Embracing Authenticity | Nicole’s Story of Coming Out, Co-Parenting, Feminine Art and Self Love

We would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land. We pay our respects to the Elders past, present and emerging, for they hold the memories, the traditions and the culture of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across the nation.

Warning this podcast contains explicit language and discusses sensitive topics related to mental health childhood trauma, birth trauma, abuse, miscarriage and suicide. Listener discretion is advised. If you find these subjects distressing or triggering, we recommend taking caution and considering whether to proceed with listening. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to a mental health professional or a trusted individual for support. Your wellbeing is our priority. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Touched Out podcast. On today's episode, I speak with Nicole, who opens up about her journey from corporate stress to artistic fulfilment and mental health advocacy. Nicole shares her pivotal moment of coming out as a lesbian at 32 and the complexities of co-parenting her two sons After a life-altering breakup. She finds herself at her lowest, but through prioritising mental health and embracing her true self, nicole turned her struggles into a powerful narrative of recovery and inspiration tough.

So take a breath from everything right here and take some time. It's alright, you'll be fine. Touch a podcast, take all night.

So today we have Nicole. Nicole runs her own podcast. Your Say Podcast, is that right?

Your Say Podcast. Yeah, Everyone gets nice and opinionated on it. That's the idea.

Awesome. Thank you very much for joining me. Why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your past and a little bit about why you've decided to come on today?

Oh, awesome, I was really keen to talk to you. Number one I am a lesbian and my entire world is always surrounded by women and I love that you are a man. So there you go. I was really keen. Anything around mental health and parenting for me is something of a passion. I have a podcast and I'm also an artist. That's kind of my first job, and then I'm also a coach, so I work with clients around their mental health and it's basically what I do and live and breathe all day. So yeah, a little bit about me.

I started my kind of career in retail and had a very successful career, kind of moved myself all the way up to a general manager and was really high in the corporate, up the corporate ladder, earning all the money. And I went through a breakup with my ex-wife. We didn't quite get married, but I call her my ex-wife. Two and a half years ago Sorry, I'm jumping way ahead I married a man first, so I married a man and then I had a son, and my son, dakota, is 17, nearly 18. And we co-parented him. We split only after about a year and a half. So we've co-parented him sort of one week on, one week off, for his whole life. He's nearly 18. Until probably the last two years he lives with me permanently now, which is something we can chat about because it's an interesting one.

And then I came out as being gay when I was around 32 and I'm 47 now. So in that time I had two partners, one for a couple of years and then my ex, who we were together for 10 years and probably that's when my mental health personally just went from here to here and along that journey I really learned that I'd kind of been living with a bit of a mask on. To be honest, I was pretty obsessed with all the materialistic things in life. I was addicted to being validated by her. I didn't have a lot of self-esteem, although to look at you would think that I had all the self-esteem in the world. So it was a bit of a. It was a bit of a bit of bullshit, to be honest. And sadly our relationship ended and I was very in love and it was a. It was quite dramatic. It was from an affair. She had an affair. So that was really really hard and before that occurred I would have said we were really happy, like we were a done deal.

So that was two and a half years ago now, and in that time I've kind of hit my rock bottom and then built myself back up and have changed really everything. Honestly, kind of everything in my life is so different now. I quit my corporate job I do miss the money, I will say that but started my own business, decided to back myself, I shaved my head. I care less about what others think, and I'd kind of been told my whole life that you need to think before you as a kid, you need to think before you speak, nikki. And then in a corporate world it was like you're a bit much, but it was okay for the men to talk up in the boardroom, you know it was looking back at it now.

I never felt like I could be me in all of the environments that I put myself in, but it made me very resilient and the resilience made me very successful. But now I'm kind of I kind of had to learn who I was. It's such a cliche thing to say, but two and a half years ago I had to learn who I was, you know, and then go to co-parenting. My ex-wife and I had a second son and he is six, so we co-parent him. So at that time I was co-parenting two kids with two different parents and I had a lot of shame around that Like. I had a lot of shame because that wasn't Instagram perfect, like that wasn't. That wasn't what I signed up for. I was going to have one marriage and it was going to be perfect. So it's. It's been a journey. It's been a really, a really big journey and in that sort of two and a half years now I've I kind of went through a survival year, just moving, separating, you know, doing all the things.

And then 2022, I did everything for me. So I quit my corporate job, I started my own business. Art had always been something. I'd always had my art business on the side, but I decided to go all in on it. So, yeah, then this year, the beginning of this year, was all about community and me getting out there and sharing and not having shame around the fact that my relationship didn't work, and I decided to say fuck you to the world and started a podcast because people weren't talking about it. You know we were that couple that just everyone just thought was done and dusted Like we were. You know we were a good couple and everyone just thought we would survive. And you know, in my darkest hours I was isolated, like I isolated myself from everyone. No one knew in the year that it was going on. I didn't even share with my best friend, which is very not like me because I'm a huge oversharer.

So for the last six months That- all came from a place of shame, did it?

Absolutely. It came from shame and also I was trying to work on the relationship. So we spent a year of what I thought was trying to get the relationship back on track, but the affair still went on. But I didn't know that at the time. So there was a lot of there's a lot of sneaking around. It was really horrible. It was a really horrible situation and I almost became obsessed with making it work. So I didn't want to tell anyone because I didn't want them to think ill of her, you know. So I was sort of protecting her and that year was diabolical. So I thought, but then in hindsight, 21 was the survival and I was in fight or flight. So it was just do sell, be a good mom, make the dinner, keep making the beds, you know. And then it was 21 when mentally, I was just like I don't want to do this anymore, like I just, you know, I stopped. I finally allowed myself to stop.

Yeah, so that's kind of when you hit the rock bottom just from having that facade for so long.

Yeah, absolutely, and I'd started to sort of share.

I'd started to share things and my rock bottom was in October 21. And no one knew. You know, I sort of picked myself back up and was seeing counselors and tried psychologists and was doing all those things. But yeah, I think when you're truly affected by mental health, it's dark, like it was a dark place, like I still showed up smiling, I was a leader, managing 200, 300 people. I would walk in. Everyone thought I was great and it wasn't even so much a feeling of I just didn't. I just I did not want to do my life without her, like I just could not grieve and I hadn't grieved. So the year before I just survived, survived.

It's like grieving a death, you know, except that you're co-parenting. When someone dies, people rally around you and make you food and you know you can kind of own it. But when you lose a partner and then you still got to watch them be with someone else it was really hard. It was really hard. I don't actually talk about it so much anymore because I feel like it gives it airplay, but I'm in the best place now I can be. And you know, the last six months for me have been phenomenal really Mentally. I'm kind of you know I've made a whole business out of it, essentially.

Yeah. So those dark days are really quite intriguing to me, because I always try to find different analogies to explain it, as if someone's never heard of depression or anything like that. But the way I see it, when you're in the thick of it is it's like the most comfortable and warm and snuggly hug that you could ever receive. But that hug is choking the life out of you. When you're in it, you just you find comfort in the in just surviving.

Yeah, totally and it's so easy to stay trapped there and then it just takes like one little thing and that's when you hit that rock bottom, you go shit, I need-. I'm fucking in deep here. I need to get out.

Yeah, and then yeah, and I think and and then, from there you start to rebuild, you rebuild.

You start to air out your shame. You liberate yourself. You, you own the shame, you own the feelings. You say this is how I fucking feel. I'm not doing okay, I'm trying better, I will get there and it's just. Yeah, it's kind of like a butterfly, you know, you emerge from your little fucking sadness cocoon and you're all beautiful and bright and liberated.

And I think as well I found my brother is eight years younger than me, I'm 47. And he'd suffered, you know he'd had suicide attempts along the way and you know has been into drugs and all sorts of you of. Not that I'm judging in any way, I'm not but he'd had a colorful life for want of a better word and I've always worked managing really large teams. So I know I was very aware of depression, I was very much, I was very educated on what it looked like, but I was judgy and not until it hit me. And I definitely became highly anxious in the year that the affair was going on and that was you know, and I went to the doctor and got on anxiety tablets and I had so much shame around that and when I was in the doctor's surgery I was kind of like I've been anxious my whole life Like I just didn't know, I just didn't know it, you know, whole life, like I just didn't know, I just didn't know it, you know. And so I had kind of, and then the depression for me didn't hit until that 21. And that was when I allowed myself to stop and actually grieve like that and for me the depression was I just I have so much more sympathy and empathy for anyone that's ever suffered from it, because I was never. Mine was very. My therapist says it's like it's very, it's what I was. The way I was acting in mine could kill me, because I was literally like a split personality, because I still showed up, still went to work, but then secretly I'm like I'm not going to be here. Then, like I got that dark, like I didn't want to be here anymore and I would have been that person where people would go, what. Like she's so together, her home looks perfect, she's putting all the thing. It was very silently, literally killing me. And like I went and got my affairs in order, wheels like cause I'm a very high achiever in what I do and I'm like if I'm going to go out, I'm going to do it really structured and like it's going to be, like there's no coming back. And I think I learned for me through that experience that you know when you get to a point where you feel suicidal and this is the first time I've ever spoken about it. So here we are.

But I was, I was suicidal and I I'd always looked at it as selfish, like I'd obviously been touched by a suicide and I was like, oh, how selfish, how could you do that? How could you? But when I was in it, you are that fucking low, but that's the only option. You know, and I have a newfound respect for that, and I, you know, you hear people going oh, they committed suicide, or you know they left the poor kids behind. And whereas now my heart just goes out to the person and I'm like, wow, the pain that they must've been in. But before that my judgment was like how could they do that? How could they know the kids were going to see? And no, no, no, no.

And having now gone through it personally, I was just, yeah, it was a really dark time For me. It was dark, it was a really short time and I got help and I got out of it quite quickly. But if I didn't live the life I lead now, where I practice it constantly, even just a dark mood, now I recognize the thing and I'm like right, I got to get up, I got to go to nature, I got to you know, like I've really got to overreact to it, because I think it's like, yeah, I think once it gets you, it becomes an option For me, it became an option which is really fun. Like I can't even believe I'm talking about this so blatantly, but it's maybe it's time now, but it was an like things were so hard that it was. It became an option for me and I was very aware it was going to fuck my kids like.

I've since spoken to my best friend. She's like well, what about your kids? And I'm like you don't understand that when you're there, you're not thinking about them. Like all I could think of is financially. They're okay and I can't do it like it's. It's not selfish to them, it's can't do it Like you, you know. So, yeah, that was a big answer to your first question.

Yeah, no, thank you so much for sharing. I really appreciate it. I myself have been through my suicide days and I was like you. Prior to I'd had friends that had committed suicide in my younger years and I always thought, wow, how selfish for them to leave a world behind and leave just absolute agony in their path. You know, with their friends and their family, just missing every second that they're gone. But when you're in it, you think it's not selfish because the world and the people around you would be so much better off without you in it, and that's the frame of mind that I had, definitely. And it's hard, it's fucking hard, when you are just so low and so beaten by life.

It's not a selfish thing, it's literally just. I need to fucking get off this train and everyone will be just fine without me. Yeah, so anyone who's had those days and lives to see the next day nothing but absolute respect for pushing through.

Yeah, and I think anyone Reaching out and climbing out of that hole that you're in. And it's just the one thing. Like I, it was almost like for me. I don't know. I find it hard now to even put it into words, but I don't know why I didn't In the end. I just went like and I planned it meticulously and there was no chance of it not working, so it was like it was going to happen.

And then I just was about to do it and went hmm, and even then I still see, unlike you, I wasn't thinking that people were better off without me. I wasn't even thinking that, like I did not know how to continue being as who I was like. I just didn't like. I mean, I did. I was 45 at the time and I almost felt like everything was fraudulent, you know. And so it was like, and it was three months later that I quit my job and career and I haven't had a personality change by any stretch, but I definitely went into serving others and helping others and you know, that's kind of I'm just a better person now. I'm just not a judgmental asshole, which I really was. Like I was very much, oh, they come from a shit family, and I'd come from a shit family and so I had held myself. I shouldn't say I've come from a shit family. I'd come from a very dysfunctional family and I was the normal one Fuck, I hate the word normal and so it was like it would have blown them away, like I've since told my mum how bad I got and she can't even talk about it. She's like but you didn't like she. It just doesn't even mix with who I was portraying as a person. So but yeah, that's that's. That was that yucky journey, but for me it's. It's a year and a half ago, nearly two years, a year and a half ago. That for me, and it's not even something I think about, it's not even something that comes into my. It's only if I have a really yucky I. I've never thought about doing it again. I've never.

I've just got a hell of a lot more sympathy for people that suffer from depression and feel like they've got nowhere to go. And you know, I work with I'm a coach now and work with many women. I've got eight clients at the moment and I work with them one-on-one but we also use like WhatsApp, so I'm their kind of lifeline. And not that I'm working with women that are suicidal, it's more at a business supporting level. But I've now got a coach. That's that for me. So if I'm, if I'm triggered or having an immediate bad day, if I didn't have that, and I pay a lot of money to have her at my beck and call, but that's what I've had to do, like that's just what you know I've kind of had to do and restructure my whole life so that I can kind of show up being me so you've started it, so it's a life coach business.

Yeah, essentially yeah, it's the best way to say it. Yeah, yeah, I I work with.

Yeah, it's a life coaching. It's. I work with women in group containers like online courses that I run, and then I work with women one-on-one and it's really it always starts with mindset, right. Everything comes back to who we are as people. So I work with women, usually pretty intensely for sort of like an eight-week program it's called your Way where we meet weekly but then we are sort of voice messaging each other or texting throughout the day and I teach them the tools, I teach them all the tools that helped me pull myself out of those spaces. And then, having been a successful business person, I do business coaching as well. So it just depends on the client as to who they are or where they are.

And you know I've ended up having a pretty colorful life essentially. You know I've been straight, I've been gay, I've been, you know. So I've kind of I've got an interesting bucket. But I do coaching. Coaching's like 50% of my time, and then 50% of my time is creating artwork, you know, probably 40%, and then 10% smashing out a couple of podcasts. But like you, you know know, I've had guests on our podcast that just I'm just fascinated to hear people's stories and to normalize that you know the shit we see on tv is not real, the shit we see on social media is not real and you know, if we can bring real conversations into people's ears, it's like it can have it I shouldn't say it can. It has a massive impact, like I know just from my podcast and I'm'm sure, carter, you've had the same people are like oh, thanks for that, like that's just what I needed, like I just needed to hear that, to know that, to normalize my own feelings.

Yeah, it's been an amazing journey with my podcast. I'm sure you can probably relate.

How long have you been podcasting for?

Since March.

Okay, yeah, I'm since February.

Yeah, so I've just released my 10th episode yesterday, with one bonus episode, a Mother's Day episode about my mum and her life, but I've had so much awesome feedback from all over the world, which is just crazy to me.

It is isn't it?

You know, there's people in like fucking Saskatchewan, canada, that listen to me every fortnight, and I've had an amazing lady from Israel on as a guest. Wow, yeah, she reached out to me and just all of these things. And then I've even got like straight single in their 20s that I work with, that listen to my podcast every fortnight. They're not parents, they're just like. I just love listening to everyone's stories, yeah, so good. And the fact that we're talking about mental health. Everyone likes the dirt, everyone likes hearing about other people's trauma.

It's a weird kind of reality TV show kind of lens that you can look through into other people's lives yeah, and I think, if I think it's super fun, it is.

It's really fun. We, we I've just done 45 episodes, so we were smashing out to a week. So it's been, as you know, a truckload of work and, exactly like you, have touched women all over the world, have had guests from all over the world and I think just shining the light on the mental health will put it as a big umbrella shining because essentially what we're chatting about is not dissimilar, and people sharing their story so authentically. This is what our parents didn't do right. So they are all from the generation where you didn't talk about it and you swept it under the table and that's why we were the way we were and I think, from a generational perspective, my eldest son's nearly 18. He doesn't listen to the podcast. He's got no interest whatsoever. I'm really open about my sex life and dating and all that stuff. So I'm like you know you aren't going to like this. And even to my family, I've got no idea who in my family, if anyone, has ever listened to it, and I've been. You know the first few episodes are super dark of what my childhood was like through my lens and I said to mum like you'll be highly offended by it if you listen, but it's not aimed at you. It's just how I felt. It's my story, like it's my story of the choices that you made and it's my. I don't want to listen to that. I'm like no, don't. Whereas if that was me and my kid at a podcast, I'd be straight on it. You know, but her generation and I say that pretty comfortably because I've interviewed a lot of people over 65. They don't want to deal with their stuff. Majority of them, they just want to keep doing what they're doing she doesn't understand what life coaching means.

I recently went to a silent retreat for 10 days and meditated, called Vipassana, which is a style of meditation. You give up everything. You have no technology, no phones, you can't even gesture, you can't look at another person and you meditate for 14 hours a day, very monk-like, and it like. The people that knew me from pre two and a half years ago are like you're doing what? And we're very judgmental, like why the fuck would you do that? As if you're going to be able to shut up, and it's like no, this is who I am now and you know I came back from that experience even more attuned to myself and it was the hardest thing I've ever done.

I've run a couple of marathons before. I wouldn't say it was harder than my separation, but in terms of physically being alone with your thoughts for 10 days, like you couldn't do it if you weren't mentally strong, there's just no way you could make it through. But it was good. It was a really interesting experience and I've sort of come out of that now even more self-aware, so self-aware Like I still catch it after it's out of my mouth. I'm like, ah, fuck, I should have, you know.

But I'm so aware like I'll do something and immediately I'll be like, yeah, I'm very reflective on it. And even if I listened to the podcast that I created in January, february this year, I'm like, oh, no, I don't think that anymore. So I'm very contradictory, but aware of it, I can be easy. I'm not easily influenced, but If I listen to something, I'm like, no, that's right. Yeah, no, I changed my mind on that, you know, and I kind of I found that really hard to accept.

But for me, change it's like, oh, you didn't used to believe in that, nikki. It's like, no, I know, I didn't, I own that. I didn't, I own that. I used to be a selfish asshole and now I'm not, and now I do live my life like this. So my old friends and network really struggle and I don't really hang out with them anymore. You know like I've got a whole different space of people and I would say I'm still finding the people I want to hang out with. You know, I want to be able to say hey, I'm off to go on a meditation retreat for four days and I'm going to do this, this, and I don't want to feel shame about it. I want them to go awesome, because if that's what you want to fucking do, go and do it. You know, you do you yeah 100%.

I think that that evolution of personality after you've kind of gone through those dark days and you start like the re-emergence and rebuilding yourself and figuring out what you actually like just as a you, just as an individual.

Exactly.

Super important Me myself. I would hate to be alone with my thoughts for that long. I think that would be incredibly destructive. I admire you for doing it.

And it's not for everyone right, and I did it as it's a way of life and it's a. The underlying thing that you learn is that you learn to get attuned to what's reality, and the reality is everything changes every minuscule second. So you sharpen your brain during meditation, so much so that I live now in the present, which I didn't, I was always. But once I get that, and once I have that house, and then this, you know, and I lived like that for a really long time and I still struggle with it because it's, you know, it's only 10 days. It's 10 days against 47 years. You know what I mean. But I now, yeah, like the most stressful thing could happen, it could be, you know, a terminal illness for my child, or I'm trying to think of something really something really tragic and dramatic, and I just know I'm okay, like I just don't have any, I don't fear death, I don't. I just don't fear anything anymore. And no, my kids have noticed a dramatic difference. I actually asked my son last night cause it's just me and the two boys and we've got a little puppy, alice, and I said to him do you notice how chill I am these days? And he goes oh, yeah, like okay, do you remember what it was like when we used to be a big family and sit at the dinner table and I had my partner and he's like, yeah, that's way better now, mom, and I'm like, is it? And he goes, yeah, you're way better, you're so much happier, and he can see that now. I don't think he would have said that a year earlier, potentially while I was still highly anxious. But yeah, but look, you know co-parenting our youngest one. You know we talk about parenting on your podcast.

It's hard, I think, would I say it's hard. We do a really, really good job of it in light of everything, but it has had a massive impact on our youngest son, who's six, whereas my eldest son son we separated they were the same age, essentially, and we did one week on, one week off with him and he just had two homes, two lives he did become a people pleaser. That's something I've found really common in kids that have two homes, because they go to one and they've got one set of rules and so they act a certain way and then they get to the next one and then it might just be nature. But yeah, he became very people-pleasing, whereas my little one. It's been nearly three years and he's still probably every second or third night. Why can't I just have one house? Why can't I just have it? Still says it after three years and he's not unhappy in either of his homes. It just pisses him off. You know he's like why can't I just? And I get it, I'm like mate, it must be. I say to him I say that must be so frustrating, but you know you've got two extra people that love you now. You know like, but it is hard.

I wonder what the whole co-parenting? I sometimes sit down now and think like what will they be podcasting about? You know, like what will they be saying on their podcast when they're 40? You know I lived in two homes and this mum did this and this mum did that. And you know I do reflect. I didn't do that with my eldest son because I was a fucking crazy bitch then, but now I do. I look at, and I had the afternoon.

We went up to Mount Tambourine with my little one yesterday and I got to spend some quality time with him yesterday and I got to spend some quality time with him and he's such a good kid, you know. But in his other family. There's a new baby about to be born and they've since got married and you know so there's a lot going on. So he's he's pretty emotional, which is why we kind of went and had some one-on-one time. But I think that for me, I've co-parented both my kids. Sadly, I mean my, my, my second one. I didn't co-parent him for three years, but I'm a great parent for it. Like when I'm on parenting I'm on, so I don't and you haven't seen them. So I feel like they get.

My kids, particularly my eldest son, had lived a really sheltered life so you can go out and drink and party and do anything that you don't deem appropriate away from your children. So my eldest son, he just didn't see anything. I remember once he must've been like 11 or 12 and we're at a shopping center and a fight started and he like fell to the ground. Like he fell to the ground and went mom, what's happening? They're hitting each other and I was like I grew up seeing domestic violence and all the things you know. And I was like up seeing domestic violence and all the things you know and I was like, wow, good on me for creating this beautiful, safe, loving space.

But I've had to have lots of talk to him in the last few years. This isn't normal like you've had this perfect, beautiful life where you've gone on overseas holidays every year and you've lived on the water and it's been very privileged to go to the best schools and all the stuff I'm like. But this isn most of the world doesn't get this. But he, that's all he knew, right? So he just thinks everyone goes to Japan snowboarding every January. He just thinks that's normal, right? And I had to teach him at 14, 15, 16. Yeah, I had to really explain to him that not all the schools look like your school and it was really interesting and I tried so hard for perfection and then was like you know, my iPad broke. Can I get a new one? No, not anymore. We don't roll like that anymore.

Yeah, had to send him to the school of hard knocks, get a bit of street knowledge.

Yeah, so no, he's definitely, definitely. I mean, you know he's, he's. He's not street smart at all like you know, he's not.

He's not street smart and he doesn't. I mean, he gets it. Now he's pushing 18 but he's got no idea entering the workforce, what's about to happen, and just doesn't get it. And I've got an insane work ethic which he hasn't inherited, which is really interesting because he's watched, he's had a working mum his whole life but it hasn't. I mean, he works, he's got a job at subway and he works two or three shifts a week but you know it's, if they ask him to do another shift, he's like well, I don't need another shift. You know, I'd prefer to go surfing, or you know, whereas when I was a kid it was like anything for more money. But yeah, it's interesting, co-parent, did you? Co-parent, carter?

I do not know. I've you do not? I've got three kids and I am married yeah, that's lovely. Yeah, no, it's really lovely, I am I am the product of a broken home, though I am a child of divorce myself. My, my parents divorced. When I was five. I went with mum, my brother went with dad, my sister oh wow, that's hard yeah, so he's three years older than dad.

My sister oh wow, that's hard. Yeah, so he's three years older than me and my sister's 11 years older than me. So she came with us for a little while but then moved in with friends. You know, as she was much older, it was like an every second weekend thing. I went to my dad's house. I never really liked doing that much. I was very much a mummy's boy and I always wanted to stay with mum and I always resented having to leave. So I mean that's you were saying before that you don't really know how your son feels, or you like, reflect on it. That's how I felt.

Yeah, well, that's no, that's what happened to him. So once he got his license, sort of a year and a half ago and you know the way I parent, my mum was, my mum had me at 17, so she was loosey-goosey like just you know all that we got. Also I they her. My dad split up when I was about six or seven coincidentally he's not my real dad, that's a whole nother podcast but didn't find that out till later in life.

It was a colorful life, right, it's pretty dysfunctional lots of different boyfriends, and her brother was a drug addict and got exposed to things that kids shouldn't have seen, and I was sort of hell bent against my kids. I was going to break the cycle. I was like that's just not happening in, you know. And so when I went through my life, I was, I knew I was gay, I knew I was born gay.

I loved women, but I was like my willpower to want to break the cycle of drama was far greater. So I was like, no, I've got to find a guy, I've got to get married. I've got to have a good job. I've got to get a company car, I've got to buy a house. Really young I mean, I bought a house at 19. Like at 19, like who the fuck does that? Now like just stupid right. But for me that was that would pull me away from what I was in, like that was kind of how I saw it, and so I did all that. And then those thoughts of women didn't just it's really hard to make them go away they just didn't go away.

So did you reject your homosexuality until you came out and you were exclusively for women.

Yeah, I think I definitely pushed it down. You know, I had an ability then in my life to push my. I was like a professional blocker back then, so I pushed it down, pushed it down, pushed it down. It was definitely always there. I did not enjoy being with men. I had a boyfriend from sort of 13 to 15, 15 to 19. And then I met Dakota's dad and that was kind of an on and off thing. That's my eldest son and I didn't sleep with a woman until after, you know, until our marriage separated. But I definitely dabbled with them.

I remember my hen's party, passing three women and thinking, okay, it's out of my system now, like it'll go away, you know, and like we're talking 25, 30 years ago. So that was not what I mean. Now it's very common. It's almost like they do it for the attention and it's something, you see, but it certainly wasn't then, and my brother's gay as well. So, yeah, I definitely ignored it, pushed it away, pushed it away. And then I met a particular girl, my first girlfriend, and I just locked eyes with her and I was like, oh, this is like I have to, you know, and it meant blowing up everything. That was the life I'd built. It was my previous understanding of the world and it meant I would come from a broken home, which then meant I was just like my family, you know, and that's probably when my mental health journey started. So I was like 31, 32. That's when I first started talking to counselors and dealing with, then, that's when I dealt with all my past trauma, all my childhood stuff. And you know, I've been yeah, I'd say I don't think there'd be yeah, I'd say I've been working on myself solidly for 15 years and, you know, more intensely at different times in my life, but I've always, I'd say from 30 to 40, I dealt with all the family stuff and I think it took me 10 years, took me 10 years to kind of process and have a really good understanding of what my triggers were and how I could have a relationship with certain people and my family are all in Melbourne.

I live on the Gold Coast, which is about a for those listening overseas it's like a two and a half hour flight, so it's a long way, and I left in early twenties, you know, and I love my family from a distance, you know, and we have a okay relationship, but that's it Like there's. No, I don't go there for Christmas. For Christmas it's like a once a year thing or a wedding, or now it's starting to become funerals and I would never want that for my kids. But the fact that it's that, in light of all the stuff we went through, is amazing. I'm actually really happy that we've got to a point where that's the relationship. But that was all the work I did, and then from 40 on was kind of more work that I did on myself. So that's kind of and that's an ongoing lifelong journey for me.

I think some people, when they first start dealing with their trauma, they think that there's a finish line, you know, and it's hard to accept that there's not. There's periods where your life feels a bit easier and but life's 50,. I often say to my clients life is 50% shit and 50% good. You know, and if you can have a really reality, if you can have a realistic expectation, then you'll be okay. Whereas I used to think I grew up, my family, my family conditioning, came from TV. So I love TV.

So because my home life wasn't functioning like, I literally thought family ties, the Brady Bunch, anything I watched on TV, that was what I wanted, right, because for me that was normal, bewitched anything, anything that had a mom, a dad and a nice home. And I didn't grow up without. It wasn't that dramatic. I always had a house, et cetera. I know people grow up in harder environments than what I did, but for me it was hard right, but that was my family network. So that was what I saw and, I think, what that did. The conditioning that that did for me is that's all the things you had to have had to have a company car, had to have a nice car, had to have a nice house, had to you know, and that was where that came from. Right now I'm renting.

I just earned the lowest salary I've ever earned in 30 years in the previous 12 months and I've never been happier, hand on heart, like I've never been happier. I need to earn more money because my lifestyle was built from earning more money. But if I didn't like those things so much, like I actually wish that I didn't want for all those things, if that makes sense, like it doesn't the materialistic things that I've become accustomed to, I kind of wish I didn't want them so much because it now doesn't agree with me, does that make sense? Like it just doesn't? It's like I'm about to move into a beautiful bougie apartment near Hedges Avenue and it's stunning and I love it, but it then means I've got to earn a certain amount of money and I hate that, you know, and that's because of all the work I've done. Like I'm a contradiction, you know, I'm yeah, and that's just my journey and it's taken me a long time.

For anyone that's listening to the podcast, like, once you start, if you're invested and you love yourself and you're going to do the work, you don't stop, you don't get to a finish line, you don't get there. You, you know I've earned all the money in the world like didn't change anything. I had the wife, the house, the you know like and that's where, kind of just living in the day and the moment and literally waking up and smelling the roses. It's so funny, isn't it? Kind of like all the cliche statements that we're told and that we hear growing up, it's now reality. You know, love yourself before you can love. You can't love someone until you love yourself. I must have been told that I don't know a hundred times. As a young person, I didn't ever listen to what that meant.

Not until I was, because they're just words.

They were just words until you're actually in it.

Yeah, I find things like anything to do with parenting, any of those cliches of like you'll understand when you have kids, and all of that. You know, I got told that shit all the time when I was growing up and it was literally just words, and it may as well have been a completely different language, just words, and it may as well have been a completely different language. And then, slowly but surely, after having kids.

I just those words creep back into my mind my dear old mom saying them you wait, you wait, you wait.

She was right, she was right, yeah, she was right about everything, and I say them to my kids now as well, and and I'm like this is pointless to say this but one day, one day, they'll be in their 30s with three kids and they want to pull their hair out and they'll say to their kids you wait until you're a parent, and they'll have a little smile on their face.

It's funny. You know, I love, love being a parent and I wouldn't change obviously my situation I'm not someone that lives with regret but change obviously my situation. I'm not someone that lives with regret. But if I had my time over I wouldn't have kids. And I don't say that in a like I kind of own that these days, like I love them, I'm a great mom, I provide for them, but they don't define who I am. You know I'm not a mom that so tell me. Someone says, tell me about yourself.

I don't talk about my kids for quite a bit, like they're kind of down, especially when I'm dating someone new or when I meet someone new.

And that doesn't mean I don't love them at all, but they, you know, I've always been a working mom. I've always had my own purpose and I strongly believe that kids mimic the behavior that they see. And that's what I've done with my, you know, my eldest son's coming into 18. And, aside from my work ethic, he's a bloody good kid and he's a good guy and but what I had to correct and what I learned at that 15, 16 year old Mark, like what I said before, is I was like, oh shit, I'm making him think that this is real life. And then you know we go to a third world, we go to Bali for a holiday and he's just like crying at how they live, like, and I'm like, oh my god, you think, living on like he thought that was real. But why wouldn't he? That's all he knew, and so I've had to correct the course along the way. And how old your eldest carter?

four, four a four-year-old girl, a two-year-old boy and a almost one-year-old girl.

Yeah, baby yeah, and you know, navigating young adults is a whole new thing and one of the things I used to say, like people used to say to me and my eldest son was always a great kid and people would say, oh, he's such a good kid. You know, when you become a parent, you don't get a rule book. You don't get a rule book. It's like, no, you don't. But there are books, right, like you actually can research being a good parent and if your kid's a certain way and if you're intuitive, like you know and I've done that with him like when we separated, I was like, right, where's the books on separating? When I came out as gay, I'm like, how do I educate and and all the like. These days there's so much information, support out there, but like when my son was born, we didn't even have a smartphone. Like I was 27 and I didn't know anything. Like you didn't track, you didn't it? Just, you know, was 27 and I didn't know anything. Like you didn't track, you didn't you? Just, you know, and I and I I'm very aware now that I'm bringing out kids in a life where they do have all of that, and so I'm not a parent, that I'm not anti-screens. I'm not well back in my day. We used to, you know, and I I do wish that they. I just think everything in moderation, like yesterday. We were at Mount Tambourine and hiked and spent the whole best part of six hours out in nature and when we got home, my son's like can I watch YouTube? Absolutely, knock yourself out. He was upstairs for two hours. I did dinner, I caught up on some work and everyone's happy. You know, that's no different to me watching four or five hours of TV, which I would have as a kid. But navigating parenting in this day and age is hard and I see when you talk to your friends that have got kids at a similar age and everyone makes their own rules. I'm just doing my best and I go through stages. I recently took my iPad off my youngest one and said it was getting fixed at Apple and he didn't have it for a month and then it miraculously appeared one day when he was sick and I had to get work done.

But yeah, I think parenting kids now in this space I had to parent my son, losing his virginity, and the first girlfriend's there's so much focus, I think, when you're pregnant and when you're going to be a parent, about the baby and the birth, right, and that shit's gone in two years. And the truth is you're in survival mode, as you would know better than any of us, right, like you just got to get them fed, eating and functioning, right. If you can do all that, you're okay. And then you come up for air and I find what new parents and new couples don't talk about is do they want their kid to work? Do they want their like? What actually like? What are the how they're going to parent the six-year-old, the seven-year-old, the 10-year-old? Are they going to be allowed to have sex in the home? Do they want like all those conversations don't necessarily happen, right, and I say it often to friends that are, you know, newly married or having a kid I'm like, don't worry about the first few years because that shit's just, it's survival, right, it's like sleep deprivation.

Talk about what you're gonna do as a family. Talk about your family values, like, talk about how you're gonna. Are you gonna sit down for dinner? What are your not negotiables, like you know? Yeah, then when phones become a thing, just decide as a family what's your rules around phones and all those things. So far, I'm comfortable with how I'm navigating them, but it's fucking hard, right, like it's hard.

I've had those conversations with my wife. We've talked about it all because my wife and I were both absolutely fucking balls to the wall teenagers and we got into some mischief. We both were like we need to have a clear plan very, very far in advance for our kids, because yeah if karma's a thing, we're in for a, a real time yeah, so you know we've talked about phones and we've, we've, you know, we've discussed.

We want our kids to feel like their home is the safe space we would love totally their home to be like the group hangout, where all the kids come and hang out here, and like the fun house and all of that as far as like alcohol and drugs, you know I'm not going to ever condone it, but if they're going do it, they're going to do it, and I'd rather them do it in a safe and controlled environment than be out on the streets.

Yeah, we'll always discuss these things openly as a family. So they know that there's trust there and they know that if they're ever in trouble the first person they call is me or their mum.

Yeah, carter, I'm the same. That's been my rule and, and you know, my son's nearly 80 and I I was never into drugs as a kid. I didn't do any of that till my mid-20s but and I so I had no rules. Growing up I could do what I want when I want. I was driving my mom's car at 16 I I was just lucky I wasn't naughty so I had my own, like just who I? I just wasn't a rat bag, I wasn't into. But my son, when he got to the age I was exactly like you. All I wanted was to be told and my two family non-negotiables we own our shit. So when we fuck up because we will all fuck up we own it right. And that's my biggest thing.

And my eldest son had a few situations at school where he wouldn't and I would know I'm like, mate, I know you did it just say you did it, own your shit and then let's, let's talk about that. So he learned that at a sort of middle age. It was only small things, like he got out of his fucking cabin at camp and like nothing. You know, I remember when I got the call and they said, oh, he's got out of his cabin and snuck to the other rooms at camp. Like, honestly, I was like, oh yes, like he's got a bit of, fucking, get up and go in him, because he was quite like, just, I was like, I was like I was actually happy and then they're like we're gonna suspend him. I go suspend him for that. Are you fucking kidding?

Like you know, he goes to a really strict school. It was a really strict school, but I knew that the drug things was happening and I was like, have you tried it yet? Where are you at? What are you, you know? And he, oh, are you still there? I think I just lost you. Oh, yeah, you've come back. Yeah, you're back. He eventually, yeah, I tried marijuana and this is, you know, this is what I thought of it and you know I was trying to give him his first beer at 16 and he just didn't want it. He now drinks. So he's just hitting nightclubs now. So probably the last four months he's going out to nightclubs on a Saturday night and they go out and they get home at four in the morning and they've been drinking and they Uber and, honestly, like I love it.

I'm like this is the best time of your life, mate.

Have a ball, be safe, go hard, go hard. Like you know I've got no, yeah. And his first girlfriend, like he was like, can she stay the night? I'm like, have you slept together yet? No, we haven't, you know. And he was with her for six months and that was hard to navigate, you know like, and I think when you're single, you're kind of like I was like, oh, I've got no one to talk to about it, right? So you just sort of make up your decision and you go with it.

But yeah, no, parenting young adults is, you know, it's just completely different. And his dad took the other path, where I don't want to know about it, I'm not interested. And subsequently he doesn't stay at his dad's anymore. He hasn't stayed at his dad's house in a year and a half, you know. And so, as a parent, you get an opportunity where you can. Either you can put your head in the sand, but you lose them along the way, right, like kids are all going to lie and they're all going to do the things that they're going to do, and you just have to make a decision on whether you want to know about it or you don't. Jesus.

I'd always rather know about it.

Same, same same and like he's, you know. I mean he hasn't done any, we haven't had a major touch. Whatever we touch, I don't have any wood in front of me, but yes, I have there. We go touch wood. I haven't had any major drama with him yet, but it will happen. Someone will take too much, or they'll have their first drug, or you know, he's just starting to want to go to festivals and like I know it's there, right. But I hand on heart, 100% know that he will call me. I know he will call me and if he didn't get me he'd call my ex-partner and he not like if he couldn't get me and he would call and that's all I want you know, you know, I don't know what the drug scene is going to be like when my kids are of age I know right probably going to be fucking digital.

Put this fucking chip in your neck or something lens in your eye or some shit, I don't know imagine what it would be like.

That's interesting yeah, no, I think about it quite often actually, but just just the amount of dangerous situations that I I could have been in as a, as a young man like I would. I went to festivals and a person that I had never seen in my life would walk up to me and she'd be like open your mouth. And I'd be like, fucking sure, what did I just take? It could have been battery acid. I fucking do not know. And you know I'm very, very lucky that those were some of the coolest nights of my life.

Same. I'm the same Same.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm the same and I, yeah, I have the same memories and I, my eldest son's best friend he was, if we're going back a few years earlier. His parents weren't parenting the same, so so he got into vaping and was getting into bongs and they were not allowing it and they were starting to really lose him, you know. And he got into it a bit younger then and at that time my son wasn't into it and we used to be neighbors before I separated with my partner and so we're close. And you know, she reached out and was like I'm losing him and I'm like mate, you've got to take the red tape off. Like he's getting out the window, he's gonna do it anyway, you know, you're gonna lose him completely.

And we went on a family holiday with them a year ago and they changed their parenting style literally completely. Like we, literally they're like no, you're right, I'm like, just let him do it. Who cares? He's doing it. A year earlier, like he vapes you guys both smoked. He vapes it Like it's not okay. But if you keep, you know the lying and you know all that was worse. And so they completely changed the way they were parenting him and they are all so close now, like their whole family network, my, they live. They live near the water, near our old house, and my son stays there. And the other night they got in on Sunday and they were coming in at five and the dad just got up. He's like oh geez, boys, come over here, gave him a HydroLite and some Panadol and sent him to bed. Now, if that was a year earlier he would have been like where the hell have you been making a big deal about it? And it's like's like they are 17, they are getting into a nightclub with fake id. They're not quite 18 yet, but it's okay like it actually is. And even the bouncers look at it and go okay, mate in, you go, yeah, you know you think you think things have changed, but it kind of yeah, it kind of hasn I, yeah, it doesn't.

It's an interesting thing for me. I grew up in Melbourne so we didn't get our license until we were 18. So you got your license at 18 and you could then go out, whereas here they get in Queensland they get their licenses at 16, which for anyone in America it's completely different. They're 16 and then can't drink to 21. So I find that really so for me.

Once he got his license I was like, like there's no curfews anymore, like I trust you, you smash the car if you drink, drive, did it, you know, and he's lost all his points. He's driving around the moment with one point because he lost three points for doing, for speeding, and he won't ever. He won't drink and drive because at the moment he needs the car, like that's his lifeline. So he ubers everywhere, which is smart, yeah, whereas when we were young we drank and drove. That's what we did. Like, yeah, we would literally be at it, we'd be at a rave and we would finish it and we're like so who's who's gonna do this? Like who's tripping the less, and I often drove, I'll drive. You know, and I sort of preach that I've never drunk, drove and I'm like you might have been drunk, but you definitely were.

You definitely were. On something. I didn't get my licence until I was 25 because I had lost a fair few friends from drink driving and stuff.

Did you. That's horrible.

I was the type of person that would do it because I just didn't give a fuck. So I consciously was like, okay, well, the only way I can ensure that I don't drink, drive and don't die behind the wheel of a car is just to not get my licence.

So I was always just the drunk passenger. Yeah, yeah, it's smart, it's really smart I saved myself by doing that. Yeah, really smart.

Is there anything you want to throw out to the world before we wrap up, Nicole? What do I want to?

throw out to the world. You know what I'd love to throw out to the world. I am just so incredibly passionate about you know. It's not so much around parenting but just being true to who you are. Right Like.

It feels like such a cliche, but fuck, conforming, fuck society, fuck what you've been brought up. Believing, you know, finding who you are and being true to that person is the most liberating thing I've ever done in my life and I am such an advocate for it and I just yeah, for anyone out there that doesn't even know what that means, because if I had have heard me saying this three years ago, I would have been like what the fuck is she talking about? But life gets to be really easy, like when you accept who you inherently are and you trust who you are and you have integrity in yourself. Everyday tasks get to be easy, like I just like cleaning my house, washing, like all of the things that that were traditionally piss you off. If you're in a really good state of mind, that shit's just not hard. It's just what you're going to do, you know.

But you just you don't have that resentment. So I would like to throw out to the world that life does get to be really easy, but you do have to do the work. You can't and the work's inner it's all about you. It's never about anyone else. It's never about a relationship, a home, a job. It's always a fucking inside job. And that's what I do. I help women do that work and it's the most rewarding thing ever, you know. But that would be my throw out.

Awesome, be who you are, perfect. And just before I let you go, do you want to plug your businesses, plug your artwork and your life coaching?

Yeah, totally Totally so. My art business is called your Art by Nicole, and Instagram is where I'm most active. And then my coaching and podcast is your Say. So the word your Say, your Say by Nicole. So my podcast is also on Spotify, apple and all of the platforms and over there we do a really similar thing to you. We don't necessarily have the parenting link, but we talk a lot about the conversations that people are really having, you know, and not the mums that are going to the coffee shop in all of their $300 leggings, the conversations that actually really should be happening. That's kind of what our podcast is about. But, yeah, I do coaching. I work with women all over the world and I do it via Zoom and you'll find it all on Instagram so we can drop it in the show notes and stuff.

Yeah, awesome. Well, thank you very much for joining me. No worries, thank you, carter, it's been really good. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The deep chat was way deeper than I thought I was going to go, but deep is good we got deep. It was good we will catch up soon. I think I'm going to come on your podcast.

You are going to be the first man I've ever, and by the time you get on there, I'll have done 50 episodes and I won't have spoken to a guy yet. So you are going to be the first.

Very excited.

Yeah, sounds good.

All right, mate, you take care.

Thank you.

Hooray bye.

See you, it's another day to try and find a way to make it so my life's a better place. If there's one thing I see, then your only thing is me. Just knowing that I'm trying to make a change. Can I put it all on me? Can I put it all on me, Responsibilities and all the other nonsense coming by repeatedly? There's one thing I know it's knowing to let go, Just knowing that I'm trying to make a change Outro Music.