The Meaningful Life with Andrew G. Marshall

Becoming a parent is impossible to prepare for. Jack Underwood describes “feeling that there should have been more paperwork. We signed a form or two and then they just sort of let us take you away. A human child”. 

Parenthood changes our relationships, our view of the world, our sense of self. It’s rare in the whirlwind of night wakings and nappies, though, that anyone has the time to sit down and think about what exactly it is that’s happened to them. 

In this episode, Andrew talks to Jack Underwood, a poet, writer and critic, about how and why he writes about fatherhood, his interest in the concept of uncertainty, and the complexities of modern masculinity. 

Jack Underwood lives and works in London. As well as being a poet and author, he works as a senior lecturer in creative writing at Goldsmiths University of London. His most recent collection of poetry is A Year in the New Life, which in October 2021 was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize.

Jack Underwood is also the author of Not Even This, a meditation on the theme of uncertainty inspired by his anxieties about becoming a parent. His 2015 debut collection of poetry, Happiness, won the Somerset Maugham Award. 

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 A Year in the New Life or Not Even This: Poetry, parenthood & living uncertainly or Happiness by Jack Underwood

Follow Jack Underwood on Twitter and Instagram @jundermilkwood

Get Andrew’s advice on creating 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

If you’re a lover of poetry, you could also listen to Andrew’s interview with Brighton poet John McCullough on Seven Ways Poetry Could Make Your Life Richer, Deeper and More Meaningful

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 

Stepping into a bath of ice isn’t the obvious pastime for a Northern winter. But if you do it the right way, the extreme cold can be:

❄️ Empowering - diving in means turning off the voices of procrastination.

❄️ Relaxing - staying in the bath requires you to work on physical relaxation.

❄️ Mindful - the cold focuses you hard on the now.

❄️ And, extremely healthy - there is evidence for cardiovascular benefit. 

Dr Josephine Worseck is a molecular biologist, yoga teacher, naturopath and exponent of cold exposure. The Wim Hof method she teaches is based on the three pillars of breathing, cold and mindset. 

In this episode Josephine speaks with Andrew about what led her from a successful career as a scientist into a new life helping people find their true potential and lead the lives they want. 

Andrew and Josephine also talk about the art of breathing, and take listeners through a powerful relaxation exercise. 

Josephine Worseck is based in Potsdam, Germany. She spends her days teaching clients the benefits of cold exposure, and also guides groups up mountains, leads freezing outdoor swims and teaches yoga and breathing methods. 

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 Josephine Worseck’s website.

Buy Josephine Worseck’s book Die Heilkraft der Kälte (currently only available in German).

Follow Josephine Worseck on Instagram @josephineworseck and on Facebook as @DrJosephineWorseck

 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, in which you can reflect on failure and growth: https://andrewgmarshall.com/top-twelve-benefits-of-journaling/ 

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 

How would your life change if you suddenly had all the money in the world? This was the experience of John Lefebvre, who was catapulted from an ordinary existence as a lawyer and musician into a life of untold wealth during the dotcom boom of the 2000s. 

John’s life of luxury came to an abrupt halt in 2007, however, after the FBI stormed his home and arrested him for money laundering, racketeering and conspiracy. John pled guilty, paid a fine of $40 million, and served 45 days in a Manhattan jail. 

Over the last two decades John has given away well over $50 million. He says that money is like dope – it takes more and more to achieve the same rush, until you just can’t get high on it anymore. He became convinced that eventually the only rush that remained was sharing wealth with others and experiencing their joy at being set free from cares and concerns.

John has since found meaning in music, writing (he is the author of two books), spiritual exploration and climate activism.  He has worked closely with David Suzuki and supports Vancouver’s Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education.

John maintains that the earthly existence that has miraculously befallen each of us is actually the complete answer to anybody’s wildest dreams, and that we must start taking basic care of everyone on Earth.

 

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 John Lefebvre’s website

Buy John Lefebvre’s books Good With Money and All’s Well: Where Thou Art Earth and Why 

Visit the blog John Lefebvre cofounded,  DeSmog.com, which is dedicated to exposing climate misinformation.

Follow John Lefebvre on Facebook @thoughtfulspecies and on Twitter @thoughtfulspec 

Read Andrew’s advice on keeping a journal of your life and emotions at https://andrewgmarshall.com/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: https://andrewgmarshall.com/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 

Some of us are afraid of it, some of us gave it up decades ago, and some of us are trying desperately to master it. The art of flirting is a form of relationship magic, and it can bring so much happiness into our partnerships and our lives. Flirting opens us up to silliness, fun and joy. 

In this episode Andrew talks with flirting coach and psychosexual therapist Cate Mackenzie about why we should master the skills of flirting. 

Andrew and Cate talk about the ways in which your childhood might have left you finding the physical cues involved in flirting difficult, and how to overcome this.

Andrew and Cate discuss:

⭐️Flirting for those coming out of long-term relationships and starting to date again

⭐️Flirting for those burnt by the dating scene

⭐️Flirting for couples who’ve given up on it

⭐️The sometimes thorny issue of flirting and boundaries.

Cate Mackenzie is a psychosexual therapist and couples counsellor. Cate runs courses in flirting and dating for pairs and individuals. She is regularly heard on BBC Radio ‘Woman’s Hour’ and ‘Five Live’, and is also famous as the Dating Coach on ‘The Undateables’ (Channel 4), the Flirting Coach on ‘The Jeremy Vine Show’ (Channel 5) and the Psychosexual Therapist on ‘Kinky Britain’ (Channel 4). Cate has her own podcast, Love, Pleasure and Joy with Cate Mackenzie, for which she has interviewed the likes of Ruby Wax and Russell Kane.

 

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 tickets for Cate Mackenzie’s online course, Flirt Coaching at Love School, starting in Feb 2022.

Listen to Cate Mackenzie’s podcast, Love, Pleasure and Joy with Cate Mackenzie

Visit Cate Mackenzie’s website

Follow Cate Mackenzie on LinkedIn and Twitter @CateMackenzie and Instagram @Catemmackenzie

Find out more about Betty Martin

Read Andrew’s book The Happy Couple’s Handbook: Powerful Life Hacks for a Successful Relationship 

Read Andrew’s blog on Three Secrets of a Happy 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 

“You’re only old once” says aging expert and author Kathleen O’Brien, and the wisest path is to embrace the freedom and wisdom of being an elder. 

In this episode, Kathleen challenges us to:

• Tell everyone our age

• Ignore talk of “aging gracefully”

• Learn to love our aging appearance

• Celebrate our eccentricities 

• Expect younger people to respect us

• See time and death as our allies

Kathleen O’Brien, 73, is the author of Reclaim Your Right To Grow Old. She has researched aging for over 13 years and teaches classes on her aging philosophy through the University of Denver’s continuing education program. She has also worked in advertising, television, video production and academia. Kathleen lives in Denver, Colorado, and writes regular blogs on her blueprint for aging at growoldbehappy.com.

Follow Up

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions.

Read Kathleen O’Brien’s book Reclaim Your Right to Grow Old

Visit https://www.growoldbehappy.com - Kathleen O’Brien’s blog.

Follow Kathleen O’Brien on Twitter @Kat_O_Brien and on Facebook and Instagram @GrowOldBeHappy. 

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 “How To Avoid the Silver Divorce”

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 

Are you a serial people-pleaser? Do you find all your self-worth at work? Or do you gravitate towards difficult partners, with problems you feel driven to fix for them?

These are some of the signs and symptoms of codependency. Codependency has a big impact on how we feel about ourselves, and may mean we keep repeating destructive relationship patterns. 

In this episode, Andrew and psychotherapist Michelle Farris discuss the signs and symptoms of codependency, and Michelle identifies seven key signs you may be codependent. Michelle also shares her personal history of overcoming codependency. 

Michelle Farris is a licensed psychotherapist who specialises in “helping codependent people create healthy relationships without sacrificing their big heart”. Michelle is the author of several e-books and online courses, and has been featured in Psych Central, Bustle, Your Tango, The Good Men Project, The Daily Positive, and Boss-Moms to name a few. 

In her private practice, Counseling Recovery, Michelle believes that growth doesn’t have to take years and loves seeing her clients learn to trust themselves and create healthy 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. 

Visit Michelle Farris’ website

Get Michelle Farris’ free relationship checklist and video

Get Michelle Farris’ Self-trust Solution Journal 

Follow Michelle Farris on Twitter @mshellMFT, on Facebook @CounselingRecovery, on Instagram @counseling_recovery and on YouTube as Michelle Farris, Relationship Therapist.

Find information about Alcoholics Anonymous and Codependents Anonymous 

Listen to Andrew’s interview on Good Boundaries: The Foundation of Happy Relationships with Graham Johnston and Matt Wotton

Read Andrew’s blog “How to Heal from Trauma: Six Key Ways to Deal With Trauma”

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

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 

Have you found the freedom to explore the rich landscape of your erotic self? Or did your childhood leave you feeling restricted and repressed by a sex negative mindset? 

In this week’s episode Andrew talks to Silva Neves, a psychosexual psychotherapist, about:

• Why people DON’T fully explore their sexual selves
• Why labelling people “sex addicts” is unhelpful, and
• The liberating mindset of sex positivity. 

Silva Neves works with couples experiencing a wide range of sex and relationship issues, including sexual trauma, infidelity, and compulsive sexual behaviours. He regularly appears in the British media and was featured on the BBC Three’s television series, Sex On The Couch. 

Silva is a COSRT-accredited and UKCP-registered psychosexual and relationship psychotherapist, and a trauma psychotherapist. His private practice is based in Central London and online. 

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 Silva Neves’ website

Visit Silva Neves’ site on sex positivity

Get advice from Silva Neves via his Psychology Today blog 

Read Silva Neves’ book Compulsive Sexual Behaviours, A Psycho-Sexual Treatment Guide for Clinicians

Learn about the course Silva Neves teaches at CICS - an Online Diploma in in Compulsive Sexual Behaviour

Follow Silva Neves on social media: Twitter @SilvaNeves3; and Instagram and Facebook @silvanevespsychotherapy

Read The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity by Esther Perel

Read The Men On My Couch: True Stories of Sex, Love and Psychotherapy by David Rensin and Brandy Engler

Read Andrew’s book Have the Sex You Want: A Couple’s Guide to Getting Back the Spark

Read Andrew’s blog How To Have the Sex You Want

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 

Matthew Fray is the author of the viral article “My Wife Divorced Me Because I Left the Dishes By the Sink”. His divorce left him emotionally crushed: struggling not to cry all the time, and finding it hard even to breathe. 

In this episode Andrew and Matthew talk about the lessons of Matthew’s failed marriage, and about how Matthew is using his own experiences in his coaching work with men experiencing relationship difficulties.

According to Matthew, “the things that destroy our relationships work like cancer…by the time we detect the problem, it’s already too late”. His work is based around helping men to see the problems earlier, and to build the emotional toolkit so many of them are missing.

Matthew Fray works as a relationship coach and as a writer. He blogs at Must Be This Tall To Ride and has a book coming out in April 2022, called This Is How Your Marriage Ends.

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. 

Pre-order Matthew Fray’s book This Is How Your Marriage Ends: A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships

Read Matthew’s blog Must Be This Tall To Ride

Read Matthew’s articles on The Good Men Project: 

Follow Matthew on Twitter @MBTTTR and on Facebook @matthewfrayMBTTTR 

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 https://twitter.com/andrewgmarshall 

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AndrewGMarshallTherapy 

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF5gT7ru5sblpFaU2-iWTTw 

Your last encounter with a poem may well have taken place in a grim classroom, perhaps a painful dissection of WB Yeats or Matthew Arnold.

Poetry can be something entirely different, however, and prize-winning poet John McCullough gives us poetry that is a source of joy, mindfulness and sheer fun.

John McCullough “guides us through a world of déjà vu, doubt and rapture” (Helen Mort). His poetry gives us “fresh insight into vulnerability and suffering”, according to the judges of the Costa Poetry Award.  His poems reference Kate Bush, Lady Gaga, birdlife, Grindr and My Little Pony, while exploring love, loneliness and issues like homelessness and homophobia. 

In this episode Andrew and John talk about the ways poetry can make your life richer, deeper and more meaningful. Poetry helps us live in the moment, it offers a rest from relentless rational thinking and it helps us to process our experiences and make sense of them.

John McCullough's latest book of poems, Reckless Paper Birds, won the 2020 Hawthornden Prize for Literature and was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award. He has also won the Polari First Book Prize and his collections have been named Books of the Year in The Independent, The Guardian and The Observer. He is featured regularly in magazines such as Poetry London, Poetry Review and The New Statesman. Most recently, his poem 'Flower of Sulphur' was shortlisted for the 2021 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. John lives in Hove with his partner and two cats, and teaches creative writing at the Open University and the University of Brighton. 

 

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 Reckless Paper Birds, John McCullough’s Hawthornden Prize winning collection.

Find out about John McCullough’s other books.

Follow John McCullough on Twitter @JohnMcCullough_ and Instagram @mrjohnmccullough

Get Andrew’s advice on creating 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.

Listen to Andrew’s interview with author Josh Cohen on “How to Live: What You Can Learn From Your Favourite Literary Character”.

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 

Many of us, particularly women, experience endless frustration because we don’t feel heard. At work and at home, it seems like we are constantly interrupted and rarely feel in control of a conversation.

This week Viv Groskop, journalist, podcaster, stand-up comedian and author of How to Own The Room and Lift As You Climb, talks with Andrew about how to speak so that people will listen. Diving into the world of stand-up taught Viv about pacing, pausing and gauging people’s reactions; but most importantly, about quieting your own ego and tuning into your audience.

Andrew and Viv discuss why exactly it is that many women struggle to be heard. At the practical level, it is crucial to enter the discussion assertively. We also need to make sure we are not self-sabotaging by pre-judging our own contribution as “not good enough”. 

Viv Groskop hosts the chart-topping podcast How to Own The Room. She has written five books and this year will be a judge for the International Booker Prize. She is a regular guest presenter on BBC Radio 4 and has appeared on Woman’s Hour, Today and Front Row. Viv is also a fluent Russian speaker and is a trustee of Pushkin House, the  independent centre for Russian culture in London. 

 

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 

Listen to How to Own the Room, Viv Groskop’s podcast: https://vivgroskop.com/podcast/ 

Read How to Own the Room: Women and the Art of Brilliant Speaking, Lift As You Climb: Women, Ambition and How to Change the Story, Au Revoir Tristesse: Lessons in Happiness from French Literature and Viv Groskop’s other books

Visit Viv Groskop’s website: https://vivgroskop.com 

Follow Viv on Instagram and Twitter @VivGroskop

Read Andrew’s blog How to Be a Better Listener https://andrewgmarshall.com/help-better-listener/ 

Get Andrew’s book on communicating better with your partner Help Your Partner Say Yes: Seven Steps to Achieving Better Co-operation and Communication: https://andrewgmarshall.com/book/help-your-partner-say-yes-seven-steps-to-achieving-better-co-operation-and-communication/ 

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