Tanya (00:00.142)
Hey everybody, I hope you are well. Welcome to Menopause, Meltdowns and Magic with myself and my lovely co-podcaster Tanya. So let me just invite everyone to join. we go.

Tanya (00:25.166)
And...

Tanya (00:30.872)
You're on and then we will get in. There's Tanya. Yeah, it's like everyone's on now. There we go. Let's see who's joined us. Yay, all of us. Hello. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. How are you? Good. I'm very well. Thank you very much. It's lovely to see you. Nice to see you too.

I'm a little wet from the shower. I had one of those showers where you like Realized that yeah, I was like I have a shower and then I kind of realized that I hadn't actually wet my hair So had to go back and have a second Hi Martina nice to see you welcome everybody so we myself and Tanya are gonna be talking about something that's been quite busy in

the internet world and the neurodivergent world over the last few weeks, which is the, and correct me if I get the name wrong because I'm terrible with names, Butterfrith article in the, what used to be called the Times Educational Supplement, but is now just called the TAS Magazine, which is a very big magazine in the UK that goes out to

It's really educational. all teachers and school people read it. And I've seen it here in the Australian. I'm sure for you, Tonya, that's probably come out in places in NZ as well. And I'll pass it over to you in a sec to talk about it. there was also, it's also been on Naomi Fisher. She does a podcast, and I've forgotten the name of it now, but she does a podcast and she had Utta on to talking to

her thoughts on autism in the current world. And Uta was one of the original kind of researchers who created the criteria for diagnosing autism in the 1960s. And I'm sure Tanya probably has more to say about that as well. So I will hand over to Tanya, but that's kind of our subject matter for today. There's been a lot of controversy because there's been things that were said within it that...

Tanya (02:50.414)
have people are firmly difficult. And so I think probably before we even start is, just to acknowledge that, you know, if you are a late diagnosed female assigned at birth human, it might be some things that we talk about here that might feel a little tricky. And I invite you to look after yourselves. You know, if that if stuff feels a bit sad or a bit, it's okay. You know, feel free to take a

break, have a glass of water, go for a little walk outside, you can always listen again later, because these stuff can be quite triggering, particularly if we've been, I don't know what's the word, like dismissed a bit, you know, throughout our diagnosis process or our children's diagnosis process, but that won't be the lens through which me, myself and Tanya are coming from, but we will be talking about some of that stuff as well. So just to give you the heads up.

So I'm going to hand over to my wonderful co-host Tanya for her sort of introduction as well to what we're talking about, because, we're different people and we've got different frames of view, which is what's interesting about it. And again, I invite you all, if you want to join, if you want to ask questions, if you've got a point of view, feel free to put it in the chat and we will absolutely raise it and talk to it too. All right, over to you Tanya. Yeah, so.

I probably saw the article a little bit later than you did, Emma. But I have read two great commentaries on the article as well. One put out by Kristi Forbes and another one put out by Helen Berrell. Yep. And both late diagnosed neurodivergent people, autistic people, PDA and

I what I got from the article because I read the article too is that

Tanya (04:46.286)
She's coming from a very...

Tanya (04:53.711)
small lens of what it meant for people who've been diagnosed during the 1960s. And I just want to acknowledge the work that she had done. Because before that, of parents were just called refrigerator parents. the blame was put on parents for their children's traits and for autism.

that that work was really important back then. But the thing that struck me is that the common two things really, the first one is that in this latest article, she said that the autism spectrum is collapsing because it's too broad, because it's now incorporating people like female assigned at birth.

And she also questioned the validity or the scientific research behind masking. Yeah. And I think those two things are incredibly dismissive for a lot of people who are late diagnosed. It also just creates a lot of...

You know, because when people read things like that, especially like the medical profession, we've done a lot of advocating and work in the space, you know, people like Emma and myself, other neurodiversity advocates for having the criteria or our lens or the stereotype, you know, widened rather than just your typical

the white boy, sort of view on autism and that you if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person. And also, you know, masking is such a big part of our story, you know, and to such an extent that it like actually steals your personality because you just spend such a long time trying to fit in with everybody else. And so,

Tanya (07:15.575)
I the other bit that I read too, which I thought was interesting, and I'm not sure if, I don't want to come into conspiracies here, but I do think it's quite interesting that this article has come out at a time when in England, the government is really trying to crack down on supports for neurodivergent people.

Yeah, and I know it's the same in New Zealand, but it's the same in Australia as well. And it seems very interesting that the Australian then published the article, of course. There's a huge furore going on here at the moment because there's a massive criticism of the government spending in the media on the NDIS, which is our disability kind of insurance funding scheme.

And, you know, they're always looking for, you know, frivolous things that are being spent as an example of why. you know, so there's been like, there's a lot of that going on at the moment. So again, it's frustrating, I think, as you say, for us, because, and especially with what's going on in America with Trump saying the things that he's saying as well, that you've got, you know, anyone who is already thinking that way is going to find some of these things, another thing that they can kind of

cling on to and then use as a reason to dismiss or to be critical of the increasing awareness of neurodivergence. For me, that's exactly what you say. I think there's a political element to it that needs to be acknowledged. absolutely. And when our government in New Zealand, the latest government that's at the moment,

came in, they just totally slashed supports for autistic people, for neurodivergent people. And there was a lot of criticism about how it was being spent, especially, you know, the respite part of it for caregivers. you know, before them, we had this quite a broad thing that people could spend that support on.

Tanya (09:32.367)
And then I just sort of slashed it and made it very, very narrow to the extent that some people can't even use it because it's just not usable anymore. I really do. Yeah, it's good that we acknowledge this political sort of undercurrent as well that is playing a part in this discussion as well. Definitely. And also from a, you know, thinking about all of those things coming to it, I think from a

particularly from a female assigned at birth perspective, you know, a lot of this, a lot of the weight of this dismissal and this reduction of funding and, you know, sits with usually near-age-adverted parents and usually the mothers as well. So it's really important. And I think, you know, we can really understand why it's causing such difficulties because we already feel so...

unseen, unacknowledged, invalidated for the caring and advocacy work and the impact of that on us as well. It's like another way to kind of blame and push on. Yes. And I think when

with this as well is that...

Tanya (11:03.983)
For a lot of people, feels like it has negated a lot of the hard work that we've already done. Exactly. Yeah. A lot of this work, a lot of the stuff that's happening at the moment in the world, I think feels a bit like that at the moment with the Trump guy coming out and saying what he's saying, then this. It's just like it's continuously, we've taken lots of steps forward and then we've got, you know, people pushing us back and yeah, it's, yeah, it's concerning. It is really concerning.

I also just want to just talk a little bit about the masking here as well, because in my world, working with parents of children who are in burnout, masking plays such a huge part in the burnout story. we have a lot of the parents that I'm working with are...

that they sometimes they see really lovely professionals in the mental health space who understand and who acknowledge masking and are really supportive of parents. But for a lot of parents, that is not the case. And then when we have somebody prominent like this who the professionals would listen to above lived experience. Yeah.

It also just really takes some of the weight out of the importance of creating supportive environments where neurodivergent people, especially autistic people, don't feel like they have to mask in order to just get through the day. And, you know, it's really hard because we are already doing this in so many different systems and environments. Yeah. But

It just feels like a lot of the work that we've been doing to make this, you know, common knowledge and something, you know, to explain our experience and to explain why things like burnout happens. You know, a lot of the weight has been taken out of that as well. Yeah, it's really, as you say, think it's particularly because both Tanya works in this area and she has

Tanya (13:28.441)
kids who have been, I have a kid who's been in what I call catastrophic autistic burnout, literally bed bound, unable to lift a head off the pillow for two years. And my experience of working with professionals in the lead up to finding out what was really going on was incredibly harmful and dismissive. And I really, you know, I don't think people understand the impact of

someone being in that kind of nervous system driven safety response burnout and how disabling it is. But yet my youngest can on the now she's in recovery on the days where she is able to function. You know, she seems to all intents and purposes to anybody who doesn't really know what's going on, like somebody who's perfectly, you know, okay.

regular kids, you know what I mean? There's no way that you know by looking at her the difficulty that she has, you know, getting herself out of bed on a day, you know, some days it's just impossible for her to do. And it's that, the dismissal of, knowing that masking and trauma is what leads to that, and knowing that

that sensitive nervous system that we have. And I think that was the other thing for me when I read and listened was the dismissive of sentencing. And again, to give her her due. And I do hear a lot of people talking again, this might be controversial that perhaps we need a wider lens. Perhaps we need some more. You know, perhaps there are different things to be looked at. But I think from the perspective of

You know, what I've learned from advocacy, she's very anti, you know, when we've changed things from like no one in the autistic world anymore uses kind of like that, that high functioning, low functioning terminology, because the idea being that we're all, you know, we have the same base situation and sometimes some of us can function, can have days where we function more in line with a neurotypical person.

Tanya (15:51.385)
but that fluctuates and it can change all the time. It's not a stable thing. So I kind of understand that there's probably more to learn, but what I found, what I took away from her stuff was that basically that kind of late diagnosed women were looking for, this is the thing that really got my go, was this idea that we were searching for a diagnosis.

And we've been watching things like there's a show in the UK called Patience. I don't know if you've seen it here. But it's a sort of detective and there's a girl in there and she uses that as an example. And then other movies and films and she's like, you know, it's almost like these sort of desperate women clinging to find something to explain their lives. But also that it was something that people would be, you know, desperately trying to get this sort of identity.

And it really, that's not my experience. And I have not found that to be the experience of any late diagnosed females. And I found that very dismissive that we, it's almost like we were kind of like idiots. We've watched a film and we're like, that sounds good. I'm a bit anxious. So I think I'll just drive onto that and then I'll feel like I'm okay. That's not been my experience of any of the late diagnosed.

Feminist such as us humans. What about you? you know, and I totally agree with you. You know, I think there is there is this and I have heard it time and time again from a lot of professionals that I have seen in the medical field where they're, you know, you know, everybody's just diagnosing themselves because of something they saw on TikTok, you know.

And so it's often just used as a way to dismiss people actually going to ask for help because you you couldn't possibly know yourself or you couldn't possibly be because you've just seen this thing that's become popular on TikTok or Instagram. But the thing is, is that many of us before we've

Tanya (18:15.917)
we were diagnosed with autism or ADHD was that many of us have been diagnosed with all kinds of things in the past, all kinds of labels that have not made sense to us. You know, I don't know about GMO, but I've been diagnosed with things like anxiety disorder, know, depression, like all these things. And

None of these things like made sense of my experience as a person. And it wasn't when I received this.

you know, this understanding of autism, ADHD, that my world suddenly started making sense, you know? What part of my experience as an ADHD person is for the longest time I felt like I was like two people in the same body. And I often said to my husband, like, there's this part of me that just wants to follow the rules and do everything. And then there's this like,

wilder part of me. And sometimes I would even say it's like having E.O. and Tigger in the same body, you know? And like these parts where they just like want these totally different things. And until I started like really unpacking this and understanding myself through the lens of autism and ADHD, that I actually was able to make sense of myself.

make sense of a lot of things in the past that just, you know, I used to beat myself up about all the time. And I was able to treating myself with kindness and compassion, and also just was able to understand my children a lot better as well. And our family is so much better off than what we were

Tanya (20:22.745)
five years ago by understanding each other so much better through our diagnosis. And a lot of us, like diagnosed women, we're not out there looking for support from the government for ourselves. We're just like going, okay, this makes...

This makes so much sense in my life and it's really so helpful for me to be able to finally make peace with myself and understand myself. 100%. 100%. It's so interesting. Like, for example, like you say, for me, I used to get very frustrated with myself because I really love speaking, but I really struggled with being able to give presentations when I was younger, mainly because I had to present on a specific topic and I had to remember what I was presenting.

So I'd get up there, the slides would be behind me and I'd be like, I've completely forgotten what it was. I can speak quite happily with you and me, but because where my brain processes, and when I was at uni, I was like, why does it take me so long? Why do I have to listen to something then read it then for it to go into my brain in a way? And I was talking this morning with my group about a book that we were doing and it was, and I heard people in my group, a lot of people in my group, neurodivergent.

talking of it, you know, it never stays in my brain. I'm like, mate, I hear you. And it's so lovely once you know it's like, because my brain doesn't process that way. Like I need to have things coming in different formats for my brain to kind of take all of that information. And it takes me longer to process, but also my memory works differently. So, you know, I need to, if I'm going to be presenting on something, really, I have to understand it to be able to present it. I can't just present facts because they won't stay in my head.

for very long. So everyone's different. I'm not saying every, you know, my experience of my, my, autism is different, but to, another person next to me, like you were saying, but it's just having that I'm not broken. Like for ages, when I was in my 20s and 30s, was going to all this coaching, you know, to make me a better presenter. And all it did was made me feel more and more unsafe and more and more unable.

Tanya (22:41.197)
And then, you know, now that I know and I understand myself, I can just be really straightforward about what I can do and what I can't do. And I don't have to feel shame about it because it'll make me a bad person. It just means that my brain works differently. And I think having that lens is so helpful for us, isn't it? 100 percent. know, yeah, I mean, I think I mentioned this in our talk with Lisa, you know, for ages.

I didn't recognize that I needed a challenge in the work that I do. Like I constantly need to be challenged. And so for me, what it looked like was a very spotty job history because I would go in to a job that was highly challenging. I would solve the problem and then I would, I would think, okay, now this challenge has been, or problems have been solved and then like,

the everyday mundane stuff was just really hard for me to stick around for. And I felt so much shame about it because I used to just tell myself, you just don't have sticking power. And then when I realized that actually what I need is constantly to be challenged. A job like being a coach,

or being an entrepreneur where you have your own business or even just having small contracts rather than committing to something big is way more suited for me as a person and I really thrive in that environment. And that's come through understanding my brain and how motivation works for me. Yeah, 100%.

And it gives you that, like, I mean, I think learning about things like fawning as well and our safety responses all give us these, like, it's such a different lens, you know, and really, to me, a lot of masking is fawning, you know, and I remember my dad and people say, when did you start fawning? I remember learning from my dad. I remember going into the pub with my dad when we were young and my dad was, he was like quite a clever guy, but he could talk to anybody and he would, he would morph.

Tanya (25:05.923)
depending on the person he was speaking to. So he'd be there with the tradies speaking in tradie world. He'd be there with the intellectuals, whoever he was speaking to, he became. And I see that in myself as well. And I think, well, particularly for women, I think the thing I find most upsetting with Uta's work, and again, respecting her, and also acknowledging that I feel what she said was harmful, but...

I also respect the work, like you said, that she's done to begin with. But I also think that there's a certain lens through which we see the world. But I think given women's experience and also people in bigger bodies experience, it's the same sort of thing. It's like the minute you go to the doctor, it's all in your head or you've got to lose weight. Those are the two things you're kind of told to do, which basically means is no one's actually listening.

or trying to help you solve your problem. And again, all the research has been done on males in the medical system. And again, it felt this like very sort of pathologizing, but also very dismissing the females. Like you remember what she was saying, you know, there were a few autistic girls at the time, but now there's all this. And what we know is that we've had, that my understanding is we've had to change the way that we assess because intergenerationally,

Females have, we've had to mask to survive. So it's almost our, like, I don't know, our ancient programming is to mask. And we know that like a lot of late diagnosed girls, you know, are not getting diagnosed until their puberty when, you know, hormones knock us for six. And similarly for women when we go through perimenopause because our hormones knock us for six and then suddenly

we could, where we could, people please, where we could fawn, where we could mask, we no longer are able to because the hormones have knocked things out so much it's impossible for us to. And that, you know, not having that lens feels very dismissive and very kind of patronising and a bit like, you know, when you've got women in, you know, political organisations that are anti-women, it's that, it's got that feeling about it. It's like,

Tanya (27:29.391)
it feels dangerous. Yeah. I totally get what you're saying. And you know, it is, it is so, so dangerous, I think, in the fact that if you think about the past,

Tanya (27:56.114)
Sorry, my phone just rang while I That's right, was like, what's happening? Let me just quickly retrain my thought. We were just saying it's Yes, because if you look at the level of undiagnosed...

young woman but also women in their perimenopause when you look at things like unaliving rates. You know, we are at a particularly high risk for these things. And when you go through systems where you're just misdiagnosed or dismissed and you're told you're the problem,

And here's this medication, but the medication never works or the therapy that you're given just comes across as patronizing and unsupportive. It doesn't help you. The narrative that you build about yourself is it's me. I am defective in some way. And then when you

I think one of the reasons why the whole thing on social media has blown up when it comes to neurodiversity is because before we used to just look at things through that medical lens. But then when people started sharing their experiences, we started recognizing the truth in other people. it isn't that there is more

you know, more people suddenly who are neurodivergent or autistic or ADHD. It's just that we've never been able to actually see ourselves in that, or we've never actually been able to be included in the diagnostic criteria. You know, I think back to my granny who died when I was eight. Yeah. And

Tanya (30:17.267)
when I think back about her, she was very clearly autistic. And she ended up dying alone in a mental asylum because of a nervous breakdown, which was probably something like autistic burnout. So we've always existed. It's just that now the criteria has expanded to include us and

then it just feels very dismissive that we're now being told, well, no, get back in your box. This doesn't include you and you're just making a big deal out of this or you're just making it up or you're just clinging to things because you want to belong somewhere. Yeah. And it's the whole, for me, that she was talking about that in terms of sensitivity. Now I have a very...

I'm very interested in the concept of sensitivity. think sensitivity plays a very big part in our kind of experience of the world. And I think there's a lot to be talked about there. But being hypersensitive or hyposensitive as a reaction to being hypersensitive or however you want to interpret that.

is very, very, very disabling for people. And, you know, we know a lot of our lived experience and our children's lived experience is, you know, the experience of being in the world is so overwhelming sometimes, particularly when we're working under the neurotypical kind of framework of kind of in-schooled in-work,

And working with things like Rejunction Sensitivity Dysphoria, which I find probably one of the most fascinating things, and the impact that it has, and things like equity seeking and relationship, all of those kind of things are such important frameworks, especially dealing with PDA, especially dealing with female assigned at birth humans. And I feel like that's the whole area that she's really kind of saying.

Tanya (32:36.271)
It doesn't count because it's not as on the surface appearing kind of so that we can tick off on the medical kind of chart of, you know, holding eye contact and all that kind of stuff. feels like it's, yeah, it feels like it's really dismissive of the female experience or the female at sign of birth experience. And that for me feels quite scary in our world right now.

Yeah, yeah, you know, especially if we look at a wider picture of how women's rights are coming under fire. Yeah. You know, there are certain political, you know, places where they're talking about, you know, well, first of all, they came after women's reproductive rights. And now there, you know, there's quite a bit of that I'm hearing about, like, well, maybe women shouldn't have the right to vote.

maybe, you know, even just the D, like.

defunding a lot of the programs that are typically female at university in the States. You know, we've got like all these sort of things and it just, you know, it feels like it's just one more thing on that. Yeah, it does. And, you know, disability as well. then even so it's even like within disability, it's like, you know, dismissing the female experience of that as well. It's kind of like, yeah.

quite scary in many, many ways. And then doubly, triply so also because she's a female at sign that birth human who seems to have some very strong autistic traits. Yeah. But yeah, it's yeah, worrying. Worrying. It is worrying. Yeah. I'd love for you if you are listening to this either live now or in the recording to let us know your views.

Tanya (34:44.295)
What's your experience been if you are a female assigned at birth? And what do you think about everything that's been going on over this controversy? I'm just wondering, Emma, if we can just switch slightly and just talk about what our listeners can actually do.

to support themselves through this and to advocate for themselves, continue to advocate for themselves and their children and systems. Yeah, I was going to say, because I think it's been, like you say, we've achieved so much as a group of humans advocating wise. And yes, we've still got so far to go. But I just think about the change in my own school.

where my kids go from when we started, which was horrendous, to where we kind of are now at the top end. And I'm not saying that's the same for everybody. I know it's not. But I think there are,

may, know, thinking about what we have achieved, it's, I don't think we're, because sort of conversations like this are happening, I don't think it automatically means, you know, we can catastrophize, but I don't think it automatically means that we are, you know, all going to straight away go back to how things were. I don't think that's the case at all. But I think for me, it's really about, with all of these things, like,

accepting that there are some really shitty things happening in the world right now and we also get to be in communities like this and we know our lived experience and we can keep talking to our lived experience and knowing that there are other people out there having the same experience and you know feeling a togetherness and I guess from a for me it's like that that connection

Tanya (36:55.572)
But also really knowing what we've learnt and not, we know in our, I know for me in my heart of hearts, I know nervous system response, I know safety response. That's the frame through which I see the world. And yes, it's dangerous. Some of this stuff is dangerous. And yes, you know, if we can and we have the spoons to absolutely we go out and we protest it. If we don't, we have made the changes in our homes and we keep continuing to make the changes in our homes.

that recognizes the validity of our experience, our children's experience, and we keep bringing that love and that, that, that inner knowing that humans are good in our homes, and we keep bringing that. So that's kind of where I'm coming from, how about you, Sue? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think the way that we have been brought up, we automatically, you know, we've been taught

to give our power, give our knowledge, give our sovereignty to, you know, professionals and to put a lot of weight in the things that we read. And, you know, sometimes there is the temptation to look at something like that and go, well, you know, she said that, she's an expert, so that means this about my life.

And I think that it's important for us to recognize that it's just one person and their opinion on something. Yes, it has weight. It does, you there are going to be people that listen to that. But I have also seen so many people, so many women assigned at birth, professionals who have come out against that. you know, as you say, think about your own North Star as a person.

what you believe in, what you know is the truth for you and your family, through your lived experience, through what works for your family. know, we don't, even though there are things out there, we don't have to believe them. We don't have to listen to them. And also just, know, when we go and we seek professional help, it's really important for us to vet.

Tanya (39:21.373)
who is actually going to be able to be supportive for ourselves and our families, and perhaps who isn't. I know it's not always easy, but a lot of it is just trying to protect our own energy and our own spoons.

clinging on to what we actually know is the truth for us and our family. And also just reaching out to community. During times like this, when you can feel very alone, feel very dismissed, feel very invalidating, being able to talk to other people who have a similar experience to you can be incredibly empowering, incredibly healing.

And taking a break, know, because our artistic brains as well can get very caught in the loop of this stuff. And we start to sort of like really kind of obsess and read and, you know, noticing when we're triggered and noticing, because a lot of us take this stuff into our bodies because we're quite porous, you know, for many, many reasons, you know, because again, safety response. And so it's like, well, when we're having a safety response, when we feel that we're feeling all of this in our bodies,

and we feel like it's exhausting and we just can't take anymore. It's overwhelming. It's like, okay, so let's remember the tools that we have in our toolbox as well to take a break, take some breaths, feel the sensation of the floor underneath the bottom of our feet. Notice where we're feeling these things in our bodies. And if we can't notice from the perspective of alexithymia or from the perspective of

Interceptive awareness, even just you know, what's the physical sensation? Am I having you know, a sensation in my fingers right now? Is my heart beating fast? How's my breath? Where am I? What are my eyes like? Because I know whenever I'm triggered by anything, my eyes get really like tunnel vision and my heart, my breath starts to go and it's even sometimes it's just noticing, I'm a bit triggered by this.

Tanya (41:33.16)
you know, and just beginning to kind of hold ourselves in that, we're finding this hard and a bit of self-compassion, you know, I'm finding this hard, I'm worried, I'm scared, what am I scared about? I'm scared that it might and I might be catastrophizing that it's going to mean X, Y and Z, which is often the case for me, I'll like, future catastrophizing. And it's like, well, you know, just calming down the system and saying, you know, we know that this is scary and we're here, we're here for ourselves.

we've got ourselves and, you know, continuing to build that relationship with self and finding the things that allow us to feel less afraid. You know, for all of us, we've got different things, haven't we? I know for me, you know, having a cuddle with my cat, it always makes me feel a bit better. Often against her, she doesn't want to be cuddled.

we're having a cuddle. There's times it's things or having a shower. Some of us love having a shower, some of us hate, you there's all these kind of things that we can do just to help us just to acknowledge, you know, that this is hard. You know, some of this stuff is really hard. Yeah, yeah, 100%. And I think that that ties it up really nicely, Emma. Thank you. And I'm just wondering,

I know you can see comments, but I can't. Are there any comments or any people that have comments? I'm not seeing any comments. yeah, no. So if anyone's got any questions, please feel free to ask us or definitely come on and ask us afterwards on the comments, on the Instagram pages. More than welcome. We're always checking them. So please feel free to come on and do that. And we can talk about them as well.

So we'll publish this as a podcast next week sometime. So if you want to listen as well there on all of the normal channels, please do. And if you do like it, I encourage you to follow us and to leave us a review as well, because that would be really helpful too. Absolutely. And just to finish off, what has been magic for you this week? Oh, that's a really good one.

Tanya (43:57.524)
The thing I can only think of right now, so I went ice skating yesterday and I've been trying to go ice skating with my youngest because it's her passion. Every time she goes instead of working because I've been a bit overworking the last few months so I'm trying to kind of like click myself out of that a little bit. So I've decided to, I bought some ice skates and I went ice skating and I really enjoy the feeling of ice skating. I'm not very good, I go around the set, I'm like around the edge like...

But I love the feeling of the cold air against my face. It makes me feel really good. My little menopausal cheeks. But yesterday I fell over. I did a big tumble and it was really, and I made a massive noise. So my daughter's in the corner doing this lesson looking all professional and there's this mum who's like flying across the ice.

And then I was like trying to get myself thinking she's gonna be so embarrassed by me. So I was trying to get myself to the side so I could get myself back on there. And this lovely young person leaned over and she was only learning herself and she gave her a hand. She's like, pull me up. said, you're all right. And I was like, yeah, thank you. And it was just like, it was just lovely. know, sometimes the kindness of strangers is like such a sweet experience. So I think that was probably my magical moment this week. How about you?

I have been going for the most beautiful, it's been a really wet summer for us here in New Zealand and every morning this week has been sunny and so I have managed to get out just before the sun comes out for a walk and then as I'm walking the sky is all like beautiful and the clouds are like apricotty and

There's just been these really beautiful mists down in the light because there's a lot of hills and mountains where I live. So there's like just these beautiful like misty bits and also just that cool feeling of the morning air. And actually been doing this meditation called the magic of the morning. And yeah, it just really sets me up for a beautiful day. So that has been really lovely. And we've had lots of like baby birds that

Tanya (46:22.002)
Where I live, because I live out in the country, we have wild peacocks that have been walking around and turkeys and things like that. And they've all had their little babies. So I've been able to see the little babies walking around in the morning as well. So it's been really cute. Beautiful. That sounds delicious. Thank you for that. Well, thank you. Thank you, Emma. And thank you, everybody.

and we'll see you next week. I think we're going to be talking about personal growth, aren't we? And that from the neurodevelopment perspective. Oh yes, exciting. I'm looking forward to that one. That's going to be good. Yeah. All right. Lovely. All right. I'll speak to you soon, Tanya. Take care. Bye, everybody. Bye. Bye.