The Mindform Podcast

What if the good life isn't something you can chase directly? What if trying to "just be happy" is exactly what keeps you from actually flourishing?

In Episode 55 of the Mindform Podcast, Frank Lawton sits down with Dr. Sarah Schnitker, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Baylor University and Director of the BRIGHTS Center, who has spent over 20 years building the scientific case for virtue — testing Aristotelian ideas with hard data, over 100 peer-reviewed studies, and more than $10 million in research funding. Sarah's central claim: virtue isn't a nice-to-have, it's likely necessary to actually be well — and cultivating it may be one of the best paths to a flourishing life.

• Why patience got left off psychology's official list of 24 character strengths
• What actually makes a trait a "virtue" versus just a personality strength
• Why virtue requires the right motive, not just the right habit
• The unity of virtues — why you need patience and courage, not just one or the other
• Why individualism quietly undermines our ability to become good people
• Whether ambition and grit "count" as virtues when the motive is purely selfish

Learn more about Sarah's work at sites.baylor.edu/science-of-virtues

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In this episode of the Mindform Podcast, host Frank Lawton sits down with Dr. Betsy Chung, a licensed clinical psychologist with over 15 years of experience and author of The Couple Skills Workbook: Manage Conflict, Increase Trust and Intimacy, and Build a Better Relationship. Dr. Chung has spent her career helping people untangle how childhood relational patterns quietly run their adult lives — and in this conversation, she makes the case that growth isn't a destination, it's a lifelong process of trial and error.

In this episode, they explore:

• Why "graduating" therapy isn't really the goal — and what is
• The difference between feeling safe and feeling secure in a relationship
• How shame became our default tool for change (and why it backfires)
• What unconditional positive regard actually looks like in practice
• Why letting people — including your own kids — fail is an act of love
• How Dr. Chung's own childhood shaped her approach to parenting her daughter

Get Dr. Chung's book, The Couple Skills Workbook: https://www.newharbinger.com/9781648482601/the-couple-skills-workbook/

Learn more about Dr. Betsy Chung at drbetsychung.com

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What if the person you were supposed to trust the most was actually the source of the threat? And why does healing from trauma take years when the damage happened in seconds?

In Episode 58 of the Mindform Podcast, Frank sits down with Dr. Arielle Schwartz — licensed clinical psychologist, longtime yoga teacher, and author of eight books including The Complex PTSD Workbook and The Polyvagal Theory Workbook for Trauma. Arielle makes the case that trauma isn't just a mental wound — it's stored in the nervous system, and healing means slowly teaching the body a new, disconfirming reality of safety.

In this conversation:

• What actually separates complex PTSD from single-incident trauma
• Why the vagus nerve — not just "calming down" — is the real key to nervous system health
• The danger of jumping straight into painful memories before building safety first
• How to "catch yourself being good" and interrupt the mind's threat bias
• Why healing isn't linear — and how the changing seasons explain slow progress
• What to say to your own inner child when no one else did

Dr. Schwartz's books and free resources: https://drarielleschwartz.com

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Apply to join Mindform or get the free Psychitect's Toolkit at https://mindform.io/podcast

Why do so many of the most caring, high-achieving people quietly burn themselves out? And why does it always feel like a personal failure, even when it isn't?

In this episode of the Mindform Podcast, Frank Lawton sits down with Dr. Kerry Makin-Byrd, clinical psychologist, trauma therapist, and author of The Ballad of Burnout and Start Here: A Practical Guide for the Overwhelmed. Kerry has spent her career treating trauma survivors while training other therapists and doctors to avoid the exact burnout that once broke her.

Her argument is simple but sharp: burnout isn't a character flaw or a lack of grit. It's what happens when unrealistic expectations meet unsupportive environments, all wrapped in a culture that tells us to "swan," meaning look calm on the surface while you're drowning underneath. Real recovery, she says, comes down to three skills: Soothe, Transcend, Move.

• Why the "just be more resilient" narrative about burnout is a lie
• The "swan" pressure many women feel to perform ease while struggling
• Kerry's own burnout spiral, including nightmares, drinking, and hypervigilance
• The difference between real self-compassion and self-patronizing "kindness"
• Why "clear seeing" beats "acceptance" when facing hard truths
• How the paradox of choice quietly fuels modern overwhelm

Learn more about Kerry: https://www.drkerrymakinbyrd.com/
Her books: https://www.drkerrymakinbyrd.com/books/

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Mindform is an exclusive membership platform that gives you access to an ever-expanding toolkit for mental mastery and a community of passionate psychitects.

Apply to join Mindform or get the free Psychitect's Toolkit at https://mindform.io/podcast

Can you ever really prove there's no God? And if two equally smart, equally rational people can study the exact same arguments and land in completely different places, what does that actually tell us?

In this episode of the Mindform Podcast, Frank Lawton sits down with Graham Oppy, Professor of Philosophy at Monash University, trained at Princeton, and one of the most rigorous thinkers alive on the philosophy of religion. He's the author of Arguing About Gods and Atheism: The Basics, among a dozen other books.

Graham's central claim is simple but unsettling: after mapping nearly every serious argument for and against God, none of them are strong enough to force a rational conclusion. In the end, belief comes down to judgment, not proof, and that means reasonable, intelligent people can disagree forever.

In this conversation, they explore:

• Why Graham holds 99% certainty in atheism while admitting no argument truly "wins"
• The 1,000 year old ontological argument that still divides philosophers today
• Why animal suffering might be the hardest problem for theists to explain
• How religious experience and testimony break down under scrutiny
• Why people can't predict how a "transformative experience" will change their beliefs
• Why disagreement itself might be the most honest response to these questions

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What if the voice yelling at you inside your own head isn't actually you? What if your rage, your anxiety, your worst habits are all trying to protect you?

In this episode, Frank sits down with Nell Pennington — a certified Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapist with almost 30 years in health, first as a nurse and now as a counsellor whose own adult ADHD diagnosis shaped her deeply compassionate, neuroaffirming approach to therapy. Together they explore the radical idea that the mind isn't singular — it's a whole internal family of parts, each with its own role, wound, and good intention, waiting to be understood rather than fixed.

In this conversation, they cover:

• Why your inner critic might actually be trying to protect you
• The difference between "managers," "firefighters," and "exiles" inside you
• Why self-sabotage might be two parts of you fighting for the same goal
• What it really means to access your "Self" — and why it can't be forced
• How ADHD reframed Nell's whole understanding of her own mind
• What "successful" IFS therapy actually looks like day to day

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Learn more about Nelida Pennington: https://ifs.nz/

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Mindform is an exclusive membership platform that gives you access to an ever-expanding toolkit for mental mastery and a community of passionate psychitects.

Apply to join Mindform or get the free Psychitect's Toolkit at https://mindform.io/podcast

What if the biggest threat to your relationship isn't your partner — it's your nervous system? What if "good communication skills" are useless the moment your body thinks it's being chased by a lion?

In this episode of the Mindformed Podcast, Frank Lawton sits down with Elizabeth Earnshaw — licensed marriage and family therapist, certified Gottman Method therapist, and founder of A Better Life Therapy in Philadelphia. Elizabeth's central argument: most relationship conflict isn't a communication problem, it's a stress problem — and until you treat the body first, no technique will stick.

In this conversation:

• Why couples with great communication skills still have the exact same fight every time
• The physiological "stop action" technique for breaking an argument before it escalates
• Why 20 minutes (not 5) is the magic number your body needs to reset
• The difference between co-regulating and dysregulating with a stressed partner
• How to run a "stress audit" on your life — and split it into shed, prevent, and adapt
• The simple questions that pull stress out of a partner instead of pumping more in

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Find Elizabeth at elizabethearnshaw.com or @LizListens. Books mentioned in this episode:

• 'Til Stress Do Us Part — how stress, not your partner, is the real relationship killer
• I Want This to Work — Elizabeth's first book on building stronger relationships
• The Couples Therapy Flip Chart — a clinical tool used by therapists in couples sessions

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Mindform is an exclusive membership platform that gives you access to an ever-expanding toolkit for mental mastery and a community of passionate psychitects.

Apply to join Mindform or get the free Psychitect's Toolkit at https://mindform.io/podcast

What if the self-doubt you've been trying to fix is actually proof you care? And what if the harder you work to outrun it, the worse it gets?

In this episode, Frank sits down with Dr. Jill Stoddard — clinical psychologist, TEDx speaker, ACT trainer, and author of Be Mighty and Brace No More — to unpack why imposter syndrome is misnamed, misunderstood, and why the conventional advice to "just build your confidence" tends to backfire for most people.

Dr. Stoddard makes the case that psychological flexibility — not confidence — is the real antidote to self-doubt, fear, and avoidance.

Topics covered:

• Why "imposter syndrome" is a flawed term — and what the research actually says
• The gap trap: why waiting until you feel ready keeps you stuck
• How acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) builds resilience without toxic positivity
• Pain reprocessing therapy — how the brain creates chronic pain and how to rewire it
• Speaking truth to power: Jill's personal story and her upcoming podcast We the Sunlight
• Why discomfort practiced in small ways builds capacity for the big moments

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🎙️ This is Episode53 of the Mindform Podcast, hosted by Frank Lawton.

🔗 Find Dr. Jill Stoddard:

• Website: www.jillstoddard.com
• New Podcast (Sept 2025): We the Sunlight
• Books: https://jillstoddard.com/books
  • Be Mighty
  • Imposter No More
  • The Big Book of ACT Metaphors

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Mindform is an exclusive membership platform that gives you access to an ever-expanding toolkit for mental mastery and a community of passionate psychitects.
Apply to join Mindform or get the free Psychitect's Toolkit at https://mindform.io/podcast

What if the relentless drive to know everything, control everything, and fix everything is actually making you less human? And what if the path to wisdom, meaning, and flourishing begins not with more answers — but with a deeper relationship with the unknown?

Frank sits down with philosopher John Cottingham — Professor Emeritus at the University of Reading and Honorary Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford — whose latest book The Humane Perspective (Oxford University Press) is a bold call for philosophy to reconnect with lived experience, emotion, and spiritual reality. John argues that our culture's obsession with left-brain detachment — from academia to AI to tech utopianism — is cutting us off from what makes us most human: vulnerability, transcendence, and the humility to acknowledge our limits.

Topics covered:

• Why philosophy's obsession with detached logic misses the point of being human
• The "epistemology of involvement" — and why being porous is more powerful than being critical
• AI, tech billionaires, and the dangerous fantasy of total control
• The longing for transcendence and why even a well-fed, comfortable life leaves us yearning
• What Augustine, Aquinas, Freud, and Jung all agree on about self-knowledge
• Why religion is a practice, not a theory — and what that means for non-believers

The Humane Perspective by John Cottingham — Oxford University Press

 johncottingham.co.uk

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Mindform is an exclusive membership platform that gives you access to an ever-expanding toolkit for mental mastery and a community of passionate psychitects.
Apply to join Mindform or get the free Psychitect's Toolkit at https://mindform.io/podcast

What if everything you've been told about managing anxiety is making it worse? What if the kindest thing you can do for your kids — or yourself — is to stop trying to fix the feeling?

Dr. Alissa Jerud is a psychologist, Penn faculty member, and author of Emotion Savvy Parenting. She specialises in anxiety disorders, OCD, PTSD, and emotional regulation, using her ART framework — Accept, Regulate, Tolerate — to help people build a fundamentally different relationship with discomfort.

In this conversation, Frank and Alissa explore why our instinct to soothe anxiety is the very thing that sustains it — and what it looks like to actually let it be.

Topics covered:
- Why anxiety misfires — and why that doesn't make it your enemy
- The exposure therapy process: what 10–20 sessions really look like
- The "fly at the picnic" analogy that reframes everything about acceptance
- Why popular anxiety advice in the media is doing more harm than good
- How Alissa's own parenting struggles transformed her clinical practice
- What it means to be the "rock" for your kids without fixing their emotions

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Emotion Savvy Parenting — Available here: https://www.amazon.com/Emotion-Savvy-Parenting-Alissa-Jerud/dp/1032544945
Learn more at: alissajerud.com

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Mindform is an exclusive membership platform that gives you access to an ever-expanding toolkit for mental mastery and a community of passionate psychitects. Apply to join Mindform or get the free Psychitect's Toolkit at https://mindform.io/podcast