In this episode we welcome Ben Katt. Ben has been helping people experience deep transformation and access lives of greater joy, compassion, and purpose for the past twenty years. His first book, The Way Home: Discovering the Hero’s Journey to Wholeness at Midlife, is a guidebook and memoir about the inner journey we all must embark on in order to live our fullest lives. He writes regularly about identity, purpose, creativity, and belonging in his STILL newsletter on Substack.

He is a certified advanced meditation teacher with 1 Giant Mind, holds a Master of Divinity degree, and was an ordained minister for over a decade. Previously, he led The On Being Project’s work in supporting religious and spiritual leaders in the work of social healing. Ben is a perpetual student of religious, spiritual, and cultural wisdom, and an expert at adapting ancient personal development practices for modern contexts in order to help people wake up to who they are and why they are here.

He lives with his wife, three children, and a bunny in Milwaukee, WI where he enjoys walking by the lake, trail running, karaoke, and volunteering as a hospice companion.

In the conversation, Ben and Tyler Lapkin of the Joseph Campbell Foundation speak about Ben’s life, why he based his book around Campbell’s hero’s journey, what it means to have your heart, the necessity of following your weird, and why midlife is such an important crossroads for us all.

To learn more about Ben and his book visit https://www.benjaminkatt.com/

For more information on the MythMaker Podcast Network and Joseph Campbell, visit JCF.org.

To subscribe to our weekly MythBlasts go to jcf.org/subscribe

The Podcast With A Thousand Faces is hosted by Tyler Lapkin and is a production of the Joseph Campbell Foundation. It is produced by Tyler Lapkin. Executive producer, John Bucher. Audio mixing and editing by Charles Mallett.

All music exclusively provided by APM Music (apmmusic.com)

In this episode, Trudy Goodman speaks with Tyler Lapkin of the Joseph Campbell Foundation.

One of the earliest teachers of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Trudy taught with its creator, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn at the MBSR clinic at University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1983. In 1995 she co-founded, and is still the Guiding Teacher at the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy, the first center in the world dedicated to exploring the synergy of these two disciplines. She was an early adopter and now smiles seeing mindfulness everywhere.

After becoming a mother, Trudy was fascinated by human development, and studied w Jean Piaget in Geneva, Carol Gilligan, Lawrence Kohlberg, and Jerome Bruner at Harvard. Trudy co-founded a school for distressed children, practicing mindfulness-based psychotherapy with children, parents, teenagers, couples and individuals. She enjoys the company of kids of all ages and has kept her own child-like wonder and curiosity about the world she loves.

Since 1974, Trudy has devoted much of her life to practicing Buddhist meditation with great Asian and Western teachers in the Zen and Theravada traditions. From 1991 to 1998, Trudy was a resident Zen teacher at the Cambridge Buddhist Association. She then moved to Los Angeles and founded InsightLA, the first center in the world to combine training in both Buddhist Insight (Vipassana) Meditation and non-sectarian mindfulness and compassion practices. Trudy has always been a connector of people, spiritual traditions, cultures, and communities, carrying her Zen delight across the divides.

Trudy has trained a new generation of teachers, mindfulness humanitarians who make mindfulness and meditation classes available for professional caregivers, social justice and environmental activists, first responders, teachers, and unsung individuals working on the front lines of suffering – all done with tenderness, courage and a simple commitment to holding hands together.

Trudy conducts retreats and workshops worldwide – from the hallowed halls of Mazu Daoyi’s Ch’an monastery in China, to leading trainings on the ground in the intense heat of Darfuri refugee camps in Eastern Chad on the Sudanese border. She has loved it all. Trudy is still creating new projects and good trouble wherever she can. Details to be found in her forthcoming memoir!

In the conversation today we discuss her life, meditation, mindfulness, and her perspective on the famous Campbell quote, "Participate Joyfully in the sorrows of the world".

To learn more about Trudy visit: https://www.trudygoodman.com/

For more information on the MythMaker Podcast Network and Joseph Campbell, visit JCF.org.

To subscribe to our weekly MythBlasts go to jcf.org/subscribe

The Podcast With A Thousand Faces is hosted by Tyler Lapkin and is a production of the Joseph Campbell Foundation. It is produced by Tyler Lapkin. Executive producer, John Bucher. Audio mixing and editing by Charles Mallett.

All music exclusively provided by APM Music (apmmusic.com)

In this episode we are joined by Anthony Byrne, an accomplished Irish writer, director, and producer renowned for his work on large-scale international dramas like Peaky Blinders, Lioness, and In Darkness. He has also directed music videos for Hozier, Liam Gallagher, The Smile. And as he says, more importantly he is a new Dad.

In this engaging conversation with JCF's John Bucher, Anthony shares insights into his life and career, revealing the influence of Joseph Campbell on his creative journey.

For more information on the MythMaker Podcast Network and Joseph Campbell, visit JCF.org. 

To subscribe to our weekly MythBlasts go to jcf.org/subscribe

The Podcast With A Thousand Faces is hosted by Tyler Lapkin and is a production of the Joseph Campbell Foundation. It is produced by Tyler Lapkin. Executive producer, John Bucher. Audio mixing and editing by Charles Mallett.

All music exclusively provided by APM Music (apmmusic.com)