The Regenerative Journey | Ep 11 | Sarah Wilson

Charlie’s guest for this episode is Sarah Wilson. Sarah Wilson, the New York Times best-selling author, former journo and retired intrepid traveler shares her regenerative journey in a frank, open and honest chat with Charlie. 

Transcript

My belief is that,

You know,

When you have a longing in your soul to go and live a particular kind of life,

And you might not even be consciously aware of it,

Life will join you.

Life will cooperate with you to steer you to that point.

That was Sarah Wilson,

And you're listening to The Regenerative Journey.

We acknowledge the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and internationally,

And their continuing connection to culture,

Community,

Land,

Sea and sky,

And we pay our respects to elders past,

Present and future.

G'day,

I'm your host Charlie Arnott,

And in this podcast series I'll be uncovering the world of regenerative agriculture,

Its people,

Practices and principles,

And empowering you to apply their learnings and experience to your business and life.

I'm an eighth generation Australian farmer who transitioned my family farm from industrial methods to holistic regenerative practices.

Join me as I dive deep into the regenerative journeys of other farmers,

Chefs,

Health practitioners and anyone else who's up for yarn,

And find out why and how they transition to a more regenerative way of life.

Welcome to The Regenerative Journey with Charlie Arnott.

G'day,

Very excited to share this episode with you.

It's with Sarah Wilson,

The journalist,

TV presenter,

Blogger,

Media consultant,

And prolific author.

I was lucky to catch up with her in Sydney and in her natural habitat as it were.

We talked about anxiety,

We talked about the connection of regenerative agriculture to health,

We talked about nature being the antidote to so many of our human health-based problems,

And she's also the author of two most recent books.

First,

We Make the Beast Beautiful and released only a couple of weeks ago this one wild and precious life,

A Hopeful Path Forward in a Fractured World,

A wonderful woman who is so insightful,

So many life experiences,

She shares in her books and also shares with us today.

So enjoy this wonderful interview with Sarah Wilson.

Hello Sarah Wilson,

Welcome to your living room.

What room are we in?

This is actually my study.

It's in sort of yoga room and room for when my very large extended family come to stay.

They bunker down.

They bunker down.

They bring swags,

Literally.

Good country people bring swags.

Yep,

On the train.

Oh really?

Good.

To Canberra to Central?

Yeah.

Great.

We used to do the train from boarding school back to Yass in the days of dog boxes where there used to be corridors down the side,

And the cabins,

And they'd be seating,

And they'd stick right to a cabin and you'd be up in the luggage compartment and just lots of bad behaviour,

But that was a long time ago.

Always reminds me of an Agatha Christie movie.

They always happened in those kinds.

Yeah,

The Conductor and was it Mr.

That was the clue though,

Wasn't it?

Poirot.

That's it.

Agatha Christie.

Not Lena Bliten.

So Sarah tell me where we are and why are you here?

Why do I live here?

Yeah.

That's a good question.

We're currently in Bondi,

Quite close to the beach.

We're looking out over North Bondi.

I'm in an apartment on the top floor and it's actually really quite a nice vista.

It's across the top of trees and my apartment building backs onto sort of this strip of trees and lots of fig trees and palms,

And it's a channel that goes from the beach all the way winds all the way down to Hyde Park.

So the bird life fly sort of from Hyde Park right from the harbour all the way back up here.

Oh,

Because it goes from here to Rose Bay?

Is that the way it is?

Yeah,

Yeah.

Up and over,

Was it called that park that Cooper Park and all that.

Go to Park.

Build a hill there.

So there's this continuous tree line.

You know what that's called?

It's called a corridor of green.

I think you're right.

A corridor.

I like that.

A green corridor.

So and I'm just as you know about 100 metres from the water.

So I chose to live here when I finally stopped backpacking around the world.

That was eight years of carrying one bag around the world.

And when I finally decided to live somewhere and get real life adult furniture,

I figured I should live somewhere where I'm going to be in nature.

So this is as close as I could get to it while living in a very,

Very busy city.

So you can see from my wet hair,

I snuck in a afternoon swim,

Like literally a jump in the ocean.

It's pretty cold.

I turned up when there was no one here.

Don't tell anyone I left the door open.

In this undisclosed address.

Yes,

That's how I've described fairly accurately.

When we say Bondi,

We meant Belmain.

Yeah.

So look,

I ended up here because it was an experiment like everything I do in life.

After travelling around with sort of what ended up being one backpack,

I thought I should try settling.

You know,

Do what you're not doing is a bit of my is one of my many mottos.

And so,

Yeah,

I needed to be in nature.

I need to see a horizon.

We're kind of almost looking at one.

You know,

There's a like I need space.

I need to be in nature to feel that there's meaning in my life and or more accurately so that I can connect to meaning.

So being in nature actually takes me straight into like a portal,

Like a green corridor,

Into what matters.

Yeah.

So that's why I chose here.

I also I know this is going to sound a bit woo woo,

But I feel the water in Bondi and I've lived in different areas around the world and sought out water,

Ocean water.

I feel that Bondi has the water here has an energy that is really effervescent.

It brings me back to life in an instant.

I find it very,

Very healing.

And I don't know what it is.

I don't it.

You know,

It's just something that I feel and always have felt.

So,

Yeah,

It's a wonderful part of the world.

And you've certainly picked a ripper spot because you do have a corridor of green right in front of you.

We have a horizon.

You are near the water and there is a beautiful buzz.

You know,

There's extremes of Bondi isn't there.

But was coming back here a I mean,

Were you growing up?

You come back here,

You're putting on your big,

Big girls pants.

Yeah,

It's a little bit of that.

It's a little bit of that in my mid 40s.

Yeah,

It was a little bit of that.

There was also a desire to connect to humanity.

So I'm a lone operator.

I go out into the world and I venture forth and I go and seek out my connections,

You know,

And that has worked in many ways.

And I've had a wonderful,

Wonderful life.

And I have a wonderful,

Wonderful life.

And but what's what I've kind of not perfected is the art of intimate relationships.

You know,

Sort of being present long enough with neighbours and a sense of community where people know to find me and they can say,

Can you look after the kids for a couple of hours or,

You know,

My nephews and nieces and my brothers and their partners can come and stay.

And I've got a base where they can be with me.

So I needed to try that out.

As you can see from my intricately decorated apartment here.

I still haven't perfected the art of furnishing.

Is that Percy the plant?

What's that?

Freddy the Fern?

Is it a fiddle plant or something they call it?

Anyway,

It's an air purifier.

Subtropical.

Yeah,

Like everything in here,

Every single thing you can see is second hand.

So I got that from eBay.

I got a bunch of plants.

There's plants all over the place and they're all from eBay.

Most of the furniture rugs are either from Facebook Marketplace,

EBay or the street.

Good idea.

I'm a street scavenger as well.

So nothing's new.

So that was a little bit of a challenge,

Especially when it came to white goods.

I'd never bought white goods in my life.

I was 44 and so.

Well,

You're just an esky girl.

That was it.

An esky.

Esky,

That's it.

No,

I'd say.

No,

Chilli bug.

Chillibun.

Chillibun.

Chillibun.

I just sort of managed to get by.

I'd either lived with people,

I lived in houses,

Airbnbs,

Yeah.

So I'm so off target right now.

Yeah,

No,

Let's get on target.

There's nowhere near where we're going to go.

No,

No,

I've got one more thing to throw at you.

So that's fascinating.

So going out to other communities in the world and travelling and being part of that for a week or a month or whatever period of time,

What you're doing is you're bringing all that back to this community in some way.

It might be a gesture,

It might be a word,

It might be a behaviour.

That's a wonderful thing.

Or just some weirdness.

Totally.

I mean,

Every community needs a couple of.

.

.

An esoteric spinster wandering around the streets.

I wouldn't say that.

Come on.

Well,

I think there's a certain element of that.

I think a woman in her 40s who hasn't sort of ticked off certain boxes.

All of the expected life goals.

Yeah,

I get feedback from the community I now find myself in that that strikes some people as sort of almost odd.

Yeah,

It's interesting.

Well,

They can.

.

.

I reckon.

I interpret odd as not necessarily bad.

No,

No,

No.

That's it.

That's the spice of bringing that variety and getting people to think about it.

And then they've got that choice to judge or not.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

That's a good way of putting it.

Now,

Talking about lovely people,

We didn't actually talk about lovely people,

But I'm going to talk about a lovely person.

You're going to create a segue if there isn't one.

Did that work?

Nico Plowman.

Oh,

Yes.

Your cousin.

My cousin,

Lovely fellow I went to school with when I was a little chappy and went our separate ways doing stuff everywhere and all sorts of things.

And through.

.

.

Oh,

Wow,

How was it?

Just a couple of years ago,

We reconnected.

We bumped into each other a few times and Conscious Club.

Yeah.

That's where I saw him some years ago that hadn't for many years.

And good buddy of yours.

And we met just up the road some months ago with Nico.

Yeah.

So Nico,

Funnily enough,

We connected in an airport in LA funnily enough in a customs line,

That very long customs line.

But in fact,

We connected properly,

I believe,

At Conscious Club as well.

I was speaking at the Conscious Club.

Yeah.

And for those of you who don't know what we're talking about.

.

.

Give it a plug.

Yeah.

I don't think it's operating anymore,

But my meditation teacher who also.

.

.

Did he teach you?

Did Tim teach you?

No,

But one of his students taught me.

Okay.

And he taught Nico to become a teacher.

Now,

Who is he?

Tim Brown.

Tim Brown.

Tim Brown taught me to meditate probably over 10 years ago now.

And he ran the Conscious Club.

And then I was invited to speak at this,

And Nico happened to be in the audience.

And I think he was just starting his meditation journey.

And so we connected from that.

And I don't know,

We just became friends.

And in fact,

We became friends because at the time,

He was living in South of France and Paris.

He and his kids had moved overseas.

And I joined them in Paris.

And then I just stayed in touch.

I was in Greece going through stuff over there.

And he was going through stuff somewhere else,

And we'd ring each other.

And yeah,

He and I would describe as soulful friends.

Yeah,

It's almost brother or sisterly in some ways.

He speaks of you very fondly.

I can say that because I just did anyway,

Didn't I?

No,

With all sincerity.

That's your podcast,

You can say whatever you want.

I can.

I can swear.

But yeah,

I guess that's the essence of Nico.

We pumped up his tyres a bit,

But for good reason.

Because probably if it wasn't for him,

We wouldn't be sitting here.

He made that wonderful connection.

And Tim Brown,

Who I spoke with the other day,

He and I,

We reckon there's some stuff we can do together in the regenerative ag space,

Which is where we keep circling around.

He's been Zach Bushed.

He has been totally Bushed over,

Which is fantastic.

No,

We did chat about that the other day.

If you're going to be completely overwhelmed by something or fascinated or develop an intellectual or spiritual crush,

Zach's not a bad one to focus it onto.

He's fantastic.

I did some work with Zach in Melbourne in March when he was hit just before all the shit went down with COVID and so on,

And what a lovely fellow and what a compelling.

.

.

He's channelling something,

Isn't he?

He's really channelling something.

And I'm sure many of your viewers and listeners have listened to Zach.

I just feel,

I mean,

He's got incredible knowledge.

That brain is unbelievable.

He's a freak.

However,

He's also got a presence with it all.

And I feel that he very much feels on a mission.

He's in some sort of dharmic flow.

And what I also like about him,

I think that he speaks very purely and he talks on different platforms.

I was talking to Tim about this.

I sometimes get concerned about some of the podcasts he'll appear on.

Some of them are a bit extremist.

I would personally be cautious about being associated with the host or the audience that that podcast is attracted.

But he doesn't seem to have that filter.

And Tim's response was he just makes himself available and he goes into whatever forum he might be invited to and he speaks his truth.

And in fact,

That's right.

I think he just holds his own.

He holds his own.

Yeah.

So I think that's really impressive,

Especially in this era where people are very quick to shout down anyone with ideas that are anything even just a few millimetres left of centre.

He is totally focused and he's compelled to make a change.

He's got his Farmers Footprint campaign and he's looking to help roll out some project buyer and stuff here in Australia.

Farmers Footprint in Australia.

So there's lots of really exciting things.

And what a great guy to sort of focus this attention on.

So we'll put things in the show notes and so on.

Now,

Let's get back on track.

By no means is the boring stuff because this is the gold.

So Regenerative Journey,

The podcast,

I'm interested to understand your regenerative journey,

Sarah.

And I,

From what I know,

Your regenerative journey in some sense started from day one.

Just your lifestyle,

I guess,

And the way you were and how your family was in the world.

Without pre-empting anything,

I just wanted to say that's quite a,

Given the interviewees I've had,

That's an interesting starting point.

Yeah,

I suppose it is in many ways.

Just to fill in the gaps there,

I sort of grew up in a family who were thinkers,

I suppose,

And questioners.

Not particularly exposed to opportunities and certainly came from,

How can I say,

Probably some sort of disadvantage.

But they made the most of things.

My father in particular questioned things and we were,

I'm one of six kids,

I'm the eldest of six kids,

And when I was six,

Dad moved us out to the country.

Partly because they couldn't afford to live in town and he found land that was really cheap and bought a house from secondhand materials.

Well,

He built it.

And we had goats for milk and meat.

We had a vegetable garden,

Which was not entirely successful because it was a drought.

Pretty much everything died.

And we lived a very simple,

Simple lifestyle.

Now,

It wasn't informed by biodynamic farming ideas or any kind of sustainable principles,

Per se.

It was really guided by necessity.

So it was really quiet.

It was almost like of an era two generations ago.

So it was really simple,

Not a lot of money floating around and we just had to make do.

So that's what dictated it.

And that was normal.

That was normal.

Well,

It was normal for our family.

Yeah.

As I sort of got to high school,

So we went to a country primary school,

Then I commuted into Canberra for high school,

And then I became a little bit more aware of how it wasn't normal.

And,

However,

I probably rebelled against some of the thinking around my upbringing,

However,

Maintained very much the sustainable minimalist principles.

So when you say rebelled,

What was what?

So you're a bit of a pushback,

Because you had a reference point now.

I thought you there was my father used to call me the little capitalist.

So do you remember that show The Good Life?

Yeah,

Totally.

Penelope Keith was a neighbor that would just keep an eye on them and just tell them where they were all going wrong.

That's right.

Dad called me Penelope Keith.

Oh,

Really?

Yeah.

And I would just point out to mum and dad that this was not working,

That we needed to do this,

This and this.

And eventually,

When I was 16,

I highlighted to mum and dad that we could no longer live out where we're living because we couldn't afford the water to fill the tanks that were now empty.

So we sold up and moved into Canberra within weeks of me pronouncing this,

Penelope Keith pronouncing this.

You ordained that was to happen.

Yes,

That happened.

Well,

That's interesting,

Because I mean,

You know,

Given that's what you said,

And that's what you then that's what the family didn't then did,

They must have thought you had some value to the conversation.

Yes.

Yes.

Well,

So that probably gives you an indication of my level of ambition and so on.

So yes,

I suppose I came from that background.

I didn't swerve away from it,

But I probably went off in all kinds of directions.

So,

You know,

I got very ambitious,

And I loved school,

And I loved university.

And then I just,

I traveled very young,

I worked from a very young age,

And I probably did a bunch of things that scared the living daylights out of my parents.

And so from a young age,

I sort of moved on from my family.

And then I had this weird sort of period from my early 20s through to my early 30s,

Where I joined the other side,

The dark side.

So I worked for Rupert Murdoch,

And I did my cadetship with the Herald Sun,

Which was an incredible experience.

I shared an opinion page with Andrew Bolt on a Friday.

So I was 23.

Yeah.

So I think I was very.

.

.

Did you really share it?

Was it 50-50?

Yeah.

He had the top half of the page,

And I had the bottom half of the page.

How rude.

You should have had the top half.

I was 23.

I was a counterpoint.

I was a convenient counterpoint.

If he had been chivalrous,

He might have said,

Sarah,

You can have the top half.

No,

I don't think he's got that in him.

So I was,

You know,

I was a female left-wing young feminist voice.

So I ticked off a bunch of boxes,

And there they plonked me.

So that was fantastic.

And then,

Of course,

At 29,

I became the editor of Cosmopolitan magazine,

A veritable Bible of consumption.

Now,

I still maintain my principles,

So I still wore secondhand stuff.

I rode a bike to work.

I didn't accept handbags and all the various gifts and things like that.

I had a policy against that.

So,

You know,

I sort of hung on to my roots.

It was tough at times.

And then MasterChef happened,

And again,

By that stage,

I was in my mid-30s,

And I'd started to get unwell.

And this is where we get to sort of the theme of this part of your podcast.

You know,

It generally takes a slap down for those of us who've done a very big pivot in life to do that pivot,

You know.

And so.

.

.

Tension event.

Yeah,

Yes,

That's right.

And so mine came,

Or Deus Ex Machina,

You know.

Mine came in my mid-30s.

I was at Cosmo,

And I developed an autoimmune disease.

And a lot of people probably know this story by now,

But it really,

Really knocked me about,

And I got very,

Very unwell,

And I was forced to stop and pull back from everything.

And I was really stripped there,

Charlie.

Like,

You know,

I was stripped of just,

You know,

All my identity around being the editor of Cosmo,

Living in Sydney,

Living a particular life.

It was fast paced.

It was coffee in the morning,

Lots of alcohol at night.

It was.

.

.

I had a very destructive boyfriend at the time who fitted that whole picture.

And I ran myself into the ground,

And my belief is,

And I think I'm talking to a community here who understand this language or appreciate it.

My belief is that,

You know,

When you have a longing in your soul to go and live a particular kind of life,

And you might not even be consciously aware of it,

Life will join you.

Life will cooperate with you to steer you to that point.

And often,

If you're an A-type,

And it's often A-types,

I don't know if you're an A-type,

You seem a bit more chill than that.

Farming's probably.

.

.

This is from a Z-type.

Yeah.

Soil has pulled you back from the A frontline.

Yeah.

But you often need something quite physical to happen to you.

Yeah.

The jolt.

Yeah,

A real jolt.

And look,

This community is full of stories like mine.

Mine is not an exception at all.

So in my case,

I got the perfect disease.

It was Hashimoto's disease,

Which is a thyroid disease,

Which just really drags you down and just gets your ego and just kind of scrapes it through the mud,

You know?

So you put on weight,

You lose your hair,

Your nails fall off,

You go through premature menopause,

You can't have children,

You know?

So it's a real screws pretty much everything.

Yeah.

Can't work.

So everything,

If you've got an A-type,

Egoic,

Vain kind of lifestyle and set up,

It just kind of shatters that.

So it was the perfect disease for the life I was leading.

Just on that,

That life can lead you to a point that you need to get to,

To then change to head down towards your purpose or whatever,

However you want to frame that up.

And there's a school of thought,

Which is similar to that,

That your body is the thing that goes,

You know what?

You've got to learn a lesson.

And I've actually got to shut myself down so you learn.

And a very small example of that is the flu,

Right?

People get the flu in winter,

Yes.

But winter's when,

What's winter after?

Winter is after summer and autumn when we're running 100 miles an hour,

The days are long,

We get to winter,

We're shattered,

You know?

And our body's going.

.

.

We should be hibernating.

Totally,

Yeah.

Yeah,

We should be going to bed when the sun goes down and so on.

And I'm a firm believer that the body is the all-commanding entity and just goes,

You know what?

You're not listening.

I gave you a little cold last week.

You didn't listen.

I'm going to floor you.

I'm going to put you in bed with the flu so you just pipe down and shut up and get better.

It's the interface with life,

With the rest of life.

It's how we can communicate and receive messages and join the flow of life,

You know?

So,

Yeah,

I totally agree.

I think we're talking exactly the same language,

Whether it's life or whether it's our bodies.

Our bodies are receiving that information.

It's not a coincidence.

No,

It's certainly not a coincidence and in fact it's mostly perfect.

Totally.

So,

Yeah,

So that was my sort of moment.

And what that did was realign me and look,

There's a really great Jungian psychologist called James Hollis and again I can provide the details if people want these notes but… We will have a long list of show notes,

Definitely.

Yes,

Yeah.

And he is an incredible voice and if you can get hold of some of his books,

You'll find them really,

Really wonderful.

But he has a wonderful phrase and I actually write a fair bit about it.

I interview him in my next book and he says,

At some point if you are off track,

Your soul will make an appointment for you with life and all you've got to do is show up.

Now,

If you ignore the reminder,

The tap on the shoulder,

It will present things that become more and more violent,

Essentially,

And usually through our bodies,

You know?

So I got a few reminders,

Calendar requests and then I ignored them and they weren't quite loud enough and they got louder and louder and then bam,

Down I went.

Does that message sometimes come in the form of people?

I think so,

Yes,

Absolutely.

Yeah,

It can be quite subtle.

Turn up.

Yeah,

And as an example just to sort of bring back in Tim Brown and all of that,

At the brink of all of this,

When I was at my absolute worst point,

I managed to,

And I could barely walk at this stage,

But I managed to get down to the beach just to bring it again full circle to just literally 100 metres down the road.

It was about five in the morning.

I hadn't slept all night.

The sun had come up and I thought I'd go down to the beach and I got down there and there was a guy who came up to me and he saw me and he just said,

You're not right,

Are you?

And I said,

No,

And he said,

You need to go and see Tim Brown.

I said,

Oh,

God,

Who is this Tim Brown?

You're the third person who's mentioned it.

And I'd made a commitment to myself that in the absence of any other framework for how to live any longer on this planet,

If I hear a mention of something three times in a row,

I must act.

So I hauled my sad sack of bones and sort of decrepit immune system to Tim Brown's studio in Paddington and I literally showed up and I went,

All right,

I've got three strikes and I have to act raw and so here I am.

Make it good,

Tim.

Yeah,

And I'll get Tim to confirm this story for you,

But I presented myself and just said,

Now,

Listen,

I have got a prejudice against you.

Tell us what you really think.

Yeah,

He said,

And then I said,

Well,

I just feel really judged and blah,

Blah,

Blah.

I had all this stuff on my shoulders,

You know,

And he said,

He just laughed,

You know,

That chuckle of his and he just said,

Meditation will help with that.

So I was very resistant,

Very resistant,

But I knew I had to do it.

So anyway,

That was,

Meditation was a big part of my shift.

It was being stripped bare and then left with nothing.

I could no longer afford to live in Sydney.

So I moved up to Byron Bay and everything had been reduced down to the two suitcases that I mentioned before and then the rest of my life started.

So I had to heal myself.

I had no money.

I wrote a column for a newspaper and it was about how to get well.

I thought,

Kill a few birds with the one stone and so I survived off this one column a week that I wrote and I went on this massive adventure interviewing all kinds of people.

And of course,

One week I was without topic and so I wrote about how to quit sugar.

And from there it just evolved and,

You know,

Emerged and layers and ebooks and then it became a book and then a digital platform.

You hit a nerve,

You know.

Yeah,

Yeah.

I was interviewing Dr.

Wrong earlier today and he… My dentist.

It's a nice segue from talking about sugar.

Yeah,

Totally.

This is it.

And he said,

I said I was coming to see him after him and he said that,

You know,

What dentistry couldn't do in 60 years,

You did in a couple of years,

You know,

In terms of… Oh,

He's very generous.

Yeah,

He's a lovely guy and he,

Very sincere he was.

And we had a little quick chat about,

You know,

It's what resonates with people.

You know,

Maybe hearing it from a guy who's going to make money out of you,

Well,

Actually it's the other way around,

Isn't it?

If you don't stop eating sugar,

You're not going to go to the dentist.

But it's from a doctor guy,

It's like,

Oh no,

You hurt me every three months,

I'm not going to listen to you.

And then you struck a chord,

You know,

In that very articulate way and also very accessible way,

You know.

All those years of working for News Limited and Cosmopolitan.

Totally,

You had the strategy.

How to make quitting something that you are addicted to,

You absolutely love,

Life is defined,

Joy,

Birthday,

Celebration is defined by.

How to make it sexy,

Give it to the former editor of Cosmopolitan.

That's it and you did it.

So tell me where – because we can talk about your journey those eight years or up to this point and I'm not going to because I want to talk to you,

I want to ask about Regenerative Ag.

Not that this is all about Regenerative Ag,

This whole podcast thing,

But it sits in the middle of so many things and we connected around this and Nicko said,

I reckon you should have got us chatting.

Where do you see it fitting into the world as in the importance or significance of it and also I'm priming you up because I'm going to give you some jobs later.

Where do you see yourself fitting into that,

If at all?

I mean,

I'm no pressure of course.

Yeah,

No,

No,

No.

I mean you've got something lined up but I'll try to slide into it.

Look,

I started to go down that rabbit hole and I'm not sure exactly.

It was Joel Salton.

Salton,

Yeah.

I remember watching a documentary with him in it.

One of the very earliest ones.

Food Inc.

Yeah,

I think it might have even been something before Food Inc.

I think it might have been via Dr Chris Cresser and that sort of world.

I was aware of how off kilter we were with our food system and how much really basic logic we've managed to disrupt.

So we've created what's called,

They're now referring to these things as hypernormal problems.

Problems that are so complex and systemic and if I can use this word,

Clusterfucked,

By layers and layers of ridiculous logic,

Right,

That we then feel that the solution is going to have to be overly complex and multilayered.

What was that called again?

Hypernormal.

Hypernormal.

That's kind of.

.

.

Hypernormal,

Yeah.

It's a hard,

Yeah,

There's a bunch of words that have been emerging from various thinkers over the years.

In economics theory and a bunch of,

You know,

Like black swans and all of that kind of thing.

To describe the complexity that the world now faces.

And I think Zach Bush is probably one of the best for sort of peeling back the layers of the onion and showing that many roads lead from that original kernel and that is the way that we produce our food.

And that there's a great deal of simplicity to what could be a fix to a number of problems,

You know.

So with the sugar journey,

For instance,

I would often drill things back and everybody wanted to get me on various aspects of the science and food.

.

.

Wait a minute,

Get you as in trying to debunk it or something.

Yeah,

You're getting rid of an entire food group.

Well,

Fructose is not a food group.

You know.

.

.

What about the pyramid?

Yeah.

Food pyramid.

Sugar is a,

Sugar is natural.

Well,

So is arsenic.

Are we meant to eat it in vast.

.

.

Cyanide.

Yeah,

Cyanide.

Are we meant to eat like petroleum?

As food stores.

Are we meant to eat vast quantities of it?

Probably not.

Anyway,

You know,

So on and on it went.

But,

You know,

What I would drill it back to is,

Well,

When you cut out sugar,

You essentially cut out processed food because 80 to 90% of all processed food contains added sugar.

So when you cut out processed food,

What's that leave you with?

Oh,

Real food.

And what do you have to do then?

Oh,

You've got to learn to cook it.

And so when you learn to cook it,

You then get involved in the process of choosing good quality ingredients and you actually think about how you're going to store it in your fridge.

You know,

You start to think about that and then you start to notice,

Well,

Okay,

Well,

Some foods are better off buying organic because they do last longer,

Which means I actually,

They become more efficient and cheaper in the long run.

And then you work out a bunch of other things like,

Well,

If you invest in an organic chicken as opposed to,

You know,

Free range,

Et cetera,

Et cetera,

Well,

You get more bang for your buck in the end because then you can boil the bones and make stock.

And you go down this kind of rabbit hole and then if you're actually cooking,

You've got a hobby,

Right?

And then you don't go to the mall and,

I don't know,

Buy shit you don't need.

Go skateboarding.

Love skateboarders.

No,

Skateboard.

Go for that.

That's fine.

Skateboard and cook.

And cook.

And then you also go to,

You start going to maybe the farmer's markets or you start getting an interest in all that kind of thing.

And so you have discussions with farmers.

And so there's a whole,

And you often find yourself walking out to kind of the supermarket,

Starting to get a little bit of a system in,

You know,

In play.

And it's really quite simple.

It really is.

So from quitting sugar,

There's this wonderful kind of roll on effect.

Now if you drill it down,

Drill it down,

You then start to go,

Well,

You start to look at the farming practices and you take an interest in it.

It's not something that's out there that's really removed from your existence.

And you start to realize all those arguments about how you've got to do this mass,

Mono-crop kind of farming makes no sense.

And you listen to people like Zach or Joel or yourself describing how we actually have enough food on the planet to feed the entire planet despite what everybody thinks.

And there are actually farming practices that can preserve our soil and actually also kill less animals,

Weigh less animals than we currently,

Say for instance,

Even a current vegan diet kills.

And there's a lot of just sensible,

Like common sense stuff that really we only have to look to the way our,

Probably our great grandparents used to do things to get an indication of what a good,

Good,

Sustainable life on this planet could look like.

So then,

Of course,

The piece with my autoimmune disease,

Right?

So you drill down the layers of that and you start to hear information about how we got off track when we started sanitizing the food chain and our existence.

Now,

I was really lucky.

I grew up in the country.

And so I've been able to heal from multiple stress-related autoimmune diseases,

I believe,

And reverse a lot of the markers because of the way I live,

Which is in nature with dirt,

In rocks and trees.

And lived,

Do you think?

Do you think those first,

You know,

Formative years you were in the sheepshead and the dirt and that sort of stuff?

Yeah.

I used to go and do my homework in the goat shed in winter because it was so cold and I would just go and lie on the goats.

It was like Charlotte's Web.

Yeah,

Very much.

It was.

And when it was really cold,

We'd bring the goats inside because we had a potbelly stove and it was way,

It used to snow where we grew up and we,

The only heating was this potbelly stove and the goats.

So,

Yeah.

Grab another goat,

Were you?

Oh,

Mum,

I'm cold.

Grab a goat.

It was an expression about grabbing a dog.

If you get cold,

Grab a dog so it's not so far removed from the goat.

Yeah,

Well,

We also had,

You know,

So my,

And look,

I'm really grateful for the fact that my mother was not a precious type like that,

You know.

She was always pulling things out of my brother's noses and ears that they'd stick up there and never really thought much about it.

So I sort of think that,

Yeah,

And if you have a look,

I mean,

You only have to have a look at the way,

You know,

You hear a little bit about,

Oh,

All these allergies stem from the fact that the children don't have a robust immune system.

And you start to go,

Oh,

Okay,

Well,

That makes sense.

Look at the way we're living,

You know,

All these people sanitizing everything.

So,

Yeah,

It just,

It fits logically into a sensible person's onion peeling journey,

If that makes sense.

Well,

That was not so much a summary,

But that was a great way to put it.

Mixing a few metaphors.

Yeah,

No,

That's great.

I mean,

It's,

There's a great quote I wheel out quite often,

Christos Miliotis,

And he said that the solution to the world's problems is what we choose to eat and what's beneath our feet.

You know,

The food on our plate and the soil and the ground.

You know,

The soil provides the immunity,

The biome,

The zakwisho,

And the food is obviously nutritious food as opposed to processed food or even,

You know,

What we call,

Well,

What I don't really call it anymore,

But fresh food.

It's like,

Yeah,

It's fresh because it's not frozen.

It's not processed,

But it's,

You know,

What's on that stuff?

How is it grown?

And like,

It's scary,

Some of the shit that they're putting on.

And I used to as a farmer,

I used to put stuff on cattle and sheep and on the soil and on the wheat on wheat and everything I grew had a layer or some layers of chemical on it,

Which I thought was a really normal thing.

So,

What else?

It's all starting to play out as well.

Just last week,

I think there's been a big class action in the US against Bauer,

Which bought Monsanto.

And so that's all starting to play out.

And so here in Australia,

Our government,

Our Minister for Agriculture or whatever came out.

Oh,

No,

No,

There's no problems.

No problems.

Well,

Yes,

Except that,

You know,

A major pharmaceutical company with access to the best lawyers in the world couldn't fight this case.

It was watertight.

For them to decide,

We get to settle this because it's going to go on forever,

Is absolute admission of guilt.

And,

You know,

It's a wonderful business model.

And I've spoken to many people about this.

I'm no lone ranger here that,

You know,

There's this amazing business model which makes sick people.

And then there's another business model which dovetails into it,

Which fixes sick people.

And what do you know,

The same company owns both of them.

Really?

No.

That's a coincidence.

Yeah.

And yet we get worked up about all these other things.

And sometimes some of the stuff,

I mean,

It's so simple.

And,

You know,

There's a lot of discussion about conspiracy theories and all that kind of going on around that moment.

And I have my eyes wide open to it.

Like,

I'm really nervous about some of the stuff that people are coming out with.

But then there's also just common sense stuff like that.

Like,

The company that's selling us the chemicals also has the supposed fix.

I mean,

As you know,

And you've probably got notes there about something about mental illness coming up soon.

Oh,

Of course I do.

Oh,

I do.

Well,

I just,

You know,

I happen to write a book about it.

So,

Yeah,

It's the same sort of thing.

So anxiety as a disorder only entered the DSM,

Which is the main medical diagnostic tool for psychologists or psychiatrists in the US,

Australia.

And to a certain extent in the UK.

So various,

You know,

Ticks and behavioural traits were deemed disordered in 1980.

OK.

Now,

What do you know?

It was six to 12 months after the first anti-anxiety drug was invented.

Do you think that's a coincidence?

No.

No,

I don't.

And,

You know,

You could go,

Oh,

Conspiracy theory.

Well,

Let's just put it there as an interesting coincidence that anyone who out there has anxiety and finds themselves being given a pill.

You might just want to start questioning it.

And that's not to say that medication doesn't have its place.

However,

We also have to be very alive to these things.

And bipolar disorder had exactly the same sort of entry into our lexicon as a disorder.

It's been very much a drug first history for anxiety disorders and for many disorders out there.

Well,

I can say with experience,

And I don't know,

I've got permission to say this,

But I'm going to anyway.

My family,

My brother had been ill for some time and medicated for many,

You know,

A couple of decades.

And not in the world,

Not functioning in the world.

And he,

You know,

All credit to him and the courage it took to do this.

He took himself off medication and I saw him yesterday and I haven't seen him as well in 23 years.

Yeah.

And it's,

You know,

There's a whole lot of stuff in that that I don't need to go into.

But in terms of just the,

There's the attitude of the people prescribing that.

There's the helplessness of the patient and the family who are often viewed as,

You know,

Ignorant and you're not a doctor,

You're not even a scientist.

Whatever their justification is.

And we know best.

And it's like,

You know,

It's hard.

It's a hard place to sit when there's a life in the balance.

You know,

Who do you believe?

Do you go with your gut?

You go with your head.

You look at the science.

It's a really,

It is a really tricky one.

And I've had to obviously be very careful because,

You know,

When I write a book about this kind of stuff,

About the role of medication,

I'm more just try to make people aware of where the vested interests lie and so that they can make the choice,

You know,

With their eyes wide open.

But one thing I would say to that is that also for anyone who is in that position,

And look,

There's very few people that have been touched by that very tricky decision,

Medicaid or not Medicaid.

Is this a disorder?

Or is this a sane person's reaction to an insane world?

And we've got to bear all of that in mind.

And all of it can be true.

All of it can be appropriate.

We can take medication and we can also be aware that life has put us in a position where it is very,

Very difficult to navigate a sane path at times.

And,

You know,

I think this plays out particularly evidently with ADHD and those kinds of disorders amongst children.

And I recently have been exposed to a child who has been diagnosed with this and put on medication and she doesn't want to take it.

It makes her feel unwell and whatever,

Whatever.

There's a whole bunch of things that have led her to that diagnosis in this position that she's in.

But what I see is a world where we are so busy and this is no one's fault.

We are all part of a system.

And here we are.

We arrive as poor,

Vulnerable humans trying to do our best.

But we live in a world that is so busy,

In a world that has so many expectations.

The neoliberal system has put us into this system.

And so you have children who are children and they have energy to burn and they have so many rules and restrictions.

They are inside creatures.

They are their attention completely fragmented.

Their parents' attention is equally fragmented.

And that's something that I look into in this book that is about to come out.

There's a condition called continuous partial attention and children are suffering that from their parents.

Continuous partial attention.

So with parents who are in a state of continuous partial attention,

I.

E.

They're on their phones,

What that means is that children are missing out on really important cues.

Children develop psychologically but also at an intellectual level through attention from their parents.

So getting cues back from their parents where they behave,

They do something,

Their parents respond with eye contact.

Now they're not getting this.

In fact studies have shown what kind of effect that's having on children around the world.

And it's mammoth.

The effect of parents' continual partial attention is bigger than children's own engagement with iPads and iPhones and technology.

So you've got these kids who are having to exist,

Trying to be sane in an insane world.

With parents who aren't present.

Yeah and that's only one part of the puzzle.

And it's not the parents' fault because we're all in it.

And so these kids are put on medication which then creates a whole host of other problems.

I went on the Googles and had a look at the side effects of these medications and it causes gut issues.

And this particular child in my life,

She says that it just makes her feel sick.

And she finds it very difficult to eat at regular times and of course that then leads to a range of cascading issues.

So there is no quick fix but I think there's ways that we can drill things down to quite simple truisms.

And they're not all encompassing blanket solutions but they actually can be a path through.

And what they can do… Hit us with a few.

Well for instance the sugar thing.

You know you take sugar out and I say this as somebody who now makes absolutely no money from encouraging people to not eat sugar.

Because all my profits from that part of what I do goes to charity.

That was a wonderful thing.

So it sort of gives me an ability to promote the notion of not eating sugar.

You know vested interests right there.

Take a lease out of Sarah's book.

Yeah that's right.

You people.

Not your listeners but some of the people we've been talking about.

Yeah so you know you do that and it's actually a really clean streamlined way to get rid of junk food.

Right?

So you cut out all processed food by just quitting sugar.

And then what have you got left?

Oh you've got to eat whole food.

Meat,

Vegetables,

Good quality fats,

Etc.

Etc.

So it really does kind of just streamline you into it.

So there's a few going back to basics,

Going back to the way our great grandparents used to live.

Some of those things are actually I think some of the sanest,

Surest ways.

Simple.

So the other one,

The other one.

This is something that I absolutely live by is ride a bike.

Get rid of your car.

So do you want to knock the sustainability issues,

The ethical issues and also the exercise factors on the head?

Do it in one by getting rid of your car.

So I haven't owned a car in many many years now and you ride a bike,

You keep fit.

I mean I've got friends,

We all know these people,

You might be one of these people listening,

Who drives to the gym,

Gets on an exercise bike for an hour.

And then does the.

.

.

And then drives home,

Has a shower,

Drives to the office.

Having paid 38 bucks a day for.

.

.

I had this discussion at a forum in Melbourne once on flow,

Ironically enough,

And I made this example and the MC,

A really great woman,

She said,

Oh my God,

I do that.

And I said,

Well,

Why don't you just ride your bike to work and get it all done in one bit,

You know,

In a third of the time.

And then of course,

If you've got to go to the post office on the way there,

If you've got to go to an after work,

You know,

It's all just flowing.

And often given the traffic in Sydney,

For example,

Getting nearby bike is often.

.

.

Anything under 10 kilometres,

It's more efficient by bike.

And then you can also get on a train part of the way.

It's wonderful.

It's actually quite,

Just on that one very quickly,

Is actually quite a big movement or tribe of bike riders,

Country,

Farming,

Bike riding,

Men and women out there.

I haven't joined it yet.

I'm not sure how to go down in Lycra.

But the good news is they do it.

You know,

They get out there and they just,

And they're these big burly farmers and they're on their pushies.

Yeah.

And,

You know,

They make for coffee and it's just the same thing as here.

They just.

.

.

Yeah.

There's a lot of stuff you can do,

Socialising errands and everything by walking or riding.

So there's that.

And then the other thing,

Of course,

Is just don't go to the shops.

So I say that because people often say,

How do you be a minimalist?

And I'm like,

Just don't go to the shops.

Don't get tempted or.

.

.

So I have a hashtag on my socials,

Hike,

Don't shop.

So while you're hiking,

Hiking takes a good half a day,

Right?

You take your friends,

Your kids,

Whoever it might be,

And you head out on a really great hike.

And it just basically means you don't get to a shopping mall and shopping begets shopping.

Right.

So you go for a vegetable paring knife and you end up going,

Oh,

I might as well get some more towels and I might as well get this while I'm there.

And you just come home with a whole heap of stuff that really you don't need.

So.

.

.

That's wrapped in plastic.

Wrapped in plastic,

Et cetera.

You know,

And I just I find that I will just put off going to the shops.

Like so I think this time around,

It's been 12 months,

But I'll do 15 months.

I'll do then another nine months where I literally don't go to the shops aside from toilet paper.

Yeah.

Frozen peas.

And the food.

So farmers markets.

Farmers markets.

I go Bondi markets.

Where I've lived,

There's always been farmers markets.

Maybe it's just I live in particularly bourgeois suburbs,

Enclaves.

However.

.

.

Which is interesting.

Shouldn't that be everywhere?

Shouldn't it just be like normal?

More and more it's everywhere.

I mean,

I travel a lot around country towns.

I go to a lot of regional areas just with my hiking and things like that.

And also I try to travel there with work.

I try to focus or steer my work energies to more regional areas because I just love I just love being in regional areas.

And yeah,

There generally is a farmers market.

They're popping up everywhere now.

So and then I there's bulk food stores.

So I buy all of my grains,

You know,

Things like coconut,

Olive oil,

Coconut oil,

Tamari,

Whatever it might be.

I buy it in bulk and I take my own containers.

So I even take my own jars.

I reuse even the paper bags and I'll reuse them four or five times,

You know,

Rather than getting a new one there.

I take yeah,

As I say,

I take my own jars.

So you were telling me the other day,

I can't remember what exactly it was.

You heard a restaurant or something and someone didn't finish the music.

I take that home and took it home and turn into a salad.

I do it all the time.

Chicken bones or something.

I have taken fish carcasses.

I've taken people's strangers bones.

Butter is the big one.

So butter is a premium product.

And a lot of restaurants and cafes have a really good quality butter.

Right.

The stuff that,

You know,

Don't come cheap.

And so and people don't eat it all.

So I'll just take it off people's plates.

And it's often in really lovely foil,

You know.

So I take it home,

Put it straight into the fridge and then I eat it.

And then the butter foils I use for greasing things.

The tins,

The cake tins.

Exactly.

I haven't bought butter in years.

I'm actually serious.

I'm going to I'm speaking with a just on butter.

A good mate of mine,

Chris Eggert,

On Saturday at Warhope.

And he is one of two,

I think,

Norco organic dairy guys.

He's an absolute classic.

So he won't be pleased to hear you.

No he won't.

But maybe he ethically will be happy that I'm encouraging that.

I'd like to see everybody eat it.

I don't think I think life is just made a hell of a lot better with a lot of butter.

I mean,

Butter doesn't go.

It's just it's just bread for me is a vehicle for butter.

Yeah.

You know,

It's just you spread your soul as a nice spreading bread on your on your swag of butter.

Tell me,

Sarah,

You have appeared on I want to get to your books because there are a number of them.

And before we do that,

I just want to jump into you.

A little bit of TV stuff in your life.

And would you do TV again?

I have no I've never had a burning desire to have my mug on television.

It's not something I ever sort of grew up wanting to do.

This will be on TV.

As I say,

I didn't want to read the fine print on that.

So,

You know,

Would I ever do television again?

It's not my preferred medium.

However,

And I'm also pretty old these days.

I am.

There's no getting around that.

But I if I I've said this before,

I would do television if it was if I deemed it the most effective way to get a message I care about across to the most amount of people.

And that's my dictum for everything I do now.

There's been a number of opportunities and business ideas and things to do and be involved in that have crossed my desk.

This very desk that we're sitting at over the last couple of years,

Particularly since I gave away all of that money.

And that was another turning point for me.

Just that's the sugar.

Enterprises.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

I sold off all the assets and I continue to sell off books and and and give the money to charity projects which I get engaged in,

Which is far more rewarding than making money and going to a shopping mall and spending on shit you don't need.

I mean,

That's what it comes down to.

Right.

How do you get out of this loop?

This mortal your time in this mortal coil.

So,

Yeah,

Television to me.

I mean,

I there's very few things that I'm engaged in that I love doing.

There's always some wonderful challenge or there's people that you meet or whatever.

So television doesn't it's not something I'd say never to,

But it needs to be the most effective medium for that for that whatever that moment or that message might be.

And yeah,

So it's a case by case.

So I don't know if you got TV show lined up or something.

I could have.

I'm not telling.

It's a secret.

So let's get to the books because they have been your in the last.

First,

We make the beast beautiful when it came out in 2016.

2017.

Yeah.

So that that's three years ago and you've got one that sort of rolling out this year.

August 30th.

What was that?

Why did you why did you write them?

Yeah.

So first we make the beast beautiful again,

Like everything I've done is emerged.

So it was actually something I was writing.

You know how I said I went up to Byron.

Yeah.

You go to Byron and you go and live in a in an army shed in the middle of the forest and you go right.

I'm going to write my my my memoirs.

Yes.

And so I set off to write this book.

And how many years ago is this?

So just to get the time frame.

That would have been 2010.

So a number of years before it actually.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So in effect,

It actually did take me seven years.

I think it was 2009.

I first started sort of researching it and so on.

And it went terribly and I just didn't have a voice and I didn't I hadn't arrived.

I hadn't arrived philosophically with anything that resembled a polemic that I could share with the world.

So and it was,

You know,

It's just very unconvincing.

I wrote 60,

000 words and tossed a lot and and decide to not eat sugar.

And the I quit sugar books emerged instead,

Which was wonderful.

And then I saw I was working through the business and it was successful.

I had to question things and I got that itch again about what matters.

And I started I thought I'll go back to that anxiety dialog and I actually felt very solid.

I just reached a level of maturity.

I just got older,

You know,

And were you familiar?

I mean,

I understand that you were familiar with that dialog because that would have been.

Yeah.

So I was diagnosed with anxiety the first time in when I think I was when I was 13,

12 or 13.

And then I was diagnosed with a bunch of things.

I was put on the equivalent well Prozac at 18 and then for obsessive compulsive disorder.

Then I was diagnosed with manic depression,

As it was called back then when I was 21.

And I was medicated with a bunch of anti-apoleptic and anti-psychotics until I was 28,

29.

Then I came off the medication.

And and of course,

I had various autoimmune diseases that are way,

Way connected,

Complicated by medication.

No,

No.

Connected to bipolar.

So Hashimoto's and bipolar.

I also had Graves disease.

And so and then various times throughout my life,

It would re back up again.

I'd have to go and get medicated,

Etc,

Etc.

And and to this day,

I still have to read the signs.

I modulate through diet,

Exercise,

Meditation.

Well,

I describe it like carrying a shallow bowl of water around for the rest of your life when you've got a when you've got a,

You know,

I guess a serious anxiety disorder.

And it's you've just got to keep it about imbalance.

Right.

So you've just got to be conscious,

Sensitive,

Steady,

Steady,

Steady.

It is a responsibility.

And I find that actually a very enlivening way to see it.

It's a responsibility to myself,

To my time on on this planet,

Because I have come very close at times to ending my life.

And that's part of the disease.

So I don't think I'm honoring the gift of life by by by getting myself so wobbly that I that I make that decision.

And also to others,

You know,

I want to be of service.

I want to have relationship with others.

And when I when I wobble,

It makes it very difficult for the world around me to relate to me.

So it and I want to be productive.

I want to leave a legacy.

So I and my bipolar,

As it is now called,

Enables incredible amount of productivity and creativity and enables incredible ability to connect spiritually.

It opens up consciousness,

I believe,

In many ways,

As long as I modulate.

So I do see that as a responsibility.

And it's it's it's it's a burden,

But it's a wonderful burden to bear,

I suppose.

So I do that.

But then at times I don't manage it well.

I get off kilter and it gets bigger than me.

And I have to go and seek help.

Who calls you out on that when that happens?

Not to name names,

But are you called out?

Is it is there are people in my life who've done it and they've not necessarily being close friends.

There've been people who have been acquaintances,

But they've been brave enough to approach me.

Although they'll just be signals and I'll go,

All right,

It's time.

But then there's other I've got a network of,

You know,

Nico and Tim,

I would include in close friends who know when I'm not right.

And I think just,

You know,

I say this in first we meet the beast beautiful,

That sometimes the only salve to anxiety is sheer years on the planet.

You know,

Just doing the hard yards and learning,

Doing the work,

Learning and getting maturity to understand the bigger picture behind it all.

So so for me,

As I get older,

I know how to look after myself better and know when I need to get help.

But,

You know,

I greeted you at the door today.

You greeted me at my door.

I welcomed you to your house.

Basically being really honest.

You know,

I've not been great the last few weeks and I've wobbled like a mad woman.

And,

You know,

I have ways of coping.

And so,

Yes,

Back to your original question,

I sort of had to go on this investigation anyway,

Because I was fed up with the storyline that I've been trapped in.

So I wanted to find a new I want to reframe my anxiety through a different lens.

Is that purposeful lens?

Is that by purging and then recollecting thoughts?

Yeah,

Like that is that I haven't written a book,

So I don't know what sort of a creative process.

Not as direct as that.

It's very meandering.

Yeah,

I just I mean,

The way I write my books is,

You know,

I've never known how to do anything in my life.

I've just given it a stab and seen if it works.

I suck it and see.

But I,

I go on the journey with the reader.

So I write almost in real time.

So I try this.

I fail.

I try this.

Then go and interview His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Then I go and,

You know,

And then I go,

Actually,

That wasn't right.

And then I do this and then I look into the science and things and then I go,

Actually,

I think it's time to re circle back around to a spiritual perspective.

And so it's a real journey for the reader.

It's a journey.

And then I do try to bring it together into an arc of sorts so that we arrive somewhere,

You know,

Sort of.

So we arrive somewhere,

You know,

To know where that is,

When you when you sit down to write a book.

Do you know with the end is?

No,

I don't.

But by about three quarters of the way through,

I do.

I don't know how I'm going to get there,

Though.

And that's why the last quarter matters.

And then I go back and I layer,

Layer,

Layer.

So I don't just write from the beginning to the end.

And then that's it.

I then go back and I do a fair bit of moving around and just so that it's succinct and reflects how the journey might work best for somebody else.

Yeah.

You fashion it sort of for the do as I say and write,

Not as I did.

It's kind of what I bring to bring to the party.

And this latest book,

Which is called This One Wild and Precious Life,

Is a continuation of that journey in First We Make the Beast Beautiful.

So that was an inward journey to better understand the purposefulness through a spiritual and philosophical and scientific lens of anxiety beyond the medical model.

And then I take the journey back out because the world was calling me outwards,

Out beyond my own internal journey,

Out to the world to save it.

Basically your contribution.

But I think the world's calling all of us out.

And that's where James Hollis's notion of life,

You know,

Our soul is making an appointment for us with life.

And that's what's going on right now.

Yeah.

And the book,

Which is coming out is this year,

Is how would you best describe in terms of someone,

Not that you try to do a spiel,

But just to mean I want our listeners to get a sense of what to look forward to.

Yeah.

So it's sort of there's a lot going on.

And when I first wrote it,

It was really trying to navigate the climate crisis,

Which to me was the biggest thing that we could fathom.

And it still is.

But then,

Of course,

The bushfires,

Then COVID,

And then,

Of course,

The Black Lives Matter protests happened before I could press go to the printer.

Yeah.

Send.

Was that a good thing?

Oh,

My God.

It was a curse.

But then also it probably reinforced my message,

You know.

And so by the time it comes out,

Oh,

God knows,

I've almost lost sight of it,

To be honest.

But that always happens at this stage.

I literally sent the last race kind of update bit an hour before Charlie arrived,

Hence going for a swim in the ocean to recalibrate.

Yes,

To sweat hair.

Yeah.

So so yes,

I it wasn't a good thing.

Yes and no.

But it's been really,

Really challenging.

So to go back to what's the book about the book,

Hopefully.

Well,

The book provides what I believe is a path,

A hopeful path forward through this clusterfuck.

And it's not necessarily a salve.

And it's it's brings us back to life.

So it's a path that brings us back to our nature,

Back to nature,

Back to what matters.

And I argue that it's a disconnection from life,

From from all of that that has led us to where we are today.

So it's a path to reconnection.

But the way I do that,

Because it's such an overwhelming behemoth to navigate and I pull apart the neoliberal model.

I use nature to break things down.

I mean,

I go through everything.

And then I but I do it by hiking around the world.

Yeah.

So as the sort of the context of the sort of the the narrative thread.

And so I follow in the footsteps of nature where he he wrote most of his seminal works that broke down sort of neoliberal thinking at the at the in the dawn of the industrial era.

Where he when he made his footsteps,

Literally the hikes that he used to do to keep himself safe.

Where was he doing that?

Where did you do that as well?

Yeah.

In a little town called Sils Maria in Switzerland.

So,

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then.

But coincidentally,

I was actually there in the footsteps of Heidi.

Do you remember that book,

Heidi?

It's this it was turned into a Disney movie starring Shirley Temple.

But it was a book that was the first real non picture book that I got given as a kid.

And I still got it on my bookshelf in there.

Dad wrote my name in it and covered it in plastic,

You know.

As he used to do.

Yeah.

And that used to do all that sort of stuff for us.

And he and so this book was I was fascinated by it.

Right.

She grew up in goat's milk.

And so I just felt this affinity.

So I went off to this town to go to what's literally called Heide Dorf in commemoration.

But it was written in exactly the same era as Nietzsche was writing his stuff by a woman,

Joanne Spree,

Who was also disenchanted by industrialization capitalism.

So she writes a book about a little child who gets sick from capitalism and gets shipped out to the mountains of Switzerland to frolic and be free.

And so.

Find themselves a detonator.

Yeah.

So that's one of the things that I explore.

But then I also I go and hike where Wordsworth and William Wordsworth and his sister used to hike.

But I joined my favorite poet,

David White,

Who's an Irish,

Beautiful Irish poet.

And I hike with him and his wife in the footsteps of Wordsworth.

And that was in Ireland?

That was in the Lake District.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I remember that was only two years ago,

A year ago,

Something I remember in your social media.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was called Yes.

I got very unwell.

Yes.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You would have seen that video.

And I actually went blue and I had to be helped down the mountain.

So,

Yeah.

And I,

You know,

I go to Sierra Nevada,

I go out to the desert,

I do a bunch of different hikes.

And so part of it is,

You know,

My sort of modus operandi hike and you don't shop hike,

You reconnect with nature.

When you reconnect with nature,

You're motivated and you love it.

You're motivated to save what you love.

So these are some of the threads through the book.

So there's clearly no one silver bullet for any of this.

But having the,

It's a way,

It's a way.

It's not dissimilar to,

Given that there are lots of tools and some suit more than others.

But there's some principles involved.

It's a bit like I take things back to regenerative ag for a reason that as a farmer,

We have the tools in our toolbox we can use and we use ones at different times.

And the tools in the hands of an ignorant person can be really dangerous,

You know,

Certainly in a farming sense.

But I think that's,

And it comes down to choice,

Doesn't it?

At every moment we have a choice,

You know.

There's that instance between action and reaction where we can,

You know,

And our decisions are going to be based on our past.

And Victor Frankl,

You know,

He said that,

You know,

I'm going to quote him badly,

But it was between every moment and the outcome,

You have a choice.

And that's your reaction,

You know.

There's a primitive response,

Which often is,

We can't control,

You know,

It's like bang,

We do this and then there's that gap just before we,

Our next action.

And that's the choice.

And that's freedom.

And that's what Victor Frankl,

Victor Frankl wrote this book,

Nine days after getting out,

Being freed from Auschwitz where he spent four years doing hard labour and it's called Man's Search for Meaning.

Yeah.

It's a lot about freedom.

And that's his definition.

It's your choice to decide how you're going to react.

And this came up in,

I can't remember,

Was it yesterday's podcast with Tommy?

And his scenario was he was being tortured and his,

You know,

What he got.

And he was a psychiatrist,

Wasn't he already?

He had some pretty good foundational understanding of the way the mind works and behaviours and so on.

And it was… He's a teacher,

Isn't he?

Yeah,

A teacher.

But I mean,

Teachers know all about human behaviour.

And he realised that,

Yeah,

There was,

That his tormentors,

There's one thing that they could not take from him,

His freedom of choice.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I can react this way or that way to what's happening to me now.

Yeah,

Which links back into what we were saying before.

Some of the simplest truisms are our way forward.

Quitting sugar.

Let's not make it complicated.

Spending less.

Regenerative farming.

Totally.

You know,

And freedom being a choice as to how to react.

Well,

Thank you for putting the book together,

Which we are very much looking forward to reading.

Reserve your judgement to your Reddit,

Charlie.

What else have I got here?

What's… I can't read your writing,

So… I know.

My mum says it's like… I use a fountain pen anyway,

So that's like in code.

And mum says,

It looks like a spider's jumped in an inkwell and run across the page.

So,

What's keeping you joy right now?

Not like necessarily this very second,

But in your life,

What is… Which would be,

Have to be talking with you,

Charlie.

Thank you.

What's been me joy?

I love that question.

I love that question because it's something that I've really had to delve deep into,

And I think some people listening might relate to this because I am feeling very overwhelmed,

Very scared about what's happening in the world.

And when you can't unsee this stuff,

Once you've actually looked into the climate science,

Once you start to really absorb some of the nuanced debates around all of this and you can't unlearn it,

You can't unsee it,

The truth is not pretty.

So,

How am I going to choose to live the remaining 45 years on this planet?

Meaningfully,

Because really I'm going to have to find a way,

And so I've been trying to think about,

Really carefully,

About what brings me joy.

Joy in a way that's not destructive,

Joy in a way that's productive and can actually,

Again,

Equip me to be of most service.

And that would be being in nature.

It's my kind of main line to meaning and joy is just being in it.

I don't have to do anything.

So,

I've never been on a hike that I haven't loved and I haven't come back from,

Rejuvenated and feeling clear in the head and the heart.

And ditto with,

I've never jumped in the ocean and got out and gone,

Well,

That was a waste of time.

Wish I didn't do that.

Yeah.

So,

I do that regularly.

So,

Literally,

As you know,

I had 15 minutes to spare.

I went across the road,

I submerged and sort of calculated what might be 10 minutes before I sprinted back.

And it's just,

That brings me joy.

The other thing that brings me joy,

I've started fostering.

Yeah,

Cool.

Yeah.

So,

There's a little girl in my life and it's hard,

But I get to the end of,

At the moment,

It's four days,

A fortnight and the school holidays.

Block,

So it's four days in a row?

Yeah.

And it's hard,

It's challenging,

But I kind of,

She leaves and then that day,

I just realise I feel really good.

I just feel good.

I feel light,

You know,

And I feel,

Yeah,

I feel just clear and so that brings me joy.

So do my nephews.

Why did you do that?

Why did you decide,

Of all the things that you could do in your time,

Being as busy as you are.

Because that intimacy piece and I missed the boat on motherhood for myself,

Which has brought me great grief.

And it's a grief that will never leave me and I actually write about this.

It's another thread in this next book because it sort of pieces into existence and joy and what matters and all of that.

And also I found out that there are 40,

000 foster kids in Australia,

Half of whom are Aboriginal and there's only three and a half thousand foster parents.

So you said 40,

000 and half are Aboriginal and three and a half thousand foster parents.

So you do the sums and then you ask where all these kids and you know where they are?

In motel rooms scattered across Australia on their own.

So it's,

And once you start to engage in all of this,

Again,

You can't unsee it,

You can't unlearn it,

You can't block it out.

How does that work?

I mean,

Because that's fascinating.

And how does that,

I mean,

Where is your foster child when,

Well not exactly where,

But there's another.

She is currently,

And you know,

She's currently with a second cousin of her mother's,

But it's not a stable situation for her.

So the 10 days of the fortnight there,

Four days here?

Yeah.

But we don't,

Yeah,

There's going to have to be changes there.

Do you see… She's been in the care system since she was one and she's been to seven schools.

At what age,

10?

No.

She's just turned nine.

Nine.

Do you see a change,

I mean,

This fascinates me,

But you know,

In those four days,

Do you see,

You know,

Like,

In some ways,

It may not be dissimilar to broken families where one week's with dad and one with mum or there's some sort of a thing,

You know.

Often in those situations,

Children turn up to one parent and depending on the dynamics,

They're like ratty and then by day four they're okay and then they've got to go back.

She's got multiple parenting that has contributed to her small life,

You know,

And so she has to absorb,

Look,

There's no playbook,

No,

I just witness how she responds to things and I'm in awe.

She survives.

That's what she does.

Everything goes through the survival lens.

And so you watch her behaviour and you can't be going,

Oh,

A child's not meant to behave like that.

I just go,

Right,

She's currently doing what she needs to get her needs met.

Doing her best.

And I go full props to her.

You can't ask anyone any more than that,

Can you?

No.

And I tell you what,

I'm hats off to her.

Like,

I tell her constantly.

Does she teach you stuff?

Oh,

God,

Yeah.

What like?

It's not so much,

She teaches me mostly about the worst aspects of myself.

Yeah.

My assumptions,

My generalisations,

My impatience.

Yeah.

Is that verbally?

Does she call you out or are you just,

There's a reflection?

There's a little bit of calling out.

Remember,

She's only young,

But she's not stupid.

She's smart.

She calls me out.

We have a little thing where if she's honest,

We're to be honest with each other.

So every now and then she'll go,

Hey,

She calls me Aunty,

Aunty,

You know how you said I've got to be honest with you?

Well,

I think blah,

Blah,

Blah.

Of course,

When she says that,

I have to honour,

You know?

Yeah,

Totally.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Because through that lens,

That innocent lens,

There's clarity,

Isn't there?

But they're saying stuff as it is,

You know?

The other thing is,

Is that it's quite interesting,

Children need boundaries and a child who has been,

You know,

Sort of let loose.

No boundaries.

No boundaries.

She really needs boundaries.

And when I give her boundaries,

She responds really well.

And it's all good.

We make deals and she gets it and life seems fair.

And ultimate freedom is being bound,

Right?

To be rendered choiceless,

To use a Tim Brownism is the ultimate freedom.

But flipside is she also binds me because all of a sudden,

My I can go anywhere,

I can go to a yoga class whenever I want to,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

All of a sudden,

It's like,

I can't do that.

And I'm a single parent when I'm with her,

You know what I mean?

Plus,

The restrictions are,

You know,

I can't just fob her off to neighbours because there's protocols when you're a foster parent,

You know?

So,

Yeah,

It's… Good on you for doing that.

That's wonderful.

Yeah,

Well… The life that she will live… We'll have to see where it goes.

We'll have to see where it goes.

It's early days with her and I,

But it's,

You know,

She's,

I think she'll be sticking around,

Yeah.

I have a quote and I bang on about it quite often,

But it's one I think about every day is a job as parents,

Foster parents,

Is to prepare our children to leave us.

Yeah.

You know,

And that might be 16,

It might be 18,

You know,

Generally around there.

And if they're not ready and prepared for the world,

It's our fault.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

And you have that responsibility and that simple,

Simple premise,

It's like,

Hmm,

Okay,

If that's the,

If that's my reference point,

Might have to do some work.

Get your own ego out of the way.

That's it.

And there's a time around that,

You know,

And there's no excuse for access to information,

Activity,

Overall change if necessary,

Any of those things.

I just think… Yeah.

There's also,

I think,

One of the big rods for,

That people create,

Parents create for their backs.

And I say this as an observer of many friends who've,

You know,

Had all kinds of different children and have different types of parenting styles,

But is this idea,

I think there's this kind of sense of guilt and whatever that parents feel,

And they feel that they've got to be liked by their children.

They want to be loved by their children.

They want to be liked by their children.

Our parents didn't need that.

They didn't see that that was part of what they had to get from their children.

You know,

And there's this sense that children,

That parents want to get that from a child.

And that's part of,

You know,

We've got to,

I sort of feel that if we go by your edict,

That very,

Going back to a simple edict,

No,

It's the other way around.

You prepare,

You have a job and that is to prepare the child to leave you.

And if you muddy that with thinking that you've got to be liked and everything,

You're not doing your job,

You know?

Totally.

And,

You know,

Tough love is a wonderful thing.

You know,

It's about.

.

.

And boundaries.

Totally boundaries.

And there's so much wonderful stuff about this.

Anyway,

I shouldn't actually,

I've got to be very careful because I haven't been a parent for that long.

But I think it's an interesting conversation that we need to be having as a society because a lot of parents do feel alone in that aspect of the debate.

But what you're doing is something that not many people do and that your experience with that is absolutely valid.

So don't ever excuse yourself for putting,

Saying it as you feel it to be.

That's,

You know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Don't do that.

Okay.

I'm telling you.

So there was something about Ken Robinson.

Do you know if you've heard of Ken Robinson?

No.

You would love him.

He's one of the most popular Ted Talks.

I know that's fanned around everywhere.

But he's got two.

And it was the first one.

And I can't remember what he's.

.

.

What he's.

.

.

He's just a bloody clever like.

He's a poem and lovely guy.

He's written a couple of books.

And this story.

.

.

I'm going to spoil it a little bit.

But in the Ted Talk he talks about.

.

.

We were talking about it before,

About ADHD and sort of children not fitting in.

That sort of thing.

And he told a story about some.

.

.

I think they were his clients.

But anyway,

So he suggested.

.

.

That's right.

He suggested that these people having trouble with their child go to.

.

.

Go to a.

.

.

Was it him?

I'm bugging the story up now.

I can't remember if it was him or a colleague.

These all have been in the notes.

No,

No.

It'll be in the notes.

Yeah,

For sure.

But he.

.

.

There was a child who was having so-called problems in the world.

And the parents didn't know what to do.

And they went to this guy and they were talking about it.

And this kid was sitting there and looked really normally going,

No,

This kid's just out of control and we can't.

.

.

He just doesn't think and not learning.

And it's just.

.

.

Anyway,

He said,

Oh,

Come outside.

And we went outside.

And I left the child in the room.

And there's a window.

And he just had some music playing.

And he waited five minutes and he said to the parents,

Come over here and have a look.

And they looked and the child was dancing around.

And he said,

Your child doesn't have a problem.

She's a dancer.

Yeah,

Right.

That's her thing.

And then from then they went,

Oh,

My God,

That's it.

Because she couldn't sit still in class.

Her resonance,

Her being was around about music and play and.

.

.

And don't you have that idea of exiting the room?

Like there's so many symbolic gestures.

Stand back.

Stand back from the scenario.

Then look at it through a different window.

You know,

And like.

.

.

And the child was in its natural state.

And bound within a room where there was one thing that she had to concentrate on.

That happened to be something that resonated.

Literally.

And then she went on to be the.

.

.

I'm not sure what you call it.

The head ballerina or whatever of the royal ballet or something like a fascinating story.

And it was just because this guy acknowledged and understood that we just need to accept them as they are.

And not push them into.

.

.

You've got to sit down in class for eight hours a day and learn this and do your maths and whatever else.

It's like,

Let them be.

And in the world of Steiner,

We say in the first seven years of their lives,

You love this.

It's about being in nature and being one with nature,

One with yourself and you are part of nature.

So it's your relationship.

It's eating the bloody sheep shit.

It's understanding,

Listening to the owls,

Hugging trees.

What was that?

Doing your homework,

Sitting on goats.

Totally.

Absolutely.

Talking to the spiders.

And that's really important stuff.

And if once we have a relationship in those years with nature and ourselves as part of nature,

We can handle anything.

We can.

We have our ups and downs.

But that's the foundation of.

.

.

And this is a word that I explore in the book,

Is fending,

Because in nature you have to fend and you have to adapt and mold in and around the rocks.

You've got to find ways to crawl up and over.

You've got to find a fix for something.

And as kids,

That's what we used to do.

We'd find,

Oh,

I need to tie these two sticks together.

We'll use some straw or whatever.

And so fending is something that really does tap us back into source.

It's creative.

It's natural movement of the body.

And it creates a certain type of completeness,

A satisfaction.

And I cite a bunch of studies to back that up.

But yeah.

It's adaptive.

Again,

Back to the regenerative ag.

It's not about adoption of practices and going prescriptive,

Industrial farming,

Spray it then,

Do it now.

It's adapting practices to your business,

Your headspace,

Your landscape,

Whatever it is,

The season,

Being flexible,

Focusing on.

.

.

And that's fun.

It's creative.

It's fending.

It's being agile.

It's,

You know,

I think that's.

.

.

It's about freedom.

It's treading the thin line between chaos and order.

Yeah.

All the theories.

Sarah,

You know what?

We have banged on for quite some time.

We've got no view either now.

We've just got lights.

I've got lights.

That's a nice view too.

Yeah,

It is.

Sarah,

Thank you so much.

My pleasure.

We will furnish our listeners with the show notes and links and all those sort of things.

And it's been an honour and a pleasure to be in your home looking at your view and having a chat.

It's really cool.

It's been fun.

Thank you.

Pleasure.

I thank you.

What a wonderful experience I had just speaking with Sarah there in that non-disclosed location somewhere in Bondi.

So insightful and I can't wait to sink my teeth into this one wild and precious life.

Her latest book was only released a few weeks ago.

So thanking Sarah for her time and that inspirational chit-chat we have.

We had.

Now,

Talking about inspirational chit-chats,

Next week,

The legend,

Regenerative farmer and all-round good guy,

Martin Royds.

Martin,

That interview was actually,

It was wonderful.

We did.

He was one of my earlier victims.

2019 May,

Last year at the Nutrisoil Sustainable Abundance Conference.

I did a talk there and shared the stage with Joel Suddleton.

And yeah,

Martin was on deck and we had a fantastic yarn.

So that's something I hope you can be looking forward to next week.

This podcast is produced by Rhys Jones at Yeager Media.

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Reviews

Just terrific! I will be reading her books and taking these ideas further, and listening to more of your interviews. The things I find on Insight Timer when I can’t sleep!