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I don't know about you, but I've changed.

It's been eighteen months since we've been having these little talks, you know, the ones about the stuff we're not meant to discuss, about our messy insides and our unruly outsides, about how our bodies are changing as quickly as our minds, and about how so many things about us at this grown up point in our lives don't seem to fit anymore.

Some things literally don't fit, because our body has been reallocating itself all over the place without our permission, and some of it doesn't fit figuratively because some stuff that we've always done and said and thought that we thought, and some of the people we've always loved and cared for, and some of the jobs and tasks and unasked for responsibilities, well we've reprioritized the lit that some of it's been promoted, some of it's been fired, and some of it's been reallocated to others to take care of for a while because it's just not the right fit anymore.

Look, sometimes even our face doesn't seem to fit anymore, not with the version of ourselves we're so used to seeing reflected back at us, And despite all the slathering serums, we're not entirely sure who she is, that person looking back at us.

And then even she doesn't seem to fit anymore, because the world is grappling with its very fixed idea about what midlife women look like, act like, dress like, talk like, care like, and we're not always it, and we haven't got time for a face consensus to be reached.

We're too busy with the big stuff.

The reason I wanted to start having these conversations in the first place was because I think, deep down we know the truth about that misfit, that itch, the tension in all this change.

We know that despite the pitying tilted heads and the getting served last at the bar and the oh, you look good for your age, we're not only still us, but an evolved version, a wiser, street, smarter, stronger version.

Because we've been through all kinds of nonsense, your nonsense, our own nonsense, and here we still are, refusing to disappear, refusing to apologize, refusing to play a bit part in our own lives.

So yeah, we've changed me and you.

We're grown up women sick of being handed the boring, sad, supporting roles, and every one of these conversations has helped me with that, and hopefully you too helped us to become a little bit more bullshit repellent and a bit more the shit.

Hello.

I am Holly Wainwright and I am mid midlife, mid family, mid metamorphois.

Today is a big mid moment.

I've invited our first ever guest back onto the show to help us wrap up our final season for twenty twenty five.

A little over.

Eighteen months ago, Julie Goodwin trusted me enough to sit down for the first major conversation about her extremely vulnerable memoir.

It was called Your Time Starts Now, still is called Your Time Starts Now, and to kick off this new podcast, Mid Conversations for gen X Women who are anything but I asked Julie to talk about it honestly.

In that interview, she talked about the mental health crisis that almost ended her life, the changes she'd made since, and the people who got her through it all.

The thing is that conversation about being the midlife woman who seems to have it all together, Who's keeping all the plates in the air and everyone's life running while inside everything is catching up with you in a big, crashing wave.

Really resonated.

It set the tone for the honest conversations we've been having here since, and it started something that's been happening to me more and more, which is people coming up to me and telling me how much mid makes them feel less alone, less crazy, and very much like Julie Goodwin in that first conversation.

Now, Julie's back to help us wrap this season of Mido, and on the theme of change.

A lot has changed for her in the last year and a half since we last spoke.

She's made some massive decisions about her life, her work, her health, her family, and we talk about all of that in this conversation.

And yes, we talk about how the changes we decide to make can sometimes destabilize the people around us, and perhaps as a woman in the public eye, that is never truer than if you dare to change your body.

We talk about that too, and you're going to hear her passion for that subject in her voice.

Please sit down with Julia and I for the last time in mid season seven and share this exceptionally honest conversation about change.

Julie, I spoke to you for our first episode of Mid.

Yeah, I know, I can't believe that.

That's what.

Yeah, it's eighteen months ago and this show has been such a delightful chapter for me and so many women love that episode.

So I need to thank you for being our first episode because I think it just set the tone of honesty, vulnerability, learning, all that stuff that just I just really appreciate it.

So thank you so much.

Well, that's you know, that's where we're at, isn't it.

Let's just talk about it.

I want the last episode to be Julie, because I want to hear how everything's been and more lessons if anything.

So although we do have to mention that you might be cursed because you were the first guest on the project which finished up, and you were the last guest.

So sorry, I guess I'll wait for Mastershift to finish up and then I can be the curse of mastershif.

Out lasting all the medium brands.

Anyway, we were just talking off Mike, but when you sat down for that episode of mid you were just at the very beginning of the press tour.

For your really excellent memoir Your time starts now.

Yep.

If you haven't listened to that episode, I encourage everybody to go and do it.

It is great, and to read the book, of course.

But I remember you saying, actually, I've got a note of what you were saying to me.

You were saying that even as you were packing to start this press tour, because you knew it was going to be big.

The subject matter of the book was very vulnerable.

You said, I was getting ready to go, and I had anxiety in my guts.

And part of it was because putting this out in the world is not an easy thing to do.

How did it all go?

Well, it was hard, and talking about some of that stuff was hard, and some of it remains very very hard, but it was on the whole, it was really beautifully received.

You know, I feel like I'm glad I did it.

I wondered if I would get through that process and then think, God, that was a terrible mistake, or I wish I hadn't done that, or I've exposed my family to something that I don't think I should have exposed them to, or I've exposed myself to something I shouldn't have done.

But actually the feedback that I've had and the way it's resonated with certain people has meant that I can say it was a hard thing to do.

But if this is the right way to phrase it, But is there something sort of freeing about having a lot of a lot of your story out there?

In a way?

Because in that book you spoke very honestly about mental health, about addiction, about trauma.

You also talked about what had happened to your life in very good and stressful ways since the transformative moment of Master Chef.

Is there something kind of freeing about that all being out there now?

The absolutely is, you know, I feel like people.

Know you better in a way.

Yeah.

But it also so it's kind of I mean, it's an old saying, isn't the truth will set you free.

I've just what, I've laid everything out there, and so come at me.

You've got no weapons against me anymore.

I've laid down all my shields, so there's nothing.

There's nothing you can attack me with that I haven't pre counterattacked.

It's all out there.

So if anybody has anything to say to me that's hurtful or unpleasant, it's either the truth or it's not the truth.

And if it's the truth, it's okay because I've already told the truth.

And if it's not the truth, I don't have to worry about it because it's not the truth.

So it's kind of in its ways, it is extremely liberating because it's just there are no secrets, there's nothing for anyone to find out.

Because you were saying in that interview several times, one of the things you said to me is sometimes it's hard to just put the mask on, you know, like to be everything's fine when everything isn't fine.

I know lots of women listening to this, various degrees putting that mask on every day.

We all are in different way and sometimes.

It's appropriate to do that.

You know, sometimes you've got to power through stuff, and that's an ongoing process for me and I had and I know I spoke to you, and I've written about my beautiful therapist Heather, and she's helped me to understand again because you know, when you that vulnerable in your mental health, you really seek to lessen the amount of anxiety that you're going to experience, and so you try and avoid situations where you're going to experience it.

But I've come to the realization that if I if I avoid every circumstance, it's going to give me anxiety.

My life is going to become very small.

So what I need to do is learn to anticipate that this is a situation that might be tricky, to shore myself up for it, and also to allow recovery from it.

So she calls it like playing a rugby match.

She said, if you know you're going to go onto the field, you get ready for that, you psych up for it, you go onto the field.

You've got to push through the pain.

You've got to push through your injuries, you've got to push through everything that's coming at your opponents.

And then you finish that rugby match, and you go and have your ice bath and have your diverst and eat your protein and do all the things you need to do to recover.

So she said, I'll accept that you keep putting yourself in these situations as long as you promise me you will keep giving yourself the recovery time.

So that's been part of my sort of learning over the past eighteen months, is that you can't just avoid stress and anxiety, but also you can't just keep masking it.

You've got to allow yourself to go headfirst into it.

You've got to allow yourself to recover afterwards.

That's really interesting because one of the things I think we tell ourselves.

And again, I know that your situation is very specific, so I don't want to make it sound like I'm trying to make it apply to everybody, but I think there are lessons in this For a lot of us.

It's sometimes we're often going well when things are quiet, or you know, I'm going to make these changes to my life so that I don't have I'm not in a rush anymore, or there aren't all these people depending on me, or I'm not working so hard, or whatever it might be.

But the reality for most of us is we've got to keep doing all the things we're doing to a point we can make changes.

And I one of the things there are a few things you said to me in that interview that I still think about a lot, and one of them was that everything is a choice.

So you know, the things that make us busier a choice.

Some of them are just hard choices, but their choices.

But what's really interesting about what you just said there is it's not about to protect your mental health, you have to withdraw from the things you either love or that feed your family or you know, it's just you have to approach them differently.

Yeah, kind of plan for it.

Yeah, it's been really helpful for me to recognize the physical symptoms of stress.

And so now instead of getting into it out of control panic that you know, I'm at the beginning of the end again.

I'm on that slippery slope again.

I'm going to go downhill again.

This is you know, this is a disaster.

I can just go, oh, my hands are shaking, or I'm getting those little dots in my eyes, or I'm getting a lot of cold sails or mouth pussicers.

And instead of going, oh, this is a disaster, I'm going to end up back in the hospital.

I'm falling apart.

My life is unmanageable.

I just go a hello, hi, old friend, thank you for these warning signs and symptoms.

I need to have a little look at the days ahead and see where I can fit some blocks of self care in there.

And that's how I approach it, instead of catastrophizing and withdrawing from everything and you know, freaking out.

I love that in the last chat.

I'm I'm sorry, I'm starting se many sentences with that, but it was it lives very vividly in my head.

You talked about that about there being a point in your life where you looked at your calendar and it was like color coded and there was work and there was family, and there was work, lots of work, and you were like, there's nothing in there for me.

Obviously, this past year has also been very busy.

I mean, you've been working a lot.

We're I'm going to ask you soon about all the things you've been up to.

Does that calendar look different now?

Like talking about what you just were about when you know the warning signs might be.

I mean, I don't know about you, but because similar to you, I live a couple of hours away from where I often work.

So when I know I'm facing a big period of time away from home, I can get very in my head about it.

The calendar stresses me out to what do you build in when you're feeling that shaky stuff coming, when you're feeling that anxiety rising.

Instead of going as you just said, like everything is screwed, I've done it all over, what do you put in the calendar specifically like to build those buffers for yourself.

Well, my mind's it's still color coded.

Yeah, there's lots more colors that equal self care now, so.

Happy rainbow co Yeah.

All the sort of greeny bluey colors are like the me things, the calming sort of you know, whether it's exercise or art or you know, something like that bushwalk time in nature, that kind of thing.

Yes, because you paid, I do.

And then I've got bright yellow is family, because that's just joyful, and then out of time, and then I've got sort of the reddish and the brownie stuff is work work, and then I've got another sort of purply colors, which is charitable work.

And so if things feel a bit off kilter, if I start to get those symptoms in my body, I can almost know what my calendar is going to be flooded with when I open it up.

And so it's just very visual, it's very instant.

And so what I've got to do is redress that balance.

And sometimes it's well, I will have to sort of d pull back on some of the charity work I'm doing, and I might not say yes to a couple of those jobs that don't fill me up in more ways than one.

Yes, yeah, and boundaries, right, are we getting better at boundaries?

You're really working on boundaries.

I think I am getting better.

I think I'm just getting blunter.

And I actually think that's part of the beauty of aging a little bit, is just that I no longer need everybody to like me quite so much as I used to, because what I found is that if everybody likes you, you end up being everybody's kind of doormat.

So you know, if I'm a little bit prickly to approach about somethings, that's okay.

Now.

I still can't say no is a complete sentence like Jane Fonder tells me to.

But what it is, and this is part of what's freeing about writing everything down and putting everything out there is I'll just say to people, I'm really invested in my mental health at the moment, so I'm going to build some stuff around this to make sure that that's protected, and that's my first priority.

I'm really really capable of saying that because if that goes and what I know from my life experience that if that's no good, I can't be there for my granddaughter.

I can't be there for my family.

I can't be there for my friends.

I cannot perform my work, I can't function.

So that's how blunt I am, and I would just say, just be blunt, and so boundaries just become really easy and nobody takes offense to that, you know.

And I've entered into a couple of big projects lightly, I've said, well, before we even start planning this out, what I need you to know is that I'm going to build in rest time.

I'm going to build in all these different things, and I won't be responsible for these things because I can't manage that.

So if we can work with that, within that realm, then let's go.

And more often than not, it's not a problem.

It's what I'm asking would not have been an issue anyway.

Yeah, it's quite unbelievable.

I think that's so great is that I think, as you say, we're worried about being prickly, we're worried about seeming demanding and difficult.

Yep, because we've all been groomed the wrong word, but maybe it's the right word from an early age to be agreeable and passive and polite.

And then people go, oh, she's a bit grumpy, but it's not really grumpy.

It's just firm.

It's just real, it's just real.

I am a giving human being and I will give, but I've learned that I cannot give from a vessel that is smashed into a million pieces on the floor.

And I'm i am unwilling to be smashed, especially for external things for strangers.

Essentially.

I got some good advice about boundaries recently, because my word of the year this year was not like no, not a hard no, because I wanted it to still be a bit friendly.

It was like, like, if it's not serving this, this, this, this, and to be honest, I've been a bit rubbish at it.

I still have over committed at times.

And Amantha and Burg, a woman i've been twoed a few times, is really great on sort of productivity and work stuff.

She said, think about yes, but as an answer instead of it always being a no, is like well, and actually it's what you were just saying.

It's kind of like, well, yes, I can do that, but I can only do it if we can do it at this state that works for me, at this time, that works for me.

Da Da Dada's which is pretty much what you're saying, and she was saying, so think if no is still a little bit out of reach.

She was like, yes, but is good because it gives It's like, yes, but boundary.

Yeah, So that's what I think is it's quite helpful.

Yeah, Or even switch it up a little bit and go here are some boundaries.

Do you still want me?

Yes?

So it's almost it's not, but it's let's just back the truck up a little and explore before I interview you this.

Yeah.

After the break, Julie and I talk about what's changed for her since I interviewed her on our first episode of mid almost eighteen months ago.

How are you feeling generally since we last spokes?

Has a lot changed?

Yeah, Look, I'm getting stronger as the days go by, as the months go by, I feel more, are comfortable and confident that I'm on a good path and that I've found a good formula.

I'm still working on the formula, like all that laundry list of things I've got to do to stay well.

As life changes and evolves, and circumstances change and evolve, I've got to shift all the time to sort of accommodate the ebbs and flows of life.

But I'm better at it now.

Doesn't mean to say I don't have days that are catastrophic, but I'm much better at managing them now.

I'm doing it from a much more integrated sort of place than I was, and that's even in the past eighteen months, and so I'm kind of excited for the future.

My hobby and I've made some really big decisions in the past few months and we are downsizing our home.

I am shedding all of my stuff and we're moving into a smaller house.

I saw that you were selling some of the things from your business.

Too, and I'm actually releasing those premises three and a half years after I closed my business, and I am only just able to say it is time to let it go.

And is that that you're only just mentally prepared to do that because you spoke about closing your business when we talk.

When we spoke last time, you said that you'd got to this point.

And actually this was a clip that we put on social that really resonated with people, where you were saying to your therapist, I think, Heather, but I've got the business, but I've got the radio show, but I can't do it and it's going to cost all these things, and she was like, at what costs?

She basically said, so you were encouraging people to realize that the world will keep turning if you need to step back.

Yep.

So you did step back, and you did close the business.

But now you feel like it's taken you this long to be like, Okay, that really is done.

Yeah.

Absolutely, And I'm very, very lucky that my life partner is he never once said to pack it up, you know, maybe get out of the space and maybe let someone else have that space, or he never ever once did that.

He let me come to that myself, and it took them plain.

Is not because you thought you might go back or do you think it's just you were quite ready to admit that you'd really let go of it.

Yeah, that's it.

I knew I wasn't going to reopen, but it's just the enormity of what I did in that place, and even now, like I'm in the process of doing that.

Now, I'll open drawers and go, why do I have thirty cheese knives?

How many people did I think we're going to be here eating cheese?

You know, just so much money and resource and the ideas and all the thousands of hours developing classes and printing things and laminating cards and setting things up in the brainstorming and the graphic design we did all ourselves in house, and to that go completely, to actually close that premises, to not be able to offer that out as oh, maybe we could film that in my kitchen.

Maybe I could offer a charitable prize of a cooking class in my kitchen which still has everything in it.

You know.

That is a big release for me, and then my house as well, which post Master Chef.

I bought every shape of cake tin ever known to man, because I don't know if you've won Master Chef, obviously you need to bake all the shapes of cake.

I don't know where that came from, but I just accumulated stuff, and now that I'm releasing it, it is.

It's cathartics.

It's emotional.

I'm letting go of things that hold meaning, but the meanings here and here not here.

And you know, all the programs of the musicals that my nan and my mum took me to and that my I've been to with Mick and my friends, you know, I don't them, you know.

So there's a big shedding going on in a lot of areas of my life, but most visible on my kitchen in my home all at once.

Nothing has.

Ever had halves.

But that's really interesting.

I would like to know how you and Mick came to that, because I think that a lot of people around our age it is time where you're looking at the next chapter and you're not.

It's not doesn't mean you're ready to, you know, hang up your boots or whatever, but you're just like, the demands on us have shifted, and what do we really want now?

And sometimes it's really hard to work out what you really want now and what you just this is what we've always done, this is what my identity is.

This is how did you and Mick kind of come to those decisions?

Oh?

Look, when the decision to leave our big house was shock to both of us, right, we weren't planning on doing that for at least ten years.

And within that ten years, he'll definitely retire.

I'll probably sell me.

I don't know.

I don't know how you retire from what I do.

You just say no to Mole, then you say yes to I suppose, but I can't.

No one's coming with the gold clock for you.

No, I'll just be doing stuff as long as my body holds upright, you know.

But so when we were in our twenties, we bought a house, little house, our first home.

You know, we got married, we'd had babies, we brought them back to this little house.

And when the boys got big enough, and I read about this in the book, we moved and we built this house.

We were living in the shat, remember, and.

So moving into this house, it was just like all our dreams come true.

It's beautiful, the yard's beautiful.

Our granddaughter loves it.

There's a swing set, and there's all the things, you know.

And then and what had happened is we went to sell our first little house and we had a buyer and we kind of sold it.

And then there was one hundred year storm.

And in that one hundred year storm, the gutters flowed and the house flooded, and the people pulled out of the sale.

They said, we don't want a house that floods.

It's not a house that floods.

It flooded in the one hundred year but they pulled out of the saale and it was just it was so soul destroying.

And in the end, I just went to the bank and said, is there anyway we can hold onto this?

And they said, look, if you tenant that, then you can hold on to it.

That was twenty years ago, and it was time for it to all have a really big face lift.

And so when the last tenants left, we said, let's just go in and just freshen it right up, make it beautiful and rip out the floors and do all the things you can't do when you've got tenants in there.

And so we were doing that, and I loved that house, always loved it.

And I just said to me, gosh, walking through the front door, he driving over the hill towards here, I get that same lift that I got when we first bought it.

And we knew when we walked through the door of that house that that was our home.

And I said to him, it feels like coming home.

And then I just sort of said we could we could come home, like do we still need that giant house?

We've only one of our kids is left.

Actually, maybe the other two will leave if well.

But they're on the way, you know, they're saving for their own place.

They're on the way, and when they leave.

I've said over and over We're to be like a Lolli rat and a round in a big tin here in this house that we built for these growing boys and for their friends to come and to have their own space and to have their own rooms.

And you know, so we changed what we were renovating.

We're going to renovate it and sell it.

But then we thought, let's just renovate it and move back in.

Oh have wonderful, I know, because this is like a fresh start.

But it's like a fresh start and a place that means something very important to you.

Do you know when we because we tore out the old kitchen, it was made of timber, timber, ceiling timber.

It's got exposed brick art tries very seventies.

And we were ripping it out to put in a nicer kitchen, and we pulled out this like a sideboard thing built in sideboard, and down the back of it were all these little cards and they had words on them like clock and door and bath, and they were all laminated.

And it was all stuff I made for my little boys to teach them to read, how to read.

And we had that stuff all over the house and to rip that out and find that there over twenty years down the track of when they were little little boys, and I just stood in the kitchen sobbing thing, thought, oh my god, what are we doing?

And it's just it justice.

We're going home.

Oh I love that.

That's so great.

So you're on the brink of this releasing a lot of stuff the next chapter downsizing, but to somewhere really familiar.

That's wonderful.

In talking about what else has changed, one of the things I wanted to ask about was about how the book was received, because I know it was as you we've said, it's received really well.

But I've heard you say that you were surprised that people more people didn't want to talk to you about the alcohol part of the book.

Yeah.

I kind of thought, because you know, you know the kind of things that the Daily Mail hangs there had on.

It's always the you know, ooh ooh, that's salacious, Oh that's ugly, let's dig right into that.

I kind of thought that that would be one of the things that I got asked a lot about, and I just wasn't.

And I don't know if that's because other parts of the book were more pressing for people to find out about or more relevant for people, or I don't know, if it's just uncomfortable.

If it's an uncomfortable conversation and it is uncomfortable, I'm not comfortable with it, but you know, being uncomfortable this is just what I do now.

I wonder if it is that, if it's a mirror like talking and particularly women actually I think women talking about alcohol, because what just for listeners who aren't across it.

You wrote in the book about how you did have an issue with alcohol.

Yeah, and you also had complex mental health stuff going on, and you were trying to seek a sort of holistic a solution hotalysm the right word, therapy for this, and that was difficult to do.

I didn't find it.

I didn't find it.

So the places that sort of impatient places that I went to, they either would deal with your mental health, but they for some reason were so resistant to talking about anything to do with addiction.

I don't know if there's a reason, if there's a law, if there's they didn't have the right people on staff to be allowed to do that, I don't know.

And so then I had to go and seek help separately for that physical and psychological addiction.

And the place that I went to there was basically like that is all you are.

You are an addict defined.

There is no you know, you will go to a twelve step program and that will solve everything because there's no more complex problem than that in your life.

And neither of those things was true.

So I didn't find a holistic solution in the end.

I had to navigate through all those different things and just figure it out kind of with the help of other people going through similar stuff.

But yeah, I've just found that odd and jarring.

And I've since had people say to me, yeah, I've got relatives.

I've had to go overseas to find somewhere that will deal comprehensively with you know, complex PTSD and childhood trauma and addiction all in which is so odd to me because it's it's one package.

My brain is part of my body, and my body impacts my brain.

It's your mental health doesn't float around now how you're in a balloon on a string.

It's all wrapped up together, you know, And my brain and my body and my compulsions and addictions and all of that are all just part of this messy package, you know.

And I think if somebody needs to deal with it all together.

Yeah, it's really interesting.

I think that idea of why more people haven't leant into the alcohol story is because it's a mirror to us, to a lot of us, you know, in terms of not wanting to discuss whether or not we all I shouldn't say we all, but a lot of people do drink, like use it in the way that you describe in the book ye as a crutch, as a way to relax, as a way to help you sleep, all these things that were not accurate.

Yeah, well no, well it doesn't help you sleep.

It ruins you sleep, It ruins your peace of mind, It gives you anxiety.

And you know, I've never come out being preachy about it, because not everyone who drinks has a problematic relationship with alcohol.

But I do think a lot more people have a problematic relationship with it than are ready to explore that.

And so what I feel is that maybe that that's a conversation that a lot of people aren't ready to have.

Do you find that in your life as well as in the public sphere, Like I've heard you say that it was one of the hardest things you've ever done, was giving up alcohol and you've been through a lot of hard stuff.

Does recovery from that get easier?

And it is your social life, like to people in your real life struggle with that as well as maybe the conversation outside.

You know, Look, I'm really lucky that none of my friends are big party people.

My husband barely drinks, my kids are all really sensible where they got that from.

So I didn't find myself surrounded by a whole lot of people having raging parties all the time and finding myself a fish out of water.

Turns out I was the heavy drinker.

You're looking around and hold on, I've been drinking alone.

I have.

Yeah, it's not easy to talk about, and I won't ever preach you know, if I go somewhere and I'm not going to say I'm uncomfortable with this.

I mean you asked me if it gets easier.

Yes, what I can tell you is this, Oh yeah, So from the idea of not having that to rely on to help slow my brain down, slow everything down, to not loosen me up when I go somewhere, and I'm feeling anxious to not have that as that sort of social lubricant.

And also, I mean, you think about you're getting ready for a beautiful wedding, and I don't know, Am I the only person who's really excited for the first class of shad oh no?

When it cracked out, I have to say, I'm afraid I still am the person who was excited for the first class of show.

And that's and that's something that's probably one of the hardest bits.

It's like, oh, they're all at the door with the champagne and it's so go find it me a fizzy water.

But that is so fleeting.

I went from being unable to imagine a life like that and then trying to figure out how I'm going to keep living the way I'm living because it wasn't sustainable and I knew it wasn't.

I've reached a point where I knew it wasn't sustainable to now I don't think about it, and I never never thought i'd say that I don't think about It's very rare that I think about it, and if I do, it's it's with a great sense of relief, great sense of relief, my you know, my night, instead of hitting the wines, you know, which you know, tended to get a bit earlier and a bit earlier, a bit earlier, as I cooked and with dinner and a couple after and it just snowbolled and snowboard.

Well, now I drink sparkling water.

Now I have a beautiful cup of tea.

And my nighttime ritual is not you know, dragging myself to bed off the couch.

It's I make conscious decisions.

I put on beautiful aromatherapy, seeing I do a skin routine.

I have beautiful pajamas that I love getting into, and I you know, and I take my medication at night.

That's part of my ritual, you know, It's a part of how I am taking care of myself.

I put a meditation on, I've got headphones that I can fall asleep in, and just life is so much better.

I wake up clear and ready to go.

So I don't want to be a preacher.

All I would love is that if anyone's questioning that relationship, if you don't just dismiss it, because there'll be a part of your brain, if there is an addiction lurking around in there, that part of your brain will shut that conversation down.

If you don't have a problem, you can have that conversation honestly with yourself.

If you can't have that conversation honestly with yourself, you might need to explore the idea that you might need to rein it in a little.

And if you can't rein it in a little, then you might have to explore that you might need to rein it in altogether.

Yes, yeah, those are just questions that you can ask yourself and give yourself the gift of an honest answer.

I think it's so important, whether it's being on the brink of maybe that kind of a change, or whether it's a relationship that needs to end, or whatever it is, that you can't see what's on the other the side of it, because of course you can't because you haven't experienced it, Which is why I think it is so important for people like you to to share that story and to say that honestly, because hearing you say that life is so much better.

Its Yeah, it's a scary decision.

And I grieved.

I grieved, like I had proper grief for the loss of that lifestyle.

And I remember early in the day when I, you know, and I failed.

I failed at quitting a bunch of times.

I was not proud of myself.

I'm proud of myself now because I got up every single bloody time, you know.

But I remember early in the days and we were on holidays, and I made a beautiful cheeseboard and I poured myself some fizzy water, and I sat down and I just looked at this cheeseboard and I was so angry that I couldn't have a class of right.

And I ended up just saying to Mick, I just need to go outside.

And I went outside, and I went across the road to his beautiful view and I just stood out looked at this view that ocean.

I bawled my eyes out, and I walked back in and said to him, I'm really sorry.

I'm experiencing grief, and I think what I'm grieving is the loss of this what I perceived to be our life.

Yeah, you know, but now I don't feel that way anymore.

Through all those stages of grief, and now I realized that what I was grieving was so detrimental for me.

Not for everyone, but it was for me.

And I'm so glad that it's not.

It's not something that I think about, I care about, I dream about, I wish for I'm so glad it's over.

You're free from it.

I am free.

That's so great.

I want to ask you about work because you are, as I understand it.

You are back doing podcasts with the Gay.

I used to be on the radio with Rabbit.

Am I right?

Yeah?

You told me I'm show how much that was a very difficult job to let go of because you loved it.

I remember you're telling me how many times you said that?

But so tell me about what you're doing at the moment.

I mean, I see you a lot.

Yeah.

Well, I've got a bunch of different things going on.

The main theme of my life is that I've got freedom.

So I choose what I do and I choose what I don't do, and it's lovely.

So having a radio show and a cooking school, I was very tired to those things.

There's no choice there.

Well, there is a choice.

There's always a choice.

But I chose to turn up to those things.

So now I podcast with Rabbit still, but it just fits in with me.

So when are you jumping back in the van?

And I go, well, Tuesday next week, I've got an hour and it's in the morning.

You know.

That's again the boundaries.

You know, I can't come and spend a half a day in the middle of the day.

I'd love to, just because you're my friend, but that's the time I can do that work with you.

I mean, we get together and he just turns his MIC's on, we just chat, just laugh, you know, for an hour or a couple of hours.

I'm doing keynote speaking, which is what I've always loved and always wanted to do since I was in high school.

You know, I remember saying to me when we were very young, and say, you know, because I'd go and see these speakers, but our business and stuff.

That's how I'd love to do that for a living.

But you've got to have a story.

You gotta have a story, and then I want mastership.

I reckon, that's the story.

You actually, having read your book, you did already have some story, but that's a big story.

Yeah.

So I'm doing that.

I'm doing some different work and stuff on the underway with this program that I've run with the boys in the detention center, a cooking program, and that's going to be rolling out next year into prisons across the states.

Really, what's that tell me about that?

I've joined forces with a non government organization.

Who's going to help me to scale this idea that I had to teach cooking in crrictional?

You used to work when in a previous life, Yeah, this is in your book.

It used to work in a prison.

Yeah, detention center.

Juvenile detentions.

And in your book, what I remember is that the most difficult part of that with the dudes you had to work with back in the day when you you know, who had their thoughts about a female being in there, but you always loved working with the kids.

Yep, that's right I did.

It was a real eye opener.

And so I decided, you know, in trying to rebuild this life, you know, what does purpose look like?

Now?

What is what is my life going to be?

Now that I've really burnt my whole career to the ground.

There was nothing there, nothing, What sort of big rocks am I going to put back in the jar?

And I decided to go back to my roots, which is youth work, and try and combine that with food.

And so I managed to get into the detention center with a program, a six week program where I would teach a small group of these boys to cook.

The whole purpose behind it being not necessarily the hard cooking skills that come, but they do come, but the soft skills of actually cooperating, standing shoulder to shoulder and doing things together following a recipe, setting a table, sitting down shared food in the middle of the table is really unusual in a scene like that, and for a lot of people who've had food insecurity, that's quite a fraught thing to do.

So they had to learn to ask each other, has everyone had some of these?

Before I go back for seconds?

There's only one sneaty left.

Anyone want to go halves or you know, have you got brewed up that end of the table?

Like passing things, talking about things.

And by the end of this program, they were setting the table, they were folding the napkins beautifully and just taking enormous pride in how that table looked and the band that went on around that table.

You know, it was just like what happens at home.

You know, we talked about the best bits of our day, We talked about you know, they put crap on each other and had big laugh you know, And I've the reason I did that was to pilot it with the hopes that it would roll out in other correctional center's prisons and that sort of thing.

And I've found the people who can help me to make that happen, and the prisons are on board.

I love this idea that you're at this point where you're rebuilding, you know, and you're making these big moves in terms of your choices of what to let go and what to put in the jar.

But I love that idea, like your purpose needs to be in there, like money making work needs to be in there, purpose needs to be in there, your mental health and health needs to be in there.

It's actually a really good way to look at it.

It's my I've got a three prong filter.

When something comes through the door, it's got to bring me joy, it's got to give me a sense of purpose, or it's got to pay my bills.

Yeah.

So if it's none of those three, it's a hard no.

If there's no joy in it, no purpose in it, it doesn't pay me anything.

I'm out.

I don't do you need to write that down.

But you know, if two of those things are in it.

If it's all three, no brain, bring it on.

If two of those things are in it, excellent.

If only one of those things are in it, well, it's either got to be a very purposeful thing, an extremely joyful thing like a whole day with my granddaughter, or it's got to pay a lot of bills, you know.

But if two of those things are in it, then it's a strong consideration.

But if it doesn't tick any of those boxes, I am really comfortable in saying no, thank you.

After the break, I asked Julie to talk about something that everybody's been asking her about but she has not wanted to comment on.

You are going to hear the emotion in her voice as she talks about something that she does not want to talk about, but she knows a lot of people need to hear.

We're talking about change.

And I do have to tell you that you do look different from the last time I saw you.

Yes, now, I feel uncomfortable bringing this up because I know that you've been dealing with other people's opinions about you and your life.

I remember you saying that after Master Chef one of the hardest things was that kind of loss of anonymity, obviously, but also suddenly everybody's got their opinions.

They do, and there are and there are a few things for women that people like to have opinions more about than their bodies.

So I feel uncomfortable bringing it up, but I also kind of feel disingenuous not to, So you tell me whether you're comfortable to talk about it or not.

But you do look different.

How do you feel?

I feel great.

I feel really great.

I've been following what I've done ever since this breakdown.

I mean, I've always kept myself fit, it just wasn't that visible.

But since you know, I've it all kicked off with a massive mental breakdown.

So it's not really a pasthway I recommend to anyone.

Sure, I feel good, I feel I feel beaten up by you know.

I'm sure you understand when I say that I'm a product of my time.

And I'd say that most of the people listening, you know, born in the seventies, raised.

I was a teenager in the eighties, freaking brutal.

So I am a product of my time.

I have spent my whole life hating the way I look, not good enough, not small enough, you know, not you know.

And my wardrobe has contained clothes from that end of the scale, right up to that end of the scale, and only in the downsizing of my bloody home at the age of fifty four.

Did I get rid of all the clothes that didn't fit me?

You should see the space that clear, You should see the donations.

I think I've kitted out a whole op shop on the Central Coast with my full orange because you know, you just you look at the things in your cupboard and they make it feel like shit, and so I thought, well, I'm just going to get rid of them.

I'm going to get rid of the stuff that's too small that makes me feel bad so I can't get down into that.

I'm going to get rid of the stuff that's too big because I feel frumpy and awful in it, and I hate that I have to wear that, you know, And I've got that battle all the time because I am so conditioned to hate my body.

Every other kid our age had an eating disorder, every bloody nine tens of us, ninety nine percent of us had body issues.

So we are a traumatized generation when it comes to body image.

And so when people come at me and say, oh, what did you do to lose what?

There are so many reasons I don't want to talk about it.

One is because it doesn't matter what I say.

People will have their own narrative and call me a liar anyway.

That's what happens when in the public eye.

People make up their story and they will not be swayed from.

So you think whatever you want to think, it's got nothing to do with me.

Number two, he's such a noisy, bloody space.

You know.

There are so many people talking about how we look.

There are not enough people talking about your mental health.

There are not enough people talking about relationship health.

There are not enough people talking about sobriety as maybe an option to you.

But there are so many people telling you how you ought to look.

So many people.

I am not an expert, Holly.

I'm a cook, but I'm not a nutritionist.

I'm not a dietitian.

I'm not even a chef.

I'm none of those things.

And I won't be one of those influencers who does something and then thinks I'm an expert.

I'm not.

I might change again.

I've ridden this roller coaster my whole life, and next week I might get hit by a bus and spend the next six months in rehab for broken leaks and gain all that weight back, And then where does that leave anybody I've tried to advise.

So I won't answer the question because of that, because it changes all the time what I do all the time, and it might be different.

I might find myself the full time care of my parents or God forbid, one of my children and my grandchild.

So all of that and the final reason, and I've not spoken like this to anybody, I've just shut this conversation down, but I'm I really appreciate it well, I trust you.

The final reason, Holly, that I won't talk about it is because I know what it's like to listen to people say all you need to do is ex y and Z all you need to do is get off your ass and move all you do, We've all got the same twenty four hours bullshit we do.

I've had three children under three, with a husband who worked in Sydney, twelve hour days on my own with three kids.

You tell me I've got the same twenty four hours as you, year, twenty four year old punk with your own home, Jim.

I refuse to become one of the voices that makes other women feel shit about themselves.

I will not.

I will not.

If you want to exercise, go exercise.

Do it to feel good.

You know, if you want to change what you're eating, go do it.

Do it to feel good.

Do it in tandem with your doctor.

Do it in tandem with trusted professionals, not Instagram influencers.

Okay, not perfect people wearing filters using AI who devote their lives to it.

I've got more important things to do than devote my life to looking a certain way.

And you know what, if this is the size I'm going to be for the rest of my life, it's too goddamn light.

Miss, skin hangs down, my hair's gone gro I'm never going to be hot.

I don't care.

I don't know, really pretty hot.

I know, I know.

I hear every word.

I hear every word.

I really do.

And I also really, I really understand it like it is when you if you physically change, like we're talking about change, right, and often you changing makes other people uncomfortable for a lot of different reasons, a lot of different reasons.

Right.

But because of all the things that you just said about how we've all been conditioned women to think that this is the most important thing about us, what we look like and what size we are.

When somebody changes in front of us.

We feel as if they owe us, they're insights, and so I entirely respect everything you just said.

I don't think you owe anybody any explanation.

There's a lot of entitlement.

And I would say to you that of the thousands and thousands, I'm not even kidding of negative comments that came my way.

Unfortunately, most of them were from women I know, our age and older I know.

And what I want to do is hug them all and say, you are speaking to yourself.

Oh duly, please stop hating on yourself like this hang on me doesn't fix you, but stop, you know, stop listening to the things that your mother's friends.

Your mother's friends do you remember, they'd all get together and talk about how thartning things were.

All the time and comment.

You know, my mother still does it, like I mean, she's shady and she's still bitch.

Is about her weight, my weight, people in the streets.

Weight.

Gotta stop it, stop it, just break the chain.

Just just you know.

I feel so fit right now.

My beautiful granddaughter who is growing, she's so tall, she's really I'm not much taller than her, she's not even five yet, but she still barrels towards me when I pick her up from preschool and leaps at me, and if I swear to God, if I wasn't lifting heavyweight, she would knock me flat on my backside.

I'm able to hang on to her and just you know it's I'm able to do all the things I need to do.

I can get up and down off the floor because I like to get down there and play with I still jump on the trampoline.

I may not have the pelvic floor that I need for that activity.

I'm going to say, trampoline is pretty brave.

What you know.

I can spin around on the swings, I twirl around on the bar so I can do all the things that make her laugh.

That's what I want.

That's all I want.

Yeah, you know, I'm never going to be the centerfold.

I've come to accept it now.

The only last they put a pin in that.

The last thing I want to ask you about is because I know as we as I started this, nothing will attract commentary more than this.

I saw that you did say on your Instagram.

You came out and said, look, you all stop with your concern trolling.

I'm fine.

In the almost twenty years that you've been in the public eye, have you found a way to make peace with negative comments, untruths, this concern trolling, nonsense about we're just worried about you, maybe you're sick, Maybe you don't know what I know about what's going on as I do.

Have you found a way to make peace with that?

Because I think I think about my daughter who's fifteen, right, and she obviously is not in the public eye, but she lives in a world where she knows that everybody's talking on their different WhatsApp groups and their Snapchat groups and they're all commenting about So I think that it's not just an issue anymore for people in the public eye to have to deal with the fact that everybody's got a million opinions about what Betty's doing.

And we always have had, but now we have, yeah, public what so with this onslaught that I know is and they'll shut up.

They will eventually shut it's already dying.

Yeah, But how have you learned to make peace with it?

Because I mean, you're, as you say, you're you're in this phase of your life where you're making these big choices and shedding to build something a really happy place for you, a safe place for you.

What have you learned of how to handle that?

Oh?

Look like everything, there's ebbs and flows and ups and downs and different strategies for different days.

And depending where I'm at, some days I shatter, and I make sure that my husband gets right around me and gives me hugs and says things like those bastards and.

Stuff like that, which is really helpful.

You need sometimes someone to be like righteously angry on.

Your Sometimes I laugh, you know, sometimes I've done those things.

Where have you seen those posts where people shame the trolls and they photo shot the comment and then photo shop the face.

I did a couple of those, just to show my boys at dinner.

I say, hey, this lady says I look like an EMU, and I'll show them and then the picture and I get that beautiful, you know, moment of indignation from my son's And but that's that's small because you get too deep into it if you worry about that too much.

And I will say that when people state things as though it's the truth and it's not the truth, that's I've got a sense of justice that makes that really hard to handle.

I really want to come out and have the conversation.

But as soon as I do, as soon as I do it, just the whole thing just breaks open.

And then it's like, oh, that's baes and that's it.

And so I've just got to opt right out, which is why I chose to do a statement and just shut off.

For me, I'm just opting out.

And yeah, it doesn't stop the DMS and all that sort of stuff, but I just have to have the strategies in place to say, well, you know, I'm not going to pay any attention to that, you know, sticks and stones and all that sort of thing.

And it's not always easy, but it gets easier as you get older.

And I really feel for the young people today who are dealing with that stuff, and I hope that they can sort of put some strategies in place of having the right people around them telling them that they're loved and they're beautiful and helping them not just go down that rabbit hole.

I mean, all you've got to do is get off social media and it kind of yeah, it's a very greedy beast.

If you don't feed it, it starves.

It's true.

And you know, I think we are all a little bit addicted to our phones and our social media in different ways.

We all know that, like it.

There's classic thing and it happens in my house with my teenagers sometimes is it's like I'll be yelling get off your phone while I'm on my phone, you know.

Like, so I think we're all figuring that out more.

But I think getting wiser about one thing that I've learned.

I mean, I don't cop the level of mass engagement that you do when on all of my things I'm doing.

But it's it's like you have to be pretty certain of whose opinion really matters to you, yep, And sometimes you might make a misstep or do something in your real life and you know all about this.

It's all through your book.

When someone you love and respect comes to you and says, hey, yeah and that matters.

Yes, but Betty telling you that you you know, you look like an emu.

It's not great, but it doesn't really.

Just do something about that hair and those glasses.

I'm loving your glasses.

Games strong, Okay, food and cooking though, I assume that's still a big part of your life, right or do you do you get to a point now when because everybody knows you not.

I tell you put up some bloody gorgeous recipes lately where you're like, I don't want to I don't want to cook anymore.

Do you still cook for the family?

Oh?

Yeah, yeah I do.

I do and like and sometimes I don't.

You know.

I've just been writing a book which will come out next year, which is all about reducing the mental load as well as the physical load on the one person who tends to do it all in the household that almost always we know who that is.

But just a way of sharing the load a little bit, lightening the load with you know, helping, even if it's helping with the decision making around it and stuff like that.

So I'm implementing that in my own house.

And you know, I live with three adult men, so it's it's not hard to just get them to pitch in.

And like even last night my oldest son cook.

Yeah they can.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's not their passion, it's not what they look forward to like me, you know, but they absolutely all very very good cooks.

You know, Joe was working from home yesterday and he said, do you want me to cook tonight?

And I'm denered, and I thought, no, I've got all the ingredients in but I cooked up double so I said, you know, tonight we're having Spanish chicken and cheriso.

Tonight we have it with rice, and tomorrow night I'm going to put pastor in it.

So it's the same meal and I only had to cook it once.

Yes, So just stuff like that.

I do stuff like that in big weeks like this where I'm getting this stuff ready for sale and all that sort of thing.

So you know, I cook like anyone else does.

Some days I love it.

Some days I really don't want to even think about it, but it's it's still something that I do all the time.

Julie, I am so grateful you came to be the last guest on MED because what I'd love you to think about is what mass you'd like to give to the women who have been listening to this show, who loved your first conversation, but who are at this point in our life where change is inevitable right.

Change is happening to our bodies and our minds and our lives, and our families and our parents and our relationships.

You've been through an enormous amount of change in the past couple of decades, really, what message would you kind of like to leave the midwomen with.

Look, this point in life, there are a lot of changes, and we're feeling it in our bodies and we're seeing it in our society and how we've got to raise our children and raise our grandchildren.

There's a lot going on.

But what I would say is just bear in mind that you've got choices here.

You have choices, some of them will be hard, and you're just gearing up for the best years of your life, honest to God.

Just do the things you need to do to see yourself having fantastic time here.

You know.

Just shed the things you don't need, and that includes the opinions of people who don't matter.

You know, shed the stuff you don't need.

Just love the people around you, you know, embrace your relationships, pour your energy into that, not into having arguments on Facebook.

You know, just preserve your your peace and your energy and your spirit to build a beautiful life.

Because in all honesty, there's always going to be challenges.

There's always going to be challenges within our bodies, outside our bodies, within our families, with all the different stages that everybody has to go through, and we have to manage other people through.

But God, there's some beautiful stuff as well.

There's art, and there's music, and there's friendship, and there's the beach, and there's freedom.

There's dogs, there's freedom, there's children, there's good food.

There's so much to just enjoy in every single day.

So shape your life around the good stuff.

Amen, Thank you so much, Julie, thank you, it's been beautiful.

Thank you, Thank you.

Friends.

Very often, during these conversations we have on MID, I write things down.

It's usually a pretty accurate measure of how impactful the conversation was and what I want to remember from it.

It ends up like a little book of Mid wisdom.

After this conversation with Julie, this is what I wrote down.

Your harshest critics are actually criticizing themselves.

Not you refuse to become one of the voices that makes other women feel shit about themselves.

And okay, those ones might be a little bit more about me and my job, but what about these ones.

To be worthy of your time, something has to tick at least one of these boxes bring you joy, give you a sense of purpose, or pay your bills.

I love that.

Wrote that down on a post it note it's above my desk.

You can grieve a big change in your life and still know it was the right choice, like Julie talking about her decision to give up alcohol and the beauty of aging just a little bit is that you no longer need everyone to like you quite so much.

This season of Mid has been full of these scribbled downable moments.

From Melissa Leong telling me about refusing to live your life according to other people's prescribed timelines by being married by thirty five or a mother by forty and all that stuff.

Or from Dr Stacy Simms about the kind of exercise gen X women should really be doing and about how nothing about it should be punishing, and by Kemy Neckvipil about choosing your own version of success and that maybe it's about daffodils.

All those conversations and more are there if you scroll back through this feed where you're listening to MID right now, and thank you all of you so much for listening to it right here with me.

It means the world.

The senior producer of Mid is Charlie Blackman, the executive producer is Niama Brown, and we've had audio production from Tina Mattlov.

Thank you to all the guests who have been on this season of mid and all the seasons before.

Thank you for trusting us with your stories.

I know it's no small thing.

And thank you to everyone who's worked on creating the podcast and the socials and everything that goes along with it.

And thank you to all of you listeners who showed up every week and hopefully learned something or has entertained her a little lafe, a little cry, and picked up some of the wisdom from these amazing people, mostly women, one man, who have been with me on Mid