This is Not Therapy

MEMO TO MOTHERS This is a reminder that you are Head of Department in the largest, most complex and vital organisation in the world. Specifically, you are in charge of the people who will ensure the continued success of this organisation. Every day you negotiate peace between warring factions. Haggle over contracts, keep your end of the bargain and make sure everyone gets to bed, clean, fed and with the correct teddy bear in their possession. You mastermind crisis meetings, fundraisers, dinners. On any given morning you can whip up a Willy Wonka or Fantastic Mr Fox outfit in under five minutes. Everyone in the company has the freedom to explore their creativity, knowing you will scoop the mess up afterwards. Forgive me, if I get het up sometimes. I wish you’d stop trying to maintain invincibility and invisibility simultaneously. I wish you'd realise it is impossible to pay you an adequate wage. I wish you’d realise there is no point waiting for others to notice. Your children will only thank you at some indeterminate point in a far-off future. They’re so lucky you don’t just drop everything. But you wouldn’t. You never let this department down, and the only person who thinks otherwise is yourself. In this matter, you are wrong. You will have to take it from me that without you, the world would actually stop. You are Head of Department in the largest, most complex and vital organisation in the world, and sometimes this responsibility breaks you. Let it. There is an even stronger person waiting inside to emerge. A woman you had no idea you could become. Thanks for reading This Is Not Therapy with Tina Sederholm! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tinasederholm.substack.com

Last year I recorded this trio of odd little stories about encounters with strangers from call centres. It was supposed to go out as a podcast, but the timing never seemed right. But, after discovering this treasure as I de-cluttered my computer, I decided it deserved to be out in the world. In a couple of weeks I will finish a re-vamping of my Substack. It will be new and improved. There will be even more deep diving into precious moments, to re-kindle awe and wonder, to find the marvellous in the mundane.Until then I hope you enjoy what is probably the only podcast I will release this year. May it bring you ten minutes of pleasure and thoughtfulness. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tinasederholm.substack.com

Join me for another incredible conversation with novelist, artist and ultimate shapeshifter, Rob Bell. We discuss his new novel, There's Only One Noon Yeah, naming yourself and then growing out of that name, the many shades of love, including how to keep falling in love with your spouse, and a new definition of that over-used word, enlightenment.Between us we also create an epic piece of performance art, featuring how to turn a tech hiccup into a metaphor for geo-political crisis. It's just a thing we do.Find Rob:Instagram: @realrobbellPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/robbellBuy the book, There's Only One Noon Yeah, from www.robbell.com or in the UK, https://amzn.eu/d/dncGRa4Find Tina:www.tinasederholm.substack.comwww.tinasederholm.comInstagram: @tinasederholm This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tinasederholm.substack.com

Let me tell you a story…One rainy Thursday in March, I was driving my friend and fellow poet, Ciaran Hodgers to Oxford train station. He’d performed at my gig, Everything’s Working Out Poetically, the night before and we had stayed up too late, drinking whiskey and eating M&S Pistachio and Almond cookies.We started the 40 minute drive by simultaneously saluting a single magpie and laughing at how we both did it without missing a beat in the conversation. A conversation about poetry and the seasonal nature of creativity.  A conversation that made me brave enough to share a secret. Namely, that after my book, This Is Not Therapy, came out in 2021, I was unable to write a poem for about year, or if I did, it was a tired facsimile of an old idea. It was as if I had wrung everything creative out of myself and put it into that book. But this time, the spark was not coming back. I’d begun to believe that my time as poet was over. It felt like a death.Then in early 2023, Ciaran sent me a poetry manuscript to edit. It was for his upcoming collection, Solastagia. In particular, there were three poems central to the collection that he couldn’t unwind. There was something about working with that material, around the intersection of mental health and the natural world and what it means to be part of that ecology, that started to bring me back to my creative self. I didn’t tell him that at the time - it would not have looked professional - but now, in the car, I could thank him for being the catalyst for me falling in love with the process of poet-ing again.You know, he said, I had the same experience  of creative grief after my first book, Cosmocartography.How did you bring yourself back? I asked as we turned into the station car park.It’s a bit of a story, he said. And I have a train to catch.Hold that thought, I said. We should record this. I think there are other people out there who would find it useful.And here it is. One of the best conversations I have ever had about dealing with the fallow times. Seeing creativity as seasonal, not a ceaseless conveyor belt of productivity. Seeing our creative selves as land that needs time to recover, and how to do that in our hectic, hustle-obsessed world.May it bring you the hope and nourishment that it did for me.Care to join us at The Mourning Pages?More info and tickets hereMore about Ciaràn.Buy his books hereThanks for reading This Is Not Therapy with Tina Sederholm! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tinasederholm.substack.com

After This Is Not Therapy  was a book and a show but before it became a Substack, it was a podcast. A podcast that celebrated finding the ‘marvellous in the mundane.’ The podcast has been on an extended holiday for reasons that are too boring and varied to go through here but I am glad to say that all the episodes are now available on Substack! Hurrah!Also we have a new bonus episode. It’s the edited highlights of our Spring edition of Everything’s Working Out Poetically, and as most of you are not in Oxford, it will give you an experience of a live poetry show like no other.It features poets Rehema Njambi, Paul Askew and our superstar headliner Ciarán Hodgers as well as myself and speed poet, Clare Bold.So if you would like to indulge in a profound, heartfelt, sometimes explicit, often silly exploration of Love, listen on.The next edition of Everything’s Working Out Poetically will be on Sunday 13th October at the Old Fire Station Oxford. If you would like to join us, you can buy a ticket here.CW: Explicit material, sex, strong language This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tinasederholm.substack.com