600 Podcasts and Counting...
Subscribe to Insights at the Edge to hear all of Tami's interviews (transcripts available, too!), featuring Eckhart Tolle, Caroline Myss, Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, Adyashanti, and many more.
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Damien Echols: We Are Unconscious Angels
Damien Echols is an author and artist who teaches classes on magick around the country. The story of his wrongful murder conviction was documented in the films Paradise Lost and West of Memphis. With Sounds True, Damien has published the book High Magick and the complementary audio program A Course in High Magick. In this podcast, Sounds True founder Tami Simon speaks with Damien about his forthcoming book, Angels and Archangels,which offers us a practical set of tools for working with these timeless forces for divine wisdom and healing power.
Steven Hayes PhD: Self-Acceptance and Perspective-Taki...
Steven Hayes is a professor, the chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada, and the author of more than 35 books and 500 scientific articles. The cofounder of the acclaimed Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (known as ACT), Steven is a contributor to the Sounds True book The Self Acceptance Project: How to Be Kind and Compassionate Toward Yourself in Any Situation and the author of the Sounds True audio program Acceptance and Commitment Theory. In this episode of Insights of the Edge—which previously aired as part of an interview series on self-acceptance—Tami Simon and Steven discuss his experiences living with a panic disorder at a young age, and how his own bouts with anxiety shaped his clinical studies. They talk about the practice of perspective-taking and how it can be a powerful bulwark against self-recrimination. Finally, Steven offers his perspective on spirituality and how that perspective informs the core tenets of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
Heidi Smith: Bringing People to the Flowers
Heidi Smith is a psychosomatic therapist, flower essence practitioner, and registered herbalist. She is the author of The Bloom Book: A Flower Essence Guide to Cosmic Balance, a comprehensive guide for working with flower essences in order to bring about healing, transformation, and awakening, at both a personal and collective level. Heidi is Tami Simon’s guest in “Bringing People to the Flowers,” a podcast exploring humanity’s call to enter into a deeper relationship with flowers. Heidi and Tami also discuss flower essences as a “verbal and vibrational” medicine, the power of intention, how to begin working with flower essences yourself, and much more.
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Guided Meditation: Accepting Your Experience Just as I...
If you have traveled on the spiritual path even a little way, you have probably come across some version of “love what is”—a reminder that you should accept your experience as it is. However, this teaching easily becomes another injunction. Notice the should in the earlier sentence—it is always a red flag that the judging mind is at work.
The conditioned mind cannot accept unconditionally. It always has an agenda, even if it is well hidden. It secretly bargains and sends the message, “I will accept you [sotto voce] if you change or leave.” This approach is akin to welcoming guests at your front door while secretly hoping they will exit out the back—the sooner, the better! Guests—our unwanted thoughts, feelings, and sensations—will certainly feel this conditional invitation, even if it is unspoken. As a result, they will be much less willing to enter, relax, and reveal themselves. The result? What we resist, persists. So when your new arrivals show up at your door, put away your timer and share some aromatic green tea and a raspberry scone with them. Settle in and let them tell their stories and share their feelings. They just want to be heard and understood. Once they feel genuinely received, they will be open to a new perspective.
Are you willing to be with your experience just as it is, even if it never changes? This is a critically important checking question. Take a few minutes to inquire with the following practice.
MEDITATIVE INQUIRY
Are You Willing to Accept Your Experience Just as It Is?
Sit quietly where you won’t be disturbed, close or lower your eyes, and take a few deep breaths. Feel the weight of your body held by whatever you are sitting on and relax. Feel your attention settling down and in.
Think of a troubling aspect of your conditioning—an unwelcome pattern of behavior, reactive feeling, bodily tension, or invasive thought. Then ask yourself: “Am I willing to accept this just as it is?”
If your response comes from the strategic mind, there will be an honest no. This is good to see. If this is the case, try asking the question a little differently: “Is there something in me that already accepts this just as it is?”
If your attention has settled into the Deep Heart, you will find a yes.
Journey into the depths of your own heart with Dr. John J. Prendergast’s guide, The Deep Heart: Our Portal to Presence.
Breathing Meditations – a new free gift from Sou...
The transformational power inherent in the simple act of breathing is truly remarkable. With Breathing Meditations, join seven Sounds True authors for a series of simple guided practices that can open you to the many benefits of breathwork—from a deeper sense of presence and serenity in the moment, to revitalized health and ease of being, to creative insight and higher perspective, and more.
Stream or download Breathing Meditations here at no cost!
Tracks include:
1. “Breathing Meditation” by Jack Kornfield from Meditation for Beginners
Learn the art of following the breath, a foundational skill for all meditators, with Jack Kornfield, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society.
2. “The Relaxing Breath” by Andrew Weil, MD from Breathing: The Master Key to Self-Healing
Dr. Andrew Weil gives us a potent practice for activating the body’s relaxation response and returning to balance after stressful situations.
3. “Breath Meditation” by Sharon Salzberg from Guided Meditations for Love and Wisdom
A mindful breathing practice that helps us open the heart and experience compassion for ourselves and others.
4. “Soft Belly” by James Gordon, MD from Freedom from Depression
Harvard-educated psychiatrist Dr. James Gordon presents a guided exercise for liberating stuck energy in the body.
5. “Observing the Breath” by Shinzen Young from Meditation: A Beginner’s Guide
An introductory meditation inviting us to discover what can happen through full and complete attention to the breath.
6. “The Power Breath” by Mark Thornton from Meditation in a New York Minute
Executive meditation coach Mark Thornton teaches us a stress-reducing practice that both relaxes and reenergizes the body.
7. “Meditation on the Breath” by Sally Kempton from Beginning Meditation
A guided meditation in which our breath becomes the doorway to the depths of the self.
Free, 12-part video series of self-acceptance
Access the Self-Acceptance Project free of charge
Self-aggression, self-acceptance, self-love, and issues of self-worth can be challenging for contemporary spiritual practitioners, even for those who have meditated or engaged in psychotherapy for years. There are many ways we can be unkind to ourselves, often subtle and unconscious, which can affect the way we perceive and engage in our lives, especially in interpersonal and intimate relationship.
In this free, 12-week video event series, I invited 23 psychologists, psychotherapists, neuroscientists, and spiritual teachers to speak with my friend and longtime colleague, Tami Simon, to explore these areas and how we might move toward the creation of a certain kind of holding environment in which we can grow, heal, and transform together.
All episodes of the Self-Acceptance Project are now posted and can be accessed as video or audio downloads, or can be streamed at no cost from the comfort of your own home. We invite you to join us for this pioneering series and look forward to sharing our discoveries with you – and hearing what you have learned. It is our intention that you benefit deeply from this work and that it guide you along your own journey of love and awakening.
Episodes include
- Developing Shame Resilience with Dr. Brené Brown
- Waking Up from the Trance of Unworthiness with Dr. Tara Brach
- Turning Towards Our Pain with Dr. Robert Augustus Masters
- Begin Exactly Where You Are with Jeff Foster
- Taking in the Good with Dr. Rick Hanson
- The Human Capacity to Take Perspectives with Dr. Steven Hayes
- What if There is Nothing Wrong with Raphael Cushnir
- No Strangers in the Heart with Mark Nepo
- Transforming Self-Criticism into Self-Compassion with Dr. Kelly McGonigal
- Faith in Our Fundamental Worthiness with Sharon Salzberg
- Developing a Wise Mind with Dr. Erin Olivo
- Embodied Vulnerability and Non-Division with Bruce Tift
- Perfect in Our Imperfection with Colin Tipping
- Staying Loyal to One’s Self with Dr. Judith Blackstone
- Compassion for the Self-Critic with Dr. Kristin Neff
- Curiosity is the Key with Dr. Harville Hendrix
- Kindness is the Means and End with Geneen Roth
- Healing at the Level of the Subconscious Mind with Dr. Friedemann Schaub
- Embracing all of Our Parts with Dr. Jay Earley
- Understanding Empathy and Shame with Karla McLaren
- Integrating the Shadow with Dr. Parker PalmerLetting Life Be in Charge with Cheri Huber
