00:02:30.980You know, I've told you this before, but you are one of my literary writing heroes. I was
00:02:37.140addicted to your books for so long. I loved them. I still love them. I still reread them all the
00:02:45.400time. And now, now that we're friends, because we became friends on the internet, there's just,
00:02:52.320there's so much, so much that I want to ask you. But the first question that I want to ask is,
00:02:59.580when did you decide that you were going to stop caring what anyone else thought?
00:03:05.860well that was a bit of a journey I think I think it really started on my 50th birthday actually
00:03:15.760which was gosh now uh eight years ago um and I remember I was throwing this big party in the
00:03:23.420garden and I'd planned the outfit planned this amazing party and I remember walking into the
00:03:28.820bathroom in the morning and I was 50 and I looked at myself in the mirror and I just thought I've
00:03:35.260got no idea who I am. And I was struck by this voice that said, who would you be if you stopped
00:03:45.640caring what anyone thought? And it was, it just, I'd never thought that before. And I think that
00:03:53.820was the beginning of my, well, my journey, but my realisation that I'd spent my whole life
00:04:00.460building constructs and stepping into roles and attempting to be a certain way in order to be
00:04:06.800accepted by the world. And, you know, whether it was as a wife or a mother or an author or a friend,
00:04:15.800I just had absolutely no idea who I was. And I think there was this tiny little shift inside me
00:04:26.060then, which took a little while longer to really come into play. But there was a shift. And I knew
00:04:33.000that here I am, I'm 50 years old. If I don't figure it out now, then when? Then when? If not
00:04:38.700now, when? And tell readers a little bit about what your life looked like at 50. Because honestly,
00:04:44.200from the outside, it looked very idyllic and lovely. Well, at 50, it was pretty good, actually.
00:04:49.100It really, it took a dive really around COVID, although things were starting to get hard.
00:04:55.880But certainly if you followed me on social media, you would have thought that I lived in the most beautiful house you'd ever seen, this rambling old antique house on the water in Connecticut.
00:05:08.380I looked like I had a really happy marriage.
00:05:11.100We had this blended family of six children.
00:05:18.180everybody was always welcome I was always cooking and it just looked like we had this idyllic
00:05:24.160perfect life which for a very long time we did and I will say when I turned 50 it was pretty good
00:05:31.080and I didn't quite realize I mean you know part of that who would you be if you stop caring what
00:05:37.400anyone thought is also about stopping stopping the getting rid of the constructs stepping out
00:05:44.560of those roles and figuring out who you really are. And one of the things that happens is that
00:05:49.700you realise that a lot of the people that you've surrounded yourself with are not actually the
00:05:53.920right people because they've been attracted to the persona rather than the person. And it's quite
00:06:01.140an intensive job to kind of figure out who the person is behind the persona. Because the only
00:06:05.720person I knew, I'd spent so long as the persona, I didn't really, the sort of the real person behind
00:06:13.020I didn't think was good enough at all hence the persona in the first place which is so amazing to
00:06:19.360me because you were so accomplished at so many so many things like I said you are one of my
00:06:26.760favorite writers I you know modeled my early career off of you and it seemed like you were
00:06:33.700just excelling at everything but I think as women we also constantly feel like we are failing at
00:06:42.720things that we're not living up to what other people want of us. I don't think that men ever
00:06:48.800have this problem. And do you think it's uniquely being a woman in midlife that made you feel this
00:06:56.200way? Or was it something about your own life? You know, I think that because my persona was
00:07:02.580so attached to my career, it was very much being a bestselling author. And I was the sole breadwinner.
00:07:08.900I'd had two husbands who both worked when I married them and then very quickly lost their
00:07:14.040jobs. And actually, you know, in the beginning, certainly with my second husband, it was a
00:07:18.000godsend because I was able to work and he was fantastic with the children and did everything
00:07:23.140around the house. But we were now at a stage where the children were much older. They were
00:07:27.620in high school. They were getting ready to leave home. And I was no longer earning what I had been
00:07:34.680earning you know I'd made some some poor choices in my career I wasn't getting paid anything like
00:07:41.500I had been paid and I had this tremendous financial fear and it was the persona was threatened right
00:07:48.540suddenly I felt like a failure and and I was also scrambling to try and keep our heads above water
00:07:57.400because I was the only one who was working and I remember sort of constantly sitting my husband down
00:08:03.300and sort of saying, you know, I can't do this by myself and you need to contribute. And he just
00:08:09.220wasn't able to. And I think I felt like a failure when the money stopped. And he actually did very
00:08:17.400wisely say to me on a number of occasions, Jane, you equate success with money, which I did.
00:08:24.820And he said, and because you're no longer earning the big bucks, you feel like a failure. But by
00:08:31.280any metric you've had 18 New York Times bestsellers and you have over 10 million books in print like
00:08:35.920by any metric you're successful but because I wasn't being financially compensated in the same
00:08:42.460way because I went to sleep every night with the albatross of financial fear around my neck
00:08:47.240I just felt like a failure. I mean I can so relate to that and I think that a lot of women0.99
00:08:54.800these days can as well. I know a lot of women whose husbands are losing their jobs through0.99
00:09:01.220no fault of their own, simply because of the economy right now. And a lot of women are the1.00
00:09:07.420breadwinners. There's not really a script for it, you know, for how we do this thing.1.00
00:09:13.020And then also, I also tie my success very much to finances. You know, as the primary breadwinner
00:09:21.560currently in my family. I definitely do. And I also live in financial insecurity because,
00:09:28.920honestly, our industry publishing changed. Like you were in the industry in the 90s and the 2000s,
00:09:34.640and it was flush in so many ways. And it is very different now than it used to be.
00:09:41.880And I think, you know, I had this ridiculous success out of the gate. I never went through
00:09:49.740the experience of what it is to be a struggling writer. I wrote a book and it became a huge
00:09:54.620bestseller. And then I wrote another one and it became even bigger. And it was hubris. I mean,
00:10:01.040I just thought it was going to go on forever. I never dreamt. At no point did I think this could
00:10:07.640all come crashing down. I always thought, well, I'm at the beginning of my career or I'm in the
00:10:12.380middle of my career. The only place to go is up. And it never occurred to me that it would come
00:10:18.800down and I was completely unprepared for what that would do to me at the same time as going
00:10:26.400through menopause and at the same time as my children leaving home. So there was a confluence
00:10:33.120of things. Of course, when we go through menopause, everybody prepares us for irritability
00:10:38.660and night sweats and hot flushes, but they don't prepare you for the seismic change that happens
00:10:44.540mentally and emotionally when when the estrogen goes and how all of your nurturing hormones leave
00:10:51.280and and yeah and the children leaving home left me feeling sort of untethered and lost which I
00:10:57.980was completely unprepared for um and and I felt very very lonely and I also found myself in a
00:11:08.260marriage with a man that I'd been with for 18 years and I deeply loved him, but I didn't feel
00:11:15.160valued or loved in return. And maybe that's because his role had changed. For so many years,
00:11:21.340he'd been essential in the role of parenting the children and taking care of the children
00:11:30.160and the house. And suddenly we had to sell our beautiful house because I couldn't afford it.
00:11:35.040And we moved into this tiny little cottage and there was no room for him to be at home during the day.
00:11:41.880So he went off to town every day and we just became more and more estranged.
00:11:47.360And I just felt like I was trying to keep, to right the ship all by myself.
00:11:58.100And I think we both were carrying huge amounts of resentment against each other.
00:12:04.800And, you know, what happens when when you start becoming resentful, you stop being able to communicate, you stop being able to hear each other and you just end up literally becoming ships that pass in the night.
00:12:19.620You really do. You really do. And I think that's so interesting what you said about the hormonal change, because I've been talking to a lot of women.
00:12:26.060I'm about to be 46 most of my friends are you know in between 45 and 55 and we say all the time
00:12:34.940we're like we didn't realize that you know when the estrogen started waning that we would stop0.83
00:12:41.660giving a fuck in a lot of ways right that like you know because we don't have necessarily this0.94
00:12:48.500like constant need to to nurture and to create life we still want to create but not necessarily0.99
00:12:54.820to create life anymore that something really goes away and in some ways it's really freeing
00:13:00.080and in other ways you're like holy shit who the hell am i right now yeah i mean i think it's it
00:13:06.200has the most impact on our marriage well actually no it has impact on it on everything but i think0.70
00:13:12.140in a marriage it can be very very tricky to navigate i a lot of my friendships changed0.97
00:13:17.680because i i really did stop the people pleasing because as you said i didn't give a fuck anymore0.98
00:13:22.760And I was tired of twisting myself into pretzels in order to fit in.0.96
00:13:30.140And so actually what happened was I withdrew.
00:13:32.920I just withdrew and it led to a period of incredible isolation for a couple of years.
00:13:38.840The last two years of my marriage, I just became very isolated and very withdrawn
00:13:44.020um and and was in deep pain actually but but had no way of expressing it or navigating it
00:13:54.000I did a lot of magic mushroom journeys it helped um but ultimately it wasn't the cure
00:14:00.720it just allowed me to sort of put one foot in front of the other and keep going um but it
00:14:06.500If you choose to see it as the gift that it can be, it can be this doorway into extraordinary freedom and joy.
00:14:19.040But it takes a hell of a lot to get there.
00:14:23.180And you went through a hell of a lot to get there.
00:14:28.140I mean, I'd said to my husband a number of times, you know, I love you, but I know me.
00:14:35.740And if X, Y and Z don't change, I'm going to wake up one day and the switch will be flicked to off. And once that happens, there's no going back. And I'm really scared because I'm getting there. And I think he just couldn't hear me. He just wasn't able to hear that I was heading for a serious crisis.
00:14:56.000I think he just heard, oh, she's upset. Let me calm her down. Everything will be fun, which,0.99
00:15:01.380by the way, I think is a very male response. And I've met many women who felt the same way. And
00:15:07.440I've even met men who were divorced who have said they were not able to hear their wives. They
00:15:12.640couldn't hear the reality of that. And in the end, you know, it was a nothing argument. It was the
00:15:19.200same fight that we'd been having for 18 years about the same things we'd been fighting about.
00:15:24.180but you know and he he kind of stormed out of the house in a fury and went driving for a few hours
00:15:31.320to cool off and while he was gone the switch flicked and I I sort of knew but I didn't want
00:15:38.120to know um but yeah I think that I I just I just deep down even though I was too frightened to face
00:15:47.860I knew that I was done. And I ended up, we had, he had agreed to allow me to rent a Riyadh in
00:15:55.040Marrakesh. I'd fallen deeply in love with Marrakesh. And I was so unhappy in this tiny
00:15:59.200little cottage that we'd sort of agreed that I would spend some of the winter in Marrakesh
00:16:04.320and use it as a self-imposed writing retreat. And I remember everybody, you know, I'd overhear
00:16:11.440friends talking to him. They'd say, you know, well, when's Jane coming back from Marrakesh?
00:20:39.540They were scattered around the States.
00:20:40.780So it wasn't like I was seeing them regularly.
00:20:43.000and I knew that I had to save myself um and uh so I was in the medina the first year was crazy I
00:20:51.260I drank too much I said yes to every invitation I said yes to anybody who extended the hand of
00:20:57.540friendship I ended up with all the wrong friends getting drunk far too often staggering home at
00:21:02.920three o'clock in the morning through the medina um partying and then within the year I I realized
00:21:10.820that the only way through, I couldn't keep putting off this grief and this pain. And the
00:21:19.160only way through was to still and to quiet down and to allow everything in and to quiet down.
00:21:26.620And that was my second year. And actually then, after the second year, I moved out to a little
00:21:31.840house in the countryside. And I live by myself with lots of cats, of course, you know, the crazy
00:21:38.960cat lady of Marrakesh. But I live by myself and I was so frightened of that in the beginning,
00:21:44.580even though I'm naturally a more reclusive person. I love peace and quiet, but I thought
00:21:50.260I would die of isolation. And it's true. I did need to be in the Medina to come back to life.
00:21:56.900And then eventually it overwhelmed me. And now I think I have a pretty good balance.
00:22:02.680But I love the process, right? Because I think that sometimes we do have to go through that kind of rewilding in order to shed our past selves, to shed that grief. You've written something that has really stuck with me.
00:22:18.920you said, like many insecure women I know, I was always something of a chameleon. I may not have
00:22:26.940known who I was, but I had the ability to turn myself into whoever I thought I needed to be
00:22:32.360in order to fit in. And I just feel that so hard. And I think that so many other women I know do
00:22:40.740too. And therein lies the essence of rewilding. So rewilding is actually a garden concept,
00:22:48.500which is very popular in the UK. And it's about restoring your land and your gardens to its
00:22:54.880natural state, so indigenous plants. And that's what allows the garden to thrive. And if you
00:23:01.740apply that same concept to womanhood, which is what I have done, I think of it as we are all
00:23:09.420these brave, fearless, strong little girls. We hit puberty and often, I mean, some of us start
00:23:16.140beforehand some of us grow up in very difficult families and we learn to to become a certain way
00:23:21.300in order to keep the peace in our families but it goes into overdrive at puberty when we start
00:23:25.940being interested in in boys and we start to mold ourselves then and we carry on doing that
00:23:31.800throughout our lives and and we do it as as employees and we do it as partners and we do it
00:23:40.440as mothers. And what happens is you hit menopause, you hit midlife and you have, you've built so
00:23:47.580many constructs that you have no idea who you are anymore. So the question I've always had
00:23:53.120and the thing that drove this whole journey was how do I tap back into who I was as that little
00:23:59.420girl? Who is the real Jane? And how do I be brave enough to strip away the ego and the constructs
00:24:07.540and just be my most authentic version of myself. I didn't even know who she was, but actually
00:24:13.420it started with honesty. I was kind of fed up with the lies. And one of the big lies was that
00:24:20.160I was, that we were wealthy, that we were this wealthy family and lived this wonderful life when
00:24:26.580in fact I was the sole provider and the sole breadwinner and I couldn't do it and I was fed
00:24:33.900up with the lies. So it really started with telling the truth about everything, and then
00:24:42.080learning to say no. I was the consummate people pleaser, and I always said yes instead of no.
00:24:49.260And I had to teach myself how to become comfortable in the discomfort of saying no.
00:24:59.060that was one of the hardest things. It's still sometimes hard, but I do it. And I, you know,
00:25:06.200interestingly, I watched myself. Whenever I said no, I stilled for anger in response because that's
00:25:14.240what I was trained to do as a child. And I was met with anger. And still here I am in my 50s.
00:25:21.420whenever I said no, I was frightened that anger would come back at me. And I had to
00:25:28.440be okay with anger. And actually, most of the time, 99% of the time, I don't get anger.
00:25:35.580Of course you don't. Of course you don't.
00:25:37.160Yeah. In fact, I can't even remember a time when I have had anger. But it's amazing how
00:25:42.840your childhood response will still override. But I had to teach myself not to be frightened.
00:25:51.420And actually, the truth is, as women, I think there are a myriad of opportunities in any given day to say no, where we find ourselves saying yes instead of saying no. The tiniest things, things we think don't matter, it's just easier to say yes. And actually, the practice of saying no, especially for the things that don't really matter, is what builds the muscle and it becomes easier and easier.
00:26:16.200and also the honesty and really letting go of what people think of me not being frightened of
00:26:25.080being disliked I was you know as the people pleaser I wanted to be liked by everyone so I
00:26:30.140would become whoever I needed to be in order to be liked and really becoming comfortable with
00:26:36.040people not liking me just being completely okay with that if somebody doesn't like me
00:26:41.460then they're not for me. And that's okay. I, you know, when I first came to Marrakesh,
00:26:46.820there is a whole social scene here and all these very grand swanky parties. And when I first got
00:26:52.420here, I wanted to be invited to those swanky parties. And I was for a while. And then I
00:26:57.320wasn't for a while. I remember initially being really hurt. I felt rejected. And then I just
00:27:04.240had to tell myself, it's okay. You don't actually, I'd sort of reached a stage where I crave
00:27:11.120meaningful, authentic connection with everybody. And I didn't want to go to these social climbing
00:27:18.560parties where women looked you up and down when you walk in the room and judge you. I didn't want0.99
00:27:23.040any of it. So I stopped going and I started to be fine with not being invited somewhat hilariously.
00:27:29.340I haven't been to anything. The invitations have started again, which is really interesting. And
00:27:34.680now I get the invitations and I think, do I want to go? Is there anything about this night that is
00:27:40.280appealing to me. And if there is, I'll go. And if there isn't, I say no. And I crawl into bed at
00:27:46.6208.30, sometimes 7.30, if I'm really honest. Which is fine. I mean, that's the dream. Okay,
00:27:52.700it is a dream I cannot attain right now because I'm still doing three hours of bedtime every night.
00:27:57.120Yeah. But it is my dream. Yeah. Yeah. It's a pretty good life.
00:28:04.040It is. And I think that that's true, that when you stop kind of seeking for these things,
00:28:09.160then the opportunities seek you out. And then you get to choose. You get to choose what you
00:28:13.920actually want. And that's such a part of it. I think so many women have the need to be chosen
00:28:21.560by our peers, by other mothers, by friend groups, by men. And we spend our lives wanting to be
00:28:30.920chosen. And what happens when the estrogen goes is you stop needing to be chosen. You don't really
00:28:37.140know what to do with that at first because we've spent we've had a whole lifetime of wanting to be
00:28:40.880chosen and and suddenly you don't want to be chosen anymore and you realize that you're actually
00:28:47.380allowed to choose and and it it's a seismic change and often it means your world gets much
00:28:56.640smaller because you start to really ask yourself do I want to go here do I want to be friends with
00:29:01.820this person? Do I want to go on a date with this man? And when the answer is no, you don't go. So
00:29:07.700the world, your world becomes much smaller, but it becomes much more fulfilling because every single
00:29:14.480communication and connection you have is one with somebody you love and one that has meaning.
00:29:21.860Smaller except for the cats. There's so many cats, Jane.
00:29:25.440I know that. Well, I was up to four, but I think I'm now at five because there's a big old
00:29:31.660scratched up straight tom who started coming around and i really don't want him i don't want
00:29:37.060him but he yells for food can you say no well i've started feeding him which was my my my greatest
00:29:43.200mistake so now i think he's in fact i i leave the back door open for the cats to go in the garden
00:29:48.580at night and of course i came in this morning and found him curled up on the sofa i'm like oh
00:29:52.440oh you're like you're mine now you're yeah you're up to five yeah yeah but you know what cats are
00:29:59.000usually a good decision we're about to get our first family cat oh oh that's lovely i know yes
00:30:05.200cats and children good combo cats and children a really good combo okay let's take one more break
00:30:12.000and then in the last part of our episode i want to talk a little bit about who you are now um i love
00:30:18.200that you're one of your friends says that you are an old hippie but you prefer the title bohemian
00:30:24.900goddess okay we are back who are you now I mean I read everything that you write you say you know
00:30:38.780I never felt like I could dance before and I love dancing and you know that you actually hate looking
00:30:43.580like everyone else but for years I mean if you look at your old author photos you look like you
00:30:48.400know like literally like the archetype like straight out of central casting of like lady book author
00:30:54.500Yeah, yeah, I know. That was the role that I gave myself and stepped into and did my damnedest for years to look the part. And it turns out that I hate designer labels. I spent fortunes on designer labels. I hate designer labels. And really, I mean, my whole sort of mantra before 50 was less is more, you know, 50 shades of grey, everything in cream and camel.
00:31:20.940And actually, I discovered that that old bohemian art student I once was, she was still in there.
00:33:04.660them with me too. So we're doing it as a couple. And I just, it's a thing that I never thought I
00:33:09.860would love. And now in midlife, a thing that I am obsessed with. Yeah. Well, the tattoos were a big
00:33:17.480thing for me. And it's really interesting as well. It just makes me think of you and Nick doing it
00:33:23.660together. That the key is, the key to navigating your way through all these seismic changes that
00:33:31.940happen in your 50s, your children going menopause, is you have the opportunity to work as a team.
00:33:40.280And the couples that do that thrive. And I know plenty of couples who have got through and have
00:33:48.160become so close and have the most wonderful marriage. But for many, many people, they find
00:33:54.720that after all of those years of child rearing and being busy doing other things, they actually
00:34:00.280don't have anything in common anymore. And that's when it becomes a little more problematic. If
00:34:10.180your values are not aligned, if you don't have the same aims and aspirations in your life and
00:34:17.380how you want to live your life, where do you go? Where do you go? Yeah. And I found that, you know,
00:34:24.500my husband fell in love with the version of me that I was at the time, which was the construct
00:34:28.660and the persona. But actually, as I started to come back to myself and, you know, sort of fill
00:34:37.180myself with my native personality and my actual needs. Your native wildlife. Yes, my native,
00:34:44.740as I started to rewild, we were not, we actually were not compatible. You know, I found that I,
00:34:53.340part of the writing for that novel for Sister Stardust was a deep dive into the late 60s and
00:35:00.120early 70s. Which I love that novel, by the way, Sister Stardust. Thank you. Oh, so good. So good.
00:35:06.160And I've always felt incredibly drawn to that time period. And I love the clothes. And now
00:35:14.320I won't wear any pants that aren't flares. I mean, my daily uniform is these huge flared jeans,
00:35:20.500tons of jewelry um you know long beads and i i nothing is is is a label nothing actually that's
00:35:30.600not true my coats my coats are charlotte simone who is fantastic this designer in london um and
00:35:36.880she does all these afghan these these sort of 60s 70s style afghan coats with great big collars and
00:35:42.160cuffs and i live in them um but i love that i felt i never have to i never think i never sweat about
00:35:49.500what I have to wear to any event anymore because I don't think I have to fit in and if I go to this
00:35:56.040gala or party I want them to know that I'm good enough and that I feel never occurs to me what I
00:36:03.000think is what am I going to feel fabulous in um and and that's been a glorious shift and by the
00:36:10.180way I get stopped on the street multiple times a day by by women complimenting me on on my clothes
00:36:17.280which is really funny when you let go of fashion and you actually start to dress for yourself and
00:36:22.100find the style that you love other people can see it because i think we're all craving authenticity
00:36:28.200we're all craving honesty i think social media particularly instagram we spent years and years
00:36:34.480with these these with these photographs of a of a picture perfect life and and we're just fed up
00:36:42.360with it and you can smell authenticity on people you can it's because it's an energetic shift when
00:36:48.540you're not trying to be anybody other than who you are you have an energetic shift and and other
00:36:55.320people can feel that yeah no I'm drawn to it and they're drawn to it and they're drawn to it and
00:36:59.920I tell I've got to tell you I can't wait to see you in in person and hug you in Marrakesh in
00:37:03.880September but you look lit up from within I mean you look better than ever I gotta tell you that
00:37:10.060but like more than that you look happy you look happy and alive and i do think that you can smell1.00
00:37:17.260that authenticity on people i think it's why we've kind of seen the decline of the trad wife
00:37:22.600personality i think we're sick of picture perfect images of being a woman um and we just want real
00:37:31.020life at all of our ages right yeah well and and it's also i will say you know so many of us are
00:37:39.680fueled by shame, right? This is why we do all of it. It's why we build the constructs, why we step
00:37:44.320into personas, why we step into roles, because we are fueled by shame that secretly we're not
00:37:50.360actually good enough. And heaven forbid anyone should look at us and see what we know to be
00:37:56.280true about ourselves, that we're not quite good enough. And actually the way through, shame can
00:38:02.320only survive in secrecy and darkness. Shame cannot survive in the sunlight. And so that was sort of
00:38:08.900my mission with the memoir, and I don't think I even realized it at the time, but it was all the
00:38:13.140things that I held shame about, all my secrets, I held them up to the light. I, you know, there were
00:38:20.620all the stuff with the mushrooms and psilocybin and various other things. I had flings with women.
00:38:27.720I experimented. I did things that I've never talked about and wouldn't because I had so much
00:38:34.160shame about it. And I just thought, what's the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen
00:38:38.660is that I can be judged. And you know what? Anyone who's judging me for being authentically me was
00:38:44.580never my person in the first place. Absolutely. Absolutely. And even at our ages, and you recently
00:38:52.880read about this, there are still so many toxic friendships and toxic relationships of people
00:38:59.100that do judge us and we're afraid to let go of them right yeah i i mean friendships so it's a
00:39:05.900huge theme of rewilding and and friendships seem to have become the the sort of seminal theme of
00:39:11.740my life and i've had my greatest joys from female friendship and my greatest heartbreaks they are
00:39:18.840yeah um i think i'm getting much better because because what happens when you commit to a life
00:39:28.140of honesty authenticity saying no you know stopping the people pleasing being discerning
00:39:36.100it's really about being but learning the art of discernment and also surrender learning to sort
00:39:41.340of wear life a little more loosely i talk about learning to wear life like a loose garment kind
00:39:46.320of realizing that you can't fight life you have to sort of be open to what life um gives you but
00:39:53.580you, you, your, it hones your intuition. When you're really in touch with yourself, your true
00:40:00.700self, you also learn that every time you get that feeling in your gut, it's right. And we spend years
00:40:10.060trying to push that. Our heads will always push our bodies down, but our bodies are the truth
00:40:17.560tellers. And when you learn to listen to your body, it will never see you wrong.
00:40:23.400Do you think that you ignored that intuition for a really long time?
00:40:28.840100%. I ignored it with friendships. I ignored it in my marriage. I mean, there were things
00:40:36.820that I haven't written about in my marriage that were so painful. And had I listened to my
00:40:45.780intuition. I might have made changes a very long time ago. I love that. I love that. I love the
00:40:53.700idea of trusting your intuition and trusting who you know that you are, because I think we know
00:40:57.980who we are deep down. But again, we truly are ignoring it so often. Yeah. Well, we intellectualize
00:41:06.740everything, right? We live in our heads. And so many women that I know are consummate overthinkers.
00:41:14.060So we try and excuse things and we have compassion. And so we might make a friend and understand that she's damaged or has childhood wounds. But we recognize those wounds. We think we can help. We also often are fixers.0.83
00:41:29.700Yeah, we think that we can help and we can heal and we can cure. We can't heal anyone. We can't fix anyone. Falling in love, whether it's platonically or romantically, with anyone's potential is always a recipe for disaster.1.00
00:41:44.060Always. Always. I mean, you're having so many mic drop moments, but I'm going to give you this one to end the episode because it's true. It's true. Falling in love with anyone's potential is always a disaster. Shane Green, will you tell everyone where they can find you and how they can order this wonderful book, but also how they can visit one of your rewilding retreats in America?
00:42:06.260Ah, yes. So I'll start with the retreats, because I do hold writing retreats in Marrakesh, which is, every time I hold a writing retreat, they come up to me at the end and these women say, this is so much more than the writing retreat. This is a rewilding retreat. And there is a particular kind of alchemy that happens when a group of women who are seeking something more, and Marrakesh tends to attract women who are seeking something more, come together.
00:42:32.880So I am doing, I hold writing retreats and now I'm starting rewilding retreats. I have one in October. I have one at the Omega Institute in New York next year as well. But the ones in Marrakesh you can find through my website, JaneGreen.com. It'll take you to Kitaba, Marrakesh. All the information for the retreats is on there.
00:42:56.280instagram at jane green author facebook at author jane green uh tiktok the jane green although i'm
00:43:04.660not very good at tiktok i'm trying to learn it now i don't care yeah i don't care it's okay it's
00:43:10.000okay yeah but yeah find me and rewilding you will find um i you know it it's it i i don't know what
00:43:20.180the bookstore presence will be like I have no idea I'm I'm um but generally wherever you buy
00:43:26.280books wherever you buy the books yeah and where if you can't find it in your bookstore it is online
00:43:31.200and it's June the 4th brilliant brilliant well I can't wait for it I can't wait to see you soon
00:43:36.680and you are just such a massive inspiration and I adore you I feel the same way about you Jo