Jacqueline Freeman: Listening to the Wisdom of Honeybees

Jacqueline Freeman is a biodynamic farmer and natural beekeeper who speaks internationally on organic beekeeping, women in agriculture, and cultivating a more holistic relationship with nature. With Sounds True, she has published the book Song of Increase: Listening to the Wisdom of Honeybees for Kinder Beekeeping and a Better World. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon and Jacqueline discuss the unique unity consciousness of bees and how understanding their perspective opens up profound new views of existence. They talk about the challenges facing bees in the modern world and why thriving beehives are essential for a healthy ecosystem. Finally, Jacqueline describes her ability to communicate with bees, the messages she has received from them, and the purpose of a bee’s life—from the bee’s perspective. (70 minutes)

Jacqueline Freeman: Listening to the Wisdom of Honeybe...

Tony Schwartz and Kimberly Manns: The Reckoning: Seein...

Who could you become if you fully allowed yourself to accept what you really want and go for it without reservation? What’s standing in your way? With their audio learning program, The Reckoning, celebrated leadership consultants Tony Schwartz and Kimberly Manns invite you to a deep-dive exploration of why you are the person you are, and who you can be—as a human being and a leader in today’s world.

In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with Schwartz and Manns about their empowering seven-session audio program and their own journeys through the material they continue to learn even as they teach it. Give a listen as they discuss childhood development and confirmation bias; white male privilege and power; superiority, worthiness, and “defender” personas; the insecurity of oscillating between better than and less than; the three selves framework; encountering your core self; IFS (Internal Family Systems) therapy; the Enneagram; somatic work and trauma healing; the brave act of personal evolution called “the reckoning”; re-parenting yourself; the profound starting place called noticing; becoming a “chief energy officer”; the collective reckoning for the human species at this time; upgrading the human operating system; the four intelligences—the mind, the heart, the body, and the spirit; the qualities of one who reckons; responsibility and ownership; 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.

Melissa Bernstein: Finding Meaning and Creating from L...

Through the wonderful, timeless toys she has created with her husband and their company, Melissa & Doug, Melissa Bernstein has sparked a brilliant imaginative light in the lives of thousands of children (and their parents!). Yet before the runaway success of the business, Melissa struggled with deep angst and inner darkness. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with the Entrepreneur in Residence for Sounds True’s Inner MBA® program about consciously choosing to follow your creative spirit over your inner critic—whether or not you’re a business owner.

Aspiring entrepreneurs and creatives of every stripe will love this conversation about: breaking free from perfectionism; how it’s not a blessing or a curse—it’s a “blurse”; Viktor Frankl and existential analysis; finding the flavors in your own “pie of meaning”; Melissa’s two faucets of creativity; the battle between the head and the heart; turning the ordinary into the extraordinary; intuition versus ego; overcoming a victim mindset; accepting the full spectrum of our emotions; curiosity and connecting the “dots of experience” as an entrepreneur; the analogy of the mind as a very large kitchen; the “keep moving” philosophy (even if it’s backwards); handling marketplace rejection; two critical elements of business success: clear focus and a valuable product; the inner growth necessary for business people; extending lifelines to each other; and more.

Jon Kabat-Zinn: Befriending Pain

Current statistics tell us that 20% of the US population has some form of chronic pain, defined as severe discomfort that has continued for six months or more. That’s more than 50 million people. Jon Kabat-Zinn has received international acclaim for his leading work in bringing the life-changing practices of meditation and mindfulness into the mainstream of medicine and society. In this inspiring podcast, Tami Simon speaks with Jon about his empowering new book, Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief, and how we can greatly improve our lives (and our entire world) by reframing the way we relate to our thoughts, our minds, and the sensations of our bodies.

Listen in as they discuss the epidemic of chronic pain and the power of mindfulness to ease suffering of all kinds, the myth of the “good meditator,” the body as the starting point for practice, exploring your “emotionally freighted thoughts,” our longing to be who we really are, working with the mind and learning to inhabit a space of embodied awareness, the refuge that is meditation practice, letting go of our stories, befriending the sensory field of what we call pain, the miracle of life on Earth, the Buddha’s teaching on mindfulness as the direct path to liberation, surfing the waves of your own experience, unity within diversity and the arising of compassion, focusing on what’s right instead of what’s wrong, how we are all on a growth curve on life’s journey, and more.