What is a Good Life? #26
What is a Good Life? #26
Comfort In My Own Skin with Angela Kirwin
On the 26th episode of the "What is a Good Life?" podcast, I am joined by Angela Kirwin, who is a Writer, Speaker, Campaigner, former Social Care Worker, and author of the acclaimed book "Criminal: How Our Prisons Are Failing Us All"
In this episode, Angela shares with us on her journey towards experiencing greater comfort in her own skin. From mainly focussing on hitting big goals to observing what actually makes her feel content (community and a common purpose), and from realising it was less about changing herself but returning to who she was.
We discuss her process of observing, understanding, and accepting her experience with ADHD through therapy, as well as the life lessons around vulnerability and authenticity she witnessed from men’s groups she facilitated in prison. While she also highlights the importance of appreciating the nuance and complexity of others in order to afford ourselves more compassion.
If you are presently being hard on yourself, experiencing negative self-talk, or you feel like you are on a constant treadmill to earn your own self-acceptance, this episode will give you plenty to contemplate, as well as providing a number of paths and perspectives to cultivate greater empathy for yourself.
The weekly clip from the podcast (4 mins), my weekly reflection (3 mins), the full podcast (62 mins), and the weekly questions all follow below.
1. Weekly Clip from the Podcast
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After interviewing 150+ people around the question of, “what is a good life?”, I’ve created the following offerings based on this research:
1-on-1 coaching programs for working professionals to find their own answer to this question.
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For a free 30-minute consultation for any of the above, here’s my email and LinkedIn.
2. My weekly reflection
Throughout this interview, Angela noted the influence of her past experiences facilitating group discussions in prison, where men were being vulnerable and authentic, and the effect that had on her own life.
When we think about our own journeys of self-reflection, self-development, etc., whether that includes daily practices like meditation or weekly processes like therapy, etc., they can be quite isolated experiences in themselves. The focus can be: How do I fix things? How do I change things?
As much as individual work is an important part of this process, the more openly we engage in real, sub-surface, and genuine discussions with people about their lives, a few notable things can happen.
Firstly, we can start to observe what the full experience of being human is like. This is incredibly important in case we are thinking that this is just our experience. Furthermore, we can begin to notice that life and the human experience are a lot more complex than we thought.
We start to hear about aspects of people that aren’t freely shared, and what's more, we start to notice that we rarely think any less of the person who is sharing something with us that they have shame for or are feeling vulnerable about.
When we repeatedly notice how often people have shared with us things that we are consistently beating ourselves up over, that compassion we are showing others finally finds a crack in the hardness that exists within our relationship with ourselves.
At some point, the more insights we gain into the lives of others, the more we cobble together a more realistic version of the human experience that the limited and surface-level conversations, which are so widely prevalent in society, never give us a sense of. We start to notice that the yardstick we have been holding up for ourselves was impossible to live up to.
This doesn’t absolve our behaviour; we are still responsible for our actions, and there will always be consequences to our actions. So the need to keep reflecting and learning remains. However, that development can now take place within a supportive space of understanding and compassion, acknowledging that we are merely humans trying to do our best.
3. Full Episode - Comfort In My Own Skin with Angela Kirwin - What is a Good Life? Ep. #26
Click here for Apple and Google.
4. This week’s Questions
Think of the worst thing someone told you about themselves that still didn’t make you think less of them. Could you afford yourself the same compassion?
How authentically or openly do you communicate in your primary relationships?
About Me
I am a Coach based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I left behind a 15-year career in Capital Markets after I became extremely curious around answering some of the bigger questions in life. I started this project in 2021, for which I’ve now interviewed over 150 people, to provide people with the space to reflect on their own lives and to create content that would spark people’s own inquiry into this question. I am also trying to share more genuine expressions of the human experience, beyond the facades we typically project.
If you would like to work with me, or you simply want to get in touch, here’s my email and LinkedIn.