Speaker 1: In case you're just recently joining us, or however long
Speaker 1: you've been a listener of the show. You may not
Speaker 1: realize we have years and years of incredible episodes in
Speaker 1: our archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that we've
Speaker 1: decided to handpick one of our favorites that may be
Speaker 1: new to you, but if not, it's definitely worth another listen.
Speaker 1: We hope you'll enjoy this episode with Tammy Simon.
Speaker 2: If my own health is suffering, that's ambition at the
Speaker 2: 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 think,
Speaker 1: ring true, and yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 1: don't strengthen.
Speaker 3: Or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this
Speaker 1: episode is Tammy Simon. She found It Sounds True at
Speaker 1: the age of twenty two with the mission of disseminating
Speaker 1: spiritual wisdom. As a pioneer in the conscious business movement,
Speaker 1: she focuses on bringing authenticity and heart into the workplace
Speaker 1: while honoring multiple bottom lines. Tammy hosts a popular weekly
Speaker 1: podcast called Insights at the Edge, where she has interviewed
Speaker 1: many of today's leading teachers, delving deeply into their discoveries
Speaker 1: and personal experiences on their own journeys with Sounds True.
Speaker 1: She has released the new audio program Being True, What
Speaker 1: Matters Most in Work, Life and Love.
Speaker 3: Hi, Tammy, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. It's great to be here. It's
Speaker 4: an honor. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Well. It's an honor for me to have you on
Speaker 5: because I think my first real exposure to a lot
Speaker 5: of the spiritual ideas that have shaped my life were
Speaker 5: through Sounds True.
Speaker 3: I would find these.
Speaker 5: You know, you put out these wonderful audio programs, and
Speaker 5: this is probably you know, I don't know when when
Speaker 5: did you start the.
Speaker 4: Company In nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 5: All right, this was about ninety two, relatively short after
Speaker 5: you started. I would find these at the library and I,
Speaker 5: you know, Jack Cornfield and ham A children, and I
Speaker 5: just loved them. They were such a you know, such
Speaker 5: a big part of my introduction into this way of life.
Speaker 3: So thank you for doing that.
Speaker 4: Of course, thanks for being a listener. Thank you.
Speaker 5: So our show is called The One You Feed, and
Speaker 5: it's it's based on the parable of two wolves. So
Speaker 5: let's start with the parable, like we usually do. There's
Speaker 5: a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life,
Speaker 5: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 5: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 5: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 5: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 5: and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about
Speaker 5: it for a second, and he looks up at his
Speaker 5: grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And
Speaker 5: the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 5: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 5: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 5: you do.
Speaker 2: Well, there's two different levels that I relate to when
Speaker 2: I hear that parable. The first level is a more
Speaker 2: obvious level, which is all of the choice points that
Speaker 2: happen in life when there really does feel and it
Speaker 2: could just be in a moment that there is a
Speaker 2: fork in the road. And usually it has to do
Speaker 2: with moments when I feel agitated or triggered in some
Speaker 2: way and I have a choice. I can either respond
Speaker 2: aggressively or I can stop and breathe and relax and
Speaker 2: make a choice that could be far more gracious and skillful.
Speaker 2: And so I encounter choice points like this, and I
Speaker 2: think most of us do at various points in our life.
Speaker 2: So that's what the parable means to me at you
Speaker 2: could say a more obvious level, But I wanted to
Speaker 2: take it a little deeper, if we can, because hearing
Speaker 2: that this show was called The One You Feed and
Speaker 2: that we would begin by talking about the parable, I
Speaker 2: noticed that I actually have a deeply held conviction that
Speaker 2: when I relax everything and at the core of who
Speaker 2: I am, there is this now goodness you could call it,
Speaker 2: this inherent love and radiant kindness and goodness, and that
Speaker 2: it's there if I just relax into it, and there's
Speaker 2: not actually this, you could say, bad wolf inside me,
Speaker 2: that it comes forward when there's some kind of triggering thing,
Speaker 2: But if I can relax and go to what's underneath,
Speaker 2: that underneath is a core invincible goodness. So I just
Speaker 2: wanted to say that in response to the parable.
Speaker 5: You know, we've had some really interesting discussions around that
Speaker 5: that sort of very topic because certainly a lot of
Speaker 5: spiritual teachings, particularly Eastern ones, you know, talk about that
Speaker 5: original goodness, you know, our buddhen nature, and obviously, coming
Speaker 5: from a Western perspective, we have more of an idea
Speaker 5: of original sin. And so I always find people where
Speaker 5: people are coming from with that very interesting. So I
Speaker 5: think from your perspective, what you're saying is that it's
Speaker 5: the experiences and events that happened to us as we
Speaker 5: go on through life that cause us to act as Again,
Speaker 5: it's just a parable. We don't have two wolves inside
Speaker 5: of us, obviously, but to act in that way, that's
Speaker 5: not a reflection of any deeper nature of ourselves.
Speaker 3: It's a reflection of conditioning through the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that we can relax into, you could say,
Speaker 2: or fall back into that goodness of our hearts, that
Speaker 2: that is available to us as an option where the
Speaker 2: parable is no longer operating.
Speaker 5: Right, So you just did a audiobook that would make
Speaker 5: sense giving what sounds true is it's called being true
Speaker 5: what matters most in work, life and in love. And
Speaker 5: it's fascinating to hear you talk about I mean, you've
Speaker 5: talked to you know, I would probably say, all of
Speaker 5: the major spiritual teachers of you know, the last thirty years,
Speaker 5: and so it's really interesting to see kind of what
Speaker 5: that filters out into in you. And so I thought
Speaker 5: we could talk about a couple of different areas, but
Speaker 5: I thought it we'd start first because one of the
Speaker 5: things that you say in there that I think is
Speaker 5: one of the most important things that I think I'm
Speaker 5: learning on the journey is that you say, you know,
Speaker 5: there's no there there, there's no place that we're getting exactly.
Speaker 3: Can you can you talk more about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think for a long time I
Speaker 2: had the idea that enlightenment was a destination. So you know,
Speaker 2: kind of like I'm going someplace, like there's a map
Speaker 2: and the map is going to take me to a
Speaker 2: certain lake. You know, I live here in Colorado, so
Speaker 2: it's beautiful to go hiking up in the mountains, and
Speaker 2: you know, when you're hiking and you're on your way
Speaker 2: to your beautiful mountain lake, there's a focus on getting there.
Speaker 2: And I think at a certain point when I actually
Speaker 2: got it, that there isn't actually, at least this is
Speaker 2: my experience, there isn't actually a destination that even when
Speaker 2: you get to the most beautiful spot and it's filled
Speaker 2: with this beautiful water, there's yet another lake you could
Speaker 2: go to, and another lake, and another lake, and another
Speaker 2: lake and another lake. And so the point is to
Speaker 2: actually take the walk as enjoyable, step by step. Chogum
Speaker 2: Trimbrimpochet has a saying that I quite like, which is
Speaker 2: when you become a Buddha, or you could say when
Speaker 2: you become quote unquote enlightened if you want. That's the
Speaker 2: beginning of the journey. And that's another way to say
Speaker 2: what I'm saying, which is it's an endless journey with
Speaker 2: unending openings and new realizations, new discoveries, and new ways
Speaker 2: that we can further integrate are experience of infinity and
Speaker 2: light and subtle knowing into our moment to moment way
Speaker 2: of living and treating each other. So there's an endless
Speaker 2: in my experience amount to be discovered and an endless
Speaker 2: depth of integration. And for me, that really changed things,
Speaker 2: and I stopped so much focusing on being a seeker
Speaker 2: and instead felt like someone who is exploring and enjoying.
Speaker 2: And that's very different orientation.
Speaker 5: It's almost in that way, becomes curiosity for curiosity's sake.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's the enjoying, the learning process and all
Speaker 5: that along the way. One of the things that we
Speaker 5: talk a lot on the show about, and I like
Speaker 5: to ask people because it's one of those paradoxes that
Speaker 5: I think sits in the center of my life, is
Speaker 5: that we all seem to have this balance. On one hand,
Speaker 5: we have some degree of striving, whether that be to
Speaker 5: go further down the spiritual path, to suffer less or
Speaker 5: more material ambitions, to build a better company, to change
Speaker 5: the world. And then we also have this very clear
Speaker 5: teaching that says, be where you are, you know, embrace
Speaker 5: the present, accept the moment. How do you balance those
Speaker 5: two sort of desires in your life?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, of course that's a wonderful question.
Speaker 4: For me.
Speaker 2: It has to do with am I being in touch
Speaker 2: you could say, attuned or even synchronized with my environment
Speaker 2: at the time. So it's one thing to get turned
Speaker 2: on by accomplishing something, by growing our business or starting
Speaker 2: a new division, or doing a certain kind of writing.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's wonderful, especially when inspirations come and they
Speaker 2: feel in a sense it's like, oh, something is asking
Speaker 2: me to do this.
Speaker 4: I'm turned on. That's great. But are we turned on.
Speaker 2: At the cost of, for example, our relationships with other
Speaker 2: people in our life and in our environment.
Speaker 4: If so, that's fishy to me in my own life.
Speaker 4: So when my.
Speaker 2: Partner says, you know, hey, Tammy, I really need some
Speaker 2: of your attention, and there's lots of ways that she
Speaker 2: communicates that I know that something is out of balance
Speaker 2: and that I'm not as much just present with exactly
Speaker 2: what's happening. There's a person in the room who wants
Speaker 2: me to, you know, shut my computer and turn off
Speaker 2: my iPhone and really sit down and engage with her.
Speaker 4: And it can be the.
Speaker 2: Same in a meeting if there's a sense of pushing, pushing,
Speaker 2: pushing for a certain outcome versus slowing down and really
Speaker 2: letting everyone who has something to say in the room,
Speaker 2: making space for people to be heard. So to me,
Speaker 2: it has to do with creating a balance between that
Speaker 2: inner inspiration and the external environment and what's actually happening
Speaker 2: and being asked of me in the moment and seeing
Speaker 2: if there can be a linking up, you could say,
Speaker 2: with my inner experience and the outer experience so that
Speaker 2: they're in synchrony.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 5: I think that it also gets to what you were
Speaker 5: You know, we start off talking about, which is there's
Speaker 5: no there there. As long as we think that the
Speaker 5: happiness or what we need is somewhere down the road,
Speaker 5: then are striving. You know, it does become striving in
Speaker 5: that sense, like it'll be better when versus being able
Speaker 5: to I think what you said there is is create
Speaker 5: more for the joy of creation in some cases and
Speaker 5: not about what the end result is.
Speaker 2: And enjoy each step. Yea each step, and each step
Speaker 2: is a healthy step, And I think that's really important.
Speaker 2: I know in my own life when the ambition you
Speaker 2: could call it, which I don't necessarily see as a
Speaker 2: bad word. I think there's something called healthy ambition. But
Speaker 2: if my own health is suffering, that's not healthy ambition.
Speaker 2: That's ambition at the cost of the one being that
Speaker 2: I am wholly responsible for, which is the health of
Speaker 2: this body, so that there's something fishy happening there. And
Speaker 2: I think our bodies often give us very immediate feedback
Speaker 2: about the pace we need to actually live our lives
Speaker 2: at to be a healthy person. I mean, we get
Speaker 2: feedback all the time. And so I don't want to say, hey, body,
Speaker 2: I'm going to push you. You know, here's another cup
Speaker 2: of caffeine or here's what you know. No, there's feedback
Speaker 2: happening that actually I need to slow down.
Speaker 5: I'd be interested in understanding what your spiritual practice looks
Speaker 5: like today and maybe how that's changed over the years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an interesting question. Well, there was a period
Speaker 2: for about a decade where I did a lot of
Speaker 2: intensive meditation practice, and that was really between the ages
Speaker 2: of thirty nine and forty nine. Up until the age
Speaker 2: of thirty nine, I did quite a bit of kind
Speaker 2: of off and on meditating, and then I met a
Speaker 2: spiritual teacher named Reggie Ray who teaches in a Tibetan
Speaker 2: Buddhist lineage, the lineage of the meditation master that I
Speaker 2: mentioned previously, Chogum trim Per Impachet. And when I met Reggie,
Speaker 2: I developed an incredible hunger for practicing what he calls
Speaker 2: somatic meditation. So it's a type of meditation practice that's
Speaker 2: based on deeply dropping into our felt experience in the moment,
Speaker 2: and it involves a lot of retreat practice, so solitary
Speaker 2: retreat practice as well as group retreat trainings. And I
Speaker 2: did several month long training programs, and you know, there
Speaker 2: was this period of my life where I was on
Speaker 2: some type of meditation retreat, probably eight weeks a year
Speaker 2: over that ten year period, and then at a certain point,
Speaker 2: going to the group training programs no longer nourished me
Speaker 2: in the same kind of way. I started teaching meditation
Speaker 2: for a period of time, and I didn't find that
Speaker 2: that experience, and that was because Reggie asked me to.
Speaker 2: I didn't find that really nourished me in the same
Speaker 2: kind of way as well. And so really my practice
Speaker 2: at this point has been to take a solitary retreat
Speaker 2: each year for approximately ten days as a chance to
Speaker 2: really just drop everything and be alone and check in
Speaker 2: with myself. And then I'm exploring integrating the meditative state
Speaker 2: in daily life and in my work life and my
Speaker 2: relationship life, and that has become my primary focus of late.
Speaker 5: So less sitting day to day in your life meditating,
Speaker 5: and more how can I bring that knowledge to my
Speaker 5: life as I go about doing it.
Speaker 2: And taking time in the course also of my daily life,
Speaker 2: not so much to formally sit on the cushion, but
Speaker 2: to spend time being being quiet, relied, not having my
Speaker 2: cell phone on, staring at the sky, but not as
Speaker 2: much formal practice on the cushion.
Speaker 5: I'm just very fascinated by how people who are you
Speaker 5: really fairly committed to this, you know, to growing spiritually,
Speaker 5: what their practice looks like, and how inevitably it does
Speaker 5: change over.
Speaker 4: Time, and how personal it is.
Speaker 2: And I think that's really important too, and not to
Speaker 2: hold ourselves up to other people. And certainly I'm not
Speaker 2: holding myself up as a model. I'm sharing my personal experience,
Speaker 2: and I think, you know, I interviewed someone recently. His
Speaker 2: name's Michael Carroll, and I really liked when I was
Speaker 2: talking to him about meditation. He's written some books on
Speaker 2: mindful leadership and waking up in the workplace, but he
Speaker 2: talked about meditation and spiritual practice in and of itself
Speaker 2: as being a kind of befriending ourselves and what does
Speaker 2: it take to come to the depth of friendship, let's say,
Speaker 2: with another person, and then buy analogy with ourselves, and
Speaker 2: so you know, it's a never ending process. I mean,
Speaker 2: the more time you spend with a friend, the more
Speaker 2: kinds of experiences you have, the more varied experiences. When
Speaker 2: you travel and you go on trips with that person
Speaker 2: and you go through the death of their parents, I mean,
Speaker 2: your friendship deepens in so many ways. And it's the
Speaker 2: same thing with ourself. And it's not like there's a
Speaker 2: formula to deepen a friendship with somebody. If anything, you
Speaker 2: could just say it's being vulnerable, telling the truth, you know,
Speaker 2: opening your heart, and spending time together. So I love
Speaker 2: that as a as a metaphor for the journey of meditation,
Speaker 2: this deep befriending of our experience.
Speaker 3: That is a lovely analogy.
Speaker 5: You talk about living in integrity, and you say that
Speaker 5: there are five keys to living in integrity. Tell us
Speaker 5: about what those keys are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So when I went to create this little audio program,
Speaker 2: I decided to call it being True. And I liked
Speaker 2: that title for lots of reasons. One obviously because it's
Speaker 2: such a great play on sounds true, but also because
Speaker 2: being true. I think that in many ways that is
Speaker 2: the core value that I have as a human being.
Speaker 2: And what that means to me is that I don't
Speaker 2: have to be embarrassed about who I am, including my
Speaker 2: areas of weakness. And that's partially because of what I
Speaker 2: said at the beginning, because underneath it all there's this
Speaker 2: goodness there. And so you know, I'm not talented at this,
Speaker 2: or I screwed up at that, or I feel ashamed
Speaker 2: about it, that's all okay, It's okay, And that being
Speaker 2: true means speaking up and being willing to be seen
Speaker 2: and being willing to connect. Also, all of that happens
Speaker 2: to me by you could say, taking off the coverings
Speaker 2: and being exposed, you know, naked as a metaphor not
Speaker 2: literally taken. So this idea being true, and so to me,
Speaker 2: this is this core idea you said about being in integrity,
Speaker 2: And of course you know you can't be true without
Speaker 2: being in integrity. So when I thought about this overarching
Speaker 2: idea of being true, I thought of five key ideas
Speaker 2: that to me have been important. And the first is
Speaker 2: recognizing that there's only one of me that I'm not
Speaker 2: a copycat. I can't therefore follow a recipe, not any
Speaker 2: recipe from any great spiritual teacher. So I can't say
Speaker 2: I'm going to be true the way Eckartole is true.
Speaker 2: I can't be true the way Pemachildren is true. I
Speaker 2: can learn from these people, but I'm not them and
Speaker 2: they're not me, and they don't have the same DNA
Speaker 2: that I have from my family background, the same early experiences,
Speaker 2: or potentially the same sacred function in the world. They
Speaker 2: have different sacred functions. So this idea that we're one
Speaker 2: of a kind is a very important idea to me,
Speaker 2: and it allows us to go in and trust our
Speaker 2: own experience. We have to trust our own experience. It
Speaker 2: has to be the ultimate authority in our lives because
Speaker 2: there's only one of us. And then the second idea
Speaker 2: is how important it is to take away all of
Speaker 2: the reference points.
Speaker 4: So we learn so much from listening to.
Speaker 2: Podcasts and reading great books, but at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, can we actually sit in the darkness? Can
Speaker 2: we actually receive and have our own mysterious connection to
Speaker 2: something like the source of being? So that to me
Speaker 2: is the second and I think that's what this befriending
Speaker 2: process or meditation training enables us to do is to
Speaker 2: sit without a reference point.
Speaker 5: Would you say that part of that is moving from
Speaker 5: an intellectual understanding of some of these concepts and do
Speaker 5: an experience of them.
Speaker 2: Well, it has to be, because any intellectual anything is
Speaker 2: a reference point, right, It's like, oh, I studied this thing,
Speaker 2: and so therefore you're kind of tied to it, and
Speaker 2: then your experience is secondhand. What I mean by letting
Speaker 2: go of a reference point is that you're actually in
Speaker 2: some kind of mysterious energetic space that you can barely name.
Speaker 2: I mean, we give words to it, but the words
Speaker 2: come later. There's truly a mysterious sense of being and
Speaker 2: you can sit in that space. I mean the analogies
Speaker 2: that are classically given are things like, you know, the
Speaker 2: night sky or the open blue sky, or the ocean itself.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's the sense of an ocean of beingness
Speaker 2: and so resting in that and being okay with that,
Speaker 2: and you know, sometimes people just call it the.
Speaker 4: Void and that works for me.
Speaker 2: I like that being because there's nothing in it that
Speaker 2: you can say, Oh, I'm going to take my cue
Speaker 2: from that. So yes, it's moving away from intellectualism, which
Speaker 2: is taking our cues from all of these other statements
Speaker 2: that other people have made or things that we experienced
Speaker 2: some other time in our life in the past. No,
Speaker 2: it's like, right now, what's happening in that empty space?
Speaker 2: Knowing that I myself am unprecedented, and I need to
Speaker 2: see what that empty space wants of me, what is
Speaker 2: actually coming through as a genuine spark of inspiration. And
Speaker 2: then the third point is that we receive instructions. That's
Speaker 2: my experience is that in that empty space there's a
Speaker 2: sense of being given some kind of divine guidance if
Speaker 2: you will, and it feels like divine guidance. You could
Speaker 2: simply say, oh, I get it now, I get what's
Speaker 2: true for me. What's an integrity for me? And then
Speaker 2: we have to listen to what that is. And you know,
Speaker 2: to be honest with you, I don't remember the progression
Speaker 2: of the five steps exactly, but the point is that
Speaker 2: we hear the guidance, whatever it is. In my case,
Speaker 2: I hear it or we know it and we sense it.
Speaker 2: And it may or may not be big and glamorous.
Speaker 2: It might be really small, like call this person and
Speaker 2: apologize for something, or you know, very simple listen to someone.
Speaker 2: It could be simple, and then we have to have
Speaker 2: the courage to do it. And that's a big step
Speaker 2: because I think a lot of people get instructions but
Speaker 2: they don't follow through. And maybe they don't follow through
Speaker 2: because they're not convinced they're going to make enough money
Speaker 2: if they follow through on it, or it's too risky,
Speaker 2: or it means having some structure in your life radically change,
Speaker 2: like your job or your relationship. But we have to
Speaker 2: have the courage to follow through. It might mean speaking
Speaker 2: truth to power, all kinds of things that can be
Speaker 2: extremely scary, but we have to follow through on the
Speaker 2: instructions we're given and then live with the consequences.
Speaker 6: Does meditating feel like a chore, another to do list
Speaker 6: item to check off, or perhaps it's even fallen off
Speaker 6: the list entirely. If you sense that meditating regularly would
Speaker 6: benefit you, but you struggle to find a sustainable place
Speaker 6: for it in your schedule, I can help. There are
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Speaker 3: What are ways that you have.
Speaker 5: Found to help you to get that courage? Because that
Speaker 5: is one of those I think.
Speaker 3: I agree with you.
Speaker 5: I think there can often be a real gap there,
Speaker 5: but it can be a challenging gap to overcome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean in my own life, I think having
Speaker 2: people in my life who I know really love me
Speaker 2: for who I am, even if I bomb on stage,
Speaker 2: do I have the courage to do this or that
Speaker 2: I know that there's going to be this inner circle
Speaker 2: in my life that just loves me for the true, innocent,
Speaker 2: good human that I am. That's been incredibly important to
Speaker 2: me and has helped me step out in all kinds
Speaker 2: of ways. So feeling supported, I'm supported, And you know,
Speaker 2: people may find support in different ways, whether it's a
Speaker 2: support group or whatever that might be. But I think
Speaker 2: we all need support. We need to know We're loved.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's been I think one of the big learnings
Speaker 5: from this show for me that has come up over
Speaker 5: and over and over again, and I don't know that
Speaker 5: I recognize the importance of it until I started doing
Speaker 5: the show was that that role of support and connection
Speaker 5: and other people. I think I spent a lot of
Speaker 5: time thinking the spiritual journey was about going within, which
Speaker 5: I think is part of it. But and you talk
Speaker 5: about this also, it's not just that, it's also about
Speaker 5: our outward connections.
Speaker 2: And I mean, I feel that my marriage with my
Speaker 2: partner Julie, we've been together for fifteen years, is really
Speaker 2: the center of my life, and it's a very loving
Speaker 2: and rich and ever deepening relationship and one that keeps
Speaker 2: opening my heart. And from that place, I feel I
Speaker 2: have the resources to do all kinds of things.
Speaker 4: I don't know if I would.
Speaker 2: Feel as supported in my heart and to be as vulnerable,
Speaker 2: et cetera if I didn't feel that that was my
Speaker 2: home base.
Speaker 5: So I think one of the things that anybody who
Speaker 5: talked to you would want to know is you know,
Speaker 5: to hear about these experiences with the various spiritual teachers
Speaker 5: that you've met and I'd be curious in what are
Speaker 5: some of the major ones that stick out to you.
Speaker 5: I'm sure there could. We could go with this for hours,
Speaker 5: but what are a couple of the major ones that
Speaker 5: really stick with you?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: My, yeah, you know, just yesterday here it sounds true.
Speaker 2: For the first time in our company's history, we had
Speaker 2: Eckhart Toole in the building and we were doing some
Speaker 2: filming with him, and he was in front of the camera,
Speaker 2: so he was about five feet away from the camber
Speaker 2: lens and I was sitting right there, you know, just
Speaker 2: three feet away from him, directing this small video shoot
Speaker 2: we were doing. And what I felt was a field
Speaker 2: of infinite light and that there was not a single
Speaker 2: thought form in the room. So we just sat for
Speaker 2: a few minutes before he started speaking. And I think
Speaker 2: that experience and I've felt something like that but different
Speaker 2: with many different spiritual teachers, and that Eckart has an
Speaker 2: incredibly bright, infinite light field, energy field around him that's thoughtless,
Speaker 2: and I think being in that energy field that actually,
Speaker 2: that has been probably the most instructive lesson, if you will,
Speaker 2: that I've learned from working with teachers, more than this
Speaker 2: word or that word or anything it's more as I've
Speaker 2: allowed myself to just relax, and you know, sometimes I'll
Speaker 2: say to the cells in my body, hey, could you
Speaker 2: try to pick up on what's going on over there?
Speaker 2: Like just you guys, pick it up. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to think about it. I'm not going to try to
Speaker 2: process this. Because when we're with people and we open up,
Speaker 2: so if we open all the pores on our skin
Speaker 2: such that it's almost like our bodies made of a spongy,
Speaker 2: porous material, and we're with someone, you know, just like grandfather,
Speaker 2: clocks will start beating in the same beat the basic
Speaker 2: theory of resonance.
Speaker 4: We can start.
Speaker 2: Feeling what they feel like and what expanded awareness feels like,
Speaker 2: and we can start catching on to it in a
Speaker 2: feeling way. So I think that by illustration is probably
Speaker 2: the biggest lesson I've learned from having the chance to
Speaker 2: be with many great teachers.
Speaker 5: One of the things that I'm always curious about is
Speaker 5: You've got these great spiritual teachers and yet they're also
Speaker 5: human beings, and I'm always fascinated about, you know, what
Speaker 5: is their experience? And again, this is not this is
Speaker 5: a very vague sort of wide question. It's hard to
Speaker 5: be very specific, but it's always like I think people say, like,
Speaker 5: you know, does the Dalai Lama have bad days? You know,
Speaker 5: does Eckhart told they have bad days to people or
Speaker 5: a bad mood or is there a period of time
Speaker 5: where they're feeling irritated or And I think that's a
Speaker 5: question that's always interesting, you know, from the outside to
Speaker 5: look at, because I sometimes think we might hold ourselves
Speaker 5: to standards that aren't real.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as you know, I host a podcast series called
Speaker 2: Insights at the Edge, and I'm always asking people those
Speaker 2: kinds of questions. So I'm often wanting to know from people,
Speaker 2: you know, do you know what's your challenging aspect of
Speaker 2: your life, what really throws you throws you down? And
Speaker 2: how do you work with it now? And how is
Speaker 2: that different from before? And I can't give you a
Speaker 2: standard answer. Some people are more forthcoming than others, But
Speaker 2: I do think that not putting people up on pedestals
Speaker 2: and remembering that all of us are on some kind
Speaker 2: of journey of growing and discovering new things and deepening
Speaker 2: and working out our relationships. I haven't met anybody who
Speaker 2: isn't learning and growing in some way. And I think
Speaker 2: many people more and more. I think the zeitgeist is shifting,
Speaker 2: that people feel more just like, yeah, let me tell
Speaker 2: you what's going on. This is the area of my
Speaker 2: life that is currently challenging for me, and I hear
Speaker 2: that more and more and people being more and more
Speaker 2: vulnerable about that.
Speaker 5: Excellent, well, Tammy, Thank you so much for taking the
Speaker 5: time to come on the show. Thanks for your new
Speaker 5: work Being True. We'll have links to it on the
Speaker 5: website as well as links to Sounds True. I mean,
Speaker 5: everybody should visit Sounds True. There's more wonderful materials there
Speaker 5: than you could consume in a lifetime probably. And thank
Speaker 5: you for the work that you've been doing for all
Speaker 5: this time putting this stuff out into the world.
Speaker 4: Thank you. What a great podcast you have. I really
Speaker 4: enjoyed being with you.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Thank you, Take care, bye bye.
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