September 21, 2025 • 47 mins
Interior designer Anna Carin joins host Michaela Overman for a tender, honest conversation about living with both beauty and pain at the same time. Raised on a Swedish farm and now three decades in Australia, Anna shares how a single incident of childhood sexual abuse (content note) shaped her relationship with shame, intimacy, control, and creativity —and how her lifelong “pursuit of beauty” became both refuge and expression.
She opens up about therapy, hypnosis, her short film What Will Be, and practices that help her reconnect with her body — yoga, drumming, and somatic movement. Together they explore inner-child work, releasing self-blame, and the possibility of seeking pleasure safely after trauma.
Anna leaves us with a powerful reminder: emotions soften when we stop adding stories and make space for them to settle.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
All right, run it. I wonder what you mean when you
use the word I use the word I I,I, I kick and break.
We have an aversion to ourselvesand to what's happening inside
(00:21):
us inside. US.
I've been very interested in this problem for a long long
time. Something settles.
Hi guys, and welcome back to theHeart of My Sleeve podcast.
I am your host Michaela Overman,and today I am joined by Anna
(00:42):
Curran. She is an interior designer
originally from Sweden but has now lived in Australia for. 30
years. 30 years. Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you for coming on today. Thank.
You very much Thank you. I believe this is the first
podcast you have done. I have done some before relating
(01:04):
to interior design and my work. OK, So today's podcast is a
little bit different. Welcome to 45 Minutes with
Michaela Roverman. So what I wanted to start with
was actually something I kind ofstart these podcasts asking a
(01:29):
little bit different question. Rather than just tell me a bit
about yourself. I would love to know what would
you like people to know more about you that has nothing to do
with your career and your job? Oh wow.
Well, I think deep down I'm actually probably a philosopher.
(01:50):
I'm kind of deeply interested inhuman behaviour, probably maybe
psychologist, but it's more around philosophy and what is
that shapes our beliefs and how we think and how we think and
how we then live our life and also have some vices that I
think people probably don't knowabout.
(02:12):
Tell me more. Do tell me.
I see. Yeah.
Just one. I love.
It and you know I. Heard I don't love it.
Do you know what I mean? No, but I recently heard someone
told me or I heard someone saying that Pope Benedict had
one or two cigarettes a day, so I thought.
I'm going to be like the. Like that, I can be like that.
(02:35):
So one cigarette a day. I'm probably a little bit
obsessive. I've been, you know, I
absolutely love what I do. I wake up every day.
Monday is exciting for me to be back and do what I love.
Yeah, I personally think that that is the biggest gift in life
(02:59):
is being able to find passion and love in the everyday and not
waiting for that excitement or happiness to come from, you
know, the big experiences in life, travelling also, you know,
having. Time off.
Absolutely. Yeah.
I mean, I'm in in a constant pursuit of beauty.
(03:19):
Yeah, improvements and beauty. That's kind of what drives me.
Yeah, I love that. I think that's beautiful.
Jumping back to what you said a little bit earlier on your
interest in philosophy and understanding what shapes
people, I would love to understand a little bit more of
what do you think shaped you to become this person who is
(03:43):
interested in the pursuit of beauty, as you say?
Well, I think it's a combinationof two things.
So I grew up very rural in the South of Sweden on the farm, a
lot of decency and goodness and very hard working.
(04:03):
I saw my parents working everyday, get up, work hard.
I have a deep rooted sort of work ethics, which I think came
from that knowing that unless you get up and work, then the
animals will die and the crop won't grow, which I think is
really good. And then I, something happened
(04:23):
to me and I guess we're, that's probably what we're going to
talk about today as well. You know, there was an incident
that then catapulted me out of that sort of goodness.
And maybe that's what I so I'm trying to recreate that goodness
and innocence somehow, maybe because of trying to create this
(04:48):
beauty. So it's like this, my whole life
is a therapy session. In that sense, wow, your whole
life sounds like a juxtaposition.
Yeah, a little bit, yeah, of. The beauty and the horrific at
the same time. But.
But I also think that, and I've come, yeah, there is something
(05:11):
that I'm also grateful to that that actually happened, which
sounds also contradictory in some ways.
But I do think that there is pain in this creation.
Always this it comes out of pain.
And I think unless there's some struggle of some shape or form,
(05:33):
the creativity doesn't come fromnowhere.
It comes from some sort of suffering.
Yeah, so you've almost found gratitude in the pain.
Yeah, I'm watching at the moment.
We've been watching this TV series about Leonard Cohen and
his time on Hydra. When he was there on the Greek
(05:55):
island in Hydra, I was. Just there.
Oh, were you? Oh, wow.
Did you know that he was there? He lived there.
And he's wrote a lot of songs and he was.
It's an extraordinary story because he is so tormented.
He is so tormented and there's so much angst and there's so
much depression and darkness. And yeah.
And it's in that depression and darkness that he finds these
(06:20):
words to describe, and the lyrics and the songs and the
poetry that he wrote to describethat.
And that's kind of. And I'm not in any way comparing
myself with the poem, but my expression is very different.
It's not in the words, but it's in.
The physical creativity. Yeah, and in harmony and balance
(06:43):
and rhythm in an interior space that we live.
Yeah, finding a way to create beauty from the chaos and and
pain that's inside of you. Yeah, Yeah.
I would love if you felt open tobe able to share the experience
that did happen to you and and give the audience a little bit
(07:05):
of an idea of how old you were when this occurred as well.
Yeah, absolutely. So I was 12 year old.
It was only a one off incident. And I know that once you start
speaking to women, particularly about having had some kind of
sexual abuse, it's often it's ongoing.
(07:27):
It's been happening for years. When they were young, I was in a
way lucky it only happened in one.
Obviously it was very profound. I was 12 years old and I was
babysitting my friend's older cousin and his kids and he then
came home and drunk and pissed himself on me when he came home
that night. How old was he?
(07:49):
He would have been, yeah. He wouldn't have been in his mid
30s maybe. I would think so.
A. Parent to he.
Was a parent, Yes, he was the parent.
So we I was babysitting his children and they were like 2
and four. God knows how could be
babysitting at that age. Now you would never as a 12 year
old, but it was different times then, in a different environment
(08:12):
and everything but. Yeah, and talk me through the
experience. So it's so funny because you so
I was not. I was there with my SO, it was
my best friend and me. We were babysitting together.
She was there as well and I never told her even though she
was in the same space the next morning, which is also
(08:38):
interesting. We were left and we walked
together to do our confirmation,you know.
I know the timing. Wow.
Yeah, walking through the school, not the actual ceremony,
but one of the classes you have.You go.
Classes when you do your confirmation with the child.
My son is currently doing yeah. So we walked there and I
remember walking through this onthis winding sort of forest Rd
(09:01):
and thinking why did I wear thisT-shirt?
Because I realised that I was wearing AT shirt and it had, it
was a blue T shirt and had a black face of a horse on it, you
know, and I just started to develop breasts and I knew that
they probably was showing a little bit.
So it was my kind of fault. I had provoked it to happen.
(09:24):
If I hadn't worn that T shirt. I sort of kept regretting that
for the rest of my life, that I shouldn't have worn that T
shirt. I didn't tell my friend.
I didn't tell my parents. I told no one until I was 30
years old, probably more. That was the first time I ever
sputtered a word about it. Yeah.
Yet it changed everything. It changed everything.
(09:47):
I was quite, you know, I mean, Iwas already very shy and quite
sort of withdrawn, and this mademe even more so.
Yeah. I, you know, thought this is
something that I had made happenand I'm just going to keep quiet
about it. But it also sort of threw me out
of this notion that the world isgood.
(10:09):
Everything is good in the world.I was surrounded by all these
decent, good people. And all of a sudden I realised,
no, not everyone is good. But I also think that it, it lit
a fire in me somehow it, I decided I need to, I'm not going
to stay here as soon as I can. I'm going to move out of here.
(10:31):
I'm going to find a different way, a different life.
I'm going to find a way of living differently or get away
from him because he was there and I would encounter him quite
regularly because I had my so I had horse.
We I had my horse at this friend's house and he would be
there and I would come on my bike and then I'd see his car
(10:52):
there and then I would turned back home because I didn't want
to encounter him. But then he was inevitable at
times and I would just go red and go away like I was ashamed
of when it happened. Yeah.
Yeah. It's funny how it's sort of we
take it on ourselves, yeah. So the story that you created as
(11:13):
a young 12 year old girl was this is my doing.
I am responsible for this horrific act happening to me.
Yeah. I provoked this, yes.
And then you carried that burdenalone for essentially 28 years.
(11:35):
Yep. Wow. 1820820818 years, Yes, when
you were 30. Yes, I think around maybe a
little bit more because something happened to my niece.
My mother called me and told me that something had happened, and
that's when I first told her. Well, it actually did.
Something did happen to me as well.
(11:56):
And how was that moment expressing that to your mum?
No, I can see myself sitting. I know exactly where I sat in
the bed and I started crying. And I've never, I don't think
I've ever cried to her before unless I fell and hurt myself.
But it's different generation. I mean, I think you probably
talk to your children very different to how I spoke to my
parents. They were from.
(12:19):
I mean, my parents grew up. They were born, you know, there
was a war. There was a they were born in
1931. They're still alive.
They're both 94 years old. But, you know, the way we spoke
about what happened to us, and Ithink I kept very much that to
myself. Everything.
Yeah. So it I must, it didn't have
(12:41):
this big cathartic with her. It was a oh, I'm sorry to hear
that. And that was the last we spoke.
Of it, put it in a box and put it about, you've never spoken
about it again. That was the only time.
With her, yeah. And then the story after
expressing that to your mum, who's the next person that you
should have? Well, then I realised maybe I
need to go and see someone. So I actually started having
(13:04):
some therapy around it various. I've now since have hypnosis and
I've had, you know, like person to person therapy around it and
I've kind of processed this in many ways.
I don't know if you've ever, youwill always be with me.
I will always carry it somehow with me Probably caused me to
have some dysfunctional behaviours as well when when it
(13:26):
comes to relationship and trust and things like that.
I mean, I think just having my first sexual experience was
incredibly traumatic as well because it's like I got drunk,
barely, can't remember it. It was almost like I needed just
to get that over with. Dissociate from your body and
(13:50):
the experience. Yeah.
I'm sort of thinking, oh, God, did that?
Did it actually even happen? And how did it happen?
And it's awful, awful. And it's so different when you
hear other, you know, women whenyou talk about this.
Oh, yeah. It was wonderful.
We've been together for a long time.
We both decided it was going to be our first time.
For me, it was that, oh gosh, itwas someone that I barely knew
(14:13):
and I was drunk and him. It's awful, awful.
And I think that's very much because I wasn't.
I wasn't connected to my body, to my emotions.
Maybe I'm still not. Yeah, well, that was a question
I was going to ask you. How do you feel like it shows up
for you today in life? I think I still.
(14:37):
I think I'm still, in fact, I I wouldn't say that I am over it
and I've done enough work on it.I think it will never leave me.
You know, I think it's there andit's causing some sort of
dysfunction, probably in my way of relating intimately, yeah.
(14:58):
In what way? Tell me about tell me about what
your intimate relationship lookslike.
Are you, are you married? Do you have a partner?
I have a partner. Yes, I have been this is
probably part of it as well. This I've been married twice so
and I'm currently with an incredibly supporting and
(15:19):
understanding partner and we have a beautiful intimate
relationship. I'm I'm not very quick to take
initiative sexually. I feel that's not, you know, I'm
happily can happily live withoutit.
But I think we've come to a, youknow, a place where he's kind of
(15:39):
knows what I've been through andhe's very supportive of that.
While Preview is more like I wasseeing a little bit as damaged
goods and it was hard to, you know, actually, well, it can't
be fixed. So let's move on to something
else or someone else. Yeah.
So in these previous relationships, when you say you
(16:02):
felt like damaged goods, how, how did they show that to you or
what was what was the experiencefor you to internalise that
message of being damaged? Goods Well, I think because
because with sexual experience was so traumatic and it was so
(16:23):
disturbing. It was so there was such a power
play in it that I feel that I have no real say and it's I,
it's not really for me to want anything because I think that's
kind of probably what it carrieswith me.
(16:45):
It carries with you the sense that if I want to engage in
sexual activity, if I have a desire for anything sexually
intimate, that's not a good thing.
No, no help. Me understand that a little bit
more. If because I I also remember
when I a little bit later, when I thought, when I kind of
(17:09):
understood that I'm a sexual being, because sex was relation
to something very different to once I first then started to
think, oh, what's going on here?I have, I feel something and
what is this? And I'm am I meant to be feeling
anything? But then immediately the
association came to something that was quite horrific.
(17:33):
So I then, OK, well, I shouldn'tbe feeling that.
So I would suppress that and notallowing that feeling to to
enter. So whenever that feeling came to
enter, there was part of me would think, Oh no, I don't.
I don't think I want, I don't think I should go there.
Yeah, yeah, it's. It's not really quite safe.
(17:53):
It's probably not what I should be doing.
And it's full of shame. And it's full of shame.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the experience when you were
12 is obviously from what you'resaying, it's the first
experience that you have with anything sexual.
But as a 12 year old girl, it's,it's almost, especially in a
(18:15):
rural town, it's very unlikely that you connected in that
moment to being sex, to being sexual.
Instead it it just becomes this internalised message of
something is wrong with me and I'm the problem here and I'm I'm
full of shame and I'm disgusting.
Yeah, yeah. And then that carries on in life
(18:36):
to then from from what I'm hearing.
OK, so all my friends are havingsex.
I need to get it done. Done with?
Yep. Right.
So it's not AI need to experience this for me.
I want to have pleasure for me. Do you think that message
messaging continues now of sex is not for pleasure.
(18:58):
Sex is not for me. Sex is to take off a list for my
partner. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Yeah, yes, Yeah. It's almost that I'm not quite
allowed to reward myself with pleasure.
Yeah. So you reward yourself with one
cigarette a day? Yes.
Yeah. So you find other ways to reward
(19:20):
yourself. Sorting out my underwear dryer
or whatever, you know, making sure things are it's.
How wild they see no. Yeah, things are so ordered and
beautiful and you know. Yeah, yeah.
Because things have to be ordered and beautiful.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you, what comes to your
mind when you say that out loud?That things have to be ordered
(19:42):
and beautiful. But what comes to mind is I
feel, well, thank God, it's thatI've chosen somehow.
I could have chosen things goingto be really fucked up and dirty
and messy and horrible. And you know, so even if it is
dysfunctional or it's a mechanism to cope, at least it's
(20:06):
a mechanism that is not destructive.
And that's sort of where I've landed with, you know, if my
dysfunction that can be if I canfocus on on that.
Rather than focus on something destructive, to me, that's where
I've landed. Yeah, it might still be very
distracted, but. I mean, I, I can, I can very
(20:29):
much empathise in the sense of the way that my dysfunctions
from childhood experiences show is to the external world, just a
very organised go getter, successful kind of a person.
And if I had to pick and choose,yeah, I'm gonna choose that as
my dysfunction rather than what you're saying the opposite.
(20:52):
But I guess I've come to a placeand I try and help people come
to a place in accepting that at the end of the day, it, it still
is a coping mechanism and it still is you disconnecting from
yourself, from your body, from from your true being and really
(21:15):
learning to, I mean, it's surprising, right?
Because you're the kind of person from what I'm hearing,
who's like, I love my life. I want to get up on a Monday and
I love it and I love what I'm doing and I find beauty in this.
But it's almost like because I'mliving up here and I'm not
actually living in the true, true reality, and if I lived in
(21:36):
the true reality, it would be too scary and too daunting.
So I live up here. I wonder if you actually tapped
into two realities can exist at once.
You know you can have this beauty, but you can also learn
to sit with the pain that has happened and stay in your body
(21:56):
without using these coping mechanisms.
I hear what you say, I hear whatyou say, and I think there are
moments when I do that, when I sit in the pain and when I allow
myself to do that. But how to do it at the same
(22:16):
time? Maybe is?
The challenge? The challenge, yeah, because I
know that I can sit in the pad. We can can be quite connected to
my body. I do a lot of yoga and I do
quite a lot of, you know, I havequite a lot of times when I'm
still and on my own and but to be integrated, I guess is the
(22:37):
challenge. Yeah, yeah.
And what does that look like andhow what does that feel like?
I would love for you to answer that.
I would love for you to homeworkis right as and for anyone
listening, it's a really powerful tool to write in as
much detail as possible. What does that look like?
(22:59):
What does it look like acceptingthe pain and living in it whilst
at the same time being someone who is a go getter and he's
happy and he's finding the beauty.
And I know, I know that it, it can definitely come from a place
of I don't want my abuser to have won anything.
(23:23):
I don't want my abuser to have any power over me now.
So I'm not going to sit in that pain because it's almost like I
will. You're giving, you're giving in.
But it's, I guess the beauty in being able to let 2 realities
exist at once. And I wonder if you describe
that, of what would that look like?
(23:45):
What would that feel like? I'm just letting your brain have
a moment of entertaining that. If I entertain it now, what it
show, what it looks like is being present for someone else.
That's what it looks like. Help me understand that a bit
(24:06):
more. I know it's kind of a bit of
abstract maybe when I what just came to me, but it's almost like
if if I can be integrated and grounded in the experience that
I have and not let that be something that I use or that's
(24:27):
there in compensating, I can then be fully present for
someone else. I don't know if it makes sense.
I'm not quite I'm sure I can explain it, but you can.
Connect. With maybe, yes, yeah.
Because right now you feel like there's there's a barrier
between you and and your partner, for example.
Not always, no. Not always, no.
I don't. I do feel I can connect, but I I
(24:48):
know that there are also times when I disappear mentally.
Mentally, yes, and go off on a on a tangent with things and
become too, you know, obsessive or, or, you know, about certain
things. But I but I do think that when
it's integrated, it's a moment of fully connecting with someone
(25:09):
else. And that doesn't mean they need
to be a necessarily an intimate partner.
It could be anyone. It could be, you know, someone
on a building site, you know, you know, it could be anyone,
really. Yeah.
I guess if you got the messagingat such a young age that you
know what, I'm not going to assume that the world is a safe
(25:31):
place. I'm not going to assume that
somebody that should be a safe person to me is a safe person.
And that happening at such a vulnerable age creates this
internal dialogue that is most of the time very subconscious
that is telling you be wary. And if you're being wary of
(25:54):
everybody you meet, because essentially, if it's a friend's
dad, who the fuck's to say? It's not going to be someone on
a building site. It's going to be a partner.
It's going to be someone you're meant to trust, someone you just
met. You don't know.
So if you've got that philtre going through life, it's very
understandable that you're not present fully with other people
(26:15):
because you've always got one eye open, you know what I mean?
I do feel often when people experience sexual abuse at a
young age, you never get to go through the usual self discovery
kind of path that you know youngmen and women go through, right?
(26:38):
Of like, this is exciting, this is fun.
I'm curious, you know it. Those things kind of just get
robbed from you and taken away from a sweet and innocent young
little girl. So true.
Absolutely, yeah. How does that feel?
That was talking from you. Yeah, I had sexual abuse in my
(27:06):
childhood, but it's just not something that has been
externally spoken about. Out of my sleep podcast.
Here you go. I'm sorry's next interview now.
No, but it's, it's, it's quite extraordinary because the more
women you talk about, because you, as you know, we've done
(27:26):
this little film, my partner andI about which is about that
incident in a very sort of not an explicit way at all.
But after having shown that film, it's just a little short
film and, and people understand what it's about, the number of
women who've coming up in tears and saying it's happened to me,
(27:47):
it's happened to me, it's happened to me.
That's what I mean. Everyone I speak to, someone has
had like, you know, almost everyone.
Tell me the tell everybody the name of the short film.
So it's called What will be, andit's a it's up on YouTube now
and you can watch it there. And it's like a little, yeah, a
little poetic journey. And I think it is ultimately
(28:08):
about what we're talking about today.
It's like how I was robbed of some sort of innocence.
And now how now I, in my creation, try and come back and
find that innocence and come back and find that goodness
through my pursuit, in my in my work.
Yeah. I think it's it's a beautiful
way of being able to show your experience to other people.
(28:32):
And I think it's very true what you're saying that the
unfortunate fact is that so manypeople have experienced sexual
assault more often than not fromsomebody that they should trust.
And I think at the end of the day, whether it's sexual
assault, I mean, it can look so different and it's never black
and white penetration. It's never black and white
(28:54):
somebody physically touching you.
It can even be just the insinuation, a feeling that you
get around a particular person that as a child you should never
have to feel. As a child, you should never
feel that you are being looked at in a sexual way.
So it's important for our audience members to take that on
board because I hear even a little bit of judgement in your
(29:17):
own voice for yourself right around.
But it was just one time and I know people have it so many.
So many words, yes. Yeah, and I I think it's really
important for people to, you know, put your hands on your
heart and and really feel that any experience where a child has
been made to internalise a dialogue that I am disgusting, I
(29:41):
am the problem, I have done something wrong is unacceptable.
Whether it's words, touch one time, 1000 times.
And I really feel that being robbed of that innocence, that
(30:02):
essence is something that you deserve to give back to
yourself. And I guess one thing that I
would love to, I would love for you to go on a little path of
like just the playing with letting go of control of certain
things. As somebody who's, you know,
(30:23):
almost OCD with some things and control with a lot of things,
right? I get it.
I really get it. I, I went on this little journey
of it's like my own therapist said to me, right?
I'm gonna give you instructions of the opposite that I give
everybody else. Don't count your drinks and you
know, don't count how many hoursof sleep.
That's why I started smoking. Yeah, Yeah.
(30:44):
No, but for real finding ways. I mean, this is not Michaela
encouraging. Everybody to start to start
drinking a day with drinking drinking.
Yeah, but it's about finding ways to bring playfulness into
you every day that doesn't involve any form of control.
Yeah, because. That's why I've started to play
drums as well. Great.
That's why I've started to play drums, because it's, it's a,
(31:05):
it's an area where I have no skill.
I've got no desire for anyone oranything to ever sort of, you
know, having to hear me or show me.
It's purely internal. And I don't.
Give a shit about what it soundslike or what I'm doing, but it's
something that is a little bit of that, you know, beautiful
(31:28):
and. And movement, smell and dancing
and music. I think that's kind of very much
for me, a path to find that playfor us.
Yeah. So my version of that is somatic
dancing, which I recommend that every single human being do to
connect to their body. But I close my bedroom door so
my husband and my kids do not see me because I swear it would
(31:51):
be the funniest sight you've ever seen.
But I play music or I play what?Does somatic mean?
Basically for me what it means is dancing to the way that my
body is just feeling. I do not plan or do anything.
It's just I put on either a a banger that makes me really feel
empowered, or I put on like 528 Hertz music depending on if I'm
(32:14):
feeling really spiritual or if I'm just feeling like I just
want to be like, yeah, you know,you're in my body.
And a lot of the time I do this naked actually, because it's
really about just having this moment where it's not for
anybody else. It's just for me, it's just
letting my body and it's. Releasing kind of energy, energy
because. Trauma is stored in the body.
(32:35):
And. Vander Koch says one of the
world's leading trauma specialists.
You know, he wrote. Body keeps a score.
I recommend. I've got that.
I've read. Everybody read that?
I've read it. No, I've read it.
Yeah, but. Especially when traumatic events
happen to us in our childhood, we don't store those traumatic
events cognitively. We don't store them in our mind.
So we do talk therapy, and it's in the body.
(32:57):
Yeah, talk therapy is a beautiful tool, obviously.
I mean, it's what I do, but evenon my own healing journey, my
husband would say the biggest healer for me from my childhood
trauma is, is Reiki and it's physical body work and
especially when it's connected to sexual trauma.
So I would really recommend, youknow, stepping into as much
(33:20):
playfulness that it does not come with.
This is what I want to achieve, like the drums being just for
you, you know, I love that. And just moving, letting your
body be for you and connecting with your body as much as you
can and kind of taking back the innocence that was taken from
you. What do you think from what I'm
(33:42):
saying? Yeah, I was thinking, I was
actually wondering what would have been a good scenario it
happened, but what would have been.
I don't know if the word is quicker, but a quicker way to
process it then for me to take, you know, I'm 60 now.
(34:02):
You know, it's taken me a long time to even be able to talk
about it without kind of gettingold, you know, But it, it's sort
of, and I'm not saying I don't Iand I don't want to normalise
it, but from a therapist's pointof view, you find out that
something has happened to a 12 year old and you know it in the
moment, you find out the same day, how would you process it?
How would be a good way to process that?
(34:25):
Well, what comes to my mind is actually an interview that Gabel
Mate did with, I think it was with Mel Robbins, that it
actually comes down to the fact that you didn't feel safe enough
to tell anybody else. It's not actually your
responsibility to have processedit in any different way.
(34:45):
It's not actually your job to have figured out, could I have
moved through this any quicker? It's actually the job of all the
adults. Around you but how should the
adult Yeah but so if if you as an adult have found out so
you're you were you were my mother at the time and I'm 12
and the next day you know some reason someone saw it or someone
(35:06):
told you that this happened to your daughter how shouldn't.
Well, the first thing is I wouldwant my daughter to be telling
me, right? I would want my daughter to feel
safe enough, even if she doesn'tunderstand what happened, that
if she felt like because of the crux of it was you felt like you
had done something wrong. I want all my kids to feel like
(35:27):
if they feel that they have donesomething wrong, they might not
know what it is. They might not know it's related
to sex. But even if it's like, oh, I did
something wrong at my friend's house or that they felt safe
enough to come and tell me that.And it's not about somebody else
telling me, they tell me, right?And we figured that out
together. And then once I do know this
information, I would be helping my child feel that it is in no
(35:53):
way, shape or form their responsibility and that it is
not an ounce, an ounce of what they have done that has caused
this to happen. And I think what I do with a lot
of my clients now that have sexual assault history is we go
through in a child work and we really, we imagine that 12 year
(36:15):
old you and we talk to her, Yeah.
And we get her to say out loud. Get the fuck away.
No, it's not my fault. Yeah, but also in, but also in
the moment. Yeah, to be able to actually
voice it instead of just that is.
Not something that you could have done.
(36:35):
You weren't. 12 years old. No, I couldn't have screamed.
I could have screamed. There were other people.
His wife was upstairs. How you're still making?
What I should have done? Yeah.
No, true. Yeah, It's what I could have
done differently. And it's nothing that disgusting
human being should have done something different.
(36:56):
True. And you are 12, right?
I would love if all 12 year oldsknew to if somebody touched them
in a way that was inappropriate and they knew what to do and
they knew what to say. But again, that responsibility
is not on the 12 year old to know.
I would love for the you to speak to the 12 year old you and
say to her and for her to say out loud nothing I could have
(37:21):
done or worn or said could have made that go differently.
It was not my fault in any way. Do you think you can say that?
Yeah, I think I can, yeah. I want to hear you say it.
But nothing I could have worn ordone or said would have changed
(37:42):
that because it wasn't my fault.Yeah, it was all on him and not
on me. Yeah, I'm.
Really proud of you being able to say.
That thank you. Thank you I.
Think it's important to take that message and live it?
One more question, sorry, I'm asking you questions.
So to develop that trust in a 12year old so that you know, to
(38:07):
have had felt, you know, it's obviously then anything that
happens as a parent to how to deal with that.
So that you develop that trust that anything you I say and do
and be I can openly speak to to my one adult.
Maybe even if it's not your parents, it's someone that you
can trust. You know, how does?
(38:27):
How would that look? I think that starts from, I
mean, my youngest is to, I thinkit starts from literally toddler
age of helping kids realise thatthey are not bad people.
They might be doing a bad behaviour.
Everything they feel is fine, everything, but not every
(38:48):
behaviour is fine. And so I get my kids to
understand if they small things knock over a whole, you know,
glass of something and a glass breaks, It's not that they are a
bad person and that they, I mean, most of the time I say the
sentence accidents happen and wewe fix it up.
But off the top of my head, thinking of something more a
(39:11):
chosen behaviour than they have done that maybe they shouldn't
do, like hitting someone. I always say you are not a bad
person. You're doing a thing that we
don't want you to be doing. And I think helping kids hear
the messaging that they are not bad people.
There are certain behaviours that we can work on and there
(39:31):
are certain behaviours that maybe as humans we shouldn't be
doing. But all your feelings are valid,
which means that children shouldfeel safe enough to come up to
parents and say, I felt really weird this thing happened last
night. And it might be one of those
things, Mummy, where you think that the behaviour is something
I shouldn't do. You tell me.
(39:52):
But I felt this way. And so my kid feels safe enough
to tell me how they feel, even if the behaviour might be
something that mummy and Daddy go.
Don't agree? Let's.
Work on that one, Bubs. You know, whereas in that case
we would say nothing on you, youright.
But the more kids get that messaging where it's like you
feel safe enough to tell me any feeling you have because you're
(40:15):
not going to get scolded for your feeling ever.
I don't tell my kids ever. Don't be mad, Don't be sad,
Don't be. Don't be scared.
Don't be That is your feeling and you feel safe enough to tell
me that no matter what, we mightsometimes have to work on the
behaviour that showed that feeling and I think that's a way
to do that. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it does. It's still hearing that.
(40:38):
Also. I just wondered, you can't help
thinking, what, create someone who would do something like
what? What?
What kind of experience did he have for him to become someone
who does that? I mean, I think at the end of
the day, that's something you might not ever know, right?
But I do think a place that I have come to of late is people
(41:01):
have dark and light. And I think.
Even people that have a lot of darkness can still have
beautiful, beautiful light, and I think it's the same for
ourselves. I do think on a, a sexual front,
for a lot of sexual assault survivors, it comes down to like
(41:25):
we talked about earlier, you feel this barrier of, well, I
can't lust for it, I can't enjoyit.
For me, I can't want it because there must be something wrong
with me if that happened to me. And then that's what I think
about sex. I almost think that that is
giving an abuser power because sex and sexuality and
(41:52):
playfulness is the antithesis todeath.
It is literally. Well, it's creation, yeah.
It's where creation happened, Absolutely.
So that's where it's at its essence, yeah.
And letting yourself say regardless of what happened to
me. I'm going.
To. I want that.
I want to play with that, I wantto play with me.
(42:14):
I want to play with other peopleand I want to feel safe enough
to do that. And lusting after that intimacy
and that connection with someoneand sex and intimacy is the most
vulnerable way you can connect with somebody.
Absolutely, I 100% agree. Yeah.
And I think it's important to really explore being able to
(42:34):
take full ownership back of saying it's actually OK that I,
I want that. What do you think?
I'm thinking, I mean I'm 62 thisyear in two weeks time.
Perfect time. Sexual awakening is it like see
Anna Karen at your local swingers club next week I've.
(42:59):
Got time for this? Now is your time for this.
Maybe. Maybe.
You. I honestly.
Think it'll be my retirement project?
Seriously. But like, I know that I'm, you
know, I'm almost 34 and so different.
Well, you're in your peak. You're in your absolute peak in
life. I'm very, you know, I'm in my
(43:20):
end. I'm starting to kind of look at
my youth of. Start now.
But it's also like seasons, you know, you could say your seasons
of your 30s and 40s and 50s, They're your career.
You know, this could be the season of learning to want
something you've never wanted before, tap into a part of
(43:41):
yourself you've never tapped into before, putting all this
effort and energy that you put into your work into you.
Remember then it's different being in my profession because
it's not really until my age that you've actually produced
enough work to be able to. This is actually my I'm picking
when I'm 17 so I'm not giving that up.
No to, but it doesn't mean that it could be coexist.
(44:02):
Coexist 100%. The other day actually, Mitch,
the founder of A Heart on My Sleeve, we were having a chat
and he, he highlighted to me, you know, 2 realities exist at
once is Michaela's fucking quotation.
And he said why? Why don't you believe then that
(44:23):
you can achieve and rest? Why do you have to just be
achieving or or if I'm just resting, I'm not an achiever.
Why can't they coexist the same as why can't somebody have pain
and hurt from what has happened to them, but still seek pleasure
(44:50):
and love with intimacy? Something to kind of just
digest, but. And what did you when he said
that? How did you feel about?
That God dammit me, I'm the psychologist here.
No, I've it actually catapulted me into a really beautiful
(45:12):
journey into tapping more and more into my feminine energy and
rest, which is a constant struggle.
No, I know. I see yourself.
I see myself in you. Yeah.
And I can programme that. No, same.
It's like, fucking no I need to do.
Things need to keep going and going, but I think it's, it's a
beautiful reminder and I love that, you know, even when I see
(45:33):
kids in my practise who are really anxious, you know, saying
like it's OK to be really a small example of like kids who
have nightmares, It's OK to say I'm really scared, but I'm still
going to do this or I'm really, really scared, but I'm, I'm
still going to sleep in my own bed.
You know, it starts with the most basic small things like
(45:55):
that to when we're adults going.I'm really scared to do nothing
today, but even though I'm scared, I'm still going to do
it. And just letting that little
girl who felt so much shame be able to learn to change that
emotion into something that is actually beneficial and kind to
(46:19):
ourselves. Because shame is like concrete.
It makes you just like stuck. It doesn't actually help.
And letting go of that shame, letting go of any ownership from
what happened then as a child and learning then to live in the
now with the love that you deserve.
(46:43):
Yeah. Thank you so much for being so
vulnerable and open today. Thank you.
I really appreciate it. How are you feeling?
I. Feel good yeah yeah, I think I
can do this you're. Great, she's going to go and
play the drums now, ladies. And gentlemen, bring out that
dildo, Yeah. She's got a cigarette in a
(47:03):
dildo. In a drumstick.
I love this. It's just like a front cover of
a book or something start a memoir.
Thank you so much for joining metoday and I hope you all enjoyed
this episode and I will see you in the next one.
Thank you. My emotions have a natural
tendency to dissipate unless they get reinforced.
(47:25):
And so if there's more thoughts,more stories, more intentions
come along. So the act of how am I leaving
it alone is an act of not act, adding more stories, adding fuel
to it. So it might not go away in 2
minutes, but it then begins to relax and dissipate.
And so rather than being the person who has to fix it, we've
become the person who makes space for the heart, the mind,
(47:47):
to relax and settle away itself.
All right, run it. I wonder what you mean when you
use the word I use the word I I,I, I kick and break.
We have an aversion to ourselvesand to what's happening inside
(00:21):
us inside. US.
I've been very interested in this problem for a long long
time. Something settles.
Hi guys, and welcome back to theHeart of My Sleeve podcast.
I am your host Michaela Overman,and today I am joined by Anna
(00:42):
Curran. She is an interior designer
originally from Sweden but has now lived in Australia for. 30
years. 30 years. Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you for coming on today. Thank.
You very much Thank you. I believe this is the first
podcast you have done. I have done some before relating
(01:04):
to interior design and my work. OK, So today's podcast is a
little bit different. Welcome to 45 Minutes with
Michaela Roverman. So what I wanted to start with
was actually something I kind ofstart these podcasts asking a
(01:29):
little bit different question. Rather than just tell me a bit
about yourself. I would love to know what would
you like people to know more about you that has nothing to do
with your career and your job? Oh wow.
Well, I think deep down I'm actually probably a philosopher.
(01:50):
I'm kind of deeply interested inhuman behaviour, probably maybe
psychologist, but it's more around philosophy and what is
that shapes our beliefs and how we think and how we think and
how we then live our life and also have some vices that I
think people probably don't knowabout.
(02:12):
Tell me more. Do tell me.
I see. Yeah.
Just one. I love.
It and you know I. Heard I don't love it.
Do you know what I mean? No, but I recently heard someone
told me or I heard someone saying that Pope Benedict had
one or two cigarettes a day, so I thought.
I'm going to be like the. Like that, I can be like that.
(02:35):
So one cigarette a day. I'm probably a little bit
obsessive. I've been, you know, I
absolutely love what I do. I wake up every day.
Monday is exciting for me to be back and do what I love.
Yeah, I personally think that that is the biggest gift in life
(02:59):
is being able to find passion and love in the everyday and not
waiting for that excitement or happiness to come from, you
know, the big experiences in life, travelling also, you know,
having. Time off.
Absolutely. Yeah.
I mean, I'm in in a constant pursuit of beauty.
(03:19):
Yeah, improvements and beauty. That's kind of what drives me.
Yeah, I love that. I think that's beautiful.
Jumping back to what you said a little bit earlier on your
interest in philosophy and understanding what shapes
people, I would love to understand a little bit more of
what do you think shaped you to become this person who is
(03:43):
interested in the pursuit of beauty, as you say?
Well, I think it's a combinationof two things.
So I grew up very rural in the South of Sweden on the farm, a
lot of decency and goodness and very hard working.
(04:03):
I saw my parents working everyday, get up, work hard.
I have a deep rooted sort of work ethics, which I think came
from that knowing that unless you get up and work, then the
animals will die and the crop won't grow, which I think is
really good. And then I, something happened
(04:23):
to me and I guess we're, that's probably what we're going to
talk about today as well. You know, there was an incident
that then catapulted me out of that sort of goodness.
And maybe that's what I so I'm trying to recreate that goodness
and innocence somehow, maybe because of trying to create this
(04:48):
beauty. So it's like this, my whole life
is a therapy session. In that sense, wow, your whole
life sounds like a juxtaposition.
Yeah, a little bit, yeah, of. The beauty and the horrific at
the same time. But.
But I also think that, and I've come, yeah, there is something
(05:11):
that I'm also grateful to that that actually happened, which
sounds also contradictory in some ways.
But I do think that there is pain in this creation.
Always this it comes out of pain.
And I think unless there's some struggle of some shape or form,
(05:33):
the creativity doesn't come fromnowhere.
It comes from some sort of suffering.
Yeah, so you've almost found gratitude in the pain.
Yeah, I'm watching at the moment.
We've been watching this TV series about Leonard Cohen and
his time on Hydra. When he was there on the Greek
(05:55):
island in Hydra, I was. Just there.
Oh, were you? Oh, wow.
Did you know that he was there? He lived there.
And he's wrote a lot of songs and he was.
It's an extraordinary story because he is so tormented.
He is so tormented and there's so much angst and there's so
much depression and darkness. And yeah.
And it's in that depression and darkness that he finds these
(06:20):
words to describe, and the lyrics and the songs and the
poetry that he wrote to describethat.
And that's kind of. And I'm not in any way comparing
myself with the poem, but my expression is very different.
It's not in the words, but it's in.
The physical creativity. Yeah, and in harmony and balance
(06:43):
and rhythm in an interior space that we live.
Yeah, finding a way to create beauty from the chaos and and
pain that's inside of you. Yeah, Yeah.
I would love if you felt open tobe able to share the experience
that did happen to you and and give the audience a little bit
(07:05):
of an idea of how old you were when this occurred as well.
Yeah, absolutely. So I was 12 year old.
It was only a one off incident. And I know that once you start
speaking to women, particularly about having had some kind of
sexual abuse, it's often it's ongoing.
(07:27):
It's been happening for years. When they were young, I was in a
way lucky it only happened in one.
Obviously it was very profound. I was 12 years old and I was
babysitting my friend's older cousin and his kids and he then
came home and drunk and pissed himself on me when he came home
that night. How old was he?
(07:49):
He would have been, yeah. He wouldn't have been in his mid
30s maybe. I would think so.
A. Parent to he.
Was a parent, Yes, he was the parent.
So we I was babysitting his children and they were like 2
and four. God knows how could be
babysitting at that age. Now you would never as a 12 year
old, but it was different times then, in a different environment
(08:12):
and everything but. Yeah, and talk me through the
experience. So it's so funny because you so
I was not. I was there with my SO, it was
my best friend and me. We were babysitting together.
She was there as well and I never told her even though she
was in the same space the next morning, which is also
(08:38):
interesting. We were left and we walked
together to do our confirmation,you know.
I know the timing. Wow.
Yeah, walking through the school, not the actual ceremony,
but one of the classes you have.You go.
Classes when you do your confirmation with the child.
My son is currently doing yeah. So we walked there and I
remember walking through this onthis winding sort of forest Rd
(09:01):
and thinking why did I wear thisT-shirt?
Because I realised that I was wearing AT shirt and it had, it
was a blue T shirt and had a black face of a horse on it, you
know, and I just started to develop breasts and I knew that
they probably was showing a little bit.
So it was my kind of fault. I had provoked it to happen.
(09:24):
If I hadn't worn that T shirt. I sort of kept regretting that
for the rest of my life, that I shouldn't have worn that T
shirt. I didn't tell my friend.
I didn't tell my parents. I told no one until I was 30
years old, probably more. That was the first time I ever
sputtered a word about it. Yeah.
Yet it changed everything. It changed everything.
(09:47):
I was quite, you know, I mean, Iwas already very shy and quite
sort of withdrawn, and this mademe even more so.
Yeah. I, you know, thought this is
something that I had made happenand I'm just going to keep quiet
about it. But it also sort of threw me out
of this notion that the world isgood.
(10:09):
Everything is good in the world.I was surrounded by all these
decent, good people. And all of a sudden I realised,
no, not everyone is good. But I also think that it, it lit
a fire in me somehow it, I decided I need to, I'm not going
to stay here as soon as I can. I'm going to move out of here.
(10:31):
I'm going to find a different way, a different life.
I'm going to find a way of living differently or get away
from him because he was there and I would encounter him quite
regularly because I had my so I had horse.
We I had my horse at this friend's house and he would be
there and I would come on my bike and then I'd see his car
(10:52):
there and then I would turned back home because I didn't want
to encounter him. But then he was inevitable at
times and I would just go red and go away like I was ashamed
of when it happened. Yeah.
Yeah. It's funny how it's sort of we
take it on ourselves, yeah. So the story that you created as
(11:13):
a young 12 year old girl was this is my doing.
I am responsible for this horrific act happening to me.
Yeah. I provoked this, yes.
And then you carried that burdenalone for essentially 28 years.
(11:35):
Yep. Wow. 1820820818 years, Yes, when
you were 30. Yes, I think around maybe a
little bit more because something happened to my niece.
My mother called me and told me that something had happened, and
that's when I first told her. Well, it actually did.
Something did happen to me as well.
(11:56):
And how was that moment expressing that to your mum?
No, I can see myself sitting. I know exactly where I sat in
the bed and I started crying. And I've never, I don't think
I've ever cried to her before unless I fell and hurt myself.
But it's different generation. I mean, I think you probably
talk to your children very different to how I spoke to my
parents. They were from.
(12:19):
I mean, my parents grew up. They were born, you know, there
was a war. There was a they were born in
1931. They're still alive.
They're both 94 years old. But, you know, the way we spoke
about what happened to us, and Ithink I kept very much that to
myself. Everything.
Yeah. So it I must, it didn't have
(12:41):
this big cathartic with her. It was a oh, I'm sorry to hear
that. And that was the last we spoke.
Of it, put it in a box and put it about, you've never spoken
about it again. That was the only time.
With her, yeah. And then the story after
expressing that to your mum, who's the next person that you
should have? Well, then I realised maybe I
need to go and see someone. So I actually started having
(13:04):
some therapy around it various. I've now since have hypnosis and
I've had, you know, like person to person therapy around it and
I've kind of processed this in many ways.
I don't know if you've ever, youwill always be with me.
I will always carry it somehow with me Probably caused me to
have some dysfunctional behaviours as well when when it
(13:26):
comes to relationship and trust and things like that.
I mean, I think just having my first sexual experience was
incredibly traumatic as well because it's like I got drunk,
barely, can't remember it. It was almost like I needed just
to get that over with. Dissociate from your body and
(13:50):
the experience. Yeah.
I'm sort of thinking, oh, God, did that?
Did it actually even happen? And how did it happen?
And it's awful, awful. And it's so different when you
hear other, you know, women whenyou talk about this.
Oh, yeah. It was wonderful.
We've been together for a long time.
We both decided it was going to be our first time.
For me, it was that, oh gosh, itwas someone that I barely knew
(14:13):
and I was drunk and him. It's awful, awful.
And I think that's very much because I wasn't.
I wasn't connected to my body, to my emotions.
Maybe I'm still not. Yeah, well, that was a question
I was going to ask you. How do you feel like it shows up
for you today in life? I think I still.
(14:37):
I think I'm still, in fact, I I wouldn't say that I am over it
and I've done enough work on it.I think it will never leave me.
You know, I think it's there andit's causing some sort of
dysfunction, probably in my way of relating intimately, yeah.
(14:58):
In what way? Tell me about tell me about what
your intimate relationship lookslike.
Are you, are you married? Do you have a partner?
I have a partner. Yes, I have been this is
probably part of it as well. This I've been married twice so
and I'm currently with an incredibly supporting and
(15:19):
understanding partner and we have a beautiful intimate
relationship. I'm I'm not very quick to take
initiative sexually. I feel that's not, you know, I'm
happily can happily live withoutit.
But I think we've come to a, youknow, a place where he's kind of
(15:39):
knows what I've been through andhe's very supportive of that.
While Preview is more like I wasseeing a little bit as damaged
goods and it was hard to, you know, actually, well, it can't
be fixed. So let's move on to something
else or someone else. Yeah.
So in these previous relationships, when you say you
(16:02):
felt like damaged goods, how, how did they show that to you or
what was what was the experiencefor you to internalise that
message of being damaged? Goods Well, I think because
because with sexual experience was so traumatic and it was so
(16:23):
disturbing. It was so there was such a power
play in it that I feel that I have no real say and it's I,
it's not really for me to want anything because I think that's
kind of probably what it carrieswith me.
(16:45):
It carries with you the sense that if I want to engage in
sexual activity, if I have a desire for anything sexually
intimate, that's not a good thing.
No, no help. Me understand that a little bit
more. If because I I also remember
when I a little bit later, when I thought, when I kind of
(17:09):
understood that I'm a sexual being, because sex was relation
to something very different to once I first then started to
think, oh, what's going on here?I have, I feel something and
what is this? And I'm am I meant to be feeling
anything? But then immediately the
association came to something that was quite horrific.
(17:33):
So I then, OK, well, I shouldn'tbe feeling that.
So I would suppress that and notallowing that feeling to to
enter. So whenever that feeling came to
enter, there was part of me would think, Oh no, I don't.
I don't think I want, I don't think I should go there.
Yeah, yeah, it's. It's not really quite safe.
(17:53):
It's probably not what I should be doing.
And it's full of shame. And it's full of shame.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the experience when you were
12 is obviously from what you'resaying, it's the first
experience that you have with anything sexual.
But as a 12 year old girl, it's,it's almost, especially in a
(18:15):
rural town, it's very unlikely that you connected in that
moment to being sex, to being sexual.
Instead it it just becomes this internalised message of
something is wrong with me and I'm the problem here and I'm I'm
full of shame and I'm disgusting.
Yeah, yeah. And then that carries on in life
(18:36):
to then from from what I'm hearing.
OK, so all my friends are havingsex.
I need to get it done. Done with?
Yep. Right.
So it's not AI need to experience this for me.
I want to have pleasure for me. Do you think that message
messaging continues now of sex is not for pleasure.
(18:58):
Sex is not for me. Sex is to take off a list for my
partner. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Yeah, yes, Yeah. It's almost that I'm not quite
allowed to reward myself with pleasure.
Yeah. So you reward yourself with one
cigarette a day? Yes.
Yeah. So you find other ways to reward
(19:20):
yourself. Sorting out my underwear dryer
or whatever, you know, making sure things are it's.
How wild they see no. Yeah, things are so ordered and
beautiful and you know. Yeah, yeah.
Because things have to be ordered and beautiful.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you, what comes to your
mind when you say that out loud?That things have to be ordered
(19:42):
and beautiful. But what comes to mind is I
feel, well, thank God, it's thatI've chosen somehow.
I could have chosen things goingto be really fucked up and dirty
and messy and horrible. And you know, so even if it is
dysfunctional or it's a mechanism to cope, at least it's
(20:06):
a mechanism that is not destructive.
And that's sort of where I've landed with, you know, if my
dysfunction that can be if I canfocus on on that.
Rather than focus on something destructive, to me, that's where
I've landed. Yeah, it might still be very
distracted, but. I mean, I, I can, I can very
(20:29):
much empathise in the sense of the way that my dysfunctions
from childhood experiences show is to the external world, just a
very organised go getter, successful kind of a person.
And if I had to pick and choose,yeah, I'm gonna choose that as
my dysfunction rather than what you're saying the opposite.
(20:52):
But I guess I've come to a placeand I try and help people come
to a place in accepting that at the end of the day, it, it still
is a coping mechanism and it still is you disconnecting from
yourself, from your body, from from your true being and really
(21:15):
learning to, I mean, it's surprising, right?
Because you're the kind of person from what I'm hearing,
who's like, I love my life. I want to get up on a Monday and
I love it and I love what I'm doing and I find beauty in this.
But it's almost like because I'mliving up here and I'm not
actually living in the true, true reality, and if I lived in
(21:36):
the true reality, it would be too scary and too daunting.
So I live up here. I wonder if you actually tapped
into two realities can exist at once.
You know you can have this beauty, but you can also learn
to sit with the pain that has happened and stay in your body
(21:56):
without using these coping mechanisms.
I hear what you say, I hear whatyou say, and I think there are
moments when I do that, when I sit in the pain and when I allow
myself to do that. But how to do it at the same
(22:16):
time? Maybe is?
The challenge? The challenge, yeah, because I
know that I can sit in the pad. We can can be quite connected to
my body. I do a lot of yoga and I do
quite a lot of, you know, I havequite a lot of times when I'm
still and on my own and but to be integrated, I guess is the
(22:37):
challenge. Yeah, yeah.
And what does that look like andhow what does that feel like?
I would love for you to answer that.
I would love for you to homeworkis right as and for anyone
listening, it's a really powerful tool to write in as
much detail as possible. What does that look like?
(22:59):
What does it look like acceptingthe pain and living in it whilst
at the same time being someone who is a go getter and he's
happy and he's finding the beauty.
And I know, I know that it, it can definitely come from a place
of I don't want my abuser to have won anything.
(23:23):
I don't want my abuser to have any power over me now.
So I'm not going to sit in that pain because it's almost like I
will. You're giving, you're giving in.
But it's, I guess the beauty in being able to let 2 realities
exist at once. And I wonder if you describe
that, of what would that look like?
(23:45):
What would that feel like? I'm just letting your brain have
a moment of entertaining that. If I entertain it now, what it
show, what it looks like is being present for someone else.
That's what it looks like. Help me understand that a bit
(24:06):
more. I know it's kind of a bit of
abstract maybe when I what just came to me, but it's almost like
if if I can be integrated and grounded in the experience that
I have and not let that be something that I use or that's
(24:27):
there in compensating, I can then be fully present for
someone else. I don't know if it makes sense.
I'm not quite I'm sure I can explain it, but you can.
Connect. With maybe, yes, yeah.
Because right now you feel like there's there's a barrier
between you and and your partner, for example.
Not always, no. Not always, no.
I don't. I do feel I can connect, but I I
(24:48):
know that there are also times when I disappear mentally.
Mentally, yes, and go off on a on a tangent with things and
become too, you know, obsessive or, or, you know, about certain
things. But I but I do think that when
it's integrated, it's a moment of fully connecting with someone
(25:09):
else. And that doesn't mean they need
to be a necessarily an intimate partner.
It could be anyone. It could be, you know, someone
on a building site, you know, you know, it could be anyone,
really. Yeah.
I guess if you got the messagingat such a young age that you
know what, I'm not going to assume that the world is a safe
(25:31):
place. I'm not going to assume that
somebody that should be a safe person to me is a safe person.
And that happening at such a vulnerable age creates this
internal dialogue that is most of the time very subconscious
that is telling you be wary. And if you're being wary of
(25:54):
everybody you meet, because essentially, if it's a friend's
dad, who the fuck's to say? It's not going to be someone on
a building site. It's going to be a partner.
It's going to be someone you're meant to trust, someone you just
met. You don't know.
So if you've got that philtre going through life, it's very
understandable that you're not present fully with other people
(26:15):
because you've always got one eye open, you know what I mean?
I do feel often when people experience sexual abuse at a
young age, you never get to go through the usual self discovery
kind of path that you know youngmen and women go through, right?
(26:38):
Of like, this is exciting, this is fun.
I'm curious, you know it. Those things kind of just get
robbed from you and taken away from a sweet and innocent young
little girl. So true.
Absolutely, yeah. How does that feel?
That was talking from you. Yeah, I had sexual abuse in my
(27:06):
childhood, but it's just not something that has been
externally spoken about. Out of my sleep podcast.
Here you go. I'm sorry's next interview now.
No, but it's, it's, it's quite extraordinary because the more
women you talk about, because you, as you know, we've done
(27:26):
this little film, my partner andI about which is about that
incident in a very sort of not an explicit way at all.
But after having shown that film, it's just a little short
film and, and people understand what it's about, the number of
women who've coming up in tears and saying it's happened to me,
(27:47):
it's happened to me, it's happened to me.
That's what I mean. Everyone I speak to, someone has
had like, you know, almost everyone.
Tell me the tell everybody the name of the short film.
So it's called What will be, andit's a it's up on YouTube now
and you can watch it there. And it's like a little, yeah, a
little poetic journey. And I think it is ultimately
(28:08):
about what we're talking about today.
It's like how I was robbed of some sort of innocence.
And now how now I, in my creation, try and come back and
find that innocence and come back and find that goodness
through my pursuit, in my in my work.
Yeah. I think it's it's a beautiful
way of being able to show your experience to other people.
(28:32):
And I think it's very true what you're saying that the
unfortunate fact is that so manypeople have experienced sexual
assault more often than not fromsomebody that they should trust.
And I think at the end of the day, whether it's sexual
assault, I mean, it can look so different and it's never black
and white penetration. It's never black and white
(28:54):
somebody physically touching you.
It can even be just the insinuation, a feeling that you
get around a particular person that as a child you should never
have to feel. As a child, you should never
feel that you are being looked at in a sexual way.
So it's important for our audience members to take that on
board because I hear even a little bit of judgement in your
(29:17):
own voice for yourself right around.
But it was just one time and I know people have it so many.
So many words, yes. Yeah, and I I think it's really
important for people to, you know, put your hands on your
heart and and really feel that any experience where a child has
been made to internalise a dialogue that I am disgusting, I
(29:41):
am the problem, I have done something wrong is unacceptable.
Whether it's words, touch one time, 1000 times.
And I really feel that being robbed of that innocence, that
(30:02):
essence is something that you deserve to give back to
yourself. And I guess one thing that I
would love to, I would love for you to go on a little path of
like just the playing with letting go of control of certain
things. As somebody who's, you know,
(30:23):
almost OCD with some things and control with a lot of things,
right? I get it.
I really get it. I, I went on this little journey
of it's like my own therapist said to me, right?
I'm gonna give you instructions of the opposite that I give
everybody else. Don't count your drinks and you
know, don't count how many hoursof sleep.
That's why I started smoking. Yeah, Yeah.
(30:44):
No, but for real finding ways. I mean, this is not Michaela
encouraging. Everybody to start to start
drinking a day with drinking drinking.
Yeah, but it's about finding ways to bring playfulness into
you every day that doesn't involve any form of control.
Yeah, because. That's why I've started to play
drums as well. Great.
That's why I've started to play drums, because it's, it's a,
(31:05):
it's an area where I have no skill.
I've got no desire for anyone oranything to ever sort of, you
know, having to hear me or show me.
It's purely internal. And I don't.
Give a shit about what it soundslike or what I'm doing, but it's
something that is a little bit of that, you know, beautiful
(31:28):
and. And movement, smell and dancing
and music. I think that's kind of very much
for me, a path to find that playfor us.
Yeah. So my version of that is somatic
dancing, which I recommend that every single human being do to
connect to their body. But I close my bedroom door so
my husband and my kids do not see me because I swear it would
(31:51):
be the funniest sight you've ever seen.
But I play music or I play what?Does somatic mean?
Basically for me what it means is dancing to the way that my
body is just feeling. I do not plan or do anything.
It's just I put on either a a banger that makes me really feel
empowered, or I put on like 528 Hertz music depending on if I'm
(32:14):
feeling really spiritual or if I'm just feeling like I just
want to be like, yeah, you know,you're in my body.
And a lot of the time I do this naked actually, because it's
really about just having this moment where it's not for
anybody else. It's just for me, it's just
letting my body and it's. Releasing kind of energy, energy
because. Trauma is stored in the body.
(32:35):
And. Vander Koch says one of the
world's leading trauma specialists.
You know, he wrote. Body keeps a score.
I recommend. I've got that.
I've read. Everybody read that?
I've read it. No, I've read it.
Yeah, but. Especially when traumatic events
happen to us in our childhood, we don't store those traumatic
events cognitively. We don't store them in our mind.
So we do talk therapy, and it's in the body.
(32:57):
Yeah, talk therapy is a beautiful tool, obviously.
I mean, it's what I do, but evenon my own healing journey, my
husband would say the biggest healer for me from my childhood
trauma is, is Reiki and it's physical body work and
especially when it's connected to sexual trauma.
So I would really recommend, youknow, stepping into as much
(33:20):
playfulness that it does not come with.
This is what I want to achieve, like the drums being just for
you, you know, I love that. And just moving, letting your
body be for you and connecting with your body as much as you
can and kind of taking back the innocence that was taken from
you. What do you think from what I'm
(33:42):
saying? Yeah, I was thinking, I was
actually wondering what would have been a good scenario it
happened, but what would have been.
I don't know if the word is quicker, but a quicker way to
process it then for me to take, you know, I'm 60 now.
(34:02):
You know, it's taken me a long time to even be able to talk
about it without kind of gettingold, you know, But it, it's sort
of, and I'm not saying I don't Iand I don't want to normalise
it, but from a therapist's pointof view, you find out that
something has happened to a 12 year old and you know it in the
moment, you find out the same day, how would you process it?
How would be a good way to process that?
(34:25):
Well, what comes to my mind is actually an interview that Gabel
Mate did with, I think it was with Mel Robbins, that it
actually comes down to the fact that you didn't feel safe enough
to tell anybody else. It's not actually your
responsibility to have processedit in any different way.
(34:45):
It's not actually your job to have figured out, could I have
moved through this any quicker? It's actually the job of all the
adults. Around you but how should the
adult Yeah but so if if you as an adult have found out so
you're you were you were my mother at the time and I'm 12
and the next day you know some reason someone saw it or someone
(35:06):
told you that this happened to your daughter how shouldn't.
Well, the first thing is I wouldwant my daughter to be telling
me, right? I would want my daughter to feel
safe enough, even if she doesn'tunderstand what happened, that
if she felt like because of the crux of it was you felt like you
had done something wrong. I want all my kids to feel like
(35:27):
if they feel that they have donesomething wrong, they might not
know what it is. They might not know it's related
to sex. But even if it's like, oh, I did
something wrong at my friend's house or that they felt safe
enough to come and tell me that.And it's not about somebody else
telling me, they tell me, right?And we figured that out
together. And then once I do know this
information, I would be helping my child feel that it is in no
(35:53):
way, shape or form their responsibility and that it is
not an ounce, an ounce of what they have done that has caused
this to happen. And I think what I do with a lot
of my clients now that have sexual assault history is we go
through in a child work and we really, we imagine that 12 year
(36:15):
old you and we talk to her, Yeah.
And we get her to say out loud. Get the fuck away.
No, it's not my fault. Yeah, but also in, but also in
the moment. Yeah, to be able to actually
voice it instead of just that is.
Not something that you could have done.
(36:35):
You weren't. 12 years old. No, I couldn't have screamed.
I could have screamed. There were other people.
His wife was upstairs. How you're still making?
What I should have done? Yeah.
No, true. Yeah, It's what I could have
done differently. And it's nothing that disgusting
human being should have done something different.
(36:56):
True. And you are 12, right?
I would love if all 12 year oldsknew to if somebody touched them
in a way that was inappropriate and they knew what to do and
they knew what to say. But again, that responsibility
is not on the 12 year old to know.
I would love for the you to speak to the 12 year old you and
say to her and for her to say out loud nothing I could have
(37:21):
done or worn or said could have made that go differently.
It was not my fault in any way. Do you think you can say that?
Yeah, I think I can, yeah. I want to hear you say it.
But nothing I could have worn ordone or said would have changed
(37:42):
that because it wasn't my fault.Yeah, it was all on him and not
on me. Yeah, I'm.
Really proud of you being able to say.
That thank you. Thank you I.
Think it's important to take that message and live it?
One more question, sorry, I'm asking you questions.
So to develop that trust in a 12year old so that you know, to
(38:07):
have had felt, you know, it's obviously then anything that
happens as a parent to how to deal with that.
So that you develop that trust that anything you I say and do
and be I can openly speak to to my one adult.
Maybe even if it's not your parents, it's someone that you
can trust. You know, how does?
(38:27):
How would that look? I think that starts from, I
mean, my youngest is to, I thinkit starts from literally toddler
age of helping kids realise thatthey are not bad people.
They might be doing a bad behaviour.
Everything they feel is fine, everything, but not every
(38:48):
behaviour is fine. And so I get my kids to
understand if they small things knock over a whole, you know,
glass of something and a glass breaks, It's not that they are a
bad person and that they, I mean, most of the time I say the
sentence accidents happen and wewe fix it up.
But off the top of my head, thinking of something more a
(39:11):
chosen behaviour than they have done that maybe they shouldn't
do, like hitting someone. I always say you are not a bad
person. You're doing a thing that we
don't want you to be doing. And I think helping kids hear
the messaging that they are not bad people.
There are certain behaviours that we can work on and there
(39:31):
are certain behaviours that maybe as humans we shouldn't be
doing. But all your feelings are valid,
which means that children shouldfeel safe enough to come up to
parents and say, I felt really weird this thing happened last
night. And it might be one of those
things, Mummy, where you think that the behaviour is something
I shouldn't do. You tell me.
(39:52):
But I felt this way. And so my kid feels safe enough
to tell me how they feel, even if the behaviour might be
something that mummy and Daddy go.
Don't agree? Let's.
Work on that one, Bubs. You know, whereas in that case
we would say nothing on you, youright.
But the more kids get that messaging where it's like you
feel safe enough to tell me any feeling you have because you're
(40:15):
not going to get scolded for your feeling ever.
I don't tell my kids ever. Don't be mad, Don't be sad,
Don't be. Don't be scared.
Don't be That is your feeling and you feel safe enough to tell
me that no matter what, we mightsometimes have to work on the
behaviour that showed that feeling and I think that's a way
to do that. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it does. It's still hearing that.
(40:38):
Also. I just wondered, you can't help
thinking, what, create someone who would do something like
what? What?
What kind of experience did he have for him to become someone
who does that? I mean, I think at the end of
the day, that's something you might not ever know, right?
But I do think a place that I have come to of late is people
(41:01):
have dark and light. And I think.
Even people that have a lot of darkness can still have
beautiful, beautiful light, and I think it's the same for
ourselves. I do think on a, a sexual front,
for a lot of sexual assault survivors, it comes down to like
(41:25):
we talked about earlier, you feel this barrier of, well, I
can't lust for it, I can't enjoyit.
For me, I can't want it because there must be something wrong
with me if that happened to me. And then that's what I think
about sex. I almost think that that is
giving an abuser power because sex and sexuality and
(41:52):
playfulness is the antithesis todeath.
It is literally. Well, it's creation, yeah.
It's where creation happened, Absolutely.
So that's where it's at its essence, yeah.
And letting yourself say regardless of what happened to
me. I'm going.
To. I want that.
I want to play with that, I wantto play with me.
(42:14):
I want to play with other peopleand I want to feel safe enough
to do that. And lusting after that intimacy
and that connection with someoneand sex and intimacy is the most
vulnerable way you can connect with somebody.
Absolutely, I 100% agree. Yeah.
And I think it's important to really explore being able to
(42:34):
take full ownership back of saying it's actually OK that I,
I want that. What do you think?
I'm thinking, I mean I'm 62 thisyear in two weeks time.
Perfect time. Sexual awakening is it like see
Anna Karen at your local swingers club next week I've.
(42:59):
Got time for this? Now is your time for this.
Maybe. Maybe.
You. I honestly.
Think it'll be my retirement project?
Seriously. But like, I know that I'm, you
know, I'm almost 34 and so different.
Well, you're in your peak. You're in your absolute peak in
life. I'm very, you know, I'm in my
(43:20):
end. I'm starting to kind of look at
my youth of. Start now.
But it's also like seasons, you know, you could say your seasons
of your 30s and 40s and 50s, They're your career.
You know, this could be the season of learning to want
something you've never wanted before, tap into a part of
(43:41):
yourself you've never tapped into before, putting all this
effort and energy that you put into your work into you.
Remember then it's different being in my profession because
it's not really until my age that you've actually produced
enough work to be able to. This is actually my I'm picking
when I'm 17 so I'm not giving that up.
No to, but it doesn't mean that it could be coexist.
(44:02):
Coexist 100%. The other day actually, Mitch,
the founder of A Heart on My Sleeve, we were having a chat
and he, he highlighted to me, you know, 2 realities exist at
once is Michaela's fucking quotation.
And he said why? Why don't you believe then that
(44:23):
you can achieve and rest? Why do you have to just be
achieving or or if I'm just resting, I'm not an achiever.
Why can't they coexist the same as why can't somebody have pain
and hurt from what has happened to them, but still seek pleasure
(44:50):
and love with intimacy? Something to kind of just
digest, but. And what did you when he said
that? How did you feel about?
That God dammit me, I'm the psychologist here.
No, I've it actually catapulted me into a really beautiful
(45:12):
journey into tapping more and more into my feminine energy and
rest, which is a constant struggle.
No, I know. I see yourself.
I see myself in you. Yeah.
And I can programme that. No, same.
It's like, fucking no I need to do.
Things need to keep going and going, but I think it's, it's a
beautiful reminder and I love that, you know, even when I see
(45:33):
kids in my practise who are really anxious, you know, saying
like it's OK to be really a small example of like kids who
have nightmares, It's OK to say I'm really scared, but I'm still
going to do this or I'm really, really scared, but I'm, I'm
still going to sleep in my own bed.
You know, it starts with the most basic small things like
(45:55):
that to when we're adults going.I'm really scared to do nothing
today, but even though I'm scared, I'm still going to do
it. And just letting that little
girl who felt so much shame be able to learn to change that
emotion into something that is actually beneficial and kind to
(46:19):
ourselves. Because shame is like concrete.
It makes you just like stuck. It doesn't actually help.
And letting go of that shame, letting go of any ownership from
what happened then as a child and learning then to live in the
now with the love that you deserve.
(46:43):
Yeah. Thank you so much for being so
vulnerable and open today. Thank you.
I really appreciate it. How are you feeling?
I. Feel good yeah yeah, I think I
can do this you're. Great, she's going to go and
play the drums now, ladies. And gentlemen, bring out that
dildo, Yeah. She's got a cigarette in a
(47:03):
dildo. In a drumstick.
I love this. It's just like a front cover of
a book or something start a memoir.
Thank you so much for joining metoday and I hope you all enjoyed
this episode and I will see you in the next one.
Thank you. My emotions have a natural
tendency to dissipate unless they get reinforced.
(47:25):
And so if there's more thoughts,more stories, more intentions
come along. So the act of how am I leaving
it alone is an act of not act, adding more stories, adding fuel
to it. So it might not go away in 2
minutes, but it then begins to relax and dissipate.
And so rather than being the person who has to fix it, we've
become the person who makes space for the heart, the mind,
(47:47):
to relax and settle away itself.
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