Open Questions

This is the second part of my conversation with the environmental enthusiasts Gunnar Rundgren and Claudia French.

I meet with environmental enthusiasts Gunnar Rundgren and Claudia French. I was curious to hear what Gunnar and Claudia thought about the challenges and the opportunities the situation with peak oil and climate change presented for the world at large as well as for our local communities.

In this closing episode of 2012 I speak with Pär Holmgren - meteorologist, educator, writer and speaker on the issues of climate change. Pär talks about what scientists know about climate change and that has received attention in the main-stream media but also about the less known to the general public information.

My guest is Hugo Mercier, cognitive scientist at Université de Neuchâtel, interested in the way people reason. Together with Dan Sperber, Hugo has developed an argumentative theory of reasoning according to which our reasoning abilities have been designed by evolution to allow us to exchange arguments rather than to reason on our own.

My guest is Ellen Bakker, a singer and vocal coach from the Netherlands, who sees it as her mission to contribute to healthy, effective and 'happy' vocal habits, for singers and speakers alike. Learn the imaginary technique of projecting the voice into the back of your head, that results in a bigger and warmer sound and much more!

In this episode I speak with Leif Lindh, the founder of Gårdsjö Elkpark, a place where everyone is guaranteed a chance to come close to a moose. We discuss the charm of these magnificent animals, how Leif first came up with the idea of starting an animal park and what it takes to make something like this happen.

I speak with Emily White about her memoir Lonely: Learning to Live With Solitude, in which Emily recounts her struggle to comprehend and overcome her chronic loneliness. Emily discusses some of the roots of loneliness and how the existing in the Western societies stigma around the state makes it harder for people who feel isolated and rejected, to batter loneliness.

In this episode Dr Dave and I discuss pre-cognitive and psychic dreams, synchronicities and simple but effective techniques to improve our dream recall. Dr Dave, host of Shrink Rap Radio Psychology Podcast and Wise Council Podcast, also talks about his podcasting career, its challenges and rewards.

Psychologist and podcaster Dr David Van Nuys talks about the benefits of keeping a dream journal and of being part of a dream group. Dr Dave shares some of his experience of working through real life examples of nightmares and how we can use nightmares in our dream life as growth opportunities in the waking life.

I talk over Skype with psychologist and host of the Shrink Rap Radio Psychology Podcast Dr David Van Nuys. "Dr Dave" talks about Freud's and Jung's understanding of the unconscious and the functions of dreams and the methods the two big minds used to work with dreams. Follow the drama as self-diagnosed (diagnosis: chronically ironic) and interested in psychology Baasztian passionately sings out his desire of "killing lew wallace", the inventor of the snooze button, on this track from his latest album.

I speak with Gözde Sütçü about the transformative power of art and how painting without concern for the outcome increased her self-understanding and helped her release the pain she had been carrying for years.

Interview with Buddhist teacher, management consultant and executive director of the non-profit organization Unfettered mind Ken McLeod and a track by Uppsala-based, Brazilian-born Rafael Oliveira.

What makes you be in love with life? How do you translate your values into the everyday choices? What makes this life meaningful to you? Interview with Eric Maisel on the art of living a meaning-making life, a book tip and a track by Uppsala bound musicians Larry and Fredrik.

I talk with Marian Voigt about what made him quit his well-paid job in Germany and embark on biking trips around Sweden and Australia and how being on the road challenged him.

I speak with Brian Robertson, one of the developers of Holacracy, a fundamentally new organizational model that is based on the principles of dynamic steering. Holacracy views organization as a liberated, differentiated entity with its own purpose in life, rather than as property or extension of the founders. Tune in!

Do you know why zebras don’t get ulcers? Why is the assumption that we are supposed to achieve a 50-50 balance between our life and our work is not only unrealistic but also prevents us from being content with our lives? What keeps us stuck in the places we don't want to be? Interview with Nicola Phillips, who has worked intimately with fear and the different ways of overcoming it since 1981. She is the author of a number of book, the latest of which is "Fear without loating: why life/work balance doesn't matter but you do".

In the second part of the two-part conversation, Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak shares the ideas she had in mind when designing the technology of promession. She hopes that the method, that allows the dead body to become part of life again, will also contribute to how we in the West relate to death and dying.

In one of his gathas, or mindfulness poems, called Gardening, Thich Nhat Hanh writes about the cycle of life, "Earth brings us to life and nourishes us. 
Earth takes us back again.
 We are born and we die with every breath." But how easy is it for earth to take us back? This week I am joined by Swedish biologist and founder of Promessa Organic, Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak. In 1999 Susanne patented promession, the alternative, ecologically-conscious burial method, that supports life even after our death. Listen to Susanne's fascinating story about the path from composting food remains to helping people bring a gift of themselves to earth by becoming part of it.

Do you choose to survive or thrive in the face of hard circumstances? In this second part of the two-part conversation, Andy McLellan and Erica Hamilton share some of the techniques they found useful in coping with the physical and emotional pain on their path of transitioning from surviving to thriving.

I am joined by my friends Andy McLellan, PhD and Erica Hamilton, PhD. Andy and Erica generously share about the most challenging aspects of living with a chronic illness. This first part of the conversation touches upon how our fast-paced life can lead to our disembodiment and pushing ourselves too far, the existing in the world of Western medicine dichotomy between the organic and the functional and how the absence of measurable cause of a medical condition influences the attitude of the medical establishment towards the patients.

Jag besöker tvåbarnsmamman, dramapedagogen och andningspedagogen Christina (Kicki) Boström i hennes mottagning i Hågaby, Uppsala. Kicki hjälper sina klienter att lösa upp spänningar och frigöra andningen genom att använda sig av olika andningstekniker, individuellt och i grupp.

I am joined over Skype by polyamory activist Franklin Veaux. Where does the idea that we can only love (romantically) one person at a time come from? Why do many of us believe that we can only commit to one partner/relationship at a time? How can being compared to others be a good thing for a relationship rather than seen as a threat to it? Tune in!

This episode is recorded in Swedish. Jag besöker den danskfödde konstnären och musikern Kirsten Holm i hennes ateljé i Håga by, utanför Uppsala. Kirsten provocerar inte så mycket med sina bilder som med sitt sätt att leva. Hon berättar om det enkla livet i det gästfria grekiska samhället i början på 70-talet som inspirerade henne att söka andra sätt att leva livet på, om sin relation till mörkret, om månens betydelse för sin livsupplevelse och om det cykliska sättet att skapa både bilder och musik.

In this very first episode of the show I introduce the podcast and talk about how open questions can be used when we are stuck in one mode of thinking. I close by sharing a simple yet powerful self-reflection technique.