Speaker 1: Welcome to First things first, I'm Brookletting. My pronouns are
Speaker 1: she and her.
Speaker 2: My Maddie Mills, my pronouns are he and him. And
Speaker 2: before we get started, we'd like to acknowledge the custodians
Speaker 2: of the land on which we recorded today. For me,
Speaker 2: that's the gattigal people of the urination.
Speaker 1: And for me it's a warrandry people of the coolin
Speaker 1: nation Google. So I have to give a little bit
Speaker 1: of a shout out to a recent film that I watched,
Speaker 1: which actually was like looking at your life through or
Speaker 1: like a bird's eye view of your life or.
Speaker 3: Looking in their mirror. It was such a reflection.
Speaker 1: Of my own childhood that it was kind of creepy
Speaker 1: and spooky in a way. Obviously different experiences, but the
Speaker 1: general vibe and the feeling of it was so one
Speaker 1: nostalgic two so relatable and connection and owfool that it
Speaker 1: just yeah, we need. It makes me so inspired to
Speaker 1: create more films like this. HL So it's called Like
Speaker 1: My Brother, and it's basically a story of three girls,
Speaker 1: Jess Rider and Rena, who are pretty talented AFL players.
Speaker 3: They play. They're from the TV Islands and they're wanting to.
Speaker 1: Get drafted to the AFLW and they have to travel
Speaker 1: a long way from home to do that, and luckily
Speaker 1: they get picked up with the Bombers Bombers Scout Soeston Bombers,
Speaker 1: and they get to sort of train and test and
Speaker 1: play a VFL season with the Bombers and you move
Speaker 1: away from home. But one of the common themes that I,
Speaker 1: I guess felt in this film, and I guess is
Speaker 1: a common theme for our lives is the sorry business
Speaker 1: and grief aspect.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it really hits our communities totally. It's so
Speaker 2: sad to say this, but it's the time where we
Speaker 2: connect the most as mob. Like. It feels like whenever
Speaker 2: I'm around family, it's always for sorry business. You know.
Speaker 2: There's not that many weddings that I can say that
Speaker 2: I've been to where I've connected with my family. It's
Speaker 2: more like funerals.
Speaker 1: That's I guess why I was so excited to become
Speaker 1: a marriage celebrant, which I will be still, but it's
Speaker 1: just taking me a bit of time because I got
Speaker 1: so much other shit.
Speaker 3: Going on total.
Speaker 1: But I want to like do those you know, cultural
Speaker 1: ceremonies where it's like a wedding. I want to start
Speaker 1: more ceremonies that were to celebrate love and care and
Speaker 1: consideration rather than death and grief and sadness and fucking loss.
Speaker 3: Like, I'm over that, But it's just a thing that
Speaker 3: we have to live with, isn't it? In our lives?
Speaker 1: And every time I sort of talk about my life,
Speaker 1: people say, wow.
Speaker 3: Like you really we have lost a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I don't even I'm so desensitized to that
Speaker 1: word or even the feeling, because I'm like, yeah, I have,
Speaker 1: but I don't know, just get on with life really anyway.
Speaker 2: That's a tough person. I think that somebody who has
Speaker 2: lost direct family members like that at such a young age,
Speaker 2: I feel like you do grow like a tough exterior. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know. And it's a weird thing because I think
Speaker 2: what people would necessarily expect from somebody who's gone through
Speaker 2: so much trauma at such a young age is a
Speaker 2: broken person and somebody who crumbles easily or is visibly
Speaker 2: affected by that grief and trauma all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But it's like the thing about the human experience is
Speaker 2: that you do find ways to get through stuff, and
Speaker 2: you find ways to.
Speaker 3: Cope yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how do you think, Like, I know that you've
Speaker 2: gone through a lot in your life when it comes
Speaker 2: to loss, Like, what are your cope mechanisms? How do
Speaker 2: you get through your grief?
Speaker 1: Well, grief is a lot like just life in general.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, life moments go up and down,
Speaker 1: and you can't always have good days, like you have
Speaker 1: to have shitty days to appreciate the good ones. You
Speaker 1: can have good days appreciate why the shitty ones exist.
Speaker 1: And I think grief is a bit similar to that.
Speaker 1: I think you kind of might It might not hit
Speaker 1: you in that.
Speaker 3: Moment of losing someone. It might come later.
Speaker 1: You might And you know, there's this experience of grief
Speaker 1: is that there are seven parts of it and you
Speaker 1: know they sort of can come at any time. They're
Speaker 1: not you know, in level of order. I guess you know.
Speaker 1: One of the first things is usually shock and that
Speaker 1: could come later. Anger, denial, Yeah, you know. And I
Speaker 1: think for me personally, how I've dealt with it is
Speaker 1: when I was much younger, you know, I didn't realize
Speaker 1: that I had suppressed some of it, and then some
Speaker 1: of it I you know, made it.
Speaker 3: A motivation in a way.
Speaker 1: So, and then some of it was I was fucking
Speaker 1: angry at and I experienced a lot of anger. So
Speaker 1: my coping mechanisms haven't always been the most healthy. But
Speaker 1: because I'm in such a healthy mindset now and I
Speaker 1: can look back at those experiences and look how I
Speaker 1: am now, I can see what I did then was
Speaker 1: only in my capacity, and I was a kid, and
Speaker 1: I just had to sort of get on and deal
Speaker 1: with it. And now I'm sort of dealing with the effects.
Speaker 1: But grief affects me every day. I guess in some way.
Speaker 1: I have moments of these, you know, sad moments where
Speaker 1: I feel really joyful and so happy that I'm like, Wow,
Speaker 1: my god, I can't believe I have just achieved that.
Speaker 3: And this is such a great moment.
Speaker 1: And then I'll have this rush of sadness because of
Speaker 1: the feeling that my mom doesn't get to experience this
Speaker 1: with me, and I'll feel sad even though I'm feeling
Speaker 1: so happy, I feel this hint of sadness because she
Speaker 1: doesn't get to dwell and live in.
Speaker 3: This with me.
Speaker 1: And I guess that's just living with grief, right, That's
Speaker 1: just living with that, and it affects you at different
Speaker 1: points in your life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what about you.
Speaker 1: I guess you've also, you know, have lost so many
Speaker 1: family members, you know, your brother recently more so. And
Speaker 1: do you feel like, as an adult you've been able
Speaker 1: to learn to deal with it better or do you
Speaker 1: think you're still kind of just going through the waves
Speaker 1: of it all.
Speaker 2: I just remember having such a weird experience with grief.
Speaker 2: When I was young, I was told that my dad
Speaker 2: had died. So I grew up with the belief and
Speaker 2: the grief of somebody who that I believed was dead
Speaker 2: and gone. And I remember how sad that was for
Speaker 2: me as a young kid, and how empty I felt,
Speaker 2: thinking that I would never get to meet my dad
Speaker 2: or experience life with a dad. And then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden that all turned in on itself and it
Speaker 2: was false. And it's like all that grief that I
Speaker 2: experienced as a kid, and the lies and the trauma
Speaker 2: that came with that, the emptiness that came with that,
Speaker 2: it felt like it was all for nothing, Like who
Speaker 2: would put someone through that? Then, you know that sort
Speaker 2: of I had this weird moment where when I met
Speaker 2: my dad when I was in care for the first time,
Speaker 2: it was the weirdest feeling of like I was elated,
Speaker 2: you know, like it was like an outer body experience
Speaker 2: of seeing this man and having this interaction that was
Speaker 2: just never on the cards. And I think that that
Speaker 2: healed like a lot of that grief really quickly. Experience
Speaker 2: of getting to know my dad healed a lot of
Speaker 2: that loss and that disconnectedness when I was a young kid,
Speaker 2: but then getting older and experiencing grief. I think what
Speaker 2: I've realized is I try and experience joy a lot
Speaker 2: when it comes to my life. And I think, yeah,
Speaker 2: and I think that that's yeah, and that's why I
Speaker 2: do what I do, Like I really believe that I
Speaker 2: have a job that I experienced joy in and so I.
Speaker 3: Don't want to be dwelling in the mind right.
Speaker 2: It's it's the counter attack to what I've been given,
Speaker 2: the cards I've been given. Yes, I have to I
Speaker 2: have to produce joy in my life and that's my job.
Speaker 2: I think I get so much joy out of being
Speaker 2: able to live out my dream in my career that
Speaker 2: it's like the counter action to what cards I was dealt.
Speaker 2: It's heavy not just on me, but I see it
Speaker 2: when I go home with my family, like there's a
Speaker 2: lot of grief, especially recently around my brother. You know,
Speaker 2: how I've seen grief affect someone really half is my dad.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: My dad was a really strong, like determined, loving kind man,
Speaker 2: and grief has made him deeply depressed, bedridden, debilitating. You know,
Speaker 2: grief has been debilitating to him to the point where
Speaker 2: he's ended up in hospital for weeks on end because
Speaker 2: of grief. And I feel like, if you don't have
Speaker 2: the coping mechanisms, or if you don't have the resources
Speaker 2: or people around you to support you and take a
Speaker 2: bit of that weight off, if.
Speaker 3: You just go by day by day kind of cold.
Speaker 2: And it holds you down. I think that there are
Speaker 2: so many of our communities that are drowning in grief. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think about my community back home of cold out
Speaker 2: just being in that place, I feel it.
Speaker 1: I remember someone telling me that grief is like having
Speaker 1: a rock in your pocket, and some days you feel
Speaker 1: it and some days you might not notice it. And
Speaker 1: sometimes it feels heavier and some days it feels lighter.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a great sort of analogy of
Speaker 1: how I sort of see grief is that in the
Speaker 1: moments when you feel really strong and you're feeling really empowered,
Speaker 1: and you're feeling liberated, you're feeling supported and loved by
Speaker 1: people around you. The rock doesn't feel so heavy. The
Speaker 1: thing is it actually never really goes away. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like this're thing like, oh I'm healed and
Speaker 1: I'm grieved. It's like you've lost something, You've lost a
Speaker 1: bit of you. And I think that's what I realized
Speaker 1: when I was younger, is that I felt like I
Speaker 1: was always trying to strive to be back to the
Speaker 1: same person that I was before something happened, and I
Speaker 1: was striving to get back to that. But that's kind
Speaker 1: of what grief does. Unfortunately. I feel when you lose someone,
Speaker 1: you do lose a little bit of a part of yourself,
Speaker 1: and you have to acknowledge that it doesn't change you
Speaker 1: or make you different or anyway, but it does affect
Speaker 1: you and you're not always going to be the same person.
Speaker 1: It's such a complex issue, grief, but we don't talk
Speaker 1: about it a lot.
Speaker 2: I feel like it's a universal experience we all experience.
Speaker 2: I think that in our community we experience it a
Speaker 2: lot because of the disadvantage that we face. And I
Speaker 2: think that colonization has contributed to massively contributed to that disadvantage.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of issues within our community that
Speaker 2: grief stems from. You agree, a lots of disconnection, you know,
Speaker 2: when that isn't just about people, but that's about land, environment, culture.
Speaker 2: I think you become lost, and I think that there's
Speaker 2: this sense of trying to find something that you can
Speaker 2: hold onto or belonging, and grief is something that sometimes
Speaker 2: can deny you from that.
Speaker 1: It does, yeah, and then if you don't I think
Speaker 1: if you don't acknowledge it.
Speaker 2: When you acknowledge it, there is a bit of pressure
Speaker 2: that is relieved. It's like, oh, okay, because you're seeing
Speaker 2: it for what it is. Yes, it has power in
Speaker 2: the sense that it can affect you in how you operate.
Speaker 2: But if you acknowledge it, it's like when you have
Speaker 2: a list of things to do, when they're all in
Speaker 2: your head and you're like, oh, I feel overwhelmed. As
Speaker 2: soon as you write them down on a piece of paper, Immediately,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, it's gone from here to here
Speaker 2: and there's a weight that's been lifted and you feel like, oh,
Speaker 2: that is achievable. I know exactly what I need to
Speaker 2: do to get that done.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, when you think of your grief.
Speaker 1: Who So, when I think of grief and the word
Speaker 1: grief and I think, oh, yeah, is my sister comes
Speaker 1: up a lot, and I think it's because I felt
Speaker 1: like losing my sister.
Speaker 3: You know, when it's a sibling, you're so close, and my.
Speaker 1: Sister is always the feeling that I when I'm not
Speaker 1: feeling well, I like know that I'm still grieving that
Speaker 1: because it's my most recent and I haven't been like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: it happened three years ago, should be fine. I'm like, actually, no,
Speaker 1: I'm actually still not okay with it. And that's pretty
Speaker 1: I'm okay with that actually because I know that that's
Speaker 1: a slow process and it actually probably changed me the most.
Speaker 3: Yeah you know what I mean, Like.
Speaker 1: That I had gone on this massive high. I thought
Speaker 1: I'd be the happiest of my ever, you know, just
Speaker 1: picked David from the Bachelorette. I was excited about the future,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, I'm reminded of something
Speaker 1: and then sort of straight back to the real reality
Speaker 1: of my.
Speaker 3: Life.
Speaker 1: In what happens so quickly, I guess, not just in
Speaker 1: fastinations communities, but families in general.
Speaker 3: Obviously, like things can just.
Speaker 1: Change, and that reminder is just so jarring sometimes. And
Speaker 1: in that moment, I was like that it actually like
Speaker 1: changed me as a person. And I have thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I need to get back to that brooke and I
Speaker 1: need to get that back. I'm like, I'm actually not
Speaker 1: that broke anymore.
Speaker 2: No things change you. It's like heartbreak in a relationship
Speaker 2: that changes how you love. If somebody hurts in a relationship,
Speaker 2: it immediately changes how you love, yeah, and how you
Speaker 2: experience love and the doubts. But when I think about grief,
Speaker 2: I always think of obviously my brother, and I think
Speaker 2: the process of that, the severity of like somebody's actions
Speaker 2: being so cruel. The hard thing about the scenario is
Speaker 2: that I didn't allow it to be real. The experience
Speaker 2: of like having a brother murdered. I always felt like
Speaker 2: I it was never real. It was like a something
Speaker 2: that happened to me that I just shut off, never
Speaker 2: ever dealt with, you know. And only recently has it
Speaker 2: become less numb. And I put his photo next to
Speaker 2: my bed a few months ago and as a reminder
Speaker 2: of him and his life, and it was the last
Speaker 2: photo we took together. It was me, him and my dad,
Speaker 2: and I put it in black and white, and my
Speaker 2: partner said, why is it in black and white? You
Speaker 2: need to give him color, give him life, you know,
Speaker 2: And it was, and so I ended up reprinting it
Speaker 2: in color. And I haven't ever experienced grief like that,
Speaker 2: where like it's been so deep that you don't even
Speaker 2: want to look at it, Like I before that moment,
Speaker 2: I couldn't look at photos of him. I couldn't really
Speaker 2: talk about him or say his name, like it was
Speaker 2: too hard to go there. And as soon as a
Speaker 2: memory would come up or I'd get flashbacks to his body,
Speaker 2: you know, Yeah, days before the funeral, I would just
Speaker 2: shut it out. It was like I just jumped that
Speaker 2: hurdle and leave it. And that's how I knew that
Speaker 2: grief was way too hard to even like connect with.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like too hard and I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: push it down. But recently, with a bit of justice,
Speaker 2: came a bit of acknowledging, you know, the severity but
Speaker 2: the reality of what happened. And I think that justice
Speaker 2: has allowed me to be more open to working on
Speaker 2: that grief. It's still something it's like two years on.
Speaker 3: Was it like a closure? Like, is it like a.
Speaker 2: It's closure to the fact that I need to worry
Speaker 2: about somebody paying the price. They are paying the price now. Yeah,
Speaker 2: never enough and it will never be enough, but they
Speaker 2: are paying for what they did. That little bit of
Speaker 2: justice has given me, I don't know, a sense of
Speaker 2: connection to being.
Speaker 1: Able to now, Yeah, to heal like it it's like
Speaker 1: an acknowledgment. It's like an invitation or an acceptance, like to.
Speaker 2: Worry about what happened. It's more about now focusing on healing.
Speaker 2: You know, this particular grief will stay with me forever,
Speaker 2: but I can do things to combat it and make
Speaker 2: sure that it doesn't become like a barrier to my
Speaker 2: mental health or success.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because that's what it can be.
Speaker 1: And I see that actually quite often in the young
Speaker 1: girls that I work with, it being something that stops
Speaker 1: them from doing something and stops them from believing in themselves.
Speaker 1: And I guess you know, I was that little girl
Speaker 1: once upon a time, you know, experiencing grief in the
Speaker 1: Aboriginal community. You experience it at such a young age,
Speaker 1: don't you reckon? Like you're going to funerals when you're
Speaker 1: really young. I was lucky. I say that I was lucky.
Speaker 1: But my fucking first funeral was my mom's.
Speaker 3: That was really hard.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know how funerals worked or run or
Speaker 1: you know, writing a eulogy when you're eleven years not eulogy,
Speaker 1: but writing, Yeah, it's eulogy, right, like when you're eleven
Speaker 1: years old. Yeah, it's like such a fucking surreal moment.
Speaker 1: But now the young girls that I'm working with are
Speaker 1: doing similar things, and I guess, like, I'm really lucky
Speaker 1: that I've got the skills now to be able to
Speaker 1: help and support them, and it's a sort of full
Speaker 1: circle moment. But I just think, you know, grief has
Speaker 1: affected my life so much, and I really don't want.
Speaker 3: It to affect theirs. But at the.
Speaker 1: Same time, I know that they'll be stronger for it
Speaker 1: in some ways because I was myself. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, if you look at the sort of light
Speaker 1: at the end of the tunnel, or you know, look
Speaker 1: at the lightest optimism and hope that an experience will
Speaker 1: either make you stronger or make you learn something.
Speaker 2: You know what I say. Yeah, people say you win
Speaker 2: or you lose. No, you win or you learn.
Speaker 1: You win or you learn, I agree, or you learn
Speaker 1: because I will choose not to lose.
Speaker 2: The losing isn't even a thing, like, yes, it is
Speaker 2: a thing in terms like okay hate when I say
Speaker 2: it's not a thing, and then I go, yes, it
Speaker 2: is a thing. What I mean is every failure, failure
Speaker 2: in quotations, or everything that isn't meant for us is
Speaker 2: a learning Yes, it's a learning experience. And I've learned.
Speaker 2: I think that's the best piece of advice that I've
Speaker 2: ever been given. You either win or you learn, because like,
Speaker 2: losing isn't a thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think you've built that obviously. You know,
Speaker 1: you've built that resilience. And I think that's what I'm
Speaker 1: worried about young kids these days, is that they haven't
Speaker 1: had time to build that resilience. Like, you know, phones
Speaker 1: have created this stimulation constantly that they're getting this like
Speaker 1: really big dopamine hit. You know, that they're not being
Speaker 1: able to sell, soothe, self, manage. As soon as their
Speaker 1: phones are out of sight, out of mind, They're in
Speaker 1: the real world pretty much now, and they don't know
Speaker 1: how to deal with that. And I think it's really
Speaker 1: affecting our young people like overall, and I think when
Speaker 1: it comes to grief and our young people, especially the
Speaker 1: girls that I work with, the self manage and the
Speaker 1: self soothing is their phones and technology and that's not realistic, no,
Speaker 1: And you know they're not seeing things or you full
Speaker 1: information around grief. They don't know what grief is. And
Speaker 1: so you know, if you're dealing with this like shock
Speaker 1: factor of losing someone, you go and do the sorry
Speaker 1: business you mourn. It doesn't just end there like I think.
Speaker 1: You know, people think, oh, so you do sorry business
Speaker 1: and you stay there until you're healed. It's not the case.
Speaker 1: You stay there until you feel like you can properly
Speaker 1: move on in life. I guess in a way where
Speaker 1: your function, you know, and you allow that time. That's
Speaker 1: what that time is for which we are lucky that
Speaker 1: we give our kids the opportunity to do that. But
Speaker 1: I guess this documentary that I had the pleasure of,
Speaker 1: you know, doing a moderating a Q and A four
Speaker 1: was just so realistic to the rawness of young girls
Speaker 1: moving you know, away from home, which I feel was
Speaker 1: myself and wanting to pursue a dream. But then sorry
Speaker 1: business and grief pulling them back to community and not
Speaker 1: being able to you know, suspend into the pursuits of
Speaker 1: you know, pursuing their dream kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like it being a barrier and I know that sorry,
Speaker 1: business is so important, but at the same time, I
Speaker 1: do feel like sometimes we we have to understand that
Speaker 1: it can pull back and pull back too far.
Speaker 3: Yeah, does that make sense?
Speaker 2: You know, it's equally as important self preservation, Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: self preserve.
Speaker 3: That's the other side of it, right, that's the other side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's a balance there of being a part
Speaker 2: of ceremony and culture and understanding sorry, business and supporting family,
Speaker 2: but also don't do it to the detriment of your
Speaker 2: own mental health if you're not in a position self preserve. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's super important.
Speaker 3: But that's one that's one great tip.
Speaker 1: So I guess with you know, we've spoken a little
Speaker 1: bit about our experiences with grief and then what we
Speaker 1: you know, how we feel it and what it kind
Speaker 1: of can look like. I guess what are some techniques
Speaker 1: or guess what are some techniques or I guess strategies
Speaker 1: that or advice even you would give to someone who
Speaker 1: is going on that journey of you know, experiencing grief
Speaker 1: sorry business or.
Speaker 3: I guess wants to know what to expect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in a way, I think it's unique to everyone's
Speaker 2: experience and it depends where you're at in life, with
Speaker 2: what resources or what you're capable of doing. But I
Speaker 2: know that there's been different stages of my evolution in
Speaker 2: terms of my life where I've been at different points
Speaker 2: in my life where I've been able to handle certain things.
Speaker 2: Like when I was younger, I obviously saw a lot
Speaker 2: of went to a lot of funerals.
Speaker 3: And even how many funerals do you reckon you've been to?
Speaker 3: Just a number, like, just to throw it out.
Speaker 2: There, probably around thirty.
Speaker 3: Fuck, that's a lot.
Speaker 1: That is a lot, thirty not even thirty thirty yet, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's one a year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been to a lot.
Speaker 3: You wouldn't. And what's the earliest age that you went
Speaker 3: to a funeral? Do you reckon?
Speaker 2: It would have been when I was about seven, Yeah, wow,
Speaker 2: six or seven six? I think I went to one
Speaker 2: before I went to foster care, and then the rest
Speaker 2: have been after.
Speaker 1: So between the ages of seven and thirty, you've gone
Speaker 1: to roughly around thirty funerals.
Speaker 2: I want to spy around twenty I think like twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five.
Speaker 3: So one or two people a year pretty much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I've had, I don't.
Speaker 3: Lose that many people.
Speaker 2: No, people don't go to that in their lifetime exactly.
Speaker 1: Just I'm just putting it into perspective because I mean
Speaker 1: our listeners will probably listen to and be like, I've
Speaker 1: not been to a funeral ever, or I've not been
Speaker 1: to a funeral in five years, and we're losing family
Speaker 1: members every year, even every six months.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that's a reality chock. The harsh reality of
Speaker 2: being a First Nations person is that in this country,
Speaker 2: like we lose a lot, we see a lot more
Speaker 2: than in terms of things that affect our mental health.
Speaker 2: I feel like we see way more you know, horrible shit. Yeah,
Speaker 2: tough stuff to consume. But I also want to say,
Speaker 2: you know, this has been a tough episode, and this
Speaker 2: has obviously been a heavy one to chat about. So yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, if anyone is listening and they want to,
Speaker 2: you know, connect with someone, there's a really great hotline
Speaker 2: for mob It's one three yarn and it's a part
Speaker 2: of Lifeline, its whole own department where there are First
Speaker 2: Nations callers who can chat you through any experience that
Speaker 2: you want to onto them about. So yeah, reach out
Speaker 2: if you want to.
Speaker 1: They listen non judgmentally, you know, non bias. But if
Speaker 1: you're non not First Nations, I guess you know, Lifeline
Speaker 1: is a really great hotline as well to call thirteen
Speaker 1: eleven fourteen. We'll put it in the show notes if
Speaker 1: you need some more resources and some other lines if
Speaker 1: you need. But no, I agree, I guess, And you
Speaker 1: know my advice would be with grief is again, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a very different experience for anyone.
Speaker 3: Is to take it slow.
Speaker 1: It's I know that's so simple, but it's to not
Speaker 1: have an expectation on what it should look like and
Speaker 1: what your healing should look like, and to I guess
Speaker 1: in the moments when you are feeling I guess a
Speaker 1: bit sad and you and you're like, oh this must
Speaker 1: you know, you maybe be more aware of those memm
Speaker 1: moments that you are a little bit sad because I
Speaker 1: do and I feel like, oh, oh I really miss
Speaker 1: my mum today, and I just like little I don't
Speaker 1: dwell in it, but I see in it for a
Speaker 1: little bit and I think, yeah, I feel it, and
Speaker 1: I will have a little cry look at a photo
Speaker 1: of her burn a little candle. I'll just you know,
Speaker 1: have that little moment because I think that it's not
Speaker 1: gonna it takes maybe you know, twenty minutes out of
Speaker 1: my day to feel that's.
Speaker 2: A healthy, healthy, healthy way to do it.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's funny because in acting, it's like
Speaker 1: the emotions. Emotions don't take you, you take them. And
Speaker 1: I think that's really powerful that if you do have
Speaker 1: an emotion that that comes, you get to choose whether
Speaker 1: you take it or leave it.
Speaker 3: And I feel like that's really important.
Speaker 1: But I choose to take it every time because I
Speaker 1: think taking that it's not gonna it doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: it's gonna cost me. If anything, it's gonna, yeah, make
Speaker 1: me feel a shit, like a little.
Speaker 3: Shitty for a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I'm gonna give it a time to feel shitty.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not gonna be like, oh, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: feel shitty for a week, because that's not going to
Speaker 1: be healthy. And I guess this is a very pragmatic
Speaker 1: way of looking at it at some points as well.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like taking the emotion, that that rush of emotion,
Speaker 1: letting it happen, feel it, sit in it, reflect on it,
Speaker 1: and then say, okay, this is I've given enough time.
Speaker 1: Now I can get on with my day and if
Speaker 1: it comes up again, let it. But then if it
Speaker 1: keeps coming up, being aware of that also, because if
Speaker 1: you're feeling sad for one week, two weeks, feeling sad
Speaker 1: more than two weeks, you know, maybe you need to
Speaker 1: go see someone, or maybe you need to talk to someone,
Speaker 1: Maybe you need to reach out and actually ask for
Speaker 1: some support. And I think that self awareness is really
Speaker 1: important to to your grief. You know, you're you know,
Speaker 1: learning how to grieve. There is a great resource. I
Speaker 1: think it's also out there. This is book I read
Speaker 1: and it's actually how to Grieve by the Little Yellow Book.
Speaker 3: I'll find it.
Speaker 2: Pop it in the show notes. That's what we have
Speaker 2: time for today. You know, if anything that we've spoken
Speaker 2: about has affected you and you want to talk to someone,
Speaker 2: make sure you reach out. We will pop some resources
Speaker 2: in the show notes. But if you love what you
Speaker 2: hear on our pod makes you leave a little of
Speaker 2: you and give us a rating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you want us to cover anything else on
Speaker 1: the pod reach out via our socials. My handle is
Speaker 1: at brook dot Blutton and Maddie's handlers at EA's Maddie Meals,
Speaker 1: and we will see you next week.
Speaker 2: Catch