Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

On the (roughly) 300th episode of Being Well, Forrest and Dr. Rick share what they’ve learned from the many experts in psychology, personal growth, and mental health they’ve talked to on the show. They explore the importance of individual context, the gap between insight and action, self-honesty and acceptance as the catalyst for change, incremental change vs. sudden breakthroughs, and the role of...

Somatic therapist Elizabeth Ferreira returns to the podcast and joins Forrest for a deep dive into somatic psychology. They explore what a somatic therapy session looks like in practice, how it differs from traditional talk therapy, the connection between the body and the mind, and why people with complex trauma are sometimes better served by body-based approaches. Elizabeth then talks about how s...

If you listen to a podcast like ours, you’re probably familiar with the phrase “daddy issues.” A more accurate way to understand daddy issues is as a form of attachment wounding, which describes situations where our adult relationships are affected by complicated, difficult, or traumatic experiences we had as a child.  In this episode, Forrest and Dr. Rick explore what daddy issues are, how they r...

Eric Zimmer, a behavior coach and the host of The One You Feed podcast, joins Forrest and Rick to explore what really supports us in changing our ingrained patterns of behavior through the lens of Eric’s journey with addiction and recovery. They share the key lessons from speaking with hundreds of experts, the role of insight, why some people go from insight to action and others don’t, acceptance,...

Dr. Rick and Forrest open up the mailbag and answer questions from listeners related to how we can build better relationships (particularly with our families) and deal with difficult people. They explore the common traits of happy families, how to deal with people who weaponize psychological jargon, navigating different perceptions of “what happened,” and repairing a damaged relationship with a ch...

All of our relationships include some conflict, the big question is how skillfully we handle that conflict when it appears. Dr. Rick Hanson joins Forrest to walk us through some effective ways to deal with common forms of interpersonal conflict. They explore the four common disagreements, the subtle ways power shows up in our relationships, separating content from process, and how to stand your gr...

The main topic we explore on the podcast, in many different ways, is change. How can we come to understand ourselves better, let go of who we were, and become who we wish to be? In this episode Dr. Rick and Forrest are joined by meditation teacher and former Zen monastic Caverly Morgan. They discuss how we can release our conditioning, identify the inner voice that leads to change, and get to the...

Before becoming the “Buddhist brain guy” Dr. Rick spent over 30 years working in private practice as a couples counselor and family therapist. Today we’re leaning on that experience, and learning what we can do to build healthier, happier, and more fulfilling relationships. Watch the Episode: Prefer watching video? You can watch this episode on YouTube. New Online Course From Dr. Rick: Learn the t...

We often know what we “should” do, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do it. Today Dr. Rick and Forrest are joined by Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman and Dr. Jordyn Feingold to explore how we can learn to consistently choose our best selves, overcome barriers to growth, and fully actualize ourselves. About our Guests: Scott is a cognitive scientist, humanistic psychologist, professor at Columbia Universit...

This is the podcast’s five-year anniversary, and over that time I’ve submerged myself in psychology, self-help, and personal growth content - and as a result I’ve changed in many important ways. At the same time, some things have been very hard to change. It's surprising how even after learning so much I still often feel like I’m pushing the same old rocks up the same old hills.  On today’s episod...

We’ve come to the end of another year, and it’s a good time to take stock and consider how we’d like to grow and change during our next trip around the sun. In this episode, Forrest and Dr. Rick focus on what supports us and what holds us back from reinventing ourselves and becoming all we wish to be. They talk about how they’d like to change over the next year, different approaches to new year’s...

We think of stress as “bad” for you, but what if some forms of stress could actually help us grow and change for the better? On today’s episode Forrest and Dr. Rick are joined by Dr. Elissa Epel, a psychologist and leading stress researcher, to explore the science behind the stress response. They talk about the different forms of stress, what separates “good” stress from “bad” stress, how we can t...

Criticism is an unavoidable part of life. But even though we’re all going to be criticized from time to time, many of us spend much of our lives living in fear of criticism. Then, on the flip side, we’re all critics ourselves. We’ve all been in situations that aren’t quite what we want them to be – so we need to either do something to change them or accept them as they are.  On this episode Dr. Ri...

“All the time I work with dying people, and only a few of them know they are dying.”  On this episode of Being Well, Soto Zen teacher Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison joins Forrest and Rick to explore living, dying, and personal practice in the midst of our beautiful, challenging, messy lives.    About our Guest: Sensei Koshin is an author, Zen teacher, Jungian psychotherapist, and co-founder of the Ne...

We’re living in an anxious time, and part of the reason we’re anxious is because there are very real challenges we face both individually and collectively. But we’re also affected by the natural tendencies of the brain, which is easily influenced by fear and threat. On this episode of Being Well, Dr. Rick and Forrest Hanson focus on how we can see threats clearly and be the “right amount” of conce...

These days couples often shoot for 50/50 in their relationships: an even split of responsibilities in the home or at work. But 50/50 often leads to fights over fairness, and this fixation on fairness can be the death of many relationships. On this episode of Being Well, Forrest and Dr. Rick are joined by Nate and Kaley Klemp to explore how we can build fun, fulfilling, and truly equitable relation...

If you’re the kind of person who listens to mental health podcasts, you’re more likely than average to get pulled into an impromptu “helping role” with your family and friends. Sometimes we seek out these roles, but they can also be uncomfortable or one-sided. And sometimes we get stuck playing a role for someone else that we never wanted in the first place. On this episode of Being Well, Forrest...

It’s one thing to feel good about what we do, and another to feel truly worthy from the inside out. When we increase our self-worth it allows us to take our needs more seriously, get on our own side, and change our lives for the better.  On this episode of Being Well, Rick and Forrest explore how we can develop a more durable sense of self-worth. They talk about self-worth vs. self-esteem, what ca...

Diego Perez, widely known by his pen name Yung Pueblo, joins Forrest to explore how we can deepen our personal practice, refine the mind, break old patterns, relax the self, and feel lighter than we were before. This was one of my absolute favorite conversations I’ve had on the podcast, and being with Diego was a real pleasure. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. About our Guest: Diego Perez is...

We all make mistakes in life. When we do it's important to take appropriate responsibility, feel the "wince," and make amends as we can. But after we've done that...then what? Many people find it easier to forgive others than they do to truly forgive themselves, and it's not uncommon to be burdened by excessive shame and guilt that has outlived its expiration date. On this episode Dr. Rick and For...

On today’s episode of Being Well, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, the author of The Body Keeps the Score, joins Rick and Forrest to explore how trauma keeps us stuck, and how we can use imagination, self-expression, and creativity to break away from those old patterns. Along the way they talk about using somatic and non-cognitive interventions, internalized abuse, the value of a developmental perspective...

On this episode of Being Well, Rick and Forrest answer questions from listeners. They explore what they’re still working on in their relationship, how we can disengage from obsessive thoughts and old patterns, Rick’s thoughts on psychedelics and how they can be used with discernment, their views on whether human nature is innately cooperative or competitive, and much more. If you’d like to ask a q...

In 2016 Jason Kander was a rising star in the Democratic Party. After narrowly losing the race to become one of Missouri’s Senators, he began laying the groundwork for a Presidential run. Jason unexpectedly pivoted to declaring his candidacy for the 2019 Kansas City mayoral election, and quickly became the clear favorite. Three months into that campaign he ended his candidacy and stepped back from...

On the previous episode of Being Well, we talked about how to identify our wants and needs...but identifying our needs is just the first step. After that comes the tricky business of coming to terms with those needs, and communicating them effectively to other people. In this episode, Dr. Rick and Forrest Hanson explore best practices for claiming and expressing our needs. This includes how to nav...

Everyone has needs, but many people find it difficult to identify what authentically matters to them. Even when we can identify them, shame or fear often stops us from expressing those needs to others or taking the practical steps that would help us achieve them. Meeting our needs is a major source of well-being, and people who can identify their needs are more likely to get them met. On today’s e...