Tami Simon, Founder and Publisher of Sounds True interviews spiritual teachers, visionary writers, and living luminaries about their newest work and current challenges—the growing edge of their inner inquiry and outer contribution to the world.
Why do some of the most hardened people—lifers on death row, people who've killed—turn out to be, underneath it all, remarkably sensitive? Physician and trauma expert Dr. Gabor Maté has spent decades working with addicts and prisoners, and he's found a pattern that upends how we usually think about cruelty and compassion.Dr. Gabor Maté is a physician and bestselling author whose work on trauma and addiction has shaped how millions understand pain, illness, and healing. He's the author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, When the Body Says No, Scattered Minds, and, with his son Daniel, The Myth…
Tami Simon speaks with author, mystic, and racial equity educator Michelle Cassandra Johnson about her new book, You Are Protected. Together they explore malevolent energies, calling on ancestors and archetypes for spiritual support, the practice of spiritual hygiene, and how spells work, sigils, and simple rituals like salt can help us stay grounded, protected, and connected to our own energy amid a turbulent time.This conversation offers genuine transmission, not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual…
Physician Lissa Rankin says trauma doesn't just live in the mind, it can trigger measurable physical disease, from autoimmune conditions to chronic illness that conventional medicine can't explain. But her most provocative claim is the reverse: that healing the nervous system may be the missing piece in reversing illnesses that have resisted every other treatment.Dr. Rankin, a physician and author of Sacred Medicine and the New York Times bestseller Mind Over Medicine, has spent years studying the link between the nervous system and self-healing, including polyvagal theory and the ventral…
Psychologist Laurel Parnell, a pioneer of EMDR and the creator of resource tapping, speaks with Tami Simon about her boldest evolution yet: multidimensional integrative healing. Forged in the wake of profound personal loss, this new approach draws on spirit release work, ancestral healing, and cross-cultural wisdom to ask what happens when trauma therapy meets the mystery of what isn't fully ours to carry.This conversation offers genuine transmission, not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding…
Is a spiritual awakening only real if it completely rearranges your life? That's the question Tami Simon puts to Adyashanti in this episode of Just One Question, and his answer digs into something a lot of seekers wrestle with: the gap between a powerful glimpse of clarity and the ongoing work of actually living from it. Adya also shares his own journey of awakening in a fascinating look at what awakening can look—and feel—like.And there’s so much more. Listen to the entire conversation from this Insights At the Edge episode “Waking Up: What Does It Really Mean?” at…
What if aging isn't the end of your erotic life, but its deepening? Tami Simon speaks with somatic sex educator Kimberly Ann Johnson, author of Erotic Seasons, about erotic sovereignty, why the female body is its own spiritual path, and how the thresholds of menstruation, birth, and menopause carry built-in rites of passage most of us were never taught to honor.Please note: this episode includes candid discussion of sexual abuse and sexual wounding, including Kimberly Ann Johnson's own experience.This conversation offers genuine transmission, not just concepts about awakening, but the…
An archetypal astrologer once named Tami Simon's deepest wound in the first thirty seconds of a live interview. In this month's Point of Insight, Tami traces how that moment—layered onto decades of "drops" from therapy, friendship, and interviews with teachers like Seane Corn and Joanna Macy—revealed a single truth: our karma becomes our dharma, and our medicine lives inside the wound.Find the original Insights at the Edge episode, "Seane Corn: Your Pain Is Your Purpose," here: https://bit.ly/seane-corn See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at…
We are devoted to our phones, but not to much that is real. Tami Simon speaks with yoga nidra teacher Tracee Stanley—author of the new book Living Ritual—about ritual as an antidote to distraction and loneliness, the practice of asking what within us is dying and what is waiting to be born, and how devotion becomes the one thing we can count on.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, and it originally aired on Sounds True One.Get a FREE…
Let’s hop in our time machine and head back to the very first episode of Insights at the Edge, with Tami Simon interviewing Geneen Roth in 2009. Geneen, who’s also been on Insights as recently as this year, was fresh off losing decades of savings in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. Tami asked her how to work with the voice that says “you idiot!” Geneen's answer separates honest grief from self-cruelty, and gives you something to actually do about it. Seventeen years later, it still lands.(86 words)Listen to the full episode, “No Situation is Unworkable” → https://bit.ly/geneen See Privacy…
You've read the books, said the affirmations, made the plan—so why hasn't anything actually changed? Tami Simon speaks with Michelle Masters, a coach's coach and author of Wired for Money, about the survival wiring that locks in before we turn six, the family loyalties we inherit without knowing it, and what money looks like once you strip away everything we've projected onto it.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, and it originally aired…
Journalist Matt Gutman hid his panic attacks for twenty years—until one hit him live on air. Tami asks him which of the psychedelics he tried actually changed things. His answer takes us to a mat in Peru's Sacred Valley, through something like ego death, and into a scream he didn't know he'd been holding. Find the complete interview, "Conquering a Lifetime of Panic Attacks," here: https://bit.ly/matt-gutman See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
What if what ails us isn't a problem to be solved, but a dimension we've forgotten? Tami Simon speaks with Thomas Moore—bestselling author of Care of the Soul and, at 85, still writing—about his new book, The Cure at Walden Pond. Moore makes the case that Thoreau was never really a naturalist, and that what he found at Walden is the cure our culture is starving for.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, and it originally aired on Sounds…
Pānquetzani's ancestors survived colonization. Her response is to make her life an altar to them—slowing down, dancing, feeling pleasure, doing the healing they never got the chance to do. The traditional healer tells Tami what it means to raise children with a freedom her grandparents didn't have, and how a fifteen-year-old's metalwork revealed a family legacy nobody had mentioned. Listen to the full episode, Pānquetzani: "Tune in to the Womb: Thriving Postpartum": https://bit.ly/panquetzani See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at…
At 36, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche walked out of his monastery in the middle of the night with a few thousand rupees and no plan. Weeks later, he was dying of food poisoning on a street in India—and chose not to call for help. In this encore episode, Tami Simon speaks with the beloved Tibetan Buddhist teacher about what he found on the other side of that night.Rinpoche is now partnering with Sounds True on a brand-new course, Wild World, Steady Mind: 21 Days to Embrace Modern Reality with Clarity and Calm, filmed on location at his monastery in Nepal. Visit soundstrue.com to learn more. See…
What if you're only half human? In this Point of Insight, Tami Simon traces a thread from decades of her own practice and the discovery of the central channel to a startling moment mid-interview with Lee Harris—when she suddenly felt wings. A reflection on angelic support, the mystery each of us carries, and what it takes to finally fall back and trust.Find the original Insights at the Edge episodes here:Lee Harris, “Be a Future Human and Find the New”: https://bit.ly/harris-leeRichard Freeman, “Living Yoga”: https://bit.ly/richard-freemanRobert Peng, “The Master Key: Awakening the Four…
Heart attacks spike 20% on Monday mornings. That might just be a business problem, according to Raj Sisodia. Tami Simon speaks with the conscious capitalism pioneer and author of Healing Leaders about why a leader's unhealed trauma becomes everyone's burden, what it takes to run a company on love instead of fear, and why doing your own inner work isn't self-indulgence—it's a sacred obligation.Raj Sisodia is guest faculty for Sounds True's Inner MBA®, a six-month immersion program created in collaboration with the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. Learn more at…
Most of us hear placebo and assume we're being fooled. Tami thought so too. Then Shamini Jain — clinical psychologist, biofield scientist, and author of Healing Ourselves — told her the placebo effect is actually our own healing response at work. You don't have to be tricked to get better.Mallory and Chris have spent the past year and a half working on a podcast about energy healing and Sounds True is offering—right now—an immersion course on energy healing featuring Shamini Jain as well as Robert Peng and Laurie Nealon…so, now felt like the perfect time to bring this conversation back. And…
We usually frame it as risk versus safety. Rob Bell doesn't buy it—in his experience, it's risk both ways. Tami Simon speaks with the New York Times bestselling author, artist, and former pastor about leaving a role that stayed lodged between his ears, the years he spent hiding behind a microphone, and what it costs to keep saying no to the thing pulling at you.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, and originally aired on Sounds True One.…
James Hollis was in the hospital, unsure whether he'd live, and what he felt wasn't despair — it was curiosity. In this episode the Jungian analyst flips the format on us and asks Tami Simon his own question instead: why am I here? His answer takes in Heidegger, the abyss, spinal surgery, and the strange freedom on the far side of certainty about death. Full episode at “Find What You Love and Let It Kill You.” Listen here: https://bit.ly/james-hollis See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
A client arrived with a brain tumor and thirty days to live. Fifteen years later, she's still here. Tami Simon speaks with intuitive energy healer, medium, and educator Laurie Nealon about what actually happens in the room during a healing—the presences she perceives, the blocks she clears, and the "spiritual support group" she says is working alongside every one of us.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, and originally aired on Sounds…
Reverend angel Kyodo williams says that if you go all the way into your suffering, right to the center of it, that's where you'll find your joy. Tami's response: really? What follows is a case for radical dharma, and for why the pain we package away and shelve is the exact thing standing between us and a joy that's already available. Full episode: Reverend angel Kyodo williams: Warrior Spirit. Listen here: https://bit.ly/kyodo-williams See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
How badly do you want to be free? Tami Simon speaks with Reverend Dr. Michelle Wadleigh, minister, retreat facilitator, and author of Dance Like Nobody's Watching, about the uncomfortable precondition for forgiveness: wanting freedom more than you want to be right. A conversation on shadow work, the courage to take up space, and the bold affirmation at the heart of her new book: I demand to be me without excuses.This conversation offers genuine transmission, not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding…
In the first episode of The Point of Insight, a new monthly reflection from Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon shares the transmission she received while preparing to interview ethnobotanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass. Tami explores reciprocity, what it means to truly receive the natural world's generosity, and the deep, natural desire to give back in return. Find the original Insights at the Edge episode, "Robin Wall Kimmerer: What Does the Earth Ask of You Today?" and listen here: https://bit.ly/robin-wall-kimmerer See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and…
A century ago, a Jesuit priest predicted that humanity would evolve into something he called the "ultra-human." Tami Simon speaks with religious studies scholar D.W. Pasulka—author of The Others: UFOs, AI, and the Secret Forces Guiding Human Destiny—about why that prediction looks eerily prescient today, the startling pattern match between angel encounters and UFO reports, and what it means to relate to AI as a tool, not a companion.This conversation offers genuine transmission, not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of…
What is the "energy" in energy healing? Healers channel it. Patients reach for it. Ancient healing traditions built entire systems around it, and modern researchers are working to study it. But what is energy—biologically, physically, measurably…but also spiritually, and how does it move through the body to influence health and healing?In this special feed takeover, we’re bringing you the season finale of Phenomena: The Science and Stories of Energy Healing, in which host Ivy Ross brings together three renowned scientists whose visions, taken together, begin to answer that question:Martin…
Osho Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, Zen priest and author of Opening to Darkness, shares the night she nearly died from anaphylactic shock, and survived not by fighting for the light, but by staying with the dark itself. A powerful reframe on fear, surrender, and what it really means to accept the absence of light.This clip is taken from the full Insights at the Edge conversation with Zenju Earthlyn Manuel: “Open to Darkness.” Listen here: https://bit.ly/earthlyn-manuel See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Few teachers have shaped modern spirituality like Michael A. Singer, author of the beloved classic The Untethered Soul. In this rare, intimate conversation, Tami Simon sits down with Michael to explore his newest book, Wisdom Untethered: The Time for Questions, and the teaching he says explains it all: "It's the pain that ends all pain." A must-listen conversation with a true elder of the field.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, and…
You know that the object of your addiction is bad for you, but how do you stop? According to Dr. Connie Zweig, retired Jungian therapist and author of Romancing the Shadow, you do just that—you romance your shadow, which is a method for turning compulsive behavior into self-knowledge. So this week’s question from Tami is what does that actually look like? From the full episode: "Meeting One of the World's Leading Experts on the Shadow." Listen here: https://bit.ly/connie-zweig See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at…
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. Caroline explores why fear feels so pervasive right now, how our understanding of God and personal power is shifting, and closes with a live Q&A on grief, faith, and staying spiritually grounded amid rapid change. Learn more and join at myss.com/spiritual-homebase. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at…
Ever feel like you're built for the wild, but terrified the moment you actually step into it? Filmmaker and My Octopus Teacher naturalist Craig Foster joins Tami Simon to unpack that strange paradox: why our bodies crave wildness even as we recoil from it. His answer might be the gentlest permission slip you'll get to start reconnecting with your own wild side, one backyard animal at a time.Taken from the full Insights at the Edge conversation with "Craig Foster: Belonging to the Wild." Listen here: https://bit.ly/craig-foster See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California…
About Sounds True: Insights at the Edge
Tami Simon, Founder and Publisher of Sounds True interviews spiritual teachers, visionary writers, and living luminaries about their newest work and current challenges—the growing edge of their inner inquiry and outer contribution to the world.
Sounds True: Insights at the Edge is a English devotional & spiritual podcast from Tami Simon. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.
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