WellBeing Wild Issue 6

Every issue of WILD is a huge one — but this issue especially so. It’s synonymous with the times. Woman/womxn are speaking up. We’re roaring, fierce with demands for change, for action, for education. No longer will we be silenced or sidelined. In this issue you’ll hear from a host of remarkable women like Isobel Marshall, Tara McClelland and Tayla Harris, the 2021 Young Australian of the Year award winners. You’ll meet Yasmin Poole, an inspiring youth advocate and law student, three incredible female artists and a bunch of game-changing women-led businesses. We take a deep dive into women’s health — learn to love your vulva, find out what’s in your menstrual products and explore social anxiety disorder. Love is also a hot topic for this issue; we share the do’s…

Virtual vacation Thank you for Saxon Kent’s beautiful photographs in WILD issue four. They came at a time when we were unable to jump on a plane and experience the true beauty of our planet in reality. Those photographs reminded me of past holidays, helped to ease my work and life stress and applied a soothing sensation to my soul. In these COVID-19 times, there is nothing I needed more than those virtual vacations. Saxon’s photographs were a wonderful celebration of our shores and the beauty right here in Byron Bay. Claire Respecting culture I love everything about WILD, especially the acknowledgment to Country in a non-tokenistic way. In my years as a childcare educator, I’ve noticed that this area is overlooked, and it saddens my heart. When we get close to NAIDOC week,…

WILD in the world The best way to wake up: coffee and WILD. @freya_nelson Turning heads Surf, sunshine, salty skin and WILD words. @gabbylowik WILD wisdom Issue five sitting snug alongside its WILD and WellBeing family. @liz_mclardy Moment I recently spent two days at Gwinganna Lifestyle Retreat in the Gold Coast hinterland for my “babymoon”. It was filled with nourishing food, pampering, bush walking and a long soak in this outdoor bath admiring the cute wallabies that surrounded me. Art Maggie Stephenson is breaking my heart with her clever use of colour, the magic of nature and the female form. Check her work out on page 54. Book I’ve tossed aside the pregnancy books and started reading Untamed by Glennon Doyle. The intimate memoir is tender, raw and offers an electrifying wake-up call on what it means, as a woman, to…

Can you feel it? It may just be a buzzing in the air or maybe you feel it in the depths of your bones, but it’s there. Anger. Uprising. Change. Enough is enough. Woman/womxn are finally being heard loud and clear. And although many of the responses aren’t good enough, change is already happening. People are listening. Marches are growing. We’ve been chipping away at the boulder that is the patriarchy for a long time and we’re about to make some rubble out of it. So keep calling out your sexist mates, have uncomfortable conversations with loved ones and recognise your own internalised misogyny. It’s our time to stand up, to be heard, to own our power and our magic. Get loud, wild ones. Let’s make some history.…

Eight-year-old Sarah grips her mother’s hand tightly as they walk into the local shopping centre to try on some new shoes for school. She feels her heart beating faster. Her breathing becomes shallow and quick. She feels light-headed and her throat begins to swell before uncontrollably spiralling into a coughing fit. Trying not to vomit in front of the sales assistant, she can see the confusion in her mother’s face. Sarah’s cheeks flush red as the embarrassment begins to take over. Feelings of guilt, imperfection and fear wash over her and settle deep inside her thoughts. “Why can’t I just be normal, like all the other kids?” she asks herself. Sarah and her mother leave the store without the shoes and she takes it upon herself to write her mum…

At age 14, I (finally) hit puberty and, like all teenagers, was curious about my changing body — especially my genitals. So naturally I jumped onto Google to see what a “normal” vagina looked like. There I found articles like ‘The 5 Different Types of Labia’, which suggested getting a hand-held mirror, squatting down and getting to know what kind of labia I had. Of course, I immediately grabbed a compact mirror from the bathroom and locked the door. Squatting down with my undies around my ankles, mirror in hand, I studied myself briefly, then swallowed shame and disgust as I shoved the mirror back into the drawer. I’d never watched porn so I’d never really seen another vagina, but I knew enough to know that my genitals weren’t “perfect”. The…