Pulling The Thread with Elise Loehnen

“So circling can be very personal, meaning you have your own awareness. It's not like, you know, you come to a circle and everybody sees you and they know everything about you and now you're outed. No, it's, you can have an experience where you see yourself in everybody in the circle. You have an inner awakening that leads you down a spiritual path of getting to know yourself in a way that you had no idea. I see it happen all the time where a woman will say, I've never shared this before. I don't know why I'm sharing, but it was something that so and so said, and I feel like I need to share it. And that share will be part of the whole circle that will then be a ripple effect that will then inspire somebody else to share. And then you have this whole circle of women having these epiphanies about themselves for themselves. Nobody's forcing them to do anything, but it's simply just from women sharing their stories.”So says Dre Bendewald, the founder of the Art of Circling. Dre is a dear friend—and powerful to behold, particularly when she’s in action, holding space for other women. She holds circles, where women—strangers and friends alike—gather to tell the truth about their lives. To be witnessed. To be heard. Admittedly, I was nervous before I joined my first circle, but Dre builds a safe and grounded container in which to alchemize your emotions, and bring your stories out of the shadows in a type of communal confessional. What’s most profound is when you hear your story—something you thought had only ever happened to you—come out of another’s woman’s mouth. Ultimately, Dre is also a teacher intent on spreading this sacred and ages-old activity across the globe: Women have always gathered to share wisdom and story—it’s only recently that we’ve been torn apart. In our conversation today, she explains how to do it, whether you choose to circle with your own friends, or join her. Meanwhile, I’m thrilled to announce that she’s holding circles for On Our Best Behavior, which anyone can join: You can go to her website, theartofcircling.com to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“And I am not thankful for how hard it was. I don't believe we have to suffer to be great people. I do believe great empathy and depth and love come from all these hard parts. Yes. But I don't think that their requirement for empathy, so when it comes to the narrative of the adage of, I'm so thankful for this painful thing, it's a great way for us to survive these painful things. But I resist the urge to be thankful for how hard things were sometimes, because what I think of is, man, if I'm this, despite all of that, who would I be had all of that not happened. Had I had proper guidance and education and a parent who nurtured my interests, what kind of instrument would I be playing right now? How many languages would I be speaking right now? What companies would I be running right now? You know, because when I tap into certain things in the world and my curiosities when I'm living, I think, God, I'm good at this a little bit. Wow. I wonder what I would be capable of, you know? So that makes me begrudge the hard things. It doesn't make me thankful for them. It makes me go, God, what if?”While Minka Kelly is most known for playing Lyla Garrity, the All American cheerleader on the hit, Emmy award winning TV show Friday Night Lights, that’s definitely not the most remarkable thing about her. And this role, where Minka played a spoiled, beautiful and rich cheerleader is almost diametrically opposed to Minka’s actual childhood, grounded in trauma and neglect. Minka’s mother was a stripper who struggled with addiction, and Minka couch-surfed her way through her life, unmoored and often untended. At one point, they even lived in a storage unit. Minka tells this story in her New York Times bestselling memoir, Tell Me Everything, which manages something rare: It is both an honest and unflinching revelation of a very challenging and abusive childhood and a love letter to her single mom. This is very difficult to do and a testament to Minka’s strength, resilience, and desire to heal—her willingness to hold her mother close while acknowledging everything she did not receive as a child. MORE FROM MINKA KELLY:Tell Me Everything: A MemoirFollow Minka on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I think there are a number of ways that we move into action that's characterized by integrity and where, you know, healthy altruism and compassion are present. I'm very grateful that I'm an old Buddhist , you know, with years of practice behind me and the practice of cultivating intentional balance, cultivating emotional balance, really being able to self-reflect on what, what's going on in my body, what's happening in the stream of my emotions and thoughts. So, you know, all of this has been of benefit to me over the years of practice in terms of stabilizing myself and being more able to engage, less done in by the work that I do. I mean, I'm 80 years old and I feel, you know, mostly full of life, and, and, and humor and so forth. And I really attribute it to the mindset that has come out of these decades of practice.”My guest today is the brilliant Joan Halifax—a Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and author of many books, including Being with Dying and Standing at the Edge. The founder, Abbot, and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center, a Buddhist Monastery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Joan has dedicated her life’s work to engaged and applied Buddhism, with a particular emphasis on end-of-life care. Today, she shares with us wisdom gleaned from Zen traditions, mindfulness practices, and the Buddhist approach to death; drawing from her groundbreaking research on compassion and decades of experience working with the dying and their caregivers all the while. As our current reality pushes us all to the existential exploration of suffering, altruism, and meaning, Joan’s words become an exceptionally valuable source of inspiration, guiding us to the edges of our human experience in order to discover wise hope, truth, and a fuller realization of what it is to be alive. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Pathological altruism… Serving with our self, not our strength… Compassion is adaptive… MORE FROM JOAN HALIFAX:Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage MeetBeing with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Face of DeathExplore JOAN'S WEBSITEFollow her on INSTAGRAM and TWITTER Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Sex is not a quick fix when there's these foundational challenges that you're having, you're like, I know how to give oral sex a million different ways, but I'm not in the mood and I'm not turned on. And I know that sex is important because I love my partner and I know sex is important, but we can't quite hack how to be turned on and ready to go and ready for sex at the right time. And a lot of that is because we don't understand our arousal desire process. We don't know that if the house is a mess and there's dishes in the sink, or I have resentments with my partner, or I haven't worked out in a week, that there's all these factors of why you're not turned on. And so I think getting people to actually think about their sex life in that way and trying to think about like, what do I know to date just from my sexual history, but like, what's happening with my hormones? What's happening with my psychology? Do I have unhealed trauma? And you'd think that that would be sort of obvious, but it's really not. Like if you've been on an antidepressant for years or even just recently, Or any other blood pressure medication and now you're like not as turned on. People often don't make that connection.”Emily Morse is not only a dear friend and a stellar human, but she’s also a doctor of human sexuality, revolutionizing discussions surrounding sex and the pursuit of pleasure. She is already a best-selling author, though her just released book, Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure, is the navigational guide we all need in our lives. She also leads a MasterClass on Sex and Communication and hosts the top-rated and chart-topping podcast, Sex With Emily. Through candid conversations, she challenges the inaccurate cultural programming surrounding sex and promotes the value of open conversation to foster connection. Today, we talk about how women often find themselves disconnected from sex and their bodies, often due to social conditioning and traumatic events that occur during our sexual development. Emily helps us consider ways to reconnect with ourselves in order to feel more embodied, more aligned, and more pleasure.MORE FROM EMILY MORSE:Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your PleasureSex With EmilyEmily’s WebsiteFollow Emily on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“A million Americans a week are quitting a job. This number is almost twice as high as it's ever been in history, not laid off. Not being fired. Quitting. That’s 50 million people a year. That's a third of the workforce. And another third of the workforce is saying, Hmm, I don't wanna come in five days a week. Okay? Like, what if I give you Tuesday and Thursday or Tuesday Wednesday? I mean, only 15% of Americans in white collar office jobs are even showing up to work anymore on a Friday. So there is this big renegotiation, can I do it remotely? Can I do it from anywhere? Like not even being in the same town? All of this is a rebalancing of the balance of power between workers and workforce. And so I think that if you are in HR and you are particularly in the wellness and health and safety and you know, mental health, you were three years ago in a small basement office with no windows and no one ever talked to you. It turns out there's a lot of people outside your door now, and we are beginning to realize if you want to recruit and retain talent, you have to change the way that you talk to your workers.”Bruce Feiler is an author and speaker known for his insight and perspective on how we can better show up in the world. With seven New York Times bestsellers like Life is in the Transitions and The Secrets of Happy Families, he blends wisdom and contemporary knowledge to inspire individuals to lead more intentional and joyful lives. He is also a writer and presenter of two prime-time series on PBS, Walking the Bible and Sacred Journeys with Bruce Feiler. Additionally, he writes a newsletter called The Nonlinear Life.In today's conversation, we chat about his latest book, The Search: Discovering Meaningful Work in a Post-Career World, based on real-life narratives for finding fulfillment in the workplace. He tells us that those who find the most meaning and success don't climb; they dig. They go looking inside of themselves. Bruce's first hand approach to his work, living the experiences he writes about, allows him to provide practical guidance on navigating life's transitions and finding reasons for why we’re all here.MORE FROM BRUCE FEILER:The Search: Discovering Meaningful Work in a Post-Career WorldLife is in the TransitionsThe Secrets of Happy FamiliesBruce’s NewsletterFollow Bruce on Instagram and Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I believe certainly, I know now, after have going through this years and years of feeling ashamed of who I am, you know, internalizing the shame, how America sees trans people, gender in general, and what I know now, is truly, this is the power. I mean, maybe many, many years as a fashion model, definitely there were days when I felt like, why did I even, just a thought of being born as trans and all that. Like, I love being a trans person right now, especially right after that Ted Talk in 2014 when I realized, oh wow, I've opened up. The world opened up to me. You know, this is just the beginning. It doesn't mean all my problems disappear, but certainly there’s a sense of freedom in that. So hopefully the freedom that, at least for me to start with, that I found within myself by speaking truth, by truly living authentically as myself, you know, it gives me power. I think people are afraid of that.”Geena Rocero is a model and advocate, known for her courageous journey of self-discovery and self-revelation: In 2014, she came out to the world as transgender on the stage at TED. Today, we discuss her debut memoir, Horse Barbie, where Geena bares her soul, relaying her journey as a pageant queen hailing from the Philippines. Courageously, she made the difficult decision to temporarily conceal her identity in order to pursue a career as a model in New York City, where not even her agent knew her truth. While she booked magazines and ad campaigns, deep within her, she recognized that embracing her authentic self was the key to unlocking her boundless potential. Geena's determination to live her truth serves as a testament to the transformative strength in self-acceptance and genuine empowerment. Besides telling her story, Geena also founded the advocacy and media production company Gender Proud. Okay, let’s get to our conversation.MORE FROM GEENA ROCERO:Horse BarbieHer TED Talk: “Why I Must Come Out”Gender ProudFollow Geena on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“When you are quite literally told that you are not human. What option do you have? What’s the other option other than to overthrow the system that is telling you you're not human, you know? And so this is work, this is generational work. And we have had to do that generational work largely alone, because when women got the opportunity to vote, we were purposefully left out. When the civil rights movement was happening, we were the backbone of that mission. But our names don't appear in the books, in our history books. That we know how to move through systems that weren't built for us because there are so few that are. The only systems that are built for us are the ones we build together. Otherwise, we spend our entire lifetime in this country moving through systems that were not made for us, and in fact that weren't, not just not made for us, but made to squash us, made to make sure that we do not succeed and so in order to live into our own human dignity, the only option is to change the world because this is unacceptable.”So says Austin Channing Brown. Her ability to distill essential truths always sends chills down my spine. Austin is a powerful and resonant public speaker, racial justice advocate and educator, and author, whose bestselling book, I'm Still Here, has catalyzed an indelible impact on how we perceive and discuss what it means to be a Black person, let alone a Black woman, in America. She just released a Young Adult version, which is required reading for all of our children as we work to build an equitable future. Austin is also the CEO of Herself Media, a platform creating content and narratives to provide a supportive space for those who find themselves on the outskirts of traditional power.Today, Austin joins me in unveiling the facade of what it means to be good and how culture detrimentally enforces this burdening standard of goodness on women. We discuss the importance of anger and how it can be a navigational tool. By examining her own anger, Austin learned to move that energy toward creating community and literature that relentlessly fights for the future that America needs. MORE FROM AUSTIN CHANNING BROWN:I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for WhitenessI’m Still Here: Adapted for Young ReadersHerself MediaAustin’s WebsiteAustin’s NewsletterFollow Austin on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“If I remember correctly, I think you ran as fast as you could to the thing that you're more comfortable with, which is other people's research, other people's ideas, showing the connection between historical ideas and current, you know, thought leaders and the way they were operating. And so, and what I felt was that you, Elise, were missing. And I think what I really wanted you to do, and this is what I meant by like, show us your journey through these things, is I needed you and, and you got there, to filter and to sort of act as guide for the reader showing us what you were realizing as you were bringing and making these connections and synthesizing all of these other thought leaders, and, you know, expert work because that's the journey we need to be on as reader.”That voice? That's my editor Whitney Frick, and she joins me today for a very special episode of Pulling the Thread, on the eve of On Our Best Behavior's publication—coming May 23. Many of you have been with me as I've written this book, and by osmosis, you probably have some sense of the process, but it felt important to me to celebrate OOBB (as we call it), by bringing you all the way inside. I wanted to do this with the person who knows the text almost as well as I do.Writing a book is really hard—and it's also incredibly co-creative. As someone who has co-written or ghostwritten 12 books, I'm usually the co-creator, holding the structure for the authors while they revisit their lives and mine it for story. In this case, though, it was Whit who helped me, holding the potential of the book as a guiding light for the process. She took me by the hand, bringing me ever closer to myself as I worked through drafts. We both worked really hard on this book—really hard. Distilling, refining, and interrogating the material until we knew the path was so well-trod, readers would be able to easily follow the book's unfolding, and understand exactly what I was trying to say. To say that I'm pleased with how On Our Best Behavior turned out is an understatement—I'm thrilled, which is not something that's easy for me to say. I believe the book is the best I could write, and I'm so grateful to Whit for getting me there. As we explore in today's conversation, I had a very powerful battle with resistance—and am so happy I pushed through. If you haven't yet ordered your copy, On Our Best Behavior is available wherever you get your books starting May 23—in the U.S., Canada, UK, and Australia, with more countries to come.MORE FROM THIS EPISODE:On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to be GoodFollow Elise on InstagramElise’s Substack NewsletterThe Dial Press Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“One thing my work has taught me is how human interaction is a comedy of errors. People are making so many errors without knowing it. I think I'm making sense to you, but I'm not. I think I'm being clear, but I'm not. I think I understand you, but I don’t. I think I heard you, but I didn’t. I think when you raise your chin, you're looking at me defiantly or someone else, arrogantly or someone else, like you know, looking down at your nose. But maybe you don't think that, you're just lifting your chin because you naturally do it. Lifting of the chin, by the way, is a skeletal feature of when our heart rates go up and we start moving towards higher arousal, we'll elongate our neck and our back and we'll lift the chin sometimes. So often it means nothing but optically, to the other person, it doesn't look so good. Just like looking at scans doesn't look so good, or, you know, looking away for too long, or staring too much. All of these things are subjective and for one person, it doesn't bother them, for another person, it drives them crazy.”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 in conflict—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.His latest book, In Each Other's Care, provides practical tools for couples struggling with recurring arguments. In our discussion, he explains how to identify and overcome triggers that lead to conflicts and improve communication to achieve better outcomes. Using the concept of secure functioning, Stan emphasizes the positive impact of healthier arguments. Though his solutions require effort and dedication, they have the power to benefit all aspects of your life. I should know—he has worked with me and Rob before, sessions that were honestly fascinating, for both of us. MORE FROM STAN TATKIN:In Each Other’s CareWe DoWired for LoveWired for DatingStan Tatkin’s WebsiteFollow Stan on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“But I now think about how wonderful it is that some of these radio stories that meant a lot to me that might have otherwise just disappeared, now do have a longer life. And you mentioned the fear of vampirism as a journalist. And the flip side of that is something that Audie Cornish, who was my co-host for many years on All Things Considered, said to me that I've really taken to heart, which is that in a crisis when people are on the worst day of their lives, whether it's a war or a natural disaster, or a mass shooting, of course there are people who don't want to talk and I respect that, but there are also people for whom being able to tell their story and being able to have somebody truly listen to them can be healing and can be a gift, and can be an act of love. And so when I go into those situations, I'm not going in as an emergency relief worker. I'm not going in as an aid worker. I'm going in as a listener. I'm going in to give people an opportunity to tell their stories and to be there to listen to them, and I've realized that that also has value and that that can be important.”Ari Shapiro is an award winning journalist with one of the most recognizable voices in the land: He’s the host of NPR’s “All Things Considered.” In his tenure, he’s covered war zones, mass shootings, the White House—and also so much more, using his microphone to tell deeper stories about who we actually are. He recently published a debut memoir—The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening—where he uses his own life as the scaffolding to tell many of these stories. I cried…maybe 10 times as I followed Ari across the globe.Like me, Ari is from small town America—he was born in Fargo, North Dakota before his parents moved to Portland. Like my brother, Ari is gay—and came of age at a time when that was a dangerous thing to be. Like me, Ari grew up listening to Nina Totenberg and Susan Stamberg make sense of the world. And like me, he went to Yale. The point of Ari’s book is exactly this: We all have so much in common, regardless of where we are born. Telling these stories brings us closer together.In our conversation, he shares his insights on what makes valuable journalism and we discuss the importance of exploring diverse perspectives to gain a broader understanding of the world around us. MORE FROM ARI SHAPIRO:The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent ListeningFollow Ari on Instagram and Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Women spent so much time in the ancient world spinning, like they spent all their time, any spare moment. And spinsters were not bad, it wasn't bad to be a spinster the way we think of it, spinsters were, you know, respected members of households, single women who didn't have the responsibilities of husbands or children, who could spin more, and make money. And, you know, you think about things like marauding around when they sailed across the Atlantic and their little hats and everything, but you don't think about the sails. You don't think like, who made those sails? Who made the thread that made all those sails? Who do you think did that? How many years did it take those women to make one lousy sail, you know, I mean, it took two years of women's labor to make a sail. So the kind of invisible labor of women in all of that…”So says, Peggy Orenstein, a celebrated journalist who is acclaimed for her insightful analysis of gender, sexuality, and identity issues. She’s written several best-sellers about the topic, including Girls & Sex and Boys & Sex. But that’s not what we’re going to talk about today. During COVID, Peggy took a right turn, and an entirely different type of book emerged, one that is actually just as radical. In Unraveling, she explores the depths of her grief and tackles societal issues through the process of making a sweater from scratch—including shearing a sheep and carding and dying the wool—ultimately discovering the power of creativity and connection.While sharing her journey of making the sweater, which is actually riveting, she also unravels the rich history and culture of spinning and weaving while exposing the sobering reality of fast fashion and its detrimental impact on our environment. This is a book about something that sounds simple, yet is actually about everything, offering the potential for a genuine shift in how we perceive the world. MORE FROM PEGGY ORENSTEIN:Unraveling: What I Learned about Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World's Ugliest SweaterBoys & Sex: Young Men on Hook-Ups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New MasculinityGirls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New LandscapeDon’t Call Me a Princess: Essays on Girls, Women, Sex and LifeCinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of New Girlie-Girl CulturePeggy Orenstein’s WebsiteFollow Peggy on Instagram and Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“So one of the things I explored in life in Life in Five Senses was the value of boredom. Because when you're bored and when your mind is just kind of running free and trying to amuse itself, you'll often have insight. And that's why people have ideas in the shower, when they're walking the dog or something. When there's nothing occupying them, that's when our brain can come up with these new insights. So I was walking through the Met, I was in a very familiar place, so I was a little bored. And that's when I realized, the way I thought of it was that the beautiful often requires a little bit of ugly. And being systematic, I’m like, you say that, but how do you back that up? And I could think of one for each sense because it does turn out that often the beautiful does require a little bit of what might be considered ugly. And that is part of, as you say, the complete picture. When I took a perfume class as part of my sense of smell study, our professor had said that often a beautiful perfume will have some bad, you'll smell it and you would be like, Ooh, that smells bad. And yet it makes the perfume more beautiful.”Gretchen Rubin is an author, podcast host, and self-improvement expert, who has written many New York Times bestellers, including one that hit #1: The Happiness Project, where Gretchen performed what she has now perfected—using herself as a lab through which to study how principles from throughout time act on us, and inform our understanding of the world. She extends this point-of-view into her podcast, The Happiness Project with Gretchen Rubin, where she offers actionable daily strategies for cultivating joy and well-being, along with her sister.Today, we discuss her newest book, Life in Five Senses, which explores the powerful impact of embracing the world through sensing the world, rather than thinking about the world. It’s a book about experiencing: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. Through her extensive research and personal insights, Gretchen found that tuning into these senses provides relief from internal chaos while fostering our connection with the external world.MORE FROM GRETCHEN RUBIN:Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the WorldThe Happiness ProjectThe Four TendenciesBetter Than BeforeHappier with Gretchen Rubin PodcastGretchen’s Website & Newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“For people who have been in a long relationship and then it goes off the rails and ends, it’s a different kind of grief from say widower grief, right? Where maybe the relationship gets to stay intact and time capsuled. And you get to maintain the quality and texture of those memories even as you're grieving the loss of the person in your present life and in your future. And I think something that happens in divorce that we maybe don't talk enough about is the kind of like, I think they call it ambiguous grief, right? It's like losing someone who's still around, but not really, and not still around and available to you in the capacity that they once were. And so if you've been with someone for a really long time, you have all this institutional knowledge, right? Like all these private jokes and little songs, and it's like, who did I see? Oh, I remember seeing that movie. Who did I see that with? Oh, right. And it's like walking in a minefield…”So says Maggie Smith, an incredible poet and teacher whose mastery of language is always stunning: She distills sentiments of motherhood, grief, and survival in a way that is equal parts relatable and beautiful. While she’s published poems that touch such a collective nerve they’ve gone viral—namely Good Bones—her newest offering is a memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful. And in it, she not only breaks the traditional memoir format, but she also breaks open her relationship and the way we reimagine ourselves and our experiences as time passes. It is a beautiful book. Today, we discuss the ways that Maggie's memoir explores the disparity among gender roles and the collective damage caused by the patriarchy. Ultimately, through her story, she encourages us all to commit to a practice of self-love, introspection, and forgiveness. MORE FROM MAGGIE SMITH:You Could Make This Place BeautifulGoldenrodKeep MovingGood BonesMaggie’s WebsiteMaggie’s Substack NewsletterFollow Maggie on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Ideas don't arrive with a bang. There is no parade. The big thing never screams that it's a big thing. The big thing actually at first looks quite small, but if your life is filled with constant noise, constant chatter, and you're not making room to listen to yourself, you won't be able to hear that subtle whisper, when it arrives. Most people say, oh, my, my best ideas come to me in the shower, it's surprising. If you think about it though, it's not surprising at all because it's like one of the few moments of your day when you're by yourself and you're not getting bombarded by these high decibel sirens for attention in the form of notifications and emails and text messages and phone calls and this and that. You're in this solitary environment where you're letting your mind wander and it's just you and your thoughts and all of these built up whispers then begin to emerge to the surface, but we just don't stay with that long enough to really lean into those ideas, but imagine, you know, the types of ideas you might be able to generate if you can replicate those shower like conditions throughout the day so that you do hear those subtle whispers when they come up.”So says Ozan Varol, a recovering law professor and former rocket scientist who has spent the last decade or so analyzing the way we think, create, and ideate. In 2020, he wrote Think Like a Rocket Scientist, which explores the way we problem solve—it’s full of fascinating stories and case studies. And he’s now out with his next book, Awaken Your Inner Genius: Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary, which offers a continuation of the theme: How do we come up with new ideas and novel solutions, without falling into the trap of doing what everyone else is doing. Ozan is a wonderful narrator and guide, offering hundreds of anecdotes of people—in every conceivable sphere of life—who are doing things differently, and creating change in the process. The best part? Most of his advice is simple and easy to implement, a small shift in how we move throughout our days. MORE FROM OZAN VAROL:Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and LifeAwaken Your Inner Genius: Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become ExtraordinaryOzan Varol’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I guess for me the real tragedy is this idea of a life where you're getting further and further away from something meaningful or what you want and then just watching the time, like having to sell your time in which you do something meaningless. That's deeply horrifying to me. I mean, I know that is describing a lot of jobs and work, but I think a lot of this book is me kind of poking someone and being like, hey, don't you hate that? Like we shouldn't be okay with this. You know, because I think to some degree if you're in a situation like that, there are coping strategies, or you know, you're just kind of like, well, I can't really think about that because I just need to get through another day.”So says the brilliant Jenny Odell, the now two-time New York Times Bestselling author. In 2019, she came out with HOW TO DO NOTHING, a treatise on the attention economy. Her book landed right before COVID, offering wise and trenchant insight into what happened to all. This book captured my heart. And her follow-up—SAVING TIME: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock continues the conversation, exploring the way we use our hours, whose hours count more, and what this looks like in the context of our ancient universe where time has a different measure. MORE FROM JENNY ODELL:Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the ClockHow to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention EconomyInhabiting the Negative SpaceThe Bureau of Suspended ObjectsJenny Odell’s WebsiteFollow her On Instagram and Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“We are in a time where everything that we think we have taken for granted in terms of human achievement, human conscience, human goodness are being turned upside down. To reclaim them, you know, to reclaim them is an act of courage, personally, but also depends to an extent on having a roadmap broad enough and receptive enough to receive the help that's coming to us from a wider world that we're not even aware of anymore, for which this planet is, in its own funky way, the eye of the needle. There's something really precious and really painful, really difficult about our walk here, and everybody knows it, but we can reach for hope.”So says Cynthia Bourgeault, an Episcopalian priest and modern day mystic, who is one of the most fascinating thinkers on the planet today. She has written many, many books—books that have re-ordered my understanding of the world and what we’re all doing here. Her book on Mary Magdalene—The Meaning of Mary Magdalene: Discovering the Woman at the Heart of Christianity—reconceived the way I understood early Christianity, and then The Wisdom Jesus, The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three, and the Eye of the Heart have each brought me deeper into an understanding of consciousness. Ultimately, Cynthia is a map-maker—a map-maker who can put context around experience and point us toward where we all need to go. While she leads retreats and lectures, in her earlier life, Cynthia was a student and then a colleague of Father Thomas Keating, the founder of the Centering Prayer movement—Cynthia worked intently with this pioneering tradition, which seeks to unite wisdom traditions and teachers from across the globe. Cynthia is an emeritus faculty member at Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation. Her mind is complex, so listen closely—she is incredible.MORE FROM CYNTHIA BOURGEAULT:Eye of the Heart: A Spiritual Journey into the Imaginal RealmThe Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind—A New Perspective on Christ and His MessageThe Holy Trinity and the Law of Three: Discovering the Radical Truth at the Heart of ChristianityThe Meaning of Mary Magdalene: Discovering the Woman at the Heart of ChristianityCynthia’s WebsiteThe Center for Action and Contemplation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“People have always fought against anyone trying to impose power on them or trying to assert their status on them. That is true right throughout history, from written records onwards, certainly, you know, we have evidence of it, even in some of the most misogynistic societies on the planet, like ancient Greece, for instance. You can still see in legal records, for instance, or in written records, this tension, male anxiety, and women pushing back, you know, that is a kind of constant all the way through. And, not least, we have societies in which women do have more power and that is not seen as remarkable or weird in anyway by those societies themselves.”So says Angela Saini, an award-winning science journalist who is one of my favorite guides through topics that are sticky—and sometimes icky—and also defining, like the origins of highly problematic race science, and the way the scientific field has come to understand and codify what it is to be a woman. In her first appearance on Pulling the Thread, she talked about science as fact—and then “science” that becomes ripe with human bias and interpretation. As humans, we can really mess things up. Angela has written two books interrogating the divisive politics embedded in the science of human difference, Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong—and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story and Superior: The Return of Race Science. I’m most excited about her latest book, though: It’s called The Patriarchs: The Origins of Inequality and it’s about the origins of inequality. As she explains, patriarchy was not our predetermined fate. It’s not biological, or natural, or inevitable. And women have been resisting our oppression ever since.Her book is loaded with fascinating insights, many of which we explore. MORE FROM ANGELA SAINI:The Patriarchs: The Origins of InequalityInferior: How Science Got Women Wrong—and the New Research That's Rewriting the StorySuperior: The Return of Race ScienceWatch her 2019 BBC Documentary: Eugenics: Science's Greatest ScandalAngela's WebsiteFollow Angela on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“When I'd gone off and got lost in the woods and I walked for hours and I just couldn't find my way back out of the woods, there was this moment when I stopped and just had this sense of the forest as like this complete system of life. Like I could suddenly hear this, this crackle that felt to me like I could hear the water being drawn up from the soil and I could hear the leaves dropping down, and I could just feel this like I was part of this body and it was a remarkable moment, and I've never let go of that. And I I think once you've heard it once, like you can hear it again, this sense of like the being part of this huge system that's way bigger and way more ancient than you are and, and the humility of that, like the lovely, the lovely humbling that, that, that entails, because, you know, humility, it means literally to be part of the soil, to be of the soil. And that is a grand feeling to chase, I think to integrate with that.”Katherine joins me today to discuss her newest book, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age. A much needed follow-up to her first book, Wintering, which provided so many with language that articulated the pain of the long, communal loneliness and dislocation resulting from the pandemic—even though it was written well in advance—Enchantment presses forward to provide readers with a guide to rediscovering the beauty in being alive. The adult world, Katherine notes, is a profoundly play-less place—as we age, we turn away from our innate sense of wonder and awe in favor of grounded materialism that leaves us tired, anxious, and lonely. In our conversation, she encourages listeners to lean into our natural curiosity, engaging with what feels interesting and luminous in our immediate environment in order to re-sensitize ourselves to the subtle magic of living. We talk about sitting with our fascination instead of rushing to process it and the unique value of small moments in a world that prizes big experiences. For those of us searching for a different way of relating to the world, Enchantment is the balm we have been looking for. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: The death of playfulness… Longing and loneliness… Everything and nothing, all at once… MORE FROM KATHERINE MAY:Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious AgeWintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult TimesThe Electricity of Every Living Thing: A Woman's Walk in the Wild to Find Her Way HomeExplore KATHERINE'S WEBSITEListen to her podcast, How We Live Now, on APPLE PODCASTS or SPOTIFYFollow her on INSTAGRAM Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“And we are made of stars, you know. It's not some fun little thing I'm trying to make everyone feel happy with. It's the carbon in your muscles, the calcium in your bones, the iron in your blood, born in stars. And so I just sat there on the road and the question was, okay, if I've got that in me, if those stars can shine despite everything they've been through, can, can I have some glow? Can, can I have something that lights the way even when things are really grim? Because at that moment I felt so lost. I felt like, how is it possible that I wrote this whole book about self-care? I had this whole career. I've done all this work. How is it possible that I'm still reeling from things that happened to me when I was a kid? Sort of the journey you go on with me on this book is, you know, kind of recognizing we all suffer. I mean, you know, I feel like trauma is almost like a taboo word. People think that it's being used too much. It's like, no, it's, it's suffering. Right? Like every major religion refers to this as suffering.There's pain and rather than ignore it, what I have found is my life is much easier when I deal with it. It's just a better way to live.” So says Tara Schuster, author of the breakout hit, Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies. Tara joins us today to discuss her ongoing work to unravel the mystery of the self—tales and tribulations captured in her latest book, Glow in the F*cking Dark: Simple Practices to Heal Your Soul, from Someone Who Learned the Hard Way. By all external accounts, Tara is someone who had it all figured out—by the time she was in her late twenties she had worked for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and was a rising star at Comedy Central where she was in charge of critically acclaimed shows like Key & Peele. Beneath it all, she was on the road to rock bottom—anxious, depressed and haunted by her chaotic upbringing. She wrote her first book, in many ways, for herself—a candid and practical guide to healing on the inside through the implementation of simple, daily rituals to transform mind, body, and soul. But just as Tara thought she had gotten through the hardest work, and even wrote a book to bring others along with her, she suddenly lost her job—in the middle of the pandemic. One terrifying, dissociative experience while driving down a highway late at night later, she had to come to terms with the fact that her hardest internal work was just beginning. Tara shares with us the things that helped her the most along the way—from journaling to build internal safety and wisdom, to rejecting helplessness and restoring faith in our own agency—Tara makes the sometimes lofty lessons of complex theories such as internal family systems and deep trauma therapy accessible. Self-awareness comes from perpetual curiosity, she reminds us, and we must learn about ourselves before we can extend those learnings for the good of the world. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Self-retrieval… Trusting internal authority… Perpetual curiosity… MORE FROM TARA SCHUSTER:Glow in the F*cking Dark: Simple Practices to Heal Your Soul, from Someone Who Learned the Hard WayBuy Yourself the F*cking Lilies: And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life, from Someone Who's Been ThereExplore TARA'S WEBSITEFollow Tara on INSTAGRAM Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I think the biggest challenge with codependency is, when a family member is catered to when their unhealthy or toxic behavior is catered to, it makes the other people in the situation neglected. You know, if you have a sibling who's getting more care than you, or you know, more financial support, that feels a certain way to you. And often we take that out on not just the person doing it, but the other person involved too. So the codependency just, it doesn't impact one relationship, it impacts many. And it really doesn't set anyone up for success. The best way to help a person is sometimes not helping. You know, I think about, um, all of the help I didn't receive, but figured it out. Those were the biggest lessons versus someone rescuing me or doing the work for me, or me never having to figure out this thing because there is someone I can call.”So says Nedra Glover Tawwab, sought-after relationship expert, licensed therapist and New York Times best-selling author of Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself. Her new book, Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships is sure to hit the list as well.In this latest book, Nedra puts her 15 years of experience to work to demystify the ways that our earliest relationships—those with our family of origin—can lead us astray, causing us to abandon ourselves to maintain connection. Like her first bestseller, Drama-Free is packed with insights that are broken up in such a way as to be instantly actionable. Ultimately, it tackles what dysfunctional families look and feel like—and how to break free. Nedra is responsible for mainstreaming a cultural understanding of “boundaries,” and she now tackles other ideas that we all need to address, like co-dependency and enmeshment. In today’s conversation, we cover a lot of ground, including parenting, re-parenting, and what it means to offer support without overstepping.MORE FROM NEDRA TAWWAB:Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family RelationshipsSet Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming YourselfThe Set Boundaries Workbook: Practical Exercises for Understanding Your Needs and Setting Healthy LimitsFollow Nedra on Instagram and TwitterSign up for Nedra’s Newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“A conversation that I hope this book sparks, because it's such a fun conversation, is the conversation about like, gay men being friends with straight men. But also straight women being friends with straight men. Like, you know, being friends, like a lot of times writings on friendship talk about women and their best friends or straight men and they're like bro friends, or even gay men and their gay friends. But I would love to see more writing about friendships across these artificial gender lines.”So says Will Schwalbe, someone I’ve had the pleasure of knowing for a long time. In fact, our lives have overlapped in strange and magical ways—a testament, really, to the way that we are all interconnected. Sometimes improbably.Besides being a long-time, venerated book editor, Will has written four books, including one of my long-time favorites—it’s called The End of Your Life Bookclub, and it’s a memoir about his mother, who died of pancreatic cancer. In her final years, Will and his mom read together, and discussed their lives through the prism of books. It’s beautiful. And his latest book, which we discuss today, is also incredibly, and quietly, moving: It’s called We Should Not Be Friends. It’s about Will and a guy named Chris Maxey, or Maxey, who Will met his senior year of college in the ‘80s—Maxey was a world-class wrestler, who ultimately became a Navy Seal, while the bookish Will worked the Gay Men’s Health Crisis phone lines at night. Point is: They could not have been more different. The book is a powerful treatise on what friendship is—and what’s required for intimacy, particularly in a culture where there aren’t many examples of friendships between gay and straight men, or between straight men and women either. We explore all of this.MORE FROM WILL SCHWALBE:We Should Not Be Friends: The Story of a FriendshipBooks for Living: Some Thoughts on Reading, Reflecting, and Embracing LifeThe End of Your Life BookclubSend: Why People Email So Badly and How To Do It BetterWill Schwalbe’s WebsiteFollow Will on Twitter and Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“And the moment when she admitted that she had been wrong, that was the greatest healing moment for me of all. And that would never have happened had I not written the memoir, had I not been sort seeking her out asking her lots of questions, details of fights that they had why they fell in love, how they fell in love, what her doubts were. And then there was that moment where she sent me that brief email where she affirmed his essential goodness, his essential integrity and his worth as a father, which was so important to me. And essentially saying she married him in large part because she so desperately wanted to have children. And at that, in that era, she was 27, I think, or 28 when she married him, which for a girl who came from the Midwest was very late especially. And she had gone through and then went through all this trauma. She had three miscarriages. She had something wrong with her uterus, she had to have surgery. So I was the fourth pregnancy that my parents had, and that's why they went ahead and had another baby so quickly with my sister 14 months later. And I think she just saw immediately that not only would my father be an incredible parent, but also he would be the kind of parent that a working woman, the dream parent for a working woman, because he wanted to do all that stuff that not only did she not have time to do, but she really didn't have any inclination to do playing with us, the imaginative play, taking us out on the weekends. I mean, my father, I don't think I ever, in my entire life, had a moment where I looked at my father and thought He's tired of us, or he's exhausted, he's bored with us. He wants to get back to his adult things every instant that he was with us, I felt him completely engaged. And to use your word from earlier, completely enthusiastic.”So says Priscilla Gilman, author, critic, and former professor of English literature at Vassar College and Yale University. In her first book, The Anti-Romantic Child: A Memoir of Unexpected Joy, Priscilla writes of the challenges and delights of raising her son Benjamin, who is autistic. Her newest work,The Critic's Daughter: A Memoir, is another family story—this time a searching reflection of her relationship with her esteemed, brilliant, and complicated father, the late theater critic and professor at Yale Drama School, Richard Gilman. Though the world knew him as an exacting and confrontational critic, Priscilla and her sister knew their father as the adoring, playful parent who regularly entered their childish worlds, delighting in their company and imaginative pastimes. This father-daughter connection was forever changed, however, by her parent’s separation. At the age of 10, she witnessed her father fall—into shame and depression—which forced her to reckon with the lasting wounds marital dissolution could leave on a person, and a family. The book, filled with honest and painful stories of learning to see her father for who he truly was, expertly captures the universal experience of coming to terms with one’s parents as flawed, complicated people and then choosing to admire and respect them anyway. Our conversation explores what it was like to be raised surrounded by creatives and critics, the difficulties of being thrust into the role of parenting your own parents, and the gifts and complications that come from endeavoring to truly know those we love the most. MORE FROM PRISCILLA GILMAN:Read The Critic's Daughter: A Memoir and The Anti-Romantic Child: A Memoir of Unexpected JoyExplore Priscilla's WebsiteFollow her on Twitter and Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In today’s episode—my first ever solo attempt—I explain how my spirituality emerged out of a largely secular, nature-based childhood, how I learned to work with the forces of the universe, and what I think we’re after. (Hint: Wholeness.)MORE FROM ME:On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good (coming 5/23)My SubstackMy Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“This is the time where it's kind of like the things that we didn't get right. We need to start fixing. Not fixing, I would say, but opening up to new paths of exploration because we clearly, we've learned at this point that we can't keep doing things the way that we have in the past for our environment, for social rights, workers rights, children's rights, reproductive rights, the whole thing. We need to make some shifts in order to sustain our evolution with the progress that we want to make. So we kind of all need to take a bit of a reset and a pause. I have said for some time, and this is why I'm excited about 2023 and these next couple of years, I have said that there is absolutely nothing that would get resolved while Pluto is still in Capricorn.” So says Carissa Schumacher. This is Carissa’s third visit to Pulling the Thread. I highly recommend listening to our introductory conversation—called “My Spiritual Teacher”—if you’re new to Carissa’s work. In it, we talk about how we came into each other’s orbits—through a miracle, I would—and how her presence has deeply affected the last few years of my life.In today’s conversation, we dive right into Yeshua’s recent transmissions—and yes, when Carissa says Yeshua, she’s talking about Jesus, or more specifically Christ Consciousness—or what she calls the energy of peace. I know this sounds odd, but Yeshua—who we’ll refer to as a “he” to keep things simple—says throughout the transmissions: “Know me not as I was, but as I am.” Carissa is not the only Yeshua channel, she asserts, and one of the points of these transmissions is for each of us to cultivate that voice we have inside. The content Yeshua delivers is universal, deeply applicable to our lives today, and certainly not attached to any formal religious culture or system of faith. I find it full of revelations and profound wisdom, insights that I can immediately apply to the way I conceive and understand the world around me.Today, we cover a lot of ground—Carissa dives into the difference between creativity and productivity, and between wisdom and knowledge, and we talk about the seven ways Yeshua says we can recognize power that comes from shadow—and how, like a switchboard, those old era energies are being switched off—and will no longer work in the coming era. Speaking of that coming era, Carissa also talks about what it means that Pluto is leaving Capricorn, and the changes we will begin to see.If you want a grounding in these teachings, I highly recommend Carissa and Yeshua’s book, The Freedom Transmissions, which is eight Yeshua transmissions Carissa channeled over the course of a week, several years ago. And if you want to experience this work in community, I highly recommend attending one of Carissa’s journeys. They are life-changing events. Her website is TheSpiritTransmissions.com. And for more on Carissa, I’ve written about a lot of these transmissions in my newsletter and on my website: eliseloehnen.substack.com.MORE FROM CARISSA SCHUMACHERThe Freedom Transmissions: A Pathway to Peace, Yeshua as channeled by Carissa SchumacherCarissa’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Look at how we've convoluted and complicated. The most simple things. Look at nutrition now. How many supplements are we supposed to take? How many grams of fat am I supposed to eat? And then grams of carbs, and then how many grams of sugar is taller? It's insane that we've managed because I think a lot of people don't believe stuff unless it sounds scientific or it's extremely complicated. But nature isn't that complicated. Like why do all of these cultures, the few that are around now, indigenous cultures, they don't have high blood pressure, they don't have heart disease, they don't have diabetes, they don't have anxiety, they don't have panic, they have all have straight teeth. They don't also have any big pharma. Uh, they don't have dentists. They don't need any of this stuff because they are living in an environment in which humans naturally evolved.You and I are not, we're living in an environment that is so different and it's no coincidence that the more we integrate back into nature, the better we get.”So says the brilliant—and endlessly entertaining—James Nestor, author of Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art. While Breath is a mega-bestseller—across the globe, it’s also an award-winning work of science reporting, stringing together seemingly disparate streams of thought and science into a treatise on one of the most significant impacts on our health: The way we learned to breathe. Yep, breathe. James makes the case that our tendency toward mouth-breathing works against our very nature, distorting our faces and jaws, ramping our anxiety, and weakening our immune response…simply because our noses are designed to filter the world on our behalf. I loved our long-ranging conversation, and it was wonderful to be in James’s company again. Let’s get to our chat.MORE FROM JAMES NESTOR:Breath: The New Science of a Lost ArtDeep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About OurselvesJames’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“There are many places I'd love to see and I know I would learn from. But if I never see them, I won't be sorry. I mean I feel I'm so happy just being here in my little rented two room apartment in the middle of nowhere, Japan where we've been for 29 years. And I would be so grateful if I could spend almost every day here. And again another thing that the pandemic reminded us, I couldn't travel as much as usual. I don't think I really missed it. What I did find was I'd take a walk along the road behind my mother's house and it's in the hills of Santa Barbara and my parents had lived there more than 50 years. I'd never walked to the end of the road just 20 minutes away before. And I did. And I'd look around and there was a golden light of early morning and there's a Pacific ocean in the distance with the sun sentient above it. And I said, this is as beautiful as anywhere. Somebody would go to Capri or Rio de Janeiro to see us right in my backyard. And I'd never thought to look at it before. And so too, with this little apartment, my wife and I just start taking walks in every direction. And we came upon bamboo forests and cherry blossoms, all kinds of wonders. And we'd never in 29 years in this apartment looked around us. And so a reminder that all the beauty of the wonder of the world is right here. If only I have the eyes and motivation to see.”So says the wonderful Pico Iyer, who began his career teaching writing and literature at Havard, before he joined Time as a writer on world affairs. Since then, he has published 15 books, many of which are bestsellers. His books have been translated into over 23 languages, on subjects ranging from the Dalai Lama to globalism to the Cuban Revolution to Islamic mysticism. Perhaps known best for his travel writing, his most recent book, The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise, is the culmination of a lifetime of experiences in the outer world, intertwined with a deep and beautiful look at his inner world, as he asks himself, and the reader, how we might come upon paradise in the midst of the reality of our lives. Most of us are steeped in a culture which views paradise as eternally elusive—we live our lives with a deep longing to return to the Eden from which we have been evicted, to a place where the struggles of the human experience melt away. But it is in our struggle that we find paradise, Iyer tells us, if only we have the eyes to see it. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Recalling what we have forgotten… Utopian longings and viable dreams… Creating a life that matters… MORE FROM PICO IYER:The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise and other books by Pico IyerPico’s website Watch Pico Iyer’s TED Talks:Where is home? (2013)The art of stillness (2014)The beauty of what we'll never know (2016)What ping-pong taught me about life (2019) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“We're aware that we're in an ecological crisis. We are destroying our own ecosystem. We're aware there's loss of biodiversity, these beautiful species going extinct and who is the prime partner for us is the earth. But you go to an ecological conference like they are having now in Egypt and who listens to the earth whereas the voice of the earth herself, she's not heard, she's not asked, nobody asks the earth. And she is this ancient being. And so wise, she has been through mass extinctions before. Indigenous people knew how to ask and how to listen and how to talk to the earth. And that's why a lot of my writings recently are about trying to find a way to reconnect, to regain this way of being present with the earth, of listening to the earth of just being with her. And so her voice can be heard. Because if we don't make that connection, I don't see how we can go forward into a living future.”So says my guest today, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee - Sufi mystic, PhD, lecturer and prolific author. I have been reading through his books in a type of fever—they are some of the most powerful, and clarifying, treatises on spirituality—and what this whole experience is about—that I’ve ever read. Vaughan-Lee began following the Naqshbandi Sufi path at the age of 19, guided by Irina Tweedie, who brought this particular Indian branch of Sufism to the West. He eventually became her successor, and moved to Point Reyes, California where he founded the Golden Sufi Center—continuing to expand the reach of his Sufi lineage, making its teachings ever more available to the Western seeker. While he is in retreat as a teacher, he recently launched a podcast, called Stories for a Living Future that is beautiful.His many books provide a detailed exploration of the stages of spiritual and psychological transformation experienced on the Sufi path. More recently, his writing has focused on our spiritual responsibility to the earth, in the present time of transition; awakening our awareness of oneness with the world and all that is in it; and the presence of the amina mundi, or the world soul. Today, Vaughan-Lee joins the podcast to discuss one of his latest books, Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth, which is a collection of essays from some of our most esteemed leaders across faiths and dimensions, including Joanna Macy, Thich Nhat Hanh, Wendell Berry, Richard Rohr, and Vandava Shiva. As he explains today, we have lost awareness of the sacredness of creation, a loss that has allowed us to abuse an Earth regarded as unfeeling, unknowing matter. This is the spiritual root of our ecological crisis. He implores us to follow the thread that allows us to once again live in direct connection with creation, noting that real change can only happen when we regain our magical consciousness; grow closer to the lumen natura—nature’s light—and allow ourselves to fall in love with the Earth once more. Llewellyn does a remarkable job of placing our human story within the story of the Earth—in turn, he leaves us yearning to rediscover our place within the whole and thereby reaffirm our primal connection with our sacred home. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: A tree is not just timber, it is a spirit… Regaining our magical consciousness.. The great unraveling of present civilization.. Healthy society needs cultural eldering… MORE FROM LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN LEE:Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the EarthSeasons of the Sacred: Reconnecting to the Wisdom Within Nature and the Soul and other books by Vaughan-Lee (I love the six-part series on Spiritual Power & Oneness).Stories for a Living Future PodcastCheck out The Golden Sufi Center and Working with Oneness Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“How do we actually with due speed, cuz this is a timely issue, start to live in modern culture, which is taken over the planet. Basically live in a way that is really about the truth of who we are. That we are a me and we are a we, and that if we live that way, we wouldn't treat each other as enemies, we would treat each other as relatives. You know, you don't get along with every relative the same way, but if they're in your family, they're your family. And if we then saw all of nature as the family of nature, you know, we would treat earth not like a trash can, but a sanctuary. And, and we would do this together. And we are incredibly collaborative, we're incredibly creative and yes, we can use competition, but what we can do in our competition is make it so we're competing to really deal with, you know, diseases and famine and all the problems we face. So when you win the competition, everybody benefits.”So says Dr. Daniel Siegel, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center. As an interpersonal neurobiologist Dan is focused on the creation of self—and his latest book, IntraConnected: MWe (Me + We) as the Integration of Self, Identity, and Belonging takes his lifelong pursuit to understand the Venn diagram between personal reality and collective identity even farther: In it, he explores questions of consciousness, the importance of connection, and the world of quantum physics as it relates to our relationship with the external world. For Dan, the science of energy, which animates us all, is the study of the continuum of possibility to probability. MORE FROM DAN SIEGEL, M.D.: IntraConnected: MWe (Me + We) as the Integration of Self, Identity, and BelongingThe Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We AreMindsight: The New Science of Personal TransformationAware: The Science and Practice of PresenceThe Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing MindFollow Dan on InstagramDan’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I mean, nourishing is truly, honestly, it is, it is, uh, an activism. It is it, the, the minute you are nourished the decisions you make versus when you weren't nourished, they're gonna be really different the way you react to your kids. How we parent, how we are in our, our partnerships or our work. It's like when we're nourished, it's like another, another part of us is being like our truest part, like who we truly are. And so if we can all be a little closer to that, like that, that's the activism I'm tending. You know, it's like that's, that, that really is, that's an advocacy for a culture that's really hungry. A world that really needs us to care for ourselves. It's not just an i it really is a, we, it's a we movement.”So says Jules Blaine Davis, otherwise known as The Kitchen Healer. I met Jules nearly a decade ago, after hearing rumors about this miraculously woman who lived on the other side of Los Angeles: I was told that she could restore a desire to cook, for one. But that her work was actually much deeper than that: That she probed long-held stories we hold about ourselves when it comes to our appetites and their validity, as well as whether we believe we deserve to be nourished. I spent an afternoon with her—walking around her backyard barefoot and telling her about my relationship with food—and left her house deepened, newly dedicated to turning on the fire in my own house, and reclaiming the kitchen as a place where I could be—not as a zone where there was more for me to do.MORE FROM JULES BLAINE DAVIS: The Kitchen Healer: The Journey to Becoming YouFollow Jules on InstagramJules’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“If you don't change things that we already feel we should change or we feel called to change, if you're holding onto our job alone or to a relationship that is toxic or to whatever, because we are afraid to change, then it becomes stronger and stronger. And when the, the tension is too big, then we call it crisis. Because then the system needs to rebalance itself through a painful process. But there's a conscious version of it too, < which means we support each other in the change process and we create societies and environments that are actually supportive of change and create safety for change. And we can do that together. If we invest in it.”So Says Thomas Hübl, one of the most incredible, spiritually oriented teachers working in the trauma space today. Thomas primarily works with large groups, where his process focuses on transmuting dark, collective energy—typically old, dense energy that’s held by cultures and places. He has worked all over the world in zones where there is much dense despair, using a collective holding space to transmute and metabolize this energy, arguing that it’s essential fuel for our evolution and growth. When we deny this energy’s presence, or refuse to acknowledge what’s happened in humanity’s past, we are stuck reliving these stories and patterns, not understanding where they even come from. The beauty of Thomas’s work is that you don’t need to be directly affected by these stories in order to help move and release them. He explains how this works in his book, Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds, and we dive into the journey here. This conversation was very powerful and moving to me—it’s one of my favorite on this podcast so far.MORE FROM THOMAS HÜBL:Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural WoundsThomas’s WebsiteFollow Thomas on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Now I'm making something that I didn't imagine. It's not going like I imagined, but it's going. And then when you finish the Object Thing book, then it has the power to take you on a journey that you never would have dreamt had you kept the idea in your interior museum. And then that shifts your imagination. You have more, more artwork that's collected in the Interior Museum and but, and then as you grow older, as a maker, You see that distinction, right? The distinction between the beautiful interior museum and the museum in reality of things that you've actually made and done and the stories attached to the making and doing that have changed your life.”I am joined today by my dear friend, Alexandra Grant. Alexandra is a fascinating person and talented visual artist whose work examines language and written texts through painting, drawing, sculpture, video, and other media and has been exhibited at institutions across the country: at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), the Pasadena Museum of California Art, among others. In 2008, she created the grantLOVE Project, which has raised awareness and funds for various arts nonprofits through the gift and sale of her iconic LOVE artwork. In 2017, she and her life partner, Keanu Reeves, co-founded X Artists’ Books, an artist-centric publishing house, helping artists and readers alike explore the creation of artwork and ideas outside the traditional model of book publishing. If that wasn’t enough, Alexandra is currently leading the first NFT project of the Hollywood Sign for the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and is an Advisor to the Future Verse Foundation.She joins me today to meditate on art and love—as we celebrate the release of her book Love: A Visual History of the grantLOVE Project. A comprehensive history of the foundation she started fifteen years ago, the book is a visual collection of paintings, prints, sculptures, textiles, jewelry, and architecture gathered by Grant and her collaborators to explore the timeless question, what is love? Our conversation is a peek into our regular walk and talks—a beloved routine through which we have been able to explore, reflect, and build an incredibly meaningful friendship. Today we discuss what it means to be looked at and perceived by the public, especially as the partner of one of the most famous actors of our generation; the inevitable disappointment that results from taking the beautiful ideas in our heads and attempting to turn them into something physical; and owning our native talents in the pursuit of a creative live, whether or not we fit into the conventions of being an artist. You have to create opportunities between the cracks, she tells us. Okay, let’s get to our conversation.EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Being in the messy middle… Owning your native talents… Conversing with the past self… Creating opportunities between the cracks… MORE FROM ALEXANDRA GRANT:Love: A Visual History of the grantLOVE ProjectExplore X Artists' BooksCheck out her website and the grantLOVE ProjectFollow Alexandra on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“But a life devoted to something larger than yourself is a life worth living. It's a life that is in recognition of life is given to us, it's given to us so that we can give it, we're blessed so that we can bless. We're born, I think, I can't prove this, but I've experienced it to make the contribution that's uniquely ours to make. And when you find that dharma, that discovers who you are, this is a match for what's wanted in the world. Oh my God. It's so thrilling that I wanted to do everything I could to make that available to people, because it's not only wonderful for you, the world needs us now. The world always did. But now the crises are so deep, so profound, so intense, so everywhere. So in every part of society, in every economic class, in every country, in every language, in every culture, that it's all hands on deck. And what a thrilling time to be alive when it's an all hands on deck moment.” so says my guest today, Lynne Twist. Lynne is a world-renowned visionary committed to alleviating poverty, ending world hunger, and supporting social justice and sustainability. Her 40-year career has taken her from working with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, to the refugee camps in Ethiopia and the threatened rainforests of the Amazon, to guiding the philanthropic efforts of some of the world’s wealthiest families. Her breadth of experience led her to found the Soul of Money Institute, where she has worked with hundreds of thousands of people all over the world on topics such as fundraising with integrity, practicing conscious philanthropy, and creating a healthy relationship with money. Lynne first translated her compelling stories and life experiences into the bestselling book, The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life and joins us today to discuss her newest book, Living a Committed Life: Finding Freedom and Fulfillment in a Purpose Larger Than Yourself.In the book, and our conversation, Lynne reveals the guiding principles that have enabled her to live as a thought leader and activist, teaching us that a committed life is one worth living: That sometimes the commitment to it alone is enough to ensure it happens. The universe is telling us repeatedly that we are in this together, she says, and in a world that sometimes feels chaotic and devoid of meaning, it’s incumbent that we draw together around what it means to be human.EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Taking a stand vs. taking a position… Pain pushes until vision pulls… We won’t think our way out of this… Replacing charity with solidarity… MORE FROM LYNNE TWIST:Living a Committed Life: Finding Freedom and Fulfillment in a Purpose Larger Than YourselfThe Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and LifeCheck out Lynne’s Soul of Money Institute and The Pachamama AllianceFollow Lynne on Instagram and Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Boundaries don't tell other people what to do. They tell other people what you are willing to do to take responsibility for your own needs and your own feelings and keep yourself safe and healthy. And they actually are, as we've discussed, a gift to your relationship, they make relationships better. And when you turn it around on its head like that, I think number one, that helps people understand all of the benefits to your relationship when each party does take responsibility for how they feel and for their needs. And it also gives you a sense of empowerment. I think people feel like, Oh, I can't set boundaries because what if the other person won't do it or doesn't say yes? And when I tell them, Oh no, no, no, your boundary cannot depend on somebody else. It is only dependent on what you are willing and able to do.”So says Melissa Urban, a woman who can do everything. Not only is the founder of Whole30, she’s a six-time New York Times best-selling author. Her latest is the subject of our conversation today: It’s called "The Book of Boundaries: Set the Limits That Will Set You Free,” which is the result of helping her community navigate through their relationships to…pretty much everything as they begin to fix and adjust their relationship to their own bodies and food. She is a fierce proponent of self-efficacy and a commitment to showing up for yourself in all aspects of life.In our conversation, we discuss what a boundary even means—and how difficult it is for us to address what’s at the root of establishing them, which is our NEEDS. Melissa guides us through relatable scenarios, like with the in-laws or a boss, where boundaries might be missing. And we talk about the qualities of niceness and how they can get in the way of caring for ourselves: Melissa, who is fierce in her directness, distinguishes between the quality of niceness and the quality of kindness in a very profound way. And it all comes to this: We must first be kind to ourselves before we can show up with kindness in the world.EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Direct not rude… Boundaries don’t tell other people what to do… Set limits, set expectations… Make the goal showing up for yourself… MORE FROM MELISSA URBAN:The Book of Boundaries: Set the Limits That Will Set You FreeCheck out Melissa's WebsiteFollow Melissa on Instagram and Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“My childhood was a childhood in the closet. I had some good things. I had some bad things, like living in the closet is, you know, not always terrible. It's simply not the greatest expression of, of who we have the capacity to become, I think. Um, but for my parents, you know, as my father went along in my childhood, he became more and more withdrawn and kept trying to do the right thing, was closeted even to himself. This was a secret he was keeping even from himself for most of my childhood. But it made him kind of a lousy partner. Right. My mother's experience was just a very, very lonely experience. Her life looked on the outside exactly like it was supposed to look, we lived in a nice community. She was married to a lawyer, or, you know, we looked great on a Christmas card, but it felt cavernous, just vacant and left with so much time on her own. Um, she really struggled not to let her memory present her with things to work on. And that led her to be very depressed throughout my childhood.”So says Jessi Hempel, a long-time media and technology journalist, an award-winning host of the podcast, Hello Monday, and author of the new memoir, The Family Outing. Her book is a profound telling of family dynamics, offering lessons on accepting one's truest self. Specifically, it’s the story of a family who comes out of the closet to embrace their queer identities. Even Jessi’s mother, who is straight, lives in a type of closet, Jessi explains, as she nearly became the victim of a serial killer as a teenager—this unconfronted trauma affects her entire family’s life. In our conversation, Jessi shares her journey to emphasize the detrimental side-effects of shame and the non-linear path to liberation.Our conversation explores the value of authenticity and navigating parts of ourselves we have not yet learned to face. She believes that when we“step into ourselves,” culture has the capacity to shift, allowing us all to live more gracefully. Okay, let’s get to our conversation. MORE FROM JESSI HEMPEL:The Family OutingJessi’s podcast, Hello MondayFollow Jessi on LinkedIn and Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I’m trying to map the territory in the center world, just the way I did with families and the distinction that immediately leaped out was between parts that other systems would call inner children, which, you know, they're very, before they're hurt, they're delightful. They give us all kinds of joy and, and imagination and creativity and playfulness and so on. But once they feel, once you have an experience that leaves you feeling worthless or terrified or hurt, they're the ones that take that in the most, because they're the most sensitive parts of you. And then they get stuck with these, what I call burdens of worthlessness or pain or terror. And now we don't wanna be around them because they have the power to overwhelm us and make us feel all that again and bring us back into those scenes that they literally are living in still. And so we try to lock them away in inner basements, thinking we're just moving on from the memories, sensations and, and emotions of the trauma. Not realizing that we're actually leaving in the dust, the parts of us we love the most when they're not hurt, just cuz they got hurt.” So says Dr. Richard Schwartz, the creator of Internal Family Systems, a transformative, evidence-based model of psychotherapy that de-pathologizes the multipart personality. Dr. Schwartz began his career as a systemic family therapist and academic in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago and later at Northwestern University. It was there that he worked with a number of clients who claimed to recognize that they had several components, or parts, to themselves. This discovery led him to develop Internal Family Systems, also known as IFS. Within his model, Dr. Schwartz argues that our consciousness, or personality, can be broken down into multiple parts, each with distinct characteristics that fall under three categories: exiles, managers, and firefighters. Exiles are the parts of us that experience anxiety, fear, or trauma—often when we’re very young. Our other parts begin to protect those exiles from being triggered by events and experiences. Managers do this by dictating how we interact with the external world and firefighters seek to protect us by pushing us toward distraction to numb our pain. All of our inner parts contain valuable qualities, Dr. Schwartz tells us, but when they are left unattended, they may lead to damaging impulses, causing us to write them off as damaging in and of themselves. On the other hand, when our parts are acknowledged and their needs are addressed, a confidence and openness emerges—what Dr. Schwartz has come to call the Self. It is in this state of Self, that we can begin to heal all of our parts and become integrated and whole.In our conversation today, Dr. Schwartz walks us through the basics of his model and then guides me through an IFS work session. This was very powerful for me. Because the concept sounds heady, I’m glad you can experience the model in action: I hope our work together inspires you to explore the profound awareness made accessible by IFS. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: It is the nature of the mind to have multiple parts… Reconciling with your exiles… My IFS session… MORE FROM DR. RICHARD SCHWARTZ:Books by Dr. Richard Schwartz: No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model Introduction to Internal Family Systems You Are the One You've Been Waiting for: Applying Internal Family Systems to Intimate Relationships Explore the IFS Institute WATCH: Dr. Richard Schwartz Explains Internal Family Systems (IFS) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"We have offered a model, the seven circles, that helps people to understand that it's not just food and fitness, which so many wellness practitioners purport. It's not just diet and exercise. It's not just the way that you look on the outside or the $90 yoga pants that you can afford, or the fancy studio class or the 25 ingredient smoothie that costs $25. You know, those are unfortunately the images that we have now when it comes to wellness. And that's why so many people continue to feel excluded and uninterested in wellness. It seems so superficial. And so what I hope is that we have incorporated all these other elements to show people that not only can they be a wellness person who participates or who practices wellness, but they are already. We are all on this journey to some degree already." So says Chelsey Luger. Luger and her husband Thosh Collins are wellness teachers, authors, and the founders of the indigenous wellness initiative, Well for Culture. Launched in 2013, Well For Culture was established to reclaim ancient Native wellness philosophies and practices to promote the wellbeing of the physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional self. From their exploration and practice, the two have developed a holistic model for modern living which they share with us in their first book, The Seven Circles: Indigenous Teachings for Living Well. According to Luger and Collins, these seven circles—food, movement, sleep, community, sacred space, ceremony, and connection to land—are interconnected, working together to keep our lives in balance. In our conversation, we begin to explore these many aspects of health, as Luger and Collins explain how their teachings can be adapted to every life, and how to do so while maintaining respect and reverence for the Indigenous origins of the wisdom and practices they share. We discuss their work to reframe wellness, how to integrate spirituality into movement through intention, and the power of the hollow bone mentality. Healing and wellness is not just a journey of one, they tell us, but rather a journey of family and community: When we take the important steps to heal ourselves, we contribute to the health of all. I was very moved by this conversation, which we’ll turn to now.EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Creating a true connection to movement… Misappropriation… Fools Crow and the Hollow Bone Theory… Creating agreements with ourselves around technology… MORE FROM CHELSEY & THOSH:The Seven Circles: Indigenous Teachings for Living WellCheck out their initiative: Well for CultureNative Wellness InstituteFollow Thosh on Instagram Follow Chelsey on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“The thing is the type of thinking where you can figure out how mechanical things work. It’s a different kind of intelligence. And I think it's hard for verbal thinkers to understand. And they kind of will look at the shop kids as a dumb kids. Now, fortunately, some states are starting to put it back in. We're having more and more infrastructure things falling apart, like this latest disaster with the water works breaking—you see, a visual thinker can see how it works and how to fix it. And you keep deferring maintenance. I mean, we got wires falling off of electric towers in California and starting fires because they deferred maintenance, but we need all of the different kinds of thinkers. And the first step is realizing that they exist and they need to work together as teams.” So says Dr. Temple Grandin, a New York Times bestselling author, celebrated animal welfare advocate, and one of the world’s most prominent speakers on autism. Temple first came into the public consciousness with her memoir, Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism, which provided her unique inside narrative and revolutionized how the world understood autistic individuals. Her latest book, Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions, works to expand our awareness of the different ways our brains are wired even further as she draws upon cutting edge research to demystify the brains of visual thinkers. Our world is geared for verbal thinkers, she tells us, with rigid academic and social expectations sidelining visual thinkers at school and in the workplace—to the detriment of productivity and innovation everywhere. In our conversation, Temple takes us through the three different types of thinkers, and argues that changing our approach to educating, parenting, and employing visual thinkers has great potential to encourage, rather than stifle, their singular gifts and unique contributions. As the number of children diagnosed with autism continues to rise nationally, her call to foster “differently-abled” brains is more important than ever—as she so eloquently says, we need all kinds of minds to solve today’s most difficult problems.EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Three kinds of thinkers… Neurodiversity is essential for our survival… Avoiding label lock… MORE FROM TEMPLE GRANDIN:Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and AbstractionsEmergence: Labeled AutisticThe Autistic Brain: Helping Different Kinds of Minds SucceedThinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism (Expanded Edition)Visit Temple's Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“What I'm positing is, is an ability to grapple with contradiction. So that's the paradox mindset that Wendy Smith, Maryanne Lewis and other scholars have shown that when we're able to sit with two conflicting things in our minds, for example that if we stick with the example in South Africa, it may be true that if I'm a student that my parents and my grandparents participated in actively supported apartheid and that they were also wonderful parents and grandparents, right? Like those two things can be true, and being able to sit with that contradiction gives me. Like emotional limberness to kind of, you know, push my way through the, the emotional slog of this is awful. This is awful. And to sit with terrible things happened, that's the only way you can do it.” So says Dolly Chugh, award-winning social psychologist at the NYU Stern School of Business, where she is an expert researcher in the psychology of people and goodness. Her first book is the wonderful, The Person You Mean to Be and she just released a second, called, A More Just Future: Psychological Tools for Reckoning with Our Past and Driving Social Change. Both books serve as inspiring, yet practical guides for those of us who seek to be better. A More Just Future builds on Chugh’s first book, which equipped readers with the tools to be “good-ish” people who stand up for their values. In her latest, she offers a guide to reckoning with the whitewashed history of our country in order to build a better future. The seeds of today’s inequalities were sown in the past, she tells us, and it will take an extra dose of resilience and grit to grapple with the truth of our history and to make the systemic changes needed to mend the fabric of our country. Moving from willful ignorance to willful awareness isn’t easy, leading to uncomfortable feelings of shame, guilt, disbelief, and resistance when we encounter revelations that run against what we have long been told. But it is possible to love your country with a broken heart, she says, imploring us to grapple with contradiction, employing the paradox mindset as we shift from the rigidness of “either/or” to the nuance of “both/and.” EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Wired for consistency… Light vs. heat-based change… Sitting in paradox… Belief grief… MORE FROM DOLLY CHUGH:A More Just Future: Psychological Tools for Reckoning with Our Past and Driving Social ChangeThe Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias“How to let go of being a "good" person—and become a better person,” TED TalkCheck out Dolly's WebsiteFollow her on Twitter and Instagram“The Truth About Rosa Parks And Why It Matters To Your Diversity Initiative,” Forbes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“But my other favorite thing about the confidence piece, as someone who can be very anxious and nervous myself, is that sometimes it's valuable not to be confident. And there is this piece in the book about how everyone would benefit if, when you're making decisions, you start off in an information gathering stage. And instead of being super confident when you're trying to gather data, you turn down your confidence, be not confident at all, be confused, be concerned, be anxious. Gather all the data, as many differing viewpoints as possible. Once you've figured out the right answer with all the humility that you could possibly have, jack up your confidence and then you execute. And this idea that confidence can be on a dial and there's value in not being confident sometimes is something that I was never taught. And that feels very reassuring to learn,” so says Julia Boorstin, who has spent over two decades as a reporter, working for CNBC, CNN, and Fortune. She’s also the creator of the “Disruptor 50” franchise, a list which highlights private companies transforming the economy and challenging companies in established industries. Her first book, When Women Lead, draws on her work studying and interviewing hundreds of executives throughout her impressive career to tell the stories of more than 60 female CEOs and leaders who have fought massive social and institutional headwinds to run some of the world’s most innovative and successful companies. Combining years of academic research and interviews, Julia reveals these women’s powerful commonalities—they are highly adaptive to change, deeply empathetic in their management style, and much more likely to integrate diverse points of view into their business strategies. This makes these women uniquely equipped to lead, grow businesses, and navigate crises in ways where their male counterparts don’t seem as gifted. Today’s episode digs into Boorstin’s meticulously researched book as we cover a few of the female tendencies that correlate with great leadership: how women embrace the role of fire-prevention as opposed to fire fighting; their ability to avoid ethical quandaries and group think; and the value of gaining confidence through experience. The monoculture tends to focus on iconic female leaders, she tells us, but there is so much more to gain from focusing on the stories that are not being told, expanding the diversity of images of success for women and men alike. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Female qualities correlate with great leadership… Women as fire preventers… The myth of the confidence gap… Feedback bias… MORE FROM JULIA BOORSTIN:When Women Lead: What They Achieve, Why They Succeed, and How We Can Learn from ThemCNBC Disruptor 50Follow Julia on Instagram and TwitterDIVE DEEPER: “Better Decisions Through Diversity: Heterogeneity Can Boost Group Performance,” Northwestern Kellogg School of Management Study “How the VC Pitch Process Is Failing Female Entrepreneurs,” Harvard Business Review“Investors Prefer Entrepreneurial Ventures Pitched by Attractive Men,” Harvard Kennedy School Gender Action Portal“The Remarkable Power of Hope,” Psychology Today“Language Bias in Performance Feedback,” Textio 2022 Study Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Well, I think of it like the metaphor of the ensemble in a great musical, like everybody has to know their part. Everybody has to give 2000% and everybody has to really cheer on the other people, doing their part or it just doesn't work. And the way I see the map to our soul, this astrological map is we have free will. So we get to play it at whatever level we choose and certainly cultural influences and patriarch and all kinds of stuff messes us up. But I firmly believe, and I've seen it over and over that if we get the help, we need to uncover our fullest expression, people are humming at their fullest best part, which then allows everyone else around them to rise up.” So says Jennifer Freed, a psychologist, astrologer, and the author of many books, including the just-released A Map to Your Soul: Using the Astrology of Fire, Earth, Air, and Water to Live Deeply and Fully. I met Jennifer almost a decade ago—she was, in many ways, the gateway to discovering my own spirituality, because when she did my natal chart, I felt deeply seen and held. It seemed like a small miracle. Jennifer is also a psychologist and so her perceptions are grounded in life: They are insightful, practical, and actionable while also being profound and deep.This is a hard path to walk. Jennifer brings this same quality to her books—you need only have the most rudimentary understanding of astrology to get a lot out of their pages. They are, in many ways, a workout for your soul, and an opportunity to get to know yourself better. And if you do it with or for people you love, you’ll also get insight into why they do what they do. As she explains, astrology is often confined to our star signs and newspaper tidbits, when it’s so much vaster. In today’s conversation we discuss our moon, our rising, and the elements in our chart, which signify how we respond to our life. If you want, head to astro.com and get a free natal chart so you can understand the presence of air, water, fire, and earth in your own chart—though it’s not necessary. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: We are all known by the planets… Talking about the elements… Don’t spare the necessary pain… The corporatization of spirituality… Sign round-up… MORE FROM JENNIFER FREED:A Map to Your Soul: Using the Astrology of Fire, Earth, Air, and Water to Live Deeply and FullyUse Your Planets Wisely: Master Your Ultimate Cosmic Potential with Psychological AstrologyCheck out Jennifer Freed's WebsiteFollow her on Instagram and Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I’ve never really figured out how come we stop asking each other questions. You know, we always do that in the beginning of a relationship just to get to know somebody, but then once we get committed, once we get busy, we're busy, busy, then we think, okay, everything is cool over here. I don't need to put energy into it. I'll go to work. And our partners, meanwhile, and we are changing over time. We are changing with history, with politics. We are changing with our whole world as our kids get older. If we have kids as our career changes and we stop asking each other questions, you know, our days become this endless to-do list period. And the only question we ask is, did you call the plumber? Well, yes. Anything else you wanna know?,” says Dr. Julie Gottman. Julie and her husband, John, have dedicated over four decades to the research and practice of fostering healthy and long lasting relationships. The Gottmans are the world’s leading relationship scientists, having gathered data on over three thousands couples to identify the building blocks of love and employing those findings through the training of clinicians and creation of principles and products for couples around the world. Their latest book,The Love Prescription: Seven Days to More Intimacy, Connection, and Joy, distills their findings to the simple question, what makes love last? Providing readers with a simple, seven-day action plan, the book makes the Gottman’s work accessible to every relationship - no grand gestures, difficult conversations, or multi-day seminars required. I am delighted to be joined by the couple today as we discuss how to build a fruitful dialogue around the perpetual problems that crop up in relationships; filling your relationship piggy bank with small, but daily, positive actions; and committing to an ongoing curiosity about your partner as they grow and evolve. If both people want to do the work, they tell us, many more relationships can be saved than we may think. Lasting love requires good partnership hygiene, tiny interventions over the course of a lifetime, in order to establish a culture of respect, awareness, and rediscovery that keeps things on the rails. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Accepting perpetual problems… Cultivating curiosity… Dawning of awareness… Respecting anger… MORE FROM JOHN & JULIE GOTTMAN:The Love Prescription: Seven Days to More Intimacy, Connection, and JoyThe Gottman Institute - A Research-Based Approach to RelationshipsGottman Relationship Quiz - How Well Do You Know Your Partner?Find a Gottman Trained TherapistFollow the Gottman Institute on Twitter and Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Sometimes you can't see the full path. And so you don't even venture into the unknown, you know, you're unhappy, you know, you need to change, but you're afraid to take the next step because you can't see the whole path. And so what I learned that night in the dark on the trail in Jerusalem when I had left my, first marriage and I was terrified of the unknown is that it's okay. I could see the next step. There was just enough light on the path to take one step at a time. And after I would take a step, I could see the next step. And that became a metaphor for me, for venturing, you know, breaking out of a stuck place and trusting uncertainty.” So says Estelle Frankel, a psychotherapist and author of Sacred Therapy: Jewish Spiritual Teachings on Emotional Healing and Inner Wholeness and The Wisdom of Not Knowing: Discovering a Life of Wonder by Embracing Uncertainty. In today’s conversation we explore the dimensions of an ironically, more certain state: That of uncertainty, of not knowing, or being able to control what happens next. Estelle is a deep thinker about questions like this, as well as the intersection between spirituality and psychology, and what feel like essential truths to all of us, regardless of the denomination of our faith. I particularly love the way that she thinks about the polarity of good and evil, and the essential components of each.MORE FROM ESTELLE FRANKEL:Read Sacred Therapy: Jewish Spiritual Teachings on Emotional Healing and Inner Wholeness and The Wisdom of Not Knowing: Discovering a Life of Wonder by Embracing UncertaintyEstelle’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Where in your life where you're not saying yes, but there's a, yes. That wants to be said where there's some desire for self expression or creativity or way of being that you're stifling because you're trying to stay in an attachment relationship rather than being yourself. So where are you still choosing attachment over authenticity? If the two are in conflict now, ideally we will form relationships with partners and spouses and, and families and friends where we can have both authenticity and attachment. But if that's not possible, this is the challenge for all of us. What are we gonna choose? Are we still gonna choose the attachment or we're gonna go for authenticity. And I'll tell you, health wise, we pay a huge price. If we go for the attachment by stranding authenticity. And so, as we say in the book, the loss of authenticity inauthenticity, it may not have been a choice to the child. It's not like they had a choice in a matter, but authenticity can be a choice to the adult,” so says Dr. Gabor Maté, renowned physician and four-time bestselling author, who joins me today to discuss his newest book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture. With over four decades of clinical experience, Gabor is a sought after expert on addiction, trauma, childhood development, and unraveling the relationship between stress and illness. In his new book, he brilliantly dissects our understanding of “normal,” exploring the role of trauma, stress, and societal pressures play in our mental and physical well-being. Chronic diseases are not interruptions to our lives, but rather manifestations of how we live, Dr. Maté tells us. Very few diseases are genetically predetermined, he says, emphasizing that it is our environment that brings any genetic predispositions we may have to fruition. Starting in childhood, when we begin to disconnect from our authentic selves in order to maintain attachment relationships, most of us live a life where some combination of trauma, emotional pain, and separation from self play a major, yet unexplored, role in our health. Without a grounding in trauma-informed study, western medicine often fails to treat the core wounds that make us sick, leaving us vulnerable to mental illness, auto-immune disease, and addiction. When we recognize our maladies not as independent identities but as bodily expressions of mental suppressions, we can become empowered adults who choose to rediscover an authentic self we lost somewhere along the way. It is only through self-retrieval, Dr. Maté shares, that we can truly begin healing. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Chronic illnesses are representations of our lives…10:00 Childhood wounds…21:00 Addiction as a coping mechanism is response to trauma…42:00 Soul retrieval…48:00 MORE FROM DR. GABOR MATÈ:Read The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture as well as other books by Gabor MatéExplore Dr. Maté's WebsiteFollow him on Twitter and Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I think we all have these stories, you know, whether they come through bereavements or betrayals or, or whatever, we, we all have these losses…There's something about having been immersed in this bittersweet tradition and understanding the pain of separation and understanding the desire for a union and understanding that the loves that we lose, that we might lose particular loves, but that we never lose love itself. I think that's like the real thing that's really made me come to a place of peace,” so says Susan Cain, former lawyer and bestselling author of Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole. In her first book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, which spent eight years on the New York Times Best Seller List, Cain urged us to hold space for the introverts among us. In Bittersweet, she implores us to hold space for our sorrow and longing. Through research, storytelling, and memoir, her book explores the value of a melancholic outlook on life and what it stands to teach us about creativity, connection, and love. Our conversation moves through many facets of what Cain calls “the bittersweet tradition,” exploring all the ways in which allowing ourselves to experience the cosmic sadness simultaneously opens us up to transcendant ecstasy. We are creatures who simultaneously lose and love, who separate and long for home, who experience the bitter along with the sweet, she tells us, and it is in these extremes that our sorrow and joy have the opportunity to meet, unexpectedly bringing us closer to the sublime beauty of life.EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: The ecstasy of engaging with sorrow…14:15 The most fundamental part of our emotional DNA…25:00 Writing your experience…43:00 Opening to a different frequency…54:43 MORE FROM SUSAN CAIN:Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole and Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop TalkingListen to the Bittersweet playlist on Spotify or Apple MusicWatch Susan’s TEDTalk: The hidden power of sad songs and rainy daysFollow Susan on Twitter and Instagram Check out The Next Big Idea Book Club—a nonfiction subscription book club curated by Susan Cain, Macolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, and Daniel Pink Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“There seems to be this basic idea that if you make a system including a human life, more efficient, capable of processing, more inputs to put it in like abstract general terms. Well, if that supply of inputs is infinite, all that's gonna happen is that you attract more of them into the system and you end up busier, right? This is Parkinson's law.. It's induced demand with the way when they widen freeways to ease the congestion, it makes the route more appealing to more drivers. So more cars come and fill the lane and then the congestion gets back to what it was before. There's all these different ways in which trying to get on top of something that you can't actually get on top of is futile. And technology seems to offer us that promise, and of course it does help us do lots and lots of really useful things, but it doesn't help us get to the state of peace of mind with respect to our limited natures. It's never going to break through that, that barrier,” so says Oliver Burkeman, feature writer for The Guardian and the New York Times bestselling author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, a book which delivers practical self-help through the lens of philosophical reflection as Burkeman questions the modern fixation on “getting everything done.” We are finite, material creatures who only live so long—about four thousand weeks—Burkeman tells us, yet we are obsessed with cramming more and more “stuff” into our days, aided by time saving technologies that give us the illusion of transcending the ultimate limitation: Our own mortality. Our culture has led us to believe that if we just became more efficient, we could optimize our lives enough to bring about greater happiness. But in an era where busyness has become a virtue, our attempts to drive efficiency ultimately don’t yield more time for the meaningful stuff, but rather heighten our sense of anxious hurry as we face, and are expected to process, an incessant stream of inputs.We can only begin to build toward a meaningful life when we embrace our finitude, he advises us. Rather than searching out shortcuts to arrive at our cosmically significant life purpose faster, Burkeman tells us to ride the metaphorical bus—allowing ourselves to learn and develop at all the stops along the way. The universe is not depending on us to maximize our time, he says, and when we fall victim to the siren’s call of efficiency culture to avoid the annoying parts of life, we miss out on a whole bunch of the meaningful stuff, too. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Why we shouldn’t maximize efficiency…5:18 Instrumentalizing time…15:42 Originality lies on the far side of unoriginality…31:41 Our universal insignificance…40:11 MORE FROM OLIVER BURKEMAN:Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for MortalsThe Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive ThinkingExplore Oliver's Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“What I know is that no one is alone. There's no sense of isolation or sadness or disconnection that I think at times we mistakenly feel here because we get very stuck in the fact that we're in these physical bodies, right? And sometimes we're physically isolated or sometimes I think some of us are so distanced from our own truths and our own inner voice, our own inner wisdom that we get very confused on our life path. And then we feel spiritually distanced from being connected to this great fabric and grid of light that's here. Right? So I think the answer is for all of us here on earth to go deep within, to access our highest path, our true purpose, the connection that's always there. And we can really call upon those on the other side to help us do that because they're still working with us and for us and so forth,” so says Laura Lynne Jackson, psychic medium and best selling author of The Light Between Us: Stories from Heaven. Lessons for the Living and Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe. Laura has dedicated her life and career to using her incredible gift, the ability to connect and communicate with the Other Side, to teach all of us how to tap into our intuition, access our higher self, and ultimately embrace the powerful light that burns inside of each of us. Our conversation is both inspiring and practical as Laura guides us through exploring the connection within us. She discusses how to ask for and recognize signs from our Team of Light—her term for the rockstar assembly of our departed loved ones, guardian angels, and the divine, all of whom have congregated on the Other Side to provide us with guidance, love and connection—as well as why we should trust our pull toward connecting with others here on earth. For Laura, we exist to help our souls grow, collectively, whether here on earth or on the Other Side, and when we open ourselves up to be part of the great, eternal chain of light, we move the whole forward. Connection is a gift available for all of us to access, we must simply create the opening for it to flourish.EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Signs & communicating with your Team of Light…5:40 Joining the chain of light…20:23 Reframing…42:24 Finding the right medium…51:36 MORE FROM LAURA LYNNE JACKSON:Laura's WebsiteThe Light Between Us: Stories from Heaven. Lessons for the Living.Signs: The Secret Language of the UniverseFollow Laura on Instagram and Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I tear up at the drop of a hand and got another facilitator who tears up quicker than I do. Uh, but like we tell the youth, the soul would have no rainbow had the eyes, no tears. And so whenever any of the youth tear up or any of the adults, we take the tears and we rub it on the drum so that the tears don't go to waste that reverberate, you know, when we, when we hit the drum. Yeah. So, yeah. So a lot of it's about getting it, you know, dealing with your feelings, you know, like, like me says, and others, if you don't, you know, if you don't deal with your wound, you will continue to wound others. You know? So it's about them identifying how they've been wounded, you know, but, but then, but then also it's that wound that drives. Okay. So you find out what it is your wound is and that what, you know, drive that's one of the reasons why I do what I do.”Kwame Scruggs, born and Raised in Akron, Ohio, spent the first 15 years after high school working for the Goodyear tire company. And then, he took a leap, or decided, in the words of mythologist Joseph Campbell to follow his bliss. He went deep into the works of Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Michael Meade, where he came to understand that myth can transform lives—that seeing yourself in the context of a much larger human story can change anything. Ultimately, he received a PhD in Mythological Studies and Depth Psychology.Kwame began working with high school dropouts and other at-risk kids across Ohio in 1998, where he led them through myths to the beat of the djembe drum, reconnecting them to a much higher purpose. He ultimately founded Alchemy, where they work with thousands of youth. In 2012, Alchemy won the President’s Committee National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, the nation’s highest honor for after-school and out-of-school programs, an award Kwame accepted from the First Lady, Michelle Obama, at the White House. In 2020, the Association of Teaching Artists (with Lincoln Center Education) presented Kwame with their Innovation in Teaching Artistry award.His work is stunning, particularly in its ability to inspire life-changing moments for kids who come to realize the power inherent within each of them, to see themselves as the hero of their own story, and why that story matters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I mean, the idea that we're colorblind or, or gender blind or age blind or something, is ridiculous. I mean, we categorize those things within milliseconds, right? When we see one another, it's part of our our development of our visual processing and our social, our social development. But it's a deep and challenging problem. Like how we create space between the categorization of one another and the evaluation of one another. I think creating that space is what allows us to open the door to a new way of interacting in a more humane way.” So says Jessica Nordell, the award-winning science writer behind THE END OF BIAS: A BEGINNING, which was the culmination of fifteen years of reporting on implicit bias and discrimination in all facets of life. As a frequent contributor to The New York Times, the Atlantic, and the New Republic, Jessica goes beyond delineating all the ways in which our minds unconsciously and automatically filter the world—in ways that are harmful to ourselves and others—to uncover successful interventions. She details, in a stunning way, people, companies, and cultures that have managed to undo unconscious bias, and build something more true and beautiful in its place, whether it’s the way schools assess gifted students, how policing is done, or undoing the long-term and insidious effects of gender discrimination in the workplace. Jessica has a degree in physics from Harvard and a degree in poetry from the University of Wisconsin, which underlines the rarity of her mind and her ability to perceive nuance and complexity: Her book is one that promises healing, and I recommend it to everyone. Meanwhile, this is a fun fact: Jessica is a direct descendant of the last woman to be tried for witchcraft in the state of Massachusetts. I’d be happy to be in her coven, any day. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: We are beholden to our unexamined patterns… Bias, a habit to be interrupted… Ending our notion of out-group homogeneity… The space between categorization and evaluation… MORE FROM JESSICA NORDELL:Jessica's WebsiteThe End of Bias: A Beginning: The Science and Practice of Overcoming Unconscious BiasExplore more of Jessica's writing on unconscious and implicit biasSubscribe to Jessica's newsletter: Who We Are To Each Other Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“And I just feel that people, I now I have so much more perspective, but at the time, even I felt people who have already had so much adversity in their life. That's a big precursor to how people get behind bars. And then when they're there, I feel like that's the time to heal, but we have such a different mindset in our country and other countries do the same and such a punitive one. And that didn't, that's not how I am organized inside. That's not what feels right in me. And so I think right away, I saw how things could be different, but I also saw just the power of this tool in people's hands who were really starving to understand what was wrong in their lives and thinking there was something wrong with them. And, I just think my approach to the enneagram is that there's nothing wrong with any of us. Enneagram is a map to show us what's so right about us. And it felt like the, the most profound place to be figuring out how to teach it, which is what I was doing,” says Susan Olesek, founder of the Enneagram Prison Project, a non-profit dedicated to sharing the power of self-awareness education using the Enneagram system with those who have been imprisoned around the globe. An unapologetic idealist, and an enneagram Type One for those who are familiar with the system, Susan joins us today to share her compassionate approach to the Enneagram, honed over 15 years of engaging with Fortune 500 executives, corporate teams, schools and those experiencing incarceration. She recently founded The Human Potentialists (THP) a Benefit Corporation with a vision to democratize the Enneagram, and whose mission is guiding people to their highest potential while connecting them to the core of our shared humanity. She views the Enneagram as an insightful tool meant to guide all of us to our highest potential, convinced that people are inherently good and encouraging us to see the possibilities that lie beyond our “personality.” Susan takes us through the potential and pitfalls of each Enneagram type, reminding us that it is vulnerable work to look deeply at ourselves in order to see and break free from the prison of our design. Their public program 9PrisonsONEKey is EPP’s compassionate introduction to the Enneagram will be accepting applications beginning July 29th, 2022. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Leaning in when we feel resistance… The nine personality types… Seeing the possibilities beyond our personality prison… MORE FROM SUSAN OLESEK:Enneagram Prison ProjectThe Human PotentialistsBoth Sides of the Bars | Susan Olesek | TEDxWashingtonSquareDIG DEEPER:The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality TypesRHETI: The Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“The focus of adulthood has been on stability, just, you know, find a job and don't leave it, find a partner and don't get divorced, have babies, you know, white picket fence, the vision of adulthood has been so wedded to stability that it was hard for me, even in writing the book and sorting this out, to pull them apart, you know, that the understanding full stop is that the goal of adulthood is to gain stability and then midlife, we now understand people have to search for meaning because there wasn't time for that prior. I'm trying to revise that and name what I think all of us have known for a long time, which is that it just doesn't work that way. It's not that easy. And actually, if we aren't finding our own personal sense of meaning in this world, while also working to gain some sense of physical, emotional, relational stability, then there's gonna just continue to be a lot of angst and confusion and pain and, and, you know, all sorts of symptoms resulting from that,” so says Satya Doyle Byock, psychotherapist and author of Quarterlife: The Search for Self in Early Adulthood. Satya has dedicated her career to influencing the way developmental psychology views and attends to “Quarterlifers”, or individuals between the ages of sixteen and thirty-six. Her incredible new book draws upon Jungian psychology, social justice advocacy, trauma-informed care, and historical research to provide readers with guideposts for this period of life, which has too long been ignored by popular culture and psychology, she argues. Some quarterlifers, “stability types” as Satya calls them, have done everything “right” by society’s standards, yet remain unfulfilled and unclear on what to do next. “Meaning types”, at the other end of the spectrum, are not interested in the prescribed path, but feel as though they are drifting through life directionless. Some don’t want to participate in life at all. Our conversation explores this spectrum of being, setting to untangle the messy, uncharted path to wholeness as we engage with Satya’s four pillars of Quarterlife development, a powerful toolkit for young adults looking for a way through their psychological and existential crises. We talk about the cultural hazing cycle, young adults’ devotion to parental expectations, and the importance of developing our discernment muscle. So whether you are a young adult, or are simply seeking to understand the struggles of a generation, I hope our conversation leaves you eager to explore the ever-evolving balance between stability and meaning. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Meaning types vs. stability types… Stuck in ambivalence.. Developing discernment… MORE FROM SATYA BYOCK:Quarterlife: The Search for Self in Early AdulthoodAre You a Meaning Type or Stability Type? — Take the QuizSatya's WebsiteThe Salomé Institute of Jungian StudiesFollow Satya on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.