Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mere acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on. Who will look after
Speaker 2: you when you're old? What's wrong with you? How will
Speaker 2: you ever understand unconditional love? So selfish? So sad? There
Speaker 2: are many things the world has got better at when
Speaker 2: it comes to women being able to live their lives.
Speaker 2: However they choose. No need to hand in your work
Speaker 2: security pass when a ring goes on the finger, No
Speaker 2: need to get a man to sign that loan application,
Speaker 2: that voting form, that credit card. You'll be tolerated for
Speaker 2: not marrying the first person who asks. You can run
Speaker 2: for office, and you can drive your car, and you
Speaker 2: can buy your own everything. But damn it, if you
Speaker 2: don't have children. Did you forget? Did you never meet
Speaker 2: the right guy? Too chicken to go it alone? Oh,
Speaker 2: you chose your career. There's still you'll change your mind
Speaker 2: until there isn't, and then there's only a silent pity
Speaker 2: and a question mark about the very meaning of a
Speaker 2: woman's life if she didn't surrender herself to children, as
Speaker 2: if that's some sort of waste, an empty space, a
Speaker 2: lack but what if, for the myriad reasons that status exists.
Speaker 2: The child free woman is not an affront, or a
Speaker 2: sadness or an absence, but many things that, for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: we are too afraid to look at, an acceptance that
Speaker 2: sometimes we just don't get everything we wanted or imagined,
Speaker 2: that a peace and reassessment can be found inside that fact.
Speaker 2: Maybe that it's a private sadness that can be tucked
Speaker 2: into a pocket as fulfilling lives a lived. Or maybe
Speaker 2: it's a joyful opening of possibility, a gateway to a
Speaker 2: life less ordinary, a freedom to pursue passion and purpose,
Speaker 2: and a chance to write a different definition of family,
Speaker 2: of nurturing, of motherhood. Or maybe it's just your little life,
Speaker 2: not exceptional, not a statement, not a tragedy or a movement,
Speaker 2: but just what is. There are many things the world
Speaker 2: has become better at as we find ourselves in mid
Speaker 2: but making sense of a child free woman is not
Speaker 2: one of them yet. Hello, I'm Holly Wainwright, and I
Speaker 2: am mid midlife, mid family, mid bad attitude. What if
Speaker 2: you didn't lose your keys because you're getting old? What
Speaker 2: if you're grumpy today because you slept badly and you
Speaker 2: slept badly because you've got a lot going on and
Speaker 2: a busy, fizzy brain. And you have a lot going
Speaker 2: on because you're capable and strong and still very much alive,
Speaker 2: and your brain is busy because you're smart and experienced
Speaker 2: and can hold many things at once. I'm asking you
Speaker 2: these questions today not because I've lost it, but because
Speaker 2: I want you to in a world that is pro aging,
Speaker 2: not anti because that's the world our guest today. Faith
Speaker 2: or Googu grew up in in Nigeria, where Faith was
Speaker 2: born and lived until she moved to Britain age nine,
Speaker 2: and then onto Australia as an adult. Faith says that
Speaker 2: age was revered and respected that everybody wanted to be
Speaker 2: the oldest person in the room. Can you even imagine
Speaker 2: that in the world that we live in, where we
Speaker 2: tilt our heads in pity at anyone over the age
Speaker 2: of thirty. Faith is a psychotherapist who talks to a
Speaker 2: lot of women about their anxiety about aging. In fact,
Speaker 2: aging anxiety is something she's begun to specialize in a
Speaker 2: bit and repositioning it as a positive or at the
Speaker 2: very least, the age is not the defining thing about
Speaker 2: their life. Moment, and that's become a big part of
Speaker 2: what she does in reassuring women that they did not
Speaker 2: lose their keys because they're getting old. Another thing she
Speaker 2: does is host her own community, the Silver Sirens of
Speaker 2: Older Women, sharing wisdom and companionship and stories. And today
Speaker 2: she shares her story with me. We talk about all
Speaker 2: kinds of things, about choosing a job you'll get better
Speaker 2: at with age, about beauty and money, and also about
Speaker 2: Faith's life without kids, how she came to be living
Speaker 2: in it and how she made peace with it. It's
Speaker 2: a beautiful, meaningful conversation about the letting go of the
Speaker 2: lives you didn't get to live and embracing the one
Speaker 2: that you did. Please meet Faith at Google. Faith, thank
Speaker 2: you for being here with me today.
Speaker 1: Absolute pleasure.
Speaker 2: We're all beginning to get a bit jack of anti aging, right,
Speaker 2: anti aging, we're so.
Speaker 1: Done with it.
Speaker 2: But you're one of the few people i've heard actually
Speaker 2: say that you look forward to your next birthday, that
Speaker 2: you're like actively pro aging. Yeah, tell me about that attitude.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Look, it's one of those attitudes.
Speaker 3: When I say it, I can see the skepticism people's
Speaker 3: faces and they're like, yeah, you know, but for me,
Speaker 3: just growing up in a culture where agent is actually revered.
Speaker 3: You know, I never got anything negative about agent. Obviously
Speaker 3: can't be Pollyanna.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: We know that certain things will change and certain things
Speaker 3: will become more challenging, but in terms of aging as
Speaker 3: something to fear, it was just never in my consciousness,
Speaker 3: you know. So for me, looking at my mother was
Speaker 3: my role model. And in her fifties, she absolutely thrived,
Speaker 3: you know, she really she started to went to study,
Speaker 3: she broke up with my father, she found a new lover,
Speaker 3: thank god, you know, and she traveled and just did
Speaker 3: this really exciting thing. And I just saw that once
Speaker 3: her focus was no longer on the children and us,
Speaker 3: she could focus back on herself and I just saw
Speaker 3: her blossoming, you know. So she was my personal role model.
Speaker 3: And then culturally as a Nigerian, and I think a
Speaker 3: lot of you know, collective cultures, not just Nigeria and
Speaker 3: but a lot of collective cultures.
Speaker 1: You know, agent is something that we look forward to.
Speaker 3: You know, you revere the elders and you respect them,
Speaker 3: and everyone wants to be the older person in the room.
Speaker 2: That's so interesting that everybody wants to be the oldest
Speaker 2: person in the room. So it's like you look forward
Speaker 2: to getting that wisdom and having that sort of status.
Speaker 1: It's a status, that's exactly it. It's a status.
Speaker 2: And you grew up in Nigeria till you were about nine,
Speaker 2: and then you moved to England. Is that right?
Speaker 1: I did?
Speaker 2: And did you feel a shift then in that culture
Speaker 2: in terms of how people look to aging or I
Speaker 2: mean you're little, You're probably not.
Speaker 3: I didn't even think about it, to be honest, I
Speaker 3: didn't think about aging until probably in my late forties.
Speaker 2: It's happening to me.
Speaker 3: Well actually know, actually didn't. I only thought about it.
Speaker 3: I didn't think about it even then. I was always
Speaker 3: aware every master on Berthday that I had, Like when
Speaker 3: I was twenty, I remember really clearly thinking, Wow, I
Speaker 3: wonder what thirty would be. And then when I was thirty,
Speaker 3: I remember thinking I wonder what forty would be Now
Speaker 3: For me, that was just always my curiosity, you know.
Speaker 3: I was always looking forward and people think like, why
Speaker 3: are you doing that? But I just felt this excitement
Speaker 3: that if I'm this person now, what would that be
Speaker 3: ten years time? How do I have grown and evolved?
Speaker 3: So I was at that curiosity about the process.
Speaker 2: Do you think if you had to hazard a guess
Speaker 2: or draw on your experience for why a lot of cultures,
Speaker 2: including I guess the one we sort of swim in
Speaker 2: here in Australia, are so anti aging rather than pro
Speaker 2: What do you think it is. Do you think it's
Speaker 2: that loss of status because we don't make older people
Speaker 2: feel special, or do you think it's all physical or
Speaker 2: what do you think?
Speaker 3: Look, I think there's a number of things, and I
Speaker 3: think number one we are we live in a culture
Speaker 3: where youth is absolutely valued. You know, it's all about
Speaker 3: being young, and once you start to lose your youth,
Speaker 3: you use your value, and especially around women. And one
Speaker 3: of the things that really pissed me off in this
Speaker 3: whole journey was how different the message for men and
Speaker 3: women were. You know, we can tell men are allowed
Speaker 3: to get old, is it allowed to age? You look
Speaker 3: at George Clooney when you think about your filthy fox exactly,
Speaker 3: silver fox, distinguished. These are the words we use when
Speaker 3: we talk about men and aging, and yet for women
Speaker 3: it's always about diminished, like chrone.
Speaker 1: You know, she's let herself.
Speaker 3: Old lady, Yeah, she's let herself go and you know
Speaker 3: that idea that almost done for women getting old or
Speaker 3: looking older is almost kind of like a failure in
Speaker 3: some way, you know, so women are shamed around it, criticized,
Speaker 3: judge shamed. So it's I think a lot of it
Speaker 3: is around one that sort of value. But also I
Speaker 3: think the commercially is quite useful. You know, the whole
Speaker 3: beauty industry is all about focused on keeping women insecure
Speaker 3: about their their looks and especially losing their youth.
Speaker 1: So a lot of.
Speaker 3: Attention on money is put on that, and there's a
Speaker 3: lot of pressure on women, and I really that really
Speaker 3: gets my goat because it's not fair because it doesn't
Speaker 3: happen to men.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. So the idea for Silver Sirens, which is your
Speaker 2: community for women over fifty. As I've heard parts of
Speaker 2: your story, I've heard that it was sort of borne
Speaker 2: out of your second act, as it were, in a way.
Speaker 2: So I'd love you to talk to me a little
Speaker 2: bit about because I know we've as we've discussed we're
Speaker 2: very pro aging. But I've heard you say that you
Speaker 2: did go through a bit of a midlife crisis of
Speaker 2: thoughts that made you decide to make some changes and
Speaker 2: have led you to this place. Can you tell me
Speaker 2: a bit about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, I had my own midlife crisis, and I
Speaker 3: love what Breno Brown says about midlife crisis, you know,
Speaker 3: sort of seeing that as a crisis.
Speaker 1: We'll just see it as a transition, because that's exactly
Speaker 1: what it is.
Speaker 3: But we don't have any word in around it, so
Speaker 3: most people go through it in silence, and I'm not
Speaker 3: quite sure what they're going through. And from a therapy perspective,
Speaker 3: you know, we have extitity, and we have different markers
Speaker 3: in life, you know, different phases that we go through,
Speaker 3: so midlife is one of them. And the reason why
Speaker 3: for a lot of people feels like a crisis. It's
Speaker 3: like a juncture of a lot of big stresses in life.
Speaker 3: So you know, I'd be changing jobs, or maybe a
Speaker 3: marriage is broken down, or the children are leaving, our elders,
Speaker 3: you know, our older generation. They're getting old and they're sick.
Speaker 3: So there's like this time where there's all these stresses
Speaker 3: happen at the same time, and we don't have anyone
Speaker 3: talking about this. We don't actually know that it's natural.
Speaker 3: So a lot of us do go through a crisis.
Speaker 3: So my personal midlife crisis looked like closing down my
Speaker 3: fashion business that i'd had for fourteen years.
Speaker 1: Didn't have any children.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I was going to say, so when you were younger,
Speaker 2: you were a model, correct model, and then you had
Speaker 2: your own fashion business.
Speaker 1: Yes, I did, and.
Speaker 2: The GFC kind of did came in that, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: I was a fashion agent, so I did sales and
Speaker 3: pr for fashion designers in Sydney and yeah, things were
Speaker 3: just we're just struggling for a while, and I probably
Speaker 3: should have walked away years ago, you know before, but
Speaker 3: like a lot of us, I just kept thinking, it's me,
Speaker 3: I'm doing something wrong. I just keep trying, and in
Speaker 3: the end I had no choice but to close the doors.
Speaker 3: And it was really sad, you know, because at the
Speaker 3: time I wasn't in a relationship, I didn't have children,
Speaker 3: so was my late forties, so it was kind of like,
Speaker 3: is this it?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: So I did go through a really tough time and
Speaker 3: there was and I fell into depression and it took me,
Speaker 3: you know, a couple of years to kind of climb
Speaker 3: out of that. But that was my midlife crisis, and
Speaker 3: I didn't know that that's what I was having at
Speaker 3: the time, and funny enough, it was coincided with kind
Speaker 3: of a year after I had a hysterectomy, so I
Speaker 3: got pushed into menopause, like I had what was called
Speaker 3: medically induced menopause. Again, I didn't know anything about that
Speaker 3: because there was no one around me that was talking
Speaker 3: about that. And I think that's the challenge around this
Speaker 3: stage for a lot of women is there's no conversations.
Speaker 3: It's changing now because things like what you're doing, you're
Speaker 3: saying God, but then there was no conversation.
Speaker 2: Without wanting to pry too much, you had a hysterectomy
Speaker 2: at that age for you had medical issues that needed
Speaker 2: it was fibros.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I had fibrous for many, many years, very
Speaker 3: unpainful and very painful.
Speaker 1: And the reasons why.
Speaker 3: I was kind of hanging on to my usurers was
Speaker 3: because I was hoping to eventually have children one day.
Speaker 3: So you know, I probably should have had the hysterectomy,
Speaker 3: probably say, ten years before, but I was just hanging
Speaker 3: in there.
Speaker 2: It's interesting that you say that, and you say I
Speaker 2: should have probably closed the business before I should have.
Speaker 2: I should have hindsights great the building.
Speaker 1: That's so true.
Speaker 2: But also we do hold on to things. We hold
Speaker 2: on to dreams and the things that we've worked hard
Speaker 2: for because you know, we'll and as you just said,
Speaker 2: we kind of think, well maybe if I just try hard.
Speaker 2: So you're at that point in your life you're thinking
Speaker 2: about what's next. I heard you say which I absolutely
Speaker 2: loved that when you were thinking about what your next
Speaker 2: career might be, you wanted to choose something that you
Speaker 2: would get better at rather than something that you'd age
Speaker 2: out of. And I love that because one of the
Speaker 2: things I think about a lot. Now you know, my
Speaker 2: job in the media. I love it. I get to
Speaker 2: have all these meaningful conversations. But you're constantly aware of
Speaker 2: your age, and people are always a bit like how
Speaker 2: long do you think you can do this for? And
Speaker 2: you're sort of thinking, what can I just be valued
Speaker 2: for my wisdom and my insights about rather than like
Speaker 2: picked apart for my age about. So you wanted to
Speaker 2: choose something that you could just grow with and get
Speaker 2: better and you chose psychotherapy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, tell me about that. Well, I chose psychotherapy. But
Speaker 3: like I said, I had three criteria of my new career.
Speaker 3: You know, I'd been in the fashion industry for thirty
Speaker 3: something years. My last job was in PR, so I
Speaker 3: was expected to turn up at events and parties.
Speaker 1: And I didn't want to anymore.
Speaker 3: I just to go home and have a couple of
Speaker 3: tien and be called up in my jamis, you know.
Speaker 3: And so I just thought, you know what, my next
Speaker 3: careers has to be something. One that I get to
Speaker 3: sit down, because fashion you're always running around, two that
Speaker 3: the hourly rate would be high because fashion was not,
Speaker 3: and the third one being I.
Speaker 1: Would get better with age.
Speaker 3: So in fashion, it was clear that I was aging
Speaker 3: out of it, you know, and I wanted to do
Speaker 3: something that I knew every single year, every bit of
Speaker 3: experience I had would actually add value to the work
Speaker 3: that I was doing. And that's exactly why I chose
Speaker 3: that career. And it's proven to be right. And look,
Speaker 3: and I'm going to be sixty this year. I know
Speaker 3: that if I want to, I've got another twenty or
Speaker 3: thirty years because I know psychologists and psychotherapists that are
Speaker 3: in their la eighties and ninety you know, So if
Speaker 3: I wanted to, I could just continue working and I
Speaker 3: get to sit.
Speaker 1: In my rocking chair, you know. And by wisdom.
Speaker 2: Exactly had also had therapy? Been you saying that in
Speaker 2: that your midlife crisis looked like depressions?
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure?
Speaker 2: Did you turn to therapy? Was that helpful for you?
Speaker 2: Is that part of this decision too?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: No, that was great.
Speaker 3: Look, I'd always kind of been open to therapy, and
Speaker 3: I've had therapy at different times in my life, you know,
Speaker 3: So it wasn't something that was strange to me, and
Speaker 3: for me, it was a no brainer that I would
Speaker 3: go and get some help, and I would, you know,
Speaker 3: because I know that there's some clarity that happens. It's
Speaker 3: not like someone's going to fix me, but there's something
Speaker 3: that happens when I get to have someone really objective
Speaker 3: get to hear me.
Speaker 1: And reflect back to me what they hear.
Speaker 3: And that's where the key is because a lot of
Speaker 3: people go, well, what what's the benefit of just telling
Speaker 3: someone your problem? But the therapist is actually trained to help
Speaker 3: you reflect and it's the reflection that gives you the awareness.
Speaker 3: Is the awareness that brings a back change.
Speaker 1: To understand a lot of people don't get that.
Speaker 3: So just having those conversations with the therapist and getting
Speaker 3: that clarity and awareness myself really helped me to kind
Speaker 3: of look at because, I mean the time I was
Speaker 3: considering myself as a big failure, you know, and having
Speaker 3: the therapy and talking it through, I realized that wasn't
Speaker 3: actually true. That I'd done lots of amazing things, and
Speaker 3: there were lots of circumstances why the business didn't work,
Speaker 3: But for me, being a failure was actually not part
Speaker 3: of the equation.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I'd spent fourteen years in that business. You know, I
Speaker 3: had lots of staff that I had supported for many,
Speaker 3: many years. I was actually a success, you know, and
Speaker 3: it just didn't work out the way that I thought
Speaker 3: it was going to work out.
Speaker 1: And that's fine.
Speaker 3: That's the problem for most of us when things stopped
Speaker 3: looking the way we want them to look. Instead of
Speaker 3: maybe accessing and thinking maybe it's time to change course,
Speaker 3: we just keep pushing.
Speaker 1: You know. That's one of the biggest things I've learned.
Speaker 2: That's so interesting. And then practicing as a psycho therapist,
Speaker 2: you talking to lots of women, is when you and
Speaker 2: again obviously correct me if I'm wrong. You began to
Speaker 2: notice this like aging anxiety and a lot of your
Speaker 2: female clients you were seeing you were noticing this aging anxiety.
Speaker 2: And this is like the nugget that began to turn
Speaker 2: into silver sirens as I understand it. What did that
Speaker 2: look like, that aging anxiety that the women were talking
Speaker 2: to you about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, well I can still see, you know,
Speaker 3: the one woman that sat across me, she was the
Speaker 3: first one that came to me around aging anxiety. I
Speaker 3: met another of her friend in Byron Bay and she said, look,
Speaker 3: I've got this client that I think you'd love. Because
Speaker 3: we were just talking in general and I was saying about,
Speaker 3: you know, we're just talking. I don't know how aging
Speaker 3: came into the conversation, but it did. And she said, look,
Speaker 3: I've got a friend who's really struggling around this stuff.
Speaker 1: I want to refer to you. And that's kind of
Speaker 1: how it started, you know.
Speaker 3: And the agent anxiety looked like she was a classic
Speaker 3: midlifer in the sense that she just her marriage was
Speaker 3: just about to be over. She was going through a
Speaker 3: lot of angst around you know, what to do next,
Speaker 3: around her career, and then and then the other layer
Speaker 3: of it was all around their physical appearance changing. And
Speaker 3: she said to me, look, I'm so embarrassed to bring
Speaker 3: this up. I've got real big problems. The thing that's
Speaker 3: most painful and the hardest for me is that my
Speaker 3: body's changing and I don't know what's going on and
Speaker 3: anything everything I try, Like I used to go to
Speaker 3: the gym and I could get into shape quickly, and
Speaker 3: that's not happening in my hair, Like what's going on?
Speaker 3: You know, I'm sick of dying it, but like I can't.
Speaker 3: I can't let myself get great, you know. And she's
Speaker 3: felt a lot of shame around that. So we just
Speaker 3: started exploring it. You know, for me, I was exploring
Speaker 3: whose attitude. It was a lot of the beliefs that
Speaker 3: she had when I when I when we probed and said,
Speaker 3: is that your view? Do you think you're less value?
Speaker 3: Because she'll use the words invisible, you know, not so desirable.
Speaker 3: You know, if when this relationship ends, who's gonna want me?
Speaker 3: I'm an old woman, you know, I'm not I'm not
Speaker 3: going to be I'm not attractive anymore, all of those
Speaker 3: sort of things. So we started to explore whose value,
Speaker 3: whose values, and whose views they were, you know, and
Speaker 3: it wasn't actually hers. She'd internalize all of this, most
Speaker 3: of e gendered agism, you know, from everywhere. You know,
Speaker 3: we sometimes think it's just external, but it can be
Speaker 3: our friendships as well.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I think as women too, we can be guilty of
Speaker 3: reinforcing that the agism with each other than even just
Speaker 3: the media and society.
Speaker 1: And that's the bit that I get really upset.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because talking about the surface, as your client
Speaker 2: said to you, she was embarrassed that she was so
Speaker 2: upset about it. Yeah, and I think a lot of
Speaker 2: mid women struggle with that, right, Yeah, is that you're
Speaker 2: You're like, I know it doesn't matter. I know I'm wise,
Speaker 2: and You're like, and I know I'm wise, and I
Speaker 2: know I've lived life and I'm accomplished in whatever I'm doing.
Speaker 2: But when I look in the mirror what I see
Speaker 2: I've been told my whole life that this is not apt.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I know that you, as we said before, you were
Speaker 2: a model, and I mean, you're an exceptionally beautiful woman.
Speaker 2: Of course I've got to say that, But how do
Speaker 2: you get people to unpick that? Because I know that
Speaker 2: as Silver Sirens, you you're very clear that you don't
Speaker 2: judge about if you want to have interventions, if you
Speaker 2: want to do whatever you want to do. If you
Speaker 2: want to spend too much money on serums, if you
Speaker 2: want to get your inject that's fine, But how do
Speaker 2: we do that? On picking that you were just talking
Speaker 2: about between do I think I'm ugly? Or is it
Speaker 2: that everyone else has said I'm ugly? Have you experienced
Speaker 2: that personally at all?
Speaker 1: Not for me? I mean, actually that's actually not true.
Speaker 1: Think I'm glad that you asked me that.
Speaker 3: Have I experienced I've experienced it very little because I
Speaker 3: remember looking at my neck one they going, wow, that's
Speaker 3: got wrinkles. Now. I was kind of fascinated, you know,
Speaker 3: I wasn't freaking out. I was kind of fascinating. I thought, wow,
Speaker 3: this is what it looks like. But I do get
Speaker 3: it a lot. I do see it a lot in
Speaker 3: my in therapy, you know. And it starts to pick again.
Speaker 3: As I said, it's about awareness. How we look is subjective,
Speaker 3: you know. So we all decide that this look young
Speaker 3: is good and oh it is not good, And we
Speaker 3: look at a spectrum of what's acceptably attractive on what's
Speaker 3: not line sing young eighteen or like that's nice. But
Speaker 3: as you get closer and closer to over that end,
Speaker 3: that's the that's the ugly, that's the you don't want
Speaker 3: to be that, and that's the old woman. So the
Speaker 3: old woman is right on the spectrum of what's not attractive.
Speaker 3: So as people are a they're getting unconsciously, they're getting
Speaker 3: closer to that. And that's terrifying because we've all internalized
Speaker 3: that that's something you don't want to be. You certainly
Speaker 3: don't want to look like you're like that, you know,
Speaker 3: and we talked about here and gray and gray is
Speaker 3: usually one of the first markers of moving to that place.
Speaker 3: So women start to get this really deep terror. You
Speaker 3: know that they're going to be completely out of control
Speaker 3: and despite what they do, they're going to be lump
Speaker 3: lumped into this category of no longer attractive, and so
Speaker 3: many doors are going to be closed to them, and
Speaker 3: that's frightening for people.
Speaker 2: It is controls interesting that you said that, because it's
Speaker 2: true about gray hair and wrinkles and the widening waiste
Speaker 2: is that you do begin to feel a little out
Speaker 2: of control, right, And sometimes I wonder if a lot
Speaker 2: of the interventions that we try and do, we're trying
Speaker 2: to wrestle the control that.
Speaker 3: I think so absolutely you know, we're fighting again something
Speaker 3: that really don't have any control over, you know. To
Speaker 3: be clear, there are some aspects of aging that we
Speaker 3: do have control over, there are, you know, And I think.
Speaker 1: That's what's really important. And I love this wort.
Speaker 3: I've just got this book thing, you know, there's lovely.
Speaker 3: So I'm doctor Stephanie Burns. She has a theory around
Speaker 3: agent I love of you on age and she says that,
Speaker 3: you know, we all decide at a particular time in
Speaker 3: our lives that whatever negative things that are happening to
Speaker 3: us as suddenly are now because of our age. So
Speaker 3: we may lose our keys, we may we may you know,
Speaker 3: have aches and creeks in our body. You know, we
Speaker 3: get someone's name, but at certain point in our lives,
Speaker 3: usually in our fifties, we start to attribute that to age.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Then, so there's a mental part of it that that
Speaker 3: we have to really look at.
Speaker 2: Faith and I are going to be back in a
Speaker 2: minute to talk about the moment she knew she wasn't
Speaker 2: going to become a mother. So Silver Sirens was born
Speaker 2: from this observation that you were seeing. And I assume
Speaker 2: that the Silver and the Sirens is about the gray hair.
Speaker 2: It's also tied up with our identity, right is that
Speaker 2: suddenly well, like I didn't think that's who I was.
Speaker 2: Do you encourage the women in your worlds to embrace
Speaker 2: a new identity as an older person, as a silver
Speaker 2: siren or is it more about an evolution of who
Speaker 2: you've always been.
Speaker 3: I think it's a bit of both, you know. I
Speaker 3: mean there's there's a level of acceptance. I mean, the
Speaker 3: thing is, no matter how much surgery you do, how
Speaker 3: much denial there is around it, we're all going to
Speaker 3: get old if we're lucky, you know, And it's a privilege.
Speaker 3: I lost my sister forty one. She didn't have that privilege.
Speaker 3: So we're all going to get old. So it's there's
Speaker 3: a level of acceptance around there's a level of coming
Speaker 3: to terms with that's a natural progression of being human. Okay,
Speaker 3: how we age, However, we do have control to go
Speaker 3: back to old thing we do have control over. So
Speaker 3: for me, it's not about being an age denier.
Speaker 1: Because we're gonna get old.
Speaker 3: But it's kind of like, can I take control of
Speaker 3: how our age instead of dropping into despair and then
Speaker 3: giving up and not trying and trying doesn't have to
Speaker 3: be and going to get botal, but trying to be
Speaker 3: What are the things I have I have control over
Speaker 3: because I aways. So my philosophy around agent is like,
Speaker 3: enhance the opportunities and address the challenges.
Speaker 1: So the challenges might be certain physical things.
Speaker 3: Do I need to do more exercise or exercise in
Speaker 3: a different way, or make sure there's enough movement, or
Speaker 3: do I need to change some of my diet. Those
Speaker 3: are the things you can control, so you take control
Speaker 3: of that, and there's something quite empowering. I see the
Speaker 3: women when they take control of things they can, they
Speaker 3: suddenly have this new zest of life, and the other
Speaker 3: things send to shrink, you know that the despair around
Speaker 3: oh my god, what's going on? And they start to
Speaker 3: feel more vibrant in their bodies and they start to
Speaker 3: shift the focus away from how they look to how
Speaker 3: they feel.
Speaker 1: And that's powerful, That's.
Speaker 2: Really powerful, because that's I noticed it even in myself,
Speaker 2: is that I feel like I've got loads of energy,
Speaker 2: loads of ambition, loads of things I want to do.
Speaker 2: And then sometimes I almost catch myself in the mirror
Speaker 2: and I'm like, but who is that?
Speaker 1: Like? You?
Speaker 2: Like as in your you're getting old now. And I
Speaker 2: wonder also if one of the things that can make
Speaker 2: when when we visibly start to age, we can no
Speaker 2: longer quite like we have to accept the fact that, yeah, right,
Speaker 2: you know, my years are I'm shifting that balance between
Speaker 2: having more years behind me, and sometimes that can be
Speaker 2: very hard if there are areas in your life that
Speaker 2: you've regretted or things you've wished you've done. And I've
Speaker 2: heard you say, you know, like you can still do anything,
Speaker 2: you might not be able to be a ballerina. I
Speaker 2: think I think i've heard you say like in terms
Speaker 2: of a career, but for big life things, it can
Speaker 2: be hard to wrestle with that regret. And I've heard
Speaker 2: you talk about your journey from being what you call
Speaker 2: childless to child free, and I wonder if that is
Speaker 2: something that you've well, I'm sure it's an area you've
Speaker 2: learned a great deal about from that experience. Do you
Speaker 2: mind telling us the story of your journey with becoming
Speaker 2: a mum?
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I think you know, I love to make
Speaker 3: the distinction between childless and child free because that's what
Speaker 3: I started off as childless. You know, I remember my
Speaker 3: twenties traveling around.
Speaker 1: Europe, you know.
Speaker 3: I I was always an adventure and I loved going
Speaker 3: out there and doing a lot of things. But always
Speaker 3: in my mind was I was going to have children.
Speaker 3: Like it was just I took it for granted. I
Speaker 3: never thought for a moment that it would not be
Speaker 3: open to me. So I kind of charged along and
Speaker 3: did my life. You know. Then I get to my
Speaker 3: late thirties, a relationship that I thought was going to
Speaker 3: become a marriage falls apart, and I'm suddenly in this panic,
Speaker 3: and then I have two or three relationships straight afterward.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of grappling.
Speaker 3: The men were not right, but I just wanted it
Speaker 3: to be, you know, right enough for me to get
Speaker 3: pregnant and have a family, you know. So there was
Speaker 3: all of that scrambling, and then there was all of
Speaker 3: my peers were starting to have children, and there was
Speaker 3: that real loneliness of isolation and where they were all
Speaker 3: forming mother's group and they were having conversations that I
Speaker 3: could not contribute. There was a real sense of being
Speaker 3: pushed out of and it was so painful, you know,
Speaker 3: And I was making really bad choices in men because
Speaker 3: I was so focused on it's going to be the
Speaker 3: one you know. So that was painful. And I was
Speaker 3: forty five, went and I know my then partner, I
Speaker 3: had just gone to have his tests at the IVF
Speaker 3: clinic because we were I just convinced him too, we
Speaker 3: go into therapy, convinced him to agree to have a
Speaker 3: child with me. He just went and had his tests
Speaker 3: the day before, and we were on his balcony. We
Speaker 3: weren't living together, We're on his balcony, and I just
Speaker 3: remember it was like a light bulb moment. I just
Speaker 3: went faith, you're forty five when your child is ten,
Speaker 3: you're going to be fifty five. When your child is twenty,
Speaker 3: you're going to be sixty five. Are you going to
Speaker 3: have the energy? What sort of quality of mother and
Speaker 3: are you're going to give the child? And what sort
Speaker 3: of quality of life are you're going to have. It
Speaker 3: was just suddenly like bang, and I just realized that no,
Speaker 3: the ship had salled. And it was so painful, even
Speaker 3: though it was a clear reality, it was so painful.
Speaker 3: The ship was selled, and I had to go through
Speaker 3: the process of accepting that, and that was really really painful.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a lot of grief around that, this
Speaker 3: thing that I took for granted. It's just never going
Speaker 3: to be an option, you know. So that going through again,
Speaker 3: did some therapy and really processed that grief and pain
Speaker 3: around that, and then I came into this place where
Speaker 3: there was all that acceptance, which is beautiful. What's what
Speaker 3: happens with grief? You know, you land in this space
Speaker 3: of acceptance. And I surveyed and it was like, wow,
Speaker 3: my life now is mine? Yeah, you know, my money
Speaker 3: is mine, like you.
Speaker 1: Know, I don't have to play school fees or college fees,
Speaker 1: it's mine. What do I want to do?
Speaker 2: And then one of the possibility, one of the possibilities there.
Speaker 1: And then things shifted.
Speaker 3: It was like all the friends all in like in
Speaker 3: their mum's group, and this lovely life that they had
Speaker 3: that I envied was suddenly turned around, going, oh my god,
Speaker 3: you're so lucky. Oh my god, you've just done that.
Speaker 3: What if you just done oh my god? You know,
Speaker 3: and suddenly I got this this right sizedness of there's
Speaker 3: there's positive and challenges in both being a mom and
Speaker 3: not being a mom, you know, and I was going
Speaker 3: to do the absolute best that I could.
Speaker 1: That I had this life, this privileged life of.
Speaker 3: Not having to you know, put my life on hold
Speaker 3: for someone else, or sacrifice for one else.
Speaker 1: And there was other ways of mothering.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've heard you speak about that.
Speaker 1: That's so important.
Speaker 2: What do you when you say other ways of mothering?
Speaker 2: What do you What does that mean to you?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, for me, I believe that I'm a natural nurturer,
Speaker 3: you know, and I think building communities. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: so that's for me. So for me, what are the
Speaker 3: qualities of mothering?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: For me, it's it's unconditional love, it's care, it's mothers
Speaker 3: are always sacrificed and always thinking about not someone. I
Speaker 3: feel that sacrifice a bit negative, but always considering the
Speaker 3: well being and needs of other people, you know. And
Speaker 3: I find for me it's something that I love doing.
Speaker 3: I get to do it in my therapy, you know.
Speaker 3: And some people believe the therapy is almost one of
Speaker 3: the roles of the therapist is is playing the role
Speaker 3: of the good mother. A lot of people have challenges
Speaker 3: around their mother, but you come in and you play
Speaker 3: that role.
Speaker 1: You model what that would look like.
Speaker 3: So you're giving them a some sort of unconditional love
Speaker 3: and acceptance. And you know, in the relationships they get
Speaker 3: to see that. So in that way, I get to
Speaker 3: mother for sure. I get to mother in my friendships
Speaker 3: a lot, because I'm definitely the person who if someone's said,
Speaker 3: I'm bringing the castle role, you know, and having a
Speaker 3: community like civil science, I had absolutely no idea that
Speaker 3: I was actually building. I thought I was building the
Speaker 3: community for other women. But I was built in the
Speaker 3: community that I need that I'm going to grow into,
Speaker 3: you know, interesting, and there's so much mothering in that.
Speaker 2: I think there's so much wisdom in like everything he
Speaker 2: just said. But what the talking about that very painful
Speaker 2: moment of letting go of this dream and then that
Speaker 2: coming into an acceptance. If there's anyone listening to this
Speaker 2: who's wrestled with that and going, I don't feel like
Speaker 2: I'm there yet, Like I'm still in the sadness of
Speaker 2: what I didn't get, the life I didn't get to have. Obviously,
Speaker 2: you've said therapy helps a lot. Is there something that
Speaker 2: you would share with them that would help them through that?
Speaker 1: Do you think?
Speaker 3: Look, I think the thing around time, I know it's
Speaker 3: not sexy.
Speaker 1: Time, you know, and the thing is honor where you're at.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm really glad that I didn't have any
Speaker 3: kind of pretend Pollyanna, you know, spiritual emotional bypassing, where
Speaker 3: I've just kind of pretended I was okay before I was,
Speaker 3: you know, it took time, and I'm really glad. So
Speaker 3: I allowed myself to go there, allowed myself to own
Speaker 3: the pain, allowed myself to own the jealousy that I had,
Speaker 3: and I sort of thinking myself as a jealous person,
Speaker 3: but I felt jealous, you know. So I allowed myself
Speaker 3: just to own all of that. And I think that's
Speaker 3: the thing. Don't much try and make yourself feel bad
Speaker 3: for all the feelings that you're having one of them.
Speaker 1: That's natural, you know. And have a safe space to
Speaker 1: share it.
Speaker 3: Doesn't have to be a therapist, but just have a
Speaker 3: couple of good friends that you can just go and
Speaker 3: share it with and not feel judged, you know. And
Speaker 3: I think that's what's really important. Just give yourself time
Speaker 3: and just keep being kind to yourself through the process.
Speaker 2: When we come back, Faith tells me about whether we're
Speaker 2: getting better at understanding that happiness looks different for every
Speaker 2: woman stay with us. Do you think that in general
Speaker 2: and culture we're getting better at understanding that there are
Speaker 2: lots of different ways to have a successful, happy life
Speaker 2: as a woman, and it's not all about the picket
Speaker 2: fence and the babies. Do you think we're getting better
Speaker 2: at that?
Speaker 1: Think? So? I mean, I think you can see that everywhere.
Speaker 3: I mean, the amount of people that are not having
Speaker 3: children is growing more and more. And we know that's
Speaker 3: only that's figures only getting bigger, you know. So I
Speaker 3: think that we're kind of accepting that you can have
Speaker 3: a fulfilling life without it looking like the cookie cutter
Speaker 3: that we've been told that they have to look like
Speaker 3: this for it to be a successful life. That's changing,
Speaker 3: and I think that's really exciting, you know. And I
Speaker 3: think that, I mean, I always say, the human beings,
Speaker 3: we're not in danger of being extinct. It's okay some
Speaker 3: of us are opt out of having children. You know,
Speaker 3: there are money of the mound.
Speaker 2: There are I also really love that when we were
Speaker 2: talking before about your decisions about what to do with
Speaker 2: this next phase of your life and your decision about
Speaker 2: your career change, you mentioned money, which I really liked
Speaker 2: that you did that. And I've seen you talk about
Speaker 2: that and some of your videos and things about goals
Speaker 2: because sometimes it seems a bit like frowned upon almost
Speaker 2: for women to talk about money, like we're supposed we
Speaker 2: do everything because we love it and we do everything,
Speaker 2: you know, for other people and blah blah blah. But
Speaker 2: financial security, particularly as you age, is really important. So
Speaker 2: the fact that you even will say, like I knew
Speaker 2: I wanted to choose a job that would pay me
Speaker 2: well enough to be able for me to have like,
Speaker 2: that's that's really important. Do you encourage women who you
Speaker 2: work with to think about that too, and do you
Speaker 2: think about finance?
Speaker 3: I challenged them a lot, you know, because a lot
Speaker 3: of women will come to me they'll have some problems
Speaker 3: around money. I mean, I've got so many clients who
Speaker 3: and separation and divorce were completely shafted, you know, because
Speaker 3: they didn't know what was really going on in their
Speaker 3: financial life and their husband took care of it. And
Speaker 3: I'm shocked the whistle has saying that. But that's still
Speaker 3: the case for a lot of women, you know. So
Speaker 3: a lot of them come and they've worked all their
Speaker 3: lives and you know, brought up the kids, and now
Speaker 3: they've left with literally nothing, you know. So I'm onto it,
Speaker 3: and I really talk to my clients. I challenged them around,
Speaker 3: you know, not being afraid to have the conversation.
Speaker 1: I poke them, you know.
Speaker 3: And I do it a lot with Silver Sirens as well.
Speaker 3: And I try and be super transparent with Silver Sirens too,
Speaker 3: because I pay for pretty much.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Everything's not very white is a community that I'm funding.
Speaker 3: So it used to feel quite shameful for me to
Speaker 3: own it, and I just thought, no, it's not realistic.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to pretend to be where I'm not.
Speaker 3: I'm going to say what's going on, you know. So
Speaker 3: I've always tried to model that, and you know, through
Speaker 3: through our content that we create as well and the resources.
Speaker 3: I always try and make sure that we have money
Speaker 3: experts to come in and talk to the women about
Speaker 3: money often, you know, and we try and now we
Speaker 3: separate our content into mounmth so June because it's the
Speaker 3: end of financially in Australia that's all focused on finances,
Speaker 3: and we've got loads of amazing experts now on board
Speaker 3: to talk to the women because I want the women
Speaker 3: to be empowered. We support the Older Women's Network their
Speaker 3: homelessness program and I feel so passionate about that because
Speaker 3: women have a fifty are the fastest growing coco and homelessness,
Speaker 3: and we have to do something about that. And part
Speaker 3: of that is awareness and we have to talk about
Speaker 3: it is the women know, and a lot of women
Speaker 3: that are ashamed so they don't even say to anybody
Speaker 3: that they're sleeping in their cars.
Speaker 2: Scary, it's really scary sometimes. I mean it's a stereotype.
Speaker 2: But women are resilient, right, we push on, we get
Speaker 2: things done, We make the most of it, like you know,
Speaker 2: make the most of a situation. But you know, you
Speaker 2: can only be so resilient when you need to actually
Speaker 2: be saying I'm not coping.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not coping.
Speaker 2: That's exactly I've also heard you say. And I want
Speaker 2: you to obviously tell me more about Silver Sirens, but
Speaker 2: that one of the things that when you've asked your community,
Speaker 2: and I assume this is through your work as well,
Speaker 2: loneliness is a massive thing that came up. I found
Speaker 2: that quite surprising. We're not surprising, but I think there
Speaker 2: was a stat I was reading you were saying something
Speaker 2: like seventy percent of the women you were said that
Speaker 2: loneliness and connection or lack of connection was one of
Speaker 2: the biggest things. What do you think is behind that?
Speaker 2: And do you think that's also you know, we were
Speaker 2: talking about cultural differences and how you know, in our
Speaker 2: culture where we're scared of age and we don't value
Speaker 2: necessarily our elders as much, why do you think this
Speaker 2: cohort can feel so isolated?
Speaker 3: You know, as people are aging, you know, it's that
Speaker 3: thing of they start to recede and disappear. You know,
Speaker 3: we have those multi generational cultures where everyone is brought in,
Speaker 3: you know, no matter what your age, every single member
Speaker 3: of the family is kind of included, whereas now it's
Speaker 3: almost like you get past a certain age and you're
Speaker 3: no longer invited to things or people forget about you.
Speaker 3: You know, and a lot of people too, you know,
Speaker 3: they move away, or friends are dying, friends are moving away.
Speaker 3: There's there again, is that there's a lot of different
Speaker 3: factors that cause that. But again, when people find themselves
Speaker 3: in that situation, they don't talk about it, nor do
Speaker 3: they freach out a lot of you know, when we
Speaker 3: first started exploring the loneliness, I started to have these
Speaker 3: monthly virtual Silver Connection lunches I call them, and we know,
Speaker 3: we get together and we bring food, and you know,
Speaker 3: that's how the process started. And a lot of the
Speaker 3: women just say they felt a lot of shame around
Speaker 3: telling people that they felt lonely, you know. And we
Speaker 3: also did a loneliness town hall where we just you know,
Speaker 3: just open it up and people we've lived experiences, this
Speaker 3: is a safe space for you to tell us what
Speaker 3: that felt like.
Speaker 1: A lot of people what it was shame.
Speaker 3: You know, my friends have moved away all of this,
Speaker 3: I've lost all of my contact, but I'm scared to
Speaker 3: reach out. I'm scared to tell anybody. I feel shamed
Speaker 3: to tell anybody that I feel like this. So then
Speaker 3: they'll just withdraw and isolate and try and figure it
Speaker 3: out by themselves, and their lives just gets shots and
Speaker 3: the more shrunk and less and more more isolated.
Speaker 1: It's very sad to see.
Speaker 2: I always remember my mother in law. She's not with
Speaker 2: us anymore, but she described it very clearly to me
Speaker 2: of what she didn't want to happen to her, but
Speaker 2: that she said, I saw my mother's life go from
Speaker 2: being out in the world with all these connections to
Speaker 2: literally shrinking to her kitchen, like because she was literally
Speaker 2: sitting at her kitchen table twenty four to seven, and
Speaker 2: it was a very stark visual picture for me as.
Speaker 1: Of what the shrinking of your life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so obviously your silver sirens in your community. You're
Speaker 2: very much about connecting, Yeah, bringing the women together. What
Speaker 2: do you love most about spending time with women in
Speaker 2: this face of their lives?
Speaker 3: Look, I think the laughter, you know, and we talk about,
Speaker 3: you know, a fewer folks to give, you know, we
Speaker 3: talk about that, and that gets better as you age.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm sixty next, and I'm expecting to be
Speaker 3: dropping more fucks next every.
Speaker 1: Birthday, every birthday, you know.
Speaker 3: But I think there's a there's an honesty you know
Speaker 3: that happens. And when we have our monthly lunches, you know,
Speaker 3: we do a talking stick thing where we go around
Speaker 3: the room. We do five minute stage and we talk
Speaker 3: and you really see the women are very open and
Speaker 3: they're very vulnerable, and they're very real, and there's a
Speaker 3: richness in what they share, you know, and there's a
Speaker 3: lot of laughter. There's something about again, it is that
Speaker 3: thing where we take ourselves less seriously and we're not
Speaker 3: so confined in this idea that I can't say that
Speaker 3: because I don't want people to you know, to judge me,
Speaker 3: or you know, that idea that we want that image
Speaker 3: management and we get so stuck in I think my twenties,
Speaker 3: thirties on some of my forties were so stuck in
Speaker 3: that image management. That drops away, so you get to
Speaker 3: see real people. So the connections are meaning for the deep.
Speaker 3: They're rich, you know, and I walk away always feeling
Speaker 3: fed by those You know, something very beautiful about it.
Speaker 3: If you ever came to a civil sarer's event, that's
Speaker 3: one thing you get straight away you walk through the door.
Speaker 3: It's almost like I always say, you feel like it's
Speaker 3: like it's like collectively.
Speaker 1: We all take off our bras.
Speaker 3: You just feel that you know, and everyone just relaxes,
Speaker 3: and it's that this is who I am. And I
Speaker 3: always get that feedback. It's like I'm totally accepted for
Speaker 3: who I am, and for once, I don't have to
Speaker 3: suck in my guard I don't have to do anything.
Speaker 3: I can just relax completely.
Speaker 2: And I love that when you look so as you said,
Speaker 2: you're turning sixty six in a few months, which is
Speaker 2: you know, no age at all, when you with all
Speaker 2: your experience and from where you began, as you were
Speaker 2: saying of everyone wanted to be the old, the older person,
Speaker 2: the elder, the wise. When you look at your what
Speaker 2: I call like your proper old age, Like what kind
Speaker 2: of elder do you want to be? What do you
Speaker 2: see in twenty thirty years?
Speaker 3: So I know I often talk about being an elder
Speaker 3: in training, you know, and it's it's a badge of
Speaker 3: honor for me, you know. And I think that my sixties,
Speaker 3: this decade, I really want it to be about intentional aging,
Speaker 3: you know. And what that looks like for me is
Speaker 3: I think we can kind of run through our lives
Speaker 3: and we've got a few goals here and there, but
Speaker 3: we're not intentional about how the people were becoming. So
Speaker 3: for me, I want to be intentionally agent. And again,
Speaker 3: doctor Stephanie Burns talks about, you know, she reminds us
Speaker 3: that from the age of twenty to fifty, we've lived
Speaker 3: thirty years, and so many things happen in those thirty years.
Speaker 1: Now from fifty to eighty, we're repeating.
Speaker 3: The same amount of time, so we're going to have
Speaker 3: the same amount of possibilities and adventures, you know. So
Speaker 3: when I think that that, yeah, when I think about that,
Speaker 3: I think I did so much in my twenties to fifty, like,
Speaker 3: how can I replicate that? But in you know, reflecting
Speaker 3: to where I'm going. So I think about very much
Speaker 3: being intentional ager and age and elder in training. I
Speaker 3: think about what sort of elder do I want to be,
Speaker 3: you know? And I want to stay curious, you know,
Speaker 3: and for like ever learning, ever grow. And I think
Speaker 3: one of the things that I see the people that
Speaker 3: are struggling with aging is that curiosity is not there.
Speaker 3: There's a sense that they've done everything they're supposed to do.
Speaker 3: Now they're waiting.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: We're almost like I don't fit in the world anymore
Speaker 2: because it's made for the young people whatever. Yes, And
Speaker 2: it's almost like your self select that you're out of
Speaker 2: it rather than in.
Speaker 3: It exactly, So how do we stay in it? So
Speaker 3: intentional aging for me is staying very much connected with life.
Speaker 3: I don't think about it as being relevant. And sometimes
Speaker 3: I hear the conversation I relevance that just annoys me
Speaker 3: because I don't think we should be trying to be relevant.
Speaker 1: I think if we're just.
Speaker 3: Being and living life with curiosity, it's not about being relevant.
Speaker 1: What does it really mean?
Speaker 2: Because I mean I say that about myself. Sometimes I'm like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, am I becoming irrelevant? And then but
Speaker 2: what does that mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just another label that just again it constricts.
Speaker 3: It's like the same as invisibility, you know. So for me,
Speaker 3: it's really I think our biggest role as elders is
Speaker 3: mentoring and being role models for the younger generation. I
Speaker 3: think if we hide, disappear, shrink, we're not showing young
Speaker 3: women that there's a lot to live for and they've
Speaker 3: got this vibrant life ahead of us, and I think
Speaker 3: it's a responsibility for us to show them the kind
Speaker 3: of lives they can live, you know. And I take
Speaker 3: that really seriously.
Speaker 2: Like when you are talking at the beginning of our
Speaker 2: conversation today about your mom, is your mom still with us?
Speaker 2: She is, yeah, And how is she doing now?
Speaker 3: She's ata Well, she's not the sort of elder that
Speaker 3: she would have liked to be because she had some
Speaker 3: health issues which really slowed her down. You know, so
Speaker 3: in terms of physical you know, mobility, it's quite as
Speaker 3: more restrictive than she would be. She's always been quite
Speaker 3: an active person, but she got ill about five years ago,
Speaker 3: and that kind of really derailed her health. But in
Speaker 3: terms of mental health, she's as sharp as a whistle.
Speaker 3: She's still the person that everyone talks goes to. You know,
Speaker 3: she's a matriarch and very much the center of our family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh well, I'm very happy to hear that.
Speaker 1: Faith.
Speaker 2: It's been amazing to talk to you today.
Speaker 1: I feel fool I love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I loved it. I love there are so many
Speaker 2: things I'm gonna have to slow down and think about that. Look,
Speaker 2: if you loved this episode, and I obviously love talking
Speaker 2: to Faith, I think I particularly found a lot of
Speaker 2: revelation in that honest conversation about what happens when you
Speaker 2: don't get what you want, which has happened to all
Speaker 2: of us in very different ways, and how you deal
Speaker 2: with it, and her honesty around the midlife crisis and
Speaker 2: what came next. And if you want more conversations of
Speaker 2: that level of honesty and intelligence, I encourage you to
Speaker 2: flick back through mid because we've got loads of them.
Speaker 2: Listen to Christine Anau, who I spoke to in season
Speaker 2: one about She talks really honestly about the mistakes that
Speaker 2: she made as a mother and how sometimes your adult
Speaker 2: kids will turn around and talk to you about them,
Speaker 2: and again you just have to accept what is rather
Speaker 2: than what you think think should be. To Gina Chick,
Speaker 2: who lived through the unimaginable of losing her little daughter
Speaker 2: and about how she reimagined her life after that. And
Speaker 2: with Ali Daddo, who, like Faith, was a model who's
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of her life and self worth
Speaker 2: was caught up with what she looked like when she
Speaker 2: was younger and what does that feel like to let
Speaker 2: go of as you get older. All of those conversations
Speaker 2: you can find in our mid feed if you just
Speaker 2: slick back. I can't thank you all enough for being
Speaker 2: here with us as we have these meaningful conversations that
Speaker 2: hopefully make you laugh a little bit too. We're going
Speaker 2: to be back in your ears next week and until then,
Speaker 2: big thanks to our team Executive producer Nama Brown, senior
Speaker 2: producer Grace Rufray, our producer Tarlie Blackman, and our audio
Speaker 2: producer Jacob Brown. See you next week.