The Soul of Life

In this archived episode of The Soul of Life, Keith Miller sits down with Deirdre Wolownick, author of The Sharp End of Life and mother of world-renowned climber Alex Honnold. The conversation lands at a moment when Alex has once again captured global attention—this time for scaling the exterior of Taipei 101, one of the tallest buildings in the world, without ropes. The climb, carried out as a pu...

In this episode of The Soul of Life, Keith Miller sits down with Jay Earley, one of the most influential teachers of Internal Family Systems (IFS) and the author of Self‑Therapy. Jay breaks down IFS in clear, practical terms—explaining how our inner critics, procrastinators, taskmasters, and other "parts" aren't enemies, but protectors with positive intent. Together, Keith and Jay explore how inne...

In this episode from the Soul of Life archives, Keith Miller sits down with Dr. Rachel Rubin, a board-certified urologist and sexual medicine specialist, for a deeply practical and myth-busting conversation about sexual health, desire, and the biology we rarely talk about.  Dr. Rubin explains why many sexual concerns — including erectile dysfunction, low libido, orgasm difficulty, and pain — are o...

In this archival episode of The Soul of Life , Keith Miller sits down with award-winning science fiction writer Ken Liu for a wide-ranging conversation about identity, storytelling, technology, and what it means to be human in a rapidly changing world. Liu explores the illusion of a single, stable self, drawing from philosophy, psychology, and his own writing to examine how identity continuously e...

In this episode, Keith speaks with Lou Lucas, Chief of Palliative Medicine at the Nebraska and Western Iowa Veterans Health Care Systems, about the deep connections between mind, body, and spirit in healing. They explore what palliative medicine actually is, why communication and meaning matter as much as treatment, and how stress, trauma, and emotional suppression can shape physical illness. Lou...

In this in-depth archival conversation from The Soul of Life, Keith Miller speaks with Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score, about how the modern mental-health system misunderstands trauma—and why that misunderstanding matters. Van der Kolk reflects on the original creation of the PTSD diagnosis, why the term "trauma" has become dangerously imprecise, and how psychiatric labels...

In this episode of The Soul of Life I speak with Dr. Langer about how a comfort with uncertainty and curiosity--mindfulness--creates powerful changes in the brain. We discuss her famous "counterclockwise" studies and her claims that mindfulness leads to powerful improvements in health generally, and specific improvements in memory, vision, and hearing.  ✨ And if you enjoyed this archive episode,...

What really makes a marriage thrive—not just survive? In this episode, Keith Miller sits down with  Dr. Corey Allen , marriage and family therapist and host of Sexy Marriage Radio , to explore the honest, funny, and sometimes uncomfortable truths about intimacy, faith, and long-term desire. From mismatched libidos to shame, spirituality, and the "long game" of real connection, Corey brings years o...

In this archived episode of The Soul of Life, Keith Miller speaks with Vybarr Cregan-Reid, British scholar and author of Footnotes: How Running Makes Us Human. They explore barefoot running, the biomechanics of human evolution, the psychology of running outdoors, the science of the runner's high, shoe design myths, and how modern life has weakened our bodies. This conversation is full of insights...

We're launching  Tripping Over Love  on Tuesday, November 25th.  It's the podcast about breakups, breakdowns, and breakthroughs. We're Courtney Laydon, former journalist, and Keith Miller, a marriage and IFS therapist who found each other while tripping over love.  We ask one big question:  What if the secret to lasting love isn't getting it right… but getting real? Next week, we're launching our...

In this episode I speak to Norma Stevens, LCPC, the Director of Therapy Operations at Sunstone Therapies in Rockville, Maryland. Sunstone partners with companies like Beckley PsyTech, COMPASS Pathways, MindMed, MAPS (Lykos Theraputics), Reunion Neuroscience, and Usona to run studies that aim to establish the gold standard for psychedelic treatments of complex mental health challenges. Sunstone off...

You're in for a treat! Kathryn and Zach are two friends and colleagues who are also therapists that got roped into joining one of Calliope's ketamine-therapy retreats. Actually they both volunteered, each for interesting personal reasons. Each of the several ketamine experiences I facilitated for them were always equally profound, hilarious, and eye-opening. You'll get to hear what The Universe to...

In this episode I interview the brainchild behind an increasingly influential online wiki for psychological healing, The Integral Guide to Well-Being. Levi, who prefers to stay behind-the-scenes and doesn't publicize his identity, created an interactive, graphic notebook that has around 1,300 pages, and has tens of thousands of unique readers each month. The Integral Guide is a choose-your-own-adv...

This episode features Paula Marie Scatoloni, a psychotherapist that uses sound vibrations to reset hyper- or hypo-active nervous systems after trauma. This method is called psychoacoustics, and Paula uses a tool called the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) to stimulate the tiny muscles of the inner ear, "massaging" the polyvagal nerve, and activating the body's safety, belonging, and relaxation system...

I believe that therapists, doctors, nurses and psychiatrists who recommend ketamine--and more and more are doing just that--should have a firsthand experience of ketamine themselves.  Today I speak with Maria Hernandez, a psychotherapist in Philadelphia, who did just that. Maria was a participant at our Bethesda, Maryland ketamine assisted psychotherapy clinic, Calliope Health .  We talk about the...

I speak with Dr. Kristin Neff, the person perhaps most responsible for researching the effects of self-compassion. She is the author of the 2011 bestselling book  Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself  and her newest book,  Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive . Kristin and I talk about what she calls fierce self-co...

Dr. John Mather is a Senior Astrophysicist in the Observational Cosmology Laboratory located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD.* He is also the Senior Project Scientist on the James Webb Space Telescope, which will be the largest, most powerful and complex space telescope ever built and launched into space. It will fundamentally alter our understanding of the universe. Mather wa...

* Replay from S2 * Dr. Tammy Nelson is a sex and relationship expert, and author of many books on sex including Getting the Sex You Want: Shed Your Inhibitions and Reach New Heights of Passion Together. She's a psychotherapist, Director of the Integrative Sex Therapy Institute, university teacher, TEDx speaker and is the host of the podcast The Trouble with Sex. Tammy is also a Board Certified Sex...

How do you know that you're conscious? I mean, don't you just kind of know? "The single thing that we know best from our own first person perspective and understand least from the perspective of objective science." But are we seeing signs of a dawning enlightenment in this field—signs of progress in how we understand and study consciousness? I think this is important for everyone—but especially pr...

In this replay from Season One, I speak to Deirdre Wolownick-Honnald, the mother of Free Solo superstar rock climber Alex Honnald. I learn from his Mom about the human side of this person so many think of as superhuman. Alex's Dad, she says, was a person with undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome. "He was in a bubble and no one could get in." I ask Dierdre about "stonewalling," a term we use in marriage...

I speak with Dr. Richard Schwartz, the founder of an evidence-based psychotherapeutic model called Self-Leadership (also known as Internal Family System's therapy or IFS) that is widely recognized as one of the most compassionate and comprehensive psychotherapies available. He is on the faculty of the department of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School. Self-Leadership is basically a sophistica...

This episode is a "best-of" replay from S1 of The Soul of Life. In this episode of The Soul of Life I speak with Dr. Michael Mithoefer, the lead investigator that has successfully piloted the first-ever study of MDMA, otherwise known as ecstasy, into the third and final stage of FDA approval for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. Dr. Mithoefer is featured as a lead character in the 2...

"What if I could show you a way to reconnect with the whole of who you are, in service to your highest purpose as you know it? What if I could help you break out of the invisible prison in which you have been living--the one that keeps you small and scared?" Today on the Soul of Life I speak with Dr. Angela Heubner, author of Jailbreak: The Making and Breaking of Our Invisible Prisons; An IFS Info...

George and I talk about the tragic mistake of Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, who actually encouraged people to smoke if it helped them quit alcohol.  "My alcoholic and drug addict people painfully but successfully get sober only to die of nicotine." Bill Wilson himself died a miserable death. Kolodner has been learning the cutting edge psychotherapy intervention known as Interna...

"Your doctor doesn't even know what the nerve innervation of the female genitalia is—which in 2022 is mind boggling." Today I speak with Dr. Rachel Rubin, a board-certified urologist and sexual medicine specialist. "I'm a boner doctor." To talk with her about the most common and serious sexual problems: Problems regarding libido, orgasm, arousal, and pain. And just how many simple and life-changin...