Back with another wonderful guest today – I’ve pushed this week’s Yays of our Lives episode back a little bit until the Gippsland video is ready to help you put faces to names, so that’ll be out next week. Content warning: this episode covers family violence.

This week, I was lucky enough to sit down with Rosie Batty, 2015 Australian of the Year and passionate campaigner against domestic violence during a week where the alarming statistics surrounding violence against women have been brought back to the forefront of our attention. Rosie has turned the unfathomable personal tragedy of losing her son Luke who was murdered by his father in 2014 into a relentless fight to raise awareness of family violence and address the systemic and many other obstacles to positive change. The topic is a little heavier than usual, but I believe it’s such an important conversation to continue in order to amplify the fact that one woman a week is still killed by her partner or former partner. Rosie also has such powerful insights on rediscovering joy through the paralysis of grief, unravelling her identity from trauma which is not the totality of who she is and I loved also having the chance to get to know about the parts of her story that I hadn’t heard about in the media.

Rosie is also an ambassador for L'Oréal Paris' new Women of Worth campaign and we also chat about some of L'Oréal's amazing Self-Worth Commissioned Research about the pervasive and destructive nature of self doubt and low self esteem among women. If anyone will inspire us all to combat the self doubt and continue to raise each other up, it’s Rosie. I hope you are as moved by her as I was.

If you need any support or resources, please don't hesitate to contact the WHITE RIBBON HOTLINE on 1800RESPECT.

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