot of the time is jovial. She's the first to take fears, like the first of crack a joke, and I love that about her.
But this particular.
Moment on the podcast was a real standout for me because this was a bit of an insight into the very, very vulnerable and real side.
Of writ And it's all about when you're dating and you just wonder when it's going to happen for you. And Britt also spoke about struggling with the feeling of worthiness of.
Love when you started writing it.
You wrote it when you were in love with Jordan, and then it kind of transitioned through your breakup.
And I know that we have touched on that, but what.
Was it like going back and having to rewrite some of those chapters so that the tense made sense, you know? And I think like being able to go from speaking about your relationship in real time in terms of like how you felt, to having to go back and rewrite chapters retrospectively. It's almost like a cruel trauma to have to do that.
It was horrific, it was, and and you know, I'll try it to cry again because we've already cried once.
In this episode.
You're allowed to cry, It's okay.
No, but it was, well, I haven't even I haven't thought about it for a little while because I really buried it again, like once I press go and sent it to the publishers, I was like, I'm just.
Not going to think about that until I have to, but.
Until I read it and then Laura makes me talk about it on a podcast.
It was horrific. It was. It was the things like.
Because it was probably a year between when I wrote about you know, the love chapters and the Penguin chapters of finding your person and all those really beautiful things that we've done, going back and rewriting it, so I had to go and change things like there were sentences was like, and you know, this is how I knew he was the one, and I feel so lucky I found the person in my life that to changing that too.
I thought I had found the person in my life. I all past tense.
I had to go and rewrite the whole book, and there are some parts that I left as is.
There were some parts I took.
Out because I'm like, that can't be in there anymore because it's too beautiful. It's like it's too like it just didn't fit the narrative anymore.
So there were some parts I had to remove.
It was definitely reliving what was my happiest time in my life, and it was a really like cruel reminder that you don't have that anymore and you're back to, you know, writing chapters about solitude and being on your own and writing. When I was talking about fertility and freezing my eggs and things like that, I froze those and I did that with Jordan, like we did that. You know, he was there holding my hand the whole time,
and we had talked about that life together. So going back and revisiting that and realizing that, well, that might not end up like that anymore. So I might not ever have a child anymore because I am getting older, i am single, I'm alone again. So it was a bit of a sick joke in a sense.
I wanted to ask you about that side of things, because I know that when you wrote fertility, and not even when you wrote it, when we did the whole episode around fertility, you were in a very different phase, like you had a plan.
For what you wanted to do. You were like you know, at.
Least even if you didn't have a plan, you had a backup, which is the whole point of freezing your eggs.
How do you feel about that now?
I said this to you just a couple of days ago. Actually, this like off the record, Laura and I were actually just having a real conversation. Sometimes it happened, sometimes it happens, and it was about I've had this real moment in my life in the last couple of weeks or the last like maybe a couple of months, where it's a bit of a change. So I've always said things over
the past few years since I've known Laura. I always said things like, maybe it's not for me, you know, maybe love's not for me, Maybe kids aren't for me. Maybe that's not what's.
Meant for me.
I've realized now I don't think I ever actually believed that. I think I said those comments in the depths of despair. I was feeling really down. It was easier just to voice this negativity and have a moment where I was like, whoa is me?
But I don't think I actually ever believed it.
I think I was saying these as throwaway comments, like oh well, Brittany, get over it's not for you. But deep down I still thought it would happen. And now I've transitioned to I genuinely am thinking that. Now I'm like, wow, maybe this actually really isn't for you, And it's made me realize that I don't think I believed it earlier.
So it's I feel like I've.
Gone into this a new phase I haven't been in yet where I am thirty five. I'm already thirty five, very single. I am ninety nine percent sure I don't want kids alone, Like I know that there's nothing wrong with it. I know there are people that go down that track. Maybe I'll change my mind in a few years if I hit forty and I'm still alone, maybe I will. But now I don't think that's a journey
I want to go down alone. So then you have this shock realization where you're like, fuck, it actually might not happen for you.
I think with that, the only thing I want to say is when you say maybe, because you kind of bundled them together, and I want you to be aware of this. You said, maybe love's not for me, maybe kids are not for me.
Definitely bundled them together.
They're two different things, and that's really important because like love is for you, and that's you projecting like how you feel about yourself. But they don't live together. You can tear the coffy to me, but they don't. Like, if you decide that you don't want to have kids, that's okay, but that's decisions on you. You can and you will find someone that you love and want to
be in love with. Those things do not sit together, and they just want you to be really conscious when you're talking about it, because like you are so worthy of being loved, and then you get to decide whether you want to have kids.
I know, I know it.
I love you. I guess that's why it was such a hard chapter, because I know there are a lot of women out there that are in my position where you get to a point where you're like, I just want to give up.
I don't want to do it anymore.
Something's wrong with me, something's inherently wrong with me.
Because I can't find it. Everyone else can find it. And I know that that's a really relatable thing, and I guess.
That's why I talk about it, because people feel these things and they feel like they're the only one that feels them, but they're not. Everyone goes through these times of their life and you are right, I no, I know for me it'll happen one day. But you get to a point where you're like, when is that day? What do I have to do? Differently, what do I you know? And it's exhausting for this to have space in the back.
Of your mind totally, and a.
Lot of women it holds a lot of space, especially as the years get older. You don't want to think about it. Everyone says, don't think about it, don't think about kids, don't think I'm dating, don't think.
About finding the one. Just let it happen.
You can't.
You can't just let it happen when you're a woman that is aging with a biological clock. And that is the thing I want to drive home. It's the fact that we there are limitations and it sucks, fucking sucks. But there are things you can do about it, like freezing your eggs. But there are limitations and it does take space in your mind, whether you want to accept.
That or not.
Just so you know.
The book We Love Love available at all Good and Bad bookstores. You can also grab it online our website there's a link in our show notes if you want to grab yourself for coffee. There is also the audiobook if you would like something to listen to over Christmas while a lot of podcasts are.
On break coming up next in our year and review. Ah, this was such a ve.
We got to speak to the world leading expert on relationships Esther Parrell, and I can still remember when the text came through to our group chat about this interview, like we were all just losing our fucking minds.
Ester Parell was the creme de la creme.
She was just the person that all of us wanted so badly to get onto the podcast, So this is a super exciting moment for us. She has such nuanced perspectives on human psychology surrounding relationships and sex. I particularly loved what she spoke about with desire and eroticism, And.
To be honest, I could have pulled any part of this interview as a highlight.
I actually really struggled to pick a certain couple of minutes to do for this highlight reel, but just yeah, everything she said made me.
Kind of have an AHA moment, I suppose. So I hope you enjoyed this part est parole.
If one partner is very sexual and wanting it a lot and the other partner is not coming to the table, is this relationship doomed?
But I don't think that I have nearly enough information when it's presented like this. My first question when one person is so much more interesting than the other is to ask the other person do you enjoy it? First of all, do you enjoy it? Then I'll know it why you don't want to do it as much as the other person. Then the next question is how does your partner reach out to you? I mean, what is four play like? And if it's a five minutes before the real thing, then I can also understand that for
a lot of people that's not enough. Actually, four play should start at the end of the previous orgasm. You know, Or a person says, you know, does my partner doesn't talk to me the whole day and then suddenly they turn around and they want to just kind of get into it. No, that doesn't work for me, I'm totally disconnected. Or you know, one person saying I have high distosterone,
I have high desire, I get aroused. That doesn't say nothing to the dynamic in a relationship that just says you enjoy having says well, you like it, or you need it or you want it. That's all I know. Now, tell me what goes on between the two of you. If I'm a camera on the wall, what am I seeing? Am I seeing? One person? Just suddenly, you know, say here, I am what's up with you? While you're never interested? Or do I have a person who actually knows how
to elicit interest, you know, by reaching out. The one thing that is very important, though, is that it's okay to be responsive. Not everybody is an initiator. Some people don't necessarily want to do something until someone else says how about and then gradually they bring them into the experience. But if you think of it as I always want and I have to talk you into it, and I have to you know, I did the dishes, and now hopefully I'll get some.
That sounds by their relationship.
But okay, I appreciate so much that this is the perspective that you come to this conversation with. And I think it's so important for a lot of people who have a mismatch in the sex drive in their relationship because they can definitely become that one person feels like the villain, like they're withholding sex. But I know that from my personal experience, Like I became a mum in the last two years. I've had two children in a very short period of time, and so my whole identity
has changed. What I need in order to get in the mood to have sex is different to when we first started dating.
Very much, very much soon.
Yeah, And I think that sometimes, you know, it's very easy to fall into a pattern of arguing about sex. If at like you said, eleven o'clock at night, that's when they're like, well, I'm ready now, and what do you mean you're going to reject me? And it's like, well, guess what, I'm fucking tired. It's eleven o'clock at night and I've just been up all night the night before. It's almost like you're setting yourself up. Well, that person's setting you up to say no to then be angry.
And I think a lot of people still, if they're the one projecting or not coming to the table with sex, it can feel like they're the problem.
So let me change this whole dynamic Fiel number one. I'm going to give you three little snapshots. First of all you have your little one. You tickle them, you nibble them, you lick them, you look at them in their eyes. They look at you in their eyes, their adoring gaze, and it feels almost the same kind of pleasure as you had in the first days when you
met your partner. It has that kind of charge. And basically at the end of the day, when you say I have nothing left to give, I also want you to know that sometimes it's because there is nothing more you need. You already are satiated. All of that is erotic. It's not sexual, but it's erotic. It's very pleasurable in that way. And that is for you to then know that sometimes that makes the partner feel very lonely, very separate, and that they want to know that you can still
have some of those feelings with them as well. That's the first thing. The second thing is that when your partner approaches you and you want to say I'm tired, I think it's very important to also say I really like that you still approach me. It feels really good. I hope at some point soon I find my way back to us. I know that at this point I've been really absorbed. If you've been nursing, You've been stimulated plenty, very differently, but it creates a certain kind of saturation.
And what's important is not to tell the other person now you want how come you think of this and I'm so tired and I have nothing in me. Is to actually say, I so need you. It's so important for me that you continue to want me, even at a time when I don't know that I want as much. But it doesn't mean I don't want you. It just means that I'm in the beginning of those few years of it's basically till the second one is about two
or three. And then if every once on occasion you say I'm not in the mood, but can I please, you be giving because it makes the other person feel like, you know, the experience of being generous hasn't disappeared. The fact that you have less desire is temporary. It's a transition, and it's exactly the states that you are in, and these things are what preserves the couple during those few more fragile years.
Now, interviewing our next guest was one of my personal highlights for the year. It was actually while Britt was away filming the challenge, so I got to sit in on this episode and to give you.
Guys a little bit of a behind the scenes look at this one.
I actually have a background in medical science, so I worked as a researcher before I got into media and.
Eventually joined the Life on Cut team.
And Johann Hari was someone that I met initially through the Internet about five years ago, and that was because we had a research topic in common. For this interview, it was the first time that we ever got to meet in person, So it was like a real special moment for me personally, and I just loved that we got to share his wisdom and his knowledge because he is just He's just on a whole other level of the way that he explains these things that he goes
into such in depth research about. So in this episode we spoke about our Lost Connections, which just so happens to be one of the titles of these books, as well Hindy's latest research, why we Can't pay Attention Now. This particular snippet I thought was really relevant to all of us because a lot of us have social media and we probably aren't aware of how the algorithms work in all of our apps.
I certainly know that I'm not.
We spoke at length about how we feel a sense of validation from engagement, but also how algorithms targeted a particular type of engagement.
And this is what he had to say.
The design of the machinery is driven by just one idea, which is, how do we get people to scroll longer and longer and longer. Right, So the algorithms, all the computers are set up to figure out, okay, track everything and figure out what it is that keeps people scrolling right, and those algorithms, this wasn't anyone's fault. They didn't design it that way, but they just stumbled across an underlying truth about human psychology. Right. The kind of fancy term
for it is negativity bias. But it's very simple. Everyone will have been experienced it. You will stare longer at something that makes you angry or upset then you will at something that makes you feel good. If you've ever seen a car crash, you know exactly what I mean. Right, you stared longer at the mangled car wreck than you did at the pretty flowers.
We said this about.
You know, you could receive one hundred good comments on something, or even five nice comments on something, they will not even reach you. But if you receive one thing that hurts you, that makes you feel invalidated or question your sense of self, that will rock you. Whereas the compliments, the niceties, everything else, it's as though they don't even exist because we can be so negatively good.
That's a really powerful example of negativity bias, and it's very deep in human nature. Problem is when you combine two things, a business model designed to figure out what keeps you scrolling plus negativity bias. Right, So, what these algorithms discovered is best way to explain It's. Picture two teenage girls who go to the same party and go home on the same bus, and one of them does a little video for TikTok status update whatever, and they say,
what a nice party, I had a great time. Everyone look good. Well, you know we dance this or that whatever, Right, And the second girl does a video or an update where she goes, Karen was a right skank at that party. Her boyfriend's an asshole. Doesn't angry? Imagine that girl does an angry denunciatory rant, right, So the algorithm is scanning to look at the kind of words you use, and
it will put that nice video. That nice data is update into a few people's feeds, right, But the second update it will put into far more people's feeds because it knows if you see something angry and what do you mean, Karen's a scank, You're a fucking scan. You can see how that triggers an argument that causes engagement.
Right.
I fucking love this because we see this and we've had this conversation internally. In regards to influencers, I think a lot of influencers engage outrage culture. They get really angry, and often it's around things that you should be angry about, but they will verbalize how angry they are as a way of growing their following because it is a really
fucking great tactic. People love to see someone angry and outraged about an injustice, and we are so much more willing to follow that, to get on board with that.
It is a crusade.
It is a plight rather than following someone who you know is just happy. Not that we need to be happy all the time or positive, That's not what I'm saying. But it is a tool, and I don't think people are aware that it's actually a tool that some people and influencers have clopped into as well.
Those influencers are consciously or unconsciously learning the rules of the system they're operating in rightly. So just like the teenage girls on the bus, an influence is going to clock if I do all these nice posts. If I say, oh, look, I read this nice book and wasn't it lovely? You know, you're not going to get much traction if you go have you seen what this bitch did? Right, It's going to get a lot of traction. So I feel it happening to myself. I don't look at social media now,
I've got an assistant. I give my tweets to do. It sounds very grand because I feel myself becoming cruder and nastier when I'm on it, because you see, oh, I said this nice thing, and it looked like hardly anyone noticed, and I said this nasty thing, and look now people are talking about me. There's some degree to which this is just human psychology. But we're operating in a machine. It's super charging the worst of our psychology, right, and that doesn't have to happen. We can't change the
negativity bias. That's just a natural part of human psychology. But we can stop the machines fucking jabbing a knitting needle that are at our negativity bias all the time. Right, So if we change the business model and the way we've talked about, you get out of that trap.
Right.
In a subscription model then want to make you angry something, They're like, oh, you want to feel good, Let's start giving her feedback where she feels good, not feedback that makes it angry, upset, and hostile. Right.
See.
I also think that there's like a whole other elements to this, And Johanna, I know that this is something that you are extremely well researched in, and that is our brains and the way that they work in a similar way to how drug addiction works with social media. You know, we now have so much research that shows us that when we post something on social media that gets likes and gets comments and gets any type of interaction,
we get a release of dopamine in our brains. And that's the same thing that goes up when you take just about any illegal drug. And so not only we have these massive tech companies that have designed these algorithms to keep us scrolling and keep us engaged, we also have our own brains that are being programmed and kind of rewired that every time we post something that might create you know, outrage culture as we're talking about, we get more interaction and so we get more of that
dopamine being released into our own brains. So it's kind of like a storm in a tea cup of all of these different factors with how our brains are working in terms of social media.
It's interesting though, the irony in that which I find is that all of that comes down to this want for connectedness, that this want for like being part of a community, to feel validated, to be liked by your friends.
You know. A lot of that is what it's geared around.
It's still feeling like you're part of a community, but we almost are lacking connection because of it at the same time.
Coming up next in a Year in Review, This particular episode was actually a bit of a brain baby of Lauras. She wanted to do this episode for years and years and years, I think, probably from the inception of the podcast, and it was all because it kind of struck a chord with her. Like her relationship with alcohol during her twenties, she has some pretty complex feelings about it.
So for this whole episode, we were actually.
Joined by Eleanor Susier and Danny Carr, and it was all about the choice to go sober from alcohol.
So for this particular highlight segment, we are chatting with Eleanor Solzier, and I think it.
Was interesting for me as someone who like I wouldn't personally identify myself as.
Having a problem with alcohol, So it was really interesting to hear.
From the perspectives of people that experience things like blackout or you know, their behavior changes when they get drunk, or maybe their character.
Changes and they do things that they're embarrassed about.
And I guess one thing that I had thought people who tend to go sober it's because they had done something so catastrophically bad or like the life had just hit rock bottom and that's why they needed to turn things around. And this particular episode really taught me that that wasn't the case.
It never really sat right with me, like this is quite a hectic example, but like I look, I never drank. I never wanted to be because I think there's this whole rhetoric and story around people that stopped drinking, and it's like, oh, my god, why, like what happened in your life that forced you, like as if I had to hit rock bottom for me to stop drinking, where
it really wasn't that way. It was just that like I would go out and maybe once a month I would totally have like this four hour period that something happened, and sometimes I would do something that was really crazy and I'd have no idea until someone kind of like jogged my memory and would be like, no, this happened, and I'd be.
Like, but how like that's not me.
Some of my friends make a joke about it, but I'm like, it's actually quite a scary thing. It's like an alter ego, and I have friends that would be like, yeah, my alter ego comes out and I'm like cool, Sometimes she's fun, but sometimes she's really destructive, and it's actually quite scary. So like the times that I realized how detrimental it was was when someone was holding me accountable. So when I was single, I would go out have
a big night. In my mind, it was a fun night and I didn't have anyone the next morning to say to me, look, you did or said this thing that was really unacceptable. But when I was being held accountable.
When I was in relationships, I would say probably every single boyfriend of mine was like, you got a bit weird last night, or you said something really horrible, or you were really flirty with someone else, or you just did something that was so out of character, and the regret and the shame I would feel from it because I'd be like, but I.
Wasn't, like I wasn't there.
Like I physically was it, Like I'm I can't believe that that's me, And obviously the scar is there, like I've heard that person, and they're going to start thinking like, well, how often are you going to use this excuse of you blacked out so you said something horrible, or you blacked out you're flirting with someone else, And also how
far can that go? Like I've slept with people and had absolutely no idea that I slept with them, and they would come back to me the next day and be like you came over and you slept with me three times and you were totally lucid, And I'm like, what.
Oh, that's a scary thought, isn't it.
I gets terrifying.
So I started getting to the point of especial my relationships and especially with Tom when I was like, I think this is the love of my life. And I was sort of doing these things very rarely but still doing them. But I was like, imagine if I went out and slept with someone else, black out drunk whilst I'm dating this man that I love so much, and I know it's within my capabilities because who knows, like I could do that.
Last up for our year in review. I know it's getting to the end of it.
But one of our favorite things about the podcast for sure, like we say it as a joke every week, but we always say it's time for our favorite segment accidentally Unfiltered. But it's because it is so funny, and there's just something so relatable about other people doing dumb shit that embarrasses themselves.
It definitely makes me feel better about myself.
So we decided to do an entire episode a standout bonus episode of your dating disaster stories. This particular one is a bit of a compilation of the worst or the best.
I don't know, dating disaster stories.
I met guy on Plenty of Fish. We were making out in the back of his car and it was getting really steamy. Now next minute he gets up and says that he's really hungry and he needs food asap, like literally in the middle of making out in the back of his car.
He's like, I need food, hard work. Yeah, he's hungry, all right.
So we're about twenty minutes away from anywhere, and he insists that he follows me in his car. So not only does the makeout stop, she has to get out of his car get back into her car, and he says, I'm going to follow you to this place where I'm gonna pick some food up.
So she's driving and he is behind her.
Okay, halfway there, I notice he turns down a side street.
I pull over to call him. He had blocked me, and I never ever heard for a few god.
So he was making out with her, got a hunger pain?
Or did he never know he did?
It was a made up homeway?
What an elaborate story to try and go Why would have been just say I'm not feeling this, I'm not vibing this.
What happened in that exact moment. If a few minutes ago you were into the makeoud.
What has she done that has turned you off so much that you were like, I need to abort this mission and it's like a it's like an FBI chase, Like he's like, I'm gonna turn down the street and lose her and block her.
Also, they're completely uncomfortable because if you've gotten if you're in someone's car, in the back of their car and it is getting hot and steamy, but you want it to stop and you want the person to get out of your car, it's kind of an awkward situation to be like, hey, I'm not vibing this, can you please go?
I fucking love that. I'm a bit hungry. Let's I'm in a smoke bomb.
It's like on Bride's Maids, you know, when they're in bed with she's in bed with a dickhead and he's like, so I really want you to leave.
I don't want to see magann asshole. It's like exactly that man. She's like, okay, I'll just go, and he's like, yeah, I just love that.
Note like he obviously when he was driving, he'd obviously it was so premeditated that he was blocking her on things whilst he was following her in the car.
He was doing in an illegal maneuver.
He was on his phone, and then he was like, now I can make my grand get away. What would you do? What's your excuse?
You making out in the back seat?
Would you just be like, I'm done? Or would you say I'm so hungry? Would you say what darrhea?
I'd just be like I'd just be like, my bowels loose? I think I just know I'm going to say, excuse me my bowels.
Magine how wrong? Yeah, imagine how it turned off.
You'd be If there's one way to lose someone is to tell them you've.
Got loose bow I think I would just have to say I'm not vibing it. I don't think I'm just not that creative. That's like a level of creativity that I don't have in my being. Okay, next one, I was going on a first date.
We decided to go to a cafe for a coffee and brunch. How much can go wrong? As my date is arriving at the table, I can see him walking up. He pulls out his Nokia phone. Now I get very awkward at the best of times, but especially on first dates.
So he whips out this.
Brick of a Nokia, And honestly, who has a Nokia these days?
Who has a nock? Here trying to make lighthearted joke.
I say, man, that has got to be the oldest.
Phone I have seen this decade.
I really dug into this about why he'd be using such an old brick. I'm trying to break that friendly wall, you know. I even went so far as to say that phone just took you from an eight to a six.
Ha ha ha. I think I'm really funny.
Turns out people don't use knockies anymore.
It was his insulin pump.
Oh clah.
But I'm gonna make him feel self conscious about something that he can't control.
He saving Grace.
They've been together two years, okay, right, so I think that this is I think this is a cute time. But the worst part, like, did you really have to throw in there that the phone took you from an eight to a six? Like that was the real because the pumps on you, you're that is part of you. But also, like everyone likes a little bit of not everyone, but a lot of people enjoy a bit of riffing.
Bit of riffing early on in a relationship, not not like, you know, straight up insulting each other's a bit of a riff. She thought she was hilarious. She's like, I'm looking this down, I'm funny. I'm gonna make this really lighthearted, and then the poor guy but they've been down two.
Years, so this is great.
Well, that is it for your rearing, your view of twenty twenty two. I hope that you really enjoyed that episode. I really enjoyed making that episode. Actually, just getting to go back and listen through those particular highlight moments was Yeah, it was cool.
It made me have a lot of laughs and made me think about things, and.
It just made me remember how lucky we are to have such great guests on the podcast.
Hope you all have a wonderful New Years.
And we will be back in January. I'm not going to give you an exact date because Laura and Britt have this horrible habit of like saying we're not going to drop any episodes, and then all of a sudden, I get a text message that like, oh, I'm going to do a bonus episode. But I'm fairly certain there won't be any episodes until the end of January.
And I can tell you that the.
Guests that are lined up for the start of next year are absolutely killer. I think You're really gonna enjoy a lot of them, so I'm really looking forward to that.
I hope you are as well.
And yeah, like I said, have a great New Year and we'll see you back in twenty twenty three.
Oh I nearly forgot.
Oh my god, how could I sign off on podcast episode laugh About without this? Tell you until your dad, you don't tell your friends, and share the love because we love love