Life Matters - Separate stories podcast ABC listen

In 1970 an eighteen year old, pregnant Lynda Holden took the advice of her doctor who suggested a place she could go to find support. 

As it happened the support came cloaked with disrespect and deception, and she was told her Aboriginality meant she couldn't keep the baby.

Lynda is telling her story in a new memoir, co-written with Jo Tuscano, called This Is Where You Have To Go

Australian swimmer Michelle Ford competed in the 1980 Moscow Games, at a time when the Australian Government did not want their citizens to go and when the East German Olympic team was dominating the pool. Michelle went on to win gold and bronze at those games.

Later it would be revealed that a state-wide campaign of doping athletes was being orchestrated in East Germany.

Michelle Ford-Eriksson has written about her experiences in Turning the Tide, and she wants justice for competitors who failed to be awarded Olympic medals, despite evidence of doping emerging after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

A shopping centre and a church were recently the scenes of two violent attacks in Sydney.

The events were shocking because of what happened, but they were also shocking because of where they happened.

What happens when a place that we think of as intrinsically safe sees that protection broken?

And how can we process trauma when it becomes tied to a particular place?

Stretching across hundreds of kilometres and multiple countries, the Camino de Santiago is perhaps the best known collection of pilgrims' ways in the world and a walk that is said to be like no other.

But what is it like to put one foot in front of the other and set out on a path that will take you many weeks to complete? To follow in the footsteps of so many others who have sought faith, or transformation, or simply a nice long stroll.

When we first start wearing glasses, or get a stronger prescription, it can feel like our previous eyesight is worse than it was.

But do glasses really make our eyes 'lazy'? Or is it all in the mind?

We answer your optometry questions.

Small talk is the bane of many, but these innocuous, shallow-seeming conversations with strangers and acquaintances can be more revealing than we might realise.

We look at the function of small talk in human socialising, why it gets a bad rap, and how to improve your conversation game.