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The Many Voices of Authenticity
Stuart Goodnick and Rob Schmidt, Ph.D., Tayu Meditation Teachers
Original Date: Thursday, November 6, 2014

Download MP3 Audio File Here (14.5 MB)

Breath is life. The tangible physicality of voice, produced through the breath of the human body, is the expression of what is authentic in the vitality of our interior lives. The spoken word is the expressive channel of the beating heart, creative mind, and vital body interacting with one another. Words may lie, but the body resists collusion in the lie, which is evident in tone, tension, duration, volume, and other nuances of voice. Consider the following illustration:

You are in a company meeting where the boss is outlining a new plan. He asks for everyone to offer an evaluation on a scale of one to ten. The irritation and combativeness in his voice and manner make clear that he insists on nothing less than full agreement. You think it is a terrible plan that will cost the company a great deal. Your colleagues, one by one, offer their submission, in voices ranging from the subdued to hollow enthusiasm. Your turn comes, and your intention to speak truth to power falters. You hear your own voice, as if in the distance, croak out the word "ten."

The voices we most want to hide from others, or deny to ourselves, are those which have yet to demonstrate courage, sophistication, coolness, or any apparently desirable attribute. In denying them, we fail to appreciate that they are already speaking authentically. They honestly express the condition of our inner state at that given moment. The challenge is to find how the perspectives that give rise to these voices can actually learn, develop, grow and expand.

Co-Meditation, a unique two-person meditation practice, provides a safe and gentle context in which our many inner voices can be productively articulated. Co-Meditation creates a profound mutual space in which our inner content can be voiced and heard without judgment! Our voices deepen and expand in authenticity as we gain practice in courageously inhabiting what we find ourselves saying. Join us for a fun day of embodying voice ever more powerfully!

Rob Schmidt, Ph.D., and Stuart Goodnick helped found Many Rivers, as a project of Tayu Meditation Center. They studied and practiced the alchemical transformation of consciousness for decades with Tayu founder Robert Daniel Ennis.

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