The Road Home with Ethan Nichtern

Recently I was talking to my friend Dr. Chris Willard, and he mentioned a desire to have a conversation about the effects of patriarchy on men, and especially younger men, from both a psychological and spiritual perspective. Like myself, Chris is a progressive Buddhist dad, and like me, he cares about helping people develop a more emotionally attuned approach to life. Chris has a particular clinical focus on working with younger people, including younger boys and men. What followed was a wide-ranging (and only slightly rambling, but hey, it's a podcast!) conversation that explored the current (troubled) state of masculinity from a spiritual, psychological, scientific, cultural and political perspective.
Dr. Christopher Willard, (Psy. D.) is a clinical psychologist, author and consultant based in Massachusetts. He has spoken in forty countries, and has presented at two TEDx events. He is the author of twenty books, including Alphabreaths, Growing Up Mindful, Feelings are Like Farts, and The Neuroscience of Negotiation. His thoughts on mental health have been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, mindful.org, cnn.com, and elsewhere. He teaches at Harvard Medical School.
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(Episode available wherever you get your "pods," Apple, Ethan's Website, Substack and every other pod place).
Last year, with your subscriptions, we were able to release more episodes than any previous year. This was only possible with your support. Please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber here.
Show Notes and More cool resources:
Check out our sponsor platform, A Mindful World! A new free video course from Ethan on Metta (lovingkindness) meditation is now available at this link. Sign up for our Fall retreat at the Garrison Institute at this link. Sign up for the August visualization meditation workshop here.
Paid subscribers to The Road Home will receive occasional extras like guided meditations, extra podcast episodes and more! The Thursday Meditation Group happens each week at 8am ET on Thursdays, and guided audio meditations are released monthly. Another bonus podcast for paid subscribers discussed the obstacle of resistance to meditation practice, and Ethan also offered instruction in Metta meditation toward yourself. These are all available to paid subscribers. You can also subscribe to The Road Home podcast wherever you get your pods (Apple, Ethan's Website, etc).
Subscribe now
You can now order personally signed copies of Ethan's books at his website.
You can also subscribe to The Road Home podcast wherever you get your pods (Apple, Ethan's Website, etc).

After a brief memorial to the late Tenzin Robert Thurman, Ethan welcomes author and seeker Erica Bassani to discuss her new book, Women in Love with the Divine. Erica's book explores what it means to be a woman committed to a relationship with the sacred in today's world. On a quest to answer this question for herself, Erica Bassani shares stories from her encounters with a dozen women spiritual teachers from Buddhist, Taoist, Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Nondual traditions. They discuss her own spiritual journey, beginning with the study of the earliest Buddhist teachings, and explore her encounters and interviews with women wisdom holders from a wide variety of traditions.
Erica Bassani is a writer based in Italy, and the author of the recently released Women in Love with the Divine. A graduate of the Academy of Storytelling in Turin, she spent a year living in a Theravadan Buddhist monastery at the age of 23. Since then, she has turned to female spiritual teachers from diverse traditions to help her navigate her inner journey. She created the Women Awakening Project—an initiative that highlights the wisdom of female spiritual role models and explores spiritual practice through the lens of women's experiences—to share their wisdom and create a bridge between generations of seekers. Bassani is also the Italian translator of The Four Noble Truths of Love by Susan Piver.


Subscribe now
(Episode available here now, or wherever you get your "pods," Apple, Ethan's Website, and every other pod place after 11am ET on Wednesday May 27th).
Last year, with your subscriptions, we were able to release more episodes than any previous year. This was only possible with your support. Please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber here.
Show Notes and More cool resources:
Check out our sponsor platform, A Mindful World! A new free video course from Ethan on Metta (lovingkindness) meditation is now available at this link. Sign up for our Fall retreat at the Garrison Institute at this link. Sign up for the August visualization meditation workshop here.
Paid subscribers to The Road Home will receive occasional extras like guided meditations, extra podcast episodes and more! The Thursday Meditation Group happens each week at 8am ET on Thursdays, and guided audio meditations are released monthly. Another bonus podcast for paid subscribers discussed the obstacle of resistance to meditation practice, and Ethan also offered instruction in Metta meditation toward yourself. These are all available to paid subscribers. You can also subscribe to The Road Home podcast wherever you get your pods (Apple, Ethan's Website, etc).
Subscribe now
You can now order personally signed copies of Ethan's books at his website.
You can also subscribe to The Road Home podcast wherever you get your pods (Apple, Ethan's Website, etc).

In this solo episode, Ethan takes on the practice of "acceptance." He gets into the nitty gritty of how frequently we spiritual folks misinterpret the meaning of acceptance, turning it into an unhealthy bypass of what we're actually experiencing. By doing so, we miss the transformative (and not at all passive!) possibilities of what practicing acceptance can truly do for ourselves and others. He offers a three-step practice for working with acceptance, and applies this to practicing acceptance of both painful and pleasant circumstances. Along the way, he discusses the tantric concept of "one taste" and analyzes why we get caught up saying "someone pinch me" when good things happen to us.
(Episode available here now, or wherever you get your "pods," Apple, Ethan's Website, and every other pod place after 12pm ET on Tues June 9th).
Last year, with your subscriptions, we were able to release more episodes than any previous year. This was only possible with your support. Please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber here.
Show Notes and More cool resources:
Check out our sponsor platform, A Mindful World! A new free video course from Ethan on Metta (lovingkindness) meditation is now available at this link. Sign up for our Fall retreat at the Garrison Institute at this link. Sign up for the August Daylong Retreat on Visualization Meditation at this link.
Paid subscribers to The Road Home will receive occasional extras like guided meditations, extra podcast episodes and more! The Thursday Meditation Group happens each week at 8am ET on Thursdays, and guided audio meditations are released monthly. Another bonus podcast for paid subscribers discussed the obstacle of resistance to meditation practice, and Ethan also offered instruction in Metta meditation toward yourself. These are all available to paid subscribers. You can also subscribe to The Road Home podcast wherever you get your pods (Apple, Ethan's Website, etc).
You can now order personally signed copies of Ethan's books at his website.

Ethan welcomes teachers and authors devon and nico hase to discuss their new book, This Messy, Gorgeous Love: A Buddhist Guide to Lasting Partnership. Devon and nico are a rare pair in the Dharma world. Each from a varied background and students of multiple traditions of wisdom, they bring two varied and brilliantly contemporary approaches to their practice and teaching. In this flowing conversation, they discuss with Ethan some of the secrets of lasting intimacy, keys to fighting well and three styles of engagement with conflict, attachment theory in relationship to the spiritual path, and the postmodern dilemma of studying deeply in multiple traditions of wisdom without being superficial or distractable about one's approach to the path. Definitely worth a listen!
devon + nico hase serve as guiding teachers of the online dharma community Refuge of Belonging. They teach at the Insight Meditation Society, Spirit Rock, and other centers, offer online and in-person retreats, and speak with students in one-on-one sessions. They are the co-authors of How Not to Be a Hot Mess and This Messy, Gorgeous Love: A Buddhist Guide to Lasting Partnership (2026). Find out more at www.devonandnicohase.com
Last year, with your subscriptions, we were able to release more episodes than any previous year. This was only possible with your support. Please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber here.
Show Notes and More cool resources:
Check out our sponsor platform, A Mindful World! A new free video course from Ethan on Metta (lovingkindness) meditation is now available at this link. Sign up for our Fall retreat at the Garrison Institute at this link.
Paid subscribers to The Road Home will receive occasional extras like guided meditations, extra podcast episodes and more! The Thursday Meditation Group happens each week at 8am ET on Thursdays, and guided audio meditations are released monthly. Another bonus podcast for paid subscribers discussed the obstacle of resistance to meditation practice, and Ethan also offered instruction in Metta meditation toward yourself. These are all available to paid subscribers. You can also subscribe to The Road Home podcast wherever you get your pods (Apple, Ethan's Website, etc).
You can now order personally signed copies of Ethan's books at his website.
You can also subscribe to The Road Home podcast wherever you get your pods (Apple, Ethan's Website, etc).

Ethan welcomes author, meditator, entrepreneur and organic farmer Bryan Welch for a heart-opening conversation about grief, loss, and loving someone who can't be saved. In his gripping new memoir, The Gift of a Broken Heart, Bryan movingly recounts his own journey through deep grief at the loss of his 25-year-old son to addiction. The book describes, in searing detail, the pain of parents grappling with an adult child's mental illness and, finally, his death in the throes of the disease. As Bryan begins to recover from devastating parental grief, he becomes aware that his new vulnerability gives him unexpected feelings of warmth, kinship and compassion toward his fellow human beings. Check out this insightful and inspiring conversation wherever you get your podcasts.
Bryan's substack is here. His book can be ordered here.
(episode available here now, or wherever you get your "pods," Apple, Ethan's Website, etc after 3pm ET on Wednesday April 29th).
Last year, with your subscriptions, we were able to release more episodes than any previous year. This was only possible with your support. Please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber here.
Show Notes and More cool resources:



The piece Ethan wrote about losing his childhood friend to addiction is here.
Check out our sponsor platform, A Mindful World! A new free video course from Ethan on Metta (lovingkindness) meditation is now available at this link. Sign up for Ethans May 2nd Windhorse Meditation workshop at this link.
Paid subscribers to The Road Home will receive occasional extras like guided meditations, extra podcast episodes and more! The Thursday Meditation Group happens each week at 8am ET on Thursdays, and guided audio meditations are released monthly. Another bonus podcast for paid subscribers discussed the obstacle of resistance to meditation practice, and Ethan also offered instruction in Metta meditation toward yourself. These are all available to paid subscribers. You can also subscribe to The Road Home podcast wherever you get your pods (Apple, Ethan's Website, etc).
You can now order personally signed copies of Ethan's books at his website.
You can also subscribe to The Road Home podcast wherever you get your pods (Apple, Ethan's Website, etc).