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The Fearless Females Podcast

39 Episodes

41 minutes | Jan 8, 2017
041: Grief to Peace – Deb Rae
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In episode 41 of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Deb Rae who shares: How she dealt with the sudden death of her husband The gifts that have come from losing him How her loss became her passion and purpose Discovering strength in being vulnerable A guide to help others who are dealing with loss Tegan’s Take Aways from talking with Deb Rae: A lot of the things we tell ourselves about what had happens to us and the meaning we attach to it, aren’t actually true. When dealing with loss it’s important to set realistic and achievable goals even if that’s just get out of bed today. Your scars are what create you as a whole person and those experiences are what makes it possible for you to help others. All losses are very individual so we can’t know what it’s like for someone to go through it even if we’ve been through something similar ourselves. You just need to be with the person and let them talk and let them experience whatever it is that they are experiencing Connect with your heart – it is there you will find all of the answers you need If someone you know is experiencing loss and you want to support them, just be with them, let them go through the experience, give them a hug and let them know that someone cares. You don’t have to make them feel better. They will get to that point when they are ready. About Deb Rae Deb is a coach, facilitator, policy writer and management consultant for businesses, government and community service organisations. Her expertise lies in creating and maximising opportunities for growth, which she achieves by supporting people to celebrate their strengths, acknowledge barriers and make the changes that matter to them. Deb has also recently published Getting There: Grief to Peace for Young Widows, a resource to support young women, their families, friends and professionals. Her aim is to change the way we think about grief so it is less fearful, more appreciated and easier to deal with in our society. Deb’s qualifications include a Master of Social Administration, Bachelor of Arts, Graduate Diploma of Human Resource Management and a Diploma of Management. She was also the Australian Institute of Management’s Manager of the Year (Not-for Profit Sector) for Mackay in 2011. Contact Deb Rae www.debrae.com.au Deb Rae Solutions A Gift for Listeners From Deb Rae Download the fact sheet on supporting people through the loss process. Sometimes people don’t know how to support someone who is going through a loss, what to say or what not to say. These are important tips and practical things that you can do when people are in that experience. Plus a bonus download for employers to support employees and clients who are experiencing loss. By entering your name & email address we agree we won’t share your details with anyone! You may receive the occasional emails from Deb Rae. You can unsubscribe at any time. Show Notes: 041: Grief to Peace – Deb Rae Deb Rae’s Fearless Story When I was thirty-five years old my husband Stuart and I had been married for eleven years and we found out we couldn’t have children. This was a shock for us but we realised it also gave us an opportunity. We had been married for a long time and were happy together and we knew we could continue our lives together and continue to be happy. We also realised that there were things we could do that we wouldn’t be able to do if we did have children. So we decided to completely change our lives and go overseas and teach English. So we sold all of our possessions, our home, our car and lots of our furniture and we quit our jobs and upgraded our qualifications. Then we went off to teach English and the first country we went to was Poland. We were really enjoying it, we were enjoying the teaching and we had friends who were teachers from all over the world and from Poland as well. We had a nice apartment that was close to the town centre, which was a fairly small town, and we were enjoying our life. We had plans to just go from country to country indefinitely for as long as we were continuing to enjoy it. Having been there for about five monthsStuart had joined an indoor soccer team and they were going out for drinks one night. It was the first time that Stuart and I wouldn’t go somewhere together. We talked about it and he was going with people I knew, I had met all the guys and he would be within walking distance of where we lived and he could speak some of the language. So I said that he should go. He said he would be home in time for dinner, because he was the cook in our family and I said, “No you go and have fun” and we kissed goodbye and he headed off. They were the last words we ever said to each other. As Stuart was walking home that night he was hit by a car at a pedestrian crossing that was about two hundred metres from our front door. He died in the hospital the day after that. After that, as you can imagine, everything about my life changed. I couldn’t stay in Poland as I couldn’t support myself teaching English any more. I came back to Australia and I didn’t have a home or a car or a job and I basically had to start again. But without him. [Tegan] Life can change so quickly in just a moment. My fiancé and I travel the world permanently and I would be devastated if I lost him. [Deb] Absolutely, within a few seconds everything about my life had changed. The hardest part is you are then going through the worst time of your life without the one person who would always help you to get through the hard times. It was a massive learning curve, like climbing a mountain, trying to work out how I was going to deal with that. How did you get through that? In the beginning I thought that it wasn’t possible for me to recover. It wasn’t possible for me to be happy again. Stuart was very extroverted. He was lots of fun. He was always organising social events for us and bringing people home and there was always lots happening. After he was gone, I thought “I don’t know how to do that” and “I’m no good at that” and “I’ll never have that again”. I thought the only way to be happy is if Stuart is here and so I can’t be happy again. Eventually, I started to be able to see my own thoughts and then I was able to recognise that some of those thoughts weren’t necessarily true. One of the things that happened was my brother asked me to go water skiing. We were in Mackay in north Queensland so it gets really hot. I said “No, I can’t go water skiing any more”. He had taught Stuart and I to water ski and I just didn’t have the physical strength any more. Since he had died I just couldn’t do it. He eventually convinced me to go and just sit in the boat and I eventually did get onto the ski’s and I was able to water ski. This made me realise that a lot of the things I was telling myself about what had happened to me or what that meant to me weren’t actually true. So then I started to look for the skills that I still had, and what I could still do, and start to build on those. I then started to realise that there are things that I can do and then that grew. There were lots of things that I had to learn. I had to learn how to cook, I had to learn to fix the air conditioner in the car and all these things I never really wanted to know. By pacing myself and having very small goals for myself and working through things gradually I began to realise that this is possible. If you go back to the mountain feeling, I often felt like I had to climb the whole mountain in a week but then I realised if I just climb fifty metres in the next few days then that’s ok because that’s still going upwards. So I learnt to have realistic goals for myself. Sometimes the goal was just to get out of bed, to have a meal, to go and see a person, to go outside the house. If I did that, then that was a good day. So being realistic about what I could achieve. What are some of the gifts you received from your experience? Yes, there have been and I really struggled with that in the beginning. People would tell me that there is always a reason for things happening and I just thought that was insulting that there could be anything good to come from Stuart dying. But through my grief I have realised that there are things I can do now that I would never have known how to do before and would never have thought I could do. One of those things was that I thought I was damaged in some way or scarred because of what had happened and what that meant was that I would never be as good as I was before. I eventually came to realise that those scars made me a much more whole person. There was so much more of me and there was so much more that I had learnt because of those scars. That also meant that I had a lot more to offer other people because of those scars and because of what I had been through. So I had this idea that I had to get through the grief and move on, which are terms that I find very confusing. I thought I had to put the grief away but my grief has become my purpose. That’s how I help other people. Everything that I have learnt and the experiences I have had, that’s what makes it possible for me to help other people. What are you passionate about today? I’ve always been someone who writes. Before Stuart died and a lot more after he died. I started to write a lot of stories and things after he died, mainly because I didn’t know how to explain what was happening to me. I thought if other people could read what I had written then they might get some understanding of what was happening in my very muddled head. Then I started to realise that I could put that together as a book. I interviewed a lot of other women and I went back to university to do some more study around grief and loss so that I could make a resource that is really practical for other women as well. I also wanted it to be conversational
26 minutes | Dec 19, 2016
040: Resilience against judgment – Renee McDonald
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In episode 40 of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Renee McDonald who shares: How she deals with constant judgment because of her short stature Overcoming all of the other adversities life has given her Her definition of resilience and why bad things need to happen How her point of difference has become her strength Tegan’s Take Aways from talking with Renee McDonald: You can’t be worried about what’s around the corner because none of us really know How can you use your experience for the good of others? Is your point of difference your strength? Could it be? There is no weakness in being vulnerable only strength If you are going through some tough times at the moment, don’t worry, it’s all for a good reason About Renee McDonald Renee McDonald is a counsellor/psychotherapist with a Masters and a Graduate Diploma of Counselling. She is also a counselling teacher, lecturer and facilitator of groups, workshops and retreats. She resides on the South Coast of NSW Australia, where she married to a patient and loving husband with 3 kids and a dog. Contact Renee McDonald www.butterflycourage.com www.heartandsoulmovement.com Butterfly Courage Heart and Soul Movement A Gift for Listeners From Renee McDonald Download a short chakra clearing guided meditation. It’s a combination of music and guided meditation and releasing exercises for your body. If you are stressed, it’s a really good way to let go of the knots and sticking points in your body using helpful breathing and chakra clearing. By entering your name & email address we agree we won’t share your details with anyone! You may receive the occasional emails from Renee McDonald, Butterfly Courage and Heart and Soul Movement. You can unsubscribe at any time. Show Notes: 040: Resilience against judgment – Renee McDonald Renee McDonald’s Fearless Story The reason I have come onto The Fearless Females Podcast is because I really have a sense that, that is the kind of person that I am and people on a regular basis do tell me that. I guess I need to tell you a little background about myself. Firstly, I am a woman of very short stature. Only 143 cm which is about 4 foot 8 and a bit inches tall and that just means I see things differently.  Everybody is different and my story of difference comes from a young age of often people picking on me, calling me different names, saying things to me. Particularly at primary school and then at high school there were different things they would say. Sometimes, along the way I have found good friends and people who would stick up for me or people who would help me along the way. There’s often been that angel friend waiting in the wings to help me, in amongst the barrage of different things people have said to me over the years. Both from adults and children. For example I have had friends and their children say some interesting things to me such as, “My mummy says you’re not a midget or a dwarf, is that right?” And I know for certain that I’m not so let’s just clear that one up. But just because I am shorter than 97% of the population, does that make a difference? It shouldn’t. So anyway, I guess at times for me I have been told different things by people and I am often having to correct and it can be quite tiresome. Correcting people, “No that’s not the case, No that’s not the case.” I was also talking a little bit earlier about how self-esteem can be linked to how tall you are. On a regular basis, whether it be with families I see or in child care centres, I’ve often seen there to be a focus on who’s the tallest or who’s the shortest. Does that then mean that the shortest person in the room should feel bad because they are not winning the tall game? I was talking off air earlier about does it mean that when you are smaller that you are any lesser of a person because somehow we seem to focus on these things. As our society and community grows taller, it seems each generation is growing taller. Those of us who might be a little bit like leprechaun throwbacks, are we made to feel less of a person because we don’t measure up? There are a lot of different sayings we even say like, “measuring up” and perhaps we don’t ‘measure up’ in that respect but I see spiritually I measure up probably even greater than the next person from that perspective because if there is a lot of ignorance around that then I can say, “Well perhaps they just don’t understand”. It’s better to not even argue with people if they don’t understand that. On a regular basis I will go to pick up my kids at school, pre-school, anywhere I go in the community, kids will size themselves up against me and say, “You’re too short to be a mum”. Which is the judgement of society again. You’ve also had other challenges you’ve had to overcome too? Yes, over the years I’ve been through a lot of different personal challenges. I guess I will just list them off, starting with, I went through a terrible break up with an ex-partner who unfortunately got involved with hard core elicit substances. That then awakened me to the fact that I might need to get my own therapy. I then discovered that maybe I could do that and it opened my eyes and I went off to study and become a therapist and that led to other things. Since then I got married and had kids but I’ve had a miscarriage, I’ve had a number of different deaths over the past number of years, all sorts of things. What are some of the fears you’ve had to face through all of these experiences? I think sometimes, for me anyway, it’s fighting the fear and doing it anyway. So, after suffering a miscarriage, as a really good example, the fear is, “Should I go on to have more children?” And then I went through problems with my next baby too where I suffered complications at birth and suffered haemorrhaging. So, I’ve had a lot of different things happen yet for lots of different reasons I’ve been able to pull myself out of it. A large part of that is due to having supportive family and friends and in addition to that, seeking my own therapy at every stage. How have you gotten through the experiences you’ve had? One step at a time. You can’t be worried about what’s going to happen around the corner because none of us really know. I joined lots of women’s spiritual groups. I’ve become more spiritual myself. I’ve learnt a number of spiritual healing techniques both for myself and working with other people. I’ve attended lots of workshops and retreats and all sorts of things like that. Using the experience for good and for positive effect for both myself and others. At the time it can seem like the worst thing in the world and there have been some terrible, harrowing experiences in my life. Yet, on the other side, as long as I have been able to get through it, and work through it and take the time to process it to some degree, not ever fully processing anything I think in life we try and process it as much as we can. Then it’s looking for what the gift might be or how to use this as a positive for other people. What are the gifts you received from your experience? Certainly, that’s what I wanted to raise again about resilience. I see resilience as being part of a person. We all talk about resilience being the ability to bounce back. But how can someone bounce back if they’ve never been through anything? That’s a question I want to put out there. So if we wrap our children, or ourselves, up in cotton wool and we don’t ever experience anything then how can we ever learn to bounce back? What is resilience to you? Like I said before, it is the ability to bounce back but you need to have been through something to be able to bounce back. In addition to that, you’re absolutely correct, I see it as the ability to be able to be vulnerable. I like what Brene Brown talks about in relation to vulnerability, that vulnerability is actually strength. Not a weakness. Often we make vulnerability out as a weakness and I’m very clearly, if you meet me in the street, and look at me compared to the other person, people are happy to point out my weakness. But I see that vulnerability as an actual strength and a point of connection for me with other people because if they’ve got problems, they can see I’m not perfect. Or, I’m not the same as everyone else, therefore I might understand their point of difference. Most Memorable Moments I’m an ice skater and I still ice skate and it helps to be a bit smaller because you have a lower centre of gravity and it is one of the things that I’m reasonably good at. So, one of my most memorable experiences was winning ‘Eye of the Tiger’ as in I did a competition to the song, Eye of the Tiger and I won the competition against some very fierce competition. I skipped with a skipping rope on the ice and did push-ups on the ice. I’ve done a lot of things in my life. I’ve had the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between. I was a beautiful journey of having my first born daughter, even thinking about that experience and with all of my children I have had positive experiences having them. What are you passionate about today? These days, I do a lot of things. I try and get to the gym, I love Zumba, I like to have a bit of fun. I get out with my kids and they like to come skating with me, or we might go bike riding. Recently we went camping. I had a wonderful trip to Hong Kong with friends. So I have a lot of good things going on. In addition to that I have a great private practice and some really great work I feel I’m doing in that with clients. I see all manner of different clients, couples, individuals. I do business mentoring now. I see clinical supervisee’s, I do that now as well. That brings me a lot of joy as well, seeing t
39 minutes | Dec 12, 2016
039: I am number one – Natalee Anderson
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In episode 39 of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Natalee Anderson who shares: The lessons that the fear of losing mobility gave her About learning to let go of control and have faith How she chose not to accept her diagnosis The steps she took to overcome it Her strategic method to learn to say “No” Tegan’s Take Aways from talking with Natalee Anderson: Fear can be a good thing if it is driving you towards your goals and dreams rather than away from them A way to trick a people pleaser into putting themselves first is to show them how it benefits other people No matter how hard you try and control life, it has a plan that is greater than you Sometimes you just have to jump without thinking and have faith it will be alright [and it usually is] Fat can be fuel and can even improve your athletic performance About Natalee Anderson Natalee Anderson is the founder of The Working Woman’s Revolution ‘I AM NUMBER ONE’ A community of women who have made the decision to put themselves first for the benefit of those around them. The group is dedicated to helping working women to shift from stressed, exhausted, sick and burnt out to putting themselves first, being healthy, happy and confident. As a qualified Nutritional Therapist, Personal Trainer, Workplace and Executive Coach Natalee leads the revolution with her 10 years corporate management experience, empowering women to create an unbreakable healthy platform to leverage life to unthinkable heights. With a roadmap for success Natalee takes women on a journey, nourishing adrenals back to health, healing the gut, detoxing the liver, fat burning, implementing strategies of stress and time management, personal brand and self-promotion before tapping into genetic potential with the latest science. Contact Natalee Anderson www.workingwomansrevolution.com Working Womans Revolution – I am number one A Gift for Listeners From Natalee Anderson Download the seven simple steps to reduce stress by 90% and enjoy all the benefits that having less stress in your mind and your body can bring. Download Now Show Notes: 039: I am number one – Natalee Anderson Natalee Anderson’s Fearless Story To be honest there’s lots of stuff that’s happened over time and if I look back now I realise it was a big deal but at the time I down played it a lot. But I guess towards the breaking point or turning point for me where I really had to face my fears was not long after moving to Australia. There were a few things that had happened over time, working and investing all of my heart and soul into the work that I did, my staff and the people around me. We are all busy women and we like to put everyone else first and I had done that my entire life. My body just started to crumble and it started with a miscarriage. I can se now that it was stress induced and not long after that I did get burnt out. I couldn’t sleep from the stress, I lost a lot of weight. Found myself in my bosses office saying that I couldn’t do it any more and having to take stress leave. But I kept finding myself coming back and doing exactly the same thing over and over again. Always putting everyone else first. So I would have these little mini breaks or treat myself and pretend that I was looking after myself and yet every time someone would come and ask something of me I would still say, “Yes” and make sure I was pleasing everyone else. Then there was the point. I had always had a little bit of pain and there was a point when I went back to New Zealand. It was winter there and I realised the pain was so bad that I couldn’t actually straighten my leg or un-hunch my back. I was sitting there trying to warm it up and it was then I realised something was terribly wrong. When I returned to Australia I found out it was a form of arthritis called ankylosing spondylitis which is an arthritis of the spine. The prognosis was that there is no cure and it just gets progressively worse and your spine fuses into the shape of a curved rod. They call it bamboo spine. That was probably the first time. I had always been an over achiever and then to be told…I had always been an athlete and then to suddenly be put on the spot and face that my spine was likely to fuse and in a ten-year time frame I could be in a wheelchair and I might not be able to have kids. I mightn’t be able to compete again and for me that was probably my self-worth. So to be suddenly put into a position where I felt like I had no value. I wondered if my husband would still want me and I might not be able to have kids for him. That was probably my biggest fear. That uncertainty of knowing what was happening and what everyone was telling me was very different to the life I had been living. What happened after this turning point? Gosh…it wasn’t cancer and it wasn’t a terminal condition but it certainly felt like ‘life flashing before your eyes’ kind of moment. My perspective had to change. What I had been placing my importance on in life was suddenly very different. It felt like my life span had shortened a lot because my mobility was such a big part of my life and I thought if that was going to end then there was a whole lot of things I wanted to do while I was still mobile. So it [fear] drove a lot of decisions for me [but in a good way]. I left my corporate job at the time. I was already qualified as a personal trainer so I went and managed a personal training studio for a bit to utilise those skills and the things that felt more important to me at the time. We made the decision to have kids. The thought of not being able to chase my kids around the yard was a bit of a driver. I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to have kids because it’s the sacroiliac joint which is part of the pelvis so if that fused I wasn’t sure what would happen with child birth. It really made me put things into perspective and decide what was really important to me and in my life. The birth of your daughter wasn’t ideal though was it? Birth is eye-opening and in some ways, traumatic for a lot of people whether it’s considered typically easy or not it’s just the fact that it’s an experience that you’ve never been through before. There’s nothing you can do to prepare for it. Our situation was particularly challenging. Corie came out not breathing and she had to be whisked away and then she ended up having seizures and consequently was in ICU for a couple of weeks. They had to reduce her body temperature to protect her brain during that time. To be honest I was in shock so I didn’t really absorb most of it and it was probably the same sort of thing we always do where we don’t have time to address my feelings right now. We think, “I’ve got to be strong for everyone else”. So we put it to the side for the moment. How has that journey been for you? A long one! From being a young child and seeing role models putting their feelings aside. I think it’s partially a learned behaviour. There’s been so many points in my life where for some reason we’ve experienced a lot of death in our life and each time I was always comforting and looking after everyone else and just putting those feelings down a little bit. It feels like I was getting battered and bruised by all of these emotional events and for some reason I just didn’t seem to get it. It’s taken a very long time and I can’t even say that it happened straight away with the diagnosis. There was a point when I started putting myself first to an extent but it was awkward and it didn’t feel natural and so I kept coming back to the familiarity of putting everyone else first. It wasn’t until I realised it was about finding a greater reason that was for me but for a greater purpose as well. It was almost like tricking myself into putting myself first and it wasn’t just about me it was about my family and it was about the greater good of the community as well. I found that was an easier way to learn to put myself first by doing it for everyone else. How have these experiences contributed to who you are today? I think, I used to be a bit of a control freak or like to be able to control things and I think that’s kind of what I kept doing and I think that’s why life kept throwing me things that were just out of my control. So I guess the big learning moment has really been that no matter how hard you try and control life, it just has a plan that is greater than you can imagine. So for me it’s been, when things are hard and I continue to have our ups and downs and in those moments I just have to trust that things will work out and I think that’s letting go a little bit. Especially experiencing loss which is a hard thing to deal with (especially as a lot of them were young people). So, yeah the letting go. Accepting that in fact their purpose or their reason for being here was not how I pictured it to be. It was just some greater plan at work because when I look back it does work out exactly how it was meant to. But in those moments it’s just so hard to let go of how things “should” be. It’s just those thoughts that things should be a certain way and they’re not. I think now, I’ve learnt to let go of that and have, I guess, just blind faith at times and jump without thinking sometimes and just trust that it’s all going to work out. What are you passionate about today? It took me a long time to learn the lesson of putting myself first and as I was going through that journey I started to notice some beautiful women around me basically crashing or burning out and almost from the same things. I guess because I had gone through it so painfully and so many times before, as I watched it happen to everyone else it was super clear what was happening. It was always amazing, intelligent women who were so smart
41 minutes | Dec 5, 2016
038: Against the grain – Judith Treanor
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In episode 38 of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Judith Treanor who shares: How she dealt with diagnosis of breast cancer at age 36 The decision to take the ‘not so popular’ treatment path How cancer was the best and worst thing to ever happen to her The passion project that she now pours her heart and soul into Being the rebel and going against the grain Tegan’s Take Aways from talking with Judith Treanor: Knowledge is power Your biggest challenge can often be the best thing to happen to you Take control and responsibility for your own body and health Find the courage to go against the norm if it feels like the right thing to do for you There’s only one of you so be you! About Judith Treanor Sydney Mumpreneur Judith Treanor is the Founder of Online Curated store Temples and Markets. The store showcases unique artisan made product from S.E Asia, a region Judith fell in love with 20 years ago. She has never failed to be awestruck by the resilience, strength and astounding creativity of the people she met in the region. Travel, motherhood and serious illness have shaped who Judith is today. In 2006, at aged 36 she was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. Aware how short life is Judith is determined to live hers feeling healthy, contented and fulfilled. Judith feels lucky to have found her life’s purpose and that is to make a positive change in the world via her business. By working with Social Enterprises and Artisan Groups in S.E Asia she is helping to trade women, empowered through training and fair work practices, into a better life. What a win-win for everyone. Temples and Markets gives a face to the often cold world of E-commerce by telling the stories behind the products and the people who make them. Aside from business, Judith practices Kundalini Yoga, is a serious foodie and loves nothing more than playing with her dog at the beach. Contact Judith Treanor www.templesandmarkets.com.au Temples and Markets A Gift for Listeners From Judith Treanor Temples and Markets sells fashion accessories, jewellery, bags and home décor unique to the region of South East Asia. For your first order over AU$50 Judith is offering 10% off if you use the code: Temples at checkout. Visit Temples and Markets now Show Notes: 038: Going against the grain – Judith Treanor Judith Treanor’s Fearless Story I was aged thirty-six, with a two-year-old son and I had the diagnosis of early breast cancer. Regardless of what age you are, traditional medicine will throw the usual options of chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy at you. Obviously the shock of cancer diagnosis is horrendous however old you are and whatever stage of life you’re at. But at age thirty-six my intuition told me I’m ok doing the surgery, radiotherapy made sense to me but I just refused to have chemotherapy. It was a big, big decision, going against the grain. It took a long time to come to that decision. Actually my intuition said it straight away, that was my decision but actually going along with that decision took a few weeks because I had to decide what else I would do in its place. So at the time, two-year-old son, didn’t want him to know what was going on. If there is anything such as luck when you are going through cancer then I think it was lucky that he was that age rather than now when he is twelve, he would be fully aware whereas he wasn’t aware then. Terrifying times. Being diagnosed with cancer and when you first hear the word the first thing you think of is, am I going to die and you just tackle it one day at a time. How did you decide on that choice of treatment? It’s terrifying on so many levels because you don’t know if you are making the right decision but you have to go with what your heart says and your intuition and just hope it’s the right decision. Ten years down the track I stand by my decision and I’m so happy to say that I’m here to tell the tale. How did I get to it then? I think, knowledge is power. It’s not a decision you make lightly or you go ahead with lightly. I read, read, read and I spoke to many experts and other women who had made a similar decision maybe in the past ten or twenty years. I was put in touch with an amazing lady who didn’t even have the surgery twenty years ago before me and had done other natural things and followed different regimes and was perfectly healthy. So, it’s all about knowledge. That was 2006. Obviously, the internet was around but it wasn’t like it is now. You couldn’t just google absolutely everything and social media wasn’t the thing it is now. There’s an amazing support group, more of a resource type of support group and it was like a library full of books on different treatments available. I’m being a bit strict about the wording I am choosing to use because I don’t want to be using the word alternative necessarily. I think as soon as you use the word alternative it conjures up images of ‘whakery’ in some people’s heads. So it’s not necessarily alternative, I used a natural regime and it’s just a different way of looking at things. I guess different does mean alternative but I don’t like to use that word because of the images it conjures up for some people. I also went to a conference that I had read about where an amazing man called Dr Ian Gawler, who is quite well known in Australia for surviving terminal cancer in the seventies. He runs a retreat in Melbourne and he said to me that with my type of cancer if I have twenty minutes of exercise and twenty minutes of sun a day I can pretty much rule out having a recurrence. When people tell you things like that it gives you the courage to go with your intuition I suppose. I also discovered an amazing lady who is also well known in Australia called Patria King and I credit her with an awful lot of the bravery I had I suppose. I don’t feel brave but some people have said I was brave. Patrea King has books, does these amazing meditations and a retreat and her organisation is called Quest For Life and she survived terminal cancer back in the seventies where she literally went and meditated in a cave in Italy and all these years later here she is helping other people. I used her CD pretty much on a daily basis and it’s a meditation CD particularly for women with breast cancer and one of the amazing lines that I will never forget is, and I still use it today, and that is, “Use your wisdom and your wisdom will tell you what you need to do.”And that’s what I did. For my family’s sake I couldn’t just say that I wasn’t having Chemo and that’s it. I had to find something that was going to work that everyone trusted, another doctor I could trust, literally with my life. And I did, I found an amazing man Dr Paul Miasin who was actually recommended by my own GP at the time. He follows a practice called integrative medicine which isn’t very well known in Australia but it is well known in some areas of Europe, particularly Britain. They are medical doctors, they have gone through the same training as other GP’s. But they also look outside the square at the whole body. It’s holistic treatment. When I met him for the first time with my husband we just knew that he was someone who was so caring and we just gelled with him and we came away and my husband said, “This is someone we can trust with your life.” He put me on a natural regime of different supplements and one of the strongest treatments of high dose vitamin C via a drip. Vitamin C has been known to have anti-cancer properties and I do credit vitamin C with my good health then, and today. It is a huge immune boosting vitamin and to me having spoken to so many people back then about what causes cancer, and what certainly caused my cancer. I had been sick from the time I had my son, through to the time I was diagnosed with different infections. People said my immune system was failing and so it made sense to me to put these strong immune boosting things into my body rather than chemotherapy which is going to kill the immune system. I actually went to see a Chinese doctor before I went to meet Dr Paul and he even said that my immune system was so weak that if I put chemotherapy into it I am going to be very, very sick. So it’s knowledge, it’s meeting the right people, going with your intuition and standing by your decisions. Even now, if I feel I’m getting sick and that my immune system is low then I will go and have another IV of vitamin C to boost the immune system again. How did you deal with the doubts when they showed up? I did a lot of meditation. Guided meditation as I found it hard to calm the mind. I have also in the last couple of years become a big fan of Kundalini Yoga. It’s a lot about calming the mind, living with purpose and going with your intuition. That all helps. But when the annual check-ups come or if I get sick or I get a pain in my breast, of course the fear comes back. The fear was…like I say to other friends who have been diagnosed with cancer since, “Yes the physical cancer will go if you go through the treatment and you’ve had the surgery then it’s gone but you are left with that mental side forever.” It’s about dealing with that fear and dealing with the fear of re-occurrence. As time goes on, it’s a time thing, the fear diminishes. I can now go to a check-up ten years later and not feel as petrified as I did, obviously, in the first check-up. The lady I mentioned earlier, Patrea King, she does talks around the world, she holds this retreat, she talks on talk back radio, she’s a very busy lady. I emailed her before my first annual mammogram and ultra sound check-up after having gone through cancer because I was utterly terrified. At that point when you’ve been on the wrong end of a mammogram and you’ve got
49 minutes | Nov 28, 2016
037: Loving who I’ve become – Karen Chaston
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In this episode of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Karen Chaston who shares: How the sudden passing of her son began a journey of self-discovery About listening and receiving the lessons in life How the answers we search for are hidden in the words we use How perfectly imperfect we all are And finally, loving the woman she has become Tegan’s Take Aways from talking with Karen Chaston: If you aren’t feeling uncomfortable then you aren’t on purpose because our purpose is designed to stretch and grow us. If you are living in the present then there is no fear. It’s only when you are worrying about the past or trying to predict the future that fear shows up. The sooner you look for the lesson in each challenging experience, the less – on – you. You chose to be you so when would now be a good time to start honouring that decision. What things can I take off my to do list and surrender to the universe to do today? About Karen Chaston Karen Chaston – Expert on: Personal development, mentor, author, trainer, and speaker Karen ran on the corporate treadmill until the day the world came tumbling down on her head. The constant effort of juggling work, family, the big house and cars, and the stress created by all that was taking its toll on her even before tragedy struck when her son suddenly died at 27. We can’t control our lives any more than we can control the heavy road traffic. When we experience anxieties, depression and anger, it’s because our real lives don’t match up with the mental picture we created about how our lives should be. Her suffering and disappointments became the catalyst for personal and spiritual growth. She recognised that they were given to her to serve her and she took the next step to examine her life and accept its imperfections and learn from them. Karen has developed some extraordinary programs to help you begin your search for a better you and a more fulfilling life. As a former corporate Chief Financial Officer, Karen brings a unique perspective that she wished were available to her. Contact Karen Chaston www.karenchaston.com.au Karen Chaston – Brave Heart Women A Gift for Listeners From Karen Chaston A downloadable copy of Karen Chaston’s book Beyond Your Worst Nightmare. This book is about overcoming what you currently perceive would be your worst nightmare and how to come back to love and gratitude from any tragedy. Get Your Copy of ‘Beyond Your Worst Nightmare’ Here Show Notes: 037: Loving who I’ve become – Karen Chaston Karen Chaston’s Fearless Story I’m in my late fifties and I’ve always been the sort of person who did everything differently. I grew up in a large family. I am one of seven children, six girls and a boy. I guess in hindsight as I look back I was always looking for attention. As you can imagine in a big family you do get a bit lost and I am the smallest of them all. At sixteen I found myself pregnant and I chose to adopt my daughter out. That was in the early seventies and one thing, in hindsight I have found is that it gave me my strength. If you can give birth alone, my mother wasn’t allowed to be there because we probably would have kept her. It was a difficult birth and I really should have had a caesarean but the doctor decided that because I was so young I shouldn’t have those type of scars so we went ahead and it was a long labour and forceps had to be used. When you go through something like that you find your strength and you realise that whatever comes at you, you will survive it. Even though I am just over five-foot tall I have always had a voice and been very strong in my opinions, sometimes to my detriment. Anyway, I did go on and marry my husband and we have been married for thirty-eight years and had three lovely boys. My eldest is Ben and then I had twin boys, Josh and Dan. I always believed that I had twins because I did the right thing by my daughter. I always saw them as a gift even though we do have twins in our family. Then at thirty-eight I decided to study. We were living on the Gold Coast (Australia) and I went to Bond University. The good thing about it was I ended up with a Masters degree even though I didn’t have an undergrad because my life experience had been my undergrad. So I found myself with a Masters Degree, the kids were teenagers by then and after I did my CPA we decided to move back to Sydney which had better job prospects with more money. I rose very quickly and became a CFO of a publicly listed company (a pub group). I was working way too many hours, eating too much, drinking too much and basically living the high life. Anyone looking at me would have thought, “Wow, she’s successful” because I had the house, the car, the family, the holidays and all of those sorts of things. In hind sight though, what I was living was what I call ‘Ground Hog Day’ days. Not realising how unconscious I was, how unhealthy I was and how over adrenalized and stressed I was. What a lot of people don’t realise is that when you are stressed out to the maximum, you produce cortisol and cortisol produces acid within your body and I was certainly full of acid. I was always angry, always ready for a fight and not really understanding how bad all the cortisol was in any body but especially in a woman’s body. These are all the things I now know and as an accountant I often surprise myself these days with what comes out of my mouth and just what I know. What was the event that changed everything for you? Just over five years ago in July my husband and I woke up to find Dan, one of our twins, dead at our back door. We honestly thought he had just passed out. But unfortunately he had passed away probably about four hours earlier. He had come home, fallen over and just couldn’t catch his breath. He had really bad lungs which we didn’t know about. He also had a brain tumour which was benign and we didn’t know about either and was discovered during his autopsy. After the funeral, I just didn’t have enough time to a grieving mother. I was too busy in my ‘very important’ job so I more or less went straight back to work. But as the universe likes to let you know if that isn’t part of your plan, about eighteen months later I was made redundant and it was the best thing to ever happen to me. If I had been made redundant before Dan passed I just wouldn’t have been able to cope. I just wouldn’t have been able to accept it because I thought I was the best worker. I was always first in and last out. I’m always there and I work on weekends, and I do this and I do that and how could they cope without me. After taking, what I now like to call, a conscious loving breath. You know the sort of breath where you breathe in deep into your body and you actually feel relief and you feel at ease. I honestly believe that was the first breath I had taken in about twenty years. After studying and working and all of that sort of stuff. When I was studying at Bond University I was working at Dreamworld and was still expected to do my sixty hours as well as my study. So, it was probably my first breath for twenty years where I stopped and thought, this is going to be good. This is probably going to be something that will lead me down a completely different path but everything is going to be ok. In this day and age we are always ‘plugged in’ and if we aren’t we are worried that something is wrong. We don’t stop to smell the roses we just keep go, go, going. A great thing to do is to stop and sit in silence and ask the question, “Who am I” and then “Who’s asking?” You would not believe the answers that come to you if you choose to sit and listen. It might not be then that the answers come to you, it might be later in the day through something you see and you realise, “That’s my answer”. It’s important to listen for the answers and be willing to receive the answers and not just be asking the questions for the sake of asking. A really good saying I like is, “Ask, believe, receive”. You need to believe it to receive it and trust comes in there as well. Sometimes we get an answer that we don’t want and we want to put it back and get another one. Not realising that answer is actually perfect for you. People often ask, what is my purpose. It’s that thing that stretches you, fills you with fear and excites you all at the same time. It’s that thing that you know you should be doing but it makes you feel uncomfortable. If you aren’t uncomfortable then you aren’t on purpose. It’s all about growing and stretching and doing all of those beautiful things and being of service. If we aren’t looking for the signs and aren’t hearing the lessons, then the messages get stronger and stronger. I’m guessing there were signals during your busy career when the universe was trying to tell you. Absolutely. I was eating and drinking too much. I was very unhealthy and always thinking, “Surely there’s got to be an easier way than this” but I would look around and all of my peers were exactly the same. Corporate life is a dark place and it doesn’t have to be. Everyone is in this ‘survival mode’. They are in a lack mindset and they don’t understand there is enough for everyone. They are thinking that if I have ‘it’ then you can’t so I have to make sure I get it before you do. They’re living in fear. Totally living in fear. I love fear as a word. I remember years ago an analogy for it was, “False evidence appearing real.” And if you live in the present there’s no such thing as fear. It’s only when you are remembering the past or predicting the future that you are in fear. When you are in the corporate world you are afraid of being made redundant so you work harder. Losing your job, someone being promoted
36 minutes | Nov 21, 2016
036: Facing fear of public speaking – Catriona Pollard
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In this episode of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Catriona Pollard who shares: How she created a business shining the spotlight on other people’s stories The turning point when she realized how much her fear of public speaking was costing her The steps she took to overcome her fears and the rewards she received The day she discovered it was about the impact she can have on others by sharing her stories and expertise How her fear re-surfaced for her Tedx talk and what she did about it Tegan’s Take Aways from talking with Catriona Pollard: Who am I not to be in the spotlight and share my story Where am I saying no in my life because of my fears and what is that costing me When you are overcoming a fear, start in environments where you aren’t going to fail too dramatically so that you will have a positive experience which will reinforce your confidence If you don’t put yourself into situations where you have to face your fears, nothing will change. Sometimes your fear will show up again if you still have some growth to do around it. About Catriona Pollard Catriona Pollard is one of Australia’s most dynamic and inspiring entrepreneurs. Her insights into personal branding, communications and entrepreneurship never fail to enlighten, entertain and inspire. Through her PR Agency, CP Communications and her acclaimed book, From Unknown To Expert, she has helped thousands of entrepreneurs build their personal brand, and use PR and social media to grow their businesses and careers. Contact Catriona Pollard www.unknowntoexpert.com.au www.cpcommunications.com.au CP Communications www.catrionapollard.com www.theartofweaving.com.au Catriona.Pollard A Gift for Listeners From Catriona Pollard Receive a complimentary copy of Catriona Pollards latest book ‘From Unknown to Expert’. All you have to do is cover the postage. This five-star system helps you move from a relatively unknown to an expert in your field. Get Your Copy of ‘From Unknown to Exper’t Here Please note: there will be a charge for postage and handling Show Notes: 036: Facing Fear of Public Speaking – Catriona Pollard Catriona Pollard’s Fearless Story The biggest fear I’ve had from growing up, right into adulthood was public speaking. I as a child was quite shy, I definitely still consider myself to be introverted and I never really found a place for myself in terms of sharing my voice or feeling that I was confident enough to step on stage or step out the front of the classroom. It really did influence my career so it was something that I really, I found really impacted my career as well as my perception of myself. I have an older sister and both of my parents are quite introverted but my sister is quite extroverted. While I’m quite expressive and very friendly I’m just not somebody that craves the spotlight. It’s funny being a public relations expert and having spent twenty-five years in this career you would think that the type of person that does this very successfully is somebody who is ‘out there’ and is the life of the party at cocktail parties and so on. But in fact, you have to be somebody who is happy being behind the scenes to be a good PR person because you put other people in the spotlight. You don’t put yourself there. So, there was a moment in time where I just had to really think, “Well you know what, who am I not to be in the spotlight?” and “Who am I not to tell my stories?” Was there a specific turning point? I really felt like it was always something that was holding me back. Even being at school and saying that I didn’t want to be school captain because I didn’t want to be the person who stands up on stage. The turning point for me was that I was starting to develop a profile within my industry and I just heard myself say, “No!”. No I can’t do that, no, thank you for asking but I can’t do that seminar, no thank you for asking but I don’t want to speak in front of those people. And I’m actually not a ‘No’ person. I’m very much a ‘Yes’ person. Living my life the best and the biggest I can do authentically. It was also at a certain point in my life too where I really realised that it was kind of the right time to start pushing the boundaries within what I’m comfortable with and what I am prepared to say no to. What were you afraid of? Ultimately, failure. But I was feeling that saying “No” was failing as well because I wasn’t living up to my true potential. But I really think it came down to thinking that I didn’t think I had anything interesting to say and that I didn’t really think I had an interesting story. And really, from the time I decided to start working on that fear of being in the spotlight I realised it was a fear that was beyond me and beyond just learning the technique. So I started doing a few things and the first thing I started to do was to get hypnotherapy because it was kind of like a fear of spiders or a fear of snakes or a fear of heights, it wasn’t just a technique I had to learn, I had to change the brain waves that were making the decision that I couldn’t do public speaking. I did hypnotherapy to rewire my brain and to actually go deeper into this fear but I also got coaching. Professional speaking coaching by a woman called Mariette Rups-Donelly who’s this extraordinary coach. She is an actor as well as a presenter. What she did was really uncover, not just the structure of how to do a presentation but more about the physicality of it as well. She got me doing crazy things like running around the room acting like a monkey and just getting me to do these really out there things but it really worked for me. This allowed me to physically feel what it is like for my body to be on stage as well as my mind. For me that mind, body connection is really critical. It’s kind of what I do. I do a lot of meditation, I do a lot of yoga and so on and so I needed to make sure those two things were working together. What was it like when you stepped on stage for the first time after facing your fear of public speaking? What I realised was that you don’t have to step on stage to embrace public speaking. You can speak up in a meeting, you can start telling your stories in different ways. Everyone can re-define what it means to be in the spotlight. So for me, what I did was start small. The thing with public speaking is that you don’t get two goes at it. It’s not like writing an article where you can then go back and edit it. You’re standing there and you’ve got to deliver. I think it’s really important that you put yourself into situations where you don’t fail too dramatically. That way you have a positive experience and you are getting positive reinforcement along the way. For me, I did a few smaller things but then the first time I really stepped on stage was in front of a hundred people. I went there the day I was speaking with Marriette and I cried. I stepped on stage and I was so scared that I started crying and I said, “I just don’t think I can do this.” She was amazing, so supportive and she talked me through it. It’s not about being fearless. Facing your fear is not about being fearless in any way. It’s actually about stepping into that fear by completely feeling and embracing that fear. Because when you do that, and this sound cliché but it’s so true, that’s when the transformation happens. I did all of the practice in a way I know I have to do when I am stepping into those situations where I know I am going to feel uncomfortable. I’m like one of those ‘over practicing’ people. And when I stepped on stage that time it was, every single part of my body was trembling, not just my hands. It was what I had decided to do though. I was ready to do it and I think that’s really critical that we don’t shy away from those things we say we are going to do. Just recently I travelled around Africa on my own and I was scared when I was getting on that plane thinking, “What if I land on an air strip and there’s nobody to pick me up and there’s lions there to eat me?” But if you don’t do it and you don’t put yourself in that situation nothing changes in your life and I absolutely refuse to have a life where nothing changes. How has facing the fear of public speaking changed your life? It’s really interesting because for that particular talk I walked across the stage and I physically stood in the spotlight. There was a spotlight there and I stepped into that spotlight. I then had this amazing experience where I looked out across the hundred people and it was almost like I could see my words drift across the room, into the hearts and minds of those people. And in that moment, I realised that my stories, my experience and my expertise could change their lives and it could change their businesses and who was I not to do that and to not share that experience and that wisdom? Who was I not to influence those people’s business’ and lives. So I realised that standing in the spotlight and me overcoming the fear of public speaking that I had wasn’t about me, it was actually about them and about how I could influence them. It gave me this amazing experience and understanding that not everything is about you! We all know that but you know what I mean? It was bigger than me. I’m just somebody that really likes to make the world a better place and it made me realise that this was one of my ways. Even if it’s just something as small as making somebody understand how to pitch an idea to a journalist. Or something as small as how to uncover some stories in their business that can lead them to getting a few more clients. No matter how small it is, it’s still something and its still positive energy that can help
33 minutes | Nov 14, 2016
035: Your Tantra Powerhouse – Martina Hughes
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In this episode of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Martina Hughes who shares: Her transformation from a chartered accountant to a tantric teacher How she overcame the lowest point in her life The power connecting with the energy within Her passion for helping others to connect with their inner power house Tegan’s Take Aways from talking with Martina Hughes:   No matter what happens in the outside world and no matter what happens externally I am never alone because I will always have me. The gifts I have that are most valuable in my life, are those that are on the inside of me. Knowing that there is something inside of each of us that trust that life will bring us the lessons we need and no matter how painful it is, we can find a way through. Being fearless is about recognising that often when fear shows up, it’s a signal that something is important, it’s a signal that change is coming and it’s a signal that extra fuel is needed. Connect and listen to it instead of shying away from it. Truly believe that you do have the capacity to make a difference in the world and follow where that fire takes you. About Martina Hughes Martina’s vision is to create a world where people express themselves in an embodied and authentic way. She created Tantric Blossoming, the largest Tantric Community in Australia, 11 years ago, offering private sessions, workshops, retreats and training. Since then she has supported thousands of men and women to feel their hearts and open to sensations of aliveness throughout the body. Martina’s wish for humanity is for each man and woman to know themselves as a powerhouse of love and sexual energy. Martina leads people through practices that support transformation of relationship dynamics, so that men and women can create the fulfilling and empowering experiences they desire with each other. This includes integration of healthy masculine and healthy feminine qualities, so that people can find their inner balance, with the result of greater harmony in their relationships. Contact Martina Hughes www.tantricblossoming.com Tantric Blossoming A Gift for Listeners From Martina Hughes Download your copy of the Sensuality Toolkit that explores what sensuality is, what sexuality is, and the benefits of being open in one’s orgasmic energy. It includes practices that you can do daily and then how to integrate the experience of sensuality into every-day life in your own solo experience but also how to bring more sensuality into your connection with a partner. By entering your name & email address we agree we won’t share your details with anyone! You may receive the occasional emails from Martina Hughes and Tantric Blossoming. You can unsubscribe at any time. Show Notes: 035: Your Tantra Powerhouse – Martina Hughes Martina Hughes’ Fearless Story I was a chartered accountant for many years and quite unhappily so. People’s first question of me is how I made the transition from chartered accountant to Tantra teacher because it’s not exactly a linear path from one to the other. I was very unhappy in my life as a chartered accountant and very much looking for success and gratification on the outside. I was feeling quite disillusioned with that. Discovering that the satisfaction wasn’t in the next holiday or buying the new car, a new wardrobe or a promotion. Feeling quite disillusioned with the world I went through a variety of different personal development and healing experiences ranging from re-birthing and shiatsu through to energetic healing and a variety of other modalities. But the thing that really brought me home to myself in a new way was going to a Tantra Retreat. With that retreat I experienced my feminine energy from the inside out for the first time. It was like I had found what I had been looking for on the outside, I found it inside of myself. There was so much aliveness, vibrancy and bliss and I was so in touch with the fire of this orgasmic energy from within. So, it revolutionised my life in ways that I could never have expected. The very next year I started my new life as a Tantra teacher and very much enjoyed the new path offering Tantric workshops, Tantric sessions and then leading into offering Tantric retreats and training programs. Along that journey there were different periods of time of feeling like I had arrived and finally the life I had been looking for was here. Then I had another crisis hit around three years ago and there was another significant awakening and this time it was an awakening via crisis, my whole life fell apart. I had just completed running a significant twelve-month training program and as that was completing I had a miscarriage. There were illnesses and breakdowns in my family, the relationship that I felt like was my ‘forever relationship’, fell apart. So, after these experiences I went into a severe personal collapse and then of course, business started struggling as well. Plus, there were varying other conflicts in my life too. It was like my own personal and professional tsunami. Feeling everything crumbling and falling apart in front of my eyes. It was a new kind of rock bottom. I felt much lower than I’d ever felt before and my life felt very meaningless and empty. How did you turn it around? I found that each day I needed to focus just on my immediate needs. Each day asking myself, “What do I need today?”, “What does self-care look like today?” and “What does self-love look like today?”. “How do I support myself in the midst of all this chaos, in the midst of all this turmoil?”. “How do I learn to listen to my heart and to keep on trusting myself and find a way forward?” During that time there was lots of rituals and lots of time for meditating and listening to myself. There were lots of walks and having alone time and journaling. Seeking out inspiration from mentors and teachers that I trust so that in the midst of feeling myself having been quite crushed, I could then experience myself blossom and open again. And from this space, what I discovered was that no matter what happens in the outside world and no matter what happens externally I will always have me. The gifts I have that are most valuable in my life, are those that are on the inside of me. These being, my ability to feel, my capacity for intuition, my capacity for nourishment and connection. I also discovered a quality of empathy and compassion that was far beyond anything I’d ever experienced before. I thought I was compassionate prior to all of that happening but there was a new quality of self-compassion that emerged. This turned into a much stronger sense of compassion in all areas of life. Through all of this I discovered myself as my own unique gift of life. From that place I’ve been able to create new foundations and keep blossoming and opening to a greater capacity of myself and life and now bringing that all into sharing via my work. What were the fears you faced during that time? As everything was falling apart and certainly even in the months after everything falling apart was that this state of chaos was my new way of living. There was a fear that I would never recover. There was a fear that I wouldn’t have goodness and nourishment back in my life again. There was a fear that something within me had gone so wrong. That I was being abandoned by everyone and everything I’d known previously. How did you work through those fears? By really trusting in the parts of myself that I know to be true and doing things like daily journaling, meditation rituals, walking and self-care. With those self-care practices and pleasure practices of finding things to be grateful and joyful about each day. I rebuilt my sense of self, from the inside out. In the process of doing that I discovered I would be ok even if there was nobody else there to support me, I knew how to support me, I knew how to create a life. And by doing that there was a new quality of resilience that emerged. Not a resilience of toughness and that very Australian attitude that many of us have of, “I’ll be right”, “I’ll be ok” and “I can take care of myself”. Not that tough kind of resilience but the resilience that comes from within that truly knows the power of self. I guess I’ve been through significant transformations a lot in my life and this one was the most painful and the most significant. But having had a variety of significant transformations there is something inside of me that trusts that life will bring me the lessons I need and that no matter how painful it is, I can find my way through those challenging times. Most Memorable Moment I would say very recently, actually in the last three months in particular. I just recently facilitated a five-day retreat in Byron with twenty-four people and it was the most incredible five-day experience I’ve ever facilitated. It’s a retreat I call ‘Walking on the Edge’. The idea is, creating the opportunity for people to have personal breakthroughs and to walk over those edges of those places where there’s been fear and resistance in their life. Feeling myself facilitate in that space recently and feeling my feminine love and fierceness, compassion and devotion to transformation and humanity so awake, alive and on fire. At the same time feeling my own masculine strength, direction and capacity to hold this structure really potent and alive. Knowing that all of those things, it’s me bringing this personal and professional transformation to a whole new level. What are you passionate about today? I’ve also just recently launched a twelve-month training program called Tantric Alchemy Trainings. Some people will journey with me for twelve months and some people will journey for two years. This is a training program I have offered in the past but with
37 minutes | Nov 6, 2016
034: Empowerment and Apologies – Marisa Russo
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In this episode of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Marisa Russo who shares: How she overcame a childhood of abuse The power of hearing an apology Healing through connecting with your feelings Empowering women through dignity, value and humanity Tegan’s Take Aways from talking with Marisa Russo: It takes an immense amount of courage to decide to face your past and it won’t be easy but it will be worth it By finding the truth and then making sense of it, you can then acknowledge what happened to you, which will banish inner anguish and confusion. Most women have been conditioned to disconnect from their feelings but feelings are your inner guidance system. They tell you when something is right or wrong. Start connecting today by asking yourself, “How do I feel right now?” Receiving a genuine apology for what has happened to you can heal even the deepest wounds – and it doesn’t have to come from the perpetrator(s). If I’m afraid to show up as me, and I’m shut down, you can’t see me which means you can’t connect with me, you can’t love me and you can’t trust me. Having the courage to be vulnerable and open then allows others the opportunity to see, love and trust who we truly are. About Marisa Russo Marisa Russo, founder of Forensic Healing and author of Freeing the Unloved Girl is an international award-winning teacher, author, speaker and alternative therapist. She’s been pursuing her mission to heal herself and others for 30 years. The media refer to Marisa as the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Healing’. She has a mind that never stops questioning, digging for answers and solutions. She thrives on solving the most challenging health conditions and life circumstances. After working with thousands of clients over the years, Marisa knows the mind-set, the healing processes, and techniques that really work to help people heal. Contact Marisa Russo www.forensichealing.com Forensic Healing A Gift for Listeners From Marisa Russo Gain access to a four-part video starter course of the award-winning Forensic Healing Structured Natural Therapy System combining science and intuition to release pain, stress, and long term conditions fast. Uncover the patterns you run in your life, the ages they were embedded and some simple healing techniques to begin your healing journey. Click here to gain access now Show Notes: 034: Empowerment and apologies – Marisa Russo Marisa Russo’s Fearless Story My childhood was very dysfunctional, very abusive and I was very disconnected. My father would beat us, me particularly, he didn’t like me because I didn’t really like him and he knew I didn’t like him. He also sexually abused me. So, it was just dysfunctional and I struggled to get through that. I just remember feeling scared, fearful and just hated myself and hated my life. Then when I became a teenager I rebelled and when I reached my twenties I would seek ways to block the pain through alcohol, drugs, sex and whatever it was. Then I was at such a low point. I was crazily living in Italy and I prayed, because I was religious back then, I prayed to God because I did have a spiritual experience when I was around eight as a child. So I got on my knees and prayed to God and then I ended up finding the Mormons and that cleaned me out because you didn’t drink, you didn’t smoke, you lived this pure life, there’s no swearing and no pre-marital sex. That really started to get me back to connection. But the whole journey was really feeling like I was living in a hell. I had this instinct to get out of the hell some way but then I had instinct to want to kill myself and die because I hated the pain so much. So it was just this craziness and somehow I was led. You know, you get led to one place and one person and you learn what you have to learn or experience what you have to experience and you just keep moving but it’s never smooth, it’s never easy and it’s taken, I must say, a lot of courage and a lot of determination to tell myself that I could feel better, I could have joy and I could be free. How did you get through that situation? Fortunately, I never ended up with a partner that was physically abusive but the abuse as a child, I think I just really disconnected but it was almost like, mind over matter. It was like my father, was trying to beat me into submission in a way to say, “I want to control you and you are going to do what I say and you’re going to love me.” I would just look at him and say to myself, “I’m not going to like you, no matter what you do”. You can’t make me like you. But I guess, I can’t really say that I did anything. It’s just a natural thing to disconnect from childhood and I stayed disconnected until I reached my thirties and forties. When I was connected emotionally and spiritually it was dramatic. I physically had this reaction on the table of getting a healing and in that moment that I got off the table I could read thoughts, I could feel thoughts, I would physically move to someone’s thought. It was like energy was running fiercely through my body but I could also feel energy and it was quite amazing. That was an alternative healing I had in the beginning of my forties. I went through this journey of trying to get out of the hell I was living. This emotional hell in my mind turned into physical pain. I couldn’t bear it some times. I wanted to end my life from the physical pain I was in. It was sort of a manifestation from car accidents and all the emotional pain that had been stuck inside my body and my body couldn’t contain or hold this in for much longer. And so I began to be more and more open and I got to a point where it got so bad that I said to myself, “I don’t care anymore. If you can help me I will try it”. That’s why I moved over to alternate healing. Also, I had left the Mormon church and so I was more free to try other things. How did you turn that all around? I couldn’t sit down any longer. I had done about ten years in the British BP head office and I just couldn’t sit down for a full day any more. I just couldn’t do it. So I left and then started to look at different ways of getting an income and after I had my very first kinesiology healing, what convinced me to go down that path was I saw this guy when I was in Queensland. I was at an Anthony Robbins seminar and my neck was so bad I couldn’t sit in the seminar and I wasn’t concentrating. Someone said, “Go see this guy, he’s weird, different” and so I did. Anyway, he used some sort of kinesiology and I don’t know what he did but all I know is I walked out of there I couldn’t believe how different I felt. He didn’t actually touch my neck either. I was used to more conventional therapies. And then I said to him, “Who can I see in Melbourne?” He sent me to his instructor who I went to see him and the moment I got on the table this guy said to me, before I had told him anything, “Oh yes, you were sexually abused at the age of six by your father” and then he started to name all these other things and I looked at him. He said, “I’m not psychic, this is a science and I have a course that starts next week.” So I said, “Well, sign me up”. I just knew intuitively that I needed to go deeper into a more spiritual aspect of myself. I needed to just go deeper and that was the path I had tried to heal myself of the physical pain but what it really did was also heal my soul, my spirit and my emotions that were really very traumatised. My soul was very shattered and that was the beginning of something great. But it wasn’t easy. It’s not like you get on the table and you feel great. In fact, getting on the table and looking at what’s happened to you is very scary. You have to have a lot of courage and know that you’ve got to do it. There were times when my body physically knew it was facing the fears and I was a mess even before. That particular healing that I talked about where I actually started to feel energy, I was in the bathroom an hour before that healing, a mess on the floor. My body just knew it was about to face the fears. But I stayed on that table and I just go, “I’ve got to do it!” What’s happened since you faced those fears? Well, it’s enlightened me a lot. It’s true, the truth really does set you free. I was naturally like that. I look back on my life and I was a bit of a truth seeker. I remember when I had the visions come back to say that I was sexually abused because I didn’t know. Then I started to put pieces together and I would want to find out truth and see if it was true. I went back to the house where I was sexually abused and knocked on the door and then I wrote my dad a letter and then we did physically meet up. I had to get this clarity. I had to know if it was really true and if it’s what really happened. By finding the truth, and then making sense of it, on the other side of it is really acknowledgement that it happened and acknowledgment that it makes sense why you’re a basket case. I used to always plead guilty on the grounds of temporary insanity. “Why did you do that?” I was insane at the time. Insane things are done to you, act insane. The other side of that is really, I’ve gone deep into looking at my own stuff and I created Forensic Healing. We’re detectives of someone’s life and energy field. That has freed me and now I teach that to others and I read their energy fields. Now I sit there and I look at the world and why we’re in the mess that we’re in and what works and what doesn’t and then I just see that I have a mission to, in my way, bring back humanity. And I see it through healing women. They’re the ones with great healing abilities, power and they’re the ones who have suffered the most. They’re the ones who are being disrespected and abused. So if you bring that back and get them r
30 minutes | Oct 30, 2016
033: Marital Rape is Real – Shanon Lee
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In this episode of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Shanon Lee who shares: Her experience of marital rape and assault How she went from being a survivor to being an activist Her drive and ambition to use her art to help others Where she takes her inspiration from How to thrive after experiencing domestic violence/sexual assault Tegan’s Take Aways from talking with Shanon Lee: Be a better role model for your children, friends and family by choosing not to live in fear Even if you are a risk taker it’s still scary to put yourself out there but you choose not to let your fears win What could you do if you put your mind to it and didn’t let anyone else stop you? Fear can be a positive thing like in Shanon’s case where her fear of not accomplishing all she was put here to do, is what continues to drive her forward It’s important to start your day with something positive and a ritual to get you grounded and get your mind straight. Shanon’s is read, write a mantra, say your mantra to yourself in the mirror and then write two pages of a positive statement about your future starting with “I am”. About Shanon Lee Shanon Lee is an American Writer, Journalist, Activist, Filmmaker and Media Personality with features on HuffPost Live, The Wall Street Journal, Real Simple and an upcoming docuseries for the REELZ Channel. Her work appears on digital publications including The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, ELLE, Marie Claire and Redbook. Shanon is a Women’s Media Center SheSource Expert and an official member of the Speakers Bureau for the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). She is the writer, producer and director of MARITAL RAPE IS REAL, a short film that raises awareness for survivors of sexual assault. Contact Shanon Lee www.mylove4writing.com MyLove4Writing A Gift for Listeners From Shanon Lee & Facing Fears A link through to the 10 Powerful Life Lessons from the book The Alchemist which is all about achieving your dreams. It’s written by Thai Nguyen AND as a bonus you can also download a poster of those 10 Life Lessons. Click here to read article Your contact details will not be shared with anyone else. You may receive occasional emails from Tegan Mathews and Facing Fears. You can unsubscribe at any time. Show Notes: Episode 033: Marital Rape is Real – Shanon Lee Shanon Lee’s Fearless Story Really it all started when I was twenty-one. I was in college but I was also married at the time. I experienced, while I was on vacation, my husband raped me. Then about two weeks later, he physically assaulted me. This was while I was in the process, I had just served him, divorce papers. It was in response to that. So, as you can imagine, that was really traumatic. It set off a huge change in my life where I had to work out my next step, how to regroup, how to go on, rebound and how to live by myself. I was also a military dependent at the time too. So really, that’s the basis for a lot of the things that I advocate for. I work with organisations that help other survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. Where there any signs prior to the event, that was going to happen? It was a young relationship and so I can definitely say that it was a volatile relationship in terms of how we interacted when we had any type of disagreements, but it had never been that physically violent. So, I can’t say that there were any specific signs that he would go on to rape me but it wasn’t the healthiest relationship. How did you turn that experience around? Initially when it happened, and for years afterwards I can honestly say that I went into survivor mode which happens often if you’ve been through any type of a crisis. So I really just focussed on the basics like making sure I could look after myself financially. I ended up going back to school. I moved across the country. At the time I was living in California and I am originally from Virginia so I moved back to be with my family and be near my support system. It wasn’t until a decade, at least, later until I really started to talk about it publicly. I had shared it with close friends and family but it didn’t occur to me that I could do anything positive with my story, share it with others, and be able to help them, until some time later. What were the steps you took to turn this experience into a positive? I would say that I focused on taking care of me. So initially and through all of this time I was just really trying to evolve into a better version of myself, the type of person I wanted to be, and focus on a lot of my personal goals. I really started talking about what happened to me publicly when my former husband contacted me. I had a website up at the time. I was working in music and he contacted me through the website. It wasn’t a positive interaction, he ended up harassing me for a little bit online. I really started thinking about the fact that this person had no remorse, but also thinking about the things that happen after the fact for survivors and everything that we have to go through. There were also some things going on in the media at the time. There was a young woman, a teenager that had been drugged and raped at a party. A lot of the images of the attack were posted online and she decided to take her power back. She didn’t want to be portrayed as a victim so she did a media tour where she did different interviews. This was a teenager so certainly, I’m an adult and if I can find a way to share my story, I know that it will help some one. Even if it’s one person, it will be worth it to me. So that’s really how it came about that I started. Going back to something that was natural to me which was to express myself through art. So I started writing and I had an essay published and then everything kind of spiralled from there. What fears did you have to face during that period of time? I really considered him to be a dangerous person. There were certainly times when the feelings would come back and I would worry about him finding out where I lived. There was a period of intimidation after I pressed charges for the assault. I didn’t press charges for the rape but he was arrested for attacking me physically after I served him divorce papers. Right after that happened there were some things that occurred like he would leave his car in my cul-de-sac after I had moved to a different location just to be a silent reminder that, “I can find you”. I was vulnerable and living alone at the time. Certainly I had some fears that he might find me at some point but I always had a hope that he would go on to become a better person. But I knew he had not changed if he hadn’t found a way to contact me. My parents still lived in the same home for many, many years, with the same phone number as when we were married. So I always told myself that if he had any level of decency he would at least contact me through my parents, send some sort of a message that he was remorseful and that he was sorry. That really never happened. But yeah, I think it’s always in the back of your mind as a survivor that you have experienced someone harming you and if it was a case where you weren’t able to successfully prosecute them, again, I never pressed charges for rape, you always feel like you’re vulnerable to a certain extent. How do you protect yourself and deal with that? Well I don’t want to live in fear. So it’s a constant battle, sometimes it’s easier than others. Obviously I’m a very public person now so it’s about balance. But I challenge myself to not live in fear. I know that’s not what I want for myself and I model that for my children, I’m a mother as well (of four children). Memorable Moments There have been many. I certainly love it. The first time I had an essay published about sexual assault I experienced such an outpouring from other women who had gone through, unfortunately, the same situation. Some of them were still in marriages or intimate relationships where they were actively being abused. While it was really, really sad, it emphasised for me, a need for me to be vocal because I’m at a place in my healing where I can do that and others may not be able to do so. But recently I was also invited to film a segment for the Reelz Channel show called, “Scandal Made Me Famous”. They have an episode where they re-visit the Lorena Bobbitt case and it is, certainly in America, one of the most highlighted case of domestic violence. While I was doing the taping, I really understood that I have come full circle, that I have come from being someone who was victimised to someone who is able to advocate for others and to someone who is seen as an authority on the topic. That was a really special moment for me. What are you passionate about today? I’m passionate about so many things. I have a large family and I really enjoy that interaction and being in a long term, healthy relationship. I have been in this relationship for over five years and I don’t have a lot of the same issues I used to have. I’ve learned so much about relationships in myself and done so much work. I didn’t specifically go to counselling but I went through a mental health graduate program. So I was still able to do the work and really and deconstruct what was going on for me personally and make a lot of positive changes. Now I’m an art activist. I’m really passionate about both writing and making films. I have a short film out right now called, “Marital Rape is Real”. That’s a project that is being considered for the 2017 season at PBS and so I’m hoping that will work out. I’m very positive about that. It’s also been submitted to various different film festivals and I’m able to partner with different non-profit organisations an
43 minutes | Oct 23, 2016
032: Honouring a child lost – Rowena Mabbott
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In this episode of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Rowena Mabbott who shares: How she got through the birth of her still born child The journey she went on afterwards The fears she faced when she fell pregnant again How she honours the child she lost How she now helps other women to do the same Tegan’s Take Aways: There are lots of different ways you can honour someone special you have lost. A great place to start is by asking yourself, “What can I do in my life that would make them proud of me if they were here?” and go do that. An upset in your life might just be a set up for something new or a different direction you need to take. Don’t be afraid to talk about a topic that society deems as uncomfortable such as loss and death, because it can actually contribute to the healing process. When you are super passionate about something you want to do, because you care so deeply about it, expect that fear is going to show up. When that fear does show up, swamp it with love because fear can not survive in an environment of love. About Rowena Mabbott Rowena is a Life & Loss Coach, writer, speaker, and consultant. Through her coaching practice JoyHopeLove, she works with mother’s who have lost a baby and want to honour their child by confidently living their best life; one that is full of joy, hope and love and legacy. Rowena is passionate about raising awareness of stillbirth around the world. As well as providing individual coaching, Rowena also uses her extensive HR experience to work with large and small businesses to improve the support provided by employers to bereaved parent employees. Rowena is based in Sydney, Australia, where she lives with her husband and two boys. She has a free e-book you can download from her website, where you can also learn more about her. You can also connect with her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Contact Rowena Mabbott www.joyhopelove.com JoyHopeLoveRM A Gift for Listeners From Rowena Mabbott Download Rowena Mabbott’s E-book – Six days to a life filled with more joy, hope and love. It’s a summary of what she did to make herself feel better once she realised she Iwas a tired of feeling sad. If you’re ready for a change then this e-book is about how you get more of what you want in your life. More joy, hope and love. Yes please, I want Rowena’s ebook – 6 days to a life filled with more joy, hope and love BONUS: Download Rowena’s eBook before 29th October 2016 and go into the draw to win one of two prizes. Prize number one is the opportunity for a 90 minute coaching session and two weeks follow up emails with Rowena and prize number two is a beautiful silver angel bracelet hand crafted by Michelle from Lily Taylor Designs plus 20% off any of Rowena’s coaching packages. Show Notes: Episode 032: Honouring a child lost – Rowena Mabbott Rowena Mabbott’s Fearless Story The tragedy you are referring to was in 2008 my second son was still born. Being told my son had died was pretty terrible and was a majorly traumatic experience in what had been a fairly straight forward, run of the mill life until that point. There was a lot of fear obviously but in the moment there was a lot of confusion, hurt and anger. A thousand and one emotions. A lot stemmed from the way that I was told. I had a scan because I felt the movement had slowed down, or had stopped and so I went into the hospital to have a scan and be checked. The pathologist doctor walked into the room, glanced at the screen and said, “Yeah, well he’s dead love” which was a dagger to the heart way of doing it. There were so many better ways that could have been handled. From there, my husband was with me and my little boy, my toddler who was 22 months old and we had only gone in there for a routine check thinking I’m sure everything is fine but let’s just check. So then we had to face what do we do? I wanted my husband with me and we had to go through the whole thing that I was still going to have to give birth to this baby as I was 35 weeks pregnant. People were expecting I would be coming home with a baby any day now and I certainly looked like that. So there was a bit of angst and fear and a lot of tears as we processed what we were supposed to do. There was a lot of disbelief as well. Not really grasping exactly what was happening or what this meant because our brains went into protective mode and just really didn’t comprehend the enormity of what had happened. So, my husband had to take my toddler to collect some belongings. We didn’t have anything because we were just going for a check-up. He got me some stuff so that I could be over night in the hospital and dropped my little one with my aunt. My mother was in London at the time and I was in Sydney and my mother in law was six hours away down the coast and we didn’t have any other immediate family in Sydney except for some Aunts and cousins. Fortunately, they were just amazing and they really helped. My Aunt was on the phone to me when I was by myself because my husband was off driving my little one and she was consoling me as we both sobbed our eyes out and she looked after my little boy so that my husband could come back and be with me. So, going through the birth, I had to be induced, and going through that for a good few hours until my husband came back was quite scary and was quite a fear inducing thing because you are there in a hospital and you already know the outcome. It’s not like there’s going to be the exciting prize at the end of it of a live baby. But, moving past that immediacy of, “OMG how am I going to cope?” and “How am I going to get through the next few hours?” and “How am I going to give birth to this child without falling in a heap on the floor?” I had a fantastic social worker who came and sat with me during that time while my husband was away so I wasn’t completely alone. She was brilliant and someone I am forever grateful to. I also had a wonderful mid-wife who kept coming in and checking on me and would just walk up to me and give me little cuddles as I lay on the bed weeping. Giving me that love and reassurance that a woman can give another woman even if they haven’t ever met each other before. Just that companionship and support. I think that without those two women, the fear that I had to face and the anguish and heart ache would have been unbearable. They were a very big part of that period of time, that afternoon. Anyway, so that was a pretty horrendous moment and I would like to say that it got better and it did eventually but there was about a month when it wasn’t. Once we had the baby and had done all the hospital stuff and I came home the next day, the fears didn’t really go away. So I had given birth to my baby but he wasn’t here, he was dead and so the worst of what could happen, had happened but I was still wracked with fear. I don’t know why but I just know I was full of fear for about a month. I think it was partly because so much energy is taken up when you are grieving. It’s absolutely exhausting. You really can’t do anything else except just survive. In terms of feeding yourself and getting yourself kind of dressed is pretty much all you can manage. And we had a 22 month old as well who was a big part of my fears, not that I was going to lose him but that I was somehow going to damage him. He was seeing his mummy and daddy crying and upset and he was quite an observant little boy. I didn’t want him to have memories of his parents being distraught and so sad. He was quite confused as to where his little brother had gone. He came with us to the crematorium but he was just toddling around and my husband’s uncle just followed him to make sure he was always ok and kept him out of the ‘action’ as it were. I think that I was grief stricken but also my confidence was shattered. A big part of having your body fail you as a woman and not know that there was something wrong. So a big part of it was around guilt. And around not being able to forgive my own self for my body failing me. So my confidence was just gone, shattered. I was feeling unable to cope by myself and I was reluctant to be left alone. It was that I just wanted another adult with me. It wasn’t that I couldn’t look after myself or look after my living son. I just felt nervous and afraid and wanted another adult with me so that I didn’t have to be the only grown up. Over time and with certain actions and with time itself it heals a lot of wounds, that fear subsided and I was able to get on with my life. Interestingly that all-consuming fear returned the day we got pregnant again. It was a different fear, but still a mind-bending fear. We were both delighted to be pregnant again but there was that anxiety and fear that stayed throughout that pregnancy until the baby was safely born. He got whisked off to special care though because he came 36 weeks and 6 days which was one day shy of 37 weeks. He was classed as early and therefore had to go to special care. He was perfectly fine and full size and everything else. People were saying, “You aren’t worried about him being in special care?” and I was like, “No, I am so calm because someone else now has the responsibility of looking after him and I’ve had nine months of high stress worrying if something went wrong it was my fault”. This was partly because the cause of my second son’s death was not something that could be scanned for or prevented. So there was nothing I could have done to prevent it re-occurring which was a comfort but also completely ‘drive you crazy cause’ of fear because it could happen again and there’s nothing I could do. So how did you deal with that fear? I did still go to the hospital twice a week for monitoring and scanning
37 minutes | Oct 17, 2016
031: From tragedy to triumph – Pam Bailey
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In this episode of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Pam Bailey who shares: How she blamed herself for the sudden death of her husband The steps she took to recover after the event How her fear of dying pushed her to get healthy How her passion for nutrition and the psychology of food grew Tegan’s Take Aways: It’s ok to seek and accept help during times of need Everything happens for a reason If you don’t know who you are, take some time to explore and experience different things The universe always sends me what I need, when I need it Dream, believe and you will achieve About Pam Bailey Pam is a Feel Good Facilitator. After facing personal tragedy in her mid-fifties she discovered who she really was and went on to create a whole new life for herself. She feels driven to inspire other women to reinvent themselves too. Pam believes that everyone deserves to love life & feel good about themselves every day and she can’t wait to share her experience and learning with you. Through a range of workshops, online programs, retreats & personal coaching, she introduces her clients to a wide range of factors that she believes contribute to a holistic sense of wellbeing. This includes creating a healthy relationship with food & movement, saying goodbye to stress, taming the inner critic, releasing limiting beliefs, practicing meditation & mindfulness, introducing gratitude, embracing love of self & of course the importance of always including fun & play in our lives. Pam is a Certified Eating Psychology Coach, Life Coach, Louise Hay ‘Heal Your Life’ Workshop Leader & a qualified Nutritionist. More importantly, she believes that what she learned from life itself has taught her far more than any course ever could. Contact Pam Bailey www.pambailey.net Embrace All of You – Pam Bailey A Gift for Listeners From Pam Bailey A 60-90 minute one on one coaching session with Pam Bailey. Whether you are a little lost in life or feel that food and your body are the enemy, having a session with Pam will bring you closer to the truth and enabling you to embrace who you are and who you can become. Enter your details below and Pam will contact you to arrange a time for your complimentary session. By entering your name & email address we agree we won’t share your details with anyone! You may receive the occasional emails from Pam Bailey and Embrace All Of You. You can unsubscribe at any time. Show Notes: Episode 031: From tragedy to triumph – Pam Bailey Pam Bailey’s Fearless Story In 2010 my husband and I were in our mid-fifties [he was 54 and I was 53] and we were plodding along in life. We had reached that stage in life, our daughter had married and left home so our general expenses had reduced. We were coming along nicely with the financial side of things. My husband had his own business and I was working for a government department part time and studying part time and things were just ‘jogging along nicely’ as they do. Life wasn’t massively exciting but we were comfortable with the way that we were. Then in September of 2010 tragedy struck and my husband had a fatal heart attack. It was totally out of the blue, there was no warning. He hadn’t been ill, we weren’t aware that he had any heart problems and it just happened basically. And I was there when it happened. A few weeks prior to this we had decided to pull ourselves into line in relation to our health. We were both over weight, we didn’t eat a particularly healthy diet, despite the fact I was studying nutrition at the time. So we decided to embark on this lifestyle change and I suggested that we work together with a personal trainer. So we had completely changed our diet and were eating healthy food and we were going to this personal trainer twice a week together. We had been doing that for about 5-6 weeks and we were both doing well. We were losing weight and we were getting fitter and then this tragedy happened. We had actually been to the personal trainer that evening and we had come back from the session with the personal trainer and my husband was complaining of pain between his shoulder blades which is not typical heart attack pain. So that didn’t raise itself as an obvious issue and we assumed he had pulled a muscle or done something during the training session. Even though we both thought it was just a muscle issue we decided we should go to the emergency department at the local hospital. Who knows why but thank goodness we did anyway. So off we went. I was driving and we pulled up at the doors outside the emergency department, he got out of the passenger side and by the time I walked around the back of the car to where he was, he had collapsed. Despite the best efforts of the staff they weren’t able to revive him as he had had a massive heart attack. He was taken off to a room where they could work on him and I was taken to a private room where I was never left alone. There were nurses with me the entire time. Then a doctor came in and she was the one that had been working on him and she told me that he had not made it. I remember the first thing I said was, “But we’ve got relatives coming from England in four weeks” and I presume that was my way of saying, “This can’t be true, you’re not right, that’s just not possible.” How did you get through that? There were a lot of fears that arose for me and the first one was, how can I possibly live alone? I had lived with my parents until the day I married my husband and we had been married for 32 years. So I had never lived by myself. We had still been quite independent. I wasn’t the type of wife who needed him to do everything. We did our own things, he travelled for his work and I had a responsible position that meant I travelled interstate for that so I was independent in that sense but I had never run a house on my own. Then in the coming weeks a number of things arose. There was a fear that I was responsible for his death. The reason that fear was there was because I was the one who had suggested we hire the personal trainer and I was convinced that the sudden onset of exercise was what had caused the heart attack. So, therefore it was my fault. Of course, that wasn’t the case and as a result of counselling and talking to doctors I was able to resolve that fear and realise it wasn’t true. But there were other things that came up. I had to drive past the hospital where this had happened on a regular basis. I had to go past it to get to my regular shopping centre for example and I found it really hard. I had a fear about going anywhere near this hospital and when I started working with a counsellor she explained that it was something that really needed to be dealt with because it’s my local emergency department. If something were to happen to you me and I needed to go there, I wouldn’t want to have to deal with that fear along with whatever the emergency was that I was dealing with at the time. She came up with a strategy that allowed me to gradually overcome that fear which was great and I was eventually able to go to that emergency department after getting this professional help to deal with that fear. My take away from that was to seek and accept help. I had never been very good at asking others for help but clearly there are some situations where you need to do that and this was one of them and she was able to do that for me. You also have a daughter, what were you afraid of for her? Yes, we have one daughter and another fear that I faced was that I would die too and then she would be left with no parents and the grandchildren would have not only lost their grandfather but also their granny. That was a big fear for me. When my husband died, the healthy lifestyle we had been following for the past few weeks went out the window. It was a miracle if I even just ate a sensible meal in a day. Things just were not normal. But a few months later, he died in September and then in about February, as a result of this fear I had, I decided I needed to buckle down, lose some weight, get fit, and I did that. I joined a gym. I started going to a dance fitness class and I was eating healthy. I had meal plans in place based on the knowledge from my nutritional studies. My daughter also organised to raise money for the Heart Foundation, in her dad’s memory, a healthy heart beat challenge. There was a group of family and friends who embarked on this twelve-week challenge and we did a range of things to help us all get healthy. It wasn’t just about losing weight for example, one person in the group gave up smoking so there was a whole range of different things people did. That helped us to get through as well because that helped us both to focus on something other than the tragedy of what had happened and we also felt that we were finishing something that he had started. So once I had lost a reasonable amount of weight and had become fitter, then I felt there was less chance I could die and leave them all alone. How has this experience changed your direction in life? It has completely changed my direction in life. I had been working for a large government department for 26 years. I was the manager of a team that provided public seminars and information about retirement planning. Originally I had done that job myself, running the seminars and providing the information to people but then I became the manager of the team for the whole of Western Australia. Then I had gone part time so that I could pursue this study of nutrition which was something I had always wanted to do but I don’t think I ever really believed that I would leave my government job permanently and pursue anything with the nutrition. And I don’t think that would have happened if my husband hadn’t passed away. So that really tie
31 minutes | Oct 9, 2016
030: The invisible disability – Jay Crisp Crow
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In this episode of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Jay Crisp Crow who shares: The story of her invisible disability for the very first time publicly How she is overcoming her fears of judgment by shining a spotlight on them instead The battles she faces on a daily basis and how she gets through The gifts that have come from her disability How she hasn’t let her pain or her fears beat her Tegan’s Take Aways: 1.    If you are afraid of something, one way to deal with it is to face it head on and shine a big fat spotlight on it! 2.    It’s a daily decision to not let fear win – to look at it and say, “Nah, I’ve got better things to do than that today thanks” and choose to focus on the alternative 3.    The fear of the pain and the anticipation of what might happen, is often worse than the actual pain itself 4.    You don’t lose anything without gaining something else – look for the gain 5.    Get up each day and be sure to make today better than yesterday About Jay Crisp Crow Jay Crisp Crow is a writer squeezing joy from life in the Perth Hills with a scrumptious husband and a tribe of children. Before life as a writer/super mother, she sang on the back of Monster Trucks for a living after becoming too plump to continue as a cheerleader. She juggles disability and small business, and is an advocate for “coming out of the invisible illness closet” as she believes disability can be a positive in small business, not a weakness. Contact Jay Crisp Crow www.crispcrow.com.au Crisp Crow Communications Jay Crisp Crow A Gift for Listeners From Jay Crisp Crow A twelve-page eBook guide to writing the perfect “About” page on your website. As Jay says, “It’s really hard for us to shine the spotlight on things that we are glorious at” so download this wonderful eBook and you will be well on your way to the perfect “About you” page on your website or gift it to someone else that you think might need it. Download your ebook here Show Notes: Episode 030: The invisible disability– Jay Crisp Crow Jay Crisp Crow’s Fearless Story It feels funny to start an introduction with what I have because I’ve spent so many years kind of hiding it, putting a good face on and pretending it doesn’t exist. I have what’s diagnosed as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which a lot of people don’t believe is anything, which makes it a little bit tricky to navigate medical professionals, family, the years I was dating, all of those kinds of things. But it is very, very much a real thing and I know from twenty years of soul searching that I’m not sick because I’m sad! It has definitely been the other way around. The sickness came first and everything else since then has been a coping mechanism. Yes, it is recognised as a disability but I think I’m in, kind of like an honourable mention in the disability section because the Australian government does recognise chronic fatigue as a disability if it is chronic enough. Sometimes I want to carry around my test results and put them on a t-shirt and wear them. A few years ago I had a new doctor and I described all of my symptoms and this is what I have been diagnosed with before but I am quite happy to hear if you think it’s something different that I can treat. He said, “Let’s get all the bloods done” and they came back and he said, “Well, this makes perfect sense because you should be dead!” Basically, everything was at 2% which you can’t even run a car on 2%. But I guess I am in a blessed position where the Australian government does recognise that I am as sick as I am, which means that if my life does fall apart and I can’t go to work, we are very lucky to live in Australia, where I would be void by the government. I am the mother of three children and my specialist told me to go home, relax and read books and to never have children so I only went back to him when I was too pregnant the first time, for him to give me that speech again! So Jackson is sixteen, Ella is thirteen and Hughie is four. On a day to day basis I describe it to other people as being like having the worst flu you’ve ever had combined with maybe gastro. So, you know those days when you just feel like, “Oh my goodness, I can’t remember ever being this sick” and “I can’t possibly do anything” that’s how it feels. Years of that though, I think, make you a little bit hyper sensitive to pain and sickness so I almost anticipate the pain now. So when I go to the chiropractor, or as my little boy says, “The bone cracker”, I’m in pain and all she’s done is touch my arm. I know that all of those pathways in my brain that say, “You are about to be hurt and you’re about to feel sick”, they’re a little out of whack from feeling in pain and sick for so many years in a row. So, I tend to be a bit of a vampire and I start to come alive a little more at night time so certainly launching my own business has meant that I have a little more flexibility. One of the hardest things I used to have to do was to be up, makeup on and at school by 8:30am in the morning. It’s just consistent! It’s not like when you break your leg and it’s terrible in the beginning but after about six weeks you start to feel better, it’s just consistent and on the worst days I think, “I don’t think I can do this”. I had it on a day last year when I said to my husband, “I can’t live like this anymore”. Those are the days when there have just been too many days in a row where you think, “This can’t get any worse” and it does! But there’s so much good stuff going on here that’s never really been an option. To not do it. I think I have a really good understanding about fear and that’s why I was really drawn to contact you about this because I think my fear comes from pain. I don’t think we are born with fear, especially if we live in a country like Australia where we are fairly safe. I think it’s something we learn. You know, I had a really nice childhood. It was just my mum and I and I did pretty well at anything I tried. I danced from the time I was two and I was a cheerleader for the state basketball team when I got sick. So for me, that fear came with the illness and it just goes hand in hand. I remember feeling like I had lost everything because at sixteen your whole life revolves around you. I was an A student and then I started failing classes and I lost my job cheerleading because I couldn’t get out of bed and my boyfriend dumped me and I had to crawl to go to the bathroom and there were just so many days that I just sat on the shower floor and cried. There were about two years that I can barely even remember that were just horrible. It was like somebody had picked me up from this utopia where I didn’t even know how good it was, and dropped me in this war zone, only the war was happening on the inside. My mum was awesome. I think that’s one of the most wonderful things to come out of it. My mum is an incredible mum. She started taking me to mainstream doctors and we pretty much saw everyone, including some pretty quirky ones. So I’ve done ice baths, vitamin C, I’ve had MRI’s, I did antibiotics and once I heard another girl who had diagnosed chronic fatigue and she had accidentally zapped herself on a horse fence and felt better. So I went down south to Donnybrook to a friend’s farm who had horses and electrocuted myself on the horse fence. There was some theory behind it that it shocked your system back into balance. But like I said to you before, I know myself really well and I wonder if that comes from it. I have amazing coping mechanisms. I get up and I chose life every single day and I wonder if an easy childhood doesn’t make for very resilient humans? My mum would have cut off her arm to have me feel better but she couldn’t fix it for me and I can’t fix it and my husband can’t fix it, it’s just something that I have to deal with every single day, all by myself. I think that feeling sick every day is like feeling fear because you can’t do things. Like I always think, “Oh, maybe I shouldn’t do that because it might make it worse” so you start to protect yourself too much and I fight against that all of the time because for me the fear is worse than the illness. What are some of the things you are afraid of? I’m really afraid of visibility which is one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you. I’m scared that people will judge me. I feel like if I had MS or Breast Cancer, which I am not saying that I want thanks universe. None of us can know what anyone else is going through but if I did have either of those things then people wouldn’t look at me and think, “Oh she isn’t really that sick”. So I am terrified of being seen as a business owning woman and a mother with a disability and because I feel that fear I have decided that how I am going to cope with that is to shine a big fat spotlight on it. Why not? Let’s try that as a tactic. Every day I wake up and think, “This might be the day that I might not be able to get out of bed”. A couple of years ago they said that if you have had it for this more than ten years then you have an 80% chance of developing Leukemia and that was terrifying but that research has since gone away. Most days I feel like I am that human who is crawling to the bathroom like when I was seventeen. But the interesting thing for me is that the fear of pain is often worse than the pain itself. I think that’s because I am so used to feeling the pain and the illness that it just sits there in the back of my mind like a niggling migraine and if I turned my attention to it I would give up and go to bed. Fearing that pain and that illness is coming is worse. So what I do now in the morning is I go, “Hello fear, what have you got for me today?” and when all of that comes up I
30 minutes | Oct 2, 2016
029: A sobering fear – Lily Troupe
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In this episode of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Lily Troupe who shares: How unhealthy relationships led her to alcoholism How the fear of loss turned her sober Her resilience in bringing up three children alone How changing her stinking thinking led to more opportunities in her life Tegan’s Take Aways: Choose to see yourself as a queen and you DO deserve to be treated like a queen by your man The energy you put out is what you attract back so if you are worrying about money then that’s not the way to attract more wealth into your life, instead, focus on what little you do have and be grateful for that and then more will come Get rid of your stinking thinking – as in your negative thoughts and flip them to positive ones If you give power to your fears then you can’t manifest the energy to attract positive things into your life We are all one race – the human race! About Lily Troupe I’m a single mother of three, a grandma of one little girl, an entrepreneur, network marketing professional, coach, voice actor, extras actor and I run an Airbnb beautification specialist business. Contact Lily Troupe Lily Troupe – thought leader A Gift for Listeners From Lily Troupe A complimentary 20 minute one on one session to get to know more about Lily and discover how she can help you to move from being stuck and step up to seeing your true worth and being treated like the queen you deserve to be. By entering your name & email address we agree we won’t share your details with anyone! You may receive the occasional emails from Lily Troupe. You can unsubscribe at any time. Show Notes: Episode 029: A sobering fear– Lily Troupe Lily Troupe’s Fearless Story My journey is an unusual one but some people may find some commonalities in their journey’s. My background is Polish/German family and I began my early adult years as a married woman to a Croatian man and it wasn’t the best marriage. It was a very challenging marriage I guess because there were a lot of things that he hadn’t dealt with from his upbringing and that impacted our relationship tremendously. It was through domestic violence that he expressed his anger. It wasn’t a constant, every day beating, it was just when he was extremely frustrated he would take things out on me. He would slap me, verbally abuse me and emotionally and spiritually. He was the type of person that if we did have an argument, he would take off. Sometimes I wouldn’t see him for a day and sometimes it would be three or four days. I would continually take him back and I would forgive him and we would forgive each other. I always believe there are two sides to every story and not every physical altercation was my fault and the majority of them weren’t because of his upbringing and the way he handled things. But occasionally I was responsible for the argument. This behaviour continued and we had children and I started to drink. As the violence escalated I felt I had to bury myself into something and that’s when I reached out for alcohol. It was an attempt to numb my pain but my pain increased and my problem with alcohol increased. Eventually our marriage broke down and he went his separate way. He found someone else and actually did me a favour and left me with out two kids. It was approximately twelve months after that when I met my second husband. My second husband was a naval officer in the US navy. He was a very handsome man and very hard working but little did I know that he had a problem which was related to his childhood. He was molested as a child and he then couldn’t have a normal sexual relationship. He found that the only way he could feel good about himself, important or feel stronger was to have extra marital affairs. He was also arrested for sexually assaulting an 89-year-old woman which then led to him being deported and leaving me with our five-month old baby which I was still breast feeding. I went back to work though, because I needed to put food on the table. He left me with bills, he left me with outstanding accounts on various things so I just had to take the reigns and pull myself back together and go back to work. When I went back to work I was still breast feeding and I would take my pump with me and I would express during the times I needed to. My work was very understanding and I would keep it in the fridge, take it back home and my mother would feed my youngest and that was it. Three years later I went back to see him but things were not the same so a few years after that we decided to get a divorce and life went on. Before he left and was jailed for what he did my son had told him he had found some bottles hidden in the linen cupboard where I used to keep some of my ‘stash’. I had actually stopped drinking after my first marriage ended but had started again after my father died. Anyway, he had given me an ultimatum and said if I didn’t stop drinking he would take our youngest back to the States with him and take your older two and return them to their father. He said if I didn’t go to AA, that was what was going to happen. That just broke me and I was so upset and I knew I had a problem. I thought I could control it. I was a ‘functioning’ alcoholic. But my life was falling apart around me. He actually saved my life by doing that. That was my last drink and I continued to be strong for the kids and I have been seventeen years sober. How did you turn it around? My parents were my rock. My dad had passed away not long into my second marriage but my mother had a relationship with a neighbour who lived a few streets away. They were both part of the Polish community and they were very supportive to each other and he became like a grandfather to my kids. I was working and at one point I was working three jobs which were eighteen hour days so I relied on them tremendously and they were my rock. But some days, I just wanted to stay in bed and I didn’t want to wake up. It’s taken those seventeen years for me to realise the amount of stuff I did do on my own. Then my mum passed away in 2008 and my youngest was nine then. My eldest son and daughter would look after my youngest and they are really good kids and she is seventeen now which is amazing. So I just kept going. Yes, I had my dark days and contemplated suicide but then I thought, “Who is going to look after them if I’m gone?” I was adopted. I lost my German mother two weeks after I was born so when I talk of my mum I am talking of my adopted mother but she was the only mum I knew and my dad because I was so young when I was adopted. They were my true parents. What have you done career wise since then? After my second husband was deported I was working in a call centre for an electricity company in Canberra which is where I am originally from. My contract ended and I was thinking, “What do I want to do now?” I didn’t want to go back to call centre work and I didn’t want to go back to public service which is what Canberra is renowned for. I had no idea about business so I thought I would go to university. I had always had a recurring dream about sitting for exams and wondered what that was about. Low and behold I think it was a hint from my dreams to go back to school. So I went back to the University of Canberra to study information technology but my head wasn’t…me and numbers just aren’t right for each other. So I moved onto psychology but there were still a lot of statistics in that and I thought, “Can’t I get away from numbers?” So I pursued social work and finished my degree with the Australian Catholic University. I loved the work and was a practicing social worker for five years working with geriatric patients. When I moved to Melbourne I continued with that work but the politics and the burocracy, it was really tough. To see people put into nursing homes because of having a stroke in their thirties and forties was really tough. It just didn’t sit with me right. After that I did the Mindset Coaching course with a group here in St.Kilda Melbourne and then I got into network marketing and my personal development just kept on going. I was learning so much about myself and I was doing courses on NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) which is changing your mindset and your limiting beliefs. A door started opening and I started thinking, “How can I use this to help other people?” At the time my fitness was out of this world because the company I was network marketing for was a nutritional based company and their products were just absolutely amazing. I had fantastic energy and I was just feeling so good. I had done body building back in Canberra so I started body building again and I noticed a lot of women who would look in the mirror and say, “Well I’m looking ok, I’m feeling good” but then, like my pattern had been, they would re-lapse. They would go back into their stinking thinking and stop their activity and pack the weight back on. So I thought it would be really good to work with women who needed support with that. So I approached a few gyms to see if I could do mindset coaching with some of their clients if I put in the effort and advertised. I didn’t get a lot of enthusiasm for it but I kept on going and I kept on learning and working on myself. I continued with the health company that I am still with. I really wanted to be doing coaching but that takes a bit of time to develop clientele so in the meantime, to get the funds to grow my business, I started working with Airbnb’s and servicing the Airbnb properties. That was a lot of fun and I’m still doing it. So there are a few different enterprises/work that I’m doing but it’s a lot of fun and I get to do things my way and in my time which is great. Most Memorable Moment It’s nothing related to what we are talking about now, it was when I went on a missions trip to Uganda in 2
33 minutes | Sep 25, 2016
028: A life changing loss – Joy Fairhall
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In this episode of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Joy Fairhall who shares: How she suddenly lost her beloved husband within six weeks of diagnosis How she created a new normal for her children The steps that got her through her grief How seeing her best friends experience of Motor Neuron Disease has inspired her to create a centre for supporting others through the process of dealing with a life-changing condition. Tegan’s Take Aways: When you are going through grief, know that there is going to be a new kind of normal People start to heal, the moment they feel heard – who can you listen and stop for today? Let’s make every single day a fantastic memory for tomorrow. You aren’t defined by your story, you are still you and I am still me. Ask yourself each day, “What fills your heart with joy?” and then find a way to go do that About Joy Fairhall Joy Fairhall of Mind Body Joy is an Emotional Guidance and Support Coach and specializes in supporting those who have been affected by a life-changing condition or event. Joy knows what it feels like to be dealt a diagnosis of someone you love after growing up with a very ill mother, losing her sister in law and beloved husband to cancer, and then her closest friend to Motor Neuron Disease, and now her grandson has been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. She understands that the time of diagnosis is a time of many emotions and you can feel like you’ve been sucked into a Vortex and can’t stop to gather your breath. As a Master Practitioner of Hypnotherapy, NLP and Timeline Therapy. Creator of the ‘3 Minute to Calm’ and ‘What fills Your Heart with Joy’ methods, Joy has a vast selection of modalities to support you through the process to find happiness in your life again. Contact Joy Fairhall www.mindbodyjoy.com.au Mind Body Joy A Gift for Listeners From Joy Fairhall Download Joy’s Three Minutes To Calm. This technique is something you can do on the go, anytime, anywhere, at any age, utilising breathing and colours and it’s very, very effective. In three minutes you will be calm. By entering your name & email address we agree we won’t share your details with anyone! You may receive the occasional emails from Joy Fairhall and Mind Body Joy. You can unsubscribe at any time. Show Notes: Episode 028: A life-changing loss– Joy Fairhall Joy Fairhall’s Fearless Story I’ve had a few life-changing experiences in my life. I had a wonderful upbringing with mum and dad and a brother plus we had an adopted brother who came into our family at the age of seventeen, before I was born. I grew up knowing that my mum probably wasn’t going to survive so I grew up looking after her. She contracted an illness that was quite unusual and they believe it was when she was greeting the boats in the war years down at the docklands. So, looking back on my life I actually grew up with the fear that my mum wasn’t going to be around for very long. With that in the back of my mind, I think it made me really appreciate every single day from a young age. It also equipped me very well because I had a wonderful marriage to the love of my life and we had two beautiful children. We were married for fifteen very happy years, and not long enough, when he was diagnosed with cancer. From the time he was diagnosed, within six weeks, we had lost him. So it was very, very quick! Initially, they said that he could have some chemo and that would get good results but then they did some more tests and came back with saying that chemo wasn’t an option and he was riddled through with aggressive cancer. So that raised a lot of fears because I had thought we would have plenty of time to be together and fight this and get through it. I didn’t know it would be cut short and I would only have him for six more weeks. So, I brought him home and I had quite a bit of medical practice with caring for my mother, although no formal training but I was taught how to give him injections and look after him at home with the support of palliative care. I really thought that I could do that and a lot of people can’t and I totally understand that but for us it gave us more time than if you were having to go into hospital each day. The kids could go and see their dad any time. The family could come and visit him and we had peaceful time just being together. The fear I had with that was I had a wonderful husband, he was my support, he was my backbone and he was a wonderful dad. He would work morning shift and I had a job with afternoon shift so the kids had their dad a lot more than most people do. He would get their dinner and take them to sports etc and during the day I could participate in daytime things such as fares at school, camps etc. So we were a great partnership. My fear was that we were such a team and I was going to be a single mum to two children who were going to grieve and did grieve so much and to me that was massive. A life without my husband loomed large and it came around much quicker than I thought it would. So, yeah, it wasn’t a pleasant time in my life. How did you deal with that difficult time in your life? I think, growing up with the fear of losing my mother, I really just wanted to make the most of the time we had together. Picking up on what you just said, I also think that the children being so close to their dad was actually a blessing. They were so bonded with their father and had spent more time with him by the time they were ten and twelve, which was when they lost him, than most children would. I wonder if the universe, for those that believe in the universe, did that so they would have more time with him because that time was going to be short. So I look at that as a blessing. The steps that got me through, it’s never cut and dry and it’s different for everyone but what helped me was getting him home and trying to have some type of a normal life and giving the children access to him so that they could talk through anything with him. A lot of people don’t get that. If you lose someone in a road accident you don’t get to say what you want for their life. I remember when we found out that he wasn’t going to be with us for much longer, my husband said, “I am still going to be around you in the spirit sense and I am going to annoy you. So there was that bit of humour and that’s how we tried to deal with it. We tried to have the humour and we tried to see the blessing in all of the awful medical side of it as well. But we had each others backs the whole time. The thing that really got me though is that I have always lived in a positive way. With my name [Joy] I really don’t have any other option! Knowing that people can move out of your life so quickly, it’s about really looking at the positives. Feeling blessed that we had him in our lives for so long, be blessed that we had a happy family and marriage. There are so many people who are surrounded with divorce and who don’t have that happiness. So, really just focusing on the positives and I also wanted to show the kids that everything was going to be ok even though we had lost such a huge part of our family. I also wanted to change our lifestyle into where we used words like ‘old normal’ for how it was before, ‘limbo’ for the time in the middle where you want to move forward but aren’t quite sure how to do that and then moving into a ‘new normal’. Not everyone will do this but my late husband and I had plans to build an extension onto the house. We had built a garage as a test run and we were going to build it all ourselves. So I thought, even though I couldn’t afford it at the time, a good segway from the old normal into the new normal, without a big part of us being there, was to go ahead with the extension. I didn’t know how I was going to pay for it but I kept busy and I actually knocked down and demolished half the house myself with some help from a friend. We actually lived in three bedrooms, one bathroom and a courtyard that I turned into a kitchen and living area for nearly six months. When we finally got into the new house it was the joy of building his dream, the joy of having done it together, it was a lot smaller than we had planned but the steps were: Keeping busy Knowing you are changing into a new normal Things aren’t going to be the same as the old normal There will be times of grief (Even now, twenty years later, we still tear up when I hear a song or something like that) Speak about the person who has passed (People would visit and weren’t sure if they could mention his name. We spoke of him often and he is still a part of our lives, even now) Create joyful memories, rather than morbid ones (The kids put a sign on the shed “Dad’s Shed” and he was very much into motor racing and we were given a ‘finish’ sign which was on his coffin so we put that up in the shed) Focus on the positives (which I understand can be difficult, but focus on the good things you had, rather than what you haven’t had) Talk about the feelings openly The support of friends and family is important (Even if it’s just a hand to hold to enable you to heal yourself) I have a saying I use with my clients and that is, “People start to heal, the moment they’re heard”. I live my life like that. Listen to people. Some people stop to listen but I listen and stop at the same time. People start to heal the moment they feel heard is a big saying. You’ve also been effected by loss more recently too. Do you want to tell us a little about that? Yes, but I don’t want it to sound like my life has been full of loss although I have been affected by loss. That is my life journey is being affected by life changing events and then being able to support others. Before I lost my husband we lost my sister-in-law before that who had been fighting liver cancer and my mum only passed away a month ago.
38 minutes | Sep 18, 2016
027: Making me a priority – Sarah Batsanis
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In this episode of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Sarah Batsanis who shares: How she was afraid to put her wants and needs first How she allowed herself to become disempowered The workshop that began her journey to turning her life around Learning to please herself without the guilt Knowing the difference between fear and intuition Tegan’s Take Aways: We are all chasing that feeling of love and connection but if you aren’t connected and loving to yourself, how can you expect anyone else to. If you have bad dialogue going on in your mind every day then you aren’t going to hear or accept anyone’s praise or compliments What you put out, you get back so you had better be sure to put out good stuff Everything works out when you just let it go. Don’t be serious all of the time, be responsible but also allow yourself to have fun regularly. About Sarah Batsanis Sarah Batsanis is Australia’s leading Stress Specialist, Relationship Mentor, Love & Confidence Coach and Speaker, who is passionate about creating lasting positive change in people. Married together with her husband for almost 20 years, she has been working on relationships and giving people the life empowering skills to help change how they feel fast, & live and express their highest truth, to find love, connection, and understanding within themselves, as well as gain clarity, and peace of mind when it comes to the opposite sex. Some of Sarah’s main areas of focus are helping people overcome Relationship breakdowns, to find love, fix their relationship, gain confidence and stop stress primarily using Faster EFT, a cutting edge system that works to address unwanted emotions and physical pain within the mind and body. Contact Sarah Batsanis www.fastereft.com.au Faster EFT Australia A Gift for Listeners From Sarah Batsanis You have the choice of two gifts from Sarah. The first is a 30 minute clarity session via phone or skype where we look at where you are, where you want to be and what’s holding you back. The second option is a love assessment where we dive deep into what’s holding you back from finding true love. Where are you sabotaging your opportunity to be loved. By entering your name & email address we agree we won’t share your details with anyone! You may receive the occasional emails from Sarah Batsanis and Faster EFT. You can unsubscribe at any time. Show Notes: Episode 027: Making me a priority – Sarah Batsanis Sarah Batsanis’ Fearless Story It all started for me when my children were quite young, 4 & 6 approximately and I knew I wanted to start working for myself and get some study behind me but I didn’t know how or where to start. To cut a long story short, I had been invited to a weekend hypnotherapy workshop and by the end of the workshop I had really grasped how the mind works and I really wanted to pursue that. At the end of the weekend we got offered the opportunity to go to the Gold Coast and continuing the education and I just didn’t think I could do it because it meant I had to leave my kids with my husband for a week and I had never done that before so I just didn’t think I could do it but I really wanted to. The course was going to be $3000 and I was just so afraid of what my husband would think of me spending that amount of money, what the in-laws would think of me leaving the children. So I was focused on what everyone else would think. So I weighed it all up and to me, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. To me this was going to get my career started and it was a vital part of my self-development. So I gave him my credit card and signed up and then walked outside thinking, “What have I done, how am I going to tell my husband and what will my kids think of me leaving them for a week?” That was the beginning of me stepping up. It was the difference between my own fears and empowerment. This was the first thing I had done for me since having my children. It was something for me. How I told my husband – with a lot of fear and a lot of trying to work out how I would say it and in the end I just said it was something I needed to do for myself and if I wanted to follow the path of being my own boss while the kids are at school then this is an opportunity for me. It was at that point though, I was pretty much committed even if he had said no because I had put that money down and to this day I am pretty sure I would have just said that I have to go and I have to follow it because it was just such a strong thing that I knew I needed to do and would give me the opportunities I wanted. It’s still a bit of a blur and I know I got tongue tied which is what happens when fear is in control and that was the sort of person I was around my husband then. I was very dis-empowered and he was 8 years older than me and so I had him up on a pedestal. I had the belief that he was a lot smarter than I was How did you decide it was worth it? I think it was just a knowing for me. I always wanted to help people. I grew up with a sister that was diagnosed as manic depressant and with schizophrenia so sharing a room with her I always knew I wanted to help her and to help other people. So having a week where I knew I was going to learn a lot about myself and about other people and getting the tools to enable me to help them overcome their fears and challenges. I just knew it was going to be the start of something great and that’s exactly what it was. When you believe in something enough and have that ‘gut feeling’ it’s amazing what you can do to make something happen. That’s so true and I have been working with that ever since. When you have fear you tend to over ride that gut feeling but now I have the time to slow down and really tune into that intuition. Back then it was the fear of what other people would think but now it’s remembering to come back to my own self and that its ok to follow my own gut feeling and my own path no matter how much other people might not like it, this is my own truth. It was about following that truth and not denying it anymore because I had suppressed it for so long because I was so dis-empowered. I had him up on a pedestal and I had moulded myself to what I thought he wanted me to be in return for getting more love and affection. So I wasn’t really coming from that true place. So often we get caught up in the ego heart that is led by fear and thinking that we should be doing something or we need to or we have to. These are all ego based and head stuff rather than from the heart. It’s about knowing how to use that intuition and gut feeling even when we do have fear. So many clients I work with are held back by so many things and often they are fear. Everything we want is on the other side of fear. Not only do we have to face the fear but we have to accept the fear, we have to let go of the fear. There are so many different aspects and if we could just get over that fear we will see the rainbow because it is there, we just need to get over it first to get to what’s on the other side. That’s often difficult to do when you are a mother, wife, daughter, friend. You have all of these other roles and responsibilities that often we forget about ourselves and to ask what we want. So well done on making that decision which would have been hard to do as a mother. What happened after you decided to take that action? This was really the turning point for me. After I studied the hypnotherapy I then did some NLP (neuro linguistic programming), some life coaching and numerous other things after that. Then I came across the Faster EFT technique which is the faster version of the Emotional Freedom Technique in 2010. Once I did that and went and did a seminar on it, that’s when a whole other turning point happened in my life. I had treatment for my own issues where I had back and stomach pain, relationship issues and stress problems etc and I was completely blown away. I had been stressed in a stressful working environment for six years and I also had relationship issues as there was a lot of resentment towards my husband that had built up over the years until I eventually lost my gallbladder. When you think about your gallbladder it’s really your centre of power, your gall. I was disempowered. I was powerless because I was allowing my husband to control me. I only had myself to blame but there was a build up of stress and resentment from not being able to do what I really wanted to do. This is what Louise Hay talks about how we physicalize what we are going through emotionally within our bodies. How did you turn all of that around? I started doing Faster EFT sessions and started to get my life back on track. I left the stressful job and stopped feeling like a victim in my relationship. I felt like there were a lot of things I wasn’t getting in my relationship. For many years I used to walk around with the belief that I just wasn’t getting the love and affection. Of course, everything is language and energy so I was putting that belief out into the world and consequently, that’s what I was getting back – not enough love and affection. Through Faster EFT and learning how to love me and put myself as a priority, together with building up my own self-esteem and my own empowerment through the tapping and through healing, enabled me to get to the point of turning my relationship around. We have been together for almost twenty years and not only have I been able to turn that relationship around but also the relationship with myself which is now so much more kinder, nicer, loving and supportive. And how I treat myself is how I am going to treat you and others so being the best version of me enabled me to come from a place of compassion for others. Instead of feeling unloved and lonely. I began to please myself without the gu
36 minutes | Sep 11, 2016
026: Recognising Trauma – Carmel Boutchard
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In this episode of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Carmel Boutchard who shares: How she overcame a lifetime of traumas ranging from an assault at 11 and through two abusive marriages How doing an assertiveness course for women started her healing How a hunger for knowledge gave her empowerment How she is still a little scared of letting love in Why recognizing trauma and feeling safe is so important Tegan’s Take Aways: 1.    Surviving is just what you do when you don’t know what else to do. To solve this, research what else is out there, there are always options. 2.    Learning to say “I” statements can be so empowering 3.    Overcoming trauma will free you up to experience joy 4.    You have to be willing to experience love 5.    When facing a confronting situation, write down and rehearse what you want to say, make sure it’s not inflammatory, and then say it or write it in a letter/email and send it. About Carmel Boutchard Carmel Boutchard is a hypnotist, coach and counsellor and specializes in supporting those dealing with trauma. She is a therapist who helps people understand and recognise trauma-related symptoms, safely confront their trauma & take the emotional charge out of it so they can finally feel safe & know physically, emotionally & mentally that it is finally OVER. They are safe & they are more than enough! Contact Carmel Boutchard www.mysymmetry.net My Symmetry Online A Gift for Listeners From Carmel Boutchard A 15 page ebook on 7 Signs of Trauma – why you’re not crazy and it’s not your fault plus 3 things you must do to get a life that works and 1 thing you can do right now to get started. By entering your name & email address we agree we won’t share your details with anyone! You may receive the occasional emails from Carmel Boutchard and MySymmetry. You can unsubscribe at any time. Show Notes: Episode 026: Recognising Trauma – Carmel Boutchard Carmel Boutchard’s Fearless Story I had a fairly stable family life outwardly but my mother had been assaulted when she was a child and had probably post-traumatic stress disorder, and so that really affected my life and my siblings life as well; but I really noticed things started going wrong when I was eleven. At eleven I was sexually assaulted at the beach one time and so I was quite traumatised by that experience. Then when I went to high-school I was a bit emotional and the nuns weren’t very understanding. So, long story short, they threw me out of school. After that I just didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere. I, gosh… there are just too many things, but basically, I met a boy and ended up pregnant before my sixteenth birthday. So, I was a mum at sixteen and then got married off to the father of my child. He was quite immature, as he wasn’t that much older than I was, and violent and verbally abusive. So I eventually left him. Later I got married again but I must have been a slow learner because it was pretty much the same again…so I got divorced again. This and a lot of the other things that happened left me with no self-confidence and no self-esteem; I had no career, I had no training, and I was frightened to be myself in any way shape or form really. I was basically just hiding away for most of my life, just surviving, which is what you do when you don’t know what else to do. So not really living! What was it you were afraid of then? It was mainly just being afraid of being myself really. At that age, you aren’t very conscious of things so I was probably afraid of other things too, but I wasn’t very conscious of what they were as I was functioning on automatic. What did stand out for me was that I was too afraid to say anything, to challenge anything or to question anything for fear of being hit, or ostracised or verbally abused in some way. That’s basically what controlled me for all of those years. How did you turn it around? I think …I got to a point when I was thirty-two… I went to a course on assertiveness training for women and that was the very first bit of personal development that I learnt. It was very skill based so I learnt how to use ‘I’ statements and to begin to verbalise what you want and to put boundaries around you. This was quite life changing for me. It all grew from there. I learnt about counselling, I learnt about psychology and how families work, and communication. It was all skill based at that point. What are some of the things you learnt then, that supported you to get through your past experience? It’s a real skill to be able to determine what is your ‘stuff’; what you need to take responsibility for and what you can hand back to other people, which is about the boundaries I suppose. Assertiveness is a great place to start! The other thing is how to communicate in a way that gets to the heart of the matter; and not inflame situations. It’s difficult to put it into a nutshell really. I had to learn about emotional management, as most of what I was learning at that point was skill based and so I wasn’t very emotionally aware, but I was starting to be. This meant I had a lot of emotions floating around. If you are sad or depressed then you need to learn how to manage yourself and get out of those states rather than just wallowing in those feelings, which is when you are in danger of becoming the classic victim. Also, rehearse and practice what you want to say. If someone has said something nasty and you really want to say something to them, rehearse it. You are still going to be nervous when you say it but rehearse what you want to say, make sure it isn’t inflammatory and then either say it or, what I used to do is write it to them and send it. That used to terrify me. But it would work. Learn to walk away first and then get clear on what you want to say, rather than just going off in the moment. What have you learnt from the experiences you’ve had in life? There’s always going to be a part of me that is sad about those years because there was a loss. At some point you realise that you have lost your youth and those things you expected to have as a teenager and young woman that you just don’t have. But now I just accept them as fact and they have made me stronger. It’s a bit of a cliché but what doesn’t kill you does make you stronger and able then to support other people who maybe aren’t that strong yet. When you have trauma, and especially with post-traumatic stress disorder and you haven’t yet dealt with it, it is easy to get triggered by it because it is at the front of your mind; but once you have dealt with it, it’s just something that happened to you once, a memory. If you don’t deal with it it’s like it’s in the present and keeps happening to you over and over again. Trauma is quite physical and so your body is always reacting, the adrenaline is always there and you are always on edge. What are you passionate about today? I use a number of different techniques but basically I work with trauma in a couple of different ways. Part of it is educating people about why they feel the way they do, why they feel anxious, depressed or can’t keep a relationship together and things like that. There are three stages I take people through. In the first part we change core beliefs and programs and introduce people to who they really are, because when you go through those types of experiences you end up having untrue beliefs about yourself such as, ‘you’re not worth anything’ or that ‘you deserve to be treated like rubbish’. So we re-program a lot of that stuff and a big part of that is for people to know that they are safe. To get over trauma you have to know that it’s over. The second part is; you get to take the pain away from the past. It takes away the emotional charge from that experience (s) and that’s very liberating. You don’t necessarily go back and face your abusers so to speak, instead we do it in a more powerful way where you get to say all the things you would have wanted to say to them if you could have in a fun, powerful and safe way. Once we get all of that out of the way, we then focus on the future because then you’ve got a clean slate and you can then work out what you actually want out of life. In amongst that there might be guilt and there might be grief and we have things we can do about that, to relieve you of those feelings as well. A lot of it is with hypnosis which I really like to use. Most Memorable Moment There have been so many but one of my first clients had been through a divorce and had been treated like rubbish basically. I loved how she felt so free after the sessions we had together and she said she had gotten more out of that than two years of ‘normal’ counselling. We’ve had clients that, if you heard some of their stories, what happened to me is nothing. The things that people can do to each other are appalling and there are some people who can’t even leave the house, but after doing this sort of work, they are literally free. They can feel joy, which is a bit elusive when you’ve been traumatised. For myself, specifically in relationships, to be able to trust and be willing to accept love is huge. That just wasn’t something I was willing to do because I was too scared of getting trapped. But the thing is that it isn’t always like these big ‘Jesus’ moments, it can be quite a subtle thing too where you can look back after three months and realise “that relationship has changed” and that person is now relating to me,  because it changes you on a vibrational level as well. I went to visit my son the other day after not seeing him physically for a couple of years and because of all this stuff we had had a bit of a strained relationship.  But I had done a lot of work since I had last seen
29 minutes | Sep 5, 2016
025: Facing Fears in Grief– Trudy Simmons
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In this episode of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Trudy Simmons who shares: How the loss of her beloved sister impacted her life The experience of dealing with grief for the first time How she learnt to sit with her fears rather than fight them Learning how to let life unfold instead of forcing it How sharing her story brought her closer to herself and others Tegan’s Take Aways: If you are doing something because you think you should or because you feel you have to, please stop and connect with what you want to do. Live your own life and walk your own path, regardless of what nay-sayers say to do or not to do. All I have to be is me! – Having the courage to be real can create wonderful experiences and connections. Don’t try and force things to happen, be ok with letting things unfold occasionally. Laugh every single day – it’s the best medicine. About Trudy Simmons Trudy Simmons is a Purpose and Productivity Coach with a truckload of empathy and a little bit of hard arse! She is able to help you find out WHAT you want to do; WHY you want to do it; and HOW to get it DONE! She loves to show her audience of entrepreneurial and business women the way to becoming more successful by taking action and following through. Trudy has 20 years of experience in helping people move from being stuck and not knowing the next step, to getting their shizzle DONE! She does this by finding and harnessing your strengths and removing your weaknesses. She knows what keeps you up at night – the thousands of ideas that are germinating in your brain – and she knows how to sort them into “no go”, “maybe later”, and “hell yes” and get done what is really important to your success. Trudy is also the creator of “The Spectacular – A Business Symposium” a 2.5 day business immersion in 2018 for entrepreneurial women.  It is held in Australia. Contact Trudy Simmons www.thedaisychaingroup.com.au The Daisy Chain Group A Gift for Listeners From Trudy Simmons Download this audio and worksheet to take you from Procrastination to Productive. Find out how you are procrastinating, why you are procrastinating and then how to be productive and what to do next, all in a short space of time. Download Procrastination to Productivity Now Show Notes: Episode 025: Facing Fears in Grief– Trudy Simmons Trudy Simmons’ Fearless Story I’m a purpose and productivity coach and in my every day role in that I help people to get more done in their life and businesses. What I found growing up was that purpose came from growing up with my sister who had cerebral palsy. We were like twins with the same personality. We did everything together, had the same curly hair and were both 5’4 whereas our other sisters were 5’11 with straight hair. We had this magical connection through humour and I saw through her what her purpose was in life and what she was capable of and what she didn’t know she was capable of. Often we get so wrapped up in what we can and can’t do but when you see someone who’s mind is sharp but their body isn’t capable of doing things, you realise what’s possible. My strength came from her and my ability to be able to listen came from her because it was difficult for her to speak I had to listen intently to be able to understand her. So, we grew up very close and especially because she had severe cerebral palsy so she couldn’t do anything physically. Then 2.5 years ago I got a call from my mother to say, “Get on the next plane”, my little sister Jodi, at 33yo was dying. I was on holiday in Australia at the time and so I sat in this little flat I had rented over Christmas (this was Christmas eve) and I thought, “How am I going to get home (to England)?” I had no winter clothes with me, I didn’t think I had my passport with me either and I was in a remote area in Queensland miles away from anywhere. As it turned out, I did have my passport with me and to this day I don’t know why I did have it, but I jumped on the next plane out and as I got to Kuala Lumpur airport (which is half way home) and I lay down on a sofa in a half awake, half asleep daze I saw Jodi stand up and turn around and wave to me. Now, Jodi had never stood up as she had always been in a wheelchair so to see that I knew that she had gone. I then had to get on another 14 hr flight to London knowing she had gone but not understanding what that would mean to me. When I arrived at Heathrow and all of my family were there I knew logically that she had in fact gone even though my heart knew, my head didn’t want to believe it was true. What that did was throw me into turmoil because I had never known grief before and not knowing what it could do to me. I am a very strong person and I am a confronter and I push through things, I am everything masculine that other people usually have to find within themselves, especially in the corporate world. But this annihilated me. I had nothing left to put up. I had no mask that I could wear that could get me through my life at that stage. So in the process of Jodi dying and the funeral which I gave as we didn’t want a religious one. Ironically, three weeks earlier I had said to myself, “OK I’m ready for public speaking now” and there I was thrown into it in a pretty spectacular way. Then I had to navigate through grief and what that was to me, what it did to my business and most importantly who I was at the end of it. In the middle of it I couldn’t see a thing, I was absolutely blinded and blindsided. Getting up in the morning was hard. How did you turn that around? What I did was try and be the person I was before all of this happened. So I tried to push, I tried to force and I tried to just get on with things and not be emotional. While I was in the UK I felt like I had to do everything for the family because I was only there for a month so the funeral and everything to do with that, I felt I had to get it all done so that kept me busy. But once I got back to Australia I collapsed and couldn’t keep it up anymore. So in hindsight, looking back now, what I did to get through that was every step had to be a baby step. Everything that I did was raw and it felt so uncomfortable. I didn’t know who I was in this circumstance. My week used to evolve around speaking with Jodi twice a week and that now had fallen away. We used to be two peas in a pod and now I felt lost even in the family because my other two sisters were like two peas in a pod and now I was just one pea and I didn’t know where I fitted anymore. So when I got back to Australia there was a lot of that and a lot of tears and I guess I just allowed myself the time to grieve. I didn’t know what that process was. Trying to think of the specific steps now is difficult but one of the things was I had a few really good business friends who were very aware of who I was and who I am now. One of my friends invited me to come and speak at a networking event in March and I did a talk on procrastination, productivity and grief. There were a lot of tears from me and from them and what I saw was there was this massive new connection that I hadn’t felt before because I had always lived through this mask. It was really exciting. It took me a good three months to get through it but coming out the other side and feeling this incredible surge of realness and authenticity of what I was doing and how I was interacting with people was just absolutely magical. I got four new clients from that talk because of who I was at that point, real. To do that I had to face a massive fear of standing up on stage and talking to people. I don’t have a problem with being on stage and acting the fool, I can easily do that but talking to people scared me. The fear of judgment is my biggest fear and putting myself out there. Most Valuable Lesson The most valuable lesson I got from this whole experience without a doubt is that all I have to be is me! It seems silly to say it but all I have to be is just the whole of me and people that like you, that’s great and those that don’t, that’s ok too. From that talk I then created a two-day workshop for women entrepreneurs called ‘The Spectacular’ – A Business Symposium and without thinking about it I held it on the 22nd February which was Jodi’s birthday. I put the whole of me into it and was told by others that there was a whole bunch of things I should not do, that would not work but they were things that were me such as conga lines, karaoke etc. I had ten speakers so there was a lot of learning and a lot of fun and I was told they felt cared for and nurtured. By getting out of their heads and having fun these women’s businesses have shot up as a result of this weekend. The fears I had to create the event were astronomical though and I hadn’t told anyone it was Jodi’s birthday but on the night of the 22nd someone came up to me and asked me if I wanted a glass of Baileys, which was Jodi’s drink. So I burst into tears and then told everyone else and they all burst into tears and we had lots of Bailey’s. So these wonderful little things that are intertwined when you do face your fears are just magical and make it all worthwhile. Another thing I have learnt from this and I teach others is to live your own path. If you want to hold an event where you have a spontaneous dance off then do it. Don’t listen to the nay-sayers because they’re scared and it’s just their fears. What are you passionate about today? What I am passionate about today and always is people being the whole of themselves in their businesses. I get so cross when I hear people saying, “This is what I should do”, or “This is what I have to do” because they have been told so by family, schools or jobs in their past. If you are doing something because you think you s
33 minutes | Aug 29, 2016
024: Self worth & Relationships – Efrat Wolfson
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In this episode of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Efrat Wolfson who shares: How she came to recognise she was in a verbally abusive relationship The  4 steps she took to be able to leave that relationship Understanding your self-worth & how important that is Having the courage to start her own business Creating conscious couples in relationships Tegan’s Take Aways: Whatever you feel you are lacking in your life, you have the power to create that yourself if you think outside the box When you are being tested, trusting that there is something positive that is to be born from the experience, will get you through it You don’t have to know where it will go, you just have to start with something and the world will let you know what is needed from you. Sometimes you have to let go of the safe and secure and your comfort zone in order to make enough room for something better to come in energetically. If everyone on the planet knew how lovable, worthy, beautiful and amazing they are then there would be no wars and no violence. About Efrat Wolfson Efrat Wolfson is a Conflict Transformation Coach, originally from Israel, developer of “The Conscious Couples Formula” Blog and Training. Efrat supports people worldwide to build loving, connected, turned-on relationships, by becoming aware of their own Subconscious Relating Patters that are keeping them back from having the relationship of their dreams. Nowadays, Efrat lives in Australia with her gorgeous partner and two children, who provide her with daily opportunities to practice these skills! Contact Efrat Wolfson www.efratwolfson.com Conscious Couples A Gift for Listeners From Efrat Wolfson A hugely valuable guide for all of us called How to Stop Pointless Arguments and Get Back To Connection In Five Minutes. Designed to help you be able to stop in the middle of those arguments that just go back and forth and go nowhere and come back to connection. Click Here to Download Your Guide Show Notes: Episode 024: Self-worth & Relationships – Efrat Wolfson Efrat Wolfson’s Fearless Story When I was 25 years old, after being in a relationship for four years, I realised I was in an emotionally and verbally abusive relationship. It had taken me a long time to realise this and I had a six-month-old baby with this man at the time. It took me a further two whole years to get out of the relationship and by then I had two children. So, leaving that relationship was scary for me. Although from the outside it seemed obvious that I should leave, it scared me. Over the six year relationship I had become very dependant on this man. I was financially dependant, I wasn’t working as I was home with the children. On a deeper level I was also dependent on him for approval and validation. I had given him the role of the person who validates me as a person and the person who validates my actions. So, even when we broke up, I would phone him up and ask him about my moves (decisions) because I had become so dependant on his approval for even little daily decisions. It was scary to go out into the world without someone who would approve my choices. What were the steps you took to leave that situation? There were many steps but the first one was to realise that I was in an abusive relationship. This may seem strange to some people but it can be very confusing when you are in that type of a relationship. Often the abuser can have a lot of charisma. My ex partner was very loving and caring but at the same time he would be putting me down and letting me know that everything was my fault. Telling me how I can’t do anything right and how stupid I am and how worthless I am. This was very confusing to me. I kept thinking that he wasn’t abusive and that he was just a very troubled and wounded man and that my love was going to save him. So there was a lot of co-dependency going on in the relationship. So the first step is to recognise that you are in an abusive relationship. When you are walking on egg shells, when you are afraid of his reactions, when you are constantly doubting yourself, these are all very clear signs that something is off. Since then, I have become very sensitive to these things and my radar is very sensitive to these signs. The second step is to acknowledge to yourself that you are worthy of being loved in the way that you want. That you are worthy of 100% of love and being treated like a queen. To acknowledge this took me a long time, almost two years for me. During that time I was going to therapy and coming to terms with my own patterns of low self esteem that had attracted me to that relationship in the first place. Slowly I built up my levels of self esteem to a point where I just could not bare to be in that type of situation any more. My partner at the time was also going to therapy and counselling to try and heal that stuff, at the end of the day, I was still getting hurt. So I wasn’t going to stick around while he worked on his stuff, any longer. Step three was to get as much support as I could, to break free. I began writing an anonymous blog on verbal abuse and started getting a lot of women commenting on that. I talked to some of them personally and asked how they got out of their relationship. I surrounded myself with lots of love and people who could support me through that process. It’s about understanding that you are worthy of that love and that you no longer have to put up with any more outbursts of violence, not even one more! Then surround yourself with the support you need to break free. Step four was that I went on a journey of deep self discovery to understand what were my sub-conscious patterns that had attracted me to that type of relationship. I already touched on this but just to go a bit deeper. If I thought that this relationship failed just because of him and I didn’t take any responsibility for my part in it, then I would have gotten into a very similar relationship next time. It’s not about blaming or being the victim here, it’s about responsibility. What has attracted you to that relationship on a sub-conscious deeper level. Otherwise you keep attracting and repeating the same type of relationship again. If I keep blaming the other person then I haven’t really learnt anything from the relationship for next time. When we broke up I was blaming him and saying that he is this, he is that, he is abusive and he is violent, which is all true. But there was my part as well and asking myself, “What was my part?” because there are always two people there. If I had had the same level of self worth that I have today, I would not have stayed one minute with this man. So, you know, I had a part in this dynamic and it’s important to get clear on your part so that you don’t replicate it. How did you turn the situation around – the practicalities? I was very lucky because I wasn’t alone. I lived on the same land as my parents so I had a lot of support. The father of my children was still around so we shared custody of the two children and we still do today. But it is important to know that if you don’t have that support, you can create it. On my parents land I created a community centre because I felt like I needed more community and support around me. So we built this centre out of mud and junk and stuff we had around and it took a few years but it is by far, one of the best experiences of my life so far. This was in Israel and I now live in Australia but the centre is still vibrant and has hundreds of people who come there every year. I share this because some women may be feeling like they don’t have support or a community but whatever you feel you are lacking in your life, I believe you can create it. Ask yourself, “How can I create that, be more of that or have more of that in my life?” Think outside the box of how you can create what you feel you don’t have. More recently you had another scary experience, do you want to tell us about that? Yes, I think its important for the listeners to know that it isn’t always ‘happily ever after’ once you take the step to leave the relationship. I think often we think it is going to be and we have that expectation and then we get disappointed when it doesn’t happen that way. There are always going to be challenges. The Hollywood movie ending doesn’t always happen and if you are waiting until you get to the imaginary “there” then you are never going to be happy because there is always going to be another “there” that you find. So, what happened was, a few years after we had separated we all moved to Australia, my ex partner and the children. It was supposed to be just for one year but there was a complication and I ended up living with him after a very brief attempt at getting back together again. I very quickly realised that nothing had changed though. I had been searching for a job but I couldn’t find one and I couldn’t understand why when I had my masters degree and I had a lot of experience. So I had no where to live and I had no job. We lived in an area where there wasn’t a lot of housing available and everything was just very chaotic and I was in a really big crisis. I didn’t really know what was going to happen but I kept trusting that there was some ‘thing’ that was supposed to be born from this. I didn’t really know what but over time I decided to overcome the financial fears that I had and go out and start my own business. For someone who had always been an employee this was really scary. I had no idea how to run a business or whether I could succeed at it so I just jumped in and what happened was that my business became quite successful, quite quickly. I have only been running my business for two years now and I have clients from all over the world and I have branched out and do
26 minutes | Aug 22, 2016
023: Giving Yourself Permission – Bec McMillan
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In this episode of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Bec McMillan who shares: What it used to be like to be Bec McMillan How you can turn things around by deciding to Giving yourself permission to just be yourself Discovering you aren’t as crazy as you feel like you might be Tegan’s Take Aways: We chose the path we are on for the lessons it will give us It’s ok to be a beautiful disaster sometimes, you don’t have to be perfect Focus on bettering yourself every day but give yourself permission to mess up sometimes It doesn’t matter how dark things seem today, the sun will rise again tomorrow with a fresh new day To speak with pride instead of shame – always About Bec McMillan Jewellery Designer – Published Author of The Inspiration Bible – Radio personality – Inspirational Speaker- Mentor – Charity Event host – proud mother of two beautiful boys but most importantly a survivor on an extraordinary journey to help people through their struggles. A story of a strong courageous woman whom has lived a life full of adversity and overcome so many challenges from a child up until present. Bec has endured the unthinkable, the kind of story that even the “Best” script writers could not begin to write- yet come out the other side an awakened soul that is shining brighter than one could imagine. Bec’s sole purpose in life is to help Inspire people to face ANY situation/life circumstance with strength-courage & determination and to never give up no matter what. Bec’s approach on overcoming the depths of extreme adversity are described as Raw & Real. Bec prides herself on not claiming to be “perfect” and to simply “allow” yourself to be human! Bec believes this is what she was born to do and why she has lead the life she had up until her soul awakening in February 2014. Allow Bec to INSPIRE you to NEVER GIVE UP and to not doubt your abilities!   Contact Bec McMillan Inspire by Bec A Gift for Listeners From Bec McMillan Every listener has the opportunity to chose two items of their choice from Becs beautiful jewellery range and receive $10 off each item so that’s a total of $20 off which is wonderful. Click the button below to access Bec’s range of gorgeous healing jewellery which doesn’t just make you look good but feel good too. PM Bec to receive the discount. Click here to see the full range of jewellery and choose 2 pieces for yourself Show Notes: Episode 023: Giving yourself permission – Bec McMillan Bec McMillan’s Fearless Story It was a bit of a ripple effect starting with things that happened to me as a child that I am only now beginning to remember. I got diagnosed with depression at fourteen which led to toxic decisions, toxic behaviours and self medication which led to addiction and so many self destructive behaviours. Really, all I could do was to just survive at the time but nothing prepared me for what came next when I accidentally took my 80 day old baby boy Jas’ life in an unsafe bed sharing accident where I was breast feeding him and I accidentally smothered him. I woke up to him blue and we brought him back to life but it was too late, he was brain dead so he died in my arms when I switched off the machine. Then I lost my nan, then I fell pregnant with twins and had one pass away inside of me and had to continue to carry the baby within me for months because they can’t do anything in that situation. Then after that my pop (grandfather) died and I found out my father had liver cancer and only had three months to live. At the time I was seven months pregnant and it all became too much and I had a breakdown. During that breakdown my new husband left me and I lost my relationships with my two sisters and my best friend. I think it was just too difficult for them to deal with all the mess that was happening on the outside. It was a really, really rough time for me. When I gave birth to my little boy Chance he came out with severe colic and was very stressed. He would cry for at least six hours a day and I barely got any sleep. That turned into glandular fever and then that turned into anxiety and then PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder). I kept seeing my new baby Chance as my deceased baby which was just horrific and that led me to being suicidal. I ended up booking myself into a mental hospital and got wrongly diagnosed with post partum psychosis and they sent me home saying I just needed new medication, support and sleep. That was actually a turning point for me because I was pleased to find out that I wasn’t actually crazy even though I felt I was losing it, it was reassuring to know that I wasn’t. How did you turn it around? That was actually a turning point for me because I was so pleased to find out that I wasn’t actually crazy even though I felt I was losing it, it was reassuring to know that I wasn’t. That made me realise my inner strength and these days I hold my head high that I am so strong. What are the gifts you received from your experience? Through all of my turmoil I discovered spirituality, energy work and the law of attraction so there was a lot of good that came of it. I truly believe that I chose to be Bec McMillan and I chose this path so that I could be the person to help inspire others to know that no matter what life throws at you, you do have the power to turn it all around and do some really great things. Not everyone has to endure the things I have or do the things I am doing but everyone does have the power to move forward from adversity and not live a life hiding away like I did for so long. Memorable Moments Co-authoring the Inspiration Bible and telling my story and putting myself out there to the whole world was really scary because of the taboo against mental health problems and the stigma. So, it was fearless of me to put myself out there and say that yes, I had all of those things happen to me and yes, “I’m captain crazy” and to own all of that. Then I started getting messages from all over the world of people who had read my story and had been inspired by it. For me to discover that people don’t look down on me for having mental health problems and they actually look up to me. This was huge for me and I have been unstoppable since. What are you passionate about today? I wear many crowns (not hats!) today and the most exciting is the launch of my crystal jewellery range and essential oils. I’m all about making people feel good and I get so much joy out of receiving letters and pictures of people wearing my jewellery and thinking, “Wow, I created that!”. It’s almost better than becoming an author. With my jewellery, its feel good fashion so its not just about looking good but it’s feeling good at the same time. How did you get from where you were to where you are today? I made a decision! Making a decision to start somewhere is a key point. So I made a decision to make an effort. I started to put good nutrition into my body. I started with my essential oils and crystals. I looked for ways to raise my vibration so I put up inspirational quotes around my house, put on uplifting music, watch funny videos. Just little things to lift me out of the depression and self-loathing and get my confidence back and feeling good about myself again. I lost 18 kilo’s which was also a good achievement. Once I had lost the first 7 kilos I then had the confidence to step into a gym to lose the rest. It’s just a ripple effect of self-care. Feeding yourself with love. What is something in your future plan that scares you? Getting into the media and the public eye, I am afraid that people will judge me for my past. I made some toxic decisions in my teenage years and early twenties and it just worries me that someone will take a piece of my past and judge me on that instead of the person I am today. I know I shouldn’t worry about what others think of me and I know I am as strong as a lion but I am also secretly sensitive too. So that’s what scares me. There you go, I just put that vulnerability out there! This is why it’s important to surround yourself with people who believe in you. I believe that my past has given me the tools I need to recognise when someone else is troubled and the lessons I have learnt and continue to learn are part of the lessons that life gives you. I also try and better myself every day but I also give myself permission to stuff up because I am not perfect and that’s ok because at least I’m trying and giving it a go. Five Fast Fun Fearless Facts about Bec McMillan Who inspires you? Oprah! She gives me Aha moments every time I listen to her. What a wise, awesome lady! Favourite thing to do each day? To open up the blinds and welcome the new day. It doesn’t matter how dark things get the sun will always rise the next day – you always have a new day the next day! What’s something that still scares you? Sponge foam! I don’t know where it comes from but if you come near me with foam I will run away screaming like a little girl. Favourite technique or app or book? I love my healing crystals and mixing up essential oils. I think they are an essential part of every day life to support you to get through things. If you could wave a magic wand and fix one thing in the world right now, what would it be and why? Mental health problems! Mental health issues are the cause of seven deaths a day and it is something that has a ripple effect. It doesn’t just effect the person going through it but all of those around them as well. Final Question for Bec McMillan If you could turn back time what’s the one piece of advice you wish you could give your fourteen-year-old self? That I am worthy and I am beautiful and I am enough! Where can people reach out to you? Facebook – Inspire by Bec
39 minutes | Aug 17, 2016
022: Learning to let go – Debbi Carberry
Subscribe on iTunes In this episode: In this episode of The Fearless Females Podcast your host Tegan Mathews interviews Debbi Carberry who shares: How she got through the hardest time of her life The lessons about letting go that her sons illness taught her The power of believing that anything is possible Understanding attachment and its effects on relationships How sometimes you’ve just got to roll up your sleeves and get it done Tegan’s Take Aways: Surrender and let go because the more you attempt to hold on, the worse it will get Never believe that it can’t be done – anything is possible If all you do every day is keep moving, you will get through it Ask yourself, “What’s one thing I can do today to…” and then fill in what it is you want Something good always comes of those challenging situations – and having faith in that will get you through About Debbi Carberry Debbi Carberry is a clinical social worker in private practice in Brisbane, Australia where she specialises in relationships transformation. She has over 10 years’ experience helping people form and maintain fulfilling relationships. Debbi is the author of a short relationship guide “Is Your Approach to Relationships Healthy? 7 Questions Every Woman Should Ask Herself”https://debbicarberry.com.au/seven-questions/ and the creator of the groundbreaking 6 week online course, “Rewiring your brain for better relationships”.  https://debbicarberry.com.au/better-relationships-program/ Contact Debbi Carberry www.debbicarberry.com.au Debbi Carberry A Gift for Listeners From Debbi Carberry Fill in your details to gain access to the relationship checklist and be guided through a process and to check in with where your relationship is at. By entering your name & email address we agree we won’t share your details with anyone! You may receive the occasional emails from Debbi Carberry. You can unsubscribe at any time. BONUS: Download the free guide to Yoga Breathing Here Show Notes: Episode 022: Learning to let go – Debbi Carberry Debbi Carberry Fearless Story Over my life there have been several times that were challenging. Growing up was really difficult as was my early thirties but during these times there were also highlights as well. As an adult, going through my thirties was the hardest. I had four children under the age of seven, two with special needs and then my partner and I separated while one of my children was going through open heart surgery. So I became a single parent whilst dealing with all of that and consequently it was my darkest time. During that time though, it was also my most pivotal turning point where my life changed for the better so it was a really bitter sweet kind of time. My childhood – I was born in the north of England back in the sixties when there wasn’t a great deal of work around for adults and the men were in control and although there was a lot of change happening at that time around womens rights, where I grew up there wasn’t a lot of change. There was real poverty and I always felt like I didn’t fit in and joked that I had been adopted into the wrong family. I had a childhood that was really traumatic and I wondered if it would ever get better and dreamed of growing wings and flying away I am a realist and therefore I believe the trauma is purposeful, not when you are going through it but it’s good to know that when you are, that there is something good coming from this. I would not be the therapist I am today without the challenges that have been handed to me. How did you turn it around? I literally hunkered down. I moved into a smaller house because I was supporting the kids by myself and I had been studying at the time and I thought, “I have to finish this degree and make some money so I am not in this position again”. I would wake up and ask myself, “What can I do today to make some money”. My son had had two open heart surgeries at that stage, one at four weeks and another at four months and was to have another one later. He has an incurable issue with his heart where he is missing some of it and we had been told that if he lived until he was eight, we would be blessed but that he probably wouldn’t. So to get through the days, I would have my routine where I ensured the kids were fed and the house was clean and then every day I would exercise by running up and down my hallway. I was breast feeding two of my children and pumping for the other so I felt a bit like a Jersey Cow but every day I would run and I kept thinking that if I could just put one foot in front of the other I was going to get to the other side of this. I did that for a year and as long as I kept moving I was able to handle everything that I was dealing with and especially with what I was dealing with my sons condition. It was a massively challenging time. Often it felt like I was wading through thick mud but as long as I kept moving I wouldn’t stop and drown. What happened after you got through that first year? I believe I was born strong and with a tenacious nature and a belief that anything is possible, and I still believe that. I decided that I really needed to make some money because when you have money you can have access to more support. It’s the difference between being able to put your kids into childcare when you need to, being able to dress them, feed them, educate them. You have to have a plan and a vision . So I decided I needed to earn some big money so I focused on finishing my degree and at the time I would get a bit growly with the other students when they would give the excuse of not having enough time because I was looking after four kids full time and I still got my assignments in on time. Some people would tell me that it wasn’t possible which just made me more determined because I truly believe that anything is possible and I would prove them wrong. I lined up a job to go straight into once I had finished my degree and planned it out that I would do that for eighteen months and then I would have to do some other things to get my accreditation and then I could be completely independent and be in private practice. So I had a big plan and the clinic was eleven years in the making and once I achieved that it was a huge deal for me. It was my seed, I wanted to have a bricks and mortar business because roots in the ground are important to me. That is my centre called Papallon and why I called it that, which means butterfly, is because I do a lot of work with people who have been traumatised in their life and I think most of us have had some sort of trauma and the symbol for abused women is the butterfly. The butterfly is the symbol for transformation but not easy transformation, it’s the struggle of transformation. Its that absolute tenacity to work your bum off to get out of your situation and when you do, the magic happens and you become this beautiful, delicious butterfly. But I couldn’t call it the Butterfly clinic so I went online and searched and found that the French call it Papallon so that’s why I called the clinic Papallon because it is about the journey of transformation and my own journey too. What has been your most memorable moments? Travelling around the world when I was twenty-one, for six years was one of the best times in my life. But if I had to chose one moment that I could hold onto forever it would be this one: I had been struggling through my degree with six and sevens which was really important to me because I wanted to do well. The day came for graduation and at that time I had met a man who I am still with who I absolutely adore. I was standing on the stage with my hat on and my kids were there clapping for me and in that moment…I had wanted to do it for them, I had needed to do it for myself and as I stood there with them clapping for me I was absolutely beside myself with joy. What are you passionate about today? Today is an interesting time. My eldest is about to graduate university and I am so proud of him. My other children are all moving through high school and I realised recently I am heading into a transition period because they are all about to go off and do their own thing. So I decided that I wanted something that is all about me as I move into the next part of the story of my life. I decided I needed another challenge and I was getting a lot of interest from long distances away. I searched for a solution and didn’t find anything on relationships and I had fallen in love with this wonderful man who is the absolute opposite of me – so grounded and so steady. Before I met him I had done a lot of study and learnt that I had to do my own relationships differently and had learnt about the attachment theory. I learnt that we are kind of pre-programmed in the way we do our relationships from the young age of between one and three. We can’t change it because we can’t access those memories but we are non verbally pre-programmed. Through the process I learnt I had an anxious attachment style which had effected how I was in my relationship with my partner. I knew I had worked with parents on attachment styles and I thought why don’t we look at that for our relationships. There have been a lot of studies done and we are hard wired for connection and we are hard wired how we do connection. So I decided to create a program online to teach this and I worked solidly for six weeks on writing all the content, program videos, worksheets etc and had it launched in November of last year. Had I known how challenging it was going to be I may not have done it but I knew the content and what I wanted to teach, what was interesting was how much of my own stuff got in the way of what I wanted to do. The three things that came up for me was: 1. The invisible story, 2. The ‘you’re not good enough’ story and if I managed to get past those two, I
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