January 25, 2025 • 57 mins
Outlouders, in 2025 many people are celebrating the new and making changes for themselves. We've spoken on the show at lengths about the pressures of beauty standards on women in society. To look younger is a conversation that isn't going anywhere.
Which is why today, we are sharing with you a fascinating episode of MID that Holly did last year... because even supermodels have the same thoughts that we do.
Alison Brahe Daddo was THE Australian model of the late 80s, on every magazine cover and on many a teenage girl’s wall. She had a huge career here and overseas. In recent years she became the most honest, interesting voice about midlife and menopause and all the messy challenges it brings us.
But in this episode, Holly and Ali get deep about surface stuff. Beauty, whatever it means to us - and let’s be honest, there’s a sliding scale of how much any of us can ever claim to have felt beautiful, at any age - is a beast in midlife. Because how we wear our age on our face and our bodies can feel so important, so crucial to how the outside world sees us, even as we know it’s really the silliest of all our concerns. It often doesn’t feel that way.
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CREDITS:
Host: Holly Wainwright
Executive Producer: Naima Brown
Producer: Tahli Blackman
Audio Producer: Thom Lion & Leah Porges
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on Hello out louders, it's
hotly here popping into your feed to tell you about
today's Sunday special. Today, I'm bringing you an episode of
mid that I did with Alison Bray Daddo. I think
you know who she is. She was one of the
original supermodels here in Australia and most Generation X women
(00:35):
are quite obsessed with her. We had a very honest conversation,
not about her modeling career actually, although she's got lots
to say about that, about menopause, about long relationships, but
actually about what we really think when we look in
the mirror. Is it hard when you have been known
to be a particularly beautiful woman, and that's how I
used to make your living aging, How do you make
your decisions about what you are aren't going to do
(00:57):
to intervene in that process? How do you feel when
you look in the mirror. Alison's really honest about all
of that, and I hope you're really going to enjoy
this conversation between me and Ali Dado called what have
you done to your face, wrinkles and blotches and bits
(01:17):
that sag, shadows and creases and crape. My face is changing,
and I'm faking being fine with it.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Maybe you are too.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I'm sure that wasn't there yesterday, I say, peering into
the mirror without my bifocal contact lenses with their comforting blur,
poking at a crevice, holding up an eyelid, reaching for
a tweezer, a potion, a coverall.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Sometimes it takes all the will in the world not
to want to scrape it off.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Stop the change, stop the slide, stop the fold, stop
the inevitable, freeze it in time, sand it, smooth it,
lift it, fill it.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Maybe I will.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Maybe if I did that, I wouldn't notice anymore that
I'm aging. Maybe fewer lines would distract me from my
undulating hormones.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
That little grunt as I stand up.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
The advancing migrain, the birthday numbers counting up to nowhere,
the days I get to spend with.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
My people counting down.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
But also if I do that to try to trick
the mirror, then another trap yawns open.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Don't you dare look like you're trying too hard?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
So sad, so desperate, what have you done to your face?
So many opinions, so much criticism, so much wasted energy
on this little patch of fleshy real estate. Maybe if
my face just bloody stopped changing, I could pretend time
wasn't passing. The change is accelerating. Today, I'm despairing over
(02:52):
an image that I know in a year I will
consider impossibly youthful. Well, despairing is a strong word, one
I should save for things worthy of distress, illness, and
loss and stubbed toes in the dark. But then again,
maybe despairing is the right word, because our face is
apparently mean so much. They signal to the world where
(03:13):
we're up to, near the beginning, near the end, somewhere
in the messy mid They signal to the world, apparently,
how much we care, how together we are, how well
we nurture ourselves. Does an errant eyebrow mean we're messy,
an unfilled line that we've given up? Beauty is a
beast when you're mid because aging is a privilege, but
(03:33):
looking young is everything, the entire world says, So why
my mirror asks me, as I peered too close, Do
you care about this? You're not a supermodel or a celebrity.
Your worth isn't tied to your foreheadlines. You know you're
always saying it that getting to bitch about wrinkles is
a lottery winning luck so many others would give anything for.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
You know that, deep in your bones that.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
These are stripes of pride, blotches of wisdom, folds of experience.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Those words are so true it hurts. We all feel it.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
We didn't get this wise with out knowing about insides
versus outsides, and the futility of relentless comparison, or the
subtle manipulation of shifting beauty standards. But still, even with
all that wisdom, some days the mirror is a fucking bitch.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
I said it.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
My face is changing, and I'm busy faking being fine
with it.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Maybe one day I won't have to fake it at all.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
The hard fought wisdom that drew those fine lines will
settle into every cell of my body, and I'll be
comfortable and confident in my serum lathered skin.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
I can't wait. I'll see you there.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Hello. Hello.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I am Holly Wainwright, and I am mid mid life,
mid family, mid wrinkle panic, and today we're bringing you
the last conversation of Mid season two. It has been
a ridiculous treat to bring you the conversations we've brought
you about sex, money, time, sisters, invisibility, rage, and that
(05:11):
big family shift. If you missed any of them, now's
your moment. Go back and listen, share them with anyone
who needs to hear them. And please, if you love mid,
throw us a follow and leave us a review. I
know that every podcast you listen to asks you to
do that, but.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
There's a good reason.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
That's because it helps more people find us, and the
more mids, I think you'll agree, the better. But today
a treat you might have gathered from my introduction that
we are talking about faces and bodies. And at the
beginning of this season, I promised you a supermodel. I
don't know who you thought was going to walk in
here with me, but I know you're going to be
(05:48):
delighted to meet her if you haven't already. Alison Bray
was the Australian model of the late eighties and early nineties,
on every magazine cover and on every teenage girl's wall.
She had a huge career here and overseas, and then
she married the equally famous and attractive Cameron Daddo and
backed right away from the industry, settled in la and
(06:11):
raised a family. Now, as Alison Bray Daddo, or Ali
as very many of us know her, she's also become
just the most honest, interesting voice about midlife and menopause
and all the messy challenges it brings us. But today
we're not actually talking about that. We're getting deep about
surface stuff, beauty, whatever it means to us. And let's
(06:33):
be honest, there's a sliding scale of how much any
of us can ever claim to have felt beautiful at
any age. It's a beast in midlife because how we
wear our age on our face and our bodies can
feel so important and so crucial to how the outside
world sees us. Even as we know that it's really
the silliest of all of our concerns, it often doesn't
(06:54):
feel that way. So come and talk to me and
Ali about how we're feeling about that, what we're doing
about that, and where we all stand on the mistakes
we've made in thinking and talking about our faces and
our bodies.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
As we've moved on through.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Welcome to Mid Season two, Episode eight, Beauty with Ali Daddo.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Alie.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I could talk to you about a million things on
mid that our.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Audience would love to hear.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
You talk about menopause obviously, yes, since you've literally written
the book Long Marriages and Relationships, because you've literally made podcasts,
correct starting a new business in mid like you've recently
done that. You're doing all kinds of things. But I
asked you here primarily to talk about something that should
be beneath us all I think, but actually really gets
(07:43):
in our way when we're in this phase of life.
What we look like, beauty, body, are faces, all those things.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
First of all, you're very beautiful.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
That's very kind. Don't you look amazing?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And I know, of course, because i've heard you talk
about it lots of times that even when you're a
very famous model, that wasn't currency you were particularly interested
in and it was quite difficult for you to handle.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
But do you feel beautiful?
Speaker 1 (08:15):
I actually feel much more beautiful now than I did
when I was modeling. Really yeah, and it's only been
a new experience. I still struggle with like looking at
my legs or my cellulide or the belly that overhangs
the pants and wish that I could wear the clothes
that I had, though, there's just a feeling now that
(08:37):
I have in myself that is so much more at
peace than I was when I was younger and modeling,
and I didn't ever expect that that would happen. I
was sitting with a group of women and it was
a meditation and we were talking about it was sort
of like the things that are noise about our bodies
or the things we'd want to change. And I sat
(08:59):
there and I kind of was like, what do I
want to change? Like what am I unhappy with? And
I was like, there's things I want to change about
how I approach things and how I do some things
and how I react to some things. But I did
not come up with anything I wanted to change physically.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
I've heard you talk over the process of this when
you released Queen Menopause, and you in that book very
honest diary entries of journal entries rather about various stages
of this, And so it's been a journey to use
it overase word to get to that place.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
And I'm not there all the time. I'm certainly not
there all the time, but I was in that moment
and I felt really the joy I felt in that
moment was like, oh, have I actually let it all go?
Am I actually okay with finally in my physical body.
But yeah, it wasn't like the glaring list of I
wish I had longer legs and you know, smooth skin,
and I didn't have that come up at first. So
(09:54):
it was interesting.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
That's so good.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
When you were a young model, did you ever think
about what it would be like to be this age?
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Were afraid of aging?
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I was so naive at that age. I didn't really
think about sure as hell, didn't think about menopause and
even cross my mind. But I looked at my mom
and I knew I didn't want her body shape. I
remember thinking that I have her exact body shape.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
You know, it's true.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
I was thinking about this the other day and this
is probably way TMI, But when I was a kid,
I was used to talk to my mom when she
was in the bath. We were in a naked house,
but that was often a place where because she used
to have a Bathnili every day.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
English.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course she'd.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Have a bath Neil every day, and that would sometimes
be I would go and sit on the toilet seat
and talk to her, not you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Yeah, we'd sometimes.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Talk and so Ira would look at her body and
I'm ashamed to say, but I did used to think
who Yeah, not terrible. And I also used to think
that will never be me. There was nothing wrong with
my mum's body, let's be clear. Yeah, but I thought
that will never be me.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, of course it's exactly me. I'm identical to my
mother and my mom. I used to pat my mom's
tummy and say, you get a baby in there, you're pregnant. Mom.
The amount of times I've been asked how far along
I am at the age of fifty four is embarrassing.
This is truly childhood karma coming back at.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Me very much.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Look, I'm going to be honest and say that right
now if I was going to ask myself that question
at the moment, I'm not.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Feeling that great about it. Like I think I was
feeling better about it.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Actually when I turn fifty and now I feel like
it all changes really quickly, and my skin tone and
your skin texture and all that boring stuff. The things
I was doing to keep a handle on my weight
seem to not be working now, So I'm looking for
a new fix.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
For that shit.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
But the thing is that sort of compounds feeling bad
about that stuff is that I also feel like I
shouldn't care, Like, yes, how stupid to.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Care about that.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I am old and wise and I shouldn't care, Yes,
But feeling guilty about that makes it worse.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
And I think that's where the idea of body positivity,
which of course if it's naturally there for you, it's
this very fine line where it can actually flip so
much into shame and guilt for women if you don't
have it, and then it's another thing to feel shitty
about yourself that you're not I should feel better. I
should love my body. You know when am I going
(12:22):
to love my body? And I think that's a real
catch for women because we're sold, you know, this bill
of goods since day dot what the perfect body should
look like in the skin, and you know what is
deemed is the number one look, and then if you
don't fit that, then you're wrong. But then we're also
told love your curves, love you cell, youreate, love who
(12:43):
you are, and then if you don't feel that either,
you're like, oh crap, you know, I'm failing and everything.
So I think it's a really challenging position for women
to find themselves in if we're not like I just
love my muffin top. This is amaing, you know. And
I don't feel that about my muffin top. You know,
I don't feel that I wish it would go away.
(13:04):
I do, but I'm not going to get upset about it.
Think that's the change for me where I used to
but now it's like I know how to dress it
up now, to learn those things what works and what
does it work now?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
You know, we're supposed to be very wise at this
stage of life, and we are, but you still have
good days and bad days in terms of how much
you care about that. And one of the reasons why
it can really get in your head, I think, is
that we worry that what we look like and us
looking older or middle aged or whatever words we want
to put around that is not how we feel inside. Yes, yes,
So it's like the push to hold on to some
(13:43):
kind of youth in terms of what we look like
is about how we want to be seen by others,
isn't it.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah? Absolutely, And I mean I think every woman feels
that invisibility factor when we hit a certain age where
you just sort of pushed in a certain direction for clothing,
for skincare, for you can't dress like that at your age.
You know, you have to change that, you have to,
you know, there's a push in that direction, which I
(14:12):
think is challenging. And I think, you know, I've been
asked that before. You know, as a model, have you
found it more confronting to hit menopause and age? And
I just think it's confronting for most women. I don't
think whether you're a model or not. I think it
can be very confronting. You know, as we see, you know,
my mother's body reflecting back in me at the mirror,
(14:34):
I'm like, Okay, yeah, this is not how I feel.
As you say, I still feel like I'm kind of
twenty one in a lot of ways, and I still
sometimes think I can shop like a twenty one year old.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Well, you and I both were in cool trainers to that, Ali.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
That's right. From my ankles down, we are twenty one.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Ankles down, we are exceptionally cool.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Yeah. But then it's so funny. I go, I can't
wear those tight, tight dresses now, and then a part
of me goes, of course you can. Of course you
can who cares if you've got a belly? Now, Like,
who's the only person caring? Really, And it would be.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Yeah, it's true, you know.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
So it's like, yeah, you can, you can if you
want to, if you want to. So it's like all
of those machinations.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
The thing about this is that we might make peace
with I'm getting older, my face looks older, my body
looks older. Then it feels like we have an array
of choices about how much to care, how much we're
going to do about it, right, depending on our resources
and our priorities. We have options available to us that
were not available to our mothers, everything from laser to
(15:40):
UV to micro needling to more invasive things, everything from
surgery to weight loss injections to keto. Right, we've got
a never ending barrage of stuff coming at us that
will You don't have to, You don't have to look
middle aged if you don't want to. Are you comfortable
talking about what you do and don't do and what
your lines are?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (16:01):
What do you do?
Speaker 1 (16:04):
I've never had botox or fillers, I've never done anything
like have you ever been tempted to do that? Do
you know? Just recently I was looking at my friend
who she's fifty, so she's a wee bit younger than me.
She only does her frown lines between the eyebrows, and
I mine A quite does that. Yeah, I have quite
deepsh ones for me, Like I certainly see it in
(16:26):
photos and you know, selfies and all that crap. I'm like, ah,
it's only those lines. And I think it's because they're
frown lines. I love my laugh lines, love them anything
to do with smiling, enjoy those lines I love. But
those ones are my angry lines. And so sometimes I'm like,
I don't think I want those very much. So that exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Sorry, when I said before MEA does that, I should
clarify A. She would be so cool with me saying that.
But also that's what she said when she was wrestling
with herself about botox and God. She wrestled with herself
about bowtoes for a very long time, publicly, of course,
but she said she just didn't want to look pissed
off all the time when she actually wasn't.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Pissed off all resting bitch face.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
And people like to think that older women are grumpy anyway,
So that's a similar thing. It's about that making your
outsides much insides there?
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Do you have a barrier in your mind about doing it?
Or is it just whether or not you could be bothered?
Speaker 1 (17:21):
It's a bit of a whether or not I could
be bothered, and I'm slightly terrified. I just think, am
I going to be that one person that has a
hideous reaction to it? My husband is delightfully proud of
the fact that I've never done anything, is he? He
talks about it all the time. He goes, you know,
look at your face, honey, you're aging so beautifully. There's
so many women have done stuff and you haven't done anything,
(17:43):
And it's really lovely to have someone that sees the
beauty of my aging. Who is my partner? You know?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
But isn't it funny that it's a compliment. I think
that my partner would be the same, and that he
would be a bit judge is probably the wrong word,
but probably is also the right word. He probably would
be a bit judge if I stuff you do something?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yes, yeah, But.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
It's funny that it's kind of a compliment when really,
how much of it is to do with us?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Yeah? I know, I mean I am absolutely pro whatever
you want to do to your face, basically, because I
think as long as it brings you to a place
of feeling better, you know. I worry about people that,
you know, go on those massive plastic face journeys and
still feel like crap because it hasn't helped what's inside.
(18:31):
But if a little tuck and injectable really makes you
feel better, then go for it. You know. And I've
said this before. What I don't like is but this
is more like from celebrities, is when celebrities have had
so much work and then they go, oh, it's just
it's just because I wash my face with lemon juice
(18:53):
and eat cabbage. No it's not. And that makes the
rest of us feel like we can't keep up, you know.
But it's such a vicious circle, isn't it. Like the
whole plastic surgery and everything. It's sort of the more
women have it, the more we feel we should be
having the rest of us. And you know, sometimes I
think that I've been kind of left behind in the
(19:15):
plastic surgery injectable thing. It's like, oh, I'm fifty four,
it's too late to do anything now. Maybe I should
have done it earlier. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Sometimes I think now if I went into and I
was like, right, I'm gonna get this, I'm gonna get
these rinkles sort out here, it would be a bit
like painting the skirting boards but leaving all the walls.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, where do you stop? I know, I mean, I
kind of of course I know how it works, but
I'm like, the crevice is already there, So how does
botox stop? Does it stop me from frowning so the
crevices disappear naturally? I don't know, you know, it would
be highly unlikely that I will do it. Yeah, I've
(19:53):
thought it would be nice to not have that. I've
thought about doing the fat freezing off of my stomach.
I have definitely thought about that. Again, I just I
think I have a fear of all that sort of stuff,
like what if something goes wrong? Yeah, So they're the
two things I've definitely do.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
You are you a because your skin does look amazing,
But that's not what we're here to say.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
We're just here to go. But you look great.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Serum's potions like do you put a lot of stock
in that stuff?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Not? Really, I do a little bit for my skin.
The simpler the better. I'm a very simple, simple, simple person.
For the longest time, I just washed my face with
water and then I did a Hahober oil and something
called Egyptian magic. What's Egyptian magic? I found when we
lived in La It's just it's a super super super
(20:46):
old recipe, like just an oil almost so I did
oil on oil. I have quite dry skin. I don't know.
Sometimes the serums don't feel like they I don't like
them on my skin. I don't like a cream moisturizer.
I'm loving the retreatment botanicals, you know that one. I'm
living in John's brand, loving that at the moment. But
(21:06):
sometimes I'll just go back to her Hobo oil.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
And so you've worked out what works for you and
you're not tempted to do all the fancy procedures. No,
I feel like a lot of the soul searching and
worrying about that is a bit passe now, right, Like
my young friends don't worry about.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
It if they want to go and get absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
And I feel like that whatever we do to ourselves,
it has to be so political, like such a big
because women's bodies always are right. It's like if whatever
size they are and whatever you decide to do with it,
it has to mean something, and that can be really exhausting.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Yeah, can't it just.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Mean I don't like my friend line?
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yeah, that's right. I know this is so true because
my I have a twenty eight to twenty four an
eighteen year old, and they were sitting there the other
day at lunch figuring out what procedure they would have
if they were going to have a procedure, Like it
was like what would we order for lunch? And including
my son who's already figured out, I would do this,
and I would do that, and I do that, the
twenty eight say oh what, I would do this to
(22:06):
my lips? And I would do I mean that was
something I never would have considered at that age.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
And also as a parent, we're like, but you're perfect.
Of course they mess with you.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
I know you dare start on that train. Yeah, but
that's so true. It's just an option. It's a health
care option or a self care option. It's whereas Yeah,
for me, I feel like it's a dramatic thing to
go and do and yeah, am I betraying my womanhood
for like changing my face somehow? Like and all those
women that didn't do it. You know, we've got to
(22:39):
be strong. It's like, no, you don't.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
You just said you just do what you do and
if it makes you feel good. My main deterrent actually
is just time. Is I think I can barely get
my haircut, you know what I mean? I can barely
get my haircut. Am I going to start a complicated
dermatological procedures where I have to be there every six
(23:01):
weeks for I don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
And your face peels off for a bit? Again, I
have friends that do a lot of those face peels,
and stuff in their skin is actually fantastic, So I
know a lot of the stuff does work.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
There's a gap in our minds between what we think
we look like and what we look like that sometimes
we catch now. And maybe this is generational because maybe
young people don't have that gap so much because they've
grown up with the front facing phone, so they've looked
at their faces a lot. Yeah, and so sometimes when
that catches you and you get that glimpse a bit
like your mom's body in the bath.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Yeah, yeah, you're like, oh.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
And that's back to that my outside much my insides bit,
And that's why it gets complex.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
And do you think that like the face filters are
to blame for a rise in plastic surgery. I mean,
I know people have said that before the flow's face filters,
it's a smoothie skin out that trim. You knows that well.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
It is to be very difficult for us to imagine
what we look like in different ways. Yeah right, I've
probably got quite a deep and it sounds like maybe
you do a little bit, a deep seeded sort of
that I shouldn't care so much. I mean, obviously don't
care that much or I would look better, but like
you know, I shouldn't care so much. But I won't
put a picture of myself up on my Instagram feed
(24:13):
if I think I look awful, I won't filter it.
But I'll choose a flattering angle. I'll take three or
four pictures to choose the one that I this is
how I want.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
To present myself.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
So we're all on a scale of that representation, aren't we.
And then if I see myself and I have been filtered,
and I go, oh wow, I can understand how.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Seductive it is.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah, absolutely, And.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
I see that my daughter who when she does it,
I mean she's a bit beyond this now. But those
snapchat filters that are really cool, that just make your
eyes that little bit bigger, and your skin a little
bit whiter, which is problematic in its own way, and
your lip's a little bit fuller, and she suddenly just
looks kind of.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Like the models used to sell us bags or your fault.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
I know it's true.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
I'm part of the problem, Holly, But I have a friend.
We digress, well, we'll come back to the main point.
But I have a friend. She's a performer and she
does quite a lot.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Of TV in Asia, and they live filter faces now,
so when she is on the TV there, she has
had a filter put over her, and she says, it's amazing.
You sit backstage and artists come off stage and they
look so different to what you've just seen on the screen.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
While they do they still do a full face of
makeup or do they make as well, and then they
rely somewhat on the filter. That wow.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
So if you think about when you were modeling, I'm
sure sometimes you were airbrushed.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
I'm sure you didn't need it.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Of course, definitsh you were air brushed, and you know,
we all did whatever way you needed to be whittled,
and now that can happen in real time. It does
make you wonder what it's going to do to our
perception of beauty. Yes, if you never have to even
gaze upon a less than perfect.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Face, Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
And it's a bit scary. Yeah. After the break, Ali
shares more about her own.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Struggle with body image as a young model and how
she feels about her body. Now we talk about body
image and how we're teaching young women to see beauty
in queen menopause and on No Filter with me, you
wrote really honestly and beautifully about grappling with changing shape.
We've touched on this a little bit already, and you wrote,
I know I'm feeling older than ever, my body shaping
(26:32):
itself into an actual potato. I really related to that.
What if this potato shape is permanent? What if this
is my final resting body shape? Can I love this
shape just as it is? How do I love my
body when I hold the comparison to my twenty one
year old self? Now, wait, is a tricky thing to
talk about. It's taboo. Younger women tell me all the
(26:52):
time that we shouldn't talk about it at all. But
most older women I know have some kind of complex
relationship with their weight and they do.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Want to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, and I know that you have and do where
do you stand on that idea of that we should
just try and make it less important by not focusing
on it.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
I would love women to not focus on their way.
I would just love women to feel strong and healthy.
That would be my two things that women focused on
out of anything, that they are healthy and strong, because
I think I know that certainly knowing it enough now
and speaking to doctors and understanding about how important strength
(27:34):
is after menopause and what menopause does to your bones
and once the estrogen drops, and the most important thing
you can do for yourself is to be strong. So
I would love for women to feel that that was
their goal and healthy.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
From the days when you wrote those words, for example,
to where you are now and you said at the
beginning of the show that you feel now like I
wouldn't change it. Is that because you've gone through this understanding,
this education about what happens to your body, and so
now you've found the ways to make yourself feel stronger.
Like do you relate to this person who's worried about
being potato.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Shop Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's still definitely with me.
I just don't feel as attached to wanting to be
the shape I was when I was twenty one. I
feel like I've now lived in this shaped body long
enough to go. I don't think this we're going back.
(28:29):
I think this might be it.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
So it's more or maybe about grappling.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
With the chain. Yeah. And if this is it, are
you going to talk crap to yourself for the rest
of your life or are you just going to be
okay with what you've got now? And that's something that
I constantly sort of work with, like just going everything's working, Alli.
You don't have cancer, you don't have some other disease,
You've got all your limbs and fingers, your body is working.
(28:55):
Let's just work on that. I'd tell you something that's
really actually changed my mind is I don't know where
I saw it. It was some ad and it was a gentleman, yeah,
I guess my age sort of thing, and he said,
I really want to be strong and healthy for my grandkids.
And I've got that in my mind now. And I
don't want to be a size seven. I mean to
(29:17):
size eight or six for my grandkids, I want to
be strong, I want to be healthy. I want to
be able to lift them up. And I want to
be running on the beach with them. I want to
be hiking with them. That's kind of where I've shifted
myself now, like what do I want my future self
to be? And it's not like bikini ready for the summer.
It's fit and feeling good and that's helpful.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Do you think, as my young colleagues tell me all
the time that our generation has particularly fucked top relationship
with our bodies. They think that we were very doused
in toxic diet culture.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Do the younger colleagues feel like that they're not doused
in it?
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Jesse, my co host on out Loud who's in her
thirties early thirties, she always says that Gen X, we
are very hard on ourselves about our bodies, and she
thinks it is because we grew up in toxic diet culture, which.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
I feel we did.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Yeah, And it was also so normal when we were
young that there would be ads on the TV telling
you how to lose weight fast, that every magazine and
I worked in magazines, and I mean, so did you
in a different way. Was like, lose five kilos fast.
It was all out there, it was all explicit. It
was you need to lose weight. Was kind of our
constant track in our heads. And what I wonder, and
(30:33):
this is what I argue with Jesse about a bit now,
is I wonder if that track's still there because on
Instagram certainly everybody is thin. TikTok, everybody is thin. That
were still presenting all that. But now that you're not
allowed to say it out loud, does that.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Make it better or worse?
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I don't see
anything's changed. I mean I maybe I'm wrong. I'm not
you know, twenty one or thirty or whatever. But you know,
now we've got talk of just taking a zepic and
losing weight, and isn't this great? It's the fast way
to lose weight. Like, we've still got that talk. That's
I hear a lot. You know, my twenty eight year
(31:11):
old still is concerned if she puts on weight. My
eighteen year old is concerned if she loses too much weight.
So I don't know, I haven't seen a change. I
think there's still maybe there's a slight better look in
we're a little bit more diverse in who we see
(31:32):
on TV now, but it's still described as isn't it
amazing We've put like a size twenty woman on a screen,
Like it's still like a thing that's like exciting, and
aren't we incredibly amazing that we've decided to cast this
person where I don't know, it's still not like it's
just average sizes doing average things, seeing normal people on
(31:53):
TV that are bigger and smaller and different colors. And
it's getting there, though I don't think the diet culture
has changed. I would love it too, but I don't
think it has.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
I don't think it has really.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
I just think maybe it's pushed underground a bit, like
it would be very uncool in my office where I
work that anyone would ever say that anybody, you've lost weight,
you look great, you know, like whereas we used to
say that to each other all the time, and my
girlfriends who are a similar age to me still do
say that absolutely, And that wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Be okay to say.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
It wouldn't be okay to sit down at brunch and go,
I'm not eating carbs, even though you might not be eating.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Cars do you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Right, But are they still talking behind other women's backs
and going, oh my god, she's put on a lot
of weight. Probably are, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
It's interesting talking about daughters is interesting here because my
daughter's fourteen. I had my kids much later than you
were a similar age, so you're at a different phase.
But she is very you can see, you can almost
watch their brains switch on about it matters a great
deal about what I look like and what size my
body is and my messaging to her, and I sometimes
(33:06):
worry that I fucked it, so you have to tell
me if that's true. When she was little, I was
always like, it doesn't matter at all, doesn't matter at
all what you look like. Bodies are for being strong
and doing things. Everybody's beautiful, like all of that. Yeah, right,
And then I have a very clear memory of her.
Maybe it was just when she went to high school,
just before high school, going for a walk with her
and me saying to her, doesn't matter what you look like,
(33:27):
on her saying like almost sheepishly, mom, it really matters.
Everybody talks about it all the time. You know that person.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
So she could see the split, She.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Could see my lie in a way, how have you
dealt with your daughters and talking about beauty and body?
Speaker 1 (33:42):
You know, it was something that I was hyper aware of,
hyper aware of, and I think I fucked it, and
I know I fucked it actually, And the way I
fucked it was I would say outwardly unkind things about
my appearance in front of my children. Number One rule,
mess that up big time. How can I turn to
(34:04):
them and say, everybody's beautiful, you're perfect and look in
the mirror and go, oh god, this doesn't fit. I've
put on so much weight. I can't wear this dress anymore.
I remember my youngest at one point saying, I hate
it when you talk to yourself like that. That's so good.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
I mean, it's awful that you did, but it's good
that she said that.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
That was the first thing that I remember going, that's
got to be the last time. If you're going to
say it, just say internally, like, do not speak it
out loud. Actually, it was honestly one of the first
things that started changing my judgment of myself. Just stop
saying it out loud, Like one step, don't say it
out loud, because I think it has more power if
(34:49):
you say it out loud, and especially in a room
full of people or in front of people. Plus, I
also had that thing and I talk a little bit
about that in the book too, is that I always
felt nervous around women. It was so weird. I know
it sounds crazy, but I felt nervous around women being
a model, that they would think I was up myself
(35:11):
for being a model. So the first thing I always
did was start to put myself down. It was the
first thing I would say, whether it was I'm not
very smart, or yeah, i'm so flat chested, or I've
got this, I've got that, because I thought that was
the way I'm going to get l liked. I'm not
going to be liked for being pretty amongst other women,
but if I put myself below you, then we might
(35:34):
be able to have a connection. Eh, that doesn't really work.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
I was going to say, did that work?
Speaker 1 (35:38):
No, No, not at all. And that's one of the
things that modeling is a negative For modeling, that was
one of the things I had to really undo and
it was really you know, hearing my daughter's going, I
can't stand it when you say how mean you are
to yourself.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
That's amazing because one of the things that's very relatable
about that. I tried to never talk about body or
weight in front of my kids, but the number of
times that they would have seen me glance in a
mirror and go ough yeah. And the idea of us
looking at ourselves and going and then myself.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
And going throats.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
When you actually take that out of context and look
at it from a helicopter, you're like, how awful that
we do that to ourselves, no matter what we look like,
whether we are models, whether we're not. You've felt instinctively,
I've got to pull myself back, and then you probably
began to believe the script. You were telling yourself that
you are smart and you weren't this, and you weren't that.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Yeah, And I mean being a model, you're not booked
for your brains. You're not booked for how you can
understand this topic or you're eloquent. It's like smile and
look pretty and that was it. So and that's what
I became famous for. So it's taken me years to
get to a point where I felt like I had
something to say and someone might find it helpful or interesting,
(36:55):
you know. So, yeah, that was a long piece to
undo as well.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
I always think though that even though, as you say,
you're not booked for being pretty, models probably have a
different relationship with criticism because you also get a lot
more of that, probably than your average person. I was
thinking about recently. I could probably tell you specifically some
times that people have commented on my appearance and it
would have really hurt my Yeah, right, I remember a
(37:22):
time when my mom years ago commented on my weight.
I could still remember like what I was looking at
out of the window, and what the days smelt like
and all those things, because it really hurt me. But
being a teenage model, you probably going to castings where
people were like too short, too tall, too blond, to this,
to that too, Like, So what does that do? Do
you become better at handling it or do you just
(37:45):
hate yourself?
Speaker 1 (37:48):
I think it's a little bit of both actually, But yeah,
that's a very very good point, because that's the thing.
You can be standing there and you can have six
people who are looking at you like a painting, going yeah, look,
she's got too many moles on that side of her back.
Can we like cover those up? Cover those up? Like
that doesn't look good. Yeah, poops are really small, Like
(38:10):
give us something more. Oh, Ali, you just need to
stand up a bit because when you slouch, like your
belly pokes out, you know. I mean, it's just like, okay,
what do I do? How do I eat? And you
suck in? Suck in now, and of course you get
the oh you're gorgeous and blah blah blah blah blah.
But of course it's almost like you're waiting for the
criticism to go. Okay, is there a butt in there?
(38:33):
Is there a butt your hair? Or but this or
but that? Or striving to change this or striving to
get better. And I couldn't change my skin. My skin's
got a lot of freckles and moles. It was like, okay,
well I lost that job because I couldn't make that disappear.
So there's an enormous amount of criticism leveled. I think
it models and people say, well, that's your job, you know,
(38:55):
you put yourself in that position and that's your job.
And it's like, yeah, but I didn't sign up for
the criticism. WHOA.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
I was like, can't you just keep it quiet? I
have to hear it, like you say it what I've
left the room.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
The first time because when I grew up in an
era off of you know, you'd do a polaroid, wait
for the polaroid to dry, and you'd look at it
and you'd go, okay, let's change the lighting. Then you'd
shoot and it was film. You had no idea what
those photographs were going to look like until they turned
up in a magazine. But here I remember coming back,
(39:26):
having not modeled for years and years, I came back.
I don't know what I was shooting. I was shooting something.
And now you stand there and everyone's looking at the
computer monitor because every photograph's popping up on the computer monitor.
And I remember this job that they were airbrushing as
they went. They were like, yeah, just get rid of
the lines under the dark circles. We'll just smooth those out.
(39:49):
So I remember just standing behind the photographer and you know,
computer operator as they fixed me in real time.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
This kind this is watching yourself change yes to this very.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Yes, just get rid of that. And whenever I do
a photo shoot for anything, and they said you want
to come see the photo on the computer, I said
absolutely not, that's good. I never want to see it.
And apparently a lot of old school models, which I
consider myself one don't like to see it. It's too
off putting.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
No, I don't want to know.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
No, just take a nice photo and print it. That's fine.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
This is interesting about retraining ourselves. You know how you
were saying that after hearing your daughter say to you,
I hate hearing you talk like that, and you were like, right,
I'm going to stop saying that out loud. I do
that a bit with you know, we were talking before
about whether or not our generation was particularly brutal on
ourselves and each other about our bodies. I do that
in terms of retraining myself not to constantly comment on
(40:48):
women's appearances.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Yes, when they're on TV, for example, Yes.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
You know, so the news readers on TV. And if
my mom was there, my mom would say what hair?
Oh you know, Oh that color does nothing for her.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
That would be my mom for sure. My mom would
go look at the size of her, how did she
get to be that big? Yeah, I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
So I've trained myself to knock comment. Yes, and it
does change your behavior, like it really does. So do
you think that that comment from your daughter, as well
as a lot of the things you've been through in
the last few years with menopause and other things have
helped you get to this place of not being so
critical of your body as you literally trained yourself out
(41:28):
of it.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Yeah. Absolutely, I had to really work at it. It
wasn't just a natural progression. It was just a big
awakening around a whole lot of things. And part of
that was, you know, going through menopause and having a perimenopause,
having a really rough shock with it, and just thinking
(41:49):
about how much women go through. Just thinking about how
much pain we go through physically every month, you know,
women with endometriosis, women going through labor. It's so much
that we deal with day in and day out with
our physical bodies that we put aside, works through, we
(42:10):
show up for work still, we show up to school.
We push through the pain. And then it was like
and then menopause, I was like, are you kidding me?
Are you serious? This is not right. So it was like, Okay,
I am not going to push through anything anymore. I
(42:32):
am not gonna go Okay, I'm fine, I'll keep going,
I'll keep doing it. I'm going to actually really take
care of myself for the first time. And I've been
so mean to my body for so long as I
think the culture has and it's hard not to see
yourself the way culture does. And I'm like, no, fuck it, Yes,
(42:55):
I'm going to be really nice to myself now and
I'm going to give myself the self care that it's
my body's always wanted and all the nice words it's
always wanted. And I'm actually going to start to do
it now. And that's been you know, I work progress,
but it's actually made a huge, huge difference.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
After the break, Ali and I talk about the falling
midlife libido and how women can feel sexy and sensual
when we're always in such a critical conversation with ourselves.
You also wrote in Queen Menopause a lot about libido
plunge and not feeling sexual.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
That is something that is so common for usut this
time in our life.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
And that comes, just like all the other stuff, with
a lot of shame.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
Sure, and sometimes it can be to do with how
my body looks. This isn't what sexy is, Yep.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
This is not what.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Anybody has ever ever told me that sexy is. Ye
as well as hormonal plunges that are just meaning I
would rather eat a box of hair after being so
honest about that and writing so beautifully about it in
your book, How have you wrangled that?
Speaker 1 (44:06):
I actually think that's probably the last vestige of the
place that's the most challenging for me. I can do
it with myself in partnership with Cam and feeling myself
that sensual, sexy self in this body. Now, that is
my last challenge to really overcome. He's great. I've actually
(44:27):
given him dialogue to say I must say. I had
to do that because he will say things that are like, Okay,
can we just back up on that comment, honey, because
that does not help me at all. I remember this.
The one comment was like, I was looking in the mirror,
going I just hate my legs. They look like they've melted.
(44:48):
I have cankles and like everything's just melted downwards. And
he was like, oh, honey, he goes, I don't know
why they look like that. Why do they look like that?
You know? I mean, do you need I mean we
could exercise more. And it was like the wrong thing
to say. He was like, I know you were trying
to be caring. I'm like, no, no, here's the dialogue.
(45:08):
I love your legs, I love you. I love everything
about you. I love the changes, You're amazing. I'll always
love you. So now I've given him that script. That's
what he says everything.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Yes, sometimes they need a script, and sometimes we need
a script too, because I think we talked about this
when we had a conversation for the Very Perry Summit.
But talking to your partner about how you feel about
your changing body, especially if you've been together a long time,
can be really hard because you don't want them to
(45:40):
stop seeing you as an attractive sexual person, but at
the same time, you don't feel like an attractive sexual person.
I did an interview with you and Joe Elvin about this,
and I actually went home after it and spoke to
my partner because it was like I.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
Needed a script too of what to say.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
And I wonder if you've got any useful tips about that,
for like the women who were in a place closer
to where you were when you were really.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
Like what the fuck is happening?
Speaker 2 (46:08):
And you've got to brest it to the people around you,
what was good, what was useful?
Speaker 1 (46:15):
I think sometimes it helps to blow off steam more
with your girlfriends about how you're feeling. I think there
is something in that where Cam didn't notice the beard
I was growing on my gym. He did not notice that.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
It is the most observant.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
They're still seen. They don't give a shit. They don't
give a shit. They just want to know that you
love them. They want to know that you care about them,
because they're going through changes as well, you know. And
I've seen my husband go through dealing with you know,
gray hair and a bit of a paunch or whatever
he's got going on. You know, the whole sex libido
(46:55):
thing is that's a whole challenge in itself because, as
you say, there's a you've simply got chemicals happening. It's
a chemical thing that's going on in your body with
your hormones, where the libido is just nowhere to be
found in the building. But you've got everything else that's happening,
the stress of menopause, the stress of parents. You've got
(47:16):
the stress of young kids, sometimes the sandwich generation, as
you know it's called, and so much happening, and then
the need of your partner to connect with you on
a physical level where it's like the last thing you
want to be doing. You know. I say that in
the sense of talk to your girlfriends about it. I
feel lucky that I've got a husband that really really
wants to know what's going on. And when he knows
(47:38):
what's going on with me, he feels better because he's
always trying to fix something and try to figure out
why I feel sad or why I don't want to
get undressed in front of him, because he thinks it's
about him. He thinks that it's about that I don't
like him anymore. And when I say I'm just having
a real shameful moment about the changes in my body
(47:59):
and I'm feeling slightly embarrassed about who i am now
and that you won't find me attractive anymore, I mean
that was shocking to Cam. I was like, what are
you mean? You know? So, I think being honest like
that really really helps. And honest, you know, I always say,
if it is menopause or whatever that's changed your body
(48:20):
and just growing older and your partner knowing that a
lot of those changes just could not be helped because
it's due to estrogen deficiency or whatever is happening, I
think taking a partner along to like doctor visits with
you and filling them in on what you understand about
menopause and the changes in your body. I think that
(48:40):
really helps them as well. And then of course finding
ways to connect. That's if you're not feeling sexual, you know,
a massage, massaging their feed or doing holding hands and
words of love like that's why we work on a
lot of the time. Oh, sometimes can goes. I just
want you to tell me that you're still into me. Yeah,
(49:04):
just what you're to say, You're still into me, you
still find me attractive? Like that's just what he needs
because if I having sex with him, that would be
the stamp that that was what I was feeling. But
if that's not happening, then you're I need you to
tell me now. So I'm like, okay, I get that.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
That's interesting, isn't it Because in straight relationships, I think
the stereotype.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
Is that men don't care, do you know what I mean?
But that's not true. It's not true at all.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
No, No, that self esteem is also fragile at this
time and all the rest of it. How are you
going with and I know you don't have an empty
nest quite but it's emptying out or how very like?
Speaker 3 (49:38):
How's the transition?
Speaker 1 (49:40):
I found it really difficult at first, really really difficult.
When our first child left the nest, I mourned that
for quite some time. It's one of those funny things too,
where you know, you speak to some parents and they're like, yes,
but you let them go, you let them fly. You
know you can't keep hold of them forever. And I'm like,
(50:02):
I know that, but it doesn't mean I'm not going
to be really sad that that family of five is
now no no longer. There's no more sitting around the
dinner table at night and being privy to the ins
and outs of her life every day and having conversations
whenever we want. Like the loss of that, Oh I'm.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
Going to cry.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Yeah, I really really struggled, really struggled with it. And
then when my son left, that was a whole other
morning as well. Yet I can say now we're about
two three years on from that, the change in our
relationships or my relationships with the two older kids is
(50:45):
something I really treasure now, and it's become a different
kind of level of conversation and interest in You're where
it does become more two adults loving each other and
having shared interests and being able to still talk about
your childhood but still talking about other more adult worldly things,
(51:08):
and it's quite low.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
And I guess it becomes well, ideally, it's now a
relationship of choice, right, yeah, is that they will hang
out with you because they want to. Well, and maybe
they need something, but they want to. It's something that
they choose to do now rather than while you live here.
So you have to see me every day.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
That's so true.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
And do you allow yourself to feel like a sense
of accomplishment that they want to be around you and
that the adult relationship is good?
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Yes and no. Like there's also been conversations, particularly with
my son, where which I'm grateful to have, where he's
shared things from his childhood that were especially painful, of
things that we thought we were doing the best thing
for him, and in fact it was really hurtful. So
there are moments like that where you go, oh, my god,
(51:57):
if only I could go back and change that aspect.
So there's those moments where sometimes I don't feel so accomplished.
Where I go, I mess that up for him least
I go, he still wants to spend time with us,
he's still wanting to come over, and he's still willing
to share things about his childhood and I'm just grateful
(52:19):
that I have that with him. Yeah, So I go
back and forth with that, but look, if I took
a step back, I think we've done a pretty bloody
good job with the kids. They are good people that
I know. They are good people with good morals, and
they're kind and loving, and I'm like, Okay, yeah, that's good.
I'll take that.
Speaker 3 (52:39):
They sound really good.
Speaker 2 (52:41):
Before we go, we're not here to talk about menopause,
even though we have a little bit.
Speaker 3 (52:44):
But you are Queen menopause? Where are you up to?
Speaker 2 (52:49):
Like I kind of I feel like, you know, when
I was preparing for our conversation, I was revisiting a
lot of the things you were talking about around the book,
and you have really gone through it, Like, yeah, we
know all of our experiences are different. What's it like
where you are now?
Speaker 1 (53:04):
I am most definitely postmenopause, which I was not when
I was writing that book, And I think that having
spoken to a bunch of women about postmenopause for the book,
and then of course since touring the book and starting Aviana,
the Wellness Platform for menopause or women that we've started,
(53:24):
and just hearing further stories of women postmenopause. I got
really really excited about postmenopause. I did feel the light
at the end of the tunnel, and that's something that
I'm really passionate about that women should know about because
it can be a shit show. And to know that
(53:46):
you will not always feel like that, you will not
always feel as bad as you do right now, and
there is help out there. Maybe for some women it
comes automatically naturally that you know, the birds start singing
again and you start sleeping and everything's magically delicious. I
do know that I had to work at feeling better,
and I have done a lot around that, you know,
(54:07):
with exercise and diet and mindset and stuff. But I
do feel happier within myself than I can ever remember.
Speaker 3 (54:18):
That is something to look forward to.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
It.
Speaker 2 (54:20):
Yeah, what's the one thing you would tell somebody who's
where you were.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
Definitely, definitely continue to seek assistance and help. Don't just
go I'll just put up with it till this is over.
There is a lot of great help out there. And yeah,
to know that there is definitely a world a life
experience is ahead of you that are really joyful and
(54:45):
fun and wonderful, And now is the time more than
your entire life experience. You deserve to be well taken
care of, and do it. Spend the money on yourself
if you can do it. Don't think that oh I can't.
You know, oh I don't have the time. Make the
time for you. It's so important.
Speaker 3 (55:11):
A bloody love, Ali Dado.
Speaker 2 (55:12):
I've spoken to her a few times over the years
because of some of you all know, I've worked with
her brother in law for the longest time. We hosted
a show together called This Glorious Mess. And every time
I've interviewed her about family, about menopause, about this issue,
I find her just very real and very honest and
very thoughtful. I know you want to know, so I'm
also going to tell you, yes, she looks bloody great.
Speaker 3 (55:35):
Not great for.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
Her age, but great for any age. You can see
the pictures for yourself. But she came into the studio
in a very cool dead and boiler suit, all hair
and glowing skin and big grin. She looks like she's
settled into that place I said I wanted to get
to in my intro, a place of comfort and confidence.
But knowing midlife, it might just be a visit. Because
Holly knows what'll come next. It just keeps throwing curveballs,
(55:59):
which is why, of course, we're going to be back
very soon with season three of your show, and we'll
be talking about divorce and change and food and sexual
and you know, more of the good stuff. I can't
thank you all enough for being here with us through
season two of Mid. Please if this body image conversation resonated,
(56:21):
go and listen to our conversation from season one with
Helen Thorn about bodies because she was hilarious and honest
about her midlife body transformation and you're going to laugh
so much again to we. But anyway, thank you, thank you,
and thank you to our Mid team. That's our EP
name A Brown, our producers to Elisabezazz and Charlie Blackman,
(56:42):
sound design and audio production from Leah Porge's and Tom Lyon,
and social media video production by Josh Green and I'm
hollywayin right.
Speaker 3 (56:50):
And we'll see you back here in.
Speaker 2 (56:52):
Just a few weeks on October the fifteenth, not long ago.
Speaker 5 (56:57):
Goodbye. Nine
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on Hello out louders, it's
hotly here popping into your feed to tell you about
today's Sunday special. Today, I'm bringing you an episode of
mid that I did with Alison Bray Daddo. I think
you know who she is. She was one of the
original supermodels here in Australia and most Generation X women
(00:35):
are quite obsessed with her. We had a very honest conversation,
not about her modeling career actually, although she's got lots
to say about that, about menopause, about long relationships, but
actually about what we really think when we look in
the mirror. Is it hard when you have been known
to be a particularly beautiful woman, and that's how I
used to make your living aging, How do you make
your decisions about what you are aren't going to do
(00:57):
to intervene in that process? How do you feel when
you look in the mirror. Alison's really honest about all
of that, and I hope you're really going to enjoy
this conversation between me and Ali Dado called what have
you done to your face, wrinkles and blotches and bits
(01:17):
that sag, shadows and creases and crape. My face is changing,
and I'm faking being fine with it.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Maybe you are too.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I'm sure that wasn't there yesterday, I say, peering into
the mirror without my bifocal contact lenses with their comforting blur,
poking at a crevice, holding up an eyelid, reaching for
a tweezer, a potion, a coverall.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Sometimes it takes all the will in the world not
to want to scrape it off.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Stop the change, stop the slide, stop the fold, stop
the inevitable, freeze it in time, sand it, smooth it,
lift it, fill it.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Maybe I will.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Maybe if I did that, I wouldn't notice anymore that
I'm aging. Maybe fewer lines would distract me from my
undulating hormones.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
That little grunt as I stand up.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
The advancing migrain, the birthday numbers counting up to nowhere,
the days I get to spend with.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
My people counting down.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
But also if I do that to try to trick
the mirror, then another trap yawns open.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Don't you dare look like you're trying too hard?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
So sad, so desperate, what have you done to your face?
So many opinions, so much criticism, so much wasted energy
on this little patch of fleshy real estate. Maybe if
my face just bloody stopped changing, I could pretend time
wasn't passing. The change is accelerating. Today, I'm despairing over
(02:52):
an image that I know in a year I will
consider impossibly youthful. Well, despairing is a strong word, one
I should save for things worthy of distress, illness, and
loss and stubbed toes in the dark. But then again,
maybe despairing is the right word, because our face is
apparently mean so much. They signal to the world where
(03:13):
we're up to, near the beginning, near the end, somewhere
in the messy mid They signal to the world, apparently,
how much we care, how together we are, how well
we nurture ourselves. Does an errant eyebrow mean we're messy,
an unfilled line that we've given up? Beauty is a
beast when you're mid because aging is a privilege, but
(03:33):
looking young is everything, the entire world says, So why
my mirror asks me, as I peered too close, Do
you care about this? You're not a supermodel or a celebrity.
Your worth isn't tied to your foreheadlines. You know you're
always saying it that getting to bitch about wrinkles is
a lottery winning luck so many others would give anything for.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
You know that, deep in your bones that.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
These are stripes of pride, blotches of wisdom, folds of experience.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Those words are so true it hurts. We all feel it.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
We didn't get this wise with out knowing about insides
versus outsides, and the futility of relentless comparison, or the
subtle manipulation of shifting beauty standards. But still, even with
all that wisdom, some days the mirror is a fucking bitch.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
I said it.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
My face is changing, and I'm busy faking being fine
with it.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Maybe one day I won't have to fake it at all.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
The hard fought wisdom that drew those fine lines will
settle into every cell of my body, and I'll be
comfortable and confident in my serum lathered skin.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
I can't wait. I'll see you there.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Hello. Hello.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I am Holly Wainwright, and I am mid mid life,
mid family, mid wrinkle panic, and today we're bringing you
the last conversation of Mid season two. It has been
a ridiculous treat to bring you the conversations we've brought
you about sex, money, time, sisters, invisibility, rage, and that
(05:11):
big family shift. If you missed any of them, now's
your moment. Go back and listen, share them with anyone
who needs to hear them. And please, if you love mid,
throw us a follow and leave us a review. I
know that every podcast you listen to asks you to
do that, but.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
There's a good reason.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
That's because it helps more people find us, and the
more mids, I think you'll agree, the better. But today
a treat you might have gathered from my introduction that
we are talking about faces and bodies. And at the
beginning of this season, I promised you a supermodel. I
don't know who you thought was going to walk in
here with me, but I know you're going to be
(05:48):
delighted to meet her if you haven't already. Alison Bray
was the Australian model of the late eighties and early nineties,
on every magazine cover and on every teenage girl's wall.
She had a huge career here and overseas, and then
she married the equally famous and attractive Cameron Daddo and
backed right away from the industry, settled in la and
(06:11):
raised a family. Now, as Alison Bray Daddo, or Ali
as very many of us know her, she's also become
just the most honest, interesting voice about midlife and menopause
and all the messy challenges it brings us. But today
we're not actually talking about that. We're getting deep about
surface stuff, beauty, whatever it means to us. And let's
(06:33):
be honest, there's a sliding scale of how much any
of us can ever claim to have felt beautiful at
any age. It's a beast in midlife because how we
wear our age on our face and our bodies can
feel so important and so crucial to how the outside
world sees us. Even as we know that it's really
the silliest of all of our concerns, it often doesn't
(06:54):
feel that way. So come and talk to me and
Ali about how we're feeling about that, what we're doing
about that, and where we all stand on the mistakes
we've made in thinking and talking about our faces and
our bodies.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
As we've moved on through.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Welcome to Mid Season two, Episode eight, Beauty with Ali Daddo.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Alie.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I could talk to you about a million things on
mid that our.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Audience would love to hear.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
You talk about menopause obviously, yes, since you've literally written
the book Long Marriages and Relationships, because you've literally made podcasts,
correct starting a new business in mid like you've recently
done that. You're doing all kinds of things. But I
asked you here primarily to talk about something that should
be beneath us all I think, but actually really gets
(07:43):
in our way when we're in this phase of life.
What we look like, beauty, body, are faces, all those things.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
First of all, you're very beautiful.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
That's very kind. Don't you look amazing?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And I know, of course, because i've heard you talk
about it lots of times that even when you're a
very famous model, that wasn't currency you were particularly interested
in and it was quite difficult for you to handle.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
But do you feel beautiful?
Speaker 1 (08:15):
I actually feel much more beautiful now than I did
when I was modeling. Really yeah, and it's only been
a new experience. I still struggle with like looking at
my legs or my cellulide or the belly that overhangs
the pants and wish that I could wear the clothes
that I had, though, there's just a feeling now that
(08:37):
I have in myself that is so much more at
peace than I was when I was younger and modeling,
and I didn't ever expect that that would happen. I
was sitting with a group of women and it was
a meditation and we were talking about it was sort
of like the things that are noise about our bodies
or the things we'd want to change. And I sat
(08:59):
there and I kind of was like, what do I
want to change? Like what am I unhappy with? And
I was like, there's things I want to change about
how I approach things and how I do some things
and how I react to some things. But I did
not come up with anything I wanted to change physically.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
I've heard you talk over the process of this when
you released Queen Menopause, and you in that book very
honest diary entries of journal entries rather about various stages
of this, And so it's been a journey to use
it overase word to get to that place.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
And I'm not there all the time. I'm certainly not
there all the time, but I was in that moment
and I felt really the joy I felt in that
moment was like, oh, have I actually let it all go?
Am I actually okay with finally in my physical body.
But yeah, it wasn't like the glaring list of I
wish I had longer legs and you know, smooth skin,
and I didn't have that come up at first. So
(09:54):
it was interesting.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
That's so good.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
When you were a young model, did you ever think
about what it would be like to be this age?
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Were afraid of aging?
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I was so naive at that age. I didn't really
think about sure as hell, didn't think about menopause and
even cross my mind. But I looked at my mom
and I knew I didn't want her body shape. I
remember thinking that I have her exact body shape.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
You know, it's true.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
I was thinking about this the other day and this
is probably way TMI, But when I was a kid,
I was used to talk to my mom when she
was in the bath. We were in a naked house,
but that was often a place where because she used
to have a Bathnili every day.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
English.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course she'd.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Have a bath Neil every day, and that would sometimes
be I would go and sit on the toilet seat
and talk to her, not you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Yeah, we'd sometimes.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Talk and so Ira would look at her body and
I'm ashamed to say, but I did used to think
who Yeah, not terrible. And I also used to think
that will never be me. There was nothing wrong with
my mum's body, let's be clear. Yeah, but I thought
that will never be me.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, of course it's exactly me. I'm identical to my
mother and my mom. I used to pat my mom's
tummy and say, you get a baby in there, you're pregnant. Mom.
The amount of times I've been asked how far along
I am at the age of fifty four is embarrassing.
This is truly childhood karma coming back at.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Me very much.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Look, I'm going to be honest and say that right
now if I was going to ask myself that question
at the moment, I'm not.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Feeling that great about it. Like I think I was
feeling better about it.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Actually when I turn fifty and now I feel like
it all changes really quickly, and my skin tone and
your skin texture and all that boring stuff. The things
I was doing to keep a handle on my weight
seem to not be working now, So I'm looking for
a new fix.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
For that shit.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
But the thing is that sort of compounds feeling bad
about that stuff is that I also feel like I
shouldn't care, Like, yes, how stupid to.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Care about that.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I am old and wise and I shouldn't care, Yes,
But feeling guilty about that makes it worse.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
And I think that's where the idea of body positivity,
which of course if it's naturally there for you, it's
this very fine line where it can actually flip so
much into shame and guilt for women if you don't
have it, and then it's another thing to feel shitty
about yourself that you're not I should feel better. I
should love my body. You know when am I going
(12:22):
to love my body? And I think that's a real
catch for women because we're sold, you know, this bill
of goods since day dot what the perfect body should
look like in the skin, and you know what is
deemed is the number one look, and then if you
don't fit that, then you're wrong. But then we're also
told love your curves, love you cell, youreate, love who
(12:43):
you are, and then if you don't feel that either,
you're like, oh crap, you know, I'm failing and everything.
So I think it's a really challenging position for women
to find themselves in if we're not like I just
love my muffin top. This is amaing, you know. And
I don't feel that about my muffin top. You know,
I don't feel that I wish it would go away.
(13:04):
I do, but I'm not going to get upset about it.
Think that's the change for me where I used to
but now it's like I know how to dress it
up now, to learn those things what works and what
does it work now?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
You know, we're supposed to be very wise at this
stage of life, and we are, but you still have
good days and bad days in terms of how much
you care about that. And one of the reasons why
it can really get in your head, I think, is
that we worry that what we look like and us
looking older or middle aged or whatever words we want
to put around that is not how we feel inside. Yes, yes,
So it's like the push to hold on to some
(13:43):
kind of youth in terms of what we look like
is about how we want to be seen by others,
isn't it.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah? Absolutely, And I mean I think every woman feels
that invisibility factor when we hit a certain age where
you just sort of pushed in a certain direction for clothing,
for skincare, for you can't dress like that at your age.
You know, you have to change that, you have to,
you know, there's a push in that direction, which I
(14:12):
think is challenging. And I think, you know, I've been
asked that before. You know, as a model, have you
found it more confronting to hit menopause and age? And
I just think it's confronting for most women. I don't
think whether you're a model or not. I think it
can be very confronting. You know, as we see, you know,
my mother's body reflecting back in me at the mirror,
(14:34):
I'm like, Okay, yeah, this is not how I feel.
As you say, I still feel like I'm kind of
twenty one in a lot of ways, and I still
sometimes think I can shop like a twenty one year old.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Well, you and I both were in cool trainers to that, Ali.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
That's right. From my ankles down, we are twenty one.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Ankles down, we are exceptionally cool.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Yeah. But then it's so funny. I go, I can't
wear those tight, tight dresses now, and then a part
of me goes, of course you can. Of course you
can who cares if you've got a belly? Now, Like,
who's the only person caring? Really, And it would be.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Yeah, it's true, you know.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
So it's like, yeah, you can, you can if you
want to, if you want to. So it's like all
of those machinations.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
The thing about this is that we might make peace
with I'm getting older, my face looks older, my body
looks older. Then it feels like we have an array
of choices about how much to care, how much we're
going to do about it, right, depending on our resources
and our priorities. We have options available to us that
were not available to our mothers, everything from laser to
(15:40):
UV to micro needling to more invasive things, everything from
surgery to weight loss injections to keto. Right, we've got
a never ending barrage of stuff coming at us that
will You don't have to, You don't have to look
middle aged if you don't want to. Are you comfortable
talking about what you do and don't do and what
your lines are?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (16:01):
What do you do?
Speaker 1 (16:04):
I've never had botox or fillers, I've never done anything
like have you ever been tempted to do that? Do
you know? Just recently I was looking at my friend
who she's fifty, so she's a wee bit younger than me.
She only does her frown lines between the eyebrows, and
I mine A quite does that. Yeah, I have quite
deepsh ones for me, Like I certainly see it in
(16:26):
photos and you know, selfies and all that crap. I'm like, ah,
it's only those lines. And I think it's because they're
frown lines. I love my laugh lines, love them anything
to do with smiling, enjoy those lines I love. But
those ones are my angry lines. And so sometimes I'm like,
I don't think I want those very much. So that exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Sorry, when I said before MEA does that, I should
clarify A. She would be so cool with me saying that.
But also that's what she said when she was wrestling
with herself about botox and God. She wrestled with herself
about bowtoes for a very long time, publicly, of course,
but she said she just didn't want to look pissed
off all the time when she actually wasn't.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Pissed off all resting bitch face.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
And people like to think that older women are grumpy anyway,
So that's a similar thing. It's about that making your
outsides much insides there?
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Do you have a barrier in your mind about doing it?
Or is it just whether or not you could be bothered?
Speaker 1 (17:21):
It's a bit of a whether or not I could
be bothered, and I'm slightly terrified. I just think, am
I going to be that one person that has a
hideous reaction to it? My husband is delightfully proud of
the fact that I've never done anything, is he? He
talks about it all the time. He goes, you know,
look at your face, honey, you're aging so beautifully. There's
so many women have done stuff and you haven't done anything,
(17:43):
And it's really lovely to have someone that sees the
beauty of my aging. Who is my partner? You know?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
But isn't it funny that it's a compliment. I think
that my partner would be the same, and that he
would be a bit judge is probably the wrong word,
but probably is also the right word. He probably would
be a bit judge if I stuff you do something?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yes, yeah, But.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
It's funny that it's kind of a compliment when really,
how much of it is to do with us?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Yeah? I know, I mean I am absolutely pro whatever
you want to do to your face, basically, because I
think as long as it brings you to a place
of feeling better, you know. I worry about people that,
you know, go on those massive plastic face journeys and
still feel like crap because it hasn't helped what's inside.
(18:31):
But if a little tuck and injectable really makes you
feel better, then go for it. You know. And I've
said this before. What I don't like is but this
is more like from celebrities, is when celebrities have had
so much work and then they go, oh, it's just
it's just because I wash my face with lemon juice
(18:53):
and eat cabbage. No it's not. And that makes the
rest of us feel like we can't keep up, you know.
But it's such a vicious circle, isn't it. Like the
whole plastic surgery and everything. It's sort of the more
women have it, the more we feel we should be
having the rest of us. And you know, sometimes I
think that I've been kind of left behind in the
(19:15):
plastic surgery injectable thing. It's like, oh, I'm fifty four,
it's too late to do anything now. Maybe I should
have done it earlier. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Sometimes I think now if I went into and I
was like, right, I'm gonna get this, I'm gonna get
these rinkles sort out here, it would be a bit
like painting the skirting boards but leaving all the walls.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, where do you stop? I know, I mean, I
kind of of course I know how it works, but
I'm like, the crevice is already there, So how does
botox stop? Does it stop me from frowning so the
crevices disappear naturally? I don't know, you know, it would
be highly unlikely that I will do it. Yeah, I've
(19:53):
thought it would be nice to not have that. I've
thought about doing the fat freezing off of my stomach.
I have definitely thought about that. Again, I just I
think I have a fear of all that sort of stuff,
like what if something goes wrong? Yeah, So they're the
two things I've definitely do.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
You are you a because your skin does look amazing,
But that's not what we're here to say.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
We're just here to go. But you look great.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Serum's potions like do you put a lot of stock
in that stuff?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Not? Really, I do a little bit for my skin.
The simpler the better. I'm a very simple, simple, simple person.
For the longest time, I just washed my face with
water and then I did a Hahober oil and something
called Egyptian magic. What's Egyptian magic? I found when we
lived in La It's just it's a super super super
(20:46):
old recipe, like just an oil almost so I did
oil on oil. I have quite dry skin. I don't know.
Sometimes the serums don't feel like they I don't like
them on my skin. I don't like a cream moisturizer.
I'm loving the retreatment botanicals, you know that one. I'm
living in John's brand, loving that at the moment. But
(21:06):
sometimes I'll just go back to her Hobo oil.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
And so you've worked out what works for you and
you're not tempted to do all the fancy procedures. No,
I feel like a lot of the soul searching and
worrying about that is a bit passe now, right, Like
my young friends don't worry about.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
It if they want to go and get absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
And I feel like that whatever we do to ourselves,
it has to be so political, like such a big
because women's bodies always are right. It's like if whatever
size they are and whatever you decide to do with it,
it has to mean something, and that can be really exhausting.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Yeah, can't it just.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Mean I don't like my friend line?
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yeah, that's right. I know this is so true because
my I have a twenty eight to twenty four an
eighteen year old, and they were sitting there the other
day at lunch figuring out what procedure they would have
if they were going to have a procedure, Like it
was like what would we order for lunch? And including
my son who's already figured out, I would do this,
and I would do that, and I do that, the
twenty eight say oh what, I would do this to
(22:06):
my lips? And I would do I mean that was
something I never would have considered at that age.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
And also as a parent, we're like, but you're perfect.
Of course they mess with you.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
I know you dare start on that train. Yeah, but
that's so true. It's just an option. It's a health
care option or a self care option. It's whereas Yeah,
for me, I feel like it's a dramatic thing to
go and do and yeah, am I betraying my womanhood
for like changing my face somehow? Like and all those
women that didn't do it. You know, we've got to
(22:39):
be strong. It's like, no, you don't.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
You just said you just do what you do and
if it makes you feel good. My main deterrent actually
is just time. Is I think I can barely get
my haircut, you know what I mean? I can barely
get my haircut. Am I going to start a complicated
dermatological procedures where I have to be there every six
(23:01):
weeks for I don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
And your face peels off for a bit? Again, I
have friends that do a lot of those face peels,
and stuff in their skin is actually fantastic, So I
know a lot of the stuff does work.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
There's a gap in our minds between what we think
we look like and what we look like that sometimes
we catch now. And maybe this is generational because maybe
young people don't have that gap so much because they've
grown up with the front facing phone, so they've looked
at their faces a lot. Yeah, and so sometimes when
that catches you and you get that glimpse a bit
like your mom's body in the bath.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Yeah, yeah, you're like, oh.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
And that's back to that my outside much my insides bit,
And that's why it gets complex.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
And do you think that like the face filters are
to blame for a rise in plastic surgery. I mean,
I know people have said that before the flow's face filters,
it's a smoothie skin out that trim. You knows that well.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
It is to be very difficult for us to imagine
what we look like in different ways. Yeah right, I've
probably got quite a deep and it sounds like maybe
you do a little bit, a deep seeded sort of
that I shouldn't care so much. I mean, obviously don't
care that much or I would look better, but like
you know, I shouldn't care so much. But I won't
put a picture of myself up on my Instagram feed
(24:13):
if I think I look awful, I won't filter it.
But I'll choose a flattering angle. I'll take three or
four pictures to choose the one that I this is
how I want.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
To present myself.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
So we're all on a scale of that representation, aren't we.
And then if I see myself and I have been filtered,
and I go, oh wow, I can understand how.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Seductive it is.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah, absolutely, And.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
I see that my daughter who when she does it,
I mean she's a bit beyond this now. But those
snapchat filters that are really cool, that just make your
eyes that little bit bigger, and your skin a little
bit whiter, which is problematic in its own way, and
your lip's a little bit fuller, and she suddenly just
looks kind of.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Like the models used to sell us bags or your fault.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
I know it's true.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
I'm part of the problem, Holly, But I have a friend.
We digress, well, we'll come back to the main point.
But I have a friend. She's a performer and she
does quite a lot.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Of TV in Asia, and they live filter faces now,
so when she is on the TV there, she has
had a filter put over her, and she says, it's amazing.
You sit backstage and artists come off stage and they
look so different to what you've just seen on the screen.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
While they do they still do a full face of
makeup or do they make as well, and then they
rely somewhat on the filter. That wow.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
So if you think about when you were modeling, I'm
sure sometimes you were airbrushed.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
I'm sure you didn't need it.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Of course, definitsh you were air brushed, and you know,
we all did whatever way you needed to be whittled,
and now that can happen in real time. It does
make you wonder what it's going to do to our
perception of beauty. Yes, if you never have to even
gaze upon a less than perfect.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Face, Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
And it's a bit scary. Yeah. After the break, Ali
shares more about her own.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Struggle with body image as a young model and how
she feels about her body. Now we talk about body
image and how we're teaching young women to see beauty
in queen menopause and on No Filter with me, you
wrote really honestly and beautifully about grappling with changing shape.
We've touched on this a little bit already, and you wrote,
I know I'm feeling older than ever, my body shaping
(26:32):
itself into an actual potato. I really related to that.
What if this potato shape is permanent? What if this
is my final resting body shape? Can I love this
shape just as it is? How do I love my
body when I hold the comparison to my twenty one
year old self? Now, wait, is a tricky thing to
talk about. It's taboo. Younger women tell me all the
(26:52):
time that we shouldn't talk about it at all. But
most older women I know have some kind of complex
relationship with their weight and they do.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Want to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, and I know that you have and do where
do you stand on that idea of that we should
just try and make it less important by not focusing
on it.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
I would love women to not focus on their way.
I would just love women to feel strong and healthy.
That would be my two things that women focused on
out of anything, that they are healthy and strong, because
I think I know that certainly knowing it enough now
and speaking to doctors and understanding about how important strength
(27:34):
is after menopause and what menopause does to your bones
and once the estrogen drops, and the most important thing
you can do for yourself is to be strong. So
I would love for women to feel that that was
their goal and healthy.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
From the days when you wrote those words, for example,
to where you are now and you said at the
beginning of the show that you feel now like I
wouldn't change it. Is that because you've gone through this understanding,
this education about what happens to your body, and so
now you've found the ways to make yourself feel stronger.
Like do you relate to this person who's worried about
being potato.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Shop Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's still definitely with me.
I just don't feel as attached to wanting to be
the shape I was when I was twenty one. I
feel like I've now lived in this shaped body long
enough to go. I don't think this we're going back.
(28:29):
I think this might be it.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
So it's more or maybe about grappling.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
With the chain. Yeah. And if this is it, are
you going to talk crap to yourself for the rest
of your life or are you just going to be
okay with what you've got now? And that's something that
I constantly sort of work with, like just going everything's working, Alli.
You don't have cancer, you don't have some other disease,
You've got all your limbs and fingers, your body is working.
(28:55):
Let's just work on that. I'd tell you something that's
really actually changed my mind is I don't know where
I saw it. It was some ad and it was a gentleman, yeah,
I guess my age sort of thing, and he said,
I really want to be strong and healthy for my grandkids.
And I've got that in my mind now. And I
don't want to be a size seven. I mean to
(29:17):
size eight or six for my grandkids, I want to
be strong, I want to be healthy. I want to
be able to lift them up. And I want to
be running on the beach with them. I want to
be hiking with them. That's kind of where I've shifted
myself now, like what do I want my future self
to be? And it's not like bikini ready for the summer.
It's fit and feeling good and that's helpful.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Do you think, as my young colleagues tell me all
the time that our generation has particularly fucked top relationship
with our bodies. They think that we were very doused
in toxic diet culture.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Do the younger colleagues feel like that they're not doused
in it?
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Jesse, my co host on out Loud who's in her
thirties early thirties, she always says that Gen X, we
are very hard on ourselves about our bodies, and she
thinks it is because we grew up in toxic diet culture, which.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
I feel we did.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Yeah, And it was also so normal when we were
young that there would be ads on the TV telling
you how to lose weight fast, that every magazine and
I worked in magazines, and I mean, so did you
in a different way. Was like, lose five kilos fast.
It was all out there, it was all explicit. It
was you need to lose weight. Was kind of our
constant track in our heads. And what I wonder, and
(30:33):
this is what I argue with Jesse about a bit now,
is I wonder if that track's still there because on
Instagram certainly everybody is thin. TikTok, everybody is thin. That
were still presenting all that. But now that you're not
allowed to say it out loud, does that.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Make it better or worse?
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I don't see
anything's changed. I mean I maybe I'm wrong. I'm not
you know, twenty one or thirty or whatever. But you know,
now we've got talk of just taking a zepic and
losing weight, and isn't this great? It's the fast way
to lose weight. Like, we've still got that talk. That's
I hear a lot. You know, my twenty eight year
(31:11):
old still is concerned if she puts on weight. My
eighteen year old is concerned if she loses too much weight.
So I don't know, I haven't seen a change. I
think there's still maybe there's a slight better look in
we're a little bit more diverse in who we see
(31:32):
on TV now, but it's still described as isn't it
amazing We've put like a size twenty woman on a screen,
Like it's still like a thing that's like exciting, and
aren't we incredibly amazing that we've decided to cast this
person where I don't know, it's still not like it's
just average sizes doing average things, seeing normal people on
(31:53):
TV that are bigger and smaller and different colors. And
it's getting there, though I don't think the diet culture
has changed. I would love it too, but I don't
think it has.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
I don't think it has really.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
I just think maybe it's pushed underground a bit, like
it would be very uncool in my office where I
work that anyone would ever say that anybody, you've lost weight,
you look great, you know, like whereas we used to
say that to each other all the time, and my
girlfriends who are a similar age to me still do
say that absolutely, And that wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Be okay to say.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
It wouldn't be okay to sit down at brunch and go,
I'm not eating carbs, even though you might not be eating.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Cars do you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Right, But are they still talking behind other women's backs
and going, oh my god, she's put on a lot
of weight. Probably are, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
It's interesting talking about daughters is interesting here because my
daughter's fourteen. I had my kids much later than you
were a similar age, so you're at a different phase.
But she is very you can see, you can almost
watch their brains switch on about it matters a great
deal about what I look like and what size my
body is and my messaging to her, and I sometimes
(33:06):
worry that I fucked it, so you have to tell
me if that's true. When she was little, I was
always like, it doesn't matter at all, doesn't matter at
all what you look like. Bodies are for being strong
and doing things. Everybody's beautiful, like all of that. Yeah, right,
And then I have a very clear memory of her.
Maybe it was just when she went to high school,
just before high school, going for a walk with her
and me saying to her, doesn't matter what you look like,
(33:27):
on her saying like almost sheepishly, mom, it really matters.
Everybody talks about it all the time. You know that person.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
So she could see the split, She.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Could see my lie in a way, how have you
dealt with your daughters and talking about beauty and body?
Speaker 1 (33:42):
You know, it was something that I was hyper aware of,
hyper aware of, and I think I fucked it, and
I know I fucked it actually, And the way I
fucked it was I would say outwardly unkind things about
my appearance in front of my children. Number One rule,
mess that up big time. How can I turn to
(34:04):
them and say, everybody's beautiful, you're perfect and look in
the mirror and go, oh god, this doesn't fit. I've
put on so much weight. I can't wear this dress anymore.
I remember my youngest at one point saying, I hate
it when you talk to yourself like that. That's so good.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
I mean, it's awful that you did, but it's good
that she said that.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
That was the first thing that I remember going, that's
got to be the last time. If you're going to
say it, just say internally, like, do not speak it
out loud. Actually, it was honestly one of the first
things that started changing my judgment of myself. Just stop
saying it out loud, Like one step, don't say it
out loud, because I think it has more power if
(34:49):
you say it out loud, and especially in a room
full of people or in front of people. Plus, I
also had that thing and I talk a little bit
about that in the book too, is that I always
felt nervous around women. It was so weird. I know
it sounds crazy, but I felt nervous around women being
a model, that they would think I was up myself
(35:11):
for being a model. So the first thing I always
did was start to put myself down. It was the
first thing I would say, whether it was I'm not
very smart, or yeah, i'm so flat chested, or I've
got this, I've got that, because I thought that was
the way I'm going to get l liked. I'm not
going to be liked for being pretty amongst other women,
but if I put myself below you, then we might
(35:34):
be able to have a connection. Eh, that doesn't really work.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
I was going to say, did that work?
Speaker 1 (35:38):
No, No, not at all. And that's one of the
things that modeling is a negative For modeling, that was
one of the things I had to really undo and
it was really you know, hearing my daughter's going, I
can't stand it when you say how mean you are
to yourself.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
That's amazing because one of the things that's very relatable
about that. I tried to never talk about body or
weight in front of my kids, but the number of
times that they would have seen me glance in a
mirror and go ough yeah. And the idea of us
looking at ourselves and going and then myself.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
And going throats.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
When you actually take that out of context and look
at it from a helicopter, you're like, how awful that
we do that to ourselves, no matter what we look like,
whether we are models, whether we're not. You've felt instinctively,
I've got to pull myself back, and then you probably
began to believe the script. You were telling yourself that
you are smart and you weren't this, and you weren't that.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Yeah, And I mean being a model, you're not booked
for your brains. You're not booked for how you can
understand this topic or you're eloquent. It's like smile and
look pretty and that was it. So and that's what
I became famous for. So it's taken me years to
get to a point where I felt like I had
something to say and someone might find it helpful or interesting,
(36:55):
you know. So, yeah, that was a long piece to
undo as well.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
I always think though that even though, as you say,
you're not booked for being pretty, models probably have a
different relationship with criticism because you also get a lot
more of that, probably than your average person. I was
thinking about recently. I could probably tell you specifically some
times that people have commented on my appearance and it
would have really hurt my Yeah, right, I remember a
(37:22):
time when my mom years ago commented on my weight.
I could still remember like what I was looking at
out of the window, and what the days smelt like
and all those things, because it really hurt me. But
being a teenage model, you probably going to castings where
people were like too short, too tall, too blond, to this,
to that too, Like, So what does that do? Do
you become better at handling it or do you just
(37:45):
hate yourself?
Speaker 1 (37:48):
I think it's a little bit of both actually, But yeah,
that's a very very good point, because that's the thing.
You can be standing there and you can have six
people who are looking at you like a painting, going yeah, look,
she's got too many moles on that side of her back.
Can we like cover those up? Cover those up? Like
that doesn't look good. Yeah, poops are really small, Like
(38:10):
give us something more. Oh, Ali, you just need to
stand up a bit because when you slouch, like your
belly pokes out, you know. I mean, it's just like, okay,
what do I do? How do I eat? And you
suck in? Suck in now, and of course you get
the oh you're gorgeous and blah blah blah blah blah.
But of course it's almost like you're waiting for the
criticism to go. Okay, is there a butt in there?
(38:33):
Is there a butt your hair? Or but this or
but that? Or striving to change this or striving to
get better. And I couldn't change my skin. My skin's
got a lot of freckles and moles. It was like, okay,
well I lost that job because I couldn't make that disappear.
So there's an enormous amount of criticism leveled. I think
it models and people say, well, that's your job, you know,
(38:55):
you put yourself in that position and that's your job.
And it's like, yeah, but I didn't sign up for
the criticism. WHOA.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
I was like, can't you just keep it quiet? I
have to hear it, like you say it what I've
left the room.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
The first time because when I grew up in an
era off of you know, you'd do a polaroid, wait
for the polaroid to dry, and you'd look at it
and you'd go, okay, let's change the lighting. Then you'd
shoot and it was film. You had no idea what
those photographs were going to look like until they turned
up in a magazine. But here I remember coming back,
(39:26):
having not modeled for years and years, I came back.
I don't know what I was shooting. I was shooting something.
And now you stand there and everyone's looking at the
computer monitor because every photograph's popping up on the computer monitor.
And I remember this job that they were airbrushing as
they went. They were like, yeah, just get rid of
the lines under the dark circles. We'll just smooth those out.
(39:49):
So I remember just standing behind the photographer and you know,
computer operator as they fixed me in real time.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
This kind this is watching yourself change yes to this very.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Yes, just get rid of that. And whenever I do
a photo shoot for anything, and they said you want
to come see the photo on the computer, I said
absolutely not, that's good. I never want to see it.
And apparently a lot of old school models, which I
consider myself one don't like to see it. It's too
off putting.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
No, I don't want to know.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
No, just take a nice photo and print it. That's fine.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
This is interesting about retraining ourselves. You know how you
were saying that after hearing your daughter say to you,
I hate hearing you talk like that, and you were like, right,
I'm going to stop saying that out loud. I do
that a bit with you know, we were talking before
about whether or not our generation was particularly brutal on
ourselves and each other about our bodies. I do that
in terms of retraining myself not to constantly comment on
(40:48):
women's appearances.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Yes, when they're on TV, for example, Yes.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
You know, so the news readers on TV. And if
my mom was there, my mom would say what hair?
Oh you know, Oh that color does nothing for her.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
That would be my mom for sure. My mom would
go look at the size of her, how did she
get to be that big? Yeah, I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
So I've trained myself to knock comment. Yes, and it
does change your behavior, like it really does. So do
you think that that comment from your daughter, as well
as a lot of the things you've been through in
the last few years with menopause and other things have
helped you get to this place of not being so
critical of your body as you literally trained yourself out
(41:28):
of it.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Yeah. Absolutely, I had to really work at it. It
wasn't just a natural progression. It was just a big
awakening around a whole lot of things. And part of
that was, you know, going through menopause and having a perimenopause,
having a really rough shock with it, and just thinking
(41:49):
about how much women go through. Just thinking about how
much pain we go through physically every month, you know,
women with endometriosis, women going through labor. It's so much
that we deal with day in and day out with
our physical bodies that we put aside, works through, we
(42:10):
show up for work still, we show up to school.
We push through the pain. And then it was like
and then menopause, I was like, are you kidding me?
Are you serious? This is not right. So it was like, Okay,
I am not going to push through anything anymore. I
(42:32):
am not gonna go Okay, I'm fine, I'll keep going,
I'll keep doing it. I'm going to actually really take
care of myself for the first time. And I've been
so mean to my body for so long as I
think the culture has and it's hard not to see
yourself the way culture does. And I'm like, no, fuck it, Yes,
(42:55):
I'm going to be really nice to myself now and
I'm going to give myself the self care that it's
my body's always wanted and all the nice words it's
always wanted. And I'm actually going to start to do
it now. And that's been you know, I work progress,
but it's actually made a huge, huge difference.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
After the break, Ali and I talk about the falling
midlife libido and how women can feel sexy and sensual
when we're always in such a critical conversation with ourselves.
You also wrote in Queen Menopause a lot about libido
plunge and not feeling sexual.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
That is something that is so common for usut this
time in our life.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
And that comes, just like all the other stuff, with
a lot of shame.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
Sure, and sometimes it can be to do with how
my body looks. This isn't what sexy is, Yep.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
This is not what.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Anybody has ever ever told me that sexy is. Ye
as well as hormonal plunges that are just meaning I
would rather eat a box of hair after being so
honest about that and writing so beautifully about it in
your book, How have you wrangled that?
Speaker 1 (44:06):
I actually think that's probably the last vestige of the
place that's the most challenging for me. I can do
it with myself in partnership with Cam and feeling myself
that sensual, sexy self in this body. Now, that is
my last challenge to really overcome. He's great. I've actually
(44:27):
given him dialogue to say I must say. I had
to do that because he will say things that are like, Okay,
can we just back up on that comment, honey, because
that does not help me at all. I remember this.
The one comment was like, I was looking in the mirror,
going I just hate my legs. They look like they've melted.
(44:48):
I have cankles and like everything's just melted downwards. And
he was like, oh, honey, he goes, I don't know
why they look like that. Why do they look like that?
You know? I mean, do you need I mean we
could exercise more. And it was like the wrong thing
to say. He was like, I know you were trying
to be caring. I'm like, no, no, here's the dialogue.
(45:08):
I love your legs, I love you. I love everything
about you. I love the changes, You're amazing. I'll always
love you. So now I've given him that script. That's
what he says everything.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Yes, sometimes they need a script, and sometimes we need
a script too, because I think we talked about this
when we had a conversation for the Very Perry Summit.
But talking to your partner about how you feel about
your changing body, especially if you've been together a long time,
can be really hard because you don't want them to
(45:40):
stop seeing you as an attractive sexual person, but at
the same time, you don't feel like an attractive sexual person.
I did an interview with you and Joe Elvin about this,
and I actually went home after it and spoke to
my partner because it was like I.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
Needed a script too of what to say.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
And I wonder if you've got any useful tips about that,
for like the women who were in a place closer
to where you were when you were really.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
Like what the fuck is happening?
Speaker 2 (46:08):
And you've got to brest it to the people around you,
what was good, what was useful?
Speaker 1 (46:15):
I think sometimes it helps to blow off steam more
with your girlfriends about how you're feeling. I think there
is something in that where Cam didn't notice the beard
I was growing on my gym. He did not notice that.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
It is the most observant.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
They're still seen. They don't give a shit. They don't
give a shit. They just want to know that you
love them. They want to know that you care about them,
because they're going through changes as well, you know. And
I've seen my husband go through dealing with you know,
gray hair and a bit of a paunch or whatever
he's got going on. You know, the whole sex libido
(46:55):
thing is that's a whole challenge in itself because, as
you say, there's a you've simply got chemicals happening. It's
a chemical thing that's going on in your body with
your hormones, where the libido is just nowhere to be
found in the building. But you've got everything else that's happening,
the stress of menopause, the stress of parents. You've got
(47:16):
the stress of young kids, sometimes the sandwich generation, as
you know it's called, and so much happening, and then
the need of your partner to connect with you on
a physical level where it's like the last thing you
want to be doing. You know. I say that in
the sense of talk to your girlfriends about it. I
feel lucky that I've got a husband that really really
wants to know what's going on. And when he knows
(47:38):
what's going on with me, he feels better because he's
always trying to fix something and try to figure out
why I feel sad or why I don't want to
get undressed in front of him, because he thinks it's
about him. He thinks that it's about that I don't
like him anymore. And when I say I'm just having
a real shameful moment about the changes in my body
(47:59):
and I'm feeling slightly embarrassed about who i am now
and that you won't find me attractive anymore, I mean
that was shocking to Cam. I was like, what are
you mean? You know? So, I think being honest like
that really really helps. And honest, you know, I always say,
if it is menopause or whatever that's changed your body
(48:20):
and just growing older and your partner knowing that a
lot of those changes just could not be helped because
it's due to estrogen deficiency or whatever is happening, I
think taking a partner along to like doctor visits with
you and filling them in on what you understand about
menopause and the changes in your body. I think that
(48:40):
really helps them as well. And then of course finding
ways to connect. That's if you're not feeling sexual, you know,
a massage, massaging their feed or doing holding hands and
words of love like that's why we work on a
lot of the time. Oh, sometimes can goes. I just
want you to tell me that you're still into me. Yeah,
(49:04):
just what you're to say, You're still into me, you
still find me attractive? Like that's just what he needs
because if I having sex with him, that would be
the stamp that that was what I was feeling. But
if that's not happening, then you're I need you to
tell me now. So I'm like, okay, I get that.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
That's interesting, isn't it Because in straight relationships, I think
the stereotype.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
Is that men don't care, do you know what I mean?
But that's not true. It's not true at all.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
No, No, that self esteem is also fragile at this
time and all the rest of it. How are you
going with and I know you don't have an empty
nest quite but it's emptying out or how very like?
Speaker 3 (49:38):
How's the transition?
Speaker 1 (49:40):
I found it really difficult at first, really really difficult.
When our first child left the nest, I mourned that
for quite some time. It's one of those funny things too,
where you know, you speak to some parents and they're like, yes,
but you let them go, you let them fly. You
know you can't keep hold of them forever. And I'm like,
(50:02):
I know that, but it doesn't mean I'm not going
to be really sad that that family of five is
now no no longer. There's no more sitting around the
dinner table at night and being privy to the ins
and outs of her life every day and having conversations
whenever we want. Like the loss of that, Oh I'm.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
Going to cry.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Yeah, I really really struggled, really struggled with it. And
then when my son left, that was a whole other
morning as well. Yet I can say now we're about
two three years on from that, the change in our
relationships or my relationships with the two older kids is
(50:45):
something I really treasure now, and it's become a different
kind of level of conversation and interest in You're where
it does become more two adults loving each other and
having shared interests and being able to still talk about
your childhood but still talking about other more adult worldly things,
(51:08):
and it's quite low.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
And I guess it becomes well, ideally, it's now a
relationship of choice, right, yeah, is that they will hang
out with you because they want to. Well, and maybe
they need something, but they want to. It's something that
they choose to do now rather than while you live here.
So you have to see me every day.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
That's so true.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
And do you allow yourself to feel like a sense
of accomplishment that they want to be around you and
that the adult relationship is good?
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Yes and no. Like there's also been conversations, particularly with
my son, where which I'm grateful to have, where he's
shared things from his childhood that were especially painful, of
things that we thought we were doing the best thing
for him, and in fact it was really hurtful. So
there are moments like that where you go, oh, my god,
(51:57):
if only I could go back and change that aspect.
So there's those moments where sometimes I don't feel so accomplished.
Where I go, I mess that up for him least
I go, he still wants to spend time with us,
he's still wanting to come over, and he's still willing
to share things about his childhood and I'm just grateful
(52:19):
that I have that with him. Yeah, So I go
back and forth with that, but look, if I took
a step back, I think we've done a pretty bloody
good job with the kids. They are good people that
I know. They are good people with good morals, and
they're kind and loving, and I'm like, Okay, yeah, that's good.
I'll take that.
Speaker 3 (52:39):
They sound really good.
Speaker 2 (52:41):
Before we go, we're not here to talk about menopause,
even though we have a little bit.
Speaker 3 (52:44):
But you are Queen menopause? Where are you up to?
Speaker 2 (52:49):
Like I kind of I feel like, you know, when
I was preparing for our conversation, I was revisiting a
lot of the things you were talking about around the book,
and you have really gone through it, Like, yeah, we
know all of our experiences are different. What's it like
where you are now?
Speaker 1 (53:04):
I am most definitely postmenopause, which I was not when
I was writing that book, And I think that having
spoken to a bunch of women about postmenopause for the book,
and then of course since touring the book and starting Aviana,
the Wellness Platform for menopause or women that we've started,
(53:24):
and just hearing further stories of women postmenopause. I got
really really excited about postmenopause. I did feel the light
at the end of the tunnel, and that's something that
I'm really passionate about that women should know about because
it can be a shit show. And to know that
(53:46):
you will not always feel like that, you will not
always feel as bad as you do right now, and
there is help out there. Maybe for some women it
comes automatically naturally that you know, the birds start singing
again and you start sleeping and everything's magically delicious. I
do know that I had to work at feeling better,
and I have done a lot around that, you know,
(54:07):
with exercise and diet and mindset and stuff. But I
do feel happier within myself than I can ever remember.
Speaker 3 (54:18):
That is something to look forward to.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
It.
Speaker 2 (54:20):
Yeah, what's the one thing you would tell somebody who's
where you were.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
Definitely, definitely continue to seek assistance and help. Don't just
go I'll just put up with it till this is over.
There is a lot of great help out there. And yeah,
to know that there is definitely a world a life
experience is ahead of you that are really joyful and
(54:45):
fun and wonderful, And now is the time more than
your entire life experience. You deserve to be well taken
care of, and do it. Spend the money on yourself
if you can do it. Don't think that oh I can't.
You know, oh I don't have the time. Make the
time for you. It's so important.
Speaker 3 (55:11):
A bloody love, Ali Dado.
Speaker 2 (55:12):
I've spoken to her a few times over the years
because of some of you all know, I've worked with
her brother in law for the longest time. We hosted
a show together called This Glorious Mess. And every time
I've interviewed her about family, about menopause, about this issue,
I find her just very real and very honest and
very thoughtful. I know you want to know, so I'm
also going to tell you, yes, she looks bloody great.
Speaker 3 (55:35):
Not great for.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
Her age, but great for any age. You can see
the pictures for yourself. But she came into the studio
in a very cool dead and boiler suit, all hair
and glowing skin and big grin. She looks like she's
settled into that place I said I wanted to get
to in my intro, a place of comfort and confidence.
But knowing midlife, it might just be a visit. Because
Holly knows what'll come next. It just keeps throwing curveballs,
(55:59):
which is why, of course, we're going to be back
very soon with season three of your show, and we'll
be talking about divorce and change and food and sexual
and you know, more of the good stuff. I can't
thank you all enough for being here with us through
season two of Mid. Please if this body image conversation resonated,
(56:21):
go and listen to our conversation from season one with
Helen Thorn about bodies because she was hilarious and honest
about her midlife body transformation and you're going to laugh
so much again to we. But anyway, thank you, thank you,
and thank you to our Mid team. That's our EP
name A Brown, our producers to Elisabezazz and Charlie Blackman,
(56:42):
sound design and audio production from Leah Porge's and Tom Lyon,
and social media video production by Josh Green and I'm
hollywayin right.
Speaker 3 (56:50):
And we'll see you back here in.
Speaker 2 (56:52):
Just a few weeks on October the fifteenth, not long ago.
Speaker 5 (56:57):
Goodbye. Nine
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