I’m very pleased this week to have Dr. Jonah Paquette back on the podcast for a second time. Jonah is the author of an excellent book called Awestruck (affiliate link), which we talked a lot about in our first conversation. This time we focused on a couple of main topics. The first was trauma, and especially posttraumatic growth. We explored the question of whether there is any contradiction between the pain and confusion of trauma, and the possibility that we can grow from our most difficult experiences—and even become more fully ourselves.

We then turned to the issue of liberal orthodoxy and the cancel culture, and ways we might have more open and productive dialogues. There’s a lot of interesting nuance to discuss there. Other topics we touched on included:

• The many ways we might grow and evolve through pain
• My wife’s and my struggles with fertility
• The cancer experience of my guest’s wife
• Becoming our most evolved self through pain and suffering
• The sometimes fatalistic view therapists can have of their patients
• The paradox of becoming whole through being broken
• The Japanese art form of Kintsugi
• The sermon I heard at a temple in San Francisco by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner
• Leonard Cohen’s line from “Anthem” about the “crack in everything … that’s how the light gets in” 
• Positives from the age of COVID
• The remarkable ways that students in Jonah’s class had grown in 2020
• Fred Luskin and his work on forgiveness, like Forgive for Good (affiliate link)
• Liberal dogma and cancel culture
• My earlier conversation with Jon Haidt
• How often we tend to self-censor, no matter where we fall on the political spectrum
• The current difficulty in finding a way back after making a public misstep
• The assumption that a person’s essence is irredeemably bad
• The compatibility of strong convictions and respectful dialogue
• A 2×2 matrix including the dimensions left vs. right and closed vs. open
• The shortage of grace that’s often available now
• Humans’ awe-inspiring ability to transcend differences
• Making external differences as boring as hair color
• Helping those who differ from us politically
• Our increasing reliance on politics for our primary identity
• The narrowing boundaries of what is considered “acceptable speech”
• The love and friendship shared by Cornell West and Robert George, despite stark political differences
• Whether Jonah’s and my lives are better for being psychologists
• What we learn in the process of putting our thoughts into writing

Jonah Paquette, PsyD, grew up in Brooklyn and completed his undergraduate degree at Columbia University, and then traveled across the country to do his doctorate in psychology at the PGSP-Stanford Consortium in Palo Alto.

His training includes extensive study in positive psychology, which is obvious in his writing on awe.

Jonah is currently the assistant regional director of mental health training at a large HMO in the Bay Area, and he provides trainings, consultations, and seminars on topics related to wellness, happiness, and reaching your full potential.

In addition to Awestruck, Jonah is the author of Real Happiness, a self-help book offering seven proven paths to happiness and well-being, as well as The Happiness Toolbox, which provides an array of tools and handouts for both readers and practitioners.

Find Jonah online at his website and on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. 

Links to books are Amazon affiliate links.