Karla McLaren is an award-winning author, social science researcher, and renowned expert in emotions and empathy. Her work focuses on her grand unified theory of emotions, which reconsiders how we think of “negative” emotions and opens new pathways into self-awareness, communication, and empathy. With Sounds True, Karla is the author of the landmark book The Language of Emotions, a book on The Art of Empathy, and a new book called The Power of Emotions at Work: Accessing the Vital Intelligence in Your Workplace. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Karla about why the full range of emotions is necessary for us to bring forth our best thinking. They discuss the “toxic positivity bias” that has become the norm in the contemporary workplace, how this leads to widespread suffering and dysfunction, and how we can achieve an “emotionally well-regulated” workplace that works for all of us.
Karla McLaren, M.Ed., is an award-winning author, social science researcher, and empathy innovator. She is CEO of Emotion Dynamics, developer of Dynamic Emotional Integration®, and creator of EmpathyAcademy.org. Karla is the author of Embracing Anxiety, The Dynamic Emotional Integration Workbook, The Art of Empathy, The Power of Emotions at Work, and the multimedia online course Emotional Flow: Becoming Fluent in the Language of Emotions. For more, visit karlamclaren.com.
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.
Each week on Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon interviews leading voices in the Mind/Body/Spirit space about a vast spectrum of fascinating ideas. Since 2009, Tami and her guests have been exploring the edge of understanding, nearly 1,000 episodes on the honest work of change, including spiritual discovery, awakening, intuition, purpose, trauma, and grief.
Karla McLaren is an award-winning author, social science researcher, and renowned expert in emotions and empathy. Her work focuses on her grand unified theory of emotions, which reconsiders how we think of “negative” emotions and opens new pathways into self-awareness, communication, and empathy. With Sounds True, Karla is the author of the landmark book The Language of Emotions, a book on The Art of Empathy, and a new book called The Power of Emotions at Work: Accessing the Vital Intelligence in Your Workplace. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Karla about why the full range of emotions is necessary for us to bring forth our best thinking. They discuss the “toxic positivity bias” that has become the norm in the contemporary workplace, how this leads to widespread suffering and dysfunction, and how we can achieve an “emotionally well-regulated” workplace that works for all of us.
Karla McLaren is an award-winning author, social science researcher, and empathy pioneer. Her work focuses on a “grand unified theory of emotions,” in which she moves us beyond looking at some emotions as negative and some as positive, and instead helps people see the genius that lives inside every single emotion. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with Karla about managing the multiple emotions that many of us are experiencing as we navigate both a pandemic and a time of societal transformation. Tami and Karla also discuss the importance of creating a community that shares an “emotional vocabulary,” the four keys to unlocking the wisdom of our emotions, and much more.
Karla McLaren is an award-winning author, social science researcher, and educator whose empathic approach to emotions informs her studies of sociology, anthropology, neurology, and cognitive psychology. With Sounds True, Karla has most recently contributed to the anthology Darkness Before Dawn: Redefining the Journey Through Depression. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Karla and Tami Simon discuss depression as an essential human emotion—one that may carry important messages about what’s no longer working for you. They also talk about the questions you can ask of your emotions to determine their cause and the course of action they are asking you to take. Finally, Tami and Karla speak on the necessity of understanding and embracing the full range of human emotions—even those you deem unpleasant—in order to live a fuller, healthier life. (58 minutes)
“Is it okay that we are hurting people in order to make money?”
That’s the question Raj Sisodia has been putting to business leaders for two decades—and he isn’t asking rhetorically. This week, Tami Simon speaks with the prolific author, professor, and cofounder of the conscious capitalism movement about his new book, Healing Leaders, and the seven-step spiral that took him from a successful academic career into the deepest healing work of his life at age 60.
Join Tami and Raj to explore:
Why “false profits” mask the real cost of business as usual—in burnout, stress, and lives
The four pillars of conscious capitalism, and why doing all of them together changes everything
Strength without love is tyranny; love without strength is ineffective—the leaders who held both
What happened when four women asked Raj how he could write a book on healing without healing himself
LIST: the acronym for love, innocence, simplicity, and truth that arrived in the Amazon
“Choose your past”—the counterintuitive step that moves a leader out of victimhood
Why your trauma isn’t your fault, but healing it is your responsibility—especially if you lead
How to conduct a layoff with love, and the company that furloughed instead of firing
Why this backlash moment is a test of how deeply we actually believe in these principles
Whether you lead a team of three or three thousand, Raj offers a bracing case that the inner work you keep postponing is the most generous thing you can do for the people who depend on you.
Raj Sisodia is guest faculty for Sounds True’s Inner MBA®, a six-month immersion program created in collaboration with the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. Learn more atinnermba.soundstrue.com. →
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, and originally aired on Sounds True One.
What if the anxiety, grief, or fear you’ve struggled with for years is a burden you inherited—not one you earned?
This week, Tami Simon speaks with Richard Schwartz—founder of Internal Family Systems and author of the bestselling No Bad Parts—and Tamala Floyd, psychotherapist, IFS lead trainer, and author of Listening: When Parts Speak: A Practical Guide to Healing with IFS Therapy and Ancestor Wisdom. Together, they explore how IFS and ancestral healing converge to help us release intergenerational trauma at its root.
Join Tami, Dick, and Tamala to explore:
What “legacy burdens” are in IFS—and how to recognize when what you’re carrying came from someone else
How personal, ethnic, and cultural legacy burdens operate differently—and why racism, historical trauma, and collective suffering require their own healing
The concept of the “well ancestor”: why every lineage has one, and how to invite them into your healing
Heirlooms vs. burdens: how our ancestral lines carry gifts as well as wounds—and how to receive them
Why legacy burdens are often easier to release than personal ones—and what fear most commonly gets in the way
Tamala’s guided ancestral meditation, offered live: a practice for releasing what no longer serves you
What we offer future generations simply by doing our own inner work
The episode includes a full guided meditation led by Tamala Floyd—drawn directly from her ancestors—that listeners can return to again and again.
Listen now and begin your own healing across generations. →
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.
Trauma doesn’t show up in what we remember. It shows up in how we react.
This week, Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Tian Dayton—award-winning scholar, senior fellow at The Meadows, and author of Growing Up with Addiction: How Adult Children of Addicts Can Heal Family Trauma, Complex PTSD and Codependency—about what it means to grow up inside a family shaped by addiction, and what it actually takes to heal.
Drawing on decades of clinical work, her own lived experience, and her innovative Relational Trauma Repair (RTR) method, Dr. Dayton explores the neuroscience of relational trauma and the embodied, experiential path through it.
Join Tami and Tian to explore:
Why addiction is a family disease—and how process addictions like workaholism and overeating leave the same marks as substance use
How childhood trauma gets stored in the body, not the story—and why you can’t think your way out of complex PTSD
The neuroscience of overreaction: why triggers feel present-tense even when they’re decades old
Cognitive and somatic distortions—and how to recognize when the past is hijacking the present
Psychodrama and Relational Trauma Repair: the power of talking to instead of about
Timelines, social atoms, and letter writing as tools for putting fragmented memories back in order
Why healing is a discipline—and what it means to take ownership of your own darkness as a path to freedom
Whether you grew up in a home shaped by addiction or simply recognize the patterns Dr. Dayton describes, this interview offers both a map and the courage to begin the journey.
Listen now and start where you 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.
