Essential Conversations With Rabbi Rami From Spirituality & Health Magazine

Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Professor of Theology, author, S&H contributor, and the host of Madang podcast returns to the Spirituality & Health Podcast to discuss her new book Invisible and her experience at COP26 Summit.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reverend Dr. Jacqui Lewis is the first female and first Black Senior Minister at the historic Collegiate Church in New York City, which dates to 1628. Her new book, Fierce Love: A Bold Path to Ferocious Courage and Rule-Breaking Kindness That Can Heal the World was featured in Spirituality & Health’s Books We Love 2021 and is available now. Read Rev. Lewis’ guest column in the September/October 2021 issue. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shelly Tygielski is the author of Sit Down to Rise Up: How Radical Self-Care Can Change the World and founder of the global grassroots mutual aid organization Pandemic of Love. Her work has been featured by over 100 media outlets, including CNN Heroes, The Kelly Clarkson Show, CBS This Morning, the New York Times, and Washington Post. Tygielski’s book Sit Down to Rise Up was reviewed in the November/December 2021 issue of Spirituality & Health. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lisa Broderick is a business executive, social entrepreneur, and founder and Executive Director of Police2Peace—an organization devoted to reshaping policing in America. Her new book is All the Time in the World: Learn to Control Your Experience of Time to Live a Life Without Limitations.  In this episode Rabbi Rami and Broderick explore two startling claims: “You can control your experience of time” and “You can live without limitations.” They dive into the science of brainwaves and states of consciousness and sleep through the lens of time, developing a limitless nature, and much more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pamela Seelig’s journey began after a diagnosis of Bell’s Palsy, which led her to leave her high-stress Wall Street job and seek out alternative medicines to begin her healing process—which brought her into the world of yoga and meditation. She has now been practicing yoga for over 25 years. Seelig’s new book Threads of Yoga: Themes, Reflections, and Meditations to Weave into Your Practice was featured in Books We Love in the September/October 2021 issue of Spirituality & Health. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Pavlovitz is a pastor, writer, and activist. His blog, Stuff That Needs To Be Said reaches a diverse worldwide audience. He is the author of such books as A Bigger Table: Building Messy, Authentic, and Hopeful Spiritual Community, and Hope and Other Superpowers: A Life-Affirming, Love-Defending, Butt-Kicking, World-Saving Manifesto. His new book is If God Is Love, Don't Be a Jerk: Finding a Faith That Makes Us Better Humans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Robert Thurman is Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, and co-founder and president of Tibet House US. A close friend of His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama for over half a century, Bob is the first ordained American Buddhist monk in the Tibetan tradition. A passionate activist for the plight of the Tibetan people, a skilled translator of Buddhist texts, and an inspiring writer of popular books on Buddhism—Thurman’s newest book is Wisdom Is Bliss: Four Friendly Fun Facts That Can Change Your Life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Connie Zweig is a psychotherapist, former executive editor at Jeremy P Tarcher Publishing, a columnist for Esquire Magazine and a contributor to the LA Times, the author and co-author of several books on the psychology of the shadow. Her newest book is the Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul. In this episode Rami and Zweig discuss aging and midlife, fear, changing careers, cultivating deeper awareness, and more.  “During our midlife period of life, we're all empire-building. We're building families and careers and our ego development is peaking. Then as those responsibilities begin to fall away, whether it's in our 50s, or 60s, 70s, or 80s, and there's a shift in the structure of our days and the demands and the stress on us, most people get disoriented. They don't know where to turn. They don't know what's meaningful to them anymore.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alejandro Mandes is a social worker and theologian. He is the founder of Immigrant Hope and is devoted to equipping immigrants with the tools to find the hope of the gospel, a path to legal residency, and a home and church that accepts them. His new book is Embracing the New Samaria: Opening Our Eyes to Our Multiethnic Future.  Read our review of Embracing the New Samaria: Opening Our Eyes to Our Multiethnic Future from the July/August issue of Spirituality & Health.  Mandes asks “Who aren’t we reaching?”  In this episode Rami and Mandes discuss the multiethnic future of the Christian church, opening the doors to all individuals of all races and cultures, salvation outside the church, God’s love and image in humanity, and much more.  “I think we try to understand God in paradigms we set up that are not always crystal clear. And I’m okay with that abstraction.”  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tao Lin, is a novelist, poet, essayist, short-story author, and artist. He has published numerous novels and novella, two books of poetry, a collection of short stories, a memoir, and an assortment of digital content. His latest novel is called Leave Society, and a review of the book appears in the July/August 2021 issue of Spirituality & Health. Tao Lin, welcome to essential conversations. In this episode, Rabbi Rami and Lin discuss the philosophical nuances and therapeutic benefits of microdosing and recreational drug use, Daoism, autism, death and “leaving society,” and much more. “When I first got really disillusioned with my life ... I took a big dose of psilocybin and that combined with listening to a lot of Terence McKenna, made me have this idea that I should leave society, leave the life I had in New York City where I was really depressed. Then at that point, I realized that I didn't know what I would leave towards.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Susan Cross describes herself as a “well-wisher to ravens, bears, bumblebees, rattlesnakes, and coyotes.” She is a burial shroud maker, a rawhide hand drum and rattle builder, a ceremony writer, a gardener, an old mother, a tour driver, a self-proclaimed grief-stricken naturalist drowning her sorrows with single malt scotch, and a weary but wonder-filled pilgrim. Cross has written a number of essays for Spirituality & Health, including her essay “Rethinking Burial: Burial Shrouds and More Ideas” featured in the July/August 2021 print issue. She is also the author of a new book called A Fleeting Presence: Fieldnotes From a Crone. In this episode Rabbi Rami and Cross discuss the presence of the crone in all people— regardless of gender—burials, heritage, the “Disney-fication” of the feminine, and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michelle Cassandra Johnson is an activist, social justice warrior, author, anti-racism consultant and trainer, intuitive healer, and yoga teacher and practitioner. Her new book is Finding Refuge: Heartwork for Healing Collective Grief.  Read our review of Finding Refuge from the July/August 2021 issue of Spirituality & Health.  Rabbi Rami and Johnson start by defining racism throughout history. They explore ethnocentrism, white privilege, generational trauma, radicalizing yoga, the problematic nature of “color-blindness,” and more.   “We are in physical bodies and yet we are not our bodies. But we need to recognize what our bodies are doing to other bodies as we remember our divinity. … We can hold both of these at the same time.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati is an acclaimed author, speaker, and spiritual leader initiated into the order of Sanyas in the year 2000 by His Holiness, Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji, one of India’s most revered spiritual leaders. Sadhvi also holds a PhD in psychology. She’s the author of several books including By God's Grace, and Come Home to Yourself. Her newest book is Hollywood to the Himalayas: A Journey of Healing and Transformation.  In this episode, Rabbi Rami and Sadhvi discuss encounters with the Divine Mother, coming home to spirituality and to oneself, non-denominational experiences of god, and awakening to a new spiritual quest that feeds the soul.  “I had this extraordinary experience, just spontaneously immediately of oneness, and connection, and awakening, and union, and ecstasy, and perfection, perfection of myself, perfection of the universe, perfection of my place in the universe, oneness with this incredible mother goddess. I experienced her, I experienced her presence on every level of my be

James Jeffrey spent nine years in the British Army, serving in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan, before attending journalism school in Austin, Texas. Since 2012, he has freelanced in America and the horn of Africa. His work has appeared in Irish Times, The New Humanitarian, CNN, and many more.  Read James Jeffrey’s article in the July/August 2021 issue of Spirituality & Health: “How to Bring the Camino Vibe Into Your Life.”  In this episode of the Spirituality & Health Podcast, Rabbi Rami and James Jeffrey discuss the Camino De Santiago, an ancient pilgrimage through the landscape of France and Spain, and the concept of walking as a spiritual practice. They explore Jeffrey’s experiences having done the pilgrimage twice and how readers can access the pilgrimage vibe from their own homes via the “mini-pilgrimage.”  “On the Camino you can be walking for every day for five weeks, by the third week you really do enter this incredible stage—this repetitive pilgrimage act of walking going all the way back to Abraham—it

Neal Allen is a coach and author of Shapes of Truth: Discover God Inside You, a book that lays out 35 qualities of God that can be experienced by humans as they exist inside each person.  In this episode, Rabbi Rami and Allen discuss these qualities, highlighting the “big 5”—joy, strength, will, compassion, and power. They also explore the divine objects or “white pearls” each human has within them, conformity, and the innate capacity of humans to be good.  “When I talk about God I’m not quite talking here about the overall God, the God that’s outside you, inside you, that permeates everything … what I write about and talk about is an ability that we have to notice, and discover, and retrieve aspects of God that are particularly useful to us as human beings.”  Read the magazine: spiritualityhealth.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kristen Neff is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at University of Texas, Austin, specialist in self-compassion research, and author. Her new book is Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive. Read Neff’s interview by Spirituality & Health’s Stephen Kiesling in the May/June 2021 issue. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tracee Stanley doesn’t want you to fear rest. Stanley is a yoga Nidra lineage holder, meditation and self-inquiry teacher, and co-founder of the Empowered Wisdom Yoga Nidra School. Her new book is Radiant Rest: Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation and Awakened Clarity. Be sure to read Stanley’s essay, “Embrace the Transition” which appears in the May/June 2021 issue of Spirituality & Health. “We have been out of balance for quite some time, and I think that the pandemics—the multiple pandemics—that we find ourselves in right now, whether it be covid, whether it be racism, whether it be climate crisis … they all to me have a thread of not honoring the divine feminine.” In this episode, Rabbi Rami and Stanley discuss yoga Nidra, “the yoga of sleep,” as it connects to the divine feminine, the earth, and the self. They explore the essentiality of the divine feminine and the return to the mother—and how such a return can offer humanity a “new story.” Later they discuss the necessity of yoga Nidra practice in recognizing

Grace Ji-Sun Kim is a Korean-American theologian and Professor of Theology at Earlham School of Religion. She is the author and editor of 20 books, a contributor to Spirituality & Health online and in print (Tune in for her upcoming article in the July/August 2021 issue!), and the host of Madang podcast hosted by The Christian Century.  In her recent digital article for Spirituality & Health, “Body Prayer for Every Day,” Kim discusses her mother’s journey with prayer and ways you can engage in whole-body prayer, citing the practices of Julian of Norwich (1343–1416).  In this episode, Rabbi Rami and Kim jump around Kim’s work from books to articles as they discuss the intersectionality of identity and religion, why we love labels, and how the Korean language evolves our ability to speak about God. They also dive into Kim’s first book, The Grace of Sophia: A Korean North American Women's Christology—in which they discuss the feminine dimensions of God and the divine feminine.  “I hope people will retrieve, and

Lyanda Lynn Haupt is a naturalist, writer, educator, and the author of six books, including Mozart's Starling, an account of the composer's relationship with a unique bird who sang a version of his Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major. In her latest work, Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit, Haupt writes about how science, poetry, mysticism, and the traditions of earth-based cultures all point to the truth that we are interconnected and pose the “essential question of how to live on our broken, imperiled, beloved earth.” In this episode, Rabbi Rami and Haupt discuss the scientific reason that being in the natural world is so therapeutic to humans, the “industry” of forest therapy, solitude, and the innate human connection with nature.   “For millennia mystics and poets and earth-based indigenous cultures and children have known that we are at our healthiest, our wisest, our most creative, in our most embodied sense of wellness when we are in the natural world.”  They also explore the id

Dr. Peter Lovatt is a dance psychologist, former professional dancer, and current teacher at the Royal Ballet School in London, UK. He is the founder of the Dance Psychology Lab at the University of Hertfordshire and has been a featured speaker alongside Barack Obama, Oprah, and Sir Richard Branson. Rabbi Rami and Dr. Lovatt discuss the universality of dancing within the human condition, how dancing is scientifically proven to improve your mental and physical health, and how dancing is the window to the human soul. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices