Dr. MaryCatherine McDonald | Finding Joy After Pain

Trauma makes it difficult to feel joy, but you CAN experience it again, even if you’re in the early stages of your healing journey.

This week, Thomas sits down with trauma researcher, life coach, and the author of Unbroken and The Joy Reset, Dr. MaryCatherine McDonald, to redefine joy, examine how trauma steals it from us, and explore how we can learn to let it into our lives again.

Dr. McDonald has identified six “thieves of joy”—coping mechanisms that helped us to survive trauma and hardship, but now make it difficult to relax, let go, and feel the full spectrum of emotions. She shares strategies to release guilt, shame, and hypervigilance and allow good things to happen without bracing for the worst.

Dr. McDonald’s newest book, The Joy Reset: Six Ways Trauma Steals Happiness and How to Win it Back, is out now wherever books are sold. 

 

Click here to watch the video version of this episode on YouTube:

👉 https://youtu.be/3c7zxjbiNXY

 

✨ Join Thomas’ upcoming live course - Whole-Being Wellness: Aligning Mind, Body, and Spirit for a Vibrant Life

Through guided practices, reflection tools, and community learning, we will develop new ways to care for ourselves and one another in a time when true well-being is needed more than ever. Expert guest teachers include Dr. Terry Real, Dr. Uma Naidoo, Iya Affo, and Ross Gay.

📅 The course begins on May 21, 2025. Learn more and enroll here: 👉 https://www.whole-beingwellness.com

 

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✨ MaryCatherine McDonald, PhD, is a research professor and life coach who specializes in the psychology of trauma, stress, and resilience. She has been researching, lecturing, and publishing on the neuroscience, psychology, and lived experience of trauma and stress for over a decade. She is passionate about destigmatizing trauma, stress, and mental health issues and reframing our understanding of trauma.

Connect with her here: 👉 https://alchemycoaching.life

 

Thomas Hübl, PhD, is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator who works within the complexity of systems and cultural change, integrating the core insights of the great wisdom traditions and mysticism with the discoveries of science. Since the early 2000s, he has led large-scale events and courses on the healing of collective trauma. 

In addition to Attuned, he is the author of Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds. He has served as an advisor and guest faculty for universities and organizations, as a coach for CEOs and organizational leaders, and is currently a visiting scholar at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University.

✨ Connect with Thomas here:

Website: https://thomashuebl.com/Facebook: https://facebook.com/Thomas.Huebl.Sangha/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thomashuebl/ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ThomasHuebl YouTube: https://youtube.com/@thomashuebl

 

✨ Order Thomas Hübl’s new book, “Attuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma–And Our World” here:

👉 https://www.attunedbook.com/ 

 

✨ Sign up for updates by visiting our website:

👉 https://pointofrelationpodcast.com

 

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