Natalie Stockdale · 45 min
After losing 7,000 sheep to drought, her marriage, and then her health to breast cancer, Natalie Stockdale turned three devastating Ds into a toolkit for resilience that now helps others rise from their darkest moments.
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Natalie Stockdale lived through three devastating experiences, each starting with D: drought, divorce, and disease. In her twenties, she and her husband bought a 60,000-acre sheep and cattle station in outback Queensland during the 1990 drought, believing rain would come and wool prices would recover. It didn't. For years, she watched 7,000 sheep starve and helped shoot 2,000 of them. Yet during those brutal years, she used tools without naming them: calling a neighbour by phone once a week, gathering with other station families, gratitude for her animals and her home, walks at sunset. These kept her steady.
When the marriage ended after 18 years, Natalie moved to Melbourne for work as a humane educator while her three daughters stayed behind with their father. Surrounded by millions of people, she became profoundly lonely. She had lost the tools that had sustained her through drought. Within 18 months, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The oncologists called it random, like being struck by lightning. Natalie refused to accept that answer. She studied the link between stress and disease and discovered that holding onto negative emotions for years had compromised her immune system.
Now Natalie teaches 25 specific resilience tools drawn from her own life and from the stories of 55 Australians who have risen from hardship. She writes books, runs workshops, and helps others build a bank of tools before crisis arrives. Her message is simple: we all have a hero within us. We just need to find the tools that work, hold fast to what we believe, face reality as it is, and never give up.
“we all have a hero within us sometimes we just need to become aware of it and tap into our inner hero”
“it's not like she just went through the one thing you know she went through these big things and how she navigated each of those and and got through each thing to then take her to the next step”
“with droughts it's very Insidious and a slow slow death and long-term suffering and it wears you down it certainly wears the animals down”
The hero, today
Natalie lived through three major fractures, drought, divorce, and disease, and noticed that in the drought years she used tools without naming them consciously: calling a neighbor by phone once a week, gathering with other station families, gratitude for her animals and her home, walks at sunset. These kept her steady when what broke her in the city was the absence of these exact things. When Natalie's marriage ended and she moved to Melbourne, she stopped living in a way that matched her values. Her inner world (yin) no longer reflected her outer world (yang), and that mismatch created another layer of stress that she believes contributed to her cancer. Natalie asked her oncologists why she got cancer and they said it was random, like being struck by lightning. She chose to dig deeper and discovered the link between holding stress and toxic emotions for years and the collapse of immune function, and this knowledge led her to change how she lives completely. The tool Natalie calls the Stockdale Paradox combines two things: holding fast to the belief that you will prevail, while at the same time facing the reality of your situation head-on without denial. She saw this in her own life during drought and in the stories of people like Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, who knew prison would be hard but never gave up. Natalie carried a question from a client for years: how do other people find happiness and make the pain go away? When COVID arrived, she used the time to write a book exploring that question by collecting stories from 30 Australians, then 25 women, and distilling from all of them a list of 25 tools she now draws on when hardship arrives. After everything, Natalie's creative purpose shifted from serving animals to fostering love and kindness to animals, to nature, to each other, and to herself. She believes the world would be better if people chose peace and chose to be kind, because these are choices available to all of us.
Yes. Natalie Stockdale is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
Natalie lived through three major fractures, drought, divorce, and disease, and noticed that in the drought years she used tools without naming them consciously: calling a neighbor by phone once a week, gathering with other station families, gratitude for her animals and her home, walks at sunset. These kept her steady when what broke her in the city was the absence of these exact things.
When Natalie's marriage ended and she moved to Melbourne, she stopped living in a way that matched her values. Her inner world (yin) no longer reflected her outer world (yang), and that mismatch created another layer of stress that she believes contributed to her cancer.
Natalie asked her oncologists why she got cancer and they said it was random, like being struck by lightning. She chose to dig deeper and discovered the link between holding stress and toxic emotions for years and the collapse of immune function, and this knowledge led her to change how she lives completely.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 00:07
Welcome to the Kintsugi Heroes podcast, where we share inspirational stories of everyday people going through different challenges and how they overcome them. Please be aware that the story you're about to hear may have moments of deeply felt emotions and personal experiences. If anything you hear has a triggering effect, please reach out to someone who can help keep you safe. If you love this conversation, we'd love you to like and share it with your friends so we can continue to share more inspiration and hope to as many people as possible. Now listen up for our next hero story. What a beautiful story this one is. The conversation I had with Natalie Stockdale, this amazing journey that she went through and has been on. And she's got these signposts, and she calls it the 3 Ds: D for drought, being in the Australian outback, D for divorce, and D for disease. These 3 phases of her journey, quite monumental and very big. So it's not like she just went through the one thing, you know, she went through these big things, and how she navigated each of those and, and got through each thing to then take it to the next step and the next step is really what highlights for me the strength of who she is and her character. And now she's a resilience coach, which is no surprise because she is such a strong woman. She's been through a lot and yet she's just such an accepting, loving, grateful person and It was just a joy to speak with her. She's got a brilliant story. I know you're going to love it. This is Natalie Stockdale. Hi, it's another episode of Kintsugi Heroes. Welcome. And I'm here today with Natalie Stockdale. Natalie, hello and thank you for being my guest today.
Natalie Stockdale (Guest) · 02:18
Hello, Evelyn. Great to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 02:21
You're welcome. Very grateful. And I always am in awe of the people, the heroes, really, the heroes to me that come along and share their stories. It's not always easy to share a story, and it requires an amount of vulnerability and bravery. So I just want to honor you for coming on today to share your story that will give others inspiration and hope.
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The tool Natalie calls the Stockdale Paradox combines two things: holding fast to the belief that you will prevail, while at the same time facing the reality of your situation head-on without denial. She saw this in her own life during drought and in the stories of people like Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, who knew prison would be hard but never gave up.
This conversation includes growing up in the country, sent away to school, teaching in the bush, chasing freedom and adventure, buying a station in outback queensland, both optimistic and naive, alone in the outback for weeks, watching animals die slowly, using phones and neighbors to stay connected across empty land and selling the station and chasing dolphins in the bahamas.
Natalie Stockdale (Guest) · 02:43
Well, thank you very much. I think we're all heroes, actually. I think everyone has a hero within them. Because we've all recovered, we've all recovered from adversity. So I think there, yeah, we all have our inner hero. Sometimes we just need to become aware of it and tap into our inner hero.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 02:59
Thank you for saying that. I couldn't agree more. Well, this is about you and your story today, so I'm going to hand over to you and ask you to take us back to the beginning of your story.
Natalie Stockdale (Guest) · 03:10
Okay, thanks, Evelyn. I might start with, um, earlier on with, um, my childhood. I grew up in the country and my parents sent me to boarding school in Melbourne for 6 years. I boarded for 6 years and I actually hated boarding school, to be honest. I felt like I was imprisoned and I could not wait to get out and have freedom. So I had to stay in Melbourne after boarding school for compulsory education. My father said, "You're not to go anywhere, not to leave Melbourne until you're educated." So I thought the plan that came to mind was if I became a teacher, then I could teach anywhere in the world. I didn't have to be stuck in a city because I developed a very quick aversion to cities after being in boarding school. So I finished teachers' college and then I took off up to the Northern Territory and wanted to get— I wanted to go to the bush and to isolated areas for adventure and also to work with Aboriginal children. So I taught in a very isolated Aboriginal school in the middle of the Northern Territory. And then from, from there I went over to, over east to Queensland, to Outback Queensland, to Longreach area. And again, I wanted adventure and I wanted to teach and, and I wanted to be in the bush. So I taught as a governess on, on a sheep and cattle station in Western Queensland, um, met someone, we married, and, and I taught at School of the Air in, in Longreach when we married. And my husband at the time was an overseer on a sheep and cattle property not far out of town. We both thought, "Oh, this is very comfortable. This is nice." But we both sought more adventure and more challenge. So at the start or early on in the drought of 1990, the drought had already had its bite on the Longreach area. At the same time, the sheep prices, the wool prices collapsed. Land around Longreach was, was really cheap at that time. So we thought this is a good opportunity, perhaps our only opportunity to buy land. So we had a big, big mortgage and we bought a very rundown old sheep and cattle station which was 60,000 acres, about 100, 110 kays out of Longreach on the Thompson River. And we thought, we're both so young. I was in my early 20s, about 23 when we bought the station. And my husband was just a few, few years older, and we're both very optimistic but also very naive. We thought the wool prices will pick up and it's got to rain, it's got to rain soon, we both told ourselves. And it didn't, it didn't rain for, for years. And so I maintained my, my part-time job teaching at School of the Air, even though it was 110 k's to town on dirt road. And my husband was working a lot of the time off the station doing and also getting— making an income. And so I was on the station quite a lot of the time alone, and all my 3 major life challenges happened to start with D. So the first one that I'm about to describe was drought. So those drought years throughout my 20s and 30s were really, really tough. For me, the hardest part was watching the animals suffer. Particularly the sheep and the cattle. We had 7,000 sheep, and most of them died or were shot during the drought. And yeah, I was there alone a lot of the time, and sometimes it'd be weeks, weeks where I wouldn't see another human. But that was okay because I had certain resilience tools that I was applying unconsciously, but they enabled me to cope. So some of those include social contact, even though I wouldn't see people for weeks at a time. We had telephones, so I remember calling one particular neighbor who was a widow who lived next door on another station. We'd call each other once a week and check in with each other. Sometimes when my husband would come home, we'd invite other neighbors over or we'd go to neighbors' places and have social get-togethers. And we'd just savor those moments. Sometimes we'd have picnics on the river, on the very rapidly drying waterhole. And just savour those moments of joy until next time. Gratitude was another resilience tool that worked very well for me in those times. I was really grateful to have a home in the bush, grateful to have my loving and hardworking husband, and also very grateful for my pets. And my animals and pets were very important companions to me at the time, even my little chooks. I had little Bantam chooks, um, that would come, you know, sunset, they'd come up to the veranda and even sit on my lap and be patted. And I had a pet, our pet sheep, um, and, you know, cat and, and our Kelpies and some Jack Russells. So I had quite a menagerie of animals. And they, yeah, they, they, their company I always treasured and was always grateful for. And at sunset, when it cooled down, would I take the animals for a walk along the, the track. Sometimes with— I'd carry a handsaw and cut the mulga branches down for the sheep as we walked along. So although the drought was really tough, I did cope with it with those resilience tools that I just outlined. For people who haven't experienced droughts, I'll just share a brief story which illustrates how sad and how hard they can be. The 7,000 sheep were dying, but very slowly, slowly dying. Like with a flood or a bushfire, both horrific, but it's over quickly. But with droughts, it's very insidious and a slow, slow death and long-term suffering. And it wears you down and certainly wears the animals down. And at one stage, we had to make the decision, what do we do? We still have starving sheep. And we decided to shoot 2,000 sheep when my husband was home, um, one, one weekend. So we set up some portable steel sheep yards about 10 kilometers away from the house, and I was on my horse, my stock horse, and I was walking behind this mob of 2,000 sheep, and we're walking them to what became the killing yards. And my, my husband was also in a, in a ute and picking up the sheep who, you know, who collapsing and couldn't make it, and walk them to the killing yards and my husband had the rifle and he shot them all. I remember riding my horse back to the homestead hearing the bang of the bullets all the way. And it was heartbreaking because it's not really what we were expecting. We were wanting our animals to be flourishing and it was quite the antithesis of that. They were suffering and dying. So over years it does, anyone who's been through really severe Western Queensland droughts. It is tough, but as I said, I did have certain resilience tools that I was very grateful for. So in the outback, in the bush for my 20s and 30s, and then my husband at the time decided he had enough of grazing. So we thought, okay, well, let's start a new way of life. What are we going to do? Neither of us knew, so we thought, let's— follow our hearts and do some— just do something that would really lift our hearts and excite us. So after we sold our property, we both went on our individual dream holidays, and I went to the Bahamas to swim with dolphins. I just always thought that would be a wonderful thing to do, to swim with wild dolphins. So I flew over to the Bahamas, and unfortunately I arrived at the same time as a hurricane, Hurricane Rita, she was called. And so unfortunately I wasn't able to swim with the dolphins, but after the hurricane passed, I was able to sail with the dolphins. And that was the first time I'd ever been on a yacht, first time I'd ever sailed. And then there were the dolphins in the sea, and I absolutely fell in love with the dolphins, of course, but also with sailing and the ocean.— and I thought, "Wow, this is— ocean life is really for me." So that was a turning point. I met my husband back in— he had his experience too when we met back in San Francisco, and I was excited about my experience, he was excited about his experience. So we thought, "Let's create a new life based on these new interests." So we bought a lovely property on the far south coast of New South Wales. And it was, I think it was about 200 acres on a river estuary. And my husband had, he had his business plans with horses. And I ended up buying a yacht and started a sailing charter business with whales and dolphins. I wanted to really share my love and passion for animals, and particularly those animals with people. So I had my sailing charter business for a couple of years, and we were living— I was just so full of gratitude, was so happy. In fact, one of my girlfriends called our home Happy Valley because we had, um, our menagerie of animals, the stock horses that we'd brought from Queensland, um, our kelps and working kelpies, Jack Russells, more chooks. And also I adopted two Pigs who played Wilbur in Charlotte's Web, and they, um, they used to all live together in a, in a big undulating beautiful paddock with a lake. And anyway, life was pretty idyllic, and we had 3 daughters at that stage, and the 3 daughters were going to a nice little bush school. Anyway, I thought, um, and I was grateful, I was so grateful for everything that we had because it was such a contrast to our life in, in the outback. And I was so grateful that the girls were going to normal mainstream schools instead of school of the air. I was even grateful for the wheelie bins. There's a wheelie bin service so we didn't have to take our rubbish into our own big hole in the ground. And I was grateful that we had clean, like really clean water instead of dam water. Because in the bush when we had dam water, we couldn't have white clothes because everything just turns brown. So we actually had clear water and I remember being so grateful for that because it meant that we could have white clothes. Yeah, you know, it was— they were really happy golden times, but they were short-lived. So that brings me to the second D, or second challenge, which was divorce. My husband met someone else and the marriage ended after 18 years— together for 23 years and married for 18 years. And I wasn't ready for that, nor did I have the resilience tools that I needed for that. And I didn't cope with it well. I was stressed and I held on to my stress. And I made— I know now that when you are stressed, it affects your cognitive functions, including your decision-making. So I ended up making poor decisions, decisions that I would do, would have made differently now if I had these, if I had the skills that I now have. So I ended up going down to— I had to close my business, sell the yacht, close the business, and, um, and we had to sell the property as well. It was 2009, GFC, so we lost a lot of money on with everything with the sales. So I thought that if I go down to Melbourne, and by that stage I had a degree in animal welfare. And I thought if I go down to Melbourne, I could start again as a humane educator, teaching people about animal welfare. So I was lucky, very lucky, to be offered a job as a humane educator down in Melbourne. So I went down, and my 3 daughters didn't want to come with me because they I could completely understand they had an aversion to cities because they'd only been in the bush. They wanted to stay in their familiar surrounds. So I made the very tough decision. They didn't want to come with me, so I told them that I've got to go because I've got to provide for them and provide for me and for them. So I went down to Melbourne and they stayed up there in New South Wales with their father. That was absolutely heartbreaking, devastating. I remember driving away and looking in the rear-vision mirror, seeing my 3 girls huddling and crying in the mirror. Still makes me sad when I think about it now. And I went down to Melbourne and it was— even though I was among 4 million people in Melbourne, it was the loneliest time, loneliest experience I've ever had. Down there. But yet I was working as a humane educator and I thought this is— it's meaningful work and I'm being a role model for my girls, you know, to be a provider. So I battled on, I pushed through, and I didn't have the resilience tools that I used in the bush. I wasn't grateful. I wasn't grateful other than being grateful for my job opportunity. I wasn't grateful for anything else. I didn't have friends down there. I didn't have my animals. I didn't have the bush. I didn't have nature. I did exercise, I suppose that was one resilience tool that I applied at the time, but anyway, it wasn't enough. I lacked the tools that I needed to take care of myself. And consequently, 18 months after the marriage broke down, breakup, I ended up with the third D, disease. I ended up with cancer, with breast cancer. So that knocked me down for about a year. I had treatments, surgery. Thankfully, the surgeons did a fantastic job. I had a mastectomy and a rebuild and chose, despite all the pressure, I chose not to have chemo. I just wanted the cancer cut out, and then I just wanted to be left alone and to rebuild my health alone. That was just my choice. I'm not by any means saying this is what you should do, but that was what felt right for me despite the pressure. By the way, there was so much pressure by the medical industry to have more treatments including chemo, but anyway, that's aside. So I had survived the cancer. When I was recovering from the mastectomy and rebuild, that was a major operation. It's called a tram flap reconstruction. Some of the women who might be listening might have had experience with tram flap reconstruction, but it's quite a no-cuts a lot of muscles through your core and transplants that flesh from your belly area into the breast area. And it takes quite a long time to recover. I remember not being able to walk for about a week. And you know what, while I did recover, I thought I don't want to stay home and be miserable thinking about myself. I thought I want to use this time of my healing time to help animals again. And so there was a campaign, an issue in South Africa, an animal welfare issue that needed help, needed international help. So I voluntarily flew to South Africa and did some volunteer work helping an animal welfare campaign, which I'm glad I did because now I realize that having a purpose and kindness are actually— they are tools for resilience. So unconsciously, I was actually using those tools for resilience. And then I came back and then I was offered— and I had this amazing opportunity to work again in the animal welfare world for the Jane Goodall Institute, which is an organization that helps to promote protection of great ape chimpanzees, great apes, and also kindness to all animals. I ended up— I had the very good fortune of becoming the CEO of the Jane Goodall Institute Australia, and it was a very meaningful job, and I was so grateful for it. And I was there for nearly 4 years, and then— but all the time I was thinking, "Hmm, why did I become so sick when I've never been sick before and breast cancer is not in my family history?" So I thought, "Why?" And the oncologist— I asked the oncologists why, and they each each of them said, "Oh, it's random. Oh, you've been struck. It's just like being struck by lightning. It's just bad luck." But I thought there was probably more to the story, so I discovered the link between stress and disease. I realized— learned that when we hold on to stress and toxic negative depleting emotions for a long time, it compromises our immune system and opens the door to cancer. To disease, and in my case it was cancer. So I became more interested in personal development and in that link between stress and disease, and also between happiness and resilience. So I ended up resigning from my job and stepped aside from my work for animal welfare, which was a really, really hard decision actually. I felt a lot of guilt. With, with that decision because I thought I'm abandoning animals. Because I always thought up until then my life purpose was to be of service to animals. I really felt that in my heart, and it still actually is in my heart, but I needed to just step aside and go in a different, a different direction. So I resigned, and then I began the study of mind-body medicine and kinesiology and various stress management therapies such as the therapy from the Institute of HeartMath. And, um, I became very interested in, in that and I started my own wellness business or resilience training business called Stockdale Wellbeing back in, uh, 2018. And there I had a, a client and he was suffering from anxiety and he was pacing up and down. He was so agitated, he couldn't sit down. He was walking up and down so agitated. And he said, "How do other people make the pain go away? How do other people find happiness again?" And I thought, "Gosh, they are really good questions." And thinking back when I was going through my challenges of the divorce and all the trauma that that opened for me, I would have loved to have known how do other people rise from that type of trauma. Sorry for the interruption. This is Ian Westmoreland, the founder of Katsuki Heroes, and thank you for listening to this story from one of our amazing heroes. Our mission is for these stories to provide hope and inspiration to people experiencing life challenges and to also educate the broader community on how best to provide support. If you would like to help us continue to produce more hero stories and cover more adversity themes, we would welcome all donations. These can be made via our website, kintsugiheroes.com.au. The donate function is at the bottom of the homepage. We'd also welcome any feedback. You can email me direct using ian@kintsugiheroes.com.au. Now let's get back to the story. I was living on my yacht in the Sunshine Coast and COVID had begun. So I thought, this is a really good time to explore the answers to that question, how do other people rise from pain? So I wrote my first book while on the yacht. And my first book is actually here. It's called Campfire for the Heart. And it's a book of 30 people. They're all Australians, actually, 30 Australians. Including Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, Matt Galinsky, Gail Shan. Quite a few of them I found on by watching Australian Story and Landline. And anyway, it is a book of 30 people and how they've risen from pain. And that brings me to where I am now. In 20 or 2022, I wrote my second book, same theme, but this time with my second book, which is called Campfire for a Woman's Heart. It features the story of 25 remarkable women women and how they have risen from pain and trauma to happiness and peace and self-empowerment. But from both my own life experience and all my study of mind-body medicine and stress management, as well as writing the stories of many, many people who have risen from hardship successfully, I have formulated or distilled a list of 25 resilience tools. And what I do now, when— if I am facing hardships or challenges, which are ongoing, of course, just because we're resilient, it doesn't mean that we don't face ongoing challenges, that challenges and hardships are an inevitable part of life experience. But what I do now when they occur is I think about my list. Sometimes I even actually look at my list of 25 tools and I ask myself, what tools do I need to apply now to help me through and help me rise from this challenge. So I have now accumulated a bank. So my advice to people who are suffering or who maybe have experienced any of those, you know, droughts and divorces or diseases or any other trauma, my advice is to be prepared. Be prepared for pain with a robust bank of resilience tools. Actually write them down. Write them down and draw upon those that you need. And there'll be different tools for different situations. One of the most common that I use is called the Stockdale Paradox. James Stockdale was an American soldier during Vietnam and his plane was shot down. As he was descending down into Vietnam, he knew that his life was changed. He knew that he was going to face hardship. And as he was descending, he knew that he would— that he would— it would not only be a turning point in his life, but it would actually be an experience that he wouldn't trade. He would turn this hardship into a positive experience. And how did he do that? He ended up there tortured and imprisoned for 7 and a half years. Although he suffered, he did manage to survive and thrive. And how did he? One of his main keys, has now become known as the Stockdale Paradox. So he always maintained optimism that he would prevail, he would get through this, but he balanced that with realism. He addressed the reality of the situation. He didn't put his head in the sand. He addressed the reality of the situation and did what he had to do in order to survive, but he never gave up. He never gave up. And I know with Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, when she was in her abyss after she was falsely accused of murdering her baby Azariah. And she was in prison and she was treated very badly in prison. And, um, in the book— before the book, um, Linda shared with me that she also used the Stockdale Paradox. She, she knew it was going to be hard. She didn't pretend it was going to be a holiday in prison. And she was given dreadful jobs, awful jobs to do in prison, but she just rolled up her sleeves and got on with it, faced the reality of it, but never, never gave up. She always knew that the truth would prevail. So that's the Stockdale Paradox. Another very useful tool that I use is acceptance, just accepting what you can't change and finding peace with that rather than resisting, resisting, resisting all the time. I do have a storyteller in my first book, Campfire for the Heart, Bill Brayshaw, he talks about acceptance and how he used it when he was 5 years old. His story is called A Northern Territory Love Story. He's from the Northern Territory. When he was 5 years old, during the war, during the Second World War, they had a Polish refugee staying on their farm. And he said the family all went out working on the farm and every morning their cat would just climb into their wood stove to warm up while the door was open, and then, you know, cat would be warm. And then this one particular morning, the Polish refugee didn't realise the cat's routine and he closed the door on the cat accidentally, or not realising the cat was there, and stoked the stove and burnt the cat. And Bill Brayshaw, a little 5-year-old, came into the kitchen with his family and they could all smell and see that what had happened. And someone opened up the door of the oven, and he said Bill was crouched down looking into the oven, saw the dead cat, burned cat, and he said he turned around to his family who were all looking at him, all waiting for his reaction, and he said he had to accept it. He said there was no, no point, no point in wishing it didn't happen and in becoming distressed about it because it had happened. Acceptance. And he said, never forget the first time he used acceptance, and he used it throughout his life with all the other various, you know, tragedies and challenges that he faced. So that's very important. Detachment is another one. Detachment is when— it's often misunderstood. Sometimes people think detachment means you don't care, but detaching doesn't mean you don't care. Detachment means when you can step back from a situation and look at it with objectivity. You can feel the emotions, but you don't get caught up in the emotions. You don't let the emotions control you. An example of a time where I used detachment was not long after my mastectomy and my rebuild, and I actually— I'm scarred from hip to hip all the way across, and it's quite a prominent scar from the surgery. And I went to a bathers shop, and I wanted— and I asked the sales lady for bikinis that would be high enough to cover my scar. And she said, "Ah, breast cancer these days is just like catching a cold." She said, "You just get a little sniff, then you get over it." And I thought, wow, to myself I thought, wow, that's a really interesting response about breast cancer when, you know, so many women die of it and it impacts probably most of us in some— either directly or indirectly. But But that was her experience, so I practiced detachment. I just paused, thought, well, that's her level of understanding, and let it go. I didn't let it upset me, but I didn't buy her bikinis either. But that's— detachment is also very healthy. Sincere self-care is another one. And I don't mean self-care like lighting a candle, having a bath. I mean really asking yourself how you would like to be treated. It means— sincere self-care means treating yourself as you would treat someone that you really love. So sometimes self-care means asking people— if you're living with someone, it means asking people to understand that you need something, you know, like you need some— 'You need to be alone,' or, 'You need to go and do something.' It's sincere self-care. Having a life purpose is another tool. Almost every storyteller in my Campfire books talk about how their tragedy or trauma has presented them with a life purpose. I think that's very helpful. Steve Parrish is one of the storytellers in the first book. He's the renowned photographer, wildlife and nature photographer. And he talks about a creative life purpose, having a creative life purpose. When we have a life purpose, it helps us to focus on what, what matters to us rather than being just distracted by other things. Um, and our life purpose is dynamic. It can change. Like, mine used to be to, um, to be of service to animals, and that is still very much a part of who I am, but it's not entirely who I am and why I get up every day. Now my creative life purpose is about fostering love and kindness, so to animals, to nature, to each other, and also to ourselves. I think the world would be so much better if we were all kinder and more loving, because we can choose peace. We can choose to be peaceful. We can choose joy. We can choose happiness. It's a— it is a choice.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 33:33
It's so beautiful, Natalie. I mean, you've just shared like what was 4 tools, and already I can see how helpful and important and just so powerful they would be for anybody going through, you know, trauma, adversity, pain, any kind of difficult experience. I've got a couple of questions if that's okay. And thank you also for taking me through your story of the 3 Ds, those phases of the journey. What a remarkable contrasting colorful journey you've had, you know, to be out in the bush, to then move closer to, you know, I guess from Outback Queensland, which is very different from Southern New South Wales. And then of course the city. So you've really experienced the whole contrast of Australia, right, in, in those places that you've lived. And for a majority of Australians, we don't know what drought is like. Those that live in the rural— the, the cities and the East Coast especially, you know, where majority of the population is. And those listening from around the world have probably never experienced drought. And it is, from my understanding, and you described it really well, how it's this very long, slow painful, drawn-out process of waiting, hoping, and then slow death. You, you had the resilience tools then, and you connected with others. Did, did you have someone else or any kind of other help that you relied upon to get you through that, or was it just yourself and your own resilience tools?
Natalie Stockdale (Guest) · 35:10
Social contact was, was very important. So not, not necessarily the physical contact, because we were also isolated living on our various properties. But having the telephone, even the two-way radio, if it did rain somewhere, everyone would go to their two-way radio and say how much rain we had. There was very much a social connection. And when my husband did come home, there was that companionship too. I wasn't alone all the time by any means, but he would go away for sometimes up to 3 weeks at a time where I wouldn't see anyone. Actually, when it did— when the big rains did come, we were caught out, stuck out on our property for 6 weeks at a time. But I wasn't alone then. But yes, social connection always was very important. But that's why I found my time in Melbourne after my marriage ended, that's why I found that so difficult because I was just so lonely and I was really missing my old friends. Another thing that made it so hard for me in Melbourne was I wasn't living authentically. Authenticity is another tool for resilience, and living authentically means that your inner world, your values and dreams and everything that's important to you, is reflected in your outside world. It's, you know, what you do, where you live, the people you associate with, the work you do. That's yin. Yin is the inside and yang is the outside. So when the yin and the yang is not balanced, that is stressful. That's— and that was like another layer of stress which I'm sure contributed to, to my disease.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 36:53
All right, that's— it's so, so good to hear you say this and share it. And, and I love how you explored, you know, after your recovery from the disease and, you know, what caused it and what you're questioning why. And a lot of people don't question why and, and Well done for doing that. Was that the stepping stone then for you to go back and live on the yacht? And then you said you decided to do the book.
Natalie Stockdale (Guest) · 37:20
Um, my— I likened my cancer experience to having a snake inside a house. The cancer was in my body like a snake inside the house, and thanks to the brilliant work of the surgeons, the cancer was removed from my body as like a snake being removed from the house. But I knew, and I thought to myself, if— now that it's removed, if I don't figure out how it got in in the first place, it can come back. So that, that was the— that's what led me to, um, to stepping aside from my animal protection work into, into the wellness work. I just wanted to prevent, or to help prevent, the snake from coming back in.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 38:02
Beautiful analogy, really is. And I love the way you thought about it because it's very conscious and self-loving because you're saying, well, I don't want to repeat this. What do I need to do differently in future to make sure I don't repeat this?
Natalie Stockdale (Guest) · 38:17
Yes, because there are always lessons in adversity, always. And these lessons are the gifts. So I don't look at it— I no longer look at adversity as a terrible thing. I always— there is always a silver lining. There are always lessons, and we grow and become wiser and more experienced and stronger. And I think in in many ways, if we choose, we can become better people from— our characters grow and become— we can become better people through our hardships. So I don't dread hardships anymore. I embrace them and think, what is there to learn from this? How can I grow from this? Always.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 39:01
That's so inspiring. So my question is around the book, actually. What gave you the idea to write the book?
Natalie Stockdale (Guest) · 39:09
Oh, it was that client that I mentioned who was suffering from anxiety, the one who was pacing up and down and who said, "How do other people find happiness and how do other people make the pain go away?" That was, yeah, that was really the impetus. And fortunately, I sat with his questions for years. And then when COVID came and my— I was actually, was only a young business, but I had started running workshops, training people about resilience. And then the had to cancel. And I thought, well, I'm going to use this time to, to explore the questions, to find out how other people rise from hardship. And, and that's— so that's why I wrote the book on the yacht. And again, back to your question about why the yacht, is because when, um, after my marriage ended and I still had my sailing charter— I had my yacht from my sailing charter business, um, and I either had to sell it or, or, um, or keep it, you know, just pay my husband his share of it. And I thought maybe I could, um, sail it down to Melbourne and live on the yacht while I was in Melbourne doing my humane education work. And my father at the time, with good intentions, he was being the protective father, he said, "Natalie, that is the most stupid thing you've ever— most stupid idea you've ever come up with." So I thought, "Oh, all right. I'll just have to do what most people do and rent." So I just sold the— my husband and I sold the yacht and I rented in Melbourne. It— I missed, missed the yacht and missed the water and missed sailing. And yeah, it did take me 11 years before I was in that position again to, to buy a yacht. And oh, I just love it. So now, um, currently I'm living in— I'm living authentically. So I'm living where my yang, outer world, is a reflection of my inner world and my values. So I'm living in the Whitsundays, and, and I have I lived in my yacht for 18 months, but now I'm living in an apartment. But I'm so glad I had that experience of living on the yacht. It's just something that I wanted, really wanted to experience, and I'm so glad I did because there's so many, again, character-growing outcomes from living on a boat and putting yourself outside your comfort zone. It was fun. So, living in the Whitsundays and reminding myself what my creative life purpose is every day. I'm writing books about inspirational people and how they've risen from their own hardships while teaching and hopefully inspiring other people to overcome their hardships. I find it so satisfying when people message me and say, "I've just read your book and story," that, you know, Chapter 12 or Chapter 17 really related to that because of the shared experience and how much it has helped them. That such feedback makes my heart sing and it just makes me want to do more and more.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 42:17
That's beautiful. I can only imagine. As we come to a close, I know you've given tools and lots of story and wonderful supportive messages. But I ask all my guests this, and that is, if there's someone listening to this who has— is experiencing or is going through something similar, like, to any of the elements of your story, is there something you'd like to share with them that might help them?
Natalie Stockdale (Guest) · 42:43
Probably one of the most important— I've already— I think I've already shared about 4 or 5 different resilience tools, but another very important one that I wish I knew many years ago is mastering your thoughts. Open your awareness to your thoughts. Don't just let your thoughts run wild. Open your awareness to your thoughts and ask yourself, is this thought helpful to me or is it harming me? Is it helpful or is it harming? And if it's harming you, if it's not being of service to you, delete it. Delete that thought and replace it with a helpful thought. And of course, never giving up, never giving up, because there are ways to rise. And gosh, and with the interview, you're always interviewing people about their hardships, and I mean writing books about people and how they've risen from hardships. People go through terrible, horrible experiences, and they rise. So we all can. As I said at the very start, we all have a hero within us. We just need to Tap into it. Find your own resilience tools. Draw upon them and never give up.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 43:53
Thank you. Thank you, Natalie. That's just so inspirational, and I'm really grateful for you sharing your story today. Thank you for coming.
Natalie Stockdale (Guest) · 44:00
My pleasure. I'm grateful to you. Thanks, Evelyn.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 44:08
We hope you've enjoyed this episode. Of Kintsugi Heroes. Please like and share the show to your friends so we can get this out to even more people. If you have a story you'd like to share with us, please reach out using the contact details below. And join us next week for our next hero's story. Until then, keep being you, and remember that we are all heroes in our own unique way.
Natalie Stockdale (Guest) · 44:35
Only when it's broken. Only when it's broken. When it hits you in the middle of the night and the truth burns so bright. Only when it's broken. Only when it's broken. Take pride in those cries, it's only for tonight. And then you rise. Only when you're broken. Only when you're broken. Only when you're broken.
You don't have to be in crisis to call.
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