Speaker 1: With the Heads Podcast Network.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome back to another week of Slow It Down.
Speaker 2: I am your host p J Harding and this week's
Speaker 2: episode get your tshoes Ready. It is powerful and very
Speaker 2: moving and puts life into perspective like nothing else. I
Speaker 2: am joined by Janelle Brunton Rinnie, who not only founded
Speaker 2: a very successful PR company called Media Jam here in
Speaker 2: New Zealand, she has tackled marathons, triathlons, been a competitive bodybuilder,
Speaker 2: and when she was thirty six years old, her husband
Speaker 2: died of blood cancer. At the time he was diagnosed,
Speaker 2: they had a four month old daughter together. She was
Speaker 2: suffering from postnatal depression. There was a lot going on,
Speaker 2: and in this episode we talk about how she survived
Speaker 2: those incredible tough days, how she navigated being a solo
Speaker 2: mum with postpartum depression, trying to run her own business
Speaker 2: seemingly impossible conditions. Janelle is so resilient, so strong, and
Speaker 2: also this is a tale of hope because she has
Speaker 2: now found love again and she has engaged. And I
Speaker 2: got so much out of this chat. I think often
Speaker 2: we are guilty of taking for granted what we have
Speaker 2: and pretty much every second.
Speaker 1: I was talking to Janelle, I was like, life is good.
Speaker 2: I need to appreciate everything I have right here right now.
Speaker 2: It makes you stop listen, feel a heck of a
Speaker 2: lot of empathy, and also feel really inspired as well,
Speaker 2: just the absolute resilience that she showed through some of
Speaker 2: the most unimaginable circumstances. I really hope you enjoy this
Speaker 2: week's episode with Janelle Brunton. Ready, Janelle, it is so
Speaker 2: nice to have you with me this morning and slow
Speaker 2: it down. Thank you so much for taking the time
Speaker 2: out of your day to have a little chairs Ah.
Speaker 3: Honestly, I'm so excited to be here. Thanks so much
Speaker 3: for asking me.
Speaker 1: I think I connected with you.
Speaker 2: There were sitting brands that you had under your PR company,
Speaker 2: and then I don't know, I've just known you from
Speaker 2: afar over Instagram over the years.
Speaker 4: Sure, and then I would have sent you stuff to
Speaker 4: do with whatever life cycle you.
Speaker 3: Were in, so more recently like yay than that sort
Speaker 3: of stuff.
Speaker 2: How we work, Yeah, speaks of all Lea's go back
Speaker 2: to the beginning of media jam.
Speaker 1: How did you get into all of that?
Speaker 4: It was like the coin of botox at twenty four
Speaker 4: years old, and I was the marketing manager for the
Speaker 4: Casey Group. And it was before everyone did the botox thing.
Speaker 4: So I'm like trying to get everyone to understand botox
Speaker 4: and it's amazing now, and whatever was everyone these days
Speaker 4: talks about it was still a dirty word back then.
Speaker 4: Fast forward and then I was in PR for Pandora
Speaker 4: Jewelry and I thought to myself, I love PR. I could,
Speaker 4: but if I had a number of brands, I could
Speaker 4: share them all love and talk to everyone more often.
Speaker 4: So I started Media Jam, thinking it'd be really great.
Speaker 4: If I could get like three, four or five brands
Speaker 4: on board, I would love it. And then Media Jam
Speaker 4: did well, yours have to work super hard.
Speaker 3: And then I went to Bali and I don't know
Speaker 3: when that was.
Speaker 4: It might have been maybe three years into Media Jam,
Speaker 4: and Bali impacted me a lot the first time I
Speaker 4: went there, and I came back and I thought about
Speaker 4: it and I thought about it, and it was before
Speaker 4: ethical business was really even a thing, and I decided
Speaker 4: that I really wanted to use my voice for good
Speaker 4: and I wanted to share. I ordered to focus on
Speaker 4: sharing brands, people and products that were trying to make
Speaker 4: a positive impact or positive difference in the world. So
Speaker 4: I repositioned media Jam as an ethical PR company, which
Speaker 4: was very groundbreaking at the time, and it really took
Speaker 4: off and I was just so blessed to work with
Speaker 4: so many incredible green eco brands and it's just.
Speaker 3: Gone from there.
Speaker 2: So when you jumped into that you like, full on boss?
Speaker 2: Did you go into that full boss role? Did you
Speaker 2: have much experience like or were you winging it?
Speaker 3: Nah?
Speaker 4: I think having done all the marketing stuff, yeah, and
Speaker 4: got all the business now and then realizing that PR
Speaker 4: was where.
Speaker 3: My my what do you call it?
Speaker 4: My authentic set is very aligned with PR. I remember
Speaker 4: all the most random things about everyone. I know their
Speaker 4: dog's names, their children's names, whether they wear silver, gold,
Speaker 4: rose gold. I remember what I gifted them like fifteen
Speaker 4: years ago, and I've been doing it for twenty years now.
Speaker 4: I moved to Auckland twenty years ago to work in
Speaker 4: beauty and lifestyle and do what I'm doing so.
Speaker 3: Now it just felt like a natural progression.
Speaker 4: I do remember they were Media Jam turned two and
Speaker 4: I stood in the shower and ugly cried because when
Speaker 4: you start a company, it's all these naysayers and everyone
Speaker 4: says to you, I make it so hard and what
Speaker 4: does it? Eighty percent of small businesses fail within the
Speaker 4: first two years, and then I I think I was
Speaker 4: twenty eight when I started it.
Speaker 3: Man, did I hustle hard?
Speaker 4: And I stood and cried out of honestly genuine pride
Speaker 4: because after two years I was established media jam was
Speaker 4: doing well.
Speaker 3: I had a.
Speaker 4: Couple of really good brands by that stage I was
Speaker 4: so proud of and slightly wepped in the shower.
Speaker 2: So do you put it down to being really authentic
Speaker 2: with your business, Masha?
Speaker 4: I'm for farm in North Canterbury, so farm girl by nature.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I can like drench your mob sheep like
Speaker 4: I could actually do all the farm stuff bag.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't believe that I've been brought up on a
Speaker 3: farm my whole.
Speaker 4: Life, and I think it gave me a really good
Speaker 4: grounding around with ethics and ethos and ensuring I'm a
Speaker 4: bit of a people pleaser as well by nature, which
Speaker 4: is quite a good thing in pr So I think.
Speaker 3: I've got this work ethos where I love to over deliver.
Speaker 4: I've got my dad brought me up very like salt
Speaker 4: of the earth, hard walking, good can tab family.
Speaker 1: Whereabout North Canterbrec.
Speaker 3: Yeah, North Camber, Oh, White Brah.
Speaker 1: White bra also wine region.
Speaker 3: Wine region.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're mostly beef actually now beig farmers that back
Speaker 4: in the day was all sheep and beaf. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think it gave me a good cift effects and ethos.
Speaker 4: And combine that with the fact that I love to talk.
Speaker 4: I remember all the random stuff about people because I'm
Speaker 4: quite interested in people, and I'm a people pleaser who
Speaker 4: likes to make everyone, like all parties happy.
Speaker 3: It makes me really good at it.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: What a skill to have though, That's such a beautiful
Speaker 2: trait to have. So with slot down, I guess I
Speaker 2: want to talk to people about how they stay sane
Speaker 2: in the chaos and find peace in the mundane as well.
Speaker 2: But jeepers, you have absolutely walked through fire over the
Speaker 2: last five years is it seven seven years?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And I don't I don't want to make you relive
Speaker 2: all of the trauma that you've been through, but you
Speaker 2: have openly Okay, we can chat about it.
Speaker 3: I'm good with chatting about it.
Speaker 4: I've done so much processing of it all, and as
Speaker 4: you know, I have shared the journey so openly online
Speaker 4: because it's helped me so much that I'm good with
Speaker 4: talking about it.
Speaker 3: We can totally go there.
Speaker 2: It's okay because I often I often think about my situation,
Speaker 2: life is so hard, and then I will literally think
Speaker 2: about what you've been.
Speaker 1: Through, and I'm like jeepers. It just puts everything into perspective.
Speaker 2: And I know everyone's hard as relative to their own situation,
Speaker 2: and everyone at some point will go through a really
Speaker 2: hard time. But you were your daughter was four months old,
Speaker 2: and that's when you discovered that your husband Kurt, had
Speaker 2: been diagnosed with blood cancer.
Speaker 3: I remember I worked the day before stage came out.
Speaker 3: I knew that when it's you're the business owner.
Speaker 4: You don't get tunity leave, but I did have two
Speaker 4: weeks off, and then I was running the company again
Speaker 4: with a small child in a vesinette and next to
Speaker 4: my desk, and that I don't want to glorify that.
Speaker 4: I don't in hindsight, that's not a good idea. That
Speaker 4: was a huge amount of pressure, and combined that with
Speaker 4: all everything else, I had a really hard time as
Speaker 4: a new mum. I was never diagnosed with postnatal depression,
Speaker 4: but I definitely had a severe case of the baby
Speaker 4: blues and I saved just born on the September, and
Speaker 4: I remember on the third of January, I went to
Speaker 4: Auckland Domain one tree hell, and I like sat under
Speaker 4: this tree and I was like, I've made it. I've
Speaker 4: got through that really hard time. I feel like I'm.
Speaker 3: Really I've got this. I'm a good mum.
Speaker 4: My business is not crumbled underneath me, because it's what
Speaker 4: I was terrified about.
Speaker 3: I've got this.
Speaker 4: And I wrote all this incredible stuff in my journal
Speaker 4: and honestly thought I was holier than there and good
Speaker 4: for me. And it was like that moment is so
Speaker 4: burned into my memory because I remember thinking it and
Speaker 4: then very quickly it's like I was taken by an avalanche. Basically,
Speaker 4: we celebrated our wedding anniversary on the tenth of January.
Speaker 3: On the eleventh of January, Kurt, my late husband.
Speaker 4: Got out of the shower and just really nonchalantly went
Speaker 4: to me, hey, j dreck and this feels a bit hard,
Speaker 4: and prodded.
Speaker 3: Around his upper abdomen.
Speaker 4: And Kurt was the most healthy guy I'd ever met,
Speaker 4: never had a cough, cold, flu.
Speaker 3: The guy was seemingly like Superman. And I went, yeah, back,
Speaker 3: maybe should go to the doctor. Never thought anything about it,
Speaker 3: not even kedding didn't even cross my mind.
Speaker 4: Kurt, being very proactive about his health, went straight to
Speaker 4: the doctor, and that afternoon life just unraveled at breakneck speed.
Speaker 4: It's incredibly humbling to experience something where like literally within
Speaker 4: a moment, life can completely unrevel And I got a
Speaker 4: call from Kurt to say, been to the doctor. Doctor
Speaker 4: sent me straight to an ultrasound. On my way to
Speaker 4: the ultram ultrasound, got a call from Kurt after the
Speaker 4: ultrasound on his way back to the doctor.
Speaker 3: Lady at the ulch seon wouldn't tell me anything. I'm
Speaker 3: going straight back to the doctor for the results. Now
Speaker 3: we know that normally we go the uch side and
Speaker 3: they go, oh, it's all good.
Speaker 4: That was when we thought, oh, and then read me
Speaker 4: straight away to say I have a large growth on
Speaker 4: my spleen and we need to do biopsas immediately to
Speaker 4: find out what it is. You automatically jump on doctor
Speaker 4: Google and life goes from the air. And the next
Speaker 4: the next three or four weeks quite a blur because
Speaker 4: you don't know what you're dealing with. You keep telling
Speaker 4: yourself that it'll be benign. It's not benign, and Kurt's
Speaker 4: blood cans had turned out to be very hyper aggressive.
Speaker 3: It would have killed him within four weeks without intervention.
Speaker 4: We did not have that small tumor was the size
Speaker 4: of an American football in four weeks, and we did
Speaker 4: not have time at all to really get anything done.
Speaker 4: And he was in hospital, and we were very fortunate
Speaker 4: that he responded initially very well to chemo.
Speaker 3: Otherwise that would have been the end of it, very rapidly.
Speaker 2: I can't even imagine being in your body in that situation,
Speaker 2: like you're, as I said, like you're your new mum,
Speaker 2: You're trying to still got your business, like you're still
Speaker 2: trying to balance there, and then you're blown this earth
Speaker 2: shattering news. How did you get through the next few months.
Speaker 4: I again, I think that farm upbringing and my dad
Speaker 4: instilled in me this very very tough and I don't
Speaker 4: mean that in some toxic masculine way. There's a real
Speaker 4: resilience to me that I knew it was there, but
Speaker 4: I'd never had to call upon. And I think I
Speaker 4: just you go into survival mode. So you go at
Speaker 4: first you're in shock, and then you go into survival mode.
Speaker 4: And then when you're like me, you're like, I will
Speaker 4: not let you die. Was basically right. So you research everything,
Speaker 4: you try everything, you name it.
Speaker 3: We did all that.
Speaker 4: We did everything, every single integritive medicine combined with traditional
Speaker 4: medicine and my traditional hospital, not like all sorts of medicines.
Speaker 3: We did all the medicines. Babe.
Speaker 4: When you're in survival mode, all you do is you
Speaker 4: just keep going, like you get up every day and
Speaker 4: you just keep going, and you fight all the fires
Speaker 4: and you keep going, and you cook the food and
Speaker 4: you just keep everyone alive.
Speaker 2: And you can't look at the bag pacture. You have
Speaker 2: to literally take it moment by my mind.
Speaker 3: You're not even able to. Yeah, it's like when you
Speaker 3: have it. You know, when you have a newborn baby
Speaker 3: and you're in the fog, and it's like the fog
Speaker 3: comes in to ensure that we keep our baby alive.
Speaker 3: We're focused.
Speaker 4: It's like mother nature does this to keep us focused
Speaker 4: on our number one thing, our baby.
Speaker 3: So it's like you go into a survival fog.
Speaker 4: And for me, it was keep my baby alive, keep
Speaker 4: my husband alive, keep my business alive. It wasn't actually
Speaker 4: so much about me it keeping me alive at all.
Speaker 4: You're the very last thing on the list. But if
Speaker 4: I can keep those three things alive, that's all I
Speaker 4: do each day, and each day is instant repeat, just
Speaker 4: keep everything alive. And you can't look outside the fog.
Speaker 4: It's like you're incapable.
Speaker 2: And when you're in, because then you actually sink, right,
Speaker 2: Like you have to just keep going.
Speaker 3: Around.
Speaker 4: I think you just put that push the overwhel on button,
Speaker 4: and some people do it. Everyone's different, Everyone handles.
Speaker 3: These situations differently.
Speaker 4: I'm lucky that my modus operandi was like full on
Speaker 4: action mode and I'm doing this and everyone is living
Speaker 4: this will not happen on my watch, so to speak.
Speaker 2: And so after how many months of treatment he had
Speaker 2: to go over season there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in PR you have to have a plan B, right,
Speaker 4: You always have a plan A and a plane B.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So my plan B was to find out what happened
Speaker 4: if he became unresponsive to chemo in New Zealand, and
Speaker 4: the only thing that was feasible or was that was
Speaker 4: available was CARTI therapy, which is immunotherapy was not available
Speaker 4: in New Zealand, was available in the US. We got
Speaker 4: him accepted at mass gen and Boston, and we were
Speaker 4: on a plane to Boston.
Speaker 1: You remind me so much of my mum.
Speaker 2: So my dad was diagnosed with stage four process cancer
Speaker 2: when I was fourteen fifteen, and he got told he
Speaker 2: had two to five years from doctors. My mum, who
Speaker 2: was a doctor but then got really into alternative health
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: God, she did not take that. Just remind me so
Speaker 1: much of it.
Speaker 2: She did never, she never took no for an answer,
Speaker 2: and she explored every single option, every Yeah, and you
Speaker 2: do in that situation, You do everything you can.
Speaker 4: When you love someone like you will fight with them
Speaker 4: till the end. And that's what it feels like. It
Speaker 4: feels like you're in war like It's the only way
Speaker 4: I can describe it. When I said this at Kurt's funeral,
Speaker 4: I felt like I was this warrior that had picked
Speaker 4: up the biggest sword I could find, and I would
Speaker 4: swing at anything and everything that threatened us. And you
Speaker 4: just keep fighting.
Speaker 2: So when you went over says you got him on
Speaker 2: the trial? Was he initially response of.
Speaker 3: So WI party, they take your tea cells.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they send them till I think it was somewhere
Speaker 4: in Chicago, and they genetically engineer them into killer cells,
Speaker 4: and they do it through a process of exposing them
Speaker 4: to different things like polio, this, that, till they're like
Speaker 4: basically they are like, just yeah, the worst of the
Speaker 4: baddest of the tea cells in a very good way.
Speaker 4: And for some people it works, and it is very
Speaker 4: good technology, and it is incredible.
Speaker 3: In Kurt's case, his cancer was so aggressive and so
Speaker 3: fast that he had so much cancer within his body.
Speaker 4: Again that the t cells they go to work, they
Speaker 4: do their job, but he went into a coma because
Speaker 4: you get this massive build up of this toxin that
Speaker 4: the cancer secretes as it dies.
Speaker 3: Something. If anyone's listening to this, that is medical and
Speaker 3: I'm not giving it all up, but.
Speaker 4: I'm doing my best, hug And he got neurotoxin, and
Speaker 4: he got neurotoxicy went into a coma, And unfortunately, at
Speaker 4: that point they have to intervene because if they don't,
Speaker 4: they have had a number of people on trials that
Speaker 4: have been cancer free, but the aftermath of it is
Speaker 4: so huge that.
Speaker 3: They may be in a coma for the rest of
Speaker 3: their life. So in terms of ethics, they need to intervene.
Speaker 3: So when they intervened, they stopped the T cells working.
Speaker 4: We then had a scan that actually showed that ninety
Speaker 4: percent of all the cancer was gone.
Speaker 3: It's incredible. But there was this little area that lit
Speaker 3: up like.
Speaker 4: A Christmas tree on the scan, and I remember thinking,
Speaker 4: I've never quite seen anything light up that bright before.
Speaker 4: And unfortunately, maybe that was what was left when they
Speaker 4: had to stop the process, or this was a highly
Speaker 4: aggressive kind of cancer that the tea cells were even
Speaker 4: rendered useless against.
Speaker 3: We will never know that.
Speaker 4: And on Christmas Day, Boxing Day that year, I got
Speaker 4: a call from Kurt and he'd had what they too
Speaker 4: to reposition and scan and he said, it's bad news, baby,
Speaker 4: and I remember him reading it to me, and again,
Speaker 4: it's one of those moments.
Speaker 3: That it burned into your psyche.
Speaker 4: I remember my legs just completely falling out from underneath me.
Speaker 4: Couldn't hold me any more, and I let out the
Speaker 4: sound that I don't kind of like a cow giving
Speaker 4: birth actually, And you'll understand that noise, but most people
Speaker 4: will be like let out the sound, which is basically
Speaker 4: every part of ear escaping your body. And I know
Speaker 4: exactly where I was when it happened, and I can
Speaker 4: feel it even now that moment, and that was the
Speaker 4: moment that we thought, Okay, we've just got to get
Speaker 4: you home. And I never got to speak to Kur
Speaker 4: after that because he couldn't speak pretty much. From the
Speaker 4: next day, everything was very and we've managed to get
Speaker 4: him home to New Zealand and he passed the seventh
Speaker 4: of January.
Speaker 2: That sound that you're talking about, it's a visceral sound.
Speaker 2: I remember letting that out after my dad passed, and
Speaker 2: I just remember going outside and it was almost like
Speaker 2: a howl.
Speaker 1: And I remember in.
Speaker 2: That same moment, I was like, I don't know what
Speaker 2: that was. I think my brother might have done it
Speaker 2: as well. And I just think that's no, you don't.
Speaker 2: And I just think that's a great response. And I
Speaker 2: think it's totally natural. But we in the Western world
Speaker 2: don't really talk about death.
Speaker 3: Oh we really glossy. Yeah, I don't want to ask
Speaker 3: in other people's discomfort. We're very the Western world. I
Speaker 3: think we're very focused.
Speaker 4: On comfort and yeah, comfortable, and I think we're almost
Speaker 4: at a point where we feel entitled to be comfortable
Speaker 4: and to remove anything from our lives that feels uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: And I think then.
Speaker 4: Maybe sometimes in life when they're extremely uncomfortable happens.
Speaker 3: We don't have the tools at.
Speaker 4: All on board for it because we have been sheltering
Speaker 4: ourselves and constantly living in comfort. And then you're faced
Speaker 4: with something that you don't have any idea how to navigate.
Speaker 4: And that's yeah, and that's enough.
Speaker 3: But learning experience in.
Speaker 2: Itself, how did you find the years after that? It
Speaker 2: was again that sort of fight or flight survival mode
Speaker 2: for a very long time.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing with grief.
Speaker 4: Everyone's around you for that period, and then everyone is
Speaker 4: just gone. And I'm every night at home with my baby,
Speaker 4: the couch gone, There's no one.
Speaker 3: To talk to.
Speaker 4: It's silent, and it's very stark.
Speaker 3: And I was in shock. I now understand it.
Speaker 4: Shocked for five months, I want to say, like actual shock,
Speaker 4: unable to really. But I still keep going. I still
Speaker 4: keep running the business, keep the business alive, keep.
Speaker 1: That join the business.
Speaker 3: My child will not lose anymore. I will not lose
Speaker 3: my house. I will not. So I'm like so fixated.
Speaker 4: On providing, making sure she doesn't lose anything else, the secondary,
Speaker 4: minimizing the secondary losses for her, all of these things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so has that been tensified that needing to
Speaker 2: control what you can control since the past thing has
Speaker 2: it always been a big part of you?
Speaker 4: Nah? I think it was probably a part of me,
Speaker 4: which probably makes me good at my job and good
Speaker 4: at you know, like there's a need for it.
Speaker 3: But you did.
Speaker 4: You clutch at the things you can control to provide
Speaker 4: you with less of a sense of helplessness.
Speaker 3: I guess the mind no what's happened.
Speaker 4: The body or the soul takes a very long time
Speaker 4: to accept what's happened. And I'm sure you understand what
Speaker 4: I mean by that, but you don't know. There's not
Speaker 4: a soul acceptance. And my soul didn't accept it for
Speaker 4: a very long time.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And then after that period, the fog begins to retreat,
Speaker 4: and I actually think then the hard bit kicks.
Speaker 1: In because it's been sheltered by this numbness.
Speaker 4: Shock and the fog numbs you out, keeps you going,
Speaker 4: and then it's the fog retreats. You're then left with
Speaker 4: the aftermath. And that that was much harder for me.
Speaker 4: I don't want to speak on behalf of anyone else,
Speaker 4: but that was much harder for me. So from about
Speaker 4: the six month mark until the two and a half
Speaker 4: year mark.
Speaker 3: It was life was very challenging, very challenging, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean.
Speaker 4: And that was about two and a half years when
Speaker 4: I think I saw the light at the end of
Speaker 4: the tunnel. And then there's an entirely new thing because
Speaker 4: you get to the end of the tunnel and actually
Speaker 4: you just sit there for a long time in the car.
Speaker 3: I don't even know what to do now, what even
Speaker 3: is this?
Speaker 4: And then also you go through Am I allowed to
Speaker 4: continue with life? Am I allowed to find happiness? Am
Speaker 4: I allowed to be happy? Am I allowed to to
Speaker 4: give yourself all over again? To step back into life? Permission?
Speaker 4: I've got this amazing vision board in my bathroom and
Speaker 4: I was looking at I look at these munchras like
Speaker 4: every morning, and one of them is.
Speaker 3: I give myself permission to be happy.
Speaker 4: Because I almost think that Hollywood has glamorized this. Oh
Speaker 4: this widow, this was her love of her life. She
Speaker 4: will never love again, and they've glamorized this.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, you know what.
Speaker 4: One of the things I've had to meet peace Worth
Speaker 4: is I had this incredible deep love and I am
Speaker 4: so grateful for it. But I am not going to
Speaker 4: martyr myself for the rest of my life. And I
Speaker 4: think some people think you should. I think some people
Speaker 4: think you shouldn't, Like you'll never please everyone on this journey.
Speaker 4: But I will not martyr myself. I will not take
Speaker 4: the ability away from Sage to have an incredible father
Speaker 4: figure in her life. She deserves that, And that was
Speaker 4: one of my key motivators for moving forward and forcing
Speaker 4: myself to date again and to do these things as
Speaker 4: my daughter deserves an incredible father figure in her life.
Speaker 2: You know how like, especially when everything happened, you're like,
Speaker 2: keep Kurt alive, keep Stage alive.
Speaker 1: And you were at the bottom of the pile.
Speaker 2: Have you found that you have managed to bring yourself
Speaker 2: up and prioritize yourself through this journey.
Speaker 3: It's a tough question. Of all the.
Speaker 1: Questions, I got it.
Speaker 4: Hey, look I have learned or I am still learning,
Speaker 4: that I deserve peace, that I deserve to be loved.
Speaker 4: So when you play caregiver for so long and for
Speaker 4: a long time, and I had to do a lot
Speaker 4: of work, I felt like I'd failed Kurt, I failed
Speaker 4: to save him. I took that real hard. Failure for
Speaker 4: me was very hard than to accept. So I went
Speaker 4: about trying to.
Speaker 3: Save other people but not yourself, but not myself.
Speaker 4: If I couldn't save Kurt, if I can only save you,
Speaker 4: that will help. And I'm trying to fill this void
Speaker 4: of saving everyone else that I can see as thinking.
Speaker 3: Again, not a good idea, But.
Speaker 4: Grief is such a huge experience that you when you're
Speaker 4: in pain, you know which won't be magnets.
Speaker 3: When you are being an immense.
Speaker 4: Pain, you will naturally gravitate or attract beings that are
Speaker 4: also an immense pain.
Speaker 1: So I found there along the way.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, oh yeah, And I probably made things a
Speaker 4: lot harder for myself, but it was all part everyone's
Speaker 4: our mirror was all part of So every time someone
Speaker 4: would come into my life who needed saving or I
Speaker 4: would feel this thing. If I look back now, it
Speaker 4: shows my healing journey because we're attracting what we are
Speaker 4: at the time, so it shows it's like a yes,
Speaker 4: it shows how I navigated my healing journey.
Speaker 2: So when you came out of where at two and
Speaker 2: a half years of hell, were you at a place
Speaker 2: where you could start implementing routines that could make you
Speaker 2: feel better? Like did you start realizing there were rituals
Speaker 2: that were beneficial for you that you had to do.
Speaker 4: It was routine that got me through the first two
Speaker 4: and a half years. So I went to the gym
Speaker 4: every single day. I went back and found something that
Speaker 4: was just for me, and then one hour every day
Speaker 4: there was this place that was just for me where
Speaker 4: I could actually transmute my pain into something that was beneficial.
Speaker 4: So training became an outlet for my pain and suffering.
Speaker 4: I would walk into that gym, I would put my
Speaker 4: headphones on. I think sometimes I would have a cap
Speaker 4: on because I didn't want anyone to see me. I
Speaker 4: didn't want anyone to talk to me. I just wanted
Speaker 4: to fade into the background and do my thing.
Speaker 3: And man, I.
Speaker 4: Trained hard because I had so much pain to training out,
Speaker 4: but that was my thing. After a while, I managed
Speaker 4: to decide. I maned to be strong enough to go
Speaker 4: to the headresser and get my hair done, and I
Speaker 4: almost cried at the basin because it was the first
Speaker 4: time someone had touched me for months. There's a thing,
Speaker 4: and I wrote about it. It's called skin hunger and
Speaker 4: sounds really sucy.
Speaker 3: It's not. It's like you go.
Speaker 4: Through this thing where no one has touched you for
Speaker 4: so long, and then someone was actually I remember it now,
Speaker 4: someone was actually caring for me and giving me a
Speaker 4: head message at the basin, and I pretty much just
Speaker 4: lost it because no one kid for me, no one
Speaker 4: had shown me anything like I. It was the keygiver
Speaker 4: I And so it was this real moment where I
Speaker 4: was like, oh, okay.
Speaker 3: So I actually started.
Speaker 4: And it sounds a bit frivolous, but I started getting
Speaker 4: my hair done once a week.
Speaker 1: It doesn't sound riverless at all.
Speaker 3: It was this one thing that made me feel good.
Speaker 2: It's interesting my husband's grandmother does that every Friday.
Speaker 1: She goes to the hairdresser and gets her hair done.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if.
Speaker 2: That's a generational thing, but I get it. I get
Speaker 2: it like being and mum, you just carve out that
Speaker 2: time actually in your situation.
Speaker 4: It might seem crazy. No, it was such a gift.
Speaker 4: It was such a gift. And I still adore my
Speaker 4: hairdresser and I'm lucky. It's like around the road.
Speaker 3: It's not far.
Speaker 1: She good at the head message. I hope she was
Speaker 1: good at head message.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean it, maybe cry.
Speaker 1: Hana.
Speaker 2: Look, I want this story to be obviously a story
Speaker 2: of hope as well, because you have recently had some
Speaker 2: really exciting news You've come back from BALI is that
Speaker 2: where it happened?
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I'd decided that I was done with
Speaker 4: trying to date, like again. But I think even as
Speaker 4: single women, we go through these things like I'm going
Speaker 4: to pop myself out there, I'm going to do it,
Speaker 4: and then actually, that's a terrible idea. I'm not going
Speaker 4: to do that, And so I would be torn between
Speaker 4: trying to date and thinking that was a massive failure.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I don't want to do that again.
Speaker 4: Ebenston repeat for a couple of years, and one of
Speaker 4: my best friends I've been really good friends with for
Speaker 4: sixteen years used to come to my spin classes back
Speaker 4: in my aforementioned it's been instructed, had been had come
Speaker 4: back into my life, and our girls had been having
Speaker 4: playdates and this sort of stuff. And yeah, we started
Speaker 4: eighteen a nineteen months ago and had looked for anyone
Speaker 4: that's gone through grief or going through grief, I'm not
Speaker 4: going to say that starting dating is this magical.
Speaker 3: I'm texted and I'm healed. It's really not.
Speaker 4: And actually it brought up a lot of stuff for
Speaker 4: me in the first year. There was abandonment wounds in there,
Speaker 4: understandably that.
Speaker 3: I didn't know.
Speaker 4: But it's like anyone that gets into a relationship, it's
Speaker 4: going to bring up the work that's yet to be done.
Speaker 3: And man, did it bring up some work.
Speaker 4: So last year I had we had a lot of
Speaker 4: work to do, but we have been friends for so long,
Speaker 4: and we each had a lot of work to do,
Speaker 4: and we supported each other through that work together and
Speaker 4: I am just so proud of us. And this year
Speaker 4: has been great. And then we med Bali and my
Speaker 4: partner's name is Max and my fiance's name is Max.
Speaker 3: Sorry Maybe asked me.
Speaker 4: To marry him and Balley a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 4: and I am just I'm excited to get an opportunity
Speaker 4: at a second chance of forever. Is there is a
Speaker 4: little bit where I feel a bit teary. I'm so grateful.
Speaker 4: I'm so grateful that there's a man in stages life
Speaker 4: that wants to love her and be that father figure
Speaker 4: that she so desperately deserves.
Speaker 3: I've had to watch her work out that the other
Speaker 3: kids have dads and why doesn't she.
Speaker 4: I've had to watch her make Father's Day cards and
Speaker 4: put them on top of We still have Kot's ashes
Speaker 4: in her bedroom and every Father's Day we light a
Speaker 4: candle and we put a card up there.
Speaker 3: And I've had to watch her. She even walking down the.
Speaker 4: Road, she would say she would blow a dandelion and say,
Speaker 4: I wish for a new daddy.
Speaker 3: Man's some this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's some stuff that you don't think of, right,
Speaker 5: And so meeting someone and building a life and with
Speaker 5: them again is.
Speaker 3: Such an honor.
Speaker 4: And I have also shared that openly and what I
Speaker 4: have been so not humbled by when I started sharing
Speaker 4: on Instagram. I started sharing because when Kurk got sick,
Speaker 4: I frantically tried to find other women who had been
Speaker 4: through what I was going through who could give me
Speaker 4: some sense of camaraderie an online community. And seven years ago,
Speaker 4: six and a half years ago, that was actually not
Speaker 4: a lot. We still we didn't talk about grief that much.
Speaker 4: It was all a bit and people were like it
Speaker 4: was a good type that you know, social media it
Speaker 4: was all the.
Speaker 3: Highlight reels and no one. So I found a couple
Speaker 3: of women.
Speaker 4: That gave me a sense of camaraderie. And when I
Speaker 4: started sharing. I decided that I wanted to share and
Speaker 4: create an account that was the kind of an account
Speaker 4: that would have done sperately helped me one when Kurt
Speaker 4: got sick, but two when Kurt passed, and it would
Speaker 4: give me hope that I was going to get through this,
Speaker 4: and that one day someone once said to me, just
Speaker 4: start living until you start to feel alive again.
Speaker 3: And that was and.
Speaker 4: I do not know who that was on my Instagram
Speaker 4: that messaged me that, but your quote became.
Speaker 3: My mantra for years.
Speaker 4: And you slowly start to see things in color again,
Speaker 4: and you slowly come back to life again, and I
Speaker 4: feel alive again. And so I have shared openly my
Speaker 4: journey with finding love again and the challenges that's brought
Speaker 4: up for me and how we've navigated them. And I
Speaker 4: got so many amazing messages when I announced our engagement,
Speaker 4: and they were all special, but some of the most special,
Speaker 4: and the ones that meet the most to me again
Speaker 4: I get a bit teary, were from widows and they
Speaker 4: were the ones that said, you give me so much
Speaker 4: hope that one day I will find love again.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, what bit of advice would
Speaker 2: you have for someone really going through it right now,
Speaker 2: whether it was similar to your situation or someone that
Speaker 2: just can't see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 2: Is it simply just keep living until you feel alive,
Speaker 2: or do you have any other nuggets that have really
Speaker 2: helped you along the way if you're.
Speaker 3: Right in the thick of it.
Speaker 4: I think that's a pretty decent one, to be honest,
Speaker 4: because when you're in that space, there's no color. Life
Speaker 4: is in some even black and white. I think that's
Speaker 4: too contrasting. It's just shades of gray. So what I
Speaker 4: started to do was and this is term now called glimmers,
Speaker 4: which was not a thing way back when I was
Speaker 4: going through the thick of it.
Speaker 3: But what I started to do was to find to like.
Speaker 4: Create moments of pure joy and connectedness in my day
Speaker 4: throughout the day.
Speaker 3: And that started from when I wake up, I.
Speaker 4: Like in sense and I click in my mind, I
Speaker 4: say a little black which I didn't realize I did,
Speaker 4: but I do. I light this incense and I basically
Speaker 4: say something around blessed this house, and but like I.
Speaker 3: Do, and then I light the incense.
Speaker 4: And I made a thing of watching the sunrise every
Speaker 4: single morning because that's when I felt closest to Kurt.
Speaker 4: I drink espresso, and I would make that a real ritual,
Speaker 4: like I would rarely taste my espresso. I would make
Speaker 4: more cups of tea, hot tea. It became very simple
Speaker 4: stuff because I couldn't get out. Once my child's in
Speaker 4: bed and she's still in I can't get out and
Speaker 4: do things. So I became really good at lighting candles,
Speaker 4: lighting incense, drinking espresso, really tasting what I was doing
Speaker 4: and being so immersed and present, and I started to
Speaker 4: find so much joy in those things. So it felt
Speaker 4: like life. I was creating life that felt like art.
Speaker 1: I love I love that.
Speaker 2: I think back to pre kid life, and like when
Speaker 2: we had the time and the disposable and kind of
Speaker 2: just go to spas and treatments and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: And that used to be the kind of self care
Speaker 2: in your mind right, But actually the best kind of
Speaker 2: self care is the self care that you can implement
Speaker 2: on a daily basis and it doesn't need to cost much.
Speaker 2: Do you have a little hack on shortcutting to that mindset?
Speaker 4: I think it's all breath and I don't want to
Speaker 4: get all like preachy and whatever, but I think if
Speaker 4: I think to what I do in order to ground myself,
Speaker 4: because it's all about getting back in your body, right,
Speaker 4: so I think I actually just take a breath. I
Speaker 4: also need to take quite a bit as well as
Speaker 4: the art form thing. Side note, but just in case
Speaker 4: anyone wants to get into that, I really think it's
Speaker 4: very helpful.
Speaker 3: And saying that I couldn't do it for the first
Speaker 3: year at all. There was no way I wanted to
Speaker 3: connect with my body.
Speaker 4: I had a feeling that if I created and felt,
Speaker 4: if I felt into my heart, it just might kill me.
Speaker 3: So I couldn't.
Speaker 4: But I learned to get back into my meditation, and
Speaker 4: it's incredible. I think it's amazing how much we slow
Speaker 4: down and remind ourselves that we're a soul and a body.
Speaker 4: And I think, and I know it's probably not the
Speaker 4: extravagant answer you're looking for if you take a breath
Speaker 4: before you light your candle or before you get into
Speaker 4: your bath or run your bath, even because you could.
Speaker 3: Start your ritual there.
Speaker 4: I think creating rituals in our lives connects us.
Speaker 3: And adds romance.
Speaker 4: And I don't mean with someone else, I mean the
Speaker 4: romance back into life with ourselves.
Speaker 3: And I think that's.
Speaker 4: The thing that helped me reconnect with my body and
Speaker 4: reconnect to myself and actually reconnect with because for a while,
Speaker 4: again when you're in survival mode, you're not connected, but
Speaker 4: there's no one.
Speaker 3: I don't mean pleasure, and again the sourcy sense.
Speaker 4: I mean pleasure in creating a pleasurable life where you
Speaker 4: do taste your.
Speaker 3: Wine when you slip sip it, you taste your coffee.
Speaker 4: Everything becomes a present, when your presence there's.
Speaker 3: An art to it.
Speaker 2: It's like there's been shame with pleasure, right, And you're right,
Speaker 2: people think pleasure.
Speaker 1: And you don't need that. You need it is to
Speaker 1: fully enjoy life, even.
Speaker 4: If do you know what new pair of silp pajamas
Speaker 4: stop experience? And now social media calls it glimmers, and
Speaker 4: I get it, and then it goes out into lots
Speaker 4: of other things.
Speaker 3: But I think the.
Speaker 4: More in life that we can create our own little
Speaker 4: microglimmers without the need for anyone else or the need
Speaker 4: to leave home or they need to whatever, the more
Speaker 4: we actually start having larger glimmers in life, because again
Speaker 4: I think it's that what we are, What was it like?
Speaker 4: What we attract what we are, we attract more of
Speaker 4: what we're doing. So I think it's a great place
Speaker 4: to start is creating those little micro glimmers through living
Speaker 4: life to create life like an art.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: That is such a beautiful note to wrap this chat up.
Speaker 2: And I'm just so grateful for you coming on, Janelle,
Speaker 2: because mate, you've just absolutely been through it, but you're
Speaker 2: a true example of resilience and you show that there
Speaker 2: is hope and life at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean that it's all fairies and unicorns. I
Speaker 2: know that you're still probably going through it in ways,
Speaker 2: but I think you would have helped so many people
Speaker 2: today by sharing your story. So thank you so much
Speaker 2: for coming on.
Speaker 3: I thank you so much. PJ.
Speaker 2: Well, that was my episode with Janelle Brundon Riddy and
Speaker 2: I told you, I told you. It was such a
Speaker 2: moving chat, put so much in perspective, and it really
Speaker 2: goes to show grief is not linear and everyone experiences
Speaker 2: it differently. But for Janelle, she was in just like
Speaker 2: obviously that fight or flight mode for quite a while
Speaker 2: where she was just surviving day to day and then
Speaker 2: after about two and a half years, you know, it
Speaker 2: felt like there was some light into the tunnel, But
Speaker 2: then how to navigate that? You know, is there a
Speaker 2: life without Kurt? And hard is that look? But so
Speaker 2: amazing that she has been so open about her experience
Speaker 2: with grief. I think it's a topic that, as I said,
Speaker 2: and Western culture is not so openly spoken about, and
Speaker 2: there's still so much shame around talking about some aspects
Speaker 2: of grieving and what's right and what's wrong. The thing
Speaker 2: is is nothing wrong. There is no right or wrong
Speaker 2: way to grieve. And I just, man, I just have
Speaker 2: so much admiration for Janelle, and there's so amazing that
Speaker 2: she has found happiness again and that she has found
Speaker 2: love and she's engaged. I just can't even imagine having
Speaker 2: to run your own company during all of that, through
Speaker 2: the diagnosis, through the passing of your husband, You've got
Speaker 2: a one year old, you are trying to navigate everything
Speaker 2: on your own. Honestly, it was such an incredible chat,
Speaker 2: and I loved hearing about just coming back to the breath.
Speaker 2: You know, we always talk about the simple rituals that
Speaker 2: bring you back breath and enjoying those luxurious, simple pleasures
Speaker 2: day to day, whether it's you know, a beautiful a
Speaker 2: beautiful wash in your shower, a nice little body wash
Speaker 2: or soap or something that you put in your bath.
Speaker 1: Just infusing your day with.
Speaker 2: Things that you know that will bring a little bit
Speaker 2: of bliss is a really good hack which I loved
Speaker 2: from Janelle's chair.
Speaker 1: I would love to know what you got out of it.
Speaker 2: You can always message me on Instagram. It's embarrassing saying
Speaker 2: my little handle.
Speaker 1: It's pj DJ.
Speaker 2: And if you go check out my page dot forget,
Speaker 2: I've got an incredible Slow it Down bundle to give away.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be announcing the winner come.
Speaker 2: Tuesday, so go enter and yeah, it's a really epic
Speaker 2: prize pack. Thank you so much for joining me for
Speaker 2: another episode of Slow It Down.