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Hello, I am a marital therapist, communications trainer and author. I have thirty-five years helping couples and individuals make better relationships. I have written twenty-plus self-help books which include the international best-sellers ‘I love you but I’m not in love with you’ and ‘How can I ever trust you again?’ My books have been translated into twenty languages. I trained with RELATE the UK’s largest counselling charity. Perhaps it has been turning sixty but I have become interested in spiritual as well as psychological questions. Who am I? What are my values – as opposed to my parents, my teachers and the wider society? What makes my life meaningful? What do I believe about life, the universe and everything? Although my clients might come to me because of destructive arguments, falling out of love and infidelity, they are also interested in having more meaningful relationships and a more meaningful life. So what is the meaningful life? Why do we so easily lose our way and get lost in depression, anxiety, doubt, addictions and obsessions: the swamplands of the soul? One thing I know for sure is that there is not one answer. Each of us has to find out for ourselves what makes our life meaningful. But we can learn from each other, share our experiences of how to navigate the journey, how to endure and learn from the swamp, and finally how to find solid ground. I have decided to use my original training in radio and journalism to interview witnesses for what makes life meaningful. Each week, I invite someone who is a therapist, academic, self-help coach or who has an enlightening personal story to share their knowledge or experiences. I hope our discussions will help you discover what makes your life meaningful and find more purpose and contentment.
Episodes
Monday Nov 13, 2023
Monday Nov 13, 2023
Healing from profound exhaustion of the spirit requires more than just thinking of a good plan. Author and Jungian Bea Gonzalez believes in storytelling and myth as powerful tools for healing.
In this episode, Andrew and Bea discuss:
- Why fairy tales have so much to teach us.
- Rediscovering feminine wisdom (which both men and women need)
- How to analyse a fairy tale to find the message it contains for YOU.
- The tale of the Skeleton Woman - Andrew and Bea tell this story section by section, discussing its rich metaphors along the way.
Bea Gonzalez is the creator of Sophia Cycles, a project to bring feminine wisdom back to the world. She is the author of several novels (including Invocation, The Bitter Taste of Time and The Mapmaker’s Opera). Bea is also a lecturer and educator, and has taught classes on the work of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell all over the world.
Subscriber Content This Week
If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:
- Code Breaking: Unlocking the symbolic life
- Three things Bea Gonzalez knows to be true.
- AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.
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 Bea Gonzalez’s new novel, Invocation and her other books, The Bitter Taste of Time and The Mapmaker’s Opera.
Visit Bea Gonzalez’s website https://www.sophiacycles.com/
Follow Bea Gonzalez on Instagram, Twitter/X and YouTube @sophiacycles
You might enjoy Andrew’s other episode on fairy tales, How Fairy Tales Can Refresh & Move You Forward, with Libby Nugent, or his interview with Jungian analyst and author James Hollis on How to be Resilient.
Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter The Meaningful Life, and join the community there.
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
Monday Nov 06, 2023
Monday Nov 06, 2023
“Shame is a powerful, universal, mysterious emotion. It can be incredibly painful and destructive AND it is designed to protect you” (Sheila Rubin).
Marriage therapist Sheila Rubin is a leading authority on how to heal the shame that might be holding you back in your relationships and your life. In this interview, Andrew and Sheila discuss how to achieve a deeper understanding of your shame, stop resisting it, and even turn it into an ally.
Sheila Rubin, MA, MFT, RDT/BCT is a Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice in Berkeley, California. She is the Co-Director of the Center for Healing Shame, a continuing education provider that offers Healing Shame workshops to therapists and other helping professionals. Sheila has developed therapy techniques integrating somatic and expressive processes to work with the all-pervasive shame and trauma that underlie eating disorders, addictions and toxic family dynamics. She is also the co-author (along with her husband, Bret Lyon) of a new book, Embracing Shame.
Subscriber Content This Week
If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:
- Shame and eating disorders
- Three things Sheila Rubin knows to be true.
- AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.
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: https://www.patreon.com/andrewgmarshall
Read Sheila Rubin’s new book, Embracing Shame.
To download a free guidebook, Resilience and Hidden Shame, please visit www.SheilaRubin.com
For more information about Sheila’s Healing Shame workshops, please visit www.HealingShame.com.
Read Andrew’s book The Happy Couple’s Handbook: Powerful Life Hacks for a Successful Relationship.
Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter The Meaningful Life, and join the community there.
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
Monday Oct 30, 2023
Monday Oct 30, 2023
Quitting - jobs, marriages, musical instruments - is often seen as a sign of a weak character. Author and journalist Julia Keller is on a mission to reframe quitting as an act of self-love, which can help us lead more meaningful lives.
This week Andrew and Julia discuss why it is that we value perseverance and “grit” so heavily, how to know when enough is enough, and the art of the “quasi-quit”.
Julia Keller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, novelist, playwright, and teacher, is the author of Quitting: A Life Strategy / The Myth of Perseverance and How the New Science of Giving Up Can Set You Free.
Julia earned a Ph.D. at Ohio State University, and has taught at Princeton University, The University of Chicago, and the University of Notre Dame, and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. She was the literary critic at The Chicago Tribune for more than a decade before quitting in order to write books. As well as her non-fiction writing Julia is the author of a series of mystery novels, a science fiction series for young adults.
Subscriber Content This Week
If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:
⭐️How to ask good questions.
⭐️Three things Julia Keller knows to be true.
⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.
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 Julia Keller’s new book Quitting: A Life Strategy
Visit Julia Keller’s website
Follow Julia Keller on Facebook @Julia.Keller.Writer
Read Andrew’s 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
Monday Oct 23, 2023
Monday Oct 23, 2023
Most couples grapple with mismatched levels of sexual desire at some point. Some find destructive solutions - pornography, infidelity - but it IS possible to deal with this in a positive way.
This week Fabian Edzard Schneider chats with Andrew about the daily self-pleasure routine he is using to fulfil his sexual needs while his wife recuperates from the birth of their second child.
Andrew and Fabian discuss the ways in which men can take responsibility for their own physical and emotional needs, and in doing so create a better life as a strong, loving man of vision and self-understanding.
Fabian Edzard Schneider is based in Gottingen, Germany. He specialises in empowering men to lead happier, more self-fulfilling lives. Fabian leads men’s groups that focus on the practical and the physical, rather than on theoretical understanding.
Subscriber Content This Week
If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:
⭐️How can men get to know themselves better?
⭐️Three things Fabian Edzard Schneider knows to be true.
⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.
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: https://www.patreon.com/andrewgmarshall
Fabian Edzard Schneider runs an in-person and online training programme for men called MenEncounter. The training focuses on masculine identity, self-empowerment, vision, and implementation of heart-driven projects as well as sexuality and relationship. Take a look here: https://fabianedzard.com/start/
You might also enjoy Andrew’s interviews with Venus O’Hara on Spiritual Sex, with Silva Neves on How to Heal Compulsive Sexual Behaviour, or with Irene Fehr on Why Desire Disappears.
Get Andrew’s advice on building a stronger relationship in his book The Happy Couple’s Handbook: Powerful Life Hacks for a Successful Relationship.
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
Monday Oct 16, 2023
Monday Oct 16, 2023
Forget fair fighting, what you and your partner should aim for is win-win problem solving. According to psychologist Dr Susan Heitler, If you can learn to investigate and share the deep-seated emotions behind a particular argument, the two of you can emerge stronger and more connected as a couple.
In this week’s episode, Andrew and Susan explore how childhood patterns can be replicated in adult relationships, and discuss a case-study in which a couple is able to overcome a disagreement over food waste that had brought them to the brink of divorce.
Dr Susan Heitler is a Harvard-educated clinical psychologist with a doctorate from NYU. She has authored multiple self-help books, plus books for therapists on treatment techniques. She aims to show how to handle life's bumps—the conflicts, difficult interactions, negative feelings, traumas, and tough decisions—in ways that sustain a sense of well-being. Dr Heitler’s articles on Psychology Today have received over 24 million reads.
Subscriber Content This Week
If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:
⭐️What can marriage counselling do that individual work cannot?
⭐️Three things Susan Heitler knows to be true.
⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.
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 Susan Heitler’s websites: prescriptionswithoutpills.com and therapyhelp.com
Read Susan Heitler’s books, including Prescriptions Without Pills and The Power of Two: Secrets to a Strong and Loving Marriage.
Read Susan Heitler’s articles for Psychology Today
Watch Susan Heitler’s TEDX talk on Lift Depression With These Three Prescriptions - Without Pills.
You might also enjoy Andrew’s interviews with Avrum Weiss on Couples and Anxiety; or with Tonya Lester on How to Have Healthy Conflict.
Get Andrew’s advice on building a stronger relationship in his book The Happy Couple’s Handbook: Powerful Life Hacks for a Successful Relationship.
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
Monday Oct 09, 2023
Monday Oct 09, 2023
If you wanted children but weren’t able to have them, you are tasked with making peace with a life you didn’t choose. This grieving process occurs inside a culture that often has little respect for the childless.
In this episode, Andrew speaks with psychotherapist Jody Day about grief, how ageing is different if you are not a parent, and how to find meaning, purpose and identity in what can feel like a very negative social context.
Jody Day is the British founder of Gateway Women, the global support & advocacy network for childless women. She’s the author of what many professionals consider to be the ‘go-to’ book on the topic, Living the Life Unexpected: How to find hope, meaning and a fulfilling future without children.
Jody was chosen as one of the BBC’s 100 Women in 2013 & a UK Digital Woman of the Year in 2021. She is a global thought leader on female involuntary childlessness, a psychotherapist, a 2017 and 2022 TEDx speaker, a founding and former board member at the UK Charity Ageing Without Children and a former Fellow in Social Innovation at Cambridge Judge Business School.
Often referred to as the founder of the ‘childless movement’ and less often, but more memorably as ‘the Beyonce of childlessness', she’s been an Ambassador for World Childless Week since its inception in 2017. After a lifetime in London, she now lives by the sea in West Cork, rural Ireland, where she’s completing a novel (featuring a childless heroine of course!) and nurturing her emerging Gateway Elderwomen project.
Subscriber Content This Week
If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:
⭐️ How to get your mojo back.
⭐️Three things Jody Day knows to be true.
⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.
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: https://www.patreon.com/andrewgmarshall
Details about Jody Day’s book Living the Life Unexpected: How to Find Hope, Meaning and a Fulfilling Future Without Children can be found here and you can download the Introduction and Chapter 1 free, here. There is a live reading group for those working through the book in Jody’s online community.
Visit Gateway Women, the global support & advocacy network for childless women.
Follow Jody Day on Instagram and Twitter @gatewaywomen and on Facebook @GatewayWomenUK.
You might also enjoy Andrew’s interview with author Shani Silver A New Perspective on Being Single
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
Monday Oct 02, 2023
Monday Oct 02, 2023
Our “shadow” is made up of the unconscious parts of ourselves that we try to suppress or deny. Acknowledging and understanding shadow can be a powerful path to healing and authenticity.
If we pursue spiritual growth, we will certainly encounter shadow - both our own, and those of our teachers (whose secret desires around money, sex and power can come into play).
In this episode, psychotherapist and author Connie Zweig PhD talks with Andrew about her new book, Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path. Connie shares some of the ways we can heal from bruising encounters with shadow on spiritual journeys, and how we can “recover from loss of faith and move from spiritual naivete to spiritual maturity”.
Connie Zweig, Ph.D., is a retired psychotherapist, writer, and Climate Reality Leader. Known as the Shadow Expert, she has written several books about shadow-work, including a bestseller about ageing as a spiritual practice, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul. Connie has been doing contemplative practices for more than 50 years, and is a wife, stepmother and grandmother.
Subscriber Content This Week
If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:
⭐️Projection: how we see our shadow in others.
⭐️Three things Connie Zweig knows to be true.
⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.
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 Connie Zweig’s new book Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: The Dance of Darkness and Light in Our Search for Awakening.
Take a look at Connie Zweig’s other books
Visit Connie Zweig’s website
You can email Connie Zweig about the questions raised in this episode at conniezweig@gmail.com
Follow Connie Zweig on Twitter @InnerWorkofAge and on Facebook at @Dr.ConnieZweig
Listen to Andrew’s previous interview with Connie Zweig on From Role to Soul: How to Become an Elder Rather than Just Old
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
Monday Sep 25, 2023
Monday Sep 25, 2023
How do we fall in love? And do men and women experience this differently?
Psychiatrist Dr Paul Dobransky has combined science with the study of real-life case studies, and concludes that we do. Moreover, if we can understand something of how our brains move through the stages of love, we can make better romantic choices and create relationships that last.
Paul Dobransky, M.D., is a psychiatrist and author of The Secret Psychology of How We Fall in Love and The Power of Female Friendship. He works with AI and machine learning models and algorithms for analyzing romance, dating, relationships (human courtship), the development of character maturity and virtues, and the theory of personality.
Subscriber Content This Week
If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:
⭐️ Power imbalances in relationships: How they cause fights.
⭐️Three things Paul Dobransky knows to be true.
⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.
Follow Up
Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter The Meaningful Life, and join the community there.
Buy Dr Dobransky’s books: The Secret Psychology of How We Fall in Love and The Power of Female Friendship.
Read Dr Dobransky’s Substack articles.
Read Dr Dobransky’s articles for Psychology Today
You might also be interested in hearing Cheryl Fraser talking with Andrew about How to Stay in Love or with Mairi Macleod about Finding a Good Man in Midlife.
Join our Supporters Club on Patreon to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.
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
Monday Sep 18, 2023
Monday Sep 18, 2023
When families enter family therapy, they usually point to one person as the “problem” - this individual is seen as too much, or too angry, or too sensitive.
Family systems theory, however, looks at the whole family ecosystem to identify how this “problem” is being created, and whether it is in fact a symptom rather than a cause.
This week Andrew talks with psychotherapist Elaine Carney Gibson about family systems theory, and how “it is the relationships we experience within our families that shape who we are, how we feel about ourselves, and how we attach and relate to others”.
Elaine Carney Gibson, LMFT, LPC, is a practicing psychotherapist of 50 years. She sees individuals, couples, and families, specialising in Relationship Therapy. She taught graduate courses in marriage and family therapy for many years and is the director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Training Institute of The Link Counseling Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
Subscriber Content This Week
If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:
⭐️Family Secrets: To tell or not to tell?
⭐️Three things Elaine Carney Gibson knows to be true.
⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.
Follow Up
Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter The Meaningful Life, and join the community there.
Read Elaine Carney Gibson’s book Your Family Revealed .
Visit Elaine Carney Gibson’s website
You might also be interested in hearing Galit Atlas talking with Andrew about Buried Trauma: How the Past Can Unconsciously Trap You or with Julia Samuel MBE about How We Inherit Pain from Our Parents and Grandparents.
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.
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
Monday Sep 11, 2023
Monday Sep 11, 2023
Anxiety can be as contagious as a yawn. People who are feeling more anxious often try to get others to take some of their anxiety from them, and people who are not feeling as anxious naturally resist taking on someone else’s anxiety.
In relationships, it’s often the case that one person takes on the role of the anxious person, whilst the other feels responsible for managing their partner’s anxiety. Combine this with damagingly rigid gender roles, and you have a recipe for disconnection.
This week Andrew welcomes Dr Avrum Weiss onto the podcast for a second time. Andrew and Avrum discuss “playing hot potato” with anxiety in relationships.
Dr Avrum Weiss is a US-based author and psychotherapist specialising in the internal lives of men. His writing and his work with couples help men and women understand each other more deeply and build a stronger connection.
Subscriber Content This Week
If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:
⭐️What is your relationship with change?
⭐️Three things Dr Weiss knows to be true.
⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.
Follow Up
Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter The Meaningful Life, and join the community there.
Buy Dr Avrum Weiss’ book Hidden in Plain Sight: How Men’s Fears of Women Shape Their Intimate Relationships
Andrew and Avrum also discuss Avrum’s book Change Happens: When to Try Harder and When to Stop
Read Dr Avrum Weiss’ article in Psychology Today “Why Some Couples Play Hot Potato With Anxiety”
Find Dr Avrum Weiss’ other books via his website
Follow Dr Avrum Weiss on Facebook @AvrumWeissAuthor and on Twitter @avrum_weiss
Read Andrew’s books on relationships and self-development
Listen to Andrew and Dr Avrum Weiss’ previous conversation: Why Men Withdraw When Women Get Angry
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: https://www.patreon.com/andrewgmarshall
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