Speaker 1: We'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
Speaker 1: on which this podcast was produced, the Galligall people of
Speaker 1: the orination. We pay our respects to Elda's past and present.
Speaker 2: It's twenty twenty two and we're lakeside in remote Tasmania.
Speaker 2: Gina Chick is lying by the fire. She's just lit.
Speaker 2: She's one of ten contestants out here for the first
Speaker 2: Australian version of reality TV show Alone. The goal is
Speaker 2: to survive and stay out here as long as possible.
Speaker 2: This is no easy feat. The air is ice cold,
Speaker 2: the ground is soaking wet. Gina's been here for months
Speaker 2: and she could happily stay out here forever, but this
Speaker 2: night is tough. It's her late daughter's birthday. Blaze was
Speaker 2: just three years old when she lost her battle with cancer.
Speaker 2: Gina breaks down, crying and calling out for her baby girl.
Speaker 2: It's a scene that will break the hearts of millions
Speaker 2: watching I'm at Middleton and this is Headgame today. What
Speaker 2: audiences didn't get to see and how Gina Chick is
Speaker 2: scaling an endless wall of grief. Gina Chick, I am
Speaker 2: super excited to speak with you because talk about the
Speaker 2: epitome of free spirit of you know, psychological resilience, physical fortitude,
Speaker 2: you possess all of that. Take me back to your
Speaker 2: childhood and who Gina Chick is and how she grew
Speaker 2: up and because what fascinates me about your story is
Speaker 2: you've always been this free spirited individual that's sort of
Speaker 2: a you know, been super connected with mother Nature, been
Speaker 2: super grounded with the planet and with yourself. But take
Speaker 2: me back to your childhood and your upbringing and what
Speaker 2: life was like as a child.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, thank you so much for that
Speaker 3: wonderful introduction. Yeah, and you're right, I have always been
Speaker 3: what you would call a free spirit. Although it's always
Speaker 3: the way when you're a kid, isn't it that you
Speaker 3: don't know any different. It's just like, well, that's just
Speaker 3: the way things are. And for me, I grew up
Speaker 3: in a family that really was quite unconventional. We spent
Speaker 3: a lot of time outdoors. My parents are both teachers,
Speaker 3: and so that just meant we had all of our
Speaker 3: weekends and our school holidays together, and they didn't have
Speaker 3: much money, so we would go on epic hikes and
Speaker 3: bushwalks and camping and adventures with you know, my dad
Speaker 3: would get a daggy little boat with they could be
Speaker 3: go put put, but we just go out on adventures
Speaker 3: in it. Or he'd make water skis that were so
Speaker 3: heavy you'd had to like drag them down to the
Speaker 3: beach and then try and pull us up on this
Speaker 3: crazy little boat.
Speaker 2: Or you'd have to survive by trying not to drown.
Speaker 3: Well, actually, yeah, I mean there kind of was a
Speaker 3: bit of that in my family. There was absolutely this attitude,
Speaker 3: I think because my father had three daughters and he
Speaker 3: just grew us up like boys. We never had this
Speaker 3: idea of boys can do this or girls can do that.
Speaker 3: We just had adventures pretty much NonStop, and some of
Speaker 3: them were a little hair raising, and some of them
Speaker 3: are quite dangerous. And the attitude that I ended up
Speaker 3: with is like, there's no bones broken, are there Nope?
Speaker 3: And if ill out broken, are they sticking out? Okay? No,
Speaker 3: you can probably walk on that ben good to go. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I think also I've always had this, I guess
Speaker 3: resilience when it comes to physical discomfort, and I think
Speaker 3: I got born with that. So whenever I would be
Speaker 3: cold or hungry or things would just go a bit
Speaker 3: pair shaped on an adventure. And I think that probably
Speaker 3: came also from my dad.
Speaker 2: I know what you mean, because you sort of feel
Speaker 2: like that's where the journey starts. Well, that's where the
Speaker 2: challenge starts. Is like, well, I'm tired, I'm hungry, I'm suffering. Well,
Speaker 2: guess what I'm learning about myself. This is actually really
Speaker 2: exciting and I'm going to push myself even further.
Speaker 3: Also, I think that you know, if you look back
Speaker 3: at your life, you don't really remember the bits where
Speaker 3: you're comfortable. You remember the things where you're uncomfortable, and
Speaker 3: at the time it's kind of miserable and horrible. But
Speaker 3: if you have one of those adventures with friends where
Speaker 3: you're all just gutting it through, you're kind of arguing,
Speaker 3: and somehow you get through, and then on the other side,
Speaker 3: you've made it because the story that is an actual
Speaker 3: like a marker for your friendship, for your life. It
Speaker 3: becomes almost like a rite of passage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're the memories, right, yeah, Yeah, And.
Speaker 3: It's like that was the adventure. And humans don't grow
Speaker 3: when we're comfortable.
Speaker 2: There's no growthing comfort. I always say, yeah, And.
Speaker 3: To me, that comes from the wisdom in our hunt
Speaker 3: to gather at DNA because for hunter gatherers it's like
Speaker 3: you don't want to waste the calorie. So things are comfy,
Speaker 3: is you know, you sit back and go, okay, I'm
Speaker 3: cruising now. And it just means that we're actually designed
Speaker 3: not to grow when we're comfortable. We grow when we're uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: But we live in a culture that papologizes discomfort.
Speaker 2: I knew I was going to get on with you, Gina.
Speaker 2: I knew I was going to get on with you.
Speaker 2: I love you already. I love you already. I want
Speaker 2: to jump down the screen and then sit by you
Speaker 2: and have this conversation, but unfortunately I can't. But it's amazing.
Speaker 2: It's amazing. So you went throughout your whole childhood like this,
Speaker 2: and your siblings did they go along this journey with you?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? We were and are a very tight family unit.
Speaker 3: And that meant because again, we didn't really have much choice.
Speaker 3: It was like, all right, well we're going out this weekend.
Speaker 3: There wasn't really the option of like, actually I'm going
Speaker 3: to stay at home. No, everybody, we're all going out
Speaker 3: together and so and because we would do things like
Speaker 3: you remember those old tents, the a frame tents before
Speaker 3: we have the new be bloody Yeah, absolutely, idea old
Speaker 3: a frame. You put the poles in and then the
Speaker 3: first wind that comes along it's proper bends all the
Speaker 3: poles and you end up with the tent landing on
Speaker 3: top of you.
Speaker 2: That was, Oh, you've got the poles mixed up. They're
Speaker 2: in the wrong in the wrong side of the tent.
Speaker 2: The tent sort of looks like a tent and that's
Speaker 2: good enough. Where made do Let's let's nail it down
Speaker 2: so it doesn't move. Then all of a sudden it's gone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then it's off. So yeah. So my sisters
Speaker 3: and I we all went through it all together and
Speaker 3: that was just a part of life for us. So
Speaker 3: I felt at the time, like I said, you don't
Speaker 3: know any different. So for me, that was just normal.
Speaker 3: It was only when I got older that I realized
Speaker 3: that I had been extraordinary childhood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fascinating when you say that, because it's so true.
Speaker 2: You know, you are a product of your environment and
Speaker 2: the people around you. And when did you start realizing that,
Speaker 2: you know that this wasn't actually classed as the norm,
Speaker 2: and when did you start to realize all, wow, actually
Speaker 2: I'm probably a small percentage here that's been through this.
Speaker 3: Basically at school, I mean, school is a great leveler,
Speaker 3: and I went to, you know, a very standard public school.
Speaker 3: It wasn't any you know, there was no posh in
Speaker 3: my world. It was very much a coastal, little ossy
Speaker 3: seaside town and there was basically surfers and bogans and
Speaker 3: that's about as posha as it got. So it was
Speaker 3: real melting pot. And I learned pretty quickly at school
Speaker 3: that everyone didn't have the child that I had. But
Speaker 3: every day I would come home to this part advice
Speaker 3: and I would come home to this incredible sort of
Speaker 3: family of adventures. It meant that I really had the
Speaker 3: school life and then I had the home life. And
Speaker 3: I think that that home life really did plant the
Speaker 3: seeds of adventure. And I don't think there was ever
Speaker 3: going to be an option where I wasn't out pushing
Speaker 3: the boundaries of things, because I think it's actually in
Speaker 3: my makeup.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was this. It was the moment you left it,
Speaker 2: left the room you were, you were there, thrown into
Speaker 2: this life of an adventure. I love that pretty much.
Speaker 2: And so what did you want to do?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: When we saw of get to that stage of people
Speaker 2: asking the question what do you want to do? You know,
Speaker 2: who do you want to become? And it's sort of
Speaker 2: forced upon us to make a decision, you know there
Speaker 2: and then how did that work out for you?
Speaker 3: I guess there were a few options, and most of
Speaker 3: the things that I wanted to do were either to
Speaker 3: do with being outside or there were to do with writing.
Speaker 3: I've been writing since I remember, and it was only
Speaker 3: much later, I think, in my very early twenties, that
Speaker 3: I discovered that my grandmother was an incredible Australian author
Speaker 3: and writer, and that writing is actually in my and
Speaker 3: I didn't know that when I was a kid. But
Speaker 3: I have been writing the whole time, and I definitely
Speaker 3: wanted to be a writer. That was that was always
Speaker 3: part of the plan, but also the plan. You know what,
Speaker 3: You're like me, you're a kid, You're like, well, I'm
Speaker 3: going to be this, and then I'm going to be that,
Speaker 3: and I'm going to be that, and then I'm going
Speaker 3: to do all of that at all, and then I'm
Speaker 3: going to sail around the world and I'm going to
Speaker 3: new lands that haven't been found yet, and I'm going
Speaker 3: to name animals that haven't been discovered yet and all
Speaker 3: of that. I was devastated actually to find out that
Speaker 3: everything already had been named on the map. So I
Speaker 3: remember there was a moment of going, what do you
Speaker 3: mean I can't go and discover the lost world?
Speaker 2: Yeah, find a new island? Or do you know what
Speaker 2: I think you're think it's out there? Gena, I don't
Speaker 2: think that we have I think if you go, we
Speaker 2: should go. We should go on a on a on
Speaker 2: a dual search. I'm sure we're fine.
Speaker 3: Something I reckon, So I think I thought it big.
Speaker 2: I love what you say about you know, writing is
Speaker 2: in our DNA, because we we're constantly writing our own
Speaker 2: story just by going on these adventures. You know, we're
Speaker 2: not physically they're writing them down, but we're writing them
Speaker 2: in our head. We're writing them in our memories, we're
Speaker 2: writing them in our you know, in our DNA, and
Speaker 2: all it takes for them is just to transfer that
Speaker 2: onto a pen and paper. But you you've had this
Speaker 2: super sort of adventures as a child into your teen
Speaker 2: years and then then you you meet a fine gentleman
Speaker 2: along the way and you you you you feel pregnant.
Speaker 2: Is that correct.
Speaker 3: So I met Lee at a primitive skills in New
Speaker 3: Jersey called Tom Brown Junior's Track of School, like that
Speaker 3: was just the biggest adventure ever. And met this kind
Speaker 3: of cockney cocky cockney lad who followed me home. So
Speaker 3: I kept it.
Speaker 2: There you go, You're like, I'm having you. Thanks you
Speaker 2: very much. Listen, my tracking skills and my and my
Speaker 2: survival skills have come in handy your mine. I've caught you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well I think we caught each other actually, And
Speaker 4: then but then yes, then I I got pregnant and
Speaker 4: four days after I found out I was pregnant, I
Speaker 4: found out I had breast cancer, which was a bit
Speaker 4: of a shock.
Speaker 3: And I went on this huge journey of healing and
Speaker 3: slobby and ended up having my daughter.
Speaker 2: So when you when you fell pregnant four days later
Speaker 2: you got diagnosed with breast cancer, God, that must have
Speaker 2: been not only a shock to you, to yourself, but
Speaker 2: all so really detrimental to your daughter. You know, did
Speaker 2: you did you go through treatment? Were you was there
Speaker 2: moments that you were told that you couldn't have have
Speaker 2: the baby? You know? Just just take me back to
Speaker 2: to that period if you can.
Speaker 3: I was advised because it was a cancer that set
Speaker 3: on hormones, and pregnancy has lots of those, and I
Speaker 3: was told that I basically had to terminate the pregnancy
Speaker 3: or I would die. And I threaded a needle with
Speaker 3: a very small hole, with a very fine piece of thread.
Speaker 3: I found that, you know, I managed to stitch myself
Speaker 3: through that whole experience and brought together tools that I'd
Speaker 3: assembled my whole life to be able to go through
Speaker 3: that experience, and I guess not be broken by it,
Speaker 3: you know, constantly saying well, what is the what is
Speaker 3: the thing that I can do right now? I can't
Speaker 3: think about tomorrow, next week, or next year or any
Speaker 3: of that, but right now is where I can take responsibility.
Speaker 3: This is the information that I have. And as a
Speaker 3: as I was completely present in that so that in
Speaker 3: every moment I could make that choice, just that choice,
Speaker 3: just that choice. So I managed to, yeah, find my
Speaker 3: way through and.
Speaker 2: Small commitments at a time, right like with anything in life,
Speaker 2: Like you said, you know that time, that time is
Speaker 2: just adding all of those up. And it must have
Speaker 2: been incredibly sort of difficult to ignore such sort of
Speaker 2: you know, medical advice. But what was it like, you know,
Speaker 2: knowing this information and then giving birth to Blaze.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean birth, birth is a doorway, and birth
Speaker 3: is a death, and anyone who has birth knows this.
Speaker 3: The person that we are before we birth is they
Speaker 3: die in the process of birth. You know. It's like
Speaker 3: a new creature come into the world and we leave
Speaker 3: ourselves behind in the process, and a you us has
Speaker 3: to come in to touch that creature. And so for me,
Speaker 3: I was so pressent through that whole journey because every
Speaker 3: decision I made was life or death. That came to
Speaker 3: the birth. It was actually amazing and freeing to be
Speaker 3: able to go, oh my god, I'm just I can
Speaker 3: just birth like a normal woman who's just pregnant. And
Speaker 3: birth is one of the most incredible experiences I've ever
Speaker 3: been through in my life. And I'm so so grateful
Speaker 3: that that my body knows this. So many women who
Speaker 3: don't get to experience that and then get to be
Speaker 3: mothers in very different ways and our mothers just as much.
Speaker 3: But the actual experience of birth in myself has definitely
Speaker 3: helped sort of create me as a person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I suppose it's the most natural, purest form of life,
Speaker 2: isn't it. It's that whole circle of life. So it's
Speaker 2: so so cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really is. And for me, there was something
Speaker 3: about like this little creature and this little creature, where
Speaker 3: did she come from? Her eyes were open and I'm like,
Speaker 3: she's not like what's looking through those eyes? Is this
Speaker 3: like mystery that's wrapped in skin? And oh my god,
Speaker 3: that somehow grew in my body? But she is her
Speaker 3: own person.
Speaker 2: All of that like fireworks, fireworks insane. It is because
Speaker 2: I've got five children myself and I'm not I remember
Speaker 2: holding them, you know, soon it's seen as soon as
Speaker 2: they came out onto mum once once mum was it
Speaker 2: then just and looking at the eyes, you know, thinking
Speaker 2: they can't even see me, you know, they can just
Speaker 2: probably see shadows. What's the little mind going through? How
Speaker 2: is that little heart pumping? And you know I've got
Speaker 2: I've got something that's completely reliant on myself and my
Speaker 2: wife to you know, to survive. You know, talk about responsibility.
Speaker 2: It's like and that made me excited that that that
Speaker 2: gave me the the buzz to to to really want
Speaker 2: to not only better myself, but you know, to to
Speaker 2: to better people around me. So I sort of understand
Speaker 2: it on a on a on a on a fatherhood scale.
Speaker 2: But you know, like you say to that, when that
Speaker 2: when that baby is growing inside of you, you know,
Speaker 2: Car and you say that, you leave a part of
Speaker 2: you behind, of who you were. I can sort of
Speaker 2: understand that in a way, but Car, to go through
Speaker 2: that not sort of envious, but I'm like, wow, that
Speaker 2: must be some you know, talk about the purest form
Speaker 2: of life, some experience to be able to do that
Speaker 2: is especially with the way that you think, Gina, you know,
Speaker 2: the way that you're connected, the way that you're you're
Speaker 2: grounded with with the planet. It's a I can only
Speaker 2: imagine the fascination going through your head.
Speaker 3: I think that humans are designed to search for ways
Speaker 3: to be in service to something greater than selves. And
Speaker 3: when that happens, when we find a purpose greater themselves,
Speaker 3: whatever it is, there is past that feels at home.
Speaker 3: It's like, Okay, now I get to bring my gifts,
Speaker 3: Now I get to bring my wisdom. Now I am
Speaker 3: not the most important thing in my universe. We go
Speaker 3: from the selfishness of a child, it's like I'm the
Speaker 3: only thing that exists, and then you know, the entitlement
Speaker 3: of a teenager is like I deserve, and then we
Speaker 3: get broken in our twenties into their like the universe
Speaker 3: doesn't actually give a shit, and you know if you
Speaker 3: if you don't find a way to fit into the
Speaker 3: greater context of life, then then life is going to
Speaker 3: slap your hard until you get it. And by the
Speaker 3: time we have a child, then there's this oh.
Speaker 2: Wow, now it makes sense.
Speaker 3: I will yeah, I will never again be the most
Speaker 3: important thing in my life. As long as this child
Speaker 3: is breathing, then I am in service to them in
Speaker 3: some way. And then of course there's the parts of
Speaker 3: as like.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I've ruined my life and your little
Speaker 2: bugger and why can't I just go back to my
Speaker 2: care free life.
Speaker 3: I was so great before. But then there is that
Speaker 3: deeper like you can't help it. You just get cracked
Speaker 3: open over and over.
Speaker 2: Beautiful Blaze was born.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 2: I suppose every parent's worst nightmare, I know it would
Speaker 2: certainly be mine. Three years later, you find a lump
Speaker 2: in Blaze's belly. Can you just take me back to
Speaker 2: when you when you identified that and how you identified it?
Speaker 2: Were you playing with Blaze? And how old of a
Speaker 2: suddenly did you come across the lump that was on
Speaker 2: her belly.
Speaker 3: Ah, if you've ever had a toddler, you know they've
Speaker 3: got a big tummy, you know, they just get this
Speaker 3: big belly and then they grow out of it. And
Speaker 3: I just had a moment of seeing her going, yeah,
Speaker 3: tommy's too big. Y's that's too big, and you know,
Speaker 3: just one of those little instinctive moments and then come here,
Speaker 3: let me feel it. And so it was big. I felt.
Speaker 3: It's like if anyone who's ever had cancer, you know
Speaker 3: how it feels. It's hard. It's like a rock. It's
Speaker 3: like a stone, you know, and it's it's it's like
Speaker 3: running into a wall, feeling a tumor lump. And so
Speaker 3: I felt that inside her and I immediately.
Speaker 2: Knew how big.
Speaker 3: To me, it felt like a fist, like that's in her.
Speaker 3: It was like it was big. It's all a blurn.
Speaker 3: Now I can't tell you exactly how big it was
Speaker 3: because it's you know, so much more happened, but it
Speaker 3: was definitely. The cancer that I had was quite small,
Speaker 3: it was like one or two centimeters, but on that
Speaker 3: she had definitely like I was like, whoa, there's a
Speaker 3: that's not just a lump that's a rock and yeah,
Speaker 3: and then I knew. I knew that because I've felt Yeah,
Speaker 3: because I'd felt it in my own breast. I felt
Speaker 3: I've felt that, you know, thousands of times in my
Speaker 3: own breast. What's that? It is there? It is there?
Speaker 3: It is there. It is you know when you're like
Speaker 3: you get a hole in you, like you when you
Speaker 3: pulled out a tooth or something, is it getting you
Speaker 3: stick your tongue in it and you're worry at it
Speaker 3: or it's the same thing. It's that that, Well, there's
Speaker 3: something there. I'll just poke at it and feel it.
Speaker 2: So you knew, you knew before you even took her
Speaker 2: to the to the doctors took her to you knew.
Speaker 2: So when when Blaze was diagnosed with cancer, were you
Speaker 2: already you know, preparing for the worst. I expect, you know,
Speaker 2: you actually knowing in your head or what was going
Speaker 2: through your head once once the doctor sort of confirmed
Speaker 2: what you already knew.
Speaker 3: M I think, I mean I did know, But then again,
Speaker 3: having been through it all myself, I know, and I
Speaker 3: knew that there's all of the tests, what kind is it,
Speaker 3: what does it do? Has it gone? And outside? Is
Speaker 3: it in the lymph nodes as have gone through the body.
Speaker 3: Is it malignant? Is it this? Is it that? So
Speaker 3: so again, there are probably a lot of people who
Speaker 3: are listening to this who have been through cancer, and
Speaker 3: when you have been through cancer, it becomes a hurry
Speaker 3: up and wait situation. There's okay, there's a diagnosis, but
Speaker 3: now we need to know, we need pathology. So then
Speaker 3: you've got a test and you've got to sit there
Speaker 3: and you've got to go to do and wait for
Speaker 3: that to come back. And then when it comes back,
Speaker 3: then you've got to wait for doctors to tell you
Speaker 3: what it means. And then they give you some options
Speaker 3: and then it's like well you can do this or
Speaker 3: this or this or this or this and then make
Speaker 3: a decision, and then you've got to wait to be
Speaker 3: able to let that start. So there's these kind of
Speaker 3: like this stutter stops like yes, no, it's like having
Speaker 3: someone driving a cab and you're in the cab and
Speaker 3: that you know those people and they put on the
Speaker 3: accelereta and then they put on the brake and you're
Speaker 3: like you're like this, like just decide, dude, just like
Speaker 3: go one way or the other. So I think there
Speaker 3: wasn't really a lot of room in that moment for
Speaker 3: really even projecting. It was it was what information is
Speaker 3: coming in, and I make decisions based on my logic.
Speaker 3: I will absolutely assemb all of the data that I can,
Speaker 3: but my ultimate decision comes from my belly, from my instincts.
Speaker 3: So I'll have my emotions and I'll hold them gently,
Speaker 3: and I'll have logic and I'll hold that gently. But
Speaker 3: then the intuitive leap that gets to move through those
Speaker 3: two things, that's actually how I decide things. So when
Speaker 3: I was told, you know, you must terminate this pregnancy
Speaker 3: or you'll die, it's like all the information, all the
Speaker 3: logic was yes, you'll die, and my heart is like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, no, But my inisted that is a way.
Speaker 3: And if I stay clear and scentered and come, I
Speaker 3: know I can find it. But I need to stay
Speaker 3: clear and centered and calme. So anything that knocks me
Speaker 3: off center I need to be able to deal with.
Speaker 3: So it became a meditation, and it was then there
Speaker 3: was the same thing. Once Blaze was diagnosed, it was
Speaker 3: pretty much the same thing. There's a whole bunch of
Speaker 3: information and then there's a whole bunch of emotional process.
Speaker 3: But then there was this you know, instinctive voice. I
Speaker 3: trust my gut absolutely implicitly. Whatever it tells me, That's
Speaker 3: where I go, no matter what what noise is going on,
Speaker 3: My gut is my guide.
Speaker 2: When Blaze was born, was there was there checks, you know,
Speaker 2: where they thought like, you've you've you've had cancer's let's
Speaker 2: check this baby thoroughly, or was it a case of
Speaker 2: notes She's clear, and all of a sudden, three years
Speaker 2: later you find this lump.
Speaker 3: The interesting thing about cancer is there are many pathways
Speaker 3: that cancer can take to express in a body. You know,
Speaker 3: some of it is environmental, some of it may be genetic,
Speaker 3: you know, some of it can be diet, some of
Speaker 3: can be emotional. The cancer that I had, I had
Speaker 3: every test for genetic markers and there was nothing. There
Speaker 3: was no family history, there was there was just like
Speaker 3: it was. It was a unicorn. It was a lightning strike.
Speaker 3: The doctors were like, we have no idea. You're healthy,
Speaker 3: you're fit, there's nothing in your genes, and yet here
Speaker 3: you are with stage three, grade three malignant breast cancer,
Speaker 3: pretty much your toast and we don't know why. But
Speaker 3: because there were no genetic markers, there was no there
Speaker 3: was actually no question about Blaze having cancer. It wasn't
Speaker 3: that thing of like because I have cancer, then she
Speaker 3: will grow it. It doesn't work that way. And it
Speaker 3: was then when she ended up with cancer. It's for me.
Speaker 3: It was an absolute wildcard and for them as well,
Speaker 3: and the doctors they said that we don't we have
Speaker 3: no idea, We have no idea why she has it
Speaker 3: either related to yours. It's not related to anything you did.
Speaker 3: It's just that's just the roll of the dice.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, you say that, the vault of the dice.
Speaker 2: How long from her diagnosis to when when she passed?
Speaker 3: How long was that that would have been all up?
Speaker 3: No more than about six months?
Speaker 2: Oh wow, So it took hold and just yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: No, it was really it was really quick. It was
Speaker 3: really quick.
Speaker 2: What was going through your head during that six months?
Speaker 2: And was there any hope that that that you know,
Speaker 2: this they could get rid of this cancer? There was, right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so we thought we thought we had got
Speaker 3: rid of it. Oh wow, we thought we thought it
Speaker 3: was done. And then it was just like she was
Speaker 3: here and then she wasn't, Like she was fine until
Speaker 3: she wasn't. There wasn't it wasn't like there was this huge,
Speaker 3: long drawn out process. She was fine and then then
Speaker 3: she was gone. It was really it was actually really
Speaker 3: beautiful because there wasn't this long process. We just got
Speaker 3: to have our daughter and then very quickly she just
Speaker 3: wasn't here anymore. And I'm glad. I'm glad it was
Speaker 3: like that. Actually, that's that's better than watching a wild
Speaker 3: thing be caged.
Speaker 2: How was your grieving process and how did you get
Speaker 2: through it?
Speaker 3: Grief demands to be felt, and we live in a
Speaker 3: culture that I think doesn't have healthy ceremonies and rituals
Speaker 3: and language about grief. You know, stiff upper lip and
Speaker 3: emotions are suspect and well it's very inconvenient, incredibly uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: So we're just going to make that girlway, shall we.
Speaker 3: And I don't hold to that at all, like I
Speaker 3: would rather let the ocean of emotion roll through me.
Speaker 3: For me, emotions are like weather. They come and they go,
Speaker 3: and a storm doesn't stay storming on you for months.
Speaker 3: A storm comes and then it goes, and then there's
Speaker 3: another storm, but then there's some sunshine in between, and sudden,
Speaker 3: you know, the ocean is beautiful and calm and clear
Speaker 3: and like dazzling light one day and the next day
Speaker 3: it's like these pounding waves that are like you know,
Speaker 3: churning up the beach. That for me is the experience
Speaker 3: of being in a body and having emotions. And so
Speaker 3: I just asked every day of grief, what do you
Speaker 3: need from me? What is grief asking of me to know?
Speaker 3: Some days it was asking me to wail and have tantrums,
Speaker 3: and other days it was asking me to laugh with
Speaker 3: my friends, and other days it was asking me to
Speaker 3: make love, and other days it was asking me to
Speaker 3: watch really bad TV. And other days it was asking
Speaker 3: me to just look at the leaves in the trees
Speaker 3: and not move for three hours and not even know
Speaker 3: what I was doing, just be like just looking at nothing,
Speaker 3: looking at looking at the waves, or looking at the sun.
Speaker 3: And again, for me, it's always about what is right
Speaker 3: right now? What is this moment asking of me? That's
Speaker 3: how I got through That's how I got through pregnant
Speaker 3: with cancer, That's how I got through all of the
Speaker 3: situation with her, That's how I got through grief. It's
Speaker 3: like what is right right now? And then some days
Speaker 3: it's like I don't want to feel this right now.
Speaker 3: So right now, I'm going to eat all of the
Speaker 3: ice cream and eat all of the chocolate and just
Speaker 3: you know, eat my feelings and make it all go away.
Speaker 3: And then there's other times I'm like, no, now, I
Speaker 3: can absolutely dive to the bottom of myself and I
Speaker 3: can feel every single sceric of this feeling and I
Speaker 3: wail to the heavens, and then on the other side
Speaker 3: of that, i'd feel clean and clear. I'm very blessed,
Speaker 3: I think to have had a life where I've learned
Speaker 3: how to process my feelings and to trust my body.
Speaker 3: I trust my body and I trust the movement of
Speaker 3: my feelings through my body. So grieving has been huge
Speaker 3: because it is. But the other thing for me is
Speaker 3: that grief is the flip side of the coin of love.
Speaker 3: And however much we love, that's how much we grieve
Speaker 3: love that for that which is been lost. And so
Speaker 3: the bigger our love, the more the grief hurts. But
Speaker 3: the grief is that that says that I feel and
Speaker 3: I'm alive, and I breathe and I love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a positive, right, that's a positive.
Speaker 3: Grief is a tribute. Yeah, it's like, oh wow, this
Speaker 3: is really hurting. Because that's how big my heart is
Speaker 3: right now. And to be able to map my heart
Speaker 3: and see whoa like, my heart is so big, it
Speaker 3: goes to that horizon, and my heart is so big,
Speaker 3: it goes to those stars because that's how big my
Speaker 3: grief is. But that is how big my heart is.
Speaker 3: It stopped being for me a negative and just starts
Speaker 3: being a part of being alive. Wow, and what a gift.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people who've lost will tell
Speaker 3: you that part of the gift of losing someone is
Speaker 3: the recognition that every breath is a gift. Every breath
Speaker 3: that I have means that I'm alive, and that is
Speaker 3: part of the gift of losing her. I'm just like, well,
Speaker 3: there's a other one. I'm still alive.
Speaker 2: The first Australian version of the reality show Alone pops up.
Speaker 2: When that popped onto the scene, what was going through
Speaker 2: your head and you were one of the ten contestants
Speaker 2: on there? How did you go through that process to
Speaker 2: become a contestant?
Speaker 3: It was really interesting because I was very judgmental about
Speaker 3: survival shows. I was like, they're all fake. I'm not
Speaker 3: interested in reality shows. The people have been telling me
Speaker 3: for like eight years to watch alone. No, no, this
Speaker 3: is different. I'm like, yeah, yeah, no it's not. It's
Speaker 3: all reality. Yeah right. And it wasn't long after the pandemic,
Speaker 3: I think, and I was just kind of doom scrolling
Speaker 3: on Netflix, going oh, there's that alone thing. I guess
Speaker 3: someone had just said something. Oh yeah, I'll have a look,
Speaker 3: And so I had a look book and very quickly
Speaker 3: went all, oh, this is real. There is no film
Speaker 3: crew and it is real. It's obviously real. This is
Speaker 3: not scripted. There are no producers. I get it. And
Speaker 3: so I started binging and shouting at the TV and
Speaker 3: giving advice and doing all the things that everyone does
Speaker 3: when they watch alone. And then I started to have
Speaker 3: the thought of what would I do if that was me?
Speaker 3: Because it was in the Northern hemisphere. I was like, well,
Speaker 3: you've got to be an American citizen and I'm not.
Speaker 3: And it's all thems because the thing is, it takes
Speaker 3: about I would say it takes two years to learn
Speaker 3: an ecosystem well enough to even be able to begin
Speaker 3: to spit properly. And the North American ecosystem I didn't.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've never survived in that. So for me,
Speaker 3: the point was moove. And then about two weeks after
Speaker 3: I really started binging, mine box blew up with people saying, Gina,
Speaker 3: it's alone, It's like loans Fred. And because it had
Speaker 3: already just taken rooting me and I was putting myself
Speaker 3: always like asking these questions what would I do? As
Speaker 3: soon as turned up in my inbox, I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: I have to do it. It was it wasn't even
Speaker 3: a question. I will say that it was choiceless. There
Speaker 3: was no choice. It was that instinctive. This is the thing,
Speaker 3: it is the only thing, It is the everything, and
Speaker 3: nothing else will exist until I am there, And and
Speaker 3: it was it was like that. I think I drove
Speaker 3: my friends in same Actually, I think I drove my
Speaker 3: friends enough because I was planning shelters and I was
Speaker 3: talking about fishing, and I started preparing before I applied.
Speaker 3: I gave myself a whole three month plan of preparation
Speaker 3: before i'd even applied, and I started it.
Speaker 2: I was like, yep, yeah, and you started, Gina, and
Speaker 2: you obviously come out on top and you win this.
Speaker 2: But did that process of being out, you know, by yourself,
Speaker 2: with your own thought process connected to mother nature grounded
Speaker 2: to the planet, you know, walking around without no shoes,
Speaker 2: which I know that you still do nowadays. You know,
Speaker 2: did those sixty seven days of you being completed, did
Speaker 2: that help you process your grief? And did you really
Speaker 2: use that as a platform to do that.
Speaker 3: It's a great question. So those seven days were a
Speaker 3: quest and a rage every First Nations culture, every indigenous culture,
Speaker 3: every how to gather a culture ceremonies of transformation where
Speaker 3: people go out into the wilderness on their own as
Speaker 3: fast and talk to nature. It's part of our birthright.
Speaker 3: And I have myself out on quite a few rites
Speaker 3: of passage that are you know, that are based in
Speaker 3: this kind of a process, in kind of this kind
Speaker 3: of a ceremony. But to go out for sixty seven
Speaker 3: days is a quest unlike anything else that I had
Speaker 3: ever done. And I went out there and I made
Speaker 3: a vow of veracity. I made a vow to tell
Speaker 3: the truth no matter what. The whole cameras, you know,
Speaker 3: having cameras and filming myself that this would just be
Speaker 3: like a little portal. But I wasn't going to second guess.
Speaker 3: I wasn't going to filter. I was going to have
Speaker 3: the experience as if the cameras weren't there. And what
Speaker 3: that meant was that every day I would get up
Speaker 3: and I would ask three questions, ask what are my needs?
Speaker 3: What resources do I have to meet those needs? And
Speaker 3: how much energy do I have left over to make art?
Speaker 3: And that was it. That was that was pretty much
Speaker 3: in that moment. And again, like I have done my
Speaker 3: whole life, what's this moment asking of me? And because
Speaker 3: I was starving and I was freezing.
Speaker 5: And I was surviving, there wasn't a lot of energy
Speaker 5: available and I had to make sure my shelter was
Speaker 5: warm enough so I could live calories so I didn't
Speaker 5: have to go out and find calories.
Speaker 3: I had to conserve heat. What are my needs? You know?
Speaker 3: There were all these very very powerful and poignant tasks,
Speaker 3: but they were also incredibly simple. I didn't have to
Speaker 3: think about what anybody else thought of me. I didn't
Speaker 3: like so many of the hamsters that go around and
Speaker 3: around in our minds as modern humans, are about externals
Speaker 3: impacting on us, or ways that our power is outsourced,
Speaker 3: and yeah, and our authority is outsourced, and we live
Speaker 3: in a culture that tells us that everything that we
Speaker 3: do is wrong, that we're not enough that we should
Speaker 3: be doing something differently. Out there, all that's gone gone
Speaker 3: just doesn't even exist. And so then this purity of
Speaker 3: human experience got to rise up, and I got to
Speaker 3: interrupt in this very simple way with nature and with myself.
Speaker 3: So when it came to grief, grief would come, and
Speaker 3: then grief would go.
Speaker 2: There's a moment that went viral, and I've seen the
Speaker 2: clip and car talk about are powerful. And I use
Speaker 2: the word powerful because you know, some people can use heartbreaking,
Speaker 2: some people can use but it was such a powerful clip.
Speaker 2: It almost felt that you were in your element. I
Speaker 2: know it must have been such a hard thing to do,
Speaker 2: But for me, when I looked at it, I thought,
Speaker 2: she's in her she's present, She's in her element now
Speaker 2: right now. You know a lot of people might go, ah,
Speaker 2: she's suffering, and I saw the flip side to it.
Speaker 2: I was like, she is the all power and all
Speaker 2: She's just being herself and that must be really really powerful.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if I've got that wrong. I've
Speaker 2: got that right, but I see a lot of people
Speaker 2: see the opposite side to it. I didn't see that.
Speaker 2: I was just like that gave me inspiration.
Speaker 3: Oh thank you. That's really that's really lovely to hear.
Speaker 3: And it's spot on because I have been grieving very
Speaker 3: consciously for so long. For me, it's not suffering. It's
Speaker 3: a storm.
Speaker 2: It's the purest form of yourself. Then I saw the
Speaker 2: purest form of you.
Speaker 3: Yes. Yeah, it is a storm of emotion and it
Speaker 3: comes and it goes. And if I fight it, and
Speaker 3: if I hold it away, then that tension that's suffering.
Speaker 3: Because the thing is, I think I've done it so
Speaker 3: much now I know it's going to end. I think
Speaker 3: that what happens with people is stuff comes and we go,
Speaker 3: Oh my god. If I go into this, I'm never
Speaker 3: going to come out. If I start crying now, I'm
Speaker 3: never going to stop. If I start raging now, I
Speaker 3: am going to burn the world. Whereas my experience is
Speaker 3: that that emotions come in waves, and so it will
Speaker 3: start and it will build. And if I catch that wave,
Speaker 3: if I you know, if I fight a wave, then
Speaker 3: it's got to smashed me and it's going to break me.
Speaker 3: But if I surf that wave, if I if I
Speaker 3: let myself be fluid and pliable in that wave, then
Speaker 3: you know, I might still get dumped, but that's okay.
Speaker 3: I just hold my breath and get tumbled and then
Speaker 3: come for the surface. And that grief storm was it
Speaker 3: was her birthday. It was her birthday, and I, you know,
Speaker 3: I made a fire and I didn't know that that
Speaker 3: grief storm was going to come until it did. And
Speaker 3: there was one moment when I had the cameras, I'm like,
Speaker 3: am I going to leave this on? And it wasn't
Speaker 3: even a question, that's like, of course I'm going to
Speaker 3: leave this on. Of course, I said, vow of veracity,
Speaker 3: I'm going to tell the truth. And this is a
Speaker 3: human truth. This is a poignant and powerful and archetypal
Speaker 3: human truth. This is grief.
Speaker 2: It was such a such a powerful moment. And once
Speaker 2: you rode that emotional wave, will like you say, did
Speaker 2: it make you feel better? Did it?
Speaker 3: Did it?
Speaker 2: Did it then allow you just to to move on
Speaker 2: to the next emotional wave? How did that make you
Speaker 2: feel in that moment?
Speaker 3: Yes? Well, the thing that I think, I'm really grateful
Speaker 3: that SBS and ITV allowed the edit that they did
Speaker 3: in that moment because the rawness of this woman keening
Speaker 3: beside a fire for her lost child. I you know,
Speaker 3: It would be very easy to make that clickbait. It
Speaker 3: would be very easy to just turn up the volume
Speaker 3: on that and just leave it in the tragedy and
Speaker 3: leave it in what looks like suffering. But I'm so
Speaker 3: grateful because what they did was then they showed me
Speaker 3: the next day when I was leaning against a log
Speaker 3: and I was in gratitude. I was so so peaceful
Speaker 3: and grateful, and it wasn't fake. You could see it.
Speaker 3: You could see that this is what it's like. You know,
Speaker 3: when there's a storm, and then afterwards, the sun comes
Speaker 3: out and you go outside and the bush smells amazing,
Speaker 3: and the beach is washing and the birds are all singing,
Speaker 3: and you needed that storm to clean out everything, and
Speaker 3: now everything feels brand new. That's the next day, and
Speaker 3: you see it. And I'm so glad that they showed that,
Speaker 3: because to me, there is an intelligence in allowing emotions
Speaker 3: to move, but you've never seen it. It can be
Speaker 3: like I can't do that. But I have people who
Speaker 3: stopped me all the time in the street and say
Speaker 3: thank you so much for showing your grief, And it's
Speaker 3: helped me to be able to understand and process and
Speaker 3: not be afraid of my own, which for me, it's
Speaker 3: that purpose beyond self Like I went out there on
Speaker 3: a lone Australia too, you know, for a million different reasons.
Speaker 3: But ultimately, ultimately it wasn't about me. I was a placeholder,
Speaker 3: you know. I got to tell a story that I
Speaker 3: think needs to be told about nature, connection, about being
Speaker 3: a part of nature rather than apart from nature. But
Speaker 3: ultimately that story is not about me. It's just I
Speaker 3: happened to be a vehicle for that story to be told.
Speaker 3: And I think a part of that was the being
Speaker 3: able to show, well, this is how it can actually
Speaker 3: even though it's the hardest thing, it can also be poetry.
Speaker 3: And to have people come up and tell me that
Speaker 3: means that there's a part of that kind of does
Speaker 3: okay good. I kind of did my job what I
Speaker 3: needed to do and set it free into the world.
Speaker 2: Do you know what, along with millions of other people.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad that you did. So since the show
Speaker 2: you're running programs now, could just talk to me about
Speaker 2: the programs that you're doing, and also just quickly about
Speaker 2: about your life off grid. You know, how interesting is
Speaker 2: it and how nourishing is it, and how live eating
Speaker 2: is it.
Speaker 3: Living off grid is amazing. But at the moment, since alone,
Speaker 3: I have had my life turn so completely upside down
Speaker 3: that I'm not in the shack at the moment. I
Speaker 3: have a seven meter bus that is my home and
Speaker 3: that I kind of go up and down the coast in.
Speaker 3: But I've ended up writing a book, and I've written
Speaker 3: a memoir and it comes out on October two in Australia.
Speaker 3: And as a result of that, I am involved in
Speaker 3: all of this modern stuff. I'm involved in publishing, I'm
Speaker 3: involved in designing covers, I'm involved in you know, there's
Speaker 3: a book tour coming up.
Speaker 2: What's the name of your book.
Speaker 3: It's called We Are the Stars, and it's a memoir
Speaker 3: and it's an absolute magic carpet ride. It's a roller coaster.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, basically, you've taken me through the
Speaker 3: elements of so much of my life, and it's got
Speaker 3: all of that. It's got the grittiest and the realist
Speaker 3: and the raw is the most silly, the most embarrassing,
Speaker 3: the most hum It's got all the possible flavors of
Speaker 3: a human.
Speaker 2: I want to sign copy.
Speaker 3: I will send you assigned copy. I would love to
Speaker 3: send you assigned. Yes, best, Yeah.
Speaker 2: And your programs. Talk to me about your programs as well.
Speaker 3: Okay, so the programs there, it's rewilding, and a lot
Speaker 3: of people like what's rewilding. Well, rewilding is basically just
Speaker 3: learning how to exist in relationship with nature using ancestral
Speaker 3: living skills, like the skills that are that are encoded
Speaker 3: in all of our DNA. You know, it doesn't matter
Speaker 3: what your heritage. Three hundred and fifty thousand years we've
Speaker 3: been Homo sapiens, and three hundred and forty thousand of
Speaker 3: those years we were how to gatherers. It's all of us,
Speaker 3: and we only lived and existed by being in connection
Speaker 3: with nature and with each other and by being able
Speaker 3: to live in harmony. Without that, we wouldn't have made
Speaker 3: it as a species.
Speaker 2: I love that encoded in our DNA.
Speaker 3: And what we see is that our modernity is like
Speaker 3: this barrier that we think is really like hard, but
Speaker 3: it's very permeable and it doesn't take much to scratch
Speaker 3: it off. And so if you take people and put
Speaker 3: them into nature connection situations very very very quickly, they
Speaker 3: start to remember how to be at home in the wild,
Speaker 3: like it doesn't take much. It's like there's a part
Speaker 3: of all of us inside that is going, come on,
Speaker 3: let me out, let me out. And so, you know,
Speaker 3: it starts with maybe just taking off your shoes and
Speaker 3: walking in the grass, or leaning against a tree, or
Speaker 3: turning off your phone, or looking at a horizon and
Speaker 3: seeing that infinite edge, or letting your eyes go soft
Speaker 3: and listening to the birds. All of these things start
Speaker 3: to quieten it so that we start to get a
Speaker 3: sense of ourselves as part of the interconnected web of life,
Speaker 3: and rewilding is how we learn and dive into those
Speaker 3: skills that are going to help us survive and thrive
Speaker 3: and love and live and understand the song of the bush,
Speaker 3: the song of nature.
Speaker 2: Wow, do you know what that is? Amazing? It's almost
Speaker 2: it's almost a program of the purest form of life.
Speaker 2: It's been amazing chatting to you. Honestly, the energy that
Speaker 2: I've got from this talk, the knowledge, the just the
Speaker 2: freedom of just being able to, you know, connect with myself,
Speaker 2: connect with my emotions and go with the flow is
Speaker 2: certainly something that I have to remind myself to do
Speaker 2: every now and then, because life, you know, sort of
Speaker 2: takes you away in a certain direction. But I'm very
Speaker 2: much connected in that way as well. But I think
Speaker 2: we all need to do it a little bit more.
Speaker 2: But Gina, thank you ever so much for coming on
Speaker 2: my podcast, head Game. I love you millions, and listen,
Speaker 2: we are definitely hooking up when I come to OZ
Speaker 2: and don't forget that signbook for me.
Speaker 3: I want to get that sign book. And I'm giving
Speaker 3: you the biggest squeeze through this screen right now. I'm
Speaker 3: giving you a proper, proper, proper, proper squeeze from my
Speaker 3: bones in my heart.
Speaker 2: I'm taking it. I'm taking it.
Speaker 3: Okay, Bye, Love Gina.
Speaker 2: Chicks memoir We Are the Stars is out now. I'll
Speaker 2: lead the details in the show notes. Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for joining me on Headgame. If you enjoyed this episode,
Speaker 2: make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss any of
Speaker 2: our incredible stories and leave me a review wherever you're listening.
Speaker 2: I'm Matt Middleton. Catch you again next time.