Cody Cook-Parrott: Attention is a Creative Act

What are you paying attention to—and is it the life you actually want to be living?

This week, Tami Simon speaks with Cody Cook-Parrott—writer, artist, movement practitioner, and author of the new Sounds True book The Practice of Attention: Cultivating Presence in a Distracted World—about what it takes to reclaim focus in an age engineered to steal it.

Cody’s path to this book wasn’t theoretical. It began with their own Instagram addiction, a recovery from alcohol, and the growing realization that fractured attention isn’t just an inconvenience—it’s a creative crisis. What emerged is a deeply personal and practical guide to getting back to yourself.

Join Tami and Cody to explore:

The attention audit: a simple, powerful practice for noticing where your time and energy actually go
Why social media addiction and alcohol addiction can mirror each other—and what “zero” looks like as a choice
Structure with softness: building devotional creative habits that flex without breaking
Agency over urgency—and why that principle is especially vital for neurodivergent and queer creators
The emotional car: how to bring difficult inner parts along for the ride without letting them take the wheel
Consistency over intensity: why a 25-minute Pomodoro session beats an eight-hour grind
What’s really driving the urge to distract—and how asking “what am I avoiding?” changes everything
Why attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer

Whether you’re a creative trying to protect your focus or someone who’s quietly wondered what you’d make if you could actually sit with yourself, Cody offers both the tools and the permission to begin.

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.

Just One Question | Connie Zweig: What Does It Mean to...

You know the object of your addiction is bad for you. So why can’t you stop? Dr. Connie Zweig has spent decades working with people who feel stuck in exactly that gap between knowing and changing.

Zweig is a retired Jungian therapist and the author of the newly republished Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow — the books that helped launch the shadow-work movement, and the reason a new generation is now discovering it on TikTok.

In this clip, she walks Tami through her method step by step, using the story of a client who couldn’t stop eating ice cream every night while waiting for an unavailable boyfriend to call. Awareness alone, Zweig explains, is never enough. You have to name the shadow character, trace it back to where it was first modeled, and uncover the valid need hiding underneath it.

What you’ll take away from this clip:

Why awareness of a compulsive pattern rarely changes it on its own
How to identify a “shadow character” through its recurring thoughts, feelings, and body sensations
Why every addictive or compulsive behavior is protecting a valid, hidden need
Zweig’s own story of discovering her “judge” shadow character — inherited from her father

This clip is taken from the full Insights at the Edge conversation with Connie Zweig: “Meeting One of the World’s Leading Experts on the Shadow.”

This episode is sponsored by Omega Institute, a global gathering hub for lifelong learning and spiritual exploration. Omega offers weekend workshops, special events, rest and rejuvenation retreats, professional training, online learning, and more. Discover what calls to you at eomega.org/true.

Caroline Myss: Breaking Through Fear—Welcome to Spir...

Why does the world feel so unstable right now—and why does the fear so many of us are feeling seem to have no clear target?

In this special episode, Tami Simon shares an excerpt from medical intuitive and New York Times bestselling author Caroline Myss’s opening presentation for Spiritual Home Base, the new online community where Caroline serves as spiritual director. In her session, “Breaking Through Fear,” Caroline offers a wide-lens view of this moment in human evolution—and closes with a live Q&A drawn directly from program participants.

Join Caroline to explore:

Why humanity appears to be moving through a collective “download” in consciousness—and why so much of today’s fear doesn’t seem to have a clear target
The real difference between what causes us pain and what causes us to suffer or break down
How our relationship to time, technology, and attention is reshaping our sense of personal power
Why an old, punishing image of God is giving way to a more expansive understanding rooted in love, light, and law
A practical teaching on staying “impersonal” with fear and old stories—without becoming uncaring
Live questions from program participants on grief, loneliness, faith, and staying spiritually grounded amid world events

Whether you’re feeling the weight of the world or searching for steadier ground, this excerpt offers both a map for making sense of the moment and practical tools for meeting it with more trust and less fear.

Learn more and join at myss.com/spiritual-homebase.

Listen now, and step into Spiritual Home Base. →

Just One Question | Craig Foster: Why am I Afraid of N...

We’ve all felt it: the excitement of heading out into nature, followed almost immediately by “wow, that’s a lot of bugs” energy. Turns out, that’s not just you being an urban dweller — it’s a genuine evolutionary paradox, and this week’s guest has spent his whole career living inside it.

Craig Foster is the filmmaker and naturalist behind My Octopus Teacher, and in this episode he tackles a question Tami poses about her own experience: why can she melt into a deep, connected feeling about nature from the safety of meditation, but feel completely terrified and separate the moment she’s actually standing in a wilderness with wolves, cougars, or sharks nearby?

Craig’s answer reframes the whole thing. He explains that we’re each carrying millions of years of “wild” memory, hardwired into who we are, while our conscious, modern selves have only had a few generations to adjust to industrial life. The fix isn’t a heroic leap into the deep wild — it’s small, steady reconnection.

A few takeaways from Craig’s answer:

We’re designed for wildness — our discomfort with it is a mismatch, not a flaw
Reconnection starts small: get to know the trees, insects, and animals right around your house
Comfort with the wild builds faster than you’d expect — sometimes in a matter of months
Even one backyard animal can teach you something profound about yourself and the natural world

If this got you thinking about your own relationship with the wild, you’ll want to hear the whole conversation — Craig and Tami go even deeper into what it means to live an amphibious life, split between our tame and wild selves.

Taken from the full Insights at the Edge conversation with Craig Foster. Find the complete interview in this feed or at soundstrue.com.