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How To Run Away (& Other Handy Hints for Your Next Bit)
Formerly A Grown Up's Gap Year.
How To Run Away (& Other Handy Hints for Your Next Bit) is a podcast about the next bit of life: health, long marriages, ageing parents, young adult children (kidults), friendship, community, travel, purpose, and how midlife women stay properly engaged with it all.
Hosted by bestselling Australian author, clinical nutritionist and wellbeing coach Monique van Tulder, the show explores the emotional logistics of adult life: mental load, caregiving, solo travel, brain health, longevity, healthspan, perimenopause and menopause, financial wellbeing, long-term relationships, healthy ageing, empty nest, reinvigoration, and what the next decades might actually look like.
Through expert interviews, storytelling, cultural observation, and useful conversations, Monique asks:
What kind of woman do we want to become, how would we like her to age, and how do we start designing her life now?
The 90-year-old version of you? She is watching.
Part conversation. Part perspective shift. Part useful nudge.
There will occasionally be hotels (Monique loves a hotel stay), golf (happy place for her and The Bloke), emotional admin, hearing aids, resentment, cold-water swims, and discussions about wearing the good dress on a Tuesday.
Nothing is off the table if it means our epitaph will never read, "F**k, I forgot to live my life."
New episodes weekly. For midlife women, sandwich generation carers, and anyone asking what comes next.
Episodes
40 episodes
How Busy Midlife Women Find Time to Travel
Why do midlife women stop trying things? Not the big rebellious things — the small ones. The new café, the different route home, the conversation with the woman next to you on the plane.This episode is the final part of the SPAC...
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Solo Travel Over 50: How To Take Guilt-Free Time Out
This episode was recorded before the current fuel crisis. Please check current travel advisories and official government advice before booking or travelling.You’ve simplified. Planned. Acted. Connected.Now — what i...
Hiroko Yoda on Eight Million Ways to Happiness: Finding Hidden Meaning in Everyday Life the Japanese Way
If you've ever felt drawn to Japan - its quiet beauty, its rituals, its unhurried way of moving through the world - this conversation is for you.Today I'm speaking with Hiroko Yoda, Tokyo-based author, translator, folklorist, and certif...
Why Community Is A Healthy Ageing Strategy
Loneliness has been shown to have a health impact comparable to smoking many cigarettes a day. Not a typo.In this episode — part of Monique van Tulder’s SPACE framework series — she explores why community and connection are critical to h...
Your 2nd Act: Saying “Why Not Me?” in Mid-life with Michelle Parsonage (Host of Your 2nd Act)
What if midlife isn’t the beginning of the end, but the start of your 2nd act?In this episode of A Grown Up’s Gap Year – The Podcast, Monique sits down with Michelle Parsonage, host of the Your 2nd Act podcast and community for women naviga...
If You Have Stopped Acting On Your Dreams In Mid-Life: These Ideas Will Help You
You've made the plan. You can feel what you're chasing. But you still can't quite see the shape of what comes next - and that fog is exactly what's keeping you stuck.This episode is about closing the gap between knowing and doing - and w...
How to Turn Your Big Ideas Into a Visible Personal Brand with Michelle B. Griffin
Have you ever had a head full of ideas about what comes next, and absolutely no idea how to turn any of them into something visible?Last week we introduced our P is for PLAN episode — treating yourself like a project worth designing, an...
How to Plan Your Next Chapter When You Know What You DON'T Want (But Have No Idea What Comes Next)
If you've cleared the decks, simplified your life, and still have no clue what comes next - this episode is for you.Most planning advice gets it wrong. It starts with "what do you want to DO?" - jobs, trips, projects, hobbies. But that's...
Overwhelmed and Over It: How to Simplify One Part of Your Life This Week
Overwhelmed and Over It: How to Simplify One Part of Your Life This Week ...so there’s more time for what you actually want to do.In this solo episode of *A Grown Up’s Gap Year – The Podcast, author and health and wellbeing professional ...
Life After Menopause: Strong, Supported & Informed with Dr Joanna Bruce Womens Health Expert
Today we’re talking about something that doesn’t get nearly enough airtime: life after menopause. Not the hot flush headlines, not the “is this peri?” panic – but what comes once the immediate hormone storm has settled and you’re looking at you...
The Anti-Guilt Calculator: From Mental Load to Real Time-Out and Space for You
If you’re the one who remembers everyone’s everything – the logistics, the appointments, the emotions – but can’t remember the last time you had proper time-out, this episode is for you. In this Season Three opener of A Grown Up’s Gap Year – Th...
A Grown Up’s Gap Year, From “I Can’t” to “Of Course I Can": My Year of Choosing Yes
Hello, for the first episode of season three, I'm going to replay one of our most downloaded, most messaged about episodes to ease you into the year and ask, what about me and what about right now?Season 2, episode 8:If you’ve ever l...
Ask Why Not You: How Values Become Your North Star
Hello and Happy New Year. During January, I'm replaying four of our most downloaded, most messaged about episodes. Think of them as a short series to ease you into the year and ask, what about me and what about right now? So we're going right b...
Empty Nest in Midlife: Daily Resets That Stick, with Prue Francis
Hello and Happy New Year. During January, I'm replaying four of our most downloaded, most messaged about episodes. Think of them as a short series to ease you into the year and ask, what about me and what about right now? So we're going right b...
Why More Women Over 50 Are Travelling Solo: And Loving It
Hello and Happy New Year. During January, I'm replaying four of our most downloaded, most messaged about episodes. Think of them as a short series to ease you into the year and ask, what about me and what about right now? So we're going right b...
Treat Yourself Like a Project: How Small Actions Lead to Big Clarity
Hello and Happy New Year. During January, I'm replaying four of our most downloaded, most messaged about episodes. Think of them as a short series to ease you into the year and ask, what about me and what about right now? So we're going right b...
A Grown Up’s Gap Year, From “I Can’t” to “Of Course I Can": My Year of Choosing Yes
If you’ve ever looked around your life and thought, “Is this it?” while simultaneously being needed by everyone, this one’s for you.In the final episode of Season Two, author and nutritionist Monique van Tulder looks at what actually hap...
Ditch the “New Year, New You” Resolutions: Pick Up a Notebook, Not a 75-Day Challenge
If “New Year, New You” makes you want to throw your phone in the sea, this one’s for you. In this episode, Monique van Tulder – author of A Grown Up’s Gap Year – calls time on the standard New Year resolutions and 75-day “transformation” challe...
Mid-Life Maintenance Mojo: Just Wear the Bikini & Other Handy Hints
In this episode of A Grown Up’s Gap Year – The Podcast, Monique unpacks mid-life maintenance mojo – from mammograms and strength training to swimsuits, perimenopause, and why you should just wear the bikini (if you want to).You’ll hear:&...
Happyish Holidays: Festive Season Boundaries & What Feels Like Home
Design a festive season that actually fits: clear, kind boundaries and small rituals that help you feel at home when “utterly joyful” feels like a stretch. In this short episode of A Grown Up’s Gap Year – The Podcast, we explore Happyish Holida...
Dreaming of Your Own Greek Island House? A Chic Local Shares Her Mid-Life Reset on Hydra
Ever caught yourself scrolling Greek property listings, wondering what it would be like to trade your commute for cobblestones, donkeys and Aegean light? In this episode of A Grown Up’s Gap Year – The Podcast, I sit down with award-winning arti...
Mental Load in Midlife: Boundaries, the Bloke Spreadsheet, and Your Anti-Guilt Calculator
If you've somehow ended up at the top of everyone else's people we need pyramid and the bottom of your own — this one's for you.Monique talks about what happens when you finally admit you're exhausted from the unpaid, invisible ...
Decluttering in Midlife: How to Create SPACE for the Life You Actually Want
Feeling better starts with space — physical first, mental next.In this candid, useful episode, Monique reads from her book A Grown Up's Gap Year on the beauty of simplicity, then gets real about the sandwich-generation juggle. A...
Your Two Minute Travel Prescription Reset: Find Space in Mid-life
Feeling stretched thin and a little invisible? This episode gives you a simple, two-minute Travel Prescription Certificate to start reclaiming space—without dismantling your life. We talk the hot coffee moment (after decades of lukewarm), why s...
Reinvention With Monique van Tulder and Michelle Cox on One Question Podcast
This episode is part of a ‘series’ on the podcast One Question with host Michelle Cox - where she is talking to all guests about the same topic, and that topic is REINVENTION!It is a topic she is often asked about; how she reinvented he...