Hello, I am a marital therapist, communications trainer and author. I have thirty-five years helping couples and individuals make better relationships. I have written twenty-plus self-help books which include the international best-sellers ‘I love you but I’m not in love with you’ and ‘How can I ever trust you again?’ My books have been translated into twenty languages. I trained with RELATE the UK’s largest counselling charity. Perhaps it has been turning sixty but I have become interested in spiritual as well as psychological questions. Who am I? What are my values – as opposed to my parents, my teachers and the wider society? What makes my life meaningful? What do I believe about life, the universe and everything? Although my clients might come to me because of destructive arguments, falling out of love and infidelity, they are also interested in having more meaningful relationships and a more meaningful life. So what is the meaningful life? Why do we so easily lose our way and get lost in depression, anxiety, doubt, addictions and obsessions: the swamplands of the soul? One thing I know for sure is that there is not one answer...
https://andrewgmarshall.com/podcasts/
episode 141: Ayala Gill: What Can I Learn from this Moment?
In this episode spiritual teacher Ayala Gill shares three fundamental questions with which to approach difficult situations life throws our way:
⭐️What can I learn from this moment?
⭐️What’s asking to be loved?
⭐️What can I give in return?
Andrew and Ayala also discuss the nature of suffering, the difference between suffering and pain, animistic cosmology (the inherent luminous intelligence intrinsic to all things), and what it means to “live in sacredness”.
Ayala Gill is a teacher of meditation, yoga and other spiritual practices. She has taught for 25 years, and guides silent retreats in Europe which include yoga, meditation and ceremony. She is currently writing a book that is provisionally titled Living in Sacredness. Her next guided retreat is in October 2023, at Le Moulin de Chaves, France
If You’re Looking for More….
You can subscribe to The Meaningful Life (via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts) and hear a bonus mini-episode every week. Or you can join our Supporters Club on Patreon to also access exclusive behind-the-scenes content, fan requests and the chance to ask Andrew your own questions. Membership starts at just £4.50.
This week supporters will hear:
⭐️Turning anger to compassion
⭐️Three things Ayala Gill knows to be true.
⭐️AND subscribers also access all of our previous bonus content - a rich trove of insight on love, life and meaning created by Andrew and his interviewees.
Follow Up
Read Andrew’s new Substack newsletter The Meaningful Life, and join the community there.
Visit Ayala Gill’s website.
Next week, June 26-30 2023, Ayala will be teaching a week of daily meditations online with Sangha Live from 7-8am UK time (recordings available later the same day).
Learn more about Ayala Gill’s guided silent retreats
Read and/or subscribe to Ayala Gill’s Substack
Follow Ayala Gill on Facebook @ayala.gill
You might also enjoy Andrew’s interviews with Matthew McKay on Loving in the Face of Pain and Paul Gilbert on Compassion and Self-Acceptance.
Read Andrew’s book Wake Up and Change Your Life: How to Survive a Crisis and be Stronger, Wiser and Happier
Andrew offers regular advice on love, marriage and finding meaning in your life via his social channels. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @andrewgmarshall