What is a Good Life? #37 - Exploring Before Psychology with Piers Thurston

On the 37th episode of the What is a Good Life? podcast, I am delighted to have Piers Thurston as our guest.

Piers is the founder of Quality of Mind, where he explores profound realisations that precede psychology, leading to transformative shifts in psychology.

In this episode, Piers takes us on his journey, from exploring counselling, NLP, and other modalities to direct path non-duality.

We also discuss the challenges often faced in personal development rooted in self-identification, breaking free from our addiction to focussing on our psychology, transcending the confines of the mind while fully embracing our emotions, and ultimately, discovering a sense of oneness and ease that can be experienced in life when we let go of our attachment to the separate self.

If you’re frustrated with your personal development endeavours or you find yourself clinging too tightly to your self-identity, at the cost of more fully connecting with others and life itself, this episode offers plenty of food for thought.

It articulates or points to a oneness that you've perhaps long suspected, but resisted embracing, that can have a profound effect on how you perceive life.

Subscribe for weekly episodes, every Tuesday, and check out my YouTube channel (link below) for shorter clips and reflections.

Contact me at [e-mail] to book a free 30 minute consultation for one-on-one coaching programs or to hear about corporate workshops I am offering around this question.

Running Order:

02:14 What makes people tick?

07:02 The space before psychology

10:22 Realising there is something more

14:19 Personal development is predicated on a self identification

18:22 The pursuit of oneness through various modalities

21:52 Getting over our attachment to our self

24:36 Going beyond the mind

30:39 Embracing emotions and the human experience

36:39 Not taking conflict so personally

42:36 Not resisting what is

56:14 What is a good life for Piers?

For further content and information check out the following: 

- For the podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos

- My newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/

- My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/

- Piers' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/piersthurston/

- Piers' website: www.qualityofmind.biz 

What is What is a Good Life??

This isn’t a podcast about fixing you. It’s about living life more fully.

What Is a Good Life? is a long-form conversation project exploring how people actually live, feel, and make meaning of their lives.

Over the past four years, I’ve sat with more than 300 people — artists, parents, executives, wanderers, therapists, and strangers — and invited them into a simple but profound inquiry: What is a good life for you?

These conversations aren’t about advice, formulas, or self-improvement. They explore presence, paradox, uncertainty, and the moments that quietly shape a life — love and loss, trust and fear, clarity and not knowing.

This podcast isn’t here to give you answers.
It’s here to slow you down, to listen deeply, and to invite you into conversation with your own life.

New episodes weekly.