Bella Mackie: "Nobody tells you motherhood is a choice"

The Shift with Sam Baker

Sam Baker Ltd

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.8 • 525 Ratings

🗓️ 10 September 2024

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

My guest today is Bella Mackie. Until her mid-30s Bella was a journalist, then she wrote a book called Jog On and her trajectory changed - dramatically. Ostensibly a book about running, Jog On was actually a soul-baring account of Bella’s battle with anxiety, OCD and depression and how, ultimately, running saved her. It was one of a wave of books that blended memoir with motivation and was a big and unexpected hit. Then, a couple of years ago she wrote the brilliantly titled How To Kill Your Family. TikTok fell on it. Cue 47 weeks in the top 10 and a Netflix series. Not jealous at all. Now she’s back with the equally twisted What A Way To Go. In which more highly unlikeable people get their comeuppance. Well, some of them. Truly Bella can come up with ways to kill a loved one you hadn’t even dreamed of! Bella joined me to talk about being child-free and building your own roadmap to ageing without kids in the equation. We also discussed her childhood obsession with true crime, how there’s not a top trumps of mental health and why she still has a long way to go to fight her way out of the good girl box. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including What A Way To Go by Bella Mackie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Hannah from the Standard Issue podcast. Join us every Wednesday for rated or dated.
0:05.3	Well, we watch a famous or sometimes infamous film to see whether or not it has stood the test of time.
0:11.7	This week, we watched The Birds, Pretty Woman, Flash Dance, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, Casablanca, Rosary's Baby.
0:20.5	It's the 18s in a film, isn't it? None of thieves. Casablanca. Rosemary's baby. It's the 18s in a film, isn't it?
0:23.1	None of this makes any sense.
0:26.8	It's like putting on the comfiest pair of pajamas.
0:30.7	She's like, oh, what could that be?
0:32.7	Oh, what do you think it is?
0:33.8	It's loads of birds.
0:35.1	And they naturally live happily ever after.
0:38.0	Do they?
0:39.3	It's quite a feminist parable.
0:41.0	Terribly, terribly dated, but I did have a nice time watching it.
0:43.8	Absolutely 100% dated.
0:46.1	A triumvirate of rated.
0:47.9	A lot of results.
0:49.1	You can listen to standard issues rated or dated wherever it is you listen to your podcast.
0:54.1	And make sure you follow us to find out what we do on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
0:59.7	Spoiler alert, it's a lot.
1:07.5	Hello and welcome to The Shift, the podcast that aims to tell the no-holds-bar truth about being a woman post-40, created and hosted by me, writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker. My guest today is Bella Mackey. Until her mid-30s, Bella was a journalist. Then she wrote a book called Jogon and her trajectory changed dramatically.
1:30.5	Ostensibly a book about running, Jog On was actually a soul-bearing account of Bella's
1:35.2	battle with anxiety, OCD and depression. It was one of a wave of books that blended memoir
	...

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