התמלול המלא של 126: Finding strength through life's toughest challenges: Briony Benjamin's journey after a life-altering diagnosis

test, and, funnily enough, my dad's a vet. 00:05:09.627 --> 00:05:30.593 And so my mum and dad together kind of diagnosed me and figured out what was wrong and they rang up my GP behind my back and said, because they didn't want to freak me out, they said we want Bryony to go and see a specialist hematologist, which is someone that specializes in blood, so they can look deeper and what's really going on here. 00:05:30.593 --> 00:05:35.114 And so, after 18 months, I thought they were being really, to be honest, quite over the top. 00:05:35.114 --> 00:05:38.608 I went and saw this specialist and it was interesting. 00:05:38.608 --> 00:05:47.210 As I told her what was going on, I said look, I'm waking up in pain every single night, night sweats, I've got this cough that just won't go away. 00:05:47.210 --> 00:05:50.063 My skin's really itchy all the time. 00:05:50.063 --> 00:05:54.782 What I didn't realize at the time were these were all the symptoms of blood cancer. 00:05:54.782 --> 00:05:56.927 But she was actually the first person. 00:05:56.927 --> 00:06:05.338 I remember her just looking at me and going wow, so this is actually having a really big impact on your life, and it was the first person that had really taken my pain. 00:06:05.338 --> 00:06:08.887 Seriously, I realized and I said, yeah, actually it is. 00:06:09.107 --> 00:06:16.367 I'm waking up drenched every night and exhausted, and I remember just literally every morning. 00:06:16.367 --> 00:06:19.762 You know what it's like when you pull yourself out of bed, when you're tired. 00:06:19.762 --> 00:06:22.228 But day after day it just getting worse and worse. 00:06:22.228 --> 00:06:23.711 And I remember I'd get into Mamma Mia. 00:06:23.711 --> 00:06:33.501 I used to get in an hour before and then I'd get in half an hour before and then I'd get five minutes and then I'd be like racing in the door as morning stand-up started, like with a coffee, just trying to get there. 00:06:33.501 --> 00:06:39.310 I was just so exhausted and so, yeah, look, basically she set off for a bunch of tests. 00:06:39.310 --> 00:06:46.770 I did a PET scan and these sort of things and it came back and she said look, it's showing that there are some enlarged lymph glands. 00:06:46.770 --> 00:06:51.727 That could be fine, it could just be a virus, but we're going to do a biopsy, come back in two weeks and get the results. 00:06:51.727 --> 00:06:57.064 And honestly, lindy, at this point I'd been through so many tests and so many like dead ends. 00:06:57.064 --> 00:06:59.547 I was not worried at all. 00:06:59.547 --> 00:07:03.412 I was like cool, I'm going to come back, She'll tell me I've got a virus, you'll be fine, you know. 00:07:04.593 --> 00:07:07.855 So it was just a normal busy Thursday morning. 00:07:07.855 --> 00:07:09.446 You know, I was heading into Mamma Mia. 00:07:09.446 --> 00:07:10.994 We had Sophie Monk coming in. 00:07:10.994 --> 00:07:11.918 I had to interview her. 00:07:11.918 --> 00:07:15.991 That's where my head was and all I was thinking about is how long is it going to take me to get the office? 00:07:15.991 --> 00:07:16.732 Am I going to be late? 00:07:16.732 --> 00:07:17.312 Blah, blah, blah. 00:07:17.852 --> 00:07:22.896 My beautiful mom insisted on flying down from Queensland to be with me to come to the appointment. 00:07:22.896 --> 00:07:27.906 And I was like mom, like oh, you're being so over the top, don't worry about it, I've just got to get straight to work. 00:07:27.906 --> 00:07:30.281 I'm too busy, you know, so busy and important. 00:07:30.281 --> 00:07:42.651 And thank God she didn't listen to me because I went into that appointment and I sat down and the specialist said, yeah, so the results are back and we're really sorry, it's Hodgkin's lymphoma. 00:07:42.651 --> 00:07:49.927 What that means is we need to clear your next six months immediately and we're going to start you on a course of chemotherapy. 00:07:49.927 --> 00:07:59.364 And as soon as I heard that word, I sort of you know you start to realize, oh so, this is quite bad, but not grasping really what lymphoma was or what that meant. 00:07:59.364 --> 00:08:02.692 I remember just asking am I going to lose my hair? 00:08:02.692 --> 00:08:06.971 And she said, yeah, you will, but it will grow back. 00:08:06.971 --> 00:08:19.547 And that was that real sucker punch moment where you're like oh okay, yeah, this is quite serious, just a shock that you're never expecting in your life, particularly when you're 31. 00:08:20.400 --> 00:08:22.206 I imagine at that point you're feeling quite scared. 00:08:22.206 --> 00:08:28.804 You know you don't know at this point what's kind of involved, what the process is going to look like, whether or not you're going to come out on the other side of it. 00:08:29.766 --> 00:08:36.852 Well, totally, you know and I was I was very fortunate that from the get go, it was a cancer with really good recovery rates. 00:08:47.960 --> 00:08:49.806 But of course, you're thinking, well, what if I'm in that percentage that don't make it. 00:08:49.826 --> 00:08:50.607 You know, people die of this every day. 00:08:50.607 --> 00:08:53.798 You know, like um, and so, yeah, it's an incredibly surreal and overwhelming experience, like it's very much an out of body experience. 00:08:53.798 --> 00:08:58.170 You know, like even talking about it now it doesn't actually feel like this happened to me. 00:08:58.170 --> 00:09:19.883 It doesn't feel like my life, you know, it still feels like so surreal, but I remember, just thinking in that moment, who are the most important people in my life and I wrote down all their names because I wanted to ring them and tell them before they heard it from somewhere else how much time do I have left on this planet and how do I want to spend that time? 00:09:19.883 --> 00:09:26.226 You know, and I I think really they are probably the three questions we should ask ourselves every day. 00:09:26.226 --> 00:09:36.430 It shouldn't

take a crisis or a health scare, but you know, to be really thoughtful and deliberate about how we want to spend our time and who we want to spend it with, doing what. 00:09:36.430 --> 00:09:40.971 So, yeah, very overwhelming, but very profound at the same time. 00:09:42.100 --> 00:09:51.332 So it's almost like there's got to be some silver lining, and the silver lining was this real recognition of the stuff that truly mattered and the stuff that didn't matter. 00:09:51.332 --> 00:09:55.497 Can you talk to me about the stuff that you suddenly realized this does not matter at all? 00:09:56.640 --> 00:09:58.685 Most stuff really. 00:09:58.685 --> 00:10:19.765 We spend so much of our life, don't we, I think, in the minutiae and thinking and obsessing and stewing over things, things people have said who doesn't like us, what people think of us and I think particularly for women just picking ourselves apart, that negative self-talk. 00:10:19.765 --> 00:10:33.792 And I remember having I had got some headshots done for work a few weeks before I was diagnosed and I remember getting them back and like, oh, look at my hair, oh, look, how bad it looks, and oh, my eyebrow's kind of wonky on that side. 00:10:33.792 --> 00:10:40.831 I mean, gosh, fast forward six months later when I had no hair, no eyebrows, and I'm thinking, oh my God, I was an absolute goddess. 00:10:40.831 --> 00:10:42.461 What was I thinking? 00:10:42.903 --> 00:10:48.273 But we're so, so harsh on ourselves and actually none of this stuff matters. 00:10:48.273 --> 00:10:49.923 I always love that expression. 00:10:49.923 --> 00:11:00.365 If you're going out and you're not feeling like super confident in how you look and how you're feeling, it's like actually no one's going to remember what you're wearing, no one's going to remember how pretty you looked or not. 00:11:00.365 --> 00:11:03.552 They're going to remember how they felt around you. 00:11:03.552 --> 00:11:06.758 And it's so true, you know you. 00:11:06.758 --> 00:11:21.329 Just we obsess over things that are often just so unimportant to everyone else, and so, yeah, I definitely remember that experience you know you've got to go through, I think huge thing for women going through cancer, losing your hair, shaving it off. 00:11:21.329 --> 00:11:31.771 You know it's such a part of your look and your identity and you feel really stripped back and really you know bare bones and I remember coming to terms with that at some point. 00:11:31.771 --> 00:11:48.666 It was a huge shock at first, but I remember a few weeks in going, yeah, this is me and this is how I look, and this is a really interesting experience Not one I would have signed up for, let's be honest, but a really interesting experience and having a newfound appreciation for your body. 00:11:48.826 --> 00:12:11.180 You know, okay, yes, I might have a blood cancer, but I've got these legs that allow me to go on beautiful walks around the garden and I can see and I can hear, and I

can listen to podcasts and music and I can still be a great friend and someone that can, you know, spend time with people and have them leaving me feeling better, you know. 00:12:11.180 --> 00:12:18.527 So, yeah, definitely a newfound appreciation for your body, for so many things that you might not have appreciated before. 00:12:18.527 --> 00:12:28.543 I even remember, you know, when I was through treatment, my period coming back a few months after and just bursting into tears and being so grateful for my period. 00:12:28.543 --> 00:12:31.263 You know it's normally the thing that you think, oh gosh, I've got my period. 00:12:31.263 --> 00:12:34.074 I was like, yes, I've got my period, I'm so grateful. 00:12:34.074 --> 00:12:39.147 So those were definitely the big silver linings that came out of a really tough experience. 00:12:39.849 --> 00:12:43.523 It can be so incredibly tough to be kind to ourselves. 00:12:43.523 --> 00:12:52.149 Did going through this really life altering event help you become kinder to yourself and did you learn any tricks and tips for being kind to yourself? 00:12:52.791 --> 00:12:55.644 Oh, it's a really good question From the get go. 00:12:55.644 --> 00:13:06.173 For me, slightly different to your question, but I know a lot of people want to go into the whole cancer's the worst and screw you cancer and I'm going to fight you cancer and take you down. 00:13:06.173 --> 00:13:21.355 For me, that just created a lot of tension in my own body and so I thought, you know, I love my body actually and this cancer is part of my body right now and I don't want to hate my body because that just creates conflict. 00:13:21.355 --> 00:13:24.384 What I'm going to think about instead is I love my body. 00:13:24.384 --> 00:13:25.970 I love every little cell in my body. 00:13:25.970 --> 00:13:31.170 It was trying to do its best job and it kind of misfired and this is going to pass through me. 00:13:31.170 --> 00:13:35.706 So that was kind of a gentler way to approach the whole experience. 00:13:36.949 --> 00:13:51.710 But I think as well, particularly when you're in recovery mode and you know, being a particular A-type, want to do a million things at once I really had to just pull back from everything and I would ask myself just two questions every day. 00:13:51.710 --> 00:13:55.843 I would say how am I strengthening my body today and how am I calming my mind today? 00:13:55.843 --> 00:13:57.125 And that might literally look like a five-minute meditation. 00:13:57.125 --> 00:14:01.258 It might look like a few deep breaths, whatever I felt up to today, and that might literally look like a five-minute meditation. 00:14:01.258 --> 00:14:08.008 It might look like a few deep breaths, whatever I felt up to really, and it might look like a gentle walk around the garden with my dog. 00:14:08.008 --> 00:14:19.409 It was really pulling it back and just those little wins, those little goals, being really proud of those and being content with that. 00:14:20.480 --> 00:14:27.850 It sounds like you went from almost kind of seeing your body as the enemy to becoming an ally with your body again. 00:14:27.850 --> 00:14:29.332 Through this hardship. 00:14:29.332 --> 00:14:34.149 Definitely Life threw you the most enormous curveball. 00:14:34.149 --> 00:14:36.253 How has it changed you now? 00:14:36.253 --> 00:14:39.404 How do you view hardship differently and tough times? 00:14:39.404 --> 00:15:18.352 You actually went on to write a book called Life is Tough, but so are you. 00:15:18.352 --> 00:15:18.913 I've read it. 00:15:18.913 --> 00:15:19.935 I love it. 00:15:19.935 --> 00:15:23.831 It feels like the hand-holding that you need. 00:15:23.831 --> 00:15:27.811 It doesn't feel like toxic positivity when you go through hardship. 00:15:27.811 --> 00:15:30.640 It also doesn't feel like that yelly kind of let's be angry together. 00:15:30.640 --> 00:15:40.686 It feels like a very much a practical guide of how to get through crappy, crappy times in a way that feels like almost big sister energy and I really enjoyed having it. 00:15:40.686 --> 00:15:46.112 And you share a lot of the things that you learned from your experience inside that book. 00:15:46.112 --> 00:15:51.968 Can you tell me about writing the book, about what are some of the things that you think are some of the biggest takeaways? 00:15:53.560 --> 00:15:57.771 Yeah, well, thank you for that lovely, lovely endorsement of the book. 00:15:57.771 --> 00:16:03.911 Actually, that means a lot coming from you and that's exactly what I wanted to create. 00:16:03.911 --> 00:16:15.372 You know, I really sat down to create the book I would have loved to have had on that very first day and I think, in a way, a lot of people don't write books from that perspective, which sounds crazy. 00:16:15.372 --> 00:16:16.724 Right, They've got something to say. 00:16:16.724 --> 00:16:17.646 What do you want to say? 00:16:17.646 --> 00:16:22.745 Whereas for me it was like what does someone getting the worst news of their life today? 00:16:22.745 --> 00:16:23.506 What do they need? 00:16:23.506 --> 00:16:25.751 What did I need? 00:16:26.212 --> 00:16:30.746 And I was given a lot of books when I first got diagnosed, but they were quite overwhelming, scary. 00:16:30.746 --> 00:16:36.295 They had titles like when it all falls apart, and I was like I and it was that balance. 00:16:36.295 --> 00:16:47.353 Right, I don't want to scare anyone, I don't want to overwhelm them, but I don't want to sugarcoat this and just be like, yeah, great, so it is a hundred percent toxic, positive, free zone, for sure, you know. 00:16:47.353 --> 00:16:59.211 But things early on in the experience, like acceptance, you know, some things don't have to be understood, just accepted, cause no one gets a cancer diagnosis for a reason. 00:16:59.211 --> 00:17:00.834 I really hate that expression. 00:17:00.834 --> 00:17:02.044 All things happen for a reason. 00:17:02.044 --> 00:17:03.589 It's

like well, no, they don't. 00:17:03.589 --> 00:17:10.667 Yes, I'm the first to say great things can come out of really challenging times and experiences. 00:17:10.667 --> 00:17:14.024 But someone doesn't lose the love of their life for reasons. 00:17:14.024 --> 00:17:16.151 A baby doesn't get brain cancer for a reason. 00:17:16.151 --> 00:17:22.144 And when people say that kind of thing, it's just so unhelpful. 00:17:22.144 --> 00:17:25.130 And so there were so many takeaways from the experience. 00:17:25.130 --> 00:17:27.615 I mean I had to literally write a book to put them all down. 00:17:34.119 --> 00:17:35.826 But I think some of the big themes were the energy that you spend. 00:17:35.826 --> 00:17:37.634 You know the people and your community that you spend your time around. 00:17:37.634 --> 00:17:38.880 That is your life, you know. 00:17:38.880 --> 00:17:40.267 You know you're often here. 00:17:40.267 --> 00:17:42.663 You are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. 00:17:42.663 --> 00:17:51.106 But it's so incredibly true and I think I'd always been pretty strict about the company I kept, but it ratcheted up a few notches. 00:17:51.106 --> 00:17:52.229 You know for sure. 00:17:52.229 --> 00:18:00.722 Life is just too short to spend time around toxic energy, toxic people, and literally I. 00:18:00.722 --> 00:18:10.060 Now you know, if I even get an inch of that from someone, I'm like you know that's fine, like you can be like that and that can be your life, but I'm not going to put myself around that energy. 00:18:10.060 --> 00:18:18.143 I think I care a lot less about things stress me out a lot less than they used to. 00:18:18.143 --> 00:18:27.031 In some ways, you know, you do have that barometer, that new barometer to compare everything to. 00:18:27.031 --> 00:18:28.539 It was really helpful. 00:18:28.721 --> 00:18:45.904 I think, you know it was great prep really going through COVID, like having had this ultimate preparation of like things that are completely out of your control, accepting what's going on, finding joy in the everyday where you are right now, even if the world isn't as you wish it was. 00:18:45.904 --> 00:18:49.653 You know, and that was a learning really early on. 00:18:49.653 --> 00:18:56.815 Someone shared with me a beautiful friend, jenna, who'd been through chronic fatigue, and she said, you know, you don't actually have to be healthy to be happy. 00:18:56.815 --> 00:19:00.950 And that was a big mind shift, you know. 00:19:00.950 --> 00:19:04.630 But she's like, actually the two can be separate from each other. 00:19:04.630 --> 00:19:11.052 You can be physically unwell but choose, you know, a different approach. 00:19:11.052 --> 00:19:22.583 Your mind and body don't have to be connected, because I think it is very easy, particularly when you're dealing with something chronic, to get stuck in the mindset of I'll be happy when my body's, you know, back to 1,000%. 00:19:22.583 --> 00:19:24.590 But it's

not always possible or feasible. 00:19:25.399 --> 00:19:36.159 So, yeah, and I think, just as we talked about before, but just a newfound appreciation for your body, you know it is the greatest instrument you will ever be given. 00:19:36.159 --> 00:20:03.972 It is your vehicle for life and even if you have a you know know, a checkered past with it or a tricky relationship with it, finding the things that, even if love is too strong a word, you know, loving every part of your body that's not realistic, necessarily, but finding parts to be grateful for and appreciative of, because it really is the greatest asset any of us have, and so many of us. 00:20:03.972 --> 00:20:11.888 We're being harsh on it, we're being down on it, we're not appreciating it or looking after it in, you know, the best way that we could, and sure I'm still guilty of that. 00:20:11.888 --> 00:20:14.505 This is something I have to remind myself constantly of. 00:20:14.505 --> 00:20:23.351 It's not like you go through this experience and you're like this perfect human that appreciates every element of your body, you know, as is a daily, a daily reminder for me. 00:20:24.873 --> 00:20:25.673 I think that's spot on. 00:20:25.673 --> 00:20:35.711 I think when you live in this world, that is constantly telling you that you are not good enough, that you are not fit enough, that you are not pretty enough, that you're not enough in all respects of the word, you do need to constantly remind yourself. 00:20:35.711 --> 00:20:37.586 I wish I could say that you could do the work. 00:20:37.586 --> 00:20:38.688 You'd arrive at your destination. 00:20:38.708 --> 00:20:49.301 You'd be like no cool, I'm untouchable. 00:20:49.301 --> 00:20:49.923 Sadly, that's just not the case. 00:20:49.923 --> 00:20:52.654 I always think of body acceptance, body respect, as a practice, a bit like yoga, as opposed to somewhere where you arrive and you get to. 00:20:52.674 --> 00:20:55.124 You're going to have weeks where you hate on your body and you get to come in hard. 00:20:55.124 --> 00:20:59.144 It's just having the right phrases and the right things to say to your body when you need it. 00:20:59.144 --> 00:21:01.153 That is incredibly helpful. 00:21:01.153 --> 00:21:16.402 It's the difference between going down the road of going on a toxic diet or partying and drinking yourself silly versus kind of going no, let's write this pathway quickly and get back to being okay with ourselves as fast as we possibly can. 00:21:16.402 --> 00:21:19.609 Can I ask you, then, about wellness? 00:21:19.609 --> 00:21:25.867 How has your approach to wellbeing, wellness, how has that shifted since going into remission? 00:21:26.740 --> 00:21:42.374 Yeah, I think it's been a rollercoaster, to be honest, because for me as well, I had five years of really bad chronic fatigue after the chemo right, and traditional medicine has a very limited scope really with how it can help you with that. 00:21:42.374 --> 00:21:48.549 You know, you basically get told by your GP yeah well, if you've been tired for more than six months you've got chronic fatigue. 00:21:48.549 --> 00:21:51.367 Good luck, you might have it for the rest of your life, good luck. 00:21:51.367 --> 00:22:00.541 Off you go, which, honestly, was mentally more difficult than dealing with the cancer, because with the cancer you've got to set treatment plan. 00:22:00.541 --> 00:22:05.692 You've got your specialist, they know how to fix that cancer, you know get rid of the cancer. 00:22:05.692 --> 00:22:16.149 So you've got to schedule and you know what you're dealing with, whereas chronic fatigue is just this nebulous, possibly never-ending thing, and so I found that incredibly demoralizing. 00:22:16.259 --> 00:22:24.040 There are a number of things that really helped me, but I suppose you know I tried a lot of things is my point when I say it was a roller coaster. 00:22:24.040 --> 00:22:43.072 So I went fully meat free to begin with and then I found that made me really sick and then I, you know, tried eliminating every kind of you know gluten and dairy and sugar, you know all the things and everything was setting me off at that time and my gut health was terrible. 00:22:43.072 --> 00:22:56.346 Three things that made a really big difference for me were one a GP recommended I do hyperbaric oxygen chambers, which I'd never really heard of Whether they helped or I felt like they helped. 00:22:56.346 --> 00:22:59.252 So it got me started, helped me turn a corner. 00:22:59.252 --> 00:23:03.900 I found a really fabulous comprehensive health specialist, I suppose. 00:23:03.900 --> 00:23:11.043 So he has a scientific research background and then he applies that to all the supplements and everything like that. 00:23:11.043 --> 00:23:22.255 So because I'd been quite scared to look into supplements and all those sorts of things, having had bad experiences before, but he basically helped me rebuild my gut health and then go from there. 00:23:22.275 --> 00:23:24.365 So I found that really helpful with my energy. 00:23:24.365 --> 00:23:29.743 And then the big turning point was actually did a three-day course called the lightning process. 00:23:29.743 --> 00:23:41.263 That was all about mind body connection and through that just learned how to turn off a whole lot of thought processes that were triggering a whole lot of really negative reactions in my body. 00:23:41.263 --> 00:23:44.663 Basically, and that was game-changing for me. 00:23:44.663 --> 00:24:02.993 Like if you told me at the start of the week I would come out feeling like I didn't have chronic fatigue anymore, I would have said like you're crazy, that sounds nuts, um, but it made a huge, huge difference for me, um, really, yeah, really like can't rave about it enough, so yeah, what's I? 00:24:03.013 --> 00:24:05.063 think, the power of the mind on our body, you know. 00:24:05.724 --> 00:24:08.231 Isn't it incredible and so often underestimated? 00:24:08.231 -->

00:24:19.665 You know you're talking about cancer, going through cancer, having such a clear plan forward and then getting chronic fatigue and not having any plan and it sounds like the three things that you talk about as having a big impact. 00:24:19.665 --> 00:24:30.044 They're all centered around having a plan, about feeling like you had something you can now action and do, and not feeling like you're a victim and a float and and just in the sea of it. 00:24:30.044 --> 00:24:37.820 And I think that's a really nice learning as well, to kind of have something where you feel like I feel like I can know that I've got tools to use that I can help progress this. 00:24:38.722 --> 00:24:50.111 Completely Um, and I also fell in love at the same time, which I think honestly, that helps as well, because but it's also this thing like I want to be really well for this person, you know. 00:24:50.111 --> 00:24:57.307 So I was kind of throwing everything that I could at it because I was like I've got this real incentive now that I really want to be well for this person. 00:24:57.388 --> 00:25:02.566 So, yeah, that did help I think for anyone listening it's you know. 00:25:02.745 --> 00:25:22.127 Certainly a lot of people are going to be diagnosed with some kind of illness, whether it's cancer or whether or not it's another chronic illness, acute illness, but also if you're going through something like a divorce, if you've lost a parent, lost a child, going through a tough time financially because it is such a crisis at the moment, being made redundant. 00:25:22.127 --> 00:25:23.771 Whatever it is that's going on in your life. 00:25:23.771 --> 00:25:33.661 There are so many times that life can throw you an unexpected challenge and I think I see you very much as a guide in that space, someone who is doing really, really great work. 00:25:33.661 --> 00:25:46.854 If there is one piece of advice you'd like to leave someone with, who's currently in the thick of it, who's kind of going, I don't know a way out what could someone do to feel better? 00:25:48.320 --> 00:25:49.144 One piece of advice. 00:25:49.144 --> 00:25:55.363 Well, I'd start by saying that I'm really sorry that you're going through a really tough time right now. 00:25:55.363 --> 00:25:59.461 There's no rhyme or reason for it, it's just really sucky, crappy, bad luck. 00:25:59.461 --> 00:26:16.396 And I also want to say that there is such a wonderful, beautiful life for you on the other side of this and you might not believe that yet and you might not be able to see that or imagine what it's like, and I say it as someone who has been there and done that. 00:26:16.460 --> 00:26:20.467 On the other side of chemo, I had gone through a breakup. 00:26:20.467 --> 00:26:26.083 I was feeling absolutely physically drained and awful, you know, had no hair, no eyebrows. 00:26:26.083 --> 00:26:33.307 I could not envisage the beautiful life that I am now living, you know, having this beautiful partner. 00:26:33.307 --> 00:26:46.104 I gave birth last year to this most gorgeous little boy living in this beautiful community back in my hometown, near my parents, and that just felt completely unattainable five years ago for me. 00:26:46.104 --> 00:26:57.988 So just want to say that, firstly, like you have to believe it, even when you can't see it yet, just know that you've just got to go step by step for now, and there will be a beautiful life on the other side of this for you. 00:26:57.988 --> 00:27:03.009 It's there for you In the interim, just take it little bit by little bit. 00:27:03.190 --> 00:27:06.828 And something that I found game changing was journaling. 00:27:07.451 --> 00:27:40.889 So whether you want a video journal and just get your thoughts out, or actually the physical act of writing and it's why I actually made a journal to go with the book, because I journaled every single day through treatment, but I didn't realize at the time it's an incredibly therapeutic tool when you're going through a traumatic or difficult time, because what it does is it actually gives your brain a place to just process what's going on, to get the dark cloud of thoughts out of your head and put them somewhere that you can organize them and start to make sense of them. 00:27:41.972 --> 00:27:51.568 Yeah, I'd highly recommend it's called Morning Pages and a book called the Artist's Way and the idea is you just get up every morning brain dump three pages, just get it out of your brain. 00:27:51.568 --> 00:27:56.099 Or, if you don't have time for three pages, do a page or do half a page, whatever. 00:27:56.099 --> 00:28:00.101 But the idea is you can whinge, you can bitch, you can moan, you can. 00:28:00.101 --> 00:28:03.548 That doesn't mean you're a bad person, it doesn't mean you're negative. 00:28:03.548 --> 00:28:11.031 These are actually just thoughts and you're giving them somewhere to live in outside of your head, and that that was life-changing for me. 00:28:11.559 --> 00:28:11.900 I love that. 00:28:11.900 --> 00:28:16.432 It also feels like a very practical thing that we can do to kind of help us cope. 00:28:16.432 --> 00:28:25.139 Bryony Benjamin, thank you for your time and your skills and contributions to all of our lives. 00:28:25.139 --> 00:28:30.825 I will leave a link in the description for people to find you on Instagram to get your book. 00:28:30.825 --> 00:28:33.871 Life is Tough, but so are you, and thank you for joining us. 00:28:34.820 --> 00:28:58.942 Thank you so much for having me, lindy, and can I also just say a massive shout out to you for the beautiful work you do in the world to improve the lives of women all over the country and all over the world, and also for the help you personally gave me when I started to write my book, because you're one of the first people I spoke to and you just said just write badly and get it out and then you can edit later, and that really made the process a lot more fun and a lot faster. 00:28:58.942 --> 00:29:00.585 So thank you, oh my pleasure. 00:29:00.644 --> 00:29:03.250 My pleasure, happy to help us not be perfectionists together. 00:29:03.250 --> 00:29:04.451 Thank you for those kind words. 00:29:04.451 --> 00:29:05.232 Thank you, bryony. 00:29:05.232 --> 00:29:05.835 Thank you.