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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 Oct 14, 2024
Monday Oct 14, 2024
Is there an uncomfortable gap between your life goals and the way you are actually living? Do you tell yourself what you want is financial security, but then rack up big online shopping debts? Or perhaps a solid, connected relationship is your goal, but instead you're prioritising work and ignoring your partner’s needs.
This week, counselor and author Thais Gibson joins me to talk about SELF-SABOTAGE. According to Thais, self-sabotage arises from your subconscious, which wants something very different than your conscious mind is telling you. To move forward, you’ll need to uncover and challenge the patterns that are keeping you stuck.
Thais Gibson is a counsellor, best-selling author and co-founder of The Personal Development School. She has a Ph.D. and over 13 certifications in modalities ranging from CBT, NLP, somatic experiencing, internal family systems, to shadow work and hypnosis. Thais had nearly a decade of experience running a successful private practice and founded The Personal Development School, an online learning platform, to provide a more accessible, authentic way for clients to transform their lives. Thais is the bestselling author of Learning Love, and she and her husband split their time between Austin, Texas, and Toronto, Canada.
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 Four Attachment Styles
- Three Things Thais 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
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
Learn more about Thais Gibson’s work:
- Website: The Personal Development School
- Instagram: @thepersonaldevelopmentschool
- YouTube: The Personal Development School
- The Personal Development School Attachment Style Quiz: Take the quiz to find out your attachment style
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 Oct 07, 2024
Monday Oct 07, 2024
How do we find meaning in a difficult childhood and a troubled mother-daughter relationship? In this classic episode, Nigerian-American writer, mindfulness practitioner and educator Itoro Bassey speaks with Andrew about how to mother the wounded child inside.
Itoro now lives in Nigeria (after being born and raised in the USA) and is the founder of the digital course, From Surviving to Thriving: Becoming Your Own Inner Author. This course uses writing and energy work to bring students into the present moment.
Itoro has published on culture, identity, and healing for over ten years and now offers intuitive counseling sessions for those in need of support.
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 Itoro Bassey 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
Follow Itoro Bassey on Instagram or contact her at itoro.paula@gmail.com
Read some of Itoro’s writing on culture, family and identity:
How to let go of your family's expectations.
How I’m Mothering the Wounded Kid Inside Who Just Wanted Love
Read about Questions for Ada by Ijeoma Umebinyuo.
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 30, 2024
Monday Sep 30, 2024
Many of us feel like we don’t quite “get” mindfulness. Even more have struggled to create a successful meditation practice. Andrew Holecek, author of I’m Mindful, Now What?, joins us this week to broaden and deepen our understanding of mindfulness, and show us how to integrate it into our daily lives.
Our host Andrew talks with our guest Andrew about:
- Why everyone can meditate, and how to start right now.
- The importance of connecting with your physical body.
- The benefits and limitations of mindfulness
- Coping with emotions like anger, jealousy and fear using meditation and mindfulness.
Andrew Holecek is a renowned author and humanitarian who teaches internationally on spirituality, meditation, lucid dreaming, and the art of dying. He has studied sleep yoga, bardo yoga, and other traditional practices with living masters in India and Nepal. Andrew’s books include Dreams of Light, Dream Yoga, and Reverse Meditation. His work has appeared in Psychology Today, Parabola, Lion’s Roar, Tricycle, Utne Reader, Buddhadharma, Light of Consciousness, and many other periodicals. He hosts the popular Edge of Mind podcast and is the founder of the Night Club community, a support platform for nocturnal meditations.
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:
- Nocturnal Meditations
- Three Things Andrew Holecek 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 G. Marshall’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things
Read Andrew Holecek’s new book, I’m Mindful, Now What?
Follow Andrew Holecek on Instagram and Facebook @andrewholecekauthor
Visit Andrew Holecek’s website https://www.andrewholecek.com
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 23, 2024
Monday Sep 23, 2024
In this classic episode, Andrew speaks with coach and teacher Dena Justice about the work she does with women experiencing burnout in their careers and relationships.
Despite loving her career, Dena hit a point where she felt empty - she was a classic case of a high performer and leader hitting burnout. That led her to choose a powerful pivot out of conventional employment and into her own business.
At the same time, Dena also consciously decided to up-level ALL of her relationships, including spending 3 years intentionally single so she could identify and change the patterns she was repeating that were contributing to relationship dissatisfaction.
Combining all of her experience, Dena now helps other women who are high performers hitting burnout and are scared to admit they’ve hit a plateau or a wall. She helps them get out of their own way and move to the next level to increase their impact so they feel fulfilled and inspired again, as well as helping them create the relationships they want in their lives.
Dena Justice is a coach, mentor and teacher. She is the creator of The Ecstatic Collective. Dena’s lifelong interest in mentoring and coaching began at age seven, when she took her first social-emotional training program. At 15, she taught her first personal development course. She has undertaken years of training in conflict management and mediation, leadership, communication, facilitation, and has two Master’s degrees.
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 Dena Justice 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 the courses Dena Justice offers in NLP and anxiety management, on her 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 Sep 16, 2024
Monday Sep 16, 2024
Can the ancient teachings of Zen Buddhism help us engage with the challenges work, family and relationships throw our way? Teacher, author and Zen Buddhist priest Peter Coyote believes that they can: his new book, Zen in the Vernacular: Things As It Is, argues that Zen can be both a creative problem-solving mechanism and a moral guide; ideal for the stresses and problems we face day-to-day.
Andrew and Peter discuss:
- How Peter found Buddhism and became a Zen Buddhist priest.
- Why Buddhism ISN’T about turning away from the world.
- Why we need more than just “self-help”.
- How Zen Buddhism helps us engage with the suffering we see in the world.
- The importance of meditation.
- The usefulness of Buddhist teachings like The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.
Peter Coyote is an award-winning actor, narrator, and Zen teacher. He is recognized for his acting in 160 films including E.T., Outrageous Fortune, Bitter Moon and Cross Creek, and his narration work in over 140 documentaries. He narrated the PBS series The Pacific Century, winning an Emmy Award, as well as fourteen Ken Burns documentaries, including The Roosevelts, for which he won a second Emmy. In 2011 he was ordained as a Zen Buddhist priest and in 2015 received “transmission” from his teacher, making him an independent Zen teacher who has ordained his own priests. His latest book is Zen in the Vernacular: Things As It Is, and he is also the author of several volumes of poetry.
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 Peter Coyote’s book Zen in the Vernacular: Things As It Is
Visit Peter Coyote’s website
Follow Peter Coyote on Facebook @AuthenticPeterCoyote
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 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