Hello, it is Jess here. You know what I wanted to do? I wanted to share one of my favourite
conversations that I've had this year. And this time though, I wasn't asking the questions.
I was the guest and I was speaking to the extraordinary Tariya Pitt on her fabulous
podcast. Tariya Pitt is hard work. Now Tariya is a woman that I reckon, not only I reckon,
I know, she's the top of my list of people that I just think is the ants pants. And as
she taught me the word, she is badass. And I even say it with a terrible accent, but
yep, that is Tariya Pitt. So I couldn't wait to sit down and be on the other side of the
microphone and chat with her, have her ask me the questions. And I love that opportunity
to talk with her. She's a fantastic listener. She shares so much of her life and her life lessons,
things that have helped her. And so I love that chance to be able to open up to her and talk about
times in my life when I'd felt at my lowest for what it was that had got me through. Take a listen.
Let me level with you, mate. If you like what I'm doing here, you are going to love the Jess Rowe
Big Talk Show. Are you sick of the small talk? Me too. I'm Jess Rowe and that's why my podcast
series is all about big talk, because life is just too crazy and interesting to waste time
talking about stuff that doesn't matter. Jess Rowe, you know her as a journo and as a TV presenter
for decades, she brought us the big stories. Jess is also a podcaster with listeners. Oh, come on.
She knew she had that sparkle in her eye. But it's not just her serious skills as an interviewer to
go deep. Jess gets the big names. I guess that's why they call it the Big Talk Show. I'm talking
Keith Urban. Well, we don't fit in a neat box, do we? None of us do. No, hopefully not. I think
if we'd been authentic selves. It'd be boring. Yes, exactly. Danny Wenoog. There needs to be more
hours than 24 hours. They think, well, if there was, you would find it. Yes. You would, Danny.
And recently she had David Wenham. Remember Diver Dan? Diver Dan people. Listen real, think real.
If you do those two things, everything else falls into place. Jess skips the small talk,
goes straight to the top to show you a different side to some people that you love.
You can follow the Jess Rowe Big Talk Show now for free on the listener app.
There's a link in the description. The thing though I love about Jess is her vulnerability.
Like all of us, she's a work in progress and Jess has learned how to embrace her imperfections,
how to be brave and how to ask for help. There was a lot of love in this room during this one.
Here's my mate, Jess Rowe. So Jess, the first time I think I met you was at that speech thing,
right? In Sydney. And I just had Rahiti. He was probably two or three weeks old. And the night
before I had a terrible sleep. He woke up every 20 minutes. I was really tired, felt fat, sluggish,
didn't want to do it. All of those things. And I remember, I can't remember what you said to me,
but I felt really seen by you. You acknowledged what my body had just gone through to produce
a child. You understood how hard it is to have a child, especially a newborn, even more so.
Also, before that, I had been reading your book at night while I was breastfeeding my son. And
every couple of pages I cried. She gets it. She gets it. So I was really stoked and really happy
to meet you. So I just wanted to say thank you, Jess. I feel like there's not a very big dialogue
going on about being a new mum. There's not. And thank you for saying that to me. I remember
meeting you and just being blown away that there you were looking immaculate, about to go on stage
in front of a thousand people. And as you said, you'd had a brand new baby. Because I remember
those days so clearly where I couldn't even, I couldn't get out of the house. So the fact that
you are able to be out, putting your professional hat on and speaking to all these people, I just,
it blew me away. And I am someone who, the older I get, the more comfortable I am in my skin. And
also the more strongly I feel about sharing our experiences and stories so we don't feel alone.
When I was a new mum, I struggled so much. I had terrible postnatal depression with both of my girls,
but especially with Allegra, who's now 15. And those early days of having her were the worst of
my life. They were the worst days of my life. And to me, the great sort of irony of that was
supposedly that's meant to be the happiest time of your life. And the exterior from people all
around you is about, oh, isn't this the best time of your life? And oh, you're so happy. And I was
a great pretender. Having been in the media for so long, I was very good at putting on the face.
But on the inside, I had never felt such despair and such sadness. And I felt like a failure.
I felt like I was letting down my brand new baby, my darling husband, and a sort of new family.
And that's why I talk about what happened to me. Because postnatal depression, it is so common.
The statistics are one in seven new mums. Also, it impacts on dads as well. I actually think it's
probably it's far more widespread because we still don't talk about it enough. It's almost there's
sort of this myth around motherhood and this myth around, oh, we're all meant to be knowing what to
do all the time. And it's supposedly meant to come naturally. And I mean, I struggled to breastfeed
Allegra. And that added to my sense of failure because I thought, oh, my God, if I can't even
feed my baby, what does that mean for the sort of mum I am? And I look back on that time and I tied
myself in knots about I've got to get this right. And I remember I never knew nipples could bleed
until I tried to breastfeed. It's horrible. But I kept I kept persisting because I thought
I'd been a perfectionist. I'm not anymore. But I thought, OK, if I put my mind to this,
I can do this. And I really felt I have to. And I remember my mum saying to me,
what are you doing? I gave you bottles. I gave you formula and you've turned out fine.
But I had this notion that, oh, my God, no, I have to do it the right way. But there's no wrong or
right way. It's what is right for you and your family. And we don't trust ourselves enough.
And then we don't I don't think reach out enough to have help because we feel like, oh, my God,
we're the only ones where the failures. And that's why I still talk about that time.
And it's funny when I think back to that time, I still feel that same sort of I can feel my chest
tightening, that sense of anxiety, the dread, the heaviness. It just comes back like that.
Well, I just want to say thank you to start with for sharing that stuff and sharing that stuff in
your book, because you being vulnerable helps so many women out there. It helped me when I first
had Rohit and I remember when I first had Hakavai. It seems really bizarre to me now, but I like I
gave birth to him and then I wrote a list of things to do when he was crying to help him stop.
And it just seems bizarre to me now. But at the time, the fact that I felt like I needed to write
a list and that list of things was like, check if he needs to feed, check his nappy, check his
temperature. And you're right, we assumed that motherhood will come naturally to us. And I know
for some women it does and being a mother, they feel like that was what they were born
to do. But I feel like for me, having to write a list to think of what to do when my baby was crying,
it was obviously not something that I felt like I was born to do. I felt like it was something I had
to apply myself at and I had to figure out a way through it. You talked a little bit about being a
retired perfectionist. Where did that come from, do you think?
Being a perfectionist, where that originally sort of happened, I suppose, was I'm the eldest. I've
got two younger sisters. My mum has got bipolar disorder, which is a serious mental illness. And
I spent much of my early life caring for my mum and for my two younger sisters. And in a way,
that was good for me. I became more resilient. I had to have a lot more responsibilities for me
earlier age, but it also set me up down the track for not asking for help. Because I felt that if I
created this perfect or seemingly perfect life for myself, and I do that because, you know,
perfect, nothing is perfect. But, you know, I thought if I do these certain things,
I can insulate myself from having the sort of pain that my mum had to experience. And that's,
I look back now and I mean, that's a ridiculous way to deal with it. But that was how I
compartmentalised what was going on. And then it also, what it also helped me do is because I
was used to having to put on a brave face for my mum and for my sisters, that helped me with a
career in media because it's all about you keep the show on the road regardless of what else is
going on. And so it made me sort of work hard and aim, have a goal and think, okay, I'll tick these
boxes and I'll do this, this, this and this, and then I'll reach that and then that'll happen.
So, and that worked well for a time. But of course, it's not a realistic way to continue
leading your life. And so what happened to me when I became a mum, or even in the lead up to it,
I went through, Petey, my husband and I, we went through IVF. So that was already a bit of a chink
for me because I felt, oh, I thought becoming pregnant would be easy, but it wasn't. It wasn't.
So then that was something, oh, I'm not doing what women are supposed to do or meant to just do.
So that was the start of it. And then when I realised that I had the postnatal depression,
I felt so ashamed. And so this perfect life that I had created for myself started to crumble.
And because up until that point, it had been about this facade to the wider world.
And that when I realised I can't keep this facade up, it was very hard for me to initially ask
for help. It was a real, because I felt like a failure. And I had thought I'd never really
asked for help up until that point in my life, because I-
You'd never asked for help.
No, no, because I thought I had to do it on my own. So it was a really,
hard time for me to recognise that, I mean, I was imperfect. And of course,
I embrace that about myself now. But at the time, it was, I felt like going through the
postnatal depression, I was crazy. I mean, and I say that, and I like to joke about things,
but I was a crazy woman. The sorts of thoughts that were going through my head,
my anxiety was off the charts. As a new mum, you're anxious anyway, but my anxiety was not
remotely in check with what was really going on. And then I started to have very obsessive,
scary thoughts about what could happen to Allegra. So this pattern of thinking was so foreign to me,
I felt like I was disintegrating. And also there was a part of me that was very frightened that
I was becoming my mum. And I say that with the greatest respect to my beautiful mum,
because I love her so much. But I had seen the struggles that she had had. And I had thought
by creating this seemingly perfect life for myself, I could insulate myself from any pain.
So there was a big part of me that was afraid that, oh my God, I'm now, I'm becoming what had
happened to my mum. And it was such a big step to ask for help. And what did that step look like,
asking for help? It began with, initially, it was sort of nothing ever happens like that.
I don't think there's sort of, you know, there's not light bulb moments where you go, yes.
Magic wand. No. I mean, hey, I'd love a magic wand. But it was a series of steps. So I knew,
first of all, the sorts of things I was going through, I knew early on that it wasn't usual
behaviour for a new mum. I knew something was up. But I-
How did you know that though?
My intuition. I think we need to tap into, I knew, I just knew, I thought, no, this is,
what I'm feeling and experiencing is really not the, I don't want to say the right way,
because there's no wrongs or rights, but I knew something was deeply wrong with how I was feeling.
I then tried to push that away and thought, if I ignore it, it'll go away. Perhaps I'm imagining
it. I'll just ignore it. I'll keep pretending. Then it'll disappear. That's not very useful.
And then as things often happen, Beyond Blue reached out to me, because I'd done some work
with them in the past with my mum, where we'd advocated for, let's talk about mental health,
supporting families. I would speak from a carer's perspective. Mum would speak from her
perspective. They reached out to me, not knowing what I was going through, but they said, oh,
we're setting up a new postnatal program. Would you like to be involved? And I went,
yes. Can you send me some information about postnatal depression? They sent me all this info,
including a booklet with a checklist, and they were my symptoms. I kept ticking it off, like
I'd read it. And I go, oh, they're my symptoms. Then I'd ignore the booklet. I thought if I put
the booklet away, the symptoms will disappear. No, they got worse. And I felt sicker and sicker.
And when I say that, it got to the point of I had to hide all the carving knives in our kitchen
drawer. I wrapped them up in newspaper and threw them in our garbage bin in the dead of night,
because I was so frightened of what might happen. And that was when I thought,
this is, you have to do something. I thought if anyone would have seen what I was doing,
they would have been, oh, what is going on? And that was for me, my rock bottom, where I thought,
I have to ask for help. I cannot keep going like this because I don't know what might happen next.
And also it was getting, I guess the behaviour or what was, or how you were feeling
was getting worse. It wasn't going away. It wasn't. It was escalating, the thoughts
that were going through my head. And so I knew I had to tell someone. So I spoke to my mum.
She was the first person I spoke to. I knew mum would understand having bipolar disorder,
and just the beautiful woman that she is, we're incredibly close. So I told mum, and mum said to
me, she said, you've got to promise me two things. Promise me you will tell Peter and promise me you
will talk to your doctor. So I made my mum those promises. And she also said, and I'll come around
and I'll take the knives with me. I'll do all of that knowing that I would never do anything,
but it was sort of a symbol of you're going to be okay sort of thing. Like that I was able to
tell her that even though it was so frightening. And she was able to say, no, that's not going to
happen. It's okay. So she did that. And then I promised, so yeah, I'd made those promises.
And I spoke to Petey. And that was, I reckon, the hardest conversation of my life,
because I'd hidden it from him. At the time, you know, he's a news presenter for Channel Nine.
Some of your listeners might know him from that. Previously, he was a reporter for 60 Minutes.
So he was away for up to six months of the year. So in those early days, he was away a lot.
And I was able to hide what was happening. So when he'd come home, I'd put on my brave face again,
and then he'd go off and travel. And I'd fall apart. And so I was, yeah, he was had no idea
what was going on. And then I thought he was coming home this particular weekend. And I really
thought, I've made my mum this promise, I have to do something. So I cooked his favourite meal,
which was the chicken schnitzel with panko. Actually, it was before I discovered panko
breadcrumbs. They make a really good crunchy schnitzel. So it was before the joy of the panko.
But it was chicken schnitzel mashed potato. He loved that. I had rocky road in the fridge.
We had dinner. And then I kept putting off the conversation, as you do sometimes with hard things,
you go after this, after this. I thought, okay, after we eat the rocky road, after we finish
watching the telly. And I couldn't put it off for much longer. And then we were talking. And
Petey said, he calls me pussycat, because I'm a crazy cat lady. He said, Oh, pussycat, I'm so proud
of you. You know, you're doing so well. And it's all so good. And I thought, God, now's my chance.
So I took a deep breath. And I said, Petey, I'm not, I'm really frightened. I'm really frightened
that I have postnatal depression. And then Petey, being the beautiful man that he is,
what he did to Ria was that he took me into his arms. And he said to me, it's going to be okay.
And that is what I needed to hear that night. I didn't need to hear as often well-meaning people
might say to someone who comes to them to ask for help, don't be so ridiculous. You're imagining
it. So and so is far worse off. What about what's happening on the other side of the world? You'll
be right. No, that is not helpful. If someone, and you know this, if someone is brave enough,
and I think it's the bravest thing you can do to ask for help, is brave enough to come and say,
I need help. Listen. You don't have to come up with a solution then and there, but listen to them.
And because of Petey's response, I started even then to feel a little bit of weight
come off my shoulders. And that weight, it got lighter and lighter as then Petey did slip into
Mr. Fix-It mode, as I think sometimes, you know, blokes do, and that's okay. But he was like,
right, okay, we're going to ring the doctor tomorrow. We're going to do this and blah,
blah, blah. And it was good that he did that. So I saw my doctor the very next day.
I thought she was going to say to me, right, you're going to hospital. We're taking your baby.
But she said to me, yeah, that's what I thought. She said, no, you, you know,
clearly you are very unwell, but I'm going to, I've organised for you to see a specialist
psychiatrist in post-natal depression. And I was lucky that I then was able to see her
the very next day. So two days after I asked for help, I was able to get the right help.
And I'll never, never forget when I went in to see my psychiatrist for the first time,
I put on my brightest dress, wore my brightest lipstick because there was still that part of
me thinking, oh, I'll keep up the facade. And I sat down and the first thing she said to me was,
you can stop pretending now. And again, you know, a bit more weight came off my shoulders
because she was giving me permission to be me. And then I poured my heart out to her. I told
her everything. And I thought that she was going to say to me, you are a crazy lady. And she didn't.
She said, but that's normal. And I went normal. That is not normal. She said it is normal for
someone who has post-natal depression. And yet again, some more weight came off my shoulders
because she was validating what I was feeling. She was putting a name to it. She was removing
some of that shame that I felt, some of that stigma and some of that sense of failure.
So it wasn't as if I was suddenly, okay, there by the end of that first appointment. It was a lot
of work. I went on medication. I still take medication. And I'm still a work in progress
as we all are. But that was the beginning of me embracing my imperfection and my vulnerability.
And even though it was a terrible time, I'm in a strange way, I'm grateful that it happened
because I wouldn't be who I am today without that happening to me.
I really love how open and vulnerable you are with your post-natal depression and mental health
in general. I also try to be really open with my mental health as well. I tell people that I saw
a psychologist and all of that stuff. And you're right, it's so hurtful when someone dismisses
how you're feeling. Like if you're brave enough to say to someone,
I'm not coping, I'm struggling, I need help. If they dismiss it and shut it down,
that can be super, super helpful. I was also lucky. My partner Michael is a bit like Petey.
He's a beautiful, lovely human being. And so he was really good during my recovery and really
supportive of my appointment with a psychologist and doing my treatments. And I was on antidepressants
for a really long time as well. There is still such a shame, such a stigma associated with mental
health. I don't know why, because people like you, who've got this awesome life, are really open and
vulnerable with it. I try to be really open and vulnerable with it. I see a lot of people on
Instagram also doing the same thing. And I think the conversation has shifted. But I still think
there's a lot of work that needs to be done. Oh, there is. And I thank you because you know
I love you. And I think what you do and the way you talk about how you've been able to shift the
way you see things and do things and your vulnerabilities, it inspires and empowers
other people. And as you know, when you're going through stuff, you can feel so alone.
And you feel like it is never going to end, that feeling. And I'm all about hope. I think we all
have to travel hopefully in life. And also as I get older, I like to think of myself as a chaser
of joy. I'm all for, what is it that brings me joy? And I know you've done a lot of work on,
you know, is happiness, you know, can we be happy all the time? I don't think we can. But I think
it's about contentment, but also looking for those moments of joy amidst the often struggle
of day-to-day life when things are hard and difficult. But to grasp onto those wonderful
things and often silly things or, and that's what I do. That's how I, in terms of my self-care,
I just, I take the piss out of myself and have a laugh at myself and my terrible cooking. I mean,
I'm a proud crap housewife, as you know, and I cook lots. Well, talk to me about the time you
dressed up as a fart then, because I think that's quite, tell me about that. Oh my god. You see,
people will ask me. I think it's unusual, but hey, you know, I want to hear it from you.
People will ask me, well, you know, what was your favourite moment on television? You know,
I've worked in the media for 30 years and I say the time that I dressed as a fart
on national television. And I was, I mean, it still makes me laugh. And what it was about-
The photos, the photos make me laugh. I've seen the photos. Well, cause I made the costume,
you see. I am a bit of a crafty person. I do like to make a costume. And it was for when I was
working on Studio 10 and we were doing a Halloween show, it was Halloween. And I thought, right,
I want to dress as a fart. Cause I'd seen this great picture of a little boy dressed as a fart
on Instagram. I thought, I'm going to make that costume. And I wanted to surprise
my co-hosts with it as well. Cause we're all in different costumes. So I ran out at the last
minute, sat down and I remember Aita Buttros, who sat next to me, who is magnificent, but terrifying
in equal measure. Completely, completely terrifying. She looked at me up and down and she's like,
what are you? And I went, I'm a fart. And she was like, why? And I basically said, well, why not?
And laughed. And, and I think though that's more and more my philosophy for living about,
well, why not? Why not give something a go? Why not be honest about what you're going through?
Why not try that, that job? Why not stay in your jammies all day? Why not have cereal for dinner?
If you've had a really tough day, whatever it is. And, and so for me, dressing as a fart,
I just loved it. But I will, I'll always remember to my darling Petey, who is the total opposite.
I mean, the older I get, the more he says eccentric. I say quirky, I get, but he's very
straight, you know, straighty 180. And he just looks at me, but he embraces me being me. But
I remember I was sitting up in bed late with the light on and he's going, what are you doing? And
I said, I'm making a fart costume. And he was like, what? I'm not going to ask. So there I was with
the chule, with the green chule, the white chule, the brown chule. And, and, but you know what? It
was fun. And it brought me joy. And yeah. And that, and again, that, you know, for people listening,
you know, they might not, obviously they might be dressing up as farts, but they might
like what you love doing, running, or they might love having a coffee in bed or eating
chocolate or whatever it is that brings you joy, incorporate it in your life every day, if you can.
Doesn't mean you've got to do a massive change to everything and how you live your life, but
chase those moments that, that bring you joy and that are good for you. Because then I think
we're better for the people around us. And you, I know you've spoken about this as well.
If you start to feel like you're not doing something that's just for you,
that sense of kind of resentment and doing everything for everyone else all the time,
especially with kids, little kids, it's exhausting. And, and I mean, I remember a time I felt terrible.
I pinched my daughter when she was, this was Giselle, when Giselle was about one,
because she kept pinching, like she was pinching me and it really hurt. And I was like,
please don't, I was trying to be calm, mummy, please don't do that. That really hurts. And
she just kept doing it. So I turned around and gave her a really big pinch and she burst into tears.
I've done this, I've done this.
Don't you feel bad? I felt terrible. I felt so guilty.
You do, but how else, like how else do you get them to stop? Like I just,
I think any, any like parenting experts would be appalled by what we're saying. But yeah,
I've done the exact same thing because I just, I didn't know how else to make it stop.
And then though it didn't stop, she gave me another pinch after I'd done it. But I think
why we talk about this, isn't it, is to just basically share and to say to other people,
it's okay. It's okay to be enough, not perfect. There's no such thing as being a perfect mum
or a perfect wife or a perfect friend. You're enough and embrace what you're good at
and be gentle on yourself.
I want to talk a little bit about your career in the media because you had a really awesome
one. You were on the news, you were on Studio 10. From the outside, it seemed like everything
was going really, really well. But then what did you do next?
Well, what I did next was that I left Studio 10. I'd been in that job for five years and it was
the best job I've ever had on television. And I think as well with the media, you know,
your career, I've zigzagged all over the place and there've been times when the phone hasn't
rung, I haven't been able to find any work. So there've been real moments of self-doubt.
But with Studio 10, it was a time for me of, I loved it. I think it was because I could be
myself. I could be silly, I could dress as a fart, but I could also debate issues that I felt very
strongly about. And it was lovely to have all of those parts of who I was, other people could see
that. But what happened for me was that I got to a point where I could feel myself burning out.
And it happens for so many of us with trying to keep everything going. And even though I might
have been trying to say outwardly to people, be gentle on yourself. Don't put too much pressure
on yourself. I still felt like I wasn't doing anything very well. And I was getting, by the
end of each week, I was getting more tired. I could feel my resentment building. I'd be getting
snappier with my daughters and with Petey. And that wasn't just occasionally, it was happening
more and more. And I had to, again, tune into myself, into that voice that's inside of you,
which often we can ignore. And I know, Teria, you're logical.
Okay, okay, I got to stop you. That's why I've got to stop you. You mentioned intuition and tuning
into your voice inside you. How? By listening. By listening and letting.
What am I listening to? Well, I think what it is,
because you're very logical, being with your engineer background. And okay, that sort of,
I'll do this, this, this, this, this, and this, which all makes good sense sometimes. But often,
those sorts of either lists or seemingly steps to do things can become too noisy, I like to say.
That you forget what your heart, what's in your heart. And to me, your heart is different to your
head. What is it that makes you happy? And the best way I can try and describe it is,
what makes my heart sing? So what is it for you, Teria, that makes your heart sing versus the logic
of going through these steps to get to this outcome? Right, okay. Okay, I think I understand.
Because if you say, ask me what makes my heart sing or what makes me feel good,
writing, spending time with my family, running, going on bushwalks, that type of thing,
that makes my heart sing. So that's what you mean. Exactly. And that sense of, and that's not
necessarily logical. That that, it makes sense that that is good for you. But it's separating
those ways of thinking and being in tune with ourselves. And so much of life is about, I think,
those logical steps, the career goals, the aspirations, the this, this, this and this,
that we then lose sight of, am I happy? What is, how am I in here? And as I talk to you,
I keep touching my chest because that's where it is for me. And I could feel that I wasn't.
And that, that sort of, I say it, it's like a voice inside of me saying, but are you happy?
And I ignored it for a while thinking, no, keep, keep pushing on. This is a great job. You've
always wanted a job like this. Be grateful for that. Keep going, keep going, keep going.
But I realised my anxiety started to return, even though I was still on my antidepressants.
And I thought, oh, I can't keep ignoring these signals that my body is telling me
to change, to shift direction, to stop, to slow down. And it was when I listened to that and sort
of made that, that hard choice, cause it was difficult to say, you know what, you need to make
a change and change can be scary. And I thought I have to make a change to the way I'm leading my
life. If I keep going on this path, I don't know if I'm going to become someone that I really like
very much. Cause I wasn't liking how I was feeling. I wasn't liking the way I was talking
to the people I loved. And I, and if I'm honest, which I am honest, I wasn't liking how I was
talking to myself. And I thought you need to make a change. And I know that I was lucky that I was
in a position that I could do that with the job that Petey, my husband does. He's working full
time. He's got a great job that even though if I made a choice to step back from my career,
that would have an impact on us, but it wasn't an impact of if I leave my job, we won't be able to
pay a mortgage. So I knew I could do that. And so I thought to myself, if you don't make this change,
you are doing yourself and everyone you love a disservice. There are all these things going
for you to make this change. Stop making excuses, be brave, take that scary step. Because to me,
being brave is about you're frightened, but you do it anyway. And so I thought, you know what,
I am going to leave my full time job and to be more present for my family,
to lean in to being there for my family, but also at the same time, making choices around the work
I do, working with the people that I want to work with and doing things that bring me joy.
And again, I appreciate that I'm lucky that I can do that, that it's not as simple or
straightforward for many people. And again, I thought, because I can do this, do it.
Come on. Yeah, you've got that opportunity and you're able to. Yeah, come on. And so obviously
for people, it doesn't have to be as dramatic as we'll change careers or leave your job,
but be aware that you can make changes in your life. It doesn't matter what stage you're at or
where you're at. Life is full of change, but you can also be responsible for that. Sometimes,
and you know this better than anyone, we don't have a choice about what happens to us,
but we can choose how we decide to deal with it. And to me, you're the most extraordinary person
in the sorts of choices you make about how you deal with things that have happened and do happen
in your life. And I think that's where our empowerment lies, that be empowered by making
a choice about this is how I'm going to deal with this. That was so good. That was so good, Jess. I
feel like with me, I've made a choice to create this really great life I've got for myself. And
I want to note as well, I'm really lucky. I've had opportunities. I've got amazing friends and
partner and family. So I've got all of that stuff working for me. But I think I've made that choice
to be a good person and to live a good life because the alternative, like I was telling
you before, was pretty shit, like living at my in-laws, watching TV all day. Love my in-laws,
but that wasn't particularly exciting for me. So I do love that. What's your advice for people
who are stuck in a rut right now? Like they're feeling like they want to make a change.
Well, my advice would be listen to your heart. Am I? No, and Therese's going,
that's against every part of my logical brain.
How did you feel when you made that decision and you left your job? How did you feel?
So I felt lighter. I felt like, oh, yes, relief. I felt relief. Oh, I felt like I could exhale
for the first time in a long time. I'd been existing with that sort of sense of everything,
tight and holding it all together. But I felt lighter and that I could exhale.
In terms of advice for people in a rut, trust yourself. Don't ignore if you're feeling in a
rut, you are in a rut. In my earlier life that I shared with you, I would ignore those sorts of
things thinking, oh, no, no, just ignore it. It'll disappear. But things, they don't disappear.
They become bigger and become bigger problems, don't they? If we don't deal with them,
if we don't deal with those things, they become, ugh. And so take a step, just make a small change
if that's what it is. And then see where it goes and then realise, actually, that wasn't so bad.
I'm going to try this. Why don't I try that? And ask yourself that question, as we were,
what makes your heart sing? What is it that brings you joy?
What makes you feel good?
What makes you feel good?
And it's different for all of us. And also too, it's different at different times in our life.
And that was another lesson for me as well, that there's a time and a season for everything.
We might be heading along a particular path and that's served us well. But then there comes a time
when you think, well, I don't have to keep repeating those patterns or doing things that
worked in the past. You can do things differently. And that's all right. In fact, I think it's
essential because we're always growing and learning. And I never, ever want to feel
that I'm there yet because we're never there yet in our lives. I always want to remain open
and questioning and curious about people and the wider world and compassionate and open.
I think it's about being open to people and to experiences.
And that seems like a really good place to end this interview, Jess. You're enough as you are.
I love it. You've taught me so much during that hour. You've taught me so, so much.
The power of being open and vulnerable, of sharing our stories, of carving out those little pockets
of time during your day for yourself and just how good it is to hear another mum say that
sometimes I find that they get resentful and shitty as well. It's always good to hear that.
It's great to speak with you today, Jess. I love you. Thanks so much.
Oh, I love you, beautiful. And thank you for the privilege of being on your podcast because I'm
one of your biggest fans. And I just think you rock. I love you to bits.
And I'll be back next week with a regular episode of the Jessrow Big Talk Show. Now,
if you haven't already, subscribe. Add me to your favourites because I never ever
want you to miss an episode, lovely listeners. And if there's someone in your life who you know
will enjoy this conversation, share it with them and slip into my DMs. I love hearing from you.