August 24, 2025 • 64 mins
Bloody hell, what a ride.
Jamie Stedman grew up in the middle of violence, chaos, and a level of unpredictability no kid should ever have to navigate... yet somehow he walked out the other side with a marshmallow heart, a velvet sledgehammer delivery, and a mission to keep women and kids safe by helping men change.
From a childhood of protecting siblings, to two decades as a prison officer, to a coma that nearly killed him, to staring down his own mental health crash, Jamie’s story is one of survival without the victim badge. We got deep into coercive control, the truth about behaviour change, why 'good bloke' is the most dangerous PR spin in domestic violence, and how the smallest shifts in daily awareness can turn a life around.
It’s gritty, it’s real, it’s full of big heart and big truth. And yeah... the internet dropped out about 87 times, but he was worth hanging in for.
SPONSORED BY TESTART FAMILY LAWYERS
Website: testartfamilylawyers.com.au
JAMIE STEDMAN
Website: jamiestedman.net
TIFFANEE COOK
Linktree: linktr.ee/rollwiththepunches/
Website: tiffcook.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tiffaneecook/
Facebook: facebook.com/rollwiththepunchespodcast/
Instagram: instagram.com/rollwiththepunches_podcast/
Instagram: instagram.com/tiffaneeandco
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
She said, it's now never I got fighting in my blood.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Tiff. This is role with the punches and we're
turning life's hardest hits into wins. Nobody wants to go
to court and don't. My friends are test Art Family Lawyers.
Know that they offer all forms of alternative dispute resolution.
Their team of Melbourne family lawyers have extensive experience in
(00:29):
all areas of family law to facto and same sex couples,
custody and children, family violence and intervention orders, property settlements
and financial agreements. Test Art is in your corner, so
reach out to Mark and the team at www dot
test Artfamilylawyers dot com dot au. Jamie Stedman, Welcome to
(00:53):
the show.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Tiff, so good to be here. Thanks for asking. Yeah,
it's lovely.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
We've been connected for a little while because I first
heard you speaking whilst I was in the conversation, sitting
quietly in the corner as a producer, just listening in,
learning a lot about you and what you do on
the You project, and that feels like forever ago it
probably was, And eventually I was like, you should come
(01:19):
and have a chat with me. Bro.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah, with some harps. Finally I don't even know how
long ago. It was a few months, maybe six months,
let's say six months. And yeah, that was a good
chat and again kind of explored depths that I didn't
know were going to explore. And I'm looking forward to
whatever adventure you take me on today as well.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Who knows where we'll go? Who knows where we'll go.
Let's start with an introduction to our listeners. Who's Jamie
Stedman and what's he doing? What's his story?
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Who he is and what he does are two different things.
I like to try and keep that bit separate. So
what I do is I currently I mean employed full
time as a men's behavior change facilitator, predominantly working in
the domestic violence space, which we know is massive and
that's shit, but that's the black and white of it.
(02:20):
I also have my own business where I do some
accountability coaching slash life coaching. I'm not really comfortable with
any of those terms. I like to do this. I
like to chat people and see where we go. And
I think the cool part and with everybody I get
to speak to, is that the answers are all inside
of us. We just need someone to guide us back
(02:42):
to us. Sometimes me included right, great coach, shit student.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
But I love that. I love that, and I struggle
with the word coach too. I often like to say
when I'm running things, I'm always like, Okay, I'm just
I'm a facilitator. Yeah, I'm just here because I'm really curious,
and I'm good at being curious. And I've had the
great fortune of thousands of conversations and a deep curiosity,
(03:11):
which means I might have some directions to point people in.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
And I think when you deliver it from and I
will sit down. And your listeners are lucky if they
can't see this big bulls head, but it can put
a lot of blokes off when they come through the doors.
And then one of the very first things I say
to them is everything we're about to talk to talk
(03:36):
about is delivered from love, from a desire for you
to be the better human that you want to be
when you come through the doors. Just not always going
to sound like love.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
What do you think it is about your appearance or
when they first see you and meet you that has
that effect.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Unfortunately, I look like I'm walking around in a bad
mood all the time, but it's just my face.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
You should smile, kid.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
I look, I am ninety percent of the time having
the time of my life. You just can't tell. And
you know, there's a I don't know. There's a demeanor
from being a prison officer for nearly twenty years. There's
the way I carry myself. I'm quite quietly confident in
the room, and I pull no punches. I will. I
(04:30):
will if if I think they've burning dickheads, tell them
that I think they're burned dickheads. In the softest, most
gentlest manner.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
I can muster velvet, sledgehammer.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Flow. You write that down. That is the best way
I've ever been described. And I have had some interesting descriptions.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Tell me a bit more about what got you into that,
what's your journey, what got you into this line of work?
And I guess also is into being a prison officer,
because that's a really interesting place to call work.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
So I grew up in a first half dozen years
of my life was Mum and Dad and my brother,
and it was and it was great. They were quite
young from a young age, yeah, from sort of six.
Mum and dad split. It was the seventies. Mum got
pregnant quite early, so Dad married her that's what you do.
(05:37):
And through whatever, Mum met a series of not very
nice men who did not treat her very well. Ended
up with one particular guy who was is the father
of I feel my half siblings, and he was a
drug using, violent just grub So I mean I watched
(06:01):
I watched him beat the shit out of Mum on
many many occasions. He hit us so hard once when
we were kids that he knocked her into the back
seat of the car while we were and I was
only a young fella, and I just reached up and
grabbed her. I remember grabbing the back of his head
and screaming him to leave Mom alone. And I thought, now,
(06:22):
what what are we going to do? When I was
when I let go? Anyway, we so yeah. I used
to hang me and my brother over a well and
threaten to drop us in if we didn't tell him stuff.
It was just it was pretty full on and the
drugs had got to them so badly. We would get
(06:44):
home from school and there'd just be no one there.
There was, you know. I remember one one night in
particular where my brother it was quite cold. I live
in Orange and you South Wales, we were. I had
another little place called Manildra back then, and it was
reason cold. We were sort of huddled together on the verandah,
(07:05):
and then I thought they're not coming home, so I
went round to the back of the house. And now
our bedroom was locked from the inside of the house,
and for whatever reason, the window was boarded up, so
I just kicked it in and we climbed into bed
and they got to aim at three in the morning
or something, and he come and ripped. He come and
(07:26):
came in and flogged me for breaking into the house,
for breaking the window.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
What is it even like to process and develop as
a child in an environment like that and figure out
what is love and what is safety and what is
you know, you were living in a house with such
violence and un predictability. I can't even imagine.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
It's an interesting thing to if I never sort of
considered myself traumatized until recently, like it has made some
of my adult choices not nearly as smooth as I
would have had them be otherwise, I guess. But at
the time, I just knew that I had to take
(08:15):
care of the young ones. And so I don't know
where this comes from. I don't know what it's born from,
but I just was like, right, oh, this is my
lot now, but this just this is how we're doing it,
and so we would and whatever that looked like, that's
what we got on with. Often. We moved not long
(08:36):
after that, and I don't have a great timeline, and
that's probably a trauma response. After that, we moved to
Sydney and it didn't get better in any way, shape
or form, and jumping around different schools. I went to
four or five schools in six months, and I was
(08:58):
a relatively clever kid, but that just went away because
go to one school and your boot behind go to
the next school in your boom front, It's like I
can't catch up. So I just locked down and did
my own thing and kind of flew by the seat
of my pants. But that volatility. My job was basically
to protect the other guys and mum as much as
(09:18):
possible from him, and you know when we were safest
was whenever he was in jail. And so I guess
the other side of the coin is knowing, and I
is what I empathize so big with kids and with
victim survivors, is that learning footsteps right, the heaviness of
(09:47):
a footstep, the way the door shuts when they come home,
and knowing what that means, for what it could mean,
and then bailing and vice versa, knowing that I was
in a today there's going to be a level of happiness,
and so try and milk the shit out of that,
which is fucking horrific, right for any kid, try and
(10:11):
just go okay, he's high today. Heroin was the trope
of choice. Today is going to be a good day, awesome,
and just try and make the most of it. And
of course he was the father all of my younger siblings,
so he would shower them in love. He wasn't in
(10:33):
those moments. He wasn't nasty to us or anything like that,
but it was just always different. And of course when
it was going shit and mom would then try and
protect us, and then I'd try and protect her, and
it was you know, I got in trouble at school
once I recognizing year five, the teacher for whatever reason
(10:54):
said to the kids, what's another term for police and
wanting to be involved us. Put my hand up and
said cops and she fulled tor strips off me. That's
you know, that's nasty. I hope you never need them blah,
blah blah, and was really really and she didn't know
because I was very good at protecting our truth from
(11:15):
from everyone, because that's what you do. And I thought
to myself, what you don't know is I just left
my house and the police were there because I'd had
to wring them because a drug dealer had come around
home looking for him and flogged a shit out of mum,
dragged it down the stairs. I cracked this bloke in
(11:37):
the back of her head with a little mini baseball bat,
and I think it just upset him because I wasn't
a little fellow. So and then a neighbor comes bound
and across. This is fucking nuts, tiff, But a neighbor
come out of nowhere naked with a tire iron and
smacked this bloke across the back of the legs and
(11:58):
back and he took off and offering the police, and
Mums telling me not during the police because the drugs
and everything. Anyway, So yeah, that was just another night.
And then of course the school thing happened the very
next morning, and you know, this teacher's ripping into me
(12:19):
and it's just just shut you down. As a kid.
You're just like, I can't I'm out. I won't say
anything now, and so I imagine how many kids And
it's not the teacher's fault. I'm not never would I
blame her for that. But imagine had she called me
in at lunch time and said, oh, that term's probably
(12:41):
not one we would approve. What's going on?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Cops?
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah, cop, that's all of what's Yeah? But what this was?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
What answer was she looking for? That feels like a
trick question, feels like she was deliberately asking that question
to see what she can wrap people over the knuckles for.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Well, she got me good and yeah, just I don't
know what she was looking for. I think she was
trying to go with helpers and trying to steer kids
to a non fear perspective. This was blackdown in Sydney
and it's pretty full on place back then, so I
(13:22):
imagine it's not much fun now either, But who knows.
So just just look all that sort of stuff. I
guess led me to the jail. I had to for,
you know, because I was only a kid and didn't
have a choice to go visit this dickhead in jail
a number of times and I fucking hated it. If
I knew it wasn't a normal thing. I knew it
(13:46):
wasn't something I ever wanted to be to do, and
I guess burn that little but protective fella. I had
mates that were prison officers and they were living a
pretty good life. It was a great career back there.
This was late nineties, and I'm like, you know what,
(14:08):
fuck you society. That's where I'm going as well. I'm
going to go in there and wear this big mask
and pretend to be a hard unit. And none of
that's true. So we get in there, and I loved
the job. I loved the brotherhood of it. I love
the people I've still got. Some of my best friends
(14:29):
are still working in that pretty nasty environment, and it's
broken some of them. I know some of mychells these days.
And of course Boon. Those offices are the same as place,
are the same as embOS, are the same as all
the emergency services, but they're they're the forgotten, forgotten little
(14:50):
brothers of that of that lot. So it can be
a pretty full on environment. And like all of those
types of things, the brotherhood and the camaraderie is what
gets you through the dark. Hummer, And I've got some
pretty wild stories, and you know that that used to
(15:10):
be there, used to be a lot of team bonding
and getting together and all that sort of stuff, but
it's you know, the money goes away, so the spending
stops and all that sort of ship just disappears. And
then leaning into this stuff I had done while I
was in the jail, some mental health courses, and for
(15:31):
whatever reason, I've always been the guy people came to
for help. Good listener, I guess once you get past
the exterior. Yeah, I just the mental health stuff really
sort of made me start thinking a bit deeper and
started writing and started getting a few stories I don't
know published for one of a better term. And then
(15:55):
I got crook. I ended up in a coma for
at least three months while I was a prison off.
So we just had our my little followers two. He's
now eighteen as a while back, but yeah, my wife
got pretty much told say goodbye on half a dozen
different occasions, so we don't think he's going to get through.
(16:18):
And I was just a bit ill and then woke
up September missed. I had missed eep of months, and
I was like, what.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
What was the illness? If you don't want to share.
Feel free not to No. No, they don't know it
was influenza rae. They think it was swine flu. But
I was so my lungs wided out in twenty four hours.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I should be dead. To be brutally honest, there were
seven of us that were admitted at the same time,
and I'm the only one that survived, and I was
the sickest one apparently. Not a big note about that,
but I was on echme, which is effectively a guessing game.
We're going to put you on ecause we got no
(17:03):
other ideas. I was the oldest adult on the planet
to be on it that long and survive at the time.
I don't know that record still stands. Hopefully not hopefully
hang on, yeah, maybe it should stand. Maybe others should
survive earlier. And they took me off it because I've
(17:23):
been on it so long and there was no further
evidence of recovery. So I just went, well, we're kind
of done now to calm, let's see what happens, and
too cranky to die. Pretty much, it looked from it's
a pretty wild journey tiff, but that near death experience.
(17:44):
I was a big tough prison officer, and I had
this doc say looking there to tap him with a
psych You're going to have a crash, and I'm like, no,
I want it straight down the hill, to the point
where I took my seatbelt off to drive down the
road to I was going to just straight into the
front of the truck.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
And this was this an amalgamation do you think of
just that everything? I guess, everything you've suppressed and been through,
an environment you worked in, and then that illness happening.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Or what was I don't know why the darkness snuck
in like that, I don't. For me, it was all
about it was similar time to when Steve Irwin died
and I couldn't make peace with him dying to me living,
which is fucking stupid, right but oh sorry, I can't
(18:45):
still can't justify that, to be honest. But I just
kept looking for answers and of course there aren't any.
And the harder you look, the more wolves you find,
which just meant I kept withdrawing, with drawing, withdrawing, with drawing,
and I didn't. I've been through so much to get
well that I didn't want to ask for help, so
(19:09):
I didn't, and I got really lucky. I have a friend,
and she's not a close friend, we just know each
other at same age. She's a natural path and I
was trying to find everything I could find to strengthen
my immune system to fix me. And it turns out
(19:30):
door we have to do a suffer for a bit
longer and it all comes good. So I didn't know that,
and I went in to see her, and I was twitchy,
and I was agitated, and I was cranky, and I
was upset, and she was just trying to ask me
stuff and I just couldn't look at her, wouldn't look
at her, just didn't realize how deep I'd gone. Then
(19:51):
she got up, walked past me, shut the door, wheeled
around on me, and said, what the fuck is wrong
with you?
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Exactly what I needed at the time. So and of
course I just went blah, get that India. And that
started the process of proper healing, letting go. Probably was
what happened, was this expectation of healing. I'm fixed now.
I suddenly realized, Hey, you know what, You're not well,
(20:22):
and that's okay. It's time to just go through the process.
So went to the doctor next day, spoke about a
mental health plan, told him I would be back in
a few weeks if I couldn't sort it out. Myself
started walking, started to get more sunshine, started dipping into
more meditation, more more grounding, more just just eating well,
(20:47):
doing well, moving well. Even though I could barely still
still was a big struggle. And of course, three days
after I got out of the camera and was cleared
of all hospital my wife gave birth to our little girl,
who was a screaming maniac like proper. You hear all
(21:09):
the bad things she could add some like she was,
and of course, because so she's dealing with all the stress,
all the drugs, so her teeth didn't form properly because
of the drugs my wife had to take in case
she got sick, and she got sick. So just that
amalgamation of everything, and then she come out screaming like proper,
(21:33):
And of course I'm not well, and my little fellow
was like we had her in the bedroom because we
didn't want her to wake him all the time, and
it was so all of these shits just going on,
and I thought, you know what would be easier if
I wasn't around. And so that's a bit of a
just the perfect storm, right, just so much going on,
(21:56):
so much to try and hide from people. Yeah, to
have that, Like I didn't want to go out because
people had donated money to us, which was incredible, an
incredible thing. When communities get together for one of their own,
it's amazing. But I didn't want them to see me
buying a coffee wasting their money. So I just didn't,
(22:19):
which is mad. That's right. Thank you doesn't really cover it,
but it's all I've got.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
When when that, when she shuts the door, spins around
and gives you a little spray and you speak, what
was the what need? What was the most important thing
that that you felt helped? Was it just the speaking?
Was it? Was it admitting it? Was it hearing yourself
(22:47):
say it? Was it somebody else's interest?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I knew people would listen. I just didn't want to
burden them. So it was more just letting it out,
putting it down, stop carrying it was probably the biggest thing.
And then I thought, well, okay, there's a bit more
here than I anticipated. So having done some mental health
stuff at that stage, I kind of realized, all, shit,
(23:11):
you're not real well. Probably time to dig in a
bit and go and take care of yourself so as
you can take care of others. So yeah, it just
started the journey back to health, back to you know,
eventually to the gym, eventually to more mental health training,
to some counseling, to eventually to where I am now.
(23:34):
That was probably the I can't put a finger one
if I don't. I still don't know what I want
to do when I grow up. This is just part
of it, right, So I always figured my role the
journey was to find a way to help people. This
(23:56):
is a pretty cool way to do that.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
You're a big story.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Yeah, that's some of it. There's you know, there's there's
a there's so much more. You know. The the guild
I carried about where me and my siblings all got split.
We got made wards of the state, so they tracked
my dad down after a while, and then my brother
(24:26):
went back to him. And that was a whole other
ship fight because I've been running the show and now
I've got someone coming in telling me what I can
and can't do, and I'm like, nah, man, I don't know.
I know what I'm getting. I know what I can
and can't do, and what I can and can't get
away with, but then going pretty much back into high school,
(24:47):
back into into my hometown, and I didn't know how
to be a kid, and then trying to revert, trying
to find friends, peer pressure and try to impress guys,
and all the silliness that goes with all that. You know,
(25:07):
Just yeah, it was. It was a pretty wild ride.
I never spoke of my story to anyone. I don't
want anyone to know, not out of embarrassment, out of
the absolute fear of someone saying, oh, I'm so sorry
you had to do it like a fuck off. I'm not.
Don't put me in your pity party. I'm not interested.
(25:28):
I'm who I am because of that, not and sorry,
I'm who I am in spite of that. I've just
simply allowed those things to help me form to who
I am. Now. I'm okay with who I am. Here,
long way from perfect, but I do my best.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Life is such a puzzle. It seems like a massive understatement.
But like I think about, because I'm hearing your story
and I'm just thinking about I'm always thinking about our
mind and our thoughts and our beliefs, and our reality
and what shapes it and what we make of it,
(26:05):
And you know, I spec coach a lot of people
and I speak to a lot of people on the show,
and it's all about like, what of what stories and
beliefs have I developed in the middle of the world
that I live in, and how true are they and
how do we shift them? And what's influenced them? And like,
you've just got so much there that I have reflected
(26:28):
on as you've been saying it, that's shaping you in
different ways. And the thing is we never know what
we're in the middle of it when we're in the
middle of it, And like that applies to me is
more than anyone else, as much as anyone else. You know,
it applies to everyone you know. And you can have
all of this knowledge and then in the middle of
(26:52):
the life that you're managing and influencing I don't want
to say control, but be influencing and shaping, you can
end up in a different place than you realize because
of all this bullshit that we have to spend our
lives figuring out.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
And that's the thing. It's not the challenge is not
to just accept your lot. I know the acceptance has
to play a part, but you can still I could
have easily gone to jail. I could have easily become
the victim of all of that stuff, right, And I
hate if anybody who's out there listening, thinking I'm fucking
(27:33):
big noting, just tell me to shut up. But it's
not about that. It's about the choice I knew. I
remember the police come and raided our place when I
was like I want to say, seven or eight, and
again I don't know, but my stepfather, for one of
a better term, had shoved all the drugs and whatnot
down the front of my pants and whispered, go get
(27:55):
rid of this stuff out the back. And the police
were there and they just ignore them because they couldn't
really do too much. But they're tearing the house apart.
And I wandered out the back and I buried it
all in the pigeon cage because I knew if my
stepdad come and got it, eat at least get shot on.
(28:16):
Like what seven year old is thinking?
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Like that, right, just some clarity right there.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
And I also remember, I remember, literally I can visualize
walking past the laundry saying to myself, this will never
be my life. I will never ever let this be met.
And so most of the bias's choices prejudices that I've
(28:42):
formed in my life have been to avoid that, maybe
even running away from it a bit sometimes.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
How did you not get angry?
Speaker 1 (28:52):
I didn't have time. I didn't have time. I probably
couldn't process it as a kid. There's been a couple
of moments where I lost my shit at Mum a
couple of years ago, when I started really sharing my story.
She got a bit cranky and is probably through embarrassment,
and unfortunately Mums and I know she'll probably listen to
(29:16):
this one day. But the simple thing is is there's
a lot of stuff she just can't remember. And all
I said to her was, this is my truth. You
don't have to like it, but this is my truth.
So we had a bit of a bit of a
to and fro. I'll tell you the angriest I got
quite recently was when he died, the stepfather. He died
(29:36):
and I never got a chance to say fuck you.
That would have been nice, but at the same time,
to what purpose? You know? I was cranky at that
and I had a really good friend and she's amazing
it pulling my shit apart, and she just said, the
life you live is one he could not possibly have imagined.
(29:59):
Isn't that enough? I was like, yep, you got me.
It is so boom that anger went away. Acceptance is
big in my world too, if I kind of really
learned that from a young age, just to let go
of the expectation because the reality is not going to help,
you know, It's I I, me and my brother had
(30:20):
this little scheme. There was a sports field down from
us when we lived in Lalor Park in Sydney. It's
to be a lot of soccer played down there and
other sport I assume, I just can't remember. And me
and him had this scheme where we'd go to the
canne and I mate would have to get his pie
then move up to the source dispensing area and I'd
(30:43):
be around the corner and you can't do people can't.
But and my brother would bump into the dude, who
would then turn to see what was going on, and
I'd snatch the pie and take off so we could eat.
I know, right, like we're just shit like that, just
(31:03):
I mean, you just learn to survive. And look, I've
got a really cool story. I don't tell too often,
but myself and my brother and my mum. For whatever reason,
we're walking back down the hill from there used to
be a set of shops up the top of the road,
(31:24):
and I don't know what we're doing up these We
never had any money, but my brother and I had
found a ball. When you're a kid when boys, I
don't know if the girls get the same enjoyment from
a tennis ball, but boys, it's like fuck her lotto.
So me and him we're dicking around with the ball,
throwing it and he throws it like an idiot, and
(31:44):
it goes in this long grass near a bus, a
bus bay, a bus shelter, right, and the grass is
really long. On Insidney, there's a giant funnel web, so
you're not going in there. And the ball goes in there,
and I'm like, you idiot at her mums. Don't be
nasty to your brother. So I go in look on
for this ball and trip over and it's a box
(32:08):
and I kid you not, it's a box of bananas. Right.
The top layer of the bananas were a tiny bit squishy,
but because they're in the waxed box, there was a
fucking box of bananas that were These things kept us
alive for two weeks. I was like a gift from God.
If he doesn't if we don't find the ball, if
(32:29):
we're not up there, we don't find the ball, he
doesn't throw it like a dickhead. It doesn't go in
the long grass. I don't trip over the box of bananas,
and Mum, I said, I come here, look at hope
on Jesus. And Mom said, oh, well, that's lovely. Let's
just take what we need and leave some for the others.
And I said, screw we are the others, like, what
are you doing? But that's that was my mum. You know,
(32:51):
that's that's that level of kindness and care that I've
embraced as much as possible. So for all her her failings,
you know, what a survivor, what a what a you
know she got that she kicked out of her She
was a pretty heavy drug taking you know, she did
(33:14):
jail time. She is and still raised to the best
of her ability, kids that were able to make choices.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Wow, all right, so.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Good luck, I'm packing all that.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Sorry, I know you got another sixteen hours.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Yeah. So that that banana story. When I had the
chance to reflect on the universe, I'm pretty spiritual without
burn too stupid about it all. But the universe fucking
loves us all if we just get out of the way.
I just my biggest, my biggest crackh always is when
(34:01):
I try and make shit happen, when I try and
force work, when I force you know anything, basically, you know,
it's throughout history of me. Anytime I've tried to force,
I've been met with resistance. And when I let go
and trust the universe loves me.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
This is a part of the paradox, and this is
a part of you know, where I'll oscillate between drawing
these you know, pieces of wisdom that I've stumbled across
in my own life and speaking to others and get
to share them and then find find myself trip over
them again at later times, like that idea of when
COVID hit and the world went into its little version
(34:46):
of turmoil for everybody, and in the middle of that chaos,
there was great opportunity for me to get out of
things I didn't want to, didn't realize that I was
in that I didn't want to, you know, step into
things that aligned with my values. And this shift brought
this new way of doing things, and I was like,
what a gift. But then two years down the track,
(35:09):
I'm battling with the old versions of how I did things,
and I'm like, where did that go? Like we learned
that lesson and shared it, and now I'm here struggling
with it again. And it's that it's whole universe, pieces
the whole. What do we see in the middle of
the world that's around us? That you know, how much
of what we can't see because it's not in our
(35:31):
belief system, because it's not in our awareness.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
That's what a rabbit hole.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
I know.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
I love it. I love it. And my challenge of
late has been to remember rather than force, so remembering
the ease that life can feel like. Don't get me wrong,
I've got bills and we need a new car and
all the other shit that goes along with it. But
(36:00):
what a privilege it is to run beautiful, clean hot
water over my hands in the morning, right, So that
the joy and the small stuff, And it's been something
I talk about a lot, and I've written about it.
I try and share stuff on Insta and all that
sort of thing. Just the moments, those opportunities to remember, hey,
(36:22):
you know what, this is all just a game anyway,
and none of us are going to win, not one
single one of us are going to win this game,
So why don't we enjoy playing it instead? However, that
looks right for you, and that's there's so much power
in that too. What is it? What is it you
do daily that makes you feel good? There are no
(36:44):
there are no perfect days, but there are perfect moments
in every day if you're prepared to look for them, right.
And then we go home and we go I had
a fuck an amazing day today, and they'll go, what
was what made it amazing? And you might say, two
tiny little things and outside of all that was shit, right,
But because those two things, because you're aware enough to
(37:07):
pay attention to those two tiny little things, everyone in
your house now gets the benefit of this feeling of
perfection that you're dealing with in that moment. And that
shit is available to every fucking one of us every
single minute if we just get out of our way.
But I can feel that. I can feel the sun
right now coming off the window that's just here. I
(37:29):
can feel this heat, like wow, I can feel how cool?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Right? You know the I just missed a phone call
from a friend. How lucky? Am I that I have
a friend that wants to ring me? Yes, you know,
it's just switched. Can you switch your narrative a little bit?
And my challenge with the men in Men's Behavior Change
is that exact thing. Can we challenge your current narrative
(38:00):
not to seek perfection, to just seek different, because then
there's a knock on effect, all right, of every single
choice you make. When you start to feel good about
that choice, you get to then stack another one on
top of it, and so on and so forth, and
before you know it, the things you look at are different,
the way you feel is different, the way you think
(38:21):
is different, and a version of you that's now growing
and prepared to move beyond the history starts to reshape
and retell its own history.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
How do you so you work with offenders? Is that
what you call them? No?
Speaker 1 (38:39):
So, I am a men's behavior change facilitator. I won't
say who with because I don't want to, and my
job is quite literally I keep women and children saved
through the behavior change of men. Now, some of these
men are mandated, but with great joy, a lot are
(38:59):
ringing me out of their own off their own bat
saying this behavior that I've been displaying is not serving
me well, and I'd like to chat to you about
changing that. That's awesome. There are a lot of them
that then say my partner said I should do this,
and I'm like, yeah, cool, how awesome that they listen right,
(39:21):
that they're willing and willing to do that hard thing.
And there's a we deliver a certain system a certain
way and all that sort of stuff, But there are
there is scope in there too. The parameters are pretty
broad and as long as we're hitting the market in
terms of accountability, behavior, owning your behavior, and challenging your beliefs,
(39:45):
like what is a belief behind that behavior? You know,
behavior is the symptom, belief is the cause. I can't
remember who I attribute that quote to, but it's a
cool one. It's one I've got on my comput to
work at all times. So it's it's challenging like what like, okay,
you act like that like angers your second martians? So
(40:09):
what's behind the angle like it? You know, where are you?
Where's all that ship that you put other people through
coming from? And where's your entitlement to do so? So
we will have those hard conversations and the problem with
behavior changes many of those men have been master manipulators
(40:29):
in this area of their lives for a very long time.
They that you know, you read it in the fucking newspapers.
Oh this good bloke, he just made a mistake. Yeah,
if everyone could just see TIFFs face their normal goodness.
So that's the ship that pisses me off, right. It's like, yeah,
(40:53):
but he's showing you what you need to see because
he's not prepared to show you you're true. He's true
because you're gone, You're out of his life because if
he shows you he's controlling, manipulatly violent, you're not putting
up with that shit.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Guys, we're having internet trouble. Jamie keeps just disappearing completely
out of the chat. So this part of we're going
to pick up as best we can with where we
left off. Neither of us are entirely issue where that was.
But you were talking about the blots that you're working
with with the behavior change.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
So yeah, those guys, some are mandated, some are not.
There are a lot of guys that are now being
asked volunteer to be in the program, which is great.
Their partners have suggested to them, or a friend or whatever,
and some powerful stuff that happens in that space, the
(41:53):
drama with it, with all behavior changes. As these guys
are and have been master manipulators for quite a while.
We mentioned that previously and sorry if we're repeating, but
it's the joys of technology. These guys are, like we've
seen in the media so much. You know, he's been
described as a real good fellow, a man's man, a
(42:15):
bloke's bloke, blah blah blah. That's because they've kept the
truth from people for a long time, the one that
they're supposed to love, their partner, their children have been
subjected to control, coercive control, fear, the fear that goes
with that, and then the physical violence that often leads to. Now,
(42:39):
I heard a police spokesperson the other day say we're
really soon and uptaking coercive control accusations charges now that
in this South Wales there's a coursive control law recently
Queensland god on board. I'm not sure about Victoria. I
think you guys are actually leaders in it anyway, And
(43:01):
I said, it's now showing that the education is working
that courcould control the people understand what the coercive control
can lead to domestic violence and it fucking killed me.
It's like it is domestic volunte idiot, Like, stop saying
that one thing leads to it's already horrific. I hear
(43:21):
women all the time say I wish you would hit me,
it would be easier. Yeah, what are we doing to
women when that's the thought process?
Speaker 2 (43:30):
It reminds me of conversation about I think it was
with my psych doctor Bill, who was podcast guest turned
personal psychotherapist in the end, because every podcast he did
with me ended up a fucking open door therapy session,
which was brutal. So I was like, Okay, probably how
about we take this into your office?
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Yes, SA, fair enough.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
One of the first things I remember him talking about
that really stuck with me was the idea that not
enough of the right stuff in terms of trauma is
far more detrimental than too much of the wrong stuff.
And outwardly, so many of us have this perception that
I haven't suffered trauma because I haven't been beaten or
(44:14):
hurt or experienced violence or any of the really big stuff.
But there's that idea of emotional neglect and all of that,
there's not enough of the right stuff and it cannot
be like it's not to throw people's parenting into the fire.
It can be just like a generational lack of things,
(44:35):
just compounding and compounding, which in a society where we're
all independently living one for ourselves rather than as communities.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
The best way I think of course of control is
and I had this explained to me in a seminar
I went to and a lady upfront. She said, Coursive
control is the loss of one's autonomy at any time,
(45:09):
to any time that you have to make a different choice,
a decision you wouldn't have otherwise made. Correct what you're
doing in that moment because of fear or worry or
concern or avoidance. Controllers in play now, people who are
going to argue with that, I don't care, you're wrong.
(45:31):
Coersive control is a loss of one's autonomy at any stage.
So when your decision making in the house is being
changed because you're fearful of how he will react, of
who he will become, of how much yelling he will do,
of oh he won't like he won't like this, or
he doesn't like that, or shit, I don't want him to.
It's it's already it's happening. You just haven't worked it
(45:53):
out yet. So with the men, we go the other way.
We watch a lot of videos on what control is,
what it looks like when there's that emotional accusations. The
threat of violence often is more than the actual violence itself.
And the guys are really good. They can see shitty
(46:15):
behavior a mile away. And I simply say to them,
all right, so you can pick it out out of
a lineup. That's fantastic. But when he's not there, is
he still controlling her? And what do you mean, Jamie?
And I said, well, her decision making is still being
altered when he's not in the house because she's worried
(46:38):
about what he's doing, what he's thinking, who he's going
to be, how he's going to react, even when he's
not in the house. And it blows their minds. They
can't conceive it that way. And we talk about one
really powerful example is, and this is not for everyone, shopping.
(46:59):
When you made it, the goes, oh yeah, I go,
you know, I'm I go shopping. I go and do
the groceries for her. We meant for her. You live
in the fucking house, So I go do this. I
go do the groceries like you've done her a big,
massive favor from a control perspective, And again, control has
(47:20):
to come with intent, right, there has to be a
level of intent for power. But when when control and
power at play with this stuff, it's I went and
done the shopping because now I know where she is,
I know who's spending the money, I know what the
money's getting spent on. I know where to go, how
to go, and I know that she's at home with
the kids. She can't do it. She can't be out
(47:41):
doing other things that I've decided she may or may
not be doing because I'm the big guy and I'm
doing the shopping. Now. If it's that easy with just groceries,
imagine how deep this shit runs. Yeah, and now technology
has come into play, and we've got all those fantastic
(48:01):
apps for women for their safety. They're worried for them
to report, But what about the women whose men are
controlling the technology, who just magically turn up whenever she's
at a friend's place chatting to her mate. How did
you know you were there? So this stuff is deep,
(48:22):
and I actually do feel for the police because the government,
in its wisdom, decided to create a law, but the
police don't know how to police it yet. Can you
imagine that's a part of the cop shop the police station,
as we've discussed, Tiff can't say.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Cops, can't they cop shop?
Speaker 1 (48:43):
Imagine God to the police station and saying I am
being controlled because he keeps doing the shopping. Right now,
you're going to get laughed out of there. But at
the end of the day, that is a level of
control if the intense there, and the onus is on
(49:04):
the victims unfortunately to prove it, to keep a long
enough record to show what control looks like. And of
course if you don't know, you don't know what you're
looking for. You don't know that you're being controlled. You
don't know that being given an allowance so you can
put just the right amount of petrol in the car
(49:27):
is a control measure. So as you can probably gather
o'ka a little bit shitty with this stuff because it's
fucking full on right like this is domestic violence. It
doesn't lead to violent acts, there's no pathway. You're already
(49:48):
being controlled. You're already in a relationship that is. And
the big, the big drama here if is it never
goes back like men that have begun controlling in the
small stuff just keep adding layers until they are are taught.
(50:13):
Do you know? The bar for men's so low, so
fucking low, and I'm embarrassed by it, but it's where
it is. And all I would ask any man out
there is to check him with themselves and ask yourself,
are you meeting the low bar? Can you do something different?
Are you willing to ask your partner straight up with
(50:36):
the punch in the nuts answer? Is there something I
need to get better at?
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Are we getting deep enough to get beneath the behavior
and understand for the individuals its origin? Are they getting
there or are they managing?
Speaker 1 (50:56):
We aim to tif and with a lot of accountability
and challenges, and it's easy for guys. Not easy, that's
not right. There are men in the behavior change stuff
who will say that's been me for a very long
time and I'm rather cool. Where does it come from?
(51:20):
That's what I saw, That's what I knew. That's how
I understood us to be. Television, you know, has told
us that for a very long time that when the
man comes home from work, dinner's waiting on the thing. Yeah,
you know, guys, if you you know, if you need
a pad on the back because you're vacuumed, like fucking seriously, check.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Out dads that babysit their kids.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
I don't even what babysit. You mean parent.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
Parents actually parenting.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
Yeah, and I'm look, there's a few things. I One
of the biggest gifts I try and give to the
guys is the gift of silence. My young fellows Aden
and so he's riding amongst it, and he's got a
big crew around him, and I've just said to him,
when the shit talk starts, you've got two options. Educate
(52:17):
or ignore. Now, the simple act of ignoring or not
indulging when the shit talk starts, someone in that circle
is watching your reactions or lack off, and they're going
to come to at some stage and say, what was
all that about? And there's are opportunity for education. Hey,
(52:38):
I don't want to speak about women like that. I
actually really like him quite a bit, and I like
if they kept hanging around, and they're not going to
hang around or your blocks are speaking about them like that,
So I'm not indulging in that. Well, the other side
of the coin is calling it out now, there's a
number of speakers in this space, and this is a
tricky one because we have to find a way to
(53:00):
call it out. It has to be done, but at
what costs. We can potentially put women at further risk
right by doing so. So it's a tough one, but
it starts in the language and when we are having
big conversations with little people where that's where we have
(53:24):
to go with this stuff. We have to be talking
to ten year olds, nine year olds about what is
acceptable and what isn't acceptable. And you know, what does
this ship look like? I think my story is really
powerful in that I knew what was happening in our
life wasn't right, but I couldn't do anything about it.
(53:48):
And I'm not asking, you know, if I was to
educate some kids and then say to them this is wrong,
I'm not asking them to challenge their father when the
father starts Berna Gouber. But now they know that shitty
behavior cool, I know what that looks like. Now I
put the choice in their hands. I hope I don't.
(54:09):
I hope people like me are not needed soon enough
if that's the ideal situation. But in this space, I
work in a reactive environment. I work in that education space.
I'm desperate to see programs like this run as preventative measures.
(54:31):
I'm really powerful in the room. Quite recently when I'm
listening to the general chat amongst the men and I
hate two guys over here having a discussion, and one
boke says, fuck, I wished I had heard this twenty
years ago.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
The tough thing is, as individuals, we're only ready when
we ready cognitively and emotionally, and so that messages. So
it is really a societal and a cultural shift that
needs to happen across the board so that people can
(55:14):
be ready sooner, so that things can be seen and felt.
And I think our emotional literacy for so many of us,
myself included. I mean, I was twenty nine before I
realized I'd blanked out the ability to feel fucking emotions.
I had to step into the boxing ring and get
landed with punches in the face to start inviting my
(55:36):
body back to the party and processing emotions and ideas
and concepts that I had about myself and realizing that
I was ready to challenge them. But if someone had
come to me five minutes before that moment and said
a tough girl. Your shit scared, Actually you're this, and
that I would have been like, go get stuffed. I'll
(55:56):
punch you in the face. You're all wrong. I'm tough
and independent and I'm the boss, you know, Like I
didn't have the emotional literacy or the emotional capacity and
the ability to feel in that moment. And the problem
is we're humans who have feelings and emotions and we
react to them and then we construct a story around them.
(56:17):
And that's what I think can be so challenging. When
you talk about behavior change.
Speaker 1 (56:22):
It's just remembering choice. And I know that's really simplified, right,
but at the end of the day, it is a
simple thing. It's not an easy thing to do to
change your behavior, but it's simple to want to. And
so the choice is do I want this to continue
(56:43):
or do I want it to change? And you might
not realize what it is, you even want what that
is yet, but the intent to choose different is all
of it, right, And then it's leaning into that worried
about this, I'm anxious about this, I'm concerned about this. Well,
there's a fucking really powerful conversation to have with that
(57:06):
person you love and if that needs to be you
even better because you're prepared to have I talk about
the gremlin and the Guru. TIF So the gremlin burn
the brain and the Guru burn the heart, and the
gremlin's an idiot. Well, it says so much shit, and
(57:27):
it will tell you what you want to believe because
it's driven from comfort. But the Guru never lies, never has,
never will. But most of us are ready to tap
into the Guru yet because we fear the truth, because
the Guru not only will not lie to you or
(57:47):
will not protect you from the truth either. Yes, of
course this relationship shit. Yes you should be out if
you go well, but that's not what I want to hear.
I don't know what to tell you. No one ever
climbed a mountain to go talk to the gremlin, right, yeah.
(58:09):
So my challenge for anybody out there is, if you
are struggling with this choice, I don't care like behavior,
change choice like you could be Mum has determined to
go back to the gym, Cool, great, awesome, Start soft,
be soft on yourself and just challenge the Guru. Hey,
(58:30):
what am I doing? Is my story aligning with my actions?
And the Guru will say stop fucking fibb and off
you go, or not might say, hey, you're loving yourself
with everything you've got right now, well done, but it's
scary because you've got to ask, and you know it's
(58:53):
sitting there waiting because the answers already there within you,
right And then you go, oh no, it told me
that thing that I knew, already knew, and I didn't
want to hear it. And I know now what I
now action.
Speaker 2 (59:07):
What's the plan for you moving forward?
Speaker 1 (59:10):
I don't know. Win the lotto.
Speaker 2 (59:13):
That's a good plan.
Speaker 3 (59:14):
All the best with that, our good made Harps put
the thing up the other day about great ideas lack plans,
like if I if I had written.
Speaker 1 (59:27):
Ideas of what I want to do, this isn't what
it would look like. How lucky am I?
Speaker 2 (59:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (59:34):
That I never wrote it down, because when I write
it down, it's all right. I've got to follow this.
But my plan is, I would ideally love to create
a prevention space where I'm in talking to young men
(59:56):
and young women and I'm talking school agent where they're
a bit fearful of big bullfens like me who use language,
and those kids know some big words these days. But
to get in and just say to him, hey, here's
a list of stuff you or not to do, and
here's a list of stuff you're not to put up with.
(01:00:18):
And strangely enough, the list is the same. Let's talk
about that list. That will be it. That would be
my ideal thing. And if someone out there wants to
pay me to do that, load me up. Outside of that,
more of the same, if more talking to good humans
(01:00:39):
like you, because it reinvigorates me. It gives me so
much fucking energy. It's nuts. And you know, I didn't
know where we were going with any of this. I
don't even know if we answered anything, we talk about anything.
Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
You definitely did, because I have been just sitting there
soaking it all in. Forgetting that I'm supposed to host
the conversation. I'm just like a list. It's you know,
I love it. You've got a really such a strong
looking bloke with this beautiful, soft, giving energy.
Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
And I don't tell anyone that I'm protecting softless for
every forever.
Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Just a marshmallow humor, a big squishy heart.
Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
And look, it is my absolute superpower. It's something I
want to give us. A piece off to everyone I
lived I'm fucking lucky. I've had a great life. When
it's all said and done, I don't consider myself a
victim in any way, shape or form. All of those
things make up the person I am, and most of
(01:01:42):
the time that's not a bad dude.
Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
Bloody love it. How do people reach out to you
and get in touch and pay you to do that
awesome stuff with their kids?
Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Instagram? Facebook. I've got a website that I absolutely need
to overhaul. It's got some stuff on there, Jamie Stead
dot Jamie Stebben dot net. Don't even remember it. It's
been set. Yeah, look Instagram, I think is Jamie Stead.
I don't even know Tiff.
Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
Everyone I'll have I'll get the actual links and I'll
put them in the show notes. Because Jamie's ship at this.
Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
Part of the this is not the bit very.
Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
This is not where he shines. Not aside from the
I t issues of dropping out of the podcast every
four and a half minutes, He's marketing knowledge terrible, So.
Speaker 1 (01:02:34):
Not tops I questioned people. I spoke to a new
client quite recently. I said, how do you How did
you find me? He said, I just googled life coach blokes,
and you popped up, and I'm like, that'll do okay.
Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
Well, if you're looking for Jamie, just google Life Coach
Blokes and what happens.
Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
I don't know much, Tiff, but I know a little
bit about some stuff, and I'm always happy to point
people back to the Guru because it's where we come from,
not the Gremlin. The Gremlin's made up of so much
of our shitty bits and a pretend ones to protect
us from more shitty bits. The Guru loves us hard
enough to tell us the truth.
Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
I love it your race. Thank you for today, thank.
Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
You for putting up with the tread of the dramas
that were today.
Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
Well worth it, she said, It's now never I got
fighting in my blood.
She said, it's now never I got fighting in my blood.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Tiff. This is role with the punches and we're
turning life's hardest hits into wins. Nobody wants to go
to court and don't. My friends are test Art Family Lawyers.
Know that they offer all forms of alternative dispute resolution.
Their team of Melbourne family lawyers have extensive experience in
(00:29):
all areas of family law to facto and same sex couples,
custody and children, family violence and intervention orders, property settlements
and financial agreements. Test Art is in your corner, so
reach out to Mark and the team at www dot
test Artfamilylawyers dot com dot au. Jamie Stedman, Welcome to
(00:53):
the show.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Tiff, so good to be here. Thanks for asking. Yeah,
it's lovely.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
We've been connected for a little while because I first
heard you speaking whilst I was in the conversation, sitting
quietly in the corner as a producer, just listening in,
learning a lot about you and what you do on
the You project, and that feels like forever ago it
probably was, And eventually I was like, you should come
(01:19):
and have a chat with me. Bro.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah, with some harps. Finally I don't even know how
long ago. It was a few months, maybe six months,
let's say six months. And yeah, that was a good
chat and again kind of explored depths that I didn't
know were going to explore. And I'm looking forward to
whatever adventure you take me on today as well.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Who knows where we'll go? Who knows where we'll go.
Let's start with an introduction to our listeners. Who's Jamie
Stedman and what's he doing? What's his story?
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Who he is and what he does are two different things.
I like to try and keep that bit separate. So
what I do is I currently I mean employed full
time as a men's behavior change facilitator, predominantly working in
the domestic violence space, which we know is massive and
that's shit, but that's the black and white of it.
(02:20):
I also have my own business where I do some
accountability coaching slash life coaching. I'm not really comfortable with
any of those terms. I like to do this. I
like to chat people and see where we go. And
I think the cool part and with everybody I get
to speak to, is that the answers are all inside
of us. We just need someone to guide us back
(02:42):
to us. Sometimes me included right, great coach, shit student.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
But I love that. I love that, and I struggle
with the word coach too. I often like to say
when I'm running things, I'm always like, Okay, I'm just
I'm a facilitator. Yeah, I'm just here because I'm really curious,
and I'm good at being curious. And I've had the
great fortune of thousands of conversations and a deep curiosity,
(03:11):
which means I might have some directions to point people in.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
And I think when you deliver it from and I
will sit down. And your listeners are lucky if they
can't see this big bulls head, but it can put
a lot of blokes off when they come through the doors.
And then one of the very first things I say
to them is everything we're about to talk to talk
(03:36):
about is delivered from love, from a desire for you
to be the better human that you want to be
when you come through the doors. Just not always going
to sound like love.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
What do you think it is about your appearance or
when they first see you and meet you that has
that effect.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Unfortunately, I look like I'm walking around in a bad
mood all the time, but it's just my face.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
You should smile, kid.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
I look, I am ninety percent of the time having
the time of my life. You just can't tell. And
you know, there's a I don't know. There's a demeanor
from being a prison officer for nearly twenty years. There's
the way I carry myself. I'm quite quietly confident in
the room, and I pull no punches. I will. I
(04:30):
will if if I think they've burning dickheads, tell them
that I think they're burned dickheads. In the softest, most
gentlest manner.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
I can muster velvet, sledgehammer.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Flow. You write that down. That is the best way
I've ever been described. And I have had some interesting descriptions.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Tell me a bit more about what got you into that,
what's your journey, what got you into this line of work?
And I guess also is into being a prison officer,
because that's a really interesting place to call work.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
So I grew up in a first half dozen years
of my life was Mum and Dad and my brother,
and it was and it was great. They were quite
young from a young age, yeah, from sort of six.
Mum and dad split. It was the seventies. Mum got
pregnant quite early, so Dad married her that's what you do.
(05:37):
And through whatever, Mum met a series of not very
nice men who did not treat her very well. Ended
up with one particular guy who was is the father
of I feel my half siblings, and he was a
drug using, violent just grub So I mean I watched
(06:01):
I watched him beat the shit out of Mum on
many many occasions. He hit us so hard once when
we were kids that he knocked her into the back
seat of the car while we were and I was
only a young fella, and I just reached up and
grabbed her. I remember grabbing the back of his head
and screaming him to leave Mom alone. And I thought, now,
(06:22):
what what are we going to do? When I was
when I let go? Anyway, we so yeah. I used
to hang me and my brother over a well and
threaten to drop us in if we didn't tell him stuff.
It was just it was pretty full on and the
drugs had got to them so badly. We would get
(06:44):
home from school and there'd just be no one there.
There was, you know. I remember one one night in
particular where my brother it was quite cold. I live
in Orange and you South Wales, we were. I had
another little place called Manildra back then, and it was
reason cold. We were sort of huddled together on the verandah,
(07:05):
and then I thought they're not coming home, so I
went round to the back of the house. And now
our bedroom was locked from the inside of the house,
and for whatever reason, the window was boarded up, so
I just kicked it in and we climbed into bed
and they got to aim at three in the morning
or something, and he come and ripped. He come and
(07:26):
came in and flogged me for breaking into the house,
for breaking the window.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
What is it even like to process and develop as
a child in an environment like that and figure out
what is love and what is safety and what is
you know, you were living in a house with such
violence and un predictability. I can't even imagine.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
It's an interesting thing to if I never sort of
considered myself traumatized until recently, like it has made some
of my adult choices not nearly as smooth as I
would have had them be otherwise, I guess. But at
the time, I just knew that I had to take
(08:15):
care of the young ones. And so I don't know
where this comes from. I don't know what it's born from,
but I just was like, right, oh, this is my
lot now, but this just this is how we're doing it,
and so we would and whatever that looked like, that's
what we got on with. Often. We moved not long
(08:36):
after that, and I don't have a great timeline, and
that's probably a trauma response. After that, we moved to
Sydney and it didn't get better in any way, shape
or form, and jumping around different schools. I went to
four or five schools in six months, and I was
(08:58):
a relatively clever kid, but that just went away because
go to one school and your boot behind go to
the next school in your boom front, It's like I
can't catch up. So I just locked down and did
my own thing and kind of flew by the seat
of my pants. But that volatility. My job was basically
to protect the other guys and mum as much as
(09:18):
possible from him, and you know when we were safest
was whenever he was in jail. And so I guess
the other side of the coin is knowing, and I
is what I empathize so big with kids and with
victim survivors, is that learning footsteps right, the heaviness of
(09:47):
a footstep, the way the door shuts when they come home,
and knowing what that means, for what it could mean,
and then bailing and vice versa, knowing that I was
in a today there's going to be a level of happiness,
and so try and milk the shit out of that,
which is fucking horrific, right for any kid, try and
(10:11):
just go okay, he's high today. Heroin was the trope
of choice. Today is going to be a good day, awesome,
and just try and make the most of it. And
of course he was the father all of my younger siblings,
so he would shower them in love. He wasn't in
(10:33):
those moments. He wasn't nasty to us or anything like that,
but it was just always different. And of course when
it was going shit and mom would then try and
protect us, and then I'd try and protect her, and
it was you know, I got in trouble at school
once I recognizing year five, the teacher for whatever reason
(10:54):
said to the kids, what's another term for police and
wanting to be involved us. Put my hand up and
said cops and she fulled tor strips off me. That's
you know, that's nasty. I hope you never need them blah,
blah blah, and was really really and she didn't know
because I was very good at protecting our truth from
(11:15):
from everyone, because that's what you do. And I thought
to myself, what you don't know is I just left
my house and the police were there because I'd had
to wring them because a drug dealer had come around
home looking for him and flogged a shit out of mum,
dragged it down the stairs. I cracked this bloke in
(11:37):
the back of her head with a little mini baseball bat,
and I think it just upset him because I wasn't
a little fellow. So and then a neighbor comes bound
and across. This is fucking nuts, tiff, But a neighbor
come out of nowhere naked with a tire iron and
smacked this bloke across the back of the legs and
(11:58):
back and he took off and offering the police, and
Mums telling me not during the police because the drugs
and everything. Anyway, So yeah, that was just another night.
And then of course the school thing happened the very
next morning, and you know, this teacher's ripping into me
(12:19):
and it's just just shut you down. As a kid.
You're just like, I can't I'm out. I won't say
anything now, and so I imagine how many kids And
it's not the teacher's fault. I'm not never would I
blame her for that. But imagine had she called me
in at lunch time and said, oh, that term's probably
(12:41):
not one we would approve. What's going on?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Cops?
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah, cop, that's all of what's Yeah? But what this was?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
What answer was she looking for? That feels like a
trick question, feels like she was deliberately asking that question
to see what she can wrap people over the knuckles for.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Well, she got me good and yeah, just I don't
know what she was looking for. I think she was
trying to go with helpers and trying to steer kids
to a non fear perspective. This was blackdown in Sydney
and it's pretty full on place back then, so I
(13:22):
imagine it's not much fun now either, But who knows.
So just just look all that sort of stuff. I
guess led me to the jail. I had to for,
you know, because I was only a kid and didn't
have a choice to go visit this dickhead in jail
a number of times and I fucking hated it. If
I knew it wasn't a normal thing. I knew it
(13:46):
wasn't something I ever wanted to be to do, and
I guess burn that little but protective fella. I had
mates that were prison officers and they were living a
pretty good life. It was a great career back there.
This was late nineties, and I'm like, you know what,
(14:08):
fuck you society. That's where I'm going as well. I'm
going to go in there and wear this big mask
and pretend to be a hard unit. And none of
that's true. So we get in there, and I loved
the job. I loved the brotherhood of it. I love
the people I've still got. Some of my best friends
(14:29):
are still working in that pretty nasty environment, and it's
broken some of them. I know some of mychells these days.
And of course Boon. Those offices are the same as place,
are the same as embOS, are the same as all
the emergency services, but they're they're the forgotten, forgotten little
(14:50):
brothers of that of that lot. So it can be
a pretty full on environment. And like all of those
types of things, the brotherhood and the camaraderie is what
gets you through the dark. Hummer, And I've got some
pretty wild stories, and you know that that used to
(15:10):
be there, used to be a lot of team bonding
and getting together and all that sort of stuff, but
it's you know, the money goes away, so the spending
stops and all that sort of ship just disappears. And
then leaning into this stuff I had done while I
was in the jail, some mental health courses, and for
(15:31):
whatever reason, I've always been the guy people came to
for help. Good listener, I guess once you get past
the exterior. Yeah, I just the mental health stuff really
sort of made me start thinking a bit deeper and
started writing and started getting a few stories I don't
know published for one of a better term. And then
(15:55):
I got crook. I ended up in a coma for
at least three months while I was a prison off.
So we just had our my little followers two. He's
now eighteen as a while back, but yeah, my wife
got pretty much told say goodbye on half a dozen
different occasions, so we don't think he's going to get through.
(16:18):
And I was just a bit ill and then woke
up September missed. I had missed eep of months, and
I was like, what.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
What was the illness? If you don't want to share.
Feel free not to No. No, they don't know it
was influenza rae. They think it was swine flu. But
I was so my lungs wided out in twenty four hours.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I should be dead. To be brutally honest, there were
seven of us that were admitted at the same time,
and I'm the only one that survived, and I was
the sickest one apparently. Not a big note about that,
but I was on echme, which is effectively a guessing game.
We're going to put you on ecause we got no
(17:03):
other ideas. I was the oldest adult on the planet
to be on it that long and survive at the time.
I don't know that record still stands. Hopefully not hopefully
hang on, yeah, maybe it should stand. Maybe others should
survive earlier. And they took me off it because I've
(17:23):
been on it so long and there was no further
evidence of recovery. So I just went, well, we're kind
of done now to calm, let's see what happens, and
too cranky to die. Pretty much, it looked from it's
a pretty wild journey tiff, but that near death experience.
(17:44):
I was a big tough prison officer, and I had
this doc say looking there to tap him with a
psych You're going to have a crash, and I'm like, no,
I want it straight down the hill, to the point
where I took my seatbelt off to drive down the
road to I was going to just straight into the
front of the truck.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
And this was this an amalgamation do you think of
just that everything? I guess, everything you've suppressed and been through,
an environment you worked in, and then that illness happening.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Or what was I don't know why the darkness snuck
in like that, I don't. For me, it was all
about it was similar time to when Steve Irwin died
and I couldn't make peace with him dying to me living,
which is fucking stupid, right but oh sorry, I can't
(18:45):
still can't justify that, to be honest. But I just
kept looking for answers and of course there aren't any.
And the harder you look, the more wolves you find,
which just meant I kept withdrawing, with drawing, withdrawing, with drawing,
and I didn't. I've been through so much to get
well that I didn't want to ask for help, so
(19:09):
I didn't, and I got really lucky. I have a friend,
and she's not a close friend, we just know each
other at same age. She's a natural path and I
was trying to find everything I could find to strengthen
my immune system to fix me. And it turns out
(19:30):
door we have to do a suffer for a bit
longer and it all comes good. So I didn't know that,
and I went in to see her, and I was twitchy,
and I was agitated, and I was cranky, and I
was upset, and she was just trying to ask me
stuff and I just couldn't look at her, wouldn't look
at her, just didn't realize how deep I'd gone. Then
(19:51):
she got up, walked past me, shut the door, wheeled
around on me, and said, what the fuck is wrong
with you?
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Exactly what I needed at the time. So and of
course I just went blah, get that India. And that
started the process of proper healing, letting go. Probably was
what happened, was this expectation of healing. I'm fixed now.
I suddenly realized, Hey, you know what, You're not well,
(20:22):
and that's okay. It's time to just go through the process.
So went to the doctor next day, spoke about a
mental health plan, told him I would be back in
a few weeks if I couldn't sort it out. Myself
started walking, started to get more sunshine, started dipping into
more meditation, more more grounding, more just just eating well,
(20:47):
doing well, moving well. Even though I could barely still
still was a big struggle. And of course, three days
after I got out of the camera and was cleared
of all hospital my wife gave birth to our little girl,
who was a screaming maniac like proper. You hear all
(21:09):
the bad things she could add some like she was,
and of course, because so she's dealing with all the stress,
all the drugs, so her teeth didn't form properly because
of the drugs my wife had to take in case
she got sick, and she got sick. So just that
amalgamation of everything, and then she come out screaming like proper,
(21:33):
And of course I'm not well, and my little fellow
was like we had her in the bedroom because we
didn't want her to wake him all the time, and
it was so all of these shits just going on,
and I thought, you know what would be easier if
I wasn't around. And so that's a bit of a
just the perfect storm, right, just so much going on,
(21:56):
so much to try and hide from people. Yeah, to
have that, Like I didn't want to go out because
people had donated money to us, which was incredible, an
incredible thing. When communities get together for one of their own,
it's amazing. But I didn't want them to see me
buying a coffee wasting their money. So I just didn't,
(22:19):
which is mad. That's right. Thank you doesn't really cover it,
but it's all I've got.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
When when that, when she shuts the door, spins around
and gives you a little spray and you speak, what
was the what need? What was the most important thing
that that you felt helped? Was it just the speaking?
Was it? Was it admitting it? Was it hearing yourself
(22:47):
say it? Was it somebody else's interest?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I knew people would listen. I just didn't want to
burden them. So it was more just letting it out,
putting it down, stop carrying it was probably the biggest thing.
And then I thought, well, okay, there's a bit more
here than I anticipated. So having done some mental health
stuff at that stage, I kind of realized, all, shit,
(23:11):
you're not real well. Probably time to dig in a
bit and go and take care of yourself so as
you can take care of others. So yeah, it just
started the journey back to health, back to you know,
eventually to the gym, eventually to more mental health training,
to some counseling, to eventually to where I am now.
(23:34):
That was probably the I can't put a finger one
if I don't. I still don't know what I want
to do when I grow up. This is just part
of it, right, So I always figured my role the
journey was to find a way to help people. This
(23:56):
is a pretty cool way to do that.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
You're a big story.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Yeah, that's some of it. There's you know, there's there's
a there's so much more. You know. The the guild
I carried about where me and my siblings all got split.
We got made wards of the state, so they tracked
my dad down after a while, and then my brother
(24:26):
went back to him. And that was a whole other
ship fight because I've been running the show and now
I've got someone coming in telling me what I can
and can't do, and I'm like, nah, man, I don't know.
I know what I'm getting. I know what I can
and can't do, and what I can and can't get
away with, but then going pretty much back into high school,
(24:47):
back into into my hometown, and I didn't know how
to be a kid, and then trying to revert, trying
to find friends, peer pressure and try to impress guys,
and all the silliness that goes with all that. You know,
(25:07):
Just yeah, it was. It was a pretty wild ride.
I never spoke of my story to anyone. I don't
want anyone to know, not out of embarrassment, out of
the absolute fear of someone saying, oh, I'm so sorry
you had to do it like a fuck off. I'm not.
Don't put me in your pity party. I'm not interested.
(25:28):
I'm who I am because of that, not and sorry,
I'm who I am in spite of that. I've just
simply allowed those things to help me form to who
I am. Now. I'm okay with who I am. Here,
long way from perfect, but I do my best.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Life is such a puzzle. It seems like a massive understatement.
But like I think about, because I'm hearing your story
and I'm just thinking about I'm always thinking about our
mind and our thoughts and our beliefs, and our reality
and what shapes it and what we make of it,
(26:05):
And you know, I spec coach a lot of people
and I speak to a lot of people on the show,
and it's all about like, what of what stories and
beliefs have I developed in the middle of the world
that I live in, and how true are they and
how do we shift them? And what's influenced them? And like,
you've just got so much there that I have reflected
(26:28):
on as you've been saying it, that's shaping you in
different ways. And the thing is we never know what
we're in the middle of it when we're in the
middle of it, And like that applies to me is
more than anyone else, as much as anyone else. You know,
it applies to everyone you know. And you can have
all of this knowledge and then in the middle of
(26:52):
the life that you're managing and influencing I don't want
to say control, but be influencing and shaping, you can
end up in a different place than you realize because
of all this bullshit that we have to spend our
lives figuring out.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
And that's the thing. It's not the challenge is not
to just accept your lot. I know the acceptance has
to play a part, but you can still I could
have easily gone to jail. I could have easily become
the victim of all of that stuff, right, And I
hate if anybody who's out there listening, thinking I'm fucking
(27:33):
big noting, just tell me to shut up. But it's
not about that. It's about the choice I knew. I
remember the police come and raided our place when I
was like I want to say, seven or eight, and
again I don't know, but my stepfather, for one of
a better term, had shoved all the drugs and whatnot
down the front of my pants and whispered, go get
(27:55):
rid of this stuff out the back. And the police
were there and they just ignore them because they couldn't
really do too much. But they're tearing the house apart.
And I wandered out the back and I buried it
all in the pigeon cage because I knew if my
stepdad come and got it, eat at least get shot on.
(28:16):
Like what seven year old is thinking?
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Like that, right, just some clarity right there.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
And I also remember, I remember, literally I can visualize
walking past the laundry saying to myself, this will never
be my life. I will never ever let this be met.
And so most of the bias's choices prejudices that I've
(28:42):
formed in my life have been to avoid that, maybe
even running away from it a bit sometimes.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
How did you not get angry?
Speaker 1 (28:52):
I didn't have time. I didn't have time. I probably
couldn't process it as a kid. There's been a couple
of moments where I lost my shit at Mum a
couple of years ago, when I started really sharing my story.
She got a bit cranky and is probably through embarrassment,
and unfortunately Mums and I know she'll probably listen to
(29:16):
this one day. But the simple thing is is there's
a lot of stuff she just can't remember. And all
I said to her was, this is my truth. You
don't have to like it, but this is my truth.
So we had a bit of a bit of a
to and fro. I'll tell you the angriest I got
quite recently was when he died, the stepfather. He died
(29:36):
and I never got a chance to say fuck you.
That would have been nice, but at the same time,
to what purpose? You know? I was cranky at that
and I had a really good friend and she's amazing
it pulling my shit apart, and she just said, the
life you live is one he could not possibly have imagined.
(29:59):
Isn't that enough? I was like, yep, you got me.
It is so boom that anger went away. Acceptance is
big in my world too, if I kind of really
learned that from a young age, just to let go
of the expectation because the reality is not going to help,
you know, It's I I, me and my brother had
(30:20):
this little scheme. There was a sports field down from
us when we lived in Lalor Park in Sydney. It's
to be a lot of soccer played down there and
other sport I assume, I just can't remember. And me
and him had this scheme where we'd go to the
canne and I mate would have to get his pie
then move up to the source dispensing area and I'd
(30:43):
be around the corner and you can't do people can't.
But and my brother would bump into the dude, who
would then turn to see what was going on, and
I'd snatch the pie and take off so we could eat.
I know, right, like we're just shit like that, just
(31:03):
I mean, you just learn to survive. And look, I've
got a really cool story. I don't tell too often,
but myself and my brother and my mum. For whatever reason,
we're walking back down the hill from there used to
be a set of shops up the top of the road,
(31:24):
and I don't know what we're doing up these We
never had any money, but my brother and I had
found a ball. When you're a kid when boys, I
don't know if the girls get the same enjoyment from
a tennis ball, but boys, it's like fuck her lotto.
So me and him we're dicking around with the ball,
throwing it and he throws it like an idiot, and
(31:44):
it goes in this long grass near a bus, a
bus bay, a bus shelter, right, and the grass is
really long. On Insidney, there's a giant funnel web, so
you're not going in there. And the ball goes in there,
and I'm like, you idiot at her mums. Don't be
nasty to your brother. So I go in look on
for this ball and trip over and it's a box
(32:08):
and I kid you not, it's a box of bananas. Right.
The top layer of the bananas were a tiny bit squishy,
but because they're in the waxed box, there was a
fucking box of bananas that were These things kept us
alive for two weeks. I was like a gift from God.
If he doesn't if we don't find the ball, if
(32:29):
we're not up there, we don't find the ball, he
doesn't throw it like a dickhead. It doesn't go in
the long grass. I don't trip over the box of bananas,
and Mum, I said, I come here, look at hope
on Jesus. And Mom said, oh, well, that's lovely. Let's
just take what we need and leave some for the others.
And I said, screw we are the others, like, what
are you doing? But that's that was my mum. You know,
(32:51):
that's that's that level of kindness and care that I've
embraced as much as possible. So for all her her failings,
you know, what a survivor, what a what a you
know she got that she kicked out of her She
was a pretty heavy drug taking you know, she did
(33:14):
jail time. She is and still raised to the best
of her ability, kids that were able to make choices.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Wow, all right, so.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Good luck, I'm packing all that.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Sorry, I know you got another sixteen hours.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Yeah. So that that banana story. When I had the
chance to reflect on the universe, I'm pretty spiritual without
burn too stupid about it all. But the universe fucking
loves us all if we just get out of the way.
I just my biggest, my biggest crackh always is when
(34:01):
I try and make shit happen, when I try and
force work, when I force you know anything, basically, you know,
it's throughout history of me. Anytime I've tried to force,
I've been met with resistance. And when I let go
and trust the universe loves me.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
This is a part of the paradox, and this is
a part of you know, where I'll oscillate between drawing
these you know, pieces of wisdom that I've stumbled across
in my own life and speaking to others and get
to share them and then find find myself trip over
them again at later times, like that idea of when
COVID hit and the world went into its little version
(34:46):
of turmoil for everybody, and in the middle of that chaos,
there was great opportunity for me to get out of
things I didn't want to, didn't realize that I was
in that I didn't want to, you know, step into
things that aligned with my values. And this shift brought
this new way of doing things, and I was like,
what a gift. But then two years down the track,
(35:09):
I'm battling with the old versions of how I did things,
and I'm like, where did that go? Like we learned
that lesson and shared it, and now I'm here struggling
with it again. And it's that it's whole universe, pieces
the whole. What do we see in the middle of
the world that's around us? That you know, how much
of what we can't see because it's not in our
(35:31):
belief system, because it's not in our awareness.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
That's what a rabbit hole.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
I know.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
I love it. I love it. And my challenge of
late has been to remember rather than force, so remembering
the ease that life can feel like. Don't get me wrong,
I've got bills and we need a new car and
all the other shit that goes along with it. But
(36:00):
what a privilege it is to run beautiful, clean hot
water over my hands in the morning, right, So that
the joy and the small stuff, And it's been something
I talk about a lot, and I've written about it.
I try and share stuff on Insta and all that
sort of thing. Just the moments, those opportunities to remember, hey,
(36:22):
you know what, this is all just a game anyway,
and none of us are going to win, not one
single one of us are going to win this game,
So why don't we enjoy playing it instead? However, that
looks right for you, and that's there's so much power
in that too. What is it? What is it you
do daily that makes you feel good? There are no
(36:44):
there are no perfect days, but there are perfect moments
in every day if you're prepared to look for them, right.
And then we go home and we go I had
a fuck an amazing day today, and they'll go, what
was what made it amazing? And you might say, two
tiny little things and outside of all that was shit, right,
But because those two things, because you're aware enough to
(37:07):
pay attention to those two tiny little things, everyone in
your house now gets the benefit of this feeling of
perfection that you're dealing with in that moment. And that
shit is available to every fucking one of us every
single minute if we just get out of our way.
But I can feel that. I can feel the sun
right now coming off the window that's just here. I
(37:29):
can feel this heat, like wow, I can feel how cool?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Right? You know the I just missed a phone call
from a friend. How lucky? Am I that I have
a friend that wants to ring me? Yes, you know,
it's just switched. Can you switch your narrative a little bit?
And my challenge with the men in Men's Behavior Change
is that exact thing. Can we challenge your current narrative
(38:00):
not to seek perfection, to just seek different, because then
there's a knock on effect, all right, of every single
choice you make. When you start to feel good about
that choice, you get to then stack another one on
top of it, and so on and so forth, and
before you know it, the things you look at are different,
the way you feel is different, the way you think
(38:21):
is different, and a version of you that's now growing
and prepared to move beyond the history starts to reshape
and retell its own history.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
How do you so you work with offenders? Is that
what you call them? No?
Speaker 1 (38:39):
So, I am a men's behavior change facilitator. I won't
say who with because I don't want to, and my
job is quite literally I keep women and children saved
through the behavior change of men. Now, some of these
men are mandated, but with great joy, a lot are
(38:59):
ringing me out of their own off their own bat
saying this behavior that I've been displaying is not serving
me well, and I'd like to chat to you about
changing that. That's awesome. There are a lot of them
that then say my partner said I should do this,
and I'm like, yeah, cool, how awesome that they listen right,
(39:21):
that they're willing and willing to do that hard thing.
And there's a we deliver a certain system a certain
way and all that sort of stuff, But there are
there is scope in there too. The parameters are pretty
broad and as long as we're hitting the market in
terms of accountability, behavior, owning your behavior, and challenging your beliefs,
(39:45):
like what is a belief behind that behavior? You know,
behavior is the symptom, belief is the cause. I can't
remember who I attribute that quote to, but it's a
cool one. It's one I've got on my comput to
work at all times. So it's it's challenging like what like, okay,
you act like that like angers your second martians? So
(40:09):
what's behind the angle like it? You know, where are you?
Where's all that ship that you put other people through
coming from? And where's your entitlement to do so? So
we will have those hard conversations and the problem with
behavior changes many of those men have been master manipulators
(40:29):
in this area of their lives for a very long time.
They that you know, you read it in the fucking newspapers.
Oh this good bloke, he just made a mistake. Yeah,
if everyone could just see TIFFs face their normal goodness.
So that's the ship that pisses me off, right. It's like, yeah,
(40:53):
but he's showing you what you need to see because
he's not prepared to show you you're true. He's true
because you're gone, You're out of his life because if
he shows you he's controlling, manipulatly violent, you're not putting
up with that shit.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Guys, we're having internet trouble. Jamie keeps just disappearing completely
out of the chat. So this part of we're going
to pick up as best we can with where we
left off. Neither of us are entirely issue where that was.
But you were talking about the blots that you're working
with with the behavior change.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
So yeah, those guys, some are mandated, some are not.
There are a lot of guys that are now being
asked volunteer to be in the program, which is great.
Their partners have suggested to them, or a friend or whatever,
and some powerful stuff that happens in that space, the
(41:53):
drama with it, with all behavior changes. As these guys
are and have been master manipulators for quite a while.
We mentioned that previously and sorry if we're repeating, but
it's the joys of technology. These guys are, like we've
seen in the media so much. You know, he's been
described as a real good fellow, a man's man, a
(42:15):
bloke's bloke, blah blah blah. That's because they've kept the
truth from people for a long time, the one that
they're supposed to love, their partner, their children have been
subjected to control, coercive control, fear, the fear that goes
with that, and then the physical violence that often leads to. Now,
(42:39):
I heard a police spokesperson the other day say we're
really soon and uptaking coercive control accusations charges now that
in this South Wales there's a coursive control law recently
Queensland god on board. I'm not sure about Victoria. I
think you guys are actually leaders in it anyway, And
(43:01):
I said, it's now showing that the education is working
that courcould control the people understand what the coercive control
can lead to domestic violence and it fucking killed me.
It's like it is domestic volunte idiot, Like, stop saying
that one thing leads to it's already horrific. I hear
(43:21):
women all the time say I wish you would hit me,
it would be easier. Yeah, what are we doing to
women when that's the thought process?
Speaker 2 (43:30):
It reminds me of conversation about I think it was
with my psych doctor Bill, who was podcast guest turned
personal psychotherapist in the end, because every podcast he did
with me ended up a fucking open door therapy session,
which was brutal. So I was like, Okay, probably how
about we take this into your office?
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Yes, SA, fair enough.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
One of the first things I remember him talking about
that really stuck with me was the idea that not
enough of the right stuff in terms of trauma is
far more detrimental than too much of the wrong stuff.
And outwardly, so many of us have this perception that
I haven't suffered trauma because I haven't been beaten or
(44:14):
hurt or experienced violence or any of the really big stuff.
But there's that idea of emotional neglect and all of that,
there's not enough of the right stuff and it cannot
be like it's not to throw people's parenting into the fire.
It can be just like a generational lack of things,
(44:35):
just compounding and compounding, which in a society where we're
all independently living one for ourselves rather than as communities.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
The best way I think of course of control is
and I had this explained to me in a seminar
I went to and a lady upfront. She said, Coursive
control is the loss of one's autonomy at any time,
(45:09):
to any time that you have to make a different choice,
a decision you wouldn't have otherwise made. Correct what you're
doing in that moment because of fear or worry or
concern or avoidance. Controllers in play now, people who are
going to argue with that, I don't care, you're wrong.
(45:31):
Coersive control is a loss of one's autonomy at any stage.
So when your decision making in the house is being
changed because you're fearful of how he will react, of
who he will become, of how much yelling he will do,
of oh he won't like he won't like this, or
he doesn't like that, or shit, I don't want him to.
It's it's already it's happening. You just haven't worked it
(45:53):
out yet. So with the men, we go the other way.
We watch a lot of videos on what control is,
what it looks like when there's that emotional accusations. The
threat of violence often is more than the actual violence itself.
And the guys are really good. They can see shitty
(46:15):
behavior a mile away. And I simply say to them,
all right, so you can pick it out out of
a lineup. That's fantastic. But when he's not there, is
he still controlling her? And what do you mean, Jamie?
And I said, well, her decision making is still being
altered when he's not in the house because she's worried
(46:38):
about what he's doing, what he's thinking, who he's going
to be, how he's going to react, even when he's
not in the house. And it blows their minds. They
can't conceive it that way. And we talk about one
really powerful example is, and this is not for everyone, shopping.
(46:59):
When you made it, the goes, oh yeah, I go,
you know, I'm I go shopping. I go and do
the groceries for her. We meant for her. You live
in the fucking house, So I go do this. I
go do the groceries like you've done her a big,
massive favor from a control perspective, And again, control has
(47:20):
to come with intent, right, there has to be a
level of intent for power. But when when control and
power at play with this stuff, it's I went and
done the shopping because now I know where she is,
I know who's spending the money, I know what the
money's getting spent on. I know where to go, how
to go, and I know that she's at home with
the kids. She can't do it. She can't be out
(47:41):
doing other things that I've decided she may or may
not be doing because I'm the big guy and I'm
doing the shopping. Now. If it's that easy with just groceries,
imagine how deep this shit runs. Yeah, and now technology
has come into play, and we've got all those fantastic
(48:01):
apps for women for their safety. They're worried for them
to report, But what about the women whose men are
controlling the technology, who just magically turn up whenever she's
at a friend's place chatting to her mate. How did
you know you were there? So this stuff is deep,
(48:22):
and I actually do feel for the police because the government,
in its wisdom, decided to create a law, but the
police don't know how to police it yet. Can you
imagine that's a part of the cop shop the police station,
as we've discussed, Tiff can't say.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Cops, can't they cop shop?
Speaker 1 (48:43):
Imagine God to the police station and saying I am
being controlled because he keeps doing the shopping. Right now,
you're going to get laughed out of there. But at
the end of the day, that is a level of
control if the intense there, and the onus is on
(49:04):
the victims unfortunately to prove it, to keep a long
enough record to show what control looks like. And of
course if you don't know, you don't know what you're
looking for. You don't know that you're being controlled. You
don't know that being given an allowance so you can
put just the right amount of petrol in the car
(49:27):
is a control measure. So as you can probably gather
o'ka a little bit shitty with this stuff because it's
fucking full on right like this is domestic violence. It
doesn't lead to violent acts, there's no pathway. You're already
(49:48):
being controlled. You're already in a relationship that is. And
the big, the big drama here if is it never
goes back like men that have begun controlling in the
small stuff just keep adding layers until they are are taught.
(50:13):
Do you know? The bar for men's so low, so
fucking low, and I'm embarrassed by it, but it's where
it is. And all I would ask any man out
there is to check him with themselves and ask yourself,
are you meeting the low bar? Can you do something different?
Are you willing to ask your partner straight up with
(50:36):
the punch in the nuts answer? Is there something I
need to get better at?
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Are we getting deep enough to get beneath the behavior
and understand for the individuals its origin? Are they getting
there or are they managing?
Speaker 1 (50:56):
We aim to tif and with a lot of accountability
and challenges, and it's easy for guys. Not easy, that's
not right. There are men in the behavior change stuff
who will say that's been me for a very long
time and I'm rather cool. Where does it come from?
(51:20):
That's what I saw, That's what I knew. That's how
I understood us to be. Television, you know, has told
us that for a very long time that when the
man comes home from work, dinner's waiting on the thing. Yeah,
you know, guys, if you you know, if you need
a pad on the back because you're vacuumed, like fucking seriously, check.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Out dads that babysit their kids.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
I don't even what babysit. You mean parent.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
Parents actually parenting.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
Yeah, and I'm look, there's a few things. I One
of the biggest gifts I try and give to the
guys is the gift of silence. My young fellows Aden
and so he's riding amongst it, and he's got a
big crew around him, and I've just said to him,
when the shit talk starts, you've got two options. Educate
(52:17):
or ignore. Now, the simple act of ignoring or not
indulging when the shit talk starts, someone in that circle
is watching your reactions or lack off, and they're going
to come to at some stage and say, what was
all that about? And there's are opportunity for education. Hey,
(52:38):
I don't want to speak about women like that. I
actually really like him quite a bit, and I like
if they kept hanging around, and they're not going to
hang around or your blocks are speaking about them like that,
So I'm not indulging in that. Well, the other side
of the coin is calling it out now, there's a
number of speakers in this space, and this is a
tricky one because we have to find a way to
(53:00):
call it out. It has to be done, but at
what costs. We can potentially put women at further risk
right by doing so. So it's a tough one, but
it starts in the language and when we are having
big conversations with little people where that's where we have
(53:24):
to go with this stuff. We have to be talking
to ten year olds, nine year olds about what is
acceptable and what isn't acceptable. And you know, what does
this ship look like? I think my story is really
powerful in that I knew what was happening in our
life wasn't right, but I couldn't do anything about it.
(53:48):
And I'm not asking, you know, if I was to
educate some kids and then say to them this is wrong,
I'm not asking them to challenge their father when the
father starts Berna Gouber. But now they know that shitty
behavior cool, I know what that looks like. Now I
put the choice in their hands. I hope I don't.
(54:09):
I hope people like me are not needed soon enough
if that's the ideal situation. But in this space, I
work in a reactive environment. I work in that education space.
I'm desperate to see programs like this run as preventative measures.
(54:31):
I'm really powerful in the room. Quite recently when I'm
listening to the general chat amongst the men and I
hate two guys over here having a discussion, and one
boke says, fuck, I wished I had heard this twenty
years ago.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
The tough thing is, as individuals, we're only ready when
we ready cognitively and emotionally, and so that messages. So
it is really a societal and a cultural shift that
needs to happen across the board so that people can
(55:14):
be ready sooner, so that things can be seen and felt.
And I think our emotional literacy for so many of us,
myself included. I mean, I was twenty nine before I
realized I'd blanked out the ability to feel fucking emotions.
I had to step into the boxing ring and get
landed with punches in the face to start inviting my
(55:36):
body back to the party and processing emotions and ideas
and concepts that I had about myself and realizing that
I was ready to challenge them. But if someone had
come to me five minutes before that moment and said
a tough girl. Your shit scared, Actually you're this, and
that I would have been like, go get stuffed. I'll
(55:56):
punch you in the face. You're all wrong. I'm tough
and independent and I'm the boss, you know, Like I
didn't have the emotional literacy or the emotional capacity and
the ability to feel in that moment. And the problem
is we're humans who have feelings and emotions and we
react to them and then we construct a story around them.
(56:17):
And that's what I think can be so challenging. When
you talk about behavior change.
Speaker 1 (56:22):
It's just remembering choice. And I know that's really simplified, right,
but at the end of the day, it is a
simple thing. It's not an easy thing to do to
change your behavior, but it's simple to want to. And
so the choice is do I want this to continue
(56:43):
or do I want it to change? And you might
not realize what it is, you even want what that
is yet, but the intent to choose different is all
of it, right, And then it's leaning into that worried
about this, I'm anxious about this, I'm concerned about this. Well,
there's a fucking really powerful conversation to have with that
(57:06):
person you love and if that needs to be you
even better because you're prepared to have I talk about
the gremlin and the Guru. TIF So the gremlin burn
the brain and the Guru burn the heart, and the
gremlin's an idiot. Well, it says so much shit, and
(57:27):
it will tell you what you want to believe because
it's driven from comfort. But the Guru never lies, never has,
never will. But most of us are ready to tap
into the Guru yet because we fear the truth, because
the Guru not only will not lie to you or
(57:47):
will not protect you from the truth either. Yes, of
course this relationship shit. Yes you should be out if
you go well, but that's not what I want to hear.
I don't know what to tell you. No one ever
climbed a mountain to go talk to the gremlin, right, yeah.
(58:09):
So my challenge for anybody out there is, if you
are struggling with this choice, I don't care like behavior,
change choice like you could be Mum has determined to
go back to the gym, Cool, great, awesome, Start soft,
be soft on yourself and just challenge the Guru. Hey,
(58:30):
what am I doing? Is my story aligning with my actions?
And the Guru will say stop fucking fibb and off
you go, or not might say, hey, you're loving yourself
with everything you've got right now, well done, but it's
scary because you've got to ask, and you know it's
(58:53):
sitting there waiting because the answers already there within you,
right And then you go, oh no, it told me
that thing that I knew, already knew, and I didn't
want to hear it. And I know now what I
now action.
Speaker 2 (59:07):
What's the plan for you moving forward?
Speaker 1 (59:10):
I don't know. Win the lotto.
Speaker 2 (59:13):
That's a good plan.
Speaker 3 (59:14):
All the best with that, our good made Harps put
the thing up the other day about great ideas lack plans,
like if I if I had written.
Speaker 1 (59:27):
Ideas of what I want to do, this isn't what
it would look like. How lucky am I?
Speaker 2 (59:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (59:34):
That I never wrote it down, because when I write
it down, it's all right. I've got to follow this.
But my plan is, I would ideally love to create
a prevention space where I'm in talking to young men
(59:56):
and young women and I'm talking school agent where they're
a bit fearful of big bullfens like me who use language,
and those kids know some big words these days. But
to get in and just say to him, hey, here's
a list of stuff you or not to do, and
here's a list of stuff you're not to put up with.
(01:00:18):
And strangely enough, the list is the same. Let's talk
about that list. That will be it. That would be
my ideal thing. And if someone out there wants to
pay me to do that, load me up. Outside of that,
more of the same, if more talking to good humans
(01:00:39):
like you, because it reinvigorates me. It gives me so
much fucking energy. It's nuts. And you know, I didn't
know where we were going with any of this. I
don't even know if we answered anything, we talk about anything.
Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
You definitely did, because I have been just sitting there
soaking it all in. Forgetting that I'm supposed to host
the conversation. I'm just like a list. It's you know,
I love it. You've got a really such a strong
looking bloke with this beautiful, soft, giving energy.
Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
And I don't tell anyone that I'm protecting softless for
every forever.
Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Just a marshmallow humor, a big squishy heart.
Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
And look, it is my absolute superpower. It's something I
want to give us. A piece off to everyone I
lived I'm fucking lucky. I've had a great life. When
it's all said and done, I don't consider myself a
victim in any way, shape or form. All of those
things make up the person I am, and most of
(01:01:42):
the time that's not a bad dude.
Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
Bloody love it. How do people reach out to you
and get in touch and pay you to do that
awesome stuff with their kids?
Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Instagram? Facebook. I've got a website that I absolutely need
to overhaul. It's got some stuff on there, Jamie Stead
dot Jamie Stebben dot net. Don't even remember it. It's
been set. Yeah, look Instagram, I think is Jamie Stead.
I don't even know Tiff.
Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
Everyone I'll have I'll get the actual links and I'll
put them in the show notes. Because Jamie's ship at this.
Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
Part of the this is not the bit very.
Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
This is not where he shines. Not aside from the
I t issues of dropping out of the podcast every
four and a half minutes, He's marketing knowledge terrible, So.
Speaker 1 (01:02:34):
Not tops I questioned people. I spoke to a new
client quite recently. I said, how do you How did
you find me? He said, I just googled life coach blokes,
and you popped up, and I'm like, that'll do okay.
Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
Well, if you're looking for Jamie, just google Life Coach
Blokes and what happens.
Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
I don't know much, Tiff, but I know a little
bit about some stuff, and I'm always happy to point
people back to the Guru because it's where we come from,
not the Gremlin. The Gremlin's made up of so much
of our shitty bits and a pretend ones to protect
us from more shitty bits. The Guru loves us hard
enough to tell us the truth.
Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
I love it your race. Thank you for today, thank.
Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
You for putting up with the tread of the dramas
that were today.
Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
Well worth it, she said, It's now never I got
fighting in my blood.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.