Welcome to the Leonie Dawson Show, the place for soulful, spirited women to grow, to dream, to create, to shine their own way in life and in business every single day.

Friends, today we have a really important podcast episode to share with you.

Today we're going to talk about what to do when hard things happen.

This is in light of the Bondi massacre that happened here in Australia in the last week, where a Jewish community who was celebrating celebrating Hanukkah were shot at by terrorists and at least 16 people have died.

We didn't want to make this just about Bondi, however, we want to talk about what to do when hard things happen.

And our intention for this episode is really about how we can be both good citizens, good friends to our neighbors, and also good stewards of our own mental health as well.

So I'm joined today by my dear friend Tam Tam.

Thanks for being with me on this episode.

Thank you.

And, you know, I agree it's an episode that we don't want to make, want to have to make, but it is really important to talk about this stuff.

So yeah.

So firstly, we all across Australia and across the world are experiencing waves of feelings including grief, trauma and shock.

And if you are Jewish or Muslim, you will be experiencing even higher levels of these feelings.

Of course, for anybody who is dealing with difficult things politically, you will be having your own experience.

And if you are somebody who is even more vulnerable, we are thinking of you during these times as well.

So I remember some years ago we were living in Cairns and a really, really difficult situation happened.

And I'm not going to share about what it is, but it was an awful, awful thing that happened that resulted in the loss of a number of lives.

And I remember in the days and the weeks that followed, this very, very strong energy and feeling that pervaded the place, how it was almost like the birds had gone, gone silent and the shopping centres went really still.

And I remember as well feeling a whole bunch of really odd feelings in my body.

And I didn't know what it was.

And I turned to some wise friends.

I was like, I've got these feelings that aren't my own in my body.

And it's such a blessing to have wise friends because they're like, you're experiencing collective grief.

So grief and trauma, it isn't just a personal loss.

Communal grief or collective grief is a specific kind of grief experienced by a whole community or a nation or even the world due to a significant loss, often like a tragedy or disaster, sometimes a high profile death.

And even when mourners don't necessarily like know the people who've passed away, they are impacted by it.

And because it is a communal experiences, the ways that you usually process grief may not actually work or be helpful for you.

So in this episode, we're going to be sharing about some things to look at to help you be a good steward of your own mental health in really, really difficult times.

We also want to place, we're not going to talk about details, graphic details at all because that is not our business and we are not in the business of sharing that information and it's not needed for this.

We want to be really respectful of your mental health and if you find any conversation in here challenging, please do reach out to Lifeline or Beyond Blue here in Australia.

If you're in a different country looking at other services that are available to you.

We know here in Australia Lifeline and Beyond Blue have put on extra staff during this time to help people process through this time.

So firstly, let's give a little bit of a background around Australia and mass shootings because there is a whole bunch of conjecture around it online.

And sometimes there's even helpful Americans coming in to share that if everyone just had guns, then this wouldn't have happened.

And as Australians, we feel very strongly about this and we want to share like a more of a historical overview for you.

So 29 years ago we had our last mass shooting, that was the Port Arthur massacre and after that the so here in Australia they're called the Liberal, the Liberal government.

However, they are more right leading than our our Liberals.

So it's confusing.

It's Liberal in name only.

So they are tend to be more conservative then the Labour Party, which is our more kind of Democratic Party of Australia.

However, one thing that Tim and I both agree on is as much as we disagree with a lot of liberal politics and a lot of what John Howard, our Prime Minister at the time, a lot of his policies.

One thing we will always stand behind is his immense bravery and courage in int immediately instituting much stronger John gun laws to make sure that things like this do not become.

Yeah.

2nd do you know become just like run?

Of the mill everyday yeah things yes and I think one thing that's interesting about that is John Howard had been in for a really long time yes and the liberals, we call them capital L liberals because it's the political party.

So they're not small L liberals.

You know and he knew that by bringing in those gun laws he would probably lose the next election, but he chose to do it anyway because it was the right thing to do so that we didn't have easy access to the semi automatic weapons that were used in that in that attack.

You know and talking about it being 29 years like in April next year it'll be 30 years you know, or it would have been that's a long time to go without one of these events.

And that is why, you know, now they're like, OK, well, those those laws have stood us in good stead for 29 years.

And now we need to review them and see where they need to be tightened up, where they need to be changed to fit with the modern era, like, you know, to to be brought up to date.

Yes, absolutely.

And also I want to know.

So I come from a conservative farming family and I remember when the massacre happened and I remember when the gun Lords were instituted.

And what the government did was institute a mass buyback scheme where they bought the guns back off people and then they destroyed them all.

And I still remember the footage.

You you know that footage tab?

I 100% remember the footage because I was, I was in like first, second, second year at the time.

And I just remember there were just footage of these mountains of weapons mountains.

The government must have spent so much money buying those guns back.

But I like there were very, very few people who didn't understand why that was happening.

Absolutely.

And they were all destroyed.

It was just, they basically just went in a big old like instinct writer just and you know, I, I grew up in a farming family and I remember my dad saying nobody needs those semi auto automatic guns.

Nobody needs that level of guns.

And as a farmer, he was still able to have a shotgun to be able to lure, you know, to, to, you know, for wild dogs or any other threats to livestock.

But he didn't need a semi automatic.

Like he was like, what, why would I need a semi automatic?

I have what I need.

And, and so we as a people are fully behind those, those strong laws.

And that massacre that just happened in Bondi is the the worst in 29 years.

And strong, strong gun laws do work.

There is this rhetoric of like, would it have been stopped if there were guns?

And we can say like hand our heart.

Absolutely not.

We just know that the incidence of more mass shootings would have occurred because we know that's the Great American experiment, right?

Is you guys tried that.

It hasn't worked out for you.

And also there is one man that we will we will talk about during this episode, Ahmed Al Ahmed, who is the hero of the absolute undisputed hero who saved so many lives and he was absolutely unarmed and he just ran to help more than that.

More than that, he when he disarmed one of the shooters, he got hold of the weapon, he levelled it and then he put it down.

So he chose not to shoot like the, the, he disarmed the person who then, you know, dashed off but was ultimately shot by police and stopped as well.

But he he didn't go on to shoot any more people.

And Ahmed Al Ahmed also didn't he chose not to shoot because he'd done what he was there to do.

You know, also he did get injured.

So he's recovering in hospital at the moment, but you know, it's and, and I, I guess I'm not saying, and we're not saying that people need to run into the path of gunfire and, and save people, but that, that he did that because he was in a position to do that.

He, he was behind the shooter.

So he was in a position to do it.

And he did it without a gun in his in on his hip or, you know, wherever you keep them.

I don't even know.

Yeah, we don't know.

We don't see that stuff, No.

So we say all of that because that is the background behind all of this.

Now in terms of like, we don't really need to go into the details about this, except it was Jewish people who were targeted.

The the men who did it were not citizens of Australia, but they were permanent residents and they had been and listening to the Islamic State terrorist group.

So all of that is devastating and deeply painful.

And I think it also can so easily become this awful conversation about Jewish versus Muslim when in fact it's not.

It's a terrorist event.

And the very fact that Ahmed Ahmed Al Ahmed is a Muslim man who stopped the Muslim extremists from shooting the Jewish people, and that gives me goosebumps all over because that is such a powerful remedy all over.

Yeah, every time.

Every time.

So let's talk about how to deal with these kinds of events.

So we wanted to give kind of that bait, that background of it, and base the rest of our conversation around that information for people who didn't know.

So when it comes to these kinds of events, there is a natural human instinct of ours to want to find out all the information.

And I remember the night that it was happening and I went on to Twitter.

Never call it anything else because.

That's no one knows what to talking about if you call it X like.

And immediately was confronted with a whole bunch of imagery and videos that I did not want to see and that I did not consent to see.

And so I was like, right, I'm turning that off.

So we as humans are not designed to cope with 24/7 streaming news.

We are not designed to cope with that level of information.

And every time you open, you know, I've noticed that even though like as I open my phone, it's almost impossible to not find out information about this, including information that I don't need to know about.

It's human instinct to want to know all of the details.

However, what ends up happening is it deeply impacts our nervous system, it deeply impacts our mental health, and it's not healthy for us and it isn't helping anyone.

So in times like this, as much as there is an inclination to want to like, get all of the details because we think if we have all of the details, then we'll be safe.

That's kind of a safeguarding mechanism for us, Yeah.

We have to be good stewards and good parents of ourselves and go, actually that's enough.

Laptop down, phone down.

What's most important here is human connection, being out in nature, like loving on the ones that are around us and coming from a more regulated nervous system.

We also have to be really mindful about the fact that you actually can get visceral PTSD just from viewing footage of these kinds of incidences.

You can actually have a kind of traumatic event to your nervous system that it's not minor.

And the fact that this is so readily available to us now, it's more important than ever.

Then we go, actually, that is not for me.

I need to be very, very careful about this there.

I think some people think, well, I should be able to see what happened.

I should find out what happened because other people had to see it and more information is good and it's just not the case.

We do need to be good parents to ourselves.

Yeah.

And there might be times where you do have a bit more resilience and you, you know, you can, you have capacity to know a bit more and that kind of thing.

I know in our house, we have conversations around that because on Sunday we were coming back from a celebration for my husband's birthday.

And when we got home, I like checked my phone and I went, oh, there's messages about Sydney with like heartbreak emojis going on.

And I said to my family, something has happened in Sydney.

I'm feeling like I have capacity right now.

I will find out what's going on and I'll let you know if you'd like me to do that.

If you've got capacity, then OK.

But I'm happy to do that because I'm I'm feeling OK or I'm feeling not OK but resilient enough to know that something bad is happening and I can face whatever it is and let you know.

So we had that arrangement and I found out and I just kept my family apprised as news rolled in.

That doesn't mean I sat online watching things over and over.

I went to a trusted news source and I looked at their breaking news and I read the facts as they as they were at that point in time.

And that was, you know, very soon after it happened.

And I relate it to my family.

And I said, look, I'm going to check in another like hour and a half, two hours, and then I'll check again before I go to bed and you know, again in the morning.

So that's what I'm going to do.

Let me know if if you don't want me to tell you stuff or let me know if you want to know.

So we kind of had that arrangement, which felt good.

And you know, I did later that night go, Yep, I'm, I'm at capacity after those two checks in.

And particularly in these instances because, you know, of a family history, my grandparents on both sides were caught up in the Holocaust.

And so while we are not Jewish ourselves in my family, you know, we, we do have an echo of that trauma through our family lines.

So, you know, I went, OK, I've I'm at capacity.

So in the morning I was like, right, I can't check right now.

I will check soon.

And it is a privileged position, but it's also so that we can be there for other people.

You know, I have Jewish friends.

So I was like, I just need to know the bullet points so I can, you know, interact with them in a, in a careful and meaningful way and, you know, hold them and know what, what I'm dealing with here, what I, what I need to add my love to, you know, how I can help.

So, yeah.

And I think one one thing that I've got in my head that I need to get out right now is if you do see things or experience things, and it doesn't have to be first hand.

Like if you are first hand in a traumatic incident or if you feel like you've you've just gotten stuck and you're watching the videos and they're going over and over and over and you feel like you're getting traumatized.

There is actually very good research out there that says if you download and then play Tetris, the game that we all know from, you know, if you're our age, you know, from your childhood, Tetris, if you play that within 24 hours of that traumatic event or being exposed to those traumatic images, it can help reduce the instance of PTSD.

And someone I was, I was looking at a psychologist's kind of article about it because I was like, oh God, I might have to recommend this.

And I wanted to point people somewhere.

And, and she actually made a really good point.

She was saying.

Make sure it's a version of Tetris that doesn't have like a ghost piece that shows you where to put it.

It actually has to be the original Tetris where where your brain has to figure out where that bit goes.

So it's something to do with turning the shapes around in your head that puts the memories in some form that you can actually cope with.

So yeah, that's your Tetris 100%.

And.

It's so it's so bizarre that you brought it up because you know what I already knew that information.

However I re just realized in the last few days I've re downloaded Tetris and started playing it again and I it was not a conscious thing.

It's just that in a stressful circumstance before I would play Tetris at night going, OK, I'm just going to process it and the like.

Why it works is it's basically a very basic form of rapid eye movement or EMDR therapy, which amazing enormously help with PTSD.

Tim brought up a really good point around families.

So for me, as soon as it started happening, I went to my daughter who's almost 16, who has a phone but doesn't have social media.

Even before the social media band, she doesn't have it.

And I just said to her, look, honey, there's something that's happened in Sydney and there is some footage going around.

So can you just be really careful about looking at any videos or like or news sites tonight?

I'm happy to talk to you about it and tell you what's happened, but I just don't want you to see anything that's like see anything.

And she said, OK, OK, yeah, I'll, I'll make sure that I'm not doing any of that.

And then she wanted to have a little chat about it.

And so we talked about it at kind of an age appropriate level.

It was brought up in front of my 11 year old daughter as well.

And a few days later, and I think it was useful that it was a couple of days later because my husband and I had both had time to sort of process and digest and not come from a really freaked out place ourselves.

And she said, what's happening?

What, what's the thing about Sydney?

And so I was able to explain it to her.

I gave her very minimal information, just the the bare facts of like this happened.

It is an isolated incident.

It will not like we don't want it to happen again.

It's not near us because she needs to make sure that she feels safe in her body and and then we went on to talk about making sure that we look after our Jewish numb with some friends during this time as well.

And that was enough of information.

She doesn't need to know all the details, just make it age appropriate.

And also because when she goes back to school, you know, she does have friends who are Jewish and she does have friends that are Muslim.

And to be able to, you know, have some kind of understanding around it and way that she can support them is good.

So cautioning teenagers about social media use is really useful with communal grief as well.

Important things to know about communal grief is that one, it's, it can be a hard thing to experience because it can feel like something that is not yours, that is in your body anyway.

And that is a part of being in the community.

And doing rituals, whether as a community or individually is a useful process to help digest that.

So things like vigils, flowers, prayer, those things can all have help having your own altar.

One thing that my husband's family has always done, which is something that we've taken on doing, is that when somebody dies or a tragic event happens, we gather some wildflowers and we go to the river and we put it in there as a prayer for a blessing.

And we can also see how the people of Sydney and the people of Bondi are engaging in those shared rituals as well.

And the thing about collective grief is that it actually can help to strengthen bonds.

It can help validate feelings, and it can counter the isolation that's often felt when grieving.

So it can also help foster even more collective healing and identity when done correctly.

I want to make sure as well that if you know that you are a particularly empathetic person, highly sensitive person, somebody who picks up on other people's feelings or takes on other people's energy, really making sure that you are taking on other people's energy right now because you energetically can't process it for them.

You're not doing anybody a service them or you by picking up other people's energy.

So making sure you're doing a process of noticing where other people are in your energy, gently shifting them out of your energy, and either giving that to nature, giving that to eternal source, or giving it back to them for them to digest themselves because your body can't process other people's energies or feelings for them.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I used to approach this with a bit of, Oh yeah, my energy will look after itself because I sort of thought, oh, just trust.

I'll just trust.

We'll be fine.

But you know, that did not work out the way that I thought it would work out.

And so I just want to say be really conscious of it.

Just actually take the 5-10 minutes to be by yourself.

You know, it can, it can help to put a hand on your body, hands on your body, your heart, your belly, like just, you know, really kind of make sure you can feel your own boundaries and really calling that energy back.

It's it's not your fault, it's out there.

It's not anybody else's fault.

They haven't like tried to take it.

It's just a result of you having enormous empathy and really wanting to help on and unseeing a need in other people and wanting to help that too.

And that's wonderful, but you can help better.

And we're going to talk soon, I think about how we can actually be helpers in these situations if we have capacity.

But you will be more able to help if your energy is with you than scattered all around the place.

And it can be in thoughts as well.

You know, I noticed for myself, like I've had to bring my energy back twice this past week or so, a few days even.

It feels like like much longer, but it's been a few days and I've had to bring my energy back twice.

And you know, it's, it's just that thing of like, no, I can help better when I'm clear headed and I'm not scattered and I can make clearer decisions and yes, just see where the help is needed.

One thing that I teach, I have one kid who is very emotionally receptive to other people and I have one kid who couldn't give two shits, which is great.

You don't.

Oh my God, I don't think I've got that combo too.

Yeah.

I know, right?

I know, right.

I was just like so happy in their own world.

And the other ones just constantly got their little emotional fingers out.

Just just making sure everybody else is OK.

And both, both, both things are so beautiful, beautiful, beautiful and needed.

And I think that I have to teach with the the one who's so emotionally receptive is noticing the edge of her energy.

And so I'm often getting her to visualize kind of an egg of light around her that goes out as far as her arms stretch and saying this is your personal space and this is your personal energy.

And you are allowed to be in your own energy.

You're allowed to be OK even when other people are not OK because that is a wounding that so many people carry, especially women, that we're taught we have to regulate other people.

We have to take care of other people constantly and we're not allowed to be OK in our own bodies.

What a gift you are giving that child.

I just have to say that because at my grand old age of 48, I have just learnt that now and taught it to myself with the help of my, my psychologist.

Like, you know, it has been a, you know, decades of work to get to that point and to have that as a child is a huge gift in there.

And yeah, it.

So also don't feel bad if you're 48 or above and haven't learnt that yet.

It's OK.

We can still learn.

We can learn.

We can still learn.

We can still learn.

And I, you know, for me, it's like the opposite.

Like, you know, I'm always joking.

Like I have to actually work out what other people's feelings are like.

It's like really?

You What?

OK, OK.

Take little notes.

Yeah.

How to be?

Anthropological notes, yeah.

Exactly, exactly, exactly that.

So making sure that you're not taking other people's energy on also, you know this, this, this saying of always look for the helpers and we want to exonerate and hold up the helpers in this realm.

We want to hold up Ahmed Al Ahmed Al Ahmed who like I, I think of him just what is in his heart to go.

I will run towards the source of the pain and stop it for other people.

Like there's some kind of earth Angel aspect to that that I am in awe of that man's courage and bravery and the lies that he saved.

Also I want to make note that you know he was he was shot in the arm.

He is recovering in hospital from it and over $2,000,000 has been raised by the Australian public.

It's probably more than that now in gratitude for just being an Earth Angel in that situation.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I know that the NSW State Premier, Chris Mins went and visited him and sat on the edge of his hospital bed and had a chat with him.

And I know that our Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese also went in and shook his hand and thanked him for saving lives.

You know, these are genuine thanks on the behalf of the Australian people to this man who, yeah, he saw something and decided to do something about it.

And that is not to take away from people who were running to safety.

You know, this, that he, that he decided he had a moment.

And I know from interviews that I have read, I was being very careful not to watch too many videos, but I can process words a little easier in these circumstances.

And he, where he came from, he was at one point in the police force.

So he had a little bit of knowledge, but he, he was unarmed.

He wasn't wearing a, a bulletproof vest.

He wasn't, you know, but he was in between some cars and he was behind the person and kind of went, I think I can do this.

And just waiting because he could see where they were shooting and he knew it was a terrorist attack.

And he, you know, but, yeah, just ignore every of that man.

Enormous gratitude to that man.

And.

What a blessing to have a Syrian refugee.

Yeah, being just the most enormous blessing to the Australian community.

We could not give more thanks.

We want to also pay our respects to the First Nations people, the Bideagal, the Burea bureaucral and the Gadigal people who have shown so much love and compassion and have held healing ceremonies for the people who are affected.

They are the traditional custodians of that area and the grace in which they have given their love and protection and healing for, you know, on on unseated land.

We what incredible grace, what incredible wisdom, what incredible compassion.

Of course, the first responders this we've, we've heard the stories about surf lifesavers who heard the shooting going on, the shooting was going on on the beach and they also saw people struggling in the surf who were looking at drowning and they did their job.

They went into the surf, they didn't run, they ran towards to help even more.

We've seen the footage of the surf lifesaver who ran kilometres barefoot to bring medical aid to people who are needing it, the people who took the strangers in for refuge, people who died protecting others.

Vigils are happening all over the place across Australia recently.

Yes, we up where I live because I'm in Melbourne, Australia, it's in another state.

I know that locally I saw on a local social media kind of post someone saying, you know, there's there's a Jewish community group where I live and they got together, they informed police of what they were going to do.

But they got together the next day to light their men are in public to, to, you know, show up as visible Jewish people in the community.

And so they they banded together and did that, you know, with supporters and supportive community around them.

Yeah.

So it's not just in the spot where it happened.

It's Australia, wide events are happening to help people through this.

And even write it at Bondi, which is really, you know, it's one of the hearts of Australia, It's the the beating beach heart of, of Sydney and Australia.

And a human circle was formed out in the water.

The hundreds and hundreds of people swam out to form a circle and hold hands out in the water as a symbol of unity.

You will not take our community from us.

You will not divide us.

This, all of this truly is an act of love.

And that is what we look to 100.

Percent.

So let's talk about ways that we can actually practically help as well, so we can be good stewards of our own mental health and make sure that we're stewarding our our own bodies and our families and the children in our care as well through this and also some practical ways to do this as well.

So almost immediately, you know, the call went out for those blood donations because of the strain that the medical system was suddenly under.

There were, you know, blood stocks being flown from other states to Sydney to be used.

And that means that there's a shortage.

So I think one of the really practical ways to help was for people to give blood.

And everyone woke up the next day to lines that were kilometres long outside the lifeblood centres, the the donation centres nationwide.

And people waited up to like 6-7 hours just to get to the reception desk.

The server crashed for bookings online.

Like there were like people wanted to help so much, you know, and I know that they were asking for O negative blood because that's the universal donor blood.

It can be given to anybody.

And so I was like, well, that's me.

I've got O negative blood.

But there there are no appointments available like they're all taken.

So I've actually booked in for a couple of weeks time.

I've never donated blood before in my life.

But you know, the, the fact that this has created such a shortage means that they will still need that blood in week, in a couple few weeks time.

And I think it can be really easy to feel, Oh my gosh, I want to do something immediately.

I want to do something now.

But we can still be useful a few weeks down the track.

We can still be useful and still be thoughtful in these situations a few weeks down the track.

So yeah, I'll be rolling up my sleeve in the new year.

Bless you.

So blood, blood donation services pretty much are asking people please come in, come in, in a couple of weeks time because and also the people that were shot and are still going through recovery processes as well, they're going to still require blood in the coming months as well.

And it is a strain on the blood service.

So they're looking at if if you could do it in the new year, that will be enormously helpful.

There are monetary donations that are being received for various funds as well.

Things that we can do as well is to advocate and support stronger gun laws because who needs a semi automatic?

No one does, No one does.

We can refuse as well for this to be degenerated into Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.

We can make sure that we protect both groups.

Because I feel like, of course, Jewish people would be feeling very vulnerable and scared right now.

Absolutely.

And I feel like people, people who are Muslim, will be afraid that there is going to be some kind of backlash against them.

And that should not ever be the case because say, for example, one evangelical Christian extremist should not be.

If they do something awful, the whole Christian community shouldn't be slurred with the same brush of prejudice because it's extremism and that is and terrorism.

And that is not what we're after.

We also want to make sure that, you know, we are very strong about what we do stand for as a people here in Australia.

People should be able to celebrate their religions in peace.

They should feel like they are safe to be in this world and that they are valued members of our community, both Jewish people and Muslim people as well.

And I think that's really very important because it's tempting in situations like this to say, oh, it's evil.

And we kind of use evil as this blanket statement.

Yes, the ACT itself is evil, but the people doing it quite often are just ordinary people who have, you know, gone down some kind of rabbit hole and been, you know, have become extremist in some way.

And we, when we figure out what we stand for as people and what we won't stand for, it's so important to understand that.

Ordinary people can't like can have this happen to them where their minds just, you know, ask you to certain way.

And so it's not it's it's so important not to look away from and shy away from doing some soul searching and saying, OK, yes, we stand for unity.

Yes, we stand for this and know this type of thing and this way of dividing people and, you know, espousing hatred for who someone is as a person and what they believe in is, is not OK here.

You know, it's, we can't just look away and sort of talk about monsters and, you know, that kind of thing and.

We can also have complex, nuanced conversations because we can love our Jewish community and we can also not support like the Israeli government occupation and what they're doing in Gaza as well.

We can do both things just like we can love our American friends and not support the Trump government.

It's it's really quite simple, like when we when we look at it that way.

Yeah, 100%, yeah.

Last of all, I think it's really important that we check on our Jewish friends and our Muslim friends right now.

So Tam, I know that this is something that you've been really thoughtful and active on, so you want to share some of your thoughts around this.

Yeah, sure.

Like I said earlier, I do have Jewish friends.

You know, my Eastern European grandparents had Jewish friends, so we know them.

They're like friends of the family.

So yeah, it was about just checking in and messaging and saying, hey, I know what's happened.

I'm so sorry.

I'm thinking of you and I'm I'm here, I'm here.

Don't feel you have to message me back, but I'll message you again tomorrow, you know, and just check in.

And, you know, I, like I said, I've got friends, but I've also got someone in a group that I run like one of my writing groups that I run online.

And so I messaged her as well.

And, you know, got a message back straight away going, thank you.

That actually means a lot.

And I was like, right, OK, because, you know, I, I was just reaching out because I know I'd, I'd want people to check on me if something was happening in that way.

And we're actually due to have the writing call, a writers group call on Tuesday night.

And I messaged her ahead of time and said, look, I know we've got a book chat call going on where we talk about our books, but I'd like to take some time earlier, like in the call and as much time as it needs, it could take the whole call.

I don't care.

And I just want to give you some space to talk to us about how you're feeling.

Is it appropriate for me to light a candle on the call?

Because I'm happy to be guided by you.

But I'm really feeling to do that because I've been reading a bit about what Hanukkah is about, and it's about bringing that light out of the darkness.

So I felt that would be a really lovely symbol.

And she said, actually, yeah, that'd be really nice.

And I might like, she's not a practising religious Jewish person, but it's her ethnicity, it's her family.

It's her culture.

It's her culture so and she went.

I might actually dig out my menorah and light it and stuff.

So we had this, you know, beautiful time where, you know, I just said at the start of the call, you know, we're actually going to hold space for this, and this is what we're going to do.

And we lit the candles.

She spoke to us about how she was feeling and what this meant.

And, you know, we were just able to hold her and that was really lovely.

And normally, you know, I do record our book chat calls.

I didn't record that first bit because it just felt performative and I didn't want that to be the case.

And so, yeah, after about half an hour, we concluded that bit.

We did some grounding, bit of breathing to kind of move ourselves through it.

And then we talked about books for half an hour.

So it was, but, you know, afterwards I was like messaged again, just privately to say, hey, you know, I hope you're OK.

I hope that was all right.

I'm here like to talk.

But also I'm here if you just want to sit in silence together, like you don't, don't feel pressure that you have to tell me anything.

If you just want to be in company with someone, I'm happy to do that.

And yeah, she was like, no, that actually felt really nice.

I didn't know I needed that.

It was actually lovely to be held in that way.

So, you know, like we keep saying here, we can do hard things.

You know, there's always a moment for me where I can feel myself shrinking back and I can feel myself going, oh, God, that's a really hard topic.

I feel like shying away.

I feel like just moving on with the agenda as planned.

And, you know, and it's like, yeah, all these people would like to be able to move on with the agenda as planned, and some people don't get to now.

And so for me, it was about, yeah, I value that.

I'm it.

I have created a community and part of me stewarding that community was going, this is a big thing and it needs to be acknowledged.

And it was really beautiful.

It turned out that a couple of the other members had been lighting a candle and putting it in their windows.

They're not Jewish, but they, you know, 1 is a church going Christian.

And she just said, you know, I I've been reading the Old Testament and I have so much respect for what is this ancient, ancient religion.

And, you know, I have been lighting a candle.

It's just over there.

And she hadn't brought it into the frame.

She hadn't anything.

But she, she had already brought that within herself to that call.

And yeah, it just let us have a moment together, 1/2 hour together where, you know, it didn't have to be business as usual.

And that's the perfect example to Tam about the collective grief grief and how collective ritual and collective ceremony can help to for people to feel less isolated and for bonds to be strengthened through it.

So thank you for being so thoughtful and intentional and sharing that with us because it is a it's a beacon and it's a blessing and it's an example.

So again, if any of this has been challenging, please be gentle with you.

Please call Lifeline or Beyond Blue.

We are sending you all our deepest love.

Please be as gentle with you as possible.

I feel like this time of year is often quite precarious already.

Energetically, there's a whole bunch of feelings and expectations.

There's also the disappointment and the heartache of things that have already happened that year, whether it's personally, politically, societally, and so we can feel extra vulnerable during this time.

Please know that you are loved and that you're an important part of this circle and that we are all grateful that you are here in this world.

We're sending you so much love.

Blessed be, blessed be always.