What You Took Back Podcast

It's 5:15 a.m.; Skye has a squat weight on, and then her back goes. That's how this episode starts, and it's a pretty fitting warm-up for a conversation about how much we do, how much we compare, and how hard it is to stop. In Episode 30, Skye gets honest about the batsh*t truth of modern motherhood: somewhere along the way, it became a competition. Nobody announced it, and nobody signed up, but h...

Last weekend I had a conversation with a friend I see most Saturdays, and I haven't stopped thinking about it. She's fought cancer twice, had a stroke, gone through seven years of menopause with no medication to help, lost her daughter to suicide, and left a marriage after twenty-five years — and she's one of the happiest, most switched-on people I know. Closing out the Survival Mode series, this...

We are all two weeks away from becoming homeless. I heard my university lecturer say that years ago and thought, surely not me. Surely not the women I know. I was wrong. This episode started with a conversation with a 56-year-old friend going through a divorce after more than 20 years of marriage. She has worked most of her life, yet now finds herself without a home or car, living with her niece w...

Episode 27: The Woman Who Carries Everyone (Emotional Load) If you're the one everyone hands their feelings to — this episode is for you. Most women carry an emotional load nobody ever names: reading the room, smoothing things over, tracking everyone's needs before working out their own. It's not a personality trait. It's a job you were handed without ever being asked, and you've never once clocke...

Episode 26: Survival Mode — The Woman Who Looks Fine Isn't Fine You can look completely fine and be completely hollowed out at the same time. This episode opens our September series on Survival Mode with a claim I stand behind: almost every woman 20+ is running some version of it right now — and calling it normal. I share the stretch of my own life where my mum was dying, my business still had to...

I'm Skye. And this is What You Took Back. A podcast for women who've spent years surviving on fragments of themselves. I'm here to hand you back the whole damn thing. I thought rediscovering myself was a one-off. Find her once, hold on tight, done. I've since confirmed that's not how it works. I was a single mother first, raising my daughter and my son on my own. Then I married and had my youngest...

If you didn't have anyone needing anything from you tomorrow morning, what would actually get you out of bed? Not your job, not the school run, not the list. The real version. For a lot of us, that question goes very quiet, very fast. I did all the work — found myself again, built an identity separate from wife, separate from mother, separate from everyone. And then I woke up one morning and thoug...

I'm Skye. And this is What You Took Back. A podcast for women who've spent years surviving on fragments of themselves. I'm here to hand you back the whole damn thing. Picture it. You're at a function, glass of average chardonnay in hand, and someone you barely know asks, completely innocently, "So what do you do for yourself?" Go on, actually put yourself there for a second, and notice what comes...

I'm Skye. And this is What You Took Back. A podcast for women who've spent years surviving on fragments of themselves. I'm here to hand you back the whole damn thing. Before you read another word, answer this honestly: what did you love, before anyone needed something from you? Not what you're good at now. Not what keeps the house running. What you loved — quietly, for no reason except that it was...

I'm Skye. And this is What You Took Back. A podcast for women who've spent years surviving on fragments of themselves. I'm here to hand you back the whole damn thing. I made a hundred decisions a day without a second thought — what they ate, what they wore, whether that cough needed a doctor. I spent my twenties and thirties living for my children and my husband, and then I became my mother's care...

I'm Skye. And this is What You Took Back. A podcast for women who've spent years surviving on fragments of themselves. I'm here to hand you back the whole damn thing. I said no. Then, before anyone could even react, I heard myself apologising for it. Nothing bad happened. Nobody was hurt. I just held a boundary — and some old, exhausted part of me still felt like I owed someone a "sorry" for it. T...

I'm Skye. And this is What You Took Back. A podcast for women who've spent years surviving on fragments of themselves. I'm here to hand you back the whole damn thing. Someone tells you, "Honestly, you're just so easy to work with." You smile. You say thank you. Inside, some tiny, exhausted part of you goes, oh no — because you know what that sentence actually means once you translate it. You've ne...

Picture your family or friend group chat. Someone's asked you to host Christmas again — same as every year — and for the first time, you type the word "no." Then you delete it. You write it again, this time with a paragraph attached: how tired you've been, the kids' schedule, a "maybe next year" so nobody feels rejected. That's not a boundary. That's a boundary wearing a disguise so it can sneak p...

Someone decided you were the strong one. Nobody asked your permission. And somewhere along the way, it became the only thing you were allowed to be. This episode is for the woman underneath the strength — the one who has held everyone else together and never once been the person someone rushed to check on. It's time to talk about what that costs. You became the ceiling that holds everything up. An...

Episode 17 — "She Was Always the Strong One. Nobody Checked on Her." Everyone decided you were the strong one. Not because you asked for it. Not because anyone sat down and voted. But because when things fell apart, you stayed steady. When there was a crisis, you handled it. When everyone else needed holding — you held them. And because you did it so well, so consistently, so quietly — nobody thou...

Episode 15 — "You are not difficult. You are just done." You were the easy one. The agreeable one. The one who never caused a fuss. You let things roll off your shoulders. You swallowed the truths that deserved to be said out loud. You kept the peace — even when it meant losing yourself. And somewhere along the way, you called it strength. It wasn't strength. It was self-abandonment. In this episo...

EPISODE 14: THE BARE MINIMUM IS STILL SOMETHING Ever had one of those days where simply getting through it felt like an achievement — but you still convinced yourself it wasn't enough? This episode is for the woman carrying the mental load, juggling everything, showing up for everyone else, and quietly beating herself up for not doing more. Somewhere along the way, you started believing every day...

Episode 13 — The Price Of Being Everything To Everyone Following on from last week’s episode My Sister’s Keeper, this conversation goes deeper into the roles women inherit… and the identities they slowly disappear inside of. Some women were never taught how to belong to themselves. Only how to be useful. Needed.  In this episode, Skye explores the quiet conditioning many women carry through relati...

# My Sister's Keeper: Navigating the Complexities of Caregiving in Childhood  Explore the emotional journey of childhood caregiving in "My Sister's Keeper". Understand the impact of early responsibility on personal growth and mental health. In this deeply personal episode of "What You Took Back", host Skye Underhill opens up about the intricate dynamics of being a caregiver from a young age. For m...

Episode 11: I Don’t Need a Holiday, I Need Everyone to Stop Asking Me for Things This week’s episode is lighter, honest, and probably a little too relatable. We’re talking about the kind of exhaustion that isn’t fixed by sleep or a weekend away — the mental load, constant accessibility, emotional labour, invisible responsibility, and what happens when being “capable” quietly becomes your entire pe...

Skye Underhill discusses a transformative approach for women seeking lasting change, emphasizing honesty, structure, and accessibility over gimmicks. She shares her methodology rooted in genuine understanding and internal development. Key Topics: The pitfalls of temporary gimmicks in women's self-help A structured, honest approach to lasting change The importance of internal authenticity in person...

Have you ever sat down for dinner with your partner, only to find that both of you are distracted, scrolling through your phones or lost in thought? If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. Many couples are experiencing a gradual drift in their connection amidst the chaos of daily life. In this podcast, we will explore how we can reclaim what belongs to us—genuine intimacy and connection with o...

What if your perfect life feels empty inside? This episode is for anyone who seems to have it all, yet still feels lost or unfulfilled. Skye gets into the psychology of why this happens to so many of us — men and women — and why it has nothing to do with making bad choices. In fact, it happened because you made all the right ones.   She shares her own story of lying in the pitch black one night se...

Episode 7. Skye navigates life after 40, and how it’s easy to feel adrift in our friendships. We have our lifelong pals, sure, but what about those new connections that can spark joy and understanding?  Here’s the thing: the gap where new friends should be can feel vast. It’s not because we’re broken or anti-social; it’s a structural issue. We grew up in a friendship model built on forced closenes...

We all have moments when we lose our confidence, often without even realising it. It doesn’t happen all at once; it’s a gradual process where life’s demands overshadow our true selves.   Confidence slips away like the tide, leaving us standing on unfamiliar ground, questioning who we are. It’s a feeling many women share, and today we dive deep into understanding and reclaiming that lost confidence...