Pulling The Thread with Elise Loehnen

Here, I'm sharing another podcast series with you, called Other People’s Problems. In her new season, host and therapist Hillary McBride explores the potential power of psychedelics in a therapeutic setting. She leads clients through drug-assisted therapy—and we'll experience these real, unscripted sessions as they unfold, and get a more honest look at therapy using psychedelics. Which I hope help...

Psychological astrologer Jennifer Freed, PhD, shares: What’s happening, astrologically speaking, that can inform the choices we make now, in the present. And she gives us a preview of what’s coming, and what opportunities the next astrological shifts will bring us. “Coming this summer, we will have a full transformation of planets and their signs,” says Freed. For the show notes and links to Freed...

Satya Doyle Byock is a psychotherapist, author of Quarter-Life, and a great teacher of Carl Jung’s work. She uses the I Ching, an ancient Taoist divination system, as a tool to help guide her life. (Not dissimilar to how others might consult tarot, astrology, Human Design, etc.) Today, we talk about the beauty of the I Ching, and much more. Including: How we’re seeking some combination of meaning...

“It’s a shame that we lose so much of that history and we silence so many of those voices when we just try to flatten the whole Bible,” says scholar, TikTok hero, and author Dan McClellan. Today we talk about why McClellan has chosen to attend to questions about the Bible, and challenge people who want to translate it, or negotiate with it, to the benefit of their own dogma. We also talk about how...

For April’s guest-less episode, I’m looking back on the wild ride that was this month, and trying to make sense of this period of contemplation in my life. I share a few realizations I’ve had about: uncertainty (involving Phil Stutz’s “evil wedding cake” theory); betrayal (involving a special tarot reading with Mark Horn); whether or not I have faith that the universe will support me (involving a...

“ Here are my real tools—because fantasy tools give you fantasy results,” says Laura Day, New York Times–bestselling author and renowned psychic. Today we get into her new book, The Prism, and her simple, effective approach to the kind of change that is often tiny, and incremental, and yet can reconstruct your whole life. For the show notes, head over to my Substack. Learn more about your ad choic...

What actually motivates us? When we disagree with someone else—how can we do it better? Social psychologist and author of Outraged, Kurt Gray, PhD, shares what he’s learned from studying the behaviors of people with different experiences. He corrects a few funny things we got wrong about human evolution. And he explains what “concept creep” and “the creep of harm” mean—and why we’re generally much...

“ My work is about getting the logjams out of your personal river so things can flow again,” says one-of-a-kind, intuitive coach Anne Emerson. Today, she outlines her process (holographic repatterning) for helping people to work through limiting beliefs—to recognize the false stories that we tell ourselves on repeat, and to break free from them. It’s perhaps surprisingly fun. For the show notes, h...

For decades, Elaine Pagels’s work has been changing the historical landscape of Christian religion. She’s also changed the way many people, including myself, see the world. Pagels is a religion professor at Princeton University, and the author of seminal, award-winning books like The Gnostic Gospels, and her newest, Miracles and Wonder. We talked about the surprising things she’s learned about Jes...

In this month’s solo episode, I spend some time thinking about why psychiatrist Phil Stutz observed that I’m holding myself back. And why I have a hard time with the idea of marketing, or promoting, my own work. I also share more about Phil’s concept of Part X—which gives you problems that you don’t need, and solutions to those problems that only make it worse. I think about how my own Part X has...

I had the great honor of writing a book with legendary psychiatrist Phil Stutz. Now that True and False Magic is out, I got to ask him about some of the concepts that have remained on my mind: the lie of certainty, the purpose of creativity, why some of the hardest parts of life are also what makes it compelling and fun, and why he believes I should be 10 percent more evil (and maybe you should, t...

Diego Perez is widely known by his pen name, Yung Pueblo. He’s a #1 New York Times bestselling author, and his latest book is How to Love Better. Today, we both share a bit about our own relationships, and what we’ve learned from our partners. We talk about the myths and archetypal relationships that are served to us, and how many of us have been conditioned to go into a relationship looking for s...

Diane Hennacy Powell is now known as the neuroscientist from The Telepathy Tapes podcast (it’s created by Ky Dickens, and it’s great). Hennacy Powell trained at Ohio State University and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where she received her MD and psychiatric training. She has been on faculty at Harvard Medical School. And she is a leading expert on autism and savant syndrome. Her research focu...

This episode has been a very long time in the making: Richard Rohr is a Franciscan friar, the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, and one of the most profound teachers. Today, we explore the prescient themes from his new book The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage. He helps us to make sense of disorder, evil, anger, and grief—and he helps us to find our fulcrum...

Chelsea Handler shares my favorite stories from her new book I’ll Have What She’s Having, along with a few poignant lessons she’s gleaned while growing up. She talks about a pivotal conversation she had after Jane Fonda called her in; what she learned about the futility of defensiveness in therapy; and how we might tend to our jealous thoughts. We also talk about how Chelsea has big-sistered so ma...

After finally getting to meet the incredible Richard Rohr (interview coming to the podcast soon), I sat down to reflect on: The unlikely road I’ve been on to become so immersed in Christian writers (was never on my bingo card), and what I misunderstood in my original interpretation of Jesus. What I’ve learned about dying to your small self and growing into your big self. What it means to be a prop...

I’ve had a few conversations with spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl but I finally got to talk to him about the topic that’s been on my mind for a long time: evil. How do we define, and perceive what’s evil? What role does evil energy play in our own lives? What transgressions might we take responsibility for, and how? What moral conflict is part of our work, and what does not belong to us? What’s the...

Loretta J. Ross’s particular approach to deciding when, and how, to call someone in helps us to avoid making other people’s problem our problem. It gives us a way to effectively be in conversation with people capable of causing harm—instead of trying, and failing, to be in defense of the vulnerable. Ross shares what she’s learned from watching people be manipulated into hating, and from helping th...

Psychotherapist Nicole Sachs has been pioneering a simple, yet remarkable approach to helping people with chronic pain, anxiety, and other very human conditions. Her story today begins with how she discovered Dr. John Sarno and eliminated her own debilitating back pain a few decades ago. Sachs explains why she’s come to believe that many chronic conditions stem from a dysregulation in the nervous...

There is a historical lack of research on the female body—and this has hurt women, men, everyone. But now, there is some fascinating research on the female body, which Cat Bohannon, PhD, shares today. (Bohannon is the New York Times–bestselling author of Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.) For example, Bohannon explains why the fat around our butts and hips is qui...

I recorded this month’s solo episode from the floor of the hotel room where I stayed for a couple of weeks after the fires broke out in Los Angeles. There, I met an incredible cast of characters and I started to process what’s happening in our city: Acts of bravery that have stunned me. The incredibly moving ways we have shown up for each other. Other very human responses that have created some di...

Why do we go along with situations that make us comfortable? What can we learn from nervous laughter, or a crocodile smile? If we’ve been conditioned to be overly compliant, how do we learn to be a little more defiant? How do we intuit when it’s the right time for us to comply, and when we’re better off defying? Sunita Sah—trained physician, Cornell University professor, organizational psychologis...

In the past three decades, renowned author Pico Iyer has made more than 100 trips to a small monastery in California. Today, he shares what he’s learned there, along with other moments of beauty from his new book Aflame. He talks about why many of us crave a particular type of silence, how to escape the trappings of our minds, why a recollection can be more profound than a realization, and how he’...

Trying to bring the best sparkly version of yourself to your own healing: It just doesn't work, says Katherine May. In this conversation, we return to May’s New York Times–bestselling book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. It feels more relevant now than ever. We talk about finding a home for lingering, unexpressed grief and for vast, unsettled feelings. We talk about re...

Drawing from Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy, Gabby Bernstein created this simple, and yet powerful, process that you can do for one minute a day—or whenever you need to check in with yourself and reconnect with the core of who you are. It’s a helpful tool for (safely) recognizing beliefs, behaviors, and patterns that limit us—and then befriending these smaller, childlike parts of us, instea...