Uncertainty is Possibility

Shalini and I met in person about two years ago and realised very quickly how much of our journeys overlapped. We both taught English in Singapore secondary schools (different schools), and we both, at different points, left teaching to create a path of our own.

Shalini taught for almost eight years. She was on the leadership track when she left in 2021, in the middle of COVID, while everyone around her was telling her she was throwing away an iron rice bowl. Her next step was a part-time role at a small non-profit with a 70 to 80 percent pay cut. From there came Cambodia, where a three-month volunteer stint mentoring young women turned into almost two years, and then India, and a lot of inner work along the way.

Today she is an inner reconnection coach who also teaches yin yoga, holds sound baths, and runs retreats in India. In this conversation we talk about what it took to give herself permission to leave, the fear and anxiety that came with it (she is very honest that it was not as brave as it looked), and why she believes you can choose yourself without making any drastic changes to your life at all.

If you are wondering whether the path you’re on is one you chose for yourself, I think you’ll find a lot in her story ♡

IN THIS EPISODE

• Leaving an “iron rice bowl” in the middle of COVID, and the question that scared her most: will I never be able to earn money again?
• Realising she was waiting for permission from her parents, friends and siblings, and that it was hers to give
• The small mindset shift that made leaving possible: treating the next step as an experiment, something to play with
• Eight months living in a dormitory with 18 and 19 year olds in Phnom Penh, and learning how to RECEIVE love and support after years of only giving
• The stranger in a cafe reading the same book as her, and how that led to a university job and almost two years in Cambodia
• Having a “loose vision” (or what I call a working definition) built on how you want to FEEL, with room to revise it
• Choose your poison: the discomfort of uncertainty or the discomfort of being stuck
• “No choice lor”: why staying in a stuck situation is also a choice, and why you can U-turn
• The night she cried before going back to flexi-teach for a few weeks, and what that taught her about success, failure and “losing out” to your peers
• Giving yourself permission to be a beginner when you’ve always been good at what you do, and the transferable skills teachers forget they have
• Why putting yourself first is how you show up better for the people you love

CONNECT WITH SHALINI

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/reconnect.withshalini

CONNECT WITH JASMINE

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/jasmineteo.jiamin (DM for therapy/coaching enquiries)
• Website: https://texturedlifewellness.com
• Mailing List: https://texturedlifewellness.kit.com/email

I met Qiu Ting way back when we were students at university together. We went to Hainan Island for an overseas community project, did group projects together, and then life happened. We lost touch for a while, stayed loosely in the know thanks to Facebook (haha), and reconnected about two years ago when we started collaborating on something that's still unfolding (more on that at the end of this podcast!! something we are so excited about).

Qiu Ting is an educator, and outside of that, she is the creative soul behind Onigiri and Toast, a stationery and lifestyle brand born out of grief, memory keeping, and her years living between Singapore and Japan. In this conversation we talk about how a period of quiet grief after she left her teaching post in Japan became a name, then a brand, then a whole practice of memory keeping through journaling and zines.

We talk about the year of tiny experiments that got her here, most of which didn't land (a podcast among them), and the handful that did. She talks about what alignment means to her, your heart jumping with joy while you're making something, whether or not it succeeds by any other measure. We get into what it took to unlearn perfectionism and imposter syndrome enough to make things in the first place, and what she calls slow blooming, a life that keeps branching instead of climbing one straight path toward a fixed goal.

IN THIS EPISODE

• The grief QT didn't recognise at the time after she left Japan
• Unlearning imposter syndrome as a "non-arts" creative, and giving herself permission to make things anyway
• Why QT journals on paper instead of digitally, and her fear of losing memory
• QT’s book Field Work Journal Companion, born out of that grief, launching officially in September
• What a zine actually is, how she makes them entirely by hand, and why she won't sell a digital copy
• The workshop with zero sign-ups she refused to cancel, and who showed up anyway
• Her philosophy on monetising creative work: not for profit, but so people treasure what they're given
• Bringing her hobbies into her work as a teacher, and what work-life harmony looks like for her
• Calling herself a "slow bloomer" instead of a late one, and her advice to anyone still figuring out what they want

CONNECT WITH QIU TING

• Instagram: @onigiriandtoast

CONNECT WITH JASMINE

• Instagram: @jasmineteo.jiamin
• Website: texturedlifewellness.com
• Mailing List: texturedlifewellness.kit.com/email (sign up for this if you’d like to receive news once our book is out!)

This is the first episode of CONNECTED, a new series I'm co-facilitating with my close friend Carmen Yoong, a couples therapist. If you caught ep 06, you've already met her.

CONNECTED is a series about working through our relationships — the inner relationship with ourselves, and all our interpersonal relationships (romantic, family, friends, colleagues etc.). In this first episode, we focus more on romantic relationships. In the episodes that follow, we'll widen out to the other interpersonal relationships in our lives, and to the inner relationship underneath all of them.

There's no script and no agenda in the CONNECTED series. Carmen and I talk to each other the way we would in real life, about the thing that's at the center of both our work: attachment theory. But not the Instagram or self-help books version! We talk about the nuanced, person-specific way we use attachment theory with our clients.

We get into how attachment shows up everywhere, not just in romantic relationships. It shows up at work, with family, in the relationship you have with yourself. We talk about why partners with avoidant tendencies rarely book the first therapy session, what a corrective emotional experience feels like from the inside, and why passive aggression can do more damage than we think.

And near the end, we share something we've been building together: a retreat that we're both so excited about we can barely keep it contained!!!

IN THIS EPISODE

• What CONNECTED is as a series
• Why attachment theory isn't just about romantic relationships, and how it shapes your relationship with yourself, your family, your friends, and your coworkers
• How we actually use attachment theory with clients (hint: neither of them diagnoses or labels someone as "anxious" or "avoidant")
• The difference between a coping strategy "serving you" and it serving the relationship
• What a corrective emotional experience feels like, told through Jasmine's dream about her former therapist and Carmen's story about learning to feel angry
• Why holding in resentment is often more damaging to a relationship than saying it out directly
• Passive aggression as a form of aggression in its own right, and why it can be more confusing — and more hurtful — than direct anger
• The myth of "if you love me, you would know," and what it outsources
• Loving someone the way they want to be loved, instead of the way you want to be loved

CONNECT WITH US!
Join the waitlist (https://texturedlifewellness.com/retreats) for the CONNECTED retreat, coming up 2-5 July 2027. Limited spots for an intimate setting. 

Jasmine:
- IG: @jasmineteo.jiamin
- Website: https://texturedlifewellness.com

• Email: [email protected]

Carmen:

• IG: @clarityandbondtherapy
• Website: https://clarityandbondtherapy.com
• Email: [email protected]

The vibe of this episode is the conversation you will overhear when you’re at a cafe sitting beside two therapists having coffee and matcha!

I met Carmen in Melbourne, introduced by a mutual friend and we have not stopped talking since. She is a therapist who specialises in couples and relationships, and she is also one of the few people in my life I feel completely safe with from the very first conversation.

Carmen moved back to Malaysia after her Masters in Counselling, and just three weeks before we recorded this, she took the leap and left her corporate job to do client work full time. 

We talked about the fear that lives alongside big decisions and why waiting for the fear to disappear is the reason so many of us never move.

We also dived into the cost of following a life trajectory that was never really ours.

And then we spent a long time on something I find super fascinating (and also oftentimes hard to navigate!): what it is like to be a therapist in friendships and in relationships

Oh, and of course, we talk about some money matters and ghosting your therapist hahaha.

If you have ever been curious about what therapy is really for, or wondered whether individual/couples therapy is something that could be for you, this one is a really good place to start.

IN THIS EPISODE

• What Carmen's first three weeks out of corporate life actually felt like, and what helped her nervous system slowly find its footing
• Why the fear doesn't disappear before you take the step, and what it looks like to take the step anyway
• The inner critic that says rest is not allowed, where it comes from, and what it looks like to slowly build a kinder relationship with it
• Values: what they are, how we figure them out, and why small steps towards living more aligned with them changes everything
• The occupational hazard of being a therapist with friends: what we see, what we hold back, and how we decide when to say something
• What couples therapy is actually for, and why Carmen wishes more people knew about it
• The biggest misconception Carmen sees around couples therapy in Asian cultures
• On ghosting your therapist: why it happens so often and what might be a better thing to do

FIND CARMEN

IG: https://instagram.com/clarityandbondtherapy

Carmen offers couples therapy, individual therapy, and a free 15-minute consultation. DM her directly.

WORK & CONNECT WITH JASMINE

• Presence coaching programme. Join the waitlist: https://texturedlifewellness.com/coaching
• 1:1 Therapy. Free 15-min consultation: https://tidycal.com/texturedlifewellness/free15
• IG: https://instagram.com/jasmineteo.jiamin
• Website: https://texturedlifewellness.com

I met Charlie on the very first day of our psychotherapy training and I immediately knew she was someone I wanted to be around. Over the time of our studies together, driving to class, and just being in each other's lives, I've watched her move through the world in a way with a kind of groundedness that doesn't come from having a plan.

It comes from knowing herself and what she desires in life.
And then TAKING STEPS to make it happen.

Charlie grew up with very little certainty.

Moving countries, moving houses (46 of them, by her count), not knowing when a parent would show up. And rather than becoming someone who desperately chases stability, she became someone who has genuinely made peace with not knowing, and built a life and a business from that place.

IN THIS EPISODE

• How Charlie's childhood (moving constantly, financial instability, parents who came and went) shaped her relationship with uncertainty, and how that looks now
• Her philosophy on money: how much is actually enough, what she's figured out about saving and investing, and why she doesn't want a mortgage (or anything that ties her to one place)
• Her business, Your Sacred Space: women's circles, community, and why she built something intimate on purpose, and how she's about to pack it all into a van and drive it across Australia
• What she's learned about the people we let in: why we don't outgrow people, we outgrow the version of ourselves that tolerated their behaviour
• How to have the hard conversation with a friend you've grown away from, and why kindness always gives you a better chance of something coming back around
• The wellness industry and why "trauma-informed" doesn't mean "trained to work with trauma" — a conversation we felt strongly about
• How to find a therapist: what to look for, why the vibe check is everything, and why ‘shopping’ for a therapist is important
• Why your friends, even the ones who love you most, cannot give you the same thing a therapist can
• What happens when you share a new idea too early, and why the knife to kill your idea should only ever be in your hands

FIND CHARLIE

Instagram: @_yoursacredspace

Follow along for her van build, pop-up events on the road, and women's circles wherever life takes her next.

CONNECT WITH JASMINE

• Instagram: @jasmineteo.jiamin
• Website: texturedlifewellness.com

WORK WITH JASMINE

• Presence. A 4-month 1:1 coaching programme. For people who live for something greater than themselves and want to build the inner life to match. Join the waitlist: https://texturedlifewellness.com/coaching
• 1:1 Therapy. Free 15-min consultation to start.

We spend so much energy trying to decide whether something will work - in our own heads, alone, before anything has been tested.

Whether to apply for a job.
Whether to ask someone out.
Whether to create and share something.

And in doing all that thinking and not doing anything, many of us just stay stuck.

In this episode I want to offer a reframe that has genuinely changed how I move through life.

Life is actually a really good filter, but only if you are putting things through it.

This isn’t about being reckless or thoughtless.
It’s about understanding that uncertainty is not the enemy here. Uncertainty is the mechanism.
Uncertainty is what allows life to give you real information; information you cannot get by staying inside your own head.

IN THIS EPISODE

• What actually keeps us stuck
• How I stopped seeing every step as high-stakes, and what changed from then
• The food analogy: why you sometimes don’t know what you want until life shows you
• On applying for jobs, putting out work, and letting life respond instead of “pre-deciding”
• My Secondary school teacher’s quote that changed how I think about control
• What it means when you genuinely can’t put things out or get started on something, and what’s actually worth looking at there
• Why being stuck is not your personality. It’s just a part of you. And there’s a huge difference in naming that differently.

"Uncertainty isn't the obstacle. It's actually the mechanism. It's what allows life to give you real information — information you can't get by staying inside your own head."

✨ TRY THIS ✨

This week, pick one thing you’ve been sitting on. Something small is fine. An application, a message, an idea you’ve been meaning to share. Put it out in the smallest way possible. Don’t pre-decide the outcome. Let life do the filtering. Notice what comes back, and notice what you feel when it does.

🌸 CONNECT WITH ME 🌸

• Instagram: @jasmineteo.jiamin (I always reply to DMs!)
• Coaching: Presence, a 4-month 1:1 coaching programme. For people who want to build a life of impact and love their lives while doing the work. May and June intakes are sold out. Waitlist open for July. Apply here.

•  1:1 Therapy - limited spots left for May and June. Free 15-min consultation to start.

I'm sooooo excited for you to meet my yoga teacher and friend, Leigh!

Nine years ago, I walked into Leigh's yoga class and felt my body for the first time. Without her, I genuinely don't think I would be sitting here, doing this podcast, living the life I'm living now.

Leigh Khoo is a yoga teacher, retreat leader, and the very first person who showed me that a path of uncertainty could be beautiful. Before I met her, I had only ever seen one kind of life: stable, structured, certain. Leigh changed everything for me.

"Oftentimes we think of the worst-case scenario with our conditioning and fear shaping it. If we sat with it and distilled our answer a couple of times over, then maybe what's the worst is just all in your head." — Leigh

IN THIS EPISODE

• How a yoga class in 2017 changed my relationship with my own body, and eventually, my whole life
• Why Leigh was the first person to make an uncertain, non-traditional path feel not just possible, but worth wanting and building
• How being in a space you have outgrown feels like wearing ill-fitting clothes and taking it off is a such a relief
• Leigh's teaching philosophy: what yoga actually is, why the philosophy gets lost in studios, and what it means to live it off the mat
• The 'brushing your teeth' metaphor for daily practice, and why you can't only show up when things are hard
• How Leigh plans her year with financial clarity but total flexibility, and why she's 'set up for things falling apart'
• What her husband's early observation — 'you're so proper with students, but so different with me' — taught her about alignment
• Building community without trying to: why like-mindedness is the foundation, and organic is the only way
• 'What's the worst that can happen?' — a real conversation with a friend stuck in an unhappy job for years
• On holding space vs. giving unsolicited advice, and why offering solutions too early makes it about you, not them

FIND LEIGH

• Instagram: @livingyogawithleigh
• Patreon: patreon.com/livingyogawithleigh — audio yoga practices, ~4 per month. (also Jasmine’s personal source of yoga practice!)
• Website: living-yoga.co
• Upcoming: Hatha Yoga & Vedanta Immersion in Bali (June), 200hr Teacher Training (June–August, Singapore weekends), Ladakh Retreat 20–26 September — one last spot in female twin sharing. DM Leigh to book.

CONNECT WITH JASMINE

• Instagram: @jasmineteo.jiamin   
• Coaching: Presence, a 4-month 1:1 coaching programme. For people who live for something greater than themselves and want to build the inner life to match. May and June intakes are sold out. Waitlist open for July. Apply here.

•  1:1 Therapy. Free 15-min consultation to start.

Perhaps you know what you want to do.
And you've known for a while.
And yet, something keeps stopping you from actually starting.

In this episode, I'm sharing something I've been applying in my own life:
What it actually takes to step into something uncertain, when every part of you wants to wait until it's perfect first.

I'm a recovering perfectionist. For most of my life, I couldn't put something out until I felt that it was good enough (based on my own standards, which is high to begin with). What I've slowly come to understand is that perfectionism is often not about high standards. It's about wanting to control the outcome. And the outcome we're most trying to control is this:

What people will think of us when they see us in an uncertain, unfinished, imperfect state.

♡ THIS EPISODE IS FOR YOU IF:

• you've been wanting to leave your job but can't take the leap… or
• you've had a project, a business, a piece of writing, an idea just living in your head for months or even years… or
• you just know something needs to change but the not-knowing keeps you stuck

♡ IN THIS EPISODE:

• Why perfectionism is really about controlling uncertainty, not achieving high standards
• The loneliness of being seen as "put together" when you know what’s really going on inside you
• What I did differently when I started this podcast, and why it worked
• A practical exercise: how to strip back your list until you find a right-sized step you can actually take
• Why the first step is sometimes just about making the thing exist
• Two questions I now use to guide every big decision

♡ TRY THIS

Write down everything you think you need before you can start the thing. Then ask yourself honestly:

Which of these are truly essential, and which are there because you're trying to control how people will receive you?

Strip back to the bare minimum. That's your starting point.

If nothing feels removable, sit with this:

Is it that these things are all necessary, or is it that you don't feel safe leaving any part of it to uncertainty?

🌊 WORK WITH ME 🌊

Presence: A 4-month 1:1 coaching journey

For people who live for something greater than themselves and want to build the inner foundation to do it without sacrificing their well-being.

We work through presence, self-trust, and creating healthy relationships with yourself and your communities.

DM me for the full curriculum and join the waitlist here.

1:1 Therapy

A deep reorganisation of your internal world for a healthier and more secure relationship with your Self, which will have a positive ripple effects on your interpersonal relationships and your communities. 

Here’s the link for a free 15 min consultation.

I’D LOVE TO CONNECT WITH YOU!

Instagram: @jasmineteo.jiamin

Website: texturedlifewellness.com

Welcome to the very first episode of Uncertainty is Possibility.

This one is just me — there are no guests and no agenda! Just me sharing why I wanted to start this podcast, what it's going to be, and who it's for. Come in, have a listen, and see if this is your kind of conversation.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Why I started this podcast, and why now
• My own story: from a stable and safe career path in Singapore TO moving to Melbourne not quite knowing what will come next
• What it actually felt like to leave a certain path, and what I found on the other side
• The thought experiment from my psychotherapy training that changed how I think about uncertainty entirely
• What this podcast is (and what it very much isn't)
• The two things I believe we all need to live the life we actually want: the capacity to hold necessary discomfort, and the self-trust to step into possibilities

THE ACTIVITY FROM THE EPISODE

This comes from a lecture when I was training to be a psychotherapist. Try it yourself:

(a) Think of something about yourself you feel truly certain about.

(b) Think of something you feel truly uncertain about.

Notice the felt experience of each. What is the same? What is different?

Now flip it: What would it feel like to become uncertain of (a)? What would it feel like to become certain of (b)?

Sit with that. Something usually shifts.

THIS PODCAST IS FOR YOU IF

You live for something greater than yourself — your relationships, your communities, the work you feel called to do.

You've been on the straight path and you're sensing a quiet wondering about what else might be there.

You're wanting to step off the path you're on, but finding it hard to do so.

Or you've already stepped off, and you would love to have some company on this journey.

I'D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Instagram: @jasmineteo.jiamin \ @therapyforteachers.sg

Website: texturedlifewellness.com

1:1 Therapy & Coaching enquiries welcome via DM.