The Uncensored Truth About Ovaries by Lissie Turner – The Vagina Conversations

Vaginas, the most powerful body part on the planet. Giving pleasure, giving life, experiencing pain, desired and exploited everyday. After sell out performances six years running, Lissie joined this informal, diverse collective of some of Byron Shire’s powerful, creative women and non-binary people with vaginas, presenting her tales of being an Ovary Owner – in 2021 ‘The Uncensored Truth About Ovaries’ and in 2022 ‘Was My Vagina Dead? Aka The Escapades of Perimenopause.’

A Story Of Change

In the year 2000, when she was still known as Mel Bampton, Lissie sat down in front of a microphone at triple j and started talking to musicians about music, scientists about science and with listeners about life.

For 3 years she sat as host of drive along with Charlie Pickering (The Project/The Weekly) followed by three years as ‘Mel in the Morning’. During this time Lissie had the immense privilege of breaking bread with many of the Gods and monsters of modern music – Radiohead, REM, Mike Patton, Lou Reed, Blondie, The White Stripes and Grandmaster Flash to name but a few - and behind the scenes her love of yoga keeping her swimming during many heady years of music industry mayhem.

Through this prolific time, with some consistent practice by her side, a journey of deep-self inquiry was propagated – observing particularly the insecurities and uncertainties of the human condition that cultivate much of human suffering. Based on her own sleepless nights ruminating on her words to the nation each day, Lissie discovered a restlessness to explore something deeper, that tugged a little stronger each day.

During this time there were many highlights - once a week Dr Karl Kruszelnicki would join Lissie and together they turned the tone from music to science. Other luminaries such as David Suzuki, Dava Sobel and Tim Flannery floated in too.

In 2004 Lissie created and kicked off, Like a Version. A segment that has become one of the most popular in triple j history, spawning more than a dozen compilations, enjoyed by millions and earning a place on the station’s breakfast program – where it lives happily to this day.

In 2004, Lissie’s then producer Jordy Kilby devised The Producer Series, which became her baby for 6 years on the ABC and a further 10 years as it took shape into book form, leading to the release of ‘Off The Record: One Woman’s Global Search For The World’s Greatest Music Producers’ in 2022.

Over two and a half decades Lissie has contributed writing to jmag, Life Etc, Surfing World, BtN, Green Living, Blunt, Tracks, Sydney Morning Herald, Cleo, Cosmo, The Glow, Limelight and many more. For 4 years she was the Music & Film Editor for ‘alternative mainstream’ women’s magazine, yen. Now she reserves her music and copy writing skills only for the finest individuals, such as Angus Stone, Ash Grunwald and Danni Carr, who’s personalities, hilarity and good hearts she cannot resist.

For five years Lissie was the National Media Manager for Soundwave Festival, experiencing the festivals record-breaking year in 2013 as the biggest touring music festival in Australia’s history, as well as survive tours with Marilyn Manson, Iron Maiden, Pennywise, Slayer, Nine Inch Nails, TOOL and hundreds more. Soundwave Festival highlighted Lissie’s love of working with amazing teams of highly skilled legends who could accomplish miracles.

In amongst some of the greatest tales ever lived, all around the world, the tearing desire to be more the Mother Lissie knew she yearned be, became a deafening roar. Courtesy of a liver that decided it was done with such mistreatment and a child who was soon to experience the nightmare of being a young woman in a world where predatory behaviour not only exists but is supported far too often with a dominantly-biased system, Lissie took a step back from the spotlight and turned a 22-year drinking career into a thirst for profoundly calmer and more humble living.

Becoming a Yoga Teacher first, then doing 4 years of Post Grad to become a Yoga Therapist, Lissie, along with her husband built The Yoga Shack - a yoga school that over a decade became legendary in the Byron Shire and beyond, as a place of complete acceptance, a renegade yoga school of deeply respectful honouring of the Krishnmacharya lineage along with a punk ethos that didn’t hold glamour or flexibility of body as it’s bastions but saw the grit as symbiotic with the gold, in everyone. Lissie is the creator of ‘Dissolving Patterns™’ - a 21 day program to break free from any patterns that cause suffering, 'Stories from the Sisterhood', ‘Communicating with Courage’ and co-Creator of ‘Living Hormoniously™ - A Human Revolution Through Hormonal Celebration’. As an internationally registered therapist with the IAYT, who sits on the board of the Australasian Association of Yoga Therapists, Lissie specialises in using the vast tool kit of yoga to assist people with ‘deeply seated’ problems - cancer, autoimmune, endocrine issues, addiction and more.

Lissie is the CEO of The Prana Project,a global initiative that connects people back to environment, using the reinvigoration of wounded landscapes as the tool to help people thrive. The Prana Project is the culmination of Lissie’s life’s work in addiction recovery, women’s health, as a vigorous environmentalist, passionate surfer, professional communicator, author, Mother and Grandmother.

21-DAY DISSOLVING PATTERNS PROGRAM

LIVE ONLINE

5th - 25th May
6:00am to 6:45am
Live ONLINE

Do you have harmful habits that you struggle to break free from? The 21-Day Dissolving Patterns Program is all about pivoting your direction, beginning the process of freeing yourself from habits that keep you in a loop of suffering.

Utilising immensely practical tools that you will be able to draw from in your day-to-day life forevermore. You’ll tap into your body, see how you store your life’s hardship and learn how to get rid of it. You’ll form an empowering relationship with your breath, as your most powerful weapon for positive decision-making. You will begin to cultivate the art of internal attentiveness and be supported through the teachings to more readily see what gets you into trouble and why.

Live Classes Tuesday and Thursdays at 6:00am

Booking in is as simple as heading to the Yoga page and choosing the class from the timetable

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Giving you 24/7 Unlimited access to both the live online classes as well as everything on-demand. Sign up today on the Yoga page.

Yoga Therapy

Yoga Therapy draws from the principles of Yoga and the full range of Yoga practices, bio-medical knowledge and assessment skills to establish a professional relationship with the student, generally in a clinic setting. Together, the therapist and student develop a self-empowering therapeutic program appropriate to the student’s individual needs. As a student walks their own specific path in the opposite direction of their problem, they are guided by the Yoga Therapist with ongoing review, progress and assessment until the student is ready, with a good understanding of the tools at hand, to walk the path on their own. Click below to learn more and book a one-to-one appointment.

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