The Don't Buy Her Flowers Podcast

Steph talks with writer and speaker Brigid Schulte about Overwhelm, where it comes from and what we can do to rally against it. Brigid brilliantly uses research and history to understand how we got here, and reassures that when it feels hard, it’s because it is.

Brigid explains why women feel they don’t deserve free time, why we feel we have to ‘excel’ at motherhood and importantly, what all this pressure and juggling does to women’s physical and mental health, careers and relationships. They discuss how women find it difficult to live in the moment because of the volume of roles and responsibilities they’re juggling, how children coming along makes the imbalance even more difficult, and the societal expectations that impacts men and women trying to find a better balance. And Brigid offers some advice on how to turn down the volume on it all, and advises we all need to ‘let that shit go’

Brigid shares what she’s learned as a journalist at The Washington Post, author of ‘Overwhelmed’ (2014) and the Director of Better Life Lab at New America, the work-family justice and gender equity program at New America, a nonpartisan think tank.

Thank you to Naturalmat for sponsoring this episode, handmakers of organic beds and mattresses, and DBHF podcast listeners can get 15% off with the code DBHF15

Brigid’s book ‘Overwhelmed – How to work, love and play when noone has the time’.

Brigid’s Twitter

Better Life Lab at New America

Brigid’s Instagram

Steph’s Instagram

Thoughtful Gifts at Don’t Buy Her Flowers

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Steph speaks with Psychotherapist Zara Arshad about what is really going on for couples after a baby arrives – the common feelings of anger, disappointment, resentment, loneliness, and feeling underappreciated. From her own experience, Steph found it tough and was also surprised to feel this way as no one had really mentioned it prior to having a baby.

Zara specialises in couples and new parents improving communication, and helping people in relationships during what is a tricky time. They discuss the most common issues that couples go to Zara with, a predominant one being anger. Zara explains the core reasons behind that anger and ways couples can voice how they’re feeling in a more productive way (ie not ‘You are useless and I hate you! Apparently that doesn’t work). Zara provides advice on ways couples can prepare before the baby arrives, managing expectations of each other, and how to communicate better.

Look out for updates on Zara’s soon to be available book ‘Stronger together: A couple’s guide to navigating your relationship after baby’

For more chat about relationships on the Don’t Buy Her Flowers Podcast, listen to Steph’s conversations with Matt Fray, Karen Gurney, Laura Danger and Aileen Barratt.

Contact us at [email protected] with any thoughts or feedback.

• Zara’s Instagram
• Zara’s Website
• Steph’s The Post Baby Fog blog and When New Mums Get Angry blog
• Steph’s Instagram

Thoughtful gifts at Don’t Buy Her Flowers (including gifts for new parents!)

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Steph Douglas founded thoughtful gift company Don’t Buy Her Flowers in 2014. Prior to running the business, Steph worked in Brand and Marketing and then started a blog, writing honestly about motherhood, relationships and trying to be a grown up while never feeling quite like she knew what she was doing. Posts included ‘When New Mums Get Angry’, ‘With this ring, I give you my dregs’’, and the postnatal ‘Pulling up the Drawbridge’ post that went viral with over 110k views to date. The Don’t Buy Her Flowers podcast is an evolution of the blog, and enables Steph to find out how other people are coping. Or not.

Seven years on DBHF now has 20+ employees, are in their second warehouse (a far cry from Steph packing on her bedroom floor for the first couple of years) and saw huge growth during the pandemic as people looked for thoughtful gifts, allowing them invest in growth but also importantly increase donations to long-term charity partners including Cancer Research UK and introduce new ones too.

Steph has three children under twelve, is married to Doug and loves naps, gin and watching anything she’s seen a hundred times so it doesn’t require her brain.

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TW: includes discussion about baby loss, death and grief.

Sarah Gwonyoma, founder of @WhatSarahReadNext talks honestly about what happens when life throws a lot of grief your way, coping when life is turned upside down, and making big career moves when she stopped to work out what she really wanted.

As part of our Motherhood series, Sarah talks with Steph about how it feels to become fixated with having a baby, and going through multiple losses and IVF while everyone around you seems to be getting pregnant. Sarah has been through so much, in addition to baby loss, with the death of her brother and her husband; as she says ‘She’s taken a load for the team’. After the death of husband Tim and at the start of the pandemic, Sarah – who lives with her son in Fiji – took stock of her 20 year career in International Development and decided on a career change, turning her passion for books in to her job.

Sarah’s Instagram, where you’ll find book recommendations, reviews and author chat, as well as a world of colour Sarah G style

Julia Samuel ‘Griefworks: stories of life, death and surviving’

Brendan Cox ‘Jo Cox: More in Common’

Don’t Buy Her Flowers is donating £1 from every Mother’s Day order to Home-Start UK, a nationwide charity who help families with young children through their challenging times. See Don’t Buy Her Flowers

Steph’s Instagram

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With a critically acclaimed career in music that has been going for more than ten years, a chart-topping podcast, three kids aged five and under and a batch-cooking obsession, Jessie Ware is definitely in the Rush Hour, juggling it all and sometimes questioning whether she’s doing it right.

As a self-confessed oversharer, in this episode Jessie talks openly with Steph about pregnancy and babies, how relationships can struggle when children come along and how starting the Table Manners podcast in 2017 gave her a creative outlet when she felt a bit lost as a mum in the music industry. Steph and Jessie also swap gross (but perfectly natural!) tales of bodily fluids and birth when talking about Jessie’s pregnancy podcast, Is It Normal?

For information about Jessie’s latest music and tour dates https://www.jessieware.com/

The Table Manners Podcast

Jessie performing Wildest Moments at Glastonbury in 2015

Browse thoughtful gifts at Don’t Buy Her Flowers (as recommended by Jessie Flippin’ Ware!)

Steph’s Instagram

Contact us [email protected]

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