About Where We Place Ourselves | Identity, Life Stories & Personal Growth
Where We Place Ourselves is a reflective podcast about identity, personal growth, and how we understand our lives over time.
Through slow, thoughtful conversations, each episode revisits a moment, a feeling, or a shift in perspective. We explore memory, relationships, and self-awareness.
If you're interested in psychology, life stories, and personal reflection, this podcast creates space to think more deeply about who you are and how you’ve changed.
The Best and Worst Decision of my Life: Zahir Akram on belonging, regret and choice
Can we love where we've arrived without loving everything it took to get here?
In 2012, Zahir Akram sold his house and almost everything he owned to open a yoga studio. He even slept on its sofa for the first few months.
What began as an attempt to rebuild his own life became something he could never have anticipated. A place where people found friendship, trained as teachers and discovered more about themselves.
But when I asked Zahir what he'd tell his younger self, his answer surprised me. Part of him would say, “Don't do it.” Another part would tell him to keep going, because the best years of his life were still ahead.
In this deeply personal conversation, Zahir shares the experiences that led him to yoga and how they shaped his understanding of suffering, self-worth and the value of questioning what we think we know.
We explore the difference between forcing things and allowing them to unfold, why stillness isn't necessarily the absence of movement, and the uncomfortable possibility that the communities which give us belonging can also prevent us from growing.
Drawing on Eastern philosophy, ancient mythology and his own experiences, Zahir challenges familiar ideas about progress, certainty and what it means to find ourselves.
You don't need to practise yoga or understand every philosophical reference to take something from this conversation. Bring your curiosity, question what doesn't resonate and see what you recognise in your own life.
Because sometimes the choices that shape us most are the ones we'll never quite know how to feel about.
About Zahir: Zahir Akram is the founder of Akram Yoga, where he teaches yoga and trains teachers. Explore his work, classes and teacher training at akramyoga.co.uk (https://www.akramyoga.co.uk).
Where We Place Ourselves explores what happens to us because of where we choose to place ourselves, and how hearing someone else's story might help us see our own a little differently.
8 Oct 2026
You Don't Win at Yoga:
Emma Talbot on progress, control and coming back to yourself
What if progress doesn't always mean moving forward?
I came back to yoga wanting to get better at it. More flexible, stronger, able to do things I couldn't do before.
Then I started going to Emma Talbot's classes, and somewhere along the way I began questioning what progress actually meant.
Emma has spent a decade practising yoga and believes you never really complete it. Your body changes, life interrupts, and what felt easy yesterday can feel impossible today. Yet you keep returning.
In this conversation, we explore why repetition helps us notice change, what discomfort can teach us about ourselves, and how easily the desire to improve can become another thing we're trying to control.
Emma said something that stayed with me. “If you're always doing something new, then you don't really notice.”
We're so accustomed to asking where we're going next that we rarely stop to consider where we choose to return.
And when I asked Emma what ten years of returning to the mat had done to her, she answered simply, “I'm more myself because of it.”
Perhaps some places matter not because they take us somewhere new, but because they help us notice who we're becoming.
In Where We Place Ourselves, I explore what happens to us because of where we choose to place ourselves. This time, the place is simply the mat.
Find Emma: Emma Talbot Yoga (https://www.emmatalbotyoga.com/)
30 Sept 2026
Wait a minute - Helen Hannan Evans on Listening Beyond Assumptions
What changes when we pause long enough to question what we think we know?
In this episode of Where We Place Ourselves, Archana Mohan speaks with Helen Hannan Evans, founder of Brand, Marketing and Communications consultancy The Listening People (https://links.uk.defend.egress.com/Warning?crId=6abbbd573032cfb958be50e9&Domain=veritasinvestment.co.uk&Threat=eNpzrShJLcpLzAEADmkDRA%3D%3D&Lang=en&@OriginalLink=thelisteningpeople.com&Base64Url=eNrLKCkpKLbS1y_JSM3JLC5JzcvMSy9IzS_ISdVLzs_VBwDBjgv7), about the experiences and assumptions that shape how we listen.
From growing up in 1970s Ireland to an unexpected moment of recognition sparked by Annie Lennox, Helen explores how we learn to see the world, and how we can learn to see it differently. Together, we discuss the instinct to fix before someone has finished speaking, the judgement we bring to AI, and why fresh ideas often come from people outside our field.
Helen also shares how she has shaped a working life that brings together what she values about corporate life and running her own business. And when a closing question leaves her momentarily without an answer, she gives the conversation something fitting: space to think.
A conversation about curiosity, questioning assumptions, and making room for what we haven’t heard yet.
Work that has inspired Helen
The Art of Possibility (https://links.uk.defend.egress.com/Warning?crId=6abbbd573032cfb958be50e9&Domain=veritasinvestment.co.uk&Threat=eNpzrShJLcpLzAEADmkDRA%3D%3D&Lang=en&@OriginalLink=www.benjaminzander.org&Base64Url=eNrLKCkpKLbS1y8vL9dLSs3LSszNzKtKzEtJLdLLL0rXL87IL9C3L6ksSLVNys_PLgYAr08SEQ%3D%3D) by Rosamund Stone Zander and Ben Zander
The work of Oscar Trimboli (https://links.uk.defend.egress.com/Warning?crId=6abbbd573032cfb958be50e9&Domain=veritasinvestment.co.uk&Threat=eNpzrShJLcpLzAEADmkDRA%3D%3D&Lang=en&@OriginalLink=www.oscartrimboli.com&Base64Url=eNrLKCkpKLbS1y8vL9fLL05OLCopysxNys_J1EvOz9UHALNHC3U%3D)focused on Deep Listening
Contact Where We Place Ourselves | Identity, Life Stories & Personal Growth
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Host of Where We Place Ourselves | Identity, Life Stories & Personal Growth?
Claim your podcast to manage its listing and keep your show details accurate.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
