The Sage Sorority

Back by very popular demand (!!!) It's July, its 'summer of outside' according to Tinx, so here's five lessons that I genuinely wish someone had handed me earlier — on boundaries, safety, the rooms you're in, knowing when to leave, and what repair actually looks like in the people worth keeping. Quick, honest, and I think more relevant now than when it first came out. If this one hits, send it to...

A woman on the tube. A TikTok. Words filling the screen about paying for a wedding alone, sleeping on the floor with eczema flaring, going 50/50 with a man who gave her a 30-pound Warren James set as a wedding gift. Then watching him remarry in under two years and give his new wife everything she was told she couldn't have. When my friend called her a red flag, I had a different thought: when a wo...

I'm at Cannes Lions this week for the first time (!!!) so we're revisiting one of the most listened-to episodes in TSS history. If you're new here, this is a great place to start. And if you've been around since the beginning, I think you'll want to hear this one again. This episode is built around what I call the Relationship Blueprint Theory: the idea that your earliest romantic experiences, mor...

8 observations I've been carrying around in my notes app, and honestly, talking about with anyone who will listen. Things I'm watching in real time... in the world, in the women around me, in myself. Luck. Money. Longing. Comparison. Ambition. Meritocracy. Spirituality. Clarity. All of it on the table today. If even one of these lands for you, DM me the number. I read every single one. Books menti...

I had my niece (5) and nephew (almost 3) for a full weekend. School runs, cooking, activities, baths, the lot. And by Sunday evening, I had more clarity about myself than I'd had in a while. This episode isn't a hot take on motherhood. It's not a debate about whether you should or shouldn't want children. It's an honest account of what happens when you pay close attention to how you feel — not wha...

Ask a Sage is back. Three questions, three honest answers. We cover why networking feels gross and how to fix it, what to do when you've achieved everything you wanted and still feel empty (and yes, I mention Stefanie Sword-Williams' Career Comedown — read it), and the "fine but I feel nothing" dating pattern that more of you are experiencing than you'd think. I also open up about where I'm at wit...

There's a question that comes up every time someone mentions an ex at dinner: "Where is he now?" And what that question is really doing is asking you to justify whether the relationship was worth having based on how it ended. If there's no ring, no forever, no clean resolution then the whole thing gets filed under wasted time. This episode is a direct challenge to that framing. Shantel breaks down...

In this episode of The Sage Sorority , Shantel explores what it means for women to “misbehave with integrity,” inspired by Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ The Late Bloomer . This episode is about good girl conditioning, people-pleasing, self-trust, over-functioning, emotional labour, and the quiet resentment that builds when women keep choosing propriety over honesty. Shantel unpacks the difference betwee...

In this episode of The Sage Sorority, Shantel breaks down how to choose your core values and actually live by them, drawing on the values clarification work used in therapy and coaching. You'll learn the difference between values, goals, preferences, and aesthetics, why your real values are revealed by your trade-offs, and how to use a six-to-eight value framework as a practical filter for decisio...

Three episodes. Three completely different topics. And the whole time I kept thinking: why does this all feel like the same conversation? Belle Burden knew before she signed that prenup. Most of us know long before we end a friendship. And Emma Grede? She's getting dragged online for simply trusting herself out loud. Today I'm naming the one thing that connects all three, and why it matters more t...

The internet has had a lot to say about Emma Greed's new book Start With Yourself this week, and most of it is from people who haven't read it. In this episode, Shantel breaks down what the discourse is actually about, why it keeps happening, and what we're all missing when we rush to poke holes instead of engage. Shantel introduces the concept of the disclaimer economy — what happens when women a...

We've been building toward this one, sages! The Sisterhood Chronicles started with a question: why do female friendships matter so much? We've audited them, we've talked about making new ones, we've named the fatigue of showing up for people who don't show up back. And now we're here, the conversation that somehow nobody gives us language for: how do you actually end a friendship? And how do you d...

episode 058 - strangers by belle burden: what everyone is missing We are back. And for the first episode of the new season, I'm doing something a little different, a full opinion piece on one of the most talked-about books of 2026. Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden is an instant New York Times bestseller, and with the Netflix adaptation just announced (Gwyneth Paltrow is set to play...

while we’re on a short production break, i’m revisiting an episode that speaks to a very specific feeling... when your life looks fine on paper, but something internally feels slightly off. this is a conversation about that in between space and what it actually means to live with intention rather than just momentum. if you’ve been feeling disconnected, or like you’re drifting without fully underst...

while we’re on a short production break, i’m revisiting one of the more personal episodes from the archive. this is a reflection on the lessons that have actually shaped how i think, move, and make decisions in my 30s... not the polished version, but the real ones that come from experience. if you’re in a season of reflection, or questioning where you are and where you’re going, this is one to sit...

While we’re on a short production break, I’m revisiting one of the most important conversations we’ve had on The Sage Sorority . If you’re new here, this is the episode I’d tell you to start with. And if you’ve been listening for a while, it’s one that tends to land differently depending on where you are in your life. If this episode resonates and you’re navigating friendship dynamics more deeply,...

57 episodes. Identity, love, friendship, philosophy, grief, reinvention, quitting, starting over, loneliness, ambition — and everything in between. This week we're picking up right where we left off. Consider this your orientation to The Sage Sorority, part two. We're covering episodes 26 through 55 — the second chapter of the show, where things got sharper, deeper, and a little more daring. Wheth...

If someone just sent you this episode, welcome. You landed in exactly the right place. This is The Sage Sorority - the podcast that feels less like advice from above and more like the group chat with your most thoughtful friend. Sharp, warm, honest, and always talking to your intelligence, never over it. In this episode, Shantel takes you back through the first 25 episodes of the show (!!!) Not as...

Looking for the foundations? Start with episode 33, How to Be More Interesting Part 1. BTW, consider this the definitive version of episode 033 (!!!) also, I kept saying episode 054, lol sorry! This is episode 055! Most of us are living interesting lives and telling them in the most boring way possible. Part two of one of The Sage Sorority's most popular episodes ever is finally here, and this one...

A few weeks ago I was at a workshop and someone gave me the most annoyingly simple piece of advice I'd ever heard. I asked a published author and paid speaker how to become a published author and paid speaker. She said: speak and write. That's it. I laughed, because I knew she was right. And because I'd been doing both for ten years and still waiting for someone to make it official. This episode i...

Join us IRL: The Gathering — Wine, Women & Conversation Thursday, March 5th | 6pm | London 🎟️ [ https://luma.com/w6fxpy9w ] One year of The Sage Sorority (!!!) 🤍 In this episode, we're unpacking the "high standards" discourse - when your standards are protecting you, and when they might actually be fear in disguise. We're talking attraction, compatibility, capacity, and the questions you need...

We use "jealousy" as a catch-all for anything that feels gross and competitive. But envy and jealousy are actually two completely different experiences. One is giving you useful information about what you want. The other? That's fear wearing a really convincing disguise. Today we're unpacking both, how they show up in friendships (the part nobody talks about), and what to actually do when you feel...

You've been doing everything right—the apps, the events, saying yes to every invite—and you're exhausted. What if the advice to "put yourself out there" is actually making things worse? This week we're talking about the difference between being available and being magnetic, why effort and outcome aren't always correlated in relationships, and when strategic retreat might be the smarter move for yo...

Welcome back to The Sage Sorority. Episode 050 (WOW!) is an Ask a Sage: an AMA-style episode where I answer your anonymous questions (link down below for submission). The questions that came through this time weren't really asking what to do. They were asking how to know. How to read people. How to tell if what you're seeing is the real thing. In this episode, we're covering: → How do you tell the...

Episode 049: The Only Dating Advice You Need January is the busiest month for dating apps and also the peak month for breakups. So before you swipe, I want to give you the one piece of advice I think actually matters. My theory? The only dating advice a woman really needs is knowing when to walk away. That's it. Everything else stems from that. In this episode, I'm talking about why women are cond...