This episode was brought to you by Ozzie wool Comfort.
Being in this icky, uncomfortable space is unnerving at times, and I think we're always defined by an experience, by the component of it, at least like our normal life, but also we all bring to an experience of what is our particular strengths and assets.
What this trip taught me is that when I am myself, there will be people who who love that.
And who will support me, and who I will give back to and that is enough.
These are the yays of our lives. Busy and happy are not the same thing. We too rarely question what makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than one way. So this is a platform to hear and explore the stories of those who found lives. They adore the good, bad and ugly. The best and worst day
will bear all the facets of seizing your Yeay. I'm Sarah Davidson or Spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned fu entrepreneur whos wapped the suits and heels to co found matcha Maiden and Macha. Milkbar Cza is a series of conversations on finding a life you love and exploring the self doubt, challenge, joy and fulfillment along the way. Hello, lovely neighborhood. So excited to finally have our yeas of our lives recap for you from our incredible trip to
the Northern Territory a few weeks back. You'll hear all about it in the episode, although we could have spoken for many hours longer about the experience, but to quickly give you some background, eight amazing women and two fabulous men who were capturing photos and videos spent three days hiking fifty five kilometers with twenty two hundred meters of elevation across three of the twelve parts of the Larapinta Trail, led by Larapinta Culture, the only Aboriginal owned and operated
touring company in the area. Jungla, the owner and an elder in the region, and his grandson Perula, along with Nick Fife, their mate, another legend who came to help us out, gave us the most eye opening, immersive few days camping in the red dirt, walking through the oldest
land formations in the world. They're over seventy thousand years old and sleeping under the shooting stars I sat down with now three times Seize the a guest Samantha Gash, who organized this fabulous trip under the banner of her new trail running and adventure group for women, Her Trails, along with her dear friend Joe Nevin, who is now
one of my dear friends after the drip. To give you a little insight into what it was like as avid trail runners, these two are also heading back to the Larabinter Trail in a few months to run all twelve sections covering two hundred and fifty k's in a row unassisted, so carrying everything they will need with them the whole way.
Just to give you a.
Little idea of the powerhouses you're about to hear from. They'll also chat about the return of relief run that they're both working away on furiously for our Neighborhood Watch section. You may remember that my husband Nick and Samantha pulled together a global virtual run last year to raise over a million dollars for bushfire relief, and it's back again this year to support the terrifying challenge faced by India
at the moment under the pressures of COVID nineteen. Samantha just incidentally, as one of the many incredible things she's done, has crossed the whole of India on foot, giving it a very special place in her heart. And we've set up a Yeahborhood team which you can join from anywhere to run anytime between the eleventh and thirteenth of June. You'll hear more about it soon and why it is so important, and I'll pop links in the show notes. I'd be so proud to have some of you on
board with us too. You hear more about that in the episode. Anyway, enjoy the cackles and reflections. I hope it brings some ya to your week. Hello you gorgeous humans. Thank you so much for.
Joining Ah, thanks for having us. This is fun.
That's all right, Sarah. It's delightful to be back on the podcast.
Guys.
This is Sammy's third appearance on CZA. Our listeners probably know you quite well by now, Sammy, and if you don't, you can go back to episode forty seven, right back in the early days to hear Sammy's story. But Joe is new to the Yahborhood and I'm so so grateful to have met you on our recent trip to the Red Center. Which is what this episode is all about. But before we jump in, Jojo, tell us a bit about you.
Ah, thanks for having me on, Sarah. I'm a what am I? I'm a mom of three. I'm a really passionate trial runner and ultra runner, which is how I met Sammy and eventually led to meeting.
You as well.
I also work full time in senior management in the not for profit sector, and I'm currently I guess the other big piece of my puzzlers, I'm currently studying my MBA and leadership, so.
They're probably the big four things about me.
Just a few things on the go, like yeah, a little easy. Well, as you guys know, the first section of Yeas of Our Lives is Quote of the Yave, where we discuss a quote that's been meaningful over the past week or week or so so, and I thought it would be apt to reflect on an Aboriginal proverb and one that meant a lot to me, particularly during our troop and in the few weeks that have followed
since then. The proverb is may as well be here we are as where we are, And that's all about being present, just being where you are when you are, and not rushing to the next moment, which is something that we were very much forced into by the beautiful, beautiful indigenous elders who led us through our trip, who explained that there is no concept for time in Aboriginal culture, which I loved. So what did you guys think about that whole concept and surrendering to having no schedule.
I kind of loved it, to be honest. I feel like I work phrenetically to have pockets of window where I can surrender. Unfortunately, sometimes the intensity wraps right up before I can surrender, and I often think, what if I just balanced out and then maybe it was just like at a slightly lower pulsating rate, tire of my time.
But I actually like the differences between being like intensely on structured and strategically focused and thinking ahead to then having moments with the pendulum swings and I utterly get grounded to present, don't dwell and pass, don't fresh on wants to come, and just to accept what is the situation in front of me. So no, I loved it
like I loved not wearing a watch. And I led the expedition, you know, so you'd think that I needed to know a few more things, But I was like, no, now we're here, We're just gonna be in the moment.
We kept pestering Sammy for information, like in the weeks ahead, We're like, Okay, what's the schedule, what parts of the trailer we're doing on what day? And what do we need? And it was on until we got there and actually met flow erupinto Culture and the team that we were like, oh, you don't answer any questions really, Like I thought you were being annoying Sam But I was like, oh no, they're just not giving you any information.
Oh you have no idea. I spend hours on the phone like lining up that trip, and we never talked about ructure or itinery. We just talked like. It was kind of nice even in those moments in the preliminary of that experience to surrender also and kind of go, this is going to be different and we need different. In fact, like the NT tourism campaign right now is sick different, and I thought that embodied what we were looking to experience as well.
Yeah, absolutely, what did you think, Jojo?
Yeah, I look, I'm a huge fan of trying to embed myself in the moment. You know, I'm a yoga teacher. I love being present. But how I opened earlier is really indicative of my life. I've got a lot of balls in the air, and I'm manning the managing schedules, but loads of people and I have to work two
o'clock and I have to work to time. So when I take myself out of those situations and like Sammy said, can surrender, I experience things twofold, like being forced to be present in a moment because you literally don't know
the time or know what's coming up. It turns the volume up on everything you're experiencing because your mind isn't flipping about to what's coming next or what just happened before, And it turns the volume down on anxiety because I think when you're running to a clock, that's such a mechanism for your brain to fast forward constantly and worry about what's next.
On the clock.
But you take the clock away and you really disable that mechanism of worry and thinking of what's coming up, and so what you're going through is just so much more colorful and taste and smell so much richer.
And I think.
That's why, Yeah, that experience is felt so deep, because you have no choice but to experience so much more fully when you're in it.
That's such a beautiful way to describe it, that it turns the volume up on things, because I don't think you even realize that your senses are being dulled by white noise until you do kind of shut it all off and think, oh, I'm actually only half smelling and half hearing and half feeling most of the time because I'm doing it all at the same time. Soamie, what
was your original plan out of the adventure? Is that what you wanted to create for our soul to get sort of eight women who usually don't make that kind of space together. How did you come up with the idea and what were your expectations versus how it actually unraveled.
Well, I've been liaising with larak Into Culture, which is the guiding company that we worked with when we were on the Larapinto Trail. And for those who don't know the lark Into Trail, it's just out of Alic Springs in the Northern Territory. It's an incredible two hundred and fifty kilometer point eight to point B trail amongst the red dirt and like an incredible landscape in the heart
of Australia. But this organization is the only Indigenous owned and operated guiding company that also incorporates cultural awareness programming into their guiding experiences. And so, I mean, I've been hiking, I've been try running for over a decade now, and I could have just gone and guided all of you out there, but it felt like that we defeat the type we could have want anywhere in the world, and that would have been we wouldn't connect to where we were.
We would just be connecting to each other and we would be operating in the same frequency in which we always do. And so I wanted to really flip the switch on everything that was kind of the origins of it. But also like I wanted to support an indigenous organization, particularly one that had had a really tough go during COVID nineteen. I mean, we were the first tour that
went out with them in eighteen months. I think they just renewed their insurances for our trip, and like I felt called to create that trip with them in partnership. And I'll never forget when I first called Jungler and we just had this like hour long conversation. We went to all these different directions the very very end of the trip is like where did you go to school?
And I'm like, wow, I went to school in Ballerade at Ballarat and Claren College, and then I went to blah blah blah and he goes I went to baller and Claren College and I was like what from the n And then like I only realized in a couple of conversations afterwards, he's a part of the Stolen Generation and he was sent to Ballarat to live with another
family and he went to Ballerine Cutting College. Anyway, long story short, I feel like we were collegiate buddies and we were meant to work together and it was just meant to be and we've formed this beautiful friendship out there.
But if I think of also the group of women that I brought out, like all of you are my best mates, and a lot of you didn't know each other, and so I actually I just wanted to gift us and experience in time together and then I didn't have any expectations of what it would look like or what we would facilitate post. I just wanted to be in it. And now it's come out of it as like more people, more women need this.
I think one of the really interesting things in the week leading up to it was how many ties people would be like, why are you going?
Like what's it for?
And I'd be like, I don't really know, Like we all just Sam just kind of had this idea and we're all so trusting of any experience that you create that we were just like, I mean, she just went fuck it, let's go, and we all went yeah.
And yeah, Sam told us too. Yeah.
It's like, you don't realize that you need an experience like that until someone kind of facilitates it. And that's one of your greatest gifts, Sammy, is that you do create these incredible experiences for people and create an incredible group for us to experience it with. But yeah, it's funny to go into something when we are all as busy as we are, but to actually organize to not be contactable for that long for something that you don't know why you're there, it was actually amazing.
That was part of my gift, though. My part of my gift that I know that I received is all of you just said yes and I didn't even tell you anything, like it was hartily because I didn't know, so I didn't want to give you incorrect information, and partially because I just didn't think it mattered. I mean, I also think, you know, obviously where we were made it so much more profound than what we realized. But I also thought we could have been anywhere and had
a great experience. But it definitely was bigger than what I thought it was in terms of how it cellularly transformated our experience in that moment, and I think moving beyond, but consider can you please tell the story where like I was dodging your calls for a while, so.
I was actually going to bring that up next. So basically Sam had this idea in what February, I think pretty much, and of course Joe, you'll probably feel the same now that you guys are going back to actually run the entire Larapinta trail. We only did like a small part of it. But when Sam suggests something, particularly if there are going to be other amazing women there, you just say yes and you figure it out later.
The problem with me is that the beautiful part of our friendship is that usually what Sam suggests is like the opposite of what I enjoy and I am good at, and that I'm comfortable doing, which is why our friendship is so valuable, because you have extended my world so much. But that also means that from the moment I said yes, I was like fuck, fuck fuck fuck, fuck, Like, what is going to be a good enough excuse to get out of this? And she knows me so well that
she just went into my calls. And it's usually the other way around, like Sam calls I text, so.
I don't make it seem hard to get she just calls me all dialogue.
But you, like, I think you knew that, especially in the two weeks leading up to it, when I realized it wasn't just going out into the Northern Territory, it was hiking and camping and no phone signal. I think you got the vibe that I was like, Oh, how do I.
Get out of it?
Even messaged me a couple of days. It was like almost like a light bulb switch had happened. And you're like, oh, I said yes to this.
Do you know what it was?
It was when you said, so, the first day is twenty seven kilometers of hiking, so you're gonna need hiking boots and gay and I was like, like, I looked at what gators were and I was like, where are we going that we're gonna need gators? Like I don't own those things.
Everyone else who is a lot more versed with hiking and just being outdoors. The instructions that I gave to each of you were unique to who you are, and that's that beauty of knowing your friends. Joe, I'm like, she's good, Like she just needs to buy a hiking shirt because she's never had to wear a shirt because she just normally wears a similar type or a T shirt. But Sarah, Sarah either needs me to give her everything or she did which I did, or gave the boots
and the moxies. And I said to know, like we'd organized an uber because we hadn't even seen each other, I know, for over a year. We live in the same city, although I live up on the hills, so I'm kind of had become even more hermitized.
But the only things that I already owned were things from our last experience together in the Simpson and the one before that in India. Like that's the only reason I own camping gear.
I know, it's because if you.
But that's why it was so beautiful that you know, I did have that intense, like regret moment of like, what the fuck did I say yes too?
What to get Joe at the airport? Can we touch into that?
Yeah, Well, that's what I was leading into, is that I think many of us had a bit of oh my God, like, you say yes and it sounds like a good idea, but then in the moment of actually having to create that space for yourself, particularly if it's uncomfortable, you suddenly get like, how can I get about out of it? But those are the best experiences, the ones that you do have that kind of semi regret before.
I can relate so much to that that Yeah, see, I would run through the bush or hike through the bush for hours and days on end. Happily the opposite, but get me around a bunch of people that I don't know, and I was coming up with every excuse under the sun to bail out on that as well. I was like, Oh, I think I'm sick. I think work's really busy right now.
Yeah, I'm going to be sick on Thursday, I think.
Yeah, absolutely, I think that moment Sam referring to is I was sitting at the gate at the airport knowing that all of you were about to arrive and we were all about to get on this plane together, and I was just looking at where I knew everyone would be walking from, and my heart was just racing. And Sam was the only person of the six women, seven women that would be walking towards me that I knew, and I was like, I can't do this. I'm absolutely terrified right now, Like am I going to fit in?
Am I really different? Like this is my story, this is theirs. I'm not going to suit this group. And it was a disabling feeling and I just had to take a really deep breath and think of every self help book I've ever read, and I just like said to myself, like I am brave, Like I run through the bush, I do lots of badass things, and I just you know, I can sure as hell hug a bunch of women I don't know and throw myself into
deep end here and honestly, like it was. It sounds a bit wanky, but it was transformative for me to do that, like as much as it was to travel over country. It was, Yeah, that was epic.
You were amazing, Joe, and it was so interesting to go through that experience together coming into it with the opposite like discomfort at extreme levels, but for the opposite reasons, because being plunked in the middle of a room with strangers is like I thrive on that, But being pushed to a physical limit and being outside and sleeping under the stars and that stuff is like the opposite of
my comfort zone. It was so interesting to watch us both push through that in different ways together and to come together at certain times and reflect on like how much you embrace and actually really enjoy when you have done it and mastered it and stop and think, yeah, like yeah, I'm doing it totally.
And I think for me, like there was that element of I have to network for work, and I've been a coach myself, and I've been a presenter and run businesses, and there's that element of I can do that stuff, but I'd always show up with someone else, you know.
I always mask who I am and I'm presenting. And I made this promise to myself that in this experience, I was going to show up at me and I was just going to be myself, which you all learnt really quick is like a filthy mouth, like slightly clogan.
You know.
And I was like, they can just take me as I am, and if you know, let's see how that lands. And it was like this little self worth experiment for me to go, I'm going to own who I am this trip and I'm going to be uncomfortable and I don't know, like I felt so accepted by this amazing group of women for who I was, and I felt really seen, and I think that gave me just benefits on every level that you know you couldn't. You couldn't
get that if you tried. There's no therapy session that can give you that other than just like getting uncomfortable, like Jack, throwing yourself in and owning who you are totally.
But you know a lot of people in the discomfort will try and mask. As you've said before, it's very hard to mask I think six days. But by you showing up immediately as who you were from the get go, I feel definitely had a triggering effect on everyone up else to deliver that as well. It was this permissive
license going, here's someone just being incredibly real. Let's just like I remember that all of our shit stinks, and being in this icky, uncomfortable space is unnerving at times, and I think we're always defined by an experience, by the component of it that's least like our normal life. But also we all bring to an experience of what is our particular strengths and assets, and we also want
to magnify those in moments as well. So it's this beautiful balance of like, we've all got great things, we've all got this other baggage and stories about ourselves. What if we just show it both? Like what if we throw it all out onto the table right now? And I recently did a keynote of the Business Chicks event and I got off on the stage and someone's like, thank you for just being so real, And I was like, what an interesting piece of feedback to have, because I mean,
isn't that just what we're meant to be? Shouldn't we just be that? And in fact, like when I am saying being real, I think people say that when you don't just show the glamorous sight, when you show like the in between, the mundane, like the challenge, the juggle, which I think makes up the majority of our time on this planet, and then like the gloss is like the two percent, but sometimes we could magnify to two percent.
And I just my response to this lady was if you liked it by seeing it through me, there's a responsibility for you to now show that, to show that exact thing.
Yeah, it's amazing totally.
I think another really beautiful thing about this trip and that we don't often allow ourselves to do, is because there was no purpose, Like we weren't actually there for work. It meant that the networking wasn't to get anything from each other or to like there was no objective even of learning, like we knew we would automatically learn things and have revelations. But because it wasn't like a retreat for relaxing, it wasn't a retreat for working, it wasn't
a retreat for learning. I don't think you very often allow yourself to do stuff that doesn't have a purpose, because it's got to be worth your time. But it meant that we all just made relationships, not through what we could do for each other. And I think that's really interesting as well, because usually it's formed through that
kind of connection. But we were all just there and you know, coming back to that quote like may as well be here, it was like, well, once we got there, we were like, let's just be where we are and you know you mentioned you know, all of our shit stinks, like you guys actually got to witness that mine does, Like oh my gosh.
I mean you know, movement is an incredible lubrication movement. Yeah, And also like the brain connection is like no joke, The gastro intestinal tract is incredibly sensitive to strong and new emotions as well as movement. So like anxiety, fear, anger, nerds can all start to trigger responses in our stomachs. Now, I think by this point, Sarah like was copeing fine, she just needed to go and do a big old
pooh Sarah. And initially she says, it's middle of the hike and we're on this little summit, and I'm like, mate, like, I don't think the spirits are going to appreciate you on this particular point you do if you.
Do that, Sarah, such bad jojo. But I was like, guys, I mean, like, it's got like what do I do? Like I can't help the spirits will understand it's my moment of me.
You can actually feel in the space when it's like no, no, like I've got a hold at this moment totally. But then all of a sudden, like it gets to be like an hour later, Sarah's like, I'm still holding somehow. She just like marches off ahead of everyone in this single file, incredibly exposed, no trees, and she just goes up. She likes to go up, like the mountain.
At this point, Sarah, you don't know, but where on a hill watching growing go down, go down the hill, and you're like marching like you're going onto a display screen.
Oh my god, And like I could hear the drone also going around. I was like, oh my god. But I think the most liberating thing about the whole environment is when you are living in such close quarters with people without your normal stuff, you just get like you cannot hide who you are and what your body's doing. And it's actually like I didn't even care by that moment, because I was like, eh, you know, we're all kind
of humans. And I think that was just one of the coolest things of removing time, removing objectives, removing any kind of facade of work you or relationship you, and all just being ourselves while we ate together every day, and we together every day and like you know, we're at the campfire looking at the stars every day and reflecting every day. It was just so special.
Watching the moon rise.
It was I was like, yeah, I think that was the moment that I really let my.
Watching Sam and who was Hailey.
Hailey and Sarah. We're out outside our tents watching the moon rise and Sam heard me moving inside my tent, goes, Jojo, come out, come out and watch the moon rise. And I walked out and now standing in arm I put my arm around Sam. She put her arm around me, and.
I went sh and she goes what and they poured.
I was thinking that I was trying to steal this really like significant moment of peaceful time, and I just dropped the biggest part.
I literally thought that I was getting in trouble for interrupting the moment, Like I thought you were like shut up.
Like yeah, the spirits shh.
And I was like, now I have arrived, like no, you know me, you know, like once I've broken the space.
So it was like the way you were describing before, Sarah, like one were just kept coming into my mind and it's like primal, You're going back to the root of what humankind was kind of like here for besides the fact the way we're forunicating with each other. Beside that part everything else.
I mean it was only five days though, I mean, if you left us to our own devices, we would have figured it out.
Yeah, I know, there was lots of tooks of my brains.
But you know what else was really lovely was that we were walking on land. It's like seventy thousand years old. It's some of the oldest formations being guided by representatives of the oldest culture of the world. And even like my body, you two are more used to it. My body is not used to walking that many k's a day, but just the sort of stillness of just repetitive motion. I've just walking. I can't even explain how much your
brain goes through while you're doing that. We went through periods of intense revelation to just like laughter, to just dead silence, like a couple of times in the day. There were eight people, plus the two guys who were there who were awesome, who were videoing and taking photos,
but also part of the group. None of us talked sometimes for hours at a time, and like you never get that stillness, but also while your body's moving, and I don't know, it was just amazing, Like I don't really have words that, like you said, Joe, don't sound lanky to describe it.
But it's like meditation though, Like it's a really cool experience where you get to you start chasing thoughts, and that magic moment is then when you notice what you're doing and you become this kind of external viewer watching your brain bounce around filling this space that you so rarely have in day to day life, and you're just going, wow, this is hilarious or you know, and then or you might get onto a really good thought that would happen
sometimes and it was like delicious and you'd just let yourself sink into that while you're hiking and yeah, just like munching down on this amazing you know dream you're having and you're or like for me, I'm just solving the.
World's problems, like I'm saying, oh, I could do this or I could.
Do that, you know, And it's like often you come up with some of your great ideas in those moments. And the opposite is when you hit the hard times And Sarah, I don't walk normally. I run a lot, so I actually found that physically challenging as well, having a head. I'm sure Saantic too, having a heavy pack and hiking. My legs were tired and I was ready
to stop some days. And so then noticing my negative self talk and trying to work on that and trying to catch that and redirect it and reorient it and just neutralize it, you know, was really a great gift because that's what we bring back. That's an application we use in work and life and love as well. So I, you know, that's all stuff you get from silence.
I was about to say, silence, like it doesn't really play a very big role in our day to day lives where it maybe should. Maybe one of the things that I took back was that obviously, being a podcaster and a host, like I talk all the time, and then because I like to actualize experiences through talking, that I'm talking in my personal life as well. But when you allow silence, beautiful things happen, and I think because we often feel like we need to fill those silences.
The other thing that I really loved learning about Indigenous culture was that there's a really big concept of it's not your story to tell, which we kind of ended up laughing about a little bit at the end. But you know, if it's not your story. You don't have to always be explaining things, and you don't have to know everything about everything, and like, I'm sure we all got frustrated a few times when we were like, tell me about this land, and Perula, who was Jungla the
elder's grandson, he'd say, I can't. This is not my family's land. I can't speak about this, and we're sort of like, well, we've come all the way out here and I want to know what this land is and I want to know the story, so tell me. But I like that the discretion of, like, you don't have to talk about everything and understand everything was kind of nice.
Yeah, it was. I think the way Perula guided us was why we were silent. I think if we were left to our own devices, we would have gone into our default settings of chattering through thinking that's a way of connecting. And I think he kind of made us reflect on the fact that when all you're doing is talking, that's all you're hearing. And so that's why we went
out with them. Like, I really feel like there were so many little life lessons that you may not incorporate every element into everyday life, but even recently I've been saying either that's that's not my story to tell, or if I do say it, I kind of definitely flag
it by going, I'm going to share this part. I think in this context like I have permissioned to share it, because sometimes you do need to pass on bits of information, but to kind of be aware that the message is getting diluted every single time someone passes on a piece of that story and making sure that it never gets to a point where, like you telling someone else's story, is you getting involved in gossip and bitch or negative
narrative for whatever reason. And I recently went through a thing a while ago, and I was like, sometimes people don't know the great things that other people do, so I might share it, so like, you know, this person said this, and I thought that that was really great because particularly when I did in the context of this person said a really beautiful thing about you the other day. They might not have told you, but they told me, and I can see how it would make the other
person feel. And now I'm just in my day to day life, I'm like, Okay, so is that mover stepping a boundary? Yes? I had good intentions behind it, but was that maybe not mine to tell I like the thought of it now, Like that's what experiencing other cultures is all about. Like every time you go to a professional development conference, Like it's not like you're going to come out of carbon copy of that particular experience or that culture or that set of thinking. But you go, Okay, well,
what in that works really well for my life? That allows me to create my own formula and my own set of guidelines, but how I want to live my life connected to my values and my integrity. Yeah, and so that's what I like. I like being shaken up to think differently. And it was so interesting when Perula first told us to shut the fuck up without using those words, but that's how my internals interpreted it, like I was being told off as a school kid. And
he even did like the mirroring action. He like pointed to the eyes, pointed to the heart, and then did a zip of the lips, and I did. I gutturally felt like, oh I'm naughty. I shouldn't be talking now. My inner side felt like I want to defend. I need a just and then I was like, sit with that uncomfortableness, and that's okay, it's actually freaking okay. To be uncomfortable that maybe you said the wrong thing or
and you can hold space for it. And I went on a hiking trip to Tasmania earlier this year and I actually do like to hike in silence, particularly when I'm in the hurt blocker, and I think a lot of people try and wipe away their pain through conversation, and whilst conversing is amazing, it's sometimes okay to be with it and to like sit with struggle, sit with challenging emotions and to not always wipe them away straight away, like we're quite capable and that's actually something that builds
up our resilience to kind of deal with it. And so sometimes in that silent moment because we have Tom and I hiked, this is like, what do you love so much about hiking? And they're asking Aazilian questions and I was like, sometimes the silence.
Just quickly interrupting today's episode to take you back to what you now know is my earliest hometown of Warrigal. You may have seen our recent years of our lives trip there with women in Gippsland and one of the incredible local businesses I had the privilege of meeting and
falling in love with was Ossie Wool Comfort. You've probably gathered already that I deeply appreciate the impact of our choices as consumers and highly value shopping with Australian made, family owned businesses who showcase the best of our beautiful home here in Australia. I also value anything that enhances sleep quality and makes bedtime feel cozy. So it took absolutely no convincing to make the swap to Ossi Wool Comfort's range of bedding products. I literally drove home with
a bootful. I think it was a picture somewhere of me with a whole bootful of goodies. The range is made from one hundred percent pure Ossie wool with natural cotton japara outers and is chemical free with natural fibers, giving us an allergy free, deliciously fluffy quilt for all year round. We loved it so much that then recently we added the under blanket to top our mattress and wrap us up in a fluffy wall sandwich. Oh my gosh, it's so cozy, and of course couldn't go past the
dog bed for Paul. Those come in four sizes and our machine washable Oh so your fur babies can also enjoy the comfort and warmth of wool without overheating. I'll pop the link in the show notes so you can check out the full range and score yourself. The sound Asleep with Ossie Wall Comfort and the team have very generously given us forty percent off everything excluding the pet bads and giftouchers. If you use the code Sarah forty at the checkout, do yourself a favor and jump online.
The link is in the show notes.
Everything you're saying remind like it's so yogic, you know. The Dalai Lama talks about enlightenment not being sitting on a mountaintop completely free of thought with this completely empty mind. It's about being able to so constantly notice what your
mind does and what you do. And when you're talking about that, and when you're talking about how you noticed that you were angry and you were you know, your ego is kind of getting challenged when you felt naughty and when you start to reflect in everyday life, Oh, was that my story to tell?
Should I think about that?
To me, we're just getting so much closer to becoming enlightened people, you know, to traveling the earth in an enlightened way, which is simply in other words, self awareness, you know. And the more we embed ourselves in these situations and allow ourselves to experience things in this surrendering way, the more enlightened we become, because the more we re enter life and just start going, Oh, that kind of ties to something I felt on that trip, you know, like,
what does what does that Behave you do? Am I telling that story? Why am I feeling my ego challenged by this? And you know it helps us grow in so many ways totally.
I think the quote that I used before, this quote of the A obviously was a mindstre by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions. And I love that because you really feel your brain actually stretching as you see new ways of doing things and think about like there's that sort of confronting, discomfort, processing, acceptance, surrender process you could see us all going through each
day at different points. Is there any way that you found your mind stretched from this particular experience that you will never be able to go back from. Like your biggest takeaway of like, wow, I won't be the same because of.
That, mom would be to touch on that when I spoke about earlier of really having to sit in that uncomfortable place of deeply being myself around people I don't
know and wanting to get away from that. And I have returned with a level of self assurance about owning who I am in my circles and trusting that that won't be for everybody, and you returning to that adage you know, that's not my people, not for them, They're not my people, and being okay with that, because what this trip taught me is that when I am myself, you know there will be people who who love that and who will support me and who I will give back to and that is enough. And I think I'm
never going to go backwards on that. I'm going to keep challenging. It's not going to be easy for me because I've spent a lifetime of not doing that, but I think that I'm very committed to showing up in my leadership at work, you know, in every environment, when I'm presenting, when I'm teaching, when I'm raising my kids at PTA meetings, like, I'm going to show up with me And I think.
Yeahs show that's so beautiful, You're so articulate.
Yeah, Except when I'm dropping the F bomb constantly.
Face You're welcome, Yeah, what about you, Sammy.
I think there's a lot of juicy stuff out of it. And I definitely I actually came out incredibly energized from an experience that sometimes people think that you might come back exhausted. I didn't feel that way, Like I if I hadn't have done that, I don't think i'd be working on the projects that I'm working on now. That I think because I created space for myself, I could start to see what was important, and so if I was to distill that into what would I take moving forward?
Is the importance of crafting space. Yeah, crafting space with maybe not a clear objective, crafting space with important people on country, in environments and landscapes that make me feel something different than what I do in my normal life. The power of that, and also just the recognition of like, I have an incredible group of women in my life, and I think sometimes we silo our friendships to you know, like Sarah and I we've known each other for fourteen
years and we went through university. So I'll preserve and protect and keep that relationship just to me. In Sad and Joe is my running friend, and Kemmy is my speaking friend, and Hailey I do female adventurers stuff with. In fact, if all the women in your life come from vast different backgrounds walks of life, but they hold similar values, bring that shit together.
Amen.
Amen?
Yeah, because now I'm just it's so nice that I have like eight of my girlfriends who I adore and love, and they all adore and love and call upon and love each other. And I think sometimes people can get really protective of their relationships, professional or personal, and I try not to do that. And this was an embodiment
of me going like, you know, utilize it. You know, no one went in there with commercial objectives or personal objectives really, but you know, use Karen for pr like go and get training advice from Joe get on Sarah's podcast Abundance that Up.
And I felt that gosh, I felt that I felt like I walked away with seven new friends, like I really I really did. Like it wasn't like, oh, we're on holidays together and you know, have a good life. I was like these and I felt that from you, Sammy. I felt that openness and it felt fresh, like it's like this is this is a thing we need to build on as a womanhood. You know this, You know there is abundance, There is lots of seats at the table, and yeah, I think it's you really got a ball rolling.
And you can see that from like how many women reached out being like how can we do this?
When can we come?
And it's so exciting say that her trails is turning into something, which kind of leads into the next section of yighborhood. Watch really cool things that are happen happening out in the neighborhood, three of which are related to you, Sam, which is no great surprise really once anyone knows Sam that you usually all the cool things in the neighborhood are related to you somehow of it.
So talk us.
Through a how you know people in the future might be able to get involved in these kinds of experiences. Be what you two in particular are going back to do and see the third incredible thing that you have both been working on that we can all get involved in in the next couple of weeks.
I definitely think one of my strengths is corrolling people in my life to move in a certain direction. But again it's all values driven. You know, like I think even a broader level, I think people want to have space, they want to have a solution to something, they want to have a way to be involved. They just don't not always know how to do it. So I guess, first one, are we going to be doing more of
these experiences? Well, as I said, it wasn't like the intention to necessarily do that, But afterwards I was like, ah, we have got We've like, we've got the most incredible supplies, we know, the best accommodations. This has to be experienced again for people to create their own formula of how this looks, so, you know, like Joe and I do. I was like, oh, okay, we'll call the last Opportunity in the Sea and it would be August before it
goes too hot in Laalara, Pintera. So yeah, we're hosting another retreat for her Trails, basically the exact same thing, you know, two nights at a place called Aramone Romina Homestead, which is a six hundred acre property thirty kilometers away from Alice, where we'll be sleeping in glamping tents and having incredible food and moving our bodies and you know, and then sunrise hikes and sunrise you know, sunset hikes as well, and then getting on country for three days
with Larapina Culture and then finishing out the Hilton and doing a hot air ballooning. So that's in August. I think it's the seventeenth of August, is that right, Joe? Yeah, yeah, Joe actually to take time off work because she's co facilitating with me.
And unfortunately, guys, there are actually no places because we're all coming back to day.
I want to preface it because you know, if there are people who reach out to her straight away, I want to say it's an aspirational trip because you know, the price of working with all these different operators there is a There is a price, and I definitely didn't want to discount working with an indigenous guiding group. And you know, our accommodation is beautiful and you're nourished celluarly with your food, with your rest, with the you know,
the experiences that you have. The fee for the seven days is seven thousand dollars, and I want to say that upfront because I just want to put it out there and it is an investment in not just you, It's an investment in the connections that you're going to make the people that will come out in your lives and also just the opportunities that will flow from it. So it's like the MBA of adventure.
Why didn't we put that on the flyer?
I like, well, yeah, I mean I just made it up then, But I have because like this Her Trails, you organization that you know you've been speaking about Sarah,
which this retreat is run out of. I really have been feeling that three tenants out of Her Trails is allowing women to feel opportunity where they can be self reliant, develop and harness their existing resilience and building from it, and then also finding the lightness, which is where like that joy is sreum where I feel like you've been so incredible in my life, are reminding like joy has to underpin every single thing that you do in order for us to not walk away at the end of
our days on this planet and go. I just didn't allow myself to be happy, which is the fifth common regret that people have on their deathbed, written by a book of Bronnie Ware, the Five Common Regrets of the dying. Who wants her to speak the other day and I adore that woman and like the you know her story that she told through that book. But the first regret was I wish I didn't let other people basically determine how I would my life. And then the fifth one, yay,
whish I let myself be happier. And so so often I'm like, all these things are based on choice, Like do I choose to have this experience? Do I choose to craft time for myself? Do I choose to see the lightness in this? It's your choice. Everything that we do, and particularly in the privileged lives that we live in here, we can definitely say that. So if anyone is interested in doing this treat, obviously short turn around time, but
you will be nourished on every level. And we have probably the coolest swag that you're want to come out of this troop. But I don't even tell you that because it's a.
Surprise, because you don't need to know everything in advance.
Yeah, we've already had a bunch of women who've signed up for it. There's a maximum ten on it, so it's like it's small and it's intimate, very one on one. You know, we co create the experience in the moment as well, so the women on, like Erica Kramer from you know, the Confidence Queen Tina Towers. I just want to say her name twenty times, Tina Towers, Tina Towers her, He's amazing be a singer. Yeah, Oh my gosh, I just want to go Tinternitya Towers.
Don't do that. I do that, Okay.
I saw her face looking I'm like, oh, okay, this is one of those moments of being judge. But I'm going to keep rolling with it.
That's true love.
But you know, coming out of that, I was just you know, a bit of context to Joe's and my friendship, telling a part of her story to.
Tell Sam stop, I'm giving it to you.
But that's not true. But years ago, Joe created an organization called Summit Sisters, and I was close friend to Joe back in the day when she did that, but it closed down for whatever reason and Joe never spoke about it again, and so I when I was creating her trails, I kind of totally forgot that so much sisters that had ever been in existence until as I'm like crafting the project and she goes, I've got all this material, and I'm like, why do you have all
this material, like why have you written documents and documents and documents you know, summut sisters, And I'm like, oh my gosh, there are people in your close community that offer so much more depth of resource and wisdom. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. Like we can stand on the shoulders of giants, and our giants are our friends and our people that we choose to be aligned with. Uh, and we cut time dramatically and like get shit done.
Absolutely, which both of you have been doing as well with the experience at kind of the other end of the spectrum. So one is quite intimate and curated, and the next one is like as many people around the world as we can get on board, talk us through that.
Hit it, Joe, you know what we're talking about.
Okay, so this is really I feel like Sam should be talking to this.
So I'll briefly introduce Sam, but let me introduce Sam, like she needs that.
Yeah.
So late last year, if anyone was under a rock, Sam and Nick Davidson, who I think you know, Sarah, I might.
Have met him before.
Yeah, they founded the relief run Like in it felt like thirty seconds to rush to the aid of the Australian bushfire victims who were really struggling and raised one point one something million dollars to the astrone Red Cross bush Fire Appeal. And then obviously Sam has huge ties in year after her run India project and has always had her heart there ever since. I think you've been there like six times, Sammy, and so we're all watching India really suffer at the moment, like in a way
that is quite I don't have language for it. All I do is cry when I see it, and it's and I know Sam and I have been in tears looking at stuff together recently. It's genuinely heartbreaking. And so Sam's just called it and gone, we're bringing back the relief runt. And she called me and said I want to do this.
I need help.
And so I called my people and said, Sam wants to do this, she needs help. And we've pulled together a cracking little team and yeah, I'll hand over to you, Sammy.
Oh. I mean, this is why we're in partnership, and this is where an example of like together we can tell the story because we all have different elements that bring it together. And I think India is in the groups of just a crisis that they can't overcome on its own. And that's not kind of being this white
savior complex. It's actually like a community is going through significant suffering right now, and Australia and particularly a lot of other countries in the world are not in that depth of crisis, and we can all them support to each other, you know what we're seeing on the media, Like I feel like, if you're not paying attention, you
won't even know. And probably all you're hearing about is the you know, Australian who are in India and need to get home, which obviously is an issue, but what about the people who can't get out, who are caught in that situation day in, day out, And so like for anyone who's kind of like data oriented. They have officially listed that over twenty six million cases of COVID i've been recorded in India, which is the more than the population of Australia, and four thousand people minimum have
died every single day over the past three weeks. And it's said to be a gross underestimate. And there's a whole lot of reasons why that's a gross underestimate, from the fact that they don't have COVID testing. In the rural communities, they don't have hospitals, they don't have facilities, people are on the census. There's so many reasons why that's not right. We're also going to have a whole generation of children that are orphaned, and it's not just
the elderly like it was in Australia. You know, I expect to a friend today who's in an Australian Indian. She was born in India and she said, in the last month four of her family members have died in India and two of them are in their fifties. When the resources medically are already stretched across the border in India, but even far more stretched in rural communities when something like this happens, like they just can't cope. It hurts
my heart that we're not seeing this more. Because when Australia was going through a crisis, and it was of course the Bushbye crisis was huge, and not to compare the two, but it was all over the news, not just in Australia but everywhere. Like we had so many Americans who came on board to the relief front because their New Cycle twenty four seven was the Australian bushfire crisis. We're not seeing that here. And like my question too, and anyone in media is listening to this, why is that?
Why can one community have sorry, I'm getting my soapbox like in one community, like we hear I'm take it a bit lighters the age, No, but like, why is that? Are we to sensitized because we need to to be able to cope with the fact that it's so unfair
what's happening? Or did we see so many like poverty stricken photos of Indian children when we were younger through a lot of you know, child sponsorship campaigns that to cope with those images, we just kind of say, oh, that's what happens in India and it's too big a problem and it's not my problem. But I'll put it forward to people that India accounts for one six of the world's population. And if you're not getting some invoices paid right now, I'll tell you probably because the teams
are in India. We are so inextricably linked to India, if not professionally, definitely personally. And so whether you jump on board with a relief front, I just which I would love you to do think in your life who may be connected to India, and if they're based in India, reach out to them, because there's nothing worse when you feel like you're going through crisis and overwhelmed both personally and medically economically, to feel alone.
Yeah, that's it.
I don't know a more apt way of saying, but for the grace of God, go I in this. You know, we are so fortunate to be where we are and to be born into the place that we are born into. These people did nothing to deserve what they're going through, and there's nothing about us that's better than them, you know, like that could be them, and if we were, then we would expect and pray and hope that someone would come to our aid. And I really think COVID's taught
us one thing. It's that, you know, we are really one global family. We've got all these ridiculous borders that we put up in our world and say here's the line, this is ours, this is yours, But we are one human kind. And I know it sounds cliche, but I think COVID's taught us that more than anything. And we really do need to stop turning to the media for what matters most, and I feel like we've got a
responsibility to educate ourselves on that. And we all put blinkers on, and I'm so guilty of this as well, of just looking at what's directly in front of us as we all over schedule and put one foot in front of the other. And so a big ask here is just to take the blinkers off, look at this Like it's hard to look at but it's the least we can do is to look at it and then think like, how can I help this in one way?
Because it is those microactions for mass change, and this is going to be the only way this gets done.
And I think that is so important, the microactions thing, because what it can be, really what can be a big obstacle to people actually doing something. I think Relief Run last year showed all of us how willing people are to do something to help. It's just that often they're so overwhelmed about which vehicle is going to be
the right way to do it. It either is like if my donation isn't massive, it's not going to have an impact, or who do donate to or whe's it going to go and all those kinds of things, And I think Relief Run made it really simple. It makes it really simple to jump on board and do what you can with what you have. Where you are, anywhere in the world. You can go for a run, you can go for a walk like it's just it really simplifies something that's really overwhelming. But the willingness I think
is there much more than you would expect. It's just giving people a way to show that. And so my recommendation for this week is sign up, sign up. The website is live. It's the longer weeken so the eleventh to the thirteenth of June, so a couple of weeks away, and there is really no excuse not to because you don't have to be in a particular place, like explain the actual logistics of it, Sammy.
Yeah, this time we've added a few more flavors to the offering. We have a three K kids run, we have a five K, ten K and twenty one point one kilometer, and then you can also be about ass and do what we call the trifecta, which is Joe's Inclusion.
Which is just for Joe, just for Joe.
You can do the five, ten and twenty one kilometer over the entire week nd, and that's the trifecta, and that's a pretty amazing challenge to kind of get that all in over the weekend. But as Sarah said, anywhere, anytime, and what made this so big last time is that a lot of group runs happened, and so like people said, Okay, how I'm going to meet you at Saturday AM at
Albert Park ten am. Let's go and do a half marathon or a ten k, and then they shed it with their communities and more and more, and we had community events all over the world and we've definitely had a lot of teams set up and we do that through the back end and then people can align their individual registration to that team in a drop down menu and it allows you then once you get the results, to kind of go, okay, well where's the CZA team
And you can actually go the c'sa community collectively did X amount of kilometers and we raise X amount of dollars, like that's what our communities like impact was, And then we can also give you the data of like, so x amount of dollars, that's how far it goes into this circumstance, so it's fifty dollars. He pays a registration fee and then the relief front gives it as all of it, all of it to a donation to World
Visioned Australia's India COVID nineteen a PL. And because I have run across India and worked in partnership with World Vision, I think I'm in a position to say, hand on hard that money goes to the people on the ground. You know, world Vision have had one of the longest
standing imprints within India and working with the community. In fact, when they fund a community, they stay there typically twenty years, and at the beginning, like they're heavily involved and they hire staff members from their area, they train them, they
skill them. By the end of the twenty year cycle, like the community is completely running it, calling all the shots, and it might just be like they get, you know, the financial contribution and a little bit of guidance or expertise where they need it, and then they run it on their own, so they're there for the long haul,
not just in these moments of crisis. I've spoken to a lot of my friends who work for World Vision India on the ground, and that's what's also like I'm holding onto too because they're sick or their family members are sick, and they're still working, like trying to do something for their broader community. You know, it's a lot, but I can also say, like fifty dollars goes such
a long way in these communities. If anyone has a corporate organization that wants to get on board, because we're a nimble, small team, we can facilitate for you to make it a tax seductible donation. We'll set up a promo code in the back end that allows you to then register your individual participants. It might work for the corporate group. So you know, quantas smart wanting know a in Z you know George Bank.
I don't want to name names, but I'm going to.
Well, I'm to name names, and I think we should applaud businesses that move really quickly because often bureaucracy gets in the way of swift movement. AI Australia has like totally just dominated this they I sent the CEO, Damon Damien, a text message at seven or eight pm on a Friday night, going, hey, I'm going to create the relief run. I know you've got team members in India, no pressure,
but let me know if you want any affiliation. I got a text message at seven am on Saturday morning and he's like, we're in let's chat, and so off the weekend. We chatted on the Monday morning. He's like, I've just got got you to have a meeting with a few people, and I'm eating my bolonnaise over like a zoom session. All of sudden realized it's like the heads of all like the countries. I'm like, hey, Bolinnai Bolonne is sitting away and they were just like, okay,
what can we do? Like I think careers gone on board Samsung. I think like they might have got their global ambassador on board, mister Beckham. But we'll see. Mic Drop may have been writing some cooking notes to him the other night, wasn't.
It's not my story to tell, So it's.
It's total by the long story short, like we all can play a little part, and it's also really fun to move together. It's actually you'll benefit from going out for a five k run on a Saturday knowing that it's going to a good place and you're a part of something that's bigger than yourself. So get on board and listen.
You've become a singer this episode.
I know, I just wouldn't to tell me up again. It kind of feels nice.
Can't be good at everything?
Girl?
Do you know that I was the leader of the sopranos and I was at high school. It wasn't a year level of forty nine, so they might have been like scraping at the barrel.
Oh well, you guys are absolutely amazing. Thank you so so much for joining and sharing so much wisdom and laughter and joy and everyone in the neighborhood. It would just be so wonderful if you could rally around relief run and show your support and also have an amazing time like who you meet such great people. Last year we had so so many new friends come and join
at the Lake. And we'll include details across our socials of how you can get involved in some of the community runs that you can maybe tack onto as well.
I can already tell you one because even though I didn't ask for permission, I credit SEZ THEA as a group that you can find up hearing this through the podcast. Feel free to sign up through to SEEZ the A.
Yeah you're right, I did it. You're a group.
Yeah, yeah, thing. You just do what we can and have a lot of fun, like it's just such a nice excuse to see people amazing.
Thank you so much, my loves, we'll chat soon.
Thanks for having us.
I'm actually quite surprised that we fitted that into an hour, even though it was meant to be half an hour. We could have gone for days if we've been able to. Maybe lucky for you guys that we didn't. Such incredible women. I feel so lucky to call them friends. And I'm sure you can imagine how amazing the other five women on our trip were. I mean, we barely touched on
them for all our guest bagging. But you'll actually hear from a few of them as well in the coming One of them you've already heard from Keminik Fapil, who's also been a guest before. Please do consider registering for Relief Run. You can walk, run, or even do nothing at all with us on the weekend of the eleventh to thirteenth of June, but your registration alone can make such a huge impact, and I've popped some practical information breaking down what that fifty dollars can do in the
show notes along with the registration link. We'll be doing a community run in person in Melbourne again like we did last year, that I would love to see some of you at and we'll share in the Facebook group when details are finalized. In the meantime, I hope you're having a wonderful week and are seizing your Yay