Book Festivals, Seasonal Depression & Autistic Olympics: What We’ve Been Up To In Life, Work, Family & Reading!

My darlings,

I’m recording this week’s poddy episode from outside, and there’s a good reason for that. Operation De-SADify is officially underway over here after a week of crying at random — including, memorably, weeping not once but twice in one day about Cathy Freeman winning gold in 2000. I don’t make the rules. My nervous system does.

So I got myself outside, got some sun on my face, and had one of those big sprawling conversations with Tam that starts at seasonal depression and ends up somewhere much happier. Tam has finally tracked down the Slavic shamanic teacher she’s been hunting for years (and is now running a literary festival). We’re both deep in books we’re desperate to tell you about. Also: the autistic Olympics. Census night, baby.

Who this is for

If you’re a neurodivergent creative running a business while also holding kids + ageing parents + your own wobbly nervous system through the last month of winter, this one’s for you. Especially if you genuinely can’t tell whether what you need is a strategy or just more sunshine and a nap. Two women talking honestly about widening to hold it all.

What we get into

• 🌧️ Seasonal affective disorder, micro-depresso and Operation De-SADify
• 🎶 A Laufey concert with a teenager, and discovering there’s room for all of us
• 🏙️ How healing primitive reflexes changed my capacity for big, overwhelming cities
• 🔮 Tam’s Slavic shamanic training and coming home to her own lineage
• ✨ Emotion as a pathway to the divine, instead of sitting still and being decorous
• 🌱 Parenting your kids as they are, not as your ancestors assigned them
• 🥪 Sandwich generation life and the tragedy-comedy of caring responsibilities
• 📊 Census night as competitive sport

The bits that’ll stick with you

• 😢 Random crying is a useful depression indicator if you’re not ordinarily a weepy soul. If you’re welling up at nothing at the end of winter, up your light, your vitamin D and your outdoor hours.
• 🧠 Nervous system work has profound effects. I went from wanting to hide in a bush in Sydney to happily sitting through an arena concert.
• 👀 The way you see your child can be an inherited story rather than a true one.
• 🗣️ Keep people around you who aren’t afraid to tell you you’re wrong. My husband told me I was misreading one of our kids, and he was right.
• 🌳 Don’t break under the pressure. Widen. That’s what every grandmother before you did.
• 💰 Making money and keeping money are two different skills. A leaky container drains a great income.