Speaker 1: Life Uncut podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout
Speaker 1: Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We
Speaker 1: pay our respect to their elders past and present and
Speaker 1: extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander
Speaker 1: peoples today.
Speaker 2: This episode is recorded on Gadigal Land of the Aurora Nation.
Speaker 2: Hi guys, and welcome back to a very freaking special
Speaker 2: episode of Life Uncut.
Speaker 3: I'm Laura, I'm Brittany.
Speaker 2: We did say that last week was the last episode,
Speaker 2: but we told you we'd have some special little morsels
Speaker 2: lined up for you, and well this is one of them.
Speaker 3: This is officially we're not putting out anything else.
Speaker 1: I know we always say we're not doing anything else
Speaker 1: than something else kind, but maybe we will.
Speaker 4: No, we're not holiday.
Speaker 1: This is officially the last episode of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: We did want to end it on a bit of
Speaker 1: a high and a little bit of a walk down
Speaker 1: memory lane to some of our favorite moments, guests and.
Speaker 4: Episodes of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: Do you know what I had to listen to the
Speaker 2: one of these that we did in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: and we started off by saying twenty twenty one was
Speaker 2: a dumpster fire of a year.
Speaker 3: Do you remember? That's because we were stuck in COVID.
Speaker 3: It was a dumpster fire.
Speaker 2: It was a bit of a fucking shit show. But
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two was a mighty good year.
Speaker 4: It was such a wonderful year.
Speaker 3: And I look, we did live shot for a bit
Speaker 3: of Lannina whatever it's.
Speaker 4: Called lan Nina La Nina.
Speaker 3: That thing stuck around for a bit too long, didn't it.
Speaker 1: You know, everything has its ups and downs. But when
Speaker 1: I look back, I just think we just had such
Speaker 1: a wonderful year together, you and I, with the audience,
Speaker 1: with you guys, the listeners, We did our live show.
Speaker 1: Who would have thought we'd still be sitting in your
Speaker 1: bedroom recording this, and.
Speaker 4: You think we'd get a studio on office by now.
Speaker 3: So we think it's never changed in the bedroom.
Speaker 5: You know why.
Speaker 4: It's because we're creatures of comfort.
Speaker 3: Change is scary.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well, okay, this is how much we are
Speaker 2: creatures of comfort. We have to every time we record,
Speaker 2: we sit at the same sides of the desk, we
Speaker 2: sit in the dark.
Speaker 3: Everything's the same.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna say it now because I'm gonna hold
Speaker 1: ourselves accountable for it now. I think we're gonna get
Speaker 1: maybe a studio next show or somewhere to record.
Speaker 3: Nah, this is good.
Speaker 2: I could be in my underwork and naturally my own space,
Speaker 2: which is your space. But you know what my highlight
Speaker 2: of this year, there's been a lot. We're gonna hand
Speaker 2: this episode over to produce Akisha soon and she's going
Speaker 2: to walk you through what are some of our favorite episodes.
Speaker 2: But one of the things that I feel really really
Speaker 2: freaking proud of, and something that so many of you
Speaker 2: still tag us in of like daily, is we Love
Speaker 2: Love the Book. I just honestly can't believe. I went
Speaker 2: into came up the other day in the midst of
Speaker 2: boxing day sales, and.
Speaker 3: There it was.
Speaker 2: I saw our little book right there on the bookshelf.
Speaker 2: Wasn't on sale, unfortunately, but it was there. And I
Speaker 2: still can't believe that, after all the work and all
Speaker 2: the energy that went into that, that.
Speaker 3: This little podcast has its own book out there.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So looking back for me, I mean, I love so
Speaker 1: many episodes, but my two highlights, okay, I have three highlights.
Speaker 1: One was the live show amazing. It was just amazing.
Speaker 1: You guys were just incredible. The energy was incredible, Laura
Speaker 1: and I love sharing that part with you too. The
Speaker 1: book again exactly the same thing for the reasons we
Speaker 1: just said, it's something that we feel really proud of
Speaker 1: and we just love. And three, which isn't podcasts related,
Speaker 1: but it's you know, it's in that realm, but it's
Speaker 1: your wedding to Mandy j Obviously my sister's wedding too,
Speaker 1: but seeing you and many j Ti than not. And
Speaker 1: you know, you guys are the Life un Cut family too.
Speaker 1: Mad Aj is a part of this.
Speaker 3: Life on Cut. Well, I didn't realize we were doing
Speaker 3: like life highlights.
Speaker 2: I'm like the book. Yeah, of course my wedding was
Speaker 2: also a life highlight. I'll throw that one out there
Speaker 2: as well. In terms of podcast episodes, I mean, this
Speaker 2: year has been truly amazing in terms of who we've
Speaker 2: gotten to speak to. And it's not just been the
Speaker 2: celebrity esque interviews that we've done. For me, the ones
Speaker 2: that stand out the most are the interviews of people
Speaker 2: who are very ordinary people who have extraordinary stories. What
Speaker 2: was your favorite interview of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: Well, it's funny you say that because one of the
Speaker 1: ones I wanted to start with, and it's so hard
Speaker 1: to pick any Every single interview we do, we walk
Speaker 1: away and we're like, that was the best one I've
Speaker 1: ever done.
Speaker 4: That was amazing.
Speaker 1: Like I mean, not all of them, well most of them,
Speaker 1: well for me, most of them blow me away for
Speaker 1: different reasons. But the first one that jumped out at
Speaker 1: me that I just was in awe of and hooked
Speaker 1: on was Jess Buchanan, who was kidnapped in Somalia when
Speaker 1: she was working there as a humanitarian worker. She was
Speaker 1: kidnapped for three months, and her story and the way
Speaker 1: she tells the story, her resolve, I really was on
Speaker 1: the edge of my seat.
Speaker 2: Well, my favorite one is going back to February, and
Speaker 2: it's one that has stuck with me. A conversation that
Speaker 2: I love so much. Not did I just love the conversation,
Speaker 2: but I also loved that Eldi brought her baby into
Speaker 2: the studio with us. Hey pull Eliti Pullen, and I
Speaker 2: got to hold her little baby whilst we did the interview.
Speaker 2: Now it is from February. It's called Grief is Love
Speaker 2: with Nowhere to Go uncut with Eliti Pullen, A lot
Speaker 2: of you may know Eldi's story. She was the girlfriend
Speaker 2: of Chumpy Chumpy Pullen who passed away, and Elidi has
Speaker 2: an incredible story around her own motherhood journey, how they
Speaker 2: went through sperm retrieval to get sperm from after he'd
Speaker 2: passed away, and how she has brought her little baby
Speaker 2: into the world without her partner by her side. She
Speaker 2: speaks about being a widow, but she also speaks about
Speaker 2: motherhood in a way that I don't think I've heard
Speaker 2: anybody else speak about it, and it's a story that
Speaker 2: truly just stuck with me so much. We are going
Speaker 2: to hand this episode over to produce Akisha in a second,
Speaker 2: but we wanted to say the biggest thank you to
Speaker 2: every single one of you who have joined us for
Speaker 2: the last year, who are like well and truly on
Speaker 2: the life Uncut ride. We have some incredible things planned
Speaker 2: for you next year. There are more live shows, there
Speaker 2: are some other very fun, little secret squirrel things that
Speaker 2: are in the works.
Speaker 3: At the moment, we're really looking.
Speaker 4: Forward to it.
Speaker 1: We're really really looking forward to going away having a
Speaker 1: little break and twenty twenty three is going to be
Speaker 1: absolutely wild and I'm really looking.
Speaker 3: Forward to it. Well, that's it from us.
Speaker 2: Keisha is going to take you for a little walk
Speaker 2: down memory lane. Also, Keich, thanks for being just such
Speaker 2: a rockstar part of the Life Uncut team.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is so much work that goes on behind
Speaker 1: the scenes in Life Uncut that Keisha producer. Keisha is
Speaker 1: so so deep in that. Sometimes she's up to her neck.
Speaker 2: Sometimes she's like, get me out, I don't want to
Speaker 2: be here anymore, but here she is, and we love
Speaker 2: her for it.
Speaker 1: And Maddie Jay, there's my sister Sherry. We have a
Speaker 1: wonderful girl, Taylor that works for us as well. There
Speaker 1: is a very small but it's a very mighty team
Speaker 1: that works for Life un Cut and we're such a
Speaker 1: cute little family. And Keisha, thank you for everything that
Speaker 1: you have done in this past year.
Speaker 7: Thanks guys, I can't wait to go through last year.
Speaker 7: We called it the rear in your View because one
Speaker 7: time when we were saying year in review.
Speaker 4: We couldn't get it out.
Speaker 7: I can't remember who fucked it up, but one of
Speaker 7: us fucked it up and said rear in your.
Speaker 3: It was Britt. It was just the episode. Do you
Speaker 3: know what?
Speaker 4: Maybe that should be what we call every Rearing review.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it feels fitting.
Speaker 2: This is the twenty twenty three Rearing Review and that's
Speaker 2: it from us.
Speaker 3: Guys.
Speaker 4: Hello, Hello, how are you going? If you had a
Speaker 4: wonderful Christmas. I'm very excited for us to go through the.
Speaker 3: Rearing Review or year in review for.
Speaker 4: Twenty twenty two together.
Speaker 7: These are some of the best moments of the year,
Speaker 7: or some of the standout moments you think, And I'm very.
Speaker 4: Grateful for all of you that wrote in with your
Speaker 4: favorite moment.
Speaker 7: It made it a lot easier for me to package
Speaker 7: these up, for me to decide, I think that was
Speaker 7: like the hard point was actually deciding.
Speaker 4: Which ten we wanted to put into this.
Speaker 7: But this entire episode is just some of our favorite
Speaker 7: moments over the course of the year, and I'm going
Speaker 7: to be walking.
Speaker 4: You through them and kind of giving you a little.
Speaker 7: Bit of a behind the scenes to some of them,
Speaker 7: some stuff that happened like off Mike or maybe what
Speaker 7: led to the interviews.
Speaker 4: And for each of.
Speaker 7: The episodes, if you like the little snippet that you hear,
Speaker 7: but maybe you missed the whole episode, I'm going to
Speaker 7: put a link to that episode in our show notes,
Speaker 7: so you can find that there. Kicking it off for
Speaker 7: this year is none other than Rebel Wilson. Now, I
Speaker 7: think for some of us our career paths they take
Speaker 7: a few different twists and turns, but maybe not as
Speaker 7: big of a twist or a turn as Rebel Wilson's.
Speaker 7: One of my favorite moments from this chat was finding
Speaker 7: out what disease not a typho. What disease led Rebel
Speaker 7: Wilson to becoming an actress.
Speaker 4: And here's that chat. So I always thought I would
Speaker 4: go into Laura politics.
Speaker 8: I got into like the best law school after I
Speaker 8: got my HC results and was like yep, and then
Speaker 8: I was selected. I was a youth ambassador for Australia,
Speaker 8: which was a program that Rodari was running at the time.
Speaker 8: They sent one boy and one girl to different countries
Speaker 8: and I got sent to South Africa and had like
Speaker 8: a life changing experience going to Southern Africa for a
Speaker 8: year and not knowing anybody, and it was crazy. Then
Speaker 8: I got the malaria there, which was really bad. You
Speaker 8: got malaria, had a vision that I was an actress.
Speaker 1: Hang on, you were speeding through this story.
Speaker 3: I know, well, there's home.
Speaker 1: So you're in Africa yeah for a year.
Speaker 4: Yes, you get malaria.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was terrible. I got a really bad strain,
Speaker 8: so I was hospitalized. I caught it in rural Mozambique,
Speaker 8: but it takes about two weeks to develop in your system.
Speaker 8: And then I was very, very sick. Got hospitalized with
Speaker 8: another girl that was on the trip as well, and then.
Speaker 3: It was bad.
Speaker 9: It was like this, it's hard to describe. It's not
Speaker 9: like a cold or flu.
Speaker 8: It's like you out of your body kind of thing
Speaker 8: and you're like hallucinating and everything. And then I was like,
Speaker 8: I had this vision that I won an Academy award,
Speaker 8: that I was an actress, and then I was really
Speaker 8: good and I came out of hospital saying, guys, I'm gonna,
Speaker 8: I think, think I've got to leave Africa, like immediately
Speaker 8: go back to Australia. I got an audition for the
Speaker 8: Drama School. I'm gonna be like the next Dame Judy
Speaker 8: Dench or something. So you're like rebeling, no, like you're
Speaker 8: not an actress.
Speaker 9: Like beause I definitely didn't.
Speaker 8: I wasn't glamorous like I was, you know, an academic
Speaker 8: girl like I wasn't glamois. I didn't look like Nicole
Speaker 8: Kidman or Cate Blanchette or something.
Speaker 2: So your catalyst for getting into acting, your catalyst that
Speaker 2: was the driving force for you to go cool, I'm
Speaker 2: going to take this and pivot my career seriously.
Speaker 3: Was malaria?
Speaker 8: Yeah wow, Because sometimes they say if you get really sick,
Speaker 8: if you have a life changing event like that, it
Speaker 8: can really change the course of your life. And I
Speaker 8: used to love Oprah well.
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously I still love Opra.
Speaker 4: I shouldn't. I used to all the time.
Speaker 8: And I used to watch her every day in Africa
Speaker 8: because it was really hard. There was a lot going
Speaker 8: on in South Africa at the time and post apartheid
Speaker 8: and a lot of violence and everything, and there's a
Speaker 8: lot going on, and so I would watch Oprah every day,
Speaker 8: love it. And she'd say, oh the UNI like sometimes
Speaker 8: it gives you a whisper and sometimes it's like a
Speaker 8: full blown rick wall falling on you with the message.
Speaker 8: And I was like, this is a message, like this
Speaker 8: is like this is what I should do with my life.
Speaker 8: So even though I was still in law school, I
Speaker 8: went back and I auditioned for drama. Like no one
Speaker 8: would take me at the drama schools.
Speaker 4: Who'd you audition for nighter?
Speaker 3: Yeah maybe that.
Speaker 8: Firstly, only just night because I thought, well, better the child,
Speaker 8: but yeah, just go to the best one. And because
Speaker 8: my law school was across the road, I thought, oh
Speaker 8: maybe I'll do both.
Speaker 4: I am such an overachiever.
Speaker 8: Then yeah, they didn't accept me, so I just did.
Speaker 4: I did law and arts.
Speaker 8: So I did theater and film subjects at my university UNSW.
Speaker 4: And I think we all know that things ended up
Speaker 4: pretty well.
Speaker 7: Rebel in the acting world, she's gonen to do magnificent things.
Speaker 7: Up next in A Year in Review is Australia's funny man,
Speaker 7: someone that I think we are all very very proud
Speaker 7: to call one of our own, and that is Hamish Blake.
Speaker 7: But really hit home for me with Hamish was his
Speaker 7: perspective on hustle culture and what gave meaning to his life.
Speaker 7: I mean, arguably he's Australia's fun biggest person. He's Australia's
Speaker 7: entertaining person. His podcasts always at number one in Australia.
Speaker 7: He host TV shows, It rate really well. He even
Speaker 7: won the Gold Logi this year, and so I think
Speaker 7: a lot of us were kind of like, oh, you
Speaker 7: know what's next for you, Like what's the next thing
Speaker 7: that you want to conquer?
Speaker 4: And here's what he had to say about that.
Speaker 10: But even before when you were like, you know, why
Speaker 10: would you go? You were you could earn lots of
Speaker 10: money on radio?
Speaker 9: Could I don't know?
Speaker 10: My answer to that now is a forty year old
Speaker 10: person with if I was like, I'm not gonna bely
Speaker 10: going to do TV anymore, with people like but why not,
Speaker 10: like then you won't be famous or you won't make money.
Speaker 10: My answer that legitimately, I know this is a privileged
Speaker 10: position to be in, having sort of like done it
Speaker 10: for a long time. My answer that was like, yeah,
Speaker 10: that's great, I will let's I look forward to seeing
Speaker 10: how that goes. Those aren't the reasons that.
Speaker 4: I do anything.
Speaker 10: Yeah, they are kind of like their flow on effects
Speaker 10: of doing this thing that I enjoy doing for now
Speaker 10: personally for me, So twenty twenty two, you know, like
Speaker 10: my workload is actually not that intense. Like I got
Speaker 10: podcasting with Ando, we.
Speaker 3: Got forty episodes of You pisodes a year.
Speaker 10: Grueling, then the Government Mandata break. If you're familiar with
Speaker 10: the show.
Speaker 3: Twelve weeks I'm terrible.
Speaker 10: Then you know, kind of legs at the end of
Speaker 10: the year. But my as I sort of said before,
Speaker 10: my goal is to be unbusy because the kids are little.
Speaker 10: And again, I know how lucky I am to be
Speaker 10: in this position, but I'm like, if I'm going to
Speaker 10: use what we've worked for for anything, I will use
Speaker 10: it to buy time. And I love saying no. I
Speaker 10: spend my whole time saying no to other shows or
Speaker 10: ideas because I want to be at home. I want
Speaker 10: to be doing more living. I want to be doing
Speaker 10: more enjoying life stuff, especially post you know, after two
Speaker 10: years lockdown again, total luxury. But that's my this is
Speaker 10: how I want to spend the time I do. I'm
Speaker 10: not interested in leveraging as hard as we can. I'm
Speaker 10: just I'm not really interested in the next level. I'm
Speaker 10: not trying to rapidly like ascend.
Speaker 3: Which I think is like such.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's it's such a great thing to hear
Speaker 2: in terms of like you would think that someone who's
Speaker 2: just come off the back of winning the goal. LOGI
Speaker 2: is like, what can I like, what's next? What's the
Speaker 2: biggest piece?
Speaker 10: How can I wriggle out of pretty much everything that gets.
Speaker 2: Asked of me being in that position and winning the
Speaker 2: goal LOGI I think a lot of people's expectations would
Speaker 2: be like, well, what's next, and having the agency and
Speaker 2: the ability to be like it doesn't actually have to
Speaker 2: be a next. Yeah, I guess is that in the
Speaker 2: same way.
Speaker 10: I guess it comes into meaning and like I really
Speaker 10: enjoy what I do and I love that it makes
Speaker 10: people laugh and that people enjoy the shows, and I
Speaker 10: do take that seriously. But to just do stuff to
Speaker 10: be famous or to be on TV, it doesn't mean anything,
Speaker 10: Like it doesn't mean anything to me. I don't care
Speaker 10: about it at all. But what does mean something is
Speaker 10: like walking to school or with your kids by yourself,
Speaker 10: not as fine from down the roads back again, I
Speaker 10: forgot the kids. But that's what means something to me,
Speaker 10: Like being able to go on family holidays, Like that
Speaker 10: means something to me. Again, I know not everyone's in
Speaker 10: that position, but for me, that's that is one hundred
Speaker 10: percent of the filter I'm putting it through, Like does
Speaker 10: this have meaning? Working TV is? And is it a
Speaker 10: really enjoyable way to have a job, But it does
Speaker 10: not mean everything to me at all, because just other things.
Speaker 7: Do now to take you behind the scenes a little
Speaker 7: bit of this particular episode. We ran into him at
Speaker 7: a coffee shop around the corner, and I'll never forget
Speaker 7: We had such a nice chat about expectations and he
Speaker 7: gave us some really good advice on.
Speaker 4: How to view things like expectations.
Speaker 7: Of the medial world and living up to what people
Speaker 7: want from you, and that that was a really special
Speaker 7: moment for me. Actually, we were then interrupted by someone
Speaker 7: who ran past and asked him for a dollar, which
Speaker 7: is a joke that you'll get if you are a
Speaker 7: ham Shanani fan. Up next in our Year in Review
Speaker 7: is a very special episode. This is actually the one
Speaker 7: that Britt referred to in the intro as being one
Speaker 7: of her standout moments from the year, and this had
Speaker 7: me glued to the speaker, and of course talking about
Speaker 7: Jessica Buchanan. Her story of resilience and pushing through trauma
Speaker 7: is one that I think it's quite hard to actually
Speaker 7: believe unless you hear it straight from her mouth. She
Speaker 7: was kidnapped b Somali Lampards, where she spent ninety one
Speaker 7: days fighting for her life in the desert. While the
Speaker 7: kidnapp has tried to negotiate her ransom with the American government.
Speaker 7: Jess was eventually rescued by the same team that killed
Speaker 7: Asama bin Laden. And here's just telling the story of
Speaker 7: how they initially were taken.
Speaker 11: About fifteen minutes into the raid, somebody comes up along
Speaker 11: the right side of us, another vehicle and cuts us
Speaker 11: off so that we can't proceed, and splashes mud up
Speaker 11: all over the windows in the windshield, and I'm just like,
Speaker 11: you know, I'm used to like crazy driving and stuff
Speaker 11: in this part of the world, but I'm like, God,
Speaker 11: what a jerk drives like that? Come on, like, let's
Speaker 11: get moving. And then I hear the butt, the crack
Speaker 11: of the butt of an NK forty seven on the
Speaker 11: car hood, and I start hearing all of this angry
Speaker 11: screaming men screaming in Somali and some other language I
Speaker 11: don't understand. And then my door is pulled open. Abdu
Speaker 11: Rizak is dragged out. This van dressed in a police
Speaker 11: uniform gets in and he has an n K forty seven.
Speaker 11: He puts it to my head and you start screaming
Speaker 11: at the driver to drive, and we just take off
Speaker 11: like you know, baths out of hell, you know. We're
Speaker 11: up on two wheels, We're down. We're up, you know,
Speaker 11: on these these really rugged, rudimentary roads. And then we're
Speaker 11: heading south, which does not make me feel good because
Speaker 11: south like the further south and smaller you get the
Speaker 11: closer you get to al Shabab Islamic extremists. I don't
Speaker 11: know who these guys are. I don't know what they want.
Speaker 11: I don't know where they're taking us. I'm thinking at
Speaker 11: this point, maybe they're just carjacking us, right, like maybe here,
Speaker 11: like take my wallet, take my passwork, here's all my rings,
Speaker 11: like take everything, and just drop us out on the
Speaker 11: side of the road and we'll walk back to town.
Speaker 1: So you're still feeling optimistic at this point, you're still
Speaker 1: feeling like, Okay, I'm just going to be robbed in.
Speaker 4: It'll be over soon.
Speaker 11: I mean, I'm hoping. I don't I would not say
Speaker 11: I'm feeling optimistic. I'm like trying really hard not to
Speaker 11: have a panic attack, because really all I can think
Speaker 11: is like, whatever this is, it is even if they
Speaker 11: do just drop us off and we walk back to town.
Speaker 4: Like everything has changed from this moment on.
Speaker 11: And then the other thought that keeps going through my
Speaker 11: mind is just like this is bad.
Speaker 9: This is bad. This is so bad.
Speaker 4: This is so bad.
Speaker 11: It was like in my memory.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 11: I think it's just because everything was so like traumatic that,
Speaker 11: you know that like weird like circus music, you know,
Speaker 11: like a scene from a movie where like everything's going
Speaker 11: weird and wacky and like all everything's spinning. Like that's
Speaker 11: what it felt like, right Like he's sitting back there,
Speaker 11: it's like going through all my stuff, like throwing it
Speaker 11: behind him, my passport, my lovely wallet from Ethiopia, like
Speaker 11: all this stuff, and I'm just like watching my whole
Speaker 11: life be like emptied out in front of me as
Speaker 11: I'm being driven through the desert, and I'm thinking, like,
Speaker 11: what the fuck is happening? And Paul finally turns around
Speaker 11: and to like check on me, and I whisper to
Speaker 11: him what is happening, and he looks so sorry for me,
Speaker 11: like gives me, oh my god, you haven't figured it
Speaker 11: out yet, and then he just says, we're being kidnapped.
Speaker 7: As I said, all of the links to these episodes,
Speaker 7: if you happen to have missed them, are going to
Speaker 7: be in the show notes. And this is one that
Speaker 7: I can't recommend more going back and having listened to you,
Speaker 7: it is just it's one of the most incredible stories
Speaker 7: I have ever heard in my life. Next up in
Speaker 7: our Year in Review was the event of the year,
Speaker 7: at least for us. It was something that was five
Speaker 7: years in the making a reality TV show later, And
Speaker 7: of course I'm talking about Laura and Maddie Jay's wedding
Speaker 7: it now. It was hard to pick a moment from
Speaker 7: this because there were just so many. Just the wedding
Speaker 7: was the best.
Speaker 4: It was just so much fun.
Speaker 7: But this particular moment, I remember looking over it while
Speaker 7: we were in the ceremony, and you know when you're
Speaker 7: at a wedding and like you're trying not to cry
Speaker 7: because you know that it's going to make you make
Speaker 7: up just run all over your face.
Speaker 4: It was kind of as though everyone.
Speaker 7: In the crowd just let that go, and everyone I
Speaker 7: looked at was tears, everyone, particularly Matt. Matt definitely didn't
Speaker 7: have dry eyes during this moment.
Speaker 4: It was a very special part of Laura's vows And
Speaker 4: this is what happened.
Speaker 2: I wrote this, It's a story, and I wrote it
Speaker 2: into my vows. As I wrote this, I was like
Speaker 2: is this a really weird thing to put into your vows?
Speaker 2: And then I was saying the story out loud, I
Speaker 2: said it I think. I read it out to my sister,
Speaker 2: and I read out to fe other friends, and they
Speaker 2: were all a bit like, where are you going with this?
Speaker 2: But then it ended up being like the one thing
Speaker 2: that everyone was in tears about because I think the
Speaker 2: message of it is important. It's still important to me,
Speaker 2: but okay, I'll read a bit of it out. This
Speaker 2: is my wedding vowls, which is weird?
Speaker 3: Okay, do we have some music weekend overlay?
Speaker 2: Okay, this is what I read to Matt, I wrote
Speaker 2: the other week I was telling you about a podcast
Speaker 2: I had listened to where Hugh van Kyleenberg was in
Speaker 2: his kitchen this one morning, stressed out over the kids
Speaker 2: and work when his nanny came in and asked her
Speaker 2: how her morning was. She said she'd been for a
Speaker 2: run and had breakfast with a girlfriend, all before eight
Speaker 2: am on a Tuesday. After the nanny walked out, he
Speaker 2: then said to his wife that he felt genuinely jealous
Speaker 2: and a little a bit resentful of people who can
Speaker 2: just get up in the morning and have no responsibilities.
Speaker 2: Hugh's wife then showed him this article that she had
Speaker 2: just been reading, and it was about how life is
Speaker 2: made up of seasons and how whenever we are in
Speaker 2: a season of life, we often spend much of it
Speaker 2: wishing that we were in a different season.
Speaker 3: It'll make me cry again.
Speaker 2: I told you this story, and you asked me if
Speaker 2: I felt like that, to which I replied sometimes. You paused,
Speaker 2: and then you said, I don't relate to that because
Speaker 2: I am in the season of my dreams. I have
Speaker 2: thought about that a lot since then, especially when it
Speaker 2: came to writing these vows, and I want you to
Speaker 2: know that I am in the season of my dreams
Speaker 2: with you, and I promise to never take that for credit.
Speaker 2: As I know life doesn't get any better than this.
Speaker 3: I will cry.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm intruding on a moment.
Speaker 4: I have right here.
Speaker 3: But honestly, for me, let's leave because I can't endit
Speaker 3: that out. But if you want to leave the room
Speaker 3: for about five or maybe six minutes, I heard it too.
Speaker 7: Next up in our year Interview was a very special
Speaker 7: episode that we recorded with Elerdie Pullen, and this is
Speaker 7: the one that Laura spoke about in the intro as
Speaker 7: probably being like first standout moment for her. This year,
Speaker 7: Elerdie lost her partner Alex Chumpy Pullen in an accident
Speaker 7: while Chumpy was spearfishing near their home in the Gold Coast.
Speaker 7: The family has decided to go down the path of
Speaker 7: something called posthumous sperm retrieval, which is what led Elitie
Speaker 7: to having their beautiful baby girl, Minnie. This recording was
Speaker 7: so special because Eldie was in Sydney and we said, oh,
Speaker 7: you know.
Speaker 4: Just bring Minni along if you want to, And so.
Speaker 7: She brought Minnie along and she was there for the
Speaker 7: whole recording. She's just such a beautiful baby. And in
Speaker 7: this clip, Elle speaks about how you try to keep
Speaker 7: your life moving forward while you're experiencing grief.
Speaker 2: We as a society were so adverse to talking about
Speaker 2: grief because it makes people uncomfortable, you know, like seeing
Speaker 2: somebody else's pain and dealing with somebody else's grief. Often
Speaker 2: we will avoid asking big questions that result in them
Speaker 2: being upset because we kind of don't want to.
Speaker 3: We don't want to upset someone.
Speaker 2: But the hurt is still there regardless of whether you
Speaker 2: talk about it or not how do you start. I
Speaker 2: don't even think you start, but like, where do you
Speaker 2: start to work through that grief?
Speaker 6: I think, And everyone obviously handles these situations completely different.
Speaker 9: I've got widow friends that I've now met.
Speaker 6: That have also lost the loves of their life, and
Speaker 6: I've met them on social media, and so we've like
Speaker 6: banded together and we sit up late at night in
Speaker 6: chat and that's how that's literally how I got through
Speaker 6: at the start. But I remember the first I mean,
Speaker 6: I don't know if it was like the first night,
Speaker 6: but I just remember in general thinking how can I
Speaker 6: go back to our house and sleep in our bed
Speaker 6: and go back to like our life and our things like?
Speaker 6: But then also how can I not? Would I want
Speaker 6: to be anywhere else? Do I want to pack up
Speaker 6: everything and move?
Speaker 12: You know?
Speaker 9: There was like all that going through my head.
Speaker 6: But the safest place for me felt like my room
Speaker 6: in our house was like my little sanctuary, and that's
Speaker 6: where I felt safest to grieve and to process everything.
Speaker 6: And I didn't want to even leave my house. I
Speaker 6: didn't want to do anything but be in our space. Weirdly,
Speaker 6: I don't know if it was because I felt like
Speaker 6: he was there or I just felt like this protection
Speaker 6: in the house in such a vulnerable time where like
Speaker 6: I was just completely broken into pieces, and I was
Speaker 6: so glad I felt grounded in our house because I
Speaker 6: couldn't imagine and this would happen to a lot of
Speaker 6: widows or you know, people going through massive loss they
Speaker 6: need to up and move. And maybe also because COVID
Speaker 6: was around, I couldn't just fuck off overseas and like restart,
Speaker 6: and I had had our dog, and do you know what,
Speaker 6: my life essentially, apart from Chump being completely gone, I
Speaker 6: just kept doing what we would do every day. I
Speaker 6: just kept going to the beach in the morning with
Speaker 6: my dog and walking her and just keeping some sort
Speaker 6: of routine in my life. I had all my friends
Speaker 6: and family around me constantly. I was barely alone, you
Speaker 6: know what, you just keep going like I just didn't
Speaker 6: have a choice. And people are always like, you're so.
Speaker 9: Strong, You're so amazing, Like I'm not amazing. I'm not strong.
Speaker 9: I just actually don't have a choice.
Speaker 6: And I think I think I'm such a rational, realistic person.
Speaker 6: And I was just like I either die here today
Speaker 6: with Chump, like let my or not maybe not physically die,
Speaker 6: but like let myself just die or I just pick
Speaker 6: myself up.
Speaker 9: And I just keep going. Well that's my only option, right.
Speaker 1: Like you said, everyone experiences it differently and no one
Speaker 1: is ever gonna be able to understand what it's like.
Speaker 1: But were there ever moments where you felt guilty, like
Speaker 1: in terms of you were having fun with your friends,
Speaker 1: or you were laughing, or maybe you weren't thinking about
Speaker 1: him for ten minutes while you're doing something. Did you
Speaker 1: have moments of guilt like I shouldn't feel this reprieve
Speaker 1: and relief when he's not here.
Speaker 9: It's such a catch twenty two.
Speaker 6: So I'd find myself like out with friends, laughing my
Speaker 6: head off, having a great time just months after.
Speaker 9: But don't get me wrong, people would say like.
Speaker 6: Hey, if you don't mind me asking like you know,
Speaker 6: or bring up Chump or uk something, and I'd be like, hey,
Speaker 6: you're not reminding me, Like it's always here, it's right here.
Speaker 6: So yeah, I would be having fun and I would
Speaker 6: kind of feel guilty. But then when i'd go home
Speaker 6: and crawl into a hole or say, whether I'm alone
Speaker 6: or with someone, and I'd like how or like just
Speaker 6: be super to have a really depressing day, or like
Speaker 6: a big wave of grief would come and I'd just
Speaker 6: be debilitated.
Speaker 9: I'd feel also so guilty about that because I don't
Speaker 9: want him.
Speaker 6: I just I don't want him looking down on me,
Speaker 6: like just kind of dying, you know, or yeah, so
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 9: I'd feel there's just literally no right or wrong. I
Speaker 9: felt so guilty about anything I did.
Speaker 4: I think that episode really struck a chord for a
Speaker 4: lot of people.
Speaker 7: Especially ones that have experienced grief in their own lives.
Speaker 7: Ellena has a book and a podcast of her own
Speaker 7: if you would like to hear a little bit more
Speaker 7: from her. Something very massive that happened in twenty twenty
Speaker 7: two was.
Speaker 4: That Laura and Britt wrote a book.
Speaker 7: Now, that book was actually written over the space of
Speaker 7: a year and a half, and as I think a
Speaker 7: lot of us would relate to, a lot happened.
Speaker 4: In that year and a half.
Speaker 7: It was when we all in COVID lockdowns across the world.
Speaker 7: Lots and lots changed. And one thing that particularly changed
Speaker 7: from the start of writing that book to the end
Speaker 7: of writing that book for brit was her being in
Speaker 7: and out of love. Now I know that the side
Speaker 7: of writ that we see on the podcast a lot
Speaker 7: of the time is jovial. She's the first to take fears,
Speaker 7: like the first of crack a joke, and I love
Speaker 7: that about her.
Speaker 4: But this particular.
Speaker 7: Moment on the podcast was a real standout for me
Speaker 7: because this was a bit of an insight into the very,
Speaker 7: very vulnerable and real side.
Speaker 4: Of writ And it's all about when you're dating and
Speaker 4: you just wonder when it's going to happen for you.
Speaker 4: And Britt also spoke about struggling with the feeling of
Speaker 4: worthiness of.
Speaker 3: Love when you started writing it.
Speaker 2: You wrote it when you were in love with Jordan,
Speaker 2: and then it kind of transitioned through your breakup.
Speaker 3: And I know that we have touched on that, but what.
Speaker 2: Was it like going back and having to rewrite some
Speaker 2: of those chapters so that the tense made sense, you know?
Speaker 2: And I think like being able to go from speaking
Speaker 2: about your relationship in real time in terms of like
Speaker 2: how you felt, to having to go back and rewrite
Speaker 2: chapters retrospectively. It's almost like a cruel trauma to have
Speaker 2: to do that.
Speaker 1: It was horrific, it was, and and you know, I'll
Speaker 1: try it to cry again because we've already cried once.
Speaker 4: In this episode.
Speaker 3: You're allowed to cry, It's okay.
Speaker 1: No, but it was, well, I haven't even I haven't
Speaker 1: thought about it for a little while because I really
Speaker 1: buried it again, like once I press go and sent
Speaker 1: it to the publishers, I was like, I'm just.
Speaker 4: Not going to think about that until I have to, but.
Speaker 3: Until I read it and then Laura makes me talk
Speaker 3: about it on a podcast.
Speaker 4: It was horrific. It was. It was the things like.
Speaker 1: Because it was probably a year between when I wrote
Speaker 1: about you know, the love chapters and the Penguin chapters
Speaker 1: of finding your person and all those really beautiful things
Speaker 1: that we've done, going back and rewriting it, so I
Speaker 1: had to go and change things like there were sentences
Speaker 1: was like, and you know, this is how I knew
Speaker 1: he was the one, and I feel so lucky I
Speaker 1: found the person in my life that to changing that too.
Speaker 4: I thought I had found the person in my life.
Speaker 4: I all past tense.
Speaker 1: I had to go and rewrite the whole book, and
Speaker 1: there are some parts that I left as is.
Speaker 4: There were some parts I took.
Speaker 1: Out because I'm like, that can't be in there anymore
Speaker 1: because it's too beautiful. It's like it's too like it
Speaker 1: just didn't fit the narrative anymore.
Speaker 4: So there were some parts I had to remove.
Speaker 1: It was definitely reliving what was my happiest time in
Speaker 1: my life, and it was a really like cruel reminder
Speaker 1: that you don't have that anymore and you're back to,
Speaker 1: you know, writing chapters about solitude and being on your
Speaker 1: own and writing. When I was talking about fertility and
Speaker 1: freezing my eggs and things like that, I froze those
Speaker 1: and I did that with Jordan, like we did that.
Speaker 1: You know, he was there holding my hand the whole time,
Speaker 1: and we had talked about that life together. So going
Speaker 1: back and revisiting that and realizing that, well, that might
Speaker 1: not end up like that anymore. So I might not
Speaker 1: ever have a child anymore because I am getting older,
Speaker 1: i am single, I'm alone again. So it was a
Speaker 1: bit of a sick joke in a sense.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you about that side of things,
Speaker 2: because I know that when you wrote fertility, and not
Speaker 2: even when you wrote it, when we did the whole
Speaker 2: episode around fertility, you were in a very different phase,
Speaker 2: like you had a plan.
Speaker 3: For what you wanted to do. You were like you know, at.
Speaker 2: Least even if you didn't have a plan, you had
Speaker 2: a backup, which is the whole point of freezing your eggs.
Speaker 3: How do you feel about that now?
Speaker 1: I said this to you just a couple of days ago. Actually,
Speaker 1: this like off the record, Laura and I were actually
Speaker 1: just having a real conversation. Sometimes it happened, sometimes it happens,
Speaker 1: and it was about I've had this real moment in
Speaker 1: my life in the last couple of weeks or the
Speaker 1: last like maybe a couple of months, where it's a
Speaker 1: bit of a change. So I've always said things over
Speaker 1: the past few years since I've known Laura. I always
Speaker 1: said things like, maybe it's not for me, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe love's not for me, Maybe kids aren't for me.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's not what's.
Speaker 4: Meant for me.
Speaker 1: I've realized now I don't think I ever actually believed that.
Speaker 1: I think I said those comments in the depths of despair.
Speaker 1: I was feeling really down. It was easier just to
Speaker 1: voice this negativity and have a moment where I was like,
Speaker 1: whoa is me?
Speaker 4: But I don't think I actually ever believed it.
Speaker 1: I think I was saying these as throwaway comments, like
Speaker 1: oh well, Brittany, get over it's not for you. But
Speaker 1: deep down I still thought it would happen. And now
Speaker 1: I've transitioned to I genuinely am thinking that. Now I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: maybe this actually really isn't for you, And it's made
Speaker 1: me realize that I don't think I believed it earlier.
Speaker 4: So it's I feel like I've.
Speaker 1: Gone into this a new phase I haven't been in
Speaker 1: yet where I am thirty five. I'm already thirty five,
Speaker 1: very single. I am ninety nine percent sure I don't
Speaker 1: want kids alone, Like I know that there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with it. I know there are people that go down
Speaker 1: that track. Maybe I'll change my mind in a few
Speaker 1: years if I hit forty and I'm still alone, maybe
Speaker 1: I will. But now I don't think that's a journey
Speaker 1: I want to go down alone. So then you have
Speaker 1: this shock realization where you're like, fuck, it actually might
Speaker 1: not happen for you.
Speaker 2: I think with that, the only thing I want to
Speaker 2: say is when you say maybe, because you kind of
Speaker 2: bundled them together, and I want you to be aware
Speaker 2: of this. You said, maybe love's not for me, maybe
Speaker 2: kids are not for me.
Speaker 4: Definitely bundled them together.
Speaker 2: They're two different things, and that's really important because like
Speaker 2: love is for you, and that's you projecting like how
Speaker 2: you feel about yourself. But they don't live together. You
Speaker 2: can tear the coffy to me, but they don't. Like,
Speaker 2: if you decide that you don't want to have kids,
Speaker 2: that's okay, but that's decisions on you. You can and
Speaker 2: you will find someone that you love and want to
Speaker 2: be in love with. Those things do not sit together,
Speaker 2: and they just want you to be really conscious when
Speaker 2: you're talking about it, because like you are so worthy
Speaker 2: of being loved, and then you get to decide whether
Speaker 2: you want to have kids.
Speaker 3: I know, I know it.
Speaker 1: I love you. I guess that's why it was such
Speaker 1: a hard chapter, because I know there are a lot
Speaker 1: of women out there that are in my position where
Speaker 1: you get to a point where you're like, I just
Speaker 1: want to give up.
Speaker 4: I don't want to do it anymore.
Speaker 1: Something's wrong with me, something's inherently wrong with me.
Speaker 4: Because I can't find it. Everyone else can find it.
Speaker 4: And I know that that's a really relatable thing, and
Speaker 4: I guess.
Speaker 1: That's why I talk about it, because people feel these
Speaker 1: things and they feel like they're the only one that
Speaker 1: feels them, but they're not. Everyone goes through these times
Speaker 1: of their life and you are right, I no, I
Speaker 1: know for me it'll happen one day. But you get
Speaker 1: to a point where you're like, when is that day?
Speaker 1: What do I have to do? Differently, what do I
Speaker 1: you know? And it's exhausting for this to have space
Speaker 1: in the back.
Speaker 4: Of your mind totally, and a.
Speaker 1: Lot of women it holds a lot of space, especially
Speaker 1: as the years get older. You don't want to think
Speaker 1: about it. Everyone says, don't think about it, don't think
Speaker 1: about kids, don't think I'm dating, don't think.
Speaker 4: About finding the one. Just let it happen.
Speaker 3: You can't.
Speaker 1: You can't just let it happen when you're a woman
Speaker 1: that is aging with a biological clock. And that is
Speaker 1: the thing I want to drive home. It's the fact
Speaker 1: that we there are limitations and it sucks, fucking sucks.
Speaker 1: But there are things you can do about it, like
Speaker 1: freezing your eggs. But there are limitations and it does
Speaker 1: take space in your mind, whether you want to accept.
Speaker 7: That or not.
Speaker 3: Just so you know.
Speaker 7: The book We Love Love available at all Good and
Speaker 7: Bad bookstores. You can also grab it online our website
Speaker 7: there's a link in our show notes if you want
Speaker 7: to grab yourself for coffee. There is also the audiobook
Speaker 7: if you would like something to listen to over Christmas
Speaker 7: while a lot of podcasts are.
Speaker 4: On break coming up next in our year and review. Ah,
Speaker 4: this was such a ve.
Speaker 13: We got to speak to the world leading expert on
Speaker 13: relationships Esther Parrell, and I can still remember when the
Speaker 13: text came through to our group chat about this interview,
Speaker 13: like we were all just losing our fucking minds.
Speaker 4: Ester Parell was the creme de la creme.
Speaker 7: She was just the person that all of us wanted
Speaker 7: so badly to get onto the podcast, So this is
Speaker 7: a super exciting moment for us. She has such nuanced
Speaker 7: perspectives on human psychology surrounding relationships and sex. I particularly
Speaker 7: loved what she spoke about with desire and eroticism, And.
Speaker 4: To be honest, I could have pulled any part of
Speaker 4: this interview as a highlight.
Speaker 7: I actually really struggled to pick a certain couple of
Speaker 7: minutes to do for this highlight reel, but just yeah,
Speaker 7: everything she said made me.
Speaker 4: Kind of have an AHA moment, I suppose. So I
Speaker 4: hope you enjoyed this part est parole.
Speaker 1: If one partner is very sexual and wanting it a
Speaker 1: lot and the other partner is not coming to the table,
Speaker 1: is this relationship doomed?
Speaker 5: But I don't think that I have nearly enough information
Speaker 5: when it's presented like this. My first question when one
Speaker 5: person is so much more interesting than the other is
Speaker 5: to ask the other person do you enjoy it? First
Speaker 5: of all, do you enjoy it? Then I'll know it
Speaker 5: why you don't want to do it as much as
Speaker 5: the other person. Then the next question is how does
Speaker 5: your partner reach out to you? I mean, what is
Speaker 5: four play like? And if it's a five minutes before
Speaker 5: the real thing, then I can also understand that for
Speaker 5: a lot of people that's not enough. Actually, four play
Speaker 5: should start at the end of the previous orgasm. You know,
Speaker 5: Or a person says, you know, does my partner doesn't
Speaker 5: talk to me the whole day and then suddenly they
Speaker 5: turn around and they want to just kind of get
Speaker 5: into it. No, that doesn't work for me, I'm totally disconnected.
Speaker 5: Or you know, one person saying I have high distosterone,
Speaker 5: I have high desire, I get aroused. That doesn't say
Speaker 5: nothing to the dynamic in a relationship that just says
Speaker 5: you enjoy having says well, you like it, or you
Speaker 5: need it or you want it. That's all I know. Now,
Speaker 5: tell me what goes on between the two of you.
Speaker 5: If I'm a camera on the wall, what am I seeing?
Speaker 5: Am I seeing? One person? Just suddenly, you know, say here,
Speaker 5: I am what's up with you? While you're never interested?
Speaker 5: Or do I have a person who actually knows how
Speaker 5: to elicit interest, you know, by reaching out. The one
Speaker 5: thing that is very important, though, is that it's okay
Speaker 5: to be responsive. Not everybody is an initiator. Some people
Speaker 5: don't necessarily want to do something until someone else says
Speaker 5: how about and then gradually they bring them into the experience.
Speaker 5: But if you think of it as I always want
Speaker 5: and I have to talk you into it, and I
Speaker 5: have to you know, I did the dishes, and now
Speaker 5: hopefully I'll get some.
Speaker 4: That sounds by their relationship.
Speaker 2: But okay, I appreciate so much that this is the
Speaker 2: perspective that you come to this conversation with. And I
Speaker 2: think it's so important for a lot of people who
Speaker 2: have a mismatch in the sex drive in their relationship
Speaker 2: because they can definitely become that one person feels like
Speaker 2: the villain, like they're withholding sex. But I know that
Speaker 2: from my personal experience, Like I became a mum in
Speaker 2: the last two years. I've had two children in a
Speaker 2: very short period of time, and so my whole identity
Speaker 2: has changed. What I need in order to get in
Speaker 2: the mood to have sex is different to when we
Speaker 2: first started dating.
Speaker 5: Very much, very much soon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that sometimes, you know, it's very
Speaker 2: easy to fall into a pattern of arguing about sex.
Speaker 2: If at like you said, eleven o'clock at night, that's
Speaker 2: when they're like, well, I'm ready now, and what do
Speaker 2: you mean you're going to reject me? And it's like, well,
Speaker 2: guess what, I'm fucking tired. It's eleven o'clock at night
Speaker 2: and I've just been up all night the night before.
Speaker 2: It's almost like you're setting yourself up. Well, that person's
Speaker 2: setting you up to say no to then be angry.
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of people still, if they're
Speaker 2: the one projecting or not coming to the table with sex,
Speaker 2: it can feel like they're the problem.
Speaker 5: So let me change this whole dynamic Fiel number one.
Speaker 5: I'm going to give you three little snapshots. First of
Speaker 5: all you have your little one. You tickle them, you
Speaker 5: nibble them, you lick them, you look at them in
Speaker 5: their eyes. They look at you in their eyes, their
Speaker 5: adoring gaze, and it feels almost the same kind of
Speaker 5: pleasure as you had in the first days when you
Speaker 5: met your partner. It has that kind of charge. And
Speaker 5: basically at the end of the day, when you say
Speaker 5: I have nothing left to give, I also want you
Speaker 5: to know that sometimes it's because there is nothing more
Speaker 5: you need. You already are satiated. All of that is erotic.
Speaker 5: It's not sexual, but it's erotic. It's very pleasurable in
Speaker 5: that way. And that is for you to then know
Speaker 5: that sometimes that makes the partner feel very lonely, very separate,
Speaker 5: and that they want to know that you can still
Speaker 5: have some of those feelings with them as well. That's
Speaker 5: the first thing. The second thing is that when your
Speaker 5: partner approaches you and you want to say I'm tired,
Speaker 5: I think it's very important to also say I really
Speaker 5: like that you still approach me. It feels really good.
Speaker 5: I hope at some point soon I find my way
Speaker 5: back to us. I know that at this point I've
Speaker 5: been really absorbed. If you've been nursing, You've been stimulated plenty,
Speaker 5: very differently, but it creates a certain kind of saturation.
Speaker 5: And what's important is not to tell the other person
Speaker 5: now you want how come you think of this and
Speaker 5: I'm so tired and I have nothing in me. Is
Speaker 5: to actually say, I so need you. It's so important
Speaker 5: for me that you continue to want me, even at
Speaker 5: a time when I don't know that I want as much.
Speaker 5: But it doesn't mean I don't want you. It just
Speaker 5: means that I'm in the beginning of those few years
Speaker 5: of it's basically till the second one is about two
Speaker 5: or three. And then if every once on occasion you
Speaker 5: say I'm not in the mood, but can I please,
Speaker 5: you be giving because it makes the other person feel like,
Speaker 5: you know, the experience of being generous hasn't disappeared. The
Speaker 5: fact that you have less desire is temporary. It's a transition,
Speaker 5: and it's exactly the states that you are in, and
Speaker 5: these things are what preserves the couple during those few
Speaker 5: more fragile years.
Speaker 7: Now, interviewing our next guest was one of my personal
Speaker 7: highlights for the year. It was actually while Britt was
Speaker 7: away filming the challenge, so I got to sit in
Speaker 7: on this episode and to give you.
Speaker 4: Guys a little bit of a behind the scenes look
Speaker 4: at this one.
Speaker 7: I actually have a background in medical science, so I
Speaker 7: worked as a researcher before I got into media and.
Speaker 4: Eventually joined the Life on Cut team.
Speaker 7: And Johann Hari was someone that I met initially through
Speaker 7: the Internet about five years ago, and that was because
Speaker 7: we had a research topic in common. For this interview,
Speaker 7: it was the first time that we ever got to
Speaker 7: meet in person, So it was like a real special
Speaker 7: moment for me personally, and I just loved that we
Speaker 7: got to share his wisdom and his knowledge because he
Speaker 7: is just He's just on a whole other level of
Speaker 7: the way that he explains these things that he goes
Speaker 7: into such in depth research about. So in this episode
Speaker 7: we spoke about our Lost Connections, which just so happens
Speaker 7: to be one of the titles of these books, as
Speaker 7: well Hindy's latest research, why we Can't pay Attention Now.
Speaker 7: This particular snippet I thought was really relevant to all
Speaker 7: of us because a lot of us have social media
Speaker 7: and we probably aren't aware of how the algorithms work
Speaker 7: in all of our apps.
Speaker 4: I certainly know that I'm not.
Speaker 7: We spoke at length about how we feel a sense
Speaker 7: of validation from engagement, but also how algorithms targeted a
Speaker 7: particular type of engagement.
Speaker 4: And this is what he had to say.
Speaker 14: The design of the machinery is driven by just one idea,
Speaker 14: which is, how do we get people to scroll longer
Speaker 14: and longer and longer. Right, So the algorithms, all the
Speaker 14: computers are set up to figure out, okay, track everything
Speaker 14: and figure out what it is that keeps people scrolling right,
Speaker 14: and those algorithms, this wasn't anyone's fault. They didn't design
Speaker 14: it that way, but they just stumbled across an underlying
Speaker 14: truth about human psychology. Right. The kind of fancy term
Speaker 14: for it is negativity bias. But it's very simple. Everyone
Speaker 14: will have been experienced it. You will stare longer at
Speaker 14: something that makes you angry or upset then you will
Speaker 14: at something that makes you feel good. If you've ever
Speaker 14: seen a car crash, you know exactly what I mean. Right,
Speaker 14: you stared longer at the mangled car wreck than you
Speaker 14: did at the pretty flowers.
Speaker 3: We said this about.
Speaker 2: You know, you could receive one hundred good comments on something,
Speaker 2: or even five nice comments on something, they will not
Speaker 2: even reach you. But if you receive one thing that
Speaker 2: hurts you, that makes you feel invalidated or question your
Speaker 2: sense of self, that will rock you. Whereas the compliments,
Speaker 2: the niceties, everything else, it's as though they don't even
Speaker 2: exist because we can be so negatively good.
Speaker 14: That's a really powerful example of negativity bias, and it's
Speaker 14: very deep in human nature. Problem is when you combine
Speaker 14: two things, a business model designed to figure out what
Speaker 14: keeps you scrolling plus negativity bias. Right, So, what these
Speaker 14: algorithms discovered is best way to explain It's. Picture two
Speaker 14: teenage girls who go to the same party and go
Speaker 14: home on the same bus, and one of them does
Speaker 14: a little video for TikTok status update whatever, and they say,
Speaker 14: what a nice party, I had a great time. Everyone
Speaker 14: look good. Well, you know we dance this or that whatever, Right,
Speaker 14: And the second girl does a video or an update
Speaker 14: where she goes, Karen was a right skank at that party.
Speaker 14: Her boyfriend's an asshole. Doesn't angry? Imagine that girl does
Speaker 14: an angry denunciatory rant, right, So the algorithm is scanning
Speaker 14: to look at the kind of words you use, and
Speaker 14: it will put that nice video. That nice data is
Speaker 14: update into a few people's feeds, right, But the second
Speaker 14: update it will put into far more people's feeds because
Speaker 14: it knows if you see something angry and what do
Speaker 14: you mean, Karen's a scank, You're a fucking scan. You
Speaker 14: can see how that triggers an argument that causes engagement.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: I fucking love this because we see this and we've
Speaker 2: had this conversation internally. In regards to influencers, I think
Speaker 2: a lot of influencers engage outrage culture. They get really angry,
Speaker 2: and often it's around things that you should be angry about,
Speaker 2: but they will verbalize how angry they are as a
Speaker 2: way of growing their following because it is a really
Speaker 2: fucking great tactic. People love to see someone angry and
Speaker 2: outraged about an injustice, and we are so much more
Speaker 2: willing to follow that, to get on board with that.
Speaker 3: It is a crusade.
Speaker 2: It is a plight rather than following someone who you
Speaker 2: know is just happy. Not that we need to be
Speaker 2: happy all the time or positive, That's not what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: But it is a tool, and I don't think people
Speaker 2: are aware that it's actually a tool that some people
Speaker 2: and influencers have clopped into as well.
Speaker 14: Those influencers are consciously or unconsciously learning the rules of
Speaker 14: the system they're operating in rightly. So just like the
Speaker 14: teenage girls on the bus, an influence is going to
Speaker 14: clock if I do all these nice posts. If I say, oh, look,
Speaker 14: I read this nice book and wasn't it lovely? You know,
Speaker 14: you're not going to get much traction if you go
Speaker 14: have you seen what this bitch did? Right, It's going
Speaker 14: to get a lot of traction. So I feel it
Speaker 14: happening to myself. I don't look at social media now,
Speaker 14: I've got an assistant. I give my tweets to do.
Speaker 14: It sounds very grand because I feel myself becoming cruder
Speaker 14: and nastier when I'm on it, because you see, oh,
Speaker 14: I said this nice thing, and it looked like hardly
Speaker 14: anyone noticed, and I said this nasty thing, and look
Speaker 14: now people are talking about me. There's some degree to
Speaker 14: which this is just human psychology. But we're operating in
Speaker 14: a machine. It's super charging the worst of our psychology, right,
Speaker 14: and that doesn't have to happen. We can't change the
Speaker 14: negativity bias. That's just a natural part of human psychology.
Speaker 14: But we can stop the machines fucking jabbing a knitting
Speaker 14: needle that are at our negativity bias all the time. Right,
Speaker 14: So if we change the business model and the way
Speaker 14: we've talked about, you get out of that trap.
Speaker 15: Right.
Speaker 14: In a subscription model then want to make you angry something,
Speaker 14: They're like, oh, you want to feel good, Let's start
Speaker 14: giving her feedback where she feels good, not feedback that
Speaker 14: makes it angry, upset, and hostile. Right.
Speaker 9: See.
Speaker 7: I also think that there's like a whole other elements
Speaker 7: to this, And Johanna, I know that this is something
Speaker 7: that you are extremely well researched in, and that is
Speaker 7: our brains and the way that they work in a
Speaker 7: similar way to how drug addiction works with social media.
Speaker 7: You know, we now have so much research that shows
Speaker 7: us that when we post something on social media that
Speaker 7: gets likes and gets comments and gets any type of interaction,
Speaker 7: we get a release of dopamine in our brains. And
Speaker 7: that's the same thing that goes up when you take
Speaker 7: just about any illegal drug. And so not only we
Speaker 7: have these massive tech companies that have designed these algorithms
Speaker 7: to keep us scrolling and keep us engaged, we also
Speaker 7: have our own brains that are being programmed and kind
Speaker 7: of rewired that every time we post something that might
Speaker 7: create you know, outrage culture as we're talking about, we
Speaker 7: get more interaction and so we get more of that
Speaker 7: dopamine being released into our own brains. So it's kind
Speaker 7: of like a storm in a tea cup of all
Speaker 7: of these different factors with how our brains are working
Speaker 7: in terms of social media.
Speaker 2: It's interesting though, the irony in that which I find
Speaker 2: is that all of that comes down to this want
Speaker 2: for connectedness, that this want for like being part of
Speaker 2: a community, to feel validated, to be liked by your friends.
Speaker 3: You know. A lot of that is what it's geared around.
Speaker 2: It's still feeling like you're part of a community, but
Speaker 2: we almost are lacking connection because of it at the
Speaker 2: same time.
Speaker 7: Coming up next in a Year in Review, This particular
Speaker 7: episode was actually a bit of a brain baby of Lauras.
Speaker 7: She wanted to do this episode for years and years
Speaker 7: and years, I think, probably from the inception of the podcast,
Speaker 7: and it was all because it kind of struck a
Speaker 7: chord with her. Like her relationship with alcohol during her twenties,
Speaker 7: she has some pretty complex feelings about it.
Speaker 4: So for this whole episode, we were actually.
Speaker 7: Joined by Eleanor Susier and Danny Carr, and it was
Speaker 7: all about the choice to go sober from alcohol.
Speaker 4: So for this particular highlight segment, we are chatting with
Speaker 4: Eleanor Solzier, and I think it.
Speaker 7: Was interesting for me as someone who like I wouldn't
Speaker 7: personally identify myself as.
Speaker 4: Having a problem with alcohol, So it was really interesting
Speaker 4: to hear.
Speaker 7: From the perspectives of people that experience things like blackout
Speaker 7: or you know, their behavior changes when they get drunk,
Speaker 7: or maybe their character.
Speaker 4: Changes and they do things that they're embarrassed about.
Speaker 7: And I guess one thing that I had thought people
Speaker 7: who tend to go sober it's because they had done
Speaker 7: something so catastrophically bad or like the life had just
Speaker 7: hit rock bottom and that's why they needed to turn
Speaker 7: things around. And this particular episode really taught me that
Speaker 7: that wasn't the case.
Speaker 12: It never really sat right with me, like this is
Speaker 12: quite a hectic example, but like I look, I never drank.
Speaker 12: I never wanted to be because I think there's this
Speaker 12: whole rhetoric and story around people that stopped drinking, and
Speaker 12: it's like, oh, my god, why, like what happened in
Speaker 12: your life that forced you, like as if I had
Speaker 12: to hit rock bottom for me to stop drinking, where
Speaker 12: it really wasn't that way. It was just that like
Speaker 12: I would go out and maybe once a month I
Speaker 12: would totally have like this four hour period that something happened,
Speaker 12: and sometimes I would do something that was really crazy
Speaker 12: and I'd have no idea until someone kind of like
Speaker 12: jogged my memory and would be like, no, this happened,
Speaker 12: and I'd be.
Speaker 9: Like, but how like that's not me.
Speaker 12: Some of my friends make a joke about it, but
Speaker 12: I'm like, it's actually quite a scary thing. It's like
Speaker 12: an alter ego, and I have friends that would be like, yeah,
Speaker 12: my alter ego comes out and I'm like cool, Sometimes
Speaker 12: she's fun, but sometimes she's really destructive, and it's actually
Speaker 12: quite scary. So like the times that I realized how
Speaker 12: detrimental it was was when someone was holding me accountable.
Speaker 12: So when I was single, I would go out have
Speaker 12: a big night. In my mind, it was a fun
Speaker 12: night and I didn't have anyone the next morning to
Speaker 12: say to me, look, you did or said this thing
Speaker 12: that was really unacceptable. But when I was being held accountable.
Speaker 12: When I was in relationships, I would say probably every
Speaker 12: single boyfriend of mine was like, you got a bit
Speaker 12: weird last night, or you said something really horrible, or
Speaker 12: you were really flirty with someone else, or you just
Speaker 12: did something that was so out of character, and the
Speaker 12: regret and the shame I would feel from it because
Speaker 12: I'd be like, but I.
Speaker 9: Wasn't, like I wasn't there.
Speaker 12: Like I physically was it, Like I'm I can't believe
Speaker 12: that that's me, And obviously the scar is there, like
Speaker 12: I've heard that person, and they're going to start thinking like, well,
Speaker 12: how often are you going to use this excuse of
Speaker 12: you blacked out so you said something horrible, or you
Speaker 12: blacked out you're flirting with someone else, And also how
Speaker 12: far can that go? Like I've slept with people and
Speaker 12: had absolutely no idea that I slept with them, and
Speaker 12: they would come back to me the next day and
Speaker 12: be like you came over and you slept with me
Speaker 12: three times and you were totally lucid, And I'm like, what.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's a scary thought, isn't it.
Speaker 9: I gets terrifying.
Speaker 12: So I started getting to the point of especial my
Speaker 12: relationships and especially with Tom when I was like, I
Speaker 12: think this is the love of my life. And I
Speaker 12: was sort of doing these things very rarely but still
Speaker 12: doing them. But I was like, imagine if I went
Speaker 12: out and slept with someone else, black out drunk whilst
Speaker 12: I'm dating this man that I love so much, and
Speaker 12: I know it's within my capabilities because who knows, like
Speaker 12: I could do that.
Speaker 4: Last up for our year in review. I know it's
Speaker 4: getting to the end of it.
Speaker 7: But one of our favorite things about the podcast for sure,
Speaker 7: like we say it as a joke every week, but
Speaker 7: we always say it's time for our favorite segment accidentally Unfiltered.
Speaker 7: But it's because it is so funny, and there's just
Speaker 7: something so relatable about other people doing dumb shit that
Speaker 7: embarrasses themselves.
Speaker 4: It definitely makes me feel better about myself.
Speaker 7: So we decided to do an entire episode a standout
Speaker 7: bonus episode of your dating disaster stories. This particular one
Speaker 7: is a bit of a compilation of the worst or
Speaker 7: the best.
Speaker 4: I don't know, dating disaster stories.
Speaker 2: I met guy on Plenty of Fish. We were making
Speaker 2: out in the back of his car and it was
Speaker 2: getting really steamy. Now next minute he gets up and
Speaker 2: says that he's really hungry and he needs food asap,
Speaker 2: like literally in the middle of making out in the
Speaker 2: back of his car.
Speaker 3: He's like, I need food, hard work. Yeah, he's hungry,
Speaker 3: all right.
Speaker 2: So we're about twenty minutes away from anywhere, and he
Speaker 2: insists that he follows me in his car. So not
Speaker 2: only does the makeout stop, she has to get out
Speaker 2: of his car get back into her car, and he says,
Speaker 2: I'm going to follow you to this place where I'm
Speaker 2: gonna pick some food up.
Speaker 3: So she's driving and he is behind her.
Speaker 2: Okay, halfway there, I notice he turns down a side street.
Speaker 3: I pull over to call him. He had blocked me,
Speaker 3: and I never ever heard for a few god.
Speaker 1: So he was making out with her, got a hunger pain?
Speaker 4: Or did he never know he did?
Speaker 3: It was a made up homeway?
Speaker 2: What an elaborate story to try and go Why would
Speaker 2: have been just say I'm not feeling this, I'm not
Speaker 2: vibing this.
Speaker 1: What happened in that exact moment. If a few minutes
Speaker 1: ago you were into the makeoud.
Speaker 15: What has she done that has turned you off so
Speaker 15: much that you were like, I need to abort this
Speaker 15: mission and it's like a it's like an FBI chase,
Speaker 15: Like he's like, I'm gonna turn down the street and
Speaker 15: lose her and block her.
Speaker 2: Also, they're completely uncomfortable because if you've gotten if you're
Speaker 2: in someone's car, in the back of their car and
Speaker 2: it is getting hot and steamy, but you want it
Speaker 2: to stop and you want the person to get out
Speaker 2: of your car, it's kind of an awkward situation to
Speaker 2: be like, hey, I'm not vibing this, can you please go?
Speaker 3: I fucking love that. I'm a bit hungry. Let's I'm
Speaker 3: in a smoke bomb.
Speaker 1: It's like on Bride's Maids, you know, when they're in
Speaker 1: bed with she's in bed with a dickhead and he's like,
Speaker 1: so I really want you to leave.
Speaker 4: I don't want to see magann asshole. It's like exactly
Speaker 4: that man. She's like, okay, I'll just go, and he's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I just love that.
Speaker 2: Note like he obviously when he was driving, he'd obviously
Speaker 2: it was so premeditated that he was blocking her on
Speaker 2: things whilst he was following her in the car.
Speaker 4: He was doing in an illegal maneuver.
Speaker 3: He was on his phone, and then he was like,
Speaker 3: now I can make my grand get away. What would
Speaker 3: you do? What's your excuse?
Speaker 9: You making out in the back seat?
Speaker 1: Would you just be like, I'm done? Or would you
Speaker 1: say I'm so hungry? Would you say what darrhea?
Speaker 3: I'd just be like I'd just be like, my bowels loose?
Speaker 3: I think I just know I'm going to say, excuse
Speaker 3: me my bowels.
Speaker 4: Magine how wrong? Yeah, imagine how it turned off.
Speaker 3: You'd be If there's one way to lose someone is
Speaker 3: to tell them you've.
Speaker 2: Got loose bow I think I would just have to
Speaker 2: say I'm not vibing it. I don't think I'm just
Speaker 2: not that creative. That's like a level of creativity that
Speaker 2: I don't have in my being. Okay, next one, I
Speaker 2: was going on a first date.
Speaker 1: We decided to go to a cafe for a coffee
Speaker 1: and brunch. How much can go wrong? As my date
Speaker 1: is arriving at the table, I can see him walking up.
Speaker 1: He pulls out his Nokia phone. Now I get very
Speaker 1: awkward at the best of times, but especially on first dates.
Speaker 3: So he whips out this.
Speaker 1: Brick of a Nokia, And honestly, who has a Nokia
Speaker 1: these days?
Speaker 3: Who has a nock? Here trying to make lighthearted joke.
Speaker 1: I say, man, that has got to be the oldest.
Speaker 4: Phone I have seen this decade.
Speaker 1: I really dug into this about why he'd be using
Speaker 1: such an old brick. I'm trying to break that friendly wall,
Speaker 1: you know. I even went so far as to say
Speaker 1: that phone just took you from an eight to a six.
Speaker 4: Ha ha ha. I think I'm really funny.
Speaker 1: Turns out people don't use knockies anymore.
Speaker 4: It was his insulin pump.
Speaker 3: Oh clah.
Speaker 2: But I'm gonna make him feel self conscious about something
Speaker 2: that he can't control.
Speaker 4: He saving Grace.
Speaker 1: They've been together two years, okay, right, so I think
Speaker 1: that this is I think this is a cute time.
Speaker 1: But the worst part, like, did you really have to
Speaker 1: throw in there that the phone took you from an
Speaker 1: eight to a six? Like that was the real because
Speaker 1: the pumps on you, you're that is part of you.
Speaker 1: But also, like everyone likes a little bit of not everyone,
Speaker 1: but a lot of people enjoy a bit of riffing.
Speaker 2: Bit of riffing early on in a relationship, not not like,
Speaker 2: you know, straight up insulting each other's a bit of
Speaker 2: a riff. She thought she was hilarious. She's like, I'm
Speaker 2: looking this down, I'm funny. I'm gonna make this really lighthearted,
Speaker 2: and then the poor guy but they've been down two.
Speaker 4: Years, so this is great.
Speaker 7: Well, that is it for your rearing, your view of
Speaker 7: twenty twenty two. I hope that you really enjoyed that episode.
Speaker 7: I really enjoyed making that episode. Actually, just getting to
Speaker 7: go back and listen through those particular highlight moments was Yeah,
Speaker 7: it was cool.
Speaker 4: It made me have a lot of laughs and made
Speaker 4: me think about things, and.
Speaker 7: It just made me remember how lucky we are to
Speaker 7: have such great guests on the podcast.
Speaker 4: Hope you all have a wonderful New Years.
Speaker 7: And we will be back in January. I'm not going
Speaker 7: to give you an exact date because Laura and Britt
Speaker 7: have this horrible habit of like saying we're not going
Speaker 7: to drop any episodes, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 7: I get a text message that like, oh, I'm going
Speaker 7: to do a bonus episode. But I'm fairly certain there
Speaker 7: won't be any episodes until the end of January.
Speaker 4: And I can tell you that the.
Speaker 7: Guests that are lined up for the start of next
Speaker 7: year are absolutely killer. I think You're really gonna enjoy
Speaker 7: a lot of them, so I'm really looking forward to that.
Speaker 4: I hope you are as well.
Speaker 7: And yeah, like I said, have a great New Year
Speaker 7: and we'll see you back in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: Oh I nearly forgot.
Speaker 7: Oh my god, how could I sign off on podcast
Speaker 7: episode laugh About without this? Tell you until your dad,
Speaker 7: you don't tell your friends, and share the love because
Speaker 7: we love love