SeroTunein

When someone you love is struggling — not with their heart, but with their mind — do you even have the words? For many raised in cultures where community comes first, emotional pain is something you endure quietly so you don't become a burden.

In the series finale of SeroTunein, host Kurien Thomas unpacks the cultural scripts, gendered silences, and unspoken rules about what you're allowed to feel and who you're allowed to tell. Five Asian American young adults get honest about therapy, masculinity, and the inherited habit of keeping two faces.

But there's a quieter revelation too: the long car ride, the hike through the woods, the fruit left at your door. None of them is a conversation about feelings — and all of them are how love gets spoken anyway.

In this episode:

• Why Asian Americans are about half as likely to seek mental health services
• The particular struggle young men face in showing vulnerability
• How "acts of service" become a language of care
• Why the confusion of living between two worlds might be the source of our creativity

🎧 This is the final epidose of the series. Subscribe, follow @serotunein, and share it with someone who might see themselves in these stories. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

For a lot of Asian Americans, well-being was never a conversation — it was a result. Study hard, perform, and if it looked okay on the outside, you were assumed okay on the inside.

In this epidose of SeroTunein, host Kurien Thomas sits down with five youth ambassadors from the 2025 World Expo and asks a deceptively simple question: when did you last feel a strong sense of personal well-being? The answers surprised him — less about rest, more about autonomy, being seen, and finally getting in the "driver's seat" of their own lives.

In this episode:

• A final figure skating performance that closed a full circle
• Why validation sometimes hits hardest from a total stranger
• How running, hiking, and community became lifelines after COVID
• The complicated truth about finding belonging inside your own culture

Part two of a three-part series on culture, identity, and mental well-being.

🎧 Follow @serotunein, and share this episode with someone who's ever felt too Asian for one world and not Asian enough for another. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

What makes a young Asian American fly halfway across the world to represent the U.S.? For five youth ambassadors at the 2025 World Expo in Osaka, the answer was more personal than a résumé line.

In the premiere of SeroTunein, host Kurien Thomas introduces the people behind this series — first-gen kids of immigrant parents drawn to Japan by family history, language, a career pivot, or simply the desire for a fresh start. Together they begin asking the questions they were rarely asked growing up: about expectations, identity, and belonging between two cultures.

In this episode:

• What a World Expo actually is (think World Cup, minus the sports)
• Why so many Japanese American ambassadors chose to reconnect with their roots on their own terms
• The quiet search for community that shapes the first-gen experience

This is part one of a three-part series on wellness, culture, and identity.

🎧 Subscribe and follow @serotunein so you don't miss the next epidose. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — it truly helps the show grow.

Welcome to another captivating episode of SeroTunein! Join your host, Kurien Thomas, as he embarks on a riveting conversation with Jaspreet Singh, an accomplished aviation marketer, travel enthusiast, content creator, and author of the heartwarming children's novel, "Aya and Avi's Airplane Adventure." Jaspreet shares his inspiring journey from a childhood passion for airplanes to a fulfilling career in inflight entertainment, all while breaking down barriers of identity and representation. Discover how travel has expanded his worldview and learn about his mission to inspire the next generation in aviation. Get ready to be uplifted and motivated by Jaspreet's story on this episode of SeroTunein!

Follow Jaspreet on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaspreettravels/

Buy Aya and Avi on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578882558/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_2e8s0b30qcsbdxgdvd17/?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Follow SeroTunein on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/serotunein/

Check out my website: https://www.serotunein.com/

Throughout history, various cultures have harnessed the power of psychedelic substances for ritualistic, spiritual, and healing purposes. From the ancient rituals of indigenous tribes to the counterculture movement of the 1960s, psychedelics have long been associated with altering perceptions and expanding the mind.

Having interviewed folks before on these topics of identity and psychedelic-assisted therapy, I wanted to explore the conversation more about different psychedelic practices and how it influences the perception of ourselves. 

Today's episode is an exciting exploration into the world of psychedelics and how they might help people break inhibitive thought patterns and be a more inclusive tool for well-being. I interview my special guest, Greg Spivak, an optimal health coach who works with clients using various lifestyle practices, breathwork, meditation, nutrition, movement, mindset, and even psychedelics such as microdosing. 

https://www.instagram.com/ofx_coach/?hl=en

https://form.123formbuilder.com/6427733/kurien-referrals

What if we could describe our mood and emotions objectively the same way we translate mathematical equations or measure physical phenomena? Tune into my IG Live with Clement Decrop, founder of the Idea Space. In this epidose, we chat about the similarities math and science have with the mind and consciousness, the cultural notions of mindfulness, and the role an Idea Space plays in building a collective consciousness in society.

Learn more about Clement and the Idea Space: https://theideaspace.io/

Follow the podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/serotunein/ 

We often ask each other “what are you in the mood for?”, yet we sometimes have no idea ourselves how we’re feeling or what our intuition is telling us. But, maybe there’s other forces out there that can help us understand ourselves a bit better…
Tune into my IG live chat with Amalia Natalio, Founder of Karmic Kindness, about the planets, their energy, and what it can teach us about navigating our own wellbeing. 

Follow the podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/serotunein/

Follow Amalia on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karmickindness/ 

In this epidose of SeroTunein, me and my friend Kritika explore the varieties of our cross-cultural confusion as Indian Americans. We first acknowledge the differences in our cultural identity: her being raised Hindu in a family originally from the North Indian state of Maharashtra and me being raised Christian in a family originally from the South Indian state of Kerala. One of us grew up on the West Coast speaking Hindi and Marathi and the other one grew up on the East Coast hearing Malayalam. I’m the other one by the way.

Despite our differences, both of us have experienced similar confusing situations in our American lives: Inviting friends over, asking for help in new settings, personal finances, the whole mix. In this epidose, we take some time to see why these situations felt uncomfortable or unusual in our Indian-American experiences.

Watch the video version on Kritika's channel! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yyP9ajk1VQ

Follow my show updates on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/serotunein/?hl=en

See me on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@serotunein?lang=en

My website: https://www.serotunein.com/

In this epidose of SeroTunein, my conversation with Kavi taught me to understand how experiencing a creative fulfillment in art requires you to reconcile with your identity. For a lot of South Asian creatives like Kavi, that process doesn’t usually come easy: when children born to Indian parents who have begun as immigrants to the United States, they feel a weird disconnection to their Indian heritage and their American way of living and communicating. In this epidose with Kavi, we explore how she navigated through some struggles growing up and feeling isolated from her community to how she explored her identity through embracing these challenges growing up, and how that identity is being expressed through art to make others feel seen and recognized.

Follow Kavi on Instagram: @iamkavi

See more of Kavi's work: https://www.iamkavi.com/

Follow SeroTunein on Instagram: @serotunein

Show notes: https://www.serotunein.com/