August 3, 2025 • 55 mins
What a ripper of a chat with the absolute powerhouse that is Kath Essing. We met recently and within minutes I knew I had to get her on the show. Kath is real, warm, hilarious, and brave as hell. She’s just released her second book The Courage to Speak Your Truth, and in this convo, she opens up about what it took to get there. Remembering childhood trauma in her 20s, navigating the healing process (which she calls a total sh*t show), reporting her abuse, confronting her abuser, and working through it all to help others do the same.
We talked healing, sport, therapy (all of them), inner child work, punching pillows (or not), the joy of being fully honest, and how bloody hard but important it is to speak your truth. This one’s deep but somehow also full of laughs, swear words, and goosebumps. If you’ve ever felt like you’re the only one carrying some heavy stuff... this ep is for you.
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KATH ESSING
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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 at 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):
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reach out to Mark and the team at www dot
test Artfamilylawyers dot com dot au. Another day, another new friend, Kathessing,
(00:56):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Thanks An, I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
How good are new friends so good?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Especially when they've got arms as strong as yours?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Oh that is so funny. We met at the at
the Tea Boss conference. I was gonna say a couple
of weeks ago. Oh my goodness, it was literally a
month ago today. Wow. I have a terrible relationship with time.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
It's overrated, I think so.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I'm like, just the other day, Ah, that was two
months ago.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Tive.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
But we were introduced and we had a bit of
a chat and you're awesome. We're like, we're gonna have
to have a chat on the show. You're doing great stuff.
Would you like to do a far better job than
I would at introducing yourself.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I can do that. I think you're awesome too, just
to say before I introduced myself. So I am. I've
just published a book that's probably the most significant thing
about the Courage to Thank You. That's my second book,
and it's called The Courage to Speak Your Truth, and
it is a memoir about my journey recovering, reporting, and
(02:08):
remembering my childhood sexual abuse as an adult. So it's
like being a bit of an interesting journey from a
healing perspective, obviously, but from a research perspective and just
understanding how prevalent it is and how common it is
for people to block it out entirely into adulthood. So
hence why I'm here chatting about it, because I just
(02:30):
want to minimize the loneliness that people may experience and
bridge the gap between people wanting to help their friends
and family who've remembered these kind of incidents, and just
do what I can to minimize the numbers because it's
pretty horrific.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, I love that. It's so it's so brave, and
it's so very much needed what you're doing. It's such
important work, and so I'm glad to hear you doing that.
Where did that start feeling? Did like watch your background
and did you merge a professional background into this personal
experience or.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Did did you know like what bouncing ball?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Did you follow the land here?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
That's an awesome question, and it's one of those things
was like where do you start? But I do? I remember,
I remembered my abuse in my early twenties, so prior
to that, you know, you're an athlete. I was a
swimmer as a teenager, and I genuinely believe that that
probably saved my life that sport, because I was just
(03:32):
able to move emotion quickly and I was able to
feel strong and my body and strong in myself. So
I think that that helped me navigate a period of
time that maybe it would have been my undoing otherwise.
And so then I went to UNI and discovered all
the fun things that UNI has to offer, and slowly
(03:55):
things started unraveling a bit for me, and depression kicked
in and then, and it was like a tsunami of
memories that surfaced at about twenty three and I'd completely
blocked it out. So initially I remembered one incident, and
it took another few years to remember that there was
three incidents. And so it was a real shit show
(04:17):
of healing and every modality that you can imagine. Like
when people say, you know, where do I start, I'm like, well,
I was just a hussy who went with everything from
medication to meditation and everything in between, and there is
no right answer about what works for you. It's like,
you know, a bit like grief. You can't say this
is the process for healing. It's so individual. So you know,
(04:39):
there were times that I've tried lots of modalities and
everything had its place and nothing worked every time. But
I do remember back to your question, going to my
ten year school reunion and saying to my best mate,
what am I going to tell people I've done in
the last ten years, Like I've literally just kept myself
alive and healed from this shit show of you know,
(05:02):
memories that have surfaced, and so very quickly after that,
once I got a bit of myself back, I sort
of accelerated professionally, and once I got this trauma out
of the way, I studied. I did a lot of
consultancy work, and then studied life coaching and NLP and
psychotherapy and mindfulness and a whole lot of other things.
(05:25):
And you know, I think all of those tools have
now come into place where I'm in a position now
where I can really help people and not particl not
necessarily one on one, but just to give frameworks for
people to really find their own way where they need
to be.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Yeah, it is a shit show, isn't it, Like figuring
out that you're just making me reminisce about the all
the little lilypads I had to jump on to find
my way to the mess that is current life. You know,
but you kind of I need to talk therapy. Oh
watch this therapy and that therapy, and we look here
and we look there. And as you do all of that,
(06:05):
you change and evolve through the process and things come
up and then you have to return to therapies.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
They're weird and like what a bloody, which is where
I think, you know, sports really underrated, and like, particularly
for any child survivor of any kind of trauma, that
a lot of it gets stored in our bodies. So
for me, a lot of energy work and you know,
physical moving of energy stuck was really important for my healing.
(06:33):
But I've never heard anyone talk about that so much,
And I think that's why we really have to attack
our healing from the mind, body, and spirit perspective, because
each of those things require different thing, different elements of healing.
And so that's what I've written about, and I've been
very vulnerable and open about the you know, pretty horrible
(06:55):
stuff that happened as a result. I haven't gone into
any details about the abuse because I just don't think
that's necessary. The concept of an adult hurting a child
is shocking enough, and I'm very mindful of not wanting
to re traumatize people. But I have spoken about, you know,
the complexity of going to the police and what that
process looked like, and because I couldn't find a resource
(07:18):
that was available to me or my family and husband
and friends who were supporting me through it at the time.
So that's what this has become a bit of a
resource for people to help educate them.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Amazing What was it like, what brought the memory to
the surface for you? And what was that like? Like,
how did you even decipher what was coming up for you?
Speaker 1 (07:44):
As I said, it was like depression was knocking and
there was something unsettled in my body and mind and
spirit that I couldn't quite put my finger on. And
you know, there was lots happening in my life at
the time, and it's always easy to justify, you know,
if you're a prepubescent, or if you're impairmentopause, or if
you've you know, like whatever it is, there's always ways
(08:06):
of justifying where you're at emotionally. But I just knew
something wasn't right and it got pretty hard and pretty dark,
and I did go to a psychologist. I was living
at Darwin in the time, and I said, I feel
like there's something I can't access within me. And his
response to that was, well, onely, fruit loops block out memories,
(08:29):
and you don't strike me as a fruit loop. So
that was helpful. Wow, I know. So look that And
the reality is is that many of us who have
experienced it's one in three girls, one in five boys
enjoyed childhood sexual abuse before the age of eighteen. Those
numbers are horrific enough. Ninety percent of the time, we
(08:53):
know who our perpetrator is and fifty percent of the
time we're related to them, and that was Yeah, that
was the case for me, which makes it really complicated,
you know, to come forward because you don't want to
hurt other members of your family by coming forward about
someone that they love doing those awful things. So that's
(09:15):
I think white so many of us suppressed memories because
it's the complexity of what's going to happen when we
talk about it.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Oh one hundred Wow. I wasn't aware of the stats
of fifty percent being related, which is mind bobbling. And
I mean I've had a lot of conversations and I
know enough people who who have that as part of
your story, and it's just shocking. But when you hear
stats like that, when you can put numbers to it,
(09:45):
you know, it's scary.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Sometimes, like you sit in a room full of people
and you look around and then you think of those numbers.
Yet we all always feel alone. We always think we're
the only one and we want to hide it.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
And you know, as a parent, it's really scary too.
You know, I often look at the you know, teams
of kids in netball, footy, and I sort of, you know,
sometimes find myself thinking, you know, who are the unlucky
kids in this group that have already been hurt and
and and that sort of motivates me to want to
have these conversations with people in our generation, because if
(10:23):
we're not talking about what happened to us, there is
no education for the next generation to create change. And
you know, online challenges now have surfaced, which is a
whole new beast, but still the numbers of this being
people that were related to it's it's increasing, and you know,
(10:43):
the online presence is making things more complicated. And there's
actually a lot of abuse happening between children of the
same age because they're being exposed to too much too early.
So all of it needs to be talked about and
brought out of the shadows because it will just continue
to happen other wise.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
It's such a murky topic too, like the idea of
what is. I was so overjoyed when the term enthusiastic
consent was brought to light.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
You know, it was because a relationship of the minor.
It's like, it's not a relationship.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah, how was your experience? And if I ask any
questions that you don't want to discuss, feel free to
tell me.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
I've written the whole book, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Just hit me, was what was it like confining in
someone for the first time, especially given the person was
known to you and related to you. How was that
accepted it?
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I was very lucky my parents were no longer together,
and this was a member of my dad's family, and
so I had almost like a really safe landing in
my whole mom's side of the family and not everyone
and has that. You know. I ran into someone the
(12:03):
other day contacted me to say that they saw my
book in a doctor surgery and they stole it and
they read it in private, and they've since taken it
back to the doctors, but their own abuse has resurfaced.
And it is a family member and it's someone still
in her life, and so, you know, any histories like that,
(12:24):
it's hard not to be affected. And you know, I
got to ring my abusa during the investigation and confront him,
and that was really hard. I literally spent four days
in bed afterwards because it was like ripping a wound
open and letting all the festies stuff come out. But
(12:45):
it's out now, and so it was worth it, and
that was the moment I feel I reclaimed my voice,
and that's when I realized that was that was the
most important part of the process for me. You know,
there wasn't any legalifications for him. He was arrested and
wasn't charged. It's very complicated. It's very hard to prosecute
(13:09):
historical cases. And in fact, I think when initially the
detective said to me, he believes only twenty three percent
of us ever come forward to report the crime, and
of that only ten percent will ever end up in
the court system, and of that only one percent will
ever end in a prosecution. So the statistics just get
(13:30):
more and more depressing.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
That is crazy, that it's so grim.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
It's wrong. Yeah, it's really wrong. So look, I have
no regrets. The process for me was absolutely about putting
the last pieces of the puzzle together in terms of
my own healing. So it was worthwhile for me, but
it was hard. It was one of the hardest things
I've ever had to do. And I just want to
(13:56):
be able to create some change, particularly in that space,
to help the legal system be more trauma informed, because
I feel like there was steps along the way that
could have been handled differently, and that's no one person's fault,
but it's just the process itself is not really set
up to support survivors in the way that I believe
(14:18):
they should be supported.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
What does it take, What does it take to take
that to make that choice? How did you have the courage?
What did you need?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
I was actually at a protest march with my children.
So it was twenty twenty one and the Me Too
movement was happening. Grace Tame was Austrayan of the Year
at the time, and Britney Higgins had just come out
with allegations against the man who raped her, and I
just was angry. I was just angry. I had a
(14:51):
six year old son and a ten year old daughter,
so I took them to the beach and there was
a protest march and just was written out of human bodies,
and then that image was actually shared all around Australia
at the time, and I just had this moment where
I realized that's not something I'd done for myself. Initially,
(15:14):
when I was twenty three, there was a statue of limitations,
so I was told very early there was only a
limited amount of time I would have to go to police,
and I just wasn't ready, and so by the time
I was ready, I just didn't really know when to
do it. And it was that day I literally dropped
the kids at school, walked straight into the police station
(15:34):
and just said I just I want to report a
sexual assault. And that was it the process it started.
So I just was a bit of an outer body experience. Actually,
it was like that was the time I felt like
I was being carried spiritually by something else and COVID
hit and so there was a lot of time to
(15:55):
process and figure out what, you know, I wanted to
do something being useful with my time during that time
period other than be a parent, and so I did
so amazing.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
What advice do you have? So if people are listening
and they've been through something, and they've they've confided in
people around them, and they're thinking about this, but they're terrified,
what can you tell us?
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Only do what is going to make you feel safe.
Don't get pressured into doing anything you're not ready for.
But I wish I had have known that at any time,
you can just walk into the police station and tell
them your initial statement and then just leave it there
and then never go back or start the process and
(16:45):
feel like it's too much and ended. There is no
there's no need to be committed. It is about the survivor,
So you can go as far or as little as
you need. And I think that's something I might have
If I had known that, then I might have done
it earlier, because it was like I knew I was
(17:05):
going to have to sort of schedule time in my
life to really cope with what was going to come.
So I wish I had have known that. And I
also believe that speaking up. You know, my book is
called The Courage to Speak Your Truth, and that doesn't
necessarily mean to police. Like that could be about telling
a partner, an intimate partner, what's happened. It could be
(17:26):
about writing it in a journal, and all of those
things I did. You know, it took twenty five years
to come forward and speak to police, and I practiced
over and over and over again with loved ones and peers,
and you know, then I was coaching women and every
second woman I was coaching had the same story, and
(17:47):
so then it just kind of fueled me to want
to do more and to do what I can to
just ensure that this conversation gets heard, and so I think,
really know yourself and know what you need. That's my advice.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
What do you think it left you with to to
overcome or address? What were the challenges that came up
as a result of going through that and holding that
for so long.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
I think it was deciphering what was real and what
was imagined in terms of my own beliefs about myself.
So you know, when any of us have had moments
in our life where we've been traumatized, the belief that
forms as a result of that incident is often more
(18:42):
harmful than this incident itself. So I had to unprogram
the thinking that I was alone and that I wasn't
protected and the meaning that I gave those events were
actually the things that were dictating my experience in life.
And until I got really clear on what was real
(19:03):
and how I could shift those things, I was it
was a map that was taking me in the wrong direction.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
And how did you How did you move the needle
on that? What were the things that worked? Were they immediate?
Was it a jumble of things?
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Journaling and writing has always been a huge part of
my own healing. I know there's people that for them
it's music for others it's exercise. The other thing that
really worked was energy work. So having kinesiology and types
of healing that unlocked trapped emotion psychotherapy was very helpful
(19:43):
because it was about kind of isolating the parts of
me that needed to be listened to. So, you know,
the little five year old girl, her needs were different
to the little eight year old girl and the little
eleven year old girl, and vastly different from the adult
self that is sitting here today. So distinguishing those three
(20:03):
parts of myself that were very damaged in very different ways,
that was probably pinnacle in me understanding what my needs were.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yeah. Yeah, I'm so interested in the different types of
therapies and the different medalities that we can use, and
I'm so open mind, especially about Like for me, boxing
undoubtedly opened the door on me resurfacing what had happened
(20:33):
to me and feeling emotion and asking big questions like
that was the catalyst. If I wasn't in there getting
punched in the face and standing toe to toe with
myself for what felt like the first time in my life,
I just I would have I probably would be sitting
here today still suppressing that story. But the how we
(20:58):
then go into exploring the subconscious and the beliefs and
what's real and what's not speaking especially like I remember
a lot like I've suppressed it, but I knew it happened,
And there's people like yourself that have have literally suppressed
I mean, I've had another Donna Lyon on the show,
(21:19):
and she, like yourself, was in her twenties I think
when and she'd had had no idea that this had
happened to her. She'd so completely suppressed it that it
just came from she just she left a party one
day and just went and broke down and went, shit,
this has happened to me.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
God, that was such a long winded question. I don't
even know what my question was. Kat, I don't even
know what my question was.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
It doesn't matter. Well, I think it started talking about
how you were interested in Yeah, and look when I
when I think about boxing, like I think about how
primal it is, and you know, and I'm really fascinated
with like the ying and yang energy that we each
have within us. So for me, boxing so yang, you know,
and it's about getting in touch with that you know,
that strength and that both women and men have. And
(22:10):
I guess For me, it was always about finding the
balance between the ying and the yang parts of myself
that needed sort of to be heard. So writing was
very ying, and meditations very ying, and then running and
swimming and screaming in my car and you know all
(22:31):
of the stuff that just was about getting it all out.
That's you know, boxing, I probably would have been amazing.
I just never discovered it. Never too late.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Box. Yeah, this is interesting me today, I'm just gonna
go all out and say I'm going to share. I
had a session out of the blue today with someone.
I was like, I'm interested in all this what's in
your subconscious unlock shit? You know at that conference someone
said you got a clean shit. I'm like, I reckon,
they're still fairbit ship, that's not clear. So I had
(23:03):
this session today a bit woo woo and doing you know,
some of that inner child stuff. And years ago, I
think my second ever therapist wanted me to scream into
pillows and punch them and I was like, I'm not
hitting a pillow, mate. I do boxing like I'm already
do that, or like I'm doing that. I'm getting there's
(23:24):
there's an outlet and I'm fully tapped into it, and
I'm not doing it. Here I was sol posed and
I was exactly the same today. I was like, I'm
not I'm not doing that. I'm not fucking screaming and
I'm not punching a pillow and I'm interested in And
also I.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Highly recommend you scream and punch a pillow like I do.
And I know that.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
I am so.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Yeah, And you know what, what we resist persist as
you know. So I think like I literally used to
drive to work and in my car I would scream
at the top of my lungs on the highway until
I almost had no breathlet left. And it was like
I had to get the angst out of the way
(24:09):
so that I still had a voice professionally. And you know,
I no one would have known that was what I
was doing at the time, but that's what I had
to do. And you know, and I think that blocked
energy sits in us, you know, and that I remember,
like I look back to the illnesses that have occurred
(24:30):
over time, and they make sense to me too. You
know that tonsa lighter is just chronic, you know, like
not being all of those kind of things, And so
I think, just do the thing that scares, you know,
for some people, it's boxing, you know, it's I say that,
my son's like, oh, you should start surfing, Mum. I'm like, like,
at that, I'll do lots of brave things, but you know,
(24:53):
do the thing like if yeah, and maybe I agree
with you, you probably don't need to punch a pillow.
But there if you're in the space and it's actually
an inner child that is doing the punching, then it's
a different space that you're coming from.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
I'm intrigued by it. I'm intrigued by it because I'm
not sure. I'm trying to decipher. I'm very logical, and
that's what pisces me off. I logic my way out
of everything, and so part of me is going this
is this does I'm not connected with you I'm wanting
me to do this. I have no connection to this.
(25:28):
I don't feel like that's me. I feel like I'm
performing something that doesn't belong to me. But also I'm
very aware that my go to, which I've overcome a lot,
but my go to was always the ability in this
was a boxing fucking superpower, was that I just didn't
feel in front of people. So it's not safe to
(25:50):
feel in front of people because I don't want them
to see. So I had this wicked poker face and
I couldn't feel shit, and I'm like, is that what's
happening in this session? Do I just not want to feel?
So it's just locked. It doubles down and goes now
we're not hitting your pillow or is it not? There
so many stories and I'm kind of you now you've
told me I've got to hit the fucking pillow well.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
And to be Devil's advocate. This may not be your
thing and it may not be your therapist, and I
think you're the only person that can trust that. So
you know, if you want to go woo woo, privately,
I would write your inner child or letter and say,
all right, dude, you're running the show here, what's with
the resistance? And if they come back and say because
it's a load of shit and you don't need it,
(26:33):
then that's what it is. But I think you know,
I would open that dialogue up with your inner child
and go all right, what do you need? Little tip, like,
what do you need? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yeah, I'm so into woo woo, but I'm also so
overly logical.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I feel like it's okay. There's nothing logical about our brains.
That's more more that I learn about them, as the
more I understand that I.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Know right, what are some of the things that you've
that you've experience installed dip youtee into that have been
profound or interesting or unexpected? In kindly space.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
In meditation, I've had times when I've literally felt like
I was levitating off the bed when I would like
that there is so much power. There's been times where
I've connected into past lives that have made sense as
to what I've brought forward. There's been healing that I've done,
(27:30):
intergenerational healing that I've done with different therapists to help
my kids not carry any of the energy that has come.
And you know, I've done a lot of work for
them and with them to make sure that they can
be their own individuals and have their own roadmaps and
(27:50):
not be impacted by mine. Look there, my kids are awesome.
And my daughter was thirteen and she did a Welcome
to country and introduced me my book launch in front
of one hundred and fifty people, And so you know,
they're okay, They're doing okay, And I just believe that
open conversation is the way to heal our hearts and
heal the world. And so, you know, within reason, I
(28:13):
share with them because I think children often join the
dots and make things about them if you're not honest. So,
you know, I want to be able to say I'm
having a bad day and it's you know, I'm you
know a bit like they knew when I went and
confronted my abuser, and they knew why I was in
bed and that I was upset, and then they also
(28:33):
saw me get back up. And so I think modeling
to children that it's okay to feel pain and to
feel sad because that is a part of being a
human being, and not labeling as anything more than that
it was. It was me processing and then they got
to send me be back to you know, the naggy
(28:54):
funny mum.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
That shoot the mum.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Yeah yeah, so you know, like I just I think
it's important to model to our kids that life can
feel shit sometimes and then we can pull ourselves back up.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah. Yeah, Like I wholeheartedly believe that every every shitty, shitty,
shitty thing we go through. I don't know, well that's
true for me, every shitty thing I've gone through has
given rise to the things. Everything that I love, that
I do, that I love is a result of that,
either directly or indirectly. Like even the power of using
(29:31):
my voice. I was terrified of speaking, but to have
a podcast and use my voice and to do speaking
that like, make no mistake, that is that because I
remember I spent years in the print industry, design and print,
and I started networking against my will, against my You're
(29:53):
so good at it. Oh, I was fucking terrified to
stand up, and for sixty seconds I had to introduce
myself and say I self like a business cards and
logos like it was terrifying. I couldn't even remember what
I was gonna say. But I thought I fell into that.
I was always like I just got I got that
job at it, Like I left year eleven and I
(30:15):
fell into that industry and that's where I stayed. But
people when I left that and become a pete, everyone
was like, you loved your job. I was like, really
love it? I just I just know what I'm just
But at some point I realized this connection with branding
and visual communication, giving you a voice when you don't
have a voice. I looked at how I used to
(30:38):
used to have fucking pink hair when I was younger,
like pink hair bolded. I was shy as fuck. It
was likely that was such a front. And I remember
some one time when I went from this pink hair
to brown hair and just felt and remember going, I
just feel like I don't not that I ever felt
like I needed it because I didn't attached to the story,
but going, oh, I just don't like I need that anymore,
(31:01):
because you know, so having a voice and doing podcasting
and yeah, everything I do has an element of adapting
and overcoming. And sometimes I've found myself wanting to not
feel the nerves or not feel the anxiety before the thing,
And then I'm like, yeah, and if you don't, you're
not gonna want to, buddy, do it. Let you choose
(31:22):
this all the time.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
And also, isn't that part of just your body's way
of telling you it still matters to you? You know,
Like that's I you know, I think you know I'm
genuinely I'm doing a training tomorrow, which when I were
talking about before we started recording, and the issue I've
always had and why I find conversations like this so
easy is because I am such an open book and
(31:46):
I know that not everyone's like that. So I've got
in trouble in the past doing corporate trainings where i'm
people have said you should have used a trigger warning.
So I've chosen tomorrow to start my training with visual
science says trigger warning with a big crossout, and the
next slide says truth welcomed, So and trust welcomed. And
(32:10):
what I want the audience to know is that they
can trust me, that they want to know my story,
that can buy my book and read the whole thing,
but they need to trust that I am trained enough
and self aware enough to give them the parts of
my story that I feel will serve them. And I
can't curate myself as a human being anymore. I spent
(32:32):
too long doing that. So I'm just starting the training
straight off the bat to say I am very honest
and I will go very deep about my own failings
as a human being. And that's not necessarily what people
are used to in the corporate arena, but that's who
I am, and that's the kind of businesses I want
to work with. So trust welcomed instead of trigger warning,
(32:56):
which just takes us into a negative space.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
To begin with, There is like there's two signs to
that idea of trigger warning, and a lot of companies
and people are still doing it. But on the other side,
it holds a really negative connotation. It says shush, it
says don't upset people, let them keep it stuff down.
The whole point is you can't keep it stuff down forever.
(33:19):
I fucking tried. I'm swearing a lot on this show.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
I'm glad to feel constable. But you know what, the
other thing is that can we how can we ever
not trigger people? Like the truth is that I can
write content for a training or a speech and talk
about being a mother, and there could be someone in
the audience who's got fertility issues. I could talk about
my husband and someone's just gone through a divorce. I
could talk about my brother and someone's lost a sibling.
(33:45):
I could talk about, you know, going on a holiday
and someone's about to go bankrupt. Like you don't. You
cannot curate yourself so much that you are concerned about
how you'll trigger people, because the truth is we're all
triggering each other all the time.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah, yeah, And what triggers you one moment doesn't triger
you in another doesn't.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Absolutely And you know, for me, the fertility is a
huge one, like when we had four miscarriages between our kids,
and every time I saw someone pregnant, I would get
a visceral response and it would just spiral me back
into a failure, I'm not good enough and all the stuff.
(34:27):
So you know that that's and that's not there now
because I'm on the other side of that journey. So
I guess you're right, like what and where you're just
vulnerable in one moment, you may not be the next. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
The thing is when you once you crack the door open,
once the door is cracked open, you can't close it again.
You can't close it. Like I remember saying, it's like
deciding to clean out your sock draw getting halfway through
and gone, fuck, I don't have time for this. And
then it's, oh, all the socks don't fit back in
there anymore. They don't fit back You can't just put
(35:05):
them back in. And it's a bit like that. You go, oh,
curious discovered something, look into that.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Oh that's it.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
There's a bit of me that I've just learned about.
And then you can't unlearn that, And it's and it's tough,
but it's but it's beautiful and it takes work, and
but there's there's so much to be gained, Like we
have to like out, the door will open for us
when it's ready. So if someone's triggered, you're ready, it's time.
It was it wasn't you, it was just time. It
(35:34):
wasn't cath Sins standing at the front of a of
a presentation. It was the world going, this is the
moment where you need to you need to start looking
in wood and fixing.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
And you know, I'm hearing stories like that every week,
like and and as I said earlier, the one where
the woman stole the book from the doctor's surgery, I
had invited her to my book launch and if she
was just flat no, and I never questioned that, And
I was very aware that there'd be a lot of
people who would just not be ready or interested in
hearing this story. But I think that slightly a jarred
(36:11):
the door for her. And then she said the book
was just staring at her and she couldn't not take it,
and then she couldn't not read it once she started,
you know, and it's going to be a long road
for her. But equally as you said, she was ready.
She was ready to start that process, and a lot
of people, there's statistics that suggest that a lot of
(36:32):
the time we are remembering things as parents, we get
mirrored by our own children. So that just makes it
even more complicated because then you're trying to manage, you know,
all the layers of who you are and how your
parent and that just becomes even more complicated. So it's
it is a shit show. I don't even know that
(36:54):
there's another word for it. But I'm all up for
you know what, do what makes you feel good, and
give yourself the space to do it. You know, like
I let my ten year old son have a mental
health day at this term. My husband thought I was crazy,
and I'm like, it lasted three hours in front of
(37:15):
the TV and he was bored shitless, So he won't
ask for another one. But I also want to know
that he's got there's permission there for him to say,
you know, I just need a break from the world,
and we all do.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Yeah. Yeah, it's so like theory, the theory, the stuff
we say, the quotes we read, the little bloody sayings
that we just throw out there. They're one thing and
then we tend You're right, we tend to.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Do like choking, getting some more emotion out. I'm stuck.
You need that pillow on one?
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Here you go. Where's that pillow that I had to
scream into?
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Give me a pit. I'm gonna stay screaming and punching
and no. Look, you know, and this obviously like it's
very much something is coming up and stuck because I
don't know what it is because I talk all the time,
but these conversations always unlock something. And you know, I
feel like it's just you've got to trust in your
(38:20):
body and trust in the moment. And if you don't
want to scream into a pillow, don't scream into a pillow.
But also notice that there's resistance to that.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Yeah, yeah, that's like I reckon as superpower and I'm
way too curious now. But curiosity is I mean, that
is the superpower. It's like, learners to go to curiosity
rather than judgment is everything. And it's hard. It's bloody
(38:50):
hard because judgment protects us so easy to go to
just make Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
I've I've created this pray work and it's about shifting
the narrative. So you know what I believe is that
we're impacted by three types of story. Our inner story,
so the beliefs, and the programming that we've got our
conveyed self, which is often curated. So the gap between
(39:17):
our internal story and an external expression is often where
the work has to be done. And then there's the
cultural story, so the media and what the laws are
telling us, and what our workplaces tell us, and what
our families tell us. And you know, so once we
start to align those three, or at least align the
(39:38):
first two, then we can start pushing back on what
things we want to change. And so that's you know
that if we realize that we're not in a fit
for a workplace, we can see that. Once we're clear
on who we are and how we want to kind
of express ourselves in the world, we know whether that
we're in the right place or not. We know whether
we're with the rights, you know, psychologist or therapist. If
(40:01):
it feels aligned, yes, it's uncomfortable, but there's still in
an alignment there. So I just get really curious about
hearing a story within myself and not taking it as
gospel and questioning, you know, is that true? Like is
this necessarily like my husband's left the towel on the ground,
(40:22):
and I think, what a freaking asshole. He hates me
and he wants me to do everything. Is that really true?
Or was he just running late for work? And you know,
so it's like, and I'm not joking, that was something
I navigated for years of he expects me to do
it all and it was like, no, he just doesn't
(40:42):
care if the towel's hung up or not. And I
had to then say to him, it really matters to
me that it's hung up, and he's like, Okay, I'll
hang it up. But it's like, so I was having
this whole internal dialogue with myself for years about what
that meant. And I think we all do that in relationships,
in workplaces, with friends, and you know, we solve a
(41:03):
lot of problems that aren't really happening.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Oh, we so do. I recently had had a conversation
with someone where like that exact thing was happening on
both sides and we had a chat. And the shift
in me and my perception and my everything after that
after that conversation that I should have raised a long
(41:29):
time ago. But I'm a big baby, and confrontation is scary.
But you know, I observed it happening for so long
from both sides of going is is it me or them?
Is it me or them? Is it me or them?
But still, even when you're observing it, when I was like,
it was still allowing that the effects of not addressing
(41:50):
small things or just not saying them or hearing what
I needed to hear to play out. It's amazing. It
is amazing how everything shift. I feel like two different
people now.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Yeah, wow, crazy congratulation. It is crazy. And look, even
writing the book was a bit that for me. Where
I was writing, I did some work in the mining
sector and when before I had kids, I was working
on the mines and it was pretty crazy, like, you know,
do what you're scared of, they say, So go to
(42:24):
the most male dominated blow key place in Australia up
in Karratha. And you know, one day I went for
a run and a car load of men followed me
and so I had to run into a stranger's house
and hide. And the response when I came back the
men that I worked with were beautiful, all the consultants
that I worked with, and the response from them was, oh,
(42:47):
you can't run here. That's not safe. So if you need,
if you want to run, just take one of us
with you next time. And it wasn't until I was
writing the book and talking about these past triggers that
I looked at that scenario and went, oh, my god, no,
Like if that was a friend or you know, my daughter,
there is no way that I would say that's okay.
(43:07):
But at the time, the culture fed back that this
is just acceptable. You know the pub one pub there
has skimpy barman girls behind there, like that's what the
culture is. And so I thought, if I'm going to
be here, I just have to suck it up, and
I'm choosing to be here. But the truth is there's
women who want to be in those industries who shouldn't
(43:29):
have to suck it up. And you know, so that's
where the framework's kind of been developed from writing the book,
is that you know, we need to start changing the
statistics around abuse, We need to start changing the statistics
around harassment, and we can't do that unless individuals start
to face their own inner narratives first. That's the first
step for all of us.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
What's the most important thing or things that you shift
or aim to shift with the work you currently do.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
It's I think the greatest gift as a facilitator or
a speaker or a coach is that if you plant
the seed with an individual that they have the capacity
to create space between thought and action. Then I think
that is one of the greatest gifts that you can
give someone. Yeah, because once we know that there's we
(44:24):
have a choice in how we respond, then everything changes.
And that's you know, when I stopped just accepting that
I felt depressed, and when I stopped berating myself and
feeling shame for someone else's actions, when I stopped, you know,
thinking that I was damaged goods and chose to rise
(44:46):
above it, Like, everything changed when I had to just
unravel those stories one after the other. And I'm sure
there's still stories there, but you know, for me now,
I'm just that alignment of in a dialogue and my
outer expression like is so small. And that's why I
can't apologize for being as honest as I am, because
(45:08):
I actually have no other way of being now. That
is who I am. I don't do it because I
need therapy from stage. I don't do it because I
need anything from anybody. I just do it because my
heart and soul demands that I am living my truth
now because for so long I didn't.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
How did you become How would you become aware of
beliefs or things that needed to shift as you went
through and did the work and evolved.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
I remember once doing a training and I read the
Buddhist Gates of Communication, and there's simple questions of asking yourself,
you know, is what I'm thinking true, is what i'm
thinking necessary? And is what I'm thinking kind? And I
would often just ask myself one or all of the
questions after having a thought, and pretty much ninety eight
(46:04):
percent of the time it wasn't necessary, like if it
was something berating myself or judging another, or you know,
it wasn't kind. And the reality is I didn't know
if it was true or not. We just perceive the
world as you know, we are, not as it is,
and you know, we can I'm sure we've all had
that situation when we've picked up a book and read
(46:26):
it a second time and just it feels like a
different book, or watched a different movie, or you know
that where we're at today is the reflection that we're
getting back from the world. So it's you know, for me,
life feels it just feels easier because I'm not carrying
the baggage that I've carried. And do I still get triggered? Yes?
(46:48):
Do I know how to manage those triggers? Yes? And
I give myself the space to do that, and I
don't judge myself for it anymore.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
And how liberating is it when you realize when you've
changed enough to be able to reflect on something and
realize that you used to think a different way. How
liberating because then I lean on that if I ever
think of, like if I even find myself wondering or
worrying or being you know, not accepted or not taken
(47:16):
the right way or any of that, it's just like,
like it matters, like I changed my mind. I used
to think this, and now I think that. Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
And that's the gift of aging, isn't it that you also?
And I think my grandfather used to say that we
were born the wrong way around, and we should be
born old and then get younger because we would just
appreciate our youth and then have the wisdom to really
appreciate it. And I mean he had a debilitating degenerative disease,
so for him. You know that was kind of, I guess,
(47:50):
the ultimate fantasy. But I do, like I think now
I look at my daughter and you know, in her
very fit self, and thing, gosh, I wish I appreciate
those days, you know that, all the five k's of
swimming each morning and the strength that gave me and
(48:10):
the power I had. But you know, I'm also grateful
I did it all and then that's all still part
of who I am now.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
Yeah, I tell you what. That's one thing that I'm
great at is being really grateful for what I have
at present. I always say it about where I live,
like I live in Ellwood and I love. I love
the trees, I love the canal I love, and I
walk around and I go I live here and I
chose it. And if I didn't live here, i'd drive
through here and be like, oh, what a beautiful place.
(48:40):
But I'm not going to stop saying what a beautiful place,
just because it's my place every day. And I do
that with a lot of things.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
I do it with you know.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
I try and remain so aware because one day, one
day I won't be able to lift the heavyweight. So
I can lift today or run I'm not running at
the moment. I've already gotten that day. But hopefully that's
just a bit of mid forty chaos. But you know,
like you never know, you never know, and so I
just want to make sure that you know those five
(49:10):
top regrets to the dying that I'm not lifting listing
off all five. I'm sure I won't, you know, I
won't land there and not have one or two that
I've not fully ticked the box with.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
But yeah, but isn't isn't that what dogs are so
beautiful for? Like bringing e fake to the moment. And
we've got a Kalpi Border Collie lab cross and she's
ten months old. She's so cute and she is just
a ball of love and she just reminds me every
moment what curiosity really looks like and what gratitude really
(49:42):
looks like. And you know, my son's a bit like that.
Like every day we have Rosala's and you know, king
parrots come and he feeds them, and every day is
just as excited about feeding them as the day before,
you know, And I think that's that's a good moment
to see that.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
I walked through this and killed the gardens. The other
day and there was this this not a young kid,
but an older kid, sitting with a pack like a
thing of bird seed or something covered in pigeons. Gross
fucking gross. It was like, oh God, really, that's my
(50:21):
dear Hell yeah, Like he had had a big hat
on and they were on his shoulders, they are on
his head, they were all around him. But I just
looked and I just felt so much joy because I'm like, Okay,
I don't want to be under all that bird shit
and glowsy, bloody pigeons. But this kid's sitting in the park,
suns shining, and he's covered in these beautiful, beautiful birds.
(50:44):
This inverted Commas but no bloody London.
Speaker 1 (50:49):
But he's having a moment and you got to see it. Like,
I mean, that's why we're all drawn, I think to
you know, puppies and smiley babies, and because they're just
so present and you know that, and we get distracted
by life and forget to.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
Be and yeah, that's I think. That's why that stuff
stands out to me now because I used to be
the rush at or the judge at, or you know,
like I have to have something to say, or I
remember years ago somebody connected with somebody over whippets, because
whippets are the best dog in the world and I've
(51:25):
had a couple of them now and someone it introduced
me to someone from the dog park and they said, oh, yeah,
you're You're the girl that's always in a hurry. And
I've never forgotten that. So I used to walk my
dog around the perimeter of the dog park and I
would be at pace because I'm like, let's skip, like,
let's go. Then I'm on to yep. I'd be busy,
(51:47):
I'd be busy in my head and i'd be on
a mission, and i just hit me in the heart.
I'm like, you, strangers see you and recognize you as
the girl that's always in a.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
Rush your identity. But also, to go back to your
point earlier, you were ready to hear that like that.
That may have been said to you ten times before that,
but you were ready, and that's why it hurt. And
that's why I penetrated, you know.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
And now it's my anchor, it's my reminder. I always
think that pops into my head because I recognize these
moments where I'm not doing that, and I'm fucking proud.
I'm like, oh, go me, I'm happy for the kid
with the pigeon shit all overly, right, And you know,
(52:35):
like that's.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
Like when I think about like people say to me
because it's so brave, you know, like and the same
with you getting up on stage talking about your trauma,
like writing a book, and but I don't. I don't
feel like that is as brave as getting out of
bed when you're really heavy with depression or choosing, you know,
(52:57):
getting your kids to school when you're just don't know
how you're gonna, you know, get out of the house
and calling someone and telling them that you're really struggling,
Like those things are brave, and I think as a
society we just overlook those things so much. And that's
why I put those moments in the book. And a
lot of people that know me now are like, god,
(53:18):
I can't even calibrate you and look, and I can't either.
It's a bit like you know when you look at
an ex boyfriend and go, what was I thinking? Like
I feel a bit like that of some of the
phases of my life where I was like, oh God,
how was I ever? Like? How was how was I
not happy?
Speaker 2 (53:35):
Like?
Speaker 1 (53:35):
How was I not grateful? But the truth is, I
just had too much seaweed weighing me down and I
just had to crawl out. So you know, there is
no shortcut to getting to a place of joy and happiness.
And I just pray that everyone gets through those really
hard days enough and finds the courage in those days
(53:56):
to get through and ask for help if they need it,
and to get the book, whatever book, whatever podcast, whatever friend,
whatever it is that in that moment will just flip
the switch and shift that narrative that's taking them under.
Then I you know, I just pray that that's when
carriage shows up.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
What a great time to let everybody know where they
get your book and connect with you online and anything
else that you want to share with this in promote.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
So my book's on Amazon and book Topia and it's
on Apple. They can listen to me if my voice
hasn't driven you crazy after this hour, I did narrate
my own book, and so it's on Spotify and Apple Books,
and yeah, you can get it on Kindle version. My
(54:47):
website is bespeak dot com dot au and so all
of my handles are there, but I'm on Instagram and
all the places, So katsih come and find me. I'd
love to act.
Speaker 2 (55:01):
You're amazing. Thanks for everything you're doing. Thanks everyone for
tuning in. Go check her out, Go buy the book,
Go do all the things, and we will see you
next time.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
See lovely, she said, it's now never. I got fighting
in my blood, got it, got it,
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 at 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,
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reach out to Mark and the team at www dot
test Artfamilylawyers dot com dot au. Another day, another new friend, Kathessing,
(00:56):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Thanks An, I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
How good are new friends so good?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Especially when they've got arms as strong as yours?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Oh that is so funny. We met at the at
the Tea Boss conference. I was gonna say a couple
of weeks ago. Oh my goodness, it was literally a
month ago today. Wow. I have a terrible relationship with time.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
It's overrated, I think so.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I'm like, just the other day, Ah, that was two
months ago.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Tive.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
But we were introduced and we had a bit of
a chat and you're awesome. We're like, we're gonna have
to have a chat on the show. You're doing great stuff.
Would you like to do a far better job than
I would at introducing yourself.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I can do that. I think you're awesome too, just
to say before I introduced myself. So I am. I've
just published a book that's probably the most significant thing
about the Courage to Thank You. That's my second book,
and it's called The Courage to Speak Your Truth, and
it is a memoir about my journey recovering, reporting, and
(02:08):
remembering my childhood sexual abuse as an adult. So it's
like being a bit of an interesting journey from a
healing perspective, obviously, but from a research perspective and just
understanding how prevalent it is and how common it is
for people to block it out entirely into adulthood. So
hence why I'm here chatting about it, because I just
(02:30):
want to minimize the loneliness that people may experience and
bridge the gap between people wanting to help their friends
and family who've remembered these kind of incidents, and just
do what I can to minimize the numbers because it's
pretty horrific.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, I love that. It's so it's so brave, and
it's so very much needed what you're doing. It's such
important work, and so I'm glad to hear you doing that.
Where did that start feeling? Did like watch your background
and did you merge a professional background into this personal
experience or.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Did did you know like what bouncing ball?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Did you follow the land here?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
That's an awesome question, and it's one of those things
was like where do you start? But I do? I remember,
I remembered my abuse in my early twenties, so prior
to that, you know, you're an athlete. I was a
swimmer as a teenager, and I genuinely believe that that
probably saved my life that sport, because I was just
(03:32):
able to move emotion quickly and I was able to
feel strong and my body and strong in myself. So
I think that that helped me navigate a period of
time that maybe it would have been my undoing otherwise.
And so then I went to UNI and discovered all
the fun things that UNI has to offer, and slowly
(03:55):
things started unraveling a bit for me, and depression kicked
in and then, and it was like a tsunami of
memories that surfaced at about twenty three and I'd completely
blocked it out. So initially I remembered one incident, and
it took another few years to remember that there was
three incidents. And so it was a real shit show
(04:17):
of healing and every modality that you can imagine. Like
when people say, you know, where do I start, I'm like, well,
I was just a hussy who went with everything from
medication to meditation and everything in between, and there is
no right answer about what works for you. It's like,
you know, a bit like grief. You can't say this
is the process for healing. It's so individual. So you know,
(04:39):
there were times that I've tried lots of modalities and
everything had its place and nothing worked every time. But
I do remember back to your question, going to my
ten year school reunion and saying to my best mate,
what am I going to tell people I've done in
the last ten years, Like I've literally just kept myself
alive and healed from this shit show of you know,
(05:02):
memories that have surfaced, and so very quickly after that,
once I got a bit of myself back, I sort
of accelerated professionally, and once I got this trauma out
of the way, I studied. I did a lot of
consultancy work, and then studied life coaching and NLP and
psychotherapy and mindfulness and a whole lot of other things.
(05:25):
And you know, I think all of those tools have
now come into place where I'm in a position now
where I can really help people and not particl not
necessarily one on one, but just to give frameworks for
people to really find their own way where they need
to be.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Yeah, it is a shit show, isn't it, Like figuring
out that you're just making me reminisce about the all
the little lilypads I had to jump on to find
my way to the mess that is current life. You know,
but you kind of I need to talk therapy. Oh
watch this therapy and that therapy, and we look here
and we look there. And as you do all of that,
(06:05):
you change and evolve through the process and things come
up and then you have to return to therapies.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
They're weird and like what a bloody, which is where
I think, you know, sports really underrated, and like, particularly
for any child survivor of any kind of trauma, that
a lot of it gets stored in our bodies. So
for me, a lot of energy work and you know,
physical moving of energy stuck was really important for my healing.
(06:33):
But I've never heard anyone talk about that so much,
And I think that's why we really have to attack
our healing from the mind, body, and spirit perspective, because
each of those things require different thing, different elements of healing.
And so that's what I've written about, and I've been
very vulnerable and open about the you know, pretty horrible
(06:55):
stuff that happened as a result. I haven't gone into
any details about the abuse because I just don't think
that's necessary. The concept of an adult hurting a child
is shocking enough, and I'm very mindful of not wanting
to re traumatize people. But I have spoken about, you know,
the complexity of going to the police and what that
process looked like, and because I couldn't find a resource
(07:18):
that was available to me or my family and husband
and friends who were supporting me through it at the time.
So that's what this has become a bit of a
resource for people to help educate them.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Amazing What was it like, what brought the memory to
the surface for you? And what was that like? Like,
how did you even decipher what was coming up for you?
Speaker 1 (07:44):
As I said, it was like depression was knocking and
there was something unsettled in my body and mind and
spirit that I couldn't quite put my finger on. And
you know, there was lots happening in my life at
the time, and it's always easy to justify, you know,
if you're a prepubescent, or if you're impairmentopause, or if
you've you know, like whatever it is, there's always ways
(08:06):
of justifying where you're at emotionally. But I just knew
something wasn't right and it got pretty hard and pretty dark,
and I did go to a psychologist. I was living
at Darwin in the time, and I said, I feel
like there's something I can't access within me. And his
response to that was, well, onely, fruit loops block out memories,
(08:29):
and you don't strike me as a fruit loop. So
that was helpful. Wow, I know. So look that And
the reality is is that many of us who have
experienced it's one in three girls, one in five boys
enjoyed childhood sexual abuse before the age of eighteen. Those
numbers are horrific enough. Ninety percent of the time, we
(08:53):
know who our perpetrator is and fifty percent of the
time we're related to them, and that was Yeah, that
was the case for me, which makes it really complicated,
you know, to come forward because you don't want to
hurt other members of your family by coming forward about
someone that they love doing those awful things. So that's
(09:15):
I think white so many of us suppressed memories because
it's the complexity of what's going to happen when we
talk about it.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Oh one hundred Wow. I wasn't aware of the stats
of fifty percent being related, which is mind bobbling. And
I mean I've had a lot of conversations and I
know enough people who who have that as part of
your story, and it's just shocking. But when you hear
stats like that, when you can put numbers to it,
(09:45):
you know, it's scary.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Sometimes, like you sit in a room full of people
and you look around and then you think of those numbers.
Yet we all always feel alone. We always think we're
the only one and we want to hide it.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
And you know, as a parent, it's really scary too.
You know, I often look at the you know, teams
of kids in netball, footy, and I sort of, you know,
sometimes find myself thinking, you know, who are the unlucky
kids in this group that have already been hurt and
and and that sort of motivates me to want to
have these conversations with people in our generation, because if
(10:23):
we're not talking about what happened to us, there is
no education for the next generation to create change. And
you know, online challenges now have surfaced, which is a
whole new beast, but still the numbers of this being
people that were related to it's it's increasing, and you know,
(10:43):
the online presence is making things more complicated. And there's
actually a lot of abuse happening between children of the
same age because they're being exposed to too much too early.
So all of it needs to be talked about and
brought out of the shadows because it will just continue
to happen other wise.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
It's such a murky topic too, like the idea of
what is. I was so overjoyed when the term enthusiastic
consent was brought to light.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
You know, it was because a relationship of the minor.
It's like, it's not a relationship.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah, how was your experience? And if I ask any
questions that you don't want to discuss, feel free to
tell me.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
I've written the whole book, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Just hit me, was what was it like confining in
someone for the first time, especially given the person was
known to you and related to you. How was that
accepted it?
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I was very lucky my parents were no longer together,
and this was a member of my dad's family, and
so I had almost like a really safe landing in
my whole mom's side of the family and not everyone
and has that. You know. I ran into someone the
(12:03):
other day contacted me to say that they saw my
book in a doctor surgery and they stole it and
they read it in private, and they've since taken it
back to the doctors, but their own abuse has resurfaced.
And it is a family member and it's someone still
in her life, and so, you know, any histories like that,
(12:24):
it's hard not to be affected. And you know, I
got to ring my abusa during the investigation and confront him,
and that was really hard. I literally spent four days
in bed afterwards because it was like ripping a wound
open and letting all the festies stuff come out. But
(12:45):
it's out now, and so it was worth it, and
that was the moment I feel I reclaimed my voice,
and that's when I realized that was that was the
most important part of the process for me. You know,
there wasn't any legalifications for him. He was arrested and
wasn't charged. It's very complicated. It's very hard to prosecute
(13:09):
historical cases. And in fact, I think when initially the
detective said to me, he believes only twenty three percent
of us ever come forward to report the crime, and
of that only ten percent will ever end up in
the court system, and of that only one percent will
ever end in a prosecution. So the statistics just get
(13:30):
more and more depressing.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
That is crazy, that it's so grim.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
It's wrong. Yeah, it's really wrong. So look, I have
no regrets. The process for me was absolutely about putting
the last pieces of the puzzle together in terms of
my own healing. So it was worthwhile for me, but
it was hard. It was one of the hardest things
I've ever had to do. And I just want to
(13:56):
be able to create some change, particularly in that space,
to help the legal system be more trauma informed, because
I feel like there was steps along the way that
could have been handled differently, and that's no one person's fault,
but it's just the process itself is not really set
up to support survivors in the way that I believe
(14:18):
they should be supported.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
What does it take, What does it take to take
that to make that choice? How did you have the courage?
What did you need?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
I was actually at a protest march with my children.
So it was twenty twenty one and the Me Too
movement was happening. Grace Tame was Austrayan of the Year
at the time, and Britney Higgins had just come out
with allegations against the man who raped her, and I
just was angry. I was just angry. I had a
(14:51):
six year old son and a ten year old daughter,
so I took them to the beach and there was
a protest march and just was written out of human bodies,
and then that image was actually shared all around Australia
at the time, and I just had this moment where
I realized that's not something I'd done for myself. Initially,
(15:14):
when I was twenty three, there was a statue of limitations,
so I was told very early there was only a
limited amount of time I would have to go to police,
and I just wasn't ready, and so by the time
I was ready, I just didn't really know when to
do it. And it was that day I literally dropped
the kids at school, walked straight into the police station
(15:34):
and just said I just I want to report a
sexual assault. And that was it the process it started.
So I just was a bit of an outer body experience. Actually,
it was like that was the time I felt like
I was being carried spiritually by something else and COVID
hit and so there was a lot of time to
(15:55):
process and figure out what, you know, I wanted to
do something being useful with my time during that time
period other than be a parent, and so I did
so amazing.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
What advice do you have? So if people are listening
and they've been through something, and they've they've confided in
people around them, and they're thinking about this, but they're terrified,
what can you tell us?
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Only do what is going to make you feel safe.
Don't get pressured into doing anything you're not ready for.
But I wish I had have known that at any time,
you can just walk into the police station and tell
them your initial statement and then just leave it there
and then never go back or start the process and
(16:45):
feel like it's too much and ended. There is no
there's no need to be committed. It is about the survivor,
So you can go as far or as little as
you need. And I think that's something I might have
If I had known that, then I might have done
it earlier, because it was like I knew I was
(17:05):
going to have to sort of schedule time in my
life to really cope with what was going to come.
So I wish I had have known that. And I
also believe that speaking up. You know, my book is
called The Courage to Speak Your Truth, and that doesn't
necessarily mean to police. Like that could be about telling
a partner, an intimate partner, what's happened. It could be
(17:26):
about writing it in a journal, and all of those
things I did. You know, it took twenty five years
to come forward and speak to police, and I practiced
over and over and over again with loved ones and peers,
and you know, then I was coaching women and every
second woman I was coaching had the same story, and
(17:47):
so then it just kind of fueled me to want
to do more and to do what I can to
just ensure that this conversation gets heard, and so I think,
really know yourself and know what you need. That's my advice.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
What do you think it left you with to to
overcome or address? What were the challenges that came up
as a result of going through that and holding that
for so long.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
I think it was deciphering what was real and what
was imagined in terms of my own beliefs about myself.
So you know, when any of us have had moments
in our life where we've been traumatized, the belief that
forms as a result of that incident is often more
(18:42):
harmful than this incident itself. So I had to unprogram
the thinking that I was alone and that I wasn't
protected and the meaning that I gave those events were
actually the things that were dictating my experience in life.
And until I got really clear on what was real
(19:03):
and how I could shift those things, I was it
was a map that was taking me in the wrong direction.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
And how did you How did you move the needle
on that? What were the things that worked? Were they immediate?
Was it a jumble of things?
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Journaling and writing has always been a huge part of
my own healing. I know there's people that for them
it's music for others it's exercise. The other thing that
really worked was energy work. So having kinesiology and types
of healing that unlocked trapped emotion psychotherapy was very helpful
(19:43):
because it was about kind of isolating the parts of
me that needed to be listened to. So, you know,
the little five year old girl, her needs were different
to the little eight year old girl and the little
eleven year old girl, and vastly different from the adult
self that is sitting here today. So distinguishing those three
(20:03):
parts of myself that were very damaged in very different ways,
that was probably pinnacle in me understanding what my needs were.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yeah. Yeah, I'm so interested in the different types of
therapies and the different medalities that we can use, and
I'm so open mind, especially about Like for me, boxing
undoubtedly opened the door on me resurfacing what had happened
(20:33):
to me and feeling emotion and asking big questions like
that was the catalyst. If I wasn't in there getting
punched in the face and standing toe to toe with
myself for what felt like the first time in my life,
I just I would have I probably would be sitting
here today still suppressing that story. But the how we
(20:58):
then go into exploring the subconscious and the beliefs and
what's real and what's not speaking especially like I remember
a lot like I've suppressed it, but I knew it happened,
And there's people like yourself that have have literally suppressed
I mean, I've had another Donna Lyon on the show,
(21:19):
and she, like yourself, was in her twenties I think
when and she'd had had no idea that this had
happened to her. She'd so completely suppressed it that it
just came from she just she left a party one
day and just went and broke down and went, shit,
this has happened to me.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
God, that was such a long winded question. I don't
even know what my question was. Kat, I don't even
know what my question was.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
It doesn't matter. Well, I think it started talking about
how you were interested in Yeah, and look when I
when I think about boxing, like I think about how
primal it is, and you know, and I'm really fascinated
with like the ying and yang energy that we each
have within us. So for me, boxing so yang, you know,
and it's about getting in touch with that you know,
that strength and that both women and men have. And
(22:10):
I guess For me, it was always about finding the
balance between the ying and the yang parts of myself
that needed sort of to be heard. So writing was
very ying, and meditations very ying, and then running and
swimming and screaming in my car and you know all
(22:31):
of the stuff that just was about getting it all out.
That's you know, boxing, I probably would have been amazing.
I just never discovered it. Never too late.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Box. Yeah, this is interesting me today, I'm just gonna
go all out and say I'm going to share. I
had a session out of the blue today with someone.
I was like, I'm interested in all this what's in
your subconscious unlock shit? You know at that conference someone
said you got a clean shit. I'm like, I reckon,
they're still fairbit ship, that's not clear. So I had
(23:03):
this session today a bit woo woo and doing you know,
some of that inner child stuff. And years ago, I
think my second ever therapist wanted me to scream into
pillows and punch them and I was like, I'm not
hitting a pillow, mate. I do boxing like I'm already
do that, or like I'm doing that. I'm getting there's
(23:24):
there's an outlet and I'm fully tapped into it, and
I'm not doing it. Here I was sol posed and
I was exactly the same today. I was like, I'm
not I'm not doing that. I'm not fucking screaming and
I'm not punching a pillow and I'm interested in And
also I.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Highly recommend you scream and punch a pillow like I do.
And I know that.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
I am so.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Yeah, And you know what, what we resist persist as
you know. So I think like I literally used to
drive to work and in my car I would scream
at the top of my lungs on the highway until
I almost had no breathlet left. And it was like
I had to get the angst out of the way
(24:09):
so that I still had a voice professionally. And you know,
I no one would have known that was what I
was doing at the time, but that's what I had
to do. And you know, and I think that blocked
energy sits in us, you know, and that I remember,
like I look back to the illnesses that have occurred
(24:30):
over time, and they make sense to me too. You
know that tonsa lighter is just chronic, you know, like
not being all of those kind of things, And so
I think, just do the thing that scares, you know,
for some people, it's boxing, you know, it's I say that,
my son's like, oh, you should start surfing, Mum. I'm like, like,
at that, I'll do lots of brave things, but you know,
(24:53):
do the thing like if yeah, and maybe I agree
with you, you probably don't need to punch a pillow.
But there if you're in the space and it's actually
an inner child that is doing the punching, then it's
a different space that you're coming from.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
I'm intrigued by it. I'm intrigued by it because I'm
not sure. I'm trying to decipher. I'm very logical, and
that's what pisces me off. I logic my way out
of everything, and so part of me is going this
is this does I'm not connected with you I'm wanting
me to do this. I have no connection to this.
(25:28):
I don't feel like that's me. I feel like I'm
performing something that doesn't belong to me. But also I'm
very aware that my go to, which I've overcome a lot,
but my go to was always the ability in this
was a boxing fucking superpower, was that I just didn't
feel in front of people. So it's not safe to
(25:50):
feel in front of people because I don't want them
to see. So I had this wicked poker face and
I couldn't feel shit, and I'm like, is that what's
happening in this session? Do I just not want to feel?
So it's just locked. It doubles down and goes now
we're not hitting your pillow or is it not? There
so many stories and I'm kind of you now you've
told me I've got to hit the fucking pillow well.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
And to be Devil's advocate. This may not be your
thing and it may not be your therapist, and I
think you're the only person that can trust that. So
you know, if you want to go woo woo, privately,
I would write your inner child or letter and say,
all right, dude, you're running the show here, what's with
the resistance? And if they come back and say because
it's a load of shit and you don't need it,
(26:33):
then that's what it is. But I think you know,
I would open that dialogue up with your inner child
and go all right, what do you need? Little tip, like,
what do you need? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yeah, I'm so into woo woo, but I'm also so
overly logical.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I feel like it's okay. There's nothing logical about our brains.
That's more more that I learn about them, as the
more I understand that I.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Know right, what are some of the things that you've
that you've experience installed dip youtee into that have been
profound or interesting or unexpected? In kindly space.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
In meditation, I've had times when I've literally felt like
I was levitating off the bed when I would like
that there is so much power. There's been times where
I've connected into past lives that have made sense as
to what I've brought forward. There's been healing that I've done,
(27:30):
intergenerational healing that I've done with different therapists to help
my kids not carry any of the energy that has come.
And you know, I've done a lot of work for
them and with them to make sure that they can
be their own individuals and have their own roadmaps and
(27:50):
not be impacted by mine. Look there, my kids are awesome.
And my daughter was thirteen and she did a Welcome
to country and introduced me my book launch in front
of one hundred and fifty people, And so you know,
they're okay, They're doing okay, And I just believe that
open conversation is the way to heal our hearts and
heal the world. And so, you know, within reason, I
(28:13):
share with them because I think children often join the
dots and make things about them if you're not honest. So,
you know, I want to be able to say I'm
having a bad day and it's you know, I'm you
know a bit like they knew when I went and
confronted my abuser, and they knew why I was in
bed and that I was upset, and then they also
(28:33):
saw me get back up. And so I think modeling
to children that it's okay to feel pain and to
feel sad because that is a part of being a
human being, and not labeling as anything more than that
it was. It was me processing and then they got
to send me be back to you know, the naggy
(28:54):
funny mum.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
That shoot the mum.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Yeah yeah, so you know, like I just I think
it's important to model to our kids that life can
feel shit sometimes and then we can pull ourselves back up.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah. Yeah, Like I wholeheartedly believe that every every shitty, shitty,
shitty thing we go through. I don't know, well that's
true for me, every shitty thing I've gone through has
given rise to the things. Everything that I love, that
I do, that I love is a result of that,
either directly or indirectly. Like even the power of using
(29:31):
my voice. I was terrified of speaking, but to have
a podcast and use my voice and to do speaking
that like, make no mistake, that is that because I
remember I spent years in the print industry, design and print,
and I started networking against my will, against my You're
(29:53):
so good at it. Oh, I was fucking terrified to
stand up, and for sixty seconds I had to introduce
myself and say I self like a business cards and
logos like it was terrifying. I couldn't even remember what
I was gonna say. But I thought I fell into that.
I was always like I just got I got that
job at it, Like I left year eleven and I
(30:15):
fell into that industry and that's where I stayed. But
people when I left that and become a pete, everyone
was like, you loved your job. I was like, really
love it? I just I just know what I'm just
But at some point I realized this connection with branding
and visual communication, giving you a voice when you don't
have a voice. I looked at how I used to
(30:38):
used to have fucking pink hair when I was younger,
like pink hair bolded. I was shy as fuck. It
was likely that was such a front. And I remember
some one time when I went from this pink hair
to brown hair and just felt and remember going, I
just feel like I don't not that I ever felt
like I needed it because I didn't attached to the story,
but going, oh, I just don't like I need that anymore,
(31:01):
because you know, so having a voice and doing podcasting
and yeah, everything I do has an element of adapting
and overcoming. And sometimes I've found myself wanting to not
feel the nerves or not feel the anxiety before the thing,
And then I'm like, yeah, and if you don't, you're
not gonna want to, buddy, do it. Let you choose
(31:22):
this all the time.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
And also, isn't that part of just your body's way
of telling you it still matters to you? You know,
Like that's I you know, I think you know I'm
genuinely I'm doing a training tomorrow, which when I were
talking about before we started recording, and the issue I've
always had and why I find conversations like this so
easy is because I am such an open book and
(31:46):
I know that not everyone's like that. So I've got
in trouble in the past doing corporate trainings where i'm
people have said you should have used a trigger warning.
So I've chosen tomorrow to start my training with visual
science says trigger warning with a big crossout, and the
next slide says truth welcomed, So and trust welcomed. And
(32:10):
what I want the audience to know is that they
can trust me, that they want to know my story,
that can buy my book and read the whole thing,
but they need to trust that I am trained enough
and self aware enough to give them the parts of
my story that I feel will serve them. And I
can't curate myself as a human being anymore. I spent
(32:32):
too long doing that. So I'm just starting the training
straight off the bat to say I am very honest
and I will go very deep about my own failings
as a human being. And that's not necessarily what people
are used to in the corporate arena, but that's who
I am, and that's the kind of businesses I want
to work with. So trust welcomed instead of trigger warning,
(32:56):
which just takes us into a negative space.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
To begin with, There is like there's two signs to
that idea of trigger warning, and a lot of companies
and people are still doing it. But on the other side,
it holds a really negative connotation. It says shush, it
says don't upset people, let them keep it stuff down.
The whole point is you can't keep it stuff down forever.
(33:19):
I fucking tried. I'm swearing a lot on this show.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
I'm glad to feel constable. But you know what, the
other thing is that can we how can we ever
not trigger people? Like the truth is that I can
write content for a training or a speech and talk
about being a mother, and there could be someone in
the audience who's got fertility issues. I could talk about
my husband and someone's just gone through a divorce. I
could talk about my brother and someone's lost a sibling.
(33:45):
I could talk about, you know, going on a holiday
and someone's about to go bankrupt. Like you don't. You
cannot curate yourself so much that you are concerned about
how you'll trigger people, because the truth is we're all
triggering each other all the time.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah, yeah, And what triggers you one moment doesn't triger
you in another doesn't.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Absolutely And you know, for me, the fertility is a
huge one, like when we had four miscarriages between our kids,
and every time I saw someone pregnant, I would get
a visceral response and it would just spiral me back
into a failure, I'm not good enough and all the stuff.
(34:27):
So you know that that's and that's not there now
because I'm on the other side of that journey. So
I guess you're right, like what and where you're just
vulnerable in one moment, you may not be the next. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
The thing is when you once you crack the door open,
once the door is cracked open, you can't close it again.
You can't close it. Like I remember saying, it's like
deciding to clean out your sock draw getting halfway through
and gone, fuck, I don't have time for this. And
then it's, oh, all the socks don't fit back in
there anymore. They don't fit back You can't just put
(35:05):
them back in. And it's a bit like that. You go, oh,
curious discovered something, look into that.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Oh that's it.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
There's a bit of me that I've just learned about.
And then you can't unlearn that, And it's and it's tough,
but it's but it's beautiful and it takes work, and
but there's there's so much to be gained, Like we
have to like out, the door will open for us
when it's ready. So if someone's triggered, you're ready, it's time.
It was it wasn't you, it was just time. It
(35:34):
wasn't cath Sins standing at the front of a of
a presentation. It was the world going, this is the
moment where you need to you need to start looking
in wood and fixing.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
And you know, I'm hearing stories like that every week,
like and and as I said earlier, the one where
the woman stole the book from the doctor's surgery, I
had invited her to my book launch and if she
was just flat no, and I never questioned that, And
I was very aware that there'd be a lot of
people who would just not be ready or interested in
hearing this story. But I think that slightly a jarred
(36:11):
the door for her. And then she said the book
was just staring at her and she couldn't not take it,
and then she couldn't not read it once she started,
you know, and it's going to be a long road
for her. But equally as you said, she was ready.
She was ready to start that process, and a lot
of people, there's statistics that suggest that a lot of
(36:32):
the time we are remembering things as parents, we get
mirrored by our own children. So that just makes it
even more complicated because then you're trying to manage, you know,
all the layers of who you are and how your
parent and that just becomes even more complicated. So it's
it is a shit show. I don't even know that
(36:54):
there's another word for it. But I'm all up for
you know what, do what makes you feel good, and
give yourself the space to do it. You know, like
I let my ten year old son have a mental
health day at this term. My husband thought I was crazy,
and I'm like, it lasted three hours in front of
(37:15):
the TV and he was bored shitless, So he won't
ask for another one. But I also want to know
that he's got there's permission there for him to say,
you know, I just need a break from the world,
and we all do.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Yeah. Yeah, it's so like theory, the theory, the stuff
we say, the quotes we read, the little bloody sayings
that we just throw out there. They're one thing and
then we tend You're right, we tend to.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Do like choking, getting some more emotion out. I'm stuck.
You need that pillow on one?
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Here you go. Where's that pillow that I had to
scream into?
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Give me a pit. I'm gonna stay screaming and punching
and no. Look, you know, and this obviously like it's
very much something is coming up and stuck because I
don't know what it is because I talk all the time,
but these conversations always unlock something. And you know, I
feel like it's just you've got to trust in your
(38:20):
body and trust in the moment. And if you don't
want to scream into a pillow, don't scream into a pillow.
But also notice that there's resistance to that.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Yeah, yeah, that's like I reckon as superpower and I'm
way too curious now. But curiosity is I mean, that
is the superpower. It's like, learners to go to curiosity
rather than judgment is everything. And it's hard. It's bloody
(38:50):
hard because judgment protects us so easy to go to
just make Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
I've I've created this pray work and it's about shifting
the narrative. So you know what I believe is that
we're impacted by three types of story. Our inner story,
so the beliefs, and the programming that we've got our
conveyed self, which is often curated. So the gap between
(39:17):
our internal story and an external expression is often where
the work has to be done. And then there's the
cultural story, so the media and what the laws are
telling us, and what our workplaces tell us, and what
our families tell us. And you know, so once we
start to align those three, or at least align the
(39:38):
first two, then we can start pushing back on what
things we want to change. And so that's you know
that if we realize that we're not in a fit
for a workplace, we can see that. Once we're clear
on who we are and how we want to kind
of express ourselves in the world, we know whether that
we're in the right place or not. We know whether
we're with the rights, you know, psychologist or therapist. If
(40:01):
it feels aligned, yes, it's uncomfortable, but there's still in
an alignment there. So I just get really curious about
hearing a story within myself and not taking it as
gospel and questioning, you know, is that true? Like is
this necessarily like my husband's left the towel on the ground,
(40:22):
and I think, what a freaking asshole. He hates me
and he wants me to do everything. Is that really true?
Or was he just running late for work? And you know,
so it's like, and I'm not joking, that was something
I navigated for years of he expects me to do
it all and it was like, no, he just doesn't
(40:42):
care if the towel's hung up or not. And I
had to then say to him, it really matters to
me that it's hung up, and he's like, Okay, I'll
hang it up. But it's like, so I was having
this whole internal dialogue with myself for years about what
that meant. And I think we all do that in relationships,
in workplaces, with friends, and you know, we solve a
(41:03):
lot of problems that aren't really happening.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Oh, we so do. I recently had had a conversation
with someone where like that exact thing was happening on
both sides and we had a chat. And the shift
in me and my perception and my everything after that
after that conversation that I should have raised a long
(41:29):
time ago. But I'm a big baby, and confrontation is scary.
But you know, I observed it happening for so long
from both sides of going is is it me or them?
Is it me or them? Is it me or them?
But still, even when you're observing it, when I was like,
it was still allowing that the effects of not addressing
(41:50):
small things or just not saying them or hearing what
I needed to hear to play out. It's amazing. It
is amazing how everything shift. I feel like two different
people now.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Yeah, wow, crazy congratulation. It is crazy. And look, even
writing the book was a bit that for me. Where
I was writing, I did some work in the mining
sector and when before I had kids, I was working
on the mines and it was pretty crazy, like, you know,
do what you're scared of, they say, So go to
(42:24):
the most male dominated blow key place in Australia up
in Karratha. And you know, one day I went for
a run and a car load of men followed me
and so I had to run into a stranger's house
and hide. And the response when I came back the
men that I worked with were beautiful, all the consultants
that I worked with, and the response from them was, oh,
(42:47):
you can't run here. That's not safe. So if you need,
if you want to run, just take one of us
with you next time. And it wasn't until I was
writing the book and talking about these past triggers that
I looked at that scenario and went, oh, my god, no,
Like if that was a friend or you know, my daughter,
there is no way that I would say that's okay.
(43:07):
But at the time, the culture fed back that this
is just acceptable. You know the pub one pub there
has skimpy barman girls behind there, like that's what the
culture is. And so I thought, if I'm going to
be here, I just have to suck it up, and
I'm choosing to be here. But the truth is there's
women who want to be in those industries who shouldn't
(43:29):
have to suck it up. And you know, so that's
where the framework's kind of been developed from writing the book,
is that you know, we need to start changing the
statistics around abuse, We need to start changing the statistics
around harassment, and we can't do that unless individuals start
to face their own inner narratives first. That's the first
step for all of us.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
What's the most important thing or things that you shift
or aim to shift with the work you currently do.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
It's I think the greatest gift as a facilitator or
a speaker or a coach is that if you plant
the seed with an individual that they have the capacity
to create space between thought and action. Then I think
that is one of the greatest gifts that you can
give someone. Yeah, because once we know that there's we
(44:24):
have a choice in how we respond, then everything changes.
And that's you know, when I stopped just accepting that
I felt depressed, and when I stopped berating myself and
feeling shame for someone else's actions, when I stopped, you know,
thinking that I was damaged goods and chose to rise
(44:46):
above it, Like, everything changed when I had to just
unravel those stories one after the other. And I'm sure
there's still stories there, but you know, for me now,
I'm just that alignment of in a dialogue and my
outer expression like is so small. And that's why I
can't apologize for being as honest as I am, because
(45:08):
I actually have no other way of being now. That
is who I am. I don't do it because I
need therapy from stage. I don't do it because I
need anything from anybody. I just do it because my
heart and soul demands that I am living my truth
now because for so long I didn't.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
How did you become How would you become aware of
beliefs or things that needed to shift as you went
through and did the work and evolved.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
I remember once doing a training and I read the
Buddhist Gates of Communication, and there's simple questions of asking yourself,
you know, is what I'm thinking true, is what i'm
thinking necessary? And is what I'm thinking kind? And I
would often just ask myself one or all of the
questions after having a thought, and pretty much ninety eight
(46:04):
percent of the time it wasn't necessary, like if it
was something berating myself or judging another, or you know,
it wasn't kind. And the reality is I didn't know
if it was true or not. We just perceive the
world as you know, we are, not as it is,
and you know, we can I'm sure we've all had
that situation when we've picked up a book and read
(46:26):
it a second time and just it feels like a
different book, or watched a different movie, or you know
that where we're at today is the reflection that we're
getting back from the world. So it's you know, for me,
life feels it just feels easier because I'm not carrying
the baggage that I've carried. And do I still get triggered? Yes?
(46:48):
Do I know how to manage those triggers? Yes? And
I give myself the space to do that, and I
don't judge myself for it anymore.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
And how liberating is it when you realize when you've
changed enough to be able to reflect on something and
realize that you used to think a different way. How
liberating because then I lean on that if I ever
think of, like if I even find myself wondering or
worrying or being you know, not accepted or not taken
(47:16):
the right way or any of that, it's just like,
like it matters, like I changed my mind. I used
to think this, and now I think that. Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
And that's the gift of aging, isn't it that you also?
And I think my grandfather used to say that we
were born the wrong way around, and we should be
born old and then get younger because we would just
appreciate our youth and then have the wisdom to really
appreciate it. And I mean he had a debilitating degenerative disease,
so for him. You know that was kind of, I guess,
(47:50):
the ultimate fantasy. But I do, like I think now
I look at my daughter and you know, in her
very fit self, and thing, gosh, I wish I appreciate
those days, you know that, all the five k's of
swimming each morning and the strength that gave me and
(48:10):
the power I had. But you know, I'm also grateful
I did it all and then that's all still part
of who I am now.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
Yeah, I tell you what. That's one thing that I'm
great at is being really grateful for what I have
at present. I always say it about where I live,
like I live in Ellwood and I love. I love
the trees, I love the canal I love, and I
walk around and I go I live here and I
chose it. And if I didn't live here, i'd drive
through here and be like, oh, what a beautiful place.
(48:40):
But I'm not going to stop saying what a beautiful place,
just because it's my place every day. And I do
that with a lot of things.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
I do it with you know.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
I try and remain so aware because one day, one
day I won't be able to lift the heavyweight. So
I can lift today or run I'm not running at
the moment. I've already gotten that day. But hopefully that's
just a bit of mid forty chaos. But you know,
like you never know, you never know, and so I
just want to make sure that you know those five
(49:10):
top regrets to the dying that I'm not lifting listing
off all five. I'm sure I won't, you know, I
won't land there and not have one or two that
I've not fully ticked the box with.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
But yeah, but isn't isn't that what dogs are so
beautiful for? Like bringing e fake to the moment. And
we've got a Kalpi Border Collie lab cross and she's
ten months old. She's so cute and she is just
a ball of love and she just reminds me every
moment what curiosity really looks like and what gratitude really
(49:42):
looks like. And you know, my son's a bit like that.
Like every day we have Rosala's and you know, king
parrots come and he feeds them, and every day is
just as excited about feeding them as the day before,
you know, And I think that's that's a good moment
to see that.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
I walked through this and killed the gardens. The other
day and there was this this not a young kid,
but an older kid, sitting with a pack like a
thing of bird seed or something covered in pigeons. Gross
fucking gross. It was like, oh God, really, that's my
(50:21):
dear Hell yeah, Like he had had a big hat
on and they were on his shoulders, they are on
his head, they were all around him. But I just
looked and I just felt so much joy because I'm like, Okay,
I don't want to be under all that bird shit
and glowsy, bloody pigeons. But this kid's sitting in the park,
suns shining, and he's covered in these beautiful, beautiful birds.
(50:44):
This inverted Commas but no bloody London.
Speaker 1 (50:49):
But he's having a moment and you got to see it. Like,
I mean, that's why we're all drawn, I think to
you know, puppies and smiley babies, and because they're just
so present and you know that, and we get distracted
by life and forget to.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
Be and yeah, that's I think. That's why that stuff
stands out to me now because I used to be
the rush at or the judge at, or you know,
like I have to have something to say, or I
remember years ago somebody connected with somebody over whippets, because
whippets are the best dog in the world and I've
(51:25):
had a couple of them now and someone it introduced
me to someone from the dog park and they said, oh, yeah,
you're You're the girl that's always in a hurry. And
I've never forgotten that. So I used to walk my
dog around the perimeter of the dog park and I
would be at pace because I'm like, let's skip, like,
let's go. Then I'm on to yep. I'd be busy,
(51:47):
I'd be busy in my head and i'd be on
a mission, and i just hit me in the heart.
I'm like, you, strangers see you and recognize you as
the girl that's always in a.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
Rush your identity. But also, to go back to your
point earlier, you were ready to hear that like that.
That may have been said to you ten times before that,
but you were ready, and that's why it hurt. And
that's why I penetrated, you know.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
And now it's my anchor, it's my reminder. I always
think that pops into my head because I recognize these
moments where I'm not doing that, and I'm fucking proud.
I'm like, oh, go me, I'm happy for the kid
with the pigeon shit all overly, right, And you know,
(52:35):
like that's.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
Like when I think about like people say to me
because it's so brave, you know, like and the same
with you getting up on stage talking about your trauma,
like writing a book, and but I don't. I don't
feel like that is as brave as getting out of
bed when you're really heavy with depression or choosing, you know,
(52:57):
getting your kids to school when you're just don't know
how you're gonna, you know, get out of the house
and calling someone and telling them that you're really struggling,
Like those things are brave, and I think as a
society we just overlook those things so much. And that's
why I put those moments in the book. And a
lot of people that know me now are like, god,
(53:18):
I can't even calibrate you and look, and I can't either.
It's a bit like you know when you look at
an ex boyfriend and go, what was I thinking? Like
I feel a bit like that of some of the
phases of my life where I was like, oh God,
how was I ever? Like? How was how was I
not happy?
Speaker 2 (53:35):
Like?
Speaker 1 (53:35):
How was I not grateful? But the truth is, I
just had too much seaweed weighing me down and I
just had to crawl out. So you know, there is
no shortcut to getting to a place of joy and happiness.
And I just pray that everyone gets through those really
hard days enough and finds the courage in those days
(53:56):
to get through and ask for help if they need it,
and to get the book, whatever book, whatever podcast, whatever friend,
whatever it is that in that moment will just flip
the switch and shift that narrative that's taking them under.
Then I you know, I just pray that that's when
carriage shows up.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
What a great time to let everybody know where they
get your book and connect with you online and anything
else that you want to share with this in promote.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
So my book's on Amazon and book Topia and it's
on Apple. They can listen to me if my voice
hasn't driven you crazy after this hour, I did narrate
my own book, and so it's on Spotify and Apple Books,
and yeah, you can get it on Kindle version. My
(54:47):
website is bespeak dot com dot au and so all
of my handles are there, but I'm on Instagram and
all the places, So katsih come and find me. I'd
love to act.
Speaker 2 (55:01):
You're amazing. Thanks for everything you're doing. Thanks everyone for
tuning in. Go check her out, Go buy the book,
Go do all the things, and we will see you
next time.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
See lovely, she said, it's now never. I got fighting
in my blood, got it, got it,
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