LC - Lisa Corduff Rebrand 2023-06

CwL Ep 138 IWD with Sam and Amy

LC - Lisa Corduff Rebrand 2023-19

This International Women’s Day Lisa is celebrating by sharing a frank and honest discussion with two of her favourite people. 

Amy Taylor-Kabbaz and Samantha Sutherland are powerhouse women creating big waves in women’s wellbeing circles.

Amy is an Author and the founder of Mama Rising, the first Matrescence certification of its kind. She has broken new ground in our understanding and literacy of motherhood. 

Sam is a sought after Facilitator and Speaker whose mission is to assist women to lead fulfilling and joyful lives. She works with corporations on removing work barriers and with individual women on the systematic barriers they face each and every day. 

In this conversation you’ll hear anger, rage, hope, laughter, optimism and sisterhood.

They discuss why they’re angry about where women are at right now, why it’s boring to still be angry about this stuff and why there’s so much to look forward to in the coming years. 

The system is rigged against women and when we are aware of that and can see ourselves as part of this rigged system – then we can create change. 

It’s a juicy discussion. Share with your friends in solidarity and Happy International Women’s Day! 

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Links: 

Samantha Sutherland – https://samanthasutherland.com.au/

Amy Taylor- Kabbaz – https://www.amytaylorkabbaz.com/

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Prefer to read? Access the transcript here

Lisa Corduff:

Hey, it’s Lisa Corduff. Welcome to the podcast where you can expect inspiring, raw, energising, and transformative conversations with people on the path of personal evolution. I’m here to really live my life, and if you are too, these conversations are just for you. I’m really glad you are here. Enjoy. Well, happy International Women’s Day here. We are recording this a few days beforehand with two of my favourite people in the entire universe and who are regulars on this podcast.

Lisa Corduff:

And I couldn’t think of two better people to bring on to have a conversation about women and where we’re at and what they’re hearing from their communities and what they’re doing in their really important work in the world. Welcome, Samantha Sutherland, Amy Taylor-Kabbaz. It’s time for a conversation. <laugh>,

Amy Taylor-Kabbaz:

Do this

Lisa Corduff:

Because I mean, I’ve talked to you all the time, both of you and the conversations that we’re having at the moment. I mean, I think we should, Amy, where we left off last conversation, which was just a few hours ago when we were going to record this as a solo podcast, was like, we can’t get stuck in the anger. Anger is a stop on the a train station stop, but it’s not our final destination. I guess both of you, I have conversations where we can get really just angry about the state of the world for women right now, can’t we? So can we just acknowledge that first? So maybe just sharing one or two things that you feel a little bit angry about or that are getting to you or bugging you about where we’re at right now, us women who wants to go first?

Amy Taylor-Kabbaz:

I’ll jump in if you’d like. I can start. I also to start by acknowledging that everything I’m going to share in the next 45 minutes also comes from the spaces that I’m in and I don’t hear conversations outside of the spaces. And so acknowledging that there are very different experiences in very different places amongst very different women around the world at the moment. So everything I’m about to say is within that context. You and I were talking about this earlier today, Lisa, and just acknowledging that I think post covid, but also in this world where everything is up for negotiation, the blinds have been lifted. We have all seen what is really going on here. I get a sense within the women and the communities that I’m in that there is a level of burnout and resentment and a little bit of, and I’m sorry everybody to be so negative to start off with, but there’s a little bit of hopelessness. There’s a little bit of, well, we are just back here again. And so when I think about the conversation that the three of us can have here today is we absolutely acknowledge why we’re here and how we got here and that it’s there, but I hope we can feel a little bit more hopeful

Lisa Corduff:

At

Amy Taylor-Kabbaz:

The end.

Lisa Corduff:

Yeah, we’re definitely moving there, but I think that a lot of the conversations that I’m having with women in my communities and just friends in general, they knew, and I spoke to this you about this too, Sam, it’s like the covid years and the flexibility that ended up coming with that in terms of working from home and that kind of thing, and having someone else on board no matter what the capacity changed our changed many women’s expectations of what was possible and maybe were receiving some support. Well, I mean, I know your research sort of showed that it was actually just a much harder time for women, Sam, but it did change the context of, oh God, well, it was kind of nice when I wasn’t having to do every pickup and drop off myself or when I wasn’t responsible for doing all of this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and now it’s, it’s me and it sucks, and I’m cross and I’m angry about it because I know it can be different.

Samantha Sutherland:

Well, yeah, and I think what you are talking about is exactly what I was going to say. The things that I’m feeling angry and also feeling a lot of anger from other women about is, so when I look at my kind of north staff where I want to take women, it’s to have them live in a place where they feel fulfilled and joyful, and the fulfilment is both at home and in the workplace. So when we are overloaded at home, we can’t take on responsibilities that might actually interest us at work because people feel like they’re actually fully at capacity. And then also, you can’t do anything fun at home if you’re just stuck in domestic drudgery. And I think the burnout and resentment that you mentioned, Damien, I’m seeing that everywhere. And in fact, every couple I know of is fighting and in this stage, this stage of life where we’re like bumping middle-aged and have children and often have quite long partnerships.

By now, I mean all three of us are post-divorce, which is kind of funny. But the people who are in longer kind of partnerships are feeling like, why are we still talking about how much shit I’m doing in the home and why do we have to keep having this boring conversation? And I think that that covid flexibility definitely start. It changed how workplaces operate, and we are seeing that really continuing post covid, but it also really just embedded this expectation of overload, like it normalised overloaded women, so working really long hours doing all the parenting. And yes, men were at home and often more involved, but we also still noticed a very typical setup where the guy was locked in the office all day and the woman was sitting at the dining room table. And so all the dynamics didn’t change in a major way.

And then the other thing that I’ve seen is that post lockdowns, I mean we’re not post covid at all, but post lockdowns, there was this huge ramping up of extracurricular activities. So lots of kids parties, lots of sports, lots of adults parties, lots of trips away, lots of travel, lots of everything. And so you take a group of women who are already totally exhausted from the years of the pandemic and the years leading up to that, then you let them have flex, which meant they were flexible to work till 11 o’clock at night if they needed to because they’d be caring for the kids all day. And then you ramp up the non-work activities that are happening. And I still really feel like we’re in a very similar situation of many women looking after everybody before themselves feeling exhausted, feeling overwhelmed, feeling burnt out, and like you said, a Amy, with the hopelessness, there’s not a clear solution because what we do have now is flexibility, but we can see that that’s really putting the load for this systemic issue back on the individual. And so it’s not fully solved anything yet.

Amy Taylor-Kabbaz:

If I could add something in there, I started a little pop-up membership in March, 2020 that was meant to go for six weeks because we thought we were just going to do six weeks, <laugh> staying at home, and I called it returning home. And women all over the world, mothers all over the world joined and I think back, and then we ended up running, I’ve only just closed it in January this year. That’s how long this went for, what we didn’t expect, but I remember the energy back in March, 2020, and even for those first few months, it was, oh, this is what we needed. This is a reset. This is a chance for us to reprioritize and revalue our lives, and this is going to be good. The world’s going to be different. On the other side of this, there was this real hopefulness of, I actually think, although this is terrible and scary and horrible for me, myself, my family, this feels like a good reset opportunity. And I think we carried that through 2021, and by the end of 2021 we’re like, oh, holy hell, there is no reset here. And it’s just going on and on. And I think that’s the energy that a lot of us are feeling that, and I can only speak for myself and also the women I listen to. I think we thought it was going to change and it didn’t, and now we’re back to what we were doing, but we’re even more tired. And that’s what that energy is at the moment.

Samantha Sutherland:

Yes, I do think from a flexibility perspective, there has been material change. And I think that, although, like I said, what it does is it allows the responsibility for systemic issues to land on the individual, it does still give individuals a bit more flexibility, ability to do things a little bit differently. And we have seen that that flex is extending to men as well as to women. It’s not just, it’s much less that just moms working. Moms are taking up flex now. So I think that is a big positive that whilst we started with anger, let’s also talk about some of the things that we do see that are actually changing for a positive. But yeah, I think everyone’s remains exhausted, and a lot of the arguments remain the same as pre covid.

Lisa Corduff:

Well, I did the survey on women last year, and I can remember thinking, it’s not surprising, but it still is very confronting, and all three of us are actually working in the space of knowing that something different is possible and each in our own ways, just digging, digging to try to find that thing that will almost kind of set women free or give them the fulfilment and joy that you are want for women. Sam and Amy, I know yours is a lot about just giving women language and awareness for what motherhood does to us so that we don’t feel like we’re going crazy and we don’t feel alone amongst it all. And for me, I guess I’ve always been about how can we really, really make things super simple for ourselves to have what it is that we want, what’s getting in the way of us having what we want?

And I’ve spent a decade trying to give an individual these ideas, these skills, these concepts simple frameworks that they can put into their lives. And I think what happened to me in 2022 was that, and I think definitely now this year with a kid who started high school, so navigating the life of just being a mom in today’s world with wanting to give my kids the opportunity to play sports and have friends and do all this and this and this, it’s even the tools that I have and the simplicity in my life and everything, it’s like, it’s like, am I, I’m still fucked. I everything hangs on such a tight rope of just any release of tension and it’s like, whoa, my gosh, what are we, I haven’t, do you know what I mean? Well, yeah,

Samantha Sutherland:

And exactly. We’ve talked about this before, the interaction between the individual and the system. So you can give, and Amy, you talk about this too. Yeah, you give women individual tools, but you also talk about the systemic barriers, the reef system. Yeah. Which is why is why we face this stuff. If we didn’t have the systemic barriers, we wouldn’t need any individual, individual solutions to them either. And so I think what happens is when you hit your limit, that’s when it’s suddenly like, oh, right. There are forces greater than me. There are forces greater than my ability to simplify my life. And because we all live in a capital of structure where you have to have an income, and most people who work for a salary, the hours are fairly set from eight 30 ish to five 30 ish. And how do you reconcile finishing work at five 30 with kids activities where they need to be collected from school fed changed, and at the activity by five 30, you can’t do it. And so that’s when you get this tightrope of like, oh my God, we’re scrambling to make it all work.

Lisa Corduff:

And I definitely feel for myself, I try to keep my work as flexible as possible, but it’s the head space that is required for my work. I’m finding I’ve got all these ideas. I came to 2023 with so much energy and enthusiasm for all of the stuff that I wanted to get done. And there is this just navigating as a solo parent how to make that work with the, and Amy, you and I were talking about this before of thinking <laugh> when they got a little bit older, it was going to get easier, but it doesn’t seem to be the case.

Amy Taylor-Kabbaz:

No, it doesn’t. And I don’t know, I mean, I’m sure my parents would’ve told, would agree that my teenage years were the most horrendous, but we still perpetuate this idea that the baby ears are the easy hardest, and then once you have the basics sleep, food routine in place, then your life is going to be freer. And for all those listening with little ones, I’m sorry to say that that’s not necessarily the case. I mean, for some it is.

Samantha Sutherland:

It’s the case for me just to give some people to hope. That’s

Lisa Corduff:

A beautiful, sweet spot. I think I’ve been in a beautiful sweet spot. Yes,

Amy Taylor-Kabbaz:

You’re in a beautiful sweet spot. And we also aren’t going to be negative about it because it’s just rolling with whatever this amazing journey of parenthood brings us. But I think when I think about this, I think that we have to have such kindness towards ourselves because generationally never before has so many things been crumbling at the same time. So just reflecting personally today, I’ve just come from a funeral of a man I didn’t actually very know, but a father of a very good friend. And so they’re standing up and they’re telling his life story. He was 83, I think, and they were talking about how his mother, he was born in 1940 right before the first sort of wave of panic in London that the World War Two was starting. And so he was the youngest of five. The father had already enrolled in the war and she was on her own, gave birth on her own and had to decide what to do with these five children. Did she run to the flee to the country or stay in London and hope like hell, they don’t survive. And I’m sitting there thinking, okay, Amy, maybe <laugh>

Like, ok, life is hard. It is, but I’m not afraid that a bomb’s going to drop on us tonight. However, also there is a very different level of changing structure in our world that does to our nervous system and to our kids and to our sense of responsibility as parents feel like that a lot of the time, it does actually feel like the world is changing. It did in 1940, I do believe we are in a state of time of history where so much is crumbling. We question the school system, we question the way we talk about things, we question everything. There is an uncertainty within us. And so it is incredibly overwhelming and it does feel like every day, what do I need to do over here? What do I need to do over there? I’m, my God, what’s going to happen to interest rates? What’s going to happen over here? I’m not comparing it to having a bond dropped on us, but I do historically think that when we look back at this time in history, future generations are going to say, Hey, they were born during Covid or they did this during this time where governments and systems just kept crumbling around them. I do think we need to be kind to ourselves with what we’re going through.

Lisa Corduff:

Yeah, for sure. But I think it’s also that our bodies, I remember hearing years ago, Nat Kringoudis gave a really good example of to me what an issue is for so many women, which is just staying in that low level stress response all the time. Oh, did they remember their library books? It’s not bomb. But our body doesn’t clock that unless we’re really good at regulating. And I think that’s why there’s so much talk at the moment about nervous system regulation because we’ve kind of realised that this low level stress is causing huge implications to our health, mentally, hormonally physically our relationships. N n, it’s like you and how do you beat that unless you move to the top of a mountain and just pretend that there is no life. So we actually do, as individuals need to take ownership of the level of stress and what we clock as a stress and don’t all the time. But it’s like interviewing Kristie Goodwin about her book about our digital habits. It’s everywhere and it’s coming at us all the time, and it might not be World War ii, but it’s still impacting us. And we have to be, well, I mean, we can be responsible, but we can also see that we exist in a world that that’s just our reality right now. I think all the time about how to do this in a way that limits my stress and the kids’ stress. But it comes anyway.

Samantha Sutherland:

It does. And I think that this ties in when I talk about people feeling fulfilled and joyful. It actually all really relates to this too, because when your whole life is taken up with, do the kids have their library books? Does everyone have, how am I going to work on time? Am I delivering enough? What am I going to, and then I’m going to jump back online and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They’re real hamster wheel of modern life that it’s quite hard to get off, like you said, unless you’re moving to the top of mountain. But when we take time for ourselves to do the things that feed our soul, you increase the amount of capacity you have to deal with the stress. So when you do things that give you a good dopamine release that isn’t the sort of fake dopamine hit of scrolling on Instagram, but I love horse riding or going bush walking or really time away for yourself, then I think that that helps regulate that stress response. And I think women generally aren’t sort of very, they’re not historically empowered and supported to take that time. And so you have to be quite forthright to take it and make sure that you just take the time for yourself and take time working with the kids and enforce your partner looking after them, even if in the face of potential reluctance. And I think that then increases your capacity.

Lisa Corduff:

I hundred percent agree, and I feel like I’ve been saying this for so long, women find it hard to understand and really go for it. But here, so here’s where I think let’s shift the conversation into the lessons that we learned. Sure. There’s now this feeling of resentment or anger, frustration, but what do you think this also this awareness or what we’ve been through, the opportunities that it’s now giving us, what do you think is possible now that you may didn’t see for us four years ago

Amy Taylor-Kabbaz:

As a collective or personally

Lisa Corduff:

As a collective? Well, you could talk about yourself personally or just in general.

Amy Taylor-Kabbaz:

I feel like there is this there’s the beginning, maybe not for everybody yet, but I feel like there’s the beginning of a activation to change things. So what I mean by that is everybody, whether they’re in their own business, whether they’re not a stay-at-home mom, whether they’re not, I just sense this feeling of, oh no, I’m going to do something about this. And I don’t feel like that was there as strong a few years ago. I spoke about before, I think there was a hopefulness that has now sort of petered out, and I shared this story a number of times in my various different programs, but I interviewed a phenomenal American author called Caroline Mace many, many years ago who w has been interviewed by Oprah a number of times as a phenomenal spiritual teacher. And I jumped on a call with her. This was back in the day, this is literally probably seven, eight years ago.

We were on Skype, jumped on a call, and just before we started, I know back in the day where everyone used Skype, Skype, and I was interviewing her for a magazine I was writing for at the time. And she came on and there had just been another school shooting right before we started the interview. So she was incredibly activated, incredibly angry. And this was before, I don’t even think we had Obama by that stage. It was quite a long time ago. Anyway, what she said to me at the time, I’ve thought about over and over again, she has said, she looked at me in the eye across Skype and said, Amy, what we’re witnessing is a crumbling of a system, and it’s going to get rocky and it’s going to get scary. But the ones that, but who will change this are the ones that just start changing it within themselves first and refuse to keep going with the way that it’s been.

Another one of my teachers, Dr. Athen at Columbia University says, it’s like she said to me, it’s Amy. It’s like they did in the seventies where they sat down in the middle of the road refusing to go to Vietnam War. Hell no, we won’t go. I feel where we are now, maybe only at the beginning of it, but I do feel like there’s this activation amongst the women around me. I’m very privileged to have very amazing activated women around me, but I do feel like there’s this sense of hell no, we won’t go. We’re going to change this and it’s going to be us that has to do it. So that’s how I feel it is at the moment.

Samantha Sutherland:

Yeah, I agree with that. And I think that the conversation around this stuff is it’s the pebbles been dropped and the ripple is growing. And so I was just thinking about a number of people that I follow online in various forms where there’s specifically talking about the liberation of mothers. So I think the sort of typical mom blogger back in the day, it was like, here is how you can do it perfectly, and here’s how you can present it perfectly. And now there’s a lot more. There’s that done chat who talks a lot about gender dynamics in the home, and it’s really hard hunting. I hard hitting, I love her stuff. Zon villains is a writer who talks a lot about this stuff as well. There’s mother, honestly, who also is talking about how overstimulating it is and how overwhelming. And there’s another one, the Freckled hand I think she’s called, where she talks about mothering, is actually about relationships.

It’s not about care work, it’s not about labour. It’s about relationships. And so I think that there is this extending conversation about changing the dynamic of motherhood and what actually means and what we deserve to have as mothers is also our own interest and also our own joy and also our own time and also time off. And Leona Dawson wrote about this years ago when she had her second kid, she said of her first because she won, did Gentle Parenting Approach. And she said, I was willing to fall on the sword of motherhood to pen to parent my child gently without realising that if I fell on the sword, then who would be left to care for the child? And I think that that conversation is growing a bit more now where extreme do your children any favours either. So I think that that’s an area of opportunity.

Fair play is another one where she talks a lot about rebalancing the domestic load, which is what, when I talk about fulfilment for women, it’s both at the workplace and in home. No one likes doing all the drudgery, but she also talks about the thing called that she calls unicorn space, which is the stuff that you love. And so I have a couple of issues with some of the things she says in that book, and she does say maybe aiming for 50 50 care and domestic load, she doesn’t use the word reasonable, but she’s sort of like, maybe that’s not really possible. But what she does say, which I really endorse, is that the time away from the family and the time looking after yourself and your friendships and your needs should be measured. It should be tracked, and that should be even. So we should not have this thing of guys going off for an eight hour golf day every day on Sunday, and the mom’s left with the kids again and she fits her art project in the corner of the living room in five minute increments when she’s got time off from the kids.

And I think that is a really important one, this conversation about reclaiming your time. And if you have to do it forcefully, we have to do it forcefully because otherwise, who are you just a shell of who you used to be and who you would like to be?

Lisa Corduff:

Yes, absolutely to everything. And because this is sort of a lot of the work that I do, I mean last year when we launched the 30 days, 30 ways series, the first one that I created was 30 days, 30 ways to Make life easier. So just every single day, just something to that will help you make life easier. And we sold a lot of those. The next one that I put out was 30 days, 30 ways to Fill Your Cup. So give to yourself and do you think that’s sold nearly as much? And this shit keeps me up at night?

Amy Taylor-Kabbaz:

What

Lisa Corduff:

Is, because where you are at Sam is a level of acceptance and understanding of how valuable taking care of yourself is to the overall, not just to yourself, but to your overall family unit. And I think that there’s still a lot of women who haven’t made that connection, who are still in the story of martyrdom, still in the story of I’ll give until there’s nothing left to give to everyone around me. So prioritising themselves is actually quite a big step. Do you see this too, Amy, that

Amy Taylor-Kabbaz:

Breaking? Yeah, I see it so much. And also to be fair, it’s not just a story. It feels like an truth with the capital tea, not, yes, it’s a story, but also they look at their calendar, they look at how I’d like to be completely transparent every single day. I get into bed at the moment and think, excuse me, I’m going to swear. So if you’ve got kids listening on speaker mute tip for a second, every single day at the moment, I get into bed and I think, fuck, I forgot to do that thing for my kid because each of them have such high needs at the moment in terms of extra appointments, extra help, extra things. I was meant to organise that appointment that I forgot to make all of it. And so it is absolutely a story shift. It is absolutely a mindset shift, but it’s also a daily freaking reality for us.

And this is why what all three of us do is so challenging and therefore so rewarding <laugh>, because we are coming to it from both. We’re coming to this individual belief that this is the way it is and I can’t change it, and I can’t see any way out of this. There’s a stuckness there. And also acknowledging that we get it, you don’t have any freaking time to think that you could do anything else. And so it’s a catch 22. It’s both. But unfortunately, we are unlikely to change the system <laugh> as much as we need to in the timeframe we need to need it to be. And so again, it does come back to us of saying, okay, I don’t know how I’m even going to fit this in. I don’t even know how this is possible, but something needs to change. And I probably can’t change patriarchy just yet. So maybe I’ll have a look at what I can do by filling my cup a different way.

Samantha Sutherland:

Well, if I can add to that too, Amy, one of the things you talk about, which I think is really important to bring up in this moment, is also the messages that we get from society about what we are supposed to do as a mother. So it’s not just, yes, we are really busy and we look at our calendar and we can’t do anything. We feel like we can’t do anything about it. It’s like a lived truth that we are at capacity. And the message that society sends about what a good mother looks like, which is, this is straight from Amy’s course. The mum facilitator program is about being perfect, putting everyone else before yourself still looking good, keeping trim get, being well dressed, cooking healthy meals, getting the kids to school on time, making sure they’ve got lots of enriching activities after school. The message is about self-sacrifice.

And so the reason why I think it’s important to talk about the system in all of this conversations is because once you can see that, okay, the message, the strong message I have that I need to put myself last and that it’s really hard to even take on this 30 ways to fill your own cup, is partly because of this indoctrination that I’ve had from birth about how my goal now is to find a guy who will choose me to get married so then I can have kids, so then I can look after everybody else. When you start to see the system, then you can change your life and the way that you show up within it. I read Co Beck’s White Feminism, and I felt like blinkers had been taken off. She explained stuff that some of it had been at the edge of my thinking already, but she explained stuff in a way that I hadn’t heard it before. It’s like that all that, of course, that’s why that is, it just unfolded the explanation for everything. And then you can be a revolutionary in your own life because you know what you’re fighting against. It’s not just against yourself and your own stories. You actually see the system.

Lisa Corduff:

It’s so true. And I definitely think that for us three, where we found ourselves on the other side of our marriages and all three of us also thinking about how we want to live or whether we want to live with men and in what capacity in the future it is. So we, it’s so exciting, but also destabilising when you realise you don’t have to do shit the way anybody else. You get to actually craft this the way you want to craft it, but it’s those that indoctrination is so deep and so pervasive that it almost feels like you’re a rebel in the world if you just choose to not have nuclear, fa, family type aspirations.

Amy Taylor-Kabbaz:

Yes. I actually said this morning to Lisa that I feel really sorry at times for our three partners.

Samantha Sutherland:

Same thing.

Amy Taylor-Kabbaz:

I mean obviously they all knew what they were signing up for, but they really know what they signing up for. Cause holy hell, these three men are being daily confronted with our questions. So I don’t think I need to do it that way. And no, I’ve been there, I’ve done that. I’ve got want to do it differently. And I just think these three men have, if Karma is real, they’ve definitely signed up something <laugh>.

Samantha Sutherland:

Both just think the exact same thing. My partner’s just moved in with me and we are having very regular conversations at the moment about who’s doing what a fair distribution looks like. I just know, I mean, to be fair,

Amy Taylor-Kabbaz:

I found this on the website, Ray White, what is it? So someone activated my Siri. We were talking Ray White, right? So

Samantha Sutherland:

It’s

Lisa Corduff:

So weird. Ok, continue on, Sam. You’re having very regular conversations.

Samantha Sutherland:

Oh yeah. About what equality looks like in our home. And also to be fair to my ex, we actually had a very equitable partnership. But what I know is that I have no interest in signing up for the domestic drudgery that I see all around me. And once you’re in it, it’s very hard to break out of it. But also the thing about the stories we tell ourselves and allowing ourselves to let go, I’m finding interesting to observe myself where he’s taken over all the laundry in the household. I mean, there’s still some key issues with that happening, but largely he’s doing all the laundry in the household. But initially I would see the laundry be on the line cause he’s at work, and I would find it really hard to not, I just brought it in a lot of the time because then I’m thinking about the neighbours and we share the line and the garden.

So I don’t want them to think that I’m not putting the laundry in, but also it’s like I’m here and so I’m just having a break and having lunch. I could probably do it anyway, I won’t take it. But actually it was an internal battle to be like, no, no, no. If I want him to do it, I have to really, really just have him do it and stand by that, not let that boundary be blurry because I don’t want it to be blurry. I don’t want to be doing all the stuff. I want him to contribute, so I need to make space for that.

Lisa Corduff:

Absolutely. I have helped many women over the years to just lean into dropping their standards for having it done to a level that they are happy with because it who wants, I don’t want to be doing everything and I am exactly getting it right or doing it in the most timely manner is often ours to just kind of let go of and let it happen. In saying that, there’s also total incompetence going on in household. Let’s be

Samantha Sutherland:

Real. So many,

Lisa Corduff:

Yes, so many. I mean we talk about that and can get angry about that. But before we leave, I just wondered, this will go live on International Women’s Day, and if you had one core message, if you could speak to the woman who you both really want to help activate and feel differently as a result of the work you do and the messages that you share, what would you tell her? What does she need to hear this International Women’s Day?

Samantha Sutherland:

Well, I would say that once you become aware of the fact that the system is working against you, you can start to figure out what I was saying before about being a revolutionary in your own life, in your own life and your fulfilment and joyfulness is up to you to cultivate. And so when you have an awareness of what’s actually happening around you, you have the language and you have the tools to start talking about it, advocating for yourself and also giving yourself permission to find the things that make you joyful to decide what type of career you want to have, to decide what your home life looks like. And yes, if you choose a non-conventional path with that, it might be a difficult adjustment, but then at the other side, then you’re back to being you again. You’re not just someone’s mom and wife and daughter and employee. You have a again, and I think that that journey is a hundred percent worth it to go on.

Amy Taylor-Kabbaz:

Ugh.

Lisa Corduff:

Love it, Sam.

Amy Taylor-Kabbaz:

So beautiful. I really don’t think much to add to that. That is such a beautiful message. I think if I was to add anything, I just want to say I’m sorry we’re still here. Really everything you’ve just said, yes, it’s up to us to advocate for this and far out. I wish it was different. I really do, but I do believe it will be us that changes the system. And so find girlfriends like this. Find places and spaces where you can have that conversation. You can get off the train for a second at the Angry Station and have a little dance around, but then get back on the train and move towards an empowered way of feeling joy and fulfilment in your life and in your relationships and in your home and in mothering. I wish it was different, but it is going to have to be us that says, hell no, we don’t go. We’re not doing this anymore.

Lisa Corduff:

I love those messages and I love you both so much. And I think if I was to add anything, it would be that I’ve become really acutely aware of the language that I use around my children and also that our changes and our choices and our desire to have a joyful fulfilled life is being watched by our children. And the ripple effect of that is so I just hope this isn’t a conversation that they’re having and anything that we can do, even haven’t been feeling super well, and just using language around when bodies feel tired or they’re not working well, rest is the first thing that I do. And leaning into support even from our children, showing them it can be a different way, is I think a very revolutionary act because it wasn’t our modelling and we need to change the model. And because I am Lisa Corduff, I always think it is small things that we can do always to just tweak things up a little bit.

Just shift your morning routine so it actually works for you. And it’s not just about racing through everything and then just getting to your coffee and feeling like, what the hell just happened? It is those choices are there within the daily life that we are living. But I think what we needed to acknowledge in this conversation was that we’re not making it up. That it is hard, that it is. It can all feel like it’s hanging on by a thread. And I am grateful to both of you for sharing your reflections and passion this International Women’s Day because I lean on you too so much in my life, and you are wise and funny and so hot as well. Just really, really attractive. So for International Women’s Day to comment on what we look like, celebrate foxy women, we should, we’ve all got it. I think that, I mean, I hope that that’s a conversation that starts a lot more. It is a conversation that maybe you three and I can have on the podcast on another day when we’re feeling loose. Anyway, it’s school pickup time. As is a perfect way to end this conversation, <laugh> the obligations that we have to the people in our lives. Thank you for being here. Thank you both. Thank you for the actual best.

Lisa Corduff:

Okay. Bye. Yay. Hey, thanks for listening to the podcast. I have a quick favour to ask you. Firstly, if you got value from this podcast and someone else who might be interested in listening, it helps so much when you go ahead and share that you have enjoyed the podcast. You can do that on your social platforms or even when you’re just chatting to your friends. I so appreciate that. And the other thing, it might take like 30 seconds of your time, but we love reading your reviews of the podcast. You can go ahead and do that on your podcast platform of choice. It really, really makes my day to read them and to know that this stuff is valuable to you. Thanks again for listening. I really do appreciate you being here.

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