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PODCAST

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert

Meredith Hackwith Edwards

Each episode explores a taboo question or cultural blind spot with an expert who is themselves, a paradox -Like the atheist doctor who studied near death experiences for 50 years (ep 224)Or the deeply religious man studied by NASA who sees UFOs regularly (ep 261).The mission is to inspire the kind of curiosity that looks for & celebrates nuance, because we all deserve a more curious future.So tune in each week (new episodes every Monday) to question things like American individualism (ep 260),

society & culture social sciences

All Episodes

44:35

Ep. 322: Early Sobriety: Can You Keep Your Friends?...

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/12/15

How do you stay connected with friends when everything revolves around drinking? Casey McGuire Davidson was an ambitious corporate achiever who always had a full schedule & anxious energy. She felt wine was the glue holding her life together until she realized it wasn’t. She later found serenity in sobriety, but it wasn’t without some social hiccups. In this episode, she uses her expertise as a certified life & sobriety coach to show us how to keep our friends in the tender time of ea...

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48:51

Ep. 321: Relationship Boundaries: NIGHTMARES,...

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/12/08

Are healthy boundaries lines in the sand? Going no contact? KC Davis is licensed professional counselor, host of the podcast Struggle Care & author of Who Deserves your love: how to create boundaries to start, strengthen or end any relationship. In this episode, she unpacks the girl bossification of boundaries, the decision flowchart of no contact, how values make “hard calls” easier & how the internet sells quipping one-liners & emphasizes hard lines over nuance. ...

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69:13

Ep. 320: AI = the END of thought freedom in America??!

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/12/01

How is AI influencing our decisions? Is opting IN to every AI offer causing us to opt OUT of our free will? Jake Ward is a former NBC News correspondent & is currently the founding editor & host of The Rip Current newsletter & podcast, which looks at the hidden forces of modern life, like Big Tech, business, and politics. He’s also the author of The Loop: How AI is creating a world without choices & how to fight back. In this episode, you’ll hear how the brain AC...

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43:17

Ep. 319: Micro-retirement: Cynicism, Burnout & Logistics

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/11/24

Is this the answer to burnout? How are mini-retirements even possible? Kira Schabram, PhD, is the Assistant Professor in management & organization at Pennsylvania State University & historian of work who has been studying the details & impacts of a phenomenon called micro-retirement – people treating breaks from work of three or more months. In this episode, you’ll hear how others are doing this idea, why it’s worth talking about & how it could be the solution to wide...

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67:10

Ep. 318: Dating in Midlife: Where have all the good...

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/11/17

Why is dating so hard in midlife? Are we all sending mixed signals? Abe Morgentaler, MD & Marianne Brandon, PhD are the hosts of the Sex Doctors Podcast, where they deep dive into the science & psychology of sexual health & relationships. Dr. Morgentaler is a Harvard trained MD who opened the first comprehensive men’s health center in the US, is the leading authority in testosterone therapy, author of four books & currently the Blavatnik Faculty Fellow in H...

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35:26

Ep. 317: Life in the Vegas Tunnels: Clowns, Crickets...

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/11/10

What’s it like living underground? How did he get out? Paul Vautrinot shares his story of living in the Las Vegas tunnels, or as he states it, beneath the neon. He shares what life in the Vegas underground city was like with the tunnel people, how he left, got sober & became a co-founder of Shine a Light Foundation. He shares the organization’s unique approach to ending homelessness & how they are by-passing wait lists. This episode originally aired June 6, 2022 I...

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67:51

Ep. 316: Is Getting Alzheimer’s Inevitable?! Testing,...

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/11/03

Is it possible to maintain mental acuity well into your golden years? How do we assess ourselves (instead of waiting to see)? Dr. Dale Bredesen earned his M.D. from Duke University Medical Center & served as Chief Resident in Neurology at the University of California. He's now a Neuroscience researcher & internationally recognized expert in the mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases. His newest book is The Ageless Brain: How to Sharpen and Protect Your Mind for a Lifetim...

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45:19

Ep. 315: Is Asexuality an Orientation or a Symptom?

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/10/27

What happens when attraction never shows up? Why does this label matter? Tony Bogaert, PhD, is the professor of health sciences at Brock University in Ontario, Canada where he has taught & conducted research for the last 30 years, primarily in the area of human sexuality. He’s also the author of Understanding Asexuality. In this episode, you’ll learn the difference between asexuality & sexual aversion disorder, celibacy & autism as well as how someone might be asexua...

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56:59

Ep 314: Science & the Supernatural: Project Stargate,...

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/10/20

What was it like to work on Project Stargate? Is Psi science being taken seriously? What if our mind is not our brain? Dean Radin, PhD, has been researching the paranormal for 45 years & currently serves as Chief Scientist at the Inst of Noetic Sciences. His new book, The Science of Magic, is a straight-faced look behind the scenes of psi research & even shares how you can do your own experiments at home. In this video, you’ll hear about the maturation of psi research, t...

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49:55

Ep. 313: Is a 4 Day Work Week Coming? Thursday = the...

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/10/13

Why do most of us work Mon-Fri? What would happen if Thursday was the new Friday? Joe Sanok is a former psychologist & current author of Thursday is the New Friday. In this episode, he shares how the signs of a shorter work week (& longer weekends) have been popping up since the 1980’s. In this episode he shares why a four-day work week is critical to society’s advancement, examples of places already implementing alternative schedules, how we can recali...

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43:32

Ep. 312: Did the #metoo Movement Even Help Us?

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/10/06

What do we have to show for the #metoo movement? Were men benefited or hurt by the movement? Carter Sherman is an Emmy nominated reproductive health & justice reporter at The Guardian & author of the book The Second Coming. Her comprehensive review of sex, culture & policy combined with over 100 conversations with people about their sex lives made her uniquely qualified to unpack the good, the bad & the confusing of the #metoo movement. You’ll hear about false accusation...

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45:16

Ep. 311: Is Modern Day Witchcraft on the Rise? LSD,...

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/09/29

Is there an uptick of people claiming to be actual witches? When in history were witches NOT seen as evil? Is this commercialism packaged as a spiritual practice? Julie Walsh, PhD, is the Whitehead Associate Professor of Critical Thought & Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Her primary research focus is on metaphysics & the ethics of human freedom in the early modern period. In this episode, we talk about the historical origin of wit...

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37:25

Ep. 310: American Circumcision: Preference or...

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/09/22

When & why did circumcision begin (it’s not what you think)? What are the arguments for it & what are the experts saying? Sugar water instead of anesthetic?? Brendon Marotta is a filmmaker whose feature-length documentary, American Circumcision, won multiple awards & can be found on Amazon & YouTube. In this episode, we talk about the surprising history of circumcision, the practice today, parental consent & why this is so hard to talk about, but female circumcision...

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45:04

Ep. 309: How Did the Media Become Such a Biased,...

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/09/15

Forget good news. How about just honest news? How did we get here? Guest Ken LaCorte unpacks the history of news production, behind the scenes of how it’s made, information vs entertainment & how human psychology ironically drives the train we’re all so desperate to get off. Ken LaCorte left main stream media in 2016 after nearly 20 years of serving in senior management at Fox News. Today he writes about censorship & media misconduct, but you might recognize from his YouTube ch...

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58:25

Ep. 308: How to Think Impossibly: Precognition,...

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/09/08

Can we take psi seriously while maintaining critical thinking? Jeffrey Kripal, PhD, explores the YES AND of the ordinary & extraordinary. You’ll hear about precognition, poltergeists, Skinwalker Ranch, time travel, demons & X-Men. Jeffrey Kripal, PhD is the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He is also the author or co-author of thirteen books including, How to Think Impossibly: about souls, ufos, time, belief and ev...

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45:04

Ep. 307: Can Psychedelics Help Us Grieve? Getting...

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/09/01

Is psychedelic assisted therapy is BETTER than traditional talk therapy? You’ll hear how they’re different, how psychedelics may help not just the combat veteran or trauma survivor, but the functional griever (goes to work every day, acts like everything is fine, but having panic attacks out of nowhere). You’ll also hear about my own experience with psychedelics and different types of medicines for different types of grief. Michael Sapiro, PsyD, is an ordained Buddhist monk, poet &...

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33:41

Ep. 306: Sex Addiction: Real or Convenient Diagnosis?...

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/08/25

In this episode, we discuss the difference between addiction & dependence, convenient diagnoses, compulsive sexual behavior within bipolar disorder & OCD, how to identify sex addiction & what recovery looks like. Dr. Joshua Grubbs is an addiction researcher who found his interest in sex addiction in college (not as exciting as it sounds). He’s since published over 100 papers on sexual compulsive behavior disorder & serves as Associate Professor in the Department of Psycholog...

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47:40

Ep. 305: Are Political Parties Just Cults?!

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/08/18

Rachel Bernstein is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Cult Specialist & the Host of the IndoctriNation Podcast. She has spent the last 35 years helping former cult members & those who have had loved ones in cults, focusing on emotional abuse recovery, identity repair & moral injury. In this episode she explains the psychology of political allegiance, why religion & politics always fuse together, thought stopping cliches & media influence vs media manipulation. If y...

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52:05

Ep. 304: Could AI Blackmail You? Corporate Affairs,...

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/08/11

Michael Glawson is a PhD philosopher of science, technology, religion & ethics. As an ethicist, he has created corporate ethics training for government organizations & fortune 500 companies. In this episode, he puts into plain language the ever evolving world of AI. We cover Anthropic’s recent report of their AI technology blackmailing two of their executives in a recent sandboxed experiment, why AI isn’t as smart as you think, why AI can re-write its own rules, what experts thi...

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46:22

Ep. 303: When Grief Gets Complicated: A Story of...

Meredith for Real: the curious introvert ·

2025/08/04

Before Lauren Sisler was an Emmy award-winning ESPN sideline reporter, she was an 18-year-old in her dorm room when she found out that her parents had died just hours of each other due to a hidden battle with opioids. When her world came crashing down, the next decade became a wrestling match with the truth. In this episode, she’s going to share her story & unpack her thoughts on legacy, shame & identity for what you’re sure to find as a more relatable American experience. We talk abo...

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322 results

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