Your Soul Is Calling - And How To Listen | James Hollis Ph.D

What if the depression you can't explain, the boredom that follows your "success," or the sense that something inside you is protesting isn't a malfunction, but your soul trying to get your attention?   In this conversation, I sit down with James Hollis, Jungian analyst, author of over twenty books, and one of the most respected voices working in psychology today, to talk about what it actually means to live a meaningful life, and why so few of us are ever given permission to try. We open on something deceptively simple: the gap between what the world wants from us and what our own nature is quietly asking of us. James explains why this estrangement is built into being human, shaped by early adaptation, cultural noise, and a nervous system never designed for the volume of stimulus we live inside today.   From there we move into the psyche as a self-repair system, one that will produce depression, addiction, and repetition compulsion not to punish us, but to get our attention. We talk about feelings as autonomous, honest data rather than something we invent, and that meaning is something we're obligated to discern for ourselves, not something a parent, culture, or institution can hand us. James shares his own decision to leave a secure, tenured academic post in his thirties, a choice many around him thought was reckless, and reflects on why honouring what's true for you rarely looks safe from the outside.   This conversation moves through grief, permission, the false self, the narcissistic agendas we all carry, and what Jung meant when he said the greatest burden a child carries is the unlived life of a parent. And it closes somewhere unexpectedly tender, on ageing, mortality, and what James calls the quickening of the spirit.   If you've ever felt a low hum of dissatisfaction beneath an outwardly "successful" life, this will help.   Feelings with Strangers YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@FeelingswithStrangers/videos Socials https://www.instagram.com/feelings.with.strangers/   James Hollis Site https://jameshollis.net/ YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@JamesHollisFilms   Books mentioned in this episode Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Meaning-Second-Half-Life/dp/1982683473 What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life https://www.amazon.com/What-Matters-Most-Living-Considered/dp/1592404200 Swamplands of the Soul: New Life in Dismal Places https://www.amazon.com/Swamplands-STUDIES-JUNGIAN-PSYCHOLOGY-ANALYSTS/dp/0919123740 Autumnal Days: Courage, Integrity, and Ownership of the Soul (forthcoming) https://www.amazon.com/Autumnal-Days-Courage-Integrity-Ownership/dp/1649635028