Podcasts about yale center

Many of us grew up hearing, “Don't cry, you're fine” or “Stop overreacting!” Now, we want to raise our kids differently… but how? Dr. Becky sits down with Dr. Marc Brackett, founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, to talk about his powerful personal story and research. They discuss understanding emotions as data, validating kids' feelings without overindulging them, and building emotional literacy for the whole family.Get the Good Inside App by Dr. Becky: https://bit.ly/4fSxbzkYour Good Inside membership might be eligible for HSA/FSA reimbursement! To learn more about how to get your membership reimbursed, check out the link here: https://www.goodinside.com/fsa-hsa-eligibility/Follow Dr. Becky on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinsideSign up for our weekly email, Good Insider: https://www.goodinside.com/newsletterFor a full transcript of the episode, go to goodinside.com/podcast.When it comes to school snacks, I've never been the “pack my kid a portable charcuterie board” kind of parent. If you are, more power to you. I'm more of a “grab-and-go” type - I want something simple, nutritious, and easy for my kids to reach for as we're heading out the door.That's why I like Chomps. Their full-size meat sticks have 10 grams of protein and zero sugar. They're filling and made from real ingredients, so it's one less thing to think about. And if you've ever opened your kid's backpack to find a half-eaten snack from who-knows-when still wrapped up in there, Chomplings are great. They're smaller sticks (the right size to toss in a lunchbox or that little front backpack pocket) with 4 grams of protein and zero sugar.Chomps are made of high-quality ingredients like 100% grass-fed beef, venison, and antibiotic-free turkey. They're also free from the top nine allergens, so you don't have to worry about sending them to school.Check out all the sizes and delicious flavors at Chomps.com/DRBECKY for 15% off plus free shippingThere's always a moment - maybe two weeks into the school year - where I stop and think: “Wait, wasn't summer just five minutes ago?”Suddenly, we're back in the rush of packing lunches, signing permission slips, and struggling to find a pair of matching socks every morning. That's why I've started looking ahead to fall breaks now - before the long-weekend creeps up on me and feels less like a break, and more like being stuck at home for three days with three kids!My go-to for quick getaways? Booking an Airbnb. It's a reset that still feels like home: games and toys for the kids, a big living room for family movie nights, and even bunk beds that kids claim are “way better than our beds at home.”Plus, do you ever think about how you can host your own home on Airbnb for another family to enjoy while you're away? It's a great way to earn a little extra income to put towards your own trip, school supplies, or next season's cleats. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com/host.As parents, the mental load is real—to-do lists, doctor's appointments, sports practices, work events, birthday parties…” (pause) Should I keep going? If your family is anything like mine, it can feel like there are a thousand things to remember and your brain is running on overdrive.Well, what if I told you there's a way to bring a little more calm and clarity to your chaotic, always-changing family schedule? Meet Skylight Calendar. It's a central, easy-to-see touchscreen with clear colors, so everyone in your family can stay in the loop. As someone obsessed with efficiency, it almost feels like magic how seamlessly it syncs with all of the calendars you're already using—Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Outlook, and more. I truly see this tool as your partner in sharing the mental load with your kids AND partner. (No more, “Mommm, when's my soccer game?” or “What time do I need to pick the kids up?”)And because life doesn't stop when you leave the house, Skylight offers a free companion app. You can add or update events, check off to-do lists, and stay in sync with your family no matter where you are. Another great feature: If you're not completely thrilled within 120 days, you can return it for a full refund.Ready to say goodbye to calendar chaos and hello to a more organized and connected family life? Right now, Skylight is offering our listeners $30 off their 15-inch Calendars. Just go to www.SkylightCal.com/BECKY. This offer expires December 31st of this year.Okay, I'm not going to sugarcoat it: this school year is going to bring home some messy moments - and while we can't avoid the hard, we don't have to do it alone.That's why Good Inside gives you expert advice, practical tools, and a community that's truly in it with you - and right now, memberships and upgrades are 20% off from September 22nd through September 30th.Because you don't have to get it all right - what your kid needs most is connection. And what you need most is support that sticks with you all year.When the deep breath doesn't work, the routine falls apart, or you wonder if you're doing it wrong. Good Inside helps you feel sturdy in the moments that matter.If you've been on the fence about joining, this is the time to do it. Go to goodinside.com to get started, some exclusions apply. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Dr. Marc Brackett is a Yale professor, founder of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and creator of the RULER program implemented in 5,000 schools worldwide. This conversation explores Marc's journey from childhood trauma to emotion expert, his RULER framework for emotional intelligence, and why dealing with feelings is a crucial skill most of us never learned. We discuss "Uncle Marvin" figures, the meta-moment between stimulus and response, and practical strategies for emotional regulation. In real-time, Marc helps me explore my own emotional patterns as they emerge. Marc offers valuable insights into navigating difficult moments. Enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up   Today's Sponsors: Go Brewing: Use the code Rich Roll for 15% OFF

In this episode of The WorkWell Podcast™, Jen Fisher and special co-host Dr. Joe Grasso from Lyra Health speak with Dr. Marc Brackett, founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and Professor in the Child Study Center at Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Brackett's bestselling book "Permission to Feel" has revolutionized how we think about emotions in schools and workplaces, and his new book "Dealing With Feeling" challenges us to stop running from our emotional lives and start actually living them.Episode Highlights:Why there's no such thing as a "bad emotion" and how all feelings are simply dataThe difference between being an "emotion scientist" versus an "emotion judge"How toxic masculinity teaches men to disconnect from their emotions, perpetuating cycles of loneliness and isolationWhy "being emotional" doesn't mean you're weak—it means you're humanThe Meta Moment: A four-step process for healthy emotion regulation in high-pressure situationsHow to have difficult conversations at work without avoiding or attackingWhy bringing your whole self to work includes bringing your emotionsPractical strategies for managers to create emotionally intelligent team culturesThe importance of checking in with your emotions before they leak into unrelated situationsQuotable Moments:"Emotional intelligence... is not emotional reactivity. Emotions are on a continuum. There's a little bit of anger, which is annoyance, and there's a lot of anger, which is enraged." - Dr. Marc Brackett"Just because you're feeling strong emotions doesn't mean you're not capable. Doesn't mean you're not strong. Life is about emotions." - Dr. Marc BrackettResources:Free app: "How We Feel" (available on iOS and Android) - A mood tracking tool developed by Dr. Brackett to help build emotional vocabularyThis episode of The WorkWell Podcast™ is made possible by Lyra Health, a premier global workforce mental health solution. Learn more at Lyrahealth.com/workwell.

In this episode Andrea revisits her 2019 conversation with Dr. Daniel J. Siegel to explore Mindsight — his science-based approach to understanding the mind, integrating the brain, and cultivating empathy. Dr. Siegel explains the difference between mind and brain, the benefits of the Wheel of Awareness meditation, and how Mindsight can change brain structure and improve health. Watch full interview here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7pnea2Vbzc Practical tips include daily Mindsight practice, naming emotions to build self-awareness, and simple emotional check-ins to make learning and relationships more meaningful. This week, in our review of EP 28 with Daniel J. Siegel, MD  and his book Mindsight, we learned: ✔ The Difference Between the Mind and the Brain. ✔  The Benefits of The Wheel of Awareness Meditation. ✔ How to Understand and Apply Mindsight that gives us insight into ourselves, and empathy for others. ✔ How Mindsight can change brain structure and improve health. ✔ In order to make teaching and learning more meaningful, what we are teaching must have an element of emotion. Welcome back to SEASON 14 of The Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast, where we connect the science-based evidence behind social and emotional learning and emotional intelligence training for improved well-being, achievement, productivity and results—using what I saw as the missing link (since we weren't taught this when we were growing up in school), the application of practical neuroscience. I'm Andrea Samadi, and seven years ago, launched this podcast with a question I had never truly asked myself before: (and that is) If productivity and results matter to us—and they do now more than ever—how exactly are we using our brain to make them happen? Most of us were never taught how to apply neuroscience to improve productivity, results, or well-being. About a decade ago, I became fascinated by the mind-brain-results connection—and how science can be applied to our everyday lives. That's why I've made it my mission to bring you the world's top experts—so together, we can explore the intersection of science and social-emotional learning. We'll break down complex ideas and turn them into practical strategies we can use every day for predictable, science-backed results. Episode 371: For today's Episode 371, we continue our journey into the mind with the next interview review. Just a reminder-this review series began back with Episode 366[i], where in Part 3 we discovered an important lesson: if we don't like our results—or what we see on the outside—we need to shift our mindset and look within. True change always begins on the inside.   EP 369[ii] we learned how to Rewire our Brain with Dr. Dawson Church and his Bliss Brain Meditations, and then last week, EP 370[iii] with John Medina's Brain Rules, we reviewed how important this understanding of neuroscience is, especially connected to education, teaching and learning. Which brings us to today's review, EP 371, where we revisit a very early episode with clinical professor of psychiatry from UCLA's School of Medicine, Dr. Daniel J Siegel. He's from EP 28[iv], that was recorded back in November of 2019. As we take this journey deeper into the mind, Dr. Dan Siegel offers the perfect place to begin, with his ability to bridge cutting-edge neuroscience and practical wisdom. Dr. Dan Siegel, is well known for his books, trainings and courses that bridge cutting edge neuroscience with mindfulness and therapy. A reminder of his background-he's a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and executive director of the Mindsight Institute[v] where you can find his courses, workshops, books and tools to help anyone understand and apply what can sometimes be complicated scientific concepts and make them easy to understand and applicable to our daily lives. At the end of the interview, I let Dr. Siegel know that I had been practicing his Wheel of Awareness Meditation, and ended up reviewing what I learned on EP 60[vi] where we explored the Science Behind a Meditation Practice. You can watch the whole interview by clicking on the link in the resource section in the show notes, and learn all about Dr. Siegel's work that encompasses schools, with resiliency, brain science and helping our next generation to understand how to apply these important strategies whether it's in our classrooms, or workplaces of the future. Today we will continue to explore within, sharpen our mindset, and learn about what Dr. Siegel calls Mindsight. VIDEO 1 Click Here to Watch In Clip 1, Dr. Siegel unpacks the concept of Mindsight and helps clarify the difference between the mind and the brain, when I asked him to explain this distinction. I knew this wasn't an easy question—as I had already listened to him answer it many times over the years, and still wasn't sure I fully grasped it. In fact, I even tried to tackle it myself back in Episode 23[vii], Understanding Your Brain and Mind for Increased Results. But revisiting this topic now, I can see this concept requires a much deeper reflection. So, I asked Dr. Siegel if we could look at his definition of the mind—one he has been studying for years and that many in his scientific and educational circles agree on. He describes the mind as “an embodied and relational process—since it's in the body and it's in our relationships with one another—that regulates the flow of energy and information.” I wanted to hear him expand on this again, especially around why relationships are so critical for our health, our well-being, and for creating what he calls an integrated brain—which he equates with a healthy brain. His answer helped me to understand the importance of implementing Mindsight into our daily life. He said: “The word mind doesn't actually have a formal definition—not in education, psychotherapy, or even in fields like psychology that study it directly. But if we look closely, the mind includes your subjective experience—that inner feeling of being alive. It also includes consciousness—the ability to know that you're having that subjective experience. And beyond that, there's information processing—which doesn't always require consciousness and is essentially what school focuses on: learning to process information. When you understand the mind as a self-organizing process—a complex system that regulates its own becoming—you begin to see the power of teaching about the mind itself. This is what we call Mindsight. And if we could bring this understanding into education, the outcomes for students would be profoundly different.” Key Tip 1 with Dr. Dan Siegel Understanding and Applying Mindsight which is “the way we focus our attention on the internal world. It's how we bring consciousness to our own thoughts and feelings, and then next,  how we attune to the inner world of someone else. Mindsight gives us insight into ourselves, and empathy for others.”

Success in virtually every aspect of life―career, friendship, love, and family―is determined mainly by one thing: how we deal with emotions. In your most challenging moments, how did you respond? Did you fly off the handle? Were you paralyzed by indecision? Did you engage in behaviors that undermined your best intentions? Or did you exhibit grace under pressure and flourish? How you responded likely shaped what happened next. The good news? We all have the power to decide how we will respond to what life throws at us. Marc Brackett, Founding Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and author of the new book Dealing With Feeling: Use Your Emotions to Create the Life You Want is back on the show today.Together we'll explore how can begin to harness this power.The first step being the practice of acceptance.A message that in many ways is at the heart of Marc's work.It's a move that recognizes there are no bad emotions―only emotions we don't understand or know how to direct in positive, intentional ways.And secondly,That we must go beyond acceptance. Dealing with our feelings involves a set of skills and strategies that must belearned, practiced, and refined over a lifetime.When we do,We open the door to becoming the best version of ourselves and lifting others up around us.For more on Marc, his books, research, live events, and other work please visit marcbrackett.comDid you find this episode inspiring? Here are other conversations we think you'll love:To Feel is to Be Human | Marc BrackettOn the Science, and Magic, of Great Conversations | Alison Wood BrooksEnjoying the show? Please rate it wherever you listen to your podcasts!Thanks for listening!Support the show

Clinical psychologist Alexis Abernethy explores burnout, Sabbath rest, and resilience—reframing rest as spiritual practice for individuals and communities.“For me, it's knowing that the Lord has made me as much to work as much to be and to be still and know that he is God.”On this episode, clinical psychologist Alexis Abernethy (Fuller Seminary) joins Macie Bridge to discuss burnout, Sabbath, worship, mental health, and resilience in the life of the church. Defining burnout through its dimensions of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced sense of accomplishment, Abernethy reflects on how church life can intensify these dynamics even as it seeks to heal them. Drawing from scripture, theology, psychology, and her own experience in the Black church and academic worlds, she reorients us to Sabbath as more than self-care: a sacred practice of being still before God. Sabbath, she argues, is not a quick fix but a preventive rhythm that sustains resilience in leaders and congregations alike. Along the way, she points to the necessity of modeling rest, the impact of daily and weekly spiritual rhythms, and the communal posture that makes Sabbath transformative.Episode Highlights“For me, it's knowing that the Lord has made me as much to work as much to be and to be still and know that he is God.”“Often people have overextended themselves in face of crises, other circumstances over a period of time, and it's just not really sustainable, frankly, for anyone.”“We act as if working hard and excessively is dutiful and really what the Lord wants—but that's not what He wants.”“When you are still with the Lord, you look different when you're active.”“Sabbath rest allows you to literally catch your own breath, but also then be able to see what the congregation needs.”Helpful Links and ResourcesThat Their Work Will Be a Joy, Kurt Frederickson & Cameron LeeHoward Thurman, Meditations of the HeartEmily Dickinson, “Some Keep the Sabbath” (Poetry Foundation)About Alexis AbernethyAlexis Abernethy is a clinical psychologist and professor in the School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy at Fuller Seminary. Her research explores the intersection of spirituality and health, with particular focus on Christian spirituality, church leadership, and group therapy models.Topics and ThemesBurnout in Church Leadership and Congregational LifeDefining Burnout: Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, and Reduced AccomplishmentSpiritual Misconceptions of Work and DutySabbath as Sacred Rest, Not Just Self-CareSilence, Stillness, and the Presence of GodScriptural Foundations for Sabbath: Psalm 23, Psalm 46, John 15The Role of Pastors in Modeling RestPandemic Lessons for Church Rhythms and ParticipationEmily Dickinson and Creative Visions of SabbathResilience Through Sabbath: Lessons from New Orleans PastorsPractical Practices for Sabbath in Everyday LifeShow NotesExodus 20:8-11: 8 Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10 But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.Opening framing on burnout, Sabbath, and confusion about self-careIntroduction of Alexis Abernethy, her background as psychologist and professorChildhood in a lineage of Methodist pastors and formative worship experiencesEarly academic path: Howard University, UC Berkeley, affirmation from her fatherDefining burnout: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, reduced accomplishment“I'm just stuck. I used to enjoy my job.”The church as both source of fulfillment and site of burnoutMisconceptions of spirituality equating overwork with dutyReference: That Their Work Will Be a Joy (Frederickson & Lee)Scriptural reflections: Psalm 23, Psalm 46, John 15Stillness, quiet, and Howard Thurman on solitude“When you are still with the Lord, you look different when you're active.”Sabbath as sacred rest, not a quick fix or pillPastors modeling Sabbath for congregations, including personal family timeCOVID reshaping church rhythms and recalculating commitment costsEmily Dickinson's poem “Some Keep the Sabbath”Lessons from New Orleans pastors after Hurricane KatrinaSabbath as resilience for leaders and congregationsPractical steps: scripture meditation, playlists, Lectio Divina, cultivating quietClosing invitation: Sabbath as both individual discipline and community postureProduction NotesThis podcast featured Alexis AbernethyInterview by Macie BridgeEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaProduction Assistance by Alexa Rollow and Emily BrookfieldA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

When you think of creativity, you might think of aha moments, sudden bursts of inspiration, and perhaps the dreaded writer’s block! But creativity isn’t a skill limited to those working in the arts. Author and researcher Zorona Ivecvic Pringle says that creativity is a trait that can build slowly and steadily over time. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Author of The Creativity Choice: The Science of Making Decisions to Turn Ideas into Action. Today, she joins us for the hour to talk about the science behind creativity and innovation and ways to explore these skills in everyday life. GUEST: Zorana Ivecevic Pringle: Research Center at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and author The Creativity Choice: The Science of Making Decisions to Turn Ideas into Action Where We Live is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode. This episode originally aired June 26, 2025.Support the show: http://wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What prevents some of us from acting on our creative ideas while others dive right in? That's the question creativity researcher, Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, set out to answer. It's what she writes about in her book, The Creativity Choice: The Science of Making Decisions to Turn Ideas into Action. Zorana is a senior research scientist at Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Through her work, she's learned that creativity is a choice, and, when things get hard, we need to employ specific psychological and emotional tools to sustain our efforts. We also need to tap into strong and weak ties for support. If you're looking to unstick your creative capacity, this is the book you'll want to pick up. It's an inspiring read! Episode Links How We Think about Creativity Matters Creativity is a Choice, Not a Trait What Art Teaches Us Interview with Moshe Bar, Episode 214, Curious Minds at Work The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

Episode 370 reviews Dr. John Medina's insights from Brain Rules and explores how neuroscience and social-emotional learning combine to improve teaching, learning, and well-being. Key takeaways: teachers need basic neuroscience to support learning; the emotional stability of the home strongly shapes a child's resilience and confidence; and children build resilience when adults co-regulate and model healthy emotion management during high-emotion moments. This short review highlights practical steps for educators, parents, and leaders to apply brain-based strategies and SEL to boost student outcomes and lifelong skills. EP 370 covers a review of Dr. John Medina's Brain Rules, from EP 42 (February 2020)  We learned: ✔ If education is about the brain, then teachers need to understand how the brain learns best. ✔ A child's resilience and confidence are deeply tied to the emotional climate of the home. ✔  Children build resilience not in calm moments, but in how parents (or caregivers) respond when emotions run high. Welcome back to SEASON 14 of The Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast, where we connect the science-based evidence behind social and emotional learning and emotional intelligence training for improved well-being, achievement, productivity and results—using what I saw as the missing link (since we weren't taught this when we were growing up in school), the application of practical neuroscience. I'm Andrea Samadi, and seven years ago, launched this podcast with a question I had never truly asked myself before: (and that is) If productivity and results matter to us—and they do now more than ever—how exactly are we using our brain to make them happen? Most of us were never taught how to apply neuroscience to improve productivity, results, or well-being. About a decade ago, I became fascinated by the mind-brain-results connection—and how science can be applied to our everyday lives. That's why I've made it my mission to bring you the world's top experts—so together, we can explore the intersection of science and social-emotional learning. We'll break down complex ideas and turn them into practical strategies we can use every day for predictable, science-backed results. Episode 370: Brain Rules and the Future of Learning For today's Episode 370[i], we continue our journey into the mind with our next interview review—Dr. John Medina, author of the well-known book Brain Rules. We first featured Dr. Medina in EP 42, when we explored “Implementing Brain Rules in Schools and Workplaces of the Future.” To remind you where we began with our interview review series: We opened with EP 366[ii], diving into speaker Bob Proctor's timeless principles. Bob was the very first person—over 25 years ago—who challenged me with the question, “What do you really want to do with your life?” At the time, I didn't have a clear answer. It's taken well over 25 years now for this clarity to evolve. Eventually, I realized what mattered most to me: and that was bringing social and emotional learning (SEL) skills into schools. I had already seen how these skills—once called “soft skills”—transformed the lives of 12 teenagers I worked with in the motivational speaking industry in the late 1990s. Later, I watched as SEL spread into schools across states and countries, until the research became undeniable. A 2011 meta-analysis of 213 studies confirmed what I had seen firsthand a decade before this study was released: students who participated in SEL programs showed an 11-percentile-point increase in academic performance[iii] compared to control groups. That's a significant improvement, demonstrating just how powerful SEL can be. Long before this research, I simply knew these skills could shape the future of the next generation. This podcast itself was built around the six core SEL competencies—each explored in its own dedicated episode that you can find in our resource section in the show notes. Then came the next step: adding the lens of neuroscience. I realized that everything we were studying in SEL connected back to how the brain works. My deep dive into what I called “Neuroscience 101” began when an educator handed me a stack of books that opened my eyes to the importance of brain science in education. From those early hand-drawn sketches grew the framework that still guides this podcast today—bridging SEL and neuroscience to make learning both practical and powerful.   Which brings us to today's review: Episode 370, where we revisit Dr. John Medina. At the heart of this conversation is the very question that launched my journey years ago: What happens when we connect social and emotional learning with neuroscience? How can understanding the brain not only improve results and productivity, but also better equip our next generation of students in the classroom? It was John Medina's Brain Rules that first landed on my bookshelf back in 2009. And to be honest—it just sat there for a while. I wasn't ready yet. As Dr. Medina himself has said, this kind of learning can't be forced. You need a strong why to really dive into the mind–brain connection. For me, that why came later, when I realized how deeply understanding the brain could impact learning, teaching, and even life itself. If you're following along with this podcast, I imagine you've had a similar moment—when the connection between the brain and practical neuroscience suddenly made sense and became something worth pursuing. I'm always curious about what that moment looks like for others—what it is that makes this topic click. For me, it became clear during my very first presentation on this subject in November 2017, at a conference for the York Region School District in Toronto. The topic I was in charge of presenting was Stress, Learning, and the Brain, and the room was so full it was standing room only. This was after just three years of studying the topic myself, and when I first opened up David Souza's How the Brain Learns Series, I honestly thought this topic was over my head, and too difficult for me to understand, let alone having me teach it to others. But once there is a strong why, the way will be shown. And that day, when I saw how many people showed up to learn the topic, I knew this was the field I wanted to dedicate the rest of my life to—continuing to learn, and helping others understand and apply to their lives. VIDEO 1 Click Here to Watch Now that you know where this mind-brain connection began for me, I hope you can gain clarity with why it's so important to you. Important enough that you are tuning into this podcast to learn more. Wouldn't you know it—understanding this WHY with the brain-mind connection to thrive at home, work and school and with sport is exactly what Dr. John Medina said to me during our interview back in February 2020. If you click the link in the show notes, you can watch VIDEO 1, where he explains: “I believe that the cognitive neurosciences should be at the table of education training. Before you get a Bachelor Degree in Education, you have to have a fair degree of neuroscience. And it's a very specific slice—it's the kind of neuroscience that says: this is what we know about how the brain learns. Because teachers are in charge of that. It blows me away sometimes—I look at the Colleges of Education: if you're in the Geology Department, you study rocks. If you go to Medical School, you study humans. You could argue that the world of education is all about studying the brain. Where are the courses that say—‘This is how memory works. This is how we get someone to pay attention. This is what visual processing looks like.'” Dr. Medina is 100% right. When I went through teacher training at The University of Toronto, courses like this weren't offered. Fast forward to today, and my daily work now focuses on supporting educators with the Science of Reading—a body of research that, much like SEL, took decades to gain traction but is finally reshaping classrooms and teacher training, impacting how we teach our next generation of students to read. Of course, this knowledge can't just be forced on us. It's not easy material—it requires effort to learn. But if you're listening to this podcast each week, it's because you're curious. You're willing to dig into concepts that, until recently, were reserved for medical students. That's how Dr. Douglas Fisher gained his insights into how the brain learns best. As he told me in EP 161[iv], How Learning Works: Translating the Science of Learning into Strategies for Maximum Learning in Your Classroom, he actually sat in classes with medical students to develop a deeper understanding of brain-based learning—knowledge we were never given in traditional teacher training. Key Point from Video Clip 1 from John Medina

The Gospel of John is a gospel of superabundance. The cosmic Christ made incarnate would of course yield an absolute superabundance of grace, love, and unity.What makes John's Gospel so distinct from the Synoptics? Why does it continue to draw readers into inexhaustible depths of meaning? In this conversation, theologian David Ford reflects on his two-decade journey writing a commentary on John. Together with Drew Collins, he explores John's unique blend of theology, history, and literary artistry, describing it as a “gospel of superabundance” that continually invites readers to trust, to reread, and to enter into deeper life with Christ. Together they explore themes of individuality and community; friendship and love; truth, reconciliation, and unity; the tandem vision of Jesus as both cosmic and intimate; Jesus's climactic prayer for unity in chapter 17. And ultimately the astonishing superabundance available in the person of Christ. Along the way, Ford reflects on his interfaith reading practices, his theological friendships, and the vital role of truth and love for Christian witness today.“There's always more in John's gospel … these big images of light and life in all its abundance.”Episode Highlights“It is a gospel for beginners. But also it's endlessly rich, endlessly deep.”“There's always more in John's gospel and he has these big images of light and, life in all its abundance.”“It all culminates in love. Father, I desire that those also you, whom you have given me, may be with me.”“On the cross, evil, suffering, sin, death happened to Jesus. But Jesus happens to evil, suffering, sin, death.”“We have to go deeper into God and Jesus, deeper into community, and deeper into the world.”Show NotesDavid Ford on writing a commentary on John over two decadesJohn's Gospel compared to the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke)John as theological history writing (Rudolf Schnackenburg)John's purpose statement in chapter 20: written so that you may trust“A gospel for beginners” with simple language and cosmic depthJohn as a gospel of superabundance: light, life, Spirit without measureJohn's focus on individuals: Nicodemus, Samaritan woman, man born blind, Martha, Mary, LazarusThe Beloved Disciple and John's communal authorshipFriendship, love, and unity in the Farewell Discourses (John 13–17)John 17 as the most profound chapter in ScriptureThe crisis of rewriting: scrapping 15 years of writing to begin anewScriptural reasoning with Jews, Muslims, and Christians on John's GospelWrestling with John 8 and the polemics against “the Jews”Reconciliation across divisionsJohn's vision of discipleship: learning, loving, praying, and living truthHelpful Links and ResourcesDavid Ford, The Gospel of John: A Theological CommentaryRudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. JohnAbout David FordDavid F. Ford is Regius Professor of Divinity Emeritus at the University of Cambridge. He has written extensively on Christian theology, interfaith engagement, and scriptural reasoning. His most recent work is The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary (Baker Academic, 2021). Ford is co-founder of the Cambridge Interfaith Programme and the Rose Castle Foundation.Production NotesThis podcast featured David FordInterview by Drew CollinsEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaProduction Assistance by Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, and Emily BrookfieldA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/giveThis episode was made possible in part by the generous support of the Tyndale House Foundation. For more information visit Tyndale.foundation.

The Trump administration is working to remove protections for more than 58 million acres of national forests. A brief public comment period is now open on a plan to rescind the federal government's 25-year-old Roadless Rule which prohibits road construction and timber harvesting in several states. Environmental groups and leaders of Alaska Native tribes with cultural ties to the Tongass National Forest — the country's largest national forest — are raising alarms about the plan. The vast temperate rainforest covers 17 million acres and is also the nation's largest stand of old-growth trees, many of which are at least 800 years old. Advocates warn that road construction and increased commercial logging threaten subsistence hunting, plant harvesting, and fishing. We'll talk with tribal leaders and others about what's at stake in Tongass and the future of forest management. GUESTS Chuck Sams (Cayuse and Walla), director of Indigenous Programs at Yale Center for Environmental Justice and former National Park Service director Cody Desautel (Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation), president of the Intertribal Timber Council and the executive director of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation Mike Jones (Haida), president of the Organized Village of Kasaan Ilsxílee Stáng/Gloria Burns (Haida), president of the Ketchikan Indian Community Joel Jackson (Tlingit and Haida), president of the Organized Village of Kake

This week, Scott sits down with Dr. Marc Brackett, founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and author of Dealing with Feelings: Use Your Emotions to Create the Life You Want. Together, they explore why so many of us struggle to manage our emotions and what we can do about it. Dr. Brackett explains the importance of co-regulation, self-compassion, and learning to work with our feelings rather than against them. As he reminds us, nearly every experience in our lives—good or bad—is shaped by how we respond emotionally. This conversation is full of practical wisdom and science-backed tools to help you better understand your inner world and harness the power of emotions for growth, resilience, and joy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Miroslav Volf critiques ambition, love of status, and superiority, offering a Christ-shaped vision of agapic love and humble glory.“'And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?' If you received everything you have as a gift and if your existence as the recipient is also a gift, all ground for boasting is gone. Correspondingly, striving for superiority over others, seeking to make oneself better than others and glorying in that achievement, is possible only as an existential lie. It is not just a lie that all strivers and boasters tell themselves. More troublingly, that lie is part of the ideology that is the wisdom of a certain twisted and world-negating form of the world.”In Lecture 5, the final of his Gifford Lectures, Miroslav Volf offers a theological and moral vision that critiques the dominant culture of ambition, superiority, and status. Tracing the destructive consequences of Epithumic desire and the relentless “race of honors,” Volf contrasts them with agapic love—God's self-giving, unconditional love. Drawing from Paul's Christ hymn in Philippians 2 and philosophical insights from Rousseau, Nietzsche, and Max Scheler, Volf reveals the radical claim that striving for superiority is not merely harmful but fundamentally false. Through Christ's self-emptying, even to the point of death, we glimpse a redefinition of glory that subverts all worldly hierarchies. The love that saves is the love that descends. In a world ravaged by competition, inequality, and devastation, Volf calls for fierce, humble, and world-affirming love—a love that mends what can be mended, and makes the world home again.Episode Highlights“Striving for superiority over others… is possible only as an existential lie.”“Jesus Christ was no less God and no less glorious at his lowest point.”“To the extent that I'm striving for superiority, I cannot love myself unless I am the GOAT.”“God cancels the standards of the kind of aspiration whose goal is superiority.”“This is neither self-denial nor denial of the world. This is love for the world at work.”Show NotesAgapic love vs. Epithemic desire and self-centered striving“Striving for superiority… is possible only as an existential lie.”Paul's hymn in Philippians 2 and the “race of shame”Rousseau: striving for superiority gives us “a multitude of bad things”Nietzsche's critique of Christianity and pursuit of powerMax Scheler: downward love, not upward striving“Jesus Christ was no less God and no less glorious at his lowest point.”Self-love as agapic: “I am entirely a gift to myself.”Raphael's Transfiguration and the chaos belowDemon possession as symbolic of systemic and spiritual powerlessness“To the extent that I'm striving for superiority, I cannot love myself unless I am the GOAT.”“The world is the home of God and humans together.”God's love affirms the dignity of even the most unlovable creatureLove as spontaneous overflow, not moral condescension“Mending what can be mended… mourning with those who mourn and dancing with those who rejoice.”Production NotesThis podcast featured Miroslav VolfEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaProduction Assistance by Taylor Craig and Macie BridgeA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/giveSpecial thanks to Dr. Paul Nimmo, Paula Duncan, and the media team at the University of Aberdeen. Thanks also to the Templeton Religion Trust for their support of the University of Aberdeen's 2025 Gifford Lectures and to the McDonald Agape Foundation for supporting Miroslav's research towards the lectureship.

In this episode of Archispeak, we walk across the street in New Haven—literally and figuratively—to explore two masterworks by Paul Rudolph and Louis Kahn. These buildings, separated by time but connected by place and purpose, offer a rare opportunity to see two giants of architecture in conversation across the street.We kick things off outside Paul Rudolph's brutalist Art and Architecture Building, a six-story monument to concrete, shadow play (which is Cormac's favorite), and interlocking geometries. From rough textures to zigzagging stair sequences, we unpack how Rudolph's massing, detail, and bold restraint create an intensely dynamic corner in the city.Then, just steps away, we head into Louis Kahn's Yale University Art Gallery. Built 20 years prior, it's a study in geometric discipline, restrained materiality, and the classic served-and-servant spatial philosophy. From triangular waffle slabs and coffered ceilings to floating stair treads, we peel back the layers of this early Kahn work and talk about how it set the stage for what came later in his career.We also announce a new series: What Makes This Building Great?, available exclusively on our YouTube channel, where we take our conversations further by sketching over photos and plans to peel back the onion of master works of architecture. These are the kinds of deep, nerdy dives we've always wanted to do—and we'd love your feedback as we build this series out.Head to our YouTube channel to watch the first episode featuring Kahn's Yale Center for British Art. And let us know what buildings you think are worthy of the title.-----Have a question for the hosts? Ask it at AskArchispeak.comThank you for listening to Archispeak. For more episodes please visit https://archispeakpodcast.com.Support Archispeak by making a donation.

Today, I am pleased to welcome Christopher Rim, founder and CEO of Command Education, a top college admissions consultancy based in New York City. Command Education helps students pursue their passions and navigate the college process. Before founding the company in 2015, Christopher worked on inspirED at Meta with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and served on advisory boards for organizations like Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation. A Yale graduate in psychology, he developed an EQ-based mentoring approach that has helped hundreds of students gain admission to top schools, with a 94% acceptance rate to at least one of their top three choices. Christoper helps families with what is almost always the #1 objective for parents across the globe – providing the best education, and the best opportunities, for their children. He talks about the importance of helping young rising-gen members to enter top schools and elite colleges and why this is so high up on the list of critical priorities. The college prep space has transformed significantly in recent years. Christopher shares his insights on how the landscape has changed – how the selection process has evolved among leading schools and what it takes nowadays for a college applicant to stand out and succeed. One practical tip Christopher has for our listeners is the importance of extracurricular activities and projects that showcase the values, passion, and interests of the rising gen members. He elaborates on that and highlights why these activities and undertakings matter more and more. Finally, Christopher offers his views on some of the most important practical resources for students and their parents that can help them navigate and excel throughout this process – from consultants to tutors to coaches and other quantitative and qualitative tools. Enjoy this highly informative conversation with a trailblazer in the college admission consulting and coaching space.

Miroslav Volf explores agapic love, creation's goodness, and God's grief—an alternative to despair, power, and world rejection.“When a wanted child is born, the immense joy of many parents often renders them mute, but their radiant faces speak of surprised delight: ‘Just look at you! It is so very good that you are here!' This delight precedes any judgment about the beauty, functionality, or moral rectitude of the child. The child's sheer existence, the mere fact of it, is ‘very good.' That's what I propose God, too, exclaimed, looking at the new-born world. And that unconditional love grounds creation's existence.”In this fourth Gifford Lecture, Miroslav Volf contrasts the selective and self-centered love of Ivan Karamazov with the radically inclusive, unconditional love of Father Zosima. Drawing deeply from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, Genesis's creation and flood narratives, and Hannah Arendt's concept of amor mundi, Volf explores a theology of agapic love: unearned, universal, and enduring. This is the love by which God sees creation as “very good”—not because it is perfect, but because it exists. It's the love that grieves corruption without destroying it, that sees responsibility as mutual, and that offers the only hope for life in a deeply flawed world. With references to Luther, Nietzsche, and modern visions of power and desire, Volf challenges us to ask what kind of love makes a world, sustains it, and might one day save it. “Love the world,” he insists, “or lose your soul.”Episode Highlights“The world will either be loved with unconditional love, or it'll not be loved at all.”“Unconditional love abides. If the object of love is in a state that can be celebrated, love rejoices. If it is not, love mourns and takes time to help bring it back to itself.”“Each is responsible for all. Each is guilty for all. Each needs forgiveness from all. Each must forgive all.”“Creation is not primarily sacramental or iconic. It is an object of delight both for humans and for God.”“Agapic love demands nothing from the beloved, though it cares and hopes much for them and for the shared world with them.”Show NotesSchopenhauer and Nietzsche's visions of happiness: pleasure and power as substitutes for love“Love as hunger”: the devouring nature of epithemic desireIvan Karamazov's tragic love for life—selective, gut-level, and self-focused“There is still… this wild and perhaps indecent thirst for life in me”Father Zosima's universal love for “every leaf and every ray of God's light”“Love man also in his sin… Love all God's creation”Sonya and Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment: love as restoration“She loved him and stayed with him—not although he murdered, but because he murdered”God's declaration in Genesis: “And look—it was very good”Hannah Arendt's amor mundi—“I want you to be” as pure affirmationCreation as gift: “Each is itself by being more than itself”Martin Luther on marriage, sex, and delight as godly pleasuresThe flood as hypothetical: divine grief replaces divine destruction“It grieved God to his heart”—grief as a form of agapic love“Each is responsible for all. Each is guilty for all.”Agape over erotic love: not reward and punishment, but faithful presence and care“Agapic love demands nothing… It is free, sovereign to love, humble.”Closing invitation: to live the life of love, under whatever circumstancesProduction NotesThis podcast featured Miroslav VolfEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaProduction Assistance by Taylor Craig and Macie BridgeA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/giveSpecial thanks to Dr. Paul Nimmo, Paula Duncan, and the media team at the University of Aberdeen. Thanks also to the Templeton Religion Trust for their support of the University of Aberdeen's 2025 Gifford Lectures and to the McDonald Agape Foundation for supporting Miroslav's research towards the lectureship.

Miroslav Volf confronts Schopenhauer's pessimism and unquenchable thirst with a vision of love that affirms the world.“Unquenchable thirst makes for ceaseless pain. This befits our nature as objectification of the ceaseless and aimless will at the heart of reality. ... For Schopenhauer, the pleasure of satisfaction are the lights of fireflies in the night of life's suffering. These four claims taken together make pain the primordial, universal, and unalterable state of human lives.”In the second installment of his 2025 Gifford Lectures, Miroslav Volf examines the 19th-century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer's radical rejection of the world. Through Schopenhauer's metaphysics of blind will and insatiable desire, Volf draws out the philosopher's haunting pessimism and hatred for existence itself. But Schopenhauer's rejection of the world—rooted in disappointed love—is not just a historical curiosity; Volf shows how our modern consumerist cravings mirror Schopenhauer's vision of unquenchable thirst and fleeting satisfaction. In response, Volf offers a theological and philosophical critique grounded in three kinds of love—epithumic (appetitive), erotic (appreciative), and agapic (self-giving)—arguing that agape love must be central in our relationship to the world. “Everything is a means, but nothing satisfies,” Volf warns, unless we reorder our loves. This second lecture challenges listeners to reconsider what it means to live in and love a world full of suffering—without abandoning its goodness.Episode Highlights“Unquenchable thirst makes for ceaseless pain. This befits our nature as objectification of the ceaseless and aimless will at the heart of reality.”“Whether we love ice cream or sex or God, we are often merely seeking to slake our thirst.”“If we long for what we have, what we have never ceases to satisfy.”“A better version is available—for whatever reason, it is not good enough. And we discard it. This is micro-rejection of the world.”“Those who love agape refuse to act as if they were the midpoint of their world.”Helpful Links and ResourcesThe World as Will and Representation by Arthur SchopenhauerParadiso by Dante AlighieriVictor Hugo's Les MisérablesA Brief for the Defense by Jack GilbertShow NotesSchopenhauer's pessimism as rooted in disappointed love of the worldGod's declaration in Genesis—“very good”—contrasted with Schopenhauer's “nothing is good”Job's suffering as a theological counterpoint to Schopenhauer's metaphysical despairHuman desire framed as unquenchable thirst: pain, boredom, and fleeting satisfactionSchopenhauer's diagnosis: we swing endlessly between pain and boredomThree kinds of love introduced: epithumic (appetite), erotic (appreciation), agapic (affirmation)Schopenhauer's exclusive emphasis on appetite—no place for appreciation or unconditional loveModern consumer culture mirrors Schopenhauer's account: desiring to desire, never satisfiedFast fashion, disposability, and market-induced obsolescence as symptoms of world-negation“We long for what we have” vs. “we discard the world”Luther's critique: “suck God's blood”—epithumic relation to GodAgape love: affirming the other, even when undeserving or diminishedErotic love: savoring the intrinsic worth of things, not just their utilityThe fleetingness of joy and comparison's corrosion of valueModern desire as invasive, subliminally shaped by market competitionDenigration of what is in favor of what could be—a pathology of dissatisfactionConsumerism as massive “micro-rejection” of the worldVolf's call to reorder our loves toward appreciation and unconditional affirmationTheology and metaphysics reframe suffering not as a reason to curse the world, but to love it betterPreview of next lecture: Nietzsche, joy, and the affirmation of all existenceProduction NotesThis podcast featured Miroslav VolfEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaProduction Assistance by Taylor Craig and Macie BridgeA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/giveSpecial thanks to Dr. Paul Nimmo, Paula Duncan, and the media team at the University of Aberdeen. Thanks also to the Templeton Religion Trust for their support of the University of Aberdeen's 2025 Gifford Lectures and to the McDonald Agape Foundation for supporting Miroslav's research towards the lectureship.

Miroslav Volf on how to rightly love a radically ambivalent world.“The world, our planetary home, certainly needs to be changed, improved. But what it needs even more is to be rightly loved.”Miroslav Volf begins his 2025 Gifford Lectures at the University of Aberdeen with a provocative theological inquiry: What difference does belief in God make for our relationship to the world? Drawing deeply from Nietzsche's “death of God,” Schopenhauer's despair, and Hannah Arendt's vision of amor mundi, Volf explores the ambivalence of modern life—its beauty and horror, its resonance and alienation. Can we truly love the world, even amidst its chaos and collapse? Can a belief in the God of Jesus Christ provide motivation to love—not as appetite or utility, but as radical, unconditional affirmation? Volf suggests that faith offers not a retreat from reality, but an anchor amid its disorder—a trust that enables us to hope, even when the world's goodness seems impossible. This first lecture challenges us to consider the character of our relationship to the world, between atheism and theism, critique and love.Episode Highlights“The world, our planetary home, certainly needs to be changed, improved. But what it needs even more is to be rightly loved.”“Resonance seems both indispensable and insufficient. But what should supplement it? What should underpin it?”“Our love for that lived world is what these lectures are about.”“We can reject and hate one form of the world because we love the world as such.”“Though God is fully alive… we often find the same God asleep when our boats are about to capsize.”Helpful Links and ReferencesResonance by Hartmut RosaThe Human Condition by Hannah ArendtThis Life by Martin HägglundThe Home of God by Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-LinzThe City of God by AugustineDivine Comedy by DanteShow NotesPaul Nimmo introduces the Gifford Lectures and Miroslav Volf's themeVolf begins with gratitude and scope: belief in God and our worldIntroduces Nietzsche's “death of God” as cultural metaphorFrames plausibility vs. desirability of God's existenceIntroduces Hartmut Rosa's theory of resonanceProblem: resonance is not enough; what underpins motivation to care?Introduces amor mundi as thematic direction of the lecturesContrasts Marx's atheism and human liberation with Nietzsche's nihilismAnalyzes Dante and Beatrice in Hägglund's This LifeDistinguishes between “world” and “form of the world”Uses cruise ship metaphor to critique modern life's ambivalenceDiscusses Augustine, Hannah Arendt, and The Home of GodReflections on divine providence and theodicyBiblical images: flood, exile, and the sleeping GodEnds with preview of next lectures on Schopenhauer and NietzscheLet me know if you'd like episode-specific artwork prompts, promotional copy for social media, or a transcript excerpt formatted for publication.Production NotesThis podcast featured Miroslav VolfEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaProduction Assistance by Taylor Craig and Macie BridgeA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/giveSpecial thanks to Dr. Paul Nimmo, Paula Duncan, and the media team at the University of Aberdeen. Thanks also to the Templeton Religion Trust for their support of the University of Aberdeen's 2025 Gifford Lectures and to the McDonald Agape Foundation for supporting Miroslav's research towards the lectureship.

In this episode of Archispeak, we walk through the Yale Center for British Art by Louis Kahn and reflect on what makes this building truly great. From its masterful use of natural light and honest materials to the clarity of its spatial organization, Kahn's final building is both a work of art and a place for art. We discuss what it feels like to experience the space firsthand, how it invites contemplation, and why it continues to resonate with architects decades later. Along the way, we explore timeless questions about authorship, permanence, and what architecture has the power to communicate.Episode Links:Watch a YouTube-only visual version of this episode hereYale Center for British Art (Wikipedia)-----Have a question for the hosts? Ask it at AskArchispeak.comThank you for listening to Archispeak. For more episodes please visit https://archispeakpodcast.com.Support Archispeak by making a donation.

They're in the books we read, the shows we watch, and the art we hang on our walls. They conjure notions of might, magic, romance, and more. Castles, perhaps as much as any other architectural structure in history, define the landscape of our fantasy and imagination. But is our imagination an accurate lens through which to view these fortresses of ol'? And why, after hundreds of years, does our culture's fascination with these structures seem to be on the rise? This hour, we speak with experts and enthusiasts about the reality and mystique of castles. GUESTS: Marc Morris: Medieval historian and author of books including Castles: Their History and Evolution in Medieval Britain Victor Lodato: Playwright, poet, and novelist whose books include Edgar and Lucy Edward Town: Assistant Curator of Paintings and Sculpture at the Yale Center for British Art Brent Bruns II: - Star of the hit National Geographic reality TV show "Doomsday Castle" The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. Colin McEnroe and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, which originally aired on May 18, 2017.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What if our relentless drive to be better than others is quietly breaking us?Miroslav Volf unpacks the core themes of his 2025 book, The Cost of Ambition: How Striving to Be Better Than Others Makes Us Worse. In this book, Volf offers a penetrating critique of comparison culture, diagnosing the hidden moral and spiritual wounds caused by competition and superiority.Drawing on Scripture, theology, philosophy, literature, and our culture's obsession with competition and superiority, Volf challenges our assumptions about ambition and identity—and presents a deeply humanizing vision of life rooted not in being “the best,” but in receiving ourselves as creatures made and loved by God.From Milton's depiction of Satan to Jesus' descent in Philippians 2, from the architectural rivalry of ancient Byzantium to modern Olympic anxieties, Volf invites us to imagine a new foundation for personal and social flourishing: a life free from striving, rooted in love and grace.Highlights“The key here is for us to come to appreciate, affirm, and—importantly—love ourselves. Love ourselves unconditionally.”“Striving for superiority devalues everything we have, if it doesn't contribute to us being better than someone else.”“The inverse of striving for superiority is internal plague by inferiority.”“In Jesus, we see that God's glory is not to dominate but to lift up what is low.”“We constantly compare to feel good about ourselves, and end up unsure of who we are.”“We have been given to ourselves by God—our very existence is a gift, not a merit.”Helpful Links and ResourcesVisit faith.yale.edu/ambition to get a 40-page PDF Discussion Guide and Full Access to 7 videosThe Cost of Ambition by Miroslav Volf (Baker Academic, May 2025)Philippians 2:5–11 (NIV) – Christ's Humility and Exaltation – BibleGatewayRomans 12:10 – “Outdo one another in showing honor” – BibleHubParadise Lost by John Milton – Project GutenbergParadise Regained by John Milton – Project GutenbergShow NotesOpening Reflections on CompetitionThe conversation begins with Volf recalling a talk he gave at the Global Congress on Christianity & Sports.He uses athletic competition—highlighting Lionel Messi—as a lens for questioning the moral value of striving to be better than others.“Sure, competition pulls people up—but it also familiarizes us with inferiority.”“We compare ourselves to feel good… but end up feeling worse.”Introduces the story of Justinian and Hagia Sophia: “Oh Solomon, I have outdone you.”Rivalry, Power, and InsecurityShares the backstory of Juliana's competing church and the gold-ceiling arms race with Justinian.“Religious architecture became a battlefield of status.”Draws insight from these historic rivalries as examples of how ambition pervades religious life—not just secular.Modern Parallels: Yale Students's & the Rat RaceVolf notes how even Yale undergrads—once top of their class—feel insecure in comparison to peers.“They arrive and suddenly their worth plummets. That's insane.”The performance-driven culture makes stable identity nearly impossible.Biblical Illustration: Kierkegaard's LilyVolf recounts Kierkegaard's retelling of Jesus's lily parable.A bird whispers to the little lily that it's not beautiful enough, prompting the lily to uproot itself—and wither.“The lesson: we are destined to lose ourselves when our value depends on comparison.”Intrinsic Value and the Image of God“We need to discover the intrinsic value of who we are as creatures made in the image of God.”Kierkegaard and Jesus both show us the beauty of ‘mere humanity.'“You are more glorious in your humanity than Solomon in his robes.”Theological Anthropology and Grace“We have been given to ourselves by God—our lives are a gift.”“We owe so much to luck, to others, to God. So how can we boast?”Paul's challenge in 1 Corinthians: “What do you have that you have not received?”Milton and Satan's AmbitionShifts to Paradise Lost: Satan rebels because he can't bear not being top.“Even what is beautiful becomes devalued if it doesn't prove superiority.”In Paradise Regained, Satan tempts Jesus to be the greatest—but Jesus refuses.Christ's Humility and Downward GloryHighlights Philippians 2: Jesus “emptied himself… took the form of a servant.”“God's glory is not domination—it's lifting up the lowly.”“Salvation comes not through seizing status, but through relinquishing it.”Paul's Vision of Communal HonorRomans 12:10: “Outdo one another in showing honor.”“True honor comes not from climbing over others, but from lifting them up.”Connects this ethic to Paul's vision of church as an egalitarian body.God's Care for Creation and HumanityLuther's observation: God calls Earth good but not Heaven—“God cares more for our home than his own.”“We are called to emulate God's loving attention to the least.”Striving vs. AcceptanceVolf contrasts ambition with love: “The inverse of striving for superiority is the plague of inferiority.”Encourages unconditional self-love as a reflection of God's love.Uses image of a parent greeting a newborn: “You've arrived.”A Vision for Healed Culture“We wreck others in our pursuit of superiority—and we leave them wounded in our wake.”The gospel reveals a better way: not performance, but grace.“Our salvation and our culture's healing lie in the humility of Jesus.”“We must rediscover the beauty of our mere humanity.”About Miroslav VolfMiroslav Volf is the founding director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture and the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School. One of the leading public theologians of our time, he is the author of numerous books including Exclusion and Embrace, Flourishing, A Public Faith, Life Worth Living, and most recently, The Cost of Ambition. His work explores themes of identity, reconciliation, human dignity, and the role of faith in a pluralistic society. He is a frequent speaker around the world and has advised both religious and civic leaders on matters of peace and justice.Production NotesThis podcast featured Miroslav VolfEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaProduction Assistance by Macie Bridge and Taylor CraigA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

It's official. On July 4, President Trump signed the Republican reconciliation bill into law, gutting many of the country's most significant clean energy tax credits. The future of the American solar, wind, battery, and electric vehicle industries looks very different now than it did last year.On this week's episode of Shift Key, we survey the damage and look for bright spots. What did the law, in its final version, actually repeal, and what did it leave intact? How much could still change as the Trump administration implements the law? What does this mean for U.S. economic competitiveness? And how are we feeling about the climate fight today? Jillian Goodman, Heatmap's deputy editor, joins us to discuss all these questions and more. Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap's executive editor. Mentioned:The REPEAT Project report on what the OBBBA will mean for the future of American emissionsThe Bipartisan Policy Center's foreign entities of concern explainerThe new White House executive order about renewables tax credits And here's more of Heatmap's coverage from the endgame of OBBBA.--This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …The Yale Center for Business and the Environment's online clean energy programs equip you with tangible skills and powerful networks—and you can continue working while learning. In just five hours a week, propel your career and make a difference.Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode I speak with Kimberly Hieftje about her work at the Yale Center for Immersive Technologies in Pediatrics (sorry about the background noise...we were trying to find a quiet place at ILRN)

Just two types of machines have produced the overwhelming majority of electricity generated since 1890. This week, we look at the history of those devices, how they work — and how they have contributed to global warming.This is our second episode of Shift Key Summer School, a series of “lecture conversations” about the basics of energy, electricity, and the power grid for listeners of all backgrounds. This week, we dive into the invention and engineering of the world's most common types of fossil- and nuclear-fueled power plants. What's a Rankine cycle power station, and how does it use steam to produce electricity? How did the invention of the jet engine enable the rise of natural gas-generated electricity? And why can natural gas power plants achieve much higher efficiency gains than coal plants?Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap's executive editor. Mentioned:Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology, by Alexis Madrigal--This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …The Yale Center for Business and the Environment's online clean energy programs equip you with tangible skills and powerful networks—and you can continue working while learning. In just five hours a week, propel your career and make a difference.Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle is a Senior Research Scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Her work has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, US News, Science Daily, and others, and she is a regular contributor to Psychology Today and Creativity Post. Zorana studies many aspects of the creative process, including idea generation but also creative mindsets, creative self-efficacy, and the role of emotions in creativity. Her new book is called The Creativity Choice: The Science of Making Decisions to Turn Ideas into Action. She argues that creativity is a choice--not only choosing in some abstract general way, but she gives advice about how to make creative choices throughout the creative process, from the first idea to the development of the idea. In this interview, she talks about creative mindsets, creative self-efficacy, and harnessing and managing your emotions to maximize creativity. For more information: Zorana Ivcevic Pringle's web site Music by license from SoundStripe: "Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ "Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ "What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

What is the difference between energy and power? How does the power grid work? And what's the difference between a megawatt and a megawatt-hour? On this week's episode, we answer those questions and many, many more. This is the start of a new series: Shift Key Summer School. It's a series of introductory “lecture conversations” meant to cover the basics of energy and the power grid for listeners of every experience level and background. In less than an hour, we try to get you up to speed on how to think about energy, power, horsepower, volts, amps, and what uses (approximately) 1 watt-hour, 1 kilowatt-hour, 1 megawatt-hour, and 1 gigawatt-hour. Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap's executive editor. Mentioned: Decarbonize Your Life--This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …The Yale Center for Business and the Environment's online clean energy programs equip you with tangible skills and powerful networks—and you can continue working while learning. In just five hours a week, propel your career and make a difference.Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter here! In this special summer edition of the Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast, hosts Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood welcome back Dr. Zorana Pringle, senior research scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, to discuss her new book, "The Creativity Choice." In a concise, listen-and-learn format, Dr. Pringle offers a compelling overview of her book, which explores what happens after we've come up with creative ideas—emphasizing the process of transforming those ideas into tangible outcomes. The conversation highlights that creativity isn't limited to the arts; it's a multifaceted process relevant to lesson planning, curriculum design, and problem-solving in any educational context. Dr. Pringle also addresses common misconceptions about Teaching Creativity, such as the belief that it requires complete freedom or is only about idea generation, emphasizing instead the importance of constraints and the emotional journey involved in creative work. Listeners will gain practical insights into how emotions impact different stages of the creative process, from playful ideation to critical evaluation. Dr. Pringle shares actionable advice, encouraging educators (and anyone cultivating creativity) to recognize their own emotional patterns and leverage them—using energized moods for brainstorming and more subdued moods for critical review. The episode not only introduces inspiring new perspectives on creativity in education but also serves as a sneak peek into Dr. Pringle's book, recommended for educators, leaders, and coaches alike. Be sure to visit the podcast website for the complete summer reading list, and stay tuned for more enriching episodes in this summer professional development series.   Eager to bring more creativity into your school district? Check out our sponsor Curiosity2Create.org and join their Creativity Network for Educators at Curiosity2Connect! Check out our Podcast Website to dive deeper into Creativity in Education! For more information on Creativity in Education, check out: Matt's Website: Worwood Classroom Cyndi's Website: Creativity and Education

When you think of creativity, you might think of aha moments, sudden bursts of inspiration, and perhaps the dreaded writer’s block! But creativity isn’t a skill limited to those working in the arts. Author and researcher Zorona Ivecvic Pringle says that creativity is a trait that can build slowly and steadily over time. Provided by AuthorZorana Ivcevic Pringle, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Author of The Creativity Choice: The Science of Making Decisions to Turn Ideas into Action. Today, she joins us for the hour to talk about the science behind creativity and innovation and ways to explore these skills in everyday life. GUEST: Zorana Ivecevic Pringle: Research Center at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and author The Creativity Choice: The Science of Making Decisions to Turn Ideas into Action Support the show: http://wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hew Locke talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Locke was born in 1959 in Edinburgh, UK, to the artists Donald and Leila Locke. The family sailed from the UK to Guyana in 1966 and Hew was based there until 1980. He returned to the UK to study art in 1980 and now lives in London. Over more than three decades, Locke has explored a panoply of imagery about nationhood, culture and power. Since he was a child growing up in postcolonial Guyana, he has had a lifelong interest in the symbols nations choose to reflect themselves, the objects they acquire to enrich their cultures, and the institutions that project these values into the world. In sculpture and installation, photography, drawing and textiles, he has created arresting tableaux whose layers of rich materiality, fusing found and everyday objects with finely drawn and crafted elements, foreground nuance and complexity. He reflects the shifting nature of significance and meaning according to time, place and the collective values and subjectivities of his audience. He discusses his desire for complexity without dispensing with formal rigour and visual impact. He reflects on the different forms of composition necessitated by his approach, and his consistent use of cardboard as a material. He discusses the equal influence of his parents on his work, the tutorial with Paula Rego that led to a complete change in the direction of his work, and the impact of seeing Hans Haacke's celebrated German pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1993. Plus, he gives insight into life in the studio and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?Hew Locke, Gilt, Compton Verney, 5 July-July 2027; Hew Locke: Passages, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, US, 2 October-11 January 2026; Armada, Newlyn Art Gallery, UK, 1 November; Cargoes, King Edward Memorial Park, opening September. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It makes sense that if you want to cut down on the amount of spam email you get, just unsubscribe from those emails. WAIT! That could make things worse. There is a better way to handle spam emails, and I begin this episode by explaining how. https://www.yahoo.com/news/warning-hitting-unsubscribe-unwanted-emails-115900557.html Predicting the future is a losing game most of the time. Still, a lot of influential people spend a lot of time and money trying to do it. People forecast where the stock market is going, they predict trends in fashion, technology and everything else. It makes you wonder if all that effort and money trying to predict the future actually helps to make it happen. So why is the future so unpredictable? What forces do shape the future? Joining me to discuss this is Glenn Adamson, former director of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York. He has held appointments as Senior Scholar at the Yale Center for British Art and he is the author of the book, A Century of Tomorrows: How Imagining the Future Shapes the Present (https://amzn.to/442HOfb). People have been floating the idea of a 4-day workweek for over 60 years. Yet it is still not the norm. Why hasn't it caught on? Is it a good idea? Will it ever be a real thing? Here with some interesting insight into the 4-day workweek is Juliet Schor. She is an economist, and professor of sociology at Boston College. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, People and 60 Minutes. She is also the author of a book called Four Days a Week: The Life-Changing Solution for Reducing Employee Stress, Improving Well-Being, and Working Smarter (https://amzn.to/4jQSvr0). There are a lot of weight loss programs and strategies available for people. But what if there was one simple, common sense, easy to do tactic that is proven to help people lose weight effectively? There is. It so simple. And I will tell you exactly how to do it. https://www.ornish.com/zine/proven-benefits-keeping-food-journal/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Miroslav Volf is a theologian and professor at Yale Divinity School, where he is the founding director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. He is widely known for his work on reconciliation, forgiveness, and the intersection of faith and public life. He’s the author of at least twelve books, including the highly influential Exclusion and Embrace, as well as many articles and quite a few co-authored books. His most recent book is The Cost of Ambition: How Striving to Be Better than Others Makes Us Worse. In this episode, Dr. Volf and Jonathan Rogers talk about the difference between striving for excellence and striving for superiority. They talk about the freedom to be found when we stop defining ourselves in terms of our status relative to others. Also, they talk a good bit about Satan. This episode is sponsored by The Habit's Short Story Summer Camp, a six-week online writing class devoted to the short story. Find out more at TheHabit.co/ShortStory.Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/memberSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Scott welcomes Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, senior research scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and Director of the Creativity and Emotions Lab. They dive into Dr. Pringle’s new book, The Creativity Choice: The Science of Making Decisions to Turn Ideas Into Action, which offers research-backed guidance on transforming imagination into reality. The conversation explores the intersection of creativity, emotional intelligence, and motivation, providing actionable insights to help you overcome internal barriers and pursue your goals with clarity and purpose. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Marc Brackett, Ph.D., is the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a professor in the Yale Child Study Center. He is the author of the bestselling book Permission to Feel. His research focuses on how emotions influence learning, decision-making, relationships, and mental health. Marc also developed RULER, a widely used program for teaching emotional intelligence in schools.In our conversation we discuss:(00:00) - Definition of emotional intelligence (01:26) - IQ vs. EQ (04:54) - Quantifying EQ (11:30) - 5 key benefits of emotional intelligence (22:28) - EQ is malleable and learnable (32:01) - The role of ‘Uncle Marvin' (38:14) - Suppression vs. regulation (43:25) - Consequences of suppressing your emotions (47:46) - You can be the Uncle Marvin (56:59) - Understanding emotions (01:01:32) - Dealing with imposter syndrome (01:05:23) - AI and emotional support (01:11:00) - Final takeaways Learn more about Dr. BrackettWebsite - https://marcbrackett.com/Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_BrackettInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/marc.brackett/?hl=enApp - https://howwefeel.org/New Book - https://www.amazon.com/Dealing-Feeling-Your-Emotions-Create/dp/1250329590Watch full episodes on: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@seankim⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Connect on IG: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://instagram.com/heyseankim

Ambition is the air we breathe—but what is it costing us? In this episode, Amy Julia Becker and theologian Miroslav Volf discuss his latest book, The Cost of Ambition. They unpack the hidden damage of a culture obsessed with competition and invite us to imagine a new way of being, for ourselves and our society, rooted not in achievement, but in love, mutuality, and genuine abundance. They explore:  Striving for superiority in American cultureThe dark side of competitionLonging for what we haveStriving for excellence vs. striving for superiorityThe illusion of individual achievementPractices for embracing love and generosityReimagining human relationships beyond superiority__MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:The Cost of Ambition: How Striving to Be Better Than Others Makes Us Worse by Miroslav VolfAbundance by Ezra KleinThe Sabbath by Abraham HeschelLuke 18:9-14, Philippians 2, 1 Corinthians 12:21-26, Mark 10:35-45The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55)Works of Love by Søren KierkegaardSubscribe to Amy Julia's newsletter_WATCH this conversation on YouTube by clicking here. READ the full transcript and access detailed show notes by clicking here or visiting amyjuliabecker.com/podcast._ABOUT:Miroslav Volf (DrTheol, University of Tübingen) is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and founding director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture in New Haven, Connecticut. He has written or edited more than two dozen books, including the New York Times bestseller Life Worth Living, A Public Faith, Public Faith in Action, and Exclusion and Embrace (winner of the Grawemeyer Award in Religion and selected as among the 100 best religious books of the 20th century by Christianity Today). Educated in his native Croatia, the United States, and Germany, Volf regularly lectures around the world. CONNECT with Miroslav Volf on X at @miroslavvolf.Photo Credit: © Christopher Capozziello___Let's stay in touch. Subscribe to my newsletter to receive weekly reflections that challenge assumptions about the good life, proclaim the inherent belovedness of every human being, and envision a world of belonging where everyone matters.We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

A. J. BERMUDEZ is an award-winning author and filmmaker based in Los Angeles and New York. Her first book, Stories No One Hopes Are About Them, won the 2022 Iowa Short Fiction Award and was a 2023 Lambda Award Finalist. Her most recent feature film project, My Dead Friend Zoe (co-written with director Kyle-Hausmann Stokes, starring Sonequa Martin-Green, Natalie Morales, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman), premiered at SXSW and won the Narrative Spotlight Audience Award in 2024. Her work has been honored at Sundance, the LGBTQ+ Toronto Film Festival, the Yale Center for British Art, and elsewhere. She is a recipient of the Diverse Voices Award, the PAGE Award, and the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize. In addition to writing and filmmaking, Bermudez is also a former boxer and EMT, and her work gravitates toward contemporary explorations of power, privilege, and place. Find more about AJ here: https://www.networkisa.org/profile/ajbermudez

Get the book, Emotional Intelligence for School Leaders Visit the STAR Factor Coaching Website, www.StarFactorCoaching.com About The Authors Dr. Janet Patti, a former school leader, is CEO of Star Factor Coaching, a founding member of CASEL, and professor emeritus at Hunter College School of Education at City University of New York, where her teaching and research concentrated on educational leadership.    Dr. Robin Stern is the cofounder and senior advisor to the director at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, a licensed psychoanalyst with 30 years of experience, and the author of The Gaslight Effect. They are cocreators of the STAR Factor Coaching model, which helps educational leaders enhance their emotional intelligence skills.     This episode of Principal Center Radio is sponsored by IXL, the most widely used online learning and teaching platform for K-12. Discover the power of data-driven instruction in your school with IXL—it gives you everything you need to maximize learning, from a comprehensive curriculum to meaningful school-wide data. Visit IXL.com/center to lead your school towards data-driven excellence today.   

Creative work in itself is stressful and riddled with anxiety-provoking uncertainties. It takes resilience to persist through these challenges. It takes willingness to endure and overcome obstacles, from the internal voices of doubt and self-criticism to scarce material resources to difficulties in getting support for ideas. How are creative people able to do what others cannot? How do they transform the challenges and difficulties that original ideas are riddled with into actions and achievements?It is just these questions that our guest today, Dr Zorana Ivcevic Pringle explores in her new book, The Creativity Choice, published by Hachette.About our guest…Zorana Ivcevic Pringle is a Senior Research Scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence where she currently serves as the Director of the Creativity and Emotions Lab. Zorana studies the role of emotion and emotional intelligence in creativity and well-being, as well as how to use the arts (and art-related institutions) to promote emotion and creativity skills.Find out more about Zorana's work and order her book, The Creativity Choice, here: https://www.zorana-ivcevic-pringle.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, we dive deep into what it really means to choose creativity, rather than simply waiting for inspiration to strike. We open with the fascinating origin story of Photoshop—how a grad student's simple problem-solving evolved, through deliberate choices and refinement, into a revolutionary creative tool. This story sets the stage for this episode's exploration of how intentional actions, not just spontaneous bursts, drive meaningful creative outcomes.We're joined by Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, senior research scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and author of the new book, The Creativity Choice: The Science of Making Decisions to Turn Ideas into Action. Zorana shares insights from her 25 years of creativity research, focusing especially on the overlooked emotional aspects of creative work. We discuss why creativity is about continuous, intentional choices—both big and small—that help us make progress, manage our energy, and use our emotions as information.Together, we unpack actionable strategies to deliberately foster creativity in high-pressure environments, the science behind emotional rhythms and productivity, and how tools like generative AI fit into the evolving landscape of creative work. Zorana also offers a unique perspective on matching your creative tasks to your emotional state and daily energy rhythms.Five Key Learnings from the Episode:Intentional Creativity Over Inspiration: Waiting for flashes of inspiration is risky—real creative progress comes from deliberate, systematic practices and choices.Emotions as Informational Tools: Emotions aren't just happening to us—they're signals we can decode and use to drive creative action and problem solving.Creative Rhythm Is Personal: Everyone's daily emotional and energy cycles are different. Understanding and aligning your creative tasks to these rhythms leads to better results.Build Your Creative Infrastructure: Sustainable creativity requires supportive systems—idea capture, regular review, and collaborative feedback structures are essential.AI Is a Tool, Not a Replacement: Generative AI can assist with certain creative tasks, but the essential human skill of “problem finding”—asking the right questions—remains at the heart of true creativity.Get weekly articles to your inbox at BraveFocusedBrilliant.com.Mentioned in this episode:NEW BOOK! The Brave Habit is available nowRise to important moments in your life and work by developing the habit of bravery. Available in paperback, ebook, or audiobook wherever books are sold. Learn more

News headline roundup. The cost of ambition.  Find us on YouTube. In this episode of The Bulletin, Mike and Clarissa share what headlines they're following as the week begins, and Mike talks with theologian Miroslav Volf about the cost of ambition. GO DEEPER WITH THE BULLETIN: Join the conversation at our Substack. Find us on YouTube. Rate and review the show in your podcast app of choice. ABOUT THE GUEST:  Miroslav Volf is a Croatian Protestant theologian and public intellectual. He is a professor of theology at Yale Divinity School and is the founder and director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. He has written and edited more than 20 books and over 100 scholarly articles, and his work has been featured in The Washington Post, Christianity Today, Christian Century, Sojourners, and NPR's Speaking of Faith (now On Being with Krista Tippett). ABOUT THE BULLETIN: The Bulletin is a weekly (and sometimes more!) current events show from Christianity Today hosted and moderated by Clarissa Moll, with senior commentary from Russell Moore (Christianity Today's editor in chief) and Mike Cosper (director, CT Media). Each week, the show explores current events and breaking news and shares a Christian perspective on issues that are shaping our world. We also offer special one-on-one conversations with writers, artists, and thought leaders whose impact on the world brings important significance to a Christian worldview, like Bono, Sharon McMahon, Harrison Scott Key, Frank Bruni, and more. The Bulletin listeners get 25% off CT. Go to https://orderct.com/THEBULLETIN to learn more. “The Bulletin” is a production of Christianity Today Producer: Clarissa Moll Associate Producer: Alexa Burke Editing and Mix: Kevin Morris Music: Dan Phelps Executive Producers: Erik Petrik and Mike Cosper Senior Producer: Matt Stevens Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Silas Farley, former New York City Ballet dancer and current Dean of the Colburn School's Trudl Zipper Dance Institute, explores the profound connections between classical ballet, Christian worship, and embodied spirituality. From his early exposure to liturgical dance in a charismatic Lutheran church to his career as a professional dancer and choreographer, Farley illuminates how the physicality of ballet can express deep spiritual truths and serve as an act of worship.Episode Highlights from Silas Farley“The physicality of ballet is cruciform. The dancer stands in a turned-out position... the body becomes the intersection of the vertical and the horizontal plane.”“Sin makes the soul curve in on itself, whereas holiness or wholeness in God opens us up.”“We are Christian humanists. We don't need to be intimidated by beauty.”“There's knowledge and insight in all the different parts of our bodies, not just in our brain.”“The mystery of the incarnation is that when the creator of all things wanted to make himself known to his creation, he didn't come as a vapor or as a mountain or as a bird. But he came as a man.”Resources for Ballet EngagementLocal community ballet companies/schools“B is for Ballet” (ABT children's book)“My Daddy Can Fly” (ABT)Celestial Bodies, by Laura JacobsApollo's Angels, by Jennifer HomansSilas Farley's Podcast: Hear the Dance (NYC Ballet)The Nutcracker (NYC Ballet/Balanchine)Jewels (1967, Balanchine)Agon (Balanchine/Stravinsky)About Silas FarleySilas Farley is a professional ballet dancer and choreographer. Dean of the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, Silas is a former New York City Ballet dancer, choreographer, and educator. He also currently serves as Armstrong Artist in Residence in Ballet in the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University.His work includes choreography for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Houston Ballet, and the New York City Ballet. He hosts the Hear the Dance podcast and creates works that integrate classical ballet with spiritual themes.Silas also serves on the board of The George Balanchine Foundation.Show NotesSilas Farley's Early Dance Background & FormationSilas Farley: Originally from Charlotte, North Carolina; youngest of 7 children (4 brothers, 2 sisters); multiracial family (white father, Black mother)First exposure through charismatic Lutheran church's liturgical dance ministrySaw formal ballet at age 6 when Christian ballet company Ballet Magnifica performedDance initially experienced as form of worship before performanceLiturgical vs Classical BalletLiturgical dance:Amplifies worshipFunctions as embodied prayerNot primarily performativeHistorical examples: David with Ark of Covenant, Miriam after Red Sea crossingClassical ballet:Performed on proscenium stageRequires specific trainingFocuses on virtuosic movementsExplicitly performativeBoth forms serve as offerings/vessels for transmitting energy to audienceTechnical Elements of Ballet: Turnout, Spiritual Turnout, and Opening UpFoundational concept of “turnout”—rotation of feet/hips outward“That idea of turnout makes the body more expressive in a way. Because if our toes are straightforward, like the way we're designed, you only see a certain amount of the leg. Whereas if the body stands turned out, you see the whole inside of the musculature of the leg. It's a more complete revelation of the body.”Creates more complete revelation of body's musculaturePhysicality conveys “spiritual turnout” - openness/receptiveness“Spiritual turnout: that you are open   and receptive and generous. And that's embodied in the physicality of ballet.”“So much of what developed as ballet as we know, it happened at the court of Louis the XIV in the  1660-1670s.”“It's not artificial, it's actually supernatural.”Physical & Spiritual Connections in Ballet“Our walk  with God is that he's  defining us so that we are becoming open. We're open to him. We're open to receive his love. We're open to be vessels of his love. We're open to receiving and exchanging love with  other people.”Freedom within the constraints movements and positionsSwan Lake: “They're so free. They're almost like birds. But that's come through a lifestyle of discipline.”“You get a hyper awareness of your own body.”Develops hyper-awareness of bodyLinks to incarnational theology—Christ as God-manFreedom through discipline and submissionMovement vocabulary builds from simple elements (plié, tendu)Plie: Mama and Dada“As a dancer grows up in ballet, the dancer then develops  this enormous vocabulary of movement  that are all reducible back to the microcosm of the plié and the tendu.”Creates infinite lines suggesting eternityCombines circular power with eternal linesTheological Dimensions of BalletSilas's choreographed interpretation of C.S. Lewis's The Four Loves, as a balletBallet and the Art of Choreography“The music and choreography were like brothers.”“Songs from the Spirit”“The music becomes my map.”Choreographing in silenceThe Role of the Audience and Their ExperienceIdeas to dialogue withA set of ideas to gather together and embodyArvo Part, The Genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3Uniting my heart with JesusI'm never didactic about it.An embodied musical experience“If I  say ‘family, friendship, romance, divine love,' you all instantly have associations, beauty, pain, trauma, consolation that are associated with those four loves.”“ I'm not writing a sermon about any of these ideas. I'm choreographing a ballet. I'm assembling these classical steps with this music to create a visceral, embodied musical experience.”The audience: “They come to it with their experiences, their own eyes and ears and their own bodies. And that's enough.”Arvo Part: “Music is white light, and the prism is the soul of the listener.”“The musical ideas are refracted through the hearer.”“The audience is always in my heart and mind.”“I always think of the artwork as an act of hospitality.  … I'm just setting the table.”What's Unique about Ballet as a Physical ArtformBeautiful interconnectednessAsking the body to reach to its limits“The Infinite Line” in BalletRadiating out into multiple eternal lines at the same timeConstant reaching in many directions at onceCruciform positioning: intersection of vertical and horizontal planes“The body becomes radiant”Use of “épaulement”—spiraling of body around spine's axisReveals pulse points (neck, wrists) creating vulnerable energy exchange with audienceOpening up the life force of the dancerNo separation between dancer and instrument (“I am the work of art”)Cruciform physicalityContemporary Cultural ContextModern culture increasingly disembodied due to screens/digital media“We live in an increasingly disembodied culture, we are absorbed with screens two dimensional, uh, highly edited and curated,  mediated self presentation   as opposed to like visceral nitty gritty blood, sweat, tears, good, bad, and ugly of life itself. So we get insulated from the step that makes life what it is.”Education often treats people as “brains on sticks”“The Christian life is a lifestyle of in embodied discipleship to the God man, Jesus  Christ. And he's not a brain on a stick. He's the God man. He has a jawbone and he went through puberty and he has wounds like the beautiful hymn. It says, rich wounds, yet visible and beauty glorified. The mystery of the incarnation is that when the creator of all things wanted to make  himself known to his creation, he didn't come as a  vapor or as a mountain or as a bird, but he came as a man. And so he sublimates and affirms the glory of his creation, the materiality of his creation and the body as the crown of his creation by coming as a man.”Church needs more embodied practicesBallet offers counterpoint to disembodied tendenciesImportance of physical discipline in spiritual formationRomans 12:1 and making our bodies as living sacrificesHow to Experience Ballet“There's nothing you need to know before going to experience ballet.  You have a body, you have eyes, you have ears. That's all you need. Just let it wash over you.Let it work on you in its own kind of visceral way, and let that be an entry point  to not be intimidated by the, the music,  or the wordlessness or the tutu's or the point shoes or whatever.There's so many different stylistic manifestations of ballet. But just go experience it.And if you can, I would really encourage people almost as much or more than  watching it go see if like your local YMCA or  something has an adult ballet class, or if you're a kid, maybe ask your parents to sign you up to go try a class and just feel what that turned-out physicality feels like in your own body.It's so beautiful. It's very empowering.”Production NotesThis podcast featured Silas Farley and Macie BridgeEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaProduction Assistance by Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, Zoë Halaban, Kacie Barrett & Emily BrookfieldA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

Pope Francis died on Monday April 21, 2025. And to remember and celebrate his life, we're bringing out an episode from our archives featuring social ethicist and Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, Nichole M. Flores. Ryan McAnnally-Linz interviewed her in early 2021 about Fratelli Tutti, an encyclical teaching he published 6 months into the COVID-19 pandemic. From that encyclical he writes:“Here we have a splendid secret that shows us how to dream and to turn our life into a wonderful adventure. No one can face life in isolation… We need a community that supports and helps us, in which we can help one another to keep looking ahead. How important it is to dream together… By ourselves, we risk seeing mirages, things that are not there. Dreams, on the other hand, are built together. Let us dream, then, as a single human family, as fellow travelers sharing the same flesh, as children of the same earth which is our common home, each of us bringing the richness of his or her beliefs and convictions, each of us with his or her own voice, brothers and sisters all." (Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti)Last year, in the midst of a global nightmare, Pope Francis invited the world to dream together of something different. He released Fratelli Tutti in October 2020—a message of friendship, dignity, and solidarity not just to Catholics, but "to all people of good will"—for the whole human community. In this episode, social ethicist Nichole Flores (University of Virginia) explains papal encyclicals and works through the moral vision of Fratelli Tutti, highlighting especially Pope Francis's views on faith as seeing with the eyes of Christ, the implications of human dignity for discourse, justice and solidarity, and finally the language of dreaming together of a different world.Support For the Life of the World: Give to  the Yale Center for Faith & CultureShow NotesRead the entire text of Fratelli Tutti online hereWhat is a papal encyclical? For “All people of good will”—not just CatholicsExamining the signs of the times, e.g., Fratelli Tutti will always be connected to its global context during a pandemic.What is Fratelli Tutti? What does its title mean?Brothers and Sisters All: Using Italian, a particular language, as a pathway to the universal, rather than traditional Latin titlePope Francis' roots in Latin America: How his particularity as Latin American gives him a universal message; local and communal belonging; neighborhoods contributing to the common goodSeeing/Gazing: Faith as seeing with the eyes of Christ (Lumen Fidei)Undermining human dignity in social media discourse; the failure of grandstanding rather than encounterSolidarity as a dirty word: conflicts within Catholicism about how to understand and apply justice and solidarity in real lifeSolidarity requires encounter with the otherSocial friendship and fraternityHuman dignity in the tradition of Catholic social ethicsDreaming together: fighting against the temptation to dream alone, inviting us to imagine; cultivating a conversation that forms collective imagination and aesthetic reality.About Nichole FloresNichole Flores is a social ethicist who is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. She studies the constructive contributions of Catholic and Latinx theologies to notions of justice and aesthetics to the life of democracy. Her research in practical ethics addresses issues of democracy, migration, family, gender, economics (labor and consumption), race and ethnicity, and ecology. Visit NicholeMFlores.com for more information.

Marc Brackett is the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a professor in the Child Study Center at Yale. He's also the best-selling author of Permission to Feel, translated into 25 languages, and a pioneering researcher with over 25 years of work in emotional intelligence, decision-making, creativity, and mental health. As the lead developer of RULER, an evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning, Marc has helped transform over 5,000 schools worldwide. His insights have been featured in The New York Times, Good Morning America, and The Today Show, and he's advised organizations from the White House to Fortune 500 companies. Marc also recently launched Dealing with Feelings, a YouTube webcast exploring how emotions shape success and relationships.    In this episode, host Shay Beider speaks with Marc on emotional intelligence and embracing emotions by approaching them with curiosity. Marc talks about the RULER framework he developed which organizes emotional intelligence into five core skills: recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing, and regulating emotions. The duo discuss his latest book, Permission to Feel. In this book Marc explores the barriers that prevent us from fully experiencing emotions—like suppressing feelings due to childhood experiences or reacting impulsively when triggered. Marc also shares a free app he co-created called How We Feel, designed to help users track and improve their emotional well-being. This episode is filled with insights on emotional regulation and the importance of approaching our feelings with openness and tools for empowerment.   Transcripts for this episode are available at: https://www.integrativetouch.org/conversations-on-healing    Show Notes: Learn more about Marc Brackett here Check out the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence here Read Permission to Feel Check out Dealing with Feelings here Download the How We Feel app here   This podcast was created by Integrative Touch (InTouch), which is changing healthcare through human connectivity. A leader in the field of integrative medicine, InTouch exists to alleviate pain and isolation for anyone affected by illness, disability or trauma. This includes kids and adults with cancers, genetic conditions, autism, cerebral palsy, traumatic stress, and other serious health issues. The founder, Shay Beider, pioneered a new therapy called Integrative Touch™Therapy that supports healing from trauma and serious illness. The organization provides proven integrative medicine therapies, education and support that fill critical healthcare gaps. Their success is driven by deep compassion, community and integrity.  Each year, InTouch reaches thousands of people at the Integrative Touch Healing Center, both in person and through Telehealth. Thanks to the incredible support of volunteers and contributors, InTouch created a unique scholarship model called Heal it Forward that brings services to people in need at little or no cost to them. To learn more or donate to Heal it Forward, please visit IntegrativeTouch.org  

"Do not be afraid of your fears, but cope with them—learn how to deal with them—because unless you do, you cannot live your life abundantly and fully." (Fyodor Raychynets)Evoking courage, resilience, and faith in the face of overwhelming uncertainty, Ukrainian pastor and theologian Fyodor Raychynets returns to For the Life of the World three years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In conversation with Evan Rosa, Fyodor shares his reflections on fear, freedom, and the emotional and spiritual challenges of living fully in a time of war. He discusses his response to recent global political developments, the struggle of holding onto hope, and the importance of confronting fear rather than suppressing it. Drawing from the Gospel of Mark's iteration of Jesus walking on water, his own personal grief and therapy, and the lived experience of war, Fyodor sees fear not as something to be avoided or gotten rid of, but as something to understand and face with courage."We are in a situation where we are scared to hope.""Do not be afraid of your fears, but cope with them—learn how to deal with them—because unless you do, you cannot live your life abundantly and fully.""If I want to say to someone, ‘I love you,' I say it. If I want to forgive, I forgive. If I want to do something meaningful, I do it now—because tomorrow is never guaranteed.""The enemy wants us to live in fear, to be paralyzed by it. But to live fully is to resist.""When Jesus scared his disciples on the water, he was bringing their fears to the surface—so that they could face them and find true freedom."Show NotesImage: “Walking on Water”, by Ivan Aivazovsky, Russia, 1888Episode SummaryUkrainian pastor and theologian Fyodor Raychynets reflects on faith, fear, and hope after three years of war.The role of fear in spiritual and personal transformation.A biblical perspective on confronting fear, drawn from the Gospel of Mark.Political and emotional reactions to recent global events impacting Ukraine.Living fully in the present as an act of resistance against fear and oppression.Faith, Fear, and FreedomFyodor Raychynets returns to discuss Ukraine's ongoing struggle and his evolving faith."Fear to hope"—the challenge of holding onto hope when the world is falling apart.Why fear should be faced rather than suppressed.The spiritual wisdom of encountering fear: “When Jesus scared his disciples, it was for their good.”The difference between being reckless, cowardly, or courageous—all of which share the common state of fear.The Ukrainian Perspective on Global PoliticsHow Ukraine perceives the shifting stance of U.S. foreign policy.The impact of Zelenskyy's visit to the Oval Office and international reactions.The challenge of fighting for democracy when global powers redefine the terms of war.The fear that democratic values are no longer upheld by those who once championed them.Biblical and Psychological Perspectives on FearMark's Gospel and the fear of encountering God in unexpected ways.Fyodor quotes Carl Jung: "Where our fears lie, that is where change is most needed."Facing fear as a practice of faith and emotional resilience.The importance of naming fears, localizing them, and even “inviting them in for tea.”How unprocessed fear can lead to paralysis or aggression.Living in the Present: The Antidote to FearWhy Fyodor refuses to postpone life until after the war."We don't know what tomorrow brings. So I live today, fully."A powerful response to fear: doing good, loving openly, and forgiving freely.The lesson of war: never get used to abnormal things.Holding onto humanity in the face of devastation.Linked Media ReferencesMark 6L: 45-52 Jesus Walks on WaterEpisode 110 of For the Life of the World A Voice from KyivEpisode 138 of For the Life of the World / Ukrainian Pastor Speaks Out: Resist Evil, Be Present, and Remember How Little You ControlUkraine War Updates - BBC NewsAbout Fyodor RaychynetsFyodor Raychynets is a theologian and pastor in Kyiv, Ukraine. He is Head of the Department of Theology at Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary, where he teaches courses in Leadership and Biblical Studies, particularly the Gospel of Matthew. He studied with Miroslav Volf at Evangelical Theological Seminary in Osijek, Croatia.Follow him on Facebook here.Production NotesThis podcast featured Fyodor RaychinetsEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaProduction Assistance by Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, Zoë Halaban, Kacie Barrett & Emily BrookfieldA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

During this episode of The Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are in conversation with Dr Marc Brackett. As the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Marc is professor in the Child Study Center at Yale, and author of the best-selling book 'Permission to Feel'. Marc's next book ‘Dealing With Feeling – Use Your Emotions to Create the Life You Want' is due for release in September 2025.An award-winning researcher for 25 years, Marc has published 175 scholarly articles on the role of Emotional Intelligence in learning, decision making, creativity, relationships, physical and mental health, and workplace performance. He is also the lead developer of RULER, an evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning (SEL) that has been adopted by over 5,000 schools across the globe, improving the lives of millions of children and adults. In addition to being featured frequently across media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Good Morning America and more, Marc is also in demand as a keynote speaker and is co-founder of Oji Life Lab, a corporate learning firm that develops innovative digital learning systems for emotional intelligence.Referenced during this episode:‘How We Feel' app: https://howwefeel.org/‘Dealing With Feelings' webcast: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRM-kVGeBRqdXAf7q7ut91HZQlfZSx_VX&si=oLRQ11SXM1GqTEgC‘Permission to Feel: Unlock the power of emotions to help yourself and your children thrive' (Quercus, 2019) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Permission-Feel-emotions-yourself-children/dp/1787478815/ Other reading from Jean Gomes and Scott Allender: Leading In A Non-Linear World (J Gomes, 2023)The Enneagram of Emotional Intelligence (S Allender, 2023)  Social:Instagram           @evolvingleaderLinkedIn             The Evolving Leader PodcastTwitter               @Evolving_LeaderBluesky            @evolvingleader.bsky.socialYouTube           @evolvingleader The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

Mystics and prophets have reported receiving visions from the Divine for centuries—”Thus saith the Lord…”—Hildegard of Bingen, Teresa of Avila, Ignatius of Loyola, Catherine of Siena, or Julian of Norwich. The list goes on.But what would you think if you met a seer of visions in the present day? Maybe you have.What about a prophet whose visions came like a movie screen unfurled before him, the images grotesque and vivid, all in the unsuspecting backwoods setting of Lookout Mountain, deep in the south of Tennessee.Would you believe it? Would you believe him? The beauty of fiction allows the reader to join the author in asking: What if?That's exactly what Jamie Quatro has allowed us to do in her newest work of literary fiction, Two-Step Devil.What if an earnest and wildly misunderstood Christian is left alone on Lookout Mountain? What if the receiver of visions makes art that reaches a girl who's stuck in the darkest grip of a fraught world? What if the Devil really did sit in the corner of the kitchen, wearing a cowboy hat, and what if he got to tell his own side of the Biblical story?On today's episode novelist Jamie Quatro joins Macie Bridge to share about her relationship to the theological exploration within her latest novel, Two-Step Devil; her experience of being a Christian and a writer, but not a “Christian Writer”; and how the trinity of main characters in the novel speak to and open up her own deepest concerns about the state of our country and the world we inhabit.Jamie Quatro is the New York Times Notable author of I Want to Show You More, and Fire Sermon. *Two-Step Devil* is her latest work and is the winner of the 2024 Willie Morris Award for Southern Writing, and it's also been named a New York Times Editor's Choice, among other accolades. Jamie teaches in the Sewanee School of Letters MFA program.SPOILER ALERT! This episode contains substantial spoilers to the novel's plot, so if you'd like to read it for yourself, first grab a copy from your local bookstore, then two-step on back over here to listen to this conversation!About Jamie QuatroJamie Quatro is the New York Times Notable author of I Want to Show You More, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award and the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize, and Fire Sermon, a Book of the Year for the Economist, San Francisco Chronicle, LitHub, Bloomberg, and the Times Literary Supplement. Her most recent novel, Two-Step Devil, is the winner of the 2024 Willie Morris Award for Southern Writing. It has also been named a New York Times Editor's Choice, a 2025 ALA Notable Book, and a Best Book of 2024 by the Paris Review and the Atlanta Journal Constitution. A new story collection is forthcoming from Grove Press.Quatro's fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Harper's, the New York Review of Books, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Bread Loaf, and La Maison Dora Maar in Ménerbes, France, where she will be in residence in 2025. Quatro holds an MA in English from the College of William and Mary and an MFA in fiction from the Bennington College Writing Seminars. She teaches in the Sewanee School of Letters MFA program, and lives with her family in Chattanooga, Tennessee.Show NotesGet your copy of Two-Step Devil by Jamie QuatroClick here to view the art that inspired Jamie Quatro's Two-Step DevilProduction NotesThis podcast featured Jamie Quatro with Macie BridgeEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaProduction Assistance by Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, Zoë Halaban, Kacie Barrett & Emily BrookfieldA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

It's easy to forget how utterly scandalous the concepts of grace and forgiveness are. Grace is an absolutely unmerited, undeserved benevolence. Forgiveness is an intentional miscarriage of retributive justice, ignoring of the wrong by a wrongdoer.In Miroslav Volf's understanding, forgiveness “decouples the deed from the doer.”Today's episode features some highlights from Miroslav's personal reflections about each chapter of his book Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, including his thoughts about one of the most painful moments in his family's history, the death of his 5-year-old brother Daniel when Miroslav was just a small boy.Free of Charge was published in 2006, and we just released a 10-video curriculum series through faith.yale.edu/free-of-charge. It also includes a 48-page discussion guide with new material to help facilitate not just deeper reflection about giving and forgiving, but a viable, livable path toward these core Christian practices.This series is free for Yale Center for Faith & Culture email subscribers. So head over to faith.yale.edu/free-of-charge to sign up today.Production NotesThis podcast featured Miroslav VolfEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaProduction Assistance by Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, Zoë Halaban, Kacie Barrett, and Emily BrookfieldA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

Super Bowl LIX was amazing, but not because of the football, or the commercials. It was the 13-minute half-time tour de force of political theology and protest art, brought to you by Kendrick Lamar. Acting like a parable to offer more to those who already get it, and to take away from those who don't get it at all, the performance was so much more than a petty way to settle a rap beef.But what exactly was going on? Today's episode is an introduction to the political theology of Kendrick Lamar. Evan Rosa welcomes Femi Olutade, arguably the living expert on the theology of Kendrick Lamar. A lifelong fan of hip hop and student of theology, he's deeply familiar not just with music Kendrick made, but the influences that made Kendrick, as well as Christian scripture and moral theology. Femi has written incredibly nuanced theological musicological reflections about Kendrick Lamar's 2017 album DAMN., which won the Pulitzer Prize for Music.Femi joined Dissect Podcast host Cole Cushna as lead writer for a 20-episode analysis of DAMN., offering incredible insight into the theological, moral, and political richness of Kendrick Lamar.About Femi OlutadeFemi Olutade is the lead writer for Season 5 of Dissect, an analysis of Kendrick Lamar's Pulitzer Prize-winning album DAMN. He's arguably the living expert on the theology of Kendrick Lamar. A lifelong fan of hip hop and student of theology, he's deeply familiar not just with music Kendrick made, but the influences that made Kendrick, as well as Christian scripture and moral theology. Femi has written incredibly nuanced theological musicological reflections about Kendrick Lamar's 2017 album DAMN., which won the Pulitzer Prize for Music.Femi joined host Cole Cushna as lead writer for a 20-episode analysis of DAMN., offering incredible insight into the theological, moral, and political richness of Kendrick Lamar.Show NotesFemi Olutade's Theology of Kendrick LamarKendrick Lamar's Super Bowl LIX Half-Time Show (Video)Kendrick Lamar's Half-time Show Lyrics (Full)Season 5 of Dissect: Kendrick Lamar's DAMN.Kendrick Lamar's Political Theology as a Diss Track to AmericaSuper Bowl LIX was amazing, but not because of the football, or the commercials. It was the 13 minute half-time tour de force that Kendrick Lamar offered the world.Uncle Sam introduces the show, the quote “Great American Game.” A playstation controller appears. Is the game football? Video game? Or some other game? Kendrick appears crouched on a car—dozens of red, white, and blue dancers emerge, evoking both the American flag which they eventually form, as well as the gang wars between bloods and crips—or as Kendrick says in Hood Politics, “Demo-crips” and “Re-blood-icans”And what ensues is an intricately choreographed set of layered meanings, allusions, hidden references and Easter eggs—not all of which have been noticed, not to mention explained or understood.You can find links to the performance and the lyrics in the show notes.Femi Olutade on the Theology of Kendrick LamarToday's episode is an introduction to the political theology of Kendrick Lamar. And joining me is Femi Olutade, arguably the living expert on the theology of Kendrick Lamar. As a lifelong fan of hip hop, he's deeply familiar not just with music Kendrick made, but the influences that made Kendrick. Femi has written incredibly nuanced theological musicological reflections about Kendrick Lamar's 2017 album DAMN., which won the Pulitzer Prize for Music.And I became familiar with Femi's work in 2021, while listening to a podcast called Dissect—which analyzes albums line by line, note by note. They cover mostly hip hop, but the season on Radiohead's In Rainbows is also incredible. Femi joined host Cole Cushna to co-write a 20-episode analysis of DAMN., offering incredible insight into the theological, moral, and political richness of Kendrick Lamar, which repays so many replays. Forward, AND backward. Yes, you can play the album backwards and forwards like a mirror and they tell two different stories, one about wickedness and pride, and the other about weakness, love, and humility.If you want to jump to my conversation with Femi about Kendrick Lamar's Political Theology, please do, just jump ahead a few minutes.Not Just a Diss Track to Drake, but a Diss Track to AmericaBut I wanted to offer a few preliminaries of my own to help with this most recent context of the Super Bowl halftime performance.Because almost immediately, it was interpreted as nothing more than one of the pettiest, egotistical, and overkill ways to settle a rap beef between Kendrick and another hip hop artist, Drake. Some fans celebrated this. Others found it at best irrelevant and confusing, and at worst an offensive waste of an opportunity to make a larger statement before an audience of 133 million viewers.In my humble opinion, both get it wrong. Kendrick Lamar simply does not work this way.If it was the biggest diss track of all time, it wasn't aimed merely at Drake, but America. And if it was offensive, it was because of its moral clarity and force, striking a prophetic chord operating similar to a parable.Jesus and Kendrick on Prophecy and ParablesParables, according to Jesus, are meant to give more to those who already have, and take away from those who already have nothing (Matthew 13:13). Because, as the prophet Isaiah says, “seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand” (Isaiah 6:9).At this point, it's possible that you're entirely confused, and if so, I'd invite you to hang with me and lean in. Watch it again, listen more closely. Because rap, according to Jay Z, is a lean-in genre. You can't understand it without close examination, without contextual, bottom-up, historical appreciation, or without a willingness to be educated about what it's like to be Black in America.But I guarantee you that in Kendrick Lamar's outstanding choreographed prophetic theatre, there's much more going on—”there's levels to it”—to quote Lamar.You Picked the Right Time, but the Wrong GuyAnd if you want it clearly spelled out for you—a cleaner, smoother, tighter, more palatable, less subtle social commentary that can be abstracted from history, circumstance, and the genre of rap itself so that it can be rationally evaluated—well, you're occupying the exact position Kendrick is critiquing, which he prophetically predicts in the very performance itself. As he warns us:The revolution 'bout to be televised You picked the right time, but the wrong guyStill, what was that?? First, it's public performance art, so just let it land. Watch it again. Notice something new. Submit yourself to it. Let it change you.The Black American Experience in Hip Hop and Kendrick LamarAnd if you really want to understand it, you need to be open to the possibility that some social commentary can only be understood in light of certain lived experiences. In this case, at least the Black American experience. And then, rather than demanding that Kendrick explain it to you in your own vernacular, listen to what he's already said. Lean in an listen to his whole body of work, learn his story, expertly rendered in jaw-dropping lyrical performance. Drive with him through his childhood streets of Compton on Good Kid M.A.A.D. City. Journey with him from caterpillar to butterfly on To Pimp a Butterfly, look in the mirror presented before you in the Pulitzer-prize winning DAMN., hear out his messy psyche laid bare in Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, take a ride with him in GNX…In the days following Kendrick's super bowl performance, J Kameron Carter, Professor of African American Studies, Comparative Literature, and Religion at the University of California at Irvine, called for a more in-depth study of the 13-minute performance, noting that:“[B]lack performance carries within it an interrogation of the question of country as the problem and question of US political theology and the legacy of Christian empire.”This episode isn't meant to close any books or offer a full explanation of Kendrick's performance, let alone his music, but just to lean in, and to quote Kendrick, “salute truth and the prophecy.”Production NotesThis podcast featured Femi OlutadeEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaProduction Assistance by Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, Zoë Halaban, Kacie Barrett & Emily BrookfieldA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

Disaster preparedness is sort of an oxymoron. Disaster is the kind of indiscriminate calamity that only ever finds us ill-equipped to manage. And if you are truly prepared, you've probably averted disaster.There's a big difference between the impact of disaster on physical, material life—and its outsized impact on mental, emotional, and spiritual life.Personal disasters like a terminal illness, natural disasters like the recent fires that razed southern Californian communities, the impact of endless, senseless wars … these all cause a pain and physical damage that can be mitigated or rebuilt. But the worst of these cases threaten to destroy the very meaning of our lives.No wonder disaster takes such a psychological and spiritual toll. There's an urgent need to find or even make meaning from it. To somehow explain it, justify why God would allow it, and tell a grand story that makes sense from the senseless.These are difficult questions, and my guests today both have personal experience with disaster. Dr. Pam King is the Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology, and the Executive Director the Thrive Center. She's an ordained Presbyterian minister, and she hosts a podcast on psychology and spirituality called With & For. Dr. Jamie Aten is a disaster psychologist and disaster ministry expert, helping others navigate mass, humanitarian, and personal disasters with scientific and spiritual insights. He is the Founder and Executive Director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute Wheaton College, where he holds the Blanchard Chair of Humanitarian & Disaster Leadership. He is author of *A Walking Disaster: What Surviving Katrina and Cancer Taught Me about Faith and Resilience.*In this conversation, Pam King and Jamie Aten join Evan Rosa to discuss:Each of their personal encounters with disasters—both fire and cancerThe psychological study of disasterThe personal impact of disaster on mental, emotional, and spiritual healthThe difference between resilience and fortitudeAnd the theological and practical considerations for how to live through disastrous events.About Pam KingPam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy. She hosts the With & For podcast, and you can follow her @drpamking.About Jamie AtenJamie D. Aten is a disaster psychologist and disaster ministry expert. He helps others navigate mass, humanitarian, and personal disasters with scientific and spiritual insights. He is the Founder and Executive Director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute and Disaster Ministry Conference and holds the Blanchard Chair of Humanitarian & Disaster Leadership at Wheaton College. And he's the author of *A Walking Disaster: What Surviving Katrina and Cancer Taught Me about Faith and Resilience.*Show NotesHumanitarian Disaster InstituteSpiritual First AidJamie Aten's A Walking Disaster: What Surviving Katrina and Cancer Taught Me about Faith and ResilienceThe Thrive Center at Fuller SeminaryPam King's personal experience fighting fires in the Eaton Fire in January 20255,000 homes destroyed55 schools and houses of worship are gone“Neighborhoods are annihilated …”Jamie Aten offers an overview of the impact of disasters on humanity, and the human response1985: 400% increase in natural disasters globallyJapan 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunamiHaiti 2010 earthquakePhysical, emotional, spiritualInfrastructural impacts that set up disastersUSAID supportJamie Aten's experience during Hurricane KatrinaPersonal disastersJamie Aten's experience with prostate cancer“Evacuation Impossible”Impact of disaster on personal sense of thrivingThriving vs survivingUnderstanding traumaCollective traumatic eventsThe historically Black multigenerational community in AltadenaWhat constitutes thriving?Thriving as adaptive growth: with and for othersSelf-care is not just me-care, but we-care.Trauma brain and the cognitive impacts of disasterThe psychological study of disaster: grapefruit vs beachballHumanitarian Disaster InstituteSpiritual First AidA rupture of meaning makingPlace and spirituality and the impact of disaster on sense of placeBethlehem pastor Munther Isaac's “Christ in the Rubble”Finding meaning in both the restructuring or rebuilding, but also in the rubble itselfHope embodied in serviceEverything is a cognitive loadMiroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz's The Home of God: A Brief Story of EverythingPsychological and trauma-informed care”One of the things that we found was that when people received positive spiritual support, that they reported lower levels of trauma, lower levels of depression and lower levels of anxiety.”Bless CPRBLESS: Biological, Livelihood, Emotional, Social, Spiritual“What's the most pressing need?”Spiritual healthSpirituality and our ultimate sources of meaningTranscendenceLament as a practice for dealing with disasterPrayer or sacred readingsMeaning making and suffering:  Elizabeth Hall (Biola University) and Crystal Park (University of Connecticut)Baton Rouge Flood 2016Navigating sufferingReligion in disaster mental healthFaith as a predictor for resilienceMeaning making outside of religionMr. Rogers: “Look for the helpers”Best disaster preparedness: “Get to know your neighbor.”“Proximity alone is not what it takes to become a neighbor.”Neighbors helping neighborsManaging burnout in helpers“Spiritual self-aid” instead of “self-care”Self-care is like surfing“God holding the fragmented pieces of me”“God's love is with me.”Spiritual fortitude in personal and natural disastersProduction NotesThis podcast featured Jamie Aten and Pam KingEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaProduction Assistance by Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, Zoë Halaban, Kacie Barrett & Emily BrookfieldA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

How should we treat our one and only home, Earth? What obligations do we have to other living or non-living things? How should we think about climate change and its denial? How does biodiversity and species extinction impact human beings? And how should we think about environmental justice, the rights of animals, and the ways we consume the natural world?In this episode, Ryan McAnnally-Linz welcomes Ryan Darr (Assistant Professor, Yale Divinity School) to reflect on some of the most pressing issues in environmental ethics and consider them through philosophical, ecological, and theological frameworks.Together they discuss:What and who matters in environmental ethics: Only humans? Only sentient animals? Every life form? The inorganic natural world?The significance and difference between global and individual scale of climate issuesThe ethics of climate change denialEnvironmental justice and moral obligations to the environment—the question of what we owe to animals and the rest of the natural worldThe importance of biodiversity and the impact of species loss and extinctionThe ethics of eating animalsThe problems with human consumption of the natural worldAnd the impact of cultivating a wider moral imagination of our ecological futureAbout Ryan DarrRyan Darr Ryan Darr is Assistant Professor of Religion, Ethics, and Environment at Yale Divinity School. His research interests include environmental ethics, multispecies justice, structural injustice, ethical theory, and the history of religious and philosophical ethics. He is currently writing a book that defends an account of environmental and multispecies justice as a framework for thinking ethically about the crisis of biodiversity loss and mass extinction. He is also developing an ongoing research project exploring the relationship between individual agency and responsibility and structural justice and injustice with a particular focus on environmental and climate issues.His first book, The Best Effect: Theology and the Origins of Consequentialism, was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2023. The book offers a new, robustly theological story of the origin of consequentialism, one of the most influential views in modern moral theory. It uses the new historical account to intervene in contemporary ethical debates about consequentialism and about how ethicists conceive of goods, ends, agency, and causality.Prior to joining the YDS faculty, Ryan held postdoctoral fellowships at the Princeton University Center for Human Values (2019-22) and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music (2022-24).Show NotesGet your copy of Ryan Darr's The Best Effect: Theology and the Origins of ConsequentialismComplex ethical questions about climate changeEnmeshed in environmental systemsA crash course in environmental ethicsWhich entities should we be thinking about ethically?Are human beings the most important morally and ethically speaking?What about animals, plants, or other kinds of life?What about other species of animalsAnthropocentrism: Only humans matter.Sentientism: Only sentient animals matterBiocentrism: Every life form mattersCan we apply justice and rights to animals?The polar bear on melting ice was the poster child for climate change; but this was a mistake because the effects on human beings is massive.“All of us are affected.”“We're all vulnerable to climate change. …. kidding themselves and need to think more about this.”Global southClimate negotiations: Who needs to lower emissions and how? And how do we adapt?Massive overwhelm at the scope of environmental problems: “Only massive changes can make a difference.” But “I have to change my life.”How should we navigate the scale issue?Don't let large scale or small scale issues or changes eclipse the other.Political action is crucial“We need people willing to respond in the ways they can, where they are.”Climate change denial“There's a lot of money flowing here.” Fossil fuel interests and others muddy the waters and create conflicts“If it's the case that millions of lives are at stake … I don't see how some doubtReasons why people might deny climate change“It'd be nice if climate change wasn't real, but …”Environmental justice and injusticeToxicities released into the natural environmentConservation and biodiversity lossApproximately 8 million species on earthIt's standard to lose a handful per million per yearGenerally, you're supposed to get more species on earth, short of a mass extinction eventBut extinction rate is something like 100x to 1000x fasterDefaunation—reduction of fauna on earthMeasuring the biomass of various species (Humans make up 30% of the world's biomass.)Changes linked to colonialism and global capitalismWhy would God have created such a diverse speciesThomas Aquinas on why God created a world full of biodiversity: to reflect God's extensive perfection“On this view, the world is show lessWhat are the ethics ofExample: Wolves were intentionally eradicated in America, because “who wants a wolf in their neighborhood.”Justice-oriented “Rights” and what we owe to each other, versus non-justiceDo we have obligations to animals?Example: Kicking a Cat“The Incredulous Stare”Jainism and “ahiṃsā” (non-injury, no-harm, or non-violence toward all life forms, down to microbes)“I'm inclined to think that I have obligations to almost all animals.”At least “animals who are sentient”—desires, frustration of desires, pain, etc.Is it permissible to eat meat?Factory-farmed meat (effectively tormented)Animal life has become commodity—valuable solely because of its use and with no regard for their well-being.Consumers, Producers, and Wendell Berry: How should social roles relate to each other?“Any question about justice have to begin from concrete social positions.”Maintaining action and creativityPractical recommendation for action to align our lives with our values“I read fiction and short stories that tell stories of human beings in futures drastically affected by climate change as a way to open up my imagination to what's possible.”Dystopian narratives: leading to a sense of futility and hopelessness.“I don't think we know where anything is headed.”“Humans have lived through upheaval so many times, and have found ways. … ‘People kept on baking bread as the Roman Empire fell.'”Yale Divinity School class: “Eco-Futures”—imagining lives lived well in painful situationsIf not hope, a sense of determination to do what can be done with the time that we have.Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future: a technocratic novel about politics and policy solutionsShort fiction on Grist—Imagine 2200: Write the FutureMargaret Atwood, Everything ChangeProduction NotesThis podcast featured Ryan Darr and Ryan McAnnally-LinzEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaProduction Assistance by Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, Zoë Halaban, Kacie Barrett, and Emily BrookfieldA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

What is gaslighting REALLY and what isn't?  Plus, how to know if you're in a relationship with a gaslighter, the three types of gaslighters, and how to break free from a gaslighter and reclaim yourself.  About Dr. Stern:  Robin Stern, Ph.D., is the co-founder and associate director for the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and an associate research scientist at the Child Study Center at Yale. She is a licensed psychoanalyst with 30 years of experience treating individuals, couples, and families. She is the author of The Gaslight Effect Recovery Guide: Your Personal Journey Toward Healing from Emotional Abuse.  TW: @RobinSStern IG: @dr.robinstern To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices