Life Full On: The Art of Living Fully

We’re so excited to bring you a brilliant guest Chris Stedman, who is the ideal interviewee for a podcast about adapting spiritual practices and ideas in a way that is secular. Primo: Chris is a humanist chaplain and community builder who is not religious but whose work is informed by religious questions. He's driven by the specific ways that spirituality answers fundamental human needs. This has...

Suzanne Alderson is a mental health expert, author and community builder who founded the charity Parenting Mental Health following the attempted suicide of her daughter Issy. Whilst her work is dedicated to helping parents with mental health her story and book will resonate with anyone who has been a child, been a parent, wants to be a parent, wants good mental health or a society with mental heal...

John C. Parkin is the author of publishing phenomenon 'F*** It: The Ultimate Spiritual Way' which has sold over 600 000 copies. The book has changed people's lives with its simple message of saying 'F*** It' to unnecessary concerns, societal pressures and auto-generated stresses..This podcast is a clarion call to relax and give up any worries that are not warranted. What can you walk away from? Wh...

Our guest today is John Vervaeke - a cognitive scientist and Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto. James and I were both so excited to speak to him as he has undertaken an amazing examination and integration of modern cognitive science, ancient wisdom practices, philosophy, and history in his incredible YouTube series ‘Awakening From The Meaning Crisis’.  John’s theory is this: our cul...

Jonathan Rowson is a chess grandmaster and philosopher who is at the forefront of rethinking society at every level. Jonathan founded a research institute called Perspectiva that is publishing ideas, and organising an eco-system of change-makers dedicated to creating the world of tomorrow. Jonathan's work has been really influential on the development of LIfefulness, in particular his 'Spiritualis...

Today our guest is Shappi Khorsandi comedian, actor and author. I've known Shappi since we gigged on the stand up circuit together, and always loved her way of dealing with all manner of topics from politics to parenthood. Her passion for living a good life in a secular way led to her being elected President of the British Humanist Association in 2016 and today she is still the Vice-President. ..S...

Our guest today is Samantha Moyo. Sam is vibrating harpstring of a human. In 2013 she founded MorningGloryville - an early morning sober rave. The concept went off like a bass bomb. City workers, professionals and folk of all stripes were kicking off their day with a dance to DJs like Fat Boy Slim. Joyful, non-rational, transformative experiences are fundamental to being human, are a fundamental p...

Liz Oldfield is a remarkable woman who began life in TV and radio, before becoming director of the Theos Thinktank - which is dedicated to studying faith in the UK.  This means she’s the first Christian we’ve had on the show. Sound the trumpets, kill the fatted calf, sing hosannas in the highest, and then some even higher than that. Liz appears regularly in the media on matters of faith and cultur...

Today my guest is Guy Claxton - emeritus Professor of the Learning Sciences at the University of Winchester, cognitive scientist, author of over 30 books and a world leader in the field of education.  Combined with his background as a researcher Guy's a balls-to-the-wall spiritual seeker. Have you seen the Netflix documentary ‘Wild Wild Country’ about the Rajneesh community? Guy was part of the Ra...

Today we're speaking to Dan Snow who is one of Britain’s most recognisable historians. Dan’s a BBC TV presenter, filmmaker, author podcaster and even runs his own History Channel, History Hit. The guy loves history and is on a mission to pump as much of it out there as possible. Dan and Sanderson first worked together in 2013 when they created a secular Remembrance Sunday service. It turned out th...

Today we speak with Vanesa Gomez Brake, the Associate Dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California. Vanessa’s amazing because she is the first Humanist Chaplain to be a Dean of Religious Life in any American University. In her role, she works to support and promote university religious and spiritual life, serving the spiritual needs of all students regardless of their religious...

Today we are interviewing Tim Minchin - a comedian, musician, actor, songwriter and multi-talented genius. He’s played sold out comedy shows at the Sydney Opera House, his songs have gone mega-viral a bunch of times, he wrote the every award-winning musical Mathilda and we feel he should leave some of the success for everyone else. Alongside this he’s been a proud skeptic, atheist and humanist who...

Today we’re going to be talking money - which doesn’t seem that spiritual. Why are we doing that? Because before we launched our podcast we did a survey of the Lifefulness community asking one question: "What was preventing you living life as fully as possible?" A lot of people said money and finances. That’s why we reached out to Dasha Kennedy - the inspirational founder of the Broke Black Girl c...

OK. This is our favourite Lifefulness podcast so far. Start here. We love the other shows but this was special. Why? Because we changed the format to make it more loosey-goosey, a bit sillier. You get all the deep chat, all the dramatic life-changing insights AND dumb jokes. We explore: How you can introduce the benefits of religion and spirituality into your life, even if you’re not religious How...

Community Life is the third pillar of Lifefulness and is obviously vital to spiritual communities. We think of a congregation we think of community! We look through our own personal experiences of community, then dive into traditions, ways of finding community, the science behind it and some misconceptions we have about it. This episode would go particularly well when paired with our interview wit...

The second pillar of Lifefulness is Celebration because gathering together to adore what is sacred, or taking time to connect to your meaning individually, is a vital part of spiritual community. James and I explore our own experiences with celebration in Sunday Assembly and The Ethical Society, before diving into the science, history, traditions and practices. This podcast will give you ideas of...

This is the Lifefulness podcast from The Lifefulness Project but what is Lifefulness? This 6 Part Mini-Series goes over the 6 Pillars of Lifefulness and number 1 is Ultimate Meaning. Meaning decided what is important to you and Ultimate Meaning is the most important thing to you. This podcast is about the most important thing in your whole life. That's some claim. But how often do we really spend...

Our guest this week is Zoe Cormier, author of Sex, Drugs and Rock n’ Roll: The Science of Hedonism and the Hedonism of Science , who challenges us to take fun seriously. And not just fun: joy, ecstasy, transcendence, pleasure, the whole shebang. Zoe’s journalism has featured in Rolling Stone, The Times, Wired, Nature, New Scientist, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, BBC Focus and many other public...

Mark Stevenson is an author, futurologist, entrepreneur and podcaster. The book that catapulted him to renown was The Optimist’s Guide To The Future - which examined how humans could make the next century the best century.  Before you throw your phone into the sea because you don’t want to hear a mindless optimist, then let me reassure you, that’s not what you’re going to get. Mark describes himse...

Our guest today is Lennon Flowers - an amazing thinker, doer and creator who is an inspirational figure in this world of reimagining spiritual community in a way that is non-religious.  She does this through The Dinner Party - a non-profit that helps people in their 20’s and 30’s who have lost loved ones and are experiencing grief. The work is inspired by her own mother’s death when she was at col...

Matthew Parris is a legendary broadcaster, author, journalist and quasi-national treasure. We wanted to speak to him because frankly, who wouldn't? It's Matthew bloody Parris. But, he's also a really important voice in some huge questions that are of vital importance. One in particular comes from his experience losing his tribe. Matthew was life-long Conservative, he began his career as an MP, and...

Why are we looking for something more? - Lisa Smosarski James and I were so pleased to speak to Lisa Smosarski because as the founding editor of Stylist Magazine, she had a unique birds eye view over the culture that we’re living in today. We wanted to find out how her readers were answering their need for meaning and belonging in 2020. Also, Lisa is just one of those sparkling, shining people tha...

This is the trailer for Lifefulness: Live Life Fully a new podcast that is dedicated to (maybe you can figure it out from the name) helping you live life fully through Lifefulness. Congrats on figuring that out. Go you! Every week Sanderson Jones and James Croft interview incredible thinkers, doers, artists, and scientists, as well as folk from a religious background, to discuss the biggest questi...