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E91: Allowing Life to Remove Your Blockages
Michael Singer — July 2, 2025
The foundational flaw in human behavior is the belief that "I'm not okay." What follows is the...
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Cyndi Dale: Becoming Your Own Best Ancestor
Cyndi Dale — July 1, 2025
On the surface, it appears as though the lives we live proceed forward moment by moment in a...
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Honey Tasting Meditation: Build Your Relationship with Sweetness
There is a saying that goes “hurt people hurt people.” I believe this to be true. We have been...
Written by:
Amy Burtaine, Michelle Cassandra Johnson
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Many Voices, One Journey
The Sounds True Blog
Insights, reflections, and practices from Sounds True teachers, authors, staff, and more. Have a look—to find some inspiration and wisdom for uplifting your day.
Standing Together, and Stepping Up
Written By:
Tami Simon -
The Michael Singer Podcast
Your Highest Intention: Self-Realization
Michael Singer discusses intention—"perhaps the deepest thing we can talk about"—and the path to self-realization.
This Week:
Cyndi Dale: Becoming Your Own Best Ancestor -
Many Voices, One Journey
The Sounds True Blog
Insights, reflections, and practices from Sounds True teachers, authors, staff, and more. Have a look—to find some inspiration and wisdom for uplifting your day.
Take Your Inner Child on Playdates
Written By:
Megan Sherer
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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James Clear: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results
James Clear is the founder of the Habits Academy and author of the New York Times bestselling book Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with James about the mechanics of habit change—specifically through careful, incremental daily improvements. James shares the dramatic story of the sports injury that nearly killed him when he was a teenager, as well as how his recovery experience informed his eventual career. Tami and James talk about how to discern what habits will serve you best and why small changes lead to big results. Finally, they discuss examples of bypassing through habit change and the optimal amount of time it takes to shift behaviors. (60 minutes)
Mark Nepo: Authentic Expression is Heart-Based
“All my work is about devotion to the messy, magnificent human journey”
—Mark Nepo
Every day, we learn. We take in more of the new. And yet, we can only respond to situations based on what we know already. We rely on the old.
Mark Nepo seems to be asking about the space between. What does it mean to grow and change with grace? What does it mean to have faith in that process? And what does this have to do with writing and expression?
We are constantly tasked to face the unknown using tools that may have only worked for us in the past (and that is freaking scary).
I believe that asking questions is elemental to human nature. But, it is impossible to truly know any of the answers.
For Mark, there is no one right way forward. There is no way out of fear. There is only a sensibility that can be adopted: that is, the willingness to listen.
In other words, there are no objectives. There are no end products. The “answer” is in letting go of resistance to what we know, have, and are.
That way, the invisible can make itself known.
WITNESSING
“How do we talk about the things that matter that you really can’t see?”
—Mark Nepo
The ephemeral connection between ourselves and the world of essence exists within our hearts. With this practice—this practice of inner trust, perhaps even surrender—we can begin to gesture at expressing the unsayable.
What’s clear about Mark Nepo is that he is first and foremost a writer. However, his ideas can be applied to any form of expression.
To bear witness in writing, Mark advises giving full attention to whatever is in front of you, then describing it in as much detail as possible. It’s important not to make it seem magnificent or assign it “a bunch of meaning.”
Don’t evaluate it.
We are the observers and not yet the translators.
There is another part to it. Look inward. Feel what is moving through you at that moment. “Paint” that feeling with words. Don’t judge. Don’t bother with meaning. This disposition is inherently freeing.
In this state (and I fall in and out of it even as I write this), reality moves up to our eyes like a mirror. We can look at it and hear it, be part of it.
THE INVISIBLE WORLD
“You can’t see light except for what it illuminates. All the forces that hold us and support us are invisible”
—Mark Nepo
We name things all the time. We have to. It keeps chaos at bay.
But, naming things tends to keep us separate from them. That is this and I am this and you are there and I am here.
In his Insights at the Edge episode with Tami, Mark mentions that we are accustomed to listening in this way.
We immediately assign names, places, spaces, reasons, meaning and significance to everything we see and feel. We judge and assume (partly because it is efficient; partly because we are so used to doing it).
This is in stark contrast to the “essence of wholehearted presence, however and whenever that appears.”
IMMERSION
“The truth is, I barely understand half of what comes through me. The other half leads me”
—Mark Nepo
Immersion is a different kind of listening.
Rather than naming, one engages in a mutual conversation with the world. Discovery and creation unite as the byproduct of participation in oneness.
For Mark, immersion is a way to stop resisting our naturalness and be… whatever it is we were meant to be, as humans.
When he talks about “the things that matter,” what he seems to mean is the invisible world, “that which holds us together.” In immersion, we have the chance to interact with the invisible source of our unity.
Like the fiery and untouchable sun from which our individual experiences emanate.
WHOLEHEARTEDNESS
“It’s a gift that we can’t reach what we’re trying to say or what we see, because of all that it gives us”
—Mark Nepo
In his interview, Mark says to Tami about art-making, “What matters more is our wholeheartedness than whether we do it well.”
Tami’s response struck me. “I notice, as you offer that answer, there’s a part of me that really softens.”
Creation can be a meeting place. Rather than prescribing, you meet something somewhere, and then you embrace whatever happens. You accept what is present—and in return, you are accepted just as you are.
Wholeheartedness: letting go of expectation for the sake of the unsayable.
SELF-EXPRESSION
“Just because I write it doesn’t mean that I have the meaning of it all”
—Mark Nepo
As a writing teacher, I often tell my students that if they’re stuck, they may not be empty of ideas. In fact, they may be too full.
Creating space for the heart allows the bubbles to rise up. Like attracts like. We see what we see.
“If you’re not quite there, go back to the heart of whatever the expression is about, and get closer, and get stiller, and put your defenses down, and get closer. … Go back and have a more open heart, and see what comes then.”
Sometimes, it’s unpleasant.
Sometimes, it’s utterly nonsensical.
Poetry, as one possible example of this art, has long emptied itself of pragmatic purpose and precise meaning for the sake of beauty and potentiality.
You may end up with something that you don’t understand for years. You may just take that thing out later and realize what you meant. Authentic expression is not a product. It’s a message from you to you, from the universe to the universe.
And it is always miraculous.
Bruce Tift: Already Free
Bruce Tift has been in private practice as a psychotherapist in Boulder, Colorado since 1979. He taught at Naropa University for 24 years and was a student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. With Sounds True, he has published the book Already Free: Buddhism Meets Psychotherapy on the Path of Liberation. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Bruce and Tami Simon compare and contrast two different approaches to personal transformation: the “developmental” approach of psychotherapy and the “fruitional” approach of Buddhist practice. They discuss the blind spots inherent in each approach, as well as the ways they can be addressed. Tami and Bruce talk about the nature of neurosis and how neurotic tendencies almost always involve a sense of disembodiment. Finally, they speak on “unconditional practices,” and how unconditional kindness can transform one’s outlook on the procession of life. (70 minutes)
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Sandra Ingerman and Marie Manuchehri: What are Spirit ...
In this special edition of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Marie Manuchehri and Sandra Ingerman about their experiences with spirit guides and how we might meet these helpful forces ourselves at any moment in our lives. Sandra and Marie share their perspectives on how to access information that we can trust, communication through metaphor, and how they work with spirit guides for healing in their professional practices. Sandra and Marie also share advice and recommendations for those curious about connecting with their own spirit guides. (61 minutes)
The ‘Good Enough’ Interview
Mark Epstein is a practicing psychiatrist and noted writer on Buddhist meditation practice. With Sounds True, Mark has created What the Buddha Felt: A Buddhist Psychiatrist Points the Way to Uncommon Happiness, an audio program concerning the merging of Western psychotherapy and ancient meditation practices. In this episode of Insights at the Edge Tami Simon speaks with Mark about the often paradoxical benefits of Buddhism’s emphasis on non-identification. They also talk about the early childhood traumas experienced by Siddhartha and how they shaped his journey towards becoming the Buddha. Finally, Tami and Mark discuss what can be learned from the Buddha as a realist. (60 minutes)
From Our Shadow and Into the Light
In its role as protector, the Shadow of the Mind instills fear when adversity strikes or when we try to grow beyond what we are used to, even if we are stepping into something we have long dreamed of. To the Shadow of the Mind, expansion means risking harm and hurt. In its great valor, it tries to override our aspirations by berating and belittling us or by keeping us caught up in anxiety-producing thoughts. It does this in an attempt to keep us safe. It will try to stop us from evolving and changing. It will do whatever it can to prevent us from following through with our deepest calls and dreams.
When we are not aware of the shadow’s ways, we can become its captive and find it hard to move freely in our lives. Kim, a student of mine, told me that when lying on the floor for meditation, she would often feel overwhelmingly vulnerable. Being undefended, open, and receptive was so difficult. She recognized all the ways her body was contracting in “an effort at self-defense.”
The revelation both startled and humbled her. Before this moment, she hadn’t seen how her shadow was holding dominance over her body, but once aware, she was able to release it. This brought her to tears. Kim, like so many of us, was operating under the force of this shadow, and did not even realize its grip. We do not realize we are in an almost constant state of bracing ourselves, rather than opening up to our life.
When something in our life falls, ruptures, or shifts; when challenge or change sprawls forward; when a condition isn’t met; or our perceived safety and comforts are threatened, the Shadow of the Mind rises up and assumes dominance. It rises up when grief knocks on our door. When we sit down to meditate and breathe and feel fear coming to the surface as we begin to meet ourselves. When life says that the ground you are standing on is not as solid as you thought. When a lover leaves, or a trust is betrayed; when an angry or harsh word guts us. Even when a love is realized, when dreams manifest, the Shadow of the Mind shows up to maintain safety and order. It tries to divert us from touching down in these places. It is what we hide behind most days and what stops us from living an emboldened life.
But here’s the thing: you have the ultimate say. You get to say no, I am ready to face all the risks in order to live a more fully embodied and alive life.
It’s worth pausing here to recognize that you have always held this power. The Body of Light has been there all along. But you need to relieve the shadow of its duty before you can give the wheel to your Body of Light and let it steer the ship.
Join Sarah in a guided practice to find your Body of Light in this video, From Shadow to Light.
This is an adapted excerpt from Heart Minded: How to Hold Yourself and Others in Love by Sarah Blondin.
Sarah Blondin is an internationally beloved spiritual teacher. Her guided meditations on the app InsightTimer have received nearly 10 million plays. She hosts the popular podcast Live Awake, as well as the online course Coming Home to Yourself. Her work has been translated into many languages and is in use in prison, recovery, and wellness programs. For more, visit sarahblondin.com.
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