I'll get a team. Welcome to another installment, the new project. I almost forgot the name of mind Joe hang on, let me just check. Yep, do you hang on? Let me just look it up again. Capital T what yep? You project? Hi TIV, my harps. I'm stumbling towards Christian. I'm getting my words muddled, My mort's waddled.
Your brain's clocked off, your brain's gone on holidays.
It can't clock off. You know why I can't clock off? Well, one, it's twelve thirty six and I've got a forty five minutes or so. Do you chat to you and the lovely doctor Lillian. But then it's fifteen hundred, which is two and a half hours away. I've got like a really big UNI meeting with all my supervisors, and I'm very I'm very scared. I'm thinking of taking some kind
of stimulant ten minutes beforehand. Can you two recommend anything? Lilian, got anything that I can take that's going to improve my IQ by about thirty points?
No, Well, take some responsibility and just deal with it.
Fuck in the hell.
Such a good stimulant A dice of responsibility for you?
Yeah, take a cup of hardened the fuck up hops she's on fight today, I.
Think to doctor Lilliam even more than normal.
Yeah, yeah, what have you got planned for Chrissy?
Doc?
We are that's the twentieth that's Frauday, so with five days out, but we're going to talk about chrisy. But is it a big deal in your family or do you just sil through it quietly?
No, it's always been a big deal in our family and in Australia. This year, I actually have my mother here, so she's come from the States.
Oh awesome. And is she here already?
Yeah, she's been here for almost three weeks since she'll be here for another.
Three And what is she Has she been here before?
Yeah, she's been This is her ninth time. Oh wow, Wow, I've been here for thirty years. Did you know?
Wow?
That is a long time, and you've lost none of that accent?
I know. I know people still ask like when I moved and when I like, I don't usually say thirty years. I usually like a really long time.
Yeah, well you know, it's been a minute. It's been a minute.
But they're like, oh, it sounds like you just got here. I'm like, well, it's actually really hard to imitate the Australian accent. I don't know if well, you probably know that because a lot of actors try to do it and they can't. Uh, and I definitely cannot it either.
A lot of a lot of really good Hollywood actors and famous actors are terrible at doing Some do, some can.
Pull it off, but yeah, very few.
I've never heard any that that sound completely Australian, like you couldn't pick it. Whereas like we grow up around American accents. I've probably heard more American accents definitely on television than Australian when I was growing up because all the all the comedies I watched, all this, you know, all the kind of series that.
I watched, were I never watched.
I'm probably quite unpatriotic in that I've never watched one episode of Neighbors or what's the other one, really, Home and Away. I don't know why I never watched, do you know what. I've tried quite a few casts members and now quite a few, and I've never watched one episode.
So that is hilarious. You know, at the first show I ever saw that was an Australian show was Home and Away. I was actually in London. Yeah, and it was like in a like university kind of boarding house. We were just there for like a month and the only thing on TV like people were watching in like the main room was Home and Away And my friends
and I were like, what is this show? And we just we just thought it was really funny because the soap operas in the US are like very dramatic and like unrealistic and like, you know, just crazy stuff happens. But in Home and Away it's like I'm moving out of my house. I'm going to show like you know, like it was just very like regular life stuff.
Yeah, Oh, I got a new pair of socks. What do you think of my socks?
Yeah?
Great, what do you think of my socks? That's awesome? Are now an ad And the theme.
Song was great too. We memorize the theme song. We were like really into it.
We were talking this is probably not what we're going to talk about, but we'll talk the other day.
All the boys in the gym about all the all the shows we grew up watching in the sixties, seventies and eighties, and all the youngies are like, no idea what you're talking about, Like, you know, what do you mean, you don't know what Gilligan's Island is or The Brady Bunch is or Bewitched or I Dream a Jennie.
Or come on, oh, I know. It's so sad, Oh my god, because even though those were like slightly before our time, even there were always reruns of those shows, so you knew those shows like Back and Back in Front, like yeah, and then you know they don't watch TV anymore. That's why.
Well that's true. TV is dying.
So traditional media, as the youngies call it, traditional media, normal radio, you know FREDDA in normal FMAM radio, and old school television. Yeah, it's definitely on the decline. And you're right. Kids basically watch everything on their phone or on you know, their laptop or their tablet or whatever.
Yeah.
And the thing is, because of the advent of things like TikTok, they don't even watch an entire episode, but they'll know about what's going on in a show from like little snippets of the main things that people put up.
Yeah.
Yeah, but I've actually because I've always loved television and movies and all sorts of stuff like that, So I we've always engaged our children in entertainment of that kind. And we've always had like family television show that either all of us watch together or like two of us watch. Yeah, And my daughter and I watched, for instance, the whole series of The Gilmore Girls together, which is it's such a mother daughter type of show. So it was like, but it's fun, it's very pop cultury, and it was
really cool for me to watch it with her. And now we're watching a real, like a ninety show, The OC.
Yes, yeah, yeah, And.
I never watched when it was out, so I'm watching it fresh as well. So it's just fun to just pick, you know, it doesn't have to be like I don't know, I don't know what I think of the OC. It's entertaining enough. It's our show. We know when we have time, we're going to watch that show together until it's over, and then we'll pick another show.
You told me about The Gilmore Girls a couple of years ago, and I know everybody would go, oh my god, to get I watched a couple of episodes.
I'm going to be honest. It wasn't terrible.
It was great.
It wasn't terrible, but it's like old. It's like started twenty years ago. Now look at TIFFs Sperky. I don't mind a bit of the Gilmore Girls, Tiff. I don't mind a little bit of do you know what I like? I like watching stuff that doesn't make me think particularly hard.
It doesn't make me feel anxious because there's it's fucking horror and blood and people getting chopped up down now and you know, violence, And I don't mind a bit of like silly violence, but stuff that actually I come away from it feeling worse than when I sat down.
To watch it, you know what I mean? Yeah, what's the point. It's like movies where you go and pay thirty.
Bucks or whatever you pay these days, and you sit there and you be anxious for two hours.
You're like, why the fuck do I do that to myself?
Well, look, I think that could be fun. A lot of people think that's fine. I don't mind a little bit of like suspense or mystery. I don't want to see horror or like real life crime. Stuff like that doesn't interest me at all. Like you said, why do I want to expose myself to that? I want to be entertained and get something out of it. But a drama every once in a while, having a good crime front of the TV. Sometimes that's cathartic as well.
I do that.
I get done on Instagram with the reels, like I cry puppies thirteen times a day. And then like, you know what else makes me cry? War veterans coming home, moms and dads to their kids and they walk into the classroom. Yeah, and then there's this you know, this mum or dad in all their bloody army or their you know, marine garb, and then the little kid.
Just that's it. I'm out fast.
Yeah, that's beautiful, like a bit baby.
Hey, I don't want to go over something we've spoken about too much on this show, but just quickly I wanted to touch on something that David Gillespie, who's a regular on here aka Gillesspo, he wrote an article recently based on some new research that came out of the Lancet and that is that Melbourne has got more anxious and
depressed teenagers than any other city in the world. And so the statistic that's in published in the Lancet Psychiatry is that three out of four, or obviously seventy five percent of Melbourne teenagers are struggling with anxiety or depression and obviously it's been linked to tech.
Is that astounding to you, Well, I mean the stat that teenagers in general are very anxious and anxiety is growing among that group is not surprising to me because that has been what the research has been saying for a while. Yeah, I guess it's surprising to hear that Melbourne is like at the height of that. I guess if you think about technology, I mean, Australia is very forward, like they're early adopters of technology, so potentially we're using
it more. And if we're going to say, I don't know that technology is the only reason, right, but if it's one of the main reasons, and the way that we use it and how often we use it and how social media is used here so prolifically, then potentially it makes sense for teenagers here to have more. But I don't know that it would. It must be significantly more for that to have been published in the lanset. But I think overall, youth anxiety is growing.
You think maybe there's also a relationship because we were I don't know we were the number one, but definitely in the top few most locked down cities the longest period.
I mean, whatever, it was for Yeah, it was like almost a year. It was like a yearish where kids couldn't be kids essentially, well, they couldn't be normal, you know, free range roaming kids. There were cage kids for a year.
That's going to be especially you know, like if you're five years old, that's twenty percent of your life like that year.
It's not even just the fact that children were not able to go to school regularly and see their friends regularly, but they were also in homes with stressed out parents.
Yeah, that's true.
So you have this kind of you know, exposure to anxiety and stress at a level that we've as a society haven't even experienced. Yeah, and you couldn't escape it because you couldn't go anywhere else.
Yes.
And when I think of like some of my clients who really struggle, a lot of people didn't struggle. I know that a lot of people did, but there were there was a segment of the community, we'll say the more privileged ones who were like, this is a break from going to work and I like hanging out with my family all the time, and you know, they have the resources and so they weren't struggling as much. But the families who you know already had like fewer resources,
already were isolated. Yes, single parents with special needs kids, yeah, you know, who count on the support and they can't do anything now. And now they're in a home and they have to manage children that have challenges, and they have to manage their own stress and anxiety. Was it was actually an impossible task. So then you're going to have kids that come out of that environment more stressed and anxious.
So I remember a few months I don't know how many months in, maybe five or six months in and I hadn't seen my parents, and autosad it was going to draw to the thriving metropolis moll which there was a lot of kind of in a ladder, go more than five k's from your home and it's going to
be some spectacular reason and you need to. And I just went, you know, and my mum, mom and dad have not been great over the last few years with various medical issues and dad had a heart attack and mums had multiple bouts of cancer and treatment.
And I'm like, well, I'm going. And there was.
About halfway about it, and it's about two hours. So at about that one hour mark on Princess Highway or freeway. There were blockades and there were cops everywhere, and I had to sit in line for like two kilometers. Then I had to basically plead my case with a which wasn't his fault.
I'm like, what the fuck? Where are we? What is this?
I had to explain who I was, who my parents was, were, where they live, Why I'm going there?
Do I have to go there?
You know?
And he, I mean, he was he was fine. It wasn't he was just doing what he was told to do. But I'm like, man, what is what?
Where do we live? Now? What is this about? You know?
And it was such a strange, strange time in our life, you know, it was completely unexpected and nobody knew how to deal with it properly, and and it was so stressful, like you said on that level too, like I couldn't go to the States for four years, Yes, yes, you know I was. I was trying to go every couple of years to see my family over there. My parents are getting older too, and you know, like four years is a massive block of time to not be able to,
you know, go and see your loved ones. And I know, you know, of course, there were so many people who lost people during that time and they didn't get to be there for the those final moments, and you know, there's so much loss and so much stress and so much anxiety that over just that And it was a long time. It wasn't like one year one years ago time, but like it was like three crazy on and off. So yeah, there's going to be We're still feeling the
impact and the effects of that for sure. And yeah, I would say that that makes a lot of sense in terms of why Melbourne youth might be more impacted than others.
It could be a definitely could be a factor. If what's your this year? What's your I don't know underlying emotion around Christmas? Is it excitement? Is it indifference? Is it something else? Because I know you're you're staying in melts right and you live by yourself with your Fleeline and kla Canaine family. But how do you feel? Do you feel for me? I kind of feel like it's a Wednesday, but that's just me.
Yeah, that's I feel a bit like that, Like I'm happy and I'm going to do some cool stuff on
the day, but I'm not really attached to Christmas. I've been having a really good couple of months since coming back from a little trip, and so I feel good, and yeah, I've got no attachment to the day, but I'm making sure that that I do do something because if I don't, I've done that before and I get really sad because you know, there's an energy and a realization that you get up and everyone's with loved ones. And I remember doing that once and going, oh, dear, no one loves me.
I'm really sad. Now. It was like, TI, if you chose this, yeah, I reckon.
In the last two weeks, I've said to I don't know, I'm making it up, but about twenty people, you know, are you excited for Christmas? Or what is it?
And I would think, I mean, it wasn't half, but maybe three or four when not not at all? I fucking hate it or I'm dreading it, or I hate my sister. I only say it once a year, she's
a fucking nightmare. Or yeah, there's a I don't know what the percentage is, but I would think five percent of five ten percent of people really for a range of reasons, maybe because they're isolated, or maybe because they have to go and spend a day with people that don't want to, or maybe because it evokes, you know, things that happened or didn't happen in the past, or but it seems doc that not everybody associates the twenty fifth of December with joyful kind of emotions.
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. I think it can actually be the worst time of year for a lot of people, like you said, for so many different reasons.
You know, there's a lot of memories attached to Christmas as a holiday too and not maybe you know, a lot of people's memories of that might not be great, you know, in their childhood, so that carries on into adulthood as well, and also where you know, different people are in different phases of their life, you know, like for our family, we lost my father in law early this year, so it's the first Christmas without him, which
is really different and difficult for the family. For us as a family, Christmas is generally a good time of year. It's like an excuse to get together and luckily we like each other just good, so it's like a nice gathering.
But like it's going to have that tinge of sadness this year for sure, and Yeah, for some people that don't have family members to be with, and so it is quite isolating and it is hard to see, like you were saying, Tiffany, it's hard to see like all these other people, you know, this is the time where they're gathering with people, they're loved ones, and if that's not your experience, you feel like left out, like what other people are experiencing.
How do we mitigate that? Because I feel like we and I'm not trying to be.
Critical of anyone, but it's like, when you think about it on a level, on one level, it's Christmas, die, it's this, it's that, it's all those things, which is true.
Also true, it.
Is Wednesday, it is the day between Tuesday and Thursday, and so you know that expectational, that disappointment or that sadness, which I'm not saying is unreasonable, but we kind of created ourselves.
Yeah, I guess so, But I guess it's an individual response, right, Yeah.
But I mean it's a societal holiday in a way. Like also, there's a lot of people where Christmas has no meaning for them and it isn't their holiday, right, So it's not everybody's holiday, that's true, But culturally, like places like Australia and the UK and the US culturally as a country, they celebrate it. So it's a little bit hard to be like, well, I'm creating this situation
for myself, and it's actually like everywhere, right. You can't get away from the music, can't get away from the decoration, you can't get away from the wrapping paper. You know, you can't. Everyone's wishing everyone to marry Christmas like it's it's just like what's done pretty much prolifically at this time of year.
Yeah.
I wasn't trying to be critical of anyone, but what I'm thinking is, well, how do I how do I manage me in the middle, Like if this is not a great day for me, if I'm not excited, if i'm if I know that like rather than me than my emotions and feelings and a mental state being dictated by what's going on around me, how do I mitigate that or change that so that you know, as much as I can control my own state or experience, I'm doing that.
Yeah, And I think because it's predictable, like if you know how you experience the holiday, then it is really important to plan it for yourself, Like, what is that day going to be like for you? I know, my mother lives in the US, and my brothers live fairly close by, but they also have their own immediate families and my dad because my parents are divorced, so like there's it's spread. It's not like they can just spend
the whole day with her. So what she did was she decided to volunteer that day, so she would go and do the you know, the food service volunteering, you know, in an organization nearby. And that made her feel good about the day because she was contributing, yes, and that always feels good, as we know, so like things like if she knew that that was going to be the case for her day, so she organized that for herself. And it doesn't always it doesn't have to be that,
but it could be. You know, how are you going to comfort yourself on the day If you know that you're going to feel a little bit down and you can't necessarily control that feeling, what can you do to give yourself comfort and soothing and make it more pleasant
and improve the moment or the day for yourself? And that might be really different for different people, Like it might be you know, a movie marathon, or it might be you know, doing a day as they say in Australia, to stay in bed and surround yourself with nice things and be comfortable and eat in bed and just you know, do what you want. Or it might be like surrounding yourself with things that are fun or funny, you know,
just lift your spirits. Yeah, or like watchers or follow anti you know holiday or anti Christmas stuff like if that's something that will get you out of your punk, like whatever works for you. But I agree, like if you know that this is a difficult time of year, you know that it's not that meaningful for you, you know that you might be sad or stressed around that time, then you know, do some planning and prepare yourself.
You know what I used to do. You don't know this, Tiff. I don't think I've ever shared this on this show, but every Christmas. I used to do it at Easter.
I think I've spoken about Easter, but every Christmas for about I don't know, ten or twelve years. This is when I owned Jim's Lily Inn. I had lots of stuff and lots of clients, and I would meet who ever wanted to meet me at seven am at the beach, and they all had to bring twenty bucks and it went to a charity. So everyone paid twenty bucks. It went to a charity that somebody decided. I didn't even get the money. The money didn't go through my hands.
It went straight to the organization. But we would get sometimes one hundred people, so we'd raised two grand in an hour, and it was great and people obviously people came dressed up and people had on hats and bloody rein deer antlers, and you know, like it was such a good thing. And so there was this before the day even really started, Like we finished at eight o'clock.
So there's all these you know, this laughter and all this connection and everybody getting a few endorphins and a bit of dopamine because they're running around in the sand and running some stairs and doing some body weight stuff and saying hello to a whole bunch of people. And yeah, I just remember what an amazing day, or what an amazing.
Start to the day that was.
And a lot of people back then, you know, they would come to me and say, this is actually the best part of my Christmas Day because of the rest of the day is not great for me. And they really appreciated that. You know, that early morning energy and fun and everybody who needed it got a bit of a hargt and bit of a high five.
And do that anymore.
Idea. That's a great idea.
I loved it. I would do that now, but you're not allowed to. You can't.
I can't just meet you know. The funny thing is, I can't meet a bunch of people at the beach in this area where I live and just train them. And I get it, you know, it's all that. But it was in the old days when you could just do that and no one. No one was running around going what about the council regulations and what about lawsuits? And what about our health and safety and what about We're all just fucking running and laughing nobody. Everybody was
just having a good time. But now we've got to fucking bring nine lawyers to the beach with us.
You know, it's fucking ridiculous.
That is a shame. But I think you bring up a good point that you know, if we're resourceful, which I think is a great skill to have, there are lots of ways that you can meet with like minded people on the day, like yeah, you know, or even online if you don't want to meet people in person, there would be I haven't looked into it myself, but maybe this is something I should do as well as you know, what are the Facebook groups around? What are the meetups? You know? Like, what can people actually do
on the day that is not Christmas focused? Yes, and that will you know lift their spirits are just you know, like make it a good day, not you know, it's just another Wednesday, but it could be a really great Wednesday.
Yeah, I wonder if I I wonder, I'm just wondering, Tiff, maybe I could do a six thirty. Can't They can't get mad at you for going for a Christmas morning walk with one hundred people.
You just happen to drop down and do I mean, you can't stop.
If people decide to fucking jog through the sand a little bit because there are little bit crazy if people want to do some some burpies and some wall squats and if people fuck I can't I wouldn't suggest it. But if people just spontaneously break into exercise, I mean, who am I to get in the way. I mean, it's not a cult or anything. People are free to do what they want.
Wow, so stand.
By, everybody, stand by. That might happen. That might be announced. It may or may not, but it might be announced on the you project Facebook page. If you're not a member, become a member. But now I wonder it would probably just be you and me, cook, you and me and the dog, You, me and Luna.
Were you're coming second? Then if Luna's going to be in the race, I'm coming.
I mean, if there's three of us, you, me, and Luna, I'm fucking so far up the back it's embarrassing.
I love how you're like. Lillian's not going to show up. It's too early for her.
If I do it, will you show up? Probably not exactly, exactly exactly arrest arrest my case, too early, it's too early.
I want to be invited.
Well, I'm not.
Going to invite you if you're not going to turn up. So if you're going to turn up, you're invited. If you just want to be invited because your self esteem needs a boost, you're not invited.
Hey, this whole idea came about because of our conversation.
So that's true. That's true. I'm going to give that some thought.
I mean, it's one o three on Friday on the twentieth, so it may not happen, but I'm definitely.
Going to give that. I'm definitely going to give that some thought.
So so keep talking to us about this time of the year in general. It's not just Christmas, it's New Years, it's when people is it a good.
Time of the year.
You know, I'm not one on news resolutions. Everyone knows, but I guess it depends. I guess it depends how it's Starnach can work. But you're going, is this a good time to reflect and plan or is that kind of bullshit?
Well it can be bullshit. It depends on what you do with it. But I feel like when we talk about this time of year, the main thing that comes up for me and for a lot of people that I'm around, is it's really stressful. The end of the year is stressful, and I think I think there's a
lot of reasons for that. I always find like just before I go on a holiday of any kind, any time of year, it's the just before the holiday that's the most stressful time because you're trying to tie up things so that you are able to take that time off and have like, you know, actual rest and relaxation. I don't have to worry about work, which is hard when you own your own businesses as well. And so
this is like a big version of that. Right, It's like everyone's taking almost everyone is taking at least a couple, you know, one or two weeks off at this time of year. So everyone's kind of trying to tie up all their loose ends at the end of the year or try to get as much done as humanly possible so they can actually have a break and be ready for whatever's coming on the other side of that break.
And then the other complicating factor of just being in this country, let's say versus where I grew up in the US, is it's also the end of the school year. So if you're a parent, you have that extra layer of busyness. There's all like when the kids were in primary school, it was like, well, there's a Christmas show that everyone has to go to, right, and there's there's different parents will have holiday get togethers, and you know, their friends will want to get together and all this
sort of stuff that happened. Also, your kids are little, so they you know, if you celebrate Christmas. They're very excited about it, and so you try to make it really special and get the things that they want and you know all of you know, all of that sort
of stuff that goes into it. And when your kids are older, like my kids mine are fifteen and just at eighteen and just graduated from high school, maybe then you thank you then you have all of that, Like all the end of you know, the whole year's stressful because they're studying for their you know, exams, and then they're waiting for their scores and there's a lot of
stress associated with that. And then you've got you know, their graduation ceremonies, and then they're going to school is and you have to worry about that, and then you know, they have their dinners and so there's just so much happening at this time of year. I think it can be a really stressful time for people, and then you
kind of lose that spirit. Even if you had the spirit for the holidays, yeah, you can't get there because it takes so long to unwind from that stress that you're not quite there yet on Christmas Day if you want to be.
I don't know why I haven't really thought of this, but it just dawned on me because I'm an idiot and I'm a bit slow, but it dawned on me that, oh, yeah, you guys don't have summer holidays when we do, obviously, but so how like Christmas New Year over here, like a lot of like school is basically off for two months, give will take. How long do they have off school in the States at this time of year.
Probably a couple of weeks, right, yeah.
And then they have like two months is ish through summer our winter.
Well, when I was younger, it was like three three and a half months, And in fact, it worked better that way because there was no holiday to break up that time, so it was like this long, slow, beautiful summer holiday. Whereas what happens here is school that's out. Everyone's in a rush to get everything sorted just before Christmas, and then the holidays make everything go much more quickly, so before you know it, you're back in school again,
you're back to work again. Whereas when you're a student in the States, you have those two weeks of you know, Christmas time, that's just Christmas time, yes, and then when you're done with school, which is usually in May or June. You don't go back until late August September. Wow, and that time there's no holidays in that time, so it's just for summer. And a lot of people also use that, like if you're older, they use it to work, they use it to do internships, they use it to travel
for extended periods of time. So you have a long time to be able to do multiple things.
And is that why parents sit now it makes sense sending kids off to summer camp because that doesn't really that's not a thing here.
Yeah, it's a huge in the state. So a lot of people will send them to overnight camps, which are like usually six weeks long, so it's half of the summer holiday.
Wow.
Whereas I never went to an over and I I went to like a local one, so.
It was a program.
Yeah yeah, And I'd spend probably four weeks out of the summer at a day camp.
Wow.
And then I became like one of the camp counselors. And I was like thirteen, of course you did, which is fun. That's my first job, a summer camp counselor.
Really, did you get paid.
The first year? No, because I was too young. But then I think I got paid when I because I did it for like four years thirteen forty fifty sixteen.
Wow.
If that was a thing in Australia, Mary Ron would have definitely sent me away for the entirety of the summer. I would have been just waving me off from the front door.
Yeah.
People who go to those camps they have the like, really great experiences and their parents go off and traveled in Europe, so they're having like this break as well. It gets kind of a cool setup.
Yeah. Yeah, I don't think it's the worse.
Like some of my friends went to boarding schools, which kind of seems like that would suck, and some of them hated it, not many, a few, but most of them after the initial adjustment, but they loved boarding school like they you know, they loved it.
Like, I don't know that. Did you ever think about that tip? Was that an option for you?
Yeah?
But yeahs running around?
Really you were just free, Ryan Shore a lot of chicken. Yeah. No, well, I mean it's not a big is a boarding schools things in the States, So they I mean, I know they are, but to any great extent or.
Not not really. I mean they're definitely around and people go to boarding schools, but it's not like a massive thing I would I would have I would struggle with not being near my kids all the time, so I probably wouldn't even consider doing that. And I would have probably struggled with the six six weeks at camp as well. I know, like one of my one of my friends,
her husband went to camp for his childhoods. He wanted to send their kids, and she was really like, how about that, But they got used to it really quickly when they were going to Europe for that time and they got the kids got to go. You know, we're in there, you know, and they enjoyed it. The kids enjoyed it, so she got used to it, and yeah, that's kind of like their life in simmer, which is really nice.
So you find it easy to step out of work mindset into holiday mindset and then back.
It depends. I feel like when I was working for an organization, I had no trouble with that, Like, you know, I walk out, I've done my job and I've got nothing else to think about. But when you own your own business or businesses, it's harder to do that. So I find it easier with my clinical practice side of my business because it is more like going into It's kind of more like appointments, right, and you just don't
have appointments. And if I'm like, I'm always around and I can't help but tell my clients like, if you need me, like I'm around, you can text me. And they're always like, oh, I would never want to disrupt your holiday, and I'm like, if you need me, I'm saying I will be around, like you know. But it's the other one that are the more of the digital businesses where you feel like you always have to put in something you can't just take a break from that.
But yeah, look, I'm very much somebody who takes breaks frequently. Like I don't struggle with duck down time or relaxing or I don't feel guilty about it. Yeah, I just feel like I have a responsibility to my business and to some degree, and so just from that side of things, I might not completely switch off, but I'll switch off a lot, like enough for me to enjoy my brain. Yeah.
Yeah, I really like my life and I like where I live. But I have this minor fantasy which can't happen in the next six months while I finish my study. But maybe one day in the next five years. I feel like I would like to go away for six months and do everything that I currently do, but do it in another country.
Obviously, the face to face gigs would.
Have to go on hold, which would be not a great part of it, but probably worth it. But all the you know, all the other stuff, all the coaching or a lot of the coaching online gigs, workshops, seminars, podcasts.
You know, I can.
I mean, it's almost like we live in a time now where you can depending on what your job is, there are a lot of jobs where you can kind of do it anywhere in the.
World, absolutely, and so I would love to.
I'd love to go live somewhere else and just you know, be in it just a completely different energy and geography and climate and culture and just not that I'm well known, but just where I'm never going to bump into anyone that knows me, and yeah, I'd be surprised helse well maybe, Yeah, that's a.
Great I think that's an amazing idea. That's one of my you know, ideal where I'd like to be in the future. You know, when my kids are done with high school and they're in union and they have their own adult lives. That's definitely on our radar. My husband and I like just go because we can both do our jobs. Like you said, you can, we can do that from anywhere.
Yeah, where would you go to if if you had to go? Well, it doesn't have to be one place, but if you were going to travel for six months and do your podcast and do this stuff with me?
And what.
While you're thinking of that, I'll tell your mine. So mine mine would probably be nobody would guess this, well, people who know me might, but it would probably be Ireland. Oh yes, my grandmother was Irish. Her name was Molly Malone and my grandma died giving birth to my mum, so I never met her. But like, I've only been to Ireland once to do some work. I literally went to Ireland to do a three hour workshop.
How funny is that?
But and I had no expectation, like there was no story in my head about oh this is you know, this is going to be amazing. I'm going to feel something and there's going to be this. I didn't There's nothing I was just going to do. I was excited to go to a place I've never been, but there was something for me inexplicably familiar about the place and the people and the accent, and like I felt like, Oh, I almost felt like I belonged there more than I
belong here, which I don't. But it's it's like, oh, I don't know why. And I've been I love the States. I've been to the States like a dozen times. I love it. And while I think it's amazing, I know I'm not from there and I don't feel like I belong there, but I love it. It's amazing, right, And I've been to England, and I've been to a bunch of places. But when I went to Ireland, I'm like, oh, there is some familiarity about this, and I think it's in my genes. I think it's in my DNA. It's
like my DNA knows this place. My DNA is like comfortable here. I was so comfortable there. I so loved everyone. The people were like ridiculous. I mean, they were the nicest people as just a collection of humans that I've met ever on any trip.
Wow, like crazy, Yeah.
So I've actually heard that about Ireland.
Crazy nicest people in the world. Yeah, And just like I had strangers constantly offering me to stay with them, like, you know, come and stay with Oh you don't stand a ha, don't be staying in a hotwn Come and stay with us. Oh no, you won't be standing there, You'll be standing with us.
I'm like, I'm good.
I've got to know. Thank you, thank you. But yes, so and like they was so, it was so funny.
I did a gig in this little place and they were so so grateful that I came. Yeah, because nobody comes here. Thank you. You know.
Yeah, there's something about your roots and you know, your history, intergenerational history. Yeah, and we don't often know a lot about it, but like if we did, we probably connect so much more to you know, like what you're saying, you have this like inexplicable connection to this country that you've never lived in and you only spend a few hours.
And I'm sure, but there's.
A reason why that is. Do you know a lot about your family history?
No, I actually do, not, Like my I shouldn't say this, but my family is a bit weird. Everyone says that, but like, my dad's one of six boys, so six kids. A mum is one of six kids, so twelve right between their immediate families. And I really There's a couple of uncles and aunies that I know a bit, but for the most part, I don't, you know, I don't know how many cousins I have, probably eighty. I think I know I know two or three of them. I
was going to say two or three of them. Well, but even then, I haven't seen them ten years.
Like, I really don't know anyone well.
And it's funny, my family like never spent much like you know, how families get together big Christmases or the brothers and sisters and the kids and the aunties that never happened. I've never had one of those ever, So yeah, it's for whatever reason. And that's not a slight on mom and dad. But yeah, they both come from really big families. And I'm an only child. Yet I don't know anyone really. I've got one auntie and uncle that
I know quite well. Shout out to trep and die, but other than that, nobody.
Yeah, do you know the stories even if you don't know the people, Like, do you know any like good stories about like challenges or like things that happened and a little mothers or your father's side.
Yeah, yeah, a little bit, a little bit.
And when you kind of you know, it's like I had this well, I didn't have a revelation I was actually somebody who was smarter than me kind of and wiser than me years ago when I was having this conversation about like my mum and dad and I don't know how we got here, but my mum and dad and I was always like I lived with these two adults that were really good people, and we all got on really well. It was like just two grown ups that I knew, and we all lived in the same house.
It was like I lived with an auntie and uncle that were pretty fond of me.
Right. It was not like parenting one oh one.
Like I rarely got parented, you know what I mean, Where like my old man never said to me, all right, look, I want to have a chat with you.
That never happened.
You know.
It doesn't mean that we didn't do things together. We did, But it was like mum and dad were not brilliant communicators in this context, you know, so that those kinds of hey, where the mum and dad, you're the kid, have a chatch to you about how the world works or how life works, or relationships or hey, let's talk about school and beyond school, like we never I never had those conversations.
I don't think many very many people did, though, Craig. I feel like, you know, our parents and their parents generation didn't have those type of conversations ltipuly kind of coming around now where our kids are talking to us more, we're talking to them more, we're giving them a little bit more of an idea of what their histories are. I just the reason I was asking is because because
my mother's here, I actually arranged. There's this person that I know who had like this conversation with his mother and she had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and he wanted to have like something that where she could talk about you know, like their family and history and it would be something that you know, he could potentially have forever obviously, but also maybe show to his future
children and all of that. And from that, he's just decided to start a business called forever Cast, where he provides the technology for other people to do that, and so he just brings it to people's homes and they can have that conversation with which, you know, with their mother or their father or their grandfather, whoever it is, and then it's a video and an audio keepsake, and
you get to know your history more as well. So I actually went when I was in I just went to city with my mother for a few days for like just some fun with her. And while we were there, we went and we did one of these recordings, and I got to do this interview with my mother and ask her all these questions and get delve deeper into some of the stories that I might have heard a little bit but forgot or don't know the details, or like didn't really ask or wasn't maybe interested before. You know,
like sometimes you're not interested until you're older. So it was really cool just to have that experience. And then you know, I have this psychology for F. Vessor from Emory, where I used where I went to school, and he actually did research on how important it is to know your family history and how it actually helps children build their self esteem and resilience and overcome stress and challenges
throughout their lives. The more you know about your family history, the more protective it is for the rest of your life. So it's super interesting when we're talking about youth anxiety at the beginning, it's like, well, one of the things that we can all do to help youth is to tell them about their history, because what happens is they develop what's called like an intergenerational self. So it's not just about them on their own, or even them and
just their immediate family. They actually belong to generations of people who have had to overcome challenges, who have lived interesting lives, and you kind of belong to all of that now rather than just that's.
So interesting, that's so interesting. Well, our time is up. I hope you have a great Christmas. I hope you have a good New Year. You do celebrate Christmas?
Right?
We do?
Yes, you do, Tiff and I'll be at the beach with one hundred losers at six There no not loses at all, winners.
It's the winners.
Group, that's right.
I don't know about that. Doctor Lillian won't be there because she's pretty lazy. Yes, I think that's the word. How do people connect with you, Doc, Not in the next couple of weeks, but after the next few weeks. How do they connect with you?
Doctor lilliannajad dot com is a good spot. There's a contact for him there if you want to actually connect with me, or if you just want to have a browse through. Feel free to do that. I wish you both like a good holiday season, whatever that is for you, and I hope that you do do that thing on Wednesday and it's super fun and even though I probably won't come, I still expect an invitation.
You are formally invited. You're formally invited.
You better just check in on Tuesday as to whether or not is actually happening. But now, Doc, thank you, We appreciate you. Thanks for all your contribution for another year on the You Project. You are a winner. Even if you don't sho up on Wednesday.
Oh thanks, I appreciate that