Two Inconvenient Women

When the world feels overwhelmingly complex, it is often hard to know where to put our energy; which 'crisis' to give our attention to as it were. You may have come across the term 'polycrisis' as it's fast becoming part of the public lexicon. It's not a particularly cheery term, but it is helpful in making sense of the many interconnected and overwhelming crises that we are facing in our lives. T...

For many in the world - those following the Gregorian calendar - January 1st marks the beginning of a new year. Midst the celebrations, revelry and resolutions is often an unspoken expectation of 'newness'. Pressures exist to have "resolutions" that make us somehow a better, fitter, happier, healthier version of ourself. But to what extent do we need this? To what extent do we want this? And to wh...

Poem for a New Year By Matt Goodfellow Something’s moving in, I hear the weather in the wind, sense the tension of a sheep-field and the pilgrimage of fins.  Something’s not the same, I taste the sap and feel the grain, hear the rolling of the rowan ringing, singing in a change. Something’s set to start, there’s meadow-music in the dark and the clouds that shroud the mountain slowly, softly s...

We're taking a break over the holidays and are not recording a new episode of Two Inconvenient Women today. Instead, we're sharing a gift - a whole range of stories of inspiring people from across the world working to create a healthier future for people and planet. From educators in Uganda focused on self-care in leadership to teachers challenging the mainstream to communities focused on nature c...

We begin each podcast episode with a moment of gratitude. But why so? Much more than a 'nice thing to do', the practice of gratitude is ancient - part of wisdom traditions across the world and deeply embedded into spiritual and religious practice. It is a way of strengthening our own sense of resilience and presence, finding meaning in the world and feeling more grounded, connected and present in...

Why don't we talk to our neighbours? This question is asked not to be provocative but more to reflect on what has shifted in our cultures to mean that we can inhabit the same space as people we don't quite know. For some cultures around the world, community and neighbourhoods remain a vital - and vitalising part of daily life, yet for many living in the culture of modernity, our move into hyper-in...

Are you successful yet? When do you know you've "made it"? And - more importantly - is it a place that we actually want to be 'arriving'? Many of us are living in cultures that have a dominant story of success - often associated with wealth, prosperity, career-ladders and progress. Our mainstream education systems teach us how to jump through the hoops on the journey towards success, and our media...

Many people find themselves working within organisations or structures that don't necessarily practice the values that are being preached (or laminated, advertised or promoted). It can feel deeply uncomfortable when our actions are out of line with the values we hold within us, and yet it is often not our choice to have to at in ways that contradict our values. Bit what are values? Where do they c...

The sustainability movement has been going since the 1950s, and ‘sustainability’ is now part of mainstream narrative, awareness and growing action. Yet when sustainability continues to be seen and introduced into organisations as an add-on rather than a process or foundation, how much change is it actually supporting? In this week’s episode we explore the inconvenience of sustainability, thinking...

What do you think of when you think of home? For some it's a building, for some it's a country, culture or identity. For many it's a feeling. Whilst there can be no universal agreement on what home means to us, there is interesting resonance between home and feelings of safety, belonging and sanctuary. Understanding that feeling safe sits as one of our most basic needs as humans helps to elevate d...

AI technologies are becoming increasingly intertwined with our everyday lives. From healthcare, transportation and manufacturing to education, we are already in an entangled web of connection with AI being increasingly used by individuals and organisations, often without conscious awareness. Whilst we can see AI as being a really supportive tool to address so many of the challenges of modernity, t...

This week is half term for UK schools and we've taken time away from the 'day to day' work at ThoughtBox for a reading week - a week to really dive deep into some of the ideas that we're both currently exploring. In this episode we share some of the insights, explorations, wonderings and reflections from what we're currently learning about. In this episode we reference a large number of texts and...

This week on the podcast Rachel is off with the flu and so Holly is joined by guest inconvenient woman Sandy Glanfield, Immersive Experience Curator at Reboot the Future , to discuss the theme of naïvety. In this episode we explore questions around metrics of success, and how naivety plays an important role in bringing creativity, openness, relationship and curiosity to challenges we face. From it...

Having a 'gut feeling' about something is perhaps a familiar sensation to many, but what does this actually mean? When we 'trust our gut' what is it that we're listening to? And how are intuition and gut feeling connected? In this episode we dive deep into the 'wider senses' of the human body and think about what sort of additional intelligence we can be drawing on in our daily lives. Gut instinct...

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 Rache...

This week, Holly and Rachel are 'on-tour' for the podcast, which was recorded live from underneath a fig tree in a beautiful quad at Exeter College in Oxford. The (slightly shorter this week) recording took place one lunchtime mid-way through Europe's largest trauma, mental health and wellbeing conference hosted at Oxford University, under the title 'Healing our relational world'. Bringing togethe...

In many societies across the world, we find a dominant habit of record keeping as part of the daily focus. Paperwork, recording, data-capture, spreadsheets, documentation and report-writing have become a staple of many organisations across the world; whilst our education systems and business models are firmly structured around ‘capturing data’ - oftentimes valuing this data above all else. We can...

“There's laundry to do and a genocide to stop…” This first line of a short poem by Vinay Krishan hits hard, not least because it captures so powerfully the complex and confusing state we are finding ourselves in. How to we navigate the day to day process of living in the midst of so many overwhelming crisis all around us? How can we make sense of actions and unfoldings that literally cannot make s...

This time of year often beckons us to go "back to work". For some it's the beginning of a new academic year. For others it's a return to work after an extended holiday or summer break. For others it's the time to begin a new cycle. But do we really want to be 'going back' and do we really want to be 'working' for a living? In this week's podcast we inquire about the nature of work, and think about...

What is national pride all about and where does it stem from? Following a recent surge in the flying of the Union flag and St George's flag in parts of England this episode dives deeply into the meaning of national pride, the complexities and emotions it stirs up and the painful histories involved in the creation of nation states. From exploring a brief potted history of countries and colonialism...

A new season is upon many of us at this time of year. Summer shifting into Autumn, the beginning of a new school year, a new work cycle. Maybe just returning to work after a rest. In all of the excitement of 'beginning again' there often comes also a slight pause within us all, asking us "Am I wanting to keep doing this? Is this allowing me to be all I want to be?" This week, Rachel shares a poem...

Our August break continues here at ThoughtBox, so this week we're sharing a short collection of previous episodes where we dive into the nuance of environmental wellbeing and what it means to learn to care for our planet. Some of the highlights from our past three seasons are this mini-series are below: Season 1, Episode 4: Falling in love with the world Season 2, Episode 7 (Exploring the inc...

Our August break continues here at ThoughtBox, so this week we're sharing a short collection of previous episodes where we dive into the nuance of social wellbeing and what it means to learn to care fully for our communities, both local and global. Holly also shares a poem by Rosemary Wahtola Trommer called 'Belonging'. Some of the highlights from our past three seasons are this mini-series are be...

This August, we're taking a break here at ThoughtBox, so we're sharing a collection of previous episodes where we dive into the nuance of personal wellbeing and what it means to learn to care fully for ourselves. In this mini episode, Holly shares a poem on the theme of personal wellbeing, and introduces some of the highlights from our past three seasons, which make up this week's mini series: Sea...

What happens when we allow ourselves to fall back in love with the world? For many people it may feel obvious why we need to protect the earth and prevent run-away climate change and species extinction. Yet it may not be so clear as to how changing our relationship with the natural world is just as pressing – if not more so – than any environmental activism. When we take time to notice how incredi...