Inward Journey

Self Care - Episode 32

• Kevin Bergin • Season 1 • Episode 32

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Speaker:

Hello and welcome to Inward Journey podcast, my name is Kevin and I'm here with

Speaker 2:

Janine. We're recording our podcast today on Wanjeri land. And it's the land of

Speaker:

the, Kulin Nation. It's the land of the, my goodness.

Speaker 2:

How many times have we practiced this and I still get it wrong?

Speaker:

Shall I stop or shall we keep going?

Speaker 2:

Let's just keep going.

Speaker:

Okay, so.

Speaker 2:

I think that our Indigenous people won't mind if I mark that up.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Because I'm sure that they will understand sometimes education is tricky for some of us.

Speaker:

Aha, yeah, okay. I'm sure you're right. And today we decided after much Deliberation to talk about self care, what the hell is that?

Speaker 2:

I don't know, we're going to explore it and we're going to talk about it today. So welcome people, and we'll be back to talk with you about self care.

Speaker:

Okay, I think I'm going to go and have some pie. Pie now. See you next time. Apple,

Speaker 2:

meat pie, apricot, what kind of pie? Mince? Cherry. Cherry pie.

Speaker:

Cherry pie.

Speaker 2:

Rhubarb pie, Kevin.

Speaker:

Yuck. Disgusting.

Speaker 2:

I shouldn't have said that.

Speaker:

Rhubarb and custard. You

Speaker 2:

obviously haven't had the rhubarb I have.

Speaker:

Obviously not. Or maybe I just was overdosed on rhubarb as a child.

Speaker 3:

Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb,

Speaker:

rhubarb Isn't that Monty

Speaker 3:

Python thing?

Speaker:

Oh, that's a whole lot of things. Oh, okay. Okay, so here we are talking about self care.

Speaker 2:

What on earth is self care?

Speaker:

you would think I'd know a bit about it, given that, um, that's what I've been doing. Trying to do for the last 19 plus years.

Speaker 2:

I Think we didn't know a lot about it I think we do that Kevin but it what I'm gonna tell you what it is not people it is not going for a massage Or it's not necessarily doing, getting therapies or whatever all

Speaker 3:

the

Speaker 2:

time. Well, I don't know. Just the first time I think about when people say self care, I think they go off in like they've gotta do more stuff. They've gotta book in appointments for physio or those sorts of things.

Speaker:

Yeah, it's more about paying attention to what's going on with me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that listening thing that's really important. Yeah, so what's going

Speaker:

on between my ears? You know, and am I, am I connected to the whole of myself?

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Sometimes I'm not. I'm just a brain walking around. I have no idea what the rest of my body is doing. It could be having a good time down the road. I don't know.

Speaker 2:

I think connecting to your brain is really important because I think sometimes if you're not doing that, then you. Might not realize some of the self talk that's going on. That's a bit

Speaker:

nasty. It's true. But it could also be like, It could be a disconnected thing. So being disconnected from the rest of my body is not a good thing.

Speaker 2:

Mm

Speaker:

hmm. So

Speaker 2:

what is this self care thing? We're talking about what it's not. What is it? When I think about it, for me, it's about listening to myself. So self care might be the stopping thing and going to sleep. Do I really need to do this list of things that I've got in my head or I've got down here in the paper? Do I really need to just have a drink of water? Go have a shower? Do I need to eat something? Do I need to spend some time with a friend going slow, having a chat, having a coffee, that sort of thing?

Speaker:

So do you get like a voice in your head which tells you all sorts of awful things?

Speaker 2:

Sometimes I can miss that in terms of it can be happening. And when I stop, then I realize it's going, you got to do this, you should do that. Why aren't you doing this, Janine? And it's that bully that repeatedly

Speaker:

pushes me around. That's the one, the bully. Yeah. So it could be, quite extreme for me,

Speaker 3:

Not so much anymore, but it used to be. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker:

Sorry about that, I got cramp in my leg. And I thought it was going to be like, sometimes when I get cramp in my leg, either of my legs, it's really incredibly painful, but it was just a little cramp anyway. So, this early into it, I'm already, in fact very early into it, I'm suddenly realising that those voices in our heads are quite different.

Speaker 2:

And you said that we think about self care quite differently. What do you mean?

Speaker:

I think messages, no, I didn't mean that. I meant that, the don't care messages that we're getting, or the way that you put it, with bullying, is somewhat different from the messages that I've been getting for so long. So I don't know, is that the difference between, My addiction. And you you being a normal person, but you're

Speaker 2:

not a normal person. So what is normal?

Speaker:

I stopped that immediately. You

Speaker 2:

know

Speaker:

what I mean. Yeah. I'm an addict in recovery. So, you know, when my, my head still tells me some awful things about myself and about other people.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. And

Speaker:

about places. That is nowhere near as much as it used to be. But I'm just, I'm listening to you and thinking. Wow. Wouldn't it be nice to have that instead?

Speaker 2:

I'm not sure what you heard, but I certainly have had a very critical inner voice or Destructive? Self talk. Destructive. Self talk. All right. So, it is similar. Very, very cruel in the past. Yeah. I don't have that anymore. Yeah. And the privilege that I have as a counsellor is, because I'm talking about this stuff often, so I'm often really challenged. For myself around what is my self talk, so I've become really conscious of my self talk, which is really important and then I've been able to change it.

Speaker:

Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 2:

That said, I imagine that your inner voice is a lot crueler, harsher. What I find is men can be more vicious and That's it, I'm going to be

Speaker:

a woman then.

Speaker 2:

Uh, no, we can be quite manipulative to ourselves as well. I'll be Some of them don't have great experiences. Some of them are very loved.

Speaker:

Okay, I got it. I'll be God.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker:

We're not talking about self care. We're talking about self destruct.

Speaker 2:

Oh, you

Speaker:

are? I am, yeah. But that's how I, like the reason I still go, I shouldn't, yeah, one of the reasons I still go to Narcotics Anonymous is because To learn more and more about that inner voice, or those, there's a friend of mine that says what do you mean that inner voice, those inner voices, and how to be with them, like instead of telling them to fuck off and shut up years and years ago, I'm able to, they're nowhere near as loud or as nasty anymore, but I'm able to actually start integrating them into me, the rest of me, and still aware of them, I don't know. And the other reason I still go to Narcotics Anonymous is because it gave me a life.

Speaker 2:

So I'd like to

Speaker:

give others that opportunity, like, by being there, by helping them when I can.

Speaker 2:

So, isn't that self care? It

Speaker:

is self care. Yeah. So, that's one element.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So. I guess there's lots of elements to self care and I think a massage, getting a massage is one of them

Speaker:

sometimes I'd wake up in the morning and it was like, there was a voice that's inside my head that bullying voice be sitting on the end of the bed going, I've been waiting for you to wake up. You're just a useless piece of. Crap. Why don't you get up and why haven't you done this or what? It's just relentless when it used to be just relentless, but it was like that., I had to learn to acknowledge it and, soothe myself.

Speaker 2:

So the soothing feels like it's part of the self care, what do you reckon?

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I also think that it can be that thing that's overrated that people always go to, Oh, I've got to do this or this is what I should be doing. When I think often, it's not about that. I often think about it's prioritizing yourself if that's what you haven't done. For example, often people will prioritize their children or prioritize their friends or their partners and They will do things for them. They will sacrifice They might even do it for their business. It's irrelevant What the thing is or the person is but it's more about putting everyone else in front of or before them. And when they do that, what they ain't going to end up doing is end up being resentful, end up being exhausted, end up not in a good place. Their mental health suffers in terms of they get anxious, angry, all of those things that we can do to ourselves.

Speaker:

Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 2:

And the only thing is, if you're not listening to that, You're going to set yourself up. So that's what I think about when I think about self care.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I guess I always think about as well, things like, are you eating well? Are you having enough, nourishment? Are you resting? Are you pushing yourself? Those sorts of things. I think they're good questions to ask.

Speaker:

So. when I came here today, and I was clearly not okay, really enthusiastic about something, but not, also not, not quite right. No,

Speaker 3:

you wet

Speaker:

yourself. Cranky. Cranky. And, when I'm like that, I'm not looking after myself and so and has a ripple effect like it affected you

Speaker 3:

and

Speaker:

that's my experience with my not looking after myself when I'm looking after myself everything's really comfortable.

Speaker 2:

So that was interesting because when you came in there was a risk that I would blame myself because something wasn't going right as we sat down to do this recording. There was something between you and I wasn't going right. It was your fault. And the risk is that I would blame me, which I did not. I was tempted people. I was tempted to go, Oh, I'm being demanding. I'm too much and going to that shameful position, which is not helpful. So I didn't. And I just went, Oh, let's keep talking about this. And there was some resistance. You didn't want to.

Speaker:

No, no, no, I didn't. I was resistant. That's correct. It's like, if I don't learn and keep learning about how to look after myself, then I can't possibly learn to look after anybody else. That's

Speaker 2:

right.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And I think about the importance of that being a parent, and I'm going to sneeze. I can feel it. Okay, sneeze coming up. I know we've been having this conversation quite a bit lately, but I think self care is also about believing in yourself.

Speaker:

Oh, here we go. What

Speaker 2:

do you mean here we go?

Speaker:

You would think, after 19 years of recovery of being 72 years old, I would believe in myself.

Speaker 2:

Well,

Speaker:

I've only just discovered that that is a wobbly thing for me.

Speaker 2:

Wobbly, but what I was actually going to say is, I've been having some problems with understanding what you're doing on the computer.. And particularly today, as we've been doing this a couple of times, you've said to me, it's all right, it's all right. And I've gone, but what are you, what are you, and have you done this? And have you done this? And you're going. But it's all right. And what I was actually going to say is you're believing in yourself and by you keep telling me and you're saying, I've got this. It's a way of your self care rather than getting wobbly when you don't need to be

Speaker:

anything to do with computers. And I'm 100 percent confident.

Speaker 2:

No, but Kevin, It's not that? You're missing the point. It might

Speaker:

well be.

Speaker 2:

It's about computers, but it's not. It's about your relationship with me whilst we're doing that.

Speaker:

So that was okay, what we did?

Speaker 2:

I think what I'm saying is it was great. Because he believed in you and you needed to calm me down around some of the things that weren't working on the computer. Yeah. You've missed, you

Speaker:

No, no, I'm just processing. Yeah, I get it now. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Does it make sense? Yeah,

Speaker:

that's a relationship.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Oh my God, we've got a relationship.

Speaker 2:

Did you not know that? Yeah, of course I knew that. Well, we've always had a relationship, but whether it's a good one or not, that depends on us, doesn't it?

Speaker:

Yeah. It sure does. Yeah. So Where are we going with that?

Speaker 2:

Well, I guess I was saying that part of self care is believing in yourself.

Speaker:

Oh, that's right. That's where you were going with it. Yeah. You've taken it to believing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

But I don't always believe in me.

Speaker 2:

I know, but in that moment. I did. In these moments today as we've been recording and then you've been believing in yourself and you are able to calm me. So, I guess. What I'm saying is there's a couple of things that's happening.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So, one of the things One of them is

Speaker:

your dog, Asha, Won't leave me alone, wagging tail, putting nose underneath my

Speaker 3:

Jumping up and telling me She's

Speaker:

just jumped on him. Okay, Asha, you have to take a back seat. There you go.

Speaker 2:

I think someone wants to go out.

Speaker:

Oh, could be. Do we need to stop again? Yeah, we

Speaker 2:

do.

Speaker:

Okay, we're back. I just stopped for a bit of self-care which was, which my idea of self-care was, uh, to go down into the garden. Down the stairs into the garden at Asher and run around like crazy with her and then come back up here. And your idea of self care was, took to Greg.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Yeah. So I guess,

Speaker 2:

I guess the important thing is stopping and having a break. So sometimes when. You're just feeling tired and you need to stop and re energize, take that moment and find what's the thing that you need to do. So it is around listening, are you a bit hungry? Do you want to connect with someone? Is something on your mind that you need to deal with? Rather than just avoid it, that avoiding thing can get problematic.

Speaker:

Yeah, and I've just remembered what we were talking about. So here's a question for you.

Speaker 2:

Go

Speaker 4:

for

Speaker:

it. You believe in you?

Speaker 2:

feel like that's a trick question.

Speaker:

No, it's not. I

Speaker 2:

know. I do. I do. Sometimes I get caught out. And then I find later I thought, why do I agree to that? Or what happened then that that person manipulated me into Doing or saying this thing and I don't agree with that or I don't like that. So I haven't backed myself. So that's.

Speaker:

So I would go. It's not set in cement. I can go

Speaker 4:

back.

Speaker:

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So I can believe in myself when everything is going well, then it gets more difficult when things aren't going so well. And that might not be an external thing, that quite often would be an internal thing. So it would be, um, my view of what's going on, which may or may not be entirely realistic. Like, um, particularly if I spend time on myself. Yesterday was just so good. I've spent the whole day in my apartment and, didn't realise until late afternoon and early evening. But I had been really content doing what I'm doing, which was a whole range of things and it went really well. And I hadn't stepped outside of my apartment all day long.

Speaker 2:

But you were feeling good.

Speaker:

Yeah. So, often, I didn't isolate, that's not isolating, that was really productive and I had a really good day. But when I isolate, or when something else goes wrong, then I started telling myself stories about, you know, that voice we talked about,

Speaker 3:

and,

Speaker:

oh yeah, things will never change, this is just the way it is. You just have to accept, you know, and it will get worse and worse and worse, until, but these days, I mean,

Speaker 3:

yeah,

Speaker:

I hear you.

Speaker 3:

When I do

Speaker:

something else, I do, I go out, or I talk to somebody, or, you know, a combination of things, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I ran a, Self care day for a group of people that related to a particular hospital. So it was the nurse unit managers as well as personal assistants of some of the people in charge and doctors and specialists, etc. And we were Contracted, there was a couple of us, but one of the things that I ran was one of the days on self care, and talking to the employees around, assertiveness and self belief and listening to themselves and all of those sorts of things and how to communicate well and all of that is self care. But part of it is, is wanting to learn about yourself and wanting to learn to do those things differently. It was fascinating asking these people what they actually thought. Because some of them would say, Oh, poor self esteem. And I'm thinking, that's not what you're thinking, that might be a result,

Speaker:

but

Speaker 2:

what are you actually thinking?

Speaker:

Yeah, you need to get into, into the nitty gritty.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And it gets so uncomfortable because people don't know, because they haven't listened.

Speaker:

If they don't know or they don't want to say.

Speaker 2:

I think they don't know. They haven't listened. The end result is, I don't speak up for myself, or it's gets really uncomfortable, or I'm stressed a buggery, but they actually don't listen to what they're actually thinking.

Speaker 3:

Oh, okay. So

Speaker 2:

the thinking goes, oh, oh my goodness, I need to do this. I should do this. You need to care for that person. I haven't done that thing that the manager told me to do. That person is wanting me. So they start thinking about all these things related to themselves, but they're not actually noticing what they're thinking. So not to notice their thinking might go something like, I can slow down here. Let me get a grip of what's really important. Let me see what's realistic for me to do. All of that is self care.

Speaker:

it's incredibly important for me to actually be able to verbalize what's going on in my head, in my body, and I have to be in a safe place to do that. So like you just said I wouldn't, in an Archetypes Anonymous meeting, not in all of them. In most of them, no, and I feel completely at home and safe

Speaker 2:

so I

Speaker:

can say whatever's going on or not if I choose not to.

Speaker 2:

It's fabulous.

Speaker:

Yeah, it is. And I've only just, the last year or two realised that it's, a really fortunate position to be in. Not many people have that. You just described, like, you know, how would you in that work setting stop and talk to somebody else? Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I think workplaces are starting to think about employee assistance programs where they send people out to counseling and they're starting to have options for supervision, which I understand is supervision to be in the way of thinking in terms of counseling and some other disciplines is, is a place to debrief, to skill up, to reflect on how you're going and all of those things. And for me, that's. Often, and is all about self care. Some of our industries don't have those things. So, I would hope that people have a place to go. Have people that they can go to to talk to. you're talking about Narcotics Anonymous. But I think then sometimes it might be a close friend. I was just going

Speaker:

to say that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Somebody you can go to, to unload, to let go, to be your real self and talk about how it's going. And. Be open where you can and be vulnerable if that's what's required. That's self care.

Speaker:

That is self care.

Speaker 2:

Mmm.

Speaker:

Mmm, okay. That's it then. We've done it. That's self care. We know about it. Look at that sunset. What's that? Is that a sunset? Yes.

Speaker 4:

It's

Speaker 2:

getting there. That was a little interlude there, Kevin. I

Speaker:

have a thing about sunrises and sunsets.

Speaker 2:

As a photographer.

Speaker:

A friend of mine who's a narcissist says, oh, don't keep taking pictures of the sunset and the sunrise. I just love it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. But

Speaker:

we've seen them all. Yeah. No, you haven't. You're not looking properly. Yeah. See that's self care.

Speaker 2:

It is.

Speaker:

That's looking after me.

Speaker 2:

And looking after your interests and regardless of the other person's opinion going, Yeah, this is for me. That's more than

Speaker:

self care. That's believing in me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

You know, standing up to her is quite difficult. She's an accomplished and recognized artist. And, really, Strong and confident. So when she turned out, she, she looks at some of my photographs and goes, it's great, great, great photograph, great subject. I think, oh God, here we go. And he says, but you know, the horizon's not straight And so I just tease her and say, yeah, well if I straightened it up, I'd lose the picture. No, you wouldn't.

Speaker 2:

Self care's got everything to do with relationships, hasn't it Kevin? It has. It's got your relationship with yourself.

Speaker:

Which is the most important one.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Yeah. And that does mean that, depending on who you are, that it might be you need time alone, you need time, downtime where you just have some space for yourself, or it might mean you might need to connect more with people, if that's where you have your wellness. Because it

Speaker:

can be either.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it can be

Speaker:

either. It can actually be both. Yeah. So I want to be alone. And yeah, that's enough of that. Now I don't.

Speaker 2:

I'm very much that person. I can be quite extroverted. When I'm running a group, I'm quite extroverted and expressive and quite comfortable now after years of learning that skill. But sometimes what I do find if there's a lot of people around, if we've got people who are visiting and staying in our home, then I really need some downtime. Yeah,

Speaker:

yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

And I think that's where I get my energy is that downtime.

Speaker:

My trouble is I need downtime from me.

Speaker 2:

And how do you do that? That's not

Speaker:

happening.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker:

That's not gonna happen.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes self care is really starting to think about Who are the people that you're spending the time with? Are they people who are, what I call, black holes? Yeah. Who you fall into. Yeah. And they don't give you energy. They suck your energy away. And it's not healthy for you to be. Or to spend a lot of time around them. Sometimes there are people that we're related to or that we feel like we're obligated to or owe. But even those things are worth thinking about whether they actually are real. Do we need to be connected with that person so much? Are we going to stay obligated for the rest of our lives? Those are good questions to ask. But what I would say. If a person that you're spending some time with, if you're coming away feeling depleted, if you're feeling deflated, any of that sort of stuff, then maybe it's time to think about, do I really need to spend as much time with that person? Can I limit the time? Can I stop spending time with that person? It might even be something else that you're doing that's causing you to be Deflated or causing you to feel down

Speaker:

like I've just described.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker:

Yeah, I get it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

And I'm great because I've been I'm looking around for inspiring people.

Speaker 2:

Sounds great.

Speaker:

People that inspire me. So if you want to inspire me, please get in touch. No? Fan mail, we've got fan mail. I've

Speaker 2:

no answer. Okay. I've got nothing.

Speaker:

But I've been listening to Richard Branson's story.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you did come in with some energy. I

Speaker:

did.

Speaker 2:

He's not everyone's cup of tea. No, that's a good way of

Speaker:

putting it. That's what I was looking for. He's not everyone's cup of tea, but you know, we come from the same country, which doesn't mean a lot, but there's also, there's quite a few things in common, not how it ended up. It's when we take all of the stuff off, and he does in his story, and you get down to the core, I sort of feel like what drives him is what drove me before I relapsed. Similar.

Speaker 2:

So the point is, start to think about your energy people. Start to think about what gives you energy, what gives you excitement, and what takes it away. Yeah.

Speaker:

What takes it away. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Keep listening to yourselves and hopefully keep listening to us.

Speaker:

Yeah, please.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes, patting Asha is my self care.

Speaker:

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. She knows all about self care. She knows exactly what she wants. All the time. Yeah. Even telling me when she wants to go out and play.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker:

That was so cute. So what would, one of your peers say about self-care? From a professional point, what do you think they would say?

Speaker 2:

I think all the things that we are talking about here, I think some of them would talk about counseling. Yeah. Or psychology, going to see somebody. They would talk about all the things that we're talking about here. I feel like that they'd say, take your time, go for a walk, write down something. Sometimes I just think sometimes it's so prescriptive that it doesn't allow people to individually think about themselves. Who are they as a person? What do they need?

Speaker:

You mean it detracts from what's going on? Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Okay. Yeah, I can see that. So the counselor or therapist job is more allowing whatever's there to come out or encouraging that. Yeah. Rather than Distracting.

Speaker 2:

I hope so.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's to help people to be more themselves and to be in touch with themselves. Yeah. To know their ways of processing and what's the best thing for them. We all don't have to do anything any particular way. In any particular one way. There's lots of ways of doing it.

Speaker:

So here we are, we're back again, cause, we were talking and I told Janine about it. Yeah. Something that I decided to do over the weekend. So I thought it was rather funny. It is rather funny, isn't it?, I can let myself get distracted with things that are really not good. So I decided, I just moved. I decided that I was going to complain about the movers for so many reasons. I was going to complain about the people who did the, uh, Cleaning the house. I was going to complain about the real estate agent because she's an arsehole and I was sitting there thinking about it and if I do all of that, it's just, I'm just doing it just, it's just taking me away from the things that I, that I do. Could be doing, probably want to do. And then I, and then my next thought was, Yeah, and I've got VCAT coming up, I'm going to take, Mmm, something car to VCAT and get the money back and I'll be stuffed up doing my transmission three times. And then I thought, Actually, how about I just don't complain to any of them. So I decided not to. And then after we finished this podcast today, I was telling Janine about it, I was telling you about it, and I said, I was going to bring the VCAT thing to you, and, and I suddenly thought.

Speaker 2:

You were actually going to ask me to decide for you.

Speaker:

Yeah, right. But not directly. Yeah. I was going to do it sneakily. I was going to do, Hey, what do you think about this? And you, I know you would have said, Yeah, well, you know, it doesn't really matter what I think about it. What do you think about it? No, I skipped all of that. And I had the conversation with you while you were away in Sydney. Even though you weren't here. I had the conversation in your absence. Did it anyway.

Speaker 2:

So isn't that interesting that even though I wasn't part of it, we had that conversation together.

Speaker:

Yeah, that's right. We did.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes I think we do know what the other person is going to say. So it's kind of good to get some of that out of the way, I suppose. Well,

Speaker:

I could have voted and had a discussion.

Speaker 2:

And what words of wisdom did I give you, Kevin?

Speaker:

Oh, not, not so much words of wisdom, words of, you don't need to do this. It was more like, it would have been.

Speaker 2:

You're being sneaky. Yeah. Do you really

Speaker:

need to do this? Yeah. You're looking for me to give you answers? Yeah. Yeah. It's like, no, I don't really need to do it. Yeah. well, it might have given me 6, 000 and it might not, it was going to be arbitrary because, you know, VCAT is a, a legally binding thing. And the company really just going to say, no, we didn't do anything wrong. And I was just going to say, yes, you did. I don't know what would have happened in that situation.

Speaker 2:

But I guess what you're saying is the impact on you would have been great. Yes, it already was. The stress that you would have had to carry would have been huge.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And it wasn't worth it.

Speaker:

No, it wasn't worth it. It already had been significant and it already wasn't worth it.

Speaker 3:

So

Speaker:

I decided with all of those things, you know, VCAT, And the real estate agent and the cleaner and the mover and whoever else it was, you know, that I just didn't need the aggravation.

Speaker 2:

That's a good way to care for yourself, don't you think?

Speaker:

It's a very good way for me to care for myself, yes. I'm pleased to hear your story, Kevin. Yeah, and that doesn't mean that I'm being a welcomer. It means I thought about it carefully and I decided what was best for me.

Speaker 2:

I like that you said that because some people might Take it the other way and think I've got to give up all these things that I'm fighting for. That's not necessarily the case.

Speaker:

Self care, looking after me. It was the best thing for

Speaker 2:

me. Yeah, sometimes it means the opposite. It means that you need to fight for yourself. Yes. But in this case, what you're actually saying is I needed to let those things go. That my

Speaker:

inner voice, you can imagine that. Oh, you're going to have a legal battle. You should get in there and you should crucify them and you should do this and you should do that. And then the next day it would be, oh, you don't want to do that. Every time you go near anywhere, I can't think legal, you get into big trouble, which was decades ago. but I didn't need to do any of it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, both of those sides of the coin sound pretty tough though in your head.

Speaker:

Horrible.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

And of that adventure I discovered that what I needed to do was what was best for me at this point in time, which is just let it go.

Speaker 2:

Very cool.

Speaker:

Yeah. Thanks for the

Speaker 2:

story. You're welcome. That was it.

Speaker:

Finished.

Speaker 4:

Okay. Bye. Cool. Thanks again. Oh, I was thinking about men and I don't think that they do very well with self care.

Speaker:

Okay, good. Tell. Do tell.

Speaker 2:

Well, help me out. I don't think that men do very well with self care. I often think that they have issues with their heart, with their eating, with their Relationships.

Speaker:

With their egos.

Speaker 2:

With their egos. And they get so offended that someone says anything to the country. No,

Speaker 3:

don't!

Speaker 2:

So I think that they're actually not that good at self care.

Speaker:

I think in general, I'd agree with that, yeah. I think so. But why? I don't know why. Conditioning?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. And that idea of being vulnerable, we don't do vulnerability. You

Speaker:

You don't cry.

Speaker 2:

You don't

Speaker:

talk about your feelings.

Speaker 2:

Yep.

Speaker:

Feelings, what are they? Um, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I think it's way more than crying though. Because crying shows that vulnerability, or that softness, or that sensitivity. And I think that we've often trained our men not to do any of that stuff, to be tough and competitive. To be the man of the house, to be the boss, all of those things. That's my dog. Oh

Speaker:

dear. It's okay, keep going.

Speaker 2:

And so we don't allow those sorts of things and then if men show vulnerability, It's like, well toughen up princess, it's that cruel thing that they're doing. Asha seriously wants to play. I know, she did

Speaker:

this earlier, But that's correct. Yeah. But you know, still leaves us in the same place, self care.

Speaker 2:

I think that quite a few men actually look to their partners to care for them. Yeah. And to do that tenderness and that softness that they so desire, they often will look to their partner to do that for them on their behalf. And that's a risk. And the risk can come when they start to get anxious slash angry, more so angry or frustrated with their partners because they're not cared for the way they want to. And the risk with that is they'll get more frustrated and angry. And that's not going to give them what they want.

Speaker:

So, they need to listen to this podcast. Are those men out there?

Speaker 2:

Well, it's a little bit more than that. They probably need to listen to themselves.

Speaker:

Yeah, that's true, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

I think the work that I've done in the past in the Men's Behaviour Change programs in other communication groups The main thing is listening to yourself because yourself is the only thing you can change in life.

Speaker:

I get such a buzz out of sitting in a room full of recovering addicts, and we've got this big tattooed biker, and he's talking about his feelings, you know, how he is, and, you know, being incredibly vulnerable. And also, that's so inspiring for me still after all this time, but imagine if you're somebody new in there, you go, Oh, I've got all these scary bikers and big people and that guy's got a suit on and they suddenly just open up like that. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

It models for everyone else that this is what we can do here. And it also says that underneath all of everything that's happening, I am this person. And the main part of humanity is we are vulnerable.

Speaker:

Yep. We are

Speaker 2:

there. Yep.

Speaker:

That's true. Better? Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you for listening.

Speaker 2:

I hope you've gotten a few tips, bits and pieces that you'll take away from today. If not, sometimes it's a little bit like a pie. Some pieces are good and some pieces, oh, I've had too much.

Speaker:

Okay. Alright. Okay, I think I'm going to go and have some pie. Pie now. See you next time. Apple,

Speaker 2:

meat pie, apricot, what kind of pie? Mince? Cherry. Cherry pie.

Speaker:

Cherry pie.

Speaker 2:

Rhubarb pie, Kevin.

Speaker:

Yuck. Disgusting.

Speaker 2:

I shouldn't have said that.

Speaker:

Rhubarb and custard. You

Speaker 2:

obviously haven't had the rhubarb I have.

Speaker:

Obviously not. Or maybe I just was overdosed on rhubarb as a child.

Speaker 3:

Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb,

Speaker:

rhubarb Isn't that Monty

Speaker 3:

Python thing?

Speaker:

Oh, that's a whole lot of things. Oh, okay. We're saying goodbye. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Thanks for listening.

Speaker:

Yep.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. Catch on the flip side. Bye.

People on this episode

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Jeannene

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Kevin

Host