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Preparing you for what is next

Look close and see what it is that you do not want to feel, that you will do anything to avoid, that no matter what you… will… not… go… there. Your dependency. Your aloneness. Your hatred. Your utter despair. Your conviction that you are not actually lovable as you are.

Take pause. Things are not what they seem. For love is alive, and is all. Touch the earth. Look up into the sky. Call out for help. Crumble to the ground. Fall apart and give up the fantasy that you will ever, ever, ever be put back together again. Breathe this abandoned feeling into your heart. Hold it. Touch it. Let it unravel its secrets. Let it dance within you. Let it unlock each and every strategy, defense, and piece of armor protecting you. It will not destroy you. It has come as fierce grace to reveal how infinite you really are.

What you are is pristine, luminous consciousness itself. Even the greatest despair, the most terrifying fear, the most profound grief – these rise and fall in you, liberating in your awareness, in your care, and in your kindness. Your body and your heart are a sanctuary for love’s movement. Your body is a factory of grace.

See that there is nothing here working against you. Everything in this world is comprised of the same particles of love, which take shape as the galaxies, the oceans, and as the cells of your heart. They illuminate the strands of your DNA and the synapses in your brain. Love is everywhere.

Watch carefully how love appears as light and appears as dark, as wisdom and confusion, as joy and as sadness, and as human and divine, come only to prepare you for what is next. And what is next after that.

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Washed out by grace…

We can be so hard on ourselves in so many ways: why did I choose the same kind of partner yet again, why am I not able to find more meaningful work, why am I acting just like my mother/ father, why have I not become awakened yet, why am I not truly loveable by another. Recent research and clinical reports in the fields of attachment and interpersonal neurobiology have shown us that the way we’ve come to see ourselves, others, and relationships was formed in the extended nervous system prior to the acquisition of language. As little ones, we lived in a non-verbal world, shaping our models of self and other according to our deeply wired need to survive, to receive love, and to be mirrored empathically.

Fortunately, the realities of neuroplasticity have shown that it is possible to reorganize the way we see ourselves, conceive of this sacred reality, and interact in close relationships. By some unknown grace, it seems that we are wired for love; somehow we are supported by the unseen world to allow love to restructure our lives. While this journey is simple, we know it is not easy. We sense that it demands everything – and this can be scary. But through compassionate self-inquiry, authentic contemplative practice, somatically-alive psychotherapy, and especially through that ever-fiery crucible that is attuned, intimate relationship, the opportunity is there to give ourselves fully to this life and to receive the fruits of a wide open heart, a body and senses that are an offering of love, and an the clear wisdom of an intuitively-guided mind.

It does seem that one thing is required though, and that is tremendous kindness to ourselves – an unconditional friendliness to who and what we are, and a deep respect for the journey from fear to love, for it requires everything we have – and more. Let us nurture and hold ourselves in kindness today, and to appreciate the difficulties and challenges in living a life beyond belief. Let us set aside the spiritual superego, our desperate need to be something other than what we are, and to allow the grace that is always and already here to wash down throughout this sacred body, pouring through these precious senses. And let us behold the miracle of this life as it is, seeing how lucky most of us truly are, and how we could only ever be in the exact right place, to take the perfectly-designed next step into love.

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Mark Thornton: Meditation at Work

Tami Simon speaks to Mark Thornton. Mark has over 20 years of experience in meditation, and has become one of the world’s leading executive meditation coaches, specializing in finding the best techniques for busy people. He’s the author of the Sounds True audio learning program and the book Meditation in a New York Minute. Mark discusses his personal journey from being an investment banker to being a meditation coach, and the ways that he helps his clients find both a sense of purpose and a sense of meaningful connection with the people that matter most to them. Mark also offers several practices to create calm even in the midst of the chaos of our busy lives. (54 minutes)

The Wake Up badger

Not long ago I engaged in a shamanic journey with the intention of meeting my power animal. I was and still consider myself completely new to the practice of journeying. Although I may have a theoretical understanding through my exposure to the teachings of many Sounds True authors, my direct experience in this area is pretty limited. Since direct experience is what it’s purportedly all about in shamanic journeying, I decided to see for myself what it was like.

I was not disappointed. In the journey I voyaged back in time to a tree house my childhood friends and I had built—an impressive if not altogether hazardous tri-level construction of scrap plywood, crates, and anything we could find to nail together. I traveled to a tunnel beneath the tree house and met a squirrel, who beckoned me to follow him down a long path. At the end of the path a large badger awaited me, nodded, and then I simply followed the squirrel back above ground. End of journey.

Fast forward to Sounds True’s first Wake Up Festival, where I took great advantage of the challenging yet beautiful 18-hole disc golf course. During one round, a particularly good drive fell near a dark hole in the middle of the fairway. As we approached to take the next shot, what should block our way but a large and agitated badger—the first I’d seen in the wild despite years of camping throughout the country. The badger was not going to let us retrieve my disc, which sat just six feet away from it (and only 25 feet from the basket—it was a birdie opportunity!). After some coaxing, the badger finally returned to its lair, allowing us to finish play.

I didn’t see the Wake Up Badger as I called him during later frolf rounds throughout the Festival, but I think someone’s trying to tell me something…

Badger

 

Cooking as meditation… with Dr. Andrew Weil

In many contemplative traditions, it is said that we can practice meditation during the most ordinary activities, such as taking a walk, washing the dishes, or even in the midst of a busy day of emails. Here, our friend and Sounds True author Dr. Andrew Weil shows how the simple art of cooking – when engaged in a present, mindful, and open way – can offer a gateway into the experience of meditation.

We’d love to hear from you on how cooking and other so-called “ordinary” activities offer you a portal into deeper love, awakening, and aliveness in the present moment.

 

Write. Reflect. Dream: Recommended Reads

Content to Soothe the Soul of Your Inner Writer

 

Practice You by Elena Brower

From yoga luminary and artist Elena Brower, Practice You, is a sacred text of your own design.

Practice You is a map to your highest self; a field guide of your own creation. The pages of this Journal are full of potent prompts and inviting spaces, awaiting your contemplation and discoveries.

Within these pages you will find a series of Explorations, one for each of nine aspects of being.  Each exploration offers instructions and inquiries to help you design new attitudes, fresh perspectives, and stay on track with your intentions.

 

 

 

Writing as a Path to Awakening: A Year to Becoming an Excellent Writer & Living an Awakened Life by Albert Flynn DeSilver

Stories, dynamic meditations, and innovative writing exercises to spark creativity and spiritual awakening.

The best writers say their work comes from a source beyond the thinking mind. But how do we access that source? “We must first look inside ourselves and be willing to touch that raw emotional core at the heart of a deeper creativity,” Writes Albert Flynn DeSilver. In Writing as a Path to Awakening, this renowned poet, writer, and teacher shows you how to use meditation to cultivate true depth in your writing—so your words reveal layers of profound emotional insight and revelation that inspire and move your readers.

 

 

 

 

The Desire Map by Danielle LaPorte

Your bucket list. Quarterly objectives. Strategic plans. Big dreams. Goals. Lots of goals and plans to achieve those goals—no matter what. Except …

You’re not chasing the goal itself, you’re actually chasing the feeling that you hope achieving that goal will give you.

Which means we have the procedures of achievement upside down. We go after the stuff we want to have, get, or accomplish, and we hope that we’ll be fulfilled when we get there. It’s backwards. And it’s burning us out.

With The Desire Map, Danielle LaPorte brings you a holistic life-planning tool that will revolutionize the way you go after what you want in life. Unapologetically passionate and with plenty of warm wit, LaPorte turns the concept of ambition inside out and offers an inspired, refreshingly practical workbook for using the Desire Map process:

 

Art of Attention by Elena Brower and Erica Jago

Yoga begins with physical well-being. But it can also transport us—through meditation, self-awareness, and movement—into a lifelong exploration of presence, elegance, and deeper life purpose. With Art of Attention, Elena Brower and Erica Jago show us the way. Distilled from their acclaimed workshops and training programs, this multifaceted book can be used as:

• A step-by-step workshop for merging movement-based mindfulness with traditional yoga

• A “tool kit” of asanas, meditations, self-inquiry questions, and healing practices for creating your own daily spiritual practice

• An uplifting source of visual beauty and wisdom teachings for inner reflection and elevation

 

 

 

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

Experience a modern classic on writing as you’ve never heard it before. With nearly one million copies of Writing Down the Bones in print, Natalie Goldberg has helped change the way writing is practiced in homes, schools, and workshops across America. Through her heartfelt personal reflections and her ingenious Zen-based exercises, Goldberg makes writing available to you as a tool for personal expression, self-exploration, and healing.

Goldberg offers new commentary about the creative, spiritual, and practical dimensions of writing. Join her as she looks back on her life, sharing the story of how her meditation studies with Zen master Katagiri Roshi inspired her to develop practices for “writing down the bones”: the essential, awakened speech of the mind. Here is a treasury of tested ideas, suggestions, and exercises that help new writers get started, and seasoned writers keep going.

 

The Writing Life by Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg

In The Writing Life, Cameron and Goldberg join forces for the first time in this revealing dialogue that speaks to our common search for an everyday spirituality.

Join these two creative giants as they explode cherished misconceptions about who should write, and why they should do it, opening the door to the writer’s world for everybody, not just a chosen few. Goldberg and Cameron take us inside their personal lives as committed writers and spiritual seekers, and explore the following questions: How can writing best be practiced? What is the difference between therapeutic writing and writing for publication? How do we conquer the twin dragons of mood and time? Is it dangerous or inspirational to dabble in different arts such as music, painting, and writing? How is addiction related to the writer’s life?

Edgy, surprising, and useful for its hard-won advice, The Writing Life is an invitation to a life-transforming act that requires no more than a pen, some paper, and the will to get started.

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