Life Uncut - WE LOVE LOVE

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

Hey Lifers!Today's episode is one big warm hug. You've heard so many of our stories over the past 3 years, but believe it or not - there is more.We're taking a deep dive on our brand new book called "WE LOVE LOVE" that is available tomorrow from all good (and bad) book stores.Over the last 3 years, we've covered a lot of very personal stuff on the podcast but for a variety of reasons, there were some conversations that we've been holding on to that we haven't shared before...well, until now.Some of those conversations include: Laura's childhood and some of the darker sides of familial relationships that led to her attachment style as an adult Decisions around the timeline of when it's the right time to have a baby and her choice to end a pregnancy Britt's process of writing the book being in and out of love, and how that has affected her fertility decisions  Britt's idea of her value and worthiness in relationships and how her future may not look like what she had expected it to. If you would like to get yourself a copy of WE LOVE LOVE you can get your hands on one here https://www.lifeuncutpodcast.com.au/Thank you so very much to each of you lifers that have come along on this wildly unexpected path of the podcast that has led to us being able to pen an entire book! Your stories and conversations sparked the creativity put behind this book and we're really excited to share it with you!Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because we love love! xxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Life Uncut podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. This episode is recorded on Gadigal land of the Aurora Nation. Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. And I'm Britt.

And I just want to say to anybody else who is fucking traumatised by watching Dharma, I'm there with you. And by Dharma, Laura means the Netflix show that is trending at the moment called Jeffrey Dharma. It's the worst thing I've ever watched in my entire life. I have so many feelings. Matt and I put on two episodes on Saturday and I'll never recover. And you feel bad for, I don't even like to say the word trending in that sentence because it feels like it's the wrong word for what it's about.

So if you don't know quickly, it's about Jeffrey Dahmer who was a sick, sick man. He was a serial killer many, many moons ago. But it's re-exploring what that looked like for him, who he was, what he did, the crime. And it was very, very awful. But again, I hate the word trending. It is trending. It's been like one of the most watched Netflixes since Squid Games. With Squid Games, right?

That was like the trending, scary horror thriller of 2021. 2022, it's Dharma. Everyone's talking about it. So many people have watched it. It is one of the most downloaded. I think it is the most downloaded thing on Netflix. Makes me think like, how fucked are we? Like actually, how messed up are we as a society that that's what we want to watch?

Matt, he didn't make me. He didn't like force me down over my eyeballs. But like we watched the first two episodes and I can't watch it. Like it's just too much for me. It's too traumatizing. I think because it's obviously so based within real life and based amongst like what's actually happened that for me, I just, I cannot believe that somebody could do this. And that is so much more frightening than a fictional made up Squid Games based in a

country that, you know, feels very far away for me. But I think that's the conversation, right? this is why we as a society love it so much is because we can't believe that there is someone that would do this and we don't understand how there could be someone that could do this how they go about it so I think that's where the fascination comes from it's almost like it's in another world and another reality and I think I don't think people look at it with these goggles on that this actually happened I think they just sit back and are like this guy's fucking crazy but it's is it crossing this line is it crossing this line where we're glorifying these people

these horrible serial killers. And we were almost putting them on a pedestal of look how crazy they are. I don't know if it's glorifying them, but I guess the thing that sits uncomfortable with me is like, regardless, regardless of whether it shines him in the most negative light, obviously it's like, it's truly humanly deplorable. Like it's unbelievable, but it's also been made into a Netflix Hollywood blockbuster hit. Right. So we are being entertained. Ultimately we're being entertained by people's immense tragedy. And for me, I think like, what are the families getting out of this? What are the victim's families getting out of this? Have they received any of the money? I don't know. This is a bigger thing for us to unpack. And I think we have

actually, we've gone super rogue on today's podcast episode and we're going to tell you all about it, but I would love to unpack this whole situation more, unpack like the research behind the family statements that have been made since this docuseries has come out, because there is a lot and I have a lot of feelings. Let's hit that on Thursday's episode. well yeah and that is something we'll do but I've I mean like I am one of those people I've watched it which is strange to me because I couldn't watch Squid Games so it took me like 18 months to watch I only watched Squid Games is fine I was like I don't understand why everyone's so I was like I'm traumatized but it's like I quite enjoyed it I was hooked yeah so that's so we're so different

but it is something we need to unpack because I have I've got one I think one more episode left to watch I will and I want to be clear I'm not enjoying it like I'm not I don't watch it because I'm loving it but there's a part of me that needs to see it through now which is a strange feeling but we're going to unpack that on a much deeper level on Thursday. All right. Well, the reason why we're going rogue on today's episode is because we have some very exciting news. If you've been following along the podcast for the last few weeks

or even like the last couple of months, you would know that We Love Love, the book that Britt and I wrote, it is being released tomorrow. It's finally hitting bookshelves. I'm so nervous. I'm scared. It's also being – fuck's sake. I'm saying I feel so uncomfortable.

It's also for anyone who has placed a pre-order book purchase, it will be being sent out to you tomorrow. So there are thousands of copies of We Love Love, which are going to be in the stratosphere tomorrow but what we thought we would do is and look I'm going to say it already there's there's a lot of tears in this episode there's a lot of discoveries we wanted you know for anyone who has bought the book or who is thinking about it this episode is a little bit of a taste test that's a weird way of putting it but it's a little bit of an insight into what we talk about and what is different about the book to the podcast

because we do talk about a lot of things that are very similar to the topics that we've covered but ultimately We Love Love, the book that we wrote together is a book about self-love. It's also a book about self-improvement, self-discovery, but also about strengthening your own relationships that you have. And there are some things that we haven't yet spoken about openly on the podcast for various reasons. And this episode gives us an opportunity to talk about some of the stories that prior to now we didn't feel comfortable sharing. I think that is right. I think what you said is right. It's a taste tester. It's just a little nibble. Someone dropped a bit of a bread crumb from their plate so if you've been thinking about buying yourself a copy of we love love you

can jump onto www.lifeuncutpodcast.com.au and there is all the links to the book there so you can get yourself a pre-order copy before it comes out tomorrow now considering we spend so much time talking it's usually we're talking to other people and i think that we've shared a lot of our stories on this podcast actually we've shared 99.9 of them we are known to be over sharers yes but surprisingly there are a lot of things in this book that we haven't yet shared on the podcast and we'll kind of get into why that's the case but we thought to kick off this part of the episode we would kind of tell you how the whole process of the book came about when it came about and what that's looked like how it happened why it happened where it happened why did it happen britney oh god

who knows now it was been a i guess a bit over a year 18 months i think from when we signed the do you? I think it's been about 20 months. So at the time, just to kind of give you guys a bit of the timeline about how the process will happen. So Penguin, that is who the book is published through, Penguin Publishers. We have an incredible publisher. Her name is Izzy. And I remember we were trying to organize a time to have a meeting. This meeting that happened, we went down to the local cafe in Bondi and it was six weeks after Lola was born. She was a tiny little potato. She was a tiny little melon. She was like one of those 25% less carbs potatoes. She was, you know the little spotlight i used to be a sponsor okay so she was strapped to the front

of me we sat there and had breakfast and we talked through why we wanted to do the book and how it would be this a to z of relationships but also self-love and i think ultimately one of the biggest things that we've spoken about on this podcast the running theme as much as this has been largely relationships focus i think the biggest relationship that we have covered over the past couple of years is very much the relationship that we have with ourselves and that's very much what the ethos of the book comes back to. But just going back to this meeting. So here we are in the cafe in Bondi, six week old Lola strapped to me. And I think at the time I personally got caught up in the excitement of the possibility of writing a book without really

understanding how fucking hard it was going to be having two kids under the age of 16 months. Cause at the time Marley was only 16 months old and I had a newborn and I was like, yeah, I can do this book thing. Sure. Turns out I couldn't. We just needed some extensions. That was, but that was both of us. Well, originally our deadline was six months, which looking back now is hilarious. Ridiculous. Originally there was this grand idea that the book could be written in six months. And that kind of came from Penguin. I think that was like, they were like, look, this is kind of how long it normally takes to write a book for us. It didn't for us. It took 18 months. And the reason for that is not just because there were two kids in the mix. There

was also the second lockdowns of the pandemic. Britt, you spent time overseas. Britt, you went through your own huge heartbreak. There were some really big life things that happened throughout the process of writing this book. I mean, I feel like it's been a long time coming because we're in discussions for this book or for a book a long time before we pressed go with Penguin. So I feel like from when we first started discussing it, which was a year before we signed, I feel like this has been like a three-year journey. I feel like it's been the longest. We've spent as long making this book as I've made making children yeah and this was harder yeah well in some ways absolutely now I guess one of the things I want to know from you Brit like what was the why for

you like why did you want to write a book we have had like between 300 and 320 episodes a lot of content over the last three and a half years a lot of content we're very proud of a lot of amazing people amazing topics a lot of education a lot of laughs so much but it's gotten to the point where it's so broad and it's so big and there's so many episodes and topics floating around that I thought imagine if we could just culminate it all into one little bible handbook one little go-to place where there's a bit of everything a bit of our favorite and most important or hard-hitting topics in one place and the reason we decided to do it as the a to z is we didn't want well I mean like for me looking at it I wanted someone to be able to go and pick up this book

any time of the day night at work on your break whenever if you're going through something specific like a breakup and just go to the letter or to the topic that you're interested in in that moment of your life you don't have to read it from front to back you don't have to sit down with a few weeks and just like go hard remember where you are you just pick it up for whatever you're going through at that point in your life so I think that that for us was absolutely perfect I think for me, one of the things is that there are some stories that I have never felt comfortable sharing on the podcast. And there's multiple reasons for that.

Some of it is because I struggle to get through them without getting emotional. And the other part of it is because there's this real fear around being misquoted. And I think a lot of us know that something that's said verbally when written down, it can look very different or sound very different. We all know this from text messaging, that you can misinterpret someone's tone via a text message. and I guess for me I've had this fear around some of the stories and how they would be misinterpreted by the media and how they could be used as a weapon so we have shared so much of our lives

over the past couple of years but there are a few stories in the book from myself and from my own personal journey that I hadn't been ready to share yet and I think that that's something that I probably feel most proud of. Sometimes we go through things in life and it could have been 20 years ago 30 years ago I mean and that's something that you talk about Laura a lot in this book something you haven't spoken about before and that's your childhood nothing against your age but we know your childhood was a long time ago like do the math your childhood was a long time ago but you haven't been ready to talk about that until this point and we're going to get into that we're going to get into the why we're going to get into what that was like how

that has set off a chain reaction for where you are in your life and adulthood how it's shaped me as a person exactly so we'll get into that and that's I mean like I loved reading that I know your story from what you tell me but it's different when you read it from a different perspective so I loved reading that chapter about you and it was very emotional and I'm an emotional person I feel like I'm crying right now I don't know why I'm always like tearing up but um we will get into that but before I guess let's go through the process how was this for you because you had a very busy life well I think for me the process was hard I enjoyed writing parts of it I enjoyed writing different chapters some chapters were ultimately harder to write than others and you

know we'll get into what those chapters look like some of them are light and fluffy and silly and they like reading them back I had a good laugh and then others when we had to record the audiobook for it reading them back I was in full blubbering tears but the actual process itself so like I mentioned Lola was only six weeks old when we signed the book deal and I truly underestimated how challenging having two kids was going to be I think because I genuinely found the transition to one child rather easy. And I hate saying that because I know that everybody is different. And I know that a lot of people find having one child really challenging, but what I came to realize in the last two years is that Marley was a really easy baby. I got so lucky with Marley in her

temperament, in her sleeping, like she really was just such a cruisy kid. And I can do this kid thing a hundred percent. And it makes me realize how fucking arrogant I was without even realizing it like I guess I was kind of like oh yeah we've nailed this parenting thing we can have too and we had two babies within the space of 16 months of each other and a miscarriage in that time too so I was pregnant with a second baby when Marley was only five months old and then I got pregnant with Lola like the following month so we have had a lot of like in the last two years pregnancy has just been like it's just there's been so much of it you know and it's been such a big part of my life but then so has this whole motherhood journey and I think going from one kid

to two kids it really rocked me and part of that was because Lola was such a challenging baby she had two defaults she had a sleep or screaming and that was it and that was the first sort of three or four months of her life and this was also during a time of COVID so I really think that when I started writing this book I was in a bit of an emotional low because I didn't have the support systems around me to help with raising children Matt and I were very much on our own during that period, especially during the four months of lockdown, the second lockdown of Sydney. And I had this baby who was not easily consoled, like couldn't figure out what she wanted. And so I guess for me, I had these grand ideas that we would, I would get the book written while she

slept and I would have this like maternity break and write the book and it would be so easy. And you know, I was going to nail this motherhood thing. And that's one of the things I talk about in the book is that, you know, for me, the motherhood journey felt like a real failure in that first year of Lola's life. I did not feel like I was kicking goals, even though I'm sure people will look on Instagram and think like, oh, how does Laura juggle all these things? I was truly feeling like I was failing at a lot of stuff,

which is a crazy feeling. Not crazy because I think a lot of people feel that, but I think that's very internalized because you were doing so much. You were kicking a lot of goals. And I think a lot of this pressure comes from you yourself. Yeah, and I guess I was still kicking goals, but I was really, really burnt out.

so originally our publication date was mid of last year and then it kind of got pushed out to the end of last year and then we just kind of had to throw all like we had to throw it all out of the wagon and start again and then we pushed out to October this year and a lot of that rescheduling came down to me and me not being able to manage all of the things that I'd put on my plate and I guess that was a huge learning curve for me that it's okay to sometimes have to reassess reset and put yourself first because otherwise you might make it to the finish line but you will be so burnt out by the time you get there, that it's just not worth it. And it's about being realistic with yourself too. Like you can have big dreams and you can say, you know, I want to kick these

goals. I want to work hard. I want to tick the boxes. But sometimes you have to be realistic that it's physically not going to get done. There is no way that you can do it. And that's what we went through over that time. And I had points where I cannot even tell you why, but I had such low points that I would open my computer and I had the page open to start writing. It'd be like a movie. You know how when you've got your cursor and it's like dotting along, waiting for you to type your first word and I was in a pretty good place when we started then I mean we've spoken about this I started the book in love like so happy and I finished the book going through like the worst breakup of my life and like the lowest point of my entire life I still can't talk about

without crying which I'm going to do right now it just sounds it was really like it was really hard to write because you have to go back by the time I got to the point where we had broken up I had to go back and change things and a lot of it when I was rereading it was like talking about how happy I was and like talking about my penguin and like so it was really hard to go back and like relive that and rewrite it so that was yeah big process for me sorry I can't talk right now did you this is what I mean guys like we I mean we are so grateful for all of you who have kind of followed along the journey of the past three years and this is so much like this book is so much a

culmination of that it's the process it's lessons that we've learned and I guess for you Brit Brit's like sitting here with tears all I love you but for Brit like a big part of that was going through this breakup and I think like you know this for you and I don't want to speak on your behalf because you're very very capable for speaking for yourself but except when I can't because I'm crying but like it's that feeling of starting again when you thought that you had you had your life planned out you had this idea of what you wanted and where things were heading and then not only did you have an idea but you had to go back and reread those chapters and it makes you almost think like am I silly for thinking that that's where my life was heading am

I silly for having those feelings when it didn't result in anything yeah and it's because I wrote it over a year you almost forgot what you wrote so when you go back to those happiness chapters It just like hits, it was a real reminder of like, oh, you're not happy anymore. Like you, you remember how you felt that once in the last decade, like you don't have that anymore. And yeah, it was just like a reliving chapter, I guess, which, you know, we both did that a few times. That was obviously a big one for me, but I know you had to relive a lot too.

Yeah. I don't know if you felt the same and I feel like it's a bit of a therapy session. It's quite cathartic to get a lot of this stuff out. Like, sure, you have to relive it, but I guess as a part of reliving it, that helps you move forward, like putting a conclusion to full stop. Yeah. Like, look how much I've moved on. i'm fine everything's fine the floor is lava okay well let's get into some stuff that's not

going to make us cry we'll do that later so we have both i have written some questions for brit about some of the parts and the chapters that she wrote in the book that i found the most interesting or the things that i think you guys may not have heard before and brit's done the exact same so we don't know each other's questions or what they what we're going to ask but this is an insight into some of the stories maybe some of the untold stories that are inside the book I will kick it off so in the book Laura you share a really great story about quitting and why we see quitting as a failure this was all around your postgraduate degree because you did go to uni if anyone doesn't know Laura did go to uni I have a university degree god damn it yeah but can you

share why failure and quitting is so formative for you so okay I love that you started with this um let's start with the education okay I love that you started with this and didn't throw me in the deep end so the story around quitting okay so for me I think I learned a huge lesson when I was in my early well probably my mid-20s around why quitting doesn't have to be just seen as a failure I've always been someone who like doesn't want to disappoint people like if I'm not winning then I'm failing and that's kind of how I used to look at life you're not first you're last yeah if you're not first you're last and I think that there was definitely pressures on me as a kid to kind of and not in a way that you would expect like my mum wasn't like you need to be a winner

but like we were all super competitive at sport when we were kids my sister was almost an Olympian for gymnastics before she had a terrible car accident and me myself like I was up at 5 30 again every day for swimming and then I went to swimming training every afternoon it was swimming carnivals every weekend so this like real militant style of success was kind of drilled into us from a young age and I did fine arts at university in Wollongong and you know like people are like oh fine arts such a cushy degree but like I was in the golden key society within the first year of uni like I don't know any of the words you're saying so I don't know what finance is I don't know what the golden key is is it like a Willy Wonka do I get something at the end the golden

key society is a university society where only the top five percentile of any like so you have to have gotten basically a HD average that's why I haven't heard of it you know and I'm not that is not me like I am not this acutely academic person but if I wasn't the top of my class I thought that I was failing like it was very much like p's do not equal degrees it was like you had to be the top you need the golden key you needed the golden key I don't have it anymore trust me I didn't have it in second year uni but first uni I did so I graduated from uni and then I went and I studied my postgraduate degree but I moved up to Lismore because I was desperately in love with a guy and I've spoken about him loads on the podcast I moved up to Lismore the only thing

that I had to do there was I had no job I had no nothing so I was like well look I'll extend my education and I'll go and do a postgraduate degree and I fucking hated it I hated everything about being there I mean I had no friends my relationship was like total in the pits and then I was doing this degree that I did not like and I felt like I was failing at it but the idea of quitting a postgraduate degree when I was already so close to the finish line seemed like that wasn't an option either you know I was already paying for it yeah I'd already invested so much time in it and I remember how sad I was at that point in my life and I went and I had a conversation with one of the career advisors at the university and I went in and I was like look I really hate the

degree but I've got eight weeks left until until I handed my thesis which I hadn't even really written I was like I don't really know what I'm gonna do with this degree but I feel like I have to finish it and I remember my this career planner she was like a woman in her I'd say mid-60s she was sitting there with this like bright floral singlet on she was like look if you hate this degree so much if you hate what you're doing so much the likelihood is is that you're going to hate a career in what it is that you're studying and she was like so why would you invest any more time in something that makes you so unhappy and I was like well because I've only got eight weeks left and it's postgraduate degree. And she was like, it means nothing. And so the idea of just

quitting university and being a postgraduate dropout seemed like such a monumental failure. And I went home that night and I was like, fuck, is that what I'm going to do? Like, am I going to be, am I going to be a postgraduate dropout? Like, what does that then mean for my career? What does that mean then for who I am as a person? And I did the next day, I unenrolled from university. I didn't break up with my boyfriend at the time, but I said, I'm packing up my stuff and I'm going to move back down to Wollongong and try and figure out what I want for myself and the thing the reason why that that is such a huge story for me and it probably doesn't seem like a big deal but I had always been on this very clear path in terms of I wanted to work in

an academic sense around fine arts like I wanted to work as a curator in art galleries and that's what I thought my future was going to be and then I quit this degree which would have led me onto that career path and then that is how I ended up starting Tony May because I had so much time to put into this hobby that I had which was like my side project and I realized how much I loved it and then after I quit I was surrounded by people who were doing similar things to me and it was only through that process that I kind of realized oh maybe maybe this is something I could do and I could be and so it was this quitting that actually set me on the right path of what I wanted to do with my life. It's funny because I used to be exactly the same when you're

even saying that story I was like as if you wouldn't just finish the two months like you've done you've done the study and that's what everyone that's what everyone that's what my family that's what everyone said everyone was like why wouldn't you just finish it it's eight weeks well I was exactly the same so the old me would have said that I was about seven months in or eight months into a master's degree in ultrasonography that's what I was doing I was the same thing and that's because it was the next step right I was like I got a position I got into a great university so I was like cool I'm gonna do my master's in ultrasonography i hated every single second like i i did not want to go to work anymore at all and i loved working

in emergency but it wasn't for me but i was like it's better money it's the natural career progression i'm gonna do it i ended up quitting as well and i don't quit anything either but it was the best thing that i did because i was like i am never i couldn't i was like if i have to go to work and do this every day of my life there's gonna be big problems personally so and the best thing i did in that situation too was was pull the walk away the reason why i think this was such a formative part of my life. Like not only did it put me on the trajectory of being a small business owner, but I look at this in terms of relationships. And I know that this is something that you and I have spoken about Brit, but it's like, sometimes you think that you've invested

so much time in something, so much time into a job or so much time into a relationship that you're so far deep that the idea of starting again, like you're not going to start again because the investment of time is more important. And I think ultimately it doesn't really matter how much time you have spent on something, if you are unhappy, starting again gives you the opportunity for happiness. And that for me, you know, I was 25 and I was thinking that that was the end of the road. I was like, I've got to do this for the rest of my life. And yeah, I was five years of invested time in my education, but now I'm 13 years into being a small business owner. It's the best fucking decision I ever made with my life. And it's like, we're going on a tangent

here but it's like the we've said it before you're never too old to do anything to start again you know like this oh my god you said I'm 25 how could I you know you think it's the end of the road like you're the oldest person I remember when I wanted to go to acting school I was like I'm 25 and I was like no one's ever gonna hire me for a job I'm never gonna like I'm over the hill because you look at Hollywood you think that they're like 17 until I met someone that was like are you kidding like like don't go for any other reason that you have a passion and you want to have some fun and the best thing I did you were never ever too old to ever do anything but I think like in that I think the big thing is is you don't have to just do something because you think you're going to be

a winner at it you know you don't have to just do acting because you think you're going to be a Hollywood superstar you do something because you love it well I never did anything with it I just had so much fun and that's what I mean you know like I think often we we we limit ourselves because we think well I'm not going to do that I'm not going to try that thing because I'm not going to be any good at it or it's not going to eventuate into anything and maybe it won't eventuate into something but maybe you'll meet new friends or you'll have new opportunities that come off the back of it and like for me starting my business has it has changed everything about my life it has changed the people that I'm friends with the things that I do it's literally the

reason why I went on The Bachelor because I had a work life that was flexible it truly just has changed my life in so many ways. In the second chapter you do take a more personal very serious turn in the book and you talk about attachment styles and it's a very personal look back at your childhood and I guess how attachment styles affected you do you want to touch on why you found that so important to talk about well we did an episode on attachment styles last year or the year before who even knows who's counting but it was do you know when I came across attachment styles as a theory it was almost for me like someone had turned the lights on like the penny dropped. And I feel like when we did that episode, I was very reserved in actually explaining why

that was so profound for me. And a big part of that is because, you know, I have so many amazing memories from my childhood and I have so much love for my parents, but I also had a very complicated childhood in a lot of ways. So something that I haven't spoken about, but I go into more detail in the book is that my mom, so I have my sister who a lot of you would be aware of, but I also have a brother and he's nine years younger than me and he has a different dad to me but we grew up all in the same household and we're all really close my brother moved to Boston five years ago and that's kind of why he never features on my Instagram because he's not in the country so when I was three my parents got divorced and then a couple of years later my mum

met my stepdad who she married and Alex was a really violent person it was a really really hard time in our life. He was a heroin addict and he was super abusive to my mom and also to us kids. And, and I have memories of big fights and him ripping the phone out of the walls and breaking the phone lines so that, you know, thinking like no one's coming to help us. Which is so, so horrible and such a control and it's supposed to induce fear. And I'm sure it did. Yeah. And I guess that's like for us, like it's one of the big reasons why we've really advocated for domestic violence on this podcast. That's kind of been not just because of my own personal experience, but you know, there's some lived experience of that. And I think I've always

been a bit worried about talking about it because I hate the way that it paints my mum as well. Like I always kind of thought like, oh, people will maybe judge her because she chose to be in a relationship with someone who had so many issues and was such a, like a crappy person to be around truly but I guess over the years and that's been a huge learning curve for me is like I have no I have no animosity towards my mum at all you know but I guess growing up personally in my relationships and you guys know I've been super honest about my relationships I had some really flawed problematic lots of cheating I monkey branch from one relationship to a next I always I was super codependent I always wanted to be loved and thought that I needed to be in a

relationship to be validated. But the funny thing is for me is like, I never, because I'm so stubborn, I never ever looked at my childhood as having an impact on me as an adult. I actually wore it as like a real badge of honor that I was like, yes, I had, we went through some bad stuff, but it has not impacted who I am. And I loved that I felt so self-assured as an adult that I was like, I'm better than that. I'm not going to be impacted by that. And I guess when I came across attachment styles it made me have a bit of a different understanding around that period of my life and it's as much as I do feel like I have a really great perspective around that period I don't feel defined by it I don't sit in my room and think about that at all anymore you know but I do think

in a lot of ways it impacted the way that I dated and it impacted the way and the types of people and the types of relationships that I chose and not just the types of relationships that I chose but it also impacted my want to stay. So I would get into quite crappy relationships, but I would fucking hang on for tooth and nail for as long as possible. I would ride that relationship into the ground. Looking at attachment styles made me realize

that my parents modeled some really unhealthy behavior around relationships when I was a child. And that was my blueprint. That was my blueprint for what relationships look like. Yeah, I remember you had a really big aha moment when we did attachment styles. remember you came in ready with all your prep and you're like I have just figured so much this explains everything I was like I've got some fucking junk and like let me make this very very

clear and I say this in the book as well like I hold no blame for my parents at all you know they did the best that they could with the tools that they had at the time and I don't think that my parents are responsible for any of the choices that I made in relationships whatsoever but to say that my childhood has had no impact on the way that I have had my relationships throughout my life I would think that that would be dismissive of the childhood that we had and we know now as adults ourselves with the the amount of research we've done the people we've spoken to in the space of domestic violence we know it's not as easy now as saying you know why did you know if someone's not going to look at you and say why did your mum stay we know now it's not easy to stay in those

situations and she was probably doing what she thought was the right thing at the time she might not have been able to leave we know we know that there are so many situations like that now so I think it's a very mature response for you to be able to say that you understand the situation a lot more now and you don't hold any animosity towards your parents no and I don't think I ever really held animosity towards my parents like I mean I did against my stepdad absolutely but not towards my like not not towards my mom at all or not to no one and I had the most incredible grandparents growing up like they were the absolute pillar and backbone of our family they modeled what great and healthy relationships should look like it wasn't like I was completely

devoid of that like I had so much love in my life as a child we just went through this really complicated period of life that we kind of all packaged up put in a box and shoved in the cupboard and no one really ever talks about it because you never do and you don't open it till you have to move like 20 years later and you're like oh shit but we had to open that box for the book my mom and I she came over for dinner this one night and we sat down and we shared a few bottles of wine and I let her read it beforehand because I wanted her to be sure that she was okay because it's not just my story to share you know it's it's my sisters it's my brothers and it's my mom's and she read through everything and so why do you think why did now feel like the right time because

we are three god gonna be nearly four years three and a half years deep into this podcast and a lot of episodes. What within yourself or the podcast or life made you feel like now's the time you can talk about it? It wasn't so much the readiness of now, but it was the format. I think having a book meant that I could be meticulous with the way that I said something. And because it was already written, even if someone was to take a part of that and repurpose it, I couldn't be misquoted. You know, they could definitely truncate and take a little bit of what I'd said, but I was like, at least it's there and I can prove that it's there. And I don't have to go back through podcast audio and be like but this is what I said and this is how I said it and I think

as well like over the past couple of years we have grown such thick skin in terms of like how things are interpreted and how things are written about and I just know that we have an incredible community around us now and I know how much attachment styles really really change the way I look at relationships and I hope that for somebody else who maybe has also had a complicated upbringing where they didn't have those foundations for like what a beautiful blueprint of a relationship is and they've kind of been blaming themselves along the way I hope that somebody else has the same revelation that I did I want to move on to another really hard chapter for you so like we may as well just hit them all just package them together because then we can move on to some nice

stuff but you've spoken on the podcast before about your miscarriages and your child loss I guess uh you've spoken about it quite a few times really openly and you've helped a lot of people in that sense we have a lot of people write to us or stops on the street and say that that was a chapter that you know they that happened to me actually i didn't tell you it happened to me a couple of days ago someone i said that they had just gone through i was actually at lunch with her and then she said she's just experienced a miscarriage and that she went back and listened to the episode where you spoke about it and that it really helped her so that's been like huge huge and i i just want to say as well like those so we've done two episodes on pregnancy

loss now both of them came after my own pregnancy losses they are truly the episodes I am most proud of and it's because I know that for so many other women who have been and felt the same way that I felt and it's not because there's anything that's special about my pregnancy loss stories like their early pregnancy loss they're not this huge traumatic suffering they're just very everyday losses and I think it happens so frequently and then for other people who have experienced it having someone put it into words, the way that they felt makes people feel a little bit less alone. And every single person who's ever written to me, and there's too many to write back to every single one, but every single person who stopped me and said that they're grateful for it, like

I'm so grateful that it's given something back to them as well. Well, one thing that you have only just briefly mentioned, and that was recently, we spoke about the Roe v. Wade and the abortion laws that are happening in America right now. And you, for the first time, did mention that in your early twenties, you had an abortion. That is something that you haven't ever spoken about on the podcast. You do speak about it in the book. I don't know how much you want to talk about now, but why did you decide to discuss that now? Did you just feel like everything, it was very timely with everything happening in the world right now? That was also a really big chapter to write. And mostly because like, I had not really told anyone in my personal life, like Matt knew, obviously

the guy who he knew but you know what not they don't always like it's and I say that as though that that's an assumption it's actually not you know that like often women will choose to have an abortion and not tell the guy and that's that's completely fine that onus is on you and your body I spoke about abortion in the chapter that we wrote on timelines and I think it's interesting because I think often we talk about timelines from a different perspective and we have on this podcast before, we talk about it in terms of society's timelines and the pressure on women to settle down and have babies and get married. And I wanted to talk about timelines from a different perspective. And that was that when I was in my early twenties, I fell pregnant and

the timeline of having a baby in my early twenties, when I wasn't ready, when I wasn't emotionally, mentally, financially ready to have a child, it just wasn't what I could possibly do. And I chose to have an abortion. And, you know, I think that we, we talk about abortion a lot in terms of like if you have one you'll regret it that you will come to have feelings of regret and for me I didn't have feelings of regret I had feelings of relief and I wanted to talk about that in the book but I also wanted to talk about how when I did get pregnant before Marley when I did have my first miscarriage that miscarriage was absolutely loaded with guilt because I felt like I was being punished for having an abortion in my early 20s I thought it was like karma yeah I

thought that that was my payback and I think that that magnified the pain of that miscarriage because I thought this is the reason and you will never ever have kids and I guess I wanted to include that in the book for any women who may be in the same situation because it's not payback it's not karma sometimes shit just happens in life and there isn't a reason for it and you don't have to always try and find reason you know ultimately I do have two children and they are beautiful wonderful. I'm so grateful for the life that I have, but I know that I would not be the mother I am today had I had a child in my early twenties. And there will be people who judge me for that decision. And I'm okay with that now in my late thirties, but it was a hard decision that I made

at the time, which has allowed me to have the life that I have now. So I, I mean, I asked you about those two because I'm assuming that they were the two most difficult chapters for you to write. Yeah. I think that probably the abortion chapter was the most difficult and it was purely because I knew that I would have to have conversations with my family about it and like especially my mom who that goes against her beliefs and what she would have wanted so that was a bit of a revelation for her when we did have our wind-up night and I think she also was sad that I couldn't talk to her about it when I was in my 20s I think that there was this feeling of like a missed opportunity to connect with me as her daughter and that she was only finding that out when you know

I am now a mother of two kids in my 30s I think she really felt like that that was something that I should have spoken to her about but I'm glad that you know I'm glad at some point in our lives we got to talk about it yeah I'm sure there's a level as a parent where you're like wow my child didn't feel like they could tell me that at that time and I'm sure there's an aspect of that for her where she's not going to hold against you or judge you but in herself there's probably a little tiny part of her that's like wow I failed a little bit because my daughter didn't think that she could come to me let's talk about something a little bit more upbeat what was your what was your favorite that's like the hardest okay we've gotten like the hardest stuff in the book out of

the way I think yeah and I don't want to ask anything else hard because it was like that was a I mean a lot for you yeah and there is there is way more the reason why we're doing this and talking about these things is because like you know this isn't the whole book if you want to go and read the book and find out more about it you can go and pre-order blah blah blah it's out tomorrow but that's the whole reason why we wanted to kind of give you a bit of an insight into what we speak about but tell us what your favorite chapter was to write okay I was thinking about this last night and I think my favorite chapter which is so dumb because it's such a light and fluffy and I guess what kinks nudes no I knew it was gonna be something sexy it's just funny it's

funny it's light it's fluffy I really enjoyed it I talked about the first time I ever got sent a dick pic and I still have such funny fond memories of that I can still I can see it in my mind I can remember the everything and I just think like that was such a fucking funny day and I really loved writing that chapter when I had to get my nudes approved by Laura before I sent them I was like is this hot enough and also just like I love that there's like the fluffiness you know as much as there's so many deep and like quite like you know there's there were some things that were really hard to write and I think that they're peppered with some really fucking funny parts and coming off the back of like something that feels heavy and weighted uh to read something that's

funny and lighthearted like nudes I was like I love this chapter what was your biggest lesson what are you taking away so I think now this could be a bigger biggest life lesson or biggest lesson from writing the book you do with that question what you will okay biggest biggest lesson from writing the book would have been I'm gonna give you two you're allowed to say no my biggest lesson from writing the book is that things don't always go to plan and that just because you have an idea for, for where your life is supposed to be and what you're supposed to be doing, having to pivot and do something else is not a failure. And I think that that was a, that really kind of like rang true for me halfway through when I felt like I was failing because we weren't meeting deadlines

and I felt that immense pressure. And then I had to just throw my hands up and say, I'm not coping and I need more time. And the thing is, is like when you admit that you're not coping and when you ask for help, normally people will rush in and help you. And that was definitely like, that definitely was the case for me and I think sometimes as women we can be so fearful of being seen as weak or being seen as needy when we ask for help and we just take on the huge load the mental load the physical load of doing everything ourselves but the biggest life lesson I took from it and it's something that I think kind of runs through a lot of my chapters is this conversation around vulnerability throughout a lot of my life and it definitely

comes back to even my whole childhood and not wanting to see my childhood in my relationships and thinking I'm so fine, it didn't define me. I think that there is a real power in vulnerability. And I think sometimes we can look at it as a weakness and we don't wanna be seen as weak. We don't wanna be seen as crying. We don't wanna be seen as pathetic, but vulnerability opens up your relationships.

It allows you to get closer to the people that you love. It allows them to understand you better. And linking back to what I just said, it also allows you to ask for help. Vulnerability is an absolute superpower. and the older I get, the more fine I am with not being fine. And we're telling people that I'm not fine. Yeah. That's been a huge lesson for me. And I think as well, like this came off the back of The Bachelor. So when we were on the show, like we, I say like we were on the same season. When

I was on the show, I never, I was like, I'm not going to cry. I'm so fine. I'm not going to let any man think that I'm, you know, that I need him. And when you were a woman and you put up this barrier of being fine fine fine fine fine people see you as being hard and cold which underneath especially if you're a strong independent female that's how you can be perceived which absolutely may not be who you are at your core and so I think there is a real strength in actually telling people how you feel yeah I agree I learned that the hard way for sure I was exactly the same in The Bachelor I didn't even cry at the end I was like I'm still fine one tear rolled down but you're not fine oh no but I was like don't you let anyone see you're upset which is so stupid

and we know that now and you only get help if you you know if you're the person who says I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine all the time you will find that people are not ready to help you because they think of you as being fine you know you say it therefore people believe it whereas like if you are able to really tap into who you are authentically and show who you are people will be way more willing and ready to be there to support you well speaking of support you are about to marry maddie jay in just a few weeks he's my support person he's my emotional water bottle my support animal what's it like because we speak about so many relationships on this podcast our past relationships the worst some good ones some funny ones the dick pics what's

it been like revisiting over the years in the book these past relationships and then knowing you're about to marry the love of your life in a few weeks has it had any like weird effect on your relationship at home great it makes me so grateful because you're like yes thank god keep writing about the ship man so I actually know I shared everything anything that I thought Matt could read and then either it was too revealing or it would make him upset I let him read everything if anything there were definitely some days where he was like he's like come on I cannot believe he's like I cannot believe you dated this he's like the bar was so low. He's like, I'm actually personally offended that it was so low previously. Like we get married

in like six weeks. It just made me so grateful. I'm so, so grateful for who he is as a person and for who he is as a dad and for how he contributes to our family. Had I not been through what I have been through in my relationships, I don't know if I would be as grateful for it. I could take it for granted and I definitely don't. I don't take him for granted at all. And I think that was the biggest lesson for me with him. Okay. Now it's my turn to ask you some questions. Now you kick off the very first chapter. You are the very first voice of the book and the very first chapter is adventure. And now I think it was only fitting for you that the start of this, you speak a lot about traveling and about all of the crazy wild travel adventures that you have

had. And I know that you've touched on it very loosely in the past, but like you spent so much of your twenties, not in Australia, traveling and experiencing the world. Can you explain to me a little bit? I know that we've been speaking about doing a, I mean, we have been, we've been talking about doing an episode on travel for so long. Forever. Forever. We also then a pandemic happened and it seemed like pretty poor taste to do an episode on travel. Yes. And the pandemic lasts for two years. Yes. So can you talk to me a little bit about how formative those years of your life were it started for me when I was 18 and we finished school all my friends went to schoolies everyone and I went online and I was like I didn't even know what I was doing but I

was like how to get a job in Italy just what I googled and I found a website that I was like oh you can nanny you can be a nanny overseas no experience with children none I can't speak the language also can't speak nanny to children who I can't communicate with can't do anything but the great thing about it everyone that wants nannies internationally they want them so that their kids speak and learn English so I didn't really need to speak the language for that part I could there was always other ways to communicate but that was my purpose was to go and speak them English so I just went online found a family that seemed fine I was very trusting when I look back now I was like I could have ended up anywhere but I just went for it don't even know if it was a

reliable website looking back but off I went everyone went to schoolies and I saved every dollar I'd worked all through school if anyone ever asks and that's a question I get a lot how did you afford to travel how did you do this I never had any money from my parents I just worked for a long time I saved everything I always could because I knew I wanted to go see the world and I got a job so I didn't need I didn't go with a lot of savings to be honest I just took a really big risk that it would work itself out and the job would be great and I think that that's one of the big things right like people often we don't like to take that step towards something we don't like to take the step towards the unknown because it's unknown. A lot of people, and it depends on your

personality type, but a lot of people want to have everything figured out before they make those big decisions. Whereas for you, you kind of never figured it out. I'm still don't, I still can't figure anything out, but you kind of like booked your flights, you left, and then you didn't really have this grand plan to continue to travel. But like how many countries did you end up traveling throughout your twenties? Well, that year for me, I just spent a year in Italy and I loved it, but I lived to the dollar. Like I, you know, I did a lot of travel with the family. So I felt safe. I felt like it was a really, a good introduction to traveling because I was on my own. I didn't know anyone, but it was safe because the family that I worked for would take me to Greece. They'd

take me on cruises. They'd take me around Italy. Mate, this sounds like a bloody, who is this family? And will they adopt me? Probably. Yes. It was a really good introduction to travel because I didn't feel like I had to do a lot on my own. There were obviously moments I was alone. They were like okay you've got two weeks off go and I was like but you were 18 at the time as well 18 I was a baby I was a baby and this is before internet no phones I would walk around the streets with a map like a humongous map that I was holding out I had a phone card to call home we had to dial in like 25,000 digits on a payphone and if you got one digit wrong you had to start again like it was a very different time yeah we had mobile phones but they were that you could

play snake on them they were not they were nokias and every time you wanted to put a letter in you had to press the a if you wanted to do b you had to press the one button twice yeah you had to wait for it just I mean like a lot of people listening they won't know there's a lot of people that know exactly what we're talking about oh yeah it was the time to be alive and it was like this time where to call home to my whole family you would set a time for next week next Monday at four o'clock and everyone that wanted to speak to you had to be there Sheridan had to run home from school because Brittany was calling at four and you stuck to it because then I didn't have a mobile phone to pick up there was a completely different time but that started off my 20s for like this addiction

to travel so I went I ended up traveling to probably between 50 and 60 countries in my 20s over many many years so I did do one huge round the world trip that was for three years but in between that sporadically I did as much as I could and I was just addicted and I came home I remember I came home with about $400 like I everything that I blew my cash I blew it all and then I'd start again and then I'd work my way back up now but you are also a radiographer and have been for 13 years but recently makes me sound old you are very young but recently you have left your career as being a radiographer and you are full-time working in media a full-time podcaster what was that like like leaving and I think you know we touched on it in me talking about it you know

quitting something that's been so core to your identity what was it like for you going from being a radiographer and having this huge career pivot yeah I think there's probably a lot of people maybe you're new to the podcast in the last year or so maybe you don't know but yeah forever since I was 20 21 I've worked as a diagnostic radiographer that's how I traveled a lot as well I would work overseas in hospitals so I would go and locum and I'd contract for a couple of months at a time in a random hospital get some money and I'd go again and we've done this podcast for three and a half years probably more just on two years of that podcast the first two years I still worked full-time in an emergency department but at the end of the pandemic for me was when I stopped

working and when I say the end of the pandemic I mean the really really big lockdown so I stopped working probably a bit over a year it was my last ever shift at the hospital and I could have finished earlier because this podcast was full-time for us it was taking a lot of time and energy and effort but the pandemic happened and if you were a healthcare worker like everyone around the world people were coming out of retirement like we were so in need of healthcare workers that you just worked so I did that and then it was at the end of that I went overseas with my partner Jordan when I met Jordan was pretty much when I stopped working in the hospital because we met we went overseas I got stuck overseas came back the podcast was bonkers

and we just got back into it so I haven't worked in a little while now and I'm not sure when or if I'll go back I love this new transition but I think it's like anything I did it for 13 years and I still love it but I was ready for a change I mean you did touch on this already and I think that it's something that I want to dig a little bit deeper on but for you I think one of the really interesting and profound parts of writing the book was that when you started writing it you wrote it when you were in love with Jordan and then it kind of transitioned through your breakup and I know that we have touched on that but what was it like going back and having to rewrite some of those chapters so like so that the tense made sense you know and I think like being able to go

from speaking about your relationship in real time in terms of like how you felt to having to go back and rewrite chapters retrospectively it's almost like a cruel trauma to have to do that it was horrific it was and I mean you know I'll try not to cry again because we've already cried once in this episode you're allowed to cry it's okay no but it was well I haven't even I haven't thought about it for a little while because I really buried it again like once I pressed go and sent it to the publishers I was like I'm just not going to think about that until I have to but until I read it and then Laura makes me talk about it on a podcast episode it was horrific it was um it was the things like because it was probably a year between when I wrote about you

know the love chapters and the penguin chapters the finding your person and all those really beautiful things that we've done going back and rewriting it so I had to go and change things like there were sentences like uh and you know this is how I knew he was the one and I feel so lucky I found the person in my life that to changing that to I thought I had found the person in my life I all past tense I had to go and rewrite the whole book and there were some parts that I left as is there were some parts I took out because I'm like that can't be in there anymore because it's too beautiful it's like it's too like it just didn't fit the narrative anymore so there were some parts I had to remove it was definitely reliving what was my happiest time of my life and

it was a really like cruel reminder that you don't have that anymore and you're back to you know writing chapters about solitude and being on your own and writing when I was talking about fertility and freezing my eggs and things like that I froze those and I did that with Jordan like we did that you know he was there holding my hand the whole time and we had talked about that life together so going back in and revisiting that and realizing that well that might not end up like that anymore so I might not ever have a child anymore because I am getting older I am single I'm alone again so it was a bit of a sick joke in a sense well I wanted to ask you about that side of things because I know that when you wrote fertility and not even when you wrote it when

we did the whole episode around fertility you were in a very different phase like you had a plan for what you wanted to do you were like you know at least even if you didn't have a plan you had a backup which is the whole point of freezing your eggs how do you feel about that now I said this to you just a couple of days ago actually this like off the record Laura and I were actually just having a real conversation sometimes it happens sometimes it happens and it was about I've had this real moment in my life in the last couple of weeks or the last like maybe a couple of months where it's a bit of a change so I've always said things over the past few years since I've known Laura I always said things like maybe it's not for me you know maybe love's not for me

maybe kids aren't for me maybe that's not what's meant for me I've realized now I don't think I ever actually believed that I think I said those comments in the depths of despair I was feeling really down it was easier just to voice this negativity and have a moment where I was like woe is me but I don't think I actually ever believed it I think I was saying these as throwaway comments like oh well Brittany get over it's not for you but deep down I still thought it would happen and now I've transitioned to I genuinely am thinking that now I'm like wow maybe this actually really isn't for you and it's made me realize that I don't think I believed it earlier so it's I feel like I've gone into this a new phase I haven't been in yet where I am 35

I'm already 35 very single I am 99% sure I don't want kids alone like I know there's nothing wrong with it I know there are people that go down that track maybe I'll change my mind in a few years if I hit 40 and I'm still alone maybe I will but now I don't think that's a journey I want to go down alone so then you have this shock realization where you're like fuck it actually might not happen for you I think with that the only thing I want to say is when you say maybe because you kind of bundled them together and I want you to be aware of this you said maybe love's not for me maybe kids aren't for me definitely bundled them together they're two different things yeah and that's really important because like love is for you and that's you projecting like how you feel

about yourself but they don't live together you can tears are coming I'm like as far as talking to me but they don't like if you decide that you don't want to have kids that's okay but that's decisions on you you can and you will find someone that you love and want to be in love with those things do not sit together and they just want you to be really conscious when you're talking about it because like you are so worthy of being loved and then you get to decide whether you want to have kids I know I know I love you I love you I guess that's why it was such a hard chapter because I know there are a lot of women out there that are in my position where you get to a point where you're like I just want to give up I don't want to do it anymore something's wrong with me something's

inherently wrong with me because I can't find it everyone else can find it and I know that that's a really relatable thing and I guess that's why I talk about it because people feel these things and they they feel like they're the only one that feels them but they're not everyone goes through these these times of their life and you are right I know I know for me it'll happen one day but you get to a point where you're like when is that day what do I have to do differently what do I you know and it's exhausting for this to have space in the back of your mind totally and a lot of women it holds a lot of space especially as the years get older you don't want to think about it everyone says don't think about it don't think about kids don't think about dating don't

think about finding the one just let it happen you can't you can't just let it happen when you're a woman that is aging with a biological clock and that is the thing I want to drive home it's the fact that we there are limitations and it sucks fucking sucks but there are things you can do about it like freezing your eggs but there are limitations and it does take space in your mind whether you want to accept that or not I think that that's such an important thing to say because like so many of us and and it's almost like when someone has anxiety doing the whole like just don't be anxious or go for a walk or try mindfulness it's like when you're angry and someone goes calm down you're like what yeah like like don't be so stressed telling someone who's

stressed not to be stressed is really fucking unhelpful we all know that but it's exactly this you know when you want something when that is something that is part of your identity for the future of how you see your life planning out having someone say just don't think about it don't focus on it only diminishes your feelings about it like it doesn't allow you to kind of sit in that space and work towards it. But I just would hate for someone to listen to this who's in a similar situation to you, who potentially wants to have children, who makes the decision in their mind, convinces themselves that they don't want to purely because of the limitations of a relationship. I think that there are so many factors and we don't have the tools. I think go

and speak to a therapist, go and speak to a counselor, not just you Britt, but like anybody who's in a phase of life where they think maybe they want children, but the relationship hasn't presented itself yet because there are solutions to this and it isn't just willing yourself that that is not for you no and there's this is very very I mean very individual this is this is very specific to your situation what you want out of life who you are I'm speaking only on behalf of myself that right now at this point and it's crossed my mind more so in the last couple of months I think about it more I used to say there's no way I'm doing it on my own I definitely think about it more now I think about adopting I think about what it would look like could I do it could

I physically do it I've got no family here to help me like I think about a lot but having said that I know a lot of people that have gone down that track on their own because for them that is a priority all they want to do is is have that child on their own and at the end of the day it doesn't matter how you do it if that's something that you want you can do that you can go down there's so many avenues and there's so many people who are empowered who don't want to have kids and they don't want to have kids because they are childless by choice it is a conscious decision that they've made but I think it's a very different conversation if it's a limitation that's put on you because you're at a point in life where you don't feel lovable I think that that's the real thing that

I can like that's something that you need to unpack that's something you need to get to the bottom of the other thing here which I think is so relatable about what you just said Britt is like I think there's so many women who and I say this because this is exactly how I felt I was like unless I find the right relationship then I don't want to have kids because in my mind having a family unit was really important to me but then on the flip side of that I think about my childhood and the lack of family unit and I'm like well I wouldn't exist like if that was my mum's prerogative like if she was like you know what I only want kids if I'm going to be in a long-term happy marriage well then she would still be in a marriage where like you know things were completely

completely toxic and like abusive and awful and I'm like I think sometimes we can't plan out exactly how life is going to be you can't foresee exactly how a relationship is going to plan out there are people who get married and six months later they get divorced because there's cheating you just don't know what's going to happen in your life and I think that ultimately the choice around having children is such a huge and loaded choice that has so many other factors to think about and that's amplified when you're you know in your late 30s and you're also single yeah and the reason I think it's important to have these really open discussions yeah raw discussions about it is because I don't know how to explain it I would look at a lot of women right

online and think that they have it all that they're really happy that their life is so great and I know there are people that look at my life like that because they'll tell me there'll be people that'll message me all the time there is no one that is exempt from these feelings at some point or another so I think it's important to have the conversations that like yes I have a great job I have great friends I'm happy my dog I'm obsessed with in case you don't know but I still feel like shit a lot of the time and I still feel like have those fleeting moments where I'm like fuck what's wrong with me what is fucking wrong with me but also I think that it comes back down to this big and there's this overarching theme and this conversation that we have in the book around

comparison it's something that we all do it's something that we can't not do because it's ingrained in us socially culturally it's part of how we interact we are always going to compare ourselves but it's about having enough sense of self to understanding how you're making those comparisons and are you making those comparisons and then it's making you feel terrible about your life or are you making comparisons and you're still able to go okay I can't see the full picture of that person's life because I'm only looking through a window of social media something that this kind of ties into and it's something that we spoke about in the book we wrote a chapter on overwhelm it was a joint chapter and it was an overwhelming chapter it was an overwhelming

chapter but like we spoke about our own feelings about the overwhelm you know obviously it's something that it's been a very hot topic of conversation over the past couple of years from everything from the pandemic to like people taking on more work to the mental load generally speaking there is a lot of overwhelm happening and you know we've done a podcast episode on it but one of the things I thought was really interesting about this chapter and something I wanted to talk to you about was I spoke about from my side of things about how I have never felt as overwhelmed at certain times as what I have since becoming a mum because of the relentlessness of parenting especially being a full-time working mum

24 seven. Yeah. Where I juggle all the things that a mom has to juggle on top of my workload. And the fact that I feel like, you know, everyone always says like, your life's going to change when you become a mom, you know, you're like your priority shift. Everyone talks about your priority shifting. Right. But no one ever tells you that, like, what they actually mean by that is that you go down to the bottom of the fucking priority list. Yeah. You're the algae in the shower. The priorities have shifted. And let me tell you, I don't exist anymore. And that's what, especially when you have kids at the early early years you know but you wrote something and it's what I wanted to speak to you about because I think it'll be relatable to so many women you

wrote it's funny Laura you talk about how having kids has affected your feelings of overwhelm because for me you know what made it even worse the fact that I don't have children can you talk me through that yeah and I thought about that a lot and I think there'll be a lot of people that I hope there's a lot of people that resonate with that sentence you do feel like as somebody that doesn't have kids you don't know until you know and that is something that a lot of parents will say and I do believe that I believe that I can sit back and understand that there's no sleep that it's screaming and vomiting and you're so tired and you're so stressed it's not always vomiting no but you know like I I know that right someone can tell me that

but until you actually live in it and breathe in every day you don't quite know and every parent says that as well every single parent says like I thought I knew but I didn't know so it's really hard as someone that doesn't have kids when you do you can only go off your experiences and what is happening to you in life and we know that heartbreak grief trauma stress anxiety everything's relative to you as a person and it's not a comparison it's also not a competition it's not a competition but because someone else has it worse than you doesn't mean that you can't feel that but I often feel that I often feel like when I feel like I'm having a really hard time or I'm overwhelmed or i'm stressed and depressed and sad i don't get a bed when i whenever i've had

those moments i feel like i'm not allowed to have them because well i could sleep tonight for a full night if i want to you know i'm not i'm not up with a crying baby i don't have those things and then you get this level of guilt within yourself because you're like well snap out of it don't feel like what you're feeling because you and you also feel like you can't talk to your friends about it that have kids because you're like well they're gonna feel like shit because because there's a level of resentment, whether not for you, but for anyone in that situation, there's always going to be a level of resentment of like, I can't believe this person's complaining about that. Well, I don't know how good they've got it. No, but you say not for me. Absolutely.

I think we can all be guilty of this. There's absolutely times where people will tell me things that, you know, and like when I say people, I mean like you or other friends who might complain about something that's going on in their lives. And like, we can have empathy for another person's situation, but when you're also in the thick of it, and then someone else is talking about them being in the thick of it but comparatively you're like what are you complaining about but also I think that's the big part of this it's that just because one person has it worse it doesn't negate somebody else's feelings well you have like an internal eye roll right yeah but you're like but things don't have to be a competition we don't have to all be competing to be the most overwhelmed

what a fucking boring conversation that is we don't have to all be competing to be the busiest or the most stressed and everyone's fucking busy and everyone's fucking stressed and everyone's overwhelmed exactly and everyone is feeling that in some capacity you wrote about something that you touched on just earlier you wrote about solitude and loneliness why was this chapter important to you I quite liked this chapter so solitude and loneliness because a lot of people put them together right that solitude and loneliness go hand in hand but I don't think that they do I'm a big believer that these are two very separate things and this chapter for me I did a lot of due diligence like there is a lot of research that's gone into it but there's also

just my opinion and my experiences over life because I've been alone longer than I've been with someone now in my adult life you know like I've lived alone for a very long time and I'm quite happy with it so when I get upset about not having a relationship and children that's very different for me feeling lonely like I could have had that if I wanted to settle with someone if I just really wanted someone to fill a space of course I could have found it totally and this is totally yeah this is why I want to push the fact that they're two different things so the idea of solitude is just regrouping on your own literally being in a space existing with not a lot of people around might be going on a trip might be just you might be an introvert that

recharges without other people there's a difference with then feeling lonely so lonely has this negative connotation that you you have the solitude but you don't enjoy it solitude is you're on your own but you're quite happy to do that and so for me I've been on my own a long time but 95% of the time I'm pretty happy with it because I'm the person that recharges with myself but I also think that socially we impart loneliness on people who don't necessarily feel lonely like how often or like how many times have you ever I'm sure there's some people who are like I love it and there's some people like I'm I would never do it the old conversation of like would you go to the movies by yourself I guarantee you it's a 50 50 split 50% of people will be like yeah I love going

to the movies by myself and the other 50% would be like I would never go to the movies by myself in the same way that some people love going to dinner by themselves and other people couldn't think of anything worse than having to sit there on their own by themselves at dinner well I often use this as an example because I have done that for a long time I'm so happy to go you'll see me at the movies by myself you will see me at dinner by myself you'll see me doing whatever I went this was only not that long ago it was probably like two years ago I went down to Melbourne on my own and there was a really nice Italian restaurant that I wanted to eat at because I had been recommended like the Italians my weakness so I went to this restaurant I didn't book I just

walked in and I said hey can I have a table and they're like yes just just for two I was like just one but like you know there's no table for one there's two seats anyway but I was like just me they're like oh just alone and I was like yeah just me they're like oh is no one else coming and I was like that's what one means let's drive it home I was like yeah no and they're like no worries ma'am no worries took me to like the best window seat like so jazzy so nice and then they just gave me so much for free like it was insane the attention to detail was amazing and then at the end they're like oh we just took the the entrees are on us the desserts on us the wines on us and I was like and I know I know it was because they felt sorry for me I could feel them

looking at me it was like they it was like their daughter got stood up or there was a level of I could watch them and I felt like they had a level of empathy for me like I wonder what happened and that's just well I even think that right so if I see someone out on their own my first thought is I wonder what happened do they choose to go out on their own has someone stood them up like what is it but this is literally what I mean by often we socially impart loneliness onto someone else we can often look at somebody else's situation and think I would be sad if that was me and that's you internalizing how you feel but that person might be really fucking happy just living their life being autonomous they might be sad but they could be just happy but they could be

or maybe they're not happy maybe they're content you know we don't have to just be fluctuating between sad and happy there's a whole other range of emotions in there as well I mean we've touched on some of the heavier parts of the things that you spoke about in the book and the things that for you were really emotional what was the like what was the best bit what was the thing that you the chapter you fucking loved writing or when you read it back you're like that makes me feel good whatever it is what's like your happiest part of the book oh the happiest part I think for me it's probably the same as you I really enjoyed the light-hearted parts that were like the nudes and the kinks and like kinks is a great chapter because a lot of it was heavy right a lot

of stuff we wrote was like revisiting stuff then a lot of stuff was not heavy but important educational love languages things that are relative to everyone but the ones that really got me were the giggles the like the accidentally unfiltered the the kinks the nudes revisiting those funny moments that we all conversations that you and I had had together in the past for me that was like what got me and when we say like kinks okay I just want to like also preface this like when we say it's funny and light-hearted like we don't mean funny and light-hearted as in like haha we're making fun of kinks we would never do that what we are talking about is just like sex should be light-hearted and fun that's the whole point of it right but also just this the

de-stigmatizing of kinks the conversation some of the things that you guys wrote in about the stuff that you have tried or people have asked you to do also just the conversations around how much it's changed over the last sort of 10 years five years two years within the social media landscape well it's because I also have a really I had a really big interest in the research so that's why I enjoyed the chapter because I loved learning about it I love learning all aspects what other people do what gets other people off uh how common it is where people find it like that stuff to me is really really interesting because i'm pretty like non-kinky i'm pretty fucking vanilla so i gotta try i try some stuff but for me it was like it was otherworldly what brit is into is voyeurism

looking into other people's relationships okay and one thing that we did discover in our research which is so fucking interesting is that cleopatra used to have a hollowed out dildo that she put bees inside and then when the bees got all angry it would bounce around and then she would use that to masturbate with she knew where i was at boom clear patch was ahead of her time kinks have been around for a long time ladies and gentlemen incredible woman there is so much more within the pages of we love love and like thank you to every single one of you who have already gotten a pre-order book it's out in good bookstores and bad bookstores tomorrow any bookstore all bookstores so you'll be able to get your hands on it tomorrow but if you wanted to jump on and get

yourself a copy that's sent you can jump onto www.lifeuncut.com.au there are all links to the book there can you believe we're an author no no let's no we're podcasters who try to write that's what we are on a technicality yeah okay let's let's not get ahead of ourselves here but i just want to say genuinely like thank you for sharing so much of yourself and being i know how much you hate crying and i just want to say you're doing a lot but thank you for being so honest and so open and so vulnerable because that's the literally the reason why we started this podcast was because we wanted to have the conversations and share the stories that we do amongst our girlfriends,

you know, be that virtual community for the people who listen. For you guys, we are so unbelievably fucking grateful. Like it has been three years of creating this podcast and some of you have been with us since the very beginning. The OG lifers. And we just feel, we feel so grateful that every single week you tune in,

that you get something out of what we listen to, the conversations, the incredible like pearls of wisdom that some of the guests have and yeah for every person who's bought the book like thank you yeah and the same goes for you laura and laura for you guys playing at home laura has opened some pretty big cans of worms in this book and you've dug pretty deep and had some very very raw conversations that you've never had so that is in the book and i know a lot of people will appreciate that i appreciate that i appreciate you and i appreciate all the life now we will go hug each other and then go and call our therapist that's it guys we're gonna see you back on thursday for

Ask Uncut. So keep those questions coming in. I feel like we've gone kind of rogue on this episode. So we're not even, I mean like, we're not going to do Suckin' Sweets. Because that's the book! Okay, We Love Love available in all good bookstores tomorrow. And you guys know the drill. Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friends and share the love

because we love love! Literally, that's why we wrote the book. We'll see you next time.