How Humans Work Podcast

Episode Summary

Alice Treves is seasoned psychotherapist with a background in Hakomi, CBT, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and Psychedelic Assisted Therapy. This is her second time joining the podcast. She and Jef Szi have been together for 27 years and have two daughters.

In this episode we dive into The 9 Negative Thinking Habits, a CBT framework* Alice uses as part of her therapy practice to help both teens and adults. By breaking down each of the 9 Habits (Catastrophizing, Fortune Telling, Mind-Reading, Blaming, I Can’t, Zooming in on the Negative, All-or-Nothing, I Should/You Should, & It’s Not Fair) we peer under the hood of our mental habits. Alice shows us how "The Four C’s" -- catching, checking, getting curious, and changing habitual thinking with helpful thoughts, can improve our cognitive experience.

Along the way, Alice and Jef lean on their marriage and shared intellectual interests to deepen the exploration of our mental capacities by considering how our thoughts are expressions of developmental needs, evolutionary adaptations, and a validation of the parts perspective found in Internal Family Systems Model.

With equal measure of compassion and insight, Alice’s experience gives us a valuable sense that we don’t have to be run by our thought habits. Indeed, there are tools and perspectives that can help change.

In the last portion of this conversation, Alice enrichens our sense of negative thinking patterns by tying them to the archetypes found in astrology. By making a connection between the hard lessons of life (which are attributed to the planet Saturn in astrology) and our encounters with thinking habits, she fosters a greater sense of the mind’s depths and how we can work with our human nature.

About Alice: Alice Treves LCSW is a psychotherapist who works with adults, teens, and families, offering guidance and support for life’s many challenges. To learn more about her practice, you can visit her website.

About The 9 Negative Thinking Habits: The negative thinking types are sourced from a workbook that helps teens (and adults) work with their negative thinking habits. The title is Conquer Negative Thinking for Teens, written by Mary Karapetian Alvord and Anne McGrath. We thank the authors for their work and insights.

Episode Summary:

Dr. Scott Schmidt joins the podcast to share his knowledge about caring for those with serious illness and those who are in the dying process. As a medical doctor with an expansive background in Emergency Medicine, Hospice Care, and now as a leader in the Primary Palliative Care field, Scott invites us to consider how we go about the realities that surround end-of-life.

Along the way, we get a solid sense of what kind of attitudes, questions, and conversations are needed from both sides of the medical encounter. But don’t be fooled, this episode has teachings for the healthy as much as for those with serious health challenges. In considering the inevitable fate of all bodies, Dr. Schmidt shows us how we can be more prepared and receptive to our individual impermanence at any point in our lives. Indeed, we come to see how forethought can help us be present and feel less overwhelmed in more trying times.

Further on in the podcast, we learn how Scott’s encounters with live-saving measures and his natural inclination toward helping those facing illness and death pushed him forward to being a leader in the Primary Palliative Care approach.

Towards the end of the show, we get a very real glimpse into the difficulty of modern medicine, with its messy and often morally distressing dilemmas.

With depth and humility in the face of the unknowable, this conversation is a remarkable one for both the significances that occur in the latter stages of life, and also with the genuine soulfulness Dr. Schmidt brings to these moving encounters. As he says, navigating serious illness and the inevitability of death is no simple thing.

About Dr. Scott Schmidt: Scott Schmidt is an Emergency Medicine doctor and cultural change leader who is charged with developing Primary Palliative Care competencies.

About Primary Palliative Care: is a subspecialty of medicine, that seeks to plan and address serious illness situations with an orientation to minimize suffering while tending to the whole person. Considered an upstream evolution from Palliative Care, Primary Palliative Care seeks to support Palliative Care competencies in all providers and teams.

Episode Summary

In The Work of Repairing Harm, the warm-hearted Jeffrey Weisberg joins the podcast for a rich and moving conversation about his experience with Peacebuilding and Restorative Justice practices. As the Executive Director and co-founder of the River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding, Jeffrey shares his perspective and insight on the incredible value these practices have for relationships of all shapes and sizes.

With equal amounts of energy, vision, and honesty, Jeffrey walks us through the key questions and approaches of what it takes to repair harm. Whether that is the challenges of refugees in Uganda trying to work through the pressures and hardships of living in a refugee camp, the impact fights on school campuses can have, or the longstanding mistrust between black and brown youth and police departments across America, Jeffrey provides a convincing portrait of how Restorative Justice and other Peacebuilding efforts are a profound resource for dealing with conflict. Specifically, he describes how four key questions and a good dose of thoughtful preparation and finesse, can create a space for repairing harm by discovering 1) What happened? 2) What was the impact? 3) How can we repair the harm? and 4) How can we ensure it doesn’t happen again?

Later in the show, Jeffrey emphasizes the importance of multipartiality in his work. Multipartiality advocates for ensuring all voices are elevated in the Restorative Justice process and equity work in general. It is essential for trust-building across communities with different concerns and experiences, particularly in light of racial disparities still happening. With nuance and humility, we come to learn that, yes, the work of equity requires sincere effort and care from everyone involved.

We also get a powerful glimpse into why truth-telling and deep listening are at the core of repairing human relationships as we discuss the Police Youth Dialogue Model. Police Youth Dialogues bring together Police officers and the black and brown youth in the communities they serve to listen to each other’s experiences. Jeffrey’s tales from these events prove to be a moving and inspiring example of how differences can be bridged through communication.

Throughout Episode #38, we get real and vital pictures of how peacebuilding and restorative justice can transform relationships, support communities, and change the way we deal with transgressions and injuries. Ultimately they offer us a pathway to reconnection. It is an honor to hear tales from one so heartfully committed to doing The Work of Repairing Harm as our guest, Jeffrey Weisberg.

About Jeffrey Weisberg: Jeffrey is the Executive Director and co-founder of the River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding. He has designed, developed, and implemented a wide range of programs and services in his local community of Gainesville, Florida, throughout the United States and in countries throughout the world. His work with youth includes police/youth dialogues, student/educator dialogues, peer mediation, juvenile diversion programs, social/emotional learning, restorative justice, youth empowerment, and coming-of-age programs. For the past 25 years, Jeffrey has served as a Florida Certified State Mediator and mediates cases involving juvenile offenders, family disputes, and conflicts within small businesses and organizations. In addition, he is using Restorative Practices to support the Department of Juvenile Justice, the court system, schools, prisons, and communities to bolster alternatives to the punitive model. He is a founding member of The Peace Alliance. He believes that by training and empowering both youth and adults to learn and practice vital communication skills, we not only create greater connections with others, but we can de-escalate conflict for safer and more productive outcomes.

Episode #37 Summary

Senior Zen Dharma teacher, Fu Schroeder, sits down with Jef Szi for a heart-felt and mind-opening exploration of Zen Buddhism. As a System of Knowledge, Zen is one of the great wisdom lineages—handed down across centuries and into the lap of Fu in the 1970’s.

This delightful conversation offers our community a nourishing encounter with a Zen elder—a holder of wisdom who can provide gems for facing life’s mysteries and hardships. With much kindness and a great deal of playful insight, Fu shares key elements of the Zen way and her path with it. She offers us gems for how we can face our mind, our suffering, and the vastness of being. She shows us how the path of Zen—quietude, or “just sitting,” gives us access to calm and negotiate change and the jaw-dropping truth of impermanence.

In this show, we come to learn how Zen offers mental clarity and abiding presence for the human soul. Born out of Buddha's path and transmitted for generations, Fu walks us through the accuracy and the medicine of the Four Noble Truths. We find we are not the first to struggle with the nature of the mind or the reality of death.

Episode #37 invites us into the teachings of the Zen path. In Fu, we find a kind, frank, and mirthful sojourner, who is not only a fantastic conversationalist but a teacher who is equally poetic and practical.

Listen in to this one because it is not often in today’s world someone can steadfastly point us toward the vastness of reality—be it the experience of the Moon, the sound of the rain, or the courage to Leap into the Yellow River.

About Fu: Furyu Nancy Schroeder, a resident of San Francisco Zen Center since the 1970s, became Abiding Abbess at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in March 2014 and stepped down from that role in March 2023. Fu has held most of the monastic positions at SF Zen Center and has been an active supporter of programs for children, people of color, the gay and lesbian community, and the interfaith community. In 2008 she was elected to the Marin Women's Hall of Fame, and in 2010 she was appointed to the Board of the Marin Community Foundation. In addition, she has previously co-led SF Zen Center's Contemplative Caregiver Course. She received Dharma Transmission from Tenshin Reb Anderson in 1999.

In Everything Under the Sun and Moon, show host Jef Szi continues his conversation with Tobin Mayell, as Tobin remembers the life of his late mother, Christine Waddell. Christine was a healer, teacher, mother, and grandmother who passed away suddenly in the Spring of 2023.

In this fluid conversation between enduring friends, Tobin weaves the experiences with his mom and Christine’s own life—as such, we learn a great deal about Christine’s journey and the arc of Tobin’s relationship with his mother.

Along the way we find that Christine was not only a life-long seeker, but also a highly respected wisdom-keeper, healer, and guide to her clients.

By hearing stories about her early hopes for enlightenment, her discovery in her 30’s that her biological father was someone else, and her joyful penchant for gardening, we get powerful glimpses into core elements of Christine’s completed life.

And like his relationship with his father, Tobin also found his need to individuate from his mom. In this case, it meant finding ways of taking space from a highly invested mothering style, prone to “polishing” Tobin’s sense of self through astrology and emmeshed encouragements.

And yet, as with his father, we find the transmissions in life and death still take place. Not only did Christine’s search for belonging in her life help her and profoundly benefit her clients, we come to see how it bestowed on Tobin an emotional permission that carries on inside him today. Christine’s passion for astrology lives on in Tobin as well—ironically shedding light on how Tobin can now understand her deepest pains.

Through this show—and the one before—we get an intimate portrait of how death, the journey of memorialization, and continuing the thread of life after our relatives pass are all riddled with unexpected teachings—as if the web of life has strands reaching through death’s mysterious gateway onto the other side.

As always, you are invited to listen-in, because in these two episodes that dive into Tobin’s very personal journey of losing both his parents within months of one another, we get a real dose of how life and death collaborate in ways that are impossible to know beforehand.

In Bonus Episode #07, Tobin Mayell joins the show for the first of a two-part conversation honoring the lives of his late parents—Norm Mayell and Christine Waddell.

Here, Tobin recounts for us the core elements in his relationship with Norm—open-heartedly offering glimpses into the arc of the their father-son story.

From early, unrequited longings to adult acceptances and eventually to the transmissions found in Norm’s passing away from cancer in August of 2022, we come see that the father-son relationship has many moments over the course of time and just how much can live inside one parent-child relationship.

We learn that Norm was a drummer in such bands as Sopwith Camel, Blue Cheer, and Norman Greenbaum, frequently taking him on the road while Tobin lived with his mother. We also learn that Norm later became a devout golfer, finding a spiritual magic in the game. Across his life we come to see that among other things, Norm lived with a kind-of private wisdom and natural magnetism that drew people towards him.

Through this conversation with the How Humans Work show host, Jef Szi, Tobin helps us realize how death and life work hand-in-hand to give us unexpected teachings. Much was born for Tobin in his father’s dying process.

Tobin’s own musical calling found new energy as the journey to memorialize his father placed Tobin—literally and figuratively—behind Norm’s drumkit. As Tobin finds himself playing Norm’s drums, singing his songs, and playing with Norm’s former bandmates is a symmetry that is as satisfying as it is moving. Equally profound is hearing the unguarded connection that accompanies the moment—how childhood hungers were able to come full circle in ways that only Tobin can express.

Looking Into the Beyond offers a profound validation the web of life. It shows us something of the essence of Norm’s life as a man, a father, and musician, but it also shows us how the act of death is generative to those that live—releasing unfinished hurts and inspiring the energy of life to continue.

As always, you are invited to listen-in, because in these two episodes that dive into Tobin’s very personal journey of losing both his parents within months of one another, we get a real dose of how life and death collaborate in ways that are impossible to know beforehand.

We kick off Season Four with the fun and forthright Dalanah Smith. Dalanah is an astrologer, stoic, palmist, biologist, and host of the Moon Matters Podcast. In this episode, she shares her take on one of the most ancient systems of knowledge around - Traditional Astrology, a.k.a. Hellenistic Astrology. Also joining the podcast is episode co-host, Tobin Mayell. Tobin is a dear friend and a student of astrology.

In this conversation, Dalanah illuminates how the astrological system can help us understand the fabric of our fate. By looking at the planetary placements at the time of our birth, we have an interesting skeleton key to who we are and how our life progresses.

In this wide-ranging show, Dalanah shares what called her to a path rich with astrology and myth, and how the astrological worldview, along with stoicism, has offered her a kind of cosmological guidance that is helpful to her and her clients.

Along the way, Dalanah offers up a healthy buffet of astrological basics, including the seven planets, the 12 houses, the moon in different elements, and the lunar nodes with a very cool myth about Rahu and Ketu.

Dalanah also reads a handful of placements in Jef’s Natal Chart, demonstrating the power of astrology to see into people’s innermost natures.

In the face of life’s twists and turns, Dalanah teaches us how the knowledge of our astrological configurations can help us recognize and navigate various tensions in our lives, making astrology an ally for development and self-cultivation.

If you are curious about Systems of Knowledge and how they can help make sense of our human nature, then an encounter with the astrological imagination is a legitimate place to begin. For in metaphor and thought, the body of ideas in the ancient ways of astrology have something very direct and intimate to say to all of us.

About Dalanah Smith: Dalanah wears many hats, but the ones closest to her heart are Astrologer and practicing Stoic. Her formal education is in science, as she has a B.S. in Biology and a minor in Psychology. During her time in school, she was focused on learning hard science. After a decade of being a scientist, she now uses those skills of critical analysis to assist her in navigating a more spiritual landscape. She often credits her days in the laboratory for allowing her to view the world with a non-biased lens and for her knack for pattern recognition.

As a 3rd House Sun and ste llium, she has the Soul of an ethereal trickster. Using her innate gift of storytelling, she weaves the tale of personal mythology by analyzing her client’s unique celestial code.

In episode #35, legendary professor and author Robert M. Sapolsky joins the show for a fascinating conversation about his most recent book: Determined. At length we discuss what life looks like when we accept the premise of Determined: free will is a myth and rewarding and punishing behavior is an outdated approach to running a humane and just world. Along the way we get into strange and groovy notions like Emergent Complexity, Chaoticism (a.k.a. The Butterfly Effect), the prefrontal cortex, and my personal passion, stress.

With abundant erudition and mirth, Dr. Sapolsky makes the case several time over that a separate self with a free will apart from the biologic matrix is simply untenable. Along the way, Robert walks us through the arguments which support Determinism, starting with our inability to perceive our intentions and then showing us how brain neurons, slime molds, and ants operate without a blueprint. Overall, we get a persuasive portrait of how and why the seamless web of biology and environment have an unseen hand in how we act and think.

Best to get your thinking cap out and put it on, because this show puts all of our assumptions about how humans work on the surgical table. Whether they survive the rigor of a sage professor’s operations is the question we’re left with.

I hope you enjoy this show as much as I did!

About Robert M. Sapolsky: Dr. Sapolsky is the author of several works of nonfiction, including A Primate’s Memoir, The Trouble with Testosterone, and Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. His most recent book, Behave, was a New York Times bestseller and named a best book of the year by The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. He is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor of biology, neurology and neurosurgery at Stanford University and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant.” He and his wife live in San Francisco.

Episode Summary

In episode #34, the esteemed author of Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke, returns to the show for a fascinating conversation about stress, dopamine, and how the two intersect.

With an equal measure of kindness and expertise, Dr. Lembke walks us through the contours of both addiction and stress. Along the way she reinforces the challenges we face living in a time, what she calls the Plenty Paradox. Throughout this remarkable conversation, Anna gives compelling reasons to value hardship, stress, and truth-telling, for each of them has a convincing way of bringing balance back into our lives. Whether you are young, old, or somewhere in the middle, you are heartily invited to listen, because we all need to hear the wisdom flowing from

About Dr. Lembke: Dr. Lembke is a psychiatrist, professor, researcher, and the medical director of Stanford Addiction Medicine. Dr. Lembke is also the author of Dopamine Nation, a salient book that explores the neuroscience of addiction and the lessons we can learn from those who’ve been caught in its powerful spell.

Bonus Episode Summary

In The Power to Survive, show host Jef Szi shares an essay that connects the adaptive function of the stress system to the realms of fitness and the presence of genes. As critical parts of our adaptive powers for survival, he shows us how stress, fitness, and genes actually are at work on a continuum of time. This short bonus pod offers a spell-binding vision of the deep web at work in our bodies, illuminating how important stress, fitness, and genes all are for our current challenges. Perhaps most importantly, The Power to Survive offers a profound welcome to our shared humanity, beyond any trait differences, that can move and inspire us to live more fully the ancient story we have already been cast into.