Society encourages us to focus hard on “doing, achieving and having”. According to Professor Paul Gilbert, though, we would likely be much happier if we instead worked on being more compassionate to ourselves and others.

In this episode Andrew and Paul discuss:

⭐️Why being compassionate ISN’T being weak

⭐️Three key pillars of compassion: assertiveness, forgiveness & apology

⭐️Why compassion increases feelings of contentment and wellbeing. 

⭐️Exercises you can do to become more compassionate

⭐️The vagus nerve and its role in regulating anxiety and moods.

Professor Paul Gilbert Paul Gilbert FBPsS, PhD, OBE is the Founder and President of The Compassionate Mind Foundation. He is also Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby and honorary visiting Prof at the University of Queensland. Paul was made a Fellow of the British Psychological Society in 1993, president of the BABCP for 2002-2004, and was a member of the first British Government’s NICE guidelines for depression. He has written/edited 23 books and over 300 papers and book chapters. He was awarded an OBE by the Queen in March 2011 for services to mental health.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there. 

Read Paul Gilbert’s book The Compassionate Mind

See Paul Gilbert’s other books  

Paul Gilbert is the Founder and President of The Compassionate Mind Foundation 

Follow the Compassionate Mind Foundation on Facebook @CompMindFound, on Twitter @CompMindFound, on Instagram @compassionatemind_foundation and on LinkedIn. 

Learn more about the vagus nerve - “Everything you need to know about the vagus nerve” in Medical News Today and “This Nerve Influences Nearly Every Internal Organ. Can It Improve Our Mental State, Too?” in The New York Times.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

What if divorce were not the end? This week’s podcast guests, Tommy and Gina Mulligan, share their journey from acrimonious divorce back to happy coupledom.

Tommy and Gina started out as high school sweethearts and grew up together to create a happy life and family. As Tommy’s career accelerated, however, they encountered problems with work/life balance, gendered relationship stereotypes and a problematic dynamic that sometimes felt more like a parent and child than a married couple. 

Later, however, they were able to rediscover their spark and develop their own unique approach to starting over. This involved working on communication skills, but also agreeing to parcel away the bad times and start again from the point where there had been harmony.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there

Follow Tommy and Gina on Twitter @2ndtimearound22

Read Andrew’s book The Happy Couple’s Handbook – Powerful Life Hacks for a Successful Relationship

Listen to some of our other episodes on marriage and relationships - including Irene Fehr on Why Desire Disappears in Committed Relationships and Terry Real on The Five Traps that Undermine Your Love .

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

Do you fall too easily into the role of rescuer in your relationships? Being the eternal rescuer is exhausting, and it tends to cast those around you in the roles of victim and persecutor. 

Or, often, you and your partner will switch between the roles, caught in an eternal and unproductive “drama triangle”. None of the three roles are likely to allow true self-expression, and getting stuck in this cycle is draining and dispiriting.

This week Andrew talks with psychotherapist, spiritual teacher and author Chris Partridge about escaping the rescuer role, and developing the spiritual muscle to be able to really understand what your emotions are telling you.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there 

Buy Chris Partridge’s book Wake Up: What Are Your Emotions Really Telling You?

Visit Chris Partridge’s website

Follow Chris Partridge on Facebook @WakeUpGuideBook and on Instagram @wakeupguide  

Read Andrew’s book The Happy Couple’s Handbook – Powerful Life Hacks for a Successful Relationship

Listen to some of our other episodes on marriage and relationships - including Irene Fehr on Why Desire Disappears in Committed Relationships and Terry Real on The Five Traps that Undermine Your Love .

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

To forgive is one of the biggest choices we can make. It can allow us to let go of painful suffering, to move on and to find peace for ourselves. 

Yet forgiveness tends to be something of a minefield. Many feel that it means letting people who have hurt them back into their lives (which definitely need not be the case). Nor is forgiveness the same thing as saying that historic mistreatment was OK. And if forgiveness is compelled by religion or a strict sense of morality, it may not bring the same easing of hurt and suffering.

In this episode Andrew and forgiveness expert Dr Frederic Luskin discuss how to go about the task of forgiving someone, and the impact this can have on the rest of your life. Whether it is infidelity, financial dishonesty or parental failings, forgiving someone who has wronged you can ultimately mean that you can be “a hero instead of a victim in the story you tell”. 

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there

Buy Dr Frederic Luskin’s book Forgive for Good

Explore Dr Frederic Luskin’s work on forgiveness at the Forgive for Good website 

Take a look at the Stanford University Forgiveness Project 

Get Andrew’s advice on creating real change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier

Listen to our episodes on infidelity - How to Rebuild Trust with Dr Caroline Madden and Lessons from My Recovery with infidelity survivors Lisa Arends and Helen Tower.

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

After nearly dying from an ectopic pregnancy, writer Georgina Scull confronted some of life’s big questions:

• Why do we drift through life, planning for tomorrow but not living for today? 

Georgina chose to answer these questions in a unique way: she created a podcast and then a book in which she interviewed people who were dying. She asked each interviewee about their regrets, which ranged from long-lost love never pursued, to leaving behind children too young to remember their mother. 

In this episode, Andrew and Georgina discuss what we can learn from the dying, and the many reasons for living in the moment rather than chasing the perfect body, the next promotion or a bigger house.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there.

Read Georgina Scull’s new book Regrets of the Dying: Stories and Wisdom That Remind Us How to Live

Listen to Georgina Scull’s podcast Regrets of the Dying 

Follow Georgina Scull on Twitter @georginascull

Listen to other episodes including Dr Kathryn Mannix on What You’ve Been Told About Death Might be Wrong, and David Kessler on Finding Meaning: the Sixth Stage of Grief.  

Get Andrew’s advice on creating real change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

Why do women stop wanting sex? Why is it so hard to recapture the intoxicating desire of those wonderful early weeks and months of your relationship?

Irene Fehr has spent a decade working with couples as a sex and intimacy coach. Her specialty is women’s libido and sexual desire in long-term relationships.

In this episode Andrew and Irene discuss the nature of desire. Unless we understand what compels and creates desire at different life stages, we will not be able to create a passionate, connected sexual life that meets both partner’s needs.

As well as understanding desire, there are also practical steps you can take to rekindle your connection. Fencing off time away from your children (including the controversial act of locking the bedroom door) is key; as is taking small amounts of time each day (rather than weekly date nights) to spend in complete, uninterrupted togetherness. 

And if you are one of our wonderful Apple, Spotify or Patreon paying subscribers, this week’s bonus material sees Andrew and Irene discussing Seven Common Traps for Couples Making Love.

Irene Fehr is a sex and intimacy coach. Her articles and advice on sex, female libido and sexual pleasure are regularly featured in publications including Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan and Thought Catalog.

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there

Take Irene Fehr’s free video course on How to Want to Have Sex Again 

Learn more about Feed Your Libido, Irene Fehr’s signature online program for women.

Visit Irene Fehr’s website

Follow Irene Fehr on Twitter and YouTube @ignitedwoman  and on LinkedIn.

Read the books discussed in this episode: Women’s Anatomy of Arousal by Sherrie Winston, and The New Male Sexuality by Bernie Zilbergeld.

Find out more about Betty Martin’s Wheel of Consent 

Listen to other The Meaningful Life episodes on sex and relationships: Tracey Cox on Great Sex After Fifty and Dr Terry Real on Five Traps that Undermine Your Love

 Read Andrew’s book Can We Start Again Please? Twenty Questions to Fall Back in Love

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

Creating a more meaningful life does not have to happen indoors. Whether it’s writing, meditating, repairing relationships or planning a big life change, doing the work outside surrounded by nature can be calming and inspiring.

Psychotherapist Dr Patricia Hasbach is a specialist in ecotherapy. She sees clients outside and also incorporates nature into her therapeutic work indoors. She is a lifelong lover of nature and a profound believer in its power in treating anxiety and depression, and fostering health and wellness.

Patricia has recently published Grounded: A Guided Journal to Help You Reconnect with the Power of Nature—and Yourself , an interactive journal designed to engage all of the reader’s five senses, and to deepen our experience of nature. 

In this episode Andrew and Patricia discuss nature, awe, the power of green, and how to bring nature inside as part of the therapeutic journey.

Dr. Patricia H. Hasbach is a licensed psychotherapist, consultant, author, and college educator. As one of the media’s go-to ecotherapists, she and her work have appeared in numerous outlets including Time, Vogue, Outside Magazine, the Utne Reader, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, and Sierra Magazine. She lives with her husband and two dogs in Oregon, USA.

Follow Up

The Meaningful Life has been nominated for a British Podcast Award in the category of Sex and Relationships Podcast. Please do vote for us in the Listeners’ Choice category here.

Read Dr Patricia Hasbach’s new book Grounded: A Guided Journal to Help You Reconnect with the Power of Nature—and Yourself 

Visit Dr Patricia Hasbach’s website 

Follow Dr Patricia Hasbach on Facebook or on LinkedIn 

You might also enjoy Andrew’s interview with “joyful environmentalist” Isabel Losada on How to Bring Joy Into Your Life AND Save the Planet 

Get Andrew’s advice on creating real change in your life and relationships in his book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there 

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Women often spend many hours considering their relationship with their mothers; but far less attention goes to the impact of fathers.

For some, the reason for this is that their mothers were there, making wrong and right decisions (which they remember in the starkest possible light) whilst their fathers were absent.

Jungian psychotherapist Dr Susan Schwartz has spent many hours guiding her women clients in thinking about how they were shaped by physically or emotionally absent fathers. 

These daughters relate feeling an insecurity of self, a splintering and disintegration of their personality and a silencing of their voice.

In this episode Andrew and Susan explore the different ways we are shaped by our fathers, how this comes up in therapy and the ways in which we can start to fill the holes left by absent fathers. 

Susan and Andrew also analyse a recent dream of Andrew’s in which themes of family legacies and therapeutic work are drawn out.

Dr Susan Schwartz is a Jungian analyst who trained in Switzerland and lives in the USA. She teaches in numerous Jungian programs, workshops, and lectures in the USA and worldwide. She is also a clinical psychologist and member of the International Association of Analytical Psychology. 

Follow Up

The Meaningful Life has been nominated for a British Podcast Award in the category of Sex and Relationships Podcast. Please do vote for us in the Listeners’ Choice category here.

Read Dr Susan Schwartz’s new book The Absent Father Effect on Daughters, Father Desire, Father Wounds. 

Visit Dr Susan Schwartz’s website https://susanschwartzphd.com 

Follow Dr Susan Schwartz on Facebook and Instagram

Read Andrew’s book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier 

You might also be interested in Andrew’s other interviews with Jungian psychotherapists James Hollis (How to be Resilient), Connie Zweig (“From Role to Soul”) and Lisa Marchiano (Being a Mother).

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there 

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Do you think about drinking alcohol more than you think about eating sandwiches? Do you spend significant amounts of time thinking about NOT drinking (Dry January, for example)? Or are you one of the many with an uneasy feeling that alcohol is no longer bringing anything good into your life, and may well be holding you back?

Therapist and sobriety expert Veronica Valli had a problematic relationship with alcohol for twelve years. She has now been sober for twenty years, and has helped countless others give up drinking.

In this episode Andrew and Veronica discuss:

⭐️ How giving up alcohol can give you the energy and freedom to be your true self.

⭐️ Why your friends may not always be your cheerleaders if you give up drinking.

⭐️ Why a drinking problem is really a symptom of another, underlying problem.

⭐️ What to do if your partner has an alcohol problem. 

⭐️ Extreme social pressure to drink and how to deal with it.

Veronica Valli has worked in the field of alcohol recovery for almost two decades. She is an author, podcaster and former clinical psychotherapist. 

Follow Up

The Meaningful Life has been nominated for a British Podcast Award in the category of Sex and Relationships Podcast. You can vote for us in the Listeners’ Choice category here.

Read Veronica Valli’s new book Soberful: Uncover a Sustainable, Fulfilling Life Free of Alcohol 

Take a look at Veronica Valli’s website

Listen to Soberful: the Podcast 

Find out about the Soberful private group on Facebook 

Follow Veronica Valli on Instagram @veronicajvalli, on Facebook @soberfulpage, on Twitter @VeronicaValli and on LinkedIn.

Read Andrew’s book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and Be Stronger, Wiser and Happier 

You might also be interested in Andrew’s interview with Oliver Russell on how being one of the first people in the UK to be diagnosed with Covid-19 led him to change his relationship with alcohol.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall 

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter and join the community there

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50: https://www.patreon.com/andrewgmarshall 

How do you survive the loss of your life’s partner? How does grief relate to love? And how do you navigate the sometimes clumsy responses to grief from those around you?

Writer, activist and speaker Catherine Mayer has spent the years since 2020 charting the depths of loss and grief. In early 2020 her husband, renowned guitarist and producer Andy Gill, died after returning from his band Gang of Four’s China tour. This came just months after her beloved stepfather died of Covid-19. 

Locked down alone in the early months of the pandemic, Catherine and her mother, Anne Mayer Bird, found ways to navigate their losses and the startling questions and challenges that confronted them. Together they wrote Good Grief: Embracing Life at a Time of Death.

In this episode Andrew and Catherine share their thoughts and feelings on the devastating experience that is the death of a partner. They talk about loneliness, pain and the process of writing it all down.

Catherine Mayer is the co-founder and President of the Women’s Equality Party. She also co-founded the Primadonna Festival, which had its debut in 2019. Catherine is a writer, activist and speaker, and is the author of four books. 

Follow Up

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter The Meaningful Life, and join the community there.

Read Catherine Mayer and Anne Mayer Bird’s new book Good Grief: Embracing Life at a Time of Death

Read Catherine Mayer’s other books Attack of the Fifty Foot Women, Charles: The Heart of a King, and Amortality: the Pleasures and Perils of Living Agelessly.

Learn more about The Women’s Equality Party and the Primadonna Festival. 

Listen to The Problem of Leisure, a new album of Andy Gill’s music executive-produced by Catherine Mayer.

Follow Catherine Mayer on Twitter @catherine_mayer

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50: https://www.patreon.com/andrewgmarshall 

Read Andrew’s memoir My Mourning Year 

You may be interested to listen to other The Meaningful Life episodes exploring grief and loss, including Finding Meaning: the Sixth Stage of Grief with David Kessler, What You’ve Been Told About Death Might be Wrong, with Dr Kathryn Mannix, and  Getting Out of Your Own Way with Christina Patterson. 

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall