Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mamma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mere acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on. I can do a
Speaker 2: neat trick. I can disappear at wills.
Speaker 3: You probably can too.
Speaker 2: It's a skill that wasn't available to us when we
Speaker 2: were younger, and I's first turned in our direction, sliding
Speaker 2: over us on the street, at work, in shops and bars,
Speaker 2: and any space where we dared to exist, to judge us, slice, categorize, conquer.
Speaker 2: But now now we can slip through shops barely turning ahead,
Speaker 2: vanish instantly when leaning on a bar, and our voices
Speaker 2: when offering an opinion. Only dogs can hear it. I
Speaker 2: could lift a young man's phone from his hand before
Speaker 2: he noticed I was right there. I could collect sensitive
Speaker 2: intelligence from the finest spies while pretending to whirdle alongside them.
Speaker 2: And I am deliciously free to walk a street without
Speaker 2: cat call or comment. There are upsides to being invisible,
Speaker 2: you see, but.
Speaker 3: Generally it's a jolt. Do we still.
Speaker 2: Exist if we're harder to see? Does it matter what
Speaker 2: we say, or what we want or what we know
Speaker 2: if we're considered an amorphous lump of looser bodies, frizzier hair,
Speaker 2: flatter feet. If we are invisible, not just out in
Speaker 2: the wild, but in parliaments and boardrooms and on screens
Speaker 2: and in our ears and in the pages of books,
Speaker 2: will we ever even hear? Invisible women lose sight of
Speaker 2: themselves too. That's why we start trying so hard to
Speaker 2: stay seen, to remember who we were and who we
Speaker 2: are still becoming. There are some different tactics to being
Speaker 2: visible to the seeing eye, and we might try all
Speaker 2: of them. Paint on a bold lip, iron out our creases,
Speaker 2: cover our hair, silver stripes, wear a wild print, those thick,
Speaker 2: colorful specks, a statement, earring all of it, saying still here,
Speaker 2: see me pe color and movement over here? Can you
Speaker 2: still hear me? If I complain really loud? How about now?
Speaker 2: The trick is you, see, to lean into the soft
Speaker 2: power in visibility gives us. Now that we're not only
Speaker 2: defined by how firm and fuckable we are, while still
Speaker 2: feeling like ourselves, staying bright and in sharp focus of
Speaker 2: our own clear sight. I can do a neat trick now.
Speaker 2: Maybe you can too, The incredible invisible woman, watch your wallet.
Speaker 3: Hello, I'm Holly.
Speaker 2: Wainwright and I am mid midlife, midfamily, mid disappearance. Today
Speaker 2: I'm talking to a woman who turned midlife invisibility into
Speaker 2: a significant advantage. While no one was looking. She wrote
Speaker 2: a novel so clever and funny and sharp about this
Speaker 2: time of life. Hollywood are after it, and it all
Speaker 2: came from a particular shit moment. Jane Tara is a
Speaker 2: writer who has written lots of children's books, who has
Speaker 2: worked with and close to books for many years. But
Speaker 2: the year she turned fifty, things were going to poop.
Speaker 2: The year she turned fifty, she had been hospitalized with pneumonia,
Speaker 2: she'd lost her business, and her partner of a decade
Speaker 2: broke up with her by text. She sat on a
Speaker 2: beach and decided to change her life, which is the
Speaker 2: way a lot of my favorite stories start. Of course,
Speaker 2: changing a life is no small matter, especially when you're invisible.
Speaker 2: But Jane did it, and a lot of what we
Speaker 2: talk about today is about the how, as well as
Speaker 2: a discussion of how her book Tilda Is Visible, nails
Speaker 2: this part of life. This conversation is a bit self helpy,
Speaker 2: a touch woo woo, and also pretty practical. It's for
Speaker 2: you if you don't understand why everyone keeps telling you
Speaker 2: to meditate? What the hell phrase is like, show up
Speaker 2: for yourself, do the work and enoughness actually mean? And
Speaker 2: also if you just love a bloody good story. So
Speaker 2: here we go. Two invisible women make a podcast. Meet
Speaker 2: Jane Tara on how to bring yourself back into focus. Jane,
Speaker 2: this is the most wonderful idea for a book ever.
Speaker 2: Can I tell the audience about it?
Speaker 1: Yes? Please?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: Friends. Tilda is fifty two.
Speaker 2: She is a divorced mother of young adult children, living
Speaker 2: a seemingly great life, owning her own small business, living
Speaker 2: in her own home in a desirable bit of Sydney.
Speaker 2: She's got good friends around her. And then one day
Speaker 2: she wakes up and she realizes that she's becoming invisible.
Speaker 2: Her little finger is missing, but it hasn't gone. It's there,
Speaker 2: but she can't see it. And then her ear, and
Speaker 2: then her thumb. And she goes to the doctor and Jane,
Speaker 2: you tell me what the doctor diagnoses Tilda with.
Speaker 1: The doctor diagnoses Tilda with invisibility, and it turns out
Speaker 1: to be a not uncommon condition for women of a
Speaker 1: certain age. And Tilda goes on this journey where she
Speaker 1: meets other women who are at different stages of invisibility,
Speaker 1: and you know, it looks for a way to cure
Speaker 1: a supposedly incurable condition.
Speaker 2: It's so clever, Jane, because the initial stages of this,
Speaker 2: when the doctor is talking to her and saying it's
Speaker 2: an incurable condition, there's a support group, like there's a
Speaker 2: local support group of other women. Tilda starts googling, as
Speaker 2: of course she would, and she finds there's very little
Speaker 2: research done on invisible women's surprise, surprise, so no one's
Speaker 2: really sure if it's hormone related. Early symptoms include being
Speaker 2: overlooked by the servers in shops and bars, and there's
Speaker 2: no known cure. As you say, it's so funny and clever.
Speaker 2: Want to start with the question that I'm sure you
Speaker 2: have been asked many times, but we need to ask
Speaker 2: when did you get the first symptoms of invisibility.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because at a couple of events recently, people
Speaker 1: have told me that when they were reading the book
Speaker 1: that they've actually googled to see if it's a real conversion.
Speaker 1: And I've jumped in at that point and said, well,
Speaker 1: it is, like it actually is a real condition. It
Speaker 1: really is women. Generally from my personal experience and also
Speaker 1: talking to women, the forties seems to be key for this.
Speaker 1: We're juggling a lot in our forties, particularly if you
Speaker 1: have kids, and you're juggling all of that sort of stuff,
Speaker 1: and you're working and you've got all these balls in
Speaker 1: the air, and it collides with perimenopause and any unaddressed
Speaker 1: trauma or you know, past issues that you have sort
Speaker 1: of come home to roost at that particular point as well,
Speaker 1: and it's just this show of cortisol and stress and
Speaker 1: hormones and often deep seated grief and you're trying to
Speaker 1: do everything for everyone else, and at that point you
Speaker 1: start to lose sight of yourself. And that was very
Speaker 1: much my experience. And there were just little things that
Speaker 1: happened along the way where I was out in the
Speaker 1: world and suddenly I was treated in a certain way,
Speaker 1: or I wasn't seen, or there was one really, really
Speaker 1: great moment for me in my mid forties. My older
Speaker 1: son's a musician, and I was at a gig of
Speaker 1: his and I was talking to this musician who was
Speaker 1: doing kind of the staging for the band, and he
Speaker 1: was probably in his thirties and he was really hot.
Speaker 1: I was just laughing and chatting to him, thinking, oh god,
Speaker 1: you know if I was ten years younger, you know,
Speaker 1: he's a beautiful young man. At one point he goes, oh,
Speaker 1: I wish I had a mum like you, And he
Speaker 1: was for me as someone I'm so much older. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like somewhere in your thirties is still milfy
Speaker 1: or whatever. And then suddenly you take this leap, and
Speaker 1: from that point on I started to think, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I really am at that stage where people are seeing
Speaker 1: me or perceiving me in a certain way.
Speaker 2: It's often framed a little bit that it's vanity fretting
Speaker 2: about invisibility, or that it's very specifically about mourning being
Speaker 2: viewed in an objectively sexual way, like oh I don't
Speaker 2: get whistled out in the street, or like I think
Speaker 2: it's more than that, though, don't you. It's this sort
Speaker 2: of recategorization of you as you're talking about, like as
Speaker 2: a different kind of person.
Speaker 1: I think generally, you start to go through it and
Speaker 1: you realize that perhaps you did use your youth and
Speaker 1: your beauty as a certain currency without realizing, and that
Speaker 1: currency has waned it is more than that. It's questioning
Speaker 1: sort of purpose and who you are, and particularly as
Speaker 1: your kids get old, and perhaps you've made sacrifices of
Speaker 1: yourself for other people around you. And I've come to
Speaker 1: realize that the way that I made sacrifices was a
Speaker 1: form of self sabotage, because we do this as women
Speaker 1: because we think we have do or we think we
Speaker 1: need to give of ourselves at a certain level for
Speaker 1: everyone else to be happy, but ultimately we don't. And
Speaker 1: you know, the greatest thing we can actually do for
Speaker 1: our kids is to be happy ourselves and not be
Speaker 1: sacrificing ourselves.
Speaker 2: Also, it's interesting because what you're talking about, it's like
Speaker 2: a dual level invisibility. There's the invisibility in the world, which,
Speaker 2: as you make the point in Tilda, sort of starts
Speaker 2: when you notice yourself just being overlooked in situations and
Speaker 2: that shift, as you say in your sexual currency, perhaps,
Speaker 2: but then there's also that invisibility to yourself.
Speaker 3: So it's like there are two levels to it.
Speaker 1: Almost absolutely, and I'm being asked about both because I
Speaker 1: tend to really write about the latter, about becoming invisible
Speaker 1: to yourself. You know, I don't think I can change
Speaker 1: the world at the moment, although there are some great
Speaker 1: people out there trying to. But it's how we view ourselves,
Speaker 1: how we perceive ourselves, and that became something of great
Speaker 1: interest to me. And one of the reasons why this
Speaker 1: all happens in your forties, at this hormonal shift in
Speaker 1: our life as well, is because we're meant to be
Speaker 1: moving into the kind of wiser woman archetype in the
Speaker 1: human experience, and we're all grabbing hold of youth. We're
Speaker 1: wanting to maintain youth because we're told by the external
Speaker 1: thing that that's what gives us the currency, that's what
Speaker 1: gives us the power. But actually there's a very deep,
Speaker 1: almost spiritual wisdom that comes with getting older as a
Speaker 1: woman and the four what is I call it the
Speaker 1: vortex that you go through that period of time and
Speaker 1: you're meant to really sink into it and work out,
Speaker 1: you know, work through your past and your traumas, and
Speaker 1: work out who you are and start to see yourself
Speaker 1: very very clearly for who you are as you age
Speaker 1: as a woman into that. It's the matriarch in society
Speaker 1: and although society doesn't particularly value that, it will more
Speaker 1: so if individually and collectively women value that, absolutely, we
Speaker 1: need to start seeing ourselves as that community family matriarch
Speaker 1: rather than trying to sort of like keep hold of.
Speaker 2: Our youth and making that something that has status, which
Speaker 2: you know, you could argue maybe it used to in
Speaker 2: a different way. Now when we talk about aging, well,
Speaker 2: we often are talking about those external markers of youth
Speaker 2: and can we hold on to it enough. My skin
Speaker 2: plump enough, is my hair shiny enough, is my body
Speaker 2: limber enough? All those things that we hold on too
Speaker 2: from youth, And that's all important, and we'll get to that,
Speaker 2: but as you say, it's this much deeper shift. I
Speaker 2: wanted to ask you before we do talk about some
Speaker 2: of that deep searching work, whether or not you think
Speaker 2: there's any advantage to the invisibility that comes in midlife,
Speaker 2: because the external invisibility, the fact that you're less noticeable
Speaker 2: in a way moving through the world, it's a shock
Speaker 2: when it happens to you, because, as you said earlier,
Speaker 2: women are kind of it's sort of pushed upon us
Speaker 2: as soon as we hit adolescents. Really that this sexual
Speaker 2: visibility is something we're going to have to figure out
Speaker 2: how to handle and use maybe as a currency to figure.
Speaker 3: Out what we do with that.
Speaker 2: And when that leaves you there can be a bit
Speaker 2: of freedom in it. I sometimes feel a bit of
Speaker 2: freedom in the fact that nobody's looking at you or
Speaker 2: expecting too much. And I read a piece by Hannah
Speaker 2: Rosen once, the American journalist who wrote, really, because no
Speaker 2: one can see you, you can shed a lot of
Speaker 2: different worries as you enter your forties and fifties, and
Speaker 2: you can create, achieve, and not play in that way anymore.
Speaker 2: There's a freedom in that invisibility that we don't take
Speaker 2: enough advantage of. Do you think that's true at.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent? But I think that I enjoy that
Speaker 1: freedom now because I see myself clearly. So we still
Speaker 1: need to be visible to ourselves, which is the point
Speaker 1: of tild up, and yet we can't do much about
Speaker 1: the people who don't see us in the external world,
Speaker 1: or the opportunities that we miss out on because we're
Speaker 1: getting older. So there are some negatives to it as well,
Speaker 1: but there are some positives, you know, just the freedom
Speaker 1: that comes with not caring, really not giving a shit.
Speaker 2: It's the great gift of aging if you can harness it.
Speaker 2: More of my conversation with Jane Tara coming up next. Well,
Speaker 2: we discs us how to harness your mind through meditation
Speaker 2: if you can manage it and finally get out of
Speaker 2: survival mode as a mid woman. I want to move
Speaker 2: to this incredible talk you gave recently at an event
Speaker 2: in Sydney called Generation Women. And you've written about this,
Speaker 2: what you've touched on already about this period in your forties.
Speaker 2: I'm going to read a little bit about it. You
Speaker 2: talk about childhood trauma, as you mentioned before. You know,
Speaker 2: often in this period of your life, a lot of
Speaker 2: stuff that you think, and we've talked about this on
Speaker 2: mid quite a bit.
Speaker 3: You think you've.
Speaker 2: Kind of managed to push away will come back in
Speaker 2: this mail stream of all the things you're going through.
Speaker 2: You write, my forties arrived, and boy were they tough.
Speaker 2: With perimenopause, my trauma magnified, and everything that I'd been
Speaker 2: trying to unsuccessfully escape was mirrored back to me and
Speaker 2: the choices I'd made in the relationship I was in.
Speaker 2: I took an emotional and psychological beating in my forties.
Speaker 2: By forty nine, my life was in free fall. Two
Speaker 2: weeks before I turned fifty I was in hospital with pneumonia.
Speaker 2: I lost my business and my I partner of a decade,
Speaker 2: and did our relationship via text.
Speaker 3: On the day I.
Speaker 2: Turned fifty write A bit later on, I sat on
Speaker 2: the beach and I watched the sunrise on a new decade,
Speaker 2: and I made a promise to myself.
Speaker 3: This cycle of heartache.
Speaker 2: And trauma and the same old shit happening in countless
Speaker 2: ways was going to change.
Speaker 3: It had to.
Speaker 2: First of all, Jane, I could cry that is so
Speaker 2: relatable in so many different ways to myself and so
Speaker 2: many women who'll be listening to this.
Speaker 3: Tell me what you did.
Speaker 1: I went home and meditated, and I've meditated Nelly every
Speaker 1: day since I write in that speech. That was nothing
Speaker 1: new to me, Like I'd experimented with self development and
Speaker 1: self help and looked for a teacher or a way
Speaker 1: out of the trauma and the pain that I was
Speaker 1: carrying around from living in a house where domestic violence
Speaker 1: was the norm. So I'd really given it a good shot.
Speaker 1: And I think I've always been really positive person and
Speaker 1: had a really interesting life, but I carried this trauma
Speaker 1: around and it had really shaped my perception of the world. Relationships,
Speaker 1: love and self love ultimately. So that particular day, I
Speaker 1: went home and I started meditating every single day and
Speaker 1: sort of incorporated it in with a bit of neuroplasticity
Speaker 1: and really addressing my internal programs. And that's been a
Speaker 1: bit of a buzzword for a few years now. But
Speaker 1: the fact is that you can change the neural pathways
Speaker 1: of your brain, you can change the way you perceive
Speaker 1: the world. You can change yourself and in fact, if
Speaker 1: your life is chaotic, if your life keeps feeding back
Speaker 1: trauma loops to you, by changing the way you think
Speaker 1: about the world is the way you're going to change
Speaker 1: your external world.
Speaker 2: So you say in there, you, as you just said,
Speaker 2: you've always been something of a searcher, and you're familiar
Speaker 2: with ideas like chakras and all that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: For people who might say, oh, I've tried meditating, like
Speaker 2: I've sat in quiet rooms and I've tried, and I
Speaker 2: can't turn my brain off and it sounds like hard
Speaker 2: work and who's got time for that?
Speaker 3: And all that?
Speaker 2: Can you explain in a way that's quite simple to us?
Speaker 2: You also, right, Tilda goes on this journey too in
Speaker 2: the book. Right, And I've heard you say that you
Speaker 2: now put meditating above everything else in your life because
Speaker 2: you know that it's the foundation, So above family, above work,
Speaker 2: above all those things.
Speaker 4: Why like how because my meditation practice has now created
Speaker 4: a space in my life that allows the external events
Speaker 4: to occur.
Speaker 1: And of course I was so reactive. My whole life
Speaker 1: was spent reacting to things, and usually at quite a
Speaker 1: high level, because I was living in survival and had
Speaker 1: been living in the hormones of stress and survival my
Speaker 1: entire life. So as that started to settle through meditating,
Speaker 1: because it affects all your chemicals, your physiological, neurobiological kind
Speaker 1: of makeup, It impacts that and it settles you. So
Speaker 1: that's the first thing. And then it creates a space
Speaker 1: for you to actually have the experience of road rage.
Speaker 1: For example, someone yells at you and instead of that
Speaker 1: being a huge reaction from you as well, and then
Speaker 1: taking that into the next phase of the day and
Speaker 1: the next and it having ripple effects, you choose how
Speaker 1: you're going to react. You choose how you're going to
Speaker 1: react if someone is nasty, if your boss has a
Speaker 1: go at you, if your partner has a go at you.
Speaker 1: So there is a space there rather than being reactive
Speaker 1: because you flip into I need to survive because I'm
Speaker 1: being confronted here, I could yell like I was a
Speaker 1: big yella as well, And I can't even remember the
Speaker 1: last time I yelled because it has been completely wired
Speaker 1: out of my brain. Because I choose how I'm going
Speaker 1: to react, and generally it is to my benefit, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to like have an extreme reaction anymore.
Speaker 2: Can I ask you in a very practical way? Because
Speaker 2: I interviewed Catherine May on this podcast too. You probably
Speaker 2: know about amazing writer he evmentory, and she also meditates,
Speaker 2: of course, but she said that when she first started,
Speaker 2: she found it became a bit of a sort of
Speaker 2: another mountain to climb, another stick to beat herself with
Speaker 2: if she couldn't fit it in. She said sometimes she'd
Speaker 2: listen to Guruz who would say, you've got to do
Speaker 2: it for this amount of time at this time of day,
Speaker 2: and she would like, well, I can't, Like I've got
Speaker 2: the school run. I'm like, can you tell me in
Speaker 2: a practical way how you fit it into your life
Speaker 2: and how women you know who have benefited in a
Speaker 2: similar way. Do you have found ways to actually make
Speaker 2: it work.
Speaker 1: So I know what she means. I don't know whether
Speaker 1: you're up to this bit in the book, but Tilda
Speaker 1: does the the Passionate ten day course.
Speaker 2: So that's when you go away and you're not allowed
Speaker 2: to speak for ten days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, silent retreat for ten days. Hell so tough, very beneficial,
Speaker 1: but really tough. And you agree to give up all
Speaker 1: other types of meditation and different healing modalities if you
Speaker 1: become a practitioner and you're meant to meditate for at
Speaker 1: least an hour a day using this technique. And I
Speaker 1: found it so boring. The benefits were there, and I
Speaker 1: have friends who do it and they love it, but
Speaker 1: for me, I hated the structure of it. The meditation
Speaker 1: style that I use Now, I can meditate for fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes or I can meditate for two hours, depending on
Speaker 1: the day and the time that I have. I will
Speaker 1: meditate when it fits in. I'm in such a routine
Speaker 1: of it now that generally I know if I'm going
Speaker 1: to have that little bit of time in the morning,
Speaker 1: and I use guided meditations. I never did before. It
Speaker 1: just sit there and battle my brain and that was tough.
Speaker 1: So I use these guided meditations and they're fun. So
Speaker 1: what I now know is that our spiritual journey, our
Speaker 1: journey of personal growth, we're meant to actually enjoy it.
Speaker 1: It's not meant to be a drag. I love that
Speaker 1: you commit to yourself that you're going to sit. You
Speaker 1: don't beat yourself up if you miss it, but you
Speaker 1: commit to yourself because it is really an active of
Speaker 1: such self love to give yourself that time. And then
Speaker 1: you do fifteen minutes or you do an hour, depending
Speaker 1: on how long you've got busy lives. But you start
Speaker 1: to get into a routine of that and it starts
Speaker 1: to really impact your brain and your body and your life.
Speaker 1: And then it becomes non negotiable because you want it
Speaker 1: because you enjoy it. But the less structure you have
Speaker 1: around it, the less oh, I've got to do this,
Speaker 1: I've got to tick this box. It's another I've got
Speaker 1: a teck called another thing I need to juggle. It's
Speaker 1: got to be enjoyed.
Speaker 2: So this is where we're getting to. When you were
Speaker 2: saying about the day that you made the choice, and
Speaker 2: that's the day you started meditating in earnest and that
Speaker 2: self love and showing up for yourself, I've heard you say,
Speaker 2: is the thing that did change you. So the doctor
Speaker 2: talking to Tilda at the beginning of the book, who's
Speaker 2: saying there is no cure. You were looking for cures
Speaker 2: and treatments and you this has been your cure.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely so, Tilda's Journey is very much my journey.
Speaker 2: Yes, I've heard you describe it as fiction with self
Speaker 2: help woven through it. And I want to assure everybody
Speaker 2: like the book. It's so funny and it's so just
Speaker 2: delightful and surprising.
Speaker 3: So talk to me. The meditation is key.
Speaker 2: What else does showing up for yourself mean?
Speaker 3: Because to me and I.
Speaker 2: Love that Tilda's business is she has a business where
Speaker 2: they have like inspirational quotes on mugs and t shirts
Speaker 2: and signs, and she hates I love that about this too. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but showing up for yourself is one of those phrases
Speaker 2: that I hear a lot, but I don't know what
Speaker 2: it means, and I have a feeling that I meant
Speaker 2: to do it more. What does showing up for yourself mean?
Speaker 1: I'm sure it differs for people, but for me it
Speaker 1: was at the end of my relationship I took. It
Speaker 1: was nearly six years by myself and I was meditating
Speaker 1: during that time every day, so I really worked through
Speaker 1: a lot of my past pain and trauma and I
Speaker 1: got to know myself really well. You know, i'd buy
Speaker 1: flowers for myself sometimes, or you know, I always liked
Speaker 1: my own company, I guess in my own space because
Speaker 1: being a writer, we like our own time, love it.
Speaker 1: But there's there's a difference between having that time and space,
Speaker 1: and you know, the possibility of never having someone in
Speaker 1: that bed with you again, and learning to sleep in
Speaker 1: that bed alone and everything becoming your space and becoming
Speaker 1: really comfortable with it and then moving into contentment. And
Speaker 1: probably about a year, maybe eighteen months into this journey,
Speaker 1: I was in the kitchen and I was making coffee
Speaker 1: for myself one morning, and something was really different about me,
Speaker 1: and it had been for about three weeks, and I
Speaker 1: was thinking about it, thinking, is this what depression feels like?
Speaker 1: Is this because I've never experienced that, but it was
Speaker 1: something that I'd never experienced. But I always had very
Speaker 1: highs and lows, but I'd never been depressed. I'd somehow
Speaker 1: sort of pulled myself out of it, and I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: something here is not me. I don't know what it
Speaker 1: is here. I am making my coffee and everything, and
Speaker 1: I looked out the window at this tree and it
Speaker 1: was like this just rush of energy in me, and
Speaker 1: I went, oh my god, I'm content. Ah, And I
Speaker 1: had never experienced that before. I might have had glimmers,
Speaker 1: I might have had, but a maintained period of time
Speaker 1: that was so unfamiliar to me that it took some
Speaker 1: reflection for me to go, what is this? And then
Speaker 1: I realized I was really deeply content.
Speaker 2: In my life and it was so unfamiliar to you
Speaker 2: that it worried you.
Speaker 1: And it was just like this standing at the coffee machine,
Speaker 1: going oh my god, you know I've got here. I've
Speaker 1: got here. That's so great. And so that is kind
Speaker 1: of my baseline.
Speaker 2: Now after this shortbreak, we hear how being diagnosed with
Speaker 2: a degenerative eye disease led Jane to having clearer vision
Speaker 2: of how she wanted to live the rest of her life.
Speaker 2: Can I ask you, because I know there'll be people
Speaker 2: listening to this who relate to that journey as a
Speaker 2: post divorce story in terms of learning to be on
Speaker 2: your own. Maybe you like it, maybe you don't, But
Speaker 2: as you very rightly pointed out, there's a difference between oh,
Speaker 2: I like my alone time and now.
Speaker 3: It's just me.
Speaker 2: After you found that place of I am content in
Speaker 2: what I have, this is enough, I'm enough. Did that
Speaker 2: change the way you felt about a loneeness and whether
Speaker 2: or not you did want to seek out companionship and
Speaker 2: all those things.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because everything is always an ongoing process. So
Speaker 1: about six years into this journey, I decided that I
Speaker 1: would go on a dating app and you know, maybe
Speaker 1: meet someone. I didn't know how that looked or anything.
Speaker 1: I did meet someone. I've been seeing him for about
Speaker 1: two years and it's very much a catch up one
Speaker 1: or two nights a week. Treats me like a queen.
Speaker 1: We're very independent. We're in touch during the day, but
Speaker 1: that merging of lives is not there. And at every
Speaker 1: stage when you're reflecting on this, would I like more?
Speaker 1: Am I capable of more? I've worked so hard to
Speaker 1: have the life that I have and the contentment that
Speaker 1: I have. Would I want to even risk that at
Speaker 1: this point? And so of course I've drawn into my
Speaker 1: life someone that very much fits with the mindset of
Speaker 1: where I am at the moment. So, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I get to have someone in my life without Havn's
Speaker 1: like the Clayton's boyfriend.
Speaker 3: It sounds really good.
Speaker 2: I've heard that described as a permanent part time position
Speaker 2: that a lot of midlife women want. It's like, I
Speaker 2: have a world that I'm very comfortable in and I'm
Speaker 2: not interested in going back to caretaking or giving all
Speaker 2: of this up, but of course I have needs and
Speaker 2: I would love companionship, So permanent part time is one
Speaker 2: of the ways i've heard that described. Can I ask
Speaker 2: you we might take this back a bit, because I
Speaker 2: probably should have asked you this before. You've spoken about
Speaker 2: how in the middle of a lot of that dark
Speaker 2: period of when you were searching and struggling with invisibility,
Speaker 2: you've got a misdiagnosis that really changed the way you
Speaker 2: saw yourself literally for a while.
Speaker 3: Can you tell me a bit about that.
Speaker 1: So I was misdiagnosed with a condition called retinisis pigmentosa,
Speaker 1: and I've given that condition to the love interest Patrick
Speaker 1: in the novel, and it's a degenerative eye condition, and
Speaker 1: they were one hundred percent certain that I had it,
Speaker 1: and I was then referred to the Center for Eye
Speaker 1: Health at the University of New South Wales. It's funded
Speaker 1: by the Guide Dog Association and the idea is you
Speaker 1: go there sort of annually they check the amount of
Speaker 1: loss that you have to your site. And I do
Speaker 1: have a very unusual pigmentation in my retina, which is
Speaker 1: what they were seeing, and it presents completely as this
Speaker 1: eye disease. Unfortunately, one of the machines that they needed
Speaker 1: to use at the Center for Our Health was broken
Speaker 1: at the time, and so I had to wait nearly
Speaker 1: three months, two and a half months to get in
Speaker 1: for my appointment. So in the novel, when Tilda is
Speaker 1: first diagnosed and she sort of sits up in bed
Speaker 1: in her pj's, drinking wine out of a bottle and
Speaker 1: dancing seventies hits, that was me.
Speaker 3: It is that what you did?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was definitely me. And then I went down
Speaker 1: a big rabbit hole of this condition, how it would
Speaker 1: present in my life, the sort of gene component of it.
Speaker 1: I was sort of went through this whole period of
Speaker 1: for my sons, but then I kind of veered left
Speaker 1: and went into a whole area of the question being
Speaker 1: what does it actually mean to see? And obviously that's
Speaker 1: a different question for actual sight imped but for me,
Speaker 1: it got me questioning how I actually saw the world,
Speaker 1: how I saw myself. Each and every person sees the
Speaker 1: world differently. We see ourselves differently, we see events differently.
Speaker 1: And I started to really question how I would see
Speaker 1: if I didn't have sight, but how I actually see
Speaker 1: with sight now? And at one point I was looking
Speaker 1: in the mirror and that had pretty much been a
Speaker 1: exercise of self loathing. I was starting to really criticize
Speaker 1: the aging process, and it was just like the world tilted.
Speaker 1: It was a really strange experience. And in that moment,
Speaker 1: I just looked at my face and all the lines
Speaker 1: and all the living that I'd done and just loved it.
Speaker 1: And I thought, oh my god, am I not going
Speaker 1: to get to see myself age? Am I not going
Speaker 1: to get to see the march of time across my face?
Speaker 1: And I thought, if I really feel like I'm losing gift,
Speaker 1: why would I do anything to erase it or not
Speaker 1: embrace it. So it was a really big moment for me,
Speaker 1: and I still carry that today. I occasionally sort of go,
Speaker 1: oh God, very rarely I'm like, embrace it, embrace aging.
Speaker 2: I absolutely love that story because it's so profound when
Speaker 2: you say that. Is that this privilege that I get
Speaker 2: to experience so much in life. And that's one of
Speaker 2: the things that infuriates me about a lot of the
Speaker 2: aptitudes towards midlife women is that we're sort of seen
Speaker 2: as a bit pathetic or a bit sad, or a
Speaker 2: bit invisible obviously, but actually we are profoundly wise, experienced, strong,
Speaker 2: and that story illustrates that brilliantly. Is it hard to
Speaker 2: hold on to that? Because often you have these profound
Speaker 2: moments of realization, but we are all swimming in this
Speaker 2: constant bombardment of look younger, be more relevant, have more opportunities.
Speaker 2: If you eraise this, that is it hard to hold
Speaker 2: on to it?
Speaker 1: Well, it has been ten years since that moment, and
Speaker 1: I would say I've done a pretty good job of
Speaker 1: holding on to it. There are days and times I
Speaker 1: hear that in a critic coming back in and I've
Speaker 1: got this one line down here that came from an
Speaker 1: expect we'll call that one, Bob, And it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: for me going like this the whole time, the whole relationship,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, if I could get rid of that.
Speaker 1: But actually it's just a part of it. I think
Speaker 1: we're always going to catch ourselves criticizing ourselves. That never changes.
Speaker 1: But the inner critics about observing you're in.
Speaker 3: A critic has a name, Am I right?
Speaker 2: If I heard you talk about pearl, Pearl, tell me
Speaker 2: about Pearl.
Speaker 1: Well, Pearl is the name that I gave the inner
Speaker 1: critic for the novel. And so Tilda has this Pearl
Speaker 1: and it's program everything always repeat, loop, And that is
Speaker 1: pretty much what our inner critic does. It value tags
Speaker 1: information that we have found important enough to keep rolling
Speaker 1: out in our minds and in our lives. And being
Speaker 1: a program, it can be reprogrammed, you know. That's what
Speaker 1: I did and do with my meditation practice.
Speaker 2: Although that acronym obviously is very specific, it also brings
Speaker 2: to life a very specific kind of person who's talking
Speaker 2: to you. Because Pearl, yes, is a bit of an
Speaker 2: older lady who's got a bit of a wagging finger,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's like the busybody neighbor who you know, is
Speaker 1: through the lace curtains staring at it, who's just parked
Speaker 1: at your place, and that kind of you know. But
Speaker 1: given that I've become quite attached to my pearl because
Speaker 1: I understand that a lot of the programs she feeds
Speaker 1: me is when I'm in fear. You know, if I'm
Speaker 1: stepping out of my comfort its own. You know, she
Speaker 1: doesn't want me to or I don't want myself to
Speaker 1: be shamed, humiliated, harmed, all of those things. So you
Speaker 1: can kind of nurture your own pearl as well and
Speaker 1: make her feel a little safer as you do sort
Speaker 1: of step out into being different, because change is really
Speaker 1: uncomfortable state to be in.
Speaker 2: To the people who are listening to this, who I
Speaker 2: know they're going to love the very notion of tildre
Speaker 2: is visible, but they might feel like they're at the
Speaker 2: beginning of that tilded journey where you were too on
Speaker 2: the beach that day when everything had fallen apart. What
Speaker 2: wisdom are we giving those women who are listening to this?
Speaker 3: What would you say to them?
Speaker 1: Look, I know that not everyone is ready to meditate,
Speaker 1: but I will say it anyway because I wasn't ready
Speaker 1: to meditate when I should have started, but I came
Speaker 1: back to it a few years later. So hearing the
Speaker 1: message now might be an that in a few years
Speaker 1: someone will sit down when they really need it. So
Speaker 1: definitely meditation. But I think that once the genie is
Speaker 1: out of the bottle and you start to observe how
Speaker 1: you speak to yourself, you can't shove it back in.
Speaker 1: It's out and you need to start to address it.
Speaker 1: So when you realize that you have an inner dialogue
Speaker 1: that's on a loop. I just say to people, think,
Speaker 1: you know, is this true? Like if you're looking in
Speaker 1: the mirror and you go, God, I look old? Is
Speaker 1: that true? Is it kind? Would you say that to
Speaker 1: your best friend? And each time that happens, change it,
Speaker 1: observe it, change it, and you might not believe what
Speaker 1: you say when you change it at first, but it
Speaker 1: does eventually start to take over as the program that
Speaker 1: comes up. So you know, I look old? Is that true?
Speaker 1: Is it kind? Would you speak to your friend like that? No?
Speaker 1: So then just litly say what you want to replace
Speaker 1: it with. I look beautiful. I'm getting older. I'm a
Speaker 1: gorgeous older woman.
Speaker 3: I absolutely love that.
Speaker 2: I really do. Lastly, Jane, I want to ask you, obviously,
Speaker 2: Children Is Visible has been really successful because bloody great idea.
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful book and it's so well written. I
Speaker 2: mean You've had a long career in books and writing
Speaker 2: and lots of things. But does having this very sort
Speaker 2: of profound truth that you've wrapped up in this beautifully accessible,
Speaker 2: funny book be so successful? Is it just so validating
Speaker 2: you know that you've got to that in this phase
Speaker 2: in your life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really interesting experience, actually, Like it's out
Speaker 1: in the US in February, and it's fantasticting to see
Speaker 1: how it goes over there. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: happening with it, a lot because it's resonating with women.
Speaker 1: I'm always a little bit woo woo about things and
Speaker 1: sometimes the conversations that I'm having with women, which I'm loving, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm really loving talking to women about these themes. It's
Speaker 1: almost like it's the creative news. You become a channel
Speaker 1: for something to come through you, a message to come
Speaker 1: through you, and you know, this is a conversation that
Speaker 1: it's not just my book. There are plenty of authors
Speaker 1: out there writing in this space, older women, writing about
Speaker 1: older women, and it seems to be the time for
Speaker 1: all of that. It's really exciting to have these conversations.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, I'm just writing this way, not
Speaker 1: at the front of it. Other women started it, but
Speaker 1: I'm writing it and I'm really really loving it and
Speaker 1: definitely want to keep writing in this space and having
Speaker 1: the conversations.
Speaker 2: Well, the thing about that is, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: being close to the Australian publishing industry, you know that
Speaker 2: it's difficult, competitive, crowded, it's very tough. But it's very
Speaker 2: interesting that it goes hand in hand with the message
Speaker 2: of this book. It's that older women have stories to tell.
Speaker 3: Of course we do.
Speaker 2: We've lived a lot, we've seen a lot, survived a lot,
Speaker 2: We've been through a lot, and it makes sense that
Speaker 2: we want to hear those, read those, talk about those,
Speaker 2: rather than constantly being convinced that either there's something a
Speaker 2: bit sad about that, or that we should really just
Speaker 2: be interested in the hottest new writer under thirty or whatever,
Speaker 2: which is also brilliant. Of course, every generation, every era
Speaker 2: needs its voices. But this generation and this era are
Speaker 2: not done telling stories, right, We're not ready to shuffle
Speaker 2: off quite yet.
Speaker 1: No, there's a great story about my cover, which I love.
Speaker 1: I love the cover of my novel. And the designer
Speaker 1: is a great designer. He designs a lot of books.
Speaker 1: But when they gave him the brief for it, he
Speaker 1: came back with a few versions before this one. I
Speaker 1: felt like, what you're going to say, sad old woman
Speaker 1: with gray hair, and you know, my publisher, Kelly's like, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's not quite right, like that, she's fifty five. It's
Speaker 1: not you know, on another sad woman. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: she's yeah. Go on her instagram and check out what
Speaker 1: a fifty five year old yeah was like and the
Speaker 1: type of life that they lead, and yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's so interesting. When we were launching this show,
Speaker 2: I asked midlife women who listened to Mamma Mia out
Speaker 2: loud or who are engaged in our communities in other
Speaker 2: ways to send me images of themselves, because again it's
Speaker 2: not their fault, but when you're briefing people in about
Speaker 2: like so this shows for women in age between like
Speaker 2: forty and sixty and you know, a bit either side
Speaker 2: and all the rest of it. The vision that young
Speaker 2: people have of those people is really interesting. And the
Speaker 2: actual imagery that came to us. It's women running marathons
Speaker 2: and getting doctorates and dyeing their hair pink and going
Speaker 2: shopping in New York and going through cancer treatment and
Speaker 2: writing books and you know, and they looked all kinds
Speaker 2: of different ways.
Speaker 3: You know, it's kind of funny.
Speaker 2: It's kind of funny that they think we're really sad,
Speaker 2: but we're actually anything.
Speaker 1: But it really is. And I think you know, as
Speaker 1: a woman, as you age, if you do the work,
Speaker 1: and I will say meditation also really helps balance those hormones.
Speaker 1: And on the other side of menopause. Perimenopause was hell
Speaker 1: because I wasn't meditating, but menopause was a breeze. I'm
Speaker 1: through the other side of it. I feel better than
Speaker 1: I have felt probably ever, like just mentally, emotionally, physically,
Speaker 1: you know, my energy, what I want to do in
Speaker 1: the world. It's a very exciting time. I'm not ready
Speaker 1: to be wheeled off to the retirement home just yet.
Speaker 3: I hear you.
Speaker 2: Jane, thank you so much. This has been the most
Speaker 2: wonderful conversation. And Tilda Is Visible is the most amazing book.
Speaker 2: And obviously we will put links in our show notes
Speaker 2: to where everybody can buy that and find out more
Speaker 2: about it. But thank you so much for sharing this
Speaker 2: with us.
Speaker 1: Thank you Holly for doing this, for having these conversations,
Speaker 1: and for having me on as well, Thank you so much?
Speaker 2: Is it true?
Speaker 3: Is it kind?
Speaker 2: Would you say that to your best friend? If you
Speaker 2: take nothing else from this conversation with Jane, and what
Speaker 2: you should also definitely take from it is an urge
Speaker 2: to buy, borrow read Tilda is Visible because it's brilliant,
Speaker 2: and a link to do that is in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Remember those three questions for your well meaning but misguided
Speaker 2: in a critic. What's particularly great about the way that
Speaker 2: Jane tackles the conundrum of the invisible woman is that
Speaker 2: it's about us, not the world. How do we continue
Speaker 2: to see ourselves? How do we not lose focus of
Speaker 2: what we want as we move into this next stage
Speaker 2: of our lives? And look full disclosure, I still haven't
Speaker 2: managed to meditate after our chat. Jane very generously sent
Speaker 2: me some links and I had good intentions, but so
Speaker 2: far I still haven't found a way to make it
Speaker 2: stick in my head or my day. So don't worry
Speaker 2: if you haven't either. We're all just muddeling along. If
Speaker 2: you liked Jane's description of what she wants in a
Speaker 2: relationship now, please go back and listen to episode one
Speaker 2: of this second season with Leslie Morgan about sex. It's
Speaker 2: really a refreshing ear pricking doozy that one. And also,
Speaker 2: if you're keen to hear more about all this meditation,
Speaker 2: mala apologies to everybody who meditates for that description, go
Speaker 2: and listen to the episode with Catherine May that I
Speaker 2: referenced in our conversation. She is brilliant on it. Stay visible,
Speaker 2: my glorious friends. And on that note, meet me back
Speaker 2: here next week when we'll be rounding out season two
Speaker 2: with a supermodel, No, not that one, a gen x
Speaker 2: icon who knows a lot about raging against and making
Speaker 2: peace with our appearance in Mid Thank you to our
Speaker 2: team ep Nama Brown producer Charlie Blackman and audio producers
Speaker 2: Tom Lyon and Leah Porge's, and thank you to you
Speaker 2: Mid's See you next week.