Self-Obsession: Why You Suffer (And How to Stop)
A New Way of Being
Simon Mundie
4.8 • 523 Ratings
🗓️ 27 October 2025
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, I’m joined by Tom Davies — author of Self Obsession — for a profound exploration of why we suffer and how to stop. We unpack how our fixation on identity — career, relationships, even personality — traps us in anxiety, grief, and striving. Drawing from both Western psychology and Eastern spirituality, Tom offers a clear and compassionate path toward freedom: letting go of false identification and realising what we really are.
Key Themes Highlighted
- Self-Obsession & Identity: How our suffering arises from clinging to a sense of self that’s always under threat.
- The Trap of Identification: Why tying our worth to external roles or internal narratives makes us vulnerable.
- East Meets West: Blending psychology’s tools with spiritual insight for a more complete approach to healing.
- Tom’s Personal Story: From anxiety and burnout as a medic to insight and clarity through inquiry and presence.
- Meditation & Self-Inquiry: Practices that help dissolve the illusion of a separate, fixed self.
- Impermanence & Clinging: Why resisting change and chasing stability only deepens suffering.
- Beyond Self-Improvement: The trap of always trying to fix ourselves — and the freedom of radical acceptance.
- Non-Dual Awareness: Realising our essence as awareness itself — not a separate self, but Being.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This week I am joined by Tom Davies, the author of the excellent book Self-Obsession. |
| 0:05.7 | I absolutely loved it. And in this conversation, we explore the root of human suffering |
| 0:11.9 | through the lens of identity. So how are our attachment to who we think we are, |
| 0:17.8 | focused around things like our careers, our roles, our personalities, even our emotions |
| 0:23.2 | can keep us trapped in fear, anxiety, grief and ultimately deep disconnection. Tom draws on both |
| 0:31.4 | Western psychology and Eastern spiritual wisdom using a brilliant wave metaphor to point to our deep true nature, |
| 0:39.7 | not as separate selves, but as parts of a greater ocean of awareness. We talk about identity, |
| 0:47.3 | impermanence, the power of self-inquiry and what it means to suffer less, not by fixing |
| 0:53.6 | the self, but by seeing through it. |
| 1:05.2 | Tom, it's an absolute pleasure to be with you. How are you? I'm really well, thank you. How are you? |
| 1:12.2 | I'm very good. |
| 1:18.0 | I'm delighted that you've been able to join me on a new way of being. We've chatted a few times today and before today and we clearly resonate about a great many things. I have your book here, |
| 1:26.3 | self-obsession, which is genuinely tremendous, |
| 1:30.0 | so much so I've read it once and even have begun reading it for a second time. And I think |
| 1:33.7 | it really addresses some very meaty and important subjects around the thing that everyone wants |
| 1:41.7 | to reduce suffering and does it in a very skillful and deft and accessible |
| 1:49.6 | way. So first things first, I just want to say a massive congratulations. |
| 1:53.9 | Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast and thank you so much for your |
| 1:57.7 | kind words about the book. My pleasure. Right. So let's dive straight in. |
| 2:03.9 | And what we're going to do is we're going to talk about, we're going to identify the problem, suffering, and the, in many cases, unexamined reasons for suffering, the antidote, and then perhaps get a little more into |
| 2:20.8 | some deeper stuff as well down the line. Also, I want to hear your story and suffering, which for both |
| 2:27.7 | of us has been a fundamental driver to wake up, so to speak. But let's start with what is the premise of this book and your work? |
... |
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