Tami Simon

Tami Simon started Sounds True at the age of 22 with a dream and a tape recorder. Though she had no experience running a business and only a vague idea of what she wanted the company to be, Tami had her guiding principle strongly in place: to disseminate spiritual wisdom. Over its 36-year history, Sounds True has grown into a multimedia publisher that has produced over 6,000 titles, has been included twice in the Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing companies, and is North America’s leading publisher of spoken-word spiritual teachings.

One of the world’s very first organizations to focus on multiple bottom lines as part of its founding mandate, Sounds True has expanded steadily over the years while staying true to its original mission. Partnering with the leading spiritual teachers of our time, Sounds True now has a successful book publishing program (distributed by Macmillan) and has grown to produce events, certification programs, and transformational online learning experiences.

Tami hosts the popular Sounds True podcast, Insights at the Edge, which has now been downloaded more than 20 million times. She is also the founder of the Sounds True Foundation, which is dedicated to bringing spiritual education to people who would otherwise not have access. She lives in Boulder, Colorado, and in British Columbia with her wife, Julie Kramer, and their two spoodles, Raspberry and Bula.

Author photo © Jason Elias

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Standing Together, and Stepping Up

Dear Sounds True friends and community,

While holding a mirror to our own organizational accountability, Sounds True unequivocally stands in solidarity with the Black community, the family of George Floyd, and the many others who have been victims of police brutality and ongoing racial injustice.

We stand with and for our Black employees, our Black authors and colleagues, our Black customers, and all of the protestors and social change activists—past, present, and future— who are working to put an end to racism in every corner of our society.

And we are committed to not just stand in solidarity but to step up.

Since George Floyd’s murder, we have been having many in-depth discussions among the 125-person staff at Sounds True about the most meaningful actions we can take as a transformational learning company to help educate ourselves and our community and contribute to the dismantling of racism.

We have been asking ourselves questions such as:

  • How can we best use our platform to better amplify the voices of wisdom teachers who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC)?
  • What’s in our Shadow, as individuals and as an organization? What unconscious areas must now be brought into awareness?
  • And how do we actively address these areas so that we can evolve as an organization and be a force of genuine service in the world?

The answers to these questions are not simple, quick, or easy. It has taken me a while to write this email to you, our beloved customers and Sounds True community, because we have felt as a team the need to listen carefully and look deeply within in order to lay out an action plan moving forward that will contribute to meaningful and substantive change.

Anything less falls short of what I believe this moment is asking of us.

We also want to learn and evolve in partnership with you. We are learning and growing together as a community, and it has been important for us to create a moving-forward action plan that invites engagement from our entire audience.

With arms wide open, I invite you to witness, support, and step up with us in the following ways:

  • Over the next two years, Sounds True will be undergoing an in-depth Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Training in the workplace. This training initiative has been in development for over a year, and will be provided by TMI Consulting, led by Dr. Tiffany Jana. Dr. Jana is coauthor of the books Overcoming BiasErasing Institutional Bias, and Subtle Acts of Exclusion. As part of the training, we will be uncovering how unconscious bias, microaggressions, and micro-acts of exclusion show up in the workplace, in our personal lives, and even in our products. The training also includes a thorough audit of Sounds True’s hiring practices, HR policies, marketing materials, and more.

  • Sounds True also wants to include our customers, authors, and partner businesses in the introductory phase of this training process that we will be embarking upon. With that in mind, we are hosting a three-part webinar series on “Healing Racism” with Dr. Jana, beginning on Wednesday, June 24, at 8:00 pm ET | 5:00 pm PT. The series is free, and we are inviting our customers, authors, and business associates to join the Sounds True staff for this online training and to walk this part of our journey together. As someone on our email list, you will be receiving all of the details in future emails.

  • It is clear to us at Sounds True that we need to publish and otherwise amplify the voices of more authors and presenters who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. If you have ideas about new BIPOC authors you would like to see published at Sounds True or included in our summits and online offerings, please write to us at acquisitions@soundstrue.com.

  • The Sounds True Foundation, formed in 2018, is increasing its efforts to raise scholarship funds for BIPOC students to attend our Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program and become trained as mindfulness teachers who will bring this practice to diverse communities all over the world. We will be hosting a virtual fundraiser on June 30 for this initiative and will be emailing you with more details.

As I mentioned, working to dismantle and heal racism—in ourselves, in our organization, and in our world—is not a flash-in-the-pan effort at Sounds True. This is a long-haul commitment to the creation of a different world that is just, kind, and equitable. And we have a heckuva road to travel with you to get there.

And we are committed. We don’t want to simply talk about spiritual awakening. We want to embody it … as individuals, as a company, and as a force in the world. Humbly and boldly, we are going to give everything we have and invite you to do the same. This is the time for us to step up, together.

With love on the journey,

Tami Simon

Founder and Publisher, Sounds True

P.S. You can learn more about our commitment to creating a more compassionate world here.

 

Happy Holidays from Sounds True

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”

—Meister Eckhart 

I believe that if people from all of the different wisdom traditions gathered together and were asked to agree on one focus for a special day of reflection, “giving thanks” would be somewhere at the top of the list. 

Gratitude changes us. Instead of looking at what’s wrong, we turn our hearts for a moment to what’s right. And there are so many things that are right. 

For example, the appreciation of one complete breath (as corny as it sounds, whenever I turn my mind to gratitude, this is the first place I start)—feeling the fluttery exhilaration of the inhale, the excitement at the top of the inhale, the relaxation of a full and deep exhale, and then the interesting open space that awaits when our exhale is complete (you can tell I feel grateful for breathing). 

And then there is the feeling of air on our skin, and the faces of the people we love, and the beauty of trees and the natural world … and we can each go on and on and on and on. 

And let’s do that! Let’s go on and on and on and on about all of the ways that we appreciate what is right and beautiful in this moment (and if you’re at all like me, with a tendency to focus on problem-solving, this might not be your usual perspective). 

And if you do go on and on and on and appreciate the beauty that is right here, you probably won’t need science to tell you that you have shifted the neural pathways in your brain (although scientific studies will certainly confirm that)—you can feel the immediate shift.

As I write this, I feel appreciative of so many beautiful “presences” in my life, including the presence of YOU. I am grateful that you read these posts, that you feel in some way connected to Sounds True, that you are interested in personal transformation, in being wholehearted and of benefit to others. I am grateful that, even though it is through this weird form of a mass communication from me to you, we are connected. 

At Sounds True, we are grateful to the entire ecosystem of which we are a part: to our authors, to the ideas themselves, to our vendors and manufacturers, to the buildings that house us, to the natural world, and to future generations. 

And most of all, we are grateful to you, the individual person who enjoys and derives benefit from the learning programs we create. And we want to make sure we are meeting you “where you are at” and that our programs are accessible and you feel encouraged to explore and learn from different teachers. Like most companies, our deepest discounts of the year are available between now and the end of December, and I want you to know about this, if you are interested. To learn more about these special offers, just click here

Gratitude creates a circle of appreciation. When we express our gratitude, the recipient feels it, lights up, and appreciates our existence in return. I love being in a virtuous circle of appreciation with you. 

 

With love and a grateful heart, 

Tami Simon

Founder and publisher,

Sounds True

 

 

P.S. Once again, our deepest discounts of the year are now available. Please click here to learn more.

Tami Simon: Embracing Paradox: A special micro-episode

Tami Simon is the founder and CEO of Sounds True, as well as the host of Insights at the Edge. In this special episode, Tami celebrates an amazing milestone: her five-hundredth podcast. Speaking on her many years as an interviewer, Tami explains that she has been able to take in all the competing, often contradictory viewpoints of her subjects by embracing the concept of paradox. She shares numerous examples of contrasting ideas (such as the roles of anger and surrender in spiritual practice) that she has entertained as truth. Tami considers the paradox of becoming more in tune with herself over the years while also learning how interconnected she is with all other beings. Finally, Tami mulls the painful contradiction of brilliant teachers who also prey on the vulnerable and what this means for the overall quest for spiritual discovery. (36 minutes)

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Listen now as the inimitable Caroline Myss tells us how these turning-point events in her life can inform your own greater path and calling. She and Tami discuss and illuminate: accessing our latent mystical intelligence; forging a partnership with the Divine; how your biography becomes your biology; life—a sacred spiritual adventure; wisdom, faith, love, and light; shifting from the love of power to the power of love; humanity’s collective shadow at this time; cultivating a high-voltage moral conscience; making grace-filled choices; what to pray for (and what not to); turning on your light in service of the world—and keeping it on; and more.

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.

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As a new generation joins the search for understanding and meaning in our ambiguous and uncertain world, there’s a growing resurgence of interest in the Shadow—Carl Jung’s famous term for the aspects of ourselves that hide in our unconscious yet often drive behaviors we’d rather not repeat. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with acclaimed Jungian therapist and author Dr. Connie Zweig about her life’s mission to help us grow in self-awareness and move toward personal and collective healing by learning how to work with the Shadow. 

This aha-moment-filled conversation explores: meeting the Shadow on the spiritual path; ego formation during childhood; the concept of repression and the problem with the closet metaphor; why the Shadow hides—and when it erupts; “romancing the Shadow”; three cues to explore with respect to compulsive behaviors; “Shadow characters” and the practice of personifying aspects of the Shadow; the intergenerational aspect; engaging Shadow work at midlife; the superego; projection in relationships; sharing our secrets; money, sex, and power; shifting from a persona marriage to a Shadow marriage; the Vedanta tradition and the teaching on leshavidya, “the remains of ignorance”; the moral development missing in many spiritually advanced practitioners; illusions, idealizations, and archetypal projections; why the first reaction to meeting the Shadow is denial; Shadow projection in the politics of our times; step one: self-examination; bridging inner work and outer work wisely; how to practice “holding the tension of opposites”; cultivating nonduality in your own psychology; the “third thing” and the transcendent function; and more.

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.

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In this eye-opening conversation with the coauthors of the new book The Wisdom of the Hive, Tami Simon speaks with Michelle and Amy about bees as psychopomps who come to us with guidance; the spiritual lineage of bee priestesses; sustainability and respect in bee tending; hive consciousness and the concept of the superorganism; bees as an indicator species and the consequences of colony collapse for humanity; tending bees in a way that aligns with how they want to live; experiencing the power of the hum; the healing properties of the hive; how opening a jar of honey can turn into a shamanic journey; the waggle dance; the adaptability of bees and the various roles they play over their lifespan; the queen and her brilliance; becoming less fearful of bees (and what to do when one lands on you!); bees as a model of faith and trust; the question bees have for each one of us: What is the medicine I can offer?; how bees demonstrate gratitude, contentment, and equanimity; the swarm; meaning, connection, creativity, and contribution; the polarity of the dark and the light; the gift of “a box of sweetness”; why “the more you give away, the more you have.”

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.

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