What does it really mean to face the truth? In this episode, Noel O'Driscoll and Jake Esman explore what happens when we stop running from reality, and what it costs us when we don't.Drawing on Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled, Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, Richard Rohr's Just This, and the Enneagram, they unpack why we resist reality even when it's right in front of us - and how acceptance, however painful, is the only path to genuine freedom.Whether you're working through grief, navigating a difficult relationship, questioning your sense of self, or just feeling vaguely stuck - this conversation meets you there.The Hinge is a conversation between Noel O'Driscoll and Jake Esman — on psychology, spirituality, the examined life, and what it means to be human.

#religion #psychology #spirituality #consciousness #therapy #personalgrowth

In this episode of The Hinge, Noel O'Driscoll and Jake Esman go deep on one of the most misunderstood forces in human psychology — shame. Not the healthy kind. The toxic kind. The kind that doesn't just make you feel bad about what you've done — it convinces you that you are what you've done. They explore the difference between healthy shame (the foundation of humility) and toxic shame (a shame-based identity), why so many of us are walking through life with shame in the driver's seat without knowing it, and what it actually takes to begin to dissolve it.

In these three episodes that belong together, Noel and Jake meet in the Isle of Wight. It is the first time the brothers meet in person since the start of the podcast.

They share on chance encounters, personal practice, and not taking oneself too seriously.

If one does, God will help you get off that high horse!.

Podcast Editor - Ger Kellett

Contact us at - [email protected]

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In these three episodes that belong together, Noel and Jake meet in the Isle of Wight. It is the first time the brothers meet in person since the start of the podcast.

They share on chance encounters, personal practice, and not taking oneself too seriously.

If one does, God will help you get off that high horse!

Podcast Editor - Ger Kellett

Write to us at - [email protected]

FOLLOW AND SUPPORT THE SHOW

Patreon

Instagram

YouTube

In these three episodes that belong together, Noel and Jake meet in the Isle of Wight. It is the first time the brothers meet in person since the start of the podcast.

They share on chance encounters, personal practice, and not taking oneself too seriously.

If one does, God will help you get off that high horse!

Podcast Editor - Ger Kellett

FOLLOW AND SUPPORT THE SHOW

Instagram

Patreon

YouTube

Write to us at - [email protected]

Noel and Jake explore connection and the contemplative path, emphasizing how ordinary, predictable things and the non-efforting presence of people can provide a sense of belonging and safety.

Podcast Editor - Ger Kellett 

Show notes

Everything is waiting for youYour great mistake is to act the dramaas if you were alone. As if lifewere a progressive and cunning crimewith no witness to the tiny hiddentransgressions. . . .(by David Whyte)

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Jake and Noel reflect on the contemplative life as resting in the truth of reality. They discuss the transformative impact of silence. referencing a retreat with executives who profoundly valued eating in silence. Who knew that silence could speak so much?

Podcast Editor - Ger Kellett

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Jake and Noel discuss Herman Hesse’s perspective on creation as a  discharge of the living soul and the human need to make our mark, connecting creation to the desire to communicate the incommunicable and so feel less alone. They explore the distinction between loneliness and solitude on the spiritual path. 

Podcast Editor - Ger Kellett

Show notes:

In its origin a poem is something completely unequivocal. It is a discharge, a call, a cry, a sigh, a gesture, a reaction by which the living soul seeks to defend itself from or to become aware of an emotion, an experience. In this first spontaneous most important function no poem can be judged. It speaks first of all simply to the poet himself, it is his cry, his scream, his dream, his smile, his whirling fists.

(by Hermann Hesse)

Loneliness is the pain of being alone

Solitude is the glory of being alone

(John Moriarty)

The pain of being alone is not being able to share your ideas with other people 

(John Moriarty)

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Noel and Jake exchange on the transformative nature of listening, defining it as an empathetic and tender act requiring presence and a willingness to be changed by the other person, citing Jake's reflection on an encounter with Henk and Noel’s reference to King Solomon's request for a listening heart.

Podcast Editor - Ger Kellett

Listening

Listening is a form of worship, 

but you don't have to kneel 

on the floor with folded hands 

or mouth the perfect prayer. 

Just open the door of yourself 

to another, become the space

they step through to show 

you who they are. This is

holiness: two people seated 

together on the pew of a park 

bench, or the altar of a 

kitchen table. Even if no one 

says a word for a while, 

receive the silence until it's 

like a new language only the 

two of you can speak.

 (by James Crews)

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Noel and Jake explore the profound power of words, emphasizing their role in liberation, recognition, and connection, leading to the choice of The Hinge as the name for the podcast.

Podcast Editor - Ger Kellett

Words

There are places inside me 

For which I have no words,

And these are the places I write from

. . .

Words are like stones

That I gathered in my pocket

That anchored me to this place

. . .

Words are a needle and thread

To my tornness

(by Noel O’Driscoll)

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