Welcome to healthy Ish. Thanks for joining us on the daily podcast from Body and Soul. I am your host, Felicity Halle. We're joined today by journalist and author Sarah Cathel and she has a new book out. It is called How to Break Up Well. She's here to share her story of how she navigated separation. It's pretty epic and singlehood to find her. Dare I call it happy Single Self? She's a still going to talk about why
some people take self love wedding ceremonies. I know I kind of miss this in the Sex and the City day, but anyway, she's here to tell us all about it. If you want more from Sarah, tune into our sister pod, Extra healthy Ish, where she talks about well everything you need to know about how to break Up Well. You can catch that one where we get your podcasts. Sarah, Welcome to healthy Ish. How are you.
I'm great, Thanks for listening. It's so great to be on here. Thank you so much for the chair.
No nice for you to join us from New Zealand. So you're you know, a special international guest.
I know, and I'm on a Wendy Wellington day here.
So yeah, Now I want to talk to you now. There's a line in your book, your new book, I wish I spent more time as a single woman rather than filling an empty void dating men for the sake of it. Oh, I think we could all or relate to this, whether we're married or not or partnered up unpacked this for us.
Yeah, well, I was going to say so. I was very much used to being in a relationship. I mean ever since I was about I think I was eleven when I first left my first note in the milk bottle for a milk boy, you know, and poems and things like that. I was an absolute romantic. I was either in a relationship or had a boyfriend or had a crush. And I grew up in a family where a big Catholic family, and everyone got married and everyone was partner that so for me at the age of
two months before my fortieth birthday, I can't imagine. I think I'd had a few weeks in my life without a partner or boyfriend. So it was a huge shock for me to suddenly find myself as a single person, a single woman, single mother. And what I did, I went, oh, how am I going to fill? You know? Once I could actually get myself out of bed, et cetera. I thought I'd start dating again, try to fill the void and fill that hole that had been left.
And what I.
Found myself doing was I dated the wrong kind of people. There's that concept of rebound. So my ex was a successful businessman. Now my first lover was he lived in a van and he spent most of his time trying to find the latest surf break. He was an absolute contrast to the man I've been with, So there was that. I read the concept of finding someone who is absolute opposite to your ex is quite natural, but that's what happened for me. And the other one was I wasn't
really emotionally ready. I was like talk in my book about sad dads, but I was a bit of a sad mum, so I wasn't emotionally ready. I thought I was potentially ready to repartner, but I wasn't, and I often just chose the wrong I was spent too much time with sad dads or men that weren't sort of worthy of me. And actually a lot of that came
down to my self esteem. I had very low self esteem, and just to get some sort of attention I was happy, you know, I filled that's remain I went fild avoid and I look back, and now that I've written this spot fifteen years later, I realized in hindsight how much most of my nourishing experiences, the things that really nurtured me were the times I either spent on my own as a single person single woman, spent time with my kids, or spent time with girlfriends and doing you know, making
new friends and so on. It wasn't the dating, and it wasn't actually until eight years ago, when I was on an absolute man band, I said, enough's enough, you know, I just need to spend some time on my own. And six months later I met my mister chapter two, my amazing second life partner was I was. I just said to the universe, I want some time on my own, and I loved myself enough as a complete person, and that's when I met him.
The man ban. I like that. There are a lot of women, you know, in whatever age bracket you fall into, twenty thirties, forties, fifties and sixties who are single, and they might be single parents or single singles. And do you know there's a stigma still exists for women and what about single moms.
Yeah, well, for some there's this kind of still this cultural expectation that will fall in love and get married that still remains strong. I in Australia, sixteen percent of Australian women live in single women households. That's huge.
That's a lot.
Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot, isn't it. I think for younger women it's really hard to de clear your happiest, happy single as you kind of lead up to that age of settling down. And that's a biological thing in terms of the average age of women will settle in Australia is an age of thirty one. And basically what happens is so leading up to that you
feel this pressure and I think that's hard. But in some groups, the older women, the women in midlife have been through a divorce or breakup, they are actually find you know, they off and say, no, I don't want to repartner. I've got everything I want. I'm happy on my own. And one of the women I interviewed in my book, who was at seventy, she said that she's on dating apps and she said, actually, men at her age we're looking for a nurse or a purse I love and she said, no, no, I'm really you know,
I've got my life. Why would I.
Perhaps it depends on which kind of demographic you fall into as to whether there is a bit of a stigma talked about us about this idea of self love wedding ceremonies. These sound very empowering, I know.
Well, Kerrie Bradshaw, I don't know if you remember one of the issues where one of the episodes she married herself and sits in the city. Yeah, that was one, so that was quite fun. But they I think they're just a bit of fun. But some people do do them. You know. It's like, I guess it's the clearing consciously choosing single. I'm saying I'll marry myself, learning to be alone.
I mean, I do know that one this woman in Wellington and New Zealand, she's actually run them where all these women turn up and they attend these self love wedding ceremonies and they have a celebrant up the front and it's all a bit of fun. There's nothing legally binding about it, but it's just saying I consciously choose to love myself, marry myself, pledge your declaration to yourself and yeah, so it's bit.
Of fun at this time of year. I mean if you are newly single, if you've been single for a long time, it can often be quite challenging, especially as you know, there's lots of festive parties and you get together with family and there might be that yeah, old uncle who's like, have you not found someone yet? I mean, how what did do you learn? And give us some advice as to how we can navigate this time without the shame, the guilt and when you actually feel okay being single?
Yeah, well, I think that you're right. You're sitting around the Christmas table and as you say, uncle whatever, saying you know, oh, have you met anyone nice and anyone special in your life? I think the trick is saying I actually want to be single, and say it, I'm
happy being single. I've got all these other great things in my life, my career, my friends and my travel or whatever, you know, the other wonderful things you have, and you want to celebrate the amazing people that are in your life and rather than this imaginary person who
doesn't exist that your family all wants you to. So I think just saying that and that you know, maybe if you are hoping that at some stage you might meet someone, you could say you're not actively locking, but if the right person came into your life, you know you'll be open to it.
And is that how you I mean you talked about finding your number two? Is that how you call him?
Yeah?
Yeah, what I mean? How did some advice give us some advice? And how you it's not the words, not coat, but how you kind of got to the place where you were happy single before he showed up.
Well, I discovered, as I said, all these other my writing was going well, and I was loving my running. So I love running. I'd run a marathon, I was going to hot yoga. I was just filling my life with all these wonderful other activities. And so that's that's what that was for me. That it was actually thinking. I remember going to this wonderful life coach actually, and she drew a big like an orange, and she carved it into segments and she said, right, this is a
segment that used to be you and your husband. What do you want to fill that with? You know, think of it as exciting what you can do with that time. And I think going back to single parents single mums I had, I co parented, which was a benefit because then I had this time on my own away from the kids. So I started to fill that time with you know, other things rather than did it did you know, dead end dates and just really appreciating because it was
full on. I had three young children, I was working. I just didn't actually have a lot of time to myself apart from when they went to their dad. So it's like, well, actually I reframed it. I thought, how am I going to reframe my time away from them so that I use it to sort of on my own personal growth rather than because I've been rejected by my husband as well. You know, I found that dating
was often quite sap sapped my energy. That I found that if I was ghosted by someone or I was you know, I got very sort of up and ups and downs of it. So actually, just what can you it's almost to I don't want to use the word control, but I will, But what can you take charge of in your life and build yourself up? And I think that's when you're actually quite attractive to someone person as well.
Great advice, Sarah. Thanks thank you for coming on healthy.
Ish, Thank you for having me.
Well if you are a single person, If you need some inspo an empowerment, perhaps Sarah's new book is called How to Break Up Well. If you did enjoy this chat, jump on tell Us review this episode, subscribe to this podcast. You can DM me at Felicity Harley. Make sure you are following Body and Soul on social media as well. Bodyansoul dot com dot are you is the place to go for any other info. Check out our print edition
which is out in your local Sunday paper. And until next time you listen, stay healthy ish