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Hey there, listeners. Welcome to Shit That Goes Under Our Heads,
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the podcast where we normalize conversations around mental health.
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That's right. I'm Dirty Skittles, and alongside my amazing co-host,
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you, Rex, we are here to share stories and tips from our incredible guests.
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Each episode, we deep dive into struggles and triumphs of mental health,
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offering practical advice and heartfelt support. work. Because no one should
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feel alone in their journey.
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Join us as we break the stigma and build a community of understanding and compassion.
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Tune in and let's start talking about the shit that goes on in our heads.
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Three, two, one. Welcome back to another episode of shit that goes on in our heads.
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I'm G-Rex with my amazing co-host, Dirty Skittles. And today we have an amazing Amazing guest.
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Welcome, Susan. I'm so excited to have you on.
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Welcome. Thank you very much for having me. It's very lovely to meet you both.
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Yeah, lovely to meet you too. So what time is it where you're at?
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Eight o'clock Sunday morning.
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Okay. And I saw you drinking a beverage. Is it tea or are you a coffee person? In the morning, coffee.
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Nice. Good God is my love language.
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Although to be fair, I do it in the morning, the noon, the night.
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I love my coffee. Yeah, we invested this year in an actual espresso machine.
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It looks like we have a Starbucks upstairs and we hooked it up to a water line.
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Best move ever. Yeah.
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I'm curious about my coffee. I do. It's either that or somebody has to die.
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It's either coffee in the morning or there'll be a death in the family some way. My fault.
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The cats are just scattered. They're like, we've seen this before.
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We gotta go. That's right.
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I love this conversation. So for our listeners, Susan is in Australia.
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So we are, she's actually a day ahead of us. So she's talking to us from the future.
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It's the closest we get to time travel.
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Yeah. Yeah, I think so. So what's it like in the future?
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It's pretty dreary. I'd say politically wise, it's bad. It's really bad. It's scary.
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The environment's still, you know, stuffed, but still.
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Who's going to go back to bed then? Yeah.
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Just don't get up tomorrow. You'll be fine. I know, right? I love your background, Susan.
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Yeah, Susan, the out-and-there therapist in me. you can't do anything subtly
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there's no beige in my life.
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It's just a wow I love it though it kind of looks like Skittles right?
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Taste the rainbow yeah you're right exactly right don't pick them up off the
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floor and eat them no yeah that's fair enough did you make that?
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Is that like an outlaw art? I might have done I can't remember there's a few
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I made with Canva and there was a few that I found And yeah,
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yes. I thought that was fast.
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It's marvelous. I put the logo on.
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Yeah, it's really nice though. I like it a lot. So I understand you do art.
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Yeah, I'm a mindful art therapist, which is a bit of a mouthful typically at
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this hour in the morning.
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But yeah, no, we use art as a form of therapy, I suppose, in short.
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And so rather it can bypass talk therapy.
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You can work with your psychologist or therapist in some way and do art therapy.
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It's also something people can use in the interim building up.
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So I assume it's the same all over the world where there are six to 12-month
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waits to see a psychologist.
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And during COVID, a lot of psychologists stopped taking on new patients or they
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just quit because it was too hard and it's also frightfully expensive.
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So art therapy is something you can use in the interim to help yourself and
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that's one of the reasons I've sort of got into writing books as well. So that's really cool.
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I remember kind of joking with G-Rex when I first went into therapy,
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one of the things my therapist had recommended,
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because I tend, and I think I'm completely guessing, but I tend to be pretty
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OCD, like controlling about certain things in my life that I have zero control over.
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And it stresses me out, right? And I remember her giving me,
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still to this day, it was one of the hardest things that I did besides working through trauma, right?
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Because she's, I want you to find 15 minutes.
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Eventually we worked up to 30 where you sit down and you do something artful,
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like creative, be creative.
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And so I was like, okay, cool. I'm going to probably paint then because I have
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a, at that time he was six years old and we had canvases and paint.
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And so I'm like, I'll just do that. I'll grab that and we'll just use that.
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And she's okay. But when you do it, I don't want you to prepare for it.
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Don't go out and find this image you want to recreate. create,
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and then I will control that, right?
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Like just play music, do whatever you got to do to get in that mood and just release, right?
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And it was so difficult and so hard because I thought, oh my gosh,
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what if it looks horrible? Like I need to prepare for this.
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Didn't, obviously I did not do that, but
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I remember laughing hysterically because I
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decided at some point I was going to to paint my dog and it
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was the I was just laughing like a kid like
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I just I felt free but also I
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was laughing at how horrendous the painting looked and I
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just had the most fun and then that became like
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a thing that I liked doing like giraffes we
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even did it on a live we were like oh we're just gonna paint and just
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talk and no pressure just release and
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just have fun and it was hard to do but it
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was so rewarding yeah she threw a canvas at
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me and she's like okay do i
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get alcohol with this because you know that's how my mind
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kind of frees up but for me like
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my creativity is i color i love
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the color it there's just something about it that just calms me down and makes
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my heart smile and you know i don't i usually do color by number or paint by
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number because i like to see the pretty colors because sometimes i have a hard
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time like if the colors don't match up.
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I have a little bit of you know adult
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onset ocd never this way but like
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nowadays i'm like okay those two colors don't match and i want to control this
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and so with the you know if you did on your ipad you can just erase it but i
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find it to be super relaxing for me and i also crochet I haven't crocheted for
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a while because I have pretty bad arthritis in my hands.
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But when my arthritis doesn't bother me, I get out my crochet hooks and people
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just laugh. They're like, you crochet?
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And I'm like, it's really damn relaxing.
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Yeah. It is. It's amazing, isn't it? It's not, you know, like you said...
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Obviously, with crochet, you're making something. But with that sort of process
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of creation, one of the rules with art therapy is you're not making something
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to hang on the wall, you know? And it's just a process that matters.
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Yeah, so it's such an important process. And it's quite interesting because
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at the user level, if you like, it's very simple.
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But what's actually going on is really complex. And the science behind it I
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find really fascinating as well.
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And yeah you can just making marks on
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paper for some people can be very difficult because the fear
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that you're going to get it wrong or you know you're never going to produce
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a fabulous painting so that like not one day that's a good thing but with the
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process of art therapy it's just basically using art materials of any kind including
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writing and sculpture and music and releasing and finding that joy,
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which you did. Yay. It's exciting. Well done.
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Yeah, we did. I had for one Mother's Day, I had my mom and my mother-in-law,
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my sister-in-law, and I did the same thing to them that I did to you,
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G-Rex, but we did flower pots.
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So we just had pots and paint and music and food and drinks and no pressure,
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just paint something fun.
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And we all laughed about how horrible it looked, but that's exactly what it was.
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It was just freeing. It was nice. and surprisingly this horrible photo of my
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dog this painting I've kept because of what it symbolized in that moment of
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just truly being able to just let go and.
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I don't know. I'll tell you. Yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting,
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isn't it? Yeah. How did you get into this?
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I have quite a high degree in English. I suppose that's English literature.
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And a lady asked me to edit her thesis.
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And I went, oh, yeah, okay. And that was fun. And it was on art therapy.
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And I'm like, oh, my God, this is a thing?
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You can actually do this? I was really excited. And I think obviously I've been
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using art as therapy all my life. I've always considered myself to be arty.
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But once you get into the science of it too, that's where I,
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again, find it really fascinating.
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Yeah, and that was about seven or eight years ago, I think, and I went off to study.
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I was studying mindfulness and always been a meditator, always been interested
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in meditating and changing your whole physical and your emotional well-being
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with breathing, which I think is just like the most miraculous thing since sliced bread.
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And that, you know, and you can, I can sit with someone and they can start making marks on a paper.
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We can be talking about something and the colours they use, the mediums they
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choose, all those sorts of things indicate,
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or can lead to a discovery of something that's going on that they,
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you know, emotionally they just need to release So have a look at it.
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Yeah, that's cool. That's very interesting. Before doing that editing,
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where you discovered kind of this, said that you always considered yourself artsy.
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So were you naturally drawn to kind of create stuff if you were stressed or
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whatever you were going through?
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Yeah, absolutely. I remember having an argument with somebody once and my partner at the time.
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And I drew these two horses fighting. I was rearing up and I'd kill each other. I'd get you. Yes.
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Do you title your pieces? Like May 17th. That's right.
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Miscellanea. Yes. Wrap it up, give it to them. That's right.
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Do you remember this day? Yeah, I remember fondly. here you go it's right every
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christmas yeah the last gift ever no i'm just kidding,
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no it's funny because i and i also i also do caricatures of people who upset
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me and again something that i it's my way of dealing like you might get abused
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at the car park at the supermarket because you know you're not quite with it
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or something happens and you may everyone Everyone makes a mistake.
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If somebody honks the horn, of course you're an effing idiot or something.
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And I went home, I draw them. Yeah, take that.
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Easy, effing idiot now, mate. Look at that. And then I put it away.
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Oh, I thought you were going to say you fold it up, put it on the windshield
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and then just keep going. No, I'm not that brave.
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It's a lot of fun. See, sometimes I just laugh. Yeah. Yeah, but do you feel
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a release after? You're like, ah, got that feeling out of the way. and move on to another.
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Exactly. And it helps me put the whole thing in perspective too,
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you know, because, you know, I suffer from anxiety and all sorts of things. And, yeah, it helps me.
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You kind of also can see the lighter side of the situation and I think that's
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really quite important because, yeah, when you're suffering like that and somebody
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upsets you and you think, oh, what am I going to do?
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And, yeah, it's nice to be able to...
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I don't know, feel that, draw it in a sense of power too, that you can get back,
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you can get it back, even though they've gone on their way and have no idea what you're up to.
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Do you keep the pieces that you make? Some of them I do, yeah.
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I have a journal. I have two or three journals.
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Yeah, so it's part of the art therapy, I suppose, mantra is keeping a journal.
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And a journal can be like a scrapbook. It can just be lots of scribbles.
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I might use it to you know work through do
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some sketches for a painting but a lot of the times if
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I'm upset if I've if things haven't worked out well
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I'll choose something and just do something in it you know and I think it's
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really I sat down with a young preteen a few weeks ago and we just met and I
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was talking to her and I said she loved art and I said to her oh do you have
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have a journal she was like do i it's just gorgeous she was like i have loads.
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Australian vernacular,
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we usually say shit loads i have shit like but she was i used i was one of those
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i would write really bad poetry well let me give myself credit i thought they
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were great in the moment but i had tons of journals of just poems of whatever
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i was feeling in the moment and i think my mom Probably still has some of them.
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But yeah, it just was a way to say what was happening inside my brain that it
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didn't have to be well thought out or put together. It was just emotions.
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And I thought that was really cool. I need to get back to it.
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What about you, J-Rex? Yeah.
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So I just write. I journal, you know, just a way to get the shit that's in your
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head on a paper because, you know, eventually, you know, you just don't want it in there anymore.
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But I, you know, I've been cursing pretty much my entire life,
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play piano, you know, reteaching myself how to do that. Coloring.
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You know, just like whatever I feel like doing at the time. You know, also like writing.
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Writing is like my form of being creative.
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Yeah. You know, sharing my story, sharing my journey and things like that.
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And, you know, somebody, it was kind of funny. Somebody asked me if I'd write
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a PC version of my book. I don't think that's going to happen.
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Because, you know, I want it to be authentic, right? Right. Like when I'm writing
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or if I'm doing something, I want it to be the authentic me.
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I don't want it to be something that's sugarcoated or something that would water
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down that would appease to somebody else.
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Yeah. If you know me, you know, I use the F word a lot.
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Yep. Yep. Sentence enhancers, I believe.
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They are sentence enhancers. Yeah. I love that. Yes, exactly.
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Yeah. Yeah. Why not, man? Just go for it.
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That's hilarious. hilarious that's also the part of that honesty isn't
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it and that integrity that you bring to your writing these to
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use or swear words or curse words yeah yeah yeah
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i think it's super helpful like me learning like to kind of let go through that
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painting exercise was one the other one that i remember really being fond of
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and i call it my happy album was taking pictures of things that made me happy
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throughout the day and it was a way to kind of connect back with who you are like like,
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you know, everybody kind of goes through their own thing.
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And I remember kind of losing sight of who I was, right. Cause as.
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As the time was, I was so invested in the partner I had. And when that didn't
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work out, I just remember kind of being lost. Who am I, right?
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And going into therapy, the therapist advised, maybe throughout your day,
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whenever you feel a happy emotion, take a picture of whatever it is you're looking at.
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And I did that. And I don't know why it worked, but it was this very artful
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kind of way to sort of just capture that moment and remind myself, oh, I do these things.
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Or my morning cup of coffee was one of the photos. or there was a truck where
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all these paint cans fell off the back of it and there was all these bright
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splattered colors on the highway.
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And I was like, oh my gosh, probably shouldn't have been taking a picture on
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the highway driving, but nonetheless, snapping photos and finding pretty moments,
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you know, to kind of... And that's what keeps us grounded.
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And I think that's what keeps us real and gets the shit out of your head.
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Yeah. It's that reminder of what's really important.
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It builds a sense of gratitude, which I think is horrendously important.
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I think there was a scientific research done and the three things that make
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you happy, gratitude, empathy and kindness.
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So all of those things are about what's, they're external really,
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aren't they? You know, you've got to be kind to yourself, but to others.
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You show empathy to others who are in pain, suffering.
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And we are grateful for what we have. And if it's just being able to make a
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cup of coffee in the morning. Right.
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Yeah, it's so important. and the celebration of those little things,
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like whether it's a caterpillar going up a leaf or, yeah, or paint tins.
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Paint tins sounds exciting. I'd have been out of the car.
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It was really cool, yeah. Yeah. It'd have been really interesting.
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But, yeah, I think they're those wonderful little things that we can all do.
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So every day for a month you can take three photos of things that bring you joy.
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Yeah, and it's one of those, it's lovely. It's lovely to hear those sorts of
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stories. I think it's really important.
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Yeah. And it works, which is, you know, I don't know why it does, but it does.
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It just, it made me feel better. It worked. Same thing with the painting.
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So yeah. I wonder if more people would do it if they knew more about it. You know what I mean?
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Like it took you editing something to kind of just sort of fell into your lap
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and you're like, oh shit, this is like a real thing.
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Yeah. And that therapy is about a hundred years old, 80 to 100 years old.
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So it's been around for quite some time i obviously
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discovered it by accident but part of my you
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know mission is to is to spread the word and to be a
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guest podcast like this and to ride and yeah talk and just try to get people
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to embrace that they have this beautiful inner creativity that's so important
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yeah do you set aside time every day to do this for yourself of course.
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Yeah i try to even if it's only just a few minutes
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yeah exactly yeah and i
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think it's important that we don't put away our art materials whether you
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know i do like to be tidy it's one of my things but you
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can have it sitting somewhere where you can grab a packet of markers and a pen
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paper anything like yeah that's cool yeah like i have my coloring books on my
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desk right so sometimes like when i'm in a meeting if i don't have to if it's
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not something i have to pay attention to.
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I like to doodle. So having my coloring book there with my gel pens,
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it's just calming, right?
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Or if I've had a bad interaction with somebody and I'm like,
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I just got off the phone, I'll doodle for a few minutes just to kind of recenter
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myself because it's a whole lot better than going and yelling at somebody and
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calling them a dickhead.
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But just finding ways to make
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me happy and so I find like when I'm using my hands or if
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I'm being creative I feel better and I
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use Dirty Skittles trick with the the photos
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so like this past week has
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just been like pretty hard and I went back to it's
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a folder on my phone that's things that make me happy and I went back
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and just looked at it and I you know I got to see the mama deer with her fawn
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and I got to see the wood and I got to see you know the flowers that I've taken
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and you know beautiful places that I've been that always made me happy and it
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just brought me back to center and then I could just move on with my day.
00:20:06
But I think art therapy is the coolest thing. When I was growing up,
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number one, we didn't talk about mental health when I was growing up.
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And we didn't talk about art therapy or things like that.
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So bringing this to light now is such a great way to,
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Kind of deal with those emotions that are going on in your head.
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You know, just get to a better place, like a calming place. That's fine.
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Absolutely. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And you don't need expensive materials.
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You can go with a pen and the back of a little bit of junk mail or something.
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Yeah, it's really important. And, you know, I might encourage a client to use a particular medium.
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So if somebody's if their if their
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anxiety is you know quite heightened and
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if they're feeling a little bit too stressed things like
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gel paints because you have to use them very slowly kind of
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force you or kind of bring your brain a little down
00:21:04
a little bit and help you be more centered and
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calm but for people perhaps who are depressed or
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feeling very low painting because that
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beauty it's quick and it's fluid and you know and
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it's also that process of being mindful of how it feels and
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smells yeah it's really cool yeah
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and i think what's cool about this specific subject is like therapy doesn't
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have to be like sitting in a room like on the couch talking to somebody you
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know what i mean like it can be something that doesn't sound messed up but i
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was like i was gonna say it It could be something you actually enjoy,
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you know, like any, I'm a creative person.
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So anytime I can actually make something, I love it. That's my happy place.
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So even if it's a bad painting, you know.
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I want to start getting into pottery. I want to, you know, form shit with my hand. Yeah, exactly.
00:21:59
Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, it's good fun. Yeah. And we do use, I use Play-Doh.
00:22:03
And sometimes, you know, you can use it just as a de-stress,
00:22:07
just that process of squeezing it or shaping it.
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Sometimes I might get, particularly because I've worked a bit with preteens,
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is I'll encourage them to create a little being that represents perhaps their
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anxiety, you know, or something that they're going through.
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And then it's that is what you
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know they can mold it and shape it as well so they again
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it's a process of empowering with your hands and
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like you say you know some people dread going to see a
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you know the traditional talk therapy they don't
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feel like that oh it's such hard work being able
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to intellectualize and vocalize this these
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really strange feelings that are
00:22:47
happening you know that can be so nuanced and so
00:22:50
quite specific to them you know
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i might say oh it's feeling angry today and that
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means that will mean so many different things different people just
00:23:01
something as simple or as ordinary as anger or even joy but
00:23:04
you can do it with art you can do these beautiful fluid materials or colors
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or shades yeah yeah how long have you been doing this for oh well if you take
00:23:19
off the seven eight years i've come i'm very good about five six years.
00:23:23
Nice you take the study out i suppose yeah yeah
00:23:26
exactly it's really cool though i'm curious how many things you've created i
00:23:31
immediately go into man if i had a journal for every day like if i could actually
00:23:35
dedicate the time to paint something or build something every day well there's
00:23:39
that little 15 minute block that i give myself i'm curious if i could reflect back on that are you
00:23:45
able to reflect back on pieces you made and still find,
00:23:48
I don't know, some release in it?
00:23:50
I do, I do. I don't tend to focus too much on them because I think that was
00:23:54
the process and that's what I was going through.
00:23:56
I tend to, sometimes I share my art journal with my students or my clients and
00:24:00
say, well, this is what I did.
00:24:02
And because I think I, there's a lot of YouTubers and influencers and people
00:24:07
who are using art therapy and they come up with these amazing pieces and they're
00:24:12
beautiful, which is great.
00:24:15
It looks great, but it's not the real thing.
00:24:18
Do you know what I mean? It should be messy. it should be
00:24:21
it is in a way art therapy shouldn't
00:24:24
look great it because so you
00:24:27
use my journal and go oh look there's a mess i made look at that mess yeah sometimes
00:24:33
you just need to get the crayons yeah i was just thinking about that i'm like
00:24:39
in life things are messy so if it was like a perfectly tidy art i would be like
00:24:43
is this really therapy or is this like a job you know Yeah,
00:24:46
it's like a work of art, some people's journal.
00:24:48
When I was studying, I remember thinking, that's a beautiful journal.
00:24:52
Do you like it? Are you still stressed out?
00:24:58
I think you're still stressed out. You need to go back and just do something
00:25:02
without even thinking about it.
00:25:04
And I don't care how ugly it is. It's you, right? Exactly.
00:25:08
Like a lot of stuff that I create, I'm never ever going to show anybody.
00:25:12
Some of it ends up in the trash. but I just use it to one, keep my hands busy
00:25:18
so if I'm on a call my hands have to be busy so I do have silly putty I play with it all day long.
00:25:26
And I also use it to figure out what kind of mood I'm in because sometimes I'm
00:25:31
in this in-between mood I don't know if I'm like pissed off or if I'm sad I'm like kind of in that.
00:25:38
Facade moment and i just
00:25:41
try to figure out what it is by drawing and whatever
00:25:44
i draw kind of makes me figure out where i'm at so if
00:25:47
it's all in red then i know that i'm really in a pissy mood but if it's in like
00:25:52
a yellow or my sad colors usually are like yellows and blues and so if i it
00:26:00
and i don't even really think about what pen i'm picking up right i don't even
00:26:03
look at it i just pick it up and I'm like, oh, I must have been in this kind of mood.
00:26:08
Absolutely, yeah. And the less thought you put in, the better.
00:26:11
Because the more thought you put in, the more you try to control it and justify
00:26:14
it and make it logical and make it work.
00:26:17
Whereas that's not how art therapy is.
00:26:20
Yeah, it's about picking a colour. And, you know, green is the colour.
00:26:25
Well, as you all know, colours have a negative and a positive.
00:26:29
So green is the colour of growth and, you know, nature.
00:26:34
It's one of my favourite colours, but it's also the colour of envy and jealousy,
00:26:39
you know. So it's interesting.
00:26:41
And, yeah, do things like circles, just to sit and draw some circles.
00:26:46
Yeah, and that can be very calming. But, again, like you go from red,
00:26:51
yeah, that's the colour of love, passion and anger.
00:26:55
Yeah. Yucky stuff. Yeah.
00:26:59
I love green. Green is also my favorite color. Yeah, my absolutely favorite color is green.
00:27:06
Really? You're super? Yeah.
00:27:08
Yeah, I love green. We were literally just talking about it because I like two shades of green.
00:27:15
One is, I don't know how else to explain it other than ulti green.
00:27:19
I love ulti green, which is a company we both worked for, which is this bright, vibrant green.
00:27:25
Green and then the other one is more like a forest kind of dark green so my
00:27:31
jam that and purple purple's probably messed up but yeah i don't know what purple
00:27:35
represents but you're crazy,
00:27:39
that i'm crazy so how do you recommend if somebody's listening to this for the
00:27:45
first time and hearing this for the first time what sort of advice would you
00:27:49
give them or steps on how to start.
00:27:52
Sure. There's lots of stuff online. I have a website. I have books available, as do others.
00:27:57
So I would just start having a look around, finding something that resonates,
00:28:02
perhaps something you can do online. There's lots of stuff.
00:28:05
Don't worry about the end product. Just do it. Just have fun with it and explore it.
00:28:11
And, you know, in my books, I talk people through about creating a proper space,
00:28:16
whether that's a dedicated art space or just, you know, You know,
00:28:20
you said you had your 15 minutes to sit down and do something.
00:28:23
Maybe you might want to play some music, figure your own frequencies,
00:28:27
which are some of my favourite things at the moment.
00:28:29
And, yeah, just do it. Just have fun with that.
00:28:32
You know, take back the crayons. It's one of my favourite sayings at the moment.
00:28:35
You know, if you've got kids, take the crayons back off them for a little while. Give them back.
00:28:40
Keep them for yourself. Get them some more. And just find that power again that
00:28:45
art can give to you. Yeah, I think that's really important.
00:28:50
Give it a go. That's my advice. Yeah, try it out.
00:28:54
I like the idea of setting the space too because I think that was part of it
00:28:58
for me was the intention, right?
00:29:01
The space, the time, make it as pleasurable as possible and then just jump in.
00:29:08
Yeah, and put your phone away.
00:29:10
Yeah. Yes, put the phone away. Yes.
00:29:14
I've literally started to do that on Sundays. I am off the phone as much as possible.
00:29:20
And I do not go on social media.
00:29:22
I am free birding on social media.
00:29:26
And I'm going to have to get back into art. I haven't painted probably,
00:29:29
I think, two racks since last time you and I were together.
00:29:32
That's a long time. That was last November. I know, but to be fair,
00:29:38
there are other art forms.
00:29:39
So I think creating, well, I will eventually be self-employed.
00:29:45
But one of the things I like to do is if I hear a song, sometimes I will imagine
00:29:52
what the art of that song looks like, or there's an image that I will create.
00:29:57
I just don't draw it because I'm not an artist, but I can come up with a pretty
00:30:02
good idea for something.
00:30:04
And that's been my favorite thing is to find a way to create it online.
00:30:08
I don't know. It's fun. So I'm still creating. I guess I could.
00:30:12
I think we're both creating, you know, Steve, the podcast, you know, as creators, right?
00:30:18
Because we both get joy out of this and we never script anything on the show.
00:30:24
So it's kind of whatever comes from our heart and our head when we're talking.
00:30:28
And I get a ton of joy out of this.
00:30:32
Not only do I get a ton of joy, but I learn so much.
00:30:36
And it's stuff that I can apply back to my own life.
00:30:40
And that's what I love about it. Yeah, people can be creative in the garden.
00:30:45
You can, yeah, just by putting a garden bed in, there's a level of creativity involved.
00:30:51
And I think it's a celebration of what makes quite unique as human beings too.
00:30:57
Yeah. Okay. So I have some questions. Uh-oh. I'm going to have a drink.
00:31:08
These are two of my favorite questions to ask. And then one,
00:31:12
I just started literally today.
00:31:14
If you could relive any day of your life without changing a thing, what day would it be?
00:31:19
Oh, I always think back to a time when my children were quite little.
00:31:23
So now I have grandchildren, my children in their 30s, and just that time after
00:31:29
school where I would walk and pick them up from school, we'd come home and they'd
00:31:34
have afternoon tea and we'd watch.
00:31:36
There used to be some really good quality children's television shows that were
00:31:40
at that level where an adult could really enjoy them.
00:31:44
And I suppose I'd love to do that again. I'd love to walk back into that room.
00:31:48
Yeah i love that yeah
00:31:55
okay next one if you
00:31:58
could travel back in time to a younger version of
00:32:01
yourself and give yourself a bit of advice what would you say and how old are
00:32:06
you when you go oh i think probably that 11 maybe 12 year old just got into
00:32:13
high school or yeah we only have We have two, we have primary and secondary college here.
00:32:19
So what would I say to myself?
00:32:21
Oh, I'd say just to be true to myself.
00:32:25
I think that's, and trust your intuition. Yeah, I think that's an important
00:32:31
lesson for all of us, but particularly at that age where you suddenly hit teenagehood
00:32:36
and things could just go really bad.
00:32:41
Yes, they can. They can.
00:32:44
Oh yes i can oh
00:32:47
yeah yeah so i think maybe
00:32:50
something i don't know that's maybe not specific enough but yeah but yeah just
00:32:55
being honest and being true to yourself okay yeah enjoy who you are yeah i love
00:33:02
that i wonder man 13 year old dirty skittles i don't know.
00:33:09
So that was a moment.
00:33:10
That was a moment. Okay, next one. What is the hardest lesson you have had to learn today to date?
00:33:18
Oh, the hardest lesson. I think I would bet. I think...
00:33:22
That I'm okay the way I am and where I am, and that's okay.
00:33:28
And I remember somebody saying to me years ago, it's okay to not be okay.
00:33:34
And this was, oh, gosh, it was 15, maybe 20 years ago, so before we had a lot
00:33:42
of, we were talking a lot about mental health. We knew it existed.
00:33:45
We knew that something had to change, but we didn't have the tools or the understanding.
00:33:51
Andy, I think I'm talking as a society and to me that was probably the one most
00:33:59
important thing to accept that I'm okay the way I am,
00:34:03
that perhaps this is where the universe wants me or God, you know, whatever you sort of,
00:34:09
pray to or think about or I think it's cool whatever you use or not.
00:34:13
I don't think one's better than the other. I think we tend to use tools that
00:34:17
we need and I think, yeah, that's Just that sense that I'm okay,
00:34:23
that it's okay. Today's okay. And, you know, yeah.
00:34:28
Yeah. And stop trying to achieve everything.
00:34:34
Stop it. I sometimes wonder about that because I'm like, I think where I'm at
00:34:41
now is so much, well, obviously it's so much better than where I started, right?
00:34:46
But I sometimes wonder, damn, damn, why did it take me so long to hear that kind of a message?
00:34:52
And no, I don't, I think for a long time, I didn't, not that I ran away from
00:34:59
who I was, but I didn't think I could be that version of myself.
00:35:04
And I don't know where that comes from, right?
00:35:07
But it's, yeah, eventually you get to a place where at least I would hope everybody
00:35:11
does where you're able to acknowledge that is me.
00:35:15
And I not only can I embrace it, but I can completely just dive into it headfirst.
00:35:22
Oh, this is all my show. Admitting, oh, I like to stay at home or I like to
00:35:26
read books or I like spooky things.
00:35:28
And I don't know why I hid from that for so long.
00:35:31
And now I'm like, there's little parts of me that I'm loving.
00:35:34
And give yourself that permission.
00:35:36
Yeah. And give yourself permission to not be okay.
00:35:40
Right. Yeah. And somebody said to me, you know, I'd be careful because after
00:35:44
she had COVID, she got really depressed.
00:35:48
Really. And she said, I've never experienced anything like that before.
00:35:52
And it's okay. You don't have to say, well, it's okay.
00:35:55
Don't fight it. Just, you know, my advice is if you're feeling sad,
00:35:59
then you're feeling sad. That's okay.
00:36:02
Yeah, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. You don't need to fight it. You don't need to justify
00:36:06
it. You can just say, I don't feel okay today. And that's okay too.
00:36:11
Yeah. And I think that, yeah, we need to have that. It's a sense of empowerment.
00:36:16
Yeah yeah anyway that's exactly what it is it's so crazy because then when you
00:36:20
hear somebody else say it it just seems like so simple but it takes a lot to
00:36:25
get there you know for yourself yeah,
00:36:28
and that it's okay not to be okay the really tragic thing for me is that person
00:36:33
took their own life and it was it's still it's you know it's still something
00:36:40
that sits really badly within it really upsets me because at that time,
00:36:47
you know, we could acknowledge that was okay,
00:36:49
but nobody, I don't think any of us really completely understood what that means
00:36:55
and what it means to be not okay in a world where it's, you know,
00:37:00
where we were, like, you know, we didn't have the language.
00:37:03
And this is one of the powers of art therapy is you don't need the language
00:37:06
to express your trauma. You don't need to be able to have the words to perfectly
00:37:12
showcase or tell someone how you're feeling.
00:37:15
You can do it with pens. You can do it with pencils.
00:37:19
And you can understand it and a therapist might be able to talk you through
00:37:23
it. But it doesn't matter if no one else understands it. Really?
00:37:27
You know what I mean? Does that make sense? Yes. It does. Yeah.
00:37:31
And I think that's really, it's really to sort of take control control of your
00:37:37
mental well-being and your journey.
00:37:40
But also accept that maybe nobody's going to completely understand it as well.
00:37:44
Yeah. And like I've been to talk therapy, I don't enjoy it at all.
00:37:48
I kind of feel that I'm a bit of a bird.
00:37:51
You know, they're looking at their watch. Oh, she's still talking.
00:37:59
Can you imagine?
00:38:02
They're just nodding going, oh.
00:38:08
Sometimes it's the hardest job in the world to be engaged like
00:38:10
that was some day after day i don't
00:38:15
know why i just imagine a therapist with one of the sand what
00:38:19
are they called yeah yeah and just yeah hourglass and
00:38:22
just continuously just flipping it over flip it over again
00:38:25
like just yeah still talking yeah
00:38:29
yeah i mean and that's the
00:38:32
thing it's not for everyone and especially if
00:38:35
that's not what you enjoy just knowing that there are other ways to find help
00:38:40
for yourself that don't include sitting across from somebody and telling them
00:38:45
your whole life story and it can tell i i actually thought it can take you know
00:38:49
six months or so to get used to your therapist and build up a rapport,
00:38:53
apparently it's about two years.
00:38:56
That's a lot of time. That's a lot of time. That's a lot of money.
00:39:02
A lot of hourglass splits. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's poor art there.
00:39:08
The hourglass will be clogged up in the end. Yeah.
00:39:13
So, but art therapy, you can actually, you can bypass it.
00:39:17
You don't actually need to, because it's something you've online as well,
00:39:20
because it's about the person.
00:39:23
It's so, you know, it's so centred on what they want and what they want to achieve.
00:39:29
Yeah. And they may not understand what they're doing.
00:39:34
At a conscious level, but your subconscious. I always do this when I talk about
00:39:38
my subconscious. My subconscious must be in the back of my head somewhere. I don't want to say this.
00:39:43
Oh, my subconscious is up. I don't know where it is. It might be in my shoe,
00:39:48
but wherever it is. Yeah.
00:39:51
It's screaming. It's like, you've got to fix this, or you're going to develop
00:39:56
PTSD, or you're going to develop some horrid cancer.
00:39:59
You know, your subconscious and your mind will physically manifest things,
00:40:05
almost like an alarm bell to say to you, and you know, like people who get chronic hay fever.
00:40:11
Okay, so that's an alarm bell. And there could be 10 people in a room and they're
00:40:16
the only ones sneezing. Well, what's really going on there?
00:40:18
All right, so at a scientific level, there's their allergies, blah, blah, blah.
00:40:22
But at an emotional level, there's something else going on.
00:40:25
Yeah. And that's what I think, yeah, that your subconscious is screaming at
00:40:30
you, going, do something.
00:40:33
Yeah. Take your medicine.
00:40:39
I almost think like that's part of the scary stuff too, because for some of
00:40:45
us, like taking the time to invest in yourself and not necessarily know what
00:40:51
it is that you need to fix,
00:40:53
but just know that there's something that you need to address is almost scary.
00:40:58
Cause you're like, shit, what is it? Am I, if I don't know what it is,
00:41:01
how will I know to treat it, you know? Yeah, and you don't need to know without therapy.
00:41:05
That's the other beauty whereas talk therapy
00:41:08
i'm not i feel like i'm dissing down on talk therapy and it's
00:41:11
it is incredibly important and the role psychologists do
00:41:14
when they will come back and you know the advice they can
00:41:17
give it's priceless in lots of situations but in our therapy yeah you can just
00:41:22
work through something and we again you don't need to be stressed or anxious
00:41:28
that you don't have the words that you can't explain how you're feeling you
00:41:33
know and that's why you know You know, those who've raised teenagers,
00:41:37
you'll know that, you know, it's one grunt for this and two grunts for that.
00:41:42
I was still, I don't know. You were there all day. Yeah, I don't know how it
00:41:47
went. I was there. I don't know.
00:41:49
It's not that they don't know. It's that they don't know how to express it.
00:41:53
They're that complexities of language. And, you know, you go,
00:41:56
oh, yeah, it's okay. You know, we all say things, hey, you're fairly,
00:41:58
yeah, okay. How was your day? Oh, it was okay.
00:42:02
It's just, it's like the word nice. It doesn't mean anything.
00:42:05
Yeah. The word nice just means it's the opposite of not nice. Right.
00:42:09
Yeah. How was it? It was nice. Yeah.
00:42:15
But yeah, but again, without therapy, you can really get down.
00:42:19
You can bypass all that sort of language stuff.
00:42:22
Right. And just really be free.
00:42:25
Yeah. Exactly. I wish I would have had this knowledge 19 months ago, right?
00:42:30
When I was going through all my
00:42:31
shit, right? Because I didn't know how to express myself. I didn't know.
00:42:36
I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what to do.
00:42:40
On the outside, I looked perfectly fine. That was good. On the inside, not so much.
00:42:45
Negative self-talk. I just hated myself. And I was so depressed.
00:42:50
So, so depressed. And I think that if I had known about art therapy,
00:42:54
then I could have started writing or doing something creative to maybe get outside of my head.
00:43:01
And just get to a better space but you
00:43:05
know and i'll say it time and time again i thank
00:43:08
god 988 picked up the thought picked up the phone thank
00:43:11
god there was that glimmer of hope and thank god my wife is home because life
00:43:16
on this side of depression is a thousand times better but now i have all these
00:43:20
tools that i've learned from our guests and you know i can add art therapy to
00:43:26
that because I think I've been doing it my entire life.
00:43:29
It just never came to me because I was in such a depressed state that I couldn't even help myself.
00:43:35
I'm super glad to be here. And like, I'm laughing and I'm writing and I'm coloring and you know what?
00:43:41
I don't care if people give me crap about coloring. You know what? I like it.
00:43:45
Are my pictures pretty? Probably not. Do I care? No, because nobody else is going to see them but me.
00:43:52
And they've done the job. Yeah. They've done the job. Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:58
Absolutely. Yeah. And that's really lovely to feel that, to have that,
00:44:01
you know, to go through that sort of state.
00:44:03
And I know with me, I got to a point where I never went fully back into that
00:44:08
terrible, depressive state. It was like my back hit a wall.
00:44:12
And every time I moved forward, I'd go back a little bit, but they're as bad as I went the last time.
00:44:17
And I think that's part of our journey, part of our empowerment.
00:44:22
And if it takes a long time to get there, then you've done the job.
00:44:26
That's okay too. You don't have to be fixed straight away.
00:44:31
And I think one of the most important things too is knowing that it's,
00:44:37
well, maybe I shouldn't say like it's never, but you have to continue to work on yourself.
00:44:44
You have to continue to use those tools that work for you because life is never
00:44:50
just boom all everything's going to be great now because you figured out what
00:44:54
was bothering you no like it will still take work to know who you are and and
00:44:59
dedicate the time to to help yourself,
00:45:02
and you need to trust yourself need to trust that you have the ability to help
00:45:08
yourself and there are times where we do need professionals and there are also
00:45:13
times where you can trust yourself,
00:45:15
to take control and use those gel pens and, you know, crochet an avocado or something.
00:45:21
I love people if they make me crochet at things.
00:45:25
That's one of my favourites. I can't crochet because my hands are all crippled
00:45:28
up, kind of tendersitis and things like I used to be able to.
00:45:32
So I'm kind of jealous when people talk about crocheting.
00:45:37
That's really good. I almost got a loom because my hands are,
00:45:42
I have really bad arthritis in my hands.
00:45:44
So I have a ton of yarn upstairs. I thought, you know what, we'll just get a
00:45:49
loom and then I can make something really pretty.
00:45:52
But, you know, then I have to find the time to do that. But with coloring,
00:45:56
it's just something I can,
00:45:59
It's there. I have all my tools right on my desk.
00:46:03
And I can just pick up a pen and I can start drawing or coloring or,
00:46:08
you know, write some words down on a piece of paper.
00:46:10
That, to me, is like the perfect way to kind of just get out of that mindset.
00:46:16
Like I was telling Dury Skittles, I had a hard week last week and I actually
00:46:20
had to go back and talk to my therapist.
00:46:24
My little empathetic heart just had too much. and I had told her what I was
00:46:29
doing and, you know, I said, you know, I sat down and I wrote and I did some
00:46:32
journaling and I started to feel better.
00:46:34
And she said, that's exactly what you needed to do because you needed to take
00:46:37
what was going on in your heart and get it on the paper so that you could try
00:46:42
and refocus what you needed to focus on. And it really did help.
00:46:46
And so did the hour worth of crying. But, you know, that was cathartic.
00:46:51
Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:55
Thank you so much. I mean, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk about this.
00:46:59
And I hope for anybody who's listening that this is the first time you're hearing
00:47:03
about this or if you just like to be creative in general, just give it a shot, man.
00:47:07
Just take time. If you're done, do it anyway. Yeah. Take time. Yeah.
00:47:12
Just release. I love that. Susan, where can people find you?
00:47:16
Well, honestly, it's going to say in the South corner of Australia,
00:47:20
but I'm going to do it at the moment.
00:47:22
I'm just looking at the outside. so um so well
00:47:27
i'm called mindful arts therapy so it's mindful arts
00:47:30
therapy with an s.com.au there's that
00:47:33
little colored bird i guess you'll see that everywhere particularly
00:47:36
on instagram and facebook if you look for
00:47:39
at mindful arts therapy you'll find me there my
00:47:43
books are on amazon again if you just search mindful
00:47:46
arts therapy you'll find them i have five activity books
00:47:49
i have a book about empowering and building
00:47:52
emotional routines i'm also
00:47:55
working on some really exciting books about the power how
00:47:57
women have used art as as a power to to take their voice across to talk about
00:48:02
issues so i've got some really exciting books coming up as well but yeah if
00:48:07
anyone wants to connect i do love a chat and i'd be happy to talk about it thank
00:48:12
you so much Susan. This was such a great interview.
00:48:17
Oh my God. I'm so excited.
00:48:20
What a perfect way to end the end our recordings for today.
00:48:24
I'm literally going to go upstairs, pour a glass of wine and color with my son.
00:48:30
Yeah. I love that. Hi all. Thank you so much for listening to this episode.
00:48:35
I'm G Rex and I'm dirty Skittles.
00:48:38
Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. We'd love to listen
00:48:42
to your feedback. We can't do this without you guys.
00:48:46
It's okay to be not okay. Just make sure you.
00:48:49
Music.