December 25, 2024 • 29 mins
Before you become “Mum” or “Dad,” you're just you—with a first name, a spontaneous social life, and the freedom to pursue your career ambitions with no limits, even if that means sometimes working 20-hour days. That was the life of today's guest, Bec Bignell, before she became a parent.
Bec pushed herself to give 100% to both her career and her role as a parent, but eventually, the strain took its toll. Forced to pause, she reflected on the moments that truly brought her happiness and began to seek fulfilment on her own terms.
Read Bec's full Little Love Story here.
Listen to more "This Glorious Mess" HERE
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CREDITS:
Host & Producer: Grace Rouvray
Guest: Bec Bignell
Audio Producer: Leah Porges
Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
You're listening to a Mother a Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land. We
have recorded this podcast on the Gatagul people of the
Eor nation. We pay our respects to their elders past
and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and
Torus s right islander cultures.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Hi, It's Grace from this Glorious mess. Introducing hot Pod Summer.
It's one hundred hours of curated listening across the Muma
Mea network, just for you to escape the chaos and
enjoy with the kids at home and the weather warming up.
We're going to share some episodes of Little Love Stories.
Little Love Stories is an open hearted conversation with someone
(01:01):
who has love to share that love can be anything,
a time in someone's life, a person, or even an object.
It's all about discovering the magic everywhere you look. So
I hope you enjoy this episode of Little Love Stories.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
I love you how you live with your Hi.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
I'm Grace Rifray and welcome to Little Love Stories. Before
you become mum or dad, you're just you. You have
a first name, a spontaneous social life, and the freedom
to pursue your career ambitions with no limits, even if
that means sometimes you're working maybe a sixteen to twenty
hour day. That was the life of Today's guest Beck
Bignol before she became a parent.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
But yeah, I was feeling a little bit, I guess,
like I was on a never ending trademill, full of adrenaline,
moving through each project, aspiring to the next one.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
It was very much about the doing.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
When her first daughter, Evie was born in April twenty
twenty one, Beck tried to maintain her intense work identity
as the capable, dedicated career woman, all while stepping into
her new role as a present and nurturing mum.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
What you're actually doing is duplicating, Like I sort of
felt like I had cloned a life that I was
now trying to like bring both of those in still
only with the constraints of the same amount of time.
So it actually just felt impossible, you know, and then
you start to not do things well and you feel
(02:31):
like you're doing everything badly.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Beck was determined to give one hundred percent to both,
but so many women ask this question, can we really
have it all? Or are we being set up to fail?
When you're striving to excel in everything. What slips through
the cracks. Often it's not the job or the family
obligations that give way. It's you, the person putting yourself
last to make it all work, until one day it doesn't.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
I was like, oh, something bad's going to happen here,
Like I am literally burning the candle, Like I even
to the point where like to try and knit these
things together and not affect either part.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
It is yourself that starts to implode.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
You're like, I want to show up the best is
possible for my family and my kids. I want to
show up the best is possible for my colleagues. Something
is just by depaulty here going to have to take
the brunt of that.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
For Beck, that wake up call came soon after the
arrival of her second daughter, Poppy. She was forced to
take a pause to reflect on the moments that truly
bought her happiness and found that career and family can
coexist if you're going after a feeling. Today's story is
a powerful journey of balancing identity and Beck finding fulfillment
(03:45):
on her own terms. But before we get there, I
asked the people in the Mum and Mere office about
a moment in their life where they felt truly happy.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
It was after my partner and I had been together
for several months, just waking up next to him and
watching him peacefully sleep for a minute or two, realizing
I was completely in love with him, wondering why my
face was sore. It was because I'd been spying the
whole time.
Speaker 6 (04:09):
It was the first day after I bought my first house.
You know that thing where you just don't have any furniture.
So we sat on the floor and we ate pizza,
And then it struck me that I don't have to
deal with my parents bothering me anymore if I come
home late. They don't ask me where I've been. I
don't have to fix their laptops. I've just got total
independence and freedom.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
It was when I finally got the medication that I've
needed my whole life for my ADHD.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
When I laughed so hard I cried, like the kind
of laugh that doesn't really stop because whatever made you
laugh is still plain in your mind.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
It feels so good because you smile for hours.
Speaker 6 (04:49):
Beck.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
You grew up regionally, and I feel like there is
a stereotype around the jobs that people go on to
do if they grew up regionally or they grew up
in the bush, but you found yourself in the arts.
I'd love to know if there were aspects of growing
up regionally that fostered a love for the arts or
the potential for a career in the arts.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yes, it's very true. I think I was really lucky.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
I obviously am in the arts and in filmmaking, and
there definitely wasn't a lot of presence within my region
locally at the time for people in those jobs. But
I had grown up with a natural affinity for creativity
and imagination. I think because of space proximity to nature,
Like I would frequently go into the bush, so much
(05:33):
bush close to the house, and I.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Would just walk in and really drew a lot.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
From things like the trees and you know, the crunchy
leaves underneath my feet. The textures of our region in
the Great Southern are like beautiful.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
All of those things.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Really did inspire me, and I think I had the
space to breathe and take it in because there wasn't
a lot of distractions.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
It was a very simple childhood. So I had some.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
Incredible creative influences in my grandma, who was a writer,
and my mum always fostered it, and they would take
us to things like plays in the city, which was
such a big deal. Those things were my first love,
and I felt like I was supported to think that
that was a viable road to go down, even though
around me, you know, the traditional kind of jobs were
(06:19):
things like teachers, seeing farmers. I never felt like I
couldn't pursue what I wanted to. That clarity just has
stuck with me forever, and it really feels like it
is baked into my heart. So it's a clear kind
of compass for me, and it helps me like be
very true to what I want to.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Do, if that makes sense. I feel lucky.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
I never had that kind of confusion at school, going oh,
I don't know what I want to do.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
A lot of your little love story talks about feeling
and striving for a feeling rather than an arbitrary job
or an activity or a destination. But also so much
what you talk about is about a job, an activity,
or a destination. So I'd love to start by asking
you to describe the feeling that you were living with
before you had kids.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Yeah, I know, it's really interesting. I'm very emotional and
sensitive by nature, so feelings always bubble close to the
surface for me, and I think what I've been in
jobs that have been more inclined to need you to
suppress those feelings, I've struggled a bit because I've just
had to find a way to kind of numb those
feelings down so they don't emerge in like.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Meetings or things like that.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
So prior to having kids, I think I had gone
through a bit of a process where I had wrangled
those feelings to an extent. I think I'd lost my
way a bit, and I thought, you know that what
I was aspiring to was almost like line items to
put on.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Your CV or your LinkedIn.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
For me, I wasn't viewing it like that, but in reflection,
I think it sort of came a bit like that.
I think, you know, in film and TV you have
to acquire credits, and so you can get into that
habit of just searching.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
For the next thing.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
I really think I kind of got stuck in that
a little bit in terms of really taking on a
bit too much, finding it really difficult to know what
to say no to, what my capacity was, you know,
like you've only got twenty four hours in a day,
I think my worth as well.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
I would take on more than I should have.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
But yeah, I was feeling a little bit like I
was on a never ending treadmill full of adrenaline, moving
through each reject, aspiring to the next one.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
It was very much about the doing.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Or your first baby, Evie. She came into the world
after significant admin almost like a job. There was a
lot going on. You were in another state, your pregnancy
remained a secret because of work and also an unexpected move.
Can you take me through the steps as to how
you found yourself back in your home state of Wa
in twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Talking about that that hectic period of being stuck in
the vortex a bit the work vortex. I actually had
been working on editing a show that I had created,
and it was sort of ongoing as COVID sort of
tracked through. But I remember I'd been locked inside a room,
you know, a dark room, to the point where I
had become pregnant. During that process, we were in Sydney
(09:12):
and I actually had like a vitamin D deficiency. I
remember when I had to go and do the blood
test and I was hot.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
This woman has not seen daylight in months.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
I literally was like, Oh my goodness, this is a
very clear physical sign of not having seen daylight. So
I tried to like pivot obviously at that point, be like,
you need to actually get out in the world again.
And then the world just kind of opened up that door. Anyway,
I ended up going back to wa to work on
the film Blue Back, which took me back into the
(09:44):
region that I'm from, like a really magical experience I
feel super fortunate to have had.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
But like you say, I was pregnant at the time.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
It was tricky because the shop kept getting pushed out
because of COVID and all of the logistics around that
side of things. When I was actually working on it,
I was pregnant. I concealed that for some time because
I was so worried about telling the team because I
didn't want it to affect I think. And that was
probably the first time that I realized, oh, my goodness,
(10:12):
the way that I work is actually going to change,
because I didn't want people to treat me any differently
because I was pregnant, like and I did want them
to worry that I wasn't going to be able to perform.
I found it really difficult to have that conversation explaining
that I was pregnant. As it turned out, obviously, the
team were like extremely supportive, and one of the other
producers ended up being pregnant on the shoot as well,
(10:33):
and she was pregnant with those seconds, so she was
a really incredible support for me during that shoot, and
a lot of the other people working on the shoot
we're heads of department as well and said they were
also supportive. But what ended up happening was my partner, Jim,
was still living in Sydney, and then with the border closures,
they called a hard border closure at Christmas, and we'd
been doing pre production back there and the shoot was
(10:55):
principal photography was taking place in twenty twenty one. Our
daughterer was due a week after the shoot because of
the changes, so Jim had to make like a split
second decision to bail Sydney and come in to join me,
just so he wouldn't miss the birth of his first child.
I'd already done lockdown for two weeks because of that decision.
I had to drive up the Alvenue Highway from Vera
(11:16):
Bay to pick him up. When he landed, we just
missed the window where you know you only had to
do forty eight hours isolation or something, which meant that
we would be locked up over Christmas and New Year.
And it was also soaring temperatures without air conditioning, which
was not very pleasant. As far along in the pregnancy
as I was, it meant that when we got out
on the other side, we really were confused. We had
(11:36):
no idea what was going on. We just had to
put one foot in front of the other. I'd had
to basically move my pregnancy arrangements, you know, the support
that you get from doctors and stuff. Three times, gone
from Sydney to Perth and then down to the Great
Southern So it was super discombobulating, and we just had
to like support each other and trust that like the
right thing would eventually show up. And we really just
(11:59):
figured everything out on the run because the borders kept
opening and shutting that year, so we just had to
make decisions as they came.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
You talk about the shock to your identity after you
had it Evy in April twenty twenty one, which I
think is so relatable for anyone who's had a child
or gone through a massive life transition. Could you tell
me about what that was for you, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
I think maybe because I was so immersed in this
like work for Tex beforehand. It's almost like I didn't
think ahead to consider that I would have this massive
change to my identity, like I'd thought about everything else,
you know, like the body changes, hormone changes, you know,
like actual day to day changes. I'm going to have
(12:42):
to start doing these things like changing nappies and feeding
and things. I had actually thought about those, but I
never consider the impact that it would have to my identity.
And I suppose that happens for different people at different times,
and depending what their context is, it's just so vastly
different for everyone. But for me, I think initially I
was sort of in denial. And I think with remote
(13:04):
working so much opportunity to keep working, like to retain
the status quo, because you can have meetings outside of
the traditional times, you can be working on platforms that
support collaborative work from AFAR, it gave me an opportunity
to kind of pretend like there wasn't a change. It
was this really weird intersection of like a massive change
that happened to where even like you know, my day to
(13:27):
day was just now crammed full of baby related things.
And then I was still trying to show up and
almost pretend like that didn't exist, to meet my obligations
and not let people down and striving, and so it
was really it actually took quite some time until the
penny dropped, and I have to admit, but it wasn't
(13:48):
really even a realization that I came to by myself,
Like it was brewing in the back of my mind
that this is not sustainable to try and live that
way that.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
I'd worked in this new way.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
I just couldn't face myself addressing it or what the
new possibility of that looked like. And maybe also because
I just didn't have time. I was sleep deprived, and
I was like, I was so on that line.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Go go, go, go go, just on adrenaline, I.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Think as well, just coming through that COVID time, like
there was just a sense of like, who knows what's
going on anyway, just lean into it. But it did
mean that I gave me sort of an excuse from
addressing the impact that it was having on me physically
and mentally. You know, I'm reflecting on a lot of
this in hindsight now because my daughter, my youngest daughter,
is eighteen months my other daughters three and a half,
(14:33):
and I think I look back and I think one
of the things I did, which actually makes me a
little bit sad. You know, no one's given you a guidebook.
Everyone's pretty much figuring it out for themselves. I isolated
myself a little bit because I was just like, I
just need to keep on keeping on, you know. I
think in hindsight looking back at that, that was what
I just had to do, burrow into just this like action.
(14:56):
The penny started to drop about who am I, you know,
and I would I'd refer to social media and I
would see peers kind of posting about all this amazing
stuff that they were doing. And I really found like
I was getting this huge sense of fomo what I
had given up. I was also like really angry about
just at the peak of my career that I'd worked
(15:17):
so hard for to point back at the beginning of
the pigeons, like even get myself from the bush into Perth,
from Perth to Sydney. I really had to work really
hard to self generate opportunity and to kind of figure
out what the journey could look like for myself. And
(15:38):
that took a lot of energy and passion and bouncing
back out from all the rejection, trying to prove myself.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
When I got.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
To that point where I was like I am being
taken seriously now, you know, like I'm starting to take
myself seriously.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Other people are starting to take me seriously.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
And then it was suddenly just I was going backward,
and that pretty devastating because at the same time I
was so thrilled and in complete love with this bundle
of joy that had also made me change the way
I viewed the world in terms of time and the
things I was valuing. So I couldn't quite reconcile all
(16:17):
of those things, you know, the fact that I was wistful,
but just as I was hitting that mark, I was
actually about to go backwards when all of these other
people could keep going forward. And then I was also
extremely grateful to be experiencing this complete change to my
outlook because of this beautiful little baby that I had.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
It brings us to an interesting point in how the
world views working mothers these days, and this philosophy that
women can have it all, they can have the career,
they can have children. I'd love to know how you
feel about that statement or that mentality from people, especially
as you've written about your desire to stay in the game.
(17:06):
You're going to be the best mum, You're going to
be the best employer, You're going to have the best career.
So I guess the question is do you think women
can have it all? Or are you just set up
to fail?
Speaker 4 (17:15):
I mean, look, it's different for everyone, but certainly for
me it felt like a little bit of a punky moment.
Whilst the opportunity is there which we're so lucky to
have access to, society hasn't evolved to the extent to
which that shame has proportionately reduced.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
I just constantly.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
Felt charged or made to feel I was neglecting my children,
or like that these choices were at the detriment of
my children. And so then you're tussing with that, like
beating yourself up in the mental part of your brain
that's also then housing all these other tasks that you
just take on as a mum. Like that mental load
(17:53):
is genuine, you know, and you do take it through
and it is connected to the woman because we haven't considered, okay,
if they're going to have this part of the pie,
where does this part of the pie Go in my family, James,
my husband, is an incredible support in enabling the load
to be shared for kids, and we can make things
(18:14):
work by communicating sitting down, how we can move things
around in terms of the diary and the schedule and
those kind of practicalities. But what hasn't evolved is general
infrastructure in society to actually support women to the extent that,
like all of that fringe stuff that I'm talking about,
it still exists there. So it's almost like what you're
(18:34):
actually doing is duplicating. Like I sort of felt like
I had cloned a life that I was now trying
to like bring both of those.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
In still only with the constraints of the same amount
of time. So it actually just.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
Felt impossible, you know, and then you start to not
do things well and you feel like you're doing everything
badly because you know, the truth is, you can't always
show up to the best of your ability.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
I mean, I remember doing an interview.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Live on air on the ABC because I had to,
like Homespun was coming out three weeks after I gave birth.
I had to do some promotional stuff around that, and
I managed to do it. Like you couldn't have told
that I had a baby that I just fed, and
that I was trying to find a place in the
house where I could do this interview that was live
on whilst I had this baby in another room. But
(19:24):
then that kind of anxiety or the I guess that
energy that you have to use to kind of pull
yourself into that level of focus to be present for
those moments, it does impact somewhere, and if it's not mental,
it tends to be physical.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
So I guess, in.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Answer to your question, like, it is incredible that we've
got access to this opportunity and that we can dare
to dream the dreams that we've got without having that inhibited.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
But I think the tricky part is.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
How do we encompass those into these other elements as well,
Like what part has to give or how do you
manage that? And I think for me, I couldn't figure
it out for myself. It took something physical for me
to actually have that moment.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Yes, which is my next question. You call your turning
point shingles. Obviously there are physical symptoms and there's treatment
in it. It's an awful time, But I want to
know how shingles became so pivotal to you seeing the
wood fil trey.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
I think it's that thing where I could tell.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
I was like, oh, something bad's going to happen here,
Like I am literally burning the candle, even to the
point where like to try and knit these things together
and not affect either part.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
It is yourself that starts to implode.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
You're like, I want to show up the best as
possible for my family and my kids. I want to
show up the best is possible for my colleagues. Something
is just by default physics going to have to take
the brunt of that energy output, and it's usually you.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Like I had like really clear signs.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
My second toe went numb, and I was like, neurologically,
this feels not good. And I would go the doctors
and get blood tests, and eventually it did happen. And
I had been carrying the kids a lot, and one
of my kids had sort of gotten a bit too
big to carry, but I was still carrying her around
and I was feeding my second kid and just doing
(21:19):
all the things. I had really bad back pain, and
I thought it must have just been because I was
carrying the kids so much, and.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
So I missed the window.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
When you get shingles, there's like a window that if
you get it in time, you can get this anti
viral that will stop the pain that the nerve pain.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
And because of.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
My insistence to just keep going, I missed the window
and so I endured this like horrific pain for four
weeks that was just so aggressive and I was forced
to just sit on the counts and it felt like
really having to sit down and like reflect on my
actions and go there was no way out of it.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I was just like, yeah, something's got to give.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
This is what I imagine is a hard question because
I'm going to talk about the clarity that only reflection brings.
But knowing what you know now, would you change anything?
Or do you feel like all of the mistakes, the shingles,
the like vibrating through the walls has made you stronger?
Like I guess I mean that in less of our
(22:19):
whimsical we must offer through the pain way. But is
there things you would change?
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Oh? Absolutely? Like I think it's just that you know
that idea of punishment.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
I think I'd really gotten into this place where I
sort of equated adrenaline and.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Go, go, go, go go with the results.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
And then that was a really goo moment where I went, well,
what do the results even mean?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Like this is the way you're going to live? What
are you eventually hoping to get to? Like whipping yourself
on the back.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
It's not a fun What do you get when you
get there? An honest certificate to say, well done, you
made it, Now go back, you know? So I was like,
what am I striving for? And that's I guess what
took me back to going and especially like having the kids,
it was really interesting because watching them enjoy and play
was a really key reminder as well that like that's
what life is. We'll talk about being present and all
(23:07):
of that, and I mean different things to different people,
but like, because I love play so much, I find
it quite easy to be present with my kids because
I love mucking around, joking and singing and all that
stuff and painting. So I had this really nice thing
to draw onto to go I love feeling like this,
like in that horrific space of pain and self sabotage
and all of that stuff, I actually could refer to
(23:29):
this and go, this is actually what I want, Like
what does this look like? I don't need to do
all the things and be all the things and have
people think I'm doing this, and that like, if this
is my life, I actually want to feel this for
more time than not, for as much time that I can,
So how then can I make choices about what I'm
(23:51):
doing to return this feeling? And that really did help
me start to get clarity on the things that I.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Wanted to do.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
You're right in that I can't imagine given that I
showed no initiative in making this realization independently.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
It took all of these things.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
I can't imagine that I could have arrived that by myself,
because I didn't. That's the truth. I can't think that
I would have done it any other way. But I
do look back and I just wish for myself that
I hadn't punished myself so much.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
And get ill while still in pursuit of that feeling,
and that feeling in terms of career, that feeling in
terms of parenting. Who are the people who contributed to
the feeling or brought you something that made you feel
a feeling, Who was part of your village, the people
who turned up either impersonal from a farm.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Gosh, it's a really beautiful question because I've had some
incredible support along the way and I think that's why
I'm so lucky, because I was led to believe that
this was totally achievable career to have, and that started
from an early age with my grandmother, who sadly passed
away yesterday.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
She was a writer. She lost her daughter when her
daughter was eighteen. As a mother myself, now, an understanding
of what that experience would have been like for her
is very clear. Obviously, I'll never relate to it unless
that experience happens to me. But I think the connection
that we had was super strong because in some ways
(25:20):
she got to experience things that she wouldn't have been
able to otherwise. So she was a really big champion
of creativity for me from a really young age, like
everything from painting to you know, like yesterday I was
listening to Singing the Rain because she would take me
to musicals and she would give me books, and she
(25:40):
would give me creative writing tasks, and she would encourage performing,
and she just opened my eyes up to things that,
like in the tiny town that I grew up in,
I wouldn't have access to. And that was complimented by
my mother, who also is really creative, even though she's
a physio They never diminished the value of creativity.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
They bolstered it up. They bolsted me up.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
And I reflect on that because in that time and
where we lived, like that wasn't traditional to the experience,
so I was really really lucky in it. I think
it'll definitely make me continue to passionately, you know, make
sure that people access their own creativity and know the
it's like a really viable thing to want to pursue.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
And that really meant a lot to me.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
And definitely, creativity and being in this industry is just
so fraught with rejection and there's just so many things
where you just have to constantly work on yourself to
be able to survive. It's in a place like Australia,
having those people really continuously propped me up and like
(26:48):
that was huge, and I hope that I can provide
that same experience for my girls too.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Before I get to my last question, I just want
to thank you for turning up for this interview and
for sharing so much fullness of love while you're in
this immediate rawness of grief. I think it's a really
beautiful way to talk about the legacy that your grandmother has.
In this conversation, so thank you for that, Beg. I
(27:13):
want to ask what we ask everyone at the end
of little love stories is what does love mean to
you now? Today? It can shang tomorrow, it can change
next week, but right now as we talk, what does
love mean to you?
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Again?
Speaker 4 (27:26):
I guess I art back to feeling like in me,
especially at the moment, like I feel love so strongly,
Like it does feel like it's in my heart. It's
that strength of this powerful emotion of just going how
lucky am I to have experienced this connection with such
(27:46):
a person, you know, being my grand obviously moving through
this experience at the moment like it's just a deep,
deep sense of gratitude, and I guess like it gives
you value for life. It is easy to get stuck
in that treadmill and that vortex and that just you know,
every day it's almost like a calendar where like the
calendar page just flick through and you know, everyone goes,
(28:09):
oh god, it's October, Like where do the you go?
You can get so caught up in that just time
moving forward. But when you have a moment like I've
experienced with grand passing, it really does remind you we're
so lucky. To have this life and to have these
connections with people, and that is love, Like I guess
it's vulnerability, Like we don't feel grief unless we feel love,
(28:32):
and so making ourselves vulnerable and open to connecting with
people on that deepest level reciprocally providing them with support
and respect and adoration and joy. That's what love is
to me, A heart connection that makes life worth living.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Thank you so much, Beck for sharing your Little Love Story.
Thank you so much for listening to Little Love Stories.
If you want to read Beck's full story, there is
a link in the show notes. Please get in touch
if you'd like to share your story with us. All
the details on how to do that are also in
our show notes. Little Love Stories is produced by me
Grace Roofrey, with audio production by Leah Porge's. If you're
looking for something else to listen to, Muma Miho is
(29:14):
presenting one hundred hours of summer listens from meaningful conversations,
incredible stories, fashion, beauty, and a bit of silliness. There's
a link to more things to listen to in the
show notes.
You're listening to a Mother a Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land. We
have recorded this podcast on the Gatagul people of the
Eor nation. We pay our respects to their elders past
and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and
Torus s right islander cultures.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Hi, It's Grace from this Glorious mess. Introducing hot Pod Summer.
It's one hundred hours of curated listening across the Muma
Mea network, just for you to escape the chaos and
enjoy with the kids at home and the weather warming up.
We're going to share some episodes of Little Love Stories.
Little Love Stories is an open hearted conversation with someone
(01:01):
who has love to share that love can be anything,
a time in someone's life, a person, or even an object.
It's all about discovering the magic everywhere you look. So
I hope you enjoy this episode of Little Love Stories.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
I love you how you live with your Hi.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
I'm Grace Rifray and welcome to Little Love Stories. Before
you become mum or dad, you're just you. You have
a first name, a spontaneous social life, and the freedom
to pursue your career ambitions with no limits, even if
that means sometimes you're working maybe a sixteen to twenty
hour day. That was the life of Today's guest Beck
Bignol before she became a parent.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
But yeah, I was feeling a little bit, I guess,
like I was on a never ending trademill, full of adrenaline,
moving through each project, aspiring to the next one.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
It was very much about the doing.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
When her first daughter, Evie was born in April twenty
twenty one, Beck tried to maintain her intense work identity
as the capable, dedicated career woman, all while stepping into
her new role as a present and nurturing mum.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
What you're actually doing is duplicating, Like I sort of
felt like I had cloned a life that I was
now trying to like bring both of those in still
only with the constraints of the same amount of time.
So it actually just felt impossible, you know, and then
you start to not do things well and you feel
(02:31):
like you're doing everything badly.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Beck was determined to give one hundred percent to both,
but so many women ask this question, can we really
have it all? Or are we being set up to fail?
When you're striving to excel in everything. What slips through
the cracks. Often it's not the job or the family
obligations that give way. It's you, the person putting yourself
last to make it all work, until one day it doesn't.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
I was like, oh, something bad's going to happen here,
Like I am literally burning the candle, Like I even
to the point where like to try and knit these
things together and not affect either part.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
It is yourself that starts to implode.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
You're like, I want to show up the best is
possible for my family and my kids. I want to
show up the best is possible for my colleagues. Something
is just by depaulty here going to have to take
the brunt of that.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
For Beck, that wake up call came soon after the
arrival of her second daughter, Poppy. She was forced to
take a pause to reflect on the moments that truly
bought her happiness and found that career and family can
coexist if you're going after a feeling. Today's story is
a powerful journey of balancing identity and Beck finding fulfillment
(03:45):
on her own terms. But before we get there, I
asked the people in the Mum and Mere office about
a moment in their life where they felt truly happy.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
It was after my partner and I had been together
for several months, just waking up next to him and
watching him peacefully sleep for a minute or two, realizing
I was completely in love with him, wondering why my
face was sore. It was because I'd been spying the
whole time.
Speaker 6 (04:09):
It was the first day after I bought my first house.
You know that thing where you just don't have any furniture.
So we sat on the floor and we ate pizza,
And then it struck me that I don't have to
deal with my parents bothering me anymore if I come
home late. They don't ask me where I've been. I
don't have to fix their laptops. I've just got total
independence and freedom.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
It was when I finally got the medication that I've
needed my whole life for my ADHD.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
When I laughed so hard I cried, like the kind
of laugh that doesn't really stop because whatever made you
laugh is still plain in your mind.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
It feels so good because you smile for hours.
Speaker 6 (04:49):
Beck.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
You grew up regionally, and I feel like there is
a stereotype around the jobs that people go on to
do if they grew up regionally or they grew up
in the bush, but you found yourself in the arts.
I'd love to know if there were aspects of growing
up regionally that fostered a love for the arts or
the potential for a career in the arts.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yes, it's very true. I think I was really lucky.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
I obviously am in the arts and in filmmaking, and
there definitely wasn't a lot of presence within my region
locally at the time for people in those jobs. But
I had grown up with a natural affinity for creativity
and imagination. I think because of space proximity to nature,
Like I would frequently go into the bush, so much
(05:33):
bush close to the house, and I.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Would just walk in and really drew a lot.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
From things like the trees and you know, the crunchy
leaves underneath my feet. The textures of our region in
the Great Southern are like beautiful.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
All of those things.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Really did inspire me, and I think I had the
space to breathe and take it in because there wasn't
a lot of distractions.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
It was a very simple childhood. So I had some.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
Incredible creative influences in my grandma, who was a writer,
and my mum always fostered it, and they would take
us to things like plays in the city, which was
such a big deal. Those things were my first love,
and I felt like I was supported to think that
that was a viable road to go down, even though
around me, you know, the traditional kind of jobs were
(06:19):
things like teachers, seeing farmers. I never felt like I
couldn't pursue what I wanted to. That clarity just has
stuck with me forever, and it really feels like it
is baked into my heart. So it's a clear kind
of compass for me, and it helps me like be
very true to what I want to.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Do, if that makes sense. I feel lucky.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
I never had that kind of confusion at school, going oh,
I don't know what I want to do.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
A lot of your little love story talks about feeling
and striving for a feeling rather than an arbitrary job
or an activity or a destination. But also so much
what you talk about is about a job, an activity,
or a destination. So I'd love to start by asking
you to describe the feeling that you were living with
before you had kids.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Yeah, I know, it's really interesting. I'm very emotional and
sensitive by nature, so feelings always bubble close to the
surface for me, and I think what I've been in
jobs that have been more inclined to need you to
suppress those feelings, I've struggled a bit because I've just
had to find a way to kind of numb those
feelings down so they don't emerge in like.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Meetings or things like that.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
So prior to having kids, I think I had gone
through a bit of a process where I had wrangled
those feelings to an extent. I think I'd lost my
way a bit, and I thought, you know that what
I was aspiring to was almost like line items to
put on.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Your CV or your LinkedIn.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
For me, I wasn't viewing it like that, but in reflection,
I think it sort of came a bit like that.
I think, you know, in film and TV you have
to acquire credits, and so you can get into that
habit of just searching.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
For the next thing.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
I really think I kind of got stuck in that
a little bit in terms of really taking on a
bit too much, finding it really difficult to know what
to say no to, what my capacity was, you know,
like you've only got twenty four hours in a day,
I think my worth as well.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
I would take on more than I should have.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
But yeah, I was feeling a little bit like I
was on a never ending treadmill full of adrenaline, moving
through each reject, aspiring to the next one.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
It was very much about the doing.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Or your first baby, Evie. She came into the world
after significant admin almost like a job. There was a
lot going on. You were in another state, your pregnancy
remained a secret because of work and also an unexpected move.
Can you take me through the steps as to how
you found yourself back in your home state of Wa
in twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Talking about that that hectic period of being stuck in
the vortex a bit the work vortex. I actually had
been working on editing a show that I had created,
and it was sort of ongoing as COVID sort of
tracked through. But I remember I'd been locked inside a room,
you know, a dark room, to the point where I
had become pregnant. During that process, we were in Sydney
(09:12):
and I actually had like a vitamin D deficiency. I
remember when I had to go and do the blood
test and I was hot.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
This woman has not seen daylight in months.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
I literally was like, Oh my goodness, this is a
very clear physical sign of not having seen daylight. So
I tried to like pivot obviously at that point, be like,
you need to actually get out in the world again.
And then the world just kind of opened up that door. Anyway,
I ended up going back to wa to work on
the film Blue Back, which took me back into the
(09:44):
region that I'm from, like a really magical experience I
feel super fortunate to have had.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
But like you say, I was pregnant at the time.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
It was tricky because the shop kept getting pushed out
because of COVID and all of the logistics around that
side of things. When I was actually working on it,
I was pregnant. I concealed that for some time because
I was so worried about telling the team because I
didn't want it to affect I think. And that was
probably the first time that I realized, oh, my goodness,
(10:12):
the way that I work is actually going to change,
because I didn't want people to treat me any differently
because I was pregnant, like and I did want them
to worry that I wasn't going to be able to perform.
I found it really difficult to have that conversation explaining
that I was pregnant. As it turned out, obviously, the
team were like extremely supportive, and one of the other
producers ended up being pregnant on the shoot as well,
(10:33):
and she was pregnant with those seconds, so she was
a really incredible support for me during that shoot, and
a lot of the other people working on the shoot
we're heads of department as well and said they were
also supportive. But what ended up happening was my partner, Jim,
was still living in Sydney, and then with the border closures,
they called a hard border closure at Christmas, and we'd
been doing pre production back there and the shoot was
(10:55):
principal photography was taking place in twenty twenty one. Our
daughterer was due a week after the shoot because of
the changes, so Jim had to make like a split
second decision to bail Sydney and come in to join me,
just so he wouldn't miss the birth of his first child.
I'd already done lockdown for two weeks because of that decision.
I had to drive up the Alvenue Highway from Vera
(11:16):
Bay to pick him up. When he landed, we just
missed the window where you know you only had to
do forty eight hours isolation or something, which meant that
we would be locked up over Christmas and New Year.
And it was also soaring temperatures without air conditioning, which
was not very pleasant. As far along in the pregnancy
as I was, it meant that when we got out
on the other side, we really were confused. We had
(11:36):
no idea what was going on. We just had to
put one foot in front of the other. I'd had
to basically move my pregnancy arrangements, you know, the support
that you get from doctors and stuff. Three times, gone
from Sydney to Perth and then down to the Great
Southern So it was super discombobulating, and we just had
to like support each other and trust that like the
right thing would eventually show up. And we really just
(11:59):
figured everything out on the run because the borders kept
opening and shutting that year, so we just had to
make decisions as they came.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
You talk about the shock to your identity after you
had it Evy in April twenty twenty one, which I
think is so relatable for anyone who's had a child
or gone through a massive life transition. Could you tell
me about what that was for you, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
I think maybe because I was so immersed in this
like work for Tex beforehand. It's almost like I didn't
think ahead to consider that I would have this massive
change to my identity, like I'd thought about everything else,
you know, like the body changes, hormone changes, you know,
like actual day to day changes. I'm going to have
(12:42):
to start doing these things like changing nappies and feeding
and things. I had actually thought about those, but I
never consider the impact that it would have to my identity.
And I suppose that happens for different people at different times,
and depending what their context is, it's just so vastly
different for everyone. But for me, I think initially I
was sort of in denial. And I think with remote
(13:04):
working so much opportunity to keep working, like to retain
the status quo, because you can have meetings outside of
the traditional times, you can be working on platforms that
support collaborative work from AFAR, it gave me an opportunity
to kind of pretend like there wasn't a change. It
was this really weird intersection of like a massive change
that happened to where even like you know, my day to
(13:27):
day was just now crammed full of baby related things.
And then I was still trying to show up and
almost pretend like that didn't exist, to meet my obligations
and not let people down and striving, and so it
was really it actually took quite some time until the
penny dropped, and I have to admit, but it wasn't
(13:48):
really even a realization that I came to by myself,
Like it was brewing in the back of my mind
that this is not sustainable to try and live that
way that.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
I'd worked in this new way.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
I just couldn't face myself addressing it or what the
new possibility of that looked like. And maybe also because
I just didn't have time. I was sleep deprived, and
I was like, I was so on that line.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Go go, go, go go, just on adrenaline, I.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Think as well, just coming through that COVID time, like
there was just a sense of like, who knows what's
going on anyway, just lean into it. But it did
mean that I gave me sort of an excuse from
addressing the impact that it was having on me physically
and mentally. You know, I'm reflecting on a lot of
this in hindsight now because my daughter, my youngest daughter,
is eighteen months my other daughters three and a half,
(14:33):
and I think I look back and I think one
of the things I did, which actually makes me a
little bit sad. You know, no one's given you a guidebook.
Everyone's pretty much figuring it out for themselves. I isolated
myself a little bit because I was just like, I
just need to keep on keeping on, you know. I
think in hindsight looking back at that, that was what
I just had to do, burrow into just this like action.
(14:56):
The penny started to drop about who am I, you know,
and I would I'd refer to social media and I
would see peers kind of posting about all this amazing
stuff that they were doing. And I really found like
I was getting this huge sense of fomo what I
had given up. I was also like really angry about
just at the peak of my career that I'd worked
(15:17):
so hard for to point back at the beginning of
the pigeons, like even get myself from the bush into Perth,
from Perth to Sydney. I really had to work really
hard to self generate opportunity and to kind of figure
out what the journey could look like for myself. And
(15:38):
that took a lot of energy and passion and bouncing
back out from all the rejection, trying to prove myself.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
When I got.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
To that point where I was like I am being
taken seriously now, you know, like I'm starting to take
myself seriously.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Other people are starting to take me seriously.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
And then it was suddenly just I was going backward,
and that pretty devastating because at the same time I
was so thrilled and in complete love with this bundle
of joy that had also made me change the way
I viewed the world in terms of time and the
things I was valuing. So I couldn't quite reconcile all
(16:17):
of those things, you know, the fact that I was wistful,
but just as I was hitting that mark, I was
actually about to go backwards when all of these other
people could keep going forward. And then I was also
extremely grateful to be experiencing this complete change to my
outlook because of this beautiful little baby that I had.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
It brings us to an interesting point in how the
world views working mothers these days, and this philosophy that
women can have it all, they can have the career,
they can have children. I'd love to know how you
feel about that statement or that mentality from people, especially
as you've written about your desire to stay in the game.
(17:06):
You're going to be the best mum, You're going to
be the best employer, You're going to have the best career.
So I guess the question is do you think women
can have it all? Or are you just set up
to fail?
Speaker 4 (17:15):
I mean, look, it's different for everyone, but certainly for
me it felt like a little bit of a punky moment.
Whilst the opportunity is there which we're so lucky to
have access to, society hasn't evolved to the extent to
which that shame has proportionately reduced.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
I just constantly.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
Felt charged or made to feel I was neglecting my children,
or like that these choices were at the detriment of
my children. And so then you're tussing with that, like
beating yourself up in the mental part of your brain
that's also then housing all these other tasks that you
just take on as a mum. Like that mental load
(17:53):
is genuine, you know, and you do take it through
and it is connected to the woman because we haven't considered, okay,
if they're going to have this part of the pie,
where does this part of the pie Go in my family, James,
my husband, is an incredible support in enabling the load
to be shared for kids, and we can make things
(18:14):
work by communicating sitting down, how we can move things
around in terms of the diary and the schedule and
those kind of practicalities. But what hasn't evolved is general
infrastructure in society to actually support women to the extent that,
like all of that fringe stuff that I'm talking about,
it still exists there. So it's almost like what you're
(18:34):
actually doing is duplicating. Like I sort of felt like
I had cloned a life that I was now trying
to like bring both of those.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
In still only with the constraints of the same amount
of time. So it actually just.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
Felt impossible, you know, and then you start to not
do things well and you feel like you're doing everything
badly because you know, the truth is, you can't always
show up to the best of your ability.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
I mean, I remember doing an interview.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Live on air on the ABC because I had to,
like Homespun was coming out three weeks after I gave birth.
I had to do some promotional stuff around that, and
I managed to do it. Like you couldn't have told
that I had a baby that I just fed, and
that I was trying to find a place in the
house where I could do this interview that was live
on whilst I had this baby in another room. But
(19:24):
then that kind of anxiety or the I guess that
energy that you have to use to kind of pull
yourself into that level of focus to be present for
those moments, it does impact somewhere, and if it's not mental,
it tends to be physical.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
So I guess, in.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Answer to your question, like, it is incredible that we've
got access to this opportunity and that we can dare
to dream the dreams that we've got without having that inhibited.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
But I think the tricky part is.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
How do we encompass those into these other elements as well,
Like what part has to give or how do you
manage that? And I think for me, I couldn't figure
it out for myself. It took something physical for me
to actually have that moment.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Yes, which is my next question. You call your turning
point shingles. Obviously there are physical symptoms and there's treatment
in it. It's an awful time, But I want to
know how shingles became so pivotal to you seeing the
wood fil trey.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
I think it's that thing where I could tell.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
I was like, oh, something bad's going to happen here,
Like I am literally burning the candle, even to the
point where like to try and knit these things together
and not affect either part.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
It is yourself that starts to implode.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
You're like, I want to show up the best as
possible for my family and my kids. I want to
show up the best is possible for my colleagues. Something
is just by default physics going to have to take
the brunt of that energy output, and it's usually you.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Like I had like really clear signs.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
My second toe went numb, and I was like, neurologically,
this feels not good. And I would go the doctors
and get blood tests, and eventually it did happen. And
I had been carrying the kids a lot, and one
of my kids had sort of gotten a bit too
big to carry, but I was still carrying her around
and I was feeding my second kid and just doing
(21:19):
all the things. I had really bad back pain, and
I thought it must have just been because I was
carrying the kids so much, and.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
So I missed the window.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
When you get shingles, there's like a window that if
you get it in time, you can get this anti
viral that will stop the pain that the nerve pain.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
And because of.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
My insistence to just keep going, I missed the window
and so I endured this like horrific pain for four
weeks that was just so aggressive and I was forced
to just sit on the counts and it felt like
really having to sit down and like reflect on my
actions and go there was no way out of it.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I was just like, yeah, something's got to give.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
This is what I imagine is a hard question because
I'm going to talk about the clarity that only reflection brings.
But knowing what you know now, would you change anything?
Or do you feel like all of the mistakes, the shingles,
the like vibrating through the walls has made you stronger?
Like I guess I mean that in less of our
(22:19):
whimsical we must offer through the pain way. But is
there things you would change?
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Oh? Absolutely? Like I think it's just that you know
that idea of punishment.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
I think I'd really gotten into this place where I
sort of equated adrenaline and.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Go, go, go, go go with the results.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
And then that was a really goo moment where I went, well,
what do the results even mean?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Like this is the way you're going to live? What
are you eventually hoping to get to? Like whipping yourself
on the back.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
It's not a fun What do you get when you
get there? An honest certificate to say, well done, you
made it, Now go back, you know? So I was like,
what am I striving for? And that's I guess what
took me back to going and especially like having the kids,
it was really interesting because watching them enjoy and play
was a really key reminder as well that like that's
what life is. We'll talk about being present and all
(23:07):
of that, and I mean different things to different people,
but like, because I love play so much, I find
it quite easy to be present with my kids because
I love mucking around, joking and singing and all that
stuff and painting. So I had this really nice thing
to draw onto to go I love feeling like this,
like in that horrific space of pain and self sabotage
and all of that stuff, I actually could refer to
(23:29):
this and go, this is actually what I want, Like
what does this look like? I don't need to do
all the things and be all the things and have
people think I'm doing this, and that like, if this
is my life, I actually want to feel this for
more time than not, for as much time that I can,
So how then can I make choices about what I'm
(23:51):
doing to return this feeling? And that really did help
me start to get clarity on the things that I.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Wanted to do.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
You're right in that I can't imagine given that I
showed no initiative in making this realization independently.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
It took all of these things.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
I can't imagine that I could have arrived that by myself,
because I didn't. That's the truth. I can't think that
I would have done it any other way. But I
do look back and I just wish for myself that
I hadn't punished myself so much.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
And get ill while still in pursuit of that feeling,
and that feeling in terms of career, that feeling in
terms of parenting. Who are the people who contributed to
the feeling or brought you something that made you feel
a feeling, Who was part of your village, the people
who turned up either impersonal from a farm.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Gosh, it's a really beautiful question because I've had some
incredible support along the way and I think that's why
I'm so lucky, because I was led to believe that
this was totally achievable career to have, and that started
from an early age with my grandmother, who sadly passed
away yesterday.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
She was a writer. She lost her daughter when her
daughter was eighteen. As a mother myself, now, an understanding
of what that experience would have been like for her
is very clear. Obviously, I'll never relate to it unless
that experience happens to me. But I think the connection
that we had was super strong because in some ways
(25:20):
she got to experience things that she wouldn't have been
able to otherwise. So she was a really big champion
of creativity for me from a really young age, like
everything from painting to you know, like yesterday I was
listening to Singing the Rain because she would take me
to musicals and she would give me books, and she
(25:40):
would give me creative writing tasks, and she would encourage performing,
and she just opened my eyes up to things that,
like in the tiny town that I grew up in,
I wouldn't have access to. And that was complimented by
my mother, who also is really creative, even though she's
a physio They never diminished the value of creativity.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
They bolstered it up. They bolsted me up.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
And I reflect on that because in that time and
where we lived, like that wasn't traditional to the experience,
so I was really really lucky in it. I think
it'll definitely make me continue to passionately, you know, make
sure that people access their own creativity and know the
it's like a really viable thing to want to pursue.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
And that really meant a lot to me.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
And definitely, creativity and being in this industry is just
so fraught with rejection and there's just so many things
where you just have to constantly work on yourself to
be able to survive. It's in a place like Australia,
having those people really continuously propped me up and like
(26:48):
that was huge, and I hope that I can provide
that same experience for my girls too.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Before I get to my last question, I just want
to thank you for turning up for this interview and
for sharing so much fullness of love while you're in
this immediate rawness of grief. I think it's a really
beautiful way to talk about the legacy that your grandmother has.
In this conversation, so thank you for that, Beg. I
(27:13):
want to ask what we ask everyone at the end
of little love stories is what does love mean to
you now? Today? It can shang tomorrow, it can change
next week, but right now as we talk, what does
love mean to you?
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Again?
Speaker 4 (27:26):
I guess I art back to feeling like in me,
especially at the moment, like I feel love so strongly,
Like it does feel like it's in my heart. It's
that strength of this powerful emotion of just going how
lucky am I to have experienced this connection with such
(27:46):
a person, you know, being my grand obviously moving through
this experience at the moment like it's just a deep,
deep sense of gratitude, and I guess like it gives
you value for life. It is easy to get stuck
in that treadmill and that vortex and that just you know,
every day it's almost like a calendar where like the
calendar page just flick through and you know, everyone goes,
(28:09):
oh god, it's October, Like where do the you go?
You can get so caught up in that just time
moving forward. But when you have a moment like I've
experienced with grand passing, it really does remind you we're
so lucky. To have this life and to have these
connections with people, and that is love, Like I guess
it's vulnerability, Like we don't feel grief unless we feel love,
(28:32):
and so making ourselves vulnerable and open to connecting with
people on that deepest level reciprocally providing them with support
and respect and adoration and joy. That's what love is
to me, A heart connection that makes life worth living.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Thank you so much, Beck for sharing your Little Love Story.
Thank you so much for listening to Little Love Stories.
If you want to read Beck's full story, there is
a link in the show notes. Please get in touch
if you'd like to share your story with us. All
the details on how to do that are also in
our show notes. Little Love Stories is produced by me
Grace Roofrey, with audio production by Leah Porge's. If you're
looking for something else to listen to, Muma Miho is
(29:14):
presenting one hundred hours of summer listens from meaningful conversations,
incredible stories, fashion, beauty, and a bit of silliness. There's
a link to more things to listen to in the
show notes.
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