Marianne Power: how to build a happy single life

My guest today knows a thing or two about being single, and she’s hear to tell you that there’s more than one way to live an emotionally fulfilling life.  Marianne Power is a journalist who made a perfectly decent living testing things so you didn’t have to - mascara, spa retreats, you get the gist - until the decision to spend a year testing self help books changed her life in ways she’d never expected. The resulting book, Help me! Has since sold hundreds of thousands of copies, been translated into 25 languages and been optioned for TV. Clearly something about her funny, candid, vulnerable approach struck a chord. But as she turned 40, Marianne still had questions. Namely, why were all her friends merrily ticking boxes on the life to-do list and she wasn’t… love eluded her, so she decided to try the same approach. In Love me! She looks at society’s obsession with marriage, kids and domesticity and whether you can love and be loved without them. I met Marianne in London to talk about rewriting the stories we tell ourselves about love and sex and why there’s more than one soulmate for everyone (and, no,) they don’t have to be sexual. We also talked anxiety, growing up ginger, being childfree by choice, tantra and, the kicker, why sex is not a reward for being young and hot.  Find out more about Jan Day's tantra workshops at https://www.janday.com/ * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Love Me! by Marianne Power and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Om Podcasten

The Shift is a podcast that aims to tell the truth about being a woman post-40, created and hosted by writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker.  Did you ever wonder why you stop hearing so many women's voices once they pass 40? That's where The Shift comes in - a frank, funny, sometimes heartbreaking, always honest look at what it means to be a woman in midlife and beyond. Work, life, love, health, sex, money, identity, body image... What does it all mean when everything around you (and inside you...) is changing? Each week, award-winning author and journalist Sam Baker asks a different woman how she got here, where she's going - and how it feels to be where she is right now. Expect intimate conversation, big laughs, occasional tears and an awful lot of ripping up the rule book and stamping on it... Past guests have included Nicola Sturgeon, Marian Keyes, Guilty Feminist Deborah Frances-White, Minnie Driver, Philippa Perry, Anita Rani, Tracey Thorn, Isabel Allende, Bobbi Brown, Barbara Blake-Hannah and many more, talking everything from confidence to career reinvention, mental health, menopause and so much more. If you enjoy The Shift podcast, and you'd like to show the love, you can buy me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theshiftwithsambaker And if you really love The Shift and would like to hear more conversations with women over 40, why not become a member of our community and receive a weekly newsletter, get exclusive transcripts, join The Shift bookclub and so much more, please visit https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ For advertising enquiries, email sales@auddy.co