Category: Yoga & Movement

Stephen Cope: Yoga and Psychological Health

Tami Simon speaks with Stephen Cope, a psychotherapist who studies the relationship between Western psychology and Eastern contemplative traditions. Stephen is the founder and director of the Kripalu Institute for Extraordinary Living, the largest yoga research institute in the West. With Sounds True, he has created the audio program Yoga for Emotional Flow: Free Your Emotions through Yoga Breathing, Body Awareness, and Energetic Release. In this interview, Stephen speaks with Tami about deeper dimensions of yoga, including how yoga helps us undo core patterns of aggression and craving in the body. Stephen also discusses “riding the wave,” a process for leaning in and fully experiencing emotion. (61 minutes)

Reginald A. Ray: The Awakened State

Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Reginald A. Ray, gifted teacher in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition for 40 years in the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Reggie is the founder of Dharma Ocean and author of the book Touching Enlightenment. His most recent program with Sounds True is a historic 37-hour audio training course on the pinnacle teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, titled Mahamudra for the Modern World. In this episode, Tami speaks with Reggie about the possibility of using modern methods for capturing the essence of student-to-teacher transmission, how glimpsing the awakened state fits in with Mahamudra training, and the “three teachers”—a human teacher, the natural state, and life itself. (65 minutes)

Dancing with Cancer

Tami Simon speaks with Gabrielle Roth, a movement innovator, theater director, workshop teacher, and the bestselling author of Sweat Your Prayers and Maps to Ecstasy. With Sounds True she has created three DVD programs of movement meditations for the body and soul: The Wave, The Inner Wave, and The Power Wave. In this episode, Tami speaks with Gabrielle about the five universal rhythms that she uses in her work and why she believes they have the capacity to teach, catalyze, and heal. She talks about how these five rhythms have helped people in hospitals accelerate their healing, and her own experience in using them as she has gone through childbirth and a cancer diagnosis. (55 minutes)

Dennis Lewis: Breathing Space into Space

Tami Simon speaks with Dennis Lewis, an author, teacher, and practitioner of natural breathing, qigong, and meditation. After leaving the corporate world, Dennis studied a number of healing arts traditions, including Taosim, Advaita, and the Gurdjieff work. He is author of the books The Tao of Natural Breathing and Free Your Breath, Free Your Life, and with Sounds True he has produced the audio program Natural Breathing: Teachings and Exercises for Health and Self-Transformation. In this episode, Tami speaks with Dennis about the relationship between our emotions and our breathing, how we can let go into the unknown as we exhale, breathing as a metaphor for living, and what it might mean to “breathe space into space.” (56 minutes)

It’s All in the Breath

Tami Simon speaks with Leslie Kaminoff, a yoga educator with more than 30 years of experience in the fields of yoga and breath anatomy. He is the founder of The Breathing Project in New York City, a non-profit dedicated to teaching breath-centered yoga. Leslie is the coauthor of Yoga Anatomy, and with Sounds True, a program called Freeing the Breath: Health, Clarity, and Relaxation Through Better Breathing. In this episode, Tami speaks with Leslie about the most common misconceptions about better breathing, how to experience a “breath koan,” the relationship between the motions of the breath, and what it feels like in the whole body to take one beautiful breath. (62 minutes)

Secrets to Live to be 100

Tami Simon speaks with Maoshing Ni, a doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Their discussion includes using the mind as an ally in the healing process, what Dr. Mao has learned from his study of centenarians, the correlation between caloric intake and longevity, and how certain exercises can help us bring the mind and the body into harmony. Dr. Mao has been featured in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, and is currently featured as an expert on Yahoo! Health. With Sounds True, Dr. Mao has released Meditations to Live to Be 100 and has a forthcoming release called Qi Meditations: Guided Visualizations for Self-Healing. (49 minutes)