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Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: In Love with the World
Can you recall an experience from your past that felt simply awful at the time, but you now see as something positive and necessary for your personal growth? When we’re in the midst of a painful situation, it’s natural for us to resist, complain, or wish it would just go away. The last thing we want to hear from someone is, “Be grateful for this learning opportunity!” In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with world-renowned meditation teacher Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche about his book In Love with the World, and how we can begin to transform suffering into a pathway to compassion and connection.
Give a listen for some profound insights on: adding wood to the fire, or turning obstacles into opportunities; thinking outside of the box for solutions; impermanence; making friends with life’s ups and downs; challenging yourself to grow and testing your level of realization in the real world; uncovering the fundamental qualities of awareness, love, and compassion within you; cultivating courage; bardo practice and meditating on our mortality; discovering the ground of luminosity; the four-step process of offering, dedication, intention, and motivation; emptiness, or “unborn awareness”; how acceptance leads to freedom; maintaining confidence and trust during times of uncertainty or despair; 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 and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.
E42: Why We Suffer: A Spiritual Perspective on Problem...
Why do people experience so many problems in life? If you look objectively, you will see that problems arise because we have deeply ingrained preferences about how life should unfold. These manifest as desires and fears that are rooted in our unresolved experiences from the past. True freedom and joy can only be achieved by letting go of this stored negativity and embracing life as it unfolds. Ultimately, fulfillment comes not from controlling external circumstances but from inner alignment and openness to life’s flow.
For more information, go to michaelsingerpodcast.com.
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How to Cope with Shame, the Master Emotion
Shame has been called the master emotion because it takes over our bodies and our minds. It can freeze our nervous system. It can place us in a fog, unable to seek help, reassess a situation or reassess what is really going on. Shame defeats our ability to reflect on ourselves, get some support, and move on. Shame can be overwhelming, but if we can look at it clearly and catch it before it takes over, we can cope with it and create conditions that can transform it from an enemy into a friend.
This is not academic to us. We are both well-acquainted with the experience of shame. Co-author of Embracing Shame, Sheila Rubin has been researching shame since she was a shy five-year-old. “In my twenties, I remember having a new job and being so worried about being late for a first meeting that I showed up early and accidentally interrupted a lunch that was happening in the room,” notes Sheila. “I froze in embarrassment. I remember the shame voice saying to me: ‘What’s wrong with me? Maybe they shouldn’t hire me because something is wrong with me.’ Fortunately, while I was holding the door knob, frozen in shame, someone opened the door and invited me in with kindness.”
Embracing Shame co-author, Bret Lyon, remembers that, as a kid, when the gym teacher blew the whistle and said to pick teams. Everyone else was picked first. He still remembers trying to pretend it didn’t matter while he felt like dying inside.
One client accepted extra work even though he does not want to work weekends because he wants to be liked and couldn’t say “no” because it would be embarrassing.
Another client spoke of shame seeping into her mind about the changes in her body since giving birth. She is happy to be a mother, but the changes in her body and the inner dialogue in her mind keep her in shame circles. The differences between how she experienced her body and how she feels now is shame.
Our inner conversations may say a variety of unhelpful things. For many of us, it is the voice of not being good enough. Or we might feel like an imposter. If our partner or boss says that we made a mistake, that may be a trigger for a shame attack.
Here are some clues to know when shame may be operating in your mind and body:
Thoughts: There’s something wrong with me and I don’t want anyone to know. Maybe I am an imposter and I need to hide.
Sensations: Feeling shy, face flushed, brain can freeze, difficulty having a conversation.
Reactions: Embarrassed, going blank, blaming others, using activity to numb, withdrawing. Not able to write or think clearly and not know why.
Coping with shame
If, instead of letting shame take over, we can be with and observe our shame, we can actually begin to learn something from it. We can begin to transform shame from a toxic disruptor to a useful informant, from a devastating foe to a useful ally.
Here are a few experiments to try when you notice shame coming up. Instead of putting yourself down, try one, then reflect on the results and write them down in a journal or in your notes app:
Be kind to yourself. Say something kind to yourself to ease the shame.
Pause and take a breath. Pausing for even a few seconds or one minute can offer a new perspective. How might this allow you to set a new boundary or reframe your story in a healthier way?
Set boundaries. Is there an extra shift you cannot take this week? Can you say stop or politely decline?
Name your feelings. Notice what didn’t feel good in your reaction. Can you talk about what you’re feeling in a different way?
Ground yourself. Tap your feet or feel the earth under your feet.
Get support. Talk to a friend who is kind and who can hear your feelings.
Spend time in nature. Take a few minutes to bathe in nature to refresh and replenish.
Understand that change happens slowly. Talk back to the shame inside yourself for a bit and find if the shame can be a little less toxic. Even a small shift or change can help you move forward rather than staying stuck.
Being friends with your shame can begin to change yourself and your life. When toxic shame lifts there can be access to creativity and new doors can open. The weight of heaviness can be put down and we can have new hope for the future. The reason we do this work is so others can find hope when there is shame and they can transform it and heal it.
Sheila Rubin, MA, LMFT, RDT/BCT, has been researching shame since she was five years old. Along with her husband and colleague, Bret Lyon, she is a founder and codirector of the Center for Healing Shame, and cocreator of the Healing Shame–Lyon/Rubin Method. Through their popular workshops, they have taught thousands of psychotherapists, coaches, and other helping professionals across the world to more effectively identify and work with shame. Sheila is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, a Registered Drama Therapist, and has taught at JFK University and CIIS, as well as being the eating disorder specialist at a hospital and directing Embodied Life Stories performances. For more, visit healingshame.com.
Bret Lyon, PhD, SEP has devoted almost two decades of his life to healing shame. Along with his wife and colleague, Sheila Rubin, he is a founder and codirector of the Center for Healing Shame, and cocreator of the Healing Shame–Lyon/Rubin Method. Through their popular workshops, they have taught thousands of psychotherapists, coaches, and other helping professionals across the world how to more effectively identify and work with shame. Bret holds doctorates in both psychology and drama and has taught at Tufts University, Pomona College, and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, as well as writing and directing plays in regional theater and off-off Broadway. For more, visit healingshame.com.
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The Courage to Stand Alone
The Courage to Stand Alone
It can be scary when we are called to confront our aloneness, the seemingly infinite depths of that empty, homeless feeling inside of us. When all our old protections fall away and the abandoned and neglected ones inside come begging for our love and attention. It can feel sometimes as though there’s nowhere to turn, like we want to crawl out of our own skin, urgently get out of the Now and into some other time or place.
It takes bravery to stop, breathe, and—slowly, slowly, slowly—turn back toward the lonely, dark, empty “void” inside (in reality, there is no void). To actually turn to face the sense of abandonment buried deep within our guts, to soften into the sense of separation that has been with us for as long as we can remember. We don’t have to make the feeling go away today, only lean into it, breathe into it, begin to make room for it, maybe even learn to trust its presence.
Perhaps loneliness is like a cosmic nostalgia, a preverbal memory of a deep womb-connection, with ourselves, with the planet, with every being who has ever lived. In leaning into our own loneliness, shame, and existential anxiety, we may be able to touch into compassion for the loneliness of every human being, for every heart longing to connect, for every grieving heart, every frightened heart.
We are alone, yet never alone. This is the great paradox of existence. Our loneliness, when not resisted or numbed away, may actually end up connecting us more deeply to life and each other, like it did for me and my sweet father that winter evening.
Let us learn to be alone, then! Alone, without distraction, which is true meditation. Alone, communing with the breath as it rises and falls. Alone with the mind and its incredible dance. Alone with the rain and the morning sun. Alone with the crackle of autumn leaves under our feet, or the crunch of winter snow. Alone with the hopes and joys and anxieties of this human form, living a single day on this remarkable planet. Alone with our precious selves, with this unfathomable sense of connection to all things, with birth and loss and death and their myriad mysteries.
Alone, with all of life.
This is an excerpt from You Were Never Broken: Poems to Save Your Life by Jeff Foster.
Jeff Foster shares from his own awakened experience a way out of seeking fulfillment in the future and into the acceptance of “all this, here and now.” He studied astrophysics at Cambridge University. Following a period of depression and physical illness, he embarked on an intensive spiritual search that came to an end with the discovery that life itself was what he had always been seeking.
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Kristin Neff: The Liberating Power of Self-Compassion
Dr. Kristin Neff is a professor of human development and culture at the University of Texas and a practitioner of Buddhist meditation. The book and documentary The Horse Boy chronicle Kristin and her family’s extraordinary journey to help her autistic son. With Sounds True, Kristin has created the audio program Self-Compassion Step by Step, which includes clinical evidence of the importance of self-compassion along with techniques and exercises for cultivating this pivotal quality. In this interview, Tami Simon and Kristin talk about the vital distinction between self-esteem and self-compassion, three pillars of self-compassion, ‘self-compassion breaks,’ and the importance of recognizing our common humanity during difficulties that feel unique and isolating. (68 minutes)
Tami’s Takeaway
In any moment of self-criticism or self-blame, a “go-to move” that is immediately effective and state-changing is to gently touch your arm, stroke your face, or place your hand on your heart (any form of soothing touch). This activates our mammalian “tend and befriend” system, releases oxytocin, and shifts us out of the threat-defense system. Try it next time you feel self-critical. Gently touching your body can shift your state of mind—fast!
Jacqueline Suskin: Every Day Is a Poem
Jacqueline Suskin is a poet and author whose published titles include Help in the Dark Season and The Edge of the Continent trilogy. With Sounds True, she has written a new book titled Every Day Is a Poem: Find Clarity, Feel Relief, and See Beauty in Every Moment. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Jacqueline about the soulfulness of poetry and the internal changes one goes through while writing it. They discuss Jacqueline’s affinity for working with manual typewriters and the success of her ongoing Poem Store project. Jacqueline and Tami talk about the poetic impulse that is the root of true change, as well as overcoming the inner critic’s desire to stifle creative expression. Finally, Tami considers the “trance state” of creative flow and Jacqueline shares a spontaneous poem for the audience.