This month’s newsletter is dedicated to the loving memory of my dear mentor Lesley Urbach, and my great-uncle (who really was great!) Sam Sheridan, both of whom passed away in June 2026.
May both their memories be for a blessing.
You know how sometimes the most random movie scene sticks in your memory? Maybe it’s the screenplay’s dialogue, an actor’s perfect delivery – or maybe just the timing, watching it at a moment that catches you in a particular way.
For me, one of these is a scene from the 1997 film My Best Friend’s Wedding, which I saw in the cinema when it first came out. A Cameron Diaz–Julia Roberts classic.
For anyone not up on their 90s rom-com trivia: the film follows a woman (Julia Roberts) who is in love with her best friend, but never says so – until he announces his engagement to someone else (Cameron Diaz). It’s a light-hearted comic film, full of physical gags and quick one-liners. But there’s one quiet, tender scene towards the end that has stayed with me all these years.
Julia Roberts’ character is alone with the man she loves. He says:
“If you love someone, you say it. You say it right then, out loud. Otherwise the moment just passes you by.”
Right on cue, she seems about to say it – the audience can see her teetering on the edge. But she doesn’t.
You watch her calculate that she’s left it too late.
The moment passes.
Final Goodbyes
This month, I’ve had two painful reminders of the unlikely lesson that this rom-com instilled in me, as two people dear to me died in close succession.
It brought to mind something that has surfaced again and again across many episodes of this podcast: the way grief reshapes our sense of balance.
Sometimes it spurs people on to take risks and seek adventure – as it did for Ruth Todd. Sometimes it teaches self-compassion through loss and recalibration, as Katie Ford described. And sometimes it prompts a deeper reckoning with one’s own legacy, as Johnson Situ reflected on.
I explored this wide-ranging theme in more depth in Episode 48: “The Pursuit of Balance When You’re Grieving“ – one of the hardest episodes I’ve ever produced.
Though it doesn’t take away the pain and sadness of loss I’ve felt this month, I feel grateful that in both cases, I had seen these people recently – and that on both occasions, I’d made a point of telling them how much they meant to me.
I look back on that now with real gratitude and wonder if I’d feel more off-kilter had that not been the case.
Finding Balance In The Small Moments
So, my work-life balance reflection this month is a simple one: a reminder to tell the people you love that you love them. Not when the moment feels perfect, not in carefully chosen words – just in the moment when you feel it. Out loud. While you still can.
When the busy rush of the day tips your balance off-kilter and you’re juggling competing priorities, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s in front of you, and to put things off until later, especially when they are steady constants that we’re used to having around us.
But sometimes the simplest gestures – like making sure the people who matter most actually know it – can enhance our sense of balance even incrementally. And sometimes what feels like a small thing in the moment can leave a lasting imprint on both our lives and theirs.
Coming up on the pod…
This July, the Work-Life Balance Confessions podcast is going live!
We’re holding our first in-person event to celebrate the podcast’s 5th anniversary – a drinks reception and workshop for mums of tweens, teens and young adults, featuring a panel of four brilliant former guests: Soli Lazarus, Jhilmil Kishore, Bettina Jacobs and Emma Livingstone. Follow the links to listen back to their episodes.
Advance booking is essential, and all the details are here.
If this particular event isn’t for you, do keep connected via the blog, newsletter and our social media pages as we have more events in the pipeline for different listener groups.
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