Speaker 1: Hello, four five six club. This is Holly Wainwright. I
Speaker 1: am the host of MID and if you're discovering MID
Speaker 1: Conversations for gen X women who are anything but for
Speaker 1: the first time, you have a whole lot of episodes
Speaker 1: that you can go back and listen to. And you're lucky,
Speaker 1: if I say so myself, because some of them are
Speaker 1: bloody great. In fact, all of them are bloody great.
Speaker 1: While you might have stumbled across some MID episodes before,
Speaker 1: the one I'm sharing with you today is the very
Speaker 1: first one we ever recorded. It features the remarkable Julie
Speaker 1: Goodwin you know of originally Master Chef fame, but many
Speaker 1: other things since. And the episode is called don't call
Speaker 1: it a Breakdown. It's a story that you probably haven't heard,
Speaker 1: even if you've read a few headlines about it. It's extraordinary,
Speaker 1: very relatable, and it's about how Julie, several years after
Speaker 1: Master Chef and when she was apparently sort of living
Speaker 1: the dream, running her own business, juggling a lot of
Speaker 1: things at once, she had a full breakdown. How did
Speaker 1: she recover, how did she rebuild? How did she discover
Speaker 1: that she was taking care of everyone but herself? Does
Speaker 1: that sound familiar. This is one of my favorite conversations.
Speaker 1: Julie is warm and funny and very honest and vulnerable.
Speaker 1: I absolutely loved it. People talk to me about it
Speaker 1: all the time. So here it is where it all began.
Speaker 1: Episode one of season one of Mid. Don't call it
Speaker 1: a breakdown. You might know mid as an insult.
Speaker 2: I guess there's no way to have a good mid
Speaker 2: life crisis because it's gracious, an epidemic upon us of
Speaker 2: men on the internet calling women mid means poor quality,
Speaker 2: below average, not that attractive.
Speaker 1: And for the longest time, that's how midlife women have
Speaker 1: been seen and how we've been told to feel.
Speaker 3: The thing is, though we are.
Speaker 1: Anything, but my name is Holly Wainwright, and I am mid.
Speaker 1: By the time you've unlocked this seriously grown up level,
Speaker 1: you've seen some stuff, through some things, understand some stuff.
Speaker 1: You are wise and powerful, complicated and courageous, and yet
Speaker 1: the world is trying to trick you into believing that
Speaker 1: you're sad and small, uninteresting and unfuckable.
Speaker 3: Excuse me, but no, one hundred times no.
Speaker 4: Mid is a.
Speaker 1: Show for gen X women where we share thoughts from
Speaker 1: midlife and have the conversations that actually matter to us.
Speaker 3: Over the next eight episodes.
Speaker 1: You're going to hear grown ups talking about big things
Speaker 1: and little things and some serious, heavy shit, because there's
Speaker 1: plenty of that in midlife, and some silly, stupid stuff too,
Speaker 1: because we've worked out that sometimes that's exactly what we need.
Speaker 1: We're going to be talking about our heads and our stomachs,
Speaker 1: and our drinking, and our sex life, and our friends
Speaker 1: and our job and our families and our divorces and
Speaker 1: our dating and you get it, all.
Speaker 3: The good stuff.
Speaker 1: And today for episode one, we are talking about our heads.
Speaker 1: One of the things about midlife is you're meant to
Speaker 1: have all your fluffy ducks in pretty little rows.
Speaker 3: But it's not always like that.
Speaker 1: Sometimes because of hormones, because of perry, because of stress
Speaker 1: and health and life, and because often we've shoved some
Speaker 1: tricky things from our pass away in hard to reach drawers,
Speaker 1: those ducks waddle out of line and start tumbling over
Speaker 1: each other and running for the exits. Mental health can
Speaker 1: sneak up on you when you're mid and that can
Speaker 1: have serious ripple effects because often by now we've got
Speaker 1: a lot of people depending on us. We're meant to
Speaker 1: be that steady leaning post and suddenly we're wobbling.
Speaker 3: And no one knows that better than the woman.
Speaker 1: I'm having my first mid conversation with, Julie Goodwin. I
Speaker 1: gave you a dish am.
Speaker 2: Nine out of ten.
Speaker 1: Well, Julie Goodwin's infectious.
Speaker 2: Proving to be one very strong lady. Julie is now
Speaker 2: back in the kitchen.
Speaker 3: You know Julie, we all do.
Speaker 1: She won the first ever seas of Australian Master Chef
Speaker 1: aged thirty eight and became one of the most famous
Speaker 1: people in the country. There have been cookbooks and more
Speaker 1: TV shows and appearances all over the place. And now
Speaker 1: there's Julie's extraordinarily good memoir. It's called Your Time Starts Now,
Speaker 1: and in it she explains how her ducks got so
Speaker 1: very far out of their rows that she found herself
Speaker 1: not wanting to live anymore.
Speaker 3: It's an extraordinary story.
Speaker 1: But a familiar one too, because when Julie found herself
Speaker 1: doing what many of us are doing everything and falling
Speaker 1: apart while she was doing it, she had to start
Speaker 1: making some serious changes, which for her started with a
Speaker 1: stint in the hospital. Please enjoy the very first mid
Speaker 1: conversation with the brutally honest, occasionally sweary, completely wonderful.
Speaker 3: Julie Goodwin.
Speaker 1: Julie, I want to start by reading a few words
Speaker 1: in your book that you actually wrote about your school friends,
Speaker 1: because when I read it, I was like, these are
Speaker 1: the women who are listening to mid she wrote. Now,
Speaker 1: through the magic of social media, I catch glimpses of
Speaker 1: their lives. We are doctors, professors, lawyers, town planners, CEOs.
Speaker 1: We are mothers and grandmothers, daughters and lovers. We are
Speaker 1: cancer survivors and entrepreneurs, artists and activists and travelers. We
Speaker 1: have lost parents, partners, friends, and children. We've strived and achieved,
Speaker 1: struggled and grieved, worked and played. We've faced the whole
Speaker 1: spectrum of what life has to give and to take
Speaker 1: away and prevailed.
Speaker 3: We are fucking glorious. And I was like, that is
Speaker 3: exactly who this show is for.
Speaker 1: People who have seen some shit yeah and are still
Speaker 1: here and are fucking glorious. And you are one of
Speaker 1: those people. Julie Goodwin. So thank you, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for writing this book.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 2: Hard. I bet it was.
Speaker 1: Hard, because you've written cookbooks, right, lots of cookbooks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, lots of cookbooks, and there are.
Speaker 3: Recipes in here.
Speaker 1: I want to make sure everybody knows that every chapter
Speaker 1: has a slightly adjacent recipe.
Speaker 2: I feel like you need a little breather being too.
Speaker 2: Some of these chapters, it's just like, you know what,
Speaker 2: let's talk about piplots for a minute, exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's real life, right some one minute we're
Speaker 1: laying it all out. In the next minute, we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: got to cook dinner. But I wanted to say how
Speaker 1: I think that for a lot of women reading this,
Speaker 1: although the details might be different of what they're going
Speaker 1: through in midlife and what you've been through over the
Speaker 1: past six years or so, they might not have been
Speaker 1: on reality TV and had this massive life change at
Speaker 1: about thirty eight is when you went on Master Chef, right,
Speaker 1: But a lot of this would be really familiar, being busy, busy, busy,
Speaker 1: putting everybody's needs above your own, committing yourself to work
Speaker 1: a lot that then takes you away from the family,
Speaker 1: and running, running, running.
Speaker 3: Can you tell us a little.
Speaker 1: Bit about what your life was like about six years
Speaker 1: ago when you were still trying to do it all
Speaker 1: in inverted commons?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 2: I'd never been very good at setting boundaries, so you know,
Speaker 2: and I know that's relatable. I know because a lot
Speaker 2: of my friends are the same. Basically off the back
Speaker 2: of Master Chef that's fifteen years ago. I just was
Speaker 2: frightened that if I didn't take all the opportunities they
Speaker 2: would sort of disappear and that, you know, And I
Speaker 2: even had someone say to me as the second season
Speaker 2: started to go to air, well done, You've had a
Speaker 2: good run, sort of like the years up. Your crown
Speaker 2: is going to be passed on to somebody else. And
Speaker 2: so I had this anxiety that the opportunities that had
Speaker 2: come my way were going to evaporate. So I had
Speaker 2: to take everything that came along.
Speaker 1: That first season of Master Chef was so huge. You know,
Speaker 1: you were one of the most famous people in the
Speaker 1: country for a period of time, no question. So that
Speaker 1: completely changed your life. So then there was this pressure yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and lots of expectations and you know that good
Speaker 2: old imposter syndrome and all of that. So I kind
Speaker 2: of had to learn a lot of stuff as I
Speaker 2: went along as well.
Speaker 4: And about eight or nine.
Speaker 2: Years ago, I just sort of thought, I've got to
Speaker 2: get off this treadmill, and I was very much in
Speaker 2: the wind, as in, if a food festival wanted me,
Speaker 2: then I had a job. If they wanted somebody else,
Speaker 2: I didn't have a job, you know. And so I
Speaker 2: felt really at the mercy of the ebbs and flows
Speaker 2: of the food industry and the exhibition industry and all
Speaker 2: of that sort of stuff. So I thought I need
Speaker 2: to take the rains a little bit, and so I
Speaker 2: opened my cooking school.
Speaker 4: So I opened my own business.
Speaker 2: And I'd already run a business with my husband for years.
Speaker 3: You know, business, Yeah, that's right, build it.
Speaker 1: And it was at a point of quite you know,
Speaker 1: solid success and everything when you went off to do masters.
Speaker 2: Yet absolutely, so I thought I'll do something that I
Speaker 2: love to do, and so I opened this cooking school.
Speaker 2: And that was such a labor of love and it
Speaker 2: was such a beautiful space and we had some amazing
Speaker 2: times there. But it is a small business, and anyone
Speaker 2: who's run a small business knows it becomes like a
Speaker 2: toddler and it needs all your attention and it takes
Speaker 2: all your energy and turn it back on it all
Speaker 2: the time you do. And not long after that opened,
Speaker 2: I was offered a job on the radio, and I
Speaker 2: guess I must have still had that sort of fomo
Speaker 2: going on because I just really loved the idea of
Speaker 2: doing the radio, and I gee, I loved that job.
Speaker 2: I loved it. But I guess the breakfast radio too. Yep,
Speaker 2: four am, milarm, And then it doesn't end at nine.
Speaker 2: When you go off, You've got to go meet clients,
Speaker 2: you've got to film content's podcasting, There's all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 2: This is how I calmed my life down by adding all.
Speaker 4: This stuff into it. Yeah, well it did, it did.
Speaker 2: I was still writing for the Weekly and doing a
Speaker 2: whole lot of other things as well. So what ended
Speaker 2: up happening was, instead of having more time for my
Speaker 2: family and being more available to the people I love,
Speaker 2: I just wasn't there at all.
Speaker 4: I wasn't there at all.
Speaker 2: I was less available to my family than when I
Speaker 2: was traveling all over the place because I was getting
Speaker 2: up at four in the morning, and when you get
Speaker 2: up at four in the morning, you've got to go
Speaker 2: to bed like eight o'clock at night. So not only
Speaker 2: was I losing my mornings seeing my people, I was
Speaker 2: losing that beautiful space after dinner where everyone collectively exhales.
Speaker 2: I was losing that as well, because I had to
Speaker 2: go to bed at night, and then on the weekends
Speaker 2: I had cooking classes, so I was literally working seven
Speaker 2: days a week and long days at that, and sometimes
Speaker 2: there were weeknight classes at the kitchen, which then means.
Speaker 4: I wasn't getting enough sleep.
Speaker 2: And it was just a recipe for disaster, you know,
Speaker 2: and then of course just a whole bunch of processed
Speaker 2: stuff from the past and some you know, there's some
Speaker 2: brain wiring I suppose it was already in existence that
Speaker 2: made that all really treacherous.
Speaker 1: You say in the book that you had this sort
Speaker 1: of calendar mapped out after Master Chef, and then up
Speaker 1: to this point, this calendar mapped out that was kind
Speaker 1: of color coded of like this is work time, this
Speaker 1: is family time, this is this, this is this, But
Speaker 1: there was no time for you on that right, which
Speaker 1: I think is something that a lot of women will
Speaker 1: very much, very much recognize. And then you also say,
Speaker 1: which is another very relatable point, at one point you realized,
Speaker 1: I'm really wobbly. I know some of the things I've
Speaker 1: got to do for my mental health, like exercise, so
Speaker 1: I'm going to set my alarm for three am so
Speaker 1: that I can get up and go to the gym
Speaker 1: before work.
Speaker 2: Yep, Like, yeah, it's like it is insane, right, that's insane,
Speaker 2: But it's the.
Speaker 1: Way we think because we we go it's my fault
Speaker 1: that I'm not coping. I've got to do more things
Speaker 1: to be coping. And you, right, you're running, running, running,
Speaker 1: And then when you'd be alone, you just felt hollow.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, there was nothing left, literally to the point where
Speaker 2: I actually I couldn't make my face do what it
Speaker 2: needed to do, you know, to even look normal. So
Speaker 2: sometimes I would just go away and find somewhere to
Speaker 2: be by myself because the muscles of my face are
Speaker 2: exhausted from trying to hold just an interested look on
Speaker 2: my face or a smile or a just a I'm
Speaker 2: a person who's coping face.
Speaker 4: Because I wasn't coping, you.
Speaker 3: Felt like a husk.
Speaker 1: So what happens then when you realize that this life
Speaker 1: you've built is untenable and you are wobbling. What happens
Speaker 1: if you really just need to fall apart. We're going
Speaker 1: to talk about that after this break. All of the
Speaker 1: stuff about your early life is fascinating too. You've had
Speaker 1: a very interesting life, Julie, You've done a lot of
Speaker 1: different jobs.
Speaker 2: I have done a lot of different You're in there about.
Speaker 1: When you were basically almost like a prison guard in
Speaker 1: a used attention center and dealing with these awful men.
Speaker 3: Yea, not the children, but the other guard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not the inmates that my coworkers.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was the only female there and that was an
Speaker 2: extraordinary time.
Speaker 1: You certainly have a strong work ethic, and I've done
Speaker 1: a lot of things. But you write about there was
Speaker 1: a time in your late teens when your mental health
Speaker 1: is in trouble, but you put it in a box. Yep,
Speaker 1: you wrote that that was most likely the result of
Speaker 1: abuse that you've written about in here, just very top
Speaker 1: we're not going into it, As you write very beautiful
Speaker 1: in the book, You're like, this is what's happened, We're
Speaker 1: not going into it. And then you put that away
Speaker 1: in a box when you're like teens. And then when
Speaker 1: you had your first baby, I think it was your
Speaker 1: first baby, and you were struggling, and you went to
Speaker 1: tresillian and which is a center that helps mothers who
Speaker 1: a struggling with sleepless babies or collique babies.
Speaker 3: They got you to.
Speaker 1: Fill out one of those questionnaires, and I'm sure would
Speaker 1: be very familiar to a lot of our listeners about whether.
Speaker 3: Or not you might be struggling with postnatal depression.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I just want to read out this bit
Speaker 1: that you wrote because they got you to fill out
Speaker 1: this questionnaire.
Speaker 3: So this is all the way back there.
Speaker 1: But I'm just kind of painting a picture of how
Speaker 1: you're such a copra and pushing things down. They're like,
Speaker 1: I think, make Maria, I have got personatal depression, and
Speaker 1: you said, let me stop you there. I don't want
Speaker 1: to hear the word depression. I don't have a thing
Speaker 1: to be depressed about. I have a beautiful husband and
Speaker 1: a healthy baby and a house to live in. It
Speaker 1: would be ridiculous for me to be depressed. Give me
Speaker 1: the questions a game.
Speaker 3: I wanted to pass the test.
Speaker 1: And this is echoed later too, when you do go
Speaker 1: to another healthcare professional at one point, but you say,
Speaker 1: don't diagnose any depression and I don't want to talk
Speaker 1: about my childhood.
Speaker 3: Where do you think?
Speaker 1: Because I think that this sort of denial, or rather
Speaker 1: this insistence on gratitude can actually be quite toxic for
Speaker 1: women sometimes. Where did that come from and how have
Speaker 1: you learned to understand that?
Speaker 3: That kind of like, my life's great? What are you
Speaker 3: talking about?
Speaker 1: You know, especially I imagine postmaster chef when you've been
Speaker 1: handed the keys to the city.
Speaker 2: Kind of Yeah, it comes from everywhere, It comes from everywhere.
Speaker 2: So it certainly came from family.
Speaker 4: You know. My men grew up during the war.
Speaker 2: My mum was raised by my men, and rightly so
Speaker 2: we're taught to be grateful and to countter blessings and
Speaker 2: to see how lucky we are compared to how other
Speaker 2: people are. The problem is that if you take that
Speaker 2: on board so much, like I know nothing by halves,
Speaker 2: it can become really crippling when it comes time to
Speaker 2: actually say I'm not coping because.
Speaker 4: What right do I have? And I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2: Society, the Internet, Facebook, they all join in on that.
Speaker 4: That's all a pylon. If you say anything is.
Speaker 2: Not right, people are like, oh, first world problems, and
Speaker 2: how can you complain about that when this just happened
Speaker 2: over here? And how can you complain about that when
Speaker 2: you've got food on your table and you know you
Speaker 2: can afford a phone to even be writing this on it,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? So there's that whole idea
Speaker 2: that we should be grateful always and when you're not,
Speaker 2: you should be shamed of yourself. Yeah, and you should
Speaker 2: take a good hard look at yourself, and you should
Speaker 2: have a cup of concrete, get up and keep going
Speaker 2: because you live in this magnificent country and you are
Speaker 2: lucky enough to have people around you, and you're lucky enough.
Speaker 4: To have a listen.
Speaker 2: And that is all true, and it's all valid, and
Speaker 2: it's all important to acknowledge. But we have to take
Speaker 2: the shame out of saying I can't do this. I'm
Speaker 2: not coping. Please don't ask me to put I was
Speaker 2: seeing on my plate right now. I'm too busy, I'm
Speaker 2: feeling sad. I can't make my face into an appropriate
Speaker 2: expression anymore. You know, I feel like I want to die.
Speaker 2: We have to be allowed to say these things out
Speaker 2: loud without being made to feel ashamed about it.
Speaker 1: So there is the moment where you walk away from
Speaker 1: a football game you're supposed to be going to with
Speaker 1: me after this period of time where you're just feeling,
Speaker 1: as you say, hollow inside. Every time you're alone, you cry,
Speaker 1: but the rest of the time you're being mum, being
Speaker 1: good employee, being wife, being friend, And I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you because you have spoken a bit about this,
Speaker 1: so I don't want you to relive the moment entirely.
Speaker 1: But you were seriously considering taking your life, and then
Speaker 1: you met sitting by some water on the Central coast
Speaker 1: where you live. You met Larissa, Derek and Bonnie yep,
Speaker 1: who you thank in your book. Who are the strangers
Speaker 1: who spoke to you and very likely saved you that day? Yes,
Speaker 1: what I wanted to ask you, rather than about the
Speaker 1: debt of that, was about how you found the hope
Speaker 1: in that moment to go home to your It has
Speaker 1: to be said, amazing husband. No, I don't say that.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, you look like you know you deserve
Speaker 1: an amazing husband. But how did you find the hope
Speaker 1: to go home and finally say to him I'm not coping.
Speaker 2: It was an incredible couple of hours, you know, And
Speaker 2: it wasn't a blinding flash. It was simply that these
Speaker 2: strangers sat next to me and chatted about ordinary things.
Speaker 3: A young couple and their dog, right.
Speaker 2: Yep, young couple and their dog, and they just said,
Speaker 2: you look like you needed company, So we decided to
Speaker 2: come back and have a seat here, and we're just
Speaker 2: going to hang here. They just chatted to me and
Speaker 2: they told me about their kids and about their dog,
Speaker 2: and I told them about my kids and about my dogs,
Speaker 2: and just that ridiculously ordinary stuff. And I found in
Speaker 2: the telling of a few of these things, and in
Speaker 2: the hearing of a few of these things, I laughed
Speaker 2: a couple of times, And at the end of that
Speaker 2: couple of hours, it was like, I can laugh.
Speaker 4: I didn't know. I didn't know that was still in there,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 2: And so then I rang Mick and I had him
Speaker 2: come and pick me up, and that's when I told
Speaker 2: him where I'd been and what I've been doing, and
Speaker 2: he drove me to the hospital.
Speaker 1: I thought he said something really amazing, because a lot
Speaker 1: of men, well not only a lot of men, but
Speaker 1: a lot of people, would be like, we'll fix this,
Speaker 1: but he kind of deeply understood that he couldn't fix this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a knee jerk reaction to be the
Speaker 2: night in Shining Armor, but that's what he needed to
Speaker 2: do to be my night in shining armor on that day,
Speaker 2: not to say, you know, well, you're all right.
Speaker 4: Now, let's go and have ice cream.
Speaker 2: You know, it was I am not equipped to deal
Speaker 2: with what you're going through.
Speaker 4: I need to call in somebody who is. And I
Speaker 4: didn't want to go to the hospital. Come on, I'm tired,
Speaker 4: it's going to be day. Can we go home? But
Speaker 4: he wouldn't. He wouldn't take me home.
Speaker 2: So that and that's that was the start of, you know,
Speaker 2: trying to sort it all out.
Speaker 1: You publish excerpts from your journal of when you're in
Speaker 1: that first hospital that you're in, because you end up
Speaker 1: being there for about six weeks.
Speaker 3: You're writing in your Jill. I just have to say,
Speaker 3: as a point of.
Speaker 1: Levity that what I particularly enjoyed about your journal entries,
Speaker 1: which are heart wrenching in many ways, is you always
Speaker 1: comment on what you're eating.
Speaker 4: So we're always.
Speaker 1: We're in a psychiatric hospital, but it's like cold toast
Speaker 1: and beans, turkey.
Speaker 2: And mash ye yep, feel like the recipes in the book.
Speaker 4: You just got to punch right things.
Speaker 3: And comes every day every day.
Speaker 1: He comes every day and sits with you, which it
Speaker 1: must have been confronting for him because I assume that
Speaker 1: you hadn't been in a place like that before.
Speaker 2: No, never, never, he he wasn't confronted. He's just so steady.
Speaker 2: And I would say to him, please, don't come every day,
Speaker 2: it's too much. And so he'd be getting home quite
Speaker 2: late at night, having his dinner quite late at night.
Speaker 2: But he just said, I'm not doing it for you,
Speaker 2: I'm doing it for me, and he'd come. And by
Speaker 2: the time I was ready to sort of go and
Speaker 2: sit in the dining room with everybody else, he'd come
Speaker 2: and sit in the dining room too, and you know,
Speaker 2: just shoot the breeze with everybody. That's just who he is.
Speaker 2: He's just a beautiful human being.
Speaker 1: That definitely comes across one of the excerpts from These
Speaker 1: Early Days, You did right. I want to be strong again,
Speaker 1: and I'm here to achieve that. I'm taking this time
Speaker 1: away from my work and life so that I can
Speaker 1: see a bright and happy future. I'm looking for different
Speaker 1: strategies for coping, and i want to be the best
Speaker 1: version of myself to those who love me. What I
Speaker 1: really like about this book is there's this period and
Speaker 1: then you come out and you do other things, and
Speaker 1: then there's another period where you go back in, and
Speaker 1: then you go to a rehab facility for a while.
Speaker 3: It's not linear.
Speaker 1: But when you read those words, now, do you feel
Speaker 1: like that is what you've got?
Speaker 4: Yeah, like it's still not linear, the whole process.
Speaker 2: And this is you know, this is why this book
Speaker 2: goes It's just truthful. So there's no tying things up
Speaker 2: with a bow. Still not still today. It goes up
Speaker 2: and down, and it goes around around, and you go backwards,
Speaker 2: and there's all sorts of stuff. What I am today
Speaker 2: is so much, it's such a better place than I was,
Speaker 2: but there's still still things come up. And I'm so fortunate.
Speaker 2: And you know, if you've read about Heather, my beautiful therapist,
Speaker 2: only last week, I saw her and I said to her,
Speaker 2: I've had a couple of really sad days, and it's
Speaker 2: pissing me off because I'm doing all the things. I'm exercising,
Speaker 2: i haven't been this fit in a while. I'm eating right,
Speaker 2: I don't drink it all anymore, I'm meditating, I'm doing
Speaker 2: all the things. Why I've got the face thing going
Speaker 2: on where I have to work to put the smile on,
Speaker 2: and why do I feel sad and I feel like crying?
Speaker 2: And she put it to me beautifully, she said, look,
Speaker 2: sometimes it's appropriate to be sad, and sometimes it's appropriate
Speaker 2: to be stressed and have anxiety, because that's your brain
Speaker 2: responding to your environment. And you've got to look at
Speaker 2: those things and say, is there a reason for it?
Speaker 2: And sometimes it's not a reason for it, and that's
Speaker 2: your chemistry. And she said, but what you need to
Speaker 2: do is understand that these are hotels that you check
Speaker 2: into for a little while and then you check.
Speaker 4: Out and you go home.
Speaker 2: So sometimes I'm allowed to check into the sad hotel,
Speaker 2: but I know I'm just a visitor, and I get
Speaker 2: to go home after that. I get to go home
Speaker 2: to my family. I'll get to go home to the
Speaker 2: things that bring me joy. I get to go home
Speaker 2: to a life that is it's miraculous to me.
Speaker 1: So you've put your hand up, You've said I'm not coping.
Speaker 1: You might have got help. But what happens next? Because
Speaker 1: the world just doesn't stop turning right. You still need
Speaker 1: to money, we all still need to do all those things,
Speaker 1: keep everything on the tracks. So can you really take
Speaker 1: a step back from your life and what happens if
Speaker 1: you do?
Speaker 3: That's coming up next.
Speaker 1: It's amazing that you've just talked about the things that
Speaker 1: you do, because I wonder if a lot of women
Speaker 1: who are listening to this, who are maybe not as
Speaker 1: far down this path as you, but a feeling really
Speaker 1: like there's something wrong if they're thinking about life.
Speaker 3: On the other side.
Speaker 1: And as you say, it's not really another side, but
Speaker 1: it's like a suite of things that you that you
Speaker 1: know you can pull on.
Speaker 2: Right one hundred percent. And it can sound overwhelming when
Speaker 2: you list it all like that, But what I would
Speaker 2: say to anyone who's struggling is the number one thing
Speaker 2: is to speak. Okay, just say it, And the number
Speaker 2: two thing is to get enough sleep and do whatever
Speaker 2: you need to do to say the words I need
Speaker 2: a hand or I'm not managing, and do whatever you
Speaker 2: need to do to get out out of sleep at night,
Speaker 2: because once you've spoken, and once you're getting enough sleep,
Speaker 2: everything else seems slightly more possible. And I don't mean
Speaker 2: that to sound flippant.
Speaker 4: It is important. It's important.
Speaker 2: It's when you're tired, when you're exhausted, there is no
Speaker 2: resource within you to deal with anything else at all.
Speaker 4: So that's just got to be sorted out.
Speaker 2: And there's a bunch of things that you can look
Speaker 2: up on how to you know, for people well I
Speaker 2: just don't sleep well. There's a bunch of things to
Speaker 2: help you to sleep well. There's a bunch of things
Speaker 2: you have to do, and some of them are hard.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Set a bedtime, make sure you clock an in eight
Speaker 2: hours every night, have a routine, have a ritual.
Speaker 4: I love my bedtime ritual now. You know.
Speaker 2: It used to be drink wine till your brain stops
Speaker 2: working and then pass out in.
Speaker 4: The bed, you know.
Speaker 2: But now I put on a little steamy, smelly thing
Speaker 2: and I take my pills that I have to take,
Speaker 2: and I you know, I put on cream and we're
Speaker 2: pulling the sheets up to my chin at night. It's
Speaker 2: just such a moment of bliss for me. And I
Speaker 2: get to do it every day.
Speaker 4: It's great.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I would just say, don't look at this
Speaker 2: laundry list, and it's all stuff we know anyway. We
Speaker 2: all know about nutrition, we all know about exercise. But
Speaker 2: it's actually and it's really annoying because you don't want
Speaker 2: to do those things and it's hard to do them
Speaker 2: all the time. But I'll tell you what else is
Speaker 2: hard is losing the will to live. It's you know,
Speaker 2: choose your heart.
Speaker 1: So when you look at the Jewelie who was running like,
Speaker 1: as you say, running on empty, do it. Because again
Speaker 1: I think there a lot of women listening to this,
Speaker 1: you think I need to drop some things too. But
Speaker 1: I can't drop them because I've got all these responsibilities.
Speaker 1: The family need me, and the perfect dinners need to
Speaker 1: be cooked in and I've got, you know, I've got
Speaker 1: to have this job and that job. And one of
Speaker 1: the things I really love about your story is because
Speaker 1: it was audacious, really to be thirty eight and living
Speaker 1: on the Central Coast and have built this amazing life
Speaker 1: and go, you know what, I want to go and chase.
Speaker 3: And chase a dream is such a cheesy phrase.
Speaker 2: That it's true, right literally what you did?
Speaker 1: You know, you went and chased a dream and then
Speaker 1: you had all this excite, all these exciting opportunities. And
Speaker 1: the story here isn't like that was a bad thing
Speaker 1: to do that. But what sometimes we get ourselves in
Speaker 1: a position where then we're like, well, I can't what
Speaker 1: could I drop? You've had to simplify and what you
Speaker 1: talk about from that terrible time, that terrible summer, which
Speaker 1: was you also write so beautifully about how it was
Speaker 1: that particular terrible summer on the East coast of Australia
Speaker 1: when the skies were black and the fires were burning,
Speaker 1: and the wood it felt at the end of the world. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Yes it did, and then you were dealing with all that. Yes,
Speaker 1: but people listening are looking at their list and going,
Speaker 1: how can I reclaim myself?
Speaker 3: Do we have to make those hard calls?
Speaker 4: One hundred percent, it's.
Speaker 2: You're empowered by the realize that everything is a choice.
Speaker 2: They're not all easy choices, but they are choices. So
Speaker 2: I had to choose between the radio and the cooking
Speaker 2: school at one point, And how do you give up
Speaker 2: a radio show that's called the Rabbit.
Speaker 4: And Julie Goodwin Show.
Speaker 2: Who's going to do the Rabbit and Julie Goodwin Show
Speaker 2: if it's not Julie good One?
Speaker 3: And you loved it?
Speaker 4: I loved it. I loved it.
Speaker 2: And then my cooking school, well, I's got my name
Speaker 2: on the door as well. You know who else is
Speaker 2: going to do it? And I did have a beautiful
Speaker 2: coworker who ran it for a lot of the time.
Speaker 4: That I was unwell, and I was aware on.
Speaker 2: Master Chef and all that sort of stuff that at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, you know, she went and
Speaker 2: had a baby.
Speaker 4: She had her life to live.
Speaker 2: She couldn't live my dro she couldn't live my life,
Speaker 2: and rightly so. And I was really struggling with that
Speaker 2: decision to let go of that because I'd already let
Speaker 2: go of the radio. I'm surely if I've let go
Speaker 2: of one thing, I shouldn't have to let go of
Speaker 2: the other thing as well, because that's not fair. But
Speaker 2: I couldn't start it. I call it long COVID. Our
Speaker 2: business had long covid. We survived the immediacy of it
Speaker 2: that we couldn't.
Speaker 4: We couldn't. We just couldn't operate if.
Speaker 1: You didn't take her meals and delivery packs for bloody
Speaker 1: heart pivoted like netball players, we did. And again I
Speaker 1: was saying to my beautiful therapist, I can't, I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't close the business.
Speaker 2: I can't afford to for a start, because there was
Speaker 2: all this money that I would have to find to
Speaker 2: pay back all the people who hold tickets and giftouchers
Speaker 2: and you know, all the bills, and it's not paid off,
Speaker 2: you know. And she said to me, and how much it.
Speaker 4: Is a funeral. Oh wow, yeah, yeah, that gave me pause.
Speaker 2: And then a few weeks later she said, yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't normally I'm not normally that prescriptive, but yeah, and
Speaker 2: she said to me, and I said, all the people
Speaker 2: are let down. And as I write in the book,
Speaker 2: she very pragmatically said, well, it's not brain surgery, Julie,
Speaker 2: it's cooking classes.
Speaker 4: They're not going to die, Like, oh.
Speaker 2: My god, I do you think I'm more important than
Speaker 2: I really am? And can I tell you that that
Speaker 2: is a huge lesson And this is something I'd love
Speaker 2: for any woman to hear, because I think it's important.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: You think that if you stop doing something, it's not
Speaker 2: going to get done, or it's not going to get
Speaker 2: done right, or it's not going to get done this year,
Speaker 2: you know. But what happens because I had to stop,
Speaker 2: I stopped everything suddenly because I went into a psychled
Speaker 2: so ideally, prior to that point when I stopped, my
Speaker 2: sons didn't starve, my husband managed, my family was fine.
Speaker 2: My radio show was taken on by somebody else, my
Speaker 2: cooking school was taken on by somebody else. And what
Speaker 2: happened was all these people in my life just stepped
Speaker 2: into the breach, and what it allowed was for them
Speaker 2: to bring their creativity and their love and their resources
Speaker 2: and shine themselves. And I just thought, my god, I've
Speaker 2: been trying so hard to make sure everything's perfect and
Speaker 2: all all these plates are spinning in the air, and
Speaker 2: actually I.
Speaker 4: Didn't need to. I didn't need to.
Speaker 2: So my learning from that is I'm not as important
Speaker 2: as I think I him.
Speaker 4: But I'm way more loved than I realized.
Speaker 1: Your love for your family comes through so strongly through
Speaker 1: every page of this book, and I have to say
Speaker 1: there was a bit that absolutely broke me a bit,
Speaker 1: which was, I know, a very hard chapter for you
Speaker 1: to write, which was the night that you were stopped
Speaker 1: do Ui. Yeah, Now this story has been in the
Speaker 1: public and you know it's not a secret, but you
Speaker 1: I could feel in the words on the page how
Speaker 1: much shame you had in that moment that night you
Speaker 1: were arrested. Yes, you had to go home and you
Speaker 1: told your husband and well you had to tell your
Speaker 1: husband's it came together.
Speaker 3: You told your kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I must have also felt like a moment where
Speaker 1: I'm going to lose their love and respect. And yet
Speaker 1: it strikes me that your family, through all the things
Speaker 1: you've been through, is still a very strong one.
Speaker 4: Their extraordinary.
Speaker 2: You know, it would be so easy for kids, you know,
Speaker 2: in their early twenties at that time, that seven years
Speaker 2: ago now and it still burns my god, would be
Speaker 2: very easy for them to throw that my face. I've
Speaker 2: been lecturing them their whole lives, you know, especially as
Speaker 2: they become teenagers, about safety and about doing the right thing,
Speaker 2: and about you know, being a good citizen and all
Speaker 2: of that. And you know, in that moment, I became
Speaker 2: a hypocrite, criminal, like all the things I've been trying
Speaker 2: to teach my kids not to be. And yeah that
Speaker 2: they were able. They gathered around me and just held
Speaker 2: me tight. They knew how painful that was, and they
Speaker 2: knew how far away from myself I had gotten in
Speaker 2: that moment, how far away from who I believed myself
Speaker 2: to be and what my values were and everything that
Speaker 2: was important to me. It was just gone that night.
Speaker 2: Gone because alcohol is part of your story. It's not
Speaker 2: and you also express this very well in the book.
Speaker 2: It's it's part of the story, and it was something
Speaker 2: you knew you needed to address. Again, It wasn't in
Speaker 2: a bow you didn't stop drinking after the Dui, but
Speaker 2: you have now been sober for several years. That's also
Speaker 2: a very common issue for midlife women that the wine
Speaker 2: at the end of the day is their.
Speaker 1: Treat, it's their reward. And you say this, I worked hard,
Speaker 1: I deserved it. And when your mind is racing and
Speaker 1: you need to relax, it feels like the thing you
Speaker 1: need is sober life fun.
Speaker 4: That midlife women need to know. Can it be fun
Speaker 4: without wine? Do you know what? It's more fun?
Speaker 2: And I know that's such a boring.
Speaker 4: Thing to say, but it's just the truth.
Speaker 2: You know. I was in the grip of I say
Speaker 2: it a bit. You know, I could stop if I wanted.
Speaker 2: I could stop, but I don't want to. I could
Speaker 2: stop if I want to, but I don't want to,
Speaker 2: and what should too? Until it it got hold of
Speaker 2: me a little bit tighter, a little bit tighter, And
Speaker 2: then I got to a point where I wanted to
Speaker 2: and I couldn't, and it had become the only way
Speaker 2: to settle things down. It was not fun. It was
Speaker 2: not fun. It was awful and waking up feeling and
Speaker 2: it wasn't even the physical after effects. It was the shame,
Speaker 2: just feeling like such a loser because I couldn't get
Speaker 2: a handle on this thing. Now, like I say, my
Speaker 2: bedtime routine. It sounds so daggy. I get it, I know,
Speaker 2: but it's your joy.
Speaker 4: It is my joy.
Speaker 2: And I have a lot more fun doing other things
Speaker 2: than drinking. And there's some things that I'm just like,
Speaker 2: you know what, that actually sounds like hell to me
Speaker 2: now because I know it's a free bar and everyone's
Speaker 2: just turning up there with the intention of getting as
Speaker 2: smashed as they can, as fast as they can.
Speaker 4: And that would have been I would have been who,
Speaker 4: let's go what you wearing?
Speaker 2: And now I'm just like, I'll pop in and see
Speaker 2: the people I need to see and say hello to
Speaker 2: the people I need to say hello and have conversations
Speaker 2: with people while I can make a real connection with.
Speaker 4: Them, yeah, because they're lucid.
Speaker 2: And then I will be the boring one to check out,
Speaker 2: go home and put my armies on, grab a good
Speaker 2: book and a cup of tea.
Speaker 3: And get your creams on.
Speaker 4: Yah.
Speaker 2: And you know what if that's if that makes me
Speaker 2: sound like an old nanny idea of fun, then well
Speaker 2: I am a nan.
Speaker 4: I am a grammar and I.
Speaker 2: I have so much more joy in other areas of
Speaker 2: my life now that I'll let go of that thing
Speaker 2: that had me buy the balls.
Speaker 1: So just to talk a little bit to finish off
Speaker 1: about what your life's like. Now you've talked a little
Speaker 1: bit about you know, the suite of things that you
Speaker 1: do and like, as you say, it's not wrapped in
Speaker 1: a boat. But when you're so you're busy at the moment.
Speaker 1: Right you've been on Dancing with the Stars, you're promoting
Speaker 1: this book, you'll be traveling, so it's not like you
Speaker 1: pressed off on life and now you only do self
Speaker 1: care things.
Speaker 3: Twenty four to seven.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 2: As lovely as that sounds, I love it.
Speaker 3: Right, So how do you?
Speaker 1: Because I think people are often thinking about the practicalities
Speaker 1: and they're like, but I will still have to work
Speaker 1: and I will still have to do this in that
Speaker 1: there's a bit in the book where you talk about
Speaker 1: going back to Master Chef Yes, and how you said
Speaker 1: when they did their Fans and Favorites Yes with Jock
Speaker 1: and Melissa Andy, and you talk about how you had
Speaker 1: to say to them, look, I'd love to come back,
Speaker 1: but it's got to be different this time. Because can
Speaker 1: you just talk a bit about the boundaries you have
Speaker 1: put in place to be able to do the things
Speaker 1: you do while looking after yourself. Well, you know, I've
Speaker 1: never been great at it, but in that moment where
Speaker 1: they rang and said we'd like you to come back.
Speaker 1: So I was only three weeks out of hospital when
Speaker 1: that phone call came, and it was a couple of
Speaker 1: months before the season started, and I was so blase
Speaker 1: about these boundaries because I didn't think they'd be able
Speaker 1: to do it, and so it was just like, well,
Speaker 1: this is what needs to happen. I need to be
Speaker 1: able to swim, so I need my own space, contact
Speaker 1: with my family, I need to see my therapist.
Speaker 4: I need eight hours of sleep at night. You know.
Speaker 2: I need all these things. I'm going to need probably
Speaker 2: some social media support I'm going to need, you know.
Speaker 2: And I just said that. I just blew it because
Speaker 2: I just honestly thought the answer would be, well, it's
Speaker 2: not really going to fit in with this massive production
Speaker 2: to sort of fit all your needs in, and they
Speaker 2: just said we can do all of that, And it
Speaker 2: blew my mind because I thought I didn't even think
Speaker 2: I was laying down boundaries. What I thought I was
Speaker 2: doing was saying, no, you know, I can't do it
Speaker 2: because of all these things, and they just said, we
Speaker 2: can do all of that.
Speaker 3: Do you think we were all afraid to ask what
Speaker 3: we need.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent? One hundred percent? And it's so like.
Speaker 2: Even last weekend, you know, I was packing getting ready
Speaker 2: to go on this book tour, and I had so
Speaker 2: much anxiety in my guts. And part of it's because
Speaker 2: putting this out in the world is not an easy
Speaker 2: thing to do. So I was meant to go to
Speaker 2: a football game, and I was meant to go to
Speaker 2: a function prior to the football game, and I hadn't
Speaker 2: finished packing, and I was just in a tis and
Speaker 2: I was just kind of rushing.
Speaker 4: I had to rush to the shop.
Speaker 2: So I had to rush home to get ready for
Speaker 2: this pre match function, which I knew was, you know,
Speaker 2: going to be dream.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're beloved, My beautiful Mariners.
Speaker 2: Love them, the men and the women love them. Mixer
Speaker 2: have said you, what's up. You're feeling feeling anxious? I said,
Speaker 2: there's just too many things to do today and I'm
Speaker 2: not going to get them all done.
Speaker 4: And he said, so what's your priorities? And I said,
Speaker 4: I've got a pack. I've got to you know, x
Speaker 4: y z it.
Speaker 2: And he said, what, why are you coming to the
Speaker 2: function then, and I said, oh, because I said I
Speaker 2: was going to be there, and he goes, Julie, just
Speaker 2: don't go. I said, okay, I said I might still
Speaker 2: come with the game though I really like the games.
Speaker 2: And he said, all right, well that that freeze up
Speaker 2: two and a half hours in the middle of the day,
Speaker 2: how does that make you feel? And I just said,
Speaker 2: like a boulder just came off my shoulders. And I said,
Speaker 2: why didn't I think of that for myself? And it's
Speaker 2: just because don't want to let people down. I've said
Speaker 2: I will of it. So A stop saying you will
Speaker 2: to everything, and b if you then realize you can't,
Speaker 2: you need to be able to say that too. So
Speaker 2: putting those boundaries in places is crucial. And like you say,
Speaker 2: you know, still got to make a living, so I've
Speaker 2: still got to do things that require effort. Sometimes are hard,
Speaker 2: sometimes are unpleasant, you know, sometimes are more physical than
Speaker 2: you want to do. But it's still all choices, you know,
Speaker 2: and sometimes those choices are hard. If your job makes
Speaker 2: you horribly unhappy. For eight hours of every day, five
Speaker 2: days a week, make some choices around that. They might
Speaker 2: be hard choices. They might involve a drop in income,
Speaker 2: they might involve having to commute further, they might involve
Speaker 2: but it's still your choice, you know. And I'm well
Speaker 2: aware that there's people that don't have those kinds of choices,
Speaker 2: so acknowledging that. But for where I'm coming from is
Speaker 2: I now choose to create space in my life for
Speaker 2: things that bring me joy. It's my choice when I
Speaker 2: wake up in the morning, if I'm going to have
Speaker 2: a day ahead of me that I go, oh, I'm
Speaker 2: excited for today, or oh, my god, I can't believe
Speaker 2: what I've got to do today.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And obviously you can't have every day be a fist
Speaker 2: pump day.
Speaker 4: You can't. It's life.
Speaker 2: But if you find that day after day after day
Speaker 2: after day there's no fist pumping, there's no joy, there's
Speaker 2: no looking forward to anything, that's when you go okay.
Speaker 4: And this is my whole goal in writing.
Speaker 2: This book is that people come to this realization before
Speaker 2: they find themselves at the edge of Brisbane water.
Speaker 3: Yeah, talking to strangers. Yeah, although thank god you did,
Speaker 3: thank God. What does bring your joy.
Speaker 4: My granddaughter.
Speaker 3: You've got a granddaughter.
Speaker 4: She is divine.
Speaker 3: Are also grown up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're all grown up. They are extraordinary, beautiful young men.
Speaker 2: I'm very proud of them. They bring me joy. I
Speaker 2: love to paint. That's new.
Speaker 4: I've always loved that. I love drawing and.
Speaker 2: Stuff that I'm.
Speaker 4: Painting now and I love it. And I love music.
Speaker 2: I love going to a footy match on an autumn afternoon.
Speaker 3: You know, I still cook a lot. I do.
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 4: I'm still the main cook in the house.
Speaker 2: And you know, when I'm not too learn off doing
Speaker 2: things like book tour, I cook most nights. But when
Speaker 2: I don't, my boys step in and do. I still
Speaker 2: got two of them at home and lost I lost
Speaker 2: that joy. I lost all the joy. But I lost cooking.
Speaker 2: I lost everything. And yeah, just being with my people,
Speaker 2: being near the ocean, those are the things that bring
Speaker 2: me joy. And I'm allowed for that to be priorities in.
Speaker 4: My life now.
Speaker 2: That's I permit myself to make those priorities in my life.
Speaker 2: And my life is you know, it's not perfect, and
Speaker 2: there are ups and downs, and there's no doubt going
Speaker 2: to be challenges ahead and grief ahead. As you know,
Speaker 2: my parents' age and my things happen that are unexpected,
Speaker 2: but I'm much better equipped now, I believe to deal
Speaker 2: with those things.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: writing this book, because it is a lot of I
Speaker 1: think so much in there for so many people, because
Speaker 1: it is a lot of little pressures too that build
Speaker 1: up ordinary things like your children getting poorly or your parents' aging,
Speaker 1: money worries, all those things that we're all dealing with,
Speaker 1: but when they compound and compound and pound, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: really relatable, and I want to.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, thank you, thank you very much for.
Speaker 1: Oh I've been telling people about that conversation ever since
Speaker 1: I sat down with Julie. So much of it has
Speaker 1: stuck with me, and I find myself saying to people.
Speaker 3: You just have to ask for what you need. You'll
Speaker 3: be surprised at how little they care. Or everything's a choice.
Speaker 3: Some of the choices are just hard.
Speaker 1: And I've been thinking a lot about her point about
Speaker 1: toxic gratitude and how if the bones of our lives
Speaker 1: are okay, we're not allowed to complain about the bruised,
Speaker 1: fleshy bits, not even for a moment I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about the fact that her story, like mine and yours,
Speaker 1: is not finished.
Speaker 3: It's not tied up in a little bow.
Speaker 1: It's not like, oh, well, that happened, but that she
Speaker 1: and you and we are all still bound to wobble sometimes,
Speaker 1: and that's okay anyway. Please share this episode of Mid
Speaker 1: with anyone who needs to hear it. Mid is a
Speaker 1: new show, so every bit of word of mouth will
Speaker 1: help us, and I believe in it so deeply. I
Speaker 1: want every woman who's ever sat around giving herself a
Speaker 1: hard time to listen to this