I Want a Relationship But First🪬🖤I Want a Relationship But First🪬🖤
Life's Spice Podcast
Shay talks openly about wanting relationships while still being unhealed, stressing inner child work, self-love and clear boundaries before dating. She weaves in personal experiences, emotional maturity, online safety and practical tips for building healthier connections with both yourself and others.
1:27:52•24 Oct 2026
Want a Relationship? Start with Yourself First
Episode Overview
- Work on healing your inner child and building self-love before seeking a romantic relationship.
- Dating can be treated as an interview process: keep your body to yourself and focus on truly getting to know people.
- Stop chasing anyone who doesn’t plan, show effort or recognise your value; their inability to see you is their loss.
- Unhealed inner children often run adult relationships, so addressing emotional immaturity is essential for healthier connections.
- Stay safe by meeting dates in public, sharing your location, monitoring device use for yourself and your children, and limiting doom-scrolling.
“Do you love you enough to be alone?”
Curious about how others handle love, loneliness and healing at the same time? This episode of Life’s Spice Podcast sees hostess Shay chatting candidly about relationships, self-worth and the inner work that has to come before coupling up. Speaking to anyone who’s “yearning and asking and praying for a relationship”, she breaks down why unhealed people pairing up with other unhealed people can feel exciting at first but quickly turns messy.
Shay owns her past patterns, saying she once expected partners “to show up for me in a way that I wasn’t even showing up for me”, and uses that honesty to nudge listeners towards inner child healing, self-respect and clearer boundaries. Dating culture gets a big reality check too. Shay shares her take on shooting your shot, letting men plan the date, and refusing to chase someone who can’t see your value.
She asks blunt questions like, “Do I love me enough to be alone?” and challenges anyone clinging to chaotic relationships to admit when they’re simply afraid of their own company. The conversation widens out into emotional maturity: how unhealed inner children run the show, why tantrums in adult bodies ruin relationships, and how reconnecting with all versions of yourself can shift how you show up in love.
Shay also touches on her time in treatment, her father’s work as a drug and alcohol specialist, and a technique for working with the “inner family system”. Towards the end, she switches into big-sister mode with practical safety reminders about online dating, meeting in public, watching your kids’ social media use and being careful with late-night trips and doom-scrolling.
If you’ve ever thought, “I want a relationship, but I’m a bit of a mess”, this conversation might have you asking: what would change if you dated yourself first?
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