Poh Ling Yeow - When The Relationship Ends

[Applause] we're all imperfect and on this podcast I'll be chatting with a variety of interesting people who are willing to make themselves vulnerable by sharing their own struggles and Imperfections I was searching so hard I was like how am I going to get over this this is this was just the worst rolling of a dice ever like I rolled I rolled it wrong like big time you know I will never recover from this I'm hu van kenberg from the resilience project and I'm Ryan Shelton from my mom and I'm Josh from H's mom and this is the Imperfects what's cooking good you know I like it yeah you know why I said that cuz it's how you always greet us when you walk in hey what's cooking cuz you're a cool man right to introduce that into my repertoire hey Mom what's cooking like when she's not cooking have you got a phrase that you'd like to introduce into your rep 12 which and no no one would judge it no one would think anything of it you just get to start saying no nothing awesome no exactly what I was after imagine if imagine if the start of white man can't jump started with uh Sydney Dean going up to Billy hoil and saying hey do you want to play and he goes n pretty [ __ ] movie then wasn't it no sorry nothing Happ to my mind that's all right be you're honest it's good yeah nothing nothing happened in my in my brain sorry fine I'll come up I'll come back to you on that in a few episodes time how about just the end of this episode okay yeah maybe that's a better okay good so we do want to talk about something before we get into and the reason I said what's cooking is because we got po yeah of course Po's on the show of course yeah which is yeah a good thing to acknowledge but before we do that um we should probably just let people know anyone out there who's sitting their clock to Saturday mornings to wake up to Imperfects fix that's our our weekly um flashback episode which we've been doing this year yes so we we're pulling back from those and we're just focusing solely on the on the main episodes now so um find something else to set your clock to on Saturday mornings yeah cartoons imper finished yeah yeah imper finished on although you will still be able to get archival clips that we're going to be putting out on YouTube as well as full uh old episodes which we are doing at the moment if you go back but we're going to try and get more of them up there a bit faster yeah like imper forget about what I just said imper keep going ontu YouTube yeah yeah yeah perfect yeah Okay cool so we oh actually do you know on perfect yeah Jo yesterday at Bas Delight I made such a scene I didn't need to oh yeah I a lovely young girl served me y um I got um six sticky buns and is that funny which one a sticky bun it's like a hot cross bun but it doesn't have the cross on anymore oh you can get a fix of Hot Cross Buns all year round at V but like that just doesn't they remove the cross just a little loophole for religious reasons yeah yeah just hot buns they're called sticky buns yeah but they're not hot so they're the sticky buns they're wonderful but I I was having a nice conversation with the girl as she WRA the Buns up and she gave them to me and as she handed over she went perfect and I started to walk off and I went oh was she referencing our show I think she I think she I think she was trying I think she was trying to be funny and I think she was trying to say imperfect but she said perfect well she made a weird noise first she went perfect perfect M perfect she was like perfect yeah it was like that as I as I took the buns off she goes perfect and smiled a very warm smile so she works in Hospitality so it's normal for her to smile at the customer very true but it was almost annoying look so as I walked away I went what do I do here oh God do some photos to a photo session to sign some loaves of bread no so I I just thought she was probably saying perfect so it was a perfect interaction that we had yeah but if she was saying Imperfects and I just walked off she'll think he is so rude oh and I walked out the door mhm the door was closed behind me and she was serving someone else Y and I went I feel so bad so I then made a call when I was out of the shop to go back into the shop oh my God and say I'm on a and to say to verse to to your life to to to to live a day as you I would be so interested but I think you had done the same thing if you'd walked out and thought if she is a fan of the show and she was trying to make a nice little joke to just walk off very it would have seemed very rude and very cold true and I went I think I have to go back in but if you already you already had a very friendly interaction like you chatted for a little bit was perfect yeah it was probably enough but I went back in and I had to interrupt the person she's currently serving I thought if I thought I queue up this is going to sound this is like a bit too much yeah so I just popped around the side and went I'm sorry should i' interrupt did you just say perfect or imperfect I said did you say perfect or imperfect we're not supposed to be doing this stuff for like years when we're really desperate for attention no one's listening to the podcast anymore and we hear someone say perfect and we run back and say so were you referencing the podcast that I do you wer no that's cool I didn't think so well that's pretty much she said what' you say she said I beg your pardon I said I was just wondering when you handed over the Buns when we said by did you say perfect or imperfect now I reckon the lady who was getting served I think she knew the imperfect and she laughed very loud and the girl went I just said perfect and that's worse that the new customer knew the show I said I oh okay noce and then I had a new thing on my head was like okay do I explain why I've come back and done this unbelievable so I took two steps away it didn't make it to the door and I went no no she needs that is to I so I went back said sorry Dr again just the reason I said so I do a podcast go thep you you are like literally living a sitcom I said I'll do a podcast called the perfects and that's I thought maybe you're referencing that when you said when you didn't but I thought you head him perfect and she goes okay I've just got to serve this lady and what did the lady say she looked horrified what was going on she just looked so embarrassing she didn't back me up she didn't say anything I don't know how she'd backed me up I don't know why she' backed me up yeah and and then and then I looked at her went I'm so sorry and she goes are you good and I went yeah I'm definitely going to go and then and then Lady B like go okay proba be a good idea I went oh okay and I walked out never before have I had has my tail been further between my legs you know if we if we if someone if we replayed that story yeah we took out all the laughs and just had violin music underneath it it's the saddest story you've ever heard in fact I think we should do that piano or like sad music and no laughs and you just tell that story it's devastating and the end scene is me just driving home in my car just in silence it was one of the most awkward Encounters of my life it was awful anyway oh God so po uh poing ya is what a human being she is PO for those who don't know the few of you who don't know one of the current judges on Master Chef Channel 10 10 play any1 um just brilliant started as a contestant um and then worked way up the rank had her own TV shows wrote books um and is now yeah now a judge often I'll mention who's who I'm interviewing that way to friends and stuff and when I mention it with po everyone response is just I love po you should go into Baker's delight and see what they think should let them know there's a new episode coming out here uh yeah she's she's universally loved and the response from the resilience project team and she left like she had a a group selfie with everyone I was blown away by the when she talks about so she's had a couple of very big relationships in her life both and reasonably abruptly and the way that she dealt with the relationship breaking out but also the way she came to the conclusion that the relationship wasn't serving anymore and acted on it i' I've never really heard anything like it before and I just think so many people listening out there who find themselves in a relationship that they feel like is not serving them anymore I just think they'll find it incredibly helpful and relatable yeah it's just it's out of this world really the way that the way that that took takes place is just unbelievable yeah also her journey through um I guess feeling like an outsider living in Australia someone come from Malaysia but someone who kind of never really felt like she fitt in anywhere um her journey through becoming a Mormon and then deciding to leave the church um her relationships are now to where she finds herself now as as this incredible personality on our televisions she um she's just wonderful and what a great person as well and for those of you who knew to the show when we come back from the interview we just talk about some of the key takeaways that that we got from from the episode and I will also be bringing you um a term that I'd like to have reintroduced without question judgment yes looking that so here she is polling y uh I feel like in a way you're a little bit like Madonna like oh please is in is in the name I gotta I was trying to find the parallels yeah yeah no I people always say use that actually the Australian Madonna oh well no no no just the single name thing yeah yes yeah this is getting awkward so quickly no it's our fault it's completely our fault I think I jumped on the oh please like as if you were compare me to I might have instigated the orys not at all well po what a I mean it's so exciting to have some like someone of your stature in the Australian television landscape it's really cool to have there there's sort of sometimes when we have people on this show where we kind of I well I sort of feel like oh well we're now we're a legitimate player now yeah we've got like pose come on we're a legitimate player oh my God I reject all that I like feel so much I like I always still feel like I don't know how I got here oh yeah well that's probably a hey thing I always think I'm M my way here you what you m good yeah what do you mean M you know Mr M is just kind of like accidentally not falling off places oh yes meoo you way I like that yeah yeah yeah I feel like I'm still mooing is a good way to be it is so po look everyone knows everyone knows you po everyone knows but Hugh I wonder if it' be worth a quick just refresher you've been meing since 2009 that's when I mean you probably meing before that but like meing in front of all of us since 2009 that was when you had your first audition for Master Chef yes uh but before that you would I was trying to to describe you as a you are more you're an artist yes that's you're an artist probably I still describe myself as an artist first then a cook yeah really yeah I like that I think because the art thing I really built from scratch on my own and it's something that that I can thread back to Childhood whereas the cooking thing came a bit later it's always been present in my life because of my culture but in terms of professionally and the way happened on TV I'm always healthly suspicious of how it came to be and so I'm always like H I'll just always say cook second just to be I don't know for some reason I just feel more comfortable with that uh you've also published cookbooks including Po's kitchen and po bakes 100 greats uh you've appeared on uh a multitude of cooking shows including Po's kitchen PO on the road Po and Co and Adam and Po's Great Australian bites uh you've launched a gourmet food company jamface uh you've competed Ed on I'm a celebrity get me out of here as well as Lego Masters Australia and thank God you're here and you've been nominated for Loi as well so that's a lot of what is it meing no not me I just think it's not me anymore like you you've made it yeah it's it's it's legitimate oh yeah yeah I yeah I don't I never even I never actually remember much of it um I'm not very good at celebrating uh the winds winds yeah I'm always sort of very eager to keep moving forward does it feel like a really big wind being asked I think it's uh so you're returning to the 167 Master Chef this year as a permanent judge and host surely that feels like yeah that's a moment yeah that's definitely a moment and were you able to pause and just this is good yeah I had to um I I think uh it's still comes with that healthy bit of uh imposter yeah yeah definitely I think because as a contestant you go in and everyone is is like speculating whether you're you're worthy of going to the next stage and like you you're still kind of just you're kind of just doing your own thing like you know you don't really have to you're not saying you're anything it's up to the judges to decide whereas I think uh for me to even accept the position of judge there's like no backd door I'm really like declaring myself like an expert I guess and that makes me feel really uncomfortable to be honest even though you say you it's like a bit of imposter syndrome now or you can't believe you made it did you have a feeling from a young age that you were destined to do something did you feel like I've got something to offer the world you know weirdly I did and I was such a shy kid I think that was one of my probably one of my anxieties that I couldn't quite pinpoint cuz I wasn't mature enough to identify it but I had this little like ham in me that like I used to get on the little we had this like Egyptian poof that I'd stand up and sing when nobody was looking and like a little stage yeah and I would do all these little things like um and they were all kind of performance related and uh and then as I got older I just had such um I just had such chronic anxiety oh no sort of like self-esteem issues I was just such a shy kid um so what age are we talking here when when you found all the way through through to all the way through school like from primary to end of like high school but what was odd is I've always had this like slight extroverted streak and I would challenge myself to so I remember just being so painfully shy in Primary School like on one of the first days in Australia I was I like vomited onto my table cuz I was too scared to put my hand up to say that I need to go to the like leave the table like that's how like like nervous I was so new school new country is that what yeah yeah and um sense it's the first time I've ever told that story yeah what like a like projectile full projectile um and but then when I was in high school I remember just thinking I'm so tired of this so I enrolled myself in speech and drama classes which was like so hug yeah so sorry tired of being shy yeah and vomiting every I could feel like there was this sort of performative aspect to my personality that I wanted to come out but I didn't know how it could so I rolled in these classes and it was really funny because I had all these very confident beautiful girls in my class um and they were like all you know like State swimmers and you know like all that stuff confident kids yeah confident kids and I remember just feeling like really bodgy and unconfident and I was always terrible not great in class when we were doing all our rehearsals but then you do these like proper exams like you do with music you know when you do violin and all that you do like your proper Trinity School of London or whatever it's called and they have like an fancy adjudicator that comes from like England and stuff right and just to judge you guys yeah I did that did you do that college exams for music yeah I reckon I did were they like level one two like I I remember doing level five piano Trinity College and I reckon you I reckon I didn't got good enough to go Trinity College cuz you're far super from here level really dropped that in didn't you get this a long time got the level one well aware of what Jos how' you go Josh did you do Trinity level one yeah I got level five weird I guess that's four better anyway po no anyway so um yeah so I enrolled in these classes and I remember just battling through them because I just felt so inferior next to these girls and I remember um the tutor like she would never really give me much attention and after the exams it was just so weird because it's only the examiner and me came back and I aced it I got the highest marks out of everyone and that was such a big um it was a big notch in my imprinting to do something that feels horrible and try and push past the pain take a risk yeah and like you will be rewarded so it's just Little Steps like baby steps like that and then I did your 12 drama so I had to perform in that and I was amazed that I could snap out of that the person that I thought I was and become this other thing um and so they were kind of my first experiences yeah did the shyness and self-esteem was it just at school or was it everywhere so were you were like quiet at home andwhere uh at home yeah pretty yeah we were kind of I think it's because like my parents were very busy at work we weren't really encouraged to have a social life so I don't even really have a litmus to say whether I was outgoing or not cuz I had no friends to like kind of boun not that many friends to bounce off of and I did have like very close s of small circle of friends all through school or I had like one best friend y I was very much like a one person thing person did you feel a sense of turning up to a new country and did you have a feeling as a young kid that I look different or I feel different or I always took up a lot of my brain space actually and what's really kind of odd about it is I think when we came to Australia it was definitely physical but when I was sort of in my mid-30s I was writing like an artist statement and I was just sort of describing my art and I had this like full-on Epiphany about the fact that I've always actually felt a little bit beamed in from somewhere else cuz even when I was in Malaysia and never quite I always felt really on the outer as well cuz it was very academic in Malaysia and I was a total I was not an academic performer at all cuz I was like a Daydreamer you know creative type and so I really struggled through primary school and that was a massive source of anxiety school's very academically driven in Asian countries so not there's no sort of emphasis on Social Development or sport or anything like that then when we came to Australia I just completely flourish academically but then I was like so freaked out by how much sport we had to play here I was like I was always the last one picked and if I was ever Fielding I would like go to the most like nether region of the field cuz I knew the ball would never get to me um and I couldn't swim so I was always like the dud doing laps with a kickboard across the shallow end of the pool oh yeah yeah so all those things just like made me feel more and more like like you know self-conscious it's such a thing that we just you know growing up in Australia you just sort of take for granted that sport is such a huge massive part of it and if you're not into sport it it would be very strange and particularly if you've come from another country where it's not the focus like why am I playing rounders every day yeah what's this doing for me yeah and I think with sport always also comes this physicality and understanding of your body and like I was just so uncomfortable in my own skin skin like I hated everything about me myself like the way I looked and um i' become really obsessed with certain parts of my body and even like I was standing near the Tuck Shop um of my primary school and looking at this girl by a sunny boy and seeing the sun like hit the blonde hairs on her arm oh wow and she was just eating with such confidence and I remember um seeing her eat it and tear off onto the monkey bars and then just jump off this rope we had these ropes that you'd swing off with and I remember just thinking oh my God I will never be able to do that I never and I like to the point where I didn't even feel like I could buy a sunny boy because that was just so that was like completely compressed with jumping off the monkey bars they were like just these cool thing these two things that a cool person does w and that was not me I was the idiot that rocked up with fried rice in My Lunchbox and like felt like a goober cuz my legs looked like a weird shape to me yeah yeah just fixated on really weird things and my paintings are actually the girl is is actually developed from all my phenotypes that I hated about myself I was going to say those pictures they seem quite almost alien like an alien element to there is a little bit Yeah Yeah and were you so were you around at a young age were you also drawing a lot was there a lot of yeah yeah I started drawing to mimic my brother cuz I idolized him and he's a really talented artist it really started when I came to Australia and I found like it was just such a place of Solace for me like I identified it right away like when I do this thing it makes me feel like amazing yeah was there social capital in the drawing as well there was yeah so like I used to get attention for it at school it just gave me this real sense of confidence and I think a sense of purpose and belonging when you that image of the girl with the sunny boy is such a that is just like really beautifully said and just takes me to a place of like being a kid and not feeling like I belong M when you talked about being recognized as a good drawer was that the notch on the Belt sort of thing is that a notch of self-confidence that I can do something well or a notch of like I'm accepted by the others it wasn't accept it was more I'm capable okay yeah uh like I did this I searched this out like I felt not confident and I proved to myself that I can overcome that by being capable at things and things yeah yeah okay did you ever feel accepted or like you belong at school at all no no yeah I don't think I ever did even now I feel it in big space like spaces where there's lots of people like if I go to an awards night it's such a Gooby feeling for me like I find it really hard to manage I always gravitate straight to the comedians oh yeah because I just always feel more comfortable with the outliers you know so you mentioned your parents before um and they were working very hard I'm so interested if you're comfortable talking about your mom and dad and just the role they played in getting you through what sounded like a childhood that was challenging and that you just felt like you're on the outside all the time and that the sort of symptom of that was was shyness yeah interestingly I feel like my parents were um I'm not going to say neglectful but Mom and Dad were very much work focused and culturally I think that was just such a norm you know um they they were new to the country they'd done this Really Brave thing just uprooted the whole family and they they were working really hard to like fit into a new community was was there a reason they chose to move to austalia or leave Malaysia yeah because I was such a dunce at school I had no hope of getting a ter education yeah they were really worried about me I was struggling so badly being at Primary School level but also all of Mom's siblings lived here bar one who lives in Canada it was just like it made sense so um and they knew that it was going to give us a really lovely lifestyle so um did you know when did you did did you know that at the time or have you since found out that that was one of the key reasons I was told very soon wow but you know what's really strange when I got told that we were moving to Australia I think a lot of kids would have found it a bit of an anxious thing but like I had such I've got probably a handful of light bulb moments in my life where it's just such a moment of knowing I was just like clear as day in my head as an 8-year-old I was like oh life is going to make sense now oh it felt right yeah it just I knew it yeah I was like good thing's going to happen happen I it was like Anno I don't know how else to explain it except that and the moment we set foot in Australia I felt like everything was going to be okay cuz when I was in Malaysia every day I literally felt like I was from another planet like I felt so I was so anxious as a kid so how old were you when you moved sorry eight but I turned nine on the plane oh really yeah okay on the day that we migrated and in Malaysia because of the school yeah I didn't understand I had a learning difficulty clearly like now that I look back on it and because just the times and the culture just not not not picked up so I just got through a good part of primary school just not understanding anything uh so it was just this fog of confusion all the time I was just incredibly anxious and then it caused me to have separation anxiety from my auntie so going back back to your question mom and dad were really busy at work so the person that kind of Saved Me was my Auntie Kim so she's lived with my family since my brother was born who's 3 years older than me and she's kind of been our primary caregiver cuz i' so I've kind of grown up with two moms and I came home to school to her she's the one that got me ready for school like platted my hair made lunch for me so she was always there she was my constant so it's been a very interesting thing since mom's passed away because it's always been really difficult for me cuz I shared a room with Auntie till I was 19 wow yeah yeah Al so your Auntie Kim did come to Australia obiously and she's actually mom's Auntie oh right okay and Auntie got yeah so she came to live with us to help Nanny us when we were little and then she just stayed she never left and she never had kids of her own or anything so she's sacrificed a great deal to be with our family and has considered my brother and I her own kid in a way and so mom's always kind of been this like almost like an older sister um and still my mom obviously but they play quite different roles and I've always just had this like um push and pull with my affections for the both of them because I've always been it's still a thing to juggle like to m trcks in the home and so yeah when mom passed away that was one of the really strange uh positive byproducts is that I could give a lot of attention to my auntie without feeling self-conscious about it ah got you yeah that's a that's a very unique thing to navigate yeah yeah was there a sense of guilt in there that you weren't yeah yeah that you there was always had that mothering relationship with someone who wasn't your mom yeah and also just being self-conscious of them I don't know just sort of feeling like they that one might be feeling like I'm more loyal to the other one playing favor yeah and navigating the two moms kind of thing has always been really difficult for me did you ever speak to your mom about that not really and is your Auntie Kim still around yeah yeah she's still around yeah Auntie Kim's very generous she's a Buddha so she's always like it's always about everyone else first but that's always worried me because I don't want her going without her feeling our gratitude for what she's given my family um so that's been quite a complex part of the grief that I've had with mom um yeah it's is one of the Silver Linings if you could say um when did your mom pass away mom passed away two noers ago mhm so it's just been over a year wow yeah a bit about a year and a half yeah yeah yeah wow yeah do you feel like you're grieving at the moment do you feel like you I think I'll grieve forever I think you grieve forever for a mom but there's been some really profound lessons and I think it's definitely sort of pulling into what I'm feeling is like wisdom is starting to happen for me cuz um I turned 50 like last December and it's very interesting cuz I think there's nothing like proper grief that forces all these learnings that you've had all these mistakes and they kind of um transform into wisdom when you have the hindsight it's like all the bads all the bad decisions everything just suddenly goes oh my God I can't understand how that happened why that's happened how that's affected me and how I've learned from it and why um yeah I'm just feeling a lot of that at the moment yeah a lot of like I feel like I am really coming into my female power at the moment that doesn't sound too cheesy but yeah with Mom I was away when mom passed away I was overseas so that was probably the hardest that's the thing that I do keep returning to cuz I just keep wondering why I chose to roll the dice cuz I she was Ill at the time time um quite ill but I just had this sort of blind faith that she' be fine cuz she's such a trooper mhm and like a week into my trip she passed away and I was really far away I was in Europe and um a work trip or yeah it was a work trip as well and the only way that's gotten me through it is to own it cuz I was searching so hard I was like how am I going to get over this this is this was just the worst rolling of a diet ever like I rolled I rolled it wrong like big time you know I will never recover from this and I just had to keep like digging and how I've managed to get over it is how I get over everything and that's just to own my part in it and I was like you did make a wrong decision and uh you did know she was sick and you are a risk taker but how I kind of am okay with it is that I think if I had been with a decision 10 times over because of who I am I think I would have made the same decision I think that is that is there's the that's the wisdom like I feel like that's incredible because I there's so much pressure I feel like when a a close family member is is sick and you have this you off you know you're face with a decision where it's like well I'm supposed to be going away or I am away and you know maybe I should come home and you're having to make these decisions and there's a feels like there's a lot of pressure to make to make All the Right Moves because to not do so would be like disrespectful or something like that yeah but of course you of course you wouldn't if you had have known what was going to happen of course you'd make different but you didn't you didn't know and so but that I think that is to to accept that and to own it is like that is uh it's kind of like what a weight off yeah it did and as soon as I was like oh this is actually very simple I just have to that it was kind of a [ __ ] decision based on what I knew but I think based on like my character and who I am and how I know myself I am a risk taker except I just took a really bad risk that day and it was a wrong one and I'm just going to have to live with it and it did it did actually alleviate a lot of me just recycling the thought in my head yeah yeah do do you think that's the the gateway to accepting and forgiving yourself for all those other mistakes you're talking about yeah it is I think like uh taking ownership for your mistakes is the first time I ever did it it has set me on such a different mental trajectory for the rest of my life and it was when I was 32 when I decided to get a divorce and it was I was in such an unhappy place and I remember thinking I just don't recognize him anymore and I just resented Matt and I but I loved him at the same time cuz when You' had been together for a long time had you we've been together for 10 years I'm like I don't know how to get out of this we've been living together for 3 years almost like uh roommates we hadn't been intimate or anything for years and we just didn't know how to get out of this like um dysfunctional holding pattern but we were really good mates and like it was related to the pressures as well because both our families were Mormon and I think everyone thought we were going to pop out babies and we're like oh my God we're like going completely the other direction like we couldn't be more not about to do that and um and I was painting usually happens to me when I get these thoughts when I'm in Flow State cuz it's a form of meditation MH when you're doing something and your mind's kind of relaxed and it just was clear as day it was like oh you can leave this situation you are not a victim you never have been you just haven't been able to see this point of view and I was like the minute I realized I had absolute power to control how I felt I went and got the divorce papers served it to him and then I was like without talking to him about it no wow we already we had been so up and down it was like it was so broken how how how so you went from feeling of I guess being trapped or there's there's nothing I can do here I'm just in an unhappy relationship ship to oh no I'm not I can I can do something about this and then how long after that did you give him the divorce papers oh like days after and this is a strange strange question but did you have to Google what to do to get the papers like I feel like I don't even know what to do yeah yeah no I I can't remember how I knew but I just went to the birth death mares what a huge fork in the road but like you obviously had such Clarity in it yeah yeah and so like because of that moment it's a bit like the enrolling myself in drama classes uh because of the shyness it's one of my greatest talents I can spin any terrible situation into a good one that's a great skill really is um cuz even like when I I was just so amazed when I was going through like the grief for Mom like on the way home I think it is related to the artist mindset and being open to feeling because I think artists feel pretty hard yeah um and I remember traveling home and just feeling like I was going to die I just did not know how I was going to I just I couldn't believe that I just missed this uh such a defining moment did it feel a bit like a nightmare like it did yeah it absolutely felt like a nightmare um and I remember immediately being incredibly like acutely aware of the kindness of strangers oh it was like cuz I was in so much pain my senses were like really tuned into these things that I would usually probably never notice so like um I remember getting on the plane this air stward came up to me and did this like um she she rocked up and I turn around I didn't want to look up at her cuz I had cried so hard I was seeing double like I was so in Agony I was in absolute hell my face would have looked like a like it had been kicked by an elephant and there was tears rolling down my face she still went through with her entire dutyfree Spiel I was like what the [ __ ] I was like you are you AI like what's happening um and then get a beautiful slab of Kleenex tissues yeah and then um there was then another one walked by he didn't even look at me he just like went like this and threw me a bunch of tissues which was the cutest thing ever that's amaz and I was like oh my God I love you and then I just noticed all this stuff and then I landed in Dubai and I remember just feeling so disorientated and I needed to ask instructions for everything cuz I was just so scared that I was going to not be in the right place and and I just remember thinking oh my God she's so kind like I'm like the 10 millionth person that would have asked the directions for that that and she did it with such Grace and such like Joy it like I was just so aware of that and then I went to have a shower in in the in the lounge and I came out of the shower and there was this very beautiful large woman that took the entire only Al Cove space that had a mirror and a sink in it and I wanted to brush my teeth and I remember thinking oh howow you're really beautiful and um and I just I I don't know why I'm like I'm going to have a go at doing something nice even though I feel like [ __ ] right now and I'm like hey I was like you have got the most amazing booty and I was like I wish you could donate it to some of my pancake flat Asian ass and she turned around and she just burst out laughing she was African and she's like it just made her so happy and she goes oh man yeah we always laugh at your Asian asses it was just such a cool moment and after that I was just like yeah true never stopped that's all we do it is a known Asian phenotype um and and it was funny cuz then after that people were like are you okay I'm like yes still able to laugh and after that moment I was like I'm going to be okay cuz if I feel this crap and I still can have a joke with someone I think I'm going to be okay okay yeah so I just I don't know I just I can spin things in my head you you seem to be able to apply a level of well to put in context this is something I'm not very good at is if I make a mistake I really beat myself up about it um and sounds like you're not um a stranger to doing that for a little bit but you also seem to be able to access an incredible amount of compassion for yourself as well [Music] wrong okay it's only for the big things that I really can't control no Josh sorry po sometimes you get bad question she gets it wrong so weirdly it's for things that I big things I really can't control I'm good at spinning but if it's like a tiny thing I am so obsessive what would be an example of a tiny thing okay so last night right I was in a service department and I was quite cold and I wanted to use a spare blanket and when I got it out it smelt weird like they hadn't cleaned it I could smell like like a bit of beer and a bit of like cologne on it I just sat there freezing my ass off wondering if I should call someone about it and ask them for a new blanket or would I look like an [ __ ] and I just Froze all night instead and then I was really angry with myself and not saying anything and like does that and I just like that just rolled around in my head for like the whole night I couldn't sleep about cuz I was cold and I was like it's too late now no one's on but like weird things like that I can't get and if like I package a cake a little bit weirdly and I knew it was like maybe a bit unstable for my market store and I still Sant a cousin in a rush I'm like and just think about the whole day yeah so it's just like little things yeah interesting so how did you go I hope this is okay to talk about but after you did separate from your um partner then I don't know the timeline but soon after that I think um he was then um was with your best friend yeah that I mean did how did that go on the like you're able to for big things you're able to passion for yourself but what about that is out of your control there but how did you go moving on from reconciling that I was incredibly angry for about uh I I immediately years no no it was very strange I could feel my head split down the middle because I thought on one hand I would be choosing to react like this because I've already left the relationship essentially you know what I mean mhm um it was quite shortly after we'd split up but it still really hurt yeah and um I pretty much called her and spoke to her spoke my mind but it was so clear in my head what was going to happen and it pretty much what happened I said just leave me alone for like three three uh 3 weeks weeks yeah and then I'm pretty sure everything will be fine again after why 3 weeks I don't know seemed like the right amount cuz we all saw each other all the time so we were just this like we used to hang out together all the time and you got to remember Matt and I weren't hadn't been intimate for years so we were essentially already in a friendship kind of dynamic so I think in that regard it probably hurt less than you know if things were completely fine in that department so um yeah I just kind of knew that I would be going in reverse if I decided to make a big deal out of it yeah yeah okay yeah that's so wise yeah still very hard to that that's still it's like with the explanation it's still like God to actually do it in the Heat of the Moment yeah that's amazing it's incredible yeah maybe there's something wrong with me but you know I like I get over trauma quite well but I've also realized recently that I have a terrible memory and maybe that's what it is I do as well I feel like we're very similar in many ways really yeah I mean I haven't had like I haven't gone through things like that but jam and I my partner jam and I were we're talking the other day and she's like you don't really feel things like other I was like yeah I don't think I I think you're right I was like I don't think I'm a sociopath but ibe I'm on the way who knows but yeah I I I kind of relate to that not saying you are or at all but same person same sociopath wow um you were saying you were coming into your wisdom now but everything about that story before sounds incredibly wise like to be able to see kind of like I don't want to say it because I don't want want to judge anyone who wouldn't cuz I I think I would just be angry and I'd be holding on to the anger for a very long time but to be able to choose to not hold on to it and sort of see the kind of see the bigger picture in a way and and see it from a more logical point of view of what you would be holding on to if you're holding on to anger I think he's incredibly wise I think it's because I knew that I wasn't leaving the friendship I knew we were going to stay friends mhm and strangely he actually moved like literally across the road for me which was so weird as well everyone's like what the hell are you guys doing and my mate lived in the same block of flats as me almost so we lived in this little I'm trying not to say the shape because a lot of people want to say that it's a love triangle right but yeah and so um yeah it's like it's like a cut off Square we lived in a cut off Square kind of shape know and and um uh but what it was it's just because I had hit such a threshold of not recognizing myself and I was in so I was so angry I all the time that like I was just a ball of reaction like I I wasn't myself anymore and the minute I decided Ed I could feel myself drain back into me my old self so when I found out I was like oh should we just collect all that garbage and put it back into me again so I just knew very clear-cut I couldn't do that you know what I mean cuz I'd already recognized the difference in myself after having made that decision so I think because it had hit such a low Point um it just was very clear yeah like this could be a deeply relatable moment for anyone listening who who is feeling like they're in a relationship that they haven't really ever question they just know that they're not happy and they know and they don't recognize themselves and they have a they have a memory or vision of themselves for the relationship that they love but that's gone I feel like that this you've just given a deeply insightful moment to a lot of people yeah yeah I think you can choose and further like on from that do you feel like you were a different person like you do did you change after you left that relationship yeah I I yeah I did yeah I think I did the thing that's very unusual about that relationship also is that I still love Matt so deeply he's like still my ride or die so he's actually my agent he's my closest Confidant he we own Jam Face together oh wow and we are still knitted very um we have this creative symbiosis that I have like with no one else I feel like this is the most mature thing I've ever heard go like like because it's such a mature cuz you would think like my immediate thought goes to like well I can never trust you again but clearly you were able to get past that and clear have a business with someone have them be your agent it's like that's insane trust and I'm so in awe of that ability to be able to just go like oh well don't take it personally this is not about you know whatever whatever the thought process was and then to be able to be mature enough to be like no we've still we can still have a relationship it was so good because we could throw all the bad things into the garbage and then like keep all the good things and I think there's something so powerful to be said about history you know when you have history with someone and to be able to remember what made you love them in the first place I think that's a really beautiful thing to be able to hang on to however I always premise this with we didn't have kids I think that's a big factor cuz I think that absolutely complicates things when other partners come into play it gets really complicated and I completely understand and the other thing is both exes have to be willing yeah participants true so one's being a dick and the other one's wanting to resolve things it's not it doesn't work yeah so was there this is maybe strange considering the exact circumstances but was there an element of like Rel yeah when he was with someone even though it was with your friend but with someone else well I was actually relieved that it was with her in the end oh because I really love her unbelievable and like I just want to clap like who are you I know if if there's an awards ceremony you're going to feel comfortable at it's the mature Awards cuz you're going to clean sweep it I've never like I just think I don't want to be with him so why shouldn't he be happy and do you know it gives me so much joy CU one time I was over at their house um and I was actually working on on Matt's computer for some reason cuz my computer had broken down and they were just hanging out in the kitchen going through like a fashion catalog and just paying the crap out of all the fashion in it and they were laughing their asses off and it literally gave me warm fuzzies I was like I could never bring that out of him like we just were the wrong combination wow you know and but he brings out different things in me like he it's really interesting I feel like if I hadn't met Matt I wouldn't have accomplished half the things that I've done with my life because he pushed me to the brink always and that is the thing that has given me courage it's very interesting I think if someone hadn't taken me to that Brink I wouldn't be familiar with that feeling of staying on the precipice and doing something like signing up for Master Chef or or deciding I want to be a painter or um there's all these things that I've done where he's just always been such a great enabler and me leaving the church and I'm not I don't cast dispersions on anyone who's religious of course but for me it was never right and I just struggled with it so much and he was the one that said you know anything that you know you have deep conviction in and you've got like you know if and you want to break out of something it's always going to feel awful and you're going to upset people you're going to have to learn that life is that like you can't be a people pleaser and make yourself happy as well always and like good things come in difficult packages like get ready to be get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable if you want to achieve extraordinary things with your life you know and going against what my parents wanted which was like to stay in church get married all those kinds of things and be like you know a good church member like he's like CU when we got married we decided not to do it the church way and that's when we also decided to part with the church this is the church ofon church church Mormon well yeah yeah that's how we met and um I remember him just saying telling me this and it's just so imprinted in my brain he's like all those cultural conventions and stuff that that you feel loyal to he's like you you're going to have have to fight those like you're in Australia now if you want to do the things you want to do and be the person you want to be you're going to have to like push against them yeah it's yeah it's going to be hard I was going to ask but you've given a great example but the cuz the pushing to the brink I often think is a negative expression yeah I know this is the thing that I feel is very one of the wisdoms I see all these like patterns like I've been around long enough now that I see these patterns one of them is not to ever ify the natural order of things okay can you explain so that's one of my philosophies which is like you can't want to be famous that's like a byproduct you have to just want to be good at what you oh yeah something that you love to do and then like if you become known for it then great yeah but it's just so that's the natural order natural order everything has which is a rare I feel like unfortunately a lot of people got that the wrong way around yes they they think they can uh cheat and the natural order of things can you give another example of of the natural order of things I think I I think I get it but I'm not 100% so for me personally once I start to delegate uh things that I feel like my dirty work I feel like I get into trouble mentally so I like to do my own housew work I like to do my own gardening I like I feel like the world is in a bit of trouble because we delegate everything including our mental health there is absolutely a time to seek help for everything and be medicated if you need it and all that kind of stuff but I think there is a lot to be said about natural resilience and challenging it so like I think like if I start to when I start to like delegate too much in my life I lose touch with what's happening and I start to lose appreciation for things so like I want to have a nice Garden but if I like let someone look after it I don't really know what's fruiting and then I come out and like all the fruit's been eaten because I didn't like remember to net it you're not like connected to it not connected yeah I feel like there's this like deep connectivity that is in an old way of living that we're missing out on because it's it's just such so much convenience in our lives that makes us really discombobulated but we don't realize it and I feel it's that dissonance that causes a lot of like mental health issues so I think like even just hard yaker like working in the garden is so good for you cuz it's like oh my God some people do this for a living like they have to like when I go to the farmer's market I see these like fers that drive 3 hours from you know the Riverland to sell fruit for hardly anything and then fruit fly comes and they have to like get rid of all of it and I'm just like people work really hard some people have to work so hard for their money and even like even little things like going to the supermarket and how we just want to just buy one segment of an animal like if we were taught if we if we it was legislated that we could only buy whole chickens right I I only buy Hulk cows yeah I say I I go into the Butcher and I say wait I'll take the whole thing it's a nightmare in getting to the boot but seven chest freezes um yeah I think like there would be just way less wastage cuz you're not going to just cut the thighs off just Chuck the rest in the bin right I just think there's just like these holistic ways of thinking and doing things that we're we're kind of just deprived of now because of culture of convenience and I'm totally implicating myself as well I'm not I'm not saying that I'm outside of this but do you know what I'm saying I know mean so the natural order I I feel like yeah there's always some it never quite works out in the end and um it's almost like no like don't take the shortcut or something yeah yeah yeah I think there always has to be a feeling of sacrifice um and and to give that act meaning otherwise you'll come out the other end and something will not quite be right it's it's just happened time and time again in my life interesting yeah wow I think it's uh for me would say cooking for an example like there's there's the two aspects to it that Josh is very good by the way very good but I love I'm not very good but I love love doing it and I best cook in Australia um but the but I'm thinking about the chicken example yeah of like when I learned how to Joint a chicken properly suddenly every time I do it I get a sense of and that's like cutting it portioning it from a whole chicken into there's a sense of like mindfulness mindfulness and connection that I get and also the from what you were talking about earlier with the um the drama exam also a notch of like I can do this I can do a thing yeah yeah yeah and it's it it's becomes a really rewarding experience that when I then go buy a whole lot of chicken thighs I don't get that same amount of reward and connection to what I'm doing is something in the granularity of being specific with what I'm doing yeah yeah and it's interesting because I feel like you know when you give people lots of choice they don't actually end up being more grateful they end up being less grateful cuz it just becomes like this transaction rather than this like meaningful thing so when you see the whole bird you're like a little bit more like oh that's a whole animal that's died for me whereas when you just get like a leg it's less less sort of yeah connected to absolutely yeah yeah so I guess yeah I just really went off course there but that was part of the yeah I get it I know what you mean natural order of things and I feel like it connects you to everything it's like capill aric it just you know once you start thinking like that it just goes everywhere does it say that word again capill aric like capillaries like capillaries it just it just keeps spreading like tiny and Tiny watch I I'll use that in the interview some it's good I might have made it up I don't even know if it's a word it's a great visual it works it does so what was the timeline like then you mentioned that you met Matt at the church and then you were together for um 10 years years yeah what what was the timeline like was in joining the church and leaving the church so I joined the church when I was uh I think 16 and then got married at 24 and that's when we left the church together what what did you see in the church when you were 16 that that that Drew you towards it I think I was just such a shy kid I liked the I because I was at that age where I sort of was interested in boys and like the prospect of going into like the normal World seemed really scary to me and in the church there's all these like really strict rules about like no sex before marriage and blah blah blah I just felt like very safe a safe way to interact with wise yeah s like with the morality of the church I just felt like it was just this sort of um yeah really safe environment for me to do that in and that really appealed to me and also it was just such a wholesome environment that I had never really I guess I'd always yearned to be part of a community you know feeling that like I told you I just always felt a little bit like you know on the outside and it was just such a welcoming um have you seen the South Park episode the moment of when Kyle gets fellowshipped it is so that like you just you just feel so like oh my God what's going on this is amazing everyone's so beautiful like you really feel that yeah yeah and it's just so um yes it's just so wholesome you know so that really appealed to me yeah of course that sounds great yeah and I think because we didn't have that kind of family which was like everyone's very cuddly and it's just like this it was just sort of a very sitcom version of families in my head that I saw around me and so then conversely obviously you met Matt and then you both left is it is it because you're like okay well I met someone I don't know the dating service anyway no no it's because I went to before I met him I went traveling I actually went to Utah to essentially look for a husband when I was 19 when Utah is like a a lot of Mormons living in yeah it's like the Mormon capital of Lord ended up going to Canada and then it was like I landed my first best friend was trans it was like my world just got turned on its head like within a second and suddenly my everything was seen through a different lens and I was already a bit that way inclined cuz I have a um I love people and I love stories and I just love like mixing with people from all different walks of life so can was just like this you know like a candy shop for me it was just it's so Multicultural you know what I mean like the where I worked there was like I had Chinese friends from Pakistan who had like full Indian accents and like Jamaican friends that had like Chinese backgrounds like it was just such a mixed bag yeah so that just completely flipped my world on its head and because um Anie was like so kind to me she protected me she just yeah took me under her wing and I was like how can I reject this this is ridiculous I'm not rejecting it so when I came back I was just in such a and um to reject it would be more in line with the church is that what you're saying yeah and um and then I came home and I met Matt and we had all these similar grievances about the church like the doctrine and how stiff it was and how and we were both in the Arts so it was like our brains were just getting more and more opened you know and we just couldn't accept it anymore so we decided to leave the church together yeah wow do you mind me asking you and you don't we don't have to go here if you don't want to but um you'd mentioned that not having kids is is kids something that you had thought about like if is this a conscious decision you've decided or like something you've worked on okay yeah ish so Matt and I always thought no kids cuz we could sense that the volatility was unstable and then um Jon I really wanted kids so so Jon is your second husband yes second husband yeah and I wasn't sure at the time because I was sort of starting to creep into early 40s I starting to get a little bit worried because it was my first like my first go at it yeah and um the the sort of risk climb if it's your first child and older like if it's your second child and older yeah the for something for some reason the cogs are already a little bit oiled and your body is more receptive yeah so um and I did accidentally get pregnant but then I lost the baby exactly on the 12 week Mark oh gosh yeah um so sorry and oh thank you um I yeah I was I was actually I was you know I just did my thing just did my I like just processed it head on and um and never got pregnant again but I do feel like I felt I feel really thankful that I went through that even though it was harrowing at the time um like I have so much gratitude that I still got to feel what it was like to have a baby in me and to cuz I had to actually go through a full labor when I lost it um 12 weeks yeah yeah it was pretty full on and yeah I'm really grateful that I still went through that process cuz I know what that feels like and for a while I was really obsessed with getting pregnant again but then it just never really happened yeah and then we started to feel a bit of like I'm like the relationship was a bit not yeah wasn't working okay well we we didn't really cuz it wasn't sort of a volatile one like Matt well Matt's John and I had like sort of a gentle relationship it's just more um we realized that we were fundamentally really different people yeah yeah okay and um and it was one of those situations of I don't know if any of you have watched the movie closer but there was this really profound phrase in it and one of a character in it says sometimes love just isn't enough and it was like we loved each other so much but it was just all these differences and we' just let them Fester to a point of no return but I've never really I've just always thought I feel like there's sort of other Joys to be had as well yeah of course that I think um I think for some women it's this calling is very very very strong like it's like their end State you know um but it changed for me over time I did think it early on in life but then as I got older it's like the reality of it started to kick in and also I think when you have art or the ability to create that kind of becomes a companion in itself so I think there's a lot of stuff there that I can displace like having a child into cuz it's like creating but it's just into a different sort of vessel in a way but I also have lots of um kids that are in my life that are like in their 20s that I mentor and adore yeah and that I kind of get to have that maternal kind of like venting onim aunti Kim yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's amazing what like the body does and can do like it it is like whenever someone gets pregnant and then whether they have the baby or or they don't or it's I always think like this is like the most natur this happens all the time but it is miraculous unbelievable yeah what are you talking about yeah it is so wild it is absolutely wild so having gone through even though I I know obviously there a harrowing ending and like that such a traumatic experience I'm sure how did it affect the way that you you I don't know felt about your own body and what it's capable of or what I don't know like I feel like that would be especially when you talked about body image issues earlier as yeah it's so weird cuz when I look back to when it was probably the worse I was like a little stick I was like so skinny and um but yeah I don't actually know if it affected my body what's affected my body image is unless the pregnancy I was amazed at you know what it did but also I but I think what's affected it the most is just age just coming of age and it takes so long for girls it's a real it's so it just and make that makes me really sad how long it takes girls to accept their bodies and it's taken me like till now it's only been in the last like maybe 3 years where I'm like nah I'm good yeah like I like myself yeah yeah yeah I think I think I'm good like I I like my body you know but it's Tak it's so sad that you've lived so much of your life not like that yeah half a century and it's like only when it's starting to fall apart you're like oh I'm good it's so stupid yeah yeah yeah only then you recognize it when it was like amazing God how great to get to that place it's so ironic yeah I always have the feeling when I look back at when I have photos have been taken of me throughout my life of of going like I did not want to look at that photo cuz I hate the way my body is then I look at it and it was fine what was I stressed about but I can never I can only ever have that compassion retrospectively like I still wouldn't want to look at a photo of myself taken today yeah but 6 months ago a year ago yeah I'll be like I was actually okay I didn't need to worry so I feel I don't know there's some I don't know what's going on there but there's it spoke your thing about only being able to appreciate when it starts to fall apart totally makes sense to me yeah it's so silly but I have to say I've Loved all the stuff that you guys have covered on um like men going through that cuz I think we girls always think it's just like a female Scourge but guys just don't talk about it yeah yeah and there's not I mean there's not as much pressure on yeah you just suck it up and just like pretend it's all cool but you're not oh oh definitely it's like it's it's such a strange you of feel like you're not really meant to worry about it or care about it but um yeah like I like like for me like I don't I've never had like really serious body image issues where it like plagues me too much but having said that I still do have like if I'm looking good for what I consider to be good um I definitely have more confidence than if I'm like if I'm in a place where I'm like oh I don't I don't like my body body at the moment um it definitely affects my confidence we uh we've talked a lot in the podcast about seasons and chapters in people's lives and I feel like you've got such clear Seasons that you've sort of almost stepped through in your life or it may not feel like that to you but just as we listen to your story there's you know with being a Mormon all your different relationships or different career I it feels like to me with you're about to take on the the judge um role in Master Chef it's like a new season potentially is about to start yeah literally yeah yes well I think when this is we'll current we'll be in the season okay no we're in it now in it so so my question before I I get to that is just this all started you when I'm trying to the m my head you would have been 34 when Master shf 35 35 when when you first appeared as a auditioning for master shf yeah so much has happened in your life since then I know I'm I'm just wondering if you if there anything that sounds a little bit like a um clich question I guess it is but what would you say to that 35y old version of yourself looking back do you know what this question is asked of me quite a bit like even like your younger self you know um whether you're a teenager I would say nothing cuz I feel like what I really appreciate about my life is I've really listened to my gut and it's gotten me everywhere I've wanted to go and I love all the mistakes I I've made I honestly do because I just feel you learn so much more from your mistakes than your successes honestly the successes are like they evaporate so quickly that feeling that top of the mountain feeling don't you think absolutely it's such a it's such a um it's not anything to really value it is absolutely about the climb and I think when you become dead inside it is when you don't have that feeling of wanting to climb yeah I'm I'm so about the climb so so my my final question to you is what is your gut telling you about your life at the moment I don't know I never have any idea where it's going I've never had it I told you I'm Aon my way here is in the first sentence yeah I kind of just feel like I'm very open I think that's why um I've had an interesting life I've just been open to experiences that's what I'm greedy for is more life experiences and anything else B thank you so much this has been just so much fun and just so much wisdom C conversation so thank you for joining us today oh goodness guys it's been such a pleasure thank you so much for having me thanks thank [Music] you that is what's cooking yeah that's that's what's cooking you know what I mean I do yeah cooked yeah it she was was cooking that you know there's like a saying in basketball now like someone's playing well they're cooking she was cooking that whole episode not literally but basketball wasse she's brilliant what a I've never I think I've May met her very briefly but I've never actually sat down with her particularly not recorded she's such a lovely lovely person yeah and wise so wise you thought yeah she is yeah and um I just seeing the way she interacted with everyone that was do this project afterwards because everyone wanted to meet her afterwards she had so much time for them she was so much fun and yeah she's great yeah can I very quickly before we go to our learning can I tell you the phrase I'd like to bring back without judgment I'm so glad we're not waiting till the end of the episode no I mean this is unprofessional to not tease till the end of the episode but yeah go on so I it's more a practical thing it's not a crazy saying I would just like in my life there's quite often I don't know if we're going to go for a high five or a fist pump with someone like of course espe after running when you run a group of people there's often they want to do a high five but it ites someone's got to lead it and go very confidently with it yeah um it could be I do a bit of work with football as I often want to do that kind of stuff but I don't know when I would like just be able to say to people you know you guys as well who do good episode just I'd like to be to say stick it to me and when I say stick it to me I was not expecting it to do that stick it to me so if I stick it to me that means we're going to do we're going to dab each other up or we're going to like I'd be careful where you say that yeah okay oh has like sexual undertone Dron well stick it oh yeah okay yeah I see that but it could be it could also be stick stick it to me as in so stick it to me you're like you're asking them to lead the handshake let's we can do it together like hey Stick it to me but does that still but is that even know what it means but it's still confusing like are we high-fiving or F pumping yeah doesn't it not alleviate Theus think it's more just like how he heads up we're about to do something I think I think I think what it is is you're saying ironically it's a consent thing but in a very in a very sexual way you're saying to people like you're going up to like 4ot play something and you go Stick it to me yeah and then they decide whether it's a high5 or a fist bump yeah Stick it to me it's also it's a bit of a status bit of status move as well it's like I'm not doing [ __ ] you stick it to me oh I don't want to come across like that maybe I need a more gentle more polite way of saying it what would that be would you please give me would you please give me some s would you please give me some stick would you please give me some stick it's definitely be careful where you say that one there are certain bars that if you went there on a Saturday night and said can you please give me some stick uh yes Mr van carberg please come this way why you look in the door okay yep Stick it to me okay so po there was so many things I I thought we could maybe talk about one of the things that I loved so very much was her ownership of decisions that like making the wrong decision or making and just she really owned those yep love that and I feel like a lot of the time we don't do that we find it hard to own our bad decisions we all make bad decisions that's part like we all make mistakes but the way that she owned it I found very very powerful and I think that's why it adds to her the wisdom that she has because she she's happy to confront headon areas in her life where she's had a couple decisions and she's taken look back and realiz it was the wrong path for the wrong decision she took and I started reading a lot about that there's a lot online about how it's okay to make mistakes it's okay to fail but I I'm really interested in like when the mistake is a decision and you had to for in the road and you look back at it and realize you and it can set you back a long way it could be a decision that you might look back and go well that was 10 years of my life or was 5 years of my life where I was heading in the wrong direction and there were a few things that I wanted to steal from the reading that I did which I found really fascinating so there were three things really stood out to me if you are thinking I think I need to better own a poor decision I made in my past the first thing that I read about was how we need to fully accept responsibility and when you look back on a bad decision that you've made if everyone's thinking about a bad decision they made you often imply a lot of other people in that decision when at the time to make yourself feel less ordinary about your decision you you'll sort of blame other people you go well that person said this would happen and that person said this and also and we kind of in a way we're kind of making excuses for our poor decision but bet one of the things is we need to just fully accept responsibility and say well in the end the decision was on me no one there's no gun to my head like for I I made this decision myself and a scary thing to do yeah it is but but to to to fully accept responsibility and to remove like have a look at go back and look at all the excuses you made at the time all the excuses are still lingering in that and just go well cut them away because by doing that I'm not I'm not really fully accepting if I'm saying well that's that person's fault that person may me say that that person may me think is we make choices and they was so strong in this episode with POS like decision making she makes Strong Quick decisions and she sticks by them yeah but by in implying other people and it we kind of D that a little bit so I'm I'm I feel like I do this all the not all the time but I feel like a lot particularly when it comes to creative decisions or any any decisions that I've made or ideas that I've had that involve like a creative pursuit of some sort if it then turns out to have not worked or it was the wrong idea and it was clearly my idea I really struggle to admit that I I made the wrong decision cuz I it's like an E I don't know if it's like an ego thing or an identity thing or but it's like is that that is that's like how I Define myself to be like one of my strengths I guess is like oh no but I'm I'm good at that to so to it well you know I I like to think I'm good at that so to to then make a mistake or do something wrong is like oh no maybe all the other ones were bad oh I just don't want anyone to think that I'm bad at it or think that I'm I'm you know so I struggle yeah a lot makes me think you know who's really good at it and this is very specific to anyone who watches the NBA um Luca don don doni he whenever whenever they I mean they're just playing when we're recording this they're about to play the finals Dallas Mavericks and whenever they've lost and if he hasn't played well in like the press conference he's always really he comes out and says like I didn't do I didn't do good enough yeah like I no excuses no excuses just I didn't play well enough yeah and not like oh we could do better as a team it was it's all about him and the mistakes that he made yeah um the second one is to and I I actually have done this before um with the decision that I made as a 19 20y old um that I had a lot of troubles reconciling myself which just when I think I've spoken about this before I definitely hav this podcast but when Georgia was really sick I made the decision to spend a lot of time at my then girlfriend's house I was there all the time um because it was really tough really tough at home and it was kind of like just such a happy place at my girlfriend's house so I spent a lot of time there and for a long time I felt so much Shame about that I was like I'm such a bad person when my sister needed me I just took off and so for a long time I felt really bad about that but this next thing that I read about kind of like the second step I guess is like having empathy for that version of yourself so going back and looking at the decision you made having a bit of empathy just to go well in that decision for me it was really really dark at home at points and I had a girlfriend for the first time in my life and I had a car and it was so much fun there and was it was hard at home and so for a 19y old or 18y old I think going back in time I'd probably do the same thing again like I just I it made sense at the time like it was just it's yeah isn't it that thing of like we I forget where I've heard this but we like sometimes apply what we know now to the version of ourselves when we're younger like fairly yeah totally um and I think understanding that you did the best you could at the time with information that you had is a is a really thing a helpful thing to think to help you emphasize with the version of yourself that made that cuz we can kind of we can speak to ourselves in a really un way we can kind of be like you're an idiot like what you done but that's not an overly kind you know we need to be empathe ourselves and go well if you actually think about everything was going in your life at that point I I can I can empathize with why you made that decision I understand um and the third one is making sure that you use whatever the experience is like you commit it to using it as a learning curve like whatever happened there whatever the error was whatever the decision was don't let it be for no reason like that happened and that happening is going to make sure in the future I don't make a similar mistake or I don't go down the same path or I or I or I spend more time whatever it is like if you rush the decision and you made the wrong decision well next time I get a big decision I will take my time with this just making sure that it informs you and helps you to become a better person in the future with the situation with Georgia um I have very strongly front of mind if I'm not sure about something it could be something as small as like am I going to spend time with the kids this morning I'm I going to train or whatever it is it's like if you're unsure put the time into family and it's and it always pops up for me God it's the I've been thinking about this a lot recently which is that you have the when you have the realization of like you made the mistake and you're like okay this you can kind of be self-analytical and reflective on like the thing that you did wrong or the the bad decision you make and I feel like I'm getting really good maybe because of this podcast I'm getting really good at acknowledging the things that I've done wrong what I struggle with is to then not do it again yeah yeah like like I I'm I'm very good at um like being able to go like oh this is the this is the you know according to this book or this expert that we spoke to this is the thing I did wrong or this is the issue I have but to put it into practice to like walk the walk that's that's what I with a few things in my life that's what I find really really tough and that but that's where it gets that's when I do start feeling kind of shameful about it because it's I'm no longer the person who doesn't know better CU I do know better now you still doing the same but I'm still doing the still making the same mistakes that's tough yeah really hard I um I think I I'm an incredibly indecisive person and it's like one of the things I don't uh one of the qualities about myself I don't like very much uh and I think it it is paral paralysis by the thought of making the wrong decision on a lot of things for a lot of my life and I'm trying to get better at a accepting that I'm going to make lots of bad decisions and that's okay uh or bad choices um and that's okay and that it doesn't mean I'm a bad person if I do that or an idiot or trying to sort of distance myself from the decision um but also I think there's something to be done in the off the utilizing those three things that you said I think I also need to get better at reframing the feeling that I incurred if I've made a bad decision that sort of feeling of being an idiot or whatever it is not necessarily seeing that is purely a negative in in the framework of um I guess it doesn't really spe what you said just then Ryan but how do I change to move towards the person I want to be more and if I have if I didn't make this bad decision that I wouldn't be confronted with the fact that I'm I've done something that I'm not happy with or that doesn't align with the person I want to be or something like that so here's an opportunity for me to sit in that feeling acknowledge it um and use that emotion not not like a beating myself up so do it with empathy uh and a sense of compassion but it's a it's a piece of data that I need to um take on board and and think on and move towards being the person I want to be yeah totally yeah rather than proof that I'm as bad a person as I yeah suspect might yeah so I guess in summary it's um it's 100% owning the decision that you made that you made the decision and the second step is realizing that it was your decision however you did the best you could with information you had at the time and having an empathetic lens on it and then making sure that whatever happened you're going to use that to help you to be a better person in future or or to make better decisions in future perfect well she was just absolute delight and we took so much from that so thank you PO for joining us and thanks you can see her on Master shief as the one of the main judges if you would like more po okay see you later bye bye [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Imperfects

Views: 2,168

Keywords: the imperfects, podcast, hugh van cuylenburg, ryan shelton, josh van cuylenburg, vulnerability, mental health, comedy, growth, self help, the resilience project, interview, psychology, health, anxiety, depression, funny, Poh Ling Yeow, Imperfects Podcast, self-esteem, resilience, MasterChef Australia, migration, art, cooking, decision-making, imposter syndrome, relationships, pregnancy loss, personal growth, gardening, self-acceptance, cultural identity, wisdom, the imeprfects, food

Id: 8ETDCC1aZU4

Length: 86min 51sec (5211 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 07 2024