Dan Harris and Oren Sofer

have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf m Thanks for joining us. Our guests this week are Dan Harris and Oran Sofur. Dan was a previous guest and

we discussed his great book Ten Percent Happier. In addition, Dan is the current anchor on the weekend edition of Good Morning America as well as Nightline. He has begun creating a series of courses based around ten percent Happier. One of those courses features or In Sofur Oran as a teacher and practitioner of Buddhist meditation, non violent communication, and semantics. He is also a specialist in the role

of mindfulness in creating better conversation. Speaking of This conversation was recorded in Dan's office at the ABC Studios in the UI. Hi Dan, Hi Oran, Welcome to the show. Thanks yeah, great to be here. Thank you. I'm sitting here in Dan Harris's office in New York City and we are recording a podcast and we've got Orange J. Sofur from San Francisco area on the call. And Oran and Dan put together a course. It's part of the ten Percent Happier app that Dan has been working on,

and it's called effective Communication. So today what we'll do is we will just talk through some of the key things in that course, and it really brings together mindfulness along with how to communicate better with the people in our lives. So we'll get to that in just a second, but we'll start like we always do, with the parable There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that

are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second, and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start the show off by asking you or in how that parable applies to you in your life

and in the work that you do. Thanks Eric, I've known that parable for many years, and I always find it kind of moving. I think for me, it speaks to kind of one of the fundamental facts of the way we're built that allows meditation to work, which is that our minds are malleable, and that we're sort of learning machines, and that the way we learn is through repetition. So whatever we do more of, we're more likely to

continue to do. And that's not just on the external plane, but also internally, so the very mind states and thoughts and perceptions that we cultivate and feed by repeating them and thinking them again and again become our character, you know, becomes how we how we are in the world with ourselves and others. Excellent, Dan, I'm going to start with you by asking you you've got the ten percent Happier app which you've been partnering with experts in the mindfulness

in meditation space to create courses. What made you want to reach out to Oran and start this course? Well, it started about six and nine months ago when I got a call from a little company, a startup company in Boston at the time. They were called Change Collective and they were doing mobile behavior change courses UM, and

they wanted me to do one on meditation. I of course, I'm not a meditation teacher, so they they had me recruit somebody who actually knows what he's talking about, Joseph Goldstein, who is my meditation teacher. And we did a course, a two week how to Meditate course, and it did did quite well, and actually, UH as a result of that, the company decided to become a full time meditation and

UH company. So we we renamed the whole thing tempercent Happier and started developing relationships with a bunch of teachers on a bunch of topics. So Joseph Goldstein is doing a bunch of several courses Sharon Salzburg Uh. And then or In had taught a course that one of my co founders had taken at the Berry Center for Buddhist Studies, which is in Barry, Massachusetts, and he had loved it. And so we got on the phone and started figuring out, um,

could we do something on communication. At first, I wasn't. I didn't even really know what that meant. But then when being on the phone with Oran, it was obvious that mindlessness runs rampant through our communications and we're all we're constantly staying stupid ship and um that we regret. Uh. And you know anybody who's in a relationship who knows this, uh, And it happens at work, it happens in almost every

arena of life. And so talk go or and he really had a very well thought out um system for improving this as sort of a training system for it. And also the more time you spent with him, you realized that he could, you know, probably solve the Middle East piece. Um. He's just very good at figuring out what is the right thing to say and what is the right time to say it? And the way in which to say it. Uh, So we developed this course.

I mean, I can't say that it has alleviated my propensity for being a schmuck, but it certainly has helped, and I think it can for lots of people. And the more you do the training, the better you'll be. Or And we still haven't agreed really on on the title for the course. Right there, we're calling an effective communication, but I think our goal longest has been to find a funnier title. Right, Yes, that's right. I still want to do how to argue better? But I think you

didn't like that I was. I'm kind of open to that one. And maybe how to not be a schmuck? That's good, that's very good too. Yeah. I'm talking to a guy here in a few days, Brad Warner. He's a Zen Buddhist teacher. In his new bok is called

Don't Be a Jerk, all about the teachings of Dojin. So, um, let's start off going into the course a little bit and or and you talk about there being a very key shift that happens at the beginning of this process, and that's basically to go from looking at confrontation is a negative thing to recognizing that those differences and disagreements can actually bring us closer together. Can you talk a

little bit more about that. Sure. Yeah, it's a very uh kind of common reaction to difference or conflict or disagreement that we tend to contract inside and get anxious. And that's there for a lot of different reasons, um, not the least of which are our cultural conditioning and the experiences that we've each had in life. So our cultural conditioning is that whenever there's a difference, there's only one of two options. Someone's going to get what they

want and someone's not to get what they want. It's a win lose paradigm that most of us have grown up with. And then based on that paradigm, we don't learn the tools to actually understand one another and really navigate a situation and find something that works for both people and really through that process actually understand one another

better or learn something new. So because we have we are in conditioned with this way of seeing things and don't learn the tools to do it differently, then we create experiences that confirm that you know, from the time that we're very little uh, and adults may be intervened and say you have to do this or the other person has to do that. And so we learned very quickly that when our needs are challenged are threatened, uh that someone's gonna win, someone's gonna lose, and we know

which side of that we want to be on. So that creates a whole conditioning around conflict, and then our nervous system actually gets patterned in that way where it stops being an idea and it actually starts being a physiological process that when there's tension, and depending on who that's with, it might be more pronounced. We start to have a whole response inside emotionally of however we've learned to meet that situation. So it might be responding with anger,

it might be responding with fear or anxiety. So that's kind of the framework that most of us come to this stuff with, and that there's the possibility slowly of having different experiences and realizing that there's a whole another way to relate to those situations that can lead to, like you said, more understanding, more connection, more closeness. You know.

I'll say one more thing here, which is that I think if we reflect on our lives, most of us have at least a few experiences where we've had a disagreement, we've as some difference of opinion large or small with someone that we have a steady relationship with, and we work it through and we actually come out on the other side closer, stronger, understanding each other better. Yeah. I agree.

I mean I've traditionally been the one who falls into the fear category and the give the other person exactly what they want category just to make the situation go away. UM, which tends, you know, to to what you're saying, to always be a losing situation for me. And the times that I have gotten better at being able to engage in a dialogue and use some of the principles like you've got in this course, I suddenly realized we come out on the other end of that not only like

having solved that problem, but as closer as people. And I'm always sort of surprised by that because it goes so against, like you said, my long term conditioning. Yeah, and you know, one of the keys is just reflecting on that and recognizing that that's possible. And then as we get some of these tools. Um, one of the things that's sort of the hardest to convince people in

learning these tools is to start small. Everyone wants to take just the littlest bit that they understand and apply it to the hardest situation in their life, and it's not a great way to learn, you know. It's in some ways we want to We wanna build up gradually to those really difficult situations where we actually have enough mastery of our own emotions and the communication skills that

we can come out of those situations successful. The otherwise we end up just feeling defeated or frustrated or you know, kind of throwing the whole thing out. So the analogy I always use is it's like if you're trying to learn how to swim, you don't jump in the ocean on stormy day. You're going to pool and you go on the shallow end where you can learn how to

actually do the strokes. And so in the same way, when we learning communication skills, which are really complex and there's a lot going on when we're talking with someone else, that we want to do it in situations that are relatively low stakes, that are safe at first, so we can actually get some facility and ease with the tools, and then slowly, little by little we apply them to more situations. So what is the role of mindfulness in communication? Dan?

How do these things tie together? A minbleness, just the ability to know what's happening in your head without being carried away by it. And we're constantly beset and besieged by emotions and urges and desires while we're in conversation with other people. The urge might be to check your BlackBerry, or to have a say as sharp, judgmental, critical thing or um not to listen or uh, any number of

any number of different factors. And so just to be aware of what's happening in your mind while you're in conversation with somebody is to up the odds that you won't be yanked around by it. We had Carrie Patterson on the show who wrote a book called Crucial Conversations, which is an excellent book. One of the things they say is just be aware that you're in a crucial conversation and bring the mindfulness and awareness to what's happening

and what your reaction is in those situations. Yeah, I mean, I think I think that's true. Easier said than done, of course, but I mean, or do you think I got that right, Yeah, Yeah, definitely, I think that's that's

kind of the foundation Dan. For me, it goes further than that, because you know, mindfulness, it's one analogy I also us is mindfulness like a magnifying glass, right, that helps us to see things more clearly, And so in adtition to being able to see what's going on in our mind during a conversation and as you say, not be yanked around by it, it actually gives us a really steady instrument to examine our conditioning, our patterns, how

do we behave in conversations? What are what are our defaults, you know, um, and to actually start to tease apart not just the grossest thoughts on the surface that are happening, but how are we feeling, where is that coming from? What matters to us? What are we needing in a situation? What do we want to actually have happened next in a conversation, and how do we ask for that in a skillful way. So it really helps us to see and break things down more clearly in a dialogue relationship

as well as just in ourselves. The neat thing about these communication tools is that we can use them for anything really, not just our conversations, because there a way of understanding our own experience to be able to know how we're reacting to something and have a different framework

for connecting with that. So a lot of the students that I work with, we focus on conversations and relationships, but there's a whole segment of the work that's really just about understanding oneself better and having more clarity about what what we're feeling and needing and bringing to a situation, whether that involves someone else or not. And here's the rest of the interview with Dan Harris and Oran so

Fur the course that you guys developed. What I noticed is in the practice section where or in your leading meditations, there's a mindfulness component in the way we maybe are traditionally thought of approaching mindfulness. And then there's a lot of stuff in there about becoming more mindful of what what's happening inside of us um as far as emotions

and what we actually want out of situations. Yeah. Absolutely, the formal mindfulness practice really helps us to develop the first foundation of any kind of communication or relational skills, which is the ability to be present, the ability to really be here in the moment, know what's happening, stay oriented and not get lost in our impulses and reactions. And then as that awareness grows and stabilizes, we can take it and apply it to different areas of our

internal experience. And that's the guided practice throughout the two weeks does, as it takes us through step by step building our mindfulness, strengthening the awareness, and then applying it to different components of our experience. So a word that keeps popping up to me in interviews and conversations and books I'm reading lately, and it found its way into year course also is around curiosity. You talk about getting into a position of curiosity. What's the role of curiosity

in having a better conversation? For me, it's one of those central factors and it's the outcome of that key shift that we started talking about. You know, curiosity is

really an intention. It's about our motivation, right uh. And to be curious means we have to recognize the possibility that there's something we don't know, you know, that there's something we could learn here, that there's another way of looking at things, and so it's kind of a whole inner orientation to life really, you know, it's one of the core um factors in mindfulness practice is the ability

to be interested. And if you don't have curiosity city interesting, it's really difficult to practice mindfulness for more than five minutes because things get very very tedious and boring very quickly. It's like another breath and other thoughts, another pain in

my back, you know. So um this This is another area in which the two really support each other because we strengthened curiosity through mindfulness practice, and then we bring that same factor to our conversations, and it's what allows us to actually start to connect with the other person. When someone else really senses that were genuinely interested in understanding them, it changes the whole space of a conversation.

It really aligns us with one another so that we're no longer fighting or trying to one up each other or be right. But the other person sense it's like, oh you you know, you're really trying to understand me, and then we can start to actually work together. So it's it's yeah, go ahead, damn. I was just gonna say, what if you use the factor of interest or curiosity to figure out what is driving the other person so that you can completely vanquish them in the conversation. I

would call that a misapplication of the tools. And you know, the thing about human beings is that we're pretty sensitive, and sometimes we don't. We're not fully conscious of how sensitive we are, but I think we pick things up. And so most people can can tell intuitively, if not consciously,

when something is genuine. And so if there's that hidden agenda of getting curious in order to win or like you say, vanquished the other person or assert yourself over them and kind of dominate them, uh, that's called manipulation, right, And generally people feel that they feel when that sense of interest is in gener you and right, so it's likely to not necessarily have the really desired effect and

shift in the conversation. You know. The other the other thing you're pointing to, Dan is kind of the whole question of like, well, if I have the power to get my needs met and win in a conversation, why not? Right? Um? There, I think there are a lot of reasons why not, um, from the from sort of the enlightened case for self interest,

from from that side of things. You know, when we use our power two dominate to get what we want from someone or from a situation in that way, there's it comes at a cost, and one of the one of the factor of the costs is in the quality of trust and goodwill in the relationship. So if it's a relationship that we care about it any way or that we need to continue in some way, we're going to lose a certain amount of that person's trust in us. And that makes it harder to work together. That makes

it harder to get things done. We if we're supervising someone or managing someone and we kind of forced them to do things our way without including their input, their energy, UM, we lose their sense of intrinsic motivation because they feel like, well, I don't have to say anyway, so you know why try? And then you know, any anyone who's ever supervised or managed people knows how hard it is to work with others who aren't intrinsically motivated, who don't want to take

the initiative and work. But a sure fire way to create those conditions is to force people to do what you want. You know, very very quickly, they will stop giving you any energy that they don't have to um. And the and then another cost that's uh, that's really key is especially in work situations. Um, but even in personal situations, is that we lose a certain amount of creativity.

Any one of us really can only see things from a certain limited perspective, and so the more perspectives we include, the more possibility there is for creating something unexpected and beautiful, you know, sort of more m more creative that we

might not have thought of our scene. You know. And for me, when I talk about this stuff, I just really think about where we are kind of on the planet, in our society today, the kinds of issues that we're facing, and recognizing that you know, no no one person is going to solve the problems we're facing. We need that kind of ability to hear one another and think creatively and collaboratively in new ways. So developing these tools helps

us to be able to do that. Right. So, is it safe to say or in that you will not be partnering with Dan on his new course Manipulation and Mindfulness. I love that course manipulation. You know, I might actually have to partner with Dan to make sure that teaching people both sides of the story. There somebody needs to keep an eye on me. I would just say, this

issue of curiosity just brings the mind. Something interesting that Joseph Goldstein once said to me that there is in his mind at least a difference between curiosity and interest. The curiosity it has a sense of kind of edginess to it, Pattina, of or maybe more of of desire or his interest. It has smoother connotations, more quantumous connotation. I throw that in there for what it's worth. Sure, Yeah,

I haven't heard him make that distinction before. It's uh, I think it's it is valuable to distinguish between those the presence of desire and craving right in how we're relating to something, I use the term synonymously and in the realm of communication. I find that curiosity is something that people can kind of understand very quickly and easily, and it's a it's a it's a good way for

people to um access that kind of natural interest. Because we understand curiosity, we understand sometimes even how to get there. It's like, what can I get just kind of get curious about? This is a question that people can ask

themselves very easily. When we start talking about the refinements of meditation practice where we're dealing with our own mind, then we start to be able to feel those subtle differences, Dan, and I think Joseph's talking about where curiosity is there's this kind of leaning forward and maybe a little bit of a wanting to get something from it, whereas interest can have that more pure quality of just wanting to come close to an experience and know it for its

own sake. I've always been curious about how one generates curiosity or interest, because you know, on the cushion, uh sometimes ship gets ship gets really boring, you know, and um so, how how do you how do you make it interesting and say, you know, it's an as you're ever in conversation with somebody and it's just uh irredeemable. Um so what was your advice there? Sorry to hijack your podcast, No, no, it's fine, or I think to

tag onto that. Or you're in a conversation with somebody where you've heard them say this same thing you know a thousand times before, how do you how do you approach that fresh become curious about something you that you've heard a lot. I love these questions are great. So maybe we'll start with the outer and then we'll work towards the inner. We'll start with the relationship communication question.

One of the most kind of general and universe certally applicable ways to get curious about someone else something they're saying a conversation is to listen for what matters, So to ask yourself in some way, what does this person need? What are they valuing? What? What matters to them here?

You know, and this is based on the fundamental kind of principle of human psychology that we're rational creatures for the most part, motivated by meeting our needs, and it's not a way that we usually look at or understand situations. And so just remembering that and holding that question what matters here is a way that we can get curious, you know. So if someone is saying you know, we've heard someone say something many many times, and then we

start asking that question, well, what matters here? We start listening in a different way. We start listening for that sense of like, well, why is this person repeating that? What do they need? You know? And then there's the possibility of us actually responding in a different way. We might actually start to give that person what they need, maybe the kind of empathy that they're longing for or the kind of understanding that they're really wanting and then

something can shift. So there's there's a caveat here also on the relational side of being in a conversation where we're having trouble continuing to listen, and there's just kind of a whole another side of that, which is bringing a conversation back to life, right, because if you think about it, if you were talking to someone and they didn't want to listen, wouldn't you want to know that?

Wouldn't you want to stop talking? Right? It's not very enjoyable or nourishing for us to talk to someone when they don't want to listen. So we can take that in turn it around and go, gee, you know, I

really don't want to listen to this person anymore. It's probably not serving either if that's the case, and so then finding a way to skillfully interrupt actually and bring the conversation back to life, you know, to say something like, you know, I'm just forgive me for interrupting for a second, but I'm I'm actually I'm having trouble following you a little bit and wonder, um, what's going on for you

right now? Ah, Or we could tell them, you know, I'd really like to be able to stay more connected to you while we're talking, and I'm just noticing my attention wandering and wonder if I could just share what's going on for me for a little bit, you know, just kind of change things up in a way and doing that in a way that we're letting the person know that our motivation is to actually make this situation more enjoyable and alive for both of us. So I

just said a lot. Maybe I can pause there and see if the meditation questions still relevant or if either of you want to want to chime in with anything. I think it is. I've want to get to Dan's questions, but I want to probe a little further on what you're saying here, because there are times that whether it's that I'm in a bad mood, I'm tired, a variety of different things where maybe I don't particularly want to

have a conversation. Would you recommend in that case being completely transparent about that and saying, hey, look, I really care, but right now is not the time, or you know, because I think what a lot of us do is just sort of go into the nod yes mode while the conversation happens and we're somewhere else inside. Yeah, I think it's one of the great um, I don't know if it's great, but one of the kind of endemic tragedies. I don't know what the word is of our society,

is that we're all so nice. We're all trying to be so nice. Dan's not come work in the news business. Oh gosh, yeah, yeah, and you know that kind of nodding and going along with it. It's so draining, right, it's so draining to our energy, and so just recognizing again the cau ust that that has on us, and to really just take a step back and say, Okay, why am I not being transparent here? Why am I not speaking up for myself and taking care of what I need or at least trying to in this moment?

And oftentimes it's just that we want to avoid the minor discomfort of being real, you know, because we're not used to it. We're not used to being really honest and open with one another. And yet when we do, there's so much energy there, there's so much juice there, right, the very kind of conversation that feels so dead as soon as you know, we're accusing the other person of saying the same thing over and over again and boring

us to death. But we're kind of doing the same thing, right if we're not being real, if we're kind of suppressing what's going on for us. So yes, absolutely, I would say find a way to speak up and be real and say, hey, listen, you know, I'm so sorry about this, but I'm just so exhausted right now, and I'm fine doing it really hard to sustain engage in the conversation, and that's probably not going to be fun for either of us. Can we just kind of take

a break and talk about this later. I'm worried Dan might say that he had to get up at three this morning. I'm actually just sitting here admiring you're the creativity with which you address these situations that most of us just let linger because we don't want to brush up against the What is the minor inconvenience of being real? What was the word you the phraseology there, the discombined

or discomfort of being real? I like that phrase. We're allergic to discomfort or the other side of it, right, We're addicted to comfort in our society, and that's you know, that's another kind of great benefit of mindfulness practice is that it gets uncomfortable. You know, it's uncomfortable to sit

still for half an hour forty five minutes. So we we build up that, we increase our tolerance for discomfort, we increase our capacity for being able to feel and be balanced with discomfort, and then that translates into our relationships where we can tolerate discomfort long enough to actually come through the other side and find some more useful ways of relating. I find, speaking off over that that it's not so much that I'm saying much more diplomatic

or clever things. Not clever in the sense of of of witty, but clever in the sense of non confrontational things or um. It's that it's that I'm actually not saying the thing I want to say at all, um, because I have enough mindfulness to know that that thing that I feel like saying is just going to ruin the next forty eight hours of my marriage, um, you know. And I can feel that my wife's getting on my nerves, and in some ways it's more painful because I'm actually

more aware of it than I used to be. Uh, But because I'm able to see, you know, the storms on the Doppler radar, as it were, I'm ten per cent less likely to just pop off. That seems in many ways to be the better part of valor in some and some percentage of the circumstances. Yeah, completely, I mean you're you're pointing to that, that ability to actually restrain ourselves right from saying something reactively or saying something that's not going to be helpful for either one of us.

You know, then the communication tools there come in, where like, is that sense of when we do want to say something or when we do need to say something, then how do we understand what's happening inside of us and say it in a way that's going to help the other person hear it? You know? Sometimes even just having that having that frame in mind, how can I say this in such a way that the other person is going to hear it and understand it right can go

a long way. It's the difference between um, God, I thought of the best example last night and see if I can remember it. Um, It's the difference between saying like you're selfish and I really want some more attention. You know, It's just like we're saying the same thing in some way, but how much more likely is it for for us to get what we want when we

speak about our own experience. You know, I really want some more attention versus you're being so selfish, so understanding ourselves better and being able to to speak in a way that's going to make it easier for the other person here and more likely that we're actually gonna get what we want or find some sort of understanding. Right, And I want to go into that. You talk about how we say I feel um, and then we throw in an action word. I feel like you're attacking me.

But I want to go into that in a second. But I really think this area that we've been poking around in about you know, not saying certain things, are saying certain things, is really an interesting one to me because I think, maybe differently from from Dan, I learned I think a while ago to not do the spouting off piece like I learned to just you know, kind of clamp my mouth shut. Differently from Dan's. We'll only recently learned that that's what he said. I mean, you

may be giving me more credit that I deserve. I've partially learned it, episodically learned it, but I found that that creates its own sort of problems because then what is coming through as some sort of vague blankness and resentment.

And so in either of those situations, UM, I think or on what you're suggesting is we have to find some way to communicate that maybe this isn't the right time for us, or that we're you know, how do we how do we let somebody know where we are in that point without being hurtful, without just sort of, you know, biting our tongue the whole time. It seems like there's a difference between I was thinking about this as I was saying before, a difference between restraint and squashing, right,

unconstructive squash. Yeah. I mean there are two things on what you're saying, Eric Dan you're talking to the first, which is that that very difference and recognizing that, you know, I think each of us comes to our adult life with different conditioning around that. And some people tend on the more suppression repression side, and for them it's more about learning how to speak up, you know, and really how to say what's going on. And for other people, UM,

they're more on the spouting off side. And then there's that the shift is again towards the middle. But that's in the other direction of learning how to hold back and to hold one's tongue and have more choice about what we say. And for each of those types of people and situations, it's equally hard to work against our conditioning and come into the middle. And the middle is the place of mindfulness where we're aware, we know what's going on, and therefore we start to have more choice

about do I speak or don't I speak? If I speak, what do I say? If I speak? When do I speak? Is it now? Do I kind of hold my tongue, wait till the storm passes, and then bring it up later. You know a lot of our communication stuff is also just around timing, recognizing that we don't choose the right

time and place to have a conversation. And my my partner who I live with, I'm learning finally, when she's getting ready and for the for work in the morning, you know, uh, not to bring up logistical questions about what do you want to do this weekend because her mind isn't there. You know, it's a small thing. We don't fight about it, but it's just kind of a time and place issue. I lost track of the second part of your question, Eric, you want to just I

think I lost track of it too. I think it was really just about that my experience being the biting my tongue eventually becomes as painful for the other person because then like, where is he What's going on with him? Um, it's the silent treatment, it's they don't nobody knows what's

really going on inside my brain. And I thought for years that I was, you know, doing pretty good because I wasn't, you know, saying anything mean and realizing that I could be almost as hurtful by just never saying anything. You sound like a troubled man. Why do you think I'm doing this podcast? I think you know. One way to kind of summarize that predicament, Eric, is that there I think there are two values. By the way, or was that effective communication on my part? I would I

would say so, Yeah, I think so. I think we all understood what you meant and it led to more connection and understanding. Stop giving me such a break. I think the ten percent happier segment we want to see is or in watching Dan communicated at home for a weekend given a live commentary. I know, I think he should have like a I should have an earpiece. He should be like Syrano style, like advising me. Don't say that, Harris, do say this. Yeah, that would be great, that would

be a great reality show. Anyway, we've cut you off. You were trying to say something constructive. Yeah, well, then other two things. So when you said was that effective communication, you're you know, you're pointing to something actually pretty important there when you make that joke, when you make that joke about your joke and say was that effective communication? Which is that what passes for good communication or effective communication? It's not about what we say. It's really not about

what we say. Now you can say f you and if the other person understands what you mean and it's connecting rather than disconnecting, than we're using good communication. It's it's really a very very context sensitive thing in which we have to look at what is the what's the what's the your hard stick that we're using to measure this, and the yardstick that I use is does the other person understand and does it lead to connection? Is it actually bringing us together? And if you can say yes

to both of those, then it's working. And it's not so much about the words that you're saying along those lines of it. So I we have my wife and I have this whole stick of basically I act like a jerk all the time and completely try to press your buttons constantly and once in a while, So just get up in my ear and whisper fuck you exactly, And that actually is a vacative communication, right right, And

you know what she means. She means, Dan, I love you when you're driving me crazy right now, So why don't you take a break? Right? But it's so much easier and somewhere to just whisper those words. So I want to get back to this other thing, Eric, that you were saying about, you know, suppressing and the cost or the damage that can do both to ourselves and someone else. And for me, it's really important with any of these questions to keep that frame in mind that

everything we do we do for a reason. We're doing to try to meet some need and to not demonize any of our communication patterns, right. I mean, the classic kind of one is someone blowing their top and screaming why because they're trying to get the other person to understand them, right. It's the most suicidal attempt at understanding you know, when we scream and yell and raise our voice, the last thing the other person wants to do is

give us empathy and understand where we're coming from. And yet we're desperately trying to do that, you know, So just understanding our actions are there for reasons. So that sense of suppressing or not saying something is an attempt to actually hold the other person with care, right to not cause harm and to not lose sight of that fact that there's generally some kind of wholesome motivation underneath

what we're doing that we can identify. And the two that we're sort of dancing around in this conversation around um while do you interrupt or do you hold your tongue? Is one is that sense of care, care and concern, and then the other is being real, being truthful, being honest, And we tend to err on one side or the other. We we focus on being honest and truthful, but we throw the care out the window and blast someone, or we focus on being caring and kind and concerned, and

so we don't speak up. And the sweet spot that we're aiming for is really being able to bring both of those together where we can be open and honest and still do that in a way that's caring and kind and taking the other person into consideration. Great, we're nearing the end, and I want to wrap up with the question that um I thought was really good in

the book. You talk about we interpret everything. We tend to just you know, somebody is doing something and we tend to interpret it as meaning X. And I'm I'm as guilty of this as anybody. I think we all

do it. But you talk about moving away from that interpretation and moving into thinking about in a sense of what could actually be caught on film, which I thought was interesting day because I think in the course you said, well, that's exactly what you do your your your work is to is to get to what can actually be caught

on film. And so I just interested in your guys take on moving away from the story in our head about what somebody is doing or means and getting back to the more literal what could be caught on film. I'll let you feel bad or in sure. It's a very deep training, you know. Um, First, just under standing the very concept of the difference between our stories and reality is huge, and just recognizing that we're all telling stories, all of the time about anything, you know, um, interpreting

what we're doing, you know, telling a story. You know, this is a great podcast. That's a story that's fact, right, What do you actually mean by that? You know? Like why I listen to this podcast every week and I really enjoy it. I get a lot out of it that's closer to what's actually happening. This is a great podcast. Is a story and interpretation and judgment. So there's nothing wrong with judgments, interpretations, and stories. We use them. They're

necessary in life. But where we run into problems is

when we don't recognize that that's what we're doing. We're not actually doing it consciously, and so we move up into these higher levels of abstraction of having a story about something like you don't value my work hot hot topic for couples, you know, like you don't care about my family, you know, like you're not interested in having a relationship with Those are stories, right, It's like what's actually happening that I'm drawing those conclusions from that we

can actually talk about. Uh, this this is a skill that's essential for meditation practice, and that we cultivated meditation practice, which is being able to observe what's happening directly, So we moved from the story of ah, my back hurts, Well, my back is a story, it's a concept. You know, when you actually get into the experience, there's just sensation located in different in space and I'm in pain or hurts is another concept, another story. What's actually happening? What's

the sensation? You know, it's hard or tight, or twisting or stabbing or burning or aching, you know, something along those lines. So that very skill of being able to differentiate between the conceptual overlay or the story we're telling to what's actually happening is very very helpful in our communication and being able to talk about issues in a way that the other person can here and recognize without

taking issue with. So we can bring something up and say, hey, I want to talk about this without immediately getting into a fight, because we're able to observe what's happening in a neutral, clear, direct way. So can you give an example of that in communication a um a place where I'm interpreting what somebody is doing or I'm I'm inferring to mot a motive. Sure, yeah, I'll give you an

example from something that happened for me. This week with a colleague where we were having a meeting and something charged came up, and this colleague shared their feelings and needs, and in an email later I referred to what happened as her sharing her side of things. Okay, even that phrase your side of things, that's a story. It's it's my interpretation that she was sharing her side of things that didn't work for her. She said, you know, like, that's not my side of things. There's a lot more

going on for me that I didn't even share. I just spoke about my experience and shared some of my feelings, right, So that would have been a much clearer observation, said, you know, when you spoke up and shared your feelings. So and some people listening to might be like, God, you're splitting hairs. Yeah, in some way, I am. But the point is that when I, when I just moved a little bit towards a summary and an interpretation of what had happened, that didn't match their experience, and it

led to a disagreement and some disconnection. So the closer we can be in our language to just what happened, rather than the interpretation or the story, the more likely it is that the other person is going to be

able to recognize that without taking issue with it. And where it starts to get, you know, more heated and clear as when we have stories like you don't care about me, or you're ignoring me, or you're a slob, you know, things like that where there's clearly an overlay of a judgments and we're not actually talking about the data, like the actual observable data that we're drawing those conclusions from.

An example would be, uh, you don't respect me, and the behavior that was observed was somebody not bringing the trash cans in exactly, you know, and jumping all away from somebody didn't bring the trash can into you don't you know, you don't respect me. I think parents and children get into that a lot um that sort of the parent and just thinking that there's some huge charge to their authority or whatever, and the kid is just forgetful and a kid. Well, dan or In, this has

been fun. I'm glad we got to do this, Glad we got to do it in person. Thanks for coming on again, dan or In, thanks for coming on the first time. And we will have links to h Oran and Dan's work as well as the ten Percent happier course on the website. At one you feed dot net. Thanks guys, thanks so much, thank you. All right, take care bye. You can learn more about Oran so for and this podcast. At one you feed dot net, slash or in