Well Enough Alone - A Guide To Thriving Solo

 If you want to know how to be happy alone and show up proudly and unapologetically as your authentic self, you need to listen to this episode.   This is our season finale and what a way to close out season two! (Thank you all for listening!)   Jill speaks with the incredible Heidi Clements, a social media sensation who has inspired women all over the world with her empowering outlo...

What do we actually need to live a happy life? Are marriage and children the pathway to fulfilment, or do they actually make you less happy?   This week, Jill talks to someone who has studied these questions in depth and come up with some illuminating answers that not everyone wants to hear.   Professor Paul Dolan is one of the world’s leading experts on happiness, a professor of behavio...

How do we let go of perfectionism and people-pleasing and learn to put our own needs first?   This week, Jill speaks with Dr Michelle McQuaid, an internationally recognised positive psychology expert, about how more women are breaking free from damaging people-pleasing patterns and living as their authentic selves.   Michelle is the author of six best-selling books, and an honorary fello...

To have kids or not have kids? In a world where marriage and parenthood are still seen as the expected life path, what does it mean to defy convention and choose a different way?   This week, Jill talks to award-winning documentary filmmaker Therese Shechter about her revolutionary film, My So-Called Selfish Life and the unstoppable rise of the child-free movement.   In a world where rep...

This week’s guest is the very definition of thriving solo. Cindy Gallop is a trailblazer for single, child-free living. She’s torn up the rule book, rejected outdated societal expectations, and actively celebrates her solo life.   She’s also someone who is open about the fun she’s having as an older woman dating younger men casually for sex – a trend she says is the relationship model of the...

What do death and dying have to teach us about getting comfortable with aloneness and living a good life?   It’s a subject that’s often taboo and shrouded in fear and secrecy, but it’s also something none of us can avoid.   But what does a good death look like? Is it a lonely and frightening experience? Or can it be something profound and beautiful, with as much to teach us about how to...

If you’ve ever been with a partner and asked, “Is this relationship going anywhere?” or been swept up in a romance without stopping to question if it’s really what you want, then you may already be familiar with the “relationship escalator.” It’s a phrase coined by journalist, Amy Gahran, to describe the default set of steps society expects all intimate relationships to follow. She challenged the...

This week’s episode is one we’re really honoured to bring to you.   Our guest is someone with boundless courage and compassion, who has shared some of her most vulnerable moments with the world so that others might feel less alone.   Rosie Batty is, as she says, the member of a club no mother wants to join. She lost her 11-year-old son, Luke, in 2014 when he was killed by his father that...

Season 2: Episode Six   Jacinta Parsons: On reclaiming your forever self, the wisdom of older women and lessons from living with chronic illness   Reaching mid-life and reckoning with the ageing process can also be a time of invisibility and isolation, particularly for women.   Living with a chronic illness can also be a lonely place. It can feel like the world is moving on around y...

This week’s episode is a really juicy one so buckle up!   Can we have a fulfilling, safe and healthy sex life when we’re unpartnered? Is sex an essential part of the human experience or are there other ways to find intimacy?   Our guest this week is Cyndi Darnell, a certified clinical sexologist, psychotherapist and couple's counsellor based in New York.   She works with singles, tr...

Today’s episode is one that many of you asked us for – what does it take to have a child on your own?   Whether you’re sure you want kids, still trying to decide, or want to be child-free, this week’s guest has many life lessons that can help you figure out, or reaffirm, what’s right for you.   Alexandra Collier was 37 and living in Brooklyn with the man she loved when she woke up to a r...

  We live in an age when we’re more connected than at any point in history. But in our terminally online timeline, many young people are feeling a profound sense of loneliness, isolation and pessimism about the future.   They are often disengaged from politics and less than hopeful about modern dating and relationships.   Our guest this week is someone who has tapped into that feeli...

Imagine being the star of a reality TV dating show as one of the most visible eligible bachelors in the country, and you find love in the full glare of the public eye only to have your life fall apart.   That’s what happened to Dr Matt Agnew, when he appeared on The Bachelor , fell in love, broke up, then felt himself slowly unravel.   In this week’s episode, Matt speaks with courage and...

We’re back for season two and what a way to kick off, with Australian broadcasting icon, Yumi Stynes – a fierce and fearless trailblazer who knows all about finding your strength when you are very much on your own. Yumi opens up about surviving some very public media pile-ons, and how she manages the hateful trolling that has made her fear for her safety. She also shares her journey through two di...

Claire Mason: on sobriety as a path to single freedom, self-love and happiness   Can quitting drinking be the key to a happy, single life?   This week, Jill talks to podcaster, body positivity advocate and digital creator, Claire Mason about her journey from party girl to sober queen.   They share stories about their history of binge drinking and what happens when you can no longer...

Our friends are some of the most important people in our lives. They’re the people we can be 100% ourselves with.   And for many single people, they are our family.   So why are friendships seen as lesser than romantic or blood family relationships?   This week, Jill talks to journalist and author, Gyan Yankovich, about her book, Just Friends , and what would happen if society treat...

This week, Jill talks to TV presenter, public speaker and proud Warumungu/Yawuru woman, Megan Waters about growing and healing through times of struggle and why time alone is an essential part of her self-care toolkit.   She also talks about her deep connection to her Indigenous culture and how kinship and community have helped her build a strong sense of self.   Megan is open about her...

One of the best things about solo life is the freedom to live life your own, without having to run decisions past anyone else.   But one of the more challenging things is how expensive it can be to live alone. You have the same household costs as couples but only one income.   Whether it’s booking a room in a hotel, paying for health insurance, or forking out for power bills, groceries a...

Why are single people often ignored by policy makers? And is that about to change? This week, Jill is joined by writer and political commentator, Lauren Beckman, to dissect Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s attack on “miserable, childless cat ladies” and how this group is becoming a potent voting bloc. Single person households are the fastest growing demographic and yet we’re often treated...

If a romantic connection is something you see in your future – whether for one night or forever – then you do not want to miss this week’s episode. Jill speaks to Alita Brydon – dating expert, body positivity champion and creator of the cult social media phenomenon, Bad Dates of Melbourne on Facebook. Just because you enjoy time on your own doesn’t mean you can’t still dip your toe in the dat...

Danni Duncan: on choosing not to have children, and the rise of the child-free movement. The pressure to couple up starts early in life, but it’s not just a pressure to be partnered, it often comes with an expectation that you will also want to have children. In a world where the nuclear family is still the archetype, it’s often seen as a biological imperative to become a parent. But more and more...

From an early age we’re told that that the dream is to find our soulmate, have the big wedding, and then live happily ever after. But for a long time, that fairytale was one only straight people could aspire to. On the day same-sex marriage was finally legalised in Australia, Stuart Henshall was proposed to live on national television. He and his fiancée became the first couple to ever get married...

In a world obsessed with partnering up and settling down, it can sometimes feel like you’re a square peg in a round hole if you’re on your own. So how can you learn to not just accept your own company but actually love it? Is loneliness something we can banish, or is it a necessary part of the human condition? And how do you deal with pressure to be coupled and/or have children, from people in you...

What happens when the life you planned comes crashing down around you?   Jess King faced a major betrayal that changed everything. But in rebuilding herself from the ashes of that crisis, she found freedom and strength in her own company.   Jess is one of Australia’s leading curve models, a body positivity advocate, and a content creator. She’s walked runways across Europe, Asi...

  As single people, we’re often pitied or seen as living half a life. We’re just incomplete puzzles desperately searching for the missing piece to make us whole.   But what if the risk is not what we’ll miss out on if we don’t organise our lives around a romantic partner, but what we’ll miss out on if we do?   Today, Jill speaks to Dr Bella DePaulo – the world’s leading thinker on t...