Heart On My Sleeve

Mitch Wallis speaks to Aoife O'Connell, a leader in marketing who found out she was being made redundant whilst giving birth.

This episode covers:

• How to create more purposeful careers?
• Techniques to navigate life-altering experiences
• How to minimise guilt and shame?
• Are we really advocating for equal opportunities for women?
• How to step into and own your voice and experience.
• Why parents should continuously invest in improving as parents.

Mitch Wallis speaks to Susan Hales, a psychologist and clinical hypnotherapist who helped treat previous guest, Nicole Blackie to overcome her eating disorder.

This episode covers:

• How to uncover and reframe the stories we tell ourselves that keep us stuck and sick.
• Working with Nicole to help heal her disordered eating and thinking, and the importance of connection in recovery.
• Her own her thoughts made her sick - her experience with mental ill-health manifesting as anxiety, panic and PTSD.
• The key parts of how to connect with our feelings and properly process them.
• The most common stories that we tell ourselves and the medical language that keeps us stuck in a fear cycle and negative mindset.

Mitch Wallis speaks to Madii Himbury – a young successful Olympic skier who is on a path to discovering who she is outside the world that people see everyday.

In this episode we cover:

• What life is like as an elite athlete - How can we manage our mental health so that success isn’t so tied to our identity?
• Experiencing how freeing making space with your internal story can be?
• How important it is to be aware of your emotions in order to redefine how we see ourselves.
• The importance of knowing when to put yourself first and take your foot off the accelerator.
• Why we need people to walk with us on our mental health journey and the skills she uses to manage her mental health.

Mitch Wallis speaks to Sharon Draper, a psychologist who's honesty about not always having her sh* together is a refreshing take on a career that can often expect perfection.

This episode covers:

• exploring dual roles as both a mental health practitioner and a patient and the trauma that impacted her life and inspired her to become involved with psychology.
• dealing with her own inner demons such as complex OCD issues that have manifested in bizarre behaviours like holding her breath.
• navigating the humanity behind the traditionally "God-like" archetypes of professional therapists.
• continuing to live with anxiety and thriving in a world where she helps others to do the same.
• how her personal mental health issues can challenge her ability to support clients, yet also increase the empathy of her work.
• why the 2 year window between 5 and 7 years old is so sensitive to forming our future mental health
• the awkward moment where a psychologist starts writing notes during your session.

Mitch Wallis speaks to Nicole Blackie, one of the greatest stories of anorexia recovery we’ve ever heard. After several admissions & years in psychiatric hospitals, almost a decade of professional help & medication etc that hardly changed a thing, Nicole has recently made a tectonic shift that now see’s her living a healthy, normal and fulfilling life.

This episode covers:

• Nicole's harrowing journey with anorexia that almost took her life
• The 2 main things that contributed to her recovery
• In-patient hospitalisation experiences
• Issues relating to current psychology treatment models
• School bullying and it's impact of self esteem
• The painful and complex nature of eating disorders

Mitch Wallis speaks to Sarah Daffy - a smart successful young business woman with the world at her feet - living with one of the least common or talked about mental health issues, depersonalisation disorder.

This episode covers:

- what is depersonalisation disorder? the symptoms and a standalone disorder

- living with depersonalisation: a world that feels un-real, foggy and robotic.

- surviving extreme anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks

- Mitch and Sarah's shared but unique experience living with depersonalisation

Mitch Wallis speaks to Joe, an ex-NRL player who paints a raw image of what life was and is like for indigenous Australians struggling with mental-ill health. In 2018 Joe was conferred the highest honour from Suicide Prevention Australia's LIFE Award for his outstanding work in communities across Australia...

This episode covers:

- genetic memory and intergenerational trauma, and how our ancestors and their experiences play a part in shaping who we are.

- his battle with mental illness and recovering from a suicide attempt.

- being a proud Aboriginal man and a successful professional athlete.

- Living with bipolar and using hiss personal and professional experiences to help other people.

- His involvement in filming of the worldwide documentary, "Suicide the Ripple Effect" from director and fellow advocate, Kevin Hines (the man who survived jumping off the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco). He is a published author with his book “Defying The Enemy Within”.

Mitch Wallis speaks to Nick Ward who talks about his struggles with fitting in and we discuss how we both manage intense thoughts and intense emotions particularly as a young person with a brain that feels different to other people, whilst trying to navigate the pressures and realities of school and being a teenager. A great listen if you're going through anything similar or are a parent to a teenager and wanting to better understand the complexities.

This episode covers:

• what being a man means to him, and how we wear a mask to fit in.
• exploring how rewarding yet challenging it is to sit with uncomfortable emotions.
• being the youngest Tropfest finalist in history (the world’s largest short film festival), at the age of just 16. His project was a thought provoking, emotional drama about teenage mental health called 'Boys Don't Cry'.
• tackling the alarming epidemic of depression, anxiety and suicide among young Australians through creative film writing.
• his goal to rewrite the toxic side of the masculine narrative that still permeates young boys today.

Mitch Wallis speaks to Thorald Koren, a singer-song writer who takes us through some his experiences with the bizarre and intrusive world of OCD, and how a shooting star of all things was something that changed the trajectory of his life forever.

This episode covers:

• Mitch sharing a story about how he helped him eat a drawing of the devil to overcome his fear of being possessed, which out of context, couldn’t be weirder.
• Touring with Coldplay, Bon Jovi, Pink and Rod Stewart, roaming international stages and performing in front of sold out stadiums.
• Living a rockstar life with insidious anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder that plagued his life, driving him into chapters of psychosis and suicidal ideation.
• Helping people with their mental health through music. Together with his talented brother Isaac, they established “The Songwriters Journey” to reconnect people with their lost selves and provide a safe yet creative place to heal their life’s trauma.

Mitch Wallis speaks to Ruby Wax OBE, a very well-known comedian. In the 1980’s, Ruby starred in the sitcom Girls on Top, and came to prominence as a comic interviewer in shows including The Full Wax and Ruby Wax Meets, as well as writing for the sitcom Absolutely Fabulous otherwise known as Ab Fab! This is a more light hearted interview so enjoy listening to our sh*t and inappropriate jokes. What better way to not feel so crazy than to listen to someone who totally and unapologetically owns it.

This episode covers:

• her impressive comedy career and equally esteemed academic career
• navigating depression in an era where "mental health" wasn't a thing
• experiencing feeling "crazy" and spending time in a psychiatric unit
• why our own illnesses can often lead us to help others who suffer
• how to be unapologetically yourself, even in the face of challenge