600 Podcasts and Counting...
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Suzanne Giesemann: Dancing Between Being a Soul and a ...
What is the soul? How do we stay in relationship with the eternal aspect of ourselves? Is it possible to honestly trust that “everything is in order” when all we see is chaos and confusion?
In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with acclaimed author and evidence-based medium Suzanne Giesemann about her journey from being a commander in the U.S. Navy to one of today’s most sought-after guides on the path of spiritual awakening. In this eye-opening conversation, you’ll learn about: the two keys to communicating with the departed: belief and intention; the three Es: educate, experience, and engage; the Sip of the Divine practice; the observer perspective and the importance of one’s point of view; patterns of consciousness interacting across time and space; a meeting with Albert Einstein; past lives; preparing for “a good and free and blessed death”; Wolf’s story; passing through an “elevation”; shifting out of left-brain dominance; curiosity and playfulness; the emotional heart and the spiritual heart; vagus nerve breathing; why there is “purpose in every passing”; Earth as a school for the evolution of our souls; transcending the sense of incompleteness inherent in “the story of you”; 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.
E68: The Illusion of Control and the Power of Acceptan...
It should be obvious that most of life unfolds beyond your control. Your heart beats, your lungs expand and contract, 35 trillion living cells provide you with your body, atoms bond into molecules, and billions of other vital things go on every moment that you do not control. In spite of all of this, you suffer by resisting reality instead of appreciating it. Your desires and struggles come from storing the past experiences you liked and didn’t like and then comparing reality to what you want it to be. Eventually, you will realize that true peace and joy arise not from controlling life but from letting go of your inner blockages and learning to appreciate and fully embrace the gift of creation.
For more information, go to michaelsingerpodcast.com.
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If You Are Postpartum and Bereaved, Know You Are Not A...
An Excerpt From To Tend And To Hold: Honoring Our Bodies, Our Needs, and Our Grief Through Pregnancy and Infant Loss
For as long as there has been life, there has been death. For as long as we have birthed life, we have also birthed death. What you feel has been felt since time immemorial, and it has been felt by many, though womb loss is still not widely known or acknowledged. Consider that even in the most optimal conditions, there is only a 30 to 40 percent chance that a clinically recognized pregnancy will occur in a given menstrual cycle, and only about 30 percent of conceived pregnancies progress to live birth.1 Globally, approximately one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage and 2.6 million pregnancies end in stillbirth.2 In 2022, 2.3 million newborns died in the first month of life,3 and approximately 73 million induced abortions occur every year.4 Womb loss in and after pregnancy is, in fact, a common and regular occurrence, though many of us may struggle with feelings of inadequacy and shame as if such loss is atypical and we are deserving of blame. The prevailing stigma surrounding womb loss makes enduring it all the more challenging as we may feel reluctant to reach out for support and hold on to harmful ideas about our worth. You are not alone, nor are you any less precious and deserving of support. You are not alone as the anguish of womb loss has been felt, is being felt at this very moment, and will continue to be felt the world over.
Before we go any further, let us reconnect with our breath. It can be hard to breathe if you’ve recently learned about your womb loss or impending loss and feel pressure to make decisions right away. Or if you have learned of the potential for a loss and have to endure a waiting period before you know for certain. It can be hard to breathe even as you process a loss long since passed. The following practice is an invitation to make the resilient choice to slow down and allow yourself a moment to breathe. So that you can feel grounded. So that you can have the capacity to be present to your grief. So that you can tend to your needs.
GROUNDING BREATHING PRACTICE
The Invitation
When you are ready, take three deep breaths at your own pace and in your own way. You might inhale and exhale through the nose or inhale through the nose and exhale audibly through the mouth. You might close your eyes or soften your gaze as you do so, allowing your awareness to gently follow each breath, letting everything else fade to the background. You might even think the following words as you breathe, allowing them to help you feel grounded in this moment.
Inhale. Exhale. One.
Inhale. Exhale. Two.
Inhale. Exhale. Two.
Your body may want to continue breathing this way, or it may feel like this was enough. Honor what feels right for you.
Sometimes breathing is the most we can bring ourselves to do, the best we can do, when our whole being is overcome. Deciding what comes next may feel like too much to ask of ourselves. If so, breathe, and trust that it is enough for this moment.
Eileen Santos Rosete, MSMFT, PCD(DONA), CYT 200, holds a master of science in marriage and family therapy from Northwestern University and is certified as a DONA International postpartum doula, trauma-informed yoga teacher, and grief educator. Her brand, Our Sacred Women®, is known for its elevated offerings that help women feel seen, held, and honored. She is especially passionate about supporting all who give birth and are postpartum both after live births and after loss. To learn more, visit eileensantosrosete.com.
To Tend and to Hold
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Anna Goldfarb: Wholehearted Friendship
Friendships aren’t always easy and fun. Like all meaningful relationships, they require work. They require nurturing and a willingness to grow. And in today’s world, explains author and journalist Anna Goldfarb, many friendships are being pushed to the brink and painfully ending. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with Anna about her new book, Modern Friendship, an empowering guide to creating what she calls “wholehearted friendships.”
Enjoy this conversation that’s filled with insights and strategies you’ll find especially helpful in our isolated, hyper-fluid society. Tami and Anna discuss: the increasing ambiguity of 21st-century friendships; the false promise of social media; the core elements of a successful friendship strategy; memorial friendships vs. active friendships; Jacuzzi friends, bathtub friends, and pool friends; three main causes of friendship breakups; the three requirements—consistency, positivity, and vulnerability; choosing people with whom you can share meaning; the characteristics of wholehearted friendship; and more.
Golden Tara to Who Helps Manifest and Fulfill Purpose
Meditating on Golden Tara shifts your sense of identity away from the smaller self that experiences itself as a separate being. When you identify with Tara in meditation and throughout the day, you realize that you are always in relationship with a fantastic, complex universe. Your energy increases because you no longer feel alone. You have Tara’s help, the help of friends, and countless other beings as well.
On the one hand, you are an infinitesimally tiny part of the grand whole. On the other hand, you have a role to play in the continuing creation of this complex universe. As you deepen and stabilize your inner Tara consciousness, your actions are imbued with love and compassion, arising from your understanding that you are an integral part of whatever you seek to change.
Remembering Tara also helps preserve your energies when you encounter unexpected obstacles; her golden light reveals the treasures hidden in the unwelcome stumbling blocks of life. Difficult challenges hold keys to awakening. Tara helps you approach problems as an inherent part of the journey, supporting you as you move toward them to uncover wisdom they might offer. They often provide a wake-up call to send you in a new direction, offering greater clarity about your life purpose.
This inclusive attitude creates more health in your personal ecosystem as well as the universal ecosystem. Ask Golden Tara to transform your challenging emotions into love and to increase your energy for discovering meaning and purpose in your life.
Tara’s Appearance
Golden Tara appears as the life-giving female buddha in a body of radiant golden light. She embodies the light of life itself. The vase in Golden Tara’s hand contains the power to increase our life energy, power, and material and spiritual resources. These resources support us in times of ease and times of difficulty, enabling us to discover and fulfill the purposes of our life on a moment-to-moment basis and over the arc of our lives.
For centuries, artists have created statues and thangka paintings of Tara, always adorned with jewelry. These sacred paintings, usually done on fabric and surrounded by brocade, portray the qualities of their subjects and convey teachings as well. Thus we take special note of Tara’s adornments. A crown rests atop her head. Necklaces of varying lengths cascade from her neck to her waist. Bracelets encircle her wrists. All have been crafted from gold with deep red and blue jewels woven into the designs.
Gold has been the preferred precious metal of jewelry makers for thousands of years. Gold is malleable; gold doesn’t tarnish. Golden light is associated with increasing life-force, healing, and holiness. Holy people of many faiths are often painted in an aura of golden radiance.
Many years ago, I heard a teaching that Tara’s jewels represent her experiences over lifetimes on her way to enlightenment and buddhahood. Profound understanding of the Buddhist teachings and her experiences as a woman led Wisdom Moon to vow to attain enlightenment as a woman and to persevere toward her goal. Tara’s life events were surely difficult and awe-inspiring, ordinary and phenomenal. All of them were precious contributions to her journey, which has benefited countless beings over hundreds of years.
The Mantra
Om Tare Tuttare Ture Sarva Ayur Punye Pushtam Kuru Soha!
“Ohm Tahray Tootahray Tooray Sarwah Ahyoor Poonyay Pushtahm Kooroo Soha!”
When you recite the mantra of Golden Tara, you are urging (kuru) Tara to increase (pushtam) your life energies (ayur) and merit (punye), your contributions to adding positive energy to beings around the world, near and far. Mantra recitations need not be limited to formal practice. Use them throughout the day to slow down and focus on whatever task is at hand.
The Practice
First, visualize the entire mandala of Green Tara emerging into the space in front of you. You are surrounded by your friends, loved ones, and supporters, and she is surrounded by your teachers and all the twenty-one emanations. After the opening prayers, imagine Golden Tara coming into the foreground of the mandala. Recall her praise while visualizing golden rays of light streaming from her heart as well as the golden vase in her right hand, which rests on her right knee, palm open in the gesture of supreme giving.
As you recite her mantra, Om Tare Tuttare Ture Sarva Ayur Punye Pushtam Kuru Soha, imagine that you are absorbing this light and that other beings and other places are receiving the light of Tara as well.
Kuru, which appears in seven of the Tara mantras, carries a particularly bold tone. You’re not meekly asking Tara to help—you’re putting your whole heart and body into this request. “Tara, please do this for me. Remove blockages so more energy flows into my life and work! I’m counting on you!” The same tasks that feel overwhelming in one moment seem entirely possible in the next.
Tara can help you discern the wisdom inherent in the obstacles you encounter in your life and practice. Meditate on the continuity in your life—the joyful moments, the extremely painful moments, and everything in between. Your experiences are not meaningless fragments. Imagine a mosaic forming as you piece the fragments together into a beautiful coherent pattern. Invoke Tara’s wisdom to give you greater clarity about your life purpose and the means to fulfill it.
Recite the mantra at least 21 times or 108 times whenever possible. Then rest in the vibrational field created by your chanting. Allow frustration and doubt to dissolve, releasing energy for healing. You become richer in inner resources, which leads to enriched outer resources as well, both material and spiritual. Affirm your connection to all life forms in the universe. Know that the benefits of your heartfelt wishes and efforts will flow from you into the world.
As you bring the session to a close, visualize Golden Tara receding into her place among the twenty-one emanations. See the whole mandala dissolve into radiant light, which flows into you and merges with your inner light. Dedicate the merit or positive potential generated by the practice to the healing of all beings—with no exceptions.
This is an adapted excerpt from Tara: The Liberating Power of the Female Buddha by Dr. Rachael Wooten.
Rachael Wooten, PhD, is a Zürich—trained Jungian analyst and psychologist who has been in private practice as a therapist for more than 40 years. An enthusiastic interfaith activist, she has studied and practiced in Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, and indigenous traditions throughout her adult life.
Rachael has been mentored by spiritual teachers such as her Tibetan root guru Lodrö Tulku Rinpoche and Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. She has taught Tara practices under the authorization of Lodrö Rinpoche for more than 20 years. Rachael has offered Tara workshops through the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South, ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, and C. G. Jung Society of the Triangle. She currently teaches a monthly Tara meditation group at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in her hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina. To learn more, visit rachaelwootenauthor.com.
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Stan Tatkin: In Each Other’s Care
Dr. Stan Tatkin is uniquely talented at helping couples shift from being in each other’s faces to being in each other’s care. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks to the innovative therapist and author about his new book, In Each Other’s Care: A Guide to the Most Common Relationship Conflicts and How to Work Through Them, discussing some of the research-based, practical strategies he has developed in his celebrated PACT (Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy) model.
Give a listen to this gritty, honest, informative, and empowering conversation exploring: cultivating secure functioning relationships; why couples must create their own culture of shared power, respect, and collaboration; finding the balance between independence and interdependence; the one-directional nature of codependency; becoming your partner’s whisperer; why “earned love” is what endures; the fantasy of the same page; attachment versus love; mutual purpose and care as ingredients for an awesome relationship; the physical toll of an insecure functioning relationship; the Sherlocking technique; the power of eye contact; practicing quick repair; touch: an unequivocal signal of friendliness; the basic need in relationship: you and I are OK; the Big Five: sex, money, kids, time, and mess; jealousy and envy; longevity and happiness through co-creating the architecture of your relationship and understanding how you interact under stress; 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.
Timeless Classics
Mirabai Starr: Caravan of No Despair
Mirabai Starr is an author and teacher best known for her well-regarded translations of Christian mystics such as Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint Francis of Assisi. Her most recent work with Sounds True is Caravan of No Despair: A Memoir of of Loss and Transformation. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Mirabai and Tami Simon talk about “the dark night of the soul” and how this intense experience is essential to the spiritual path. They also speak on the process of writing about grief and loss, and how such an act can spark a powerful personal metamorphosis. Finally, Mirabai shares a pair of potent excerpts from Caravan of No Despair. (65 minutes)
Caroline Myss: Healing Beyond Reason
Caroline Myss is an internationally renowned speaker, medical intuitive, mystic, and pioneer in the field of energy medicine. She is the author of five New York Times bestsellers, as well as the Sounds True audio learning programs Energy Anatomy, Sacred Contracts, and Your Creative Soul. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon and Caroline discuss what it means to “heal beyond reason.” They speak on near-death experiences and the nature of the soul. Finally, Tami and Caroline talk about spiritual metamorphosis and the seven graces that can empower a person to live a richer, more authentic life. (56 minutes)
Snatam Kaur: By Thy Grace
Snatam Kaur is one of the most recognized voices in the world of devotional chant. Snatam is an American artist who was raised in the kundalini yoga tradition and schooled in kirtan meditation and Gurmukhi, the Sanskrit-based language of Sikh scriptures in northern India. She is the lead singer for the Celebrate Peace tours and has released eight records. In this episode, Tami Simon speaks with Snatam about her bottom line in terms of daily meditation practice, what has been her go-to mantra in life, and how motherhood keeps her ego in check. She also shares three excerpts from The Essential Snatam Kaur, the Sounds True compilation of her favorite sacred chants for healing. (76 minutes)
