600 Podcasts and Counting...
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Joan Chittister: Presence and Perpetual Goodness
Sister Joan Chittister is an American theologian, Benedictine nun, and the author of more than 50 books. For over 40 years, she has passionately advocated on behalf of peace, human rights, women’s issues, and church renewal. This week’s podcast shares with you an excerpt from Sister Joan’s audio program, Catching Fire: Being Transformed, Becoming Transforming, a seven-hour conversation with Tami Simon intended to spark the fire of the divine within each one of us.
Scott Shute: Moving from Me to We: Compassion at Work
Scott Shute is the head of LinkedIn’s Mindfulness and Compassion Programs and a featured trainer in the Inner MBA, a nine-month immersion program that Sounds True has created in partnership with LinkedIn, Wisdom 2.0, and MindfulNYU. In this week’s podcast, Tami Simon and Scott discuss the new revolution that is underway at today’s workplaces. Their conversation explores the importance of being present in order to find strength from the inside, learning to relax our minds and bodies, integrating spirituality and business, the power of compassion to shift a workplace from “me-centered” to “we-centered,” and much more. (57 minutes)
Nature Meditation by a Window
With many people home-bound, we may need to get creative in seeking ways to connect with the natural world. Sitting by an open window is one excellent practice for connecting with the outdoors, and it can be a powerful form of nature meditation as well.
“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”
Crowfoot, Orator of the Blackfoot Confederacy
- Find a comfortable seat by an open window that looks outdoors.
- Morning, during the dawn chorus when birds are most active, can be a perfect time to enjoy your morning coffee or tea as you observe a new day emerge.
- Set an intention to stay present, letting go of thoughts or stories in your mind as they arise, and instead focusing your attention on whatever is fascinating in your environment.
- Sit for at least 15-30 minutes if you can. Practice regularly to help alleviate stress, increase your sense of connection with your local environment, and awaken your senses.
Find more practices for connecting to nature in Rewilding: Meditations, Practices, and Skills for Awakening in Nature by Micah Mortali.
Read Rewilding today!
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Karen Johnson: The Jeweled Path: Meet the Diamond Appr...
Karen Johnson is a co-developer and long-time teacher of the Diamond Approach, a spiritual and philosophical modality that strives toward inner realization. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Karen speaks with Tami Simon about the experience of developing the Diamond Approach into what it is today, including how she first met Hameed Ali—the man who would take up the pen name A. H. Almaas. Drawing on her recently released book The Jeweled Path, Karen relates how she discovered presence in the midst of great turmoil, as well as how that discovery set her on a lifelong path of spiritual inquiry. Tami and Karen discuss the principles behind the Diamond Approach, including an explanation of “wisdom vehicles” and how they manifest in the course of daily life. Finally, they talk about the Diamond Approach’s stance on ultimate truth and how Karen hopes the Approach will impact the world. (67 minutes)
Why the Summer is Surprisingly Busy—And What To Do A...
Many people find themselves surprisingly busier in the summer than they expect to be. The chief reason we’re surprised is that the summer brings new projects that we often don’t count as projects and we have to weave those projects in with the projects we set in motion in the spring.
Why don’t we count the new projects that summer brings? Simple—many of us don’t count “life” activities as projects or prioritize “life” activities in the same way we do “work” projects. There’s an artificial divide between the work we do and the “life stuff” we do.
But here’s the thing: regardless of whether something falls into the “work” or “life” bucket, it’s going to take time, energy, and attention to get done. My definition of project in Start Finishing is anything that requires time, energy, and attention to complete. The upshot of looking at things this way is that it helps us see more clearly all the stuff we’re carrying and trying to do.
So, what are some “life” projects?
Summer trips are projects.
Transitioning kids from being at school all day to being at home all day for the summer is a project. (As is transitioning them back into school.)
Figuring out how to keep said kids fed every day is a project (that then turns into a new daily routine).
Maintaining yard care equipment is a project (that then turns into a new weekly routine of taking care of the lawn.)
Cleaning out the garage is a project.
Getting the motorcycle and/or bike ready for the season is a project.
I could go on, but you get the point. All of those are summer-specific projects that fall in our laps after the spring. But when we’re setting plans in spring, we’re often not thinking about them because they’re not in our face in the same way as a kid asking where the milk is (where it always is!) or the weeds that are peeking over the window to the backyard.
If it were just that new projects blossom in the summer, it would be one thing. But conjoined with new projects blossoming is that many of us often want to work less in the summer—and, for some of us, the desire to slow down isn’t just emotional, but something primal or spiritual. The long, hot days of summer changes some of us from hard-driving, high-energy, can-do folk into a walking Jimmy Buffet song.
Though we find ourselves in this position every year, it can be hard to see the pattern. Part of it is just the pace of life, but the other part is that we too often think of ourselves as invariant robots rather than the animals we are. Every other animal adapts to the changing world around it—artificial lights and air conditioning may allow us to alter the environment, but the changes still affect us more than we like to let on.
If you’re finding your summer busier and more compressed than you’d like it to be, here are three questions that will help you sink into the season:
- What new or recurring seasonal projects emerged that you hadn’t planned for or didn’t fully acknowledge as a project?
- Which of the projects you planned in the spring can be put on hold or dropped to make space for this summer’s projects?
- Are there any shifts to project timelines or your daily work schedule that would help you keep momentum on your projects while sinking into feeling of summer?
You might also check out Samantha Brody’s Overcoming Overwhelm—it’s a fantastic book that explains how overwhelm shows up in our bodies, hearts, and heads and what to do about it.
Better to adjust now than spend the summer feeling like you’re behind and unable to enjoy the people, nature, and energy of the season.
Charlie Gilkey is the founder of Productive Flourishing, a company that helps professional creatives, leaders, and changemakers take meaningful action on work that matters. He is the author of The Small Business Life Cycle, and is widely cited in outlets such as Inc., Time, Forbes, the Guardian, Lifehacker,and more. He’s also an Army veteran and near-PhD in philosophy. He lives in Portland, Oregon. For more, visit productiveflourishing.com .
Pre-order your copy of Charlie’s forthcoming book,
Start Finishing: How to Go from Idea to Done from your favorite retailer below!
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Sam Harris, PhD: Cutting Through to Consciousness With...
How do meditation and mindfulness accelerate moral progress? Is spiritual insight alone sufficient to solve today’s problems? Dr. Sam Harris is a five-time New York Times bestselling author, philosopher, neuroscientist, and host of the popular podcast Making Sense. He is also someone who has practiced meditation for more than 30 years, having studied with teachers in Tibetan, Burmese, Indian, and Western traditions. Here, Tami Simon sits down with Sam Harris for a deep conversation on the nature of consciousness and the implications of spiritual realization.
Tune in for this “aha moment”–filled podcast exploring: the illusion of the self and the default state of identity; advaita and nonduality; two different types of mystery; the future of AI; psychic phenomena; synchronicity, superstition, and skepticism; a new perspective on how to be happy; the superpower of noticing; tantra; Dzogchen and “the goal as the path”; looking for what is looking; resolving the view; becoming mindful of “the glimpse”; meditating from the neck down; 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 with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.