The Connection with Marty Moss-Coane

No one is perfect. We all make mistakes, disappoint people we care about and fall short from time to time. We know that’s true and yet, it is tough to be criticized. It can make us feel like a failure…ashamed, exposed, vulnerable.  This episode — giving and taking criticism at home and at work. We’ll talk about the difference between constructive and destructive criticism, the role of trust and empathy when delivering and receiving negative feedback, why the “feedback sandwich” doesn’t work, and how to handle the loudest critic of all: the one in our head. Psychologist Andrea Bonior, author of Detox Your Thoughts: Quit Negative Self-Talk for Good and Discover the Life You’ve Always Wanted and Christine Porath, a professor of organizational behavior at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Most of us try to be honest but sometimes we don’t tell the truth. Psychologists Christian Hart and Drew Curtis have made researching lying their life’s work. They found that the average person tells about one lie a day, while chronic liars fib ten times a day. Their latest book is titled Big Liars. On this episode, we delve into the psychology of deceit, what we are learning about people who lie as a way of life and how to be on the look out for signs of lying. Hart and Curtis found that the most successful politicians are the ones who bend the truth. The more honest ones generally don’t get re-elected. And since we are headed into what promises to be a political season filled with mis and disinformation, it’s going to be vital knowing how to tell the difference between what’s false and what’s true.

Ecologist Douglas Tallamy talks about an approach to conservation that starts with letting your yard grow wild with native plants to save wildlife in ‘Nature’s Best Hope.’

Whether or not you are a poet or poetry reader, this hour will open your eyes to the power of poetry. We’ll explore why we need poetry and how it can connect us, heal us and help us pay attention to people and experiences outside of ourselves. We’re joined by three poets. Patrick Rosal is a professor of english at Rutgers-Camden and his latest book is The Last Thing. M. Nzadi Keita recently retired from teaching english at Ursinus College and her new book is Migration Letters. Trapeta Mayson is former Philadelphia Poet Laureate, founder of Healing Verse Philly and a licensed clinical social worker.

Psychiatrist Frank Anderson has been a leading expert in the treatment of trauma. Even though he was a much-in-demand speaker and wrote books about the subject, he never dealt with his own traumatic childhood and the abuse he experienced at the hands of his father…until now. When Anderson became a father, he saw himself acting and reacting like his dad in his relationship with his sons and went into therapy. His new memoir, To Be Loved, is about how facing the truth of his trauma has made him a more authentic and better person. Trauma is common, resulting in shock, numbness, and a feeling of disconnection from the self and others. Untreated trauma can have lifelong mental health consequences leading to depression and anxiety. Frank Anderson joins us to discuss what trauma can teach us and how it can be healed.

Filmmaker, hip-hop artist and professor MK Asante’s 2013 memoir Buck described growing up in Philadelphia in the 90s “unsupervised, with my brother gone, my dad gone, my mom gone and me just on the block in the neighborhood, roaming the streets of Philly — just lost.” The book explored his transformation from petty drug dealer to poet. Now over a decade later, Asante has a new memoir, Nephew: A Memoir in 4-Part Harmony and join us this week to talk about it. It begins with Asante sitting vigil by his nephew Nasir’s bedside at Temple University hospital, where he is close to death after being shot nine times. The book is written to Nasir about their family’s complicated legacy of secrets, loss, faith, and redemption. It’s also about the power of music and language to connect us and heal old wounds.

There’s been a lot of fighting over how to teach the history of America – and it’s turned classroom curriculums into political battlefields. Perhaps it’s not surprising that we get emotional confronting our past, with so many painful chapters. How do we get people to face the ugly truths of the American story? Can we feel sorrow, shame and anger while still taking pride in the things that make this country great? We’ll talk with a social psychologist and a history professor about why we need to teach “hard history” and how to develop the mental toolkit to reckon honestly with our past. Our guests are Dolly Chugh, psychologist and professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University and author of A More Just Future and Hasan Kwame Jeffries, associate professor of history at The Ohio State University and the editor of Understanding and Teaching the Civil Rights Movement. 

Why are so many people so angry, outraged and resentful these days? While there’s a lot to be ticked off about, it’s not healthy to feel aggrieved all the time. It affects our sense of wellbeing, our relationships with other people — and it’s not good for our democracy. New York Times columnist Frank Bruni has been exploring our culture of complaint and joins us this week to discuss his new book, The Age of Grievance. He writes that “the blame game has become the country’s most popular sport and victimhood its most fashionable garb.” While he is critical of the left, especially college campuses that focus on trigger warnings, political correctness and microaggressions, he says nothing compares to the dangerous grievances that fueled the January 6th insurrection. This episode, a conversation about why humility is an antidote to grievance.

Jamie Wyeth comes from a family of artists. Besides his famous father, Andrew Wyeth, there is his grandfather, illustrator N.C. Wyeth. Jamie, like his family, has strong ties to the Brandywine River Valley and to rural Maine. And while he inherited his family’s gifts, he has carved out his own artistic vision. It hasn’t always been easy. In this edition of The Connection, a conversation with Jamie Wyeth about his journey to find his place in the world, the ghosts that haunt him and why he thinks painting is an odd thing to do. Also joining us is filmmaker Glenn Holsten, whose new documentary is “Jamie Wyeth and the Unflinching Eye.” His previous film about Andrew Wyeth was featured on PBS’ American Masters.

Did you have a favorite stuffed animal or blanket when you were a kid? Do you still have it today? Childhood possessions are filled with memories and meaning so we hold on to them for many years. In this hour we explore the uniquely human behavior of owning things and why we become attached to our belongings. We’ll look at how they connect us with a person or experience and become part of our identity. And we’ll talk about the downsides of having too many possessions – there are more than 50,000 self-storage facilities in the country filled with our overflow. Our guest is psychologist Bruce Hood author of Possessed: Why We Want More Than We Need.