What did you mistake for love? That’s the question I want to start with today.

Because sometimes we spend years asking the wrong questions. Why did I stay? Why did they treat me that way? Why didn’t I leave sooner? Why does she keep going back? Why would anyone put up with that? We can be so quick to judge someone’s choices without ever stopping to wonder what happened underneath them.

This episode comes from Chapter Three of my new book, The Great Investigation, a book built around one simple idea: what if we learned to ask ourselves better questions?

Because our brains can be incredibly quick to judge. We see someone struggling, behaving differently, staying in a relationship that hurts them, repeating a pattern, or making choices we don’t understand, and almost instantly, we create a story about who they are. But where did we learn to do that? Who taught you to judge?

So much of what we carry is learned. Racism is learned. Shame is learned. Prejudice is learned. The language we use is learned. The beliefs we form about ourselves and other people are often handed to us long before we’re old enough to question them. And sometimes, we don’t even realise we’re carrying someone else’s beliefs.

So what happens when we finally stop and investigate?

Instead of asking, “Why did I stay?” we can ask, “What did I mistake for love?” Instead of asking, “Why didn’t my intuition make me leave?” perhaps we ask, “Why did I stay when something inside me was telling me to go?” And instead of looking back at every relationship and deciding whether it was a success or a failure, we can ask, “What did each relationship teach me?”

Because perhaps the people who hurt us aren’t simply chapters we’d like to erase. Perhaps they’re clues. Perhaps the patterns we keep repeating aren’t proof that something is wrong with us. Perhaps they’re invitations to investigate what we were taught, what we believed, what we tolerated, and what we confused with love.

And maybe this isn’t just about the people we’ve loved. Maybe it’s about the way we’ve learned to see ourselves, too.

So today, we’re going to look at the mirrors we’ve been handed, the mirrors we’ve chosen, and the reflections we’ve spent years believing were actually us.

This is The Great Investigation.

And the first question is a simple one—but it might change the way you look at your entire history:

What did you mistake for love?

Welcome back to Scars Beneath the Scars. This is Episode 13, and this one might make some of you stop, some of you think, and maybe even question what you thought you understood about power, control, dominance and submission.

Because what if surrender isn’t weakness? What if dominance isn’t about anger or control? And what if the difference between abuse and surrender isn’t what it looks like from the outside, but whether there was a choice?

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I’ve had to really look at my own assumptions, especially when you bring trauma, trust, sexuality and healing into the conversation. And what I discovered surprised me.

So before we judge the whip, the word “Daddy,” the dominant, the submissive, or the people who choose to explore this world, let’s take a step back and ask a different question: what happens when somebody finally feels safe enough to surrender?

This is Episode 13: The Difference Between Power, Control and Surrender.

What does “ride or die” really mean when we take away the fantasy?

In this episode of Beneath the Scars with Zoe, we dive into the deeper meaning of loyalty, trust, friendship, protection, passion and choosing someone—not because you need them, but because life feels better with them beside you.

We hear the phrase “ride or die” everywhere: in music, movies, friendships, romantic relationships and even throughout some of the most complicated stories in history. But somewhere along the way, we’ve confused loyalty with blind devotion and staying with someone no matter what they do. Zoe explores why that isn’t real loyalty at all, and why betrayal can be the very thing that destroys the foundation a ride-or-die relationship is supposed to be built upon.

Drawing from her own experiences with love, heartbreak, betrayal, vulnerability and the walls she’s learned to build when someone breaks her trust, Zoe explores what it actually means to be safe with another person. She talks about the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation, protection and possession, intensity and intimacy, and why your lover should also be someone you genuinely like—your friend, your confidant and the person you can laugh with when life gets ridiculous.

This isn’t about finding a perfect relationship. It’s about finding something real.

It’s about having someone who knows you deeply, makes you laugh, can handle your intensity without trying to tame you, and never asks you to become smaller to make them comfortable. Someone who can hold your vulnerability without weaponizing it. Someone who can be passionate with you, peaceful with you, honest with you and still choose you when life isn’t easy.

Because maybe being someone’s ride or die was never really about asking, “Would you die for me?”

Maybe the better question is:

“Would you live beside me?”

Join Zoe as she explores the kind of love where loyalty isn’t blind, passion isn’t chaos, protection isn’t possession, and commitment doesn’t mean losing yourself.

A love where two whole people choose each other.

My ride or die. My lover. My best friend. My safe place.

Welcome back to Beneath the Scars with Zoe. Today we’re going somewhere a little more intimate, a little more uncomfortable, and hopefully somewhere that makes you question some of the things you’ve been taught about sex, pleasure, your body and intimacy.

We’re going to talk about the complicated relationship so many of us have with our sexuality and the way we see ourselves. We’re going to talk about insecurity, body image, shame, desire, sexual tension, pleasure, trust and what happens when the experiences we’ve had with other people follow us into the bedroom. Because sometimes the person standing in front of us isn’t the person we’re reacting to. Sometimes we’re reacting to somebody from our past, to something somebody said, something they did, or something they made us believe about ourselves.

We’re going to talk about why some of us struggle to let go and simply experience pleasure, why our minds can suddenly take over when our bodies are trying to feel, and why we can find ourselves watching ourselves from the outside instead of actually being present inside our own bodies. We’re going to explore the difference between sexual release and intimacy, between performance and sensation, and why trust can completely change the way we experience touch.

And we’re going to talk about tantric sex, because I think there is a lot of mystery and misunderstanding around that word. What actually is tantric sex? Why is slowing down so different from simply rushing toward an orgasm? What happens when we stop treating sex as an act and start experiencing it as sensation, anticipation, connection and trust? And could some of those principles help us reconnect with parts of ourselves that have become disconnected through insecurity, shame or past experiences?

We’re also going to have a conversation about sexual exploration. Because I genuinely don’t believe there is anything wrong with being curious about your own body, learning what feels good to you, or exploring different ways of experiencing pleasure. But exploration should never mean ignoring your own boundaries or somebody else’s. Who you’re exploring with matters. Your body needs to feel safe with that person. You need to be able to communicate, slow down, stop, change your mind and know that you will be respected.

And if this is something you’ve been curious about but you’ve never really known where to start, stay with me until the end. I’m going to include a simple tantric massage guide for those who are interested in exploring. It isn’t about giving you a rigid set of instructions that you have to follow. It’s about giving you some understanding of the principles behind it, how to approach it, how to create the right environment, how to use touch with awareness, and how to pay attention to the responses of the person you’re with.

Because this isn’t about performance. It’s not about proving how good you are at sex or trying to achieve some particular outcome. It’s about learning to slow down, communicate, listen and actually experience what is happening.

And perhaps that’s the biggest message I want to leave with you throughout this episode: there is absolutely nothing wrong with exploring your sexuality and learning about your own pleasure. But explore with curiosity, explore with consent, and most importantly, explore with somebody your body feels safe with.

Because sometimes our minds can say, “I’m fine,” while our bodies are telling us something completely different.

And that’s what we’re going to get into today.

The scars we take to bed, the stories we carry into intimacy, the things that can get in the way of pleasure, and whether learning to feel safe enough to experience our bodies again can change the way we experience sex, intimacy and ultimately ourselves.

EPISODE 10 — WHO THE HELL IS OUT THERE?Sex, Swipes, Scams & Situationships

Dating has changed—and bloody hell, what a world we’ve walked back into.

Once upon a time, we dreamed of meeting someone across a crowded room or reaching for the same onion in the supermarket. Now it’s swipes, DMs, ghosting, catfishing, scams, situationships, sexual expectations and an endless parade of possibilities.

In this episode, we dive into the strange, funny, frustrating and sometimes downright bizarre world of modern dating—and ask the question so many of us are secretly wondering:

Who the hell is actually out there?

Because somewhere between the sex, the swipes, the scams and the situationships, there might still be someone looking for something real.

But underneath all the chaos is a bigger question: Are we becoming so cynical about modern dating that we’re forgetting there are still good people out there looking for something real?

Maybe the question isn’t just Who the hell is out there?

Maybe it’s who the hell are we brave enough to let in?

Sometimes we just need that reminder …Keep Going …

Welcome back and this is Fifty Shades of WTF. Yes, that is actually the title, because if you’re over fifty, single, divorced, dating, thinking about dating, recovering from dating, or simply watching the whole dating world from a safe distance while wondering what the hell happened to people, you probably understand exactly where I’m coming from. Dating after fifty is a completely different bloody game. When I was younger, I thought dating was about finding love, getting married, building a life and growing old together. I thought I’d have that great love story where, at ninety, we’d still be smacking each other’s arse and giggling like teenagers. That was the plan. Apparently, somebody forgot to tell my two ex-husbands.

So here I am, fifty, divorced twice and back in the dating world, looking around and occasionally thinking, “What the actual fuck happened?” Because dating at this age isn’t just about finding someone attractive and deciding whether you fancy going for a drink. We’ve accumulated decades of life, experiences, relationships, heartbreak, lessons, scars, bad decisions, good decisions and, in some cases, enough emotional baggage to require its own bloody baggage carousel. And yet here we are, downloading dating apps and trying to decide whether a photograph of a man holding a fish tells us anything useful about his personality.

But underneath all the humour, there’s something I really want to investigate. I’m not here to give dating advice, and I’m certainly not here to tell you how to have a successful relationship. After two divorces, I think we can agree that would be slightly ambitious. What I want to do is look at ourselves and ask some uncomfortable questions about why we chose the people we chose and why we stayed where we stayed. We tend to ask ourselves, “Why did I put up with that? Why didn’t I leave sooner? Why wasn’t I stronger?” But I’ve started wondering if we’re asking the wrong questions. Maybe the better question is, “Why did I believe I needed to stay?” And perhaps the biggest question of all is, “Why did I believe that was all I deserved?”

That’s where the investigation gets interesting, because suddenly we aren’t just talking about our exes anymore. We’re talking about ourselves, our childhoods, our fathers, our mothers, our experiences, our wounds and the things we learned about love long before we ever went on our first date. That is where The Great Investigation comes in. Not as a way of blaming our parents or our exes, and certainly not as an excuse for the choices we’ve made, but as an invitation to become curious about ourselves. What were we looking for? What were we trying to prove? What did we believe love was supposed to feel like? What did we believe we had to do to be chosen? And what did we believe about ourselves?

Because maybe dating after fifty isn’t just about finding someone new. Maybe it’s about finally understanding ourselves well enough to stop repeating what we’ve already lived through. It’s about figuring out the difference between chemistry and chaos, being loved and being needed, partnership and motherhood, compromise and disappearing. And if we’re going to step back into the dating world at fifty, we might as well have a bloody good laugh while we’re investigating it.

So welcome to Fifty Shades of WTF — dating again after fifty, finding ourselves somewhere between the train wrecks, the red flags, the right swipes and whatever the hell comes next.

Trigger Warning: This episode contains discussion of the death of a child, SIDS, grief, loss, and the devastating emotional pain that follows. Some of the content may be difficult or triggering for listeners who have experienced child loss or bereavement. Please listen when you feel emotionally safe to do so.

Sometimes an episode isn’t planned.

Sometimes it simply comes from somewhere inside you that says, I need to share this.

This is one of those episodes.

For Episode Eight, I’m sharing some of my crumbs of pain—pieces of writing I originally wrote in my very first book, Inside Me, alongside parts of my own story that I’ve carried for many years.

I’m going to talk about my daughter, Maxie, and the devastating loss of her life to SIDS. I’ll talk about the kind of love that can be so enormous that when it is suddenly taken from you, it feels like it has destroyed every part of you.

Because sometimes we don’t understand just how deeply we can love someone until we are forced to live without them.

There are pieces of grief that never completely disappear. We learn to carry them differently. We learn how to breathe around them. We learn that healing doesn’t mean forgetting, and it certainly doesn’t mean that the pain never visits again.

I’m still coming through it.

Maybe I always will be.

But I came through places I once thought would destroy me.

And within those places, I found words.

Words that became Inside Me. Words that held my pain when I couldn’t. Words that eventually helped me begin to understand that even the deepest wounds can become part of the story of who we are—not the end of it.

So today, I’m opening those pages again.

These are my crumbs of pain.

And perhaps, somewhere within them, you might find a crumb of your own.