A Grown Up's Gap Year

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” challenges. Instead of treating yourself like a renovation project, she invites you to treat yourself as the project and turn January into your own creative test kitchen. Monique shares how notebooks, scribbles, walks, paint, and “making something with no outcome attached” have pulled her through turbulent seasons – and why a cheap notebook can be more powerful than any 12-week program. She nods to Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way (Morning Pages and Artist Dates) and to research showing that everyday creativity is linked to better mood, more energy and clearer thinking. If you’re a midlife woman who’s done everything for everyone and is tired of being told to fix herself every January, this episode hands you a different brief. Perfect to listen to while you’re wrapping presents, hiding in the car with a hot coffee, or quietly planning what your January notebook might hold – with zero before-and-after photos required.Episode Resources & Links:Your SPACE PrescriptionFree Weekly NewsletterDear Blokes DownloadableSetting Boundaries That Stick - checklistJulia Cameron: Living The Artist's WayWild With Sarah Wilson Podcast with Julia CameronRemarkable People Podcast with Guy Kawasaki and Julia Cameron📚 Get your copy of A Grown Up’s Gap Year the book, from Amazon, moniquevantulder.com, bookshops and libraries, subscribe to the podcast, and take the first step toward your own A Grown Up’s Gap Year. Monique's LinkedIn Monique's Instagram

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: Why mid-life maintenance is not vanity – it’s logistics for the adventures you still want (Italian hills, ocean swims, last-minute trips)The real talk on swimmers, bodies and confidence: kaftans you don’t actually like, “sensible” shorts, and finding swimmers that let you get in the water, not hide beside itA quick, evidence-based nod to Dr Stacy Sims and why women in perimenopause and menopause are not “small men” when it comes to training, hormones and recoveryThe 60% rule: how aiming for “good enough” on decorations, grazing platters and emails can free up the energy you actually need for your own health and happinessA listener story about booking five nights at a wellness retreat – just for her – and why maintenance is part of your adventure strategy, not an optional extraPlus, Monique shares three simple Weekly Actions to get your mid-life maintenance mojo going:Book one appointment for Future You (hair, health check, mammogram, GP, physio, strength coach).Audit your swimmers and one outfit – anything that makes you wince or tug, goes.Choose one area this festive season to apply the 60% rule, and use the saved time for a walk, a swim or a lie-down with a book.Episode Resources & Links:Your SPACE PrescriptionFree Weekly NewsletterDear Blokes DownloadableSetting Boundaries That Stick - checklistMID Podcast with Dr Stacy Sims📚 Get your copy of A Grown Up’s Gap Year the book, from Amazon, moniquevantulder.com, bookshops and libraries, subscribe to the podcast, and take the first step toward your own A Grown Up’s Gap Year. Monique's LinkedIn Monique's Instagram

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 Holidays: how to set festive season boundaries that are clear and kind to you, and how to re-find what feels like home when traditions and family shapes have shifted. You’ll hear a candid story about home changing over time, three reflection questions to locate your version of home today, and a quick TRY THIS to create one small ritual just for you (a morning swim, a solo coffee, or a guilt-free no). We touch lightly on chosen family and low-stress gatherings, but the focus is practical boundaries and small, doable steps that protect your energy. Oh and we link to a fabulous episode on the topic with Glennon Doyle's "We Can Do Hard Things", and a meditation on "Home Away From Home" by author Pico Iyer.Episode Resources & Links:Your SPACE PrescriptionFree Weekly NewsletterDear Blokes DownloadableSetting Boundaries That Stick - checklist"Happyish Holidays" from the podcast "We Can Do Hard Things" with Glennon Doyle"Where Is Home" TED talk with author Pico IyerKonfekt magazineEir Women Trimmed📚 Get your copy of A Grown Up’s Gap Year the book, from Amazon, moniquevantulder.com, bookshops and libraries, subscribe to the podcast, and take the first step toward your own A Grown Up’s Gap Year. Monique's LinkedIn Monique's Instagram

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 artist Desiree Prinsloo, who divides her time between Sydney and the Greek island of Hydra. After her husband died and an 'untangling' unspooled in the aftermath, she reached a point where nothing was really holding her back. One night, browsing houses in Greece and Italy, she thought, why not? – and left Australia soon after. A few years on Desiree has restored a small hillside house (no cars, everything by mule), keeping it simple – raw wood, whitewashed walls, island light – and built a life that looks suspiciously like the fantasy most of us reserve for 'someday'. Her term for this season? Middle-youth. We talk about what really sits behind a “Greek island reset”: the grief, the paperwork, the budgets and the bravery; daily swims, mountain herbs and the hillside steps that “if they don’t kill me, keep me alive”; plus her best practical advice if you’re dreaming of “a house somewhere else” but don’t know where to start. Perfect if you’re mid-life, mildly exhausted, and secretly googling “Greek island house for sale” between Zoom calls.Episode Resources & Links:Your SPACE PrescriptionFree Weekly NewsletterDear Blokes DownloadableSetting Boundaries That Stick - checklist📚 Get your copy of A Grown Up’s Gap Year the book, from Amazon, moniquevantulder.com, bookshops and libraries, subscribe to the podcast, and take the first step toward your own A Grown Up’s Gap Year. Monique's LinkedIn Monique's Instagram

If you’re a mid-life woman who’s 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. In this episode, Monique talks about what happens when you finally admit you’re exhausted – from the unpaid, invisible work that quietly attached itself to your life while everyone else’s stayed more or less the same. By the time she left for her grown up’s gap year, she felt she’d been on call for decades and someone had forgotten to roster her off. You’ll hear the story of the infamous spreadsheet she handed to her Dear Bloke (AKA “this is what my free labour would cost if we’d outsourced it”), and why she calls it a receipt for services rendered, not a ransom note. We’ll dig into the research on the mental load and guilt, talk Winter season energy, and walk through two simple tools – your daily hot coffee moment and the Not Now / Not Me list – to start building higher, kinder boundaries in real life, not theory.There are three boundary experiments to try this week, a quick Values checkpoint, and a short Dear Blokes fridge note for the men who genuinely want to help but don’t know where to start. We wrap with Monique’s new Your SPACE Prescription – Anti-Guilt Calculator: a two-minute, data-backed way to tally your invisible load and turn it into an actual time-out receipt you can stick on the fridge.Episode Resources & Links:Your SPACE PrescriptionFree Weekly NewsletterDear Blokes DownloadableBoundaries ChecklistBook: Atomic Habits - James Clear📚 Get your copy of A Grown Up’s Gap Year the book, from Amazon, moniquevantulder.com, bookshops and libraries, subscribe to the podcast, and take the first step toward your own A Grown Up’s Gap Year. Monique's LinkedIn Monique's Instagram