Speaker 1: Get everyone. Sam here. We have a longtime friend of
Speaker 1: mine on the show today. Now when I'll tell you
Speaker 1: a little story before we chat to him. When I
Speaker 1: met this guy, this is how little I knew about
Speaker 1: the show that I was about to embark on. I
Speaker 1: didn't even know who it was. I was told and
Speaker 1: then Osher, oh just give it away, will come in
Speaker 1: and he'll help you, Sam, and he'll be able to
Speaker 1: show you the ropes as I was on this show
Speaker 1: called The Bachelor, andher was the host of the Bachelor.
Speaker 1: This is back in twenty fifteen, and because I'd never
Speaker 1: seen an episode of the show, I had no idea
Speaker 1: who Osher was. I know, even perhaps silly I was,
Speaker 1: but there I was. I remember vividly. We had a
Speaker 1: photo shoot tuxedos, roses, board shorts, tops off, the works
Speaker 1: for all of the promotional stuff to launch the show
Speaker 1: before it went to air. You know, this is Sam Wood,
Speaker 1: Australia's new Bachelor, blah blah blah. Anyway, Osha rocked up
Speaker 1: to the photo shoot and I was like, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure when she's going to get here, But why's Andrew
Speaker 1: g here?
Speaker 2: That's what I thought, And I was just like I
Speaker 2: was still.
Speaker 1: Living in I don't know, nineteen ninety seven watching Australian
Speaker 1: Idol perhaps, but I very quickly realized Andrew g was
Speaker 1: now washer and what a wonderful friend he was to
Speaker 1: me during the show, which is a really strange experience
Speaker 1: for me, and one that I was very very lost,
Speaker 1: and he was a wonderful friend and mentor to me
Speaker 1: just sort of navigating the crazy world of television. And
Speaker 1: he's been a friend ever since. He's an incredibly honest,
Speaker 1: deep thinking, intelligent, raw individual. So we do touch on
Speaker 1: some sensitive topics in today's episode, so that's not something
Speaker 1: you necessarily want to delve into. Perhaps go back and
Speaker 1: listen to another episode. But today's guest on The Woodlife
Speaker 1: is my good friend Osha Gunsberg, and that'll be coming
Speaker 1: out next and then we're going to finish on a
Speaker 1: high note by celebrating some of the beautiful wins that
Speaker 1: have been sent in by you, our wood lifelesseners. I
Speaker 1: was sure it's always been an absolute pleasure of mind
Speaker 1: to chat with you, and I mean that completely sincerely.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to start, I guess by thanking you
Speaker 1: because when I was on the show The Bachelor, which
Speaker 1: unbelievably was eight years ago when we first met. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was. There were there were moments I think I
Speaker 1: had it okay, but there were definitely moments where I
Speaker 1: was drowning and overwhelmed and you were an absolute life
Speaker 1: raft me. And it was for a number of reasons.
Speaker 2: One, in a very.
Speaker 1: Very weird twist of fate. We were kind of I
Speaker 1: didn't know because you didn't really tell me at the time,
Speaker 1: but you had just started dating someone with a daughter
Speaker 1: and it was a very fresh relationship for you. But
Speaker 1: you're also then seeing me fall for the girl who
Speaker 1: had a daughter, and that was very sort of strange
Speaker 1: twist of fate, not that anyone on the screen that
Speaker 1: was going on, but retrospectively looking back, I was like,
Speaker 1: that was really interesting, how it could really help me
Speaker 1: with all of that stuff that was going on in
Speaker 1: such a crazy environment, but also just the crazy bubble
Speaker 1: of television. You being one of Australia's biggest TV success stories.
Speaker 1: Everyone would know you from The Bachelor or the Mass Singer,
Speaker 1: or the voice on Bondi Rescue or one of your
Speaker 1: incredible podcasts or a myriad of other things that you've done,
Speaker 1: and you were just so calm, so careing. Oh wait,
Speaker 1: you know you always knew when to come and when
Speaker 1: not to come. I feel like you were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he knows that I'm there for him, but I'm not
Speaker 1: going to pester through him. He's kind of got to
Speaker 1: work this shit out for himself. At the same time,
Speaker 1: it's not my job to hold his hand. And it
Speaker 1: was incredibly helpful in a very unique stressful situation. So
Speaker 1: thank you, my friend.
Speaker 2: I'm grateful I could do that and it really helped me.
Speaker 2: It really, I was going through some stuff myself. And
Speaker 2: it's always, you know, I got taught early on in
Speaker 2: sobriety as if you need help, go help someone else,
Speaker 2: and because it gets you out of your own head.
Speaker 2: There's a thing that gets unlocked in our brains, a
Speaker 2: sense of lasting happiness that cannot come by a new hat, sneaker,
Speaker 2: something that shows up on your door because you ordered
Speaker 2: it by eleven PM and then you can send it
Speaker 2: back before for if you don't like it. Like, there's
Speaker 2: a sense of lasting happiness that is only unlocked in
Speaker 2: our brains when we help another person, when we're of
Speaker 2: service to somebody, And there was just something about you're
Speaker 2: not the only man I've seen go on that adventure,
Speaker 2: and some men I've seen going on the adventure are
Speaker 2: more open to what they might learn about themselves. But
Speaker 2: there was just something about I think the base of
Speaker 2: where you came from was I know that it is
Speaker 2: only in challenging myself and putting myself where I get
Speaker 2: the stress response. That's when growth happens. And I have
Speaker 2: to be willing to be with the discomfort of that,
Speaker 2: and you were, you know, you had to face it,
Speaker 2: and it was amazing to watch. And it's what I
Speaker 2: talk about all the time. So like one of the
Speaker 2: great privileges of my entire career was watching you go
Speaker 2: through that and seeing another man do that, because it's
Speaker 2: very rare. You know, men on television generally they don't
Speaker 2: they don't ever talk about anything but sport, you know,
Speaker 2: or how being the boss. You know, they don't ever.
Speaker 2: And so to watch you go through that and then
Speaker 2: to bear witness to the extraordinary life that you and
Speaker 2: Sana have created is wonderful. And now I remember, actually
Speaker 2: there was a night you came over to a flat
Speaker 2: and you sat at a table with me and and
Speaker 2: Audrey and Georgia, who at that point we weren't engaged
Speaker 2: at that point. She was just my girlfriend's kid. She's
Speaker 2: now my step order. And it was beautiful. It was
Speaker 2: really nice. It was really nice to have you around.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it was lovely. It was really lovely. I
Speaker 2: was really extraord I was so happy that Audrey came
Speaker 2: into my life. And there was something about dating. I mean,
Speaker 2: the fact is if you're dating, if you're in your
Speaker 2: forties or late thirties and you're dating, you probably date
Speaker 2: someone with a kid, like that's going to happen. And
Speaker 2: the because of that, Audrey had this extraordinary barrier of like,
Speaker 2: you may think that you might just kind of this
Speaker 2: is just a kiss in the cuddle and you move
Speaker 2: back to America, but no, I'm not interested in anything
Speaker 2: that doesn't because I've got this kid to think about.
Speaker 2: And that really made me pull my socks up and
Speaker 2: maybe go, oh, it made me face some shit and
Speaker 2: and I'm really I'm really grateful for it. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it was wonderful and it's beautiful watching watching how you've
Speaker 2: taken the ball and run with it, and that you
Speaker 2: and Snares are in such a marvelous place. It must
Speaker 2: be a noisy house, though, Jesus man, it's so nice.
Speaker 2: A lot of children, it's so nisy.
Speaker 1: So we are a wellness fitness in the thing that
Speaker 1: sort of influences our mental and physical health, whether it
Speaker 1: be nutrition or workouts or mindfulness. With you are it's
Speaker 1: about now that obvious one which I think we should
Speaker 1: definitely touch on if you're comfortable talking about it, is
Speaker 1: your own battles with mental health. Perhaps what you've learnt
Speaker 1: from your own experience with the mental health.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess the short version is that people kind
Speaker 2: of have an idea. One in five Australians will be
Speaker 2: affected by complex mental illness at some point in their lives,
Speaker 2: either themselves or someone they care about. That's a lot
Speaker 2: of people, it is, all right. And you might have
Speaker 2: an idea of what complex mental illness looks like. It
Speaker 2: might be, you know, someone living in a shitty tent
Speaker 2: in the park screaming at dragons you can't see. You
Speaker 2: might have an idea of what alcoholics look like they're
Speaker 2: sitting out front of a horse racing or betting place
Speaker 2: with a brown bag, you know in the day. You
Speaker 2: may have an idea of what someone with a gambling addiction,
Speaker 2: or you know, those sorts of things it looks like
Speaker 2: and it's certainly not you, and certainly not your friends. Well,
Speaker 2: twice a week, certainly for a couple of years there
Speaker 2: definitely when I was working with you, people were watching
Speaker 2: on Wednesday and Thursday night, someone who was dealing with
Speaker 2: episodes of psychosis that manifested as paranoid delusions. Someone who
Speaker 2: was on two different kinds of antipsychotics and SSRI and
Speaker 2: an NSRI, someone that was dealing with suicidal idiation passive
Speaker 2: and active, a recovering alcoholic, someone with OCD. And I've
Speaker 2: since been discovered that someone with ADHD. And you know,
Speaker 2: there I was counting flowers on your tally. Complex mental
Speaker 2: illness can look like a lot of things, and with
Speaker 2: treatment can be really pretty good for some people. I
Speaker 2: got quite lucky, you know. And similarly, you know, if
Speaker 2: you think, oh, there's no way I'd let my kids
Speaker 2: watch any video made by a recovering you know, alcoholic,
Speaker 2: somebod who used to drink and use all the time, Well,
Speaker 2: anytime you let your kids watch the mask singer and
Speaker 2: leave the room, that's what's happening, because you know, here
Speaker 2: I am. But it's all in a commitment to treatment
Speaker 2: and a commitment to literally waking up every day going,
Speaker 2: I reckon, I can get it just a little bit better.
Speaker 2: I reckon, I can figure a little bit more out here,
Speaker 2: and being curious as to how you can get there.
Speaker 2: I did not realize. I did not know that life
Speaker 2: could exist without alcohol until I had heard stories of
Speaker 2: other people who were where I was and were now
Speaker 2: somewhere I wanted to be.
Speaker 1: Isn't that that's an interesting comment because that that's sort
Speaker 1: of me, you know, without knowing people like you to
Speaker 1: be honest, Yeah, my whole My dad loves a beer.
Speaker 1: You know, his brothers and dad loved a beer, and
Speaker 1: it was kind of just what you do. As an
Speaker 1: I was email and I didn't really know any different,
Speaker 1: and if you were someone who didn't drink, you were
Speaker 1: a weirdo, Like I don't think that you are now.
Speaker 2: I can't trust him, trust him doesn't drink.
Speaker 1: That's what I thought as a kid, though. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that dad would have said that he doesn't drink. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's going on? You know, got to watch them. But
Speaker 1: when did you first know it was a problem? Like old?
Speaker 1: How old were you? Dude?
Speaker 2: I was drinking like it was this magic potion that
Speaker 2: made all the fear go away. I was about fourteen.
Speaker 2: I think the first time I started started drinking the blackout.
Speaker 2: I was drinking like an alcoholic from the moment alcohol
Speaker 2: touched me. So at any point whef there was any
Speaker 2: access to alcohol, it wasn't just I'll just have a
Speaker 2: sip and I'm just fine, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'll bring my gum boots. It was on right, and
Speaker 2: that's just how it was, and that's how I learned
Speaker 2: to drink, and that's how you know, I was taking
Speaker 2: it to very extreme levels, but it was very similar
Speaker 2: to the kind of drinking going on around me. I
Speaker 2: think the first time, I think I was about twenty two.
Speaker 2: My girlfriend at the time. I remember being like lying
Speaker 2: in her lap with you know, she was brushing o
Speaker 2: quite long hair at the time, but she's brushing vomit
Speaker 2: covered hair out of my mouth as I'm lying cross
Speaker 2: leging at a lap, but I'm trying to focus on her.
Speaker 2: Her face is doing, you know, just like flicking back
Speaker 2: and forth because my muscles in my eyeballs don't work properly.
Speaker 2: And she's like, maybe you want to have a think
Speaker 2: about why you keep doing this to yourself. I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't have a problem anyway. Cut to like ten
Speaker 2: years later, and I'm trying to stop, and I can't.
Speaker 2: I realize that it's bad every time I'm drinking. The
Speaker 2: way it starts is like at first it's fun, and
Speaker 2: then it's fun with problems, and then the time of
Speaker 2: fun and the time of problem starts to get quite
Speaker 2: out of whack, and then it's just problems no matter what,
Speaker 2: no matter how many different ways to try to do it.
Speaker 2: I try to stop, I can't. I get maybe four weeks,
Speaker 2: maybe six weeks. I think it was the most of went,
Speaker 2: and then just like a duckt to water on back
Speaker 2: like ten years, then two hours kind of drinking, and
Speaker 2: then at one point I was about it was about
Speaker 2: twenty twen. It's actually sin five days from now. Now
Speaker 2: we're thirteen years ago years. I just woke up one
Speaker 2: morning and the night before I hadn't been any bigger
Speaker 2: or smaller than any of the other nights. It's just
Speaker 2: another night where I was just a blurish, belligerent drunk,
Speaker 2: vomiting on myself, you know, frightening strangers, being inappropriate to people,
Speaker 2: humiliating myself, humilating people around me, humiliating the people who
Speaker 2: cared about me. And I was like, I just can't
Speaker 2: do that again. I can't. It's gonna it's the same
Speaker 2: every single time. I think there's allowed to quote, be
Speaker 2: careful of the direction you're heading. You may just end
Speaker 2: up there. It's very clear. And also there was there
Speaker 2: was a complications there. I busted my mcl a couple
Speaker 2: of months back, so you know, I was in America
Speaker 2: at the time, and so vicodin was a part of it,
Speaker 2: so painkillers were like it was a horrible situation. I
Speaker 2: as realized I had to stop, but I was out
Speaker 2: of ideas. I didn't know how to do it. I
Speaker 2: knew I had to, but I had no idea how
Speaker 2: it could exist. I grew up drinking in Queensland, right,
Speaker 2: so it was protty fairly similar to tas made you drinking.
Speaker 2: And there was a bloke that I knew who I'd
Speaker 2: met him, not long not long ago, like maybe I
Speaker 2: don't know, six weeks or or ten weeks before that.
Speaker 2: And he was beautiful. He was about as tall as
Speaker 2: you're taller than me, so as tall as you, big handlebar, mustache,
Speaker 2: gigantic forearms look like Tom of Finland. If any of
Speaker 2: your listeners know who Tom of Finland is, don't google
Speaker 2: that with kids in the room. And he was a photographer,
Speaker 2: an extraordinarily talented fashion photography who get cover shots all
Speaker 2: the time. Like he was very very good life of
Speaker 2: the party. And I was like, how do you do that?
Speaker 2: Like you don't drink? How does And I called him
Speaker 2: up and I said, hey, man, I need help. Can
Speaker 2: you take me to one of those meetings how you
Speaker 2: go to? He's like yeah, sure, and off we went
Speaker 2: to you know, a fellowship I shall say, of people
Speaker 2: that are interested in not drinking, and it all just clicked.
Speaker 2: It took a while for me to kind of figure
Speaker 2: out that it had to happen. But once I did,
Speaker 2: and once I kind of accepted that I wasn't able
Speaker 2: to do it like other people, I got to work
Speaker 2: and it was a hearing story of people that, like
Speaker 2: I said, people who were where I wanted to be
Speaker 2: and had been where I was. Was hearing their stories
Speaker 2: that gave me the hope to go, Okay, well, I
Speaker 2: guess it can happen. I'll just do what they tell
Speaker 2: me because I all my ideas just keep ending me
Speaker 2: up here. I'll just need some more ideas here. And
Speaker 2: literally it's just my guy who still guides me to
Speaker 2: this day. He just said, listen, power, if just get
Speaker 2: to bed, he says, power, because San Diego. Power. Just
Speaker 2: get to bed tonight. Put your head on the pillow,
Speaker 2: without drinking or using, without causing harm to anybody else,
Speaker 2: helping somebody, getting help at yourself, if you need to
Speaker 2: being of service to someone, and if you make a mistake,
Speaker 2: doing your best to clean it up as quick as
Speaker 2: you can. If you do that every day, you've done
Speaker 2: this perfectly. And that's literally all I've done every day.
Speaker 2: That's it. Some days it's an hour at a time,
Speaker 2: some days it's five minutes a time. Some days it's
Speaker 2: a breath of the time. I got through all that
Speaker 2: hell on earth of being quite sick in my head
Speaker 2: without drinking like that. If I can do that like
Speaker 2: that's something to be said for that. If I I
Speaker 2: had been drinking during that, Sam would be dead.
Speaker 1: Were they the tough Was that the toughest time when
Speaker 1: that was going on as well? Was that the toughest time.
Speaker 2: It was so horrible. I don't recommend it to anyone,
Speaker 2: but it was maybe being a stubborn fuckhead of like
Speaker 2: you know, going, oh no, I'll be fine, I'll be fine. Fine.
Speaker 2: I wasn't. I really really wasn't. And so since then,
Speaker 2: what I've done is I paid quite close attention to
Speaker 2: the red flags that started to appear before it all
Speaker 2: filled the bits. And if those things start to happen,
Speaker 2: or if they start to have them for more than,
Speaker 2: you know, five days in a row, I'm on the
Speaker 2: phone with the doctor like I'm not. I don't mess
Speaker 2: around with that stuff anymore because I know that I
Speaker 2: will end up in a place where I'm now unable
Speaker 2: to make clear decisions. And that's I don't that's never
Speaker 2: going to happen again.
Speaker 1: And from a mental health management perspective, what do you
Speaker 1: do from either a medication perspective or a lifestyle perspective
Speaker 1: that you swear by.
Speaker 2: Well, I think like and this is just dication is
Speaker 2: a part of my story. If you look at sand
Speaker 2: Wood and you see a man in his forties with
Speaker 2: very very little body fat and its adminal region, but
Speaker 2: you ask him how much work it takes to keep
Speaker 2: that six pack? Like you have to think, you have
Speaker 2: to literally think about every meal you eat. You have
Speaker 2: to think about how much you train.
Speaker 1: It's a bit more about the dead body.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, but you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 2: when you're talking with your clients who want to keep
Speaker 2: that kind of body. That is a daily thing and
Speaker 2: it has to be top of mind to keep your
Speaker 2: body fat that low. Certainly as you get older, it's
Speaker 2: hard work, but it's worth it. You can whip your
Speaker 2: shirt off at any point in time. Here, I am
Speaker 2: bang right, but it's work. It takes work. You don't
Speaker 2: accidentally get a six pack. You don't accidentally You're not
Speaker 2: accidentally able to run a marathon. You have to prepare
Speaker 2: and stay prepared for that. Similarly, I don't accidentally have
Speaker 2: good mental health. I do stuff every day diligently. I
Speaker 2: take my meads when I take them. I've got alarms
Speaker 2: in my phone to make sure I do it. I
Speaker 2: do my writing work, I do the meditation, I exercise.
Speaker 2: But the life I get because of that SAM is
Speaker 2: bigger than I couldn't have imagined. I end up living
Speaker 2: this very deliberate life rather than a reactive life, and
Speaker 2: it gives me a sense of agency and a sense
Speaker 2: of like I will be able to cope with whatever comes,
Speaker 2: because you know, there's so much organization in my day,
Speaker 2: and there's so much a deliberate action in a direction
Speaker 2: in my day that the life I have is beyond
Speaker 2: anything I could have possibly imagined. And I wouldn't trade
Speaker 2: it for I wouldn't trade it for anything. I mean
Speaker 2: the side effects of the medications that I had been on.
Speaker 2: I'm on very different meds to when I met you.
Speaker 2: That caused a lot of weight gain, and it was
Speaker 2: it was because it messes with my insulin response and
Speaker 2: I was putting on about a kilo a week. It
Speaker 2: was really hard.
Speaker 1: I remember, I remember having those chatsh you were yeah,
Speaker 1: and you weren't really we didn't know each other very well,
Speaker 1: but you were frustrated by it. You were riding around
Speaker 1: like every day it was the Tour de France on
Speaker 1: your bike.
Speaker 2: It was I was putting in so many caves on
Speaker 2: that bike. But it didn't matter. It didn't matter because
Speaker 2: my body, my hormone responses were very different to food
Speaker 2: and so it just went, oh, calories fat, and that
Speaker 2: was That was really frustrating. But you know, it made
Speaker 2: the thoughts stop and it gave me the space to
Speaker 2: do the work. I needed. You know, in the same
Speaker 2: way that if you were trying to help a client
Speaker 2: do a pull up so they had never done a
Speaker 2: pull up, there's probably people listening, I've never done a
Speaker 2: pull up or a chin up, and they think I
Speaker 2: can never do it. I guarantee you, if Sam Wood
Speaker 2: puts enough exercise bands on a chin up bar and
Speaker 2: puts them under your feet, you'll be able to get
Speaker 2: your chin over the bar. Hooray, You've done a chin up. Similarly,
Speaker 2: that's what the meds were. The meds were like the
Speaker 2: exercise band that helped me complete the movement right, which
Speaker 2: is the thinking and the reframing and all the cognitive
Speaker 2: work that I needed to do. And once I gained
Speaker 2: the strength to rewire those pathways, slowly, slowly, slowly, we
Speaker 2: take the assistance away, slowly, slowly to make sure that
Speaker 2: I can cope, and eventually those neural pathways become more
Speaker 2: automatic and more permanent, and eventually, you know, I got
Speaker 2: to come right off those really heavy ones. I'm still
Speaker 2: on two different kinds of meds that I take every day,
Speaker 2: but they work really well, and the side effect profiles
Speaker 2: really quite low, and the amount of weight gain is
Speaker 2: it's all right, you know, you know, I don't think
Speaker 2: I'm going to be on the cover of a mag
Speaker 2: again and a but that'll be okay.
Speaker 1: You look pretty good to me, mate, and you you
Speaker 1: have a very like you say, a very full life,
Speaker 1: a very fulfilled life, more fulfilled than most people I know,
Speaker 1: if not anyone. I know what you just said before.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't regret it. You don't regret it for anything,
Speaker 1: or you wouldn't swap it for anything. Do you mean
Speaker 1: do you mean if you had the choice, it's a
Speaker 1: weird question, you had the choice to whether or not
Speaker 1: you went through the mental limb or so and not
Speaker 1: you'd still go through it. Because if we you've come
Speaker 1: to today, do you generally think.
Speaker 2: That Another thing that my man David taught me, and
Speaker 2: it was really powerful, is he said, mate, sorry, he said, Powell,
Speaker 2: You've got to start to see things happening for you
Speaker 2: rather than to you, because if I see things happening
Speaker 2: to me, it puts me in a victim space.
Speaker 1: We all know those people.
Speaker 2: Leaves me powerless, leaves me powerless, leaves me with no
Speaker 2: options if I see something happening for me, even if
Speaker 2: I just go well, what's this for? What can I
Speaker 2: do with this? I wonder what's happening here? If I
Speaker 2: approach a challenge with curiosity, even a challenge like losing
Speaker 2: a job, which has happened in sobriety to me, even
Speaker 2: getting divorced happened in sobriety, dealing with all my hips, adury,
Speaker 2: bullshit happened in sobriety. If I can go, what's here
Speaker 2: for me? What can I find here? What's some gold
Speaker 2: nuggets here? What's some interesting things I can learn about this?
Speaker 2: What's some new things I can find out about the world,
Speaker 2: about the way I can handle the world here? If
Speaker 2: I start to see things from that aspect, well, now
Speaker 2: I have something to do. Now I have different possibilities. Now,
Speaker 2: once we're curious about a situation, particularly about a challenging situation,
Speaker 2: now we have possibility. Now we have options, because if
Speaker 2: we are just in fear or resistance, we've got one
Speaker 2: option no, and guess where that leaves us exactly in
Speaker 2: that space. We can't move from there. We stay there,
Speaker 2: and that's not a powerful place to be at all.
Speaker 2: Nobody likes to feel that way permanently. So if we go, well,
Speaker 2: maybe or I prefer it if it wasn't. But what
Speaker 2: else can I do with this, you know, try to
Speaker 2: kind of flex that thinking just a little bit. I'm
Speaker 2: so grateful for all the stuff that's happened to me,
Speaker 2: sam as hard as it was, as painful as it was,
Speaker 2: you know, because it all happened, and it gave me
Speaker 2: a gift every time. If I didn't get diagnosed with
Speaker 2: PTSD after September eleven and when I was twenty six,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have learned just because I think it doesn't
Speaker 2: make it true, particularly around when it comes to other
Speaker 2: people's emotions. I didn't, I wouldn't have learned that feelings
Speaker 2: aren't fat. I wouldn't have learned that stuff. I would
Speaker 2: have gone on with my wife going, I feel that
Speaker 2: this person's being an asshole, so therefore they are the asshole.
Speaker 2: Not right, what if it's me? Oh, it is me?
Speaker 2: You know. I learned that stuff, and then having that
Speaker 2: really gave me the equipment that I needed when it
Speaker 2: came time to get sober, because there's all these things
Speaker 2: in my head going, just do it, just do it,
Speaker 2: just do it, and then me going, I appreciate that
Speaker 2: that thought's happening, but that thought it nothing I have
Speaker 2: to act on okay, all right, And all that stuff
Speaker 2: really helped them when I got when I got really sick,
Speaker 2: I was able to look at these cataclysmic thoughts and
Speaker 2: I had to get into meditation to do it and
Speaker 2: go wow, every one of them is like to be
Speaker 2: able to separate and watch my own thoughts, go wow,
Speaker 2: that's really weird. I should see a doctor. That's bad.
Speaker 2: I should see somebody. I can't get out of this.
Speaker 2: I need some help. And I wouldn't be where I
Speaker 2: was were it not for all of that, you know.
Speaker 2: So and right now life is amazing. It's incredible today.
Speaker 2: You know, I try to win for Aswim in the
Speaker 2: ocean with my wife. I had a lovely lunch with her.
Speaker 2: You know. Wolf was a cheeky little bastard this morning
Speaker 2: and super fun. And g wants to run me through
Speaker 2: a Matt Pillart's class later on because she's a pilates instructor.
Speaker 2: Now and so how is how is dad life?
Speaker 1: I mean, we have a lot in common. We had
Speaker 1: a little one that's both three and a half, ye Charlie,
Speaker 1: and we also have a stepdaughter very similar ages as well.
Speaker 1: Seventeen and yeah, nineteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's nineteen, she does her nineteen. It's amazing. And
Speaker 2: for people listening who maybe have children and they're worried
Speaker 2: about dating, or you know, people who don't have children,
Speaker 2: they're worried about dating somebody who does. I've got to
Speaker 2: tell you, like the moment that Joji was just my
Speaker 2: girlfriend's kid, you know, And then I woke up one day.
Speaker 2: It wasn't long. I think it was maybe about six
Speaker 2: weeks maybe less, from when Order and I were like
Speaker 2: seeing each other quite seriously and I was living with
Speaker 2: them for on a semi permanent basis, and I just
Speaker 2: woke up one day and she'd gone from me my
Speaker 2: girlfriend's kid. Too. Oh, if it meant that I would die,
Speaker 2: I would push you out of the way of an
Speaker 2: oncoming guard like and I wouldn't even think about it,
Speaker 2: because you are now the most important thing in the world,
Speaker 2: and which for a selfish prick like me, is a
Speaker 2: big deal. And look the thing with you know, as
Speaker 2: as Georgia got older and that you know, you know,
Speaker 2: come on as a step dad. Here I am with
Speaker 2: as eleven year old, with a good month of parenting experience.
Speaker 2: I made a lot of a lot of mistakes, and
Speaker 2: I tried really hard, and I didn't get it right
Speaker 2: all the time, but I tried really hard to get
Speaker 2: it as right as I could, and tried to learn
Speaker 2: from each moment when it comes to you know, Wolf,
Speaker 2: you know, it's incredible watching Audrey go through that. And
Speaker 2: the thing about the most amazing thing about parenting is
Speaker 2: if you're open to it, you have an opportunity to
Speaker 2: you have an opportunity to rewrite yourself. Okay, because the
Speaker 2: thing that was interesting, like we only generally really intimately
Speaker 2: know the way our own mother mothers. Okay, true, And
Speaker 2: then as we gave a chance to do it ourselves,
Speaker 2: we have a chance to maybe not repeat the patterns
Speaker 2: that we have written within us. Now they will show
Speaker 2: up for something happen. Someone will drop something, I'll throw
Speaker 2: something and break something, and you'll hear a thing fly
Speaker 2: out of your mouth that you heard your dad say
Speaker 2: in the eighties and be like, oh man, and he
Speaker 2: probably heard his dad say it in the sixties or
Speaker 2: the fifties, like that doesn't belong here, but here I
Speaker 2: am saying it anyway. I'm repeating. It's called rippling. Is
Speaker 2: the effect that I'm repeating this value. This, you know, this,
Speaker 2: this adherence to a value that is probably archaic and
Speaker 2: doesn't belong here. What else can I do here? And
Speaker 2: what can I learn about myself here? And that's the
Speaker 2: very hardest part about parenting. Is not the sleep deprivation
Speaker 2: or the fact that you can be cranky for ages
Speaker 2: with your partner who you love dearly, or that money's
Speaker 2: a problem because there's less people working or anything. It
Speaker 2: is the fact that the children they never do what
Speaker 2: you tell them, but they will do everything that you
Speaker 2: show them.
Speaker 1: Oh, she can make me smile and make me think
Speaker 1: both very very deeply. And thank you for being so raw,
Speaker 1: Thank you for being on, Thank you for being so
Speaker 1: funny and quirky mayor a leegend. Thank you so so much.
Speaker 2: You got a man.
Speaker 1: Oh she's just He's so raw and real and vulnerable
Speaker 1: and honest, but can also be a little bit confronting sometimes.
Speaker 1: So I just I guess I feel if anything that
Speaker 1: Ilsh and I were speaking about brought up anything for
Speaker 1: you from a personal perspective, make sure you do reach
Speaker 1: out to Lifeline on one three double one one four.
Speaker 1: I think it's always so important to if in doubt,
Speaker 1: to talk it out and reach out for help. So
Speaker 1: make sure that you do that. We're going to go
Speaker 1: to a bit of an upswing and really celebrate some
Speaker 1: positivity that's happening within our Woodife community next. As I've
Speaker 1: heard from so many of you with your brilliant wins
Speaker 1: so far in twenty twenty three, and I cannot wait
Speaker 1: to celebrate them.
Speaker 2: Life moves so quickly at the.
Speaker 1: Moment, I'd say at the moment, I don't think it's
Speaker 1: slowed down anytime soon. But I can't believe how many
Speaker 1: people I speak to that have set themselves this incredible
Speaker 1: life changing health goal and then when they achieve it,
Speaker 1: they're very, very fixated on what's next.
Speaker 2: And I get it.
Speaker 1: We want to keep our momentum going. We're on a roll.
Speaker 1: Let's not slow down the boat, but let's also stop
Speaker 1: and give ourselves a pat on the back and reward
Speaker 1: ourselfs and be proud of ourself I love sharing my
Speaker 1: little wins and bringing you into my world, but it's
Speaker 1: beautiful to get a little insight into your world out
Speaker 1: there and hear your wins as well.
Speaker 2: I recently did a body scan and discover that I've
Speaker 2: gained one kill of muscle, which is a huge win
Speaker 2: for me and I just wanted to share. Since the
Speaker 2: start of this year, I've worked out and I've lost
Speaker 2: five kilos.
Speaker 1: I have just signed up with a trainer and done
Speaker 1: my first two workouts.
Speaker 2: I feel it everywhere, but I feel good.
Speaker 1: This year, I've been preparing healthy lunches for myself to
Speaker 1: bring into work, and I've been saving heaps of money
Speaker 1: from doing so.
Speaker 2: I just came back from a run where I ran
Speaker 2: a full one kilometer without stopping for the first time ever,
Speaker 2: so I feel pretty stoked. Just wanted to share it.
Speaker 1: I'm really leaving today's episode on a high note because
Speaker 1: of all of you. Of course, if you got any wins,
Speaker 1: any questions, don't hesitate to send them in. There's a
Speaker 1: link in the show notes. I'll be back next week.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.