Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Andrea Polard, a clinical psychologist and the founder of the Los Angeles Center for Zen Psychology. Andrea has an extensive background in psychodynamic therapies, meditation, and mind-body work. With Sounds True, she has authored the book A Unified Theory of Happiness: An East-Meets-West Approach to Fully Loving Your Life. In this episode, Tami speaks with Andrea about the two “wings of happiness”—what she calls the active Basic Mode and the receptive Supreme Mode. Andrea also talks about the role of relationships in happiness, how ambition can either uplift or burden us, and why happiness is actually a commitment. (59 minutes)
Tami Simon speaks with Carl Honoré, an award-winning journalist, author, and pioneer of the “slow revolution.” He is the author of Under Pressure and the international bestseller In Praise of Slowness, and with Sounds True he has created the audio program The Power of Slow: Finding Balance and Fulfillment Beyond the Cult of Speed. In this episode, Tami speaks with Carl about our cultural addiction to speed and the myth that it actually helps us be productive. He talks about the steps we can take to change our relationship with technology, the virtues of slow thinking at home and at work, and how we can incorporate slow rituals into our lives such as yoga, meditation, and even slow-cooking. (55 minutes)
Tami Simon speaks with Lynne McTaggart, an award-winning journalist known for her exhaustive research on the intersection between cutting-edge science and the worlds of spirituality, health, and culture. She is the author of The Field, The Intention Experiment, and The Bond, and her Sounds True audio programs include Living the Field and Living with Intention. In this episode, Tami speaks with Lynne about discoveries from her ongoing work with intention experiments that reveal how our thoughts affect reality. She also discusses new findings that we are biologically wired for cooperation instead of competition, and what we can do to shift our lives and culture towards interconnectedness. (60 minutes)
Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Robert Augustus Masters, an Integral psychotherapist, relationship expert, and spiritual teacher whose work emphasizes embodiment, emotional literacy, and the development of relational maturity. He is the author of 13 books including the new Sounds True book Emotional Intimacy, as well as the audio learning course Knowing Your Shadow. In the second part of their discussion, Tami speaks with Robert about the importance of mutual transparency in relationships, how we can engage in “connected catharsis,” the telltale signs that reveal when we are using spiritual bypassing to avoid emotional experience, and how we can start to identify and work with our own shadow material. (57 minutes)
Throughout the years, we at Sounds True have developed a guiding philosophy that we call “multiple bottom lines.” Our dedication to this principle is embodied in our Mission Statement:
The mission of Sounds True is to find teachers and artists who serve as a gateway to spiritual awakening and to produce, publish, and distribute their work with beauty, intelligence, and integrity. We treat our authors, vendors, and partners in the same way we would want to be treated. We work flexibly and efficiently together to create a cooperative, loving environment that honors respectful authenticity and individual growth. We maintain a healthy level of profitability so that we are an independent and sustainable employee-owned organization.
The three essential bottom lines for Sounds True are the integrity of our purpose, the well-being of our people, and the maintaining of healthy profits. All three of these priorities are important in the decisions we make as a company. It is our conviction that each of these bottom lines must be healthy for the company to prosper as a whole.
In this short video, Sounds True’s founder, Tami Simon, explains our commitment to “multiple bottom lines”:
For the last 15 years, I have been cooking up this question:
What does it look like to nourish YOU?
Let’s drop everything we might think this is and everything you didn’t get done today and bring our collective shoulders down from the sky.
Let’s take a minute here. We are just getting started, yet I feel we need to slow down. Will you take a deep breath with me? Thank you for being here with me. Thank you for breathing. There is nothing to do here.
You can bring your awareness to your breath with an inhale through your nose. Open your mouth slightly and exhale with a HAAAAAAAAA sound. It feels so good to drop everything and breathe. Me too. To let go, even a little, is a real lovefest for the heart and mind = heart mind.
It feels so good, can we do one more? You can close your eyes this time if you want to— I will be right here.
We are just getting here, together.
Now let me ask you again: What does it look like to nourish YOU?
What if I told you that your kitchen is a place of stories, mothers, grandmothers, imprints, and emotional weather patterns that shaped how you live now? It is also a place to deeply nourish yourself and cook up the life you have been longing to live.
Your kitchen (yes your kitchen!) is a fierce, unconditionally loving mother holding what is ripe and ready to become inside of YOU. Who would have thought that you can heal your life in your kitchen? I did! And now you can.
It invites you to bring your entire body into the kitchen, put your shame into the fire, offer your grief to the soup—allowing all you have been hungry for to begin to feed YOU. As you turn on the fire, you will come home to yourself. You will make the room you need, to hear and see and feel the stories you have been carrying.
You will begin, again and again, to become YOU. Welcome home.
In loving service to your courage, your kitchen healer, x x x x jules
Jules Blaine Davis, the Kitchen Healer, is a TED speaker and one of Goop’s leading experts on women’s healing. She has led transformational gatherings, retreats, and a private practice for over fifteen years. She has facilitated deeply nourishing experiences at OWN and on retreat with Oprah Winfrey, among many other miracles. Jules is a pioneer in her field, inviting women to awaken and rewrite the stories they have been carrying for far too long in their day-to-day lives. She is cooking up a movement to inspire and support women to discover who they are becoming.
