The Sage Sorority

You can be wildly attracted to someone, genuinely love them and still find that they cannot build the kind of relationship you need. In this week’s revisit, we’re returning to Episode 041 and the relationship trifecta: attraction, compatibility and capacity. I’m breaking down why chemistry can only take you so far, what lifestyle compatibility actually looks like and how to tell whether someone ha...

Hiiii guys! The Sage Sorority is on summer break for one final week. I’ll be back next Thursday with a brand-new episode. Until then, we’re revisiting one of my favourite Sisterhood Chronicles. Making new friends as an adult can feel strangely awkward, especially once school, work and shared routines stop doing the introductions for us. In this episode, I share practical ways to expand your circle...

Summer is good for rotting. Social rotting, digital rotting, internal rotting, the works. And then September arrives and you're carrying four months of accumulated clutter into the busiest stretch of the year. This one is a reset you can come back to any time you need it. Not a productivity system, not a 5am overhaul, just four categories and a set of small changes that actually hold. Digital rot...

Optimism has a PR problem. Half of us are allergic to it and the other half are using it to avoid our lives, so nobody's really doing it properly. A while back I went to a lecture at Conway Hall by Sumit Paul-Choudhury on his book The Bright Side, and I left with pages of notes and one question I still can't shake: when something goes badly for you, how do you explain it to yourself? Your answer t...

Confidence gets talked about like a trait you either have or you don't. It's closer to a set of habits, and all of them are trainable. Five tools in this one, that are actually helpful! Mentioned: Demi Moore "Inside Out," Jessica Simpson "Open Book," Diane von Furstenberg "The Woman I Wanted to Be," Glynnis MacNicol "I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself," and Rihanna's walk at the 2012 Victoria's Secre...

Dating in your 30s is a different marketplace to dating in your 20s, and most of us are still using the questions we asked at 24. In this episode I'm giving you the 16 questions I used across 50 first dates in 12 months, what each one is really testing for, and what it tells you when a grown man can't answer at all. Plus the six-week framework so you're not still guessing by date six, how to weave...

This episode started with a question I threw out on TikTok. I asked women in their thirties and forties to tell me the one belief they let go of that changed everything, and I wasn't after the surface stuff about not caring what people think. I wanted the deeper, darker beliefs, the ones that quietly ran the show. The answers were good enough that I sorted them into three threads and unpacked each...

This episode makes the case for a slow summer as an actual strategy. Shantel talks through where the collective pressure comes from and why it starts as early as March in London, why summer burnout is so common by the time September hits, and what it looks like to use the season for emotional integration instead of output. There are practical rituals in here too. Morning sun with no phone and no a...

Being interesting has quietly become a numbers game. Who's busiest, who's loudest, who's posting. Shantel makes the case for the older skill. Curiosity, attention, and an interior life you actually tend to. This one is about how to be more interesting without becoming a full time content machine about it. We get into breaking your algorithmic bubble and why your feed has been narrowing your taste...

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,...