The Meaningful Life with Andrew G. Marshall

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 

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