Malcolm Stern: 0:47

Welcome to my podcast, lay your Dragons With Compassion, which I'm doing in conjunction with my wonderful friends at online events, and we're having a range of people on this show, which is about exploring how adversity has shaped our lives and adversity has certainly shaped my life, and we can look on it as a curse. That happens to us, and I think often we get a really, really difficult time when we hit something that's totally adverse. There is always a silver lining and that possibility has the way of shaping us and helping us become what we have the capacity to become. So a big welcome today to my guest, michelle Shine. Michelle, lovely to see you.

Michelle Shine: 1:29

Thank you for having me, malcolm. It's a pleasure, pleasure to be here.

Malcolm Stern: 1:32

Yeah, that's lovely and you've been through quite a lot of adversity, which we'll go into as we go along. But your life has changed a lot from your early days and you've become I've read one of your books and had a look at some of the writings on the other a very prolific writer, profound writer, who does a lot of research on your work, and also a very esteemed homeopath. So you have a range of talents that you've developed. Can you tell us a little bit about what's helped you become who you are?

Michelle Shine: 2:06

Okay, so as far as the homeopathy goes, it started when my son, my, my eldest son, was very sick and he went through the medical rig. He just he just got worse and worse and worse, to such an extent he was fitting all night, every night sometimes, and, um, it was very scary and I never thought. I thought he wasn't going to survive. And at that point, how old was?

Malcolm Stern: 2:48

he at that stage.

Michelle Shine: 2:49

He was about 11. Something like that. And at that point if you would have said to me or anyone would have said to me I think you know, I know this guy, he's out in the jungle, he's a witch doctor, but he might help, I would have gone, because I would have gone anywhere to try and help my son. But they didn't. But no one said that. Somebody did say to me I think you should try homeopathy.

Michelle Shine: 3:17

So I went to see this homeopath and from the moment that I sat there she didn't want to speak to me, which was very interesting, because normally doctors only speak to the parent, they don't normally speak to the child, in my experience. And she only wanted to speak to him and what she wanted to find out was what it felt like to be him in that situation. And she prescribed a medicine based on his subjective symptoms, what he was feeling, what he was experiencing. And although I got reprimanded very, very, very strongly by members of my family who told me basically that if anything happens to him it will be my fault, anything happens to him it will be my fault, I actually took her advice and slowly weaned him off the conventional medication and put him on the homeopathic medication and within I don't remember, it was a long time ago, but within definitely within a year, maybe even a shorter period of time, I can't remember he, his physical symptoms completely um abated. They weren't there anymore and uh, he's not. They've never come back touchwood how old is he now?

Malcolm Stern: 4:42

pardon how old is he now? He's not 12 now he's 45 lovely. Thank you, yes.

Michelle Shine: 4:49

And you know that experience really made me decide that I wanted to give something back, because homeopathy had given me my son back and I wanted to give something back to the community. So I studied homeopathy and unbeknown to myself, because I'm not a great student and I certainly didn't get high marks during my um, my apprenticeship or whatever you call it my learning days in college with with homeopathy. I was certainly, you know, nowhere near the high flyers um, but I, but I. There was something about the subject that it felt inherently right for me and I was more surprised than anyone that I became very successful as a homeopath. I mean, I had a very big practice and that surprised no one more than me.

Malcolm Stern: 5:46

That's lovely and you say you're not a great student, but actually what I've seen in your books is that you're a great researcher, that you're meticulous in your research, and it's interesting because you can be a high flyer who's sort of like um, you know, who sort of like easily passes exams, or you can be someone who absolutely tracks every possible angle and then gets there, and it seems like you've done that in quite a well. We'll look at some more areas of your life as well, and what you're still practicing homeopathy to this day.

Michelle Shine: 6:17

I, after my husband passed away in 2009, I gave up my practice because I couldn't. I couldn't take on anybody else's problems I had. I was too emotionally damaged at that point to carry on, so I just gave away my practice to a locum and I didn't practice for quite a few years, and every so often someone would call me up from an old, old person that I would be have treated at some point not that they're old, but just old from my perspective as time, um.

Michelle Shine: 6:59

And then I and say, you know, um, are you going back to work? Because you know, uh, we've tried this and we've tried that and we know that you can help and this, that and the the other. And I said no, no, no, no, no. And then eventually, I think after about seven, eight years maybe, I said to somebody okay, I'll come and see you in your own home. And so I now have a very small practice where I see people in their own homes and I really like practicing that way and I I love the fact that I don't have a time limit these days. On on on a consultation, I can just sit there until I I understand what I need to prescribe, which is really amazing thing to be able to do. You can't do that in a. You know, if you're, if you're a need to earn a living, you need to. You know, if you need to earn a living, you need to. You know.

Malcolm Stern: 7:54

And you talked about your husband, john, dying in 2009. And I know from our conversations that you had a very, very loving, beautiful relationship, which is quite rare in itself. How long were you married to him, for he was your second husband, wasn't he?

Michelle Shine: 8:11

Yeah, not long enough. Yes, yeah, we were married for about 19 years.

Malcolm Stern: 8:19

Yeah, that's a good length of time to get to know somebody and get to really sort of find out whether you're compatible and clearly you were compatible and I think the manner of his dying was quite shocking and sudden. So what happened?

Michelle Shine: 8:35

if that's okay to talk about that, he had a hemorrhage around his heart area and that was very sudden, unexpected. And that was very sudden, unexpected. And you know, I mean, if anybody could choose a way to die, that is the way to go to just go, you know, and not suffer. But it was far too premature and, you know, missed him to this day, you know.

Malcolm Stern: 9:13

It's funny because I so often hear that if anyone could choose their way to die, that would be the way to go. But actually true, for as an individual, yes, that's um, none of the suffering, none of the sort of having to worry, the heartache, all the rest of it, but for the person left behind there isn't closure.

Michelle Shine: 9:28

And and I wonder how you dealt with that lack of closure for yourself um, well, I never, really ever thought about it in ways of closure, because John is, and was right from the start, still with me, but not in physical presence. Um, and I feel that, especially in the beginning, I would say things that he would say and and he was, just became a part of me in a way, and he's very, he's a very strong presence in my life.

Malcolm Stern: 10:04

Actually, that touches me because when I wrote my book Slay your Dragons, with Compassion about the suicide, of my suicide of my daughter Melissa, yeah, I actually felt like she was writing it with me and it's so weird to have that happen but, I, absolutely knew that her energy was part of the process, and I'm hearing something similar here from you yes, yes, maybe I mean you know.

Michelle Shine: 10:27

So I never so physically obviously he's not here, but in spirit I know he's with me. I know he's with me, I feel it, you know.

Malcolm Stern: 10:38

And you could see that as escapism. But I think in your case I certainly don't see that as escapism. I see it that actually there is a tuning in to the world beyond this world. That has coloured some of your writing, certainly that I've read and that is colouring your work and it's clearly coloured the relationship, which has passed in physical form but not in sort of etheric form.

Michelle Shine: 11:04

Most definitely. I mean, when I first met John, you know it, it was a friend of his his wife asked, you know, said to me, would you, would you like to meet a friend of her husband's? And I said, oh, okay, you know, I wasn't really looking to uh, I just I just got divorced, or I hadn't actually been divorced yet, I just got separated and I wasn't really looking for anyone. But I was very happy to meet, well, anyone. Really, you know, it's always good to meet people. And he came to pick me up and I thought, okay, you know, well, I think I could probably, just by looking at him, I think I could probably spend an evening with you.

Michelle Shine: 11:50

You look like the right type of person kind of thing. And, uh, he took me to a restaurant. It was very early it was. We got there about seven o'clock in the evening, something like that, and, um, we ordered, or he ordered on our behalf, a huge, it was a, a Chinese restaurant, and he ordered like this huge kind of lots of different dishes and bottle of wine and this, that and the other, and we, he captivated me so that I, by 10 o'clock in the evening, I hadn't eaten anything, I hadn't drunk anything, I just was in conversation with him and he also hadn't eaten or drunk anything. And the waiter came over, the head waiter, and he said you know, is there anything wrong with the food? And you know we're closing? And we just wondered and John went no, please give us the bill. And that was the beginning of our relationship. Is that we were captivated, I guess, by each other, because neither of us turned around to eat or drink?

Malcolm Stern: 12:56

That's very lovely, and I've written about falling in love as the temporary lifting of critical faculties, but I'm hearing that actually this is a relationship that lasted 19 years and was continually loving, which is extremely rare. What, what are the components that made it um something that just was effortless, seemingly effortless.

Michelle Shine: 13:22

I think on that evening it was um, it was a vibe, and he was very interesting. He'd done a lot of traveling and I was always very interested in traveling and going to places and um, and it was a um, he drew me in you know, I can't really explain it in any other way where I just felt so connected to him I mean, I've never experienced this with anyone in quite such depth as I have with him at that particular time.

Malcolm Stern: 13:55

It was very obvious so sometimes my relationships were my specialty in terms of therapy in my early days, and I would often say that falling in love is any idiot can do, but loving is is a practice and an act of dedication to the relationship and to another. But what I'm hearing is something beyond that. In this, this relationship that you're talking about, that actually there was a sort of a knowing of each other that happened very early on and and the interesting thing is, it continued, because often we get irritated by what we've been fascinated by. We get irritated by and I'm not trying to sort of paint this with a sort of a rosy color either it's like all relationships have their difficulties as well, but what I'm hearing is that actually it had something that goes beyond this the logical basis of relationships. So can you take that apart from me a little bit?

Michelle Shine: 14:54

well, I I'm not sure you can explain feelings so so readily. Um, you know as that, um, it was a very strong connection in fact.

Michelle Shine: 15:05

Um, people have remarked that when we were in a room together or whatever, um especially when we were hosting an evening or whatever, there was a very strong connection between myself and him. So we had this thing going where we we used to do it together and it was in. We just were automatically in sync with each other. You know I can't really explain that any further and there was always that connection between me and him, no matter who else was in the room, at whatever time. I don't really understand it myself, to be honest.

Malcolm Stern: 15:45

It is lovely and it's also heartening for people to hear, and it's also heartening for people to hear that relationships have the capacity to be very deep and meaningful things, when often I think there's a lot of cynicism has crept into most of the people I know who've trodden that road and become sort of despondent, that what they thought they had was not what they had. So what I'm hearing is from after 19 years what you thought you had was what you had and that sustained in fact, two, two weeks before he passed away, um, we decided to renew our vows.

Michelle Shine: 16:23

Uh, what happened was, john, forgive me for telling this story, you might not want me to, but um, we, we, we spent a lot of years working very hard, both of us, and achieving quite a lot professionally. And you know, sometimes, for example, on the weekends, we would go out to a local restaurant and then just come home restaurant and then just come home, and we never, we never, did things that we would like to have done, like go to the theater, you know, go up to town, go to museums. We, we never really had, um, the spare time for that. Um, we were always tired on the weekends and just would and just spent them together or with friends or family or whatever. And we put that on hold until we retired. We said, oh, when we retire, we're going to do this, we're going to do that, we're going to do the other.

Michelle Shine: 17:22

Of course, that never came about. So I said to him a few weeks before, maybe a few months before Time is funny, isn't it? You just don't really know where about it was. I had a patient who came to see me, who was a teacher who taught tantric sex. And I said to him should we do it? And just you know why, not Kind of you know, we should just do it. To cut a very long story short, we became very, very close for having done that and we wanted to renew our vows and we decided that's what we were going to do and two weeks later he was gone.

Malcolm Stern: 18:11

That's quite an extraordinary set of circumstances, of circumstances. Isn't it as well that it feels like that was an important part of the process of renewing your vows, of actually sort of like of discovering each other at a deeper level? And um, I don't know what I'm forgiving you for saying, because it all sounds really, really good actually, but, um, um, I know that the um, tantra is quite an abused term, in the same way that love can be quite an abused term. But I think that the genuine root of tantra is a very, very deep root that goes way beyond sexuality and clearly that's.

Michelle Shine: 18:48

Yes, I agree. I mean the things that I remember that we did together. We breathed togethered together. You know, looking into each other's eyes, you know he thought it was like really stupid to start off with and lots of giggles and everything. But it took us to a, you know, a place that we had perhaps when we very first met and everything is sort of wonderful, um, and although it was always wonderful, it took us back to that place.

Malcolm Stern: 19:15

You know that, that very special place, that's lovely and, um, uh, and and obviously very nourishing. And that wasn't the end of your, um, of your adversities, was it by a long chalk? Because, um, the word fire comes into my mind and perhaps you could tell me a little bit about what happened, um, in your, in your home oh my god.

Michelle Shine: 19:44

Well, in 2011, two years after john passed away, we we had a fire in in our house and, um, I learned latterly that when we first moved into our house, it was an old, um Victorian house and it's it was completely dilapidated. When we bought it, there were rats in the in the, you know, running around. It was. It was awful and but it was actually. It was an interesting thing because we want, we we'd sold our house and we moved into a rented house and by the time, we had a decent amount of money to buy it, to buy something else. But by the time we found somewhere, the money that we had left and we'd been renting was very, very little and all we had was enough money to buy like a small three-bedroom house in Edgeware or somewhere. And I had, I had three kids plus I had my nephew staying and living with us, so we had four and six of us living in a small, tiny three bedroom. It just would never have worked and I I was really kind of like, well, where are we going to live? John? John was saying, oh, you know, something will turn up, something turn up. We went for a drive one weekend and there was this big house on Hale Lane. I don't know if you know Hale Lane, it's from Edgware to Mill Hill and I said, you know, john, I would even live on this main road because it was a big man road. Um, if I could live in that house.

Michelle Shine: 21:20

And the next week such a strange story, the next week, the, the edgewear of Mill Hill Times plops through the letterbox, because of course we didn't really do it all online in those days. It was much more, you know, physical than that. And I said, ah, let me have a look. And I looked through. I said there's nothing there. And he picked it up and he looked through and there was a tiny little photograph. He said I think you've missed something. I said, really, I don't think so he showed it to me. He said isn't that the house that you saw on Hale Lane? I said, yeah, I think it is. So let's go and see it.

Michelle Shine: 21:57

So we arranged to go and see it and, cut a long story short, we bought it. We just about had enough money to do the whole thing and, you know, make it livable and lovely and and that that was the house. But what we couldn't afford to do was we couldn't afford to get all the electrics rewired properly, and in those days you'd get an electrician to say well, I can, you know, I can kind of just do it, so it all works, kind of thing, which is what we did. Um, and what actually happened was I had a? Um you know, one of those multi-plug things and I had my laptop on one and my hairdryer in the other. I mean, it all wasn't on, but what you could see is that it blew from this one room to the other. Thank goodness no one was in the house and set off a fire. I mean it's madness, but that's what happened.

Malcolm Stern: 22:51

And so you lost everything.

Michelle Shine: 22:53

I lost everything. I even lost my letter that was sent to me by Kate Bush, which I was very sad to lose, and a letter sent to me by Daphne du Maurier.

Malcolm Stern: 23:07

Wow, what were Kate Bush and Daphne du Maurier writing to you about?

Michelle Shine: 23:10

Okay. So I had a friend who was in the music business at the time, who phoned me, who knew that I loved Kate Bush, kate Bush's work. He phoned me on a Saturday my son my son, 45 years old, was three months at the time, so shows you how long ago it was um and said, um, you know, kate Bush is at Abbey Road Studios. And I said what now? She said, yeah, right, right now. It was about 11 o'clock in the morning on a Saturday. So, um, I went, okay. Then I I picked up my baby, I dumped him in my first husband's arms and I said I'll be back soon, got in my car, rushed up to abbey road studios and sat in the car and wrote a note to her and um handed it in to the, to the doorman, or whatever you'd call him, at abbey road studios, and began to walk away. And he said well, wait a minute, you know she might, she might come out and see you. I said, oh, okay. So I sat in the waiting room and, lo and behold, she comes out. She said, oh, thank you so much.

Michelle Shine: 24:20

And in those days everyone smoked. So I had a packet of cigarettes and I offered her a cigarette. She said come inside and we had this long chat. It was really lovely. It was really lovely. Then, um, I I think I put my address and phone number or whatever on the on the letter I handed her and within a couple of weeks, you know, she'd sent me a, a letter saying how lovely it was to meet me and it was very, it was very, very lovely.

Michelle Shine: 24:51

And with Daphne I read all of her books. Um, I loved Daphne DiMoria's work. I absolutely loved everything that she did well, maybe not everything, but most of what she did and I wrote to her via her publisher and she wrote back to me and she said, uh, that you know she sent me pictures of her kids and this, that and the other. She said that these days, because she was really old at that time, that she doesn't get a lot of fan mail anymore, but if ever I come to Cornwall I should come and see her. And of course her address was on there. And so I said to my husband then I said we're going to Cornwall and we went and we went down to Cornwall, we knocked on the front door, but unfortunately she was too ill to see us in those days, so that was a bit of an abortive exercise, but um, but I had those two letters and I don't have them anymore.

Malcolm Stern: 25:51

I'm not sure it was an abortion. That is sad, I agree, but I'm not sure it was an abortive. And that is sad, I agree, but I'm not sure it was an abortive experience. I think there's something that I can see in you that just that jumps at opportunity. So both the story of Kate Bush, where you did actually connect, and with Daphne DiMorio, where it was too late to connect there's still something about you that leaps for gold, that goes for it yes, I'm very much like that.

Michelle Shine: 26:15

If there is an opportunity, I will, I will. I will grasp it, because things don't come around again generally.

Malcolm Stern: 26:22

You know you, if you don't take the bull by the horns when it's offered to you, then you know you're passing up on life yes, well, it's interesting because people often say that they regret the things that they that, um, that they've done, but more often it'll that they regret the things that they've done, but more often it'll be regretting the things they haven't done.

Michelle Shine: 26:38

Absolutely, absolutely.

Malcolm Stern: 26:40

And Frank Osterzeski, who spoke at Alternatives at one point, who wrote a book called the Five Invitations, founded the Zen Hospice Centre in San Francisco and he sat with more than 2,000 people while they were dying in San Francisco and he sat with more than 2000 people while they were dying and he found it. He forged this on what were the things you wish had happened in your life, and for all of them it was the things they hadn't done. That was sort of. That was such a shame. But I hear you you've lived and are living a rich life and I think that's a legacy that you will pass on to your children as well your child.

Michelle Shine: 27:16

Well, I hope so. You know everyone's different, aren't they? And everyone has different ways of living and what they want out of life.

Malcolm Stern: 27:26

Yeah, we are all different, but at some level, we have a basic humanity and I think there's a sense that we educate each other by being in the presence of others who who have their own particular gifts as well, and um, so I'd like to go back a little bit to your, um, to your work, to actually I'd like to go back to your, your writing work oh yeah, what I?

Malcolm Stern: 27:48

saw in your books was a meticulous research that you actually were. Although you're writing fiction, you're writing fiction based on some quite interesting angles. Can you tell us a little bit about what you've written?

Michelle Shine: 28:03

Yes, of course. So my first novel that I wrote was called Mesmerised and it was about the Impressionist artists and their doctor, dr Paul Gachet, who was a homeopath. And I had been researching that book for quite a long time when I was doing my MA in Birkbeck on creative writing. I love the impressionist and I was kind of researching it.

Michelle Shine: 28:35

And after John passed away, I went back to my writing group and they'd all started their novels and they said to me you know, you've got to start your novel. And I said well, I really don't know what to write about. And they said write about that man, dr Gachet. You keep talking about him all the time. And that's what I did talking about him all the time. And that's what I did. Um, I, I, there is a, there is a, um, a mirror image of, um, uh, impressionist art and and homeopathy. At that time they were both, uh, considered to be um, not something that people should embrace. Let let's put it that way Le Beaux-Arts turned their back on impressionist artists and the medical profession turned their back on homeopathy, and I thought that it was a very interesting juxtaposition to write about through the characters that I've been researching, and that's what that's about.

Malcolm Stern: 29:38

I think one of my fascinations with literature and we'll come to some of your other books as well, but one of my fascinations with literature is the capacity it has to educate us. I know, for example, for me reading Herman Hesse's books I don't know if you've read him, but he is a hero of mine and I think he was able to chronicle, through novels, the spiritual journey in a way that I went oh my God, this is actually a map that I can follow.

Michelle Shine: 30:06

And I'm just reading.

Malcolm Stern: 30:07

Right now I picked a book up in the library called Still Alice which is about a woman who goes through Alzheimer's and it meticulously charts what it's like to lose your mind to Alzheimer's and I am so uplifted by that and educated by that. And I'm hearing that you are looking at areas where your interest is. I know some of your books have been nominated for awards or won awards, and how many books have you written?

Michelle Shine: 30:36

I've actually written five novels, but only two of them have been published, and one of them, the last novel that I've written is going to be published next January, and I'm self-publishing that for various reasons. Yeah.

Malcolm Stern: 30:53

So what are the other angles that you've gone to in your five books? What are the other?

Michelle Shine: 30:57

so they're obviously areas of interest and so um so song for Rio, which was published in 2022. Um, it's about the 27 club, which, um you know, if you know about, um, jim Jimi Hendrix died at 27,. James Dean died at 27,. Amy Winehouse died at 27. You know so many, so many artists died at 27 years old and I saw this program on television. And she didn't die at 27 years old.

Michelle Shine: 31:36

But what's her name? Whitney Houston. Oh, yes, her mum was being interviewed Sissy Houston. Now, I used to listen to Sissy Houston's music when I was a teenager because she was like Aretha Franklin or you know, all of those kind of R&B kind of singers and I liked that kind of music. So I tuned into this interview with her about her daughter, whitney, who died, and I was very struck by the relationship, the mother-daughter relationship, and I wanted to explore that myself in literature, which was the subject of Somphoria, which actually turned out to be perhaps the most, according to my daughter, the most autobiographical piece of work that I've written, even though I'm not in that situation touch wood, thank God but there are elements of me in there, I guess, and my family, yeah.

Malcolm Stern: 32:50

Did Janice Joplin also die at 27?.

Malcolm Stern: 32:53

I think so, I think so, I have a feeling that I've read that somewhere as well. So that's another angle of interest that you've actually created as a novel. And I remember my friend, guy Dauncey, who's a futurist, and he said if he wrote a factual book about what was happening to us and where we were going in the future, it was so one-tenth of the copies. That if he wrote a novel about it and actually made it interesting and I know when I read um, um, the, the over story, um, which is a story about the, the secret life of trees, that doesn't sound that fascinating. But it is fascinating and I have never looked at trees in the same way since I read that novel. It was, uh, richard powers, I think, who wrote it and um um it it I. I find that fiction touches me more deeply than factual books, which sometimes I'll read someone, someone like Viktor Frankl, and be blown away by that, or Primo Levi or some of the other people who've written from a deep place of suffering.

Michelle Shine: 33:52

Yes.

Malcolm Stern: 33:53

So the other three, briefly, that you've done and the book you're about to publish. Tell us a bit more about those.

Michelle Shine: 34:01

Okay, so the Separated is a I would say it's a speculative novel and it's based on mental health, Two people with mental health problems, serious mental health problems, who fall in love, which I was told by an editor that would never happen. But that's not the point of the book and that's what it's about and it is a little bit. It does kind of point the finger at the world and the way that the world sees people with mental health problems and how they experience life. So it's a kind of juxtaposition of those two elements.

Malcolm Stern: 34:51

I've been running groups since 2016, an organisation called Compassion and Mental Health.

Michelle Shine: 34:58

Yes, and.

Malcolm Stern: 34:59

I'm the co-host of those gatherings which are twice yearly. And what I found fascinating is that before my daughter passed away through suicide and had serious mental health issues and my sister had mental health issues, I'd avoided that in my practice. I'd been someone who'd worked with the people who were well. But actually I have seen mental health in a totally different light by allowing myself to be educated in those environments. So again I will read that book of yours as well. That sounds fascinating it's not well.

Malcolm Stern: 35:36

I have seen people who've been diagnosed with serious mental illness fall in love and they found something with each other as well.

Michelle Shine: 35:42

I'm very pleased you said that because, as as I said, the editor, the agent I sent it to, was really sort of that would never happen and I wasn't really writing it as a kind of a mirror on life per se. It was much more. There were different aspects to that book that I wanted to bring to light.

Malcolm Stern: 36:11

Okay, so your other two books briefly.

Michelle Shine: 36:14

Okay, okay, okay, okay. God's Will and the Yellow Dress is about a family who lived in a shtetl in Lithuania long, long, long, long time ago, and it's based on a biblical story where one daughter is swapped for another daughter at the altar and that's the beginning of the story. The rest of the book is what happens next, and that hasn't been published either, but I'm hoping that it will follow up on the book that I will be self-publishing next year, which I've now had some really nice endorsements for, and I'm looking forward to that hitting the shelves really. And that is set in Israel in 1989, the year of the first intifada, and it's about a family, second and third generation holocaust survivors who get targeted for a terrorist attack. And there's also another aspect to it as well, which is about the um, the psychological effects of what the Holocaust imprinted on not just the person that experienced it in, but the following generations.

Malcolm Stern: 37:57

I've done quite a bit of work with Thomas Hubel, who's a spiritual teacher who specializes in intergenerational trauma, and that does get carried from generation to generation. I'm absolutely clear about that. Yeah, so we're coming towards the end of our of our podcast. Thank you very much after this, but it's been fascinating dialoguing with you as well, and I always ask this question at the end and I like it to be spontaneous. I don't tell people at the beginning, although if they've watched other podcasts they'll know. I asked this question, which is what is the dragon you've had to slay in order to become who you are? And that's like what's the obstacle, what's the hurdle you've had to overcome to be you?

Michelle Shine: 38:38

Lack of self-confidence.

Malcolm Stern: 38:41

And actually that's interesting because you present as someone who is confident.

Michelle Shine: 38:45

So to say a little bit more about that, I always worry when, before I start any piece of work, I feel that I'm not really worthy or I'm not good enough to do it, and I have to push myself to overcome that. Yeah, and I think that's that's the same for me. I'm very shy, I was a very shy child and I was very shy as a teenager, and lack of confidence that is the thing for me, and I have to push myself to do things and tell myself this is just a you know, know, you've got to overcome this because that's ongoing, isn't it?

Michelle Shine: 39:30

so that's something obviously you're still working with yeah, I mean, it's not as bad as it was when I was a kid. It was overwhelming. When I was a child and I think that goes back to my grandmother, who, um, who was uh, very um, you know. I'll tell you a little anecdote about her, um, just to kind of undermining she, she would undermine everything. So my mother would buy me clothes and she'd say, go and try on the clothes for grandma, and I put on the clothes and she would just turn around and go, oh, you know so, and so she looks very nice in clothes, you know, and it was that kind of thing. You have your haircut and she'd tell you it was better longer. You know, whatever you did, it was not good enough and not right and everything, and that, and that, really, as a as a sensitive person, that really got to the core of me and it's been something that I've been fighting against ever since.

Malcolm Stern: 40:32

Michelle, thank you.

Michelle Shine: 40:33

I love the openness with which you've engaged with me in this episode we're doing.

Malcolm Stern: 40:35

Thank you, I look forward to seeing you.

Michelle Shine: 40:37

Thank you.

Malcolm Stern: 40:38

Thanks very much.