Show Notes
It’s no wonder so many women aged in their late twenties to early forties are feeling paralysed by overwhelm. We have SO many decisions to make, all while we wade through SO many expectations – whether they’re ones we’ve put on ourselves, or ones that exist from our families, social media, or society as a whole. These dilemma-filled few years (eek, should I have a baby? Is it already too late? Am I with the right person? Should I be focusing on my job?!) are referred to as ‘The Panic Years’ – a term coined by author Nell Frizzell and in Volume V of What Matters Most, Antonia and Jacqui do a deep dive into what brings them about and how to navigate your way through them. Jacqui outlines three steps to calming some of that overwhelm, figuring out what you actually truly want (not just what you feel pressured to do) and how to put steps in place to try to get there. Along the way Jacqui and Antonia share their own struggles with The Panic Years, what to do if your panic isn’t that you don’t know what you want – it’s that you know it, but it goes against societal norms or, it’s out of reach. Plus, Antonia shares why that advice to treat people how you’d like to be treated, perhaps isn’t the best approach after all. Jacqui finishes this volume with a wonderful exercise to define what is important to you – The Holistic Wheel of Life! Link Here Hosted by: Antonia Prebble & Jacqui Maguire Produced by: Roar Collective Co-Produced By: Antonia Prebble & Jacqui Maguire Music: Goodboy Music See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
More from What Matters Most
We are told that failure builds character, that it teaches resilience and it points the way forward. But in real life, failure is usually less inspiring than that. It is embarrassing, exposing and harder to learn from than the slogans would have us believe. In this episode, Antonia and Jacqui take apart the psychology of failure: why it hurts so much, why shame so often gets there first and why our instinct is usually not to learn from failure but to defend ourselves against it. They explore the difference between failing at something and feeling like a failure, the role of identity, family scripts, gender, and social pressure. This is a conversation about how to meet failure with curiosity and let it become information rather than identity. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this episode, Antonia and Jacqui explore the shift from the older, more clinical definition of trauma to a broader, more psychologically nuanced understanding: that trauma is not only about what happened, but about what happened inside us as a result, particularly when an experience leaves us overwhelmed, unsupported, unseen, or unable to fully process it. They unpack the difference between distress and trauma, the distinction between big T and little t experiences, and the ways unresolved trauma can continue to shape us long after the original event has passed. But this conversation is not only about naming trauma. It is also about recovery: the role of safety, support, remembrance, and connection, and why trauma work must be approached with care. Jacqui also walks listeners through EMDR in depth, including what it stands for, how it works, why it can sound unusual at first, and why it has become such a respected and effective treatment for trauma. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Forgiveness is often spoken about as a virtue, but in real life it can feel messy, resistant, and anything but straightforward. In this episode, Antonia and Jacqui unpack what forgiveness actually is, why it matters for our mental and physical wellbeing, and how to begin moving from hurt and resentment toward something more peaceful..with or without reconciliation. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
For something so ordinary, communication is anything but simple. We tend to think of poor communication as a dramatic failure. A screaming match, a betrayal, a rupture…but the reality is it is often far more subtle than that. It lives in misread signals, conversational habits, little dismissals and the moments we leave feeling less held than we hoped. This week, Antonia and Jacqui turn their attention to the mechanics and meaning of everyday communication: They chat about what makes a conversation feel nourishing rather than depleting, why being misunderstood can feel physically painful, and how we create connection without going from from polite small talk one minute into emotional overexposure the next.They explore listening, social anxiety, oversharing, conversational self-awareness, and the art of raising something difficult without immediately setting the relationship on fire. It’s an episode that is less about saying the perfect thing, more about learning how to stay open, interested, and honest enough for real connection to happen. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How do you know if you’re in a good relationship…Not a perfect one, but a genuinely good enough one? In this episode, Antonia and Jacqui take that question seriously and pull it apart with far more honesty than romance culture usually allows. They break down what being in a ‘good enough’ relationship actually means? How to tell the difference between ordinary disappointment and something more fundamental? And how to evaluate a relationship without getting lost in comparison? This is a conversation about letting go of perfection without lowering the bar, and about recognizing that a strong relationship is not necessarily one without friction. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.