Dan Harris on Mindfulness for Skeptics

heads and some self help that actually works. Dan Harris is the man behind the successful and incredibly supportive ten Percent Happier website, podcast and best selling book, and I am a hundred percent happier to have him on my Holy Human podcasting that with me. Welcome to the show, Dan Harris. I have to say this is probably my most nerve wracking interview. I think I've done nine of them so far, and I'm like, oh, ship, how do I interview the interviewer? I am, I'll take it easy

on you, Okay, please do that would be great. You should make me sing okay, Well we might get to that by the end of this. You never know. Uh No. I I'm just so interested because I you know, this is like I said, very new to me on this side of of the coin, and I know you obviously are very proficient in one side of it, and I think the other now after doing so many interviews, I'm sure, and do you have a favorite side of the coin

of the interviewer or interviewee. You know, in some ways it's actually easier to be interviewed than it is to interview. Interviewing is hard, and I'm sure you're yes, you're seeing that now because like you, I host a podcast, You've been a guest on my podcast, and you want to make sure you're drawing people out and making their comfortable and also serving the listener, and you're constantly thinking of, like what's your next question? But how do I listen

to this person while they're talking? And it's a lot. I was just explaining that to my husband last night. I was like, there's a really interesting part about your listening. For me, I intuitively want to if I hear something that takes me down a certain road, like I'm just listening for keywords. At the same time, if I listen too hard, it's almost like I stopped listening because it all of a sudden just becomes these jumbled words and then all of a sudden, I'm thinking of what question

am I going to ask them? So yeah, it's a new language that I am learning, and it's um it's quite fascinating because I've been on the other side for so long, so I greatly respect what you do more so than ever have. I think, really respect the journalism side of things more so than ever. So yeah, it's a it's a new thing. You know what's helped me and I'll say this, and you know you can use

it or not. But UM is to prepare a little bit and have like a rough list of questions and then when I get into the interview completely drop it and just listen to what they're saying and and go with whatever the interviewee has said and react to it. And then if if they've said something that doesn't take me anywhere, I can look down at my list then. But so I've done enough preparations so that I don't need to be constantly plotting what my next question is.

And then also to keep a pen and paper handy, because often my interviewee will say seventeen things I want to follow up on, and instead of trying to hold them all in my mind. I just kind of write them down quickly and then consult the list later. Yeah, those are great. Actually, I feel like I do the first one fairly well, and this is the second one. I've never had a pinhandy and I start to go through like, oh, that and that and that, and then I just lose it all. You're so right about that. Well,

thank you for those wise words. I greatly appreciate them. You know, you said I was on your podcast, and I have to say that was probably one of the favorite interviews that I've ever had, because I believe that that was probably the first time that I ever got to speak about meditation in a public forum, and it has It's changed my life tremendously. I just want to thank you for that opportunity because I kind of felt

like I was coming out for me. I know when I get into this with you, but for me, meditation has been a very spiritual journey and it was kind of like coming out of my own spiritual closet in a way to do your podcast. So yeah, thank you for providing everything that you have with your ten percent Happier Appier books. You're sharing your own journey with meditation because I think it's I know from my own self, you've opened a lot of doors for me, So thank

you for that. I appreciate that. Um. I remember having you on, and I remember trying to figure out why you seem so excited to talk about this, because you know, I every guest on my show was talking about this stuff. And and then you explained to me afterwards that, like, nobody would ever ask you these questions. Yeah, it was. I didn't feel like I did anything particularly skillful, but it was. I'm glad that I was there at the

right time. Yeah, it was definitely a right moment, kind of divine timing for me, kind of thing where I was like, oh, this is something new to talk about, and I love that. So you have really become kind of the I would say, the face of practical meditation. And before I spiraled out all things meditation with you, I just wondered if you could walk people through your journey,

what led you to finding meditation your personal experience. Sure, I'll try to tell the story reasonably briefly, um, just because if people have heard me interviewed before, anything might have heard this story. So I'll tell a brief version. And a few have follow ups. I'm happy to say more about any of it. So I had a panic attack on an obscure ABC News broadcast called Good Morning America with five million people watching. UM. And this was back in two thousand four, so it was a while ago.

And after I had the panic attack, I went to a shrink to try to figure out what had happened, and UM, he asked me a bunch of questions, and one of the questions was due to drugs, and I sheepishly admitted that I did do drugs. I had spent a lot of time in war zones as a very ambitious young network correspondent, you know, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine is real, and had come home in the middle of that period and gotten depressed, although I didn't actually know I was depressed.

And then I started to self medicate with recreational drugs, including cocaine. I was in my early thirties and I had never done hard drugs before. So this is phenomenally Yeah. Well, I mean it's a great thing. You made it that, yes, exactly, but not a great thing that I started. UM. And the doctor was explained that even though I my drug

use career was pretty unspectacular. It was not. It wasn't like I was high on the air, and I wasn't doing it that often, but it was enough, this guy explained, to change my brain chemistry and make it more likely for me to freak out. And so that kind of set me off on a big, winding journey that I wrote about in a book called temper Cent Happier that ultimately landed me on meditation. And I was pretty hostile

to meditation. I was down with therapy. I mean, I did a bunch of therapy after the panic attack to help me figure out how not to do that again, and also to get off drugs. But I was not. I just thought meditation was just you know, the apex of hippie dippy bullshit. Um. And then I started to see the science that suggests, you know, I'm I'm my parents are both a could emic physicians. I'm married to

a scientist, so I'm not good at math. So I became a news anchor, but I respect science, and I saw all this research and that suggested that meditation had profound psychological impact that was really good for anxiety and depression, both of which I've been struggling with since I was very young. And also that has all these physiological impacts, you know, lower blood pressure, reduced release of cortisol, the stress hormone, and then it changes the structure of your brain.

And that was just super compelling to me. So I I started to do it about five to ten minutes a day, and I saw a real difference in my life. And then I, you know, because I'm a crass, craven Western materialist, you know, totally monetized it and wrote a book about it and blah blah blah. That has helped a lot of people. So let's not leave that part of it out. I love that you're honest about that. So too, there's always that there's always two sides of

the coin. Right. You mentioned the word ambition. I find myself to be an incredibly ambitious person also, and I was just wondering that ambitious drive for you, going back into you know, you having these panics, this panic attack on national television, that ambitious drive. Can you talk a little bit about the the quote unquote light and dark side of that ambitious drive. And I've heard you talk a lot about the the inner critic that you found when you started to dig into the kind of shadow

either sides for yourself. Um, and so yeah, that's that's kind of what I'm wanting to talk about a little bit, is that inner critic and how that ambitious drive has driven that that piece for you, just so I could tailor my answer to make it maximally useful. You want to start by talking about, like, is is ambition okay? And can you do that while being you know, a reasonably decent person. Yeah, I definitely would love to get there s because I have a lot of thoughts about that.

I mean, there's actually, in some ways the issue I was trying to unpack when I wrote that first book, because I'm really ambitious, you know, and and and I got the sense it was becoming increasingly obvious to me the more I looked into my own mind through meditation, that the ambition was making me miserable and so but I didn't want to like move to the Himalayas and sit on a outcropping of rock and a loincloth. I was trying to figure out, like, can you be ambitious

without being miserable or a dick? And I think the answer is absolutely yes. What I learned in the course of writing that book and talking to all these amazing meditation teachers and also just more importantly doing the practice for myself. Is that there's a certain amount of worrying and plotting and planning that is part of trying to

do anything right. Um, you're starting a new podcast, so there's gonna be some conversations about how do we build an audience and get the word out and all of that. That's just completely natural. However, we can take it too far and lose sight of enjoying doing the actual thing or trying to help people through doing the actual thing, because we're so caught up in the worry about what are the latest numbers on downloads and can we bully X or Y into writing a big piece about us

or whatever. I'm I'm not less talking about you now that I'm talking about myself, because I also have a podcast, and it's like, how do I get the word out about it? And you know, I check the numbers obsessively, and I look at my Amazon rank of my book and it's like my own personal stock market and I can see, you know what, whether I'm up or down, and it drives me nuts. And so a certain amount of that makes sense. And then at some point you

cross over into diminished returns. What mindfulness or meditation does is it helps you have enough self awareness to notice, Okay, I've firmly in not useful territory right now, and it's making me miserable, and it's making me unpleasant to the

people around me. And it's more art than science, and you will mess up all the time, but it gives you some tools to manage this, because it's totally fine to be ambitious, but you just don't want to again lose sight of the positive motivations and to let it overtake you in such a way that you are, you know, not having fun in your life, which is by the way limited, and we should enjoy what we've got. Yeah, absolutely,

I mean I've found that for myself. You know, I started so young, and there was a time, a good significant piece of the years I've been in this business where I definitely lost joy for what I did. And I think these past probably eight years my life is about returning to that joy and returning to what is the deeper purpose for me of why I do what I do. And it's not about your right, it's not about numbers. All of those things are wonderful if they happen,

but that's not what I feel like. I'm here to do and really coming home to that purpose. And you're like, you're saying getting to know with meditation for me that it's been a practice of putting some space between this inner critic in my own head, which I thought. I thought that was what drove me, like, if I don't have that voice in my head, then I will not be the same ambitious person that I have always been.

And there are some days I still believe that um and other days where I have been able to start to cultivate my own a different voice that's more compassionate. I mean, do you and I believe her? I believe her a lot more than I do him. And I say him because I've actually named my inner critic. His name is Tubby. He looks like the michelin Man. Is that like an overweight poodle you had as a child, No,

but yeah, somewhat similarity. It's like Tubby is a guy like the michelin Man, that's like the big marshmallow dude. And he he loves to just berate me with you know, I'm not good enough anything that I'm not good enough and I'm you know, I mean, I think that I really had to put enough space between that inner critic and myself to be able to even start this podcast, or else I would have never even thought twice about doing this. So I was, have you does that voice

still get to you? And have you been able, like myself, to try to or start to craft a new voice for yourself that's more compassionate. Yes, and yes, so absolutely, my inner I got a bunch of inner characters. You know. This is by the way, this may sound a little m schitzoid to folks who are new to this, but this is not We're not out on a limb here.

It's well established in psychological circles that you know, you you can have different kind of programs or modes in your mind that are kind of competing for the top spot the most salience um at any given moments. So you can have a jealous mode or an angry mode, or a sad mode or victim mode or whatever. And so for sure, I've got several difficult modes. The one is kind of, you know, the self critical mode, the

other is very ambitious, kind of hustler mode. And then of course lots of positive ones too, and boy, I have a lot to say about this, um, so I'll try to not say once for you. But I think having a different relationship to the critic doesn't mean that you're gonna slide into sloppy resignation. It doesn't mean that you don't try to see yourself clearly and think about when you've made mistakes. It's just a question of what is the attitude and tone in your mind as you

go about that. There are is a ton of research and you know, here we are sliding into a new year where a lot of people are creating resolutions, etcetera, etcetera, And there's a and why do those resolutions fail so fast, usually by the end of the week, Because they usually come from a place of insufficiency, self hatred, self loathing, shame. There is a ton of research that shows that if you can come from a different place, which is around self compassion, you will be more likely to stick to

your goals. And self compassion doesn't need to be irretrievably sappy. It doesn't need to have string music and white light or anything like that. It's unhelpful if you think about it that way, because then it sounds impossible or maybe unwhy eies, or just ridiculous when I talk about self compassion, and when this the researchers who have led the charge on understanding how to practice self compassion and what it does in the mind, when they talk about it, it's

more like a Scotich north of neutral. It's just like this basic wanting of the best for yourself. And I have increasingly come to think of that habit of mind of counter programming against Tubby with a different voice, as the uber habit, because if you can establish a new habit of the way you talk to yourself, all other habits like your six pack abs or you're larger four oh one k or whatever it is, can flow out

of that. But if you start with yeah, I'm gonna get the abs or I'm gonna get out of debt immediately, then if you it's coming from a place of self laceration and shame, when you hit roadblocks, which you inevitably will, you're reducing your own resilience because you're just gonna be miserable and then it's hard to stick to something. Whereas if you come from a place of yeah, I want the best for myself, then it's like having a good

coach in your ear as opposed to somebody a drill sergeant. Yeah, absolutely well, And I think you just hit onto something that I I think is really important, wanting the best for ourselves. I mean, the core for me of of that inner critic and thinking that I've constantly got to brerate myself is because I felt like I wasn't good enough, and so that piece of self worth is where I feel like I had to first look at my beliefs around am I worthy of care and nurturance and love? Simple things,

simple basic needs? Are my needs worthy of being met? And am I worthy of being happy? And when I really sat and thought about my beliefs around that, I think when I was very honest with myself, no, my core belief of that was that I was not. And when I started to change that belief and I'm still working with that, honestly, don't even know how that began

to change. I think it was probably for me, my environment, the people around me, the kindness that was reflected back to me, the love, especially with my husband, the love that insecurity that I felt tethered to with him, And to have your in my environment reflect back a different story all of a sudden started to change that belief for me. I'm worthy, I'm worthy of love. And then all of a sudden, I was able to connect with a new voice, a new way of speaking to myself.

And by the way, this is still very new to me, like I still have to catch myself going in and with the energy of you have to change and shaming myself around things. But as soon as I catch myself that awareness, all of a sudden gives me an opportunity to shift into something different. So yeah, I think that that self worth pieces a is a huge piece, and I wonder what that journey has been like for you it.

As far as self worth, we'll get more Dan Harris, wit and wisdom when we return from this quick break Welcome back, Gloves. We were just on the topic of self worth. I think it's very useful what you just said about work in progress aspect of it, because I could imagine people listening to this and be like, all right, Rhymes and Harris, you guys are like rich and already successful, and um, rhymes and Harris, I like that sounds like it's a daytime show. Um, you know, like you guys

got it all figured out. And blah blah blah. But no, in fact, what you said was you can feel the shift in the right direction, and you still the old voices still come back, and the old voices will always come back. It's more just like, can you view the foundational shift and how you view yourself at least some of the time, with some more warmth, And then over time, can you start to view Tubby with some warmth? You know? Even just naming him Tubby is a great first step.

I'm writing a book right now that is um kind of a I'm being pretty ambitious and writing about the not small subject of love, trying to hopefully helpfully define love down a little bit and not the grandiose stuff of movies and country songs, but more like just you know, again, this basic capacity we all have to care as mammals because of our extended childhood, like we need. We're wired to care for others because that's how the species has survived,

and we have to work cooperatively at etcetera, etcetera. You can harness this towards yourself and I think actually you can start to develop warmth, which is maybe a more user friendly word than love, toward Tubby toward the difficult characters in your own mind, because fighting them or feeding them or pretending they don't exist are three habitual strategies of you know, like giving in, struggling or numbing out.

None of those is particularly useful. And we have this notion in the West in particular of like slaying the dragon, But actually I think hugging the dragon. And I'm just kind of playing with this idea as I talked about this next book, I've even thought about calling the book Hugged the Dragon. Hugging the dragon is radical disarmament because you're not You're not saying Tubby, You're right, You're saying Tubby. Uh. I get that. This is a self protective mechanism I

developed somewhere along the way. And Tubby's trying to help Lean, but unskillfully. So thank you. You've done great work. I see you popping up right now. But I can invite you into the party, give you a hug. But Land's grown up, and I can make a wiser decision right

now than the one you would have me make. So to me that process in my own mind of seeing I called my inner critic Robert Riving, named after my grandfather who told me that he would break my arm if I touched his vcru uh uh so uh so Robert pops up and it's like, oh, okay, so I I there are a couple of ways I could go right now. I could just start screaming because that's what Robert wants me to do. I could shame myself for having an inter Robert at all. Or I could pretend

it's not there. None of those is likely to work. But I could give Robert a big, hardy high five, and you know, give him a seat at the table and and and thank him for trying to protect me.

You know, maybe he's trying to protect me. I sometimes think about this kid John, who I was online at the water cooler after a basketball game in seventh grade and John came over one in my space in line and I told him no, and he punched me in the stomach and took it, and like I think at that point, I said, you know, nobody's gonna funk with me again, and like, hence Robert, And so Robert's trying to protect the kid who's doubled over at the water cooler.

But I'm not that anymore, and I don't need to lash out the way I might have needed to back then, and same with Tubby and you. Um, and that warmth I think is for me has been key. Yeah. Absolutely. Can you speak a little bit on like, where do you feel these voices actually originate from? These negative voices just for people listening, because I can see people going like, well, why do I have his voice in the freaking first place?

I think they're self protective mechanisms. You mentioned Robert. We don't come into this world with these voices necessarily. I don't feel like we do. I think it can be our environment, um, you know. I mean I mentioned my environment earlier being very different and reflecting something very different back to me now. And my environment when I was a child was very different than it is now, um, and was reflecting this reality that had me create this

defensive mechanism. It's interesting our earlier influences are so an influencers really do Uh. That's basically I think who and what we're hearing? Um, and what why we created these defense mechanisms in the first place, as I understand it from having you know, we referenced that I have a podcast, and so I get all these experts in human psychology and flourishing and happiness, as I understand it from having spoken to men many many, many of these people have

done a lot of reading and research into this. My understanding is that this it happened that we develop these sort of inner characters, these inner modes in response to experience, just the way you've described that we armor up. In particular, the negative modes come from getting punched in the stomach or having people. I don't know exactly what was happening with you, but maybe you had people pushing you to succeed at an age when you might have needed different messages,

and you armor up to protect yourself. And I also think, you know, we may be born to a certain extent with some of these voices in that you know, there's this concept of enter generational trauma that you know, even the grandchildren of people who survived Auschwitz have you know, pronounced anxiety, etcetera, etcetera. So you know, you wherever they come from in response to experience or as a consequence

of genetics, they're there. And just to know that they are trying to help you is really useful because it takes the shame and antagonism out of it and can put you in a position where your orientation toward your tendencies, your habits, your your habits of mind is a little bit friendlier, which is a much better way to work with them. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. You mentioned earlier that your parents were scientists. Were you raised with a specific religious

background at all. Yes, it's called atheism. Um My, I remember my mom and we did Christmas and Hanukah because my my dad was Jewish. My mom's Christian. But I remember my mom like kind of telling me in one fell swoop, I might be making this up, but it's true enough that not only is there no Santa Claus, but there's also no God, something to that effect. Thanks Mom. I did have a bar Mitzvah, but only because I wanted the money and to fit in with my other

Jewish friends. So I was raised pretty secular. Um. I think my dad might have a little bit of a more openness to the metaphysical than my mom. But um, certainly there wasn't any any real spiritual, any legit spirituality

in the home. Um. I over time have developed a more sort of friendly agnosticism, like I don't know, I don't know if there's a God and or if the stories in the various you know religions are true, I I don't know, and I'm not hostile toward them as long as they're not being used to hurt other people. UM and um in particular. Now I would call myself a Buddhist um, but that kind of means more and less than that. It might seem like less in that

like I don't consider. I know Buddhism is a religion and I respect that, but it can also be practiced as just not something. One of my favorite expressions about Buddhism is it's not something to believe in, it's something to do. And the Buddha himself said, look, I'm going to make a few metaphysical claims about enlightenment and reincarnation, but you should not take them at face value. Only

believe in them once you've got evidence for yourself. And then you know in in the form of your meditation practice. And so for me, I I have not seen any evidence for rebirth, and that doesn't bar me from being a Buddhist though, because I do Buddhism in the form of meditation and trying to live in ethical life just the way I do journalism. So I am a journalist I'm more open now than I was as a younger person, but I definitely come from a background of like, show

me the evidence before I'm gonna sign on. Right, Where does belief and trust come into that into play? Well, you can get some trust in and faith in the power of meditation practice. You can develop some trust and faith and faith in you're inherent worth and goodness and that of other people, no matter how many heinous things we or other people do. Um. So there's a sort of evidence based trust, Like I trust this chair I'm

sitting in. Um. That isn't the same as me saying that I'm going to believe I'll take a metaphysical claim from Buddhism rather than pick on some other religion that you know, if I transgress right now, I'm going to be reborn as a Gila monster. Like I don't know that Maybe that's the truth, Um, but I don't know that that's the truth. And so I have like a willing suspension of disbelief. But I'm not going to pound

the table and say it's definitely true. But that to say, I have a lot of friends who are people of deep and abiding faith, and I've spent a lot of time as a reporter covering spirituality and faith, and UM made a lot of friends in that process. UM, and they are people who really believe the word words of the Bible are literally true, etcetera, etcetera. And that's all good with me. And I don't have any diminished respect

for people who are in that position. It's just not the way I'm wired right, spending your time covering so much spirituality and religion. Is there is someone that you can think of that's the one person who's really made an impact on you, and that feel yeah in that rail well, in the realm of spirituality, there are countless people. Um. You know, I'll just pick one person who I mock a lot in my book and feel free to mock to this day, but have to say that he had

a huge, huge, life changing impact on me. And that is Eckhart Totally, who you may have heard of. He's a mega best selling self help writer. Colleague of mine, way before I started meditating, recommended I read one of Totally's books because she thought it would be a good story from me. And I read one of his books and at first I thought, this is ridiculous. It's filled

with all of this pseudo scientific language. And again for somebody wired like me and raised as I was in the People's Republic of Massachusetts by these you know physicians, you know, it's just like that whole jargon of very vibrational fields and blah blah blah like and he claims that he had a spiritual awakening, after which he lived on park benches in a state of bliss in the

city of London for two years. And I was just like, this is garbage, but I kept reading it and totally was the first person I ever heard talk about the notion that we all have a voice in our heads. I mean, you might refer to it as voices, and again not in a sort of mental illness way, but in a sense that we have this inner conversation that's happening all the time for us that if we broadcast aloud,

we'd be locked up. Um, but most of us are unaware that we're having this conversation, and look at us broadcasting it aloud. Yes, exactly, I could see, I can. We're gonna get frog marched out of our homes in any minute. And and when you're unaware, Totally's argument is when you're unaware of this NonStop conversation that you are having your with yourself, like constantly thinking about the past or the future, comparing yourself to people, or judging yourself.

This whole blah blah blah that's happening in your head when you don't see it clearly, which most of us don't, then it owns us. You know, we're checking our email in the middle of a conversation with you know, another person, or we're eating when we're not hungry, or we're losing our temper when it doesn't make any sense, and that is suffering. And so for all of Totally's sort of floibles. Um, he was the first person to point that out to me.

I later realized that that whole notion was taken largely without attribution from somebody called the Buddha. But Totally writes about this very well, very incisively and insightfully, and I don't think as wild as some of his claims are about his own spiritual attainments. Having met him, I'm open to the possibility that he is not making that up right. Yeah, I love that. I love I love that about you. I love that you keep your mind open to the possibility.

And I think that's for me kind of where I'm at too. And although I can be very woo woo and very spiritual and partly gosh, I feel like it's my own, my own experiences um and what I feel UM. And I also am very open to being completely wrong. And I think as long as we keep the both sides of the coin, you know, open, that that we I think for myself, it's just life becomes more interesting and I get to explore that exploration. I feel like

it's what life is all about. Well, just just to back you up, probably the most influential person I met in the whole Ray realm of spirituality is a guy named Joseph Goldstein, who is my meditation teacher. He and I, along with some other folks, co founded a meditation app called tempercent Happier but which is awesome. Joseph, Oh, thank you. Joseph is um. He's been meditating for fifty years. He

is not at all what you would think. He's not at all like Kart totally has he's way way goofy er, you know, totally basically says he never gets into a bad mood. Joseph is like a much more of a normal guy. Who like gets into bad moods and whatever. But he's this brilliant kid who graduated from an Ivy League school, went off to the Peace Corps, found himself in Thailand and fifty years ago, and then directed his big brain at Buddhism instead of becoming a lawyer, which

he probably would have done. And it is so interesting to see what fifty years of sustaining practice can do to a mind, because I've seen Joseph in so many differences in there. We're now, you know, business partners in a way. He's also my meditation teacher. Were also friends. I've you know, spent time with him in very loose social environments. I've spent I've been on meditation retreats with him. I've been and I've worked with him. He's never disappointed me.

That's not to say he's never gotten annoyed by something or anything like that. But he is just such a high quality human being. And yet he believes in all sorts of stuff that I think I have like no idea how he got there. You know, he has a meditation teacher who he believed had supernatural powers like walking

through walls. He believes in lots of the stuff from the Buddhist cosmology about there being several layers of existence, like there's the realm that we all inhabit, but then there's also like a God realm and a hell realm. And he once quoted one of his teachers who said something to the effect of, you don't have to believe this, but it's true. And and like that's Joseph's attitude. He he describes this willing suspension of disbelief, where he doesn't

bring the skeptical, western materialistic mind to these things. He he just believes that they're true. And we have thought about it, and I've made fun of him mercilessly. And so I say all that to say that it's very hard for me to dismiss that capacity that you described in your own mind. To be as you said, woo woo. I can be dismissive about it because I'm a bit of a judgmental jerk sometimes, but when I'm at my best,

I maintain a sense of openness. All right, In just a few moments, we'll be back with how you can break open to that sense of openness too. All right, we are back, and we were just talking about how to keep an open mind. I guess this can be a good thing and a bad thing quote unquote good and bad um where the mind will always question what, even if we've had the deepest experience, at least for me,

like that inner critic. Even going back to like the goodness I feel when I when I do feel like you're saying at your best and you love yourself when you feel connected, there's always this other piece of me that's like, that's not true, but that's not real, you know. And that's the thing I've had to get in touch with. And and I still even question the question, you know. It's almost like I'm questioning the voice in my head

and thinking is that question bad? There's many layers to that, and I usually, as just for me, have always gone with you know, my own experiences are my own truth, and I think we all have our own truths. At the end of the day, we're all unique human beings

walking around in this world. We can be the only ones experiencing what we're experiencing, and because of all of our past experiences leading up to the point where we're in, we're all going to see a different truth from I've learned not to and that's been another thing of coming back to my own self worth, knowing not to question so much my own truth and allowing that to be

it is what it is. In that moment, I had a thought when you were talking about sort of second guessing yourself and having a little voice that pops up, maybe this will be helpful for those moments we were just talking about. Joseph Goldstein, he's got this great little phrase that he uses called cowboy dharma um, and it basically is a very playful idea that when you see the inner critic pop up, or you know, shame or angry at yourself, can you just kind of gently just

like a cowboy. But it's not like firing a gun at it's not hostile. It's more like a nerf gun. And it's more like a fun thing, like oh, I see you, because you don't need to deal with it too much. You don't need to get caught in a whole loop around why is that voice coming up and to trying to say it's just like no, no, no, no, it's just more like and move on, keep it moving.

To use your mindfulness you're which we're training in meditation disability to be self aware to say, oh, I see you, I see utubby, and then you don't need to start wrestling with it or thinking too much about it. Yeah, that's so funny, that's so true. And my have two stepsons, and my youngest is not thirteen, but he used to walk around the house. He still does it. Actually, every once in a while, playing outside by himself, will go

and so, yes, I'm totally using that meditation. You know, we've talked about both of us how much has changed our lives. And you take a very grounded approach to meditation. And I think one of the main reasons people have shied away from it for so long is because they think it's woo woo and because they think it's, you know, this hippie, whole hippie hippie nation like thing to do.

What would you say to But if they're listening and they're still feeling that way and don't see the grounding in and the worth in having a meditation practice, even if it's just for a few minutes a day, I would say, I hear you. You're my people. I mean the skeptics like that. I got you, um and I felt that way for a long time, to the extent that I even thought about meditation. Um, I thought it was nonsense, And so I mean it might be useful

for me to just describe what it is. I would because I think once you hear it described, it will seem a lot less fluffy. Just to say before I dive in on that, that the word meditation is a little bit like the words sports. It like describes a whole range. There are millions of kinds of meditation. But when I talk about meditation, I'm generally talking about mindfulness meditation, which is derived from Buddhism but is stripped of any

metaphysical claims or religious lingo. And it is this form, this secular form of meditation that has been studied in the labs very very extensive lee roughly the past twenty years. So there's now a really significant body of evidence that strongly suggests that it can confer a whole long list of physiological and psychological and even behavioral changes and benefits. So beginning mindfulness meditation is really simple. You just there are three steps. One is to kind of sit comfortably.

You don't have to fold yourself up into a pretzels. I am nearly fifty and do not like yoga, So I do not sit on the floor and a cross legged position, which you know if you can great. I sit in a chair. Sometimes I lie down. If I'm really sleepy and I'm worried about falling asleep, I'll stand up. Although if you fall asleep, it's like not a big deal. So anyway, the first step is just find a reasonably comfortable position in a reasonably quiet place if you have

no access to quiet. This is why the Good Lord invented noise canceling headphones. Um so again, Step number one, reasonably quiet place, reasonably comfortable, dignified position, lying up, lying down, standing, sitting down, whatever. Step number two is to just bring your full attention to something. So usually it's the breath. You pick one spot where you feel your breath most prominently rising and falling off your belly, or if your

chest air coming in and out of your nose. Some people find the breath to be anxiety provoking, so if that's you, you can just pick something else, like the feeling of your full body sitting, or whatever your hands

are touching at the moment, sounds in your environment. Just pick something that's below the level of thinking, because that's what we're trying to do here is we're trying to drop below the NonStop nattering of our minds to something that has to do with our senses again, the feeling of the body sitting, or the breath rising and falling at the belly, whatever. You're just picking something and committing

to it. And then the third step is the most important, because as soon as you say, okay, I'm just gonna feel my breath for a couple of minutes, your mind will go nuts. I mean, you'll just start thinking about what's for lunch? Does Leon like me? What kind of dog is that? I'm gonna need to get a dog? And and and you know when is this quarantine gonna be over? And you know where did gerbils run wild? And what was Casper the friendly goes before he died?

And blah blah blah, And that's totally natural, like that is what the mind does. The mind's job is to secrete thoughts the way the stomach secretes enzymes. So you're The goal here is not to clear your mind, because that's impossible unless you're fully enlightened or you have died. The goal here is to focus the mind for a few nanoseconds at a time on something like the sensations of your breath or your body sitting or lying down.

And then every time you get distracted, which will happen a million times, you just start again and again and again and again. And this is like a golf game with a million mulligans, where you're the whole goal is

to are it over. Many people, when they start to meditate and they notice how distractable they are, their ego tells them the story, or Tubby tells them the story of like your a failed meditator deuces you know, I'm out um, But in fact, the moment you notice how distractable you are, the moment you notice how wild your mind is, that is proof that you're meditating correctly, because the whole game in meditation, mindfulness, meditation is to see how wild your mind is so that the wildness doesn't

own you as much. You're getting familiar with Tubby, You're getting familiar with your anger, your sadness, you're planning, you're rushing, whatever, because then when you're not meditating and you get hit by a big bolt of anger, then you're better able to resist the shitty suggestions that the anger is offering up Like I don't have to say something that's going to ruin the next seventy two hours of my marriage, or or I don't need to eat a whole sleeve

of oreos or whatever it is. What we're doing here is training a kind of self awareness that allows you to respond wisely to things instead of reacting blindly. And that is not woo woo. That is secular, simple, science based exercise for your brain and for your mind. And I've been on this jag of you know, evangelizing for meditation for the last six or seven years now, and I've never explained it that way to anybody and had them say, oh yeah, yeah, that sounds like bullshit. That's

is clearly not. What were some of the things that started happening in your life when you started a regular meditation practice that you could tell like this is working. I like to tell this story because it's it's actually a true story. UM. My wife is a very sweet doctor, very caring doctor, but it likes to make fun of me,

which I respect and appreciate. Um. After I started meditating, I overheard her at a cocktail party telling one of our friends, oh, yeah, Dan started meditating, and he's a little bit less of a ship head, and that that was actually a really interesting data point because I had not felt any benefits yet. But I would say this was very soon after I started meditating, so like a week or two. But for me, I would say after about two three weeks, I started to notice three big benefits.

One was that I felt calmer. And I want to be clear, that doesn't mean that my meditation sessions were calm. My meditation sessions were a mess. It's like you're like trying to hold a live fish in your hands, like your felt crazy or even you know, because I was seeing some of the my anxiety and avarice more clearly. But the act of stepping out of the daily toppling forward that I had to who most of the days, like constantly crossing things off my to do list and

hustling this meeting to the next. The act of just taking a few minutes I started with like five minutes a day. It just made me feel calmer. The second big benefit was that it and again this is really backed by the science, it may it gave me a better ability to focus, because that's what you're doing here, is like you're trying to focus on one thing, getting distracted, starting again and starting again, starting again, and that the science shows that like it changes the part of the

brain associated with attention regulation. And the third thing is the biggest, which is that it gave me what I keep talking about here, which is like this self awareness that is often called mindfulness, which allows you to see what's happening between your ears at any given moment without

necessarily taking the bait and acting on it. And that is really a game changing skill because we just walk around so much of our lives like just controlled by this malevolent puppeteer of of Tubby or or just random thoughts. And once you see it, you can cut the strings.

It's not gonna work all the time. I mean, that's why I when I wrote my first book, I called it temper cent Happier, because I was kind of trying to counter program against the overpromising that I see in the shadier corners of the self helped world, where it seems like they're saying, you can solve all of your problems through whatever, the power of positive thinking, and I

just that's is not going to happen. But while the ten is kind of a joke now that I'm stuck with math jokes the rest of my life, and I hate math. Um Uh. What I will say is that it's like any good investment, it compounds annually. These are skills. The ability to not be yanked around by your emotions, the ability to focus. These are These are skills. These are not factory settings that are unalterable, and so for me, over eleven years, I just keep getting better at these.

That does not mean I'm never a schmuck anymore. I'm definitely we brought my wife in here right now. You can get a laundry list of recent transgressions. But I'm less likely to screw up, and when I do screw up, I'm quicker to apologize. Yeah that's yeah, that's very true. Um, what does your meditation practice look like these days? Has it been tough to actually continue a meditation practice during this time? So I will admit that there is one area in which I'm a bit of a mutant. W

is that I am actually very disciplined. And this has actually been a problem for me because there are some areas where I've struggled with discipline, and when I struggle with discipline, I really beat myself up. For example, one area where really struggled is um, I have a bit of a fraud relationship to food and body image and eating and things like that, and which is weird thing

to say because I'm a thin guy. But I can overdo it with oreos and get really mad at myself and go into a full spiral over that kind of thing. And one of the aspects of myself criticism here is that I feel sloppy and undisciplined. But there are areas of my life where, like eleven years ago, I said I'm going to meditate every day, and I do it um, and I know that that people will resent me for that. So that's why I told the Oreo thing first. It's

not like I'm perfect, but I am pretty disciplined. And so I went on an arc where I started with like five to five minutes a day, and then I went up to ten minutes a day, and then after a year of that, I went up to thirty minutes a day, which I did for a few years, and then I went through a crazy period where I was doing two hours a day, and then I realized that that was crazy um and cut down to an hour. And now I'm at a place where I try to

do an hour every day, you know. And I don't do it all in one go most days, although today I did. But I'm pretty relaxed about it now because I know that my practice is pretty solid. I've been at it for a minute, and I go in meditation retreats once a year, and like, I'm pretty committed. So it's pretty well established. And so if if one day I only do fifteen minutes, it's not like I'm going to fall off the wagon or lose all the mindfulness

I've accrued. But I I I sort of gently try to do an hour a day if I can, and I divide it up into little chunks throughout the day, and I try to do this thing that is very unusual for me, which is to be relaxed about right. I still relate to everything you just said. I am so incredibly disciplined when I am focused on something, when

I want something, I'm so disciplined. And then there's many other parts of my life where I can just like go nuts also, and I have that same inner dialogue of oh my god, why you know, why can't I be disciplined in the space, And I'd completely beat myself up about it, you know, what you do in those moments. What I like that. Yes, it's so true, and I think a lot of people can relate. I think we all have some kind of discipline in our life in

certain areas and then others. I mean maybe some of us have like extreme discipline, and I think, you know, there's that ambition that comes into that too. We can utilize it to its fullest, and then all of a sudden, it just like crosses over that line of I'm going to now use this to hurt myself. Yes, yeah, absolutely, I totally relate to that. Um I was wondering, does your whole family meditate? No, So I learned a very valuable lesson the hard way, which is you shouldn't lecture

people about meditation. In fact, what I've learned is you shouldn't like sure people about anything. Um So, if somebody invites me on their podcast or TV show or whatever, I will come on and talk about meditation all day long, as I love talking about it. But when I first started meditating, I started lecturing my wife about it. Unsurprisingly, that didn't go well. I I often think about this cartoon that I saw in the New Yorker a few

years ago. I had two women having lunch and one of them says to the other, I've been gluten free for a week and I'm already annoying, And uh, that can happen to people who get really excited about meditation. What I've learned is that it's best to keep your mouth shut and let people observe in you the benefits of your practice and then come to you and ask you about it, at which point you can say whatever the hell you want. But if you proselytize unsolicited, it's

likely to backfire. Yeah. Absolutely, And my husband is he kind of dabbles in and out of it. I say, hey, I'm gonna go meditate. I'll invite him, said do you want to come? And if sometimes it's yes, sometimes it's no, and it's like, okay, cool. But I was very much like you. When it starts to change you, you're like, holy sh it, like this is this is changing my life. I wanted to change everyone else's too, and you you can if you can so easily get into you. You've

got to do this. You've got to do this. And people are like, can you please stop talking about this thing? Yes? Yes, So I'll give a talk and some man will come up or some woman will come up, and they'll be with their spouse, and the primary person coming up to me will be like, I I you change my life. I'm so so I've read your book and now I meditate and I can see the spouse is like, I'm so sick of hearing about the ass and I got

dragged to this talk tonight. You know, I was doing that to my wife and and so the best thing to do is what you just described as like, yeah, you're doing this thing. It's good for you. Your husband reached the benefits of you being happier. And yeah, if you gently invite him and he wants to come, great, and if he doesn't, okay, Yeah, that's I've definitely learned that. Also, I'd love to close out all my conversations with the

little question about music. So I'm gonna get you to sing, like you mentioned earlier, and I'm just kidding now, I love you know, music connects all of us, and it's something that's obviously a huge part of my life, and I love to hear what songs resonate with people. I just thought you could share. I call this the Holy five. So it's five songs that maybe are influencing your life now or maybe have over your lifetime, just anything that resonates with you. Okay, So I'm gonna warn you advanced.

None of these is a country songs. I've historically not had much interesting country but then I met you, and I also met Brett Eldridge. Do you know Brett? Okay? So Brett is also a very into meditation, very nice guy and very into sort of like he's had some panic issues, would be very open about that. Um. And also our nanny, who's from Belize, is really into country music, so we love that country music around the house now. But none of these songs is going to be a

country song, That's all right. I am really in into like kind of indie rock and have been for since I was in high school, and I've constantly have active playlist UM that I used for working out, and so I just took a look at some of the songs that are on there right now, and these are all sort of like obscure indie rock bands. But here we go. One song is called Close and it's by an Australian

band called Sweater Curse. Another another song is called lemon Mouth by an American band I believe called Tiger's Duck, Different universe by direct hit, a different kind of life, by nation of language. I think they're from Brooklyn. And then this woman you might like because she's got a great, great voice, but also like a really clever songwriter. Her name is Samiya and this she wrote a song called fit in Full. Those are five Fit and Full. I

like that. That's awesome. Thank you for sharing. Yeah, it's so interesting to hear what people are into because sometimes it matches like what you think of someone, and then other times you're like, WHOA. I wasn't expecting that at all. I definitely appreciate your choices. I'm gonna go listen. I'm gonna go rock out. It's good for running, very good, very good. Thank you so much for coming on here and sharing yourself and all about meditation and and the

inner critic. I love that we dove into that because I think it's really important. So thank you so much. My message for Tubby is that you're doing a great job as an interviewer. Thank you. I appreciate that. Good job, Tubby.

Thank you, thank you, my pleasure, thank you, Liam, thank you, my laves for joining us, for this episode of Holy Human, Please share it with anyone you think might benefit from listening, and I would love to hear from you too, so please leave me a message and that wonderful five star

rating wherever you get your podcasts. On our next Holy Human, you were going to meet a man who is honestly probably one of the kindest human beings that I know, and I can almost guarantee that he will help connect you with your more centered, more self accepting, and truly lovable self. It's best selling author and my dear friend, Matt con Thank you. Listen and follow Holy Human on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. M