Pulling The Thread with Elise Loehnen

Rightful Instagram celebrity Sharon McMahon is known as “America’s Government Teacher.” Her new book, The Small and the Mighty, was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller. With her trademark warmth and wit, McMahon shares a few historical secrets, her approach to judging people from the past, and her perspective on our current moment in time. She also tells a remarkable story that may convince you to work with, instead of against, your enemies. See more about this episode and guest on my Substack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this solo episode, I share some things that are on my mind right now, including: An experience I had revisiting my 22-year-old self. A powerful takeaway from a workshop on wanting and desire. And how I’m thinking about personal stories, memoir, and bridges to bigger collective stories. I also answer some listener questions (thank you, and please keep them coming).See more about this episode on my Substack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this moving, live conversation with journalist Clara Bingham, we delve into the incredible stories that make up her latest oral history book, The Movement. Bingham reveals the highs and the lows of second wave feminism from 1963 to 1973, the women who transformed America during that time, and the reverberations that we’re still feeling today. I got choked up during this one.See more about this episode and guest on my Substack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Legendary anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy gave us the term “allomother,” and by extension, “alloparent”—the pioneering idea that mutual care is the reason we’ve evolved to be the humans we are today. Hrdy, who is professor emerita at the University of California, Davis, has just written a new (and stunning) book, called Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies. Today, we talk about what she’s learned about human culture over the course of her long career, and the impact of her elegant hypothesis.See more about this episode and guest on my Substack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sharing an episode of Need a Lift?, a show that focuses on bringing people together during a tough time in our culture. Host Tim Shriver talks to wise guests who have transformed painful moments in their lives into purpose through their spiritual rituals and practices. Guests like bestselling novelist Min Jin Lee on why she creates complicated characters who hold the secret to our transformation, and Olympic athlete Michael Phelps and his wife Nicole discussing the importance of cultivating an inner life in competition, mental health and in their marriage. Need a Lift? is truly the antidote to the hatred and despair we’re all exhausted of hearing, giving us hope that change is possible. In this episode, The Office’s Rainn Wilson explains that we can quiet the world's chaos and deal with our collective sense of overwhelm by believing in something bigger than us. Find more episodes of Need a Lift? at https://link.chtbl.com/needalift?sid=pullingthethread Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“We need to be open to things that offend or transcend our worldview because they're clearly doing that for a reason,” says Jeffrey Kripal, PhD. Kripal—who holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University—returns to the podcast for a second time. We talk about different ways to understand the deeper realities of our lives, and his latest book, How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else. Yes, we get to time travel and conspiracy theories. And also what makes Kripal’s work fun—and funny.See more about this episode and guest on my Substack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I think it's good to relive the past and then revise your life,” says Edith Eva Eger. “Go through it, but don't get stuck in it.” The world-renowned psychologist, who survived the Nazi death camps, and went on to be a colleague of Viktor Frankl, just turned 97. And she just released The Ballerina of Auschwitz, which is the YA edition of her major memoir The Choice. She joins the podcast with her grandson, Jordan Engler, to talk about how her mindset has evolved—and what she still looks forward to doing.See more about this episode and guest on my Substack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Jim Doty is a neurosurgeon, neuroscientist, and the director of Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. Jim is also a bestselling author—his first book, Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart, tells his improbable life story: Jim had a tough start in life. He wandered into a magic shop where he met the shop owner’s mother, Ruth, who offered to spend six weeks teaching him mindfulness and meditation—these weren’t really things at the time—and ultimately how to manifest. After a rollercoaster of a life, including manifesting the list of things he wanted as a tween, he found himself back at the bottom again, and began to attend to making real meaning with his life. This ushered in his last chapter, where he has become much more than a neurosurgeon: He is one of the leading figures in the globe drawing connections between the brain, compassion and care, and how love shows up in the world.We caught up when Jim was in Riyadh, in the middle of the night for him—thank you Jim!—launching a new AI-enabled mental health app called Happi.ai, which isn’t therapy but is a friend in your pocket. Our conversation begins there before we dive into his newest book, Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How it Changes Everything. If you think of Manifestation as woo-woo, Jim explains why it’s actually not—and the underlying brain mechanisms that are activated when you focus attention and intention. MORE FROM JAMES DOTY, M.D.:Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How it Changes EverythingInto the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the HeartJim’s App: Happi.aiJim’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Lewis has one of the most illustrious resumés of all the guests on Pulling the Thread—and I think we’re the same age. Lewis is the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities and Associate Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University where she serves on the Standing Committee on American Studies and Standing Committee on Women, Gender, and Sexuality. It was at Harvard that Lewis pioneered the course Vision and Justice: The Art of Race and American Citizenship, which she continues to teach and is now part of the University’s core curriculum—as it were, Lewis is the founder of Vision & Justice, which means that she is the organizer of the landmark Vision & Justice Convening, and co-editor of the Vision & Justice Book Series, launched in partnership with Aperture. Before joining the faculty at Harvard, she held curatorial positions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Tate Modern, London. She also served as a Critic at Yale University School of Art. I’m not done—in fact, I could go on and on. She’s the author of The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery, a book on Carrie Mae Weems, and innumerable important academic papers. Today, we talk about The Rise and how it dovetails in interesting ways with her brand-new book, The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America, which is about the insidious idea that white people are from the Caucasus, a.k.a. Caucasian—an idea that took root in the culture and helped determine the way we see race today. MORE FROM SARAH ELIZABETH LEWIS, PhD:The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in AmericaThe Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for MasteryCarrie Mae WeemsSarah Lewis’s WebsiteVision & JusticeFollow Sarah on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

James Hollis, PhD is a Jungian analyst who is still in private practice in Washington D.C. Hollis started his career as a professor of humanities before a midlife crisis brought him to his knees—and to the Jung Institute in Zurich. The author of 19 books, Hollis is one of the best interpreters of Carl Jung’s work, making it accessible for all of us who want to understand how complexes, archetypes, synchronicities, and the shadow drive our lives.Hollis’s books are very meaningful to me—you’ll find a long list in the show notes—and the chance to interview him did not disappoint. In fact, at one point, where he describes what we do to boys as we turn them into men, I actually started to cry. Meanwhile, James Hollis still lectures—you can go to his site to find a way to see him live. The fact that he’s 84 and does not seem inclined to retire—in fact, he told me he has another book coming out next year—is a testament to how a vocation doesn’t feel like work. This is one of my favorite interviews to date. I hope you love it as much as I do.MORE FROM JAMES HOLLIS, PhD:Why Good People Do Bad Things: Understanding Our Darker SelvesFinding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow UpA Life of Meaning: Relocating Your Center of Spiritual GravityThe Broken Mirror: Refracted Visions of OurselvesJames Hollis’s WebsiteRELATED EPISODES:Connie Zweig, “Embracing the Shadow”Satya Doyle Byock, “Navigating Quarterlife”Terry Real, “Healing Male Depression”Niobe Way, PhD, “The Critical Need for Deep Connection” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Jamil Zaki is a professor of psychology at Stanford University and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. Jamil trained at Columbia and Harvard, studying empathy and kindness in the human brain, and I’ve been a mega-fan for years, after interviewing him for his first book, The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World, in 2019. His latest book, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, is a must-read. It’s a love letter of sorts, a collaboration through the veil with his late colleague Emile Bruneau, who also studied compassion, peace, and hope. I would love for every single person to read this book as it paints a more accurate, data-driven portrait of who we are, which is mostly good, and mostly aligned in our vision for the future. Jamil explains what happens to us when fear and cynicism intervene and the way we come to see each other through a distorted lens. He busts some other significant myths as well, namely that we glorify cynicism as being “smart”—you know, no dupes allowed—but cynicism actually makes us cognitively less intelligent. Yes, you heard that right. I loved this conversation, which we’ll turn to now.MORE FROM JAMIL ZAKI, PhD:Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human GoodnessThe War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured WorldFollow Jamil on X and InstagramJamil’s Lab’s WebsiteRELATED EPISODES:Amanda Ripley, “Navigating Conflict”"Calling In the Call-Out Culture with Loretta Ross" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tara Mohr is a coach, educator and the author of Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create, and Lead, which is celebrating its 10th birthday this fall. I first met Tara a decade ago and was so taken with her and her insights that we did four stories together—stories that were deeply resonant with women everywhere. These stories were about understanding—and releasing—your inner critic, locating your inner mentor, examining the ways in which you keep yourself in the shadows and why, and the most potent one of them all: why women are so quick to criticize other women. We cover this same ground 10 years on—and it’s just as powerful as it was then. I loved reconnecting with Tara and can’t wait to do more with her over the coming decades, specifically revisioning what it might look like if more women led—but not in a model defined by men, in a way that might be uniquely their own. Okay, let’s get to our conversation.MORE FROM TARA MOHR:The Inner Mentor Guided MeditationTara Mohr’s WebsiteTara’s Online CoursesPlaying Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create, and Lead Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Katie Hendricks is the co-founder of The Hendricks Institute and the co-author of 12 books, including the bestseller, Conscious Loving: The Journey to Co-Commitment. Katie and her husband, Gay, have been leading seminars and workshops for individuals and couples for decades—moving them from their definition of co-dependence into co-commitment. We touch on it in our conversation, but their definition of co-dependence is the only one I’ve heard that makes sense to me as they suggest co-dependence at its simplest is when your behavior is determined by someone else’s—when you are adjusting yourself around someone else in a way that is a disservice to the relationship. Instead, they argue for co-commitment, where everyone takes complete responsibility for their own actions and their own lives. They coach a lot of tools that I love to talk about on this podcast, including the Drama Triangle, and they also coined the concept of the Upper Limit Problem, which is our tendency—just when things are going really well–to self-sabotage. That’s a big focus of our conversation today.MORE FROM KATIE HENDRICKS, PhD:Conscious Loving: The Journey to Co-CommitmentThe Conscious Heart: Seven Soul-Choices that Create Your Relationship DestinyThe Big Leap, by Gay Hendricks, PhDThe Hendricks InstituteFoundation for Conscious LivingFollow Katie & Gay on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amanda Montell is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, as well as Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism and Wordslut. Amanda is a linguistics major from NYU and all of her work centers around the way that words—and thoughts—shape our minds, and how our minds are permeable to other factors, whether it’s the halo effect, confirmation bias, or Cult-like sensibilities. Amanda is also the host of a podcast, “Sounds like a Cult.” Okay, let’s get to our conversation.MORE FROM AMANDA MONTELL:The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern IrrationalityCultish: The Language of FanaticismWordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English LanguageFollow Amanda on InstagramAmanda’s WebsiteAmanda’s Podcast: “Sounds Like a Cult”Amanda’s Newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jerry Colonna is the founder of Reboot and one of the most sought after CEO coaches in the world. Before he began coaching executives, Jerry was a burnt out VC, convinced that there must be a better way to impact the world—and also convinced that if he could influence the upper reaches of corporate structures, if he could help leaders heal, he could vastly improve the lives of all the employees. After all, he had observed the ripple effect of unhealed emotional wounds being taken out on other people—specifically people with less power. This is the focus of Jerry’s two great books about leadership: His first one is Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up and his second is Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong, which takes a probing look at power and privilege and how it can alienate those who already don’t feel like they belong. In today’s conversation, we talk about all of this and specifically one of Jerry’s main queries. This passage is from Reunion: “While necessary, it’s not enough for us to do the inner work of unpacking our childhood wounds and, with fierce radical self-inquiry, free ourselves from the need to reenact the old stories of our pasts. Radical self-inquiry that stops at the question of how we have been complicit in creating the conditions we say we don’t want—a core tenet of my coaching and my book Reboot—is insufficient if it fails to look out to the world as it exists and ask how it could be better.” MORE FROM JERRY COLONNA:Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to BelongReboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing UpReboot CoachingFollow Jerry on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl is back for the second part of a series we’ve decided to undertake. If you missed part one, I’d recommend giving it a listen—it ran last week—though there is no test! You can pick up with this episode and you won’t be lost. Thomas is one of my favorite thought partners because of his presence—he can build and hold an incredible amount of space, which I hope is perceptible to all of you who are tuning in from afar. I can feel it through the computer. In today’s episode, we went deeper into our conversation about finding “bad” feelings in our bodies, sitting with discomfort, and learning how to move these sensations up and out. We talked about our collective responsibility to build this capacity—particularly if we’re not deep and directly in suffering ourselves—and why these deposits of collective trauma stick around for so long. On this final point—the presence of dark and dense entities that you can sometimes sense or feel, particularly in highly traumatized parts of the globe—we’re going to devote an entire episode. So stay tuned for Part Three, coming later this fall.MORE FROM THOMAS HÜBL:Part One on Pulling the Thread: “Finding Shadow in the Body”On Pulling the Thread: “Feeling into the Collective Presence”On Pulling the Thread: “Processing Our Collective Past”Thomas’s Podcast, Point of RelationAttuned: Practicing Interdepence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our WorldHealing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural WoundsThomas Hübl’s WebsiteFollow Thomas on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Carol Gilligan is an esteemed professor and developmental psychologist, who is the author of a landmark book called In a Different Voice—a book that I talk about and write about all the time. Back in the ‘80s—Gilligan is 87 now and still working—she looked at all the research from the likes of Lawrence Kohlberg and Piaget and made a stunning and obvious realization: These developmental psychologist giants had only ever studied boys. Typically white, middle-class boys. In response, Gilligan did a study on girls and moral development, a groundbreaking look into how culture genders our response to the world: Gilligan found that for girls, morality is relational and rooted in care—not so much law—and that fear of separation from relationship encouraged these girls to stop saying what they know. She struggled to get this study published—it was rejected multiple times—and has since become the most requested reprint out of Harvard. It also became the subject of In a Different Voice, which has sold 500,000 copies—unheard of in academic publishing. Everything that Carol Gilligan shares with us in this conversation is a revelation and also deeply resonant—and something you will know to be true. Before I go, if you missed Niobe Way’s episode from a few weeks ago, tune in to that next—Niobe was Carol’s student, and has done for boys what Carol has done for girls.MORE FROM CAROL GILLIGAN:In a Different VoiceIn a Human VoiceWhy Does Patriarchy Persist?Carol Gilligan’s WebsiteNiobe Way’s Episode: “The Critical Need for Deep Connection”FROM MY NEWSLETTER:“What Valley Girl’s Tell Us”“What Are We ‘Really, Actually” Saying“The Achilles Heel of Women” “How to Keep Caring” “Why is it So Hard to Scream?”EPISODES IN THE “GROWING UP” SERIES:Niobe Way, “The Critical Need for Deep Connection”Harvey Karp, M.D., ”The Long-Term Implication of Sleep”Carissa Schumacher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You’ve likely heard spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl on my podcast before. This conversation actually happened on his podcast, The Point of Relation, and we went so deep, we decided we needed to do a Part Two, which is coming to you next week. Thomas is the author of two excellent books on collective trauma and resonance: Attuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our World and Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds. He does work all over the globe in geographic pockets where a lot has happened, helping people create containers to move the energy up and out. In this conversation, we talked about locating “bad” feelings in our bodies—specifically in the context of On Our Best Behavior—though the practices we discuss here are applicable to anything. MORE FROM THOMAS HÜBL:On Pulling the Thread: Feeling into the Collective Presence”On Pulling the Thread: “Processing Our Collective Past”Thomas’s Podcast, Point of RelationAttuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our WorldHealing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural WoundsThomas Hübl’s WebsiteFollow Thomas on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Long-time listeners will recognize Carissa Schumacher from this podcast. Carissa is an incredible forensic medium—which means that yes, sometimes the police call on her for assistance in solving crimes and yes, she also talks to people on the other side. But as of the end of 2019, she’s also a full-body channel for Yeshua, or Christ Consciousness. This might sound wild—and it is wild—but what’s expressed during these transmissions is also incredible. It’s deeply resonant, lyrical, and profound wisdom that feels so true—and sometimes counterintuitive—that it doesn’t really matter who is its author. Carissa and by extension, Yeshua, have been guiding lights for me in the past four years bringing me ever closer to myself. If you have an opportunity to go to one of Carissa’s journeys and you feel called, do it. They can be life-changing, in both overt and slowly unfolding ways. I asked Carissa to join me for this special series on GROWING UP because I wanted to ask her about highly sensitive children, empathy, and intuition—both its presence in all of us, and what happens as we grow up that causes it to shut down. For highly sensitive people—of which I know there are many who listen to this podcast, hopefully you’ll hear your own experiences reflected here. For parents of highly sensitive children, I hope what you hear will help. Conversations with Carissa are never short though, so we cover a lot of other ground from recent transmissions—the “in-reality self” versus “the in-theory self” and so much more. MORE FROM CARISSA SCHUMACHER:The Freedom Transmissions: A Pathway to PeaceCarissa’s WebsiteEnergy Healer Uta Opitz’s Website “The Codes of Anger”PREVIOUS EPISODES WITH CARISSA:“Yeshua: Integration not Eradication”“Understanding Spiritual Power”“Why Do We Suffer?”“My Spiritual Teacher and Yeshua Channel”EPISODES IN THE “GROWING UP” SERIES:Niobe Way, “The Critical Need for Deep Connection”Harvey Karp, M.D., ”The Long-Term Implication of Sleep” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Poet and author Mark Nepo has now written nearly 30 books, including mega-bestsellers like The Book of Awakening. In this latest book, You Don’t Have to Do It Alone, Mark explores the power of friendship to lend life both vital energy and more meaning, likening friends not to the boat, but to the oars that can help you reach the other side of the water. I’ve been thinking a lot about boys and men lately—including the ways in which they suffer under patriarchy too, sometimes in more devastating ways. I’m grateful for people like Mark who are insisting and modeling that to care is to be human—and that intimate friendships are vital for all of us who hope to lead long and meaningful lives. Women have an easier time of this, though we can all benefit from reminders. MORE FROM MARK NEPO:You Don’t Have to Do It Alone: The Power of FriendshipThe Book of AwakeningFalling Down and Getting UpMark Nepo’s WebsiteFollow Mark Nepo on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Harvey Karp is the author of The Happiest Baby on the Block which has Bible-like status in the world of parenting. As a beloved Los Angeles pediatrician, Harvey punctured the mainstream with the 5 S’s—swaddling, shushing, swinging, sucking, and holding the baby on its side—all simple interventions that helped parents help their newborns sleep. This was revolutionary—and certainly changed my trajectory as a new parent, as getting five straight hours instead of three can have a huge impact on your mental health. Harvey then codified his findings into “The Snoo,” a bassinet that functions as an extra set of hands: It swaddles, swings, shushes, and keeps the baby safely on its back while it sleeps. In today’s conversation we talk about what it would look like to institutionalize support of new parents, what Harvey’s trying to do about this, why it can be so awful, isolating, and hard to have kids, along with the advice most parents frequently seek. I’m lucky to call Harvey a friend and to be able to turn to him over the years—in fact, Sam slept in a prototype Snoo—so I’m thrilled to share some of his wisdom with all of you. Let’s turn to our conversation now.MORE FROM HARVEY KARP, M.D.:The Happiest Baby on the BlockThe Happiest Toddler on the BlockThe SnooFollow Happiest Baby on InstagramEPISODES IN THE “GROWING UP” SERIES:Niobe Way, “The Critical Need for Deep Connection” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sarah Bessey is the author or editor of five books, including Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith. Sarah writes most prominently about leaving her evangelical upbringing and working through the deconstruction of her religious beliefs to create something that feels more true to her in its wake—as part of this, she co-founded the Evolving Faith community with some of her friends, including the wonderful and late Rachel Held Evans. Bessey writes prolifically about what it means to connect with her idea of God in a bigger and more expansive way—one that has moved from Simplicity, to Complexity, to Perplexity, to Harmony. In addition to Field Notes for the Wilderness, Sarah is also the editor of the New York Times bestseller A Rhythm of Prayer and Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible’s View of Women. In today’s conversation we talked about ideas and processes Sarah holds tenderly, including a shift from peace-keeping to peace-making and trying to articulate a vision of what she is for rather than who she is against. There is much in this conversation to which we can all relate.MORE FROM SARAH BESSEY:Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving FaithA Rhythm of Prayer: A Collection of Meditations for RenewalOut of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving FaithJesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible’s View of WomenFollow Sarah on InstagramSubscribe to Sarah’s NewsletterEvolving FaithSarah’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Niobe Way is an internationally-recognized Professor of Developmental Psychology, the founder of the Project for the Advancement of Our Common Humanity (PACH) at NYU, and the Director of the Science of Human Connection Lab. She is also a Principal Investigator of the Listening Project, funded by the Spencer Foundation, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative and the Rockefeller Foundation. When she was a student, Niobe studied with Carol Gilligan—if you read my newsletter or listen to this podcast, you know Carol is a hero of mine and will be wrapping up this series as a guest. Niobe has done for boys what Carol has done for girls—and their research intersects and Venn diagrams in fascinating ways. While Carol’s research shows that girls come to not know what they know, Niobe traces how boys disconnect from their caring and often enter a period of irrevocably devastating and dangerous loneliness. Niobe is the author of Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection as well as the just-released, Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and Our Culture, which offers fascinating insight into our culture at large. Along with historical context, Niobe offers beautiful case studies from her research—following and interviewing boys as they grow up—along with notes from boys who have gone on to wreak havoc on the culture, in homicidal and suicidal ways. These notes speak to disconnection, extreme loneliness, and feeling like nobody cares. As I talk about my book in living rooms around the country, I often cite Niobe and Carol Gilligan, specifically the insight that at a certain point—around 8 for boys, and 11 for girls—the word “don’t” enters children’s vocabulary. For girls, it’s “I don’t know.” For boys, it’s “I don’t care.” And of course, girls knows. And of course, boys care. We need to repair our culture so it’s safe for them to stay connected. As you can tell, I’m very excited for this conversation.MORE FROM NIOBE WAY, PhD:Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and Our CultureDeep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of ConnectionThe Crisis of Connection: Roots, Consequences, and SolutionsNiobe Way’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stan Tatkin is an author, therapist, and researcher who guides couples toward more durable relationships. He developed the Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy (PACT), a non-linear approach that explores attachment theory to help couples adopt secure-functioning principles: In short, Stan and his wife, Tracey, train therapists to work through a psychobiological lens. Often, our brains get away from us when we’re in conflict in our relationships—we lose ourselves to our instincts. He has trained thousands of therapists to integrate PACT into their clinical practice, offers intensive counseling sessions, and co-leads couples retreats with his wife. Tatkin is also an assistant clinical professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Stan wrote Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner’s Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship more than a decade ago and it became an instant classic. It was due for a refresh to encompass the wider range of relationships we’re now experiencing and it’s just been re-issued, better than ever.In today’s conversation we talk about the table stakes of a good relationship: Nobody cares about your survival more than your partner, something we easily forget. As it were, we get into a fascinating sidebar on Pre-Nuptial Agreements, which in Stan’s estimation cause many relationships to founder. I’ll let him tell you why.MORE FROM STAN TATKIN:Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner’s Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure RelationshipIn Each Other’s Care: A Guide to the Most Common Relationship Conflicts and How to Work Through ThemWe DoWired for DatingStan Tatkin’s WebsiteFollow Stan on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, It’s Elise, host of Pulling the Thread. Starting next Monday, I’m doing another special series—this one is about growing up, and no, it’s definitely not just for parents. It’s mostly about re-parenting, or understanding the driving factors of how we all come to understand the world. You’ll hear from four very different voices about childhood, social programming, and development. Two are pioneers in gender development: One of my all-time heroes, developmental psychologist Carol Gilligan, who I write about in my Substack all-the-time who wrote In a Different Voice in the ‘80s, is joining me on the show, and so is Niobe Way, who does for boys what Carol Gilligan does for girls. I’m also talking with legendary pediatrician Harvey Karp, creator of The Happiest Baby on the Block, the founder of the Snoo, and an ardent and early environmentalist—and Carissa Schumacher, a full-body psychic medium and dear friend who is going to talk to us about what it’s like to raise and be a highly empathic and intuitive person—and how you can retain and develop those abilities. Or shut them down. It will be a great series, coming every Monday for the next month. I’ll see you every Thursday for a regular episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Prune Harris has been able to see, study, and shift energy fields since she was born—a gift she didn’t fully realize she didn’t share with everyone else. Prune is an incredible teacher—I’ve been lucky enough to work with her—because can take esoteric and complex energy systems and distill them into metaphors, concepts, and practices that are both easy to understand and easy to do. She has taught me so many simple holds and gestures that have had a direct impact on helping me calm myself down and feel more contained and grounded. She’s the author of a great guidebook, Your Radiant Soul: Understand Your Energy to Transform Your World, and she has an incredibly comprehensive Youtube channel where she teaches simple practices. She’s wonderful. In today’s conversation we cover a lot of ground—from basic holds and energy systems to why most of us need to also ground up. We also discuss the auric membrane and what happens when it gets punctured, by other people, the energy of the world, and psychedelics.MORE FROM PRUNE HARRIS:Your Radiant Soul: Understand Your Energy to Transform Your WorldPrune’s WebsiteFollow Prune on YouTubeFollow Prune on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Karl Deisseroth is a psychiatrist, neuroscientist and bioengineering professor at Stanford. Karl is also the author of Projections: The New Science of Human Emotion, which is a beautiful revisitation and exploration of his time as a psychiatry resident, where he encountered all sorts of people who didn’t quite understand what was happening to their brains—and by extension their minds.In the book—and in our conversation today—Karl explores mania, autism spectrum disorder, eating disorders, borderline personality disorder, psychopathy, and dementia, all in gorgeous prose. Karl runs a lab at Stanford that focuses on optogenetics, mind-blowing science that can pinpoint where adaptive and maladaptive behaviors begin in the brain. He’s won the Kyoto Prize and Heineken Prize for his research, which is not surprising—it just might change the entire world of psychiatry.Today’s conversation is far-ranging and it’s also surprising, including a conversation about how some of these disorders—like eating disorders, which can be deadly, can also be strangely adaptive. Please stick with us. MORE FROM KARL DEISSEROTH, M.D., PhD:Projections: The New Science of Human EmotionFollow Karl Deisseroth on Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ken Wilber's work and intellect is difficult to describe. Throughout a long career—and the authoring of 20 books, including A Brief History of Everything, Grace and Grit, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, and The Religion of Tomorrow, Wilber has put together what is essentially a synthesis of every psychological model of development. In fact, he locked himself away for years, writing every model down on pieces of yellow legal paper, and then knit them all together. I’ve written about Wilber’s work at length in my newsletter, which is also called Pulling the Thread—I’ll put links in the show notes—and I talk about his work on this show as well. Most recently, I talked about Ken Wilber with Nicole Churchill in our conversation about Spiral Dynamics. Wilber is a Spiral Dynamics wizard, though he uses it in aggregate with the work of other developmental thinkers, integrating the work of luminaries like Carol Gilligan, Robert Kegan, and others. In today’s conversation, we talk about Wilber’s brand new book, Finding Radical Wholeness, which explores the five big processes we all undertake in our lives. In today’s conversation, we mostly talked about two: Waking Up and Growing Up, which are often conflated. Wilber makes the case for why they are unrelated processes—and the essential nature of the latter. While Waking Up, or having a Satori experience is wonderful—and something that 60% of people report—we all need to grow up. Wilber and I spend most of today’s conversation talking about our political environment from the standpoint of developmental psychology: Why we’re so fractured, and what it will look like when the Integral Stage becomes the leading edge of culture and we learn how to include and transcend. I think this is fascinating, and reassuring, and excellent context for a moment that feels so out-of-control.MORE FROM KEN WILBER:Finding Radical WholenessA Brief History of EverythingSex, Ecology SpiritualityTrump and a Post-Truth WorldThe Religion of TomorrowGrace and GritMore books from Ken WilberMore from Pulling the Thread Podcast:“The Basics of Spiral Dynamics” with Nicole Churchill“Our Collective Psychological Development” with John ChurchillMore from Pulling the Thread Newsletter:Transcend and IncludeEmbracing Nondual ThinkingRight DoingAscending and DescendingStates vs. Stages Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nicole Avant is a philanthropist, filmmaker, and former diplomat. In her recent memoir, Think You’ll Be Happy, Nicole describes attending to the grief and shock of her mother’s unthinkable murder—she was shot in the back by a home intruder in 2021—by creating a living legacy in her honor. Her mom, Jacqueline Avant, had turned her Los Angeles home into a refuge for artists, politicians, and world-changers as the partner to Nicole’s father, entertainment mogul Clarence Avant, who is the subject of Nicole’s beautiful documentary,The Black Godfather. Nicole grew up sitting at the feet of extraordinary artists like Bill Withers, Oprah Winfrey, Quincy Jones, Sidney Poitier watching as her parents navigated the world to make it better for future generations. In today’s conversation, we talk about that legacy—as well as Nicole’s relationship to the divine. Like her parents, she is a master connector—putting people together to see what unfolds.MORE FROM NICOLE AVANT:Think You’ll Be Happy: Moving Through Grief with Grit, Grace, and GratitudeThe Black Godfather, on NetflixFollow Nicole on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I think we need each other. I say this all the time, there are some things that are too big to feel in one body. You need a collective body to move them through. And I think that's what we need. We need to come together in spaces to heal, not just to consume together or to watch a movie together, but to feel together and to have human emotion in real life, in public and act from the place of a feeling body, to choose action from a feeling body and not just a reactive or a numb body, but a body that feels, a body that can connect. What kind of actions do you take in the world from that kind of body? I think it's different.”So says Prentis Hemphill, therapist, embodiment facilitator, and author of the just-released, What it Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World. In today’s conversation—the final in a four-part series—we explore a path to putting ourselves, and the collective, back together, and how this begins with a visioning…but a visioning born from getting back in touch with how we actually feel. I loved their book—just by reading along with Prentis’s own path to re-embodiment, I found myself finding similar sensations in my chest, back and heart. In today’s conversation, we talk about somatics, yes, but also about conflict—and what it looks like to become more adept with our emotions in hard times. This is one of my favorite conversations I’ve had to date on Pulling the Thread—I hope you enjoy it too.MORE FROM PRENTIS HEMPHILL:What it Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the WorldPrentis’s WebsiteThe Embodiment InstituteFollow Prentis on InstagramRELATED EPISODES:PART 1: James Gordon, M.D., “A Toolkit for Working with Trauma”PART 2: Peter Levine, Ph.D, “Where Trauma Lives in the Body”PART 3: Resmaa Menakem, “Finding Fear in the Body (TRAUMA)”Thomas Hubl: “Feeling into the Collective Presence”Gabor Maté, M.D.: “When Stress Becomes Illness”Galit Atlas, PhD: “Understanding Emotional Inheritance”Thomas Hubl: “Processing Our Collective Past”Richard Schwartz, PhD: “Recovering Every Part of Ourselves” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“This is the richness of the traditional wife explosion, right? There's this simple idea that you get to choose. Now you're choosing to emulate a situation that's a fiction in that those women didn't choose anything. They had to dress like that. They had to live like that. They had to be nice to the men like that, because they had no bank accounts. They had no cars. They had no licenses. They had no income. They had no security. So, don't equate these two things because you're just kind of living a dignified version of something that was pretty egregiously harmful, you know. And it's the difference, I think, in knowing that you have an option.”So says Soraya Chemaly, an award-winning writer, journalist and activist whose work has been at the center of mine. Her now-classic, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger lit me on fire—not only for the deftness of her arguments but also because she is a meticulous researcher. What she gave air to in the pages of that book blew me away. She figures prominently in the endnotes of On Our Best Behavior.Her new book, The Resilience Myth: New Thinking on Grit, Strength, and Growth After Trauma, follows a similar path. Soraya takes something we’ve been served as an ideal—develop resilience—and flips it on its head, both widening and undermining this definition. She challenges our cultural myths about this concept and urges us all to shift and expand our perspective on the trait, moving from prioritizing the role of the individual to overcome and conquer to focusing on what’s really at work, which is collective care and connections with our communities. As she proves in these pages, resilience is always relational. MORE FROM SORAYA CHEMALY:The Resilience Myth: New Thinking on Grit, Strength, and Growth After TraumaRage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s AngerFollow Soraya on InstagramSoraya’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Here's what I would say: peace will happen when people invest in cultivating peace as opposed to war. Peace will happen. And one thing I know, for me, I know peace, I know I will never see it, but maybe I can put something in place to where I leave something here and my children's, children's, children's grandchildren can nibble off of and feed on what I've left here the same way I feed off of Frederick Douglass's stuff.”So says therapist and social worker Resmaa Menakem, author of the New York Times bestseller My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending our Hearts and Bodies and originator of the Somatic Abolitionist movement. I met Resmaa many years ago, when he was one of the few voices in this space—Resmaa calls himself a communal provocateur and this is true, as his work challenges all of us to recognize and acknowledge that we’re scared. And that much of this fear is ancient. We were supposed to talk today about trauma in relationships, but our time together took a different turn—Resmaa jumped at the opportunity to put me in my familial and familiar fear. It’s hard, or at least it was for me, but hopefully you’ll stick with us to see how this works. This is the third part of a series on trauma, and it won’t surprise you to hear that Resmaa also trained with Peter Levine.MORE FROM RESMAA MENAKEM:My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending our Hearts and BodiesMonsters in Love: Why Your Partner Sometimes Drives You Crazy—And What You Can Do About ItThe Quaking of America: An Embodied Guide to Navigating Our Nation’s Upheaval and Racial ReckoningResmaa’s WebsiteFollow Resmaa on InstagramRELATED EPISODES:PART 1: James Gordon, M.D., “A Toolkit for Working with Trauma”PART 2: Peter Levine, Ph.D, “Where Trauma Lives in the Body”Thomas Hubl: “Feeling into the Collective Presence”Gabor Maté, M.D.: “When Stress Becomes Illness”Galit Atlas, PhD: “Understanding Emotional Inheritance”Thomas Hubl: “Processing Our Collective Past”Richard Schwartz, PhD: “Recovering Every Part of Ourselves” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“There are studies showing that, once your basic needs are met, and you're not worried about losing your house, losing your health care, increases in money don't significantly increase happiness, right? So I think, you know, money helps alleviate the very real biological primitive fear of you're gonna die if you don't have shelter and food and in our society, healthcare, but when it comes to things beyond that, I think that we have been sold the lie that money creates security and it's a natural conflation because at a certain point for securing the necessities,and it makes other problems easier to solve also clearly, but emotionally, money is not the solution to an emotional problem any more than food or having a certain kind of body or being married or not married.” So says Kara Loewentheil, author of Take Back Your Brain: How a Sexist Society Gets in Your Head—and How to Get it Out. While Kara and I went to college together, I first met her when she was gracious enough to have me on her hugely successful podcast, UnF*ck Your Brain, where I obviously fell in love with…her brain. Kara is theoretically an unlikely life coach—she graduated from Harvard Law School, litigated reproductive rights, and ran a think tank at Columbia University before deciding that she wanted to go upstream and rewire our culture’s brain instead. Kara is fixated on what she calls the “Brain Gap” in women—the thought patterns so natural to women that keep us feeling anxious and disempowered. It’s in that “Brain Gap” that we continue to both unconsciously support and re-enact a culture that doesn’t do great things for women. My work and Kara’s work are very aligned. In fact, Take Back Your Brain: How a Sexist Society Gets in Your Head—and How to Get it Out is a cousin to On Our Best Behavior—one that’s written with actionable insights, by a life coach, for getting to the root of the problem.MORE FROM KARA LOEWENTHEIL:Take Back Your Brain: How a Sexist Society Gets in Your Head—and How to Get it OutKara’s Website: The New School of Feminist ThoughtKara’s Book WebsiteKara’s Podcast: UnF*ck Your BrainFollow Kara on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“There are therapies where the person is made to relive their traumas over and over and over again. It's called flooding. And that's the one type of therapy that I do not agree with. I think it, not all the time, but it can be harmful, again, in somatic experiencing, we titrate the experience, we touch into a sensation in our bodies that have to do with the trauma, but just touch into it, and then notice the shift to a higher level of order, a higher level of coherence, a higher, greater level of flow. To go from trauma to awakening and flow is really, I think, what healing is all about."So says Peter Levine, PhD. If you’ve read or heard anything about trauma, you likely know Peter’s name, as he’s the father of Somatic Experiencing, a body-awareness approach to healing trauma that’s informed the practice of almost every trauma-worker today. Levine is a prolific writer—his international best seller, Waking the Tiger, has been translated into twenty-two languages—though much of his work has been for fellow academics and teachers. He’s just published a new book, An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey, which is highly accessible for all of us. It’s a beautiful book that recounts how he came to understand the somatic experience of trauma through an event in his own childhood—and the scientists and cultures he encountered along the way that informed what ultimately became a world-changing protocol. Today’s conversation explores all of this—including some very surprising appearances by Einstein.MORE FROM PETER LEVINE, PHD:An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing JourneyWaking the Tiger: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming ExperiencesTrauma & Memory: Brain and Body in a Search for the Living PastIn an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores GoodnessSomatic Experiencing InternationalRELATED EPISODES:PART 1: James Gordon, “TRAUMA/Tools for Transforming Trauma”Thomas Hubl: “Feeling into the Collective Presence”Gabor Maté, M.D.: “When Stress Becomes Illness”Galit Atlas, PhD: “Understanding Emotional Inheritance”Thomas Hubl: “Processing Our Collective Past”Richard Schwartz, PhD: “Recovering Every Part of Ourselves” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“In writing my book, I wanted to bring it back to the self because being online allows us to have this inappropriate level of audacity. And I think audacity is a very beautiful thing, but it gets so inappropriate online where you can go into Elise's messages and say, “by the way, I saw you liked this, you should be liking this, prove yourself to me”-- when the same person is probably not even able to have a conversation with their own partner in their home, but they can go online and demand people to say certain things, but in your home, are you that courageous to have a difficult conversation? Are you that courageous to have that same level of audacity in your day to day life. And I just worry that we're performing this very shadowy version of ourselves, especially online, without making any kind of effort in our everyday life to cultivate a strong sense of self, where you're able to handle conflict, where you're able to express disappointment to someone face to face and have a dialogue.”So says Africa Brooke, coach and author of The Third Perspective: Brave Expression in the Age of Intolerance. I’ve been smitten with Africa for years, after I was one of the 12 million-odd people who read her Instagram manifesto, “Why I’m Leaving the Cult of Wokeness” in 2020. There, Africa gave voice to being part of a culture that was supposed to be tented around diversity and inclusion, and yet, she found herself sounding and behaving in an increasingly intolerant way, a way that resisted diversity of thought. Originally from Zimbabwe, Africa lives in the U.K. and had already amassed a following for documenting her path to sobriety online—a path that anticipated the sober curious movement that’s become more mainstream today. She’s well-versed in spotting patterns and recognizing the way culture was working both on her and in her, in ways that were separating her from herself. I loved this conversation, a conversation I was very excited to have—it’s a vulnerable one. I’m grateful to Africa for saying what needs to be said and conscious that more of us need to join her. As she explains, people quickly finger her as far-right—and the far-right would love nothing more than to co-opt her—but she’s more of a social justice advocate than ever. She needs people in the center, and people on the left to join her in pointing out how our cancel culture is, to use her term, actually “collective sabotage.” And how we abandon our highest principles when we turn on each other so quickly and make each other “wrong.” I think this conversation speaks for itself.MORE FROM AFRICA BROOKE:The Third Perspective: Brave Expression in the Age of Intolerance“Why I’m leaving the cult of wokeness”Africa’s WebsiteFollow Africa on InstagramAfrica’s Podcast: “Beyond the Self”Loretta Ross’s Episode: “Calling in the Call-Out Culture” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Now the tragedy, in one sense is a tragedy, that often people only become open when they've suffered horribly when that is both the tragedy of trauma, but also the promise. It's one thing to be trauma informed. It's another thing to inform our experience of trauma with some kind of courage and some kind of hopefulness for profound change. That's what's got to happen. If that can happen, then maybe out of all this contentiousness that is present in our 21st century United States, maybe something really good can happen, but we've got to pay attention, we've got to act on it, and take responsibility.”So says Dr. James Gordon, a Harvard-educated psychiatrist, former researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health and Chairman of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy, and a clinical professor of psychiatry and family medicine at Georgetown Medical School. He’s also the founder and executive director of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine and a prolific writer on trauma. This is because he’s spent the last several decades traveling the globe and healing population-wide psychological trauma. He and 130 international faculty have brought this program to populations as diverse as refugees from wars in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Africa; firefighters and U.S. military personnel and their families; student/parent/teacher school shooting survivors; and more.I met Jim many years ago, and he’s become a constant resource for me in my own life and work, particularly because he packages so many of the exercises that work in global groups into his book Transforming Trauma: The Path to Hope and Healing. We talk about some of those exercises today—soft belly breathing, shaking and dancing, drawing—along with why it’s so important to address and complete the trauma cycle in areas of crisis. This is the first part of a four-part series, and James does an excellent job of setting the stage.MORE FROM JAMES GORDON, M.D.:Transforming Trauma: The Path to Hope and HealingThe Center for Mind-Body MedicineFollow Jim on InstagramRELATED EPISODES:Thomas Hubl: “Feeling into the Collective Presence”Gabor Maté, M.D.: “When Stress Becomes Illness”Galit Atlas, PhD: “Understanding Emotional Inheritance”Thomas Hubl: “Processing Our Collective Past”Richard Schwartz, PhD: “Recovering Every Part of Ourselves” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I realized I think there's a few things that are in our heads that are so deep in the culture. One of them is the idea that being overweight is a sin. It goes right back to if you look at Pope Gregory I in the 6th century when he first formulates the seven deadly sins, gluttony is there, it's always depicted with some fat person who looks monstrous, overeating. And how do we think about sin? If being overweight is a sin, we think sin requires punishment before you get to redemption. The only forms of weight loss that we admire are where you suffer horribly, right? You think about The Biggest Loser, that horrid, disgusting game show. If you go through agony, if you starve yourself, if you do extreme forms of exercise that devastate your body, then we'll go, he suffered. We forgive you. Well done. We'll let you be thin now, right?”So says Johann Hari, author of many bestselling books—Stolen Focus, Lost Connections, and Chasing the Scream. Johann is a fellow cultural psychic and his latest book—the subject of today’s conversation—bears this out. He takes on drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro in Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight-Loss Drugs. He also writes about his own relationship to these drugs, as Johann is taking them. His book is a subtle and sensitive navigation of what is a tightly bound convergence of health and culture—and every page of his book anticipates and precedes the conversation. (As a disclaimer, I’m in it.) We talk about all of it in today’s conversation, along with what would have happened if a woman had written this book first.MORE FROM JOHANN HARI:Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight-Loss DrugsStolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply AgainLost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find HopeChasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on DrugsJohann’s WebsiteFollow Johann on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, It’s Elise, host of Pulling the Thread. Starting next Monday, I’m doing another special series—this set is about trauma, specifically trauma and the body. You’ll hear from four important voices in the space. We’re going to start with Dr. James Gordon, who works with groups all over the world who are in crisis, helping them move their experiences through the body before it gets stuck. Next, we’ll turn to the father of Somatic Experiencing, Peter Levine, who has a new autobiography about a horrific trauma from his childhood that led him to the formation of his practice, from which we all benefit today. Next, I’m joined by my friend Resmaa Menakem, author of My Grandmother’s Hands, the creator of the somatic abolitionist movement who works with me directly to illustrate how we all carry fear. And finally, Prentis Hemphill is taking us home: Their stunning new book, What it Takes to Heal, explores finding our calcified feelings and patterns of behavior in our bodies and navigating conflict without projecting our pain. In the show notes, you’ll find related episodes from years past, including guests like Galit Atlas, Gabor Maté, Thomas Hubl, and Richard Schwartz. I’ll see you this Thursday for a regular episode—though it’s Johann Hari, so there’s nothing regular about it.RELATED EPISODES:Thomas Hubl: “Feeling into the Collective Presence”Gabor Maté, M.D.: “When Stress Becomes Illness”Galit Atlas, PhD: “Understanding Emotional Inheritance”Thomas Hubl: “Processing Our Collective Past”Richard Schwartz, PhD: “Recovering Every Part of Ourselves” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“When we can pause for a moment and rifle through all that noise to figure out what the root of the fear is, then we can be with it in a meaningful way, rather than just let it run our lives. And a little bit of fear of death and a little bit of death anxiety is totally normal, for all of us. I mean, it's that thing inside that tells you not to keep walking when you get to the edge of a cliff, and even to like drink water, you know, hydrate, stay alive. It's in us. It's in our DNA. It's rooted in there. And so the goal is never to get over it entirely, but rather to learn from it, to be with it, to not let it run our lives, but rather to let it fuel our lives.”So says Alua Arthur, a death doula and recovering attorney who is the author of Briefly, Perfectly, Human, which is a guidebook for both how to live and also how to die. Alua is the founder of Going with Grace, a death doula training and end-of-life planning organization. In today’s conversation, we talk about what it would look like to get our death phobic culture a little closer to the end, why people fear dying, and what can be gained when we recognize the priceless gifts that come when our lives come to a close. Let’s get to our conversation.MORE FROM ALUA ARTHUR:Briefly, Perfectly, HumanFollow Alua on InstagramGoing with Grace WebsiteRELATED EPISODES:B.J. Miller: “Struggle is Real—Suffering is Optional”Roshi Joan Halifax: “Standing at the Edge”Frank Oswaseski: “Accepting the Invitation” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“But one thing the whole “Karen” thing did, which I think was very good, was that it pointed out the existence of spaces Ostensibly open to everyone, but not, and then patrolled often by white women saying you don't belong here. And she got a name, and people with that name wince and rightfully so, but without that wince-worthy kind of situation, I don't think large numbers of Americans would realize that there really is a sort of silent apartheid in our public spaces.”So says Nell Irvin Painter, who Henry Louis Gates Jr. refers to as “one of the towering Black intellects of the last century.” I first heard Nell on Scene On Radio with John Biewen in his series “Seeing White,” and have been biding my time for an opportunity to interview her ever since. I got my chance, with her latest endeavor, an essay collection called I Just Keep Talking, which is a collection of her writing from the past several decades, about art, politics, and race along with many pieces of her own art.Now retired, Nell is a New York Times bestseller and was the Edwards Professor of American History Emerita at Princeton, where she published many, many books about the evolution of Black political thought and race as a concept. She’s one of the preeminent scholars on the life of Sojourner Truth—and is working on another book about her right now—and is also the author of The History of White People. Today’s conversation touches on everything from Sojourner Truth—and how she actually never said “Ain’t I a Woman?”—to the capitalization of Black and White. MORE FROM NELL IRVIN PAINTER:I Just Keep Talking: A Life in EssaysThe History of White PeopleOld in Art SchoolNell’s WebsiteFollow Nell on InstagramScene On Radio: “Seeing White” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“What is that instinct that might be asking me to do something really unadvisable or radical or leap outside the bounds of my own life? And that's the space by which I think we move forward in life. And that's the space in which I think we move forward honestly on the page and in writing. And I tell people, you know, what is it that you want to explore in your writing? Like the page is this beautiful opportunity to start taking some big risks, whether it's persona poetry, where you're literally writing in a different voice, or you're naming something that cannot be held in any other space available to you, or you're testing out just an idea that you're not ready to say out loud. The page is this really beautiful field that gives us a lot of courage to then apply that, I think, to our actual lives.”So says Joy Sullivan, the author of Instructions for Traveling West, which is a guidebook of poems for letting your life fall apart and remake itself as something new. In our conversation, Joy and I explore her early life: how she grew up in Africa, the child of medical missionaries, bound tight by evangelicalism and purity culture—and her relationship to religion and faith now that she’s left that behind. Eve is a central figure in Joy’s poetry, and you will hear why. MORE FROM JOY SULLIVAN:Instructions for Traveling WestFollow Joy on InstagramJoy’s Newsletter, “Necessary Salt”Joy’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Million Dollar Advice is a work and career advice podcast hosted by friends and colleagues Kim Lessing and Kate Arend. Together Kim and Kate run Amy Poehler’s Paper Kite Productions and are very cool and good at their jobs. Each week, they help live callers with their work-related dilemmas. Whether you have a question or you just like listening to other people’s problems, this show will change your life. If you have a problem at work or a career question big or small, write in to [email protected] or leave a message on the Million Dollar Advice Hotline (888) 799-6327. Kim and Kate can’t wait to give you some Million Dollar Advice! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“You want to find yourself? Give. We're not hungry for what we're not getting. We're hungry for what we're not giving. And then at the same time, you watch this old pattern of guarding what you have and of watching your mother take the leftovers and your mother taking leftover food and taking the piece of cake that broke in half while it was being served and taking the lesser car and taking whatever time is left for her to get her needs met. And so, you know, all truth is a paradox. And that's really what I believe is that I really, really give, but because I'm healing the codependence, I'm healing the self doubt, I'm giving from a place that is abundant because I live in gratitude. I notice how much I have been poured into, crazy love from a number of different directions. And I give that away. I don't give from my place of deprivation.”So says Anne Lamott, the eternally wise, prescient, and deeply human writer so many of us wish we could call in times of need. Anne is the author of 20 books—yes 20—including the New York Times bestsellers, Help, Thanks, Wow; Dusk, Night, Dawn; Traveling Mercies; and Bird by Bird, which is essential reading for every writer. I refer to and cite her advice all the time. Anne is also a Guggenheim Fellow. Her latest book—and the subject of today’s conversation is Somehow: Thoughts on Love that revolves around the William Blake line: We are here to learn to endure the beams of love—and how hard this is. MORE FROM ANNE LAMOTT:Somehow: Thoughts on LoveBird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and LifeDusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival & CourageHelp, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential PrayersTraveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on FaithFollow Anne on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“From my perspective, one of the reasons we tell stories is it helps give us a sense of who we are, we use stories to affirm our identity. And that's part of the reason why we don't actually like to call them stories, because if we call them stories, and we begin to see that the self is actually rooted in construction, made up interpreted reality, it can be very threatening to us and to our sense of who would I be without this story. And so that's one of the things that I really love about this is you can begin to see that my sense of self has to change, if I'm willing to look at my stories, what is going to happen is my sense of who I am is going to change.”So says Courtney Smith, a coach, facilitator, and dear friend who is schooled and trained in many different modalities: Conscious Leadership Group, Byron Katie’s work, the Alexander Technique, and the Enneagram. She is one of my favorite thought partners because of the range of her intelligence and the structure of her mind: She was a math econ major who happens to have a J.D. from Yale and a masters in public health from NYU. Before taking a turn toward the mystical, she was a McKinsey consultant. So in short, she’s a multi-hyphenate Renaissance woman whose bookshelf looks much like mine. You might remember Courtney from our conversation on Pulling the Thread about the Enneagram—if you missed it, there’s a link in the show notes—but today, we’re going to talk about Stephen Karpman’s Drama Triangle: What it is, how to know when you’re in it, and how to move past it…while recognizing that you’ll be in another one soon enough. We also do a little bit of live coaching and role-playing, so you all will really get a sense of how this powerful tool works. Meanwhile, if you want to work with me and Courtney, together, we’re hosting a workshop from May 17-19 at the Art of Living Retreat Center in Boone, North Carolina. It’s called “Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness” and will be a combination of On Our Best Behavior and Courtney’s techniques. Honestly, I can’t wait—I hope you’ll all join us. The link to sign up is also in the episode page, or the link in bio on my Instagram account, @ eliseloehnen. MORE FROM COURTNEY SMITH:My Workshop with Courtney at AOLRC: “Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness”First Pulling the Thread episode: “The Practical Magic of the Enneagram”Courtney’s WebsiteALSO MENTIONED:The 15 Commitments of Conscious LeadersElise’s Substack Newsletters:Ending the ManelThe Perception (and Reality) of ScarcityWho Gets to Be an Expert? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I think historically we have always seen that intergenerational partnership is the way that movements grow and expand and the way people feel resilient about what they're trying to accomplish. The first defeat as a young person, when you feel your morals are on the line, your sense of justice is on the line, that is such a devastating blow and you really need people who've been doing this work for a long time to say, yeah, you're right. That's how that feels. It sucks. It hurts so bad. And this is how, when it happened to me, I got up again and I kept fighting. There is no future for progress without that kind of perspective. You need the fiery engagement of young people and you need the sense of history and the sense of perspective that older people can provide.”So says Mattie Kahn, a prolific writer whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and more. Mattie was also the culture director at Glamour and a staff editor at Elle. Today, she joins me to talk about her book, Young and Restless: The Girls Who Sparked America’s Revolutions, which is a much-needed survey of young female voices who were and are often at the heart of political movements, whether it was bus boycotts, strikes at mills, or the environmental movement unfolding today. This isn’t just a book about ensuring that the names of these girls are preserved by history, though, this is an examination of why girls are frequently so central to social change, and what it is about their often-precocious voices that can capture the attention of the nation. This, of course, is a double-edged sword, as Mattie’s work explores how quickly we dump these girls, or move on, once they turn into angry women. Today, we also talk about what’s happening on campuses and what a container might look like to hold dialogue, debate, and discourse.MORE FROM MATTIE KAHN:Young and Restless: The Girls Who Sparked America’s RevolutionsMattie’s WebsiteFollow Mattie on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Part of middle life is that hopefully there's a little bit of wisdom there. And I think that is part of what we gain as we go through this journey of life is that there is wisdom that's accrued, which allows us to exist a little bit more in the complexity and nuance of things. I believe so much of this work is that we have to hold grace and compassion. And we also have to hold ownership and accountability and responsibility. And I feel that way, right? It's like, okay, if there's something that happened in our childhood or something happened in our teenage years, something that happened in our twenties, right? It's hard to process those things really early on. And especially when we're younger and really immature, because the lens is so narrow. I think as we grow and hopefully as we get wiser, that the lens opens.”So says Vienna Pharaon, a therapist whose practice centers around helping individuals—and couples—identify old patterns, patterns that often belong to the family system, that have them by the throat. And then, of course, she helps people break them and find new stories for how they show up in the world. Vienna is the host of the podcast, This Keeps Happening and the author of the national bestseller The Origins of You: How Breaking Family Patterns Can Liberate the Way We Live and Love, where she outlines the main themes that she sees in her practice. There is much in these pages to which we can all relate, as she articulates five core, original wounds that revolve around worthiness, belonging, trust, safety, and prioritization. Sound familiar? MORE FROM VIENNA PHARAON:The Origins of You: How Breaking Family Patterns Can Liberate the Way We Live and LoveVienna’s WebsiteVienna’s Podcast: “This Keeps Happening”Follow Vienna on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Neuroscientist Lisa Mosconi, PhD currently has 11 grants—including four from the NIH—to study Alzheimers, menopause, and the female brain. Dr. Mosconi is an Associate Professor of Neuroscience in Neurology and Radiology at Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM), and the Director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Program at WCM/NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. The program includes the Women’s Brain Initiative, the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic, and the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinical Trials Unit. There are many things to love about Dr. Mosconi and her work—one, that she’s focused on an underserved group, i.e. women, but also because her insights dramatically expand the way we’ve been conditioned to understand these hormonal shifts in our lives. The picture she paints of the female brain is not only fascinating, but it’s inspiring: As we age and move through stages, our brains continually remodel, becoming leaner, meaner, and more empathic. The female brain is…formidable. There are also many things we can do to make these turbulent transitions slightly smoother sailing, which we dive into throughout our conversation. Let’s turn to it now.MORE FROM LISA MOSCONI, PhD:The Menopause Brain: New Science Empowers Women to Navigate the Pivotal Transition with Knowledge and PowerThe XX Brain: The Groundbreaking Science Empowering Women to Maximize Cognitive Health and Prevent Alzheimer’s DiseaseBrain Food: The Surprising Science of Eating for Cognitive PowerLisa’s WebsiteFollow Lisa on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Historically, there's no such thing as a pure tradition. And I also think as human beings, we transcend these religions and we transcend these cultures. And so the cherry picking is an affirmation of our transcendence. It's like, no, you are more than your religious tradition. You are more than your culture. You are more than your body. And you are also your body and your religion and your culture. Yes, yes, yes, all that. But you are also more. So I think, again, the power of the modern period is that we're all so super connected and in communication with everything that we know that, we know that in a way that we didn't know that, you know, four or five-hundred years ago.”So says Jeffrey Kripal, who holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. Jeff is the author of many, many, many books that span a massive academic career—books on Kali, books on Gnosticism, and books on supernatural phenomena. He’s also the author of a short and immensely readable book called The Flip: Who You Really Are and Why it Matters, which is the focus of our conversation today. As an academic and historian of comparative religion, Jeff writes and speaks beautifully about the way that we’re losing our collective stories, and the way that we’re splitting ourselves apart, divided between the sciences and the humanities. In The Flip, Jeff recounts how both science and spirituality are using different languages to explain and explore the same experiences, and what emerges when “The Flip” happens, those often mystical moments when the minds of scientists across time have cracked open to see the world in a different way. I loved this book and I love Jeff’s wide-ranging and yet imminently approachable and kind mind—I hope you enjoy listening to this conversation as much as I enjoyed having it.MORE FROM JEFFREY KRIPAL:The Flip: Who You Really Are and Why it MattersThe Superhumanities: Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New RealitiesJeff’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, it’s Elise Loehnen, host of PULLING THE THREAD. Today, it’s just me. I’m sharing five things I’ve been thinking about a lot—from understanding how to quantify and charge for one’s time, what to consider before starting a new creative project, and the art of a gentle no. I’m also answering some of your questions—about judgment, sanity, and the etymology of “should.”THINGS I REFERENCE: “Your vibration must be higher than what you create, otherwise you cannot manage it.” “The Construct of Time” The Matter With Things, by Iain McGilchrist Practicing the Gentle No What is Intuition? MORE FROM ME:On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be GoodMy Substack NewsletterMy InstagramSolo Episode 1: What We’re AfterSolo Episode 2: Five Things I’ve Learned This Year Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Turquoise is looking for how do we bring back the village? How do we live in community again? Why are we living in these separate houses? We're not sharing resources. Everyone on the street has a snowblower, a lawnmower, you know, like the design isn't elegant, it's not an elegant design. And so I think the mind of yellow joins into turquoise and as it has studied systems, it contributes to that and we are looking for more holistic, elegant solutions to give birth to a new culture. It's like we can no longer continue down the path. And at turquoise, we are going to have to sacrifice for the whole.”For those of you who follow me on Instagram or read my newsletter on Substack, you’ll know that I’ve been quite obsessed with Spiral Dynamics of late, and see it as one way to explain our current cultural and political dilemmas, along with so much of our internalized anxiety. It was first developed by the late professor Clare Graves, who was a contemporary and colleague of Abraham Maslow, and then advanced by professor Don Beck, who worked on post-Apartheid South Africa with Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, and then further pushed by integral philosopher Ken Wilber. Spiral Dynamics can be heady stuff, and so I was thrilled when Nicole Churchill, a wonderfully grounded therapist and expert in Spiral Dynamics, offered to talk through the system with me for the podcast. Nicole and her husband John Churchill, who has also been a guest on Pulling the Thread, studied with Ken Wilber, and both apply it in their therapy work with both individuals and organizations.If you all end up loving Spiral Dynamics as much as I do, Nicole has offered to come back and explore how she uses it in therapy—please pass this episode on to any friends who you think might enjoy. I’m convinced that there are some keys here that can help us see the world and ourselves more clearly. In the show notes, you’ll find ways to go deeper as well. MORE FROM NICOLE CHURCHILL:Nicole’s websites: Samadhi Institute and Karuna MandelaJohn Churchill’s episode on Pulling the Thread: “Our Collective Psychological Development”MORE ON SPIRAL DYNAMICS:My Substack Newsletter: “Finding Ourselves on the Spiral”Spiral Dynamics Integral, by Don BeckIntegral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy, by Ken WilberSpiral Dynamics, by Don Beck and Chris CowanTrump and a Post-Truth World, by Ken Wilber Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.