Pulling The Thread with Elise Loehnen

In my one episode sans guest this month, I’m reflecting on: how we might enjoy solitude more (and fear loneliness less), the manifestation program I just finished (called the Money Challenge), how I’m feeling about attention and power these days, and a couple of other micro and macro realizations that are surfacing right now.

For the show notes, head over to my Substack.

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“There are so many blessings in the in-between,” says Jessica Gill, chief content officer at To Be Magnetic and cohost of the Expanded podcast with Lacy Phillips. “You can manifest amazing mini manifestations or just kismet opportunities or these things that you wouldn't even believe would transpire in the midst of doing this work.” Today, Gill breaks down the deeply intuitive—and simple, but not easy&...

Social psychologist Carol Tavris, PhD, breaks down cognitive dissonance, why it’s so hard for us to see our own blind spots, the power and danger of self-justification, and the pyramid of choice that can lead us to some unexpected places. She also shares some fascinating findings about anger and catharsis that turn a few assumptions on their head. In doing so, she helps us understand our own behaviors and motives better&mdash...

Longtime sex-advice columnist and author Dan Savage shares how he thinks about monogamy, marriage, infidelity, and repair. We explore how sex and relationships get conflated. We get into identities, orientations, preferences, language, and how we’re raising kids today. Also, Savage’s take on heteropessimism, what makes a man an attractive partner, and a word he introduced me to: tolyamory, meaning tolerating your lover&...

“We have to let go of our own patriarchy,” says Elinor Dickson. “And we’re afraid to because it represents control for us.” Dickson spent more than 35 years as a Jungian therapist, and she cowrote the seminal Dancing in the Flames with her good friend Marion Woodman. She’s one of the wise elders of our time. We explore the new universal mythos our culture so badly needs, Dickson’s...

In this month’s solo episode, I’m exploring the parts of our culture and our collective that we can own—and impact. And I’m sharing more on the power of triangulation, and how you can use certain systems and tools to better understand yourself, your roles, and what you might be trying to do in work and in life.

For ALL the show notes, head over to my Substack.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informati...

The hilarious Jen Hatmaker (New York Times–bestselling author and host of the podcast For the Love) joins me to chat, in part, about her new memoir Awake. We talk about the moment in her life when everything seemingly dissolved (including her marriage of 26 years and her relationship to the church) and the much deeper awakening that she entered from there, when she truly started to rely on herself.

For the show notes, he...

Katie Hendricks, PhD, is known for helping people use their body’s innate intelligence. She shares some of her most powerful tools and teachings, including: Her fear-melters for when we get caught in fight, flee, freeze, or faint mode. How to play with your pace so that you’re able to get present, instead of just feeling at the effect of everything coming at you. The loop of awareness, which is a tool for shifting your ...

“I don't think anybody manages to go through their experience incarnated in human form and not have chapters of your life that are like, what literally just happened?” says Elizabeth Gilbert. “How did I end up here and who am I? And where did the ground go beneath my feet?” Today, Gilbert shares the story behind her new memoir, All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation. She rightly describes ...

“This waiting for approval from daddy—all of that is so antithetical to actually living your own existence,” says psychotherapist Satya Doyle Byock. Today, Byock returns for a conversation about the ego, why it gets a bad rap, and why we need a strong sense of self to be in relationship with anyone. Also: our culture’s ascension myth, and why we have a tende...

“What does it mean to make change in my life—not from a place that there was something wrong with me?” asks my coauthor Courtney Smith. “But I made choices that have gotten me here. I respect and value those choices. I understand I wouldn’t be here without them. And I'm also choosing to do something a little bit different going forward.” Courtney is a coach, group facilitator, and Enneagram exper...

Today it’s just me, sharing a few revelations I’ve had this summer around: The set ages we seemingly get stuck at. Emotions I’m connecting to for the first time in my life (and how certain codes of anger have helped me). How busyness impacts our physical patterns and the way we hold our bodies, or clench our weight. And practicing rejection and building our capacity to hear no, while simultaneously building our ca...

“We’re not empty containers just being filled up with fear and terror and trauma,” says psychotherapist Francis Weller. “We’re also medicine carriers.” Many of you will know Weller from his moving conversations about grief with Anderson Cooper, or his beautiful book The Wild of Edge of Sorrow. Weller’s new book, In the Absence of Ordinary, is exactly what we need now. Today, we ta...

“If we stop transforming, and we try to hold ourselves back, we’re effectively stagnating and killing the life that’s ahead,” says psychologist and author Sharon Blackie, PhD. Today, we talk about what Blackie has learned from studying myths and fairy tales, and working to reimagine the stories that currently define women’s lives. She shares a much-nee...

“We can’t change what’s happened, but we can change what it looks like inside of our mind-brain-body network,” says neuroscientist Caroline Leaf, PhD. Here, Leaf shares what she’s learned about how our minds work, and how we can change a thought, a habit, a pattern. And we get into the compelling 63-second intervention from her new book, Help in a...

Thomas Hübl (a frequent guest here) is a renowned teacher whose work has focused on resilience and healing trauma. In this conversation, we explore: Some of our biggest fractured interpretations of the world, and how we can gain more clarity and connection. The impulse to become very certain about something very quickly, and our tendency to see other people in 2D—and the consequences of doing so. Using our own energy to ...

In this month’s solo episode, I’m sharing some thoughts on why everyone seems to want a book under their belt, why that may or may not be the right move for you, as well as concrete tips and takeaways about what to think through before you begin putting words on paper. Most importantly, I share some tips and frameworks for getting you through the creative process once you begin.

For the show notes (and ...

Today, I’m talking to Meggan Watterson—theologian and author of The Girl Who Baptized Herself—about the importance of being embodied, the search for self, where we derive power, and the way that culture is edited and passed down to us. Watterson tells the incredible stories behind the Gospel of Mary (and what happened to Mary Magdalene), and the Acts of Paul and Thecla (and what happened to Thecla). We also e...

Rutger Bregman is the New York Times–bestselling author of Moral Ambition. Today, he shares his model for living a more meaningful life. It’s not about being an idealist, or following your “passions.” It is, in many ways, about effectively solving the problems in our lives using the talents we already have.

For Rutger Bregman’s work (including that amazing viral Davos clip, in case you missed it), head...