The Podcasts You Need In Your Life – bringing depth & soul to the mundane
I never understood the podcast thing. My husband has been an avid podcaster for probably the last decade, often choosing to listen to them doing pretty much anything – driving, doing exercise, washing up, laundry, ironing. He is always plugged in. In all honesty it used to drive me crazy, I’d be calling him in the house and nothing. Literally nothing, silence. And I’d been talking to him 3 minutes earlier. So naturally given this love for podcasts he has been trying to get me into them for a good decade. I’m always behind the curb with these things and not uncommonly for my nature I have dug my feet into the ground every step of the way. In fact my own daughter was ahead of me by the time she was 5 listening to audiobooks and kid podcasts. In my opinion there were no podcasts you need in your life. Not to actually enjoy, I always felt like it was a bit like listening to the news sometimes. Why did I think that? I guess perhaps it was that he was listening to things he was interested in – politics, This American Life, Ted talks and super nerdy ones (no offense hubs). Don’t get me wrong, I have heard some seriously amazing Ted talks and some really interesting This American Life ones. But they can more often than not be heavy. You know what I mean? I heard enough heavy on the news, I generally need to surround myself with uplifting information and learning.
I have actually never even been an avid music listener. I know, I know what? I always get confused looks. I can’t listen to music when I’m working unless it is instrumental and often I get overwhelmed if I’m in the car or house and the rest of the family have pumped up the volume. Being on car music duty always initially sends dread running through me and always takes a good half an hour for me to warm up to it. I feel like the walls begin to close in on me and get that deer in the headlights feeling when I’m in a confined space with loud music. Don’t get me wrong I used to love loud music in clubs, drum n base, electro were my jam. I suspect my lacklustre for music started to wane when screaming babies arrived and constant chatter of toddlers began. Silence became a commodity and something I searched for daily. Podcasts you need in your life? As far as I was concerned the thought of having to listen to someone else make noise was too much.
Enter Covid-19. I began to realise I wanted music in the house, especially during the late afternoon when I was flagging and was really fed up. So I suppose the next step was finding podcasts I needed in my life. I also noticed over the summer holidays when we had long car journeys that when the children were plugged into their electronics in the car I was at a loss of what to listen to.
I would say I lean heavily into escapism. I’m the one who will have her head in a Fantasy novel, or lost in a poetry book or creative nonfiction like Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert. So perhaps is wasn’t a surprise that I had seen one of my favourite Instagram artist accounts was advertising their podcasts. Being an artist myself and having always worked in the creative industry this seemed like the perfect fit. I had finally found an area I was actually interested in. Creativity, creativity in business and all things creative. Then from there I began to slowly expand my listening to other things like female Christian speakers, inspirational talks that make you look inward and podcasts that talked about things that matter. I soon found I was listening to podcasts when I walked the dog, on a run, cooking, driving, painting, you name it. I had finally joined the hoards and stepped into the 21st Century. A decade late, but better late than never!
A year ago, Good Housekeeping reported that well over a million podcasts and over 29 millions episodes of podcasts avaliable there is probably a lot of rubbish out there – there is a podcast of pretty much any genre from comedy talk shows to influencers talking about fake eyelashes. So if you haven’t yet fallen into the Alice and Wonderland of podcasts you need in your life rabbit hole, first up you need to find what listening app you are going to use.
The 3 Best Podcast Apps
- Apple Podcasts for the iPhone users. Free to download, you can stream and download podcasts to listen to off wifi. You can even set automatic downloads on all your favourite podcasts to ensure you don’t miss any.
- Google Play for android users. Again another inbuilt podcast app that is free to download and should come ready with most android devices.
- Spotify – this one is a no brainer. If you already use Spotify for music listening which a huge amount of people do then this is a logical step graduating from just music listening to podcast listening too. Neatly all in one place. If you aren’t a premium subscriber you will have to endure ads but this feels like not a huge price to pay for the convenience of having them all in the same place.
Podcasts You Need In Your Life
- How To Fail, Elizabeth Day
Failing is something I personally have always struggled with. The fear of failure often follows behind me like a shadow I can’t get rid of. Recommended by a close friend of mine, this podcast is a constant reminder that the only failure is not getting back up again and trying again. You can find interviews with The Holistic Psychologist Dr Nicole LaPara, world renown magican and illusionist Derren Brown, award winning author Matt Haig and many more.
- Unlocking Us, Brene Brown
What’s that? Had you at Brene Brown? I know right. Does anything else really need to be said? For me I love connection. Honest, raw connection with other likeminded people. It fills my cup up and fills my lungs with oxygen. Brene has two decades worth of exploring and studying this human connection and the courage that it takes. Learn about new research and what it means to be human through honest conversations between her and who she is interviewing and talking to.
- We Can Do Hard Things With Glennon Doyle
Author of Untamed and speaker of truth, I fell head over heels in love with this podcast. I am not exaggerating when I say this is a podcast you need in your life. Talking with her wife and sister about deep, meaningful and honest conversations on topics from both theirs and their listeners. This podcast is picture of the unadulterated beauty and mess of life. You will laugh, you will cry, you will scribble to write down quotes that rock you to your core. You will want to talk to your own friends about them and you will learn things about yourself and be challenged. Some people see through the baggage we carry around, straight to the core and truth like lasers in the night. Those are my kind of people.
- Susan Nethercote Studio Insider Art Podcast
This is for all the creatives out there. Being an artist myself I had been following artists on Instagram for many years. Over the years I have found myself so drawn inparticularily to Australian artists. I don’t know if it is my Australian blood (one of my grandmothers was Australian) or something more intrinsic in the zeitgeist of what is happening in Australian artists in the last 5 years. Whatever it is Susan Nethercote and artist herself, talks about running a profitable art business having a flourishing art practise and interviews some amazing guests and artists. They talk about all sorts of topics such as neurodiversity, the healing power of art, the flaws of the current art education systems and much more.
- Delicious Ways To Feel Better, by Deliciously Ella
Deliciously Ella is a very well known couple who were one of the forerunners in championing veganism and food consciousness. She had some extremely popular recipe books, went on to open a restaurant and are slowly building their empire. This podcast is all about gut heath all the way to mental health, anxiety and everything in between. They cover topics like mindfulness and meditation, understanding mental health, food as medicine and so on. A fantastic podcast if you are interested in whole body health.
This is one of the first podcasts I ever listening to while I use to need to switch off while walking my dog. Run by the wonderful Jess Sands a military spouse and small business owner, she has made it one of her missions to shout to the roof tops about the wonderful mil spouse community in the UK and beyond. She interviews some amazing military spouses, partners and other-halves about their small business ventures. Military spouses are often undervalued (don’t you agree?!) and this podcast arrived at such a crucial time. You may even find an episode where she interviewed me! Go take a listen, her new series has just been released too.
Then there are audiobooks…..but that’s for a whole different article! So for right now let’s just stick with the podcasts you need in your life. I can promise they’ll bring depth & soul to the mundane and you’ll be wondering like me why you’d never gotten there sooner.
