247: Unabridged Interview: Judith Moskowitz

No Small Endeavor with Lee C. Camp

Lee Camp

Philosophy, Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 555 Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2026

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is our unabridged interview with Judith Moskowitz. Judith Moskowitz didn’t begin her research career to prove people could thrive in the middle of devastating grief. But that’s where her work led. In the 1990s, Moskowitz was part of a research team studying men caring for partners dying of AIDS. As expected, participants described the overwhelming stress and sorrow. But then something unexpected happened: they asked why no one was asking about the good things in their lives. Judith Moskowitz has spent decades studying the emotional lives of people under intense life stress. In this episode, she joins host Lee C. Camp for a deeply practical conversation about emotional nuance, the science of positive psychology, and eight research-backed practices anyone can use to increase positive emotion and foster flourishing relationships, even when life is hard. Key Ideas Hold Joy and Sorrow Together Even under extreme stress, positive emotions can coexist with grief and fear—and this emotional diversity strengthens our capacity to cope. Let Emotions Inform You Negative emotions are not enemies to eliminate but signals that offer information about what matters and where change is needed. Notice What Still Shines Learning to notice small positive events—even fleeting ones—can meaningfully increase well-being during difficult seasons. Practice Gentle Awareness Mindful, non-judgmental attention to emotions helps people recognize their inner life without shame or suppression. Choose Compassion Daily Small acts of kindness and self-compassion can interrupt stress cycles and reconnect us to the common good. ⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Judith Moskowitz⁠ Join our subscriber-only community called NSE+ BY ⁠CLICKING HERE⁠ Get ad-free listening, great member-only bonus content, and early access to tickets for our live shows. AND, you're helping make NSE sustainable by becoming a member! No Small Endeavor: An award winning podcast exploring what it means to live a good life, with thought provoking conversations about human flourishing, theology, politics, faith, social sciences, search for meaning, meaning and purpose, practices, common good, truth beauty and goodness, productivity, habit formation, neuroscience, science and religion, social justice, the cardinal virtues, the how of happiness, theology and culture, self development, virtue theory, being human, moral philosophy, and community.Follow ⁠@nosmallendeavor⁠ Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow ⁠@leeccamp ⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, friends, Lee Seacamp here, host of No Small Endeavor. This is our unabridged interview with
0:09.5	Professor Judith Moskowitz, professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. I was delighted to get to
0:17.8	sit down with Professor Moskowitz at her office there on overlooking.
0:24.2	Well, it was just on the backside of a beautiful building on the Michigan Avenue there in Chicago.
0:30.1	You could see out to the lake, Lake Michigan at two points on the horizon.
0:34.0	Beautiful spot in her corner office there with the buzz of the windy city below us,
0:40.6	and it was just a great visit. Judy studies emotion, and she studies from a social science
0:47.6	perspective, the way in which people dealing with acute stress are able to navigate that stress and the ways in which
0:59.3	emotion plays a helpful, unhelpful role in navigating acute stress. As I was thinking about
1:07.4	introducing this, the unabridged version, I asked myself, why do I care about
1:11.6	this stuff? Why do I care especially about emotion and social science studies on emotion?
1:18.1	From a academic perspective, moral philosophy, especially since the Enlightenment, has been
1:23.9	much more concerned with cognition, with rationality, with the intellect, in thinking
1:29.7	about ethics and thinking about what's right and wrong. But previously, prior to the Enlightenment,
1:35.1	many moral philosophers from various traditions seemed more often concerned with emotion than
1:41.2	we've seen in the last number of centuries. And they saw emotion as a force with which to be reckoned,
1:47.5	that it was an unavoidable part of our experience that had to be dealt with
1:51.3	in thinking about what a good life might entail.
1:55.0	I was struck some years ago by coming across a passage in Thomas Merton.
1:58.3	Now I can't remember where it was,
2:00.0	but where Merton talks about the fact that very few of the saints, he said, had reached something like a state
2:05.9	of full sobriety with regard to their emotions. That was both disheartening and encouraging.
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