Now What? Podcast

This week I'm joined by Leah Aguirre, licensed therapist, relationship expert and author of Is This Really Love. Leah has built a huge following talking honestly about emotional abuse and boundaries, and what makes her work land is that she's not just speaking from the clinical side, she's lived it too.
We get into so much in this one. The way our bodies often know something is wrong long before our minds catch up. The difference between someone who is genuinely abusive and someone who just doesn't have the emotional capacity to show up for you, and why that distinction matters so much when you're trying to make sense of what happened. Trauma bonds and why it can feel almost impossible to walk away from someone who hurts you and then loves you so tenderly straight after.
We also talk about the questions we're too afraid to ask when we're dating, the small moments that actually tell you everything about someone's character, and how to start rebuilding trust in yourself again after you've been made to question your own reality.
If you've ever looked back at a relationship and asked yourself how did I not see this, this episode is for you.
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What do you do when life doesn't turn out the way you imagined?
In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Sarah Jane, creator of Spinal Energetics and author of the new book Your Spine Holds the Answer.
This conversation is about so much more than healing. It's about navigating the gap between the life you thought you'd have and the life you're actually living.
We talk about divorce, recurrent pregnancy loss, single motherhood, getting older, and the quiet grief that can come from watching other people live the life you once imagined for yourself.
We also explore why so many of us understand our attachment style, our triggers and our patterns, yet still find ourselves stuck in the same emotional loops. Why isn't awareness always enough? And what role does the body play in helping us move through experiences that our minds alone can't seem to resolve?
For the single mums listening, we also dive into chronic stress, living in survival mode, the fear of letting your guard down, and whether it's actually possible to feel safe again after life has knocked you around.
This conversation is an invitation to make space for grief without letting it define you, to loosen your grip on how life "should" look, and to remember that a meaningful life isn't reserved for those whose plans worked out.
In this episode we discuss:
• The grief of letting go of the life you imagined
• Divorce, infertility and rebuilding after loss
• The pressure women feel around age and timelines
• Why knowing your patterns isn't always enough to change them
• Chronic stress, survival mode and the nervous system
• Learning to feel safe in your body again
• Opening yourself up to love after heartbreak
• Finding hope when life hasn't gone to plan
Find Dr Sarah Jane:
@drsarahjanechiro
@spinalenergetics
Pre Order her book "Your Spine holds the answer"

Rach:
@rachel.maksimovic

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When she became a single mum, Jen made a promise to herself: she was not going to live a smaller, harder life just because a relationship had ended. Years later, that promise turned into a "mommune" — a shared home in New York City with her best friend Annabelle, also a single mum, where they split rent, share dinners, divide the mental load of parenting, and raise their kids as one family unit. No romantic partners live in the house. No calendars or chore charts either. Just two women who decided that trust, presence and showing up for each other beats waiting around for a man to do it.

In this conversation, Jen unpacks how the mommune actually started (hint: it wasn't a business decision, it was years of shared play dates and swapped babysitting), how she and Annabelle split money and domestic labour without ever discussing finances directly, how dating still fits into her life without ever entering the home, and why she believes isolation, not money, is often the real crisis facing single mums.

This episode is for anyone who has ever sat alone on a Friday night after the kids are asleep and wondered if there's another way to build a home, a family and a life that doesn't hinge on finding "the one."

In this episode:

How a years-long friendship turned into a shared household
Splitting rent, groceries and bills without pooling finances
Why trust replaced micromanaging once a man was out of the equation
The "no men in the home" rule, and how dating still works around it
The moment Jen realised the mommune had given her her mental space back
Advice for anyone wanting to build this kind of support system, with or without moving in together

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Jemima found out she was pregnant at 39. The father made it clear from the beginning — if she continued, she was on her own. She continued.

This conversation covers what nobody prepares you for when you're doing it completely alone from the start — the shame of a pregnancy you're hiding in plain sight, the identity shift that hits harder when there's no one to hand the baby to, the sleep deprivation, the finances, the friendships that quietly disappear, and the strange grief of losing a spontaneous life you didn't realise you'd miss.

Jemima is two years in, finally back at work, newly dating, and still figuring out who she is on the other side of it. She doesn't sugarcoat any of it — and that's exactly why this one is worth a listen.

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Four months out of a relationship breakdown, Rachel finds herself saying something she never thought she'd say: I'm never doing this again.
She gets it now. The bitterness. The wall. The absolute certainty that closing off is safer than trying again.
But she also knows there's a question worth sitting with — one that's harder than it sounds: is this protection, or is this avoidance? Because they feel identical from the inside. And the research says they have very different costs.
Hannah Rose Keys is back. Six months ago she was done with men entirely. Something shifted. This is that conversation.

Now What is hosted by Rachel Maksimovic. Follow @hannahrosekeys Follow @rachel.maksimovic & @nowwhat.podcast on Instagram.

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