Christmas is a time of heightened emotions: lots of fun, lots of food, plenty of arguments. This year Andrew invites friend of the podcast and love coach CATE MACKENZIE to explore what Christmas means to each of them.

Cate and Andrew discuss:

• Their best and worst Christmas experiences.
• Christmas traditions that work.
• Most evocative Christmas songs
• Cultivating the right mindset to make the most of Christmas
• Accepting pain and disappointment if they arise.

Cate Mackenzie is a COSRT Accredited Sex and Relationship Therapist, Love Coach and Artist. Her passion is supporting people to fall in love with themselves, with life and with others. Cate was the dating coach for Channel 4’s 'The Undateables', a flirting coach on Channel 5's 'The Jeremy Vine Show' and a Sex Therapist on Channel 4's 'Kinky Britain'. Her heart paintings have been sold in 80 countries worldwide through IKEA.

Subscriber Content This Week

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

• Different Christmases for Different Times in Your Life
• Three things Cate Mackenzie knows to be true.
• AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.

Follow Up

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

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

Visit Cate Mackenzie’s website

Listen to Cate Mackenzie’s podcast, Love, Pleasure and Joy with Cate Mackenzie

Follow Cate Mackenzie on LinkedIn and Twitter @CateMackenzie and Instagram @Catemmackenzie

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

Do we need a complete rethink of the rituals we use to mark the end of life? This week Andrew talks to undertaker and author RU CALLENDER about what he’s learnt over the course of his career.

Ru Callender became an undertaker in order to offer people a more honest experience than the stilted formality of traditional ‘Victorian’ funerals. Driven by raw emotion and the unresolved grief of losing his own parents, Ru brought an outsider, ‘DIY’ ethos to the business of death.

Ru has carried coffins across windswept beaches, sat in pubs with caskets on beer-stained tables, helped children fire flaming arrows into their father’s funeral pyre, turned modern occult rituals into performance art and, with the band members of the KLF, is building the People’s Pyramid of bony bricks in Liverpool – all in the name of creating truly authentic experiences that celebrate those who are no longer here and those who remain.

Subscriber Content This Week

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

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

Follow Up

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

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

Read Ru Callender’s book, What Remains? Life, Death and the Human Art of Undertaking

Follow Ru Callender on X/Twitter @wayswithweirds

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

What does it mean to be wise? Do we grow in wisdom as we age? Pioneering neuropsychiatric researcher Dr Dilip Jeste has spent years investigating the biological and cognitive roots of wisdom.

In this reissued classic episode, Andrew and Dilip discuss what we mean when we talk about wisdom, and whether we can, in fact, grow wiser. Dilip describes what he has established as the key components of the wise individual:

• Self-reflection
• Empathy and compassion (including for yourself)
• Emotional regulation and resilience
• Gratitude
• Openness to new experiences
• Spirituality

Andrew and Dilip also talk about cultural differences in the treatment of older people, and how we miss out when we ignore the wisdom of our parents and grandparents.

Dr Dilip Jeste is a neuropsychiatrist, as well as the author of Wiser: The Scientific Roots of Wisdom, Compassion and What Makes Us Good. Dilip has spent more than 20 years studying aspects of wisdom and healthy aging, and is a professor of psychiatry and neurosciences and the director of the Center for Healthy Aging at UC San Diego. He is also a past president of the American Psychiatric Association.

Subscriber Content This Week

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

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

Follow Up

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

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

Read Dr Dilip Jeste’s book Wiser: The Scientific Roots of Wisdom, Compassion and What Makes Us Good

Visit Dr Dilip Jeste’s website

Follow the UC San Diego Center for Healthy Aging on Twitter @UCSDHealthAging and Facebook @ucsd.healthy.aging

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