Thrive Solo

Send us Fan Mail JOIN ME FOR A THRIVE SOLO TRIP TO ITALY IN APRIL 2027!    https://www.explore.co.uk/thrivesolo-italy This week’s episode is Part 2 of my conversation with Kristy Halvorsen, full-time nomad, coach and author of Perfect Unfolding: Seven Years of Life-Changing Solo Adventure, One Year That Broke Me Open — a book that I read and absolutely loved. If you haven’t yet listened to last we...

Send us Fan Mail On this week's minisode, I'm challenging the idea that being in a relationship somehow gives you access to a richer or more meaningful version of life. So often, single people are made to feel as though they're waiting on the sidelines while everyone else is experiencing the "real" human experience — but I simply don't believe that's true. We all...

Send us Fan Mail On today’s Thursday Thoughts, Polly and I are talking about comparison. As the saying goes, comparison is the thief of joy, but we can all be guilty of it to a greater or lesser extent. And it’s even harder to keep it under control in this age of screens and social media. Rather than comparing ourselves to others and allowing them to make us feel bad about ourselves, let’s use com...

Send us Fan Mail This week’s episode is Part 1 of a 2-parter with the fabulous Kristy Halvorsen, a full-time nomad and author.  If "normal" is a way of being, Kristy is most definitely not that. In 2017, she sold pretty much everything she owned including her house, she left her career as a firefighting, and she hit the road in her Airstream trailer, Coddie. For nearly nine years, Kristy...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's minisode, I'm exploring one of my favourite mindset quotes, attributed to Henry Ford: "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right." We all tell ourselves stories about who we are and what we're capable of, but what if many of those stories aren't actually facts at all? From confidence and careers to relatio...

Send us Fan Mail On this week’s Monday Motivation, Polly and I are talking about taking responsibility. How often do you avoid doing the hard thing, even though you know it’s exactly what needs to be done? The truth is, no one else can do it for us. We all have to choose our hard. Taking responsibility isn’t about blame or pressure – it’s about recognising the incredible power you already have to...

Send us Fan Mail I'm excited for you to hear my wonderful guest this week because she’s talking all about something that we don’t talk about enough — and I’ve only had one other guest on the podcast talking about this particular thing.  Hennie Thomson is a single woman in her 30s living and working in Oxfordshire. She has been long-term single and a few years ago she realised that her lack of...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's minisode, I'm asking a question that I've genuinely been wondering about for a long, long time: are human beings actually meant to spend 20, 30, 40 or 50 years with the same romantic partner? I'm not questioning love or relationships themselves, but the societal expectation that we're all supposed to couple up, get married and stay together...

Send us Fan Mail On this week's Thursday's Thoughts, Polly and I are talking about the mistake that so many of us make which is thinking that things will be better when… We’ve all done it, haven’t we? Things will better when I’m earning more money; things will be better when I’ve started the new job; things will be better once I move into the new home. Ultimately, those ‘big’ moments in...

Send us Fan Mail On this week’s episode, I’m talking to the fabulous Désirée Cyganek, a single and childfree photographer and former dancer, the daughter of a French father and an African mother who was born in the Ivory Coast and raised in France.  Having moved to Florida when she met the man she subsequently married, Désirée now lives in Jersey City — just across the water from Manhattan — with...

Send us Fan Mail On this week's minisode, I’m sharing one of my core messages for single women: spend more energy chasing your dreams than chasing a romantic relationship. I talk about how easy it is to make “finding someone” the main project of your life, while neglecting the life you’re actually responsible for creating. This is a reminder that no partner can hand you happiness, purpose, di...

Send us Fan Mail On this week’s Tuesday Motivation, Polly and I are chatting about the importance of movement. As we get older, we naturally lose both muscle and bone mass, so keeping our bodies moving is one of the best investments we can make in our long term health and wellbeing. We talk about how consistency matters more than perfection, how to make movement enjoyable, and simple ways to fit i...

Send us Fan Mail I have actual man on my podcast today, and what a gorgeous man he is!  Carl Huelin is 46, single, doesn’t have kids, lives on the island of Jersey and works as a men’s life coach, having completed burned out in the corporate world and deciding to change things up.  I do urge you to listen to this conversation the whole way through because I think our conversation gets better and b...

Send us Fan Mail On this week's minisode, I’m talking about something we don’t discuss enough: how much of ourselves we can lose in romantic relationships, even good ones. I explore the invisible cost of partnership — the habits, routines, freedom, focus, control and little personal preferences that can quietly get pushed aside when a relationship becomes the centre of your life. This isn’t a...

Send us Fan Mail On today’s Thursday's Thoughts, Polly and I are talking about how important it is to find the joy in life, rather than being constantly weighed down by all of the ‘shoulds’. The truth is that life is short, and we sometimes forget to enjoy the ride. Instead of taking it all so seriously, let’s remember that we’re all travelling on a giant sphere hurtling through space - so we...

Send us Fan Mail This week, I'm thrilled to be speaking to the absolutely fabulous Zoe Hanson — solo Mum to her 13 year old daughter, Lois.  Zoe raised Lois by herself from the moment she was born, and that was while she was hosting Heart’s south coast breakfast show having been one of the south coast’s longest running breakfast show hosts on both the Capital and Heart networks, including pre...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's minisode, I’m giving some loving tough love on the phrase “easier said than done” — because yes, changing your mindset, reprogramming old beliefs, and building a better life is hard…but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing. I talk about why so many of us stay stuck because we expect transformation to feel easy, when really it takes repetition, discipline, dis...

Send us Fan Mail On this week’s Monday Motivation, Polly and I are talking all about sleep. Sleep is one of the foundations of good health, yet it's something so many of us struggle to get enough of. In this episode, we chat about some of the simple things we've found really help us sleep better, from creating a healthier sleep environment to small habits that can make a big difference....

Send us Fan Mail On this week's guest episode, I’m speaking to the wonderful Elisa Hanssen, single, childfree, and originally from The Netherlands but now living in Iceland for the last ten years having fallen in love with the country on a solo holiday.  During her time in Iceland, Elisa has done all manner of things from being a horse riding guide, to knitting amazing Icelandic sweaters, to...

Send us Fan Mail On this week's minisode, I’m talking about one of the most underrated benefits of being single: the glorious absence of romantic relationship emotional admin. I unpack how relationships don’t just bring love and companionship — they also bring conflict navigation, mood management, compromise, repair, expectation-setting and constant background maintenance. Single life doesn’t...

Send us Fan Mail On this week's Thursday Thoughts, Polly and I are talking all about boundaries. Women in particular have been conditioned to believe that they should give OF themselves long before they should give TO themselves. But this can lead to burnout and resentment. And this is where boundaries come in. The truth is that if we don’t implement boundaries, we’ll forever end up saying ye...

Send us Fan Mail I’m SO excited for you to hear my guest on this week's episode, because I think she’s one of my favourites so far — and to be fair I’ve only said that a handful of times in the four and a half years I’ve been making this podcast! Her name is Lauren Smith — you might know her on social media as 'ItsLaurenSmithy' — and she is a content creator, plus size advocate, and...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's minisode, I’m talking about authenticity — and why you never regret honouring yourself, even when it risks being misunderstood. I unpack how many of us have been conditioned to shapeshift for approval, and how self-respect and self-trust are built by not abandoning yourself in the small moments: saying what you mean, holding boundaries, and choosing what’s true...

Send us Fan Mail On this week’s Thursday Thoughts, Polly and I are chatting about the importance of checking in on your goals now that we’re nearly halfway through the year. As always, we wander off into a few interesting tangents along the way! But at its heart, this conversation is a gentle reminder to pause, reflect, and ask yourself: Are you heading in the direction you want to go? And are you...

Send us Fan Mail My guest on this week's guest episode is the gorgeous Carolyn Couch.  Single, childfree by choice, 64 years old, and living in North Caroline, Carolyn is a career counsellor and coach. In this conversation, Carolyn and I talk about what it was like growing up in a small town in a southern US state where, even more so back then, it was very much expected that you would get mar...