Podcast Summary: "Showing Up For Each Other | Tami Simon & Tara Brach on the Intersection of Spirituality & Therapy"
Podcast: Tara Brach
Episode Date: October 30, 2025
Guests: Tami Simon (Founder of Sounds True), Tara Brach (Host, meditation teacher, author)
Episode Overview
This deeply reflective episode honors World Mental Health Day through an intimate conversation between Tami Simon and Tara Brach. Together, they explore the evolving relationship between psychology and spirituality, discuss the essential human need for connection and presence, and provide practical and philosophical perspectives on holding pain, grief, and collective suffering. The discussion also acknowledges therapists’ crucial role in supporting healing and awakening in today’s world.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. The Art of Meeting Others in Pain
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Being a True Companion: Both discuss what it genuinely means to meet someone in their suffering, emphasizing presence, empathy, and shared humanity.
- Tara Brach:
“There has to be, for me to meet someone, some sense that this could be me… there’s a genuine tenderness that’s there, an embodied tenderness.” (05:19)
- Presence requires both warmth and enough spaciousness to not become overwhelmed (06:00).
- Tara Brach:
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Energetic Field of Holding:
- Tami Simon: Talks about sensing whether someone's "holding space" is large enough for her to bring forward deep pain (07:42).
- Tara Brach:
“It’s a field… a resonance field that’s awake, sensitive space.” (08:34)
2. Loving Awareness: More than Mindfulness
- Spontaneity vs. Intention:
- Tami: Differentiates between simple awareness and “loving awareness,” describing the latter as heart-centered and warm (09:32).
- Tara:
“It’s not an intentional evoking. It’s a spontaneous response. … The qualities [of awareness] are that vast openness… a responsiveness, a warmth, a compassion.” (10:24)
- RAIN Practice:
Tara outlines the RAIN practice as a structured way to metabolize pain:- Recognize: Notice the feeling (fear, pain, etc.).
- Allow: Permit it to exist (“this wave belongs in the ocean”) (13:25).
- Investigate: Inquire intimately into the experience.
- Nurture: Offer compassion to the pain (15:00).
3. Overwhelm and the Limits of Practice
- RAIN is Not Always Accessible:
- Tami: Shares how in overwhelm, she needs immediate connection, not stepwise reflection (17:45).
- Tara: Agrees and recommends preparing “emergency pathways” to connection—a hand to hold, a friend, or even invoking presence through memory or imagination (18:40).
- Connection as Lifeline:
- Tami: “That connection when I feel that in a really genuine way… that’s the number one thing that helps me.” (19:39)
- Tara: Suggests using imagination to invoke loved ones, spiritual figures, or even nature for support when others aren’t physically present (20:29, 23:41).
4. Psychology and Spirituality: Intertwined but Distinct
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Concentric Circles Model:
- Tara: Describes human development and healing as expanding circles—body, feelings, thoughts, belonging to the whole (26:58).
“The task of each circle… is to integrate the prior one… to keep on widening. … When we don’t keep widening, there’s suffering. We’re contained in something too small.”
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Blending Approaches in Therapy:
- Examines how psycho-spiritual work integrates emotional healing (trauma, shadow) with spiritual realization.
- Illustrative client story: A client discovered her deep-seated belief that she’s only lovable if she’s helping, leading through psychological compassion to a wider sense of spiritual belonging (29:00).
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Pitfalls of Compartmentalization:
- Both discuss dangers of spiritual bypassing: advanced “outer circle” spiritual state uncoupled from emotional integration manifests as reactivity, harm, or dissociation (34:18, 36:38).
“People can have what appears to be very big spiritual experiences and have it not integrated into their life.” (36:38)
5. Shadow, Judgment, and Inner Cartography
- Discovering Hidden Wounds:
- Tami: Describes “cartoon bubbles” of pain she uncovers, sometimes unknowingly guiding her behavior (39:18).
- Tara: Explains how avoiding daily-life pain keeps these undigested pockets hidden; recommends using judgment as a “pause signal” to turn inward and discover deeper layers (43:07).
“The first thing I notice… when I’m judging is that somebody else is wrong. If I could make that U-turn and say, what’s really going on inside me… I found all these layers of untended insecurity and needs.” (43:37)
6. Processing Grief: Psychological and Spiritual Dimensions
- Unfolding Grief:
- Grief gets deferred and masked by anger, numbness, negotiating, or depression (46:32).
- With “tender presence,” underlying sorrow is reached, which—if fully entered—becomes a portal to timeless loving (47:00).
“Sorrow becomes a portal that actually reveals to us a very timeless kind of loving.” (47:37)
- Radical Acceptance:
“This belongs” is not condoning atrocities, but acknowledging reality, feeling our true responses, and acting wisely from care (48:29, 49:18).
7. Our Collective Belonging and Healing
- From Individual Suffering to Collective Field:
- Tara: Critiques Western therapy’s “separate self” focus and champions collective healing—practicing, suffering, and serving together (52:04).
- Quote by John Rodell (54:32):
“Whenever I wash the world’s feet, my hands immediately stop shaking.”
- Interconnectedness as Awakening:
- Tami: Views true therapy and spiritual maturity as those who see and operate from the web of interconnected life, not isolated selves (55:21).
8. “Showing Up” in the World
- Embodying Awakening through Action:
- Both agree that “showing up” means practicing presence, compassion, and engagement—not just as inner work, but manifest in relationship and service (58:35).
“We are not fully mature and inhabiting who we are if it’s just kept as that kind of inner work component.” (58:35)
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
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On Meeting Others’ Pain:
“There is some place in us that knows what it’s like to be the other. We have this shared realm of experience.” — Tara Brach (05:19)
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On Loving Awareness:
“If I pay attention to the fear or to the hurt, then awareness, if it’s in its fullness, will respond spontaneously with compassion.” — Tara Brach (11:20)
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On Overwhelm:
“We might need an emergency bypass of the steps and instead go directly to reaching out for comfort.” — Tara Brach (18:40)
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On Grief:
“We become an apprentice to sorrow, that sorrow becomes a portal that actually reveals to us a very timeless kind of loving.” — Tara Brach (47:00)
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On Judgment:
“If I can do the U-turn from judging and anger, it brings me… to care. And then I can respond to my world from a larger place.” — Tara Brach (44:35)
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On Belonging:
“One of the biggest challenges and delusions in Western therapy and spirituality is this idea of a separate self on its path to healing.” — Tara Brach (52:04)
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Practical Wisdom:
“Whenever I feel helpless in this overwhelming world, I become a helper. On the days when it feels like I have no power, I serve others.” — John Rodell (quoted by Tara, 54:33)
Timestamps for Major Segments
- [04:16] – Tami’s life review: thanking therapists and the question of connection
- [05:19] – Tara on genuine meeting, resonance, and embodied tenderness
- [09:32] – Loving awareness vs. neutral awareness, metaphors, and Tibetan teaching
- [13:25] – RAIN practice explained in detail
- [17:45] – Addressing overwhelm and finding connection
- [23:41] – Power of imagination for connection and support
- [26:58] – The intersection of spirituality and psychology: concentric circles
- [36:38] – Compartmentalization and spiritual bypassing
- [43:07] – Using judgment to reveal hidden wounds
- [46:32] – Psychological and spiritual dimensions of grief
- [52:04] – Individual vs. collective healing, group practice, and Ubuntu
- [54:33] – John Rodell’s helping quote
- [58:35] – The imperative of showing up in the world
Conclusion
This episode is an embodied meditation on presence, compassion, and the essential intertwined journeys of psychological and spiritual healing. Tara Brach and Tami Simon model authentic, vulnerable dialogue and offer insightful guidance for therapists, spiritual seekers, and anyone longing for deeper connection amidst pain—personal and collective. At its heart is an invitation: to show up for each other, as both individualized expressions and a wider field of belonging.