Spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl, PhD, returns for a deeper exploration of shadow. We talk about our instinct to disown what feels dark or evil, and how tightly we claim the side of what’s good, clean, pure. But Hübl also paints a beautiful alternative: a gentle integration that allows us to illuminate, and own, more of our collective shadow bit by bit—and to transform it into something hopeful, healing.

If you’re new to the podcast, you can find my first conversation with Hübl (on locating “bad” feelings in our bodies) here, and our second chat (on sitting with discomfort) here.

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Rightful Instagram celebrity Sharon McMahon is known as “America’s Government Teacher.” Her new book, The Small and the Mighty, was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller. With her trademark warmth and wit, McMahon shares a few historical secrets, her approach to judging people from the past, and her perspective on our current moment in time. She also tells a remarkable story that may convince you to work with, instead of against, your enemies. 

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In this solo episode, I share some things that are on my mind right now, including: An experience I had revisiting my 22-year-old self. A powerful takeaway from a workshop on wanting and desire. And how I’m thinking about personal stories, memoir, and bridges to bigger collective stories. I also answer some listener questions (thank you, and please keep them coming).

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In this moving, live conversation with journalist Clara Bingham, we delve into the incredible stories that make up her latest oral history book, The Movement. Bingham reveals the highs and the lows of second wave feminism from 1963 to 1973, the women who transformed America during that time, and the reverberations that we’re still feeling today. I got choked up during this one.

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Legendary anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy gave us the term “allomother,” and by extension, “alloparent”—the pioneering idea that mutual care is the reason we’ve evolved to be the humans we are today. Hrdy, who is professor emerita at the University of California, Davis, has just written a new (and stunning) book, called Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies. Today, we talk about what she’s learned about human culture over the course of her long career, and the impact of her elegant hypothesis.

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Sharing an episode of Need a Lift?, a show that focuses on bringing people together during a tough time in our culture. Host Tim Shriver talks to wise guests who have transformed painful moments in their lives into purpose through their spiritual rituals and practices. Guests like bestselling novelist Min Jin Lee on why she creates complicated characters who hold the secret to our transformation, and Olympic athlete Michael Phelps and his wife Nicole discussing the importance of cultivating an inner life in competition, mental health and in their marriage. Need a Lift? is truly the antidote to the hatred and despair we’re all exhausted of hearing, giving us hope that change is possible. In this episode, The Office’s Rainn Wilson explains that we can quiet the world's chaos and deal with our collective sense of overwhelm by believing in something bigger than us. Find more episodes of Need a Lift? at https://link.chtbl.com/needalift?sid=pullingthethread

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“We need to be open to things that offend or transcend our worldview because they're clearly doing that for a reason,” says Jeffrey Kripal, PhD. Kripal—who holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University—returns to the podcast for a second time. We talk about different ways to understand the deeper realities of our lives, and his latest book, How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else. Yes, we get to time travel and conspiracy theories. And also what makes Kripal’s work fun—and funny.

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“I think it's good to relive the past and then revise your life,” says Edith Eva Eger. “Go through it, but don't get stuck in it.” The world-renowned psychologist, who survived the Nazi death camps, and went on to be a colleague of Viktor Frankl, just turned 97. And she just released The Ballerina of Auschwitz, which is the YA edition of her major memoir The Choice. She joins the podcast with her grandson, Jordan Engler, to talk about how her mindset has evolved—and what she still looks forward to doing.

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Dr. Jim Doty is a neurosurgeon, neuroscientist, and the director of Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. Jim is also a bestselling author—his first book, Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart, tells his improbable life story: Jim had a tough start in life. He wandered into a magic shop where he met the shop owner’s mother, Ruth, who offered to spend six weeks teaching him mindfulness and meditation—these weren’t really things at the time—and ultimately how to manifest. After a rollercoaster of a life, including manifesting the list of things he wanted as a tween, he found himself back at the bottom again, and began to attend to making real meaning with his life. This ushered in his last chapter, where he has become much more than a neurosurgeon: He is one of the leading figures in the globe drawing connections between the brain, compassion and care, and how love shows up in the world.

We caught up when Jim was in Riyadh, in the middle of the night for him—thank you Jim!—launching a new AI-enabled mental health app called Happi.ai, which isn’t therapy but is a friend in your pocket. Our conversation begins there before we dive into his newest book, Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How it Changes Everything. If you think of Manifestation as woo-woo, Jim explains why it’s actually not—and the underlying brain mechanisms that are activated when you focus attention and intention. 

MORE FROM JAMES DOTY, M.D.:

Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How it Changes Everything

Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart

Jim’s App: Happi.ai

Jim’s Website

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Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Lewis has one of the most illustrious resumés of all the guests on Pulling the Thread—and I think we’re the same age. Lewis is the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities and Associate Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University where she serves on the Standing Committee on American Studies and Standing Committee on Women, Gender, and Sexuality. It was at Harvard that Lewis pioneered the course Vision and Justice: The Art of Race and American Citizenship, which she continues to teach and is now part of the University’s core curriculum—as it were, Lewis is the founder of Vision & Justice, which means that she is the organizer of the landmark Vision & Justice Convening, and co-editor of the Vision & Justice Book Series, launched in partnership with Aperture. Before joining the faculty at Harvard, she held curatorial positions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Tate Modern, London. She also served as a Critic at Yale University School of Art. I’m not done—in fact, I could go on and on. She’s the author of The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery, a book on Carrie Mae Weems, and innumerable important academic papers. Today, we talk about The Rise and how it dovetails in interesting ways with her brand-new book, The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America, which is about the insidious idea that white people are from the Caucasus, a.k.a. Caucasian—an idea that took root in the culture and helped determine the way we see race today. 

MORE FROM SARAH ELIZABETH LEWIS, PhD:

The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America

The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery

Carrie Mae Weems

Sarah Lewis’s Website

Vision & Justice

Follow Sarah on Instagram

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James Hollis, PhD is a Jungian analyst who is still in private practice in Washington D.C. Hollis started his career as a professor of humanities before a midlife crisis brought him to his knees—and to the Jung Institute in Zurich. The author of 19 books, Hollis is one of the best interpreters of Carl Jung’s work, making it accessible for all of us who want to understand how complexes, archetypes, synchronicities, and the shadow drive our lives.

Hollis’s books are very meaningful to me—you’ll find a long list in the show notes—and the chance to interview him did not disappoint. In fact, at one point, where he describes what we do to boys as we turn them into men, I actually started to cry. Meanwhile, James Hollis still lectures—you can go to his site to find a way to see him live. The fact that he’s 84 and does not seem inclined to retire—in fact, he told me he has another book coming out next year—is a testament to how a vocation doesn’t feel like work. This is one of my favorite interviews to date. I hope you love it as much as I do.

MORE FROM JAMES HOLLIS, PhD:

Why Good People Do Bad Things: Understanding Our Darker Selves

Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up

A Life of Meaning: Relocating Your Center of Spiritual Gravity

The Broken Mirror: Refracted Visions of Ourselves

James Hollis’s Website

RELATED EPISODES:

Connie Zweig, “Embracing the Shadow”

Satya Doyle Byock, “Navigating Quarterlife”

Terry Real, “Healing Male Depression”

Niobe Way, PhD, “The Critical Need for Deep Connection”

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