Talk Therapy

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This week on Talk Therapy, I’m sitting down with the man behind JT Vissuals and JT Studio Haus, Jackson Edwards.

Jackson grew up believing he’d have a long career in the AFL. He dedicated so much of his life to footy, only to be delisted after just 12 months. Now, he’s building successful businesses, navigating fatherhood and exploring his faith in a way he never expected.

There’s SO much to take from this conversation! What happens when the life you planned for yourself doesn’t happen? How do you let go of the identity you’ve built around one thing? And what if the things you thought were setbacks were actually redirecting you towards something else?

We get into:

• Being delisted from the AFL after chasing the dream your entire life

• Why your identity can’t be tied to one version of your future

• Going from an elite sporting environment to washing dishes at a cafe and figuring out what’s next

• Perfectionism, high standards and the mindset of “if I can’t do it properly, I won’t do it at all”

• How perfectionism can impact your relationships, communication and ability to show up for the people you love

• Why we sometimes avoid things when we feel like we can’t do them perfectly

• Navigating family relationships, independence and learning to make your own mistakes

• Finding faith later in life and learning to trust a path you can’t fully understand

• The fear of being judged for something you’re still learning about yourself

• Why you don’t need to have all the answers before you start exploring something that matters to you

• The pressure to appear a certain way on social media when the reality behind the scenes can look completely different

• Building a business with a purpose beyond yourself and creating opportunities for other people

• Becoming a dad and thinking about the lessons you want your children to learn from watching you

• Why sometimes the right people in your corner can change the entire direction of your life

  
  

This conversation really came back to one thing: you don't have to have your whole life figured out to keep moving forward.

Thank you for being here and for listening to another episode of Talk Therapy. I’d LOVE to hear what you take away from this one, so come and chat to me over on Instagram. @christinapengilly @talktherapy.pod 🤍

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Episodes drop weekly on Wednesdays. See you next week! xx

Thank you for being here!

This episode is a little life update and a bestie catch-up after a few very chaotic weeks, followed by a Q&A answering some of your questions from Instagram.

We get into:

• A little life update, including our house move and what’s been happening behind the scenes

• Signing with talent management and what this next chapter looks like for me

• Navigating burnout, finding balance and learning when to take my foot off the pedal

• My current fitness journey and why spending time eating more has been such a learning curve

• How to create more authentic content, find your creativity and get out of comparison ruts

• Advice on entering your 30s, relationships, loneliness and making more time for yourself

• A little reflection on what 2026 has looked like so far and the importance of building in silence

  
  

This one is very much a catch-up chat, sharing what's been happening in my world and answering some of the questions you've been asking me lately.

Thank you for being here and for being part of this little corner of the internet. If there are any other things you want me to chat about or pick my brain on, leave them in the comments. I'd love to do more episodes like this! 🤍

Tag me in your stories (@christinapengilly @talktherapy.pod), share the episode with someone you love and don't forget to follow and review the show if you're enjoying the pod.

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Episodes drop weekly on Wednesdays. See you next week! xx

Thank you for being here!

This episode is one I’ve been thinking about A LOT lately.

It’s all about the small things we do every single day that might seem insignificant to us, but actually say so much about who we are and how we move through the world.

How you speak to the barista. Whether you make eye contact. If you actually listen when someone tells you how they are. Whether you put your shopping trolley away. How you show up for your friends when it’s inconvenient. Whether you tell someone they look beautiful when you’re thinking it.

We get into:

- Why I think we should start normalising doing the “easy” things instead of choosing not to just because we can

- Why you should offer to take photos of strangers, friends and the people you love

- Telling people what you think instead of assuming they already know

- Why a five-second compliment can genuinely change someone’s day

- Being the person who tells your friend how proud you are of them, how beautiful they look or how much you appreciate them

- Why I think we’ve swung so far into “protect your energy” culture that sometimes we’ve forgotten how to inconvenience ourselves for the people we love

- What it actually means to show up for your friends when it isn’t convenient

- Why you shouldn’t expect a village if you aren’t willing to be a villager

- The difference between offering to help and actually just showing up and doing something helpful

- Asking people “how are you?” and actually listening to the answer

- Why I’d rather have an uncomfortable, deep conversation than a surface-level one just for the sake of having it

- Being LOUD and convicted about what you want from your life

- Why I stopped saying “it would be nice” and started saying “I will”

- The fear that comes with claiming a big dream before you know exactly how you’re going to make it happen

- Why your actions behind closed doors have to match the person you say you want to become

This episode is basically me getting a few thoughts off my chest about kindness, effort, friendship, ambition, manners and the tiny ways we can make other people feel seen.

Obviously, these are just my thoughts and opinions, and I’d LOVE to hear yours too. Tell me what you think we should normalise more, or the little things you pay attention to in people.

Tag me in your stories (@christinapengilly) & share this episode with someone who you think needs to hear it. 💌

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Episodes drop weekly on Wednesdays x

Thank you for being here!

This episode is a little different because I’m actually the guest but I loved this chat SO much that I wanted to share it with you all <3

I was invited onto the Your Invisible Advantage (YOU WILL LOVEEE HER POD BTW @yourinvisibleadvantagepodcast) podcast for a conversation about something I’ve thought about a lot over the last few years: how do you keep building a life while simultaneously going through something really hard behind the scenes?

How do you let yourself experience joy when you’re also carrying grief? How do you show up online without pretending everything is fine? And how do you continue moving towards the life you want when part of you feels like you should put everything on hold?

We get into:

• The weird duality of feeling deep grief and genuine happiness at the exact same time

• Why you don’t have to share everything to let people see that you’re going through something

• How being honest about what you’re experiencing can actually release the shame around it

• The difference between being private and feeling like you’re performing

• Why social media has been a source of connection and healing for me, rather than just something to be consumed

• Building a personal brand without feeling like you have to be an expert, have all the answers or constantly be “creating”

• Why I care more about being genuinely myself online than making content that goes viral

• The power of documenting what you’re actually living through rather than pretending you have it all figured out

• “You never know when something will be the last time” and how that thought has completely changed the way I approach everyday life

• How that perspective has changed the way I show up for my husband, my family, my friends and even myself

• The guilt that can come with hindsight and wishing you had known then what you know now

• Why vulnerability is something I once thought was a weakness, but now see as one of the most powerful things you can lead with

• The belief I’ve had to let go of around my appearance being the thing that makes me worthy, lovable or valuable

• Why being more Christina will always take me further than trying to be the “perfect” version of myself

  
  

This one felt like a really honest conversation about grief, joy, relationships, social media, vulnerability, influence and just… being a person while life is happening.

If you’re going through something hard right now, I hope this reminds you that you don’t have to put your whole life on pause.

You’re allowed to be hurting and still laugh.
You’re allowed to grieve and still be excited about your future.
You’re allowed to have a really shit day and still have a beautiful one tomorrow.

And maybe most importantly, you never know when something will be the last time. So call your mum. Go for the walk. Send the message. Make the coffee date. Kiss your person. Do the thing.

Thank you for being here and for letting me talk to you about the things that matter to me. 🤍

Tag me and Tayla in your stories (@christinapengilly @yourinvisibleadvantagepodcast) & send this to someone who might need to hear it.

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Episodes drop weekly on Wednesdays. See you next week! xx

Thank you for being here!

Today’s episode is with Cade Robertson.

Cade has built multiple businesses, lost a lot of money, started again, failed, learnt, rebuilt and just keeps backing himself through all of it.

We talk about ambition, failure, money, grief, relationships, friendship, self-belief, taking responsibility for your life and the uncomfortable reality that sometimes you already know what you need to do… you just aren’t doing it.

We get into:

• Cade’s first ever “business” at 15 years old and how his entrepreneurial mindset started

• The businesses he’s built, lost money on and eventually had to walk away from

• Why he doesn’t see failure as failure, but as a lesson

• The mindset that allowed him to keep backing himself even when he had nothing

• Why he believes the worst-case scenario is often just your current situation

• Learning to take risks without needing to know exactly how everything will work out

• Why ambition doesn’t have to look the same for everyone

• The difference between wanting success and actually knowing what you want your life to look like

• Why you need to bring value to the people you want to build relationships with

• Networking, self-development and becoming someone people actually want in the room

• The relationship between money, work and stress

• Why sometimes the thing you need isn’t another thing to calm your nervous system, but simply doing the things you already know you need to do

• The difference between what society tells you is “hard” and what is actually hard for YOU

• Cade’s relationship with his grandpa and how losing him changed the way he looks at life

• Turning grief and painful experiences into something that pushes you forward

• Why some of the worst things that happen to you can eventually become the reason your life changed

• Learning to trust the dots will connect when you look backwards

• Taking responsibility for how you respond to whatever life throws at you

• Why your friendship group and the people around you can completely change what you consider normal

• The importance of surrounding yourself with people who challenge you to live up to your potential

• What Cade would tell someone who knows they’re capable of more but is scared, procrastinating or waiting for the right time

As always, this is just our own experiences and perspectives. You don’t have to want the same things we do or define success in the same way. I think the bigger conversation is about figuring out what actually matters to YOU, and then being willing to back yourself enough to go after it.

If you listen, tag me (@christinapengilly) and Cade (@caderobertsonx) in your stories & send this one to someone who needs a little kick up the bum.

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Episodes drop weekly on Wednesdays.

See you next week! xx

Thank you for being here! 🤍

Disclaimer: If motherhood, fertility, loss or TTC is something that feels tender or difficult for you right now, please know there is absolutely no pressure to listen to this episode. Please take care of yourself first and if you are navigating something difficult in this space, I’m sending you so much love. 🤍

This episode is a really personal chat about becoming a mum in my 30s, why I’ve never questioned whether I want to be a mum, but why getting older has completely changed the way I think about when and how I enter motherhood.

With three of my close friends becoming mums recently, motherhood has suddenly felt a lot closer and more tangible, and it’s had me thinking about what I want to experience, build and prioritise before I step into that season of my life.

We get into:

• Why I’ve always known I want to be a mum

• How getting older has made me feel LESS rushed, not less certain

• Why I believe in “selfishly first, then selflessly”

• The foundations I’m intentionally trying to build before motherhood

• The things I want to experience with Cruise before we have kids

• Why I want to romanticise this current season of my life instead of constantly rushing towards the next one

• What I think motherhood will ask of me and why I want to be ready for it to be hard

• The kind of mum I want to be and the kind of woman I want to become

• The pressure around age, timelines and what the internet tells us about fertility

• The fears and “what ifs” I sometimes have about becoming a mum

• Why I’m learning to focus on what I can control now and surrender the rest

• Creating a life that gives me the freedom to choose what motherhood looks like for me

  
  

This is obviously just my own experience and perspective, and I’m not here to tell anyone what they should or shouldn’t be doing before becoming a mum. Everyone’s journey is so different. 🤍

If you’re in your 20s or 30s and thinking about motherhood, I hope this conversation makes you feel a little less rushed and a little more grounded in your own timeline.

Tag me in your stories (@christinapengilly) & share this with someone who needs to hear that there’s no one “right” way to prepare for motherhood 💌

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Episodes drop weekly on Wednesdays. See you next week! xx

Thank you for being here!

This episode is for anyone who feels like they should be optimising every single part of their life right now and is quietly burning out trying to do it.

The biggest performance on your FYP "lifemaxxing" aka the trend of trying to optimise your health, your career, your relationship, your body, your morning routine, all at once, all the time, and why it's one of the most unproductive things you can chase..

We get into:

• Why maxing everything at once is actually working against the outcome you want

• Why a regulated nervous system will always outperform an overwhelmed one
• The "balls in the air" analogy and why something always has to give
• Why intention, not maxing, is what actually gets you results
• The season I intentionally pulled back so I could come back stronger
• Why comparing your season to someone else's highlight reel is keeping you stuck
• Defining your own version of success and defending it, even when it looks different to everyone else's
• Why leaving space in your life gets you further than filling every second of it
• The questions to ask yourself every few months to figure out what deserves your energy right now

If you've ever felt like you're not doing enough because you're not doing all of it, this one's for you.

Tag me in your stories (@christinapengilly) & share this with someone who needs to hear it's okay to not be maxing everything right now 💌

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Episodes drop weekly on Wednesdays. See you next week! xx

Thank you for being here!

This episode is a bit different instead of one topic, I'm sharing the one liners and quotes I have collected over the years that have HUGELY shifted the way I see and move through life.

These are the sentences I come back to when I'm doubting myself, when something falls apart, or when I need to remember why I keep going.some are mine, some are borrowed and given my own spin, but all of them live rent free in my head :)))

We get into:

• Why your life isn't a result of what happens to you, it's a result of how you respond
• The two-people-same-job story that changed how I see every hard thing that's ever happened to me
• "Why blame gives your power away
• You will either fail through action or fail through inaction, so choose wisely
• Why action (not time, not thinking) is what actually cures anxiety
• Knowing who you are removes the need to prove it - and what it means when you're still trying to prove something
• The season of my life where I needed everyone to know how hard I was working, and what that was really about
• Life shrinks or expands in proportion to your courage
• More is lost by indecision than by a wrong decision
• Why I believe even the detours are alignment, and how to actually trust that
• Relax, nothing is under control (and why that's a relief, not a threat)
• Success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure - and what fulfillment actually looks like for me

If you've ever needed a reminder mid-scroll, mid-spiral or mid-hard-day, this episode is basically my personal notes app read out loud.

Tag me in your stories (@christinapengilly) & share this with someone who needs one of these today 💌

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Episodes drop weekly on Wednesdays. See you next week! xx

Thank you for being here!This episode was actually prompted by a question a friend asked me recently: how do you keep showing up when you’re navigating something really hard behind the scenes? For a long time, I really struggled with that.I felt guilty sharing the good when something so hard was happening behind the scenes. I felt like posting my life without sharing the entire reality somehow made me dishonest. And at the same time, I knew I didn’t want to give the internet access to parts of my life, my family or my grief that I deeply wanted to protect.Over time, I’ve realised that both things are allowed to be true and one does not invalidate the other.We get into:* Navigating something incredibly difficult behind the scenes while still showing up for your life* Why you don’t owe the internet every detail of what you’re going through* The difference between being authentic and giving everyone access to your private life* Learning to protect your privacy without feeling like you’re hiding something* Why I struggled for years to share the good parts of my life without feeling guilty* The moment I finally opened up about struggling and why it changed the way I showed up completely* Allowing yourself to be seen without having to share every detail* How grief, happiness, gratitude and ambition can all exist at exactly the same time* Feeling guilty for having an amazing life while someone you love is struggling* Why your hardest seasons don’t have to become the reason you stop pursuing your dreams* Turning pain into purpose and using the things you cannot control to put the rest of your life into perspective* Why I now feel even more determined to take every opportunity I have* The mindset shift that helped me stop caring so much about the things that genuinely don’t matter* Giving yourself grace on the days where showing up simply isn’t possible* Knowing the difference between pushing yourself and actually needing to stop* Why some of the most sacred parts of your life should never make it to social media* Letting yourself experience the absolute depths of your pain AND the absolute heights of your joy* And of course sooo much more!!!There is a moment in this episode where I get emotional talking about my dad and something I’ve had to remind myself throughout this season: who am I to not go after every single dream I have when I know that’s exactly what he would want for me?Life gets to be really hard and really beautiful at the same time.On the days where you need to be in the hard, let yourself be there. But when you can get back up, keep moving forward, keep chasing the things that matter to you and keep creating a life that makes you proud.You are so much more capable of holding both than you probably give yourself credit for 🤍Tag me in your stories (@christinapengilly) & share this with someone who needs it 💌📲 Instagram - @christinapengilly🤳🏼 Personal YouTube - @christina.pengilly❤️ Talk Therapy YouTube - @TalkTherapy.PodcastEpisodes drop weekly on Wednesdays. See you next week! xx

Thank you for being here!

This week’s guest is officially my most requested guest EVER! My husband, Cruise 🤍

We asked you guys what you wanted to know and ended up chatting for an hour and a half of us talking about marriage, relationships, money, FIFO, family, roles within our marriage and pretty much everything in between.

You guys see Cruise online, but you don’t often get to hear this side of him. He is genuinely one of the most grounded, hardworking and intentional people I know, and sitting down together like this brought out the best conversations.

This episode isn’t us telling you how to have the perfect relationship, it’s just an honest conversation about what has worked for us, what we’ve had to learn along the way and what seven years together has taught us about choosing each other and continuing to grow together.

We get into:

• How we navigated five years of FIFO and why we actually think it helped our relationship in the beginning

• How we divide responsibilities in our relationship without subscribing to strict “50/50” rules

• Combining finances, having different incomes and finding a system that actually works for your relationship

• Our approach to money, property and delaying gratification for the life we want later

• The sacrifices behind building a life that might look very different from the outside

• Why making big life decisions doesn’t have to feel so permanent and how we’ve approached moving, work and taking risks together

• How our values changed after meeting each other and growing together

• Why we don’t believe you need to have everything perfectly aligned from day one

• Getting engaged young and why that level of commitment changed the way we approached hard seasons

• Conflict, communication and learning to actually listen instead of immediately defending yourself

• Why the repair after an argument matters more than never arguing in the first place

• The conversations we think couples should have before marriage, especially around kids and what life looks like when things get hard

• Maintaining independence in a relationship and why your partner doesn’t need to be your entire world

• Making time for your own hobbies without making your partner feel like they come second

• Being a united front

• And of course sooo much more!!!

I am very grateful to call this man my husband and very excited for you guys to get to know him a little better through this one 🤍

Go find Cruise over on IG & YouTube at @cruisetubegolf and @cruise_pengilly on IG!

Tag me in your stories (@christinapengilly) & share this with someone who needs it 💌

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Episodes drop weekly on Wednesdays. See you next week! xx