Episode 28: When the world takes a pause – What we learned from the storm
What happens when life forces you to stop?
After the recent cyclone left Dr Peta and the Vera Wellness clinic without power, this week’s episode of Women of the Well is a little different – recorded at Dr Thea’s house with no proper microphones, just an honest conversation about what it feels like to truly slow down.
Peta and Thea reflect on the past week of stillness, disconnection (literally), and the unexpected lessons that come from being forced to pause.
They discuss:
🍃 The unexpected gifts of slowing down – how the absence of power, screens, and schedules created space for presence and connection.
🍃 How modern life pulls us out of alignment – and why we’re often trapped in a cycle of productivity that doesn’t serve our bodies or well-being.
🍃 The impact on children – what happens when kids aren’t rushed, and how their natural state teaches us about being fully present.
🍃 Listening to your body’s signals – why symptoms like pain, stress, and exhaustion might actually be messages asking you to change your pace.
🍃 Small but powerful shifts you can make – rethinking work, commitments, and what’s truly essential for a life that feels fulfilling.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re running on autopilot, constantly doing instead of being, this episode is an invitation to rethink what you actually need – and what you don’t.
Additional Resources:
💡 Follow Aimee Aroha for inspiration on simple, slow, and intentional living.
📖 Journaling prompt: What would your life look like if you designed it for presence rather than productivity?
We’d love to hear your thoughts. Send us an email, leave a comment on Instagram, or share this episode with someone who needs it.
We would love to hear from you.
If you have any questions about you’d like us to answer on a future episode of the podcast, please email them to hello@verawellness.com.au or contact us on Instagram @verawellness.com.au.
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Episode transcript:
E28: What we learned from the storm
[00:00:00] Peta: Hello Thea. Hi [00:01:00] Peta. Welcome to another special sort of episode of Women of the Well. we are recording this actually at Thea's house because after the cyclone, I don't have any power at my house still or at Vera. So again, a little bit of a special episode where the sound quality may not be as good. and I guess today we could go back to our regularly scheduled, uh, episode, but we just wanted to kind of use this time to check in with everybody and to, kind of, I guess, talk about our experiences of the last week, and just acknowledge that for lots of people, it's been a really stressful time and many people, um, hopefully by the time you're listening to this next week, you're all, back to having power and that there hasn't been too much damage done to your, homes or communities. but we just wanted to just acknowledge what's happened.
Thea: Yes, it's been, I think, quite stressful for a lot of people, some more than [00:02:00] others. I live in the city, so it hasn't been a huge issue. but I think also, like, we wanted to talk about things that have come up for us, like things that we've noticed during this time. because I think it's a really interesting Almost like opportunity to observe how you feel when you're forced to stop.
Peta: Yes. So, well, for me, I was at Vera and we have a big long driveway and a beautiful creek, which will flood when there's a massive rain event. So I knew that that was going to happen.
And I was there with my, child, who's, seven, Jude, and our dog and our chickens and our bearded dragon, which was the most high maintenance creature of the lot, because he needed a heat lamp and a UV lamp and a underfloor heating, and we had no power for days. And my husband was, he's an obstetrician and he was on call so he wasn't there, he was in the hospital.
so there were times because [00:03:00] the cyclone took a little bit of time, more time than people thought to come and I think we kind of closed down in preparation that we had beautiful times. Like on Thursday we both did telehealth but Thea came with her kids and so we did our telehealth and the kids just played in the creek.
And we got interrupted occasionally by requests such as, can I blow up a mattress and put it in the pool and then stand on top of it with a kite? From eight year old boys. But then it was quite a delightful time while we watched them. Um, play in the creek and drive scooters downhills and
Thea: walk around the property where the
Peta: sun was out and it was gorgeous and we both thought it was like a quite a lovely way to work with our children in the same place as us.
And so there was some nice time. before the power went out and before the weather hit. and then when the weather did hit and we got, we were trapped. So we couldn't go anywhere because we [00:04:00] had, our access was, blocked. And we didn't have any power, which meant no water or anything either.
Although we'd been prepared and we had filled bathtubs up with water and stuff and had lots of water. And
Thea: you had no phone reception as well. Yes,
Peta: and I had no phone reception. So I could barely get. a text message out, like occasionally, but couldn't really have a conversation. So I had to really rely on having such a wonderful team to reschedule things and stuff.
But it was, like a really kind of quiet, reflective time where I feel like Because I actually also, we were just saying, I didn't even have a radio, that's how ill prepared I was. So I didn't really know about the forecast or when the rain was going to stop or, which I guess didn't really matter. But our human minds kind of don't like uncertainty and want to know what's happening.
And I didn't know what had happened with everybody else. And so there was just this time that was with me and my son and the menagerie of animals [00:05:00] and we were just, you know, tending to the things that we needed to tend to like boiling water and Making food, and working out how to make coffee without my coffee machine, and reading books, and playing Lego, and, you know, all of those things, we just had time together.
Thea: Like, to be.
Peta: Yeah, exactly. With nowhere to go, nowhere to rush to, and I think something I noticed that was really interesting is, obviously Jude was incredibly excited that there was no school, and was happy to be in his pyjamas building Lego all day. But he was in, in such a good mood, like, and sometimes he's a kid that can have resistance to wanting to do the next thing.
Thea: But I think that's such a big thing I find with our kids. Like that, I feel like I'm constantly like, hurry up. We have to do this and then we have to do this. And then we have to do this. And even if it's just like, you have to put on your socks and then you have to put on your shoes and then we have to go like that.[00:06:00]
I feel like I'm always rushing them. And so it feels so luxurious. Anytime you don't have to do that, I think.
Peta: And then they're just happy in themselves. So I think even at one point he could sense that I was like, Oh my God. And he was just like a beautiful companion of happiness and wasn't complaining about not having.
Electricity or TV or screens or anything like that. I think he was just so happy that for once we could just be in the moment and, he had my full attention. Mm.
Thea: it's very powerful and I think like the kids love it and like we, I certainly loved it as well. Like it is sort of like how people found Covid in a way, in that same way quite. beautiful, like, being forced to actually stop.
Peta: Exactly. Because we're
Thea: constantly rushing from one thing to the next and almost doing it because we feel like we [00:07:00] are, like we should.
Peta: Yeah. And when you know that you're actually safe, like physically safe and yes, things are a little bit, maybe a little bit more inconvenient, which they definitely were, but there was this, no pressure.
No distraction, no feeling like I had to be somewhere else because I couldn't be somewhere else. And so we were, you know, painting and I'm not even a very good painter. I can't even remember the last time I painted. But I was like finding joy in painting the little leaves on the trees and the moon in the sky.
And, Alongside Jude and it was just,
Thea: it's almost like it really forces you to surrender. Like you just have to surrender to what is and surrender to the moment. Like we recently went and saw, Liz Gilbert speak and she was talking about presence, not progress. Like not constantly feeling the urge to be doing, but rather actually seeing success in life as the ability [00:08:00] to be really present in, whatever the moment is. And I think that's kind of what it was like.
Peta: sometimes the frustration with parenting young children, I think we've talked about this as well, Thea, is that, you want to be, I mean, I do, I don't know about everybody else, but I want to be in the moment making the Lego, painting the thing.
Looking at things in nature, reading a story, immersed in that, but when you can't really fully be there because you've got a phone that's pinging at you, or you think that you have to respond to everything, or you have to be in another place, or you've got to organise things, you're, there's always a layer of resistance to that present moment. Yes, and a layer
Thea: of separation.
Peta: Yes, and then the frustration or the annoyance that you then get with the child who's actually Present and there and in that moment in life, which is where we all should be because that's all there really is, comes because we are out of the moment. [00:09:00] And so when that isn't there, all of a sudden you can be there and then doing the things that, the child wanting you to play with them and like, it becomes a joy rather
Thea: than a
Peta: stress.
Thea: Yes. Because like. Our children really are like a portal to the present moment. Like they're constantly present and are constantly calling us to be present as well. it's almost like all of those responsibilities are forcibly taken away from us that you feel like you can more easily be in that present moment.
Yes. But I guess it just takes a lot more. effort when you do have life going on around
Peta: you. also like, they're not the problem, in the moment that when we're rushing around, we were like, Oh my God, why aren't you putting your socks on and why aren't you doing it on this timeframe?
And why do you not know where your shoes are? We have to leave five minutes ago and there's this irritation and you think it's because my kid can't get it together or. We [00:10:00] aren't organized enough, but they're there where we all kind of want to be, where we can find peace. And we're out of that alignment with that moment.
Thea: Totally. Totally. It's an us problem. And it, cause you notice it, like And, there was a podcast we listened to where they talked about this, like, where a very high flying corporate lady left her job and stopped work and just was mumming her children. And she described it like almost like a psychedelic experience, the first moment that she actually could just I think she was watching her kid ride their bike, and she had zero other places to be, and she just felt like it was a feeling she'd never experienced in her body before, and I noticed that. Like, you know, there's, like, what we've experienced in the last few days, the times when you do just get to totally be, like, it's a whole body experience.
Peta: It's like a big exhale.
Thea: It is. Yeah.
Peta: Yeah, it is such a portal. Yeah, and in that podcast, the [00:11:00] woman who was telling the story, hearing it from her friend who'd had that experience, who now has teenage children, was saying she couldn't relate to that at all because she had never been in that situation.
Thea: So why aren't we living like that all the time?
Peta: Yes, but that's a really good point. And when I came out of the, when I finally could get out on Monday. Or Tuesday, I can't remember because I've lost track of time. It was yesterday, so Tuesday, Tuesday. When I could cross over my creek and, um, at that point Rob had come home and had made a mercy dash home to get, the bearded dragon because He was being, basically, the way we were caring for him because he didn't have any heat source, was he was basically strapped to my chest for most of the time.
Like a baby. Like a cold reptilian baby getting a bit warm. So that was quite cute. I was quite proud that we kept him alive. But he couldn't eat any insects because, I don't know if anyone knows this, but [00:12:00] bearded dragons have to have UV light exposure in order to digest their protein source. So he had like several days without food.
So Rob had to come home and tape Tinsel, which is our bearded dragon, and his enclosure to my mother in law's and Jude went with him for a sleepover as well. And then when I finally left yesterday, when I could get past the creek and I went to our beautiful friend Sam, who's obviously our usual co host, to her house and had like the world's most wonderful shower in her beautifully newly renovated bathroom.
we sat and talked about, well, why, aren't we living like this all of the time? And how we have so much more than we need, and we also cram so much more into our days. And this, like, expectation of productivity being the be all and end all, and the, the
Thea: standard.
Peta: Yep. Is a huge problem that seemed amplified when we were away from that, and that things were just [00:13:00] fine.
Thea: Yep. Yep. Yep.
Peta: In fact, you know, more than
Thea: fine. More than fine. And that's it. I think we have this sense that we need so much more than we have is one thing. And it's like the sense that we should be doing more. Like should, there should thing. Like I did a meditation with Paula, uh, amazing, holistic physio when we did our pain course on Monday.
And it was a. Um, meditation through all the different sort of energetic layers of the body that I have had a quite bad virus for like the last month and have not had really any energy or been able to do the things I would normally do from exercise to like work at night and stuff like that. And when we were like doing the meditation, the emotion that came up was like the shame, like lots of shame at like not.
Having been able to be as productive as I usually am.
Peta: And
Thea: I thought that was just so interesting. Like, I haven't felt [00:14:00] a conscious sense of shame about it, but I think that's there for so many people when you're not like living up to the productivity standard that, society wants us to.
Peta: Hmm. But what more do you wanna do before?
No, I don't.
Thea: I actually don't wanna do anymore. And it, I just noticed it. It was as it was a shift. Yeah. Yeah. Well,
Peta: because I think everywhere you look from, schools and, our workload, our, I saw a beautiful patient last week. Who had a few issues, mostly probably due to the amount of stress she was under and the amount of work, amount of hours she was working.
And she acknowledged that, but was like, well, I need, my other job that I was doing wasn't going to give me the money that I think that I need in order to support a family, which she doesn't yet have. and the amount of work that she's doing and the striving is probably contributing to her symptoms which are potentially, to adversely affect her fertility.
[00:15:00] And, like it's almost like I'm at the point where we talk about this all the time. Where Women come with symptoms that are generally, the root of them is being in a highly dysregulated nervous system state. Yes, there can be things that have happened to them, but often it's the trauma of living in a society that just is not suited to human beings.
Wellness. Wellness, exactly. And we can try and say, here, have all these supplements, have this diet, have these medications, do this surgery, whatever. But they're all just like Band Aid fixes. And when the real problem is bigger than us, bigger than any individual, it's the whole way that society is. And, like I just think we can't ignore that.
Thea: No, we absolutely can't ignore that. And I think like more and more we see that as the driving problem of most of the patients that we see. Whether it's You know, persistent pain, really severe hormonal symptoms, mood changes related to the menstrual cycle. And
Peta: menopause.
Thea: [00:16:00] Menopause. Like it's all kind of the same thing.
and I think often it's easier to blame the body, because if we blame the body, we don't have to look at society at large or look at the systems or even look at making the smaller personal decisions that might. benefit our nervous systems but might go against capitalist patriarchy.
Peta: Mechanicultural.
Thea: Yeah, that's right. Mechanicultural, yeah.
Peta: And I think that, well, people will be listening to this and be saying, well, we can't change society, we can't change culture. And, well, I don't think in essence that's actually true because society and culture change as people change. And people change, yep.
Each person can change, and I think this is the thing that we, get stuck on a lot of the time with that choice. We think we don't have a choice. We think our back's up against the wall because we have to be making a certain amount of money to live in a certain house in a certain suburb and send our kids to a certain school.[00:17:00]
And if we're not doing that, then we're not meeting the standards, and we're getting all of our self worth from those capitalist measures. But if we just came back to the fact that we're worthy, just as we are, before we do anything, and then always I think about that line that Sam, I think posted on her Instagram which is from somewhere else, but said, create a life that you don't have to nervous system hack your way out of. Totally.
Thea: Which,
Peta: it just makes. So much more sense.
Thea: Absolutely. Like, make a life that you don't need a holiday from. Yeah. Make a life that you don't need to, yeah, meditate your way out of.
Peta: And so it might mean you have a small house.
Thea: Yes. Well, that's the thing, right? Like, I think, changing our own self is the only thing we can do.
That's right. Whether it's in emotional conflicts, whether it's in feeling unfulfilled in life, whether it's in growing pain, the only thing we have to do. control over. The only [00:18:00] thing we have the power to shift is our own self. And once you realize that, once you realize you are the captain of your ship, you're the like author of your story, then you can start by making the tiniest little changes. And number one, you realize what an immense impact it has. And
Peta: number
Thea: two, you realize the world doesn't fall apart. You know, and it might be like you work four days a week instead of five days a week. And you notice. That, that actually creates so much more space and so much, you feel so much more regulated in your nervous system.
Yes. You know? And then you, and you realize no one cares that I work four days a week, even though you perhaps thought that everyone in your workplace would be laughing at you and thinking you were weak. And I think that opens the doorway to realize, Oh, I can actually craft my life to be entirely what I want it to be. anyone else really have to matter at all.
Peta: It doesn't matter at all. And if you're someone who can work 60 hours a week and your body [00:19:00] feels amazing, great. But they're not the people that we see in our office at all. And I think it's this thing of, well, who are we doing this for?
Like, who are you, um, sacrificing your body, your peace of mind, your friends, your family, your joy? Like, I, um, recently. I was doing a course that I was enjoying, but I was a bit, I was a bit conflicted about possibly a little bit philosophically, but then mainly because of the time that it was taking me away from my family.
And just my downtime, which I really prioritise because of the nature of the job, which is, although I don't work heaps, I definitely don't work 60 hours a week at all. I work, like, really manageable hours, but the intensity of those hours, because it's face to face and there's a lot of, um, energy exchanged, that I really need my downtime.
And I recently just, just pulled out of the second part of this course. And the person said, it's good for you to, that you put your [00:20:00] family first like that. And I was like, no, I'm not putting my family first. I'm putting me first because I know that my nervous system and my body is not going to be able to cope with that four day training away when I still have to do my work around it.
And like, I just can't at this time and it might be there for me another time to do. But at this time. Um, to make the decision that, that I know is gonna best serve my body and my nervous system, and then my family and friends and all of that stuff. Totally. Because I think you can't have everything it comes at a cost, always comes at a cost, whether it's our bodies, our health, the environment. Mm-hmm .
Thea: And we're used to not considering the cost we're used to, especially not considering the cost to ourselves. but it's almost like it's a. It's a skill that you start to hone, like, I guess it's stopping the people pleasing really, isn't it? Like, the more you do it, the more you realise it's actually easy. And no one actually cares most of the time.
Peta: And [00:21:00] just practising doing it. Yeah, that's right. It's like a muscle that
Thea: you're training. Yeah. I had a, I saw a patient the other day who was quite young, like in her early twenties, and she's had terrible pain for, A number of years and seen multiple specialists and had multiple tests and procedures and everything done.
And, by the time she came to see me, she'd figured it out herself. She was working in a corporate job, which she hated. And, she'd actually quit that job, like, two months ago. And her pain had basically, completely gone away. And so we just spent our, appointment talking about Well you've, you've made that connection with your body, you've learnt that your body has really important messages to tell you and you've listened and you've actually been brave enough to action that which a lot of the times people aren't because it's hard, and now what do you actually want?
Peta: And
Thea: she actually, is a writer, like she loves writing and she loves making, um, short films but was obviously worried about finances and things like that. and she's [00:22:00] like supported by her parents and doesn't really have to worry about money for the short term. And so we were just like, well, throw yourself into that.
Like, and we actually did some practices around, like, feel into your body, how you feel if you were to go back to this corporate job and then feel into your body, how you would feel. If you were a writer for the next two years. And obviously there was an immense difference in how she felt and even changes in how her pain was when she kind of fell into those things. and so I think like that's a really big shift that someone's making, but it doesn't have to be that big, you know.
Peta: And just following the curiosity and following those symptoms like they're messages from your body not that we need to like hit the symptoms on the head with a Hammer. Yeah, I think it can be so hard because I think a lot about was just talking to another patient before and she said I said you like your job and she said No, I hate it.
And I said, well, what would you rather do? And she said I'd rather be At home with my kids and I [00:23:00] think like there are obviously lots of financial realities that a lot of people have that can make that impossible whether it's being a single parent having just committed too much financially That that's where it can be hard to, look at that.
But I think there's always a way to take the pressure off a bit if you can acknowledge that. And then just moving in that direction of where does my body feel like there's more spaciousness. and I think when you said it's hard, sometimes it is going, well, if we want to live this way, that is probably more important to us where we have more time, can be more in the moment, are able to do the things that we say we prioritize. It might be okay, well do we have to have a smaller, less expensive house? Yeah. Do we have to, you know, live less expensively? Mm-hmm . Which are probably things that are gonna serve us and the planet.
Thea: Yes.
Peta: Hell of a lot more anyway. And be more sustainable in the long run.
and I know these are big concepts. But I think when you have gone [00:24:00] through something, even just a little thing, like no power and no contact with the outside world for a few days, and you realise, oh, like, this is actually fine. Yeah. And you can see your child is happy. Or not even
Thea: fine, but like, better.
Yeah. And wonderful. Yes. Yeah.
Peta: And creative. And. Not stressed.
Thea: Yep.
Peta: Because a lot of the time when we're talking about kids and behaviour and stuff, we're talking about kids who are stressed.
Thea: Oh, 100%. And kids who are reacting to the stress that their parents are reflecting.
Peta: Mm, exactly. Yeah. And then we, um, you know, say there's something wrong with them and, or something wrong with us.
Yes. And then there's the whole So on and so forth. I know. Cause like, as I was saying to you, I did a talk the other day and it was about pelvic pain and at the point where I just think chronic pelvic pain, like so many chronic diseases are a reflection of the state of our society that is sick and [00:25:00] unsustainable and highly stressful.
And so to just tackle the problem. Like, for example, it's Endometriosis Awareness Month. And just to tackle the problem in such a narrow, way. Really granular, really,
Thea: yeah.
Peta: Without thinking about the cause. Again, it's telling the woman that there's something pathological about her body that's causing this.
And I don't think that that's true.
Thea: No, well, which is why we see people having
Peta: All the laparoscopies and surgeries
Thea: and continuing to have pain. and I think that's like being truly holistic. It's like zooming out, not just to look at the whole body, but to look at the whole ecosystem that a person is existing within and how their environment is actually impacting on their experiences and their symptoms.
Peta: I did give a talk about this in Melbourne last year and then at the end of it everyone was like hmm that's great Peta, but what can we do about it? How are you going [00:26:00] to change the world? What are your practical points in changing society? But I think that that's our point, we can't wait for people to do that for us.
We can all make small changes. There's a lady that we both follow on Instagram. Maybe we'll include her and like her link. Can you remember? Amy Aroha. Yeah. She is amazing and she's a lady who lives with her kids kind of off grid and she is just so right with all of the things that she talks about and just the obviousness, of the problem. Yeah. Okay. And she's obviously living in a way that is less and, simpler so that almost like when the power outages and stuff didn't even affect her because she was off, grid apart from the rain. And Yeah, I just think that there are so many powerful things we can do.
Thea: Well, it's like really connecting back into the core of the things that Make it wonderful to be a human. Yeah,
Peta: exactly.
Thea: which is really connection with [00:27:00] other human beings.
Peta: Yes. That's right.
Thea: At the core of it all.
Peta: Being part of a community.
Thea: Yeah, being part of a community and having the time and the space to actually do that in a meaningful way.
Peta: And to be present. I think maybe that's why I hate small talk so much because when you're at a party or something and everyone's not really present and they're just small talking about the weather and stuff and it's just, they're waiting to like see who the next person is they have to talk to. But when you can slow down.
And actually not be pulled in a hundred different directions because you don't have so many commitments and you're not so worried about how you appear or being productive, then you can be present with that person and yourself in that moment. And it's so much more nourishing and, like all of those simple things are.
Thea: And. from a nervous system perspective. Mm-hmm. Those are the things that really drive good vagal tone. Mm-hmm. You know, that bring us into our parasympathetic state.
Peta: Mm-hmm.
Thea: Which [00:28:00] means essentially the very physiology of our body is working as it should.
Peta: Mm-hmm. So I suppose then our ramble again on the , on the, the issues of society is just to say that another reminder that we have choice.
and agency and maybe to think differently about the symptoms you're experiencing as messages, about how you're living your life and just to get curious on how your body might feel if you were to change any of that.
Thea: Yeah, and I think to just have a little contemplation about what tiny little changes could you make in your life?
Like, perhaps what could you say no to on the weekend? Or how could you just slightly shift your work so that it might be less stressful, less onerous in terms of time limits? Tiny little changes like that can make such a big difference. And almost, like, open the door, like, let a little chink of light in to realise there is another way.
Peta: Mm. And if [00:29:00] you're like us, where you were thinking up until probably the power outage bits, but this is really nice to have a stop and a break and to pause things for a moment that's probably a sign that in your normal non cyclone life, you should do that too.
Thea: Yes.
Good ramble.
Peta: Hopefully next week we'll be back to Vera and we'll have our big microphones with better sound quality and um, we hope that you are all safe, that you all have your power back, that maybe you all had some realizations or had some space, to think without that outside noise. that where you might have had an epiphany or two, maybe spend some time to write that down.
the things that you liked about that quiet time, that stillness. and we will see you next week. Thank
Thea: you.
Peta: Bye. [00:30:00]
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DISCLAIMER:
This podcast is for information and educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
