A Thai school psychologist turned TikTok creator learns to care for herself while helping others heal
Like many others during the COVID-19 lockdowns, Supaporn turned to TikTok to share lighthearted content from home as a way to cope with stress. But as she noticed many people around her were struggling emotionally, she began drawing on her background as a school psychologist, shifting her focus toward content about relationships and self-worth. As her audience grew, they came to know her as Kru Yui. Her gentle and emotionally resonant narrations began to connect deeply with working-age adults navigating the complexities of love and loss.
Her stories often drew from familiar Thai drama plotlines, voiced from the perspective of a character caught in a painful or complicated relationship, sometimes as the third person in a love triangle. Rather than casting blame, she used these narrations to encourage viewers to turn their attention inward and reconnect with their own self-worth. To her surprise, people began using her original audio to voice feelings they couldn’t put into words themselves. That was when she realized her content had taken on a life of its own.
When she was invited to join Mindful Makers she saw the list of partners, including the Thai Department of Mental Health (DMH), World Health Organization (WHO), and Tiktok; she felt certain the program would be a place to grow and learn from experts across the field. The program gave her frameworks and language for ideas she had been circling on her own, helping her speak to her audience with more clarity.
One of the most meaningful learnings she took away came when she used a tool introduced through Mindful Makers, called ‘Say Nice Things to Yourself’, to help someone in emotional distress. The tool, designed for people who had never learned to speak kindly to themselves, became something she would return to again and again in her work.
Drawing people back to themselves to rediscover their self-worth continued to be a key message that resonated with Kru Yui during the program, as she found herself posting more content on the subject matter. Kru Yui started sharing with others a metaphor she received from a mentor she deeply respected,
“The best thing is to come back and tend to your own garden.”
That small phrase meant a lot to Kru Yui, one that she uses to remind herself to be mindful of her own wellbeing. “When we take care of our own garden and it grows flowers and bears fruit, it’s because we nurture it, remove pests, and water it. Otherwise it won’t grow. It will wither and die.” she explained.
“We get caught up admiring other people’s gardens and not watering our own and in the end, we won’t flourish.”
Since the campaign, Kru Yui has been juggling many opportunities, notably speaking at universities on her experience with the Mindful Makers program. “I would create content saying, today I’m at the TikTok office, or I’m joining this event. People became curious and wondered, why does she get to go there? Things like that.” she shared.
“Being someone from a province outside Bangkok who became one of the very few people in Korat to get into TikTok’s office, made universities, where I’m an alumna, invite me to speak to students about how I built my identity and got these opportunities.” Kru Yui believes that it always comes back to the same story on who we are, why we were given the opportunities and what we pass on to others. For Kru Yui, having a background in psychology, her Tiktok content, and joining the Mindful Makers program, all felt deeply aligned for her—a reminder that staying true to yourself brings your experiences together into a meaningful story.
“I simply share that story with younger students that in the end, just stay focused on your core thing, and that’s enough. It gives us stories that can be passed on to the next generation.”
