Speaker 1: You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and
Speaker 2: waters that this podcast is recorded on Hello and Welcome
Speaker 2: to but Are You Happy? The podcast that asks the
Speaker 2: questions you've always wanted to know from the people who
Speaker 2: appear to have it all. Laura Byrne is a podcaster,
Speaker 2: an author and a business owner who entered Australian homes
Speaker 2: when she won The Bachelor in twenty seventeen, ending up
Speaker 2: with her now husband Mattie Jay. I wanted to talk
Speaker 2: to Laura because she's just been through the stage where
Speaker 2: I'm at now when you desperately want to be in
Speaker 2: two places at once. You want to be at work
Speaker 2: and you want to be with your child or kids,
Speaker 2: and there's a part of you missing wherever you are.
Speaker 2: She has two little girls, Marley May and Lola, and
Speaker 2: the balance between being a mother and leaning into your
Speaker 2: career is impossible.
Speaker 3: It's probably the biggest pinch point in my relationship with
Speaker 3: matt because he often will be like, when is enough
Speaker 3: enough for you? You take on so much and the
Speaker 3: pressures that that can sometimes put on us or on
Speaker 3: him because he has to pick up the extra parenting load.
Speaker 3: He sometimes questions me about it and it's definitely been
Speaker 3: a big conversation for us over the last six months.
Speaker 2: We talked about Laura's traumatic first berth.
Speaker 3: And I was like, I can feel it though, and
Speaker 3: he was like, no, you can't, and I was like
Speaker 3: I can and he was like, it's just pressure and
Speaker 3: I was like, no, I can feel it. And then
Speaker 3: he started cutting me and that's when he realized actually
Speaker 3: I could feel it, and the epidural had completely stopped working,
Speaker 3: and so I went into shock.
Speaker 2: And the experience of finding love on television, waiting for
Speaker 2: the moment you can finally celebrate it, and then getting
Speaker 2: a response.
Speaker 4: You didn't anticipate.
Speaker 2: Here's my chat with Laura Burn. Laura Burn, you're a
Speaker 2: business owner, one of Australia's most successful podcaster, is an author,
Speaker 2: you have a radio show and you're a mum.
Speaker 4: To two little girls.
Speaker 2: You became a household name when you appeared on the
Speaker 2: Bachelor and met your now husband, Matti J, who I
Speaker 2: refuse to call anything other than Maddi J. He's a
Speaker 2: friend of the podcast and people all over the country
Speaker 2: tune in to hear you speak or see you live
Speaker 2: on stage with your co host Brittany Hockley for lifeun Cut,
Speaker 2: but putting everything aside that we can see, what is
Speaker 2: your life actually like right now? How would you describe it? Oh?
Speaker 1: It is chaos.
Speaker 3: So I just walked into the office and I realized
Speaker 3: I had my shirt on inside out, so that I
Speaker 3: think that that kind of sums up the person.
Speaker 1: That I am.
Speaker 3: I am very lucky that I have Matt, who I think,
Speaker 3: by default has become the organized one in my life.
Speaker 3: So he kind of organizes the chaos that happens around him,
Speaker 3: and then I just happen around him. I don't know
Speaker 3: if he's thrilled with that, but he's still okay. Life
Speaker 3: is great. Life is very busy. It is a constant
Speaker 3: juggling act between the squeaky wheel that gets the oil,
Speaker 3: whether that's the parenting or whether that is the businesses.
Speaker 3: And also because my businesses are so different, so having
Speaker 3: jewelry and then having podcasting like they could not be
Speaker 3: more worlds apart. So sometimes it's a challenge flicking my
Speaker 3: brain between the two different or three different jobs that
Speaker 3: I feel like I have to manage and the things
Speaker 3: that need me the most. It's often like one thing's excelling,
Speaker 3: so then you focus on the one that isn't, and
Speaker 3: then that one falls behind, so then you focus on
Speaker 3: and it's just this constant juggling act.
Speaker 2: You just seem to do so many things. It overwhelms
Speaker 2: me to just look at You've talked about this a
Speaker 2: bit before, but there's one theory of happiness that says
Speaker 2: that in order for us to be happy, life should
Speaker 2: follow like an upwards trajectory, Like basically, if we're getting happier,
Speaker 2: if things are getting better, that makes us have a
Speaker 2: happy life. And you've talked before about your childhood and
Speaker 2: how you had a challenging childhood in some ways. How
Speaker 2: was your childhood tough? And do you think that having
Speaker 2: been through some of those experiences makes you grateful and
Speaker 2: experience greater joy now by comparison.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was going to say when you said it
Speaker 3: makes things better, I was like, what's the definition of better?
Speaker 1: But then when you have that comparison.
Speaker 3: So for me growing up, I always want to preface
Speaker 3: this because I did have a great childhood in a
Speaker 3: lot of ways. My mum is incredible, my grandparents were
Speaker 3: absolutely phenomenal. Couldn't have ever asked for better grandparents. They
Speaker 3: kind of stepped into real parental roles for me. And
Speaker 3: then my dad, even though he was away a lot,
Speaker 3: he was in the army, so he was constantly away.
Speaker 3: When he wasn't away, he was very plugged in as
Speaker 3: a dad. But just because of the tyranny of distance
Speaker 3: and his work, I guess he wasn't able to be
Speaker 3: his hands on as what I think now when he
Speaker 3: reflects back on our childhood, he wishes he could have been.
Speaker 3: But my parents got divorced when I was three, and
Speaker 3: then we moved in and lived with my grandparents, and
Speaker 3: shortly after that my mom met my stepdad, who was
Speaker 3: her second husband, And when I was like a teenager,
Speaker 3: I would reflect on that period of my life, I
Speaker 3: felt really resentful of my mom for even marrying him,
Speaker 3: for ever bringing him into our life. But then I
Speaker 3: think about it and I'm like, Okay, Well, she was
Speaker 3: in her late twenties with two children, and she lived
Speaker 3: with her parents, and life was really tough for her,
Speaker 3: so I think the dating pool probably wasn't particularly kind.
Speaker 3: And he was this man who showered her with attention,
Speaker 3: and he was also just a really toxic guy, and
Speaker 3: so he was able to kind of hide a lot
Speaker 3: of the behaviors from her. And yeah, so he was
Speaker 3: actually a heroin addict and really abusive in lots of
Speaker 3: different ways. So I think they were together for eight
Speaker 3: years in total, And it wasn't until my mum had
Speaker 3: my brother that really just the wheels fell off the
Speaker 3: wagon and he plunged mom into a lot of debts.
Speaker 3: So they had started a business, a landscaping business together,
Speaker 3: and he was embezzling money. But because that company was
Speaker 3: started the two of them, and then once he was
Speaker 3: out of the picture, my mum was like left with
Speaker 3: all that debt and so she did such a good
Speaker 3: job of hiding it from us. But he was just
Speaker 3: he was just a really scary guy. And I spent
Speaker 3: a lot of time in my childhood terrified of him.
Speaker 2: Does it make you look at the childhood you're giving
Speaker 2: your girls now and the house that you're raising them
Speaker 2: in and feel a sense of pride and joy that
Speaker 2: you're able.
Speaker 1: To do that?
Speaker 3: It's almost sometimes because Matt also had quite a challenging
Speaker 3: childhood with his father as well, and they have a
Speaker 3: fractured relationship now and we often look at each other
Speaker 3: and we go these kids have.
Speaker 1: No idea how good they have got it.
Speaker 3: They got no idea like how do you build like
Speaker 3: resilient children who were grateful and aren't just like mum,
Speaker 3: I want another lol.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: So in some respects, you know, I do look back
Speaker 3: on my childhood and I think, okay, on paper, that
Speaker 3: kind of start, But I also feel really grateful for
Speaker 3: the resilience that it had and it created in me,
Speaker 3: for how close it made me to my mum and
Speaker 3: also to my grandparents. And I think as well, I
Speaker 3: had this resentment in my teenage years, which I didn't
Speaker 3: really realize that that's what it was. But becoming a
Speaker 3: mum myself really made me soften towards my own mum,
Speaker 3: and it really gave me the grace of forgiveness. And
Speaker 3: I've realized just like how challenging parenting is, and how
Speaker 3: you know, most moms are just doing the absolute best
Speaker 3: that you possibly can for the children that you have
Speaker 3: with the tools that you have around you. So there's
Speaker 3: no part of me that feels any of that resentment anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think when you become a mum, you realize
Speaker 2: you're still just a person, and you're still just an idiot.
Speaker 3: Like, what twenty year old that's got two kids, Like,
Speaker 3: no one knows what they're doing. I don't know what
Speaker 3: I'm doing, you know, And I'm so fortunate that I
Speaker 3: have a partner that's plugged in who does fifty percent
Speaker 3: of the work, Like I could not imagine doing that
Speaker 3: completely on my own. So yeah, if anything, it's given
Speaker 3: me so much more appreciation of admiration for my mum
Speaker 3: and for everything that she was able to do with
Speaker 3: three kids on her own.
Speaker 2: You are clearly highly ambitious. Before you became a media personality,
Speaker 2: you already had your jewelry business, Tony May, what's it
Speaker 2: like running a business? And I imagine there's parts of
Speaker 2: the business that you love and are really passionate about,
Speaker 2: and surely there's parts of the business that you're like,
Speaker 2: I would happily never do that bloody job again. How
Speaker 2: do you balance those in terms of leading a happy
Speaker 2: life and having joy in your life and trying not
Speaker 2: to let the stuff you hate kind of infiltrate your life.
Speaker 3: So I think it's a tipping point, right, because when
Speaker 3: you start a new business yourself, you're everything. You're the
Speaker 3: tax person, you're the creator, you're the content developer. You're
Speaker 3: literally any type of work that needs to get done.
Speaker 3: You are that person when you're a small business, and
Speaker 3: then as you grow you have to try and find
Speaker 3: a way to outsource the things that you don't like doing,
Speaker 3: or even if you do like doing them, if you're
Speaker 3: not good at them, you have to find someone else
Speaker 3: who can do them. So for me, I had Tony May.
Speaker 3: I've had it now for fifteen years, which is crazy.
Speaker 3: I was in my early twenties and I was working
Speaker 3: in corporate and I remember having this moment where I
Speaker 3: saw an article about Samantha Wills. It was just detailing
Speaker 3: like her rise, her meteoric rise to success and how
Speaker 3: she'd started Bonde Markets and how she had this jewelry brand,
Speaker 3: and I was like, I did Bondey Markets.
Speaker 1: I have a jewelry brand.
Speaker 3: I could see the path, and I think sometimes you
Speaker 3: need to visualize those people who have done it before you,
Speaker 3: and so I was like, oh, this is actually something
Speaker 3: that could be a career. And going back to my mum.
Speaker 3: My mum was a jeweler and she had always done
Speaker 3: it as a hobby, even though it's what she studied
Speaker 3: at university, and it was her passion, but I think
Speaker 3: I kind of grew up not thinking that you could
Speaker 3: make a career out of it. I think it was
Speaker 3: something it had to be a hobby. So that's why
Speaker 3: I had these two different things running at the same time.
Speaker 3: My full time job and then my hobby is jewelry.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't until things started to scale and started
Speaker 3: to get a little bit busier that I realized, well,
Speaker 3: I'm a really creative person and that's the thing that
Speaker 3: I love to do. I love the making, I love
Speaker 3: the content. I love the creative aspect of the business.
Speaker 3: But I am so bad with logistics, and going back
Speaker 3: to that whole, I am chaos personified and my sister
Speaker 3: is the complete opposite. So my sister is the organized one.
Speaker 3: And it was really fortunate. So after The Bachelor finished
Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen, when I was in the house for
Speaker 3: that three months, my sister took on board all of
Speaker 3: the logistics side of the business. So I had one
Speaker 3: person who was doing the creative and just managing the
Speaker 3: stores and everything. And my sister was like, don't you worry.
Speaker 3: I will make sure that things don't hit the fan,
Speaker 3: like shit is okay while you're gone and I would
Speaker 3: just manage it and see what happens. And I came
Speaker 3: back and she was like, cool. So I organized her
Speaker 3: one hundred thousand unread emails. I've cleared out your inboxes.
Speaker 3: He's all of like the ordering, and she just had
Speaker 3: everything systemized and like systemized even a word. It was
Speaker 3: like there was systems in place. It was amazing. And
Speaker 3: then she came to me with the proposal and she
Speaker 3: was like, I want to be your business partner. I
Speaker 3: want to buy in on the business. And since I
Speaker 3: did that, since I was able to give up a
Speaker 3: part of what I had created and give that to her,
Speaker 3: we have grown like fifty percent year and year and year,
Speaker 3: and it's been an incredible growth. And that is absolutely
Speaker 3: because I was able to say, Okay, I'm not good
Speaker 3: at doing these things and I need help. Her name's Alicia.
Speaker 3: She's going to be like, stop referring to me as
Speaker 3: your sister and give me a name.
Speaker 2: You had Tony May. Then you go on The Bachelor.
Speaker 2: What's it like to watch yourself on television? And were
Speaker 2: you received the way you thought you would be?
Speaker 3: I mean, even doing the show in the first place
Speaker 3: was weird, right, because part of me, I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: I suck a dating.
Speaker 1: I've had a really really bad.
Speaker 3: Run with men, and I feel like I dated majority
Speaker 3: of the pool that was available to me at the
Speaker 3: time in Sydney and had had a really like wow anyway,
Speaker 3: and then I signed up for The Bachelor partly because
Speaker 3: I thought it would be a good way of getting
Speaker 3: back at my ex boyfriend at the time, who I
Speaker 3: still was quite annoyed at. And I think part of
Speaker 3: me was worried about people thinking that I was just
Speaker 3: doing it to promote my business, because everyone who did
Speaker 3: it had like literally every person who does that show
Speaker 3: has a secret motivation, right, whether it's to get Instagram followers,
Speaker 3: to grow their business, to hock their fitness program, like
Speaker 3: we've all got something that's up our sleeves. And if
Speaker 3: you say that there was nothing about it other than
Speaker 3: just the experience, like, it's probably not true. Most people
Speaker 3: either wanted to get into media in some ways or
Speaker 3: genuinely wanted the experience and also thought it could be
Speaker 3: a cool way to meet someone.
Speaker 1: If that was the case.
Speaker 3: Now, for me, I had this real fear around because
Speaker 3: my name was so intertwined in Tony May. I was
Speaker 3: so worried that I would do something negative that would
Speaker 3: impact my business. So it wasn't that I thought it
Speaker 3: was going to help grow it. I was like, I'm
Speaker 3: going to fuck this up. I was like, I am
Speaker 3: going to end up doing something that people don't like,
Speaker 3: and then no one's gonna mind my jewelry, and then
Speaker 3: I'm going to be destitute and have to go back
Speaker 3: and work in a nine to five that I hate.
Speaker 3: So I think I was really cautious, and I think
Speaker 3: the version of myself that I was on the show,
Speaker 3: which there's no part of me that watches it back
Speaker 3: and I don't enjoy it. It's how I met my husband, Like,
Speaker 3: it was an incredible experience, but I think it was
Speaker 3: very reserved. And I also thought at the time that
Speaker 3: if you showed vulnerability, if you leant into being in love,
Speaker 3: because I was like, you're a loser if you fall
Speaker 3: in love on a reality TV show and then cry
Speaker 3: over some guy. So I was very reserved, and I
Speaker 3: think sometimes when you come across as reserved, people misinterpret
Speaker 3: it as either not caring or that you are a
Speaker 3: bit harder, a bit cold.
Speaker 1: So yeah, for me, I watched it back.
Speaker 3: And sometimes I felt a little bit disassociated for my
Speaker 3: body because I was like, Wow, I was really upset
Speaker 3: in that moment, but watching it back you wouldn't know,
Speaker 3: or watching it back, you wouldn't know how much I
Speaker 3: got to like that two month mark, and I was like, I'm.
Speaker 1: A loser that fell in love on a reality TV show.
Speaker 3: And I was crying at nighttime, but then when the
Speaker 3: cameras came on during the day, I was like, Nah,
Speaker 3: you will not cry for this man. Get your shit together, Laura,
Speaker 3: and like, you will just be strong. And so sometimes
Speaker 3: I think women who come across as strong actually come
Speaker 3: across a little bit unlikable, and reality TV sometimes coming up.
Speaker 2: Laura and I talk about one of the times she
Speaker 2: thought she'd be happy and she wasn't, which was when
Speaker 2: she was watching her finale.
Speaker 4: Episode of the Bachelor.
Speaker 2: She also talks about how this led to her starting
Speaker 2: to scrutinize herself and her appearance. You'd say that one
Speaker 2: of the moments the world told you you'd be happy
Speaker 2: and you weren't was watching that finale episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So watching the finale episode, I mean, it's so long
Speaker 3: ago now, but twenty seventeen, Matt and I are sitting
Speaker 3: in a hotel room together, and it was pretty torturous
Speaker 3: that day, so you wake.
Speaker 1: Up really early.
Speaker 3: I think it was like we got picked up at
Speaker 3: two thirty in the morning or three thirty in the morning.
Speaker 3: It was Elise, who was the girl who also was
Speaker 3: at the finale with me. Alisa and I got picked
Speaker 3: up in a car. We hadn't spoken to each other
Speaker 3: since the show had finished, so that in itself is
Speaker 3: just horrible. We've got to go and do every breakfast
Speaker 3: radio station across the country and we have to sit
Speaker 3: there being like, ooh, who could it be? Which one
Speaker 3: of us? And it's so weird, but it's.
Speaker 1: Also so cruel.
Speaker 3: Like Alise genuinely loved him and like fell in love
Speaker 3: with him in that process, and her feelings were very real,
Speaker 3: and so I'm sitting there having to pretend like I'm
Speaker 3: not happy. She's sitting there pretending like she is happy,
Speaker 3: and it was just such an emotional mind fuck. And
Speaker 3: I remember we had this one interview and it was
Speaker 3: with Osha at the time, he was on a breakfast
Speaker 3: show and it wasn't live, thank god, but halfway through
Speaker 3: Alise just burst out crying. And then it was like
Speaker 3: she didn't want to be in a room with me.
Speaker 1: Why would she?
Speaker 3: Of course she did it, and there's no hard feelings
Speaker 3: about that, but I also didn't want to be in
Speaker 3: that room. I was like, get me out of here,
Speaker 3: what are we doing? So then I got taken to
Speaker 3: a hotel room with Matt and Alisea's like four doors
Speaker 3: down from us. So we're in a hotel room watching
Speaker 3: the final episode, knowing that a Lisea's just down the
Speaker 3: hallway with her friends, and the final episode plays out,
Speaker 3: and we were sitting there thinking that that was like
Speaker 3: a moment where we were finally after because it was
Speaker 3: filmed and finished filming in May, and that was in September,
Speaker 3: that the last episode, so we'd been like doing long distance.
Speaker 3: It had to be a big secret. And then we
Speaker 3: were sitting there in bed and I remember the show
Speaker 3: finishing and opening up social media and the absolute onslaught
Speaker 3: of people hating us, and we just looked at each
Speaker 3: other and were like, Okay, good night, Like I guess
Speaker 3: that's like let's just worry about this tomorrow. And it
Speaker 3: was like quite unaffectionate because both of us felt so anticlimactic,
Speaker 3: and in that moment, I thought, this relationship is never
Speaker 3: gonna last, Like, there is no way in hell that
Speaker 3: he's going to stay with me if Australia doesn't want
Speaker 3: him to be with me. And the stuff that we
Speaker 3: were receiving across social media was so cruel. It was
Speaker 3: such mean, Like a lot of it's like around the
Speaker 3: way you look, like you're not attractive enough, or that
Speaker 3: he should have chosen the other girls, or and I
Speaker 3: was saying to you clear earlier. It's really funny how
Speaker 3: much the public don't remember, because at the time, I
Speaker 3: would have said that people were like less than fifty fifty.
Speaker 3: I would have said it would probably have been in
Speaker 3: that evening, like sixty forty sixty percent of people didn't
Speaker 3: want us to be together and forty percent were supportive.
Speaker 3: But now if you asked anyone, every article that's written,
Speaker 3: any person would go, oh my god, it was so
Speaker 3: you from the start.
Speaker 1: We always knew when we love you together, But it
Speaker 1: was not like that when the show finished. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 3: It was a really sad period and it really rocked
Speaker 3: my self confidence and also the way that I felt
Speaker 3: about the way I look. Yeah, it really made me
Speaker 3: hate the way I look.
Speaker 2: Because I think about that a lot. Whenever I have
Speaker 2: done to a far, far, far smaller degree, anything that's
Speaker 2: like in front of a camera or a little photo
Speaker 2: shoot or whatever, it seems like this really exciting moment,
Speaker 2: and then you see the photo on your.
Speaker 1: Own confront you, Oh my god, is that what I
Speaker 1: looked on? Is that what I sound like? Okay? Like
Speaker 1: that half of my face and not that half my face? Yeah.
Speaker 3: You scrutinize yourself, and you can be really cruel to yourself,
Speaker 3: especially when people start pointing out things about you that
Speaker 3: you never realized you didn't like, and then you start
Speaker 3: hating them yourself. So for me on it was so
Speaker 3: many things. It was me having thin lips, it was
Speaker 3: me having bad skin, and I got really fixated on it.
Speaker 3: And afterwards, like I'd never had botox before The Bachelor,
Speaker 3: I'd never gone and gotten filler. Afterwards, I went through
Speaker 3: this period where I was like obsessively looking up things
Speaker 3: I could do to fix my face, which sounds crazy now.
Speaker 3: I remember this one thing I booked in and this
Speaker 3: is back in twenty eighteen. I got filler in my cheeks,
Speaker 3: I got botox in my jaw, and I got filler
Speaker 3: in my lips all of that in the space of
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks, and it was awful, Like.
Speaker 1: It looked terrible on me.
Speaker 3: I looked horrible, and I knew I looked horrible, and
Speaker 3: even bat was like, please don't, please, don't do that again.
Speaker 2: It's interesting though, that as a woman, you're kind of
Speaker 2: damned if you do damned if you don't like people.
Speaker 2: I think people look at women who have had things
Speaker 2: done and they're like, well, you know, why did you
Speaker 2: do anything, And it's like, because.
Speaker 4: The world told me I was ugly since.
Speaker 3: I was born, literally, But also it's funny on the
Speaker 3: flip side, like I've not had anything since that day,
Speaker 3: and I'll see articles about me on daily mail and
Speaker 3: I have wrinkles. Hello, everyone, wrinkles under my eyes. I'm
Speaker 3: okay with it. It's the aftermath of an expressive face.
Speaker 3: But I see a photo of me that we put
Speaker 3: on daily Mail and the comments would be like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, look what she's done to under her eyes
Speaker 3: with all that filler, And I'm like, bitch, these are wrinkles. Yeah,
Speaker 3: this is what a forty year old woman looks like,
Speaker 3: Like this is normal.
Speaker 1: I'm thirty eight, but you know, almost forty.
Speaker 3: But then on the flip side, because so much of
Speaker 3: my insecurities were coming from people during the conclusion that
Speaker 3: Matt and I shouldn't be together, and it was often
Speaker 3: that I was like, oh, cute mum and sun vibes,
Speaker 3: that's what I would get. So I felt like I
Speaker 3: looked older in comparison to Matt, which, you know, whatever,
Speaker 3: I'm two years older than him. I can look older
Speaker 3: than him. But that's what made me insecure. So it
Speaker 3: made me not just insecure about the way I looked,
Speaker 3: but insecured about the relationship, like why would he choose me?
Speaker 3: When he is so handsome and he could have anyone?
Speaker 3: Why did he pick me? And so then I kept thinking,
Speaker 3: or maybe he's going to change his mind and I'm
Speaker 3: not the person that he's gonna want to be with.
Speaker 3: So then I got insecure about the relationship a little bit.
Speaker 3: But he he was always so real, assuring of me,
Speaker 3: and it was his like his commitment to our relationship,
Speaker 3: his always showing up, his consistency, not just commitment, but
Speaker 3: the consistency of a commitment. He was the same person
Speaker 3: every day, unphased by it. And maybe he was phased
Speaker 3: in some ways, but he never made me aware of it.
Speaker 3: That is what was the reassuring thing that made me
Speaker 3: feel okay with myself again.
Speaker 2: After Bachelor And you're in this new relationship and you
Speaker 2: hadn't been together that long before you got pregnant.
Speaker 3: No, are the alay together like maybe a year or
Speaker 3: just under a year? It was pretty quick, yeah, speedy.
Speaker 2: And you now have your two little girls. You wrote
Speaker 2: a while ago about your birth with Marley may being traumatic.
Speaker 4: Do you still think of it as traumatic?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I do, but I also it's a funny one because
Speaker 3: I don't like to talk about it as though it
Speaker 3: was traumatic because I hate the fear that that creates
Speaker 3: for other women who are about to have baby. So
Speaker 3: I've always been very careful how I speak about it.
Speaker 3: But what happened to me was I felt as though
Speaker 3: I wasn't being believed by my obstetricians. So I had
Speaker 3: had an epidural and.
Speaker 1: It was very effective. It was brilliant. I was sitting in.
Speaker 3: Bed doing work on my laptop and then the pushing
Speaker 3: started and the epidural stopped working.
Speaker 1: Vibes hard, relate, hard, relate.
Speaker 2: Okay, wow, it's ft, And they kept being like it's.
Speaker 4: Just pressure, and I was like pressure.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so I had a block.
Speaker 3: I hadn't been topping it up, I think, because the
Speaker 3: thing is it works so well for me.
Speaker 2: You're so in that moment, there's a lot going on,
Speaker 2: and they're like, you haven't topped it up, and You're like,
Speaker 2: I was distracted by the fact that I'm giving birth.
Speaker 4: Can you top it up for me? Totally?
Speaker 3: Well, I don't even think anyone told me that you
Speaker 3: had to top it up. So just to kind of
Speaker 3: like my birth with Marley in a nutshell, I didn't
Speaker 3: really have a birth plan and I just kind of
Speaker 3: was like, whatever happens happens, and I had to be induced.
Speaker 3: But she was also the wrong way round. So posterior,
Speaker 3: which is a more painful pregnancy as it is.
Speaker 1: Yes, like a pain in your butt. It's like, is
Speaker 1: it just in your butt? I thought it was like
Speaker 1: a full body pain.
Speaker 2: I kept being like, it feels like somebody has a
Speaker 2: fire poker in my butt, in your ass, yes, the
Speaker 2: posterior not okay.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's like when your spine. Their spine is against
Speaker 3: your spine basically, And so I started having contractions because
Speaker 3: it was induced, and it was all very quick, and
Speaker 3: the pain was so so strong for me that I
Speaker 3: was vomiting every time I had contractions. So I went
Speaker 3: to have an epidural, which at the time I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to do drugs, and then twenty minutes
Speaker 3: in I was like, give me all of them.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so the drugs.
Speaker 3: Had worn off, and there was also a little bit
Speaker 3: of panic in the room because Molly had gotten stuck.
Speaker 3: She wasn't coming down the birth canal fast enough and
Speaker 3: I was dilated. I was pushing, and she just was
Speaker 3: not moving anymore. So they were tossing up whether to
Speaker 3: get me into have a cesarean or whether they were
Speaker 3: just going to try and four steps her out. So
Speaker 3: she was stuck. You could tell, you know, and you
Speaker 3: can tell that there's panic happening around you, but everyone's
Speaker 3: trying to pretend that they're not panic.
Speaker 4: There's suddenly a lot of people in the room.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, they also had all these students in the room,
Speaker 3: so they'd come earlier and asked if I was okay
Speaker 3: with some medical students coming in. There was about twenty
Speaker 3: people in this room, and I just remember having this
Speaker 3: out of body experience and I.
Speaker 1: Was like, what is this? Like, this is crazy.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I didn't even care anymore, but the obstetrician was like, oh,
Speaker 3: we have to give you an a pisiotomy. We're going
Speaker 3: to try and cut you and to get her out
Speaker 3: with four steps. And I was like, I can feel
Speaker 3: it though, and he was like, no, you can't, and
Speaker 3: I was like I can and he was like it's
Speaker 3: just pressure and I was like, no, I can feel it.
Speaker 3: And then he started cutting me and that's when he
Speaker 3: realized actually I could feel it, and the epidural had
Speaker 3: completely stopped working, and so I went into shock because
Speaker 3: I had been cut with a scalvel. It was reflecting
Speaker 3: back really messed up. And at the time, the nurses
Speaker 3: kept saying, oh, you've had a traumatic birth, and I
Speaker 3: was like, was that what that was? But I had
Speaker 3: nothing to compare it to. And so now that I've
Speaker 3: had a second baby and that was really easy, it
Speaker 3: makes me go, oh, okay, that really wasn't supposed to
Speaker 3: go the way that it went. But yeah, I think
Speaker 3: after she came out and I was all stitched up
Speaker 3: and the stress and panic had kind of gone away,
Speaker 3: I just was overcome with this, like, Okay, this is
Speaker 3: still pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: It is interesting that you say that because I have
Speaker 2: the same thing where you don't want to scare other women.
Speaker 2: But there's a weirdly positive side to it, where it's
Speaker 2: like you can have a traumatic birth and be okay
Speaker 2: exactly and actually be okay.
Speaker 3: That is exactly it, right, because I think a lot
Speaker 3: of us have been told that if you have a
Speaker 3: traumatic birth, you're never going to get over. It's going
Speaker 3: to affect you for forever and you're going to be
Speaker 3: like psychologically changed by it. I think, yes, it was traumatic,
Speaker 3: but it wasn't traumatizing. I am completely fine, and I
Speaker 3: was completely fine a week later. I wasn't thinking about
Speaker 3: not being believed. And you know, I really feel for
Speaker 3: some women who do go through that experience and have
Speaker 3: a different outcome, because that's very very real, But that
Speaker 3: wasn't my experience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's good for people to know, like, because
Speaker 2: I think after that, I don't know if you had
Speaker 2: the same thing, but it's sort of like, oh, am
Speaker 2: I going to be traumatized? Am I going to be
Speaker 2: thinking about this in year? And it's good to know
Speaker 2: how quickly our brains can make sense.
Speaker 3: Of it, And yeah, I mean, but also I think
Speaker 3: it's important to say. As I mentioned two kids now,
Speaker 3: and the second one was a dream. I remember going
Speaker 3: into labor and the obstecution was like, cool, You're just
Speaker 3: going to cough her out, And.
Speaker 1: I was like, what does that say about the damage?
Speaker 1: The first one about what you like? Just cough, don't
Speaker 1: even push, just cough, And I was like, okay. I
Speaker 1: coughed out Lola like literally.
Speaker 2: With Maley May and Lola, they were quite different babies. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And the period once Lola was born, your partner was
Speaker 2: doing Dancing with the Stars and you were on your own.
Speaker 2: Do you think it made it harder that you had
Speaker 2: this happier experience to compare it to.
Speaker 3: I remember even before Matt was doing Dancing with the Stars,
Speaker 3: I just had Lola. She was two days old and
Speaker 3: we were home. It was our first night home and
Speaker 3: Matt was in the kitchen with Marley and I was
Speaker 3: sitting on the side of the bed and you know,
Speaker 3: you like massive pads and pillow booms her everything. You're
Speaker 3: just like, oh, I haven't slept in two days. The
Speaker 3: emotions really hit you. And she was in the little
Speaker 3: bassinet next to the bed, and I remember sitting there
Speaker 3: looking at her, and I was like, we have ruined
Speaker 3: our lives?
Speaker 1: What did we do? I regret everything.
Speaker 3: I was so sad, and I was like, this was
Speaker 3: a terrible decision, which it wasn't, of course, you know,
Speaker 3: and I feel like every parent always has to preface like,
Speaker 3: Laula is incredible.
Speaker 1: I love being a mum's two girls.
Speaker 3: But in that moment, I had a real moment of like, wow,
Speaker 3: is this regret?
Speaker 4: I reckon?
Speaker 1: Hormones do that?
Speaker 2: I think that those few days afterwards, when your hormones
Speaker 2: are crazy, I reckon.
Speaker 4: So many women have that.
Speaker 2: You're just scared to say it because you're like, you're
Speaker 2: never meant to say this, But I think it's how
Speaker 2: a lot of people feel.
Speaker 1: Well, life was so easy.
Speaker 3: We had everything dial Like Maley was like she was
Speaker 3: nineteen months, I think twenty months. She was really young still,
Speaker 3: but she was great. She was walking, she was talking,
Speaker 3: she was communicating. We could easily get out of the house,
Speaker 3: like life was just easy. And then we would throw
Speaker 3: into the second child. And if you've listened to the
Speaker 3: episode of that I had you with Maddie J, he
Speaker 3: sort of detailed that Lola was a really different child,
Speaker 3: and at the time we didn't realize, but she had
Speaker 3: some neurological things that she was dealing with, and so
Speaker 3: I think that that also added to the fact that
Speaker 3: she just didn't sleep, cried continuously, and yeah, we went
Speaker 3: from having a unicorn baby to having the most challenging
Speaker 3: version of a newborn and so it was a really full, long.
Speaker 2: Time after the break. Laura gets a bit emotional when
Speaker 2: discussing why one of her biggest fears is that she
Speaker 2: doesn't spend enough time with her kids and that feeling
Speaker 2: that's very familiar to parents of mum guilt. On r
Speaker 2: UOKDA last year, radio duo Will and Woody did this
Speaker 2: segment where they asked radio and TV and podcast host
Speaker 2: to say to someone else some of the cruel things
Speaker 2: that they say to themselves.
Speaker 1: I remember I cried, but I can't remember what I said. Oh,
Speaker 1: don't bring it back up.
Speaker 2: No, yours is always stuck with me because you said
Speaker 2: you're a bad mum because you don't have enough time
Speaker 2: for your kids.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm gonna cry and you were crying.
Speaker 2: Can you talk me through that internal dialogue and is
Speaker 2: it something you've been able to deal with?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Will cry again. It's not true, you know. That's the thing.
Speaker 3: The thing is is I have so much time for
Speaker 3: my kids. I pick my kids up from daycare every
Speaker 3: day at four thirty. I sacrifice me time to make
Speaker 3: sure that they have me time. So I work until
Speaker 3: really late in the evenings. I get up really early
Speaker 3: and do work when I can before they wake up.
Speaker 3: If that's you know, something that I have to do.
Speaker 3: And usually Matt and I both work quite late into
Speaker 3: the evenings. And that is all because when they finish daycare,
Speaker 3: I am there. I pick them up like as I should,
Speaker 3: like I'm their mum. I'm not asking for an award
Speaker 3: for this, That's not what I'm saying. But I just
Speaker 3: want to make sure that I don't have children that
Speaker 3: look back on their life and go, oh, yeah, we
Speaker 3: were really privileged, like we had all the stuff, Like
Speaker 3: mum worked hard and we earned money, but like I did,
Speaker 3: never saw my mum. And I think about my relationship
Speaker 3: with my dad. You know, my dad was away for
Speaker 3: work so much, like physically away. He was in Somalia,
Speaker 3: like he was away, but it damaged our relationship. It
Speaker 3: really put a halt to the connection that we could
Speaker 3: have and both Matt and I really have aspirations for
Speaker 3: the type of parents that we want to be, so
Speaker 3: we will never ever sacrifice that. But at the same time,
Speaker 3: absolutely there's times when, especially when Matt pulls me up
Speaker 3: and says, you sure you want to say yes to that,
Speaker 3: because you know what that means. If you say yes
Speaker 3: to that, then this is going to have the flow
Speaker 3: on of X Y Z on our family. And I
Speaker 3: remember when we had that discussion with Will and Woody
Speaker 3: and work had been really busy, not because I had
Speaker 3: control over it, but factors had meant that my work
Speaker 3: had increased. And Yeah, I just had a moment where
Speaker 3: I was like, you give so much of yourself to
Speaker 3: work sometimes that you need to be more for your
Speaker 3: family and whether it's not just for the kids, it's
Speaker 3: also for Matt though as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, having a child is the first time I've been
Speaker 2: aware that time is finite in a weird way, like
Speaker 2: I don't think I was aware of that before, and
Speaker 2: now I'm like everything that I do, yeah, I am
Speaker 2: aware that that is time that I'm not with my child,
Speaker 2: and I don't It might be different in your family,
Speaker 2: but I feel like men don't necessarily have the same mindset.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but also men don't have the same pressure, like
Speaker 3: what dads are at work, being like I feel guilty
Speaker 3: being at work totally. I mean, I understand why I'm
Speaker 3: not saying that. I want to be a person that
Speaker 3: doesn't feel that guilt. I want to feel that because
Speaker 3: I want to spend time with my children. You know,
Speaker 3: I don't go to work and then be like kids,
Speaker 3: what up? Like, I don't need to worry about you.
Speaker 3: I think about them all the time. They're the most
Speaker 3: important thing to me. But also I am somebody who
Speaker 3: gets a lot of sense of my worth from being
Speaker 3: at work and from achieving my goals in life as well.
Speaker 3: And I've always had the goals of I don't even
Speaker 3: know if I fully realize what they are, but I've
Speaker 3: always had big aspirations for work, and I never ever
Speaker 3: had the aspiration for being a mum until I became
Speaker 3: a mum. So for me, that's a whole new identity
Speaker 3: that once I discovered it, I was.
Speaker 1: Like, this is the best job ever.
Speaker 3: But I never had those typical feelings of like I
Speaker 3: was built to be a mum. I simply didn't. And
Speaker 3: also I think I look at my own mom, like
Speaker 3: I don't ever remember my mom sitting down and eating
Speaker 3: dinner with us as a kid. She never stopped. My
Speaker 3: mom worked full time, she made leotards, she was always
Speaker 3: cutting my sister to gymnastics. She had seventeen other small
Speaker 3: businesses on the side. And so I think that it's
Speaker 3: been her drive and seeing her always kind of moving
Speaker 3: forward in life that made me want to do the same.
Speaker 3: In some ways, that's been my blueprinter of what parenting is.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it's amazing for daughters to see.
Speaker 2: I've always thought that, Yeah, and I think that about
Speaker 2: my own mum. You have one of the most listened
Speaker 2: to podcasts in the country, and because of that, you're
Speaker 2: obviously going to get commentary and feedback and criticism based
Speaker 2: on what you say. And there's times where life uncut
Speaker 2: and you, for whatever reason, have been called out online.
Speaker 1: I want to talk.
Speaker 2: About how that feels, because I don't know if people
Speaker 2: can often understand. And it's the same with The Bachelor
Speaker 2: actually that there's a bit of dehumanization that goes on.
Speaker 2: You kind of see somebody and you think I'll put
Speaker 2: stuff on them because I can't imagine that they have
Speaker 2: their own inner world and their own stuff that they're
Speaker 2: dealing with. How has that felt when it's particularly intense.
Speaker 1: It feels awful.
Speaker 3: It's a horrible feeling being at the bottom of a
Speaker 3: pile when there's a pileon But for multiple reasons though,
Speaker 3: and not every situation is cut the same. I think
Speaker 3: sometimes when you feel as though you've been misrepresented or misunderstood,
Speaker 3: that's really challenging because the first thing you want.
Speaker 1: To do is you want to explain yourself.
Speaker 3: You want to be like, no, I'm not the person
Speaker 3: you're making me out to be, or the facts aren't right,
Speaker 3: or you told this part of the story but not
Speaker 3: this part of the story, which actually means that the
Speaker 3: outcome is different, So you kind of want to I
Speaker 3: guess there's this feeling of like, I want to make
Speaker 3: everyone know that I'm not the person that I'm being
Speaker 3: made out to be, but I've learnt there's no point
Speaker 3: in doing that because people, when they're angry online, there's
Speaker 3: nothing that you can say that will ever be enough.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, well, because you did this one thing
Speaker 3: that I don't like, even if it was true or
Speaker 3: isn't true, that is proof that you're a bad person,
Speaker 3: even though you've shown me it's like, ah see, you
Speaker 3: are the person I tell you. But I think at
Speaker 3: the very start it absolutely broke me. I was so humiliated,
Speaker 3: and I thought, oh my god, maybe everyone thinks that
Speaker 3: I'm this horrible person, Like maybe everyone thinks these things
Speaker 3: of me. And then you realize ninety nine percent of
Speaker 3: normal people are not on the Internet yelling at each
Speaker 3: other for starters. The other end of that, as well,
Speaker 3: is is that it's just kind of knowing how to
Speaker 3: manage those situations. And I think it makes you tough
Speaker 3: and it makes you resilient, and you have to really
Speaker 3: kind of step back sometimes and go, Okay, was I
Speaker 3: in the wrong? Did I do something that is warranting
Speaker 3: an apology? Have I been misrepresented? Does someone have a
Speaker 3: hidden agenda? And then once you've answered all those questions
Speaker 3: for yourself, it kind of outlines how you can progress forward,
Speaker 3: I guess, and like, what's the best path for you
Speaker 3: to deal with it? And often I think it's just
Speaker 3: logging off the Internet for a little while and then
Speaker 3: you know, coming back on and just resuming business as normal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I think when that sort of stuff
Speaker 2: does happen, it's interesting. I've watched a few instances recently
Speaker 2: where people are getting called out and it's sort of
Speaker 2: you need to apologize, you need to say this, you
Speaker 2: need to say that, and you might not know, like
Speaker 2: the reason somebody isn't putting anything else out there is
Speaker 2: because they.
Speaker 4: Know putting something else out there is just going to
Speaker 4: fuel it.
Speaker 3: I remember many many moons ago, and I don't actually
Speaker 3: remember the exact instance of what it was. Because when
Speaker 3: you are a podcast and you have opinions, there will
Speaker 3: be times where your opinions don't align with people. So
Speaker 3: a little piece of information will be taken out of context,
Speaker 3: and or you'll listen to a ten second grab of
Speaker 3: something and that gives you an impression, but when you
Speaker 3: put it in context of an hour episode, it's a
Speaker 3: very different conversation. Those things are all very true, but
Speaker 3: when the mob comes, the mob feels fierce, right, But
Speaker 3: the mob also moves on. It really does, and sometimes
Speaker 3: you just have to not give it fuel. Because the
Speaker 3: way that the media system works is that one person
Speaker 3: will write an article, then you say something else, so
Speaker 3: then they write an article of the thing that you said,
Speaker 3: and then they say and so then you're just feeding
Speaker 3: the beast, right, So that's often a reason why people
Speaker 3: don't say anything or respond. Also, sometimes it's because they
Speaker 3: can't because they work for companies who don't allow them to.
Speaker 3: So there's many, many reasons why people don't respond and
Speaker 3: act in a way that we might expect them to.
Speaker 3: And of all the things that you could be controversial about,
Speaker 3: we talk about sex and relationships. We're not a controversial podcast,
Speaker 3: so it's very infrequent. But also I think it's interesting
Speaker 3: that it happens mostly to women in Australia, And I
Speaker 3: would beg you to question what was the last big
Speaker 3: outrage that you witnessed happen on social media? And I
Speaker 3: would say that ninety nine point nine percent of the
Speaker 3: time it surrounds women, and when it doesn't surround women,
Speaker 3: it surrounds extremely problematic men. Men only get taken down
Speaker 3: in the same way that women do if their views
Speaker 3: are absolutely fucking vile, whereas like a really normal woman
Speaker 3: will get taken down for saying something that's just like
Speaker 3: a little bit left of center and that's kind of
Speaker 3: gross to me.
Speaker 2: Exactly have you ever, on your podcast or in media
Speaker 2: shared something personal that you regret?
Speaker 3: I had an experience where what I have shared wasn't
Speaker 3: well received, and that was more so from family. So
Speaker 3: when we wrote our book, We Love Love, I have
Speaker 3: a very religious auntie who we're very close and she's
Speaker 3: been close to us for our whole lives. And her
Speaker 3: response to that book and also because I spoke about
Speaker 3: abortion in there, I swaw, I wrote, I wrote fucking there.
Speaker 3: She was very unimpressed. And I think that for me,
Speaker 3: I had a moment where I was like, oh, maybe
Speaker 3: some of the people who were closest to me don't.
Speaker 1: Actually know who I really am in that way.
Speaker 3: And I think that me talking about abortion was something
Speaker 3: that was quite triggering for people in my immediate network,
Speaker 3: and especially even my mom. I sat my mom down
Speaker 3: and I spoke to her about that what happened and
Speaker 3: why I made that choice and everything, and she never knew,
Speaker 3: so I kind of felt as though I wanted to
Speaker 3: tell her that before she read it in a book
Speaker 3: that's still sitting by her bed. And Yeah, that was
Speaker 3: probably an interesting period. Was almost like explaining to people
Speaker 3: the choices and the reasons why I felt like I
Speaker 3: wanted to talk about the things that I that I
Speaker 3: have experienced.
Speaker 2: It's weird how it can sometimes be easier to share
Speaker 2: things on a mass scale, but really the people intimately
Speaker 2: in your life.
Speaker 3: Even recently, we talked about it on the podcast last week.
Speaker 3: My stepdad he's in palliative care for prostate cancer and
Speaker 3: it's been a really hard time for my family, and
Speaker 3: I talked about it, but I also am super just
Speaker 3: that it's not my story to share. It's happening within
Speaker 3: my family, but it's not happening to me, even though
Speaker 3: I love him dearly. But he has two biological children,
Speaker 3: and so we spoke about it on the podcast as
Speaker 3: like a real awareness piece to try and get us
Speaker 3: as women to speak to our husbands and our dads
Speaker 3: around prostate cancer, speak to them and ask them. I mean,
Speaker 3: what thirty year old has ever sat their dad down
Speaker 3: and said, Hey, dad, have you had your prostate checked?
Speaker 1: Because it's a weird. It's a weird chat.
Speaker 3: But that was the conversation we had, and then I
Speaker 3: had to think about it afterwards, and I was like, Oh,
Speaker 3: his kid's going to be okay with me talking about that.
Speaker 3: So sometimes it's being aware of the other people who
Speaker 3: are involved in the stories that we share that we
Speaker 3: have to take into consideration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, your wedding day looked so beautiful, and on that
Speaker 2: day there were some paps who came in and filmed
Speaker 2: some of your vowels.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and in the bushes, Yeah, literally in the bushes.
Speaker 4: And we were just still like photos, so fucking world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we even hired a security guard.
Speaker 3: So we got we got married at QS in Mollymook
Speaker 3: is beautiful and yeah, we didn't know until directly after
Speaker 3: the vows and then we saw it in daily mail.
Speaker 3: We saw that the vows had been published, and like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's just funny but also very invasive.
Speaker 1: Wasn't funny at the time?
Speaker 2: Is now when that happens on Obviously, your wedding day
Speaker 2: is kind of one of those days. It's meant to
Speaker 2: be the greatest day of your life and you meant
Speaker 2: to be euphoric the whole time. Was there part of
Speaker 2: you that was angry that that had stolen that moment?
Speaker 3: I think there was a part of me that almost
Speaker 3: expected that it was going to happen. And that's because
Speaker 3: Anna Heinrich had gotten married i think the year prior,
Speaker 3: overseas in Italy, and they had gone to Italy to
Speaker 3: get photos of her so like the fact that we
Speaker 3: got married in Mollymook, like they're going to travel three
Speaker 3: hours if they're going to travel to another country. And
Speaker 3: also like the whole thing was not just photograph but
Speaker 3: it was video recorded, they had audio, and then to
Speaker 3: be told that that was all for people to think
Speaker 3: that that's something that we would set up, I was like,
Speaker 3: so humiliating. Guys w doing fine for money. I don't
Speaker 3: need someone to take photos of my wedding. Plus also
Speaker 3: I want to post those photos on my social media first.
Speaker 3: That's better for me and for my engagement than having
Speaker 3: some dude doing it for the Daily Mail and anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's like we've got it.
Speaker 1: Was infuriating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I think that's probably the thing I struggle
Speaker 3: with the most, and that's even going back to outreach culture.
Speaker 3: It's being misrepresented. It's having things written about you that
Speaker 3: aren't true. That can be really really infuriating, but you
Speaker 3: just have to get over it and get on with it,
Speaker 3: because what are you going to do? Fight everyone, try
Speaker 3: and prove that you're not the person that they're saying
Speaker 3: you are. And it takes a really tough skin to
Speaker 3: get to a point where you're like, that's a really
Speaker 3: stupid headline.
Speaker 1: I don't feed my child dog food, you know, But
Speaker 1: they just write what they write.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Laura, you have a beautiful family, you have a
Speaker 2: glamorous and exciting career. You fell in love in front
Speaker 2: of all of us, and you have people all over
Speaker 2: the country who listen to your opinions and interviews and
Speaker 2: stories and read your words.
Speaker 4: But are you happy?
Speaker 1: Yes, I am happy.
Speaker 3: I feel incredibly grateful for the life that I have
Speaker 3: with my husband and with my girls. I feel so
Speaker 3: incredibly grateful every day that I get to go to
Speaker 3: work and work with my friends, my sister, and also
Speaker 3: with brit Like that part of it is like living
Speaker 3: a dream, actually having a job that I love, and
Speaker 3: also just being able to have and as you guys know,
Speaker 3: like with mom and me, I like having a community
Speaker 3: of people who care about you, genuinely care about the
Speaker 3: things that you have to share. It's been a really
Speaker 3: interesting journey these last sort of seven years post bachelor.
Speaker 3: I am so aware of the privileges that that has
Speaker 3: brought me, and so much of that has made me happy,
Speaker 3: especially when I compare it to the shit show of
Speaker 3: my twenties.
Speaker 1: I I feel really really.
Speaker 3: Grateful, And also I think, yeah, when life is good,
Speaker 3: you have to have that gratitude because there will be
Speaker 3: times when life is not that good. So if you
Speaker 3: don't appreciate it while it's like it now, then you're
Speaker 3: going to be in a real state of sorry when
Speaker 3: something goes wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny, Well it's not funny at all. Really,
Speaker 2: what we think it's okay to say to someone who
Speaker 2: happens to be on television, particularly women, that it's okay
Speaker 2: to tear apart her appearance directly to her, even though
Speaker 2: we would never ever do that to someone in our
Speaker 2: own lives. And speaking to Laura really crystallized the impact
Speaker 2: that online commentary can have on an individual. Women with
Speaker 2: media careers are stuck because they're criticized no matter what
Speaker 2: they look like, and that's after being socialized to believe
Speaker 2: our worth comes from our appearance. There's the impact on
Speaker 2: the individual which Laura has shared, But then you think
Speaker 2: about the impact that that commentary has on all the
Speaker 2: other women who are seeing it. If she's being abused
Speaker 2: for her appearance, what does that actually say about me?
Speaker 2: I selfishly got a lot out of this conversation. I
Speaker 2: think I really needed to chat to someone about traumatic
Speaker 2: birth and how it's possible to experience a trauma something
Speaker 2: you never thought you'd go through, and be okay, and
Speaker 2: perhaps even feel stronger because of it. Join me next
Speaker 2: week for a conversation with Rob Mills about standing on
Speaker 2: stage and feeling your lowest.
Speaker 5: I was having a really, really tough time. If I'm
Speaker 5: being brutally honest, I had suicidal thoughts for the very
Speaker 5: first time in like seventeen years, wow, on stage during
Speaker 5: a show. I was exhausted. I was so tired. I
Speaker 5: miss Georgie, I miss life.
Speaker 2: Last week on the podcast, I spoke to reality star
Speaker 2: and chef cahn Ong about family tragedy, the brutality of
Speaker 2: being cheated on, and what it's like to get your
Speaker 2: own TV show and then focus on all the wrong things.
Speaker 2: There's a link in the show notes to listen.
Speaker 4: To that episode.
Speaker 2: If you enjoyed the podcast, leave us a review, share
Speaker 2: it with friends. We love more people to discover these conversations.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to suggest someone for the podcast, we
Speaker 2: also love hearing your suggestions, so you can email us
Speaker 2: here at podcast at mommeya dot com dot au and
Speaker 2: my Instagram handle is Claire dot Stevens. Lots of the
Speaker 2: people we've had on this season have been suggestions from
Speaker 2: our listeners. This episode was produced by Tarlie Blackman, with
Speaker 2: audio production by Scott Stronik. See you next week.