Susan Cain on Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole

Episode Highlights With Susan Cain What led her to write her book “Quiet” and why "Bittersweet" was an important follow up The importance of joy and sorrow together for the fullness of life Why the impermanence of life paradoxically leads to joy Connection of melancholy and love and why certain sad music can touch us so deeply What studies show about the relationship between a melancholic state of mind and creativity The wounded healer archetype and why a very high percentage of people we consider “the greats” in art or music had a huge loss, often of a parent, at an early age Strategies for learning to embrace the bittersweet Ways we can help our kids learn to accept the bittersweet as part of life and support them through this How we can inherit grief and trauma from past generations and how we can transform this into beauty and creativity Resources We Mention Susan Cain - Her website Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender by David R. Hawkins M.D. Ph.D Spring and Fall Poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins Her Bittersweet playlist on Spotify 483: Mark Wolynn on Why It Didn’t Start With You, Inherited Trauma & How We Heal The Next Big Idea book club Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi