Two Inconvenient Women

One of the foundational premises that underpins the work of ThoughtBox is our inconvenience. We're an organisation that questions the status quo; that raises a hand in conversations to ask the vital question: "Why?"; the folks who appreciate that there are always other stories to be heard, to listen to and to perhaps follow instead. It's not easy being inconvenient - it's often quite a lonely place, but it is a place that allows us to do what is right, not what is easy. It takes courage, conviction and a lot of energy - and the recognition that the more of us there are being inconvenient, the more likely we are to turn the tide towards a more health-ful way of living together.

In this episode we shine a light on some of the reasons for standing up for the moral injury of these times and how becoming inconvenient can be both liberating and energising in the work ahead. We are (excitedly!) launching in this episode The Inconvenient Club: a place for all of you out there who also question the status-quo to come join us and be part of a movement of inconvenience.

In this episode we reference the following:

The Inconvenient Club - membership club (website)
Moral injury (website definition)
A profession built on hope, strained by loss - Rhett Ayers Butler (article)

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RE-LISTEN: This episode was recorded in October 2025.

A painful truth in our current cultures is how much we are all struggling with our mental and emotional wellbeing. This is especially true in young people who are facing an increasing amount of overwhelm in their lives in this VUCA* world (*volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous). And yet the ways of suffering and the ways of wellbeing are actually two sides of the same coin...

Holly and Rachel are just back from Europe's largest trauma, mental health and wellbeing conference hosted at Oxford University, under the title 'Healing our relational world'. Bringing together over 3000 educators, therapists, mental health practitioners and healers with world-renowned trauma and emotional health experts, the conference was an extraordinarily rich and deep insight and exploration of how to heal our connection with ourselves, each other and the wider world.

In this episode we dive deeply into some of the 'brokenness' of our world (our inner and outer worlds) bringing in our own decade of research along with learnings from the conference. We look at some of the patterns in human behaviours that connect all of these elements of brokenness to better understand how to notice them and how to heal. We explore the impact of early attachment on shaping our relationships and the profound ways of healing in ourselves, our communities and with the planet. We touch on how the ways to respond to the symptoms and root causes of disconnection are the same and explore the foundational routes to healing.

In this episode we reference the following:

Dr Dan Siegel - professor (website)
Dr Bessel van der Kolk - psychiatrist (website)
Dr Richard Shwartz - therapist, author (website)
Linda Thai - trauma therapist (website)
Interpersonal Neurobiology - Dan Siegel (video)
The Body Keeps The Score - Bessel van der Kolk (book / website)
Internal Family Systems - Dr Richard Shwartz (website)

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THROWBACK EPISODE: This podcast was first recorded in July 2025

“I will never apologise for embracing joy and beauty - even when the world is falling apart – for joy and beauty are the fuel for my activism”.

These words by Karen Walrond are one of the inspirations for this week’s conversation on 'Joy', exploring how cultivating joy is both a way to resource ourselves and build the resilience needed to meet the challenges of our world. Joy is often seen as being the same thing as happiness, and yet these two emotions are profoundly different; one coming from external sources, one being cultivated from within. It is not a surprise that the practice of joy is embedded into all world religions as it can become a deeply spiritual practice – as well as a beautifully infectious state to find ourselves in.

In this week's conversation we dive into the meaning of joy, how it shows up in our lives; how activists across history have cultivated joy in their lives and work and what happens when we learn to practice joy as part of our daily rhythms.

In this episode we reference the following:

Mission: Joy – Dalai Lama & Desmond Tutu (video)
Habits for practising joy - ThoughtBox (PDF)
Seeking Language Large Enough – David Whyte / On Being (podcast)
Climate Courage Campaign – Climate Majority Project (website)
Joy Over Fear – St Ebbe’s School (website)
Schools of Dreams - Kimberley Oliff Cooper TEDx Talk (video)
The Fun Habit - Mike Rucker (book)
Glorious – MaMuse (Rachel’s current favourite joyful song)

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All of us are former children and for most have memories of some of the stories we read or were told when we were children. As adults, many of us still encounter these stories - whether from reading to young ones or for our own enjoyment. As a medium, children's stories are doing more than just keeping young people entertained - they are pathways for growth; helping to navigate some of the challenges, hurdles and opportunities of life in a safe and supported way. When starting to explore why storytelling is a foundation stone for human evolution, our entire understanding of children's stories can begin to expand.

As former English teachers, Holly and Rachel have read and taught a lot of fiction to younger readers and we both are avid readers of children's stories, advocating the deep wisdom to be found in many classic texts, no matter our age. In this conversation we explore the why, what and how of the values and constructs of children's fiction; explore how myth and storytelling has passed down through human history; think about the impact of films on story learning and reflect on some of the wisdom of key classic texts across the world.

In this episode, we mention:

Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise - Katherine Rundell (article)
C. S. Lewis on Writing For Children - CS Lewis (article)
Meister Eckhart's Book of Darkness & Light: Meditations on the Path of the Wayless Way - Jon M. Sweeney, Mark S. Burrows and Meister Eckhart (book)
The Death of the Author - Roland Barthes (book)
Triple WellBeing Storybooks - Rachel Musson & Alex Brenan (storybooks)
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The concept of social contracts in modern culture came through the work and philosophies of folks such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau as a way of communities agreeing to behave and trust in collective ideals. Whilst intentions may be valid, the structures of this imposed model of organising communities falls down when trust is broken - and we're finding ourselves in that state of collapse in many countries and societies around the world. Which has the potential to open up different ways of belonging and living alongside one another - ways that come not from an imposed and centralised narrative, but that actually work within the contexts and communities we live in.

In this week's episode we talk about the impact of the social contract falling away, and the reneging of social promise in many parts of our societies. We discuss where trust comes into the equation and explore models across our human story that shine a light on more robust and localised ways of building resilient and healthy communities.

During the conversation we reference the following:

The Social Contract - Jean-Jacques Rousseau (PDF)
Local Futures (website and movement)
The real Lord of the Flies - Rucker Bregnan (article)
Beyond Civilisation - Daniel Quinn (PDF)
Transforming Leadership - online short course (website)

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