Category: Spirituality

The Life-Changing Science of Spontaneous Healing

Dr. Jeffrey Rediger is a licensed physician and board certified psychiatrist who also has a master’s of divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary. An assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the medical director at McLean Hospital, Dr. Rediger has spent almost 20 years researching the factors present in cases labeled as spontaneous healing—the topic explored in his bestselling book Cured: Strengthen Your Immune System and Heal Your Life.

In this eye-opening, hope-giving podcast, Sounds True founder Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Rediger about his personal journey—from an upbringing in a traditional Amish household, to how he “ran away to college” and began a deep exploration of the connection between faith and medicine, and what is truly possible on the journey toward health and healing. Tami and Dr. Rediger discuss the sometimes competing, sometimes cooperating worldviews of science and spirituality; the unfortunate absence of curiosity in so much of science and medicine; lifestyle illnesses as the root cause of most health challenges in the Western world; his four pillars of health: nutrition, immunity, stress response, and what he calls “healing your identity”; retraining the beliefs that are holding us back; understanding and healing trauma; facing our shadows and waking up to our own inherent value and dignity; and much more.

Let Us Make Sanctuary

Bayo Akomolafe, PhD, was born in Nigeria and steeped in Yoruba teachings as well as Western academia. Trained in clinical psychology, he refers to himself as a “renegade academic” and is globally recognized for his poetic, unconventional, and soul-stirring views on our current global crisis and the opportunities we now have for social change. 

In this podcast, Sounds True founder Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Akomolafe about how sanctuary is where slowing down and healing happens. They discuss: how the function of slowing down in urgent times is not about simply resting so that we can continue forward in the same direction, but about how to engage in deep inquiry about where we are going; pouring drink to earth—an African spiritual technology that expresses our indebtedness to our ancestors and all that makes life possible; standing at the crossroads—how the ground underneath us is going through a seismic shift that is allowing the unsaid to now be spoken and intelligible; the invitation of the slave ship as a place of spiritual contemplation and as a site of renewing our connections with grief, loss, trauma, and tragedy; grieving as a form of activism; and more.

Becoming Who You Are Meant to Be

Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD, is a Jungian analyst and clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. An internationally renowned lecturer and workshop leader, she is author of The Tao of Psychology, Goddesses in Everywoman, Close to the Bone, Like a Tree, and more. She is also a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and a past chairperson of the Council of National Affairs of the APA.

In this podcast, Dr. Bolen joins Sounds True founder Tami Simon to reflect on her many years as a writer, teacher, and activist, and how doing our “soul work” becomes the path to self-actualization, connection, and contribution throughout our lives. They also discuss our innate capacity for love and awe; becoming a whole-brain person; speaking up as a key aspect of individuation; gratitude and appreciation; the dandelion effect, or how seeds of beneficial ideas are carried to fertile ground; navigating liminal times; the predicament of “just doing time” with our lives; connecting with loved ones we’ve lost; becoming more familiar with your “dark side of the moon”; the metaphor of the millionth circle; and more.

Sex That Changes the World

Kimberly Ann Johnson is a sexological bodyworker, Somatic Experiencing® practitioner, yoga teacher, postpartum advocate, and single mom. She helps women heal from birth injuries, gynecological surgeries, and sexual boundary violations. She is the author of the book Call of the Wild: How We Heal Trauma, Awaken Our Own Power, and Use It for Good, as well as the early-mothering classic The Fourth Trimester

Kimberly Ann Johnson joins Sounds True founder Tami Simon to speak about her new audio learning program, Reclaiming the Feminine: Embodied Sexuality as Spiritual Practice—and the journey many of us need to make to work through shame, heal from patriarchal oppression, and begin to prioritize ourselves and our need for pleasure. Kimberly and Tami discuss the code of ethics of the sexological bodyworker; the shroud of shame that surrounds sexuality in many cultures, and the vital task of “unshaming” work; dealing with the pressure to “want to want to have more sex”; determining and expressing your genuine wants and needs; the concept of feminist sex; the social nervous system—the first branch of determining safety and how we relate with others; building your arousal capacity; “jaguar work” and healthy aggression; a self-care lovingkindness practice; and much more.

Unshakable Inner Peace: What Does That Mean, and Is It...

Shannon Kaiser is the bestselling author of five books on the psychology of happiness and fulfillment, including The Self-Love Experiment, Adventures for Your Soul, and Joy Seeker. As a life coach, international speaker, and retreat leader, she helps people align with their true selves so they can live their highest potential.

In this podcast, Sounds True founder Tami Simon speaks with Shannon about her new book, Return to You, and how we can embrace every part of ourselves and realize “an unshakable inner peace.” They also discuss the spiritual lesson that “if you don’t go within you go without,” identifying your particular intuitive style and tapping your innate wisdom, working with anxiety and shifting from fear to love, the practice of “alchemizing fear” so as not to bypass it, ways to amplify our sense of love and connection, why in order to really know something you must know its opposite, personal expansion and reclaiming your power, how to “turn your resistance into assistance,” cultivating an “activation mindset” to sustain calm, and much more.

Is There a Holy Grail of Healing?

Lissa Rankin, MD, is a New York Times bestselling author of multiple books including Mind Over Medicine, a physician, speaker, founder of the Whole Health Medicine Institute and the nonprofit Heal At Last, and mystic. Lissa has starred in two national public television specials, her TEDx Talks have been viewed over 4 million times, and she leads workshops both online and at retreat centers like Esalen, 1440 Multiversity, Omega, and Kripalu.

In this podcast, Dr. Rankin speaks with Sounds True founder, Tami Simon, about her new book, Sacred Medicine: A Doctor’s Quest to Unravel the Mysteries of Healing. Their conversation explores: the placebo effect and the mega-placebo effect; the scientific method and some assumptions we should question; the relationship between trauma, the nervous system, and healing; connectivity and co-regulation; developmental trauma, or what Mark Epstein calls “the trauma of everyday life”; the concept of spiritual bypassing; chronic inflammation as a root cause of many diseases; the paradoxes of healing; our four “intelligences”—mental, somatic, intuitive, and emotional—and what to do when they “disagree”; Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy and working with the polarized parts within ourselves; healing the collective; and more.

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