Pulling The Thread with Elise Loehnen

“There's no generation before us that’s had this opportunity to find this treasure,” says therapist Connie Zweig, PhD. Zweig is the author of The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul. She outlines a compelling approach to aging—one that teaches us how to navigate identity shifts, see who we are beyond our roles, and truly make the most of the gifts of our lives. Today, she shares what happened when she did her own life review practice, and so many other gems that make me excited to keep getting older. See the show notes and more about Zweig on my Substack. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Everything Richard Christiansen creates is incredibly beautiful and special. Christiansen is the founder of Flamingo Estate and the author of the new book, The Guide to Becoming Alive. He’s also a dear friend of mine. I loved chatting with him about how he moves so fast, what can spark momentum and growth, the qualities that make something precious but also cool, and what it means to ripen your banana (while this sounds vaguely sexual, it is actually a profound metaphor of his). See more about this episode and guest on my Substack. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl, PhD, returns for a deeper exploration of shadow. We talk about our instinct to disown what feels dark or evil, and how tightly we claim the side of what’s good, clean, pure. But Hübl also paints a beautiful alternative: a gentle integration that allows us to illuminate, and own, more of our collective shadow bit by bit—and to transform it into something hopeful, healing. If you’re new to the podcast, you can find my first conversation with Hübl (on locating “bad” feelings in our bodies) here, and our second chat (on sitting with discomfort) here. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rightful Instagram celebrity Sharon McMahon is known as “America’s Government Teacher.” Her new book, The Small and the Mighty, was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller. With her trademark warmth and wit, McMahon shares a few historical secrets, her approach to judging people from the past, and her perspective on our current moment in time. She also tells a remarkable story that may convince you to work with, instead of against, your enemies.  See more about this episode and guest on my Substack. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this solo episode, I share some things that are on my mind right now, including: An experience I had revisiting my 22-year-old self. A powerful takeaway from a workshop on wanting and desire. And how I’m thinking about personal stories, memoir, and bridges to bigger collective stories. I also answer some listener questions (thank you, and please keep them coming). See more about this episode on my Substack. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this moving, live conversation with journalist Clara Bingham, we delve into the incredible stories that make up her latest oral history book, The Movement. Bingham reveals the highs and the lows of second wave feminism from 1963 to 1973, the women who transformed America during that time, and the reverberations that we’re still feeling today. I got choked up during this one. See more about this episode and guest on my Substack. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Legendary anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy gave us the term “allomother,” and by extension, “alloparent”—the pioneering idea that mutual care is the reason we’ve evolved to be the humans we are today. Hrdy, who is professor emerita at the University of California, Davis, has just written a new (and stunning) book, called Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies. Today, we talk about what she’s learned about human culture over the course of her long career, and the impact of her elegant hypothesis. See more about this episode and guest on my Substack. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sharing an episode of Need a Lift?, a show that focuses on bringing people together during a tough time in our culture. Host Tim Shriver talks to wise guests who have transformed painful moments in their lives into purpose through their spiritual rituals and practices. Guests like bestselling novelist Min Jin Lee on why she creates complicated characters who hold the secret to our transformation, and Olympic athlete Michael Phelps and his wife Nicole discussing the importance of cultivating an inner life in competition, mental health and in their marriage. Need a Lift? is truly the antidote to the hatred and despair we’re all exhausted of hearing, giving us hope that change is possible. In this episode, The Office’s Rainn Wilson explains that we can quiet the world's chaos and deal with our collective sense of overwhelm by believing in something bigger than us. Find more episodes of Need a Lift? at https://link.chtbl.com/needalift?sid=pullingthethread To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“We need to be open to things that offend or transcend our worldview because they're clearly doing that for a reason,” says Jeffrey Kripal, PhD. Kripal—who holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University—returns to the podcast for a second time. We talk about different ways to understand the deeper realities of our lives, and his latest book, How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else. Yes, we get to time travel and conspiracy theories. And also what makes Kripal’s work fun—and funny. See more about this episode and guest on my Substack. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“I think it's good to relive the past and then revise your life,” says Edith Eva Eger. “Go through it, but don't get stuck in it.” The world-renowned psychologist, who survived the Nazi death camps, and went on to be a colleague of Viktor Frankl, just turned 97. And she just released The Ballerina of Auschwitz, which is the YA edition of her major memoir The Choice. She joins the podcast with her grandson, Jordan Engler, to talk about how her mindset has evolved—and what she still looks forward to doing. See more about this episode and guest on my Substack. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr. Jim Doty is a neurosurgeon, neuroscientist, and the director of Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. Jim is also a bestselling author—his first book, Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart, tells his improbable life story: Jim had a tough start in life. He wandered into a magic shop where he met the shop owner’s mother, Ruth, who offered to spend six weeks teaching him mindfulness and meditation—these weren’t really things at the time—and ultimately how to manifest. After a rollercoaster of a life, including manifesting the list of things he wanted as a tween, he found himself back at the bottom again, and began to attend to making real meaning with his life. This ushered in his last chapter, where he has become much more than a neurosurgeon: He is one of the leading figures in the globe drawing connections between the brain, compassion and care, and how love shows up in the world. We caught up when Jim was in Riyadh, in the middle of the night for him—thank you Jim!—launching a new AI-enabled mental health app called Happi.ai, which isn’t therapy but is a friend in your pocket. Our conversation begins there before we dive into his newest book, Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How it Changes Everything. If you think of Manifestation as woo-woo, Jim explains why it’s actually not—and the underlying brain mechanisms that are activated when you focus attention and intention.  MORE FROM JAMES DOTY, M.D.: Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How it Changes Everything Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart Jim’s App: Happi.ai Jim’s Website To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Lewis has one of the most illustrious resumés of all the guests on Pulling the Thread—and I think we’re the same age. Lewis is the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities and Associate Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University where she serves on the Standing Committee on American Studies and Standing Committee on Women, Gender, and Sexuality. It was at Harvard that Lewis pioneered the course Vision and Justice: The Art of Race and American Citizenship, which she continues to teach and is now part of the University’s core curriculum—as it were, Lewis is the founder of Vision & Justice, which means that she is the organizer of the landmark Vision & Justice Convening, and co-editor of the Vision & Justice Book Series, launched in partnership with Aperture. Before joining the faculty at Harvard, she held curatorial positions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Tate Modern, London. She also served as a Critic at Yale University School of Art. I’m not done—in fact, I could go on and on. She’s the author of The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery, a book on Carrie Mae Weems, and innumerable important academic papers. Today, we talk about The Rise and how it dovetails in interesting ways with her brand-new book, The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America, which is about the insidious idea that white people are from the Caucasus, a.k.a. Caucasian—an idea that took root in the culture and helped determine the way we see race today.  MORE FROM SARAH ELIZABETH LEWIS, PhD: The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery Carrie Mae Weems Sarah Lewis’s Website Vision & Justice Follow Sarah on Instagram To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

James Hollis, PhD is a Jungian analyst who is still in private practice in Washington D.C. Hollis started his career as a professor of humanities before a midlife crisis brought him to his knees—and to the Jung Institute in Zurich. The author of 19 books, Hollis is one of the best interpreters of Carl Jung’s work, making it accessible for all of us who want to understand how complexes, archetypes, synchronicities, and the shadow drive our lives. Hollis’s books are very meaningful to me—you’ll find a long list in the show notes—and the chance to interview him did not disappoint. In fact, at one point, where he describes what we do to boys as we turn them into men, I actually started to cry. Meanwhile, James Hollis still lectures—you can go to his site to find a way to see him live. The fact that he’s 84 and does not seem inclined to retire—in fact, he told me he has another book coming out next year—is a testament to how a vocation doesn’t feel like work. This is one of my favorite interviews to date. I hope you love it as much as I do. MORE FROM JAMES HOLLIS, PhD: Why Good People Do Bad Things: Understanding Our Darker Selves Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up A Life of Meaning: Relocating Your Center of Spiritual Gravity The Broken Mirror: Refracted Visions of Ourselves James Hollis’s Website RELATED EPISODES: Connie Zweig, “Embracing the Shadow” Satya Doyle Byock, “Navigating Quarterlife” Terry Real, “Healing Male Depression” Niobe Way, PhD, “The Critical Need for Deep Connection” To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr. Jamil Zaki is a professor of psychology at Stanford University and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. Jamil trained at Columbia and Harvard, studying empathy and kindness in the human brain, and I’ve been a mega-fan for years, after interviewing him for his first book, The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World, in 2019. His latest book, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, is a must-read. It’s a love letter of sorts, a collaboration through the veil with his late colleague Emile Bruneau, who also studied compassion, peace, and hope.  I would love for every single person to read this book as it paints a more accurate, data-driven portrait of who we are, which is mostly good, and mostly aligned in our vision for the future. Jamil explains what happens to us when fear and cynicism intervene and the way we come to see each other through a distorted lens. He busts some other significant myths as well, namely that we glorify cynicism as being “smart”—you know, no dupes allowed—but cynicism actually makes us cognitively less intelligent. Yes, you heard that right. I loved this conversation, which we’ll turn to now. MORE FROM JAMIL ZAKI, PhD: Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World Follow Jamil on X and Instagram Jamil’s Lab’s Website RELATED EPISODES: Amanda Ripley, “Navigating Conflict” "Calling In the Call-Out Culture with Loretta Ross" To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tara Mohr is a coach, educator and the author of Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create, and Lead, which is celebrating its 10th birthday this fall. I first met Tara a decade ago and was so taken with her and her insights that we did four stories together—stories that were deeply resonant with women everywhere. These stories were about understanding—and releasing—your inner critic, locating your inner mentor, examining the ways in which you keep yourself in the shadows and why, and the most potent one of them all: why women are so quick to criticize other women. We cover this same ground 10 years on—and it’s just as powerful as it was then. I loved reconnecting with Tara and can’t wait to do more with her over the coming decades, specifically revisioning what it might look like if more women led—but not in a model defined by men, in a way that might be uniquely their own. Okay, let’s get to our conversation. MORE FROM TARA MOHR: The Inner Mentor Guided Meditation Tara Mohr’s Website Tara’s Online Courses Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create, and Lead To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr. Katie Hendricks is the co-founder of The Hendricks Institute and the co-author of 12 books, including the bestseller, Conscious Loving: The Journey to Co-Commitment. Katie and her husband, Gay, have been leading seminars and workshops for individuals and couples for decades—moving them from their definition of co-dependence into co-commitment. We touch on it in our conversation, but their definition of co-dependence is the only one I’ve heard that makes sense to me as they suggest co-dependence at its simplest is when your behavior is determined by someone else’s—when you are adjusting yourself around someone else in a way that is a disservice to the relationship. Instead, they argue for co-commitment, where everyone takes complete responsibility for their own actions and their own lives. They coach a lot of tools that I love to talk about on this podcast, including the Drama Triangle, and they also coined the concept of the Upper Limit Problem, which is our tendency—just when things are going really well–to self-sabotage. That’s a big focus of our conversation today. MORE FROM KATIE HENDRICKS, PhD: Conscious Loving: The Journey to Co-Commitment The Conscious Heart: Seven Soul-Choices that Create Your Relationship Destiny The Big Leap, by Gay Hendricks, PhD The Hendricks Institute Foundation for Conscious Living Follow Katie & Gay on Instagram To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amanda Montell is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, as well as Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism and Wordslut. Amanda is a linguistics major from NYU and all of her work centers around the way that words—and thoughts—shape our minds, and how our minds are permeable to other factors, whether it’s the halo effect, confirmation bias, or Cult-like sensibilities. Amanda is also the host of a podcast, “Sounds like a Cult.” Okay, let’s get to our conversation. MORE FROM AMANDA MONTELL: The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language Follow Amanda on Instagram Amanda’s Website Amanda’s Podcast: “Sounds Like a Cult” Amanda’s Newsletter To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jerry Colonna is the founder of Reboot and one of the most sought after CEO coaches in the world. Before he began coaching executives, Jerry was a burnt out VC, convinced that there must be a better way to impact the world—and also convinced that if he could influence the upper reaches of corporate structures, if he could help leaders heal, he could vastly improve the lives of all the employees. After all, he had observed the ripple effect of unhealed emotional wounds being taken out on other people—specifically people with less power. This is the focus of Jerry’s two great books about leadership: His first one is Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up and his second is Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong, which takes a probing look at power and privilege and how it can alienate those who already don’t feel like they belong. In today’s conversation, we talk about all of this and specifically one of Jerry’s main queries. This passage is from Reunion: “While necessary, it’s not enough for us to do the inner work of unpacking our childhood wounds and, with fierce radical self-inquiry, free ourselves from the need to reenact the old stories of our pasts. Radical self-inquiry that stops at the question of how we have been complicit in creating the conditions we say we don’t want—a core tenet of my coaching and my book Reboot—is insufficient if it fails to look out to the world as it exists and ask how it could be better.” MORE FROM JERRY COLONNA: Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up Reboot Coaching Follow Jerry on Instagram To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl is back for the second part of a series we’ve decided to undertake. If you missed part one, I’d recommend giving it a listen—it ran last week—though there is no test! You can pick up with this episode and you won’t be lost. Thomas is one of my favorite thought partners because of his presence—he can build and hold an incredible amount of space, which I hope is perceptible to all of you who are tuning in from afar. I can feel it through the computer. In today’s episode, we went deeper into our conversation about finding “bad” feelings in our bodies, sitting with discomfort, and learning how to move these sensations up and out. We talked about our collective responsibility to build this capacity—particularly if we’re not deep and directly in suffering ourselves—and why these deposits of collective trauma stick around for so long. On this final point—the presence of dark and dense entities that you can sometimes sense or feel, particularly in highly traumatized parts of the globe—we’re going to devote an entire episode. So stay tuned for Part Three, coming later this fall. MORE FROM THOMAS HÜBL: Part One on Pulling the Thread: “Finding Shadow in the Body” On Pulling the Thread: “Feeling into the Collective Presence” On Pulling the Thread: “Processing Our Collective Past” Thomas’s Podcast, Point of Relation Attuned: Practicing Interdepence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our World Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds Thomas Hübl’s Website Follow Thomas on Instagram To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr. Carol Gilligan is an esteemed professor and developmental psychologist, who is the author of a landmark book called In a Different Voice—a book that I talk about and write about all the time. Back in the ‘80s—Gilligan is 87 now and still working—she looked at all the research from the likes of Lawrence Kohlberg and Piaget and made a stunning and obvious realization: These developmental psychologist giants had only ever studied boys. Typically white, middle-class boys. In response, Gilligan did a study on girls and moral development, a groundbreaking look into how culture genders our response to the world: Gilligan found that for girls, morality is relational and rooted in care—not so much law—and that fear of separation from relationship encouraged these girls to stop saying what they know. She struggled to get this study published—it was rejected multiple times—and has since become the most requested reprint out of Harvard. It also became the subject of In a Different Voice, which has sold 500,000 copies—unheard of in academic publishing. Everything that Carol Gilligan shares with us in this conversation is a revelation and also deeply resonant—and something you will know to be true. Before I go, if you missed Niobe Way’s episode from a few weeks ago, tune in to that next—Niobe was Carol’s student, and has done for boys what Carol has done for girls. MORE FROM CAROL GILLIGAN: In a Different Voice In a Human Voice Why Does Patriarchy Persist? Carol Gilligan’s Website Niobe Way’s Episode: “The Critical Need for Deep Connection” FROM MY NEWSLETTER: “What Valley Girl’s Tell Us” “What Are We ‘Really, Actually” Saying “The Achilles Heel of Women”  “How to Keep Caring”  “Why is it So Hard to Scream?” EPISODES IN THE “GROWING UP” SERIES: Niobe Way, “The Critical Need for Deep Connection” Harvey Karp, M.D., ”The Long-Term Implication of Sleep” Carissa Schumacher To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices