Therapy can release old wounds, but can it bring you fully alive? Psychiatrist-turned-retreat-leader Dieter Middleston Scheid and his partner Baccha Schwartz describe their immersive silent retreats in Italy, where open sensory attention, slow-motion movement, and ten days without speech help participants rediscover a wordless inner home.
Therapy helps, but does it free us? Psychiatrist-turned-mindfulness-teacher Dieter Middleston-Scheidt and Batya Schwartz describe leaving biographical therapy behind to build a retreat practice rooted in silence, open sensory attention, and slow motion as a path to direct aliveness.
Armand DiMele reframes sobriety not as abstinence but as full presence in the moment, arguing that most of us are “drunk” on distraction, worry, and longing nearly all the time. Drawing on a candid conversation with a group of men, he explores why being truly present is so rare and so difficult, and how tears, non-judgment, and even the word “yes” can open a doorway to it.
Waking up is not just physical. Armand DiMele argues that most people drift through jobs, marriages, and daily life in a kind of waking sleep, and that irritability, numbness, and drug use are often just attempts to stay unconscious. Callers explore what it takes to finally show up for their own lives.
Philosopher and author Dr. Christian De Quincey argues that relationships are not something individuals enter into but the very source from which individuals emerge. Armand DiMele and co-host Roberta Maria Atti explore how the shift from feeling to reason fractured human connectedness, with reference to Jean Liedloff’s continuum concept.
Fugue states are everywhere: in drinking, meditation, marathon running, internet use, even falling in love. Armand DiMele argues that any habitual escape from the present moment is a form of dissociation, explains the neurological cost, and offers practical steps for learning to stay.
Armand DiMele makes the case that the most meaningful gifts cost nothing but effort and attention. He walks listeners through his homemade gift certificate system, offering examples like cooking a meal, chauffeuring, foot massage, and pledging an hour of undivided listening. The episode also touches on seasonal affective disorder and why holiday cheer often masks depression.
Worry lives in the future, regret lives in the past, and neither leaves room for now. Armand DiMele argues that most suffering comes from one of these two mental habits, and that being present is not passivity but a kind of willful surrender. Callers share their own struggles to simply stop and arrive.
What does it mean to be fully alive in the present moment? Armand DiMele and co-host Lisa Arnone, LCSW, dig into Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow and the autotelic personality, arguing that real positivity comes from seeing reality clearly, not from manufactured optimism.
