The Soul-Directed Life

Big Question: How can I nurture my creative gifts? Our beautiful month on nurturing creative gifts and possibilities reaches its perfect conclusion with Tami Simon, who nurtured not only her creative gift but all our possibilities when she founded Sounds True. Tami has interviewed hundreds of spiritual teachers for Sounds True. In our June book club selection, The Self-Acceptance Project, Tami helps us answer burning questions: Why is it so much easier to offer compassion and forgiveness toward others than toward ourselves? Where do our self-critical voices come from? How do we stop judging ourselves? Imagine how creative you could be living from a place of complete self-acceptance.

Big Question: How can I nurture my creative gifts? Sharon Salzberg has taught meditation for more than 30 years. She's the cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society, the Forest Refuge, and the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. Her work is based on the practices of mindfulness and Metta-lovingkindness-to cultivate love and compassion for ourselves and others. It all sounds wonderful, right? There's this small problem: enemies. Jesus said, "Love your enemies." But how? How do we break through our anger, hatred, and fear and touch that true Metta place? And if we did, if we actually loved our enemies ... what would happen?

Big Question: How can I nurture my creative gifts? I am tickled pink to welcome Christine Wheeler to The Soul-Directed Life. She is a great expert on the power of EFT Tapping, lauded by no less than Nick Ortner. She is a superb tapping coach-my tapping coach. She is the author of The Tapping Solution for Teenage Girls ... and Christine is a graduate of Plug in for Writers, my summer course on how to write in the intersection between spiritual practice and the craft of writing. When she signed a contract with Hay House, I cried tears of congratulations and joy. Join the conversation and discover what tapping can do for you and everyone you love.

Big Question: How can I nurture my creative gifts? Tererai Trent is a living example of what is possible. She grew up in Africa at a time when girls were not educated and expected to marry and have babies when they were still children themselves. She secretly taught herself to read from her brother's school books. Her mother told her to write her dreams down and bury them and they will come true. Twenty years later those dreams are more than true. Dr. Trent is a scholar and a champion of women's education. She has torn down barriers for girls and women not just in Africa but around the world. She joins us to help us nurture all our possibilities and shares her beautiful children's book The Girl Who Buried Her Dreams in a Can.

Big Question: How can I nurture my creative gifts? The old-very old-and relentless story is that we are not enough, there isn't enough, there will never be enough ... Well, enough with that story! That story has held us captive in competition, hording, scarcity, and self-criticism. It's time for a new story. In 2011, Laurie McCammon was blessed to receive that story in all its richness and power. She has accepted her assignment and is now sharing the new story in her beautiful book, Enough!

Big Question: How can I embrace the wisdom of my shadows? Our month on embracing the wisdom of our shadows culminates with Sara Avant Stover, author of our May book club selection: The Book of She: Your Heroine's Journey Into the Heart of Feminine Power. Sara Avant Stover is a pioneer in contemporary women's work, creator of the world's first Women's Yoga Teacher Training and leader of I Heart My Moon Cycle, The SHE School, and The SHE retreat. After being featured in Yoga Journal, Newsweek, Natural Health, ABC, NBC, and CBS, she joins us to talk about the necessary path of descent and initiation in the path to psychological wholeness and full female realization.

Big Question: How can I embrace the wisdom of my shadows? Carol S. Pearson, Ph.D., is an expert on depth psychology and the author of classic works, including The Hero Within, Awakening the Heroes Within, and The Hero and the Outlaw. She served most recently as president of Pacifica Graduate Institute. She speaks and consults with nonprofits, government agencies, and mission-driven for-profit businesses to support transformational leadership. She joins us to talk about the wisdom of the shadow in the ancient myth of Demeter and Persephone in her brilliant new book, Persephone Rising: Awakening the Heroine Within.

Big Question: How can I embrace the wisdom of my shadows? Meghan Don is an initiate of the Sophian Lineage and founder and leading guide of the Gnostic Grace Circle. Meghan is a spiritual mentor, retreat presenter, and author of Meditations With Teresa of Avila, which won the Ashton Wylie/New Zealand Book Council Award for Best Book and Author. She studied with a Maori Tohunga (shaman), lived in Krishna's birthplace in India, and trained with Gnostic Master and Kabbalist Teacher Tau Malachi of the Sophian Lineage. Her quest to find the divine feminine in Christianity led to encounters with Teresa of Avila and Clare of Assisi.

Big Question: How can I embrace the wisdom of my shadows? Dr. Michael Lennox is one of the most sought-after dream interpreters in the United States. His first book Dream Sight awakened us to the realm of dreams. His second, Llewellyn's Complete Dictionary of Dreams, interprets the meaning of more than 1,000 dream symbols. He joins us to help us recognize our shadows and understand what they are trying to teach us in our dreams.

Big Question: How can I recognize my teachers? Our month on learning to recognize our teachers culminates with the wisdom of the mystics in Christine Valters Paintner's exquisite book, Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics. When I asked myself, "Who are my teachers?" the mystics of all traditions came to mind immediately. Thomas Merton, Hildegard von Bingen, Hafiz ... I read something from a mystic every day. Christine Valters Paintner has learned at the feet of many mystics and a few monks. She is a Benedictine Oblate and creator of the Abbey of the Arts. Christine now lives in Ireland where she communes with some Celtics' goddesses and saints too. It will be a sparkling conversation with Christine and her many teachers who will help us illuminate our way.

Big Question: How can I recognize my teachers? Tamarack Song has spent his life studying the world's aboriginal peoples, apprenticing to elders, and learning traditional hunter-gatherer survival skills. He has spent years alone in the woods as well as living with a pack of wolves. And his animal guide is Owl! In 1987 he founded the Teaching Drum Outdoor School in the wilderness of northern Wisconsin. He is the author of several books, including Becoming Nature. Animals are our teachers. If we can enter them, become them, we can learn so much.

Big Question: How can I recognize my teachers? Amy B. Scher is a leading voice in the field of mind-body-spirit healing. She uses a three-part energy therapy approach to help those experiencing illness or in need of emotional healing. Amy joins us to talk about her new book How to Heal Yourself When No One Else Can, a subject she knows all too well because she healed herself from Lyme disease, autoimmune conditions, nerve damage, endometriosis, and anxiety after 15 years of doctors and five surgeries couldn't help. The body knows how to heal.

Big Question: How can I recognize my teachers? Margaret Ann Lembo is the owner of The Crystal Garden. For more than 25 years, Margaret Ann has led workshops and classes on crystals, aromatherapy, essential oils, chakra alignment, and more. She's the best-selling author of Chakra Awakening and The Essential Guide to Crystals, Minerals, and Stones-a spectacular visual reference book. In the past two years I've welcomed essential oils to become one of my teachers, so I'm thrilled to welcome Margaret Ann to the show to talk about her newest book, The Essential Guide to Aromatherapy and Vibrational Healing.

Big Question: How shall I nourish my beautiful life? Joseph Goldstein is one of the first American Vipassana teachers, cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society with Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg, author of many popular books on Buddhism, and leader of retreats on insight and loving-kindness meditation. Our month on nourishing our beautiful lives culminates with his essential meditation book, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening.

Big Question: How shall I nourish my beautiful life? Rick Hamlin is the executive editor of Guideposts magazine. He wrote the spiritual memoir, Finding God on the A Train. From the title, you can deduce that his prayer time is on his morning commute in New York City! Rick's new book is 10 Prayers You Can't Live Without. Well, prayer is surely a way we can nourish our beautiful lives. And just think, there are 10 prayers we can't live without!