How To Run Away (& Other Handy Hints for Your Next Bit)

Why do midlife women stop trying things ? Not the big rebellious things — the small ones. The new café, the different route home, the conversation with the woman next to you on the plane. This episode is the final part of the SPACE method — a five-step framework Monique developed for midlife women drowning in everyone else's needs. E is for Explore : how to put novelty back into a brain that...

This episode was recorded before the current fuel crisis. Please check current travel advisories and official government advice before booking or travelling. You’ve simplified. Planned. Acted. Connected. Now — what if you actually went somewhere? Did something? Said yes to the thing that’s been quietly calling you? In this episode, Monique explores why solo travel over 50 can be so much more than...

If you've ever felt drawn to Japan - its quiet beauty, its rituals, its unhurried way of moving through the world - this conversation is for you. Today I'm speaking with Hiroko Yoda, Tokyo-based author, translator, folklorist, and certified kimono consultant. Her book Eight Million Ways to Happiness is the culmination of more than a decade of research, exploration, and living in Japan. I...

Loneliness has been shown to have a health impact comparable to smoking many cigarettes a day. Not a typo. In this episode — part of Monique van Tulder’s SPACE framework series — she explores why community and connection are critical to healthy ageing, wellbeing and longevity, particularly for midlife women. She talks about being an introvert masquerading as someone who loves people, why building...

What if midlife isn’t the beginning of the end, but the start of your 2nd act? In this episode of A Grown Up’s Gap Year – The Podcast, Monique sits down with Michelle Parsonage, host of the Your 2nd Act podcast and community for women navigating mid-life change and reinvention. Michelle’s message is all about “the power and beauty of women in their middle years” and the real stories of what happen...

You've made the plan. You can feel what you're chasing. But you still can't quite see the shape of what comes next - and that fog is exactly what's keeping you stuck. This episode is about closing the gap between knowing and doing - and why the clarity you're waiting for won't arrive until you actually start moving. In this episode, Monique van Tulder walks you throug...

Have you ever had a head full of ideas about what comes next, and absolutely no idea how to turn any of them into something visible? Last week we introduced our P is for PLAN episode — treating yourself like a project worth designing, and getting clear on feelings before actions. This week I wanted to bring you someone who has made it her life's work to help women do exactly that, out loud, v...

If you've cleared the decks, simplified your life, and still have no clue what comes next - this episode is for you. Most planning advice gets it wrong. It starts with "what do you want to DO?" - jobs, trips, projects, hobbies. But that's putting the cart before the horse. The better question? How do you want to FEEL? In this episode, Monique van Tulder walks you through the PL...

Overwhelmed and Over It: How to Simplify One Part of Your Life This Week ...so there’s more time for what you actually want to do. In this solo episode of *A Grown Up’s Gap Year – The Podcast, author and health and wellbeing professional Monique van Tulder brings an evidence-based wellbeing lens to real life: mid-life, mental load, the domestic corporation, and that nagging thought that everyone e...

Today we’re talking about something that doesn’t get nearly enough airtime: life after menopause. Not the hot flush headlines, not the “is this peri?” panic – but what comes once the immediate hormone storm has settled and you’re looking at your 50s, 60s and beyond thinking: Right. What now? And how do I stay well enough to actually enjoy it?  In this episode of A Grown Up’s Gap Year – The Podcast...

If you’re the one who remembers everyone’s everything – the logistics, the appointments, the emotions – but can’t remember the last time you had proper time-out, this episode is for you. In this Season Three opener of A Grown Up’s Gap Year – The Podcast, Monique talks about the mental load, invisible labour and unpaid work so many women carry, and introduces The Anti-Guilt Calculator – your SPACE...

Hello, for the first episode of season three, I'm going to replay one of our most downloaded, most messaged about episodes to ease you into the year and ask, what about me and what about right now? Season 2, episode 8: If you’ve ever looked around your life and thought, “Is this it?” while simultaneously being needed by everyone, this one’s for you. In the final episode of Season Two, author...

Hello and Happy New Year. During January, I'm replaying four of our most downloaded, most messaged about episodes. Think of them as a short series to ease you into the year and ask, what about me and what about right now? So we're going right back to the Foundations. Season 1, episode 5: Ever feel like you’re circling the same question - What now? Why not me? - without actually moving fo...

Hello and Happy New Year. During January, I'm replaying four of our most downloaded, most messaged about episodes. Think of them as a short series to ease you into the year and ask, what about me and what about right now? So we're going right back to the Foundations. If the house is quieter and you're not quite sure what comes next — this episode is for you. One of our most download...

Hello and Happy New Year. During January, I'm replaying four of our most downloaded, most messaged about episodes. Think of them as a short series to ease you into the year and ask, what about me and what about right now? So we're going right back to the Foundations. Season 1, episode 7: Somewhere between society decided women need permission slips to take a breath. If you need it (and o...

Hello and Happy New Year. During January, I'm replaying four of our most downloaded, most messaged about episodes. Think of them as a short series to ease you into the year and ask, what about me and what about right now? So we're going right back to the Foundations. Season 1, episode 1: What happens when you hit your limit - and run away instead of continuing to ‘run on empty?’ In this...

If you’ve ever looked around your life and thought, “Is this it?” while simultaneously being needed by everyone, this one’s for you. In the final episode of Season Two, author and nutritionist Monique van Tulder looks at what actually happened when she stopped just writing about A Grown Up’s Gap Year and lived it – running away, coming home, writing the book, and then spending a year saying “yes”...

If “New Year, New You” makes you want to throw your phone in the sea, this one’s for you. In this episode, Monique van Tulder – author of A Grown Up’s Gap Year – calls time on the standard New Year resolutions and 75-day “transformation” challenges. Instead of treating yourself like a renovation project, she invites you to treat yourself as the project and turn January into your own creative test...

In this episode of A Grown Up’s Gap Year – The Podcast, Monique unpacks mid-life maintenance mojo – from mammograms and strength training to swimsuits, perimenopause, and why you should just wear the bikini (if you want to). You’ll hear:  Why mid-life maintenance is not vanity – it’s logistics for the adventures you still want (Italian hills, ocean swims, last-minute trips) The real talk on swimme...

Design a festive season that actually fits: clear, kind boundaries and small rituals that help you feel at home when “utterly joyful” feels like a stretch. In this short episode of A Grown Up’s Gap Year – The Podcast, we explore Happyish Holidays: how to set festive season boundaries that are clear and kind to you, and how to re-find what feels like home when traditions and family shapes have shif...

Ever caught yourself scrolling Greek property listings, wondering what it would be like to trade your commute for cobblestones, donkeys and Aegean light? In this episode of A Grown Up’s Gap Year – The Podcast, I sit down with award-winning artist Desiree Prinsloo, who divides her time between Sydney and the Greek island of Hydra. After her husband died and an 'untangling' unspooled in th...

If you've somehow ended up at the top of everyone else's people we need pyramid and the bottom of your own — this one's for you. Monique talks about what happens when you finally admit you're exhausted from the unpaid, invisible work that quietly attached itself to your life while everyone else's stayed more or less the same. By the time she left for her gap year, she felt...

Feeling better starts with space — physical first, mental next. In this candid, useful episode, Monique reads from her book A Grown Up's Gap Year on the beauty of simplicity, then gets real about the sandwich-generation juggle. A kitchen-table chat about Mum's future. A surprise moment of the Bloke stepping in with calm, practical wisdom. A reminder that streamlining isn't about per...

Feeling stretched thin and a little invisible? This episode gives you a simple, two-minute Travel Prescription Certificate to start reclaiming space—without dismantling your life. We talk the hot coffee moment (after decades of lukewarm), why streamlining comes first, and how to close a few of those 52 tabs in your head so you can actually hear yourself think. Solo when you want it, company when y...

This episode is part of a ‘series’ on the podcast One Question with host Michelle Cox - where she is talking to all guests about the same topic, and that topic is REINVENTION! It is a topic she is often asked about; how she reinvented herself, why, the process she went through, and she was keen to talk to others about their transitions and what they went through to create a new life for themselves...