Let's talk, people

This episode is about making and breaking plans - both in business and in our creative and personal lives. It's about why we say we want to do a thing (like start a business, take a dancing class, start a podcast or a youtube, start eating right, working out, sleeping earlier) but then we don't do it, and what to do about that.

It's a weird thing to say but in a way, I've spent most of my life with blinkers on.... steadily, steadfastly preparing to die. I am only just starting to learn how to live, really. Or to indulge in life. This episode is me poking at that idea and unraveling it out loud.

On navigating beginnings. And how loooong they are. And how most of the time you're driving blind. But more than that, beginnings are this unspoken renegotiation of your relationship to the thing you're beginning.

Being in the middle of something hard is, well, hard. And right now, we've been thrown into a lot of hard things, especially with this insane pandemic. There is tons of uncertainty and anxiety and panic and cognitive dissonance about. But amidst all of it, here's a tiny sliver of a somewhat bright side: Being forced into a hard situation forces us to learn how to be okay there - even if we start out as not.

When emotions are high it's normal to feel like you're spiralling out of control and at the mercy of your feelings. But it doesn't have to be that way. It is possible to master your emotions and regain control - but the path there goes against our ego and isn't what our logical mind would have us believe.

It's brave to be afraid. Don't you know?

I don't really know where I'm from. I was born in London, England. Grew up in Ontario, Canada. My parents and grandparents are from East Africa. But if I never told you, you'd never know--because I don't look or sound like any of the above.

This episode is about the time I broke up with my now-husband. And how that single break up conversation pointed me to a box I had very carefully and meticulously and unintentionally made for myself---a definition of love that I was suffocating inside of.

What is your creative process? Do you know? Sometimes I am so head down in the muck of mine that I forget I'm in one. And that it will end. But also it starts up again on auto-repeat if I'm not careful....

No, I'm not talking about the kind of safe words Anastasia Steele used in Fifty Shades of Grey. The safe words I'm talking about are subtle. We use them all the time, every day, mostly unconsciously.

Some people speak two languages. I speak in two accents. ((And I've spent most of my life hiding one from the other.))

This episode I talk about rules. Invisible rules. The kind that make us give (unwarranted) side eye to "that guy over there" who is chewing way too loud, or that bully us into laughing at a joke we definitely do not think is funny but everyone else is laughing, so.

#StayHome is hard. Not just because I thought I had Corona and freaked out. But also because staying home means no distractions. No escape, really. It's down to me and the mini horror series in my head I call my thoughts.

Introducing Let's talk, people with Hannah Shamji