October 28, 2025 • 43 mins
For Masterchef judge Melissa Leong, life has served far more than just delicious food.
And as she tells Osher, whether it's been the choices she's made or the things she's had to deal with, it's often taken a lot of guts to get through.
In this conversation, you'll hear:
- Why she chose to open up about the dark parts of her life in her new memoir
- The healthier new way Melissa is approaching relationships
- When 'blowing up your life' is the right call
- How taking a path to healing is a choice
- How she defeated self-doubt in becoming a judge of Masterchef
And much more.
Content Warning: this episode contains discussions of sexual assault.
For support, please contact 1800respect
Check out Melissa's memoir Guts
For tickets to Story Club and Osher's new book So What, Now What? head here
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:00):
I think that recovery is a choice. You know, there
have been some not nice things that have happened to
me in my life. And the way that I choose
to see it is that I want to live a
life that is meaningful and rich and contented. And in
order to do that, I need to set down these
bags that have been handed to me, some not of
(00:23):
my choice, but it is my choice to set them
down and walk away, and you will feel lighter and
better about things. But it is a choice to want
to seek contentment and to seek a life that you
want to live.
S2 (00:44):
G'day, thanks for listening to the show. This is better
than yesterday. Useful tools. Useful conversations to help make your
day to day better than yesterday. Every week since 2013.
My name is Joshua Ginsberg. I've got a question for you.
What does it mean to be courageous? We often think
as courage being about how we face the world. It
can also be how we face the difficult bits of
ourselves about how we can say, well, why not me?
(01:07):
Even when an opportunity is daunting, how we can grapple
with the things that have happened to us that we
would perhaps prefer to forget, and how we might recognise
that we're not on the best path forward and might
need to hit reset. For all these ideas and more,
I'm going to speak with someone who's very, very courageous today.
(01:31):
Her name is Melissa Leong. You may know Melissa Leong
as one of the judges of MasterChef Australia or Dessert Masters.
She's also a food writer, food critic and recently an author.
Her memoir, guts, is out right now. In this conversation,
we're going to talk about the value of sharing the
darkest parts of your story, both for yourself and for others.
What a path to healing can look like. The moments
(01:53):
where she has, in her own words, blown up her
entire life, why they had to happen and what followed
after that. The challenges that she faced accepting the job
of a judge on MasterChef and was she really, really
loves MMA and what she's learning from doing Brazilian jiu
jitsu other than just jiu jitsu? It's a fascinating conversation
(02:17):
and I really can't wait to play it for you.
I do have to pay some bills though, so here's
some ads. We're back with Mel in a moment. Melissa
Leung is our guest today. I do want to let
you know that this episode does contain a few discussions
(02:40):
that can be a bit intense. Perhaps we're speaking about
sexual assault pretty early in the chat. Please take care
of yourself if you need to. One 800 respect or
one 800 respect if you need. Look after yourselves. Enjoy
the conversation. This is Melissa Leong. Thank you for coming in.
S3 (02:57):
Thanks for having me.
S2 (02:58):
How do you feel today?
S1 (03:00):
I feel tired. I'm two thirds of the way through
my this all singing, all dancing, tap dancing. End of
the memoir cycle.
S2 (03:13):
The big tour.
S1 (03:14):
The big tour. The promo that you really don't think
about too much. Like 80,000 words. All of your stories,
you know. Well, you know some of your stories in
a book. You think that's going to be the chunk
of the effort and the emotion and all of the things,
but it's not. It's just the beginning of this whole. Thing. Yeah,
(03:36):
but she's out there now, so.
S3 (03:38):
She is a she.
S1 (03:39):
Yeah. Why not?
S2 (03:41):
Is that because it's the version of you that you're
putting out into the world.
S3 (03:44):
A little bit? Yeah, a little bit.
S1 (03:46):
I think that that's what we have to do is
that there's the version we put that we put out
in the world, and then there's the version of us
that's just, you know, Our ourselves, alone, in our rooms,
in our home, in our houses and with our friends
and all of that kind of stuff.
S3 (04:01):
So yeah.
S2 (04:02):
When it came time to write this. You have a
choice of like, here's some things that I'm going to
keep to myself. Here's some things that not anybody knows yet.
S3 (04:16):
Yeah.
S2 (04:16):
But once I say them, it's not going to be
able to be unsaid.
S3 (04:19):
Yeah.
S1 (04:19):
The old Pandora's box.
S3 (04:21):
Yeah. She's way.
S2 (04:23):
More than just an expensive charm.
S3 (04:24):
Bracelet.
S2 (04:25):
Um, we.
S3 (04:31):
This episode, what was it that you.
S2 (04:32):
Needed to like? Okay, if I'm going to write this book.
S3 (04:35):
Yeah.
S2 (04:36):
Even though this is a very difficult time in my life,
I'm going to have to put it in. Why did you.
Why did you want to put that stuff in the book?
S1 (04:42):
One of the things that I've talked about in the
book wrote itself there. There was a time where I
was confronted by these things bubbling up. And it was
as I was preparing to write the book, I attended
an event for Marie Claire, and there was a speaker, um, well,
(05:03):
two speakers and a coutts-trotter and Tanya Plibersek, her mother,
who spoke about, um, Anna's experience of, um, of sexual
violence and coercive control and other things, and I that
triggered something and that broke a dam wall for me.
And I was confronted by my own visceral set of
emotions over identifying with something that I had suppressed. And, and, um, just,
(05:28):
I pushed it down so deep, I tucked it way
back in the closet, and I pretended that it didn't happen. Um,
and that event gave me an invitation to investigate why
I was feeling this way now. And so when I
sat down to write, it wrote itself. I sat there
and it was almost an out-of-body experience that it just
(05:49):
it flowed out. And I had to ask myself, okay,
once you say this thing, people will own that in
their own way. You think about, you know, like, I
come from a PR background, I know that people will
pick up things in a certain way. And you're aware
of that. Um, but I had to sit down and think, okay,
(06:09):
beyond all of that, just take that away for a second.
Why is this coming up for me right now? And, um,
I needed to work through something that was obviously deeply
troubling for me and that I needed to heal with.
And I hadn't spoken to a therapist about it. I
hadn't spoken to anybody about it, but I needed to
do that work. And in doing that, and I think,
you know, one thing we have in common is we
(06:31):
talk about these vulnerable things that happen to us, you know,
our mental health, our our, our troubles. We do this
in aid of making people feel less alone in what
they're going through. Because what connects us all as humans,
you know, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. It's the
it's the trials and tribulations we go through. And by
(06:52):
being vulnerable, by laying yourself bare, you give other people
an opportunity to set down their burdens. Um, initiate, um,
conversations that might really need to be had, um, and
start a path of healing. And if that can help
one person.
S3 (07:09):
Yeah.
S1 (07:10):
And then I'm okay with sharing the things that have
happened to me, because sadly, they're not uncommon.
S3 (07:15):
Yeah.
S2 (07:16):
They have a trick of convincing us that we're the
only person it's happening to. And it's something that we
should probably hold some shame about or something. And that
perpetuates how bad it can be, whether there be something
that you're a victim of or even, you know, mental
period of mental unwellness, um, and that, that can make
it last possibly longer and be way more aggravating than
(07:38):
it needs to be.
S3 (07:39):
Yeah.
S2 (07:40):
But once we realize, well, for me, it's hard because
my ego has to understand that I'm not a special snowflake.
S3 (07:45):
It also happens to.
S2 (07:46):
Other people and I'm not alone. And oh, well, there's
a whole team of people.
S3 (07:49):
There's a whole book. What do you mean? There's some.
S2 (07:51):
Steps.
S3 (07:51):
I can take. Yeah. What the fuck you mean?
S1 (07:53):
Other people have trodden this path and have written about
it and have really deeply thought.
S3 (07:56):
About, have gone into.
S2 (07:57):
Research and development laboratories and developed pharmaceuticals.
S3 (08:00):
For exactly what's going on with market caps.
S2 (08:04):
In.
S3 (08:05):
The billions.
S1 (08:06):
But isn't ego funny?
S3 (08:09):
I battle it every fucking.
S2 (08:10):
Day and I.
S3 (08:10):
Hate it.
S1 (08:11):
And we and we all do. And I think sometimes, like,
sometimes being too self-aware is just horrible.
S3 (08:17):
Ah, yeah.
S1 (08:18):
I'm glad. I'm glad that I am self-aware, but I
think sometimes being too self-aware, then you start to really like,
you know, wig out about the edges of the thing
that you're trying to grapple with. And, um, yeah, yeah,
but ego makes us feel like this is our thing.
This is we're alone in our experience. And I think
when we can kind of break through that and, and
(08:41):
understand that, hey, we're not that we're not, you know,
we're not that special.
S2 (08:46):
No human. That Humans.
S1 (08:47):
Being human. And it's just my memoir, your memoir. It's
just our own configuration of the weird things that happen
to humans. It's like just it's just oyster shaped or
it's smell shaped and that's, you know.
S2 (09:00):
The moment that happened to you at the the event
that you went to and you went, oh, yeah. And
there's flood of stuff came back to you. Um, I
think it's important for people to understand that. You don't
know what you don't know. You've forgotten. Yeah. And it's
happened more than once in my life. Yeah.
S1 (09:18):
Brains are really clever at protecting us.
S2 (09:21):
Yeah. You mentioned you didn't see or speak to a
therapist at the time. Has that changed?
S1 (09:25):
Oh, absolutely. It's changed. I had a therapist the entire time.
I just because I had repressed this particular event in
my life, I had never spoken about it to anybody,
including her. And so when that happened, when that moment
in that room and the dam wall broke, then absolutely.
I spoke to her about it. And it, and I've
(09:46):
been doing a lot of work for people.
S2 (09:47):
Who may be in this situation and going to speak
to someone or talk to someone about it might be,
you know, way too much. What does the pathway to
what is the pathway through dealing with these kind of
thoughts and feelings look like?
S1 (10:02):
Um, it's a slow process and I'm sure it's very
different for everybody. But, you know, for me, it started
with having that hard conversation with my therapist and with
then eventually my friends and my family. Um, to say
I was raped. Um, and that was really hard. You know,
a lot of friends took it really difficultly because they said, how, um,
(10:26):
how could we not have known, you know, how could
we not have known? And I feel very bad that
we've known each other for so long. And I didn't
know this thing had happened to you. And I said,
it's not your fault to bear because I didn't say anything.
I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want
that to dominate, you know, or know, be a be
a feature of how you know me or, you know,
(10:48):
trauma bond with people. Like, that's really dangerous too. So, um,
it started with conversations and normalizing this conversation because, um,
it's really it's that's that's part of it. And I'm
trying to treat these chats like part of the therapy,
like let's let's talk about it until I feel okay
(11:10):
about it being out there because it's it's even if
I wanted to I couldn't take it back. Now I
have to say it. But also, I guess the overarching
reason why I'm having this discussion and I wrote it
into the book, is that when this happened to me,
discussions of consent were not being had in the way
that they are now, and I really want to drive
(11:30):
home the point that consent is not just a throwaway
line that we joke about. It's not a meme on TikTok.
It is crucial in the way that we navigate each
other and consent or a withdrawal of consent needs to
be understood. And it's not just, you know.
S2 (11:50):
Anything can happen at any.
S1 (11:51):
Time. Yeah. It's not just a, you know, feminism buzzword.
S2 (11:54):
It can happen at any time.
S1 (11:55):
And you can. And exactly. You have agency over whether
or not you choose to give or withdraw consent.
S2 (12:02):
Yeah.
S1 (12:02):
Yeah.
S2 (12:04):
What would you say to people about what recovery can
look like and what life can look like on the
other side of that?
S1 (12:11):
I think that recovery is a choice. I have very
like in a very meaningful way, decided, you know, there
have been some not nice things that have happened to
me in my life, not just this one thing, but other,
you know, other issues and other situations that have happened
to me in my life. And the way that I
choose to see it, is that I want to live
a life that is meaningful and rich and contented. And
(12:35):
in order to do that, I need to set down
these bags that have been Um, handed to me. Um,
not some of some not of my choice, but it
is my choice to set them down and walk away. Um,
and when you get to do the work and you
have consolidated how you feel about things, part of the
(12:57):
next phase of the healing is to set it down
and to continue on without it. And you will feel
lighter and better about things. But it is a choice
to want to seek contentment and to seek a life
that you want to live. I don't want to live
a life where I wear a chip on my shoulder,
and I'm angry about everything all of the time. Am
I angry about some of the things that have happened
(13:18):
to me? Fuck yeah. But there's a difference in being
able to recognize that I, I am or I was,
but I can separate myself from that. It's not fused
to me in a way that I can't take it
off and leave it and, and walk away. It needs
to be separate from us in recovery.
S2 (13:38):
They call it to drop the rock.
S1 (13:40):
Yeah. You observe all of the things that become your burden. Um.
And if you let it define you, then you you
are never going to be able to let go of
that rock. Yeah. But doing the work to heal is
about separating you from what happened to you and realizing
that you don't have to, you know?
S4 (14:02):
What does it look like when.
S2 (14:03):
You're navigating relationships again, or navigating intimacy? Like, what can
that look like?
S1 (14:09):
Just taking it a little slower? Yeah, taking it a
little slower and realizing that I think for me, because
of the way I grew up in a family where
I didn't essentially feel safe, like, I mean, there was
a lot of abuse going on. And so I didn't feel, um,
like my parents were not people I could go to
for comfort. So I know that I seek certain qualities
in people, um, or that I have trauma, bonded with people,
(14:32):
friends and, you know, not not just romantic relationships with
friends as well. And that that's not a healthy way
to to find because it's a false sense of depth. Um,
that can really lead you down the wrong path as well.
And then you start to, um, I've known people who
will find a way in to hearing your damage and then, um,
(14:53):
create or find something relevant in their life to make
you feel seen, and then you feel like, oh, you
get me? And so I see you and you see
me and we've both gone through this horrible thing. Therefore,
we are meant to be friends. We're meant to be
fused together in some way. Um, and it creates, I think,
(15:14):
an emotional sense of connection that really isn't there. Friendships don't.
And relationships don't necessarily form healthily in that petri dish
of sadness. They just don't. And so that is not
a good way. I used to think, okay, here's an example.
I used to think in dating that if you are
(15:35):
just you put everything on the table on the first date.
Like here's everything. Here's all the ugly, embarrassing shit. Take
it or leave it. I thought that was the healthy
way to do it, because then that person's dating me
for me. But that is so not the right thing
at all. Because then people get to pick and choose
the things that they want to identify with, or they
(15:56):
want to hook you in with. And, um, then they
know all your pressure points and your pain points to
manipulate you into whatever it is that fits their life.
S2 (16:10):
Oh, boy.
S1 (16:10):
And it's not healthy. And I've so I've learned not
to just be like, here's my everything. Yeah. I've learned
to try and find the happy things that connect you
with somebody new. Yeah. Rather than, you know. And you'll
get if the friendship is meant to be. The relationship
is meant to be. Then you'll get to that stuff eventually.
But you don't have to start with that stuff. It
(16:33):
doesn't have to be that raw and that ugly that early.
S2 (16:37):
It's very clear to hear that you have put a
lot of effort into this kind of stuff and thought
about it in a very deep way, by the way,
that you kind of qualify and and speak about the
work you've done. Yeah. Okay. And I hope people can
hear that it's worth it to put the effort in,
because the agency that was taken from you.
S1 (16:59):
Yeah.
S2 (17:00):
Is reclaimed by taking responsibility and working through it.
S1 (17:03):
100%.
S2 (17:04):
Now it's mine.
S1 (17:05):
Yeah. Reclaiming identity. Reclaiming your energy and your power. Yeah.
S2 (17:10):
Yeah.
S1 (17:11):
So important, so important. And you have agency over that?
I think that's the thing that people need to realize
is that you as an individual, if you want that
power back, you take it back. Mhm. Um it's hard.
Like it's not an easy thing to just be like
oh yeah. Like done.
S2 (17:25):
Yeah. But luckily Zack de la Rocha and his mates
from Rage Against the Machine wrote a great song that
can serve as a soundtrack to get you in there.
S1 (17:33):
I wish like I, I wanted to reference that song
in my book. And do you know how much it
would have cost? Like, my publisher were like the lyrics.
I just because that's that's a, it's a, it's a
mantra that's in my head all of the time. And um,
and they said, we know you love this lyric and
we've investigated it and it's real spenny. It's really expensive.
(17:56):
Do you really want to do that? And I and
they said we would, we would you.
S2 (18:00):
Just.
S1 (18:00):
Write a.
S2 (18:01):
Great band called Rage Against the Machine and they have
a song title I can't remember. It sounds like fake
the shower hack. Yeah. Fake the shower. I'm here to help.
I've tried. I've had to get around all a thousand
kinds of copyright shit on live telly just to get
a joke or something. But you got to do it.
S1 (18:18):
There's one that starts with, like, pluck food. I won't
do what you smell.
S2 (18:23):
Yeah. Pluck. Um. Tuck, tuck, pluck food.
S1 (18:30):
I like pluck, pluck food.
S2 (18:32):
Oh, it'll come to me. Yeah. Now, now, the question is,
in my subconscious, it'll.
S1 (18:35):
Revisit.
S2 (18:36):
That at an inappropriate time before the end of this conversation.
S1 (18:39):
Fantastic.
S2 (18:39):
Which will be great for me.
S1 (18:40):
It's like next week at, you know, 430 in the afternoon,
and I will have to text you about it.
S2 (18:46):
So I'm here.
S1 (18:46):
I'm okay. Great.
S2 (18:48):
Um, when it came to saying yes to tele, that
is a almighty, almighty gauntlet to pick up. Sure to
to carry forth with that.
S1 (19:00):
Yeah. I mean, the bar was set really high.
S2 (19:03):
Yeah. Those dudes.
S1 (19:04):
I heard lightning in a bottle many times and it's.
And credit where credit's due. Absolutely.
S2 (19:12):
It's a mighty format what Australia did with that format.
S1 (19:14):
Yeah.
S2 (19:15):
Turned it from like this really.
S1 (19:17):
Best format in the world.
S2 (19:18):
A little bit better than ready Steady Cook mid-morning cooking
show that came from overseas. It was it. You watch
original versions of it. It's like what? This is MasterChef. Yeah.
And then what?
S1 (19:28):
It evolved.
S2 (19:28):
Into. They turned it into.
S1 (19:29):
Yeah.
S2 (19:30):
Holy shit!
S1 (19:31):
Magical. Beloved.
S2 (19:32):
Unbelievable.
S1 (19:33):
Emotionally. Such an important thing for so many families. The
amount of people over the last few years that have, um,
come up and spoken to me and said, this is
the thing I do with my kid. Yes. And then
my kid doesn't want to do anything else with me.
But this is the thing we share together. And the
fact that I got to be a part of that
is beautiful.
S2 (19:51):
What was it? And I'm sure you've asked this question
many times, but the the. That's an exciting, exciting opportunity.
S1 (19:58):
Sure.
S2 (19:59):
Being a PR person, you're very you're very aware, like, hey,
I'm not Anglo. Uh, I'm a smart person. Um, I'm
gonna very be very lately, um, not Anglo and smart
on telly. Yeah. You know exactly what you're walking into.
S1 (20:17):
Absolutely.
S2 (20:18):
Did you ever think about what was coming?
S1 (20:20):
Oh, 100%. You know, and coming from a journalism background
as well, like, it's my job to be skeptical and
also observant. And for the last decade prior was extremely
aware of what happened to the former. You know, the
former line up in terms of their lives exploded into
a public space. Maybe they weren't expecting that. Um, and
(20:44):
that's that's a that's a huge transition of just doing
a job to like, people wanting to know very specific
details about you that, you know, if you're a private person,
you might not want to share. So I was aware
that if I said yes to that opportunity, that tremendous opportunity,
it would change my life forever. I wouldn't be able
to write in the same way, because I wouldn't have
(21:06):
that same level of anonymity and, and perhaps objectivity as well,
you know, because people want to know what you think
everything suddenly weirdly like, it becomes an op ed. Everything
becomes an op ed, a little bit more, um, I
knew I would everything would have to change. And that
was a big question. Could I do it? Would I,
(21:27):
would I Would I be able to live with the
things that they don't tell you about, that are going
to happen to you in your life?
S2 (21:34):
Um, did you call anyone? Did you talk to anyone
who was on air?
S1 (21:38):
No, I didn't call anyone. Um, I talked to the
people in my life about it, and I really thought
about it. And I had spent so much time in
my career in hospitality, promoting ostensibly white men, um, you know,
and some of them are my mates. Like, you guys
are okay, like, it's fine. But in terms of who
(22:00):
we see on screens and who else might, you know,
be great for the job. You know, I was really
respectful of the fact that I was there in that conversation.
And I sort of what cinched it for me is
I sat down and I said, well, if not me,
then who? I can do the job. So let's give
it a go and say yes to the thing that's
(22:21):
slightly scary and, um, and see what happens. And do
I regret it? No. But has it been smooth sailing
the entire time? Also? No. Yeah. Like, why would we
expect that to be the case? There has to be
a trade off somewhere. And the trade off has been privacy.
It has been. Um, you can't correct every narrative that's
out there about you. Even if it is heinously offensive,
(22:45):
you can't go on. It's whack a mole. Like there
are too many, you know, too many things that you need.
Sources say close observer of.
S2 (22:53):
Close observers and sources. Yeah, they've really got.
S1 (22:56):
Those those guys who know.
S2 (22:58):
All these.
S1 (22:58):
Things. Yeah. Yeah, they know everything. And they and they
wanted they want to say some scathing things sometimes. And
you have to let that go because it's not um,
you can't sweat that stuff.
S2 (23:14):
It's hard, but it's hard.
S1 (23:15):
Oh, I was at the beginning. You should have seen me.
I was so upset all of the time because I'm like,
that's not even remotely true. How could they possibly say that?
And now I'm just like, you know what? I know
who I am. I know how I carry myself through
the world. Am I, um, someone who will make mistakes?
Of course, every human does. But I would like to
(23:36):
think that the way that I do what I do
is done with a great amount of consideration, not just
for me, but for every person of color that might
come in or be given an opportunity after me. I
would never muddy the waters. I would never poison the
well for for them. And that's all you need to know,
is that I would never, ever do that. Yeah, to
(23:58):
squash opportunities for other people. Because we need to see diversity.
S2 (24:02):
What does it mean to for you to know that there's,
you know, young Australian born Chinese kids? Yeah. Looking on
the telly. And there you are.
S1 (24:11):
Um, I didn't really think about it too much at
the beginning, because I'm just a freelancer doing a job,
and it was a hell of a gig. But what
changed for me is when people started coming up and
telling me, and you have to stop and listen to that,
you know, I'm a massive introvert. I'll walk into a
room and I won't be looking at anyone. I'll just
(24:32):
be kind of just like thinking thoughts and walking around,
and I must look like I'm a bit mad or something.
Maybe I have resting bitch face, who knows? But I
remember once walking into, um, into, um, a pharmacy and
I was just, like, browsing around and a woman just, like,
very gently came up and tapped me on the shoulder,
and she just said, she goes, I don't want to
(24:52):
interrupt you, but I just want to say thank you.
And she was emotional about it. And, um, you know,
she just said, I just want to say thank you. Wow.
You know, and I had to really stop. I mean,
I was holding a box of tampons at the time,
which was a little bit awkward, but, like, I. You
(25:14):
have to stop and take that seriously and appreciate that
it does matter to people. And, you know, in writing
this book, when I've been doing book signings, it's the
most amount of contact I've had with people because you
have to remember, I started the show during the pandemic,
so there was and it was online only, which is
easy to kind of close your phone because you can. Um,
(25:34):
but the tangibility of meeting people in person wasn't part
of my experience. So now that I'm meeting people, um,
and the amount of people that say, my daughter is
eight and she loves watching you and what it means
to me to be first generation and see my kid,
see someone on TV that they want to be like,
makes a huge, um, has made a huge impact in
(25:56):
her life. I, um, I appreciate that so much. You know,
I'm one of many, and it makes me very happy
to see that every day things are changing. But the
needle moves very slowly in this country. You know, for
some networks, diversity is brunette.
S2 (26:13):
Just taking a moment away from Mel Liong to play
some ads while I have you, he's an ad for me.
May Story Club, 9th of November, we have Mark Humphries,
Harley Breen, Nina Oyama and Beck Melrose. Nina was in deadlock.
Beck Melrose writes for Gruen. Uh, I will be there.
There's still one guest yet to be announced. We're just
getting an email locked back after that. Uh, there's probably
(26:34):
going to be our last show for the year. It's
live storytelling, live comedy, storytelling. And it's super, super duper fun.
The theme this show is the apple doesn't fall far
from the tree. Mm. Uh. It's good. Tickets are in
the show notes. That's where you can also pick up
a copy of my book. So what? Now what? As
well as back after the break, my first book. Um,
(26:54):
we'll be back with Mel Leung, who's written her book
called guts in a moment. There's a line in the
book that I'm. I'm kind of interested in, and I'd
love for you to kind of chat about it. Um,
the choice to blow up your life is not for
the faint hearted. No. And it is, admittedly, extremely selfish. Yeah,
(27:21):
we all kind of think I know an easy way
out of this.
S1 (27:24):
Mhm.
S2 (27:25):
Detonate.
S1 (27:26):
Yeah.
S2 (27:27):
Rarely do we do that.
S1 (27:29):
Yeah.
S2 (27:29):
What goes on before you hit that button. And like
and you know tell me about that idea of.
S1 (27:36):
Of blowing up your.
S2 (27:37):
Like I'm gonna.
S1 (27:38):
Do it. Yeah. I mean look I, it is not
for the faint hearted and it is extremely selfish. Um,
and there are very few times in life where we
can see the gap where it might be the right
time to do that. But for me, what I mean
by that is, you know, there have been times in
my life where I've been living a perfectly fine existence,
you know, on paper, all good, but something doesn't feel right.
(27:59):
Like internally there is, um, a something like a blockage
that's saying, hey, you are not living in harmony of
what feels right for you. And for many times in
my life that this has happened, it is. I've reached
a point where I can't ignore that feeling anymore, and
I need to address it in a certain way. And
(28:21):
even though it seems very ungrateful to be like, oh,
you've got a nice partner, you've got a nice apartment,
you've got a cute dog, and everything's working out well, um,
if it doesn't feel right, if that's not the life
I was meant to be living, then I need to
change it somehow. And so, yeah, there have been times
in my life where I've pulled up stumps and, you know,
started again from the ground up. And it has not
(28:43):
been easy. And I'm aware that it it might have
hurt people along the way as well. But I have
to hope that by being honest with my feelings with everybody,
that they will eventually understand that it's in everybody's best interest.
Because if we're not living wholly, if we're not living
in a way that we feel like we can wake
(29:03):
up in the morning and be like, okay, let's do this.
You know, not every day is glorious, but it's your life. Um, then, yeah.
You know, like, that's I want to I want to
always live with that level of. Feeling like I'm heading
in the right direction, even if I don't know what
that direction is, that I'm going in the right way.
(29:26):
You know, I guess living your truth is, is a
really cliched way of saying it. But yeah, I need
to live my life feeling like I'm good with who
I am, or at least make choices that make me
feel like they're right. And so, yeah, you know, I
pulled up stumps and I moved to Tasmania 12 years ago.
I lived on an abattoir in a sheep dairy. And,
you know, in that time and I, you know, I
(29:49):
started again. But had I not have done those things,
I wouldn't be here today. And I'm grateful for all
of the little choices that add up to maybe a
very different life to what I would have had otherwise.
S2 (30:02):
I like that you. I like that you were intimate
with an abattoir.
S1 (30:05):
Yeah.
S2 (30:06):
You know, I would like. And I would hope that
other people understand what it is that goes into what
is on their plate.
S1 (30:13):
I didn't work there every day, but I did do
some time there. Yeah. Um, because as a food writer,
I had spent so much of my life in fancy restaurants,
in nice clothes, in big cities, eating delicious food, having
no tangible grasp on what it takes for the food
to be in front of you. Um, and so if
(30:34):
given the opportunity to really explore and understand and respect
what it takes to get there from literally the ground up,
I think if you're going to eat whatever you choose
to eat, you need to be okay with it. And
so this was a great food education for me of
living on farms, being, um, in that world for just
a very short period of time. But it was as
(30:56):
close as I could get to putting my money where
my mouth is. And I'm really glad that I was
given that grounding in, um, you know how hard life
is on an agricultural level. Farmers are the bedrock of
our our lives. Yeah. without soil, without farmers. We have nothing.
S2 (31:15):
Can you just explore that a little bit more with me? Yeah. The.
Why do you think it's important for people to understand
what's on their plate and how it came to be there?
S1 (31:24):
Well, because if you if food is abstract to you,
if you just if you buy your meat from a
supermarket or from a butcher and it you know, it
arrives portioned and, you know, ready for you to, you know,
for you to cook. You have no connection with where
it has come from and the sacrifices that have been
made in order for you to get to eat it.
(31:45):
Food is hard to come by. We are so lucky,
you know, we get to talk about food like it's a,
you know, it's a given and it's not a given
to everybody.
S2 (31:53):
Our society has a problem with too many calories. Yeah.
That's incredible.
S1 (31:57):
Food shortages. Food scarcity is a is a real thing
even in this country. You know, I was speaking to
Ronni Kahn about all of the amazing work that she
does with Ozharvest to, you know, bridge the gaps to, um,
help reduce food waste and to address food scarcity in
this country. And these are, you know, and we live
in a remarkably privileged, you know, kind of place. So
(32:20):
if it's happening here, then it's happening everywhere, obviously. And
we need to wherever we're given the opportunity. I just
believe that, you know, take the time to appreciate where
it comes from so that when you eat, you appreciate
what you're eating just a little bit more.
S2 (32:35):
There's something about you which people may not understand is
that you are into combat sports.
S1 (32:43):
Yeah.
S2 (32:43):
How did how did it start for you?
S1 (32:45):
I started pandemic, it was a pandemic thing. I started
watching MMA during the pandemic. And what.
S2 (32:50):
Was it that you.
S1 (32:51):
Liked? Other people were baking. I was watching combat sports.
S2 (32:54):
Why? What was it about it that you liked?
S1 (32:56):
Martial arts has been with humans since the beginning of humanity.
Like it's been part of who we are. Um, but
what I'm fascinated by is fearlessness, right? I watched these
incredible athletes, And they're not just masters of one sport,
but many. And it's about fight IQ, being present in
the moment, being able to read your opponent. Um, being
(33:18):
able to train and try to plan for how to
be the winner, but having to shift on the fly
as well depending on on the conditions at play, but
also for you as an athlete. How did you get
to be there? Like, what's the story there? It has
to be a pretty amazing story. It's not just, oh,
I was really good at sports, so I decided to
pick up other sports and then just mash them up
(33:39):
and do this sport. That's not what it's about for me.
It's about the human story always. And so whether or
not I'm drawing out a story from somebody who's, you know,
cooking in a 45 minute challenge in the MasterChef kitchen
or I'm, you know, interviewing an MMA fighter. Passion and
purpose is so important to me. I want to know
what makes people tick. I want to know what gives
(33:59):
them the courage, the audacity, the fearlessness to be who
they are. And especially in that arena, it's a tough world.
And it's a really it's a really tough sport. Um,
I want to know what it takes to be in
that world. I find it really fascinating. And for me,
seeing the shapes and seeing the strategy and seeing the
way that sports layer upon each other, it's like it's
(34:20):
it's a it's like six games of chess happening at
the same time with really dire consequences. And I find
that fascinating.
S2 (34:29):
What do you think people get wrong about MMA fighters?
What's the misconceptions there?
S1 (34:34):
I think they judge MMA for being, oh, it's a bloodsport.
It's just like laughing at violence. It's not actually that
at all. And when you meet people and you know,
when you go to, um, a martial arts gym and
you meet people, there's some of the most chill, respectful,
lovely people you'll ever meet because they're into the discipline
of learning. They're into they're there for technique, they're there
(34:57):
for community. And so to write people off is, oh,
you just like violence. That's really not what I'm seeing
when I watch MMA. I'm seeing multidisciplinary athletes at the
height of their abilities, doing what they do best and
doing what they love doing, and so I appreciate every
(35:19):
part of that, the courage and the athleticism.
S2 (35:22):
You've started training yourself? Yep. What is it that you're
hoping to find out about yourself from doing this? From
studying Brazilian jiu jitsu?
S1 (35:31):
Firstly, it's been really great for my anxiety and for
just finding a community of people that just love this
one thing and are tremendously welcoming about anybody who wants
to learn, like whatever your level. I'm just a two
stripe white belt. I've I know nothing, but there's a
lifetime of learning to to build. There's a lifetime of
technique to accrue. But what I'm hoping to find out
(35:53):
about myself is do I have, um, you know, the
problem solving abilities to, you know, be upside down and
backwards and still be able to find my center again?
You know, like, that's what the world is is we're
inside this giant washing machine all of the time with
so much is happening. But can you find moments of
quiet clarity in all of the movement and all of
(36:13):
the the things going on where life still makes sense.
S2 (36:18):
Since you've been studying jiu jitsu? Yeah. What's changed about
the way you deal with adversity or solve problems?
S1 (36:26):
Well, look, it doesn't take a psychologist to kind of go, okay,
she's come from, you know, a background of of abuse
and not nice things have happened to her. Um, that
she wants to learn martial arts, to feel a little
bit stronger, you know, and that's fine. And part of
that's partially true. Like I do walk out of there.
Not that I think I'm going to win every fight
or that, you know, I can walk down the street
(36:47):
at night and feel, you know, fearless. It's not about that.
But it does give me a sense of strength that
I didn't have before. It gives me a sense of
self-possession I maybe didn't have before. And, um, and also
it's great, like from a fitness perspective, it's been phenomenal. So,
you know you need you need to be strong. You
need to have strength and you need to have great
(37:07):
cardio as well. And so building towards that especially I'm 43.
S2 (37:12):
Yeah. But 43 is like 28. Come on.
S1 (37:16):
Yeah. You said it. I didn't say look.
S2 (37:18):
Audrey says it all the time. She goes, Chinese blood
is strong. I'm like, yeah, I fucking know she's Chinese. Fijian.
S1 (37:23):
Yeah. I mean, great convo. Great. Fantastic convo.
S2 (37:26):
She calls herself you brazen.
S1 (37:28):
You brazen I love it. Um, yeah. Okay. Genetics aside, like,
I mean, you know, might look younger than I am,
but for me, it's about quality of life. You know,
as you hit your 40s or 50s or 60s, I
want to be able to hold my head up, and
I want to be able to kind of be fit
and do the things I want to do and not
be physically limited for as long as possible. Whatever life's
(37:50):
going to dole out, it's going to dole out. But
but for me, something like jiu jitsu is really great
because it's teaching me, um, commitment to conditioning and strength
and health and fueling like, I've never thought of food
as fuel as the central proposition, because food has always
(38:10):
been pleasure for me. It's always been about the pursuit
of happiness. But I really understand that if you don't
eat right, you can't train properly, right? And so understanding
the nutrition and the timing aspects of food is something
that's fascinating to me and fits again, fits back into
my wheelhouse. And so that's sort of something that I'm
(38:31):
discovering as well.
S2 (38:32):
Just to touch to circle back just a little bit further.
There was a person in my life who had she
was a victim of sexual assault, and it was quite
extreme in that literally couldn't be near, couldn't take public
transport like couldn't be near other humans. Yeah. Found her
way to that through roller derby. Was on roller skates
(38:55):
smashing into people. Yeah. Was transformative. Yeah. because it was
a completely different context in which physical contact happened.
S1 (39:04):
Yeah. And and you've got agency over.
S2 (39:07):
Like, smashing into big people. No problem at.
S1 (39:09):
All. And there, there is something also admittedly cathartic about
about that.
S2 (39:14):
Yeah. When people watch MMA and, you know, jiu jitsu
in a guy in a training gym, a very, very,
very different things, very, very, very extremely. Yeah. But you'll
be there upside down with someone's perineum in your eyeball. Yeah.
You know, and you're in an arm lock and you
don't want it like.
S1 (39:30):
It's my perfect Friday.
S2 (39:31):
You are. You are close.
S1 (39:33):
Extremely close quarters. It really. It really is. But I
have agency in that. Yeah, I have agency in that.
And also, I suppose, you know, in my particular situation, um,
you know, it wasn't a violent attack that happened to me.
It was far more insidious and and subtle than that,
(39:54):
but nevertheless is the same thing. Yeah. So it is
it is same and different. But for me, having agency
over putting myself in situations like that. But I'm really
when you're in it. Yes, it's funny objectively, someone you know,
you're in someone's armpit that you've just met, but you're
not thinking about that. You're thinking about how to survive
(40:15):
the round. You're thinking about strategy. You're thinking about getting
your frames back and getting space between you and the
other person. You're thinking about those things. And by being present,
thinking about technique and and framing and how to advance
into the next position that you want to be in, um,
you're not thinking about anything else. And so that's really wonderful.
S2 (40:35):
It's a lot of work to get your mindfulness in there.
S1 (40:37):
Yeah. I mean.
S2 (40:38):
You could just think about your outbreath.
S1 (40:39):
Some people, some people sit and meditate on a hill,
I do jujitsu. That's that's different horses for different courses.
But that's that's okay. Yeah.
S2 (40:48):
We did a wolf did it for a while. Um,
what I really loved about jiu jitsu is that unlike
other martial arts or things where there is a grading
involved to ascend, you cannot ascend without. You have to
be humble. You have to. Absolutely. Humility is baked into it.
(41:11):
You have to go.
S1 (41:12):
Every.
S2 (41:12):
Day. You are better than me. Every day I'm tapping
because you're better than me and I cannot show. I
cannot prove that I'm not as good as you.
S1 (41:20):
You can hold out for a certain period of time,
but at some point you're going to need to tap,
because if you're about to be submitted, because otherwise you'll
pass out. So or you'll, you know, tear a ligament.
So neither of those things you want to do unless
you have to. But it is tremendously humbling. Um, and
I kind of love it because, like, it's the one
(41:41):
place in my life that I get to go and
no one gives a shit who anybody is. Like, there's
there's often a joke about, you know, in one room
you could have, you know, a criminal. The guy, the
the cop who arrested him, the judge that got him off,
you know, like, all, all roll a happily rolling together.
It's just it's such an eclectic group of people. There
are surgeons who do it. There are, you know, guys
(42:02):
who smoke weed all day doing it. And everyone comes
to it from a different perspective. But it's a very
equalizing space.
S2 (42:09):
What is it? What is it to what would you
say about accessing that kind of humility in a deliberate way?
What does it give you?
S1 (42:17):
Oh, it's so good. It's for me to to be
humbled is, I think, something that's really healthy. I think
everybody needs to experience that because it puts life into context. Yeah,
it really, really does. The things that happen to you suddenly,
things that might have bothered you before don't bother you anymore.
Is is it worth raising this issue? Is this the
(42:40):
hill you want to die on? Like it suddenly just
puts everything for me into perspective, and all you really
have at the end of the day is yourself. Um,
but you always have the capacity to learn and just
to be like, you have agency over that. So that's
what it teaches me.
S2 (42:58):
Um. Pluck food. I won't coo at a ah, turkey. Todd,
you would have come.
S5 (43:08):
Out with a turkey.
S2 (43:09):
I told you what a.
S1 (43:10):
Chore you do. A great Zack de la Rocha.
S2 (43:17):
That was Melissa Leong. Her brand new memoir is called guts.
You can get it where you get your book, books, ebook.
You can get that where you get your books. I'll
put a link in the show notes where you can
also get a copy of So What Now What? My
latest book that I wrote with Campbell Walker and tickets
to go and see Story Club Sunday the 9th of November,
Factory Theatre, Marrickville. Come along, do something fun. Enjoy a laugh.
(43:40):
I'll see you on Monday. Thanks for listening.
I think that recovery is a choice. You know, there
have been some not nice things that have happened to
me in my life. And the way that I choose
to see it is that I want to live a
life that is meaningful and rich and contented. And in
order to do that, I need to set down these
bags that have been handed to me, some not of
(00:23):
my choice, but it is my choice to set them
down and walk away, and you will feel lighter and
better about things. But it is a choice to want
to seek contentment and to seek a life that you
want to live.
S2 (00:44):
G'day, thanks for listening to the show. This is better
than yesterday. Useful tools. Useful conversations to help make your
day to day better than yesterday. Every week since 2013.
My name is Joshua Ginsberg. I've got a question for you.
What does it mean to be courageous? We often think
as courage being about how we face the world. It
can also be how we face the difficult bits of
ourselves about how we can say, well, why not me?
(01:07):
Even when an opportunity is daunting, how we can grapple
with the things that have happened to us that we
would perhaps prefer to forget, and how we might recognise
that we're not on the best path forward and might
need to hit reset. For all these ideas and more,
I'm going to speak with someone who's very, very courageous today.
(01:31):
Her name is Melissa Leong. You may know Melissa Leong
as one of the judges of MasterChef Australia or Dessert Masters.
She's also a food writer, food critic and recently an author.
Her memoir, guts, is out right now. In this conversation,
we're going to talk about the value of sharing the
darkest parts of your story, both for yourself and for others.
What a path to healing can look like. The moments
(01:53):
where she has, in her own words, blown up her
entire life, why they had to happen and what followed
after that. The challenges that she faced accepting the job
of a judge on MasterChef and was she really, really
loves MMA and what she's learning from doing Brazilian jiu
jitsu other than just jiu jitsu? It's a fascinating conversation
(02:17):
and I really can't wait to play it for you.
I do have to pay some bills though, so here's
some ads. We're back with Mel in a moment. Melissa
Leung is our guest today. I do want to let
you know that this episode does contain a few discussions
(02:40):
that can be a bit intense. Perhaps we're speaking about
sexual assault pretty early in the chat. Please take care
of yourself if you need to. One 800 respect or
one 800 respect if you need. Look after yourselves. Enjoy
the conversation. This is Melissa Leong. Thank you for coming in.
S3 (02:57):
Thanks for having me.
S2 (02:58):
How do you feel today?
S1 (03:00):
I feel tired. I'm two thirds of the way through
my this all singing, all dancing, tap dancing. End of
the memoir cycle.
S2 (03:13):
The big tour.
S1 (03:14):
The big tour. The promo that you really don't think
about too much. Like 80,000 words. All of your stories,
you know. Well, you know some of your stories in
a book. You think that's going to be the chunk
of the effort and the emotion and all of the things,
but it's not. It's just the beginning of this whole. Thing. Yeah,
(03:36):
but she's out there now, so.
S3 (03:38):
She is a she.
S1 (03:39):
Yeah. Why not?
S2 (03:41):
Is that because it's the version of you that you're
putting out into the world.
S3 (03:44):
A little bit? Yeah, a little bit.
S1 (03:46):
I think that that's what we have to do is
that there's the version we put that we put out
in the world, and then there's the version of us
that's just, you know, Our ourselves, alone, in our rooms,
in our home, in our houses and with our friends
and all of that kind of stuff.
S3 (04:01):
So yeah.
S2 (04:02):
When it came time to write this. You have a
choice of like, here's some things that I'm going to
keep to myself. Here's some things that not anybody knows yet.
S3 (04:16):
Yeah.
S2 (04:16):
But once I say them, it's not going to be
able to be unsaid.
S3 (04:19):
Yeah.
S1 (04:19):
The old Pandora's box.
S3 (04:21):
Yeah. She's way.
S2 (04:23):
More than just an expensive charm.
S3 (04:24):
Bracelet.
S2 (04:25):
Um, we.
S3 (04:31):
This episode, what was it that you.
S2 (04:32):
Needed to like? Okay, if I'm going to write this book.
S3 (04:35):
Yeah.
S2 (04:36):
Even though this is a very difficult time in my life,
I'm going to have to put it in. Why did you.
Why did you want to put that stuff in the book?
S1 (04:42):
One of the things that I've talked about in the
book wrote itself there. There was a time where I
was confronted by these things bubbling up. And it was
as I was preparing to write the book, I attended
an event for Marie Claire, and there was a speaker, um, well,
(05:03):
two speakers and a coutts-trotter and Tanya Plibersek, her mother,
who spoke about, um, Anna's experience of, um, of sexual
violence and coercive control and other things, and I that
triggered something and that broke a dam wall for me.
And I was confronted by my own visceral set of
emotions over identifying with something that I had suppressed. And, and, um, just,
(05:28):
I pushed it down so deep, I tucked it way
back in the closet, and I pretended that it didn't happen. Um,
and that event gave me an invitation to investigate why
I was feeling this way now. And so when I
sat down to write, it wrote itself. I sat there
and it was almost an out-of-body experience that it just
(05:49):
it flowed out. And I had to ask myself, okay,
once you say this thing, people will own that in
their own way. You think about, you know, like, I
come from a PR background, I know that people will
pick up things in a certain way. And you're aware
of that. Um, but I had to sit down and think, okay,
(06:09):
beyond all of that, just take that away for a second.
Why is this coming up for me right now? And, um,
I needed to work through something that was obviously deeply
troubling for me and that I needed to heal with.
And I hadn't spoken to a therapist about it. I
hadn't spoken to anybody about it, but I needed to
do that work. And in doing that, and I think,
you know, one thing we have in common is we
(06:31):
talk about these vulnerable things that happen to us, you know,
our mental health, our our, our troubles. We do this
in aid of making people feel less alone in what
they're going through. Because what connects us all as humans,
you know, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. It's the
it's the trials and tribulations we go through. And by
(06:52):
being vulnerable, by laying yourself bare, you give other people
an opportunity to set down their burdens. Um, initiate, um,
conversations that might really need to be had, um, and
start a path of healing. And if that can help
one person.
S3 (07:09):
Yeah.
S1 (07:10):
And then I'm okay with sharing the things that have
happened to me, because sadly, they're not uncommon.
S3 (07:15):
Yeah.
S2 (07:16):
They have a trick of convincing us that we're the
only person it's happening to. And it's something that we
should probably hold some shame about or something. And that
perpetuates how bad it can be, whether there be something
that you're a victim of or even, you know, mental
period of mental unwellness, um, and that, that can make
it last possibly longer and be way more aggravating than
(07:38):
it needs to be.
S3 (07:39):
Yeah.
S2 (07:40):
But once we realize, well, for me, it's hard because
my ego has to understand that I'm not a special snowflake.
S3 (07:45):
It also happens to.
S2 (07:46):
Other people and I'm not alone. And oh, well, there's
a whole team of people.
S3 (07:49):
There's a whole book. What do you mean? There's some.
S2 (07:51):
Steps.
S3 (07:51):
I can take. Yeah. What the fuck you mean?
S1 (07:53):
Other people have trodden this path and have written about
it and have really deeply thought.
S3 (07:56):
About, have gone into.
S2 (07:57):
Research and development laboratories and developed pharmaceuticals.
S3 (08:00):
For exactly what's going on with market caps.
S2 (08:04):
In.
S3 (08:05):
The billions.
S1 (08:06):
But isn't ego funny?
S3 (08:09):
I battle it every fucking.
S2 (08:10):
Day and I.
S3 (08:10):
Hate it.
S1 (08:11):
And we and we all do. And I think sometimes, like,
sometimes being too self-aware is just horrible.
S3 (08:17):
Ah, yeah.
S1 (08:18):
I'm glad. I'm glad that I am self-aware, but I
think sometimes being too self-aware, then you start to really like,
you know, wig out about the edges of the thing
that you're trying to grapple with. And, um, yeah, yeah,
but ego makes us feel like this is our thing.
This is we're alone in our experience. And I think
when we can kind of break through that and, and
(08:41):
understand that, hey, we're not that we're not, you know,
we're not that special.
S2 (08:46):
No human. That Humans.
S1 (08:47):
Being human. And it's just my memoir, your memoir. It's
just our own configuration of the weird things that happen
to humans. It's like just it's just oyster shaped or
it's smell shaped and that's, you know.
S2 (09:00):
The moment that happened to you at the the event
that you went to and you went, oh, yeah. And
there's flood of stuff came back to you. Um, I
think it's important for people to understand that. You don't
know what you don't know. You've forgotten. Yeah. And it's
happened more than once in my life. Yeah.
S1 (09:18):
Brains are really clever at protecting us.
S2 (09:21):
Yeah. You mentioned you didn't see or speak to a
therapist at the time. Has that changed?
S1 (09:25):
Oh, absolutely. It's changed. I had a therapist the entire time.
I just because I had repressed this particular event in
my life, I had never spoken about it to anybody,
including her. And so when that happened, when that moment
in that room and the dam wall broke, then absolutely.
I spoke to her about it. And it, and I've
(09:46):
been doing a lot of work for people.
S2 (09:47):
Who may be in this situation and going to speak
to someone or talk to someone about it might be,
you know, way too much. What does the pathway to
what is the pathway through dealing with these kind of
thoughts and feelings look like?
S1 (10:02):
Um, it's a slow process and I'm sure it's very
different for everybody. But, you know, for me, it started
with having that hard conversation with my therapist and with
then eventually my friends and my family. Um, to say
I was raped. Um, and that was really hard. You know,
a lot of friends took it really difficultly because they said, how, um,
(10:26):
how could we not have known, you know, how could
we not have known? And I feel very bad that
we've known each other for so long. And I didn't
know this thing had happened to you. And I said,
it's not your fault to bear because I didn't say anything.
I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want
that to dominate, you know, or know, be a be
a feature of how you know me or, you know,
(10:48):
trauma bond with people. Like, that's really dangerous too. So, um,
it started with conversations and normalizing this conversation because, um,
it's really it's that's that's part of it. And I'm
trying to treat these chats like part of the therapy,
like let's let's talk about it until I feel okay
(11:10):
about it being out there because it's it's even if
I wanted to I couldn't take it back. Now I
have to say it. But also, I guess the overarching
reason why I'm having this discussion and I wrote it
into the book, is that when this happened to me,
discussions of consent were not being had in the way
that they are now, and I really want to drive
(11:30):
home the point that consent is not just a throwaway
line that we joke about. It's not a meme on TikTok.
It is crucial in the way that we navigate each
other and consent or a withdrawal of consent needs to
be understood. And it's not just, you know.
S2 (11:50):
Anything can happen at any.
S1 (11:51):
Time. Yeah. It's not just a, you know, feminism buzzword.
S2 (11:54):
It can happen at any time.
S1 (11:55):
And you can. And exactly. You have agency over whether
or not you choose to give or withdraw consent.
S2 (12:02):
Yeah.
S1 (12:02):
Yeah.
S2 (12:04):
What would you say to people about what recovery can
look like and what life can look like on the
other side of that?
S1 (12:11):
I think that recovery is a choice. I have very
like in a very meaningful way, decided, you know, there
have been some not nice things that have happened to
me in my life, not just this one thing, but other,
you know, other issues and other situations that have happened
to me in my life. And the way that I
choose to see it, is that I want to live
a life that is meaningful and rich and contented. And
(12:35):
in order to do that, I need to set down
these bags that have been Um, handed to me. Um,
not some of some not of my choice, but it
is my choice to set them down and walk away. Um,
and when you get to do the work and you
have consolidated how you feel about things, part of the
(12:57):
next phase of the healing is to set it down
and to continue on without it. And you will feel
lighter and better about things. But it is a choice
to want to seek contentment and to seek a life
that you want to live. I don't want to live
a life where I wear a chip on my shoulder,
and I'm angry about everything all of the time. Am
I angry about some of the things that have happened
(13:18):
to me? Fuck yeah. But there's a difference in being
able to recognize that I, I am or I was,
but I can separate myself from that. It's not fused
to me in a way that I can't take it
off and leave it and, and walk away. It needs
to be separate from us in recovery.
S2 (13:38):
They call it to drop the rock.
S1 (13:40):
Yeah. You observe all of the things that become your burden. Um.
And if you let it define you, then you you
are never going to be able to let go of
that rock. Yeah. But doing the work to heal is
about separating you from what happened to you and realizing
that you don't have to, you know?
S4 (14:02):
What does it look like when.
S2 (14:03):
You're navigating relationships again, or navigating intimacy? Like, what can
that look like?
S1 (14:09):
Just taking it a little slower? Yeah, taking it a
little slower and realizing that I think for me, because
of the way I grew up in a family where
I didn't essentially feel safe, like, I mean, there was
a lot of abuse going on. And so I didn't feel, um,
like my parents were not people I could go to
for comfort. So I know that I seek certain qualities
in people, um, or that I have trauma, bonded with people,
(14:32):
friends and, you know, not not just romantic relationships with
friends as well. And that that's not a healthy way
to to find because it's a false sense of depth. Um,
that can really lead you down the wrong path as well.
And then you start to, um, I've known people who
will find a way in to hearing your damage and then, um,
(14:53):
create or find something relevant in their life to make
you feel seen, and then you feel like, oh, you
get me? And so I see you and you see
me and we've both gone through this horrible thing. Therefore,
we are meant to be friends. We're meant to be
fused together in some way. Um, and it creates, I think,
(15:14):
an emotional sense of connection that really isn't there. Friendships don't.
And relationships don't necessarily form healthily in that petri dish
of sadness. They just don't. And so that is not
a good way. I used to think, okay, here's an example.
I used to think in dating that if you are
(15:35):
just you put everything on the table on the first date.
Like here's everything. Here's all the ugly, embarrassing shit. Take
it or leave it. I thought that was the healthy
way to do it, because then that person's dating me
for me. But that is so not the right thing
at all. Because then people get to pick and choose
the things that they want to identify with, or they
(15:56):
want to hook you in with. And, um, then they
know all your pressure points and your pain points to
manipulate you into whatever it is that fits their life.
S2 (16:10):
Oh, boy.
S1 (16:10):
And it's not healthy. And I've so I've learned not
to just be like, here's my everything. Yeah. I've learned
to try and find the happy things that connect you
with somebody new. Yeah. Rather than, you know. And you'll
get if the friendship is meant to be. The relationship
is meant to be. Then you'll get to that stuff eventually.
But you don't have to start with that stuff. It
(16:33):
doesn't have to be that raw and that ugly that early.
S2 (16:37):
It's very clear to hear that you have put a
lot of effort into this kind of stuff and thought
about it in a very deep way, by the way,
that you kind of qualify and and speak about the
work you've done. Yeah. Okay. And I hope people can
hear that it's worth it to put the effort in,
because the agency that was taken from you.
S1 (16:59):
Yeah.
S2 (17:00):
Is reclaimed by taking responsibility and working through it.
S1 (17:03):
100%.
S2 (17:04):
Now it's mine.
S1 (17:05):
Yeah. Reclaiming identity. Reclaiming your energy and your power. Yeah.
S2 (17:10):
Yeah.
S1 (17:11):
So important, so important. And you have agency over that?
I think that's the thing that people need to realize
is that you as an individual, if you want that
power back, you take it back. Mhm. Um it's hard.
Like it's not an easy thing to just be like
oh yeah. Like done.
S2 (17:25):
Yeah. But luckily Zack de la Rocha and his mates
from Rage Against the Machine wrote a great song that
can serve as a soundtrack to get you in there.
S1 (17:33):
I wish like I, I wanted to reference that song
in my book. And do you know how much it
would have cost? Like, my publisher were like the lyrics.
I just because that's that's a, it's a, it's a
mantra that's in my head all of the time. And um,
and they said, we know you love this lyric and
we've investigated it and it's real spenny. It's really expensive.
(17:56):
Do you really want to do that? And I and
they said we would, we would you.
S2 (18:00):
Just.
S1 (18:00):
Write a.
S2 (18:01):
Great band called Rage Against the Machine and they have
a song title I can't remember. It sounds like fake
the shower hack. Yeah. Fake the shower. I'm here to help.
I've tried. I've had to get around all a thousand
kinds of copyright shit on live telly just to get
a joke or something. But you got to do it.
S1 (18:18):
There's one that starts with, like, pluck food. I won't
do what you smell.
S2 (18:23):
Yeah. Pluck. Um. Tuck, tuck, pluck food.
S1 (18:30):
I like pluck, pluck food.
S2 (18:32):
Oh, it'll come to me. Yeah. Now, now, the question is,
in my subconscious, it'll.
S1 (18:35):
Revisit.
S2 (18:36):
That at an inappropriate time before the end of this conversation.
S1 (18:39):
Fantastic.
S2 (18:39):
Which will be great for me.
S1 (18:40):
It's like next week at, you know, 430 in the afternoon,
and I will have to text you about it.
S2 (18:46):
So I'm here.
S1 (18:46):
I'm okay. Great.
S2 (18:48):
Um, when it came to saying yes to tele, that
is a almighty, almighty gauntlet to pick up. Sure to
to carry forth with that.
S1 (19:00):
Yeah. I mean, the bar was set really high.
S2 (19:03):
Yeah. Those dudes.
S1 (19:04):
I heard lightning in a bottle many times and it's.
And credit where credit's due. Absolutely.
S2 (19:12):
It's a mighty format what Australia did with that format.
S1 (19:14):
Yeah.
S2 (19:15):
Turned it from like this really.
S1 (19:17):
Best format in the world.
S2 (19:18):
A little bit better than ready Steady Cook mid-morning cooking
show that came from overseas. It was it. You watch
original versions of it. It's like what? This is MasterChef. Yeah.
And then what?
S1 (19:28):
It evolved.
S2 (19:28):
Into. They turned it into.
S1 (19:29):
Yeah.
S2 (19:30):
Holy shit!
S1 (19:31):
Magical. Beloved.
S2 (19:32):
Unbelievable.
S1 (19:33):
Emotionally. Such an important thing for so many families. The
amount of people over the last few years that have, um,
come up and spoken to me and said, this is
the thing I do with my kid. Yes. And then
my kid doesn't want to do anything else with me.
But this is the thing we share together. And the
fact that I got to be a part of that
is beautiful.
S2 (19:51):
What was it? And I'm sure you've asked this question
many times, but the the. That's an exciting, exciting opportunity.
S1 (19:58):
Sure.
S2 (19:59):
Being a PR person, you're very you're very aware, like, hey,
I'm not Anglo. Uh, I'm a smart person. Um, I'm
gonna very be very lately, um, not Anglo and smart
on telly. Yeah. You know exactly what you're walking into.
S1 (20:17):
Absolutely.
S2 (20:18):
Did you ever think about what was coming?
S1 (20:20):
Oh, 100%. You know, and coming from a journalism background
as well, like, it's my job to be skeptical and
also observant. And for the last decade prior was extremely
aware of what happened to the former. You know, the
former line up in terms of their lives exploded into
a public space. Maybe they weren't expecting that. Um, and
(20:44):
that's that's a that's a huge transition of just doing
a job to like, people wanting to know very specific
details about you that, you know, if you're a private person,
you might not want to share. So I was aware
that if I said yes to that opportunity, that tremendous opportunity,
it would change my life forever. I wouldn't be able
to write in the same way, because I wouldn't have
(21:06):
that same level of anonymity and, and perhaps objectivity as well,
you know, because people want to know what you think
everything suddenly weirdly like, it becomes an op ed. Everything
becomes an op ed, a little bit more, um, I
knew I would everything would have to change. And that
was a big question. Could I do it? Would I,
(21:27):
would I Would I be able to live with the
things that they don't tell you about, that are going
to happen to you in your life?
S2 (21:34):
Um, did you call anyone? Did you talk to anyone
who was on air?
S1 (21:38):
No, I didn't call anyone. Um, I talked to the
people in my life about it, and I really thought
about it. And I had spent so much time in
my career in hospitality, promoting ostensibly white men, um, you know,
and some of them are my mates. Like, you guys
are okay, like, it's fine. But in terms of who
(22:00):
we see on screens and who else might, you know,
be great for the job. You know, I was really
respectful of the fact that I was there in that conversation.
And I sort of what cinched it for me is
I sat down and I said, well, if not me,
then who? I can do the job. So let's give
it a go and say yes to the thing that's
(22:21):
slightly scary and, um, and see what happens. And do
I regret it? No. But has it been smooth sailing
the entire time? Also? No. Yeah. Like, why would we
expect that to be the case? There has to be
a trade off somewhere. And the trade off has been privacy.
It has been. Um, you can't correct every narrative that's
out there about you. Even if it is heinously offensive,
(22:45):
you can't go on. It's whack a mole. Like there
are too many, you know, too many things that you need.
Sources say close observer of.
S2 (22:53):
Close observers and sources. Yeah, they've really got.
S1 (22:56):
Those those guys who know.
S2 (22:58):
All these.
S1 (22:58):
Things. Yeah. Yeah, they know everything. And they and they
wanted they want to say some scathing things sometimes. And
you have to let that go because it's not um,
you can't sweat that stuff.
S2 (23:14):
It's hard, but it's hard.
S1 (23:15):
Oh, I was at the beginning. You should have seen me.
I was so upset all of the time because I'm like,
that's not even remotely true. How could they possibly say that?
And now I'm just like, you know what? I know
who I am. I know how I carry myself through
the world. Am I, um, someone who will make mistakes?
Of course, every human does. But I would like to
(23:36):
think that the way that I do what I do
is done with a great amount of consideration, not just
for me, but for every person of color that might
come in or be given an opportunity after me. I
would never muddy the waters. I would never poison the
well for for them. And that's all you need to know,
is that I would never, ever do that. Yeah, to
(23:58):
squash opportunities for other people. Because we need to see diversity.
S2 (24:02):
What does it mean to for you to know that there's,
you know, young Australian born Chinese kids? Yeah. Looking on
the telly. And there you are.
S1 (24:11):
Um, I didn't really think about it too much at
the beginning, because I'm just a freelancer doing a job,
and it was a hell of a gig. But what
changed for me is when people started coming up and
telling me, and you have to stop and listen to that,
you know, I'm a massive introvert. I'll walk into a
room and I won't be looking at anyone. I'll just
(24:32):
be kind of just like thinking thoughts and walking around,
and I must look like I'm a bit mad or something.
Maybe I have resting bitch face, who knows? But I
remember once walking into, um, into, um, a pharmacy and
I was just, like, browsing around and a woman just, like,
very gently came up and tapped me on the shoulder,
and she just said, she goes, I don't want to
(24:52):
interrupt you, but I just want to say thank you.
And she was emotional about it. And, um, you know,
she just said, I just want to say thank you. Wow.
You know, and I had to really stop. I mean,
I was holding a box of tampons at the time,
which was a little bit awkward, but, like, I. You
(25:14):
have to stop and take that seriously and appreciate that
it does matter to people. And, you know, in writing
this book, when I've been doing book signings, it's the
most amount of contact I've had with people because you
have to remember, I started the show during the pandemic,
so there was and it was online only, which is
easy to kind of close your phone because you can. Um,
(25:34):
but the tangibility of meeting people in person wasn't part
of my experience. So now that I'm meeting people, um,
and the amount of people that say, my daughter is
eight and she loves watching you and what it means
to me to be first generation and see my kid,
see someone on TV that they want to be like,
makes a huge, um, has made a huge impact in
(25:56):
her life. I, um, I appreciate that so much. You know,
I'm one of many, and it makes me very happy
to see that every day things are changing. But the
needle moves very slowly in this country. You know, for
some networks, diversity is brunette.
S2 (26:13):
Just taking a moment away from Mel Liong to play
some ads while I have you, he's an ad for me.
May Story Club, 9th of November, we have Mark Humphries,
Harley Breen, Nina Oyama and Beck Melrose. Nina was in deadlock.
Beck Melrose writes for Gruen. Uh, I will be there.
There's still one guest yet to be announced. We're just
getting an email locked back after that. Uh, there's probably
(26:34):
going to be our last show for the year. It's
live storytelling, live comedy, storytelling. And it's super, super duper fun.
The theme this show is the apple doesn't fall far
from the tree. Mm. Uh. It's good. Tickets are in
the show notes. That's where you can also pick up
a copy of my book. So what? Now what? As
well as back after the break, my first book. Um,
(26:54):
we'll be back with Mel Leung, who's written her book
called guts in a moment. There's a line in the
book that I'm. I'm kind of interested in, and I'd
love for you to kind of chat about it. Um,
the choice to blow up your life is not for
the faint hearted. No. And it is, admittedly, extremely selfish. Yeah,
(27:21):
we all kind of think I know an easy way
out of this.
S1 (27:24):
Mhm.
S2 (27:25):
Detonate.
S1 (27:26):
Yeah.
S2 (27:27):
Rarely do we do that.
S1 (27:29):
Yeah.
S2 (27:29):
What goes on before you hit that button. And like
and you know tell me about that idea of.
S1 (27:36):
Of blowing up your.
S2 (27:37):
Like I'm gonna.
S1 (27:38):
Do it. Yeah. I mean look I, it is not
for the faint hearted and it is extremely selfish. Um,
and there are very few times in life where we
can see the gap where it might be the right
time to do that. But for me, what I mean
by that is, you know, there have been times in
my life where I've been living a perfectly fine existence,
you know, on paper, all good, but something doesn't feel right.
(27:59):
Like internally there is, um, a something like a blockage
that's saying, hey, you are not living in harmony of
what feels right for you. And for many times in
my life that this has happened, it is. I've reached
a point where I can't ignore that feeling anymore, and
I need to address it in a certain way. And
(28:21):
even though it seems very ungrateful to be like, oh,
you've got a nice partner, you've got a nice apartment,
you've got a cute dog, and everything's working out well, um,
if it doesn't feel right, if that's not the life
I was meant to be living, then I need to
change it somehow. And so, yeah, there have been times
in my life where I've pulled up stumps and, you know,
started again from the ground up. And it has not
(28:43):
been easy. And I'm aware that it it might have
hurt people along the way as well. But I have
to hope that by being honest with my feelings with everybody,
that they will eventually understand that it's in everybody's best interest.
Because if we're not living wholly, if we're not living
in a way that we feel like we can wake
(29:03):
up in the morning and be like, okay, let's do this.
You know, not every day is glorious, but it's your life. Um, then, yeah.
You know, like, that's I want to I want to
always live with that level of. Feeling like I'm heading
in the right direction, even if I don't know what
that direction is, that I'm going in the right way.
(29:26):
You know, I guess living your truth is, is a
really cliched way of saying it. But yeah, I need
to live my life feeling like I'm good with who
I am, or at least make choices that make me
feel like they're right. And so, yeah, you know, I
pulled up stumps and I moved to Tasmania 12 years ago.
I lived on an abattoir in a sheep dairy. And,
you know, in that time and I, you know, I
(29:49):
started again. But had I not have done those things,
I wouldn't be here today. And I'm grateful for all
of the little choices that add up to maybe a
very different life to what I would have had otherwise.
S2 (30:02):
I like that you. I like that you were intimate
with an abattoir.
S1 (30:05):
Yeah.
S2 (30:06):
You know, I would like. And I would hope that
other people understand what it is that goes into what
is on their plate.
S1 (30:13):
I didn't work there every day, but I did do
some time there. Yeah. Um, because as a food writer,
I had spent so much of my life in fancy restaurants,
in nice clothes, in big cities, eating delicious food, having
no tangible grasp on what it takes for the food
to be in front of you. Um, and so if
(30:34):
given the opportunity to really explore and understand and respect
what it takes to get there from literally the ground up,
I think if you're going to eat whatever you choose
to eat, you need to be okay with it. And
so this was a great food education for me of
living on farms, being, um, in that world for just
a very short period of time. But it was as
(30:56):
close as I could get to putting my money where
my mouth is. And I'm really glad that I was
given that grounding in, um, you know how hard life
is on an agricultural level. Farmers are the bedrock of
our our lives. Yeah. without soil, without farmers. We have nothing.
S2 (31:15):
Can you just explore that a little bit more with me? Yeah. The.
Why do you think it's important for people to understand
what's on their plate and how it came to be there?
S1 (31:24):
Well, because if you if food is abstract to you,
if you just if you buy your meat from a
supermarket or from a butcher and it you know, it
arrives portioned and, you know, ready for you to, you know,
for you to cook. You have no connection with where
it has come from and the sacrifices that have been
made in order for you to get to eat it.
(31:45):
Food is hard to come by. We are so lucky,
you know, we get to talk about food like it's a,
you know, it's a given and it's not a given
to everybody.
S2 (31:53):
Our society has a problem with too many calories. Yeah.
That's incredible.
S1 (31:57):
Food shortages. Food scarcity is a is a real thing
even in this country. You know, I was speaking to
Ronni Kahn about all of the amazing work that she
does with Ozharvest to, you know, bridge the gaps to, um,
help reduce food waste and to address food scarcity in
this country. And these are, you know, and we live
in a remarkably privileged, you know, kind of place. So
(32:20):
if it's happening here, then it's happening everywhere, obviously. And
we need to wherever we're given the opportunity. I just
believe that, you know, take the time to appreciate where
it comes from so that when you eat, you appreciate
what you're eating just a little bit more.
S2 (32:35):
There's something about you which people may not understand is
that you are into combat sports.
S1 (32:43):
Yeah.
S2 (32:43):
How did how did it start for you?
S1 (32:45):
I started pandemic, it was a pandemic thing. I started
watching MMA during the pandemic. And what.
S2 (32:50):
Was it that you.
S1 (32:51):
Liked? Other people were baking. I was watching combat sports.
S2 (32:54):
Why? What was it about it that you liked?
S1 (32:56):
Martial arts has been with humans since the beginning of humanity.
Like it's been part of who we are. Um, but
what I'm fascinated by is fearlessness, right? I watched these
incredible athletes, And they're not just masters of one sport,
but many. And it's about fight IQ, being present in
the moment, being able to read your opponent. Um, being
(33:18):
able to train and try to plan for how to
be the winner, but having to shift on the fly
as well depending on on the conditions at play, but
also for you as an athlete. How did you get
to be there? Like, what's the story there? It has
to be a pretty amazing story. It's not just, oh,
I was really good at sports, so I decided to
pick up other sports and then just mash them up
(33:39):
and do this sport. That's not what it's about for me.
It's about the human story always. And so whether or
not I'm drawing out a story from somebody who's, you know,
cooking in a 45 minute challenge in the MasterChef kitchen
or I'm, you know, interviewing an MMA fighter. Passion and
purpose is so important to me. I want to know
what makes people tick. I want to know what gives
(33:59):
them the courage, the audacity, the fearlessness to be who
they are. And especially in that arena, it's a tough world.
And it's a really it's a really tough sport. Um,
I want to know what it takes to be in
that world. I find it really fascinating. And for me,
seeing the shapes and seeing the strategy and seeing the
way that sports layer upon each other, it's like it's
(34:20):
it's a it's like six games of chess happening at
the same time with really dire consequences. And I find
that fascinating.
S2 (34:29):
What do you think people get wrong about MMA fighters?
What's the misconceptions there?
S1 (34:34):
I think they judge MMA for being, oh, it's a bloodsport.
It's just like laughing at violence. It's not actually that
at all. And when you meet people and you know,
when you go to, um, a martial arts gym and
you meet people, there's some of the most chill, respectful,
lovely people you'll ever meet because they're into the discipline
of learning. They're into they're there for technique, they're there
(34:57):
for community. And so to write people off is, oh,
you just like violence. That's really not what I'm seeing
when I watch MMA. I'm seeing multidisciplinary athletes at the
height of their abilities, doing what they do best and
doing what they love doing, and so I appreciate every
(35:19):
part of that, the courage and the athleticism.
S2 (35:22):
You've started training yourself? Yep. What is it that you're
hoping to find out about yourself from doing this? From
studying Brazilian jiu jitsu?
S1 (35:31):
Firstly, it's been really great for my anxiety and for
just finding a community of people that just love this
one thing and are tremendously welcoming about anybody who wants
to learn, like whatever your level. I'm just a two
stripe white belt. I've I know nothing, but there's a
lifetime of learning to to build. There's a lifetime of
technique to accrue. But what I'm hoping to find out
(35:53):
about myself is do I have, um, you know, the
problem solving abilities to, you know, be upside down and
backwards and still be able to find my center again?
You know, like, that's what the world is is we're
inside this giant washing machine all of the time with
so much is happening. But can you find moments of
quiet clarity in all of the movement and all of
(36:13):
the the things going on where life still makes sense.
S2 (36:18):
Since you've been studying jiu jitsu? Yeah. What's changed about
the way you deal with adversity or solve problems?
S1 (36:26):
Well, look, it doesn't take a psychologist to kind of go, okay,
she's come from, you know, a background of of abuse
and not nice things have happened to her. Um, that
she wants to learn martial arts, to feel a little
bit stronger, you know, and that's fine. And part of
that's partially true. Like I do walk out of there.
Not that I think I'm going to win every fight
or that, you know, I can walk down the street
(36:47):
at night and feel, you know, fearless. It's not about that.
But it does give me a sense of strength that
I didn't have before. It gives me a sense of
self-possession I maybe didn't have before. And, um, and also
it's great, like from a fitness perspective, it's been phenomenal. So,
you know you need you need to be strong. You
need to have strength and you need to have great
(37:07):
cardio as well. And so building towards that especially I'm 43.
S2 (37:12):
Yeah. But 43 is like 28. Come on.
S1 (37:16):
Yeah. You said it. I didn't say look.
S2 (37:18):
Audrey says it all the time. She goes, Chinese blood
is strong. I'm like, yeah, I fucking know she's Chinese. Fijian.
S1 (37:23):
Yeah. I mean, great convo. Great. Fantastic convo.
S2 (37:26):
She calls herself you brazen.
S1 (37:28):
You brazen I love it. Um, yeah. Okay. Genetics aside, like,
I mean, you know, might look younger than I am,
but for me, it's about quality of life. You know,
as you hit your 40s or 50s or 60s, I
want to be able to hold my head up, and
I want to be able to kind of be fit
and do the things I want to do and not
be physically limited for as long as possible. Whatever life's
(37:50):
going to dole out, it's going to dole out. But
but for me, something like jiu jitsu is really great
because it's teaching me, um, commitment to conditioning and strength
and health and fueling like, I've never thought of food
as fuel as the central proposition, because food has always
(38:10):
been pleasure for me. It's always been about the pursuit
of happiness. But I really understand that if you don't
eat right, you can't train properly, right? And so understanding
the nutrition and the timing aspects of food is something
that's fascinating to me and fits again, fits back into
my wheelhouse. And so that's sort of something that I'm
(38:31):
discovering as well.
S2 (38:32):
Just to touch to circle back just a little bit further.
There was a person in my life who had she
was a victim of sexual assault, and it was quite
extreme in that literally couldn't be near, couldn't take public
transport like couldn't be near other humans. Yeah. Found her
way to that through roller derby. Was on roller skates
(38:55):
smashing into people. Yeah. Was transformative. Yeah. because it was
a completely different context in which physical contact happened.
S1 (39:04):
Yeah. And and you've got agency over.
S2 (39:07):
Like, smashing into big people. No problem at.
S1 (39:09):
All. And there, there is something also admittedly cathartic about
about that.
S2 (39:14):
Yeah. When people watch MMA and, you know, jiu jitsu
in a guy in a training gym, a very, very,
very different things, very, very, very extremely. Yeah. But you'll
be there upside down with someone's perineum in your eyeball. Yeah.
You know, and you're in an arm lock and you
don't want it like.
S1 (39:30):
It's my perfect Friday.
S2 (39:31):
You are. You are close.
S1 (39:33):
Extremely close quarters. It really. It really is. But I
have agency in that. Yeah, I have agency in that.
And also, I suppose, you know, in my particular situation, um,
you know, it wasn't a violent attack that happened to me.
It was far more insidious and and subtle than that,
(39:54):
but nevertheless is the same thing. Yeah. So it is
it is same and different. But for me, having agency
over putting myself in situations like that. But I'm really
when you're in it. Yes, it's funny objectively, someone you know,
you're in someone's armpit that you've just met, but you're
not thinking about that. You're thinking about how to survive
(40:15):
the round. You're thinking about strategy. You're thinking about getting
your frames back and getting space between you and the
other person. You're thinking about those things. And by being present,
thinking about technique and and framing and how to advance
into the next position that you want to be in, um,
you're not thinking about anything else. And so that's really wonderful.
S2 (40:35):
It's a lot of work to get your mindfulness in there.
S1 (40:37):
Yeah. I mean.
S2 (40:38):
You could just think about your outbreath.
S1 (40:39):
Some people, some people sit and meditate on a hill,
I do jujitsu. That's that's different horses for different courses.
But that's that's okay. Yeah.
S2 (40:48):
We did a wolf did it for a while. Um,
what I really loved about jiu jitsu is that unlike
other martial arts or things where there is a grading
involved to ascend, you cannot ascend without. You have to
be humble. You have to. Absolutely. Humility is baked into it.
(41:11):
You have to go.
S1 (41:12):
Every.
S2 (41:12):
Day. You are better than me. Every day I'm tapping
because you're better than me and I cannot show. I
cannot prove that I'm not as good as you.
S1 (41:20):
You can hold out for a certain period of time,
but at some point you're going to need to tap,
because if you're about to be submitted, because otherwise you'll
pass out. So or you'll, you know, tear a ligament.
So neither of those things you want to do unless
you have to. But it is tremendously humbling. Um, and
I kind of love it because, like, it's the one
(41:41):
place in my life that I get to go and
no one gives a shit who anybody is. Like, there's
there's often a joke about, you know, in one room
you could have, you know, a criminal. The guy, the
the cop who arrested him, the judge that got him off,
you know, like, all, all roll a happily rolling together.
It's just it's such an eclectic group of people. There
are surgeons who do it. There are, you know, guys
(42:02):
who smoke weed all day doing it. And everyone comes
to it from a different perspective. But it's a very
equalizing space.
S2 (42:09):
What is it? What is it to what would you
say about accessing that kind of humility in a deliberate way?
What does it give you?
S1 (42:17):
Oh, it's so good. It's for me to to be
humbled is, I think, something that's really healthy. I think
everybody needs to experience that because it puts life into context. Yeah,
it really, really does. The things that happen to you suddenly,
things that might have bothered you before don't bother you anymore.
Is is it worth raising this issue? Is this the
(42:40):
hill you want to die on? Like it suddenly just
puts everything for me into perspective, and all you really
have at the end of the day is yourself. Um,
but you always have the capacity to learn and just
to be like, you have agency over that. So that's
what it teaches me.
S2 (42:58):
Um. Pluck food. I won't coo at a ah, turkey. Todd,
you would have come.
S5 (43:08):
Out with a turkey.
S2 (43:09):
I told you what a.
S1 (43:10):
Chore you do. A great Zack de la Rocha.
S2 (43:17):
That was Melissa Leong. Her brand new memoir is called guts.
You can get it where you get your book, books, ebook.
You can get that where you get your books. I'll
put a link in the show notes where you can
also get a copy of So What Now What? My
latest book that I wrote with Campbell Walker and tickets
to go and see Story Club Sunday the 9th of November,
Factory Theatre, Marrickville. Come along, do something fun. Enjoy a laugh.
(43:40):
I'll see you on Monday. Thanks for listening.
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