On Your Terms
Real conversations about what happens when women start questioning the roles they’ve lived and making different choices
On Your Terms is my weekly, audio-only podcast where I talk to ordinary women about identity, self-abandonment, the roles they’ve lived, the choices they’ve made and what happened when they started doing things differently.
These aren’t expert interviews with somebody arriving to teach you the five things she’s learnt about life. They’re conversations with women who have actually lived through some version of losing themselves, questioning the life or roles they’d become used to, and trying to figure out what came next.
They don’t need to have all the answers. In fact, I’m much more interested when they don’t.
Sometimes it helps to hear somebody else put it into words
There’s a particular kind of recognition that happens when another woman describes something you’ve experienced but never really known how to explain.
Maybe the circumstances of her life look nothing like yours, but then she talks about how much of herself became wrapped up in being needed, or the decision she kept putting off because of how somebody else might react, or what happened when a role she’d built her identity around suddenly changed.
And you think, I know that feeling.
That’s what interests me about these conversations.
I’m not looking for guests with polished stories about how they changed their lives and now everything is wonderful. Sometimes making a different choice solves one problem and creates three new ones. Sometimes the thing you thought would make you feel free comes with guilt, grief or consequences you hadn’t expected. And sometimes you make a change and discover you’re still figuring yourself out afterwards.
That doesn’t make the story less useful. It makes it a real one.
A few places to start
I Was Not a Good Daughter, Not a Good Wife. So What Am I? | Rohne
Rohne grew up in India with expectations around what it meant to be a daughter and eventually a wife already shaping the life ahead of her. Our conversation moves through marriage, divorce, family and what happens to your sense of yourself when the roles you were supposed to fulfil no longer tell you who you are.
I Said Yes to Everyone Until My Body Started Saying No for Me | Anna Gryglewska
Anna had spent years building an extraordinary career in global events, but the drive that helped her achieve so much was also costing her. We talk about burnout, work, achievement and what happens when something you’ve always thought of as a strength starts asking more of you than you can keep giving.
I Left Everything Because I Finally Ran Out of Ways to Pretend I Was Fine | Heidi K. Brown
Heidi had built the marriage, home and legal career that looked right from the outside. We talk about what it meant to spend years performing the version of herself she thought she should be, what happened when she walked away from that life, and the fact that changing your circumstances doesn’t automatically mean you stop repeating familiar patterns.
Find a conversation that interests you
There are more conversations waiting for you wherever you normally listen to podcasts. Pick the one that makes you curious and start there.
Want to be a guest?
I’m always interested in hearing from ordinary women with lived experiences that belong in these conversations.
You don’t need to be an expert, have a platform or arrive with a perfectly packaged lesson to teach everybody. And you definitely don’t need to have everything neatly figured out.
If you’ve experienced losing yourself in roles, relationships, responsibilities or other people’s expectations, made choices that changed something for you, and you’re comfortable talking about what happened and what you’re still working out, I’d like to hear from you.