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Getting Started: Finding Your Full Truth and Inner Fre...

Zainab Salbi — October 11, 2018

Getting Started: Finding Your Full Truth and Inner Freedom - Zainab Salbi

Truth has a fullness to it. If we want to hold it in its essence and in its entirety, we need to acknowledge all aspects of it, even the ones we do not like. This is no easy task, but if our intention is to truly sit on the throne of our lives, then facing ourselves is essential.

When we acknowledge our shadows, we will face all the feelings that we’ve locked up inside: all the embarrassment, desire, instability, anger, or whatever has been hidden for so long. As uncomfortable as it is for a time, we also free ourselves—because then we really own ourselves. We grow in the process, becoming an example of what is possible when we take ownership of ourselves and our lives.

To get you started on your journey to your full truth and inner freedom, consider these questions for reflection taken from my new book, Freedom Is an Inside Job. I also offer you a short video on befriending your darkness.

How have you hurt people in your life? What part of your personality inflicts this hurt? Can you look at this part of yourself directly, without giving excuses or justifications for what you do?
What do you dislike the most in people’s characters? What does such dislike trigger in you?
What if instead of pointing the finger at what you don’t like in others, you pointed the finger at yourself? What might you see if you did that?
What would it take to transform your own shadow? Not destroy it, but transform it. What are the incentives to change?
Can you show compassion to your own shadow? Can you use it to ignite certain positive actions and not get stuck or entrenched in it?

Zainab Salbi - Sounds True Zainab Salbi is a humanitarian, author, and media personality. She’s been featured by CNN, MSNBC, Oprah, People, The Guardian, HuffPost, and more. Salbi resides in New York City. For more, visit zainabsalbi.com.

Buy your copy of Freedom Is an Inside Job at your favorite bookseller!

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Getting Grief Right

Sounds True — September 22, 2017

Dear friends,

Only a few months ago, I received word that a dear friend’s child had been tragically killed in a car accident. Although I have worked with hundreds of bereaved people in my 38 years as a grief counselor, I felt worried as I went to be with my friend. “What will I say to this dear man about his loss?”

Then I remembered: “I don’t need to be anxious about the right thing to say. My purpose as his friend is to be present for whatever he might need.”

Supporting someone in their grief is a tall order if ever there was one. How, exactly, do you show true compassion for a grieving person? Here are a few ideas I mention in my new book, Getting Grief Right:

Simply and sincerely say: “I’m very sorry.”
- No more words are necessary. Really.
Show up at the house, visitation, or funeral; express simple words of sorrow; and then let the mourning person dictate what happens next.
- She may open her arms for a hug, or she may clearly want to keep people at a distance. He may want to talk about his loss or about baseball. Be with them wherever they are.
Just simply be with that person and be compassionate.
- Being with a person in grief is a unique, one-way intimacy. Don’t try to fix it or make him or her feel better.
Listen with your eyes and respond with nods that convey, “I get it.”
Laugh with them when it’s time to laugh. Cry if tears come.

And remember, even after the last casserole dish is picked up, many who mourn feel forgotten.

Bring a meal on the two-month anniversary of the death.
Take your friend to coffee six months after the death and listen carefully to what they share about their story of loss.
Speak the name often of the one who died.
Donate to a relevant memorial at the year anniversary of the death or on the birthday of the one who died.

I hope these ideas will help you to create a compassionate community for those who you know are grieving.

Most Sincerely,

Patrick O’Malley

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Empathy, resonance, and the mysterious dance of lover ...

Sounds True — March 16, 2015

On my flight from Denver to Oahu yesterday, I sat next to a lovely couple who must have been in their early to mid 70s. I was struck by how attuned they were to one another – the slightest cue from one was met by the other and responded to. I could literally feel in my body that they each felt fully contacted by the other, while from time to time they would go silent, return to their own individual activities, infusing the environment between them with a warm, tender space. They remained connected, but separate simultaneously – and would meet each other’s glance from time to time as if to assure the other that all was well in the world. No words needed. It was as if I could feel their mirror neurons coming online together, empathically in resonance with one another, tuned into just what was needed in a given moment.

For some reason their dance, their play, their love… it really touched me, so much so that I actually found myself crying. I didn’t want to make a scene or make them uncomfortable so kept to myself as much as I could (I know, those that know me, it’s not like me to ‘not make a scene’ or refrain from ‘making others uncomfortable,’ especially when it comes to tears, love, vulnerability, and falling apart. I really was trying to behave; it was only 45 minutes into a long flight after all).

It was then that they pulled out their video player and were going to watch a movie together. I was curious how they would be able to remain connected and do this as there was only one headphone jack on their iPad. Would they alternate? Knowing them (as I had for about 20 minutes now), I was sure one would just sacrifice the sound for the other, and they’d switch periodically. Before I realized exactly what was going on, the gentleman pulled out a Y-shaped thingy which allowed them to both plug their headphones in at once. I lost it. It was so perfect – and so them. Just more attunement and connection, this time taking shape as some weird looking modern electronic device. The tears flowed even more in reveling at their sweet connection.

They finally glanced over at me, my intention to not create a scene lost to the crushing power of love that flows between two people. They both just smiled at me and the man patted me on the shoulder, his eyes near bursting into tears himself. We all just shared a moment together, outside all time and space, with me so grateful that they allowed me into their sacred world for just a moment, and into the mystery of lover and beloved as it unfolds here, into eternity.

Postscript: I just shared this post with them (couldn’t help myself). Now the three of us are just sort of silently weeping together, holding hands… as we descend into Waikiki… three new friends, held by the beloved and her mysterious ways, and the sweetness of a Hawaiian sunset. I feel quite confident I could die now. To know even one sliver of this love… I’ve been given so much more than enough.

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The gift of pure rest

Sounds True — July 30, 2014

Please give yourself the gift of rest from trying so hard to ‘change,’ ‘heal,’ ‘transform,’ and ‘awaken.’ It can be so exhausting to chronically abandon the here and now in the name of great project of the improvement of ‘me.’ Take some time on this new day to set aside the frenetic scramble to be other than what you are.

Love yourself enough to set aside your questions and demand for understanding, even for a moment, and sink into your sacred body and senses, connect with the natural world, and with the aliveness within. Open your heart to the shimmering forms around you, blooming in front of your very own eyes and inviting you into union with natural radiant presence. Dare to consider that nothing is missing and nothing has gone wrong.

Allow today to be a day of solace from the weary journey, from finding ‘answers’ to questions, and from changing yourself from one thing into another. Whatever state of consciousness is arising now is the perfect place to start—to meet yourself, others, and the sacred world as if for the first time. You need not go anywhere else or become anyone else to know this. For love is forming as your body and your senses and your experience right here and right now.

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Going Deep into Silence

Sounds True — May 24, 2014

Over the last three years, I have immersed myself in the teachings of Adyashanti. I recorded and edited his most recent audio program and book, Resurrecting Jesus; I’ve attended several weekend intensives in the Boulder area, and I’ve listened to countless satsang recordings and online broadcasts. But until a few weeks ago, I had never attended a silent retreat—with Adya or any other teacher.

Now, I can be a loud guy—just ask my family. If things around me (or inside me) are noisy, I tend to respond with more noise. Still, on retreat, despite my fears, I found it easy to slip into silence. And the more I let go into the daily pattern of silent sitting—six sitting periods of 30 to 40 minutes each, the first at 7:30 in the morning and the last at 9:30 at night—the more I felt the noise inside me abate.

The retreat was held in North Carolina, and most days the skies were solid gray, with a light rain falling. Though the oaks had not yet unfurled their leaves, the redbud tree in the courtyard of the dining hall was in full bloom, and when the rain abated, its branches hummed with fat, fuzzy bees. At each meal, eating in silence, I positioned myself so I could see that redbud tree through the banks of windows.

I loved the morning dharma talks and evening satsangs, when retreat participants could bring their questions to the microphone and dialogue with Adya. I loved to sit in silence, sensing that vast space inside as it slowly emerged into consciousness. (Of course, it had been there all along, but thoroughly hidden by the noise of activity, both inner and outer.) And I loved that tree.

One evening, answering a question, Adya said, “Allow the world to find itself in you.” For some reason I couldn’t quite pinpoint, these words resonated deeply for me. There were times, rising from meditation and walking into the soft light of afternoon, when it did feel that the trees in bloom and the loamy smell of the earth and even the birdsong all arose and subsided within me—which is to say, within that open, aware spaciousness we share. As the days flowed by and the silence inside grew more accessible, I noticed something. From that silence, words began to emerge, images rise slowly to the surface. The world found itself in me, and I found this poem.

The Redbud Tree

The fat bees browse
the spindled branches of the redbud tree,
their humming heavy as fruit.
They dwarf the purple blossoms.

Late afternoon, and when
the clouds part, the light
pours thick as honey over the blossoms,
the bees, the mossy branches.

Everything is heavy
and everything barely here.

Long before my birth, bees swarmed
the flowered tree,
bees already ancient
and born again each spring,
rising among the blooms.

And someone—dust now—stood
where I stand, and stared
at their slow dance
among the delicate
petals the wind scatters.

mitchellblogphotomay

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Wake Up Festival 2014!

Sounds True — February 8, 2014

Friends we are so happy to announce and invite you to the 2014 Wake Up Festival!

The Wake Up Festival is a five-day immersion experience in personal and collective transformation. It’s the largest and only festival of its kind, uniting renowned spiritual teachers, bestselling authors, healers, scientists, poets, yogis, and lovers of life within the context of an open-hearted, uplifting community.

The Wake Up Festival is not your usual “festival.” It’s not about outer activities; it’s about inner exploration and discovery. We think of it as a feast of life-changing insights with just the right amount of practice to enable us to truly embody what we learn. You’ll be invited to approach awakening through meditation, personal writing, qigong, yoga, dance, shadow work, and more. And we will do it as individuals each supported by our Wake Up community.

We hope to see you all in August!

Getting Started: Finding Your Full Truth and Inner Fre...

Getting Grief Right

Empathy, resonance, and the mysterious dance of lover ...

The gift of pure rest

Going Deep into Silence

Wake Up Festival 2014!

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