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Embrace the Hustle & Bustle with this “Shake it...

Dharm Khalsa
Karena Virginia — November 21, 2017

Sometimes life is complicated, especially during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. We may be able to cope with everyday stresses, but when we have multiple traumatic events happening at once, we can feel frozen by fear and uncertainty, stuck in our painful circumstances. We may feel victimized and incapable of making a move. As our modern age speeds up, this feeling can intensify to the point that we make ourselves sick. What can we do when we feel so confused and empty that we become immobilized and exhausted?

This kundalini meditation is designed to help center your consciousness and channel all your confusion out of your psyche. You give your feelings of uncertainty, pain, and blame to the universe and replace them with the pure, clear light of your soul, accessing what was actually there all along.

Sit up with your spine straight. Center yourself with your breath.
Interlace your fingers in front of your heart with the index fingers pressed together pointing up. Close your eyes, focusing internally on the third eye point.
Begin chanting the mantra “Wahe Guru, Wahe Guru, Wahe Guru, Wahe Jio” (pronounced “wah-hey guh-roo, wah-hey guh-roo, wah-hey guh-roo, wah-hey jee-oh”). Our translation of this mantra is: “As in amazement, here and now, all darkness is transformed to illuminating light in my soul.” Practice doing this chant with the following visualization:
- On the syllable of “wah,” feel the sound vibrating at your navel.
- On the syllable of “hey,” feel the sound vibrating at your heart.
- On the syllables of “gur-roo” and “jee-oh,” feel the sounds vibrating at your lips.
Continue chanting the mantra for up to 11 minutes.
Inhale deeply and hold your breath in. Feel the echo of the sounds still vibrating in your navel, heart, and lips. Suspend your breath for as long as you comfortably can and then exhale very consciously.
Inhale a second time and again suspend your breath. Release the feeling of being trapped by circumstances. Surrender it to the universe. Surrender your pain and feelings of blame. Release your stress and your uncertainty. Give it all to God. Hold the breath for as long as you comfortably can and then exhale, still holding your concentration.
Inhale a third time and give your life to God. Surrender. Whatever God means to you, offer your existence to that. Allow yourself to feel the purification this action creates in your psyche. When you are ready, exhale and sit for a while with the whole experience of this powerful meditation.

Looking for more great reads?

Excerpted from Essential Kundalini Yoga by Karena Virginia & Dharm Khalsa.

Karena Virginia brings 20 years of experience as a certified healer and registered instructor in the kundalini and hatha schools. Before her teaching career, she worked in the entertainment industry as an actress and model. She lives in the New York City area. For more information, visit karenavirginia.com.

Dharm Khalsa is a board member of the Siri Singh Sahib Corporation, the nonprofit overseeing kundalini yoga in the US since founder Yogi Bhajan’s passing. Trained directly by Yogi Bhajan, for whom he was a personal assistant for nearly a decade, Dharm has taught kundalini yoga since 1980. He lives in New Mexico.

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Let the Dark Places Be Teachers

Jacqueline Suskin — December 29, 2020

FIND THE SOURCE

This is a tender exercise, a tracing of pain, the path back to the deepest wound. For myself, a huge hurt that I carry is often the source of great realizations and growth. I’ve worked with many different types of therapy for years to figure out where my pain stems from, and my curiosity has been my greatest guide in this effort. I want to know why I am the way I am, and my trauma informs so much of my mindset. Do you know where your pain comes from? Does it point back to a certain occurrence? Do you have only a vague idea, a slight memory, that seems to be the source? What do you do to familiarize yourself with the hurt you carry?

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There are countless, well-trusted methodologies to help us become acquainted with our pain, and when we dig into this work, the cave of our understanding becomes incredibly deep.

I like to turn my pain into a guide. I follow its directions, meditating on where it all began. It’s at these starting points where I find the most potent feelings. My heartbreak from a failed relationship will often give me a chance to let out my sadness in verse, but not before I try to unpack the whole story. Only when I attempt to understand the many aspects of this failed relationship can I fully feel it and pay tribute to it. I begin this kind of investigation by rambling in my journal. Then, if I feel inclined, I might pull the heart of my understanding into poetic form. I recently wrote a book of poetry called Help in the Dark Season, which focuses on my childhood trauma, the way it affects my adult relationships, and the modes of healing that have helped me grow. Writing this book was extremely hard, but after I finished, I felt like I’d turned coal into gold. I pulled back the curtain inside myself and let light do its thing. Now I not only get to feel the inner effects of my work but I’m also able to witness the importance of sharing this book with others, the way my words act as a key to unlock their personal process of healing. The result of this revealing has been an honesty and a newness that I couldn’t have reached without the alchemy of writing poetry.

I urge you to do this hard work with your trauma, if you’re able. Give yourself permission to move into the realm of blame. Maybe move beyond it toward forgiveness.

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Our traumas create our fears, and our responses to these fears can be as poetic and beautiful as we make them. Let your pain be a source of inspiration, turn this heavy load into poetry, own it, use it, and take as much from it now as it has taken from you in the past.

Close your eyes and meditate on the hidden ache you carry. I like to start with my childhood because that’s what makes sense for me, but you can start anywhere along your timeline. Do you see any images attached to your discomfort? Can you try and put words to your grief and your loss? Who hurt you? What was their childhood like? Why did they do what they did? Make use of the pain of being alive. See the universality in whatever caused you harm, and focus on the connection to others who have survived similar experiences. When I sit with my wounds, I find my resilience, and that makes me want to linger there, gather up the lessons left in the aftermath, and use them for my own creation. Writing about my pain enables me to claim it as my own, and this ownership is empowering.

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How can you show your reader your personal methods of self-care in a poetic way? Maybe start by writing a list of poems or even song lyrics that have been healing for you in the past. I have poems dog-eared and underlined in every book on my shelf, and I’ll pull them out in a moment of need. They’re my reminders that yes, it is indeed hard to be alive for everyone.

This is an excerpt from Every Day Is A Poem: Find Clarity, Feel Relief, and See Beauty in Every Moment by Jacqueline Suskin.

jacqueline suskin

Jacqueline Suskin has composed over forty thousand poems with her ongoing improvisational writing project, Poem Store. She is the author of six books, including Help in the Dark Season. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Atlantic, and Yes! magazine. She lives in Northern California. For more, see jacquelinesuskin.com.

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Give Yourself Permission to Take Up Space

Mara Glatzel — April 18, 2023

Dearest Friend,

We live in a world full of deadlines. Alarms. Screaming kids. Nagging bosses. More on our to-do lists than we could accomplish in three lifetimes. It’s easy for your needs to get buried underneath the rubble of daily life, and figuring out how to reconnect with your authentic self can feel touch and go… at best.

I wrote Needy: How to Advocate for Your Needs and Claim Your Sovereignty to lovingly provide the space for you to better understand your needs, experiment with new habits that help you meet those needs each day, and build a resilient connection with yourself that you can rely upon for good.

You have needs—your needs matter. And yet, you’ve been taught that pushing your needs to the back burner is the only way to get things done, that your needs are an overwhelming burden, or that self-care is a luxury you can’t afford. But the presence of your needs is a fact and not a flaw. You can reclaim your energy and give yourself permission to take up space in the center of your own life.

In Needy, I share my unique approach to identifying, honoring, and advocating for the most tender and true parts of yourself that yearn to be acknowledged. It is an invitation to embody self-acceptance, which leads to meaningful growth in self-responsibility, self-care, self-trust, and self-love.

This book will be a delicious companion for your journey, but you actually can begin caring for yourself with greater tenderness and open communication right now.

I invite you to take the next three minutes to check in with yourself.

Put down your phone, close your computer, and put your hand on your heart.

Breath deeply into your belly and ask yourself:

How do I feel?

What do I need?

What does my body need from me?

What is ONE, doable need that I am ready, able, and willing to meet?

Real self-care is responsive, not prescriptive. The care you are aching for right now will be found in asking yourself those four questions. Give yourself permission to start with one, tangible action.

And repeat as necessary.

Need more? I will see you between the pages of Needy. I am so grateful to be able to share this book with you, and I hope you will share it with the humans in your life who struggle to take up space in this way.

xx Mara

Mara Glatzel, MSW, (she/her) is an intuitive coach, writer, and podcast host. She is a needy human who helps other needy humans stop abandoning themselves and start reclaiming their humanity through embracing their needs and honoring their natural energy cycles. Her superpower is saying what you need to hear when you need to hear it, and she is here to help you believe in yourself as much as she believes in you. Find out more at maraglatzel.com.

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Ep 5 Bonus: Breathing Through

Joanna & Jess — May 16, 2024

This bonus episode will support you to take the main insights from Episode 4: There is No Future if We Go Numb and Episode 5: This Pain Is Not for Nothing, deeper into your life.

Both of these episodes are about the second phase in the Spiral of the Work That Reconnects, Honoring Our Pain for the World. This bonus is a recording of Joanna leading a meditation called Breathing Through, recorded at a retreat in 2006. In it, she’ll guide you to create space to acknowledge and honor the pain for the world that you carry without numbing or getting overwhelmed. All you’ll need for this bonus exercise is a place where you can close your eyes and relax.

We recommend starting a podcast club with friends or family to do these practices together. Links and assets to help prompt reflection and build community can be found with every episode on WeAreTheGreatTurning.com.

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Megan Sherer: Being Single: An Intentional Experiment

Megan Sherer — May 6, 2025

Have you ever found yourself in an intimate relationship that seemed great at first but quickly devolved into something extremely dissatisfying? Maybe you ignored the red flags you saw on that first date or told yourself it’s still better than being alone. Why do we do this to ourselves? How can we break the pattern? In this episode of Insights at the Edge, join Tami Simon in conversation with coach and somatic therapist Megan Sherer, sharing empowering teachings and approaches contained in the new book Choose Your Self: How to Embrace Being Single, Heal Core Wounds, and Build a Life You Love.

Give a listen as Tami and Megan discuss: becoming one’s own closest friend; working with shame; overcoming our fear of loneliness; feeling your feelings (instead of intellectualizing); the inherent difficulty of the path of healing and growth; when self-love is really hard; emotional availability; separating your self-worth from your relationship status; trust in life; aligning your values and your choices; the difference between a body and a soul; creativity and purpose; somatic therapy, trauma work, and the human nervous system; the concept of “situationships”; grace in times of transition; establishing healthy boundaries; 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.

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Lodro Rinzler: Basic Goodness in a World on Fire

Lodro Rinzler — June 16, 2026

How do you hold true to your convictions to be good in a world that’s on fire?

This week, Tami Simon speaks with Lodro Rinzler—Buddhist meditation teacher, founder of the Basic Goodness Collective, and author of seven books including the international bestseller The Buddha Walks into a Bar—about his new book, You Are Good. You Are Enough: Free Yourself from the Trap of Doubt and Return to Basic Goodness. Together, they move through the book’s three arcs: seeing the goodness in ourselves, in others, and in society itself.

Join Tami and Lodro to explore:

The concept of basic goodness—what it actually means, where it comes from in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and why you don’t have to be a Buddhist to recognize it in yourself
How capitalism profits from the lie of not-enoughness—and what it would mean to collectively stop believing it
The “trap of doubt”: that insidious inner voice that keeps us striving, comparing, and withholding self-acceptance
How to extend compassion toward people who drive us crazy—including world-threatening politicians—without excusing harm or collapsing into Pollyanna thinking
The parrot and the forest fire: a jataka tale about what it means to name what’s broken and show up anyway
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s teaching that seeing the phenomenal world as sacred is “the first and last practice of all”
A closing guided meditation to help listeners touch basic goodness in their own direct experience

Whether you’ve been carrying shame for decades or are simply exhausted by a world that feels on fire, Lodro offers something rare: not a pep talk, but a genuine shift in view.

Listen now and find your way back to what was always there. →

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.

Embrace the Hustle & Bustle with this “Shake it...

Let the Dark Places Be Teachers

Give Yourself Permission to Take Up Space

Ep 5 Bonus: Breathing Through

Megan Sherer: Being Single: An Intentional Experiment

Lodro Rinzler: Basic Goodness in a World on Fire

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