Stigma Shakers

Lissie Harper began a campaign after her husband, who she had married just four weeks earlier, was killed on duty in Berkshire in August 2019. Three people were convicted of manslaughter but cleared of murder. Lissie used her profound grief and determination for justice and campaigned for legal changes – named Harper’s Law. With the support of the UK Government and Police Federation, Harpers Law was passed, which legislates the extension of mandatory life sentences to anyone who commits the manslaughter of an emergency worker, and unlawful killing of those on duty. In recognition of her efforts in introducing Harper’s Law, Lissie has been awarded an MBE, in the King’s New Year’s Honours List. Now, Lissie is moving forward with her life away from her public profile as a formidable campaigner. And notably, Lissie is an inspirational role model, on how our darkest days can become the incentive to live life to the fullest. With her love of nature, Lissie is an avid artist producing beautiful pieces as the creator of her business, The Print Bee. And notably, Lissie is an inspirational role model for anyone on how pain can be repurposed, and as my dear friend, I am in awe of her daily. 

Episode Description

Grief is something we all fear. We cannot prepare for grief; the unravelling of loss, trauma, or how to co-exist with grief to ultimately “move on”. Understandably, death will impact us all and whilst we can comprehend the practicalities involved with the grieving process, as a society, we remain so reluctant to openly talk about it. In this episode, we delve into the day where Lissie heard the words she never wanted to hear, how grief remains so “hush hush, what the power of grief can do to fuel positive change, and why re-finding love as a widow or widower can be the fairest gift of them all. 

Topics: 

In this episode, Ally and Lissie discuss:

• The moment Lissie discovered that the love of her life had been killed
• How a wrongful verdict triggered her to change the UK law
• Manoeuvring her grief to fit societal ideals
• Why searching for love is not a betrayal
• The ways we can hold grief kindly, without judgement or weirdness
• The art of reinvention through loss, grief, and hope 
• Why the power of truth can prevent pain, no matter what 
• Why ‘grief tourists’ need to check in with themselves!

Follow:

You can find Lissie on Instagram @lissieharpermbe via her website The Print Bee. 

If you love this episode, please share and leave a review — let’s smoke out stigma and make truth-telling the next biggest trend. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michelle Ahern is an Australian-born writer, comedian and communications specialist. From poetry to blogs to her latest foray into the world of stand-up comedy, Michelle’s writing and performing always hones in on the guts of life. From the true story of loss that gave way to a new lease on life she has recently moved to Barcelona, Spain where she is starting over, in her 40s. Where there used to be a husband, a family, a home, a dog and a job … she now has a stage and a microphone where she thrives on telling stories of exploring new countries, making new friends and life inside a threesome.

Description

Research shows loneliness is as deadly as smoking 15 cigarettes per day and that people who are lonely are 50% more likely to die at a premature age. So, where do we even start? Loneliness, especially after any form of breakup can be complex, stigmatised and hugely taboo. Sometimes, we don’t even admit to ourselves that we are feeling the waves of chronic loneliness, let alone to anyone else. Why? Because revealing how lonely we are might suggest that we are not likeable, or worthy of companionship, friendship, or love. In some ways, we believe our loneliness is embarrassing - that something within has failed at making meaningful connections. So, we hide it. We run from it, numb it, and scroll for the next social fix, hoping that validation might come in the form of a stranger. In this episode, we reveal how to lean into loneliness: the good, the bad, and the honking hilarious moments in life!

Topics: 

In this episode, Ally and Michelle discuss:

• “If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry”: The relationship between laughing and loneliness
• How loneliness makes us question our lovability 
• Was becoming a 'throuple' the ultimate cure for Michelle’s lonelier days?
• Starting life over in her 40s: Should we all be on the hunt for a book club?
• Learning to feel the difference between alone and lonely 
• Discovering the ways we lean into loneliness: Dating apps, voice-notes, and everything in between!
• The peace in saying, “I’m lonely”

Follow: 

You can find Michelle on Instagram: @michelleaherncomedy or via her website www.agentblonde.com

If you love this episode, please share and leave a review — let’s smoke out stigma and make truth-telling the next biggest trend!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ellamae Fullalove, founder of @vavawomb_ and @mindovermkh, is a community and events founder, advocate, speaker, podcast host, workshop facilitator, poet and all round creative. Ellamae curated the stigma shaking community brand  @vavawomb_ which provides educational, scroll-stopping content on gender equality, intersectional feminism, pleasure, infertility, health and well-being. She co-founded The Vagina Festival event using performing arts, story telling, workshops and poetry as a catalyst for change.

She designs and delivers workshops to untangle shame, to self explore and to tap into your sexual mental health, as well as for mindfulness using art therapy as a method of reflection. 

She founded the worldwide MRKH Podcast, events, creative awareness and resource platform @mindovermrkh (which you can find via the Va Va Womb website) to support those with MRKH, DSDs and other relatable experiences through amplifying stories from around the world, hosting creative writing clubs during lockdown and running social events in London. By day, Ellamae works in Social Housing, all of her evening and weekend work supporting those with MRKH has come from a place of wanting to be the woman she needed when she was a girl, because no person with MRKH should ever feel alone.

Description

With sexual censorship on the rise, our social media influencers need a societal shift more than ever! Let’s face it - both masturbation and pleasure remains one of the most taboo topics out there. Yet, aren’t we all doing it? Maybe, maybe not. Sure, bedroom antics and sexual pleasure is a personal choice - however, are we robbing ourselves of a world of exploration when it comes to “things down there”? In this episode, I chat with friend, advocate, and creative activist, Ellamae, to chat about vagina symbolism, “ridding the rap” when it comes to lube, the benefits of solo-play, and why our sexual freedom rests in the hands of an algorithm. 

Topics: 

In this episode, Ally and Ellamae discuss:

• Why Vagina is not a dirty word: Removing the stigma once and for all
• The medical diagnosis, MRKH, that both Ally and Ellamae bonded over
• Why masturbation, self-pleasure and exploring happiness became Ellamae’s “why” 
• How faking orgasms can be a bump-starter, benefit or betrayal 
• Sex, social media and censorship: Battling Metadata and the algorithm “Gods”
• Aeroplanes, fruit, and road-signs: Vagina symbolism in all its forms. 

Follow: 

You can find Ellamae on Instagram @vavawomb, and via her website www.vavawomb.com . 

If you love this episode, please share and leave a review — let’s smoke out stigma and make truth-telling the next biggest trend!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nikki Parkinson is a separation strategist, family law expert, mother of three, and unmarried. Once upon a time, Nikki spent her 9-5 working in the corporate world of Family Law, ticking boxes and filing court orders. Then her marriage ended, and she found herself standing in the shoes of her clients — anxious, alone and lost despite all of her experience. She's lived through the difficulties of separation — both her own and her clients. Now, her goal is to take the fear-factor out of divorce and separation, reduce the shame, start important conversations around the practicalities of ending a relationship and take the mess out of messy.

Description:

After a decade working in the Family Law System — and experiencing her own divorce from the father of her daughter – she saw a gap in the system: divorce no longer has a stigma, but we are telling women to ‘be brave and seize the day’ without the holistic support they need to have an empowered separation. In this informed and heartfelt episode, Nikki shares what she has learnt from supporting women through divorce and separation, how stigma continues to riddle two broken hearts, and why single shaming (even from your dearest Nan) can be replaced with “Congratulations on your divorce!”

Topics:

In this episode, Ally and Nikki discuss:

• How we marry as a community but divorce alone
• Why marriage isn’t a failure but proof of love, lessons, and learnings
• Divorcing and dinner parties, and why divorcees are mistaken as a threat between main course and dessert
• The damage of divorce and why couples feel the shame of an ending 
• The ways and days to healthy separation, away from the courts 
• Single-shaming and what “not” to say to a happy singleton! 

Follow: 

You can find Nikki on Instagram @thedivorcehub, via her website www.divorceandseparationhub.com and The Divorce and Separation Podcast.

If you love this episode, please share and leave a review — let’s smoke out stigma and make truth-telling the next biggest trend!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sean Saifa Wall (he/him/his) is a Black queer intersex activist and rising scholar. Born and raised in the Bronx, Saifa attended Williams College and has since lived and worked in New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Atlanta, Georgia. Currently, he is a Marie Skolowdska-Curie fellow at the University of Huddersfield in England examining the erasure of intersex people from social policy in Ireland and England. As an activist, Saifa is committed to racial equity and a radical vision of bodily autonomy for people with intersex variations. He is co-founder of the Intersex Justice Project whose #EndIntersexSurgery campaign pressured Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago to become the first children’s hospital in the United States to denounce and further investigate genital surgeries on Intersex infants. Above all else, Saifa is determined to end harmful and invasive genital surgery on intersex children and advocate for affirming healthcare for all people with intersex variations.

About this episode: 

Sean Saifa Wall was diagnosed with partial androgen insensitivity syndrome, subjected to a gonadectomy at age 13, and necessitating lifelong hormone replacement therapy. As a teenager, Sean Saifa Wall was told that he was to live as a “girl”, however, conformity wasn’t something Saifa or his mother would allow. Now a thirty-year old man, Saifa explains the devastating surgeries performed on babies and young people to medically assign and “correct” people born with an intersex variation. With global recognition as an Intersex activist, Saifa explains why different bodies are beautiful bodies, how we can safely hold the conversations that matter, and why stigma needs to end with “assuming gender”.

In this episode, Ally and Saifa discuss:

• Understanding intersex physically, emotionally, mentally and societally?
• Breaking down body parts and the differences we know 
• Is it OK to ask about a person’s genitalia? 
• What is social etiquette when your body doesn’t have a drop-down menu?
• Tackling the taboo about bodies: fixed, broken, or perfect? 
• Talking pronouns and how they’ve evolved 

You can find Saifa on Instagram @saifaemerges @intersexjusticproject

If you love this episode, please share and leave a review — let’s smoke out stigma and make truth-telling the next biggest trend!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Goff is a bestselling author, journalist, and former escort under the alter ego name of Samantha X. Amanda started her career as a tabloid journalist in her hometown of London before moving to Sydney in 2000, where she worked in TV and magazines. Then at 37, after two kids and separation, Amanda completely changed her life.

After walking out of her nine-to-five job. Amanda became Australia’s most high-profile escort Samantha X. Since then, Amanda has written two best-selling books and was the focus of constant media attention, gaining fans and critics worldwide. Deciding to leave the escort business, Amanda now lives life unapologetically, despite facing global judgement and stigma. Now, Amanda continues to inspire women to lead the life they want without explanation. And most of all, Amanda encourages vulnerability, so that all people can be their unique and original stigma-free selves.

Description: 

Amanda Goff was once Australia’s highest paid escort. Talking about the sex industry can be societally jarring. Those who opt for a career “selling sex” are often frowned upon, but why? In this episode, Amanda Goff shares the sides of the industry we rarely understand, how the sex industry is more intimate than we've been led to believe, and why as a society, we need to start talking about sex and shame.

Topics: 

In this episode, Ally and Amanda discuss:

• How society views the sex work industry 
• The art of sexual disconnection 
• Is being an escort just about sex? 
• The relationship between sex and shame
• Debunking the myths around selling sex for money 

Follow: 

You can find Amanda on Instagram @amandagoffofficial, via her website www.amandagoff.com.au and her podcast Xposed with Samantha X

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Natalie Lue is an author, artist, and creator of one of the longest running self-help blogs in the world, Baggage Reclaim, and The Baggage Reclaim Sessions podcast. The England-born, Ireland-raised author helps people understand how their emotional baggage is interfering with their ability to live their lives happily and authentically. Natalie’s authored five books, including Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl and The Joy of Saying No (Jan 2023, HarperCollins). Her advice has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, NPR, USA Today, and the BBC, among many others. Natalie lives in Caterham, Surrey, on the edge of south London with her husband, two daughters, and cockapoo.

Description: 

Are you still playing a role you learned in childhood to please others, such as the Good Girl/Guy, the Overachiever, or the Helper? Do you save the word no for emergency situations only? Are you always putting others’ needs above yours even at the expense of your mental and physical health? Are you unable to deliver a guilt-free no even when you desperately want to establish a healthy boundary? If so, you are not alone. The Joy of Saying No is your ticket out of toxic patterns and into healthy relationships and experiences that foster more love, care, trust and respect.

Topics: 

In this episode, Ally and Natalie discuss:

• The 5 styles of people pleasing
• What is the social stigma around saying “no”? 
• The dangers of becoming a “yes” culture?
• What motivates our decisions to constantly please 
• Is “FOMO Fever” harming our “no’s”?

If you love this episode, please share and leave a review — let’s smoke out stigma and make truth-telling the next biggest trend! 

Follow: 

You can find Natalie on Instagram @natlue or via her website www.natalielue.com, and long running blog and podcast how, Baggage Reclaim

If you love this episode, please share and leave a review — let’s smoke out stigma and make truth-telling the next biggest trend!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.