The Healing Power of Imagination: Transform Yourself and the World, Part 2
Tara Brach
What becomes possible when we learn to imagine from presence rather than fear? In Part 2 of this series, Tara explores spiritual imagination as a powerful capacity for healing, transformation and awakening. When we are caught in stress, fear or limiting beliefs, our imagination contracts and reinforces a world of separation. Yet when grounded in mindful presence, imagination can open us to new possibilities—to our basic goodness, our capacity to change and our potential to create a more loving world. Through teachings, stories and guided reflections, Tara explores how mindfulness, prayer and...
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Meditation: Alert Inner Stillness (20:34 Min.)
Tara Brach
Behind the changing sounds, sensations, feelings and thoughts is an alert inner stillness that is purely aware. This meditation begins with accessing the receptivity of a smile, awakening through the body and opening the senses. We then sense the background of awareness and relax back to inhabit that wholeness. When the mind is distracted, the pathway home is a relaxing back, and the essential practice is non-doing, allowing life to be just as it is. Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music
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The Healing Power of Imagination: Transform Yourself and the World, Part 1
Tara Brach
What becomes possible when we learn to imagine from presence rather than fear? In Part 1 of this series, Tara explores spiritual imagination as a powerful capacity for healing, transformation and awakening. When we are caught in stress, fear or limiting beliefs, our imagination contracts and reinforces a world of separation. Yet when grounded in mindful presence, imagination can open us to new possibilities—to our basic goodness, our capacity to change and our potential to create a more loving world. Through teachings, stories and guided reflections, Tara explores how mindfulness, prayer and...
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Meditation: Embodied Metta (20:07 min.)
Tara Brach
In this guided meditation, Tara Brach invites us into an embodied practice of metta—loving-kindness—awakening a felt sense of openness, warmth and care throughout the body. Beginning with the image of a smile, we soften the eyes, face, throat, heart and body, allowing this spirit of friendliness to gradually permeate our whole being. As we deepen into presence, we learn to bring this same loving attention to places that feel wounded, blocked or in need of healing. This meditation offers a simple and nourishing pathway back to an embodied, kind presence—a way of meeting whatever is here...
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Pathways to Trusting the Gold
Tara Brach
What would it mean to truly trust the goodness that lives within you? In this talk, Tara Brach explores what she calls “trusting the gold”—awakening from the stories of deficiency, fear and separation that keep us from recognizing our deepest nature. We may spend much of our lives trying to improve ourselves, earn approval or finally become “enough,” while overlooking the loving awareness that is already here. Tara explores how our early experiences of nurturing and belonging shape our capacity to trust ourselves, and how mindfulness and compassion can help heal the places that feel...
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Meditation: Resting in Reality (24 min)
Tara Brach
In this guided meditation, Tara Brach invites us to relax out of the thinking mind and return to the living presence of the moment. Through a gentle body scan, awareness of breath, sound and sensation, we begin to sense the aliveness that is always here—and to rest more fully in reality. As the mind naturally wanders into thought, we practice letting go and opening again to the changing river of experience. Whatever arises—ease or discomfort, sorrow, fear or peace—can be met with kindness and allowed to belong. This meditation offers a pathway to embodied presence, inner stillness and...
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The Wise Heart of Radical Acceptance
Tara Brach
What would your life be like if you were no longer at war with your imperfections? In this talk, Tara explores Radical Acceptance as a pathway out of self-judgment, shame and the trance of unworthiness. Rather than believing that acceptance will keep us from changing, we discover the opposite: when we stop making ourselves wrong for what we feel and who we are, we create the conditions for genuine healing and transformation. Through stories, reflection and the practice of RAIN, Tara explores how we can meet our imperfect, conditioned selves with honesty and compassion while remembering the...
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Meditation: Aware and Alive (20 min.)
Tara Brach
Just as a cup is full with water, this body is filled with awareness. As we sense the awareness inside the body, and the awareness that listens to sounds beyond the body, we discover the continuous space of awareness that includes, and gives rise to this entire creation. Opening in this way allows for homecoming to wholeness and freedom. Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music
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Ask Me Anything, Part 3: Tara Answers Questions on Forgiveness, Injustice & Compassionate Parenting
Tara Brach
How do we keep our hearts open when we’ve been deeply hurt? How do we respond to injustice without becoming consumed by anger? And how can we love without trying to control or change another? In this final installment of the Ask Me Anything series, Tara responds to questions about some of the most challenging places on our spiritual path. She explores how tending our own wounds can open the way to forgiveness, how we can stay awake to the suffering of our world without losing touch with joy, and how meeting the fear and grief beneath anger can reconnect us with compassion. Whether we are...
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Meditation: Inner Refuge of Calm (20:25 min.)
Tara Brach
In this guided meditation, we explore the possibility of finding an inner refuge of calm—a presence that can hold whatever is moving through our lives. Beginning with the breath, we gradually soften tension through the body and settle into a relaxed, awake presence. As thoughts, emotions or physical discomfort arise, the invitation is not to resist or control our experience, but to acknowledge what is here and allow each wave to come and go. Like the depth of the ocean that remains present beneath the movement of the surface, we can discover an inner stillness spacious enough to include...
info_outlineHow do we return to presence when we’re overwhelmed? How do we heal the trance of unworthiness, navigate difficult relationships, set healthy boundaries—and find compassion without abandoning ourselves?
In Part 2 of this Ask Me Anything series, Tara responds to questions from listeners about some of the most tender and challenging places in our lives. Together, we explore practical ways to come home to presence when emotions take over, how RAIN and self-compassion can help loosen deeply conditioned patterns, and how community and small moments of mindfulness can support us when life feels like too much.
We also look closely at relationships: what happens when someone we love is struggling and we cannot change them; how inner healing can transform the way we relate to a partner; and how we might meet betrayal, hurt and conflict with wisdom and care.
A central theme is the practice of a “strong back and soft front”—learning to set clear, courageous boundaries while keeping our hearts open. Compassion does not mean allowing harm, bypassing our wounds or forgiving before we are ready. Sometimes love asks us to protect ourselves, create distance and allow accountability. From that ground of safety and truth, genuine healing and compassion can unfold.
We close with a guided reflection for bringing mindful awareness to conflict, tending our own vulnerability and listening inwardly for what love is asking of us.
In this talk:
• Returning to presence during overwhelm
• RAIN and the trance of unworthiness
• Self-compassion and emotional healing
• Mindfulness in difficult relationships
• Healing after betrayal
• Healthy boundaries and clear communication
• “Strong back, soft front”
• Compassion without enabling harm
• Forgiveness, safety and accountability
• Working skillfully with conflict and reactivity
Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music