Sharon Salzberg || Mindfulness To Heal Ourselves and the World

it's great to have Sharon Salzburg on the podcast. Sharon is a meditation pioneer and industry leader, a world renowned teacher, and New York Times bestselling author. As one of the first to bring meditation and mindfulness into mainstream America culture over forty five years ago, her relatable, demystifying approach has

inspired generations of meditation teachers and wellness influencers. Sharon is co founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barry, Massachusetts, and the author of eleven books, including the New York Times bestseller Real Happiness Now It's in its second edition, her seminal work Loving Kindness, and her newest book, Real Change, Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves in the World, released in September

of twenty twenty from Flat Aroon Books. Sharon's secular modern approach to Buddhist teachings is sought after its schools, conferences, and retreat centers worldwide. Her podcast, The Meta Hour has amassed over three million downloads and features interviews with the top leaders and thinkers of the Mindfulnest movement and beyond. Sharon's writing could be found on Medium, on Being, the Maria Schreier Blog, and Huffington Post. Sharon's so great to

chat with you again today on the Psychology Podcast. It's great to talk to you. You were on a couple of years ago, you were on the early days of the Psychology Podcast. I think. So I want to talk about your most recent book, Real Change, and I want to know why you wrote that book, in particular because it was written before the world the apocalypse happened, right and social justice reckoning and to the extent to which it has. So, yeah, are you just are you just

quite avoyant? Well that's I'm so glad you said that, you know, because I did. I wrote virtually the entire book before even the pandemic and then post pandemic of friends was reading it to excerpt it and he said to me, you know those examples, you just kept driving me crazy. I think that's what made you anxious. Where do you see what's coming? And the pike. The publisher delayed publication from June to September. So I went back to them and I said, would be okay if I

wrote a new preface and they said yes. But that was before any of the protests, so I thought, I can't keep going back to them. And you know, some of my great fear was that I'd written a completely irrelevant book. I mean, you know, as a writer, you want to hit in a way a place that's timeless, because you don't want people to say, well, that was

last month's news, you know. But at the same time, you also don't want to seem like you're totally just connected from people's reality, especially this kind of extreme reality. So I was really concerned that it just wouldn't have any relevance. So when people say, like somebody said to maybe psychic, I was so happy. So this book, in a lot of ways, is about how we can move from spirituality to activism. You know, spirituality is sometimes thought

is the being realm of human existence. Is Abraham Masel, but is sometimes thought is antithetical to the doing realm. I thought if we could start off by talking about that interesting dialectical between being and doing. Yeah, I mean, I think I really wrote it. It was a bidirectional flow. I certainly know a lot of meditators. I've been teaching

meditation since nineteen seventy four. You know, I have seen I feel, very genuinely how not for everyone, of course, but many, many, many people who get involved in just greater self awareness actually become more compassionate, And not everyone

knows what to do with that. You know. I've heard the story countless times where someone has said to me I started meditating and then I was taking a walk and the person approached me on the street and asked me for a dollar, and I gave them a dollar, and because that's just what I do, that's my practice. And they say, that's the first time I ever looked that person in the eye and realized that was another human being. I've heard that so many times, But not

everyone knows what to then, do you know? It's like a person to person exchange of kindness, but it's like taking a step, you know, towards more maybe more systemic change or looking more at causes and condition. So that

was one flow. The other flow is that I've spent not my earliest years of teaching, which were just largely open to anybody, and even now, of course many things I teach are just open to anybody, but especially in the last several years, I spent time working with what we call caregivers, and I always think there has to be a better word, you know, but basically people who are on the front lines of suffering, either in their families taking care of somebody, or domestic island shelter workers,

were international humanitarian aid workers or these days frontline medical personnel. And I've seen just like for all this world can be depicted, I think accurately, it's kind of cold and cruel without enough empathy. These people have a lot of empathy, but they're burning out for some other reason, you know, It's not from lack of caring at all. And the closest equivalent I realized one day to the caregivers were activists, you know, who were also on the front lines of

suffering and sometimes burning out mightily. And so I just sort of wanted to serve both with groups. Now, are you have you been personally involved in activism yourself. I don't know how much street credit I have, but yes, I've been very involved. Like do you go out there like is Sharon Salzburg out there like with Sie? You know, not not in a long time. I mean I went I'm a child of the sixties, you know, I went

to scholding, you know, Vietnam War protests. In fact, I went to college at the State University of New York at Buffalo. And this last year I went back to Buffalo for the first time, and his friend gave me a tour, driving tour the campus and I'd said I was tear guest over there. She said, oh, yeah, my

protest was broken up over there. But I had an interesting conversation actually, in working on the book, I was talking to Belle Hooks, who yeah, and she's a friend, and and she told me she didn't like the phrase social action because in her mind it might imply only marching and protesting. And she said to me, what about art?

What about creativity? Is and that a form of social action and you know, dissolving the boundaries of conventional understanding and pushing us to a new vision and all that. And I said, yeah, so I tried really hard, you know, to have a broader view. Yeah, that's that's I like that. It's really important that we don't lose our artists, that

we don't lose our our intellectual capital. It's interesting. There's an interesting culture war going on with some intellectuals thinking that the woke, the quote woke people are trying to censor them. They're trying to censor the artists. They think the woke people are trying to sensor the artists, and so there's there's an interesting tension arising between you. It's not all it's not always like oh yeah, of course art is social action. Of course, intellectual changes social action

that stands right alongside the Black Lives Matter movement. It's not so uh. There seems to actually just be a tension growing. Have you seen that? Oh well, nothing is easy is my new motto. I love that. You said you want that on your shirt. Well, I have several things. Something's just hurt, nothing is easy would be good, and we feel what we feel is another one. Yeah, yeah,

these are good ones. Yeah, I have several preferences that way. Well, it is an interesting time, you know, because because people that maybe would more well, I think maybe were just worn out. You know, people who would more readily be allalyized and recognize that are pretty afraid, you know, and it could be a lot of ill will, which is really unfortunate. Okay, so you're kind of like the loving kindness queen. I cat in w that. I w that. Yeah,

and you've forty five years of meditation loving kindness. I got to ask, do you forget bored of loving kindness? Meditation? Yeah? I have ninety five fifteen. No, loving kindness is more like thirty five years. Because I think I got that

titl Aert. You know, people say that because I learned meditation in January nineteen seventy one, and it was a mindfulness practice and the teacher was Sen Gooinka is a ten day tensive retreat in India, and right at the end of that he taught a little loving kindness meditation, almost as a kind of ceremonial goodbye, and I was really transfixed. I thought, what is that I want to

learn that. It was only in nineteen eighty five that I got a chance to go to Burma for three months and do this intensive period of loving kindness practice. And so then I came back and started teaching it. So I've been teaching it in this country since nineteen eighty five when there were not many Westerners of any who were, you know, And so that's part of it. And it also wasn't so totally well received in those days.

You know, it's a hard practice to understand, actually, and people would say, well, that's just a feel good practice, or it's sentimental, or you'll never I'm from the Buddhist point of view. Some people said, you'll never understand emptiness that way, it's not really a wisdom practice. Later, I mean much later, looking back, I thought, oh, they're saying it's like a girly practice. That's what they're saying. Yeah, it was a very gendered comment, series of comments, but

it meant so much to me. It helped me so much that I just kept teaching it. And then I wrote Loving Kindness, which was my first book twenty five years ago. And that was the first book. So you just don't get bored with it, you know, do you like you practice Loving Kindness? Meant to you practice almost every day? Do you ever miss a day? You were like miss a day to Sharon's old miss a day? Do you ever have a day where you're like, I'm

not feeling in love today, and I'm okay with that. Well, one of my things is that you don't have to feel anything in doing it. You know, it's just the willingness to pay attention differently, like maybe those people like I had an interesting experience with the book where somebody else, another journalist, was wanting to record a meditation of me guiding it, and the meditation they chose was a loving

kindness to a neutral person. And that particular section of loving kindness practice we offer loving kindness, which is silently repeating certain phrases like maybe be happy, maybe peaceful, towards someone we hardly know that we're kind of indifferent to. Because the idea is that if this is someone that we'll see now and then, you may not feel any great shakes happening in your formal practice, but when you run into them, you'll notice, oh there's a different feeling here.

I feel some connection, or I'm interested in them, or they're well being. So for like forty five years, my colleagues and I have been saying, like the checkout person in the supermarket, they're the totally perfect neutral person. We couldn't care less about them. You know, they're like a machine or something. They're piece of furniture as far as most of us are concerned, Although I tend to I'm

known for kibbitzing with them. Well you are an excellent or mention then, you know, but not everyone's like that. So I heard myself repeating those words, and I went, whoops, look at that. You know, how do we think we get fited if we're not growing at ourselves? And now we call them essential workers. Now it seems like an endangered occupation. And so even just paying attention to someone we normally ignore is an act of loving kindness. And so even I'm feeling any great burst of warmth or

something doesn't matter. Yeah, I definitely hear your perspective. You say something. I thought it was really interesting. There are times I get up in the morning I think, Okay, who am I going to love today? Or who am I to love today? That is not a choice space on who I think is cute or who I want to spend time with, But it's the recognition of the hunger we all have for love. Sometimes that backfires for me, though,

like because I you know, sometimes I'll give love. But then then the person like will expect it all the time, and then and then it gets awkwhere you're like, no, I really was just doing my love agliness mata days and like, I mean that never happens to you where you're ner have a boundary issues. It's like it's like, no, I don't want to actually give you love, like twenty four to seven. You know, yeah, well so another confusing thing about loving kindness is a practice is that it

actually doesn't imply action. And you know, it doesn't mean you can't have boundaries or do you have to give someone money or you have to let them move in or lets it hurt you. But it's more like this inner space that allows us to relay more from the sense of connection rather than self consciousness or fear or whatever. We're usually kind of lost in and you wink a lot of this day, you know, agency you say, we have control over so little, a truth that is sometimes

exceptionally better. But we can choose to care and we can choose to act. That is the truth that frees us. There were some interesting undertones of one of my favorite humanistic psychologists, Role May there and if you're read in his work and love and will and stuff like that. He talks a lot about how we can choose to care or through will. Yeah, I thought that was that was beautiful. Could you could you talk a little about that and how you personally experience that when you're recently

hospitalized with a severe infection. By the way, we're all really worried about you. Yeah, there are a lot of a lot of people that really love will genuinely love you, not just through their practice, their woman kindest practice, but they I mean, they really love you. And can you talk a little about what you learned about agency through that process? Well, actually through this process, through the pandemic. You know, when I realized, which I never think of,

I thought, I'm a senior citizen. I was just in the hospital. I have asthma. I'm the vulnerable person they're talking about, you know, which is partly where I went left New York at that time. I was in the hospital now moving on toward two years ago with sepsis, which was really you know, you don't want to have part of what happened was I'm not sure this is totally about agency. I learned a lot. I learned a

lot about love. I learned a lot about receiving love because I didn't really feel a tremendous amount of love. I learned something I learned that was encapsulated in this the first time I got up to walk, which was a little walker going up intown my hospital carters, as one does with a physical therapy. At one point she said to me, it's not a race. You know, you're going to get further if you'll only stop now and then and give yourself a break and then start again.

You're like good. Point. Oh so that actually became kind of my mantra for life because I realized, you know, I'm like, you can only do one step at a time. You can only do one thing at a time. Look you now, I mean you're not you mean it? You mean through it? Yeah, I mean. I learned about agency more, I think from just a regular mindfulness practice, because basically it's just a question of choice. Well in two ways

I learned about it. And as a question of choice, because when we don't know what we're feeling, we have no choice, we have no power, you know, we like press send on an email two hours later, go whops? Look at that that was kind of hostile. I wasn't it or or whatever. But the more I could come to the place where I could see what I was feeling as I was feeling it and have a better relationship to those few feelings. And they'd say, oh right, tell a story in the book about this little girl

maybe seven or eight years old, didn't. My friends who run the Holistic Life Foundation of Baltimore, which brings yoga and meditation to the inner city schools, they taught her. She was like a fighter. She was always in a battle with somebody that were kids were teasing her and they I mean to her, but she'd like punch them out and then she'd have to go to detention. And she was in a bad trouble. And so they taught

her how to meditate. One day, they walked into the gym or the auditorium or something some public space, and she had this other little girl up against the wall, holding her by the throat, and then she said to her, you're just lucky, and I had to meditate. She dropped her and she went and sat. You know, it's just like it's the perfect story because it is a perfect moment, Like, you know, she had a choice about what she was going to do, but she doesn't have a choice about

what she's feeling. She had a choice about what she was going to do about it. I really honor that. And then I think a lot about agency because I think about those people who care more than they used to, perhaps, and they've opened up to a sense of connection with others, but anything they might do to try to make a difference seems so small and so insufficient, and so people

just stay stuck a lot. And so part of really why I wrote the book was to try to urge people to like, it doesn't matter if it seems like it's a really small action, you know, and nothing much contribution. It's a contribution. You've got to do it. Yeah. There was an that was in your book about the example where the there's a starfish that he's throwing back in the water and the guy says, why are you doing that? There's a million here and he's threw one, and he said, well,

I saved that life. Yeah, yeah, I really like that. I also like that you bring up cynicism and hopelessness. These they're very prevalent these days right now, you know, and especially during this time, people are quite senecle of each other. You say that it actually gives one a false sense of agency. M H thought that was really interesting. Yeah, we feel really strong, don't we when we can be contemptuous or you know, I mean I think about righteousness

as well, Yeah, and self righteous and dismissive. And and I think even before these terrible times, you know, there was sort of a cultural delight at putting other people down. And you could see it in like reality TV shows, which I don't generally watch from well back when we used to visit people. If I was at a friend's house, you know, I think somebody maybe watch this cooking show once. And I thought it was devastating because they weren't saying

that people like, you know, you're not love. Could have used a little more spice, but the best of luck to you. They say, take your knives and go like you don't deserve to be alive, you know, And that was entertainment. And I thought, this is terrible, and it was like a culture of contempt. And now you know, it's it's just compounded because I don't know what you've observed. It's probably the same thing. But I feel like the cycles, you know, were so strong, from anxiety to grief to

anger to exhaustion. I think people are just exhausted. I do think people are absolutely exhausted, and I think they have an outrage fatigue. Do you feel do you feel inner peace? What is your what is your own like inner state of consciousness? Like I feel I feel pretty peaceful. I mean I feel the consequence of losing it, you know, of like not being there, and it's painful. So fortunately I feel it usually fairly quickly. I mean, it's been

ten thousand years since I started practice. It's like you still look young, thank you, but I you know, I really, I mean, it's it's funny. It's like the first lesson in meditation is to choose an object of awareness that commonly something like the feeling of the breath, rest your attention there, and then when your attention wanders, sort of blaming yourself for freaking out or calling yourself a failure, seeing if you can let go and just come back.

And I used to think that was so stupid and elementary, but it's actually still the biggest lesson I've ever learned, because we all lose it. I lose it, you know, I get anxious, or I get upset, or I get reactive. In some way, but I remember, oh, you can start over, just come back. Yeah. I like that idea of starting or I like that a lot. Anger is an interesting emotion that you cover in your book because it can

be a double edged sword. You right, If we can be mindful of our anger, we can learn to use the energy and intelligence of it without getting lost in the tunnel vision it tends to foster. It certainly does create a tunnel vision being mindful of the anger. What did they give you the flexibility to if you decide? What if you decide you just don't want to be

angry anymore? Can you stop being angry? I think you can get I don't think you can cut off the feeling necessarily, but you can get some space from it. And you could certainly choose not to act on it, you know, which is the really consequential thing. And the Buddhist psychology anger is like into a forest fire, which is always interesting to say someone in California these days.

It's like into a forest fire which burns up its own support, which means it can destroy the host, and like a forest fire can burn really wild, so you might end up far from where you want to be. I mean, there's a strength and anger, and there's an energy for sure, which we actually rely on. You know, I've been at more than one meeting because perhaps you

have as well. Whereas the angriest person in the room that was the truth teller, and everyone else was studiously looking the other way and not wanting to confront whatever, and they're saying, no, look at that. So we needed that too. And yet if you're enveloped in it, if you're really wrap up in it, if you're consumed by it, first of all, it's so painful, and you do get

tunnel vision. Like my example is usually like if you think of the last time you were really angry at yourself, it's not a time we also thought, you know what, those five great things. Also same day those are gone, and so we lose information, we lose some options, and that's not a good thing. Yeah, it's not a good thing. And balance is what it is all about. And you say, how do we fully acknowledge the suffering but at the

same time not let it define and overtake us. I mean this question can also be asked in lots of different ways. You know, you talk, you have a delightful you have a delightful Baldwin quote. You really read my book a good Baldwin quote. You know, we have this simultaneous acceptance that does exist, but we also can still

fight for what we can fight for. How can we have full acceptance of the suffering acknowledge at the same time not let it overtake it, like the fight, not overtake us, so that we no longer have any sort of self care. It's possible to do right, It is possible to do. My favorite definition of mindfulness came actually from the New York Times many years ago. There was a pilot program in Oakland, california're bringing mindfulness into the classroom when it was very rare, you know, long before

and now and fourth grade classroom. The kids are like nine or ten years old. So the journalist asked one of the kids, like, what is mindfulness? What is mindfulness? And the kids said, mindfulness means not hitting someone in the mouth. That's what mindfulness means. And I thought that is a great definition of mindfulness because what does it imply. It implies you know, you're feeling angry when you're starting to feel angry, not after you've sent the email, not

after you've lashed out at somebody. It also implies, as you say, a certain balanced relationship to the anger, because if you just fall into it and you get overcome by it and defined by it, you're like, I hit a lot of people in the mouth because life can be really frustrating. But at the same time, if you're ashamed of what you feel and you hate it and you try to repress it and try to deny it, you're just going to explode. It just doesn't work as

an approach. So we call mindfulness that place in the middle where you're fully aware and connected to what you're feeling, but there's some space I don't know, like sometimes like with out of self defense for instance. Yeah, for sure, you're like, you know what, I'm angry, I'm mindful of it, and I'm okay with that. I'm okay with this anger. Yeah. I think it's just remembering actions are consequential, and so

you want to choose your action like that little girl. Yeah, yeah, just you want that maximum flexibility so active as burnout is a real thing, and that lenks to what we were just talking about earlier, and I think a lot of people who are activists are really feeling that burnout right now. And you know my friend Bob Thurman, who was a professor of British studies at Columbia, he's retired lately.

His favorite word is realistic. And I used to think I used a scholar and a translator and we teach together. Sometimes I used to think it's sort of an odd word to be so into, you know, like it sounds

a little plain and unadorned. But I got to appreciate it, you know, like if we're talking about getting happier, we're talking about getting free, we have to be realistic, like what helps and what hinders, and you know, what's real actually, and because we want to align ourselves with what's true, which is another way of saying real because otherwise we're living in some odd angle to what's true and we're totally screwed up. You know, everything is distorted, and so

what's realistic? People think it just as you say described I think totally accurately. I can't allow myself to be happy. I can't allow myself to relax. I can't take in the joy. It would be wrong, it's shameful. There's too much suffering. But in the end we end up depleted, We end up exhausted, we end up feeling that we have no wherewithal within to offer anything to anybody else.

We have no sense of inner resource left. So we have to look at realistically what allows us to build a sense of inner resource, because trying to make a difference in any way professionally, in your family, in the world is not easy, and so we need and we need energy, and we need some sense of balance, and we need long term perspective often and taking in the joy is part of that. It's part of actually resilience.

One of the first activists also years ago that I was getting to know who is brilliant and amazing and phenomenally depressed. And I wouldn't say that was cause and effect, but he kept telling me, you know how, he couldn't allow himself to eat a banana because he knew the chain of suffering that had gone into being right there in front of him. And that's not to deny that, but I kept thinking, he's so unhappy. You know what

is this idea of benevolent contagion that Sarah Jones talks about. Yeah, I mean, it's an idea of ways in which we affect one another and that there actually can be a sort of spread of greater delight, you know, and and sense of harmony, and which she strives for in her creativity. She's a playwright. There's a lot of cynical continion, yes, going around, and it's especially on Twitter. Yes, you know, it's great fun following you on Twitter, I must say,

because you're very you're creative, and you're prolific. I see you and I think I should write more. You bring up a great point about how we easily, how easily we judge others. It's just tribalism is in our bones, and as well as categorization, you know, we evolve this tendency. It's a good thing. I mean, if we didn't have any categorization capacities. So it's good, but it also leads us astray obviously. You know, what does living with a

vision of interconnection look like to you? I think we're just kinder like for years, whenever I go into a company or an organization to teach, I would ask how many other people need to be doing their job well for you to do your job well? Because we can live I mean, I grew up in New York City, it's especially easily to feel disconnected you know, from nature,

from all kinds of things. And yet I think if we realize that we're not in like a silo, however, alone or cut off, we might feel there are other people we're counting on. Like pretty recently, I was talking to a physician who is running this medical practice at the hospital, and he said, you know, I have like all this new appreciation for it is the cleaning staff.

And I thought, well, yeah, you know, but we just go about our day, you know, and not really giving a thought to all these people that we are counting on, that we're relying on and others are counting on us. We really do live in an interdependent universe, and so I think there's just a kind of softening, and there's a certain there's a certain kindness as you sort of have a sense like, oh, we're all in this together.

But one of my favorite stories of all time is in the book, which was about how I was driving with his friend. We were caught in this terrible, horrible, awful traffic, complaining about it the whole time, and and then my friend said to me, well, we're the traffic too, you know, And I thought, oh right, it never occurred to me. It's like, that's really the presumption of privilege,

Like it's my road and you're in my way. You interlobers are going so damn slow, you know, but it's my road, and so what if that sense of centrality and marginalization drops away and then we're just all the traffic. So we have a problem, but we can deal with it as we you know, rather than feeling like you're in my way. You know, it's easier said than done when you're a wait for an appointment and people are

in your way, But it's much easier said. But you say mindfulness meditation can help dissolve the grip of habits like stereotyping and attribution bias. Sure, it's also are dropping some psychological terms there. I was going to say that just before when you said something, I thought, oh, that's like attribution bias. Yeah, yeah, you go go leading to a cleaner leading to a cleaner, clearer view of what

we are encountering and of various possible resolutions. It might be humanity's only tool, sort cognitive tool that we evolved in order to do that, to override this attribution bias. And you said stereotypical categories, categorization, there's a lot build into our DNA that can cause it's kind of like ready for strife, you know, just asking for a strife and instead of like it's going to override that. Yeah,

so look at the whole, not just the parts. Yeah. So, how do we sustain ourselves, our sanity and open hearts and have a clear vision in the face of COVID. This is the million doilec question everybody. Now, this is your chance, by the way, to directly link your book to thank you. Yeah, I'm giving you a chance to You're relevant right now, just a little too early, you know. Well, I use language the way you use language, but I hesitated at a word like sustain because I don't think

that's the way it's going to happen. I don't think that's realistic. I think we'll lose it, but we'll be able to come back, you know, to balance, and we'll lose it again, but maybe if not as long, and we'll come back more gracefully, and then we'll lose it again. I think that's actually the rhythm of change. That's how

we grow, that's how we make progress. And I've just seen so many people discourage through the years, thinking oh, you know, I blew up with my family and it was the same stupid little provocation, no better than I was before. And they may not realize that they used to be lost in the anger for twenty four hours and now it's two minutes, which is a big change in the quality of one's life. And I think we're

just so unfair to ourselves in general, and unjust. And people ask me that variation of that question all the time, like how do I maintain mindfulness all day long at work? Or how do I stay at this level of concentration after this retreat? And I always say, well, you're not going to, but something great can happen. Something great will happen in that you can start over again, you know, so much sooner and so much more gracefully. So I'll tell you what I do because I thought about that

a lot. In fact, when in writing that new preface, my fundamental question was what's still true? You know, expectations were shattered. Where I thought I was living was changed, There's a lot of anxiety, everything was uncertain. What's still true? And that translated into what upholds me? Like in the Sanskrit word dorma, which is usually translated is the truth or the way things are, or sometimes even the Buddhist teaching literally means that which sustains us, that which supports us.

So I thought, okay, what's supporting me? And I realized that there were different elements of my meditation practice that were like just that act of centering around something like the feeling of the breath and getting some rest because I don't have to fabricate anything and create anything. That was really important. And the part of mindfulness that about looking at very difficult feelings like anger or grief or whatever without totally being lost in them, and also without

fighting them. It's just like a skill. The part of mindfulness that was remembering to take in the joy. And the oddest thing I found through all these years about meditation practice is that it really creates a profound sense of connection with others. And it's odd because you might be all alone when you practice, your eyes might be closed, but somehow you drop into that understanding of interconnection that's not just intellectual, and you really do feel like you

were part of a whole, which I find fascinating. Even before the pandemic, people were saying there was an epidemic of loneliness, and I'd read about social connection in health situations where it seemed to be such a strong killing agent. I thought, it can't just be numbers. It can't just be like, oh, you've only got two friends, you need five. It's got to be something else, right, some inner sense,

and that we can cultivate in any circumstance. Yes, this idea of equanimity and balances is something you say, a lot of people misunderstand that, but you really link perspective to it. Perspectives and really interesting thing because it seems like mindfulness can allow us to zoom out on ourselves in a big way, right, and then we can zoom out on what we're seeing right in front of us about someone else as well. We can try to put

it in context. Yeah, I do think we're so quick to put up the defenses and react when someone is being hostile to us, as opposed to having dare I say, compassion for the fact they're being hostile they're obviously suffering, right. It's not like like no one got the memo that you're allowed to have compassion for someone who's acting out. You're allowed to make that choice. So yeah, I think about that and just how important that would be to heal the divides. As they say, it's like the phrase

heal the divides. You know, it's like everyone's putting up their defenses, not listening to each other, and you think, you think equanimity can help with that. First of all, I think the first step is probably examining what we think compassion is. You know, so often we think it's something stupid and it means allowing yourself to be hurt

or someone else to be hurt. And it doesn't have to mean that at all, you know, it's just this kind of almost a state of understanding, like, oh, that likely hurts, you know, to live a life that disconnected like they hurt, sort of act in that way. It's like for a while, maybe she still lives around. Huffington would often be talking about the difference between resume virtues and obituary virtues, you know, or eulogy virtues. Is that a Brooks David Brooks thing. I think he started doing

that too. Yeah. The resume virtues are like they worked over time, like you know, fifty weeks of the year, and the eulogy virtues are they were incredibly kind or they remember their grandchildren, or something like that. To see that people you know, can think their happiness their greatest strength, their greatest accomplishment is going to be in cruelty or you know, disdain for others, and you think, wow, that's

like that's worthy of some compassion and also curiosity. When you're on my podcast years ago, you said so many things that have stuck with me today. You know, it's amazing, like how many insights that were in that episode. One thing I keep quoting over and over again, and I asked you about however it can still maintain passion in a relationship. And I in my book Trin said, I

like quote you, and I'm just fascinated with that. You said, I brought up people who were jerks or whatever, and you said, you know, I look at some of those people when I say, well, that's an interesting way someone's decided to live their life that free. You said that. You said that, I don't know if you remember that, but yeah, it sounds like something you would say, though, right, you'd believe it if if you said it, and if if you heard it back. Well, yeah, it's just that

really stuck with me. I thought that was interesting, and I've actually had that thought from time to time where I've treated something that I would normally judge with curiosity, you know, and be like, oh, you know, that's interesting that someone's decided to just fight that your whole life, you know, Like that's what they've decided. They're they're the

bound and they're standing on. Yeah. And I think it has a lot to do with like when you write about Maslow, you know, it's like it's what's your vision of what's possible, you know, and if it's really like meager and cramped, you know, it's like you're gonna settle for a lot mistakenly. So I think, you know, because we are capable of so much more. You say, to be present, alive, and effective, we try to live a life with a sense of both necessity and possibility. There

has to be a balance. This is I think related to the baldenicle. What I was talking about is that, right, Yeah, you have to strike a good balance between that. And all of our actions can be motivated by love. They also be motivated by hatred and revenge too, but it can also be motivated by love. And you say love or compassion, I kind of put love and compassion synonymous with each other. But when you have compassion and you pair that with equanimity, you know, that seems to be

the goody goody pairing. Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's what we need, because otherwise there's too much heartache, and there's too much impatience, and there's too much frustration. And this is quite quite a profound quote of yours, and it's personal. You say, I want the trajectory of my own life, though, to be one where I don't avoid the suffering of others, but I work to be present and open hearted and caring while caring for myself as well. Is that how

you want to be remembered? Yeah? Like in writing the book, you know, I went through There are all kinds of loops in the book, and that particular one was I moved from you know, working with anger and working with grief and remembering to taking the joy and seeing interconnection to this kind of system's view. And then I realized I was looping right back to like one on one, this moment with one person and with the story of my friends who was with his father as he was dying.

And I thought, oh, that's a strange loop, you know, I just did. I hope that was okay, and then I realized, well, this is what was the essence of it, So well, how do I want to live? Well? Thanks for again for coming on my podcast, and I love you. I love you. I'm so to see you. Likewise, thanks for listening to this episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at the

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