A poignant scene from Meredith Hall’s novel Beneficence, where a husband and father speaks with harsh words to deny his regrets, reminds me to show my love; others can only see my actions.

We talk about why it’s helpful to remember that the things that go wrong often make the best memories—for example, I passed out on live TV! Plus a hack about holding hands, and we ask the know-yourself-better question, “Are you in an age of expansion, or an age of concentration?”

Our former producer, the podcaster and writer Kristen Meinzer, explains why we should try “movie therapy,” we discuss one of Gretchen’s all-time favorite hacks of her own invention, and we explore the question, “Do you find that certain situations send you into shock?”

In Stephan Lee’s terrific young-adult novel K-Pop Confidential, the character Candace’s performance illustrates the same lesson that I saw in my daughter Eleanor’s second-grade show on the monkey bars: Sometimes we should expect more from ourselves, and sometimes we should accept ourselves—our own gifts, our own limitations, and our own way to achieve an aim.

Understanding my Four Tendencies personality framework, and my own Tendency as an Upholder, revealed to me why I’d behaved inexplicably years ago, when I took my daughter to school in a snowstorm.

The old teaching story of the greedy monkey and the bananas illustrates many notions, including the idea that sometimes we have to let go of a desire in order to free ourselves.

We discuss why we might ask ourselves, “What valuable lessons have I learned from the pandemic, now that a year has passed?” We also suggest an easy hack to shake off sleep inertia, tackle a listener’s question about a Rebel teacher who doesn’t read email, and give a phone-related gold star.

When I’m feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or unhappy, I sometimes conjure up an image in my mind—an oak tree in Iowa, or a traffic light in a thunderstorm—to help me to feel calmer.

We discuss why you might want to establish your personal policy, I share a reading hack, we take a deep dive into listeners’ hidden delights, and Elizabeth gives herself a demerit related to the pandemic.

We talk about why you might want to create a hidden delight, a listener suggests a hack for using clothes as a way to stick to an exercise habit, and we discuss a challenging question related to gift-giving and gift-receiving.