Amber Rules

Episode Transcript
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Clinton Schultz (00:00):
Welcome back.

(00:00):
So Sobah Life listeners, thankyou for joining us once again,

(00:01):
for those that have been with usalong this journey, for those
who have come along for thefirst time, I really hope you
enjoy the conversation that wehave today. We're very fortunate
today to be joined by AmberRules. And Amber is a
psychotherapist and counsellor,and the founder of a deadly
organisation, based down inSydney called Rough Patch. But

(00:23):
I'm gonna let her talk aboutthat, as we have our yarn today.
And as you all know, these podsare really about giving our
guests the opportunities to yarnabout their journey in their own
way. And hopefully everybody cantake something away from that.
So with that said, I'm going tohand over to Amber, who I think
has the coolest name out ofanybody that I've seen on this

(00:44):
pod, so far, Amber Rules.

Amber Rules (00:49):
Thanks, Clinton.
Thanks for having me.

Absolute pleasure.

So I guess I mean, to tell you a bit about myself,
I like you said, I'm apsychotherapist and clinical
counsellor. I've been a drug andalcohol treatment specialist for
about a decade. And I sort ofcame up in rehabs and places
like that. So, you know, I haveactually been a fan of Sobah for

(01:15):
a long time. I love what youguys are doing. Yeah. But yeah,
so I sort of I've been doingthis work for about 10 years.
And prior to that, I worked inthe entertainment industry,
mostly in music, film andtelevision. So I kind of got a
pretty good idea of what thosetypes of industries that are
quite full of drug and alcoholuse can be like in those non

(01:38):
traditional jobs, how tough theycan be, particularly if you
struggle with drug and alcoholuse. And a lot of my clients
now, you know, the last 10 yearsof being a therapist have been
people who work in entertainmentas either creatives or artists
or crew or whatever it might be.
And, you know, their storiesaround working these non
traditional jobs and how thatimpacts their recoveries always

(01:59):
really interesting and such atricky position to me. And I
think when your job is soinfluenced by, you know, the
sex, drugs and rock'n'roll kind

I mean, that's the reason that most people get
of thing.
into the industry in the firstplace. I'm led to believe.

Exactly. I think also, like, for me, it was why I
got out of it as well, you know,because I couldn't, I couldn't.
I couldn't do that work. Youknow, I mean, there's lots of
other reasons, too. But Icouldn't do that work, while
also looking after myself in theway that I had decided I needed
to and wanted to. So yeah, thatwas a, that was a curious part
of my journey. I actually met mypartner who's now my husband,

(02:43):
about 14 years ago, when I wasconsidering the transition. And
he said to me, you know, youdrink a lot, right? And I was
like, Huh. And he said, Well,you drink like three or four gin
and tonics every night. And Iwas like, That's just normal.
Because I grew up in a familywhere you know, and my parents
have both given me permission totalk about this stuff. Um, I
grew up in a family wheredrinking was super normal. Both

(03:06):
my parents are addicts. And itwas a violent household as well.
So I was just really used todrinking that much. It was my
partner who grew up in an ultrareligious family. He's not
really just himself, but sent tome. Yeah, it's kind of a lot. It
worries me. And it was the firsttime I'd ever actually thought,
oh, I realise that not everyonedrinks this much every day. That

(03:29):
was actually really thecatalyst. And you know, we
literally just met a few weeksbefore, and through a series of
kind of fortunate andunfortunate events ended up
weaving together quite quickly,like much more quickly than you
would normally move in withsomeone. And so he saw what it
was like for me every day muchmore quickly than you would in a
new relationship. And so ofcourse, I thought he was

(03:49):
wonderful. And I was like, Well,I better clean myself up then.
And so that kind of slowly beganmy process, or at least was a
catalyst in my process ofsignificantly reducing my own
drug and alcohol use and kind ofbeginning to conceptualise that
I might like to change careersand I might need to change
careers in order to look aftermyself and my relationships

You raised a good point, that unfortunately
for my- definitely for mygeneration- and it sounds very
much as if it was the same whenyou were growing up that the
normalisation of alcohol wasjust what it was, it wasn't
something that you thought aboutit wasn't something that- I
guess, processed, you're evenpaying attention to.

Yeah.

We all know we pick up everything that we
actually observe, that we feel,that we hear when we're young
people, and quickly some ofthose habits can become
normalised and they can becomevery unhealthy habits later on
in our in our life that was verymuch a part of of my lived
journey, and I dare say most ofthe guests that I have had on

(04:55):
this pod so far. Would youagree?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, I think funny too, I
think a lot of psychologists andtherapists have, you know, have
their own lived experience thatneeds to be part of why we, we
go in to do the work, right?
Because you were trying tofigure our own stuff out.

I'm very open with people that I am a great
drug and alcohol counsellor,because I've been there, been
through, lived through, barelyat times.

Yeah

And I'm just very fortunate that I've found
the support at the right time.
And I have found my own reasonto come out the other end of
that, not everybody's so lucky.

Absolutely, yeah...
And, you know, like... I think,growing up in the household I
grew up in, in my parentsdefence, although a lot of the
sort of things that they thechoices they made, and the
things they did wereinexcusable. In their defence,
they had their own experienceswith trauma and abuse, and, you
know, violence and pain, and youknow, all those types of things

(05:54):
that led them to behave the waythey did, and led them to cope
with, you know, the intensity oftheir experiences with drugs and
alcohol as well. And it's, it'sbeen, you know, really
fascinating part of both mycareer, but also just my
personal journey is like,walking the line between
understanding with compassionthat they did the best they

(06:16):
could, but also that it reallywasn't good enough. And that has
had a really big impact on meand the decision that I have
made over time. And I supposethat you make day in and day out
in a lot of ways to not do thatto myself, or to children that I
might have in the future, or tomy relationships, or my
siblings, or, you know, whateverit might be, it's a really

(06:36):
tricky journey to walk to kindof, you know, feel that the
weight of the bad choices thatyour parents made, and the pain
that it caused you. But alsounderstand that they're humans
doing their best as well. Andyeah, sometimes they didn't do
their best either, you know. Butthat's, that's tricky stuff. And
I think you're right, that thereare lots of people who just, I
think it's just luck of the drawsometimes that just don't get

(06:59):
the opportunity to make it out,which that never escapes me how
fortunate I have been, whilealso acknowledging that I've had
some really awful experiences aswell.

Yeah. And, and it talks to the fact that we
never know somebody else'sjourney, either. You know,
people can tell us stories, wecan hear stories, but we haven't
had the experience. Evensometimes, when I'm working with
people who I would feel have hadquite privileged lives who
present with pretty heavysubstance abuse issues, you

(07:31):
know, my first reaction is to,is to kind of frame it in a
'what the fuck are you whingingabout?' type compassion. But I
have to drag myself back and go,'well, I haven't had their
experience, maybe if I'd hadtheir privilege, and I'd lost
that in some shape or form, I'dbe pretty fucked up.'

Yeah, yeah.
Absolutely... it's aninteresting challenge. And like
my sort of, I mean, withoutboring your listeners with my
therapeutic approach.
Therapeutic framework is reallylike a compassion based one. And
I think what people don'tunderstand particularly
clinicians don't understandabout compassion based approach
is that it takes anextraordinary amount of

(08:08):
unlearning the shit that welearn in our culture,

About what we learn in university...

Unknown (08:14):
At university! Exactly! And I'll also say like, in
colonial learning spaces, right,like, where it's only like,
European colonial ideas, and noother cultures. But, you know,
the idea that, like, uh, youknow, well, 'you've had it worse
than me. So therefore, you'vegot the right to complain,' I've

(08:36):
had to unlearn a lot of thatstuff. And also, to honour your
own experience. And to say,like, like I said, before - my
parents that had their reasons,but also that was deeply
painful. But really, from theoutside, I'm a deeply privileged
person, you know, it doesn'tmean that my pain is any less or
any less valid, or any of that,that's really tricky as a

(08:58):
therapist to learn how to dothat stuff. And just as a
person, you know, so you're notconstantly either undermining
yourself or undermining otherpeople. That's really hard.

It's definitely hard. And it's something that I
think most people who go intothe well being sector, whatever
profession they're coming in,from, I'm not a fan of labels,
to be honest, I think people gettoo caught up in the, in the
protectionism of their label,then actually doing the work
that we all want to do. Andthat's help other human beings
when we come into this space.
But a lot of people who comeinto this sector, like you said,

(09:31):
come into it, because they gottheir own shit that they think
going and doing some study isgoing to help them figure out
for themselves and then that mayhelp them help other people. And
sometimes that journey can takelonger than you expect. So, you
know, I went to university andthat's what I did. You know, I'd
had a whole bunch of fucked upexperiences when I was younger.

(09:52):
I abused drugs and alcohol forfucking long time after that. I
worked as a chef for frickenfull time for a dozen years like
there's not a more abusive,emotionally physically,
psychologically, substance-wiseabusive profession. I think they
could be in particularly 20-30years ago when I was when I was

(10:14):
in it. So I really went into itthinking, Yeah, this is going to
give me an opportunity to seewhy I'm to figure out why I'm so
fucked up. And it wasn't till Icame through that other side
that I figured out that allthose shitty life lived
experiences could be transformedand used in a positive way to
potentially and hopefully helpothers.

Yeah, it's interesting, too, I think like,
again, going back to that ideaof the sort of the labels and
colonialism that's part of, youknow, mental health care, in
Australia or in the Westernworld, is like that idea that,
you know, you will reach a pointwhere you will know enough to be
a like, quote, unquote, goodtherapist. And the longer that

(11:01):
I'm a therapist, the more Irealise what a ridiculous
concept that is, you know, thatactually, my job is a therapy,
of course, you need to have theprofessional sort of know how,
especially around something likecomplex mental health and
substance use, which isdangerous, you know, but aside
from all of that, you just needto be willing to be humble, and

(11:22):
to keep learning about who youare so that you can be present
with other people. And I thinkthat's a really great skill for
any human to have not just atherapist. Yeah, it's it's a
constant sort of humbling, atleast for me...

...we're no expert on anybody else's lives,
right?

Yeah...

...times I think people think they can be
or they are like, I'vedefinitely been in situations
where I've had other peoplepresent as if they are the
expert on my life, and myexperience and engagement didn't
go so fucking well.

Awful. I mean, and I even have reached the point
where I realise I'm not even anexpert on my own life. You know
what I mean, like, I amconstantly still discovering
stuff about myself, and I'm theheel that I will die on as a
therapist, is that if you aredoing therapy, you need to be in
therapy yourself. And I willfight to the death on my own

(12:12):
with anyone. But yeah, it's,it's, it's such a trip this
work, like I often say tocolleagues, like what are we
actually doing here? We're justtalking to people. Isn't that
magical and strange? It'samazing.

It's strange that an unfortunate byproduct of
the capitalist system that weare all stuck having to exist
under is that we often have tocharge people, you know, we're
having to commodify 'help'.

Yeah. Suffering...

Which, which is difficult at times when when you
want to come from a place ofcompassion, like you mentioned
before, which is in, you know,imperative to being able to do
this work in in a reallyproductive and positive way,
it's almost an oxymoron to knowthat you enter have to go
through the process of chargingother human beings to help.

Absolutely 100% agree. And that's exactly why I
started Rough Patch, because I,I mean, as far as I mean, for a
bit of history- like sort ofbackground Rough Patch is what
we call an affordablecounselling practice. So we run
on a social enterprise model,which basically means that any
profit we make - we don't makeany profit, but if we did - that

(13:22):
that would go back and be reinvested back into the business.
And as you probably know, a lotof social enterprises solve kind
of agricultural or industrialproblems. They're not
necessarily like, you know,human based kind of stuff. So
most places who do free oraffordable counselling in
Australia are charities and veryoften they face based charities,

(13:44):
you know, that are governmentfunded, and they give money to,
you know, church kind oforganisations. And so we we kind
of borrowed this model, thiswonderful Canadian social worker
called Kate- and had this greatidea that she wanted to create
an inclusive community ledcounselling practice, where the
counsellors would offer lowercost counselling on a sliding

(14:06):
scale. And the payoff for thecounsellors would be that they
would get really robust supportfrom the organisation, but would
still be able to work as privatepractitioners in their own small
business. And so a lot of youknow, people who don't work in
the mental health industry mightnot know that there's, you know,
there's the publicly fundedservices. And then there's the

(14:27):
private services, which isbasically you going out on your
own or, you know, with partnersmaking your own business, and
that is fraught with lots ofdifferent difficulties when
you're a therapist. First ofall, a lot of therapists aren't
very good business people,because that's just not our
skill set. Right. And second ofall, it's expensive to be a
therapist, and this is where oneof the sort of problems or pain

(14:50):
points is created is that peopledeserve in my opinion, have the
right as a human right to havepsychological support in the
same way they have physical sothoughts. So in my mind, going
to therapists should be the sameas going to the gym going to see
your GP, you know, that kind ofstuff. But unfortunately, like
you said, because it has to becommodified so that the people

(15:11):
who are offering the therapy canafford to be therapists, it,
that cost has to be passed on tothe client, unless you're
getting funding from somewhere.
So Kate's magical idea is wegive these therapists as much
care support, help themunderstand how to be a private
practitioner, have a communityof practice, where we can all
work together to support eachother. And then we offer our

(15:34):
counsellors very, very low costroom rentals. And so the, the
costs for them of being aprivate practitioner are
significantly lower, so they canthen pass that savings on to
their clients. And so they stillget paid about $5 more than they
would on average than if theyworked in a government funded or
charity service. And they alsoget this added benefit of being

(15:56):
able to work for themselves feelempowered, have have a sense of
agency be able to learn, and,and kind of grow as a therapist.
And then the idea is they wouldstep out into their own private
practice, if that's what theywanted to do and be really
successful. Because they've hadthe support early in their
career, or not necessarily earlyin their career, but I suppose

(16:17):
early in their private practicecareer

with that comes the added burden of having to
figure out your own tax with.

Yes, that's right.
When we're not very good at anyof that, are we? I just maths,
I'm bad at math. Sometimes Idial it wrong phone number.
Numbers,

the amount of stats courses I had to do at
uni, and I'm like, I can'tfigure out my tax after that.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the joy of being a
psychotherapist is I didn't haveto do statistics, something
which I? I mean, I probablywould have done me good. But I
don't know if I'd have passed,to be honest (laughs)

I think it would have done you any good in
the wonderful work that you'reactually doing.

Yeah. Yeah, they're very different things really,
aren't they? You know, that,which is why I'm really proud to
call myself a counsellor. And,and I think, you know, going
back to that idea before aboutlabels, and the way we view
ourselves, I suppose as, aspractitioners, there's a you
probably know, there's a bit ofa pecking order in the mental
health world, and counsellorstend to kind of fall towards the
bottom, which is a real shame.
So one of the things is that wecan't offer Medicare rebates,

(17:20):
and the government has nevergiven us a compelling reason why
they just, I don't know, theyjust don't seem interested in
it. And our professionalassociations have been lobbying
for years. I mean, I've been atherapist for nearly 11 years.
And they were saying, Oh, we'reso close, we're so close when I
graduated 10 years ago. So Idon't know what to make of all
of that. But that's part of whyrough patch is really special,

(17:41):
to me, at least, is that we'resupporting counsellors, and
we're really clear and open thatwe're a space for counsellors,
and we do have a psychologistand a social worker who work
here, but they, they very muchkind of onboard with our mission
and understanding around, youknow, counselling as equally
valuable as the otherdisciplines.

So going back to when you're still working in
the TV sort of space. What wassome of the greatest challenges
that you experienced, or thatyou've seen others experience in
terms of managing well beingworking in that space?

Well, I mean, the big thing is the way in which
the work happens, so. So ifyou're working film and
television film, especially, Ithink even more intense than
television, sometimestelevision, yeah, there's a bit
of a rhythm to it. But if you'reif you work on films, you might
have three months of a job whereyou're working 10 plus hour

(18:40):
days. And if you're like on setcrew, sometimes that can be
12-14-16 hour days, particularlyif you have to travel to get
there and that kind of stuff.
And then you might have three orfour months of no job at all. So
you know that there's lots ofFirst of all, you completely
tired burnt out, you know, afterdoing that much hard work. And
then all of a sudden, you're ifyou're at a loose end for two or

(19:03):
three months, while you'rewaiting for the next job to
start. So that's really trickyfor people. And when people are
working that hard, obviouslythey need to have coping
strategies. And so not everyonebut some people's coping
strategy is to use drugs andalcohol and certainly some
people's strategy to manageboredom and time to themselves
is drugs and alcohol as well.

They've they've tried to make some inroads in
some of those spaces. You know,like, for instance, you're not
supposed to have real alcohol onsets anymore. You know, if
there's a beer in a scene, it'ssupposed to be a non-alc beer,
if it's supposed to be a rum andcoke then it's just a coke
that's sort of been watered downso it has the same appearance,
etc, etc. But I know for a factthat there's there's many people

(19:48):
who want those rules. Yeah. Andso there is still issues with
with drugs and alcohol beingaround the sets and around the
job as such.

And that's especially The Case for music,
which was, you know, the most ofmy work was actually in music,
not film and television. And soyou know, musics a whole
different beast, right? First ofall, it's at a pub or a bar or a
venue that's selling alcohol.
Second of all, it's, you know,99.9% of the time, it's at
night. And so you're waking up,maybe 11-12-1-2 in the

(20:21):
afternoon, having these reallywild hours, if you're on tour,
you know, life is completely.
What's the word I'm looking for?
It's a fantasy. Like it's notreal. When you're on tour, you
know, you're up until five inthe morning. And there's still
so much romanticising, that kindof way of life. And it's not

(20:46):
unless you're a really, reallybig artist.

And a wide expectation that you just will
be fucked up.

Yes, exactly. Yeah.
And if you if you're not areally, really big artist,
you're not touring all the time,either. And so, you know, some
people love touring, because ofall of that, because they get to
act up and be silly andmisbehave. And you know, that it
will get written off as 'Oh,well, that's just part of the
job.' You know, and there aresome...

What happens on tour stays on tour type
mentality.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And then there are some
people who dread it who hatetouring, because it's such a
disruption to their life, andthey know that it's going to be
exhausting, and they're going tobe pressured to do stuff they
don't necessarily want to do.
And, you know, it requires areal sense of understanding who
you are and what you're about tobe able to consistently look
after yourself. In a context.

(21:43):
That's so messy at times.

I think there's been much positive change? Like
we work with a couple of prettywell known bands. When they're
on tour, we supply them withSobah and they take it on tour
with them so that they've gotnon-alc beverages available to
them. And sometimes that'sbecause they openly admit
there's that pressure that theyshould have a beer in their hand
so they can pour Sobah in aglass, nobody fucking knows that

(22:06):
it's a non-alc. Others have justmade a decision that they don't
want to get fucked up everynight anymore, that they
actually want to enjoy theprocess of making music or being
a part of their art. And they'veforgotten a whole bunch of it,
because they've been too messedup to, to know what even
occurred. Yeah. Do you reckonthere's been some positive
movement?

I think there has an and, look, I think there's
always gonna be, well, let meput it this way. Maybe I'm
looking for it more these days.
And maybe the position that I'min means that I get to see it
more as well, right. But one ofthe conversations I often have
with creative clients is, andlike, you'll have to excuse my
bluntness here. What the fuckdoes drinking and drugs? And you

(22:49):
know, that whole lifestyle?
What's that got to do with theart that you make? Absolutely
fucking nothing. You know, like,and I think sometimes people...

...are unlikely to be making it better.

Certainly not. And I know there's people that would
argue with me about that.

I've done some drawings, when I've been pissed
off my face across the years andfuck me. They look like my five
year old could have done it.

(laughs) Do you know my supervisor, he's a
wonderful man, my clinicalsupervisor said to me once that
he - oh God, I hope it's okay totell this story! I'm sure it is.
He said to me, that once he, he,he was doing something he
shouldn't have been, and thoughtthat he'd had a really genius
idea and woke up the nextmorning, and he'd written, 'I'm

(23:33):
so high', or something likethat, in his diary. And I just
remember thinking that such theperfect distillation of like 'we
think we're geniuses when we'rein that state', or 'we think
we're really funny', or reallysexy or whatever. And then we
wake up and it's like, 'oh,that's actually not the case at
all'. So yeah, my challenge tocreatives is always to think

(23:53):
like, 'what does that got to dowith your art? And is it a
values led decision that you'remaking? Like, which is it that
you want?' And I think, youknow, a lot of people who start
out in those industries areyoung, when they start out, it's
hard to have a sense of who youare, when you're young, you're
still figuring it out. Andthat's okay. But also I just,

(24:14):
and this I think is probablybecause I'm now getting old that
I just tend to think now whywould you want to do that when
what you could do instead iscreate and do amazing artistic
stuff. Like I wouldn't want thatto be kind of salida or you
know, kind of made grovia bydrug and alcohol use but yeah,

(24:37):
that's just me. I know I soundlike an old child. I say that.

(laughs) But we've you know, we've also we've
been through the same process toget where we are now so yeah,
it's all well and good for us inyou know, hindsight to go 'fuck,
I would have been so better at aB or C if I'd stayed straight
and off the piss'. Yeah, weweren't in that headspace at
that time. So yeah, it's hard.
It's hard to understand theposition that many people are

(25:02):
in, in this generation. Like Ilook at young people today, and
a lot of the things that I thatI see young people complaining
about today, I struggle toconceive as an issue to some of
the things that that I'vewitnessed and experienced, and
I've seen others experience,etc, etc, across time, but it's
not my space. Yeah. I just haveto practice acceptance of their,

(25:24):
of their experience.

Yeah, you know, this is, this is why I love love
punk music so much, right, isthat the values and the ethic
that comes with punk, the punksort of, you know, scene and
culture, over time have alwaysbeen really fascinating to me.
So I don't just love the music.
I love the ethos. And I think Iwatched these great documentary

(25:50):
recently, I think it's justcalled punk. And it was all
about punk over time, and howreally passing the baton is one
of the most punk things you cando, you know, like, growing old
and seeing the new generation ofpeople come through and do
really cool stuff. And we aspeople who and I know, I'm not
old, old, but I'm certainly notyoung anymore. And like that, I

(26:14):
think that's a really bigchallenge for people as they
grow older, is to kind of gowell, I don't get it. But man, I
love your passion. Cool. How canI help you do that better. I
mean, that's, you know, reallyimportant. And something that
gives me certainly a lot ofsense of purpose in my life.
It's helping me therapists asthey come through, and, you

(26:34):
know, not really necessarilyunderstanding their position,
but being like, Yeah, cool.
Okay, how can we, how can weinnovate this together? I think
that's really exciting.

Really good point. You know, I think there's
a massive gain for thecounselling professions in not
getting so caught up in thescience side of it, and actually
getting back to understandingthis as an art form itself.

Absolutely

Being able to form a conversation, being able
to reshape a narrative, it's anart form. And it's a wonderful
thing to be a part of, but Idon't think it's a skill that
many people are afforded theopportunity to, to learn through
the training that is provided.

Yeah. And I think, again, this might be one of
those differences betweenpsychology training and
counselling training, is that,you know, and I think there's a
place for both, I thinkcounsellors are compelled to be
more evidence based, and to kindof read more research. And, you
know, I didn't even learn how todo research in my degree, I had
to figure that out later. Youknow, like, that's not a good

(27:34):
thing. But also, I've workedwith so many psychologists who
are so uptight about doingthings a certain way that it
completely drains them have thecapacity to be creative and
innovative, and just meet peoplewhere they're at, you know, and
not worry about, like, all the,you know, uptight sort of things
they should, should should bedoing. Now, that's important.
When you're starting out, whenyou've got your training wheels

(27:56):
on as a therapist, you've got tofollow the rules. But like, the
art part comes later. And that'swhen you get to kind of relax.
And that, to me is where thereal, like the absolute bliss of
doing my job is when I get tojust meet someone where they're
at and understand more abouttheir experience. i What an
incredible privilege that so fewpeople in the world actually get

(28:19):
to do that for a living, butalso even have the skills and
the capacity to do it in thefirst place. You know...

So have you seen in the work that youse are
doing there at present, hasthere been an increase or an
influx of people from the artscoming through due to the impact
of, of the pandemic over thelast few years, like I know how
tough it's been particularlywithin the music industry, film
and television kind of boomedyou like you can't even get a
warehouse here on the Gold Coastbecause film and television has

(28:47):
bought up every single frickinwarehouse. So their industry
seems to be going okay here butuse those have really fucking
suffered, you know, avenuesopen, you ain't performing. You
ain't getting to create youaren't getting to express
yourself. You don't have thoseoutlets as well as opportunity
for income.

Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. So we so because I've beendoing work with creatives, for
some time and kind of getting,you know, like, I don't know,
this might be the same to you.
But you know, once you kind ofwork with a cohort of people,
they start to tell each otherabout your work, right. So I

(29:25):
have for many years worked withcreatives. And when rough patch
opened, we suspected becausethis was the case in Canada, and
because it just makes sense thata lot of the people who would
come through here would bepeople who have either insecure
work, who are studying or whoare young people, you know, or
other marginalised kind ofcommunities. And so we expected

(29:46):
that that would be the case. Somost of our clients are kind of
under 35. Sort of eithercasually or part time employed.
Yeah, university students,creatives, that kind of stuff.
There's a wonderful organisationcalled Support Act, who are a
national kind of hotline. Imean, they do lots of different

(30:06):
things, but they have a hotlinefor people who work in the arts.
So they provide counselling,

My 'dhargun', my brother, they're from my mob,
Mitch Tambo is an ambassador fora post of the other day. So
yeah, big, big shout out toMitch.

They're an amazing organisation. And so I think, I
think you've hit the nail on thehead that for musicians, it's
been really difficult becauseall the venues are being closed.
And unfortunately, I think musickind of falls to the end of the
entertainment totem pole a lotof the time. Whereas since we
were all in lockdown, obviously,film and television is going to

(30:42):
be the kind of prioritiesbecause we can all watch TV.
Right? Yeah. So yeah, we do, wedo have lots of young creatives,
makeup, our client base, andthen, you know, it's just
expensive to live in Sydney.
It's particularly expensive tolive in Sydney. So but you know,
part of our mission is made likehad the two pillars of rough

(31:03):
patch, really our accessibilityand affordability. And we know
that both of those things aresubjective terms. But those are
those are the kind of lensesthat we run our decision making
through. And so yeah, one ofthose, we never expected, for
example, to be a zoomcounselling service, that was
never the the kind of plan. Butof course, we've had to do that.

(31:25):
And we've realised that that's,you know, significantly
increased accessibility.
Technically speaking, we can seeanyone across Australia if
they're willing to do somecounselling with us. So, you
know, that was a really cooldiscovery that came out of
COVID. For us. And I think oneof the conversations that often
gets missed around any type ofaccess is for people with

(31:48):
chronic illnesses anddisabilities. And, you know,
I've heard so many clients andfriends with chronic illnesses,
and even for myself, as someonewho lives with chronic illness,
that access of just being ableto do a phone call with a
doctor, instead of having tospend half your day getting
there. And I'm able bodied, youknow, I have chronic illness,
but I don't have a disabilityfor people with physical

(32:09):
disabilities, and might be awhole day sort of project,
getting to a GP appointment, orsomething like that. And so
that's been a really joyful partof this process for us, too. And
part of the innovation of roughpatch is wondering how we can
shake things up, how we cansurvive without Medicare
rebates, how we can offeraccessibility and affordability

(32:29):
in lots of different ways thatyou can't do when you're
government funded. Becausethere's so much red tape you
have to get through, or as askedif we have an idea in the
morning, and it seems like it'sgonna be a good fit, we can
implement it in the afternoon.
And I can't tell you how joyfuland relieving that is to someone
who worked in NGOs for a longtime, to be able to say, Yeah,
let's do that. That's a greatidea. It's amazing.

So what would you say are the most common
themes that are coming throughin the service... presently?

Well, it's really all of the normal stuff, except
intensified over the last kindof, you know, well, we've only
been open 18 months. But I thinkbecause of COVID, it's really
just intensified everyone'snormal experiences, day to day
experiences. And so what weoften get is people who would

(33:19):
maybe not normally see atherapist because they couldn't
afford to, or because it wasn'tquite bad enough, that kind of
stuff, saying, okay, maybe I doneed this support. So really, we
all have, we have 15 counsellorsat the moment, all of them have
different specialties. And theidea is, hopefully that we can
find a therapist, at least oneoption for anyone who came here.

Going back to some of your own journey. So
you're saying that you were athree drink a night person back
in the day before, before youdecided to put some changes in
place for your own wellbeing andand in terms of benefiting your
relationship? [Yeah.] How didyou go through that process?

(34:03):
What did you do? What worked?
What didn't work? What have youtried? What have you thrown out?
What have you kept?

Yeah, I mean, gosh, that's a big question. Because,
for me, I think for all of thethings that were difficult about
my childhood and upbringing, oneof the things that I was really
blessed to have was a mum whoreally believed in the power of
counselling. And so from a earlyage, I always had access to

(34:31):
counselling, and as support, butalso, it wasn't stigmatised for
me the way it was for a lot ofother people. So I have never
felt shame about seeing atherapist. And I have seen a
therapist for more years of mylife than I haven't, you know,
even when I was little. And so Ithink a huge part of my change

(34:52):
was being was knowing on a kindof cellular level that if I
wanted to make some change, Iwould be be able to find
somebody to support me with that

that notion of sames a funny thing, isn't it?
Like I often say to people, Iguarantee every time you go to
the barber or the hairdresser,you tell them your whole fucking
life story. feeling shame aboutthat. So I don't get what the
whole stigma and shame is abouttalking to a counsellor. Just if
maybe if I have a pair ofscissors in my hand, people will
feel more fucking comfortable.

You know what, it's not such a bad idea. And there
are there are, there aredefinitely kind of a well
certainly i've read researchthat has said, in particular,
teenagers do much better withopening up and talking about
what's going on to them whenthey're doing an activity. So,
you know, one of the old sort oftenets of being a young people's

(35:44):
therapist is you do therapy,shoulder to shoulder not face to
face. Which I think that's agreat tip just for parents
generally, as well. If you wantto talk to a teenager Don't
Don't look at him while you'redoing it, you know? But um,
yeah, I agree with you. It'ssuch a weird thing that our
culture does that makes therapyreally scary and some, some kind

(36:04):
of failure. And I thinkparticularly men are socialised
that way, right to be told thatyou supposed to be tough and
stoic and see this stuff out byyourself. And I think there's a
real vulnerability that'srequired in order to kind of
challenge that and its hard. Butyeah, I was really lucky that I,
for whatever reason, I'm yeah,I'm an open book. I'm pretty

(36:25):
shameless. I'll tell anyoneanything about me, you know. So
I think that has helped me aswell, you know, some people's
personalities, maybe just moresuited to it as well find it a
bit easier. But I kind of Ithink my change had been in the
works for a long time. That wasjust the kind of crystallising
moment with someone that I caredabout and, and could see a

(36:47):
future with saying to me, Idon't know if I'm into these if
this is how this continues. Andso I think it was, you know, I
for some time known that my lifewas getting a little bit out of
control. And I was never one ofthose drug or alcohol users
where i- There were certainlytimes where I was I did things

(37:08):
that were, you know, veryshameful and inappropriate, but
I never quite made it to thatpoint...

I still do those and I'm fucking sober.
So...

(laughs) well, yes, fair enough me too when you put
it like that. But yeah, I didn'tever reach like what we I don't
like the word addict, but Ithink it captures.

I think it's a trap, I think. [Yeah.] And it's
one of those label things that,[yeah], for some people, it
helps because it gives them thatlabel to base change on but
other people that can become atrap where they then become that
way. [Yeah], addict and they'vestruggled to get away from the
label.

Totally. Yeah, it's restricted... Absolutely. And I
think, you know, I, I'm not sortof disparaging 12 Step. But I
think the 12 Step culture hasgot a lot to do with that as
well. And you know, that's awhole other podcast, how I feel
about 12 Step, I think it'shugely supportive and helpful
for some people. And, you know,quite the opposite for others.

(38:10):
So I think that label thing,it's helpful until it's not
helpful. But you know, I kind ofwasn't, I hadn't gotten to that
point where I needed to stopaltogether. But I did need to
very seriously put the brakes onand really kind of pull up and
decide whether this is how Iwanted my life to be. And thank
God, I think I just had theintellectual capacity to put

(38:33):
together that if you've got twoparents who are well, three,
really, who were, you know,addicted and that you grew up in
a household where there wastrauma that it's very likely
that you can become addicted ifyou're not careful. And so, for
whatever reason, I mean, I guessan alcoholic might call it a
moment of clarity or religiousperson might call it a spiritual
awakening. For me, it was justlike, it just, I just

(38:56):
crystallised when this personthat I was falling in love with
said to me, yeah, man, you know,so I think I was really lucky.
It had been in the works for awhile. And like, that's when the
hard work started. Becausethat's when I realised my shit.
Now, I don't know what to doabout all of this now. So I had
to change career. I mean, mythis is kind of my, one of the

(39:20):
the both painful and funnystories of that time was that I
was working for a televisionproduction company, and who
mostly did like ads for TV andstuff like that, but had done
other stuff as well. And I gotfired three weeks into the job
and this job I'd done plenty oftimes before, like I could do

(39:40):
this job. And I just rememberthinking, fuck this! This is
just not for me anymore. And Ijust got fired by this woman who
is just completely clueless andnarcissistic. And I was just
like, I'm out. Forget this, youknow. So for me, I think a lot
of it was like just anger andfrustration and disappointment

(40:04):
that this, you know, thisindustry that I put time and so
much like blood sweat and tearsinto, I don't know, it just felt
really symbolic to me. And thatwas when this change started to
happen. Not long after that Iapplied to uni. So I thought,
well, if I'm going to do it, Imight as well do it now. And I
think I'm one of those peoplewho's really motivated by spite.

(40:29):
I'm gonna smash this.

I tell people all the time, I've got a fucking
PhD because I had a fuckingteacher who told me that by the
time I was 18, I'd be fuckingdead or in jail. I'm like, fuck
you, I gotta get a PhD. So yes,spite can be a good driver at
times.

Yeah. Oh, I agree.
I've always joked that if I evergot a PhD would be out of spite.
And that's all. Yeah, so Ithink, you know, that was part
of what, what helped me I thinkwas just my psychological
makeup, going to therapy, andfinding purpose in something
that wasn't sort of wrapped upin self loathing, which I think

(41:05):
a lot of the, you know, mylifestyle had been until that
point. And, you know, I waslucky enough to meet a person
who and funny my partner islike, people were really
surprised when we started datingbecause he was a mutual friend,
basically. But a mutual friendof a friend. And a lot of people
were really surprised when westarted going out because we
were pretty different. It justthe right time was right. And

(41:28):
I'm really lucky, I don'tbelieve in Disney shit, you
know, but I was really luckythat just the care that he
showed me, was enough to kickstart my own desire to want to
love and care for myself, which,you know, I'm extraordinarily
grateful for.

And there's probably nothing more healing
than self love. But it'ssomething that again, we in
Australian society, we arereally discouraged from doing
because people confuse it withbeing arrogant or cocky, or a
fucking whole bunch of otherthings. Rather than recognising
that if I if I can't accept andcherish and love myself, how the

(42:10):
fuck am I supposed to producethat positivity for anybody
else?

Unknown (42:13):
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think this is what
Western folks or who're Europeandescent and folks get wrong is a
lot of I mean, not all, but Ithink and, and why I think we
have in Australia, inparticular, so much to learn
from Aboriginal and TorresStrait Islander people, is
because community I think, forus, and culture for us is

(42:37):
sometimes non existent. And thatidea of, you know, like, caring
about yourself, in order to showthe people that you love and
your community that you careabout them is a concept. I think
that's kind of missing a bit.
For white folks, sometimes, youknow, that in caring for myself,
I care for the people around me,and my community. And, you know,

(42:58):
when I have self respect, I alsohave respect for the
environment, and you know, allof that stuff. I don't think we
do that terribly well,sometimes. So, yeah. Anyway,
side note, I suppose.

No, I'd agree.
I definitely think thatAustralia and many other places,
to be honest, have a lot thatthey can allow themselves to
learn from First Nationssocieties around the world.
Yeah, we've been working in thespace of wellbeing for a fucking
long time, we've learned a fewthings across that space. You
know, we've we've learned thatselfishness, greed, self

(43:34):
loathing, all these things justlead to damage to self, other
and place. Yeah, that's why oursystems are very much structured
around being best being the bestversion of yourself for other
and place. And I think there's alot of strength and power in
understanding that connectivity.

(43:57):
And it's not something that theWest really understands. It
doesn't really have a grasp. Itloves to use the fad term
connections. But I don't believeit's wrapped its head around
what it actually means and howyou actually practice being a
connected entity.

Absolutely. Yeah. I totally agree. And I think,
yeah, we're, we're shamed forbeing self involved in our
culture. But we also don't knowhow to care for yourself. It's a
really weird paradox. It's likewe're not allowed to look after

(44:35):
celebrate our achievements feellike we're an okay person at the
core of who we are. And yet,those are the things that we
need to survive and be a goodperson for other people and you
know, be healthy and happy andall that stuff. It's a weird
paradox.

self acceptance and self gratification has
become so externally based andmore so particularly with young
people you know, in theinfluence of social media. It's
so externally based that peoplehave completely lost track of
the fact that you have to startwith self. Yeah, if you're not
practising, not imparting loveto self with self, that you just

(45:14):
cannot generate that positiveenergy to be sharing around. And
as much as you know that there'ssomething missing, and so
therefore, you inherently golooking for it in other, you're
not going to get what you'relooking for. Yeah, so putting
out 1000 Fucking Insta posts andgetting 10,000 likes on them,
still doesn't give you the senseof self love that you're doing

(45:37):
that for?

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think too, like, so
I personally feel like, it'sreally easy for people to shit
on things like Instagram, as aas a way of self-expression or
whatever. And like anything, youknow, there's pros and cons to
it. But I think you know,anything we do in life, whether

(45:58):
it's posting to Instagram, orthe way we behave, or whatever,
you know, you can, you can havean Instagram account and have
lots of followers. And it canstill be not kind of not giving
you what you need it to. Or youcan do those things and have a
sense of, Well, this isn'treally that important, and just

(46:21):
a bit of fun, or this is how Imake my living or whatever it
might be. And the differenceisn't the thing externally that
you're doing. But the way youfeel about yourself and the self
esteem that you have in theprocess. You know what I mean?
It's so complicated. I thinkit's not something we really
learn how to do, certainly notformally, like they don't sit us
down in school and say, Hey,here's how to self esteem

(46:43):
yourself, which, which is and ofcourse, we learn or don't learn
that stuff by osmosis from ourparents. So it's like, it's
really tricky. And I thinkthat's what therapy does. I love
therapy. And I really seetherapy as, you know, self care.
And as important as physicalcare, because that's where we

(47:05):
learn that stuff in therapy,particularly in psychotherapy,
you know, like long termtherapeutic relationships can
really help us with that.

Yeah, no, I, I personally think that it's
another inherent problem that wehave with the society that we've
created is that we havedisconnected families. Yeah, we
don't have parents fulfillingthe roles of parents, we have
parents being forced into labourquickly as possible to meet the
capitalist regime. Yeah,therefore children and parents

(47:35):
not actually getting thatbeautiful, special time
together, where they get tobuild really strong bonds and
where you get to pass values,morals, ethics, etc. On to the
next generation, we haveindustry, supposedly doing that,
on our behalf it through prettymuch bit from day kids have
entered into childcare. Yeah,and they come to university,

(47:57):
there is the constant influencefrom systems and institutions
and the values they want toimpart rather than parents
having the opportunity and, andsystems valuing, yeah, time that
parents should have. And Icompletely understand I'm no
different, you know, I've had todo the same thing with all three
of my kids. And I can't blamethem now for being spoiled,

(48:20):
entitled, little brats, becausethat's what society has taught
them, they should value ratherthan the things that I want to
impart them, well, I should haveensured that I had more time to
impart those values into my kidsat the age where it needed to be
absorbed fucking prior to fiveyears old. So it was ingrained.
So it's all good for me to sithere and blame the system. But

(48:40):
I've been suckered into thatsame system as everybody else.
And I don't think we're aware ofthat a lot of the time, I don't
think we completely have got agrasp of how much we play into
the societal problems that weare now having to face in terms
of social emotional well beingdisturbance.

I agree. I mean, I think you know, any, I don't,
it's not something that Inecessarily advertise about my
theraputic stance, but I have adeeply anti capitalistic view of
the world. And my approach totherapy is being you know...

I'm gunna have the fucking AFP coming, knocking
on my door, promoting anticapitalism, which they'll
quickly shift into some fuckingnotion of fucking support and a
Red Army or some bullshit,because that's what they like to
do. But anyway...

I mean, I often joke with people, like I'm a
communist from the Inner West,you're just if you know Sydney
the Inner West is full ofLefties, you know, but But yeah,
I think this is a reallyimportant thing for people who
work with people to know thatyou don't have to. You don't

(49:47):
even necessarily know thatyou're a part of the system, you
know, but you have to understandthe way these systems oppress
people so that you canunderstand that it's not your
fault. You know, the fact

that absolutely agree because it helps to remove
that shame, yeah,

anyway, wait, maybe we should start a whole other
podcast about this Clinton(laughs)

Tell us a bit about what you guys are doing
down there in the organisationin rough patch, how it differs
from, I guess, the run of themill approach that many people
will have only had theopportunity to be exposed to or
to experience? Yes, what it isthat you really hoping to
achieve?

Well, I've really massive dreams for Rough Patch,
or the idea. As far as we know,we're the second organisation in
the world to be doing this, so,you know, Kate in Canada came up
with the idea, they're goinggreat guns there, they
unfortunately have had a hugeimpact from COVID in a way that

(50:48):
we didn't here in Australia. Sothey basically been on online
for two years. And a really bigpart of the model, which is one
of the innovative parts is thatwe also have the mental health
shop. And so the mental healthshop, I mean, talking about
capitalism, but the mentalhealth shop subsidises the
counselling practice. Sobasically, rather than getting

(51:11):
funding from the government, wehave this shop where people can
drop in. So it's first of allde-stigmatises. Because a retail
space is familiar for people.
And it's okay, or maybe moreokay for somebody to walk into a
building that has the wordmental health on the outside, if
they're buying a book, or ifthey're just having a chat to

(51:31):
someone who works in the shop.
So you can come into thebookshop, you can get
recommendations for resources,you can have a chat to a mental
health professional, you don'thave to make an appointment,
because it's a shop. And then alot of people have walked in and
said, Oh, you do counselling aswell, and then ended up coming
through the counselling service.
Because you know, the ease ofaccess, and they get to ask

(51:54):
questions, they don't have tomake that daunting phone call.
And for some people, I thinkmaybe they didn't even decide
they needed therapy. But thenthey saw the whole thing was
like, that's a good idea, which,you know, that feels really cool
and exciting to me.

Imagine when people you know, because at
Sobah, we're building a breweryat the moment. And as I said
earlier, we want to try andachieve many of the same things
that they've already managed toachieve. Imagine when they come
into a fucking brewery and theygo, Oh, my God, you've got a
brewery and you do counsellingas well. That's going to be some
interesting conversations.

Yeah. But isn't that cool? That's what I love
about Pough Patch. It's soexciting. Like, the idea to me
is like, I don't know, I just, Iguess it just has really spoken
to me, I'm so lucky that I cameacross it. The idea, I suppose.
And I know, we've also workedincredibly hard on it, as well.
And, you know, at great personalcost, in a lot of ways. But

(52:49):
yeah, I mean, the sky's thelimit, in terms of what I want
to do with rough patch, what Ilove to do, and what we've
already started to do is consultto other people who might want
to open their own version, wewould really like to expand,
that's our big challenge at themoment is, you know, having a

(53:09):
Sydney landlord is reallytricky. You know, it costs a lot
of money to be in the buildingthat we're in, it's not really
fit for purpose. But what we'dultimately love to do is have a
really long term lease or aheavily subsidised lease, where
we can double the amount ofcounselling rooms we've got,
we've got to at the moment, makethe shop really big, put it

(53:30):
social enterprise cafe in aswell. Have, you know, four
counselling rooms, have a nicebig group room that we can do
groups, have community stuffthere, a backyard, you know,
maybe have therapy, pet therapyanimals on site, like we want to
go big. But unfortunately, withsomething like Rough Patch,

(53:55):
unless we have a philanthropistwho really deeply believes in,
you know how important this is,or, you know, financial backers
who don't want to see, quote,unquote, return on their
investment, because we'll neverbe able to offer financial
return, we'll be able to offerreturns in terms of healthy

(54:15):
communities. And so if somebodysees that as a valuable use of
their money, then that'sbrilliant, you know. But yeah,
that's really what we want to bedoing. We want to go large,
that's the plan.

Sounds like a bloody good plan to me. What
would be the final piece ofadvice that you'd want to give
to anybody who's beenstruggling, is struggling to
find help that suits them andtheir journey in how to move
forward?

I think I think accepting can be a really good
and useful skill to hone. Youneed to accept that I am where I
am right now. To accept thatthings have happened the way
they happened. To accept that Ihave difficult feelings. And you
know that everyone goes throughrough patches, everyone has hard

(55:06):
feelings to deal with. And thatwe we don't, we don't
necessarily need to stop feelingthose feelings in order to get
support and help, you know, youcan walk through the door and
see a counsellor feeling shame,or feeling embarrassed or
feeling like you've failed,whatever it might be, and

you can leave feeling shit to write Yeah, and
you can leave feeling shit, youdon't have to expect that when
you leave that room,everything's going to be fucking
wonderful, all your problemshave disappeared and rainbows
and fairy floss. I think that'ssomething people struggle with
sometimes as they come in forthat first experience, and they
think we're gonna wave a magicalwand and take away all their

(55:45):
distress and all their problemsand their concerns, and shits
gonna be fixed when that's not afucking reality. Yeah.

Which is so disappointing. And I think
that's where Acceptance comesinto, is like, when you're a
person who is in distress, andyou walk in, like, you know,
this happens again, to me, oftenas someone who's who has chronic
illnesses is I go to a doctor,and I expect them to be able to
help me and when they can't,that's really crushing. And so I

(56:12):
think that's the same to peoplewho are in emotional distress,
you know, they walk in our doorand expect to be able to be
helped. And that can be reallypainful as well. And I really
get here and honour that, youknow, for a lot of people that
is their experience, but, youknow, going back to the
acceptance piece, I thinkaccepting that things are

(56:33):
sometimes difficult and notalways perfect. But that doesn't
mean you shouldn't try andshouldn't try for yourself, you
know, like to improve yourcircumstance, or not your
circumstance, improve your carefor yourself. And that sometimes
accepting that rough patcheshappen can be actually an easier

(56:54):
way through it than railingagainst it. That would be my
advice is, you know, to keepgoing, and to be gentle with
yourself. I search my clientsall the time, you know, to the
point where I think it'sfrustrating, because it's like,
well, how, how do I do that? Andthat's the tricky part is that
that's the learning in at all Ithink if you can find some joy

(57:15):
in the exploration, and someacceptance, that life is
suffering, you know, we areultimately just sacks of meat
floating around in a rock on arock in space, you know,
nothing's got any meaning. Andlike, to me, that's actually
really freeing. So you might aswell make the best of it while
you're here, you know.

yeah, and I think acceptance is one of the

I think you're right. Acceptance doesn't mean
most powerful and wonderfulhealing tools that we freely
have available to us as humanbeings. But it's something that
people often get confused with.
Agree. [Yeah, absolutely.] Ihave to agree that things are
being shit. And you have to attimes accept that maybe I can't
go back in a fucking TARDIS andchange it, or I have to accept
that. It wasn't born into acertain part of of society that

(57:58):
was a, you know, offered morefuckin power and privilege than
maybe I had to be that there'sshit out there out of my
control. So when we're yarningabout acceptance. It's really
important that we help people tounderstand that there's really
only three little fucking thingsin this universe you have any
control over and that you needto accept ownership of those.

(58:21):
And that's what you say thinkand do? [Absolutely. Yeah. And]
I think that everything else isjust, it just is you might have
some influence, but you haveabsolutely no fucking control.
My kids, I have no control overmy fucking kids. I get a
wonderful opportunity to be apositive influence in their
lives. But I have to accept thatall I can do through what I say,

(58:42):
think and do is be a positiveinfluence. Yeah. Otherwise, I'm
gonna feel like a fuckingletdown if one of them makes a
dumbass mistake in their life.
that it didn't hurt or that itwas okay. Or that it's fair. You
know, acceptance doesn't meanany of that. But are you going

(59:04):
back to when we started thisconversation me thinking about,
you know, how do I sit with thepainful experiences from my
past? The answer is sometimes Idon't, you know, sometimes I
rail against them. And I feelreally angry about it. And I
feel disappointed and I stillhave tentative relationships
with my family members becauseof those things. It doesn't mean

(59:27):
that any of those things areokay. It just means that it is
what it is. And I can either befull of fury about it, or I can
try my best to look after myselfand offer myself compassion and
by extension of other peoplecompassion, because shit happens
and it's what we do with it. Ithink that's the important part.

And we can accept to find lessons in the
worst of fucking situations attime and I think sometimes that
can help us to turn the mostshit experiences into something
more positive to move with thenjust getting stuck in the
sorrow, the pain, the loss, thehurt.

Amber Rules (01:00:05):
Yeah. And that that's in a lot of ways, that's
how I do my life is like, Icould have easily gone a
different way. And whatsometimes I think, you know, one
of the really, the hugeprivileges of the work that I do
is that I get to be with someonein their deep pain and shame and

(01:00:27):
hurt in a way that I didn'talways have someone to be there
for me. And there's somethingabout that, that heals me as
well. Like, How incredible isthat? That by helping someone
else heal, I get to do it aswell, like. So that's the kind
of stuff I think that is reallyspecial and important to me

(01:00:49):
about my work. And it doesn'tmean that I always get it right
or that I'm not furious somedays. I'm curious a lot of days,
but it doesn't. Yeah, it doesn'ttake up as much space as it used
to, certainly,

Clinton Schultz (01:01:03):
To round out our conversation for the
afternoon. Why don't you telleverybody how they can get in
touch with the organisation, beit if they want to assist? Or
there's somebody who is seekingassistance?

Yeah, thank you.
Well, if you'd like to accesscounselling, we can offer
counselling via TelehealthAustralia-wide. So we know that
some people prefer in person, ifyou're in Sydney, you're
certainly welcome to come in andsee us in person. We do have to
prioritise people who are closeby to us for various reasons.
But if you're struggling, andyou need us to refer you to

(01:01:40):
someone, we can also help withthat. So we do single session
counselling, basically where wehelp people find supports closer
to them, because we know thatnavigating the mental healthcare
system is really tricky. And ifyou don't know some of the stuff
that maybe a counsellor orpsychologist knows that it's
really hard for you to do so wecan help people with that as
well. You can one of the bestways you can support us is by
shopping in our mental healthshop. So we have you know,

(01:02:02):
books, self care, products,resources, gifts, all that kind
of stuff. Our websites, roughpatch counselling.com. The other
thing that is super supportivefor us is skilled volunteers. So
you don't need to be in person,we've got amazing volunteers who
built our website for us whomanage our social media for our

(01:02:23):
so do lots of stuff like that.
So if you want to volunteer acouple of hours a week, that's a
huge support to us. And as withany organisation like ours,
donations, of course, are reallysuper useful and help us keep
the doors open as well. And youcan be assured that that goes
directly into our programmesbecause of the way our social

(01:02:45):
enterprise is set up. So thatdoesn't get, you know, paid on
to people who don't need it tobe paid on to them.

Clinton Schultz (01:02:55):
I think you guys are doing deadly work down,
they're doing amazing work downthere. And I really encourage
anybody who feels that they canassist to get in touch and offer
that assistance. It's verydifficult as as small entities,
particularly social enterprisesto to work outside the box at

(01:03:18):
time so I commend you forputting yourself out there and
getting this organisationstarted. Thank you very much for
coming on Sobah Life and sharingsome of your journey and your
experiences in this socialemotional well being space both
personally and professionally.
And look forward to having ayarn again, Gaba ngindu

Thanks Clinton.
Take care.

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