Creating Space Project

The Creating Space Project interviewed Miria and Ziggy, two young people on the Yaama Ngunna Baaka Corroborree. We were travelling with the Water for Rivers convoy in outback NSW, camping in the river towns from Walgett to Menindee. The purpose was to learn about the plight of the rivers from a First Nations perspective.  The rivers are empty or near empty. This isn't just about the devastating drought or the climate emergency. The rivers are literally being sucked dry by big corporations. It is a death sentence for Aboriginal communities, for whom the rivers are life itself. Miria and Ziggy reflect on the impact that Uncle Bruce Shillingsworth has had on them, as well as the theft of water and climate change.  

When is about people not gender?  Sahra and Ruth explore patriarchy as a system of oppression that affects all genders.  Far from experts on the matter, we are two psychologists sitting with self-doubt and the discomfort of critically examining what it is that we value, and how we bring that into a therapy room. 

Trillions of dollars have been spent by the Australian government detaining asylum seekers in Papua New Guinea for six years. It would be far better governance to bring about an end to this situation.  Cathy McGowan is the former Independent member for Indi, in rural Victoria. She talks to the Creating Space Project and asks each of us, right now, to email our local Member of Parliament and our state Senators and ask for answers to the following questions: What are the Government's plans for the asylum seekers on Papua New Guinea who can't go to the USA? What would it take for the Government to agree to New Zealand's offer? If you are an Australian citizen, you can find the relevant email addresses on www.aph.gov.au and it only takes about 15 minutes.  

The Creating Space Project is currently exploring feminist psychology and intersectionality, through asking listeners the question “What would you ask a feminist psychologist?” In this episode, Sahra O'Doherty and Ruth Nelson talk about Tanya's question regarding how you weave feminism into counselling, about being a values-based therapist, and the embodiment of values.

What would you ask a feminist psychologist? Ruth Nelson and Sahra O'Doherty respond to Jess's question about the effect of patriarchy on women's mental health, and how many problems stem from inequality. "I should look good." Ruth and Sahra explore the ways feminist values inform their psychology practice. They also explore systems of oppression, layers of privilege, intersectionality, who is allowed to get angry, cultural expectations of women, pain and motherhood, unrelenting standards and the male suicide rate.    Photo 'Tern with a Fish' by David Noble

It’s very hard to find the words, “I have experienced this.” What brings people into counselling? The Creating Space Project talks about therapy and mental health with psychologist Sahra O’Doherty. People can spend a lot of time squishing uncomfortable feelings back down, and get worried that if they lift the lid, they’re not too sure what’s going to emerge. We can be pretty afraid of our emotions. Society teaches us to fear failing. Shame and guilt feel painful. Vulnerability is frightening. So to come and talk to a psychologist can take a lot of courage. And what’s it like to be a psychologist sharing space with clients? Sahra talks about the ways that providing counselling has shaped her and how if we, as therapists, can’t sit with our own discomfort and vulnerability, how can we expect it of anyone else? The research tends to show that 70-80% of the effectiveness of therapy comes from the relationship between therapist and client. It’s the relationship that heals. So if you have a really fantastic and strong therapeutic relationship, that can facilitate positive change.

“I find it very hard to accept that Australia’s national interest is about putting security listening devices of the walls of our poorest, nearest neighbour.” This is an interview about espionage, exploitation and politics. Elizabeth Biok is a lawyer and member of the International Commission of Jurists. She talks to the Creating Space Project about the case of Witness K and his lawyer, Bernard Collaery. These two men exposed the Australian government for bugging the offices of the newly formed government of Timor-Leste. “The Australian intelligence agents were asked to put listening devices inside the cabinet room and some of the ministers’ offices in the parliament of Timor-Leste. And that was no doubt to eavesdrop on what the Timorese politicians were saying, while the negotiations were going on with Australia about the oil boundary, and sharing the resources in the Timor Sea.” For exposing corruption, Witness K and his lawyer are charged with breaching the National Security Act and are now imprisoned and facing a trial that lacks open and fair justice. Elizabeth went to East Timor as a legal monitor of the Independence Ballot in 1999 and bore witness to the political oppression and militia violence of the Indonesian occupation. She takes us, with wonderful clarity, through the history and geography of our relationship with Timor-Leste, and our place in South East Asia, to help us understand how this situation came about and how it pertains to processes of economic development, democracy, and our identity and values as Australians.

Cherie Heggie is wonderful. She sees the world with an openness and compassion that many of us just can’t seem to attain. She declared as a Bahá’í in 2015 and what drew her to the faith is its belief that all the major religions of the world are from God. In her life, she has found no difference between herself and the Muslims who live around her. Talking two days after the terror attacks on the mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, Cherie talks about privilege, peace, fear and the outrage that we are wasting time on hatred between religions when the true crisis facing us is the climate emergency engulfing us all.

Australia has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world. That is amazing and a credit to our public health system. And, of the people who give birth in Australia, one in three experience it as a traumatic event. Grace Jeffery is a student midwife. She talks to the Creating Space Project about helping people feel safe and empowered in labour, and the importance of continuity of care throughout pregnancy and of good post-natal care, to reduce this experience of trauma for families. Grace also talks to the gendered nature of midwifery, which translates back to "with women", and the ways in which this can exclude people who don't fit a binary construct of gender.  She reflects on how, while it is traditionally a very feminine space, it is fine to extend that space for people who don't identify with "woman", or "man", or "mother" or "father", so that they also can feel safe and comfortable in their experiences of becoming parents.

This is a beautiful, relaxing, bilingual conversation between guest interviewer, Gavin, professional interpreter, Sajsajee, and naturopath, Jik. Jik is a naturopath. She practices Kai Therapy.  With her husband, she has established an organic city farm in the middle of Bangkok. Their hope is to educate people about holistic approaches to health.  From volunteering with street children, Jik now tries to educate people about integrative medicine, from the importance of fresh food, to changing the behaviours of consumerism. It is important to Jik to live the way that you teach, and becoming a Kai therapist was a way of fulfilling this, using ancient wisdom from Japanese villages to bring a new model for healthy living to modern Bangkok. 

Jaeb is a woman of vision, as well as extraordinary humility. “If I know anything, it’s that I know nothing.” When Jaeb and her husband first purchased land in central Thailand, the soil was so degraded by monocrop farming and heavy use of chemical fertilisers, it was like rock. They started growing trees for shade around the house. Initially, Jaeb and James had many failures, with thousands of saplings dying. But then they discovered the work of Dr John D. Liu. Since then, Jaeb has undertaken a fascinating journey of learning about ecological restoration, permaculture and sustainable agriculture. Jaeb wants to create a food forest, a way of producing food that doesn’t require deforestation or monocrop farming. An educator by training, and passionate about the environment, Jaeb wants to bring as many people on this journey with her as possible. From her own children to the local town to an international community of volunteers who come to the farm to live and learn, Jaeb’s vision is to share knowledge about food security and nature. “It’s possible to live off the land and to enjoy nature. You don’t need to cut down everything in your farm.”

"Where are you getting the next lot of food?" And he just shrugged his shoulders. Ev Van Bo and her husband packed up their caravan for a trip around Australia. They thought that perhaps, on the way, they should stop to help a farmer. So they contacted the Country Women’s Australia and were put in contact with Nea Worrell, from the Baradine CWA Drought Pantry. She may have spent the first week leaving the cover on the thermometer when preparing the feed for the poddy lambs, but Ev’s help meant that farmers could have dinner with their children. For Ev, helping out in a drought was a reminder of what is actually important in life, and how we need far less than we imagine.   But what we do need is food and water. In these times of climate change, with Australia become drier and hotter, this interview is a reminder that food security will become a more pressing issue, and that the people we depend on every day to feed us are struggling in ways that are unimaginable here in the city.   

Do you ever feel like who you are on the inside is different to the way you perform for other people on the outside? You should listen to this episode. Marine Salter did beautifully moving artwork for a journal article that I was part of, called Barometers of the City. Published in Human Arenas, it is qualitative research using poetry by psychologists as cultural data. Marine reflects on the process of producing art, which for her is about personal expression, for an audience. She describes being hyperaware of what’s expected of her in the world and feeling that she does not match the expectations of others, and the low self-worth that comes with that. Articulate and generous with her insights, Marine describes a phenomenon that is common to many of us. It is the need to be authentic to yourself and to heal your sense of pressure to meet the expectations of others.

Kim is a Joondoburri Salt-Water woman from Yirin, the traditional name of Bribie Island, South East Queensland. She found out at the age of 21 that she is Aboriginal. As a child, Kim's father was sent to a boys’ home to learn Western ways, his mother having been persuaded that this was in his best interests. In this institution, her father sustained appalling abuse. Now that her father walks with the Ancestors, Kim shares with the Creating Space Project the story of her family and her culture. As well as the trauma sustained by First Nations Peoples as a result of colonisation, this is a story of resilience, growth and joy. “To lose 65 000 years of culture, to lose my language, to lose my stories… I don’t know my language. I would so love to. I know the name of my language. It was Oondoo. But I don’t know anything. Any words. Nothing. It’s a sad thing. But… I know where I’m from. I can connect to my ancestors. I can connect with my country.” TW: Abuse, suicide attempts

"I am a link between my father and my ancestors, the Incas, and knowledge formed thousands of years ago." The daughter of a Shaman, Julia has just released a book of her father's stories. Abuelito tells the tales of boyhood adventures with Eduardo Paez's grandfather in the foothills of Ecuador, trekking into mountains, visiting his special tree, watching the rituals of the wise men.  Stories of fun and adventure, they also represent an ancient spirituality, a First Nations cosmovision, and bring a wisdom formed thousands of years ago into the modern day, a wisdom gentle and profound. From Eduardo's grandfather, a strong man, leader and warrior, there are gentle lessons on how to tackle climate change, how to protect the Earth that sustains us, and how to get along with each other.  As Julia asks, "Who will still be telling these stories in a thousand years?"

Kate is a farmer in outback NSW. She loves farming and she loves her land.  Her cattle wander the paddocks in peace, in view of the Warrumbungles. "Anything that’s had a happy life is good. One bad day and that’s the day they’re on the truck." At the moment, keeping the cattle alive is hard.  Kate describes the most extensive drought she has seen in 40 years in Coonabarabran. Even the native trees have not survived. Among dust storms and dirt, Kate often lacks the water to even wash her clothes.

Kim works in town during the week and on the family farm on weekends. Her family are trying to keep some of their cattle alive during the drought. Resilience is a complicated business. It is the quality of bouncing back, surviving or thriving, and is revealed in hard times. Kim is the embodiment of resilience. She brings love, hope, commitment and loyalty to the work of emotionally sustaining her family through a drought that is slowly killing their stock. She doesn’t avoid emotional pain, standing side by side with her son as he has to put down the animals. She nurtures a small patch of lawn so her husband and son have something green to see when they return home from paddocks that are nothing but dust and dirt. She finds ways to sustain herself as well, one of which is choosing to tell her story as part of the Creating Space Project. Kim understands the power of witnessing. Just as she stands witness to her son in the fields, supporting him in his work, she talks here to allow us to bear witness to what she is carrying. “I like to think someone’s heard what I’ve said and actually acknowledged what I’ve said.”

Amid the bustle and kindness of the Baradine Country Women's Association hall, Isabelle took time away from volunteering to talk to the Creating Space Project.  Isabelle’s mum, Julia, tells a story about running away to her grandmother’s house whenever she needed a break. Isabelle, confident and insightful, uses that story to reflect on what’s important to her life. Family and working hard. Those things matter a great deal to Isabelle. Having interviewed her grandmother and mother previously in the podcast (Drought Pantry and Fourth Generation), this interview provides beautiful insight, from Isabelle, into the ways that families pass their values down through the generations.    

“I am the fourth generation of incredibly strong women.” When Julia was four years old, she was run over by the family car and pronounced dead. Somehow, she was revived and recovered from the incident without lasting harm. Julia Baird is the daughter of Nea Worrell, the amazing woman integral to the Drought Pantry at the Baradine Country Women’s Association, and previously interviewed on the podcast about the ways this drought, the worst in living memory, is impacting rural NSW, Australia. Cut from the same cloth, Julia talks to the Creating Space Project about the strength of the women in her family, from her grandmother down to her own daughter. She also talks about the faith that sustains her mother and sustains her, one that is linked to Mary MacKillop and the charism of the Josephite Sisters, also women of great strength. “She [mum] just has this attitude – you just get on with life.. I think she got that from my nan.” The intergenerational transmission of values is a process that I am very interested. Listening to Julia reflect on her family provides fascinating insight into the ways that families pass down an ethos of hard work, kindness, and never giving up. “Mum always said “You just get on with it, you’re my daughter, you know what to do, get on with it.” Family is one of the places where we shape a powerful sense of who we are, of our own identity, and this can be one of the forces that generates resilience in us. “Through the telling of these stories and the acceptance of who we were as women, I really took on, “I’m Julia, I know who I am, I have this strength, I have this power.”

The Baradine Country Women’s Association is 90 years old. At the moment, its hall is full of supplies and vouchers, donated from around NSW and Queensland to support farmers and to try and keep the local shops alive.   Nea Worrell, part of a family with five generations in the CWA, talks to the Creating Space Project about the impact of the drought.   “We’ve had that farm for forty-odd years, my husband has been farming for seventy years, and we’ve never had dry dams.”   Nea and her family have been handfeeding their animals, from sun-up to sun-down, for 18 months. They’re reduced to their breeding stock, and are wondering how they get through summer, never mind beyond that.   There is no rain predicted.   Nea’s story is not unique. Farming communities are facing enormous hardship. As well as struggle, though, what shines through is the strength, wisdom and kindness of women like Nea, building community resilience and hope.   “We have ladies burst out crying when they see us. They’re being strong for the men in the farm and then they come in here and we say “How are you? Are you alright?” And then the boom gates open. So cuddles and cuppa teas and cakes are free here at the CWA. They go away feeling restored and better. And if we can do that, that’s great.”

When you interview someone at the Risk and Dare youth justice conference, held in a high school, it's tough finding a quiet spot, especially when you only have 10 minutes... Elise talks about being moved by the story of two women who arrived in Australia as refugees.  “The refugees I’ve encountered are so strong.” The resilience shown by people fleeing vulnerable situations is the key characteristic Elise sees. She believes young people in Australia need to hear these stories - stories from really dark places and people who have lived many lives - in order to build their own resilience. She also believes we are stronger when we tell our own stories. Storytelling shares lived experience. It gives hope for the future. It lets people learn from other’s experiences and create their own stories as well. Stories form a human connection. “That’s important, that human connection.”  

Christiane Nakhle and I are at Risk and Dare, a justice conference for young people from across Australia. She talks about homelessness, and young people being vehicles for justice.   Women are the most significant proportion of homeless people in Australia, due to domestic violence and lack of support.   Christiane traces her concern for homeless women to the influence of her cultural background, Christiane is Lebanese-Australia, the closeness she feels to her family, and the influence of her mother and grandmother on her life.   Christiane strongly values empathy and using the resources she has to be an instrument for change.   It was an interview grabbed spontaneously as Christiane was very busy, and kindly took time away from workshops to speak to me. So my apologies for the difficulties with the noise. We are in sonic competition with the loudspeaker for most of the time.

Boundaries and being other. These are concepts that interest me greatly. So there was a wonderful synchronicity to having a conversation with Celina McEwen. This is the story of the meeting of Celina’s parents, a French woman and a man from the West Indies.  As well as being the story of the cultural backgrounds of the two people that Celina embodies, it is also about that “big question mark of how people relate across cultures, [what] makes people want to cross those boundaries, and [be] attracted to the other.” Intersectionality; the politics of relationality; the diversity within a single person; the choreography of relating to other people; the ties between memory and language. Celina is as graceful and light as a dancer in the way she explains ideas that can otherwise be a little bit daunting.

Politics dressed up as the production of spores. Olivia reads a poem written by herself and a friend, Marcus. Then the other young poets of the Spark Youth Theatre respond to it. It's witty and clever, and the conversation does not disappoint either. I loved interviewing these young poets. Uploading this episode from a campsite in Goondiwindi, with the baby playing in the dirt, the preschooler sulking in the tent, and the birds scattering about the grass, I'm reflecting on this episode from the backdrop of the emaciated cows and bone-dry dirt that I saw yesterday. The insight and awareness of these young people gives me hope. 

"I feel too much, like it's more than I can hold, and I will break"  Seb is fourteen years old, enormously articulate, and very insightful. He reads us a poem. Then Gabe Journey Jones and the Spark Youth Theatre respond. They talk about many things, including being bullied and feeling down about everything. What emerges is resilience and strength. The future is not perfect, but you will get there. This is the second of three interviews with the Spark Youth Theatre. Spending time with them was wonderful. I felt so energised by all they know and share. 

This is the first of three interviews that I enjoyed enormously (I enjoy all of my interviews, to be honest, but this one was something else again). I got to talk to the young poets from the Spark Youth Theatre. Each took a turn reading a poem, and then the rest of us, including facilitator Gabe Journey Jones, chatted about the poem. “A witch’s house that goes walking” Fourteen year old Orlando reads an original poem, Baba Yaga, that he had written moments before. Then the group respond to it. Their insight, wit and originality is just a delight.

Rachel Menzies researches the role of death anxiety in mental health. She is passionate about ancient history and psychology. From Gilgamesh and Persephone, to the local death café and anxiety disorders, Rachel came to realise that a fear of death, and an avoidance of talking about it, is pervasive throughout human history. For Rachel, mindfulness of death helps her to live deliberately and in the moment, living with meaning, purpose, and a deep appreciation of life. It is about “using death to live well.” Rachel Menzies is a clinical psychology and PhD candidate. Along with Ross Menzies and Lisa Iverach, she recently edited the book Curing the Dread of Death.

"It’s very rare for me to lose that sense of my own heartbeat." Meeting on Gadigal/Wangal land prior to the Unspoken Words Festival, poet and percussionist Gabrielle Journey Jones performed The Happening for me. There's a heartbeat drum at the pulse Twenty-four hours in the zone - never alone - never alone Like the voice of women which will not drown in patriarchal oppression The voice of women in the rhythms... Powerful and evocative, Gabe's drumming and poetry opened up a fascinating conversation about rhythm, sound, feelings, creative community, heartbeats, intersectionality, queer communities, representation, mental health, self-care and greedy time... a conversation about "bits of debris that float in."

"The many different angles of grief that hadn’t occurred to me until my own father. It hadn’t occurred to me that there was more than one thing to miss. And it’s not always good stuff that you miss." Poet, Ali Whitelock, and I talk about the unexpected death of her father, a man with whom she had a difficult relationship.  The experience of accompanying him, holding his hand while he died, brought home to her the reality that one day, she too, would die. The terror that life was passing her by compelled Ali to leave her job and enter the life she had always wanted - that of full-time writer.  We talk about the meaning of her work, holding something in the palm of your hand and writing a poem about it. "The role of writers and poets is to perhaps pare back life and look at it and try to make some kind of meaning to it."

Jenny and I are in an Open Dialogue group that examines how Western psychology is linked to colonisation. Both emerge from the same place. Because of this, psychology can sometimes do harm to people who have been colonised. In the group, we look at ways our own psychology practice can perpetuate colonising practices. Jenny, an Aboriginal woman, talks about how the term ‘decolonise’ is offensive for her. It evokes bloodshed and massacres, families torn apart, languages lost, disconnection. The word doesn’t communicate love. It communicates only pain. The Open Dialogue group is attempting to re-imagine clinical psychology as a place of dialogue, collective action and resistance to injustice. As Jenny says, “there’s a group of passionate people that want to see change.” In Open Dialogue, “everybody gets to hear what everybody has to say. But also all the feelings are acknowledged and then you can sit back and assess what was heard.” Simply finding a word or phrase to represent our intentions and conversations requires finding a middle ground, a place for both psychology and lore.   Photo 'Corellas' by David Warren Noble

Sadiya and Sarah are part of Stop Adani. It is an environmental movement working to block the development of the Adani Carmichael coal mine in the north of the Galilee Basin, Central Queensland, Australia. Last episode, Sarah told a story for Sadiya to reflect on. In this episode, Sadiya tells us a story, about a Bangladeshi farmer who lost livelihood and home to river erosion. Sarah pulls out the themes of loss and displacement in this story. For Sarah, this is a human story of the suffering already experienced by extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and global warming. Climate change is not just an issue of environmental justice, it is an issue of social justice. Sarah reflects on the increase in child marriage associated with climate change, as families are forced to make horrendous decisions to keep their children alive. “We know that burning coal, no matter where it’s burnt, is going to keep fuelling global warming and climate change and Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries, although no matter where you live in the world, we’re all going to be effected by it.”

Sarah Ellyard’s childhood, spent camping and bushwalking with her wilderness conservation father, explains her connection to the environment, and her ability to understand its importance to our health, physical and mental. She finds it hard to understand why Western society places such a low value on nature, and why we find it hard to take action on climate change. Sarah is part of Stop Adani Sydney, a movement that is trying to block the development of the Adani Carmichael coal mine, in the north of the Galilee Basin in Central Queensland, Australia. Sadiya Binte Karim is a Bangladeshi woman. Also part of Stop Adani Sydney, Sadiya reflects, for us, on Sarah’s story. She links it to climate justice, both in Australia, and in countries like Bangladesh and India, which are already suffering the consequences of climate change.

“I am a drop waiting to return to the ocean” Mohammad Ali Maleki is incarcerated on Manus Island. Five years ago, he attempted to seek asylum in Australia and, for this, he was detained. An Iranian poet, Mohammad writes in Farsi. His friend, Mansour Shoushtari, translates the poetry into English, and Mohammad messages the poetry to Michele Seminara, an editor at Verity La. Michele and I talk about Expectations, a poem contained in his chapbook, Truth in the Cage. Michele describes his work as “incredibly sad but also in a way uplifting.” I think I know what she means. I feel so sad listening to the words of a man jailed for being a refugee, but I also find myself reflecting on my relationship with freedom, through the lens of his relationship with freedom. “For years the ceiling of my room has been my sky.” The Australian government does everything it can to suppress asylum seekers’ voices. Mohammad and others like him have been strong, persistent and ingenious in getting their voices out. Compassionate and gentle, Mohammad seeks our essential goodness, “He’s speaking from what’s the same in each of us.” Truth in the Cage, is a chapbook of poetry, written by Mohammad Ali Maleki, and published by Verity La and Rochford Street Press. It is being launched on Tuesday 17th July, 2018, at the Friend in Hand, Glebe. Come along. Otherwise, buy it online. All profits go to Mohammad.   For more information, including sample poems and how to buy the book, check out the link below https://verityla.com/2018/06/28/truth-in-the-cage/ 

This interview with Auntie Josie is to acknowledge and celebrate NAIDOC week, 2018.  Auntie Josie is from the Wailwan nation. She is a First Nations Person. We were speaking on Darug land. I am deeply grateful and honoured that she has shared some of the stories of her life with me.  These stories concern sexual abuse, domestic violence, suicide and parental death, among other things. Please be advised of these triggers. Listen mindfully for your own wellbeing and with respect for Auntie Josie. Auntie Josie is a woman of remarkable courage, wisdom and kindness. I have been moved beyond words in listening to her stories and by the generosity she has shown in sharing them with me. The purpose of sharing the stories is to help Australians, like myself, understand better the experiences of First Nations Peoples. These experiences are the consequence of colonisation and genocide. I would like to be very clear that I acknowledge that these are Auntie Josie's stories. I am simply privileged to be permitted to release them here as a Creating Space Project podcast episode.  So too, the thumbnail image is the official NAIDOC 2018 logo and I am using it, I believe in good faith, to be a part of this celebration. 

Introduction to Conversation with Merle Conyer I talk to Merle Conyer. I had a particular question, about the interface between Western psychology and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge. I’m exploring that because of a work role I’ll be taking up soon, as part of the Creating Space Project. As part of my preparation for that, I was put in contact with Merle by Paul Rhodes. Merle has been grappling for some time with the same question that has only recently come to me. Merle works with Aboriginal communities. She’s a South African woman who’s been in Australia for many years. As she describes it, she is in that intersection of human rights and wellbeing and social justice. So I sat with her on her carpet and listened to her, and in listening to her, I have learnt an enormous amount. For her the word genocidewas shattering. She realised that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in her lifetime have encountered the five conditions for genocide laid about by the United Nations (1948) Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. There is shame attached to that: The shame for a South African woman, and the shame of being in Australia and realizing the systems of oppression that exist here, the structures of colonialism. A phrase that has stayed with me from the conversation with Merle is about moving from shame to responsibility and how you tease apart toxic shame from helpful shame. This interview has helped raise in me lots of questions: As a therapist, in what ways am an instrument of oppression?” When I’m in a therapy room with a person who experiences racism, structural oppression, in what way do I perpetuate that oppression? How do I seek restorative action? How do I seek to redress that? How do I deconstruct the racism that I have been raised in? How do I dismantle those processes of colonization in myself. Merle explores the idea of cultural humility. As I understand it, this is about making space within my space, and within the spaces I operate in for voices from other cultures and other systems? Merle then talks about the therapeutic modalities that have served her well in practice. These include somatic therapies and postmodern therapies, including narrative therapy. I am also in conversation with First Nations Peoples, this interview is just one act of preparation.

Jennifer Jones lives in Myanmar and co-founded the Room to Grow Foundation. She works with children: Unaccompanied refugee children who have experienced enormous trauma. They have swum rivers while bullets fly overhead.  They have worked in factories. They have foraged for discarded cabbage leaves to stay alive.  But their suffering is not the focus of this story. Their strength is the focus. “Those kids… taught me about strength, about resilience, they taught me about survival, about what it takes to live in a really difficult world. Their parents teach me about what it means to make choices that are more difficult than any I ever have to make in my life. And above all, the dancing teaches me that kids who have gone through these terrible situations can find a moment of joy. Not all of them, not every time. But all that stuff that they’d been through, they could just drop it to be fully immersed in a moment of joy when they got it.” This is not just a story about dancing with refugee children. It's about Jennifer's journey away from pity and into a more ethical relationship with people who are in need. It's about white and non-white relations, international NGO work, colonisation and post-colonisation.  It's also a reflection on how a government and media can manipulate a society into believing a certain class of people are not human, such as the Rohingya experiencing genocide in Myanmar, and refugees and asylum seekers trapped in detention centres, like those on Manus Island and Naura in Australia.   

Rebecca Langley is an Australian woman who has become involved as an ally in the movement for freedom in West Papua. Recently, she has been a supporter in the Let's Talk About West Papua campaign that has been launched in Australia, which aims to address the ways in which Australia supports Indonesian occupation of West Papua, including funding, arming and training the security forces.  She talks here about how she became involved in this community, inspired by the music of Blue King Brown, the activism of Izzy Brown, the 43 West Papuans who came to Australia by outrigger canoe, and the Freedom Flotilla.  It's problematic that we are two white Australians taking up space to talk about the oppression facing Indigenous people. Rebecca and I are both uncomfortable about that.  There were particular reasons at the time why it wasn't possible to talk to a West Papuan (including time restraints), and I decided I would rather talk to somebody, given the timing of the campaign addressing human rights violations, even if I couldn't talk to a West Papuan woman.   

Amy Martinez listens to the story of Isabelle from Belle and the Bear, in which Isabelle’s bear was stolen by her mother’s abusive partner. “I feel like [the teddy bear] stands for something else that has been taken away from her.” The sadness that Amy feels for Isabelle relates also to her own experiences in childhood. Now, as a young adult, Amy says she is starting to notice the ways in which people hold power over her. For example, she had a boyfriend who was very controlling. “He knew that I cared so much about him that he could do whatever he wanted and get away with it because he could say certain things to bring me back.” Amy’s reflection is a curious mix of vulnerability and courage. It takes a lot of strength to allow yourself to publically experience and express strength and there’s a lot to be learnt here about emotional resilience and getting to know yourself.

"Hope is a spacious place. It's so full of possibility." Chantale has a way with words that is a little hypnotic. And she has a way with ideas. Hope, for her, is a red balloon that expands your chest so you can breathe a little more easily.  Much like her balloon, or more accurately, because of her balloon, this is a conversation that expands - into mental health, the vagaries of babies that interrupt interviews, what keeps us awake at night, climate change, what a better future means, Brene Brown's vulnerability hangovers, messiness - and into a conversation about conversation, stories and words. About the things that make us human.  And here is the poem that she shares with us - it's worth lingering over: 357/365 // the balloon // #365daysofpoetry Love, mistaking my heart for a balloon, took a deep breath  and blew  and now it sits uncomfortably tight in my chest, swollen against ribs that creak under the strain drifting upwards  until my toes barely  touch the ground  I am adrift  in newly awoken hope (Chantale Roxanas)

I’m excited by this episode. I love all of the interviews I do (maybe not my interviewing all the time, but I love all the stories) but this one was like interviewing the kind of person I hope to be in another decade or so – still committed to social justice, still passionate about what I do. Not bitter about the losses.   Dare has just left her role as CEO of Reverse Garbage, which is a facility that diverts resources away from landfill and into creative and practical re-use. Need a whole bunch of shredded paper and foam bits and bobs? Go to Reverse Garbage.   Social justice and equity, especially intergenerational equity, are the values that underpin Dare’s career that has spanned health promotion, anti-slavery, refugee rights, gender issues, housing and neighbourhood development.   When it comes to issues of sustainability and climate change, Dare hopes to help nudge us into the direction of a circular economy, as opposed to the linear economy that the Western world currently embraces.   “There is a finite amount of matter in this planet so we’re always turning one thing into something else… we need to keep working with that in a way that it keeps going.”   Dare is trying to help save us from ourselves. That is a story worth sharing.

Angela is amazing. Single mother of two kids. Assistant director in the city. Courageous, empathic and generous. I played her Amanda's story from Red Flags and then we talked about it. Domestic violence is hard. I struggled to ask Angela about it and I feel a bit ashamed of that.  Remembering abuse brings up strong emotions and layers of self-judgement. Talking about it brings up the complicated nuances of male and female relationships in society; it brings up the fear of reprisal if it's heard by the abuser or their family. But Angela feels a responsibility to speak up about her relationship with her ex-husband, both to help other women and to end the intergenerational transmission of abuse for the sake of her children. And I feel very grateful that she let me share this story.

Isabelle is the twelve-year-old daughter of Amanda, who talked about domestic violence in the episode Red Flags. Resilient and insightful, Isabelle talks about her mother's abusive partner stealing her teddy bear when she was six years old. “I was just an angry child because I lost my teddy bear.” On the cusp of adolescence, Isabelle has already learnt a great deal about herself and emotion regulation. She is unapologetic for a justified anger and, at the same time, understands that lashing out in anger is not often effective. "Emotions rub off on people. If you’re angry all the time, no one will want to talk to you. If you’re calm, people wll rely on you."

“Why doesn’t she just leave him?”   Trigger warning: Domestic violence.   Amanda Cosgrove describes how it took five years to leave a man who was abusing her and the strategies that he used to manipulate his way into remaining in her life, including using her children and slowly undermining her belief in herself.   After the relationship ended, she went through counselling to rebuild her self-worth and self-respect. Forgiving herself, despite it not being her fault, took a long time. She also did courses to learn ways of identifying the red flags that can be a warning of abuse.   Despite all this work, Amanda found herself in a relationship that turned violent. Her son had to step into to save her while she was being seriously assaulted by her partner.   A woman of remarkable strength, insight and resilience, raising five healthy and happy children, Amanda shares her tale as a lesson in how, under the right circumstances, we are all vulnerable to abuse.     “Hopefully with more and more people speaking out about it, hopefully women do listen and don’t try and pretend everything’s fine like I did for so long.”

Nivelo started Equally Wed in the faith that one day, Australia would enact marriage equality. A wedding directory catering for gay, lesbian, queer and transgendered couples, Equally Wed reflects Niv's belief in equality and civil rights. "The reason why I really started this business was so that everybody had the same rights and option." The inspiration for Equally Wed came seven years ago, when Nivelo's brother and male partner opened a package containing a cake topper. The expression on their faces of joy and happiness really struck Nivelo. They had found something that represented them, something they could see themselves in.  And that, to Nivelo, is important.    * This is not a paid endorsement of Equally Wed. I just admired the imagination and motivation that it took to set up this business years ago and hold faith that one day Australia would get its act together. 

A child with a disability taught retired teacher, Elizabeth Appleyard, an important lesson on mental health and wellbeing. In a class exercise, when other children were wishing for material items, this child wished for a new hand. At the same time, this child appeared to be an essentially happy soul. He had friends, he laughed, he played.  The lesson for Elizabeth is that happiness is transient. To be happy means that, at some point, you will also be sad. They are emotions on the same spectrum. Underneath them is contentment and peace. You can feel sad and know that, basically, you're alright.  Contentment is about enjoying day to day existence, about experiencing each day as a present to be unwrapped. "I can pay my bills and I can do what I like with my day. That," says Elizabeth, "is a luxury."

Dei Phillips is a Bundjalung woman.   Fierce and compassionate, she is relentless as an activist and advocate for Aboriginal people in Australia. In trying to arrange this interview, we kept having to postpone. Dei is always busy, whether it be marching on Invasion/Survival Day or seeking legal representation for young Aboriginal first offenders.   She is a passionate educator about pre-colonial history and geography. When I finally got to talk to her, it was more than worth the wait. I got to hear about the importance of language, story, and place. These things form our culture and identity. I felt that I understood more about how utterly devastating it is to have them stolen.    And it all began for Dei back in early primary school.   As a little girl, she found herself attacking a boy tormenting a small girl with cancer. While she regrets being in a physical fight, she learnt, in that moment, the feeling of strength that accompanies protecting someone else.   It was a defining experience, in terms of becoming an activist.   “That singular moment of watching this young girl, who was a white girl, be dehumanised for something that was completely out of her control.”   The basis of activism, says Dei, is the desire to protect.   The only Aboriginal child in her inner-city primary school, Dei would sometimes be sent to stay with her grandmother, a thousand kilometres away. Here, she went to school with family and cousins. The contrast between the two experiences was quite stark. Going to school with her mob was freeing.   “You don’t feel frowned upon, you don’t feel like people are making judgements on you as much as when you’re the only Aboriginal in the school.”   I’ve tried a few times to write up more of the interview for these notes. I thought I was just struggling to condense all the themes of it down to a short piece. But I’ve realised that, as a Settler woman, a descendent of English and Irish, I don’t feel it’s my place to write up the knowledge that Dei gifted me in this interview. So, I hope you are able to listen for yourself.   If you’re not able to listen, you could email me to ask for pdf of the transcript: admin at creatingspaceproject dot com

Teresa Benetos was a nurse in Baghdad when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. She’s writing a memoir about her time as a hostage in Iraq.   Growing up in a traditional Irish Catholic household, it has taken many years for Teresa to realise that, as a woman, her story is of interest. After thirty years, she says, it is time to tell the story of ‘The Accidental Hostage.’   As a teenager, she battled with her father to be able to finish her Leaving Certificate at school and study to become a nurse. Against the background of an economic recession, Teresa was compelled to seek work in London, during the era of “No blacks, no dogs, no Irish.”   She left London and went to work in Belfast during the Troubles, the thirty-year armed conflict and political deadlock in Northern Ireland.   Then, in 1990, she took a job in a hospital in Baghdad. Before she returned to Iraq after some leave, she had her fortune told: She would be surrounded by uniforms and there was months of worry ahead for her parents.   On August the 2nd, 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and decided that foreigners were not allowed to leave. Teresa was one of about 200 Irish nurses held hostage. So long as they continued to work in the hospital during Operation Desert Storm, they were relatively safe.   As well as the fear of their own position, they experienced the vicarious trauma of treating the civilians impacted by armed conflict, including the pre-invasion gassing of Kurds, with children being carried on foot from Mosul with horrific injuries. Following the trade sanctions imposed by the UN, people were running out of food; the hospital was running out of medicine and supplies.   This is a story both harrowing and inspiring, as well as bearing historical importance. Reflecting on family, career and recovery from trauma, the interview reveals Teresa's strength and resilience. It also provides tantalising hints into her skill as a writer.   The conundrum of the story is a familiar one: Family. We flee into the world and sometimes end up longing to return. What Teresa wanted most, trapped in Baghdad, was the family and the parents she’d so desperately wanted to leave.

This episode is part-two of Bearing Witness: The backstory to Creating Space where we hear the inspiring yarn behind Ruth Nelson and how this podcast came into being. In the first episode we followed Ruth who, as an 18-year-old, inadvertently signed up to volunteer in community work with refugees leading her on the path of studying psychology.   She survived a brain encephalopathy, and in not choosing the path of least resistance, Ruth headed to northern Uganda at the age of 26 to work in community outreach as an NGO. It’s in this episode where we pick up Ruth’s story as she struggles with the futility of her presence, as a young inexperienced community worker, in an active conflict zone. Ruth saw her role, initially at least, as bearing witness to the atrocities of this insidious and complex conflict but over the two years she initiated and facilitated many programs, some of which had surprisingly comedic outcomes.   After Ruth returned to Australia to complete her qualifications as a psychologist and to work in the field, life happened, and she made a difficult decision to put her career on hold to dedicate her efforts to raising her child. It was during this period, Ruth felt like she was losing hope as social media reflected a world of growing ignorance and intolerance. So she decided to share stories. What was supposed to be a blog, became a podcast and Ruth searched far and wide to ask women to share their own stories at the virtual campfire. Ruth believes we are sentient bags of saltwater who just love a good story, and in listening to others we can readily identify shared values despite coming from different, seemingly alien backgrounds.   Since the Creating Space Project started in June 2016, Ruth has facilitated, so far, the sharing of stories, in a narrative framework, of 73 ordinary, yet extraordinary women. It was my opinion Ruth’s story needed also to be shared and she eventually acquiesced to my appeal for an interview. I think it makes for a particularly inspiring listen … enjoy!   This is the last episode before Ruth takes a break for a few months, as she is due to have another baby. But fear not - the Creating Space Project will return!

It seemed remiss - to me at least - with all the stories that have been shared by this project of ordinary, yet extraordinary women, it had not featured the captivating journey of its creator, Ruth Nelson.   It took 12 months and some gentle persuasion for Ruth to acquiesce to my appeal for an interview. The notion that she would become the object of interest left Ruth feeling ill at ease, yet her experience, I argued, was at the essence of the Creating Space story.   I knew Ruth’s personal story would make for a fascinating and inspiring episode, but as it transpired, the yarn - much like Ruth herself - proved difficult to contain and so, I proudly bring you the first episode in a two-part series.   We start with Ruth at 18 lying to nuns about her experience and inadvertently signing up to volunteer at a charity, Josephite Community Aid, with refugees. Following a stint in Tanzania, an encephalopathy left Ruth with three weeks to live and the prognosis of a living in a group home after she failed to die. Not content with just surviving, Ruth completed a degree in psychology and left for Africa, this time, again inadvertently, landing an active conflict zone. She spent two years in Northern Uganda and witnessed the region transforming from a state of war to post-conflict society.   When listening to Ruth, in her characteristically understated manner, we might be fooled - for just a moment - to believe her story is anything other than extraordinary, because it is. She possesses a generosity of spirit, that leaves very little room for ego. There is also a joyfulness in her manner, and despite the sometimes-horrifying and traumatic experiences, Ruth delivers humour and hope.   We hope you enjoy episode one of Bearing Witness: The Backstory to the Creating Space Project   Guest host Sarah Down interviews the usual host of the Creating Space Project, psychologist Ruth Nelson.   

Rachael Vincent talks about the emotional impact of the postal survey on same sex marriage, or marriage equality, in Australia. It has been frightening and deeply upsetting for the GLBTQIA community to be confronted with people's level of fear and hatred. "The license given to people to say things that would not normally be accepted." Swastikas painted. People assaulted.  "This is a state-sanctioned homo-bashing festival." For Rachael, a white woman quite a long way up the privilege ladder, it is an insight into what it is like to always have to fight for your rights and your identity.   

Most of us aren't very good at changing our minds. Beliefs that we have held since childhood can be very resistant to change. If we have been raised to understand that marriage is between a man and a woman, we often believe that to be “natural” or the “way it should be.”   This is especially true if we have been taught to link such a belief to our faith in God. It is easy, under those circumstances, to be swayed by fear and worry to say that change is wrong. It is easy to take on board the messages that children will be endangered, that society will be endangered, and to be closed to any evidence to the contrary.   Rachael Vincent talks, with great love, of the three very conservative Christian women who very strongly shaped her as she grew up: Her two grandmothers and her godmother. When they realised that she was homosexual, their belief that God is love and their faith in the power of love, transcended any prejudice that could have led them to reject Rachael.   It is, what she describes, as “the miracle of changing one’s mind.”   Rachael is hopeful that, over time, society will simply come to increasingly accept and welcome the queer community. Marriage equality, or same sex marriage, is simply another issue that modernity has brought to consciousness. As she says, “Gradually over time, just as the sea erodes a rock, we come to terms with these things.”