Would you like your life to be less focused on others’ reactions and more informed by your own principles? Would you like to stop feeling responsible for the experiences of others?

This week I talk to therapist and author Dr Kathleen Smith about how to stop pleasing other people, find your authentic self, and, in the process, become less anxious and develop richer relationships.

We cover:

• Identifying relationship patterns that keep you stuck.
• Relying less on praise and approval from others.
• Building a solid sense of self in anxious times.
• Building more authentic and rewarding relationships.

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:

• What is your anxiety language?
• AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things

Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools

Read Kathleen Smith’s new book True to You: A Therapist’s Guide to Stop Pleasing Others and Start Being Yourself

Read Kathleen Smith’s other books, Everything Isn't Terrible: Conquer Your Insecurities, Interrupt Your Anxiety, and Finally Calm Down and The Fangirl Life: A Guide to All the Feels and Learning How to Deal.

Read and/or subscribe to Kathleen Smith’s Substack, The Anxious Overachiever

Take a look at Kathleen Smith’s website

Follow Kathleen Smith on Twitter @fangirltherapy and on Facebook @kathleensmithwrites

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall

We all think of infidelity as something that happens to someone else. When betrayal enters our own safe universe, it comes as a terrible shock. Many couples confronting infidelity end up re-examining just about everything in their lives: not just their marriage, but their work, their relationships with family and friends, and how they find meaning and fulfilment. Sometimes it can even be these couples who end up with the strongest partnerships of all.

Caroline Madden, PhD is a Los Angeles based pro-marriage therapist who specializes in helping marriages recover after infidelity. Caroline is the author of several relationship books including: "Fool Me Once: Should I Take Back My Cheating Husband?" and "After a Good Man Cheats: How to Rebuild Trust & Intimacy With Your Wife” and “Blindsided by His Betrayal”.

In this classic episode, Caroline and Andrew draw on decades of shared experience working with couples affected by infidelity. They talk through the complex, painful process of rebuilding after the discovery of betrayal.

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:

• Three things Caroline Madden knows to be true.
• AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things

Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools

Listen to Caroline’s book Blindsided by Betrayal on Audible, and take a look at her other books, Fool Me Once: Should I Take Back My Cheating Husband? and After a Good Man Cheats: How to Rebuild Trust & Intimacy With Your Wife

Find out more about Caroline’s work with infidelity survivors on her website

Follow Caroline on Twitter

Read Andrew’s books on infidelity recovery:

Why Did I Ever Cheat? Help Your Partner (and Yourself) Recover From Your Affair

How Can I Ever Trust You Again? Infidelity: From Discovery to Recovery in Seven Steps

I Can’t Get Over My Partner’s Affair: 50 Questions About Recovering from Extreme Betrayal and the Long-Term Impact of Infidelity

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall

People who have near-death experiences or who survive medically-induced comas report back disturbing and beautiful experiences. Some encounter ultra-vivid nightmares, while others undergo a deep, spiritual oneness with the universe or say they have glimpsed the afterlife.

Journalist and author Alan Pearce and his wife, Beverly Pearce, are the authors of Coma and Near-Death Experience: The Beautiful, Disturbing, and Dangerous World of the Unconscious.

In this episode Andrew and Alan discuss some of the extraordinary states of expanded consciousness that arise during comas, both positive and negative. They explore some of the alternatives to medically-induced coma that are safer for treating critically ill patients and kinder for the patients and their families.

Alan Pearce is a journalist, broadcaster, former BBC correspondent, and author of several books. He has contributed to numerous publications, from Time Magazine to The Sunday Times of London. He lives in Nouvelle Aquitaine, France.

Subscriber Content This Week

If you’re a subscriber to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon), this week you’ll be hearing:

• Taking a forty-day dark retreat.
• Three things Alan Pearce knows to be true.
• AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

Get Andrew’s free guide to difficult conversations with your partner: How to Tell Your Partner Difficult Things

Take a look at Andrew’s new online relationship course: My Best Relationship Tools

Buy Alan Pearce’s book Coma and Near-Death Experience: The Beautiful, Disturbing, and Dangerous World of the Unconscious

Visit Alan Pearce’s website

Join our Supporters Club to access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.

Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall