Alonement

There are certain rites of passage that take place after a major break-up. For some, it’s a hair-cut or a big solo trip, or a regrettable rebound with someone the polar opposite of your ex. My guest this week, Alice Vincent, departed from the cliches: for her, it was growing plants. In her partly autobiographical books, Rootbound and more recently Why Women Grow, Alice chronicles how she came to growing plants as a way to heal and ...

Leslie Stephens is the writer behind Morning Person, a top 10 Substack newsletter that chronicles her life in Portland, Oregon. In August last year, shortly after her 30th birthday, Leslie announced to her readers that she was separating from her husband. Over the past 18 months, she’s chronicled her journey of living by herself for the first time, including her recent solo house purchase – which we chat about in this episode. She ...

Getting engaged to your partner is typically a time for celebration. But for today’s guest Max Dickins, it was …. more complicated. As he prepared to propose to his girlfriend, Naomi, he had an uncomfortable revelation: he couldn’t think of anyone to ask to be his best man. This prompted a personal crisis for the writer and comedian – one which inspired him to address the dwindling friendship connections in his own life …… and to i...

My guest this week is Anita Bhagwandas, an award winning beauty director, and more recently the author of Ugly: Giving Us Back Our Beauty Standards, a book that examines the damaging impact of narrow beauty ideals and serves as a brilliant manifesto towards a more inclusive attitude. The book explores the importance of practising self care on your own terms, not what the beauty industry tells you - something Anita knows a lot about...

In this episode, Jessica Pan discusses her book 'Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come' and her journey of embracing extroversion. As we discuss on the show, Jessica is almost the opposite to me – she’s an introvert who learnt to be more extraverted, whereas I started exploring Alonement as a means of dealing with my fear, as an extrovert, of being alone. She tells me about her journey to embrace solo travel, socialising with ...

My guest on this week’s episode is Poppy Jay, best known as the co-host of Brown Girls Do It Too, which won Podcast of the Year at the British Podcast Awards 2020. She’s also a BAFTA-nominated documentary maker, devoted to chronicling difficult, real-life stories for BBC Three and Channel 4. But she’s also been honest about her own: after entering an arranged marriage at the age of 19, Poppy got divorced at 25 – and has spent ...

'That's the root of perfectionism: that chronic deficit thinking, the belief that we're not good enough. That we're not attractive enough, smart enough, fit enough, whatever it might be. In order to compensate for those feelings, we project on to the world a perfect persona that we feel like everybody wants to see – that we should be, essentially. And it's exhausting if you have to keep that up in every single interaction.'

You can’t really love anyone until you love yourself. While we see this a lot on Instagram, it’s something that actually requires a lot of exploration – and it’s my guest this week, the bestselling author and mind coach Vex King, that many of us have turned to over the past few years to teach us the true power of self-love, through his books, first in 2018’s Good Vibes, Good Life and later in 2021’s Healing is the New High. Now, Ve...

My guest this week is Women Without Kids author, Ruby Warrington. We're are at a fascinating time in history – where, both in the UK, US, and across almost every developed nation like Switzerland, Italy, Japan and South Korea, adults are having children later in life – or, indeed, not at all. While statistics vary, it is a recognised trend – and that trend is relevant to all of us whether we have children now or in the future,...

Donna Lancaster is a coach and therapist, best known as the co-creator of The Bridge, a retreat designed to help attendees navigate grief and loss, and the author of a book of the same name. More recently, Donna has published a pocket book called Wise Words for Women, full of advice on how to live a rewarding, connected life. I know we hear a lot of these buzzwords like authenticity and pain, but equally I think what a lot of us ar...

This week’s guest is author Naoise Dolan. I am absolutely thrilled to have Naoise on this season – she’s widely consider of the millennial generation’s most talented writers, ever since her Sunday Times bestseller debut novel Exciting Times was published in 2020. It’s currently being adapted into an Amazon Studios TV production starring Phoebe Dynevor. We’re here to discuss her hotly anticipated follow up book, The Happy Couple, wh...

My guest for this week’s episode is podcaster and author Caggie Dunlop, whom you might also recognise as a former cast member on the rather well known reality show called Made in Chelsea. Caggie has since reached a whole different audience. Her show Saturn Returns – which explores the coming of age happens somewhere around your late twenties and early thirties – has united a community as they navigate the shared challenges and oppo...

This week's guest is Adam Gopnik, a long-standing staff writer at the New Yorker, and the award-winning author of a frankly intimidating number of books, most recently The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery, which explores the process of learning a new skill. And then there was his recent Hollywood debut – those who’ve seen Oscar-winning film Tar might have also spotted Adam playing himself, as an interviewer, alongside Cate Blan...

This week’s guest is Dr Nicole LePera, whom you might be more familiar with as the Holistic Psychologist – the handle of her somewhat insanely popular Instagram account. She’s also the author of multiple books, including her New York bestseller How To Do The Work, and her latest title, a workbook called How To Meet Your Self. With fans including Elizabeth Day, Dr Rangan Chatterjee and Mel Robbins, Nicole’s popularity is justified –...

This week's guest on the podcast is the poet Amy Key. We're here to discuss her first work of prose, Arrangements in Blue: Notes on Love and Making a Life, which is a memoir inspired by the work of Amy's beloved musical icon, Joni Mitchell. Aged 44. Amy has been single for 22 years. Her book challenges us to consider the claim that life can both be wonderful in the absence of romantic love – and that it is yet still valid ...

The Alonement podcast is back! And for the first episode of this season, I’m speaking to one of the most-requested guests since the show began: Susan Cain. Susan is the author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, a book which spent eight years on the New York bestseller list after its publication in 2012. The book was inspired by her former career as a Wall Street lawyer, a profession where she came...

Hello Alonement listeners! So, a quick announcement to share that I've just launched a new project called The Shoulds. The Shoulds is an online Substack publication and community space that explores the hidden rules and stories that shape our lives. In many ways, this newsletter will be just like this podcast covering a lots of similar topics around psychology, authentic living, and relationships. But also it will be a space for us...

This clip is taken from my guest interview with former Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq, first released in August 2020. Konnie speaks about the sustaining power of having 'anchors' – close friends and family whom you know are at the end of the phone – and how this prevents loneliness, even when you are alone.

Twitter: @ChezSpecter @Konnie_Huq

Instagram: @chezspecter

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Season 7 finale! How did that happen?! We are, however, going out with a bang... This week, I have the pleasure of chatting to friendship expert & psychologist Dr Marisa G. Franco, whose new book Platonic: How Understanding Your Attachment Style Can Help You Make and Keep Friends combines two of the most zeitgeist-y lifestyle topics of the moment: attachment theory and the value of friendship. After interviewing Marisa, I was actua...