Sounds True: Insights at the Edge

Why do some of the most hardened people—lifers on death row, people who've killed—turn out to be, underneath it all, remarkably sensitive? Physician and trauma expert Dr. Gabor Maté has spent decades working with addicts and prisoners, and he's found a pattern that upends how we usually think about cruelty and compassion.Dr. Gabor Maté is a physician and bestselling author whose work on trauma and addiction has shaped how millions understand pain, illness, and healing. He's the author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, When the Body Says No, Scattered Minds, and, with his son Daniel, The Myth of Normal.In this conversation, Tami and Gabor explore:Why compassion is wired into us from birth — and what shuts it downThe neuroscience of care, drawing on affective neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp's research on emotional systemsWhat Gabor has witnessed firsthand working with lifers and people on death rowThe difference between "orchid" and "dandelion" temperaments, and why high sensitivity can become either a liability or a giftWhy genes linked to addiction may really be genes for sensitivityThis one's for anyone trying to understand the roots of cruelty, or working through their own compassion fatigue—toward others, or toward themselves.Taken from the full Insights at the Edge conversation with Gabor Maté titled “Gabor Maté: Healing Principles to Embody in a Traumatized World”: https://bit.ly/insights-gabor-mateSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Physician Lissa Rankin says trauma doesn't just live in the mind, it can trigger measurable physical disease, from autoimmune conditions to chronic illness that conventional medicine can't explain. But her most provocative claim is the reverse: that healing the nervous system may be the missing piece in reversing illnesses that have resisted every other treatment.Dr. Rankin, a physician and author of Sacred Medicine and the New York Times bestseller Mind Over Medicine, has spent years studying the link between the nervous system and self-healing, including polyvagal theory and the ventral vagal branch of the vagus nerve. In this conversation with Tami Simon, she widens the definition of trauma well beyond childhood wounds to include systemic racism, environmental toxins, and the everyday stress of simply living in the world today.In this conversation, Tami and Lissa explore:Why Dr. Rankin believes trauma and chronic illness are intrinsically connectedHow polyvagal theory and the vagus nerve point to a physical mechanism for healingWhy "developmental trauma" can affect even people who had privileged childhoodsHow collective traumas — like systemic racism and white-body supremacy — show up in the bodyWhy treating trauma isn't a guarantee of cure, but can still open the door to real healingThis episode is for anyone who has tried everything to heal a chronic or life-threatening illness and wants to understand what role the nervous system might play.Taken from the full Insights at the Edge conversation with Lissa Rankin, "Is There a Holy Grail of Healing?" https://bit.ly/lissa-rankinSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Is a spiritual awakening only real if it completely rearranges your life? That's the question Tami Simon puts to Adyashanti in this episode of Just One Question, and his answer digs into something a lot of seekers wrestle with: the gap between a powerful glimpse of clarity and the ongoing work of actually living from it. Adya also shares his own journey of awakening in a fascinating look at what awakening can look—and feel—like.And there’s so much more. Listen to the entire conversation from this Insights At the Edge episode “Waking Up: What Does It Really Mean?” at https://bit.ly/adyashanti-waking-upSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

An archetypal astrologer once named Tami Simon's deepest wound in the first thirty seconds of a live interview. In this month's Point of Insight, Tami traces how that moment—layered onto decades of "drops" from therapy, friendship, and interviews with teachers like Seane Corn and Joanna Macy—revealed a single truth: our karma becomes our dharma, and our medicine lives inside the wound.Find the original Insights at the Edge episode, "Seane Corn: Your Pain Is Your Purpose," here: https://bit.ly/seane-cornSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Let’s hop in our time machine and head back to the very first episode of Insights at the Edge, with Tami Simon interviewing Geneen Roth in 2009. Geneen, who’s also been on Insights as recently as this year, was fresh off losing decades of savings in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. Tami asked her how to work with the voice that says “you idiot!” Geneen's answer separates honest grief from self-cruelty, and gives you something to actually do about it. Seventeen years later, it still lands.(86 words)Listen to the full episode, “No Situation is Unworkable” → https://bit.ly/geneenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Journalist Matt Gutman hid his panic attacks for twenty years—until one hit him live on air. Tami asks him which of the psychedelics he tried actually changed things. His answer takes us to a mat in Peru's Sacred Valley, through something like ego death, and into a scream he didn't know he'd been holding. Find the complete interview, "Conquering a Lifetime of Panic Attacks," here: https://bit.ly/matt-gutmanSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the first episode of The Point of Insight, a new monthly reflection from Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon shares the transmission she received while preparing to interview ethnobotanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass. Tami explores reciprocity, what it means to truly receive the natural world's generosity, and the deep, natural desire to give back in return. Find the original Insights at the Edge episode, "Robin Wall Kimmerer: What Does the Earth Ask of You Today?" and listen here: https://bit.ly/robin-wall-kimmererSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What is the "energy" in energy healing? Healers channel it. Patients reach for it. Ancient healing traditions built entire systems around it, and modern researchers are working to study it. But what is energy—biologically, physically, measurably…but also spiritually, and how does it move through the body to influence health and healing?In this special feed takeover, we’re bringing you the season finale of Phenomena: The Science and Stories of Energy Healing, in which host Ivy Ross brings together three renowned scientists whose visions, taken together, begin to answer that question:Martin Picard, PhD, of Columbia University, has spent his career studying mitochondria, the body's cellular power sources, and has found them far more connected to our inner experience and consciousness than biomedicine ever assumed, and likely far more central to how we heal.Richard Hammerschlag, PhD, co-authored the paper that helped define the modern science of the biofield: the organizing fields of energy and information that operate within the body and extend outward from it, echoing the nested qi fields of older healing traditions.Neil Theise, MD, of NYU, helped identify the interstitium, a major recent discovery of a fluid-filled network running throughout the body that may explain how signals fundamental to health and healing actually travel.Together, these three voices offer a compelling, deeply human vision of the body and mind not as a machine, but as a dynamic energetic ecosystem.To close out the season, Ivy and researcher Meredith Sprengel also welcome special guest Jonathan Cohen, co-creator and executive producer of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown, to help land these big ideas about energy, healing, and life.This episode marks the finale of Phenomena's first season. To continue the journey, and explore the full docuseries, visit phenomenahealing.com. →See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.