Squiggly Lives
About
About our podcast
Welcome to Squiggly Lives! We’re Clare Hudson and Helena Böhm (your podcast hosts) and we look forward to taking you on a journey into people’s unique and somewhat squiggly worlds.
We run this podcast online with Helena being in the Caribbean and Clare in London.
And then each week we talk with a new guest to learn how they've discovered who they are and what they were meant to do. Our hope is that these conversations will help you tap into questions you may have been avoiding and accelerate the process of finding your own life path, as well as share some joy along the way.
Guests so far have varied massively from an astrophysicist to human rights lawyer and trauma informed yoga teacher.
Each episode will explore themes such as life purpose, life callings, what’s important to us and how we can create lives that truly inspire and fulfil us.
Whilst discovering and documenting individual stories, and interviewing experts on the subject, we address the big questions that are relevant to us all. What should I do with my life? Do I have a calling? Where in my own life do I find my purpose and meaning? Do I need one soul/sole purpose or can I find fulfilment elsewhere? What does purpose really mean? What does it feel like? And how might this change over time?
We do not attempt to tell you what to do with your life, we do not want to life coach you or sell you a plan to ‘find yourself’. We only hope that by hearing the stories of others and from experts on the subject you may find inspiration, guidance, connection and perhaps a greater sense of clarity or direction in your own life.
Who are we?
About Clare Hudson
Hi I’m Clare and I live in London with my partner Andrew, two year old son Isaac, and kitten Kyoto.
Heli and I started the Squiggly Lives podcast about a month after I had experienced pregnancy loss close to my 12 week scan.
We often think about finding your purpose as being about following your bliss or doing what makes you happy. But for me, in the weeks following my miscarriage, finding the things that did bring me purpose, joy and understanding had never been more important.
For me, these things were books by psychotherapists, supportive friends and family, making big messy paintings with my son (see photo), and after some time yoga and movement. Right now my purpose in life is about being a Mum, balancing motherhood with everything else in life, and this podcast. Alongside my yoga practice I'm also a huge fan of the Wim Hof Method which is a mix of physical exercise, breathwork, meditation and exposure to the cold.
I spent my twenties exploring, travelling and trying everything — with nothing staying the same for longer than a few months. I’ve lived on the Arctic Circle in northern Finland for half a year during my degree which was in Fine Art; travelled across America, studied yoga in India multiple times; and had many different jobs from my first Saturday job doing make up for people at the Body Shop, to life model, and creative communications coordinator at a London University...to name just a few.
When I turned 30, I started a personal yoga teaching business and made several big passions of mine my full time job — teaching yoga and monetising my personal development blog Thought Brick. I think it was at this moment when I realised the power of creating your own opportunities, despite working for myself being one of the scariest things I’ve done. I also co-run an Etsy shop with my Mum selling yoga inspired art prints that we design, and more recently created an online course for yoga teachers.
I love projects, trying new things and am definitely someone who doesn’t have one true calling — but I find passion in every new project I do. I’m particularly interested in how purpose and priorities change over time for people and I'm fascinated by people's life journeys and what's meaningful to them and why. Until starting this project, I had no idea how much I loved interviewing guests and co-running a podcast.I hope by sharing the stories of others, you will see yourself in and feel inspired by everyone we talk to.
About Helena Böhm
Hi, I'm Helena and I live on a small island in the Caribbean with my fiancé Wes and cat Reba. Reba spends her days catching lizards and tree frogs and I spend mine co-running an ecolodge and teaching yoga.
I have worked in many different roles; as an archaeologist, a heritage educator, a yoga teacher, a life model, an art workshop facilitator… I’ve worked in archives, schools, nature conservation foundations, prisons, museums and art galleries. I am so grateful for my squiggly career path which has given me so many different experiences and skills, and has allowed me to meet so many amazing people.
In 2017 I made the move to working for myself and (apart from a brief period of being employed by a foundation) I have been self-employed ever since. There are many challenges to being your own boss, but the personal freedom and empowerment that comes from it has definitely been worth it.
Travelling has always been important to me; I love meeting new people and experiencing different cultures. I have lived in the Netherlands when I did my masters, traveled in South America, practiced yoga in India, spent time with Bedouins in Jordan, partied in Thailand, excavated 35,000 year old sites in Israel, lived for the past 3 years in the Caribbean, and will soon be moving to the USA!
Just like my career, I think that my travels are a reflection of my own inner journey to discover my purpose. Looking back on my squiggly life so far I can now see that each experience gave me a new purpose and that my purpose changed over time.
Since I was young I had a deep preoccupation with the grand subjects of purpose, meaning and life callings. When I was young this was a source of suffering for me, as I struggled to understand the world and my place in it. My periods with eating disorders, depressive moods and anxiety were partly an outlet for this internal confusion. It was this inner suffering (and yet at the same time a determination to not let suffering and fear beat me and to find my place in the world) that drove me to travel, explore, search for my own meaning and personal purpose.
Each experience has made me who I am and brought me to this point. My experiences have helped me to trust deeply in my intuition and to truly know myself. My purpose now is to co-host this podcast, to teach yoga and by doing so hopefully help others who have had similar struggles to myself and to build a home with my family.
I am fascinated in how others come to see/know/discover their purpose and I am excited to share their journeys with you on Squiggly Lives!