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  • Michael Singer Podcast

    E142: The Illusion of Problems and the Return to the Garden

    Michael Singer — December 29, 2025

    Problems occur when consciousness becomes identified with external objects and forgets its own nature as pure, eternal witnessing presence. Ego emerges when we build a...

  • Insights At The Edge

    Tami Simon’s in-depth audio podcast interviews with leading spiritual teachers and luminaries. Listen in as they explore their latest challenges and breakthroughs - the leading edge of their work.

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  • The Michael Singer Podcast

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Meet Your Host: Tami Simon

Founded Sounds True in 1985 as a multimedia publishing house with a mission to disseminate spiritual wisdom. She hosts a popular weekly podcast called Insights at the Edge, where she has interviewed many of today's leading teachers. Tami lives with her wife, Julie M. Kramer, and their two spoodles, Rasberry and Bula, in Boulder, Colorado.

Photo © Jason Elias

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Health & Healing Personal Growth Spirituality

Frank Ostaseki: “I’m Allergic to the Notion of a G...

— December 23, 2025

What truly matters when we face the end of life? After decades of sitting at the bedside of hundreds of dying people, Frank Ostaseski has distilled the deepest human concerns into two essential questions: Am I loved? Have I loved well?

This week on Insights at the Edge, Tami welcomes Frank Ostaseski—co-founder of America’s first Buddhist hospice, the Zen Hospice Project, founder of the Metta Institute, and author of The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully. Frank brings extraordinary wisdom from his pioneering work in compassionate end-of-life care, along with profound personal insights from his own encounters with heart surgery, strokes, and the transformative vulnerability of being “on the other side of the sheets.”

Join Tami and Frank to explore:

  • The two essential questions that arise when facing death—and what they reveal about living fully now
  • Why emotional flexibility is the true condition for healing and transformation
  • How to meet our own fear and pain without abandoning ourselves or others
  • The practice of “allowing” as a path to both wisdom and compassion
  • What happens in the dying process: surrender, reconstitution, and coming home
  • Why Frank is allergic to the notion of a “good death”
  • The indestructible love that emerges when we keep our hearts open through pain
  • How to practice dying by paying attention to everyday endings

This conversation is for anyone grappling with loss, change, or the fundamental questions of existence—offering not prescriptive answers, but the profound medicine of honest presence and the recognition that our vulnerability itself is one of our most beautiful human qualities.

For more with Frank Ostaseski:

Year to Live Course (Spirit Rock Meditation Center)

Spirit of Service (Upaya Zen Center)

Awareness in Action: The Role of Love (Upaya Zen Center, Frank Ostaseski & Sharon Salzberg)

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.

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Personal Growth Spirituality

A.H. Almaas and Henry Shukman: “The Many Faces of Aw...

A.H. Almaas
Henry Shukman — December 16, 2025

What if awakening isn’t a single destination but an endless unfolding of reality’s many faces? This week on Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon facilitates a groundbreaking conversation between two of the most profound spiritual teachers of our time: A.H. Almaas (Hameed Ali), founder of the Diamond Approach, and Zen teacher Henry Shukman.

In this rare dialogue, these teachers—meeting for the first time—explore how different wisdom traditions point to distinct dimensions of awakened experience. Rather than claiming all paths lead to the same mountaintop, they celebrate the unique territory each tradition reveals: from the “blazing forth” of creative emptiness to experiences where consciousness itself dissolves, from the recognition that each point contains the entire universe to the discovery that everything is made of love.

Join Tami, Hameed, and Henry to discover:

  • Why awakening is an endless process rather than a final arrival
  • The profound difference between thinking and heart-knowing
  • How to navigate the fear that arises at the threshold of ego dissolution 
  • The role of trust, compassion, and basic trust in profound transformation 
  • What happens when individual consciousness completely ceases 
  • Why nothingness and being are inseparable faces of reality 
  • How grief and catastrophic loss can become doorways to awakening 
  • The Zen teaching of uni-locality—experiencing that one point is everything 
  • Why love may be the most fundamental nature of reality itself

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. 

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Post Views: 3,339
Personal Growth

Andrea Owen: “Embodying Big Prize Energy”

Andrea Owen — December 9, 2025

What does it take to truly bet on yourself—to trust your own resilience, wisdom, and worthiness even when life falls apart?

Tami Simon speaks with Andrea Owen, a global keynote speaker, professional certified life coach, and author whose books have sold more than 300,000 copies, including the popular How to Stop Feeling Like Sh*t. Andrea’s new audio immersion workshop with Sounds True—Live Like You Give a Damn: 25 Bold Moves to Get Honest, Face the Hard Stuff, and Show Up for Yourself—offers fierce compassion and practical wisdom for anyone ready to stop abandoning themselves and start living with authenticity and confidence.

In this conversation, Tami and Andrea explore:

  • What roller derby taught Andrea about falling down and getting back up—and why you have to actually take action to build confidence • The concept of “big prize energy” and what it means to turn up the volume on your authentic self • How to recognize patterns of self-abandonment and reclaim your inner authority • Why action creates confidence, not the other way around—and what it means to “rush the net” • Learning to trust your body’s wisdom and your own resilience, especially during heartbreak • The importance of parenting yourself and accepting that life will hand you “sh*t sandwiches” • How detachment in relationships differs from disconnection, and why it’s essential for wholeness

Andrea brings refreshing honesty, humor, and decades of coaching experience to questions about confidence, relationships, and personal transformation. If you’re ready to stop waiting for permission and start trusting yourself, this conversation offers both inspiration and practical tools for showing up fully in your own life.

Listen now and discover what becomes possible when you live like you give a damn.

Go deeper with Andrea’s new audio immersion workshop from Sounds True, Live Like You Give a Damn: 25 Bold Moves to Get Honest, Face the Hard Stuff, and Show Up for Yourself. With wisdom, humor, and honesty, Andrea offers stories, concrete steps and practical exercises to remind you that it’s every person’s birthright to live a fulfilling life. Learn more at https://www.soundstrue.com/products/live-like-you-give-a-damn

Note: This interview 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 https://www.join.soundstrue.com

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Spirituality

Caroline Myss: The Power of Holy Language

Caroline Myss — December 15, 2020

Caroline Myss is a five-time New York Times bestselling author and a leading voice in the field of human consciousness, spirituality, mysticism, energy medicine, and the science of medical intuition. A long-time friend of Tami and Sounds True, Caroline has created more than 20 audio learning programs with us. Her latest audio program is called The Power of Holy Language to Change Your Life, which is the topic of this episode of Insights at the Edge. Tami and Caroline talk about how our souls will literally starve without holy language, and how it can both transform us and our understanding of our experiences. They also discuss how prayer, outside of any religious institutions, is the ultimate form of holy language. Finally, Tami and Caroline explore how we can open ourselves to the field of light and grace that is all around us and within us at all times.

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Post Views: 23,341
Relationships Spirituality

Matthieu Ricard: Finding Inner Freedom

Matthieu Ricard — December 8, 2020

Matthieu Ricard is a French author, photographer, translator, and Buddhist monk. With Sounds True, he has joined with coauthors Christophe André, a well-known French psychiatrist, and Swiss philosopher Alexandre Jollien to create two books: In Search of Wisdom: A Monk, a Philosopher, and a Psychiatrist on What Matters Most and, most recently, Freedom for All of Us: A Monk, a Philosopher, and a Psychiatrist on Finding Inner Peace. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Matthieu about the path to inner freedom. They discuss the obstacles we encounter on the path, such as addiction or confusing our willpower with true freedom. Matthieu also explores what supports inner freedom, the nature of optimism, and the training we must go through. Finally, they move into the “harvest” that comes from cultivating deep and lasting inner freedom.

 

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Self-Compassion

Trusting the Gold

Tara Brach — November 30, 2021

Tara Brach has been practicing and teaching meditation since 1975, as well as leading workshops and meditation retreats throughout North America and Europe. She has a PhD in clinical psychology, is the founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington (IMCW), and is the author of Radical Acceptance, True Refuge, Radical Compassion, and most recently, Trusting the Gold. 

In this podcast, Tara Brach speaks with Sounds True founder Tami Simon about rediscovering the inner “gold” of our intrinsic goodness, love, and purity. In addition, they discuss Tara’s teachings on the “trance of unworthiness” and how we can break free from it; recognizing the secret beauty in others and mirroring it back; relaxation for the go-getters; working with difficult emotions; how shame can become a portal to freedom; the RAIN practice for self-compassion; the power of the phrase “this belongs”; the practice of “softening” in response to contractions of fear or anger; and seeing the sacredness in all things.

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Mindfulness Psychology

Lance Allred: The New Alpha Male

Lance Allred — March 4, 2020

Lance Allred is a former NBA player (who was the first legally deaf player in the league), public speaker, and author. With Sounds True, he has published The New Alpha Male: How to Win the Game When the Rules Are Changing. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Lance about the experiences he had in professional sports that led him to reevaluate what it means to be a man in contemporary society. Lance explains how his upbringing in a rural, polygamous commune informed his original ideas about masculinity, highlighting the subconscious assumptions about money and power that affect American men’s self-worth. Tami and Lance also discuss the roles of emotional vulnerability and surrender in the lives of modern men. Finally, they talk about the principle of perseverance and the increasingly urgent need for all cultures to reexamine their assumptions and core values.(63 minutes)

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Post Views: 8,524
Meditation Spirituality

Micah Mortali: Rewilding

Micah Mortali — December 17, 2019

Micah Mortali is the director of the Kripalu School, a certified yoga teacher, and a longtime wilderness guide. With Sounds True, he has published Rewilding: Meditations, Practices, and Skills for Awakening in Nature. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Micah about humanity’s growing disconnection from the earth and how “rewilding” can help slow that trend. They talk about rewilding both as individuals and as part of whole ecosystems. Micah also shares the story of an intense, revelatory trail encounter with a bear and comments on the “species loneliness” of urban environments. Mulling the sense of grief they have for humankind’s effects on the environment, Tami and Micah consider how modern people can grapple with being in exile from the natural world. Finally, they discuss the barriers many have to reentering nature, as well as ways to initiate your own rewilding experience no matter where you are.(64 minutes)

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Psychology Relationships

Christian Conte: Healing Conflict: Listen, Validate, a...

Christian Conte — November 5, 2019

Christian Conte, PhD, is a mental health specialist and leading authority on anger management. With Sounds True, Christian has published Walking Through Anger: A New Design for Confronting Conflict in an Emotionally Charged World. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon talks with Christian about his Yield Theory of emotional management, focusing on the process of “listen, validate, explore options.” Christian explains the events that led to his interest in anger management, as well as the origins of Yield Theory. He emphasizes the importance of meeting others where they are, giving them the opportunity to drain anger’s charge from their limbic system. Christian and Tami discuss why it’s necessary to cultivate humility and how Yield Theory might be applied to our currently divisive culture. Finally, they speak on “the cartoon world” that angry responses often create, as well as the importance of watching what we add to our minds.(63 minutes)

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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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