Get Shucked with The Oyster Sisters

Taryn Brumfitt, Dr Gemma Munro, and Mia Handshin

For the record, we aren’t sisters. We’re friends who share a passion for unleashing an ocean of love by embodying radical authenticity as the path to soul-growth. In this podcast, you'll discover some deliciously juicy conversations in which we share our own real and raw life-stories with the intention of supporting you to love your wobbly bits, grow through life's grit and learn from the pearls that are worth treasuring.

Episodes

  1. 09/18/2024

    Unpacking Australian Of The Year

    It is was 7pm (ish) on the 25th of January, 2023. Gemma was on her porch eating chicken. Mia was on her couch drinking espresso martini’s. Taryn was in Canberra being announced as Australian of the Year.  What followed was an epic year for Taz and her team at The Embrace Collective including 90 odd flights, hundreds of keynotes and appearances, tens of thousands of fist bumps, 1 million children reached, and many millions more parents, teachers, coaches and leaders now better equipped to address the epidemic of body image distress in young people.    In this episode, we dive deep into Taryn’s reflections on her experience as 2023 Australian of the Year. You’ll hear behind the scenes stories of how Taz dealt with intense public scrutiny, grappled with targeted critique, and struggled not to swear all year.  As her chicken-eating, espresso-martini-drinking mates serve up some tasty questions, Taz dishes out the facts and her feelings about the year, dares to share some of her “head lines” (her inner monologue) behind the newspaper headlines, and declares her enduring commitment to ”fierce kindness”. She also reveals some juicy and hilarious stories that you’re not going to want to miss. (Pssst…something to do with singing with the B52’s and stealing from the White House!)  Listen as we explore Taryn’s pearls of wisdom about leadership, how “pottering” became her word of 2024, and how she edits Michelle Obama’s famous quote about highs and lows to get real about the “mess in the middle“.   We do need to warn you: Taz had to hold her swear words in for a whole year. In this episode, she does, therefore, let a few rip. You’ll be pleased to know, on the matter of letting rip, that she did NOT, and we repeat, she DID NOT fart in the White House. That said, you may wish to take care with sharing this episode out loud if you’ve got little ears around.

    44 min
  2. Holiday Break

    06/18/2024

    Holiday Break

    One bright, sunny day in January, we three were enjoying brunch together following a delightful morning of boogie boarding. We left the cafe in our separate cars then, moments later, the planet seemed to stop rotating on its axis. Taryn spotted a nasty car crash, realised the crumpled car belonged to Mia, and jumped out of her moving car to be with her friend. Gemma received a call from Taz’s husband Tim, slammed on her brakes and raced to the scene. Police cars, fire engines and ambulances were called. Mia had sustained a serious spinal injury, and was taken by ambulance to hospital.  In this episode, we dive into what happened that morning, how it has impacted all of us, and share some of the pearls of wisdom that have emerged from the experience. Although the concept of post-traumatic stress is familiar to us, research by psychologists over the past 25 years has shown that negative experiences can result in *positive* changes, including recognising personal strengths, discovering new possibilities, improving relationships and appreciating life more fully. Post-traumatic growth is possible, and Mia’s experience is a wonderful case study.   At the time of recording this episode, Mia was in the early stages of recovering from her spinal fracture and deep in the messy middle of meaning-making. Despite that, you’ll hear us bring a healthy dose of healing humour to this episode, without any pretense about the fact that it has been a painful and disruptive time. Listen as we explore some of the golden highlights, including how Mia is learning to receive the support of friends and family, to see herself and value her life energy more fully, and to reframe her relationship with her body. Plus, if you’re wondering how to be an expert companion for others in the aftermath of adversity, you’ll definitely want to tune in to see how Gemma and Taryn encourage curiosity, listen actively, and offer compassionate feedback. Some gentle advice: this episode contains discussion of a traumatic event, including depictions of a car accident and resultant injuries, so you may wish to take care in choosing the most appropriate moment for you to listen.

    40 min
  3. Pleasure

    02/28/2024

    Pleasure

    What lights you up? Gives you the tingles of pleasure and juicy feelings of joy?  With so much gritty-shit going down in the world, we wondered if it'd be inappropriate to talk about this topic. As if it were forbidden. Self-indulgent. Tone-deaf. So we delayed releasing it! Then, we realized; this is exactly the kind of guilt and shame-game that so many of us grew up playing with pleasure. All the more reason, amidst the heaviness, to shed some light on lightening our loads by investing in more play, and prioritizing pleasure.       In this enlightening episode, Mia opens up about how a message from a primary school teacher had her deferring delight until a re-education in her 40's. Taryn passionately proposes taking pleasure into our own hands by creating an everyday “sparkle list”, instead of deferring our heart's-desires onto a "bucket list" that often gets left until we’re too old to realize it. And, although red-rooms don’t rate a mention, Gemma confesses to once owning a red-book in which she noted daily sources of pleasure-tingles. Speaking of which, Gemma goes all the way by declaring that it’s time for women to reframe their relationship with self-pleasure, suggesting that we rename it, in order to reclaim it.   Yes...yes....yes! Is what you’ll be saying alot more after listening to this episode. But most of all, we hope you’ll be inspired to listen alot more to YOU. And to pursue what feels good and fills you with the joy and delight that you’re so deeply worthy of.

    29 min

About

For the record, we aren’t sisters. We’re friends who share a passion for unleashing an ocean of love by embodying radical authenticity as the path to soul-growth. In this podcast, you'll discover some deliciously juicy conversations in which we share our own real and raw life-stories with the intention of supporting you to love your wobbly bits, grow through life's grit and learn from the pearls that are worth treasuring.