Ep. 264 – Anxiety Series: Soren Gordhamer
Metta Hour with Sharon Salzberg
Be Here Now Network
4.6 • 682 Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2025
⏱️ 85 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For episode 264, Soren Gordhamer returns to the Metta Hour for our ongoing Anxiety Series.
In this series, Sharon is speaking with Mental Health experts, providers and different researchers for tools to work with anxiety in increasingly challenging times. This is the fifth episode in the series.
Soren Gordhamer is the founder and host of Wisdom 2.0, the premier conference exploring living with greater mindfulness, wisdom, and compassion in the modern age. He is also a Co-Founder and General Partner of Wisdom Ventures, along with Jack Kornfield and Yung Pueblo, which invests in companies creating a more just and compassionate world. Soren is also the founder of the Lineage Project in NYC, and also spent a year on the Global Walk for a Livable World, a three-and-a-half world walk. He and Jon Kabat-Zinn also co-hosted the Mitigation Retreat, which was a free 3-month course held every weekday offering meditations and teachings during Covid.
Soren is the author of numerous books. His latest, The Essential: Discovering What Really Matters in an Age of Distraction, was released in May of 2025.
In this episode, Sharon and Soren speak about:
- The context for cultural anxiety
- The development of social media
- Becoming aware of our stories
- Do we need a new narrative?
- Redefining our worth
- Revamping our North Star
- Harnessing all our energies
- Dismantling our armor
- How shame drives mental health
- The point of vulnerability
- Dalai Lama meeting formerly incarcerated
- Living from a place of lack
- Ram Dass’ somebody-ness
- Soren walking the world
- The role information plays in anxiety
Soren closes the conversation with a guided meditation. To get a copy of Soren’s new book, The Essential, visit his website right here.
Listen to Soren’s first appearance on the Metta House from 2020 right here.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In a world that feels more divided than ever, where do we turn for refuge? |
| 0:06.0 | Join us this summer, August 14th through 18th, at the Ram Dass Legacy Summer Mountain Retreat, |
| 0:12.0 | a sacred gathering at the Art of Living Retreat Center in the breathtaking Blue Ridge Mountains. |
| 0:19.0 | Together, we'll explore the theme, intimacy with all things, |
| 0:22.6 | learning to deepen our connection with ourselves, |
| 0:25.6 | each other, and the world around us. |
| 0:28.6 | Experience four nights of electrifying Kirtan with Krishna Das, |
| 0:32.6 | wisdom from Ram Dass, and teachings from Acharya Asunya, |
| 0:36.6 | Dr. Robert Thurman, East Forest, Nina Rao, and more. |
| 0:41.9 | This is more than a retreat. It's a homecoming, a space to breathe, to heal, and to awaken to the vast love that connects us all. |
| 0:51.3 | Registration is now open. Visit ramdos.org backslash boon to reserve your spot today. |
| 1:02.4 | So there's a sense that like, wow, really, really, really painful things can happen at any moment. |
| 1:09.8 | And I have to be on guard for them. |
| 1:11.2 | I have to like stay very, very vigilant to make sure that I'm prepared this time. |
| 1:16.0 | Because last time I wasn't prepared, this time, you know, I'm going to be prepared. |
| 1:20.8 | And that particular orientation to life I think requires a particular like stress and anxiety because you're trying to stop that happening |
| 1:30.6 | versus you know what a painful experience can happen and I can open to it I can cry I can yell |
| 1:37.4 | I can talk to a friend I can do whatever I can do but I have the capacity building in me |
| 1:43.1 | so that whatever comes my way I'm strong enough and I have the capacity building in me so that whatever comes my way, I'm strong enough |
| 1:46.1 | and I have the capacity to manage it in a way that it might be really painful, but I'll make |
| 1:51.1 | it through. I can keep my heart open. As Stephen U.S. Keep my heart open in hell. Hello and welcome to the Metta Hour podcast with Sharon Salzberg. |
| 2:11.3 | I'm Lily Cushman. |
... |
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