Live Well Be Well with Sarah Ann Macklin | Health, Lifestyle, Nutrition

Louise O'Neill, award-winning author, joins me to talk about A Bigger Life, her memoir of the devastating breakup she went through, and the year that followed: a dating odyssey from Dublin to Paris, London, New York and Rome, with a different date almost every night.

What we explore together:

•Why rejection cuts so deep, and the belief so many of us carry: "I need to improve myself because I'm not lovable enough"

•The myth that there are no good men left, and how the algorithm feeds scarcity after a breakup

•Her worst dates, from a catfish in France to a frightening walk in Central Park

•Why "do I like them?" is a better question than "do they like me?"

•Falling back in love, and how a relationship can show you where you still need to heal

Love, Sarah Ann 💛

My book 'Healthy Shouldn't Be This Hard': https://www.amazon.co.uk/Healthy-Shouldnt-Be-This-Hard-ebook/dp/B0G1DHNRV5

This episode is sponsored by:
POLSEN HEALTH: The compassionate health tracker. Connecting body and mind with unique stress recovery insights so you can live fully today.
👉 15% off with code LWBW15 at https://polsen.health/

Let's be friends!
📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahannmacklin/
📹 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@livewellbewellsarah
🐦 Twitter: https://x.com/SarahAnnMacklin
📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livewellbewellpodcast

Louise O'Neill:
📚 A Bigger Life: https://lnk.to/ABiggerLife
📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oneilllou/

Chapters
00:00 Trailer
01:20 Introduction: A Bigger Life, Eat Pray Love for the Hinge era
01:46 The breakup that came just before 38
03:00 A year of intensive healing: ayahuasca, a shaman and a Catholic priest
03:57 "I need to improve myself because I'm not lovable enough"
05:12 Why rejection brings up feelings of worthlessness
08:06 "If you want a bigger life, you have to take bigger risks"
08:56 Rejection exposure therapy: the more dates, the braver she felt
11:48 What a bigger life means to her now
12:36 "I was sorry that I hadn't left earlier"
14:05 Sponsor break: Polsen Health
15:52 Walking down the aisle without enough self-trust
16:40 The greatest betrayal: not trusting yourself
18:02 "There are no good men left": the dating cesspit myth
19:02 How the algorithm feeds scarcity after a breakup
20:42 The worst date: catfished in France
22:48 The Central Park date that turned frightening
24:02 Seeing someone again, and how to follow up
25:12 Getting ghosted
29:58 Why modern dating feels so hard: we've all been hurt
32:43 "Do I like them?" instead of "Do they like me?"
35:20 "Do not rush": eggs, engagement and the 39th birthday deadline
38:35 Why the date she was least excited about was the best
40:46 Hinge height filters and the six-foot problem
42:13 Casting the net wider: Sarah's house search
45:25 Uncertainty, ambiguity and why risk is liberating
46:42 Staying curious and the fear of ageing
49:04 "Not just a memoir, a manifesto"
51:06 A kiss under the Eiffel Tower and the parallel life
55:46 Turning 41 and the pressure of a new decade
57:46 Tools for constant worry: presence, nature and her dad
59:34 Panic attacks, beta blockers and a cracked tooth
1:02:41 Throwing away the script
1:04:32 Freedom and feeling alive
1:05:34 Falling back in love: the LA fires and meeting on Hinge
1:07:29 "I'm a really good first date": what love showed her still needed healing
1:11:26 Hyper-independence and losing her uncle at 14
1:12:54 "When I was supposed to have lost the love of my life, I had never felt so loved"
1:13:58 What's next: a new novel, West Cork, London and New York
1:16:25 Aliveness, women's health and ageing
1:19:03 The myth that women become less valuable as they age
1:20:06 Male fertility and the clock men don't talk about
1:21:22 Egg freezing and choosing motherhood on your own terms
1:23:04 The child-free friend who shaped her childhood
1:24:16 Choosing to adopt at 38
1:26:45 What does Live Well Be Well mean to you?
1:27:38 Holding on to hope

This week’s Live Well Be Well Moment is with Matt Haig, bestselling author and mental health advocate.

Matt opens up about his shoplifting addiction as a teenager, explaining how it was never about the things he stole, but the dopamine hit, and how getting arrested at 16 was what finally stopped him.

My book ‘Healthy Shouldn’t Be This Hard’:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Healthy-Shouldnt-Be-This-Hard-ebook/dp/B0G1DHNRV5

📖 If this resonates, you can join the thousands who read The Compassionate Cure each week.
https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/

Let’s be friends!

📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahannmacklin/
📹 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@livewellbewellsarah
🐦 Twitter: https://x.com/SarahAnnMacklin
📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livewellbewellpodcast
💌 Newsletter: https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/

This week’s Live Well Be Well Moment is with Silva Neves, an accredited psychosexual and relationship therapist.
Silva unpacks the manosphere, explaining why it’s less about ideology and more about money and fear, before sharing his clinical perspective on Bonnie Blue and the extreme end of the shame-free spectrum.

My book ‘Healthy Shouldn’t Be This Hard’:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Healthy-Shouldnt-Be-This-Hard-ebook/dp/B0G1DHNRV5

📖 If this resonates, you can join the thousands who read The Compassionate Cure each week.
https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/

Let’s be friends!

📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahannmacklin/
📹 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@livewellbewellsarah
🐦 Twitter: https://x.com/SarahAnnMacklin
📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livewellbewellpodcast
💌 Newsletter: https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/

This week I’m joined by Frank Anderson, Harvard-trained psychiatrist, psychotherapist and one of the leading voices in trauma treatment, for a conversation that goes far beyond traditional therapy.

What we explore together:

• Why trauma treatment was never meant to be a single method, and what 11 years of psychoanalysis taught him about its limits

• The viral “does trauma live in the brain or the body” debate, and what his close friend Bessel van der Kolk actually meant by The Body Keeps the Score

• Why attraction is often about unhealed wounding, not love, and how it shaped his own first marriage

• What it actually looks like to heal trauma through the body, not just by talking about it

• Why he believes we’re entering “the era of the body,” and what that means for AI and disconnection

Love, Sarah Ann 💛
My book, Healthy Shouldn’t Be This Hard:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Healthy-Shouldnt-Be-This-Hard-ebook/dp/B0G1DHNRV5

This episode is sponsored by:

POLSEN HEALTH: The compassionate health tracker. Connecting body and mind with unique stress recovery insights so you can live fully today.

👉 15% off with code LWBW15 at https://polsen.health/

📖 If this resonates, you can join the thousands who read The Compassionate Cure each week.

https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/

Let’s be friends!

📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahannmacklin/

📹 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@livewellbewellsarah

🐦 Twitter: https://x.com/SarahAnnMacklin

📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livewellbewellpodcast

Frank Anderson:

🔗 Website: https://www.frankandersonmd.com

📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frank_andersonmd/

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:40 Why “trauma” is such a loaded word to open with
02:08 Generational reactions to trauma: boomer denial vs. Gen Z over-identification
03:59 Changing the whole paradigm on trauma
05:07 Why therapy alone doesn’t work for trauma
05:25 11 years of psychoanalysis and The Integrated Path to Healing Trauma
08:34 “Trauma is a violation of agency”
09:34 Regaining self-trust and reconnecting to your intuition
10:30 His first marriage and recreating his parents’ dynamic
12:37 Sponsor break: Polsen Health
14:47 People pleasing as a survival strategy, not a trauma response
18:03 The origin of his own people-pleasing: his father, Harvard and “To Be Loved”
22:02 The Bessel van der Kolk “Body Keeps the Score” debate
23:14 Working with celebrity clients in LA, and being attacked for something he didn’t do
27:18 Setting the record straight: it’s not brain OR body, it’s both
29:57 “Nobody’s trauma is the same, it’s like your fingerprint”
32:02 The pushback on his next book’s proposed title
33:52 What resilience actually is, and his own “baby in a crib” trauma
39:54 Blending science and spirituality
42:55 How trauma shows up as physical illness (asthma, migraines, back pain)
45:11 The choking sensation and learning to speak his truth
47:58 Preverbal trauma and healing through the body
50:45 Journaling, the Sarno method, and a client physically releasing repressed rage
56:17 Why trauma memories are stored differently (Ruth Lanius)
57:34 Why Frank won’t do a session without movement
58:14 Healing chronic pain through surfing and ecstatic dance
59:54 Why therapy’s 50-minutes-a-week format fights neuroplasticity
1:00:38 Healing a jellyfish-sting trauma through surfing after the Palisades fire
1:03:11 Trauma blocks love, and love blocks trauma
1:04:28 Why we’re attracted to people with the same wound
1:08:16 “Love is my husband”: 27 years together
1:16:27 Healthy love, nervous systems, and the difference between an emotion and a reaction
1:23:18 Internal Family Systems and the difference between self and soul
1:29:15 Why trauma resists a single definition
1:33:16 Holding uncertainty in the healing process
1:38:28 AI, disconnection, and “the era of the body”
1:45:27 Why Frank moved to Hollywood
1:46:19 Frank’s closing thesis: healing is possible
1:47:44 What does Live Well Be Well mean to you?

This week’s Live Well Be Well Moment is with Matt Haig, bestselling author and mental health advocate.

Matt talks about being diagnosed with ADHD in his mid-40s, why he hates the word “diagnosis,” and the years of feeling like “a weirdo” before he understood why.

My book ‘Healthy Shouldn’t Be This Hard’:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Healthy-Shouldnt-Be-This-Hard-ebook/dp/B0G1DHNRV5

📖 If this resonates, you can join the thousands who read The Compassionate Cure each week.
https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/

Let’s be friends!

📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahannmacklin/
📹 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@livewellbewellsarah
🐦 Twitter: https://x.com/SarahAnnMacklin
📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livewellbewellpodcast
💌 Newsletter: https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/