Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast The life of a Third Culture Kid therapist
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 197 - TCKs and Fear of Inadequacy | 21 Aug 2026 | 00:24:36 | |
A sense of inadequacy pervades for so many TCKs, and this week I'm reflecting (having had my own bruises triggered) on what pieces of our story make us sensitive to this - and how a sense of "good enough" matters... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 196 - When doing well feels bad | 14 Aug 2026 | 00:23:45 | |
Have you ever found yourself having finally achieved a goal or sitting in a chapter of life that you've been longing for... only to feel a sudden slump of mood, even a sense of dread? I have, and in this episode I ponder how it makes sense to me in the context of my TCK story... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 195 - Powerlessness as a TCK | 07 Aug 2026 | 00:21:42 | |
Powerlessness is a theme that shows up a lot in TCK stories. In this episode I'm exploring why this is and the difficulty of owning the power we gain as adults. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 194 - Rules or Relationship? | 31 Jul 2026 | 00:21:09 | |
I was reminded recently of the nuance between doing things that we feel are good for us because we 'should' or because we want to treat ourselves well. It is not uncommon for me to hear TCKs (myself included!) preoccupied with trying to crack the 'right way' to do our lives, and how this can bring a lot of anxiety. In this episode I explore what would shift if we were more preoccupied with treating ourselves well, than getting it right - and why that can be so hard for us. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 193 - Showing Up in my Garden... and my Life | 24 Jul 2026 | 00:17:55 | |
This week, I'm observing my behaviour around my garden - how I seem to get lost in how to keep showing up to it after the big push of landscaping... and how this is mirrored in many ways as I navigate settledness as a TCK. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 192 - Unpicking Our Limited Stories | 17 Jul 2026 | 00:21:15 | |
This is a bit of processing moment today! I'm reflecting on those familiar sticking places we come back to - the same sinking feelings - and how we can disrupt the cycle by finding and naming the beliefs about ourselves that underpin them. And then change our stories - fundamentally! Walk with me as I ponder! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 191 - A Tiger & a TCK | 10 Jul 2026 | 00:17:31 | |
Today I'm reflecting on how hard it can feel to tell our story in a way that fully reflects our experiences, and the pain of seeing our attempts to share misunderstood. These reflections took me to Rousseau's 'Surprised' piece - where he depicts a tiger in a jungle, frightened in a storm. There is a connection, I promise! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 190 - Tongue-Tied in a Good Story | 03 Jul 2026 | 00:23:12 | |
In this episode, I'm reflecting on my week off recently... and on how hard I'm finding it to tell the story outside of the familiar 'learning and growing' genre, and to instead sit with a new story - where it was straightforwardly and uncomplicatedly good. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Bonus - In Conversation with Lindsay! | 03 Jul 2026 | 00:11:52 | |
This episode tracks a little conversation with the biggest welcome - to Lindsay Linder, Life Story's Communications Associate! Lindsay has been working with me for a number of years now, but thanks to a recent grant, is now coming on board to help me even more - listen for more details! Also do check out my new 'My Team' page for more of her story - https://explorelifestory.com/my-team/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Bonus - In Conversation with Mary! | 01 Jul 2026 | 00:18:15 | |
I am so excited to introduce to you my new team member - associate coach, Mary Talbot! Here is a short episode of us in conversation around her story, and what she's bringing to Life Story Therapies! Do check out the 'My Team' page on the website for more information! My Team | Life Story Therapies Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 189 - TCKs and Social Justice | 26 Jun 2026 | 00:20:32 | |
So many TCKs I meet are deeply invested in social justice issues. Here I explore why this happens, what this involvement contributes to our stories, and how we can navigate identity throughout. And for those interested! https://toilettwinning.org/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 188 - TCKs and the burden to lead | 19 Jun 2026 | 00:18:25 | |
An encounter with a harpist, and the joy of being in the audience. In this episode I reflect on the narrative so many Third Culture Kids encounter around their duty to lead. And for those interested - https://www.eiralynnjones.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 187 - Getting it right, or getting it good? | 12 Jun 2026 | 00:30:27 | |
Here I explore that tension I see myself and so many other TCKs carry in our stories - a sense of needing to figure out how to do life 'right'. I connect this to the necessity in childhood for many of us to figure out the correct way of being for the current cultural context. The urgency that surrounds this can often inhibit our ability to give ourselves goodness... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 186 - Who Didn't You Get to Be? | 05 Jun 2026 | 00:24:49 | |
It's common for Third Culture Kids to ask themselves, 'Who am I?' With Life Story Therapies we look to our stories to inform the answer to this - but these same stories can also help us but showing us who we didn't get to be. There will have been chapters for us where options were limited, as well as opportunities opened, and in this episode I explore how looking at who I didn't get to be can offer expansiveness to our sense of self, if we have a desire to explore it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 185 - First the Grief, then the Change | 29 May 2026 | 00:25:11 | |
Typically, Third Culture Kids carry grief triggered by the changes experienced in their early years. Here, I'm exploring how changes we may be working to choose in later life may actually need us to do grieving first. Grief reminds us of our story, why the things we find hard are hard, and makes space for us to change the next chapters. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 184 - Let Them Love You | 22 May 2026 | 00:26:29 | |
This episode finds me struggling to articulate a sensation I've both felt personally and witnessed in my work with TCKs - a feeling that it's hard to truly trust the love of others as being about us. When we have spent a lifetime working to be useful or likeable by different cultural prisms, it can be hard to let love land as an experience we get to fully participate in, rather than simply work to generate. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 183 - A Birthday Safe and Well | 15 May 2026 | 00:32:11 | |
I'm getting reflective this week in anticipation of my birthday - and pondering especially what it means to acknowledge the degree to which I feel safe and well in this, my 41st year. As I reflect on my TCK story so far, I have been collecting those memories - or reasons - I can honour as part of what has got me here so far, and wonder why 'safe' can be such a complicated word. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 182 - Third Culture Kids and Decision Paralysis | 08 May 2026 | 00:17:54 | |
Third Culture Kids and decisions - it's a topic that comes up a lot and here I work with the distinction between a decision deciding the kind of person we are versus knowing the kind of person we are making sense of our decisions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 181 - Resourcing Mobile Selves | 01 May 2026 | 00:20:15 | |
Authenticity has become a tense word for many Third Culture Kids. It seems to invite us to choose one way of being, one part of our selves to declare as our true self, and condemns us to a kind of consistency of being that can feel claustrophobic. In this episode I explore how we can work with our many selves, negotiating the internal mobility that we need to express them all in fluid freedom. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 180 - Beyond the Map | 24 Apr 2026 | 00:22:32 | |
Inspired by a client recently, I've been pondering how we work with the edges of our maps - more precisely, what do we do when we step off the maps we've walked so far, and start exploring where known self and world are uncharted? After all, as they put it, "There be dragons"... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 179 - When We Are Stuck Where We Don't Want to Be | 10 Apr 2026 | 00:25:32 | |
I talk a lot about how we can process our story so far to understand better the chapters we want to write next... but what happens when we can't write those chapters where we want to? Here I walk through a process I'd invite in these challenging circumstances. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 178 - Civic Spaces and TCK Belonging | 03 Apr 2026 | 00:20:52 | |
Dipping my toes into local civic processes this week - and exploring both my delight and curiosity in the 'local' given the TCK early exposure to 'global'. Join me as I ponder! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 177 - My week of pain, bees, sunshine and 'it's okay' | 20 Mar 2026 | 00:25:57 | |
A meandering episode this week - where I reflect on how I tell the story of my week, and how my narrative echoes a hesitation I hear for a lot of TCK stories, and how hard it is to let the little things take up space. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 176 - TCKs and Maslow - Self-actualised... and grumpy | 13 Mar 2026 | 00:20:28 | |
Finishing up this mini-series on TCKs and Maslow with questions about what self-actualised actually looks like for us as TCKs? What does fulfilled and meeting our potential even look like? And I am, ironically and perhaps rather perfectly, recording this on a day where I don't feel at all 'my best self'. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 175 - TCKs and Maslow - Do you think you are interesting? | 27 Feb 2026 | 00:24:37 | |
This episode tackles the self-esteem tier of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. I've spoken before about self-esteem and TCKs, but here I focus on the ways in which TCKs learn they are interesting... and are those things about us, or what's happened to us? And what difference does it even make? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 174 - Pleased with Myself | 30 Jan 2026 | 00:21:33 | |
How do we feel about the phrase, 'pleased with myself'? Very often we consider this feeling only allowed after very defined achievements - when we have done/completed/perfected something. This episode explores how this works when we've grown up with a sense of truncated time, and not feeling able to identify as 'complete'. How can we celebrate participation, rather than perfection? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 173 - TCKs and Maslow - Love and Belonging | 23 Jan 2026 | 00:22:48 | |
So many of us orient ourselves around the question, "Where do I belong?" In this episode I ponder what flipping the script could do for us - "Where do I want to belong?" Join me and, as always, I'd love to hear your feedback so send that through to rachelcason@explorelifestory.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 172 - New Year, Old Me | 16 Jan 2026 | 00:22:41 | |
Happy 2026! In this first episode of the new year, I'm pondering how the TCK experience interacts with 'new year, new me' energy! I'm also wondering how the 'old me' might feel about that... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 171 - Seasonal Traditions - or Habits? | 23 Dec 2025 | 00:25:07 | |
This year I've been encountering a new awful question - not 'Where are you from?' but 'What are your Christmas traditions?' In this episode I get curious about what I find difficult about this question - how traditions can be hard when you've seen and experienced so many different versions of this season, and yet what cultivating habits around this season can do for us. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 170 - TCKs and Maslow - Safety Needs | 05 Dec 2025 | 00:20:28 | |
And here we have the second instalment of our Maslow series... Safety Needs! What does safety and risk actually mean in our TCK stories? And how do we see these play out in our current chapters? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 169 - TCKs and Maslow - Physiological Needs | 28 Nov 2025 | 00:21:32 | |
This is an episode I've been pondering a while - how do TCKs perceive their own needs in terms of an internalised hierarchy? I explore where Maslow's ideas and my own observations around need-juggling and autonomy interact here - and specifically around our physiological needs. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 168 - Incoherent | 21 Nov 2025 | 00:18:26 | |
Today's episode is pondering around how hard we work to create coherence, and my own experience this week of wanting to let incoherence be. TCKs often work so hard to prune and curate their stories, and I'm exploring here the relief I feel at not doing that today. Thanks for joining me! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 167 - The Rules that Find Us Wanting | 14 Nov 2025 | 00:20:30 | |
What if we actually listed out our expectations of ourselves? What if we really allowed ourselves to acknowledge the many and competing ideas of how we 'should' be, the ones we have collected through our cultures and places - and sat with how utterly impossible they all are to satisfy? And then let go and grieve... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 166 - Now I Can Be Scared | 07 Nov 2025 | 00:21:08 | |
I felt fear this week - fear jumping over time stamps, into my now. How do we explain feelings that show up out of space and time, dislocated within our own story? How do we understand fear when we are safe? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 165 - Art that Retrieves our Story | 17 Oct 2025 | 00:21:08 | |
This weekend I went to a print fair - and found a piece of art that triggered an unexpected TCK encounter. What is it about images that can press on those tender parts of our story so well? Check out the artist at www.beicreative.co.uk or on Instagram @_beicreative Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 164 - Loneliness and TCKs | 10 Oct 2025 | 00:23:11 | |
I had some soft slow sadness hit this week - and it took me a while to identify it as loneliness. This episode explores where and why loneliness might be a familiar part of our TCK story. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 163 - Dancing on Social Convention | 03 Oct 2025 | 00:26:03 | |
So I've just been to a wedding - and broke a few of my own self-imposed rules. Here I talk about the moment of choice - to sit back and wait and watch before acting, the context necessary for the risk I took, and the after-effects of the choice I made. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 162 - Feelings as Clues | 26 Sep 2025 | 00:21:17 | |
In this episode, I observe the difficulty so many TCKs have with acknowledging their feelings - especially feelings of discomfort. Why is this, and what do these feelings have to contribute to our story? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 161 - Birthdays, Celebrations and Getting it Right... | 19 Sep 2025 | 00:17:00 | |
So, I found this episode I recorded way back in July! Excited to finally bring it to you - meandering though how TCKs might navigate birthdays and other celebrations when belonging is so often tied into the shape of those modes of celebration and traditions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 160 - Sabotage... or Resistance? | 12 Sep 2025 | 00:32:20 | |
Back after a long summer gap - but reflecting on the processing there and on a theme showing up a lot this week - self-sabotage! This is an exploration of what are the stories we might be in when we watch ourselves deviate from our own goals and plans - TCK-style! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 159 - I finished the to-do list... and it feels weird | 11 Jul 2025 | 00:23:44 | |
Reflections on how things actually going to plan - life doing what we wanted - can actually trigger anxiety in TCKs! Even finishing my to-do list... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 158 - TCK Creatives | 04 Jul 2025 | 00:17:56 | |
Introducing a new online group for TCK creatives! If you are a TCK who loves working creatively, join us via Facebook (just search 'Third Culture Kid Creatives') and discover how many TCKs are exploring their stories creatively, using these creative outlets to process their experiences. The link to the group on Facebook is https://www.facebook.com/groups/1431710724484174/ See you there! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 157 - Grief Sticks | 27 Jun 2025 | 00:11:52 | |
Inspired by a conversation with another TCK, I've decided to make tangible representations of all those losses that have felt so hard to name - especially the loss of things that we never had - and invite you to do the same. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 156 - The Focus on Arrival | 20 Jun 2025 | 00:17:14 | |
What happens with perfectionism collides with a short internal timeline? This episode I'm exploring the way in which our TCK experiences can shorten our sense of timeline, keeping our focus on achieving 'completion' even with those aspects of life that are just never going to be 'done'... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 155 - Are you allowed to be happy? | 13 Jun 2025 | 00:18:39 | |
So in this episode I'm exploring the ways in which we absorb different cultural ideas about what kind of life is supposed to make us happy - aka, are we allowed to be happy with something outside of that? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 154 - Sit with me and be | 30 May 2025 | 00:12:05 | |
A shorter one today - This is me just finding myself wanting to sit and be, so I thought I would do it with you - pondering what it is to be still in the midst of spinning between the different facets of self... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 153 - Now that I'm 40... | 23 May 2025 | 00:20:09 | |
I've turned 40! So cue reflections on aging, the ways in which our cultures and places contribute to our perspective on age, and a poem. Thank you so much for being with me for so long, and I'm so grateful to have arrived here, with you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 152 - Tolerating the Awkward | 16 May 2025 | 00:18:38 | |
Good at smoothing out social glitches? Feel desperately uncomfortable being 'demanding'? Welcome to the club! I hear so many of us struggling to tolerate the awkward... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 151 - Control and Decision-making | 09 May 2025 | 00:19:36 | |
I hear so many TCKs characterise themselves as 'control freaks'. Here I unpack what control might mean to us, given our TCK stories, and how our experience of control impacts our confidence around decision-making... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 150 - Behind Our Own Eyes | 02 May 2025 | 00:20:19 | |
As TCKs we can spend a lot of time in other people's heads - looking at ourselves from their perspectives. What happens when we get back behind our own eyes? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||