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Tara Brach

Most of us have encountered trauma either in our own direct experience or with someone in our immediate circle. This talk examines the shame and suffering that arise from trauma and how meditation practices can support a path to full spiritual healing. We focus on practices that help us access a sense of love and safety, and then increase our capacity to bring presence to the unprocessed, unlived life in the body. (Note: For many who suffer from PTSD, therapy is invaluable and these practices are not considered as a substitute.)
 
 
 
Podcast Intro Music: Adrienne Torf (www.adriennetorf.com)

Trauma: The Light Shines through the Broken Places

The breath can be a powerful portal to presence. This meditation guides us in relaxing with the breath, including the breath in a body scan, and then allowing the breath to serve as an anchor when the mind gets lost in thoughts. As we settle with the breath as a home base, we find we can then open to the changing waves of experience with increasing balance, clarity and ease.

Meditation: Breath by Breath - Relaxing with Our Life (19:04 min.)

What is the role of spirituality in mental therapy? And what roles do therapy and mental health play in spiritual growth? What's the overlap, where are they distinct, and how can both work together to help us face the challenges of this world? In this special episode honoring World Mental Health Day in October, Tami Simon and Tara Brach sit down for a wonderfully open-hearted discussion at the intersection of spirituality and mental health.
 
As a clinical psychologist and renowned meditation teacher, Tara Brach brings forward what it takes to truly meet someone in pain, the spontaneous nature of loving awareness, and the power of imagining connection. And together, Tami and Tara delve into how we handle overwhelm, the importance of integrating spirituality into daily life, and working through grief with a psycho-spiritual approach. In essence, how we show up for each other. Whether that's spiritual, psychological, emotional, or an interweaving of all those aspects of support.
 
**This episode was originally featured on the Insights at the Edge podcast with host, Tami Simon.

Showing Up For Each Other | Tami Simon & Tara Brach on the Intersection of Spirituality & Therapy

Our conditioned mind is filled with distractions, including worry-thoughts that continually create anxiety in the body. This meditation guides us in relaxing the body, and then establishing the breath as a home base. By gathering and collecting the attention, the mind can settle and allow for a relaxed, wakeful presence.

Meditation: Collecting and Quieting the Mind (17:02 min.)

Meditation: Loving What Is (2020-09-12) - While we might not directly love what is, there is a pathway to this inner freedom. As we explore in this meditation, we begin with allowing the changing sensations and emotions to move through us, just as they are. As this allowing presence deepens, it becomes suffused with the tenderness of love.

Meditation: Loving What Is (2020-09-12)

In just a few minutes, this practice guides us to pause, deepen attention and reconnect with the spaciousness, presence and of caring of our awakening heart.

Meditation: The Sacred Pause — Clearing to remember Heartspace (6:56 min)

When we remember our deep belonging to this world, a fierce and tender courage begins to move through us. In this talk, we'll explore "spiritual audacity" as a sacred, embodied boldness—the lion's roar of the awakened heart. Through personal and collective lenses, we'll reflect on what it means to live true to our essence: grounded in love, guided by truth, and called to serve the freedom and healing of all beings.

Spiritual Audacity: The Lion's Roar of the Heart

Most people get depressed at times, and many suffer greatly from bouts of major depression. At the heart of the suffering is the experience of severed belonging—of being imprisoned in the pain of separation, unworthiness, unlovability and hopelessness. These two talks explore several meditation practices that reconnect us with our natural aliveness, openheartedness and awareness. They empower us to develop our inner resources, energize us to awaken, free us from rumination and remind us that we are not our depressive thoughts and feelings. The growing realization of the loving awareness that is our home heals the very roots of depression.
 
 In this talk, we'll look at:
 
 - how depression and anxiety mirror our collective disconnection, and how mindful awareness can begin to heal both body and spirit.
 - how ungrieved loss turns into depression, and how opening to sorrow with compassion reconnects us to love and aliveness.
 - the "logjam" of depression, showing how small mindful shifts can restore flow, energy, and a sense of possibility.
 - how reconnecting with our heart's deep intention awakens hope and invites a renewed capacity for presence and joy.
 - how meditation helps us move from ruminating thoughts to embodied presence, revealing the awareness that frees us.

Part 2: Healing Depression with Meditation

No matter how far you've wandered, this heartspace – this awake tender awareness – is only a half-breath of remembrance away. This meditation awakens attention to the space of awareness…

Meditation: The Heartspace That is Home (21:49 min)

Most people get depressed at times, and many suffer greatly from bouts of major depression. At the heart of the suffering is the experience of severed belonging—of being imprisoned in the pain of separation, unworthiness, unlovability and hopelessness.
 These two talks explore several meditation practices that reconnect us with our natural aliveness, openheartedness and awareness. They empower us to develop our inner resources, energize us to awaken, free us from rumination and remind us that we are not our depressive thoughts and feelings. The growing realization of the loving awareness that is our home heals the very roots of depression.

Part 1: Healing Depression with Meditation

Fear of Aging - Finding Freedom in this Impermanent World – Part 1 (2021-03-17) - While it's natural to have fears of what's ahead, when we learn to face the inevitability of change and loss without resistance, we discover true peace and freedom in the midst. In a very direct way, our awareness of impermanence awakens unconditional loving. These two talks explore the ways we habitually deny or resist reality, and the three interrelated pathways—refuge in the present moment, love and awareness—that liberate us. NOTE: The quoted prayer "And all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well" is from 14th century mystic, Julian of Norwich, in her work "Revelations of Divine Love."

Fear of Aging - Finding Freedom in this Impermanent World – Part 1 (2021-03-17)

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