John R. Miles

Once we've cleared out the noise, what do we actually build in the space that's left behind?

On Tuesday, we started to answer this question with Dr. Steven Post.

looking at why pure, unlimited love is a biological requirement for health.

But that shift brings us to an inevitable question.

How do we inhabit that pure, unlimited love without losing ourselves in the process?

Becoming gives us the capacity to move, but presence is what allows us to actually be where we are once we arrive.

without it we aren't living a life we are just managing a series of events today's episode is one that sits close to my heart i've been wanting to have this conversation for several years and it comes at a moment in my life where its lessons feel especially present i'm joined by world famous poet philosopher and cancer survivor mark nepal whose work has guided millions through grief awakening creativity

and the long arc of becoming fully human.

Before we began recording, I shared with Mark something deeply personal, that after my sister Carolyn passed away from pancreatic cancer, she chose one specific poem to read at her memorial.

Mark's poem accepting this.

Its lines captured her philosophy of life, and truthfully, it captures Mark's philosophy too.

In our conversation, we explore what inspired those words and how, in a world marked by division, disconnection, and noise, we can reclaim the simple human practices that awaken the heart, presence, reverence, compassion, and the courage to hold nothing back.

Mark takes us into the meaning of acceptance.

not as resignation, but as cooperating with truth.

He explains why the heart is our strongest muscle, how to recognize whether what you're engaging in is life-giving or life-draining, and why immersion is what brings us alive.

We discuss the creative life as a spiritual practice, the differences between nostalgia

and the purposeful use of memory, and the profound metaphor at the center of Mark's newest book, The Fifth Season, Creativity in the Second Half of Life, that as we age and life wears away what is no longer essential, we shine brighter.

Before we dive in, a quick note on a project that mirrors these themes of inherent worth.

We often spend our adult lives trying to rediscover the value we should have been anchored in as children.

A new children's book, You Matter, Luma, is a bridge to that truth, a reminder that your significance isn't earned by your performance.