Sounds True: Insights at the Edge

Lissa Rankin, physician, author of Sacred Medicine, and bestselling writer of Mind Over Medicine, explores the body’s relationship with trauma. She discusses chronic illness, polyvagal theory, the vagus nerve, and developmental trauma. The conversation also examines environmental toxins, systemic racism, collective stress, and how nervous-system healing might create new possibilities for recovery.

Laurel Parnell, psychologist, spiritual practitioner, and EMDR pioneer, explores her evolution from trauma therapy to multidimensional integrative healing. She discusses resource tapping, ancestral and spirit work, grief, energetic sovereignty, and integrating spiritual or psychedelic experiences into daily life. The conversation also examines cross-cultural wisdom, psychotherapy’s limitations, and the mysterious connections linking personal healing with a larger web of love.

Adyashanti, an American spiritual teacher known for meditation, self-inquiry, and awakening, explores whether a spiritual breakthrough must transform every part of life to be real. He discusses fleeting glimpses of clarity, the difference between insight and embodiment, and the explosive meditation experience that shaped his path to freedom.

Kimberly Ann Johnson, somatic sex educator, birth doula, and author of Erotic Seasons, explores erotic sovereignty and the body as a spiritual path. They discuss menstruation, birth, perimenopause, and menopause as embodied rites of passage; the shift from hot to warm sex; and sexual alchemy as a path through wounding, healing, agency, and deeper connection.

A startling astrological reading uncovers a lifelong wound around belonging. Reflections on therapy, friendship, and teachings from Seane Corn and Joanna Macy explore how karma can become dharma, pain can fuel purpose, and heartbreak can awaken active hope. The conversation delves into staying present with personal and collective suffering until compassion and service emerge.

Tracee Stanley, a yoga nidra teacher, meditation instructor, and author of Living Ritual, explores ritual as a remedy for distraction and loneliness. She shares stories of creative rebirth, inner light, earth dreaming, and the body as a sacred shrine. They discuss devotion in everyday life, listening to pain, receiving support, and using sankalpa to live with purpose.

Geneen Roth, an acclaimed author and teacher on emotional eating and spiritual transformation, reflects on losing her savings in the Bernie Madoff scandal. She explores the difference between honest grief and a vicious inner critic. The conversation examines self-loathing, shame, and practical ways to recognize and distance yourself from cruel inner dialogue.

Michelle Masters, coach’s coach and author of Wired for Money, explores why affirmations and financial plans often fail to shift deeply rooted patterns. They discuss survival wiring formed in early childhood, inherited family loyalties, scarcity fears, and the spiritual beliefs projected onto money. Masters also explores NLP, embodied transformation, quantum consciousness, and money as a benevolent blessing rather than a source of guilt.

Matt Gutman, an award-winning journalist and author, explores his lifelong struggle with panic disorder and the psychedelic therapies he pursued. He discusses medically guided treatment, 5-MeO-DMT, ego death, a cathartic scream, ketamine, and how meditation helps him revisit powerful psychedelic imagery. A candid journey through fear, healing, and unconventional paths to wellness.

Thomas Moore, bestselling author of Care of the Soul, is a psychotherapist, theologian, and former monk. He explores Thoreau’s Walden as a spiritual search rather than a nature study. They discuss inner guidance, the daimon, timeless purpose, music as a path beyond ordinary reality, grief, authenticity, and how embracing hardship might help a lost culture recover its humanity.