When the house goes quiet, your social life needs a plan

Listeners follow Roanna through the emotional shift from full-time mum to quiet weekends. She reflects on how easy it is to lose the habit of making plans for yourself, and how loneliness can sneak in between school drop-offs and work calls. Through Ynkyer, she shows parents that the first step isn’t grand reinvention - it’s a small, intentional meet-up that reminds you who you are beyond the parent role.

About Roanna White

Roanna White, podcast guest

Exploring Loneliness, Identity, and Starting Over in Midlife

Founder Ynkyer social enterpriseAuthor The Quiet CrisisMaster’s degree Education, Teaching English as a Second LanguageTeacher Professional background

Roanna White knows what it feels like to sit at home on a Saturday night and wonder where you belong. In her 40s, a divorce, mental-health challenges, and the quiet after her children grew more independent exposed a deeper truth: she was surrounded by people yet still deprived of connection.

A teacher by profession, Roanna kept showing up for others while doing the slow work of healing herself. She explored talk therapy, then somatic therapy and chanting, which helped her body process old trauma and gave her a way back to herself. Travel became medicine, and solo trips reminded her she could meet new people and new parts of herself at the same time.

As the fog lifted, she noticed how many others were quietly navigating the same ache. Newcomers to a city, parents between busy weeks, people craving company for everyday things like a walk or a meal. That realisation became Ynkyer: a social enterprise building a safe platform for genuine companionship. No dating, no therapy, no agenda, just real people and real connection.

Her reflections on this wider cultural loneliness led her to write _The Quiet Crisis: Understanding and Healing Loneliness in the Modern World.

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