Guardian columnist Tim Dowling has spent decades chronicling his marriage and family life for the Weekend magazine. His self-deprecating humour and determinedly cynical approach have made him hugely popular with readers. 

In this classic episode, Tim and Andrew discuss the layers that go into a joke. What exactly is it that we’re doing when we laugh at ourselves and our own life? Humour can be about storytelling, making sense of the past, finding honesty and creating meaning. It can be a defence mechanism, and a form of self-protection for the intensely shy. 

Tim’s readers have watched him move from the chaos of working and parenting younger children to a different stage of midlife. The column has changed, and so has everyone featured in it. Andrew and Tim discuss new hobbies, the relaxation that can come with being older, and the boundaries that need to go up when writing about family for so long. 

Subscriber Content This Week 

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing: 

• Three things Tim Dowling knows to be true. 
• AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things 

Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools

Listen to Tim Dowling’s audiobook How To Be Happy All The Time: The Unexpected Joys of Being a Cynic: Everything Bad Is Good for You

Find out more about dealing with midlife and the relationship issues it can cause in Andrew’s book It’s Not a Midlife Crisis, It’s an Opportunity.

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

As children we were probably taught that being selfish was a great evil, to be avoided at all costs. Jungian analyst and author Bud Harris, however, feels that “sacred selfishness” can be a path to genuine self-love, forgiveness and the wholeness we crave.

In this episode, Andrew and Bud discuss

• How to value ourselves and live meaningful lives we love.

• How to become authentic humans, who give back vitality and hope to others.

• How to love others without losing ourselves.

• What true self-love and self-forgiveness mean.

Bud Harris, PhD, is one of the most prolific Jungian authors of our time. He has authored and co-authored over 20 books, and has been in the field of Jungian psychology for more than 40 years. After an early career in business, he experienced a call to become a Jungian analyst, and moved to Zurich, Switzerland, for his training. Now in his 80s, he lives and practices in North Carolina.

Subscriber Content This Week 

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing: 

• The Transforming Power of Suffering.
• Three things Bud Harris knows to be true. 
• AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things 

Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools 

Read Bud Harris’s book Sacred Selfishness 

Visit Bud Harris’ website 

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

The Meaningful Life Classic Episode: TRACEY COX on Great Sex After 50

No-one would deny sex is important to a meaningful life, but what that looks like changes as we age. In this first episode of The Meaningful Life, international sex therapist and Daily Mail columnist Tracey Cox discusses her book Great Sex Starts at 50: How to Age-Proof Your Libido. 

While wild, lustful sex can certainly be a unique and special life experience, the sex that brings us meaning is different. It’s the sex that lasts past the orgasm, to include that afterglow as you lie together or even just make each other a post-coital cup of tea. It’s about building a sexual relationship that is not solely focused on orgasm. 

Meaningful sex is also sex that the two of you work on - after twenty years you probably won’t want to rip each other’s clothes off, but you CAN plan time to devote to each other, to try new things and create desire. Trying new things is something the majority of couples never do - but it’s a simple recipe for exciting, meaningful sex, and Tracey and Andrew have plenty of tips on where to start.

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:

• Three things Tracey Cox knows to be true.
• AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things.

Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools.

Buy Great Sex Starts at 50: How to Age-Proof Your Libido by Tracey Cox

Get the advice you need on your sex life from Tracey Cox.

Listen to Tracey Cox and Kelsey Chittick’s SexTok podcast 

Follow Tracey Cox on social media: Instagram, Facebook and Twitter/X.

Put the spark back in your relationship with Andrew’s book Have The Sex You Want

https://andrewgmarshall.com/book/have-the-sex-you-want-a-couples-guide-to-getting-back-the-spark/

Read Andrew’s advice on what to do if your partner says the passion is gone

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall and on Substack at The Meaningful Life. 

If you’re feeling stuck in your life, could the way forward be found in your dreams? Your dreams are direct messages from your subconscious, and can tell you a huge amount if you pay them a little attention.

This week’s guest, Machiel Klerk, is a Jungian analyst and the founder of the Jung Platform. He is also the author of Dream Guidance, a guide to connecting with and finding guidance from the soul through your dreams.

Andrew and Machiel discuss Machiel’s dream incubation techniques: Machiel provides guidance on how to ask your subconscious a question relating to a specific situation in your life, and have the answer offered by your dreams. 

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:

⭐️Four techniques to better interpret your dreams.

⭐️3 things Machiel knows to be true.

⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter The Meaningful Life, and join the community there.

Read Machiel Klerk’s book Dream Guidance 

Visit Machiel Klerk’s website 

Visit the Jung Platform

Follow Machiel Klerk on Facebook and Instagram

Listen to some of our other episodes featuring Jungian analysts, including James Hollis on Resilience, Lisa Marchiano on Motherhood, Susan Schwartz on Fathers and Daughters and Robert Hopcke on Meaningful Coincidence.

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

If we know anything for sure about love, it’s that our beloved will change as time passes. They will look different, believe new things and feel new sorrows and joys.

Psychologist and author Dr Matthew McKay has written a new book on how we can keep love alive in an age of impermanence. He talks with Andrew about five ways to keep loving in the face of change, loss or disappointment:

⭐️Truly knowing the people we love

⭐️Actively caring for loved ones

⭐️Cultivating compassion

⭐️Setting a daily intention to act with love

⭐️Turning toward the pain of impermanence, not away from it.

Matthew has a strong belief that the power of love continues after life is over, and he and Andrew also discuss how to keep loving and communicating with those who are gone.

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:

⭐️Matthew discussing his “navigation principle” - a way to see more clearly how we approach life’s big decisions.

⭐️Matthew’s gratitude meditation to help you clean out the wounds of life.

⭐️3 things Matthew knows to be true.

⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter The Meaningful Life, and join the community there. 

Buy Dr Matthew McKay’s new book Love in the Time of Impermanence 

Read Dr Matthew McKay’s book on the transition to the afterlife: The Luminous Landscape of the Afterlife 

Take a look at Dr Matthew McKay’s author page on the Inner Traditions website.

Read some of Dr Matthew McKay’s other books 

You might also enjoy Andrew’s interviews with Paul Gilbert on Compassion and Self-Acceptance and with Terry Real on the Five Traps that Undermine Your Love. 

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50: https://www.patreon.com/andrewgmarshall 

How can we cope when life turns very dark? The culture tends to suggest we fix ourselves, work through the grief, and get back to normal as quickly as possible.

If we accept the challenge to go deeper, though, getting up close with the darkness of life can be enriching and freeing. 

Ancient and non-Western cultures tend to offer more routes into the “underworld”. Jungian psychotherapist Dr Joanna LaPrade is the author of a new book called Forged In Darkness, in which she explores how myth and stories can help us navigate our way through the shadows.

In this episode Joanna shares stories and real-life examples to help you understand your own darkness. She and Andrew discuss:

• Creating your own rituals to deal with darkness
• Generational darkness: millennials and failure, babyboomers and shame.
• The transformative experience of suffering

Dr Joanna LaPrade is an author, educator and Jungian psychotherapist. She has a private practice in Colorado U.S.A.

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:

⭐️The mythical gods and heroes who can best help us understand suffering.

⭐️3 things Joanna knows to be true.

⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter The Meaningful Life, and join the community there.

Read Dr Joanna LaPrade’s book Forged In Darkness 

Visit Dr Joanna LaPrade’s website 

Read Andrew’s memoir about the loss of his partner, My Mourning Year. 

Listen to some of our other episodes on grief, such as David Kessler on the Sixth Stage of Grief, or to other Jungian guests such as James Hollis on Resilience.

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Is it possible to fall in love with your partner over and over again? Can you hope to hold onto passionate sex as you grow older together?

This week Andrew is joined by Dr Cheryl Fraser, an author, Buddhist teacher, psychologist and sex therapist. They explore the nature and longevity of passion, including:

⭐️Libido and why it can wane over time

⭐️How mindfulness works in the bedroom

⭐️The “passion triangle” - intimacy, thrill, sensuality.

Dr Cheryl Fraser is the author of Buddha’s Bedroom, and the host of the Sex, Love and Elephants podcast. She also runs an online programme for couples, Become Passion.

Dr Cheryl has helped thousands of couples jump-start their love life and create passion that lasts a lifetime. She lives in Vancouver, where she has a thriving private practice in sex and couples therapy. She is regularly featured in Mindful and Best Health magazines. Dr Cheryl was also a Fulbright scholar, and has studied meditation and Buddhism for twenty-five years, in both the Tibetan and Theravaden traditions.

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:

⭐️Cheryl & Andrew on 3 big relationship myths

⭐️How Buddhism’s 4 Noble Truths can lead to a more loving, connected relationships. 

⭐️3 things Cheryl knows to be true.

⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack publication, The Meaningful Life

Learn more about Dr Cheryl’s online immersion program for couples, Become Passion. It will be offered only once in 2022, in October. Join the waitlist here. 

Sign up to receive Lovebytes, Dr Cheryl’s tips and techniques to help you create love that lasts a lifetime.

Read Dr Cheryl’s book, Buddha’s Bedroom 

Listen to Dr Cheryl’s podcast Sex, Love and Elephants 

Follow Dr Cheryl on Facebook and YouTube 

Read Andrew’s book I Love You But I’m Not In Love With You 

Read Andrew’s blog Seven Secrets for Making Marriage Last 

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

This week we are celebrating our 100th episode. To mark the occasion, we have a very special guest: Julia Samuel MBE, who is one of the UK’s foremost psychotherapists, as well as an author and an expert on grief. 

Julia and Andrew discuss:

⭐️How grief and loss pass from generation to generation

⭐️How you can protect your own children from generational trauma

⭐️Using boundaries, rituals and positive conflict techniques to help your family heal.

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:

⭐️Julia’s 12 touchstones for the wellbeing of a family.

⭐️3 things Julia knows to be true.

⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there

Read Julia Samuel’s book Every Family has a Story: How We Inherit Love and Loss

Read Julia Samuel’s other books This Too Shall Pass : Stories of Change, Crisis and Hopeful Beginnings and Grief Works : Stories of Life, Death and Surviving

Take a look at Julia Samuel’s website  

Follow Julia Samuel on Facebook and Instagram @JuliaSamuelMBE

Listen to other episodes dealing with generational inheritances: Terry Real on Five Traps that Undermine Your Love, Jed Diamond on Your Personal Creation Story and Philippa Perry on What You Wish Your Parents Knew.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Some of us spend years having the same arguments with our partner, on repeat. Others drift into a state of lonely togetherness where we don’t bother to talk about discontents, because it just feels pointless.

Joanna Harrison is a marital therapist who has identified five arguments that all couples need to have. If you can work through these issues, your chances of building a healthy, happy relationship are much stronger.

In this week’s episode, Andrew and Joanna discuss basic skills for productive conflict, why we try to avoid arguments, and how therapy can help.

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:

⭐️Joanna’s examples of practical strategies that have worked best for the couples she sees. 

⭐️Andrew and Joanna’s best piece of advice for couples struggling to disagree productively.

⭐️3 things Joanna KNOWS to be true.

⭐️AND subscribers can also explore a rich trove of bonus material on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and all his previous guests.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there 

Get Joanna Harrison’s book Five Arguments All Couples (Need to) Have and Why the Washing-Up Matters 

Take a look at Joanna Harrison’s website https://joannaharrison.co.uk 

Follow Joanna Harrison on Twitter @JoCoupleTherapy and on Instagram @joannaharrisoncoupletherapist 

Listen to other The Meaningful Life episodes on marriage and relationships: Dr Terry Real on Five Traps that Undermine Your Love and Matthew Fray on How Good People Mess Up Their Marriages

 Read Andrew’s book I Love You But I’m Not In Love With You: Seven Steps to Saving Your Relationship 

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

Society encourages us to focus hard on “doing, achieving and having”. According to Professor Paul Gilbert, though, we would likely be much happier if we instead worked on being more compassionate to ourselves and others.

In this episode Andrew and Paul discuss:

⭐️Why being compassionate ISN’T being weak

⭐️Three key pillars of compassion: assertiveness, forgiveness & apology

⭐️Why compassion increases feelings of contentment and wellbeing. 

⭐️Exercises you can do to become more compassionate

⭐️The vagus nerve and its role in regulating anxiety and moods.

Professor Paul Gilbert Paul Gilbert FBPsS, PhD, OBE is the Founder and President of The Compassionate Mind Foundation. He is also Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby and honorary visiting Prof at the University of Queensland. Paul was made a Fellow of the British Psychological Society in 1993, president of the BABCP for 2002-2004, and was a member of the first British Government’s NICE guidelines for depression. He has written/edited 23 books and over 300 papers and book chapters. He was awarded an OBE by the Queen in March 2011 for services to mental health.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there. 

Read Paul Gilbert’s book The Compassionate Mind

See Paul Gilbert’s other books  

Paul Gilbert is the Founder and President of The Compassionate Mind Foundation 

Follow the Compassionate Mind Foundation on Facebook @CompMindFound, on Twitter @CompMindFound, on Instagram @compassionatemind_foundation and on LinkedIn. 

Learn more about the vagus nerve - “Everything you need to know about the vagus nerve” in Medical News Today and “This Nerve Influences Nearly Every Internal Organ. Can It Improve Our Mental State, Too?” in The New York Times.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

What if divorce were not the end? This week’s podcast guests, Tommy and Gina Mulligan, share their journey from acrimonious divorce back to happy coupledom.

Tommy and Gina started out as high school sweethearts and grew up together to create a happy life and family. As Tommy’s career accelerated, however, they encountered problems with work/life balance, gendered relationship stereotypes and a problematic dynamic that sometimes felt more like a parent and child than a married couple. 

Later, however, they were able to rediscover their spark and develop their own unique approach to starting over. This involved working on communication skills, but also agreeing to parcel away the bad times and start again from the point where there had been harmony.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there

Follow Tommy and Gina on Twitter @2ndtimearound22

Read Andrew’s book The Happy Couple’s Handbook – Powerful Life Hacks for a Successful Relationship

Listen to some of our other episodes on marriage and relationships - including Irene Fehr on Why Desire Disappears in Committed Relationships and Terry Real on The Five Traps that Undermine Your Love .

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

Do you fall too easily into the role of rescuer in your relationships? Being the eternal rescuer is exhausting, and it tends to cast those around you in the roles of victim and persecutor. 

Or, often, you and your partner will switch between the roles, caught in an eternal and unproductive “drama triangle”. None of the three roles are likely to allow true self-expression, and getting stuck in this cycle is draining and dispiriting.

This week Andrew talks with psychotherapist, spiritual teacher and author Chris Partridge about escaping the rescuer role, and developing the spiritual muscle to be able to really understand what your emotions are telling you.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there 

Buy Chris Partridge’s book Wake Up: What Are Your Emotions Really Telling You?

Visit Chris Partridge’s website

Follow Chris Partridge on Facebook @WakeUpGuideBook and on Instagram @wakeupguide  

Read Andrew’s book The Happy Couple’s Handbook – Powerful Life Hacks for a Successful Relationship

Listen to some of our other episodes on marriage and relationships - including Irene Fehr on Why Desire Disappears in Committed Relationships and Terry Real on The Five Traps that Undermine Your Love .

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

To forgive is one of the biggest choices we can make. It can allow us to let go of painful suffering, to move on and to find peace for ourselves. 

Yet forgiveness tends to be something of a minefield. Many feel that it means letting people who have hurt them back into their lives (which definitely need not be the case). Nor is forgiveness the same thing as saying that historic mistreatment was OK. And if forgiveness is compelled by religion or a strict sense of morality, it may not bring the same easing of hurt and suffering.

In this episode Andrew and forgiveness expert Dr Frederic Luskin discuss how to go about the task of forgiving someone, and the impact this can have on the rest of your life. Whether it is infidelity, financial dishonesty or parental failings, forgiving someone who has wronged you can ultimately mean that you can be “a hero instead of a victim in the story you tell”. 

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there

Buy Dr Frederic Luskin’s book Forgive for Good

Explore Dr Frederic Luskin’s work on forgiveness at the Forgive for Good website 

Take a look at the Stanford University Forgiveness Project 

Get Andrew’s advice on creating real change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier

Listen to our episodes on infidelity - How to Rebuild Trust with Dr Caroline Madden and Lessons from My Recovery with infidelity survivors Lisa Arends and Helen Tower.

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

Grief is a painful and confusing journey. Often, the culture encourages us to “move on”, squashing our grief down so that those around us are comfortable. 

This week Andrew talks to author and grief coach Shelby Forsythia. They discuss:

• Whether grief can turn “toxic”
• Coping with other people’s responses
• Living with grief as your companion
• Creating grief rituals
• Different causes of grief - death, divorce, infidelity, loss of identity. 

Shelby Forsythia is a grief coach, author, and podcast host. In 2020, she founded Life After Loss Academy, an online course and community that has helped dozens of grievers grow and find their way after death, divorce, diagnosis, and other major life transitions. Following her mother’s death in 2013, Shelby began calling herself a “student of grief” and now devotes her days to reading, writing, and speaking about loss. Through a combination of mindfulness tools and intuitive, open-ended questions, she guides her clients to welcome grief as a teacher and create meaningful lives that honour and include the heartbreaks they’ve faced. Her work has been featured in Huffington Post, Bustle, and The Oprah Magazine.

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing.

• How to grieve the person you used to be.
• Three things Shelby Forsythia knows to be true.
• AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things 

Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools

Visit Shelby Forsythia’s website 

Follow Shelby Forsythia on social media Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | TikTok

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall and on Substack at The Meaningful Life.

After nearly dying from an ectopic pregnancy, writer Georgina Scull confronted some of life’s big questions:

• Why do we drift through life, planning for tomorrow but not living for today? 
• Why do we stay in relationships that no longer make us content, or in jobs that fill us with dread? 
• Why do we allow our doubts to stop us trying new things, or let people treat us badly?

Georgina chose to answer these questions in a unique way: she created a podcast and then a book in which she interviewed people who were dying. She asked each interviewee about their regrets, which ranged from long-lost love never pursued, to leaving behind children too young to remember their mother. 

In this episode, Andrew and Georgina discuss what we can learn from the dying, and the many reasons for living in the moment rather than chasing the perfect body, the next promotion or a bigger house.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there.

Read Georgina Scull’s new book Regrets of the Dying: Stories and Wisdom That Remind Us How to Live

Listen to Georgina Scull’s podcast Regrets of the Dying 

Follow Georgina Scull on Twitter @georginascull

Listen to other episodes including Dr Kathryn Mannix on What You’ve Been Told About Death Might be Wrong, and David Kessler on Finding Meaning: the Sixth Stage of Grief.  

Get Andrew’s advice on creating real change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

Why do women stop wanting sex? Why is it so hard to recapture the intoxicating desire of those wonderful early weeks and months of your relationship?

Irene Fehr has spent a decade working with couples as a sex and intimacy coach. Her specialty is women’s libido and sexual desire in long-term relationships.

In this episode Andrew and Irene discuss the nature of desire. Unless we understand what compels and creates desire at different life stages, we will not be able to create a passionate, connected sexual life that meets both partner’s needs.

As well as understanding desire, there are also practical steps you can take to rekindle your connection. Fencing off time away from your children (including the controversial act of locking the bedroom door) is key; as is taking small amounts of time each day (rather than weekly date nights) to spend in complete, uninterrupted togetherness. 

And if you are one of our wonderful Apple, Spotify or Patreon paying subscribers, this week’s bonus material sees Andrew and Irene discussing Seven Common Traps for Couples Making Love.

Irene Fehr is a sex and intimacy coach. Her articles and advice on sex, female libido and sexual pleasure are regularly featured in publications including Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan and Thought Catalog.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there

Take Irene Fehr’s free video course on How to Want to Have Sex Again 

Learn more about Feed Your Libido, Irene Fehr’s signature online program for women.

Visit Irene Fehr’s website

Follow Irene Fehr on Twitter and YouTube @ignitedwoman  and on LinkedIn.

Read the books discussed in this episode: Women’s Anatomy of Arousal by Sherrie Winston, and The New Male Sexuality by Bernie Zilbergeld.

Find out more about Betty Martin’s Wheel of Consent 

Listen to other The Meaningful Life episodes on sex and relationships: Tracey Cox on Great Sex After Fifty and Dr Terry Real on Five Traps that Undermine Your Love

 Read Andrew’s book Can We Start Again Please? Twenty Questions to Fall Back in Love

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

Creating a more meaningful life does not have to happen indoors. Whether it’s writing, meditating, repairing relationships or planning a big life change, doing the work outside surrounded by nature can be calming and inspiring.

Psychotherapist Dr Patricia Hasbach is a specialist in ecotherapy. She sees clients outside and also incorporates nature into her therapeutic work indoors. She is a lifelong lover of nature and a profound believer in its power in treating anxiety and depression, and fostering health and wellness.

Patricia has recently published Grounded: A Guided Journal to Help You Reconnect with the Power of Nature—and Yourself , an interactive journal designed to engage all of the reader’s five senses, and to deepen our experience of nature. 

In this episode Andrew and Patricia discuss nature, awe, the power of green, and how to bring nature inside as part of the therapeutic journey.

Dr. Patricia H. Hasbach is a licensed psychotherapist, consultant, author, and college educator. As one of the media’s go-to ecotherapists, she and her work have appeared in numerous outlets including Time, Vogue, Outside Magazine, the Utne Reader, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, and Sierra Magazine. She lives with her husband and two dogs in Oregon, USA.

Follow Up

The Meaningful Life has been nominated for a British Podcast Award in the category of Sex and Relationships Podcast. Please do vote for us in the Listeners’ Choice category here.

Read Dr Patricia Hasbach’s new book Grounded: A Guided Journal to Help You Reconnect with the Power of Nature—and Yourself 

Visit Dr Patricia Hasbach’s website 

Follow Dr Patricia Hasbach on Facebook or on LinkedIn 

You might also enjoy Andrew’s interview with “joyful environmentalist” Isabel Losada on How to Bring Joy Into Your Life AND Save the Planet 

Get Andrew’s advice on creating real change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there 

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Women often spend many hours considering their relationship with their mothers; but far less attention goes to the impact of fathers.

For some, the reason for this is that their mothers were there, making wrong and right decisions (which they remember in the starkest possible light) whilst their fathers were absent.

Jungian psychotherapist Dr Susan Schwartz has spent many hours guiding her women clients in thinking about how they were shaped by physically or emotionally absent fathers. 

These daughters relate feeling an insecurity of self, a splintering and disintegration of their personality and a silencing of their voice.

In this episode Andrew and Susan explore the different ways we are shaped by our fathers, how this comes up in therapy and the ways in which we can start to fill the holes left by absent fathers. 

Susan and Andrew also analyse a recent dream of Andrew’s in which themes of family legacies and therapeutic work are drawn out.

Dr Susan Schwartz is a Jungian analyst who trained in Switzerland and lives in the USA. She teaches in numerous Jungian programs, workshops, and lectures in the USA and worldwide. She is also a clinical psychologist and member of the International Association of Analytical Psychology. 

Follow Up

The Meaningful Life has been nominated for a British Podcast Award in the category of Sex and Relationships Podcast. Please do vote for us in the Listeners’ Choice category here.

Read Dr Susan Schwartz’s new book The Absent Father Effect on Daughters, Father Desire, Father Wounds. 

Visit Dr Susan Schwartz’s website https://susanschwartzphd.com 

Follow Dr Susan Schwartz on Facebook and Instagram

Read Andrew’s book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier 

You might also be interested in Andrew’s other interviews with Jungian psychotherapists James Hollis (How to be Resilient), Connie Zweig (“From Role to Soul”) and Lisa Marchiano (Being a Mother).

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there 

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Do you think about drinking alcohol more than you think about eating sandwiches? Do you spend significant amounts of time thinking about NOT drinking (Dry January, for example)? Or are you one of the many with an uneasy feeling that alcohol is no longer bringing anything good into your life, and may well be holding you back?

Therapist and sobriety expert Veronica Valli had a problematic relationship with alcohol for twelve years. She has now been sober for twenty years, and has helped countless others give up drinking.

In this episode Andrew and Veronica discuss:

⭐️ How giving up alcohol can give you the energy and freedom to be your true self.

⭐️ Why your friends may not always be your cheerleaders if you give up drinking.

⭐️ Why a drinking problem is really a symptom of another, underlying problem.

⭐️ What to do if your partner has an alcohol problem. 

⭐️ Extreme social pressure to drink and how to deal with it.

Veronica Valli has worked in the field of alcohol recovery for almost two decades. She is an author, podcaster and former clinical psychotherapist. 

Follow Up

The Meaningful Life has been nominated for a British Podcast Award in the category of Sex and Relationships Podcast. You can vote for us in the Listeners’ Choice category here.

Read Veronica Valli’s new book Soberful: Uncover a Sustainable, Fulfilling Life Free of Alcohol 

Take a look at Veronica Valli’s website

Listen to Soberful: the Podcast 

Find out about the Soberful private group on Facebook 

Follow Veronica Valli on Instagram @veronicajvalli, on Facebook @soberfulpage, on Twitter @VeronicaValli and on LinkedIn.

Read Andrew’s book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier 

You might also be interested in Andrew’s interview with Oliver Russell on how being one of the first people in the UK to be diagnosed with Covid-19 led him to change his relationship with alcohol.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50: https://www.patreon.com/andrewgmarshall 

How do you survive the loss of your life’s partner? How does grief relate to love? And how do you navigate the sometimes clumsy responses to grief from those around you?

Writer, activist and speaker Catherine Mayer has spent the years since 2020 charting the depths of loss and grief. In early 2020 her husband, renowned guitarist and producer Andy Gill, died after returning from his band Gang of Four’s China tour. This came just months after her beloved stepfather died of Covid-19. 

Locked down alone in the early months of the pandemic, Catherine and her mother, Anne Mayer Bird, found ways to navigate their losses and the startling questions and challenges that confronted them. Together they wrote Good Grief: Embracing Life at a Time of Death.

In this episode Andrew and Catherine share their thoughts and feelings on the devastating experience that is the death of a partner. They talk about loneliness, pain and the process of writing it all down.

Catherine Mayer is the co-founder and President of the Women’s Equality Party. She also co-founded the Primadonna Festival, which had its debut in 2019. Catherine is a writer, activist and speaker, and is the author of four books. 

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter The Meaningful Life, and join the community there.

Read Catherine Mayer and Anne Mayer Bird’s new book Good Grief: Embracing Life at a Time of Death

Read Catherine Mayer’s other books Attack of the Fifty Foot Women, Charles: The Heart of a King, and Amortality: the Pleasures and Perils of Living Agelessly.

Learn more about The Women’s Equality Party and the Primadonna Festival. 

Listen to The Problem of Leisure, a new album of Andy Gill’s music executive-produced by Catherine Mayer.

Follow Catherine Mayer on Twitter @catherine_mayer

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50: https://www.patreon.com/andrewgmarshall 

Read Andrew’s memoir My Mourning Year 

You may be interested to listen to other The Meaningful Life episodes exploring grief and loss, including Finding Meaning: the Sixth Stage of Grief with David Kessler, What You’ve Been Told About Death Might be Wrong, with Dr Kathryn Mannix, and  Getting Out of Your Own Way with Christina Patterson. 

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Many older people, particularly women, are “divorce-curious”. They wonder about life on the other side of a tired marriage, and feel that perhaps it isn’t too late. Could a divorce be the route to rediscovering passion, stimulation and new experiences?

Others are in the position of having a divorce thrust upon them, and are left to work through the pain and upheaval a split can cause in later life, both for themselves and the family unit.

Linda Hershman is an expert on the “silver divorce” and has worked extensively to help couples navigate divorce. In this episode, Linda and Andrew discuss:

⭐️ Deciding whether it is in fact your relationship that’s the problem

⭐️ First steps if you are among the “divorce-curious”

⭐️ The impact of silver divorce on adult children

⭐️ The practical and financial impact divorce can have, particularly on women

⭐️ Discernment counselling - a style of marital counselling for “mixed-agenda” couples, where one wants to stay and the other wants to leave. 

Linda Hershman is the author of Gray Divorce: Everything You Need to Know About Later-Life Breakups. She has worked as a marriage and family therapist for more than 25 years, and has presented internationally on silver divorce and the adult children of divorce. Linda lives in Philadelphia and loves knitting, hiking and travelling.   

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter The Meaningful Life, and join the community there.

Read Linda Hershman’s book Gray Divorce: Everything You Need to Know About Later-Life Breakups  

Learn more about discernment counselling

Read Andrew’s blog ‘Are You Facing Long-Term Marriage Problems? How to Avoid the “Silver Divorce”’ 

 Read Andrew’s book Can We Start Again Please? Twenty Questions to Fall Back in Love

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Christina Patterson found herself in the heartbreaking position of being the last one left in a loving and beloved family. She took on the task of writing the story of her family and her place in it.

In the process, Christina explored the ways in which our personal history can cause us to “get in our way”, self-sabotaging as we work through the suffering experienced both by ourselves and others in the family.

Christina and Andrew also discuss:

• Living with mental illness
• Finding and losing religion 
• Loss and grief
• The healing effects of writing

Christina Patterson lives and works in London as a broadcaster and coach, as well as being the author of two memoirs, Outside, the Sky is Blue and The Art of Not Falling Apart.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter The Meaningful Life, and join the community there.

Read Christina Patterson’s new book Outside, the Sky is Blue: A Family Memoir, and her first book The Art of Not Falling Apart

Listen to Christina Patterson’s podcast and read her Substack newsletter on The Art of Work.

Follow Christina Patterson on Twitter @queenchristina_

Visit Christina Patterson’s website 

Christina Patterson’s list of some of the memoirs by other authors she has most enjoyed reading:

• Bad Blood by Lorna Sage
• Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel
• Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller.

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50: https://www.patreon.com/andrewgmarshall 

Read Andrew’s memoirs My Mourning Year and The Power of Dog.

Read Andrew’s blog on how keeping a journal can help you achieve the change you want Top Twelve Benefits of Journaling.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Doing a lot of things won’t get you where you want to go. According to “Digital Dale Carnegie” and best-selling author Erik Qualman, it’s become increasingly hard to achieve the things that mean the most to us.

Modern life splinters our attention span and makes it extremely challenging to hone in on what matters. 

Erik Qualman interviewed hundreds of people for his book, The Focus Project, including parents, teachers and entrepreneurs. They all felt that success depended on the extent to which they had been able to focus on their goals. 

In this episode, Andrew and Erik talk about how to do the important things, rather than doing too many things. In fact, doing LESS is likely to leave you more successful and more fulfilled.

Erik Qualman is a five times best-selling author and keynote speaker. He has spoken in over 55 countries and was voted the second most likeable author in the world. His work on Socialnomics has been used by organisations including NBC and NASA. He has an honorary doctorate for his work on the digital universe, and is the founder of Equalman Studios.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there.

Visit Erik Qualman’s website

Read Erik Qualman’s book The Focus Project: The Not So Simple Art of Doing Less 

Read Erik Qualman’s other books, including Socialnomics, Digital Leader and What Happens on Campus Stays on YouTube.

Follow Erik Qualman on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter @equalman

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

You might also enjoy Andrew’s conversation with Professor Dilip Jeste about Five Ways to Become Wiser.

Get Andrew’s advice on creating real change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier: https://andrewgmarshall.com/book/wake-up-and-change-your-life-how-to-survive-a-crisis-and-be-stronger-wiser-and-happier/ 

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Sometimes things feel way too complicated. You’re working hard, taking care of your family, you have enough money - but things still just don’t feel right. You push on, looking forward to your next holiday or a night out with friends, but the day to day is grey and exhausting. 

Wellness practitioner, CEO, yoga instructor and clinical social worker Julie Wald specialises in working with people who are close to burnout. She cuts through the wellness noise all around us to zero in on what it is we actually need to change in order to feel good. 

And it isn’t the big things like careers, partners or home. It’s HOW we live each day.

Andrew and Julie also discuss Julie’s four pillars of wellness:

⭐️ Movement

⭐️ Stillness

⭐️ Touch

⭐️ Nourishment

Julie Wald is the founder and CEO of Golden, a global leader in wellness education and employee self-care programs. She is the author of the Amazon #1 bestselling book, Inner Wealth: How Wellness Heals, Nurtures and Optimizes Ultra-Successful People. In August, Women We Admire named her one of The Top 100 Women Leaders in Healthcare of 2021.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there.

Read Inner Wealth, Julie Wald’s new book.

Visit Golden, Julie Wald’s website.

Follow Julie Wald on social media: on Instagram @hey.its.golden, and on Facebook and LinkedIn @heyitsgolden 

Get in touch with Julie Wald at  julie@heyitsgolden.com 

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

Read Andrew’s advice on keeping a journal of your life and emotions

Get Andrew’s advice on creating real change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Are you successful in the eyes of family and friends, but still feel empty and a little lost? Is there a nagging voice telling you that your life could have been bigger?

 Dr Esther Zeledon had scaled the heights of career success as a scientist and international diplomat, but suffered from a strong sense that things weren’t right. She left behind a successful career to become a life coach, author, speaker and workshop facilitator centred on the mission of helping others create their “limitless life”.

Andrew and Esther discuss:

• Esther’s personal journey 
• Overcoming negative voices
• Defining the meaning of success
• Finding clarity on your next steps. 

Dr. Esther Zeledón embodies the resilient spirit of a Latina immigrant. Her rich and diverse background has been the cornerstone of her trailblazing work as a life coach, speaker, workshop facilitator, former international diplomat, and scientist. With a commitment to inclusivity, Dr. Zeledón has transformed the lives of thousands worldwide, bridging gaps across communities, corporations, and countries. Dr. Zeledón's book, "Creating Your Limitless Life," blends her personal memoir and life-changing method and follows her journey from paycheck-to-paycheck to creating her limitless life. Through her work, she lives her purpose of elevating people and organisations to shatter limits and trailblaze.

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:

• Coping with the fear of being judged.
• Three things Esther Zeledon knows to be true.
• AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things 

Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools

Read Dr Esther Zeledon’s book, Creating Your Limitless Life: On Your Terms.

Visit Dr Esther Zeledon's website

Follow Dr Esther Zeledon on Instagram @be.act.change

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall and on Substack at The Meaningful Life.

David Kessler is one of the world’s best-known experts on grief, yet nothing could prepare him for the loss of his beloved son at the age of 21. Just as he’d advised his clients for decades, David attended grief groups, saw a therapist and sat with his pain. 

In this episode, Andrew and David discuss how society wants us to grieve versus the reality of loss. We will likely never “get over” the loss of someone close to us, nor will we learn life lessons that somehow compensate us for our pain. It is possible, though, to locate meaning in how we survive and experience loss.

Andrew and David also explore Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s famous and now much contested “five stages of grief” (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance) and discuss how useful they are in today’s landscape.

David Kessler’s new book is Finding Meaning:The Sixth Stage of Grief. His previous books have been praised by Saint (Mother) Theresa, and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. He has co-authored two books with Louise Hay and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. David also creates online communities who take courses together to learn more about the process of grieving.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there.

Join David Kessler’s online healing group, Healing the Five Areas of Grief.

Visit David Kessler’s website to explore resources including videos, webinars, books and training courses.

Follow David Kessler on Twitter and Instagram @IamDavidKessler and on Facebook @DavidKessler.  

Read Andrew’s book on grieving the loss of his partner My Mourning Year

You may also wish to listen to Andrew’s interview with palliative care physician and author Dr Kathryn Mannix, What You’ve Been Told About Death Might Be Wrong.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50

Shame is one of the emotions we find hardest to talk about. It can feel paralysing, and is linked to despair, imposter syndrome, fear and the sense of an impending doom. 

This week’s guest, psychologist and author Dr Stephan Poulter, is the author of Shame Factor: Heal Your Deepest Fears and Set Yourself Free.  Andrew and Dr Poulter discuss how shame makes us feel - paralysed, unclean, not good enough, defective - and how we can reduce its impact on our lives.

As Dr Poulter states, “the best analogy is this gold brick inside you. Shame covers it with mud. Our work is to hose off the mud, and find the gold brick”.

Dr. Stephan B. Poulter, Ph.D is a psychologist, author and public speaker  working in Los Angeles. He is also a theological seminary graduate and a former police officer. Dr Poulter has worked with hundreds of individuals, couples and families, and regularly speaks on parenting, adolescent and spiritual/psychological issues. 

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there

Buy Dr Stephan Poulter’s books, including Shame Factor: Heal Your Deepest Fears and Set Yourself Free, The Art of Successful Failure and The Father Factor.

Follow Dr Stephan Poulter on Twitter @StephanPoulter and on Facebook @DrStephanPoulter-PsychotherapistandAuthor  

Read Andrew’s blog on how keeping a journal can help you manage difficult emotions: Top Twelve Benefits of Journaling

Fear is a close companion to shame. You may also enjoy Andrew’s interview with Thom Rutledge on Embracing Fear in Four Steps

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Teenagers have a big reputation for being hard to talk to. How can you find that spark of connection with your teen? Is there a way to set up a channel of communication so that you can help them through the rough patches?

In this episode Andrew talks to Australian teacher and author Daisy Turnbull about her new book, 50 Questions to Ask Your Teens.

Daisy shares insights from her work as a teacher, as well as from her own teenage years growing up in a household where both parents had high-profile and demanding careers.

Building a habit of positive communication with teenagers is possible, according to Daisy. Strategies include:

⚡️Asking “what do you think about that?”, and “tell me more?”.

⚡️Having some family rituals, such as a gratitude practice around the dinner table. 

⚡️Choosing your moment: car-trips are perfect as they don’t require direct eye contact and are timebound.

Andrew and Daisy also discuss the impact of social media on teens, building kids' independence and confidence, managing your career around your family and sharing parenting responsibilities.

Daisy Turnbull is an author, teacher, mother and Lifeline volunteer who lives in Sydney, Australia.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there.

Read Daisy Turnbull’s books 50 Questions to Ask Your Teens and 50 Risks to Take With Your Kids.

Follow Daisy Turnbull on Twitter @ms_dzt

Watch "It's Not About the Nail", the hugely popular YouTube video mentioned by Daisy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Read Andrew’s book on building a stronger relationship as parents: I Love You But You Always Put Me Last: How to Child-Proof Your Marriage

Listen to some of our other parenting episodes:

• Philippa Perry on on What You Wish Your Parents Knew & What You Hope Your Children Learn,
• Lisa Marchiano on Being a Mother,
• Jack Underwood on Becoming a Father,
• Anita Cleare on Positive Parenting 
• Amanda Seyderhelm on Coping With Childhood Grief.  

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Finding meaning and fulfillment in the second half of life requires us to make a conscious transition. We must explore “the unconscious denial and resistance that erupts around key thresholds of later life” if we are to be happy as elders. 

In this episode, psychotherapist and author Connie Zweig, PhD talks with Andrew about how to become an elder who is filled with purpose and vitality. She explains the concept of “shadow-work”, and how it can help you:

⚡️Repair the past and be fully present

⚡️Accept yourself as you are

⚡️Rediscover the creativity you may have lost along the way.

⚡️Move “from role to soul”.

Connie Zweig, Ph.D., is a retired psychotherapist, writer, and Climate Reality Leader. Known as the Shadow Expert, she has written several books about shadow-work, as well as her newest best-seller on aging as a spiritual practice, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul. The Inner Work of Age won both the 2021 American Book Fest Award and the 2021 Best Indie Book Award for best inspirational non-fiction. 

Connie has been doing contemplative practices for more than 50 years, and is a wife, stepmother and grandmother. After all these roles, she’s practicing the shift from role to soul.

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

If you're interested in joining one of Dr Connie Zweig's groups, you can email her at The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul.

Take a look at Dr Connie Zweig’s other books 

Visit Dr Connie Zweig’s website 

Follow Dr Connie Zweig on Twitter @InnerWorkofAge and on Facebook at @Dr.ConnieZweig.

Get Andrew’s advice on creating real change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier

Read Andrew’s blog “How To Avoid the Silver Divorce”

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Everything is always changing, and nothing is ever the same. If we think about it, we all know that. But we tend to live differently, as though we can hang onto the same fixed self, the same ways of doing things, and the same people around us.

Alan Lessik, author and Zen practitioner, is an expert in change. He is known by his friends as someone who takes fearless leaps into new jobs, new countries and new possibilities. He has regularly made life-changes so huge they felt like jumping off a cliff.

 In this episode, Andrew and Alan talk about how we deal with change, and the usefulness of the “backward step”. They discuss Alan’s practice of Zen meditation, and Alan shares the following quote from Eihei Dogen, founder of Zen Buddhism in Japan:

“You should stop searching for phrases and chasing after words. Take the backward step and turn the light inward. Your body-mind in itself will drop off and your original face will appear. If you want to attain just this (suchness), immediately practice just this (suchness).”

Alan Lessik is a writer and novelist, zen practitioner, amateur figure skater, and LGBT activist. He has worked in the US and over twenty-two other countries and has served in leadership positions in numerous non-governmental organizations, university and governmental entities. Alan’s debut novel, The Troubleseeker, was a finalist for the 2017 LGBTQ Fiction Award given by the Publishing Triangle. He recently moved from the US to Berlin, where he is working on two new novels.

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Find out more about Alan Lessik’s writing and work on his website

Watch Alan Lessik’s figure-skating videos on YouTube

Follow Alan Lessik on Twitter @AlanLessik

Get Andrew’s advice on creating real change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier

If you are interested in meditation and mindfulness, you might also like to listen to Andrew’s interview with Dr Henry Emmons on how to Bring More Calm and Joy Into Your Life

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

If you dread parties, can’t face job interviews, or won’t start scary conversations with your partner, this is the episode for you. 

Dr Wendy Suzuki is a neuroscientist and an international expert on anxiety and the brain. Her new book, Good Anxiety, unpacks the science of everyday anxiety in a way that helps us manage it.

In this episode, Andrew and Wendy discuss: 

⚡️What “good anxiety” is, and how to channel it in the right direction.

⚡️How anxiety can lead to productivity and creativity.

⚡️Meditation, tea-drinking, and the jujitsu move that turns anxiety around.

Dr. Wendy Suzuki is a Professor of Neural Science and Psychology in the Center for Neural Science at New York University and a celebrated international authority on neuroplasticity. She was recently named one of the 10 women changing the way we see the world by Good Housekeeping. Her TED talk has more than 31 million views on Facebook, and her  first book Healthy Brain Happy Life was recently made into a PBS special.  

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Read Dr Wendy Suzuki’s book Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion

Visit Dr Wendy Suzuki’s website

Connect with Dr Wendy Suzuki on social media: find her on Instagram @wendy.suzuki, on Twitter @wasuzuki and on Facebook @WendyASuzuki

Read Andrew’s blog on how keeping a journal can improve your life: Top Twelve Benefits of Journaling 

If anxiety is a topic of interest for you, you may also enjoy Andrew’s conversation with Richard Paterson: No More Overthinking 

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

“Within your mind, body and soul YOU have an untapped potential that wants to be unleashed. It calls to you in your dreams and whispers to you when your mind goes silent. It is relentless because it knows you are capable of more than you give yourself credit for” (George Mumford)

George Mumford used his insights into pain, mindfulness and performance to enrich the careers of athletes including Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal.

George then realised that his ideas could help people “from locker rooms to board rooms, Yale to jail”, and so took his work beyond the sporting arena, including writing a book, The Mindful Athlete. 

In this episode, Andrew and George discuss mindfulness, George’s journey through pain and addiction, and George’s five superpowers:

⚡️Mindfulness

⚡️Concentration

⚡️Insight

⚡️Right Effort

⚡️Trust

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Read George Mumford’s book, The Mindful Athlete  

Take The Mindful Athlete course

Subscribe to George Mumford’s YouTube channel 

Follow George Mumford on Twitter @gtmumford and on Facebook

Read Andrew’s advice on keeping a journal of your life and emotions 

Get Andrew’s advice on creating real change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Some of us try our best never to think about death, while some of us “live in death’s basement”. Composer, academic and psychoanalyst Paul Attinello lived through the suffering and loss of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. After testing positive for HIV, he built a creative and achievement-filled life, over which death nevertheless always loomed. 

Then, the advent of lifesaving medications changed everything. Paul had to define a whole new relationship with mortality, as well as experiencing a profound sense of loss for what life might have been like without the spectre of HIV. 

In this episode, Andrew and Paul discuss music, psychoanalysis, and the different ways humans live with the knowledge of their own mortality.

Paul Attinello is an academic and psychoanalyst based in Newcastle University’s International Centre for Music Studies. He also taught at the University of Hong Kong and UCLA, living and working on four continents in the past three decades. 

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Find out more about Paul Attinello's work and writing here 

Take a look at Paul Attinello’s research work 

Watch Psychosocial Wednesdays, a YouTube channel hosted by Paul Attinello and his colleagues. It offers weekly salons on Jungian ideas and other aspects of psychoanalysis.

Read Andrew’s memoir on grieving the loss of his partner, My Mourning Year

Get Andrew’s advice on creating real change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier: 

Is society setting you up to fail in your marriage? World-renowned relationship therapist Terry Real sees a toxic culture of individualism troubling society at every level.

We are told to strive for personal productivity and perfection, ignoring the fact that we exist in a web of crucial relationships.

In this episode, Terry describes research showing that the mind exists in a social context, and that couples in fact co-regulate each other’s nervous systems.

Getting this right is very tricky, though, if you grew up without enough emotional support. The survival strategies that got you through childhood may, in fact, “torch your personal relationships”.

Andrew and Terry discuss the five most common traps that can undermine your relationship:

🚩 Needing to be right

🚩 Controlling your partner

🚩 Unbridled self-expression

🚩 Retaliation

🚩 Shutting down

We can overcome these, however, by tapping into our wiser, more collaborative self. If we can find the “us” rather than the “I”, we can achieve the warmer, more intimate relationships many of us long for. 

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

Buy Terry Real’s new book Us: Getting Past You & Me to Build a More Loving Relationship (out 22 March 2022).

Take a look at Terry Real’s other books, including The New Rules of Marriage and How Can I Get Through to You?

Visit Terry Real’s website https://terryreal.com 

Follow Terry Real on Facebook and YouTube @TerryRealRLI 

Read Andrew’s blog “Three Secrets of a Happy Relationship”

 Read Andrew’s book Can We Start Again Please? Twenty Questions to Fall Back in Love

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Lots of us are afraid of the very word: fear. We’d rather say anxiety, or worry, or panic. 

Yet according to Thom Rutledge, fear underlies most difficult emotions, and is a close companion to shame. Fear plays into just about every decision we ever make in our lives.

To defeat fear, according to Thom, is neither possible nor desirable. Instead we need to live beyond its control, and to understand it. Rather than squashing down the voices of panic and dread, we can face up to them, explore them and respond. 

In this episode Andrew and Thom explore:

✅ The meaning of fear

✅ How we can understand fear in our own lives

✅ How our family background shapes our experience of fear

✅ Four ways we can start to “embrace fear”.

Thom Rutledge has been a psychotherapist for more than 40 years and is the author of several books, including Embracing Fear, The Self-Forgiveness Handbook, Earning Your Own Respect, The Greater Possibilities and What Love Is. He draws on professional training and experience as well as his own personal experience in recovery and personal growth to work with his clients.

Thom and his colleague, Dr. Allen Berger, co-host their own weekly podcast, Emotional Sobriety.

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Visit Thom Rutledge’s website

Read Thom Rutledge’s books, including Embracing Fear. 

Listen to Emotional Sobriety, a podcast co-hosted by Thom Rutledge and Dr Allen Berger.

Follow Thom Rutledge on Twitter @ThomRutledge

Read Andrew’s blog on how keeping a journal can help deal with difficult emotions: Top Twelve Benefits of Journaling 

If anxiety is a topic of interest for you, you may also enjoy Andrew’s conversation with Richard Paterson: No More Overthinking

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Grandparents love to spoil their grandchildren and make them happy, whereas as a parent, you take your responsibility for your children’s health and wellbeing seriously. This, together with different experiences of what childhood means, can be a recipe for anxiety and conflict.

In this episode, parenting expert Sue Atkins talks with Andrew about how to have positive conversations with your in-laws. Andrew and Sue cover:

• When to start a conversation.
• Recognising the value of grandparents’ input.
• Discussing where shared values might lie.
• Finding balance and seeing the bigger picture.
• What to do if your in-laws just won’t observe your boundaries.

Sue Atkins has over 35 years experience as a parenting coach and Deputy Headteacher, and has raised two children of her own. She is the Parenting Expert for ITV’s ‘This Morning’, BBC Radio, Disney Junior, Good Morning Britain and India’s Parenting World Magazine.  Sue has a B.Ed (Hons) Degree and is a qualified Life Coach. She is also an NLP Master Practitioner & Trainer taught by Dr Richard Bandler & Paul McKenna.

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:

• Support yourself and your child through change.
• Three things Sue Atkins knows to be true.
• AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things 

Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools 

Visit Sue Atkins’ website. 

Follow Sue Atkins on Instagram @sueatkinsparentingexpert, on Twitter/X @SueAtkins and on Facebook @SueAtkinsTheParentingExpert.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall and on Substack at The Meaningful Life.

“So he’s become the real love of my life. But if I’d been following my old ways of looking for men I wouldn’t have noticed him”.

If you’re following your heart and trusting to the universe in your search for midlife love, you may need to take a step back and rethink your approach. 

This week’s guest, Dr Mairi Macleod, is the founder of Dating Evolved, a science-based dating consultancy. Mairi helps women look for partners in a more thoughtful and successful way. We are often told to “trust your gut” when it comes to relationships, but Mairi explains why this approach can be unrewarding.

In this episode, she describes to Andrew how her own love life was going somewhat disastrously, and how this inspired her to use her training as an evolutionary biologist to create a science-based strategy to find a partner.

Andrew and Mairi also discuss confidence, enjoying the journey and having a good hard think about why you’re attracted to a certain kind of person. 

Dr Mairi Macleod is an evolutionary biologist, consultant, speaker, and science writer. She  runs online programs and coaches women in small groups to help them build happy, loving relationships. 

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Join Mairi Macleod's free Masterclass: "Getting Ready for Successful Dating - for Women over 50" on April 4th at 7pm BST

You can find out about Mairi’s Dating Evolved programs, read her blog, and sign up for her upcoming Free Masterclass at https://www.datingevolved.com 

If you’d like to read Mairi’s “5 Science-Based Ways to Find the Man You Need”, download your free e-copy here

Join the Dating Evolved Facebook Community and ask all your dating questions.

Follow Mairi Macleod on Twitter @dr_mairi and on Facebook @MairiMacleodPhD

 Read Andrew’s book The Happy Couple’s Handbook: Powerful Life Hacks for a Successful Relationship 

You may also enjoy Andrew’s conversation with Cate Mackenzie on the art of flirting 

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation” (Henry Thoreau). 

Therapist Simon Roe has based his life’s work on helping men live an authentic life. After himself going through a period of quiet desperation in his mid-thirties, Simon went on to help men break the silence, find “the song inside” and overcome their experiences of depression, violence and loneliness. 

Simon has also worked extensively with boys and their fathers to create rites of passage that can help boys claim a strong, authentic sense of their developing manhood.

Simon Roe originally trained as a body psychotherapist, and is also a co-leader of the Mandorla Men’s Rites of Passage programme. He has worked extensively with perpetrators of domestic violence, and is a Respect approved trainer and supervisor. Simon has completed a foundation course in Process Oriented Psychology. 

Simon and Andrew also discuss the idea of answering “the call to adventure”, an idea powerfully captured in this poem by Rainer Maria Rilke:

Sometimes A Man Stands Up During Supper

Sometimes a man stands up during supper

and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,

because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.

And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.

And another man, who remains inside his own house,

dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,

so that his children have to go far out into the world

toward that same church , which he forgot.

Follow Up

I'll be attending a workshop on masculinity in times of change and crisis with Simon Roe & his colleague William Ayot in Feb/Mar 2023. I'd love you to join us. Details are here

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Visit Simon Roe’s website 

Learn about the Kingfisher Project, a community dedicated to rites of passage for boys aged 13-16. 

Get Andrew’s advice on creating real change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier

Read Andrew’s thoughts on what to do if you or your partner feel like you’re in the throes of what society would call a midlife crisis

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

How can we help our children understand grief and loss? How can we recover as adults, if no-one helped us make sense of grief and loss as a child?

Amanda Seyderhelm is an expert in innovative creative play therapy for children, and the author of a book called Helping Children Cope with Loss and Change. Amanda changed careers to work in play therapy after a life-threatening illness changed everything for her.

In this episode Amanda and Andrew discuss: 

🌈 How to talk to children who are grieving.

🌈 How storytelling plays a part in personal and family grief.

🌈 Your “backpack of grief”: what’s inside, and how it’s affecting your life.

🌈 How children & adults learn to “grow around their grief” rather than recovering.

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Take a look at Amanda Seyderhelm’s website

Buy Amanda Seyderhelm’s book Helping Children Cope with Loss and Change at a 20% discount for The Meaningful Life listeners. Just use code FLA22 at checkout. 

Follow Amanda Seyderhelm on Twitter @TheKidDecoder on Instagram @amandaseyderhelm and on LinkedIn.

Read The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell on his Life and Work

Read Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief by Dennis Klass

If you’re interested in diving deep into parenting, listen to Lisa Marchiano of the This Jungian Life podcast speaking with Andrew about meaning and motherhood.

Get Andrew’s advice on creating real change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

If you could write a letter to your own anxiety, what would it say? This is just one of the ways therapist Dr Kathleen Smith befriends her anxiety and in the process, moves it into the back seat of her life. 

If you can’t sleep, can’t focus and are constantly pushing down the frustrations you experience in your relationships, you will know that you probably need to deal with your anxiety.

In this episode, Andrew and Kathleen discuss how to go about doing this, and the paramount importance of observing and understanding before leaping into action. 

Kathleen Smith is a therapist and author from Washington D.C. She writes the Anxious Overachiever newsletter on Substack, and is the author of Everything Isn’t Terrible, a new book about anxiety. She is a graduate of Harvard and George Washington Universities, and has written for publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post and  Psychology Today. Kathleen has a private therapy practice in Washington, DC, and is the host of the TV show Family Matters, produced by the University of the District of Columbia. 

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Buy Kathleen Smith’s book Everything Isn’t Terrible: Conquer Your Insecurities, Interrupt Your Anxieties and Finally Calm Down

Take a look at Kathleen Smith’s website

Read Kathleen Smith’s Substack newsletter The Anxious Overachiever 

Follow Kathleen Smith on Twitter @fangirltherapy and on Facebook @kathleensmithwrites

Read Andrew’s blog on how keeping a journal can improve your life: Top Twelve Benefits of Journaling 

If anxiety is a topic of interest, you may also enjoy Andrew’s conversation with Richard Paterson: No More Overthinking

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

“Don’t look for a match - light one”: being single needs to stop being seen as failure, and start being viewed as a fulfilling, meaningful, loving life choice. Shani Silver’s new book, The Single Revolution, is all about changing your mindset and embracing the single existence. 

In this episode Shani and Andrew discuss the emotionally exhausting and often dangerous world of online dating. After realising that dating apps were adding nothing to her life, Shani deleted them all from her phone and has spent the last three years writing about singlehood, and supporting the many people out there fed up with the stigma of being single. 

As Shani writes, “We aren’t here on Earth to struggle through singlehood for years on end. We’re allowed to live a whole lot more than that”. Shani’s work is all about creating an authentic, happy life in which “finding someone” is not the primary purpose. 

Shani Silver is an author and podcaster based in New Orleans. She has been featured on NPR and the BBC discussing what it means to be single. Shani hosts the podcast A Single Serving and her latest book is The Single Revolution. Shani’s podcast subscribers are also able to join her Facebook group and community. 

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Buy Shani Silver’s book, The Single Revolution: Don’t Look for a Match, Light One 

Listen to Shani Silver’s podcast, A Single Serving 

Take a look at Shani Silver’s website

Follow Shani Silver on Twitter and Instagram @shanisilver

Get Andrew’s advice on creating real change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier

Read Andrew’s blog on how to start keeping a journal

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Many of us are brought up to see sacrifice and exhaustion as the route to success. Julia Paulette Hollenbery’s mission is to help us all realise that in fact “pleasure is the essential nourishment you need for productive work, happy relationships and vibrant health”. 

Julia also believes that pleasure is not hard to find. There is an abundance of pleasure available to us all, in every moment and with every interaction. What Julia describes as “the universe of deliciousness” is everywhere around us.

In this episode Andrew and Julia discuss the healing power of pleasure, including Julia’s seven medicines to heal and to rediscover the innate pleasure of being. Andrew and Julia talk about recovering from trauma, and the extent to which society pushes us to live in our minds rather than our bodies.

Julia Paulette Hollenbery is a body therapist and author. She has a degree in English Literature and is trained in the Grinberg Method of Bodywork, Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, and Family Constellations (a kind of body psychotherapy).

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Read Julia Paulette Hollenbery’s book The Healing Power of Pleasure: Seven Medicines for Rediscovering the Innate Joy of Being

Take a look at Julia Paulette Hollenbery’s website 

Follow Julia on Twitter @JuliaHollenbery, on Facebook @juliapaulettehollenbery and on Instagram @julia.paulette.hollenbery 

Listen to Andrew’s discussion with therapist Fenella Hansen on “Dealing with Trauma”

Get Andrew’s advice on creating real change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier: https://bit.ly/wakeupandchange 

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

What does it mean to be wise? Do we grow in wisdom as we age? Pioneering neuropsychiatric researcher Dr Dilip Jeste has spent years investigating the biological and cognitive roots of wisdom. 

In this episode, Andrew and Dilip discuss what we mean when we talk about wisdom, and whether we can, in fact, grow wiser. Dilip describes what he has established as the key components of the wise individual:

⭐️ Self-reflection

⭐️ Empathy and compassion (including for yourself)

⭐️ Emotional regulation and resilience

⭐️ Gratitude

⭐️ Openness to new experiences

⭐️ Spirituality

Andrew and Dilip also talk about cultural differences in the treatment of older people, and how we miss out when we ignore the wisdom of our parents and grandparents. 

Dr Dilip Jeste is a neuropsychiatrist, as well as the author of Wiser: The Scientific Roots of Wisdom, Compassion and What Makes Us Good. Dilip has spent more than 20 years studying aspects of wisdom and healthy aging, and is a professor of psychiatry and neurosciences and the director of the Center for Healthy Aging at UC San Diego. He is also a past president of the American Psychiatric Association. 

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Read Wiser: The Scientific Roots of Wisdom, Compassion and What Makes Us Good

Visit Dr Dilip Jeste’s website

Follow the UC San Diego Center for Healthy Aging on Twitter @UCSDHealthAging and Facebook @ucsd.healthy.aging

Listen to The Meaningful Life episode Growing Old is the Best Thing that’s Going to Happen to You with author and aging expert Kathleen O’Brien.

Read Andrew’s blog on The Top Twelve Benefits of Journaling

Get Andrew’s advice on creating real change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

My guests this week - Lisa Arends and Helen Tower - know just about everything there is to know about the painful subject of infidelity, because they have lived it through it themselves. Both have written extensively about their experiences.

Lisa’s is a story of the most extreme and dramatic betrayal: ten years ago her husband ended their 16-year marriage with a text message, after which she never saw him again. Lisa rebuilt her life and has a new partner. 

Helen’s experience involved her partner’s lengthy affair with a co-worker. After initially separating from her husband, Helen came to the decision to try and rebuild the relationship. She and her husband recently celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary, and the journey toward recovery continues.

Both Helen and Lisa agree that recovering from infidelity is all about strengthening the self. The journey to a new life and a new relationship (whether that’s with the unfaithful partner or someone new) hinges on doing the work to achieve self-knowledge and personal strength.

This week’s episode is a fascinating three-way conversation featuring two totally different experiences of infidelity. It is essential listening if infidelity has been a part of your experience, but it also has much to offer if you’d like to feel stronger and more empowered in your relationship. 

Lisa Arends is a data scientist, former middle school math teacher and accidental expert on divorce. She is passionate about empowering, motivating and inspiring people as they move through difficult transitions and life situations. Lisa blogs at Lessons from the End of a Marriage. She lives outside of Atlanta with her husband and two adorable pit bulls. 

Helen Tower writes and blogs about infidelity (Helen Tower is the pen name she uses to protect her family). In 2018 Helen discovered her husband of twenty-two years was having an affair, and eight months later published her story as Sailing Through Infidelity: A Story of Love and Forgiveness. 

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Read Lisa Arends’ blog Lessons from the End of a Marriage

Follow Lisa Arends on Facebook @LESSONSFROMTHEENDOFAMARRIAGE, on Twitter and Instagram @stilllearning2b and on YouTube.

Helen Tower blogs at Sailing Through Infidelity

Read Helen Tower’s books, including Sailing through Infidelity: A story of love and forgiveness. 

Listen to Helen Tower's podcast Sail Through and Beyond Infidelity https://open.spotify.com/show/0191IgpffJkLcxebwTm5S5?si=DYMn9S--QPOi5LT2HxRZag&dl_branch=1&nd=1 

Follow Helen on Facebook @HelenTowerAuthor, on Instagram @helentowerstaycalm and on Twitter @sailinginfidel1

Read Andrew’s books on infidelity recovery:

Why Did I Ever Cheat? Help Your Partner (and Yourself) Recover From Your Affair

How Can I Ever Trust You Again? Infidelity: From Discovery to Recovery in Seven Steps

I Can’t Get Over My Partner’s Affair: 50 Questions About Recovering from Extreme Betrayal and the Long-Term Impact of Infidelity

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on:

Twitter https://twitter.com/andrewgmarshall 

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AndrewGMarshallTherapy 

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF5gT7ru5sblpFaU2-iWTTw 

Most of us have a conversation we’re avoiding: a child coming out to their parent, a family losing someone to terminal illness, a friend noticing early signs of dementia. There are moments when we simply must talk, listen and be there for one another.

Dr Kathryn Mannix, a consultant in palliative care medicine, has spent her career having what she describes as “tender conversations” with bereaved families. Her new book, Listen: How to Find the Words for Tender Conversations, is a guide to not shying away from difficult subjects with those we care about.

In this episode Andrew and Kathryn discuss why it is we so often don’t say what needs to be said. They look at how to be brave in the face of discomfort, how to sit with silence, and how to speak from a place of gentleness and care. 

Dr Kathryn Mannix has spent her medical career working with people who have incurable, advanced illnesses. She is the author of the bestselling With the End in Mind: How to Live and Die Well, as well as her new book,  Listen. Kathryn is a qualified cognitive behavioural therapist and started the UK’s first CBT clinic for palliative care patients.

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

Read Dr Kathryn Mannix’s  books: Listen: How to Find the Words for Tender Conversations and With the End in Mind: How to Live and Die Well

Listen to Dr Kathryn Mannix’s previous appearance on this podcast, What You’ve Been Told About Death Might Be Wrong

Follow Dr Kathryn Mannix on Twitter and Facebook @drkathrynmannix

Read Andrew’s blog Help Me Be a Better Listener 

Read Andrew’s book on starting a deeper conversation with your partner, Can We Start Again Please? Twenty Questions to Fall Back in Love

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube 

A year’s worth of ideas about living a meaningful life is a lot to digest. Over 2021, we touched on trauma, reimagining death, recovering from infidelity, creating a business, parenting, gratitude, and so much more.

In this retrospective episode, Andrew and podcast engineer Michael Dooney each choose their top five. These are the episodes that stayed with them, influencing and changing the way they think about life and relationships.

In the bonus material for supporters, Andrew and Michael discuss the best ways to put what you loved about each episode into practice in order to change your own life for the better.

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Listen to Andrew and Michael’s 2021 highlights:

• Caroline Madden on Infidelity: How to Rebuild Trust
• Elaine Dundon on Stop Being a Prisoner of Your Thoughts
• Philip Carr-Gomm on Stop Living the Provisional Life and Start Creating an Authentic One
• Hannah Martin on How to Believe in Yourself and Start Your Own Business 
• Lisa Marchiano on Being a Mother: a Journey of Self-Discovery
• Philippa Perry on What You Wish Your Parents Knew & What Your Children Hope You Learn
• Kathryn Mannix on What You’ve Been Told About Death Might be Wrong
• Eleanor Mills on How to Reinvent Yourself at 50 (or Any Age)
• James Hollis on How to be Resilient
• Chester Elton on How Gratitude Could Revolutionise Your Life

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Parents like to feel they are independent individuals making their own decisions, but in reality parenting is hugely influenced by our own experiences of childhood. 

In this classic early episode, Andrew and therapist and author Philippa Perry talk about how we are “links in a chain", and why it is important for parents to recognise that and ensure their own links are shaped to the needs of their children. 

Philippa Perry is a psychotherapist and author of several books, including The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will be Glad That You Did) and How To Stay Sane. She has also presented a number of documentaries, is Red Magazine’s agony aunt, and writes for numerous British publications. Philippa has also starred alongside her husband Grayson Perry in the recent Channel 4 series, Grayson’s Art Club.

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:

• Three things Philippa Perry knows to be true.

• AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things https://andrewgmarshall.com/download/ 

Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools 

Read Philippa Perry’s book The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will be Glad That You Did)

Read Philippa’s advice column in Red Magazine

Follow Philippa on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram 

Read The Orchid and the Dandelion: Why Sensitive Children Face Challenges and How All Can Thrive by W Thomas Boyce MD.

Read Andrew’s book on building a stronger relationship as parents: I Love You But You Always Put Me Last: How to Child-Proof Your Marriage

Read Andrew’s book on making meaningful change in your life Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and be Stronger, Wiser and Happier

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall and on Substack at The Meaningful Life. 

How often have you heard masculinity described as “toxic”, “fragile”, or “in a crisis”? JJ Bola - writer, former youth worker, and UNHCR Ambassador - tries to go deeper in understanding how society is failing boys and men.

In this episode, JJ Bola describes masculinity as a performance that we require boys to learn; along the way stifling their individuality and emotional health. Different societies have different myths about masculinity, and JJ Bola is able to draw on his experiences as a Congolese man growing up in London to show how diverse these ideas are.

If we could discard the performance of masculinity and allow boys to grow up free and to be who they are, we are likely to see the benefits in love and sex, politics, competitive sports and mental health. 

JJ Bola was born in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He grew up in London and has written two novels - No Place to Call Home and The Selfless Act Of Breathing - as well as three collections of poetry - Elevate, Daughter of the Sun and WORD -  and a non-fiction book about masculinity and the patriarchy, Mask Off: Masculinity Redefined.

This week’s episode takes a slightly different format: Andrew interviews JJ Bola at the annual MANN SEIN conference in Berlin, an international gathering to talk about masculinity in today’s world. 

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Find out more about the MANN SEIN annual conference in Berlin/online.

Read JJ Bola’s books: Mask Off: Masculinity Redefined, No Place to Call Home, The Selfless Act Of Breathing and Refuge (which collates his 3 volumes of poetry).

Follow JJ Bola on Twitter and Instagram @JJ_Bola

Listen to Andrew’s other conversations on masculinity:

⭐️Jed Diamond PhD on “Your Personal Creation Story”

⭐️Joe Horton on “Men, Fathers and Meaning”

⭐️Matthew Fray on “How Good People Mess Up Their Marriages” 

⭐️Warren Farrell PhD on “The Boy Crisis”

Get Andrew’s advice on creating real change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Becoming a parent is impossible to prepare for. Jack Underwood describes “feeling that there should have been more paperwork. We signed a form or two and then they just sort of let us take you away. A human child”. 

Parenthood changes our relationships, our view of the world, our sense of self. It’s rare in the whirlwind of night wakings and nappies, though, that anyone has the time to sit down and think about what exactly it is that’s happened to them. 

In this episode, Andrew talks to Jack Underwood, a poet, writer and critic, about how and why he writes about fatherhood, his interest in the concept of uncertainty, and the complexities of modern masculinity. 

Jack Underwood lives and works in London. As well as being a poet and author, he works as a senior lecturer in creative writing at Goldsmiths University of London. His most recent collection of poetry is A Year in the New Life, which in October 2021 was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize.

Jack Underwood is also the author of Not Even This, a meditation on the theme of uncertainty inspired by his anxieties about becoming a parent. His 2015 debut collection of poetry, Happiness, won the Somerset Maugham Award. 

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Read A Year in the New Life or Not Even This: Poetry, parenthood & living uncertainly or Happiness by Jack Underwood

Follow Jack Underwood on Twitter and Instagram @jundermilkwood

Get Andrew’s advice on creating change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier

If you’re a lover of poetry, you could also listen to Andrew’s interview with Brighton poet John McCullough on Seven Ways Poetry Could Make Your Life Richer, Deeper and More Meaningful

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Stepping into a bath of ice isn’t the obvious pastime for a Northern winter. But if you do it the right way, the extreme cold can be:

❄️ Empowering - diving in means turning off the voices of procrastination.

❄️ Relaxing - staying in the bath requires you to work on physical relaxation.

❄️ Mindful - the cold focuses you hard on the now.

❄️ And, extremely healthy - there is evidence for cardiovascular benefit. 

Dr Josephine Worseck is a molecular biologist, yoga teacher, naturopath and exponent of cold exposure. The Wim Hof method she teaches is based on the three pillars of breathing, cold and mindset. 

In this episode Josephine speaks with Andrew about what led her from a successful career as a scientist into a new life helping people find their true potential and lead the lives they want. 

Andrew and Josephine also talk about the art of breathing, and take listeners through a powerful relaxation exercise. 

Josephine Worseck is based in Potsdam, Germany. She spends her days teaching clients the benefits of cold exposure, and also guides groups up mountains, leads freezing outdoor swims and teaches yoga and breathing methods. 

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Visit Josephine Worseck’s website.

Buy Josephine Worseck’s book Die Heilkraft der Kälte (currently only available in German).

Follow Josephine Worseck on Instagram @josephineworseck and on Facebook as @DrJosephineWorseck

 Get Andrew’s advice on creating real change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier

Read Andrew’s blog on how to start keeping a journal, in which you can reflect on failure and growth: https://andrewgmarshall.com/top-twelve-benefits-of-journaling/ 

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall