Speaker 1: If my own health is suffering, that's ambition at the
Speaker 1: cost of the one being that I am wholly responsible for.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf m
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 1: Tammy Simon. She found It Sounds True at the age
Speaker 1: of twenty two, with the mission of disseminating spiritual wisdom.
Speaker 1: As a pioneer in the conscious business movement, she focuses
Speaker 1: on bringing authenticity and heart into the workplace while honoring
Speaker 1: multiple bottom lines. Tammy hosts a popular weekly podcast called
Speaker 1: Insights at the Edge, where she has interviewed many of
Speaker 1: today's leading teachers, delving deeply into their discoveries and personal
Speaker 1: experiences on their own journeys. With Sounds True, she has
Speaker 1: released the new audio program Being True What Matters Most
Speaker 1: in Work, life and Love. Also, before we get started,
Speaker 1: I wanted to mention that we are opening up a
Speaker 1: new limited time sign up window for the one you
Speaker 1: Feed Coaching program. Starting today. You can go to one
Speaker 1: you feed dot net slash Coching program and sign up
Speaker 1: to learn more and get started with a free fifteen
Speaker 1: minute intro call with Eric. That way you can see
Speaker 1: if the program is right for you. The enrollment window
Speaker 1: will be open for one week or until we fill
Speaker 1: up all the spots, whichever comes first. You can sign
Speaker 1: up until midnight on August and if your interested, don't
Speaker 1: put it off because the last program did sell out
Speaker 1: in four days. You can make the changes in your
Speaker 1: life that you've been considering. Come be one of the
Speaker 1: success stories here. So go to one you feed dot
Speaker 1: net slash Coaching program and get started today. We will
Speaker 1: also put a link on the page in our show notes.
Speaker 1: Here's to creating a life worth living and here's the
Speaker 1: interview with Tammy Simon. Hi, Tammy, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. It's great to be here. It's
Speaker 1: an honor. Thank you. Well, it's an honor for me
Speaker 1: to have you on because I think my first real
Speaker 1: exposure to a lot of the spiritual ideas that have
Speaker 1: shaped my life were through sounds true. I would find these, uh,
Speaker 1: you know you you put out these wonderful audio programs,
Speaker 1: and this is probably you know, I don't know when
Speaker 1: when did you start the company? All right, this was
Speaker 1: about two relatively short after you started. I would find
Speaker 1: these at the library and I, you know, Jack Cornfield
Speaker 1: and Pama Children, and I just loved them. They were
Speaker 1: such a you know, such a big part of my
Speaker 1: introduction into this way of life. So thank you for
Speaker 1: doing that. Of course, thanks for being a listener. Thank you.
Speaker 1: So our show is called The One You Feed, and
Speaker 1: it's it's based on the parable of two wolves. So
Speaker 1: let's start with the parable like we usually do. There's
Speaker 1: a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear. And the Grandsuth stops and he thinks about
Speaker 1: it for a second, and he looks up at his
Speaker 1: grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And
Speaker 1: the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 1: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 1: you do. Well. There's two different levels that I relate
Speaker 1: to when I hear that parable. The first level is
Speaker 1: a more obvious level, which is all of the choice
Speaker 1: points that happen in life when there really does feel
Speaker 1: and it could just be in a moment that there
Speaker 1: is a fork in the road. And usually it has
Speaker 1: to do with moments when I feel agitated or triggered
Speaker 1: in some way and I have a choice. I can
Speaker 1: either respond aggressively or I can stop and breathe and
Speaker 1: relax and make a choice that could be far more
Speaker 1: gracious and skillful. And so I encounter choice points like this,
Speaker 1: and I think most of us do at various points
Speaker 1: in our life. So that's what the parable means to me.
Speaker 1: At you could say a more obvious level, but I
Speaker 1: wanted to take it a little deeper if we can,
Speaker 1: because hearing that this show was called The One You
Speaker 1: Feed and that we would begin by talking about the Parable,
Speaker 1: I noticed that I actually have a deeply held conviction
Speaker 1: that when I relax everything and at the core of
Speaker 1: who I am, there is this natural goodness you could
Speaker 1: call it, this inherent love and radiant kindness and goodness,
Speaker 1: and that it's there if I just relax into it,
Speaker 1: and there's not actually this uh you could say, bad
Speaker 1: wolf inside me, that it it comes forward when there's
Speaker 1: some kind of triggering thing, but if I can relax
Speaker 1: and go to what's underneath, that underneath is a core,
Speaker 1: invincible goodness. So I just wanted to say that in
Speaker 1: response to the parable. You know, we've had some really
Speaker 1: interesting discussions around that that sort of very topic because certainly, UM,
Speaker 1: a lot of spiritual teachings, particularly Eastern ones, you know,
Speaker 1: talk about that that original goodness, you know, our our
Speaker 1: our Buddha nature, and obviously, coming from a Western perspective,
Speaker 1: we have more of an idea of original sin and
Speaker 1: um so I always find people where people are coming
Speaker 1: from with that very interesting. So I think from your perspective,
Speaker 1: what you're saying is that it's the experiences and events
Speaker 1: that happened to us as we go on through life
Speaker 1: that cause us to act as Again, it's just a parable.
Speaker 1: We don't have two wolves inside of us, obviously, but
Speaker 1: to act in that way, it's not that's not a
Speaker 1: reflection of any deeper nature of ourselves. It's a reflection
Speaker 1: of conditioning through the world, and that we can relax
Speaker 1: into you could say, or fall back into that goodness
Speaker 1: of our hearts. It's that that is available to us
Speaker 1: as an option where the parable is no longer operating. Right,
Speaker 1: So you just did a audio book that would make
Speaker 1: sense giving what sounds true is it's called being true
Speaker 1: what matters most in work, life and in love and um,
Speaker 1: it's fascinating to hear you talk about I mean, you've
Speaker 1: talked to you know, I would probably say, all of
Speaker 1: the major spiritual teachers of you know, the last thirty years,
Speaker 1: and and so it's really interesting to see kind of
Speaker 1: what that filters out into in you. And so I
Speaker 1: thought we could talk about a couple of different areas,
Speaker 1: but I thought we'd start first because one of the
Speaker 1: things that you say in there. That I think is
Speaker 1: one of the most important things that I think I'm
Speaker 1: learning on the journey is that you say, you know,
Speaker 1: there's no there there, there's no place that we're getting exactly.
Speaker 1: Can you? Can you talk more about that? Yeah? I mean,
Speaker 1: I think for a long time I had the idea
Speaker 1: that enlightenment was a destination. So you know, kind of
Speaker 1: like I'm going someplace, like there's a map, and the
Speaker 1: map is going to take me to a certain lake.
Speaker 1: You know, I live here in Colorado, so it's beautiful
Speaker 1: to go hiking up in the mountains, and you know,
Speaker 1: when you're hiking and you're on your way to your
Speaker 1: beautiful mountain lake, there's a focus on getting there. And
Speaker 1: I think at a certain point when I actually got
Speaker 1: it that there isn't actually, at least this is my experience,
Speaker 1: there isn't actually a destination that even when you get
Speaker 1: to the most beautiful spot and it's filled with this
Speaker 1: beautiful water, there's yet another lake you could go to,
Speaker 1: and another lake, and another lake, and another lake and
Speaker 1: another lake. And so the point is to actually take
Speaker 1: the the walk as enjoyable, step by step. Chokim Trimprimische
Speaker 1: has a saying that I quite like, which is when
Speaker 1: you become a Buddha, or you could say when you
Speaker 1: become quote unquote enlightened if you want. That's the beginning
Speaker 1: of the journey. And that's another way to say what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, which is it's an endless journey with unending
Speaker 1: openings and new realization's, new discoveries and new ways that
Speaker 1: we can further integrate are experience of infinity and light
Speaker 1: and subtle knowing into our moment to moment way of
Speaker 1: living and treating each other. So there's an endless in
Speaker 1: my experience amount to be discovered and an endless depth
Speaker 1: of integration. And for me, that really changed things, and
Speaker 1: I stopped so much focusing on being a seeker and
Speaker 1: instead felt like someone who is exploring and enjoying, and
Speaker 1: that's very different orientation. It's almost in that way becomes
Speaker 1: curiosity for curiosity's sake. I mean, it's the enjoying the
Speaker 1: learning process and all that along the way. One of
Speaker 1: the things that we talk a lot on the show about,
Speaker 1: and I like to ask people because it's one of
Speaker 1: those paradox is that I think sits in the center
Speaker 1: of my life, is that we we all seem to
Speaker 1: have this balance. On one hand, we have some degree
Speaker 1: of striving, whether that be to to go further down
Speaker 1: the spiritual path, to suffer less um or more material ambitions,
Speaker 1: to build a better company, to change the world. And
Speaker 1: then we also have this, you know, very clear teaching
Speaker 1: that says, be where you are, you know, embrace the
Speaker 1: present except the moment. How do you balance those two
Speaker 1: sort of desires in your life? Yeah, I think, of
Speaker 1: course that's a wonderful question. For me. It has to
Speaker 1: do with am I being in touch you could say,
Speaker 1: at tuned or even synchronized with my environment at the time.
Speaker 1: So it's one thing to get turned on by accomplishing something,
Speaker 1: by growing our business or starting a new division, or
Speaker 1: doing a certain kind of writing. I mean, that's wonderful,
Speaker 1: especially when inspirations come and they feel pure in a sense.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, something is asking me to do this,
Speaker 1: So I'm turned on. That's great. But are we turned
Speaker 1: on at the cost of, for example, our relationships with
Speaker 1: other people in our life and in our environment. If so,
Speaker 1: that's fishy to me in my own life. So when
Speaker 1: my partner says, you know, hey, Tammy, I really needs
Speaker 1: m of your attention, and there's lots of ways that
Speaker 1: she communicates that I know that something is out of
Speaker 1: balance and that I'm not as much just present with
Speaker 1: exactly what's happening. There's a person in the room who
Speaker 1: wants me to, you know, shut my computer and turn
Speaker 1: off my iPhone and really sit down and engage with her.
Speaker 1: And it can be the same in a meeting if
Speaker 1: there's a sense of pushing, pushing, pushing for a certain
Speaker 1: outcome versus slowing down and really letting everyone who has
Speaker 1: something to say in the room, making space for people
Speaker 1: to be heard. So to me, it has to do
Speaker 1: with creating a balance between that inner inspiration and the
Speaker 1: external environment and what's actually happening and being asked of
Speaker 1: me in the moment and seeing if there can be
Speaker 1: h linking up, you could say, with my inner experience
Speaker 1: and the outer experience so they're in synchrony. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1: I think that it also gets to what you were
Speaker 1: you know we started off talking about, which is there's
Speaker 1: no there there. As long as we think that the
Speaker 1: happiness or what we need is somewhere down the road,
Speaker 1: then are striving. You know, it does become striving in
Speaker 1: that sense like it will be better when versus being
Speaker 1: able to I think what you said there is is
Speaker 1: create more for the joy of creation in some cases,
Speaker 1: and not about what the end result is, and enjoy
Speaker 1: each step, each step, and each step is a healthy step,
Speaker 1: and I think that's really important. I know in my
Speaker 1: own life when the ambition you could call it, which
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily see as a bad word. I think
Speaker 1: there's something called healthy ambition. But if my own health
Speaker 1: is suffering, that's not healthy ambition. That's ambition at the
Speaker 1: cost of the one being that I am wholly respond before,
Speaker 1: which is the health of this body, so that that
Speaker 1: there's something fishy happening there. And I think our bodies
Speaker 1: often give us very immediate feedback about the pace we
Speaker 1: need to actually live our lives at to be a
Speaker 1: healthy person. I mean, we get feedback all the time,
Speaker 1: and so I I don't want to say, hey, body,
Speaker 1: I'm going to push you. You know, here's another cup
Speaker 1: of caffeine or here's what you know. No, there's feedback
Speaker 1: happening that actually I need to slow down. I'd be
Speaker 1: interested in understanding what your spiritual practice looks like today
Speaker 1: and maybe how that's changed over the years. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: an interesting question. Well, there was a period for about
Speaker 1: a decade where I did a lot of intensive meditation practice,
Speaker 1: and that was really between the ages of thirty nine
Speaker 1: and forty nine. Up until the age of thirty nine,
Speaker 1: I did quite a bit of kind of off and
Speaker 1: on meditating, and then I met a spiritual teacher named
Speaker 1: Reggie Ray who teaches in a Tibetan Buddhist lineage, the
Speaker 1: lineage of the meditation master that I mentioned previously choke
Speaker 1: him trimperm Piche, And when I met Reggie, I developed
Speaker 1: an incredible hunger for practicing what he calls so matic meditation.
Speaker 1: So it's a type of meditation practice that's based on
Speaker 1: deeply dropping into our felt experience in the moment, and
Speaker 1: it involves a lot of retreat practice, so solitary retreat
Speaker 1: practice as well as group retreat trainings. And I did
Speaker 1: several month long training programs, and you know, there was
Speaker 1: this period of my life where I was on some
Speaker 1: type of meditation retreat, probably eight weeks a year over
Speaker 1: that ten year period. And then at a certain point
Speaker 1: going to the group training programs no longer nourished me
Speaker 1: in the same kind of way. I started teaching meditation
Speaker 1: for a period of time, and then I didn't find
Speaker 1: that that experience and that was because Reggie asked me to.
Speaker 1: I didn't find that really nourished me in the same
Speaker 1: kind of way as as well. And so really my
Speaker 1: practice at at this point has been to take a
Speaker 1: solitary retreat each year for approximately ten days as a
Speaker 1: chance to really just drop everything and be alone and
Speaker 1: check in with myself. And then I'm exploring in grading
Speaker 1: the meditative state in daily life and in my work
Speaker 1: life and my relationship life, and that has become my
Speaker 1: primary focus of late. So less sitting day to day
Speaker 1: in your life meditating and more how can I bring
Speaker 1: that knowledge to my life as I go about doing
Speaker 1: it and taking time in the course also of my
Speaker 1: daily life, not so much to formally sit on the cushion,
Speaker 1: but to spend time being being quiet, relaxing, not having
Speaker 1: my cell phone on, staring at the sky, but not
Speaker 1: as much formal practice on the cushion. I'm just very
Speaker 1: fascinated by how people who were you know, really fairly
Speaker 1: committed to this, you know, to to growing spiritually, what
Speaker 1: their practice looks like, and how inevitably it does change
Speaker 1: over time and how personal it is. And I think
Speaker 1: that's really important too, and not to hold ourselves up
Speaker 1: to other people. And certainly I'm not holding myself up
Speaker 1: as a model. I'm sharing my personal experience and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I interviewed someone recently. His name's Michael Carroll,
Speaker 1: and I really liked when I was talking to him
Speaker 1: about meditation. He's written some books on mindful leadership and
Speaker 1: waking up in the workplace, but he talked about meditation
Speaker 1: and spiritual practice in and of itself as being a
Speaker 1: kind of befriending ourselves. And what does it take to
Speaker 1: come to the depth of friendship, let's say, with another person,
Speaker 1: and then by analogy with ourselves, and so you know,
Speaker 1: it's a never ending process. I mean, the more time
Speaker 1: you spend with a friend, the more kinds of experiences
Speaker 1: you have, the more varied experiences. When you travel and
Speaker 1: you go on trips with that person and you go
Speaker 1: through the death of their parents, I mean, your friendship
Speaker 1: deepens in so many ways. And it's the same thing
Speaker 1: with ourselves. And it's not like there's a four formula
Speaker 1: to deepen a friendship with somebody. If anything, you could
Speaker 1: just say it's being vulnerable, telling the truth, you know,
Speaker 1: opening your heart, and spending time together. So I love
Speaker 1: that as a as a metaphor for the journey of meditation,
Speaker 1: this deep befriending of our experience. That's a lovely analogy.
Speaker 1: You talk about living in integrity, and you say that
Speaker 1: there are five keys to living in integrity. Tell us
Speaker 1: about what those keys are. Yeah, So when I went
Speaker 1: to create this little audio program, I decided to call
Speaker 1: it being True. And I liked that title for lots
Speaker 1: of reasons. One obviously because it's such a great play
Speaker 1: on sounds true, but also because being true I think
Speaker 1: that in many ways that is the core value that
Speaker 1: I have as a human being. And what that means
Speaker 1: to me is that I don't have to be embarrassed
Speaker 1: about who I am, including my areas of weakness. And
Speaker 1: that's partially because of what I said at the beginning,
Speaker 1: because underneath it all, there's this goodness there and so
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not talented at this, or I screwed
Speaker 1: up at that, or I feel ashamed about That's all, okay,
Speaker 1: it's okay. And that being true means speaking up and
Speaker 1: being willing to be seen and being willing to connect. Also,
Speaker 1: all of that happens to me by you could say,
Speaker 1: taking off the coverings and being exposed, you know, naked
Speaker 1: as a as a metaphor not not literally taken. So
Speaker 1: this idea being true, and so to me, this is
Speaker 1: this core idea you're You said about being an integrity,
Speaker 1: and of course you know you can't be true without
Speaker 1: being in integrity. So when I thought about this overarching
Speaker 1: idea of being true, I thought of five key ideas
Speaker 1: that to me have been important. And the first is
Speaker 1: recognizing that there's only one of me that I'm not
Speaker 1: a copycat. I'm not. I can't therefore follow a recipe,
Speaker 1: not any recipe from any great spiritual teacher. So I
Speaker 1: can't say I'm going to be true the way Ecartole
Speaker 1: is true. I can't be true the way Pema Chodren
Speaker 1: is true. I can learn from these people, but I'm
Speaker 1: not them, and they're not me, and they don't have
Speaker 1: the same DNA that I have from my family background,
Speaker 1: the same early experiences, or potentially the same sacred function
Speaker 1: in the world. They have different sacred functions. So this
Speaker 1: idea that we're one of a kind is a very
Speaker 1: important idea to me, and it allows us to go
Speaker 1: in and trust our own experience. And we have to
Speaker 1: trust our own experience. It has to be the ultimate
Speaker 1: authority in our lives because there's only one of us.
Speaker 1: And then the second idea is how important it is
Speaker 1: to take away all of the reference points. So we
Speaker 1: learned so much from listening to podcasts and reading great books,
Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, can we actually
Speaker 1: sit in the darkness, Can we actually receive and have
Speaker 1: our own mysterious connection to something like the source of being?
Speaker 1: So that, to me is the second I think that's
Speaker 1: what this befriending process or meditation training enables us to do,
Speaker 1: is to sit without a reference point. Would you say
Speaker 1: that part of that is moving from an intellectual understanding
Speaker 1: of some of these concepts into an experience of them. Well,
Speaker 1: it has to be, because any intellectual anything is a
Speaker 1: reference point. It's it's like, oh, I studied this thing,
Speaker 1: and so therefore you're kind of tied to it, and
Speaker 1: then your experience is second hand. What I mean by
Speaker 1: letting go of a reference point is that you're actually
Speaker 1: in some kind of mysterious energetic space that you can
Speaker 1: barely name. I mean, we give words to it, but
Speaker 1: the words come later. There's there's truly a mysterious sense
Speaker 1: of being and you can sit in that space. I
Speaker 1: mean the analogies that are classically given are things like,
Speaker 1: you know, the night sky or the open blue sky,
Speaker 1: or the ocean itself. I mean, it's a sense of
Speaker 1: an ocean, of being nous and so resting in that
Speaker 1: and being okay with that. And you know, sometimes people
Speaker 1: just call it the void and that works for me.
Speaker 1: I like that being because there's nothing in it that
Speaker 1: you can say, oh, I'm going to take my cue
Speaker 1: from that. So yes, it's moving away from intellectualism, which
Speaker 1: is taking our cues from all of these other statements
Speaker 1: that other people have made or things that we experienced
Speaker 1: some other time in our life in the past. No,
Speaker 1: it's like, right now, what's happening in that empty space?
Speaker 1: Knowing that I myself am unprecedented, and I need to
Speaker 1: see what that empty space wants of me, what is
Speaker 1: actually coming through as a genuine spark of inspiration. And
Speaker 1: then the third point is that we receive instructions. That's
Speaker 1: my experience is that in that empty space there's a
Speaker 1: sense of being given some kind of divine guidance if
Speaker 1: you will, and it feels like divine guidance, you could
Speaker 1: simply say, oh, I get it now, I get what's
Speaker 1: true for me, what's an integrity for me? And then
Speaker 1: we have to listen to what that is and you know,
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, I don't remember the progression
Speaker 1: of the five steps exactly, but the point is that
Speaker 1: we here the guidance, whatever it is. In my case,
Speaker 1: I hear it or we know it and we sense it.
Speaker 1: And it may or may not be big and glamorous.
Speaker 1: It might be really small, like call this person and
Speaker 1: apologize for something, or you know, very simple. Listen to
Speaker 1: someone could be simple. And then we have to have
Speaker 1: the courage to do it. And that's a big step
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of people get instructions but
Speaker 1: they don't follow through. And maybe they don't follow through
Speaker 1: because they're not convinced they're going to make enough money
Speaker 1: if they follow through on it, or it's too risky,
Speaker 1: or it means having some structure in your life radically
Speaker 1: change like your job or your relationship. But we have
Speaker 1: to have the courage to follow through. It might mean
Speaker 1: speaking truth to power, all kinds of things that can
Speaker 1: be extremely scary, but we have to follow through on
Speaker 1: the instructions were given and then live with the consequences.
Speaker 1: What are ways that you have found to help you
Speaker 1: to get that courage, because that is one of those
Speaker 1: I think. I think I agree with you. I think
Speaker 1: there can often be a real gap there, but it
Speaker 1: can be a challenging gap to overcome. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: in my own life, I think having people in my
Speaker 1: life who I know really love me for who I am,
Speaker 1: even if I bomb on stage, do I have the
Speaker 1: courage to do this or that I know that there's
Speaker 1: going to be this inner circle in my life that
Speaker 1: just loves me for the true, innocent, good human that
Speaker 1: I am. That's been incredibly important to me and has
Speaker 1: helped me step out in all kinds of ways. So
Speaker 1: feeling supported, I'm supported, And you know, people may find
Speaker 1: support in different ways, whether it's a support group or
Speaker 1: whatever that might be, but I think we all need support.
Speaker 1: We need to know we're loved. Yeah, that's been I
Speaker 1: think one of the big learnings from this show for
Speaker 1: me that has come up over and over and over again,
Speaker 1: and I don't know that I recognize the importance of it.
Speaker 1: Until I started doing the show, was that that role
Speaker 1: of support and connection and other people. I think I
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time thinking the spiritual journey was
Speaker 1: about going within, which I think is part of it.
Speaker 1: But and you talk about this also, it's not just that.
Speaker 1: It's also about our outward connections. And I mean, I
Speaker 1: feel that my marriage with my partner Julie, We've been
Speaker 1: together for fifteen years, is really the center of my life,
Speaker 1: and it's a very loving and rich and ever deepening
Speaker 1: relationship and one that keeps opening my heart. And from
Speaker 1: that place, I feel I have the resources to do
Speaker 1: all kinds of things. I don't know if I would
Speaker 1: feel as supported in my heart and to be as vulnerable, etcetera.
Speaker 1: If I didn't feel that that was my home base.
Speaker 1: So I think one of the things that anybody who
Speaker 1: talked to you would want to know is you know,
Speaker 1: to to hear about these experiences with with the various
Speaker 1: spiritual teachers that you've met, and I'd be curious, and
Speaker 1: what are some of the major ones that stick out
Speaker 1: to you. I'm sure that you could, we could go
Speaker 1: with us for hours, but what are a couple of
Speaker 1: the major ones that that really stick with you. Oh
Speaker 1: my yeah, you know, just yesterday here it sounds true.
Speaker 1: For the first time in our company's history, we had
Speaker 1: eckartole in the building and we were doing some filming
Speaker 1: with him, and he was in front of the cameras,
Speaker 1: so he was about five ft away from the camera lens,
Speaker 1: and I was sitting right there, you know, just three
Speaker 1: ft away from him, directing this small video shoot we
Speaker 1: were doing. And what I felt was a field of
Speaker 1: infinite light and that there was not a single thought
Speaker 1: form in the room. So we just sat for a
Speaker 1: few minutes before he started speaking. And I think that
Speaker 1: experience and I've felt something like that but different with
Speaker 1: many different spiritual teachers, and that Eckart has an incredibly bright,
Speaker 1: infinite light field, energy field around him that's thoughtless, and
Speaker 1: I think being in that energy field that actually, that
Speaker 1: has been probably the most instructive lesson, if you will,
Speaker 1: that I've learned from working with teachers, more than this
Speaker 1: word or that word or anything. It's more as I
Speaker 1: allowed myself to just relax, and you know, sometimes I'll
Speaker 1: say to the cells in my body, hey, could you
Speaker 1: like try to pick up on what's going on over there?
Speaker 1: Like just you you guys pick it up. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to think about it. I'm not going to try
Speaker 1: to process this because when we're with people, we and
Speaker 1: we open up. So if we open all the pores
Speaker 1: on our skin such that it's almost like our bodies
Speaker 1: made of a spongy, porous material, and we're with some someone,
Speaker 1: you know, just just like grandfather, clocks will start beating
Speaker 1: in the same beat the basic theory of residents. We
Speaker 1: can start feeling what they feel like and what expanded
Speaker 1: awareness feels like, and we can start catching onto it
Speaker 1: in a in a feeling way. So I think that
Speaker 1: by illustration is probably the biggest lesson I've learned from
Speaker 1: having the chance to be with many great teachers. One
Speaker 1: of the things that I'm always curious about is You've
Speaker 1: got these great spiritual teachers and yet they're also human beings,
Speaker 1: and I'm always fascinated about, you know, what is what
Speaker 1: is their experience? And again this is not this is
Speaker 1: a very vague sort of wide question and it's hard
Speaker 1: to be very specific. But it's always like I think
Speaker 1: people say, like, you know, does the Dalai Lama have
Speaker 1: bad days? You know, does Eckart totally have bad days
Speaker 1: to people or or a bad mood or is there
Speaker 1: a period of time where they're feeling irritated or And
Speaker 1: I think that's a question that's always interesting, you know,
Speaker 1: from the outside to to look at, because I sometimes
Speaker 1: think we might hold ourselves two standards that aren't real. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as you know, I host a podcast series called Insights
Speaker 1: at the Edge, and I'm always asking people those kinds
Speaker 1: of questions. So I'm often wanting to know from people,
Speaker 1: you know, Uh, do you know what's your challenging aspect
Speaker 1: of your life? What really uh throws you throws you down?
Speaker 1: And how do you work with it now? And how
Speaker 1: is that different from before? And I can't give you
Speaker 1: a standard answer. Some people are more forthcoming than others.
Speaker 1: But I do think that not putting people up on
Speaker 1: pedestals and remembering that all of us are on some
Speaker 1: kind of journey of growing and discovering new things and
Speaker 1: deepening and working out our relationships. I haven't met anybody
Speaker 1: who isn't learning and growing in some way. And I
Speaker 1: think many people more and more, I think the zeitgeist
Speaker 1: is shifting, that people feel more more just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: let me tell you what's going on this is the
Speaker 1: area of my life that is currently challenging for me,
Speaker 1: and I hear that more and more and people being
Speaker 1: more and more are vulnerable about that. Excellent, well, Tammy,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking the time to come
Speaker 1: on the show. Thanks for your new work Being True.
Speaker 1: We'll have links to it on the website as well
Speaker 1: as links too. Sounds true. I mean everybody should visit
Speaker 1: sounds true. There's more wonderful materials there than you could
Speaker 1: consume in a lifetime probably. And and thank you for
Speaker 1: the work that you've been doing for all this time
Speaker 1: putting this stuff out into the world. Thank you. What
Speaker 1: a great podcast you have. I really enjoyed being with you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, Take care. You can learn more
Speaker 1: about Tammy Simon and this podcast at one you feed
Speaker 1: dot net slash Simon