Sounds True: Producer's Pick

As a research professor at the University of Houston’s Graduate College of Social Work, Brené Brown has explored for many years the roots of courage and how it is connected to emotional exposure and authenticity. In this audio selection, she challenges one of the most pervasive and inaccurate myths of our time—that vulnerability is a sign of weakness.

There is a saying in Zen Buddhism: “The most important thing is to remember the most important thing.” As Tara Brach teaches, this is a pointing instruction that guides us to reflect on the essential values that are most important to us—heartfelt truths that are often obscured by our hectic movement through the everyday world. In this selection from her audio program Finding True Refuge, selected by Sounds True producer Randy Roark, Tara offers a simple and profound guided meditation to help you reach a place of truth, love, and awareness in order to rediscover and reconnect to what is most important to you. See Tara Brach live at the 2013 Wake Up Festival.                                       

“I love working with Matrix Energetics founder Richard Bartlett and his teaching partner Melissa Joy,” says Sounds True producer Mitchell Clute. “Richard’s approach is so freewheeling and spontaneous that working with him is more like a day at the amusement park than an average day in the studio. I’ve heard other teachers speak of transcending your limitations and creating your own reality, but I’ve never heard someone reference Captain Kirk and Ramana Maharshi in the same sentence.” In this selection from the new audio course Into the Matrix, Richard Bartlett points us towards an open-ended awareness and childlike innocence—a new way of looking at reality without judgments or limiting expectations.

As a teacher, Cyndi Dale is one of the best ambassadors for subtle energy practice. As Sounds True producer Mitchell Clute says, “I found Cyndi to be both engaging and incredibly knowledgeable about the human energy system. What impressed me the most was her ability to present this subject in a way that is luminously clear but never over-simplified, combining traditional wisdom with the latest scientific research.” In this selection from the audio learning course Your Energetic Boundaries, Cyndi offers a comprehensive and instantly accessible overview of what energetic boundaries are and how they affect every aspect of our lives.

Caroline Myss has a unique style as a spiritual teacher—straightforward, passionate, and sometimes uncomfortably direct. Sounds True founder Tami Simon, who has produced Caroline’s audio programs for more than 20 years, says: “Sometimes listening to Caroline feels like I’m being drenched with a bucket of ice water. Yet I cherish her as a friend and a teacher because she is a profound truth-teller, and her gift for slapping us awake is often exactly what we need.” In this selection from the audio program Navigating Hope, Caroline shines an unflinching light on our sense that we are entitled to some compensation from the universe when life hurts or disappoints us—and reveals how in every interaction we have the choice to pass our pain to another person or to pass along hope and love.

Randy Roark, a producer at Sounds True, selected this week’s Producer’s Pick from the audio program Detox Flow Yoga: A Guided Practice to Purify Body, Mind, and Spirit by Seane Corn. In this program, Seane helps us eliminate the physical, emotional, and mental toxins we’ve absorbed through our interactions with others and our environment—but the ultimate purpose of the program is for us to take responsibility for our lives. As Randy emphasizes, these teachings clarify that our lives are much bigger than we have imagined and that one of the best ways we know to help ourselves is to help another. See Seane Corn live in August 2013. Visit WakeUpFestival.com for more information.

Mitchell Clute, a producer at Sounds True, chose this week’s Producer’s Pick from the audio program Still the Mind with Scottish-born Buddhist teacher and author Bodhipaksa. In this selection, “Starting Where We Are,” Bodhipaksa helps us touch into a deeper sense of spacious awareness, identifying some of the stumbling blocks to beginning our meditation practice and sharing techniques for finding stillness and calm beneath the static in our minds. Mitchell loves Bodhipaksa’s down-to-earth approach to meditation practice—as well as the lovely cadence of Bodhipaksa’s voice.

“No one can talk about living in the now like Eckhart Tolle,” says Sounds True producer Randy Roark, who chose this week’s Producer’s Pick from the audio program Deepening the Dimension of Stillness. In this program, recorded in front of a select audience during a three-day retreat in Maui, Eckhart shares the techniques he himself uses to return to and remain in the now. With this selection, “The Primary Purpose of Your Life,” Eckhart teaches a simple technique to reveal your primary purpose in life: to become the conscious presence that you truly are.

John O’Donohue, beloved Irish poet and philosopher of the heart, made a lasting impression on Sounds True producer Mitchell Clute, who recalls John’s vast appetites, deep feelings, and laser-sharp mind. For this week’s Producer’s Pick, Mitchell chose a selection from Longing and Belonging: The John O’Donohue Collection. Though he hears John’s “magic” in all his recordings, Mitchell chose this particular selection, which gives us insight into the landscape that shaped John’s soul. This recording originally appeared on O’Donohue’s Anam Cara, an eight-hour audio journey into the heart of Ireland’s spiritual wisdom and practice.

Jeff Foster is the author of the Sounds True book and audio learning program The Deepest Acceptance. In this Producer’s Pick, Mitchell Clute shares a selection that captures the essence of Jeff’s teaching. All of our troubles begin, explains Jeff, when we we forget our “total indivisibility from this moment.” But just as no wave can separate itself from the ocean, we are always at one with and at home in this perfectly complete present moment. See Jeff Foster live in August 2013. Visit WakeUpFestival.com for more information.

A trustworthy guide can make all the difference when we are facing the more difficult parts of our human journey. When Sounds True producer Stephen Lessard worked with Dr. Brené Brown on her audio course Men, Women, and Worthiness, he discovered a teacher who immediately created that all-important bond of trust. “Brené has a clear, simple style that makes me feel like I’m sitting across the table from a dear friend,” Stephen reports. Because of the presence she brings, Brené has a gift for helping us navigate the difficult experiences of shame and vulnerability that we often try to avoid. In this selection, she talks about why facing the swamp of our shameful feelings empowers us to live a full and wholehearted life.

Imagine in this moment being completely in touch with your physical sensations, aware of who you are and your connection to all your surroundings, and conscious of the wisdom of your deepest emotions. Why isn’t this our natural experience all the time? Raphael Cushnir, the author of The One Thing Holding You Back, teaches that we have learned to suppress our emotions, especially the difficult ones—and in doing so, we cut ourselves off from the full experience of being alive. In this week’s episode, selected by Sounds True producer Randy Roark, Raphael explains what our emotions are and why we must be open to what they have to teach us in order to live a life of true balance, creativity, and connection.

Real transformation doesn’t happen when we’re complacent, and is rarely achieved without hard work and sacrifice. That’s why so many people are drawn to Caroline Myss as a teacher. As Sounds True producer Mitchell Clute says, “What I love about Caroline is that she doesn’t let anyone off the hook. Her style is passionate, sometimes confrontational, and she forces listeners to face their own issues, assumptions, and unexamined truths. This can bring up uncomfortable feelings—but it often provides a catalyst for real change.” In this selection from Divine Rebels, Caroline’s new audio course with Andrew Harvey, she examines how facing our painful truths gives us the strength to pass through the dark night of the soul and into a different reality, one no longer constructed around the needs of the ego.

Sometimes the most compelling evidence for the power of a given practice comes from looking at the person who teaches it. When Sounds True editorial director Nancy Smith arrived in Arizona for her recording with the internationally renowned physician Andrew Weil, she might have expected to find him busy, pressed for time, or even stressed out with the many demands for his attention. Instead, as Nancy says, “I was deeply struck by his air of peaceful happiness. The practices and teachings he talked about were obviously working for him.” In this except from The Spontaneous Happiness Prescription, Dr. Weil shares one of the most powerful practices you can do to improve your emotional well-being.

You may have heard of the Akashic Records, said to be an energetic archive that holds information about every soul and its journey. But consulting and receiving answers from the Akashic Records has remained the province of a few specialists for generations now. For over a decade, Linda Howe has been on a mission to overturn the paradigm that we need a spiritual intermediary in order to access what is in essence our own birthright, the largest and truest and sense of our purpose here on Earth. In this clip from How to Read the Akashic Records, selected by Sounds True producer Randy Roark, Linda explains what the Records are, how we can learn to work with them on our own, and how our lives change when we engage with a larger sense of our soul’s purpose.