Tiny House Living: When illness and the housing crisis force you into downsizing with Rochelle Ryan

Rochelle Ryan, an executive assistant and project manager underwent a midlife transformation after being diagnosed with a chronic health condition in 2018. 

• Despite medical challenges, Rochelle embarked on a life-changing journey across Australia in a caravan with her daughter, showcasing resilience and adaptability. 
• Now living in a self-built tiny house, Rochelle serves as the volunteer president of the Australian Tiny House Association.
• She discusses the importance of trusting one's intuition, finding joy in adversity, and the lessons learned in midlife. 
• The conversation sheds light on alternative living solutions and the significance of embracing life's unpredictable paths.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction to Rochelle Ryan's Journey

00:19 Life-Changing Diagnosis and New Beginnings

00:43 Tiny House Living and Advocacy

02:00 Podcast Introduction and Guest Welcome

03:03 Midlife Reflections and Challenges

04:23 Navigating the Housing Crisis

06:28 Living in a Tiny House with a Teenager

08:58 Finding Joy in Difficult Times

14:26 Trusting Gut Instincts and Intuition

18:13 Acquiring a New Tiny House Office

26:39 Overcoming Health Challenges

28:23 A Turning Point: Health Crisis and Life Changes

29:02 The Caravan Journey Begins

30:32 Traveling the East Coast of Australia

32:05 Facing Health Challenges on the Road

33:21 Permission to Keep Traveling

34:37 Reflecting on the J

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to The Infinite Life with Katische Haberfield. I'm a quantum soul therapist, and I'd like to take you on a transformative journey, exploring the mysteries of the soul, past lives, and infinite existence. Through over 60 regression case studies, mediumship interviews, and fascinating discussions with interesting human beings, uncover what it means to be a human facing duality on earth, whilst embracing the true nature of reality. Non duality and unconditional love. Rochelle Ryan has lived life guided by her own intuition, and sometimes she hasn't always listened which has led her to very strict teachers in life's lessons. Rochelle's professional career has been in the corporate world as an executive assistant and project manager for government departments, global corporations and state based charities. In 2018, Rochelle was diagnosed with a chronic health condition. While she underwent medical treatment, including chemotherapy drug she decided to go traveling with a 14 year old daughter. She stood all her worldly possessions bought a second hand four wheel drivea secondhand caravan and set off with no plan other than the next destination. This resulted in traveling all the way around Australia with many travelers highlights and medical appointments over 12,000 kilometers. Currently, Rochelle lives in a self-built tiny house on wheels with her two small dogs and is the volunteer president of the Australian tiny house association. Which is a not-for-profit organization advocating for the legal recognition of a new hybrid house typology. And I had this mindset when I started out that I just wanted my old life back. But just give me the pill, tell me the program I'm going to do. I'll do it. I'll do it. Just give me my old life back because that's mentally what I wanted, but my body was telling me that I needed a new life, and that took a long time to grieve the loss of my old life and my old body. But would I trade what I've got now for my old life? No. I now have a new life based upon what my body can do or my body allows me to do. And I think everyone has to go, if you were talking about turning 50, I think everyone at some point, because of the way that our body ages has to go through that. Welcome to The Infinite Life Podcast with your host, Katische Haberfield. This week I have another local, finally, we've actually had two this season, two Brisbane ladies. And this week I have the lovely Rochelle Ryan, who I only met a few weeks ago at a 50th birthday party. So welcome to the podcast, Rochelle. Yeah, thanks for having me. You're welcome. Now we were having a chat at Rochelle's besties birthday, and I am the next door neighbor of her bestie from when I was born. That's a lot of bees, isn't it? We were chatting and we did the whole, what do you do, what do you do? And she said, You probably want to talk to me about tiny houses. And I went, yeah, actually I do. And she said, what do you do? And I said I have a podcast. You want to come on? And that's where it started. So we're here to talk about midlife, spiritual awakenings, tiny houses, and whatever else comes up. So Rochelle. Tell me, how has midlife been for you? It's snuck up on me, to be honest. I just have been so busy raising two children on my own and dealing with all the career life crises and stuff like that, that, before I knew it, I was 50. And I was like, how did I get here? But looking back my, yeah, it just hasn't been a typical life. And, yeah, and I'm surprised that I got to 50 and I still don't have my shit together. To be brutally honest. Yeah, but I've had health problems. I've had to take time off work over the last 50 years. I've traveled around Australia while undertaking medical treatment. Figured that I would eventually somehow be able to get into the mortgage having my own home, but that never worked out. When the housing crisis hit before there was even a housing crisis, cause I work in an office. in a company that had to put people into temporary accommodation. And in, yeah, 2022, I realized at the beginning of the year that we didn't have enough rental properties in the state of Queensland where I live. And so because I'd been dreaming of a tiny house and researching it for the last 10 years, looking at all the alternative housing market just for single incomes. I just realized at the beginning of 2022 that I needed to get some kind of alternative accommodation. And because I'd lived in a caravan while traveling around Australia, I knew I didn't want a caravan because they're really hard to insulate and the layout's like really fixed. So I found, luckily, on Gumtree, a prototype tiny house and bought it and then had to gut it and renovate it, and my daughter and I had to move into it in July, 2022, because there was no housing for us, even though I'd been applying my unit got sold it was the height of the you could put a a house on the market and six months later make a hundred thousand dollar profit. So houses were just being bought and sold or units being bought and sold. And I don't have a problem with people making money in boom times. I don't at all because they rarely come around. But I just never expected me not to be able to find another rental because I've worked, I'd worked full time since I was 16. I have, I'm a blue chip, they call a blue chip renter. So I was always able to get ahead of the rental queue when it comes to every five years, generally the rental house that I was living in with my children would end up going on the market or being sold or cause that's what investors do. They invest. And I always looked after the property and then they would sell it and I'd find another one. And so I never had a problem. And then, yeah, in 2022, I realized there was a shortage rental properties. And so I've got the tiny house thinking it was just going to be a second room for a granny flat. But then we couldn't even get a granny flat. So we had to live in 10 square meters, my daughter and I. So it was her last year of high school. And so we literally lived in a room the size of a car park for six months together. Yeah. And I've watched that video on your YouTube channel and I have a son, as who's going through year 12 right now, and I have to give you a million bags of smarties or something for getting through that year, A, as a parent of a year 12 child, but B, in close proximity to a very stressed child, and C, in 10 square meters. I don't know how you did that, but you have to do what you have to do, right? Yeah, we literally had no other choice. To be fair, we had been offered like you can sleep in our rumpus room or we've got a spare room for the two of you. So we literally wouldn't have had any privacy. We would have been staying under the feet of our friends and and having two small dogs that just added Complications and I also work from home, so I would have been working out of a bedroom or a rumpus room while looking after two dogs and my daughter doing the same thing stressed out going through the last year of high school. We were just, I feel like we were lucky in that we were able to have our own personal space and I. It was parked in a girlfriend's side yard. So the dogs had their own fenced off area. We could come and go. Our tiny house does have its own bathroom and toilet its own kitchenette, and two bunk beds that are in an L shape in those days. That's what it was. And We weren't having to share a queen size bed. We had our own beds and we had our own bathroom and we were able to cook inside our TED square meters. And also too, I could work. So while my daughter was at school I could sit at my secretary desk and do my work. And then, yeah, it was just difficult when it was just the two of us needing to use the same space. That was hard when she would get home from school at four and I finished work. And then there was the two of us and we'd have to like, Play Tetris while she moved here, I moved there. A lot of times we had to sit on our bed simply because while one person was getting ready, another person just had to stay out of the way. But yeah, it was a very difficult time and very stressful time for the both of us, but we got through it. Yeah. And how did you find the joy in the stress? What was the ways that you guys managed to keep happy? Was it just the thought that you had your own space? Was that, that the fuel every day? Like a gratitude or? Because people see tough times differently and a lot of people do dive into the darkness and not come out for a long time. But, I've met you once and this is the second time and we already laughed immediately when we were starting this podcast. So I know there has to be a bit of humor in there somewhere. All, My daughter was able to reach all the milestones she sat her exam, she finished off her assignments she would even say to me, Mom, look, I can't do any painting today because I've got to do an assignment. I'm like, okay, so we had to juggle. She also got, because of our situation, we were technically homeless. So she was able to get some consideration for her final exams. It doesn't mean that our situation didn't impact on it. It definitely did. So there was considerations there which, we were grateful for. She still got to dress up and be beautiful for her formal friends of ours that live locally were able to utilize their house cause they've got a beautiful back area. So yeah, so she was able to still reach, she turned 18. So we had a party, so we couldn't have it at our house. So I hired out a campground that's close by. We didn't sleep over. I didn't want to have to deal with a bunch of 18 year olds sleeping in bunk houses. But we still had a big bonfire and I got. I got it catered. So the catering came in all pre cooked. So I didn't have to worry about that. Like I'm a single mom. I outsource everything. So yeah, we've got a cake made locally. So she's still got to have a big 18th birthday party. She's still got to go to do her formal. She'd still did schoolies. It just got difficult in the summer holidays when she was at home. But then she had a boyfriend, so she was able to hang out at his house and 18 year olds don't want to hang out at home. Yeah, so eventually and I also have an older son and he had been at that point living independently in a share house and now my daughter's doing the same, she's living independently in a share house. It's just a matter of, 18 years of living as a single mom, you just. I've just learned to go with the flow and you've just got to make the most of it. It's not, and yeah, and finding the joy we her formal was a lovely lovely time and living up to Christmas we were looking forward to having a lovely time she got unwell at one point and, I had to stay in the tiny house and the tiny house was perfect because she had a severe migraine. So we had to keep it low light, dark. So between Christmas and new year, we're able to do that cause the tiny house facilitated her just being in a really cool cause it's air conditioned so we could keep the temperature right. Keep the light low light so yeah, so it's all about I've just got the mindset of, just. Trying to, yeah, find the joy in the moment, make it work, and, really and I've had a lot of counseling over the years and and my counsel would always just say to me, you just have to make the next decision. Don't get too ahead. If I was to, if you get too far ahead, it's too overwhelming and you could the whole thing. And always just try and find, The joy so living in a tiny house gave me the financial means to take my kids out for breakfast instead of having them over to make them breakfast and have to deal with all the mess, I would just take them out for breakfast and. Yeah, it's yeah, I just just had to, make it work because it was the only sensible option as far as I was concerned. I had plenty of people saying to me, keep your money in the bank, just pay really high expensive rent. It'll all come down eventually. The boom will stop. But I just knew, I just knew somehow that this housing crisis was not going to go away. And this is before the housing crisis was even a word and it hadn't even hit the media. And so it wasn't until 2023. And we'd been living in a tiny house or I'd been in a tiny house for well over close to a year that they started talking about a housing crisis and, it was mainstream media where people working full time and even couples, two incomes full time, couldn't get rental properties. And then people were saying to me, Oh, how lucky are you? The same people who told me to pay the high rents and don't be silly. Keep my my money in the bank. We're now telling me how lucky I was that I had this house. Okay. House on wheels. Yeah. So it seems like you've got this, strong sense of intellect and knowledge that you're able to then pair with your gut instinct and your intuition. So if we take it into spiritual senses, do you feel that's been part of your path? Have you had to learn to trust your gut more and more as, as you've got older, or have you always been really in tune with, This inner knowing of directions to take and things like that. It's been a bit of both in that there's times where I've certainly not listened to my gut instinct because intellectually I've been able to rationalize. And the older I get, the more I realize that even if I can't rationalize it, I have to trust my gut. Because life experience has told me that when I've not trusted my gut and intellectually rationalized saying that's not no, that can't be it. That doesn't make sense. I've ended up in a situation where I've made, and I, describe it to the kids, like you make a decision and then 10 decisions down that track, you realize that you've made the wrong decision 10 decisions ago. And you're in such a bad state that you're like, how did I get here? Then you go back to it always. And so you count back the decisions that you've made and it's generally you can always say, Oh, this is where I should have went that way. Or this is where I shouldn't went that way. Most of my life, when I look back and I see where I've made the wrong decision that put me on the wrong path, was when I didn't trust my gut, even though it didn't make sense at that time. And so I've then now realized that, when I can't rationalize why I'm making this decision, I still have to follow. That path to see and keep making decisions based upon my gut instinct, even though it is completely illogical to go down that path. I realized that 10 decisions down I will look back and go Oh, okay. Didn't make sense at that time that I do this, but 10 decisions, 20 decisions down the path, it was actually the right decision for me because even though intellectually it was the wrong thing to do. wrong by society standards. And it didn't look normal. And I wasn't behaving in a way that an adult should. But 10 decisions down, 20 decisions down, people go, Oh, wow, that was actually a good thing that you did that. Yeah. And so for some people, if we take it back to the basic level, they hear people go on about, gut instinct, right? And intuition. And they're like I don't even know what that is. So can you tell us how your gut instinct feels to you in your body versus your intellectualization and rationalization? How do you know for yourself? I don't know, this might seem obvious, but sometimes it's just really hard to explain to somebody. How do I even know? What my gut feeling is, do I literally feel a pain in my tummy or is it the thoughts that go around how do you explain to somebody who's never thought, am I following my rational, logical mind or am I following my intuition? How would you tell people to just even take that first baby step? I just, I find that there's a resistance. There's a resistance to I'm just trying to think, for me, cause we're always making decisions every single day. And then, and there's ones that just keep coming up for, an example is just recently, I recently purchased a second tiny home but it wasn't built, it's tiny home on wheels, but it's not a home inside, they've created it as an office. And and I didn't, and it was 30, 000 and the lady was happy to sell it to me for 25, but I don't have 25, 000 sitting in the bank. I had to go and get a loan. And I'd been looking at different cause I'm in the market and I'm always looking at what's available online because I've got. And cause the algorithm picks it up and I think I'd been thinking, Oh, maybe I do need a bit of space. It would be handy to have a storage shed or something like that anyway. But they're all, this place was literally 20 minutes away. And it actually happened to be on the road to this birthday party that I met you at. And I saw it on the Friday afternoon and I messaged the lady and I said, can I'm driving past next morning. Can I come and see it? And she's okay. So there's no resistance. It's just here's a harebrained idea. Let's just go and have a look at this tiny house. And then I go and I love it. I fall in love with it. It's beautifully made. And the rational mind says to get this, you have to go and get a loan. The last thing you need to do in a housing crisis without job security is to get a personal loan. I hate loans. Never. I don't take loans. I don't even take car loans. I told my kids never get loans. That's my intellectual birthday party. Have a lovely time coming back on. I actually have to get this thing. It doesn't make sense to me why I have to get it, but now I trust that. So I literally have to drive past, put a hundred dollars in the envelope in the letterbox and say, if you would hold it for me, I'll have to try and get finance for this. And she's okay, no worries. So the next day I pull online. And it just, it's just, it's seamless. It's a seamless process. Yeah, sure. We can give you the money. We'll put the money in the bank account. And then I tell the lady I purchased this whole time. My brain is telling me you don't have job security. You don't need this space. You're set up perfectly how you are. The loan repayments are just going to push your budget to the limits. There's all this rational thinking but it just seamlessly happens. And before you know it, I've actually got this tiny office sitting in my backyard. Like we had to give. Permission from the landlord from where I'm currently renting. Like all of the things that I could have got a million no's no, it's even when the tow truck driver showed up, he's Oh no this driveway is too steep. I can't get the tiny house out. And I call the office cause I had to prepay for this thing. And I said, what's happening now? It's it's, what are you going to do? This driver says it can't come out and I think it can. And anyway, we, he says, look, can you just drive it to the end of the driveway and he can pick it up. So it was like every time there was a what could have been a no when blocked it, it was a yes it just, flows. And then so I ended up with a tiny house intellectually the whole time going, we can't get it out. No way. Can I get this out? Then to get it into the backyard, it had to be pushed because we couldn't get a car around. So the neighbors all came out and helped push it. It was like every, we had to pull down the clothesline. Everything just, We snapped the jockey wheel. I had a spare one, like everything that could have stopped this thing from happening. Every, possible thing that could go wrong, went wrong, but immediately something showed up and we could keep going. Yeah. Okay. That also happens in other circumstances where I tried to do something and everything goes wrong and I have to come up with a solution. So I'm pushing the yes, even though everything comes back. This could have easily have been the loan got knocked back by my current bank. I would have had to go for another lender, the tow truck driver said, no, there's no way we could get it out. So I'd have to tow it myself, towing it myself. I could have broken my car then I'd have to fix my car and a tiny house. Then there's no way I can get it in. So it's sitting out in the front. There's no way. These are the no resistance and I, to the point where at the end of the day, I have a hot water system that's run on gas and I run out the night before. So I had to fill up my two gas cylinders and then I drove to the nearest service station where I go all the time and I said, Oh look, we haven't had gas for over a week. The gas delivery guy, cause this is like swap and go gas. Yeah. Yep. And she's like in our area, she's you're going to have to go to Bunnings, but it's closed now. Cause it's seven o'clock at night. I've been gone for 12 hours. The one thing I wanted was a hot shower. So I thought I'll just drive to Aldi and get some groceries. Cause I'd run out of food too. And on the way I drove past this service station that I never go to. The guys out there Blowing the leaves off the driveway. And I literally pull in and say, do you have any gas? Thinking in my head, I just need one bottle. I could put an empty back on and that'll work. Or even a small bottle, like even a barbecue size one will give you enough. He's all, hang on a minute. Goes in, opens up, looks in, digs around. He goes, Oh, how many do you need? And I said, two, if you got it, he goes, yeah, I got two. Beautiful. Yep. So the whole area, the whole Western suburbs of Brisbane in where I lived had not had gas in over a week. And I'd even said to the girl, Oh, it looks like I'm not having a shower tonight. She's if I had a dollar fare every time someone told me that it's like I've been telling people for a week that there's no gas. And yet the next service station over, I found two bottles, not one, but two. Wow. Yeah. So that's where, like at the end of a busy day, that's where I just know that although my decisions mentally, my decision to go and get a loan to buy a office, which I don't really need the space, it's just will be nice. I'm very self sufficient in my 10 square meters. I've lived like this for two years, but I just, It just float to the point where it was like almost everyone would, have said, Oh you just don't ask the racial, like you're just so lucky. And it's not, I don't, I do believe that there's an element of luck in the world, but I also believe that when people think of luck, it's also following you've got instinct. And by doing that, it just clears the path for you to follow what you're Whereas when you're not following your gut, you come up against resistance time and time again. Like the truck won't show up on time. Then the driver will say no, then you couldn't get the gas, then you couldn't get it off the road. Then everything just is twice as hard as what it should be. And then when it just flows, I just, I get goosebumps. I just think, I'm just like, wow, this is the right thing for me. And yet every time that I told, and so from the time that I found it also, it happens quick. The other thing is that when I'm not following my gut instinct, everything takes twice as long, but when I'm following my gut from the moment that I saw it online on Friday to the time that I got it at home was just over a week. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Just over a week. Yeah. That's supersonic speed, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just it just, it, and it honestly, if I wasn't working full time during the week, it could have happened in just a couple of days, but I had to wait until I'd finished work and yeah. And the next weekend to pick it up. Yeah. Literally. Yeah. Saw it on the Saturday, pay the deposit the following Saturday. I had it in my yard. Yep. Yep. That's great. That's great. Because, yeah, we can overthink just about everything in our life. Can't we? And that fear makes you feel sick and you get upset tummy or whatever it is. And yeah, you have to learn that element of trust as well. Yeah. And I learned that the hard way in, in 2020, 2018, where I Ended up being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and at that time, I just been pushing I was tired. I push if I was sick, I'd push I had to just keep working. I just had to keep the house running. And I just had to just be. All the time. I was a carer for my father in law who lived with us. So I was often having certainly alarms to get up in the middle of the night, just to check on him and then getting up at five o'clock in the morning to go into the city because I worked in the city, bringing my daughter at seven o'clock to make sure she was out of bed and catching the bus. Like I was just, I'd come home from work and. And, just having to deal with peak hour traffic and making lifestyle phone calls. I can't catch up with this person ring this I was ringing aged care services just to see how everything was going, talking to Meals on Wheels, yada yada. So it was just constantly push push, push, And Yeah. And so then in 2000, when I became really unwell at the end of 2017, and I had to, I was off work. I would go back to work and my body would just give way. And I'd go back two days a week, three days a week full days. And then I get to the point where I'd be full four days and then I'd get sick again and literally be back on the couch so unwell that I couldn't actually get to work. And I have another month off. And so it was just this, at some point, my body said, if you don't listen to me, You're going to be very unwell. Yeah, so that was, but that just, I was, I turned 40 and I was into my 40s and my body was just like going, we can't do this anymore. So in 2018, that was when, I resigned from my job because I was so unwell and my lease had run out on my house and it, the owners wanted to occupy the home and, and I was. Just basically waiting around for the, my next medical appointment, my next blood test. Yeah. And and a specialist at that point I had five specialists and the main specialist said to me, he diagnosed me with an autoimmune disease, said it can take six to 12 months to get on the right treatment. And then if that's the case you won't be able to go back to work until we get you on the right treatment. So I was, I had nowhere to live. Because the rentals out where I live were quite high. I was now on 80 percent of my income because I was on income support payments and through my insurance and I couldn't get another rental. So my sister made a flippant mark. She said, Oh if that was the case, she said, I'd just get a car and caravan and travel around Australia. And my intellect said, no, I can't do that. But living in a caravan and going and visiting you sounds like a good idea. And so that's what I did. I got a four wheel drive. I got a caravan. This is all using my savings. And then, Yeah, just lived paycheck to paycheck and moved up and just moved up the east coast of Australia. But once you're on the, what they call the traveler's roads, so you're meeting a lot of families that are traveling around Australia with their kids in their caravan. A lot of them, including my relatives were saying, are you going to travel around Australia? Cause this is a thing, right? It's a gray nomad thing in Australia, around Australia. And and my initial reaction was no. No, I'm just going north on a holiday while I'm undergoing medical treatment. And because intellectually I couldn't fathom all the medical stuff that had to do. Also having a 14 year old daughter who was homeschooled by that point, like that was just all too hard. I was just going to visit my best friend and in Rockhampton and visit my sister in Townsville and and just keep going up the coast. I've got family out there. Far North Queensland. And, if I got all the way to the tip of Queensland, that would be a good goal. I just really wanted to get to the very tip of Queensland just to say on my bucket list that I've been all the way up to what they call Pajinka. And and then I friends in Rockhampton said, Oh, we've been up there, but if you get to the tip, you might as well hop on the ferry ride and go over to the Torres Strait Islanders and visit there they've got a pub over there. It's the highest pub in Australia. You've gotta go and visit that if you got that far. So every time I went, someone gave me a new destination to get to. And, yeah, I, in 2020, 2018, I traveled around Australia. Okay. Just following one decision, one tip at a time. Yeah. I never set off with the intention. Oh, it was like a pipe dream, but anytime anyone asked me, are you traveling around Australia? I'd be like, nah, that's silly, Yep. And. And. And I had a plan to come back once they, once my specialist said, Oh once you start this particular drug, which is a form of chemotherapy, she's you can't travel around Australia. And cause I was putting everything on a Facebook page just to keep everyone up to date as to where I was happening. Cause people, obviously I had a lot of naysayers saying, you can't put that on your daughter. Fancy traveling around Australia when you're so sick and your daughter's going to have to take care of you. And it's just crazy. So I had all the naysayers then. And then yeah. And then, so I had a Facebook page to let everyone know I had to let everyone know when I was leaving a destination and when I was arriving, cause everyone was so worried about me. And of course my specialist followed along. So when I flew back to Brisbane for one of my specialist appointments, and she looked at all my blood work and all my treatment, she said, you know what, I think you're going to have to start this particular chemotherapy drug. And you know how I said you couldn't travel. She said, I've been following you and I think if you do this, and this, you can continue traveling. Okay. That's interesting. That's dedication that she actually followed you. That's interesting, isn't it? Not many doctors would do that. Yeah, so for four months, I was under the impression that this therapy was coming up. And if I did, then I would have to come back. But the reality was, That my specialist gave me permission to keep traveling. Did I need any approval? I got approval from my specialist to keep traveling. And so in, in my mind, I then changed from, Oh no, I have to come back. I have to come back. There's no way I can go all the way around to woohoo. We're going all the way around. I was very unwell, but I would have been unwell sitting on the couch at home. Yeah. Yeah. And. Looking back on this trip around Australia, how do you feel about it? Oh it was incredible. It was definitely I called it a trip of a lifetime and it definitely was that and, would do it again in a heartbeat. But yeah. Do you think that it helped you stay positive and get better? It made me realize that I can overcome a lot of things. There were times when I was really unwell and I would just have to stay put for two weeks, when I was in, the desert, northern Territory when we went to Uluru and there was all these westerly winds that came in, like now, and what it does, it brings all the germs from the desert and, and for visitors and like backpackers and, they can get what they call the 30 or 60 day cough. And so it's, you just literally have this dry cough that goes on for 30 days and then miraculously at the end of 30 days, but there was times where, there was concerns with my health because I was on immunosuppressants that I could end up with pneumonia and. I had to really slow down so I couldn't just move every four or five days to visit a new destination. I had to stay places for two weeks because I was just so unwell and just really take care of my health. There was when we got to Darwin we literally just spent basically, it was so hot. Which really affected my health and we just basically still had this 30 day cough. My daughter and I basically just spent a week sleeping in our caravan. Because we just was so unwell with this cough and I almost turned back then to come back to Queensland. But then I thought, no, let's just get to Broome. Let's just get and see how we go. We can always turn around and come back or Yeah, I just wanted to get to the west coast of Australia at that point in time, just having that next destination, following that next destination. And by the time we got to Broome, the cough just disappeared. Okay. Yep. Energy was back. The sunsets amazing. The water over there. If. West Australia is just a beautiful state. And my daughter and I had the best time, swimming and snorkeling and, yeah, so that was I was so glad that I pushed on and just ended up going to Western Australia. Yeah, it was one of those, yeah, one of those times where it was like intellectually I went, no, I'm just going to go with my gut. We'll just head to Broome and see how we go. And yeah, it turned out being good, but that was the whole trip, right? The whole trip was constantly fighting my intellect, and having to just go, no, let's just see how we go. Yep. Let's, just trust the process. Although everything's telling me to stop, turn around, go back, do the secure thing, do the intellectually I'm gonna be safe. Because trusting your gut and following that is sometimes feels unsafe. Yes, absolutely. Understand that. And yeah. And at the end of. 2020, 2018, I had traveled around Australia, I'd been to every state and territory. And although I felt, exhilarated I'd accomplished this huge thing that I'd never set out or intended to I went and saw my specialist expecting to see my results being amazing because I felt amazing and yeah no, the test all came back saying that I, inside, I was still really unwell. Okay. Yep. And that's an important distinction, isn't it? Because you felt good, but there are some practical realities that you still have to deal with and help your immune system. And this is a long term thing, but you can still live life and enjoy it whilst you're going through this yeah. Allowing your body to heal, right? You can still live life. Whereas, yeah, I think that's a really good, fascinating, interesting insight because so many people do just regale themselves to the couch. But yeah, you can still live life while you're healing. Yeah. And I had this mindset when I started out that I just wanted my old life back. But just give me the pill, tell me the program I'm going to do. I'll do it. I'll do it. Just give me my old life back because that's mentally what I wanted, but my body was telling me that I needed a new life, And that took a long time to grieve the loss of my old life and my old body. But would I trade what I've got now for my old life? No. I now have a new life based upon what my body can do or my body allows me to do. And I think everyone has to go, if you were talking about turning 50, I think everyone at some point, because of the way that our body ages has to go through that. You look at professional sports, athletes who have to transition from being this 20, God or goddess, they can accomplish so much with their body. But at some point their body just starts saying, no, it doesn't recover. It gets injuries and they've gone from that peak pinnacle. physical period of where they were lauded upon because that's what society does. That lauds those type of God and Goddesses of physical, because we've just seen the Olympics, and, Thinking of Hugh, Jackman he's 50 and he's just had the abs of steel on a movie and they've just been flashing it all over the internet. And but the, that is not possible for the normal people. And it's not possible for his co star either. Look at Ryan Reynolds. He's like the famous Deadpool Wolverine dance. Bye bye bye bye. He's that's not me in that suit. If you think I can do that with arthritic knees, no, that's a body dance double, so even in a double duo, one of them, yes, can do the miraculous, but the other is just Hey, He's a freak. I'm not the freak. I'm the ordinary guy. Yeah. You talked to Hugh Jackman about what he physically had to do to get to that place. It's inhumane. It's not something that can be sustained either. They, had this whole routine up to that point where he was so body lean that you can see his muscles through his skin. But then he stopped, that eating program. He went back to, he went a normal body. He wore a suit, to hide the fact that he didn't have that lean body mass anymore. And I, don't have I don't, have a problem with people who do that. I don't want to come across as body shaming at all. If that's what you want to do, just remember that it's not sustainable. We, can't sustain having a 25 year old body. Where we quickly recover, we don't get injuries and and sportsmen all have to go through that once they go through that whole, I get injury after injury and then no longer held up on the screen and people cheering on them because they're now injured and old and, and not muscle toned or ripped because they can't work out eight hours a day. They're physically not capable of doing that. And I guess I always say that I went early because I stopped dying my hair went to the natural gray. I stopped getting my nails done because I was putting all this toxic chemicals through my body and I was trying to figure out what was making me sick. So I just went, I stopped wearing makeup, and cause I just didn't want to have to conform to the beauty standards of being a corporate worker anymore. I, had all of these issues with my joints and my back. And so I stopped wearing high heels, wearing suits and the medication that I was on made me when you're on this particular drug, your weight can go either way. I thought, Oh, if I was on a chemotherapy drug, I will get skinny. Cause that's what in the media. And no because of the steroids and the drugs, I actually put on a lot of weight. And I had moon face, my glasses used to sit on my cheeks I can put a finger behind, but my face was so puffy that when I wore my glasses, they actually rested on my cheeks. And that was all because of the drugs that I was on. And and when you put on weight due to steroids, it's actually really hard to get it off. Then I had to have a new body acceptance because I was traveling with a teenager who wanted to swim all the time. All these beautiful spots. And was I going to hide my body away because I didn't conform anymore? And now I I put on 20 or 30 kilos because of the drug therapies I've been on for the last six months. I'm just going to have to go out into the sun and wear my full piece suit and be proud of my, health. Not my body and that I could actually get into the swimsuit and I can actually walk to the across the sand because we have mobility issues. Walking on sand is really hard. And then to get in and swim in the ocean, the reward was just being able to swim in these beautiful spots and yeah. thermal pools and in Northern Territory where it's warm beautiful gorges where the water was freezing, but you had these thermal heating water coming through the rocks, am I going to miss out on all these beautiful experiences because I don't fit, Body conformity ideas. No, I didn't. I put my bathers on and I went swimming, my body could take me. And I, did that with my daughter. Cause I realized at one point when I was traveling, like I had to be her friend. I can't just hide away and sit on the couch. And while she goes off and hangs out with her friends and does all the physical activities. No. When I took her around Australia, I actually had to be her friend. So I had to do that. Things that she wanted to do. So at one point we did when we were in far North Queensland, we did this, where we had to wear a harness and we got flung from one tree to another. I'm like, I was just like, okay, this is going to hurt, but it's only going to be for a couple of seconds. I had to do that for her because that's something that she wanted to do. So I'd take her to an old museum and she'd have to wander around board and that's something like a zip line. It's going to hurt, but it wasn't going to kill me and it was only going to be for like half a day. But I had to do that for her because I had to make the trip interesting for her. Yeah. Yeah. I took her out one and we always had these things. So I took a while watching where we could swim with the whales. We were supposed to swim with shark whales, but we were too late in the season for that. But they went out and I had to say that. Yeah. Yeah. The guy who's taking his ad, I'm like, I'm not sure if I can get in and out of the boat. And he said, Oh, don't worry. We have plenty of 80 year olds. He said, all you have to do is just float. He said we'll pick you up. We'll drag you in and we'll get you up onto the boat. So I had to always talk to people about what physically I could and couldn't do on this trip and for a lot of people, they would stay home and sit on the couch because they would just assume that it would be too hard for them to do something physically. And not even us. Why I had to ask, I had to ask for help. I remember one where we went swimming in Lake Argyle and I had to talk to the operator about, I don't think I would have the physical strength to they had a ladder to get up the back of the boat and I said, I don't think I'd have the physical strength to hold on and to walk up this ladder. And they were like, don't worry, we have a whole heap of people. We'll have someone pulling one arm and the other one pushing your bum. We'll get you out of the water. Don't you worry about it. And and yeah, so then when I got on the tour boat and they were like, we've got you covered. Just don't drink too much alcohol and I'm drinking alcohol and they're like, okay, cool. Yeah, they didn't want to have to, cause they've got plenty of drunk gray nomads out of. Yeah. So I was going to be no problems to them as long as they could get me out. So yeah. Where was this whale experience? The whale experience was in Western Australia at a place called Exmouth. Okay. Sounds amazing. Yeah. And the lake tour, cause my daughter loves swimming, so we always found all these swimming opportunities when we could. And the other one was Lake Argyle, so we did a sunset tour. And where we got to jump off the back of the boat and swim around with, floaties. Big pool noodles. So that was cool having a can of soft drink in the lake while the sun sets. So it was, yeah, gorgeous. We, and then I spent two days in bed because that was the only day I could book that on was the day that I had my chemotherapy tablet. And I was generally quite physically unwell for the next two days afterwards. But Yeah, so I just stayed in bed for two days while she caught up on her schoolwork. So yeah. Okay. Yeah. Wow. All right. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Just take those moments and just be honest. It's so hard to ask for help. So yeah, that's just provided me with so many bits and pieces, so many bits of food for thought and, part of the joy of being somebody who interviews people in a podcast is because whilst you're telling me stories like my guides are like, did you hear that? Did you hear that? Did you hear that? Yeah. What about that for you And can you apply that to your own life? I have multiple things that I then go away and process, but yeah, even for the listener, I'm sure they'll be like, wow. Yeah. Imagine how many things that I've turned back because I was too afraid to ask for help. And yet. The only way you get to enjoy the exciting experiences is to ask for help. So that's, yeah, really fascinating and inspiring. And what's next for you? I could just preface it though. It's easy to ask for help when it's a stranger. Okay. Yep. True. And they don't know you and they're not going to judge you. It's very easy to ask for help. But when it's in your close knit community and it's friends and family and it's people who you worry are going to judge you, yeah, it's very hard to ask for help. So I just want to preface that. Yeah. Yep. Yep. I think we all understand that. What's the final story you'd like to leave us with, or maybe words of wisdom for people who are either facing a situation like you have, or just in the midlife with trusting their intuition, what would you like to wrap up with? Sure. It's just more, I think as we age, we learn that our life is all about lessons. And so instead of, because I said this the other day to to the lady I bought the tiny house off. She was also going through her own life crisis, hence the reason why she was selling the office and she was downsizing and. And I said, up until, isn't it funny, up until you're in your forties, you feel like you've got plenty of time in life. And you have all these plans and whether it's, getting an education and following a career path and then changing the career path and having another plan. Whether you've got career goals and personal goals whether you want to be and the best at question or whether you want to renovate your house to, or your goal is to live by the river whatever it is, up until. Your mid forties, it's all about, you are in charge of your life and you can make your own destiny. And then at some point in, and I think this is what midlife crises are, that you realize that your life is all about lessons and you're not in control and you're not in charge and you just be making the most of it. And now you realize you're in the second half of your life and you've watched people leave this earth and through no fault of their own. And, and you've been given words of wisdom from people who've passed on or people who are leaving the earth, whether it's through cancer or whatever accidents. And there's a lot of luck involved in your life up until that point. And so now you want to spend. The second half of your life, enjoying it and following that luck or the lessons or it's all about and this is like middle ass middle aged men, middle ass, middle aged men, who, Turned a woodturning, they've had the biggest corporate career, they've reached the pinnacle and all of a sudden they decided they want to be a woodturner or the corporate lawyer who decides that she wants to be a yoga teacher. Some of us are so lucky that we realize that life is about luck. And it's about the lessons and you want to spend the second half of your life, regardless of where your income comes from, learning life's lessons. And if you can giving back, giving back to the society that gave you such a good, lucky start. And that's, and, if you are, then good for you. There is also a lot of people who are just surviving. And they just they just want to limp to the end of their life with with being able to scrape together meager experiences of whether it's being able to afford to go to a music concert or go camping or you spend time in nature or learning a new art or learning a new language something that's within their control, something within their power. They want to spend the second half of their life really enjoying the last. Bits that they have when, what they have here in this, whatever this society, whatever the community, whatever culture they're in, they just want to learn to make the most of it. I guess is what the second half of your life is. First half is ambitious and goals, and you're going to make something of yourself. And the second half is that's just rare. That's rare and a lot of it comes from, generational wealth that allows you to get to be at the pinnacle of your career or life or wealth or whatever it is that society tells you should be. And then the second half is Oh, I want to be the best seller, or I want to be the best bowl maker, or I'm going to, reach Nirvana with yoga and teach it to as many people as I can. I think that's what the second half of our life is, is, learning the lessons that, we want to learn. Yeah, fabulous. Thank you, Rochelle. And I'm going to link to your YouTube channel so that and your blog that'll be in the show notes. If anybody has any questions about the realities of tiny house living and that following that urge Rochelle is the volunteer president of the Australian tiny house association, which is a not for profit organization. Advocating for the legal recognition of a new hybrid house topology. And we haven't even got there today, but we're about at the hour already. You can contact Rochelle via her, YouTube page or a website and find out to your heart's content about the tiny house component. But thank you so much for taking the opportunity to spend some time with us and help people see the joy in their lives. Namaste. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. You're welcome. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.