Life Examined
213 episodes - English - Latest episode: 3 days ago -KCRW's Life Examined is a one-hour weekly show exploring science, philosophy, faith — and finding meaning in the modern world. The show is hosted by Jonathan Bastian. Please tune in Saturdays at 9 a.m., or find it as a podcast.
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Episodes
Midweek Reset: The lesson of Costa Rica
April 17, 2024 07:00 - 3 minutesThis week, psychology and education professor at Columbia University, Peter Coleman explains why in turbulent times at home and across the globe, Costa Rica remains peaceful and stable. In the aftermath of bloody conflicts, Coleman says, Costa Rica intentionally chose to stop war and designed their country around that vision.
Laughter, leadership, and Improv: navigating the unscripted parts of your life
April 14, 2024 16:00 - 51 minutesNeil Mullarkey, comedian, actor, and author of In the Moment: Build your confidence, creativity, and communication at work, shares his journey into comedy and writing and how he recognized the power of comedy at an early age. He’s toured the world, working with well-known comedians like Mike Myers, with whom he founded the Comedy Store Players in London. Mullarckey found that the skills he learned in his improv classes translated well into leadership and management.
Midweek Reset: Mood follows action
April 10, 2024 07:00 - 3 minutesThis week, Brad Stulberg writer and author of “The Practice of Groundedness: A Transformative Path to Success that Feeds – Not Crushes – Your Soul” on behavioral action and why the best way to feel good and bring about a change in mood is to force ourselves to start or to get going, even if when we don’t feel like it.
Are you in a relationship with a narcissist?
April 07, 2024 16:00 - 51 minutesJennifer Chatman, Professor of Management at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, looks at the role of narcissism in leadership and why CEOs of corporations “are more likely to be narcissistic than the population at large, by about 6%.” Ramani Durvasula, clinical psychologist and author of It's Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People, provides the clinical definition of narcissism. She explains how those traits can be present in others and the harm and hurt they cause. “T...
Midweek Reset: Peaceful protest
April 03, 2024 07:00 - 4 minutesThis week, clinical psychologist and Buddhist teacher Tara Brach on activism and how easy it is to unintentionally absorb the hate and anger leveled at others. Brach suggests that rather than reacting with the same anger, try taking an additional step and move to a place of reflection, care and understanding.
Freud: What he said, why he matters
March 31, 2024 16:00 - 51 minutesPaul Bloom, Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto and the author of Psyche: The Story of the Human Mind, explores the history and controversial legacy surrounding the renowned 20th century Austrian neuroscientist Sigmund Freud. Modern psychotherapy has come a long way over the last century. Many of Freud’s bizarre theories on psychosexual development and the Oedipal complex have been debunked, yet Bloom points out that in the field of psychology, “there's no figure now [who’s]...
Midweek Reset: Authenticity trap
March 27, 2024 07:00 - 3 minutesThis week, Denis McManus, professor of philosophy at the University of Southampton reflects on authenticity and the allure of being true to ourselves and suggests that while authenticity may be having a moment, it is just one of many values we should aspire to.
Mapping the darkness; the science behind sleep
March 24, 2024 16:00 - 51 minutesAward-winning journalist and writer Kenneth Miller delves into our long and mysterious relationship with sleep and explores the scientists who embarked on pioneering sleep research. In his book Mapping the Darkness; The Visionary Scientists Who Unlocked The Mysteries of Sleep Miller posits that “for a long time, sleep was really [just] a sideline for scientists,” and sleep researchers struggled to be taken seriously in a field, which for most of the 20th century, had viewed sleep as a wastef...
Midweek Reset: When to Quit
March 20, 2024 07:00 - 3 minutesThis week, corporate speaker, former professional poker player and author of “Quit: The Power Of Knowing When To Walk Away, ” Annie Duke says knowing when to quit can be helpful when it comes to relationships or jobs and that fear of the unknown or being alone, shouldn’t be an excuse for inaction.
Splintering: When a divorce and first child arrive together
March 17, 2024 16:00 - 51 minutesAcclaimed writer Leslie Jamison takes us on an intimate and honest personal journey, navigating the devastating collapse of her marriage and the joy of becoming a mother for the first time. In her latest memoir, Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story, she recounts her relationships with men, her parents, her child, and herself, drawing on her own lived experiences in order “to ask about what it feels like to be alive.”
Midweek Reset: The Retirement Myth
March 13, 2024 07:00 - 3 minutesThis week, Yale professor of psychology Paul Bloom offers another perspective on retirement. Although leisure and free time are appealing, research indicates that a more balanced approach involving some work may be healthier, more rewarding and make us happier.
How to build community in an age of isolation
March 10, 2024 16:00 - 51 minutesWhile our modern lifestyles offer many advantages and independence, they have also led to a rise in loneliness as we’ve become less reliant on the communities that once held us together. Casper ter Kuile, former Harvard divinity scholar and co-founder of the community-building project Nearness, argues that the connections and community we build with each other “is what lifes all about.”
Midweek Reset: The wisdom of moss
March 07, 2024 08:00 - 3 minutesThis week, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Indigenous ecologist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass speaks about the virtues of moss and how one of the smallest and humblest plants on the planet can teach us to live more sustainably and harmoniously with the world around us.
‘Re-sparkling’: The science behind embracing variety and rejecting habituation
March 03, 2024 17:00 - 51 minutesWhile good habits and rituals are beneficial, brain scientists and psychologists also say the key to a fulfilling and happy life is novelty, variety, and disruption from our routines. In her book Look Again; The Power of Noticing What Was Always There, co-author and MIT neuroscientist Tali Sharot sources decades of research illustrating that greater sensitivity, appreciation, and innovation happens when we dishabituate.
Midweek Reset: Are you addicted?
February 28, 2024 08:00 - 3 minutesThis week, Anna Lembke, addiction specialist at Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic, and author of “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence,” provides the clinical definition of addiction and says it’s becoming easier than ever adopt addictive behaviors but harder to spot the addiction in ourselves.
Heartbreak and divorce: reflections on endings, healing, and self-discovery
February 18, 2024 17:00 - 51 minutesIn his article “Science can explain a broken heart. Could science help heal mine?,” Los Angeles Times columnist Todd Martens shares his story of heartbreak and explores the science behind physical and emotional suffering. Matthew Fray, relationship coach and author of This Is How Your Marriage Ends; A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships, reflects on his divorce and flags some seemingly benign behaviors that over time can undermine love and trust in a relationship.
Midweek Reset: The Art of Love
February 14, 2024 08:00 - 3 minutesThis week, philosopher and writer Alain de Botton says, simple as it sounds, there's nothing more enduring and attractive in a partner than being fully and completely heard and understood.
Addicted to distraction: How our world is robbing our ability to pay attention
February 11, 2024 17:00 - 51 minutesAccording to psychologist Gloria Mark, the average attention span is just 47 seconds. Mark, a two-decade veteran in researching attention, says our ability to focus is declining at an alarming rate and is impacting our health. Much of this increase is due to our modern, fast-paced lifestyles and technology. Mark underscores the implications for children while emphasizing the potential for behavioral reversal.
Midweek Reset: Negativity bias
February 07, 2024 08:00 - 3 minutesThis week, clinical psychologist and Buddhist teacher Tara Brach on suffering, the negativity bias and why it’s a good idea not to overly fixate on the negative in our lives.
Facing death without God: Spiritual care in the final hours of a death row inmate
February 04, 2024 17:00 - 1 hourDevin Sean Moss, humanist chaplain, writer, and host of The Adventures of Memento Mori podcast, discusses belief, prayer, and his role as a chaplain providing spiritual care. Throughout 2023, Moss provided support and counseling to Phillip Hancock , a death row inmate, before and during his execution by the State of Oklahoma. Moss reflects on his interactions with Hancock, delving into the significance of compassion, prayer, and the unique challenges posed by Hancock's explicit rejection of ...
Midweek Reset: Why we hate
January 31, 2024 08:00 - 3 minutesThis week, historian George Makari explores the powerful human emotion of hate, xenophobia and fear of the other and says some people “fall in hate, the way the rest of us fall in love.”
Why allergies and gut health are getting worse
January 27, 2024 17:00 - 51 minutesTheresa MacPhail, associate professor of science and technology studies at Stevens Institute of Technology and author of Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World, discusses the origins of allergies, tracing their discovery back to British physician Charles Blackley who put hay fever on the map. Alanna Collen, evolutionary biologist and author of 10% Human: How Your Body's Microbes Hold the Key to Health and Happiness, explores the link between our microbiomes and the likelihood o...
Midweek Reset: Ikigai
January 24, 2024 17:00 - 4 minutesThis week, Iza Kavedžija, a cultural anthropologist who lived in the Kansai region of Japan, while researching the older members of Japanese society, talks about how Japanese culture values the modest pursuit - a concept called ikigai- small actions or interests, like making tea, that if done masterfully and with full attention provide fulfillment and meaning in life.
God is a verb: The mystical, existential poetry of Christian Wiman
January 20, 2024 17:00 - 51 minutesChristian Wiman, author of Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair, discusses life after being diagnosed with a rare and incurable form of his cancer and how preparing for death influenced his thought, faith, and poetry. Wiman, the Clement-Muehl Professor of Communication Arts at Yale Divinity School, examines anguish and despair and his “real desire to make faith more the center of my life, not to live it quietly to bring it into my work to bring it into my life.”
Midweek Reset: Radical Truth Telling
January 17, 2024 17:00 - 3 minutesThis week, Anna Lembke, addiction specialist at Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic, and author of “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence,” discusses the human tendency to lie and why telling the truth not only brings us closer together but is actually healthy for us. The intimacy created from being truthful, Lembke says, is a wonderful and healthy source of dopamine.
Robert Sapolsky on life without free will
January 13, 2024 17:00 - 51 minutesRobert Sapolsky is a professor of biology, neurology, and neuro-surgery at Stanford University. He’s also a neuroendocrinology researcher and author. In his newest book Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, he posits that extensive scientific research indicates that our decisions and choices in life are largely out of our control. Neuroscience, genetics, evolutionary theory, and child development are several factors that can help us understand how we act is predetermined, contrar...
Midweek Reset: The Future Happiness Trap
January 10, 2024 17:00 - 3 minutesThis week, Oliver Burkeman, journalist and author of Four Thousand Weeks; Time Management for Mortals explores our relationship with time and asks how our common belief that our ultimate happiness or contentment will only happen at some point in the future - perhaps when we’ve got a top job, house or kids- is impacting our sense of happiness and contentment day to day.
The wonder of water — and why we love to swim
January 06, 2024 17:00 - 51 minutesKatherine May, British writer and author of Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, shares her love of the winter months, describing her physical feelings when immersed in the cold local sea as a “sensory delight.” Writer, surfer, and swimmer Bonnie Tsui shares stories from her latest book Why We Swim and explains why humans have such a long and deep connection to water.
Midweek Reset: Savoring the ordinary
January 03, 2024 17:00 - 4 minutesThis week, Cassie Holmes, Professor of Marketing and Behavioral Decision Making and author of “Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most,” suggests ways to value and savor the more ordinary moments and says when it comes to finding happiness, it helps to measure those less extraordinary moments in our lives.
Midweek Reset: Tech Sabbath
December 20, 2023 17:00 - 3 minutesThis week, Harvard divinity scholar Casper ter Kuile talks about the power of ancient ritual and how incorporating a tech sabbath and switching off our phones, can help us refocus and recenter our lives.
Owls: What they know and what humans believe
December 16, 2023 17:00 - 51 minutesCarl Safina, ecologist and founding president of The Safina Center at Stony Brook University in New York, shares his experience raising a small owl. Safina recounts what he learned and why this period of his life was so joyful in his latest book Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe. Writer Jennifer Ackerman, who’s written several books on birds and is author of What an Owl Knows:The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds, describes why the owl is the absolute apex preda...
Midweek Reset: Wintering
December 09, 2023 17:00 - 3 minutesThis week, British author Katherine May offers a (heart) warming perspective on winter. Rather than dread or endure the cold and dark days, rediscover some of the simple ways to enjoy some of the beauty and stillness that winter offers.
Antarctic expedition: A treatise on climate change and motherhood
December 09, 2023 17:00 - 41 minutesElizabeth Rush, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth, describes her voyage to the most remote place on earth, Antarctica, to see the Thwaites Glacier, a crumbling sheet of ice the size of Florida. It’s melting so fast that it's known as the "doomsday glacier.” “The only thing I could think of as a metaphoric likeness was the wall in Game of Thrones,” says Rush. She shares her thoughts on individual climate action, carbon foot...
Distilling life on the page: The beauty of storytelling with Yiyun Li
December 02, 2023 17:00 - 51 minutesYiyun Li, writer and author most recently of a collection of short stories Wednesday’s Child: Stories, talks about the beauty of storytelling and how she uses stories to explore the relationship between parents and their children — including mothers, like her, who suffer the loss of a child: “That's one thing that literature does well, is to examine losses in life,” she says. In the 20 years since Li arrived in the US from China, Li has become a prolific writer, publishing five novels, thre...
Distilling life on the page - the beauty of storytelling with Yiyun Li
December 02, 2023 17:00 - 51 minutesYiyun Li, writer and author most recently of a collection of short stories Wednesday’s Child: Stories, talks about the beauty of storytelling and how she uses stories to explore the relationship between parents and their children - including mothers, like her, who suffer the loss of a child: “That's one thing that literature does well, is to examine losses in life.” In the 20 years since Li arrived in the US from China, Li has become a prolific writer; publishing five novels, three short st...
Midweek Reset: Toxic positivity
November 29, 2023 17:00 - 3 minutesThis week, cognitive scientist and professor of psychology at Yale University Lori Santos explains that negative emotions are very much part of the human experience and essential to leading a happy life. Leaning into these emotions and accepting them is better for us than trying to dismiss or suppress them.
Dopamine Nation: Living in an addicted world
November 23, 2023 17:00 - 52 minutesJonathan Bastian talks with Dr. Anna Lembke, director and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic, about the role of dopamine in the brain. She also offers advice on keeping the pursuit of pleasure in check and maintaining balance and contentment, and discusses her New York Times bestseller “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence.” “We're living in an adicto-genic world,” says Lembke. “In which almost all substances and human behaviors, even behavio...
The science of spirituality — and why it’s good for our mental health
November 18, 2023 17:00 - 51 minutesLisa Miller, professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University and author of “The Awakened Brain; The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life,” talks about the connections between a spiritual life and mental health, specifically what happens inside the brain when a religious or a spiritual practice are introduced. Miller, a scientist and not a theologian, talks about her personal experience, work and research to develop a “new foundationally spiritually based tr...
Midweek Reset: The Power of Subtraction
November 15, 2023 17:00 - 3 minutesThis week, professor and director of the Convergent Behavioural Science Initiative at the University of Virginia Leidy Klotz explains why when it comes to solving problems or finding ways to improve our lives - subtraction rather than addition can be the less instinctive but often the most effective solution.
Time management: A guide to more sanity and less anxiety
November 10, 2023 17:00 - 51 minutesOliver Burkeman, journalist and author of Four Thousand Weeks; Time Management for Mortals, explores our relationship with time and the modern obsession with time management, efficiency, and making the most of this valuable resource. Depressing as it may sound, Burkeman says, the average person has about 4,000 weeks. Drawing on history and philosophy, Burkeman offers a sane and sensible approach to how we spend our time, and suggests that we “not buy into the idea that more and more efficien...
Midweek Reset: Why relational conflict is good
November 08, 2023 08:00 - 3 minutesThis week, psychology and education professor Peter Coleman explains that conflicts and disagreements are not just normal in relationships but actually a good thing - we don’t learn without conflict.
Living in reciprocity with nature, with Indigenous ecologist Robin Wall Kimmerer
November 04, 2023 16:00 - 51 minutesProfessor of American Indian Studies Mishuana Goeman addresses the common misconceptions about Native American land and the ties between the land and language. Indigenous ecologist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer draws on the knowledge of Indigenous peoples and speaks to the value of living in reciprocity with the natural world. A member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation Kimmerer explains how our relationship with the planet can improve through a better understanding an...
Midweek Reset: Creativity has no age
November 01, 2023 07:00 - 3 minutesWelcome to the Midweek Reset from Life Examined, where host Jonathan Bastian takes a small pause for a new perspective.
The process of dying: From hospice care to meditating monks
October 28, 2023 16:00 - 51 minutesDoctor Sunita Puri and hospice and palliative RN Hadley Vlahos share their perspectives and first-hand experiences helping people approach the end of life. Puri, who is the Program Director for the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship at the UMass Chan School of Medicine, says that more and more Americans are electing to die at home. Vlahos, author of The In- Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments, recounts some of the humbling and “beautiful” first hand experien...
Midweek Reset: Life: less itinerary - more flow
October 25, 2023 07:00 - 3 minutesWelcome to the Midweek Reset from Life Examined, where host Jonathan Bastian takes a small pause for a new perspective.
Conflict, resolution, and the human need to get along, with Peter Coleman
October 21, 2023 16:00 - 51 minutesPsychology and education professor Peter Coleman explains that conflict is “a necessary component of the human condition.” As the Director of the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution at Columbia University, Coleman has worked with families, communities, and entire nations on building constructive resolutions and sustainable peace. Coleman says that humans have the ability to cooperate, resolve conflict, and solve problems together because we're “fundame...
Midweek Reset: Better listening
October 18, 2023 07:00 - 3 minutesWelcome to the Midweek Reset from Life Examined, where host Jonathan Bastian takes a small pause for a new perspective. This week, mentor and author of “Deep Listening: Impact Beyond Words” Oscar Trimboli shares his tips on how and why to become a better listener.
The agents of change: How women are altering the power paradigm
October 14, 2023 16:00 - 51 minutesKemi Nekvapil, executive coach and author of POWER: A Woman’s Guide to Living and Leaving without Apology, shares how women are shifting the landscape when it comes to leadership and power. Allowing for an abundance of power enables us to promote and support each other, rather than hold power over each other and compete. “I'm not afraid of your power,” says Nekvapil. “If I have power, I will happily stand alongside you, support you, and elevate your power in the same way that you will el...
Midweek Reset: Sharon Salzberg and emotional balance
October 11, 2023 07:00 - 3 minutesWelcome to the Midweek Reset from Life Examined, where host Jonathan Bastian takes a small pause for a new perspective. This week, educator and meditation specialist Sharon Salzberg shares an instruction from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition on finding a Middle Path and maintaining a healthy emotional life.
A 1000 mile trek: Lessons in fortitude and healing from distance walker Raynor Winn
October 07, 2023 16:00 - 51 minutesLong-distance walker, writer, and author Raynor Winn describes her 1000 mile walk from Scotland to the South West of England. With tents, backpacks, and minimal supplies, their plan was to walk the 230-mile Cape Wrath Trail — some of the toughest terrain in Britain. But after they completed that trek, they kept on walking. Winn talks about her passion for walking, how she feels “intrinsically enmeshed with the natural world,” and why she finds walking incredible distances to be transformat...