Stay ConnectedWriter Elise Loehnen explores life’s big questions with today’s leading thinkers, experts, and luminaries: Why do we do what we do? How can we understand and love ourselves better? What would it look like to come together and build a more meaningful world?
Sales and Distribution by Lemonada Media https://lemonadamedia.com/
Copyright: 439374 © Elise Loehnen. All Rights Reserved.
“I think there are a number of ways that we move into action that's characterized by integrity and where, you know, healthy altruism and compassion are present. I'm very grateful that I'm an old Buddhist , you know, with years of practice behind me and the practice of cultivating intentional balance, cultivating emotional balance, really being able to self-reflect on what, what's going on in my body, what's happening in the stream of my emotions and thoughts. So, you know, all of this has been of benefit to me over the years of practice in terms of stabilizing myself and being more able to engage, less done in by the work that I do. I mean, I'm 80 years old and I feel, you know, mostly full of life, and, and, and humor and so forth. And I really attribute it to the mindset that has come out of these decades of practice.”
My guest today is the brilliant Joan Halifax—a Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and author of many books, including Being with Dying and Standing at the Edge. The founder, Abbot, and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center, a Buddhist Monastery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Joan has dedicated her life’s work to engaged and applied Buddhism, with a particular emphasis on end-of-life care.
Today, she shares with us wisdom gleaned from Zen traditions, mindfulness practices, and the Buddhist approach to death; drawing from her groundbreaking research on compassion and decades of experience working with the dying and their caregivers all the while. As our current reality pushes us all to the existential exploration of suffering, altruism, and meaning, Joan’s words become an exceptionally valuable source of inspiration, guiding us to the edges of our human experience in order to discover wise hope, truth, and a fuller realization of what it is to be alive.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
MORE FROM JOAN HALIFAX:
Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet
Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Face of Death
Explore JOAN'S WEBSITE
Follow her on INSTAGRAM and TWITTER
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“Sex is not a quick fix when there's these foundational challenges that you're having, you're like, I know how to give oral sex a million different ways, but I'm not in the mood and I'm not turned on. And I know that sex is important because I love my partner and I know sex is important, but we can't quite hack how to be turned on and ready to go and ready for sex at the right time. And a lot of that is because we don't understand our arousal desire process. We don't know that if the house is a mess and there's dishes in the sink, or I have resentments with my partner, or I haven't worked out in a week, that there's all these factors of why you're not turned on. And so I think getting people to actually think about their sex life in that way and trying to think about like, what do I know to date just from my sexual history, but like, what's happening with my hormones? What's happening with my psychology? Do I have unhealed trauma? And you'd think that that would be sort of obvious, but it's really not. Like if you've been on an antidepressant for years or even just recently, Or any other blood pressure medication and now you're like not as turned on. People often don't make that connection.”
Emily Morse is not only a dear friend and a stellar human, but she’s also a doctor of human sexuality, revolutionizing discussions surrounding sex and the pursuit of pleasure. She is already a best-selling author, though her just released book, Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure, is the navigational guide we all need in our lives. She also leads a MasterClass on Sex and Communication and hosts the top-rated and chart-topping podcast, Sex With Emily. Through candid conversations, she challenges the inaccurate cultural programming surrounding sex and promotes the value of open conversation to foster connection. Today, we talk about how women often find themselves disconnected from sex and their bodies, often due to social conditioning and traumatic events that occur during our sexual development. Emily helps us consider ways to reconnect with ourselves in order to feel more embodied, more aligned, and more pleasure.
MORE FROM EMILY MORSE:
Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure
Emily’s Website
Follow Emily on Instagram
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“A million Americans a week are quitting a job. This number is almost twice as high as it's ever been in history, not laid off. Not being fired. Quitting. That’s 50 million people a year. That's a third of the workforce. And another third of the workforce is saying, Hmm, I don't wanna come in five days a week. Okay? Like, what if I give you Tuesday and Thursday or Tuesday Wednesday? I mean, only 15% of Americans in white collar office jobs are even showing up to work anymore on a Friday. So there is this big renegotiation, can I do it remotely? Can I do it from anywhere? Like not even being in the same town? All of this is a rebalancing of the balance of power between workers and workforce. And so I think that if you are in HR and you are particularly in the wellness and health and safety and you know, mental health, you were three years ago in a small basement office with no windows and no one ever talked to you. It turns out there's a lot of people outside your door now, and we are beginning to realize if you want to recruit and retain talent, you have to change the way that you talk to your workers.”
Bruce Feiler is an author and speaker known for his insight and perspective on how we can better show up in the world. With seven New York Times bestsellers like Life is in the Transitions and The Secrets of Happy Families, he blends wisdom and contemporary knowledge to inspire individuals to lead more intentional and joyful lives. He is also a writer and presenter of two prime-time series on PBS, Walking the Bible and Sacred Journeys with Bruce Feiler. Additionally, he writes a newsletter called The Nonlinear Life.
In today's conversation, we chat about his latest book, The Search: Discovering Meaningful Work in a Post-Career World, based on real-life narratives for finding fulfillment in the workplace. He tells us that those who find the most meaning and success don't climb; they dig. They go looking inside of themselves. Bruce's first hand approach to his work, living the experiences he writes about, allows him to provide practical guidance on navigating life's transitions and finding reasons for why we’re all here.
MORE FROM BRUCE FEILER:
The Search: Discovering Meaningful Work in a Post-Career World
Bruce’s Newsletter
Follow Bruce on Instagram and Twitter
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“I believe certainly, I know now, after have going through this years and years of feeling ashamed of who I am, you know, internalizing the shame, how America sees trans people, gender in general, and what I know now, is truly, this is the power. I mean, maybe many, many years as a fashion model, definitely there were days when I felt like, why did I even, just a thought of being born as trans and all that. Like, I love being a trans person right now, especially right after that Ted Talk in 2014 when I realized, oh wow, I've opened up. The world opened up to me. You know, this is just the beginning. It doesn't mean all my problems disappear, but certainly there’s a sense of freedom in that. So hopefully the freedom that, at least for me to start with, that I found within myself by speaking truth, by truly living authentically as myself, you know, it gives me power. I think people are afraid of that.”
Geena Rocero is a model and advocate, known for her courageous journey of self-discovery and self-revelation: In 2014, she came out to the world as transgender on the stage at TED. Today, we discuss her debut memoir, Horse Barbie, where Geena bares her soul, relaying her journey as a pageant queen hailing from the Philippines. Courageously, she made the difficult decision to temporarily conceal her identity in order to pursue a career as a model in New York City, where not even her agent knew her truth. While she booked magazines and ad campaigns, deep within her, she recognized that embracing her authentic self was the key to unlocking her boundless potential. Geena's determination to live her truth serves as a testament to the transformative strength in self-acceptance and genuine empowerment. Besides telling her story, Geena also founded the advocacy and media production company Gender Proud. Okay, let’s get to our conversation.
MORE FROM GEENA ROCERO:
Her TED Talk: “Why I Must Come Out”
Follow Geena on Instagram
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“When you are quite literally told that you are not human. What option do you have? What’s the other option other than to overthrow the system that is telling you you're not human, you know? And so this is work, this is generational work. And we have had to do that generational work largely alone, because when women got the opportunity to vote, we were purposefully left out. When the civil rights movement was happening, we were the backbone of that mission. But our names don't appear in the books, in our history books. That we know how to move through systems that weren't built for us because there are so few that are. The only systems that are built for us are the ones we build together. Otherwise, we spend our entire lifetime in this country moving through systems that were not made for us, and in fact that weren't, not just not made for us, but made to squash us, made to make sure that we do not succeed and so in order to live into our own human dignity, the only option is to change the world because this is unacceptable.”
So says Austin Channing Brown. Her ability to distill essential truths always sends chills down my spine. Austin is a powerful and resonant public speaker, racial justice advocate and educator, and author, whose bestselling book, I'm Still Here, has catalyzed an indelible impact on how we perceive and discuss what it means to be a Black person, let alone a Black woman, in America. She just released a Young Adult version, which is required reading for all of our children as we work to build an equitable future. Austin is also the CEO of Herself Media, a platform creating content and narratives to provide a supportive space for those who find themselves on the outskirts of traditional power.
Today, Austin joins me in unveiling the facade of what it means to be good and how culture detrimentally enforces this burdening standard of goodness on women. We discuss the importance of anger and how it can be a navigational tool. By examining her own anger, Austin learned to move that energy toward creating community and literature that relentlessly fights for the future that America needs.
MORE FROM AUSTIN CHANNING BROWN:
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness
I’m Still Here: Adapted for Young Readers
Austin’s Website
Austin’s Newsletter
Follow Austin on Instagram
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“If I remember correctly, I think you ran as fast as you could to the thing that you're more comfortable with, which is other people's research, other people's ideas, showing the connection between historical ideas and current, you know, thought leaders and the way they were operating. And so, and what I felt was that you, Elise, were missing. And I think what I really wanted you to do, and this is what I meant by like, show us your journey through these things, is I needed you and, and you got there, to filter and to sort of act as guide for the reader showing us what you were realizing as you were bringing and making these connections and synthesizing all of these other thought leaders, and, you know, expert work because that's the journey we need to be on as reader.”
That voice? That's my editor Whitney Frick, and she joins me today for a very special episode of Pulling the Thread, on the eve of On Our Best Behavior'spublication—coming May 23. Many of you have been with me as I've written this book, and by osmosis, you probably have some sense of the process, but it felt important to me to celebrate OOBB (as we call it), by bringing you all the way inside. I wanted to do this with the person who knows the text almost as well as I do.
Writing a book is really hard—and it's also incredibly co-creative. As someone who has co-written or ghostwritten 12 books, I'm usually the co-creator, holding the structure for the authors while they revisit their lives and mine it for story. In this case, though, it was Whit who helped me, holding the potential of the book as a guiding light for the process. She took me by the hand, bringing me ever closer to myself as I worked through drafts. We both worked really hard on this book—really hard. Distilling, refining, and interrogating the material until we knew the path was so well-trod, readers would be able to easily follow the book's unfolding, and understand exactly what I was trying to say. To say that I'm pleased with how On Our Best Behavior turned out is an understatement—I'm thrilled, which is not something that's easy for me to say. I believe the book is the best I could write, and I'm so grateful to Whit for getting me there. As we explore in today's conversation, I had a very powerful battle with resistance—and am so happy I pushed through. If you haven't yet ordered your copy,On Our Best Behavior is available wherever you get your books starting May 23—in the U.S., Canada, UK, and Australia, with more countries to come.
MORE FROM THIS EPISODE:
On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to be Good
Follow Elise on Instagram
Elise’s Substack Newsletter
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“One thing my work has taught me is how human interaction is a comedy of errors. People are making so many errors without knowing it. I think I'm making sense to you, but I'm not. I think I'm being clear, but I'm not. I think I understand you, but I don’t. I think I heard you, but I didn’t. I think when you raise your chin, you're looking at me defiantly or someone else, arrogantly or someone else, like you know, looking down at your nose. But maybe you don't think that, you're just lifting your chin because you naturally do it. Lifting of the chin, by the way, is a skeletal feature of when our heart rates go up and we start moving towards higher arousal, we'll elongate our neck and our back and we'll lift the chin sometimes. So often it means nothing but optically, to the other person, it doesn't look so good. Just like looking at scans doesn't look so good, or, you know, looking away for too long, or staring too much. All of these things are subjective and for one person, it doesn't bother them, for another person, it drives them crazy.”
Stan Tatkin is an author, therapist, and researcher who guides couples toward more durable relationships. He developed the Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy (PACT), a non-linear approach that explores attachment theory to help couples adopt secure-functioning principles: In short, Stan and his wife, Tracey, train therapists to work through a psychobiological lens. Often, our brains get away from us in conflict—we lose ourselves to our instincts. He has trained thousands of therapists to integrate PACT into their clinical practice, offers intensive counseling sessions, and co-leads couples retreats with his wife.
His latest book, In Each Other's Care, provides practical tools for couples struggling with recurring arguments. In our discussion, he explains how to identify and overcome triggers that lead to conflicts and improve communication to achieve better outcomes. Using the concept of secure functioning, Stan emphasizes the positive impact of healthier arguments. Though his solutions require effort and dedication, they have the power to benefit all aspects of your life. I should know—he has worked with me and Rob before, sessions that were honestly fascinating, for both of us.
MORE FROM STAN TATKIN:
Stan Tatkin’s Website
Follow Stan on Instagram
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“But I now think about how wonderful it is that some of these radio stories that meant a lot to me that might have otherwise just disappeared, now do have a longer life. And you mentioned the fear of vampirism as a journalist. And the flip side of that is something that Audie Cornish, who was my co-host for many years on All Things Considered, said to me that I've really taken to heart, which is that in a crisis when people are on the worst day of their lives, whether it's a war or a natural disaster, or a mass shooting, of course there are people who don't want to talk and I respect that, but there are also people for whom being able to tell their story and being able to have somebody truly listen to them can be healing and can be a gift, and can be an act of love. And so when I go into those situations, I'm not going in as an emergency relief worker. I'm not going in as an aid worker. I'm going in as a listener. I'm going in to give people an opportunity to tell their stories and to be there to listen to them, and I've realized that that also has value and that that can be important.”
Ari Shapiro is an award winning journalist with one of the most recognizable voices in the land: He’s the host of NPR’s “All Things Considered.” In his tenure, he’s covered war zones, mass shootings, the White House—and also so much more, using his microphone to tell deeper stories about who we actually are. He recently published a debut memoir—The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening—where he uses his own life as the scaffolding to tell many of these stories. I cried…maybe 10 times as I followed Ari across the globe.
Like me, Ari is from small town America—he was born in Fargo, North Dakota before his parents moved to Portland. Like my brother, Ari is gay—and came of age at a time when that was a dangerous thing to be. Like me, Ari grew up listening to Nina Totenberg and Susan Stamberg make sense of the world. And like me, he went to Yale. The point of Ari’s book is exactly this: We all have so much in common, regardless of where we are born. Telling these stories brings us closer together.
In our conversation, he shares his insights on what makes valuable journalism and we discuss the importance of exploring diverse perspectives to gain a broader understanding of the world around us.
MORE FROM ARI SHAPIRO:
The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
Follow Ari on Instagram and Twitter
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“Women spent so much time in the ancient world spinning, like they spent all their time, any spare moment. And spinsters were not bad, it wasn't bad to be a spinster the way we think of it, spinsters were, you know, respected members of households, single women who didn't have the responsibilities of husbands or children, who could spin more, and make money. And, you know, you think about things like marauding around when they sailed across the Atlantic and their little hats and everything, but you don't think about the sails. You don't think like, who made those sails? Who made the thread that made all those sails? Who do you think did that? How many years did it take those women to make one lousy sail, you know, I mean, it took two years of women's labor to make a sail. So the kind of invisible labor of women in all of that…”
So says, Peggy Orenstein, a celebrated journalist who is acclaimed for her insightful analysis of gender, sexuality, and identity issues. She’s written several best-sellers about the topic, including Girls & Sex and Boys & Sex. But that’s not what we’re going to talk about today. During COVID, Peggy took a right turn, and an entirely different type of book emerged, one that is actually just as radical. In Unraveling, she explores the depths of her grief and tackles societal issues through the process of making a sweater from scratch—including shearing a sheep and carding and dying the wool—ultimately discovering the power of creativity and connection.
While sharing her journey of making the sweater, which is actually riveting, she also unravels the rich history and culture of spinning and weaving while exposing the sobering reality of fast fashion and its detrimental impact on our environment. This is a book about something that sounds simple, yet is actually about everything, offering the potential for a genuine shift in how we perceive the world.
MORE FROM PEGGY ORENSTEIN:
Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hook-Ups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity
Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape
Don’t Call Me a Princess: Essays on Girls, Women, Sex and Life
Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of New Girlie-Girl Culture
Peggy Orenstein’s Website
Follow Peggy on Instagram and Twitter
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“So one of the things I explored in life in Life in Five Senses was the value of boredom. Because when you're bored and when your mind is just kind of running free and trying to amuse itself, you'll often have insight. And that's why people have ideas in the shower, when they're walking the dog or something. When there's nothing occupying them, that's when our brain can come up with these new insights. So I was walking through the Met, I was in a very familiar place, so I was a little bored. And that's when I realized, the way I thought of it was that the beautiful often requires a little bit of ugly. And being systematic, I’m like, you say that, but how do you back that up? And I could think of one for each sense because it does turn out that often the beautiful does require a little bit of what might be considered ugly. And that is part of, as you say, the complete picture. When I took a perfume class as part of my sense of smell study, our professor had said that often a beautiful perfume will have some bad, you'll smell it and you would be like, Ooh, that smells bad. And yet it makes the perfume more beautiful.”
Gretchen Rubin is an author, podcast host, and self-improvement expert, who has written many New York Times bestellers, including one that hit #1: The Happiness Project, where Gretchen performed what she has now perfected—using herself as a lab through which to study how principles from throughout time act on us, and inform our understanding of the world. She extends this point-of-view into her podcast, The Happiness Project with Gretchen Rubin, where she offers actionable daily strategies for cultivating joy and well-being, along with her sister.
Today, we discuss her newest book, Life in Five Senses, which explores the powerful impact of embracing the world through sensing the world, rather than thinking about the world. It’s a book about experiencing: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. Through her extensive research and personal insights, Gretchen found that tuning into these senses provides relief from internal chaos while fostering our connection with the external world.
MORE FROM GRETCHEN RUBIN:
Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World
Happier with Gretchen Rubin Podcast
Gretchen’s Website & Newsletter
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
