Category: Psychology

A.H. Almaas: Love of the Truth, Without End

Tami Simon speaks with A.H. Almaas. A.H. Almaas is the pen name for Hameed Ali, best known as the originator of the wisdom path known as the Diamond Approach. He is the author of 14 books, including The Unfolding Now, and his works with Sounds True include the audio learning course The Diamond Approach and Realization Unfolds, a dialogue with Adyashanti. In this episode, Tami speaks with Hameed about some of the distinct characteristics of the Diamond Approach as an approach to investigating both reality and oneself as a path to liberation, why he makes no distinction between a psychological and spiritual approach to inquiry, and how the love of truth drives the process of realization. (73 minutes)

The Art of Empathy, with Karla McLaren

We’re happy to hear that so many of you are enjoying Karla McLaren‘s wonderful new book The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life’s Most Essential Skill. In it, Karla describes what she refers to as the single most important skill that we have to directly and radically improve our relationships and emotional life – but one that has been quite misunderstood.

Informed by current insights from neuroscience, social psychology, and healing traditions, this book explores:

– Why empathy is not a mystical phenomenon but a natural, innate ability that we can strengthen and develop
– How to identify and regulate our emotions and boundaries
– The process of shifting into the perspective of others
– How to provide support in a sensitive and healthy way
– Insights for navigating our hyper-connected social landscape
– Targeted chapters for improving family, workplace, and intimate relationships
– Ways to expand our empathy to our community, global levels of society, and the natural world

In addition to the book, Karla has also recorded an original seven-hour audio learning course on The Art of Empathy.

Here is a short video by Karla, speaking about The Art of Empathy

The Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Online Course

Dear friends, we are so happy to announce our partnership with our friends at The University of Massachusetts’ Center for Mindfulness, where we’re working together to offer the first-ever online version of the highly-acclaimed Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program.

Learn more about this very special opportunity here.

In 1979, Jon Kabat-Zinn founded the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts to bring a form of meditation known as mindfulness into the medical mainstream. Mindfulness is a basic human quality, a way of learning to pay attention to whatever is happening in your life that allows you a greater sense of connection to your life inwardly and outwardly. Mindfulness is also a practice, a systematic method aimed at cultivating clarity, insight, and understanding. In the context of your health, mindfulness is a way for you to experientially learn to take better care of yourself by exploring and understanding the interplay of mind and body and mobilizing your own inner resources for coping, growing, and healing.

Nearly three decades of scientific research at medical centers all over the world suggest that training in mindfulness and MBSR can positively and often profoundly affect participants’ ability to reduce medical symptoms and psychological distress while learning to live life more fully.

Since its inception, more than 20,000 people have completed the MBSR training program. They have been referred by more than 5,000 physicians, by hundreds of other health care professionals, and through self-referral. These participants have been strongly motivated to do something for themselves—something no one else can do for them—by learning to draw upon their inner resources and natural capacity for greater health and balance, ease and peace of mind.

The MBSR Online Course is the only complete online training in the MBSR Online Course follows the same, well-respected method taught at the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. This eight-week course offers the curriculum and methodology developed by Jon-Kabat Zinn and is taught by Center for Mindfulness director Dr. Saki Santorelli, and senior instructor Florence Meleo-Meyer.

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Deconstructing Yourself: Mindfulness Meditation for Mo...

Friends, we wanted to make sure you knew about Deconstructing Yourself, a cutting edge, super informative, and provocative website on the nature and application of mindfulness in the modern world. It is run by Sounds True author and former editorial director, Michael W. Taft, who is currently editor-in-chief of Being Human, an organization exploring what evolution, neuroscience, biology, psychology, archeology, and technology can tell us about the human condition.

Michael created Deconstructing Yourself as a way to share the life changing force that is meditation (he’s been at it for over three decades). He and his colleagues strive to extend beyond any particular religion or technique in order to welcome anyone into their community. Their original articles are written with honesty and curiosity, in hopes of encouraging and inspiring your meditation practice. They cover issues that affect us all: heartbreak, death, love, sex, religion, art, and how meditation can help to enliven and transform them.

We hope you enjoy this wonderful portal for all things mindfulness, and wish you the very best with your own practice, wherever it takes you.

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Rick Hanson: Self-Directed Brain Change, Part 2

Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Rick Hanson, a neuropsychologist and the founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom. He is the author of the books Buddha’s Brain and Hardwiring Happiness, and with Sounds True has created several audio programs, including The Enlightened Brain and the new learning course Self-Directed Brain Change. In the second half of a two-part interview, Tami speaks with Dr. Hanson about how we can move from a “red” reactive state to a “green” state of calm, how this progression aligns with the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, and his vision for how healthy brains can change the state of our world. (63 minutes)

Rick Hanson: Self-Directed Brain Change, Part 1

Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Rick Hanson, a neuropsychologist and the founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom. He is the author of the books Buddha’s Brain and Hardwiring Happiness, and with Sounds True has created several audio programs, including The Enlightened Brain and the new learning course Self-Directed Brain Change. In the first half of a two-part interview, Tami speaks with Dr. Hanson about the ways we can “install” positive brain states as lasting traits; how we can respond in situations when we feel our basic needs are threatened; and the three ways of working with unpleasant experiences—letting be, letting go, and letting in. (66 minutes)

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