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For 1:1 coaching or to join my virtual groups, visit www.jenhowk.com This episode discusses the power of living according to non-negotiable principles such as radical honesty and free will as a way to come into greater contact with the unresolved negative emotions that we have spent our lives trying to avoid. If we can move through those emotions fully once and for all, we stand a chance of becoming an adult who does not live unconsciously by their wounds. A few subjects discussed include Kant's moral imperative, Thomas More's doomed resistance against Henry VIII, the death of God in the West and its consequences, and how a commitment to 100% truthfulness negotiates the so-called "Anne Frank Problem."

For 1:1 coaching or to join my weekly virtual groups, visit www.jenhowk.com In this episode, I explore how many of our most critical moments in life come down to the choice between abandoning ourselves or accepting the abandonment of another, and why surrendering to reality and learning to love loss and change is essential to our personal and spiritual growth (but not exactly a good time.)

For 1:1 coaching or to join my virtual groups, visit www.jenhowk.com This week is a discussion about what my current practice of "feeling my feelings" looks like in practice. I also talk about why committing to feeling our real feelings (especially those underneath anger) is the only way to limit the harm we cause to other people in our lives. A warning that there is some discussion of alcohol abuse and some f-bombs in this one, so if you're sensitive to those things you might want to skip it.

For 1:1 coaching or to join my zoom groups, visit www.jenhowk.com This episode continues my ongoing discussion of love vs. addiction and control in relationships, and explores how to understand the ways in which we confuse our "needs" for angry and coercive demands. I offer a few definitions of sincere, or "agape" love, including M. Scott Peck's definition from The Road Less Traveled and the definition of love given in 1 Corinthians. Most relationships—especially romantic relationships—have very little love in them, and a great deal of power and control. While aspiring to M. Scott Peck's definition is certainly challenging in a practical, real-world romantic relationship, I believe it is a worthy goal. And being honest with ourselves and our partners about our compulsions, addictions, and demands, and how coercive and unloving our efforts to fulfill them can be, is essential to honesty and growth in any relationship. Bonus snoring from Peachy as usual. Apologies for the weird light issues from the fast moving clouds outside, and also that the audio kind of sucks on this one...I think that mic might be broken. I'll fix it for next time. M. Scott Peck, "The Road Less Traveled" https://amzn.to/42Evx0n M. Scott Peck, "People of the Lie" https://amzn.to/4fEQkqp

For 1:1 coaching or to join my zoom groups, visit www.jenhowk.com In this episode I share a little bit about my history with alcohol abuse, and some reflections and lessons from 13 years of sobriety. I talk about the difference (as I see it) between sobriety and true recovery, and how for most of those 13 years I have been a "dry drunk"—not drinking, but also not working through the emotional reasons I developed an addiction to alcohol to begin with. I also discuss the idea that alcoholism (and really all addiction) is a slow motion destruction of the true self, and that the heart of recovery is embracing our darkness and all the pain we have tried to suppress. (If you listen extra carefully there is some Peachy snoring on this one)

For 1:1 sessions and to join my zoom groups, visit www.jenhowk.com. In this episode, I discuss in a bit more depth how our inability to reckon with our own childhood wounds and the shame we feel from them results in our unchecked projections and sabotaging behaviors in our intimate relationships. There's a reason we keep picking "the wrong" person—our shame needs to be fully met and processed, and the "wrong" person is the fastest way to have that encounter. It's just a matter of what we choose to do with it.

This week's discussion is about how a feeling of interpersonal safety emerges from authentic connection with others, and that such a connection requires that the relationship can accommodate and sustain a high level of truth telling and transparency.  (Apologies for the delightful cacophony of bug noise in the background….I didn't realize the mic was picking all that up. Late summer in West Virginia!)

This one might be a bit controversial....but I feel strongly that dating for the express purpose of finding romance is an upside-down way to build a long term partnership with someone. We should be seeking friends first, and truth in our connections, and discovering from there what kind of relationship it is—not imposing a limited structure on it before we even really know the person. To book a consultation, be part of my membership group and weekly zoom calls, and access more info, visit https://www.jenhowk.com

This episode is an unscripted discussion about how I believe I've cracked the binge eating code—or at least my own personal binge eating code, if not necessarily a universal one. I believe it begins in attachment wounds in early childhood, which train us to suppress truth in order to preserve the peace in our caregiver relationships. Later in life, having been alienated from a secure sense of self because of that process, we seek relationships where the other person (a friend, a colleague, or a romantic partner) regards us in an idealizing way, because that is what feels best to us. An idealizing relationship, however, cannot tolerate truth, and in order to preserve the other's fantasy projection of us, we repeat the same suppression from our early life. Food is, for many of us, a way to manage the discomfort and dissonance of that.   I do a little story time about my childhood and discuss how this pattern has shown up for me, as well as how it might look for you. As I mention at the end, I realize my pacing is a bit slow because I'm choosing my words more carefully these days; if it's too annoying in this TL;DR world, you're certainly welcome to speed it up. For info about my groups or to reach out, everything lives at https://www.jenhowk.com.

Four years of learning about and practicing an especially aggressive "do nothing" form of permaculture has taught me a great deal about emotional surrender and emotional sobriety—and vice versa. An intentional relationship with nature is necessary to better understand ourselves and grow along with our plants. A healthy, wild garden, like a healthy, wild psyche, requires and integrates everything: rot, renewal, and ripening. This is a recording from my live talk at Vegan Summerfest in July, 2026.

In this episode, I have a deep and wide-ranging (and not nearly long enough!) conversation with Dean Abbott about the dilemmas and diversions of self-development and romantic unhappiness. We discuss the crisis of emotional immaturity in modern relationships, the over-functioning woman/underfunctioning man dynamic, why women are exhausted and men are dissociated, the real reason women get "the ick," and what it is that men and women really want and need from one another. It's a conversation where we attempt to look beyond stereotypical tropes, and instead explore the fundamental ways that men and women misinterpret and misunderstand one another. We discuss how, tragically, the qualities and behaviors that we demand from our partners—as well as those we attempt to offer to them in return—are in many ways the exact opposite of what is required for successful partnership and individual growth. Dr. Dean Abbott is a certified pastoral counselor and coach, author, poet, theologian, and mentor. You can learn more about him and his work at https://www.deanabbott.com and https://www.alifedesigned.org/dean, as well as follow him on twitter at https://www.twitter.com/altdeanabbott. (Note that this is a backup account; his main account at the time I'm publishing this has been hacked, but hopefully will be recovered soon—you can still read old posts there at twitter.com/deanabbott.) Some mentioned resources: Lindsay Gibson, "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents" https://amzn.to/3OzVt9i Robert Bly, "Iron John: A Book About Men" https://amzn.to/4kpWyfQ Dean Abbott, "Common Good: Reflections on Everyday Vices and Virtues" https://amzn.to/45Vj76f Dean Abbott, "On Character and Community" https://amzn.to/3MxSlu8 -- My book, "Truth be Told": https://www.jenhowk.com/truth For more resources including several weekly zoom groups, consider joining my community, The Collective Unconscious: https://collective.jenhowk.com

In this episode I chat with Professor Eric Turkheimer at the University of Virginia about why the fact that "everything is heritable" doesn't actually mean very much; why the concept of "heritability" itself might just be the most misunderstood term in science; how the field of behavior genetics continues to struggle to disentangle its research priorities and methodological assumptions from the segregationist and eugenic ideologies that shaped its early development; and why humans have a "genetic essentialism" cognitive bias that primes us to oversimplify very complex realities of human nature.  "Understanding the Nature-Nurture Debate" by Professor Turkheimer:  https://amzn.to/4l5Q6K0 Join my membership community, the Collective Unconscious: https:/collective.jenhowk.com

In this episode, I explain my concerns and criticisms of the claim that "everything is genetic." I explain both why I once found the hereditarian literature very persuasive, as well as the philosophical and epistemological reasons I am no longer willing to agree that the case can be considered closed. I've listed a few resources that might be useful for further reading below. Of course I don't agree with every single thing each of these authors argues either—and some of them even contradict one another on various details. But as a whole, they have greatly informed my thinking on this subject and many others. On behavioral genetics and biology: Eric Turkheimer, "Understanding the Nature-Nurture Debate" https://amzn.to/4l5Q6K0 Evelyn Fox Keller, "The Century of the Gene" https://amzn.to/3TxKFb6 Denis Noble, "The Music of Life" https://amzn.to/4leUnuU David Moore, "The Developing Genome" https://amzn.to/4nbGeQP Aaron Panofsky, "Misbehaving Science: Controversy and the Development of Behavioral Genetics" https://amzn.to/4k0vJNo Philip Ball, "How Life Works: A User's Guide to the New Biology" https://amzn.to/442walX Books not specifically about genetics but which have contributed enormously to my general philosophy of science and causality (and the weirdness of the universe): Iain McGilchrist, "The Master and His Emissary" https://amzn.to/4n8G6Bx Bernardo Kastrup, "Analytical Idealism" https://amzn.to/3I3NNsI Don Hoffman, "The Case Against Reality" https://amzn.to/4jUjCBz Robert Rosen, "Life Itself" https://amzn.to/44aDWsD Lewis Mumford, "The Myth of the Machine" https://amzn.to/4n8GVu7 Paul Feyerabend, "Against Method" https://amzn.to/4nbIMhX Join the Collective Unconscious: https://collective.jenhowk.com

This week I sat down with Joshua Slocum, co-host of the "Disaffected" podcast. I reached out to him to discuss the convergence of "Cluster B" pathology and the flattering mimicry of AI, as documented in one of his recent episodes (linked below.) We wound up discussing all kinds of things, including a bit of the AI question as well as the heritability (or lack thereof) of homosexuality, the consequences of our obnoxious Marxist youth, what compels us to "do the work" when our parents wouldn't, and why telling ourselves the truth about the past and who we really are is the most important thing we can do for our own healing. Plus he graces us several times with "the voice." Disaffected on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DisaffectedPodcast "Out of Alignment" episode about AI: https://youtu.be/MjGCsk11sqw For more information or to reach out to Josh: https://joshuaslocum.net/ For more about me or to book a consultation, visit my website: www.jenhowk.com Join the Collective Unconscious: https://collective.jenhowk.com

In this episode of Face of the Deep, I talk a bit about my own difficult relationship with my mom, and reflect on some themes that have come up in my groups and with clients recently about mother-daughter ruptures and how we can think about them and potentially heal them. If you'd like to join my community for more conversations like this, you can find more information at https://collective.jenhowk.com Join the Collective Unconscious: https://collective.jenhowk.com