Have you ever faced a sudden life disruption that made you reevaluate everything you thought was important?
In this episode, we sit down with the inspiring Briony Benjamin, author of "Life is Tough, but So Are You," who shares her incredible journey from working at her dream job as an executive producer at Mamma Mia to confronting a life-changing Hodgkin's lymphoma diagnosis at just 31.
Briony talks about how journaling was a game-changer during her treatment and how it helped her see things differently and how tuning into her body enabled her to appreciate the little things in life. She also shares how seeing her body as a friend, sticking to daily self-care, and writing her book played a big part of her healing journey.
Tune in to hear how even in the toughest times, you can come out stronger.
Want to feel more in control around food? Check out my Stop Struggling With Food Guide, currently on sale for 40% off.
You’ll also find 50 of my favourite recipes to get you inspired!
Get my Free 5 Day Course to help you stop binge and emotional eating.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
you created one of the most iconic videos.
I think that I will laugh at.
It's the sexiest man alivevideo.
Yeah, goodness of any.
If I'm going to leave a link tothat in the show notes if no
one has seen it, it's all aboutlike men doing everyday tasks
and us swooning over the factthat they're changing the toilet
roll and how fabulous that is.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I went into that appointment and I sat down and
the specialist said, yeah, sothe results are back and we're
really sorry, it's Hodgkin'slymphoma.
I journaled every single daythrough treatment but I didn't
realise at the time.
It's an incredibly therapeutictool when you're going through a
traumatic or difficult time toget the dark cloud of thoughts
out of your head and put themsomewhere.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
The silver lining was this real recognition of the
stuff that truly mattered andthe stuff that didn't matter.
Can you talk to me about thestuff that you suddenly realized
this does not matter at all?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Most stuff really.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Oh, hey you, and welcome to this week's episode
of the no Wellness Wankerypodcast.
I'm your host, lindy Cohen,dietitian, nutritionist and
lover of people, and one ofthose people I'm going to be
interviewing today.
Her name is Bryony Benjamin.
She is the author of the veryempowering, very wonderful book
Life is Tough, but so Are you,and in this book she talks about
(01:29):
her very life disrupting eventof being diagnosed with cancer
at the age of 31.
And it inspired her to shareher practical wisdom on how to
navigate really trickysituations, unexpected
challenges, and I find that herbook offers very refreshing
advice on how to deal withcurveballs, whether or not it's
(01:49):
a diagnosis, with something thatyou feel out of control, with
whether or not it's goingthrough a divorce, losing
someone you care about.
It's about how to deal withthese things, because sometimes
staying positive is not the onlyanswer.
So I'm so delighted to haveBryony with us today on the
podcast.
Bryony, welcome to the show.
I'm so happy to have you here.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Thank you so much, so pumped to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Well, we kind of go way back.
You were Mamma Mia originallyweren't you?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
I was, yeah, I was working there as executive
producer of video for a time, sothat's when we met, I think on
a trip.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
You created one of the most iconic videos.
Think that I will laugh at.
It's the sexiest man alivevideo.
Yeah, goodness, if any.
If I'm going to leave a link tothat in the show notes if no
one has seen it.
It's all about like men doingeveryday tasks and us swooning
over the fact that they'rechanging the toilet roll and how
fabulous that is the sexiestman in the world.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
That was so, so much fun to make.
But do you know what?
We actually just crowdsourcedit from the audience, from women
.
We were like what are thethings that your partner does
that you're like, oh gosh, thatis sexy, slash.
What are the things they don'tdo that you would love them to
do?
We just compiled a list andshot it around that and like,
yeah, it went so viral becauseevery woman ever could tag her
partner, being like wow, you'reso sexy.
Or like, oh, you'd be a bitsexier if you know.
(03:12):
Point ABC.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So that was fun.
Yeah, men, you can do better, Ihope everyone goes and watches
that video.
So you had this everyday,normal life of quite a glamorous
life working at Mamma Mia, andthen, at 31, your life changed.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, big time.
So I'd been working there forabout a year and I loved it Like
I loved the job.
Like, honestly, it was anoffice full of just the funnest,
most gorgeous supportive womenand I had this amazing team.
We were just getting to makeall these great videos.
It was fun, you know, you hadcelebrities coming in every day
and all these kind of really funactivities going on.
(03:51):
But I just felt really rottenall the time and I suppose I'd
been going back to the doctorover a period of a year, dragged
on to 18 months, and they justkept telling me I was fine.
It must be the stress of my job.
And here I'm thinking this isthe funnest, best job I've ever
had.
I'm not stressed in this job,but I didn't yet know how to
(04:11):
really listen to my body andlisten to my own intuition and
say, actually something's reallywrong here, which it turned out
it was.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
What did you find out and what happened from there?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah.
So, look, I have a verypersistent mother who was on my
case, kept asking me to go backto the doctors, get another
blood test, get another bloodtest, and, funnily enough, my
dad's a vet.
And so my mum and dad togetherkind of diagnosed me and figured
out what was wrong and theyrang up my GP behind my back and
said, because they didn't wantto freak me out, they said we
(04:44):
want Bryony to go and see aspecialist hematologist, which
is someone that specializes inblood, so they can look deeper
and what's really going on here.
And so, after 18 months, Ithought they were being really,
to be honest, quite over the top.
I went and saw this specialistand it was interesting.
As I told her what was going on, I said look, I'm waking up in
(05:05):
pain every single night, nightsweats, I've got this cough that
just won't go away.
My skin's really itchy all thetime.
What I didn't realize at thetime were these were all the
symptoms of blood cancer.
But she was actually the firstperson.
I remember her just looking atme and going wow, so this is
actually having a really bigimpact on your life, and it was
(05:26):
the first person that had reallytaken my pain.
Seriously, I realized and Isaid, yeah, actually it is.
I'm waking up drenched everynight and exhausted, and I
remember just literally everymorning.
You know what it's like whenyou pull yourself out of bed,
when you're tired.
But day after day it justgetting worse and worse.
And I remember I'd get intoMamma Mia.
(05:47):
I used to get in an hour beforeand then I'd get in half an
hour before and then I'd getfive minutes and then I'd be
like racing in the door asmorning stand-up started, like
with a coffee, just trying toget there.
I was just so exhausted and so,yeah, look, basically she set
off for a bunch of tests.
I did a PET scan and these sortof things and it came back and
she said look, it's showing thatthere are some enlarged lymph
(06:09):
glands.
That could be fine, it couldjust be a virus, but we're going
to do a biopsy, come back intwo weeks and get the results.
And honestly, lindy, at thispoint I'd been through so many
tests and so many like dead ends.
I was not worried at all.
I was like cool, I'm going tocome back, She'll tell me I've
got a virus, you'll be fine, youknow.
So it was just a normal busyThursday morning.
(06:31):
You know, I was heading intoMamma Mia.
We had Sophie Monk coming in.
I had to interview her.
That's where my head was andall I was thinking about is how
long is it going to take me toget the office?
Am I going to be late?
Blah, blah, blah.
My beautiful mom insisted onflying down from Queensland to
be with me to come to theappointment.
And I was like mom, like oh,you're being so over the top,
don't worry about it, I've justgot to get straight to work.
(06:51):
I'm too busy, you know, so busyand important.
And thank God she didn't listento me because I went into that
appointment and I sat down andthe specialist said, yeah, so
the results are back and we'rereally sorry, it's Hodgkin's
lymphoma.
What that means is we need toclear your next six months
immediately and we're going tostart you on a course of
(07:12):
chemotherapy.
And as soon as I heard thatword, I sort of you know you
start to realize, oh so, this isquite bad, but not grasping
really what lymphoma was or whatthat meant.
I remember just asking am Igoing to lose my hair?
And she said, yeah, you will,but it will grow back.
And that was that real suckerpunch moment where you're like
(07:34):
oh okay, yeah, this is quiteserious, just a shock that
you're never expecting in yourlife, particularly when you're
31.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
I imagine at that point you're feeling quite
scared.
You know you don't know at thispoint what's kind of involved,
what the process is going tolook like, whether or not you're
going to come out on the otherside of it.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Well, totally, you know and I was I was very
fortunate that from the get go,it was a cancer with really good
recovery rates.
But of course, you're thinking,well, what if I'm in that
percentage that don't make it.
(08:13):
You know, people die of thisevery day.
You know, like um, and so, yeah, it's an incredibly surreal and
overwhelming experience, likeit's very much an out of body
experience.
You know, like even talkingabout it now it doesn't actually
feel like this happened to me.
It doesn't feel like my life,you know, it still feels like so
surreal, but I remember, justthinking in that moment, who are
the most important people in mylife and I wrote down all their
(08:33):
names because I wanted to ringthem and tell them before they
heard it from somewhere else howmuch time do I have left on
this planet and how do I want tospend that time?
You know, and I I think reallythey are probably the three
questions we should askourselves every day.
It shouldn't take a crisis or ahealth scare, but you know, to
(08:53):
be really thoughtful anddeliberate about how we want to
spend our time and who we wantto spend it with, doing what.
So, yeah, very overwhelming,but very profound at the same
time.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So it's almost like there's got to be some silver
lining, and the silver liningwas this real recognition of the
stuff that truly mattered andthe stuff that didn't matter.
Can you talk to me about thestuff that you suddenly realized
this does not matter at all?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Most stuff really.
We spend so much of our life,don't we, I think, in the
minutiae and thinking andobsessing and stewing over
things, things people have saidwho doesn't like us, what people
think of us and I thinkparticularly for women just
(09:40):
picking ourselves apart, thatnegative self-talk.
And I remember having I had gotsome headshots done for work a
few weeks before I was diagnosedand I remember getting them
back and like, oh, look at myhair, oh, look, how bad it looks
, and oh, my eyebrow's kind ofwonky on that side.
I mean, gosh, fast forward sixmonths later when I had no hair,
(10:01):
no eyebrows, and I'm thinking,oh my God, I was an absolute
goddess.
What was I thinking?
But we're so, so harsh onourselves and actually none of
this stuff matters.
I always love that expression.
If you're going out and you'renot feeling like super confident
in how you look and how you'refeeling, it's like actually no
one's going to remember whatyou're wearing, no one's going
(10:21):
to remember how pretty youlooked or not.
They're going to remember howthey felt around you.
And it's so true, you know you.
Just we obsess over things thatare often just so unimportant
to everyone else, and so, yeah,I definitely remember that
experience you know you've gotto go through, I think huge
thing for women going throughcancer, losing your hair,
(10:44):
shaving it off.
You know it's such a part ofyour look and your identity and
you feel really stripped backand really you know bare bones
and I remember coming to termswith that at some point.
It was a huge shock at first,but I remember a few weeks in
going, yeah, this is me and thisis how I look, and this is a
really interesting experienceNot one I would have signed up
(11:05):
for, let's be honest, but areally interesting experience
and having a newfoundappreciation for your body.
You know, okay, yes, I mighthave a blood cancer, but I've
got these legs that allow me togo on beautiful walks around the
garden and I can see and I canhear, and I can listen to
podcasts and music and I canstill be a great friend and
(11:28):
someone that can, you know,spend time with people and have
them leaving me feeling better,you know.
So, yeah, definitely a newfoundappreciation for your body, for
so many things that you mightnot have appreciated before.
I even remember, you know, whenI was through treatment, my
period coming back a few monthsafter and just bursting into
(11:50):
tears and being so grateful formy period.
You know it's normally thething that you think, oh gosh,
I've got my period.
I was like, yes, I've got myperiod, I'm so grateful.
So those were definitely thebig silver linings that came out
of a really tough experience.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
It can be so incredibly tough to be kind to
ourselves.
Did going through this reallylife altering event help you
become kinder to yourself anddid you learn any tricks and
tips for being kind to yourself?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Oh, it's a really good question From the get go.
For me, slightly different toyour question, but I know a lot
of people want to go into thewhole cancer's the worst and
screw you cancer and I'm goingto fight you cancer and take you
down.
For me, that just created a lotof tension in my own body and
so I thought, you know, I lovemy body actually and this cancer
(12:38):
is part of my body right nowand I don't want to hate my body
because that just createsconflict.
What I'm going to think aboutinstead is I love my body.
I love every little cell in mybody.
It was trying to do its bestjob and it kind of misfired and
this is going to pass through me.
So that was kind of a gentlerway to approach the whole
(12:58):
experience.
But I think as well,particularly when you're in
recovery mode and you know,being a particular A-type, want
to do a million things at once Ireally had to just pull back
from everything and I would askmyself just two questions every
day.
I would say how am Istrengthening my body today and
how am I calming my mind today?
(13:19):
And that might literally looklike a five-minute meditation.
It might look like a few deepbreaths, whatever I felt up to
today, and that might literallylook like a five-minute
meditation.
It might look like a few deepbreaths, whatever I felt up to
really, and it might look like agentle walk around the garden
with my dog.
It was really pulling it backand just those little wins,
those little goals, being reallyproud of those and being
(13:42):
content with that.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
It sounds like you went from almost kind of seeing
your body as the enemy tobecoming an ally with your body
again.
Through this hardship.
Definitely Life threw you themost enormous curveball.
How has it changed you now?
How do you view hardshipdifferently and tough times?
You actually went on to write abook called Life is Tough, but
(14:06):
so are you.
I've read it.
I love it.
It feels like the hand-holdingthat you need.
It doesn't feel like toxicpositivity when you go through
hardship.
It also doesn't feel like thatyelly kind of let's be angry
together.
It feels like a very much apractical guide of how to get
through crappy, crappy times ina way that feels like almost big
(14:26):
sister energy and I reallyenjoyed having it.
And you share a lot of thethings that you learned from
your experience inside that book.
Can you tell me about writingthe book, about what are some of
the things that you think aresome of the biggest takeaways?
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah, well, thank you for that lovely, lovely
endorsement of the book.
Actually, that means a lotcoming from you and that's
exactly what I wanted to create.
You know, I really sat down tocreate the book I would have
loved to have had on that veryfirst day and I think, in a way,
a lot of people don't writebooks from that perspective,
(15:03):
which sounds crazy.
Right, They've got something tosay.
What do you want to say?
Whereas for me it was like whatdoes someone getting the worst
news of their life today?
What do they need?
What did I need?
And I was given a lot of bookswhen I first got diagnosed, but
they were quite overwhelming,scary.
They had titles like when itall falls apart, and I was like
I and it was that balance.
(15:24):
Right, I don't want to scareanyone, I don't want to
overwhelm them, but I don't wantto sugarcoat this and just be
like, yeah, great, so it is ahundred percent toxic, positive,
free zone, for sure, you know.
But things early on in theexperience, like acceptance, you
know, some things don't have tobe understood, just accepted,
cause no one gets a cancerdiagnosis for a reason.
(15:47):
I really hate that expression.
All things happen for a reason.
It's like well, no, they don't.
Yes, I'm the first to say greatthings can come out of really
challenging times andexperiences.
But someone doesn't lose thelove of their life for reasons.
A baby doesn't get brain cancerfor a reason.
And when people say that kindof thing, it's just so unhelpful
(16:10):
.
And so there were so manytakeaways from the experience.
I mean I had to literally writea book to put them all down.
But I think some of the bigthemes were the energy that you
spend.
You know the people and yourcommunity that you spend your
time around.
That is your life, you know.
You know you're often here.
You are the sum of the fivepeople you spend the most time
(16:30):
with.
But it's so incredibly true andI think I'd always been pretty
strict about the company I kept,but it ratcheted up a few
notches.
You know for sure.
Life is just too short to spendtime around toxic energy, toxic
people, and literally I.
Now you know, if I even get aninch of that from someone, I'm
(16:52):
like you know that's fine, likeyou can be like that and that
can be your life, but I'm notgoing to put myself around that
energy.
I think I care a lot less aboutthings stress me out a lot less
than they used to.
In some ways, you know, you dohave that barometer, that new
barometer to compare everythingto.
(17:15):
It was really helpful.
I think, you know it was greatprep really going through COVID,
like having had this ultimatepreparation of like things that
are completely out of yourcontrol, accepting what's going
on, finding joy in the everydaywhere you are right now, even if
the world isn't as you wish itwas.
You know, and that was alearning really early on.
(17:38):
Someone shared with me abeautiful friend, jenna, who'd
been through chronic fatigue,and she said, you know, you
don't actually have to behealthy to be happy.
And that was a big mind shift,you know.
But she's like, actually thetwo can be separate from each
other.
You can be physically unwellbut choose, you know, a
(17:58):
different approach.
Your mind and body don't haveto be connected, because I think
it is very easy, particularlywhen you're dealing with
something chronic, to get stuckin the mindset of I'll be happy
when my body's, you know, backto 1,000%.
But it's not always possible orfeasible.
So, yeah, and I think, just aswe talked about before, but just
a newfound appreciation foryour body, you know it is the
(18:22):
greatest instrument you willever be given.
It is your vehicle for life andeven if you have a you know
know, a checkered past with itor a tricky relationship with it
, finding the things that, evenif love is too strong a word,
you know, loving every part ofyour body that's not realistic,
(18:43):
necessarily, but finding partsto be grateful for and
appreciative of, because itreally is the greatest asset any
of us have, and so many of us.
We're being harsh on it, we'rebeing down on it, we're not
appreciating it or looking afterit in, you know, the best way
that we could, and sure I'mstill guilty of that.
This is something I have toremind myself constantly of.
It's not like you go throughthis experience and you're like
(19:05):
this perfect human thatappreciates every element of
your body, you know, as is adaily, a daily reminder for me.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
I think that's spot on.
I think when you live in thisworld, that is constantly
telling you that you are notgood enough, that you are not
fit enough, that you are notpretty enough, that you're not
enough in all respects of theword, you do need to constantly
remind yourself.
I wish I could say that youcould do the work.
You'd arrive at yourdestination.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
You'd be like no cool , I'm untouchable.
Sadly, that's just not the case.
I always think of bodyacceptance, body respect, as a
practice, a bit like yoga, asopposed to somewhere where you
arrive and you get to.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
You're going to have weeks where you hate on your
body and you get to come in hard.
It's just having the rightphrases and the right things to
say to your body when you needit.
That is incredibly helpful.
It's the difference betweengoing down the road of going on
a toxic diet or partying anddrinking yourself silly versus
kind of going no, let's writethis pathway quickly and get
(20:01):
back to being okay withourselves as fast as we possibly
can.
Can I ask you, then, aboutwellness?
How has your approach towellbeing, wellness, how has
that shifted since going intoremission?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Yeah, I think it's been a rollercoaster, to be
honest, because for me as well,I had five years of really bad
chronic fatigue after the chemoright, and traditional medicine
has a very limited scope reallywith how it can help you with
that.
You know, you basically gettold by your GP yeah well, if
you've been tired for more thansix months you've got chronic
(20:36):
fatigue.
Good luck, you might have itfor the rest of your life, good
luck.
Off you go, which, honestly,was mentally more difficult than
dealing with the cancer,because with the cancer you've
got to set treatment plan.
You've got your specialist,they know how to fix that cancer
, you know get rid of the cancer.
So you've got to schedule andyou know what you're dealing
(20:57):
with, whereas chronic fatigue isjust this nebulous, possibly
never-ending thing, and so Ifound that incredibly
demoralizing.
There are a number of thingsthat really helped me, but I
suppose you know I tried a lotof things is my point when I say
it was a roller coaster.
So I went fully meat free tobegin with and then I found that
made me really sick and then I,you know, tried eliminating
(21:20):
every kind of you know glutenand dairy and sugar, you know
all the things and everythingwas setting me off at that time
and my gut health was terrible.
Three things that made a reallybig difference for me were one
a GP recommended I do hyperbaricoxygen chambers, which I'd
(21:40):
never really heard of Whetherthey helped or I felt like they
helped.
So it got me started, helped meturn a corner.
I found a really fabulouscomprehensive health specialist,
I suppose.
So he has a scientific researchbackground and then he applies
that to all the supplements andeverything like that.
So because I'd been quitescared to look into supplements
(22:03):
and all those sorts of things,having had bad experiences
before, but he basically helpedme rebuild my gut health and
then go from there.
So I found that really helpfulwith my energy.
And then the big turning pointwas actually did a three-day
course called the lightningprocess.
That was all about mind bodyconnection and through that just
learned how to turn off a wholelot of thought processes that
(22:25):
were triggering a whole lot ofreally negative reactions in my
body.
Basically, and that wasgame-changing for me.
Like if you told me at thestart of the week I would come
out feeling like I didn't havechronic fatigue anymore, I would
have said like you're crazy,that sounds nuts, um, but it
made a huge, huge difference forme, um, really, yeah, really
(22:48):
like can't rave about it enough,so yeah, what's I?
think, the power of the mind onour body, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Isn't it incredible and so often underestimated?
You know you're talking aboutcancer, going through cancer,
having such a clear plan forwardand then getting chronic
fatigue and not having any planand it sounds like the three
things that you talk about ashaving a big impact.
They're all centered aroundhaving a plan, about feeling
like you had something you cannow action and do, and not
(23:14):
feeling like you're a victim anda float and and just in the sea
of it.
And I think that's a reallynice learning as well, to kind
of have something where you feellike I feel like I can know
that I've got tools to use thatI can help progress this.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Completely Um, and I also fell in love at the same
time, which I think honestly,that helps as well, because but
it's also this thing like I wantto be really well for this
person, you know.
So I was kind of throwingeverything that I could at it
because I was like I've got thisreal incentive now that I
really want to be well for thisperson.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
So, yeah, that did help I think for anyone
listening it's you know.
Certainly a lot of people aregoing to be diagnosed with some
kind of illness, whether it'scancer or whether or not it's
another chronic illness, acuteillness, but also if you're
going through something like adivorce, if you've lost a parent
, lost a child, going through atough time financially because
(24:07):
it is such a crisis at themoment, being made redundant.
Whatever it is that's going onin your life.
There are so many times thatlife can throw you an unexpected
challenge and I think I see youvery much as a guide in that
space, someone who is doingreally, really great work.
If there is one piece of adviceyou'd like to leave someone
(24:28):
with, who's currently in thethick of it, who's kind of going
, I don't know a way out whatcould someone do to feel better?
Speaker 2 (24:36):
One piece of advice.
Well, I'd start by saying thatI'm really sorry that you're
going through a really toughtime right now.
There's no rhyme or reason forit, it's just really sucky,
crappy, bad luck.
And I also want to say thatthere is such a wonderful,
beautiful life for you on theother side of this and you might
not believe that yet and youmight not be able to see that or
(25:00):
imagine what it's like, and Isay it as someone who has been
there and done that.
On the other side of chemo, Ihad gone through a breakup.
I was feeling absolutelyphysically drained and awful,
you know, had no hair, noeyebrows.
I could not envisage thebeautiful life that I am now
living, you know, having thisbeautiful partner.
(25:21):
I gave birth last year to thismost gorgeous little boy living
in this beautiful community backin my hometown, near my parents
, and that just felt completelyunattainable five years ago for
me.
So just want to say that,firstly, like you have to
believe it, even when you can'tsee it yet, just know that
(25:42):
you've just got to go step bystep for now, and there will be
a beautiful life on the otherside of this for you.
It's there for you In theinterim, just take it little bit
by little bit.
And something that I found gamechanging was journaling.
So whether you want a videojournal and just get your
thoughts out, or actually thephysical act of writing and it's
(26:02):
why I actually made a journalto go with the book, because I
journaled every single daythrough treatment, but I didn't
realize at the time it's anincredibly therapeutic tool when
you're going through atraumatic or difficult time,
because what it does is itactually gives your brain a
place to just process what'sgoing on, to get the dark cloud
(26:23):
of thoughts out of your head andput them somewhere that you can
organize them and start to makesense of them.
Yeah, I'd highly recommend it'scalled Morning Pages and a book
called the Artist's Way and theidea is you just get up every
morning brain dump three pages,just get it out of your brain.
Or, if you don't have time forthree pages, do a page or do
half a page, whatever.
(26:44):
But the idea is you can whinge,you can bitch, you can moan,
you can.
That doesn't mean you're a badperson, it doesn't mean you're
negative.
These are actually justthoughts and you're giving them
somewhere to live in outside ofyour head, and that that was
life-changing for me.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I love that.
It also feels like a verypractical thing that we can do
to kind of help us cope.
Bryony Benjamin, thank you foryour time and your skills and
contributions to all of ourlives.
I will leave a link in thedescription for people to find
you on Instagram to get yourbook.
Life is Tough, but so are you,and thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Thank you so much for having me, lindy, and can I
also just say a massive shoutout to you for the beautiful
work you do in the world toimprove the lives of women all
over the country and all overthe world, and also for the help
you personally gave me when Istarted to write my book,
because you're one of the firstpeople I spoke to and you just
said just write badly and get itout and then you can edit later
(27:43):
, and that really made theprocess a lot more fun and a lot
faster.
So thank you, oh my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
My pleasure, happy to help us not be perfectionists
together.
Thank you for those kind words.
Thank you, bryony.
Thank you.
you created one of the most iconic videos.
I think that I will laugh at.
It's the sexiest man alivevideo.
Yeah, goodness of any.
If I'm going to leave a link tothat in the show notes if no
one has seen it, it's all aboutlike men doing everyday tasks
and us swooning over the factthat they're changing the toilet
roll and how fabulous that is.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I went into that appointment and I sat down and
the specialist said, yeah, sothe results are back and we're
really sorry, it's Hodgkin'slymphoma.
I journaled every single daythrough treatment but I didn't
realise at the time.
It's an incredibly therapeutictool when you're going through a
traumatic or difficult time toget the dark cloud of thoughts
out of your head and put themsomewhere.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
The silver lining was this real recognition of the
stuff that truly mattered andthe stuff that didn't matter.
Can you talk to me about thestuff that you suddenly realized
this does not matter at all?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Most stuff really.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Oh, hey you, and welcome to this week's episode
of the no Wellness Wankerypodcast.
I'm your host, lindy Cohen,dietitian, nutritionist and
lover of people, and one ofthose people I'm going to be
interviewing today.
Her name is Bryony Benjamin.
She is the author of the veryempowering, very wonderful book
Life is Tough, but so Are you,and in this book she talks about
(01:29):
her very life disrupting eventof being diagnosed with cancer
at the age of 31.
And it inspired her to shareher practical wisdom on how to
navigate really trickysituations, unexpected
challenges, and I find that herbook offers very refreshing
advice on how to deal withcurveballs, whether or not it's
(01:49):
a diagnosis, with something thatyou feel out of control, with
whether or not it's goingthrough a divorce, losing
someone you care about.
It's about how to deal withthese things, because sometimes
staying positive is not the onlyanswer.
So I'm so delighted to haveBryony with us today on the
podcast.
Bryony, welcome to the show.
I'm so happy to have you here.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Thank you so much, so pumped to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Well, we kind of go way back.
You were Mamma Mia originallyweren't you?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
I was, yeah, I was working there as executive
producer of video for a time, sothat's when we met, I think on
a trip.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
You created one of the most iconic videos.
Think that I will laugh at.
It's the sexiest man alivevideo.
Yeah, goodness, if any.
If I'm going to leave a link tothat in the show notes if no
one has seen it.
It's all about like men doingeveryday tasks and us swooning
over the fact that they'rechanging the toilet roll and how
fabulous that is the sexiestman in the world.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
That was so, so much fun to make.
But do you know what?
We actually just crowdsourcedit from the audience, from women
.
We were like what are thethings that your partner does
that you're like, oh gosh, thatis sexy, slash.
What are the things they don'tdo that you would love them to
do?
We just compiled a list andshot it around that and like,
yeah, it went so viral becauseevery woman ever could tag her
partner, being like wow, you'reso sexy.
Or like, oh, you'd be a bitsexier if you know.
(03:12):
Point ABC.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So that was fun.
Yeah, men, you can do better, Ihope everyone goes and watches
that video.
So you had this everyday,normal life of quite a glamorous
life working at Mamma Mia, andthen, at 31, your life changed.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, big time.
So I'd been working there forabout a year and I loved it Like
I loved the job.
Like, honestly, it was anoffice full of just the funnest,
most gorgeous supportive womenand I had this amazing team.
We were just getting to makeall these great videos.
It was fun, you know, you hadcelebrities coming in every day
and all these kind of really funactivities going on.
(03:51):
But I just felt really rottenall the time and I suppose I'd
been going back to the doctorover a period of a year, dragged
on to 18 months, and they justkept telling me I was fine.
It must be the stress of my job.
And here I'm thinking this isthe funnest, best job I've ever
had.
I'm not stressed in this job,but I didn't yet know how to
(04:11):
really listen to my body andlisten to my own intuition and
say, actually something's reallywrong here, which it turned out
it was.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
What did you find out and what happened from there?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah.
So, look, I have a verypersistent mother who was on my
case, kept asking me to go backto the doctors, get another
blood test, get another bloodtest, and, funnily enough, my
dad's a vet.
And so my mum and dad togetherkind of diagnosed me and figured
out what was wrong and theyrang up my GP behind my back and
said, because they didn't wantto freak me out, they said we
(04:44):
want Bryony to go and see aspecialist hematologist, which
is someone that specializes inblood, so they can look deeper
and what's really going on here.
And so, after 18 months, Ithought they were being really,
to be honest, quite over the top.
I went and saw this specialistand it was interesting.
As I told her what was going on, I said look, I'm waking up in
(05:05):
pain every single night, nightsweats, I've got this cough that
just won't go away.
My skin's really itchy all thetime.
What I didn't realize at thetime were these were all the
symptoms of blood cancer.
But she was actually the firstperson.
I remember her just looking atme and going wow, so this is
actually having a really bigimpact on your life, and it was
(05:26):
the first person that had reallytaken my pain.
Seriously, I realized and Isaid, yeah, actually it is.
I'm waking up drenched everynight and exhausted, and I
remember just literally everymorning.
You know what it's like whenyou pull yourself out of bed,
when you're tired.
But day after day it justgetting worse and worse.
And I remember I'd get intoMamma Mia.
(05:47):
I used to get in an hour beforeand then I'd get in half an
hour before and then I'd getfive minutes and then I'd be
like racing in the door asmorning stand-up started, like
with a coffee, just trying toget there.
I was just so exhausted and so,yeah, look, basically she set
off for a bunch of tests.
I did a PET scan and these sortof things and it came back and
she said look, it's showing thatthere are some enlarged lymph
(06:09):
glands.
That could be fine, it couldjust be a virus, but we're going
to do a biopsy, come back intwo weeks and get the results.
And honestly, lindy, at thispoint I'd been through so many
tests and so many like dead ends.
I was not worried at all.
I was like cool, I'm going tocome back, She'll tell me I've
got a virus, you'll be fine, youknow.
So it was just a normal busyThursday morning.
(06:31):
You know, I was heading intoMamma Mia.
We had Sophie Monk coming in.
I had to interview her.
That's where my head was andall I was thinking about is how
long is it going to take me toget the office?
Am I going to be late?
Blah, blah, blah.
My beautiful mom insisted onflying down from Queensland to
be with me to come to theappointment.
And I was like mom, like oh,you're being so over the top,
don't worry about it, I've justgot to get straight to work.
(06:51):
I'm too busy, you know, so busyand important.
And thank God she didn't listento me because I went into that
appointment and I sat down andthe specialist said, yeah, so
the results are back and we'rereally sorry, it's Hodgkin's
lymphoma.
What that means is we need toclear your next six months
immediately and we're going tostart you on a course of
(07:12):
chemotherapy.
And as soon as I heard thatword, I sort of you know you
start to realize, oh so, this isquite bad, but not grasping
really what lymphoma was or whatthat meant.
I remember just asking am Igoing to lose my hair?
And she said, yeah, you will,but it will grow back.
And that was that real suckerpunch moment where you're like
(07:34):
oh okay, yeah, this is quiteserious, just a shock that
you're never expecting in yourlife, particularly when you're
31.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
I imagine at that point you're feeling quite
scared.
You know you don't know at thispoint what's kind of involved,
what the process is going tolook like, whether or not you're
going to come out on the otherside of it.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Well, totally, you know and I was I was very
fortunate that from the get go,it was a cancer with really good
recovery rates.
But of course, you're thinking,well, what if I'm in that
percentage that don't make it.
(08:13):
You know, people die of thisevery day.
You know, like um, and so, yeah, it's an incredibly surreal and
overwhelming experience, likeit's very much an out of body
experience.
You know, like even talkingabout it now it doesn't actually
feel like this happened to me.
It doesn't feel like my life,you know, it still feels like so
surreal, but I remember, justthinking in that moment, who are
the most important people in mylife and I wrote down all their
(08:33):
names because I wanted to ringthem and tell them before they
heard it from somewhere else howmuch time do I have left on
this planet and how do I want tospend that time?
You know, and I I think reallythey are probably the three
questions we should askourselves every day.
It shouldn't take a crisis or ahealth scare, but you know, to
(08:53):
be really thoughtful anddeliberate about how we want to
spend our time and who we wantto spend it with, doing what.
So, yeah, very overwhelming,but very profound at the same
time.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So it's almost like there's got to be some silver
lining, and the silver liningwas this real recognition of the
stuff that truly mattered andthe stuff that didn't matter.
Can you talk to me about thestuff that you suddenly realized
this does not matter at all?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Most stuff really.
We spend so much of our life,don't we, I think, in the
minutiae and thinking andobsessing and stewing over
things, things people have saidwho doesn't like us, what people
think of us and I thinkparticularly for women just
(09:40):
picking ourselves apart, thatnegative self-talk.
And I remember having I had gotsome headshots done for work a
few weeks before I was diagnosedand I remember getting them
back and like, oh, look at myhair, oh, look, how bad it looks
, and oh, my eyebrow's kind ofwonky on that side.
I mean, gosh, fast forward sixmonths later when I had no hair,
(10:01):
no eyebrows, and I'm thinking,oh my God, I was an absolute
goddess.
What was I thinking?
But we're so, so harsh onourselves and actually none of
this stuff matters.
I always love that expression.
If you're going out and you'renot feeling like super confident
in how you look and how you'refeeling, it's like actually no
one's going to remember whatyou're wearing, no one's going
(10:21):
to remember how pretty youlooked or not.
They're going to remember howthey felt around you.
And it's so true, you know you.
Just we obsess over things thatare often just so unimportant
to everyone else, and so, yeah,I definitely remember that
experience you know you've gotto go through, I think huge
thing for women going throughcancer, losing your hair,
(10:44):
shaving it off.
You know it's such a part ofyour look and your identity and
you feel really stripped backand really you know bare bones
and I remember coming to termswith that at some point.
It was a huge shock at first,but I remember a few weeks in
going, yeah, this is me and thisis how I look, and this is a
really interesting experienceNot one I would have signed up
(11:05):
for, let's be honest, but areally interesting experience
and having a newfoundappreciation for your body.
You know, okay, yes, I mighthave a blood cancer, but I've
got these legs that allow me togo on beautiful walks around the
garden and I can see and I canhear, and I can listen to
podcasts and music and I canstill be a great friend and
(11:28):
someone that can, you know,spend time with people and have
them leaving me feeling better,you know.
So, yeah, definitely a newfoundappreciation for your body, for
so many things that you mightnot have appreciated before.
I even remember, you know, whenI was through treatment, my
period coming back a few monthsafter and just bursting into
(11:50):
tears and being so grateful formy period.
You know it's normally thething that you think, oh gosh,
I've got my period.
I was like, yes, I've got myperiod, I'm so grateful.
So those were definitely thebig silver linings that came out
of a really tough experience.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
It can be so incredibly tough to be kind to
ourselves.
Did going through this reallylife altering event help you
become kinder to yourself anddid you learn any tricks and
tips for being kind to yourself?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Oh, it's a really good question From the get go.
For me, slightly different toyour question, but I know a lot
of people want to go into thewhole cancer's the worst and
screw you cancer and I'm goingto fight you cancer and take you
down.
For me, that just created a lotof tension in my own body and
so I thought, you know, I lovemy body actually and this cancer
(12:38):
is part of my body right nowand I don't want to hate my body
because that just createsconflict.
What I'm going to think aboutinstead is I love my body.
I love every little cell in mybody.
It was trying to do its bestjob and it kind of misfired and
this is going to pass through me.
So that was kind of a gentlerway to approach the whole
(12:58):
experience.
But I think as well,particularly when you're in
recovery mode and you know,being a particular A-type, want
to do a million things at once Ireally had to just pull back
from everything and I would askmyself just two questions every
day.
I would say how am Istrengthening my body today and
how am I calming my mind today?
(13:19):
And that might literally looklike a five-minute meditation.
It might look like a few deepbreaths, whatever I felt up to
today, and that might literallylook like a five-minute
meditation.
It might look like a few deepbreaths, whatever I felt up to
really, and it might look like agentle walk around the garden
with my dog.
It was really pulling it backand just those little wins,
those little goals, being reallyproud of those and being
(13:42):
content with that.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
It sounds like you went from almost kind of seeing
your body as the enemy tobecoming an ally with your body
again.
Through this hardship.
Definitely Life threw you themost enormous curveball.
How has it changed you now?
How do you view hardshipdifferently and tough times?
You actually went on to write abook called Life is Tough, but
(14:06):
so are you.
I've read it.
I love it.
It feels like the hand-holdingthat you need.
It doesn't feel like toxicpositivity when you go through
hardship.
It also doesn't feel like thatyelly kind of let's be angry
together.
It feels like a very much apractical guide of how to get
through crappy, crappy times ina way that feels like almost big
(14:26):
sister energy and I reallyenjoyed having it.
And you share a lot of thethings that you learned from
your experience inside that book.
Can you tell me about writingthe book, about what are some of
the things that you think aresome of the biggest takeaways?
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah, well, thank you for that lovely, lovely
endorsement of the book.
Actually, that means a lotcoming from you and that's
exactly what I wanted to create.
You know, I really sat down tocreate the book I would have
loved to have had on that veryfirst day and I think, in a way,
a lot of people don't writebooks from that perspective,
(15:03):
which sounds crazy.
Right, They've got something tosay.
What do you want to say?
Whereas for me it was like whatdoes someone getting the worst
news of their life today?
What do they need?
What did I need?
And I was given a lot of bookswhen I first got diagnosed, but
they were quite overwhelming,scary.
They had titles like when itall falls apart, and I was like
I and it was that balance.
(15:24):
Right, I don't want to scareanyone, I don't want to
overwhelm them, but I don't wantto sugarcoat this and just be
like, yeah, great, so it is ahundred percent toxic, positive,
free zone, for sure, you know.
But things early on in theexperience, like acceptance, you
know, some things don't have tobe understood, just accepted,
cause no one gets a cancerdiagnosis for a reason.
(15:47):
I really hate that expression.
All things happen for a reason.
It's like well, no, they don't.
Yes, I'm the first to say greatthings can come out of really
challenging times andexperiences.
But someone doesn't lose thelove of their life for reasons.
A baby doesn't get brain cancerfor a reason.
And when people say that kindof thing, it's just so unhelpful
(16:10):
.
And so there were so manytakeaways from the experience.
I mean I had to literally writea book to put them all down.
But I think some of the bigthemes were the energy that you
spend.
You know the people and yourcommunity that you spend your
time around.
That is your life, you know.
You know you're often here.
You are the sum of the fivepeople you spend the most time
(16:30):
with.
But it's so incredibly true andI think I'd always been pretty
strict about the company I kept,but it ratcheted up a few
notches.
You know for sure.
Life is just too short to spendtime around toxic energy, toxic
people, and literally I.
Now you know, if I even get aninch of that from someone, I'm
(16:52):
like you know that's fine, likeyou can be like that and that
can be your life, but I'm notgoing to put myself around that
energy.
I think I care a lot less aboutthings stress me out a lot less
than they used to.
In some ways, you know, you dohave that barometer, that new
barometer to compare everythingto.
(17:15):
It was really helpful.
I think, you know it was greatprep really going through COVID,
like having had this ultimatepreparation of like things that
are completely out of yourcontrol, accepting what's going
on, finding joy in the everydaywhere you are right now, even if
the world isn't as you wish itwas.
You know, and that was alearning really early on.
(17:38):
Someone shared with me abeautiful friend, jenna, who'd
been through chronic fatigue,and she said, you know, you
don't actually have to behealthy to be happy.
And that was a big mind shift,you know.
But she's like, actually thetwo can be separate from each
other.
You can be physically unwellbut choose, you know, a
(17:58):
different approach.
Your mind and body don't haveto be connected, because I think
it is very easy, particularlywhen you're dealing with
something chronic, to get stuckin the mindset of I'll be happy
when my body's, you know, backto 1,000%.
But it's not always possible orfeasible.
So, yeah, and I think, just aswe talked about before, but just
a newfound appreciation foryour body, you know it is the
(18:22):
greatest instrument you willever be given.
It is your vehicle for life andeven if you have a you know
know, a checkered past with itor a tricky relationship with it
, finding the things that, evenif love is too strong a word,
you know, loving every part ofyour body that's not realistic,
(18:43):
necessarily, but finding partsto be grateful for and
appreciative of, because itreally is the greatest asset any
of us have, and so many of us.
We're being harsh on it, we'rebeing down on it, we're not
appreciating it or looking afterit in, you know, the best way
that we could, and sure I'mstill guilty of that.
This is something I have toremind myself constantly of.
It's not like you go throughthis experience and you're like
(19:05):
this perfect human thatappreciates every element of
your body, you know, as is adaily, a daily reminder for me.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
I think that's spot on.
I think when you live in thisworld, that is constantly
telling you that you are notgood enough, that you are not
fit enough, that you are notpretty enough, that you're not
enough in all respects of theword, you do need to constantly
remind yourself.
I wish I could say that youcould do the work.
You'd arrive at yourdestination.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
You'd be like no cool , I'm untouchable.
Sadly, that's just not the case.
I always think of bodyacceptance, body respect, as a
practice, a bit like yoga, asopposed to somewhere where you
arrive and you get to.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
You're going to have weeks where you hate on your
body and you get to come in hard.
It's just having the rightphrases and the right things to
say to your body when you needit.
That is incredibly helpful.
It's the difference betweengoing down the road of going on
a toxic diet or partying anddrinking yourself silly versus
kind of going no, let's writethis pathway quickly and get
(20:01):
back to being okay withourselves as fast as we possibly
can.
Can I ask you, then, aboutwellness?
How has your approach towellbeing, wellness, how has
that shifted since going intoremission?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Yeah, I think it's been a rollercoaster, to be
honest, because for me as well,I had five years of really bad
chronic fatigue after the chemoright, and traditional medicine
has a very limited scope reallywith how it can help you with
that.
You know, you basically gettold by your GP yeah well, if
you've been tired for more thansix months you've got chronic
(20:36):
fatigue.
Good luck, you might have itfor the rest of your life, good
luck.
Off you go, which, honestly,was mentally more difficult than
dealing with the cancer,because with the cancer you've
got to set treatment plan.
You've got your specialist,they know how to fix that cancer
, you know get rid of the cancer.
So you've got to schedule andyou know what you're dealing
(20:57):
with, whereas chronic fatigue isjust this nebulous, possibly
never-ending thing, and so Ifound that incredibly
demoralizing.
There are a number of thingsthat really helped me, but I
suppose you know I tried a lotof things is my point when I say
it was a roller coaster.
So I went fully meat free tobegin with and then I found that
made me really sick and then I,you know, tried eliminating
(21:20):
every kind of you know glutenand dairy and sugar, you know
all the things and everythingwas setting me off at that time
and my gut health was terrible.
Three things that made a reallybig difference for me were one
a GP recommended I do hyperbaricoxygen chambers, which I'd
(21:40):
never really heard of Whetherthey helped or I felt like they
helped.
So it got me started, helped meturn a corner.
I found a really fabulouscomprehensive health specialist,
I suppose.
So he has a scientific researchbackground and then he applies
that to all the supplements andeverything like that.
So because I'd been quitescared to look into supplements
(22:03):
and all those sorts of things,having had bad experiences
before, but he basically helpedme rebuild my gut health and
then go from there.
So I found that really helpfulwith my energy.
And then the big turning pointwas actually did a three-day
course called the lightningprocess.
That was all about mind bodyconnection and through that just
learned how to turn off a wholelot of thought processes that
(22:25):
were triggering a whole lot ofreally negative reactions in my
body.
Basically, and that wasgame-changing for me.
Like if you told me at thestart of the week I would come
out feeling like I didn't havechronic fatigue anymore, I would
have said like you're crazy,that sounds nuts, um, but it
made a huge, huge difference forme, um, really, yeah, really
(22:48):
like can't rave about it enough,so yeah, what's I?
think, the power of the mind onour body, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Isn't it incredible and so often underestimated?
You know you're talking aboutcancer, going through cancer,
having such a clear plan forwardand then getting chronic
fatigue and not having any planand it sounds like the three
things that you talk about ashaving a big impact.
They're all centered aroundhaving a plan, about feeling
like you had something you cannow action and do, and not
(23:14):
feeling like you're a victim anda float and and just in the sea
of it.
And I think that's a reallynice learning as well, to kind
of have something where you feellike I feel like I can know
that I've got tools to use thatI can help progress this.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Completely Um, and I also fell in love at the same
time, which I think honestly,that helps as well, because but
it's also this thing like I wantto be really well for this
person, you know.
So I was kind of throwingeverything that I could at it
because I was like I've got thisreal incentive now that I
really want to be well for thisperson.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
So, yeah, that did help I think for anyone
listening it's you know.
Certainly a lot of people aregoing to be diagnosed with some
kind of illness, whether it'scancer or whether or not it's
another chronic illness, acuteillness, but also if you're
going through something like adivorce, if you've lost a parent
, lost a child, going through atough time financially because
(24:07):
it is such a crisis at themoment, being made redundant.
Whatever it is that's going onin your life.
There are so many times thatlife can throw you an unexpected
challenge and I think I see youvery much as a guide in that
space, someone who is doingreally, really great work.
If there is one piece of adviceyou'd like to leave someone
(24:28):
with, who's currently in thethick of it, who's kind of going
, I don't know a way out whatcould someone do to feel better?
Speaker 2 (24:36):
One piece of advice.
Well, I'd start by saying thatI'm really sorry that you're
going through a really toughtime right now.
There's no rhyme or reason forit, it's just really sucky,
crappy, bad luck.
And I also want to say thatthere is such a wonderful,
beautiful life for you on theother side of this and you might
not believe that yet and youmight not be able to see that or
(25:00):
imagine what it's like, and Isay it as someone who has been
there and done that.
On the other side of chemo, Ihad gone through a breakup.
I was feeling absolutelyphysically drained and awful,
you know, had no hair, noeyebrows.
I could not envisage thebeautiful life that I am now
living, you know, having thisbeautiful partner.
(25:21):
I gave birth last year to thismost gorgeous little boy living
in this beautiful community backin my hometown, near my parents
, and that just felt completelyunattainable five years ago for
me.
So just want to say that,firstly, like you have to
believe it, even when you can'tsee it yet, just know that
(25:42):
you've just got to go step bystep for now, and there will be
a beautiful life on the otherside of this for you.
It's there for you In theinterim, just take it little bit
by little bit.
And something that I found gamechanging was journaling.
So whether you want a videojournal and just get your
thoughts out, or actually thephysical act of writing and it's
(26:02):
why I actually made a journalto go with the book, because I
journaled every single daythrough treatment, but I didn't
realize at the time it's anincredibly therapeutic tool when
you're going through atraumatic or difficult time,
because what it does is itactually gives your brain a
place to just process what'sgoing on, to get the dark cloud
(26:23):
of thoughts out of your head andput them somewhere that you can
organize them and start to makesense of them.
Yeah, I'd highly recommend it'scalled Morning Pages and a book
called the Artist's Way and theidea is you just get up every
morning brain dump three pages,just get it out of your brain.
Or, if you don't have time forthree pages, do a page or do
half a page, whatever.
(26:44):
But the idea is you can whinge,you can bitch, you can moan,
you can.
That doesn't mean you're a badperson, it doesn't mean you're
negative.
These are actually justthoughts and you're giving them
somewhere to live in outside ofyour head, and that that was
life-changing for me.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I love that.
It also feels like a verypractical thing that we can do
to kind of help us cope.
Bryony Benjamin, thank you foryour time and your skills and
contributions to all of ourlives.
I will leave a link in thedescription for people to find
you on Instagram to get yourbook.
Life is Tough, but so are you,and thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Thank you so much for having me, lindy, and can I
also just say a massive shoutout to you for the beautiful
work you do in the world toimprove the lives of women all
over the country and all overthe world, and also for the help
you personally gave me when Istarted to write my book,
because you're one of the firstpeople I spoke to and you just
said just write badly and get itout and then you can edit later
(27:43):
, and that really made theprocess a lot more fun and a lot
faster.
So thank you, oh my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
My pleasure, happy to help us not be perfectionists
together.
Thank you for those kind words.
Thank you, bryony.
Thank you.
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