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Joanne Lockwood: ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 194
Joanne Lockwood: with the title Love In Motion. And I have the
Joanne Lockwood: absolute honour and privilege to welcome Denise Cesare.
Joanne Lockwood: Denise is a published author, a keynote speaker
Joanne Lockwood: and social emotional learning specialist
Joanne Lockwood: who champions disability rights, mental health and body
Joanne Lockwood: positivity. She brings her lived experience of spasmodic
Joanne Lockwood: dysphonia and inclusive fashion to T suite.
Joanne Lockwood: T suit. Actually, we got that wrong in the green room as well. T suit.
Joanne Lockwood: There's no E on the end to inspire change. And when I asked Denise to
Joanne Lockwood: describe her superpower, she said it is turning compassion
Joanne Lockwood: into practical, inclusive actions across classrooms,
Joanne Lockwood: communities and fashion. Hello, Denise. Welcome to
Joanne Lockwood: the show. I am so happy to be here on Inclusion
Denise Cesare: Bites and I am so happy to be in this moment with you
Denise Cesare: today. Isn't that funny how I. In the green room, I was reading through those
Joanne Lockwood: show notes and I said, t sweet. He said, oh, well, the second person to
Joanne Lockwood: say t sweet is actually T suit. And I did the same mistake when I
Joanne Lockwood: was reading it out. It's something how my brain just couldn't
Joanne Lockwood: process that, could it? Because I'm so sweet. So sweet.
Joanne Lockwood: You are. Yes, you are. To a T. Sweet. To a T. And also
Joanne Lockwood: your name, because it's Caesar, but you were saying in the green
Joanne Lockwood: room that it's Italian root, so it was probably historically
Joanne Lockwood: Cesare. Exactly. Cesare. Is the
Denise Cesare: pronunciation Italian? Yeah. So
Joanne Lockwood: I was musing whether it was actually Julius Caesar. It
Joanne Lockwood: was actually Julius Cesare, and probably Julius isn't even pronounced correctly.
Joanne Lockwood: So hail Caesare. Right? Yes, Hail Caesare.
Denise Cesare: Yeah, exactly. But Caesar, you know, even on a menu
Denise Cesare: in a restaurant, if you say. Or Caesare salad, it's a
Joanne Lockwood: fire. It is. But people say Caesar, right? Because that's what the brain
Denise Cesare: knows in the American version of it. If it's a real Italian
Denise Cesare: restaurant, they'll spell it the way my name is spelled. The way that it's
Denise Cesare: named, yeah. So your name is spelled C E S A R
Joanne Lockwood: E. So that's the Italian spelling. Exactly.
Joanne Lockwood: So how did you get the name? So, you know, you get
Denise Cesare: married, right? You take a name and my husband, his identity.
Denise Cesare: Right. That's his name, his father. You know, I. I gather,
Denise Cesare: you know, you come to America from Italy and then they Americanize
Denise Cesare: it so it's Caesar. So when I met him, as being his speech
Denise Cesare: pathologist, I'm like, oh, no, Cesare.
Denise Cesare: But, you know, you have to keep. He grew up like that. That's what people
Denise Cesare: call him. And I have a son. I can't change the name. It's like
Denise Cesare: a brand. You can't change it. You can't do that.
Joanne Lockwood: It's a very old Italian name, isn't it? So, yeah, be proud of it, I
Joanne Lockwood: guess. And Caesar. Hail Caesar. Maybe he. He changed it,
Denise Cesare: right? He changed it. Maybe, maybe, maybe. We don't know.
Denise Cesare: We don't know. He may have gone to America for his holidays and while he
Joanne Lockwood: was there, he changed his name and came back and planted Europe.
Denise Cesare: Exactly. We don't know. But maybe we should investigate that way. I don't know. We
Denise Cesare: have something to search about. Yeah. Thousand years before Columbus, we
Joanne Lockwood: had Julius Caesar. Popped over,
Joanne Lockwood: made a few pizzas, left some salad. But now I'm getting hungry,
Denise Cesare: like, oh, yeah, now we have to go. Now we go. Have to go meet
Denise Cesare: for a meal. Excited. So your accent sounds like New York,
Joanne Lockwood: but you're not living in New York anymore. That's true. I grew up in Brooklyn,
Denise Cesare: New York. I moved to Staten Island, New York, after that when I got married
Denise Cesare: and had my son. And now four months ago, I
Denise Cesare: moved to Bluffton. Hilton Head, Staten Island. Oh,
Denise Cesare: Staten Island. Oh, that was a. That was a blunder. I moved to Bluffton
Denise Cesare: Hilton Head, S.C. south Carolina.
Joanne Lockwood: I went to Staten island once. I was in New York
Joanne Lockwood: with my. With my wife, and someone said to us,
Joanne Lockwood: the Staten island ferry was free. So I thought, we've
Joanne Lockwood: paid all that money to go to Statue of Liberty and other things. Let's go
Joanne Lockwood: to Staten island and see what it's all about. So we got the Staten island
Joanne Lockwood: ferry, got to the other end, got off, got back on it again, came home.
Joanne Lockwood: But we had a bit of a free ride across the. Whatever that bit of
Joanne Lockwood: water is at the time. I had a really bad
Joanne Lockwood: cough, and it was about the time of SARS. I think it was in
Joanne Lockwood: the. Probably the late 90s, I think it was. And every time I
Joanne Lockwood: coughed, everybody around me moved out. The way they're all
Joanne Lockwood: paranoid. I mean, it's like. Yeah. And you were outside on
Denise Cesare: the ferry. Really? It was probably okay. You know, more of the air was.
Denise Cesare: You weren't like, in. But it is tight. The ferry does get crowded. But we
Denise Cesare: have a lot in common. Right. Who knew you. Who knew you rode the
Denise Cesare: ferry? Right. I didn't know it said Staten Island, New York. But now
Denise Cesare: I live in Seattle. So four months ago, I moved to a place that's
Denise Cesare: coastal. And even Staten island is an island. So obviously I do love water.
Denise Cesare: So that's. That's a segue that I love water. We'll get to that segue, right?
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, let's do that. Yeah, let's not. Let's not hang on the
Joanne Lockwood: preamble anymore. So you've had a. You've had a very busy life.
Joanne Lockwood: You've written a book, Moments in Motion.
Joanne Lockwood: Well, I think what it says here I've got in my notes. Journey
Joanne Lockwood: spends losing and reclaiming your voice. Is that metaphorically or
Joanne Lockwood: actually? That's. That's actually. That's actually losing
Joanne Lockwood: voice. Okay. You've launched an inclusive swimwear brand. So
Joanne Lockwood: how did this all come about? What wove this together? So it's
Denise Cesare: interesting. Okay. I'm a speech language pathologist who lost her
Denise Cesare: voice. So this is like a. This is a full circle moment. We will
Denise Cesare: go, we will start to the losing of the voice. Being a speech
Denise Cesare: pathologist, 2006, I was in a car accident and it triggered
Denise Cesare: something for a condition called spasmodic dysphonia. I still don't have a
Denise Cesare: voice. I have to get injections to speak, and my voice needs to
Denise Cesare: be heard. I make the choice to have the injections. I am fortunate and they
Denise Cesare: do work. So that's how that. That journey of the losing of the
Denise Cesare: voice. So for five years, I had no voice.
Denise Cesare: I didn't do Botox right away, so I had no voice. And in that,
Denise Cesare: I'm gonna say it was a dark timing because we have to talk about darkness.
Denise Cesare: Cause you can't see light without darkness. In that dark period,
Denise Cesare: I created T shirt for everybody to
Denise Cesare: a T because of being silent, you know, silent,
Denise Cesare: not being able to really speak. I went into
Denise Cesare: a different creative force in my brain. I didn't realise it at
Denise Cesare: the time. You know, looking back, I know why.
Denise Cesare: So I was. I love water. We just talked about bringing us Back to
Denise Cesare: the water. We used to go to a swim club. I took my son at
Denise Cesare: that time. He was 6 years old. He's now 25. I would go to the
Denise Cesare: swim club, but I was always hiding myself. You know,
Denise Cesare: putting a T shirt on over this swimsuit, but then going into the
Denise Cesare: water and getting all wet and looking, not feeling good.
Denise Cesare: It's just this heavy T shirt hanging on your body.
Denise Cesare: Hence not being able to speak. But a lot of thoughts. I said,
Denise Cesare: I have to do something. So then I used to wear something different and I
Denise Cesare: created. I didn't realise at the time that was my prototype. I would put
Denise Cesare: something on that would kind of make me look smoother and that puts something on
Denise Cesare: top and people go, oh, where'd you get that? I'm like, oh, I don't know.
Denise Cesare: I just put it together and then from there. I didn't create
Denise Cesare: it first. I came up with the name first Fits everybody to a
Denise Cesare: T. T suit because you're not a size, you're a
Denise Cesare: fit. We are not sizes, we are humans. It's not
Denise Cesare: a size. So that was born in my brain,
Denise Cesare: just came to me. But, you know, making this makeshift thing to make myself
Denise Cesare: feel better, not covering up, but putting something on that made me look good
Denise Cesare: and good inside. And then, okay, so, you know, you
Denise Cesare: go through a journey of having. Okay, so now I have this idea. What do
Denise Cesare: I do? You know, I have this idea running around in my brain. But understand
Denise Cesare: one part of me was going through a very heavy time
Denise Cesare: at work in the world, trying to get along, recognising
Denise Cesare: and coming to terms that I have a disability. All of these things. But then
Denise Cesare: there's creative spin over here probably was lighting me up.
Denise Cesare: So I kind of was balancing something. And then
Denise Cesare: I came up with the name and I trademarked the name. Now this, you know,
Denise Cesare: 2007, 8, 9. Those five years till
Denise Cesare: 2011 without a voice. But T sued
Denise Cesare: fits everybody to a T was not born. It wasn't really
Denise Cesare: born into 2017. So it doesn't mean that you, you
Denise Cesare: know, I was going, I was thinking, I was planning, but I didn't.
Denise Cesare: I listened to my intuition. That's another thing we'll talk about. I listened to my
Denise Cesare: intuition that it was something. So 2017
Denise Cesare: born. Hello, tea soup. It's everybody to a T. I
Denise Cesare: create swimmable cover up. And it's not a cover up. I want to
Denise Cesare: change that. I created a swimmable cover and a Pareto
Denise Cesare: and different products to go with travel. So people,
Denise Cesare: instead of putting on that wet T shirt they put on the T top. I
Denise Cesare: call it the T top. And the tea dress is the little black dress up.
Denise Cesare: Swim where you go into the water and you feel sexy. You're allowed to
Denise Cesare: feel good, and you could go in and not hide. So that was my
Denise Cesare: first feeling good about something that I created. And then
Denise Cesare: I did get my. Got my voice back, back to Botox
Denise Cesare: injections in 2011. So then I started
Denise Cesare: to become more empowered
Denise Cesare: because then I was able to, you know, when you lose your voice,
Denise Cesare: it's detrimental. You know, I'm a talker, and it
Denise Cesare: really was something that was a loss. But then I'm gonna take you to the
Denise Cesare: 360 moment of my book. And I have written multiple books, but
Denise Cesare: this. This book is a catalyst. Moments in Motion with Love
Denise Cesare: was the tagline on T suit. I
Denise Cesare: used to write that and put it on cards to customers. Moments
Denise Cesare: in Motion with love, Denise, Because I felt like the motion
Denise Cesare: and the water and your body and loving yourself. So that was my
Denise Cesare: tagline for T2. Who would have thought
Denise Cesare: that? And then, hence Covid 2020,
Denise Cesare: being a speech language pathologist and having the
Denise Cesare: disability, being with students and I having a disability. We were
Denise Cesare: all put on lockdown and we had to work remotely with speech. Speech and language
Denise Cesare: students. I was with them like we are right now. I mean, Covid
Denise Cesare: brought about a lot of great things. You know, was heavy. A lot of
Denise Cesare: heaviness happened and sadness and sickness, but there were really
Denise Cesare: great things that came out of it, and that's what I want to talk about.
Denise Cesare: So I was online with my students, and they were getting so
Denise Cesare: disconnected. So lockdown, March, April, May. By May, I
Denise Cesare: saw the disconnect in their eyes, and I saw very. A
Denise Cesare: lot of sadness. So that night I went to sleep and I actually prayed,
Denise Cesare: please help me help these students, because I really don't know what to do. I
Denise Cesare: feel so disconnected from them myself, and they're getting lost, and we need to
Denise Cesare: help them. At five o' clock in the morning, I woke up with a book.
Denise Cesare: The book came out of me in my sleep. Some people might not believe me,
Denise Cesare: but I have the proof because I woke up my husband. I said, wake up.
Denise Cesare: I wrote a book. He goes, what are you doing now? You know, because I
Denise Cesare: have him on this spiral of all these creative things. If you're not creative and
Denise Cesare: someone's waking you up, nothing's that creative. You know what I'm saying? Creative brain just
Denise Cesare: keeps going and going. I said, you have to listen. So I read it to
Denise Cesare: him and, you know, I wasn't able to write it. I kind of spoke it.
Denise Cesare: Luckily, we have these phones now. I spoke it into my phone and I read
Denise Cesare: it to him and he goes, wait, read that again. And I read it again,
Denise Cesare: and he goes, that's something. He just kept listening to me.
Denise Cesare: I said, well, I have to do something. I was in the process
Denise Cesare: of creating a prescriptive narrative for more what I
Denise Cesare: thought in my mind, this is what I thought for adults, that I was gonna
Denise Cesare: do that because of all the trauma and sadness and mental
Denise Cesare: health issues that I went through. And I said, no, this. This is what has
Denise Cesare: to happen right now. So the publisher, I called her,
Denise Cesare: I said, you have to listen to this. This was like 7 o' clock in
Denise Cesare: the morning. I'm bothering her. I said, we can't do the other book. This has
Denise Cesare: to happen right now. And sure enough, she called me, the both
Denise Cesare: of us. She's like, yes. Wasn't that. I don't even have to blink.
Denise Cesare: Yes. But the real capture that captured
Denise Cesare: me and the essence of why the book was so prevalent. My
Denise Cesare: son was in college and they were all locked down too. And when I
Denise Cesare: FaceTimed him, I said, oh, can you listen to this? You know, this just came
Denise Cesare: through me. And I really. I read it. And he cried.
Denise Cesare: Not from sadness. It released something. And it was like,
Denise Cesare: yes, I only have this moment with love, and I have to hold onto
Denise Cesare: it. And it was something. And I'm gonna cry now talking about it. Cause it
Denise Cesare: always brings me back there because it was this full,
Denise Cesare: unbelievable moment. So, yeah, so
Denise Cesare: that's how I. Yeah, yeah. I've got so many questions to ask out
Joanne Lockwood: of that. I mean, the. I suppose the thing is this spasmodic
Joanne Lockwood: dysphonia, I mean, that. I've never heard of that before. But is it. Is
Joanne Lockwood: it a physical or is it a psychological? Or is it a bit of both?
Denise Cesare: So that's funny, but you know that there's so many people that have it.
Denise Cesare: Some people don't know it. It's a neurological condition.
Denise Cesare: My journey, I really had diagnosed myself because
Denise Cesare: I went to doctors. They're going, like you just said, is it psychological?
Denise Cesare: Is it. No. I knew I wasn't phonating. It was
Denise Cesare: physiological because your vocal folds
Denise Cesare: spasm. And that's why getting the injections of Botox
Denise Cesare: paralyses them so that we speak on respiration.
Denise Cesare: So when I would speak, when I didn't have it, they
Denise Cesare: would. I would get choked and the voice could not come out. So, you know,
Denise Cesare: I went through. I went Through a lot of trauma, trying to actually be
Denise Cesare: diagnosed because. Oh, asthma. Yes, I have asthma. That. This is not
Denise Cesare: asthma. Oh, as a reflux. Okay, you want to tell me.
Denise Cesare: Oh, no, it's not that. And this whole journey trying to figure it out.
Denise Cesare: But I'm going to tell you something else now that I did go to a
Denise Cesare: doctor and that's why I didn't do Botox for five years, because you have to
Denise Cesare: trust your instincts. And he was such a
Denise Cesare: downer. He wasn't uplifting, saying, you know, you
Denise Cesare: gotta keep moving, you gotta keep. Keep yourself motivated and you
Denise Cesare: gotta keep working. No, he told me, oh, it's Omar gone disability. And I looked
Denise Cesare: at him, I'm like, wow. He goes, yeah, you have
Denise Cesare: a disability. I'm like, but I have. I went to no,
Denise Cesare: no. Said no. But imagine doing
Denise Cesare: that injection with someone who's so not proactive
Denise Cesare: for me to be in the world. I shouldn't have to give
Denise Cesare: up because I had a disability. So that's tip number
Denise Cesare: one to the audience. Your gut, your instincts tell you
Denise Cesare: something. Listen to them. So I didn't do the Botox and it
Denise Cesare: was hard to not talk for five years. I can guess that of you. Yes,
Joanne Lockwood: I can guess that you are a talker. Yes. So this is
Joanne Lockwood: completely different to selective mutism, where. Yeah. People through
Joanne Lockwood: anxiety or. Exactly, exactly. Yes, it's a totally.
Denise Cesare: So, yes, I work with children who had selective mutism. It's a totally different.
Denise Cesare: It's more of a behavioural, psychological thing. This is an
Denise Cesare: actual physiological, neurological condition. And even,
Denise Cesare: you know, the. I don't know if, you know, RFK Jr. Has
Denise Cesare: this, the senator, he has it. And if you listen to him,
Denise Cesare: that's what he has. He does not do. That's why his voice is. Yes,
Denise Cesare: that's the condition. Sounds a bit strange. Yes, that is the condition he has.
Denise Cesare: And he does not do the Botox. It doesn't work for anyone. Everyone
Denise Cesare: either. So that's another side of it that,
Denise Cesare: you know, I had the right doctor, I had the right knowledge, because
Denise Cesare: being a speech pathologist, I was a patient and the professional. So
Denise Cesare: I kind of had. I had more of an advantage for
Denise Cesare: myself than others do because this happens to people all the time and they don't
Denise Cesare: even know what's wrong with them. So I feel blessed by that, that I did.
Denise Cesare: Was able to understand more.
Joanne Lockwood: So when RFK speaks and you say he's not on the Botox, you
Joanne Lockwood: can just about understand him. So were you able to speak in some way?
Joanne Lockwood: It was just almost like Shouting through a straw sort of thing.
Denise Cesare: So if you listen to his voice. My voice was worse than that,
Denise Cesare: right? Yeah, my voice was more choked. He. He
Denise Cesare: can kind of. He works on the phonation, I believe, because
Denise Cesare: he can get the words out of his labour. That's laborious, but it's also. He
Denise Cesare: has to take his time. Oh, yeah. So. But for me now, right now I'm
Denise Cesare: in the middle of my Botox injection. As I laugh. You want to laugh. I
Denise Cesare: say the many voices of Denise because when I start at the beginning of the
Denise Cesare: Botox, I have this high pitched voice. Then I go.
Denise Cesare: Then I go in the middle, like now and then it starts to get a
Denise Cesare: little raspy and then it kind of slowly goes away. And then I'm.
Denise Cesare: But it never goes away where you can hear me anymore. When this happened
Denise Cesare: to me, it was devastating. You really. I was. You couldn't
Denise Cesare: understand because I had to really. I was choking to
Denise Cesare: talk almost. You could think about that. So, yeah,
Denise Cesare: so if you think I had a terrible,
Denise Cesare: unintelligible at times voice. So I had to fight to keep my job
Denise Cesare: too, during that time. Because, you know, people don't.
Denise Cesare: People don't advocate when you have a disability. They want to get
Denise Cesare: rid. They want to hide you, they want to put you somewhere else. Well, they
Denise Cesare: pick the wrong person to try to put somewhere else.
Joanne Lockwood: So I guess now when the Botox is wearing off
Joanne Lockwood: or in a better place mentally, to cope with it, you've probably adapted
Joanne Lockwood: yourself so that you know what it is, you're no longer kind of held back
Joanne Lockwood: by it. Right? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Because,
Denise Cesare: yeah, my void comes and goes and you take me as I am. Like I
Denise Cesare: do podcasts all the time. There's the beginning of my bozak. The end. I'm in
Denise Cesare: the middle for you. Yeah. So sometimes it
Joanne Lockwood: sounds like you've been smoking stogies for the whole last night. Does it? I never
Denise Cesare: did, but I guess if that's true, maybe that's how you sound. But what I'm
Denise Cesare: trying to say is I come as I am because that's how you
Denise Cesare: empower people. I'm not shying away from when it changes because it
Denise Cesare: is what it is. Yeah, I'm with you on that. I mean, my voice
Joanne Lockwood: is relatively deep. People, it confuses people. But
Joanne Lockwood: I am what I am and yes, why should I worry about my voice
Joanne Lockwood: for you? And it is what it is. That's right. You are who you are
Denise Cesare: and we. Should not change for anyone and be
Joanne Lockwood: proud of that. Yeah, I think that's Good. Yeah. Because no
Denise Cesare: one's. No one's you, no one's me. We are unique.
Joanne Lockwood: Glad of that. You're glad of that. Yeah. So I looked at your
Joanne Lockwood: T suit website, and yeah. So the three
Joanne Lockwood: products, the top, the dress, and the parade. Pareto. Is it
Denise Cesare: Pareo? Yeah. Why did we as a
Joanne Lockwood: society invent bikinis and skimpy. And
Joanne Lockwood: skimpy things? You know, Australians, they wear
Joanne Lockwood: shirts to cover up because of the, um.
Joanne Lockwood: What's it called it? The light. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The UV light and
Joanne Lockwood: stuff. Yeah, yeah. Or protecting yourself from the UV rays.
Denise Cesare: Right, yeah. But also to protect yourself from the gaze of people
Joanne Lockwood: who. Yeah, but what I want to say about that. Okay.
Denise Cesare: If I want to wear a bikini, great. But they create. Okay. So they.
Denise Cesare: The fashion industry created these things for
Denise Cesare: models, beautiful models. And there's nothing wrong with models,
Denise Cesare: but the average human person
Denise Cesare: is not a model. But we are looking at the model,
Denise Cesare: right? And the model. We've got our little belly aprons going on and a little
Joanne Lockwood: tummy. Tummy poking out and the flabby bits under our. Under our
Joanne Lockwood: boobs is there. So my suggestion to the
Denise Cesare: fashion industry and what I created way back when. Cause, you know, I
Denise Cesare: wasn't. I wasn't. Not that I'm downing it. I was an educator. I wasn't
Denise Cesare: in the fashion world. I was. I wasn't part of that world, but I
Denise Cesare: became part of that world and got very educated even
Denise Cesare: faster than I thought. And I'm proud of myself for
Denise Cesare: creating things that no one else really thinks
Denise Cesare: about. And what I did in the beginning, because, you don't know, I did
Denise Cesare: put swimwear on there, but I carefully selected swimwear. I
Denise Cesare: took it off now because I'm revamping everything, but I carefully selected
Denise Cesare: certain swimwear companies that cater to how
Denise Cesare: it fits a woman. Because I could fit anybody.
Denise Cesare: Everybody. I could fit anybody, and I could fit everybody. But what I create, my
Denise Cesare: creations are something special just to
Denise Cesare: enhance the skin you're in. So if you don't
Denise Cesare: really feel comfortable even in a swimsuit, because a lot of people do
Denise Cesare: not. If you put on the T top or the tea dress, you could go
Denise Cesare: in the water. Like I said, it's. The little black dress of swim. Is an
Denise Cesare: enhancement for you to walk around and be in the water and walk out
Denise Cesare: of the water. The pareo is a little bit different. You can wear that in
Denise Cesare: the water, but it's more of like a. You could go from pool to
Denise Cesare: restaurant and make it, like all different stylings.
Joanne Lockwood: Wraparound skirt, Effectively, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The wraparound skirt. But
Denise Cesare: of course I have one colour and the other two are black. Because you know,
Denise Cesare: as a small business, when you're starting out, you just have so much
Denise Cesare: fun, right. How much if it doesn't. Not taking off. If people don't know about
Denise Cesare: you, how are you doing? So you start small and you have to
Denise Cesare: build from that. You have to build your audience and your customers. I like the
Joanne Lockwood: idea that it's both wet and dry. So you can go from the pool to
Joanne Lockwood: the bar to wandering around. Exactly. It dries pretty quick.
Denise Cesare: I'm guessing after I'm going to tell you. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: You're not dripping water everywhere. It's kind of like white teachers
Denise Cesare: that never dries. Hey girl. It doesn't dry. But
Denise Cesare: if you think about this is also. I was also with.
Denise Cesare: I have a product on there to clean, which is about a
Denise Cesare: delicate, organic, eco friendly wash to clean the
Denise Cesare: products. I'm all about sustainability. Sometimes we
Denise Cesare: buy things, people are very. They buy something for $5 and there's nothing
Denise Cesare: against that, but then they're throwing it away. Where's it going?
Denise Cesare: Where is all this garbage going if you're not giving it away? If you're
Denise Cesare: throwing it away. So sustainability. My products are made with
Denise Cesare: exclusive and very good quality fabric for
Denise Cesare: the sustainability of it. And that's why it does dry quick too. It
Denise Cesare: dries so quick. Super quick. Super quick.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I just read the website. It's a fascinating product.
Joanne Lockwood: For me. I, I've never been
Joanne Lockwood: comfortable in two piece. I'm always a one piece person. I understand and I
Denise Cesare: think you would love it because it is, it is. Like I said, it
Denise Cesare: fits everybody. It's not just. It's not a body type
Denise Cesare: product or it's not a body type design. It's an
Denise Cesare: inclusive fashion sense that
Denise Cesare: everybody looks perfect in it for who they are.
Denise Cesare: That was my goal, being able to. So having this son at the
Denise Cesare: swim club, when I thought about it, remember back then, before it even became
Denise Cesare: something, I wanted to be able to jump up and walk around. Not just,
Denise Cesare: okay, oh my God, wait, I got to get the towel. I got to roll.
Denise Cesare: No, I wanted people to walk out of the water and just walk around. And
Denise Cesare: now I can with whatever swim you have underneath. Even if you
Denise Cesare: wore a tank top and boys, whatever you want to wear underneath that, it just
Denise Cesare: kind of gives it a step up. Well, you can actually, you could probably
Joanne Lockwood: turn a shorts and a tank top in something a bit more sexy as well
Joanne Lockwood: if you wanted to. Exactly. Exactly. Dress. Can I tell you a
Denise Cesare: funny storey? I don't know. So someone
Denise Cesare: actually took it. Not that I would do this, and I'm not advocating, but
Denise Cesare: feel free. Anybody that feels free, because it
Denise Cesare: is so forgiving. She went, like nude underneath
Denise Cesare: it and you couldn't see anything because that's how the design kind of.
Denise Cesare: It's not camouflage, but it's just magical.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes. It's kind of a. Yeah, it's a black. Yeah, I'm not
Denise Cesare: gonna. Tight mesh. It's a relaxed mesh and it says. Exactly. So you
Joanne Lockwood: can't probably get your pinky through the hole, can you? Is that. Is that about.
Denise Cesare: You can't even. No. So it's smaller than the pinky. Yeah. I
Denise Cesare: wish I had. I don't have it here, but. What is that saying? It's not
Denise Cesare: camouflage. It's magical because you can't see through. Camouflage means you're
Denise Cesare: hiding. This is not hiding. It's just magical. So you could
Joanne Lockwood: be ending up with people wearing it out in the evening, you know, going out
Joanne Lockwood: in town. You could, as you say. Exactly. A bra and pair of knickers underneath
Joanne Lockwood: and just go out clubbing. That's it. Exactly. See, you. You get it.
Joanne Lockwood: You just get it doesn't have to just be for swimming.
Joanne Lockwood: It could be the one outfit for your whole holiday because you can. And you
Denise Cesare: know what, if you interchange it to put different colours because of that
Denise Cesare: mesh, you could change the. Like the colour. You could see red through it. Or
Denise Cesare: you. I was gonna say. I'm just thinking it's really powerful, bright scarlet red
Joanne Lockwood: undies and bra underneath and amazing. And then it's a
Denise Cesare: different. And then having the top and the dress, like the T top could be
Denise Cesare: with jeans or whatever, but then the dress could become a dress. Put a
Denise Cesare: shawl, you just go wild. Got your reds, got your
Joanne Lockwood: turquoise, you got your top and all these. Yeah, all these different colours. Exactly
Denise Cesare: 1000%. That sounds brilliant. I mean, I'm back on the website as soon
Joanne Lockwood: as we hang up. It's got to give it a go. It is. And
Denise Cesare: it's amazing because my. Like I said, the. The fashion industry
Denise Cesare: doesn't cater to sizing. So that's how people get
Denise Cesare: suppressed, too, with their body image, because their sizing is skewed.
Denise Cesare: If I. Let's say I'm, as. I'm going to say I'm size 12, right. So
Denise Cesare: I go in the shop and I say, this is my size. And I go
Denise Cesare: in. Now, that is size 8. It's two sizes
Denise Cesare: down from what we Are. So now
Denise Cesare: I go in there. Now I'm crying. I gained it. I gain weight. Why doesn't
Denise Cesare: this fit me? I don't understand. Because you're not a size,
Denise Cesare: you're a fit. So if you go back, this is what I wanted to help
Denise Cesare: people too. Go take. Even though they label it
Denise Cesare: a 16, two sizes up and put it on. And if you look
Denise Cesare: awesome in it, you buy, don't care
Denise Cesare: because they're not a size. You're a fit. It's the fit. You're not that
Denise Cesare: size. That's very. I'm like that. I go into
Joanne Lockwood: the retail outlet and I'm. I'm. I. I look on the rack and I see
Joanne Lockwood: my size. I put it on. I think, it doesn't fit, it's too tight. And
Joanne Lockwood: then you have to go size up. And you feel like you're cheating going up
Joanne Lockwood: a size or two. And it's like. But I want you to get the number
Denise Cesare: out of your head. Everybody get the number out. Just when you put it
Denise Cesare: on. If you. So some things aren't fit for somebody's body, right?
Denise Cesare: Certain. We all gravitate to something that looks better on us because
Denise Cesare: it's the fit that makes you feel good about it. So just look for the
Denise Cesare: fit. That's why I'm fits. Everybody fits everybody. And love yourself,
Denise Cesare: love your body. I mean, we go through all stages. We gain weight, we
Denise Cesare: lose weight, or we think we're too skinny. We think, enough,
Denise Cesare: you're alive. So you wrote this book Moments of Motion with Love. And that
Joanne Lockwood: was all around the mental health challenges that young people were
Joanne Lockwood: having during COVID and at that time there, because it's hard to think
Joanne Lockwood: Covid was five years ago. Five years ago seems like yesterday. I
Joanne Lockwood: don't know what happened. It's like mind blowing.
Denise Cesare: It's always present, but it's so long ago
Denise Cesare: because people are still getting it. It's still present.
Denise Cesare: You know, a lot of people are having. And I'm not
Denise Cesare: dealing this but like stress syndrome, post traumatic
Denise Cesare: stress syndrome. Because we didn't really get the mental health that
Denise Cesare: we needed for that phase of our
Denise Cesare: life. It didn't mean there's not enough being done about that. People
Denise Cesare: don't. And you know, I talk about the children that were in
Denise Cesare: kindergarten then. They didn't give them enough. They're there falling through cracks of
Denise Cesare: education because they just missed it all. So I could. Well, I could go
Denise Cesare: on a whole topic about that. You know, we will be here forever. There's so
Denise Cesare: many things I tell you about that. But even as an
Joanne Lockwood: adult, it was. For me, it was a tough time. I mean, luckily we didn't
Joanne Lockwood: have children living with us. Our children were older than that and they were kind
Joanne Lockwood: of dealing themselves. But I imagine when you're cooped up,
Joanne Lockwood: locked down, not able to go shopping, not able to go out and do stuff
Joanne Lockwood: and play outside, it's almost like a one of those disaster movies, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? It was like. Like I said, they didn't have real
Denise Cesare: interaction and they didn't have social
Denise Cesare: pragmatic like being able to deal with
Denise Cesare: things. They can deal now. They're not. They don't have coping
Denise Cesare: mechanisms. And that's where the mindfulness comes in with the book.
Denise Cesare: And there's a sort of emotional component. So what
Joanne Lockwood: was the key learning for you that came out of that time then? It's the
Denise Cesare: key learning of COVID Well, you know, I wrote the book about
Denise Cesare: mindfulness and moments in motion with love. But being
Denise Cesare: mindful is not something easy that we do.
Denise Cesare: It's something you have to practise. Mindfulness, it's not
Denise Cesare: just. It's not just, oh, I'm mindful today. Oh, you have to. Because
Denise Cesare: our brains are always rolling and thinking, what's next?
Denise Cesare: You have to really breathe. Say,
Denise Cesare: I am taking a mindful moment and really know what presence
Denise Cesare: is grounding on your feet, on the ground.
Denise Cesare: I. Even so, I don't know. I have so many things going on that you
Denise Cesare: probably don't even know about. My book became a yoga. Emotions
Denise Cesare: with love. Because every page of the book has emotion and I
Denise Cesare: have a video that is post production with
Denise Cesare: movement to physically put you in the moment. Yeah. I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm looking back at what was going on in my head at the time. Yeah,
Denise Cesare: yeah, yeah. Did I. Did I answer your question? I'm wondering. Did I really answer
Denise Cesare: it or I'm just wondering historical back. I don't know. Let me. Let me ask
Joanne Lockwood: you some more questions and see if we can. Yeah. Zero back to it. But
Joanne Lockwood: I mean the thing we all have this went through similar phases, denial,
Joanne Lockwood: all the sort of seven stages of grief. Maybe because I lost
Joanne Lockwood: effectively my business, I mean, and many others did. We had customers one day
Joanne Lockwood: and then next day we didn't. I remember it all
Joanne Lockwood: started as far as I was concerned, where there was that ship. Was it
Joanne Lockwood: moored off of Los Angeles or something? Was it. There was a big ocean liner
Joanne Lockwood: and there was 15 people on it or something that had Covid and people were
Joanne Lockwood: complaining about being locked in their cabin and they were Being passed
Joanne Lockwood: their meals under the doors. It was like, well, this is really ridiculous.
Joanne Lockwood: And suddenly Italy, if you go back to Italy, in Europe they had people in
Joanne Lockwood: intensive care and they were dying and we're thinking
Joanne Lockwood: Italians, they're both in America, whatever. Then suddenly it's all
Joanne Lockwood: locked down. All locked down. It's like, yeah. And then people were dying from it.
Denise Cesare: Well, I'm thinking about something that you just said because
Denise Cesare: the college community, my son was in college. Right. I talked about that.
Denise Cesare: They have so much stuff that's still in them from that we
Denise Cesare: being locked down. My husband lost his business. You just jarred that
Denise Cesare: to me. Not that we're forgetting. Sometimes it's very heavy what went on during
Denise Cesare: that time. It's heavy that we kind of push it away, but it
Denise Cesare: will come back. You can push, can't push things away. So that's what I want
Denise Cesare: to say about it. So much went on. Pushing it down is
Denise Cesare: not going to heal you. But it's almost like the business community and the politicians
Joanne Lockwood: and people around the world have forgotten. It's like
Joanne Lockwood: we just got to move on. It didn't happen. Get back to the office.
Joanne Lockwood: No. Working from home, all those well being and all those
Joanne Lockwood: great things we were doing for our staff, our employees, our customers to make them
Joanne Lockwood: feel wanted. We kind of just thrown all that in the bin. I thought
Joanne Lockwood: it would be a generational shift change and it's just reset.
Joanne Lockwood: Just reset. I was like, yeah, we didn't learn anything.
Denise Cesare: No. Because we didn't do the work. No,
Joanne Lockwood: no. We would. Maybe it didn't last long enough. Maybe
Joanne Lockwood: we needed another year of it. Oh God, I don't know.
Denise Cesare: But it still is present. People are still dying
Denise Cesare: from it. Right? Yeah. People lose sight of that too.
Denise Cesare: Maybe not in the amount the massive amounts of deaths, but
Denise Cesare: people still get it. People still dying from it. It's still here, it's
Denise Cesare: morphed, it's changing. But there's more. It's like you said, there's more
Denise Cesare: to it. We did not do the work.
Denise Cesare: Not on purpose. There was nothing. No one's offering anything.
Denise Cesare: No one's actually like we're right now stating it. There's so much work
Denise Cesare: that needs to be done. Well, it gave birth of more strength to the anti
Joanne Lockwood: vax movement. So we've seen more people weaponizing the anti vax. We
Joanne Lockwood: mentioned RFK earlier. I mean, well, I mentioned him, but he does not do the
Denise Cesare: Botox because he's anti vax. Right. Okay.
Denise Cesare: One side or the other, I have to do it. You have to pick and
Denise Cesare: choose what's right for you. But vaccines saved the
Denise Cesare: world, right? What people didn't die because of vaccines is a
Denise Cesare: whole. Yeah, exactly. It became a dividing line,
Denise Cesare: not a politic. Politicised, weaponized. Exactly.
Joanne Lockwood: It's. Yeah. If you vote blue, you
Joanne Lockwood: believe this, if you vote red, you believe that. And it's kind of becoming that,
Joanne Lockwood: that battle cry, isn't it? It's funny that we're talking about this because just last
Denise Cesare: night my friend came over for her birthday, we had a whole weekend together
Denise Cesare: and we had this red and blue. I said, why is it that? Why
Denise Cesare: are we not just coming together for the greater good? It's not about
Denise Cesare: division. How about doing what you're supposed to do?
Denise Cesare: We the people, we're not in charge. We the people should have the say.
Denise Cesare: We should have more say in their
Denise Cesare: realm of what they're presenting to us. We the people don't have a
Denise Cesare: voice, really. I mean, I have a voice, but not in government.
Denise Cesare: Just don't. Just don't. Because we're not in charge of that.
Denise Cesare: So it's red, blue, green, it doesn't matter.
Denise Cesare: They will still be divisive because they're not doing their part
Denise Cesare: together, they're dividing it. So we can't go there.
Denise Cesare: I'm too much about love when I go there. I get, oh, shoo. Because they
Denise Cesare: don't need a little bit of love. Their little situations
Denise Cesare: that they're dealing with. Yeah, I struggle as well because
Joanne Lockwood: it's a lot so clear and obvious that compassion,
Joanne Lockwood: love, empathy, communication, listening.
Denise Cesare: It's so clear. But this was the. I can't even believe
Denise Cesare: this. This was our exact conversation last night. It's so clear
Denise Cesare: to us. But why are we so divided? Why?
Joanne Lockwood: Why? Why is our perspective not the only perspective? Is it
Joanne Lockwood: power money? It can't be just be power money, can it? I think it's just
Denise Cesare: I don't have that. If I had that million dollar answer. If I had that.
Joanne Lockwood: Split it, split it 50. 50. Right, right, exactly. We have that
Denise Cesare: million dollar answer because it is something,
Denise Cesare: you know, something so simple, but it's so complicated
Denise Cesare: because we're not part of it. So we're living in a world now, as you
Joanne Lockwood: said, it's polarised. There's these debates, the political
Joanne Lockwood: climate seems to be out of touch sometimes with that
Joanne Lockwood: compassionate rhetoric. We've got our young people, young
Joanne Lockwood: adults, even older adults. We spend a lot of time flicking through our screens,
Joanne Lockwood: being judged by likes and Instagram and Snapchat
Joanne Lockwood: filters. It's really Tough being a kid now, isn't it?
Denise Cesare: It sure is. They believe what they see. They have
Denise Cesare: to dig deeper. You can't just believe all these. Because people could change things
Denise Cesare: on Instagram. You could have filters, you. You could just change any. You
Denise Cesare: could post different things. You want to say, not everything is true.
Denise Cesare: Not everything is, you know, not false, but not everything's true. And it's too
Denise Cesare: much of this instant world that people don't even take the moment
Denise Cesare: or mindfulness to actually. They're just flipping and
Denise Cesare: scripting. Like you're saying the brain is just next, next,
Denise Cesare: next. Well, what is that? You know, I am happy, though.
Denise Cesare: I have. Yes, I am on Instagram, but I do not put things
Denise Cesare: on there. I put knowledge. Knowledge is power.
Denise Cesare: I put things that you could learn. I put things to empower you, you know,
Denise Cesare: because I. I give you information, but you really, in the end of it, have
Denise Cesare: to empower yourself. Yeah. I mean, the way I look at things like Instagram
Joanne Lockwood: or Facebook or other platforms, LinkedIn, is that if you meet me in
Joanne Lockwood: real person, you recognise me. It's not like I'm. Is that you? Is that really
Joanne Lockwood: you? Different. Right. I
Joanne Lockwood: very rarely wear makeup when I'm. When I'm doing podcasts, maybe if I'm
Joanne Lockwood: doing some keynotes online, maybe very rarely. And if I go out, I
Joanne Lockwood: think, am I just going to the shops? We're just doing a bit of this,
Joanne Lockwood: bit of that. I think I'm not going to bother. So I'm quite happy to
Joanne Lockwood: be raw and ready, you know, kind of thing. Well, I like that. Raw and
Denise Cesare: ready. That's a good one. I like that. But it's
Denise Cesare: true. You just. You have to. We just went back to this. Be you.
Denise Cesare: We were talking about this right before the park. We have. You just have to
Denise Cesare: be you. And I did write, I am a co author in
Denise Cesare: another book with 33 powerful women called
Denise Cesare: Magnificently Made. Well, I love that as well.
Denise Cesare: Yeah, the title is beautiful, but within it, my
Denise Cesare: chapter is called Let It Be and it's all about how music
Denise Cesare: healed me. Because music was,
Denise Cesare: yes, the Beatles and other songs and listening to.
Denise Cesare: But also there's science to the music. It's not just
Denise Cesare: art form, there's science, the vibrations, the brain
Denise Cesare: and the vagus nerve. All these things that music does that people don't
Denise Cesare: know or that they should investigate. Because it's amazing.
Joanne Lockwood: I love it when we name drop the vagus nerve into these conversations.
Denise Cesare: Guess what? I studied the vagus nerve because I'm a speech language pathologist.
Denise Cesare: So I, I could talk about the vagus nerves because I studied it.
Joanne Lockwood: Wow. It's, it's such a, an underrated part of our
Joanne Lockwood: neurobiological system, isn't it? I mean it, it's. Those are the cranial
Denise Cesare: nerves. They're in your brain. Your brain is the, the centre. Right. Your heart
Denise Cesare: is a sensor, your brain is a sensor. These things have to, that's the difference.
Denise Cesare: This is the political difference. The brain and the heart and are coming
Denise Cesare: together. That's the problem. That's the
Denise Cesare: problem. They're not. The brain and the heart are not meeting.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, but the vagus nerve is the, the control highway, isn't it? It's
Denise Cesare: the epicentre. It goes from your, your brain to your gut. Yeah,
Denise Cesare: it's the epicentre. Yeah, yeah. That's your, your adrenaline
Joanne Lockwood: or your pituitary. All these, all these glands. Vagus nerve kicks in, says
Joanne Lockwood: you're going to feel anxious, you're going to feel queasy. Yeah.
Denise Cesare: People don't like I, of course, like I just said to you, I studied it,
Denise Cesare: so I know I put myself back to college. That was some
Denise Cesare: bad semester where you had to study all those cranial nerves. Oops. It
Denise Cesare: was a lot. It was a lot. Yeah. No, I, I've, when I started, I've
Joanne Lockwood: not studied it in any academic way, but I've certainly read up on it since
Joanne Lockwood: I first came across the. Came across it about 10 years ago. And it's
Joanne Lockwood: like it is, it's. You start to understand why you feel something, how your
Joanne Lockwood: biases tripping, your fight, fight, freeze mechanism and all these kind of
Joanne Lockwood: things and how that takes over your body and it's all coming
Joanne Lockwood: straight through that. Yeah, it's a pathway use.
Denise Cesare: Like you just said, it's a pathway from your mind to your. So when people
Denise Cesare: say butterflies in your stomach, then you make us know
Denise Cesare: you're. Going to feel anxious, you're going to. Feel, oh, I took in my Las
Denise Cesare: Vegas. That's a different type of
Denise Cesare: old Las Vegas, right? Huh? That's a bit Elvis.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, yeah, that is. It's. I think when you study what
Joanne Lockwood: goes on with your body, you are more in touch with it. I think,
Joanne Lockwood: I think maybe that was what was in my life for most of it. I
Joanne Lockwood: was always blissfully ignorant or unaware
Joanne Lockwood: or out of touch with my own biology, my own physiology, my own,
Joanne Lockwood: my own brain understanding why things are happening. I was into computing, so
Joanne Lockwood: I was more worried about why my computer crashed and didn't reboot
Joanne Lockwood: than I was about why I was Crashing and not rebooting. Right. I
Joanne Lockwood: think maybe that's where we go wrong. We're not teaching enough people around
Joanne Lockwood: their physiological responses and how the biases
Joanne Lockwood: are all again, triggered. Exactly. I
Denise Cesare: agree with that. Oh, I'm going to tell you something else that I talk about
Denise Cesare: that's very important. If people would only know
Denise Cesare: that from birth to seven, your brain is
Denise Cesare: mapping things that you learn. There's mapping going on in
Denise Cesare: the brain after seven, that stops. So someone's like, you
Denise Cesare: had seven and 77 is the same. The
Denise Cesare: only difference is you can. You can map these things. Like,
Denise Cesare: I made my son play the guitar so he could learn at 5, so he
Denise Cesare: could learn how to read music. Those things are mapped in
Denise Cesare: your brain. If you do violent video games at 5, they're
Denise Cesare: mapped in your brain. So what? Fast forward to
Denise Cesare: that. You have to infuse arts and music
Denise Cesare: and all of these awesome things in the brain from birth to seven,
Denise Cesare: that's putting love in your brain. And then from there
Denise Cesare: after that, the world will be a better place for sure. But for us,
Denise Cesare: our iq, because you could learn, but you can't map your brain. You
Denise Cesare: can change the brain. You can learn things. We're always learners.
Denise Cesare: Right. We could always learn, but it's a totally different thing. So that core
Joanne Lockwood: foundation is laid down early. So you are kind of become a product of that
Joanne Lockwood: time in your life. And that's why this book came out too, because
Denise Cesare: it's about loving yourself, loving each other
Denise Cesare: and loving the planet. It's also a book that is
Denise Cesare: healing your inner child. We all sounds like
Joanne Lockwood: RuPaul. Is that RuPaul if you can't love yourself or something. Yeah, I
Denise Cesare: don't even know. But for what my ideas are is that if you
Denise Cesare: can't heal your inner child, you're never going
Denise Cesare: to heal because you have to tap
Denise Cesare: into those wounds. There's wounds that stay
Denise Cesare: or stay dormant, like you just said, and then they show up. So,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, I've got lots of strong memories about my childhood. The.
Joanne Lockwood: The love I was shown by my mum and being part of a.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, a very nice family. It was very. Yeah. Very white, very middle class,
Joanne Lockwood: very ordinary. Yeah. But I had a lot of stability as a child and I've
Joanne Lockwood: never been in those situations where I had huge amounts of trauma. So I guess
Joanne Lockwood: I can play on that now that I've got that really strong foundation. Exactly.
Denise Cesare: But when you have that foundation, then you could tap into
Denise Cesare: it. If you don't have it, where are you going? Where you're going with It.
Denise Cesare: If you don't have a foundation, those are the people that are lost.
Denise Cesare: Those are the people that. When people say, oh, mental health. Well, you're not doing.
Denise Cesare: You present. But are we following through on mental health in America?
Denise Cesare: Don't. Don't give me a drug. It's not about, yes,
Denise Cesare: medicine's important, but what are the side
Denise Cesare: effects to medicine or what? There has to be more
Denise Cesare: monitoring, right? You're gonna give someone a drug and then you go,
Denise Cesare: good, bye, bye. Take that prescription drug and come see me
Denise Cesare: in six months. In those six months, your brain chemistry changes.
Joanne Lockwood: Do we spend enough time with young
Joanne Lockwood: parents or even before they have children,
Joanne Lockwood: educating them in developing those formative
Joanne Lockwood: years, or are we just expecting people to figure it out?
Denise Cesare: You just said it. They're just expecting people to figure it out. What I'm presenting
Denise Cesare: to you, I know, because of my studies, but no one's talking about who's
Denise Cesare: talking. I mean, I don't know who's talking about this because I don't hear it.
Denise Cesare: I hear myself. I'm talking to my own choir. That's why I hear
Denise Cesare: podcasts are good, because now maybe some of them will say, oh,
Denise Cesare: Denise, that's something I never knew about. Well, thank
Denise Cesare: you, Joanne, for bringing Denise here with
Denise Cesare: your knowledge and power and helping us. Because the children,
Joanne Lockwood: they're not. I don't like generalising.
Joanne Lockwood: Many children aren't developing resilience
Joanne Lockwood: and they're suffering from anxiety.
Joanne Lockwood: Seeing a rise in asd, autism, adhd.
Joanne Lockwood: People are trying to link that to drugs and vaccines.
Joanne Lockwood: Maybe the link should be back to the environment and how
Joanne Lockwood: they're being reinforced in that early formative years.
Denise Cesare: Exactly. They are not being, like
Denise Cesare: you said, it is a parent thing because you're not born a parent.
Denise Cesare: We don't get born and we're like, oh, I know how to be a parent.
Denise Cesare: No one knows what you know, but you
Denise Cesare: have to be, you know, and if you were in a bad situation, what a
Denise Cesare: bad. A life of having a bad family life, then I
Denise Cesare: made perseverance. So it's. It's very. It's a very
Denise Cesare: heavy topic, but we need to. We need to do something because it's a mental
Denise Cesare: health crisis and that's why the. And the children. Excuse
Joanne Lockwood: me, I'm gonna go have a drink. Have a guzzle. Don't worry.
Joanne Lockwood: I press pause on the tape. Don't worry. Carry on. So I'm joking. We're just.
Joanne Lockwood: We're gonna let it roll. We'll let it roll. We'll let it roll. No, Pressure,
Joanne Lockwood: it's okay. Well you know I have to protect my voice.
Joanne Lockwood: Of course, yeah. Not even just children.
Denise Cesare: I'm gonna say the youth or the young adults of today have no
Denise Cesare: coping mechanisms. I think we're now, we're
Joanne Lockwood: now coming into second generation. So we have parents
Joanne Lockwood: who have. Haven't had the coping mechanisms or
Joanne Lockwood: the resilience built into their lives at their early age are now becoming
Joanne Lockwood: parents. So we're expecting them to now of course
Joanne Lockwood: the Chinese whispers it's getting worse and worse and worse, more self fulfilling. So we'll
Joanne Lockwood: end up in maybe another couple of generations time where we've lost that,
Joanne Lockwood: that resilience that we've always had and we want instant gratification. We want it
Joanne Lockwood: now. We want to, we, we don't like not winning.
Joanne Lockwood: We want. Yeah, we're going to live in debt and all these sort of
Joanne Lockwood: things and. You know, I mean sometimes I think to myself
Denise Cesare: how did I have the resilience?
Denise Cesare: Because yes, I had a relatively intact
Denise Cesare: childhood then there were some things,
Denise Cesare: episodes of things that did occur that were heavy
Denise Cesare: and then how did I. How? I think so because you have to look within
Denise Cesare: to know how to help others. How was I
Denise Cesare: resilient? And I always just come back to. I learned that
Denise Cesare: because at the time when you know, we talked about the voice, we'll dial back
Denise Cesare: to that. During that time it was very dark. It was a
Denise Cesare: dark time in my life. It was so dark and people go through
Denise Cesare: this. That's of the mental illness. What is darkness? How do you find?
Denise Cesare: I always say you have to look for. I don't know even if it's like
Denise Cesare: a seed, you have to look for light. And what would happen
Denise Cesare: to me. I had a six year old, remember And I always thought it was
Denise Cesare: the six year old that kept me alive. That's why I was still
Denise Cesare: there. And as doing all this work
Denise Cesare: that I've been doing for the past five years I realised
Denise Cesare: that as much as I loved him, it wasn't about my love for him that
Denise Cesare: kept me here. It was my love for myself
Denise Cesare: and the resilience and not wanting to give up and
Denise Cesare: seeking things to get me to the next step.
Denise Cesare: I would go to work every day. I'd have to smile at myself in the
Denise Cesare: mirror because of the heaviness that they
Denise Cesare: would present on me because they really didn't want me there. They didn't want to
Denise Cesare: help someone with a disability. They didn't want to. But yet you're
Denise Cesare: teaching people with disabilities but you want to get rid of the Educator with a
Denise Cesare: disability, go figure that out. But
Denise Cesare: they didn't. You see, I'm here. They didn't get rid of me. I stayed, I
Denise Cesare: persevered. I even was better than ever because my students.
Denise Cesare: So me having a disability created me
Denise Cesare: as the educator, but then me as the human with the
Denise Cesare: disability that connected with them on a deeper,
Denise Cesare: more loving level. Not that everybody has to get
Denise Cesare: something to have that, but it was a better
Denise Cesare: self love purpose for me. So the bottom line
Denise Cesare: with why I'm still here and sitting is I learned that love
Denise Cesare: myself. Because if you don't have self love, you don't want to be here straight,
Denise Cesare: straight out. That's. That was my formula. I could have said everything
Denise Cesare: else like I did. I said, my son saved me. No, I
Denise Cesare: saved myself. I think that's, that's the important thing though, isn't it? It's. Use the
Joanne Lockwood: phrase bootstrap. It's being a. Pull yourself up yourself and learn how to,
Joanne Lockwood: how to spot when you're starting to tumble a bit and how to
Joanne Lockwood: put those cheques in and then making sure you've got a supportive network
Joanne Lockwood: around you that can also pick up on those triggers as well.
Denise Cesare: Yes, I think that was an awakening for me
Denise Cesare: because I used to say, oh, my son was sick, I had to keep going.
Denise Cesare: It was a little. I guess that was the motivation, but that's
Denise Cesare: not what saved me. There's two different things, right? Because
Denise Cesare: there's people who have everything. I think of people when they
Denise Cesare: commit suicide. There's so many people that have everything.
Denise Cesare: They have a child and the people go, why did they do that? And I
Denise Cesare: say to them, because sometimes I think I get very emotional about
Denise Cesare: this and I say, don't blame them. They didn't want.
Denise Cesare: They were in so much pain, they couldn't stay here anymore.
Denise Cesare: They weren't looking like me to find a crumb
Denise Cesare: of light, you know, they just couldn't find it
Denise Cesare: because they weren't doing things to
Denise Cesare: serve their soul and they weren't doing things to love themselves
Denise Cesare: or healing. And that's why. But I always, I do get very
Denise Cesare: intense about them when people go, oh, why'd they do that? Why
Denise Cesare: they. So people do say people are selfish when they do that. I'm like,
Denise Cesare: just go read up. Because it's not about that. Because if they have everything,
Denise Cesare: why would they do that? And then taking these and
Denise Cesare: like, you know, I'm not against medicine, but
Denise Cesare: cheques and balances, if you're going to prescribe something even to a
Denise Cesare: younger adult. No, some Things
Denise Cesare: create suicidal tendencies. Right. That then you
Denise Cesare: better be monitoring them. Don't just leave them on their own to just
Denise Cesare: be taking this drug and not know. So that, that
Denise Cesare: this, these are very important things that we're talking about that is
Denise Cesare: not even addressed. I use ChatGPT a lot these days because
Joanne Lockwood: it's quite amazing. And it's diagnosis capability.
Denise Cesare: Well, it is a helpful tool. Right.
Denise Cesare: But it's amazing. I don't use it that much, but
Denise Cesare: I should try. Right. I use it to analyse my
Joanne Lockwood: blood test results, other things that are going on. That's interesting.
Joanne Lockwood: I cut and paste it off my healthcare app, all
Joanne Lockwood: my blood results, paste it and say, what do you reckon? And it goes, oh,
Joanne Lockwood: wait, yeah, that's okay, that's okay. Oh, be a bit careful. Your white blood count
Joanne Lockwood: cells are a bit high and Should I be worried? No, no, because
Joanne Lockwood: that's okay. So sometimes you have to go to
Joanne Lockwood: gp. Wow. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try that. Thank you. I like
Denise Cesare: that idea. Now, I've got a couple of conditions that I'm, I'm sort of
Joanne Lockwood: trying to sort out with a bit of medication stuff and I, I,
Joanne Lockwood: I give it my symptoms and then help it get to draught. A
Joanne Lockwood: letter to my GP that makes it sound like I'm curious
Joanne Lockwood: but knowledgeable without being. You don't sound like
Joanne Lockwood: you're smart. Smart ass. Do you want to sort of say. Exactly. I was wondering
Joanne Lockwood: if it's something like this because I've read something, you know, in this. Right, exactly.
Denise Cesare: Just curious. Curious, not criticising, just curious.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And would a course of antibiotics help with that? And
Joanne Lockwood: they go, you're right. Thank you. That's good. Yeah. Or
Joanne Lockwood: phrasing the condition in a way that is understandable. So you thought
Joanne Lockwood: it's a bit of this and a bit of that asks you a few more
Joanne Lockwood: questions. It says, okay, now construct a letter to my gp. And then
Joanne Lockwood: I cheque, I scan the leaflets you get in your medicine
Joanne Lockwood: boxes and I scan it in and say, look, I've been
Joanne Lockwood: prescribed this, these are my other ones, you know, already take
Joanne Lockwood: what indicators are there. Is it like to cause that? No, this is
Denise Cesare: a knowledge. Thank you. Because you know what it can, you know, we need
Denise Cesare: to be able, we have to be our advocate so we acknowledge them.
Denise Cesare: Interesting. It's harder and harder to get access to your gp. They're busier,
Joanne Lockwood: they're more restrained, funding's less certainly in the uk. Yeah,
Denise Cesare: it's true. I've suffered from puffy ankles at times.
Joanne Lockwood: I've suffered from other conditions. And I've just got sort of. Is this
Joanne Lockwood: causing that? You know, my blood pressure going up and down. Right.
Denise Cesare: Because I have the blood pressure thing too. And like I just said to
Denise Cesare: you, you want to take as little as possible because they have side effects.
Denise Cesare: But some things you have to take. There's no way around it. If you have
Denise Cesare: high blood pressure, would you want to be vital and
Denise Cesare: alive? You can't not take the blood pressure meds, especially if there's a family
Denise Cesare: history of heart conditions. Right.
Denise Cesare: Medicine's important, but knowledge is power and you have to be
Denise Cesare: an advocate because they are human too. And they, they,
Denise Cesare: they, you know, we have to work together. There's another thing, working
Denise Cesare: together again, working together. People don't
Denise Cesare: get that. Yeah. And if anyone listening to this, this right
Joanne Lockwood: now, I'm not advocating that chat. GPT can replace a doctor.
Joanne Lockwood: The medical advice it gives you is, is at best
Joanne Lockwood: a storey, you know, and you, you have to interpret it yourself. So, you know,
Joanne Lockwood: don't go off and. No, don't be running and going, no,
Denise Cesare: no, don't go doing that. But it doesn't hurt to
Denise Cesare: investigate. This is investigating. This is not, this is not
Denise Cesare: taking it for, for gospel or whatever
Denise Cesare: word I want to use. It's not taking it for the. But just give you
Denise Cesare: information, that's all. It's like listening to a podcast too.
Denise Cesare: We're saying things, we have great information. But
Denise Cesare: it's not for everybody too. Right, everybody. It's not for everybody. But
Denise Cesare: I'm about. Fits everybody and being all in the moment.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, no, I'm with you on that. I think we do need to
Joanne Lockwood: stop counting all the little micro steps and planning away the
Joanne Lockwood: rest of your life. I know that my personality type is kind of now and
Joanne Lockwood: next. What am I doing now and what am I doing next? Next week?
Joanne Lockwood: I don't care. I'm just worried about this evening, this afternoon, tomorrow morning.
Joanne Lockwood: And I'm quite happy to wake up in the morning, cheque my diary and go,
Joanne Lockwood: oh, that's interesting. That's what I'm doing today. As long as I shouldn't be somewhere
Joanne Lockwood: else and I've got a train ticket and I know what time I supposed to
Joanne Lockwood: leave. So that's kind of what I do, you know, before I go to bed,
Joanne Lockwood: I'd say, what am I doing tomorrow? And I go, oh, that sounds like a
Joanne Lockwood: good day. I'm enjoying that. Yeah. Because I know some people who are, who will
Joanne Lockwood: plan out the rest of their life and it's like, I can't live with that.
Joanne Lockwood: I can't be that planned. I just want to have the freedom to figure it
Joanne Lockwood: out, wing it. When you plan, something else happens
Denise Cesare: anyway. There's so many things that could change, you know,
Denise Cesare: being in the moment, like you said, like right now or the next. The people
Denise Cesare: use that word, mindfulness. They throw it around. Right. Everybody's, oh,
Denise Cesare: mindfulness, you know, but it's not about. It's a
Denise Cesare: practise. I think people really need to know you're not just
Denise Cesare: mindful. You have to practise mindfulness. You are not
Denise Cesare: just, you know, you may be thoughtful, you may be thinking,
Denise Cesare: but mindfulness is a practise. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: About yourself, about the impact on others and others impact on
Joanne Lockwood: you. And then contextualising and not sweating the small stuff, as they say.
Denise Cesare: Or if you're gonna sweat it, take a moment and just breathe. Because don't sweat.
Denise Cesare: Try not to sweat it out. Yeah, that's right. At that point there,
Joanne Lockwood: you put your t suit on and you go for a dip in the pool.
Denise Cesare: Don't you put your t suit on and go have fun. Exactly. Have a
Joanne Lockwood: splash. Yeah. And then you can wear it to the bar afterwards with a skimpy.
Denise Cesare: I love that. I love that. Thank you. Yeah, it's true.
Joanne Lockwood: Denise, it's been absolutely fantastic having a chat with you. I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: we've been rapiding on now for well over an hour here and 20 minutes
Joanne Lockwood: in the green room. No, people get a hold of you. That's true. Oh, my.
Denise Cesare: Wow. I know. We can talk. Well, yeah,
Denise Cesare: I can. Well, now you got rid of your
Joanne Lockwood: dysphonia. Yeah, yeah. And then I'll go back for the injection
Denise Cesare: again. It is a cycle and I'm blessed, though, because it
Denise Cesare: works. So, you know. Yeah. So how can people
Joanne Lockwood: get hold of you? What's. What's the. The best way to track you down? So
Denise Cesare: the. I think the easiest way to get a hold of me is go to
Denise Cesare: my website, denise caesar.com. spell it with the Chesire.
Denise Cesare: Denise C E S A R E dot com. There you
Denise Cesare: can purchase my book and you will get it autographed if you
Denise Cesare: choose to go through Amazon, which is fine because it comes in two seconds. You
Denise Cesare: won't get it autographed and you won't get the updated version. I made
Denise Cesare: a new updated version because in my book I have a glossary,
Denise Cesare: because when you hear words and
Denise Cesare: sometimes you don't really understand what they're meaning in the
Denise Cesare: context of what the author has presented to you. So
Denise Cesare: it has a glossary of the. Especially for children too. So they could
Denise Cesare: hold on to the meaning of this book. Then there's a poem in there. So,
Denise Cesare: yeah, deniseiser.com, amazon, all social handles,
Denise Cesare: fits everybody on Instagram and Facebook.
Denise Cesare: Of course, you could Google my name and you'll see everything I'm doing. You know,
Denise Cesare: it's funny. Google could show you everything about yourself and. Yeah, just
Denise Cesare: reach out. I have. So in my book, I empower the
Denise Cesare: reader. I tell you how wonderful you are, but if you don't believe. That's my
Denise Cesare: belief poem. If you don't believe it, it's not within
Denise Cesare: you. So I'm going to say the poem before we leave. Are you okay with
Denise Cesare: that? Yeah, go for it. So you've got. Your book is Moments in
Joanne Lockwood: Motion, Moments in Motion book is your Facebook page
Joanne Lockwood: and tsuit is t-suit.com. if you want to find out more about
Joanne Lockwood: the. I'm sorry, I didn't talk about that yet.
Denise Cesare: If you go on Instagram, though, you know, there's the link tree. It could get
Denise Cesare: you to the. People want quick, right? They don't want to go type into my
Denise Cesare: T shirt dot com, go to Instagram, go on my
Denise Cesare: link tree. You'll see the website right there because they're. They're quick.
Denise Cesare: They want to be quick, right? So my believe poem. And I want you to
Denise Cesare: say it with me to believe. Believe, girl.
Joanne Lockwood: Ted Lasso. Believe. I am loved. I am loved.
Denise Cesare: I am light. I am liked. I am
Denise Cesare: courage. I am courage. I am bright.
Joanne Lockwood: I am bright. I am brave. I am
Joanne Lockwood: brave. I am so important in this
Denise Cesare: moment. I am so important in this
Joanne Lockwood: moment. And you are. And
Joanne Lockwood: you are. I have a mantra which I developed again about 10,
Joanne Lockwood: 15 years ago, where I realised that in order to be loved, you have to
Joanne Lockwood: be lovable. In order to be liked, you have to be likeable. In order
Joanne Lockwood: to be worthy of respect, you have to show that you are worthy of respect.
Joanne Lockwood: And all of those things are within you to control. You cannot demand
Joanne Lockwood: of somebody else if you're not prepared to give it. So 99%
Joanne Lockwood: of what we have to do to be loved is within us. Thank you,
Joanne Lockwood: Denise. It's been amazing. I've really loved our conversation
Joanne Lockwood: and. Yeah, please get in touch. Thank you so
Denise Cesare: much. Yes, please be in touch. And if you want. You want to know anything,
Denise Cesare: just contact me and we will be in touch. And thank you for having me
Denise Cesare: on your podcast. It was a pleasure.
Joanne Lockwood: Absolutely, absolutely. Take care. Bye.
Joanne Lockwood: As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to explain express
Joanne Lockwood: my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending
Joanne Lockwood: your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.
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Joanne Lockwood: and let's make your voice heard. Until next time, this
Joanne Lockwood: is Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return with
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Joanne Lockwood: episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.