My guest this week is Darren Gold, author of the new book Master Your Code: The Art, Wisdom, and Science of Leading an Extraordinary Life (affiliate link). Darren offers many powerful ideas that I know you’re going to find useful, like how to set yourself up for success, and learning how to rewrite your unconscious programs.

As you’ll hear, Darren really speaks my language, because the things he’s describing are in line with solid cognitive and behavioral principles. There’s a lot here that you can take and start to use right away in your own life.

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My guest this week is cook and author Caroline Wright. At the age of 32, Caroline was diagnosed with a brain tumor and given one year to live. Three years later she’s beaten the odds, and is full of enthusiasm and hope and vitality. We discussed her very moving children’s book Lasting Love (affiliate link), which is a love letter to her children and also to any family dealing with the loss of a loved one.

To be honest, this was not the conversation I was expecting. I thought we’d talk a lot about the pain and sadness of saying good-bye, but instead we talked about things like the profound lifestyle changes Caroline has made since her diagnosis, her ongoing work as a cookbook author, learning to live with fear, and finding what makes you happy regardless of circumstance.

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My guest this week is Dr. Christopher Kerr. Chris is a hospice physician and author of the recent book, Death Is But a Dream: Finding Hope and Meaning at Life's End (affiliate link). This was an important topic, but I hadn’t realized the implications for the current situation we find ourselves in with the coronavirus pandemic. One of the things that’s so many of us are deeply troubled by is that people are dying now without being able to have their loved ones by their side.

Chris and I talked about how Covid-19 is changing the process of dying. As tragic as these changes are, he also explained that no one really dies alone, which I found deeply comforting as I imagined the final days and hours of those dying in hospitals.

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My guest this week is Dr. Joel Minden, a psychologist who specializes in the treatment of anxiety. We focused on the ideas from his excellent new book, Show Your Anxiety Who's Boss (affiliate link). Joel's emphasis is on finding effective long-term strategies that can change our relationship with anxiety in a big way, rather than on trying to find tricks to use in the moment to just get through spells of high anxiety. He stresses the importance of letting our values decide what’s important and how we live our lives, rather than letting anxiety play that role. Joel’s research-tested approach has a lot to offer at any time, and definitely in the current COVID-19 crisis.

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My guest this week in Dr. David Richo, who was on the podcast before back in 2018 when we talked about mindfulness in relationships. This time we were focusing on his new book, Triggers: How to Stop Reacting and Start Healing (affiliate link). It’s a great guide for how to use your emotional reactions when you’re triggered as the starting point for identifying and resolving the underlying issues.

One of the things I love most about Dave’s approach is how he doesn’t pretend there’s some trick or technique that’s going to take away your difficult emotions or make life a breeze. He’s honest about the challenges all of us will face, and how accepting those challenges is the path toward becoming a full-fledged adult.

I especially want to draw your attention in this episode to Dave’s encouragement to make a commitment to working on yourself when you’re triggered, rather than blaming others or assuming the problem is with them. I’m thinking about this a lot more in my own closest relationships since Dave and I spoke, especially in my marriage, and trying to remember to be curious about my reaction instead of focusing on my feeling of hurt or injustice. As Dave and I discuss, there’s true freedom to be found in that approach, and it lets us let go of so much unnecessary tension in our relationships.

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My guest this week is Dr. Rob Leeman, who specializes in research on alcohol use among adults. Rob has been a good friend of mine for the past two decades, since we met in graduate school in 2001. He’s a real expert on alcohol and addiction, and he shared from his wealth of knowledge in this discussion. There are a lot of important takeaways here—things like the effects of alcohol on anxiety and sleep, the relation between trauma and alcohol use, effective treatments for reducing alcohol consumption, and the best ways to minimize our kids’ risk for having problems with alcohol.

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My guest this week is psychologist Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, author of the brand new book, Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization (affiliate link). We spent a good bit of time thinking together about how the ideas from his terrific book apply to ongoing coronavirus crisis and the social distancing that’s affecting our lives in so many ways. (One effect is that our family members are home all the time, so you may hear some kid sounds during the episode.)

Scott and I also talked about the intimate relationship between the sacred and the commonplace, and how self-actualization is not the least bit selfish. We touched on posttraumatic growth, the value in embracing our reality as fully as possible, and why therapists like me struggle with challenges just like everyone else does. I really like talking with Scott and am so glad to have gotten to know him in recent months. I hope you enjoy our conversation. 

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What a time this is for all of us. My thoughts and prayers are with those with COVID-19 and the courageous loved ones and medical staff taking care of them.

In these anxious times we need ways to come back to center, as the stress and uncertainty can lead to being wound up, scattered, out of our bodies and stuck in our minds. So this week I have a simple centering practice for you, called Fourteen Breaths.

This meditation actually comes from a new course I've created called Balance: Mindfulness-Centered Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety, Stress, & Worry. This is a paid 4-week course with one lesson per week, but it's available to all regardless of financial means.

Just pay what you can afford. Whatever you pay will help me be able to keep devoting time to making this kind of content. And if you can't pay anything, devoting time and energy to learning effective ways to manage anxiety is a gift you'll be giving not only to yourself but to everyone you interact with.

So please, share this course with someone who could use it, and let them know it's available to all.

Here is the video version of the meditation that's featured in the course:

 

Here's an audio version of the meditation without any intro or outro:

http://sethgillihan.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Balance-Guided-Meditation-audio.mp3

To download the mp3 file of this meditation so you can listen to it anytime, double tap (or right click) here and save the file.

In these anxious times we need ways to come back to center, as stress and uncertainty can lead to being wound up, scattered, out of our bodies and stuck in our minds. So this week I have a simple centering practice for you, called Fourteen Breaths.

This meditation actually comes from a new course I've created called Balance: Mindfulness-Centered Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety, Stress, & Worry. This is a paid 4-week course with one lesson per week, but it's available to all regardless of financial means. Visit the show notes to learn more.

Get full access to Think Act Be with Seth Gillihan at thinkactbe.substack.com/subscribe

My guest this week is Linda Carroll, author of the recent book, Love Skills: The Keys to Unlocking Lasting, Wholehearted Love (affiliate link). This is an important conversation for any time, and it may be especially important now as so many of us are social distancing on the one hand but are also with our partners 24/7. This can be great, and also presents challenges, and opportunities to work together toward a stronger union.

Linda and I discussed things like how our adult relationships can trigger painful experiences from childhood, and whether happy couples generally resolve all their issues (spoiler alert: they don’t, but they do figure out more effective ways to talk about them). Maybe the most important thing from this episode is the power in recognizing the stories we tell ourselves when we’re upset with our partner, and how questioning those stories puts us in a much stronger position to have a harmonious relationship. 

Get full access to Think Act Be with Seth Gillihan at thinkactbe.substack.com/subscribe