Pulling The Thread with Elise Loehnen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So natural intelligence has this ability to bring order when we allow it to. The reason that we don't see it so often in operation in human systems is because we are constantly interrupting those patterns. So that human intervention is constantly getting in the way of and disrupting the natural order. Therefore, every time it tries to express itself or reveal itself, we come in again and we see that most clearly, you know, during the pandemic, here, I think many places around the world, it happened here in the UK that how nature was able to establish itself very, very quickly within a week of the first lockdown. You know, we were seeing dolphins in the Thames.”So says Jeddah Mali, the founder and director of Intelligent Life, which is a model and mapping system for understanding our own lives as well as the larger universe. If it sounds heady that’s because it is—but it’s also a stunning articulation of collective human values and the ways that we each show up, as well as the gap between how we live, and how we profess to want to live. What Jeddah’s map reveals, is the way we can be more conscious in all of our actions, as we move from survival to unity. MORE FROM JEDDAH MALI:Intelligent Life Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Jeffrey Rediger, a physician and psychiatrist from Harvard, shares insights from his book 'Cured' on the power of spontaneous healing. He discusses how physical ailments often signal deeper issues of inauthenticity and the importance of listening to one's body. The conversation challenges conventional healing approaches, emphasizing personal growth and spiritual experiences. Rediger explores the transformative power of illness and the need to confront societal pressures, advocating for a more authentic self that can lead to profound healing.

Written and narrated by award-winning author and Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, Dr. Eddie S. Glaude, “History is US” is a 6-part audio documentary produced and developed by C13Originals that asks questions about who we are as a nation, and what race might reveal about our current crisis. Through the voices of distinguished historians and scholars, this limited series gives listeners the background and education to understand how we got here and how we can all use history to clarify the choices before us. There will always be something distinct about our present day, yet history haunts. “History is US” is a presentation of Shining City Audio, a C13Originals and Jon Meacham Studio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.