The Meaningful Life with Andrew G. Marshall

Lots of us are afraid of the very word: fear. We’d rather say anxiety, or worry, or panic. 

Yet according to Thom Rutledge, fear underlies most difficult emotions, and is a close companion to shame. Fear plays into just about every decision we ever make in our lives.

To defeat fear, according to Thom, is neither possible nor desirable. Instead we need to live beyond its control, and to understand it. Rather than squashing down the voices of panic and dread, we can face up to them, explore them and respond. 

In this episode Andrew and Thom explore:

✅ The meaning of fear

✅ How we can understand fear in our own lives

✅ How our family background shapes our experience of fear

✅ Four ways we can start to “embrace fear”.

Thom Rutledge has been a psychotherapist for more than 40 years and is the author of several books, including Embracing Fear, The Self-Forgiveness Handbook, Earning Your Own Respect, The Greater Possibilities and What Love Is. He draws on professional training and experience as well as his own personal experience in recovery and personal growth to work with his clients.

Thom and his colleague, Dr. Allen Berger, co-host their own weekly podcast, Emotional Sobriety.

 

If You’re Looking for More….

You can subscribe to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts) and hear a bonus mini-episode every week. Or you can join our Supporters Club on Patreon to also access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests  and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

This week supporters will hear:

- Three things Thom Rutledge knows to be true.

- AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

 

Follow Up

Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things 

Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools  

Visit Thom Rutledge’s website

Read Thom Rutledge’s books, including Embracing Fear. 

Listen to Emotional Sobriety, a podcast co-hosted by Thom Rutledge and Dr Allen Berger.

Follow Thom Rutledge on Twitter @ThomRutledge

Read Andrew’s blog on how keeping a journal can help deal with difficult emotions: Top Twelve Benefits of Journaling 

If anxiety is a topic of interest for you, you may also enjoy Andrew’s conversation with Richard Paterson: No More Overthinking

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall

What happens when we ignore pain? 

Particularly if you’re a man, you have been taught that pain is the enemy – perhaps it is unmanly even to feel it – so you soldier on ‘it’s not that bad.’ or ‘it will go away if I can get a good holiday’ and you find ways to manage the pain. Women are often just as guilty – thinking ‘people are relying on me, I must keep it together’. After a while, we don’t really notice the pain – it’s like the hum of the fridge – always there.

We sort of know that a problem ignored seldom gets better but we plough on – sometimes in blissful ignorance – until there is a crisis and our world comes tumbling down.

My guests today are experts in what happens when it is impossible to stop pretending. Tyler and Brandon Patrick are brothers – Therapy Brothers (with a podcast of the same name). Tyler is a licensed marital and family therapist and Brandon is a licensed clinical social worker. They specialise in addiction and affair recovery…..

 

If You’re Looking for More….

You can subscribe to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts) and hear a bonus mini-episode every week. Or you can join our Supporters Club on Patreon to also access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests  and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

This week supporters will hear:

- Three things Therapy Brothers Tyler and Brandon know to be true.

- How to move on without answers

- AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

 

Follow Up

Attend Andrew’s mens’s retreat near Berlin in June 2026: details here

Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things 

Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools  

Listen to Therapy Brothers Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify

Visit Therapy Brothers official website to learn more about their work. 

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall

Why do women stop wanting sex? Why is it so hard to recapture the intoxicating desire of those wonderful early weeks and months of your relationship?

Irene Fehr has spent a decade working with couples as a sex and intimacy coach. Her specialty is women’s libido and sexual desire in long-term relationships.

In this episode Andrew and Irene discuss the nature of desire. Unless we understand what compels and creates desire at different life stages, we will not be able to create a passionate, connected sexual life that meets both partner’s needs.

As well as understanding desire, there are also practical steps you can take to rekindle your connection. Fencing off time away from your children (including the controversial act of locking the bedroom door) is key; as is taking small amounts of time each day (rather than weekly date nights) to spend in complete, uninterrupted togetherness. 

And if you are one of our wonderful Apple, Spotify or Patreon paying subscribers, this week’s bonus material sees Andrew and Irene discussing Seven Common Traps for Couples Making Love.

Irene Fehr is a sex and intimacy coach. Her articles and advice on sex, female libido and sexual pleasure are regularly featured in publications including Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan and Thought Catalog.

 

If You’re Looking for More….

You can subscribe to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts) and hear a bonus mini-episode every week. Or you can join our Supporters Club on Patreon to also access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests  and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

This week supporters will hear:

⭐️Three things Irene Fehr knows to be true.

⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

 

Follow Up

Attend Andrew’s mens’s retreat near Berlin in June 2026: details here

Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things 

Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools  

Take Irene Fehr’s free video course on How to Want to Have Sex Again 

Learn more about Feed Your Libido, Irene Fehr’s signature online program for women.

Visit Irene Fehr’s website

Follow Irene Fehr on Twitter and YouTube @ignitedwoman  and on LinkedIn.

Read the books discussed in this episode: Women’s Anatomy of Arousal by Sherrie Winston, and The New Male Sexuality by Bernie Zilbergeld.

Find out more about Betty Martin’s Wheel of Consent 

Listen to other The Meaningful Life episodes on sex and relationships: Tracey Cox on Great Sex After Fifty and Dr Terry Real on Five Traps that Undermine Your Love

 

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall

David Kessler is one of the world’s best-known experts on grief, yet nothing could prepare him for the loss of his beloved son at the age of 21. Just as he’d advised his clients for decades, David attended grief groups, saw a therapist and sat with his pain. 

In this episode, Andrew and David discuss how society wants us to grieve versus the reality of loss. We will likely never “get over” the loss of someone close to us, nor will we learn life lessons that somehow compensate us for our pain. It is possible, though, to locate meaning in how we survive and experience loss.

Andrew and David also explore Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s famous and now much contested “five stages of grief” (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance) and discuss how useful they are in today’s landscape.

David Kessler’s new book is Finding Meaning:The Sixth Stage of Grief. His previous books have been praised by Saint (Mother) Theresa, and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. He has co-authored two books with Louise Hay and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. David also creates online communities who take courses together to learn more about the process of grieving.

 

If You’re Looking for More….

You can subscribe to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts) and hear a bonus mini-episode every week. Or you can join our Supporters Club on Patreon to also access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests  and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

This week supporters will hear:

⭐️Three things David Kessler knows to be true.

⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

 

Follow Up

Attend Andrew’s mens’s retreat near Berlin in June 2026: details here

Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things 

Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools  

Join David Kessler’s online healing group, Healing the Five Areas of Grief.

Visit David Kessler’s website to explore resources including videos, webinars, books and training courses.

Follow David Kessler on Twitter and Instagram @IamDavidKessler and on Facebook @DavidKessler.  

Read Andrew’s book on grieving the loss of his partner My Mourning Year

You may also wish to listen to Andrew’s interview with palliative care physician and author Dr Kathryn Mannix, What You’ve Been Told About Death Might Be Wrong.

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall

Finding meaning and fulfillment in the second half of life requires us to make a conscious transition. We must explore “the unconscious denial and resistance that erupts around key thresholds of later life” if we are to be happy as elders. 

In this episode, psychotherapist and author Connie Zweig, PhD talks with Andrew about how to become an elder who is filled with purpose and vitality. She explains the concept of “shadow-work”, and how it can help you:

⚡️Repair the past and be fully present

⚡️Accept yourself as you are

⚡️Rediscover the creativity you may have lost along the way.

⚡️Move “from role to soul”.

Connie Zweig, Ph.D., is a retired psychotherapist, writer, and Climate Reality Leader. Known as the Shadow Expert, she has written several books about shadow-work, as well as her newest best-seller on aging as a spiritual practice, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul. The Inner Work of Age won both the 2021 American Book Fest Award and the 2021 Best Indie Book Award for best inspirational non-fiction. 

Connie has been doing contemplative practices for more than 50 years, and is a wife, stepmother and grandmother. After all these roles, she’s practicing the shift from role to soul.

 

If You’re Looking for More….

You can subscribe to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts) and hear a bonus mini-episode every week. Or you can join our Supporters Club on Patreon to also access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests  and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50. 

This week supporters will hear:

⭐️Three things Connie Zweig knows to be true.

⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

 

Follow Up

Attend Andrew’s mens’s retreat near Berlin in June 2026: details here

Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things 

Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools  

Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter The Meaningful Life, and join the community there. 

If you're interested in joining one of Dr Connie Zweig's groups, you can email her at The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul.

Take a look at Dr Connie Zweig’s other books 

Visit Dr Connie Zweig’s website 

Follow Dr Connie Zweig on Twitter @InnerWorkofAge and on Facebook at @Dr.ConnieZweig.

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall