Vulnerability, Intimacy, and Spiritual Awakening – with Tara Brach

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March 4, 2014

Dear friends, we wanted to share with you this lovely two-part video teaching from our dear friend, Sounds True author, clinical psychologist, and meditation teacher Tara Brach, entitled, ” Vulnerability, Intimacy, and Spiritual Awakening.”

According to Tara, we each live with uncertainty and the fear of rejection and loss, and we each are conditioned to avoid feeling or expressing that vulnerability. Yet intimacy with this unlived life is the gateway to connecting authentically with others, full aliveness and spiritual realization. These videos explore the ways that we defend ourselves, and the pathway to gently, wisely and intelligently disarming and freeing our hearts.

We hope you find these teachings as life-giving as we have, and that they reconnect you with your own innate sense of love, kindness, warmth, and compassion.

Part I – Vulnerability, Intimacy, and Spiritual Awakening

Part II – Vulnerability, Intimacy, and Spiritual Awakening

Tara Brach

Tara Brach has been practicing and teaching meditation since 1975, as well as leading workshops and meditation retreats at centers throughout North America and Europe. She has a PhD in clinical psychology, is the founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington (IMCW), and is the author of Radical Acceptance, True Refuge, Radical Compassion, and Trusting the Gold. Tara’s weekly podcasts of talks and meditations are downloaded more than three million times each month. For more, visit tarabrach.com.

Author photo © Jonathan Foust

Also By Author

Trusting the Gold

Tara Brach has been practicing and teaching meditation since 1975, as well as leading workshops and meditation retreats throughout North America and Europe. She has a PhD in clinical psychology, is the founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington (IMCW), and is the author of Radical Acceptance, True Refuge, Radical Compassion, and most recently, Trusting the Gold

In this podcast, Tara Brach speaks with Sounds True founder Tami Simon about rediscovering the inner “gold” of our intrinsic goodness, love, and purity. In addition, they discuss Tara’s teachings on the “trance of unworthiness” and how we can break free from it; recognizing the secret beauty in others and mirroring it back; relaxation for the go-getters; working with difficult emotions; how shame can become a portal to freedom; the RAIN practice for self-compassion; the power of the phrase “this belongs”; the practice of “softening” in response to contractions of fear or anger; and seeing the sacredness in all things.

Tara Brach: True Refuge

Tara Brach is an author, clinical psychologist, and the founder and senior teacher of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington. A longtime Sounds True collaborator, Tara is one of the creators and main teachers for the in-depth Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Tara about “the Trance of Unworthiness”—a state in which we believe that we are too inadequate, incomplete, and broken to love ourselves. Tara explains why we are so tough on ourselves and the steps needed to cultivate self-compassion. Tami and Tara also discuss how we can find refuges within no matter our current difficulties. Finally, they talk about the need for mental health professionals to understand contemplative practices such as mindfulness. (56 minutes)

Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach: Big Insights: The Power...

Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach are two of the leading authorities on mindfulness and meditation in the West. Jack is the bestselling author and teacher widely credited with combining mindfulness with modern western psychology. Tara has been teaching meditation for more than four decades and is the author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge. In this special edition of Insights at the Edge originally recorded in 2015, Tami Simon sits down with both Jack and Tara to discuss the big insights that form the foundation of mindfulness practice. They speak on the concept of awareness itself and how to distinguish “awareness” from “thinking.” Tara and Jack share some of the everyday benefits of a meditation practice, including personal clarity and more conscious relationships. Finally, Jack, Tara, and Tami have a frank conversation on how awareness training could affect the state of the world. (60 minutes)

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Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

A Message of Gratitude

Dear Sounds True friend,

At this time of thanks-giving, I want to thank you, a beloved member of our extended Sounds True community of listeners, readers, authors, and learners worldwide.

Thank you for your interest and willingness to be an explorer of your inner world.

Thank you for your perseverance, your willingness to be here, with all of life’s great joys and terrible griefs and sorrows. Thank you for being ”on the journey,” with all of the ways life breaks open our hearts and asks us to expand and hold a larger space of love.

Thank you for your courage to be you, beloved and singular, the you that carries a unique gift, some special look, a cry and a laugh never heard before, a contribution we need. Thank you for being yourself and extending yourself to others, even in small ways, which often turn out to be huge.

My own prayer this Thanksgiving is to remain steadfast and true. Please know that here at Sounds True we remain so—and we love doing so in connection with you. We are here because you are here. This thanks-giving, I bow to the strength and goodness of our human hearts.

With you on the journey,

Tami

P.S. Here is a thanks-giving offering, a classic poem from Mary Oliver:

Praying

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be 
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few 
small stones; just 
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t 
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence, in which 
another voice may speak.

Mary Oliver, Thirst

Tami Simon

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Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

  • Bay says:

    Thank you. These recordings from Sounds True are helping me dig out of deep hole by giving me tools I can use and hope that by using them I will keep moving forward. A loved ones death can be so overwhelming.

    • Matt Licata says:

      Dear Bay, thank you for making the connection here and for your kind words. We’re so sorry to hear about the death of your loved one. Wishing you many blessings, friend…

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