Ten Percent Less Anxiety

Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. Now, this is not a meditation episode. However, I really wanted to talk to Dan Moore about his story because you know, Dan's got solutions for us all day long. We do get to some of them in this interview. But I also think sometimes stories are really an important part of our recovery with anxiety. You know a lot of times people will say, oh, well, you know I do this, I do that from anxiety. But since Dan is a mere mortal like the rest of us,

he's not a neuroscientist. He didn't set out in life to study anxiety or meditation or mindfulness or learning how to be less angrier, learning how to be less type A. He was an ABC News anchor for decades. He was an adrenaline junkie, he was a at one time drug user, competitive, you know, all all kinds of things that I wanted

to hear what his story was. What's it like to be so type A that you're all jammed up inside and you end up having a panic attack on air on ABC News, which he did, and we we have linked to that panic attack in the show notes, And I'm not doing that to torture Dan. He talks about it in his book, Tim Happier. He's happy to talk about it. But I just wanted people to know, you know, successful people can have panic attacks, they can have anxiety. I mean, I know everybody knows this, but just maybe

there's one person going I don't believe it. I think he got successful and that's what made him ultimately stop using drugs, and you know, that's what helped him with his meditation. But and it's like, no, but he was successful already, but something wasn't working, and he knew he had to start to look at his anxiety, his neurosis. So I wanted to talk about how panic attacks can come out of the blue, when they start almost later

in life. What it's like to be a type of person who was always afraid of losing their edge, And does getting help make you lose your edge? Does starting to meditate every day? Does being mindful of your own thoughts? Does that make you less able to succeed? I mean, in Dan's case, the answer is no. And he has now transitioned out of working for ABC News to doing full time. You know the media company he created, tim per cent Happy, or there's an app, there's the podcast.

All of that is linked to in the show notes. And I have a special affinity for Dan because he is also a gen X person from Boston. He's grew up in the town next to me. We didn't know each other, but I just like his no bullshit approach to the way that he tries to help others. He doesn't claim he's figured it all out, he doesn't claim he's fixed, and he doesn't talk in a whispery voice. Now, if you naturally have a whispery voice, go off. I love that for you. But he doesn't adopt any fake

guru persona. So I hope you enjoy my talk with Dan as much as I enjoyed chatting to him again. I could talk to him about a million different things and at the end of the interview, I I thought, oh God, I didn't I wish there was more. I could have let him just go on and on more about,

you know, more solutions. But again, I do think sometimes we need to hear a really good backstory and just hear about how someone had no idea how to get help, and then it's sort of just organically presented itself to him. And I know there's part of the interview where I really don't need to go into it, but I egged Dan On to tell a story that he wrote about in his book Timber Cent Happier, about meeting eck Art totally, who claims Mr Totley does that he never has any

negative thoughts or negative emotions anymore. He had a complete enlightenment. And I just find that hard to believe. I'm not saying he's lying. I just don't comprehend it. And those kind of people, they don't help me, because as as Dan Harris says, he's just trying to be Timber Sun Happier. And sometimes I think it can be intimidating when someone says they've got all the answers and look at them,

they've never had a bad feeling again. Now what happens when you try to use some of their tools and you don't reach enlightenment. I I honestly, I don't know. I almost feel like people who if this eck Art totally really has reached enlightenment, I think he should not tell us because we're not ever going to get there.

He's probably the one. I don't know this is I'm just rambling at this point, but talking to Dan made me very happy because what he does on his podcast is exactly what I would want to do with this one. Anxiety Bites is just real people, real talk about anxiety, and nobody's here to be a guru and whisper. Although I am wearing a long flowing robe right now, you just can't see it anyway. I hope you enjoy my chat with Dan Harris as much as I did see

on the other side. Welcome to another episode of Anxiety Bites. My guest today is Dan Harris. You may know him from his hugely successful podcast Ten Percent Happier. He also has an app called ten percent Happier. We'll talk about that. You also may know him from watching the news on ABC. I'm so happy he's here and Dan thank you again for being on my show, my pleasure. I don't think i've seen you since you came on my show. It's been years. It's and thank you for letting me come

on your fantastic show before. Um, you know, I was just I'm just an idiot. I'm just an idiot comedian who meditates, and you let me on there somehow. Well, you're a good company. I'm just an idiot reporter who meditates, so it's all good. Well, you know, I was going to tell you that I think comedians and reporters have a lot in common in the way that we approach

our audience. So we do this invoking that invisible third party critic in order to kind of get people out of the route answers that they always give because we're sitting there going no, I know, someone is listening going yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know what you mean. There's no wrong way to meditate. Like you say that, not you, but a person says that, and it's like, I want I almost come from the negative when I'm interviewing and when I'm

doing comedy. That's how I keep the audience from heckling me, is that I know what they're going to say before they say it, I'll say it first, so I think you may appreciate this interview and that I will keep you know, digging further for you know, what exactly does that mean? Um, and I've been really excited to have you on because you're one of my favorite I mean, I see you as a a self help guru. I know you would not say that about yourself, but you

are around my age. I think you're a little older, just a couple of years. And uh, we're from basically the same town in Massachusetts. And one next reason you've got this gen X no bullshit. By the way, if you want, you can swear on my podcast. So let's start here. Um, you had a panic attack on the air in two thousand four, and that is sort of one of the things that started you on your I

Guess journey. Sorry for that word of trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with you and how you can I guess A does not have panic attacks on air. But one of the things that was interesting, and we'll link it in the show notes. You can all watch Dan have a panic attack. What's so interesting as someone who has panicked disorder? And I've panicked as well. It's not that bad. You know, you're not freaking out.

You did end the segment. You were just reading the news, right, You ended the segment really early, and it just looks like you can't breathe. It looks more to me, to the uninitiated, like an asthma attack. So if you could take us through, and we'll get into your whole history and what caused it and all that, but take us through that day two thousand four, you're on the air, what happened and how did it feel in your body? Yeah,

I mean that's You're right. If you look at the video, a lot of people feel like it doesn't It doesn't look that bad. I mean, that's what happens when a robot slash sociopath as a panic attack. It just doesn't look that that. You thought of yourself as a sociopath back then, only facetiously. Um, I was in my mid thirties.

I had been on an anchorman really since I was twenty two, So I had a lot of experience with, you know, keeping my ship together and in tough circumstances, and I had covered wars and so I was able to hold it together. But you know, if if I didn't have the main hosts of the show, Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer, if I didn't have the opportunity to throw back to them because I was in I was the person who came on at the top of the hour and read a few headlines on Good Morning America.

If I didn't have the opportunity to say back to you, it would have been horrible. I would have probably ripped the mic off and run away or started to cry. I don't know, but that was that was the out. UM. So when the question the question when you say back to you, UM, for anyone listening, that means they have to then take back the broadcast. So you you didn't read all of the headlines. You read one of them and then went out back to you. Right, I read.

I think I soldiered through two or three out of six or seven that I was supposed to read. And you can hear that my like throat is tightening and I'm having trouble breathing and I'm gulping for air. I mean, if it's not good. So what I was wondering is you know, what did that feel like in your body when it was happening. What did it feel like in my body? Terrible? It's like having a heart attack. You know, you're or the way it goes is and you know this, Jim,

because you've unfortunately had had panicked yourself. The way it goes is one thing starts it, and the and and then the other thing makes it worse. So it could be that your mind starts telling stories like, oh man, you just screwed that up, or five million people are watching this or whatever, and you start to have psychological anxiety, and then your body kicks in and starts to go into mutiny mode where your heart is racing, your lungs sees up, your your palms get sweaty, your mouth dries up.

So what it's one or the other starts it, so your body, you might notice your body first, and then

your mind starts freaking out. But then you get into a vicious cycle because the more your body's um in mutiny mode, the more your mind goes into freak out mode, and that makes the body worse, and then that makes the mind worse, and on and on and on um And it's it's really anxiety which many of us have felt, either in a chronic way, or in a in a cute or circumstantial way, you might just call that fear. It's it's that on steroids. It's our evolutionary, evolutionarily wired

fight or flight impulse being triggered in inappropriate circumstances. We are wired to have this as a life saving mechanism when we're confronted with the tiger. But now we are both the tiger and the person being confronted by the tiger. We are making this happen to ourselves. That's interesting and I'm going to get to that in a minute. That the very keyword inappropriate, um reaction. So yeah, in your book, timber Cent Happier, which I mean, it's so great. Everyone

get this book. I'm holding it up. This is not a video podcast, but um, what I love about timber Cent Happier is it really takes everyone through you know, your life as a journalist. And and you said in the intro that you wanted to name the book initially the voice in my head is an asshole. And I love that. And I think in that moment your voice in your head was this is one instance where the voice in your head was being an So it was not at all, Um, you know, looking around rationally and

telling you what was actually happening. It was just making up lies, almost as though your mind was a competing anchor who wanted your job. Yes. So one thing that you do talk about in the book when you you talk about this experience, is you call it air hunger. And you know, in all my years of panicking and getting help for it, I actually had never heard air hunger. Can you tell us about what that means? It's a bit I use it as a as a bit of

a double entendre the phrase. I only heard it because I happen to be married to a pulmonologist, a lung doctor. Oh my god, that is you. You are so lucky. I mean, anyone with anxiety and panic, that is the person to be married to. So jealous. Better than a therapist, Yes, but she she's altually a pretty good therapist. As it

turns out. She married a neurotic, so she she better be um so she she I heard this expression through her talking about her work, where she would often intubate people or you know, she was a pulmonologist who worked in I see us for for much much of the early part of our marriage. So air hunger meant you couldn't breathe and you needed to be put on mechanical ventilation often. And I also used it as a double

encounter because it was about this. The time during which I had the panic attack was the time where I had sort of ambition on steroids and I was hungry to be on the air all the time. I was really competing to to uh, you know, beat out my colleagues and get the big story and get the big assignments and get the job as an anchorman. And I had spent a lot of time in war zones um before, and in fact, I think that's really what precipitated the

panic attack. I had spent a lot of time in war zones and come home and had some psychological problems and then self medicated with recreational drugs, and all of that I think really led to me having a panic attack. Yeah, it's interesting with a panic attack that it never really is about anything that's happening in that moment, right. It's always kind of this build up where like you almost can't take it anymore. It's the straw that breaks the

camel's back. You just it's not really about anything that happened that day, but it could be the build up of the drugs in your system, even if you hadn't taken any drugs, you know, weeks up to the panic attack. But and that's what I find so interesting is you know, so this panic attack was in two thousand four, and according to your book, so right after nine eleven, which obviously was the biggest jolt of anxiety that America had

in a while, especially New Yorkers. You're in New York and you get sent to to our bar, You're like, yeah, let's do this. I'm going right to where bin Laden is hiding. I mean, most people would not do that. And so it's funny to me that to the uninitiated, if they were on a quiz show and they said, tell me when Dan Harris had a panic attack? Was it when he was in Afghanistan intour bar after night eleven? Or was it when he was in the comfort of

the ABC studios three years later? Mostly would guess in Afghanistan. So were you, in a way do you think an adrenaline junkie as well at a certain point, like trying to feel a live when you went to get those news stories, or was it really just work ambition? Like, did you feel weirdly at ease in those war zones because it's almost like there's no time to panic, it's just survival and adrenaline. Yes, what you said is correct. Um, I was an adrenaline junk. He's probably still am in

some ways, so not as much as I used to be. UM, I didn't really go into I started covering wars in my early thirties. I know, I had been a local news reporter for my twenties, and you know, there was there was no combat to speak of. UM, But I liked the excitement of my job as a as a local news reporter. And then when I got ABC News, nine eleven happened, and obviously that was the biggest story in the planet. UH. Initially Afghanistan and then Iraq, and

I wanted to be there. And I initially was motivated by a combination of curiosity, idealism, you know, really feeling that we needed to bear witness to what was happening

at the tip of the spear, and ambitions. What really kicked into high gear once I got into war zones, something I had never experienced before was that how much I loved the adrenaline, It really feels like you are somewhere you are not supposed to be, and it's very exciting, and your existential crisis can can evaporate because you know what you're doing is important, it's really exciting, and you get on TV while doing it. And so I got

really hooked. And the problems came when I would come home in the midst of this, and even though I still had a pretty exciting job as a you know, budding news anchor, it didn't compare to being in Afghanistan or being in a rock and is not shooting bullets by your hand sometimes through her eyes, m but not not not not literally. And I got depressed in those periods of time, even though I didn't know I was depressed,

and that's what led to the drug abuse. It's so funny to me, as a child from Boston, that you even tried cocaine, because I thought we'd all been successfully brainwashed by the by Lenn Bias, that was one of the Boston Celtics, a young recruit, and he oh deed um from cocaine overdose. And you know, I have remembered my middle school gym teachers. We shuttled us all into the gymnasium and said Lenn Bias tried cocaine once everybody and died and we were like, oh my god, we

never it was height of the eighties. Just say no. I mean I never tried cocaine. Even when I learned that that wasn't quite true, that it wasn't his first time trying it, We'll never try it. So I really had the same reaction. I mean, I was terrified. I mean I was thirty two somewhere, pretty old to be trying cocaine for the first time. UM. But I was desperate. Uh. I was super depressed and feeling UM, I was feeling logi all the time. I felt physically bad all the time. UH.

And I was kind of lonely. A lot of my friends had moved away. And then I, you know, my real best friends were when I was covering war and I couldn't be with them all the time. And I was with a buddy one night and he offered me some and I don't know why I just said yes. By the way, I don't recommend cocaine. UM. I think it's it is addictive. UM, it probably doesn't kill people on the first use, um uh all that often. But but it's it is addictive, and um, the crash is

really brutal. And so I'm not like, I'm not puritanically anti drug, but I'm not out here recommending you do cocaine. And stopping doing cocaine was very helpful to me in terms of not having panic attacks anymore. Anxiety bites will be right back after a quick little message from one of our sponsors. Let's talk about when you started to

get into meditation. So, according to your book, you started to interview self help gurus anything from a deepunk show for two, you know, more snake oil salesman, Christian evangelical types. So you were looking for answers but making it part of your job in a way. You had that ability to say this is what this is the field I want to go into now. It was it was an incredible stroke of luck that I, post panic attack kind of was trying to figure out what to do with

my mind in my life. First thing I did with the therapy and quit doing drugs and that was really really helpful. And then I had this ability, um to

go interview interesting people. UM I did. I had been assigned by Peter Jennings, um my then boss to cover faith in spirituality, which I didn't want to do because I'm I'm agnostic from the People's Republic of Massachusetts and it was not particularly and your parents were scientists, so it's not like you were this like religious household, right, correct. I did have a bar mitzvah, but I I like I always joked that I only did that for the money. Uh.

So I was not at all interested in spirituality. Then over time I used that gig to start interviewing self help gurus, etcetera, etcetera, and through that I found meditation. So and I'm gonna take us back through that story from the Eckart totally to the mark Epstein. But did your therapist say anything helpful in the sense of what to do about panic and anxiety or did you find that you you needed more? Were you doing cognitive behavior therapy for panic attacks? Yeah? So he was really great.

He had a couple of mechanisms. One was, don't do cocaine anymore. Uh. The other was he gave me some drugs that were helpful, um uh prescribed drugs. One of them is called beta blockers UM, which for anybody who's got uh stage fright or performance anxiety of any sort, or or if you're just going into a stressful meeting with your boss and you're worried about panicking. Beta blockers are a non narcotic prescription class of drugs that can stop your heart from beating too fast and block the

release of cortisol. I believe I'm not a doctor, so if I got that wrong, I apologize. But anyway, he those were a couple of things he did. He tried to do cognitive behavioral therapy around my fear about being on TV, but it didn't work because you can't. I know when I'm live and I when I'm not. So you can put a TV camera in front of me, but if I am not, if I'm aware that it's not beamed out right now to five million people, I'm

not gonna get scared. Uh. Then just a lot of also talk therapy, you know, just I had done it when I was a kid, but I had not done much as an adult. And so really seeing this guy once through twice a week for years and years and years just helped me live in a wiser way to start untangling why did I get myself into this situation

in the first place. Well, I heard in an interview that you talked about, your dad had a saying and that you realize now he wasn't saying it like this is how it should be, but he was trying to make you feel better. What what was that saying? He had an expression was the price of security is insecurity,

which is actually quite a nice for phrasing, UM. And I took that in ram with it and really believed that any success that I was achieving in my professional life was directly correlated to the intensity of my anxiety. I said, I thought I needed hair on fire anxiety in order to succeed. We can talk about why. I don't think that's true now. But but but my dad later told me UM that he didn't in make that

up to encourage me to worry. He made that up to make me feel better about the fact that I was already worrying and I was a very nervous kid. These are the ways that parents don't even know they're influencing their kids. You know, everyone wants to be the perfect parent. I'm not going to screw my kid up.

And it's like, but even when you're helping them, you might say something that just because of their own wiring they take totally the wrong way, and it just it makes me laugh because we just have so little control over how we take things, how how people take what we say. It's fascinating that you had that realization years later.

So I want to talk about your meditation, and then I want to jump back because I'm very obsessed with your interaction with eck Art Totley, but I think we need to start with So basically, someone gives you an neck art tole a book. You read it, but it doesn't really connect with you. Will go back into detail about that. But then you find Mark Epstein and his book going to Pieces without falling apart? I am obsessed with markets. What happened there that made you say, all right,

I'll try this this meditation? Tell me the journey keep saying journey to you. I hate that. Are you gonna ask me about about my aura next? I don't have to ask. I see it. I see your auras right. I can't see it because I hid self view, but I'm sure it's here. Um I So Dr Mark Epstein totally obsession worthy is if he is a psychiatrist who lives and works in Manhattan has written a whole series of beautiful books about the overlap between Friday and psychology

and Buddhism. He was not my psychiatrist. I found him because my then fiance and now baby Mama Bianca gave me one of his books, the aforementioned Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart, and it was my first exposure to Buddhism, and I was really impressed that that the There's so many diagnoses that the Buddha made of the human condition, but one of them is that we have this racing mind, some sometimes referred to as the monkey mind, which is leaping all over the place and from one thing to

the next randomly, often grabbing onto things that will not last in a universe that is characterized by impermanence and entropy, and lurching from one hit of pleasant experience, one vaccasion, one slice of cake, one latte to the next, and

never fully satisfied. And that just when I heard that description, I was like, oh, yeah, that is that is that is true, and that explains why I went off to war zones uh without thinking about the consequences, came home, got depressed, was insufficiently self aware to know it, and then blindly self medicated and it all blew up in

my face on national television. So it was very satisfying to read that, and the Buddha had something to do about it, which was a star contrast to Eckar Totally, who I know we'll talk about later, has a similar diagnosis. But as a friend of mine has joked, ear totally is correct but not useful. The Buddha is correct and very useful. And now, people listening, you don't have to actually become a Buddhist right to incorporate. I mean, he

really is like very practical. You know. I know that there are people who have this as the religion and there's all kinds of problems with us white people appropriating and go well I'll use a little of this but not that. But but just for you know, the sake of someone listening and at all I'm not a Buddhist, it's like, well, we're just talking honestly about um, the practicality of it. It's like not even about love everyone,

but do no harm. You know, it's a lot of like not as as you say gooey as people think, it's a lot more practical of like do less this. And it's like, oh wow, that's challenging to people because I think type A people want to do how do I do this? And and some of the answers of the Buddha are you don't that you are absolutely right that you don't have to become a Buddhist or anything like that. The Buddha in his own time was there were no Buddhists. They were just you know, people who

followed him and did his meditation techniques. Ranged from people who are ordained as monks and nuns all the way up to wealthy merchants to kings. It basically had a philosophy and a set of practices, both for seed in meditation and for your life, your free range living, that were designed to make you less miserable, to make you happier. And um, I would call myself a Buddhist, but only in the sense that I do Buddhism the same way

I would call myself a journalist. The Buddha clearly said, you don't have to take anything I say on face value. You don't have to believe anything just because I said it. Try it off for yourself. There's no creation myth and Buddhism. There's no He's not a god. He was just a guy. Um. Now, there are some claims in there that I can't verify and I don't particularly believe in because I just don't

have evidence for them, including reincarnation, etcetera, etcetera. But you can take or leave that stuff, and you can practice Buddhism if you're a Christian or do uh, Muslim and agnostic and atheist, doesn't matter. It's a set of practices. You can do some of them, not all of them. Whatever. And yes, there are people who practice Buddhism as a religion, and I think that's quite beautiful, but I'm not one of them. But I do Buddhism on the regular and

take it very, very seriously. So it's not that mindfulness and Buddhism are totally interchangeable, but kind of in that sense, like mindfulness is one of the credible insights made by the Buddha. So what we've seen in recent years is that Buddhism is this vast, rich, you know, treasury of

kind of insights into what makes us tick. One of the things that Buddha talked about was mindfulness, which is basically just another way of saying self awareness, the awareness of this voice in your head that is an asshole, and that awareness allows you not to be so owned by it, you might notice. So, Yeah, I'm having this ridiculous urging to eat a sleeve of oreos or to say something that's gonna ruin the next seventy two hours of my marriage, but I don't have to act on it.

That's mindfulness, just the ability to see what's happening between your ears in any given moment without without taking de bait and acting blindly. Um, that's one very important chunk of many, many incredible things the Buddha talked about. Mindfulness has been taken out. And I think there's some disagreement about this in the in the Buddhist world, but I'm

pretty partisan in saying that. I think it's a really good thing that it's been taken out of a religious context, studied in labs, and taught in a secular way, and that has allowed for this explosion of scientific research that

shows that mindfulness can have lots of tantalizing health benefits. Uh, it's now being taught in foster homes and in prisons and and business this is and in locker rooms and in dressing rooms in l A and so this secularization, which again has been a little bit controversial, and we can talk about that if you want. I think has led to a really interesting mainstreaming of this practice, which heretofore had been kind of limited to religious communities. Yeah.

I think the only thing that makes me want to barf is when people who don't understand that it is scientific, has a psychological been to it, like Mark Epstein's writings, and you know, you've got some influencer on Instagram who's like mindful and they're turning it into some hippie to beating. I mean that makes me crazy too, will be right back. What does it look like when the type a news

guy starts meditating? Do you totally do it? I know there's no wrong way to meditate, but do you approach it like yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not gonna listen to them about how I should approach it. I know how I'm gonna win it. That like where you like that when you started, by the way, there is a wrong way to meditate. If you sit down and affirmatively decide to like plan lunch, that's not meditation, that's planning lunch.

That's true. And I know you don't like this either when people go cooking, is my meditation, It's like, no, that's cooking meditation, Like, show some respect, it's an actual thing, like it be in the zone when you're cooking, but you're not meditating. I think you can be mindful while

you cook. In other words, you can be mindful while you're doing anything, because mindfulness just means paying attention to what you're doing in a way that allows you to see the workings of your mind, just for a few nanoseconds at a time, without being owned by it. So you can be chopping onions and just really tuning into what's the smell, what are my eyes singing, what's the sensation, what are the sensations in my arm as I moved

the knife up and down. I think it's quite hard to do that if you don't have a foundation of seated practice where you are really doing a kind of workout. So to let, I think I should answer your the question you actually asked me, which is how do you meditate? How did I do it when I was first introduced to it. There are lots of kinds of meditation. Um. I was drawn to something called mindfulness meditation, which is derived from Buddhism, but has been thoroughly secularized. The practice

is very simple. The cliche is that it's simple but not easy. The practices you sit quietly somewhere, bring your full attention to the feeling of your breath coming in and going out, and then every time you get distracted, which will happen a million times, you start again and

again and again. And a lot of people think when they get distracted, that is proof that they're meditating incorrectly, but in fact, not to saying you've become distracted is proof you're meditating correctly, because the whole game here is to develop mindfulness, is to see that the voice in your head is often an asshole, and when you have that self awareness, you are less owned by the voice.

So the whole goal as you sit, you notice your breath for a few nanoseconds and you immediately take it away. You're starting to plan a homicide, or you know, you plan some expletive filled speech you're gonna deliver to your boss, and then you notice it. You're like, oh, yeah, okay, that's that's anchor, that's that's maybe that's some ancient pattern I've been running in my mind since I was five, Blow it a kiss and you go back to the breath over and over and over again. And that's like

a bicet girl for your brain. And this is what shows up on the brain scans when you look at the brains of people who meditate, they are different. The area of the brain associated with focus changes, the area of the brain associated with stress changes, the area of the brain associated with compassion, self awareness. These change and that is really revolutionary here that you can change change

your brain and by extension, your mind. And you know, we these qualities, these mental qualities that many of us have been carrying around stories about how their set their factory settings that are unalterable. Actually know, these are skills that can be trained. It doesn't mean it's going to happen overnight hence ten happier, but these are things that

you can get better and better and better at overtime. Well, you know a big thing for me and my anxiety, learning about anxiety and you know the things that caused my panic attacks was one of them. A lot of negative self talk, but not even conscious of it. Right, So when I sit down and notice my thoughts, it wasn't just that, oh I kind of already knew these

thoughts were there, but I'm giving them attention. It was like I didn't even know that my I call it like the CNN news crawl that you see on the outside of the buildings and Manhattan, like that news crawl was just sorry, just at ABC that that was constantly You're no good, You're you know, all terrible things, and negative self talk can lead to so much anxiety. Um

it can lead to panic attacks. And you know a lot of people that are perfectionists have anxiety and panic and so sitting down and noticing your thoughts is like you said, you they won't own you anymore, and that is I think that's should be very attractive to type A people like you don't want your thoughts owning you. Like you know, people with anxiety, they long for control. You tell them what to do to gain control. And well, not that you know, but but it's beautiful what you said.

I'm sorry to interrupting. I want to I want to give you credit. I want to give you a gold star because the seeing of this heretofore hidden obnoxious news ticker is the point of meditation, or at least one of the big points and and that's a huge victory. And for so many people they get caught up on this. They they see that this is happening and they feel like they're failed meditators because they should be sitting down.

And you know, it's like Calgan, take me away, or I need the beatific Buddha half smile that I see on the statues outside the airport massage places. That's not the way it's gonna go. The way it's gonna go is what Gen just described as you're gonna sit and you're gonna see like, yeah, this is what your life is about, which is a lot of you know, doing it a haircut? Where to gerbils run wild? Why are you such a failure? Why does your brother in law

make more than you? Blah blah blah. That is what's happening on a moment's moment basis in your mind most likely, And if you don't see it, those thoughts are like tiny little dictators that you act out reflexively. When you do see it, you have a choice to respond wisely to stuff rather than reacting blindly. Right, And of course you know your reactions change over time with meditation practice every day, and so this is this I've been dying

to tell you this story. It's not a long story, but I just it's like you know, when you know the perfect person to tell something too because you want them to get mad for you. This is I need you to react correctly to the story. I know you, so I think you know. I think you relate to this that like you're not having anxiety panic every day, but that stuff could come up. Right. So I have situations where I could still have a panic attack. One

is airplanes. I'm not afraid to fly, but just every once in a while my defenses are down, I'm tired, I start to feel the physical sensations of panic. I have my dissolveable clone up in on me if that happens. I also have my tools and techniques. I do both okay great. The other thing that I just have not mastered yet is a fear of heights, like elevators and

tall buildings. Um And when I am in New York City and I take meetings, I obviously find out what floor it's on, and I do a whole thing that morning. I don't have caffeine, I do extra meditation, I do take take medication hours earlier, and I actually talk to the people that are coming to the meeting with me about here's what you should say to me when I'm panicking the elevator, Here's what not to say. It's a

whole thing. I have to prepare, and I've learned how to take care of myself and ask for what I need. So I blindly go to a pitch meeting, ironically pitching a TV show about a teenage growth anxiety to this network in l A. And you know, we don't have tall buildings here. There's one building in Universal City that's tall. I never go in it, never been in it. That's where the meeting is. I blind. I just don't even pay attention. I get there, it's on the floor. I

have one minute before the meeting starts. I was jacked on caffeine, ready to give my one hour pitch, and I couldn't. I said, I can't, said to my manager and her sister, I can't go up, And they said, is there anything we can do? And I said, listen, that the stuff that needed to be done to take care of myself is too late. But if you could call up and have them shut those blinds. Um if you guys could say this not that to me in the elevator. But before I even gave them what they

could say, they were saying all the wrong things. I was panicking more. I took my desolvable plant have been and as you said in your book, once, um, it just cut right through the terror cart right through there. No drug could stop this. And I was like air hungry, couldn't breathe couldn't breathe. And I said, well, we're pitching a show about anxiety. That's what this network wanted. They

they're very big into mental health. Blah blah blah. And there was a beautiful coffee shop in the lobbies, so maybe we just asked him to come down and we pitch here, you know, I mean, it was a there's no reason they couldn't come down. So these young executives come down, and I said, I'm really grateful to you guys, and I said everything I just said to you. I said, I normally I never panic, but when I do, it's because I wasn't prepared and I didn't know it was

going to be the whole thing. And this one guy goes de meditate and I said yeah, and he goes, he goes, yeah, I used to panic but I just started meditating. I've never panicked again, So yeah, you should just meditate more. And I was like, I want you to explode right here, and like I was so angry because I was like, then he has never He's either never panicked or he's never meditate. This is not true, right, Uh. I'm I hope for his sake that it is true.

I'm happy for him if it's jobs, God bless I Still I've been doing it for I don't know, twelve years or something like that, and I still retained the capacity to definitely have anxiety daily. UM. Not not necessarily crippling anxiety, but low level anxiety. I worry about stuff that's just kind of how wired. And if you put me in the right situation, I could definitely panic. I'm claustrophobic. If you put me in an m R I without enough preparation, absolutely I have a panic attack. I don't

think meditation is a panacea. I think it makes me much more. I think it makes both of us much less likely to panic or to have anxiety, and it gives us tools to deal with it when those things come up. So I hope it's true for that young executive. UM but it's not true for a lot of people. Well, I also think the one mistake he made being like Mr, I love anxiety and helping people, is you just shamed me, you know, like that's not how we talk to people.

Like a real meditator does not say that, you know, would would would would never go. I used to have this. It's never happened again that did. Dolly Lama wouldn't say that, you know. Um, And so it takes me probably using one of my competitor apps, you know that that's problem. Problem, Well, it takes me to your story about art Totally, and then you know, we'll wrap up and I want to

talk about your app. In your book, you talk about meeting the dolly Lama who you know, everyone I've read who's met him, it's just like they asked you know, you asked him about you know, stopping the mind and does he still get angry and he's like, oh yeah, yeah yeah, like he's always just very like whenever I read about him, he's like yeah, yea, yeah, don't be stupid. Of course I geta like please there, you'd have to

be a spaceman to not right. Yes, then you meet at art totally and it's like the whispering and just tell me about that experience, because I have an aversion to him and you know, again all God's children. But it's just that kind of thing I think can hurt because it's the goal is not to never for have things bother you. It's like, what everything you've already talked about the reactivity? So can you just delight me with your story in your book where you kind of make

fun of him? Okay, So I have complicated feelings about that Cartolia that have that have kind of changed a little bit over time. But the if you've never heard of that Cartoli is a mega best selling self help guru German kind of a diminutive elfin german Man, who um his story is. This is his story that he had a spiritual awakening in his twenties and then lived on park benches in the city of London for two

years in a state of bliss. I I got skeptical by that story for many reasons, including the fact that they have winter in London. So I don't know about you know, whether that's true. Having said that, his books give a very incisive, compelling description of the voice in the head being an asshole. He calls it your ego. So I was really intrigued when I first read his book. I read his book before I got interested in meditation, before I met the Dollar. He was the first person

even before I heard of Dr Mark Epstein. He was at cart Toley who really pointed out this this nattering voice that I have in my head, and that is part of you know, the human situation. And so I, while I found so many things in his books to be very very strange, including the park bench story, I was intrigued to meet him. And I went and met him. And the first question I asked is what do you do about the voice in the head? And he said take one conscious breath? And the voice in my head

was like, what the fund does that mean? Like would give me some something to do? And I asked him a million ways, what do you do about this? I understood the words he was using, just not the order in which he was using them. Like I, he didn't say anything comprehensible to me, And then I asked him with the question I would later ask the Dollar Llama, who gave me a pretty sane answer to I asked, you ever get into a bad mood? And he said no,

insisted that he's just whatever happens. You know, I'd like, if I cut you off in traffic, he'd be like, yeah, I'd be like a gust of wind. You know, I don't personalize it, etcetera, etcetera. Which sounds beautiful, but like I was really very skeptical about it, and his whole presentation and his claims really put me off to him personally, although I was deeply intrigued by his the diagnosis of that is true, and that's great. Yeah, I over time,

you know, here's the way. I've interviewed lots of sketchy people in my thirty years as a television journalist. Eckhart totally does not strike me as full of ship though, So while I was incredulous, I did not get the sense that he was a snake oil salesman. And I don't know how to compute that. I have in my

wanderings since I have met him. Throughout spiritual the spiritual world, I have come across many descriptions of people who have be ago awakenings, sometimes with no training whatsoever, and they are just the software has been upgraded. And I can't tell you whether that's true because I have not experienced in myself, but there are many claims of this in

the contemplative literature. And so maybe that is what happened with that car told you know, maybe I just think it's it's a miracle you kept going and found something that worked for you, because I think those kind of people, if we meet them first, it can be a turn off in that it just seems insurmountable. And uh and so I try to, you know, with your podcast, and I think it's so important that you're putting voices out there that are saying, no, here is what you do.

You know, you don't even have to ever have an awakening, like you say, ten percent happier a little less of an asshole. So as we wrap up, can you tell everybody all about the ten percent Happier. I mean, it's really a media company at this point, the app, which is amazing. I have the app. I love it. I just just go off about your podcasting your app. Please. Well, well, I I don't I won't go to too deep into plugging except to say that that there's been a kind

of a development in my own personal life. Um, I don't know when this is going to post, but I am leaving ABC News after having been there for twenty one years because, um, I really want to go full

time on ten percent happier and that I was wondering that. Yeah, so my final day will be the end of September, and I don't know how I'm going to make it through my final day on the air, just because you know, I'm really close to so many people there, and I've I've been I just you know, you're gonna cry on air and we'll put it on YouTube right next to your panic attack and it will be nice of full circle.

Can't wait. You know, I'm not very emotional. It's one of the things I've been criticized for by many people, including my my wife. Um, but I worry about whether I'm gonna be able to hold it together. That I think you don't hold it together, And because you need that advertisement for Temper, that's right, come on, think about say something. I thought you were gonna say something, you know, wholesome and gooey, but you were just going right to

the crash, which I love you for. Yeah. Yeah, No, we're gonna we're gonna make some money with this ten percent and the way to advertise it as crying on air. UM, don't hold it together unless you you know, I don't want profits to store now so, but but it's it's so helpful. I mean, you did this whole thing during the pandemic. UM. I mean you just have the most amazing guests interviewing people about I mean you I need

you to talk about because I'm I'm speechless. But you had a recent UM block of episodes this past summer that we're all about anxiety, and it's just so helpful. We do a lot on anxiety, both on the podcast and on the app UM. The we we did a special series of episodes of the summer on anxiety. We brought all sorts of experts in both scientists and UM meditation practitioners who are who have worked with anxiety in

their own minds meditation teachers that is. And we did a big course on the ten percent Happier app called Taming Anxiety, where you if you download the app, you can try this course. UM and UH, we we worked again with we usually combine a scientist, UH. In this case, we worked with a researcher and clinician from Harvard who can teach you how to you know, the scientifically validated techniques for dealing with anxiety effect. I have clastrophobias. So she and I got in an elevator and went up

and down at nauseum until I stopped freaking out. And she's really helpful. So we pair somebody like that with a you know, a deep meditation teacher who can give you guided practices. So the way it works as you get like a two three minute fun video and it slides right into a guided audio meditation and UM, yeah, we just got it. We got a tremendous response to that because we're in the middle of the pandemic. There's the pandemic, there's um we've had what's often called a

racial reckoning in this country. We've had um political polarization, We've got climate change. There's so much going on that is stress full. Uh. And I've just found that I've seen that the interest in what we do and what you know, lots of other amazing people are doing in this space has skyrocketed. So, UM, I'm glad to see there's increased interest. I'm not happy about what's driving it exactly. Would be better if everyone just curious and trying to

stay on top of it. Instead of suffering. UM. So, last question, UM, I know you were worried when you first started meditating that you might lose your edge. Did have you lost your edge? And is that good at that if you have or not? No? I mean I don't think. I don't think I lost my madge. I In fact, one of the things I'm trying to do is lose more of my edge. Because I I have

my eyes are bigger than my stomach. I contend to say yes some more things than um I can actually do, and that can make me really, really unpleasant to be around. It's one of my biggest, you know, flaws, is I overextend myself. I've been working seven days a week for teen years and that is no boy, no. And that is why I decided to leave ABC News, because I

needed to start following my own advice. But but it's a challenge because even as I'm leaving ABC News, I've got other offers of things I could do and do I say yes to them? How many things do I say yes to? And I'm driven a lot by ambition but also by I love this stuff and I really I think it can help people. And so I've this kind of mix of ambition and idealism and maybe some fear and greed under all of that, and in security.

It's a whole interesting cocktail that I still work with, you know, And this is somebody who's ten, eleven, twelve years into meditation. It doesn't make all that stuff go away. What it does do is create a fertile ground for working on it more sanely. And that's what I recommend to people. And yeah, maybe you'll hit Eckhart totally status at some point, God blessed. I mean, I hope you do.

But if you just want to have a marginally but steadily increasing love of sanity, this is a terrific modality. I love it. Dan, Thank you so much. This has been a joy. You don't say no to Jen Kirkman. I mean, come on, I don't want to see how tough you can be on Twitter. I'm on this. Yes, that is my talk with Dan Harris. Now let's just do some takeaways. Next time you're having a panic attack, notice what's going on. It does start in your body first, but then your mind starts to freak out. It's a

vicious cycle, as Dan calls it, mutiny mode. The more your mind freaks your body freaks worse. It's fear on steroids. It's our fight or flight response being triggered in a completely inappropriate circumstance. But you are not dying. Nobody has ever died from a panic attack, and no, you're not the first one that's going to die of a panic attack. You're not dying. If there's anything you can take away from this entire season of the Anxiety Bites podcast, You're

not dying. Number two. Do not do cocaine. It's not going to help with anything in your life. No drugs, everybody, No street drugs. The book that Dan mentioned that was the first book that really opened his eyes. If you need that repeated, it's called Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart by doctor Mark Epstein E P S T E I N. When your mind is racing, it's known as the monkey mind. It's leaping all over the place. But you can get it to a place by practicing mindfulness

where your monkey mind doesn't own you. If you don't notice what's happening in your mind, your thoughts are like tiny little dictators that you end up acting out reflexively and rather unconsciously. You don't have to be a Buddhist to meditate or practice mindfulness, or even practice some of the tenants of Buddhism that dovetails so well with modern day psychology. If the word mindfulness doesn't work for you, maybe another way to think of it is self awareness.

It's just like the way that Dan was able to label the voice in his head as an asshole. Mindfulness self awareness. It's a way of seeing what's happening between your ears without taking the bait and acting on your thoughts. This is all scientifically proven. The brains of people who meditate look different. It shows up in brain scans, and meditation positively affects the areas of focus and stress and increases compassion. And lastly, the factory settings of our brain

are not unalterable. You can do this anxiety bites, but you're in control. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.