Psychology to Live By

I found this roundtable discussion of the 6 Missing podcast to be both delightful and thought-provoking. First, we discussed the idea of an addictive personality and how we can convert such impulses into 'useful addictions'. We also agreed how 'comforting' TJ Dumser is as a person as reflected by his insights, vocal tone and general demeanour. We explored the idea of ‘state dependent cognition’, which led to a discussion of the shift in psychology to include somatic or body-based therapies. A quite profound discussion followed about accepting our relative insignificance and how this takes a self-imposed weight off our shoulders. We agreed that a new insight was that ambient music doesn’t so much dictate what emotions we are to feel, but allows us to uncover what's there and finally, we explored how TJ’s music is a type of mindfulness practice.

Not surprisingly, the podcast with Chloe Carmichael ('Can I Say That?') stimuated a very spirited and thoughtul roundtable discussion. Topics discussed included: the importance of finding a common humanity with people whose views we strongly disagree with; how technology amplifies our differences and deeply reinforces more and more extreme ideas; how our own authenticity and integrity is restored when we do speak up; the talking cure - which allows us to articulate that which ails us; the devestating impacts of self-censorship and self-suppression; the limits of free speach, especially speech inciting violence and intended harm; the deep need to continuously have the debate and conversation about protecting free speech for everyone. 

This podcast discusses Chloe Carmichael's book: 'Can I Say That? Why Free Speech Matters and How to Use It Fearlessly'. Chloe explains how to unlock the mental health benefits of free speech. We also discussed the neagtive side of thought and speech suppression: we explored secondary gain, especially the growing prevalence of victimhood. We also explored the link to bullying, poor mental helath and lowered resilience. More positively, we discussed not only how free speech unlocks creativity and growth, but is also a key foundaiton for civic virtue and civic health.

This Music, Creativity & Mental Health podcast is with Jake Isaac, who is a Manchester-based, multi-instrumentalist with a distinctive style as a singer-songwriter fusing soul, jazz and rock. He’s had a stellar career having worked with and supported a diverse range of artists from Sting, India Arie, Ella Eyre, Paloma Faith, Lake Street Dive, Joan As Police Woman, Angus and Julia Stone, Tori Kelly and Elton John. This was a really stimulating discussion and you’ll see what a delightful, gentle and thoughtful man Jake is. Themes in this conversation included: the central role of one’s ‘internal antenna’ or intuition in the creative process; how Jake’s managed a happy medium in terms of family and wellbeing, not compromising his music and learning how to be content with what he has; his advice to musicians to be true to their creative identity, not just to copy others; the spiritual and sacred aspects of music; the role of highs and lows, including suffering in making art authentic and relevant; the centrality of the African philosophy of Ubuntu or ‘I am because we are’ in Jake’s whole approach; and his advice to young artists to both diversify and to get enough rest to sustain and stimulate creativity. It was a wonderfully diverse and well-humoured conversation, and I hope you love it too.

The Sharon Niv podcast on psycholytic ketamine therapy stimulated a deep andvibrant roundtable discussion. We began by exploringg state-dependnet memory - highlighting the fully embodied (cogntiive, motivational, emotional, physiological) nature of memory and the consequent link to somatic-based therapies. We briefly discussed the positive implications of an adffordable and readily available means of accelerating psychological growth. We then dug deep on neuroplasticity (the way the brain restuctures itself to instantiate change). This appears to be the primary action of ketamine, and paired with intentional activity (therapy, journaling, intriospection), this creates very promising outcomes with psycholytic ketamine dosing. We then went broader into the notion of habits and 'loops' being more amenable to intentional change, extending the efficacy beyond therapy to more everyday challenges. Finally, we discussed the centrality of receptivity and openneess in providing the user with a sense of agency and psychological safety.

Dr Sharon Niv, is the cofounder of Joyous, a platform for providing Psycholytic, or very low dose, Ketamine Therapy. The promise here is an affordable, effective mode of treatment that is effective and possible at scale. Sharon takes us through what a psycholytic dose is; how ketamine at this level affects people; the neuroplastic action of ketamine and how this is integrated into therapeutic practice; the safety of the protocol; and details of the actual process. Central to this discussion is memory reconsolidation to resolve trauma and other debilitating psychological patterns that repeat on a kind of psychic loop. In essence, it appears that repeated doses in conjunction with intentional inquiry and/or therapeutic assistance helps separate the memory part of trauma or habitual distress from the full-brain-activated dysregulation that generates a whole system of distress: somatic, episodic memory, nervous system activation, emotional memory processing, and narrative stories. It was a delightful and stimulating discussion. 

This was an insightful and inspiring conversation with TJ Dumser from 6 Missing. He’s an ambient artist, award winning sound designer, mixer and composer based in Austen Texas. Themes in this conversation included: how music really helped TJ overcome his addictions, anxiety and depression; how creating ambient music provides a platform for listeners to feel their emotions and to practice a form of mindfulness; the double-edged nature of social media, which can both connect people and make them feel more alone; the therapeutic value of sharing experiences; how quitting alcohol, exercising and changing his eating habits significantly improved his well-being; and the importance of gratitude in dealing with anxiety and negativity. I took a lot from this conversation and I hope you do as well. 

The Dr Henry Venter podcast led to a spirited and thoughtful roundtable discussion. Topics included: how do leaders in workplaces 'show up' for young workers who are fully remote? How do we help them with person-to-person connection?; Expanding the conversation beyond the (terrible) impacts on youth ,but also on older folk; thevery real problem of future jobs and vocational assistance to youth; how implementing some 'old-fashioned, in-real-flesh, social life is part of the solution to digitally-induced loneliness.For more information on National University, please visit: https://www.nu.edu

My guest on the podcast is Dr. Henry Venter. Henry is a licensed clinical psychologist and professor of psychology. He is currently the Program Director for the Master of Arts Human Behavioral Psychology Program and Professor of Psychology at National University (https://www.nu.edu⁠). Dr. Venter’s research focuses on the rising mental health issues among young adults, including the increasing rates of loneliness, and the role that declining meaning and purpose has in undermining happiness and fulfillment in life. By current estimates, up to 25% of young people in the USA are suffering from loneliness, a lack of purpose and meaning accompanied by a type of general resignation and withdrawal into a digitally mediated world. Today’s podcast focussed on the nature of this loneliness, its causes and impacts – especially social media and excessive online life, and how modern life is creating the conditions for social disconnection, disengagement and lowered wellbeing - especially for youth. Henry suggests what needs to be done, specifically that young people seek therapy, coaching or mentoring to help them and to do this proactively before they may become unwell. He urges any type of exercise, playing sport or just ‘moving’ - engaging in activities outside the home. He also emphasises the importance of interacting with real people in real life situations, especially sharing common interests in clubs or shared pursuits. He is a voice of calm reasoned optimism and practicality in the face of great need.

The first topic in this roundtable on the Portair podcast was self-concern versus egolessness and that learning to co-exist with self-doubt creatively leads to more authentic experience. We also discussed how: self-concern Is typically not very objective; metaphorical and symbolic levels of significance in works and art entrain vast networks of significance and meaning beyond our conscious grasp; the ‘listener’ co-creates the artwork and that ‘the song you (the artist) like the least will be more most popular song’; the artist is like a conduit for life experience and how experiences ‘write us’; how crippling self-doubt and lack of confidence can be to someone’s talent; and how creative process and evolution act as an analogue for each other: just try and do and some of it will catch fire and that creativity is about ‘finding the diamond in the rough’.

This is a roundtable discussing my podcast with Dr David Clarke on the promise of neuroplastic symptom therapy for chronic pain and ilness. Neuroplastic symptoms are those that are generated by the brain. Topics discuss included: whether people could self-treat if they understand the theory and practice of the approach; the disctinction was drawn between neuroplastic symptoms following organic issues or damage, versus those following psychological trauma ; there was vibrant discussion about neuroplastic treatment bringing hope and relief to millions who either can't find traditional medical treatments, or for whom those treatments are ineffective; the scale of the issue was higlighted with millions of people in the USA alone affeccted by neuroplastic symptoms; discussion of transcending mind-body dualism; the issue of being 'ready' for such an approach and that a subset of peolpe would likely resist the implication that it is 'all in your head'; the importance of mediacl practictioners having this understanding to complement their practice.

A fascinating conversation with Dr David Clarke as he explains Neuroplastic Symptom Therapy. Dr Clarke defines neuroplastic symptoms as brain-generated, as distinct from pain emanating from body damage or illness. It appears a very high percentage of the US population has such symptoms, which respond poorly, or not at all, to traditional medical treatments. We discuss how the brain generates theses symptoms and the benefits that patients derive from Neuroplastic Symptom Therapy, which changes their brains giving them not only symptom relief, but positively changes their lives and work. Patients learn to lsiten to their symptoms, often discovering unrecognised emotions old traumas or Aversive Childhood Experiences (ACE's) that express themselves via the body. Results with this approach are astonishing and are backed by gold-standard Randomised Controlled Trials. All in all, a wonderful discussion.

This is a conversation with Drew Southwell, better known as indie singer, songwriter, producer and composer Portair. We had a free-flowing and candid conversation about music, mental health and creativity in which we touched on many topics including: Drew’s background as an artist; his drive to create and the factors that nurture his creativity; the centrality of uncertainty and the tolerance of ambiguity in the creative process how the true meaning of what one creates often emerges much later; the foundation of symbol, metaphor and analogy in the creative process; learning to productively co-exist with one’s self-doubt; the primacy of doing or ‘just starting’; the joy ands and benefits of collaboration; Drew’s own mental health experiences and how therapy very positively changed his life; the important distinction between healthy and unhealthy perfectionism; and other topics. It was a delightful and illuminating conversation for me, and I hope you experience it that way as well.

This roundtable discusses my podcast with Bill Goodwin and especially his book, Priority Living. Topics explored included Bill's definition of 'legacy' as what we leave in others; we talked about how refreshing Bill's wisdom is, born of lived experience; parenting was discussed in terms of guiding our kids via the 7 Pillars of Bill's book and innoculating them with those values; as with Bill's death and resuscitation, we also explored catalysts in our lives that wake us up from 'the big sleep' and reorient us to live more intentionally; how important actual modelling of these pillars is as parents; how not to be too perfectionistic about this as kids take a 'weighted average' of what we do, and are actually quite resilient; and finally, a discussion about the difficulty and guiltlmany people experience when trying to relax. 

This podcast showcases Bill Goodwin discussing his book 'Priority Living: 7 Pillars to Make Your Life Count'. The central thesis is that to be happy and to have a life of satisfaction, one needs to base it on a clear purpose, or what Bill calls 'intentional living'. He discusses the pivotal life experience of dying and being resuscitated, and how this second chance inspired him to not waste his life or to let it drift. Bill takes us through the 7 Pillars with earthy, real-life examples laced with pithy quotes. Throughout we discuss how contemporary psychology provides empirical support and guidance for much of what Bill has discovered.

This roundtable discussion of the podcast Music Creativity & Mental Health with Harrison Storm focused on three or four main themes. The first was intuition: how do we know when to trust our intuition? This led to a discusion of what intuition is, when it is needed, and it's relation to expertise. In artistic enterprises intuition is needed to naviagate ambiguity and often results in authentic expression. The second theme was how Harrison used the Covid period to grow personally and artistically, especially by having time to reflect and to explore somatic therapy and the PEM training method to enhance his performances. We also discussed a sense of accomplishment amidst the challenge of not workig a 9-5 job with clear measures of achievements and milestones. Finally, we explored Harrison's growth musically and how he embodies 'appreciative humility.'

This roundtable discussing the Garrett Wood podcast began with a discussion of the difficulties for managers having to performance-manage people who may have mental health issues or who may be neurodivergent. We discussed the two duties that any manager has to balance: the duty of care and the duty to manage performance. Other topics included: the power of emotional reasoning to bias thought outside direct awareness and how preconscious feeling states inplicitly structure concious thought; how medications designed to numb emotionscan be a problem as it is important to learn what imporant things those emotions are conveying to us; we also discussed how this can lead to feeling disembodied as we compress and numb our feeling states; the tight relationship between identity and burnout andhwo they relate to staus and self-esteem; how tendncies to burnout are reinforced by workpkace reward systems.

This podcast with Garrett Wood, entitled 'Healing the Problem Under the Problem', explores Garrett's work helping high-masking professionals break free from burnout, chronic stress, and the imposter syndrome, building sustainable success without sacrificing health, happiness, or relationships.Garrett is a National Board-Certified Health & Wellness Coach, Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, and Executive Function Specialist. We started with Garrett’s background and what led to his passion for working with burnout and high performers. As is often the case, a tragic suicide of a very high performing colleague was the catalyst for the wonderful work he does. We explored the relationship between high performance and burnout; how one can recognise burnout in oneself, especially as it manifests in the mind, the emotions and the body. We then discussed the shortcoming of traditional approaches and finally explored Garrett’s approach that starts with body regulation, then relating with compassion to one’s painful feelings and thoughts that are masked by apparent thriving and resilience, and only then using reason to restructure more adaptive, healthy understandings of self.

This is a wonderful conversation about music, mental health and creativity with Harrison Storm, indie-folk singer and songwriter, in which we touched on many topics including; Harrison’s background and trajectory to a musical career; songwriting and singing as self-discovery and emotional catharsis; the centrality of intuition for both wellbeing and creativity and being in tune and true to self; Harrison’s maturing as an artist and taking a broader, less attached outlook; mindfulness and somatic therapy as methods to sustain creative output; using the PEM acting method to cultivate his performance skills and elevate his experience of performance; the wonderful feeling of calm connectedness and authentic communication in performance and how performing in this way feels like ‘a better version of myself’; the distinction between entertainers and artists; the dilemma of a contemplative artistic life and feeling guilty about not achieving enough each day. It was a delightful and insightful conversation, and I hope you really take a lot from it.

This roundtable on the third personality podast, Building Character, traversed quite complex and nuanced terrain: the scientific basis for morality beyond the effects of culture and politics; the difficulties of navigating moral disagreement; the problem of in-groups and out-groups; the imperative to grow one's moral thinking; how good character bestows high status and respect, but that status can also be accrued via pseudo-esteem for bad moral characters; the problem of lies and lying becomeing normalised, even respected; the important insight that evolution is not about flourishing or moral good, but about passing on genes; and that moral wisdom is an emegent possibility of our success as a species. 

The podcast Building Personality begins with a distinction between personality and character: the former you are born with, and the latter you build. Character is a a moral stance to the world and good character seeks flourishing for self and others. Character is examined through the lenses of moral realism and evolutionary adaptation. I then provide examples of character development starting with recalibrating our extreme personality traits. There is also a discussion of the Dark Triad personality disorders and how they are so shocking given our moral wiring. I end on the observation that cultivating relationships is the key not only to a viable morality, but a life of satisfaction and wellbeing.

In this Music, Creativity and Mental Health roundtable we discuss the podcast with singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Max Frost. THat conversation was full of Max's deep reflections and insights and this prompted an equally deep and significant discussion with my friends from Nettwerk Music. Topics covered included: the music industry as a 'rat-race' in which the prospect of the loss of status is worse than never attaining it; the 'cycle of torture' that increasing one's audience can subject artists to; managing one's ego, especially managing social media comparison; that although social media has amped up concern with metrics, this has always been there in the industry; that there are 'many doors to the room of creativity'; the chaos of overwhelming commoditisation of music; and the seductive and perverting nature of fame.

In this roundtable discussion of Personality & Developing Character Part2: Can You Change Your Personality?, we explored a wide range of issues: How ageing and declining neuroplasticity may make personality recalibration more difficult; how we really need to be motivated for change to be possible; how becoming more comfortable with who we are allows us to better curate our environment; how it is harder for younger people to change due to lack of experience; how humility is a part of self-acceptance; how understanding personality's hereditary nature may help us be less prone to the fundmental attribution error; do certain personality profiles make it harder to garner self-insight?; ageing and the dropping away of filters to the real self; how an introvert may learn to do public speaking by making it a more introverted style; and how self acceptance needs to be paired with caring for others.

This podcast, Can You Change Your Personality, is part 2 of a series on personality and the building of character. It begins with a brief summary of what personality is and then focuses on the deeply debated question of whether you can substantially change your personality. Recent research suggests by mindfully practising alternative approaches you can somewhat recalibrate the expression of your underlying personality. It is not wholesale change. That doesn’t mean it’s not incredibly helpful. Typically, we seek to chang personality where our natural preferences lead to trouble, especially where our egocentric bias leads us astray. Moderating these mismatches between personality and the world is a great idea. This then leads to an introduction to the idea that character is what results from this kind of intentional , mindful practice. An analogy is made with computing: that personality is akin to the computer’s operating system and recalibration is like software patch applied to fix glitches. Finally, I discuss how this recalibration can have deep moral implications, a topic I’ll take up in the third podcast.

In this Music, Wellbeing & Mental Health podcast I talk with singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Max Frost. We had a wonderful conversation and we touched on many topics including: the role of anxiety in the creative process; learning to drop expectations that ‘this matters’ and learning not to care so much; technology and the evolution of art, especially the speed of music production; the myth of the tortured artist; tthe relationship between great art and psychological pain and suffering; the relationship between the imposter syndrome and career success; being transported by music as a meditative-like experience; the unconscious, non-literal and poetic elements of creative production; the mystery of why and how music effects human beings so powerfully. All in all, it was a great conversation and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 

This roundtable discussion of the podcast 'Personality and Developing Character Part 1' was very lively and filled with insights from the participants:. Topics discussed included: the surprising virtue of being average on personality dimensions; the understanding of a wider range of people when you are centrally located on the traits; some fantastic examples of the egocentric basa!; a live personality assesmmet of one of the participants; the importance of reciprocal altruism in business deals; how an understanding of the Big 5 can really help us better navigate relationships and not take things quite so personally; how understanding the Big 5 breeds tolerance and empathy. All in all a fantastic discussion!

This is the first in a podcast series on personality and the building of character. I’ve called it ‘Being the Best You Can Be’ because, in my opinion, this is the best way to fulfill our most important of desires: to maximise wellbeing for ourselves and for those around us. An important way to maximise wellbeing is to understand one’s own personality and to have the skills to recalibrate it to function more wisely in everyday life. This is what I mean by the development of character.1. This first podcast will address the questions: ‘What is personality?’ and ‘Why does it matter?’2. Podcast 2 will suggest practical strategies for adaptive change. This naturally raises the highly debated and important question of whether you can change personality, including how we can recalibrate our natural preferences when needed.3. Podcast three will then apply all this to the development of character and a practical moral outlook. In the first podcast describe the general features of personality: • that it is a preference system and thus motivates us emotionally• that this deep motivational system is largely unconscious, that is before we reflect on it consciously, we are already predisposed to situations in predictable ways • that personality it is crucial to understand as it influences everything we do and knowledge of that is of utmost importance in living a happy and successful life• that personality is largely genetic and for most people doesn’t change much across the lifespan, so accepting, working with it, it is absolutely necessary• that each dimension of personality is distributed on bell curves and the further we are apart from each other on each dimension, the harder it is to understand that person• that this is a part of the egocentric bias, whereby we project our worldview onto others and become upset when they are not like us… but they of course do the same towards us! • that re-calibration is the answer when we find ourselves in environments that don’t naturally suit us.I then give brief summaries of the Big 5 : Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness Extraversion, Agreeableness and Emotional Stability. Finally, we explore a number of combinations of these 5 traits, indicating how they help us ‘cut through’ and understand people and their behaviour more clearly.

This is a roundtable discussion with my friends from Nettwerk Music. Our subject was the Music, Creativity & Mental Health podcast with Robot Koch. It was a deeply insightful and wide-ranging discussion that appropriately matched the often deep and fascinating discussion I had with Robert. Topics discussed included: Why do people decide to be artists even though they know it is likely to be difficult, insecure, stressful and so on; Becoming comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity, learning to trust it, even value it, as a key for creativity; Fluid versus Crystallized intelligence and how that informs intuition; Quietening down and placing the brain in a more contemplative state to encourage intuition; Social Media and the shifting music industry landscape, especially the ‘compare and despair mindset that can result; Sensitivity and listening to the quiet inner voice of intuition, and tuning the internal antenna; The importance of navigating difficult experiences for one’s creative and personal development.

This roundtable discuses the third podcast in the Staying Composed series and is titled ‘Cultivating Equanimity Within Everyday Life’. Topics discussed included: how so many small things can build equanimity; how we should cultivate a certain skepticism or epistemological humility in the face of misinformation and disinformation; how we need to transcend particular disputes looking for the larger picture; how we need to strike a balance in attending to, and turning away from, media reporting; why we ought to be grateful for our existence; how eudemonic happiness is central to equanimity in modern times and the importance of having a ‘why’ for what we do’; how authentic relationships are central to general equanimity and the primacy of action in the face of a divided world.

The first 2 podcasts in the Staying Composed in Troubling Times series focused on more direct psychological strategies for equanimity, but the focus in this third podcast is on less direct, but nonetheless very practical strategies that lead to inner calm and composure. I broke these into four, overlapping categories: 1 Maintaining physical health & resilience; 2. Intentional information and media consumption; 3. The active pursuit of purpose and of awe and; Prosocial action, compassion, gratitude and civility. Although there is much to worry about in the world, it is fortunate that there are so many ways to practically nurture equanimity and this series, hopefully, gives people a few extra practices they can add to their wellbeing toolkit!

Today in this Music & Mental Health Podcast I’m talking with artist, composer and record producer Robert Koch, who is much better known by his stage name, Foam and Sand. Originally from Germany, At the age of 13 he was inspired by MTV videos and embarked on his musical career. Now residing in Los Angeles, Robert has a stellar background in composing and producing his own work as well as for other major artists. Our topics are creativity and music and their relation to mental health, with a focus on what challenges our wellbeing and our creativity and what Robert has found that nurtures his creativity as well as he physical and mental wellbeing. I found this conversation very uplifting, and topics touched on included: the toll that touring took on him physically and psychologically; his decision to follow his passion, trust his intuition & stop touring; artistic sensitivity as a ‘super-power’; the relationship between intuition and a sense of coherence; meditation and accessing intuition; egolessness and the problems of the ego; healthy perfectionism and intrinsic motivation; being comfortable with the unknown; and other topics.

This roundtable on cultivating equanimity psychologically, with my esteemed friends from Nettwerk Music, explored many implications of the podcast: that you can always exert some control over your response to the world; that playing the victim keeps us stuck and is a psychological trap that extends our suffering; that the Fundamental Attribution Error feeds into polarisation and hatred; that mindfulness is at the core of slowing down and magnifying mental contents so they can be recognised and changed; that we must start with self before we try to change others and the world, and thereby we can better infleunce others; and that choosing our repsonse is circumscribed by the very real constraints on our access to high qulaity information and knowledge, and by the pressures to 'choose a side' and not take more nuanced and middle-gound positions. As always with my colleagues from Nettwerk, thsi was a wonderful conversation!

Many of us are finding contemporary life unsettling. This second podcast in the series focuses on psychological pathways to equanimity. We cover a lot of gground: the Serenity Prayer and the freedom that potentially lies in the space betwen stimulus and response; the power to choose as exemplified by Viktor Frankl; The role of courage and of Mindfulness in equanimity; the Buddhist notion of the Sacred Pause and how this can be applied using the 2 Conditions Test and finally, how all of these strategies are 'defusion' techinques as we defuse our identity from our automatic thoughts and feelings. 

This roundtable with my colleagues from Nettwerk Music explores the podcast with Martin Kerr, a British Canadian singer songwriter based in Edmonton, Canada. It was a broad-ranging discussion on topics including: creativity as a connection to the ‘undermind’ or unconscious intelligence; the central role of intuition in this process; the role intuition has in life decisions and career moves; the importance of learning from one’s own experience and the problem that others can’t really tell you what you should do; the centrality of music in communal spirit; how music can be a mirror window into the human experience that allows that listener to connect to the artist through this feeling; collective effervescence in a group as a feeling that transcends you, but includes you; eudemonic joy being based in meaning and purpose beyond self; and how the latter relates to the purpose at Nettwerk of connecting people and artists. A great discussion!

This roundtable discussion of the first 'Staying Composed' podcast is full of deep and practical questions and insights. The topics discussed included: how equanimity is not a one-off, not a black and white phenomenon, but rather an ongoing activity that results in a continuous changing of our experience; how often after a triggering reality is in the past, we have to now apply equanimity to our ongoing thoughts, feelings and reactions; the power of taking one's upset as useful data and thereby choosing to be less upset and taking relevant action as a result; the issue of virtue signalling where'I'm superior to you because you are not suffering as much as I am'; how everyone has to find their own path to equanimity; how elite sportspeople practice a type of equanimity; and about de-identifying with, and letting go of, upset in favour of pragmatic problem-solving. A wonderful conversation.

The central theme of this podcast series is equanimity as the antidote to the stress of living in turbulent times. Defined as the ability to maintain inner calm when the world around us is objectively disturbing, this podcast begins by exploring the nature of equanimity. We see that it is a very active psychological state that is in dynamic engagement with the world. It is not passive and is not a state of retreat from the world. We then suggest there are three broad methodologies for cultivating equanimity: Psychological; Practical and Action-Based; and Social. We begin by exploring the foundations of emotional intelligence: remembering to take responsibility for our emotions. We then see how paying attention to our reactions, especially our mindset, allows us to rethink and to redirect our attention, and thereby, to be more equanimous. The following podcasts will go into more depth in explaining these three broad ways to cultivate equanimity.

In this Music & Mental Health Podcast I’m talking with Martin Kerr, British-Canadian singer-songwriter based in Edmonton Canada. Martin shares what he's found that helps him balance music, relationships and family life. We discuss many topics, including: how success is the result of years of grassroots community building, how music is fundamentally about community, communication and sharing emotional truths, how intrinsic motivation is the key to a creative life, how singing and performing are both therapeutic and restorative, and other topics! A wonderful conversation. I hop eyou enjoy it.

This roundtable explores how we manage others to better navigate difficult conversations. Topics covered included: a discussion of a workplace culture of 'feedback for redirection', which is more akin to coaching rather than telling; how asking questions for which we don't have the answer does not mean we shouldn't prepare ideas or have opinions entering into difficult conversations; how and why it is more challenging to have difficult covnersations with people we are closer to; and how important trust-building is to an honest feedback culture (where we cannot always guarantee a positive outcome to someone if they tell us the truth).

Part 3 of the Mastering Diffiicult Conversations podcast series focuses on how we manage other peoples' psychological states. Topics discussed include: how confidence reduces our avoidance of difficult conversations; how we help others to reframe, refocus and redirect; and how peolpe's needs are legitimate and helping them feel safe also helps them them shift to higher needs such as partnering and co-experimenting.

The Music & Mental Health roundtable discussing my podast with Jon Bryant was very insightful and stimulating. As usual, my friends at Nettwerk Music took the conversation to very interesting places including: an exploration of how meditative mind states generate openness and curosity to what shows up - a 'waiting-upon' rather than a predictive mode; the metaphor of the mind as a 'mobile' as a means to understand how the conscious and unconscious mind integrates experience; the maturing artist becoming less self-focused, more aware, more balancd and the healthy integration that creativity can bring; and how there is a type of 'resonance' as we tap into a more collective consciousness, feeling a part of something that transcends yet includes us. All in all, a thought-provoking discussion!

This Q & A explores issues arising from 'Mastering Difficult Conversations Part 2 (Managing Self). Topics discussed included:stepping outside one's reaction and pausing and seeing how this breaks habitual patterns in self and others; how, in dealing with personality-disordered people it is less about changing them, and more about protecting self and others around them; when we are not getting win-wins the importance of equanimity and how to get our ego out of the way and not be upset by the other person's non-willingness to change.

When we find ourselves in a difficult conversation, or when we are anticipating one, before we can manage other people skilfully the first task is usually to manage our own emotions and reactions. The best approach is to be proactive. Such ‘Approach Coping’ enables us to manage our own thoughts, behaviours and emotions and to take care of our own needs. It then allows us to better manage the needs of the other person and the conversation generally. This second Managing Difficult Conversations podcast provides strategies for self-awareness and for in-the-moment self-management.

This was a thoughtful and illuminating Podcast in which we discussed Music, Creativity and Mental Health. Themes in this conversation included: Jon's latest album "Therapy Notes" and explore the therapeutic role of music in processing emotions and life experiences; how music can help transform difficult experiences into something bearable and beautiful; the relationship between creativity, mental states, and environmental conditions; how meditation helps Jon access creative mind states; creativity as an integrating process that allows individuals to trust their own process more; the concept of love and its spiritual dimension, especially as it involves surrender; how the music industry rewards narcissistic behavior and has become a social media popularity contest, while offering little financial security; how Jon credits a more structured lifestyle focused on regular exercise, healthy eating, and balance, for his career longevity while managing multiple creative pursuits including music, acting, and visual art. It was a wonderfully diverse conversation and I hope you love it too.

This Q & A explores issues arising from 'Mastering Difficult Conversations Part 1 (What's Going On?)'. Topics discussed included: how nurturing trust over time makes subsequent difficult conversations much easier; the distinction between naive and mature trust; the distinction between reacting and responding, and how we can use analysis of conversational dynamics to shift to responding; the importance of preparing for difficult conversations; and the development of confidence in one's ability to navigate difficult conversations well. 

The first of this 3-part series on mastering difficult conversations begins by describing 'what's going on' when a conversation is difficult. We see that the threat system in our brain is activated when there is low trust and this inhibits our capacity to think collaboratively and creatively. By contrast, we generally want there to be high trust so we can experiment and create together. So the first task is to assess the dynamics: to see what states in ourselves and in the other person need shifting to create more trust. The following podcasts explore how to do that.

This roundtable discussed the podcast with Alyssa Coco and Matt Merritt and focussed on the following themes: how 'comparison is the thief of joy' and the necessity of transforming the cycle of comparison to a cycle of inspiration; how studying others' successes builds one's own success; how mindfulness can help in identifying one's negatiev reactions thereby allowing a more positive perspective; how typical these challenges are for the Indie artitst; how brave and honest Alyssa and Matt were ini this discussion; how early success and signing with a label is just the ffirst of many mountains to climb, and how unprecendented and problematic the contemporary access to artists is via social media. 

This Roundtable discusses the "Thee or Me?" podcast - subtitled ‘Altruism & Compassion’. Issues discussed include: how all people are contradictory and may have within themself a 'community of selves'; how polarisation is fed by social media, how we are all prone to it and are offered incentives to be extreme; the problem of scale and the innumeracy of empathy; the salience of the negative in social media; the problem of the lack of direct accountability in social media; how the antidote to polarisation is compassion and altruism; and why it is 'reciprocal' altruism and not just altruism. 

Part 2 of ‘Thee or Me’ uses the lens of evolutionary psychology to explore our moral complexity driven in large part by the tension between hardwired self-interest and reciprocal altruism.  The crowning glory of homo sapiens is our ability to cooperate. There is little doubt it is THE thing which enabled us to survive and thrive as a species. Topics explored include cheating and deception, moral outrage and virtue signalling.  Four broad solutions for living wisely are suggested: self-skepticism and humility; the separation of powers within society; non-zero-sum cooperation; and finally, compassion.

In this Music & Mental Health Podcast I’m talking with Alyssa Coco and Matt Merritt from singer and songwriter indie pop band Roses and Revolutions. Our topics, as usual are creativity and music and their relation to mental health, with a focus on what challenges our wellbeing and our creativity and what Alyssa & Matt have found that helps. We discuss how Alyssa has learne to cope with her OCD and how both she and Matt navigate the challenges of constant comparisons, the deluge of performance data and the pressure of faster and faster song cycle. Particular topics covered included the power of perseverance driven by passion and intrinsic motivation, how productivity in the long run leads to success for most, and the value of playing music with others, especially the benefits of mixing with different people and playing different styles of music. 

This Roundtable discusses the "Thee or Me?" podcast - subtitled ‘Morality & The Prisoner's Dilemma’. Issues discussed include: that genetics can play a part in personal morality and different moralities are reflected in the egocentric bias common to us all; a discussion of behavioural economics and the way culture and public forces can nudge or 'crowd in' or 'crowd out' individual virtue; how wisdom may include the development of character to overcome the shortcomings of our nature; and the extent to which we can escape or transcend our genes. Again, the development of character was discussed in this context.