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If you did something you didn't like, and I ask you why you did it, you might have to say, "I don't know why I did that." And, if we are honest, we might have to admit that there are things that we do, things that we say, even things that we think or feel, about which we might have to say, "Where did THAT come from?" These things are not "bad" things as much as they are just things we do without having to think about it. We just do it, because we do it. These things commonly come from something called a family trance. In our families of origin we often develop certain ways of thinking, feeling, acting and interacting that have more to do with the unconscious demands of family than they do with who we actually are. In fact, many of us, even as early as infancy, gave up who we actually were to this family trance in which we were assigned a role and everafter just did whatever that role told us to do. Want to know more? Tune in. 

As we come to the end of 2025 and look back over the devastation and fear of more devastation that many, if not most, of us have experienced this year, it is hard to imagine feeling any hope for 2026. But there is hope. There is HOPE. This show will expose that hope for what it is and facilitate its expansion. 

Emotional abuse can be just as devastating as any other form of abuse. When parents or caregivers emotionally abuse a child, they are basically defining that child according to how they perceive that child. So, if a parent tells a child to stop feeling emotions, they are telling the child that emotions are not to be felt--defining the child as someone who will not allow themselves to feel emotions. That's just one example. There are many things that a parent can say/do to a child that define the child in ways that make life much more difficult for that child as they grow up. This podcast will briefly explain emotional abuse and talk about how an adult who has been emotionally abused as a child may find healing. 

Most of us would say that "No one is perfect." We say, "Strive for progress, not perfection." But even as we are saying that, many of us are still striving for perfection. Much of this is unconscious to us, but sometimes we recognize at least the tail end of this dragon when it shows up in our anxiety, even in our depression. Perfectionism births a loud and obnoxious inner critic that just will not let go. We know that when we live with someone who is hypercritical that this is a form of emotional abuse. But we do not realize that that same hypercritical voice is within us emotionally abusing us. And it turns out that, after all, perfection is actually a myth, a myth we can live out of as if it is the only reality there is. In fact, perfectionism can scew our entire version of reality into something that is not realistic at all. Today we will talk about perfectionism and some ways to release its strangle hold on our thinking, feeling, believing, and emoting. Don't miss it. 

It's a question that gets asked every day. And it seems to be all about bad luck. Or maybe I'm just "screwed up." Or maybe I'll never be good enough to attract someone with whom I can really have a long-term healthy relationship. Well, if its any of those things it seems that it will just always have to be this way. But what if it doesn't? What if it's not just about being attracted to the wrong person, but about being stuck in the same pattern based on old unresolved issues? Resolving those issues then, might just mean that we can develop that relationship we have always wanted. Tune in to learn more.  

It is very hard for us to compute, but it is possible to live out an identity--which we might even call a personality--that is not who we really are as a Self. That Self--with a capital S--is different from the self--with a lowercase s. The self is who we believe that we are as a personality, which often turns out to only be an identity. The Self is the deepest essence of who we really are. So, today, we are talking about the various identities, how they are formed, how they live out their introjections, how they interact with others and how they might start the pathway to the more authentic Self. 

We tend to think of blackmail with regard only to its legal ramifications. And, of course, we know that blackmail is illegal, because it is a form of extortion. From a legal prespective, blackmail means prison time and/or fines because it attempts to coerce or force someone into doing something by threatening them in some way. Emotional blackmail is the same because it carries with it an emotional threat. But in the case of emotional blackmail, it is not so much the blackmailer that is imprisoned, but rather the person being emotionally blackmailed. Today we are discussing emotional blackmail in hopes that we can help you create a key to get yourself out of its prison. 

Today we are talking to Dr. Don St. John, author of the book "Healing the Wounds of Childhood," as this is one of the most important of all of the subjects we could discuss. Very often it is these wounds that keep us trapped, even as we are striving to get past them in some kind of way. WE simply do not realize how our past is invading our present. Or, if we do, we believe that those wounds somehow define us. How can we grow into our full potential while these wounds remain yet unhealed? How do we increase our ability to receive and absorb love, enjoy more life-giving love connections, deal more effectively with stress and improve our resilience and health all while expanding our sense of who we are? These questions and more will be answered during today's show. Don't miss it.    

From our 2015 talk with Andrew Solomon, writer and lecturer on psychology, politics, and the arts and winner of the National Book Award for "The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression." He is an activist in LGBTQ+ rights, mental health, and the arts. His NY Times bestselling book, and the subject of our interview today, entitled "Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity," is also the winner of several awards, including being chosen at among the NY Times Ten Best Books of 2012. It has been called "A bold and unambiguous call to redefine how we view difference… A stunning work of scholarship and compassion" (Carmela Ciuraru, USA Today) distinguished similarly by many other notables for its exceptional profundity, compassion and insight. Today we are going to take an intimate look at this entire concept of loving differentness. Don't miss this unique opportunity to gain insight into the power of love.   Andrew Solomon is an award-winning writer and lecturer specializing in psychology, politics and culture known for his books on depression, such as the National Book Award-winning The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression and identity, such as the National Book Critics Circle Award-Winning Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity.  He is a professor of Clinical Psychology at Columbia University, a former president of PEN America, and a prominent activist for LGBTQ+rights and mental health. His work is published in numerous languages, and he has written extensively for major publications like The New Yorker and The New York Times.   

 It's natural for us to want to get what we want. Unfortunately, we often use bargaining as a way to get what we want and to seek a sense of safety--that might not actually be safe.  When we are trying to get to acceptance of any difficult reality, we might reach the stage in which we bargain. So, if I'm dying of cancer, I might bargain with life by saying "I'll never do that again if you just let me live." And this is natural, for we really want to live. However, bargaining can become toxic, in that it may keep us stuck in a ever shrinking loop of "IF I... THEN he'll...". We might, for example, stay for years in a toxic relationship or situation bargaining and bargaining with the same reality, looking for different results. So, "IF I can just say it right, THEN she'll stop drinking." "IF he would just treat me better, THEN I can finally feel loved." "IF I stay and become very loving, THEN he won't hit me again." "IF I hang into this heinous job for ten more years THEN I can retire and finally get to do what I want.""You can see her that there is always an IF/THEN. That's what makes it a bargain. And as you can see, we can stay trapped in really bad situations and relationships through such bargaining. We can get stuck for entire lifetimes in these toxic bargains. These are bargains with the devil in which we sell our souls for a magic trick. Come learn how to stop bargaining and start LIVING!

Did I just hear that "Dun-Dun" that goes off whenever "Law and Order" comes on? We do get the two mixed up quite a bit—Karma and law and order. What's been passed down to us is a definition of Karma that means that what goes around comes around. So, we can always say to that—expletives deleted—ex-husband or wife, "Yeah, well what goes around comes around!" believing with all of our hearts that they are going to get theirs. Right? And we can say to those selfish, close-minded whatever, whatever politicians that they are going to get theirs too. Then we can wash our hands of the whole affair and assume that in this lifetime or the next, or the next—justice will eventually be done. Dun-Dun! Law and Order! But what if Karma isn't what goes around comes around? What if it doesn't fall in that dualistic framework at all? What if the Law of Karma, gives us something much higher, much more powerful and soul-enhancing than law and order? Tune in to find out more.

You cannot read a paragraph of modern day spiritual books or hear any spiritual speaker on the topic of the EGO without being informed that the Ego is a bad thing. From this perspective the Ego is thought to be the enemy. It is that part of us that wants us to fail, that wants us to be unloving, unkind and inconsiderate, to be afraid and to live inauthentically. In that way that old Ego sounds a whole lot like that old devil, Beelzebub, Iblis, Shaitan, the Dragon, the Serpent, Abaddon, Belial, the father of this world, the god of all lies, Lucifer, etc. This idea of the Ego has us believing that we must fight against it. In fact many would say that we need to "get rid of it" or even kill it. But  wouldn't this mean that Ego fights Ego or even that Ego kills Ego? Surely the divine doesn't need to fight, right? What if we've misunderstood? What if the Ego is just a liaison between the inner and outer worlds? What if we absolutely need this balancing liaison in order to have good mental health? Wouldn't fighting it then mean losing that liaison and, therefore, our own mental health? Is it possible that this view of Ego is but another part of the dualistic trance state that has us all believing that we are not who we really are, not a constituent part of the divine? Don't miss this life-changing show.

We are excited that Clarissa Pinkola Estés, PhD comes this week to tell us about the unveiling of her long awaited audio work and online series called "The Dangerous Old Woman, Myths and Stories of the Wise Woman Archetype." World renowned author of "Women Who Run With the Wolves," which was on the NY Times bestseller list for 145 weeks, she is an internationally acclaimed poet, Diplomat Jungian psychoanalyst, post-trauma specialist, award-winning social activist and writer, as well as a cantadora, (keeper of the old stories in the Latina tradition). Dr. E, as she is affectionately called by her many followers, jokes that there have been a few "sightings" over the years, though she disappeared from public view for three decades to write. This week she comes out into the "clattering world" to talk with us about her work. Come and listen to her unique storytelling ability, soothing voice and deep understanding of the complexities of humanity and grow closer to your own soul.  

Mark Nepo is an author, poet, philosopher, beloved teacher and cancer survivor who has, for thirty years, been exploring how we can stay awake and authentic when our wounds make us numb and hidden; how we can minimize what stands between us and our experience of life; how we can create a practice that wears down what thickens around our hearts and minds. And today we are going to talk to him about those very things, as we explore together the meanings and messages of his books, The Endless Practice and Reduced to Joy. The Endless Practice explores how the soul works in the world, and how by engaging our soul in the world, we are shaped by the endless practice of becoming who we were born to be. Reduced to Joy is a book of poems about the nature of working with what we are given until it wears us through to joy. This is a special opportunity to come closer to your own soul. Don't miss it. Mark Nepo is an author, poet, philosopher and cancer survivor who, for the past thirty years, has been braving and showing us the path to the soul, to the practice of living in soul, while in body. His voice not only tell us but sings to us of the soul and its profound gravity of joy.  His books, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen; The Book of Awakening; Staying Awake: The Ordinary Art; Reduced to Joy and the Endless Practice have capture of world of people looking for meaning and the actual experience of life. They have been notice by Oprah Winfrey who has interviewed Nepo on Super Soul Sunday several times, and have won awards such as the 2012 Books for a Better Life Award.  Nepo is a man whose life and words demonstrate the essential meaning of life, and who teaches us all how to find it.      

We have arrived at adolescence in our understanding of relationship—in other words, we have a long way to go. But, well, what do we expect? Only 150 years ago, marriages were often still arranged in first world countries. We arranged for a good dowry, good property, money, inheritance, prestige, even good teeth and good hips. So this thing of marrying someone we love is new, and we have only begun the work of understanding how to do it. But you know what happens typically in adolescence: we fall in love and out of love very quickly. Unfortunately, that's still where we are with this new understanding of marriage. But actually that process for the adolescent teaches him or her something about relationship—and so we are likewise learning. What are we learning? Tune in to find out how to have a healthy, happy relationship.