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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 Mar 21, 2022
Monday Mar 21, 2022
Is society setting you up to fail in your marriage? World-renowned relationship therapist Terry Real sees a toxic culture of individualism troubling society at every level.
We are told to strive for personal productivity and perfection, ignoring the fact that we exist in a web of crucial relationships.
In this episode, Terry describes research showing that the mind exists in a social context, and that couples in fact co-regulate each other’s nervous systems.
Getting this right is very tricky, though, if you grew up without enough emotional support. The survival strategies that got you through childhood may, in fact, “torch your personal relationships”.
Andrew and Terry discuss the five most common traps that can undermine your relationship:
🚩 Needing to be right
🚩 Controlling your partner
🚩 Unbridled self-expression
🚩 Retaliation
🚩 Shutting down
We can overcome these, however, by tapping into our wiser, more collaborative self. If we can find the “us” rather than the “I”, we can achieve the warmer, more intimate relationships many of us long for.
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 Terry Real’s new book Us: Getting Past You & Me to Build a More Loving Relationship (out 22 March 2022).
Take a look at Terry Real’s other books, including The New Rules of Marriage and How Can I Get Through to You?
Visit Terry Real’s website https://terryreal.com
Follow Terry Real on Facebook and YouTube @TerryRealRLI
Read Andrew’s blog “Three Secrets of a Happy Relationship”
Read Andrew’s book 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 @andrewgmarshall
Monday Mar 14, 2022
Monday Mar 14, 2022
Lots of us are afraid of the very word: fear. We’d rather say anxiety, or worry, or panic.
Yet according to Thom Rutledge, fear underlies most difficult emotions, and is a close companion to shame. Fear plays into just about every decision we ever make in our lives.
To defeat fear, according to Thom, is neither possible nor desirable. Instead we need to live beyond its control, and to understand it. Rather than squashing down the voices of panic and dread, we can face up to them, explore them and respond.
In this episode Andrew and Thom explore:
✅ The meaning of fear
✅ How we can understand fear in our own lives
✅ How our family background shapes our experience of fear
✅ Four ways we can start to “embrace fear”.
Thom Rutledge has been a psychotherapist for more than 40 years and is the author of several books, including Embracing Fear, The Self-Forgiveness Handbook, Earning Your Own Respect, The Greater Possibilities and What Love Is. He draws on professional training and experience as well as his own personal experience in recovery and personal growth to work with his clients.
Thom and his colleague, Dr. Allen Berger, co-host their own weekly podcast, Emotional Sobriety.
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 Thom Rutledge’s website
Read Thom Rutledge’s books, including Embracing Fear.
Listen to Emotional Sobriety, a podcast co-hosted by Thom Rutledge and Dr Allen Berger.
Follow Thom Rutledge on Twitter @ThomRutledge
Read Andrew’s blog on how keeping a journal can help deal with difficult emotions: Top Twelve Benefits of Journaling
If anxiety is a topic of interest for you, 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
Monday Mar 07, 2022
Monday Mar 07, 2022
“So he’s become the real love of my life. But if I’d been following my old ways of looking for men I wouldn’t have noticed him”.
If you’re following your heart and trusting to the universe in your search for midlife love, you may need to take a step back and rethink your approach.
This week’s guest, Dr Mairi Macleod, is the founder of Dating Evolved, a science-based dating consultancy. Mairi helps women look for partners in a more thoughtful and successful way. We are often told to “trust your gut” when it comes to relationships, but Mairi explains why this approach can be unrewarding.
In this episode, she describes to Andrew how her own love life was going somewhat disastrously, and how this inspired her to use her training as an evolutionary biologist to create a science-based strategy to find a partner.
Andrew and Mairi also discuss confidence, enjoying the journey and having a good hard think about why you’re attracted to a certain kind of person.
Dr Mairi Macleod is an evolutionary biologist, consultant, speaker, and science writer. She runs online programs and coaches women in small groups to help them build happy, loving relationships.
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.
Join Mairi Macleod's free Masterclass: "Getting Ready for Successful Dating - for Women over 50" on April 4th at 7pm BST
You can find out about Mairi’s Dating Evolved programs, read her blog, and sign up for her upcoming Free Masterclass at https://www.datingevolved.com
If you’d like to read Mairi’s “5 Science-Based Ways to Find the Man You Need”, download your free e-copy here
Join the Dating Evolved Facebook Community and ask all your dating questions.
Follow Mairi Macleod on Twitter @dr_mairi and on Facebook @MairiMacleodPhD
Read Andrew’s book The Happy Couple’s Handbook: Powerful Life Hacks for a Successful Relationship
You may also enjoy Andrew’s conversation with Cate Mackenzie on the art of flirting
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 Feb 28, 2022
Monday Feb 28, 2022
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation” (Henry Thoreau).
Therapist Simon Roe has based his life’s work on helping men live an authentic life. After himself going through a period of quiet desperation in his mid-thirties, Simon went on to help men break the silence, find “the song inside” and overcome their experiences of depression, violence and loneliness.
Simon has also worked extensively with boys and their fathers to create rites of passage that can help boys claim a strong, authentic sense of their developing manhood.
Simon Roe originally trained as a body psychotherapist, and is also a co-leader of the Mandorla Men’s Rites of Passage programme. He has worked extensively with perpetrators of domestic violence, and is a Respect approved trainer and supervisor. Simon has completed a foundation course in Process Oriented Psychology.
Simon and Andrew also discuss the idea of answering “the call to adventure”, an idea powerfully captured in this poem by Rainer Maria Rilke:
Sometimes A Man Stands Up During Supper
Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.
And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.
And another man, who remains inside his own house,
dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children have to go far out into the world
toward that same church , which he forgot.
Follow Up
I'll be attending a workshop on masculinity in times of change and crisis with Simon Roe & his colleague William Ayot in Feb/Mar 2023. I'd love you to join us. Details are here
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 Simon Roe’s website
Learn about the Kingfisher Project, a community dedicated to rites of passage for boys aged 13-16.
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 thoughts on what to do if you or your partner feel like you’re in the throes of what society would call a midlife crisis
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 Feb 21, 2022
Monday Feb 21, 2022
How can we help our children understand grief and loss? How can we recover as adults, if no-one helped us make sense of grief and loss as a child?
Amanda Seyderhelm is an expert in innovative creative play therapy for children, and the author of a book called Helping Children Cope with Loss and Change. Amanda changed careers to work in play therapy after a life-threatening illness changed everything for her.
In this episode Amanda and Andrew discuss:
🌈 How to talk to children who are grieving.
🌈 How storytelling plays a part in personal and family grief.
🌈 Your “backpack of grief”: what’s inside, and how it’s affecting your life.
🌈 How children & adults learn to “grow around their grief” rather than recovering.
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.
Take a look at Amanda Seyderhelm’s website
Buy Amanda Seyderhelm’s book Helping Children Cope with Loss and Change at a 20% discount for The Meaningful Life listeners. Just use code FLA22 at checkout.
Follow Amanda Seyderhelm on Twitter @TheKidDecoder on Instagram @amandaseyderhelm and on LinkedIn.
Read The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell on his Life and Work
Read Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief by Dennis Klass
If you’re interested in diving deep into parenting, listen to Lisa Marchiano of the This Jungian Life podcast speaking with Andrew about meaning and motherhood.
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 Feb 14, 2022
Monday Feb 14, 2022
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
Monday Feb 07, 2022
Monday Feb 07, 2022
“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
Monday Jan 31, 2022
Monday Jan 31, 2022
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
Monday Jan 24, 2022
Monday Jan 24, 2022
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
Monday Jan 17, 2022
Monday Jan 17, 2022
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
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