It is okay to be broken, to allow yourself to fall apart
You need not hold it together any longer for you were never together to begin with
Fall apart and resist the temptation to put yourself back together again
See what is forever untouched by the concepts “together” and “apart”
It is okay to be broken, for it is through the cracks in you that light can pour through
After the stillness of winter and the slow waking of spring, summer is a time for getting up, getting out, and getting our hands on what inspires us the most. Here are some recent Sounds True releases for tapping into a life well lived.
This is a book that celebrates our interconnection with nature and shows how to deeply engage the natural world wherever you live to dramatically improve your health. Clemens G. Arvay presents fascinating research, practical tools and activities,
inspiring stories, and more in this accessible guide to the remarkable benefits of being in nature.
Get it here: https://www.soundstrue.com/store/the-biophilia-effect.html
Human beings are inseparable from the natural world, coevolving with all of life. In order to thrive, we need to nourish this bond. In his latest book, biologist Clemens G. Arvay illuminates the miraculous ways that the human body interprets the living “code” of plants, animals, and our larger natural habitat for healing and sustenance.
Get it here: https://www.soundstrue.com/store/the-healing-code-of-nature.html
“From an ancient perspective, everything—including all natural things, like rocks, flowers, trees, insects, birds, and mammals
—is alive and infused with conscious energy or spirit,” writes Sarah Seidelmann. If you’re one of the many people looking to reconnect with the creativity, wisdom, and vital energy of the natural world, here is a fantastic guide for tapping into the power of animal totems, or “beasties.”
Get it here: https://www.soundstrue.com/store/book-of-beasties.html
“Making your love manifest, transforming your spirit, good heart, and able hands into food is a great undertaking,” writes renowned chef and Zen priest Edward Espe Brown, “one that will nourish you in the doing, in the offering, and in the eating.” With No Recipe: Cooking as Spiritual Practice, Brown beautifully blends expert cooking advice with thoughtful reflections on meaning, joy, and life itself.
Get it here: https://www.soundstrue.com/store/no-recipe.html
From the creators of Good Night Yoga and Good Morning Yoga comes a beautifully illustrated city adventure that introduces children to the delights and benefits of partner yoga.
Perfect for teaming up with a friend, sibling, parent, or caregiver, each easy practice shows how cooperation helps us to imagine, move, and have fun in a whole new way.
Includes a back-page guide for parents and caregivers, showing how to do each pose and how to connect them into an easy-to-follow flow.
Get it here: https://www.soundstrue.com/store/yoga-friends.html
What if you could be happier, right now, without radically changing your life? As nationally recognized happiness expert Nataly Kogan teaches, happiness is not a nice feeling or a frivolous extra. It’s a critical, non-negotiable ingredient for living a fulfilling, meaningful, and healthy life—and it’s a skill that we can all learn and improve through practice. In Happier Now, Nataly shares an illuminating, inspiring, and science-based guide to help you build your happier skills and live with more joy, starting now.
Get it here: https://www.soundstrue.com/store/happier-now.html
Have other books you’ve read by the poolside or under a shade tree ended up changing the way you see the world? Tell us about those summer reads that ended up being more than you expected!
Sounds True is on Spotify!
Need some tunes for rest and relaxation? Check out our Singing Bowl Meditation Playlist! A variety of artists who make a soothing mix of infinite rhythms using Tibetan singing bowls. Perfect throughout a meditative practice.
The Integrity Advantage by Kelly Kosow
Are you ready to open up to new levels of self-trust and self-love, to get where you want to go?
You vowed to speak up at work, and then sat silent in the meeting yet again.
You told yourself “this time the diet is going to stick,” only to watch the scale inching up.
You felt that something just wasn’t right about someone that—until you learned the hard way that your instincts were right.
“Every time you bite your tongue,” teaches Kelley Kosow, “you swallow your integrity.”
Before Kelley Kosow was a renowned life coach and CEO, she constantly second-guessed herself, let her “to-do” lists and others steer her dreams and passions, and played it “small and safe.”
Inspired by the groundbreaking principles of her renowned mentor Debbie Ford, who hand-picked Kelley to be her successor, The Integrity Advantage is Kelley’s step-by-step guide for facing the fear, shame, and false beliefs that cause us to lose our way.
Through life-changing insights, true stories, and proven strategies, this book will show you how to live on your own terms—according to you—from the inside out.
As modern women, we’re taught that we can do it all, have it all, and be it all. While this freedom is beautiful, it’s also exhausting. Being a “worn-out woman” is now so common that we think feeling tired all the time is normal. According to Karen Brody, feeling this exhausted is not normal—and it’s holding us back. In Daring to Rest, Brody comes to the rescue with a 40-day program to help you reclaim rest and access your most powerful, authentic self through yoga nidra, a meditative practice that guides you into one of the deepest states of relaxation imaginable.
It’s time to lie down and begin the journey to waking up
Breathe and Be by Anna Emilia Laitinen and Kate Coombs
Teaching mindfulness helps kids learn to stay calm, regulate their emotions, and appreciate the world around them. With Breathe and Be, author Kate Coombs and illustrator Anna Emilia Laitinen team up to present a book of poetry and art for young readers to make mindfulness easy, natural, and beautiful. Here is a book sure to delight parents and kids alike, blending lovingly illustrated nature imagery with elegant verse about living with awareness and inner peace.
Leopard Warrior by John Lockley
A Teaching Memoir That Crosses the Barriers Between Worlds
A shaman is one who has learned to move between two worlds: our physical reality and the realm of spirits. For John Lockley, shamanic training also meant learning to cross the immense divide of race and culture in South Africa.
As a medic drafted into the South African military in 1990, John Lockley had a powerful dream. “Even though I am a white man of Irish and English descent, I knew in my bones that I had received my calling to become a sangoma, a traditional South African shaman,” John writes. “I felt blessed by the ancient spirit of Africa, and I knew that I had started on a journey filled with magic and danger.” His path took him from the hills of South Korea, where he trained as a student under Zen Master Su Bong, to the rural African landscape of the Eastern Cape and the world of the sangoma mystic healers, where he found his teacher in the medicine woman called MaMngwev
Things That Join the Sea and the Sky by Mark Nepo
A Reader for Navigating the Depths of Our Lives
The Universe holds us and tosses us about, only to hold us again. With Things That Join the Sea and the Sky, Mark Nepo brings us a compelling treasury of short prose reflections to turn to when struggling to keep our heads above water, and to breathe into all of our sorrows and joys.
Inspired by his own journal writing across 15 years, this book shares with us some of Mark’s most personal work. Many passages arise from accounts of his own life events—moments of “sinking and being lifted”—and the insights they yielded. Through these passages, we’re encouraged to navigate our own currents of sea and sky, and to discover something fundamental yet elusive: How, simply, to be here.
To be enjoyed in many ways—individually, by topic, or as an unfolding sequence—Things That Join the Sea and the Sky presents 145 contemplations gathered into 17 themes, each intended to illuminate specific situations.
This bonus episode will support you to take the main insights from Episode 4: There is No Future if We Go Numb deeper into your life.
This bonus is a recording of Joanna leading a meditation called Breathing Through, recorded at a retreat in 2006. In it, she’ll guide you to create space to acknowledge and honor the pain for the world that you carry without numbing or getting overwhelmed. All you’ll need for this bonus exercise is a place where you can close your eyes and relax.
We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.
My lifelong aspiration–and the goal of my new book, Joyfully Just: Black Wisdom and Buddhist Insights for Liberated Living–is to support people from all spiritual traditions and cultural backgrounds in using meditative practices to reclaim joy. Our spirits, bodies, minds, and hearts need to be buoyant to navigate the unceasing waves of grief, fear, doubt, prejudice, and devaluation that we experience internally, interpersonally, and communally. Joyfully Just is about tapping into that buoyancy, that levity, with diverse meditative practices.
In particular, Joyfully Just highlights practices, teachings, and insights from Buddhism and Black contemplative traditions. Black contemplative traditions include practices that bring forth insight and joy. You may have heard the expression “Black joy” and wondered, What is that, exactly? Black joy is self-transcendence. It is embodied resistance to shame, despair, and anything else that would limit our capacity to be just towards ourselves and those around us. It is the insistence on and expression of internal freedom despite external restrictions. Black joy is resilient creativity that creatively grows more resilience.
The Black wisdom traditions I explore in Joyfully Just include those shared through music such as Gospel, Blues, Rock, Jazz, R&B, and Hip-Hop; language and dialect practices; and dance and communicative kinesic (movement and gesture) practices. The musical genres developed by Black Americans are universally embraced because they help all people engage creatively with the joys and pains of life. As such, Black music is often a contemplative practice that can ground us in empowered well-being, even amidst our worst pain. As we sing our Blues, we invigorate our lives with joy. That joy creates spaciousness around our suffering so that we can develop insight into its meaning and value. Take a moment now and see if you can think of one song from any African American musical genre that deepens your insight, helps you navigate your suffering, or expands your joy. Write it down so that you remember that it is but one example of how listening to Black music is a contemplative practice that enriches your life.
Black contemplative practices are often misunderstood—especially when they are appropriated. Sometimes they are underestimated as simply entertainment or frivolity. In Joyfully Just, I offer practices to shed light on how much insight and guidance for wise, courageous living we can–and do–receive from Black cultural traditions.
I explore Buddhism and Black wisdom together because although the spiritual and religious traditions of Black people are diverse, as are Buddhist lineages, many secular Black wisdom traditions and overarching Buddhist principles share common insights. For example, Black musical traditions illustrate the unity of suffering and joy and the possibility for self-transcendence and enlightenment in any circumstance. The creative, lively resilience of Black life shows us, in so many ways, what enlightenment looks like in daily living.
Many African cultures, including African American culture, have rituals and practices that are uniquely contemplative and seamlessly integrated into everyday life. African dance is one example of this. African dancing is listening to the body, trusting the body to tell its story. African dance teacher Wyoma speaks of it as praying with the body.
How do you avoid cultural appropriation of Black contemplative practices? It’s simple, but not easy. When you engage with Black music, dialect, dance, or other cultural practices, reiteratively reflect on how you demonstrate or could begin to demonstrate love for and solidarity with Black people.
I invite you to ask yourself:
With these as lifelong inquiries, we gain insight into how Black contemplative practices enrich our lives, actualize our interdependence, and deepen our sense of connection with ourselves and the world.
Learn More
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop | Sounds True
Dr. Kamilah Majied is a mental health therapist, clinical educator, researcher, and consultant on advancing equity and inclusion using meditative practices. Drawing from her decades of contemplative practice and leadership, Dr. Majied engages people in experiencing wonder, humor, and insight through transforming oppressive patterns and deepening relationships toward ever-improving individual, familial, organizational, and communal wellness. To find out more visit kamilahmajied.com.
We recorded this conversation just after news broke of the Biden administration’s approval of the controversial Willow Project, opening up millions of wilderness acres in Alaska to new fossil fuel drilling. Jess captured in real time how Joanna processes the fresh outrage and sorrow of this insult to the planet from the very culpable powers that be. It’s a master class in being present with these feelings—feelings that can give rise to determination, courage, and recommitment to our shared purpose.
In this episode:
We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.
© 2024 Sounds True. All rights reserved.
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We at unity church of tustin have been considering the phenomena “spiritual bypass” as we call it for years. we have added shadow work as a core component of our spiritual practiceas a community.We would love to see your work as it progresses and possibly participate. the main ph # is714-730-3444. address 14402 so prospect tustin ca. 92780 best of success LARRY
Thank you for your kind note, Larry. I’d be happy to stay in touch with you regarding the research on spiritual bypassing. The interviews are completed and that portion of the study is now finished. I will make a note to be back in touch when the project is finalized. I’m really happy to hear you are exploring this as a community, and am inspired to hear that you have added shadow work as a core component of your work together. I really wish you all the best… -Matt
Beautiful blog post, Matt!
Thank you, Nicole, for reaching out and making the connection here. Lots of love…
I am like beside myself with delight when I see writings that encourage acknowledgment of the brokenness we must all eventually face. It’s either voluntary or not but we will end up broken, that light WILL come through one way or another. I had it happen. The agony of being broken only lasted until I realized the necessity of the 2×4. Finally I saw the light come through the cracks. Now, I could not be more ecstatic, knowing falling apart is the natural momentum which needs to occur before awareness (light) can enter.
So, thanks Matt
Thank you, Theresia, for sharing a piece of your heart with all of us. In my experience, when we can come to see that we were never actually together to begin with, that love never actually asked this of us, that there is a natural freedom that emerges – and allows us to truly be there for life and for others. It sounds as if you know this in a very personal way. How beautiful. Lots of love, matt.
Yes, and I am more then grateful for it.
And it always feels good being understood, some sort of verification I’m not nuts, so thanks for the response.
It seems to me that it is through the cracks in the ego that light can pour through. The soul and the ego need to walk side by side through life. As long as the ego closes its eyes and ears to the language and the rich content of the inner soul and spirit, this life-giving light cannot break through to pour out its clarity and warmth into the world.
Images speak to us without the use of words. So many words are needed to explain one image.
Heartwarming, Matt. Thank you.
Thank you, Hilde, for your beautiful words and sharing your experience here. In my experience, the deeper and wider we go – and are willing to be broken-open – the clearer it becomes, as you suggest, that there is no absolute difference or separation between the soul and the ego. These dimensions of our experience co-arise, interweave with one another, and make use of one another to show us the mystery of this sacred human world. Take care, my friend.
“…You need not hold it together any longer, for you were never together to begin with…”
Such powerful words and so comforting at the same time, I don’t have to exhaust myself to fix anything, I let me just be.What a great idea! In a world, where most people, including mental health professionals are breathlessly trying to fix or better, numb any unpleasant feelings the moment they become apparent, through the use of medications, alcohol, drugs, even food, it is refreshing , to see another way of looking at one’s pain and capacity to heal. Allowing for discomfort and being broken, makes room for patience, resilience and trust to develop and opens us up to the meaning of our true essence in this moment. It’s not easy being human but is always a wondrous feeling. Your photo vividly illustrates the story. I love it!Thank you. Eugenia
This is beautiful, Eugenia, it sounds like you speak from direct experience. In my experience, there is nothing inherently problematic in trying to heal or fix or improve our lives. However, as you suggest, this process often takes us away from our immediate, embodied experience. When we can learn to meet directly whatever challenging feelings and emotions that arise, we find ourselves on a direct pathway into the body, where all healing occurs (in my experience). There is an energy that is released when we stay with that which is uncomfortable; you could say it is a certain kind of grace which allows us finally to metabolize those difficult energies and experiences from the past. You are right, it is not easy, it demands everything (and more), to allow love to reveal to us the totality its qualities. Sometimes grace can be so sweet; other times it can be quite fierce. But always, still grace. Take care.
I am going through a period of my life where I feel broken….and it’s in the quest of acceptance of this brokenness that I know I can heal. It’s such a hard lesson and path to take – not for the faint of heart.
Thank you for your post.
Thank you, Catherine, for sharing your heart here. In my experience, when we can find some way to turn toward the brokenness it will often reveal that part of ourselves that could never be anything less than whole. Brokenness, togetherness, confusion, clarity, sadness, joy – these all arise and dissolve, they all come and go in that totality that you are. It is never easy to touch these places in ourselves, however in my experience they are not always what they seem. They extend a very special sort of invitation, open a unique kind of portal, and offer to take you home. I really wish you the best on your journey, my friend; and thank you for your courage.
So appropriate to have read this today after working with a client in group terrified of “breaking down and falling apart” and trying her best to stop herself. I look forward to sharing this with her tomorrow. Thank you.
Can you tell me the name of the artist?
Dear Hella, the artist is Paige Bradley. You can learn more about her work here – http://paigebradley.com/sculpture/goddess/expansion/. Take care, matt.