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.
Most Recent
Self-Love is a Superpower
Dear Sounds True friends,
I believe self-love is a superpower.
When we treat ourselves with kindness, it turns on the learning centers of the brain and gives us the resources to face challenges and learn from our mistakes. Transformation requires a compassionate mindset, not shame.
And yet, people often worry that self-love will make them lazy, self-indulgent, or self-absorbed. Science shows just the opposite: people with greater self-love are more compassionate toward others, more successful and productive, and more resilient to stress.
The best news of all: self-love can be learned. We can rewire the structure of our brain and strengthen the neural circuitry of love toward ourselves and others. Each time we practice self-love, we grow this pathway.
My new children’s book, Good Morning, I Love You, Violet!, offers a road map for strengthening your child’s brain circuitry of deep calm, contentment, and self-love.
It is built on principles of psychology and neuroscience and offers a simple yet powerful practice.
As a mother, when asked what I believe is the most important thing we can teach our children, I always answer “self-love.” Learning to be on our own team and to treat ourselves with kindness is life-changing. There is no greater gift we can give our children. There is no greater gift we can give ourselves.
May this book plant seeds of kindness that ripple out into the world.
Shauna Shapiro, PhD
P.S. I invite you to download a free coloring sheet from the book, created by illustrator Susi Schaefer, to enjoy with the children in your life.
Shauna Shapiro is a mother, bestselling author, professor, clinical psychologist, and internationally recognized expert in mindfulness and self-compassion. She lives in Mill Valley, California. Learn more at drshaunashapiro.com.
Learn More
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop | Sounds True
Justin Michael Williams, Shelly Tygielski, and Mario V...
The end of racism—really? When your eyes stop rolling, tune in to this podcast to hear why it’s actually possible—in our lifetimes—to free our society from systemic racial oppression and injustice. In part one of this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Justin Michael Williams and Shelly Tygielski about their new book, How We Ended Racism. In part two, filmmaker and activist Mario Van Peebles joins the conversation to share his own hope-giving perspective.
This stirring and uplifting podcast explores the five assumptions that perpetuate racism; the eight pillars of possibility; the pledge to help end racism; how our inner work relates to the outer change that we’re working toward; assertion versus assessment, and learning to recognize our own biases; shadow work and confronting the concept of supremacy; taking action where we’re standing right now; “loving with bigger arms”; crossing the divide within families; the metaphor of the inherited house; the practice of calling forward; intraconnection; the link between exposure and empathy; the SUSS process: State, Uncover, Synergize, and Select; 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.
Nataly Kogan: Living in a Friendly and Joy-Filled Univ...
What brings you your greatest joy? How do you access your inner “awesome”? Nataly Kogan has made it her life’s work to help people overcome burnout and break free from endless busyness. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with Nataly about her new book, The Awesome Human Journal, and the practical steps we can begin to take right now to shift out of self-defeating thought patterns (and their corresponding emotions), reclaim our energy, and share our gifts with the world.
Tune in as Tami and Nataly discuss insights from neuroscience that everyone should know; the human brain’s negativity bias; creating a better relationship with your thoughts—a key to well-being and emotional fitness; the worst-case scenario exercise; finding certainty in uncertain times; working within your sphere of impact; cultivating agency; freedom from skepticism and mistrust; living an aligned life in a universe that is friendly; energetic self-care; breaking the habit of denying ourselves joy; changing our habitual frame of reference to something positive and supportive; 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.
Customer Favorites
Mark Nepo: Writing Is Listening with Your Heart and Ta...
Mark Nepo is a New York Times bestselling author, poet, and philosopher whose many books include The Book of Awakening, Things That Join the Sea and the Sky, and The One Life We’re Given. Most recently, he has partnered with Sounds True to publish Drinking from the River of Light: The Life of Expression. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Mark about about our collective notions around creativity and the societal role of art. Mark details how his own ideas about creative expression have shifted over the decades, as well as why we should try to separate creation from commerce. Mark and Tami talk about the “messy, magnificent journey” of being human and why art must be a “witness to what is.” Finally, they discuss the necessity of holding nothing back during the creative process and why the pursuit of art is also the pursuit of timelessness.(71 minutes)
Jules Blaine Davis: Meet the Kitchen Healer
For eons, women have gathered around the place of cooking—the fire, the hearth, the kitchen—to share wisdom and nourish each other through love and compassion and yes, food. In her new book, The Kitchen Healer: The Journey to Becoming You, Jules Blaine Davis celebrates the ways we nourish our bodies, hearts, and spirits in this cherished place. In our podcast, Tami Simon and Jules discuss how the kitchen gives us the opportunity to pause, grieve, and replenish—and to rewrite our stories over and over again. In true loving-healer fashion, Jules talks about our deep hunger to connect with each other in what has become “a cultureless culture,” and how the kitchen provides that essential space for reuniting with our longing, our joy, and each other.
She shares her thoughts on the practice of simply being with our problems instead of fixing them, and how powerful it is to just give yourself an abundance of permission. Her joy and compassion radiate throughout this conversation, as does the promise of discovery through healing. Says Jules, “When we’re in the practice of healing, there’s no graduating from healing. We’re just unfolding. We’re unraveling. We’re becoming who we are over and over again in all the different beautiful places in our lives.”
Finding Meaning in Our Grief
David Kessler is widely considered the world’s foremost expert on grief and loss. He is the author of six books, including the new bestseller Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, and the founder of grief.com, which has more than five million visits annually from people in almost 170 countries. David has taught physicians, nurses, counselors, police, and first responders about the end of life, trauma, and grief. He facilitates talks, workshops, and retreats for those experiencing grief, and his experience with thousands of people on the edge of life and death has taught him secrets to living a happy and fulfilled life, even after tragedy.
In this podcast, Sounds True founder Tami Simon speaks with David Kessler about his new book, including how our relationships transcend death and how we can all continue to love and cherish those we’ve lost. They also discuss David’s friendship and work with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross; misconceptions about the five stages of grief; finding meaning as the sixth stage of grief; why all grief does not have trauma, but all trauma has grief; making the decision to participate in life after loss; the importance of telling our stories, and why our grief must be witnessed in order to be healed; creating a grief-literate society; why “what we avoid pursues us, what we face transforms us”; how our lost loved ones can move forward with us in life; being with and there for someone in grief; our “continuing bonds” with those we’ve lost, and how death can never end our relationships; and more.