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 Gaddigal Land of the Aurora Nation.
Hi guys, and.
Welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura and I'm Britt, and I just want to say to anybody else who is fucking traumatized by watching Dama, I'm there with you.
And by Dama, Laura means the Netflix show that is trends at the moment. I'm Jeffrey Darmo.
It's the worst thing I've ever watched in my entire live I have so many feelings. Matt and I put on two episodes on Saturday and I'll never recover.
And you feel bad for I don't even like to say the word trending in that sentence because it feels like it's the wrong word for what it's about. So if you don't know quickly, it's about Jeffrey Dahmer, who was a sick, sick man, he was a serial killer many many moons ago, but it's re exploring what that looked like for him, who he was, what he did, the crime, and it was very, very awful. But again
I hate the word trending. It is trending. It's been like one of the most watched netflixes since Squid Games.
We're squid Games, right, that was like the trending scary horror thriller of twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two.
It's Darma.
Everyone's talking about it. So many people have watched it. It is one of the most downloaded I think it is. It is the most downloaded thing on Netflix. Makes me think, like how fucked are we? Like, actually, how messed up are we as a society that that's.
What we want to watch.
Matt may he didn't make me, he didn't like forced me down over my eyeballs, but like, we watched the first two episodes and I can't watch it, Like it's just too much for me. It's too traumatizing, I think because it's obviously so based within real life and based amongst like what's actually happened that for me, I just I cannot believe that somebody could do this and that is so much more frightening than a fictional, made up squid games based in.
A country that you know feels very far away from me. But I think that's the conversation, right. This is why we as a society love it so much, is because we can't believe that there is someone that would do this, and we don't understand how there could be someone that could do this how they go about it. So I think that's where the fascination comes from. It's almost like it's in another world and another reality. And I think I don't think people look at it with these goggles
on that this actually happened. I think they just sit back and are like, this guy's fucking crazy. But it's is it crossing this line? Is it crossing this line where we're glorifying these people, these horrible serial killers, and were almost putting them on a pedestal of look how crazy they are.
I don't know if it's glorifying them, but I guess the thing that sits uncomfortable with me is like, regardless regardless of whether it shines him in the most negative life, obviously, it's like it's truly humanly deplorable, like it's unbelievable. But it's also been made into a Netflix, Hollywood blockbuster hit, right, so we are being entertained. Ultimately, we're being entertained by people's immense tragedy. And for me, I think, like, what
are the families getting out of this? What are the victim's families getting out of this? Have they received any of the money?
I don't know. This is a bigger thing for us to unpack, and I think we have.
Actually we've gone super rogue on today's podcast episode and we're going to tell you all about it. But I would love to unpack this whole situation more, unpack like the research behind the family statements that have been made since this docu series has come out, because there is a lot and I have a lot of feelings.
Let's hit that on Thursday's episode.
Yeah, and that is something we'll do. But I've I mean, like I am one of those people. I've watched it, which is strange to me because I couldn't watch the Good Games, so it took me like eighteen months to watch I only watch Italy.
Fine.
I was like, I don't understand why everyone's so I was like, yeah, I'm traumatized, but it's like I quite enjoyed it.
I was hooked.
Yeah, so that's so we're so different. But it is something we need to unpack because I have I've got one I think one more episode left to watch. I will, and I want to be clear, I'm not enjoying it like I'm I don't watch it because I'm loving it, but there's a part of me that needs to see it through now, which is a strange feeling. But we're going to unpack that my much deeper level on Thursday.
All right, Well, the reason why we're going brogue on today's episode is because we have some very exciting news. I've been following along the podcast the last few weeks or even like the last couple of months, you would know that We Love Love, the book that Britta and I wrote, it is being released tomorrow. It's finally hitting bookshelves.
Nervous, it's also a Fox saying saying, I feel so uncomfortable. It's also for anyone who has placed a pre order book purchase, it'll be being sent out to you tomorrow. So there are thousands of copies of We Love Love which are going to.
Be in the stratosphere. But what we thought we would do is and look, I'm going to say it already, there's there's a lot of tears in this episode.
And there's a lot of discoveries we wanted, you know, for anyone who has bought the book or who was thinking about it. This episode a little bit of a taste test. That's a weird way of putting it, but it's a little bit of an insight into what we talk about and what is different about the book to the podcast, because we do talk about a lot of things that are very similar to the topics that we've covered, but ultimately, we love Love. The book that we wrote
together is a book about self love. It's also a book about self improvement, self discovery, but also about strengthening your own relationships that you have. And there are some things that we haven't yet spoken about openly on the podcast for various reasons, and this episode gives us an opportunity to talk about some of the stories that prior to now we didn't feel comfortable sharing.
I think that is right. I think what you said is right. It's a taste tester.
It's just noble.
Someone jumps a bit of a breadcrumb from their place.
So if you've been thinking about buying yourself a copy of We Love Love, you can jump onto www dot Life, uncutpodcast dot com dot au and there is all the links to the book there, so you can get yourself a pre order copy before it comes out tomorrow. Now, considering we spend so much time talking, it's usually we're talking to other people, I think that we've shared a lot of our stories on this podcast. Actually we've shared
ninety nine point nine percent of them. We are known to be overshares, yes, but surprisingly there are a lot of things in this book that we haven't yet shared on the podcast, and we'll kind of get into why that's the case. But we thought to kick off this part of the episode, we would kind of tell you how the whole process of the book came about, when it came about, and what that's looked.
Like, how it happened, why it happened, where it happened, Why did it happen? Brittany, God who knows. Now it's a I guess a bit over a year, eighteen months I think from when we signed the deal. I think it's been about twenty months.
So at the time just to kind of give you guys a bit of the timeline about how the process will happen, so Penguin, that is through the book is published through Penguin Publishers. We have an incredible publisher. Her name is Izzy, and I remember we were trying to organize a time to have a meeting.
This meeting that happened.
We went down to the local cafe and Bondai and it was six weeks after Lola was born.
And a tiny little potato she was. This was a tiny little melon. She was like one of those twenty five percent less carbs potatoes.
She was you know, the lit bud life. So you might be a sponsor, Okay, So she was a strap to the front of me. We sat there and had breakfast and we talked through why we wanted to do
the book and how it would be. This a to z of relationships but also self love and I think ultimately one of the biggest things that we've spoken about on this podcast the running theme, as much as this has been largely relationships focus, I think the biggest relationship that we have covered over the past couple of years is very much the relationship that we have with ourselves and that's very much.
What the ethos of the book comes back to.
But just going back to this meeting, So here we are in the cafe in BONDI six week old Loless strapped to me, and I think at the time I personally got caught up in the excitement of the possibility of writing a book without really understanding how fucking hard it was going to be having two kids under the age of sixteen months. Because at the time Mary was only sixteen months old and I had a newborn, and I was like, yeah, I can do this book thing.
Sure turns out I couldn't. We just needed some extensions. So that was both of us well. Originally our deadline was six months, which looking back now is hilarious, ridiculous. Originally there was this grand idea that the book could be written in six months, and that kind of came from Penguin. I think that was like they were like, look, this is kind of how long it normally takes to write a book for us.
It didn't.
For us. It took eighteen months. And the reason for that is not just because there were two kids in the mix. There was also the second lockdowns of the pandemic brit You spent time overseas, Britt, you went through your own huge heartbreak. There were some really big life things that happened throughout the process of writing this book.
I mean, I feel like it's been a long time coming, because we're in discussions for this book, or for a book a long time before we press Go with Penguin. So I feel like from when we first started discussing it, which was a year before we signed, I feel like this has been like a three year journey. I feel like it's been the longest We've spent as long making this book as I've made making children.
Yeah, and this was harder. Yeah, well in some ways absolutely.
Yeah.
I guess one of the things I want to know from you, Brett, like what was the why for you?
Like? Why did you want to write a book? We have had like between three hundred and three hundred and twenty episodes, A lot of content over the last three and a half years. A lot of content we're very proud of, a lot of amazing people, amazing topics, a lot of education, a lot of laughs, so much. But it's gotten to the point where it's so broad and it's so big, and there's so many episodes and topics
floating around that. I thought, imagine if we could just culminate it all into one little bible handbook, one little go to place where there's a bit of everything, a bit of our favorite and most important or hard hitting
topics in one place. And the reason we decided to do it, as the ad to Z, is we didn't want well, I mean, like for me looking at it, I wanted someone to be able to go and pick up this book anytime of the day, not at work, on your break whenever, if you're going through something specific like a breakup, and just go to the letter or to the topic that you're interested in in that moment of your life. You don't have to read it from
front to back. You don't have to sit down with a few weeks and just like go hard, remember where you are. You just pick it up for whatever you're going through at that point in your life. So I think that that for us was absolutely perfect.
I think for me, one of the things is that there are some stories that I have never felt comfortable sharing on the podcast, and there's multiple reasons for that. Some of it is because I struggle to get through them without getting emotional, and the other part of it is because there's this real fear around being misquoted. And I think a lot of us know that something that's said verbally, when written down, it can look very different
or sound very different. We all know this from text messaging, that you can misinterpret someone's tone via a text message. And I guess for me, I've had this fear around some of the stories and how they would be misinterpreted by the media and how they could be used as a weapon. So we have shared so much of our lives over the past couple of years, but there are a few stories in the book from myself and from my own personal journey that I hadn't been ready to share yet.
And I think that that's something that I've probably feel.
Most proud of.
Sometimes we go through things in life and it could have been twenty years ago, thirty years ago, I mean. And that's something that you talk about, Laura a lot in this book, something you haven't spoken about before, and that's your childhood. Nothing against your age, but we know your childhood was a long time like do the math, your childhood was a long time ago, but you haven't been ready to talk about that until this point. And we're going to get into that, and we're going to
get into the why. We're going to get into what that was like, how that has set off a chain reaction for where you are in your life and to adulthood.
How it's shaped me as a person exactly. So we'll get into that.
And that's I mean, like, I loved reading that. I know your story from what you tell me, but it's different when you read it from a different perspective. So I loved reading that chapter about you, and it was very emotional, and I'm an emotional person. I've like a crime right now. I don't know, I'm always like deering up.
But we will get into that.
But before, I guess, let's go through the process. How was this for you, because you who had a.
Very busy life, Well, I think for me, the process was hard. I enjoyed writing parts of it. I enjoyed writing different chapters. Some chapters were ultimately harder to write than others. And you know, we'll get into what those chapters look like. Some of them are light and fluffy and silly, and they like reading them back. I had a good laugh, and then others. When we had to record the audiobook for it, reading the back, I was
in full blubbering tears, but the actual process itself. So, like I mentioned, Lola was only six weeks old when we signed the book deal, and I truly underestimated how challenging having two kids was going to be. I think because I genuinely found the transition to one child rather easy. And I hate saying that because I know that everybody is different, and I know that a lot of people find having one child really challenging. But what I came to realize in the last two years is that Maley
was a really easy baby. I got so lucky with Maley in her temperament, in her sleeping, like she really was just such a cruisy kid, and I feel like I can do this kid thing one hundred percent. That makes me realize how fucking arrogant I was without even realizing it, Like I guess I was kind of like, oh, yeah, we've nailed this parenting thing.
We can have too. And we had.
Two babies within the space of sixteen months of each other, and a miscarriage in that time too. So I was pregnant with a second baby when Marley was only five months old, and then I got pregnant with Lola like the following month.
So we have had a.
Lot of like in the last two years, pregnancy has just been like it's just there's been so much of it, you know, and it's been such a big part of my life. But then so has this whole motherhood journey. And I think going from one kid to two kids, it really rocked me. And part of that was because Lola was such a challenging baby.
She had two defaults.
She had a.
Sleep or screaming, and that was it, and that was the first sort of three or four months of her life. And this was also during a time of COVID. So I really think that when I started writing this book, I was in a bit of an emotional low because I didn't have the support systems around me to help
with raising children. Matt and I were very much on our own during that period, especially during the four months of lockdown at the second Lockdown of Sydney, and I had this baby who was not easily consoled, like couldn't figure out what she wanted. And so I guess for me, I had these grand ideas that we would I would get the book written while she slept, and I would have this like maternity break and write the book, and it would be so easy, and you know, I was
going to nail this motherhood thing. And that's one of the things I talk about in the book is that, you know, for me, the motherhood journey felt like a real failure. In that first year of Lola's life. I did not feel like I was kicking goals. Even though I'm sure people will look on Instagram and think, like, oh, how does Laura juggle all these things? I was truly feeling like I was failing at a lot of stuff, which is a crazy feeling.
Not crazy, because I think a lot of people feel that, but I think that's very internalized because you were doing so much. You were kicking a lot of goals, and I think a lot of this pressure comes from you yourself.
Yeah, and I guess I was still kicking goals, but I was really really burnt out. So originally our publication date was mid of last year, and then it kind of got pushed out to the end of last year, and then we kind of had to throw all like we had to throw it all out of the wagon and start again. And then we pushed out to October this year, and a lot of that rescheduling came down to me and me not being able to manage all
of the things that I'd put on my plate. And I guess that was a huge learning curve for me that it's okay to sometimes have to reassess, reset, and put yourself first, because otherwise you might make it to the finish line, but you will be so burnt out by the time you get there that it's just not worth it.
And it's about being realistic with yourself too. Like you can have big dreams and you can say, you know, I want to kick these goals, I want to work hard, I want to tick the boxes, but sometimes you have to be realistic that it's physically not going to get done. There is no way that you can do it. And that's what we went through over that time. And I had points where I cannot even tell you why, but I had such low points that I would open my computer and I had the page open to start writing.
It'd be like a.
Movie, you know how when you've got your cursor and it's like dotting along waiting for you to type your first word. And I was in a pretty good place when we started then. I mean, we spoken about this I started the book in love like so happy, and I finish the book going through like the worst breakup of my life and like the lowest point of my entire life. I still can't talk bad without crying, which
I'm going to do right now. That it was really like, it was really hard to write because you have to go back. By the time I got to the point where we had broken up, I had to go back and change things, and a lot of it when I was rereading it was like talking about how happy I was. I'm like talking about my penguin and like, so it was really hard to go back and like relive that and rewrite it. So that was, yeah, big process for me. Sorry, I can't talk right now. Did you.
Mean guys like we, I mean, we are so grateful for all of you who have kind of followed along the journey of the past three years, and this is so much like this book is so much a culmination of that. It's the process. It's lessons that we've learned. And I guess for you, Brit, BRIT's like sitting here with tearsl hell, But for like, a big part of
that was going through this breakup. And I think, like you know this for you, And I don't want to speak on your behalf because you're very very capable for speaking for yourself.
But when I can't because I'm crying.
But like, it's that feeling of starting again when you thought that you had you had your life planned out, you had this idea of what you wanted and where things were heading, and then not only did you have an idea, but you had to go back and reread those chapters and it makes you almost think like, am I silly for thinking that that's where my life was heading? Am I silly for having those feelings when I didn't result in anything?
Yeah, and it's because I wrote it over a year, you almost forgot what you wrote. So when you go back to those happiness chapters, it just like hits. It was a real reminder of like, oh, you're not happy anymore, Like you remember how you felt that once in the last decade, Like you don't have that anymore. And yeah, it was just like a reliving chapter, I guess, which you know we both did that a few times. That was obviously a big one for me, but I know
you had to relive a lot too. Yeah, I don't know if you felt the same, and I feel like it's a bit of a therapy Session's quite cathartic to get a lot of this stuff out, Like, sure, you have to relive it, but I guess as a part of reliving.
It that helps you move forward, like putting a conclusion to the full stop.
Yeah, like, look how much I've moved on. I'm fine.
Ever, reading's fine, the flory lover.
Okay, well let's get into some stuff that's not gonna make us cry. We'll do that later.
So we have both I have written some questions for Britt about some of the parts and the chapters that she wrote in the book that I found the most interesting or the things that I think you guys may not have heard before. And BRIT's done the exact same. So we don't know each other's questions or what we're gonna ask, but this is an insight into some of the stories, maybe some of the untold stories that are inside the book.
I will kick it off. So in the book, Laura, you share a really great story about quitting and why we see quitting as a failure. This was all around your postgraduate degree because you did go to UNI. If anyone doesn't know Laura didn't go to UNI university degree, God damn it. Yeah, but can you share why failure in quitting is so formity for you?
So okay, I love that you started with this. Let's start with the education. Okay.
I love that you started with this and didn't throw me in the deep end. So the story around quitting, okay. So for me, I think I learned a huge lesson when I was in my early well probably my mid twenties around why quitting doesn't have to be just seen as a failure. I've always been someone who doesn't want to disappoint people, Like if I'm not winning, then I'm failing. And that's kind of how I used to look at life. You're not first your last. Yeah, if you're not first,
your last. And I think that there was definitely pressures on me as a kid to kind of and not in a way that you would expect.
Like my mum wasn't like you need to be a winner.
But like we were all super competitive at sport when we were kids. My sister was almost an Olympian for gymnastics before she had a terrible car accident. And me myself, like I was up at five point thirty am every day for swimming, and then I went to swimming training every afternoon. It was swimming carnivals every weekend. So this like real militant style of success was kind of drilled
into us from a young age. And I did finance at university in Woollongong, and you know, like people are like, oh, fine art, such a cushy degree. But like I was in the Golden Key Society within the first year of UNI.
Like I don't know any of the words you're saying. So I don't know what finance is. I don't know the Golden Keys. It's like a Willy wontgard Do I get something at the end.
The Golden Key Society is a university society where only the top five percentile of any like so you have to have gotten basically a HD average, want to get it, heard of it, you know, And I'm not that is not me, Like I am not this acutely academic person. But if I wasn't the top of my class, I thought that I was failing. Like if I was very much like peas do not equal degrees. It was like you had to be the top. You need the Golden Key, you needed the golden key. I don't have it any more,
trust me. I didn't have it in second year UNI, but first UNI I did. So I graduated from UNI, and then I went and I studied my postgraduate degree. But I moved up to Lismore because I was desperately in love with a guy, and I've spoken about him loads on the podcast. I moved up to more the only thing that I had to do there was I had no job, I had no nothing. So I was like, well, look I'll extend my education and I'll go and do a postgraduate degree. And I fucking hated it. I hated
everything about being there. I mean, I had no friends, My relationship was like total in the pits. And then I was doing this degree that I did not like, and I felt like I was failing at it. But the idea of quitting a postgraduate degree when I was already so close to the finish line seemed like that wasn't an option either. You know, I was already paying for it. Yeah, I'd already invested so much time in it. And I remember how sad I was at that point
in my life. And I went and I had a conversation with one of the career advisors at the university, and I went in and I was like, look, I really hate the degree, but I've got eight weeks left until until I handed my thesis, which I hadn't even really written. I was like, I don't really know what I'm going to do with this degree, but I feel like I have to finish it. And I remember this career planner. She was like a woman in her i'd say mid sixties. She was sitting there with this like
right floral single it on. She was like, look, if you hate this degree so much, if you hate what you're doing so much, the likelihood is is that you're going to hate a career in what it is that you're studying. And she was like, so why would you invest any more time in something that makes you so unhappy? And I was like, well, because I've only got eight weeks left and it's a postgraduate degree, and she was like,
it means nothing. And so the idea of just quitting university and being a postgraduate dropout seemed like such a monumental failure. And I went home that night and I was like, fuck, is that what I'm going to do?
Like?
Am I going to be am? I? Going to be a postgraduate dropout, Like, what does that then mean for my career? What does that mean then for who I am as a person? And I did the next day I unenrolled from university. I didn't break up with my boyfriend at the time, but I said, I'm packing up my stuff and I'm going to move back down to Wollongong and try and figure out what I want for myself.
And the thing the reason why that that is such a huge story for me, and it probably doesn't seem like a big deal, but I had always been on this very clear path in terms of I wanted to work in an academic sense around fine arts, like I wanted to work as a curator in art galleries, and that's what I thought my future was going to be. And then I quit this degree which would have led
me onto that career path. And then that is how I ended up starting Tony May because I had so much time to put into this hobby that I had, which was like my side project, and I realized how
much I loved it. And then after I quit, I was surrounded by people who were doing similar things to me, and it was only through that process that I kind of realized or maybe maybe this is something I could do and I could be And so it was this quitting that actually set me on the right path of what I wanted to do with my life.
It's funny because I used to be exactly the same when you're even saying that story. I was like, if you wouldn't just finish the two months like you've done, You've done the study.
That's that's what everyone That's what my family, that's what everyone said. Everyone was like, why wouldn't you just finish it?
It's eight weeks. Well, I was exactly the same. So the old me would have said that I was about seven months in or eight months into a master's degree in ultra scenography. That's what I was doing. I was the same thing. And that's because the next step right, I was like, I got a position. I got into a great university. So I was like, cool, I'm going
to do my master's in ultrastnography. I hated every single second, like I did not want to go to work anymore at all, and I loved working in emergency, but it wasn't for me. But I was like, it's better money, it's the natural career progression. I'm going to do it. I ended up quitting as well, and I don't quit anything either, but it was the best thing that I did because I was like, I am never I couldn't. I was like, if I have to go to work and do this every day in my life, there's gonna
be big problems personally. So and the best thing I did in that situation too was was pull walk away for the pen.
The reason why I think this was such a formative part of my life, like, not only did it put me on the trajectory of being a small business owner, but I look at this in terms of relationships, and I know that this is something that you and I have spoken about, Britt, But it's like, sometimes you think that you've invested so much time in something, so much time into a job, or so much time into a relationship, that you're so far deep that the idea of starting again,
like you're not going to start again because you the investment of time is more important. And I think ultimately it doesn't really matter how much time you have spent on something if you are unhappy, starting again gives you the opportunity for happiness, and that for me, you know, I was twenty five, and I was thinking that that was the end of the road. I was like, that's I got to do this for the rest of my life. And yeah, I was five years of invested time in
my education. But now I'm thirteen years into being a small business owner.
It's the best fucking decision I ever made with my life. And it's like what we're going on a tangent here, but it's just like the We've said it before. You're never too old to do anything, to start again, you know, like this, Oh my god, you said I'm twenty five. How could I you know, you think it's the end of the road, like you're your oldest person. I remember when I wanted to go to acting school. I was like, I'm twenty five, and I was like, no one's ever
going to hire me for a job. I'm never gonna like I'm over the heel because you look at Hollywood you think that they're like seventeen. Until I met someone that was like are you kidding, Like, like, don't go for any other reason that you have a passion and you want to have some fun. And the best thing I did. You're never ever too old to ever do anything.
But I think like in that, I think the big thing is you don't have to just do something because you think you're going to be a winner at it. You know, you don't have to just do acting because you think you're going to be a Hollywood superstar. You do something because you love it. Well, I never did anything with it.
I've not had so much fun.
And that's what I mean, you know, Like I think often we limit ourselves because we think, well, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to try that thing because I'm not going to be any good at it, or it's not going to eventuate into anything. And maybe it won't eventuate into something, but maybe you'll meet new friends or you'll have new opportunities that come off the.
Back of it.
And like for me, starting my business has it has changed everything about my life. It has changed the people that I'm friends with, the things that I do. It's literally the reason why I went on The Bachelor, because I had a work life that was flexible. It truly just has changed my life in so many ways.
In the second chapter, you do take a more personal, very serious turn in the book and you talk about attachment styles and it's a very personal look back at your childhood and I guess how attachment styles affected you. Do you want to touch on why you found that so important to talk about.
Well, we did it an episode on attachment styles Lidia year or the year before, who even knows who's counting, but it was do you know when I came across attachment stars as a theory, it was almost for me like someone had turned the lights on, like the penny dropped.
And I feel like when we did.
That episode, I was very reserved in actually explaining why that was so profound for me. And a big part of that is because you know, I have so many amazing memories from my childhood and I have so much love for my parents, but I also had a very complicated childhood in a lot of ways. So something that I haven't spoken about, but I go into more detail in the book is that my mum.
So I have my sister, who.
A lot of you would be aware of, But I also have a brother, and he's nine years younger than me, and he has a different dad to me, but we grew up all in the same household and we're all really close. My brother moved to Boston five years ago and that's kind of why he never features on my Instagram because he's not in the country. So when I was three, my parents it's got divorced, and then a couple of years later, my mum met my stepdad who she married, and Alex was a really violent person. It
was a really really hard time in our life. He was a heroin addict and he was super abusive to my mom and also to ask kids, and I have memories of big fights and him ripping the phone out of the walls and breaking the phone line so that you know, thinking like no one's coming to help us, which.
Is so so horrible and such a control and a it's supposed to induce fear, and I'm sure it did.
Yeah, And I guess that that's like for us, Like it's one of the big reasons why we've we've really advocated for domestic files on this podcast. That's kind of been not just because of my own personal experience, but you know, there's some lived experience of that, and I think I've always been a bit worried about talking about it because I hate the way that it paints my
mum as well. Like I always kind of thought, like, oh, people will maybe judge her because she chose to be in a reallylationship with someone who had so many issues and was such like a crappy.
Person to be around.
Truly, But I guess over the years and that's been a huge learning curve for me, is like, I have no animosity towards my mum at all, you know, But I guess growing up personally in my relationships, and you guys know, I've been super honest about my relationships.
I had some.
Really flawed, problematic lots of cheating. I monkey branch from one relationship to a next. I always I was super codependent. I always wanted to be loved and thought that I needed to be in a relationship to be validated. But the funny thing is for me is like I never because I'm so stubborn, I never ever looked at my childhood as having an impact on me as an adult.
I actually wore it as like a real badge of honor that I was like, yes, I had, we went through some bad stuff, but it has not impacted who I am. And I loved that I felt so self assured as an adult that I was like, I'm better than that. I'm not going to be impacted by that, and I guess when I came across attachment style it made me have a bit of a different understanding around
that period of my life. And it's as much as I do feel like I have a really great perspective around that period, I don't feel defined by it.
I don't sit in my room and.
Think about that at all anymore, you know, But I do think in a lot of ways, it impacted the way that I dated, and it impacted the way and the types of people and the types of relationships that I chose, and not just the types of relationships that I chose, but it also impacted my want to stay. So I would get into quite crappy relationships, but I would fucking hang on for tooth and nail for as long as possible. I would ride that relationship into the ground.
Looking at attachment styles made me realize that, you know, my parents modeled some really unhealthy behavior around relationships when I was a child, and that was my blueprint. That was my blueprint for what relationships looked like.
Yeah, I remember you had a really big aha moment when we did attachment styles. Maybe you came in ready with all your prep and you're like, oh, I have just figured so much. I have explained everyone.
I was like, I've got some fucking junk, and like, let me make this very very clear, and I say this in the book as well, like, I hold no blame for my parents at all. You know, they did the best that they could with the tools that they had at the time. And I don't think that my parents are responsible for any of the choices that I
made in relationships whatsoever. But to say that my childhood has had no impact on the way that I have had my relationships throughout my life, I would think that that would be dismissive of the childhood that we had.
And we know now as adults ourselves, with the amount of research we've done, people we've spoken to in the space of domestic violence, we know it's not as easy now as saying, you know, why did you know? If someone's not going to look at you and say why did you mum? Stay? We know now it's not easy to stay for those situations, and she was probably doing what she thought was the right thing at the time.
She might not have been able to leave. We know, we know that there are so many situations like that now. So I think it's a very mature response for you to be able to say that you understand the situation a lot more now, and you don't hold any animosity towards your parents.
No, And I don't think I ever really held animosity towards my parents, Like I mean I did against my stepdad absolutely, but not towards my like, not towards my mum at all, or not to no one. And I had the most incredible grandparents growing up, Like they were the absolute pillar and backbone of our family. They modeled what great and healthy relationships should look like. It wasn't like I was completely devoid of that, Like I had
so much love in my life as a child. We just went through this really complicated period of life that we kind of all packaged up, put in the box and shoved in the cupboard, and no one really ever talks about it because.
You never do. You don't open it till you have to move, like twenty years later, and you're like, ah, shit.
But we had to open that box for the book. My mom and I. She came over for dinner this one night and we sat down and we shared a few bottles of wine and I let her read it beforehand, because I wanted her to be sure that she was okay, because it's not just my story to share, you know, it's it's my sisters, it's my brothers, and it's my mom's and she read through everything.
And so why do you think? Why did now I feel like the right time? Because we are three God, I've got to be nearly four years, three and a half years deep into this podcast and a lot of episodes. What within yourself for the podcast or life made you feel like now's the time you could talk about it.
It wasn't so much the readiness of now that it was the format. I think having a book meant that I could be meticulous with the way that I said something, and because it was already written, even if someone was to take a part of that and repurpose it, I couldn't be misquoted.
You know.
They could definitely truncate and take a little bit of what I'd said. But I was like, at least it's there, and I can prove that it's there, and I don't have to go back through podcast audio and be like, but this is what I said and this is how I said it.
And I think as.
Well, like over the past couple of years, we have grown such thick skin in terms of like how things are interpreted and how things are written about. And I just know that we have an incredible community around us now and know how much attachment styles really really changed
the way I look at relationships. And I hope that for somebody else who maybe has also had a complicated upbringing where they didn't have those foundations for like what a beautiful blue print of a relationship is, and they've kind of been blaming themselves along the way, I hope that somebody else has the same revelation that I did.
I want to move on to another really hard chapter of you, so like we may as well as a package them together, because then we can move on to some nice stuff. But you've spoken on the podcast before about your miscarriages and your child loss. I guess you've spoken about it quite a few times really openly, and you've helped a lot of people in that sense. We have a lot of people right to ours or stops on the street and say that that was a chapter that you know, they that happened to me. Actually I
didn't tell it yet. It happened to me a couple of days ago someone said that they had just gone through I was actually at lunch with her and then she said she's just experienced a miscarriage and that she went back and listened to the episode where you spoke about it and that it really helped her. So that's been like huge, huge, And I just want to say as well, like those we've done two episodes and pregnancy loss now, both of them came after my own pregnancy losses.
They are truly the episodes I am most proud of. And it's because I know that for so many other women who have been and felt the same way that I felt. And it's not because there's anything that's special about my pregnancy loss stories like their early pregnancy loss.
They're not this huge traumatic suffering. They're just very everyday losses, and I think it happens so frequently, and then for other people who have experienced it, having someone put it into words the way that they felt makes people feel
a little bit less alone. And every single person who's ever written to me, and there's too many to write back to, every single one, but every single person who stopped me and said that they're grateful for it, Like I'm so grateful that it's given something back to them as well.
Well. One thing that you have only just briefly mentioned, and that was recently we spoke about the Roe v. Wade and the abortion laws that happening in America right now, and you, for the first time did mention that in your early twenties you had an abortion. That is something that you haven't ever spoken about on the podcast. You do speak about it in the book. I don't know how much you want to talk about now, but why
did you decide to discuss that now? Did you just feel like everything it was very timely with everything happening in the world right now.
That was also a really big chapter to write, and mostly because I had not really told anyone in my personal life, like Matt nw obviously the guy who I knew, But you know, they don't always because and I say that as though that that's an assumption, it's actually not. You know that often women will choose to have an abortion and not tell the guy. And that's that's completely fine.
That ONNUS is on you and your Body. I spoke about abortion in the chapter that we wrote on Timelines, and I think it's interesting because I think often we talk about timelines from a different perspective. And we have on this podcast before we talk about it in terms of society's timelines and the pressure on women to settle
down and have babies and get married. And I wanted to talk about timelines from a different perspective, and that was that when I was in my early twenties, I felt pregnant, and the timeline of having a baby in my early twenties, when I wasn't ready, when I wasn't emotionally, mentally, financially ready to have a child, it just wasn't what I could possibly do, and I chose to have an abortion.
And you know, I think that we talk about abortion a lot in terms of like, if you have one, you'll regret it, that you will come to have feelings of regret. And for me, I didn't have feelings of regret. I had feelings of relief. And I wanted to talk
about that in the book. But I also wanted to talk about how when I did get pregnant before Marley, when I did have my first miscarriage, that miscarriage was absolutely loaded with guilt because I felt like I was being punished for having an abortion in my early twenties. I thought it was like karm Well, yeah, I thought that that was my payback. And I think that that magnified the pain of that miscarriage because I thought, this is the reason, and you will never ever have kids.
And I guess I wanted to include that in the book Fanny women who maybe in the same situation, because it's not payback, it's not klma. Sometimes shit just happens in life. There isn't a reason for it, and you don't have to always try and find reason, you know. Ultimately, I do have two children, and they are beautiful, wonderful.
I'm so grateful for the life that I have, but I know that I would not be the mother I am today had I had a child in my early twenties, and there will be people who judge me for that decision. And I'm okay with that now in my late thirties. But it was a hard decision that I made at the time, which has allowed me to have the life that I have now.
So, I mean, I asked you about those two because I'm assuming that they were the two most difficult chapters for you, all right.
Yeah, I think that probably the abortion chapter was the most difficult, and it was purely because I knew that I would have to have conversations with my family about it, and like especially my mom, who that goes against her beliefs and what she would have wanted. So that was a bit of a revelation for her when we did have our wind up night, and I think she also was sad that I couldn't talk to her about it
when I was in my twenties. I think that there was this feeling of like a missed opportunity to connect with me as her daughter, and that she was only finding that out when you know, I am now a mother of two kids in my thirties. I think she really felt like that that was something that I should have spoken.
To her about.
But I'm glad that, you know, I'm glad to at some point our lives we've got to talk about it.
Yeah, I'm sure there's a level as a parent where you're like, wow, my child didn't feel like they could tell me that at that time. And I'm sure there's an aspect of that for her where she's not going to hold against you or judged you, but in herself there's probably a little tiny part of her that's like, wow, I failed a little bit because my daughter didn't think that she could come to me. Let's talk about something a little bit more upbeat.
What was what was your favorite that's like the hardest. Okay, we've got like the hardest stuff in the book out of the way.
I think, yeah, I don't want to ask anything else hard because it was like that was I mean a lot for you and there is there is way more.
The reason why we're doing this and talking about these things is because you're like, you know, this isn't the whole book. If you want to go and read the book and find out more about it, you can go and pre order blah blah blah.
It's out tomorrow.
But that's the whole reason why we wanted to kind of give you a bit of an insight into what we speak about.
But tell us what your favorite chapter was to write.
Okay, I was thinking about this last night, and I think my favorit chapter which is so dumb because it's such a light and.
Fluffy, and I guess what kinks nudes?
Ude? I knew it was gonna be something sexy.
It's just funny.
It's funny, it's light, it's fluffy, I really enjoyed it. I talked about the first time I ever got Senter Dick pic and I still have such funny, fond memories of that.
I can still I can see it in my mind.
I can remember everything, and I just think, like, that was such a fucking funny day.
And I really loved writing that chapter.
When I had to get my nudes approved by Laura before, I said then and I was like, is this hot enough?
Just like I love that there's like the fluffiness, you know, as much as there's so many deep and like quite like you know, there was some things that were really hard to write, and I think that they're peppered with some really fucking funny parts and coming off the back of like something that feels heavy and weighted to read something that's funny and like harder like nudes.
I was like, I love this chapter.
What was your biggest lesson? What are you taking away? So I think now this could be a big biggest life lesson or bees from writing the book. You do with that question what you will?
Okay, biggest lesson from writing the book would have been I'm going to give.
You two you're allowed to say no. My biggest lesson.
From writing the book is that things don't always go to plan, and that just because you have an idea for where your life is supposed to be and what you're supposed to be doing, having to pivot and do
something else is not a failure. And I think that that was that really kind of like rang true for me halfway through when I felt like I was failing because we weren't meeting deadlines and I felt that immense pressure and then I had to just throw my hands up and say, I'm not coping and I need more time. And the thing is is like when you admit that you're not coping and when you ask for help, normally people will rush in and help you. And that was
definitely like that definitely was the case for me. And I think sometimes as women, we can be so fearful of being seen as weak or being seen as needy when we ask for help, and we just take on the huge load, the mental load, the physical load of doing everything ourselves. But the biggest life lesson I took from it, and it's something that I think kind of it runs through a lot of my chapters is this
conversation around vulnerability throughout a lot of my life. And it definitely comes back to even my whole childhood and not wanting to see my childhood in my relationships and thinking I'm so fine, it didn't define me. I think that there is a real power in vulnerability, and I think sometimes we can look at it as a weakness, and we don't want to be seen as weak. We don't want to be seen as crying, we don't want to be seen as pathetic. But vulnerability opens up your relationships.
It allows you to get closer to the people that you love, it allows them to understand you better. And linking back to what I just said, it also allows you to ask for help. Vulnerability is an absolute superpower. And the older I get, the more fine I am with not being fine and we're telling people that I'm not fine. Yeah, that's been a huge lesson for me. And I think as well, like this came off the back of The Bachelor, So when we were on the show, well,
I say like we were on the same season. When I was on the show, I never I was like I'm not going to cry. I'm so fine. I'm not gonna let any man think that I'm you know that I need him and when you were a woman, and you put up this barrier of being fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, people see you as being hard and cold, which underneath, especially if you're a strong, independent female, that's how you can be perceived, which absolutely may not be who you
are at your core. And so I think there is a real strength in actually telling people how you feel.
Yeah, I agree, I learned that the hard way for sure. I was exactly the same with The Bachelor. I didn't even cry at the end, and I was like, I'm still fine. One TI year rolled down, but you're not fine, Oh no, But I was like, don't you let anyone see you're upset, which is so stupid and we know that now.
And you only get help if you you know, if you're the person who says I'm fine, I'm fine and fine all the time, you will find that people are not ready to help you because they think of you as being fine. You know, you say it, therefore people believe it. Whereas like, if you are able to really tap into who you are authentically and show who you are, people will be way more willing and ready to be there to support you.
Well, speaking of support, you are about to marry Maddie Jay in just a few weeks.
Here's my support He's my emotional water bottle, my support animal.
What's it like? Because we speak about so many relationships on this podcast, our past relationships, the worst, some good ones, some funny ones, the dick pigs. What's it been like revisiting over the years in the book, these past relationships and then knowing you're about to marry the love of your life in a few weeks. Has it had any like weird effect on your relationship at home? Great?
It makes me so grateful because you're like, yes.
I say, God, I keep writing about the ship men, so I actually know.
I shared every anything that I thought Matt could read, and then either it was too revealing or it would make him upset. I let him read everything, if anything. There were definitely some days where he was like, He's like, come on, I cannot believe. He's like, I cannot believe you dated this. He's like the bar was so long. He's like, I'm actually personally offended that it was so low previously, Like we got married in like six weeks. It just made me so grateful. I'm so so grateful
for who he is as a person. And for who he is as a dad, and for how he contributes to our family. Had I not been through what I have been through in my relationships, I don't know if I would be as grateful for it. I could take it for granted, and I definitely don't. I don't take him for granted at all. I think that was the biggest lesson for me with him.
Kykay.
Now it's my turn to ask you some questions. Now you kick off the very first chapter. You are the very first voice of the book, and the very first chapter is adventure. And now I think it was only fitting for you that the start of this you speak a lot about traveling and about all of the crazy, wild travel adventures that you have had. And I know that you've touched on it very loosely in the past, but like you spent so much of your twenties not
in Australia traveling and experiencing the world. Can you explain to me a little bit? And I know that we've been speaking about doing a I mean we have been. We've been talking about doing an episode on travel for so long. Ever ever you forgot around me. We were also then a pandemic happened and it seemed like a pretty poor taste to do an episode on.
Yes in the pandemic last for two years.
Yes, So can you talk to me a little bit about how formative those years of your life were.
It started for me when I was eighteen and we finished school. All my friends went to schoolies everyone and I went online and I was like, I didn't even know what I was doing, but I was like, how to get a job in Italy, which is what I googled, And I found a website that I was like, Oh, you can nanny. You can be a nanny overseas. No experience with.
Children, none, I can't speak the language. Also, I can't nanny to children who I can't communicate with.
You can't do anything.
But the great thing about it, everyone that wants nannie's internationally, they want them so that their kids speak and learn English. So I didn't really need to speak the language for that part. There was always other ways to communicate, but that was my purpose was to go and speak them English. So I just went online found a family that seemed fine. I was very trusting. When I look back now, I was like, I could have ended up anywhere, but I just went for it. Don't even know if I was
a reliable webs looking back. But if I went, everyone went to schoolies and I saved every dollar I'd worked all through school. If anyone of asks, that's a question, I get a lot. How did you afford to travel? How did you do this? I never had any money from my parents. I just worked for a long time.
I saved everything I always could because I knew I wanted to go see the world, and I got a job so I didn't need I didn't go with a lot of savings, to be honest, I just took a really big risk that it did work itself out and the job would be great.
And I think that.
That's one of the big things, right Like people often we don't like to take that step towards something. We don't like to take the step towards the unknown because it's unknown a lot of people, and it depends on your personality type, but a lot of people want to have everything figured out before they make those big decisions. Whereas for you, you kind of.
Never figured out. I'm still don't I still can't figure anything out.
But you kind of like booked your flights, you left, and then you didn't really have this grand plan to continue to travel, but like, how many countries did you end up traveling throughout your twenties.
Well, that year for me, I just spent a year in Italy and I loved it. But I lived to the dollar, like I you know, I did a lot of travel with the family, so I felt I felt like it was a really a good introduction to traveling because I was on my own. I didn't know anyone, but it was safe because the family that I worked for would take me to Greece. They'd take me on cruisers that'd take me around Italy.
That sounds like a bloody who's this family and they adopt me?
Probably, Yes, it was a really good introduction to travel because I didn't feel like I had to do a lot on my own. There were obviously moments I was alone. They were like, okay, you've got two weeks off go and I was like, but you were eighteen.
At the time, it's eighteen.
I was a baby. I was a baby, and this is before internet, no phones. I would walk around the streets with a map, like a humongous map that I was holding out. I had a phone card to call home, where you had to dial in like twenty five thousand digits on a payphone, and if you got one digit wrong you had to start again. Like it was a very different time. Yeah, we had.
Mobile phones, but they were you could play snake on them. They were not they were nockears. And every time you wanted to put a letter in you had to press the eight. If you wanted to do B you had to press the one button twice.
Yeah, I mean you had to wait for it to I mean like a lot of people listening in the won't nose, a lot of people that know exactly what we're talking about. Yeah, it was the time to be alive, and it was like this time to call home to my whole family. You would set a time for next week, next Monday, at four o'clock, and everyone that wanted to
speak to you had to be there. Sheridan had to run home from school because Brittany was calling at four, and you stuck to it because then when I didn't be outing mobile phone to pick up there was a completely different time. But that started off my twenties for like this addiction to travel, So I went. I ended up traveling to probably between fifty and sixty countries in my twenties over many, many years. So I did do one huge round the world trip that was for three years.
But in between that, sporadically I did as much as I could and I was just addicted. And I came home. I remember I came home with about four hundred dollars like everything that I'd put it on, and then I'd start again, and then I'd work my way back up.
Now, britt you are also a radiographer and have been for thirteen years, but recently.
It makes me sound old.
You are very young, but recently you have left your career as being a radiographer and you are full time working in media, a full time podcaster.
What was that like like leaving?
And I think you know, we touched it in me talking about it, you know, quitting something that's been so caugh to your identity. What was it like for you going from being a radiographer and having this huge career pivot.
Yeah. I think there's probably a lot of people. Maybe you're new to the podcast in the last year or so, maybe you don't know, but yeah, forever, since I was twenty twenty one, I've worked as a diagnostic radiographers. That's how I traveled a lot as well. I would work overseas in hospitals, so I would go and locum and I'd contract for a couple of months at a time in a random hospital, get some money, and I'd go again. And we've done this podcast for three and a half years,
probably more just on two years of that podcast. The first two years I still worked full time in an emergency department. But the end of the pandemic for me was when I stopped working. And when I say the end of the pandemic, I mean the really, really big lockdown. So I stopped working. Probably but every year it was my last ever shift at the hospital, and I could have finished earlier because this podcast was full time for us. It was taking a lot of time and energy and effort.
But the pandemic happened, and if you were a healthcare worker, like everyone around the world, people were coming out of reach, like we were so in need of healthcare workers that you just worked. So I did that, and then it was at the end of that I went overseas with my partner, Jordan. When I met Jordan was pretty much when I stopped working in the hospital, because we met, we went overseas I got stuck overseas, came back, the podcast was bonkers, and we just got back into it.
So I haven't worked in a little while now, and I'm not sure when or if I'll go back. I love this new transition, but I think it's like anything. I did it for thirteen years and I still love it, but I was ready for a change.
I mean, you did touch on this already, and I think that it's something that I want to dig a little bit deeper on. But for you, I think one of the really interesting and profound parts of writing the book was that 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 passed 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 of 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 an't for me, Maybe that's not what's meant for me. I 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, Britain, get 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.
Aren't for me.
Definitely bundled them together. They're two different things.
Yeah, 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 tears the.
Comfy talking 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, I love 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 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.
I think that that's such an important thing to say because like so many of us, and it's almost like when someone has anxiety doing the whole like just don't be anxious, or go for a walk or try mindfulness. It's when you're angry and so it goes calm down. You're like, what, Yeah, like, don't be so stressed. Telling someone who's stressed not to be stressed is really fucking unhelpful when you all know that.
But it's exactly this.
You know, when you want something, when that is something that is part of your identity for the future of how you see your.
Life planning out.
Having someone say just don't think about it, don't focus on it, only diminishes your feelings about it, Like it doesn't allow you to kind of sit in that space and wear it towards it.
But I would just would hate.
For someone to listen to this who's in a similar situation to you, who potentially wants to have children, who makes the decision in their mind convinces themselves that they don't want to purely because of the limitations of a relationship. I think that there are so many factors and we
don't have the tools. I think, go and speak to a therapist, go and speak to a counselor, and not just you writ but like anybody who's in a phase of life where they think maybe they want children, but the relationship hasn't presented itself yet, because there are solutions to this, and it isn't just willing yourself that that is.
Not for you.
No, And there's this is very very I mean very individual. This is this is very specific to your situation, what you want out of life, who you are. I'm speaking only on behalf of myself that right now at this point, and it's crossed my mind more so in the last couple of months. I think about it more. I used to say, there's no way I'm doing it on my own. I definitely think about it more now. I think about adopting. I think about what it would look like. Could I
do it, Could I physically do it. I've got no family here to help me, Like I think about a lot. But having said that, I know a lot of people that have gone down that track on their own because for them, that is a priority. All they want to do is have that child on their own. And at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how you do it. If that's something that you want, you can do that. You can go down. There's so many avenues.
And there's so many people who are empowered who don't want to have kids, and they don't want to have kids because they are childless by choice. It is a conscious decision that they've made. But I think it's a very different conversation if it's a limitation that's put on you because you're at a point in life where you don't feel lovable. I think that that's the real thing that like, that's something that you need to unpack, that's
something you need to get to the bottom of. The Other thing here, which I think is so relatable about what you just said, Britt is like I think there's so many women who and I say this because this is exactly how I felt. I was like, unless I find the right relationship, then I don't want to have kids because in my mind, having a family unit was
really important to me. But then on the flip side of that, I think about my childhood and the lack of family unit, and I'm like, well, I wouldn't exist, Like if that was my mum's prerogative, Like if she was like, you know what, I only want kids if I'm going to be in a long term, happy marriage, well then she would still be in a marriage where, like, you know, things were completely completely toxic and like abusive and awful. And I'm like, I think sometimes we can't
plan out exactly how life is going to be. You can't foresee exactly how a relationship's going to plan out. There are people who get married and six months later they get divorced because there's cheating. You just don't know what's going to happen in your life. And I think that ultimately, the choice around having children is such a huge and loaded choice that has so many other factors to think about, and that's amplify when you're you know, in your late thirties and you're also single.
Yeah, And the reason I think it's important to have these really open discussions, yeah, raw discussions about it is because I don't know how to explain it. I would look at a lot of women right online and think that they have it all, that they're really happy, that their life is so great. And I know there are people that look at my life like that, because that'll tell me. There'll be people that will message me all the time. There is no one that is exempt from
these feelings at some point or another. So I think it's important to have the conversations that like, yes, I have a great job, I have great friends, I'm happy my dog, I'm obsessed with in case you don't know, But I still feel like shit a lot of the time, and I still feel like have those fleeting moments where I'm like, Fox, what's wrong with me? What is fucking wrong with me?
But also I think that it comes back down to this big and there's this overarching theme and this conversation that we have in the book around comparison. It's something that we all do. It's something that we can't not do because it's ingrained in us socially, culturally, it's part of how we interact. We're always going to compare ourselves.
But it's about having enough sense of self to understanding how you're making those comparisons and are you making those comparisons and then it's making you feel terrible about your life or are you making comparisons and you're still able to go, Okay, I can't see the full picture of that person's life because I'm only looking through a window of social media. Something that this kind of ties into and it's something that we've spoke about in the book.
We wrote a chapter on overwhelm. It was a joint chapter, and it was an overwhelming chapter. It was an overwhelming chapter, but like we spoke about our own feelings about the overwhelm. You know, obviously it's something that it's been a very hot topic of conversation over the past couple of years, from everything from the pandemic to like people taking on more work to the mental load.
Generally speaking, there is.
A lot of overwhelm happening, and you know, we've done a podcast episode on it. But one of the things I thought was really interesting about this chapter and something I wanted to talk to you about, was I spoke about from my side of things about how I have never felt as overwhelmed at certain times as what I have since becoming a mum because of the relentlessness of parenting, especially being a full time working mum where.
Four seven, yeah, where I juggle all the.
Things that a mom has to juggle on top of my workload, and the fact that I feel like, you know, everyone always says like your life's going to change when you become a mom.
You know, you like your priority shift.
Everyone talks about your priority shifting, right, but no one ever tells you that like, what they actually mean by that is that you go down to the bottom of the fucking priority list. Yeah, you're the algae, the priority hower. Yeah, the priorities have shifted. And let me tell you, I because you don't exist anymore. And that's what especially when you have kids at the early early years, you know.
But you wrote something and that's what I wanted to speak to you about because I think it'll be relatable to so many women. You wrote It's funny, Laura, you talk about how having kids has affected your feelings of overwhelmed because for me, you know, what made it even worse the fact that they don't have children.
Can you talk me through that? Yeah? And I thought about that a lot, and I think there'll be a lot of people that I hope there's a lot of people that resonate with that sentence. You do feel like, as somebody that doesn't have kids, you don't know until you know, And that is something that a lot of parents will say. And I do believe that I can sit back and understand that there's no sleep, that it's screaming and vomiting, and you're so tired and you're so stressed.
It's not always no, but you know, like, I know that, right, someone can tell me that, but until you actually living in it and breathing every day, you don't quite know. And every parent says that as well. Every single parent says, like I thought I knew, I didn't know. So it's really hard as someone that doesn't have kids. When you do, you can only go off your experiences and what is
happening to you in life. And we know that heartbreak, grief, trauma, stress, anxiety, everything's relative to you as a person, and it's not a comparison.
It's also got a competition.
It's not a competition. But because someone else has it worse than you doesn't mean that you can't feel that. But I often feel that. I often feel like when i feel like I'm having a really hard time, or I'm overwhelmed, or I'm stressed and depressed and sad, I don't want to get at bad when whenever I've had those moments, I feel like I'm not allowed to have them because well, I could sleep tonight for a full night if I want to, you know, I'm not up
with a crying baby. I don't have those things. And then you get this level of guilt within yourself because you're like, well, snap out of it. Don't feel like what you're feeling because you and you also feel like you can't talk to your friends about it that have kids because you're like, well, they're gonna feel like shit, because there's a level of resentment, whether not for you, but for anyone in that situation. There's always gonna be a level of resentment of like, I can't believe this
person's complaining about that. Well, I don't know how good they've got.
It, No, but you say not for me? Absolutely, I think we can all be guilty of this. There's absolutely times where people will tell me things that you know, and like when I say people, I mean like you or other friends who might complain about something that's going on in their lives, and like, we can have empathy for another person's situation, but when you're also in the thick of it, and then someone else is talking about them being in the thick of it, but comparatively, you're like,
what are you complaining about? But also, I think that's the big part of this. It's that just because one person has it worse, it doesn't negate somebody else's feelings. You have like an internal eye roll, right, yeah, but like, but things don't have to be a competition. We don't have to all be competing to be the most overwhelmed. What a fucking boring conversation that is. We don't have to all be competing to.
Be the busiest or the most stressed.
And because everyone's fucking busy, and everyone's fucking stressed, and everyone's overwhelmed.
Exactly, and everyone is feeling that in some capacity.
You wrote about something that you touched on. Just earlier, you wrote about solitude and loneliness. Why was this chapter important to you?
I quite liked this chapter Solitude and loneliness because a lot of people put them together, right, that solitude and loneliness go hand in hand. But I don't think that they do. I'm a big believer that these are two
very separate things. And this chapter, for me, I did a lot of due diligence, Like there is a lot of research that's gone into it, but there's also just my opinion and my experiences over life, because I've been alone longer than I've been with someone now in my adult life, you know, like I've lived alone for a
very long time, and I'm quite happy with it. So when I get upset about not having a relationship and children, that's very different for me feeling lonely, Like I could have had that if I wanted to settle with something, if I just really wanted someone to feel a space, of course I could.
Have found it totally and this totally.
Yeah, this is why I want to push the fact that they're two different things. So the idea of solitude is just regrouping on your own, literally being in a space, existing with not a lot of people around. Might be gone on a trip, might be just you might be an introvert that recharges without other people. There's a difference with them feeling lonely. So lonely has this negative connotation that you have the solitude but you don't enjoy it. Solitude is you're on your own, but you're quite happy
to do that. And so for me, I've been on my own a long time, but ninety five percent of the time I'm pretty happy with it because I'm the person that recharges with myself.
But I also think that socially we impart loneliness on people who don't necessarily feel lonely, like how often or like how many times have you ever. I'm sure there's some people who were like I love it. There's some people like I would never do it. The old conversation of like, would you go to the movies by yourself?
I guarantee you it's a fifty to fifty split. Fifty percent of people will be like, yeah, I love going to the movies by myself, and the other fifty percent would be like, I would never go to the movies by myself. In the same way that some people love going to dinner by themselves and other people couldn't think of anything worse than having to sit there on their own by themselves at dinner.
Well, I often I use this as an example because I have done that for a long time. I'm so happy to go. You will see me at the movies by myself, you will see me at dinner by myself. You'll see me do it. Whatever I went. This was only not that long ago. It was probably like two years ago. I went down to Melbourne on my own and there was a really nice Italian restaurant that I wanted to eat at because I had been recommended like the Italian's my weakness. So I went to this restaurant
I didn't book. I just walked in and I said, Hey, can I have a table and they're like, yes, just for two. I was like just one, but like you know, there's no table for one. There's two seats anyway. But I was like just me. They're like, oh, just alone, and I was like yeah, just me. They're like, oh, there is no one else coming, and I was like that's what one means. Let's drive at home. I was like yeah no, and they're like, no worries, ma'am, no worries.
Took me to like their best window seat, like so jazzy, so nice, and then they just gave me so much for free, like it was insane. The attention to detail was amazing. And then at the end they're like, oh, we just took the beyond. Trees are on ask, the dessert's on us, the wines on us. And I was like, and I know, I know it was because they felt sorry for me. I could feel I'm looking at me.
It was like they it was like their daughter got stood up or there was a level of I could watch them and I felt like they had a level of empathy for me, like I wonder what happened and that's just well, I even think that, right. So if I see someone out on their own, my first thought is I wonder what happened? Do they choose to go out on their own? Has someone suit them up? Like? What is it that?
This is literally what I mean by often we socially in part loneliness onto someone else. We can often look at somebody else's situation and think I would be sad if that was me. That's you internalizing how you feel. But that person might be really fucking happy just living their life being autonomous.
They might be sad, but they could be just happy.
But they could be or maybe they're not happy, maybe they're content. You know, we don't have to just be fluctuating between sad and happy. There's a whole other range of emotions in there as well. I mean, we've touched on some of the heavier parts of the things that you spoke about in the book and the things that for you were really emotional.
What was the like, what was the best.
Bit, what was the thing that you the chapter you fucking loved writing or when you read it back you're like, that makes me feel good. Whatever it is, what's like your happiest part of the book.
Oh the happiest part. I think for me it's probably the same as you. I really enjoyed the lighthearted parts that were like the nudes and the Kinks, and like Kinks is a great chat because a lot of it was heavy, right, A lot of stuff we wrote was like revisiting stuff. Then a lot of stuff was not heavy but important educational love languages, things that are a
relative to everyone. But the ones that really got me with the giggles, like the accidentally unfiltered, the Kinks, the nudes, revisiting those funny moment that we all conversations that you and I had had together in the past. For me, that was like what got me.
And when we say like kinks, okay, I just want to also preface this, like when we say it's funny and lighthearted, like we don't mean funny and lighthearted as in like, haha, we're making fun of Kinks.
We would never do that.
What we are talking about is just like sex should be lighthearted and fun. That's the whole point of it, right, But also just this the destigmatizing of Kinks, the conversations, some of the things that you guys wrote in about the stuff that you have tried or people have asked you to do. Also, just the conversations around how much it's changed over the last sort of ten years, five years, two years within the social media landscape.
Well, it's because I also have a really I had a really big interest in the research. So that's why I enjoyed the chapter because I loved learning about it. I love learning all aspects what other people do, what gets other people off, how common it is, where people find it like that stuff to me is really really interesting because I'm pretty like.
Non kinking, I'm pretty fucking vanilla.
So I try to try some stuff. But for me, it was like it.
Was the worldly what brit is into his voyeurism looking into other people's relationships. Okay, and one thing that we did discover in our research, which is so fucking interesting is that Cleopatra used to have a hollowed out dildo that she put bees inside, and then when the bees got all angry, it would bounce around, and then she would use that to masturbate with she knew were boom. Clear Patrack was ahead of her, dime king semen around for a long time like this a gentle, incredible woman.
There is so.
Much more within the pages of We Love, Love and Like. Thank you to every single one of you who have already gotten a pre order book. It's out in good bookstores and bad bookstores tomorrow, any books tall bookstores, so you be able to get your hands on it tomorrow. But if you wanted to jump on and get yourself a copy that's sent, you can jump onto w dow, dot Life, uncut, dot com.
Dot au.
They're all links to the book there.
Do you believe we're an author? No?
No, let's no, we're podcasters who tried to write.
That's what we are.
On a technicality, Okay, let's.
Not get ahead of ourselves here, but Britt, I don't want to say genuinely like thank you for sharing so much of yourself and being I know how much you hate crying, and.
I just want to say, do you do it a lot?
But fake?
Thank you for being so honest and so open and so vulnerable, because that's the literally the reason why we started this podcast was because we wanted to have the conversations and share the stories that we do amongst our girlfriends. You know that have be that virtual community for the people who listen. For you, guys, we are so unbelievably fucking grateful, Like it has been three years of creating this podcast, and some of you have been with us since the very beginning.
The og life is and we just.
Feel we feel so grateful that every single week you tune in that you get something out of what we listen to, the conversations, the incredible like pearls of wisdoms that some of the guests have, and yeah, for every person who's bought the book, like thank you.
Yeah, And the same goes for you Laura and Laurie. For you guys playing at home. Laura has opened some pretty big cans of worms in this book, and you've dug pretty deep and had some very very raw conversations that you've never had. So that is in the book. And I know a lot of people will appreciate that. I appreciate that, I appreciate you, and I appreciate all the life.
And now we'll go hug each other and then go and call our therapists.
All right, that's it, guys. We are going to see you back on Thursday for Ask Gun Gods, So keep those questions coming in. I feel like we've gone kind of rogue on this episode, so we're not even I mean like we're not going to do stuck in sweets, Read the book okay, we love love available and a good book stills tomorrow.
Then you go, you guys, go at the drill.
Hey Mum, tell you Dad, tell you dounte your friends and share the love because we love love. Literally, that's why we wrote the book.