Please Support The Show With a Donation   This week we talk to Richard Rohr   Fr. Richard Rohr is a globally recognized ecumenical teacher bearing witness to the universal awakening within Christian mysticism and the Perennial Tradition. He is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Fr. Richard’s teaching is grounded in the Franciscan alternative orthodoxy—practices of contemplation and self-emptying, expressing itself in radical compassion, particularly for the socially marginalized. Fr. Richard is the author of numerous books, including  The Naked Now, Falling Upward, Immortal Diamond, His newest book is The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation. In This Interview, Richard Rohr and I Discuss... Non-dualistic thinking That non-dualistic thinking is not a balancing act, but rather it's about holding the tension of opposites The difficulty of living without resolution The human psyche identifies with things - it searches for an identity The story of the tree from the garden of Eden is a warning against thinking one knows what perfect good and perfect evil is. It's a warning against dualistic thinking. Trans-rational thinking is beyond access to the rational mind The 6 things that require trans-rational thinking How we can be active in our world but not hate our enemies That we've confused information with transformation Soft Prophecy That the message of the prophets is only about 2% about foretelling Jesus How important it is to change your mind How we've confused cleaning up, growing up, waking up and showing up in our lives That the ego wants 2 things: to be separate and superior Projectors vs Introjectors That prayer is about changing you, not changing God You'll be as hard on other people as you are hard on yourself     Please Support The Show with a Donation   .See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

a   Please Support The Show With a Donation   This week we talk to Erik Vance about the power of our expectations Erik Vance is a native Bay Area writer replanted in Mexico as a non-native species. Before becoming a writer he was, at turns, a biologist, a rock climbing guide, an environmental consultant, and an environmental educator. His work focuses on the human element of science – the people who do it, those who benefit from it, and those who do not. He has written for The New York Times, Nature, Scientific American, Harper’s, National Geographic, and a number of other local and national outlets. His first book, Suggestible You, about how the mind and body continually twist and shape our realities was inspired by his feature in Discover.   In This Interview, Erik Vance and I Discuss... All the ways that our brain twists reality in order to make what it expects into reality How our brains are driven by expectations How we take the past, apply it to the present to predict the future Whether we were alive at the same time as saber tooth tigers How powerful the placebo effect How the placebo effect actually generates the neurochemicals in our brain we would expect to see It's not that we imagine we feel a certain way; we really do feel it. "It's All in Your Mind" is totally true How we have a wave of information from our brain, and a wave of information from our body; where they meet is what we feel His experience of being electro-shocked at the NIH How our brains don't want to be wrong How we all have different responses to placebo and type of placebos The gene that helps predict whether you might be a placebo responder Placebo and chronic pain Belief and expectation play a large role in chronic pain The trouble to create new drugs given such high placebo response rates How nocebo's work How much of our pain is create by our expectations The power of hypnosis Hypnosis compared to meditation How fallible our memories are How easy it is to create false memories in people     Please Support The Show with a Donation   It also often features different animals, mainly two dogs.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Please Support The Show With a Donation   This week we talk to Adyashanti about waking up Adyashanti, author of The Way of Liberation, Resurrecting Jesus, Falling into Grace, and The End of Your World, is an American-born spiritual teacher devoted to serving the awakening of all beings. His teachings are an open invitation to stop, inquire, and recognize what is true and liberating at the core of all existence. Asked to teach in 1996 by his Zen teacher of 14 years, Adyashanti offers teachings that are free of any tradition or ideology. “The Truth I point to is not confined within any religious point of view, belief system, or doctrine, but is open to all and found within all.” Based in California, Adyashanti teaches throughout the U.S. and in Canada, Europe, and Australia.   In This Interview, Adyashanti and I Discuss... That our work as humans is on the journey from a walking contradiction to a walking paradox That if we see something out of alignment with our value system we feel it in our body as tension That our bodies are our best aid when it comes to navigating our inner consciousness That there are different types of awakening That awakening is a fundamental shift of identity The primary task of any good spiritual teaching is not to answer your questions but to question your answers What to do when you WANT to change but then you can't seem to change The 5 foundations of spirituality What is my aspiration? That wanting to feel pleasure can only take us so far When we start feeling better we'll stop looking deeper Never abdicate your authority That "true" meditation is the art of allowing everything to be exactly as it is That meditation is there for us to get experiential insight into the nature of our being, our consciousness The importance of bringing your intelligence along for the ride in meditation To let go of what the outcome should be in meditation Our whole body is a sensory instrument through which we experience life That self-inquiry is joining the intellectual mind with the contemplative spirit An unresolved deep question is often what sparks an awakening How contemplation is different from meditation and inquiry The three means of evoking insight: contemplation, meditation, and inquiry The Jesus story is a map for awakening How the Jesus story is so compelling What life is like for awakened people That awakening can be sudden and/or it can be a gradual unfolding How enlightenment is the end of one game and the beginning of another The difference between exploration and seeking Whether or not psychedelic drugs play a role in awakening Please Support The Show with a DonationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

[powerpress] Please Support The Show With a Donation   This week we talk to Dean Quick about the healing power of music Dean Quick, MT-BC is the Program Director and Board Certified Music Therapist for TranscendED, a treatment center for eating disorders. He also provides broader music therapy through his personal practice. He is also a member of the Music Therapy Association of North Carolina.   In This Interview, Dean Quick and I Discuss... His work as a music therapist for people with mental illness How he works with clients who have no musical ability or skill That live music is most effective as well as the client's preferred music in music therapy That music bypasses the cognitive processes of trauma and allows a person to reach a place within themselves that might otherwise be difficult to access How Gabby Giffords has used music to retrain her language That music can ignite the brain unlike anything else Where someone would go to explore music therapy as a patient That music can be used as therapy for children with developmental disabilities How music can be used by anyone as therapy on their own as therapy with some simple approaches Being mindful of the power of music in your own daily life Honoring the feeling in the moment with music Asking yourself "how am I honoring my feeling in this present moment" How we can engage with music in a mindful way to increase the power it has in our lives Using music to pace your practice of progressive muscle relaxation Why it's better to choose our own music rather than buying music playlists that are "for relaxation"     Please Support The Show with a DonationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Please Support The Show With a Donation   This week we talk to Emma Seppälä about success and happiness Emma Seppälä, Ph.D is Science Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education and the author of The Happiness Track: How to Apply the Science of Happiness to Accelerate Your Success. She is also Co-Director of the Yale College Emotional Intelligence Project at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a Lecturer at Yale College where she teaches The Psychology of Happiness.  She consults with Fortune 500 leaders and employees on building a positive organization and teaches in the Yale School of Management’s Executive Education program.  She graduated from Yale (BA), Columbia (MA), and Stanford (PhD).   In This Interview, Emma Seppälä and I Discuss... Her book, The Happiness Track: How to Apply the Science of Happiness to Accelerate Your Success The false notion that in order to be successful you have to work so hard that you postpone your happiness The 6 major false theories that are behind our current notions of success The false theory of "You can't have success without stress" That our stress response is only meant to be fight or flight, not "most of the time" That high adrenaline compromises our immune system, our ability to focus, make good decisions The role of meditation in one's success What prevents us from getting into a creative mindset How to manage your energy vs managing your time What we can learn from the resilience in children and animals Where veterans and civilians can go to learn the art of breathing to recover from trauma For Veterans: Project Welcome Home Troops For Civilians: Art of Living How "looking out for #1" can actually be harmful to you Why workplaces are incorporating compassion training     Please Support The Show with a DonationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Please Support The Show With a Donation   This week we talk to Srini Rao about being unmistakable Srini Rao is the host and founder of The Unmistakable Creative podcast. He has written multiple books including the Wall Street Journal bestseller The Art of Being Unmistakable; and his latest book: Unmistakable: Why Only Is Better Than Best He is the creator of the 60-person conference called the Instigator Experience; He has an economics degree from the University of California at Berkeley and an MBA from Pepperdine University. In This Interview, Srini Rao and I Discuss... His book, Unmistakable: Why Only is Better than Best That the process holds so much joy and that there really is no moment of arrival How doing the work itself is the reward and the importance of being present The temptation of trying to copy something that works and expect the same result The three layers under which everyone's unmistakable nature lies Stories, Labels, and Masks The story of I have enough and the story of I don't have enough That labels limit our capacity The importance of constructing environments That 96% of personal development projects fail Just because it's a best practice doesn't mean it's best for you That life is basically just one giant experiment The idea of being ready and how it gets in our way How crucial it is to commit to the process rather than the outcome The insidious nature of validation Our warped perception of longevity     Please Support The Show with a DonationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Please Support The Show With a Donation   The Middle Way One of the wisest teachings I have found is the middle way. Both Aristotle and the Buddha taught it. The Middle Way has been used as a wisdom tool in many traditions.       Please Support The Show with a Donation     Which Wolf are You Feeding Which Wolf Will You Feed It also often features different animals, mainly two dogs.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Please Support The Show With a Donation   This week we talk to Greg Marcus about the spiritual practice of Mussar Greg Marcus has a BA in Biology from Cornell University, and earned his Ph.D. in biology from MIT.  He worked for ten years as a marketer in the Silicon Valley genomics industry, after which he became a stay-at-home dad, writer, life balance coach, and biotech consultant. Greg’s first book, Busting Your Corporate Idol: Self-Help for the Chronically Overworked, is a five star Amazon best seller. His latest book is called The Spiritual Practice of Good Actions: Finding Balance Through the Soul Traits of Mussar In This Interview, Greg Marcus and I Discuss... The One You Feed parable His book, The Spiritual Practice of Good Actions: Finding Balance Through the Soul Traits of Mussar Mussar: A Thousand Year Old Hebrew Spiritual Practice Soul Traits That you can be too truthful and it can  be counter productive That being untruthful to spare yourself embarrassment is not ok That being untruthful to spare someone else's feelings can be ok And the intention is the most important determiner of whether or not to tell the truth Choice points The evil inclination and the good inclination Mussar helps us by opening the space between "the match and the fuse" That we all have free will but it's not always accessible to us What qualifies as an act of kindness Mussar = "Extreme Spiritual Fitness" Morning Mantra, Daily observations and practices, Evening journaling Mussar helps you specialize and deepen your knowledge and practice of the Soul Traits The four assumptions of Mussar: We all have a divine spark that is occluded by our baggage We all have the same Soul Traits but we have different amounts of each We have a conflict between the good inclination and the evil inclination We all have free will and it's not always accessible to us That patience is the cure for helplessness Mussar: repairing the Soul Traits within us and how it can help the world     Please Support The Show with a DonationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Please Support The Show With a Donation   This week we talk to Brian Tom O'Connor Brian Tom O’Connor is an actor, theatre director, cabaret performer, and formerly depressed guy who stumbled onto the source of joy and happiness in the background of all experience.  He is the author of the book: Awareness Games: Playing With Your Mind to Create Joy In This Interview, Brian Tom O'Connor and I Discuss... The One You Feed parable His new book, Awareness Games: Playing with Your Mind to Create Joy Real reality vs Virtual reality Why games are a more effective approach than questions to exploring awareness The fact that you don't have to believe anything to play a game That trying to reproduce an experience isn't doable That trying to get rid of an unpleasant feeling isn't doable That the mind is an excellent servant but a poor master The power of noticing "the whiteboard itself" rather than what's written on it The three basic questions: What's in awareness now? What is awareness? Who/what is aware? The Future Fishing game The Past Catching game The game, Slippery Mind That awareness games can be a good break from a serious meditation practice The benefit of allowing emotions to flow through you The game, Include Include Include Please Support The Show with a DonationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Please Support The Show With a Donation   This week we talk to Emily Esfahani Smith Emily Esfahani Smith is the author of The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters She graduated from Dartmouth College and earned a master of applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. She writes about psychology, culture, and relationships. Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times,Time, The Atlantic, and other publications. Emily is also a columnist for The New Criterion, as well as an editor at the Stanford University's Hoover Institution,   In This Interview, Emily Esfahani Smith and I Discuss... The One You Feed parable Her new book: The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters The difference between happiness and meaning That the defining feature of a meaningful life is connecting and contributing to something that lies beyond the self The three criteria of a meaningful life: feeling that one's life is significant in some way, feeling that one's life is driven by a sense of purpose and feeling that one's life is coherent That human beings are meaning-seeking creatures That there's more to life than feeling happy That our current culture doesn't emphasize meaning and purpose Victor Frankel's important work related to the role of meaning in our lives The role of meaning when facing adversity That responsibility and duty are wellsprings of meaning That the wellsprings of meaning are all around us The four pillars of a meaningful life: Belonging, Purpose, Storytelling, and Transcendence The wisdom in what George Eliot has to say about the people that keep the world going in small yet indispensable ways: that the goodness of the world is dependent on their unhistoric acts What kind of relationships lead to a sense of belonging That purpose can come in all shapes and sizes That reflecting on the story of your life can lead to a greater sense of meaning in your life The two different types of storytelling That transcendent experiences are crucial to having a greater sense of meaning in life The good news about what's happening to us as a species       Please Support The Show with a DonationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.