by Liz Deacle | Personal
You’d think I would have learned by now. I’ve been doing this long enough.
A few weeks ago, I shared an email about something that happened online – a video that Brian and I created on YouTube that went viral, a video that raised a few angry keyboard warriors from the inside of their woodworm cellars.
I write these diary-style emails to you as a way of sharing what real life looks like.
I write these emails to you because—selfishly—your reading them lightens my load. When you reply, it feels like I have a friend. A friend I’ve never met. A friend who finds solace in my words. Connects with me.
But after I sent that last email… guilt hit me like a truck.
Was I burdening you with too much?
I swallowed back the ever-present fear and pressed send.
As usual, a mass of people unsubscribed.
Fuck. That stung. It always does.
But then, the responses started to come in.
Messages saying, “Me too”, “Thanks for making me feel normal”, “You’ve got this, Liz”. Those blow me away every time.
Amongst the positive titles in my inbox, however, there was one e-mail that blinked at me.
The title said, “Can I offer you some advice?”
Oh God.
I opened the e-mail.
It was from a man in California, a businessman who confidently told me that he had many successful businesses. He was really successful.
“I signed up to hear about New Zealand things.
To receive a random email where you share your struggles with YouTube trolls feels unprofessional.
Please don’t take this the wrong way, I just want you to know that many people who signed up for this e-mail do not want to hear about your personal life.”
What the?
Thud. Slam. One humungous kick to my already-churning-stomach courtesy of David Beckham’s left foot.
Every impostor ladened gremlin that lives in my head, walked out into the arena of my mind, shouting. Celebrating. Each carrying a bottle opf scotch under one are and a converter heater switched to full under the other.
And my God, did they make the most of that space.
“When will you learn, Liz?” They sneered. “What were you thinking, Liz?
“People want New Zealand content. REAL content you moron. What an amateur and a little tiny insignificant toss-pot you are.”
Me. When I meet people who think I’m normal but can’t see inside my brain
I can tell when something affects me badly because I don’t share it with Brian.
When it’s a 50/50 deal and I’m hurt but still have the strength to laugh, I share it with Brian.
This e-mail was different.
The feeling I felt was complete and utter shame.
Here we are building this business, creating content about New Zealand, making podcasts about New Zealand, asking people to sign up to our newsletter about New Zealand, and here I was sending heart-opening, tear-jerking, personal emails about my feelings. My failings. My bits.
Everything I had ever previously written flooded my mind.
My mum dying.
My dog dying.
My dad dying.
Me dying when I had to give a speech at my sister’s wedding when all I wanted to do was crawl under a sink and hide.
Fuck.
Instead of sitting down with a wad of paper and writing my thoughts down for 45 minutes, or doing a meditation for 45 minutes, or going for a walk and talking to myself… instead of doing all those things, which I know work, I did what the gremlins wanted.
I let them win.
I closed my computer and told myself I would rethink this whole e-mail sequence.
I would write posts about how to drive in New Zealand.
What to eat in New Zealand.
I would create a whole new sequence with affiliate links and products, and I would keep it uniformed and straight. Proper, and professional.
No more raw, teary, heart-wrenching, begging-for-attention emails from me.
No.
The man was right.
Hurray!!
Only he wasn’t.
He very much wasn’t.
How do I know this? Because of the way I felt every time I went to write one of those informative New Zealand could-be-written-by-Chatgpt emails.
It felt wrong. Grubby. Cheap.
Dishonourable to my authentic self.
The man was wrong.
It’s taken me three weeks to come to this conclusion. To share these words:
I will continue to write to you.
I will continue to share my heart.
I will continue to keep it real.
Because here’s the truth:
There are people out there who only resonate with you.
There are people out there who will never agree no matter how hard you try to convince them.
There are people out there who need to be somewhere else with someone else, listening to someone else, following someone else’s work. Being somewhere else.
There are people out there who are simply not for you.
And that is ok.
If every Milk Tray box contained only crunchy, paralinely chocolate, it wouldn’t be Milk Tray—it’d be Ferrero Rocher.
It’s fun being like everyone else isn’t it??
My 20-year-old daughter, Tess, recently signed up for a fitness programme run by two women.
She paid $200 for a year subscription, which offers daily workouts, inspirational tips, quotes, menus and a bunch of other stuff to feel and look gorgeous, inspired and strong.
Guess what she did after purchasing her membership?
She dove deeper and found a podcast that these two women also produce.
Then she dove deeper still and found an episode where one of the women talks about losing her mother to cancer.
She listened to the episode and came to me afterwards to talk about it. Told me how her hero was feeling about losing someone she loved dearly to cancer.
“It was just like me when I lost Marmar”.
My point is that when you invest in someone, when you resonate with someone, when you are drawn to someone, you want everything of that someone.
All of it.
All. Of. It.
Not just the coffee creams.
Quote that we both need to remember:
There comes a time when you have to stop crossing oceans for people who wouldn’t jump puddles for you.
Stop trying to please everyone.
Stop doubting that your feelings, your thoughts, your dreams, that hug, that longing, that brightness inside you—isn’t needed.
It is. Deeply. Urgently.
It is needed by the right person.
Remember. Your shimmering parts will feel the most vulnerable.
You won’t be receiving emails from me about how to fill in a New Zealand tax form.
You will, however, be looking into the heart of someone who feels safe to be vulnerable when she writes to you.
Find your person.
Find your people.
Find yourself.
And never let that self go.
Yours wishing-david-hadn’t-married-victoria-and-was-in-love-with-me-instead
Your friend,
Liz x
You have just read:
You have just read an essay that I first shared with my Front Row readers. If you would like to join me and thousands of other wonderful souls whom I call my close friends, it would be an honour to have you.
Please sign up below. I look forward to getting to know you.
PS: Here is our latest podcast where Brian and I share some very exciting (and a bit scary) news. I’ll be telling you all about my reasoning behind this huge adventurous move in the next email. Warning. It will contain feelings. Our BIG news.
My bestselling book is available in all formats, including the very magnificent and highly-produced-by-Brian audiobook read by yours truly. You can get the book here.
PPS: You’re unique and you’re different, and I love you x
by Liz Deacle | Personal
Yesterday, we released a video on YouTube, and my safe little corner of the internet turned into a savage, enraged, inhospitable, hideous lion’s den.
People with a love for capital letters and exclamation marks found me, attacked me and told me how shit and crap they thought I was.
“Who the hell IS this woman? She is SO ANNOYING”
“STOP BEING SO DRAMATIC AND KEEP YOUR HANDS BY YOUR SIDE!!!!!!”
“Why don’t you shut up and let your husband talk?”
“So WOKE”
“This channel is HORRIBLE”
and so it went on.
Three days after releasing the video, there are one thousand comments blinking at me. Baiting. Waiting for a reply.
As I write this to you, typing and licking my torso with my tongue, I wonder how others do it.
I have an urge to reach out to all solo content creators – the ones with no Brian by their side, a Brian who ignores all comments because he says they are written by a bunch of tossers with no life.
How do they do it? How do they act as their own gatekeeper? Stand waist-deep awash with strangers’ opinions and decide which ones pass through. How hard that must be.
I left our regular evening hot tub meeting early tonight. Brian and Tessa were discussing AI, and it was distracting me from my self-pity. Annoying me.
I climbed out of the steamy water sulkily and squelched to the driveway wearing nothing but my frayed, baggy swimsuit and that disgusting towelling dress that makes young surfer girls look gorgeous, but makes me look like a bloated old lesbian nun.
The night was beautiful. Cold, crisp and clear. I sat at the end of the driveway with my knees pulled under my chin, hoping that a car would stop and attend to my needs.
Brum brum. Screech of brakes.
“Jesus Christ, are you okay, love? Do you need a lift back to your convent or something?”
There were no cars. Only stars for company.
It was then I had a thought.
I’m unsure if it was my thought or my mum talking to me from the grave. I don’t know. I still can’t work out if I am gifted and can communicate with the dead or if I am a paranoid schizophrenic who is fucking mental and needs hospitalization.
The voice said:
What if you switched this from yourself and made it about them? Turned it into a positive? What if you’ve provided a place for these people, a space where they could all meet and didn’t feel alone? What then?
I could picture it.
Those angry people. All living in empty, grey, high-rise buildings with no outside space. No grass, no people, no trees, no soil.
Opening their front door one bright Thursday morning to pick up their single bottle of milk that had been pecked by a bird with bird flu; looking upon yonder and seeing me. Standing innocently in my garden. A big garden with acres of land.
And in the corner of that land is a space. A safe space where people, strangers, are gathering and shaking their fists. Standing shoulder to shoulder, All chummy. Voicing their annoyance and anger.
So the person (who doesn’t have bird flu because they didn’t drink the milk) walks over and joins them.
They leave the empty flat behind and stands on the grass (my grass, actually), wiggles their toes in the soil. Begins to discuss how crap my video was.
And for one small minute, that person no longer feels alone.
This is the thought that gets me through. Pushes me forward. Pulls me from my soily hole of self pity.
Quote:
Don’t Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you – Don Miguel Ruiz
I am proud of myself for being able to offer a piece of my land. A place on the internet where people can unite and get angry. Albeit about me.
No matter. At least they are together. For one small moment, they will have felt companionship, oneness and unity.
They had company.
And for that, I am happy.
Come to mama pleb
Until next time,
Yours, wishing-they-would-invent-towelling-knickers-then-realising-they-do-and-they’re-called-nappies
Liz x
You have just read:
You have just read an essay that I first shared with my Front Row readers. If you would like to join me and thousands of other wonderful souls whom I call my close friends, it would be an honour to have you.
Please sign up below. I look forward to getting to know you.
PS: I’m chucking that hideous towelling robe in the bin. Whenever I wear it, I cry. That tells you something.
PS: It can’t be my mum; she wasn’t so compassionate. If she’d got a sniff of anyone saying anything bad to her girl, she’d have gone on YouTube and ripped them all to shreds.
So that confirms it, then. I’m a nutter.
by Liz Deacle | Personal, Podcasts
This is a bonus episode that I recorded for our Patreon members. My hope is that it reaches the right person. The person who needs to hear this message.
Thank you for listening.
FOR MORE BONUS CONTENT LIKE THIS Join us on Patreon
Sign up for my FREE newsletter: The Front Row Newsletter
To hear more about the mastermind I mentioned email me: at [email protected]
My heart beats with yours ❤️
Liz x
by Liz Deacle | Grieving, Personal, Time for a change
It’s time to come back. Return to the land of the living.
I went to Canada to forget. To escape. But the opposite happened. I found something. Something I thought was gone forever.
I was standing at the top of a ski run on the side of a mountain. Nothing but two fibreglass skis and a pair of second-hand boots between me and death. My family waited patiently at the bottom.
I can’t do it. I can’t do it. If I do it, I’ll die.
Sonny, my twenty-three year old, was waving his arms. Beckoning.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Do it. Do it now. Think of Mel Robins. 1,2,3, 4, 5 go.
I edged myself over the drop and slid to the side of the piste. Crawling. Trailing my left ski pole in the crystals of bally snow as a way of false security.
My knees were bent, my hands clammy.
I fixed my sight on the three bodies at the bottom of the hill and muttered the same sentences over and over again.
If I catch a ski, I will fall and break my neck. I will be paralysed; I will be dead. The helicopter will whirl over and take me off the mountain. I will be flown back to NZ in a body bag.
Morbid as fuck, I know, and undoubtedly the reason why I was prescribed antidepressants a month earlier.
But it’s the truth. That’s what I thought. It’s the truth. Sorry, Mel.
Only I didn’t. I didn’t die. Instead, halfway down the hill, with my eyes fixed on the carved-out slope that swept beneath ancient pine trees, something happened. Something completely unexpected happened.
I whooped. I actually whooped.
I thought only American baseball players whooped. But no. Here I was, a fifty-three-year-old woman recently orphaned and blowing her blog savings on a trip to Canada in an attempt to forget how shit life is when you have no parents, whooping.
The snow showered my ankles in glitter, and I gained confidence and speed. The wind dried my overlicked lips. My cheeks felt cold and taut, and suddenly, it dawned on me.
You are alive, Liz.
Alive.
And it felt good.
I went to Canada to forget. To escape. But the opposite happened. I found something. Something I thought was gone forever.
I found what it feels like to be alive again. To live. To be happy.
Rewind to earlier last year
A few months after Mum passed, I was at a coffee shop with Tess. Feigning human-ness. She was holding my hand, looking at me earnestly. The way daughters look at their mothers when they’re about to say something really bad. Something that’s going to hurt.
I’m pregnant.
I’m a druggie.
I hate your podcast.
I avoided her lovely eyes. Prayed that she’d talk about something else. Anything other than the words I could see forming in her beautiful head.
Don’t ask me to smile. Or for advice. Don’t ask me to act like a grown-up. Just tell me about the TikTok ban or how much you loved Cynthia Erivo’s performance in Wicked.
She swallowed and stroked my hand.
“I feel as if it wasn’t just Marmar that died in April, Mum, it was you too. I can’t find you anymore. I feel like I’ve lost you.”
Fuck. Straight to the heart, that one. Sharp as glass.
She was right.
That’s the worst part of it. She was right.
When my mum died, I went with her. Just for some of the way. I held her hand and walked her to where she needed to go. Then I left her up in the clouds and dawdled my way home.
For months, I have lived with the fog. Engulfed in that shitty murky unseeable thick, gluey haze that suffocates those with broken hearts.
When I needed to, I could fake it away, but only for a few hours. Five at max. After that, I would sink into the familiar, clotted, sodden gloop. Float around in the most pleasurable, comfortable feeling of sadness, like a bone of ham in a cauldron of murky pea soup. Bobbing.
I felt constantly tired. Tired of the ache. The tears, Tired of feeling sad. Tired of feeling guilty. Tired of circling the calendar. Tired of wanting her back. Tired of crawling under the sink, hoping I’d locked the bathroom door.
My mum was dead, and I felt not far behind.
So I went to Canada. I paid for a family trip to Canada with the money I made from my blog, to avoid facing a foggy, fake Christmas. And while I was there, I pushed myself down a really big hill covered in snow.
And I remembered. That when you ski, you face forward.
You face forward. Forward. It’s the only way to live.
Had I come down the hill looking backwards, I would have crashed. But I didn’t. I faced forward, and with each second that passed, I was more alive. Whooping like a major league coach into the present moment.
Not everyone needs to ski. But I want you to remember this. When we are constantly pulled to the past, looking back, how can we possibly live? We can’t. It’s as simple as that. We can’t.
And I want to live. I want to move forward. I want to laugh. I want to live.
I am back from Canada. Returned not only to New Zealand but to the land of the living. I feel happy and hopeful. I hope this mindset lasts, I really do.
It will. I am determined. It has to.
This is not a “times up, ready to move on” message. This is a time is short. Live your beautiful life while you can.
It is 2025, and I am sending my heartfelt love to you.
To those who have yet to experience such loss, you have my sympathy. I wish I could wrap you in bubble wrap and pop those little inflated domes one by one so you won’t hurt so badly when your time comes.
To those who have lost a loved one, my heart is with you. I know, believe me, I fucking know what you are going through and how much it hurts.
But I also know this. There is strength in front of you. When you are ready to let it, it will pull you. It will lead you. It will guide you. You are strong. Stronger than you imagine. And you are alive.
Breathe. Soften. Repeat and face forward.
Quote that I will read every day to keep me strong:
” You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present “ – Jan Gildwell
I’m with you, many darling friend,
Yours, facing forward,
Liz x
Are you in the depths of sadness?
I hear you, and I feel you. My heart is with you.
Sign up for my FREE 5-day ‘help me’ letters, where I will share the FIVE most helpful practices I put into place when I lost my Mother and Father within six months. It’s the help I needed and I’m passing it on ❤️
PS: You can read the audio version (read by me, Liz, the author) of this essay FOR FREE over on Patreon this is a message that needs to be read by all those who are hurting.
Head over to Patreon and click “Become a free member” (all you need is the email), and you will be able to listen to the audio of this essay and the reflections on why I wrote it there.
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by Liz Deacle | Musings, Personal
Last week I went to Four Square with Brian.
We bought milk. Full fat. It’s Christmas, after all.
Coming out of the shop, I witnessed something you rarely see in our neck of the woods.
Exuberant wealth. Loadsa lolly.
Parked at the bottom of the steps, next to the dizzy bay, was a car. Walking towards it, a couple. Tanned. Smiling. Polished. Holding hands.
The car was navy blue with a white leather interior. The man had orange skin and was dripping in gold. His silver fox hair was slicked back. With gel. Not sweat. He looked like Richard Gere in Pretty Woman, only considerably richer and not so squinty and sex-starved.
The woman was tight and tall. Her waist was small. A Gucci bag dangled from her exfoliated elbow.
She flashed me a smile and then glanced pitifully at my milk.
Yuk. Everyone knows udder juice brings on phlegm. Gross…
I looked at Brian. His eyes were fixated on the woman’s mouth. Enchanted by her smile. She giggled at Rich Boy. Her tongue was pink and not at all yellow and fuzzy. She oozed moisture and gloss. Not a sign of a dehydrated prune in sight.
The couple hopped into the car and threw back their heads. The car pulled away. Slowly. Just so those watching could have one last oggle.
Off they went. The wind blowing Richards Tupee. The breeze curling Julia’s lashes.
“That’s my dream car, that is….” Brian said wistfully. He was slouched over like a salty slug. Mesmerized.
“It’s a Bently he…..What I wouldn’t give to drive one of those. I’ve wanted a Bentley my whole life”.
Pfff.
It’s true. For a moment, I had a flash of envy. A moment of ‘I-bet-if-we-owned-that-car-I’d-be-thin-and-blonde-and-only-drink-Kambucha-and-wouldn’t-keep-crying-about-my-dead-parents’.
When I returned home, I looked out of the window. They were clean. Brian’s been on them all week. Through the glass, I saw something that brought about the same envy I’d witnessed in Brian.
My daughter, sitting out in the sunshine. Writing in her journal; Beside her was a cup of tea and a lit joystick (thief). She had her head down and her elbow across the paper. She looked peaceful. Indulged. Calm.
And I was jealous.
“Now that’s the way I’d like to spend every moment of every day”, I said, turning to Brian, who was putting the milk into the fridge that was still dirty because our lazy arse daughter hasn’t cleaned it yet.
Time.
Undisturbed, peaceful, unrushed, unaccounted for, much needed, slow ticking, empty spacing, free falling, non-counted for, time.
I don’t know about you, but I’ll take two hours of that over a spin in dickies throbbing Bentley any day.
Whatever you are doing this holiday season, I wish you peace. I hope that you (and I) get to carve out some precious space in your busy life and give yourself the one thing that every billionaire craves. Time.
But if you do have the spare cash lying around for a Bentley, my address is at the bottom of this email.
Have a wonderful Christmas, glad tidings, and peace on earth.
I love you.
Yours,
Liz x
PS: Don’t forget you can now join me on Patreon. I’ll be sharing photos of Canada. Letting you see my beautiful hydrated skin. Come and say hello. I’d love you to join me. x
PPS: In case you didn’t catch it, here is our latest video podcast, “Farewell. We’re leaving New Zealand‘. In it, we talk about our decision to house-swap with a family of Canadians and everything house-swapping entails. Including getting naked with spiders and facing Christmas without your loved ones.
Thank you for being here. Merry Christmas!
by Liz Deacle | Personal, Podcasts
Feeling is healing. I’ve read those words a lot while grieving my mum. And it’s true; to a certain extent, it’s true. But what people fail to mention is that feeling also hurts like hell. And no one likes to feel pain. Not if they can possibly avoid it.
In this week’s behind-the-scenes episode, we share a personal healing practice that Liz has undertaken to help navigate the grief around losing her mum. Writing.
Liz is writing her second book, but what started as a happy, healing book about New Zealand has morphed into something quite different.
An unexpected beast.
Something that scares Liz to write and scares Brian to stand by and witness.
Thank you for being with us and for listening. You are loved, you are needed, and our hearts always beat with yours.
Your friends,
Liz and Brian x
(more…)
