If you wanted children but weren’t able to have them, you are tasked with making peace with a life you didn’t choose. This grieving process occurs inside a culture that often has little respect for the childless. 

In this episode, Andrew speaks with psychotherapist Jody Day about grief, how ageing is different if you are not a parent, and how to find meaning, purpose and identity in what can feel like a very negative social context. 

Jody Day is the British founder of Gateway Women, the global support & advocacy network for childless women. She’s the author of what many professionals consider to be the ‘go-to’ book on the topic, Living the Life Unexpected: How to find hope, meaning and a fulfilling future without children. 

Jody was chosen as one of the BBC’s 100 Women in 2013 & a UK Digital Woman of the Year in 2021. She is a global thought leader on female involuntary childlessness, a psychotherapist, a 2017 and 2022 TEDx speaker, a founding and former board member at the UK Charity Ageing Without Children and a former Fellow in Social Innovation at Cambridge Judge Business School. 

Often referred to as the founder of the ‘childless movement’ and less often, but more memorably as ‘the Beyonce of childlessness', she’s been an Ambassador for World Childless Week since its inception in 2017. After a lifetime in London, she now lives by the sea in West Cork, rural Ireland, where she’s completing a novel (featuring a childless heroine of course!) and nurturing her emerging Gateway Elderwomen project. 

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:

⭐️ How to get your mojo back.

⭐️Three things Jody Day knows to be true.

⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

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 

Details about Jody Day’s book Living the Life Unexpected: How to Find Hope, Meaning and a Fulfilling Future Without Children can be found here and you can download the Introduction and Chapter 1 free, here. There is a live reading group for those working through the book in Jody’s online community. 

Visit Gateway Women, the global support & advocacy network for childless women. 

Follow Jody Day on Instagram and Twitter @gatewaywomen and on Facebook @GatewayWomenUK. 

You might also enjoy Andrew’s interview with author Shani Silver A New Perspective on Being Single

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

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 

Our “shadow” is made up of the unconscious parts of ourselves that we try to suppress or deny. Acknowledging and understanding shadow can be a powerful path to healing and authenticity. 

If we pursue spiritual growth, we will certainly encounter shadow - both our own, and those of our teachers (whose secret desires around money, sex and power can come into play). 

In this episode, psychotherapist and author Connie Zweig PhD talks with Andrew about her new book, Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path. Connie shares some of the ways we can heal from bruising encounters with shadow on spiritual journeys, and how we can “recover from loss of faith and move from spiritual naivete to spiritual maturity”. 

Connie Zweig, Ph.D., is a retired psychotherapist, writer, and Climate Reality Leader. Known as the Shadow Expert, she has written several books about shadow-work, including a bestseller about ageing as a spiritual practice, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul. Connie has been doing contemplative practices for more than 50 years, and is a wife, stepmother and grandmother. 

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:

⭐️Projection: how we see our shadow in others.

⭐️Three things Connie Zweig knows to be true.

⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

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.

Read Connie Zweig’s new book Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: The Dance of Darkness and Light in Our Search for Awakening. 

Take a look at Connie Zweig’s other books 

Visit Connie Zweig’s website

You can email Connie Zweig about the questions raised in this episode at [email protected]

Follow  Connie Zweig on Twitter @InnerWorkofAge and on Facebook at @Dr.ConnieZweig

Listen to Andrew’s previous interview with Connie Zweig on From Role to Soul: How to Become an Elder Rather than Just Old 

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

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

How do we fall in love? And do men and women experience this differently?

Psychiatrist Dr Paul Dobransky has combined science with the study of real-life case studies, and concludes that we do. Moreover, if we can understand something of how our brains move through the stages of love, we can make better romantic choices and create relationships that last. 

Paul Dobransky, M.D., is a psychiatrist and author of The Secret Psychology of How We Fall in Love and The Power of Female Friendship. He works with AI and machine learning models and algorithms for analyzing romance, dating, relationships (human courtship), the development of character maturity and virtues, and the theory of personality.

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:

⭐️ Power imbalances in relationships: How they cause fights.

⭐️Three things Paul Dobransky knows to be true.

⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

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

Buy Dr Dobransky’s books: The Secret Psychology of How We Fall in Love and The Power of Female Friendship. 

Read Dr Dobransky’s Substack articles. 

Read Dr Dobransky’s articles for Psychology Today

You might also be interested in hearing Cheryl Fraser talking with Andrew about How to Stay in Love or with Mairi Macleod about Finding a Good Man in Midlife.

Join our Supporters Club on Patreon 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 

When families enter family therapy, they usually point to one person as the “problem” - this individual is seen as too much, or too angry, or too sensitive. 

Family systems theory, however, looks at the whole family ecosystem to identify how this “problem” is being created, and whether it is in fact a symptom rather than a cause. 

This week Andrew talks with psychotherapist Elaine Carney Gibson about family systems theory, and how “it is the relationships we experience within our families that shape who we are, how we feel about ourselves, and how we attach and relate to others”.

Elaine Carney Gibson, LMFT, LPC, is a practicing psychotherapist of 50 years. She sees individuals, couples, and families, specialising in Relationship Therapy. She taught graduate courses in marriage and family therapy for many years and is the director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Training Institute of The Link Counseling Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:

⭐️Family Secrets: To tell or not to tell?

⭐️Three things Elaine Carney Gibson knows to be true.

⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

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

Read Elaine Carney Gibson’s book Your Family Revealed .

Visit Elaine Carney Gibson’s website 

You might also be interested in hearing Galit Atlas talking with Andrew about Buried Trauma: How the Past Can Unconsciously Trap You or with Julia Samuel MBE about How We Inherit Pain from Our Parents and Grandparents. 

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 

Anxiety can be as contagious as a yawn. People who are feeling more anxious often try to get others to take some of their anxiety from them, and people who are not feeling as anxious naturally resist taking on someone else’s anxiety.

In relationships, it’s often the case that one person takes on the role of the anxious person, whilst the other feels responsible for managing their partner’s anxiety. Combine this with damagingly rigid gender roles, and you have a recipe for disconnection.

This week Andrew welcomes Dr Avrum Weiss onto the podcast for a second time. Andrew and Avrum discuss “playing hot potato” with anxiety in relationships.

Dr Avrum Weiss is a US-based author and psychotherapist specialising in the internal lives of men. His writing and his work with couples help men and women understand each other more deeply and build a stronger connection.

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:

⭐️What is your relationship with change?

⭐️Three things Dr Weiss knows to be true.

⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

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

Buy Dr Avrum Weiss’ book Hidden in Plain Sight: How Men’s Fears of Women Shape Their Intimate Relationships 

Andrew and Avrum also discuss Avrum’s book Change Happens: When to Try Harder and When to Stop

Read Dr Avrum Weiss’ article in Psychology Today  “Why Some Couples Play Hot Potato With Anxiety” 

Find Dr Avrum Weiss’ other books via his website 

Follow Dr Avrum Weiss on Facebook @AvrumWeissAuthor and on Twitter @avrum_weiss

Read Andrew’s books on relationships and self-development 

Listen to Andrew and Dr Avrum Weiss’ previous conversation: Why Men Withdraw When Women Get Angry

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 

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 

Are you allowing your life to be run by “ghosts” - empty narratives, expired beliefs, tired fears, people who should no longer hold sway over your choices?

“When the old stories and beliefs that once defined us have played out and grown exhausted,” writes Dr. James Hollis, “our task is to access our inner compass, the promptings of the psyche that help us find our way through the complex thickets of choice.”

In this episode world-renowned Jungian analyst Dr James Hollis explores with Andrew the ways in which you can hear and answer a “summons of the soul”, and find your own individual sense of life’s meaning. 

Dr. James Hollis is a Washington D.C. based Jungian psychoanalyst and the author of nineteen books; the most recent is A Life of Meaning: Relocating Your Center of Spiritual Gravity

Dr Hollis  was Executive Director of the Jung Educational Center in Houston, Texas, for many years and Executive Director of the Jung Society of Washington (JSW) until 2019. He also worked as a Senior Training Analyst for the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts, as a Director of Training of the Philadelphia Jung Institute, and is Vice-President Emeritus of the Philemon Foundation.

If You’re Looking for More….

You can subscribe to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts) and hear a bonus mini-episode every week. Or you can join our Supporters Club on Patreon to also access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests  and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

This week supporters will hear:

⭐️Relocating your centre of spiritual gravity.

⭐️Three things James Hollis knows to be true.

⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

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

Read James Hollis’ new book A Life of Meaning: Relocating Your Center of Spiritual Gravity. 

Join James Hollis’ September ‘23 poetry course with the Jung Society of Washington:  Mosaic: A Gathering of Poems to Stir the Depths

Read Andrew’s review of James Hollis’ book Swamplands of the Soul: New Life in Dismal Places: 

Read Andrew’s review of James Hollis’ book Living an Examined Life: Wisdom for the Second Half of the Journey.

Read Andrew’s review of James Hollis’ book Living Between Worlds: Finding Personal Resilience in Changing Times:

Visit James Hollis’ website: https://jameshollis.net 

You might also enjoy Andrew’s interviews with other Jungians, including Lisa Marchiano on Being a Mother, Connie Zweig on How to Become an Elder, Robert Hopcke on Synchronicity and Susan Schwartz on Fathers and Daughters.  

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 

What can Korean culture teach us about being happier and more fulfilled? New York literary agent and author Barbara Zitwer has spent decades figuring this out, culminating in her book, The Korean Book of Happiness. 

Barbara and Andrew discuss the ancient Korean philosophies of Han, Heung and Jeong (resilience, joy and the art of giving), and Barbara’s experiences staying in a Buddhist temple and meeting with nuns in the mountains. 

They also touch on the exuberant joy of modern Korean culture (which many of us may have experienced via Squid Game, K-pop, the 10-Step skincare routine or Korean daytime dramas).

If You’re Looking for More….

You can subscribe to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts) and hear a bonus mini-episode every week. Or you can join our Supporters Club on Patreon to also access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests  and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

This week supporters will hear:

⭐️How to feed your soul (Korean style).

⭐️Three things Barbara Zitwer knows to be true.

⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

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

Read Barbara Zitwer’s new book The Korean Book of Happiness

Watch this KBS World Radio interview with Barbara Zitwer about her work promoting Korean literature and culture.

Follow Barbara Zitwer on Facebook @barbara.zitwer, on Instagram @barbarajzitwer and on Twitter/X @BZitwer

You might also enjoy our episodes on How to be Happier with Richard Nicholls; or A Deeper Connection With Everything Through Haiku with Clark Strand.  

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 

Psychologist and author Renee Mill believes that practical, solutions-focused approaches to anxiety can be as important as deep psychotherapeutic work. 

Renee’s career has combined both approaches, and today she helps many of her clients manage anxiety with practical tools designed to “rewire” patterns in the brain that may date back to infancy.

In this episode Renee and Andrew discuss some of these tools, and how they can help you to recognise, analyse and address automatic thoughts and behaviours. They share insights on how anxiety relates to our emotions, relationships and family history. 

Renee Mill, who is based in Sydney, is one of Australia’s foremost clinical psychologists. Her books include Anxiety Free, Drug Free and Parenting Without Anger. 

If You’re Looking for More….

You can subscribe to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts) and hear a bonus mini-episode every week. Or you can join our Supporters Club on Patreon to also access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests  and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

This week supporters will hear:

⭐️Parenting myths that make you anxious.

⭐️Three things Renee Mill knows to be true.

⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

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

Read Renee Mills’ books: Anxiety Free, Drug Free; Parenting Without Anger; No Sweat Parenting; Anxiety Management Workbook ; and The Anxiety Management Manual for Therapists.

Visit Renee Mill's website.

Read Renee Mill's blog

Follow Renee Mill on Facebook and YouTube @AnxietySolutionsCBT, and on Instagram @anxiety_solutionscbt

You might also be interested in our other episodes on anxiety, including: Make Anxiety Your Friend with Kathleen Smith, How to Sit With Anxiety with Anna Colton, Friedemann Schaub on How to Get Out of Survival Mode, No More Overthinking with Richard Paterson and The Neuroscientist’s Guide to Anxiety with Wendy Suzuki. 

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 

“Stop crying now”, “cheer up”, “what a lovely smile” - these are the kinds of messages most of us hear from infancy. Karla McLaren’s work is all about undoing this learning, and valuing ALL of our emotions. Even though the way you work with emotions can have positive or negative outcomes, the emotions themselves are not good or bad.

In fact, anger, shame or sadness are the bearers of important messages. And according to Karla, they also bring with them the skills and energy you’ll need to cope in each situation. 

Karla McLaren, M.Ed. is an award-winning author, educator, workplace consultant, and social science researcher. Her work revalues even the most “negative” emotions and opens startling new pathways into self-awareness, effective communication, and healthy empathy. She is the founder and CEO of Emotion Dynamics Inc.

She is also the author of many books, including The Language of Emotions, The Power of Emotions at Work, and Embracing Anxiety, and she is the developer of the online learning site EmpathyAcademy.org. She is online at karlamclaren.com.  

If You’re Looking for More….

You can subscribe to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts) and hear a bonus mini-episode every week. Or you can join our Supporters Club on Patreon to also access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests  and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

This week supporters will hear:

⭐️ Conscious Complaining

⭐️Three things Karla McLaren knows to be true.

⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

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

Read Karla McLaren’s new book The Language of Emotions 

Read Karla McLaren’s other books 

Visit Karla McLaren’s website

Find out about upcoming courses at the online learning site developed by Karla McLaren,  Empathy Academy

Follow Karla McLaren @KarlaMcLarenAuthor on Facebook, @karlamclaren.m.ed on Instagram, @EmotionDynamics on YouTube and on LinkedIn.  

 You might also be interested in our other episodes, including: Healing Your Lost Inner Child with Robert Jackman, or What Do You Really Want? With Charlotte Fox Weber. 

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 

Filmmaker and Dad Saves America host John Papola is on a mission to celebrate the inspirational force of fatherhood. 

Rather than dwelling on the discourse around “toxic masculinity”, John’s work celebrates “the heroic role we play as men” by being present and joyfully involved in children’s lives. Rather than being a burden or an obstacle to self-fulfilment, John sees raising children as exciting and empowering.

John discusses his own fatherhood journey. He describes how the birth of his son made him feel liberated from the pressures of a creative career, and enabled him to take risks he would not otherwise have considered. 

John Papola is the CEO and Co-Founder of the nonprofit aspirational content studio Emergent Order Foundation and the host of their hit celeb interview series Dad Saves America. John’s mission through his foundation is to celebrate fatherhood and promote the positive representation of fathers and father figures in popular culture.

If You’re Looking for More….

You can subscribe to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts) and hear a bonus mini-episode every week. Or you can join our Supporters Club on Patreon to also access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests  and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

This week supporters will hear:

⭐️How stories help us understand ourselves and the world.

⭐️Three things John Papola knows to be true.

⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

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

Visit the website of the Emergent Order Foundation, John Papola’s non-profit aspirational content studio.

Watch John Papola’s Dad Saves America series on YouTube.

Watch John Papola’s documentary about Oscar and Bafta winning deaf actor Troy Kotsur and his relationship with his father.

Follow John Papola on Twitter @JohnPapola.

You might also be interested in other episodes on fatherhood: Men, Fathers and Meaning with Joe Horton; Becoming a Father with Jack Underwood; Daughters and Fathers with Susan Schwartz PhD; and Jed Diamond PhD on Your Personal Creation Story.

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