- 18
- Episodes
- Weekly
- Cadence
- 2026
- First episode
About self awareness sucks
Self Awareness Sucks is a podcast about realising things about yourself and being completely unable to un-realise them. Hosted by Lisa Cosham, this is for the overthinkers, the ones who've "done the work" and somehow ended up with more work to do. No experts, no life hacks, no pretending we've figured it out. Just honest, sometimes uncomfortable conversations about growth, identity, and why being self-aware is genuinely exhausting. Thinking out loud. Doing our best. Still very much in it.
- Publisher
- Lisa Cosham
- Category
- society & culture
- Language
- en
- Explicit
- No
- First episode
- 5 Jan 2026
- Latest episode
- 17 Aug 2026
Latest episodes
18 episodes in the feed.
17 Aug 2026
why self awareness is worth it
This is the one I promised you in episode one. Eighteen episodes ago I asked why self-awareness sucks. This is where I answer whether it was worth it anyway. I go back through the whole season, not as a summary, but as a story. What changed. What it cost. And what I found on the other side. I also finally say the thing I wasn't ready to say in episode eleven. And I report back on the thing I said I was gripping in episode thirteen. People have literally just always been people. And you are not as alone in your experience as you think you are. This one ends with the courage quote. Because it was always going to end there. I'll see you in season two.
10 Aug 2026
the self awareness paradox
Self-awareness is supposed to help you understand yourself. So why does it sometimes feel like the more you do it, the harder everything gets? This episode is about the thing nobody warns you about. The recursiveness of it. The way the tool folds back on itself and starts using you. I name seven paradoxes nested inside that one central problem. Some of them you'll recognise immediately. Some of them might create a new one by the time I've finished naming them. That's kind of the point. We get into why becoming aware of something can create a problem that didn't exist before. Why the things that worked best were the things you stopped watching. Why knowing you're the obstacle doesn't automatically make you move. Why the more self-aware you become, the easier it is to perform authenticity rather than actually live it. And why self-awareness requires a specific kind of courage that nobody really prepares you for. This is episode seventeen. One away from the end. And it's the episode that explains why the journey was always going to be this complicated.
3 Aug 2026
let yourself be misunderstood
The title of this episode is let yourself be misunderstood. And I mean that literally. This one centres around music, but not in a music review kind of way. Music turned out to be one of the clearest places where I can trace a very specific pattern: the pattern of learning to keep quiet about the things you love. And I think that pattern is going to be familiar to you even if the specific soundtrack is completely different. I start with a booklet in year six, a question about favourite music that sent my eleven year old nervous system into a full risk assessment. I talk about a Rebecca Ferguson concert that ended in a dismissal I still remember clearly. A Five Seconds of Summer song I sent at the start of university and the response I genuinely didn't know what to do with. The vocal coach reaction videos I watched alone for years. And the feeling of discovering Billie Eilish and Ren before anyone else was talking about them, and what it actually means when something that was quietly yours suddenly becomes everyone's. Underneath all of it is the same thing. The pre-editing. The managed reveal. The choice, made so many times it stopped feeling like a choice, to be a quieter, more curated version of myself rather than risk the dismissal. This episode is about the cost of that. And about what happens when you stop paying it. If people don't get you, that's their problem. Not yours.
27 Jul 2026
context changes everything
Context is the invisible thread running through every single episode of this season. And I think it might be one of the most important factors in self-awareness that almost nobody talks about directly. In this episode I finally give it its own space. I get into the difference between connotation and denotation, and what it actually means that two people can hear the exact same word and walk away with completely different experiences of it. I talk about the identical twins thought experiment, paralinguistic features and why text strips context in ways that make misunderstanding almost inevitable, and a concept called semantic satiation, what happens when you repeat something so many times it starts to lose its meaning, and why that works in more directions than people usually realise. I also talk about the words from school. Fat. Ugly. Weird. Boring. Why they aren't inherently anything. And what actually made them catastrophic. And I look back across the season and show how almost every episode has actually been about context all along, just from a different angle. This one ends on a question I've been sitting with for a while. What have you been carrying as a conclusion that might actually just be a context?
20 Jul 2026
the parasocial trap
This episode started as a conversation about parasocial relationships. It became something else. A parasocial relationship is one-sided by definition. You invest real emotional energy in someone who doesn't know you exist. And most of us are in several of them simultaneously, without ever having stopped to think about what that does to how we see ourselves, or how we let ourselves be seen. I get into the mechanics of it, why it isn't a new phenomenon, what it actually feels like from both sides, and why wanting to be heard and being terrified of being perceived are not opposites. They're the same impulse pulling in two directions at once. I also talk about online dating as its own parasocial dynamic, the internalised male gaze and what it does to how you present yourself before you've even met anyone, the 2019 beauty community implosion and why I didn't feel personally betrayed, what it felt like to be recognised from a video I'd completely forgotten making, and what happened when I was sixteen and posted on YouTube for the first time. And I talk about what parasocial relationships have actually given me. Because I don't think the point of this conversation is the warning. I think it's the possibility. If you've ever felt genuinely seen by someone who doesn't know your name, this one's for you.
13 Jul 2026
trying harder doesn't always work
In this episode, I pick up a thread I first noticed in episode three and finally understand it properly. For most of my academic life, the times I tried the hardest were not the times I did the best. The essays I agonised over came back lower than expected. The ones I just wrote consistently did better. And for years I had no idea why. I get into the Yerkes-Dodson law and the Goldilocks zone, why effort and performance aren't a straight line, and what actually happens when you grip the outcome too tightly. I also talk about Neville Goddard's idea of living in the end, the NUS competition I won and forgot about, the Masters prizes I wrote in a journal and never thought about again, and what all of that tells me about how the best things in my life have actually arrived. I also talk about something I've never said out loud before. The boundary between reality and fiction that got blurred somewhere along the way. And what it meant to finally become the writer of my own story rather than a character waiting for the plot to move. And yes, I'm gripping something right now. I'll report back in episode eighteen. If you've ever worked so hard at something that the working got in the way, this one's for you.
6 Jul 2026
confidence is just performance
In this episode, I finally talk about the thing I said I wasn't ready to talk about in the last one. The fear that lives in romantic situations specifically. The one where all the others collapse into one at the same time. I get into the confidence loop, how it gets installed, how it runs, and why breaking out of it from the outside never quite works. I talk about the difference between the persona that was projected onto me and the one I built myself, why fake it till you make it is more complicated than it sounds, and what actually helped me start to dismantle the loop. I also get into the data problem. The very specific difference between someone who has been in at least one relationship and someone who hasn't, and why no amount of external reassurance fills that gap. And what changes when the evidence finally arrives. This one also has alter egos, affirmations, the male gaze running on a gendered frequency, and a moment where I look back at three versions of myself and feel genuinely grateful for all of them. If you've ever felt like confidence belonged to other people, this one's for you.
29 Jun 2026
fear was always the point
In this episode, I do something I probably should have done sooner. I name the thing that's been running underneath every single episode of this season. Fear. I get into what fear actually feels like in the body, the three distinct profiles I've identified in myself, and why they all point at the same thing underneath. I talk about the difference between fear-based editing and values-based editing, why knowing where fear comes from doesn't dissolve it, and why sometimes we perform the fear itself rather than the thing we're actually afraid of. I also bring in Foucault's panopticon, the concept of projected shadow from Jung, and the paralysed analyser, the person who has every plan in place and never starts. And I talk about what's actually helped. Not a framework or a system, but two sentences. One on a hoodie. One on a wall. If you've ever stayed in the planning stage because at least there, nothing has failed yet, this one's for you. Disclaimer: this episode touches on bullying and discusses fear in the context of personal experiences that may resonate with some listeners more heavily than others.
22 Jun 2026
when self awareness becomes self censorship
In this episode, I pick up where the last one left off, because the same tool that lets you understand yourself can also be turned outward and used to manage how you come across. And the line between the two is a lot blurrier than I used to think. I get into Goffman's theory of frontstage and backstage selves, the performer who exists only in my head, and the specific fear underneath all of it, the one I'm naming properly for the first time. I talk about university, the fan fiction I kept hidden for years, the small white lies that turn out to be the same habit in disguise, and what actually combats self-censorship in practice rather than just in theory. This one also gets into digital footprints, public scrutiny, and the strange daunting feeling of saying anything at all when context can be stripped away later. If you've ever built a smaller, safer, edited version of yourself and called it the real one, this one's for you. Disclaimer: this episode touches on bullying and body image.
15 Jun 2026
when language gives you a mirror
In this episode, I get into something a bit lighter after the last couple of heavy ones, but it's still personal. I talk about growing up bilingual, and how that shaped a lifelong hyper-awareness of language: the blessing and the curse of being able to read what's underneath words, and what that's cost me when it comes to overthinking my own. But mostly, this episode is about the moment things finally had a name. Growing up feeling like a dot outside a circle, never quite understanding why. And how, years later, through postcolonial theory, my own heritage, and even astrology, I started finding language for things I'd been carrying without words for most of my life. I get into bullying, identity, cognitive dissonance, and what it actually means when something finally clicks into place. And I ask the question: if you found the language for something you've never quite understood about yourself, what would change? Disclaimer: this episode touches on bullying and body image.
9 Jun 2026
confronting the shadow self
In this episode, I get into something that gets thrown around a lot in spiritual and self-help spaces: shadow work. But rather than the mystical version, I want to talk about what it actually looks like in practice. I talk about the belief I carried for years that I needed to be remarkable to be worth noticing. Where it came from, how it showed up everywhere, and the shadow version of it — telling myself I was just perfectly mid at everything. I get into bullying, heritage, identity, projection, and the moment I realised the stories I was telling myself about other people were actually about unresolved things in me. This episode's Uncomfortably Honest is probably one of the most uncomfortable yet. If you've ever structured your life around not being seen failing at something, this one's for you. Disclaimer: This episode discusses bullying, body image, and weight.
31 May 2026
self awareness in the body
In this episode, I get into something I think a lot of people carry around quietly: the relationship between self-awareness and the body. Specifically, my relationship with my skin, my relationship with exercise, and the moment I realised the patterns I had in one area were showing up everywhere else too. From cystic acne and the all-or-nothing approach to skincare, to avoiding the gym because I couldn't bear to be seen not being good at something, I reflect on how much of what I was doing to "take care" of myself was actually about trying to earn something: desirability, validation, the right to take up space. I also get into the beauty standards I absorbed growing up, from Disney Channel and Nickelodeon to early 2000s culture, and a conversation I came across online that made me realise the standard I'd been measuring myself against wasn't universal. It was constructed. And I'd never once questioned it. This episode also introduces a new recurring segment, Uncomfortably Honest, where I say the thing I probably would have softened or talked around a few sentences ago. If you've ever done all the right things for completely the wrong reasons, this one's for you. Disclaimer: This episode discusses skin picking, body image, weight loss, fitness and appearance.
29 Mar 2026
the problem with being perceived
In this episode, I talk about the idea of being perceived, and how something as small as a throwaway comment can completely shape the way you see yourself. From internalising being called “boring” to unknowingly building a personality around it, I reflect on how easy it is to adopt narratives that were never really ours to begin with. I get into confirmation bias, identity, social media, and the subtle ways we start performing versions of ourselves we think people expect. If you’ve ever questioned whether you’re actually being yourself, or just living according to how you think you’re perceived, this one’s for you.
7 Feb 2026
to be cringe is to be free
In this episode, I talk about why “cringe” is often just confidence we haven’t built yet. How secondhand embarrassment can be a reaction to visibility, vulnerability, or joy. And why so many of us stop ourselves from doing the things we want to do because we are worried about how they will look to other people. This episode is about letting yourself be seen. About doing things without rehearsing every possible reaction. And about realising that free will is reason enough, especially when something brings you happiness and harms no one.
31 Jan 2026
free will is reason enough
In this episode, I talk about a realisation that slowly settled with me: free will is reason enough. I reflect on why we feel the need to justify our choices, rest, boundaries, and decisions, and how over-explaining often comes from wanting understanding rather than permission. This episode explores people-pleasing, honesty, and what it means to let “because I want to” be a complete sentence.
25 Jan 2026
no one is coming to do it for you
In this episode, I talk about the moment a very simple realisation finally clicked for me: no one is coming to do it for you. I reflect on how this shifted my mindset at the end of university, the transition into adulthood, and what it really means to take responsibility for your own choices without turning it into pressure or perfectionism. This episode is about awareness, agency, and the slow, unglamorous work of doing things for yourself.
11 Jan 2026
the first time i realised i had to change
In this episode, I talk about the first time I realised I needed to change something about myself. It wasn’t dramatic or life-altering, just a small behaviour that didn’t sit right anymore. I reflect on how telling tiny white lies became a habit, why it felt uncomfortable, and how choosing honesty became my first real act of self-awareness. This episode is about noticing, sitting with discomfort, and choosing to do things differently. This is where it all started for me.
5 Jan 2026
why self awareness sucks
In this intro episode, I talk about why I started this podcast and what I actually mean when I say self awareness sucks. I share where this idea came from, why growth and doing “the work” can be exhausting, and why there is no real finish line. This episode sets the foundation for honest conversations about reflection, communication, and learning how to live with awareness without shrinking yourself.
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