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Relieve Anxiety and Depression – a free audio do...

Sounds True — April 8, 2014

Millions around the world suffer from anxiety and depression, and seek relief from the many challenges associated with these difficult conditions. Over the last few decades, both scientific research and clinical reports have pointed to the power of meditation to lessen the challenging symptoms of anxiety and depression, and to aid living a more healthy, productive, and stress-free life.

With this collection of seven guided meditations, Sounds True brings together seven respected psychiatrists, psychologists, and bestselling authors who offer exercises designed to help bring immediate—and potentially lasting—relief from the troubling symptoms of anxiety and depression. Each of these guided exercises can be undertaken in the comfort of your own home, and require no prerequisite knowledge or training.

Receive free access to Relieve Anxiety and Depression: Seven Guided Meditations; simply select the format (“Audio Download”) and click “Add to Cart”. From there, click on your shopping cart in the top right corner, enter your details (no credit card information needed), and this product will be delivered to your Digital Library!

Tracks include:

1. “Soft Belly Meditation” with James Gordon, MD

The author of Freedom from Depression speaks about the role of meditation in the treatment of depression and leads a guided practice for balancing the emotions, body, and spirit.

2. “Body Scan” with Erin Olivo, PhD, MPH

Dr. Erin Olivo, psychotherapist and author of Free Yourself from Anxiety presents a guided body-scan exercise to reduce anxiety and open us to the wisdom of the body.

3. “Guided Relaxation Visualization” with Mark Hyman, MD

The bestselling author and co-medical director at Canyon Ranch in the Berkshires Health Resort in Lenox, Massachusetts, shares a guided relaxation visualization designed to reduce anxiety, lower stress, and cultivate deep relaxation in both body and mind. Excerpted from the audio learning program UltraCalm.

4. “Guided Mindfulness Meditation” with Daniel J. Siegel, MD

Psychiatrist Dr. Daniel J. Siegel, author of The Mindful Brain, offers a guided mindfulness meditation to help bring us into the present moment, thereby allowing us to access a natural and creative healing response to whatever distressing symptoms arise in our lives.

5. “Coming Home to Happiness” with Rick Hanson, PhD

The next guided meditation is from Dr. Rick Hanson, neuropsychologist, bestselling author, and creator of the audio program Meditations for Happiness. Here, Dr. Hanson teaches a guided meditation to help us access our “true home,” finding rest and acceptance in whatever comes our way.

6. “A Pause for Presence” with Tara Brach, PhD

Clinical psychologist and bestselling author of the audio learning series Radical Self-Acceptance Tara Brach teaches us a way to pause in our daily lives, ground ourselves, and start fresh in the midst of any difficult situation.

7. “Healing Lake Meditation” with Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD

The founder and director of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and bestselling author of Mindfulness for Beginners guides us through what he calls the “healing lake meditation” to relieve anxiety and stress, helping us contact a place of deep relaxation within that is available at any time.

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Moving with Mindfulness: Five Free Video Practices to ...

Sounds True — April 5, 2014

Mindfulness practice is often thought of as a static or seated activity. But cultivating present moment awareness is something that can be done as a moving practice as well. In Moving with Mindfulness, you will experience five engaging excerpts from our esteemed video archive that will help you unify body and mind, clear energy blockages, and stimulate your body’s innate healing ability.

Download Moving with Mindfulness now.

Practices include:

1. “Mindful Movement #1: Raising the Arms” by Thich Nhat Hanh from Mindful Movements

Thich Nhat Hanh guides you through the first of ten meditative movements used daily by the monks and nuns of Plum Village as a complement to their sitting practice.

2. “Shoelace Pose” by Kim Eng from Yin Yoga

Kim Eng teaches us a gentle sequence called “shoelace pose” to cultivate presence, receptivity, and acceptance toward each moment just as it is.

3. “Qi Massage” by Lee Holden from Qi Gong for Self-Healing

Discover a practice that stimulates qi flow throughout the body, removes stagnant energy and blockages, and activates the immune system.

4. “Classical Sun Salutation” by Shiva Rea from Yoga Shakti

Shiva Rea guides you in this classical yoga practice to connect to your own vitality, strength, and fluidity.

5. “Dance of the Four Elements” by Wyoma from African Healing Dance

Experience Africa’s unique dance heritage through this enjoyable dance intended to connect us with the earth’s energies.

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Our Journey into Deeper Mystery – with James Hol...

James Hollis — April 3, 2014

James Hollis, PhD, is a graduate of Zürich’s Jung Institute, a licensed Jungian analyst practicing in Houston, Texas, and author of 13 books, including Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life and What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life and the Sounds True audio learning program Through the Dark Wood: Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life.

Here, Dr. Hollis invites us to discern directly what a “spiritual life” is for us personally, opening ourselves to the mystery of our time here as a human being. At the end of our life, shares Hollis, we want to be able to say we’ve been here, that it mattered, that we lived our journey and not someone else’s, and that we’ve touched the deepest part of who we are.

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Living from the Inside Out: The Importance of the Thir...

Arianna Huffington — April 1, 2014

In a special Insights at the Edge sponsored by Spirituality & Health magazine, Tami Simon interviews the founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington. They converse about Arianna’s recently published book, Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder, and what it means to truly incorporate the principles of the Third Metric into one’s life. They also speak about the increasing visibility of devotion to the inner life in modern culture, as well as how women can take charge of institutions to create a better future. Finally, Tami and Arianna discuss periods of suffering and how cultivating gratitude can help us move through them. (55 minutes)

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Let it R.A.I.N – a home for all of you – w...

Dr. Rick Hanson — April 1, 2014

Dear friends, some years ago a simple, yet powerful approach to working with difficult emotions emerged out of the intersection of the fields of mindfulness and psychotherapy. Come to be known as the “RAIN” technique (an acronym for the four steps of the process), many therapists, meditators, healers, and practitioners have found it to be incredibly helpful for on-the-spot relief and support during challenging times.

Here, friend and Sounds True author, Dr. Rick Hanson, describes the RAIN practice and the benefits is offers. This article was originally published by our friends at The Huffington Post. We hope you find it helpful and beneficial in your own life – and in the work you may be doing with others.

Let it R.A.I.N. – by Rick Hanson, PhD

When you’re young, the territory of the psyche is like a vast estate, with rolling hills, forests and plains, swamps and meadows. So many things can be experienced, expressed, wanted, and loved.

But as life goes along, most people pull back from major parts of their psyche. Perhaps a swamp of sadness was painful, or fumes of toxic wishes were alarming, or jumping exuberantly in a meadow of joy irritated a parent into a scolding. Or maybe you saw someone else get in trouble for feeling, saying, or doing something and you resolved, consciously or unconsciously, to Stay Away From That Place Forever.

In whatever way it happens, most of us end up by mid-adulthood living in the gate house, venturing out a bit, but lacking much sense of the whole estate, the great endowment of the whole psyche. Emotions are shut down, energetic and erotic wellsprings of vitality are capped, deep longings are set aside, sub-personalities are shackled and silenced, old pain and troubles are buried, the roots of reactions — hurt, anger, feelings of inadequacy — are veiled so we can’t get at them, and we live at odds with both Nature and our own nature.

Sure, the processes of the psyche need some regulation. Not all thoughts should be spoken, and not all desires should be acted upon! But if you suppress, disown, push away, recoil from, or deny major parts of yourself, then you feel cut off, alienated from yourself, lacking vital information about what is really going on inside, no longer at home in your own skin or your own mind — which feels bad, lowers effectiveness at home and work, fuels interpersonal issues, and contributes to health problems.

So what can we do? How can we reclaim, use, enjoy, and be at peace with our whole estate — without being overwhelmed by its occasional swamps and fumes?

This is where R.A.I.N. comes in.

How?

R.A.I.N. is an acronym developed by Michelle McDonald, a senior mindfulness teacher, to summarize a powerful way to expand self-awareness. (I’ve adapted it a bit below, and any flaws in the adaptation are my own, not Michelle’s.)

R = Recognize: Notice that you are experiencing something, such as irritation at the tone of voice used by your partner, child, or co-worker. Step back into observation rather than reaction. Without getting into story, simply name what is present, such as “annoyance,” “thoughts of being mistreated,” “body firing up,” “hurt,” “wanting to cry.”

A = Accept (Allow): Acknowledge that your experience is what it is, even if it’s unpleasant. Be with it without attempting to change it. Try to have self-compassion instead of self-criticism. Don’t add to the difficulty by being hard on yourself.

I = Investigate (Inquire): Try to find an attitude of interest, curiosity, and openness. Not detached intellectual analysis but a gently engaged exploration, often with a sense of tenderness or friendliness toward what it finds. Open to other aspects of the experience, such as softer feelings of hurt under the brittle armor of anger. It’s OK for your inquiry to be guided by a bit of insight into your own history and personality, but try to stay close to the raw experience and out of psychoanalyzing yourself.

N = Not-identify (Not-self): Have a feeling/thought/etc., instead of being it. Disentangle yourself from the various parts of the experience, knowing that they are small, fleeting aspects of the totality you are. See the streaming nature of sights, sounds, thoughts, and other contents of mind, arising and passing away due mainly to causes that have nothing to do with you, that are impersonal. Feel the contraction, stress, and pain that comes from claiming any part of this stream as “I,” or “me,” or “mine” — and sense the spaciousness and peace that comes when experiences simply flow.

R.A.I.N. and related practices of spacious awareness are fundamental to mental health, and always worth doing in their own right. Additionally, sometimes they alone enable painful or challenging contents of mind to dissipate and pass away.

But often it is not enough to simply be with the mind, even in as profound a way as R.A.I.N. Then we need to work with the mind, by reducing what’s negative and increasing what’s positive. (It’s also necessary to work with the mind to build up the inner resources needed to be with it; being with and working with the mind are not at odds with each other as some say, but in fact support each other.)

And whatever ways we work with the garden of the mind — pulling weeds and planting flowers — will be more successful after it R.A.I.N.s.

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and author of Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence (from Random House in October, 2013; in 4 languages), Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom (New Harbinger; in 24 languages), Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time (New Harbinger; in 12 languages), and Mother Nurture: A Mother’s Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships(Penguin). Founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom and an Affiliate of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, he’s been an invited speaker at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard, and taught in meditation centers worldwide. A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA, his work has been featured on the BBC, NPR, CBC, FoxBusiness, Consumer Reports Health, U.S. News and World Report,and O Magazine and he has several audio programs with Sounds True. His weekly e-newsletter – Just One Thing – has over 91,000 subscribers, and also appears on Huffington Post, Psychology Today, and other major websites.

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Perfect in Our Imperfection, with Colin Tipping

Colin Tipping — March 29, 2014

In this video teaching from the free Self-Acceptance Project, Tami Simon speaks with Colin Tipping, founder of the Institute for Radical Forgiveness Therapy and Coaching and author of the international bestseller Radical Forgiveness: Making Room for the Miracle. Colin cofounded the Georgia Cancer Help Program and Together-We-Heal, Inc. with his wife, JoAnn.

His titles with Sounds True include the book Radical Self-Forgiveness: The Direct Path to True Self-Acceptance and the audio program The Power of Radical Forgiveness: An Experience of Deep Emotional and Spiritual Healing.

Relieve Anxiety and Depression – a free audio do...

Moving with Mindfulness: Five Free Video Practices to ...

Our Journey into Deeper Mystery – with James Hol...

Living from the Inside Out: The Importance of the Thir...

Let it R.A.I.N – a home for all of you – w...

Perfect in Our Imperfection, with Colin Tipping

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