The Luella Jonk Show
From the therapy room of a registered psychotherapist, dating coach and solopreneur who has tirelessly attempted a 'healthy' work-life balance for 25 years, it rarely existed for me and likely does not for most business owners, entrepreneurs and executives. The truth is relationships can really suffer. I will be interviewing expert guests who are doing things right so we can all learn to mix business with pleasure. Topics will range from building better relationships, connection, dating, and how to spread more kindness and compassion towards others while doing so. Listeners, you have the right to have passion surrounding your work while...
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Episode #107: Jillian Mariano on What’s NOT In Your Supplements May Matter More Than What’s In Them
<p>In this conversation with Jillian Mariani—founder of Niyama Wellness and 20+ year veteran of Canada's vitamin and supplement industry—we're talking about something most women don't connect until it's already cost them: the relationship between burnout, perimenopause, and the supplements we actually need versus the chemistry experiment most of us are doing in our kitchens every morning.</p><p>Jillian didn't set out to start a business. She set out to survive a season of life that nearly broke her—working 65-hour weeks, not sleeping, drowning in anxiety she didn't yet recognize as perimenopause, and swallowing handfuls of pills she be...
Episode #106: Ester Munt-Brooks on The Empty Nest, Aging Parents, and Falling in Love Again
<p>In this conversation with Esther Munt-Brooks—Catholic speaker, sacred scripture scholar, and wife of happiness researcher Arthur Brooks—we're doing something a little different. No formal topic, no structured agenda. Just two women catching up on life, faith, marriage, and what it actually looks like to love well in the later seasons of life.</p><p>And somehow, in that relaxed space, we covered everything that matters.</p><p>Esther shares what it was like to care for her mother in her final years in Barcelona—and why those weeks of service became some of the most joyful of her li...
Episode #105: Dr. Richard Dixey on Pre-Conscious Awareness: The Science Behind Every Marital Conflict
<p>In this conversation with Dr. Richard Dixey—Oxford-educated scientist, Buddhist scholar, and founder of a London Stock Exchange-listed biotechnology company—we're diving into something that quietly underlies every conflict, every resentment, and every misunderstanding in marriage: the fact that we are never actually experiencing reality. We're experiencing a map of it. And that map is coloured entirely by us.</p><p>Dr. Dixey doesn't just theorize about this. He's spent decades studying the science of pre-conscious awareness—the 400 milliseconds between what happens and what we think happened—and what it means for how we relate to ourselves, our spouses, and the...
Episode #104: Purification or Incompatibility - What Is Your Marriage Really Asking of You?
<p>In this solo episode, I'm tackling one of the most quietly asked questions I hear in my therapy room—one that couples rarely say out loud, but almost always think: Is this marriage asking me to grow, or are we genuinely incompatible?</p><p>It's a question that deserves far more honesty and far less rushing than our culture allows. And before you jump to conclusions about your marriage, I want to slow you down.</p><p>I'll walk you through:</p><p>✅ Why difficulty in marriage alone doesn't tell you whether to stay or go</p><p>✅ The differ...
Episode #103: Fr. Branden Gordon on Mercy, Masculinity, and What Surprised Him Most About Priesthood
<p>In this conversation with Fr. Branden Gordon—a newly ordained Salesian priest serving at Saint Benedict Parish in Toronto—we're exploring something I rarely discuss on this show: what daily life looks like for a young priest navigating youth ministry, personal holiness, and the weight of representing Christ to everyone who walks through his door.</p><p>Fr. Branden doesn't romanticize the priesthood. After ten years of formation, he's clear-eyed about the struggles—the loneliness, the humility of asking for spending money, the challenge of living charity when it's the virtue he struggles with most. But he's also honest about...
Episode #102: Joseph Pearce on How Marriage Is Meant to Transform You, Not Just Make You Happy
<p>In this conversation with Joseph Pearce—internationally acclaimed author, Shakespeare scholar, and visiting professor of literature—we're exploring something I don't often discuss on the show: the depth of wisdom found in literature, philosophy, and the contemplative life, and what it teaches us about marriage, suffering, and formation.</p><p>Joseph doesn't just write about great converts like Chesterton, Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis—he lives the truths they wrote about. After his own conversion from radical politics to Catholicism, he's spent decades unpacking how love, sacrifice, and beauty shape not just stories, but souls.</p><p>And while his wo...
Episode #101: The Difference Between Caring and Feeling Responsible (That's Destroying Your Marriage)
<p>In this solo episode, I'm challenging the way we've been taught to approach life—and it all started when I saw someone ask for the macros on a recipe online. Not how it tasted. Not if it was satisfying. Just the numbers.</p><p>And it hit me: this is how we're being pushed to view everything now. Life has become about measuring, optimizing, tracking, and controlling. We analyze everything down to the smallest detail, believing that if we just manage it all precisely enough, we'll finally feel well.</p><p>But I don't think human beings were ever me...
Episode #100: Why Women Who Carry Everything Feel So Empty
<p>In this solo episode, I’m following up on last week’s conversation because many women reached out with the same exhausted question:</p><p>Why is it always me who has to change?</p><p>Why am I the one being asked to slow down, soften my tone, regulate my emotions, or communicate better when I already feel like I’m carrying everything?</p><p>This week, I want to bring much more clarity to what I meant — because this is not about tolerating disrespect, staying silent, or excusing poor behavior.</p><p>It’s about something far more uncom...
Episode #99: The Real Reason You're Exhausted in Your Marriage (It's Not What You Think)
<p>In this solo episode, I'm walking you through something I see every single week in my therapy room — and something I've lived myself: the moment a small, ordinary trigger sends your entire nervous system into protection mode, and why the real problem is almost never what you think it is.</p><p>I'll walk you through:</p><p>✅ The four-step pattern playing out in your marriage on repeat — trigger, prediction, body response, behaviour — and why most couples only ever see the surface of it </p><p>✅ Why the problem isn't your husband sitting down, opening the mail, or not noticing y...
Episode #98: Nothing Was Wrong, But Something Felt Off
<p>In this solo episode, I'm being honest about something I don't think we talk about enough: what happens after the spiritual highs. It's the Friday after Easter, and instead of feeling joyful and victorious, I've been waking up with this low-level heaviness—not depression, not anything my family would notice, but something quietly off.</p><p>I'll walk you through:</p><p>✅ Why intensity—whether it's Easter, a long-awaited vacation, or a career milestone—often leaves us feeling drained afterward</p><p>✅ The intersection of joy and suffering that the cross reveals (and why we can't escape it)</p><p>✅ How wo...
