Pop Therapy (Formerly The Curious Life Podcast)

In this electric episode, I sit down with The Queen of Confidence herself—Erika Cramer. From a childhood in foster care, to surviving abuse, a lifechanging injury and losing her husband in a tragic accident. Yes, all of this in one lifetime. Rebuilding her life from scratch in Australia, Erika’s journey is nothing short of extraordinary. Now a powerhouse speaker, coach, and bestselling author, Eri...

Georgie Collinson is one of Australia’s leading anxietyexperts who has turned her lens to relationships. Anxiety is such a common experience and affliction for so many of us, but did you know that it can turn up and disrupt our romantic relationships too? Don’t be afraid though, Georgie has created a beautiful roadmap out of some of the most common ways we might sabotage, repeat patterns or even c...

Chef Tzarina Mace-Ralph is the Head Chef on Bravo's Below Deck Down Under, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. She's a firecracker, a private chef and a go-getter who can't help her impulses sometimes.. So where did all that come from? We went all the way back to get a glimpse into early life for little Tzarina, who was a young girl struggling with dyslexia and ADHD - without know...

We’ve nearly made it to the end friends, our evenings will be reclaimed and our outrage quelled. But before then, we are here to say all the things you’ve been thinking. In the final twist in the experiment, Paul failed BIG TIME. And then faced the firing squad from Carina and the rest of the cast. They were not holding back and neither did we. We unmasked Jacqui, questioned Ryan, and can hardly b...

It's the MAFS shakedown with Yvie Jones and Jana Firestone. The cast is back from home town visits and all we can think about is Jacqui's lies and trolling, Ryan's neck veins and toxic masculinity and their complete inability to carry an authentic feeling for longer than a few minutes at a time. The masks well and truly came off this week and we finally saw the real Ryan (and what a re...

MAFS Shakedown: We are back and Yvie Jones and Jana Firestone are just as confused as you are. What happened to Green Flag Dave? Was it a sudden change of heart or a series of unfortunate circumstances? We are feeling the ick ourselves when it comes to Ryan and his bro show, while Jacqui is just letting her freak flag fly! We dissect Veronica's bizarre behaviour, Eliot's redemption arc and...

Kate Casey is an unscripted television expert and host ofthe highly acclaimed podcast Reality Life with Kate Casey. She has worked in crisis PR in the political space, she has interviewed stars, producers, directors and show creators and is known for her intelligent analyses of the shows we all love. Kate has a fascinating backstory that would rival many of the docuseries she now dissects for a li...

TW: This episode discusses family violence, coercive controland abusive relationships. After a few technical glitches and gremlins (and some imperfect audio) we are back with our second MAFS shakedown! In this ep, we dissect the details of Adrian’s newly released police report. Do the producers intentionally hire people with dangerous behaviours and combative fight styles? Where was Paul during th...

EMERGENCY EPISODE! TW: this episode includes an open discussion about family and domestic violence, abusive patterns in relationships and coercive control. You know and love Yvie Jones from TV, radio and podcasts but it was her recent story about the violent behaviour shown on MAFS that really got my attention. And I just knew we had to drill down into Yvie’s thoughts in more detail. We jumped str...

When this week’s guest couldn’t make it to the recording, I rolled up my sleeves and took to the mic alone, in my first ever solo episode. Given how much brain space the current season of MAFS is taking up in my head, it felt like the perfect time to unpack some of my many thoughts on this years’ participants. In this episode, I went a bit deeper into the idea of MAFS as a therapeutic tool and wha...

POP THERAPY:  This week I am joined by return guest and one of my favourite podcasters of all time, Ryan Bailey . You know him from So Bad It’s Good with Ryan Bailey , wherehe does a deep exploration of pop culture, with episodes around the clock. We were lucky enough to have him back on the podcast thisweek, to dive right into the evolution of reality tv, how these shows are made and what’s missi...

Nadia Mahjouri is a counsellor and group facilitator specialising in maternal mental health, with a professional background in research, focussed on ethics and feminist philosophy. She also has a fascinating backstory, that lit up the pages of her first novel, Half Truth. Her debut novel tells a somewhat fictionalised version of her own journey to find her family.   Nadia grew up as a dark skinned...

Welcome to the first official POP THERAPY episode of The Curious Life! As you may already know, I am a therapist with 18 years’ experience in the field of human behaviour. But my therapy is reality tv and pop culture. On these Pop Therapy episodes, I will be inviting a guest from the pop culture world to join me in dissecting the shows we are hooked on, and unpacking the human behaviour behind the...

We are back with the first episode of 2025! Kicking off Season 7 – we have returning guest, author, podcaster and astrologer Jordanna Levin, to talk all things astrology and her new book All Signs Point To You. Jordanna shared her forecasts for 2025 and you'll need to buckle up, because it sounds like we are in for a bumpy ride this year. But as you’ll hear, these enormous shifts and challengi...

Leonie Akhidenor is property developer, a relationship coach and the host of the Parenthood Podcast, which was a finalist in the 2024 Australian Podcast Awards. Leonie is also a mother to two young boys and although she spends her time interviewing couples about their parenting experiences, she's not one to shy away from sharing her own, either. In this episode, Leonie delved into her own experien...

Dr Billy Garvey is a renowned developmental paediatrician and one of the hosts of the brilliant ⁠⁠ Pop Culture Parenting⁠⁠ podcast. His new book Ten Things I Wish You Knew About Your Child's Mental Health is out now. If you have kids or work with young people in any capacity - THIS IS THE BOOK TO READ. Have you ever wondered how we build self-esteem in kids? Or what the long-term ramifications...

Dr Nick Fuller is a leading obesity researcher and internationally recognised health expert, who is committed to helping families get the best start in life. He joins us for the second time to talk about his new book, Healthy Parents, Healthy Kids: Six Steps to Total Family Wellness. In this chat, Dr Nick shares exactly how we can transform our habits and behaviours, to give our kids (and ourselve...

Heidi Anderson is a bubbly ball of brilliant energy, who has pivoted from a life in the reality and radio spotlight, to PR and confidence hype queen. But she's not all sequins and sass, Heidi has had to do the heavy lifting to overcome significant challenges in her own life. From body image and self-esteem, to her new normal of balancing a busy work and media life, with her role as a doting mu...

Returning guest and one of our favourite documentarians, Marc Fennell sat down to unpack his new project that explores the early days of the internet and where it all went wrong, through a deep dive into a previously unexplored world of tech hippies, eccentric web subcultures and simmering paranoia, uncovering how this tongue-in-cheek artistic experiment backfired on its creator and went on to inf...

Victoria Vanstone has lived the nightlife of a rockstar – blazing through bars across the world, waking up in random locations with hazy memories of the night before, with clubbing injuries and risky scenarios all part of her weekly experience. It was a blisteringly good time – until it wasn’t. As a mum of three kids, and an author with a thriving podcast, Vic is now sober and living in Queensland...

We are back with Season 6 and we’re kicking things off with a huge announcement! Plot Twist! You’ll hear it here first and I’m so thrilled to finally be able to spill the beans. Following that big announcement, we welcome back returning guest, comedian Chris Franjola – live from Las Vegas. Well, he was live on location at the time of recording anyway. Chris brings some much-needed laughter and lig...

Welcome to the final episode for 2024… And what an ep it is! In this lucky last conversation for the year, I had the absolute privilege of meeting one of my favourite content creators, the brilliant Sean Szeps. If you’re not already a fan – you soon will be. Sean is an American expat, author and a married father of twins who makes a living creating hilarious content on the (rude) realities of pare...

Get ready for Part 2 of The Road to Self via Paris, with Rachael Coopes . This episode opens with a personal interruption, that could not have been more perfectly timed. It illustrates the balance we are daring to strike at all times, as busy working parents, pulled between commitments and responsibilities, with demands on our time and energy tugging us in every direction. So how do we find oursel...

Apologies for the delay in releasing this episode, although I know many of you will understand. With so much grief and horror unfolding in the Middle East, and then such sadness and disappointment with the referendum here in Australia, I thought it important to take a pause and recalibrate a little bit. I know that so many of you have needed that too. Thinking of everyone affected by the war and t...

In this episode, I had the distinct privilege of sitting down with RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under, S2 WINNER, Spankie Jackzon! I became a huge fan of Spankie’s when the season aired last year, thanks to her raw honesty, genuine empathy and sparkling sense of humour. She wasn’t afraid to speak up when things weren’t right and showed the world that you can be a winner without tearing other people dow...