The Meaningful Life with Andrew G. Marshall

What does gratitude actually mean? It isn’t just about being nice or saying thank you a lot. According to Chester Elton, who has been called “the apostle of appreciation”, gratitude cuts to the heart of who we really are. Gratitude exists at an emotional level and is about who is in our lives, what we find meaningful and how we live.  If we make time for gratitude, we can find a way to live that m...

You exist at your own centre; so you are the only one who is in the right place to look and understand your individual being. Richard Lang has devoted his life to exploring and teaching “the headless way”: a unique system to answer the question of what life means and who you really are.  Richard met Douglas Harding, author of On Having No Head, as a teenager, and knew immediately that the headless...

How do we find meaning out of a difficult childhood and a troubled mother-daughter relationship? In this episode Nigerian-American writer, mindfulness practitioner and educator Itoro Bassey speaks with Andrew about how to mother the wounded child inside. Itoro now lives in Nigeria (after being born and raised in the USA) and is the founder of the digital course, From Surviving to Thriving: Becomin...

2020 wasn’t the easiest year to feel in control of our lives: a lot of us experienced loss, loneliness, and illness. Yet through my podcast, I feel like I learnt a lot about changing your life in a meaningful way. My guests shared wisdom on so many different aspects of life - sex, love, masculinity, gender, disability, companionship, spirituality, therapy, cynicism, to name just a few - and I feel...

Nathanael Garrett Novosel started his quest to understand the meaning of life at the age of six. He is the author of The Meaning of Life: A Guide To Finding Your Life’s Purpose, which sets out 8 concepts key to finding meaning. In his book and in his teachings Nathanael helps people answer questions like “why are you here?”,  “how does life work?” and “what are you supposed to do with your existen...

Martina Schneider is a psychologist and a teacher of Vipassana meditation. Her work with clients combines a therapeutic and a spiritual approach. In this episode, she talks with Andrew about her own spiritual journey, including intensive study of the Vedanta tradition in India and being ordained as a nun. Martina offers her thoughts on the time and the deep commitment it requires truly to understa...

Joe Horton founded Guild of Dads after losing his own father in 2015. This huge loss launched him on a journey of self-discovery, during which he was able to shape a vision for himself and begin to create a more meaningful life.  Joe’s Guild of Dads podcast and growing social movement now help many other dads to reflect on their own lives and pinpoint the ways they can take action to find meaning....

In 2017, Rachel Weiss watched a TV programme about the menopause and was inspired to hold a Menopause Café. This has now turned into an international movement of pop-up events where women and the men in their lives meet to drink tea, eat cake and talk menopause. The Menopause Café is modelled on the Death Café movement, founded by Jon Underwood.  In this episode, Rachel and Andrew talk about women...

Guardian columnist Tim Dowling has spent thirteen years chronicling his marriage and family life for the Weekend magazine. His self-deprecating humour and determinedly cynical approach have made him hugely popular with readers. Rare is the Saturday Guardian reader who doesn’t flip first to the magazine to see what’s happening with Tim’s pets, banjo career and family.  In this episode, Tim and Andr...

So much of the meaning we find in life comes from reaching out to help others. Charlotte Fielder has been the Head of Volunteering and Fostering at London’s famous Battersea Dogs and Cats Home since 2015. She finds intense meaning in giving animals a second chance and supporting the Battersea volunteers who work for love, not money.  Charlotte is herself a failed foster carer after rehoming Max in...

Why are so many working parents exhausted? Why does it often feel so unfulfilling switching between a demanding job and doing our best as parents? Anita Cleare’s new book, The Work/Parent Switch, explores the challenge of moving between driven, goal-oriented professional mode, and the looser, more mindful state needed to parent. Anita talks with Andrew about creative ways to switch between the two...

Please note - this episode of The Meaningful Life podcast contains references to gender based violence which may be distressing for some listeners In 2000, Susie Kalich survived a violent attack by a stranger in her home in Los Angeles. As part of her recovery, she sought martial arts training to learn self defense basics. She enrolled in Ninpo Tai Jutsu with Sensei Chad Minge at Studio City Marti...

Too many men struggle to be happy in their intimate relationships, and fail to find a healthy version of masculinity that works for them. Disconnected males, without a strong sense of inner guidance, can behave destructively and even abusively towards those around them.  In the fourth episode of The Meaningful Life With Andrew G. Marshall, Andrew talks to Jed Diamond PhD, founder of MenAlive, abou...

What is life like if you don’t fit into any of mainstream society’s ideas of gender or sexuality? Do any of us really fit those ideas, anyway?  In this episode, Finn Ballard talks about life as a transgender man, and his experiences growing up as a trans child in a traditional town in Northern Ireland. Finn talks about his search for an authentic life in a world that is so often hostile to trans p...

Have you ever felt so defeated and frustrated that you want to just throw in the towel and run away? Author Kay Hutchison did exactly that, fleeing her annual holiday to the Cote d’Azur, moving out of her home, and leaving behind her marriage and a well-established career.  In seeking to understand what forced this huge rupture in a previously smooth existence, Kay tried a range of mainstream and...

No-one would deny sex is important to a meaningful life, but what that looks like changes as we age. In this first episode of the new self-help podcast The Meaningful Life with Andrew G. Marshall, international sex therapist and Daily Mail columnist Tracey Cox discusses her new book Great Sex Starts at 50: How to Age-Proof Your Libido. While wild, lustful sex can certainly be a unique and special...

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 an...