Podcast
The Ezra Klein Show, “That Anxiety You’re Feeling? It’s a Habit You Can Unlearn”
Join self-described obsessive worrier Ezra Klein in discovering how we get caught in negative thinking, in this hour-long discussion with psychiatrist/neurologist Judson Brewer, director of research and innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center and the author of Unwinding Anxiety. Drawing on the science of pleasure and reward, Brewer outlines his three-step method for breaking cycles of worry, fear, or other painful mental habits. The key to change? Curiosity.
nytimes.com
Guided Meditation
Loving Awareness, Jack Kornfield
Insight Meditation teacher Jack Kornfield leads a 25-minute guided practice for troubled times that speaks to beginners and seasoned meditators alike. He recites “In the World,” a short poem by Brigid Lowry with the encouraging words “in the warm arms of our sorrow we sit . . . in the blazing energy of being alive we sit.” Then, with gentle instructions like “Let the breath breathe you with this ocean of air shared by all beings,” Kornfield offers just enough cues to coax the wandering mind back to the breath and restful silence.
jackkornfield.com
Recording
Monastic Love Songs, David John Morris
A nine-month retreat at Gampo Abbey, the Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Nova Scotia, inspired this debut solo album by Morris, songwriter for the British folk-rock band Red River Dialect. The introspective lyrics reflect fresh insights gleaned by the longtime practitioner during his temporary ordination. “This song was once about heartbreak,” he sings in “New Safe,” the first track. “But I found a true and wise dear friend who knew . . . how to open safely from within.” Some songs are devotional: “Gone Beyond” is about awakening. Others explore interpersonal relationships.
piccadillyrecords.com
Podcast
Mindrolling (Episode 387), “Word Woman with Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer”
Trommer, Colorado Western Slope Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017 and co-host of Emerging Form, a podcast on creative process, discusses poetry as a spiritual path with host Raghu Marcus. Their two-part conversation segues from Trommer’s “Daily Dose of Poetry” on her blog to the ancient wisdom underlying her poem “Compassion” to writing advice. She talks about first writing poetry as “play practice” in childhood and tells how her daily writing practice over the past 15 years has “changed everything about the way that I meet the world.”
beherenownetwork.com