Send us Fan Mail

BJ Miller on Loss, Meaning, and Learning to Feel

In this conversation, Kenny Primrose speaks with palliative care physician BJ Miller, co-founder of Mettle Health, about grief—not as an interruption to life, but as one of its central experiences.

Rather than treating grief as something that happens only after death, Miller suggests it is a constant human condition: the emotional response to loving things that inevitably change, fade, or disappear. The problem, he argues, is that modern culture is profoundly grief-illiterate. We rush people toward closure, reward emotional stoicism, and teach one another to avoid feeling too much.

Drawing on his own life—including a catastrophic electrical accident at age 19 and the later death of his sister, Miller explores how grief shapes identity, attention, relationships, and even politics. When grief is denied, it often reappears disguised as anger, grievance, blame, or division. When felt honestly, however, grief reconnects us to meaning, deepens aliveness, and enlarges our capacity to live well.

The conversation ranges from personal loss to healthcare reform, from daily mortality practices to the healing role of beauty and nature at the end of life. 

In This Episode

•  Why grief is not exceptional but universal 
•  How emotional avoidance creates “grief illiteracy” 
•  The pressure to perform strength—and its hidden costs 
•  What patients at the end of life teach about living 
•  How grief transforms into anger, grievance, and polarization 
•  Loss as a doorway to presence and gratitude 
•  The importance of rituals and communal containers for mourning 
•  Why medicine often treats death as failure 
•  Practicing mortality as a path to meaning 
•  Beauty, nature, and tenderness as forms of medicine 

Key Ideas

Grief as Love Continuing
Grief reveals what mattered. Rather than diminishing life, it clarifies it.

Grief vs. Grievance
Unfelt grief frequently becomes blame, resentment, or political division.

Learning to Feel
Emotional literacy—pausing before reacting, tolerating discomfort—is both personally healing and socially protective.

Rituals Matter
Modern societies have lost many shared practices that help people metabolize loss. We must rediscover or reinvent them.

Rethinking Healthcare
End-of-life care should prioritize meaning, beauty, and connection—not simply the postponement of death.

Website - www.examined-life.com

Substack - https://thisexaminedlife.substack.com

Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ExaminedLifePodcast

BJ's TED talk - https://www.ted.com/talks/bj_miller_what_really_matters_at_the_end_of_life

Other resources on Grief - https://edition.cnn.com/all-there-is-anderson-cooper

Mettle Health - https://www.mettlehealth.com/ 

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

Learning from Loss with Dr. Lucy Hone

How do you survive the unthinkable? When resilience researcher Dr. Lucy Hone lost her 12-year-old daughter in a tragic accident, she didn't just study the science of grief—she had to live it. In this episode, Lucy joins Kenny Primrose to share the practical, evidence-based tools that help us oscillate between mourning and living, and what we can learn about life in the wake of loss.

In This Episode:

In this new series on grief and mortality, we explore why the "stages of grief" model often fails us and what actually works instead. Dr. Lucy Hone discusses her journey from the University of Pennsylvania’s resilience program to the frontlines of her own personal tragedy.

Key Topics Discussed:

• The Myth of "Bouncing Back": Why we need a more pragmatic definition of resilience.
• The 3 Habits of Resilient Grievers: Simple, actionable shifts in attention that can change your trajectory.
• The "Helping or Harming" Test: A vital tool for psychological flexibility.
• The Jigsaw Metaphor: How to rebuild your life when the old pieces no longer fit.
• Hidden Grief: Understanding "non-death" losses and how to process them.

About Lucy:

Dr. Lucy Hone is a best-selling author, TED speaker, and co-director of the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing & Resilience. Her work has been published in The Journal of Positive Psychology and featured in The Washington Post, BBC, and The Guardian.

Resources Mentioned:

• Book: Resilient Grieving: How to Find Your Way Through a Devastating Loss
• New Book: How Will I Ever Get Through This? (On hidden and non-death grief)
• TED Talk: The Three Secrets of Resilient People

Connect with The Examined Life:

• Host: Kenny Primrose
• Website: www.examined-life.com
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ExaminedLifePodcast
• Follow & Subscribe on substack: https://thisexaminedlife.substack.com/ 
• Support the series - buymeacoffee.com/kennyprimrose 

If you found this episode helpful, please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it helps others find these conversations.

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

A short trailer for the forthcoming season where we explore mortality, immortality, loss, grief and finding meaning in the wake of them. 

In the above clip you'll hear snippets from Lucy Hone, BJ Miller, Kathryn Mannix and Victor Strecher - with other episodes to follow. Subscribe and stay tuned for the forthcoming episodes, and sign up to This Examined Life on Substack to receiving updates and related essays to your inbox - This Examined Life | kenneth primrose | Substack

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

We explore what human flourishing means beyond quick hits of happiness and how attention, character, and community shape a life with depth. We offer practical ways to set tech boundaries, recover presence, and build habits that support meaning and stronger relationships.

• defining flourishing as purpose, virtue, health, relationships, and stability
• attention as a moral act that shapes identity
• flow states, boredom, and the role of friction in mastery
• how persuasive tech erodes agency and presence
• resilience, emotion regulation, and numbing versus feeling
• presence and awe as markers of a meaningful life
• community ties, shared rituals, and mutual flourishing
• practical boundaries for phones and persuasive design
• replacing screen time with calls, walks, craft, and rest

If you enjoyed this, please send it to someone who might benefit; subscribe, leave a review.

- For More information about the Digital Detox Club, click here - Home | The Digital Detox Club

- To sign up for This Examined Life on Substack, click here - This Examined Life | kenneth primrose | Substack

Music made by Moby (mobygratis - Free Moby music to empower your creative projects)

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

We trace how realistic hope sustains people through captivity and crisis, from the Stockdale Paradox to Sir Terry Waite’s agency in confinement, and preview Dr. Lucy Hone's reframe of resilience as steering through rather than bouncing back. A brief, grounded message closes for anyone in a hard season, with a request to share and stay connected.

• what the Stockdale paradox really means
• why deadline‑based optimism breaks people
• agency as daily practice under pressure
• sir Terry Waite’s memory and interior freedom
• resilience as steering through, not bouncing back
• pragmatism, optimism, and agency as core tools
• a preview of the conversation with dr Lucy Hone

See if you can think of one person who you think might find this helpful, who might need to hear about optimism and pragmatism and finding agency in dark times
Sign up to the Substack This Examined Life if you haven't done so already, where you can receive the newsletter and upcoming episodes and events, and leave a review on the podcast channel if you get the chance. Wherever you get your podcast, it really helps others to find it.

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

Living With Purpose: Insights from Victor Strecher

In this episode of The Examined Life Podcast, host Kenny Primrose explores the profound questions of life's purpose and values with Professor Victor Strecher, a leading expert in the field from the University of Michigan. Strecher shares his deeply personal journey following the tragic death of his daughter, which led him to a renewed focus on what matters most in life. The conversation delves into how reflecting on death and one's core values can lead to a more purposeful and fulfilling life. Strecher also discusses the scientific and physiological benefits of having a strong sense of purpose, the distinction between self-transcending and self-aggrandizing purposes, and practical steps for individuals seeking to discover their own purpose. The episode touches on themes of identity, motivation, and the human condition, offering listeners profound insights and practical advice for living a more examined life.

00:00 Introduction: What Matters Most

00:34 Welcome to The Examined Life Podcast

00:44 Exploring Victor Strecher's 'Life On Purpose'

01:40 A Conversation with Professor Victor Strecher

03:35 The Big Question: Who Am I?

05:09 The Root System of Our Lives

08:09 A Personal Story of Loss and Purpose

14:15 The Mystical Experience and Its Impact

21:32 The Role of Death in Understanding Life

24:59 Exploring the Neuroscience of Purpose

25:26 The Role of Core Values in Purpose

26:16 Purpose and the Brain's Fear Center

26:53 Building the Brain's Purpose Muscle

28:08 Types of Purpose: Self-Transcending vs. Self-Aggrandizing

28:57 Historical Perspectives on Purpose

31:52 The Metaphor of the Camel, Lion, and Child

35:05 The Crisis of Meaning and Purpose

41:51 Practical Steps to Discovering Your Purpose

47:39 Final Thoughts and Reflections

Links:

Substack - https://thisexaminedlife.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile_chips

Examined Life Website - www.examined-life.com

Victor Strecher - https://sph.umich.edu/faculty-profiles/strecher-victor.html

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

Sir Anthony Seldon is one of the most influential voices in the UK on education. He has led three prominent independent school, and written or edited more than 40 books.

In this episode we explore how education can honour what truly matters in a time when AI can outscore us on the tests we designed. Sir Anthony Seldon lays out a shift from human capital to human flourishing, urging schools to cultivate agency, character, and love of learning.

• redefining the purpose of education toward human flourishing
• harms of exam-driven systems and narrow metrics
• every child’s unique gifts and “song”
• AI exposing the limits of cognitive-only assessment
• OECD’s human flourishing model and core competences
• coaching pedagogy to build agency and judgment
• practices for inner life, mindfulness, and body care
• virtues and pro-social habits for a resilient future
• choosing subjects you love to sustain motivation
• balancing measurable outcomes with the immeasurable

As ever, do please share this episode with others you think might like it or on social media

Sign up for This Examined Life on Substack, where you can receive updates, bits of writing, and you can support the show

Any feedback or ideas can be emailed to me at [email protected]

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

In this brief episode we explore a short soundbite from a previous episode with philosopher of technology LM Sacasas. In it we explore the way that efficiency and ease might give with one hand, while taking with the other. 

- check out the previous episode in full here -  https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/michael-sacasas-what-should-we-be-doing-for-ourselves/id1680728280?i=1000705506079

- LM Sacasas substack here - https://substack.com/@theconvivialsociety

- This Examined Life substack here - https://thisexaminedlife.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile_chips

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

Comfort is easy; appetite is sacred. We trace a surprising path to steadier happiness by leaning, gently but deliberately, into friction. Drawing on psychiatrist Anna Lembke’s insight that our modern environment is addictogenic, we look at how endless convenience and constant dopamine nudges can flatten mood, fog attention, and leave us restless. Then we put the theory to the test with a cold North Sea dip—short, sharp, and strangely joyful on the other side.

Across the conversation, we unpack why the human nervous system needs stress in measured doses. Think hormesis: brief, voluntary challenges like hard exercise, short fasts from alcohol or sugar, or cold exposure that nudge the brain into balance and rebuild resilience. A greenhouse tree grows fast but topples without wind; without resistance, we also lose inner structure. By choosing small hardships, we earn the afterglow—a calmer baseline, cleaner focus, and a renewed appetite for simple pleasures.

We also explore practical ways to invite healthy stress without going extreme. Start with one constraint you can keep this week, and notice the shift: food tastes better, sleep deepens, and mornings feel less rushed. The aim isn’t suffering for its own sake; it’s recalibrating reward so that life’s ordinary moments become vivid again. If abundance has dulled your edge, a little voluntary discomfort can turn the volume back down on noise and up on meaning.

If this resonates, follow along for more short reflections, share the episode with a friend who needs a reset, and join our Substack community for deeper dives. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what small hardship will you choose this week?

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

Dr Alex Curmi is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist who also hosts The Thinking Mind podcast, and is a gifted communicator on mental health and self-development. 

Alex's clinical work and training has given him acute insights into troubling aspects of modern life, and how we might prepare for an uncertain future. The question which formed the spine of our conversation was ‘ In a world where technology has been quite disruptive psychologically for a lot of people, how do we prepare for an increasingly technological future?

We examine how modern technology reshapes attention, confidence, morality and meaning, and Alex offers practical tips for staying human as machines grow more capable. Among the topics explored you will find:

• tech-driven overstimulation dulling joy and focus
• confidence built through voluntary discomfort
• psychiatry and psychotherapy as complementary lenses
• intolerance of uncertainty and stoic control
• integrity, congruence and moral habits that scale
• social skills as a proactive practice
• AI as tool versus thinking crutch
• career durability through uncommon skill stacks
• financial resilience over consumerist drift
• community as the container for lasting change

If you do enjoy the show, please follow or rate it. It really helps others to find it. For future episodes and news on the show, please sign up to the substack - https://thisexaminedlife.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile_chips

Support the show