Breaking The Cycle: Trauma, Truth, And Creative Courage With Ruth Clare
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You can listen above or on your favourite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.
Subscribe: Spotify | Apple | RSS | More
You can listen above or on your favourite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.
Show notes
I talk with Ruth Clare about trauma, nervous system science, and the courage to tell difficult truths. From the fawn response to polyvagal tools and indie publishing, we share practical ways to turn fear into action and advocate for families often left out of the story.
• tracing Ruth’s path from science and acting to memoir
• defining the fawn response as survival pattern
• children as primary targets in domestic violence
• veteran training, fight bias and family harm
• government responsibility and support gaps
• ACEs, hypervigilance and long-term health
• body-up regulation, breath and grounding
• emotions as 90-second waves and practice
• using fear as fuel for creative action
• writing heavy material after doing the therapy
• content warnings, empathy and reader agency
• traditional vs indie publishing trade-offs
• owning craft, platform and advocacy
If you enjoyed today’s episode, don't forget to subscribe and follow for more inside stories and inspiration
• tracing Ruth’s path from science and acting to memoir
• defining the fawn response as survival pattern
• children as primary targets in domestic violence
• veteran training, fight bias and family harm
• government responsibility and support gaps
• ACEs, hypervigilance and long-term health
• body-up regulation, breath and grounding
• emotions as 90-second waves and practice
• using fear as fuel for creative action
• writing heavy material after doing the therapy
• content warnings, empathy and reader agency
• traditional vs indie publishing trade-offs
• owning craft, platform and advocacy
If you enjoyed today’s episode, don't forget to subscribe and follow for more inside stories and inspiration
Connect with Ruth Clare
Author, speaker, scientist, actor, and relentless truth-teller, Ruth Clare. Ruth is best known for her award-winning memoir Enemy, a powerful exploration of growing up with a Vietnam veteran father and the hidden legacy of intergenerational trauma. Her writing doesn’t flinch; she digs into the realities of domestic violence, the psychological fallout of war, and what happens when a child grows up in a home where fear is a constant companion.
Ruth’s work sits at the intersection of lived experience and research. She blends science, storytelling, and emotional insight to help people understand how trauma shapes the nervous system — and how we can reclaim agency. Her follow-up books, including Beyond Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn and her upcoming guide Turn Fear into Courage, build on that mission, offering practical tools for anyone trying to break old patterns and move toward a more grounded life.
Beyond the page, Ruth is a dynamic keynote speaker who has delivered talks across Australia, a trained actor who understands embodiment from the inside out, and a creative whose honesty has helped countless people feel seen.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ruthclareauthor/
Website: ruthclare.com/
Ruth’s work sits at the intersection of lived experience and research. She blends science, storytelling, and emotional insight to help people understand how trauma shapes the nervous system — and how we can reclaim agency. Her follow-up books, including Beyond Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn and her upcoming guide Turn Fear into Courage, build on that mission, offering practical tools for anyone trying to break old patterns and move toward a more grounded life.
Beyond the page, Ruth is a dynamic keynote speaker who has delivered talks across Australia, a trained actor who understands embodiment from the inside out, and a creative whose honesty has helped countless people feel seen.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ruthclareauthor/
Website: ruthclare.com/
Transcript of episode
Amra Pajalic: 00:01
Welcome to Amra's Armchair Anecdotes. I'm Amra Pajalic , writer, teacher, and storyteller. Over chair and lipstide into stories about writing, life, and listen to learn. Sharing wisdom from my armchair to yours. You can find the episode show notes.
Okay, so today I'm sitting down with someone whose work slices straight to the bone. Author, speaker, scientist, actor, relentless truth teller Ruth Clare. Ruth is best known for her award-winning memoir Enemy, which I read and is fabulous. A powerful exploration of growing up with Vietnam, their true father, and the hidden legacy of intergenerational trauma. Her writing doesn't flinch. She digs into the realities of domestic violence, the psychological fallout of war, and what happens when a child grows up in a house where fear is a constant companion. Ruth's work sits at the intersection of lived experience and research. She blends science, storytelling, and emotional insight to help people understand how trauma shapes the nervous system, how we reclaim agency, her follow-up books, including Beyond Fight, Flight and Freeze, Fawn, and her upcoming guide, Turn Fear into Courage, build on that mission, offering practical tools for anyone trying to break old patterns and move toward a more grounded life. Beyond the page, Arusa is a dynamic keynote speaker who has delivered talks across Australia, a trained actor who understands embodiment from the inside out, and a creative whose honesty has helped countless people feel seen. I'm thrilled to have her today to talk about her creative journey, her healing framework, and the courage it takes to tell the truth, especially when the truth is uncomfortable. Welcome, Ruth. Thank you, Emma. Thank you so much for being here. We've met quite a few times and we've developed a friendship online and in person. And whenever I speak to you, I just find myself so inspired and just, I don't know, feeling uplifted and really creative. That's good. You've just got that energy. So we've just got to sort of go back to the beginning. You've got a fascinating mix of experiences, the published author, scientists, keynote speakers. So which have felt yours early on and which felt imposed or secondary?
Ruth Clare: 02:43
Well, I got into science because at school I was a high achieving student and I got a lot of validation from being a high achieving student. And I really didn't like people underestimating me. And it felt like when you're doing really smart subjects, you just go, shut up. So yeah, I decided to do an entire biochemistry degree just to really double down on that. But at the end of it, I went, what's I work in a land? Uh no. So after I left that, I went and saw a career counsellor who said, if you could do something for free, what would you do for free? And the whole time, like I'd always won the prize for theatre. I'd always done an exact mix of arts and sciences. And I'd always won the prize for theatre. And during uni, I was still doing community theatre, and I said I'd be an actor. And he said, We should be an actor. I'm like, oh yeah, because it's so easy to be an actor. But I thought I might regret it if I didn't give it a try. So then I did acting, but acting 99% unemployment rates. And during that process, even though I really enjoy the process of acting, I realized again I was kind of trying to get something that was a source of validation that other people were impressed by that I was an actor. And it felt special and it was a way of kind of validating myself. And I also came to realize that I was acting most of the time in my life. And I had been for a very long time, that I was a chameleon. The idea of having all my friends come together was horrifying to me because I was a different person with this group of people and a different person with that group of people. Because I thought if anyone actually knew the real me, then they would like me. And so I realized that acting was actually my fawn response writ large. I just had turned it into a profession.
Amra Pajalic: 04:47
Yeah, could you explain about that form response? And because in a sense that's feeding into a little bit the book, which we'll we'll explore more, but like fawn response, we've we've got the flight fright-freeze, but I'm not quite sure about the fawn.
Speaker: 04:60
Yeah, so the fawn response is something, especially if you've grown up in traumatic situations, and with especially with caregivers who are the biggest source of your trauma. So in my instance, my dad was very violent. I had to become very good at watching him, watching small changes in behavior, predicting when he was about to go off, getting out of his way, adapting to whatever he needed from me. So I would be kind of in the middle of the sentence, and I could see that whatever I was saying was annoying him. So I would just be changing on the fly what I was saying and acting like I was going to say something else to try and calm the situation down. And so what happens when you're in the foreign response is you become extremely skilled at reading other people and extremely skilled at all of the unconscious stuff that people don't own or name. And so you are really good at attuning to other people and knowing what they need from you, but you're really bad at attuning to yourself. And because it doesn't actually feel safe to be in your body, your needs are put to the side when you grow up in homes like that. And fawning is this thing called pleasing and impeting. And it becomes almost like your nervous system says the way that you say stay safe in life is by seeing other people's feelings, being responsible for keeping people feeling happy around you, putting all of your needs aside and ensuring that other people are happy with you. That's the only way that you can stay safe. So it's people pleasing on steroids. And it comes from genuinely a situation where the only way to avoid trouble was to become very good at that.
Amra Pajalic: 06:59
Yeah, to transform yourself. Yeah. And so, in a sense, you explored that in um energy, like I ran your memoir because I was studying um war at that time and I was sort of looking at the Vietnam War. Um, so could you share a little bit about how your childhood inspired that and that transition?
Ruth Clare: 07:19
So I didn't start out with the dream of being an author. I read something, I think it was Tony Morrison, who said if there's a book that hasn't been written, the book you want to read that hasn't been written yet, you should write it. And I remember just waiting to read a book. I can't I wanted I wanted to read a book about a couple of things that I just wasn't seeing in the literature. I wanted to read a book where the child is the most direct victim of the domestic violence in the home. It's not that the parent, the mother is the thing and the child incidentally gets harmed, which is the predominant narrative still exists. Because in our family, it was Dad was hitting my brother and sister and me all the time. We were the ones who received them absolutely 100% bulk of the physical abuse. He didn't, there was an incident when he came back later and he did hurt my mum, but that was pretty much a one-off. Whereas our abuse was constant. So I wasn't reading stories about that. And it felt like, well, in part that's because children's stories continue to be diminished in society and not taken seriously, despite the devastating impacts of childhood trauma on life expectancy, on your health forever. The other thing was being a child of a veteran. I was interested to kind of know how much of my father's behavior was influenced by being a veteran in war. And I knew there was a whole lot of literature about being like the next generation, looking at the next generation of, say, Holocaust survivors and the epigenetics of that situation. But for me, there's a very different dynamic when you're a victim of a war to when you're a perpetrator of a war. It's like there's different parts of your nervous system that are activated when you are fully charged to actually fight in a war as opposed to having to endure suffering at the hands of another. And I think the impact on the next generation is energetically, and and you're going to see a difference because the way it acts out is different. So I now sit on a steering committee as part at Monash, where they're investigating domestic violence rates in military populations. And they've only just recently found that in transition veteran families domestic violence rates as high as 45%. Wow, that is huge. 45%. That's incredible. So basically wanting to. There is no Enemy is the first book written by the child of a veteran talking about generational trauma from a nonfiction perspective. It's always alluded to.
Amra Pajalic: 10:06
Yes.
Ruth Clare: 10:06
But it's never been really studied. And I think it is that is just mind-blowing to me. It still is mind-blowing to me. I continue to check and go, why millions and millions of people are children of veterans? Millions and millions of them have experienced family violence. The the direct correlation between military experience and family violence is only now just being explored, researched.
Amra Pajalic: 10:33
And there's a reason for that, in a sense, where that's not a good news story for people to be signing up for these things.
Ruth Clare: 10:40
That is exactly it.
Amra Pajalic: 10:41
Yes, so there's the the politics behind it. That's exactly it.
Amra Pajalic: 10:44
I can tell you now, defense is very disinterested in hearing this story. Is defense defensive?
Ruth Clare: 10:51
Defense is defensive. They are harmed. Because when you look at the promotional campaigns for armed forces, it is very, you know, um action-oriented and it's very exciting, dynamic. Um, but you know, there are those psychological and the physical And they have they're having real issues with recruitment.
Ruth Clare: 11:11
And I actually want to get into defence and talk to show them how they can help to lessen this problem from a nervous system perspective and actually make into make people aware that that is like they're they're at increased risk of of perpetrating domestic violence on their families when they get home because their nervous systems are so charged. So, how the hell do we calm them down? Yeah, that's what I want to do.
Amra Pajalic: 11:35
Well, it's also providing that support, and that's the thing. For the defence forces have not been good about that, and that's something that is explored in your book because a lot of people might not realise, but um, those in Australia who were in the Vietnam War, a lot of them were conscripted. It was not their choice. Had they had to go or go to jail, um, and then had their lives completely transformed. And, you know, when you look at, like I've actually looked at images of men before and after they have been in armed forces and the transformation that happens to them physically, and then we've got that psychological transformation that occurs by being in that situation and being on that alert. And the other thing is the Vietnam War was the first war where it wasn't those battle lines that were being drawn, it was that civilian, you know, constantly on guard, could never, you know, let your guard down in a sense, and then to live like that for extended periods and then come back to your regular suburban life, which is what, in a sense, you were experiencing regular life that was constantly in danger, that that is that psychological effect. I think also what you were talking about um about children who have been the victims of domestic violence. I actually know quite a few people who were in that situation where the father was abusive, but not to the mother. It was the child who were um the victims. W what happens there? What's what what do you think is is that about? Is it the easier victims or I think it is about control?
Ruth Clare: 13:17
I think it is about people wanting to shape their children or have expectations of their children and having some sense of entitlement that they feel like their word is law and their children must obey. And I think it's people just losing their children and triggering. Yeah, because they're unpredictability. They're unpredictable, they move smooth, that you know, they they behave in erratic ways. And if you come, I think a lot of people come pre-loaded with their own trauma in in my dad's situation. One of the reasons that I really committed to finishing writing Enemy, which was a challenging book to write, because obviously lots of trauma inside of it was because when my son was two, he went through a stage of hitting, and I've done a lot of therapy, and so I kind of went, I'll be fine, just you know, so easy for me as a parent. And I came this close to hitting him. Because I like that actual level of cortisol and adrenaline pumping through my system every time it would hit me. It was, you know, if if my body is a hundred percent, I was at about a hundred and eighty percent. And where does that go? Because I was just so flooded, there was like none of me left. I was just so flooded with those feelings. And then it would happen again and again and again, multiple times during the day. And I'm at home by myself, having to look after him and my daughter, and no support. And I was just like, oh my god, this is dangerous. I f I felt dangerous. I felt like I was I was in a danger zone, and it's like, this is not acceptable. This is this is not what most people are dealing with when they're parenting this level of when your trauma gets treated, it's really hard to control yourself, and it's really hard to contain that that feeling. So it became something that was, I just felt like it needed to be discussed. We needed to have conversations about it. And I really wanted to explore what we can do differently, how can how can we support people when they're feeling like that to not hit their kids?
Amra Pajalic: 15:42
And you've done a lot of advocacy, like through enemy, you've really been involved in terms of the advocacy for um the armed forces and you know those serving in terms of the families in that. Can you talk through a little bit of that?
Ruth Clare: 15:55
Yeah, so I I recently did a webinar for SANE, which is a mental health organization that's very lived experience-led, and it's sort of an online organization, and they've opened up this new space called Shoulder to Shoulder, which is about families of veterans and veterans getting peer-to-peer. You know, it's just people going through similar experiences. Because for me, that aspect of normalizing and diminishing shame through shared story is absolutely vital, especially one of the reasons that I wrote Enemy is because it feels really shameful. You know, with a drunk mum and a, you know, violent dad. It's like and then the shame that veterans like my dad experienced when they came home. My dad was told, don't talk about the war. He was brought in in the shadow of night because it was an unpopular war and he didn't want people kind of like jeering at him. You know, they had RSLs rejecting. So for me, that that the reason that you have store that stories need to be told and shared and normalized is to to break through that shroud of shame because you feel like you're alone. If there's nobody else talking about this experience like you, you feel like nobody understands me, nobody gets me. And I wanted to, I just decided that even if there was a reason and there was a risk in exposing myself, because you know, the idea of kind of standing in front of a group of veterans and saying my life has been pretty strongly impacted by the domestic violence that is and it is something that as a cohort you guys need to look at. And they're all people who are trained to fight war. Takes a bit of courage, does it? Unpopular thing to say, but that advo that I just think if we're not having the conversations, we're never ever going to solve the problems. And so then it's become a thing where you know, I do that sort of work, I do all speaking about the experience, but just saying it is a both and I'm not trying to say that you deserve support, but we also deserve support. Families of veterans are a completely unacknowledged group, and our lives, my first experience was of my dad chasing me through the house, beating the crap out of me. I have got complex PTSD, I have got anxiety, I've got a had a huge amount, I've had to spend so much of my life in mental health just to survive a lot of the time. And that has, I think that is also a story worth knowing and recognizing. And I think it needs to be recognized by the government that actually you're not just sending them to war. And what are you doing? You need to look at it. This is this is a government issue, this is a government-based situation in as opposed to many other things, this is actually a government responsibility.
Amra Pajalic: 19:16
Yeah, because if you're um taking people into those situations and creating these issues and these problems, you have a responsibility for providing support in order to actually prevent it. And you know, that's the thing. A lot of these things, once you know and and you can, like there are things. So can you talk through? We've sort of um you you moved into um writing beyond fight, flight, freeze, fawn, where you're delving into that nervous system trauma and how it lives on the body. Um, so for someone who hasn't thought about this before, what's one thing you wish everyone knew about how our bodies react to trauma?
Ruth Clare: 19:59
For me, the vigilance is a huge part of it. So you become very you spent expend a lot of your energy vigilantly scanning. And even though you talk about living on in the body, which it 100% does, we know that that especially like early childhood trauma, if you have four or more adverse childhood experiences, and those are things like growing up with a parent who is violent, witnessing violence between parents having a parent with a mental health condition, having an a divorced family, having been neglected, emotionally neglected, or physically neglected, four or more of those experiences in childhood can decrease your life expectancy by 20 years as a cohort. They have tracked that. It can cause you to have increased risk of stroke, cancer, heart disease, all of the bad things. And the way that I understand that happening, and this is this is my take, is that it it starts in the nervous system because you are in a constant fight, flat freeze, foreign response. You never have any respite from it. And the thing that I wish people could understand is that one of the ways we do ourselves a massive disservice is because we completely ignore our bodies. Yes. We disconnect from our bodies and we live entirely in our heads. Yes. And our heads are, especially if you've been through trauma, spend a lot of time either ruminating on the past or predicting disastrous futures. Unfortunately, our bodies can't tell the difference between what we're imagining and what is happening in real life. And so by doing that, by constantly living in the past or in an imagined future, you are feeding your body pictures. Yes. Bad thing, bad thing, bad thing, bad thing. And so your body's going, oh my God, ready, got to be ready, gotta be ready, gotta be ready. So you're constantly charged, charged, charged, charged, charged. And we call that anxiety, we call that whatever we call, you know, if it if it goes on, you depression is also can be described as a freeze state where that same thing of I'm trapped, helpless, can't do anything about the situation. If we could come back to the present moment and get better at coming back into our bodies and actually breathing, just taking a moment to connect, grounding ourselves, experiencing this moment right now, and learning how to separate from some of our thinking and just return to the present moment. Actually, we can find a way to build some calm inside of ourselves moment by moment, and just have some discipline around I don't have to think about that, I can let it go, I can come back, I can breathe. Simple practices. This is what I like about nervous system stuff. You don't have to go, you know, not everyone can afford therapy. Everyone can afford to breathe. Yes.
Amra Pajalic: 23:08
Like it's it's a gift available to us all. And you feel it because um just as you were talking, the four events, I'm like, yep, yep, yep, meet all of them. And as you were talking about the um hypervigilance in the brain, I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's something that I have spent uh a lot of my life doing, um, a lot of insomnia and a lot of that body just constantly in that state of distress. Um, and only in the past few years have I sort of gotten control over that. Um, and I'm able to go, oh my gosh, how much time did I waste? Like how much energy did I expend, how much um, you know, waste in a sense it was, and then and then that damage to that, to the body in terms of that constant distress and that constant, you know, yeah, feeling like something's gonna happen, something's gonna go wrong, and that's because of the childhood, because something always happened, something always went wrong. Um, like, you know, I had that unpredictability with my mother having bipolar and we have no understanding. And so it'll just be like one day she's completely off the whales and she's had a breakdown and a disconnect from reality. And only as an adolescent, when I was learning about bipolar, the symptoms symptoms of it, was I like, oh, now I can see there's you know, these are the changes that are happening to her that are leading into that mania, and so we got better at getting treatment for her and recognizing it. Um, but yeah, those things, and I think motherhood um really brings out a lot of those things because I wrote my memoir also as a result of my PTSD when I had my daughter and had postnatal depression and was really like in that space of that trauma coming back and just um yeah, almost daily just getting those flashbacks.
Ruth Clare: 25:04
And the thing that, you know, because I I have done, I I started therapy. Like I I'm really interested, I've always been interested in psychology, so it's just been a constant side quest of like, oh my god. I remember reading my first self-help book when I was 18. My mum had been going to AA, and she came back with all those, you know, like, you know, women, women who who something or other, you know, like all those kind of, and they're really 70s. And I remember just looking at all those titles, just going, it's not working for you. And there was this one called You Can Heal Your Life. And I just we didn't have very many books in my house, and so I was like, heal your life. And I remember just opening it up, just going, oh my god. And she basically said that if she was talking about the fact that she had been sexually abused and had developed cervical cancer, and she felt like there was a direct correlation, and it was a lot about her, but and there was something about that that just again, I had that same body, I had body chills, you know, when when things feel really true, and I just like that is a hundred my body just responds. I'm like, I get it now, talking about it. Yes, but my body's going, This is the thing, yes, your body, it is.
Amra Pajalic: 26:12
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And just that recognition, because like a lot of the times, and this is why the stories that we're telling matter, um, because you read other people's stories and you learn a lesson and you have a complete breakthrough in a sense with something for yourself that you're struggling with. Um, and that's what we want to give to other people to make their life easier, that they get those lessons that we learnt the very hard way.
Ruth Clare: 26:43
A little bit quicker. If I can, if I can have distilled some of the things that I have learned, and also because I have done so much therapy and not I have often lived on soup. I did, I did not come from any money. And and you know, I I have but I've prioritized it because I felt like I was gonna fall apart.
Amra Pajalic: 27:04
Yeah.
Ruth Clare: 27:05
In whatever way. You know, there's so many different ways I'm gonna have fallen apart that if I didn't do it, then something really bad was gonna happen. And but that's that's a huge amount of time, energy. That is, I've done decades and decades and decades of work of all different types. I have gone down the woo-woo-ist of woo-woo. I've done cognitive behavioral therapy, in a inner child work, inner family systems. I've got so much actual processes I've been through that have been so helpful in their own way. And if I can distill that into a form and make it accessible to people, I'm gonna share that because it just feels, I feel like mental health is still really a domain of the privileged.
Amra Pajalic: 27:48
Yes. Yeah, because it is, it is like you get a mental health care plan, yes, and you get um counseling subsidized by the government. But there is still the gap.
Ruth Clare: 27:58
There's still the gap. There's still going to the doctor costs money. Every time I go to the doctor to get what is essentially a discount card for a mental health thing, I'm going, this system is crazy. Yeah, yeah.
Amra Pajalic: 28:10
And so it does it does make it hard because, you know, and then also now waiting lists for everything.
Ruth Clare: 28:17
And so I sit, um, so another way that I sort of use because I'm really want to agitate for change. I want to change the way that the military system operates, I want to change the way the mental health system operates, I want to normalize talking about these things, I want to change the way that we prioritize children and domestic violence. I've got some big things that I want to change. Yes. And in and neurodivergence, that's my whole other side quest now that I've found out I'm neurodivergent, both my kids are neurodivergent. So that's other ways that it's like, oh my God, this, no, no, it'll no, it all needs to change. So I I sit on sort of uh lived experience advisory panels in in mental health organizations, just going, you're not taking this into account. And it's really interesting in those lived experience spaces where you know you've got people who speak English as second language, refugees, the uh people who are um aboriginal, have been incarcerated. Well, and you learn all these different perspectives, and you're like, oh my god, yes, you don't think about things that you don't think about.
Amra Pajalic: 29:19
Yes, because you don't you only know your own perspective.
Ruth Clare: 29:21
You only know your own perspective. And I just love the idea that we all come together with our different perspectives, and you can have a more robust solution because you're taking everybody's actual experiences into account.
Amra Pajalic: 29:35
Well, I just wanted to touch a little bit more on your workbook and about, you know, so you created this workbook for that reason in terms of um accessibility and people being able to do their own work. So can you talk through a little bit more about what your journey was and what you're trying to achieve with it?
Ruth Clare: 29:54
So when I when I started the the germ for Beyond Flag Flag Free Sport. Actually came from Enemy. One of the things that really struck me when I was doing research for Enemy, because I interviewed other veterans and I was looking at, I did a lot of research into scientific studies just to sort of see is this a pattern, how much has been done. And it hasn't been that much done, still not that much done, because I think defense isn't that interested in finding out those answers.
Amra Pajalic: 30:23
Yes, yes.
Ruth Clare: 30:25
But there was a Vietnam veteran and psychologist called Nick Fothergill. And he talked about the way military training rewires your fight-flight response. And he said, the process that you go through as somebody who is trained as a soldier is they de-identify you, they shave all of your identifying things, and they they sort of wedge you to the culture. But then they take you through this process of putting you through training drills over and over and over again. And he said, What you've got to train a soldier to do is it's the equivalent of if you're in a street and you see a car careening towards you, the natural human instinct is going to be run away from the car. In the military, you're not allowed to run away. So it's the equivalent, a man with a gun pointing a gun at you is the equivalent of a car careening towards you. You're going to have some survival instincts kicking in that say, run away from the man with a gun. You have to train that out of people. And so the process of just going, do it, let's let's you know walk toward the man with the gun. We've got to walk toward the man with the gun. That rewires your fight-flight response. And he said, so instead of it being that, you know, you sit in the center and and you can run or you can you can fight, they they put your center way up near the fight button. And so it's like, then you're in a standby mode here. And so anytime action kicks off, fight. Fight. Flight's way down here now, right? Because they don't discharge that, when you come home, enough stresses add up, fight. Except you're not in a war situation, you're surrounded by your wife and kids. And so that explodes into action. Yes. And that action is can come out as violence. So that just really struck a chord. And then I started to read all about the polyvagal theory. I don't know if you know much about that. The polyvagal theory is all about the idea that we have a polyvagal nerve in our body, and it is the thing where we get feedback from our glands, muscles, organs, and it tells us how we moderate heart rate, how we there is no emotion produced in your body without the interaction of the nervous system. If your nervous system is involved, you don't produce tears, your heart doesn't increase. All of the things you think about of emotion is actually changing your nervous system. And once I sort of went, oh my god, that is so true, then I just started deep diving into what is a nervous system, how does it all work? And there are the best thing about the nervous system is that it is body-led. Yes. So you can change the way that you are rather than, you know, with mental health stuff where it's cognitive, you have to go through this process of analyzing things and blah, blah, blah, or going back to trauma. It's this really long, protracted process. It doesn't always produce the results. Whereas when you go body up, if you produce changes in your body, that gives feedback to your so it's a it's it's a mostly afferent nerve. So it's it's receiving feedback from the body and telling your system, should I be worried? When you're like this all the time, which is what we often do, then it's saying, Oh yeah, that body is braced. Yep. Keep in this mode, keep in this mode. So if you can deliberately and consciously change the way that your body is behaving, and you can start paying more attention to your body and and relaxing, changing the way that you breathe, you can actually produce a change in your nervous system state. It's like really simple process, but it's cumulative, and then it gets it gets more habitual and it gets more robust and more, it's more easy for you to access that more quickly. And there was a study that I I found during that process that it basically said emotions only last 90 seconds. And as anyone who's had big emotions, you go, no shit, nope, if you can, when an emotion gets triggered, completely come back to your body, breathe, hold, ground, stay in the space and allow it to move through. And don't it's when you every time you think, meh, 90 seconds, meh, 90 seconds, meh, 90 seconds. And because we stay in our heads all the time, it's like you can do it for weeks. Yeah, yeah, weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks. I have to. Yeah, yeah. I've gotten into psychosis from insomnia just because the brain is just like, but on if you can like come back to the present moment, what can I fear feel here? So you know, do that in a way that you keep grounding in the moment, grounding in the moment, grounding in the moment. It can it really, you're not gonna ever not be had the trick, you know, once you have complex PTSD, there is gonna be a certain thing you're gonna have to deal with for life. I just do not, I've I've done I'm the peps, I'm the poster child of therapy. You if I'm not whatever, able to just go, yes, I live in a Zen Wonderland, it's not possible.
Amra Pajalic: 35:40
Yeah.
Ruth Clare: 35:42
So, but you can do it more quickly. And what the nervous system does is go more quickly, regulate not the.
Amra Pajalic: 35:48
And the more that you sort of live in that calm space, and the more that you do that, because I've only it's only been happening for me recently. And part of it is pharmaceutical. I I am on hormone replacement therapy and I am on antipsychotics because my brain operates on its own level. I can't actually do certain things. I need the pharmaceutical intervention. But as that has done some of that work that I can't do with this brain, I've actually been able to be more in my body and be more present and be more calm and practice that calmness. And it just sort of begets, you know, that that mode. And even earlier, before we started the podcast, we were talking about being in the moment, something I've never been done before. Um, and it's just so lovely when you're like in the present. And yes, you think about the future, but you're not stuck in the past, not kind of regurgitating and recycling um the awful thoughts, the awful memories, or just that second guessing and that constant um dialogue of criticism and and negativity. Um, and so I'm noticing that you know it's happening more um and just feeling really lovely and and enjoying that, you know, moment. Yeah. And so moving on to turn fear into courage because um it proposes that using fear is fuel rather than the enemy. So can you talk us through a specific creative practice or tool um for transforming fear into action, especially for those of us who are writers or are artists, and our whole life is just trying to overcome our fear.
Ruth Clare: 37:33
Yeah. Well, that for me, one of the main reasons I wrote it, you do it was when was when was Enemy was published in 2016? It's 2025. It has taken me nine years to recover my capacity and my belief in myself to write again. Because I I when Enemy came out, I was they they had predicted a huge amount of success. They gave me a big advance, and then it didn't happen, and I just went into a shame hole of why nobody loves me, I'm a worthless piece of crap, blah, blah, blah. Nothing I have to say is worth anything to anyone. Yeah, that's the writing one just. I know, I know, I know, all the creators acting all stuff. That's right, that's right. And once I kind of started doing research into the nervous system and realized that actually the entire purpose of fear is to shift your body into a state so you can run away from danger or stand and fight, or whatever it is, it's actually about shifting your energy to help you survive. I started to think of my fear as that's that's fuel. Yeah. And when you transfer from fuel into action, you're actually using it for a positive purpose. So there's an analogy I use in the book where I talk about fear is like potential energy, you've got an arrow drawn back in a bow. But what can happen is that fear can trap us here. Yes. Yes. So whether or not that is that you uh have started to procrastinate and avoid your work entirely, whether or not that is that you can't show people your work, whether or not it means you've been laboring over the same paragraph over and over again, or you are unwilling to join a writing group because you're not willing to be vulnerable, because being vulnerable doesn't feel safe. That is all an example of this moment. And the way that you use fear as energy to drive your life forward is you've got to let the arrow fly. And so that means you've got to start proving to your fear through taking small actions that actually the sagotristed tiger will not kill you if you move on to the next paragraph. Or if you go back to just do a tiny little thing, five minute, done. Yes. You don't have to just tiny little thing. And you just have to start kind of tolerating your fear and not letting it be in the driving seat, going, yeah, I know, mate. Yep, just gonna write that anyway. I'm just gonna send an email, I'm just gonna go to that thing that I was scared to go to, whatever it is, you've got to take that small action and you've got to start kind of reassuring your fear through showing it. You've got to demonstrate. It's like this this will not be convinced through anything except action. Yes. And you can say, you said that, you said that all the terrible, but look, I did it. Did it happen? No, didn't, did it? So anyway, I hear, and the the more you do that, the more you go, oh yeah, I'm just gonna do it anyway. Then the more your fear kind of can release its hold on you. Like you get you get more habitual, you get more easier and you get a bit more hardened to the fact that there's and we we we talk about fear as if it's a thing that is a sign of something. Fear can be like, don't do it because it's not okay. But fear can actually be a sign of growth. Yes, because every time you step outside of your comfort zone, there's a part in you that is going to be afraid. Every time you are doing something you haven't done before, you're gonna feel like an imposter. You got that is part of the process of growing. And so instead of being afraid of the fear, learning to embrace it and taking action, because action, that's how you use the energy of fear, is it's meant to be used as fuel for action.
Amra Pajalic: 42:05
I have to say, I was reading that book and I just loved the way that it's written. I loved the illustrations and the way that it's presented. And as I was reading it, like that I was underlining so many things, but I was also like, I've actually been doing this because you know, my midlife crisis led to that. Um, and so I've got this thing now where I have to keep the promise to myself about taking a certain action that I'm afraid of, regardless. It's not about succeeding or failing, it's not about whether that's gonna happen or not. It's just taking that action, just taking that step forward. And that's what I really loved about that book because the way that you the way that you were speaking about it now, that's the way that it's written, and it really kind of internalizes that voice. And I found myself thinking about still certain blockages that I've got, about certain things that I've still wanted to do, but I'm a little bit like, ooh, ooh, and I could just feel that little bit of a crumbling and and a little bit of ease happening. So beautiful, beautiful book. Um, just so good. Um, so I thought we would talk a little bit about process and craft. And so when you're working on a project that's heavy, which a lot of the things that you know you do and I do, they tend to be heavy. So, you know, the trauma, difficult history, survival. Um, how do you protect yourself emotionally while doing this deep work? And and what tips do you have?
Ruth Clare: 43:38
I for a start, I haven't ever written about things that I haven't processed quite deeply in therapy. So it's I don't consider my writing as my therapy. I have written journals and whatever, and that is more therapeutic writing, but when I'm writing a story, my focus is on making it a good story. And so in terms of the emotional stuff, I think when you've been an actor, the idea of embodying emotion is not too scary. I'm okay with feeling feelings, but I think rather than protecting yourself from feelings, it's learning to build a tolerance for feeling feelings. Yes. So if you're protecting yourself from your feeling, then you you like when I was writing Enemy, I would bawling my eyes out all day. Like pretty much there was times where it was just sobbing my heart out. But if you're not getting into those spaces when you're writing, then readers aren't probably gonna feel them when you feel when they're reading them. So it's for me, I'm like that's it up. You know, I want people to be really feeling stuff. Yes. And everyone who has read Enemy has said they really feel stuff, and I just think it's really important that we get better at being okay with feeling stuff. And there is nothing for me, I know that you know, I've there's a lot of stuff about trigger warnings of blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Amra Pajalic: 45:12
Yeah, I wanted to touch on that because that's something that we both sort of have in common where we write these heavy things, and to us, that's life. We're we're not, you know. And then there's this whole thing about, oh, that's triggering, and it's like, well, that's also life. But um entering that space and when we've got our personal stories that we're trying to use in some way to connect and transform and help others, but then it's like, oh, that's triggering.
Ruth Clare: 45:41
Um, it's it's difficult. I have um this is a yet another thing. I've I've I've probably got about 15,000 words in an essay that I've been working on for many, many years on this, because I found especially when you become a speaker, you know, you're speaking at events and they want you to share your story, but they they then they sort of start to they they're worried about the risk and and whatever. And there's a couple of things that I think about trigger warnings. Feeling feelings is not the same as being triggered. Yes. If we're actually talking about triggers that are actually PTSD triggers, we are both people who have got complex PTSD, so I believe that we are allowed to talk about this from a very lived experience perspective. It is not you might I've I have felt big feelings in response to hearing stories of people who are who had similar experiences to me. That might involve my heart beating, my crying, my throat tightness or breathing changes. What is what a trigger is, is a thing that is like often like a smell, this, it takes you totally by surprise. And actually, the capacity to sit in your feelings and feel alongside others is where empathy is born and where self-empathy also exists. And people wanting so quickly to run away from that, instead of offering an opportunity to say, Hey, you see a person having experience in response to a speaker, are you okay? Yeah. And I personally think that a huge amount of it came from it came from a good place, the development of trigger warnings. It came, you know, just online from people wanting to protect people from going through experiences. But they've now done in 2024, they did a study on this, and and this was an exhaustive study looking at all of the research on trigger warnings, and they have found they do not work. In fact, they create anticipatory anxiety. So people are bracing for what's this terrible thing, and it can be they're they're they're they're they're turning what is an emotion into a problem. It's the medicalization of emotion. Emotion is fine, and the idea that you're not going to feel feelings is weird. And the people who seem to be most stridently in defense of them, and they're always going, I don't have this, but I know people who blah, blah, blah. And great, there might be some people where that is truth. I think the bigger issue is people do not like the cognitive dissonance of having a safe worldview that they have interrupted by other people's truth. They do not want to sit with the the story because it makes them feel uncomfortable. Yes.
Amra Pajalic: 48:52
Yes. Because I I've actually identified something about myself, and I'm wondering if you share this. People are very uncomfortable with trauma. People are very uncomfortable with, and so I find myself when I do memoir writing workshops, I always have some people approaching me who are able to share really deep, dark stories. My daughter says I can trauma bond with uh anyone at the drop of a hand. Me too, yes. It's our super power. I know. It's our super power. But I also can sit in trauma. I can listen to someone and just be there. Because sometimes people don't need you to be like, oh, that's terrible, that's the most awful thing I've ever heard. Oh my God, that's horrible that it happened to you. Sometimes they just need you to just listen and just to validate and just be like, I'm sorry, that's a lot, that's hard, and that's it. Like, you know, just that moment of connection. And so this, you know, think uh about the trauma and triggering trauma. Um, those of us who have trauma, we know what our triggers are, we know how it works, and we also know that that's life and that's reality. Um, I kind of have have ended up um doing a compromise where I have content warnings and I have a barcode where it's like, if you want to know, you go to this. I I don't want them in the book. I don't feel that that is the place for it in the book. And personally, I find it almost ends up being like a spoiler in a sense about certain things that I might be exploring. And so I'm like, if you're one of those people, you scan this barcode, you go to it, and you read before you start. Um, and for my novel Time Kneels Between Mountains, it's like a 500-word because it's a war book. I'm like, that's fine if you're that sort of a person, that's it.
Ruth Clare: 50:44
But um, it is it is But my thing, Amra, is like my my my book, the opening enemy, oh, he's not here. Sorry. Um I was born into the war, still raging inside my father. Yeah. My DNA came charged with trauma, he didn't know how to process, and I too learned to live on guard.
Amra Pajalic: 51:07
It's like you're in that you're in it.
Ruth Clare: 51:11
Like if like I don't need like I'm sorry, it is it if there is no volume. And and the thing with the book, especially, there is in no way not the power in the hands of the people. And what I just feels like the people who don't want who don't want to read that book, they don't want to know that what they're doing is I don't want to know. And it's so much less. I because I posted about this on LinkedIn and I had like so many comments of people going, oh my God, the people who say the trigger warnings, it is so rarely the people who've had the experiences. Yes.
Amra Pajalic: 51:44
So you have the experience. We used to, we we just it's normal to us to have had those experiences. And and we claim recognition.
Ruth Clare: 51:53
We want to read of other people having those experiences. If you're in there is there is no safer situation to kind of go, oh, I can't deal with that. Close the book. Yeah. Mofo, close the book.
Amra Pajalic: 52:07
Yeah, you're making a choice by continuing to read. Like, don't just close the freaking book. Yeah, and sometimes you come back to a book later when you can. That's right. Um, because we do change and we do go through.
Ruth Clare: 52:18
That's right. And I've had people say, I couldn't, I couldn't do it now. Totally fine, totally valid. But at least knowing that somebody else has been through what you have been through. Yeah.
Amra Pajalic: 52:29
That's I get so much validation by reading nonfiction and reading people's real life stories, where um just a sense of recognition, but helping me to work through things. And that's why I write nonfiction, and that's why I share things that I'm going through. Um, because those are the moments that, you know, really help. Yeah, I I agree with you. It is more about um discomfort and more about, you know, like we live in these lives where it's um we don't want to be uncomfortable, we've got everything comfortable, it's always about, you know, no stress, all this, and that's great, that's wonderful. And I crave that too. I I absolutely do. But life is what it is, and sometimes it involves discomfort, and you have to go through it and you go through it, and you learn, you learn about yourself and you learn about other people. Yeah. Um, so I I sort of wanted to move on a little bit to your traditional to indie author journey because that's something also that we share. Um, and I've loved uh seeing you transition in that, and we've been supporting each other and and and going through that. So, you know, you you started in the traditional world with enemy, and you touched on a little bit about what happened there. So, what was the moment you realized when that model wasn't going to serve you long term?
Ruth Clare: 53:50
I hate lack of clarity when I don't understand why things are the way that they are, and when I feel like there's all these kind of half-truths, and no one I can ask questions of and get any sort of answers, it makes me it really is really maddening for me. Yes. And, you know, I now teach about psychological safety, and I do trainings for businesses and stuff talking about psychological safety, and it makes me feel really psychologically unsafe when I don't know what my role is. Who you like, so I went into publishing kind of without any preconceived ideas and without any knowledge of the industry. I had not done, you know, fancy writing courses or anything like that. I just wrote a book, pitched it, had bidding war, got an agent, had like fabulous whatever. I'm going, oh my god, this is amazing. And then when I entered the process, and this doesn't matter what publisher you go with, as far as I can tell. This is I've spoken to so many authors about this because I'm like, it is so confusing. Suddenly you are okay, so you don't sort of answer my emails, like the the attention you paid to me before you had my book is was this, and now I'm in here, it's like you it feels to me like you're treated like a piece of crap. I'm like, this is odd and unusual. And then they sort of on one hand are sort of blowing sunshine up, you're oh my god, this is amazing, like this is just incredible. And you're going, yeah, but you're treating me like you would treat somebody who is like somebody you actively dislike because I'm in the middle of being edited and you're not even returning my emails for three weeks. Like that's just unprofessional. As far I'm just like that, I don't understand it. So I went in there going, and so I'm also I've done copywriting marketing background. So can you what is your marketing place? Oh, we'll we'll handle that. We handle that. Cover design. Okay, well, my husband's an award-winning graphic designer. Like, did did you want like I'm I run a graphic design studio with him? I'm not a moron. I'm not so wedded to my work that I'm going to want to put like a picture of like a teacup and an old hat on the front cover. I'm interested in selling the most possible books. And then sort of having that choice taken away from me, where it was like the first cover they came back with, I was like, I just said to my agent, I will set this manuscript alight. I will set it alight. I don't give a fuck. I will never ever. No, no, no, I don't care. I don't care. I will I'm walking away, I'm handing all the money back. I will never put that thing on that. No.
Amra Pajalic: 56:35
And how many authors have said they hate their covers?
Ruth Clare: 56:38
Well, I mean they end up with the second one was a compromise that I had no choice. It was basically like you have no choice in this. And I was like, Well, I guess that's what I get. Yeah.
Amra Pajalic: 56:48
I don't know. It's it's so because it's our intellectual property. This book wouldn't even exist without everything that we've done with it to create it. Obviously, yes, it's that business side of it, and they are paid for our rights. But then as soon as we are paid, there's that huge disconnect where, you know, like there should be media training, there should be publicity. This is, you know, uh work in a partnership together. Um, and instead you're almost like a peasant. And and even like the amazing thing to me is I've spoken to authors who have sold out, who have won awards, and they still get the same treatment. I know. I'm like, I at least thought uh, you know, I was tiny the fish. Um, I mean, I still had a a pretty good journey and stuff, but I did leave it feeling like a failure because I didn't achieve the sales that were projected and the expectations that they had, and then everything you put forward they're not interested in after that.
Ruth Clare: 57:53
But it's also like if you're if you hey, I didn't even know how advanced it's it. No one's explaining anything to me, right? Like, so you don't even you come into it all just kind of going, and I want to do a good job. If you want me to sell books, what's your strategy? Let me get involved. How can I what what outreach can I do? I'm like literally a marketer. Like, how can I help with this? No, no, no. And there's this kind of thing that it felt really disingenuous because obviously you see now how many memoirs are published by people who are not famous. Yeah. Like one. Yeah. You know, it's so rare now to get full of celebrity memoirs. And either for you. Either a famous person or a person's already got a huge Instagram following. So they're expecting you to do all this crap, right? But they're not putting it in. Like, don't don't try and trick me. Like, help me. Help me to be the best possible author I can be. And if that's your expectation, don't make it be a secret expectation and then leave me in the dark on all this crap. And then have like, oh, well, it didn't sell. It's like, what did you do? You didn't tell me what you did. And like, like there was no, there was sort of like, you know, I got I got, I was, I had a great, like, really amazing PR. I was on Richard Feidler conversations, I was reviewed in Australia, I had all this, but it was all this particular, you know, traditional kind of way. And it's like, well, if you don't get plucked out of obscurity within three weeks, then I'll sadly goodbye to you.
Amra Pajalic: 59:28
Unfortunately, fail. And and in the meantime, your confidence is just dropping. Every time you have this sort of thing happening, your confidence is dropping. Um, I'm not sure how much longer the battery will last. Okay. Um, so I just wanted to sort of talk about because now you've shifted into your own self publishing, and and so this is what you're doing. So, you know, how has this changed your relationship with your own work and um the business side of being an indie author?
Ruth Clare: 59:58
I have found it being it. Very challenging to get my poor little ADHD brain around all the processes and the details. It has been really challenging, but I really like the creative control. Yes.
Amra Pajalic: 01:00:18
I love it. I'm just I'm I'm experiencing joy, just where you can try different things, you have all of the control. Yes, it also means all of the financial investment because that goes with it. Um, but just the joy in terms of trying new things and learning new things, and um, whereas sometimes when you're traditionally published, you don't feel like you can do anything there. Um, and then yeah, so I I really do do love that. Um, so I think that I just wanted to finish on, you know, um, some tips that you have in terms of the indie world and in terms of sharing your story um and making a difference.
Ruth Clare: 01:01:04
In terms of the indie world, I feel like I'm very much in my training, I've got training wheels on. So I I think that you would probably have a lot more insights into that. But what I have found, especially with non-fiction writing, is that the book becomes sort of a platform for talking about things that are important to you. And so for me that has been a really nice awareness that I if something is important to me and I'm gonna spend years researching it and writing it, then I don't want to feel like somebody says I approve or not approve of whatever you've spent years of it, like yes. Um let readers decide. How's it? Yeah. How about it's not up to you. Yeah. How about I'll decide. And the I think this is important and I'm gonna back that idea. Yes. Because if it's come if it comes from a place where you know why you're doing it and you've got a good reason why, then you should 100% do it. And if there's a story that you want to tell, don't let it die inside of you because you know, and they I think that the one thing that that I would say is you've gotta sort of check the ego at the door more with self-publishing. Yeah. Because you're not getting the you know. Yeah. That I don't but I don't want the sunshine up the arse. I want I like it being authentic is far. I don't I don't like that power dynamic. And I I I just don't think that it is empowering. And I think that making a choice to really, you know, but do your own craft. Like don't don't bring shade on the self-publishing world by producing crap.
Amra Pajalic: 01:03:28
Yes, like putting the blog and and you know, get editors.
Ruth Clare: 01:03:31
Um you know, like reading books on how to write. Like do it. You can teach it all yourself. I taught myself how to write enemy.
Amra Pajalic: 01:03:38
Yeah.
Ruth Clare: 01:03:39
And you know. Because the story is what matters.
Amra Pajalic: 01:03:43
That's right.
Ruth Clare: 01:03:43
But you have to you do have to learn the craft. Yeah.
Amra Pajalic: 01:03:47
But there's a lot of resources out there. And it that's part of the fun. Yeah, and then just releasing, like, and I love this being able to have an idea, I have what I want to do, and just releasing out of the world. And whatever will be will be. But for me, it's the joy of creation. Yes. And of actually seeing.
Ruth Clare: 01:04:05
You're better at that than me though. I'm like, I'm I mean, this is you've done how many books?
Amra Pajalic: 01:04:11
No, I don't know. I'm gonna have to count actually, because I think it's nine of ten now.
Ruth Clare: 01:04:15
Yes. I have not done that.
Amra Pajalic: 01:04:16
And a lot of anthologies and stuff.
Ruth Clare: 01:04:18
And I'm not, I'm not as I'm not as prolific as you. So I feel like I need to because what I will I I treat them because I do speaking as well. It's like these are things I want to impact people with. And so therefore, I've got to do the follow-up stuff where I'm pitching these to speaking things and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I want to give all of my book. I'm not, I'm not as willing to let it go. I'm like, I'm gonna make it succeed. Whereas I'm always on to the next.
Amra Pajalic: 01:04:48
You're genuine and you're serious. Thank you so much, Ruth. This has been wonderful. Um, I I love connecting with you and I love having conversations with you, and I hope it's helpful for all the people out there listening.
Amra Pajalic: 01:05:03
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Welcome to Amra's Armchair Anecdotes. I'm Amra Pajalic , writer, teacher, and storyteller. Over chair and lipstide into stories about writing, life, and listen to learn. Sharing wisdom from my armchair to yours. You can find the episode show notes.
Okay, so today I'm sitting down with someone whose work slices straight to the bone. Author, speaker, scientist, actor, relentless truth teller Ruth Clare. Ruth is best known for her award-winning memoir Enemy, which I read and is fabulous. A powerful exploration of growing up with Vietnam, their true father, and the hidden legacy of intergenerational trauma. Her writing doesn't flinch. She digs into the realities of domestic violence, the psychological fallout of war, and what happens when a child grows up in a house where fear is a constant companion. Ruth's work sits at the intersection of lived experience and research. She blends science, storytelling, and emotional insight to help people understand how trauma shapes the nervous system, how we reclaim agency, her follow-up books, including Beyond Fight, Flight and Freeze, Fawn, and her upcoming guide, Turn Fear into Courage, build on that mission, offering practical tools for anyone trying to break old patterns and move toward a more grounded life. Beyond the page, Arusa is a dynamic keynote speaker who has delivered talks across Australia, a trained actor who understands embodiment from the inside out, and a creative whose honesty has helped countless people feel seen. I'm thrilled to have her today to talk about her creative journey, her healing framework, and the courage it takes to tell the truth, especially when the truth is uncomfortable. Welcome, Ruth. Thank you, Emma. Thank you so much for being here. We've met quite a few times and we've developed a friendship online and in person. And whenever I speak to you, I just find myself so inspired and just, I don't know, feeling uplifted and really creative. That's good. You've just got that energy. So we've just got to sort of go back to the beginning. You've got a fascinating mix of experiences, the published author, scientists, keynote speakers. So which have felt yours early on and which felt imposed or secondary?
Ruth Clare: 02:43
Well, I got into science because at school I was a high achieving student and I got a lot of validation from being a high achieving student. And I really didn't like people underestimating me. And it felt like when you're doing really smart subjects, you just go, shut up. So yeah, I decided to do an entire biochemistry degree just to really double down on that. But at the end of it, I went, what's I work in a land? Uh no. So after I left that, I went and saw a career counsellor who said, if you could do something for free, what would you do for free? And the whole time, like I'd always won the prize for theatre. I'd always done an exact mix of arts and sciences. And I'd always won the prize for theatre. And during uni, I was still doing community theatre, and I said I'd be an actor. And he said, We should be an actor. I'm like, oh yeah, because it's so easy to be an actor. But I thought I might regret it if I didn't give it a try. So then I did acting, but acting 99% unemployment rates. And during that process, even though I really enjoy the process of acting, I realized again I was kind of trying to get something that was a source of validation that other people were impressed by that I was an actor. And it felt special and it was a way of kind of validating myself. And I also came to realize that I was acting most of the time in my life. And I had been for a very long time, that I was a chameleon. The idea of having all my friends come together was horrifying to me because I was a different person with this group of people and a different person with that group of people. Because I thought if anyone actually knew the real me, then they would like me. And so I realized that acting was actually my fawn response writ large. I just had turned it into a profession.
Amra Pajalic: 04:47
Yeah, could you explain about that form response? And because in a sense that's feeding into a little bit the book, which we'll we'll explore more, but like fawn response, we've we've got the flight fright-freeze, but I'm not quite sure about the fawn.
Speaker: 04:60
Yeah, so the fawn response is something, especially if you've grown up in traumatic situations, and with especially with caregivers who are the biggest source of your trauma. So in my instance, my dad was very violent. I had to become very good at watching him, watching small changes in behavior, predicting when he was about to go off, getting out of his way, adapting to whatever he needed from me. So I would be kind of in the middle of the sentence, and I could see that whatever I was saying was annoying him. So I would just be changing on the fly what I was saying and acting like I was going to say something else to try and calm the situation down. And so what happens when you're in the foreign response is you become extremely skilled at reading other people and extremely skilled at all of the unconscious stuff that people don't own or name. And so you are really good at attuning to other people and knowing what they need from you, but you're really bad at attuning to yourself. And because it doesn't actually feel safe to be in your body, your needs are put to the side when you grow up in homes like that. And fawning is this thing called pleasing and impeting. And it becomes almost like your nervous system says the way that you say stay safe in life is by seeing other people's feelings, being responsible for keeping people feeling happy around you, putting all of your needs aside and ensuring that other people are happy with you. That's the only way that you can stay safe. So it's people pleasing on steroids. And it comes from genuinely a situation where the only way to avoid trouble was to become very good at that.
Amra Pajalic: 06:59
Yeah, to transform yourself. Yeah. And so, in a sense, you explored that in um energy, like I ran your memoir because I was studying um war at that time and I was sort of looking at the Vietnam War. Um, so could you share a little bit about how your childhood inspired that and that transition?
Ruth Clare: 07:19
So I didn't start out with the dream of being an author. I read something, I think it was Tony Morrison, who said if there's a book that hasn't been written, the book you want to read that hasn't been written yet, you should write it. And I remember just waiting to read a book. I can't I wanted I wanted to read a book about a couple of things that I just wasn't seeing in the literature. I wanted to read a book where the child is the most direct victim of the domestic violence in the home. It's not that the parent, the mother is the thing and the child incidentally gets harmed, which is the predominant narrative still exists. Because in our family, it was Dad was hitting my brother and sister and me all the time. We were the ones who received them absolutely 100% bulk of the physical abuse. He didn't, there was an incident when he came back later and he did hurt my mum, but that was pretty much a one-off. Whereas our abuse was constant. So I wasn't reading stories about that. And it felt like, well, in part that's because children's stories continue to be diminished in society and not taken seriously, despite the devastating impacts of childhood trauma on life expectancy, on your health forever. The other thing was being a child of a veteran. I was interested to kind of know how much of my father's behavior was influenced by being a veteran in war. And I knew there was a whole lot of literature about being like the next generation, looking at the next generation of, say, Holocaust survivors and the epigenetics of that situation. But for me, there's a very different dynamic when you're a victim of a war to when you're a perpetrator of a war. It's like there's different parts of your nervous system that are activated when you are fully charged to actually fight in a war as opposed to having to endure suffering at the hands of another. And I think the impact on the next generation is energetically, and and you're going to see a difference because the way it acts out is different. So I now sit on a steering committee as part at Monash, where they're investigating domestic violence rates in military populations. And they've only just recently found that in transition veteran families domestic violence rates as high as 45%. Wow, that is huge. 45%. That's incredible. So basically wanting to. There is no Enemy is the first book written by the child of a veteran talking about generational trauma from a nonfiction perspective. It's always alluded to.
Amra Pajalic: 10:06
Yes.
Ruth Clare: 10:06
But it's never been really studied. And I think it is that is just mind-blowing to me. It still is mind-blowing to me. I continue to check and go, why millions and millions of people are children of veterans? Millions and millions of them have experienced family violence. The the direct correlation between military experience and family violence is only now just being explored, researched.
Amra Pajalic: 10:33
And there's a reason for that, in a sense, where that's not a good news story for people to be signing up for these things.
Ruth Clare: 10:40
That is exactly it.
Amra Pajalic: 10:41
Yes, so there's the the politics behind it. That's exactly it.
Amra Pajalic: 10:44
I can tell you now, defense is very disinterested in hearing this story. Is defense defensive?
Ruth Clare: 10:51
Defense is defensive. They are harmed. Because when you look at the promotional campaigns for armed forces, it is very, you know, um action-oriented and it's very exciting, dynamic. Um, but you know, there are those psychological and the physical And they have they're having real issues with recruitment.
Ruth Clare: 11:11
And I actually want to get into defence and talk to show them how they can help to lessen this problem from a nervous system perspective and actually make into make people aware that that is like they're they're at increased risk of of perpetrating domestic violence on their families when they get home because their nervous systems are so charged. So, how the hell do we calm them down? Yeah, that's what I want to do.
Amra Pajalic: 11:35
Well, it's also providing that support, and that's the thing. For the defence forces have not been good about that, and that's something that is explored in your book because a lot of people might not realise, but um, those in Australia who were in the Vietnam War, a lot of them were conscripted. It was not their choice. Had they had to go or go to jail, um, and then had their lives completely transformed. And, you know, when you look at, like I've actually looked at images of men before and after they have been in armed forces and the transformation that happens to them physically, and then we've got that psychological transformation that occurs by being in that situation and being on that alert. And the other thing is the Vietnam War was the first war where it wasn't those battle lines that were being drawn, it was that civilian, you know, constantly on guard, could never, you know, let your guard down in a sense, and then to live like that for extended periods and then come back to your regular suburban life, which is what, in a sense, you were experiencing regular life that was constantly in danger, that that is that psychological effect. I think also what you were talking about um about children who have been the victims of domestic violence. I actually know quite a few people who were in that situation where the father was abusive, but not to the mother. It was the child who were um the victims. W what happens there? What's what what do you think is is that about? Is it the easier victims or I think it is about control?
Ruth Clare: 13:17
I think it is about people wanting to shape their children or have expectations of their children and having some sense of entitlement that they feel like their word is law and their children must obey. And I think it's people just losing their children and triggering. Yeah, because they're unpredictability. They're unpredictable, they move smooth, that you know, they they behave in erratic ways. And if you come, I think a lot of people come pre-loaded with their own trauma in in my dad's situation. One of the reasons that I really committed to finishing writing Enemy, which was a challenging book to write, because obviously lots of trauma inside of it was because when my son was two, he went through a stage of hitting, and I've done a lot of therapy, and so I kind of went, I'll be fine, just you know, so easy for me as a parent. And I came this close to hitting him. Because I like that actual level of cortisol and adrenaline pumping through my system every time it would hit me. It was, you know, if if my body is a hundred percent, I was at about a hundred and eighty percent. And where does that go? Because I was just so flooded, there was like none of me left. I was just so flooded with those feelings. And then it would happen again and again and again, multiple times during the day. And I'm at home by myself, having to look after him and my daughter, and no support. And I was just like, oh my god, this is dangerous. I f I felt dangerous. I felt like I was I was in a danger zone, and it's like, this is not acceptable. This is this is not what most people are dealing with when they're parenting this level of when your trauma gets treated, it's really hard to control yourself, and it's really hard to contain that that feeling. So it became something that was, I just felt like it needed to be discussed. We needed to have conversations about it. And I really wanted to explore what we can do differently, how can how can we support people when they're feeling like that to not hit their kids?
Amra Pajalic: 15:42
And you've done a lot of advocacy, like through enemy, you've really been involved in terms of the advocacy for um the armed forces and you know those serving in terms of the families in that. Can you talk through a little bit of that?
Ruth Clare: 15:55
Yeah, so I I recently did a webinar for SANE, which is a mental health organization that's very lived experience-led, and it's sort of an online organization, and they've opened up this new space called Shoulder to Shoulder, which is about families of veterans and veterans getting peer-to-peer. You know, it's just people going through similar experiences. Because for me, that aspect of normalizing and diminishing shame through shared story is absolutely vital, especially one of the reasons that I wrote Enemy is because it feels really shameful. You know, with a drunk mum and a, you know, violent dad. It's like and then the shame that veterans like my dad experienced when they came home. My dad was told, don't talk about the war. He was brought in in the shadow of night because it was an unpopular war and he didn't want people kind of like jeering at him. You know, they had RSLs rejecting. So for me, that that the reason that you have store that stories need to be told and shared and normalized is to to break through that shroud of shame because you feel like you're alone. If there's nobody else talking about this experience like you, you feel like nobody understands me, nobody gets me. And I wanted to, I just decided that even if there was a reason and there was a risk in exposing myself, because you know, the idea of kind of standing in front of a group of veterans and saying my life has been pretty strongly impacted by the domestic violence that is and it is something that as a cohort you guys need to look at. And they're all people who are trained to fight war. Takes a bit of courage, does it? Unpopular thing to say, but that advo that I just think if we're not having the conversations, we're never ever going to solve the problems. And so then it's become a thing where you know, I do that sort of work, I do all speaking about the experience, but just saying it is a both and I'm not trying to say that you deserve support, but we also deserve support. Families of veterans are a completely unacknowledged group, and our lives, my first experience was of my dad chasing me through the house, beating the crap out of me. I have got complex PTSD, I have got anxiety, I've got a had a huge amount, I've had to spend so much of my life in mental health just to survive a lot of the time. And that has, I think that is also a story worth knowing and recognizing. And I think it needs to be recognized by the government that actually you're not just sending them to war. And what are you doing? You need to look at it. This is this is a government issue, this is a government-based situation in as opposed to many other things, this is actually a government responsibility.
Amra Pajalic: 19:16
Yeah, because if you're um taking people into those situations and creating these issues and these problems, you have a responsibility for providing support in order to actually prevent it. And you know, that's the thing. A lot of these things, once you know and and you can, like there are things. So can you talk through? We've sort of um you you moved into um writing beyond fight, flight, freeze, fawn, where you're delving into that nervous system trauma and how it lives on the body. Um, so for someone who hasn't thought about this before, what's one thing you wish everyone knew about how our bodies react to trauma?
Ruth Clare: 19:59
For me, the vigilance is a huge part of it. So you become very you spent expend a lot of your energy vigilantly scanning. And even though you talk about living on in the body, which it 100% does, we know that that especially like early childhood trauma, if you have four or more adverse childhood experiences, and those are things like growing up with a parent who is violent, witnessing violence between parents having a parent with a mental health condition, having an a divorced family, having been neglected, emotionally neglected, or physically neglected, four or more of those experiences in childhood can decrease your life expectancy by 20 years as a cohort. They have tracked that. It can cause you to have increased risk of stroke, cancer, heart disease, all of the bad things. And the way that I understand that happening, and this is this is my take, is that it it starts in the nervous system because you are in a constant fight, flat freeze, foreign response. You never have any respite from it. And the thing that I wish people could understand is that one of the ways we do ourselves a massive disservice is because we completely ignore our bodies. Yes. We disconnect from our bodies and we live entirely in our heads. Yes. And our heads are, especially if you've been through trauma, spend a lot of time either ruminating on the past or predicting disastrous futures. Unfortunately, our bodies can't tell the difference between what we're imagining and what is happening in real life. And so by doing that, by constantly living in the past or in an imagined future, you are feeding your body pictures. Yes. Bad thing, bad thing, bad thing, bad thing. And so your body's going, oh my God, ready, got to be ready, gotta be ready, gotta be ready. So you're constantly charged, charged, charged, charged, charged. And we call that anxiety, we call that whatever we call, you know, if it if it goes on, you depression is also can be described as a freeze state where that same thing of I'm trapped, helpless, can't do anything about the situation. If we could come back to the present moment and get better at coming back into our bodies and actually breathing, just taking a moment to connect, grounding ourselves, experiencing this moment right now, and learning how to separate from some of our thinking and just return to the present moment. Actually, we can find a way to build some calm inside of ourselves moment by moment, and just have some discipline around I don't have to think about that, I can let it go, I can come back, I can breathe. Simple practices. This is what I like about nervous system stuff. You don't have to go, you know, not everyone can afford therapy. Everyone can afford to breathe. Yes.
Amra Pajalic: 23:08
Like it's it's a gift available to us all. And you feel it because um just as you were talking, the four events, I'm like, yep, yep, yep, meet all of them. And as you were talking about the um hypervigilance in the brain, I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's something that I have spent uh a lot of my life doing, um, a lot of insomnia and a lot of that body just constantly in that state of distress. Um, and only in the past few years have I sort of gotten control over that. Um, and I'm able to go, oh my gosh, how much time did I waste? Like how much energy did I expend, how much um, you know, waste in a sense it was, and then and then that damage to that, to the body in terms of that constant distress and that constant, you know, yeah, feeling like something's gonna happen, something's gonna go wrong, and that's because of the childhood, because something always happened, something always went wrong. Um, like, you know, I had that unpredictability with my mother having bipolar and we have no understanding. And so it'll just be like one day she's completely off the whales and she's had a breakdown and a disconnect from reality. And only as an adolescent, when I was learning about bipolar, the symptoms symptoms of it, was I like, oh, now I can see there's you know, these are the changes that are happening to her that are leading into that mania, and so we got better at getting treatment for her and recognizing it. Um, but yeah, those things, and I think motherhood um really brings out a lot of those things because I wrote my memoir also as a result of my PTSD when I had my daughter and had postnatal depression and was really like in that space of that trauma coming back and just um yeah, almost daily just getting those flashbacks.
Ruth Clare: 25:04
And the thing that, you know, because I I have done, I I started therapy. Like I I'm really interested, I've always been interested in psychology, so it's just been a constant side quest of like, oh my god. I remember reading my first self-help book when I was 18. My mum had been going to AA, and she came back with all those, you know, like, you know, women, women who who something or other, you know, like all those kind of, and they're really 70s. And I remember just looking at all those titles, just going, it's not working for you. And there was this one called You Can Heal Your Life. And I just we didn't have very many books in my house, and so I was like, heal your life. And I remember just opening it up, just going, oh my god. And she basically said that if she was talking about the fact that she had been sexually abused and had developed cervical cancer, and she felt like there was a direct correlation, and it was a lot about her, but and there was something about that that just again, I had that same body, I had body chills, you know, when when things feel really true, and I just like that is a hundred my body just responds. I'm like, I get it now, talking about it. Yes, but my body's going, This is the thing, yes, your body, it is.
Amra Pajalic: 26:12
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And just that recognition, because like a lot of the times, and this is why the stories that we're telling matter, um, because you read other people's stories and you learn a lesson and you have a complete breakthrough in a sense with something for yourself that you're struggling with. Um, and that's what we want to give to other people to make their life easier, that they get those lessons that we learnt the very hard way.
Ruth Clare: 26:43
A little bit quicker. If I can, if I can have distilled some of the things that I have learned, and also because I have done so much therapy and not I have often lived on soup. I did, I did not come from any money. And and you know, I I have but I've prioritized it because I felt like I was gonna fall apart.
Amra Pajalic: 27:04
Yeah.
Ruth Clare: 27:05
In whatever way. You know, there's so many different ways I'm gonna have fallen apart that if I didn't do it, then something really bad was gonna happen. And but that's that's a huge amount of time, energy. That is, I've done decades and decades and decades of work of all different types. I have gone down the woo-woo-ist of woo-woo. I've done cognitive behavioral therapy, in a inner child work, inner family systems. I've got so much actual processes I've been through that have been so helpful in their own way. And if I can distill that into a form and make it accessible to people, I'm gonna share that because it just feels, I feel like mental health is still really a domain of the privileged.
Amra Pajalic: 27:48
Yes. Yeah, because it is, it is like you get a mental health care plan, yes, and you get um counseling subsidized by the government. But there is still the gap.
Ruth Clare: 27:58
There's still the gap. There's still going to the doctor costs money. Every time I go to the doctor to get what is essentially a discount card for a mental health thing, I'm going, this system is crazy. Yeah, yeah.
Amra Pajalic: 28:10
And so it does it does make it hard because, you know, and then also now waiting lists for everything.
Ruth Clare: 28:17
And so I sit, um, so another way that I sort of use because I'm really want to agitate for change. I want to change the way that the military system operates, I want to change the way the mental health system operates, I want to normalize talking about these things, I want to change the way that we prioritize children and domestic violence. I've got some big things that I want to change. Yes. And in and neurodivergence, that's my whole other side quest now that I've found out I'm neurodivergent, both my kids are neurodivergent. So that's other ways that it's like, oh my God, this, no, no, it'll no, it all needs to change. So I I sit on sort of uh lived experience advisory panels in in mental health organizations, just going, you're not taking this into account. And it's really interesting in those lived experience spaces where you know you've got people who speak English as second language, refugees, the uh people who are um aboriginal, have been incarcerated. Well, and you learn all these different perspectives, and you're like, oh my god, yes, you don't think about things that you don't think about.
Amra Pajalic: 29:19
Yes, because you don't you only know your own perspective.
Ruth Clare: 29:21
You only know your own perspective. And I just love the idea that we all come together with our different perspectives, and you can have a more robust solution because you're taking everybody's actual experiences into account.
Amra Pajalic: 29:35
Well, I just wanted to touch a little bit more on your workbook and about, you know, so you created this workbook for that reason in terms of um accessibility and people being able to do their own work. So can you talk through a little bit more about what your journey was and what you're trying to achieve with it?
Ruth Clare: 29:54
So when I when I started the the germ for Beyond Flag Flag Free Sport. Actually came from Enemy. One of the things that really struck me when I was doing research for Enemy, because I interviewed other veterans and I was looking at, I did a lot of research into scientific studies just to sort of see is this a pattern, how much has been done. And it hasn't been that much done, still not that much done, because I think defense isn't that interested in finding out those answers.
Amra Pajalic: 30:23
Yes, yes.
Ruth Clare: 30:25
But there was a Vietnam veteran and psychologist called Nick Fothergill. And he talked about the way military training rewires your fight-flight response. And he said, the process that you go through as somebody who is trained as a soldier is they de-identify you, they shave all of your identifying things, and they they sort of wedge you to the culture. But then they take you through this process of putting you through training drills over and over and over again. And he said, What you've got to train a soldier to do is it's the equivalent of if you're in a street and you see a car careening towards you, the natural human instinct is going to be run away from the car. In the military, you're not allowed to run away. So it's the equivalent, a man with a gun pointing a gun at you is the equivalent of a car careening towards you. You're going to have some survival instincts kicking in that say, run away from the man with a gun. You have to train that out of people. And so the process of just going, do it, let's let's you know walk toward the man with the gun. We've got to walk toward the man with the gun. That rewires your fight-flight response. And he said, so instead of it being that, you know, you sit in the center and and you can run or you can you can fight, they they put your center way up near the fight button. And so it's like, then you're in a standby mode here. And so anytime action kicks off, fight. Fight. Flight's way down here now, right? Because they don't discharge that, when you come home, enough stresses add up, fight. Except you're not in a war situation, you're surrounded by your wife and kids. And so that explodes into action. Yes. And that action is can come out as violence. So that just really struck a chord. And then I started to read all about the polyvagal theory. I don't know if you know much about that. The polyvagal theory is all about the idea that we have a polyvagal nerve in our body, and it is the thing where we get feedback from our glands, muscles, organs, and it tells us how we moderate heart rate, how we there is no emotion produced in your body without the interaction of the nervous system. If your nervous system is involved, you don't produce tears, your heart doesn't increase. All of the things you think about of emotion is actually changing your nervous system. And once I sort of went, oh my god, that is so true, then I just started deep diving into what is a nervous system, how does it all work? And there are the best thing about the nervous system is that it is body-led. Yes. So you can change the way that you are rather than, you know, with mental health stuff where it's cognitive, you have to go through this process of analyzing things and blah, blah, blah, or going back to trauma. It's this really long, protracted process. It doesn't always produce the results. Whereas when you go body up, if you produce changes in your body, that gives feedback to your so it's a it's it's a mostly afferent nerve. So it's it's receiving feedback from the body and telling your system, should I be worried? When you're like this all the time, which is what we often do, then it's saying, Oh yeah, that body is braced. Yep. Keep in this mode, keep in this mode. So if you can deliberately and consciously change the way that your body is behaving, and you can start paying more attention to your body and and relaxing, changing the way that you breathe, you can actually produce a change in your nervous system state. It's like really simple process, but it's cumulative, and then it gets it gets more habitual and it gets more robust and more, it's more easy for you to access that more quickly. And there was a study that I I found during that process that it basically said emotions only last 90 seconds. And as anyone who's had big emotions, you go, no shit, nope, if you can, when an emotion gets triggered, completely come back to your body, breathe, hold, ground, stay in the space and allow it to move through. And don't it's when you every time you think, meh, 90 seconds, meh, 90 seconds, meh, 90 seconds. And because we stay in our heads all the time, it's like you can do it for weeks. Yeah, yeah, weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks. I have to. Yeah, yeah. I've gotten into psychosis from insomnia just because the brain is just like, but on if you can like come back to the present moment, what can I fear feel here? So you know, do that in a way that you keep grounding in the moment, grounding in the moment, grounding in the moment. It can it really, you're not gonna ever not be had the trick, you know, once you have complex PTSD, there is gonna be a certain thing you're gonna have to deal with for life. I just do not, I've I've done I'm the peps, I'm the poster child of therapy. You if I'm not whatever, able to just go, yes, I live in a Zen Wonderland, it's not possible.
Amra Pajalic: 35:40
Yeah.
Ruth Clare: 35:42
So, but you can do it more quickly. And what the nervous system does is go more quickly, regulate not the.
Amra Pajalic: 35:48
And the more that you sort of live in that calm space, and the more that you do that, because I've only it's only been happening for me recently. And part of it is pharmaceutical. I I am on hormone replacement therapy and I am on antipsychotics because my brain operates on its own level. I can't actually do certain things. I need the pharmaceutical intervention. But as that has done some of that work that I can't do with this brain, I've actually been able to be more in my body and be more present and be more calm and practice that calmness. And it just sort of begets, you know, that that mode. And even earlier, before we started the podcast, we were talking about being in the moment, something I've never been done before. Um, and it's just so lovely when you're like in the present. And yes, you think about the future, but you're not stuck in the past, not kind of regurgitating and recycling um the awful thoughts, the awful memories, or just that second guessing and that constant um dialogue of criticism and and negativity. Um, and so I'm noticing that you know it's happening more um and just feeling really lovely and and enjoying that, you know, moment. Yeah. And so moving on to turn fear into courage because um it proposes that using fear is fuel rather than the enemy. So can you talk us through a specific creative practice or tool um for transforming fear into action, especially for those of us who are writers or are artists, and our whole life is just trying to overcome our fear.
Ruth Clare: 37:33
Yeah. Well, that for me, one of the main reasons I wrote it, you do it was when was when was Enemy was published in 2016? It's 2025. It has taken me nine years to recover my capacity and my belief in myself to write again. Because I I when Enemy came out, I was they they had predicted a huge amount of success. They gave me a big advance, and then it didn't happen, and I just went into a shame hole of why nobody loves me, I'm a worthless piece of crap, blah, blah, blah. Nothing I have to say is worth anything to anyone. Yeah, that's the writing one just. I know, I know, I know, all the creators acting all stuff. That's right, that's right. And once I kind of started doing research into the nervous system and realized that actually the entire purpose of fear is to shift your body into a state so you can run away from danger or stand and fight, or whatever it is, it's actually about shifting your energy to help you survive. I started to think of my fear as that's that's fuel. Yeah. And when you transfer from fuel into action, you're actually using it for a positive purpose. So there's an analogy I use in the book where I talk about fear is like potential energy, you've got an arrow drawn back in a bow. But what can happen is that fear can trap us here. Yes. Yes. So whether or not that is that you uh have started to procrastinate and avoid your work entirely, whether or not that is that you can't show people your work, whether or not it means you've been laboring over the same paragraph over and over again, or you are unwilling to join a writing group because you're not willing to be vulnerable, because being vulnerable doesn't feel safe. That is all an example of this moment. And the way that you use fear as energy to drive your life forward is you've got to let the arrow fly. And so that means you've got to start proving to your fear through taking small actions that actually the sagotristed tiger will not kill you if you move on to the next paragraph. Or if you go back to just do a tiny little thing, five minute, done. Yes. You don't have to just tiny little thing. And you just have to start kind of tolerating your fear and not letting it be in the driving seat, going, yeah, I know, mate. Yep, just gonna write that anyway. I'm just gonna send an email, I'm just gonna go to that thing that I was scared to go to, whatever it is, you've got to take that small action and you've got to start kind of reassuring your fear through showing it. You've got to demonstrate. It's like this this will not be convinced through anything except action. Yes. And you can say, you said that, you said that all the terrible, but look, I did it. Did it happen? No, didn't, did it? So anyway, I hear, and the the more you do that, the more you go, oh yeah, I'm just gonna do it anyway. Then the more your fear kind of can release its hold on you. Like you get you get more habitual, you get more easier and you get a bit more hardened to the fact that there's and we we we talk about fear as if it's a thing that is a sign of something. Fear can be like, don't do it because it's not okay. But fear can actually be a sign of growth. Yes, because every time you step outside of your comfort zone, there's a part in you that is going to be afraid. Every time you are doing something you haven't done before, you're gonna feel like an imposter. You got that is part of the process of growing. And so instead of being afraid of the fear, learning to embrace it and taking action, because action, that's how you use the energy of fear, is it's meant to be used as fuel for action.
Amra Pajalic: 42:05
I have to say, I was reading that book and I just loved the way that it's written. I loved the illustrations and the way that it's presented. And as I was reading it, like that I was underlining so many things, but I was also like, I've actually been doing this because you know, my midlife crisis led to that. Um, and so I've got this thing now where I have to keep the promise to myself about taking a certain action that I'm afraid of, regardless. It's not about succeeding or failing, it's not about whether that's gonna happen or not. It's just taking that action, just taking that step forward. And that's what I really loved about that book because the way that you the way that you were speaking about it now, that's the way that it's written, and it really kind of internalizes that voice. And I found myself thinking about still certain blockages that I've got, about certain things that I've still wanted to do, but I'm a little bit like, ooh, ooh, and I could just feel that little bit of a crumbling and and a little bit of ease happening. So beautiful, beautiful book. Um, just so good. Um, so I thought we would talk a little bit about process and craft. And so when you're working on a project that's heavy, which a lot of the things that you know you do and I do, they tend to be heavy. So, you know, the trauma, difficult history, survival. Um, how do you protect yourself emotionally while doing this deep work? And and what tips do you have?
Ruth Clare: 43:38
I for a start, I haven't ever written about things that I haven't processed quite deeply in therapy. So it's I don't consider my writing as my therapy. I have written journals and whatever, and that is more therapeutic writing, but when I'm writing a story, my focus is on making it a good story. And so in terms of the emotional stuff, I think when you've been an actor, the idea of embodying emotion is not too scary. I'm okay with feeling feelings, but I think rather than protecting yourself from feelings, it's learning to build a tolerance for feeling feelings. Yes. So if you're protecting yourself from your feeling, then you you like when I was writing Enemy, I would bawling my eyes out all day. Like pretty much there was times where it was just sobbing my heart out. But if you're not getting into those spaces when you're writing, then readers aren't probably gonna feel them when you feel when they're reading them. So it's for me, I'm like that's it up. You know, I want people to be really feeling stuff. Yes. And everyone who has read Enemy has said they really feel stuff, and I just think it's really important that we get better at being okay with feeling stuff. And there is nothing for me, I know that you know, I've there's a lot of stuff about trigger warnings of blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Amra Pajalic: 45:12
Yeah, I wanted to touch on that because that's something that we both sort of have in common where we write these heavy things, and to us, that's life. We're we're not, you know. And then there's this whole thing about, oh, that's triggering, and it's like, well, that's also life. But um entering that space and when we've got our personal stories that we're trying to use in some way to connect and transform and help others, but then it's like, oh, that's triggering.
Ruth Clare: 45:41
Um, it's it's difficult. I have um this is a yet another thing. I've I've I've probably got about 15,000 words in an essay that I've been working on for many, many years on this, because I found especially when you become a speaker, you know, you're speaking at events and they want you to share your story, but they they then they sort of start to they they're worried about the risk and and whatever. And there's a couple of things that I think about trigger warnings. Feeling feelings is not the same as being triggered. Yes. If we're actually talking about triggers that are actually PTSD triggers, we are both people who have got complex PTSD, so I believe that we are allowed to talk about this from a very lived experience perspective. It is not you might I've I have felt big feelings in response to hearing stories of people who are who had similar experiences to me. That might involve my heart beating, my crying, my throat tightness or breathing changes. What is what a trigger is, is a thing that is like often like a smell, this, it takes you totally by surprise. And actually, the capacity to sit in your feelings and feel alongside others is where empathy is born and where self-empathy also exists. And people wanting so quickly to run away from that, instead of offering an opportunity to say, Hey, you see a person having experience in response to a speaker, are you okay? Yeah. And I personally think that a huge amount of it came from it came from a good place, the development of trigger warnings. It came, you know, just online from people wanting to protect people from going through experiences. But they've now done in 2024, they did a study on this, and and this was an exhaustive study looking at all of the research on trigger warnings, and they have found they do not work. In fact, they create anticipatory anxiety. So people are bracing for what's this terrible thing, and it can be they're they're they're they're they're turning what is an emotion into a problem. It's the medicalization of emotion. Emotion is fine, and the idea that you're not going to feel feelings is weird. And the people who seem to be most stridently in defense of them, and they're always going, I don't have this, but I know people who blah, blah, blah. And great, there might be some people where that is truth. I think the bigger issue is people do not like the cognitive dissonance of having a safe worldview that they have interrupted by other people's truth. They do not want to sit with the the story because it makes them feel uncomfortable. Yes.
Amra Pajalic: 48:52
Yes. Because I I've actually identified something about myself, and I'm wondering if you share this. People are very uncomfortable with trauma. People are very uncomfortable with, and so I find myself when I do memoir writing workshops, I always have some people approaching me who are able to share really deep, dark stories. My daughter says I can trauma bond with uh anyone at the drop of a hand. Me too, yes. It's our super power. I know. It's our super power. But I also can sit in trauma. I can listen to someone and just be there. Because sometimes people don't need you to be like, oh, that's terrible, that's the most awful thing I've ever heard. Oh my God, that's horrible that it happened to you. Sometimes they just need you to just listen and just to validate and just be like, I'm sorry, that's a lot, that's hard, and that's it. Like, you know, just that moment of connection. And so this, you know, think uh about the trauma and triggering trauma. Um, those of us who have trauma, we know what our triggers are, we know how it works, and we also know that that's life and that's reality. Um, I kind of have have ended up um doing a compromise where I have content warnings and I have a barcode where it's like, if you want to know, you go to this. I I don't want them in the book. I don't feel that that is the place for it in the book. And personally, I find it almost ends up being like a spoiler in a sense about certain things that I might be exploring. And so I'm like, if you're one of those people, you scan this barcode, you go to it, and you read before you start. Um, and for my novel Time Kneels Between Mountains, it's like a 500-word because it's a war book. I'm like, that's fine if you're that sort of a person, that's it.
Ruth Clare: 50:44
But um, it is it is But my thing, Amra, is like my my my book, the opening enemy, oh, he's not here. Sorry. Um I was born into the war, still raging inside my father. Yeah. My DNA came charged with trauma, he didn't know how to process, and I too learned to live on guard.
Amra Pajalic: 51:07
It's like you're in that you're in it.
Ruth Clare: 51:11
Like if like I don't need like I'm sorry, it is it if there is no volume. And and the thing with the book, especially, there is in no way not the power in the hands of the people. And what I just feels like the people who don't want who don't want to read that book, they don't want to know that what they're doing is I don't want to know. And it's so much less. I because I posted about this on LinkedIn and I had like so many comments of people going, oh my God, the people who say the trigger warnings, it is so rarely the people who've had the experiences. Yes.
Amra Pajalic: 51:44
So you have the experience. We used to, we we just it's normal to us to have had those experiences. And and we claim recognition.
Ruth Clare: 51:53
We want to read of other people having those experiences. If you're in there is there is no safer situation to kind of go, oh, I can't deal with that. Close the book. Yeah. Mofo, close the book.
Amra Pajalic: 52:07
Yeah, you're making a choice by continuing to read. Like, don't just close the freaking book. Yeah, and sometimes you come back to a book later when you can. That's right. Um, because we do change and we do go through.
Ruth Clare: 52:18
That's right. And I've had people say, I couldn't, I couldn't do it now. Totally fine, totally valid. But at least knowing that somebody else has been through what you have been through. Yeah.
Amra Pajalic: 52:29
That's I get so much validation by reading nonfiction and reading people's real life stories, where um just a sense of recognition, but helping me to work through things. And that's why I write nonfiction, and that's why I share things that I'm going through. Um, because those are the moments that, you know, really help. Yeah, I I agree with you. It is more about um discomfort and more about, you know, like we live in these lives where it's um we don't want to be uncomfortable, we've got everything comfortable, it's always about, you know, no stress, all this, and that's great, that's wonderful. And I crave that too. I I absolutely do. But life is what it is, and sometimes it involves discomfort, and you have to go through it and you go through it, and you learn, you learn about yourself and you learn about other people. Yeah. Um, so I I sort of wanted to move on a little bit to your traditional to indie author journey because that's something also that we share. Um, and I've loved uh seeing you transition in that, and we've been supporting each other and and and going through that. So, you know, you you started in the traditional world with enemy, and you touched on a little bit about what happened there. So, what was the moment you realized when that model wasn't going to serve you long term?
Ruth Clare: 53:50
I hate lack of clarity when I don't understand why things are the way that they are, and when I feel like there's all these kind of half-truths, and no one I can ask questions of and get any sort of answers, it makes me it really is really maddening for me. Yes. And, you know, I now teach about psychological safety, and I do trainings for businesses and stuff talking about psychological safety, and it makes me feel really psychologically unsafe when I don't know what my role is. Who you like, so I went into publishing kind of without any preconceived ideas and without any knowledge of the industry. I had not done, you know, fancy writing courses or anything like that. I just wrote a book, pitched it, had bidding war, got an agent, had like fabulous whatever. I'm going, oh my god, this is amazing. And then when I entered the process, and this doesn't matter what publisher you go with, as far as I can tell. This is I've spoken to so many authors about this because I'm like, it is so confusing. Suddenly you are okay, so you don't sort of answer my emails, like the the attention you paid to me before you had my book is was this, and now I'm in here, it's like you it feels to me like you're treated like a piece of crap. I'm like, this is odd and unusual. And then they sort of on one hand are sort of blowing sunshine up, you're oh my god, this is amazing, like this is just incredible. And you're going, yeah, but you're treating me like you would treat somebody who is like somebody you actively dislike because I'm in the middle of being edited and you're not even returning my emails for three weeks. Like that's just unprofessional. As far I'm just like that, I don't understand it. So I went in there going, and so I'm also I've done copywriting marketing background. So can you what is your marketing place? Oh, we'll we'll handle that. We handle that. Cover design. Okay, well, my husband's an award-winning graphic designer. Like, did did you want like I'm I run a graphic design studio with him? I'm not a moron. I'm not so wedded to my work that I'm going to want to put like a picture of like a teacup and an old hat on the front cover. I'm interested in selling the most possible books. And then sort of having that choice taken away from me, where it was like the first cover they came back with, I was like, I just said to my agent, I will set this manuscript alight. I will set it alight. I don't give a fuck. I will never ever. No, no, no, I don't care. I don't care. I will I'm walking away, I'm handing all the money back. I will never put that thing on that. No.
Amra Pajalic: 56:35
And how many authors have said they hate their covers?
Ruth Clare: 56:38
Well, I mean they end up with the second one was a compromise that I had no choice. It was basically like you have no choice in this. And I was like, Well, I guess that's what I get. Yeah.
Amra Pajalic: 56:48
I don't know. It's it's so because it's our intellectual property. This book wouldn't even exist without everything that we've done with it to create it. Obviously, yes, it's that business side of it, and they are paid for our rights. But then as soon as we are paid, there's that huge disconnect where, you know, like there should be media training, there should be publicity. This is, you know, uh work in a partnership together. Um, and instead you're almost like a peasant. And and even like the amazing thing to me is I've spoken to authors who have sold out, who have won awards, and they still get the same treatment. I know. I'm like, I at least thought uh, you know, I was tiny the fish. Um, I mean, I still had a a pretty good journey and stuff, but I did leave it feeling like a failure because I didn't achieve the sales that were projected and the expectations that they had, and then everything you put forward they're not interested in after that.
Ruth Clare: 57:53
But it's also like if you're if you hey, I didn't even know how advanced it's it. No one's explaining anything to me, right? Like, so you don't even you come into it all just kind of going, and I want to do a good job. If you want me to sell books, what's your strategy? Let me get involved. How can I what what outreach can I do? I'm like literally a marketer. Like, how can I help with this? No, no, no. And there's this kind of thing that it felt really disingenuous because obviously you see now how many memoirs are published by people who are not famous. Yeah. Like one. Yeah. You know, it's so rare now to get full of celebrity memoirs. And either for you. Either a famous person or a person's already got a huge Instagram following. So they're expecting you to do all this crap, right? But they're not putting it in. Like, don't don't try and trick me. Like, help me. Help me to be the best possible author I can be. And if that's your expectation, don't make it be a secret expectation and then leave me in the dark on all this crap. And then have like, oh, well, it didn't sell. It's like, what did you do? You didn't tell me what you did. And like, like there was no, there was sort of like, you know, I got I got, I was, I had a great, like, really amazing PR. I was on Richard Feidler conversations, I was reviewed in Australia, I had all this, but it was all this particular, you know, traditional kind of way. And it's like, well, if you don't get plucked out of obscurity within three weeks, then I'll sadly goodbye to you.
Amra Pajalic: 59:28
Unfortunately, fail. And and in the meantime, your confidence is just dropping. Every time you have this sort of thing happening, your confidence is dropping. Um, I'm not sure how much longer the battery will last. Okay. Um, so I just wanted to sort of talk about because now you've shifted into your own self publishing, and and so this is what you're doing. So, you know, how has this changed your relationship with your own work and um the business side of being an indie author?
Ruth Clare: 59:58
I have found it being it. Very challenging to get my poor little ADHD brain around all the processes and the details. It has been really challenging, but I really like the creative control. Yes.
Amra Pajalic: 01:00:18
I love it. I'm just I'm I'm experiencing joy, just where you can try different things, you have all of the control. Yes, it also means all of the financial investment because that goes with it. Um, but just the joy in terms of trying new things and learning new things, and um, whereas sometimes when you're traditionally published, you don't feel like you can do anything there. Um, and then yeah, so I I really do do love that. Um, so I think that I just wanted to finish on, you know, um, some tips that you have in terms of the indie world and in terms of sharing your story um and making a difference.
Ruth Clare: 01:01:04
In terms of the indie world, I feel like I'm very much in my training, I've got training wheels on. So I I think that you would probably have a lot more insights into that. But what I have found, especially with non-fiction writing, is that the book becomes sort of a platform for talking about things that are important to you. And so for me that has been a really nice awareness that I if something is important to me and I'm gonna spend years researching it and writing it, then I don't want to feel like somebody says I approve or not approve of whatever you've spent years of it, like yes. Um let readers decide. How's it? Yeah. How about it's not up to you. Yeah. How about I'll decide. And the I think this is important and I'm gonna back that idea. Yes. Because if it's come if it comes from a place where you know why you're doing it and you've got a good reason why, then you should 100% do it. And if there's a story that you want to tell, don't let it die inside of you because you know, and they I think that the one thing that that I would say is you've gotta sort of check the ego at the door more with self-publishing. Yeah. Because you're not getting the you know. Yeah. That I don't but I don't want the sunshine up the arse. I want I like it being authentic is far. I don't I don't like that power dynamic. And I I I just don't think that it is empowering. And I think that making a choice to really, you know, but do your own craft. Like don't don't bring shade on the self-publishing world by producing crap.
Amra Pajalic: 01:03:28
Yes, like putting the blog and and you know, get editors.
Ruth Clare: 01:03:31
Um you know, like reading books on how to write. Like do it. You can teach it all yourself. I taught myself how to write enemy.
Amra Pajalic: 01:03:38
Yeah.
Ruth Clare: 01:03:39
And you know. Because the story is what matters.
Amra Pajalic: 01:03:43
That's right.
Ruth Clare: 01:03:43
But you have to you do have to learn the craft. Yeah.
Amra Pajalic: 01:03:47
But there's a lot of resources out there. And it that's part of the fun. Yeah, and then just releasing, like, and I love this being able to have an idea, I have what I want to do, and just releasing out of the world. And whatever will be will be. But for me, it's the joy of creation. Yes. And of actually seeing.
Ruth Clare: 01:04:05
You're better at that than me though. I'm like, I'm I mean, this is you've done how many books?
Amra Pajalic: 01:04:11
No, I don't know. I'm gonna have to count actually, because I think it's nine of ten now.
Ruth Clare: 01:04:15
Yes. I have not done that.
Amra Pajalic: 01:04:16
And a lot of anthologies and stuff.
Ruth Clare: 01:04:18
And I'm not, I'm not as I'm not as prolific as you. So I feel like I need to because what I will I I treat them because I do speaking as well. It's like these are things I want to impact people with. And so therefore, I've got to do the follow-up stuff where I'm pitching these to speaking things and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I want to give all of my book. I'm not, I'm not as willing to let it go. I'm like, I'm gonna make it succeed. Whereas I'm always on to the next.
Amra Pajalic: 01:04:48
You're genuine and you're serious. Thank you so much, Ruth. This has been wonderful. Um, I I love connecting with you and I love having conversations with you, and I hope it's helpful for all the people out there listening.
Amra Pajalic: 01:05:03
Thank you for tuning into Amara's armchair anecdote. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe and follow for more inside stories and inspiration. From my armchair to yours. Remember, every story begins with a single word.