Category: Relationships

Robert Augustus Masters: True Masculine Power

Robert Augustus Masters is an integral psychotherapist and spiritual teacher whose work emphasizes physical embodiment and greater relational maturity. With Sounds True, he has published the book To Be a Man: A Guide to True Masculine Power. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Robert and Tami Simon talk about the deep shame that men often experience in a society that encourages them to “man up” and ignore their emotions. They also speak on developing a healthier approach to anger, as well as coming to a new understanding of masculine sexuality. Finally, they discuss Robert’s interpretation of what women truly need from modern men. (68 minutes)

Spiritual Awakening in the Relational Field

Contemporary spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl has spent much of his life helping to bring a deeper dimension of self-awareness and responsibility to people’s inner lives. In 2008, Thomas founded the Academy of Inner Science, an organization devoted to the exploration of modern mysticism and spiritual awakening. With Sounds True, Thomas has released the audio program The Power of We. In this episode, Tami Simon speaks with Thomas about the importance of asking the correct question when triggered in a relationship. They also talk about the two competencies Thomas believes are necessary for the process of spiritual awakening. Finally, they discuss the nature and necessity of transparent communication in the awakening process. (73 minutes)

The radical path of space and kindness

As a psychotherapist who works with accomplished yogis, yoginis, meditators, and committed seekers and practitioners of all kinds, I have come to discover with my clients just how easy to use spirituality to hide from life – from intimacy, from our feelings, from our tender vulnerabilities, from our unresolved wounding around love, and from our immediate embodied experience in any of its moment-by-moment unfolding. We can deny, stuff, shut out, repress, and abandon our very real feelings of hurt, anger, disappointment, and jealousy because on some level they have been deemed very unspiritual, unacceptable, or further evidence of our own unworthiness. Or, we will act the feelings out—indulge, identify, and fuse with them – believing we are making actual contact, while spinning around their surface and doing whatever possible to discharge the disturbing energy which is seething underneath.

Depending on our specific, historic core vulnerabilities – which arose intersubjectively in our families of origin, as part of a relational matrix – certain feelings were simply not safe to embody, as they triggered anxiety in our caregivers, or otherwise led to their withdrawal of love, affection, mirroring and attunement. As young children, it was an act of kindness and creativity to split off, dissociate, and disconnect from material we were not developmentally capable of digesting and metabolizing on our own. We are wired to do whatever possible to maintain the tie to our caregivers, even if such tie is precarious, misattuned, or ultimately not in the interest of any sort of self-cohesion or integration.

As we engage over time in these strategies of denial and acting out – both pathways ultimately of fundamental aggression and chronic abandonment—we often find ourselves wondering why we are not feeling alive, connected, and truly able to open to others – why things just aren’t flowing for us in the ways we long for. We wonder why we don’t feel worthy of love, why we don’t know in some fundamental sense that we are loved or lovable exactly as we are. But a part of us senses that it is only in intimate and direct contact with our vulnerabilities, in all their forms, that we will know this aliveness and be able to truly take the risk that real embodied love will always demand.  As long as we are using spirituality to avoid intimacy, contact, and the depths of our own being – as long as it has become yet another means by which we can avoid our unlived lives – we will feel lonely at our core, disconnected, and split off from love.

As we start to discover the ways we are using spiritual ideas, beliefs, language, jargon, exercises, teachings, and practices to avoid relationship (with self and other), with as much kindness, space, and compassion as possible, we can return our attention into present, embodied experience. We need not shame ourselves in this discovery or deem it some evidence of our failure or unlovability. But rather use it as an opportunity to be curious about the strategies we’ve brought into adulthood to get away from very disturbing, survival-level panic and anxiety. And begin to open our hearts to this movement as the best way we’ve known to care for ourselves until now. For it is only radical kindness and space that will melt the wounds and tangles of love.

Like any defense mechanism, this relationship with spirituality has served an adaptive function and we can honor it for the help it has provided us at a particular point on our journey. And we can start slowly and with a mighty presence and compassion, to allow the protective function to dissolve, to reclaim full experiential responsibility for every feeling and emotion we’ve intelligently split off from, and step into the mandala of integration and wholeness, which is none other than our true nature. As we journey on the path of the heart and that of metabolization by love, re-owning and re-embodying to the entirety of what we are, we weave a sanctuary for the light and the dark within. And in this we become a holding environment for ourselves and others, more and more transparent and more and more translucent to the activity of the beloved in this world.

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Art by Gonkar Gyatso – “Buddha in Modern Times” 

Relationship Is a Skill

Dr. Julia B. Colwell has spent over three decades and many thousands of hours with individuals, couples, and groups, exploring the world of relationships. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami speaks with Dr. Colwell about some of the various skills needed to support a long-term intimate relationship. Their discussion explores how to tune to the sensations in your body as a primary means to creating a loving partnership, learning to speak the “unarguable truth”—and receive the same from your partner, stopping fights before they start by working with your “reactive brain,” and more. (65 minutes)

A.H. Almaas: The Power of Divine Eros

A.H. Almaas—renowned as the creator of the “Diamond Approach” for spiritual and psychological inquiry—has published more than a dozen books on seeking wisdom and the true nature of reality. Most recently, he and his teaching partner Karen Johnson have released The Power of Divine Eros, which explores the pure energy behind physical desire. In this episode, Almaas is joined by Karen for a fascinating discussion with Tami Simon about how to fully connect with one’s desires. The three also talk about working with the body’s energetic centers as part of spiritual inquiry. Finally, they spoke about divine union and what it means to be a “sexy angel.” (69 minutes)

Brené Brown audio collection from Sounds True

We are excited to be offering a collection of inspiring audio learning programs from our friend Brené Brown, New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed The Gifts of Imperfection and Daring Greatly.

These three programs have quickly become some of our most talked about and bestselling titles and are available in both CD and downloadable formats. They include:

1. The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings on Authenticity, Connection, and Courage

2. Men, Women, and Worthiness: The Experience of Shame and the Power of Being Enough

3. The Gifts of Imperfect Parenting: Raising Children with Courage, Compassion, and Connection

We hope you enjoy these programs from Brené and that they are helpful and supportive on your inner journey!

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Brené Brown

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