Find freedom from obsessive loops of fear by getting grounded in the body, dropping the stories, and bringing some kindness to the struggle. About Sebene Selassie: Growing up, Sebene felt like a big weirdo. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and raised in white neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., she was a tomboy Black girl who loved Monty Python and UB40. She never believed she belonged. Thirty years ago, she began studying Buddhism as an undergraduate at McGill University where she majored in Compar...
Jul 22, 2022•6 min•Ep 477•Transcript available on Metacast Today we’re gonna tackle one of the best known contemplative clichés: being in the present moment and inhabiting the now. The present moment seems to be a state we aspire towards, but are rarely given practical information about how to actually achieve. But today’s guest, Matthew Brensilver offers just that— practical information on how to achieve being present. We also explore his argument that when painful memories surface in meditation, it acts as a kind of exposure therapy that acclimates us...
Jul 20, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Ep 476•Transcript available on Metacast Often, when you’re afraid of something, the best advice is deeply counterintuitive, not to mention inconvenient: to turn toward the source of your fear. Today we’re going to talk about the fear of confronting your own past with our guest Sarah Polley. Polley is an Oscar nominated filmmaker and actress who recently wrote a new book, called Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory . In her book, she explores the relationship between her past and present and how the two ar...
Jul 18, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Ep 475•Transcript available on Metacast Expand and strengthen your understanding of awareness through an exploration of focused, investigative, and flexible awareness. About Diana Winston: Diana Winston is the Director of Mindfulness Education at UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center and the author of The Little Book of Being: Practices and Guidance for Uncovering Your Natural Awareness . She has taught mindfulness since 1999 at hospitals, universities, corporations, nonprofits, and schools in the US and Asia. She developed the evi...
Jul 15, 2022•11 min•Ep 474•Transcript available on Metacast Depression is a debilitating problem both on an individual and a societal level and it has only gotten worse during the pandemic. According to the World Health Organization, depression is now one of the leading causes of disability on the planet. Our guest today Dr. Samantha Boardman is going to talk about what she calls the opposite of depression— something called positive psychiatry. This approach focuses on the positive things in the lives of her patients rather than just the pathologie...
Jul 13, 2022•39 min•Ep 473•Transcript available on Metacast Anxiety has long been a massive societal issue that has spiked during the pandemic. In this episode, renowned Buddhist monk Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche talks in detail about how he personally works with anxiety and panic and the practices he draws upon when dealing with these states. Mingyur began doing long retreats in his teens and now teaches all over the world. He’s written the books The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness and In Love with the World: A Monk's...
Jul 11, 2022•54 min•Ep 472•Transcript available on Metacast Connecting with the universal world wide web of meditators expands your perspective and helps cultivate a deep feeling of belonging. About Jeff Warren: Jeff is an incredibly gifted meditation teacher. He's trained in multiple traditions, including with renowned teacher Shinzen Young. Jeff is the co-author of NY Times Bestseller "Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics," and the founder of the Consciousness Explorers Club, a meditation adventure group in Toronto. He has a knack for surfacing the exact me...
Jul 08, 2022•6 min•Ep 471•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, the social justice educator and activist Jacoby Ballard talks about a universal, or near universal, issue: anger. And, he offers us two mental skills that can help channel anger into something even more powerful and effective. Those skills are forgiveness and equanimity. Ballard is a meditation and yoga teacher and the author of a new book called, A Queer Dharma: Yoga and Meditations for Liberation Content Warnings: There are some brief references to sensitive topics, incl...
Jul 06, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep 470•Transcript available on Metacast How, on this planet, did we go from molten lava and shifting tectonic plates to sentient beings? How are you awake and aware right now? Who and where and what exactly is the “you” that is experiencing everything? Guest Anil Seth says that exploring these questions can lead to real and radical changes in your life, including reducing your emotional reactivity. Seth is a Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex , Co-Director of the Sackler Centre for Consci...
Jul 04, 2022•1 hr 17 min•Ep 469•Transcript available on Metacast What and who are you? In this advanced exploration, you are invited to contemplate what is and isn’t definable about your identity. About JoAnna Hardy: JoAnna Hardy is an insight meditation (Vipassanā) practitioner and teacher. She is also on the faculty at the University of Southern California, a meditation trainer at Apple Fitness+, a founding member of the Meditation Coalition, a teacher's council member at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and a visiting retreat teacher at Insight Meditation So...
Jul 01, 2022•12 min•Ep 468•Transcript available on Metacast One of the most common and insidious complaints of meditators is distraction, which can be a frustrating and difficult obstacle. Even the Buddha himself acknowledged this common problem and laid out some detailed practices for dealing with it. In this episode, Shaila Catherine outlines the Buddha’s five strategies to help us tackle distractions, which can be applied to our meditation practice as well as other aspects of our lives. Catherine is a dharma teacher whose latest book is called B...
Jun 29, 2022•1 hr 9 min•Ep 467•Transcript available on Metacast It seems like a design flaw in our species that we live in a world of constant change yet most of us are not comfortable with uncertainty. In this episode, we talk to Maya Shankar about how to get better at dealing with change and to stop seeking what scientists call “cognitive closure.” Shankar is a former Senior Advisor in the Obama White House, where she founded and served as Chair of the White House Behavioral Science Team. She also served as the first Behavioral Science Advisor to the...
Jun 27, 2022•59 min•Ep 466•Transcript available on Metacast Nourish yourself with some kindness and shift away from self-criticism towards accepting yourself fully, even your hardest parts. About La Sarmiento: La Sarmiento is the the guiding teacher of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington's BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ Sanghas and a mentor for the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program and for Cloud Sangha. They graduated from Spirit Rock Meditation Center's Community Dharma Leader Training Program in 2012. As an immigrant, non-binary, Fili...
Jun 24, 2022•6 min•Ep 465•Transcript available on Metacast “The quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life.” These words from the legendary Esther Perel have the power to genuinely change your outlook on life. But while it’s easy to hear them and immediately have your mind go to family relationships or romantic relationships, today we’re going to talk about friendships. Friendships can be massive contributors to mental health. They can also, when they go pear-shaped, be the source of abundant misery. Today’s guest is t...
Jun 22, 2022•51 min•Ep 464•Transcript available on Metacast Life is filled with all kinds of moral dilemmas— from the mundane to the momentous. Should I lie and tell my friend that I like her ugly shirt? Can I still enjoy great art if it was created by terrible people? How much money should I give to charity? Ultimately, does anything we do even matter? In today’s conversation, television writer and producer, Michael Schur helps us to navigate our moral dilemmas and answer some of these difficult questions. Schur is best known for creating and co-c...
Jun 20, 2022•56 min•Ep 463•Transcript available on Metacast Build resilience for tough situations. Learn the tools to develop self-empathy, clarifying what matters to you most and how to move forward. About Oren Jay Sofer: Oren Jay Sofer teaches mindfulness, meditation, and Nonviolent Communication in secular and Buddhist contexts. Oren has practiced meditation in the early Buddhist tradition since 1997, beginning his studies in Bodh Gaya, India with Anagarika Munindra and Godwin Samararatne. He is a long-time student of Joseph Goldstein, Michele McDonal...
Jun 17, 2022•7 min•Ep 462•Transcript available on Metacast How much would your relationships improve if you could up your emotional intelligence game? That phrase, “emotional intelligence” or EQ, entered the lexicon over 25 years ago, when Daniel Goleman wrote a book by the same name. In this episode, Daniel Goleman talks about the four components of emotional intelligence and how we can develop these skills in our daily lives. Golman is a Harvard-trained psychologist who, along with other contemplative luminaries such as Joseph Goldst...
Jun 15, 2022•57 min•Ep 307•Transcript available on Metacast It’s completely natural when dealing with anxiety, depression, anger, shame, or any other unpleasant emotion, to just want it to go away. Guest Susan David says that these discomforts are the price of admission to being alive and offers an approach called emotional agility as a way to navigate them. Susan David, Ph.D. is a psychologist at Harvard Medical School and author of a book called Emotional Agility . Her TED Talk on the subject has been viewed more than eight million times. I...
Jun 13, 2022•59 min•Ep 461•Transcript available on Metacast Start focused on what's truly important. When you pause to remember the big picture, your day can move forward grounded in integrity & wisdom. About Alexis Santos: Alexis Santos is a featured teacher on the Ten Percent Happier app and has been in the field of mindfulness and meditation since 2001. He has been a long-time student of Sayadaw U Tejaniya, with whom he ordained as a Buddhist monk, and has taught at retreat centers around the globe. To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happi...
Jun 10, 2022•6 min•Ep 460•Transcript available on Metacast The phrase, “Get over yourself” is often used in a flippant way, but it’s actually speaking to a deep human need to get out of our heads and off our own backs. At a fundamental level, this is what Buddhism is all about— seeing through the illusion of the self, which can be the source of so much of our suffering. In this episode guest Pascal Auclair talks about how we can unlock this suffering through the use of a foundational Buddhist list called the five aggregates. Pascal Auclair h...
Jun 08, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep 459•Transcript available on Metacast Our culture has oddly conflicting views about pleasure. In this episode, author adrienne maree brown explores the importance of pleasure and how it changes your experience of the world. adrienne maree brown is the writer-in-residence at the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, and author of Grievers (the first novella in a trilogy on the Black Dawn imprint), Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation , We Will Not Cancel Us and Other Dreams of Transforma...
Jun 06, 2022•1 hr 14 min•Ep 458•Transcript available on Metacast Acknowledging the hard feelings that accompany procrastination can help you alleviate avoidance and accomplish the task at hand. About Jay Michaelson: Dr. Jay Michaelson is a Senior Content Strategist at Ten Percent Happier and the author of seven books on meditation, including his newest, Enlightenment by Trial and Error. In his “other career,” Jay is a columnist for The Daily Beast, and was a professional LGBTQ activist for ten years. Jay is an ordained rabbi and has taught meditation in...
Jun 03, 2022•7 min•Ep 457•Transcript available on Metacast In a culture that values persistent productivity, one can be left feeling chronically behind. In this episode, author and recovering time management junkie, Oliver Burkeman encourages us to stop scrambling to fit it all in by exploring the relationship between our mortality and getting things done. Oliver Burkeman is the author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. Former guest Adam Grant has called it, “The most important book ever written about time management....
Jun 01, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Ep 456•Transcript available on Metacast Our guest this week is Alicia Menendez, an award-winning journalist, who finds herself in a common position for many women: caring way too much about what others think of her. Be nice, but not too nice. Be successful, but not too successful. Just be likable, whatever that means. In the workplace strong women are often criticized for being cold, while warm women may be seen as pushovers. In her book, The Likeability Trap, and in this conversation, she discusses this issue and explains how and why...
May 30, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Ep 212•Transcript available on Metacast Tune in mindfully to help alleviate the pain of feeling unworthy and cultivate more compassion and joy for yourself. About Diana Winston: Diana Winston is the Director of Mindfulness Education at UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center and the other of The Little Book of Being: Practices and Guidance for Uncovering Your Natural Awareness . She has taught mindfulness since 1999 at hospitals, universities, corporations, nonprofits, and schools in the US and Asia. She developed the evidence-based ...
May 27, 2022•6 min•Ep 454•Transcript available on Metacast Sometimes part of healing trauma means learning how to be human. This episode is the last episode of our Mental Health Reboot series to mark Mental Health Awareness Month. Dr. Jacob Ham, who was introduced in Stephanie Foo’s episode earlier this week, helped Stephanie through her case of complex PTSD and discusses how to live with the hardest things that have happened to you. Dr. Ham is the Director of the Center for Child Trauma and Resilience and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psy...
May 25, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Ep 453•Transcript available on Metacast We’ve all had difficult, and sometimes horrible things happen to us. While some people may be luckier than others, it’s rare that anyone goes unscathed. This episode is part of our Mental Health Reboot series to mark Mental Health Awareness Month. In this episode, Stephanie Foo shares her story of being diagnosed with complex PTSD and how she learned to process her trauma and live with her past. The result of her journey is a new book called What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing fr...
May 23, 2022•50 min•Ep 452•Transcript available on Metacast Emotions can feel so personal. Joseph helps you get your feet back under you. Remember: your mind doesn't have to push you around. About Joseph Goldstein: Joseph is one of the most respected meditation teachers in the world -- a key architect of the rise of mindfulness in our modern society -- with a sense of humor to boot. In the 1970's, he co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) alongside Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield. Since its founding, thousands of people from around the world ...
May 20, 2022•6 min•Ep 451•Transcript available on Metacast Very few of us will live a life without loss. As part of our Mental Health Reboot series in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, this week’s episodes talk a lot about grieving. Mary-Frances O’Connor, an expert in bereavement research, explores the science of how we grieve and experience loss, whether it’s a job or a loved one. Mary-Frances O'Connor is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Arizona, where she is also the Director of ...
May 18, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Ep 450•Transcript available on Metacast There is an unstoppable flow of gain and loss within our lives. Processing this flow helps us to develop equanimity. In this conversation, Pulitzer Prize-winner and New Yorker staff writer Kathryn Schulz discusses her new book Lost and Found: A Memoir , in which she explores experiencing both a huge loss anda huge gain, and how to live in a world where both happiness and pain commingle. In this episode we talk about: How humans experience grief A gift you can give to the grievi...
May 16, 2022•1 hr•Ep 449•Transcript available on Metacast 
