Is There a Holy Grail of Healing?

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March 29, 2022

Is There a Holy Grail of Healing?

Lissa Rankin March 29, 2022

Lissa Rankin, MD, is a New York Times bestselling author of multiple books including Mind Over Medicine, a physician, speaker, founder of the Whole Health Medicine Institute and the nonprofit Heal At Last, and mystic. Lissa has starred in two national public television specials, her TEDx Talks have been viewed over 4 million times, and she leads workshops both online and at retreat centers like Esalen, 1440 Multiversity, Omega, and Kripalu.

In this podcast, Dr. Rankin speaks with Sounds True founder, Tami Simon, about her new book, Sacred Medicine: A Doctor’s Quest to Unravel the Mysteries of Healing. Their conversation explores: the placebo effect and the mega-placebo effect; the scientific method and some assumptions we should question; the relationship between trauma, the nervous system, and healing; connectivity and co-regulation; developmental trauma, or what Mark Epstein calls “the trauma of everyday life”; the concept of spiritual bypassing; chronic inflammation as a root cause of many diseases; the paradoxes of healing; our four “intelligences”—mental, somatic, intuitive, and emotional—and what to do when they “disagree”; Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy and working with the polarized parts within ourselves; healing the collective; and more.

Lissa Rankin, MD, New York Times bestselling author of multiple books, including Mind Over Medicine, is a physician, speaker, founder of the Whole Health Medicine Institute and the nonprofit Heal At Last, and mystic. Lissa has starred in two national public television specials, her TEDx talks have been viewed over 4 million times, and she leads workshops, both online and at retreat centers like Esalen, 1440, Omega, and Kripalu. She resides in Northern California. For more, visit lissarankin.com.

Author photo © MoniqueFeil2021

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Founded Sounds True in 1985 as a multimedia publishing house with a mission to disseminate spiritual wisdom. She hosts a popular weekly podcast called Insights at the Edge, where she has interviewed many of today's leading teachers. Tami lives with her wife, Julie M. Kramer, and their two spoodles, Rasberry and Bula, in Boulder, Colorado.

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Is There a Holy Grail of Healing?

Lissa Rankin, MD, is a New York Times bestselling author of multiple books including Mind Over Medicine, a physician, speaker, founder of the Whole Health Medicine Institute and the nonprofit Heal At Last, and mystic. Lissa has starred in two national public television specials, her TEDx Talks have been viewed over 4 million times, and she leads workshops both online and at retreat centers like Esalen, 1440 Multiversity, Omega, and Kripalu.

In this podcast, Dr. Rankin speaks with Sounds True founder, Tami Simon, about her new book, Sacred Medicine: A Doctor’s Quest to Unravel the Mysteries of Healing. Their conversation explores: the placebo effect and the mega-placebo effect; the scientific method and some assumptions we should question; the relationship between trauma, the nervous system, and healing; connectivity and co-regulation; developmental trauma, or what Mark Epstein calls “the trauma of everyday life”; the concept of spiritual bypassing; chronic inflammation as a root cause of many diseases; the paradoxes of healing; our four “intelligences”—mental, somatic, intuitive, and emotional—and what to do when they “disagree”; Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy and working with the polarized parts within ourselves; healing the collective; and more.

3 Ways to Connect With Your Higher Self This Holiday S...

3 Ways to Connect With Your Higher Self This Holiday Season

During the holiday season, when the material can easily overshadow the spiritual, making conscious connection to the Divine within yourself can bring you back to the real reason for the season. In every spiritual tradition, the days around the Winter Solstice are a time of reflection, connection, gratitude, and devotion to the Source of love that animates all of life. To solidify the meaning that underpins winter holidays, it helps to practice connecting to what I call “Your Inner Pilot Light.”

Humbly ask for a deeper connection to your Inner Pilot Light

Connection with your Inner Pilot Light is fueled by your desire to bow before the Divine within and acknowledge that while you can engage in practices meant to deepen your connection, Divine union is a gift, given as grace, not something you can control. Try this prayer. “Dearest Inner Pilot Light, I surrender my desire to connect with You to the Divine Beloved inside of me and humbly ask for help. Let my personal will merge with Divine will and show me how I can be a vessel for your love.”

Tune in and let your Inner Pilot Light communicate with you

As a daily practice, drop into your heart and allow your mind to relax. Ask your Inner Pilot Light, “What do you want me to know today?” Then allow the words, feelings, somatic sensations or images come through. If your message comes in words, write it down as a love letter from your highest self to the parts of you in need of reassurance, guidance, comfort, or healing. If your Inner Pilot Light communicates non-verbally, just take in the guidance in whatever way is most natural.

Learn to receive, interpret, and discern your inner guidance

Your Inner Pilot Light seeks to guide you to the life of greatest love, alignment, growth, and flow, but it takes some practice to see that guidance is everywhere. It may come through an inner voice, guiding imagery, medicine dreams, synchronicity, animals that cross your path, a felt sense in your body, or direct knowing. Once you learn the way your Inner Pilot Light prefers to communicate with you, you will feel less alone, as if Love Itself is guiding you to the life you are meant to live.

 Lissa Rankin, MD, New York Times bestselling author of Your Inner Pilot LightMind Over Medicine, The Fear Cure, and The Anatomy of a Calling, is a physician, speaker, founder of the Whole Health Medicine Institute, and mystic. Passionate about what makes people optimally healthy and what predisposes them to illness, she is on a mission to merge science and spirituality in a way that not only facilitates the health of the individual, but also uplifts the health of the collective. Bridging between seemingly disparate worlds, Lissa is a connector, collaborator, curator, and amplifier, broadcasting not only her unique visionary ideas, but also those of cutting-edge visionaries she discerns and trusts, especially in the field of her latest research into “Sacred Medicine.” Lissa has starred in two National Public Television specials and also leads workshops both online and at retreat centers like Esalen and Kripalu. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her daughter. She blogs at LissaRankin.com and posts regularly on Facebook.

The community here at Sounds True wishes you a lovely holiday season! We are happy to collaborate with some of our Sounds True authors to offer you wisdom and practices as we move into this time together; please enjoy this blog series for your holiday season. 

To help encourage you and your loved ones to explore new possibilities this holiday season, we’re offering 40% off nearly all of our programs, books, and courses sitewide. May you find the wisdom to light your way. Use promo code HOLIDAY10 and receive an additional 10% off your order.

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Lissa Rankin: Love and Guidance from Your Inner Pilot ...

Lissa Rankin, MD, is a New York Times bestselling author, public speaker, and physician. Her books include The Fear Cure, Mind Over Medicine, and The Anatomy of a Calling. She has worked with Sounds True to publish The Daily Flame: 365 Love Letters from Your Inner Pilot Light. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Lissa about the Inner Pilot Light—the deepest, most essential aspect of Self whose divine spark can never be extinguished. Lissa shares some of the letters from The Daily Flame and explains how their encouraging words are based on years of engagement with her innermost values. Tami and Lissa discuss how her work deals with the theme of longing and why we need to lean into the places we find uncomfortable in order to truly grow. Finally, Lissa shares the story of how she met her writing mentor and what it means to “own stock in the company of yourself.” (66 minutes)

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Michael A. Singer: Releasing Blockages to Inner Flow

The question of how to find peace in the midst of uncertainty has been on our minds a lot lately. Listeners of this podcast have heard many of Tami Simon’s guests speak to this central challenge of our times. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, we’re thrilled to share what one of the world’s leading spiritual teachers has to say. 

Here, Tami talks with bestselling author Michael A. Singer about deepening our ability to maintain inner peace while living in an unpredictable, uncontrollable world. Singer addresses audience-selected cards from his Living Untethered Card Deck, as he and Tami discuss: why we do our inner work; staying in the seat of the Self; consciousness and objects of consciousness; how our thoughts and emotions can distract us into identifying with them; when your daily life and your spiritual life are the same exact thing; the energy called Shakti; rattlesnakes and butterflies; letting go of resistance to what is uncomfortable; the ego as a set of thought patterns we protect at all cost; accepting the deferred pain that comes when we release the past; the meaning of freedom and the liberation of the soul; trauma, psychology, and physiology; Michael’s advice—practice the simple things first; allowing the energy of what we experience to pass through our hearts; a commitment to living free; compassion versus sympathy; discovering your inherent greatness; learning to relax in the face of disturbances; 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.

Turning to my Filipino Roots to Tend to Womb Loss

October is a meaningful month for me as it honors two important parts of my identity. It is Filipino American History Month, a time to acknowledge and honor the presence and contributions of Filipino Americans. Although my parents immigrated to the United States from the Philippines in 1980, records show that Filipinos were present here as early as 1587, landing in present-day Morro Bay, California as part of a Spanish galleon. In an interesting moment of alignment, I am writing this to you from Morro Bay, feeling the palpable power of the land and seeing the sacred 600-foot-tall Morro Rock–known as Lisamu’ in the Chumash language and Lesa’mo’ by the Salinan people–standing proudly just outside the window of our Airstream trailer. October is also Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, a time to increase awareness about and honor those of us who have endured such loss- what I often refer to as womb loss.

This October is particularly meaningful with my book, To Tend and To Hold: Honoring Our Bodies, Our Needs, and Our Grief Through Pregnancy and Infant Loss, officially launching on October 22. In it I share how my identities as a Filipina American and bereaved mother intertwine, and how valuable it can be for survivors of womb loss to turn to their cultural traditions for support as they grieve and as their postpartum bodies return to a non-pregnant state. How I came across this online essay and found solace in the language of my ancestors who use terms to describe miscarriage as “someone from whom something was taken away” rather than placing blame with the prefix mis- which means wrongly or badly. I did not carry my pregnancies wrongly or badly. Loss was something that my body experienced.

The following is an excerpt from To Tend and To Hold that I hold dear as it shares a traditional Filipino dish I grew up eating and that I share now as a postpartum doula to offer comfort and nourishment to those who are postpartum, both with living children and after loss. I hope it may offer you comfort as well, no matter if your experience of womb loss was recent, in the past weeks, months or even many years ago. My heart is with you and please know that you are not alone as you grieve and as you heal- at your own pace and in your own way.

~

I recently cooked this recipe for champorado, a Filipino rice porridge, for my beloved friend Katrina on a very tender anniversary, the due date of one of her children and the death date of another. Her child, Zeo Thomas, would have been born that day had he not died in the womb at five months gestation. It was within the same year of his death that her second child, Solis Vida, died in the womb in the first trimester. In truth, Katrina had been bleeding for over a week to release her second pregnancy, but as she bled through Zeo’s due date, she felt an intuitive pull to honor this same date as Solis’s death date. I thought of my friend as I made my way slowly through the grocery store. Though it was crowded and busy, I felt cocooned in my thoughts and intentions for her—how I wanted to help her feel seen and held during this difficult time—and I found myself gathering each of the ingredients in a mindful way that felt like the beginning of a bigger ritual. Knowing I was going to cook for her to honor her, her babies, her grief, and also her longings added a layer of reverence to what would otherwise be a standard grocery run. Later as I cooked the porridge in her home, I channeled my love and condolences into each step. And when I finally brought the warm bowl of champorado to her and saw her reaction, it was my turn to feel honored. Honored  to be there with her. Honored to tend to her. And with a dish we both knew from our childhoods. She dubbed it “postpartum champorado,” and so it shall be known.

Warm and soft, rice porridge is one of the best postpartum foods as it is easy to eat, warming to the body, and gentle on the digestive system. Its very nature is to offer comfort. In my opinion, champorado, a Filipino chocolate rice porridge I grew up savoring, is one of the most heartwarming dishes, with the cacao tending as much to the emotional heart as to the physical body. It can be offered any time of day for both a filling meal and a gentle reminder that there is still sweetness in life even amidst grief.

In this nourishing version, cacao powder is used in place of cocoa so that we may benefit from all that this superfood has to offer, including iron to help rebuild red blood cells, flavonoids to improve blood flow, and magnesium to ease anxiety and depression. In addition to being nutrient-rich, cacao is also known to lift the mood. If the thought of preparing food feels beyond your current capacity at this moment, consider sharing this recipe with a partner, postpartum doula, or other support person and asking them to cook it for you. Additionally, if you are currently pregnant, please consult your health-care provider before consuming cacao as it contains caffeine.

Champorado: Filipino chocolate rice porridge

  • 1 cup sweet rice (also called glutinous or sticky rice) or sushi rice
  • 5 cups water
  • 1/4 cup cacao powder
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon unflavored protein powder (optional)
  • Condensed coconut milk for topping
  • Cacao nibs (optional)

Rinse the sweet rice several times until the water runs clear when drained.

Combine rice and water in a pot over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and continue to cook until the rice is soft and the porridge thickens (about 20 minutes), stirring often to keep from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Add cacao powder, brown sugar, and unflavored protein powder. Stir to combine, then remove from heat.

Drizzle condensed coconut milk (or other milk of choice) and top with cacao nibs. Serve hot.

To Tend and to Hold

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Eileen S. Rosete

Five Tips for Postpartum Bliss

Bliss out on baby, mi amor. Love your chichis. Admire your soft curves, your delicate belly, and the way you require intentional care. Everything deep comes to the surface as you pour sweat, milk, blood, and tears onto your sheets. I want your postpartum to feel blissful, so here are five tips to help you make that happen.

1. Make a postpartum plan.

You can’t plan exactly the way the birth will pan out, but you can plan the details of your postpartum support. Bodywork, meals, laundry, and childcare for your other children are some things to consider. Use this book as a guide to feel into what nonnegotiables you’ll need in place during la cuarentena.

2. Don’t DIY postpartum.

There’s a time and place for self-reliance. Postpartum ain’t the time. Postpartum traditions are community centered. Once you know that you’re pregnant, surrender to other folks holding you. Waddle that ass to circles with like-minded familias who you know would be down for mutual support. This is why we have the Indigemama community and so many other comunidades who are dedicated to saving our lives.

3. Shift your mindset.

One of the biggest internal challenges I see postpartum people go through is the mental chatter that puts a wall up, barring any chance for outside support. When we’re socialized into struggling and then rewarded for doing things on our own, it’s easy to feel guilty asking for help. You might be distrustful of other people’s capacity to fulfill your needs. How many times have you heard women say, “If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself”? This belief sets postpartum people up for anxiety, stress, depression, and overwhelm. If you want postpartum done right, you have to feel in your body that you are worthy of being venerated; you must feel that you are deserving of being held. 

Paying homage to you is paying homage to nature itself. Give your potential supporters that opportunity to connect with creation.

4. Repeat after me: affirmations, affirmations.

It’s easy to feel ashamed to ask for what you need. It’s normal to feel guilty when you see how hard people are working for you. Give yourself a pep talk: I allow myself to be cared for. I accept this help. I trust that I can be held without lifting a finger. I surrender myself to the love and labor of others. I soften and allow myself to be carried. I want you to do this every moment that you need it. When you affirm that you’re doing the right thing over and over, then eventually it becomes second nature.

5. Support your romantic relationship.

Postpartum is stressful AF! Those of us with multiple children can tell you that the little ones tend to take precedent over romantic relationships. But after a while, that really weighs down a union. Plan relationship goals. When will you start to date again? What’s the plan for one-on-one time? Who are the people who hold you and your partner(s) up as a sacred union? What baggage can you each decide to let go of now? What support can each of you get individually from healthy older couples who are content with each other? What can you appreciate about each other during la cuarentena? What words do you need to say to each other when the going gets tough? Nurturing a healthy, loving relationship with each other when you’re parenting children is a practice of discipline.

This excerpt is from Thriving Postpartum: Embracing the Indigenous Wisdom of La Cuarentena by Pānquetzani

Pānquetzani

Pānquetzani comes from a matriarchal family of folk healers from the valley of Mexico (Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlaxcala), La Comarca Lagunera (Durango and Coahuila), and Zacatecas. As a traditional herbalist, healer, and birth keeper, Pānquetzani has touched over 3,000 wombs and bellies. Through her platform, Indigemama: Ancestral Healing, she has taught over 100 live, in-person intensives and trainings on womb wellness. She lives in California. For more, visit indigemama.com.

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