Life Uncut - When Christmas Doesn't Slay - Uncut with Dr Hannah Korrel

Episode Date: December 19, 2022

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year lifers, Except maybe it's not feeling merry or happy and maybe this period of the year makes you feel a bit stressed, depressed or anxious. Today we're taking a deep dive on how our brains physiologically become overloaded at this time of year. But first, producer Keeshia has some advice from a tik toker to help you get your crush to slide into your DMs! We also unpack the best, and quietest, maneuvers to get it on while you're visiting family this festive season.Then Dr Hannah Korrel, neuropsychologist joins us to talk about:-Expectations of how we're supposed to feel at this time of the year v how we actually feel-Whether we feel a sense of accomplishment of what we've achieved this year based on what we thought we would or where we thought we'd be-The additional pressures put on women around Christmas-Diet culture and new years resolution stress-Going through the holidays single, after big life changes or experiencing grief-Setting boundaries with our family-Feelings of guilt You can find Dr Hannah on instagram here:https://www.instagram.com/nobullpsych/?hl=enAnd her app is called 'Assert Yourself' and you can find it in your app store. https://apps.apple.com/au/app/assert-yourself/id1532411329If you have a friend who might need to hear something we spoke about in today's ep, send it their way.You know the drill, 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. I'm Brittany.

And we have someone very special joining us for the start of this episode. It is producer Keisha. I'm so sorry for all of you that were like so excited being like, oh, who's special? Who's the special guest? It's just me, guys. No, and don't undersell yourself. why is Delilah scratching me she was attention she just wants you to panic we saw you on the project last night saying that you didn't like puppies and we knew who you were talking about

Delilah heard that all puppies not Delilah Delilah's not a puppy anymore she's one she's past the threshold of puppiness she's 18 months she no longer it like tries to jump on me when I walk in she no longer tries to piss on things she no longer tries to eat things like she's kind of calmer and I appreciate that as an update on Delilah because we did have a lot of people write in that were interested in her heat and what was happening in her life also a lot of people who were angry at me okay don't worry guys didn't go unnoticed people annoyed at me that I didn't fully get amongst caring about Delilah's heat and I'm sorry Britt that I didn't give you more Delilah and I felt that tell me more about Delilah's engorged nipples so for a few seconds when I

was talking about Delilah today for something different Delilah is 18 months now she's had her first heat she's just finished and she's a different dog everyone used to say everyone used to say to me when we're at the park and i was like oh my god she's chaos she's absolute chaos and i walked in today and she was using a knife and fork at the table so she's completely reformed very grown up but everyone used to say wait till i get to 18 months and i thought yeah right anyway literally it was almost like to the day she's just a different dog she's chill she's cute mainly listens to me she's been a bit moody and when she was going through heat i was like babe get it oh no it's like hormonal yeah it's a proper period right it's actually amazing to watch they

get the same effects as humans get so they get it's amazing to watch like a phoenix evolving from the ashes yeah because because it is actually they go through the same thing so they suggest you get hot water bottles for their tummy and stuff because it's a period okay i'm gonna side with laura now i have been on board the delilah heat chat but i think we have reached the threshold well I did put the heat pack in there and she ripped it to shreds but I did do it the thing that I find like quite relatable about this is you say that people had said to you you've just got to get to the 18 month threshold it's literally the same threshold for children like the first 18 months is so hard and then they hit 18 months and you're like oh we're in the

clear it's getting better well I mean it's two's and the terrible are three's I think it depends I think for me like having a newborn baby and having like a baby that can't interact with you because it can't like verbalize what it wants that to me was way harder than having a toddler but everybody's you know everyone is different everyone experiences things differently guys I want to tell you about something that I've tried and tested I've done an experiment okay science experimental yeah I think you'd be very proud of me collecting data okay my personal life I mean don't let anyone tell you that we don't do the research here at life on card there was a tiktok bar from a girl named Alex Weitzman that sparked my fancy over the weekend and it was basically

all about a new way to encourage your crush to slide into your dms so how to get them to slide into yours like baiting someone to reply to you so not sending your dog into their dms that was very 2020 of you though i feel like we've got stuck in the past laura move on and upwards okay what have we got keish what's the newest latest fad do you know what baiting is actually the perfect word for this so what she said was that you know the new feature uh it's called a note that you can do in Instagram no because it's a status update I haven't updated my Instagram in like five years it's still in black and white it literally just has auto update now all Instagram has to me is like that Ludwig filter you know back in the day when you used to

a Polaroid picture around all your pictures yeah that's it I'm still there posting pictures of sunsets and food only okay so the way that it works for anyone who is updated who is in 2022 is that when you go into the message part of your Instagram DMs, up the top will have people's little sticker, like, you know, their profile picture, and you can add what they are calling a note. It's basically a very short status update. But you were saying it only lasts like 24 hours.

Yeah, so it kind of works like a story, but instead of a picture, it's just like a couple of words. I can't keep up. So what she has said is that when you post a note, you can actually post it to your close friends, but as opposed to when you post on your story as a close friends they can't tell that it's only to your close friends oh so you could post it to one person but they don't know it yes so you can individualize the status update if you want but i wanted to test this out and see whether this was

a way to encourage dm slide-ins let me tell you how fucking successful this was so what did you as some of you may or may not know like I'm really into my sport I used to work on a sports radio show and most of the people that I tend to like find myself attracted to are also into sports then last night was the world cup so between France and Argentina of those two teams I don't really have an allegiance to any of them but I really like my time that I've spent in France so I was like okay I think that between the two teams I would probably side with France I want France to win right so I just updated my Instagram note to have three French flags because I was like this will be interesting most of the guys that I'm into will be watching the World Cup like

will this spark a bit of conversation a bit of like dance between us oh my god my whole afternoon yesterday was spent replying but do you think that's just because the World Cup's the biggest thing in the whole world I think you need to try and test this on like an average Saturday night Yeah, I don't wonder if, I mean, obviously, like, the World Cup is something that's a very obvious and easy thing for people to reply to. But, like, what would be your note for a Saturday night pointed at a very specific man? Well, I think that it needs to be timely. Like, you know, this Saturday night is going to be Christmas Eve. So maybe, you know what, I can test it again if you like.

Maybe I'll be asking people if they've been naughty or nice. Why don't you direct it? Yeah. Maybe I'll ask them if they think I've been naughty or nice. Why don't you try the, I'm just intrigued now, because you can set for just one person to see it, right? So why don't you pick the person in your head and then literally put a cocktail emoji and a question mark?

Oi, that's brilliant. Yeah, because they think it's like to anyone that's out there that wants to say yes or no. And then that way if you know that they see it and they don't respond, they don't want to have a drink with you. Do you know I feel like I am so, I'm such a boomer in this conversation. I am so confused by what's going on. I really feel like I need to update my Instagram app but I also have no need to send subliminal

signals to a man you can just make Matt your close friend and put a picture of the baby and like a diaper with a question I should go vacuum I will literally just put some spray and white bottles and a fucking mop okay well this is my calling to everyone if you're out there if you've got crushes in your in your Instagram and you want to see if they can slide on in update your notes and I want to know I want to know the outcome tell us what you did tell us what they replied with and tell me if this works for you someone else can you also try the naughty or nice thing let me know I feel like it could be a little too thirsty you've got a lot of 24 hours to try this you can try you can try different one every day okay well let's get into talking about what today's

episode is actually about but the reason why Keish is jumping on this episode is because it is our last episode of 2022 well it's actually our second last episode well it's our I mean we're doing one which is going to be like a walk down memory lane and a rehash on the year that was but this is our last proper Tuesday episode. And we thought we would get on here as a little team. We've got some funny bands, but we also have a really sentimental episode, which we hope is going to get you guys through the Christmas period. Yeah, this episode actually came off the back of something that someone posted in our Facebook group, in the Life Uncut discussion group about going into this period of the year. And they were saying how they were feeling quite lonely.

They were single and they didn't have their family around them. And so we kind of started a conversation between ourselves. I guess the idea of how we're supposed to be very merry, you know, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year's. And maybe you don't actually feel that merry at this time. Maybe it brings up some complex emotions. Maybe you're happy and you feel a lot of anxiety about this period of time because you've got to spend time with family members that you don't like or you're experiencing grief. Well, there's an expectation that you should be going into this period thriving, really happy, ticking all your boxes off, wrapping up the year in a nice little parcel. And it's not like that for everyone. Actually, do you know today I said

to Mitch Turi who we do radio with I said I've just had a realization that I am not excited for Christmas not one part of me was excited for Christmas why well I think it's been a tough time lately at you know it's the same old thought of okay I'm going to Christmas again alone which is like not the end of the world but it's that with all these other things that are happening in life I don't feel like Christmas is even here like I don't feel like it is a week away you know or less everything has been so intense that the magic is not there for me this year and I know it'll be different when I get there and my family's there but at the moment there's no part of me that is excited for Christmas and that it was a really sad realization and I thought there must be a lot

of other people that have these feelings too for a multitude of different reasons it's something that we spoke about last year and it's kind of a topic that comes up this time every year is that for a lot of people as you guys both just said if you're not feeling merry or the way that you should it almost amplifies it because it shines a spotlight on not just on how you are feeling now but on the huge caveat to where you're supposed to be that's kind of what Christmas brings up but something that you just said then Brit about how you're not feeling it and how maybe you will feel it when you get home and it is actually Christmas something that I think I have realized this year and it's because you know now I have my own nucleus family with the kids and with Matt and

I've realized that the responsibility now falls on me and also on Matt, but it falls on us to create that excitement around Christmas. And then, you know, even the other day, Matt and I were like, God, it doesn't really feel like Christmas. And then it dawned on me and I was like, well, that's because we haven't done anything to make it feel that way. And as kids, and when you're growing up and you're in your teens or whatever it is, it's your parents' responsibility. They're the ones who kind of like get everyone together. They're the ones who decorate the house. They're the ones who put in the effort into making the memories. And I think we're all going through this really weird shifting time period in our lives where it's gone from other people used to

be the memory makers for us and now we are turning into the adults who are responsible to be the memory makers, not just for ourselves, but for other people as well. I also think that there's a societal shift. A lot of us now statistically are turning away from religion and Christmas is supposed to be a religious holiday. I mean, we spoke the other day about how my family used to go caroling and caroling and now if someone turned up to my door with like 20 people singing me a song can you just tell me so did you just go and knock on someone's door like a complete random strange danger and then they open it and as a child you just start singing you burst out into the joy of song there was like 20 to 30 of us that would sing that fucking christmas i would

fucking love that if a whole heap of kids it would be so cute i would hate it i'd be like oh please a flash mob you don't know what you're supposed to do you remember them just standing in the door and they would smile for like three and a half minutes i don't know if do you give money after like you know no money just the joy of giving just thanks bye move to the next house no no no no well it's pretty funny it's pretty funny it just feels different you know i think it feels different for a lot of different reasons and like you said laura we're the ones that are now making the traditions as Hamish Blake says traditions are not that old in a lot of families but you're creating like new ones and maybe we're not creating as many as what we used to well

that's the thing right like I live alone I've got no one to decorate my house for and I couldn't be bothered to decorate for myself so I don't have one I had one little piece of tinsel that I put on my fiddle leaf tree and then I just took it down also because your poor fiddle leaf fig will have a real tanty if you try and decorate it oh yeah the other thing of this though and it's something think we touched on last year's episode Britt and you know you mentioned it again I think that sometimes we can focus on single like you know being single at Christmas time and how difficult that can be and that was very much the focus of last year's conversation but I had a really interesting conversation with someone recently and it really shone a light that it's not just

about being single but something that I think a lot of people and it can drag up feelings for is if you're in a relationship but you're not happy if you're not kicking the goals in your relationship of where you expected it to be because Christmas can be this fucking weird time that almost turns into like a purgatory because you're like well I don't want to break up with someone because I have Christmas plans I'm not sure what I'm doing so they're supposed to be coming to my house for Christmas we had a Christmas holiday planned so a lot of people almost feel like if they're not happy in their relationship they almost feel like they have to try and get through the Christmas period in order to like make some big life decisions in the new year so I think the reason

why we wanted to do this episode this is not for us to be scroogers like we all collectively fucking love what Christmas can bring and what this period can bring and there are going to be so many of you who are die hard Christmas caroling living your best life taking your kids to the carols and just like truly enjoying what this time brings but we wanted to also have this episode to reflect for those people who haven't been feeling that supported and say hey you know what a lot of us feel the same you know it's not just a single thing there are a multitude of reasons that we do discuss but there are maybe it's the first year you're going into this season with a level of grief someone in your life is missing or there's a piece of your life that's missing maybe it's not

even the first year you go into that maybe it's a few years deep it doesn't matter there are so many different reasons that people feel a level of overwhelm and overwhelm itself is a reason in itself a level of overwhelm at this time of year yeah so we do get into a big conversation with Dr Hannah Correll she is a neuropsychologist and she really speaks so much about how our brains are functioning at this time which I liked she really brought the science to the table but something that we didn't go into conversation with with her that I have been thinking a lot about and this was from the Facebook post that I mentioned before was how much diet culture really rears its head at this time of the year because for as long as I can remember my new year's

resolutions like almost up until now have all been related to and like I would put it under the banner or the umbrella of being like getting back into shape or it's a load of shit it was all diet culture based it was all about losing weight and it was all about fitting into the expectation of what I wanted my summer beach bod to look like and you know the interesting thing of that is that it usually comes off the back of the guilt that you have because of Christmas where you know may have overindulged or just fucking not even overindulged just enjoyed yourself just ate like a normal human having a fucking good time or a whole Toblerone cheesecake which is what I do but then you're made to feel guilty about it because that's what we do to ourselves and like

I'm so glad that you brought that up because I think that that is something that so many people will resonate with because I know for so many years I did the same thing like oh my new year's resolution let's get in shape I don't know I think that the thing I've struggled with over the years is that getting in shape has never actually been until recently has never actually been about health it's been about size and it's been about the way that I look which I think you know if you have been having those thoughts or even if you go into New Year's this year thinking I'm gonna get in shape really check yourself about what is the motivating factor behind that on top of that laws it's not even just I think our own internal thoughts I worked in a gym when I was in high

school and I know that a lot of the marketing around anything related with health focus on New Year's resolutions they focus on losing that Christmas kilos and all that kind of bullshit and i think we're about to go into new year every single fitness center is going to have some type of sale to get january is by far the most popular month for every single gym the only other day that was more popular in the gym than the first day that the gym opened on the year was the day after the victoria's secret fashion parade that is messed up so like these are real thing that they will target you for and all i'm saying this on the podcast for is just be aware of it but we're going to get into the rest of it with dr hannah very very shortly i also had a cry on this episode

sorry sorry about that in advance had a little teary but before we do speak to Dr Hannah there is something else that we wanted to talk about Keisha you came across a very interesting article this week I'm just gonna read the headline top positions for quiet sex that offer maximum pleasure over Christmas period while you're visiting family I love that it's not even just quiet sex but it's quiet sex for maximum pleasure like this is what you're gonna most bang for your buck with zero noise is this could you think that a lot of people have to think about this like You're going to go and stay at the in-laws house and you want to still have sex, but you're going to like, surely you just have normal sex and you just do it quiet.

Like, why do we need to know the specific sex positions? Sadly for Brit and I, it has been a while since we've had to think about this. Yeah. Amen. Can I tell you a secret? Oh yeah. I'm not sure. I mean, it's not a secret if you tell the whole podcast, but yes.

Okay. So speaking of having quiet sex because you're staying at your parents' house, a very long time ago i'm talking over a decade i once had sex extremely quietly like zero noise my boyfriend at the time's dad was asleep in the same room in the same room how big was your room that's gross we lived in a studio apartment as you go to literally it was a bed and then he was sleeping in our bed and we were asleep on the couch but he was staying with us for three and a half weeks I don't know what's more outrageous, staying with someone for three and a half weeks while having sex with your father-in-law in a room.

It wasn't my father-in-law. We weren't married. He snored so loud. It was unbelievable. He had a CPAP machine, so it was so loud. So we knew he was asleep and we were so quiet. So he, let me get this straight, he asked to come to your house for three weeks.

With a CPAP machine? With a CPAP machine in your bed. You slept at his feet. You were having sex at his feet. I was picturing, like, you pounding along to the rhythm of the Darth Vader machine. No, it was very quiet. It was missionary. Well, no, it was the one on the side.

What's that called? Sleepy side sex. Sleepy side sex. Zero noise. I'm talking zero noise. Not a single moan. Nothing. And it was very strange.

Not even hard breathing. I guess a CPAP machine took over. Yeah, you're like just doing time in machine. That is so funny. Did he ever find out? No, because he was asleep. But, you know, that's what you think. Exactly.

What if he was just, like, getting a show of his life and pretending? No, no, that's disgusting. Don't be ridiculous. No, disgusting is having sex. It was completely dark. I was very young. It was about 15 years ago. So not even any, nothing, not even, like.

Nothing, nothing. Were you breathing or did you hold your breath? Turns out that I can have silent sex. So you had a silent orgasm. So what I want to say to everyone. How did you orgasm? Just stop. What I want to say to everyone is that if you have to have sex

at your in-laws house we're going to tell you some positions but trust me it's very doable they don't need to know about it okay so i feel like this was the sex with your knee guy it was okay oh my word okay they listed six other positions that you can have uh quiet and i'm quoting that quiet six to the first one that they listed one of my favorites lotus position what is the lotus one person is sitting on the bottom and then the other person is sitting on top of them like facing them, kind of embracing. Oh, with their legs wrapped around them. Yeah, it's very sensual.

Okay, but also like surely none of these positions actually make a difference about being quiet. It comes down to the person. No, it probably would be the level of rocking and movement and stuff. It also comes down to how loose the springs are on your bed. No, you've also got to think like doggy can be louder. Like, for example, it can. And so it could, if you can't be missionary,

But I guess if you're, like, doing the lotus and it's sensual, there's not a lot of, like – Yeah, because the person on the bottom isn't moving, right? Yes, right. So I think that that helps with the rocking of the bed. Also no testicles slapping alongside. That's usually what happens. That's the thock sound, right?

Yeah. Okay. Sideway 69. That's what I did. Oh, no, that's not what I did. No, you went upside down. We were facing the same way. Are people doing that?

I feel like that's pretty awkward. A sideways – No, yeah. But don't you usually – Wouldn't you just go for the normal 69 where you're on top of each other? Did people actually do the sideways one? Yeah, the sideways 69, you just have your leg bent. So it's like you lay on your side, you have one leg bent up,

and you're kind of like in each other. I wish that this was a video. You kind of like have to hold onto their leg a bit. Anyway. Did you do that one? Not recently, but have. Do you do lazy sideways 69? I have done it.

It's not on my regular repertoire, but maybe I should add to it. Definitely a quieter one, I would say. But I would also say that it's as quiet as doing a normal 69. I wouldn't say that there's like a specifically quieter difference. Maybe you have to hold yourself up more on that. I don't know. I'm trying to think about it. I've always said that I reckon Brit would be so loud in bed.

So I don't think that I don't know why I have that perception. Like I've never heard you have sex, but I just, I don't know why. Maybe it's your laugh that like, I just, I'm pretty wild. Why do you think Brit lives on her own? Yeah, there's a reason. But Brit lives on her own and doesn't have sex. that's a problem all right bring it on home what is the last one so the other two that we have already mentioned missionary and spooning they also have listed slow doggy yes it has to be slow

but then is it do you want to even do it then i don't think people do doggy to be slow and sensual it's not a sensual position oh it's not the lotus or a sideways 69 when you're nuzzled on in there It's like, I don't know. I don't think doggy is very sensual. Look, I'm going to just say this. If you are planning on having sex at the in-laws house this year, just put your face in a pillow and go for it. Let's move on.

Oh my God. Okay. Let's get into our favorite part of every episode. And that is accidentally unfiltered. Now I have an accident unfiltered, which my girlfriend told me this weekend. And there were some very, very good ones written in by you guys. But this story had me absolutely fucking floored. Okay.

So my friend went and stayed at a beautiful hotel this weekend. with her boyfriend just you know to go and have some quality time together to be together and enjoy each other's company and she did a panning video of the hotel suite that she was staying at so she walked into the room and the panning video is panning of like the like the mini bar and the wall and the artwork and then it goes out to this incredible view over sydney harbour and that's the video that she sent to her family chat and when i say family chat i mean her partner's family chat with the mum and the dad and the siblings and she sent that anyway it turns out that she also took a second video and that second video was of a beautiful pan of the minibar and of the artworks

and of the view but then she panned a little bit further around to the bed where her boyfriend was laying there with his legs up in the air pretending to finger himself oh no no she did and that's what she said and she sent that to his mom and what did his mom say nothing nothing i didn't realize this but when it comes to whatsapp messaging you know you can like delete a message right so you can say like delete for everyone if the person hasn't updated their app to have that feature then that message does not delete for everyone so it did not delete for everybody i didn't know that was a thing yeah so unless the person has updated their app they will still receive that message so there's a hot tip for

everybody what i'm mad about remember a little while ago apple released a thing that said that when you send an iMessage now if it's in three minutes you can unsend it it's not true it's not true well mine can't do it neither can mine i wondered if maybe i just didn't know how to do it properly and i don't get it because that could have come in very handy a few times let me tell you i'm like oh shit anyway it's not true all right we'll get into what is your accidentally unfiltered okay this literally just happened lol so i use my electric toothbrush as a vibrator i know it sounds strange but i do know i'm not the only one it's way better than any vibrator i've ever tried i feel like it would be really like it would blast your clitoris off as

someone who reads our dms unfortunately she's not alone wait with bristles what i usually do is have a go in the shower after i've brushed my teeth and yeah anyway i've just had a shower masturbated and had a really great orgasm afterwards though my vag was super minty tingly and burning i realized i forgot to brush my teeth and i masturbated with the toothpaste that serves you right for using the same toothbrush to do both what and then she goes it's still worth it though i'm sorry but surely you know what you masturbate with whatever you want like i'm here for this but surely there's you get a second one like you get a you get like the the insertion and the clit and whatever you want as for one toothbrush but i don't

think you need to use the same one i could be wrong i mean you use the same mouth uh to eat your food to brush your teeth and to go down on people so like i think i just get two though i just keep one in the masturbating one in the shower i hate how hypocritical it is that i care about this because like laura you're right we use the same mouth to be fair i will replace my toothbrush if it falls on a floor so yeah okay well with all of that out of the way let's get into the chat with dr hannah by this time of year most of us are crawling to the finish line and in survival mode to make it through the working year with things like christmas and new years we tend to have an added layer of pressure to just be very jolly and cheerful when it might be the last thing

that we actually really feel. So we wanted to do a whole episode on getting through the holiday period when things aren't just the best that they've ever been in your life. And joining us to give us some advice is our friend, our resident neuropsychologist, Dr. Hannah Correll. Dr. Hannah, welcome back to Life Uncut. Hello. Thank you so much for having me guys. Dr. Hannah, I love, I love the fact that we've got a resident neuropsychologist. That makes us sound really cool. We're not that cool. I drop it in all my friendship groups. Yeah. For anybody who maybe hasn't heard you on the podcast before. Can you give us a quick overview on what a neuropsychologist is? So we're like a brain detective. So we figure out where your brain is going well and where it's

not going so well using pen and paper tests, right? So we do the IQ score. We do things like diagnosing autism, ADHD, dementia. So we are, yeah, like a brain detective. We figure out what's going on in your history, what's happened in the past. We spend hours and hours and hours with people to figure out, get all the pieces of the puzzle and figure out what might be happening for your brain. Well, this is the third time we've had you on. We do love you here. You're very knowledgeable and you give some really great advice. Why do people at this time feel like everything is intensified by 10? Because it is. Dan done. No, you're not imagining it, right? Like you are not imagining that it is a tough

time of year. It's valid. It's a valid feeling. Don't self-gaslight that you're imagining because you're not two things I think are recurring one is neurological and one is psychological so the neurological is your cognitive cup so your cognitive abilities you imagine your brain is like a cup and it can only hold so much emotional load cognitive load administrative load all of the things the bandwidth that you have to do life to do work to do personal life it's all stimuli right and it's not a fallacy that at the end of the year that's when all the deadlines are it's the end of 2022, you have to get all your shit done before the end of the year. You also have to jam in extra deadlines of when to get presents, when to wrap presents, what to buy for people,

when to schedule parties, when to go to other parties, when to drink all the alcohol and be hungover, all of this additional stress that you're adding. So neurologically speaking, your cognitive carp is getting fuller and you don't have as much bandwidth. You don't have as much cognitive reserve and you're cognitively overloaded. Do you think as well? And I mean, I think it's probably a bit of a sweeping statement to say that every single person at this year is stressed out because I don't think every single person is. I think there are a lot of people who do go into the Christmas period with joy, feeling all the things that we're told we're supposed to feel, right? I'm sure that there are lots of people who have that,

but then there are also a lot of people who go in with almost like a feeling of guilt because they don't feel the way that they think they're supposed to feel. Do you think that there is a psychological reason why there's like a magnifying glass on us during, especially what is Christmas and New Year's? Oh my gosh. Yes. Well, that's, you know, number two, reason two is the psychological side of things. And I will say, Laura, like I think our understanding of emotion is sometimes very uni, you know, one emotion, but you can actually have more than one emotion at one time. So you can be super, super stressed, but also love Christmas and be absolutely overwhelmed. But at the same time, looking forward to Christmas. So you can exist in two places at the

same time you can have this two didactically opposed feelings at the same time so I hate this time of year I love this time of year you can feel the two things at once which you know it's something that we talk about in relationships all the time we always say like you know it's possible and even in friendships you know it's possible to be happy for your friend and to be sad that you're missing out on something like those feelings don't have to be mutually exclusive but I think sometimes when our feelings aren't concurrent with how we think we should feel it's even worse oh exactly and if we add that extra layer of guilt what you mentioned before that extra layer of guilt that why don't I feel happier why am I anxious why am I in this place

again and you mentioned before about this expectation of where we should be at a certain time of the year and I think it's no secret that at the end of the year it's review time isn't it it's like personal it's your personal review time that's a stressful time of year we're about to go into new year's resolutions we're about to end 2022 we're all probably about to enter the year of another year older, this is the time of review. And I think it ultimately comes down to expectations that you set up for yourself. Such an interesting way of putting it. Like I had never thought of it before as in like, I mean, I, when I think about it, it is exactly what we all do. We kind of assess where our lives are come December, especially come new year's where we're all

setting new year's resolutions. It's almost like that's the benchmark that we kind of level ourselves up against versus where we were at the year prior. And for some people that might be a place where they're really happy with the progress that they've made. And for others, they might feel like they've failed themselves or they've failed the expectations that they placed for themselves the year before. And it ultimately comes, this is one of the reasons why I love neuropsychs. I've learned so much about every form of the spectrum of neurotypical to neurodiverse, but there is something called your own personal rule book in your head. We all have our own logic book in our head about what the rules are for Brit, what the rules are for Laura, what the rules are for Hannah.

and in our heads all of us every single one of us and all three of us were you know talking about those rules just earlier before we started this podcast of all our expectations I've got the rules in my head I was supposed to be in this place by this age I was supposed to have this by this age I was supposed to be doing this by this age and that's my personal rule book Hannah was supposed to be in this spot at this time and this was not what I expected so when I'm doing something that's incongruent with my rule of where I should be, my body panics and my body gives me a whole heap of stress hormones, very visceral stress hormones that make me feel panic, sheer panic. And it's like I can't be in my own skin because I'm living a life that's incongruent with my rules. And then

I panic. And what do high functioning people do when they panic? They intellectualize or they distract. So can you give me an example of what intellectualizing is versus distracting? Like how does that play out in someone's behavior oh my god yes okay yeah where do I begin how much time do you have let me give you a scenario all right so it's one in the morning and you're laying in bed and your brain is telling you all of the different scenarios and thinking through all the different scenarios of why this happened when that happened what did they mean by this what should I be doing if they do this when will I do this when will I say this what if this happens what does this mean and doing that loop around and

around and around. We've all done that loop. Yeah. I've been doing it the last three nights. You know, we all do that loop. Like, and that's your brain because it's worked in the past when you're younger, when you're a little kid, when you're a teenager, you've thought your way out of problems and it works. It works. You think your way out of problems and it reinforces that behavior to intellectualize and your brain compartmentalizes and goes, this is the scenario. So what's the solution? If this happens, I'll do A. If this happens, I'll do B. And if this happens, I'll do see but the problem is you can never predict what exactly what's going to happen the world is a constantly shifting moving feast and i don't know what you're going to say next or what you're going

to do next you can never predict it so your brain's going to keep throwing scenarios at you well what if scenario a1 happens what if scenario b1 happens and c1 and a.12 and b.12 you know you'll keep generating more and more scenarios and you'll keep going in that loop of thinking and thinking we call it ruminating we're going around and around and around often I think as well something that we do is when we are in that spiral of like trying to forecast how things are going to play out we often are so negatively geared that we go to the worst possible situation and things are never ever as bad as what you think they are but you always think about what that worst outcome is and then work your way back so you are hardwired to think of all the possible bad things that could go wrong

and just statistically probability wise we're moving into December you have probably way more social things happening you have more people you're about to interact with you have more conversations you're about to have you're going to see people you haven't seen in a long time and people you know you have confrontations and grievances with family members where you know shit's hit the fan before you're about to statistically enter a minefield of many more interactions and your brain is telling you all the possible things that can go wrong because it's trying to protect you it's trying to keep you safe it loves you and it wants you to survive can you go back a bit for me as well hannah because i jumped in with my thought as

you were talking and then i realized we only covered what we do when we intellectualize a problem but not what the second option was distracting distracting yes okay all right so this is when we get okay scenario let me tell you the next scenario so you're laying in bed you've intellectualized you thought and you've thought and you've thought and you've thought and you've like lying in bed a husk of a human being rocking gently back and forth as we all do. I have no idea what you're talking about. I know everyone's looking at me right now. So the next thing we do, what do we do? I've got to get some sleep. I've just, oh, for God's sake, you just have to go to sleep. So what do we do? We reach out to our phones.

We pick up our phones. We might scroll through Instagram. We might scroll through an app. I know for me, I'm a big fiend for putting on an audio book to try to distract myself, put on Harry Potter a little bit of HP to play and because we're distracting and you might distract with needing a hug from someone and needing someone else to self-regulate by hugging you and giving you advice so you're constantly calling other friends to get advice or get that hug you might be that you distract with a partner it might be that you distract with substances like alcohol or other things to numb the pain it might be that you distract by totally throwing yourself into work. Anything to take your mind off that feeling of anxiety that you're experiencing and sitting

with that feeling of anxiety and just accepting that it's okay to be anxious instead of anything but feeling anxious. I need to think my way out of this or distract myself from this anxiety. I mean, we've talked about having this like almost litmus test for yourself at the end of the year. For anybody who is in a situation where they don't feel like they've leveled up to the expectations that they set for themselves. What is the advice? Valid to just be upset and down. And you are dealing with a lot. My best advice would be lifting the veil and just realizing, oh my God, there's so much going on for me. I'm a big fan of terms like neuro stress, neuro anxiety, neuro sadness, rather than just saying stress, anxiety, sadness. I think it's very validating

to hear somebody say, no babe, there's a pathway in your brain that is letting off a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress hormones, a lot of very real valid feelings that don't require much stimuli now to kick off for you. So it might only take a little, little trigger to get a big reaction in your body. Okay. Cause you've got that pathway well-trodden path and you've got that quick conditioned response in your body. So you get a huge panic feeling for a little, little message from your mom on Christmas. Okay. And that's your brain trying to keep you safe because something bad has happened in the past and your body has learned, I need lots of adrenaline to get through what's about to happen or what might be about to happen. So I think that's why I like using terms

like neuro anxiety, because it validates that experience that you're not imagining this. Don't self gaslight. You're not imagining the feeling of anxiety. It's physical, it's visceral, it's physiological, it's neurological. And it's really quite hard sometimes to separate ourselves from that feeling and look in on ourselves and go, oh, this is a condition response that my body's going through. I am not my feelings. I am not my thoughts. I can look in on this and know that the panic I'm feeling isn't necessarily real and I'm not in danger right now. I am okay right now. I mean, you spoke before about distraction. Some people are about distraction, their phones or a friend or a text message or something to get you away from the situation. I assume this is

advice you're going to give people going into this season if they're having these feelings. What about the people that might go into this that feel overwhelmed in a different way? I myself I actually don't use distraction at all I get rid of everything I don't want anyone around me and I just sit on my own in silence I actually don't know why I do it because you sit in your thoughts more so what about the people that are probably more introverted I guess would be the word that don't want to surround themselves with people what advice can you give those people going into this season that have those feelings of anxiety loneliness stress worry basically what you're doing by doing that is reducing the stimuli around you so giving your cognitive cup a little

bit more bandwidth because you have less stimuli around you less social less light less sound less movement less crowds and it's reducing the stimuli to give you more emotional bandwidth so if that's what you need to do then that's okay I just say with a grain of salt like isolating withdrawing those are all they can be signs of depression so it's a little bit like cost benefit you know is it adding cognitive load but is it at the cost that I'm isolating so I think people should just be mindful of that. If you haven't already contacted perhaps a psychologist for support or a friend for support, I would say that that might be a good plan, but also setting up some real tangible and being accountable for that. Like, I know it's so easy for us. I always say

like, go talk to your GP and touch base with your GP and get a mental health care plan and all this other stuff. Come and get some accountability now. Like, is it a tough time? Do you know that you're going into a tough time and maybe you distract and you do some unhealthy behaviors and you isolate or you draw on substances or you do something that you know is not helping you in the long run this is the red flag this is me saying yeah now might be the time that you need to get a little bit more support with this formalized support to deal with what's going on for you which kind of leads me on to my next question how important do you think it is to have boundaries at this time of year because I think so many of us can compromise our boundaries

because we don't want to offend our family we don't want to offend our parents or whatever it looks like our in-laws whatever your family structure looks like we all know that families are incredibly complex and a lot of people have a lot of trauma from their family connections how important is it to put boundaries in place oh my gosh like the ultimate the ultimate thousand times yes like i literally made an app called assert yourself which is all about asserting yourself asserting yourself and i'm not well versed at asserting myself i need to hear it every day too and i need to practice it too just take it one day at a time you know it's really easy to go, oh my God, on the 25th, this is going to happen. I'm supposed to go on this holiday with

this person and this is going to happen and that's going to happen. And this has happening. And you overload yourself with all of these requirements that we've put on ourselves. I have to give them this much notice and I have to tell them this. And I have to, I have to have this conversation. You can actually just take it one day at a time. You are allowed to back out of things. You are allowed to say no to things. You're allowed to say no at the absolute last minute. You're allowed to say, nah, I'm not doing this. I don't feel comfortable with this. And if that happens on the day, that's okay too. All right. Don't try and solve it all right now. Don't worry today about the 25th of December, the 26th, the 27th, the 1st of January. You just get through today,

get through tomorrow, figure it out as it comes. Because if we're talking about assertiveness and boundaries, it's probably because you're dealing with someone who's pushing your boundaries, right? And sometimes it is a day at a time. I think we get stuck in the minutia of going, what are they doing? What did they do? Why did they do this? And trying to explain their behavior away. We lose ourselves in that. This is a conversation I've had with a couple of people recently with several of my girlfriends who have complicated relationships with their parents, whether they're the product of divorce. And that sounds like such a weird way of putting it, the product of, they have divorced parents or they have parents who have very overbearing

understandings of what Christmas should be because maybe their parents are holding on too hard to the way that it was when they were kids. And, you know, we all have our own nucleus families now where we're adults, you know, we've got our own children. There can be this almost like expectation from parents that you behave and do a certain thing because that is what's expected of you. One sort of thing that comes to mind is one of my friends isn't going to be with her family, her parents for Christmas this year. And there's been a lot of guilt that's been placed on her because she's chosen to do something that's different, but she also has a bit of a stress relationship with her parents anyway and she's decided she just wants to spend it with her new

nucleus family with her husband and her children and I think that like the added guilt of that the added feeling when you are the child and you're disappointing your parents even though you're a grown-ass adult that feeling of guilt never leaves you that feeling of like oh fuck my parents are angry at me they can be the hardest people to assert boundaries with oh my gosh activating that rule book again the rules there's a rule book in your mind I should be this way I have to do this for somebody else yeah they expect me to do it yeah it's like further perpetuated by your parents as well in terms of like you know not even intentionally sometimes just this level of like you feel like you need to show up sometimes yeah we are in a lot of ways a condition of our

upbringing right like absolutely if your parents have placed a lot of expectations on you in terms of the way that you should behave or the way that you should show up to family events and you decide that that doesn't serve you because it brings you anxiety or because it's all your fucking aunt always behaves badly and it stresses you out but there's still this expectation that you go this time of year really shines a spotlight on the things that aren't great in our family structures at home yeah because we compare to other people who have great families and have amazing connections with their parents and with their siblings and if that's something that you don't have in your household even that can add a whole another layer of stress home life childhood

upbringing that's where we learned the rules that's where we learned that in inverted commas the rules of life of how you are supposed to be and it's often hard to break the flow the momentum of the way the family interacts that's where we've learned mom always gets away with speaking to me like this my brother always speaks to me in this way when I'm with my family it's very toxic and we talk to each other in this way and it's so well ingrained and it's been happening for such a long time that it suddenly feels like Mount Everest to say no that's not okay that you spoke to me like this and their reaction might be so full-on whenever you've tried to rein it in and whenever you've attempted to assert yourself that it's conditioned you to

not say anything don't rock the boat don't make a scene it's easier to just let it go and that's kind of why I tap into we're just getting through one day at a time instead of seeing that the top of Mount Everest and where I want to be and it seems so impossible so difficult so hard it's so well ingrained now with a family friend lover partner whatever the toxic behavior you might be so used to it's been having for such a long time it feels impossible to undo it okay but that's where we talk about well how do you climb Mount Everest it is just one step at a time so let's just take it today and let's just call out whatever happens in this moment if you're feeling getting back in touch with how you're feeling how are you feeling today are you happy did you enjoy

that? Are you having fun or do you feel sick? Do you feel ashamed? Do you feel humiliated? Do you feel embarrassed? Do you have the ick in your heart, that tight feeling? And you know something that just happened was not okay with me. So I'm going to take this moment. It's okay for me to back out of this. It's okay for me to say no. It's okay for me to leave. It's okay for me to make a seen by departing. Okay. Toxic behavior. I am unsubscribing from this family. Toxic behavior is like, I think we confuse in our heads. We try so hard. And this is something I've had to learn how to healthily have an argument. Like when you've grown up and you, you believe that any argument is toxic and bad, we can swing like a pendulum to the other direction of never standing

up to ourselves because we see any argument or confrontation as bad and being toxic. But actually it's toxic when you get into the tit for tat, name calling, down and dirty, back and forth. So I think we get into a pattern of thinking things are toxic because we're so used to that, that we're aversive to anything we perceive as confrontational. But it's actually not confrontational, not toxic for you to acknowledge that something was inappropriate for you and say in a very calm, clear voice, this is not okay. I'm not comfortable. I'm leaving. you know we've had a lot of questions we put this out to the facebook community and it's something that we've spoken about on i mean the last three years of doing this podcast at christmas time we

tend to end up having a conversation around how our feelings and expectations don't always match up to where we think we should be brit has spoken about it before in terms of being a single person and feeling like it's a really hard time for people who are single because it really makes you so fucking aware that other people are happy and partnered up but I also think and when we put this out to the group one of the big questions came in was what about for people who are experiencing grief as in they've lost a person this year and this is the first time that they're going into Christmas without somebody who had been a huge part of their Christmas time but not actually on top of that not even just the first time they're going into it without someone every year every

year for a long time this could have been your 10th year without someone that's important in your life and like we said at the start of the episode this is the time of year that feelings get brought up again my understanding with grief is you know it's a little bit like this whole the full shape of your heart and the full size of your heart and it's deep and it's painful and it hurts and you grow around the grief you get bigger around the grief because you went on another day oh you're gonna make me cry and another day think of my papa i know yeah this is the whole point of this episode is this is what's happening this is the time of year that things are intensified and emotions and feelings and everything's brought to the surface yeah and it's not a bad thing to have

i'm gonna cry looking at you it's not a bad thing to have these feelings come to the surface i mean correct me if i'm wrong hannah you're the professional i feel like it's not a bad thing to let them come to the surface if you acknowledge what they are and know what to do with it and don't let it put you in a place that's worse it's just I think that for a lot of people as you get older like Christmas looks very different to what it used to look um and we're gonna go to a short break now we'll go to an ad but it is that is the intensity of that feeling that I mean that's grief is it's that intense every it's like there's like something hits it and it's as intense as the very first day and we grow around it it's like it's always there and it's always that intense but you

have day two and day three and day four you get bigger around the feeling but someday something's going to hit that feeling and it's going to hit you like a ton of bricks like it was the first day and I think for me as well at the moment sorry sorry to have a cry everyone um like my papa he was my my grandfather but he also was my complete father figure and I think for me at the moment and the reason why I'm extra sensitive is because I always expected that he would walk me down the aisle at my wedding I always expected that he would be there and my friends and my sister have done an amazing job of like really making him be present in my life recently like my sister for my wedding I told you guys like she got a little locket made and it was attached to my bouquet

of flowers of my grandparents and then my other very good friend Kaya she had a portrait made it was the photo that I posted on Instagram of the wedding but it was a watercolor painting but it had my grandparents in the picture it was really beautiful and so for me they're super front of mind but this year I think you know I have my whole family coming to Christmas this year we've got all Matt's family we've got all my side of the family like we are hosting Christmas and he won't be there and that for me is just something that I'm like fuck that's unfair like I really wanted him to see my family and that doesn't get to happen mine is mild in comparison he lived a wonderful long life I get it I'm selfish I want him more you know but he lived until his 90s so

that's, it's crazy to think that there could be any more beyond that. But you know, there's people who are going into Christmas without their mom, without their dad, without their children, you know, without their best friend. There's so many versions of what that looks like. And it doesn't have to just be death. It could be the more milder version going in straight out of a breakup. And I think that this is the reason why we wanted to talk about this is because it really does just bring it all to the surface. And it almost makes it worse because you're told just supposed to be happy yeah that rule book again turning on I'm supposed to be sparkly I'm supposed to be happy I'm supposed to be grateful for what you've got yeah and if I'm not grateful

then I'm I'm what and if you're ungrateful then what does that mean about you I don't know this is a riddle what does it mean but what do you think if you're not grateful then you're ungrateful and if you're ungrateful then you're what what kind of person is an ungrateful selfish selfish selfish so we are activating a rule book in our head if I feel any sadness I'm ungrateful if I'm ungrateful I'm selfish I'm bad and you can see that the it's almost like an algorithm your computer is an algorithm and somewhere along the lines you got programmed with this algorithm of when this code runs and I feel sad I feel guilty that I feel sad I must be a bad person and around and around we go I feel worse because I'm now I'm telling myself I feel guilty for feeling guilty

and around and around and around we go and we think about it we intellectualize it until the point we're so exhausted that we distract there is a third option which is to sit with the feeling to sit with it if i can really quickly like just go into you know social experiments and social stuff you guys have heard of pavlov's dogs you know pavlov's dogs experiments tell me about it let's tell me about this the other day actually let's pretend like i know all about it and um you can tell the listeners who don't know so i want you to think of like condition responses and when I say conditioned I don't mean like her conditioner I mean like conditioned I don't mean the panting conditioner I mean we have conditioned responses where x happens y response occurs okay so Pavlov's

dogs is this great experiment that highlights this this guy called Pavlov is an interesting experimenter from many many years ago who noticed that when his assistant came out and put food down for the doggies that the doggies would salivate for the food but even when they just saw the assistant, they would start salivating. And he went, hmm, that's interesting. Why are they salivating for the assistant and not the food? That's interesting. So he paired the food with a bell, ding-a-ling-a-ling, and he'd bring the food out and go ding-a-ling-a-ling, and the dog salivated. Food, ding-a-ling-a-ling, salivate. Food, ding-a-ling-a-ling, salivate. Food, ding-a-ling-a-ling, salivate. Oh, I feel like you're just talking about me at home on a phone.

And then what he did was he just did the bell, ding-a-ling-a-ling, and what do you think the dog's day elevate correct correct 100 yeah and so what we've got there is a conditioned response do you see an unconditioned stimulus became a conditioned stimulus and we had a conditioned response which was salivation a physical reaction in response to a stimuli okay you are your code turning on in your head you've got this algorithm this computer that's operating and then a stimuli comes in, which is you're alone this Christmas or a stimuli comes in, which is he's not there this Christmas or a stimuli comes in, which is so much shit to do this Christmas. And I'm not going to get it all done. And we activate our condition response, which is panic, which is

guilt, which is fear. And it's so pervasive and controlling. It's like somebody, I don't know about your anxiety, Laura, but for me, it's like somebody has taken a massive syringe and injected poison into my muscles and I feel it in all of my muscles and it's a sick tight feeling where every cell in my body screams at me to stop to get it to stop to do anything to get it to stop and that might be to people please to agree to do things I don't want to do to push it away and throw myself into work to go and call someone who I know is not good for me and spend time with them even though I know they hurt me because you don't want to be alone because I don't want to be this is a great little segue question do you think that this is something that we actually do come

this time of year and I'm going to say we let's go we haven't really talked about the single people going in and the feelings that the single people have yet do you think this is something that people do is go back to somewhere they shouldn't a toxic ex someone in the past a message just purely for comfort so we get some validation to be like oh there is someone you know that's thinking about me today I mean whatever the feeling of anxiety is for you it's that biological every cell in your body screaming at you to get it to stop get that feeling to stop and yeah that might be running into the arms of someone who's not good for you because that immediate oxytocin that immediate calming of that your central nervous system that immediate reaction in your

body to calm to be calm and to be okay again anything to make it stop and this is where I say that third option what's the third option here from an intellectualizing and distracting which is to learn to sit with the feeling and what that does the power of that is to decondition the condition response okay so something is turning on the code in your brain the false belief the brainwashing that you have in your brain that you're not good enough that you're too old that you're alone forever you know whatever it is we have to take the power away from that false belief We have to take the power out of it. And the power is the feeling, which is I'm panicking when this thing turns on in my brain. So if we can learn to sit with it, I know you're always

going to be there, always in the back of my mind. I'm always going to be hard on myself, but it doesn't have to have so much power over me. And if we keep running away from this scary thought, every time it turns on, if we keep hiding from it, intellectualizing, distracting from it, it holds the power over us. But if we sit with it and we just, okay, let's just sit with this. I feel like shit. I feel awful. I feel anxious. I'm just gonna sit with it. And today it might be that you get to one breath before you intellectualize or distract. And maybe a month from now, you can actually sit with that turning on for a whole five minutes before it activates something in you. We taking the power away. You cannot control the feelings of yourself

for other people. We feel what we feel. And if we try to control it, that's when we start to feel guilty about feeling guilty, feeling sad about feeling sad, feeling anxious about feeling bad. And we get meta anxiety. I'm anxious about being anxious. You know, we get in a thought loop. We get in a feeling loop. Now there is hope, behavior and actions. Assuming you're medically well and you're not affected by substances, you're in your right mind. You can choose to pick up the water bottle. You can choose to go for a walk. You can choose to go to the gym. You can choose to have the cuddle. You can choose to see your psychologist. You can choose to do all of those things. You are in control of your behavior. Feelings and thoughts come from behavior. If we stay in bed,

if we have a big night, if we do the thing that we know is not going to help us, if we don't put the clothes on, we don't wash our face, we don't eat the food. Yeah, probably by the end of the day, you're going to feel 20% worse. You're going to think worse things about yourself and you're going to feel worse about yourself. If instead you wake up and you go, I don't feel like it. And I think I'm a piece of crap and I just don't, I'm not feeling it, but I'm still going to get out of bed. I'm still going to wash my face. I'm still going to put a clean piece of clothing on. I'm still going to care for my body and eat some food. I'm still going to do the thing that makes me sit in the sun for a minute and take a deep breath. Then by the end of the day, maybe you're

not a hundred percent better, but you might feel 5% better. And it's those little small things that add up over time predict the trajectory of thoughts and feelings and one day grow a new core belief a new algorithm in your brain that we can activate which is I know there's that algorithm that says I'm not good enough but I've grown a new one that challenges that and says I have anxiety and I know that I'm a worthwhile human being Dr Hannah thank you so much for coming for sharing your wisdom and also just for I mean it's so interesting to us to hear this side of things from not just how we feel, but also from what's physically going on inside us as well. And you're a wealth of knowledge and we love having you on the podcast. Please tell everyone

where they can find you and also remind them about the app. Thank you for having me. I feel like if we can get this trending of this idea of neuro stress, neuro anxiety, neuro depression, you know, there is so much more to this. I don't want people to feel guilty for feeling what they feel. Come find me on Insta. I'm no bull psych. I would love to hear from people, connect with people my app is called assert yourself it's got a few nifty little meditations and things you can use if you're struggling with that something that we probably need to download right now download assert yourself dr hannah thank you so much thanks guys thank you you know that we never finish an episode without our suck and our sweet our very last suck and sweet for the week of the

year keish do us the honors you can start uh what has been your suck for the week well my suck is somewhat related to my suite so the suck is that the weather has been freezing cold and the reason that that was really sucky for me is because my suite was that two of my girlfriends from the UK they're both from London flew over they flew in on Thursday night and they stayed with me for a couple of days they're up like in North Queensland at the moment traveling Australia getting some sun getting some sun well actually no it's raining up there too no but they've come for an Australian summer to get out of winter and it came from minus five it was literally snowing in london when they left which is also quite rare for over there it doesn't snow that often and so they've

flown in and i just had to keep on repeating myself being like guys i swear it's been the best weather for the last two weeks at least they felt at home they got here and they were like wow it really is quite comparable isn't it still got sunburned they went for a swim in the bronte baths bless them it was freezing and the water was so rough but they just wanted to do like you know the Australian they wanted to do the coastal walk and they wanted to do the swim thing and then they came home and they literally were sunburned which I found hilarious because there was not an ounce of blue sky oh yeah so my sweet is that it was so nice to have them here it's been so many years since they were they came here and left Australia the week before COVID kicked off

so like it's been a long time between drinks and it was just so good to see him again well I mean like sometimes we like over emphasize almost how important the weather is especially when it's like this time of year when it means that you get to see people that you haven't seen for forever that COVID is the tyranny of COVID has kept you apart I think that that's a really nice sweet my suck for the week is that and I know I've said this suck a couple weeks ago but it really really hit me this week work has been really full-on especially coming out of retail Christmas with Tony May and also just like all the other little projects and bits and pieces and I have not had quality time with the girls I did get to I took them to the Wiggles concert on Saturday

that's actually my sweet but I had this real moment last night where I got into bed with Marley after coming home from work and she's asleep and I do it almost every night at the moment where like I'll get in bed and spend like an hour just laying in bed like patting her head just wondering she's asleep just wondering whether she knows that I'm there it's almost like trying to claw back extra time with your kids with your unconscious child with your unconscious child because you didn't get to have that time during the day and I think she would feel that I feel like you'd know that there's like a comfort to know that you're there. Maybe, you know, I know that this is something that a lot of working mums have to juggle

this feeling of like, I have to work and I want to prioritise my career, but I also want to be a really good mum. And every so often that juggle feels really out of balance. And I think for me, it's been a particular week where I have struggled with my priorities, really, really struggle with them. And I really miss my girls. So fucking cannot wait for this break, to be honest. But then my sweet for the week, like I said, I went to the Wiggles concert.

It's so dumb. It is the dumbest thing to go to a kid's concert and stand there with your two kids and be like, hot potato, hot potato, but it's fucking the best thing in the world. It's so cute. Oh, you think that's dumb? I think that's awesome. I think when I say it's dumb, what I mean is it's dumb how happy I get.

Like I love going and being and taking them to these things and it was like the place out in Homebush, like it was like a full-on concert. it. Like what I used to, I went there to go and see Prince and now I'm going there to go and see the Wiggles. And now Brit, I know that this week has been absolutely terrible. You know, I don't think you need to go into what you're stuck on your speed is if you don't want to. No, I think it's, it's been a really bad week. It's been a really dark week. I'm not going to highlight anything good from it or anything bad from it. But I have read all your messages, the good and

the bad and I have learned a lot. I know we said that this would be our very last episode for the year, but we do have one more coming on Tuesday, a year in review next week. It's going to be our favorite moments, our highlights from different parts of our discussions and interviews with amazing people we've had on. And we just thought it'd be a really nice way to wrap it up, sum it up and give you guys one last little episode to listen to. And it's just been like, I mean, being able to do the live show, being able to meet so many of you, having the book come out, The amount of you who have reached out and spoken to us about your stories, about the different parts of different episodes that have affected your life or have meant something to you or have helped you in some way, it truly means everything to us. And we honestly can't tell you how much we love creating this podcast, how much we love the community that you guys all contribute to.

It's an absolute privilege. If you have loved any episodes this year, please jump on to Apple Podcasts, leave a review, share it with a friend, 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!