213 avsnitt • Längd: 55 min • Veckovis: Torsdag
Writer Elise Loehnen explores life’s big questions with today’s leading thinkers, experts, and luminaries: Why do we do what we do? How can we understand and love ourselves better? What would it look like to come together and build a more meaningful world?
The podcast Pulling The Thread with Elise Loehnen is created by Elise Loehnen and Audacy. The podcast and the artwork on this page are embedded on this page using the public podcast feed (RSS).
This episode has been a very long time in the making: Richard Rohr is a Franciscan friar, the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, and one of the most profound teachers. Today, we explore the prescient themes from his new book The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage. He helps us to make sense of disorder, evil, anger, and grief—and he helps us to find our fulcrum of growth. He makes the case that the impulse to deconstruct is ultimately less useful than the impulse to construct, or reform. He breaks down why we fall into scapegoating, and the reputation lie. And we talk about why he puts action before contemplation.
For more on Richard Rohr and all the show notes, head over to my Substack.
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Chelsea Handler shares my favorite stories from her new book I’ll Have What She’s Having, along with a few poignant lessons she’s gleaned while growing up. She talks about a pivotal conversation she had after Jane Fonda called her in; what she learned about the futility of defensiveness in therapy; and how we might tend to our jealous thoughts. We also talk about how Chelsea has big-sistered so many women, including me. And what I’ve learned from how comfortable she is with her own shadow and humanity, and how she does not project onto others.
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After finally getting to meet the incredible Richard Rohr (interview coming to the podcast soon), I sat down to reflect on: The unlikely road I’ve been on to become so immersed in Christian writers (was never on my bingo card), and what I misunderstood in my original interpretation of Jesus. What I’ve learned about dying to your small self and growing into your big self. What it means to be a prophet—not a fortune-teller, but a truth-teller—and in this age of profiteering online, how we can be more aware of when people are profiting by pretending to be a prophet. How we can avoid marketing drama triangles. And, the tools that are helping me, in this moment, to get fear out of my body.
For the (many) show notes, head over to my Substack.
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I’ve had a few conversations with spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl but I finally got to talk to him about the topic that’s been on my mind for a long time: evil. How do we define, and perceive what’s evil? What role does evil energy play in our own lives? What transgressions might we take responsibility for, and how? What moral conflict is part of our work, and what does not belong to us? What’s the purpose of it all? Where do we ultimately find and feel connection in the messiness of our lives?
For the show notes, more on Thomas Hübl, and links to all our previous conversations together, head over to my Substack.
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Loretta J. Ross’s particular approach to deciding when, and how, to call someone in helps us to avoid making other people’s problem our problem. It gives us a way to effectively be in conversation with people capable of causing harm—instead of trying, and failing, to be in defense of the vulnerable. Ross shares what she’s learned from watching people be manipulated into hating, and from helping them to release that hate. She talks about addressing our own cognitive dissonance; the guilt trip wires we carry internally; and learning to forgive ourselves for not knowing or caring enough. And after everything she’s seen and experienced, Ross tells us why she refuses to end her belief in the goodness of people—and she shares her joy with us.
For more on Loretta J. Ross and her new book Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You'd Rather Cancel—head over to my Substack.
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Psychotherapist Nicole Sachs has been pioneering a simple, yet remarkable approach to helping people with chronic pain, anxiety, and other very human conditions. Her story today begins with how she discovered Dr. John Sarno and eliminated her own debilitating back pain a few decades ago. Sachs explains why she’s come to believe that many chronic conditions stem from a dysregulation in the nervous system that leads the brain and the nervous system to send pain signals as a source of protection. As she puts it: “The pain is not in your head, but the solution is not in altering your physical body.” Today, she breaks down her (surgery-free) method, which involves something called journal speak to lower your emotional reservoir—which I think can be incredibly helpful and enlightening for any of us, whether or not you experience pain or anxiety.
For the show notes and more on Nicole Sachs—including her new book Mind Your Body—head over to my Substack. And just another reminder here that we are certainly not suggesting in this conversation (or anywhere in this podcast) that you don’t receive proper medical care or pursue a diagnosis for anything that is bothering you. Please always see your doctor and take care!
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There is a historical lack of research on the female body—and this has hurt women, men, everyone. But now, there is some fascinating research on the female body, which Cat Bohannon, PhD, shares today. (Bohannon is the New York Times–bestselling author of Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.) For example, Bohannon explains why the fat around our butts and hips is quite special, and how women tend to metabolize painkillers differently than men. She breaks down the evolutionary origins of breast size and shape, and she debunks the myth that men are much larger than women. We talk about why women tend to heal better and live longer than men. And what’s really at stake for our health and lives when it comes to understanding sex differences.
For the show notes and more on Cat Bohannon, head over to my Substack.
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I recorded this month’s solo episode from the floor of the hotel room where I stayed for a couple of weeks after the fires broke out in Los Angeles. There, I met an incredible cast of characters and I started to process what’s happening in our city: Acts of bravery that have stunned me. The incredibly moving ways we have shown up for each other. Other very human responses that have created some dissonance. What I think will change in communities within and outside of LA. Wherever you live, how this all might feel different depending on whether you over or under function. (Toward the end, I also take a detour to answer questions I’ve gotten about my thoughts on what is unfolding in the news regarding Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.)
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Why do we go along with situations that make us comfortable? What can we learn from nervous laughter, or a crocodile smile? If we’ve been conditioned to be overly compliant, how do we learn to be a little more defiant? How do we intuit when it’s the right time for us to comply, and when we’re better off defying? Sunita Sah—trained physician, Cornell University professor, organizational psychologist, and author of Defy—answers these questions and more.
For the show notes and links to Sunita Sah’s work, head over to my Substack.
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In the past three decades, renowned author Pico Iyer has made more than 100 trips to a small monastery in California. Today, he shares what he’s learned there, along with other moments of beauty from his new book Aflame. He talks about why many of us crave a particular type of silence, how to escape the trappings of our minds, why a recollection can be more profound than a realization, and how he’s come to see the people in his life more clearly.
For more on Pico Iyer, his books, and this special Benedictine hermitage, head over to my Substack.
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Trying to bring the best sparkly version of yourself to your own healing: It just doesn't work, says Katherine May. In this conversation, we return to May’s New York Times–bestselling book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. It feels more relevant now than ever. We talk about finding a home for lingering, unexpressed grief and for vast, unsettled feelings. We talk about rest, creative work that we love, and things that make us laugh—and Katherine May always makes me laugh.
For the show notes, including links to May’s books and our previous podcast conversations together, head over to my Substack.
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Drawing from Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy, Gabby Bernstein created this simple, and yet powerful, process that you can do for one minute a day—or whenever you need to check in with yourself and reconnect with the core of who you are. It’s a helpful tool for (safely) recognizing beliefs, behaviors, and patterns that limit us—and then befriending these smaller, childlike parts of us, instead of letting them control us. It’s also what Bernstein calls “the real manifesting flex.”
For Bernstein’s new book Self-Help, more on IFS (including my podcast conversation with IFS founder Richard Schwartz), and the rest of the show notes: head over to my Substack.
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Astrologer Heidi Rose Robbins starts us off with an astrological snapshot of this moment in time (including a dip into Trump’s chart). Looking ahead into the new year, she breaks down the five major outer plans that are shifting into new signs—and what these changes mean for all of us. She explains why her friend, an astrological historian, is calling this “the era of plot twists.” On an individual level, Rose Robbins shares an invitation to give the gift of your rising sign now. And to end, she takes us through a mini debrief of every sign, and the reasons why each one can get a bad rap from time to time.
For the show notes and links, head over to my Substack.
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For December’s solo episode, I looked at the etymology of the word resolutions. What I found might surprise you. And instead of thinking about what I want to be or do next year, it got me thinking about what I want to let go of. And how I can recognize when I’m making things more complicated than they need to be (I love complexity and depth but can sometimes get carried away). I also get into a few other things that are on my mind right now, including: journal speaking, how we sometimes conflate altruism with transaction, the MAHA movement, and ways I can be softer on people while being harder on systems. Last, some news about two of my most fulfilling collaborations, which are both coming out in workbook form in 2025: True and False Magic (with Phil Stutz) and Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness (with Courtney Smith).
For the show notes, head over to my Substack.
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Gregory Boyle is a beloved Jesuit priest and the founder of Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in Los Angeles. He’s also a New York Times–bestselling author. His new book is called Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times. (It may sound soft and saccharine—but it’s not.) Father Boyle explains why he so deeply believes two things: One, that everyone is unshakably good. And two, that everyone belongs to us. He talks about the difference between hope and optimism, and forgiveness and mercy. And why the moral quest has never kept us moral. It’s just kept us from each other. He also talks about what prohibits us from making progress, how to get underneath a complex issue, and his way of holding a container in which someone else can feel their wholeness.
For the show notes and to support Father Boyle’s work, head over to my Substack.
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John Price, PhD, is a depth psychotherapist, the host of the podcast The Sacred Speaks, and co-director and co-owner of The Center for the Healing Arts and Sciences in Houston. He shares his approach to spirituality, to bringing men into meaningful community, and to establishing intimacy. We talk about: Why it’s problematic that boys and men have largely defined themselves by what they’re not. Why he asks men about their inner lives as opposed to their feelings. And what it might look like if we had rites of passage that honored the masculine and the feminine within each of us, in truly unique ways.
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Coach Courtney Smith joins us in this moment, when collective anxiety is running high, to share a perspective and tools that many of us could use right now. She explains why we understandably get seduced by fear and stuck operating below the line, from a place of threat. And how we can recognize when we’re ready to move above the line—and what awaits us there. She also shares some ways to escape the drama triangle, be okay with the unknown, and find power in your story—whether it’s one you’re fully committed to, or one you’re willing to expand.
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Maria Rodale is the former CEO of Rodale, a longtime (and award-winning) advocate of organic regenerative farming, a lifelong learner, a self-described “crazy gardener,” and the author of Love Nature Magic, Shamanic Journeys into the Heart of My Garden (to name a few titles). She shares how she learned to journey shamanically (and what this does and does not mean)—and the incredible messages she’s received from nature, the world, and herself in the process.
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For November’s solo episode, listeners mostly asked me about the larger spiritual moment we might be part of at this moment in time—so I’m sharing some thoughts on that. Plus, what to do about male podcasters. Why it’s all too easy to mistake a transaction for altruism. How I’m trying to use my privilege to not morally exclude. And other things on my mind right now. (If there’s something you want me to explore in a future episode, drop a note in the podcast rating and review section.)
You can find the show notes, as always, on my Substack.
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“There's no generation before us that’s had this opportunity to find this treasure,” says therapist Connie Zweig, PhD. Zweig is the author of The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul. She outlines a compelling approach to aging—one that teaches us how to navigate identity shifts, see who we are beyond our roles, and truly make the most of the gifts of our lives. Today, she shares what happened when she did her own life review practice, and so many other gems that make me excited to keep getting older.
See the show notes and more about Zweig on my Substack.
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Everything Richard Christiansen creates is incredibly beautiful and special. Christiansen is the founder of Flamingo Estate and the author of the new book, The Guide to Becoming Alive. He’s also a dear friend of mine. I loved chatting with him about how he moves so fast, what can spark momentum and growth, the qualities that make something precious but also cool, and what it means to ripen your banana (while this sounds vaguely sexual, it is actually a profound metaphor of his).
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Spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl, PhD, returns for a deeper exploration of shadow. We talk about our instinct to disown what feels dark or evil, and how tightly we claim the side of what’s good, clean, pure. But Hübl also paints a beautiful alternative: a gentle integration that allows us to illuminate, and own, more of our collective shadow bit by bit—and to transform it into something hopeful, healing.
If you’re new to the podcast, you can find my first conversation with Hübl (on locating “bad” feelings in our bodies) here, and our second chat (on sitting with discomfort) here.
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Rightful Instagram celebrity Sharon McMahon is known as “America’s Government Teacher.” Her new book, The Small and the Mighty, was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller. With her trademark warmth and wit, McMahon shares a few historical secrets, her approach to judging people from the past, and her perspective on our current moment in time. She also tells a remarkable story that may convince you to work with, instead of against, your enemies.
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In this solo episode, I share some things that are on my mind right now, including: An experience I had revisiting my 22-year-old self. A powerful takeaway from a workshop on wanting and desire. And how I’m thinking about personal stories, memoir, and bridges to bigger collective stories. I also answer some listener questions (thank you, and please keep them coming).
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In this moving, live conversation with journalist Clara Bingham, we delve into the incredible stories that make up her latest oral history book, The Movement. Bingham reveals the highs and the lows of second wave feminism from 1963 to 1973, the women who transformed America during that time, and the reverberations that we’re still feeling today. I got choked up during this one.
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Legendary anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy gave us the term “allomother,” and by extension, “alloparent”—the pioneering idea that mutual care is the reason we’ve evolved to be the humans we are today. Hrdy, who is professor emerita at the University of California, Davis, has just written a new (and stunning) book, called Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies. Today, we talk about what she’s learned about human culture over the course of her long career, and the impact of her elegant hypothesis.
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Sharing an episode of Need a Lift?, a show that focuses on bringing people together during a tough time in our culture. Host Tim Shriver talks to wise guests who have transformed painful moments in their lives into purpose through their spiritual rituals and practices. Guests like bestselling novelist Min Jin Lee on why she creates complicated characters who hold the secret to our transformation, and Olympic athlete Michael Phelps and his wife Nicole discussing the importance of cultivating an inner life in competition, mental health and in their marriage. Need a Lift? is truly the antidote to the hatred and despair we’re all exhausted of hearing, giving us hope that change is possible. In this episode, The Office’s Rainn Wilson explains that we can quiet the world's chaos and deal with our collective sense of overwhelm by believing in something bigger than us. Find more episodes of Need a Lift? at https://link.chtbl.com/needalift?sid=pullingthethread
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“We need to be open to things that offend or transcend our worldview because they're clearly doing that for a reason,” says Jeffrey Kripal, PhD. Kripal—who holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University—returns to the podcast for a second time. We talk about different ways to understand the deeper realities of our lives, and his latest book, How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else. Yes, we get to time travel and conspiracy theories. And also what makes Kripal’s work fun—and funny.
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“I think it's good to relive the past and then revise your life,” says Edith Eva Eger. “Go through it, but don't get stuck in it.” The world-renowned psychologist, who survived the Nazi death camps, and went on to be a colleague of Viktor Frankl, just turned 97. And she just released The Ballerina of Auschwitz, which is the YA edition of her major memoir The Choice. She joins the podcast with her grandson, Jordan Engler, to talk about how her mindset has evolved—and what she still looks forward to doing.
See more about this episode and guest on my Substack.
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Dr. Jim Doty is a neurosurgeon, neuroscientist, and the director of Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. Jim is also a bestselling author—his first book, Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart, tells his improbable life story: Jim had a tough start in life. He wandered into a magic shop where he met the shop owner’s mother, Ruth, who offered to spend six weeks teaching him mindfulness and meditation—these weren’t really things at the time—and ultimately how to manifest. After a rollercoaster of a life, including manifesting the list of things he wanted as a tween, he found himself back at the bottom again, and began to attend to making real meaning with his life. This ushered in his last chapter, where he has become much more than a neurosurgeon: He is one of the leading figures in the globe drawing connections between the brain, compassion and care, and how love shows up in the world.
We caught up when Jim was in Riyadh, in the middle of the night for him—thank you Jim!—launching a new AI-enabled mental health app called Happi.ai, which isn’t therapy but is a friend in your pocket. Our conversation begins there before we dive into his newest book, Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How it Changes Everything. If you think of Manifestation as woo-woo, Jim explains why it’s actually not—and the underlying brain mechanisms that are activated when you focus attention and intention.
MORE FROM JAMES DOTY, M.D.:
Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How it Changes Everything
Jim’s App: Happi.ai
Jim’s Website
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Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Lewis has one of the most illustrious resumés of all the guests on Pulling the Thread—and I think we’re the same age. Lewis is the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities and Associate Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University where she serves on the Standing Committee on American Studies and Standing Committee on Women, Gender, and Sexuality. It was at Harvard that Lewis pioneered the course Vision and Justice: The Art of Race and American Citizenship, which she continues to teach and is now part of the University’s core curriculum—as it were, Lewis is the founder of Vision & Justice, which means that she is the organizer of the landmark Vision & Justice Convening, and co-editor of the Vision & Justice Book Series, launched in partnership with Aperture. Before joining the faculty at Harvard, she held curatorial positions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Tate Modern, London. She also served as a Critic at Yale University School of Art. I’m not done—in fact, I could go on and on. She’s the author of The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery, a book on Carrie Mae Weems, and innumerable important academic papers. Today, we talk about The Rise and how it dovetails in interesting ways with her brand-new book, The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America, which is about the insidious idea that white people are from the Caucasus, a.k.a. Caucasian—an idea that took root in the culture and helped determine the way we see race today.
MORE FROM SARAH ELIZABETH LEWIS, PhD:
The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America
The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery
Sarah Lewis’s Website
Follow Sarah on Instagram
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James Hollis, PhD is a Jungian analyst who is still in private practice in Washington D.C. Hollis started his career as a professor of humanities before a midlife crisis brought him to his knees—and to the Jung Institute in Zurich. The author of 19 books, Hollis is one of the best interpreters of Carl Jung’s work, making it accessible for all of us who want to understand how complexes, archetypes, synchronicities, and the shadow drive our lives.
Hollis’s books are very meaningful to me—you’ll find a long list in the show notes—and the chance to interview him did not disappoint. In fact, at one point, where he describes what we do to boys as we turn them into men, I actually started to cry. Meanwhile, James Hollis still lectures—you can go to his site to find a way to see him live. The fact that he’s 84 and does not seem inclined to retire—in fact, he told me he has another book coming out next year—is a testament to how a vocation doesn’t feel like work. This is one of my favorite interviews to date. I hope you love it as much as I do.
MORE FROM JAMES HOLLIS, PhD:
Why Good People Do Bad Things: Understanding Our Darker Selves
Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up
A Life of Meaning: Relocating Your Center of Spiritual Gravity
The Broken Mirror: Refracted Visions of Ourselves
James Hollis’s Website
RELATED EPISODES:
Connie Zweig, “Embracing the Shadow”
Satya Doyle Byock, “Navigating Quarterlife”
Terry Real, “Healing Male Depression”
Niobe Way, PhD, “The Critical Need for Deep Connection”
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Dr. Jamil Zaki is a professor of psychology at Stanford University and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. Jamil trained at Columbia and Harvard, studying empathy and kindness in the human brain, and I’ve been a mega-fan for years, after interviewing him for his first book, The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World, in 2019. His latest book, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, is a must-read. It’s a love letter of sorts, a collaboration through the veil with his late colleague Emile Bruneau, who also studied compassion, peace, and hope.
I would love for every single person to read this book as it paints a more accurate, data-driven portrait of who we are, which is mostly good, and mostly aligned in our vision for the future. Jamil explains what happens to us when fear and cynicism intervene and the way we come to see each other through a distorted lens. He busts some other significant myths as well, namely that we glorify cynicism as being “smart”—you know, no dupes allowed—but cynicism actually makes us cognitively less intelligent. Yes, you heard that right. I loved this conversation, which we’ll turn to now.
MORE FROM JAMIL ZAKI, PhD:
Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness
The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World
Follow Jamil on X and Instagram
Jamil’s Lab’s Website
RELATED EPISODES:
Amanda Ripley, “Navigating Conflict”
"Calling In the Call-Out Culture with Loretta Ross"
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Tara Mohr is a coach, educator and the author of Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create, and Lead, which is celebrating its 10th birthday this fall. I first met Tara a decade ago and was so taken with her and her insights that we did four stories together—stories that were deeply resonant with women everywhere. These stories were about understanding—and releasing—your inner critic, locating your inner mentor, examining the ways in which you keep yourself in the shadows and why, and the most potent one of them all: why women are so quick to criticize other women. We cover this same ground 10 years on—and it’s just as powerful as it was then. I loved reconnecting with Tara and can’t wait to do more with her over the coming decades, specifically revisioning what it might look like if more women led—but not in a model defined by men, in a way that might be uniquely their own. Okay, let’s get to our conversation.
MORE FROM TARA MOHR:
The Inner Mentor Guided Meditation
Tara Mohr’s Website
Tara’s Online Courses
Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create, and Lead
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Dr. Katie Hendricks is the co-founder of The Hendricks Institute and the co-author of 12 books, including the bestseller, Conscious Loving: The Journey to Co-Commitment. Katie and her husband, Gay, have been leading seminars and workshops for individuals and couples for decades—moving them from their definition of co-dependence into co-commitment. We touch on it in our conversation, but their definition of co-dependence is the only one I’ve heard that makes sense to me as they suggest co-dependence at its simplest is when your behavior is determined by someone else’s—when you are adjusting yourself around someone else in a way that is a disservice to the relationship. Instead, they argue for co-commitment, where everyone takes complete responsibility for their own actions and their own lives. They coach a lot of tools that I love to talk about on this podcast, including the Drama Triangle, and they also coined the concept of the Upper Limit Problem, which is our tendency—just when things are going really well–to self-sabotage. That’s a big focus of our conversation today.
MORE FROM KATIE HENDRICKS, PhD:
Conscious Loving: The Journey to Co-Commitment
The Conscious Heart: Seven Soul-Choices that Create Your Relationship Destiny
The Big Leap, by Gay Hendricks, PhD
Foundation for Conscious Living
Follow Katie & Gay on Instagram
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Amanda Montell is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, as well as Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism and Wordslut. Amanda is a linguistics major from NYU and all of her work centers around the way that words—and thoughts—shape our minds, and how our minds are permeable to other factors, whether it’s the halo effect, confirmation bias, or Cult-like sensibilities. Amanda is also the host of a podcast, “Sounds like a Cult.” Okay, let’s get to our conversation.
MORE FROM AMANDA MONTELL:
The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism
Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language
Follow Amanda on Instagram
Amanda’s Website
Amanda’s Podcast: “Sounds Like a Cult”
Amanda’s Newsletter
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Jerry Colonna is the founder of Reboot and one of the most sought after CEO coaches in the world. Before he began coaching executives, Jerry was a burnt out VC, convinced that there must be a better way to impact the world—and also convinced that if he could influence the upper reaches of corporate structures, if he could help leaders heal, he could vastly improve the lives of all the employees. After all, he had observed the ripple effect of unhealed emotional wounds being taken out on other people—specifically people with less power. This is the focus of Jerry’s two great books about leadership: His first one is Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up and his second is Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong, which takes a probing look at power and privilege and how it can alienate those who already don’t feel like they belong. In today’s conversation, we talk about all of this and specifically one of Jerry’s main queries. This passage is from Reunion: “While necessary, it’s not enough for us to do the inner work of unpacking our childhood wounds and, with fierce radical self-inquiry, free ourselves from the need to reenact the old stories of our pasts. Radical self-inquiry that stops at the question of how we have been complicit in creating the conditions we say we don’t want—a core tenet of my coaching and my book Reboot—is insufficient if it fails to look out to the world as it exists and ask how it could be better.”
MORE FROM JERRY COLONNA:
Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong
Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up
Follow Jerry on Instagram
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Spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl is back for the second part of a series we’ve decided to undertake. If you missed part one, I’d recommend giving it a listen—it ran last week—though there is no test! You can pick up with this episode and you won’t be lost. Thomas is one of my favorite thought partners because of his presence—he can build and hold an incredible amount of space, which I hope is perceptible to all of you who are tuning in from afar. I can feel it through the computer. In today’s episode, we went deeper into our conversation about finding “bad” feelings in our bodies, sitting with discomfort, and learning how to move these sensations up and out. We talked about our collective responsibility to build this capacity—particularly if we’re not deep and directly in suffering ourselves—and why these deposits of collective trauma stick around for so long. On this final point—the presence of dark and dense entities that you can sometimes sense or feel, particularly in highly traumatized parts of the globe—we’re going to devote an entire episode. So stay tuned for Part Three, coming later this fall.
MORE FROM THOMAS HÜBL:
Part One on Pulling the Thread: “Finding Shadow in the Body”
On Pulling the Thread: “Feeling into the Collective Presence”
On Pulling the Thread: “Processing Our Collective Past”
Thomas’s Podcast, Point of Relation
Attuned: Practicing Interdepence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our World
Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds
Thomas Hübl’s Website
Follow Thomas on Instagram
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Dr. Carol Gilligan is an esteemed professor and developmental psychologist, who is the author of a landmark book called In a Different Voice—a book that I talk about and write about all the time. Back in the ‘80s—Gilligan is 87 now and still working—she looked at all the research from the likes of Lawrence Kohlberg and Piaget and made a stunning and obvious realization: These developmental psychologist giants had only ever studied boys. Typically white, middle-class boys. In response, Gilligan did a study on girls and moral development, a groundbreaking look into how culture genders our response to the world: Gilligan found that for girls, morality is relational and rooted in care—not so much law—and that fear of separation from relationship encouraged these girls to stop saying what they know. She struggled to get this study published—it was rejected multiple times—and has since become the most requested reprint out of Harvard. It also became the subject of In a Different Voice, which has sold 500,000 copies—unheard of in academic publishing. Everything that Carol Gilligan shares with us in this conversation is a revelation and also deeply resonant—and something you will know to be true. Before I go, if you missed Niobe Way’s episode from a few weeks ago, tune in to that next—Niobe was Carol’s student, and has done for boys what Carol has done for girls.
MORE FROM CAROL GILLIGAN:
Carol Gilligan’s Website
Niobe Way’s Episode: “The Critical Need for Deep Connection”
FROM MY NEWSLETTER:
“What Valley Girl’s Tell Us”
“What Are We ‘Really, Actually” Saying
“Why is it So Hard to Scream?”
EPISODES IN THE “GROWING UP” SERIES:
Niobe Way, “The Critical Need for Deep Connection”
Harvey Karp, M.D., ”The Long-Term Implication of Sleep”
Carissa Schumacher
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You’ve likely heard spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl on my podcast before. This conversation actually happened on his podcast, The Point of Relation, and we went so deep, we decided we needed to do a Part Two, which is coming to you next week. Thomas is the author of two excellent books on collective trauma and resonance: Attuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our World and Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds. He does work all over the globe in geographic pockets where a lot has happened, helping people create containers to move the energy up and out. In this conversation, we talked about locating “bad” feelings in our bodies—specifically in the context of On Our Best Behavior—though the practices we discuss here are applicable to anything.
MORE FROM THOMAS HÜBL:
On Pulling the Thread: Feeling into the Collective Presence”
On Pulling the Thread: “Processing Our Collective Past”
Thomas’s Podcast, Point of Relation
Attuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our World
Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds
Thomas Hübl’s Website
Follow Thomas on Instagram
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Long-time listeners will recognize Carissa Schumacher from this podcast. Carissa is an incredible forensic medium—which means that yes, sometimes the police call on her for assistance in solving crimes and yes, she also talks to people on the other side. But as of the end of 2019, she’s also a full-body channel for Yeshua, or Christ Consciousness. This might sound wild—and it is wild—but what’s expressed during these transmissions is also incredible. It’s deeply resonant, lyrical, and profound wisdom that feels so true—and sometimes counterintuitive—that it doesn’t really matter who is its author. Carissa and by extension, Yeshua, have been guiding lights for me in the past four years bringing me ever closer to myself. If you have an opportunity to go to one of Carissa’s journeys and you feel called, do it. They can be life-changing, in both overt and slowly unfolding ways.
I asked Carissa to join me for this special series on GROWING UP because I wanted to ask her about highly sensitive children, empathy, and intuition—both its presence in all of us, and what happens as we grow up that causes it to shut down. For highly sensitive people—of which I know there are many who listen to this podcast, hopefully you’ll hear your own experiences reflected here. For parents of highly sensitive children, I hope what you hear will help. Conversations with Carissa are never short though, so we cover a lot of other ground from recent transmissions—the “in-reality self” versus “the in-theory self” and so much more.
MORE FROM CARISSA SCHUMACHER:
The Freedom Transmissions: A Pathway to Peace
Carissa’s Website
Energy Healer Uta Opitz’s Website
PREVIOUS EPISODES WITH CARISSA:
“Yeshua: Integration not Eradication”
“Understanding Spiritual Power”
“My Spiritual Teacher and Yeshua Channel”
EPISODES IN THE “GROWING UP” SERIES:
Niobe Way, “The Critical Need for Deep Connection”
Harvey Karp, M.D., ”The Long-Term Implication of Sleep”
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Poet and author Mark Nepo has now written nearly 30 books, including mega-bestsellers like The Book of Awakening. In this latest book, You Don’t Have to Do It Alone, Mark explores the power of friendship to lend life both vital energy and more meaning, likening friends not to the boat, but to the oars that can help you reach the other side of the water. I’ve been thinking a lot about boys and men lately—including the ways in which they suffer under patriarchy too, sometimes in more devastating ways. I’m grateful for people like Mark who are insisting and modeling that to care is to be human—and that intimate friendships are vital for all of us who hope to lead long and meaningful lives. Women have an easier time of this, though we can all benefit from reminders.
MORE FROM MARK NEPO:
You Don’t Have to Do It Alone: The Power of Friendship
Mark Nepo’s Website
Follow Mark Nepo on Instagram
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Dr. Harvey Karp is the author of The Happiest Baby on the Block which has Bible-like status in the world of parenting. As a beloved Los Angeles pediatrician, Harvey punctured the mainstream with the 5 S’s—swaddling, shushing, swinging, sucking, and holding the baby on its side—all simple interventions that helped parents help their newborns sleep. This was revolutionary—and certainly changed my trajectory as a new parent, as getting five straight hours instead of three can have a huge impact on your mental health. Harvey then codified his findings into “The Snoo,” a bassinet that functions as an extra set of hands: It swaddles, swings, shushes, and keeps the baby safely on its back while it sleeps. In today’s conversation we talk about what it would look like to institutionalize support of new parents, what Harvey’s trying to do about this, why it can be so awful, isolating, and hard to have kids, along with the advice most parents frequently seek. I’m lucky to call Harvey a friend and to be able to turn to him over the years—in fact, Sam slept in a prototype Snoo—so I’m thrilled to share some of his wisdom with all of you. Let’s turn to our conversation now.
MORE FROM HARVEY KARP, M.D.:
The Happiest Baby on the Block
The Happiest Toddler on the Block
Follow Happiest Baby on Instagram
EPISODES IN THE “GROWING UP” SERIES:
Niobe Way, “The Critical Need for Deep Connection”
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Sarah Bessey is the author or editor of five books, including Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith. Sarah writes most prominently about leaving her evangelical upbringing and working through the deconstruction of her religious beliefs to create something that feels more true to her in its wake—as part of this, she co-founded the Evolving Faith community with some of her friends, including the wonderful and late Rachel Held Evans. Bessey writes prolifically about what it means to connect with her idea of God in a bigger and more expansive way—one that has moved from Simplicity, to Complexity, to Perplexity, to Harmony. In addition to Field Notes for the Wilderness, Sarah is also the editor of the New York Times bestseller A Rhythm of Prayer and Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible’s View of Women. In today’s conversation we talked about ideas and processes Sarah holds tenderly, including a shift from peace-keeping to peace-making and trying to articulate a vision of what she is for rather than who she is against. There is much in this conversation to which we can all relate.
MORE FROM SARAH BESSEY:
Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith
A Rhythm of Prayer: A Collection of Meditations for Renewal
Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith
Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible’s View of Women
Follow Sarah on Instagram
Subscribe to Sarah’s Newsletter
Sarah’s Website
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Dr. Niobe Way is an internationally-recognized Professor of Developmental Psychology, the founder of the Project for the Advancement of Our Common Humanity (PACH) at NYU, and the Director of the Science of Human Connection Lab. She is also a Principal Investigator of the Listening Project, funded by the Spencer Foundation, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative and the Rockefeller Foundation. When she was a student, Niobe studied with Carol Gilligan—if you read my newsletter or listen to this podcast, you know Carol is a hero of mine and will be wrapping up this series as a guest. Niobe has done for boys what Carol has done for girls—and their research intersects and Venn diagrams in fascinating ways. While Carol’s research shows that girls come to not know what they know, Niobe traces how boys disconnect from their caring and often enter a period of irrevocably devastating and dangerous loneliness. Niobe is the author of Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection as well as the just-released, Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and Our Culture, which offers fascinating insight into our culture at large. Along with historical context, Niobe offers beautiful case studies from her research—following and interviewing boys as they grow up—along with notes from boys who have gone on to wreak havoc on the culture, in homicidal and suicidal ways. These notes speak to disconnection, extreme loneliness, and feeling like nobody cares. As I talk about my book in living rooms around the country, I often cite Niobe and Carol Gilligan, specifically the insight that at a certain point—around 8 for boys, and 11 for girls—the word “don’t” enters children’s vocabulary. For girls, it’s “I don’t know.” For boys, it’s “I don’t care.” And of course, girls knows. And of course, boys care. We need to repair our culture so it’s safe for them to stay connected. As you can tell, I’m very excited for this conversation.
MORE FROM NIOBE WAY, PhD:
Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and Our Culture
Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection
The Crisis of Connection: Roots, Consequences, and Solutions
Niobe Way’s Website
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Stan Tatkin is an author, therapist, and researcher who guides couples toward more durable relationships. He developed the Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy (PACT), a non-linear approach that explores attachment theory to help couples adopt secure-functioning principles: In short, Stan and his wife, Tracey, train therapists to work through a psychobiological lens. Often, our brains get away from us when we’re in conflict in our relationships—we lose ourselves to our instincts. He has trained thousands of therapists to integrate PACT into their clinical practice, offers intensive counseling sessions, and co-leads couples retreats with his wife. Tatkin is also an assistant clinical professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Stan wrote Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner’s Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship more than a decade ago and it became an instant classic. It was due for a refresh to encompass the wider range of relationships we’re now experiencing and it’s just been re-issued, better than ever.
In today’s conversation we talk about the table stakes of a good relationship: Nobody cares about your survival more than your partner, something we easily forget. As it were, we get into a fascinating sidebar on Pre-Nuptial Agreements, which in Stan’s estimation cause many relationships to founder. I’ll let him tell you why.
MORE FROM STAN TATKIN:
In Each Other’s Care: A Guide to the Most Common Relationship Conflicts and How to Work Through Them
Stan Tatkin’s Website
Follow Stan on Instagram
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Hi, It’s Elise, host of Pulling the Thread. Starting next Monday, I’m doing another special series—this one is about growing up, and no, it’s definitely not just for parents. It’s mostly about re-parenting, or understanding the driving factors of how we all come to understand the world. You’ll hear from four very different voices about childhood, social programming, and development. Two are pioneers in gender development: One of my all-time heroes, developmental psychologist Carol Gilligan, who I write about in my Substack all-the-time who wrote In a Different Voice in the ‘80s, is joining me on the show, and so is Niobe Way, who does for boys what Carol Gilligan does for girls. I’m also talking with legendary pediatrician Harvey Karp, creator of The Happiest Baby on the Block, the founder of the Snoo, and an ardent and early environmentalist—and Carissa Schumacher, a full-body psychic medium and dear friend who is going to talk to us about what it’s like to raise and be a highly empathic and intuitive person—and how you can retain and develop those abilities. Or shut them down. It will be a great series, coming every Monday for the next month. I’ll see you every Thursday for a regular episode.
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Prune Harris has been able to see, study, and shift energy fields since she was born—a gift she didn’t fully realize she didn’t share with everyone else. Prune is an incredible teacher—I’ve been lucky enough to work with her—because can take esoteric and complex energy systems and distill them into metaphors, concepts, and practices that are both easy to understand and easy to do. She has taught me so many simple holds and gestures that have had a direct impact on helping me calm myself down and feel more contained and grounded. She’s the author of a great guidebook, Your Radiant Soul: Understand Your Energy to Transform Your World, and she has an incredibly comprehensive Youtube channel where she teaches simple practices. She’s wonderful. In today’s conversation we cover a lot of ground—from basic holds and energy systems to why most of us need to also ground up. We also discuss the auric membrane and what happens when it gets punctured, by other people, the energy of the world, and psychedelics.
MORE FROM PRUNE HARRIS:
Your Radiant Soul: Understand Your Energy to Transform Your World
Prune’s Website
Follow Prune on YouTube
Follow Prune on Instagram
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Karl Deisseroth is a psychiatrist, neuroscientist and bioengineering professor at Stanford. Karl is also the author of Projections: The New Science of Human Emotion, which is a beautiful revisitation and exploration of his time as a psychiatry resident, where he encountered all sorts of people who didn’t quite understand what was happening to their brains—and by extension their minds.
In the book—and in our conversation today—Karl explores mania, autism spectrum disorder, eating disorders, borderline personality disorder, psychopathy, and dementia, all in gorgeous prose. Karl runs a lab at Stanford that focuses on optogenetics, mind-blowing science that can pinpoint where adaptive and maladaptive behaviors begin in the brain. He’s won the Kyoto Prize and Heineken Prize for his research, which is not surprising—it just might change the entire world of psychiatry.
Today’s conversation is far-ranging and it’s also surprising, including a conversation about how some of these disorders—like eating disorders, which can be deadly, can also be strangely adaptive. Please stick with us.
MORE FROM KARL DEISSEROTH, M.D., PhD:
Projections: The New Science of Human Emotion
Follow Karl Deisseroth on Twitter
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Ken Wilber's work and intellect is difficult to describe. Throughout a long career—and the authoring of 20 books, including A Brief History of Everything, Grace and Grit, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, and The Religion of Tomorrow, Wilber has put together what is essentially a synthesis of every psychological model of development. In fact, he locked himself away for years, writing every model down on pieces of yellow legal paper, and then knit them all together. I’ve written about Wilber’s work at length in my newsletter, which is also called Pulling the Thread—I’ll put links in the show notes—and I talk about his work on this show as well. Most recently, I talked about Ken Wilber with Nicole Churchill in our conversation about Spiral Dynamics. Wilber is a Spiral Dynamics wizard, though he uses it in aggregate with the work of other developmental thinkers, integrating the work of luminaries like Carol Gilligan, Robert Kegan, and others.
In today’s conversation, we talk about Wilber’s brand new book, Finding Radical Wholeness, which explores the five big processes we all undertake in our lives. In today’s conversation, we mostly talked about two: Waking Up and Growing Up, which are often conflated. Wilber makes the case for why they are unrelated processes—and the essential nature of the latter. While Waking Up, or having a Satori experience is wonderful—and something that 60% of people report—we all need to grow up. Wilber and I spend most of today’s conversation talking about our political environment from the standpoint of developmental psychology: Why we’re so fractured, and what it will look like when the Integral Stage becomes the leading edge of culture and we learn how to include and transcend. I think this is fascinating, and reassuring, and excellent context for a moment that feels so out-of-control.
MORE FROM KEN WILBER:
More books from Ken Wilber
More from Pulling the Thread Podcast:
“The Basics of Spiral Dynamics” with Nicole Churchill
“Our Collective Psychological Development” with John Churchill
More from Pulling the Thread Newsletter:
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Nicole Avant is a philanthropist, filmmaker, and former diplomat. In her recent memoir, Think You’ll Be Happy, Nicole describes attending to the grief and shock of her mother’s unthinkable murder—she was shot in the back by a home intruder in 2021—by creating a living legacy in her honor. Her mom, Jacqueline Avant, had turned her Los Angeles home into a refuge for artists, politicians, and world-changers as the partner to Nicole’s father, entertainment mogul Clarence Avant, who is the subject of Nicole’s beautiful documentary,The Black Godfather. Nicole grew up sitting at the feet of extraordinary artists like Bill Withers, Oprah Winfrey, Quincy Jones, Sidney Poitier watching as her parents navigated the world to make it better for future generations. In today’s conversation, we talk about that legacy—as well as Nicole’s relationship to the divine. Like her parents, she is a master connector—putting people together to see what unfolds.
MORE FROM NICOLE AVANT:
Think You’ll Be Happy: Moving Through Grief with Grit, Grace, and Gratitude
The Black Godfather, on Netflix
Follow Nicole on Instagram
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“I think we need each other. I say this all the time, there are some things that are too big to feel in one body. You need a collective body to move them through. And I think that's what we need. We need to come together in spaces to heal, not just to consume together or to watch a movie together, but to feel together and to have human emotion in real life, in public and act from the place of a feeling body, to choose action from a feeling body and not just a reactive or a numb body, but a body that feels, a body that can connect. What kind of actions do you take in the world from that kind of body? I think it's different.”
So says Prentis Hemphill, therapist, embodiment facilitator, and author of the just-released, What it Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World. In today’s conversation—the final in a four-part series—we explore a path to putting ourselves, and the collective, back together, and how this begins with a visioning…but a visioning born from getting back in touch with how we actually feel. I loved their book—just by reading along with Prentis’s own path to re-embodiment, I found myself finding similar sensations in my chest, back and heart. In today’s conversation, we talk about somatics, yes, but also about conflict—and what it looks like to become more adept with our emotions in hard times. This is one of my favorite conversations I’ve had to date on Pulling the Thread—I hope you enjoy it too.
MORE FROM PRENTIS HEMPHILL:
What it Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World
Prentis’s Website
Follow Prentis on Instagram
RELATED EPISODES:
PART 1: James Gordon, M.D., “A Toolkit for Working with Trauma”
PART 2: Peter Levine, Ph.D, “Where Trauma Lives in the Body”
PART 3: Resmaa Menakem, “Finding Fear in the Body (TRAUMA)”
Thomas Hubl: “Feeling into the Collective Presence”
Gabor Maté, M.D.: “When Stress Becomes Illness”
Galit Atlas, PhD: “Understanding Emotional Inheritance”
Thomas Hubl: “Processing Our Collective Past”
Richard Schwartz, PhD: “Recovering Every Part of Ourselves”
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“This is the richness of the traditional wife explosion, right? There's this simple idea that you get to choose. Now you're choosing to emulate a situation that's a fiction in that those women didn't choose anything. They had to dress like that. They had to live like that. They had to be nice to the men like that, because they had no bank accounts. They had no cars. They had no licenses. They had no income. They had no security. So, don't equate these two things because you're just kind of living a dignified version of something that was pretty egregiously harmful, you know. And it's the difference, I think, in knowing that you have an option.”
So says Soraya Chemaly, an award-winning writer, journalist and activist whose work has been at the center of mine. Her now-classic, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger lit me on fire—not only for the deftness of her arguments but also because she is a meticulous researcher. What she gave air to in the pages of that book blew me away. She figures prominently in the endnotes of On Our Best Behavior.
Her new book, The Resilience Myth: New Thinking on Grit, Strength, and Growth After Trauma, follows a similar path. Soraya takes something we’ve been served as an ideal—develop resilience—and flips it on its head, both widening and undermining this definition. She challenges our cultural myths about this concept and urges us all to shift and expand our perspective on the trait, moving from prioritizing the role of the individual to overcome and conquer to focusing on what’s really at work, which is collective care and connections with our communities. As she proves in these pages, resilience is always relational.
MORE FROM SORAYA CHEMALY:
The Resilience Myth: New Thinking on Grit, Strength, and Growth After Trauma
Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger
Follow Soraya on Instagram
Soraya’s Website
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“Here's what I would say: peace will happen when people invest in cultivating peace as opposed to war. Peace will happen. And one thing I know, for me, I know peace, I know I will never see it, but maybe I can put something in place to where I leave something here and my children's, children's, children's grandchildren can nibble off of and feed on what I've left here the same way I feed off of Frederick Douglass's stuff.”
So says therapist and social worker Resmaa Menakem, author of the New York Times bestseller My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending our Hearts and Bodies and originator of the Somatic Abolitionist movement. I met Resmaa many years ago, when he was one of the few voices in this space—Resmaa calls himself a communal provocateur and this is true, as his work challenges all of us to recognize and acknowledge that we’re scared. And that much of this fear is ancient. We were supposed to talk today about trauma in relationships, but our time together took a different turn—Resmaa jumped at the opportunity to put me in my familial and familiar fear. It’s hard, or at least it was for me, but hopefully you’ll stick with us to see how this works. This is the third part of a series on trauma, and it won’t surprise you to hear that Resmaa also trained with Peter Levine.
MORE FROM RESMAA MENAKEM:
My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending our Hearts and Bodies
Monsters in Love: Why Your Partner Sometimes Drives You Crazy—And What You Can Do About It
The Quaking of America: An Embodied Guide to Navigating Our Nation’s Upheaval and Racial Reckoning
Resmaa’s Website
Follow Resmaa on Instagram
RELATED EPISODES:
PART 1: James Gordon, M.D., “A Toolkit for Working with Trauma”
PART 2: Peter Levine, Ph.D, “Where Trauma Lives in the Body”
Thomas Hubl: “Feeling into the Collective Presence”
Gabor Maté, M.D.: “When Stress Becomes Illness”
Galit Atlas, PhD: “Understanding Emotional Inheritance”
Thomas Hubl: “Processing Our Collective Past”
Richard Schwartz, PhD: “Recovering Every Part of Ourselves”
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Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
“There are studies showing that, once your basic needs are met, and you're not worried about losing your house, losing your health care, increases in money don't significantly increase happiness, right? So I think, you know, money helps alleviate the very real biological primitive fear of you're gonna die if you don't have shelter and food and in our society, healthcare, but when it comes to things beyond that, I think that we have been sold the lie that money creates security and it's a natural conflation because at a certain point for securing the necessities,and it makes other problems easier to solve also clearly, but emotionally, money is not the solution to an emotional problem any more than food or having a certain kind of body or being married or not married.”
So says Kara Loewentheil, author of Take Back Your Brain: How a Sexist Society Gets in Your Head—and How to Get it Out. While Kara and I went to college together, I first met her when she was gracious enough to have me on her hugely successful podcast, UnF*ck Your Brain, where I obviously fell in love with…her brain. Kara is theoretically an unlikely life coach—she graduated from Harvard Law School, litigated reproductive rights, and ran a think tank at Columbia University before deciding that she wanted to go upstream and rewire our culture’s brain instead.
Kara is fixated on what she calls the “Brain Gap” in women—the thought patterns so natural to women that keep us feeling anxious and disempowered. It’s in that “Brain Gap” that we continue to both unconsciously support and re-enact a culture that doesn’t do great things for women. My work and Kara’s work are very aligned. In fact, Take Back Your Brain: How a Sexist Society Gets in Your Head—and How to Get it Out is a cousin to On Our Best Behavior—one that’s written with actionable insights, by a life coach, for getting to the root of the problem.
MORE FROM KARA LOEWENTHEIL:
Take Back Your Brain: How a Sexist Society Gets in Your Head—and How to Get it Out
Kara’s Website: The New School of Feminist Thought
Kara’s Book Website
Kara’s Podcast: UnF*ck Your Brain
Follow Kara on Instagram
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“There are therapies where the person is made to relive their traumas over and over and over again. It's called flooding. And that's the one type of therapy that I do not agree with. I think it, not all the time, but it can be harmful, again, in somatic experiencing, we titrate the experience, we touch into a sensation in our bodies that have to do with the trauma, but just touch into it, and then notice the shift to a higher level of order, a higher level of coherence, a higher, greater level of flow. To go from trauma to awakening and flow is really, I think, what healing is all about."
So says Peter Levine, PhD. If you’ve read or heard anything about trauma, you likely know Peter’s name, as he’s the father of Somatic Experiencing, a body-awareness approach to healing trauma that’s informed the practice of almost every trauma-worker today. Levine is a prolific writer—his international best seller, Waking the Tiger, has been translated into twenty-two languages—though much of his work has been for fellow academics and teachers. He’s just published a new book, An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey, which is highly accessible for all of us. It’s a beautiful book that recounts how he came to understand the somatic experience of trauma through an event in his own childhood—and the scientists and cultures he encountered along the way that informed what ultimately became a world-changing protocol. Today’s conversation explores all of this—including some very surprising appearances by Einstein.
MORE FROM PETER LEVINE, PHD:
An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey
Waking the Tiger: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences
Trauma & Memory: Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past
In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness
Somatic Experiencing International
RELATED EPISODES:
PART 1: James Gordon, “TRAUMA/Tools for Transforming Trauma”
Thomas Hubl: “Feeling into the Collective Presence”
Gabor Maté, M.D.: “When Stress Becomes Illness”
Galit Atlas, PhD: “Understanding Emotional Inheritance”
Thomas Hubl: “Processing Our Collective Past”
Richard Schwartz, PhD: “Recovering Every Part of Ourselves”
To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy
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“In writing my book, I wanted to bring it back to the self because being online allows us to have this inappropriate level of audacity. And I think audacity is a very beautiful thing, but it gets so inappropriate online where you can go into Elise's messages and say, “by the way, I saw you liked this, you should be liking this, prove yourself to me”-- when the same person is probably not even able to have a conversation with their own partner in their home, but they can go online and demand people to say certain things, but in your home, are you that courageous to have a difficult conversation? Are you that courageous to have that same level of audacity in your day to day life. And I just worry that we're performing this very shadowy version of ourselves, especially online, without making any kind of effort in our everyday life to cultivate a strong sense of self, where you're able to handle conflict, where you're able to express disappointment to someone face to face and have a dialogue.”
So says Africa Brooke, coach and author of The Third Perspective: Brave Expression in the Age of Intolerance. I’ve been smitten with Africa for years, after I was one of the 12 million-odd people who read her Instagram manifesto, “Why I’m Leaving the Cult of Wokeness” in 2020. There, Africa gave voice to being part of a culture that was supposed to be tented around diversity and inclusion, and yet, she found herself sounding and behaving in an increasingly intolerant way, a way that resisted diversity of thought. Originally from Zimbabwe, Africa lives in the U.K. and had already amassed a following for documenting her path to sobriety online—a path that anticipated the sober curious movement that’s become more mainstream today. She’s well-versed in spotting patterns and recognizing the way culture was working both on her and in her, in ways that were separating her from herself.
I loved this conversation, a conversation I was very excited to have—it’s a vulnerable one. I’m grateful to Africa for saying what needs to be said and conscious that more of us need to join her. As she explains, people quickly finger her as far-right—and the far-right would love nothing more than to co-opt her—but she’s more of a social justice advocate than ever. She needs people in the center, and people on the left to join her in pointing out how our cancel culture is, to use her term, actually “collective sabotage.” And how we abandon our highest principles when we turn on each other so quickly and make each other “wrong.” I think this conversation speaks for itself.
MORE FROM AFRICA BROOKE:
The Third Perspective: Brave Expression in the Age of Intolerance
“Why I’m leaving the cult of wokeness”
Africa’s Website
Follow Africa on Instagram
Africa’s Podcast: “Beyond the Self”
Loretta Ross’s Episode: “Calling in the Call-Out Culture”
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“Now the tragedy, in one sense is a tragedy, that often people only become open when they've suffered horribly when that is both the tragedy of trauma, but also the promise. It's one thing to be trauma informed. It's another thing to inform our experience of trauma with some kind of courage and some kind of hopefulness for profound change. That's what's got to happen. If that can happen, then maybe out of all this contentiousness that is present in our 21st century United States, maybe something really good can happen, but we've got to pay attention, we've got to act on it, and take responsibility.”
So says Dr. James Gordon, a Harvard-educated psychiatrist, former researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health and Chairman of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy, and a clinical professor of psychiatry and family medicine at Georgetown Medical School. He’s also the founder and executive director of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine and a prolific writer on trauma. This is because he’s spent the last several decades traveling the globe and healing population-wide psychological trauma. He and 130 international faculty have brought this program to populations as diverse as refugees from wars in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Africa; firefighters and U.S. military personnel and their families; student/parent/teacher school shooting survivors; and more.
I met Jim many years ago, and he’s become a constant resource for me in my own life and work, particularly because he packages so many of the exercises that work in global groups into his book Transforming Trauma: The Path to Hope and Healing. We talk about some of those exercises today—soft belly breathing, shaking and dancing, drawing—along with why it’s so important to address and complete the trauma cycle in areas of crisis. This is the first part of a four-part series, and James does an excellent job of setting the stage.
MORE FROM JAMES GORDON, M.D.:
Transforming Trauma: The Path to Hope and Healing
The Center for Mind-Body Medicine
Follow Jim on Instagram
RELATED EPISODES:
Thomas Hubl: “Feeling into the Collective Presence”
Gabor Maté, M.D.: “When Stress Becomes Illness”
Galit Atlas, PhD: “Understanding Emotional Inheritance”
Thomas Hubl: “Processing Our Collective Past”
Richard Schwartz, PhD: “Recovering Every Part of Ourselves”
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“I realized I think there's a few things that are in our heads that are so deep in the culture. One of them is the idea that being overweight is a sin. It goes right back to if you look at Pope Gregory I in the 6th century when he first formulates the seven deadly sins, gluttony is there, it's always depicted with some fat person who looks monstrous, overeating. And how do we think about sin? If being overweight is a sin, we think sin requires punishment before you get to redemption. The only forms of weight loss that we admire are where you suffer horribly, right? You think about The Biggest Loser, that horrid, disgusting game show. If you go through agony, if you starve yourself, if you do extreme forms of exercise that devastate your body, then we'll go, he suffered. We forgive you. Well done. We'll let you be thin now, right?”
So says Johann Hari, author of many bestselling books—Stolen Focus, Lost Connections, and Chasing the Scream. Johann is a fellow cultural psychic and his latest book—the subject of today’s conversation—bears this out. He takes on drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro in Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight-Loss Drugs. He also writes about his own relationship to these drugs, as Johann is taking them. His book is a subtle and sensitive navigation of what is a tightly bound convergence of health and culture—and every page of his book anticipates and precedes the conversation. (As a disclaimer, I’m in it.) We talk about all of it in today’s conversation, along with what would have happened if a woman had written this book first.
MORE FROM JOHANN HARI:
Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight-Loss Drugs
Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again
Lost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope
Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs
Johann’s Website
Follow Johann on Instagram
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Hi, It’s Elise, host of Pulling the Thread. Starting next Monday, I’m doing another special series—this set is about trauma, specifically trauma and the body. You’ll hear from four important voices in the space. We’re going to start with Dr. James Gordon, who works with groups all over the world who are in crisis, helping them move their experiences through the body before it gets stuck. Next, we’ll turn to the father of Somatic Experiencing, Peter Levine, who has a new autobiography about a horrific trauma from his childhood that led him to the formation of his practice, from which we all benefit today. Next, I’m joined by my friend Resmaa Menakem, author of My Grandmother’s Hands, the creator of the somatic abolitionist movement who works with me directly to illustrate how we all carry fear. And finally, Prentis Hemphill is taking us home: Their stunning new book, What it Takes to Heal, explores finding our calcified feelings and patterns of behavior in our bodies and navigating conflict without projecting our pain. In the show notes, you’ll find related episodes from years past, including guests like Galit Atlas, Gabor Maté, Thomas Hubl, and Richard Schwartz. I’ll see you this Thursday for a regular episode—though it’s Johann Hari, so there’s nothing regular about it.
RELATED EPISODES:
Thomas Hubl: “Feeling into the Collective Presence”
Gabor Maté, M.D.: “When Stress Becomes Illness”
Galit Atlas, PhD: “Understanding Emotional Inheritance”
Thomas Hubl: “Processing Our Collective Past”
Richard Schwartz, PhD: “Recovering Every Part of Ourselves”
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“When we can pause for a moment and rifle through all that noise to figure out what the root of the fear is, then we can be with it in a meaningful way, rather than just let it run our lives. And a little bit of fear of death and a little bit of death anxiety is totally normal, for all of us. I mean, it's that thing inside that tells you not to keep walking when you get to the edge of a cliff, and even to like drink water, you know, hydrate, stay alive. It's in us. It's in our DNA. It's rooted in there. And so the goal is never to get over it entirely, but rather to learn from it, to be with it, to not let it run our lives, but rather to let it fuel our lives.”
So says Alua Arthur, a death doula and recovering attorney who is the author of Briefly, Perfectly, Human, which is a guidebook for both how to live and also how to die. Alua is the founder of Going with Grace, a death doula training and end-of-life planning organization. In today’s conversation, we talk about what it would look like to get our death phobic culture a little closer to the end, why people fear dying, and what can be gained when we recognize the priceless gifts that come when our lives come to a close. Let’s get to our conversation.
MORE FROM ALUA ARTHUR:
Follow Alua on Instagram
RELATED EPISODES:
B.J. Miller: “Struggle is Real—Suffering is Optional”
Roshi Joan Halifax: “Standing at the Edge”
Frank Oswaseski: “Accepting the Invitation”
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“But one thing the whole “Karen” thing did, which I think was very good, was that it pointed out the existence of spaces Ostensibly open to everyone, but not, and then patrolled often by white women saying you don't belong here. And she got a name, and people with that name wince and rightfully so, but without that wince-worthy kind of situation, I don't think large numbers of Americans would realize that there really is a sort of silent apartheid in our public spaces.”
So says Nell Irvin Painter, who Henry Louis Gates Jr. refers to as “one of the towering Black intellects of the last century.” I first heard Nell on Scene On Radio with John Biewen in his series “Seeing White,” and have been biding my time for an opportunity to interview her ever since. I got my chance, with her latest endeavor, an essay collection called I Just Keep Talking, which is a collection of her writing from the past several decades, about art, politics, and race along with many pieces of her own art.
Now retired, Nell is a New York Times bestseller and was the Edwards Professor of American History Emerita at Princeton, where she published many, many books about the evolution of Black political thought and race as a concept. She’s one of the preeminent scholars on the life of Sojourner Truth—and is working on another book about her right now—and is also the author of The History of White People. Today’s conversation touches on everything from Sojourner Truth—and how she actually never said “Ain’t I a Woman?”—to the capitalization of Black and White.
MORE FROM NELL IRVIN PAINTER:
I Just Keep Talking: A Life in Essays
Nell’s Website
Follow Nell on Instagram
Scene On Radio: “Seeing White”
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“What is that instinct that might be asking me to do something really unadvisable or radical or leap outside the bounds of my own life? And that's the space by which I think we move forward in life. And that's the space in which I think we move forward honestly on the page and in writing. And I tell people, you know, what is it that you want to explore in your writing? Like the page is this beautiful opportunity to start taking some big risks, whether it's persona poetry, where you're literally writing in a different voice, or you're naming something that cannot be held in any other space available to you, or you're testing out just an idea that you're not ready to say out loud. The page is this really beautiful field that gives us a lot of courage to then apply that, I think, to our actual lives.”
So says Joy Sullivan, the author of Instructions for Traveling West, which is a guidebook of poems for letting your life fall apart and remake itself as something new. In our conversation, Joy and I explore her early life: how she grew up in Africa, the child of medical missionaries, bound tight by evangelicalism and purity culture—and her relationship to religion and faith now that she’s left that behind. Eve is a central figure in Joy’s poetry, and you will hear why.
MORE FROM JOY SULLIVAN:
Instructions for Traveling West
Follow Joy on Instagram
Joy’s Newsletter, “Necessary Salt”
Joy’s Website
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Million Dollar Advice is a work and career advice podcast hosted by friends and colleagues Kim Lessing and Kate Arend. Together Kim and Kate run Amy Poehler’s Paper Kite Productions and are very cool and good at their jobs. Each week, they help live callers with their work-related dilemmas. Whether you have a question or you just like listening to other people’s problems, this show will change your life. If you have a problem at work or a career question big or small, write in to [email protected] or leave a message on the Million Dollar Advice Hotline (888) 799-6327. Kim and Kate can’t wait to give you some Million Dollar Advice!
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“You want to find yourself? Give. We're not hungry for what we're not getting. We're hungry for what we're not giving. And then at the same time, you watch this old pattern of guarding what you have and of watching your mother take the leftovers and your mother taking leftover food and taking the piece of cake that broke in half while it was being served and taking the lesser car and taking whatever time is left for her to get her needs met. And so, you know, all truth is a paradox. And that's really what I believe is that I really, really give, but because I'm healing the codependence, I'm healing the self doubt, I'm giving from a place that is abundant because I live in gratitude. I notice how much I have been poured into, crazy love from a number of different directions. And I give that away. I don't give from my place of deprivation.”
So says Anne Lamott, the eternally wise, prescient, and deeply human writer so many of us wish we could call in times of need. Anne is the author of 20 books—yes 20—including the New York Times bestsellers, Help, Thanks, Wow; Dusk, Night, Dawn; Traveling Mercies; and Bird by Bird, which is essential reading for every writer. I refer to and cite her advice all the time. Anne is also a Guggenheim Fellow. Her latest book—and the subject of today’s conversation is Somehow: Thoughts on Love that revolves around the William Blake line: We are here to learn to endure the beams of love—and how hard this is.
MORE FROM ANNE LAMOTT:
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival & Courage
Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers
Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
Follow Anne on Instagram
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“From my perspective, one of the reasons we tell stories is it helps give us a sense of who we are, we use stories to affirm our identity. And that's part of the reason why we don't actually like to call them stories, because if we call them stories, and we begin to see that the self is actually rooted in construction, made up interpreted reality, it can be very threatening to us and to our sense of who would I be without this story. And so that's one of the things that I really love about this is you can begin to see that my sense of self has to change, if I'm willing to look at my stories, what is going to happen is my sense of who I am is going to change.”
So says Courtney Smith, a coach, facilitator, and dear friend who is schooled and trained in many different modalities: Conscious Leadership Group, Byron Katie’s work, the Alexander Technique, and the Enneagram. She is one of my favorite thought partners because of the range of her intelligence and the structure of her mind: She was a math econ major who happens to have a J.D. from Yale and a masters in public health from NYU. Before taking a turn toward the mystical, she was a McKinsey consultant. So in short, she’s a multi-hyphenate Renaissance woman whose bookshelf looks much like mine. You might remember Courtney from our conversation on Pulling the Thread about the Enneagram—if you missed it, there’s a link in the show notes—but today, we’re going to talk about Stephen Karpman’s Drama Triangle: What it is, how to know when you’re in it, and how to move past it…while recognizing that you’ll be in another one soon enough. We also do a little bit of live coaching and role-playing, so you all will really get a sense of how this powerful tool works.
Meanwhile, if you want to work with me and Courtney, together, we’re hosting a workshop from May 17-19 at the Art of Living Retreat Center in Boone, North Carolina. It’s called “Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness” and will be a combination of On Our Best Behavior and Courtney’s techniques. Honestly, I can’t wait—I hope you’ll all join us. The link to sign up is also in the episode page, or the link in bio on my Instagram account, @ eliseloehnen.
MORE FROM COURTNEY SMITH:
My Workshop with Courtney at AOLRC: “Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness”
First Pulling the Thread episode: “The Practical Magic of the Enneagram”
Courtney’s Website
ALSO MENTIONED:
The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leaders
Elise’s Substack Newsletters:
The Perception (and Reality) of Scarcity
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“I think historically we have always seen that intergenerational partnership is the way that movements grow and expand and the way people feel resilient about what they're trying to accomplish. The first defeat as a young person, when you feel your morals are on the line, your sense of justice is on the line, that is such a devastating blow and you really need people who've been doing this work for a long time to say, yeah, you're right. That's how that feels. It sucks. It hurts so bad. And this is how, when it happened to me, I got up again and I kept fighting. There is no future for progress without that kind of perspective. You need the fiery engagement of young people and you need the sense of history and the sense of perspective that older people can provide.”
So says Mattie Kahn, a prolific writer whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and more. Mattie was also the culture director at Glamour and a staff editor at Elle. Today, she joins me to talk about her book, Young and Restless: The Girls Who Sparked America’s Revolutions, which is a much-needed survey of young female voices who were and are often at the heart of political movements, whether it was bus boycotts, strikes at mills, or the environmental movement unfolding today. This isn’t just a book about ensuring that the names of these girls are preserved by history, though, this is an examination of why girls are frequently so central to social change, and what it is about their often-precocious voices that can capture the attention of the nation. This, of course, is a double-edged sword, as Mattie’s work explores how quickly we dump these girls, or move on, once they turn into angry women. Today, we also talk about what’s happening on campuses and what a container might look like to hold dialogue, debate, and discourse.
MORE FROM MATTIE KAHN:
Young and Restless: The Girls Who Sparked America’s Revolutions
Mattie’s Website
Follow Mattie on Instagram
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“Part of middle life is that hopefully there's a little bit of wisdom there. And I think that is part of what we gain as we go through this journey of life is that there is wisdom that's accrued, which allows us to exist a little bit more in the complexity and nuance of things. I believe so much of this work is that we have to hold grace and compassion. And we also have to hold ownership and accountability and responsibility. And I feel that way, right? It's like, okay, if there's something that happened in our childhood or something happened in our teenage years, something that happened in our twenties, right? It's hard to process those things really early on. And especially when we're younger and really immature, because the lens is so narrow. I think as we grow and hopefully as we get wiser, that the lens opens.”
So says Vienna Pharaon, a therapist whose practice centers around helping individuals—and couples—identify old patterns, patterns that often belong to the family system, that have them by the throat. And then, of course, she helps people break them and find new stories for how they show up in the world. Vienna is the host of the podcast, This Keeps Happening and the author of the national bestseller The Origins of You: How Breaking Family Patterns Can Liberate the Way We Live and Love, where she outlines the main themes that she sees in her practice. There is much in these pages to which we can all relate, as she articulates five core, original wounds that revolve around worthiness, belonging, trust, safety, and prioritization. Sound familiar?
MORE FROM VIENNA PHARAON:
The Origins of You: How Breaking Family Patterns Can Liberate the Way We Live and Love
Vienna’s Website
Vienna’s Podcast: “This Keeps Happening”
Follow Vienna on Instagram
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Neuroscientist Lisa Mosconi, PhD currently has 11 grants—including four from the NIH—to study Alzheimers, menopause, and the female brain. Dr. Mosconi is an Associate Professor of Neuroscience in Neurology and Radiology at Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM), and the Director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Program at WCM/NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. The program includes the Women’s Brain Initiative, the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic, and the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinical Trials Unit.
There are many things to love about Dr. Mosconi and her work—one, that she’s focused on an underserved group, i.e. women, but also because her insights dramatically expand the way we’ve been conditioned to understand these hormonal shifts in our lives. The picture she paints of the female brain is not only fascinating, but it’s inspiring: As we age and move through stages, our brains continually remodel, becoming leaner, meaner, and more empathic. The female brain is…formidable. There are also many things we can do to make these turbulent transitions slightly smoother sailing, which we dive into throughout our conversation. Let’s turn to it now.
MORE FROM LISA MOSCONI, PhD:
Brain Food: The Surprising Science of Eating for Cognitive Power
Lisa’s Website
Follow Lisa on Instagram
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“Historically, there's no such thing as a pure tradition. And I also think as human beings, we transcend these religions and we transcend these cultures. And so the cherry picking is an affirmation of our transcendence. It's like, no, you are more than your religious tradition. You are more than your culture. You are more than your body. And you are also your body and your religion and your culture. Yes, yes, yes, all that. But you are also more. So I think, again, the power of the modern period is that we're all so super connected and in communication with everything that we know that, we know that in a way that we didn't know that, you know, four or five-hundred years ago.”
So says Jeffrey Kripal, who holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. Jeff is the author of many, many, many books that span a massive academic career—books on Kali, books on Gnosticism, and books on supernatural phenomena. He’s also the author of a short and immensely readable book called The Flip: Who You Really Are and Why it Matters, which is the focus of our conversation today. As an academic and historian of comparative religion, Jeff writes and speaks beautifully about the way that we’re losing our collective stories, and the way that we’re splitting ourselves apart, divided between the sciences and the humanities. In The Flip, Jeff recounts how both science and spirituality are using different languages to explain and explore the same experiences, and what emerges when “The Flip” happens, those often mystical moments when the minds of scientists across time have cracked open to see the world in a different way. I loved this book and I love Jeff’s wide-ranging and yet imminently approachable and kind mind—I hope you enjoy listening to this conversation as much as I enjoyed having it.
MORE FROM JEFFREY KRIPAL:
The Flip: Who You Really Are and Why it Matters
The Superhumanities: Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New Realities
Jeff’s Website
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Hi, it’s Elise Loehnen, host of PULLING THE THREAD. Today, it’s just me. I’m sharing five things I’ve been thinking about a lot—from understanding how to quantify and charge for one’s time, what to consider before starting a new creative project, and the art of a gentle no. I’m also answering some of your questions—about judgment, sanity, and the etymology of “should.”
THINGS I REFERENCE:
MORE FROM ME:
On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good
My Substack Newsletter
My Instagram
Solo Episode 1: What We’re After
Solo Episode 2: Five Things I’ve Learned This Year
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“Turquoise is looking for how do we bring back the village? How do we live in community again? Why are we living in these separate houses? We're not sharing resources. Everyone on the street has a snowblower, a lawnmower, you know, like the design isn't elegant, it's not an elegant design. And so I think the mind of yellow joins into turquoise and as it has studied systems, it contributes to that and we are looking for more holistic, elegant solutions to give birth to a new culture. It's like we can no longer continue down the path. And at turquoise, we are going to have to sacrifice for the whole.”
For those of you who follow me on Instagram or read my newsletter on Substack, you’ll know that I’ve been quite obsessed with Spiral Dynamics of late, and see it as one way to explain our current cultural and political dilemmas, along with so much of our internalized anxiety. It was first developed by the late professor Clare Graves, who was a contemporary and colleague of Abraham Maslow, and then advanced by professor Don Beck, who worked on post-Apartheid South Africa with Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, and then further pushed by integral philosopher Ken Wilber. Spiral Dynamics can be heady stuff, and so I was thrilled when Nicole Churchill, a wonderfully grounded therapist and expert in Spiral Dynamics, offered to talk through the system with me for the podcast. Nicole and her husband John Churchill, who has also been a guest on Pulling the Thread, studied with Ken Wilber, and both apply it in their therapy work with both individuals and organizations.
If you all end up loving Spiral Dynamics as much as I do, Nicole has offered to come back and explore how she uses it in therapy—please pass this episode on to any friends who you think might enjoy. I’m convinced that there are some keys here that can help us see the world and ourselves more clearly. In the show notes, you’ll find ways to go deeper as well.
MORE FROM NICOLE CHURCHILL:
Nicole’s websites: Samadhi Institute and Karuna Mandela
John Churchill’s episode on Pulling the Thread: “Our Collective Psychological Development”
MORE ON SPIRAL DYNAMICS:
My Substack Newsletter: “Finding Ourselves on the Spiral”
Spiral Dynamics Integral, by Don Beck
Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy, by Ken Wilber
Spiral Dynamics, by Don Beck and Chris Cowan
Trump and a Post-Truth World, by Ken Wilber
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“When I went back and looked at some of these shows that I loved, I noticed that the writer's room was all adult men with the exception of one or two episodes in Saved by the Bell's case. And I just thought, wow, it is so interesting that we talk about diversity and representation, like yes, of course, who's on the screen matters, but who's in the writer's room and who's telling the stories really matters too, because that's where stereotypes abound. Because those men were not writing Jesse Spano as an example of an actual feminist. She was written as a character from an adult male's response to like second wave feminist stereotypes. And they found that type of woman irritating, so they wrote Jessie as an irritating character. And it just was an interesting thing for me to explore the way I internalized themes from pop culture thinking about who was writing this and when did it contribute to a stereotype versus when did it communicate an authentic experience.”
So says Kate Kennedy, a brilliantly astute historian of millennial culture, which she explores, in depth in One in a Millenial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting in, a bestselling book that’s part memoir, but really a love letter and a critique of the culture so many of us grew up in.
As part of my book tour I went on Kate’s podcast, Be There in Five, where I was immediately taken by her intelligence and deep, deep knowledge of the programming that shaped our consciousness, from Jessie Spano’s feminism in Saved by the Bell—and the laugh track it inspired—to the way so many women and girls were taught that our interests were dumb, shallow, and silly. Or, to use the parlance of the day: Basic. In One in a Millenial, Kennedy points to this long tradition of the veneration of action figures, Marvel, and football—and the deprecation of pretty much anything that girls and women value, whether it’s romance novels, the Spice Girls, or American Girl Dolls. While her point is not new—and certainly aligned with our summer of the Barbie movie, Taylor Swift, and Beyoncé—her exploration of how it shaped her own mind in childhood, and the way she experiences herself now as a result of it, is revelatory, and something we explore in today’s conversation.
MORE FROM KATE KENNEDY:
One in a Millenial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting in
Kate’s Website
Instagram: Follow Kate and Be there in Five
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“The deal is your bodies are going to change over time and people can stay attracted to somebody's body over time, even though it is unrecognizable from what it was like when they first met because that body is the home of a human they adore our attraction to a person's body can be just like superficial something like your toenails are gross, or it can be here is the human whose life I have shared in our home for all these years and like their belly and their bum and their varicose veins and their scar from the surgery that saved their life all of it is so fucking hot because this is my person.”
So says Emily Nagoski, one of the most exceptional minds at work today on the science—and she would add, art—of sexual connection, intimacy, and arousal. Emily is brilliant and she’s also deeply human, using her own experiences in the world as the foundational ground for exploring relationship: This means that she’s not full of heady theory and diagnoses, but focused on what actually works to fuel desire—and bring it to fruition.
She’s the author of the mega bestselling Come as You Are, as well as a book called Burnout about the stress cycle that she co-authored with her twin sister, and now she brings us Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections, which is the natural evolution. While Come as You Are is a primer on how we all function as sexual creatures, Come Together explores what happens when you bring that into relationship—and try to establish and maintain a connection that can endure through seasons of, well, low interest.
She is full of ideas, principles, and methods for getting it going—including a core blueprint for determining what rooms are adjacent to your desire. I loved this book, I love Emily, and I loved our conversation.
MORE FROM THE EMILY NAGOSKI:
Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life
Watch Emily’s TED Talk
Emily’s Website
Follow Emily on Instagram
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“Every single human being is a pack animal. That's what we are biologically. We would die if we didn't depend on each other. Saying what you need is a form of connecting with your partner and saying, let's be a team. Can you serve me in this way? Can I trust you to have my back? Because I've got yours. And I want to be there for you. The other thing that people don't realize is that when they ask their partner for something they need, what they're doing is saying to the partner, you are my chosen one. You are my confidant. You are the person I trust more than anybody to be there for me. And the other person may feel very honored by that, actually. What that person is saying is you are trustworthy. You are the person that I know has the strength and the resources to be there for me.”
Doctors John and Julie Gottman are two of the most famous and popular couples therapists in the world—not only because of their ability to impart relationship-saving and relationship-strengthening advice, but because of John Gottman’s decades of reearch in the so called “Love Lab,” where he observed couples over time and could predict—with a dizzying level of success—who was destined to divorce.
In short, the Gottmans are the world’s leading relationship scientists, having gathered data on thousands of couples—they then use those findings to train clinicians and create simple principles for couples around the world.
In their latest book, Fight Right, they explore conflict—something we’re all trained to avoid at all costs. Their point though, which their research supports, is that conflict is essential for healthy relationships, clearing out the brush of stagnant resentments and deepening bonds.
In today’s conversation, we explore everything from fighting styles—there’s avoiders, validators, and volatiles—along with our tendency to start conflict harshly because we feel like we need a lot of ammo to justify the rupture and make our point. And then we move to modes and paths of repair, along with what their latest research can tell us about infidelity and its root cause. I loved this conversation, which we’ll turn to now.
MORE FROM JOHN & JULIE GOTTMAN:
Fight Right: How Successful Couples Turn Conflict into Connection
The Love Prescription: Seven Days to More Intimacy, Connection, and Joy
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work
The Gottman Institute: A Research-Based Approach to Relationships
Gottman Relationship Quiz: How Well Do You Know Your Partner?
Find a Gottman Trained Therapist
Follow the Gottman Institute on Twitter and Instagram
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“I think there's a lot of assumptions in play here that a good body is a thin one, a thin body is achievable, a thin body is achievable for everyone, and that you will be fully in control of your health and your mortality if you're thin, which is also just of course a myth. There are plenty of fat, healthy, happy people, and there are plenty of sadly unhealthy, thin people who should not be regarded as any more or less worthy than a fat person who suffers from a similar health condition. These people should be receiving, in most cases, just the same treatment. And yet, for the fat person who suffers from the same health condition, the prescription is weight loss, whereas for the thin person, they're given often closer to adequate medical care.”
So says, moral philosopher and Cornell professor Kate Manne, one of those brilliant and insightful observers of culture working today. She’s the author of two incredible books about misogyny—Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women and Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny—and has coined mainstream terms like “himpathy,” her word for the way we afford our sympathy to the male aggressor rather than the female victim. The example she uses is the trial of Brock Turner, the Stanford swimmer who sexually assaulted Chanel Miller, and the way the judge and the media seemed more concerned about Turner’s sullied future than Miller’s experience and recovery.
Her newest book is just as essential: It’s called Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia and it explores Manne’s own experience of being a fat woman in our unabiding culture. If you read the Gluttony chapter of On Our Best Behavior, some of the material she explores will be familiar—but in Kate Manne style, she drives it all the way home. I love this conversation, which we’ll turn to now.
MORE FROM KATE MANNE:
Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia
Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women
Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny
Follow Kate Manne on Twitter
Kate Website
Kate’s Newsletter
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“I think that with regulation, the funny thing is that it's either I want to control the weather around my children, or I want to control my children, but regulation is very much a self thing for adults and a co regulation thing between you and other, especially you and a young person whose brain isn't fully able to self regulate. But if you're so focused on controlling all these outside things that you can't, like the weather, then you get to let yourself off the hook of getting into the much harder, but more possible work of self regulation and of figuring out your own stuff. And all of that has much bigger benefits to your kids, of course, than making the weather perfect around them, but it just is harder. Even though it shouldn't be so easy to change the weather, but it does appear that is what happens, right?”
So says Aliza Pressman, development psychologist and Assistant Clinical Professor in the Division of Behavioral Health Department of Pediatrics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital where she is co-founding director of The Mount Sinai Parenting Center. Aliza is also the host of the hit podcast, Raising Good Humans, and the author of The Five Principles of Parenting: Your Essential Guide to Raising Good Humans.
I love Aliza for many reasons: Yes, we all want friends who are developmental psychologists on speed-dial, but she’s also different in the way she delivers advice. For one, she cuts right to the point, reminding and reaffirming that while yes, every family has its own complicating factors, the basic tenets of raising good humans are simple. You don’t need your own PhD in parenting to do the job, nor do you need a PhD to re-parent yourself, you need to focus on the elements she outlines in The Five Principles of Parenting: Your Essential Guide to Raising Good Humans: Relationship, Reflection, Regulation, Rules, and Repair. As she explains, through practice and normalizing imperfection, along the way you’ll discover the person you’re ultimately raising is yourself. By becoming more intentional people, we become better parents. By becoming better parents, we become better people.
In today’s conversation, we touch on these tenets while also exploring the particular social world we find ourselves in, one in which there seems to be an expectation that we can and should control the weather for our kids.
MORE FROM ALIZA PRESSMAN, PhD:
The Five Principles of Parenting: Your Essential Guide to Raising Good Humans
Aliza’s Website
Follow Aliza on Instagram
Aliza’s Newsletter
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"How do we center the voices that traditionally and historically we know existed, but were only marginalized in the tradition? And that does feel like holy work. And for me, in part, when I encountered a tradition that was so driven by male stories and male voices, I felt so alienated by it when I first began to encounter it. And I had this moment, which I think lots of women faith leaders have, which is maybe this just isn't for me. I mean, I'm not intended to ever even read these texts, let alone teach these texts. And then I had an awakening where I realized, not only is it meant for me, but I have an obligation. It was waiting for me. It's waiting for me and for so many more people because there's a void until our voices enter this space."
So says Rabbi Sharon Brous, a wise and wonderful friend, and the founder and senior rabbi of IKAR, a Jewish community founded to attend to critical questions. As Rabbi Brous writes in her beautiful new book The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World , “How can our Jewish tradition help us live lives of meaning and purpose? And: Given our faith and history, who are we called to be in this time of moral crisis? We launched IKAR—our best attempt to address those questions—on a hope and a prayer, with no funding, no space, and no business plan. What we had was a shared conviction that faith communities needed to be spiritually alive and morally courageous at the same time.”
I read Sharon’s beautiful book last summer, and could not wait to talk to her about it. So we recorded our conversation early, before the Jewish High Holidays, at the beginning of August, months before October 7th. Rabbi Brous’s work in general is highly prophetic and brave—she has been a fierce and vocal critic of the increasingly right wing Israeli government, even as many Rabbis try to steer clear of politics. This conversation, which is not about Israel, is also highly prophetic and brave: It’s about the dire need for interfaith conversation, for chipping away at the calcified belief structures of religions that don’t fully serve our broken world, and for being with each other, particularly on our most painful days. This, in fact, is the theme of The Amen Effect, which is about an ancient mishnah, or overlooked piece of Jewish law that instructs us on the sacred act of circling—and tending, face-to-face, to each other’s agony and grief. In today’s conversation Sharon and I also talk about social justice and responsibility, a conversation that I’m hoping to pick back up with her in the new year, as so many of us feel a little lost and confused. While Rabbi Brous and I thought about doing a second episode as a fast follow, we decided to wait a beat—if you want to hear her talk about Israel and Gaza, I highly recommend you listen to her conversation with Ezra Klein, where the two talk about how some of Israel’s actions are indefensible even as Israel itself must be defended. Her sermons are also stunning, and available on the IKAR website.
I think Rabbi Brous is incredible, and I’m not alone. She offered the blessing at both Biden and Obama’s inaugurations, and led Hannukah at the White House this year. She manages to teach and model what so many of us need to learn how to do: We must learn how to hold each other close even through disagreement, disappointment, and despair. The Amen Effect offers some ideas for how this work might begin.
MORE FROM RABBI SHARON BROUS:
The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World
IKAR’s Website
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“If you have a reaction to a stranger or someone in the media or someone in politics or someone who's just providing this kind of blank slate because you don't really know him or her, then it's a projection. And yes, there's often a sensation in the body that's negative. It could be fear, it could be distrust, it could be disgust, right? And then there's the flip side. There's positive projection, which happens in the spiritual universe a lot. When someone is looking for a charismatic leader, then they're going to project their own awakening, their own compassion, their own wisdom onto the leader, the clergy person. So the content of the projection can be anything, what we view as negative, what we view as positive.”
So says Connie Zweig, a Jungian therapist and author who has focused much of her career exploring and teasing out the implications of the shadow, which is how Carl Jung referred to the unconscious. Chances are that you’ve been hearing more and more about shadow work—it’s having a moment—in part, I’m convinced, because it’s a concept whose time has come. As I’ve written about a lot in my Substack newsletter, we are swimming in collective shadow, unable and unwilling to process our share of it. When we don’t take on this unconscious material, or darkness, our tendency is to project it onto other people and groups, to get away from it as quickly as possible. But, of course, it doesn’t work like that—our shadow is ours. It’s our blind spot. When we’re willing to face our shadow, to access it, to allow it to emerge, we often find that it’s full of gold. In fact, Jung believed that the shadow is the source of all of our energy, the main mechanism for growth—ask anyone who has gone through hard or dark times and they will likely tell you that the experience propelled them forward in unexpected ways, often for the better.
Connie and I explore all of these concepts and then some, as she’s one of the most prodigious writers in the space. She co-authored Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow, which are essential anthologies and texts, and then more recently wrote Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path, which explores what happens when the shadow, or darkness, is unresolved in spiritual and religious communities. She’s also the author of The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, which is an exploration of the shadow of aging in our ageist culture. I’m hoping she comes back to the podcast soon so we can discuss that book at length.
MORE FROM CONNIE ZWEIG, PHD:
The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul
Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life
Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature
A Moth to the Flame: The Life of the Sufi Poet Rumi
Connie Zweig’s Website
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Today, it’s just me. I thought I’d round out the year by trying something different, and offering five big things I’ve learned this year.
THINGS I REFERENCE:
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“Nobody wants to be somebody with a serious substance use problem. Nobody wants to be addicted to a substance. I mean, it doesn't feel good. Dependency doesn't feel good. And we end up in there anyway, right? So I think if we can bring compassion and understanding to, wow, it must really be working in a way that's really powerful for them to keep pursuing it. And then you've got the physical effects of substances, right? So then our bodies physically get dependent, you know, so it starts out as like, it's probably working for an emotional or something in our life and then we become physically dependent on it. And then it's a whole nother host of things in terms of how do you stop it? And people don't fully understand treatment in terms of there's medications available.”
So says Carrie Wilkens, PhD, a psychologist who is attempting to change the way we think about and address recovery and treatment—specifically by simply presenting evidence for what motivates change. AFter all, she is the co-president and CEO of CMC: Foundation for Change, a not-for-profit with the mission of improving the dissemination of evidence-based ideas and strategies to professionals and loved ones of persons struggling with substance use.
As you’ll hear in this conversation—and throughout the entire series—we have not collectively been served by the mono-myth of addiction, that it’s only solved through harsh intervention and confrontation, that addicted people must hit rock-bottom, and that any involvement from concerned family and friends is inherently co-dependent or enabling.
As Dr. Wilkins explains, this simply isn’t true: In fact, evidence overwhelmingly suggests that harsh confrontation and intervention works AGAINST recovery, and that there is a very specific and meaningful role for family to play in what can often feel like a family illness.
The CMC:FFC team’s Invitation to Change approach is an accessible set of understandings and practices that empower families to remain engaged and be effective in helping their struggling loved one make positive changes. The approach has been widely used across the country and is utilized in trainings with laypeople and professionals.
She is co-author of the award-winning book Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help People Change, a practical guide for families dealing with addiction and substance problems in a loved one based on principles of Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT), and co-author of The Beyond Addiction Workbook for Family and Friends: Evidence-Based Skills to Help a Loved-One Make Positive Change.
Dr. Wilkens is also the Co-Founder and Clinical Director of the Center for Motivation and Change, a group of clinicians serving all ages in NYC, Long Island, Washington, DC, San Diego, CA, and CMC:Berkshires, a private, inpatient/residential program for adults.
Dr. Wilkens has been a Project Director on a large federally-funded Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) grant addressing the problems associated with binge drinking among college students. And she is a member of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies and the American Association of Addiction Psychiatrists.
MORE FROM CARRIE WILKINS:
Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help People Change
The Beyond Addiction Workbook for Family & Friends
Further Listening on Pulling the Thread:
PART 1: Holly Whitaker, “Reimagining Recovery”
PART 2: Carl Erik Fisher, M.D., “Breaking the Addiction Binary”
PART 3: Maia Szalavitz, “When Abstinence-Only Approaches Fail”
ADDICTION: Anna Lembke, M.D., “Navigating an Addictive Culture”
TRAUMA: Gabor Maté, M.D., “When Stress Becomes Illness”
BINGE EATING DISORDER: Susan Burton, “Whose Pain Counts?”
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“I think what's interesting about healing, psychological healing, is there's always a narrative that helps. So sometimes when you go to therapy, and you tell a story, and in the story, you locate your despair, and it's a knot, and then with the therapist, you work through the knot, you feel better. And was all the pain really attendant to that knot? Or did you just kind of load up that knot with some of the despair that comes from being alive and then you kind of work through it and that story helps you live life better. And I think that's true also this idea of how we look at the different personality states and we can name them and we can give them ages and it's a story that helps us understand ourselves.”
So says Akiva Goldsman, an Oscar, Golden Globe, and WGA-Award winning screenwriter whose credits include A Beautiful Mind, The Client, Batman Forever, A Time to Kill, Practical Magic, Cinderella Man, I Am Legend, The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, Insurgent, and I, Robot. He’s on Pulling the Thread today, though, to talk about Apple TV+’s The Crowded Room, a psychological thriller starring Tom Holland and Amanda Seyfried on which he was both the writer and the showrunner.
So first, some warnings: Yes, there are spoilers, though in my opinion, nothing that will markedly change your experience of watching the show. In fact, knowing the back story made it easier for me to get through the first, very stressful episode. (It gets easier, and by episode three, I was riveted.) And also, a trigger warning: The Crowded Room and our conversation today explore childhood sexual abuse, which is also part of Akiva’s personal history.
MORE FROM AKIVA GOLDSMAN:
“The Crowded Room” on Apple TV+
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“I think it's really important for, you know, people to realize that you can totally be an absolutely excellent parent of a traumatized child and the trauma had nothing to do with you and you couldn't possibly have prevented it. So I think, you know, assuming that there is trauma in somebody's addiction history, which is not always the case, but if there is, you should not immediately assume that it was bad parenting because sure, that could be the case sometimes, but again, there's so many different ways that people can be traumatized by so many different people. And it's also the case that so much of addiction has to do with people's temperament that will set them up for things. So, if you are incredibly sensitive to stimuli, something that wouldn't traumatize someone else might traumatize you. And again, that's not your parents fault. That's just how you were born.”
So says Maia Szalavitz, a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and author of two fantastic books about addiction. Her New York Times bestseller, Unbroken Brain, tells the story of her own heroin and cocaine addiction as a student at Columbia University in the ‘80s—she was expelled for dealing and barely escaped prison time—woven together with the decades of work she’s done as a journalist in the addiction space after entering recovery in her early ‘20s. In it, Maia offers a compelling case for why addiction should be thought of as a learning disability, in part because so many people “grow out of it.”
Maia’s latest book—Undoing Drugs: The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction—taught me so much and challenged so many of the stories about addiction I was holding onto. Ultimately, it’s an optimistic book in the face of what feels like an overwhelming cultural challenge, a challenge that only seems to get worse every month—Maia explains why we’re trending in this direction, and more importantly, what we can do to shift our collective fate toward recovery. And what an expanded idea of recovery might mean.
MORE FROM MAIA SZALAVITZ:
Undoing Drugs: How Harm Reduction is Changing the Future of Drugs and Addiction
Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary Way of Understanding Addiction
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog
Read Maia on The New York Times
Maia’s Website
Follow Maia on X
Further Listening on Pulling the Thread:
PART 1: Holly Whitaker, “Reimagining Recovery”
PART 2: Carl Erik Fisher, M.D., “Breaking the Addiction Binary”
ADDICTION: Anna Lembke, M.D., “Navigating an Addictive Culture”
TRAUMA: Gabor Maté, M.D., “When Stress Becomes Illness”
BINGE EATING DISORDER: Susan Burton, “Whose Pain Counts?”
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“As you grow older, your brain is able to keep rewiring all the time. And so we have this impression that the flexibility of the brain decreases as you get older. But in fact, it's just because your brain's job is just to figure out how to get by in the world and do a good job in the world. And once you've figured most things out, like, oh, these are different kinds of personalities, and this is how I need to do something at work, and this is how I use email and phone and whatever, then your brain does less changing only because it has successfully done its job, and it doesn't need to keep changing. The brain changes when there's surprise, when there's something that happened that it wasn't expecting, then it changes up. So, you still have plenty of plasticity even when you're 90 years old. It's just that most people aren't using it at that point because they say, Oh, I got it. I know how things work.”
So says David Eagleman, renowned neuroscientist, podcast host, and the author of many bestselling books about consciousness and the brain—along with more than 120 academic publications. Besides his perch as a neuroscientist at Stanford University, David is the co-founder of two venture-backed companies, including Neosensory, which is a pioneering wrist device that enables the deaf to hear. Yep, that’s right.
David is fascinating, and hopefully this conversation lives up to his capacity: We discuss the malleability of the brain to adjust to its inputs, the roots of synesthesia, how those who are born blind and deaf can now use touch to see and hear, and why we dream. Ultimately, we explore just how it happens that a brain trapped in a dark vault can create the vibrancy of our existence.
David is a TED speaker, a Guggenheim Fellow, and serves on several boards, including the American Brain Foundation and the The Long Now Foundation. He is the Chief Scientific Advisor for the Mind Science Foundation, and the winner of Claude Shannon Luminary Award from Bell Labs and the McGovern Award for Excellence in Biomedical Communication.
What’s cooler? He has served as the scientific advisor to several television shows (including Westworld and Perception).
Ironically—considering we both host podcasts and David is a neuroscientist—we had some technical difficulties during our conversation, but the hope is that this is not perceptible to you!
MORE FROM DAVID EAGLEMAN:
Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain
Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives
David’s Podcast: “Inner Cosmos”
David’s Website
Follow David on Instagram
David’s Company: Neosensory
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“I want to say that it's not just some idea about suffering, it's also a function of social and economic systems that are deliberately weaponizing an individualized view of suffering as a technique, as a strategy. I found across eras and eras and eras in the book is that addiction supply industries, which is what one scholar calls them, like the alcohol industry, the tobacco industry, they constantly come back to this hyper individualization in saying, you know, like, the problem is not in the bottle, the problems in the person. If so many people can drink, quote unquote normally, that means the problem is really with these sick people over here. And that happened with tobacco. And then very directly and deliberately, things like the processed food industry and other modern addiction supply industries have used the same language.”
So says Carl Erik Fisher, an addiction psychiatrist, bioethics scholar, author, and person in recovery. Carl is also an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, where he teaches law, ethics, and policy relating to psychiatry and neuroscience, particularly where they converge with substance use disorders and other addictive behaviors. He hosts a podcast called Flourishing After Addiction and is launching a Substack, where he’ll organize his thinking around treatment paths and modalities. Most pertinent to our conversation today, he’s the author of The Urge: Our History of Addiction, which is a fascinating deep dive into our long cultural fascination with addictive substances, interlaced with his own story, and stories from his practice: In fact, the book opens in Bellevue where Carl is not functioning as a doctor—in this case, he’s the patient, after suffering an addiction-induced manic episode that put him into recovery. Carl is brilliant and kind, and also fluent in all the prevailing science about addictive behavior…science that hasn’t really ruled the day until recent years. Instead, the addiction space has been one of binaries—you’re compulsive, or you exercise choice; you’re normal, or an addict; you have no control to stop, or you have all the control and refuse to use it; and on and on and on.
MORE FROM CARL ERIK FISHER:
The Urge: Our History of Addiction
Carl’s Podcast: Flourishing After Addiction
Carl’s Website
Follow Carl on Instagram
Carl’s Newsletter
Carl’s Substack
Further Listening on Pulling the Thread:
PART 1: Holly Whitaker, “Reimagining Recovery”
ADDICTION: Anna Lembke, M.D., “Navigating an Addictive Culture”
TRAUMA: Gabor Maté, M.D., “When Stress Becomes Illness”
BINGE EATING DISORDER: Susan Burton, “Whose Pain Counts?”
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“I think what one of the things that's interesting to me is like when we think about what causes distress and a life that goes awry, there's so much attention to different causes, but the way that the story, or the diagnosis, or the treatment interacts with our identity, I think, is not thought about as much. Like, the way that the very intervention itself changes our sense of who we are feels like it gets neglected. There's this sense that, you know, the diagnosis is describing something that is always solid and real and less thought given to like, well, how does that diagnosis interact with a mind? And how does the mind change knowing that the mind has been characterized this way?”
You might recognize Rachel Aviv’s name from The New Yorker, where she’s been a staff writer for a decade, covering subjects like medical ethics, psychiatry, criminal justice, and education. She’s been a finalist for the National Magazine Awards twice, and in 2022 she won one for profile writing. In 2022, she also published Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us, a recipient of the Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant and named by The New York Times as one of the ten best books of the year. In It, Aviv tells the story of four people and the treatment they underwent—or not—for their mental illness. It’s a gorgeously told, layered exploration of all that we don’t know about the brain and the mind, and how various treatment modalities restructure our lives—including the stories we tell about who we are. Okay, let’s get to our conversation.
MORE FROM RACHEL AVIV:
Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us
Read Rachel in The New Yorker
Follow Rachel on X
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“For years, I was asking myself whether or not I was an alcoholic versus really asking myself whether or not alcohol was actually providing any benefit to me. And for me, it was just like, This realization when I stopped drinking that I had been asking the wrong question for my whole drinking career and like, why are we not asking the question? We're just like, we're drinking, it's compulsory in our society. It's exceptional if you don't drink. And then it's also this very addictive drug that's marketed to us in a way that totally overrides our ability to like make rational choices around it. It's like the most socially accepted drug that you can use and like, we just don't have meaningful conversations or informed consent or any, you know, so for me, a huge part of me quitting drinking, which I did in 2013, it was this realization of Intellectually understanding I had been asking the wrong question which for me was a huge empowerment and part of the reason I was able to quit.”
So says Holly Whitaker, author of the New York Times bestselling Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol. I had heard about Holly long before I met her, primarily because she was disrupting recovery culture and many people did not like this. But the more I learned about her, the more I spoke to her, the more I witnessed her impact on culture, the more I was completely taken by both her brilliance and her willingness to say the things. Be warned: If you read her book, you’ll never think about alcohol again. In its pages, she recontextualizes the way we’ve been trained to normalize booze—and also the way the current recovery scene is shaped for the consciousness, and egos, of men. She’s created companies in the vein of a feminine-centered recovery, and it feels like she’s just getting started in the way we talk about addictive substances—and addiction. Those who struggle will find a lot of relief in her words, and I understand why.
MORE FROM HOLLY WHITAKER:
Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol
Holly’s Newsletter
Holly’s Website
Holly’s Podcast
Follow Holly on Instagram
Further Listening on Pulling the Thread:
ADDICTION: Anna Lembke, M.D., “Navigating an Addictive Culture”
TRAUMA: Gabor Maté, M.D., “When Stress Becomes Illness”
BINGE EATING DISORDER: Susan Burton, “Whose Pain Counts?”
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“If there is this part of you that you think is inferior, the weak spot, something you're ashamed of, etc., it's one of these things where if you believe it's true, there's a part of the human soul, we call it part X. It doesn't want you to have any kind of forward motion, doesn't like it, it wants to render your life failure. It wants you to never re change your potentials. And it wants you to hate yourself, which is the biggest thing. So, the genesis of the tools came from the idea, we have to be active about dealing with this.”
So says Phil Stutz, the creator of the Tools. You might know Phil from his bestselling book of the same name, or its sequel Coming Alive. Or you might know him from the Netflix documentary Stutz, which is a profile of him as a beloved psychotherapist who doesn’t practice in a particularly traditional way. What you might not know is that Phil is actually a psychiatrist—he received his MD from NYU and then abandoned the standard approach, feeling like he wasn’t helping patients at all. He created The Tools for exactly that: To provide practices for people to move through life’s obstacles, rather than just listening to them talk about them. Ad nauseum. One of the things that I love most about Phil’s approach is the way in which he uses the spiritual, or what he calls “Higher Forces.” Foundationally, he believes that a beneficent universe will move in as soon as you put yourself in motion, unlocking creativity and growth. His latest book, Lessons for Living: What Only Adversity Can Teach You, is a beautiful collection of essays about aging, hard times, and obstacles. It’s equal parts moving and practical, much like Phil himself.
MORE FROM PHIL STUTZ:
Lessons for Living: What Only Adversity Can Teach You
The Tools Website
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Starting next Monday, I’m doing another special series—this set is about addiction. You’ll hear from four distinct voices in the space, covering harm reduction, new paths to recovery, codependency, and the shape of addiction in our culture. This is just scratching the surface, but hopefully the beginning of conversations in our own lives, as addiction touches us all, in its myriad forms. While this set is focused on substance, we'll be back with more in this space—and if you want to get started, you’ll find links to two previous episodes on this theme. Dr. Gabor Maté, who spent much of his career working in the most addicted corner of North America, explains why trauma is central to understanding addiction, and Dr. Anna Lembke, explores the role of dopamine and the delicate balance between pleasure and pain. You can find those links in the show notes—and I’ll see you on Thursday for a regular episode of Pulling the Thread, and Monday for the beginning of this special episode.
SHOW NOTES:
ADDICTION: Anna Lembke, M.D., “Navigating an Addictive Culture”
TRAUMA: Gabor Maté, M.D., “When Stress Becomes Illness”
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“I’m grateful for seasons. I'm so happy that there can be a winter and there can be a spring and there can be a summer, that it can't always be summer, can't always be bright and happy. And, you know, my book is a bit about that. In winter, the stone fruit loses its leaves and it falls down and it saves its energy for spring. It's okay to sleep. I feel like when life served me a winter and I dropped my leaves for a bit, I came back stronger in spring. I'm just grateful for that idea of that constant change, not just in the world, but in ourselves, and how exciting that has been. And that's given me a whole new fresh perspective. I keep saying a lot, I want to ripen like a peach. I'm okay for my skin to get wrinkled and my flesh to get soft. I really just want to get really sweet and juicy on the inside and and enjoy that process.”
I met Richard Christiansen more than a decade ago, though we didn’t become very close friends until very recently, when strange fates brought us together. We have spent the past three-and-half years birthing new versions of ourselves: We kept each other as close company as I wrote my book and launched this podcast, while Richard left the world of advertising to launch a beautiful brand called Flamingo Estate. You’ve likely seen Flamingo Estate in magazines or on Instagram—it’s Richard’s home, and garden, and also the inspiration point for a range of products like, oh I don’t know, honey made from the bees in Lebron James’ backyard, to Terrazzo bars of soap, to the best olive oil I’ve ever tasted. I’ve never met anyone like Richard, to be honest, who has both a fantastical imagination and incredible design aesthetic with his feet firmly planted in the soil. Richard grew up on a farm in Australia—from a whole family of farmers—and being in the garden is his first home. He has a deep and unabiding reverence for the natural world—Jane Goodall is one of his close friends, after all—which is part of the reason why its the foundation of his brand. He calls nature the last great luxury house, and he sees no reason why a gorgeous tomato shouldn’t get the same photographic consideration as a handbag. We had a wide-ranging conversation about creativity, abundance, pleasure, and fantasy for this special friendsgiving episode.
MORE FROM RICHARD CHRISTIANSEN:
Follow Flamingo Estate on Instagram
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“Well, the interesting thing is, I guess some of this came from writing the book too, but all of those versions of me live inside of me, right? Even the kid that was, you know, forced to kind of navigate the world as a boy and all of these different things, like that kid is still inside of me, right? The teenager slash young adult who was gay, just like regular gay, boring gay, boring gay now, it wasn't boring gay then, lives inside of me. That trans woman, at the start of my adulthood who felt like she had to live up to so many of these ideals of womanhood, you know, she lives inside of me too.”
So says Raquel Willis, a Black trans activist who just released a debut memoir, The Risk it Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation. Her book traces her evolution—from her childhood in Georgia, through her multiple coming out experiences, or unfoldings, as the title of her book suggests. Willis has served as the director of communications for Ms. Foundation for Women, executive editor of Out Magazine, and a national organizer for Transgender Law Center. She also co-founded Transgender Week of Visibility and Action and currently serves as an executive producer for iHeartMedia's Outspoken and the president of the Solutions Not Punishments Collaborative’s executive board, and is a WNBA Social Justice Council member. Our conversation today isn’t really about her accolades, it is, to quote her, more existential: We explore whether our souls are gendered, what it means to perform or play with femininity, and why sexual violence against women and girls affects us all. Let’s turn to our conversation now.
MORE FROM RAQUEL WILLIS:
The Risk it Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation
Raquel’s Website
Follow Raquel on Instagram
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Chetan: “The human design chart, is basically a match to your unique particular frequency, whether it's partially ancestral, whether it's partly what you've come to live out consciously in this lifetime. But it's there. It's all on a page. It's all on a chart. And you start recognizing how this chart works and you start going along with your type and your authority and you recognize your profile and who you naturally attract and get along with so easily and how other people see you. And all these things just can't start getting more and more distilled in your life. Describing it as a karma chart, things that have to be resolved, you start living true to your design, then all of these things just go click, click, click.
Carola: You start attracting the situations or the people the opportunities to resolve those things.
Chetan: And you're not in resistance. You're in acceptance to life.”
Human Design has a wild origin story—and so does Chetan Parkyn, who studied with Osho in India and read palms and faces before coming to Human Design, which he’s been working with for three decades. His partner, Carola Eastwood, came to Human Design through Astrology and counseling after her own dark night of the soul. The duo are steeped in the system, having performed thousands of readings and written multiple books, including Human Design: Discover the Person You Were Born to Be, The Book of Lines, and The Book of Destinies. If you’re new to Human Design, it’s a fascinating and complex system—I’d recommend going to their site, Evolutionary Human Design and quickly generating a free chart. You’ll need your birth date and time. If you’re familiar, these two will turn new pages for you.
MORE FROM CHETAN & CAROLA:
Human Design: Discover the Person You Were Born to Be
The Book of Destinies: Discover the Life You Were Born to Live
Get Your Human Design Report
Further Listening on Pulling the Thread:
PART 1, ENNEAGRAM: Courtney Smith “The Practical Magic of the Enneagram”
PART 2, ASTERIAN ASTROLOGY: Jade Luna “The Secret Astrological System”
PART 3, TAROT + KABBALAH: Mark Horn “The Mystical Roots of Tarot”
ASTROLOGY: Jennifer Freed “A Map To Your Soul”
ENNEAGRAM: Susan Olesek “The Power of the Enneagram”
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“Nature, the universe, speaks in metaphor, and one of its truest things is paradox, is holding two things that are both true at once. I remember laying in bed, I was probably 12 and before I go to bed, I'm thinking about the universe because my brain suddenly works and I'm like, how can space be infinite? Infinity makes no sense to my mind. So then I'm imagining space expand, expand, expand. And then I hit a wall, which is the edge of space. And then I go, okay, so let's say if space isn't infinite, well, if you get to the edge of space to the wall, what's on the other side of the wall? There has to be something on the other side of the wall. There can't be nothing. And so I remember thinking in that moment, those two scenarios are both impossible, but then also finiteness is impossible because there must be something on the other side of the wall. And I remember laying there being like, oh, I actually think the computer brain that we have is not designed to understand the wholeness of reality. We're stuck in a partial understanding.”
It’s likely fate that Jedidiah Jenkins is a writer—a New York Times bestseller at that. After all, his parents sold more than 12 million books in the early years of their writing careers, when they were still married, and a duo—they wrote a series of books about walking, yep walking, across America. In Jedidiah’s latest book—Mother, Nature—he retraces their journey by car, with his mother riding shotgun. He suggested this trip to his mother because he wanted to see the world through her eyes—to understand who she is by accessing who she was—and also because of a chasm that keeps them apart. See, Jedidiah is gay, while his mother believes—ardently—that homosexuality is a sin. And a choice. Mother, Nature is a beautiful and tender love story between a mother and a son that revolves around one of Jedidiah’s foundational beliefs: That he cannot excommunicate his mother, even if she might not come to his eventual marriage to a man.
MORE FROM JEDIDIAH JENKINS:
Mother, Nature: A 5,000-Mile Journey to See if a Mother and Son Can Survive Their Differences
Life Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are
Jedidiah’s Website
Follow Jedidiah on Instagram
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“One of the things that we do on Yom Kippur is we read the story of Jonah, the prophet who ran away saying, no, no, I don't want to do this job, find somebody else to do it. And I connect this to the card, the king of cups, because in the distance behind the king, you can see the seas are in the middle of a storm and there's a storm tossed ship. And there's also a great fish that has come out of the sea which reminds me of the whale that swallows Jonah, or as they say in the Bible, a great fish, and then you see the king who is on a platform in the middle of this roiling sea, and he is like a surfer. He is not being tossed and turned. He knows how to ride the wave. And I talk about the way in which we run from our destiny or what we think is our destiny, what we're afraid of in the future. We see storms coming and we try and run from them when really what we need is the knowledge to surf them and how to learn how to use the energy of the challenges in our lives to move us forward rather than to crash us into the sand.”
This is the third part in our special series on Mystical Systems—last Monday, we heard from Asterian astrologist Jade Luna, and the Monday before we heard from Courtney Smith on the Enneagram. Next week, we’ll learn about Human Design. That voice you just heard is Mark Horn, who jokes that he might be the only person who has taught at both the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Readers Studio International Tarot Conference. Yep, that’s right: Mark Horn is an Kabbalah academic who also reads Tarot—though the most remarkable point about this combination is that the two actually go together, and are indelibly linked throughout time. In Tarot readings with Mark—full disclosure, I’ve had two—you settle on a specific question, and he does your hand through the Sephirot, which is the Kabbalistic symbol for the Tree of Life. These readings are fascinating, not only for their ability to respond to the question, but also because Mark decodes the cards through stories from the Kabbalah, making it an entirely different, wholly mystical experience. Okay, lets get to our conversation.
MORE FROM MARK HORN:
Tarot and the Gates of Light: A Kabbalistic Path to Enlightenment
Mark Horn’s Website
Follow Mark on Instagram
Further Listening on Pulling the Thread:
PART 1, ENNEAGRAM: Courtney Smith “The Practical Magic of the Enneagram”
PART 2, ASTERIAN ASTROLOGY: Jade Luna “The Secret Astrological System”
ASTROLOGY: Jennifer Freed “A Map To Your Soul”
ENNEAGRAM: Susan Olesek “The Power of the Enneagram”
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“I mean, I do think that I have an abiding interest in women's bodies. In how our bodies can be determinative, how they can suggest certain identities, how they can preclude certain identities, how our bodies can, you know, hold lots of possibilities. Like, I noticed I just said the negative parts first, I think because it took me until I was in my mid forties when I finished this book and published it, to understand the possibilities of a body, the transformative possibilities of living in and living from a body and taking pleasure in my body in a way that it's not that I had never taken pleasure in it. There were certainly things I did that gave me pleasure, but there was a lot of self loathing directed at my form. So, I think that we have a lot of stories about living in these bodies as women.”
So says Susan Burton, whose voice you might recognize from the incredible New York Times and Serial podcast, The Retrievals, which explores the experience of women who underwent egg retrieval at the Yale Fertility Center with saline in lieu of fentanyl—because a nurse named Donna was replacing the drugs in service of her addiction. The series is a beautiful exploration of whose pain matters, and the type of medical gaslighting that’s far too common in the lives of women. Susan is a veteran staff member at “This American Life,” and the author of the stunning memoir, Empty, which explores her own uneasy relationship with her body. Though she’s in recovery now—a description she holds lightly—Susan spent the first few decades of her life struggling with binge eating disorder. We explore all of this in our conversation, which I’ll take you to now.
MORE FROM SUSAN BURTON:
Susan Burton’s Website
Follow Susan on Instagram
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“The more we let go of, the more we receive. I feel that I live in that light. I believe that consciously. I'm not trying to control what the universe brings to me. I believe it knows exactly what's right for me. I'm an astrologer, so I believe in the cosmos. I believe it's a conscious, not an unconscious entity, which I believe a lot of new age thinking is treating the universe like it's unconscious and doesn't really know what it's doing. I think we're still dealing with fear then. We're still collectively, I want to control things because I'm afraid of what's going on. So I view a lot of new age beliefs as being clout in that fear.”
This is the second part in our special series on Mystical Systems—last Monday, we heard from Courtney Smith on the Enneagram. Next week, we’ll learn about Tarot and Kabbalah, and the following week about Human Design. That voice you just heard is Jade Luna, who studies what he calls Asterian Astrology—he claims to be the first Westerner to reconstruct Hindu astrology into a Greco-Roman format. As you’ll hear, there are parts of the system that are familiar, and others that are wholly different—though his readings will align with what you might have heard in the past…and then some. My reading with Jade was quite wild and very specific, down to health tendencies and the structure of my brain. Our conversation today goes way beyond astrology though: Jade and I talk about our fear of darkness, why waking up from what can sometimes feel like a collective nightmare is part of the point, and the confluence of seeds that have been planted in the past that are pushing us toward responsibility. We even get into global warming and predestiny. It’s a fascinating one.
Just wanted to note that Jade and I recorded this episode at the end of August, during the Los Angeles Hurricane, and before the Israel / Hamas war.
MORE FROM JADE LUNA:
Follow Jade on Instagram
Jade’s Website
Further Listening on Pulling the Thread:
PART 1, ENNEAGRAM: Courtney Smith “The Practical Magic of the Enneagram”
ASTROLOGY: Jennifer Freed “A Map To Your Soul”
ENNEAGRAM: Susan Olesek “The Power of the Enneagram”
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“That's just like the human struggle, is how is it that our interiority and the way that we're perceived externally, how do we live with that? How does it act? Like, how do those things influence each other? Like, that's maybe the human problem. And so academia puts another layer on that, disability puts another layer on that, being an artist puts another layer on that because there is this expectation I think in those spaces to both use your identity to flag something socially to the world, but also, if you do that, then you take on all the trappings, the preconceived notions, the stereotypes of that.”
So says Chloé Cooper Jones, the author of the truly stunning memoir Easy Beauty, which unsurprisingly, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Chloé was born with sacral agenesis, a rare congenital condition that impacts her gait and her stature, and makes it at times painful to move throughout the world. Her memoir is a study in the way her condition has kept her apart, driving her toward intellectual superiority as a defense mechanism against a world that doesn’t feel like it belongs to her. In Easy Beauty, she travels the globe, reclaiming spaces and her own body as she had always refused to make it the center of her scholarship. As she travels, Chloé probes big questions, like why do we gather at places where terrible things have happened and who gets to be a philosopher? She also explores the qualities of easy versus difficult beauty, beauty we have to work for. Chloé is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and an Associate Professor at Columbia University’s MFA program. This is one of my favorite conversations to date, so let’s turn to it now.
MORE FROM CHLOÉ COOPER JONES:
Follow Chloé on Instagram
Chloé’s Website
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"Part of what happens when human beings experience difficulty is the same difficulty, the same fact pattern, can resonate very differently for different human beings. And so, part of what happens when a human being encounters a challenge is not just, Oh, you hurt me, but it's how do I make meaning of the fact that you hurt me. Is it that there's something wrong with you? Is it that there's something wrong with me? Is it we should never have been involved in the first place? Is it that I need to fight and stand up for myself so that never happens again? Is it I need to make myself really small so that never happens again? So type is about how I made meaning of a challenge that happened to me early in life and because of the way I made meaning of it, that's how my adaptive strategies arose."
Welcome to the first part of a four-episode special on metaphysical systems. These episodes don’t build on each other, per se—you can cherry pick what’s interesting to you—but they all go together. In this first set of systems, we’ll explore the Enneagram, Asterian Astrology, Human Design, and Tarot. Today, we’re kicking it off with Enneagram, specifically as interpreted by my dear friend, Courtney Smith, who is, quite frankly, one of the smartest people I know.
I heard Courtney might be one of my soulmates for years before we finally met—not only because we have the same taste in people (we have many dear mutual friends), but also because she’s an Enneagram genius, and the sort of person who is happy to talk about G.I. Gurdjieff and the Fourth Way at a cocktail party. Courtney has a robust coaching practice—individuals, executive teams, women’s groups—where she integrates the Enneagram, which she studies under Russ Hudson, along with trainings from the Conscious Leadership Group, the Alexander Technique, and the Work of Byron Katie. She also adds her own perception and raging intelligence. Courtney is brilliant, particularly at assessing systems on both the micro and macro level, and she’s also exceptionally warm, excavating all of our human foibles and patterns for the treasures of promised growth. My favorite part of Courtney though is that she plays against type: I love finding the mystical and metaphysical in a woman who has a degree in mathematical economics from Wake Forest, a masters in Public Health from New York University, and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Courtney also worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Co. Okay, let’s get to our conversation.
MORE FROM COURTNEY SMITH:
Courtney Smith’s Website
Further Listening on Pulling the Thread:
ASTROLOGY: Jennifer Freed “A Map To Your Soul”
ENNEAGRAM: Susan Olesek “The Power of the Enneagram”
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“You cannot differentiate when you never fight. Fighting is also a tool for differentiation, for having two people be able to breed and grow inside a relationship. If all you try to do is avoid any friction, any conflict, and merge into one, then there is a relationship of two halves, not of two holes, basically, to put it in simple terms. So some people find it very scary. Some people find it scary because there was uncontrolled fighting where they came from. And nobody could disagree without the whole thing going on fire. So there is good reasons for why people have learned not to fight or not to stand up for themselves or not to argue or not to say no, for some people simply saying no is experienced as a declaration of war. It's a continuum for those who are avoiding fighting and who are scared of it and reluctant to engage with it are basically said to themselves, I will never be like that person, my mother, my father, my grandparents, whoever it was, and then hold it in and hold it in.”
Esther Perel’s voice doesn’t need an introduction—nor does her work. Esther is inarguably one of the most important therapists working today, pioneering a much deeper understanding of how couples function—and ultimately how couples can thrive. While Esther has written multiple bestselling books, Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence and The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity, and made an excellent intimacy-creating conversation card deck that will liven up any dinner party, I am most smitten with her podcast, “Where Should We Begin?” which brings listeners into real therapy sessions with real people—people, I’ll caveat, who are not her ongoing clients. Not only do you get to hear Esther’s brain work, but you get to listen as couples engage in arguments and issues that will likely feel…familiar, meaning that the show is an antidote to feeling slightly less alone in the world. Esther’s newest project is something that we all need, in every sphere of our lives: She is teaching a one-hour masterclass in conflict, including what’s beneath the content that we fight about everyday. Hint: Our fights are not actually about the dishes, they’re about power, control, respect, and foundational questions like: Do I matter? Do you value me? Conflict is the substance of today’s conversation, which we’ll turn to now. You can find the course on turning conflict into connection on Esther Perel’s website, or in the show notes. Here’s Esther.
MORE FROM ESTHER PEREL:
Turning Conflict into Connection Course
Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence
The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity
Where Should We Begin Podcast
Where Should We Begin Conversation Cards
Esther Perel’s Website
Follow Esther on Instagram
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This is a channeled transmission of Yeshua, from Thursday, October 12, 2023.
This was part of an online study group for my book, ON OUR BEST BEHAVIOR. Originally, Carissa and I were planning this for August—three days of discussion, no Yeshua transmission—but then Carissa asked to push it to these dates in October, and told me that Yeshua wanted to do a transmission about beauty. Who am I to argue with Yeshua?
And who, you might be wondering, is Yeshua? That was my question when I first met Carissa in January 2020. Yeshua is Jesus, or Christ Consciousness. Yeshua was Jesus’s name in Aramaic. Carissa is a forensic medium—one of the finest I’ve ever encountered—and in December 2019, Yeshua pushed into her channel and she became a full-body medium, which means that he knocks out her consciousness and uses her body and voice to talk. It’s strange, undeniably.
If you’ve read Jesus’s aphorisms or words in the New Testament, this is what you’ll hear: As one friend said, Yeshua is like a rapper. There’s word play, loop-de-loops, and so much wisdom, applicable to every single day. Sometimes he talks about history—his parents, Jewish law, the prophecies, Mary Magdalene. He was very much a Jew, which history likes to forget, though he frequently says that he came not to change Jewish law but to evolve it, to make it more accessible.
He talks about shadow directly, but always offers that shadow is space, waiting to be filled with light. Typically, he talks about shadow versus light as unrealized versus realized—realized being what we see with our “real eyes.”
He also talks a lot about the void. He talks about the Friday, when he was crucified, as the death day. Saturday is when you move from the tomb to the womb. And Sunday is the resurrection. We all do this all the time in our lives—when we die to relationships, jobs, beliefs. His point: You can’t skip the Saturday, the Sabbath. You must accept the full cycle of life.
You’ll also hear mention of the vertical and the horizontal: The vertical is our access to divine, spirit, the universe, however you perceive energy. The horizontal is our daily lives. It’s our job to spill the vertical into the horizontal.
In my experience, Yeshua’s words are always about breaking polarities and binaries—putting you in a position to re-examine what you’ve come to accept wholesale or believe. Because, interestingly, he’s not at all interested in telling any of us what to believe. He wants instead to open our awareness and perception so that we can love more deeply. He wants to give us new lenses through which to perceive the world, including the sacredness of both life and death.
The transmission begins with Yeshua guiding a 20 minute meditation. Please do the meditation, and not while you’re driving. Transmissions are mental exercises, certainly—I take pages and pages of notes—but often they can be a full-body experience, so listen with your feet on the ground.
One note from Carissa: “The Transmission is the copyrighted intellectual property of Sacred Spirit Illumination and not to be reproduced or used, in part or sum, without permission. However, folks are of course welcome to share the link to the Pulling the Thread podcast with any and all people. We welcome and honor discussion surrounding this important Transmission.”
MORE FROM CARISSA SCHUMACHER & YESHUA
The Freedom Transmissions: A Pathway to Peace
Carissa Schumacher’s Website
Carissa Schumacher Episode 1: “My Spiritual Teacher”
Carissa Schumacher Episode 2: “Why Do We Suffer?”
Carissa Schumacher Episode 3: “Understanding Spiritual Power”
On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to be Good
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Yes, it’s a Monday and not a Thursday, but today, I’m announcing something special. Kicking off next week, we’re going to host occasional, short series that are focused on a tangly or complicated theme—big concepts that require multiple voices and perspectives to put them into proper context. We’re kicking off next Monday with a look at Mystical Systems, or you could call them Personality Systems: Enneagram, Astrology, Tarot, and Human Design. Some people might think of these ways of understanding the world as silly, while others will stake their lives—and sometimes every big decision—on them. I’m somewhere in between: I think there’s nothing more powerful than hearing about yourself, and how your life likely unfolded, from someone who knows nothing more about you than your birth sign. To me, it signals that there’s a much deeper plan at play. I’ll see you next week, meanwhile you can get started with the two episodes below.
ASTROLOGY: Jennifer Freed “A Map To Your Soul”
ENNEAGRAM: Susan Olesek “The Power of the Enneagram”
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“I just think that never being the one to say no to yourself is so powerful for so many reasons. One, the amount of yeses that you get will shock and surprise you. The idea behind the philosophy is that somebody else can absolutely say no to you. Like, you can go try to get a literary agent, you can get a million rejections, you can go try to get a job, you can ask for a raise, you can get a million rejections. But the amount of people, especially since I've shared this online, who write to me and say that they got yeses is so cool. Like yeses they never dreamed of. There's so many people I know who've gotten raises, who've gotten their dream homes, who've gotten their dream jobs, who've moved across the country, who've asked out people that they're now married to, which is so cool. And it's because they went out in search of the no.”
For the past decade, Liz Moody has been building a steady foothold in the world of wellness—first, for her work developing recipes. In recent years, her empire has expanded rapidly as she’s become a point of distillation for many of us who want to know…what’s what in a sea of overwhelm. Liz has a genius point for simplifying an onslaught of information to a few salient points—easy shifts that can lead to meaningful change. She does this on The Liz Moody Podcast, and also in her new book, 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success. She was only half-joking when she offered that this is an old-school bathroom book—the sort of guide you can pick up for a few minutes at a time and gain some insight, or return to time again, like why temptation bundling is wise, or it’s good to talk with your hands. Okay, let’s get to our conversation.
MORE FROM LIZ MOODY:
100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success
Healthier Together: Recipes for Two
Liz Moody’s Website
Follow Liz on Instagram and TikTok
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“We think that money is just going to solve the problem. We think that we can get rid of the fear by making more money. We can get rid of the fear by having more money. If only someone just gave me a million dollars, well, I mean, I wish that for everybody, but I would be lying if I said that that's going to solve everything. You have to also recognize some of the other resources that you have that I think are equally quantifiable as richness. These are rich things, things like your health, the measure of your health, the measure of your relationships, the measure of your time, the measure of your ambition. All of these things are assets and when you can remember that and start to put those things into play again and leverage them, that's when you realize that you've been focused on this fear of money of not enoughness and you've been focusing maybe too much on the actual money and not so much on everything else that plays a big role in your ability to say I'm wealthy.”
So says Farnoosh Torabi, host of the podcast So Money, and the author of numerous books, including the just-released A Healthy State of Panic: Follow Your Fears to Build Wealth, Crush Your Career, and Win at Life. Farnoosh got her start as a financial journalist, though she quickly came to understand that understanding money and investing was really just a cover for a desire to understand life…and all the animating impulses that drive us toward safety and security. When we talk about money, we’re talking about so much more than dollars and cents. Money is one of the most essential energies alive in our culture: It says a lot about who we are, collectively and individually, and what we value. It’s these types of underlying emotional states that are at the root of Farnoosh’s work, including her just released book, which is an exploration of all the different types of fear that guide and refine our days, whether it’s Fear of Failure or Fear of Exposure or Fear of Loss. Okay, let’s get to our conversation.
MORE FROM FARNOOSH TORABI:
A Healthy State of Panic: Follow Your Fears to Build Wealth, Crush Your Career, and Win at Life
When She Makes More: The Truth About Navigating Love and Life for a New Generation of Women
You’re So Money: Live Rich Even When You’re Not
Elise’s Conversation on Farnoosh’s Podcast
Farnoosh’s Website
Follow Farnoosh on Instagram
Subscribe to Farnoosh’s Newsletter
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“Everything we heal, we mature, we develop in ourselves, is never just for ourselves only. It's always also eco-systemically relevant. So if somebody becomes more open, it will affect all the relationships that person has in life. So all the relationships will begin to enjoy or benefit from the fact that I grow, everybody that knows me benefits from my growth because it will nourish all those relationships. So we are always ecosystemic and individual at the same time.”
So Says Thomas Hübl, who I’m thrilled to welcome back to Pulling the Thread—our first conversation, entitled “Processing Our Collective Past,” is one of my favorites to date, although today’s conversation doesn’t disappoint either. In Thomas’s new book Attuned: Practicing Interdepence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our World he explores the idea of being present, or creating the internal capacity to host the experiences of others. He mentions this line from Fares Boustanji which sums it up: “To get in contact with the other, you have to be in contact with yourself.”
Thomas Hübl is a spiritual teacher, but his particular genius point is holding space for large groups, groups that can then begin to process and transmute dark, dense energy—energy that’s often held by traumatized culture and places. He has worked all over the world, because this stuck energy is…everywhere: And when we fail to acknowledge and move it, we’re stuck, repeating karmic cycles.
In Attuned, Hubl explains what we can all gain from getting in touch with our ability to host the experiences of others. As he writes: “When I speak to groups or before an audience at an event, it is not enough that I show up knowing what I wish to say. To be effective, I must be in dialogue with the whole, and therefore aware of the group or the audience as a dynamic system. Only noticing what is happening for me is not enough; I must be able to accurately feel with and adapt to the needs of my listeners. I need to clearly sense my participants’ degree of availability and curiosity. I also need to perceive whether and when I am being heard and received—or what else might be needed or present. The clarifying of the relational matrix comes with expanded awareness and offers an acceleration of our coming-into-relation. This is the leading edge of communication and leadership, and it requires deeper awareness of the intersubjective space from all.” This sounds like something we all need.
MORE FROM THOMAS HÜBL:
Thomas’s First Pulling the Thread Conversation: Processing Our Collective Past
Attuned: Practicing Interdepence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our World
Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds
Thomas Hübl’s Website
Follow Thomas on Instagram
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“But it's also okay not to get it right. You know, people mistakenly think that they want perfection, say you're playing golf and you wish you could get a hole in one every time you swung the golf club. Well, no. There'd be no game there. You know, that if you want to do something where you're always winning, play tic tac toe against a five year old, four year old. So on some level we know we don't want that. And the problem is that much of school teaches us these absolute answers. We're graded. Most tests are designed to find out what you don't know rather than what you do know, which I think is a big mistake. So, we end up with a world where we think there are winners and losers.”
If you’ve heard about a fascinating study that explores the power of the mind over the body, most likely it emerged out of the lab of Harvard Professor Ellen Langer—in fact, in 1981, Langer became the first woman ever to be tenured in psychology at Harvard. There, she studies the illusion of control, decision-making, aging, and mindfulness theory. She’s responsible for the Counterclockwise study, published in 2009, where aging men recovered their youth, and Alia Crum’s famous study on chambermaids and their understanding of their own health and wellness, got its start with Langer as well. She has a fascinating mind, in part because she is always, always willing to question our underlying assumptions about where we have control and where we don’t. Now here’s an important caveat: Ellen Langer is the mother of modern mindfulness—but she is not talking about meditation. No disrespect to meditators, but Langer is focused instead on attention and the power of thought on the physical body, not so much on controlling or emptying the mind. She is a force, and I was so honored to invite her onto Pulling the Thread. Let’s get to our conversation.
MORE FROM ELLEN LANGER:
The Mindful Body: Thinking Our Way to Chronic Health
Counter Clockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility
On Becoming an Artist: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity
Ellen Langer’s Website
Follow Ellen on Instagram
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“I think a lot of us embody this, what I call the paradox of the courageous coward, right? Like, we're capable of doing these things that are bonkers. Like they take a tremendous amount of courage or maybe experience, you could call it, but we'll call it courage, speaking in front of a panel, going live on television, you know, with me, swimming with sharks, going into the eyes of hurricanes, going to war many times, marooning myself in weird places. And yet we have this other side that is so fragile, so gossamer thin and on our level to tolerate anxiety that, you know, it can break and then snap at any moment.”
So says Matt Gutman, ABC Chief National Correspondent and the author of No Time to Panic: How I Curbed My Anxiety and Conquered a Lifetime of Panic Attacks. Matt is a new friend, and I’ve loved getting to know him and his deeply feeling heart, as well as the way he so perfectly captures this idea of being a “courageous coward.” He’s not afraid to step into a war zone, and yet he’s felt incapacitated by anxiety—taken out at the knees by panic—which makes him the perfect encapsulation of the binary of modern masculinity. Quite simply, the world is too much for any of us to confidently swashbuckle our way through. I commend Matt for saying it. He wrote this book because he suffered a panic attack on air during a heightened moment of news—one of those moments where all of our eyes were turned toward our TVs—and he ended up being put on a temporary leave. It was in that moment that he recognized he needed help and healing, as this panic attack—though public—was not a solitary event. It was happening to him all the time. In No Time to Panic he explains how hard he went to work at healing, at uncovering what was at the heart of his anxiety, which is at the center of our conversation today.
MORE FROM MATT GUTMAN:
No Time to Panic: How I Curbed My Anxiety and Conquered a Lifetime of Panic Attacks
Matt Gutman’s Stories at ABC
Follow Matt on Instagram
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“It’s, you know, all but hardwired to resist failure, to not want to be blamed. You know, it's an instinct that's very, very powerful because we don't want to be rejected. We don't want to be thought less well of, which is why, you know, the things that I write about and let's face it, organizations that are truly world class, whether it's a scientific laboratory or, you know, an innovation department, or you know, a perfectly running assembly line, they are not natural places, right? They're not just left to their own devices, humans will create places like that. No, they're really hard work, good design, good leadership, kind of daily willingness to kind of stretch and grow independently and together. And the short way to put that is it takes effort to create a learning environment. It really does, but it can be done.”
So says Amy Edmonson, the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School. Early in her career, she worked as the Chief Engineer for architect and inventor Buckminster Fuller, which started her on the road to reimagining how we’re all impacted by the world around us. She then became the Director of Research at Pecos River Learning Centers, where she designed change programs in large companies. Now she’s an academic, where she focuses on how teams function and evolve, along with the essential dynamics of collaboration required in environments that are informed by uncertainty and ambiguity. What sort of environments are those? Almost all work environments. A significant point of her research and focus is the necessity of psychological safety in teamwork and innovation—effectively, how do you create an environment where people feel like they can fail in the right direction, where they’re learning and taking risks toward evolution and growth even when they might not get it right the first few—or few hundred—times? This is the focus of her latest book, Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well.
MORE FROM AMY EDMONSON:
Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well
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“I’m really hopeful that we're evolving past our very hyper individualistic understanding of like, my health, wealth and happiness is the great goal. And that we're trying to fold in a more collective, and I hope, generous sense that like our lives will require love. Our lives will require courage and interdependence, you know, and it's probably going to never fall along any of our demographic, political, religious, sociocultural dreams that advertising companies have for us, but instead it's gonna require a very collective sense of what can we become?”
It is not without a dose of irony that professor Kate Bowler—a prolific historian and author about the Prosperity Gospel—was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer at the age of 35. After all, her work had revolved around parsing a spiritual point-of-view that if you were a good person, a good Christian, good things would invariably happen…like wealth and health. From her diagnosis, she wrote a bestselling book: Everything Happens for a Reason—and Other Lies I’ve Loved and added an entirely new dimension to her scholarship at Duke. She’s now in remission and the host of the Everything Happens podcast, and has written several more bestsellers, including books of devotionals like The Lives We Actually Have and Good Enough. In today’s conversation, we covered a lot of ground—the inherent goodness of people, when we rise to the occasion, and whether evil as an absolute exists. Okay, let’s get to our conversation.
MORE FROM KATE BOWLER:
The Everything Happens Podcast
Everything Happens for a Reason—and Other Lies I’ve Loved
Kate Bowler’s Website
Follow Kate on Instagram
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“Sometimes it feels like empathy, sympathy, sorrow, grief are scarce resources, because we certainly treat them like that. And if someone is feeling too much for you, they are not feeling enough for me. If somebody is comforting this person at the funeral because they are weeping the loudest, not because they were closest to this person, but because funerals bring up all kinds of feelings about ourselves, our relationships to other people. I was unhinged at a funeral for my mom's friend's husband. I was supposed to be on my second date with Aaron. This man died of brain cancer and I was choking, crying, imagining my own dad dying, not knowing that this same disease is growing in the man I'm about to go on a second date with. Not knowing that in four years I will be at my dad's funeral. And then we're always checking up on each other. Just this is a human thing, right? To check up on each other, to see how other people are doing it, to take your eyes off your own paper to see how you are doing and what kind of attention you're getting or all these things, all these comparisons, they all come down to like, does mine count? Yeah. Does mine count? The thing is they all count and they're all completely different.”
So says Nora McInerny, one of the brightest lights in my life, and a guide to many, many others, thanks to her hit podcast, “Terrible, Thanks for Asking.” Nora is quick to point out one of the deep and painful ironies in her life, which is that she wouldn’t be our guide if she hadn’t really been through it—and lost so much. In the span of a few months, Nora miscarried, her father died from cancer, and her first husband, Aaron, died from glioblastoma when he was 35. Alone with their baby, Nora began the journey back to life, using this new, deeply unwanted reality, as the ground from which to plow a path for the rest of us—a path that’s often sad, sometimes hilarious, and always wise. In the early days of her loss, she founded a Facebook group called “The Hot Young Widows Club” and started a podcast called “Terrible, Thanks for Asking” as a meeting ground for other travelers who also found themselves improbably devastated and lost. She also gave an incredible TED Talk: “We don’t ‘move on’ from grief. We move forward with it.” In the intervening years, she remarried, birthed another child, and written a roster of hilarious and moving books—It’s Okay to Laugh: (Crying is Okay, Too), No Happy Endings, Bad Vibes Only, and more. She also started a company called Feelings & Co., where she attends to all of our messy emotions: Besides the main podcast, she now produces a short, daily show—”It’s Going To Be Okay,” and “The Terrible Reading Club.” Shameless plug, but she featured On Our Best Behavior and interviewed me on her show. Nora is one of my favorite conversation partners because she’s not afraid to go there—and make jokes while doing it. Okay, let’s get to our conversation.
MORE FROM NORA MCINERNY
It’s Okay to Laugh: (Crying is Okay, Too)
Nora’s Website
Follow Nora on Instagram and TikTok
Nora’s Substack
Nora’s TED Talk
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“It's okay to not be perfect. I don't wanna be judging myself for my imperfections. I actually wanna be accepting myself for my imperfections. And that was really liberating actually. You know, I think so many women, we grow up thinking we are supposed to be perfect. And we internalize, you know, excelling at everything and being good at everything curating our appearance and, you know, being the perfect mom and doing everything right and doing everything right and doing everything right. And just the realization that I was like so over that and feeling like it was actually getting in the way of me having a more authentic understanding of who I was. That’s when I think a corner really started to be turned.”
So Says Florence Williams, the author of The Nature Fix and Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey, which is a beautiful exploration of the end of her marriage—and its impact on her health and her soul. Florence met her husband in college and had never lived alone—much less alone as a middle-aged woman. Their divorce and her resulting heartbreak turned her upside-down, and filled her with an incapacitating amount of anxiety and fear. The resulting memoir offers a map as she returns to herself. Ever the science writer, this isn’t just a treatise on her feelings of rejection and loss—this is also a thoroughly researched guide to the implications of heartbreak on our hearts, full of learnings for all of us.
MORE FROM FLORENCE WILLIAMS:
Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey
The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative
Florence’s Website
Follow Florence on Instagram
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“Energy doesn't dissipate. You know it moves, but it doesn't die. And the big bang that happened 15.7 billion years ago, all that energy is still here. We are it like we are a version of it. We are an instance of that near Infinite Force and every atom that existed then exists now. And some of those are us. Like we are riding this cosmic wave. We're like surfers on a cosmic wave, billions of years in the making. And so my atoms were at the Big Bang.They're also in the future, right? Their time doesn't, in this kind of math, you can almost take time out of it. It's just being, we just, we are, we are. And so if we can tap into maybe just symbolically, but maybe actually, I don't know, but certainly the value symbolically is enough for me to take the leap to say, The things we want to do, the things we aspire to, we are, we can, we have, and there's something really powerful in that. To me, that's not like spiritual bypassing, like, oh, just manifesting one, but it's just like a deeper level of truth. We can interact with trees in ways that we're just starting to.”
My guest today is Baratunde Thurston, a true multi-hyphenate whose journey has taken him from stand-up comedy stages to the heart of political and social activism. He's the author of the critically acclaimed, New York Times Best Seller How to Be Black; an Emmy-nominated host and executive producer of the PBS television series America Outdoors; and the creator and host of the podcast How to Citizen.
His mission? Tell a better story of us—challenging the status quo and fostering meaningful conversations about the intersections of race, technology, democracy, and climate. The stories we have inherited are too small for us, he tells us, urging us to nurture stories that are bigger, bolder, and better. Our conversation today touches on the concept of citizening—as a verb—as Baratunde suggests that we are capable of more than we have been asked to do and gives us the steps to better citizen. We discuss the great potential and great concerns surrounding AI and the fine line between enhancement and disconnection through mechanization. We can heal people, landscapes, even society as a whole, he tells us—but technology alone will not get us there—we must tap into something that we have known but chosen to forget—how to live.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM BARATUNDE THURSTON:
Read How to Be Black
Baratunde’s writings at Puck
Listen to his TED Talk: How to Deconstruct Racism, One Headline at a Time
Explore Baratunde’s Website
Listen to the How to Citizen podcast on APPLE and SPOTIFY
Follow him on INSTAGRAM and MASTODON
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“Acceptance is kind of a choice. We say, I accept this. That's the way they are. Surrender feels different. It feels like, we're not just distancing ourself from something, but we're expanding around the thing that was giving us trouble. So it doesn't have such a stranglehold on us, in a way. And with acceptance, comes a gateway to something appreciably deeper, which is the possibility of transformation, the possibility of using the situation that we find ourself in, as if it’s a step in our growth and our further discovery of who we are.”
So says the enduringly wise Buddhist teacher Frank Ostaseski, a leading figure in the contemplative care for the dying, having co-founded the acclaimed Zen Hospice Center. In 2004, he established the Metta Institute, which offers innovative training and education for compassionate end-of-life care. His book, The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully, explores the wisdom that emerges from embracing mortality, which guides our conversation today. Frank invites us to consider how we approach the small endings that occur in our everyday life—how do you say goodbye?—along with the practice of listening intently. Ultimately, though, our conversation circles what it means to surrender to circumstances we cannot control.
MORE FROM FRANK OSTASESKI:
The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully
Frank’s Website
The Metta Institute
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“A loving being isn't domineering and a loving being is not going to judge you and certainly isn't going to test you. A loving being, a loving energy, and you can call that energy God, or again, it doesn't matter to me what people call it, when you call in forces of love, it is forces of love. What does love want? Love wants for you, what you want for yourself. Love wants to support you in ways that are in grace and patience. And so when you call it, it's coming in and saying, how can I help you? What do you need? How can I support you in the light? It's not gonna say, oh, you know what? I know you really wanted this, but too bad. But oftentimes, you know, we think that we get tested by the divine universe. No, we don't. We get tested by the shadow. Are you gonna come and agree with me again, that you're less than? Are you gonna come and agree with me again that you should be afraid? And that's when the answer has to say no. I'm actually gonna agree with the fact that I can trust in my own capability because I'm a divine being of the light. And when I tune into those energies, there's a whole force field of energy that is coming and welcoming me, and also joining me in my intention.”
So says Jakki Leonardini, a highly clairvoyant energy healer. I originally met Jakki through my friend Kasey Crown, a trauma therapist—the duo host WellSoul Workshops several times a year and while I’ve never been to one, friends tell me they are actually life-changing, because the combination of Kasey and Jakki’s wisdom and expertise addresses each person, on every level. When you work with Jakki, she explains that we all have intuitive gifts, and that they’re a skill and not a gift. And yes, we may live in very material bodies, with very complex minds, but we’re all animated by energy—energy that’s highly influenced by the world. Understanding this is the first step toward keeping ourselves well.
Over the years, I’ve worked with Jakki a lot on the idea of “fear” and how this animating and very human idea gets its power—she has a lot to say about this, as you’ll hear in today’s conversation. Energy healing is very nebulous and confusing, but hopefully Jakki’s framework will give a context to make it all more palpable, and easy to access in our lives. She’s even designed an app called My Soul Vibe, which uses the quality of your voice to track your energy—it’s pretty fascinating.
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Jakki’s Website
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“There's a deep need for all of us to grow up, like we are now being handed tools of the gods, right? And so we have to grow up and we have to mature. And so those levels of deep heroic altruism that in the past may be reserved for the great saints and sages of the past, this will have to be democratized. It'll have to become something that is accessible to everybody. And so to do that, we're talking about a trait development, which means it has to become permanent. And so altered states is one thing, but an altered trait is a whole other process. And in order to have altered an altered trait developmentally, in order to really grow and then stay there, which is what you and I did, like you and I, we grew when we were five years old and we grew to 10, and then we grew to like 12 and 18. We went through completely different worlds. But the truth is, most adults, we plateau and most people haven't probably grown through any other worlds for a decade, two decades, three or four decades.”
So says psychologist John Churchill, co-director of Karuna Mandala and co-founder of Samadhi Integral, which is focused on consciousness, human potential, and psychedelic integration. John does both initiatives with his wife, fellow therapist Nicole. In his early life, John became a Buddhist monk at Samye Ling Monastery in Scotland—his book, Becoming Buddha, explores paradigm shifts of the dharmic wheel and serves as a gateway to integrating Buddhist theory and teachings into western psychology.
In today’s conversation, we talk about the dire need for our culture to evolve and grow up, the level of consciousness at which we’re creating technological advances like artificial intelligence, and the journey to self-realization. With vast expertise and experience, he invites us to explore our individual development and existence within the larger organism of our universe. This is a heady episode, as John has a fascinating brain—fair warning that you might need to listen more than once. And I highly recommend reading Ken Wilber if the topics we discuss stoke your mind—I’d start with A Brief History of Everything. John has studied and worked with Ken for decades.
MORE FROM JOHN CHURCHILL:
Becoming Buddha: Buddhist Contemplative Psychology in a Western Context
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"So trauma can get stuck in our tissues.You know, our emotions can actually be stuck in our tissues because in a way, our fascia is actually holding and remembering everything that we experience in our lives, because it's this living matrix. And so maybe people don't realize it and it might be in the subconscious mind, but when you're laying on the table and you drop into parasympathetic state of the nervous system and your, your subconscious mind is more available and your body is more available to actually be present and to let things come to the surface, it's incredible what people will let go of, and they didn't even realize it was there, and then all of a sudden the pain is released or they can start having an orgasm. Or they are just laughing and giggling. I mean, just like energy or like they're undulating. Or they're vibrating or they're, you know, like something like, just energy coming up and releasing. It's such a beautiful thing."
So says Lauren Roxburgh, who has been working with fascia long before fascia even became a word we know. A life-long athlete, Lauren knew from a young age that she had a different type of intelligence—less verbal, more kinesthetic. She can feel things with her hands and sense how and where a body is out of alignment—it’s quite stunning to behold. Lauren applies her genius to the fascia, the web of tissue—or matrix, as she calls it—that wraps around our muscles and organs. She believes that the fascia is the energetic web of our bodies, the sense organ that connects our intuition to how we move. She argues that it holds movement patterns and emotional patterns, that our trauma can get stuck or blocked in these tissues. After working with Lauren for a decade, I think she might just be right.
MORE FROM LAUREN ROXBURGH:
Website: https://laurenroxburgh.com/
Lauren's Studio:https://alignedlifestudio.com
Instagram:https://instagram.com/loroxburgh
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“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.
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“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.
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“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:
MORE FROM JOAN HALIFAX:
Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet
Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Face of Death
Explore JOAN'S WEBSITE
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“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 Pleasure
Emily’s Website
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“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 World
Bruce’s Newsletter
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“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:
Her TED Talk: “Why I Must Come Out”
Follow Geena on Instagram
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“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 Whiteness
I’m Still Here: Adapted for Young Readers
Austin’s Website
Austin’s Newsletter
Follow Austin on Instagram
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“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 Good
Follow Elise on Instagram
Elise’s Substack Newsletter
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“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.
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Stan Tatkin’s Website
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“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 Listening
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“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:
Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hook-Ups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity
Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape
Don’t Call Me a Princess: Essays on Girls, Women, Sex and Life
Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of New Girlie-Girl Culture
Peggy Orenstein’s Website
Follow Peggy on Instagram and Twitter
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“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 World
Happier with Gretchen Rubin Podcast
Gretchen’s Website & Newsletter
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“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 Beautiful
Maggie’s Website
Maggie’s Substack Newsletter
Follow Maggie on Instagram
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“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 Life
Awaken Your Inner Genius: Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary
Ozan Varol’s Website
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“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 Clock
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
Inhabiting the Negative Space
The Bureau of Suspended Objects
Jenny Odell’s Website
Follow her On Instagram and Twitter
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“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 Realm
The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind—A New Perspective on Christ and His Message
The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three: Discovering the Radical Truth at the Heart of Christianity
The Meaning of Mary Magdalene: Discovering the Woman at the Heart of Christianity
Cynthia’s Website
The Center for Action and Contemplation
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“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 Inequality
Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong—and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story
Superior: The Return of Race Science
Watch her 2019 BBC Documentary: Eugenics: Science's Greatest Scandal
Follow Angela on Instagram
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“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:
MORE FROM KATHERINE MAY:
Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age
Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
The Electricity of Every Living Thing: A Woman's Walk in the Wild to Find Her Way Home
Explore KATHERINE'S WEBSITE
Listen to her podcast, How We Live Now, on APPLE PODCASTS or SPOTIFY
Follow her on INSTAGRAM
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“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:
MORE FROM TARA SCHUSTER:
Glow in the F*cking Dark: Simple Practices to Heal Your Soul, from Someone Who Learned the Hard Way
Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies: And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life, from Someone Who's Been There
Explore TARA'S WEBSITE
Follow Tara on INSTAGRAM
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“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 Relationships
Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself
Follow Nedra on Instagram and Twitter
Sign up for Nedra’s Newsletter
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“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 Friendship
Books for Living: Some Thoughts on Reading, Reflecting, and Embracing Life
Send: Why People Email So Badly and How To Do It Better
Will Schwalbe’s Website
Follow Will on Twitter and Instagram
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“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 Joy
Explore Priscilla's Website
Follow her on Twitter and Instagram
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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 Substack
My Instagram
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“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 SCHUMACHER
The Freedom Transmissions: A Pathway to Peace, Yeshua as channeled by Carissa Schumacher
Carissa’s Website
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“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 Art
Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves
James’s Website
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“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:
MORE FROM PICO IYER:
The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise and other books by Pico Iyer
Pico’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)
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“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:
MORE FROM LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN LEE:
Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth
Seasons 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 Podcast
Check out The Golden Sufi Center and Working with Oneness
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“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 Belonging
The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are
Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation
Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence
The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind
Follow Dan on Instagram
Dan’s Website
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“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 You
Follow Jules on Instagram
Jules’s Website
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“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 Wounds
Thomas’s Website
Follow Thomas on Instagram
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“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:
MORE FROM ALEXANDRA GRANT:
Love: A Visual History of the grantLOVE Project
Explore X Artists' Books
Check out her website and the grantLOVE Project
Follow Alexandra on Instagram
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“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:
MORE FROM LYNNE TWIST:
Living a Committed Life: Finding Freedom and Fulfillment in a Purpose Larger Than Yourself
The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life
Check out Lynne’s Soul of Money Institute and The Pachamama Alliance
Follow Lynne on Instagram and Twitter
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“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:
MORE FROM MELISSA URBAN:
The Book of Boundaries: Set the Limits That Will Set You Free
Check out Melissa's Website
Follow Melissa on Instagram and Twitter
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“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:
Jessi’s podcast, Hello Monday
Follow Jessi on LinkedIn and Instagram
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“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:
MORE FROM DR. RICHARD SCHWARTZ:
Books by Dr. Richard Schwartz:
WATCH: Dr. Richard Schwartz Explains Internal Family Systems (IFS)
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"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:
MORE FROM CHELSEY & THOSH:
The Seven Circles: Indigenous Teachings for Living Well
Check out their initiative: Well for Culture
Follow Thosh on Instagram
Follow Chelsey on Instagram
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“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:
MORE FROM TEMPLE GRANDIN:
Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions
The Autistic Brain: Helping Different Kinds of Minds Succeed
Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism (Expanded Edition)
Visit Temple's Website
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“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:
MORE FROM DOLLY CHUGH:
A More Just Future: Psychological Tools for Reckoning with Our Past and Driving Social Change
The 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 Talk
Check out Dolly's Website
Follow her on Twitter and Instagram
“The Truth About Rosa Parks And Why It Matters To Your Diversity Initiative,” Forbes
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“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:
MORE FROM JULIA BOORSTIN:
When Women Lead: What They Achieve, Why They Succeed, and How We Can Learn from Them
Follow Julia on Instagram and Twitter
DIVE DEEPER:
“How the VC Pitch Process Is Failing Female Entrepreneurs,” Harvard Business Review
“The Remarkable Power of Hope,” Psychology Today
“Language Bias in Performance Feedback,” Textio 2022 Study
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“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:
MORE FROM JENNIFER FREED:
A Map to Your Soul: Using the Astrology of Fire, Earth, Air, and Water to Live Deeply and Fully
Use Your Planets Wisely: Master Your Ultimate Cosmic Potential with Psychological Astrology
Check out Jennifer Freed's Website
Follow her on Instagram and Twitter
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“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:
MORE FROM JOHN & JULIE GOTTMAN:
The Love Prescription: Seven Days to More Intimacy, Connection, and Joy
The Gottman Institute - A Research-Based Approach to Relationships
Gottman Relationship Quiz - How Well Do You Know Your Partner?
Find a Gottman Trained Therapist
Follow the Gottman Institute on Twitter and Instagram
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“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 Uncertainty
Estelle’s Website
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“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:
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 Maté
Explore Dr. Maté's Website
Follow him on Twitter and Instagram
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“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:
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 Talking
Listen to the Bittersweet playlist on Spotify or Apple Music
Watch Susan’s TEDTalk: The hidden power of sad songs and rainy days
Follow 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
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“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:
MORE FROM OLIVER BURKEMAN:
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking
Explore Oliver's Website
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“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:
MORE FROM LAURA LYNNE JACKSON:
The Light Between Us: Stories from Heaven. Lessons for the Living.
Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe
Follow Laura on Instagram and Twitter
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“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.
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“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:
MORE FROM JESSICA NORDELL:
The End of Bias: A Beginning: The Science and Practice of Overcoming Unconscious Bias
Explore more of Jessica's writing on unconscious and implicit bias
Subscribe to Jessica's newsletter: Who We Are To Each Other
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“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:
MORE FROM SUSAN OLESEK:
Both Sides of the Bars | Susan Olesek | TEDxWashingtonSquare
DIG DEEPER:
RHETI: The Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator
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“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:
MORE FROM SATYA BYOCK:
Quarterlife: The Search for Self in Early Adulthood
Are You a Meaning Type or Stability Type? — Take the Quiz
The Salomé Institute of Jungian Studies
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“So natural intelligence has this ability to bring order when we allow it to. The reason that we don't see it so often in operation in human systems is because we are constantly interrupting those patterns. So that human intervention is constantly getting in the way of and disrupting the natural order. Therefore, every time it tries to express itself or reveal itself, we come in again and we see that most clearly, you know, during the pandemic, here, I think many places around the world, it happened here in the UK that how nature was able to establish itself very, very quickly within a week of the first lockdown. You know, we were seeing dolphins in the Thames.”
So says Jeddah Mali, the founder and director of Intelligent Life, which is a model and mapping system for understanding our own lives as well as the larger universe. If it sounds heady that’s because it is—but it’s also a stunning articulation of collective human values and the ways that we each show up, as well as the gap between how we live, and how we profess to want to live. What Jeddah’s map reveals, is the way we can be more conscious in all of our actions, as we move from survival to unity.
MORE FROM JEDDAH MALI:
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“If you don't know how to say no, your body will eventually say no for you. I think there is so much depth to that. Mm-hmm and that's why it's so important that we help people begin asking. Is there a message that my body is trying to give me about this illness many times, uh, there's different ways to language this for different situations, but, um, is there a way in which a person is spending so much time, taking care of others or responding to the perceived needs of others instead of taking up space in the world, doing the things that put a light in your own eyes, the things that create authentic wellbeing, it took me years to begin understanding the deeper, sense of what's true here. But I think the truth is, sometimes the illness is really a message that this inauthentic self that we have become that needs to die. And if we can let that death occur, which can be messy and painful and scary, but if we can let that occur and let a more authentic version of who we really are be born well, I'll tell you sometimes that's astonishing, sometimes what then becomes possible”, says Dr. Jeff Rediger, physician, psychiatrist, author and speaker who joins us today to discuss his best-selling book, Cured: The Life-Changing Science of Spontaneous Healing. Dr. Rediger, the medical director of McLean and an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, has spent over 15 years studying spontaneous healing, exploring and analyzing unexplained, ‘miraculous’ recoveries in cases conventional medicine dismissed as hopeless. A leading voice challenging current healthcare systems and treatment models, in Cured, Dr. Rediger explains the science behind these miracles—digging into the root causes of illness and revealing how to create an environment that sets the stage for healing that beats the odds.
There is a part of us that knows how to heal, Dr. Rediger tells us, pushing us to explore how we can tap into the curative, regenerative potential of our own bodies rather than engaging in the endless search for external healing solutions. Our minds exert deep control over our physical reality, his research shows, making mental healing as important as, and a tool for, physical healing. Dr. Rediger’s work creates a new paradigm of healing from physical illness - for those with life-altering diagnoses, and for those of us who simply want to live healthier lives.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM DR. JEFFREY REDIGER:
Cured: Strengthen Your Immune System and Heal Your Life
A Medicine of Hope and Possibility | Dr. Jeffrey Rediger | TEDxNewBedford
Follow Dr. Rediger on Instagram and Twitter
DIG DEEPER:
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Written and narrated by award-winning author and Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, Dr. Eddie S. Glaude, “History is US” is a 6-part audio documentary produced and developed by C13Originals that asks questions about who we are as a nation, and what race might reveal about our current crisis. Through the voices of distinguished historians and scholars, this limited series gives listeners the background and education to understand how we got here and how we can all use history to clarify the choices before us. There will always be something distinct about our present day, yet history haunts. “History is US” is a presentation of Shining City Audio, a C13Originals and Jon Meacham Studio.
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“I think I find great comfort in this idea that when you form that bond, when you fall in love, your neurons are actually changed the way that the electrical firing patterns happen in your brain, the way that proteins are folded are changed because of this one and only person that you have spent time with. And from that perspective, when my dad died, he is still here literally right in my physical brain. He's physically in my brain. Now. That's not, I mean, that's data on the one hand, but I also find it comforting on the other hand that he is still with me. And because it's with the brain that I perceive the whole world, he's also in a sense with me as I experience everything.” So says neuroscientist and professor Mary-Frances O’Connor, author of THE GRIEVING BRAIN. In her work, O’Connor studies the ways in which grief, loss, and bereavement imprint on the way we process the world—unable to physically map and locate the person who is now missing from our interpersonal landscapes, we must find new ways to navigate our lives, working around holes that feel, quite frankly, unbridgeable. I loved our conversation, because we explored both science and faith, as well as the enduring reality of grief: Those who have experienced loss understand that grief never goes away, even when you move past the stage of unrelenting grieving. We also talked about the new DSM-5 diagnosis of prolonged grief disorder, the pitfalls of rumination, and the essential nature of patience—both for ourselves and each other. At a time in our culture where we’re coping with massive loss—from the personal, to the cultural, to the environmental, O’Connor’s framework and language feels critical for understanding where we’re at. Particularly, as she points out, because the oscillations of grief work—moving from pain and anguish to moments of laughter and joy—is actually the framework for true mental health. Mental health is not maintaining happiness as status quo, she notes, it’s the flexibility to move through all emotions, including the most difficult ones.
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“As a therapist, I started to discover that when people need boundaries, they start to have issues around anxiety in their relationships, some depression, because they're not able to really stand up. Or they feel hopeless about improving certain scenarios. Burn out—when people start to say, ‘Oh my gosh, I hate work. I have to work on weekends. Oh, this person keeps talking to me about this thing.’ So burn out frustration. Sometimes moodiness, when we get really mad at other people for asking us stuff, that could be a sign that we need some boundaries around. You know, maybe saying no and not giving them the freedom to constantly use us as a resource. Our feelings are really huge indicators on where we need boundaries. When we're feeling upset, frustrated, anxious, confused, angry, those are all huge indicators that boundaries are very likely needed.” 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.
In the book, Nedra puts her 15 years of experience demystifying the concept of boundaries to work, teaching us to get assertive in order to create healthy relationships with ourselves and our loved ones. She brings her no nonsense boundary-setting tips to the podcast today as our conversation explores signs we may need boundaries in our relationships, why people may not respect our boundaries and how to express our needs clearly, avoiding the all too common passive-aggressive spiral. She reminds us that it is ok to be less than perfect, to admit when we don’t have it all together, and to accept the help of others. Because when we establish healthy boundaries, give others grace, and accept grace ourselves we are bound to enjoy more successful, more rewarding relationships in all areas of our lives.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM NEDRA TAWWAB:
Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself
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“As scientists, we often look at one thing and we say, oh, that's the one thing it's competing for light. And then, and that's true. That's what people did. You know, the science, the experiments were simple, um, looking at one resource and not at the whole ecosystem. And so you miss all, you miss all these other ways that they're interacting. And if you, if we could look at the whole thing all at once, we would make completely different decisions about how to manage that ecosystem. But because people were so focused that Birch is competing for light and not just Birch, but Aspen and all kinds of like red Alder, all kinds of other species. And that led to the wholesale herbicide of these native plant communities to get rid of these so-called competitors. And if we'd just known ahead that they were also collaborating at the same time, any thinking person would never have gone in and poisoned these other plants. Because they create balance in the ecosystem,” so says Suzanne Simard, professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia, pioneering researcher into plant communication and intelligence, and best selling author of, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest. Born and raised in logging country, Suzanne and her holistic views of forest ecosystems were not welcomed into the male-dominated forestry industry. Pushed into academia, she has dedicated her career to investigating the complex relationships between trees. She is best known for her work on the communal lives of trees, exploring the ways in which trees use below-ground fungal networks to communicate, compete, and cooperate—exhibiting sophisticated social traits characteristic of a civil society not too different from our own. At the center of it all, she tells us, are the Mother Trees—immense, highly connected beings that play a vital role in intertwining and sustaining those around them.
Our conversation dives into these enthralling, mysterious relationships, and the practical application of Professor Simard’s work on forest resiliency and adaptability, including how to manage and heal forests from human impact. We must value our ecosystems for more than what we exploit them for, she tells us, and by restoring biodiversity and respecting nature’s brilliance, we can reconnect to the intelligence of the natural world, and hopefully uncover a better way forward in the process.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM SUZANNE SIMARD:
Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest
How Trees Talk to One Another: Suzanne Simard's TEDTalk
Follow Suzanne on Instagram and Twitter
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“There are 12 questions that enable every person who's willing to, to answer them, to reevaluate their life and their legacy. Because what I have found, um, with my father's death is I miss not a single material thing about my father. I mean, I have his hat on the shelf behind me and I have a couple of his old tools, but that's it, what I really cherish the inheritance, I really cherish are the values, the laughter, the music, the food, my love of nature. That's his legacy, his powerful bullshit meter, his powerful, moral compass, his love of peoplehood. And that's what we wanna be sure we bequeath to our loved ones when we're gone. But it's more than just a bequest because when you ask yourself questions, like what is love? What makes me happy? What has been my greatest failure? What do I regret? What do I want my epitaph to be? What would I say at my own funeral as a final blessing to my loved ones? These are the kinds of questions that enable us to ask whether or not we are living the life we say, we believe in and the life we say matters,” so says Steve Leder, senior rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles and best-selling author of five books. In our conversation today, we talk about death and the creation of ethical wills, the subject of Rabbi Leder’s most recent book, For You When I Am Gone: Twelve Essential Questions to Tell a Life Story. The book, born of his experience helping thousands of people navigate loss, is a guide to writing a meaningful letter about your life - a so-called ethical will. Things are not our legacy, the rabbi tells us; and our estate plan will not nourish our loved ones, but our words and our stories have the power to provide something lasting and meaningful for generations to come. Rabbi Leder pushes us to examine our lives - our joys, our regrets, our successes and our failures - and to present those stories, brokenness and all, to those we love. Doing so, he says, will not only hold our loved ones when we are gone, but can serve to redirect us now as it forces us to examine the alignment between our professed values and the way in which we are actually living. His major takeaway? Don’t wait. Our bodies may disintegrate, but our lives are defined by our stories and we have the ability to create, and leave behind, worlds of meaning with our words.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM STEVE LEDER:
For You When I Am Gone: Twelve Essential Questions to Tell a Life Story
Additional Books by Rabbi Leder
Follow Steve on Instagram and Twitter
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“I didn't wanna be still, I had to be still, but I, I, I wanted more than anything to continue being a human doing. And the universe was insisting that I became a human being and it's profound. I mean, it's the greatest transformation of my life. You know, I went from being extremely supported on a business perspective to having to go buy stamps. And it takes me all day to mail a letter. You know, I'm really, I'm only able to do what I can do in a day and I love it. I really love it because as I often said, like, I can do bad all by myself. I don't need somebody else confirming a reservation and rubbing somebody the wrong way so that when I get there, the energy is weird. It's like now off I get somewhere and the energy's weird it's cuz of me.”
So says Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, a dear friend and mentor, who in her prior life, was the global head of literature, lectures, and events at WME, the agency. During her long and storied career she shepherded many of culture’s biggest luminaries, including Oprah, Brené Brown, and Sue Monk Kidd. And yes, Jennifer is an amazing dealmaker, who can look for synergies across industries so that everyone wins, but I believe her particular genius point is finding the story—I have watched her work with people where their story, which they perceived as messy, random, unimportant, comes together in her eyes as a cogent, powerful narrative. It is incredible to witness, and truly transforms that person’s perspective on their entire life. She is one of my friends and mentors—on any given day, she might be my mother, my sister, or as she would joke, my daughter—and I have learned so much from watching her navigate the world with fierceness and power. In today’s conversation, she talks about her transition into a sacred pause as she contemplates how she wants to serve in this next phase of her career—and we explore story as both a tool for personal healing and an opportunity for societal change. Let’s get to our conversation.
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“I talk about dysfunctional relational stances that would repeat over and over again. For example, angry pursuit is an oxymoron. Angry pursuit will never get complaining about how the person isn't close to. You will never get then closer to you. It is dysfunctional. That's what dysfunctional means. It doesn't work. It'll never get you what you want. And the first phase of the therapy that we do, relational life therapy. And in some ways, the first phase of this book is identifying what your repetitive, adaptive child. Relational stance is the thing you do over and over and over again, automatically knee jerk. I talk about whoosh comes up like a wave. I just gotta do this. I've gotta fix this person. I've gotta stand enough for myself. I gotta get outta here. And that is the hallmark of your adoptive child that is automatic and, and compulsive. And this whole book is about moving beyond that part of you into the wise adult part of you, that can take a breath and do something, not automatic, but chosen deliberate, more skillful,” says bestselling author and renowned marriage counselor Terry Real. His new book, Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship, combines new findings in neuroscience and his vast experience working with couples on the brink of disaster to give readers the skills necessary to move their relationship from a dysfunctional you vs. me into a more collaborative “us”.
There is no such thing as working on a relationship, Terry tells us, in order to work on healing the system, we must heal the individual parts. So many of us, he says, grew up without adequate emotional support, and the techniques we developed to survive in those environments as children, can go on to poison our intimate relationships. Though we may not remember the trauma, our knee-jerk reactions to distressing situations and relational conflict push our learned adaptive strategies into overdrive.
Terry’s science-backed toolkit helps individuals move beyond their involuntary response, which tends to be rigid, harsh, and unforgiving; and come into their potential as a wise adult - one who stops, thinks, and reflects; able to tap into a more collaborative self for the betterment of the relationship. Through deep individual work, nurturing our inner child, and choosing to go against our impulses rather than indulging them; we can transform ourselves and save our relationships.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM TERRY REAL:
Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship
Read Terry’s Other Work:
DIG DEEPER:
Find an RLT Certified Therapist Near You
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I'm sharing a special preview of A Slight Change of Plans, a podcast all about who we are and who we become in the face of change. Dr. Maya Shankar is a cognitive scientist who is an expert on human behavior, and she’s here to help us navigate the changes we all experience
in our lives. She sits in intimate conversations with celebrity guests like Tiffany Haddish and Kacey Musgraves as well as everyday inspirations, like journalist Euna Lee, who was held captive in North Korea for 140 days, and Kate Bowler, a religious scholar whose own belief
system was thrown into question after she was diagnosed with cancer. You'll also meet change experts — including leading grief therapist Julia Samuel, psychologist Adam Grant, and psychologist Ethan Kross – whose scientific insights will help us make better decisions and live
happier, more fulfilling lives In this preview, you’ll hear Maya in conversation with Jodie Patterson, a mother whose son came out as transgender when he was just shy of three years old. Jodie knew her son would face many changes ahead, but what she didn’t anticipate was
how much she would change, too. You can listen to A Slight Change of Plans, from Pushkin Industries, at https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/scpthread.
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“I think the key is to really believe it when you see something that you're doing every day in your diet that is making your hormones off or your skin off it, a lot of women know what's happening to their bodies. We're more intuitive in that way than men are. So I think it sounds really cheesy and we've heard it over and over again, but please listen to your body because it's telling you something. And so I think that, I think that it's just important to listen and make a note of things that make us feel terrible and things that make us feel good.” So says Dr. Nigma Talib, a Los Angeles based Naturopathic Doctor and the author of the best selling book, Younger Skin Starts in the Gut. A pioneer in the Naturopathic medical profession, Dr. Nigma has been asked to speak all over the world, bringing light to the root causes of illness and how the application of cutting edge dietary, supplemental and functional laboratory testing guidance can correct health issues and enable optimal well-being.
Dr. Nigma joins me today to talk about all things wellness, from Vitamin D deficiency and sleep hygiene, to stool tests and hormones. We discuss the nutritional supplements to take to ensure you look like a grape, not a raisin; the importance of the 80/20 rule; and how to establish your personal hormonal baseline through testing. Our hormones are messengers, she tells us, but when they are out of whack wires can get crossed, leading to fatigue, joint pain, premature aging and depression - making it all the more important that we listen to our bodies and get curious, putting together the pieces of our health in a way that allows us to live optimally and feel our best.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM DR. NIGMA TALIB:
Reverse the Signs of Ageing: The Revolutionary Inside-Out Plan to Glowing, Youthful Skin
Visit Dr. Nigma Talib’s Website
Follow Dr. Nigma on Twitter and Instagram
DIG DEEPER:
Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding
Hate Working Out? Blame Evolution - NYT, January 2021
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"If you are in a Western life and, and are designed as an empath or a spiritual being that feels things very deeply, it is important for you to hold and maintain your peace and to send, to usher that energy to others that may be experiencing pain and suffering at any given time. If you were in a period in your life in which you are in pain or suffering, would you want everyone else in the world to be suffering along with you? Probably not. If you were sick, you wouldn't want all of your family members to be miserable and sad, just because you're feeling sick. You would want people to be in their peace. You would want people to hold that energy of joy, because that is what creates healing, energy and meaning and purpose."
So says Carissa Schumacher. This is Carissa’s second visit to Pulling the Thread, and I highly recommend listening to that introductory conversation if you’re new to Carissa’s work. Otherwise, buckle your seat belt! In this conversation, Carissa and I dive into many of Yeshua’s recent transmissions including the necessity of moving empathy into compassion, the essential nature of suffering, the difference between purpose and vehicle, and the universal nature of intuition. We cover a lot of ground.
I also wanted to tell you that due to popular demand, Carissa is going to lead a study group for her and Yeshua’s book, THE FREEDOM TRANSMISSIONS, an essential read if you haven’t yet picked up a book. This is going to be an online, four-day journey in June, with some visits from special friends, including Yeshua. I will be in the group to help facilitate the conversation, and hope to see you there. Carissa just put up a website, finally, where you can find all the information you need about her, Yeshua, The Freedom Transmissions book, journeys, and sessions. It is at THE SPIRIT TRANSMISSIONS DOT COM. Information about the online journey in June is also there!
MORE FROM CARISSA SCHUMACHER:
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"This to me is basic, but it feels like we've drifted really far from it in our culture. That to be a human, the basic condition of being a human is being needful. You know, like we need air, we need housing, we need food, we need companionship. We need all of these things. And somehow in our culture, it feels like you're asking for too much, if you need things, right, you're supposed to be super self-sufficient. You're supposed to be able to like pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You're supposed to be able to like handle everything and it's just it's work. And it is it's too much for one person to do."
So says author and journalist Angela Garbes, who in the first pages of her new book, ESSENTIAL LABOR, expands the concept of “mothering,” creating a tent for everyone, of any gender, who is engaged in the process of creation and care. This pretty much includes everyone. A first-generation Philipino-American, Angela makes the argument that the United States must re-orient the way we think about everything—the economy, in particular—to venerate the vital act of care, of tending to each other’s needs, and of prioritizing the collective…otherwise we are lost.
In our conversation, we touch on what this means for all of our lives, including the ways that women like me must come out of our shame pockets to talk about all the people who care for us—labor that has become largely invisible behind the veneer of our projections of what it looks like to be a functioning family in America. As I explain to Angela, our family would cease to work without Vicky, who is effectively our third parent. I believe Angela is right, that we need to be having these collective conversations first, in order to push culture to reprioritize against a new axiom of what really matters in our lives.
MORE FROM ANGELA GARBES:
ESSENTIAL LABOR: MOTHERING AS SOCIAL CHANGE
LIKE A MOTHER: A FEMINIST JOURNEY THROUGH THE SCIENCE AND CULTURE OF PREGNANCY
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"When we talk about the ghost of the unsaid, we're talking about the inherited feelings of our parents, unprocessed trauma, where the Phantoms that lived inside them, We're talking about traumas that our parents and grandparents would not process, and they are transmitted to us in some raw way. And I quote in the book, Holocaust survivors Maria Toric, Nicholas Abraham, who said, 'What haunts us are not the dead, but the gaps left within us by the secrets of others.'
So says psychotherapist Galit Atlas, who has spent her life and career both witnessing and unraveling the ways that the lived—and unlived—experiences of our ancestors can show up in our own lives. Galit—who is Syrian/Iranian by way of Israel—grew up in the midst of trauma, violence that continued to unfold around her against a generational tapestry of pain. We talk about the direct transmission of trauma in our conversation, as well as these “Gaps” or secrets, that show up in her practice again and again. We also talk about this idea of what Freud called “Afterwardness,” which is the way that we reprocess traumatic memories again and again from our new lived perspective. We explore what healing looks like for clients who suddenly become aware of how these hidden forces and patterns are informing their lives—and what it looks like to clip those threads and set yourself free. And perhaps most poignantly, we discuss the idea of victims and aggressors, and how so many of us, in the grips of our victimhood feel justified in lashing out—this is a phenomenon we can trace from our personal lives to the global stage, and it deserves our awareness.
MORE FROM GALIT ATLAS:
EMOTIONAL INHERITANCE: A THERAPIST, HER PATIENTS, AND THE LEGACY OF TRAUMA
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"I talk to so many women who, you know, we talk about huddle and we talk about, I referenced, you know, back catalog friends, people who I've known for years and years, you are never too late to add to your huddle. You are never, it is, you are never too old to, to add to your circle of friends. And what Elise is alluding to is certainly something that I feel as well, which is, you know, we live in these various chapters in our, in our lifetimes, you know, things change. We go through different. We have these various aha moments, I think for you. And I, we've both really deepened our spiritual practices and our intentionality around life and what we wanna do and how we wanna share ourselves. And I think as we've been in these more vulnerable spaces on the other side of giant things, we've been a part of, we've gotten to know ourselves better." -Brooke Baldwin
Many years ago, journalist Brooke Baldwin sat in her mother’s bedroom and cried about the state of her career and her relationship—and while she was grateful for her mom’s attention and support, she had a simultaneous thought: Where were her friends? Thus became her quest—ancillary to her daytime job as an anchor on CNN—to find her huddle. In her mind, she wanted to reclaim the idea of huddle—a macho sports term—and apply it to groups of women working together for mutual goals, like joy, success, and intimacy. She wrote a book about this adventure—understandably called HUDDLE—where she explores the power of female friendship and camaraderie all over the country. And the way that when women come together, they achieve improbably awesome things. As her book went to press, she announced her time at CNN was coming to an end, and we met each other shortly after, when we were both feeling stripped down and open to new adventures. Brooke is now part of MY Huddle, and her enthusiasm for the power of friendship is palpable and contagious.
MORE FROM BROOKE BALDWIN:
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“One reason I wrote the book is that the lack of recognition is such a powerful harm done to patients. And I think until you've gone through an experience like this, it's really hard to convey why that is. But basically it comes down to having the dignity of your suffering possessing. Some kind of meaning, I think, right. And we're all social creatures, right. We don't actually get sick totally alone. It feels lonely. But one reason that my illness was doubly hard was that I had the loneliness of physical symptoms. And then I had the additional of never having them recognized or validated, which made it so much harder.”
Writer, journalist, and poet Meghan O’Rourke—a former editor at The New Yorker, and the current editor of The Yale Review—has written stunningly, about many topics in our culture. But her latest book—THE INVISIBLE KINGDOM: REIMAGINING CHRONIC ILLNESS—is a memoir of her own suffering as she navigated the medical world in search of a diagnosis. Her journey to understand what is wrong with her—to even be seen as a sick person—was particularly complex because she has a web of autoimmune diseases, which…is not that uncommon, actually, particularly for younger women. In her book, she explores the complexity of illness and what it means to look fine—vital, even—and yet feel like you’re failing inside, and how quick we are to dismiss suffering we cannot see. Particularly when it’s the suffering of women.
MORE FROM MEGHAN O’ROURKE:
MEAGHAN’S WRITING FOR THE NEW YORKER
FOLLOW MEGHAN ON TWITTER
FOLLOW MEGHAN ON INSTAGRAM
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“Usually in high conflict, the conflict becomes the whole point. So you make a lot of mistakes and you can miss opportunities that would actually be in the interest you are fighting for. The reason you got into the fight to begin with, whereas good conflict is the kind of conflict where again, you can be angry, you can be yell, you can have radical visions for the future. You can and must, you know, organize and protest and hold people accountable. But you do it much more skillfully. You make fewer mistakes because you're not essentially being controlled by the conflict. You're not in the trance of high conflict. And it's, you know, it's not easy to stay in good conflict. Everybody is gonna visit high conflict, even if it's for, you know, a few minutes, but you don't wanna live there because you, you and your cause will suffer.”
So says Amanda Ripley, investigative journalist, podcast host, New York Times bestselling author and the queen of conflict - good conflict, that is. Amanda’s most recent book - High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out - draws on her years of experience trying to make sense of conflict on a personal and political level—particularly in this heightened time of OUTRAGE.
Not all conflict is bad, Amanda tells us. In bad conflict, what she calls high conflict, the conflict becomes the whole point, an us vs. them mentality that takes on a life of its own and leads participants down a path of perpetual anger without resolution. Good conflict, on the other hand, goes somewhere interesting as genuine curiosity and deep listening leads to better mutual understanding. So how do we make the shift?
In our discussion, Amanda arms us with a mind-opening new way to think about conflict that will transform how we move through the world. We talk about what it means to get curious about what lies beneath the surface of a conflict; how our own unresolved internal conflicts often inform our external conflicts; as well as the importance of engaging in deep listening in order to make others feel truly heard. In a world engineered for misunderstanding, Amanda gives us faith that individuals, and even entire communities, can end the doom loop of outrage and blame if they can learn to really hear each other.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM AMANDA RIPLEY:
High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out
The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way
The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - And Why
Listen to Amanda’s Podcast, How To! on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
Follow Amanda on Twitter
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“I’ve won arm wrestles with big muscular men, right out of prison because you align the energy. Everything wants to harmonize with it and things start to flow with you and it's silent and it's, it's quiet, it's gentle, but it's incredibly powerful. The strength you can access when you're in a state of integrity. So as that starts to grow, we're seeing the Putins and we're seeing the Trumps because they are so freaking loud. And we don't even know that in the silence all over the world, there's another power rising and rising and rising and looking at what's happening in Ukraine and looking at the atrocities and saying, okay, we're not going, we're not gonna do this anymore.”
So says Martha Beck, a Harvard-trained sociologist and life coach who is the author of many incredible books, including the just-released, WAY OF INTEGRITY, an Oprah bookclub pick that just might change your life. Martha describes integrity as that sense of wholeness that we can all tap into when we are aligned and attuned to our true selves on the deepest level. It is from that place that we feel unrestricted and safe—like we are at one with the world and each other, and that we no longer feel compelled to control our own behavior in order to earn acceptance and belonging. It is a place of strength, freedom, and radical honesty.
The book, which is a mixture of memoir, anecdotes from her own, fascinating practice, research, and worksheets, uses Dante’s Inferno as a guide to healing. As with any heroic quest, you must go down before you can go up, and Martha walks you there, hand-in-hand until you reach the place of Satori, or enlightenment, which is really another word for the state of integrity. If you can’t tell, I really loved this book–and I loved our conversation.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM MARTHA BECK:
The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self
Martha Beck - Think Like a Wayfinder Masterclass
Martha's TedTalk - The Four Technologies of Magic
Follow Martha on Twitter and Instagram
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You have to have something new to hope for sure. You might still keep hoping that somebody with a terminal illness might get better and indeed they do sometimes. Or you might hope as after 9/11, that somebody will be found who was in the trade towers when they fell down. And in fact, a few people were found in another country or in a psychiatric ward and not being able to remember who they were, but for the most part, you keep hoping and you move forward with life in a new way. Without that missing person, you must do both. You cannot just hope because that means you're immobilized, you're frozen in place and the children will suffer, the family will suffer, you will suffer from that. It has to be both/and.” So says, Dr. Pauline Boss, emeritus professor at University of Minnesota and world-renowned as a pioneer in the interdisciplinary study of family stress management as well as for her groundbreaking research on what is now known as the theory of ambiguous loss. Dr. Boss coined the term ambiguous loss in the 1970s to describe a very particular type of loss that defies resolution, blocks coping and meaning-making and freezes the process of grieving. With death, she says, there is official certification of loss, proof of the transformation from life to death, and support for mourners through community rituals and gatherings. In ambiguous loss, none of these markers exist, the lingering murkiness leaving individuals unnerved and stressed out.
In her forty years of clinical experience as a family therapist, Dr. Boss has worked with individuals, couples and families dealing with some kind of ambiguous loss - from families in New York who lost family members during 9/11 and are experiencing the physical kind of ambiguous loss, to those dealing with the psychological ambiguous losses of a parent with Alzheimer’s disease, a loved one with an addiction, or someone who is changing as a result of aging or transitioning. Drawing on research and her immense cache of clinical experience, Dr. Boss has developed six guiding principles for building the resilience to both bear the trauma of ambiguous loss and to move forward and live well, despite experiencing a loss with no certainty or resolution.
She joins me today to discuss this often unrecognized, but ubiquitous type of loss, particularly as it relates to closure - the subject of her most recent book, The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change. Our conversation touches on our collective grieving following the pandemic and our country’s awakening to the concept of systemic racism; how we can begin to increase our tolerance for ambiguity, and the importance of discovering new hope in the face of grief that has no end. Our search, she tells us, must not be for the elusive concept of closure, but rather for a sense of meaning and a new way to move forward.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM PAULINE BOSS:
The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change
Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief
Loving Someone Who Has Dementia: How to Find Hope While Coping with Stress and Grief
What if There’s No Such Thing as Closure? - NYT Magazine, December 2021
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"So if we take that off the table, if we take off this, this goal of changing somebody's mind, then what are you left with? What's what's your purpose in the conversation? And I feel like not only is that more attainable to have a conversation in which you are exchanging ideas, just exchanging ideas, changing information, that's attainable every time. But also it relieves some pressure, right? I mean, sometimes I feel like people see conversations as frustrating because they keep trying to do something that's impossible. Maybe it would be more enjoyable for you if you weren't trying to beat your head against the wall. I feel like that that paragraph from Carl Rogers is not just something that is useful to tell the other person. I think it's mostly for you. Like for you to tell yourself, I'm not here to change you. I'm just here to listen and understand."
So says Celeste Headlee, award-winning radio journalist and author of many incredible books, including Do Nothing, We Need to Talk, and Speaking of Race. Celeste, a self-described “light-skinned Black Jew,” has been having hard conversations about race since she was a little kid. Already an astute observer of culture, she has notated throughout her life how unproductive these conversations tend to be, how we shut down and get defensive, or try to reinforce our own sense of righteousness.
In today’s conversation, we explore the reasons we’ve become culturally calcified as well as antidotes for taking on tough and essential topics. In Celeste’s experience, the more reserved we become about leaning into potential conflict the more fear enters the equation: And right now, one of the worst labels you can hear is that you are racist.
I loved DO NOTHING and I also loved Speaking of Race, because at its heart it is also just about the art of conversation--and active listening. And Celeste has a lot of experience: She is a regular guest host on NPR and American Public Media, and her Tedx Talk on having better conversations has been viewed over 23 million times.
While I’ve got your attention on Celeste, you need to listen to her season with John Biewen on Scene on Radio: They did an incredible series of episodes about misogyny, and his season on race, called Seeing White, which he co-hosted with Chenjerai Kumanyika is incredible.
MORE FROM CELESTE HEADLEE:
Celeste’s Website
Follow Celeste on Instagram and Twitter
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“I increasingly feel that modern life is becoming intolerable for everyone, whether they're neurodivergent or not. I think we've noticed it earlier. I think, you know, we've reached our point of unbearable discomfort earlier along the line. But I just begin to think that the way we are living is generally hostile to our brains and our neurology. We are, all of us, completely overwhelmed all the time. And you know, like the idea that some people had a good pandemic, well that's because the world called a truce on some of us, and we didn't realize we needed it until that moment. I mean, I don't know what it's gonna take for us to all pull the break on this because it's not good. It's not good for us.” So says Katherine May, the New York Times bestselling author of Wintering, the book that spoke to so many of our souls when it came out a month before the pandemic: Katherine anticipated what all of us felt, which is that our way of living was not supportable, and that we needed retreat and rest.
Katherine is a prophet for a number of reasons: Not only because she’s a stunningly beautiful writer and astute observer of the world, but also because she’s wired a little bit differently. Before she wrote WINTERING, Katherine wrote another book, a memoir called THE ELECTRICITY OF EVERY LIVING THING, about attempting to walk the 630 mile South West Coast Path in Britain before turning 40. But it’s not a book about a heroic feat, it’s actually about grappling with her late-in-life diagnosis as being on the autism spectrum disorder. Katherine always knew she was different, but she never knew exactly how or why, only that she found many parts of life overwhelming and chaotic. The book, which is stunning, explores the ways so many of us feel like we’re passing—picking up behaviors from other people in order to be accepted, or to fit in.
MORE FROM KATHERINE MAY:
The Electricity of Every Living Thing
Katherine May’s Website
Follow Katherine on Instagram
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“I think we're due for a cultural rebranding around crying. I think that crying, you know, if we start to cry, we inevitably apologize or invariably apologize. We sort of suck it back in and make it as small as it can be. Like the way someone would pinch back a sneeze, we’re like holding the tears back, making it smaller, collecting ourselves. And you know, if you know, somebody who's crying frequently or you're like, they're in a bad place. And I think that we really need to see crying as this deep wisdom from our body saying, you need a release right now, let's have of one. And when you get an opportunity to cry, dive into it and let it be big, let it be complete rather than smaller. Like let it be bigger.” So says Dr. Ellen Vora, a Columbia University-trained psychiatrist who takes a functional and holistic approach to mental health—namely, she treats the whole system, looking for where states like anxiety and depression might be rooted in the body, whether it’s less-than-ideal nutrition and an out-of-whack gut, or poor sleep and breathing.
In her just-launched book—THE ANATOMY OF ANXIETY—she tackles this state that is ever-present for many of us. In fact, it’s easy to argue that if you aren’t feeling anxious, you aren’t really alive in this complex, difficult rollercoaster of time. But in Ellen’s model, she differentiates between true and false anxiety—both are very real and valid concerns. For false anxiety, typically there’s an imminently treatable physical root that can be addressed until the body comes back into balance and the mind calms. True anxiety, on the other hand, is an alarm clock that something is not right—that you’re out of alignment, or integrity, in some way. In today’s episode we talk about both, including the overwhelming load that we’re all carrying and how important it is to cry. We also explore psychedelics and what it means to really heal. OK, let’s get to our conversation.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM ELLEN VORA:
The Anatomy Of Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming the Body's Fear Response
Follow Ellen on Instagram and check out her videos on YouTube and TikTok
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"When I would witness somebody that I identify with in whatever capacity of what I'm calling in, have, what I want or are successful in what I would like to be successful in. Um, or, you know, they are on that path to what I'm shooting for. I really realize that that would actually be tremendously more effective for my subconscious to go, oh, if they could do that or if they are doing that, I can as well. So beyond all, all of the visualizing I did back in the day until I was blue in the face, this would speed things up and make it really rapid," says Lacy Phillips, my guest today - a global manifestation expert and speaker and founder of To Be Magnetic. Lacy presents a unique manifestation formula, rooted in basic psychology, neuroscience, and her energetic gifts. Lacy’s manifestation formula is not your typical "think positive" and "visualize" method, but rather, she is known for a much deeper and more therapeutic response that requires clearing subconscious blocks first—only then, can you begin to call in and work toward what you most desire. Lacy offers a comprehensive digital workshop program called The Pathway, along with an excellent podcast, EXPANDED. I highly recommend tuning in.
Today, she shares with us the secrets of her manifestation success, as we discuss everything from identifying our sticky subconscious beliefs to reading our nervous system and its readiness for change to how to respond to tests on the way to rediscovering our authentic, worthy self. Lacy tells us that seeing is believing when it comes to manifestation, and encourages us to search for ‘expanders’ - individuals, real or fictitious, who broaden our concept of reality. She challenges us to turn our envy towards those who have what we want, using them as proof positive, that what we want is not only possible, but achievable. Everyone is being offered a ticket on the manifestation train, she assures us, it is just a matter of whether we choose to get on.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM LACY PHILLIPS:
To Be Magnetic - curated by Lacy Phillips
Listen to Lacy’s podcast, EXPANDED, on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
Follow To Be Magnetic on Instagram and Twitter
Follow Lacy on Instagram
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I think what makes it much more difficult to, to have the courage, to continue to experiment, you know, look at somebody like Joni Mitchell or Rickie Lee Jones, people that at their moment of peak success, commercially said, you know, I'm going to do jazz now, or I'm going to do instrumental now, or I'm going to do something else now. And you know, the word once again, you know, that changed the world. Even Dylan, when he went electric, you know, the world hates that, you know, we're supposed to be able to deliver an expectation that people are used to and feel comfortable with. And I think any type of huge success like that really sets you up to feel like you can't veer from that without either disrupting your level of success or disappointing people or outraging people, you know, the very things that thrill and delight and excite. Some people are the very things that outrage others. And once you start to have to gauge where you're going to sit in that continuum, you know, I think the original work is then pretty much obliterated,” so says Debbie Millman, author, educator, curator and host of one of the first, and longest running podcasts, Design Matters. Debbie is a creator to her core - she started her career at Sterling Brands, one of the world’s leading branding consultancies, and for twenty years led the company as President, working on the logo and brand identity for some of the world’s most prominent brands, from Burger King, Hershey’s, Haagen Dazs and Tropicana, to Star Wars and Gillette. Her writing and illustrations have been featured in publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, Print Magazine, and Fast Company. She is the author of seven books, the co-owner and editorial director of PrintMag.com, and co-founded the world’s first graduate program in branding at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Her podcast, which has been nominated for six Webby awards, has been highlighted on over 100 “Best Podcasts” lists and was designated by Apple as one of their “All Time Favorite Podcasts”, has spent the past 17 years interviewing nearly 500 of the most creative people in the world.
Today she joins me to discuss her most recent book, Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People. This book, Debbie tells us, was born of her desire to stoke her own creative fire in a time when she was working as a creative but feeling artistically dead. Debbie regales us with tales of the creative processes of the greats, including the inevitable failures, rejections, and obstacles that are part of any creative journey, showing us how they persevere to create beauty in the face of adversity. In our conversation, we discuss the danger of expectations, the courage it takes to create and questions around who gets to call themselves an artist. We talk about the stereotype of the pained artist, finding inspiration, and how she teaches her students to refine and create their original voice.
She leaves us with her thoughts about personal brands and the way in which they limit our identity and our ability to continually pursue the new or experimental.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM DEBBIE MILLMAN:
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
Listen to Debbie’s Podcast, Design Matters on Apple Podcasts
Follow Debbie on Twitter and Instagram
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That's what I think is so funny about this is like a hundred years on these things that he's talking about remain as live as ever as sort of as complex and as urgent as they were back in Vienna and literally a hundred years ago. So that it feels to me like he was really onto something. And I don't think that's true of every thinker of the 1920s or every psychoanalyst of the 1920s. He really, he really he's like heat-seeking missile. He has this ability to sort of put himself in the most contested zones, our emotional lives.
Today we are joined by author Olivia Laing to discuss her new book, Everybody: A Book About Freedom, which explores the body as a mechanism for understanding the world around us through the story of radical psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. A contemporary and friend of the famous Sigmund Freud, Reich believed that the body communicated things that his patients could not articulate. In many ways, he’s the often-overlooked father of trauma and somatic therapy. In Reich’s view, unexpressed reservoirs of emotion, if left unprocessed, led to the build up of a sort of muscular armor that patients carried with them for life. Though Reich’s later work, which featured increasingly eccentric ideas, has led to his erasure within the common psychoanalytic discourse, Laing reminds us that Reich’s belief in freedom from oppression and dominion over our bodies, and our lives, is just as prescient today as it was 100 years ago—and she challenges us to think about the stories of our own bodies within this larger cultural context.
MORE FROM OLIVIA:
Everybody: A Book About Freedom
Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency
The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone
The Trip to Echo Springs: On Writers and Drinking
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“But what I do do is whenever I read an academic paper is I read around it. I don't just take that as given or assume that that's, you know, now cast in stone and science has nowhere else to go after this paper has been written, but that it sits in a context of other research, um, and evolving. It's always evolving. It's moving towards the truth. It's sometimes very faltering, really the history of sex difference research and race difference research, I think is a really good example of how faltering it can be and how orthodoxies can get created and take a really long time to be corrected. Um, but if you understand it in that historical context, then I think it's easier to accept science for what it is, which is a journey towards truth, rather than assuming that it's already there,” so says Angela Saini, an independent British science journalist, author, and the founder of the ‘Challenging Pseudoscience’ group at the Royal Institution. Angela joins me today to talk about science as fact, and the nuance that comes when we introduce human bias to the equation through interpretation. While Angela originally found a home in the objective and rational field of engineering, she tells us it was her experience as a journalist that opened her eyes to the vested interests and motivations within the scientific community that influenced the research and answers being published and touted as fact.
Angela has since 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. Whether it is sex research or race research, certain long-tentacled orthodoxies get created, she tells us, permeating our culture and eliminating any nuance from the conversation. Angela’s work encourages us to dismantle these orthodoxies, which have for so long sat uncomfortably with our lived experiences, and instead, to think more critically about what we assume to be “the norm”. We get into the way our cultural training has impacted our natural genetic destiny, how easy it is to slip into essentialist ideas of what it means to be a woman, and how important it is to embrace intersectional arguments when we talk about equality. When we reflect on who we really are, not just who we have been told to be, she tells us, we open up all the possibilities there are for being human. OK, let's get to our conversation.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM ANGELA SAINI:
Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong-And the New Research That's Rewriting the Story
Superior: The Return of Race Science
Watch her 2019 BBC Documentary - Eugenics: Science's Greatest Scandal
Follow Angela on Instagram
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“We sort of get into this, you know, relational model. And look, when it's working, when sex is a form of intimacy and merging and lovemaking and a really dissolution of self boundaries, I mean, it's fantastic. It's such a relationship boost and expression of love that only sex can provide. But very often, you know, relational sex can become really rote. It can become really predictable. It can stop serving our need for kind of sexual expansiveness, which is what recreational sex can do, right? Embracing the aspects of sex, embracing variety, embracing that psychological stimuli. Right? I think that's where, especially for heterosexual couples, we don't know how to integrate the relational with the recreational…,” so says Dr. Ian Kerner, my guest today and a licensed psychotherapist and nationally recognized sexuality counselor who specializes in sex therapy, couples therapy and relational issues. Ian is a New York Times best selling author of She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman and the co-founder and co-director of the Sex Therapy program at the Institute for Contemporary Psychology.
Today we discuss his newest book, So Tell Me About the Last Time You Had Sex: Laying Bare and Learning to Repair Our Love Lives as Ian shares the unique methodology he has used in his sex therapy practice to help countless couples rewrite their sex script in order to actualize their sexual potential. We don’t know how to talk about sex, Ian tells us, we have erotic minds but encounter shame around communicating what is in them, leaving us open to impersonal, predictable sex that stops serving our need for sexual expansiveness.
To avoid falling victim to the plague of rote sex, we must rediscover touch, desire, and fantasy, he tells us. By reimagining and rewriting our sex scripts to include both the physical and psychological components of arousal, the promised land of mutual pleasure is within reach. Ian gives us the tools to get comfortable with the discourse around intercourse, and leaves us with the stepping stones to bridge the gap between the sex we are having and the sex we want to be having.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM IAN KERNER:
So Tell Me About the Last Time You Had Sex: Laying Bare and Learning to Repair Our Love Lives
She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman
Passionista: The Empowered Woman's Guide to Pleasuring a Man
Love in the Time of Colic: The New Parents' Guide to Getting It on Again
Follow Ian on Twitter
DIG DEEPER:
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“I've spent many years, like med school residency, as a mom, eight books, which is a lot of deadlines. Just a lot of things that have put me behind eight ball in my relationship to time, like never feeling like I have enough time, never getting through my full checklist, always feeling like I should be doing something more, even when I'm relaxing. So for me, it's taking on too many things at once saying yes, when I really need to say no, or maybe say yes, but not all at once. And just really checking in with, am I feeling spacious? Am I feeling unpressured? Am I feeling like I have the capacity to handle what's on my plate right now?”
So says, Aviva Romm, who has the rare distinguishment of being both a midwife and a Yale-trained M.D. She mediates between the world of allopathic and alternative medicine, using the best of both approaches. From where she stands, balance is critical, particularly for women and our complex and sometimes confounding hormonal systems. Though Aviva Romm has written many books about women’s health, her latest—HORMONE INTELLIGENCE—is somewhat of a bible for many women I know, offering insight into the natural process of shifting hormones during different phases of our lives, as well as advice for treating all-too-common maladies like PCOS.
While we dive into some of these details in today’s conversation, Aviva and I primarily talk about what it is to be a woman today, along with our collective ambivalence about aging, and the necessity of honoring older women—particularly ourselves. We also get into stress and the way we’ve been trained to use hyper-vigilance and anxiety as prods for perfection and what it feels like to let that go, and drop into our own bodies, to hear from them directly on what they need. OK, let’s to get to our conversation.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM AVIVA ROMM, M.D.:
Listen to Aviva’s Podcast, Natural MD Radio on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
Follow Dr. Romm on Instagram and Twitter
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Today’s guest is Elizabeth Lesser, bestselling author of classics like Broken Open, and co-founder of the Omega Institute, an internationally recognized retreat center, renowned for its workshops and conferences in wellness, spirituality, creativity, and social change. Throughout her life, Elizabeth has been somewhat of a doula for people in transition, for those who are looking for answers to some of life’s biggest questions—she helps them cross chasms, simply by pointing out the path
“The obviousness of something that has been with us forever and must change, is often the most painful part”, she says.
Lesser joins me today to talk about her newest book, Cassandra Speaks: When Women are the Storytellers, the Human Story Changes, which interrogates the way in which our origin tales and hero myths, where men are the prototype human, continue to influence our culture. She reminds us that these old stories are only half natural, and challenges us to activate, fund, and educate the emotional and caring nature we all possess, to face our shadows in order to recreate an Eden in which there is room for everyone.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM ELIZABETH LESSER:
Follow Elizabeth on Instagram and Twitter
DIG DEEPER:
In the Bonobo World, Female Camaraderie Prevails - NYT, Natalie Angier
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“Are you doing something that brings you joy? Are you doing something that brings you fulfillment? Do you take yourself seriously when you have a dream or do you say, “Oh you are being too big for your britches?” What happens with morning pages is we are led into expansion —we are trained by the pages to take risks. The first risk is putting it on the page, the second risk is saying to yourself, “Oh I couldn’t try that.” The pages keep nudging you, and finally you say, “Oh alright I’ll try,” and the “oh alright I’ll try” is what brings you to an expanded sense of self because the risk you are afraid to take soon becomes the risk you have taken…” so says Julia Cameron, best-selling author of more than forty books, poet, songwriter, filmmaker and playwright. Hailed by many as “The Godmother” of creativity, Julia is credited with starting a movement in 1992 that has brought creativity into the mainstream. Her book, The Artist’s Way, has been translated into forty languages and sold over five million copies to date, inspiring millions of readers with its egalitarian view of creativity: We’ve all got it, and Julia is on a mission to help us unlock it. The book bestows the reader with a practical toolkit, including the famous Morning Pages and Artist Dates, in service of the broader creative journey and personal rejuvenation. Her newest book, Seeking Wisdom, explores connecting to the artistic process through prayer.
In this episode of Pulling the Thread, Julia and I talk creativity, process, and purpose. We are so worried about being selfish, Julia says, that we end up investing disproportionately in the lives and dreams of others—sacrificing our own passions in the process. Her approach guides readers, one step at a time, out of a stymied life and into a more expansive, more joyful existence, opening up opportunities for self-growth and self-discovery. I hope our conversation resonates with the creator in all of you.
MORE FROM JULIA CAMERON:
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“But the true guru, you know, the Buddha came and turned all that inside out. You know the Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths and the word he used, “the Noble,” that came out of that, like the Brahmans were the Nobles. But the Buddha was like, no, the Nobles aren't, it's not that priest over there, lighting the fire, the sacred fire, the noble thing is like your own ethic, your own internal ethic, your own loving heart is the noble thing. The Buddha was all about that. He was a good, you know, cognitive therapist in that way, turning, turning people's concepts inside out.”
So says Mark Epstein, a psychiatrist and Buddhist who has written several brilliant and beautiful books about the Venn diagram of meditation and therapy. In his latest: THE ZEN OF THERAPY, he reveals more of his own backstory, how as a young med school student trying to bridge the gap between his role as a doctor and his love of Eastern spirituality he came to help Dr. Benson study meditation and its benefits for the body. He opens the books though, by explaining that meditation is not a panacea, it is instead a rare opportunity to get quiet with yourself, to observe your own mind, and to process your emotions.
In the ZEN OF THERAPY, Mark recounts a year of therapy sessions where he was able to provide psychotherapy paired WITH Buddhist insights—it’s a wonderful and fascinating book—I personally LOVE reading about peoples’ therapy sessions—and it offers many takeaways for anyone, including the ways in which we fixate on our childhoods rather than focusing on the evolution of our own identities, and where our own resistance to change can point the way to healing. OK, let’s get to our conversation.
MORE FROM MARK EPSTEIN, M.D.
THE ZEN OF THERAPY by Mark Epstein, M.D.
ADVICE NOT GIVEN by Mark Epstein, M.D.
THE TRAUMA OF EVERYDAY LIFE by Mark Epstein, M.D.
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“My goal isn't to not be afraid, my goal is to have a relationship with fear. So I presume fear is going to be part of the picture. So my goal is more to have a relationship to that fear so I can move with it so I can push back on it so I can learn from it. Um, and so it doesn't have so much power over me, but I, I've not, I've not met any truly fearless people. It's more that I've met people who understand their fear and have made peace with it.” So says BJ Miller, a remarkable doctor who specializes in palliative medicine and end-of-life care, which ironically means that he spends most of his time teaching people how to really live.
When BJ was an undergrad at Princeton, he climbed an electrified train car and ended up as a triple-amputee and long-term patient. Understanding the healthcare system from the inside out inspired him to go to medical school—and it also put him into a deep and reflective dance with mortality, fear, and what it means to lean into life. He has become a cultural sherpa, showing us all what this looks like. These days, he is the founder of Mettle Health, which makes palliative care more accessible: He offers virtual consultations and guidance for individuals and families dealing with practical, emotional, and existential issues.
He joins me today as we discuss his work on life, death, and how we go about handling the in between. Our conversation covers the cultural numbness to death in the abstract and the concrete fear that arises when death becomes personal. We forget, BJ says, that suffering and dying are fundamental and intrinsic parts of life. When we allow ourselves to acknowledge the many small deaths that occur throughout our lives—whether it be the death of a relationship, of a career, or of a way of life - we can use these moments to practice losing and letting go, gaining clarity around what truly matters in the process. The goal, BJ tells us, is not to be unafraid of the end, but rather to cultivate a love of life so big, that it encompasses death as well. I am thrilled to call BJ a dear friend, and am even MORE thrilled to bring this conversation to you as we contemplate the year that just was, and the year to come.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM BJ MILLER
A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO THE END by BJ Miller
BJ Miller - What Really Matters at the End of Life - Ted Talk, 2015
One Man's Quest to Change the Way We Die - The New York Times Magazine
Follow BJ on Twitter
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“Like family relationship has obligations that go both ways. Hopefully there's unconditional love there, but it's also the, like your re your family and, and, and the other people in your family see you as family too. But in a job, if you, the, the whole family thing goes one way, you're supposed to give and give and give and give and, and, and, and feel this like guilt and obligation to your company and your coworkers, your company at any moment can sever those ties, you know, your is at will employment in, in this country. And, and, and so, like, that's not part of a, a family thing. That's not unconditional. Your job is totally conditional.”
So says Charlie Warzel, who together with Anne Helen Petersen, wrote OUT OF OFFICE: THE BIG PROBLEM AND BIGGER PROMISE OF WORKING FROM HOME. Petersen and Warzel, ditched New York City for the promise of a better life/work balance out west a few years ago, which gave them a headstart on understanding the reality of working from home—before it became a reality for the rest of the world through the pandemic. Both culture, media, and technology journalists for Buzzfeed at the time, they found that the promise of work from home was not a panacea for more time to spend in nature: Like the rest of us—just earlier—they discovered that they were spending even more time PERFORMING their work, showing their managers back in New York City that they deserved the privilege of being untethered from a traditional office. Being out of the office only added to their anxiety and overwhelm.
So when COVID hit, they were already aware of both the the pitfalls and potential of work from home—their fantastic book, which just came out, offers a survey of how we find ourselves in this intractable bind today, where for too many of us, our jobs have taken over the center of our lives, and how we can use this opportunity to reshape workplaces for a more sustainable future. In our conversation we talk about how we don’t prioritize the art of managers, how the idea of time and output is problematic for so many people who are not, actually machines, and what a more inclusive and human HR structure might look like, if it weren’t engineered to avoid abuse and instead could focus solely on providing support. Let’s get to our conversation.
MORE FROM ANNE HELEN PETERSEN & CHARLIE WARZEL
OUT OF OFFICE by Anne Helen Petersen & Charlie Warzel
CAN’T EVEN by Anne Helen Petersen
THE BURNOUT GENERATION by Anne Helen Petersen
“Galaxy Brain” newsletter from Charlie Warzel
“Culture Study” newsletter from Anne Helen Petersen
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“Outside the legal context, I'm urging readers and listeners in this case to think very deliberately about whether that high standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is really necessary before a person will believe so to speak, will feel confident enough to offer, let's say, support to a roommate or to a coworker. And I want to suggest that we should actually require much less by way of certainty and confidence in order to offer that kind of support to someone who is in an informal setting coming to us as a kind of first responder, because this is how most allegations surface. People rarely go to the police. First more often, they turn to a trusted confidant, someone within their inner circle. And it's the response of that individual that's likely to affect the trajectory to come” so says Deborah Tuerkheimer, a Harvard and Yale-educated lawyer, former New York District Attorney specializng in domestic violence and child abuse protection and current professor at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law where she teaches and writes about criminal law, evidence, and feminist legal theory. To say she is impressive is a massive understatement.
Today she joins me to discuss her book, CREDIBLE: Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers. We dive into a conversation about credibility and sexual assault: What makes a credible victim? How do culture, law, and psychology shape our judgement? And how can our systems be more responsive to the needs of survivors? In the court of cultural opinion, Deb says, we disservice so many victims by dismissing and discounting their pain that sometimes, the aftermath is almost worse than the event itself. We talk about the myth of the false accuser, underreporting as a reflection of our cultural credibility context, and the dangerous archetypes of the perfect victim and the monster abuser.
Finally, we discuss the push for restorative justice processes, which must begin with an acknowledgement of responsibility from the offender, and then go on to ask: “What will it take to repair the harm?”, ultimately turning to the victim and their community to answer that question.
Please note that today’s episode contains information about sexual assault and/or violence which may be triggering to survivors - I encourage you to care for your safety and well-being.
MORE FROM DEB TUERKHEIMER
CREDIBLE: Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers
More Books, Articles and Op-Eds by Deb Tuerkheimer
DIG DEEPER:
RAINN: the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization
National Sexual Assault Hotline: 800.656.HOPE
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“I think what COVID did was it really made people realize that the state of their emotions, the state of their relationships, all of those things that felt very optional, meaning they were important to people, but in the rushing around of daily life, you, you could kind of ignore them a little bit. Um, you know, you didn't have to really think about them or face them. They weren't, a mirror was not being held up to you in the way that it was during COVID. And so I think that the, the good thing that came out of all of this is that people really said, oh, I want to understand this better.”
So says Lori Gottlieb, one of my favorite conversation partners. Lori is a psychotherapist and the author of the bestselling MAYBE YOU SHOULD TALK TO SOMEONE, which is a brilliant exploration of what it means to be in therapy and be a therapist—in her storytelling, she manages to touch on everything from existential anxiety to inconceivable loss. She’s also the co-host of the DEAR THERAPIST podcast, a brilliant show that tackles peoples’ real problems, like narcissistic partners and parental alienation. In today’s episode of this podcast, Lori and I get into the impact of COVID on our partnerships, the often uncredited grief of single people, and how we can come to deepen the intimacy of our most important relationships, whether they’re with lovers, friends, family, or even co-workers.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM LORI:
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: The Workbook
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“The NRA and gun owners then signified, you know, the sort of comradery, responsibility, safety, sort of a bygone, I don't know, sort of an Americana, right? The Campbell soup can sort of Americana. I don't remember ever seeing or hearing about the impending demise of the Republic, or how evil every Democrat was, or how we should hate our neighbors, or how we should arm ourselves for an eventual civil war or an insurrection. That was never, that was never a part of my upbringing.”
So says Ryan Busse, author of GUNFIGHT: MY BATTLE AGAINST THE INDUSTRY THAT RADICALIZED AMERICA. Busse, who spent decades running gun sales for Kimber in Whitefish, Montana, which focused, until recently, on crafting hunting rifles and other firearms for sportsmen, quit his job last year after he realized that his dreams of transforming the gun industry from inside—or at least being a consistent voice of reason and morality—were fantasy. He watched as the industry he used to love became increasingly toxic, distorted, and militant.
In his book, which is a fascinating look at the forces within the NRA and the way they’ve radicalized America, he deftly explains all the reasons we are where we are today: Where our children are forced to practice active shooter drills at school, and where other kids—like 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse—can buy a semi-automatic AR-15 style rifle and kill two people while wounding another. And then be acquitted for self-defense. As he argues, we are on the brink of a Civil War with gun-owning, far Right militants. I know we’re scared, and he believes we have every reason to be.
Like Busse, I’m also from Montana, and know many people who hunt—growing up, guns were present but never abundant. Now, responsible gun owners are being pushed aside by militant couch commandos, who are desperate, to quote Busse, “to shoot a democrat.”
While Busse is no longer in the industry, he is firmly in the movement for common sense gun laws, arguing that our best chance for reform is to bring hunters and sportsmen on-side. As he explains, it can be done—and we can bring the NRA to its knees.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM RYAN BUSSE
Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America
Follow Ryan on Twitter and on Instagram
DIG DEEPER:
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals - Michael Pollan
FBI background checks, a proxy for gun sales, surged in 2020 - The Economist, January 2021
GET INVOLVED:
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Since she was a little girl, Carissa Schumacher has always seen and spoken to dead people. She pushed all of that aside, went to Brown and got her Neuroscience Degree, tried to have a normal life and career, and then Spirit made the call and she put that down and started working as an empathic intuitive and forensic psychic medium. She led retreats in Sedona, and worked with clients around the world, including doing a lot of pro bono work on crimes. This was all well and good until October 2019, around the time when I first met her. When Carissa was little an angelic presence told her she would be a channel for Yeshua of Nazareth, which she didn't think about much at the time. She wasn't raised in a religious household, she didn't even know what it meant. But then Yeshau “birthed” in her channel.
This means that while she was leading a retreat in Sedona, Yeshua took over her body, and voice, and gave a transmission, or a teaching. Yeshua, as you might've guessed, is Jesus. If it sounds wild, it is. I have been in the presence of Carissa while she's channeling Yeshua many times now. And it is unlike anything I've ever experienced before. I would say that it's incredible, but they've also been some of the most grounded moments of my life. Yeshua is funny, brilliant, kind—an ascended master like Buddha or Lao Tzu. And as he talks, you can feel the codex is of energy behind his words. The transmissions also are not particularly religious. If that makes sense, as he has remarked, he never wanted a church in his name. And the Bible is a series of stories. Some that are instructive, some that are parables, many told by people who never knew him.
Last year. He asked Carissa to turn on her recorder for several days and he brought forth The Freedom Transmissions, a series of teachings about the year that we just experienced, plus how to move forward. It is a beautiful book you can open and flip to almost any page and find something of resonance and need. In today's conversation, we talk about The Freedom Transmissions, as well as other moments from Yeshua transmissions I've heard over the years, including about the one thing that humans actually own, which is time. We talk about co-creation. We talk about the true definition of atonement, and we talk about the idea of freedom and how hard it is to make the leap from the cage. As she says, she is not Yeshua, just one of his channels and a student alongside the rest of us, but she still has a brilliant mind.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM CARISSA:
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Heather McGhee is a designer of, and advocate for, solutions to inequality in America. We discuss her New York Times bestselling book, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, in which she seeks to push us all past zero-sum thinking, or the idea that if you get something you want or need, it must mean that I get less. In fact, she points to numerous examples throughout history that show how this framework has made our society more cruel and poorer than it otherwise might be. Heather pushes us to recognize the fingerprints of racism in all of our core dysfunctions, from climate change, to the roots of the financial crisis, to the ongoing fight for universal healthcare.
“We must stop the siloed thinking that racism is great for white people and bad for people of color,” Heather says, “if you pull that thread, that’s exactly the same zero sum logic racists hold, that progress for people of color has to come at the expense of white people, that we are at odds, fighting over crumbs…there has to be a better paradigm of mutual benefit.” The Sum of Us is a story of why “drained pool politics”—an idea named after the fact that in the ‘50s and ‘60s, many towns chose to fill in their public pools and lose access to this social good rather than integrate them and share them with Black people—is costing everyone, in ongoing ways. She offers that with multiracial coalitions we can subvert fear mongering about an equitable society and fight for a more prosperous nation for all.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM HEATHER MCGHEE
The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together
Follow Heather on Twitter and on Instagram
HEATHER’S PICKS:
Floodlines - The Story of an Unnatural Disaster Hosted by Vann R. Newkirk II
Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019
The City We Became - N. K. Jemisin
DIG DEEPER:
2021 Voting Laws Round Up - the Brennan Center for Justice
GET INVOLVED:
Check Your Voter Registration Status, Register to Vote, Find Your Polling Place, and more
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“We are living in a world that primes us all for the problem of addiction. So even though some people come into this world more vulnerable than others, simply being alive in the world today has made us all vulnerable to the problem of addiction,” so says our guest today, Dr. Anna Lembke. Dr. Lembke is a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. An expert in all things addiction, Dr. Lembke has published more than a hundred peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, and commentaries; she sits on the board of several state and national addiction-focused organizations, has testified before various Congressional Committees, and does so all while maintaining a thriving clinical practice.
On today’s episode, we discuss her instant New York Times Bestseller, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence, which explores the many faces of addiction. Dr. Lembke notes that addiction is a spectrum disorder, and though we often attempt to otherize “addicts”, the exact same mental machinery engaged in so-called severe addiction is engaged in the compulsive over-consumption that afflicts many of us. We discuss the way in which our brain is wired to balance pleasure and pain and how to know when our consumption has crossed from healthy, recreational use to addictive, maladaptive use. Finally, Dr. Lembke leaves us with some strategies for recalibrating our neural-balance, including the perhaps counterintuitive remedy of exposing ourselves to pain in order to treat our pain.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM ANNA LEMBKE:
Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
Drug Dealer, MD – How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop
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“I think it's very important to mention also, Elise, that even if a woman feels permission to be angry, that anger is such a tricky mischievous emotion that it's so difficult to know what our anger means or what to do with it. So we may know that we’re angry and anger activates us to, to act, to take a position, to do something, but our anger does not tell us what the real issue is, who is responsible for what, what is the best way to proceed with our anger…” So says psychotherapist Dr. Harriet Lerner. Lerner is known and beloved for her many best-selling books about women, family systems, and relationships, including the classic Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships, which we explore in today's episode.
Lerner believes that anger is an essential, but oftentimes misunderstood and mismanaged emotion. She set out to write Dance of Anger to tackle female anger specifically, of which nothing had been written at that time. When women are discouraged from discussing their anger, she tells us, they lose a sense of self, as the pain of our anger preserves our dignity. We discuss the stereotype of the unloving, unlovable, and destructive angry woman, and the way in which female anger is only deemed acceptable when it is on the behalf of others.
Lerner leaves us with tips for beginning to work through our anger productively, starting with moving toward assertive self-definition without asking for permission, and ultimately becoming careful observers of our own role in the patterns that keep us stuck in anger so that we may make positive, lasting change on our own behalf.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM HARRIET LERNER:
The Dance Of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Pattern of Intimate Relationships
The Dance Of Intimacy: A Woman's Guide to Courageous Acts of Change in Key Relationships
The Dance Of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self
The Dance Of Deception: A Guide to Authenticity and Truth-Telling in Women's Relationships
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Our guest today is Dr. Riane Eisler, social systems scientist, cultural historian, futurist, attorney and internationally bestselling author of many notable classics, including Sacred Pleasure and The Chalice and the Blade, which I read recently and LOVED—while it came out in the ‘80s, it is incredibly prescient—prophetic really—and more relevant than ever. In it, and all of her books, Riane explores the ways in which hierarchies of dominance—which are NOT our natural state—inform how we live now. “What we’ve been told is simply a false story of our past, of our present, and most importantly today, the possibilities for our future,” she explains. Dr. Eisler joins me today to discuss her newest work, Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Future. In the book, Eisler implores us to awaken to the notion that injustice, inequality, violence, and domination do not tell the full story of human possibility. “We humans were really wired more for partnership than for domination,” she says. Guided by the ethos of partnership, Dr. Eisler’s work challenges each of us to play a role in the construction of a more equitable, more sustainable, and less violent world through investment in human infrastructure and a dedication to raising future generations by different scripts and constructs than those given to us. People’s minds can be changed, she reminds us, but a change in consciousness starts with the knowledge that there are different, better, possibilities.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM RIANE EISLER:
Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Future
The Chalice & The Blade: Our History, Our Future
The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics
The Power of Partnership: Sevens Relationships That Will Change Your Life
Breaking Out of the Domination Trance: Building Foundations for a Safe, Equitable, Caring World
RIANE’S PICKS:
My Octopus Teacher - Netflix, 2020
Grandfather's Garden: Some Bedtime Stories for Little and Big Folk - David Loye
DIG DEEPER
More on Partnership Systems and the Partnerism Movement
Courses in Partnership - Changing Our Story, Changing Our Lives
A World Without Women: The Christian Clerical Culture of Western Science - David Noble, 2013
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“Before our boys have learned to read, they have already read the stoic code of masculinity and are conforming to it.” says Terry Real, world-renowned family therapist, speaker, best-selling author and founder of the Relational Life Institute, where he offers workshops for couples, individuals, parents and therapists. He is also a dear friend. While he’s best known for his couples work, decades ago, he wrote the landmark book on male depression, which I cannot recommend enough. It’s called, I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression, and with it, Real established himself as one of the most respected voices in the treatment of men and the healing of their relationships with the world. In this episode, we talk about why depression is “illegal” for men, the cultural programming of boys, and forced detachment in the name of autonomy. Our culture of individualism, Real says, has done as much damage as our culture of patriarchy—leaving men little room for the type of connection and relationality that we humans live for. He leaves us with the steps for deprogramming ourselves from patriarchal thinking and parenting as well as the ways in which we can support the men in our lives in service of deeper connection and the pursuit of greater relational joy.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM TERRY REAL:
I Don't Want To Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression
How Can I Get Through To You?: Closing the Intimacy Gap Between Men and Women
The New Rules Of Marriage: What You Need to Know to Make Love Work
Take Terry's Online Course - Staying in Love: The Art of Fierce Intimacy
DIG DEEPER:
Find an RLT Certified Therapist Near You
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Our guest today is Dr. Sara Gottfried - a Harvard educated doctor, scientist, researcher, mother, and seeker with 25 years of experience practicing precision, functional, and integrative medicine. Gottfried specializes in root cause analysis, as she firmly believes that the greatest health transformations unfold when you address the root cause of illness, not simply the signs. She is the author of three New York Times best selling books focused on healing our cells, and our souls.
Today we discuss her most recent book Women, Food, and Hormones. Yes, we talked about all of those things, but we also explored the culture of weight and wellness, and why the scale is not always a predictor of our health. She took us through the intricacies of our metabolic function, and we together questioned whether the “perfect” body we have in our head even matches the body that allows us to function at our best. As she explains: “I feel like women are stuck. They're stuck between diet culture, which I think many of us reject this idea that we're supposed to be thinner, obedient, smaller, take up less space and have these unrealistic standards for how we're supposed to look. And then we also have the fat acceptance movement. And what I like to do is to position myself in the middle where the focus is on metabolic health.” She walks us through her protocol for hormone balance, opening up detoxification pathways, and even gives us a script for talking to our doctors and regaining agency when it comes to our health. Gottfried implores us to remember that we are deserving of support at any age, and that righteous indignation when it comes to our health can move mountains.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
Discussion of Diet Culture & Body Positivity: Approx. 5:24
Metabolic Health: Approx. 9:40
Importance of Testosterone for Women: Approx. 19:31
Wearables: Approx. 23:48
The Ketogenic Diet for Women: Approx. 28:34
Detox: Approx. 38:42
Discussion of Courageous Conversations with Doctors: Approx. 49:54
MORE FROM SARA GOTTFRIED, M.D.:
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“There's a fantasy in argument, in Lean In, or Girlboss style corporate feminism that says, once you have women in charge of your company, then your company is feminist, right. Your capitalist reforms can start and end with who has the corner offices. Right. Who's populating the executive suite. And so that's not even reforming capitalism, that's just trying to save it.”
So says Kyla Schuller, Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Faculty Director of the Women’s Global Health Leadership Certificate Program at Rutgers University. Today we dive into her heady new book, The Trouble with White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism, which takes on the numerous ways in which feminism, so narrowly framed around the issues of white women, has in turn marginalized the experiences of women of color for hundreds of years. And the title has double-meaning: Because even though white feminism has been problematic, it’s also painted white women into a corner, left wondering how we got here.
There have always been multiple kinds of feminism, Schuller says, a self-serving version dominated by white women, and an intersectional version dominated by women of color. White feminism, the mainstream feminist ideology, positions women as a redeemers, a salvific force whose mere presence in positions of power is enough to redeem that same power entirely. In sharp contrast, Schuller notes, intersectional feminism is an account of power, a place to interrogate the ways in which gender, sexuality, race, ability, and climate precarity coalesce to shape our lives. Only when we acknowledge these multiple, simultaneous identities, and come together across identity and power positions, will we form a strong enough political bloc to make enduring structural change.
Episode Highlights
More from Kyla Schuller
Kyla Schuller’s Website
Buy her new book, The Trouble with White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism
Read her first book, The Biopolitics of Feeling: Race, Sex, and Science in the Nineteenth Century
Follow Kyla on Twitter
Dig Deeper
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Harriet Jacobs
American Indian Stories - Zitkala-sa
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower - Brittney Cooper
Intersectionality - Brittney Cooper, The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory
The Nap Ministry - Rest is Resistance
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Jamie Wheal is the founder of the Flow Genome Project, a organization dedicated to the research and training of human performance, and most notably, he’s the author of Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death in a World That’s Lost its Mind. In his fascinating book, Wheal explores the perplexing intersection at which we find ourselves, each of us torn between the desire to save the world or to savor the world. “We as a generational cohort are coming of age where we simultaneously have more awareness of life...and at the same time understand our existential precariousness,” he says, “How on earth do we hold all this at the same time?” Our wide ranging discussion takes on the heady topics of healing, believing, and belonging
and ends with Wheal sharing with us his ‘ten suggestions', a list of countermeasures to the fundamentalism, nihilism, and despair that threaten to swallow us whole.
Episode Highlights
More from Jamie Wheal
Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death in a World That's Lost Its Mind
Jamie's Flow Genome Project - The Official Source for Peak Performance and Culture
Follow Jamie on Instagram
Dig Deeper
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“Do you want to continue to live out the patterns of your childhood? Or do you want to make different choices? Are you programmed or are you self-determining?” So says Loretta Ross, Professor at Smith College in the Program for the Study of Women and Gender, a founder of reproductive justice theory, and an expert on feminism, racism, and human rights. Loretta has co-written three books on reproductive justice and is the author of the forthcoming book, Calling In the Calling Out Culture. Loretta has been a leader in the human rights movement for decades—she worked with Reverend C.T. Vivian, one of Martin Luther King’s right hands, to rehabilitate former members of hate groups. As a rape and incest survivor herself, she taught Black feminism to incarcerated rapists. She has learned, throughout her career, to lift the hood on peoples’ lived experiences—the identity they project to the world—and determine, through courageous conversation, where their humanity lies, and where their values overlap. She believes with a certain fierceness that we have far more in common with each other—across the entire political spectrum—than not. In recent years, she has become a vocal opponent of cancel culture—ironically, people have attempted to cancel her for this—because, as she explains, she’s interested in being part of a movement and not a cult. She believes that political purity and the policing of other allies is...the opposite of helpful. And that in the process of building coalitions for sweeping social change and evolution, we alienate and lose people who would otherwise want the very same things as us.
Today, she gives us a crash course in the practice of calling in - an alternative to calling out, or publicly shaming those whose behavior or beliefs we deem unacceptable. In a culture devoid of empathy and grace, Ross implores us to offer people a chance to change, to give them the opportunity to be as good on the outside as they think they are on the inside. For Ross, recognizing that how we do the work is just as important as the work we do, gives us the incredible opportunity to bring more people in, building the power base of the social justice movement. When we choose to use calling in practices, she says, we choose them because of who we are, not because of who the other person is, and when we affirm the humanity of others, we affirm our own humanity in turn.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
MORE FROM LORETTA ROSS
Loretta Ross’ Website
Preorder her book, Calling in the Calling Out Culture, by joining her mailing list
Take the online course: Calling In the Calling Out Culture in the Age of Trump
Follow Loretta on Twitter
READ HER WORK
Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice
Reproductive Justice: an Introduction
Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundations, Theory, Practice, Critique
Reproductive Justice as Intersectional Feminist Activism
DIG DEEPER
I’m a Black Feminist. I Think Call-Out Culture Is Toxic. - Loretta Ross, NYT Op-Ed, August 2019
Speaking Up Without Tearing Down - Loretta Ross, Spring 2019
What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In? - Jessica Bennett, NY Times, November 2020
Up From Hatred - Michael D'Antonio, LA Times, August 1997
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“Humanity is messy, each of us starts with ourselves, it's horribly messy and then multiply that times millions. And that's an incredible, lovely mess.” So says Joy Harjo, the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, and the first Native American to hold that post. She is the author of nine books of poetry, several plays, and childrens books, and two memoirs—and is an internationally renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee nation, with an innumerable number of prizes and fellowships at her back. Today, we sit down to discuss her second memoir, POET WARRIOR, which just came out. It is beautiful—not only the story of her life, but a vehicle for deep wisdom about language, metaphor, and ritual. We—as individuals, as communities, as nations, and as humankind—exist in a collective story field, Harjo tells us. Everyone’s story must have a place, a thread within the larger tapestry—and our story field must constantly shift to include even the most difficult stories, the ones we want to forget and repress. But, as she remarks, the hard stories provide the building blocks for our house of knowledge—we cannot evolve without them.
To move forward, we must find ourselves in the messy story of humanity, assume our place as part of the earth in this time and in these challenges. For Harjo, it is when we turn to song, poetry, and the arts that we are able to re-root ourselves in the voice of inner truth, a knowing that has access to stories past, present, and future. And it is this wisdom of eternal knowledge that will help guide us forward—if we only stop to listen.
Joy is also the winner of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the PEN USA Literary Award for Nonfiction, the Jackson Prize from the Poetry Society of America, the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. Harjo is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Rasmuson United States Artist Fellowship. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Board of Directors Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and holds a Tulsa Artist Fellowship. In 2014 she was inducted into the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame.
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En liten tjänst av I'm With Friends. Finns även på engelska.