Advertise on podcast: Sounds True: Insights at the Edge

What if the pain you've carried your whole life didn't begin with you? Tami Simon speaks with Richard Schwartz—founder of Internal Family Systems—and psychotherapist and IFS lead trainer Tamala Floyd, author of Listening: When Parts Speak, about the intersection of IFS and ancestral wisdom, and how healing legacy burdens can liberate not only ourselves, but the generations that come after us. This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What does it mean to be fully here and fully surrendered at the same time? Tami Simon speaks with Banafsheh Sayyad—master Iranian sacred dancer, choreographer, transformational teacher, and founder of Dance of Oneness—about whirling as a spiritual practice, the marriage of discipline and surrender, embodied healing through movement, and how presence itself can become a form of devotion and resistance. This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Are the patterns you formed surviving a chaotic childhood still running your life today? Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Tian Dayton—trauma expert, psychodramatist, and author of Growing Up with Addiction—about how addiction doesn't just happen to one person, it happens to the whole family, and why healing the wounds it leaves behind requires more than insight. It requires discipline. This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The world is accelerating faster than the human mind was built to handle. So what do we do with that? Tami Simon speaks with Peter Russell—physicist, consciousness pioneer, and author of How to Meditate Without Even Trying, featuring a foreword by Eckhart Tolle. Together, they discuss navigating exponential change, the stresses of an AI-driven world, the possibility of our species' extinction, and why effortless stillness may be the most essential skill of our time. This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens to your creativity when your attention is fractured—and what becomes possible when you reclaim it? Tami Simon speaks with writer, artist, and movement practitioner Cody Cook-Parrott about their new Sounds True book, The Practice of Attention: Cultivating Presence in a Distracted World—exploring social media addiction, the art of the attention audit, soft structures for creative practice, and why attention itself is a form of prayer. This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if the natural world isn’t a warehouse of resources—but a landscape of gifts? Tami Simon speaks with Robin Wall Kimmerer, botanist, author of Braiding Sweetgrass, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, about living in reciprocal relationship with the earth, overcoming brain chauvinism, and why the most radical act in a time of climate crisis may be remembering who we truly are. This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if the secret to better writing isn’t more technique—but more truth? Tami Simon speaks with beloved author Anne Lamott and her husband Neal Allen—writer, spiritual coach, and author of Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences—about the craft of finding your voice, writing toward compassion and truth, and why the most powerful sentences come not from the polished mind but from the really real. This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What does it take to truly master yourself—not just your body, but your mind, your roles, and your relationship to suffering? Tami Simon speaks with Shi Heng Yi, a 35th generation Shaolin master and author of Shaolin Spirit, about the ancient warrior path to inner freedom. Together they explore self-mastery, the illusion of identity, elevation beyond suffering, and the surprising yin within one of the world’s most demanding traditions. (Don’t miss the video for Master Shi Heng Yi’s movement demonstration!) This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

An encore presentation in honor of Coleman Barks, who passed away on February 23, 2026. Tami Simon speaks with Coleman, a leading scholar and translator of the 13th-century Persian mystic, Jelaluddin Rumi. Coleman’s work was the subject of an hour-long segment in Bill Moyers’ Language of Life series with PBS. He has published numerous Rumi translations, including with Sounds True the audio programs I Want Burning, Rumi: The Voice of Longing, and his new three-CD collaboration with cellist David Darling called Just Being Here: Rumi and Human Friendship. In this episode, Tami speaks with Coleman about the extraordinary friendship between Rumi and his teacher, Shams Tabriz, and how translating Rumi requires entering a trance state. Coleman offers insights on grace as he and Tami listen to selections from Just Being Here. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“Let people love you.” Death doula Darnell Lamont Walker finds himself saying this phrase again and again at bedsides —to those afraid of being “seen” in their final days, to those who’ve built walls around receiving care. In this moving conversation with Tami Simon, the Emmy-nominated writer shares what decades of accompanying the dying have taught him about love, grief, and letting ourselves be held. This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if every moment of self-compassion is actually a moment of waking up? In this very special episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami sits down with pioneering self-compassion researcher Kristin Neff and meditation teacher Caverly Morgan—two friends and compelling authors whose collaboration reveals how treating ourselves with kindness can become a lifeboat for our deepest nature. This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tami Simon speaks with poet-philosopher Mark Nepo about his latest book that explores aging as a transformative passage. They delve into the flexible heart, entering time rather than moving through it, breaking through to joy amid loss, and the idea that—like meteors burning brighter as they fall—maybe we too can become more luminous as our outer casing falls away. This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tami Simon speaks with renowned literary channeler Paul Selig about his extraordinary journey from skeptical atheist to one of the foremost contributors to channeled literature. They explore the “upper room”—a state of consciousness beyond fear and separation—and how we can access divine union while still in human form, even amidst the challenges of our time. This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tami speaks with the creator of the viral hit podcast The Telepathy Tapes—Ky Dickens—about her journey from skeptical documentary filmmaker to consciousness researcher. They explore telepathic communication in nonspeaking individuals, the groundbreaking phenomenon of “mindsight,” and what emerging science reveals about energy healing, consciousness as fundamental, and human capacities we’re only beginning to understand. Listen now to discover what becomes possible when we approach the unknown with curiosity rather than dismissal. And to see where Ky and her team are heading with Season 2 of The Telepathy Tapes…and beyond. You can listen to both seasons of The Telepathy Tapes here.  This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tami Simon speaks with renowned energy intuitive and channeler Lee Harris about connecting with higher guidance, cultivating heart intelligence, and preparing for humanity’s next evolutionary leap. Lee shares practical wisdom on accessing intuition, understanding interdimensional communication, and why love—not fear—is the frequency that will shape our collective future. This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.