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Joan Chittister

Joan Chittister is one of the most influential religious and social leaders of our time. For over 40 years she has advocated on behalf of peace, human rights, women’s issues, and church renewal. A sought-after speaker and counselor, she is also the bestselling author of more than 50 books, hundreds of articles, and an online column for the National Catholic Reporter. She has received numerous writing awards and honors for her work, and is a noted international lecturer as well as a former elected fellow at St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge University, England.
 
Sister Joan was the featured guest of Oprah Winfrey on Super Soul Sunday in both 2015 and 2019. She has appeared on Meet the Press, 60 Minutes, CBS News, NOW with Bill Moyers, and numerous BBC and NPR programs.

Author photo © Ed Bernik

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Spirituality

Sister Joan Chittister: Presence and Perpetual Goodnes...

Joan Chittister — January 20, 2026

What does enlightenment look like in Christian tradition? How do we cultivate the kind of presence that transforms ordinary moments into sacred encounters?

This week on Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon shares a rebroadcast of one of her most cherished interviews—a conversation recorded at Mount St. Benedict’s Monastery in Erie, Pennsylvania with Sister Joan Chittister, just before her 83rd birthday. Sister Joan is an American Benedictine nun, theologian, and author of more than 50 books who has spent over 40 years advocating for peace, human rights, women’s issues, and church renewal.

Join Tami and Sister Joan to explore:

  • The Christian path from contemplation to unity and “seeing the world through God’s eyes”
  • Sister Joan’s mystical experience of light as a teenager and how it shaped her entire spiritual life
  • The sacrament of the present moment and what true presence actually requires
  • Why opening your heart sometimes means closing it to certain things
  • How spiritual traditions are evolving and what religion offers in an increasingly secular age
  • The prayer Sister Joan repeats before every talk: accepting “whatsoever deaths thou shall choose to send me”
  • Why consciousness—not mindfulness techniques—is the foundation of contemplative living

This is a conversation about what a lifetime of monastic practice reveals, the electricity of divine presence, and how struggle itself becomes the crucible for transformation.

Want to go deeper? Listen to the complete seven-hour conversation in the audio series Catching Fire at soundstrue.com

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Post Views: 27,570
Mindfulness Spirituality

Joan Chittister: Presence and Perpetual Goodness

Joan Chittister — May 5, 2020

Sister Joan Chittister is an American theologian, Benedictine nun, and the author of more than 50 books. For over 40 years, she has passionately advocated on behalf of peace, human rights, women’s issues, and church renewal. This week’s podcast shares with you an excerpt from Sister Joan’s audio program, Catching Fire: Being Transformed, Becoming Transforming, a seven-hour conversation with Tami Simon intended to spark the fire of the divine within each one of us.

podcast
Post Views: 2,706
Mindfulness Spirituality

Sister Joan Chittister: Lighting a Fire with Faith

Joan Chittister — December 8, 2017

Sister Joan Chittister is a member of Benedictine Sisters of Erie, Pennsylvania; the bestselling author of more than 50 books and hundreds of articles; and one of the most influential contemporary leaders and activists for human rights, women’s issues, and church renewal. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Sister Joan about the endless interplay between doubt and faith. They discuss the ways in which God sees all of creation, and what this perspective then asks of us. Tami and Sister Joan talk about the necessity of embracing humility, as well as what it means to know the right questions to ask on one’s spiritual journey. Finally, Sister Joan comments on the maturation of faith as one grows older and the “last great adventure” offered by death. (66 minutes)

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Spirituality

Just One Question | Osho Zenju Earthlyn Manuel: How Ca...

Zenju Earthlyn Manuel — July 23, 2026

When we heard Osho Zenju Earthlyn Manuel share her story of a terrifying night she couldn’t breathe, it was eerily similar to a personal experience—and helpful too. We knew we had to share this moment from her conversation with Tami Simon on Insights at the Edge, in which she tells the story of the night she nearly died from a severe anaphylactic reaction and how she got through it not by searching for light at the end of the tunnel, but by staying present with the darkness itself. 

Zenju, a poet and ordained Zen Buddhist priest, challenges the instinct most of us have to fear darkness, rush out of it, or wait for a gift on the other side. Instead, she describes an experience of profound non-struggle — a moment of near-death where she wasn’t afraid, didn’t fight, and somehow found a way to keep breathing by trusting her body completely.

Key themes from this episode:

  • Why darkness — and even light — may be far more unknown and unknowable than we assume
  • How struggling against a frightening experience can make it worse, while staying present with it can be transformative
  • A firsthand account of surviving a full-blown anaphylactic shock without fear
  • Rethinking our cultural instinct to rush ourselves and others out of difficult emotional or physical states
  • Why “the absence of light” might be less about despair and more about a different kind of awakening

Taken from the full Insights at the Edge conversation with Zenju Earthlyn Manuel “Opening to Darkness,” which is also the title of her book. Find the complete interview in this feed or at soundstrue.com.

This episode is sponsored by Omega Institute, a global gathering hub for lifelong learning and spiritual exploration. Omega offers weekend workshops, special events, rest and rejuvenation retreats, professional training, online learning, and more. Discover what calls to you at eomega.org/true.

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Post Views: 131
Spirituality

Michael A. Singer: The Pain That Ends All Pain

Michael Singer — July 21, 2026


What if the pain you’ve been avoiding is actually the thing that could set you free?

This week, Tami Simon speaks with Michael A. Singer, beloved wisdom teacher, founder of the Temple of the Universe, and author of The Untethered Soul, The Surrender Experiment, Living Untethered, and his newest book, Wisdom Untethered: The Time for Questions. Drawn from 1,200 reader questions distilled into 200 essential ones, the conversation keeps returning to a single teaching Michael once received from a saint: “It’s the pain that ends all pain.”

Join Tami and Michael to explore:

  • Why “letting go” is an inner practice, not spiritual bypassing or passivity
  • What samskaras are, and why blocked energy, not memory, is the real source of inner darkness
  • Why the willingness to feel disturbance, rather than suppress it, is the actual path of purification
  • The practice of “falling behind” resistance, and other techniques for letting stuck energy move and release
  • The difference between preferences and fears, and why the Buddha named preference as the root of suffering
  • How to face real-world injustice with clarity instead of ego-driven reactivity
  • Why the true motive of spiritual practice is simply to let go of what’s in the way

Whether you’ve read The Untethered Soul a dozen times or are new to Michael’s teachings, this conversation offers both the practical tools and the felt experience of what it means to stop blocking the shakti that’s already flowing within you.

Listen now, and discover why the pain you’ve been running from might be exactly what ends it. →

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.

Insights at the Edge is supported by Magic Hour, whose ceremonial teas carry more presence, beauty, and ritual into ordinary days. Magic Hour draws its leaves and botanicals from regenerative small farms around the world, in blends made to nourish the body and open the mind.

Explore their teas, matchas, and herbal rituals at clubmagichour.com. Get 20% off your first order with the code TRUE.

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Personal Growth Spirituality

Just One Question | Connie Zweig: What Does It Mean to...

Connie Zweig — July 16, 2026

You know the object of your addiction is bad for you. So why can’t you stop? Dr. Connie Zweig has spent decades working with people who feel stuck in exactly that gap between knowing and changing.

Zweig is a retired Jungian therapist and the author of the newly republished Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow — the books that helped launch the shadow-work movement, and the reason a new generation is now discovering it on TikTok.

In this clip, she walks Tami through her method step by step, using the story of a client who couldn’t stop eating ice cream every night while waiting for an unavailable boyfriend to call. Awareness alone, Zweig explains, is never enough. You have to name the shadow character, trace it back to where it was first modeled, and uncover the valid need hiding underneath it.

What you’ll take away from this clip:

  • Why awareness of a compulsive pattern rarely changes it on its own
  • How to identify a “shadow character” through its recurring thoughts, feelings, and body sensations
  • Why every addictive or compulsive behavior is protecting a valid, hidden need
  • Zweig’s own story of discovering her “judge” shadow character — inherited from her father

This clip is taken from the full Insights at the Edge conversation with Connie Zweig: “Meeting One of the World’s Leading Experts on the Shadow.” 

This episode is sponsored by Omega Institute, a global gathering hub for lifelong learning and spiritual exploration. Omega offers weekend workshops, special events, rest and rejuvenation retreats, professional training, online learning, and more. Discover what calls to you at eomega.org/true.

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Sounds True is a multimedia publishing company founded in 1985 by Tami Simon, with the mission of disseminating spiritual wisdom. The company is based in Lafayette, Colorado.

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