Chandresh Bhardwaj is a globally acclaimed speaker, the founder of the Break the Norms movement, and the lineage-holder of a family of Indian gurus that dates back seven generations. With Sounds True, he has published the book Break the Norms: Questioning Everything You Think You Know About God and Truth, Life and Death, Love and Sex. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Chandresh about the legacy of his family’s teachings and what he needed to break away from in order to make his own way in the world. They talk about the paramount importance of knowing the right questions to ask, and how a question can powerfully shape one’s spiritual path. Tami and Chandresh also speak on his conception of death and its implications. Finally, Chandresh shares the story of the difficult steps he had to take in his own journey when his inner path contradicted society’s expectations. (64 minutes)
Latham Thomas is a lifestyle maven who founded Mama Glow and was named one of Oprah Winfrey’s SuperSoul 100. She is the author of Mama Glow and Own Your Glow. With Sounds True, she has created the audio program Beditations: Guided Meditations and Rituals for Rest and Renewal. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Latham and Tami Simon talk about the true meaning of self-care, as well as why there are such strong societal factors that work against it. They discuss those internal aspects of the self for which we have been shamed in the past and how these are actually our deepest reserves of personal power. Tami and Latham also speak on personal boundaries in terms of both protecting ourselves and what kind of emotional support we allow in. Finally, Latham explains why heeding clear internal messages actually takes courage—a courage that is always rewarded in the long run. (70 minutes)
A practitioner in Tree Pose (or you can, of
course, use any pose in this exploration) can experience the different layers
of neural processing stacked atop each other, even if unconsciously. The
structure and experience of Tree Pose itself reflect the hierarchical structure
of the nervous system; the stability of the lower, sensory layers is like the
trunk of a tree, whereas the higher, abstract layers are like the tree’s
branches.
Whole
Body
While
you are positioned in Tree Pose, what information is available to you?
At the bottom layer are the
exteroceptive senses that perceive the external world (touch, smell, sight,
taste, and hearing)
Next are the proprioceptive
senses—those that perceive the positions of neighboring body parts relative to
each other
Also at play is the
equilibrio-ceptive sense, which measures the position of the body relative to
gravity
Neck
Can you
sense your heartbeat and breath while in Tree Pose?
You cultivate the stability
discovered through equilibrioception through autonomic functions controlled by
the medulla and pons in the brain stem
Heart
What is
your emotional experience while in Tree Pose?
Do any
fears or past traumas influence your current experience, even unconsciously?
The limbic system—comprised of
numerous brain regions above the brain stem—is associated with assigning
emotional value to experience
Head
When we inhabit an asana like Tree Pose with ease and stability, we
experience multisensory integration in a refined and cohesive way.
Mindfully paying attention to the
body as we practice harnesses neuroplasticity, refining the neural pathways
associated with processing signals from the body
What
does it feel like to be you while in Tree Pose?
Feet
The self-sense is the most
abstract layer of the nervous system hierarchy; it’s associated with the
brain’s DMN (default mode network). It is the part of the nervous system that
generates a sense of selfhood, and it is also the capacity that allows the
feeling of being me to occur.
Excerpted from Yoga & Psyche: Integrating the Paths of Yoga and Psychology for
Healing, Transformation, and Joy by Mariana Caplan.
Mariana Caplan, PhD, MFT, E-RTY 500, is a psychotherapist, yoga teacher, and author of eight books in the fields of psychology, spirituality, and yoga. She has been teaching workshops and trainings online, in yoga studios and universities, and at major retreat centers throughout the world since 1997. She is the founder of Yoga & Psyche International, an organization created to integrate the fields of yoga and psychology globally, and lives in Fairfax, California. Learn more at realspirituality.com and yogaandpsyche.com.
Buy your copy of Yoga & Psycheat your favorite bookseller!
My constant reminder to myself all winter is to not push too hard. The essence of the season reminds me that I don’t have to document every aha moment that happens in these cold, quiet months. I don’t have to share every discovery or turn every insight into a poem. In the winter, I’m much more inclined to commune with the Divine and let those conversations remain private. This is the influence of winter, the way it teaches me to shift from an overly productive participant’s pace into a person with a battery that needs to plug in and recharge gradually in order to rise up refreshed for the act of creation.
Rest isn’t easy for us, and we have to be intentional about it. How will you ensure that rest is a central part of your winter schedule? A lot can be accomplished in these sleepy months of contemplation, but if you position rest as the central focus of your routine, you’ll emerge from this season with more endurance for the working days ahead of you.
What does an ideal period of rest look like for you?
Unwinding looks different for everyone, and you’ll need to spend some time making a list of ways you can actualize rest in your daily winter life.
Maybe once a week you wake up and immediately take a hot bath. Maybe you watch a movie in the middle of the day. Maybe you get under your electric blanket and read a book for an hour after lunch. Resting usually requires doing (or not doing) something that will break your routine of constant output. How can you convince yourself to pause and be leisurely?
You’ll have to choose activities that will force you to slow down. You’ll have to remind yourself that resting will expand your creative practice in the long run, even if it seems like the opposite is happening in the moment. Experiment with what works best for you.
Prompts from the Planet
What do plants and other animals do in the winter?
They go dormant. Seeds wait, inactive in the dark soil or stored away, safe and dry.
They harden, keep warm, and get slow. Some stop growing. Others sleep and dream.
Below ground, everything works anew, protective and focused on survival.
The plant world pauses its creation and changes its approach, waiting for the sun to return.
Remember, we are part of the same cycle.
Remember to ask yourself: What is the natural world up to right now? How does it include me?
This is an adapted excerpt from A Year in Practice: Seasonal Rituals and Prompts to Awaken Cycles of Creative Expression by Jacqueline Suskin.
Jacqueline Suskin has composed over forty thousand poems with her ongoing improvisational writing project, Poem Store. She is the author of six books, including Help in the Dark Season. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Atlantic, and Yes! magazine. She lives in Northern California. For more, see jacquelinesuskin.com.
While many of us spend December celebrating the holidays, this is also the perfect time for reflection—and for death and rebirth. Writing as a path to awakening is an invitation and celebration—it’s your ticket back to your creative brilliance.
Life is short. Time is fleeting and invented—it’s only really ever now. Love is showing up fully with presence—open-hearted, raw, and vulnerable to the world; it’s the only thing that matters. And it’s with this that I invite you to write your own obituary.
Reflecting on our own mortality is an opportunity to assess what is truly important in our lives. To reflect on our own mortality is to enter into the community of humanity via the ultimate vulnerability around ceasing to exist. When we approach this with an open heart of curiosity, we have a chance at greater compassion, patience, and understanding with the realization that we are all in this together.
Every one of us goes through this fact of our temporary nature in physical form; there is no getting out of this world alive. And here we have a choice—we can put off that reality, ignore it, get completely freaked out about it, or we can face that fact with courage and curiosity.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the mundane details and challenges of daily life to the extent that we can forget what we are really living for—what our core purpose in this lifetime truly is! The results of such an investigation are a more awakened sense of self, a deepening compassion for yourself and others—not only those intimate in your life—but for humanity as a whole.
Begin by writing it as a list or try writing it as a poem. Tune into any fears or resistances that arise. You could try modeling your piece on a traditional obituary you might read in your favorite newspaper or online magazine. Freewrite into these questions and see what arises.
How do you want to be remembered?
What are the true highlights of your life?
Who were the people who most inspired or influenced you?
What did you learn being embodied in this life that you want to share with others?
What held the most meaning for you in your days on this earth?
A highly regarded and sought-after speaker and workshop leader, Albert Flynn DeSilver has taught and presented with several luminaries, including Elizabeth Gilbert, Cheryl Strayed, Maxine Hong Kingston, Michael McClure, and U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan among many others. In addition, Albert is an internationally published poet, memoirist, and novelist. His writing has appeared in over 100 literary journals worldwide. He has published several books of poetry and the memoir, Beamish Boy. Albert teaches at the Omega Institute, Esalen, Spirit Rock, and writing conferences nationally. He lives in Northern California.
Tami Simon speaks with Meg Lundstrom a journalist and author who has extensively written on the topics of self-development, health, and the search for meaning. She discovered the art of divining over 20 years ago, and calls upon her vast knowledge in the subject for a new book with Sounds True called What to Do When You Can’t Decide: Useful Tools for Finding the Answer Within. Meg discusses synchronicity and divining, the three types of divining methods discussed in her book, and the mechanisms at work behind the art of divining. (45 minutes)
