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The Forgiveness Challenge – with Rabbi Rami Shap...

Friends, we’re happy to announce a new online program with Rabbi Rami Shapiro, entitled The Forgiveness Challenge: 21 Days of Radical Acceptance. We’re taking registrations now and the course will begin officially on January 29, 2014. Once the course becomes available in January, you will be able to work through it at your own pace. When you register for the the course, you will also receive a free copy of Rabbi Rami’s ebook Forgiveness.

We’ve all been taught that forgiveness is an integral part of our spiritual lives. We understand that forgiveness enables us to let go of pain and anger, heal our relationships, and grow in compassion and humility. But what is forgiveness, really? And why does it often seem difficult, if not impossible, to achieve?

The Forgiveness Challenge offers you a 21-day training program in what Rabbi Rami calls “Self-awakening”—or realizing directly that you are at once both a worldly self and a divine Self that transcends time and space. For the next three weeks, you will experience a variety of contemplative practices and psycho-spiritual exercises that work five core dimensions of being: body, heart, mind, soul, and spirit. Each endeavor is designed “to awaken the narrow to the spacious” and allow the acceptance of the experiences of self in the larger context of Self.

We’re looking forward to seeing you all online in January! Learn more and register here.

forgivenesschallenge

 

November New Releases and Giveaway

NOVEMBER NEW RELEASES

 

 

The Integrity Advantage by Kelly Kosow

Are you ready to open up to new levels of self-trust and self-love, to get where you want to go?

You vowed to speak up at work, and then sat silent in the meeting yet again.

You told yourself “this time the diet is going to stick,” only to watch the scale inching up.

You felt that something just wasn’t right about someone that—until you learned the hard way that your instincts were right.

“Every time you bite your tongue,” teaches Kelley Kosow, “you swallow your integrity.”

Before Kelley Kosow was a renowned life coach and CEO, she constantly second-guessed herself, let her “to-do” lists and others steer her dreams and passions, and played it “small and safe.”

Inspired by the groundbreaking principles of her renowned mentor Debbie Ford, who hand-picked Kelley to be her successor, The Integrity Advantage is Kelley’s step-by-step guide for facing the fear, shame, and false beliefs that cause us to lose our way.

Through life-changing insights, true stories, and proven strategies, this book will show you how to live on your own terms—according to you—from the inside out.

 

Daring to Rest by Karen Brody

As modern women, we’re taught that we can do it all, have it all, and be it all. While this freedom is beautiful, it’s also exhausting. Being a “worn-out woman” is now so common that we think feeling tired all the time is normal. According to Karen Brody, feeling this exhausted is not normal—and it’s holding us back. In Daring to Rest, Brody comes to the rescue with a 40-day program to help you reclaim rest and access your most powerful, authentic self through yoga nidra, a meditative practice that guides you into one of the deepest states of relaxation imaginable.

It’s time to lie down and begin the journey to waking up

 

 

 

 

Breathe and Be by Anna Emilia Laitinen and Kate Coombs

Teaching mindfulness helps kids learn to stay calm, regulate their emotions, and appreciate the world around them. With Breathe and Be, author Kate Coombs and illustrator Anna Emilia Laitinen team up to present a book of poetry and art for young readers to make mindfulness easy, natural, and beautiful. Here is a book sure to delight parents and kids alike, blending lovingly illustrated nature imagery with elegant verse about living with awareness and inner peace.

 

 

 

 

Leopard Warrior by John Lockley

A Teaching Memoir That Crosses the Barriers Between Worlds

A shaman is one who has learned to move between two worlds: our physical reality and the realm of spirits. For John Lockley, shamanic training also meant learning to cross the immense divide of race and culture in South Africa.

As a medic drafted into the South African military in 1990, John Lockley had a powerful dream. “Even though I am a white man of Irish and English descent, I knew in my bones that I had received my calling to become a sangoma, a traditional South African shaman,” John writes. “I felt blessed by the ancient spirit of Africa, and I knew that I had started on a journey filled with magic and danger.” His path took him from the hills of South Korea, where he trained as a student under Zen Master Su Bong, to the rural African landscape of the Eastern Cape and the world of the sangoma mystic healers, where he found his teacher in the medicine woman called MaMngwev

 

 

Things That Join the Sea and the Sky by Mark Nepo

A Reader for Navigating the Depths of Our Lives

The Universe holds us and tosses us about, only to hold us again. With Things That Join the Sea and the Sky, Mark Nepo brings us a compelling treasury of short prose reflections to turn to when struggling to keep our heads above water, and to breathe into all of our sorrows and joys.

Inspired by his own journal writing across 15 years, this book shares with us some of Mark’s most personal work. Many passages arise from accounts of his own life events—moments of “sinking and being lifted”—and the insights they yielded. Through these passages, we’re encouraged to navigate our own currents of sea and sky, and to discover something fundamental yet elusive: How, simply, to be here.

To be enjoyed in many ways—individually, by topic, or as an unfolding sequence—Things That Join the Sea and the Sky presents 145 contemplations gathered into 17 themes, each intended to illuminate specific situations.

 

 

                NOVEMBER GIVEAWAY

 

WIN OUR NEW RELEASE BUNDLE:The Integrity Advantage, Daring to Rest, Breathe and Be, Leopard Warrior, and Things That Join the Sea and the Sky

TO ENTER: Simply reply in the comments with why you’d like to win!

The Power in Writing Your Obituary

 

While many of us spend December celebrating the holidays, this is also the perfect time for reflection—and for death and rebirth. Writing as a path to awakening is an invitation and celebration—it’s your ticket back to your creative brilliance.

 

Life is short. Time is fleeting and invented—it’s only really ever now. Love is showing up fully with presence—open-hearted, raw, and vulnerable to the world; it’s the only thing that matters. And it’s with this that I invite you to write your own obituary.

 

Reflecting on our own mortality is an opportunity to assess what is truly important in our lives. To reflect on our own mortality is to enter into the community of humanity via the ultimate vulnerability around ceasing to exist. When we approach this with an open heart of curiosity, we have a chance at greater compassion, patience, and understanding with the realization that we are all in this together.

 

Every one of us goes through this fact of our temporary nature in physical form; there is no getting out of this world alive. And here we have a choice—we can put off that reality, ignore it, get completely freaked out about it, or we can face that fact with courage and curiosity.

 

It’s so easy to get caught up in the mundane details and challenges of daily life to the extent that we can forget what we are really living for—what our core purpose in this lifetime truly is! The results of such an investigation are a more awakened sense of self, a deepening compassion for yourself and others—not only those intimate in your life—but for humanity as a whole.

 

Begin by writing it as a list or try writing it as a poem. Tune into any fears or resistances that arise. You could try modeling your piece on a traditional obituary you might read in your favorite newspaper or online magazine. Freewrite into these questions and see what arises.

 

  1. How do you want to be remembered?
  2. What are the true highlights of your life?
  3. Who were the people who most inspired or influenced you?
  4. What did you learn being embodied in this life that you want to share with others?
  5. What held the most meaning for you in your days on this earth?

 

Looking for more great reads?

 

Adapted excerpt from Writing As a Path to Awakening by Albert Flynn DeSilver.

A highly regarded and sought-after speaker and workshop leader, Albert Flynn DeSilver has taught and presented with several luminaries, including Elizabeth Gilbert, Cheryl Strayed, Maxine Hong Kingston, Michael McClure, and U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan among many others. In addition, Albert is an internationally published poet, memoirist, and novelist. His writing has appeared in over 100 literary journals worldwide. He has published several books of poetry and the memoir, Beamish Boy. Albert teaches at the Omega Institute, Esalen, Spirit Rock, and writing conferences nationally. He lives in Northern California.

 

This is a new day. A mindful day. Our day.

It’s still dark
when one small bird
fluffs his feathers
And lifts his voice
To sing up the sun.
Snuggled deep in our dreams,
we hear his clear song.
And we open our eyes
To the gift of a new day.
This day.
Our day.

Years ago, we attended a family meditation retreat with the beloved Buddhist teacher Thich
Nhat Hanh. The children loved him. He showed them how to count their breaths from one to
ten. (The best part was finding ten perfect stones to move from one pile to another.) During
walking meditation, he urged them all ahead with a running meditation. Another time, the
children served tea to the adults, moving carefully and slowly, focused intently on the task at
hand.

Today, there is growing recognition that practicing mindfulness has benefits for children
regardless of religious or spiritual background. From preschools to middle schools, educators
are incorporating mindfulness into their learning communities as a way to help young people
cope with emotions and anxieties.

Mindfulness can also start at home. Here in Oregon, the OPEC (Oregon Parenting Education
Collaborative), a public-private parenting education effort, provides evidence-based parent
resources on mindfulness: “The Benefits of Practicing Mindfulness with Children at Home.”

I hope my new picture book, Mindful Day, with gorgeous illustrations by talented California
artist Shirley Ng-Benitez, will also be helpful to families. Rather than a how-to, the story instead
follows a young girl, along with her mom and little brother, as they go about the simple,
ordinary activities of a day: eating breakfast together, getting dressed, brushing teeth, and
going to the market.

 

Shirley’s child-friendly artwork makes the characters come to life and examples of how to
practice mindfulness are integrated into the text. As the young girl pops a raspberry into her
mouth she says, “I chew slowly. It tastes sweet as summer.” She also practices being aware of
her breath. “Together we breathe: in out, soft slow. I look and listen. I play.”

 

 

Mindful Day was inspired by the time I’ve spent with my toddler grandson. I hope readers will embrace Mindful Day and make mindfulness part of their own family life. In this way, we can better treasure each precious moment—and help our children learn to do the same.

 Thank you,
Deborah Hopkinson

 

Deborah Hopkinson has a master’s degree in Asian Studies from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, where she studied the role of women in thirteenth-century Japanese Buddhism. She lived in Honolulu for 20 years and practiced Zen Buddhism with the late Roshi Robert Aitken, founder of the Diamond Sangha and Buddhist Peace Fellowship. She lives near Portland, Oregon. For more, visit deborahhopkinson.com.

 

 

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E73: Chit Shakti: The Unity of Consciousness and Energ...

What we consider the “self” is just a construct of experiences and thoughts we’ve accumulated and identified with, forming the ego or self-concept. True spiritual growth begins by detaching from this mental construct and discovering the witness consciousness within. The great yogis achieved this by going inward, letting go of distractions, and recognizing the source of consciousness itself. They discovered that pure consciousness is actually the same force that creates and sustains the universe, called “Chit Shakti” or conscious energy. By learning to release past mental impressions, one can awaken to their true divine nature, the conscious energy that is the basis of all creation and existence.

For more information, go to michaelsingerpodcast.com.

© Sounds True Inc. Episodes: © 2025 Michael A. Singer. All Rights Reserved.

E86: The Addiction to Self: Breaking Free from the Ego...

Spiritual growth begins not by seeking higher states, but by fully recognizing how we built the ego out of thoughts from our past and are now identified with it. Our resultant preferences and suppressed past experiences make us suffer and constrict our awareness to ourselves. True liberation comes not by spiritualizing the ego, but by relaxing behind it and allowing reality to pass through while remaining centered in our true nature as consciousness.

For more information, go to michaelsingerpodcast.com.

© Sounds True Inc. Episodes: © 2025 Michael A. Singer. All Rights Reserved.