Writing A Letter To Our Younger Selves (With James & Nick Van Cuylenburg)

October 12, 2025·48 min·4 clips

Two brothers guide a powerful practice of writing letters to your younger self, sparking honest conversations about family and resilience.

It starts with playful housekeeping. Recording on Gadigal land, the hosts welcome James and Nick and gently fix how they have been saying Van Cuylenburg. The mood is easy, which helps, because the conversation soon gets into looking back, moving on, and why writing to a younger self can hit harder than expected. James brings the therapy lens. To understand adults, he says, you have to ask where their feelings and patterns began, then put the present inside that bigger story. Nick comes in more quietly. At first he saw himself as the microphone and production person, useful behind the knobs rather than in the chair. The brother dynamic does a lot of the work. They have spent years batting around grand ideas and small ones, so the podcast sounds less like a polished act than a conversation they already knew how to have. The hosts keep nudging, not pushing. When they ask how Nick ended up behind the microphone, the answer is gradual, not grand. Childhood stays at the center. James says their show asks storytellers to revisit childhood and notice how safety, support, trouble, or trauma shaped adulthood. The point is not a tidy lesson. It is the path people take: how they cope, manage, keep going, and maybe get a little kinder to themselves. The hosts clearly admire the care between the brothers and the thing they are trying to make. By the end, James notes that relationships have barely been touched and leaves the door open for a future chat about couples therapy.

As heard by us

A warm sibling conversation that turns self reflection into something plainspoken and moving.

The episode settles into a family first conversation, with James and Nick Van Kylenburg talking about growing up together, starting You're a Good Kid, and using letters to a younger self to bring out family, childhood, resilience, and connection.

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Why you'd press play

If you want a sibling chat built around letters to your younger self.

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