The Resilient

In this episode of The Resilient, we’re going to hear how getting what you wish for may be the worst thing in the world.

Taylor Glenn originally trained as a psychotherapist in New York City, but over a decade ago she jumped the Atlantic for a new life and a new career in the UK. After winning her first stand-up competition (surprise!), and winning plaudits and awards across the country, she and her husband decided it was the right time to start a family.

Taylor wasn’t a novice to the motherhood lark: as she herself admits, she was the creepy person at parties who’d borrow the newborn and refuse to give it back. But, when she tried the shoes on herself, she found they didn’t fit.

After the birth of her daughter, she descended into the deep, dark hole of Post-Natal Depression. This is the story of how she managed – through personal resilience and the support of “her people” – to crawl her way out again.

The Resilient is a podcast about powerful people, like you and me. It’s an eavesdrop session on their toughest times, and what they’ve done since then. It’s about life transitions, difficult decisions and unexpected twists and turns. Because life happens. It’s brought to you by FlowerApp.com and is produced and presented by Dr Aleks Krotoski and Pillowfort Productions. It is mixed by Katie McMurran.

Grief is a social contract, says Dr Kelsey Crowe in this second of our two-part special with the professional empathy expert. In a revealing and intimate conversation, Kelsey and Aleks dive into the moment Kelsey realised the griever's role in a crisis period, and what that means for personal resilience. It's not what you might think.

The Resilient is a podcast about powerful people, like you and me. It’s an eavesdrop session on their toughest times, and what they’ve done since then. It’s about life transitions, difficult decisions and unexpected twists and turns. Because life happens. It's brought to you by FlowerApp.com and is produced and presented by Dr Aleks Krotoski and Pillowfort Productions. It is mixed by Katie McMurran.

Dr Kelsey Crowe is a professional empathiser: she knows exactly what to say and do when things go awful for someone she knows. In this first part of our two-episode special, Kelsey condenses the findings of a decade of research with hundreds of grieving people. Powerful, practical and - naturally - sympathetic - she describes the empathiser's role in the social contract of grief.

The Resilient is a podcast about powerful people, like you and me. It’s an eavesdrop session on their toughest times, and what they’ve done since then. It’s about life transitions, difficult decisions and unexpected twists and turns. Because life happens. It's brought to you by FlowerApp.com and is produced and presented by Dr Aleks Krotoski and Pillowfort Productions. It is mixed by Katie McMurran.

Toni Myers is a person of many selves. As a child, Toni moved to a new town, a new state, a new school every other year. As an adult, Toni continues to live a peripatetic lifestyle. Every place Toni lands, there is a period of uncomfortable reinvention and transformation - something that is common of all life changes.

Toni's superpower is having the self-awareness to maximise the pitfalls and possibilities of reinvention. Yet we are all coming up to speed with Toni's breakneck pace in the age of social media: our possible selves laid bare, our vulnerability essential to forge the connections that lift us up when we are living through the most challenging moments of our lives.

Toni's story is about managing many selves, and how to transform into something new at every junction.

The Resilient is a podcast about powerful people, like you and me. It’s an eavesdrop session on their toughest times, and what they’ve done since then. It’s about life transitions, difficult decisions and unexpected twists and turns. Because life happens.

It's brought to you by FlowerApp.com and is produced and presented by Dr Aleks Krotoski and Pillowfort Productions. The sound and mix are designed by Katie McMurran, and the music is by Ryan Harper.

Every month on The Resilient, we speak with someone about a landmark moment in their life: pivot points, peak experiences, those times that define who a person is, as different from who they were before. What's unusual about my guest this month is that two of these moments happened at the very same time.

And yet, she didn't fall apart. She didn't crumble. In fact, she did the most extraordinary thing instead. She defied every expectation, every logical conclusion, every prediction.

She is Team GB's 2008 Paralympic swimming champion, Liz Johnson.

The Resilient is a podcast about powerful people, like you and me. It’s an eavesdrop session on their toughest times, and what they’ve done since then. It’s about life transitions, difficult decisions and unexpected twists and turns. Because life happens. It's brought to you by FlowerApp.com and is produced and presented by Dr Aleks Krotoski and Pillowfort Productions. It is mixed by Katie McMurran.

Underwater water flow sound courtesy of felix.blume at freesound.org

The Resilient isn’t a podcast only about facing extraordinary circumstances and getting through; it’s about tackling the ordinary life-changing events that happen to us too. So this episode, we’re bringing you a musing from first-time father Josh Kennedy.

Josh and his partner Tess gave birth to Ada a little over four months ago, and here he shares her origin story, how he’s learned to ask for help, and that the parenting approaches he experienced by being his father's son are far more valuable to him than anything he'd find on the pages of a best-seller in the Parenting section of the bookstore.

British explorer Ben Saunders has broken more records in extreme conditions than most people "sitting on their sofas eating crap" could ever imagine. He's led more than 11 expeditions across the tundras, both solo and as part of a team. And in 2014, Ben and his explorer teammate Tarka L'Herpiniere, completed the expedition that defeated both Edward Shackleton and Capt. Robert Falcon Scott: 1801 miles from the edge of Antarctica to the South Pole and back. On foot.

Naturally, they faced extraordinary challenges on the way: adverse weather, hypothermia and near-starvation. Unsurprisingly, Ben experienced almost transcendent moments of self-realisation.

But he has since discovered that the ultimate expedition of his life wasn't to break this record, but to come to terms with the inner and outer silence he's experienced upon his return.

What happens when you achieve the ultimate goal, but the world continues around you as if nothing's happened? That's the story in this episode of The Resilient.

The Resilient is a podcast about powerful people, like you and me. It’s an eavesdrop session on their toughest times, and what they’ve done since then. It’s about life transitions, difficult decisions and unexpected twists and turns. Because life happens. It's brought to you by FlowerApp.com and is produced and presented by Dr Aleks Krotoski and Pillowfort Productions. It is mixed by Katie McMurran.

Ben's photo was taken by Andy Ward.

Dr Sue Black OBE has had a remarkable year. The technologist has published a book, played mother-of-the-bride, turned Grandma for the first time, was named one of the top 50 computer scientists in Europe, been honoured by the Queen of England and got engaged via an encrypted message using 70 year old code. And that was all in the first three months of 2016.

But her professional accolades and personal triumphs come after a lifetime of escape and of survival. She can't quite pinpoint what's given her such strength, but we have a theory.

The Resilient is a podcast about powerful people, like you and me. It’s an eavesdrop session on their toughest times, and what they’ve done since then. It’s about life transitions, difficult decisions and unexpected twists and turns. Because life happens. It's brought to you by FlowerApp.com and is produced and presented by Dr Aleks Krotoski and Pillowfort Productions. It is mixed by Katie McMurran.

Alua Arthur was in a dark place when she found herself on a bus in Cuba sitting next to a woman with a tattoo of a pen on her forearm. By the end of that serendipitous 14 hour journey, she had direction: she would leave her job as an attorney in Los Angeles and become a death doula. She would help people transition across the inexplicable boundary between life and the other side.

But her path was not as clear as she imagined. It never is.

The Resilient is a podcast about powerful people, like you and me. It’s an eavesdrop session on their toughest times, and what they’ve done since then. It’s about life transitions, difficult decisions and unexpected twists and turns. Because life happens. It's brought to you by FlowerApp.com and is produced and presented by Dr Aleks Krotoski and Pillowfort Productions.