Pulling The Thread with Elise Loehnen

“One reason I wrote the book is that the lack of recognition is such a powerful harm done to patients. And I think until you've gone through an experience like this, it's really hard to convey why that is. But basically it comes down to having the dignity of your suffering possessing. Some kind of meaning, I think, right. And we're all social creatures, right. We don't actually get sick totally alone. It feels lonely. But one reason that my illness was doubly hard was that I had the loneliness of physical symptoms. And then I had the additional of never having them recognized or validated, which made it so much harder.” Writer, journalist, and poet Meghan O’Rourke—a former editor at The New Yorker, and the current editor of The Yale Review—has written stunningly, about many topics in our culture. But her latest book—THE INVISIBLE KINGDOM: REIMAGINING CHRONIC ILLNESS—is a memoir of her own suffering as she navigated the medical world in search of a diagnosis. Her journey to understand what is wrong with her—to even be seen as a sick person—was particularly complex because she has a web of autoimmune diseases, which…is not that uncommon, actually, particularly for younger women. In her book, she explores the complexity of illness and what it means to look fine—vital, even—and yet feel like you’re failing inside, and how quick we are to dismiss suffering we cannot see. Particularly when it’s the suffering of women. MORE FROM MEGHAN O’ROURKE:THE INVISIBLE KINGDOMSUN IN DAYSMEAGHAN’S WRITING FOR THE NEW YORKERFOLLOW MEGHAN ON TWITTERFOLLOW MEGHAN ON INSTAGRAM Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Usually in high conflict, the conflict becomes the whole point. So you make a lot of mistakes and you can miss opportunities that would actually be in the interest you are fighting for. The reason you got into the fight to begin with, whereas good conflict is the kind of conflict where again, you can be angry, you can be yell, you can have radical visions for the future. You can and must, you know, organize and protest and hold people accountable. But you do it much more skillfully. You make fewer mistakes because you're not essentially being controlled by the conflict. You're not in the trance of high conflict. And it's, you know, it's not easy to stay in good conflict. Everybody is gonna visit high conflict, even if it's for, you know, a few minutes, but you don't wanna live there because you, you and your cause will suffer.” So says Amanda Ripley, investigative journalist, podcast host, New York Times bestselling author and the queen of conflict - good conflict, that is. Amanda’s most recent book - High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out - draws on her years of experience trying to make sense of conflict on a personal and political level—particularly in this heightened time of OUTRAGE. Not all conflict is bad, Amanda tells us. In bad conflict, what she calls high conflict, the conflict becomes the whole point, an us vs. them mentality that takes on a life of its own and leads participants down a path of perpetual anger without resolution. Good conflict, on the other hand, goes somewhere interesting as genuine curiosity and deep listening leads to better mutual understanding. So how do we make the shift?In our discussion, Amanda arms us with a mind-opening new way to think about conflict that will transform how we move through the world. We talk about what it means to get curious about what lies beneath the surface of a conflict; how our own unresolved internal conflicts often inform our external conflicts; as well as the importance of engaging in deep listening in order to make others feel truly heard. In a world engineered for misunderstanding, Amanda gives us faith that individuals, and even entire communities, can end the doom loop of outrage and blame if they can learn to really hear each other. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: What would it be like if you got what you wanted?… Conflict entrepreneurs… High conflict and the death of curiosity… Deep listening and making others feel heard… MORE FROM AMANDA RIPLEY:High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get OutThe Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That WayThe Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - And WhyListen to Amanda’s Podcast, How To! on Apple Podcasts and SpotifyAmanda's WebsiteFollow Amanda on Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I’ve won arm wrestles with big muscular men, right out of prison because you align the energy. Everything wants to harmonize with it and things start to flow with you and it's silent and it's, it's quiet, it's gentle, but it's incredibly powerful. The strength you can access when you're in a state of integrity. So as that starts to grow, we're seeing the Putins and we're seeing the Trumps because they are so freaking loud. And we don't even know that in the silence all over the world, there's another power rising and rising and rising and looking at what's happening in Ukraine and looking at the atrocities and saying, okay, we're not going, we're not gonna do this anymore.” So says Martha Beck, a Harvard-trained sociologist and life coach who is the author of many incredible books, including the just-released, WAY OF INTEGRITY, an Oprah bookclub pick that just might change your life. Martha describes integrity as that sense of wholeness that we can all tap into when we are aligned and attuned to our true selves on the deepest level. It is from that place that we feel unrestricted and safe—like we are at one with the world and each other, and that we no longer feel compelled to control our own behavior in order to earn acceptance and belonging. It is a place of strength, freedom, and radical honesty.The book, which is a mixture of memoir, anecdotes from her own, fascinating practice, research, and worksheets, uses Dante’s Inferno as a guide to healing. As with any heroic quest, you must go down before you can go up, and Martha walks you there, hand-in-hand until you reach the place of Satori, or enlightenment, which is really another word for the state of integrity. If you can’t tell, I really loved this book–and I loved our conversation.EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: The same proof from different angles… White lies, gray lies, black lies… Being torn apart to become awake… Breaking free from the golden chains… MORE FROM MARTHA BECK:The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True SelfRead Martha's Other WorkMartha's WebsiteMartha Beck - Think Like a Wayfinder MasterclassMartha's TedTalk - The Four Technologies of MagicFollow Martha on Twitter and Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You have to have something new to hope for sure. You might still keep hoping that somebody with a terminal illness might get better and indeed they do sometimes. Or you might hope as after 9/11, that somebody will be found who was in the trade towers when they fell down. And in fact, a few people were found in another country or in a psychiatric ward and not being able to remember who they were, but for the most part, you keep hoping and you move forward with life in a new way. Without that missing person, you must do both. You cannot just hope because that means you're immobilized, you're frozen in place and the children will suffer, the family will suffer, you will suffer from that. It has to be both/and.” So says, Dr. Pauline Boss, emeritus professor at University of Minnesota and world-renowned as a pioneer in the interdisciplinary study of family stress management as well as for her groundbreaking research on what is now known as the theory of ambiguous loss. Dr. Boss coined the term ambiguous loss in the 1970s to describe a very particular type of loss that defies resolution, blocks coping and meaning-making and freezes the process of grieving. With death, she says, there is official certification of loss, proof of the transformation from life to death, and support for mourners through community rituals and gatherings. In ambiguous loss, none of these markers exist, the lingering murkiness leaving individuals unnerved and stressed out. In her forty years of clinical experience as a family therapist, Dr. Boss has worked with individuals, couples and families dealing with some kind of ambiguous loss - from families in New York who lost family members during 9/11 and are experiencing the physical kind of ambiguous loss, to those dealing with the psychological ambiguous losses of a parent with Alzheimer’s disease, a loved one with an addiction, or someone who is changing as a result of aging or transitioning. Drawing on research and her immense cache of clinical experience, Dr. Boss has developed six guiding principles for building the resilience to both bear the trauma of ambiguous loss and to move forward and live well, despite experiencing a loss with no certainty or resolution. She joins me today to discuss this often unrecognized, but ubiquitous type of loss, particularly as it relates to closure - the subject of her most recent book, The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change. Our conversation touches on our collective grieving following the pandemic and our country’s awakening to the concept of systemic racism; how we can begin to increase our tolerance for ambiguity, and the importance of discovering new hope in the face of grief that has no end. Our search, she tells us, must not be for the elusive concept of closure, but rather for a sense of meaning and a new way to move forward. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Unnerving ambiguity… Using both/and language around loss… Pillars of processing… Moving forward, not moving on… MORE FROM PAULINE BOSS:The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and ChangeAmbiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved GriefLoving Someone Who Has Dementia: How to Find Hope While Coping with Stress and GriefWhat if There’s No Such Thing as Closure? - NYT Magazine, December 2021 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"So if we take that off the table, if we take off this, this goal of changing somebody's mind, then what are you left with? What's what's your purpose in the conversation? And I feel like not only is that more attainable to have a conversation in which you are exchanging ideas, just exchanging ideas, changing information, that's attainable every time. But also it relieves some pressure, right? I mean, sometimes I feel like people see conversations as frustrating because they keep trying to do something that's impossible. Maybe it would be more enjoyable for you if you weren't trying to beat your head against the wall. I feel like that that paragraph from Carl Rogers is not just something that is useful to tell the other person. I think it's mostly for you. Like for you to tell yourself, I'm not here to change you. I'm just here to listen and understand."So says Celeste Headlee, award-winning radio journalist and author of many incredible books, including Do Nothing, We Need to Talk, and Speaking of Race. Celeste, a self-described “light-skinned Black Jew,” has been having hard conversations about race since she was a little kid. Already an astute observer of culture, she has notated throughout her life how unproductive these conversations tend to be, how we shut down and get defensive, or try to reinforce our own sense of righteousness.In today’s conversation, we explore the reasons we’ve become culturally calcified as well as antidotes for taking on tough and essential topics. In Celeste’s experience, the more reserved we become about leaning into potential conflict the more fear enters the equation: And right now, one of the worst labels you can hear is that you are racist.I loved DO NOTHING and I also loved Speaking of Race, because at its heart it is also just about the art of conversation--and active listening. And Celeste has a lot of experience: She is a regular guest host on NPR and American Public Media, and her Tedx Talk on having better conversations has been viewed over 23 million times.While I’ve got your attention on Celeste, you need to listen to her season with John Biewen on Scene on Radio: They did an incredible series of episodes about misogyny, and his season on race, called Seeing White, which he co-hosted with Chenjerai Kumanyika is incredible. MORE FROM CELESTE HEADLEE:Speaking of RaceDo NothingWe Need to TalkCeleste’s WebsiteFollow Celeste on Instagram and Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I increasingly feel that modern life is becoming intolerable for everyone, whether they're neurodivergent or not. I think we've noticed it earlier. I think, you know, we've reached our point of unbearable discomfort earlier along the line. But I just begin to think that the way we are living is generally hostile to our brains and our neurology. We are, all of us, completely overwhelmed all the time. And you know, like the idea that some people had a good pandemic, well that's because the world called a truce on some of us, and we didn't realize we needed it until that moment. I mean, I don't know what it's gonna take for us to all pull the break on this because it's not good. It's not good for us.” So says Katherine May, the New York Times bestselling author of Wintering, the book that spoke to so many of our souls when it came out a month before the pandemic: Katherine anticipated what all of us felt, which is that our way of living was not supportable, and that we needed retreat and rest.Katherine is a prophet for a number of reasons: Not only because she’s a stunningly beautiful writer and astute observer of the world, but also because she’s wired a little bit differently. Before she wrote WINTERING, Katherine wrote another book, a memoir called THE ELECTRICITY OF EVERY LIVING THING, about attempting to walk the 630 mile South West Coast Path in Britain before turning 40. But it’s not a book about a heroic feat, it’s actually about grappling with her late-in-life diagnosis as being on the autism spectrum disorder. Katherine always knew she was different, but she never knew exactly how or why, only that she found many parts of life overwhelming and chaotic. The book, which is stunning, explores the ways so many of us feel like we’re passing—picking up behaviors from other people in order to be accepted, or to fit in. MORE FROM KATHERINE MAY:The Electricity of Every Living ThingWinteringThe Best Most Awful JobKatherine May’s WebsiteFollow Katherine on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I think we're due for a cultural rebranding around crying. I think that crying, you know, if we start to cry, we inevitably apologize or invariably apologize. We sort of suck it back in and make it as small as it can be. Like the way someone would pinch back a sneeze, we’re like holding the tears back, making it smaller, collecting ourselves. And you know, if you know, somebody who's crying frequently or you're like, they're in a bad place. And I think that we really need to see crying as this deep wisdom from our body saying, you need a release right now, let's have of one. And when you get an opportunity to cry, dive into it and let it be big, let it be complete rather than smaller. Like let it be bigger.” So says Dr. Ellen Vora, a Columbia University-trained psychiatrist who takes a functional and holistic approach to mental health—namely, she treats the whole system, looking for where states like anxiety and depression might be rooted in the body, whether it’s less-than-ideal nutrition and an out-of-whack gut, or poor sleep and breathing.In her just-launched book—THE ANATOMY OF ANXIETY—she tackles this state that is ever-present for many of us. In fact, it’s easy to argue that if you aren’t feeling anxious, you aren’t really alive in this complex, difficult rollercoaster of time. But in Ellen’s model, she differentiates between true and false anxiety—both are very real and valid concerns. For false anxiety, typically there’s an imminently treatable physical root that can be addressed until the body comes back into balance and the mind calms. True anxiety, on the other hand, is an alarm clock that something is not right—that you’re out of alignment, or integrity, in some way. In today’s episode we talk about both, including the overwhelming load that we’re all carrying and how important it is to cry. We also explore psychedelics and what it means to really heal. OK, let’s get to our conversation.EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: It’s not ‘all in your head’, it’s in your body… Building your sleep toolkit… Honoring real food cravings… The importance of finding release… MORE FROM ELLEN VORA:The Anatomy Of Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming the Body's Fear ResponseEllen's WebsiteFollow Ellen on Instagram and check out her videos on YouTube and TikTok Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"When I would witness somebody that I identify with in whatever capacity of what I'm calling in, have, what I want or are successful in what I would like to be successful in. Um, or, you know, they are on that path to what I'm shooting for. I really realize that that would actually be tremendously more effective for my subconscious to go, oh, if they could do that or if they are doing that, I can as well. So beyond all, all of the visualizing I did back in the day until I was blue in the face, this would speed things up and make it really rapid," says Lacy Phillips, my guest today - a global manifestation expert and speaker and founder of To Be Magnetic. Lacy presents a unique manifestation formula, rooted in basic psychology, neuroscience, and her energetic gifts. Lacy’s manifestation formula is not your typical "think positive" and "visualize" method, but rather, she is known for a much deeper and more therapeutic response that requires clearing subconscious blocks first—only then, can you begin to call in and work toward what you most desire. Lacy offers a comprehensive digital workshop program called The Pathway, along with an excellent podcast, EXPANDED. I highly recommend tuning in. Today, she shares with us the secrets of her manifestation success, as we discuss everything from identifying our sticky subconscious beliefs to reading our nervous system and its readiness for change to how to respond to tests on the way to rediscovering our authentic, worthy self. Lacy tells us that seeing is believing when it comes to manifestation, and encourages us to search for ‘expanders’ - individuals, real or fictitious, who broaden our concept of reality. She challenges us to turn our envy towards those who have what we want, using them as proof positive, that what we want is not only possible, but achievable. Everyone is being offered a ticket on the manifestation train, she assures us, it is just a matter of whether we choose to get on. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: The three pieces of manifestation… Resolving our sticky subconscious beliefs… Finding your expanders… Aligned action and being tested… MORE FROM LACY PHILLIPS:To Be Magnetic - curated by Lacy PhillipsListen to Lacy’s podcast, EXPANDED, on Spotify and Apple PodcastsFollow To Be Magnetic on Instagram and TwitterFollow Lacy on Instagram  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I think what makes it much more difficult to, to have the courage, to continue to experiment, you know, look at somebody like Joni Mitchell or Rickie Lee Jones, people that at their moment of peak success, commercially said, you know, I'm going to do jazz now, or I'm going to do instrumental now, or I'm going to do something else now. And you know, the word once again, you know, that changed the world. Even Dylan, when he went electric, you know, the world hates that, you know, we're supposed to be able to deliver an expectation that people are used to and feel comfortable with. And I think any type of huge success like that really sets you up to feel like you can't veer from that without either disrupting your level of success or disappointing people or outraging people, you know, the very things that thrill and delight and excite. Some people are the very things that outrage others. And once you start to have to gauge where you're going to sit in that continuum, you know, I think the original work is then pretty much obliterated,” so says Debbie Millman, author, educator, curator and host of one of the first, and longest running podcasts, Design Matters. Debbie is a creator to her core - she started her career at Sterling Brands, one of the world’s leading branding consultancies, and for twenty years led the company as President, working on the logo and brand identity for some of the world’s most prominent brands, from Burger King, Hershey’s, Haagen Dazs and Tropicana, to Star Wars and Gillette. Her writing and illustrations have been featured in publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, Print Magazine, and Fast Company. She is the author of seven books, the co-owner and editorial director of PrintMag.com, and co-founded the world’s first graduate program in branding at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Her podcast, which has been nominated for six Webby awards, has been highlighted on over 100 “Best Podcasts” lists and was designated by Apple as one of their “All Time Favorite Podcasts”, has spent the past 17 years interviewing nearly 500 of the most creative people in the world. Today she joins me to discuss her most recent book, Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People. This book, Debbie tells us, was born of her desire to stoke her own creative fire in a time when she was working as a creative but feeling artistically dead. Debbie regales us with tales of the creative processes of the greats, including the inevitable failures, rejections, and obstacles that are part of any creative journey, showing us how they persevere to create beauty in the face of adversity. In our conversation, we discuss the danger of expectations, the courage it takes to create and questions around who gets to call themselves an artist. We talk about the stereotype of the pained artist, finding inspiration, and how she teaches her students to refine and create their original voice. She leaves us with her thoughts about personal brands and the way in which they limit our identity and our ability to continually pursue the new or experimental. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Fear around the new…(10:15) Who gets to call themselves an artist?...(17:50) The courage in experimentation…(22:52) On personal brands…(43:00) MORE FROM DEBBIE MILLMAN:Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative PeopleMore Books by Debbie MillmanVisit Debbie's WebsiteListen to Debbie’s Podcast, Design Matters on Apple PodcastsFollow Debbie on Twitter and Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

That's what I think is so funny about this is like a hundred years on these things that he's talking about remain as live as ever as sort of as complex and as urgent as they were back in Vienna and literally a hundred years ago. So that it feels to me like he was really onto something. And I don't think that's true of every thinker of the 1920s or every psychoanalyst of the 1920s. He really, he really he's like heat-seeking missile. He has this ability to sort of put himself in the most contested zones, our emotional lives.Today we are joined by author Olivia Laing to discuss her new book, Everybody: A Book About Freedom, which explores the body as a mechanism for understanding the world around us through the story of radical psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. A contemporary and friend of the famous Sigmund Freud, Reich believed that the body communicated things that his patients could not articulate. In many ways, he’s the often-overlooked father of trauma and somatic therapy. In Reich’s view, unexpressed reservoirs of emotion, if left unprocessed, led to the build up of a sort of muscular armor that patients carried with them for life. Though Reich’s later work, which featured increasingly eccentric ideas, has led to his erasure within the common psychoanalytic discourse, Laing reminds us that Reich’s belief in freedom from oppression and dominion over our bodies, and our lives, is just as prescient today as it was 100 years ago—and she challenges us to think about the stories of our own bodies within this larger cultural context.MORE FROM OLIVIA:Everybody: A Book About FreedomFunny Weather: Art in an EmergencyCrudoThe Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being AloneThe Trip to Echo Springs: On Writers and Drinking Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.