Life After Menopause

Australia is coming up to The Voice Referendum and apparently becoming more of a "divided nation" by the day. But why do First Nations people need a special mention in the constitution? Shouldn't the constitution cover them already?

Have you ever tried to explain to someone what sexism is but they just can't see what you're saying? The sexism is so ingrained that it's invisible? What if racism is the same? That it's so deeply ingrained in our culture that we can't see it? 

This is a hot topic in Australia at the moment: should our First Nations people have a say in policies and decisions that impact them? Isn't that like saying that it's necessary for women to be involved and consulted in the decisions and policies that impact women? 

Yorta Yorta and Gunnai-Kurnai woman, Pamela Anderson, CEO of EMILY's List Australia, explains to us the history of First Nations people after colonisation, how trauma is passed down through the generations and talks about the systemic racism that most white people don't realise is present.

 
Timestamps:

    Find out more here: https://www.mmmpodcast.me/ep210

We've probably all heard the term "carbon footprint" but how many of us know what our carbon footprint is, why it matters and what we can do about it?

And minimising or negating our carbon footprint goes way beyond planting a few trees.

Carbon footprint refers to the total amount of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, emitted by an individual, organisation, or community over a specific period. All creatures on earth have a carbon footprint, i.e. they produce carbon in many forms, and our atmosphere is designed to deal with that. What we're producing these days is way beyond nature's capacity to manage.

You don't have to be an "eco-warrior" or live off the grid to reduce the impact that your life or business has on the planet or even to support the planet positively. There are a few easy things that we can all do as businesses and individuals that can make a big difference.

Accredited carbon specialist, Richie Mulder from Carbonhalo, talks to us about how we can all make a huge difference to our community as well as the planet.

Find out more here: https://www.mmmpodcast.me/ep209

You're at work, in a meeting or giving a presentation to a room full of people and suddenly you have no idea what you were going to say, it's completely gone.

You work in a scientific or high tech environment which involves technical terms that you've been familiar with for your entire life but suddenly you can't remember the terms or what they mean.

You're picking your kids up from school and you go over to one of your child's friend's mothers, but you can't remember the child's name even though they've been to your house on multiple occasions.

Sound familiar? When that happens to us, our first thought is probably "I've got early onset dementia!" So we get stressed out and anxious and we start noticing how many times this happens to us and it begins to happen more and more frequently until we feel like we're unable to function properly, so we quit our jobs because we don't feel like we're capable of holding that position any more.

We go to our GP and they probably give us sleeping tablets and SSRI's. They might say to us, "It's probably menopause, you'll be okay in a few years". Years! What do we do in the meantime? We don't feel that we can function, so we get onto social media and, if we feel confident enough, join a few groups and discover that so many other women are experiencing this yet our doctors told us nothing about it.

Join me in conversation with Julia Browne, co-founder of Peri-Pausers, a group determined to bring this lack of support and information to the attention of the government.

 

    Find out more here: https://www.mmmpodcast.me/ep209

The average separation/divorce takes three years to complete and 70% of people leave the relationship emotionally two years before they leave the relationship physically. Yet very few of us spend that time thinking about how the process will go and what they want the future to look like.

How much easier would the process be if we could map the whole thing out and really think about all the possible variations of who gets what, who does what and when, how we're going to respond when our partner does why, what are our triggers?

Separating is up there are one of the top three most stressful events in anyone's lives and there are whole stages of grief, anger, resentment, fear, upset, excitement, the whole kit and caboodle of emotions to go through. Yet many of us go through it alone for various good - and not so good - reasons.

While it's important to have supportive friends and family around us, we also need experts and professionals on our team too, people who can be relied upon to give objective, honest advice and feedback because while friends and family are great, they may not be the most detached people in this whole thing!

After experiencing her own traumatic separation and divorce, making a lot of mistakes and finishing with a lot of regrets, Bridgette Jackson now supports other people going through the same experience to hopefully come out the other end in the best frame of mind and feeling as good about everything as they possibly can.

Whether you're in a happy relationship yourself or not, this kind of information is important to know because we all know someone who needs this support.

    Find out more here: https://www.mmmpodcast.me/ep199

When we're feeling anxious or depressed, we often feel very alone. When you add wanting to leave your partner into that mix, the helplessness and overwhelm can increase exponentially.

Many of us hide just how unhappy we are with our lives behind facades, to ourselves as well as to everyone else, so even just making enquiries as to the process of separating from our partner can be something that we don't want to discuss with anyone. Should we stay or should we go? What's the process? What's the answer?

When Carolyn Tate and her friend, Gillian Moody, found themselves going through separation and divorce, they realised that they were so lucky to have each other there to share the load because the number of new conversations with different people (lawyers, counsellors, teachers, family, friends, partners) that they had to have was overwhelming and downright terrifying. Yet most people who are thinking of separating do all this on their own.

The two friends set out to create a resource where women could go to get all the information they needed to help them through this time in their life. They enrolled the support of solicitors, counsellors, psychologists and other experts and they created groups where women could go to share what was happening in their lives in a safe space without judgement.

 They called it The Women's Divorce Academy.

Find out more here: https://www.mmmpodcast.me/ep198

Ending a long term relationship is difficult enough with all the fears and uncertainties that go with that but the thought of getting back onto the dating scene after a 20- or 30-year relationship can be even more daunting.

We all hear the horror stories of the current dating scene, particularly online dating, and we're already battle scarred from the breakup of our long term relationship so why would we get back into the dating scene and how do we make sure we end up with the relationship that we want and not a repeat of the relationship that we've just come out of?

THE most important thing in all of this is to know yourself. We all think we know ourselves but how many of us can truly pinpoint what we want? If you're like me, you know exactly what you don't want but what you do want? That's a different matter. And what was your role in the breakup? What ways of behaving do you have that contributed to your unhappiness? Unless you can recognise what you're doing, you'll probably end up in the same relationship feeling the same way that you did before.

With a host of qualifications around relationships, including Internationally Accredited Dating & Relationship coach, NLP Master Coach, Certified Master mBIT Coach and an Authorised Gottman Seven Principles Leader, Debbie Rivers helps and supports people to get the life and the relationships that they've always dreamed of.

Key points:

 

Join us now and find out what it's like to get back onto the dating scene, how to embrace the process, have fun, and be confident in your worth and what you bring to a potential partnership.

 

    Find out more here: https://www.mmmpodcast.me/ep197

What do you do when you find out your partner has cheated on you? Or they've been lying about something? How do you rebuild trust? Can you rebuild trust?

All good relationships are built on some kind of trust and when that's broken by one or both of the parties, it can be almost impossible to overcome. Almost impossible...

Dr Deirdre Tozer is a psychologist who specialises in supporting couples going through this kind of pretty much irretrievable breakdown crisis: infidelity (ongoing or one off), lying about money, lying about other things, gambling, constant arguments, all of it.

The difference between Dee and other relationship guidance counsellors is that she has a 90%+ success rate in rebuilding relationships and one of the reasons for that is that she doesn't just sit the couples down together and have them talk through things, she speaks to them individually.

Key points:

    Find out more here: https://www.mmmpodcast.me/ep196

Reading people is a crucial skill that enhances our understanding of others, fosters empathy, and improves communication. Through observation of facial expressions, body language, and verbal cues, we gain valuable insights into a person's emotions, intentions, and thoughts, often going beyond what they explicitly convey. 

 

Some of us are good at reading people, some of us are maybe not so good but the bottom line is the ability to read people is a crucial skill in all our relationships... if we want them to be successful.

We've all experienced those situations where someone just won't shut up or they don't listen, they cut people off. Maybe you have a partner who, when you try to talk your way through something that's bothering you, interrupts you and tells you how to fix what they think is the problem (and most of the time, they've missed the point!).

In a business situation, the ability to read people will win or lose you sales. In a personal relationship, poor connection, not listening to the other person will put an enormous strain on the relationship.

Alan Stevens is an expert in profiling and reading people and he talks to us about what he does, why this is so important and how we can use it in our daily lives all our relationships, familial, personal and business.

 

    Find out more here: https://www.mmmpodcast.me/ep195

Body image, overeating, bingeing, overexercising, self image, they all go hand in hand. You can't change any of them permanently without getting to the reasons behind the beliefs that cause that behaviour

Self-awareness and understanding one's emotional relationship with food play a pivotal role. Recognising triggers, such as stress, boredom, or emotional eating patterns, allows us to develop healthier coping mechanisms.

But how do we recognise those behaviours?

Dr Kirsty Seward is fascinated by behavioural change, why some of it works, why most of it doesn't and how do we as individuals find what does work for us and then apply it.

This is not your average podcast talking about body image or eating disorders. This is a deep dive into the why's, into how we begin to recognise our behaviours, understand them and how we put new behaviours in place, ones that are more beneficial to us and our goals in life.

Join us now...

 

    Find out more here: https://www.mmmpodcast.me/ep192

Leaving a relationship is an emotionally challenging - and charged - decision, but if there's nothing particularly wrong, if the relationship is just a bit meh, how do you justify even going to counselling, never mind separating?

This can be one of the biggest problems: if there's not much wrong, how do you do something about it? If you're not happy but you're also not unhappy, how do you have that conversation with your partner?

It's easy to look at an abusive relationship and say, "You need to leave" but when the relationship is okay, it can be very difficult to explain why it's not working for you to yourself. And it can be even more difficult explaining how we feel to other people.

Self-awareness can be both a blessing and a curse in this situation because if we are 100% responsible for everything that happens in our lives (this is not about fault or blame, it's about being responsible for our behaviour and reactions to events) then how do we correct something and tell someone else that the relationship isn't working for us and we want to change or end it without causing them no end of pain?

    Find out more here: https://www.mmmpodcast.me/ep193