{"podcast":{"title":"Back from the Borderline","slug":"back-from-the-borderline-4079851","podcast_index_feed_id":4079851,"rss_url":"https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/60e8deaefb090f0013116d69","website_url":"http://backfromtheborderline.com","image_url":"https://assets.pippa.io/shows/60e8deaefb090f0013116d69/1735679446378-b2e8272f-396f-4979-a13e-2172ecffa88e.jpeg","author":"mollie adler","episode_count":358,"summary":"Back From The Borderline is a podcast about depth psychology, symbolism, spirituality, consciousness, and the search for a more meaningful life. I started this show years ago while trying to understand my own mind. Somewhere along the way, the questions became much bigger than me. They led into Carl Jung, mythology, Christian mysticism, dreams, tarot, philosophy, esotericism, religious history, artificial intelligence, and the symbolic patterns that quietly shape the way we see ourselves and the world around us. The word borderline has taken on its own meaning over the years. It speaks to the edge almost all of us eventually reach. That place where our old explanations stop working and we’re asked to learn an entirely different way of seeing. That’s the space my work inhabits. Some episodes are conversations with researchers, psychologists, philosophers, historians, and spiritual teachers. Others are long-form essays where I follow a question wherever it leads. Lately I’ve been especially interested in symbolic literacy, the way images, myths, dreams, and archetypes quietly organize human life, often long before we’re consciously aware of them. I’m not very interested in being “ce…","last_synced_at":"2026-09-08T16:23:45.590679+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/back-from-the-borderline-4079851"},"episode":{"title":"The Arrogance of Too Much Empathy","slug":"the-arrogance-of-too-much-empathy","published_at":"2026-06-23T09:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/back-from-the-borderline-4079851/the-arrogance-of-too-much-empathy","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/back-from-the-borderline-4079851","url":"https://shows.acast.com/back-from-the-borderline/episodes/the-arrogance-of-too-much-empathy","audio_url":"https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/60e8deaefb090f0013116d69/e/6a39892b30d5ebf3c92ece81/media.mp3","summary":"This might be the most personally confronting episode I’ve recorded in a long time. A few days ago, I had to send a text message I had been absolutely dreading. I spent days worrying about how this person would feel, what they would think, whether they’d be hurt, disappointed, blindsided, angry, or quietly resentful. Then the moment came when I needed to send the damn text already. So I did. And guess what? Their response completely dismantled the story I had been telling myself all week. That experience led me into a much bigger question: at what point does empathy stop being empathy and start becoming an attempt to manage someone else’s reality for them? The deeper I looked, the more I saw how often I move through life assuming responsibility for experiences that do not actually belong to me. And I doubt I’m alone in that. Maybe this is something you’re doing without realizing it, too. In this episode, we talk about over-responsibility, people-pleasing, parenting, Rudolf Steiner, Dion Fortune, Martin Buber, the Christian mysteries, and why trusting another person’s capacity might be one of the deepest forms of love there is. Along the way we explore: • Why highly sensitive people often become emotional managers • The hidden arrogance inside over-empathy • The difference between caring for someone and carrying them • Why rescuing can quietly undermine growth • What parenting teaches us about trust • The spiritual danger of trying to live other people’s lives for them • The relationship between love, faith, and control • How to stop rehearsing other people’s suffering Reflection questions from this episode (for your journal, MOODS, or simply a conversation with yourself): • What do I actually know? • What am I assuming? • What part of this belongs to me? • What would r…","meta_description":"This might be the most personally confronting episode I’ve recorded in a long time. A few days ago, I had to send a text message I had been absolutely dre…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3908,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/back-from-the-borderline-4079851/episodes/the-arrogance-of-too-much-empathy/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/back-from-the-borderline-4079851/the-arrogance-of-too-much-empathy.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}