45-minute conversations and investigations with today's leading thinkers, authors, experts, doctors, healers, scientists about life's biggest questions: Why do we do what we do? How can we come to know and love ourselves better? How can we come together to heal and build a better world?
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Pulling The Thread with Elise Loehnen
82 episodes· 2,106 subscribers
- Mar 16 · 1h 3m The Origins of Inequality (Angela Saini)“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 Angela's Website Follow Angela on Instagram To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments00 likes0
- Mar 9 · 1h 2m Falling in Love With the World (Katherine May)“When I'd gone off and got lost in the woods and I walked for hours and I just couldn't find my way back out of the woods, there was this moment when I stopped and just had this sense of the forest as like this complete system of life. Like I could suddenly hear this, this crackle that felt to me like I could hear the water being drawn up from the soil and I could hear the leaves dropping down, and I could just feel this like I was part of this body and it was a remarkable moment, and I've never let go of that. And I I think once you've heard it once, like you can hear it again, this sense of like the being part of this huge system that's way bigger and way more ancient than you are and, and the humility of that, like the lovely, the lovely humbling that, that, that entails, because, you know, humility, it means literally to be part of the soil, to be of the soil. And that is a grand feeling to chase, I think to integrate with that.” Katherine joins me today to discuss her newest book, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age. A much needed follow-up to her first book, Wintering, which provided so many with language that articulated the pain of the long, communal loneliness and dislocation resulting from the pandemic—even though it was written well in advance—Enchantment presses forward to provide readers with a guide to rediscovering the beauty in being alive. The adult world, Katherine notes, is a profoundly play-less place—as we age, we turn away from our innate sense of wonder and awe in favor of grounded materialism that leaves us tired, anxious, and lonely. In our conversation, she encourages listeners to lean into our natural curiosity, engaging with what feels interesting and luminous in our immediate environment in order to re-sensitize ourselves to the subtle magic of living. We talk about sitting with our fascination instead of rushing to process it and the unique value of small moments in a world that prizes big experiences. For those of us searching for a different way of relating to the world, Enchantment is the balm we have been looking for. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: The death of playfulness… Longing and loneliness… Everything and nothing, all at once… MORE FROM KATHERINE MAY: Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious 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 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments0132 likes132
- Mar 2 · 54m Self-Healing In The Dark (Tara Schuster)“And we are made of stars, you know. It's not some fun little thing I'm trying to make everyone feel happy with. It's the carbon in your muscles, the calcium in your bones, the iron in your blood, born in stars. And so I just sat there on the road and the question was, okay, if I've got that in me, if those stars can shine despite everything they've been through, can, can I have some glow? Can, can I have something that lights the way even when things are really grim? Because at that moment I felt so lost. I felt like, how is it possible that I wrote this whole book about self-care? I had this whole career. I've done all this work. How is it possible that I'm still reeling from things that happened to me when I was a kid? Sort of the journey you go on with me on this book is, you know, kind of recognizing we all suffer. I mean, you know, I feel like trauma is almost like a taboo word. People think that it's being used too much. It's like, no, it's, it's suffering. Right? Like every major religion refers to this as suffering.There's pain and rather than ignore it, what I have found is my life is much easier when I deal with it. It's just a better way to live.” So says Tara Schuster, author of the breakout hit, Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies. Tara joins us today to discuss her ongoing work to unravel the mystery of the self—tales and tribulations captured in her latest book, Glow in the F*cking Dark: Simple Practices to Heal Your Soul, from Someone Who Learned the Hard Way. By all external accounts, Tara is someone who had it all figured out—by the time she was in her late twenties she had worked for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and was a rising star at Comedy Central where she was in charge of critically acclaimed shows like Key & Peele. Beneath it all, she was on the road to rock bottom—anxious, depressed and haunted by her chaotic upbringing. She wrote her first book, in many ways, for herself—a candid and practical guide to healing on the inside through the implementation of simple, daily rituals to transform mind, body, and soul. But just as Tara thought she had gotten through the hardest work, and even wrote a book to bring others along with her, she suddenly lost her job—in the middle of the pandemic. One terrifying, dissociative experience while driving down a highway late at night later, she had to come to terms with the fact that her hardest internal work was just beginning. Tara shares with us the things that helped her the most along the way—from journaling to build internal safety and wisdom, to rejecting helplessness and restoring faith in our own agency—Tara makes the sometimes lofty lessons of complex theories such as internal family systems and deep trauma therapy accessible. Self-awareness comes from perpetual curiosity, she reminds us, and we must learn about ourselves before we can extend those learnings for the good of the world. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Self-retrieval… Trusting internal authority… Perpetual curiosity… MORE FROM TARA SCHUSTER: Glow in the F*cking Dark: Simple Practices to Heal Your Soul, from Someone Who Learned the Hard 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 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments0187 likes187
- Feb 23 · 51m Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships (Nedra Tawwab)“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 The Set Boundaries Workbook: Practical Exercises for Understanding Your Needs and Setting Healthy Limits Follow Nedra on Instagram and Twitter Sign up for Nedra’s Newsletter To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments014 likes14
- Feb 16 · 57m The Friendships We Need (Will Schwalbe)“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 The End of Your Life Bookclub Send: Why People Email So Badly and How To Do It Better Will Schwalbe’s Website Follow Will on Twitter and Instagram To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments031 likes31
- Feb 9 · 1h 2m Learning to See Our Parents as They Are (Priscilla Gilman)“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 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments00 likes0
- Feb 2 · 52m What We’re After (Solo Episode)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 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments069 likes69
- Jan 26 · 1h 50m Understanding Spiritual Power (Carissa Schumacher)“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 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments098 likes98
- Jan 19 · 54m It Begins and Ends with Breath (James Nestor)“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 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments040 likes40
- Jan 12 · 1h 1m In Search of Paradise (Pico Iyer)“There are many places I'd love to see and I know I would learn from. But if I never see them, I won't be sorry. I mean I feel I'm so happy just being here in my little rented two room apartment in the middle of nowhere, Japan where we've been for 29 years. And I would be so grateful if I could spend almost every day here. And again another thing that the pandemic reminded us, I couldn't travel as much as usual. I don't think I really missed it. What I did find was I'd take a walk along the road behind my mother's house and it's in the hills of Santa Barbara and my parents had lived there more than 50 years. I'd never walked to the end of the road just 20 minutes away before. And I did. And I'd look around and there was a golden light of early morning and there's a Pacific ocean in the distance with the sun sentient above it. And I said, this is as beautiful as anywhere. Somebody would go to Capri or Rio de Janeiro to see us right in my backyard. And I'd never thought to look at it before. And so too, with this little apartment, my wife and I just start taking walks in every direction. And we came upon bamboo forests and cherry blossoms, all kinds of wonders. And we'd never in 29 years in this apartment looked around us. And so a reminder that all the beauty of the wonder of the world is right here. If only I have the eyes and motivation to see.” So says the wonderful Pico Iyer, who began his career teaching writing and literature at Havard, before he joined Time as a writer on world affairs. Since then, he has published 15 books, many of which are bestsellers. His books have been translated into over 23 languages, on subjects ranging from the Dalai Lama to globalism to the Cuban Revolution to Islamic mysticism. Perhaps known best for his travel writing, his most recent book, The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise, is the culmination of a lifetime of experiences in the outer world, intertwined with a deep and beautiful look at his inner world, as he asks himself, and the reader, how we might come upon paradise in the midst of the reality of our lives. Most of us are steeped in a culture which views paradise as eternally elusive—we live our lives with a deep longing to return to the Eden from which we have been evicted, to a place where the struggles of the human experience melt away. But it is in our struggle that we find paradise, Iyer tells us, if only we have the eyes to see it. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Recalling what we have forgotten… Utopian longings and viable dreams… Creating a life that matters… MORE FROM PICO IYER: The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise and other books by Pico 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) To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments00 likes0
- Jan 5 · 1h 9m Working with the Power of Earth (Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, PhD)“We're aware that we're in an ecological crisis. We are destroying our own ecosystem. We're aware there's loss of biodiversity, these beautiful species going extinct and who is the prime partner for us is the earth. But you go to an ecological conference like they are having now in Egypt and who listens to the earth whereas the voice of the earth herself, she's not heard, she's not asked, nobody asks the earth. And she is this ancient being. And so wise, she has been through mass extinctions before. Indigenous people knew how to ask and how to listen and how to talk to the earth. And that's why a lot of my writings recently are about trying to find a way to reconnect, to regain this way of being present with the earth, of listening to the earth of just being with her. And so her voice can be heard. Because if we don't make that connection, I don't see how we can go forward into a living future.” So says my guest today, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee - Sufi mystic, PhD, lecturer and prolific author. I have been reading through his books in a type of fever—they are some of the most powerful, and clarifying, treatises on spirituality—and what this whole experience is about—that I’ve ever read. Vaughan-Lee began following the Naqshbandi Sufi path at the age of 19, guided by Irina Tweedie, who brought this particular Indian branch of Sufism to the West. He eventually became her successor, and moved to Point Reyes, California where he founded the Golden Sufi Center—continuing to expand the reach of his Sufi lineage, making its teachings ever more available to the Western seeker. While he is in retreat as a teacher, he recently launched a podcast, called Stories for a Living Future that is beautiful. His many books provide a detailed exploration of the stages of spiritual and psychological transformation experienced on the Sufi path. More recently, his writing has focused on our spiritual responsibility to the earth, in the present time of transition; awakening our awareness of oneness with the world and all that is in it; and the presence of the amina mundi, or the world soul. Today, Vaughan-Lee joins the podcast to discuss one of his latest books, Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth, which is a collection of essays from some of our most esteemed leaders across faiths and dimensions, including Joanna Macy, Thich Nhat Hanh, Wendell Berry, Richard Rohr, and Vandava Shiva. As he explains today, we have lost awareness of the sacredness of creation, a loss that has allowed us to abuse an Earth regarded as unfeeling, unknowing matter. This is the spiritual root of our ecological crisis. He implores us to follow the thread that allows us to once again live in direct connection with creation, noting that real change can only happen when we regain our magical consciousness; grow closer to the lumen natura—nature’s light—and allow ourselves to fall in love with the Earth once more. Llewellyn does a remarkable job of placing our human story within the story of the Earth—in turn, he leaves us yearning to rediscover our place within the whole and thereby reaffirm our primal connection with our sacred home. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: A tree is not just timber, it is a spirit… Regaining our magical consciousness.. The great unraveling of present civilization.. Healthy society needs cultural eldering… MORE FROM LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN LEE: Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the 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 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments0168 likes168
- Dec 29 · 1h 2m Where Self Meets World (Dan Siegel, M.D.)“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 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments0121 likes121
- Dec 22 · 1h 6m The Kitchen Healer (Jules Blaine Davis)“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 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments060 likes60
- Dec 15 · 59m Processing Our Collective Past (Thomas Hübl)“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,0 comments0133 likes133
- Dec 8 · 59m On Collaborating With Ourselves (Alexandra Grant)“Now I'm making something that I didn't imagine. It's not going like I imagined, but it's going. And then when you finish the Object Thing book, then it has the power to take you on a journey that you never would have dreamt had you kept the idea in your interior museum. And then that shifts your imagination. You have more, more artwork that's collected in the Interior Museum and but, and then as you grow older, as a maker, You see that distinction, right? The distinction between the beautiful interior museum and the museum in reality of things that you've actually made and done and the stories attached to the making and doing that have changed your life.” I am joined today by my dear friend, Alexandra Grant. Alexandra is a fascinating person and talented visual artist whose work examines language and written texts through painting, drawing, sculpture, video, and other media and has been exhibited at institutions across the country: at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), the Pasadena Museum of California Art, among others. In 2008, she created the grantLOVE Project, which has raised awareness and funds for various arts nonprofits through the gift and sale of her iconic LOVE artwork. In 2017, she and her life partner, Keanu Reeves, co-founded X Artists’ Books, an artist-centric publishing house, helping artists and readers alike explore the creation of artwork and ideas outside the traditional model of book publishing. If that wasn’t enough, Alexandra is currently leading the first NFT project of the Hollywood Sign for the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and is an Advisor to the Future Verse Foundation. She joins me today to meditate on art and love—as we celebrate the release of her book Love: A Visual History of the grantLOVE Project. A comprehensive history of the foundation she started fifteen years ago, the book is a visual collection of paintings, prints, sculptures, textiles, jewelry, and architecture gathered by Grant and her collaborators to explore the timeless question, what is love? Our conversation is a peek into our regular walk and talks—a beloved routine through which we have been able to explore, reflect, and build an incredibly meaningful friendship. Today we discuss what it means to be looked at and perceived by the public, especially as the partner of one of the most famous actors of our generation; the inevitable disappointment that results from taking the beautiful ideas in our heads and attempting to turn them into something physical; and owning our native talents in the pursuit of a creative live, whether or not we fit into the conventions of being an artist. You have to create opportunities between the cracks, she tells us. Okay, let’s get to our conversation. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Being in the messy middle… Owning your native talents… Conversing with the past self… Creating opportunities between the cracks… MORE FROM ALEXANDRA GRANT: Love: A Visual History of the grantLOVE Project Explore X Artists' Books Check out her website and the grantLOVE Project Follow Alexandra on Instagram To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments029 likes29
- Dec 1 · 58m Living a Committed Life (Lynne Twist)“But a life devoted to something larger than yourself is a life worth living. It's a life that is in recognition of life is given to us, it's given to us so that we can give it, we're blessed so that we can bless. We're born, I think, I can't prove this, but I've experienced it to make the contribution that's uniquely ours to make. And when you find that dharma, that discovers who you are, this is a match for what's wanted in the world. Oh my God. It's so thrilling that I wanted to do everything I could to make that available to people, because it's not only wonderful for you, the world needs us now. The world always did. But now the crises are so deep, so profound, so intense, so everywhere. So in every part of society, in every economic class, in every country, in every language, in every culture, that it's all hands on deck. And what a thrilling time to be alive when it's an all hands on deck moment.” so says my guest today, Lynne Twist. Lynne is a world-renowned visionary committed to alleviating poverty, ending world hunger, and supporting social justice and sustainability. Her 40-year career has taken her from working with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, to the refugee camps in Ethiopia and the threatened rainforests of the Amazon, to guiding the philanthropic efforts of some of the world’s wealthiest families. Her breadth of experience led her to found the Soul of Money Institute, where she has worked with hundreds of thousands of people all over the world on topics such as fundraising with integrity, practicing conscious philanthropy, and creating a healthy relationship with money. Lynne first translated her compelling stories and life experiences into the bestselling book, The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life and joins us today to discuss her newest book, Living a Committed Life: Finding Freedom and Fulfillment in a Purpose Larger Than Yourself. In the book, and our conversation, Lynne reveals the guiding principles that have enabled her to live as a thought leader and activist, teaching us that a committed life is one worth living: That sometimes the commitment to it alone is enough to ensure it happens. The universe is telling us repeatedly that we are in this together, she says, and in a world that sometimes feels chaotic and devoid of meaning, it’s incumbent that we draw together around what it means to be human. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Taking a stand vs. taking a position… Pain pushes until vision pulls… We won’t think our way out of this… Replacing charity with solidarity… MORE FROM LYNNE TWIST: Living a Committed Life: Finding Freedom and Fulfillment in a Purpose Larger Than 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 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments07 likes7
- Nov 23 · 1h 5m The Boundaries We Need (Melissa Urban)“Boundaries don't tell other people what to do. They tell other people what you are willing to do to take responsibility for your own needs and your own feelings and keep yourself safe and healthy. And they actually are, as we've discussed, a gift to your relationship, they make relationships better. And when you turn it around on its head like that, I think number one, that helps people understand all of the benefits to your relationship when each party does take responsibility for how they feel and for their needs. And it also gives you a sense of empowerment. I think people feel like, Oh, I can't set boundaries because what if the other person won't do it or doesn't say yes? And when I tell them, Oh no, no, no, your boundary cannot depend on somebody else. It is only dependent on what you are willing and able to do.” So says Melissa Urban, a woman who can do everything. Not only is the founder of Whole30, she’s a six-time New York Times best-selling author. Her latest is the subject of our conversation today: It’s called "The Book of Boundaries: Set the Limits That Will Set You Free,” which is the result of helping her community navigate through their relationships to…pretty much everything as they begin to fix and adjust their relationship to their own bodies and food. She is a fierce proponent of self-efficacy and a commitment to showing up for yourself in all aspects of life. In our conversation, we discuss what a boundary even means—and how difficult it is for us to address what’s at the root of establishing them, which is our NEEDS. Melissa guides us through relatable scenarios, like with the in-laws or a boss, where boundaries might be missing. And we talk about the qualities of niceness and how they can get in the way of caring for ourselves: Melissa, who is fierce in her directness, distinguishes between the quality of niceness and the quality of kindness in a very profound way. And it all comes to this: We must first be kind to ourselves before we can show up with kindness in the world. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Direct not rude… Boundaries don’t tell other people what to do… Set limits, set expectations… Make the goal showing up for yourself… MORE FROM MELISSA URBAN: The Book of Boundaries: Set the Limits That Will Set You Free Check out Melissa's Website Follow Melissa on Instagram and Twitter To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments0208 likes208
- Nov 17 · 48m The Closet of Inauthenticity (Jessi Hempel)“My childhood was a childhood in the closet. I had some good things. I had some bad things, like living in the closet is, you know, not always terrible. It's simply not the greatest expression of, of who we have the capacity to become, I think. Um, but for my parents, you know, as my father went along in my childhood, he became more and more withdrawn and kept trying to do the right thing, was closeted even to himself. This was a secret he was keeping even from himself for most of my childhood. But it made him kind of a lousy partner. Right. My mother's experience was just a very, very lonely experience. Her life looked on the outside exactly like it was supposed to look, we lived in a nice community. She was married to a lawyer, or, you know, we looked great on a Christmas card, but it felt cavernous, just vacant and left with so much time on her own. Um, she really struggled not to let her memory present her with things to work on. And that led her to be very depressed throughout my childhood.” So says Jessi Hempel, a long-time media and technology journalist, an award-winning host of the podcast, Hello Monday, and author of the new memoir, The Family Outing. Her book is a profound telling of family dynamics, offering lessons on accepting one's truest self. Specifically, it’s the story of a family who comes out of the closet to embrace their queer identities. Even Jessi’s mother, who is straight, lives in a type of closet, Jessi explains, as she nearly became the victim of a serial killer as a teenager—this unconfronted trauma affects her entire family’s life. In our conversation, Jessi shares her journey to emphasize the detrimental side-effects of shame and the non-linear path to liberation. Our conversation explores the value of authenticity and navigating parts of ourselves we have not yet learned to face. She believes that when we“step into ourselves,” culture has the capacity to shift, allowing us all to live more gracefully. Okay, let’s get to our conversation. MORE FROM JESSI HEMPEL: The Family Outing Jessi’s podcast, Hello Monday Follow Jessi on LinkedIn and Instagram To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments053 likes53
- Nov 10 · 1h 1m Recovering Every Part of Ourselves (Richard Schwartz, PhD)“I’m trying to map the territory in the center world, just the way I did with families and the distinction that immediately leaped out was between parts that other systems would call inner children, which, you know, they're very, before they're hurt, they're delightful. They give us all kinds of joy and, and imagination and creativity and playfulness and so on. But once they feel, once you have an experience that leaves you feeling worthless or terrified or hurt, they're the ones that take that in the most, because they're the most sensitive parts of you. And then they get stuck with these, what I call burdens of worthlessness or pain or terror. And now we don't wanna be around them because they have the power to overwhelm us and make us feel all that again and bring us back into those scenes that they literally are living in still. And so we try to lock them away in inner basements, thinking we're just moving on from the memories, sensations and, and emotions of the trauma. Not realizing that we're actually leaving in the dust, the parts of us we love the most when they're not hurt, just cuz they got hurt.” So says Dr. Richard Schwartz, the creator of Internal Family Systems, a transformative, evidence-based model of psychotherapy that de-pathologizes the multipart personality. Dr. Schwartz began his career as a systemic family therapist and academic in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago and later at Northwestern University. It was there that he worked with a number of clients who claimed to recognize that they had several components, or parts, to themselves. This discovery led him to develop Internal Family Systems, also known as IFS. Within his model, Dr. Schwartz argues that our consciousness, or personality, can be broken down into multiple parts, each with distinct characteristics that fall under three categories: exiles, managers, and firefighters. Exiles are the parts of us that experience anxiety, fear, or trauma—often when we’re very young. Our other parts begin to protect those exiles from being triggered by events and experiences. Managers do this by dictating how we interact with the external world and firefighters seek to protect us by pushing us toward distraction to numb our pain. All of our inner parts contain valuable qualities, Dr. Schwartz tells us, but when they are left unattended, they may lead to damaging impulses, causing us to write them off as damaging in and of themselves. On the other hand, when our parts are acknowledged and their needs are addressed, a confidence and openness emerges—what Dr. Schwartz has come to call the Self. It is in this state of Self, that we can begin to heal all of our parts and become integrated and whole. In our conversation today, Dr. Schwartz walks us through the basics of his model and then guides me through an IFS work session. This was very powerful for me. Because the concept sounds heady, I’m glad you can experience the model in action: I hope our work together inspires you to explore the profound awareness made accessible by IFS. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: It is the nature of the mind to have multiple parts… Reconciling with your exiles… My IFS session… MORE FROM DR. RICHARD SCHWARTZ: Books by Dr. Richard Schwartz: No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model Introduction to Internal Family Systems You Are the One You've Been Waiting for: Applying Internal Family Systems to Intimate Relationships Explore the IFS Institute WATCH: Dr. Richard Schwartz Explains Internal Family Systems (IFS) To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments018 likes18
- Nov 3 · 1h 10m Decolonizing Wellness (Chelsey Luger & Thosh Collins)"We have offered a model, the seven circles, that helps people to understand that it's not just food and fitness, which so many wellness practitioners purport. It's not just diet and exercise. It's not just the way that you look on the outside or the $90 yoga pants that you can afford, or the fancy studio class or the 25 ingredient smoothie that costs $25. You know, those are unfortunately the images that we have now when it comes to wellness. And that's why so many people continue to feel excluded and uninterested in wellness. It seems so superficial. And so what I hope is that we have incorporated all these other elements to show people that not only can they be a wellness person who participates or who practices wellness, but they are already. We are all on this journey to some degree already." So says Chelsey Luger. Luger and her husband Thosh Collins are wellness teachers, authors, and the founders of the indigenous wellness initiative, Well for Culture. Launched in 2013, Well For Culture was established to reclaim ancient Native wellness philosophies and practices to promote the wellbeing of the physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional self. From their exploration and practice, the two have developed a holistic model for modern living which they share with us in their first book, The Seven Circles: Indigenous Teachings for Living Well. According to Luger and Collins, these seven circles—food, movement, sleep, community, sacred space, ceremony, and connection to land—are interconnected, working together to keep our lives in balance. In our conversation, we begin to explore these many aspects of health, as Luger and Collins explain how their teachings can be adapted to every life, and how to do so while maintaining respect and reverence for the Indigenous origins of the wisdom and practices they share. We discuss their work to reframe wellness, how to integrate spirituality into movement through intention, and the power of the hollow bone mentality. Healing and wellness is not just a journey of one, they tell us, but rather a journey of family and community: When we take the important steps to heal ourselves, we contribute to the health of all. I was very moved by this conversation, which we’ll turn to now. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Creating a true connection to movement… Misappropriation… Fools Crow and the Hollow Bone Theory… Creating agreements with ourselves around technology… MORE FROM CHELSEY & THOSH: The Seven Circles: Indigenous Teachings for Living Well Check out their initiative: Well for Culture Native Wellness Institute Follow Thosh on Instagram Follow Chelsey on Instagram To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments025 likes25
- Oct 27 · 1h 5m The Power of Visual Thinkers (Temple Grandin, PhD)“The thing is the type of thinking where you can figure out how mechanical things work. It’s a different kind of intelligence. And I think it's hard for verbal thinkers to understand. And they kind of will look at the shop kids as a dumb kids. Now, fortunately, some states are starting to put it back in. We're having more and more infrastructure things falling apart, like this latest disaster with the water works breaking—you see, a visual thinker can see how it works and how to fix it. And you keep deferring maintenance. I mean, we got wires falling off of electric towers in California and starting fires because they deferred maintenance, but we need all of the different kinds of thinkers. And the first step is realizing that they exist and they need to work together as teams.” So says Dr. Temple Grandin, a New York Times bestselling author, celebrated animal welfare advocate, and one of the world’s most prominent speakers on autism. Temple first came into the public consciousness with her memoir, Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism, which provided her unique inside narrative and revolutionized how the world understood autistic individuals. Her latest book, Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions, works to expand our awareness of the different ways our brains are wired even further as she draws upon cutting edge research to demystify the brains of visual thinkers. Our world is geared for verbal thinkers, she tells us, with rigid academic and social expectations sidelining visual thinkers at school and in the workplace—to the detriment of productivity and innovation everywhere. In our conversation, Temple takes us through the three different types of thinkers, and argues that changing our approach to educating, parenting, and employing visual thinkers has great potential to encourage, rather than stifle, their singular gifts and unique contributions. As the number of children diagnosed with autism continues to rise nationally, her call to foster “differently-abled” brains is more important than ever—as she so eloquently says, we need all kinds of minds to solve today’s most difficult problems. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Three kinds of thinkers… Neurodiversity is essential for our survival… Avoiding label lock… MORE FROM TEMPLE GRANDIN: Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions Emergence: Labeled Autistic The Autistic Brain: Helping Different Kinds of Minds Succeed Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism (Expanded Edition) Visit Temple's Website To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments00 likes0
- Oct 20 · 55m Being a Good Enough Person (Dolly Chugh)“What I'm positing is, is an ability to grapple with contradiction. So that's the paradox mindset that Wendy Smith, Maryanne Lewis and other scholars have shown that when we're able to sit with two conflicting things in our minds, for example that if we stick with the example in South Africa, it may be true that if I'm a student that my parents and my grandparents participated in actively supported apartheid and that they were also wonderful parents and grandparents, right? Like those two things can be true, and being able to sit with that contradiction gives me. Like emotional limberness to kind of, you know, push my way through the, the emotional slog of this is awful. This is awful. And to sit with terrible things happened, that's the only way you can do it.” So says Dolly Chugh, award-winning social psychologist at the NYU Stern School of Business, where she is an expert researcher in the psychology of people and goodness. Her first book is the wonderful, The Person You Mean to Be and she just released a second, called, A More Just Future: Psychological Tools for Reckoning with Our Past and Driving Social Change. Both books serve as inspiring, yet practical guides for those of us who seek to be better. A More Just Future builds on Chugh’s first book, which equipped readers with the tools to be “good-ish” people who stand up for their values. In her latest, she offers a guide to reckoning with the whitewashed history of our country in order to build a better future. The seeds of today’s inequalities were sown in the past, she tells us, and it will take an extra dose of resilience and grit to grapple with the truth of our history and to make the systemic changes needed to mend the fabric of our country. Moving from willful ignorance to willful awareness isn’t easy, leading to uncomfortable feelings of shame, guilt, disbelief, and resistance when we encounter revelations that run against what we have long been told. But it is possible to love your country with a broken heart, she says, imploring us to grapple with contradiction, employing the paradox mindset as we shift from the rigidness of “either/or” to the nuance of “both/and.” EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Wired for consistency… Light vs. heat-based change… Sitting in paradox… Belief grief… MORE FROM DOLLY CHUGH: A More Just Future: Psychological Tools for Reckoning with Our Past and Driving Social 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 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments042 likes42
- Oct 13 · 1h When Women Lead (Julia Boorstin)“But my other favorite thing about the confidence piece, as someone who can be very anxious and nervous myself, is that sometimes it's valuable not to be confident. And there is this piece in the book about how everyone would benefit if, when you're making decisions, you start off in an information gathering stage. And instead of being super confident when you're trying to gather data, you turn down your confidence, be not confident at all, be confused, be concerned, be anxious. Gather all the data, as many differing viewpoints as possible. Once you've figured out the right answer with all the humility that you could possibly have, jack up your confidence and then you execute. And this idea that confidence can be on a dial and there's value in not being confident sometimes is something that I was never taught. And that feels very reassuring to learn,” so says Julia Boorstin, who has spent over two decades as a reporter, working for CNBC, CNN, and Fortune. She’s also the creator of the “Disruptor 50” franchise, a list which highlights private companies transforming the economy and challenging companies in established industries. Her first book, When Women Lead, draws on her work studying and interviewing hundreds of executives throughout her impressive career to tell the stories of more than 60 female CEOs and leaders who have fought massive social and institutional headwinds to run some of the world’s most innovative and successful companies. Combining years of academic research and interviews, Julia reveals these women’s powerful commonalities—they are highly adaptive to change, deeply empathetic in their management style, and much more likely to integrate diverse points of view into their business strategies. This makes these women uniquely equipped to lead, grow businesses, and navigate crises in ways where their male counterparts don’t seem as gifted. Today’s episode digs into Boorstin’s meticulously researched book as we cover a few of the female tendencies that correlate with great leadership: how women embrace the role of fire-prevention as opposed to fire fighting; their ability to avoid ethical quandaries and group think; and the value of gaining confidence through experience. The monoculture tends to focus on iconic female leaders, she tells us, but there is so much more to gain from focusing on the stories that are not being told, expanding the diversity of images of success for women and men alike. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Female qualities correlate with great leadership… Women as fire preventers… The myth of the confidence gap… Feedback bias… MORE FROM JULIA BOORSTIN: When Women Lead: What They Achieve, Why They Succeed, and How We Can Learn from Them CNBC Disruptor 50 Follow Julia on Instagram and Twitter DIVE DEEPER: “Better Decisions Through Diversity: Heterogeneity Can Boost Group Performance,” Northwestern Kellogg School of Management Study “How the VC Pitch Process Is Failing Female Entrepreneurs,” Harvard Business Review “Investors Prefer Entrepreneurial Ventures Pitched by Attractive Men,” Harvard Kennedy School Gender Action Portal “The Remarkable Power of Hope,” Psychology Today “Language Bias in Performance Feedback,” Textio 2022 Study To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments032 likes32
- Oct 6 · 1h 4m A Map to Your Soul (Jennifer Freed, PhD)“Well, I think of it like the metaphor of the ensemble in a great musical, like everybody has to know their part. Everybody has to give 2000% and everybody has to really cheer on the other people, doing their part or it just doesn't work. And the way I see the map to our soul, this astrological map is we have free will. So we get to play it at whatever level we choose and certainly cultural influences and patriarch and all kinds of stuff messes us up. But I firmly believe, and I've seen it over and over that if we get the help, we need to uncover our fullest expression, people are humming at their fullest best part, which then allows everyone else around them to rise up.” So says Jennifer Freed, a psychologist, astrologer, and the author of many books, including the just-released A Map to Your Soul: Using the Astrology of Fire, Earth, Air, and Water to Live Deeply and Fully. I met Jennifer almost a decade ago—she was, in many ways, the gateway to discovering my own spirituality, because when she did my natal chart, I felt deeply seen and held. It seemed like a small miracle. Jennifer is also a psychologist and so her perceptions are grounded in life: They are insightful, practical, and actionable while also being profound and deep.This is a hard path to walk. Jennifer brings this same quality to her books—you need only have the most rudimentary understanding of astrology to get a lot out of their pages. They are, in many ways, a workout for your soul, and an opportunity to get to know yourself better. And if you do it with or for people you love, you’ll also get insight into why they do what they do. As she explains, astrology is often confined to our star signs and newspaper tidbits, when it’s so much vaster. In today’s conversation we discuss our moon, our rising, and the elements in our chart, which signify how we respond to our life. If you want, head to astro.com and get a free natal chart so you can understand the presence of air, water, fire, and earth in your own chart—though it’s not necessary. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: We are all known by the planets… Talking about the elements… Don’t spare the necessary pain… The corporatization of spirituality… Sign round-up… MORE FROM JENNIFER FREED: A Map to Your Soul: Using the Astrology of Fire, Earth, Air, and Water to Live Deeply and 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 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments024 likes24
- Sep 29 · 1h What Makes Love Last (John & Julie Gottman, PhDs)“I’ve never really figured out how come we stop asking each other questions. You know, we always do that in the beginning of a relationship just to get to know somebody, but then once we get committed, once we get busy, we're busy, busy, then we think, okay, everything is cool over here. I don't need to put energy into it. I'll go to work. And our partners, meanwhile, and we are changing over time. We are changing with history, with politics. We are changing with our whole world as our kids get older. If we have kids as our career changes and we stop asking each other questions, you know, our days become this endless to-do list period. And the only question we ask is, did you call the plumber? Well, yes. Anything else you wanna know?,” says Dr. Julie Gottman. Julie and her husband, John, have dedicated over four decades to the research and practice of fostering healthy and long lasting relationships. The Gottmans are the world’s leading relationship scientists, having gathered data on over three thousands couples to identify the building blocks of love and employing those findings through the training of clinicians and creation of principles and products for couples around the world. Their latest book,The Love Prescription: Seven Days to More Intimacy, Connection, and Joy, distills their findings to the simple question, what makes love last? Providing readers with a simple, seven-day action plan, the book makes the Gottman’s work accessible to every relationship - no grand gestures, difficult conversations, or multi-day seminars required. I am delighted to be joined by the couple today as we discuss how to build a fruitful dialogue around the perpetual problems that crop up in relationships; filling your relationship piggy bank with small, but daily, positive actions; and committing to an ongoing curiosity about your partner as they grow and evolve. If both people want to do the work, they tell us, many more relationships can be saved than we may think. Lasting love requires good partnership hygiene, tiny interventions over the course of a lifetime, in order to establish a culture of respect, awareness, and rediscovery that keeps things on the rails. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Accepting perpetual problems… Cultivating curiosity… Dawning of awareness… Respecting anger… MORE FROM JOHN & JULIE GOTTMAN: The Love Prescription: Seven Days to More Intimacy, Connection, and 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 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices0 comments041 likes41
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