A Meditation for Overthinking and Perfectionism | Jeff Warren

This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

Hello, everybody. I have said this before and I will say it again and I'm sure I'll say it many more times in the future. But here's the deal. One of the hardest parts of being alive is that we desperately crave certainty about our health, about our loved ones, about the state of the world, on and on. We want certainty, but reality does not cooperate.

So today we've got a guided meditation that comes from my dear friend and frequent collaborator, Jeff Warren, on something called don't know mind. This is a classic Zen move. Instead of grasping after answers, you practice. loosening your death grip on needing to know anything at all. This may sound esoteric or lofty, but it's in fact wildly practical.

If you struggle with overthinking, perfectionism, worry, or the constant background hum of what if, this is a meditation for you. I should say before we dive in that this and many other meditations can be found over on my new app. which is called 10% with Dan Harris. If you sign up, you'll get access to all of our guided meditations, plus weekly live guided meditation and Q&A sessions, access to this podcast without any ads, and much more.

You can sign up over at danharris.com. There's a free 30-day trial if you want to try before you buy. Go check it out. We'll get started with Jeff Warren right after this. It's getting cold.

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Hey, everyone. So my old meditation teacher, Shinzen Young, once told me, Jeff, if you can give up the need to know, you might start to know in a whole new way. Best advice ever, which I instantly forgot, but I did remember it again. So to be clear, there's nothing wrong with knowing. It's the neediness that gets us into trouble.

This desire for certainty, you know, to lock down once and for all exactly what's true and what's going to happen. The antidote to that, at least in Zen, is don't know mind.

And that is the practice we'll explore together right now. Okay, start by closing your eyes if that's comfortable. Or you can keep them open, your gaze soft. A few slow, deliberate breaths. Stretching up on the inhale. And then settling down on the exhale. And really let yourself feel any settling here. You can smooth out the worry lines of your forehead, any creases of concern and strategizing.

You can let the jaw be sort of goofy and slack. Already practicing not knowing anything. Dropping into your body, your seat. this moment right here this soundscape These sensations. And what else? Often our thoughts, bolting, surging, working through scenarios. Figuring out if we're doing it right. So our instruction here is anytime you notice a thought or a wondering, you can just repeat to yourself.

Don't know, don't need to know. And then just gently place attention on a simple home base. Breath, distant hum of traffic, feeling of your hand on your chest. whatever it is. So try this. Just sitting with a home base. Maybe see if you can connect to direct experience of the sensation or the sight of the sound. So not the idea of it, not the label, the raw. tingle of it, the feeling of it, the close hearing of it, like you're right up against it. And if the mind wanders off or has a...

question, you can just say to yourself, don't know, don't need to know, and let it go. Coming back to your direct experience. So you're just letting the world do its thing without you needing to have an opinion about it. If thoughts come, any need to figure something out, Just good-naturedly say to yourself, don't know. Don't need to know. And then rest back. Let it all unfold. So we're practicing being aware without any need to lock down what's going on. And this not knowing can be spacey.

It can be uncomfortable, disorienting, frustrating, lots of different things. And that's fine. If any of that's there, just let it be there. cultivate a kind of humility towards the moment anyway. Good. So see if it can be a kind of pressure release valve. Don't know. Don't need to know. Just resting here, letting everything do its thing. There's a great line from Buddhism's famous Diamond Sutra. Cultivate a mind that dwells nowhere. The state of non-attachment, not...

fixed on things needing to be any one way. It can be very liberating because a mind that dwells nowhere is free to go anywhere.

And that's our practice, friends. Open your eyes when you're ready. Good to dwell nowhere with you. I'll see you again soon. Thank you to Jeff Warren. Don't forget this and many other meditations are available. over on my new app, 10% with Dan Harris. You can sign up over at danharris.com. Finally, a big thank you to everybody who works so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasili.

Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. League One Volleyball is coming to Los Angeles in 2027. The world's best players together on American soil. This is volleyball like you've never seen before.

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