600 Podcasts and Counting...
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Julie Kramer: Partnering with Compassionate Spirits
Our modern worldview emphasizes the material factors that impact our health and well-being — such as our genetics, lifestyle, or environment. From the shamanic perspective of our indigenous predecessors, however, there are unseen, spiritual influences that are equally vital and valid to recognize. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with her partner of over 20 years, shamanic healer and teacher trainer, Julie Kramer, about learning to connect with the helping spirits that are always available to guide and support us.
This long-awaited conversation explores: absolute integrity in the practice of spiritual healing; Core Shamanism and the work of Michael Harner; taking a posture of humility and respect; the lineages of earth-based spiritual practice; using natural trance states to enhance our perception of non-ordinary realities; benevolent versus malevolent origins, and how to protect yourself from ill-intentioned spirits; the frequently-asked question, am I making this up?; meeting your guides from a place of maturity; equality in relationship; when guides intercede—and when they don’t; the ever-present element of mystery; conviction in your work; the path of “ennobling the heart”; the shamanic skill known as “psychopomp”; compassionate depossession; relying on your own experience; living in an intra-dimensional reality; 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.
Jude Currivan: The Big Breath of the Universe
Through centuries of reductionist science, we’ve come to believe that we live in a random universe. But that old paradigm is beginning to change. Since the advent of quantum physics, we’re realizing what the ancient wisdom traditions have always known: we are each an inseparable aspect of the cosmos, with the potential to cocreate a future based in love and awareness. “Take your protein pills and put your helmet on,” fellow spiritual explorers, for this revelatory, provocative, and adventurous podcast with Tami Simon and visionary author Dr. Jude Currivan.
You’ll learn about supernormal phenomena and “walking between worlds”; the big breath (instead of the big bang); reframing our universe from a great object to a great thought; the exquisite, finely tuned relationships of information we call the laws of physics; the initial simplicity and evolutionary directionality of our universe; the “disease of separation” at the root of human dysfunction; finding purpose as finite beings in a finite universe; the holographic nature of the cosmos; black holes and the event horizon; breakthroughs after breakdowns; the sixth mass extinction and the choice to consciously evolve; the law of love; 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.
Anita Moorjani: Embodying Love in a Fear-Based World
How do we stem the tides of fear and aggression sweeping over our divided world? How can we spread the love that heals and uplifts everyone? Sharing insights from her bestselling book, Dying to Be Me, and her latest work, Sensitive Is the New Strong, Anita Moorjani offers her hope-giving answers to these questions of compelling urgency for our times.
Tune in for this remarkable teacher’s inspiring (and in many ways utterly mind-blowing) conversation with Sounds True’s founder, Tami Simon, as they discuss: a nonlinear understanding of time; living fearlessly; how to attune to the helping beings that surround us at all times; raising your vibrational frequency; the practice of asking for signs; following your intuition; how humanity’s belief in scarcity is contributing to our self-destruction; the root cause of the divisiveness in today’s world, and why we need a new way of defining “strength”; moving beyond limitations inherited from our families and cultures; the consequences of repressing oneself; becoming unapologetically who we are; the body as a reflection of our state of consciousness; multiple lives, one soul; embracing your gifts as an empath; 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.
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What Is Awake Awareness?
You might be asking: If awake awareness as the source of effortless mindfulness is already here, why haven’t I discovered it yet? This is a good question. One reason we don’t discover it is that we don’t have awake awareness on most of our Western psychological maps. Many people who have longed and strived to be free of suffering have missed awake awareness, not because they lacked desire or commitment but because they didn’t know what to look for or where to look.
The Shangpa Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism gives four insightful reasons we don’t naturally discover awake awareness, which I find quite helpful:
1. Awake awareness is so close that you can’t see it.
2. Awake awareness is so subtle that you can’t understand it.
3. Awake awareness is so simple that you can’t believe it.
4. Awake awareness is so good that you can’t accept it.
GLIMPSE: Awake Awareness Knows Without Using Thought or Attention
In this glimpse, instead of focusing on what we are aware of, we will have awareness be aware of itself. This may be something that has never crossed your mind. In learning about using awareness, instead of attention, we will look back to the source of mind, awake awareness, and then focus from here. Instead of following the flashlight of attention out to the movie screen of experience, we see if we can feel awareness directly. We have learned to experience life as a subject looking at objects, even internal objects like thoughts and emotions. One helpful practice of deliberate mindfulness is called “mental noting.” In the mental noting practice, our mindful witness becomes more precise by labeling thoughts, feelings, and sensations as they arise. In this mindful glimpse, we will let go of labeling and instead learn to trust the intelligence of awake
awareness. Now we will have awareness feel what awareness is like when it is both the subject and the object. It will be helpful to have this invisible, contentless awareness know itself as we separate the awareness-based knowing from thought-based knowing.
1. To begin, simply close your eyes while allowing your awareness to remain open. Feel your breath moving within your body. Feel your whole body from within while noticing your breathing happening by itself for three breaths. Be easy and comfortable. Relax while remaining alert.
2. Take a moment to see what is here now. Notice how your body is feeling. Is it uncomfortable, comfortable, agitated, relaxed, tired, or neutral? Just be aware of your body without trying to change it. Just be aware of it as it is.
3. Now simply notice what is aware of these feelings and sensations. Feel the awareness in which these sensations are happening. Rather than being aware of sensations, feel the awareness that is aware. Notice that the awareness is not tired, is not in pain, is not agitated or anxious. Feel how this awareness is with your body.
4. Now notice the activity of your mind and thoughts. Just be aware of whether your thoughts are agitated, calm, tired, emotional, anxious, or neutral. Without changing anything at all, allow your mind and thoughts to be as they are.
5. Now notice the space in which thoughts are moving. Be interested in the awareness instead of the thoughts. Shift to notice not just the content but the context. Feel the awareness that is aware. Notice how awareness allows your mind to be as it is without changing anything.
6. Begin to notice that awake awareness is alert, clear, and nonjudgmental. Feel the awareness that is not tired, anxious, or in pain. Notice that awake awareness is all around and inherent within your body and within your mind. Instead of being identified with the states of your body or mind or trying to accept or change them, simply become interested in what is aware.
7. What is awareness like that is already accepting of things as they are—right here and now? Notice the awareness of the next sound you hear. Does awareness have a location or size? What is it like to be aware of experiences from this pain-free, spacious awareness?
8. Now simply rest as the awareness that is aware of your thoughts and sensations. Hang out as awareness without going up to thought to know or down to sleep to rest. Be the awareness that welcomes your sensations and thoughts. Ask yourself: Am I aware of this spacious awareness? Or, What’s it like when I’m aware from this spacious awareness, which is welcoming thoughts, feelings, and sensations? Notice that the awareness is aware from all around and from within—spacious and pervasive.
9. Just let go of focusing on any one thing. Be aware of everything without labeling. Feel that your awareness is no longer knowing from thought. Feel what it is like to be aware from awareness, which includes your thoughts and sensations from head to toe.
10. Simply let be and remain uncontracted and undistracted, welcoming without effort.
This is an excerpt from The Way of Effortless Mindfulness: A Revolutionary Guide for Living an Awakened Life by Loch Kelly.
Loch Kelly, MDiv, LCSW, is a leader in the field of meditation and psychotherapy. He is author of the award-winning Shift into Freedom and founder of the Open-Hearted Awareness Institute. Loch is an emerging voice in modernizing meditation, social engagement, and collaborating with neuroscientists. For more, visit lochkelly.org.
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Ep 10 Bonus: The Shambala Warrior Prophecy
In Episode 10, “We Are the Great Turning,” Joanna shares a story called the “Shambala Warrior Prophecy,” which was told to her by her friend, Tibetan Monk Chogyal Rinpoche. Joanna was tasked with teaching this prophecy in the West, and it’s one of her most famous teachings.
We wanted to separate the story from Episode 10 so that you can come back to the story again and again, whenever you need the inspiration and wisdom it offers. Here is Joanna telling the Shambhala Warrior Prophecy.
We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.
A Soberful Life
Veronica Valli is a former psychotherapist who now works as a sobriety coach. With almost 20 years of experience, she has helped thousands of people live happy, healthy lives and reach their full potential by being alcohol free. She’s been the keynote speaker at annual conferences such as Women for Sobriety and Soberistas, and she is the cohost of the popular Soberful podcast.
In “A Soberful Life,” Sounds True founder, Tami Simon, speaks with Veronica about her new book, Soberful: Uncover a Sustainable, Fulfilling Life Free of Alcohol. Tami and Veronica also discuss: making a cost-benefit analysis of your own relationship with alcohol; alcohol-free living as a new norm for our society; finding a community of sober people, and other lifestyle changes; the myth of willpower; honoring an inner call to growth; why we need skills and support (not strength) to quit drinking for good; the five pillars of sustainable sobriety; the importance of boundaries; human connection and the power of vulnerability; the art of finding balance in ever-changing circumstances; understanding how our past shows up in our present; a trauma-informed approach to recovery; two primary childhood needs: attachment and authenticity; how “doing the right next thing” gets us where we need to go; and more.
