- 50 minutes 36 secondsWhat if You Could Stop Feeling So Bad about Feeling Bad? Finding Wisdom in Our Darkest Emotions. With Daniel Smith
What if the goal isn’t to get rid of our difficult feelings, but to change our relationship with them?
Our guest today is Daniel Smith, Psychotherapist and best selling author. Today we discuss his most recent book Hard Feelings. Finding the Wisdom in our Darkest Emotions to explore why emotions like anxiety, anger, envy, shame, and despair are such a challenging—but essential—part of being human.
Daniel shares how his own lifelong struggle with anxiety, major life upheavals, and how his work as a Psychotherapist shaped his understanding of our emotional lives. We talk about why labeling feelings as “negative” can make them harder to navigate, how we can get caught in the trap of feeling bad about feeling bad, and what it means to treat our emotions as signals rather than enemies.
We also explore the Buddhist idea of the second arrow, the importance of curiosity and self-compassion, and why cultivating wholeness may be more meaningful than striving for constant happiness.
If you’ve ever judged yourself for feeling jealous, lost your patience with someone you love, or wished you could simply switch off an uncomfortable emotion, this conversation offers a gentler way forward: pause, get curious, and remember that having a hard feeling is part of being human.
Resource: Smithmhc.com
NEW: I want to tell you about my new book, The Questions that make a Life. It includes quotes, prompts and reflections gathered from the last 10 years of untangle interviews. It’s Part book, part journal, One “testimonial calls it A wise, warm, and deeply human companion for anyone navigating the messiness of life. It’s available on amazon or there’s a link to a faster way to order on bookbaby.com. https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-questions-that-make-a-life
A special thanks to our amazing sponsors: Quince, Stio, Born Shoes.
MORE on this episode:
In this episode, we explore:
- Why Daniel wrote Hard Feelings and how his experiences with anxiety and major life changes shaped the book.
- How family dynamics and the emotional atmosphere of childhood may influence our own emotional lives.
- Why trying to eliminate difficult emotions can sometimes make them more powerful.
- The Buddhist concept of the second arrow—and how feeling ashamed of our feelings adds another layer of suffering.
- What envy can reveal about comparison, insecurity, and losing touch with what matters to us.
- How to acknowledge emotions without judging ourselves for having them.
- When acceptance is enough and when persistent emotions may call for deeper reflection or professional support.
- Why curiosity is such an important tool in relationships, especially when anger or frustration takes over.
- How to repair after emotional reactions rather than expecting ourselves to be perfect.
- The difference between pursuing happiness and cultivating a sense of wholeness.
- Why patience, mindfulness, and slowing down can help us stay present with uncomfortable experiences.
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10 November 2026, 11:30 am - 1 hour 3 minutesUnlocking Your Brain’s Potential: Seven Pivotal Steps. With John Sullivan.
In today’s encore conversation, John Sullivan, Clinical Sports Psychologist, discusses "The Brain Always Wins 2," his new book co-authored with communications expert Chris Parker. John has worked with several professional sports teams and is now head of sport psychology at high performance sport New Zealand. This new edition addresses seven pivotal areas of brain management which include Physical activity, Rest and recovery, Optimum nutrition, Cognitive function, Emotional management, Socialization and communication, and Synergy.
John discusses the intricate relationship between each of these areas in enhancing performance in any area of our lives. He emphasizes the importance of personalized nutrition, the role of carbohydrates in brain health, and the necessity of effective communication and social interactions for overall well-being. Sullivan also highlights the significance of emotional management techniques, such as breathing exercises, in optimizing cognitive function and performance. There’s a lot of great information here.
NEW: Order The Questions the Make a Life (no perfect answers) by host, Patricia Karpas. It's a distillation of the best quotes, prompts and reflections from the Untangle Podcast. Order on Amazon OR for faster delivery, https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-questions-that-make-a-life.
As always, we’re Untangle, the podcast from Muse, the brain sensing headband dedicated to unlocking your brains potential. Use code Untangle 15 at choosemuse.com for your 15% discount
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3 November 2026, 12:00 pm - 4 minutes 6 secondsConnect To What Matters Most Meditation. With Melli O'brien
Today's meditation is by Melli O'Brien and was created to inspire you to connect with what matters most. It can also be found on the Muse and Meditation Studio apps.
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2 November 2026, 3:00 pm - 49 minutes 22 secondsWhy Do Some Brains Stay Young? What SuperAgers can teach us. With Dr. Emily Rogalski
Today’s guest is Dr. Emily Rogalski, the Rosalind Franklin Professor of Neurology and the Director of the Healthy Aging & Alzheimer’s Care (HAARC) Center, both at the University of Chicago. She is a clinical and cognitive neuroscientist researching aging, Alzheimer’s, and related dementias.
Here’s the question we explore today:
Why do some people maintain extraordinary memory well into their 80s and 90s, while others experience cognitive decline much earlier?
Why do some resist dementia and others not so much?
Dr. Emily Rogalski studies Superagers, adults in their 80s and beyond who have memory abilities comparable to people decades younger. She and her colleagues are studying them to understand what makes their brains so remarkable.
What can these exceptional agers teach us about our own brain health? How much comes down to genetics, how much might be influenced by lifestyle, and what can we do today to give ourselves the best chance of aging well?
This discussion is rich with fascinating science and lot’s of practical information you can use.
She describes the difference between normal forgetfulness and dementia, new developments in Alzheimer's biomarkers, and the surprising clues researchers are finding in everything from brain structure to social connection to lifelong learning.
And while there isn't a magic formula for keeping our brains young, this conversation offers a hopeful new perspective on what it means to age well.
NEXT...
Check out the new book gleaned from Untangle. The Questions that make a Life, by Patricia Karpas. It includes quotes, prompts and reflections gathered from the last 10 years of Untangle interviews. It’s part book, part journal, One testimonial calls it "A wise, warm, and deeply human companion for anyone navigating the messiness of life." It’s available on amazon or here's a link to a faster way to order:
https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-questions-that-make-a-life
For more on Dr. Emily Rogalski, go to https://neurology.uchicago.edu/faculty/emily-joy-rogalski-miller
Check out Muse, the brain sensing headband at choosemuse.com/untangle. Use code Untangle15 for your discount.
Thanks to our wonderful sponsors: Quince. Born Shoes. Stio. Warby Parker. Scribe. Berkeley life.
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27 October 2026, 6:00 am - 16 minutes 46 secondsMeditation Monday. Let Things Be. A Favorite! With Ashley Turner.
Encoring one of my personal favorite meditations.
Welcome to a special weekly edition of Untangle, Meditation Monday. We’re taking this time to share meditations from our sister app, Meditation Studio. We know that life gets messy and, when it does, Meditation is here to help us find a sense of calm and inner peace. Whether you’re facing daily work or relationships stress, unexpected challenges, or just want to improve focus, we hope meditation Mondays will be your go to for a weekly guided meditation treat. And if you’re craving more…which I always do…the Meditation Studio app offers over 800 expert-guided meditations from over 70 of the world’s top meditation experts.
And best of all, you can now unlock 30 days of Meditation Studio for free at choosemuse.com/meditationstudio
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26 October 2026, 11:00 am - 1 hour 8 minutesTraining for Brain Health: Mental Clarity, Focus, Strength and Recovery. With Chris Aimone.
Today’s encore episode is with Chris Aimone, the cofounder of Muse, the brain sensing technology dedicated to enhancing mental fitness, focus and clarity. He’s a bit of an expert when it comes to the intersection of technology, mindfulness and the brain.
Our discussion delves into the importance of attention training, and why our emotional reactions play such a big role when it comes to maintaining focus and to overall brain health. Chris discusses the impact of distraction on our ability to connect with the present moment and shares how Muse’s Athena technology, with its eeg and Fnirs technology helps us train for mental clarity and focus, mental strength and endurance and for our ability to recover and recharge. continuous learning, he says, is essential for cognitive health. We also discuss how AI is used to personalize brain training exercises. If you’ve ever wondered about brain health and what it takes stay mentally fit, you’ll find this fascinating.
And, we’re playing a bit with AI as well. At the end of this interview, we’ve added a 14 minute AI podcast all about Athena. See what you think!
As always, we’re untangle, the podcast from Muse. Use promo code untangle 15 at choosemuse.com for your 15% discount.
Thanks, as always, to our sponsors. Quince, Jones Road Beauty, Vinted, Berkeley Life, Warby Parker.
NEW: You can pre-order the book The Questions That Make A Life, featuring the best of our Untangle guests, by Patricia Karpas.
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20 October 2026, 11:00 am - 7 minutes 5 secondsMeditation Monday. Moments of Joy. With Chrissy Carter. 7 minutes.
Welcome to a special edition of Untangle, Meditation Mondays. We’re taking this time to share meditations from our sister app, Meditation Studio. We know that life gets messy and, when it does, Meditation is here to help us find a sense of calm and inner peace. Whether you’re facing daily work or relationships stress, unexpected challenges, or just want to improve focus, we hope meditation Monday’s will be your go to for a weekly guided meditation treat. And if you’re craving more…which I always do…the Meditation Studio app offers over 800 expert-guided meditations from over 75 of the world’s top meditation experts.And best of all…get 30 days of Meditation Studio for free at choosemuse.com/meditationstudio.
Resource: Unlock 30 days of Meditation Studio for free at choosemuse.com/meditationstudio
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19 October 2026, 11:00 am - 48 minutes 32 secondsThe Vanishing Family: Your Brain, Dementia, Genetic Risk and the Question...Would You Want to Know? With Robert Kolker
What would you do if you had a 50 percent chance of developing a devastating genetic form of dementia—and you could take a test to find out whether you carried the mutation?
In this episode, Journalist and Bestselling Author Robert Kolker joins me to talk about his newest book The Vanishing Family, Love, Fate and the Quest to End Dementia and the extraordinary family at the center of his story.
The family lives with an inherited form of frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a disease that can dramatically alter personality and behavior while leaving memory relatively intact in the early stages. Their experience raises enormous questions—not only about dementia and medical research, but about identity, family, parenting, caregiving, and how we choose to live when we cannot know what the future holds.
In this conversation, we explore:
- Why Bob Kolker became fascinated with this family's story
- The family's rare genetic form of frontotemporal dementia
- What it means to face a 50 percent chance of inheriting a disease-causing mutation
- The agonizing decision of whether—or whether not—to undergo genetic testing
- Why some family members chose to know their genetic status while others chose not to
- How the younger generation faces questions about marriage, children, IVF, and genetic risk
- Why frontotemporal dementia can look so different from the dementia most people associate with Alzheimer’s
- How personality, behavior, and social awareness can change while memory remains intact
- The question of whether a person with advanced dementia has truly “vanished”
- What Bob learned about the personalities and skills that can make someone an effective caregiver
- Why caregiving can become isolating—and why caregivers may need far more support
- The challenge of developing treatments for rare diseases when there aren't enough patients to make traditional drug development financially attractive
- Why rare genetic diseases may offer important clues for understanding more common neurological diseases
- The emerging scientific interest in tau and its potential connection to future dementia treatments
- The complicated question of whether having more genetic information actually gives us more control
- And what Bob learned from this family about living in the present and spending our energy on what really matters
One of the most powerful ideas in our conversation is that dementia isn't necessarily an on/off switch—and that a person doesn't simply “vanish” when their memory or personality changes. Bob talks about the possibility of recognizing the person who remains, even amid profound neurological change.
He also reflects on how the experience changed his own life: he plans less, lives more in the present, and tries not to waste energy on things that ultimately don't matter.
About Bob Kolker
Bob Kolker is an award-winning journalist and author whose work often explores families confronting extraordinary circumstances. In this conversation, he brings together deeply reported family stories with questions about genetics, neuroscience, dementia, caregiving, and the future of medical research.
Resource: Robertkolker.com
Gratitude to our amazing sponsors: Quince, Berkeley Life, Vinted, Jones Road Beauty, Warby Parker
As Always, Untangle is the podcast from Muse, the brain sensing headband. Go to choosemuse.com/untangle and use code untangle15 for your discount.
NEW: NEW: You can pre-order the book The Questions That Make A Life, featuring the best of our Untangle guests, by Patricia Karpas.
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13 October 2026, 10:30 am - 56 minutes 28 secondsIs it Possible to Age-Proof your Brain and Slow Cognitive Decline? With Dr. Majid Fotuhi
Encore: Today I sit down with neurologist and neuroscientist Dr. Majid Fotuhi to unpack the science of neuroplasticity — the brain’s remarkable ability to change, rewire, and grow at any age. He’s adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins and author of the book The Invincible Brain: The Clinically Proven Plan to Age-Proof Your Brain and Stay Sharp for Life. We discuss many things related to his book, from building new connections to strengthening memory-related regions of the brain, to the five pillars of brain health…fitness, sleep, nutrition, mindset and brain training. , Dr. Fotuhi explains why “age-related cognitive decline” and even Alzheimers isn’t as inevitable as we’ve been led to believe. I was particularly intrigued with his concept of "the soup of abnormalities." There’s lot’s of great stuff here.
NEW: You can pre-order the book The Questions That Make A Life, featuring the best of our Untangle guests, by Patricia Karpas.
Resource:
https://neurogrow.com/
https://drfotuhi.com/
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6 October 2026, 10:30 am - 56 minutes 15 secondsWhat Does it Mean to Live a Good, Meaningful Life? Despite the (really) Hard Stuff. With Kieran Setiya.
A wonderful encore episode. I loved talking to today’s guest, Kieran Setiya, an Author and Professor of philosophy at MIT. I’ve always loved philosophy, but I was especially taken with the way Kieran applies it to our most challenging events, as well as to our day to day lives. In his book Life Is Hard, How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way — he offers us a roadmap for navigating rough terrain, from personal trauma to loneliness to grief to failure and the myth of the ideal life to injustice and even the absurdity of the world. It’s hard to summarize this discussion because there’s so much here, but his wisdom is rich with guidance on how we can face suffering and life’s inevitable hardships. He’s so eloquent in how he shares his insights on life >> from his rich archive of philosophy to his own personal journey. Life is a collection of small successes and small failures. And A good life, he says, is a way of living every day, DESPITE the hard stuff. He inspired me to reflect on quite a bit here. How do I live well, what makes a life meaningful, how do I face regret, aging, uncertainty…even what should I hope for given where I am in my own life.
He was originally inspired to philosophy by his own sense of wonder and undertow of worry at 7 yrs old. I love that…a blend of worry and wonder, anxiety and awe. How perfectly true!!
Kieran is also the author of Midlife: A Philosophical Guide. His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Times,the Boston Review,the London Review of Books, The Atlantic, and The Yale Review.
As always, we’re Untangle, the podcast from Muse, the brain sensing headband dedicated to unlocking your brains potential. Check out choosemuse.com and use code untangle15 for your discount.
Resource: ksetiya.net
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29 September 2026, 6:00 am - 45 minutes 17 secondsThe Freedom to Be Exactly Who You Are: The New Science of Self Esteem and Secure Attachment. With Marisa G. Franco PhD
Today, we’re exploring this question…What does it mean to feel truly worthy? Our guest is Psychologist, relationship expert and best selling author Dr. Marisa G. Franco. You may know her from her previous book, Platonic, which completely transformed how we think about friendship. In this discussion, We explore her groundbreaking new book, Worth, The New Science of Self Esteem and Secure Attachment. She begins by sharing her own vulnerable personal story of how her relationship's collapse revealed what she calls a "secure facade"—a protective play-acting of security that masked deep unworthiness and self-abandonment.
She unpacks why our culture’s obsession with secure attachment has turned it into an exhausting status symbol. Marisa explains why the path to genuine healing isn't pretending we are perfectly secure, but embracing a "secure-ish" life where we acknowledge our anxieties and avoidances instead of shaming them. From the neuroscience of repressed emotions to practical exercises like memory reconsolidation, tapping, and present-moment reparenting, this conversation offers a powerful, science-backed roadmap to restoring your attachment to yourself. This is an episode about, letting go of the need to prove ourselves, and finding the freedom to to be exactly who you need to be.
Resources: drmarisagfranco.com
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