Finding the Throughline with Kate Hanley

Most of us know the basics of decision-making--name the problem, list the options, weigh the pros and cons of each, and choose the best one. But sometimes, the straightforward, tried and true approach just doesn’t work. Especially now in the Covid era, when there are so many added decisions we’ve needed to make that often feel like impossible choices. For some decisions, you need a way to cut thro...

OK the pandemic did NOT help us have a healthy relationship to screens. Not that all screen time is bad, but... we could all pretty much use a check in on how much time we spend starting at a screen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There’s a scientific term for the phenomenon of acting differently online than you do in real life, it’s called the internet disinhibition effect. So if you get fired up and leave snarky comments or bad reviews, you're living out a scientific principle!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Smartphones are designed to be addictive. If you can't stop looking at yours, it makes sense. Does that mean there's nothing you can do? No. Dr. Jud Brewer, a New York Times best-selling author, neuroscientist, addiction psychiatrist, and thought leader in the field of habit change, is here today to talk us through getting out of that craving state of mind. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

Anytime you are online (unless you’ve paid for a subscription service with no ads), SHOPPING IS EVERYWHERE!! It’s very, very hard to resist. Which is tough on our willpower, which is a finite resource that burns pretty quickly, our credit card balances, and the environment. Let's break that see, click, buy cycle. Or at least interrupt it. Fast Fashion Turning Parts of Ghana into Toxic Landfill Lea...

All our connectivity makes a lot of things easier, but there are some things where you don’t really want to take the easy route: for example, fostering day to day closeness to people you love. Survey That Found that Americans Spend 59 Hours a Week on the Internet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, you commit to something. Something that helps keep a very manageable amount of your energy directed toward making a difference. I'll also share how I came to be secretary of the PTO--and why I'm so glad I did, despite the meetings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In what I think might end up being the shortest How to Be a Better Person podcast episode ever, your tiny assignment today is just ridiculously simple. But hearing why it matters so very much will help inspire you to do it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You may not have 50,000 followers on Instagram or a million followers on tiktok, but you still have influence. Today’s piece of the challenge is to take the information you gathered on who is already doing the work on the thing you want to help address, and use your influence to help spread the word about their work and their needs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here’s a crucial thing to keep in mind when it comes to making a difference on issues big and small, global and local: You don’t need to be the savior rushing in a white horse. In fact, you'd likely only make things worse. Instead, your task today is to find someone who's already working on the thing you care about, so you can add your support to the cause. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

This week on the podcast I’m doing something a little bit different. Because I’ve gotten such a great response to my free I Give a Shit sticker (it's a nice antidote to the I give zero effs thing that’s been floating around) and because there are just so many things happening in the world that, if you are a person who gives a shit, can really weigh on you, this week we're going to relieve some of...

Your emotions aren’t here to torture you; they’re messengers, giving you information about what you value, need, and want. Here's one question to ask yourself to figure out what information your anger is trying to convey. (Then it won’t have to try so hard to get your attention.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Each of us has a set of beliefs about anger that we’ve been carrying around since we were little. By taking a little time to think about what those beliefs are, you can get a little more objectivity and perspective on this emotion that so often prevents you from thinking clearly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I wanted to talk to someone who could help us think about anger in new ways and potentially interrupt any of our habitual patterns around it so that we’ve got some space to learn some new skills for dealing with it. The person I’m talking to today is Andrea J. Lee. Andrea is the author of the blog "We Can Stop Being Abusive" on Substack, the controversial article "I Verbally Abused my Husband: Her...

There’s nothing wrong with anger management strategies, which are fine but, to use a healthcare analogy, learning how to manage anger is trying to mitigate symptoms, instead of treating the root cause. Let’s look at some of the many, many things that can give rise to anger so that you can see what root causes that you might be able to address. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/a...

This week's episodes were inspired by a listener question about feeling angry all the time lately, and what to do about it. And since anger is definitely having a moment (all that cooped-up angst has to have somewhere to go), let's figure out what all this collective anger might be here to show us. First question: is anger a bad a thing? Or a good thing? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit meg...

Even when you’re busy and don’t feel like you have a lot of time to do things just for the fun of it, you can increase your experience of fun by tuning in to how fun feels in your body. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Let’s face it: Adulting can be a real slog. The list of things to do and take care of can feel relentless. However, that does not mean that doing the things you need to do has to be boring, or tedious. You CAN use fun to goad yourself into doing those things you have to do, and enjoy yourself while you’re doing it Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I’m interviewing Dr. Rachel Allyn, a relationship and sex therapist and the author of the new book, The Pleasure Is All Yours: Reclaim Your Body’s Bliss and Reignite Your Passion for Life. After all fun and pleasure go hand in hand, and if you’re listening from the United States, we live in a pretty repressed society where pleasure is either frowned upon or just ignored. Let's turn that beat...

In order to invite more fun into your life, it helps to give some thought to what you consider to be fun, and what you’ve been doing for fun lately, and objectively assess whether you might need to prioritize fun a little more. I think of it as doing a fun inventory. That may sound like a clinical approach to playfulness, but what you inspect, you respect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit m...

I get that fun can feel frivolous, and that it’s easy to think that we should wait until things calm down before we even consider doing something just for the fun of it. But fun is not just enjoyable, but also it’s vital to our wellbeing and even to our very purpose for being on this planet in this body at this juncture in time. Woah. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who embrace leftovers, and those who turn their nose up at them. By the end of this episode, I hope you’ll be firmly in the embrace ‘em camp, if you’re not there already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We can’t talk about how to get better and making more of your own food without also talking about getting better about grocery shopping. After all, you can’t cook what you don’t have. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Let’s be honest, figuring out what to eat can also be overwhelming. So today, I’m interviewing Kate Schulz, co-host of the Dinner Sisters podcast, for her tips on how to figure out what the heck to have for dinner. Kate is a home cook through and through with no professional chef experience or training, so she can definitely relate to that feeling of having no idea of what to make for dinner and o...

While you definitely don’t need any formal training to be a great home cook, having a couple techniques up your sleeve can make things a lot easier. So today I’m sharing three cooking strategies that, over the years, have saved me weeks of time. I did learn them from a pro, but not in a class or culinary school. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices