Born in Madagascar, Liva RJ’s early years were marked by tragedy, instability, and frequent moves between countries, languages, and socioeconomic realities. Hypervigilance became a way to survive and adapt.
Later, her career took her inside some of the world’s most influential institutions, from working as a journalist at Bloomberg and the Financial Times to sitting down with leaders at the World Economic Forum at Davos, before spending five years as a Malagasy diplomat heading international communications for the office of the president. At close range, she’s seen how power operates.
After surviving 9/11, she started asking what a life aligned with her deepest values, one oriented around inner peace rather than hustle-culture achievement, could look like. The answer involved a derelict 16th-century farmhouse in France’s Loire Valley that she began restoring seven years ago.
Today she hosts retreats for women who’ve lost themselves in overachievement or survival mode and realize something needs to change. The Joy Oasis offers a restorative environment without phones, social media, or the need to perform.
In this Ready Living Podcast episode, she shares how regulating one’s nervous system means having the internal resources to meet difficulty without being consumed by it. Liva describes it as “the ultimate act of rebellion.”
Award-winning Australian travel writer and author Louise Southerden has spent over two decades venturing to some of the most awe-inspiring corners of the planet, from canoeing in Madagascar and kayaking in the Arctic and Antarctica, to hiking in Nepal, and expedition-cruising in the Galapagos and the Russian Far East.
In this Ready Living Podcast episode, she speaks about her fear of becoming trapped in a life that didn’t suit her and how freedom was a non-negotiable necessity.
She opens up about the profound impact her mother’s death had on her in her late twenties, describing the experience as one that stripped life down to its essentials. She recalls the clarity that followed and how everything unimportant suddenly fell away, becoming the catalyst to reimagine her life.
In a culture that encourages us to incessantly accumulate and consume, she found liberation in paring back. From traveling light with only a backpack to stripping her life down to the essentials, she embraced the power that often comes through simplicity.
She shares her thoughts on how freedom is about letting go of the expectations and assumptions that no longer serve us, and deliberately choosing to live differently in order to create a life rooted in curiosity and authenticity.
The most transformative journey she undertook was building and living in her own tiny house, which she recounted in the new book TINY: A memoir about love, letting go and a very small house. Constructed during the emotional turbulence of a relationship ending, her home became a literal and symbolic structure for embracing inner peace.
Louise has been Australia’s Travel Writer of the Year a record five times and won the Australian Society of Travel Writers’ Responsible Tourism Award six times. Her past travel stories and posts can be found on her blog No Impact Girl and her Facebook page. In addition to TINY, Louise is also the author of Surf’s Up: The Girl’s Guide to Surfing, Adventures on Earth, Japan: A working holiday guide, and A month of simple Sundays. Her tiny house has been featured on the international YouTube channel Living Big In A Tiny House.
