Barbara Brown Taylor is a New York Times bestselling author, professor, and Episcopal priest. She has served on the faculty of Piedmont College as the Butman Professor of Religion and Philosophy since 1998, and has released such widely praised books as Leaving Church and Learning to Walk in the Dark. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Barbara and Tami Simon speak about appreciating the power of divine absence as well as divine presence. They talk about the value of becoming familiar with darkness and a “lunar spirituality” inspired by walking beneath the light of the moon. Finally, Tami and Barbara discuss the modern predilection toward busyness and how a dedicated Sabbath day can help alleviate the stress of everyday life. (54 minutes)
Elena Brower is a New York-based yoga instructor, designer, artist, and author. With Sounds True, she has released the audio programs Grounded and Free and The Return Home. She also coauthored Art of Attention—a bestselling yoga workbook—with Erica Jago. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon and Elena speak on concepts of self-inquiry, spiritual discipline, and facing up to hard truths about the course of one’s life. Elena tells the story of how she faced her addictions to marijuana and tobacco, and the benefits that arose when she quit both. Drawing on prompts from Elena’s upcoming book Practice You, she and Tami also discuss how one needs to be completely present for the experience of learning. Finally, Elena leads listeners in a guided meditation for embracing our love and releasing it into the world. (62 minutes)
You’re kinky but your partner is vanilla. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Perhaps you’ve always known; perhaps you just found out. So how do you talk about it? And what happens next?
In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with “edge expert,” certified sex therapist, and master social worker Dr. Stefani Goerlich about her new book, With Sprinkles on Top: Everything Vanilla People and Their Kinky Partners Need to Know to Communicate, Explore, and Connect. Give a listen to this much-needed discussion about destigmatizing kink and expanding our definition of a healthy relationship, as Tami and Stefani discuss: reassessing our sexual attitudes; how kinky became taboo; bringing kink into the “cultural redemption arc”; the misconceptions about trauma and kink; the concept of authority exchange; surrender and relaxation; kink as a relational, not a sexual, behavior; moving from secrecy to shared knowledge; decorating and enhancing one’s “core vanilla-ness”; discovering your fantasies; the nature of fetishes; understanding your erotic map; and more.
Note: This episode 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 join.soundstrue.com.
The wounds, scars, and pain we carry as men have a place in our lives. A function that can lead us directly to the core of deep meaning and fulfillment and provide a positive path forward. This is what initiation was supposed to teach us as men—how to descend into the depths of our own darkness and return a more complete and contributive participant in society.
However, this is where a man’s real problem resides: He has not been taught the skill or alchemy of initiation. He has not learned how to deal with his pain, or the pain of the world, and so he bucks against it.
I realized over the years of grappling with how to heal that not only was I ill-equipped to deal with the hurt I’d been given, but I also seemed to be woefully ill-equipped to reconcile with, and put a halt to, the perpetual hurt I passed on to others. Like many men, I was good at inflicting pain—and men who are good at something tend to do that thing a lot.
Not only was I undereducated in the alchemical craft of turning pain into purpose, but almost every man I knew was in relatively the same situation. Most men simply haven’t been taught how to deal with their pain and use it to become something better.
And this aspect of the journey is the missing link in male initiation, which has historically played the role of guiding a man through the transitory period between adolescence and adulthood, teaching him the skills of discipline, sovereignty, and the ability to face some of the most challenging aspects of his own life.
In fact, I began to see that not only have most men not been given the tools or resources to deal with the pain and suffering in their lives, but we as men are actively taught the opposite—the idiotic tactic of constant emotional avoidance. Not only this, but our emotional avoidance is seen as a theoretical and rational strength in certain circles.
Seeing this brings about a multitude of questions that both illuminate the foundational cracks within current masculine culture and also highlight the work we must embark on if we are to do our individual and collective parts as men in building a thriving society.
There’s more: I began to see the direct correlation between a man’s ability and willingness to face his own darkness and having a clear purpose, deep fulfillment, and clarity of contribution to the things that matter most to him.
But how can we as men give our pain a purpose in a culture where we are largely devoid of emotional permissions? Where the archetype of man, in order to be classified or quantified as a man, must do the impossible task of being brave and courageous without being vulnerable?
This is one of the biggest masculine myths—the false idea that you can be courageous without being inherently vulnerable. When we are rewarded for giving our lives, our hearts, and our emotional bodies up for sacrifice to maintain the illusion of invulnerable strength, we prioritize victory over connection. We praise ourselves for performance in the boardroom, bedroom, and bars, but we lack recognition for our performance in reconciliation, repair, and reparation.
There’s another way. A way where victory is found within the work, and part of that work is facing our own darkness.
Excerpted from Men’s Work: A Practical Guide to Face Your Darkness, End Self-Sabotage, and Find Freedom by Connor Beaton.
CONNOR BEATON is the founder of ManTalks, an international organization dedicated to the personal growth of men. He is a facilitator dedicated to building better men, an entrepreneur, a writer, and a keynote speaker. Connor has spoken to large corporate brands, nonprofits, schools, and international organizations such as the United Nations, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Apple, TED, and Entrepreneurs’ Organization. For more, visit mantalks.com.
Right before the holidays, I had the opportunity to interview author and business philosopher Peter Block. I love talking with Peter because he often challenges the status quo and underlying assumptions of business; very often when I speak with Peter, I feel like I am being held by my feet upside down (the way little kids are sometimes dangled by their parents) and out comes a bunch of unexamined beliefs and behavior patterns.
In my most recent conversation with Peter (an interview for Insights at the Edge), we discussed creating work in the world that matters, work that communicates our whole-heartedness and honors our relatedness with other people. And in the discussion, he questioned two assumptions that are embedded in contemporary business life: that “scale” is critical for success and that we better move quickly if we are going to accomplish our goals.
I pushed Peter on this notion of scale not being important. Scale-ability is of course one of the first things an investor looks at when analyzing a potential investment opportunity. How could this not be an important consideration? If your business can’t scale easily, how can it grow rapidly and attract investment capital if needed? Peter was dismissive of my concerns. His focus was on the value of small businesses to create jobs that are soul-satisfying for people, businesses that have a hand-made quality and are not dependent on investment dollars for success. As Peter was talking about ignoring scale-ability as a design criteria for business, I thought about the business person as an artist, someone who creates with the ingredients that he or she has at hand and is not particularly concerned about whether or not such an artistic creation will ever be repeated.
But then our conversation moved on to the notion of speed and Peter’s comment that “speed is the enemy of depth.” This statement hit me where it hurts, so to speak, right in my gut, and even more so, in my heart. For the last 3 months of the year, I had been moving at such a speed that I had lost track of my softness and feeling connection (and a bit of my sanity, truth be told). I simply couldn’t digest or assimilate everything that was happening (both in my personal life and in my professional life), and I think it is fair to say that I ended the year resembling a flattened pancake of a person. Life had rolled over me and I hadn’t taken the time to “feel into and through” everything that was occurring. I spent the first week of the holidays resting and reflecting on Peter’s statement, “speed is the enemy of depth” until I felt my feet and the earth back beneath me.
It is now the new year and I have had plenty of time to rest and pad around the house in my pajamas and be with my great love and our cocker spaniel and friends, and write cards, and stare at the falling snow. I feel plump again (figuratively speaking, of course), not flat and surface-like. And now I face the question, how do I not let myself get caught in the speed trap again? I am convinced that no creative endeavor — and certainly a business is a creative endeavor — benefits from an excess of speed. And when it comes to relating with other people (or to ourselves) speed seems to create jaggedness and not contact and understanding. Interestingly, in speaking with one Sounds True author about a potential recording project that we were designing together, we talked about how in her presentation she wanted to cover various life topics such as personal health and relationships and spiritual connection. I asked her “what about our business or career life?” And she said, “We’ll cover that in the relationships section because really what is business but relationship? That is really all it is. Look around you,” and she made a gesture pointing to the Sounds True office that houses 80 employees and 20 or so dogs and on some days a couple of birds and children, “all of this is based on relationships.”
And so SLOWING DOWN is my orienting principle as 2014 begins. I want to relish the richness of my life and not be flattened by it. If you have any slow-down suggestions for me, I am all ears, as they say. I will slowly read your responses (without skimming), at least I hope so.
Tami Simon speaks with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, the founder and resident teacher of Ligmincha Institute in Virginia and one of the first lamas to bring Tibetan Bön dzogchen teachings to the West. He is the author of several books, including Healing with Form, Energy, and Light, and with Sounds True he has created an integrated book-and-CD learning program called Tibetan Sound Healing. In this episode, Tami speaks with Tenzin Rinpoche about what he calls the “three doors to practice”: body, mind, and speech. He also talks about his experiences with preserving the essence of traditional teachings while needing to innovate new ways to make them accessible and relevant to students in the West. (44 minutes)
