Hi there, it's Chrissy Swan live from the Compound, and you're listening to the Chrissy Cast. They Ask Me Anything round of episodes. Geez, I've enjoyed them. I'm loving them, and I hope that you're loving them too, and I hope you're getting a little Do you remember in romper Room, Miss Helena would often say I see you Claire, and I see you Jimmy, and you would just get such
a thrill if she said your name. Hopefully you're getting a thrill if Rachel is reading out your name as one of the contributors on Ask Me Anything.
Speaking of welcome Rachel.
Thank you, Chrissy, thank you for being such a wonderful moderator and asking all the deep and meaningful questions.
It's a pleasure to be here. Glad to be darving it.
Let's get crack in again.
Well, this one's quite personal. Beck has said, you know, sorry forgetting so personal, but how are you handling co parenting. I'm six months in and I'm exhausted.
Yes, well, co parenting is exhausting. Parenting is exhausting, particularly if you've got other you know, obligations and responsibilities. I hear you I mean, you know, do we even have time to talk about the mental load? It is extraordinary, you know. Even today I've got, you know, as well as earning all the money to keep everybody afloat. You know, I need to find time to swing past and get Leo's shorts that I've popped in yesterday to be altered.
I've got to get them today because I'm running out of.
Excuses to send to his school because he doesn't have the right shorts. It is utterly exhausting. But in terms of co parenting, it's all very new to me. So I'm working out what that looks, to be completely honest with you, And bottom line is I'm enjoying it.
I'm enjoying it. I am enjoying it.
As I said, it's very new, and I think my children are in the adjustment phase.
But that's life. That is life.
And I think that a little bit of discomfort is good for children.
At any age.
And I have been guilty of ensuring that there has never been any discomfort for my children, and I think that that is a mistake. I think it's a mistake to try and make everything so great well.
Tam Russ has asked a question here that a lot of people have asked through You'll ask me any things, and it's about how do you juggle everything that you do and have the energy to do it. And there was a lot of this question being brought up around parenting as well as work. How do you do it?
A lot of lists, a lot of what I call horizontal thinking, so which I've had to learn. It is not natural for me to think in terms of what do I need for this day coming up? What do I need for this month coming up? And I've learnt how to set alarms right, reminders all over my house are calendars that I can write on with whiteboard markers. You've got to find what works for you, because the bottom line is women in particular are responsible for a
great many more people than just themselves. And it is very easy to drop the ball and miss the thing and forget the thing. And you know, I am guilty of that. And the more I take on, the more likelihood there is of me dropping balls. But there are systems, and again, you've just got to spend some time alone.
If you can spend some time alone, you will work out what you need to make sure that you're ticking all the boxes for yourself and for everybody else, because there is no escaping the fact that we have to do that. It's no escaping it because if you in a dream state, if you go fuck it, I'm not doing it. That doesn't work either. We absolutely are obligated to do these things for other people, and even if
we don't want to, we must. So we need to work out a way to make it happen in a way that doesn't come back and bite us on the ass. If we all did what we secretly want to do sometimes and just say fuck it all, he's not going to have his shorts, they're not going to have the right yo play yogurt that they love for lunch. I'm going to disconnect the direct debit for Spotify.
Fuck them.
They don't have to have live music whatever, you know, all of that stuff. If we did that are our secret moments that we want to do, that just causes us guilt fights all of that down the track. So you've got to choose your heart. And the fact of the matter is there is no escaping these obligations. We must do it. Nobody else can do it. Women are amazing. We can do it. All we do do it all, but you need to carve out something for yourself. And
that's where my walking comes in. That's where my cooking comes in. That's where my building fires comes in. That's where my washing the cupboard fronts comes in. I know it sounds so crazy, but my idea of heaven is a house with nobody in it, a mop and some fresh cloths and a bottle of cleaner, and I absolutely love it. Also, containers. I like to put things in containers.
This is what I mean.
If you just spend a little bit of time really being honest with yourself, with your craziness, with your lady madness, because we're all mad, right, your list of things that can bring you joy and make you physically and mentally able to give to everybody else looks very different for other people. I had my haircut yesterday for the first time.
I made her check two years.
I mean, oh, my soul.
And this is what I mean. It's so easy to just forget yourself. So I had my haircut and she was telling me she borrowed a beautiful jilly, she borrowed a carpet cleaner from her friend, and she said it was the most wonderful. Few hours of her life, and I thought, this sounds like a bit of me, which is what happens when you talk to a woman at any time. You always get something where you go, oh,
hang on a minute. So of course I went straight onto Google and I got myself a like a Black Friday sale carpet steamer because I realized I had the carpets done in the house that I live in the compound this one, and I have not washed them or anything. I'm sure Murphy's pissed. There there's blue tag, do you know what I mean? There's got to be DNA everywhere. It'd light up like a Christmas tree if you put luminol.
Right.
So I was like, okay, So if I spend four hundred dollars on this carpet cleaner, I got a good one.
I was on sale.
I get the joy of doing it myself, right, which is good for my brain. I'm doing something and I'm alone. That's my favorite combo, and it's gonna save me money because in order to get someone to do that to your carpets, it's like minimum one thousand dollars. And now I've got the machine. I'm going to do my house and then I can say to my best friend back, hey do you want to use it? I can then be of service to others.
So the lady madness, it just keeps on giving.
It just keeps giving. That's the thing.
Costs me four hundred dollars for this, but the benefits for me and for others are priceless.
Hey, Chrissy, Lola girl in Melbourne has asked, being over fifty hour, do you find life more liberating?
Absolutely? Absolutely?
And you know everybody is talking about how you know it's so great to be fifty And I remember when I wasn't fifty.
I would read that like, I really is it?
And I am here to tell you it is because like the zero fuckness of it is so amazing, because you've been on a journey getting to know somebody for fifty years. Fifty years you've been living in your body, in your mind, and if you're anything like me, you just know yourself so well now and it's so joyous to live with somebody that you know so well, which is yourself.
How do you feel about the phrase fifty is the new forty and forty is the near thirty.
I don't love it for this reason. It implies that being younger is somehow better than being on. So the fact that you know fifty is the new forty means that you know being older is not as good as being younger, and I vehemently disagree, vehemently disagree. Having said that, there is a risk if you don't stop the constant pulls on your time and energy, if you don't stop to reassess them and see how they really sit with you, then I think you run the risk of getting beyond
fifty and being miserable. It really does involve for fifty to be amazing. It involves a little bit of selfishness. It involves occasionally saying I don't think that sits well with me. And you don't need to say those words to anybody else. You just need to say them to yourself. You just need to keep it all in house. Nobody needs to know that you are carving out something for yourself. Nobody needs to know you can just do it. In fact, I started therapy for the very first time and I've
got to go back, but iulation thank you. I really recommend it. Having said that, it is so hard to get in to see anybody, and it's expensive, and for those reasons and many more. You know, I haven't been for years, but I when I started, I think I did maybe five or six sessions. And it was great because I got to start every conversation with this, is it normal to blah blah blah, And it was so good to ask all these questions of somebody else, impartial, just to see where I was at in terms of
is it normal? I remember the first one I asked, was is it normal that sometimes I don't want to be contactable? I just found myself everywhere I went, I was checking in with someone, you know, I was like, oh, I'm I was telling somebody, a colleague, you know, my partner at the time, one of the kids. I've just left work, I've got to go past the supermarket. I'll be home at six.
It's like being a kid all over again.
I just didn't want to do it. I didn't not all the time.
There are times that you know, that's fine, but it was really getting all my tits that everybody knew, someone knew where I was all the time, and that when I said to him, is it okay? Is it normal that I just want to disappear Sometimes I just want to be nowhere? Sometimes and he's like, yeah, of course it is. And that is when I started to walk, actually, because I thought, how can I disappear but in a palatable way, and you can say I'm going for a walk,
and then that's the end of the conversation. I don't then have to say, in twenty minutes, I'm around the corner, I'm walking past a servo, I'm here. You know, It's like you get two hours under the umbrella of I'm going for a walk where you can go and do whatever you want. And look, you know, I'm not saying that I was doing anything underward, but just to be walking in the world was huge for me.
Well, lots of people have questions about your walking, and this one just a bit of an icebreaker. And Marie Lee wants to know what is your favorite walking outfit or shoes and what else do you have to take with you on your walk?
This is genius.
So I love active where I love it, and I don't care about the articles that say active where it is not leg like leggings aren't pants and whatever. Could not give a shit what people think I like it?
Can I interrupt just for one mo? Sure have you heard that cameltoes are the new it thing. No, it's genuinely it was like the gg had did or someone like that, and they're like, it's in.
The camel toe is in.
The cameltoe is in.
Good lord, Well, good news for anyone who's got a cameltoe.
I do not muff knuckle the house knuckle.
You know what.
The man version of the cameltoe is the moose knuckle, and I love that so much. It's very thrilling to see a moose knuckle in the wild. Anyway, I wear active wear most days. Today, I'm in jeans because i'm, you know, putting in an effort. But I wear activewear and Hokker Runners or Hoker I don't know how you pronounced them. But I wear them exclusively every single day. And this is not a paid whatever. I paid good money for them. I find them on sale and I
wear them every day. And it was a game changer for me to do this because when I was starting my escape from a life that I wanted to escape from, I needed to be ready to go at.
A moment's notice.
So my first commitment four years ago, when I started my breakdown and rebuild my renovation, was every single day. The very first thing I did was put on my runners and my active wear, and that remains.
I thought it would wear off.
I thought once I was in the swing of things that I would be able to, you know, wear exercise gear and change out of it. But that has been the case. I am ready to go at a moment's notice, even with my genes. Today I'm doing the Jerry seinfeldt of my hawkers, Oh love, because there may be a twenty minute window where I can walk to the post office and pick something up for the kids, or there might be a fifteen minute window where you know, I
can walk somewhere. And that's the other thing. My walking isn't just a selfish thing. Sometimes it is, but more often than not, it involves, as most things do for women, an active service in there. So I've got to go to kmart for a click and collect for a school sports carnival for my daughter. Yeah, yellow T shirt and yellow streamers whatever, anyway, I will walk there, even though you know, the cam up things got nothing to do
with me. It's an active service. But to get it, I'm sneaking in a little bit of me and that has worked for me so well. Oh and what else do I need? Obviously my bum bag. I wear my belly bag every single day for every reason. In the front of it is my po box key, So in case I'm on my walk and I'm in the vicinity of my po box, I'll go in and check that. I always have a backpack on my back, usually empty. Sometimes I come home with an empty backpack, but I
just never know where I'm going to end up. And sometimes I end up in like a funny little jam shop and I want to buy a jam and where am I going to put it? So I've got to have my hands free put it in the bag.
That is the best life hack I've ever heard, Chris this one.
Always carry an empty backpack. Always love that.
All right, we need to ask a really important question here. Joanna Desusa wants to know what moment in time would you go back and revisit h would you ever do the birth thing over again?
No? I feel like that is see it on my memory. I can like astral travel. Yeah, I can as still travel right back to those moments. I don't need to tell you. I'd love to see my birth That is a very significant moment that I have not seen. Yes, I would love to see that. I want to see what Patti Swan looked like that time. I want to check a mood.
Do you think it had change your relationship with her?
Now?
It could? It could?
Yeah, God, I've only just thought of that. Wouldn't that be fascinating? Would you love to see your birth?
Yeah?
I'm obsessed with birth. Show me any births. I'm down. It's weird, it's an obsession.
But do you watch that show one morn every minute or something?
Absolutely? Yeah. I actually follow a lot of Instagram accounts. I have a specific Instagram called womb Mate that I go on and that's where all the birthing videos come through, so that they don't come through on my normal Instagram feed.
Which brings me. This is a very neat segue.
You have come into my life and it feels like, you know, it's just magic.
Because let's go back and have a look at me birthy you.
I've always been fascinated in the concept of surrogacy, and I always thought, for this podcast, I really want to find somebody that's been a surrogate, because for me, it is the ultimate selfless act, and as selfless as I am, I've always thought I just couldn't do that. I don't think I could find I just don't think I could find it in myself to carry a baby and give it to somebody else. And you have arrived in my life, and you have been a surrogate I have. I just
think it's the most extraordinary thing. And we are going the tables are going to be turned, Rachel, and I'm going to be asking you many many questions about that in an upcoming podcast on the Christy Cast.
Best thing I've ever done.
Really love the meeting you.
Of course, of course, don't tell me anything else. Just keep your powder dry for the full deep dive. Well, there you have it. Are you getting the answers you are require?
Got a hope.
So that's it for another episode of Ask Me Anything, the very special series me and Rachel are putting together for you on the Christy Cast Live from the Compound.
We'll be back with more as soon as I've had a little rest and a breather.