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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 Sep 09, 2024
Monday Sep 09, 2024
It isn’t hard as a parent to find advice on breastfeeding, your child’s education or managing their behaviour. What’s rarer is insight into how the parenting journey changes us as a person. Yet, becoming a mother is a unique opportunity to realise the self more fully.
In this reissue of a classic episode, Andrew and Lisa take a deep dive into motherhood: how it connects us to previous and next generations, how easy it is to be “devoured” by the experience of mothering, and what it means to feel rage as a mother.
Lisa Marchiano is a Jungian therapist from Philadelphia, the co-host of the podcast This Jungian Life, and the author of Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself. Lisa is also the parent of two 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:
- Three things Lisa Marchiano 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
Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things
Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools
Take a look at Lisa Marchiano’s book Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself
Listen to the podcast This Jungian Life
Find out about Dream School, This Jungian Life’s twelve-month online course that teaches people how to work with their own dreams.
Follow Lisa Marchiano on Twitter and Instagram @lisamarchiano
Find James Hollis’ essay “Free your children from you” in his book Living an Examined Life.
Read Andrew’s book on making meaningful change in your life Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and be Stronger, Wiser and Happier.
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
Monday Sep 02, 2024
Monday Sep 02, 2024
Many couples come to me complaining of a dissatisfying love life: some are in a low-sex or no-sex relationship, while others experience sex as boring and mechanical. In this episode, Diana Richardson shares her “Slow Sex” program, and suggests how you can create a more loving sexual partnership, well into old age.
We discuss:
- Tantric sex, love and sexual fulfilment.
- How to make sex a conscious decision, not an accidental encounter
- How slowness increases sensitivity and awakens the body’s innate mechanism for ecstasy
- The healing spiritual power of slow sex.
Diana Richardson is considered one of today’s leading authorities on human sexuality, and she is known as the pioneer of Slow Sex. She has written eight books on how a person can experience a more fulfilling sex and love life.
Born in South Africa in 1954, she first qualified as a lawyer and then trained as a massage therapist in the UK. Her interest in the body and healing prompted an intense personal exploration into the union of sex and meditation - the essence of Tantra. Since 1993, together with her partner, Michael, she has been sharing her insights and experiences with couples who travel from many different parts of the world to participate in their informative and life changing ‘Making Love’ Retreats in Switzerland.
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 Discuss Sex With Your Partner
- Three things Diana Richardson 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
Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things
Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools https://courses.andrewgmarshall.com/relationship-tools
Visit Diana Richardson’s website.
Watch Diana Richardson’s TEDx talk on The Power of Mindful Sex
Read Diana Richardson’s books, including
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 Aug 26, 2024
Monday Aug 26, 2024
Guardian columnist Tim Dowling has spent decades chronicling his marriage and family life for the Weekend magazine. His self-deprecating humour and determinedly cynical approach have made him hugely popular with readers.
In this classic episode, Tim and Andrew discuss the layers that go into a joke. What exactly is it that we’re doing when we laugh at ourselves and our own life? Humour can be about storytelling, making sense of the past, finding honesty and creating meaning. It can be a defence mechanism, and a form of self-protection for the intensely shy.
Tim’s readers have watched him move from the chaos of working and parenting younger children to a different stage of midlife. The column has changed, and so has everyone featured in it. Andrew and Tim discuss new hobbies, the relaxation that can come with being older, and the boundaries that need to go up when writing about family for so long.
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:
- Three things Tim Dowling 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
Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things
Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools
Listen to Tim Dowling’s audiobook How To Be Happy All The Time: The Unexpected Joys of Being a Cynic: Everything Bad Is Good for You
Find out more about dealing with midlife and the relationship issues it can cause in Andrew’s book It’s Not a Midlife Crisis, It’s an Opportunity.
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 Aug 19, 2024
Monday Aug 19, 2024
As children we were probably taught that being selfish was a great evil, to be avoided at all costs. Jungian analyst and author Bud Harris, however, feels that “sacred selfishness” can be a path to genuine self-love, forgiveness and the wholeness we crave.
In this episode, Andrew and Bud discuss
- How to value ourselves and live meaningful lives we love.
- How to become authentic humans, who give back vitality and hope to others.
- How to love others without losing ourselves.
- What true self-love and self-forgiveness mean.
Bud Harris, PhD, is one of the most prolific Jungian authors of our time. He has authored and co-authored over 20 books, and has been in the field of Jungian psychology for more than 40 years. After an early career in business, he experienced a call to become a Jungian analyst, and moved to Zurich, Switzerland, for his training. Now in his 80s, he lives and practices in North Carolina.
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:
- The Transforming Power of Suffering.
- Three things Bud Harris 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
Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things
Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools
Read Bud Harris’s book Sacred Selfishness
Visit Bud Harris’ website
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 Aug 12, 2024
Monday Aug 12, 2024
Some of us try our best never to think about death, while some of us “live in death’s basement”. Composer, academic and psychoanalyst Paul Attinello lived through the suffering and loss of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. After testing positive for HIV/AIDS, he built a creative and achievement-filled life, over which death nevertheless always loomed.
Then, the advent of lifesaving medications changed everything. Paul had to define a whole new relationship with mortality, as well as experiencing a profound sense of loss for what life might have been like without the spectre of HIV/AIDS.
In this reissued classic episode, Andrew and Paul discuss music, psychoanalysis, and the different ways humans live with the knowledge of their own mortality.
Paul Attinello is an academic and psychoanalyst based in Newcastle University’s International Centre for Music Studies. He also taught at the University of Hong Kong and UCLA, living and working on four continents in the past three decades.
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:
- Three things Paul Attinello 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
Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things
Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools
Find out more about Paul Attinello here
Take a look at Paul Attinello’s research work
Watch Psychosocial Wednesdays, a YouTube channel hosted by Paul Attinello and his colleagues. It offers weekly salons on Jungian ideas and other aspects of psychoanalysis.
Read Andrew’s memoir on grieving the loss of his partner, My Mourning Year
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 Aug 05, 2024
Monday Aug 05, 2024
Modern life - careers, technology, the pressures of parenting - can get in the way of our need to form strong attachments to other humans.
According to therapist and author Charisse Cooke, when it comes to our intimate relationships, we are increasingly acting from a place of fear. We're scared we will choose the wrong person, or the person we are with doesn't love us enough. We're scared to get close. We're scared to be on our own. We're scared the one we love is pulling away. We are not securely attached.
Often, our childhood experiences are at the root of our attachment difficulties, meaning that our need to protect ourselves can become greater than our need to love.
In this episode, Andrew and Charisse explore different attachment styles, as well as tools and strategies to create positive and secure attachments.
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 Nurture Trust
- Three things Charisse Cooke 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
Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things
Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools
Read Charisse Cooke’s book, The Attachment Solution
Visit Charisse Cooke’s website
Follow Charisse Cooke on Instagram @charissecooke and on X/Twitter @CharisseCooke3
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 Jul 29, 2024
Monday Jul 29, 2024
Too many men struggle to be happy in their intimate relationships, and fail to find a healthy version of masculinity that works for them. Disconnected males, without a strong sense of inner guidance, can behave destructively and even abusively towards those around them.
In this classic episode of The Meaningful Life, Andrew talks to Jed Diamond PhD, founder of MenAlive, about his own journey. Jed explains how he came to heal his “family father wound” and how he has helped thousands of men to do the same.
A big part of this is investigating our “personal creation myth”: unearthing the trauma of our origins, dealing with the truth, and moving forward with honesty and love. Also crucial is learning to be in the company of other men. It is only when a man can be comfortable in his own skin, with other men, that he can build successful intimate relations.
Jed Diamond PhD has a Masters degree in Social Work and a PhD in International Health. He founded MenAlive in 1968 as a resource for men to build healthy lives and eliminate the stresses that undermine their health and wreck their relationships. He is the author of many well-received books on men’s health and masculinity.
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:
- Three things Jed Diamond 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
Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things
Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools
Find out more about Jed Diamond’s book My Distant Dad: Healing the Family Father Wound
Read about Jed Diamond’s book 12 Rules for Good Men
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:
https://andrewgmarshall.com/ten-tell-tale-signs-midlife-crisis/
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 Jul 22, 2024
Monday Jul 22, 2024
Would you like your life to be less focused on others’ reactions and more informed by your own principles? Would you like to stop feeling responsible for the experiences of others?
This week I talk to therapist and author Dr Kathleen Smith about how to stop pleasing other people, find your authentic self, and, in the process, become less anxious and develop richer relationships.
We cover:
- Identifying relationship patterns that keep you stuck.
- Relying less on praise and approval from others.
- Building a solid sense of self in anxious times.
- Building more authentic and rewarding relationships.
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 anxiety language?
- 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
Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things
Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools
Read Kathleen Smith’s new book True to You: A Therapist’s Guide to Stop Pleasing Others and Start Being Yourself
Read Kathleen Smith’s other books, Everything Isn't Terrible: Conquer Your Insecurities, Interrupt Your Anxiety, and Finally Calm Down and The Fangirl Life: A Guide to All the Feels and Learning How to Deal.
Read and/or subscribe to Kathleen Smith’s Substack, The Anxious Overachiever
Take a look at Kathleen Smith’s website
Follow Kathleen Smith on Twitter @fangirltherapy and on Facebook @kathleensmithwrites
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 Jul 15, 2024
Monday Jul 15, 2024
We all think of infidelity as something that happens to someone else. When betrayal enters our own safe universe, it comes as a terrible shock. Many couples confronting infidelity end up re-examining just about everything in their lives: not just their marriage, but their work, their relationships with family and friends, and how they find meaning and fulfilment. Sometimes it can even be these couples who end up with the strongest partnerships of all.
Caroline Madden, PhD is a Los Angeles based pro-marriage therapist who specializes in helping marriages recover after infidelity. Caroline is the author of several relationship books including: "Fool Me Once: Should I Take Back My Cheating Husband?" and "After a Good Man Cheats: How to Rebuild Trust & Intimacy With Your Wife” and “Blindsided by His Betrayal”.
In this classic episode, Caroline and Andrew draw on decades of shared experience working with couples affected by infidelity. They talk through the complex, painful process of rebuilding after the discovery of betrayal.
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:
- Three things Caroline Madden 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
Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things
Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools
Listen to Caroline’s book Blindsided by Betrayal on Audible, and take a look at her other books, Fool Me Once: Should I Take Back My Cheating Husband? and After a Good Man Cheats: How to Rebuild Trust & Intimacy With Your Wife
Find out more about Caroline’s work with infidelity survivors on her website
Follow Caroline on Twitter
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
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 Jul 08, 2024
Monday Jul 08, 2024
People who have near-death experiences or who survive medically-induced comas report back disturbing and beautiful experiences. Some encounter ultra-vivid nightmares, while others undergo a deep, spiritual oneness with the universe or say they have glimpsed the afterlife.
Journalist and author Alan Pearce and his wife, Beverly Pearce, are the authors of Coma and Near-Death Experience: The Beautiful, Disturbing, and Dangerous World of the Unconscious.
In this episode Andrew and Alan discuss some of the extraordinary states of expanded consciousness that arise during comas, both positive and negative. They explore some of the alternatives to medically-induced coma that are safer for treating critically ill patients and kinder for the patients and their families.
Alan Pearce is a journalist, broadcaster, former BBC correspondent, and author of several books. He has contributed to numerous publications, from Time Magazine to The Sunday Times of London. He lives in Nouvelle Aquitaine, France.
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:
- Taking a forty-day dark retreat.
- Three things Alan Pearce 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
Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things
Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools
Buy Alan Pearce’s book Coma and Near-Death Experience: The Beautiful, Disturbing, and Dangerous World of the Unconscious
Visit Alan Pearce’s website
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