Gorgi her time to shine

Is EXERCISE as we know it all wrong?

WWhile her name may not be as famous as that of her colleagues on The Project, such as Carrie Bickmore and Lisa Wilkinson, Gorgi Coghlan – with the lit-up smile and the unfiltered warmth – is easy to recognise. And perhaps the reason that Gorgi is slightly less well known is because she’s so busy away from the camera. She and husband Simon are hands-on hosts running the boutique Provincial Hotel and its stylish restaurant, Lola, in Ballarat, an hour out of Melbourne. Then there’s the 8-hectare (20-acre) hobby farm where they live and raise chickens, horses, pet sheep and dogs. And, most important of all, there’s caring for their eight-year-old daughter, Molly-Rose. But on a chilly night in Melbourne, Gorgi is in rehearsal on set. As the hair and makeup artists hover, she munches on a platter of energising snacks spread across The Project desk. The studio audience is about to be ushered in, it’s the final countdown, and Gorgi, looking impeccably groomed, shows no sign of fatigue, even though she’s been up since dawn to feed the horses.

We’re here celebrating the fact it’s not just

The Project’s 10-year anniversary, but in the year that Carrie has been on maternity leave, it’s become Gorgi’s time to shine.

When she walks off the set and strides over to say hello, she radiates a natural unguarded warmth. Maybe it’s the Warnambool farm girl coming out, but after more than 15 years on TV – first as a reporter for Today, then a co-host of The Circle before joining The Project – Gorgi, at 43, remains delightfully open and unaffected by the media spotlight.

What’s equally apparent is that here is someone who is genuinely happy and fulfilled by her busy life. And in the way busy mums do, we’re soon talking about the challenges of juggling, and Gorgi confides that only a few nights earlier her husband had walked in on her having a little cry in the kitchen. It was just the pressure. The pressure of doing too many things. Most of us have been there. Instantly, we feel like friends.

“I’m one of those women who likes to have fingers in a lot of different pies and to have different challenges,” Gorgi says. And most of the time she’s great at it.

COUNTRY GIRL AT HEART

Gorgi’s energy is something she gets from living on a farm. “It really keeps me grounded,” she says. “I love the silence and the connection to nature. I don’t think I could do my job without the farm, in all honesty. In the [news] media you’re exposed to such awful stuff sometimes, that some days I need to know that everything’s going to be okay. And farm life just gives you that sense of focusing on the now – sometimes that’s seeing the unfurling of a rose in front of you, or pulling out weeds and cutting hedges, or being out riding with my little girl. It’s just a really spiritual, nourishing place for all of us. It’s a really lovely way to live.”

But farm life has its challenges – like all those early starts. “Yes, it is busy,” Gorgi says. “This morning when I got up at 6.15, it was only two degrees and snowing. But then, seeing the sun coming up and feeding the horses, who are so grateful to see you because they’re hungry, you feel validated.”

This is part of a morning ritual that Gorgi cherishes. “After feeding the chooks, I come in and sit on my favourite chair and have a cup of tea. Then I do a Deepak Chopra meditation on my phone for 10 minutes. That space I allow myself in the morning sets the rest of my day up. So when my daughter gets up, I’m ready for her, I’m not rushing around. And when I get to work and a massive tragedy breaks, like the Christchurch massacre, I can feel quite grounded.”

Then there’s the other equally fulfilling side of Gorgi’s busy life. She describes the joy of running the hotel with her husband, working with hotel staff and doing the elegant floral arrangements.

MARRIAGE OF EQUALS

Gorgi loves the partnership she shares with Simon. On the nights when she gets home from The Project at 9pm, he has dinner ready. “The fire’s on, and we take the time then to put our phones down and to both talk about our day,” she says. “I’m very lucky!

“We both have very non-gender-specific roles in our relationship. And we swap and look after those duties when each of us is away. I feel very, very lucky to have a husband who is such a capable and confident man. We are literally two equals. And that is an absolute non-negotiable for me, because I’m a very independent, strong, opinionated woman. I’m just so lucky that I’ve found a man who is not emasculated by that.

I’ve been in relationships in the past where the men have gone, ‘Oh, my God, you’re so opinionated and dominant!’ ”

If one of the advantages of life experience is gaining wisdom and insights into ourselves, Gorgi has seized those opportunities to grow.

Her inspiring life mantra is to, “Be the best version of myself”. And to this end, she’s travelled an unorthodox path, as her CV testifies. At first, she studied to be a vet, then dropped out, living on the dole and losing herself in a bad relationship.

“I made poor choices and I was so unhappy,” she recalls. But after a lost year, she pulled herself out of that toxic relationship, returned to university and, this time, graduated to became a high school teacher. It sounds like she was quite an inspirational teacher to her students.

“But intuitively, I knew there was something else,” Gorgi says. She flirted with a singing career, starring in a Shania Twain tribute show, and then performing in the stage version of the Queen musical We Will Rock You. However, the glamour of nightly theatre soon tarnished.

I’m one of those women who likes to have fingers in a lot of pies and

have different challenges.

“I thought, what can I do that combines my love of performing and where I’m using my brain?” So Gorgi went to the local community TV station and dabbled in news reporting, which led to her being hired as a reporter for Today.

HAVING BOUNDARIES

As well as seeking to feel fulfilled in her career, Gorgi is also striving to live each moment to the best of her ability, and that makes her quite an inspirational figure. She is also eager for others to learn from these important discoveries she’s made about living well.

“The biggest thing for me is boundaries,” she says. “Working out what my boundaries are in my personal life has helped me feel like I have got more control over who I am.

“I think that many of us are trying to be all things to everybody in their life: the best employee, the best mother, the best wife, the best friend, the best daughter, the best daughter-in-law. But often that’s to our detriment. We’re not checking in with ourselves and asking, ‘Hang on, do I feel like I’m invaded when that person comes to my home?’ or, ‘Do I feel like my husband’s expectations of me to always see his family are too high?’ Many of us don’t take the time to sit with that feeling and think, ‘What do I need to do to change that?’ Then something happens – we break down, we’ve got depression, we’ve got anxiety. For me, it manifests as anxiety.

“When I get anxiety, that’s when I’ve got to stop and say, ‘Hang on, what’s going on here? Who am I spending my time with? Am I spending my time with people that are lifting me up, that understand me?’ And I don’t mean people that kiss your arse. It’s about spending time with people who energetically nourish you, understand you. I just see so many people trying to please everybody and I want to say to them, ‘Just stop!’

“We need to set boundaries and stop judging ourselves because, if we stop judging ourselves, then we become kinder people in the world and kinder to ourselves. Having a boundary doesn’t need to be aggressive. How about saying, ‘I’m really busy, let’s catch up in a month’s time,’ or, ‘It’s a bit crazy for me at the moment.’ ”

Gorgi allows that she does have a “super-busy, super-analytical brain” – which is why “meditation has been my lifesaver.”

The other thing that helps is exercise. “Running kick-starts me and eliminates anxiety,” she says. “I’m not a gym person at all, can’t stand gyms. I have a treadmill in my garage – 20 minutes on the treadmill and I come up with all these great ideas about the hotel and life!”

In striving to live her best life, Gorgi has now arrived at a place of deep personal satisfaction.

“It’s funny, The Project is the longest job I’ve ever had,” she says. “I just love my job and I love who I work with. I’ve always been very transient in my career, but it’s the longest time I’ve ever felt I wanted to stay in a job.”

Not only has she found the ideal job, and the right life partner, she’s actively cultivated a lifestyle that nourishes her.

“The message I want to say to women is, I haven’t always been like this,” Gorgi says.

“My 20s was an uncomfortable time for me.

I made poor choices and was so unhappy. But when you go through that, you do all this work on yourself. And so you can change. You can find yourself again, and when you do, it’s even better than what you expected.”