What you do, is not who you are… I saw this reel on Instagram the other day that mentioned how as soon as you meet someone new, they ask you who you are and follow that with ‘What do you do?’This shows that we place SO MUCH value on linking who a person is to what they do.In this episode, I explore very vulnerably, how I came to realise that I need to really appreciate Hannah as a person, because if I don’t, I will be taking every failure or mistake very very personally for the rest of my life,And who wants to live like that?In this episode I shareHow I let my personal achievements get wrapped up in my self-worth and what I needed to do to unravel that and find myself My experience of getting caught up in a dream that wasn’t mine and what I had learned from thisHow I allowed feeling ‘Less than’ to overtake my path in life and the road it led me down‘It's hard to recognize when the dream is our own. And when it's something that we are told by society that this is what we need to want.’ Hannah Pillow,S1 E3, Releasing the shoulds of being humanInstagram:https://www.instagram.com/releasingtheshouldspodcast/Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/HannahPillow12

Did you grow up in a different country to the one your parents came from?Crossing that cultural boundary can create significant challenges for kids as they navigate being immersed in one culture at home and a very different one in their wider environment. The expectations and role models that are available may differ and consequently send contradictory messages about social rules, having a complex impact on identity development. In the second episode of Releasing the shoulds of being human, Hannah speaks with TJ Wey about what it was like growing up in America as the child of immigrant parents and how she learned to pick and choose aspects of her family heritage and of the dominant culture to embody and integrate, highlighting: The impact of experiencing racial profiling and mirco-aggresisons from a young ageProcessing conflicting information as we grow up about who we “should” be and the impact on our identity development The #VeryAsian movement and giving ourselves permission to be as “Asian” as we want and cherry pick our identity sourcesHow the landscape is changing for multicultural kids in terms of resources that help them integrate their different cultural heritages "My Mom would say that I was her retirement plan. That’s where I felt like I really had to unpick it. Because it’s really easy to say, “Here are the parameters to be a good Asian”, and follow that but when it’s getting in the way of doing other things that you really want to do you have to start saying, “Ok, what part of this isn’t working that I need to make my own?”.”TJ Wey,S1 E2, Releasing the shoulds of being humanShow linksTJ on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tj.wey/The Asian Detox Podcast: https://theasiandetoxpodcast.com/The Asian Detox POdcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asian_detox/ 

Did you also grow up in a community with a strong cultural identity?Those of us who did learned from a young age what was expected of us as girls and as women, and it can take a long time to liberate ourselves from who we were taught we “should” be and discover who we actually are.For Hannah, that inquiry meant removing herself from her family, her husband and her country of origin, and striking out alone.In the debut episode of her new podcast, Releasing the shoulds of being human, Hannah Pillow is interviewed by TJ Wey about her journey of radical emancipation from an Islamic family to being an entrepreneur in her country of choice and founding a company that supports powerful women creating more freedom and possibility for women worldwide. Highlights of her story include: Growing up in an Islamic family with the cultural expectations for women and her complex relationship with her motherChoosing marriage as an escape route from family and landing in another unhealthy environment  Emancipating herself from her culture of origin through divorce and leaving her religion Finding a true escape route by qualifying as a teacher in secret and getting a visa to leave the countryReturning to our childhood environments having built a life and identity we are proud of "There was very little room for me to be a human being growing up. There were so many things that weren’t allowed because of this controlled environment that I was growing up in, because reputation was so important within the community. And reputation would often be disguised as wanting the best for me because of religion; that came with a lot of expectations that I had to be a clone of my mother. This is basically the influence of what I should be.” Hannah Pillow,S1 E1, Releasing the shoulds of being human

FUCK THE SHOULDSBecause life is hard enough already, without having to subscribe to others versions of ourselves,Thankfully, as a society we are now moving away from this mentality,But if you are a child of the 80s like myself,There are remnants of having grown up in an environment and time that strongly influenced our journey to finding ourselvesThis podcast is a beautiful collection of shared experiences from other millennials and some Gen Xers, who come together to vulnerbily share their experiences of releasing the shoulds and finding a way to embrace being human THEIR WAYIf you find yourself in situations where the past keeps showing up, you feel like you are constantly needing to work on yourself and find the mental health work can be draining at times,This is a podcast for you to just LET IT ALL go and take in stories from many of us who feel exactly the sameWe are Human our wayWe are human and its not always easyWe are human and we are TRYING!And that’s okay! Episodes drop 3 at a time every month! Sit with me and enjoy celebrating giving no fucks and being human YOUR WAY.