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 another episode of Life on Cut. I'm Laura, I'm Brittany, and we have someone very special joining us for the start of this episode. It is producer.
I'm so sorry for all of you that were like so excited being like, oh, who's.
Special and under why is Stillila's attention? Just want you to pack.
We saw you on the project last night saying that you didn't like puppies and we knew who you were talking about.
Delilah. All puppies, not Delilah. Delia's not a puppy anymore. She's one. She's past the threshold of puppiness.
She's eighteen months.
She no longer like tries to jump on me when I walk in. She no longer tries to piss on things. She no longer tries to eat things. Like she's kind of calmer, and yeah, I appreciate.
That's an update on Delilah, because we did have a lot of people write in that were interested in her heat and what was happening in her life.
Also a lot of people who were angry at me. Okay, don't worry, guys, didn't go unnoticed. People annoyed at me that I didn't fully get amongst caring about Delilah's heat. And I'm sorry, Britt that I didn't give you more Delilah. And I felt that tell me more about Delilah's in gorge nipples.
So for a juicecation, I were talking about Delilah today. Something different. Dyla is eighteen months now, she's had her first heat. She's just finished, and she's a different dog. And you used to say everyone'sed to say to me when we're at the park, and I was like, oh my god, she's chaos.
She's absolute k And I walked in today and she was using a knife and walk at the table, So she's incredibly.
They're every grown up, but everything's to say, wait till I gets to eighteen months, And I thought, yeah, right. Anyway, Literally, it was almost like to the day she's just a different dog. She's chill, she's cute, mainly listens to me. She's been a bit moody, and she was going no heat. I was like, the I forget it.
Oh no, it's like hormonal.
Yeah, it's a proper period, right, It's actually amazing to watch they get the same effects as humans get.
So they get it's.
Amazing to watch a phoenix evolving from the ashes. It's because because it is actually they go through the same thing. So they suggest you get hot water bottles for their tummy and stuff because it's a period.
I'm going to side with Laura.
Now, I have been on board the Delilah heat chat, but I think we have reached the threshold. Well I did put the heat pack in there, and she ripped it shreds, but I did do it.
The thing that I find like quite relatable about this is you say that people had said to you've just got to get to the eighteen month threshold. It's literally the same threshold for children, Like the first eighteen months is so hard, and then they hid eighteen months and you're like, oh, we're in the clearing. Doesn't hard getting better?
Well, I mean a two's then the Terrible Earth threes.
I think it depends. I think for me, like having a newborn baby and having like a baby that can't interact with you because they can't like verbalize what it wants. That to me was way harder than having a toddler. But everybody's you know, everyone is different, Everyone experiences things differently.
Guys. I want to tell you about something that I've tried and tested. I've done an experiment, okay, science experimental. Yeah, I think you'd be very proud of me collecting data. Okay, my personal life.
I mean, don't let anyone tell you that we don't do the research. Here at Life on Car.
There was a TikTok bar from a girl named Alex Weetzman that sparked my fancy over the weekend, and it was basically all about a new way to encourage your crush to slide into your DMS, how to get them to slide.
Into yours, like baiting someone to reply to you, so not sending your dog into their DMS to come into you. That was very twenty twenty of you, though, I feel like we've got stuck in the past, Laura, move on and upwards. Okay, what have we got cash. What's the newest latest fad? Do you know what?
Baiting is actually the perfect word for this. So what she said was that, you know the new feature, it's called a note that you can do in Instagram.
No, because a startus update. I haven't updated my Instagram in like five years. It's still in black and white. Literally just has a auto update. Now all Instagram has to me is like that little wig filter you know back in the day when you used to form like a polaroid picture around all your picture. Yeah, that's it. I'm still the.
Posting pictures of sunsets and food only. Okay. So the way that it works for anyone who is updated, who is in twenty twenty two is that when you go into the message part of your Instagram dms up, the top will have people's little sticker, like you know, their profile picture, and you can add what they are calling a note. It's basically a very short status update.
But you were saying it only lasts like twenty four hours.
Yeah, so it kind of works like a story, but instead of a picture, it's just like a couple of words. I can't keep up. So what she has said is that when you post a note. You can actually post it to your close friends, but as opposed to when you post on your story as a close friends, they can't tell that it's only to your close friends. Ah, so you could post it to one person but they don't know it. Yes, so you can individualize the status update if you want. But I wanted to test.
This out and see whether this was a way.
To encourage DM slide ins. Let me tell you how fucking successful this was.
And what did you post?
As some of you may or may not know, Like, I'm really into my sport. I used to work on a sports radio show and most of the people that I tend to like find myself attracted you are also into sports. Then last night was the World Cup. So between France and Argentina, of those two teams, I don't really have an allegiance to any of them, but I really like my time that I've spent in France. So I was like, Okay, I think that between the two teams,
I would probably side with France. I want France to win, right, So I just updated my Instagram note to have three French flags because I was like, this will be interesting. Most of the guys that I'm into will be watching the World Cup? Like, will this spark a bit of conversation, a bit of like bance between us? Oh my god, my whole afternoon yesterday was spent replying. But do you think that's just because the World Cup's the biggest thing
in the whole world. I think you need to try and test this on like an average Saturday night.
Yeah, I don't wonder if. I mean obviously, like the World Cup is something that's a very obvious and easy thing for people to reply to, but like, what would be your note for a Saturday night pointed at a very specific man.
Well, I think that it needs to be timely, Like you know this this Saturday night is going to be Christmas Eve, so maybe you know what, I can test it again if you like, maybe I'll be asking people if they'd be naughty or nice? Why don't you direct it? Why? Yeah?
Nice?
Why don't you try the I'm just intrigued now, because you can set for just one person to see it, right, So why don't you pick the person in your head and then literally put a cocktail emoji and a question mark.
Oh that's brilliant.
Yeah, And because they think it's like to anyone that's out there that wants to say yes or no. And then if that way, if you know that they see it and they don't respond, they don't want to have drink with you. Do you know?
I feel like I am so I'm such a boomer in this conversation. I am so confused by what's going on. I really feel like I need to update my Instagram app. But I also have no need to send subliminal signals to a man.
And you can just make Matt your close friend and put a picture of the baby and die for with vacuum.
I will literally just put some spray and white bottles and a fucking mop. Okay, well, this is my calling to everybody. If you're out there, if you've got crushes in your in your Instagram and you want to see if they can slide on in, update your notes and I want to know I will know the outcome. Tell us what you did, tell us what they're applied with, and tell me if this works for you someone else?
Can you also try the naughty or nice thing? Let me know it could be a little too thir say you've got a twenty four hours to try this. You can you could try different on every day.
Okay, well let's get into talking about what today's episode is actually about. But the reason why keish just jumping on this episode is because it is our last episode of twenty twenty two.
That's actually our second last episode.
Well it's our I mean, we're doing one which is going to be like a walk down memory Lane and a rehash on the year that was. But this is our last proper Tuesday episode and we thought we would get on here as a little team. We've got some funny bands, but we also have a really sentimental episode which we hope is going to get you guys through the Christmas period. Yeah, this episode.
Actually came off the back of something that someone posted in our Facebook group, in the Life and Cut discussion group, about going into this period of the year, and they were saying how they were feeling quite lonely. They were single and they didn't have their family around them, and so we kind of started a conversation between ourselves. I guess the idea of how we're supposed to be very merry, you know, merry Christmas and happy New Years, and maybe
you don't actually feel that merry at this time. Maybe it brings up some complex emotions. Maybe you're happy and you feel a lot of anxiety about this period of time because you've got to spend time.
With family members that you don't like, or you're experiencing.
Grief and an expectation that you should be going into this period really happy, ticking all your boxes off, wrapping up the year in a nice little parcel.
And it's not like that for everyone.
Actually, do you know today I said to Mitchchury, who we do radio with, I said, I've just had a realization that I am not excited for Christmas. Not one part of me was excited for Christmas. Why, well, I think it's been a tough time lately.
You know.
It's the same old thought of Okay, I'm going to Christmas again alone, which is like not the end of the world, but it's that with all these other things that are happening in life, I don't feel like Christmas is even here, Like I don't feel like it is a week away, you know, or less. Everything has been so intense that the magic is not there for me
this year. And I know it'll be different when I get there and my family's there, but at the moment, there's no part of me that is excited for Christmas and that it was a really sad realization, and I thought there must be a lot of other people that have these feelings too, for multitude of different reasons.
It's something that we spoke about last year, and it's kind of a topic that comes up this time every year. Is that for a lot of people, As you guys both just said, if you're not feeling merry all the way that you should, it almost amplifies it because it shines a spotlight on not just on how you are feeling now, but on the huge caveat to where you're supposed to be. That's kind of what Christmas brings up.
But something that you just said then, Britt, about how you're not feeling it and how maybe you will feel it when you get home, and it is actually Christmas something that I think I have realized this year, and it's because you know, now I have my own nucleus family with the kids and with Matt, and I've realized that the responsibility now falls on me and also on Matt, but it falls on us to create that excitement around Christmas.
And then, you know, even the other day Matt and I were like, God, it doesn't really feel like Christmas. And it dawned on me and I was like, well, that's because we haven't done anything to make it feel that way. And as kids, and when you're growing up and you're in your teens or whatever it is, it's your parents' responsibility. They're the ones who kind of like get everyone together. They're the ones who decorate the house. They're the ones who put in the effort into making
the memories. And I think we're all going through this really weird shifting time period in our lives where it's gone from other people used to be the memory makers for us, and now we are turning into the adults who were responsible to be the memory makers, not just for ourselves, but for other people as well.
I also think that there's a societal shift.
A lot of us now statistically are turning away from religion, and Christmas is supposed to be a religious holiday. I mean, we spoke the other day about how my family used to go caroling caroly And now if someone turned up to my door with like twenty people singing me aside, can you just tell me so?
Did we just go and knock on someone's door like a complete random strange danger and then they open it and as a child, you just start singing. You burst out into the joy of songs.
There was like twenty to thirty of us that would see a fucking Christmas.
I girl would fucking love that. If a hole, we would be so cute. I'll be like, oh please, it's a flash mob. You don't know what you're supposed to do.
I remember them just standing in the door and they would smile like three and a half minutes.
I don't know if you give money after, like you know, no money, just the joy of giving just thanks by move to the next house. No, no, no, Well.
It's pretty funny. It's pretty much feels different, you know. I think it feels different for a lot of different reasons. And like you said, we're the ones that are now making the traditions. Samish Flake says, traditions are not that old in a lot of families, but you're creating like new ones, and maybe we're not creating as many as what we used to. That's the thing, right, Like I
live alone. I've got no one to decorate my house for, and I can be bold to decorating for myself, so I don't have one I had one little piece of tinsel that I put on my fiddle leave three.
And then I just took it down. So because your poor fiddle lift fig will have a real tanty if you try and decorate it. The other thing of this, though, and it's something we touched on last year's episode, Britt and you know you mentioned it again. I think that sometimes we can focus on single, like you know, being single at Christmas time and how difficult that can be, and that was very much the focus of last year's conversation.
But I had a really interesting conversation with someone recently and it's really shone a light that it's not just about being single, but something that I think a lot of people and it can drag up feelings for is if you're in a relationship but you're not happy, if you're not kicking the goals in your relationship of where you expected it to be, because Christmas can be this fucking weird time that almost turns into like a purgatory because you're like, well, I don't want to break up
with someone because I have Christmas plans. I'm not sure what I'm doing. They're supposed to be coming to my house for Christmas. We had a Christmas holiday planned, so a lot of people almost feel like if they're not happy in their relationship, they almost feel like they have to try and get through the Christmas period in order to make some big life decisions in the new year. So I think the reason why we wanted to do this episode this is not for us to be scroogers.
Like we all collectively fucking love what Christmas can bring and what this period can bring. And there are going to be so many of you who are die hard Christmas caroling, living your best life, taking your kids to the carols, just like truly enjoying what this time brings. But we wanted to also have this episode to reflect for those people who haven't been feeling that supported and say, hey, you know what, a lot of us feel the same.
You know what, It's not just the single thing. There are a multitude of reasons that we do discuss, but there are Maybe it's the feesh year going into this season with a level of grief, someone in your life is missing, or there's a piece of your life that's missing. Maybe it's not even the first year you going to that, maybe it's a few years deep. It doesn't matter. There are so many different reasons that people feel a level of overwhelm, and overwhelm itself is a reason in itself
a level of overwhelm at this time of year. Yeah, So we do get into a big conversation with doctor Hannah Coral. She is a neuropsychologist and she really speaks so much about how our brains are functioning at this time, which I liked. She really brought the science to the table. That's something that we didn't go into conversation with with her that I have been thinking a lot about, and this was from the Facebook post that I mentioned before, was how much diet culture really rears its head at
this time of the year. Because for as long as I can remember, my news resolution like almost up until now, have all been related to and like I would put it under the banner or the umbrella of being like getting back into shape or it's a load of shit. It was all diet culture based. It was all about losing weight, and it was all about fitting into the expectation of what I wanted my summer beach bod to look like.
And you know, the interesting thing of that is that it usually comes off the back of the guilt that you have because of Christmas, where you know, may have overindulged or just fucking not even over and just enjoyed yourself, just ate like a normal human having a fucking good time.
Or a whole toddler and cheesecake, which is what I do.
But then you're made to feel guilty about it because that's what we do to ourselves. And like, I'm so glad that you brought that up, because I think that that is something that so many people will resonate with because I know for so many years I did the same thing, like, oh my news, resolution, let's get in shape. I don't know. I think that the thing I've struggled with over the years is that getting in shape has never actually been until recently, has never actually been about health.
It's been about size, and it's been about the way that I look, which I think, you know, if you have been having those thoughts, or even if you go into New Year's this year thinking I'm gonna get in shape, really check yourself about what is the motivating factor behind that?
On top of that law is it's not even just I think our own internal thoughts. I worked in a gym when I was in high school, and I know that a lot of the marketing around anything related with health focus on New Year's resolutions. They focus on losing that Christmas kilos and all that kind of bullshit. And I think we're about to go into New Year, every single fitness center is going to have some type of sale to get January is by far the most popular
month for every single gym. The only other day that was more popular in the gym then the first day that the gym opened on the year was the day after the Victoria's Secret Fashion Parade.
That is messed up.
So this is a real thing that they will target you for. And all I'm saying this on the podcast for is just be aware of it.
But we're going to get into the rest of it with doctor Hannah very very shortly. I also had a cry on this episode. Sorry, sorry about that. In Events Tarry, But before we do speak to doctor Hannah, there is something else that we wanted to talk about. Akisha. You came across a very interesting article this week.
I'm just gonna read the headline, top positions for quiet sex that offer maximum pleasure over Christmas period while you're visiting family.
I love that it's not even.
Just quite sex, but it's quite sex for maximum pleasure, Like this is what you get in most bang for your buck with zero noise?
Is this? Could you think that a lot of people have to think about this, Like you're gonna go and stay at the in law's house and you wanna still have sex, but you're gonna like, surely you just have normal sex and you just do it quiet, Like why do we need to know the specific sex position?
Sadly for Britain, and it has been a while since we've had to think about yeah's amen?
Can I tell you a secret?
Oh yeah, I mean it's not a secret if you tell the whole podcast, but yes.
Okay, So speaking of having quiet sex, because you're staying at your parents' house a very long time ago, I'm talking over a decade. I once had sex extremely quietly, like zero noise. My boyfriend at the time's dad was asleep in the same room.
In the same room.
How big was your room?
That's gross.
We lived in a studio apartment and studio to literally it was a bed and then he was sleeping in our bed and we were asleep on the couch. But he was staying with us for three and a half weeks.
So what's more outrageous staying with some of for three and a half weeks. We're having sex with.
His father in law. It was my father in law.
We went back.
He snored so loud. It was unbelieved he had a seapap machine, so it was so loud. So we knew he was asleep and we were so quiet.
So he let me get this straight. He asked to come to your house for three weeks, seapap machine in your bed. You slept at his feet, You were having sex at his feet. I was picturing like you pounding along to the rhythm of the dark ves.
No, it was very quiet. It was missionary. Well, no, it was the one on the side. What's that call sleep?
His sides extsides sex, Zero.
Noise, I'm talking is zero noise, not a single moan, nothing, And it was even hard breathing.
I guess I see pat machine. Yeah, you're like to doing timing machines.
It's so funny. Did he ever find out, No, because he was asleep.
But you know that's what you think exactly what he was getting a show of his life and pretending.
No, No, that's disgusting, don't be rid discus have sex. It was completely dark. I was very young. It was about fifteen.
Any nothing, not even like nothing nothing or did you hold your breath?
Turns out that I can have silent sex. You had a silent orgasmic. So what I want to say to everyone, just stop. What I want to say to everyone is that if you have to have sex, you're in law's house. We're going to tell you some positions. But trust me, it's very doable. They don't need to know about Okay, So I feel like this was the sex with your guy. It was okay, Oh my word, Okay.
They listed six other positions that you can have quiet, and I'm quoting that quiet six to the first one that they listed. One of my favorites, lotus position.
What is the lotus.
One person is sitting on the bottom and then the other person is sitting on top of them, like facing them, kind of embracing them. Yeah, it's very sensual, okay, But also like, surely none of these positions actually make a difference about being quiet.
It comes to down to the person probably the level.
Of rocking and movement and stuff.
It also comes down to how loose the springs are on your bed.
No, you've also got a thing like doggie can be louder like for example, it can, and so could if you're especially missionary. But I guess if you're like doing the loadus and it's sensual, there's not a lot of like yeah, because the person on the bottom isn't moving. Yeah, so I think that that helps with the rocking of the bed.
Also, no testicles slapping alongside. That's usually what happens. That's the thock sound right, Yeah, sideway sixty nine, that's what I did. Oh no, that's not what I know.
You w upside down.
We're facing the same way.
People doing that. I feel like it's pretty awkward aside. Yeah, but then you usually wouldn't you just go for the normal sixty nine where you're on top of each other the side.
Do they do the sideways? Yeah, the sideway sixty nine, just like you just have your leg bent like so it's like what you lay on your side, you have one leg bent up and you're kind of like in each other. I wish that this was a video. You kind of like, I have to hold onto their leg a bit. Anyway you do that one not recently but have.
Do you do lazy sideway sixty nine?
I have done it, It's not on.
My regular repertoire, but you're the loader may add to it.
Definitely a quieter one, I would say, But I would also say that it's as quiet as doing a normal sixty nine. I wouldn't say that there's like a specifically quieter difference.
Maybe if you have to hold yourself up more on that.
I don't know.
I'm trying to think about it. I've always said that I reckon it would be so loud in bed, so I don't think that. I don't know why I have that perception, like I've never heard you have sex when I just I don't know what.
Maybe it's a laugh that, Like.
I just.
Why do you think britt lives on her own?
Yeah, there's a reason, but brittle lives on her own and doesn't have sex.
That's a problem, all right, bring it on home. What is the last one?
So the other two that we have already mentioned, missionary and spooning, they also have listed slow doggie. Yes, it has to be slow, but then is it do you want to even do it? Then? I think people do doggie to be slow and sensual. It's not a sensual positions or Sideway sixty nine. When you nuzzled on in there, it's like, I don't know, I don't think doggie is very sensual.
Look, I'm going to just say this. If you are planning on having sex at the in law's house, is you just put your face in a pillow and go for it. Let's move on. Oh my god. Okay, let's get into our favorite part of every episode, and that is accidentally unfiltered. Now I have an accident unfiltered, which my girlfriend told me this weekend. And there was some very very good ones written in by you guys, but
this story had me absolutely fucking flowed. Okay, So my friend went and stayed at a beautiful hotel this weekend with her boyfriend, just you know, to go and have some quality time together, to be together and enjoy each other's company. And she did a panning video of the
hotel suite that she was staying at. So she walked into the room and the panning video is panning of like the like the mini bar and the wall and the artwork, and then it goes out to this incredible view over Sydney Harbor and that's the video that she sent to her family chat. And when I say family chat, I mean her partner's family chat with in law mom
and the dad and the siblings. And she sent that anyway, it turns out that she also took a second video, and that second video was of a beautiful pan of the mini bar and of the artworks and of the view. But then she panned a little bit further around to the bed where her boyfriend was laying there with his legs up in the air pretending to finger himself. No, no she did, That's why she said. And she sent that to his mum.
And what did his mom say? Nothing?
Nothing. I didn't realize this, But when it comes to what's that messaging? No, you can delete a message, right, so you can say like delete for everyone. If the person hasn't updated their app to have that feature, then that message does not delete for everyone.
So he did not delete for everybody. I didn't know that was a thing.
Yeah, So unless the person has updated their app, they will still receive that message.
So there's a hot tip for everybody. You know what I'm mad about. Remember a little while ago, Apple release a thing that said that when you send an eye message. Now if it's in three minutes, you can unsend it. It's not true. It's not true. Well, Marne can't do it, neither can mine. I wondered if maybe I just didn't know how to do it properly and I don't.
Get it, because that could have come in every handy if.
I can tell you, I'm like, oh shitay it's not true.
We'll get into what is your actually unfiltered?
Okay, this literally just happened. Well, so I use my electric toothbrush as a vibrator. I know it sounds strange, but I do know I'm not the only one. It's way better than any vibrator I've ever tried.
I feel like it would be really like it would blast your glitterius off.
As someone who reads our DMS, unfortunately she's not a lot. Wait with what I usually do is have a go in the shower after I've brushed my teeth. Yeah wait, anyway, I've just had a shower, masturbated and had a really great orgasm. Afterwards, though my vage was super minty, tingling and burning. I realized I forgot to brush my teeth and I masturbated with the truthpaste that's so right for using the same toothbrush to do both, and then she
goes to still worth it. Though, I'm sorry, but surely you know what you masturbate with whatever you want, Like I'm here for this, but surely you get a second one, Like you get a like the insertion and the clear and whatever you want for one toothbrush. But I don't think you need to use the same one. I could be wrong.
I mean, you use the same mouth to eat your food, to brush your teeth, and to go down on people. So like, I think I'd just get.
Two, though I just keep one in the masturbating one in the shower. I hate how hypercritical it is that I care about this, because, like Laurie, you're right.
We use the same mouth. To be fair, I will replace my toothbrush if it falls on the floor. So yeah, okay, Well, with all of that out of the way, let's get into the chat with doctor Hannah. By this time of the year, most of us are crawling to the finish line and in survival mode to make it through the working year. With things like Christmas and New Year's we tend to have an added layer of pressure to just be very jolly and cheerful when it might be the
last thing that we actually really feel. So we wanted to do a whole episode on getting it through the holiday period when things aren't just the best that they've ever been in your life and joining us to give us some advice is our friend, our resident neuropsychologist, Doctor Hannah Corral, Doctor Hannah, Welcome back to Life on Card. Hello, thank you so much for having me, guys, doctor Hannah.
I love a I love the fact that we've got a resident neuropsychologist. That makes it sound really cool and all that cool, but I.
Drop it in all my friendship groups. Yeah, but anybody who maybe hasn't heard you on the podcast before, can you give us a quick overview on what a neuropsychologist is.
So we're like a brain detective. So we figure out where your brain is going well and where it's not going so well using pen and paper tests, right, So we do the IQ score. We do things like diagnosing autism, ADHD, dementia. So we are, yeah, like a brain detective. We figure out what's going on in your history, what's happened in the past. We spend hours and hours and hours with people to figure out, get all the pieces of the puzzle and figure out what might be happening for your brain.
Well, this is the third time we've had you on. We do love you here. You're very knowledgeable and you give some really great advice. Why do people at this time feel like everything is intensified by ten mmmmmmm because.
It is.
Yet done. No, you're not imagining it right, like you are not imagining that it is a tough time of year. It's valid. It's a valid feeling. Don't self gas light that you're imagining because you're not. Two things I think are recurring. One is neurological and one is psychological. So the neurological is your cognitive cup, so your cognitive abilities.
You imagine your brain is like a cup and it can only hold so much emotional load, cognitive load, administrative load, all of the things, the bandwidth that you have to do life, to do work, to do personal life. It's all stimuli, right, And it's not a fallacy that at the end of the year that's when all the deadlines are. It's the end of twenty twenty two. You have to get all your shit done before the end of the year.
You also have to jam in extra deadlines of when to get presents, when to wrap presence, what to buy for people, when to schedule parties, when to go to other parties, when to drink all the outcoholm be hungover all of this additional stress that you're adding, so orologically speaking, your cognitive carp is getting fuller and you don't have as much bandwidth, you don't have as much cognitive reserve, and you're cognitively overloaded.
Do you think as well? And I mean, I think it's probably a bit of a sweeping statement to say that every single person that this year is stressed out, because I don't think every single person is. I think there are a lot of people who do go into the Christmas period with joy, feeling all the things that we're told we're supposed to feel, right, I'm sure that
there are lots of people who have that. But then there are also a lot of people who go in with almost like a feeling of guilt because they don't feel the way that they think they're supposed to feel. Do you think that there is a psychological reason why there's like a magnifying glass on us during especially what is Christmas in New Years?
Oh?
My gosh, yes, well that's you know number two. Reason two is the psychological side of things. And I will say, Laura, like, I think our understanding of emotion is sometimes very uni. You know, one emotion, but you can actually have more than one emotion at one time. So you can be super super stressed but also love Christmas and be absolutely overwhelmed, but at the same time looking forward to Christmas. So you can exist in two places at the same time.
You can have this two didactically opposed feelings at the same time. So I hate this time of year. I love this time of year. You can feel the two things at once, which you know, It's something that we talk about in relationships all the time. We always say, like, you know, it's possible, and even in friendships, you know, it's possible to be happy for your friend and to be sad that you're missing out on something like those
feelings don't have to be mutually exclusive. But I think sometimes when our feelings aren't concurrent with how.
We think we should feel, it's even worse.
Oh exactly. And if we add that extra layer of guilt you mentioned before, that extra layer of guilt that why don't I feel happier. Why am I anxious? Why am I in this place again? And you mentioned before about this expectation of where we should be at a certain time of the year. And I think it's no secret that at the end of the year it's review time, isn't it. It's like, personally, it's your personal review time.
That's a stressful time of year. We're about to go into New Years, We're about to end twenty twenty two, we're all probably about to enter the year of another year older. This is the time of review, and I think it ultimately comes down to expectations that you set up for yourself. Such an interesting way of putting it, like I had never thought of it before, as in, like I mean, when I think about it, it is
exactly what we all do. We kind of assess where our lives are come December, especially come New Years, where we're all setting news resolutions. It's almost like that's the benchmark that we kind of level ourselves up against verse where we were at the year prior. And for some people that might be a place where they're really happy with the progress that they've made, and for others they
might feel like they've failed themselves. So they've failed the expectations that they placed for themselves the year before, and it ultimately comes. This is one of the reasons why I love neurosyite, because I've learnt so much about every form of the spectrum of neurotypical to neurodiverse. But there is something called your own personal rule book in your head.
We all have our own logic book in our head about what the rules are for, what the rules are for Laura, what the rules are for Hannah, and in our heads all of us, every single one of us, and all three of us were, you know, talking about those rules just earlier before we started this podcast, of all our expectations. I've got the rules in my head. I was supposed to be in this place by this age. I was supposed to have this by this age. I was supposed to be doing this by this age. And
that's my personal rule book. Hannah was supposed to be in this spot at this time, and this was not what I expected. So when I'm doing something that's incongruent with my rule of where I should be, my body panics, and my body gives me a whole heap of stress hormones, very visceral stress hormones that make me feel panic, sheer panic, and it's like, I can't be in my own skin because I'm living a life that's incongruent with my rules, and then I panic. And what do high functioning people
do when they panic? They intellectualize or they distract.
So can you give me an example of what intellectualizing is verse distracting? Like, how does that play out in someone's behavior? Oh my god?
Yes, okay again, how much time do you have?
Let me give you a scenario. All right, So it's one in the morning and you're laying in bed and your brain is telling you all of the different scenarios and thinking through all the different scenarios of why this happened, when that happened, What did they mean by this? What should I be doing if they do this? When will I do this? When will I say this? What if this happens? What does this mean? And doing that loop around and around and around.
We've all done that loop.
Yeah, I've been doing it the last three nights.
You know.
We all do that loop, like, and that's your brain because it's worked in the past, when you're younger, when you're a little kid, when you're a teenager. You've thought your way out of problems and it works. It works. You think your way out of problems, and it reinforces that behavior to intellectualize, and your brain compartmentalizes and goes,
this is the scenario. So what's the solution. If this happens, I'll do A. If this happens, I'll do BE, and if this happens, I'll do C. But the problem is you can never predict exactly what's going to happen. The world is a constantly shifting, moving feast, and I don't know what you're going to say next to what you're going to do next. You can never predict it. So your brain's going to keep throwing scenarios at you. Well, what if scenario A one happens? What if scenario B
one happens? And see one and A point one two and B point one two. You know, you'll keep generating more and more scenarios, and you'll keep going in that loop of thinking and thinking.
We call it ruminating.
We're going around and around and round often.
I think as well as something that we do is when we are in that spiral of like trying to forecast how things are going to play out. We often are so negatively geared that we go to the worst possible situation and things are never ever as bad as what you think they are, but you always think about what that worst outcoming is and then work your way back, so.
You are hardwired to think of all the possible bad things that could go wrong and just statistically probability wise, we're moving into December, you have probably way more social things happening. You have more people you're about to interact with, you have more conversations you're about to have. You're going to see people you haven't seen in a long time,
and people you know. You have confrontations and grievances with family members where you know she's hit the fan before you're about to statistically enter a mind field of many more interactions, and your brain is telling you all the possible things that can go wrong because it's trying to protect you. It's trying to keep you safe. It loves you, and it wants you to survive.
Can you go back a bit for me as well, Hannah, because I jumped in with my thought as you were talking, and then I realized we only covered what we do when we intellectualize a problem, But not what the second option was distracting, distracting, Yes, okay, all right, so this is when we get okay, scenario.
Let me tell you the next scenario. So you're laying in bed. You've intellectualized your thought, and you've thought, and you've thought, and you've thought and your thought and you've like lying in bed a husk of a human being, rocking gently back and forth as we were. What you're talking about me right now? So the next thing we do?
What do we do?
I've got to get some sleep. I've just oh, for God's sake, you just have to go to sleep. So what do we do? We reach out to our phones. We pick up our phones. We might scroll through Instagram, we might scroll through an app. I know, for me, I'm a big fiend for putting on an audiobook to try to distract myself. Put on Harry Potter, a little
bit of HP to play, because we're distracting. And you might distract with needing a hug from someone and needing someone else to self regulate by hugging you and giving you advice. So you're constantly calling other friends to get advice or get that hug. It might be that you distract with a partner. It might be that you distract with substances like alcohol or other things to numb the pain.
It might be that you distract by totally throwing yourself into work, anything to take your mind off that feeling of anxiety that you're experiencing, and sitting with that feeling of anxiety and just accepting that it's okay to be anxious instead of anything but feeling anxious. I need to think my way out of this or distract myself from this anxiety.
I mean, we've talked about having this like almost litmus test for yourself at the end of the year. For anybody who is in a situation where they don't feel like they've leveled up to the expectations that they set for themselves, what is the advice to just be upset.
And down and you are dealing with a lot. My best advice would be lifting the veil and just realizing, oh my god, there's so much going on for me. I'm a big fan of terms like neurostress, neuro anxiety, neurosadness rather than just saying stress, anxiety, sadness. I think is very validating to hear somebody say no babe, there's a pathway in your brain that is letting off a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress hormones, a lot of very real, valid feelings that don't require much stimuli
now to kick off for you. So mind only take a little little trigger to get a big reaction in your body, okay, because you've got that pathway well Torodden path and you've got that quick, conditioned response in your body. So you get a huge panic feeling for a little little message from your mum on Christmas, okay, And that's your brain trying to keep you safe because something bad has happened in the past and your body has learned I need lots of adrenaline to get through what's about
to happen or what might be about to happen. So I think that's why I like using in terms like neuro anxiety, because it validates that experience that you're not imagining this. Don't self gas lights, You're not imagining the feeling of anxiety.
It's physical, it's visceral, it's physiological, it's neurological, and it's really quite hard sometimes to separate ourselves from that feeling and look in on ourselves and go oh, this is a conditioned response that my body's going through.
I am not my feelings, I am not my thoughts. I can look in on this and know that the panic I'm feeling isn't necessarily real, and I'm not in danger right now. I am okay right now.
I mean you spoke before about distraction. Some people are about distraction their phones or a friend or a text message or something to get you away from the situation. I assume this is advice you're going to give people going into this season if they're having these feelings. What about the people that might go into this that feel overwhelmed in a different way. I myself, I actually don't use distraction at all. I get rid of everything, I don't want anyone around me, and I just sit on
my own in silence. I actually don't know why, because you sit in your thoughts. More so, what about the people that are probably more introverted, I guess would be the word that don't want to surround themselves with people. What advice can you give those people going into this season that have those feelings of anxiety, loneliness, stress, worry.
Basically, what you're doing by doing that is reducing the stimuli around you, So giving your cognitive cup a little bit more bandwidth because you have less stimuli around you, less social less, light less, sound less, movement less crowds, and it's reducing the stimuli to give you more emotional bandwidth. So if that's what you need to do, then that's okay. I just say with a grain of salt, like isolating withdrawing, those are all they can be signs of depression. So
it's a little bit like cost benefit. You know, is it adding cognitive load? But is it at the cost that I'm isolating? So I think people should just be mindful of that. If you haven't already contacted perhaps a psychologist for support or a friend for support, I would say that that might be a good plan. But also setting up some real tangible and being countable for that,
Like I know it's so how easy for us. I always say, like total to GP and touch base with your GP and get a mental health care plan and all this other stuff. Come and get some accountability now, Like is it a tough time? Do you know that you're going into a tough time and maybe you distract and you do some unhealthy behaviors and you isolate, or you draw on substances, or you do something that you know is not helping you in the long run. This
is the red flag. This is me saying, yeah, now might be the time that you need to get a little bit more support, with this formalized support to deal with what's going on for you.
Which kind of leads me on to my next question. How important do you think it is to have boundaries at this time of year? Because I think so many of us can compromise our boundaries because we don't want to offend our family, We don't want to offend our parents or whatever it looks like in laws, whatever your family structure looks like. We all know that families are incredibly complex and a lot of people have a lot of trauma from their family connections. How important is it
to put boundaries in place? Oh my gosh, like the ultimate? They're ultimate thousand times yes.
Like I literally made an app called a Search Yourself, which is all about asserting yourself, asserting yourself. And I'm not well versed asserting myself. I need to hear it every day too, and I need to practice it too. Just take it one day at a time, you know, it's really easy to go, Oh my god, on the twenty fifth, this is going to happen. I'm supposed to go on this holiday with this person, and this is going to happen. And that's going to happen, and this has happening, and.
You overload yourself with all.
Of these requirements that we've put on ourselves, like I have to give them this much notice, and I have to tell them this, and I have to I have to have this conversation. You can actually just take it one day at a time. You are allowed to back out of things. You are allowed to say no to things. You're allowed to say no at the absolute last minute. You're allowed to say, nah, I'm not doing this, don't feel comfortable with this. And if that happens on the day,
that's okay too. All right, don't try and solve it all right now, don't worry today about the twenty fifth of December, the twenty sixth, the twenty seventh, the first of January. You just get through today, get through tomorrow, figure it out as it comes. Because if we're talking about assertedness and boundaries, it's probably because you're dealing with someone who's pushing your boundaries. Right, and sometimes it is a day at a time. I think we get stuck in the minutia of going what.
Are they doing, what did they do?
Why did they do this? And trying to explain their behavior away we lose ourselves in that.
This is a conversation I've had with a couple of people recently, with several of my girlfriends who have complicated relationships with their parents. Whether they're the product of divorce that sounds like such a weir way putting it, the product of they have divorced parents, or they have parents who have very overbearing understandings of what Christmas should be because maybe their parents are holding on too hard to
the way that it was when they were kids. And you know, where we all have our own nucleus families now where where adults, you know, we've got our own children, there can be this almost like expectation from parents that you behave and do a certain thing because that is
what's expected of you. One sort of thing that comes to mind is one of my friends isn't going to be with her family, her parents for Christmas this year, and there's been a lot of guilt that's been placed on her because she's chosen to do something that's different, but she also has a bit of a stress relationship with her parents anyway, and she's decided she just wants to spend it with her new nucleus family, with her
husband and her children. And I think that like the added guilt of that, the added feeling when you are the child and you're disappointing your parents, even though you're a grown ass adult, that feeling of guilt never leaves you that feeling of like, fuck, my parents are angry at me. They can be the hardest people to assert boundaries.
With, Oh my gosh, activating that rule book again, the rules. There's a rule book in your mind, I should be this.
Way, I have to do this for somebody else. Yeah, they expect me to do it.
It's like further perpetuated by your parents as well in terms of, like, you know.
Not even intentionally sometimes the level of like you feel like you need to show up sometimes.
Yeah, we are in a lot of ways a condition of our upbringing, right, Like if your parents have placed a lot of expectations on you in terms of the way that you should behave all the way that you should show up to family events, and you decide that that doesn't serve you because it brings you anxiety, or because it's all your fucking aren't always behaves badly and it stresses you out. But there's still this expectation that
you go. This time of year really shines a spotlight on the things that aren't great in our family structures at home. Yeah, because we compare to other people who have great families and have amazing connections with their parents and with their siblings. And if that's something that you don't have in your household, even that can add a whole another layer of stress.
Home life, childhood, upbringing, that's where we learnt the rules. That's where we learned the inverted commas, the rules of life of how you are supposed to be. And it's often hard to break the flow on the momentum of the way the family interacts. That's where we've learnt. Mum always gets away with speaking to me like this. My
brother always speaks to me in this way. When I'm with my family, it's very toxic and we talk to each other in this way, and it's so well ingrained, and it's been happening for such a long time that it suddenly feels like Mount Everest to say no, that's not okay, that you spoke to me like this, and their reaction might be so full on. Whenever you've tried to rein it in and whenever you've attempted to assert yourself that it's conditioned you to not say any don't
rock the boat, don't make a scene. It's easier to just let it go. And that's kind of why I tap into we're just getting through one day at a time instead of seeing that the top of Mount Everest and where I want to be, and it seems so impossible, so difficult, so hard. It's so well ingrained now with a family, friend, lover, partner, whatever the toxic behavior you might be so used to it's been having for such
a long time, it feels impossible to undo it. Okay, But that's where we talk about, well, how do you climb Mount Everest? It is just one step at a time. So let's just take it today and let's just call out whatever happens in this moment. If you're feeling getting back in touch with how you're feeling, how are you feeling today? Are you happy? Did you enjoy that? Are you having fun or do you feel sick? Do you feel ashamed? Do you feel humiliated? Do you feel embarrassed?
Do you have the ick in your heart? That tight feeling? And you know something that just happened was not okay with me. So I'm going to take this moment. It's okay for me to back out of this. It's okay for me to say no, It's okay for me to leave. It's okay for me to make a scene by departing.
Okay, toxic behavior, Bye, I am unsubscribing from this family.
Toxic behavior is like I think we confuse in our heads. We try so hard, and this is something I've had to learn how to healthily have an argument. Like when you've grown up and you believe that any argument is toxic and bad, we can swing like a pendulum to the other direction of never standing up to ourselves because we see any argument or confrontation as bad and being toxic. But actually it's toxic when you get into the tit for tat, name calling, down and dirty, back and forth.
So I think we get into a pattern of thinking things are toxic because we're so used to that that we're aversive to anything we perceive as confrontational, but it's actually not confrontational, not toxic for you to acknowledge that something was inappropriate for you and say in a very calm, clear voice, this is not okay. I'm not comfortable. I'm leaving.
You know, We've had a lot of questions we put this out to the Facebook community, and it's something that we've spoken about on I mean, the last three years of doing this podcast. At Christmas time, we tend to end up having a conversation around how our feelings and expectations don't always match up to where we think we
should be. Brit has spoken about it before in terms of being a single person and feeling like it's a really hard time for people who are single, because it really makes you so fucking aware that other people are
happy and partnered up. But I also think and when we put this out to the group, one of the big questions came in was what about for people who are experiencing grief, as in, they've lost a person this year and this is the first time that they're going into Christmas without somebody who had been a huge part of their Christmas time, but not.
Actually on top of that, not even just the first time they're going into it without someone every year, every year for a long time. This could have been your tenth year without someone that's important in your life. And like we said at start of the episode, this is the time of year that feelings get it up again.
My understanding with grief is, you know, it's a little bit like it's whole, the full shape of your heart and the full size of your heart, and it's deep, and it's painful, and it hurts, and you grow around the grief. You get bigger around the grief because you went on another day, maybe cry and another day.
I know. This is the whole point of this episode. This is what's happening.
This is the time of year that things are intensified, and emotions and feelings and everything's brought to the surface. And it's not a bad thing to have. I'm gonna cry looking at you. It's not a bad thing to have these feelings come to the surface. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. How many other professional I feel like it's not a bad thing to let them come to the surface if you acknowledge what they are and know what to do with it, and don't let it put you in a place that's worse.
It's just I think that for a lot of people as you get older, like Christmas looks very different to what it used to look. I'll go to an add is that's a right.
The intensity of that feeling that I mean that's grief is it's that intense. It's like there's like something hits it, and it's intense as the very first day, and we grow around it. It's like it's always there and it's always that intense. But you have day two and day three and day four, you get bigger around the feeling. But some days something's gonna hit that feeling and it's gonna hit you like a ton of bricks like it was the first day.
And I think for me as well at the moment, Sorry, sorry to have a cry. Everyone like my papa, he was my my grandfather, but he also was my complete father figure. And I think for me at the moment, and the reason why I'm extra sensitive is because I always expected that he would walk me down the aisle of my wedding. I always expected that he would be there, and my friends and my sister have done an amazing
job of like really making him be present in my life. Recently, Like my sister of my wedding, I told you guys, like she got a little lockett made and it was attached to my bouquet of flowers of my grandparents. And then my other very good friend kaya As, she had a portrait made. It was the photo that I posted on Instagram of the wedding, but it was a watercolor painting. But I had my grandparents in the picture. It was really beautiful. And so for me, they're super front of mine.
But this year, I think, you know, I have my whole family coming into Christmas. This year, we've got all Matt's family, We've got all my side of the family, Like we are hosting Christmas, and he won't be there, and that for me is just something that I'm like, fuck, that's unfair, Like I really wanted him to see my family and that doesn't get to happen. Mine is mild in comparison. He lived a wonderful long life. I get it.
I'm selfish. I want him more, you know, but he lived until he's nineties, So that's it's crazy to think that there could be any more beyond that. But you know, there's people who are going into Christmas without their mum, without their dad, without their children, you know, without their best friend. There's so many versions of what that looks like. And it doesn't have to just be death. It could be the more mild diversion going in straight out of
a breakup. And I think that this is the reason why we wanted to talk about this is because it really does just bring it all to the surface and it almost makes it worse because you're told just supposed to be happy.
That rule book again turning on I'm supposed to be sparkly, I'm supposed to be happy. I'm supposed to be grateful to what you've got. And if I'm not grateful, then I'm what? And if you're ungrateful, then what does that mean about you?
I know this is a riddle. I'm trying what does it mean? But what do you mean?
If you're not grateful, then you're ungrateful? And if you're ungrateful, then you're what? What kind of person is an ungry?
Selfish? Selfish?
Selfish? So we are activating a rule book in our head. If I feel any sadness, I'm ungrateful. If I'm ungrateful, I'm selfish. I'm bad. And you can see that. It's almost like an algorithm. Your computer is an algorithm, and somewhere along the lines, you got programmed with this algorithm of when this code runs and I feel sad, I feel guilty that I feel sad, I must be a bad person.
And around and around we go.
I feel worse because now I'm telling myself I feel guilty for feeling guilty. And around and around and around we go, and we think about it, we intellectualize it until the point we're so exhausted that we distract. There is a third option, which is to sit with the feeling. To sit with it if I can really quickly, like just go into you know, social experiments and social stuff. You guys have heard of Pavlov's dogs. You know pavlov dogs experiments.
Let's tell me about this the other day. Actually, yeah, let's pretend like I know all about it, and you can tell the listeners who don't know.
So I want you to think of like conditioned responses. And when I say conditioned, I don't mean like her conditioner. I mean like conditioned. I don't mean the pantin condition. I mean we have conditioned responses where X happens, Why response occurs. Okay, So Pavlov's Dogs is this great experiment that highlights this. This guy called Pavlov is an interesting experimenter from many, many years ago who noticed that when his assistant came out and put food down for the doggies,
that the doggies would salivate for the food. But even when they just saw the assistant, they would start salivating. And he went, that's interesting. Why they salivated for the assistant and not the food. That's interesting. So he paired the food with a bell dingerlingling, and he bring the food out and go dingerlingling, and the dog salivated food, dinglingling salivate food, ding alingling, salivate food, dinglingling salivate.
Oh, I feel like you're just talking about me at home.
And then what he did was he just did the bell dingle lingling, and what do you think the dogs did?
Salivate? Correct?
Correct?
Yeah.
And so what we've got there is a conditioned response. Do you see an unconditioned stimulus became a conditioned stimulus, and we had a conditioned response, which was salivation, a physical reaction in response to a stimuli. Okay, you are your code turning on in your head, You've got this algorithms computer that's operating, and then a stimuli comes in, which is you're alone this Christmas. Or a stimuli comes in,
which is he's not there this Christmas. Or a stimuli comes in, which is so much shit to do this Christmas and I'm not going to get it all done. And we activate our conditioned response, which is panic, which is guilt, which is fear, and it's so pervasive and controlling.
It's like somebody. I don't know about your anxiety, Laura, but for me, it's like somebody has taken a massive syringe and injected poison into my muscles, and I feel it in all of my muscles, and it's a sick, tight feeling where every cell in my body screams at me to stop, to get it to stop, to do anything to get it to stop, And that might be to people, please, to agree to do things I don't want to do, to push it away and throw myself into work, to go and call someone who I know
is not good for me, and spend time with them even though I know they hurt me. Because you don't want to be alone, because I don't want to be alone.
This is a great little Segway question. Do you think that this is something that we actually do come this time of year? And I'm going to say we let's go. We haven't really talked about the single people going and the feelings of the single people have yet. Do you think this is something that people do is go back to somewhere they shouldn't a toxic X someone in the past,
a message just purely for comfort. So when you get some validation to be like, oh, there is someone you know that's thinking about me today.
I mean, whatever the feeling of anxiety is for you, it's that biological every cell in your body screaming you to get it to stop, get that feeling to stop. And yeah, that might be running into the arms of someone who's not good for you, because that immediate oxytotion, that immediate calming of that your central nervous system, that immediate reaction in your body to calm, to be calm and to be okay again, anything to make it stop.
And this is where I say that third option. What's the third option here from an intellectualizing and distracting which is to learn to sit with the feeling and what that does the power of that is to decondition, the condition response. Okay, so something is turning on the code in your brain, the false belief, the brain washing that you have in your brain that you're not good enough, that you're too old, that you're alone forever. Oh, you know, whatever it is. We have to take the power away
from that false belief. We have to take the power out of it. And the power is the feeling, which is I'm panicking when this thing turns on in my brain. So if we can learn to sit with it, I know you're always going to be there, always in the back of my mind. I'm always going to be hard on myself, but it doesn't have to have so much power over me. And if we keep running away from this scary thought every time it turns on, if we keep hiding from it, intellectualizing, distracting from it, it holds
the power over us. But if we sit with it and we just okay, let's just sit with this. I feel like shit, I feel awful, I feel anxious. I'm just gonna sit with it. And today it might be that you get to one breath before you intellectualize or distract, and maybe a month from now you can actually sit with that turning on for a whole five minutes before it activates something in you. We're taking the power away.
You cannot control the feelings of yourself or people. We feel what we feel, and if we try to control it, that's when we start to feel guilty about feeling guilty, feeling sad about feeling sad, feeling anxious about feeling bad, and we get meta anxiety. I'm anxious about being anxious. You know, we get in a thought loop, we get in a feeling loop. Now there is hope, behavior and actions. Assuming you're medically well and you're not affected by substances,
you're in your right mind. You can choose to pick up the water bottle. You can choose to go for a walk. You can choose to go to the gym. You can choose to have the cuddle. You can choose to see your psychologists. You can choose to do all of those things. You are in control of your behavior. Feelings and thoughts come from behavior. If we stay in bed, if we have a big night, if we do the thing that we know is not going to help us. If we don't put the clothes on and we don't
wash our face, we don't eat the food. Yeah, probably by the end of the day, you're gonna feel twenty percent worse. You're gonna think worse things about yourself, and you're gonna feel worse about yourself if instead you wake up and you go I don't feel like it, and I think I'm a piece of crap, but I just don't. I'm not feeling it. But I'm still going to get out of bed. I'm still going to wash my face. I'm still going to put a clean piece of clothing on.
I'm still going to care for my body and eat some food. I'm still going to do the thing that makes me sit in the sun for a minute and take a deep breath. Then by the end of the day, maybe you're not one hundred percent better, but you might
feel five percent better. And it's those little small things that add up over time, predict the trajectory of thoughts and feelings and one day grow a new core belief, a new algorithm and in your brain that we can activate, which is I know there's that algorithm that says I'm not good enough, but I've grown a new one that challenges that and says I have anxiety, And I know that I'm a worthwhile human being.
Dotor Hannah, thank you so much for coming, for sharing your wisdom, and also just for I mean, it's so interesting to us to hear this side of things from not just how we feel, but also from what's physically going on insideus as well. And you're a wealth of knowledge and we love having you on the podcast. Please tell everyone where they can find you, and also reminder about the app.
Ah, thank you for having me. I feel like if we can get this trending of this idea of neuro stress, neuro anxiety, neuro depression, you know there is so much more to this. I don't want people to feel guilty for feeling what they feel. Come find me on insta. I'm no bullsych. I would love to hear from people, connect with people. My app is called Assert Yourself. It's got a few nifty little meditations and things you can use if you're struggling.
With something that we probably need to download right now, download Assert Yourself.
Doctor Hannah. Thank you so much.
Thanks guys, thank you.
You know that we never finished an episode without our suck and our sweet, our very last suck and sweet for the week of the U Kish do us the honors, you can start. What has been your suck for the week.
Well, my suck is somewhat related to my sweet. So the suck is that the weather has been freezing cold. And the reason, and that was really sucky for me is because my sweet was that two of my girlfriends from the UK, they're both from Life London, flew over. They flew in on Thursday night and they stayed with me for a couple of days.
They're up like in.
North Queensland at the moment, traveling Australia, getting some sun, getting some sun. Well actually I was raining up there too. Over then come for an Australian summer to get out of winter. And they came from minus five. It was literally snowing in London when they left, which is also quite rare for over there. It doesn't snow that often.
And so they've flown.
In and I just had to keep on repeating myself, being like, guys, I swear it's been the best weather for at least they felt at home.
They got here and they were like, wow, it really is quite comparable, wasn't it Still got sunburn?
They swim and Bronchie bars blessed them. It was freezing and the water was so rough, but they just wanted to do, like, you know, the Sphere Australian. They wanted to do the coastal Walk, and they wanted to do the swim thing.
And then they came home and.
They literally were sunburn, which I found hilarious because there was not an ounce of blue sky. Yeah.
So my sweet is that it was so nice to have them here.
It's been so many years since they were They came here and left Australia the week before COVID kicked off, so like it's been a long time between drinks, and it was just so good to see him again.
Well, I mean like sometimes we like over emphasize almost how important the weather is, especially when it's like this time of year, when it means that you get to see people that you haven't seen for forever, that COVID is the tyranny of COVID has kept you apart. I think that that's a really nice suite. My suck for the week is that, And I know I've said this suck a couple of weeks ago, but it really really
hit me this week. Work has been really full on, especially coming out of retail Christmas with Tony May and also just like all the other little projects and bits and pieces, and I have not had quality time with the girls. I did get to. I took them too the Wiggles concert on Saturday, and that's actually my suite. But I had this real moment last night where I got into bed with Mary after coming home from work
and she's asleep. And I do it almost every night at the moment, where like I'll get in bed and spend like an hour just laying in bed, like patting her head, just wondering she's asleep, just wondering whether she knows that I'm there. It's almost like trying to claw back extra time with your kids, with your unconscious child, with your unconscious child, because you didn't get to have that time during the day.
And I think I think she would feel that. I feel like you'd know that there's like a comfort to know that you're there.
Maybe you know. I know that this is something that a lot of working moms have to juggle, this feeling of like I have to work and I want to prioritize my career, but I also want to be a really good mum, And every so often that juggle feels really out of balance. And I think for me, it's been a particular week where I have struggled with my priorities, really really struggle with them, and I really miss my girls so fucking cannot wait for this break, to be honest.
But then my sweep of the week, like I said, I went to the Wiggles concert. It's so dumb. It is the dumbest thing to go to a kid's concert and stand there with your two kids and be like, hop tend hop ten. But it's fucking the best thing in the world. It's so cute.
Think that's dumb.
I think, I think when I say it's dumb, what I mean is is it's dumb how happy I get, Like I love going and being and taking to these things. And it was like the place out in Home Bush. It was like a full on day out concert like what I used to I went there to go and see prints, and now I'm going there to go and see the Wiggles. So the terms of tables and now, Britt,
I know that this week has been absolutely terrible. You know, I don't think you need to go into what you're suck on your sweet as if you don't want to.
No, I think it's been a really bad week. It's been a really dark week. I'm not going to highlight anything good from it or anything bad from it, but I have read all your messages, are good and the bad, and I have learned a lot. No, we said that this would be our very last episode for the year, but we do have one more coming on Tuesday, a
year in review. Next week going to be our favorite moments, our highlights from different parts that of our discussions and interviews with amazing people we've had on and we just thought to be a really nice way to wrap it up, sum it up, and give you guys one last episode to listen to.
And it's just been, like I mean, being able to do the live show, being able to meet so many of you, having the book come out, the amount of you who have reached out and spoken to us about your stories, about the different parts of different episodes that have affected your life or have meant something to you or have helped you in some way. It truly means everything to us. And we honestly can't tell you how much we love creating this podcast, how much we love
the community that you guys all contribute to. It's an absolute privilege. If you have loved any episodes this year, please jump on to Apple Podcast, leave a review, share it with a friend, and you guys know the drill.
Soorry Mum, to you, Dad, tell you dog, tell you friends, and share the love because
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