Are you being held back by darker moments from your past? Would you like to find the courage to shine a light on some of the tragic or shameful moments that you don’t like to think about?
In this classic reissued episode, author and therapist MALCOLM STERN joins Andrew to discuss his book Slay Your Dragons With Compassion. Malcolm and Andrew talk about confronting your fears and working through blocks in a way that is compassionate to yourself and others.
Malcolm Stern is a psychotherapist with over thirty years of experience in the therapy room. His book is the result of his professional experience, but also of working through personal tragedy: his daughter Melissa took her own life in 2014, leading Malcolm to question every aspect of his work and life.
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:
How to Break the Spell You’re Under
Three Things Malcolm Stern 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 new men's retreat, Reconnect With Yourself, this autumn in the Brandenberg countryside near Berlin
Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things
Read Malcolm Stern’s book Slay Your Dragons With Compassion: Ten Ways to Thrive Even When It Feels Impossible.
Visit Malcolm Stern’s website
Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools
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
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Connie Zweig: How We Self-Sabotage: Understanding Your Shadow
SHADOW is a Jungian concept that refers to those traits we have suppressed in ourselves that may be waiting to find expression in our lives. This week Connie Zweig PhD returns to the podcast to talk about shadow-work for conscious relationships.
We explore:
How the unconscious erupts in our lives and sabotages our relationships
Why we can become caught up in repetitive arguments, criticism, distancing, projections, or addictions.
How the shadow forms in childhood and how to detect it when it emerges
Making a conscious relationship to the shadow, and choosing different outcomes.
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, including Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature and Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life, both of which have recently been reissued. Connie has been doing contemplative practices for more than 50 years, and is a wife, stepmother and grandmother.
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:
Psychology of Evil
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 new men's retreat, Reconnect With Yourself, this autumn in the Brandenberg countryside near Berlin
Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things
Read Connie Zweig’s books:
Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature
Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life
The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul
Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: The Dance of Darkness and Light in Our Search for Awakening
Explore Connie Zweig’s Substack, Shadow Work to Expand Awareness
Listen to Connie Zweig’s podcast with her husband, Dr Neil’s Spiritual Awakening to Non-Duality
Visit Connie Zweig’s website https://conniezweig.com
Follow Connie Zweig on Twitter @InnerWorkofAge and on Facebook at @Dr.ConnieZweig
Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools
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
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Graham Johnston & Matt Wotton - Good Boundaries: The Foundation of Happy Relationships
We all know that good boundaries are essential if we want happy relationships. There is a lot of confusion, though, about what exactly a boundary is and how to make it work. Can we have too many boundaries? Should we ever compromise on the boundaries we set?
In this week’s classic reissued episode, Andrew talks about boundaries with Graham Johnston and Matt Wotton from the London Centre of Applied Psychology. Matt and Graham share their own experiences of creating boundaries in both love and parenting, and what it means if we are struggling to get this right.
Our ability to set boundaries is linked closely to our attachment style: those with an anxious attachment may allow their boundaries to crumble too easily; while those with an avoidant attachment can have so many rigid boundaries that they struggle to let anyone in.
Andrew also shares a prayer for good boundaries, which he often uses with marital therapy clients:
'I am me and
You are you.
It's a miracle that we've found each other
But I'm responsible for my stuff
And you're responsible for yours'
Graham Johnston is a psychotherapist and educator. He is Director of Policy at The Bowlby Centre, the UK’s leading training institution in attachment-based psychotherapy, and has also worked for the UK Government, specialising in home affairs. He and Matt Wotton are the Co-Founders and Directors of LCAP.
Matt Wotton is a psychotherapist and executive coach, and also Chair of The Bowlby Centre and Director at LCAP. Matt has over two decades of experience in forensic mental health in the criminal justice system - in operations, coaching leaders, and advising ministers. He led the review of Race in the Criminal Justice System (The Lammy Review), commissioned by the Prime Minister, and has been a member of the Prison & Probation Board.
Follow Up
Attend Andrew's new men's retreat, Reconnect With Yourself, this autumn in the Brandenberg countryside near Berlin
Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things
Learn more about the London Centre for Applied Psychology (LCAP), where Graham Johnston and Matt Wotton work as Directors.
Learn more about The Bowlby Centre, the UK’s leading training institution in attachment-based psychotherapy.
Follow LCAP on Twitter and Facebook @LCAPsychology.
Read The Mindful Athlete by George Munford.
Read the poem “On Marriage” by Kahlil Gibran.
Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools
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 https://www.patreon.com/andrewgmarshall
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
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Charlotte Fox Weber : Sacred Monsters: Why Certain People Take Up Lifelong Psychic Space
There are people in our lives who mesmerise but at the same time diminish and damage us. They excite us about the possibilities life holds, while teaching us that we are not worthy of achieving them. Their impact can be so great that for years after we continue trying to replicate the intensity of our time with them, seeing everything through our monster’s lens.
Psychotherapist and author Charlotte Fox Weber joins me this week to discuss SACRED MONSTERS - the people we encounter in love, friendship or work whose devastating charisma may shape us for years after they depart.
We cover:
Charlotte’s personal experiences with sacred monsters
Scapegoats in family and society, and how they can also be understood as sacred monsters
The trickster archetype as sacred monster
The “perverse imp” inside us that can render us vulnerable to monsters.
Charlotte Fox Weber is a psychotherapist, author and the founding head of The School of Life Psychotherapy. Her latest book, Sacred Monsters will be available in 2026.
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:
Maternal Monsters
Three Things Charlotte Fox Weber 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 new men's retreat, Reconnect With Yourself, this autumn in the Brandenberg countryside near Berlin
Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things
Learn more about Charlotte Fox Weber’s book Sacred Monsters, available 2026
Read Charlotte Fox Weber’s book, Tell Me What You Want: A Therapist and Her Clients Explore Our 12 Deepest Desires.
Follow Charlotte Fox Weber on Instagram @charlottefoxweberpsychotherapy
Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools
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
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William Pullen: Run or Walk Your Way to Better Mental Health
Throw away your FitBit, stop counting your daily steps, and instead learn to run mindfully. If you can find the three key elements of space, silence and patience, you’ll be far more able to tackle big problems at work and at home.
William Pullen is a psychotherapist who helps clients using his revolutionary method of Dynamic Running Therapy. His work combines movement and talk therapy to harness the synergy of mind, body and spirit.
In this classic reissued episode Andrew and William discuss
🏃🏾♂️How a good walk is different from a good run
🏃🏽♀️The practice of “asking your run/walk a question”
🏃🏻What the way someone walks can tell us about them.
William also tackles a particularly thorny reader’s letter about what to do if you find that your smartphone use is taking over your life and spoiling your relationships.
Subscriber Content This Week
If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:
⭐ Running to improve your anger management
⭐ Three things William Pullen 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 new men's retreat, Reconnect With Yourself, this autumn in the Brandenberg countryside near Berlin
Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things
Buy William Pullen’s book Run for Your Life: Mindful Running for a Happy Life
Visit William Pullen’s website
Watch William Pullen’s TEDx talk “Movement is Medicine”
Follow William Pullen on Instagram @dynamicrunningtherapy and on Twitter @pullentherapy
Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools
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
Hello, I am a marital therapist, communications trainer and author. I have thirty-five years helping couples and individuals make better relationships. I have written twenty-plus self-help books which include the international best-sellers ‘I love you but I’m not in love with you’ and ‘How can I ever trust you again?’ My books have been translated into twenty languages. I trained with RELATE the UK’s largest counselling charity.
Perhaps it has been turning sixty but I have become interested in spiritual as well as psychological questions. Who am I? What are my values – as opposed to my parents, my teachers and the wider society? What makes my life meaningful? What do I believe about life, the universe and everything? Although my clients might come to me because of destructive arguments, falling out of love and infidelity, they are also interested in having more meaningful relationships and a more meaningful life.
So what is the meaningful life? Why do we so easily lose our way and get lost in depression, anxiety, doubt, addictions and obsessions: the swamplands of the soul? One thing I know for sure is that there is not one answer. Each of us has to find out for ourselves what makes our life meaningful. But we can learn from each other, share our experiences of how to navigate the journey, how to endure and learn from the swamp, and finally how to find solid ground.
I have decided to use my original training in radio and journalism to interview witnesses for what makes life meaningful. Each week, I invite someone who is a therapist, academic, self-help coach or who has an enlightening personal story to share their knowledge or experiences. I hope our discussions will help you discover what makes your life meaningful and find more purpose and contentment.
UK