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 wi...

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...

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 performa...

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 ho...

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 e...

Send us a text S3E5 Everything’s Working Out…Poetically This week’s episode features edited highlights of Everything’s Working Out Poetically, recorded the the Old Fire Station in Oxford, November 14th 2023, which asked, How do you makes sense of a world that’s more chaotic than ever? With poetry, of course! Join Tina Sederholm and her gang of spoken word legends, including Danny Chivers, Clare Bo...

Send us a text S3E4 Where’d You Park Your Spaceship? Sometimes you take a risk and the risk comes off. I asked one of my all time heroes, New York Times bestselling author Rob Bell, if he would come on the podcast. And he said ‘Yep.’ What?! On my little old podcast? We talk creativity and resistance, creative resistance, and the healing power of bread. Oh and about his new novel, ‘Where’d you park...

Send us a text S3E3 Do This One Thing Every Day Early career writers often get the advice to ‘Write Every Day’. Adverts for fitness and self-improvement products exhort you to ‘Just do this for 10 minutes a day and your belly/ bank balance/life will change forever.’ But is it actually sustainable to do something every day? Let’s find out. REFERENCES Natalie Goldberg https://nataliegoldberg.com/ Ad...

Send us a text S3E2 Winners Never Quit, Quitters Never Win What motivational quotes really get up your nose? In a slight departure from our normal format, I’m going to spend the next few episodes exploring common bits of life advice that are supposed to be uplifting and inspiring but can equally cause frustration. And the first one is…Winners Never Quit and Quitters Never Win. Thank you to Rick Do...

Send us a text S3E1 Treat Your Money Like Your Lover This is Not Therapy is back for a third season, and yet again I’m kicking off with an off-piste episode where, instead of the usual format, I interview a fascinating individual to set the tone for the rest of the season. This time I am talking to my good friend Ivonne Senn about our relationship with money. Uh Oh… If thinking about money, handli...

Send us a text S2E10 Read Hitchhikers! Do you have a book that you return to over and over again? What is it about that story? Is it getting lost in it that helps, or does it contain some wisdom, some clue that helps you makes sense of a chaotic world. In my early teens and twenties, that book for me was Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I lost touch with it for a couple of decades, though I’m rep...

Send us a text S2E9 Till Debt Us Do Part Money and debt can be triggering at the best of times but during a cost of living crisis? Let’s not even go there. But maybe we should. Maybe it’s time to look those fears in the face, or at least peak between our fingers at them. In 2016, I wrote a show called Till Debt Us Do Part. Now I return to that show, to see if anything in it can calm my current bra...

Send us a text S2E8 Memo to Mothers (and Those Who Are Not) Whether you are blessed with child-bearing organs or not, I bet at some point in your life you tussled with yourself about whether to have children. I know I spent most of my twenties trying to avoid having children and then when the countdown to closing of that door began, I spent an inordinate amount of time and tears, trying to come to...

Send us a text S2E7 Rest: The One that Got Away Ever find yourself saying, ‘I’ll just get that job done and then I’ll have a sit down,’ only to move onto the next task, having possibly put some water in the kettle, but never having made that cup of tea? No? Just me then. Seriously though, how easy do you find it to take a genuine day off,  without worrying about that you have coming up next? If yo...

Send us a text S2E6 Hello Failure, My Old Friend   In a world obsessed with success, Tina makes friends with disappointment, setbacks and the F-word. Featured Poem: Failure, You Make Me Interesting , from the collection Everything Wrong With You Is Beautiful REFERENCES Fat Boy Slim   https://www.fatboyslim.net/   ‘Praise you’  (You should definitely watch this if you want to cry with happiness.) C...

Send us a text S2E5 Snow Leopardess and Me Have you ever broken something you loved? Or been broken by it? My first love was horses, and yet by the age of 30, all the joy had gone out of the relationship, and I thought I could never get it back. I was wrong about that. Listen on to find out about the extraordinary set of circumstances that brought me back to my love of horses. REFERENCES   https:/...

Send us a text How do you integrate lifechanging moments back into your everyday world? In fact, how do you return from anything? Tina goes on an unexpected pilgrimage with surprising results. Featured Poems: Revelation, from the collection This is Not Therapy REFERENCES Hotel des Arts https://www.arts-hotel-paris.com/ Rob Bell  https://robbell.com/ Monet's Waterlilies (image) https://parisre...

Send us a text S2E3 Miss Coneybeare-Cross’s Composition Competition  Why is it, that when you find something you want to do - write a book ,get a new job, get fit etc -  your mind instantly comes up with all the reasons why you can’t or shouldn’t? In this week’s episode Tina tells the story of an early brush with resistance and reveals several ways she’s found to dissolve her resistance…well, to j...

Send us a text S2 E2. Nellie’s Perfect Nuggets It’s all very well finding the marvellous in mundane yet pleasant things, but what about finding the marvellous in icky things? Tina takes on the challenge in this episode, with the help of Nellie the dog, Liz Gilbert, and a strong dose of toilet humour. Featured Poem: On Marriage, from the collection Everything Wrong With You Is Beautiful Subscribe t...

Send us a text Welcome back to series 2 of This Is Not Therapy! In a change from our normal programming, today I interview Eleanor O’Brien, sex positive theatre maker and all round wonderful mensch. We talk about following wildly improbable dreams, making theatre with integrity that normalises pleasure and showing up with joyful vulnerability, and the peaks and pratfalls of performing at the Edinb...

Send us a text S1E10 Making Friends with Gratitude How do you feel when someone asks you what you are grateful for? It should feel good, right? I struggled with gratitude for years. It felt like a straitjacket imposed from the outside, as something I should be, but because I didn’t feel grateful inside, I must be a bad person. Good thing I sorted that one out then, isn’t it? Featured Poem: How I a...

Send us a text S1E9 Who Are You? What do you say when a stranger asks you ‘What do you do?’ Is your job title enough to describe who you are? Or does the answer make you chafe? Tina takes an irreverent look at the labels we give ourselves and asks if they aren’t always a bit too small for us. Featured Poem: Prediction, from the collection Everything Wrong With You Is Beautiful Recorded live at the...

Send us a text S1E8 How Old Did You Say You Were? Ahhh….ageing. Happening to all of us, even those who look very young. Here’s a way to make peace with not only ageing, but any so-called youthful mistakes. Featured Poems: Letter to Tina of the early 90s , from the collection This is Not Therapy , recorded live at the Edinburgh Fringe 2022 Poem 2: Earlier Reports of my Flaws have been Exaggerated,...

Send us a text S1E7 How To Delight Your Dental Hygienist I know what you’re thinking. Ahh, Tina’s doing one about dentistry/people pleasing. And you could be forgiven for thinking that, bearing in mind the title. But in fact, it’s about…resistance. (Through the medium of resisting one particular aspect of dental hygiene, and the discussion thereafter.) So. What simple action or task do you ferocio...

Send us a text  S1E6 I Assume You Know What You Are Talking About Yes, yes we all know what assumptions do. They make an ass out of me and…umption. Seriously though, assumptions are tiny hidden engines that run our thinking and influence our decisions. In this episode, Tina seeks out some of her assumptions and explores a situation where several of them collide. Subscribe to Tina’s monthly newslet...