People have mixed feelings about the popularization of mindfulness and meditation over the last 10 or 15 years with some referring to it as “McMindfulness.”

The critiques can be worthy and the mainstreaming of meditation and mindfulness also have helped millions of people upgrade their lives. One of the many areas where mindfulness and meditation have made inroads of late is the workplace. 

All sorts of employers are offering their teams access to meditation via apps or in-person training. But does this stuff actually work? Does it really make you happier at work or better at your job? And what techniques produce which benefits?

Professor Lindsey Cameron is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Management. Her research focuses on mindfulness as well as the future of work. She has a 20 year practice, having studied and taught primarily in the Vipassana and non-dual traditions. In her prior career, Professor Cameron spent over a decade in the US intelligence and in diplomatic communities serving the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.

In this episode we talk about:

• What companies mean when they talk about mindfulness at work
• What the mindfulness at work research says and how Prof. Cameron parses the results
• The ways mindfulness helps us counteract our inherent biases and stereotypes
• Which specific practices are most beneficial, depending on the situation 
• Prof. Cameron’s tips for integrating small mindfulness moments into our everyday routines 
• Where she stands on the whole “McMindfulness” debate
• Prof. Cameron’s research into the gig economy — and how, paradoxically, an Uber worker can feel a sense of autonomy and freedom even though the work is ultimately being dictated by an algorithm

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/lindsey-cameron-577

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the third installment in our Work Life series. In other episodes, we cover topics like imposter syndrome, whether mindfulness really works at work, and whether you should actually bring your whole self to the office.

Today's episode is one that many of us struggle with: interpersonal conflict at work. Our guest is a true ninja on this topic. Amy Gallo is a workplace expert who writes and speaks about interpersonal dynamics, difficult conversations, feedback, gender, and effective communication.

Gallo is a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review and the author of a new book, Getting Along, How to Work with Anyone, Even Difficult People. She's also written the The Harvard Business Review Guide to Dealing With Conflict, and she cohosts the Women at Work podcast.

In this episode we talk about:

• Why quality interactions at work are so important for our professional success and personal mental health
• Why Gallo believes one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to dealing with difficult people in the workplace 
• Why avoidance isn’t usually an option 
• What the research tells us about work friendships
• Why we have a tendency to dehumanize people who have more power than us
• Why passive aggressive people can be the most difficult to deal with
• The provocative question of whether we are part of the problem when work conflict crops up
• And, a taxonomy of the eight different flavors of difficult coworkers, including the pessimist, the victim, the know-it-all, and the insecure boss — with tactics for managing each. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/amy-gallo-576

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You can refresh your energy in just a few moments. If you do it mindfully, you'll boost your presence and attention for the rest of the day.

About Anushka :

Anushka Fernandopulle teaches Insight meditation in the San Francisco Bay Area and other parts of the world. Anushka is a member of the Spirit Rock Teacher's Council and has trained in the Theravada Buddhist tradition for 30 years in monasteries in Sri Lanka & India as well as urban US settings. Anushka has an MBA from Yale and works with organizations as a consultant and with individuals as a leadership coach. More about her teaching and work can be found at www.anushkaf.org

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Take a Work Break,” or click here.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The phrase imposter syndrome has increasingly crept into the culture. If you haven’t heard of it, it basically means that you feel like you’re a fraud, despite evidence to the contrary. As this term has gained more purchase in our culture, it’s also been subjected to an increasing amount of scrutiny and criticism, and also confusion. So, today we’re going to try to cut through some of that with Dr. Valerie Young, who’s been an internationally recognized expert on imposter syndrome since 1982.

Young is the co-founder of the Imposter Syndrome Institute. She wrote a book called, The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It. As you’ll hear her explain, imposter syndrome is not just for women — men deal with it, too, as do many other people along the gender spectrum.

This is the second installment of our ongoing work/life series.

In this episode we talk about:

• The three things that define impostor syndrome 
• Dr. Young’s contention that imposter syndrome impacts both men and women, but tends to hold women back more
• What it means to shift from impostor thinking to thinking like “a humble realist”
• Why we need to learn to reframe competence
• Whether or not impostor syndrome is limited to the professional sphere
• The impact of identity/social group 
• Three tools for dealing with imposter feelings
• Whether or not imposter feelings ever go away
• What to do if you’re in a relationship with someone with imposter syndrome
• And whether there are any upsides to imposter syndrome

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/valerie-young-574

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the first of a four part series on work that we’re calling, “Work Life.” 

Work can play a huge role in our sanity and happiness, or lack thereof. So today we're going to tackle some common and thorny questions with a guy who has been extremely successful at work and now teaches other people how to do so.  We talk about questions such as how much work life balance should we really strive for? Is hustle culture really dead? What's the role of luck in success? How much is enough and should you bring your whole self to the office? 

Scott Galloway is a professor of marketing at NYU's Stern School of Business. He's also a serial entrepreneur. He's founded nine companies, including Profit, Red Envelope, and Section Four.

He's served on the boards of directors of the New York Times Company, Urban Outfitters and Panera Bread. He's the best-selling author of many books, including, The Algebra of Happiness, Post Corona, and his latest book, which is called Adrift: America in 100 Charts. He's also the host of two podcasts, Prof. G. and Pivot. The latter, Pivot, which he co-hosts with the legendary tech reporter Kara Swisher. 

In this episode we talk about:

• Why work is such a big factor in determining our mental health
• What’s the number one retention factor at work
• How capitalism pushes us towards living to work rather than the other way around 
• Why Galloway believes men’s sense of self-worth is so often (maybe too often) based on their ability to earn 
• Where he stands on the idea of “bringing your whole self to work”
• How to get over being fired
• His thoughts on side hustles, work/life balance and whether remote work will stick around post COVID 
• Why he says being in the office is important for young workers if they want to get ahead, especially young men
• Why, despite making a great living, he still has economic anxiety
• The rare moments when he is able to enjoy himself and say, “this is enough”
• His addiction to the approval of others 
• How Galloway handles his critics, while retaining his willingness to go out on a limb and be controversial

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/scott-galloway-573

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As skeptics, we can question if our lives have meaning. Reflecting on the impact of your good actions can counteract these desolate feelings.

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 secular, Buddhist, and Jewish context for eighteen years.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “When Life Feels Pointless,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=e752ae06-4213-4731-a92b-975108aee1d7

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s hard not to like Lewis Howes. He’s extremely open about his personal struggles, from childhood trauma to romantic challenges, from family drama to failure and self-doubt. Lewis is a voracious learner, relentless in his pursuit of his interests–and he’ll bust his ass to get to the bottom of things in his own life.

His main area of interest is what he calls greatness. He hosts a podcast, a very popular one, called The School of Greatness. He has spent many many years interviewing people who have excelled in all sorts of areas and has become a true student. Lewis now has a new book, called The Greatness Mindset, in which he shares what he’s learned via all of these interviews and his own personal work.

In this episode we talk about:

• The source of Lewis’s interest in greatness
• The difference between a powerless mindset and a greatness mindset 
• The pernicious impact of self-doubt
• How to counter your inner critic via a ‘contract with yourself’ 
• How to face your fears
• The importance of mission and purpose
• Where selfishness fits into finding your mission and purpose
• And we have a friendly debate about the law of attraction

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/lewis-howes-571

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There’s so much compelling research behind the notion of self compassion. Even though many of us think we need an internal cattle prod in order to retain our edge, research shows that people who have a supportive inner attitude — who have their own back — are more resilient and effective. Not to mention happier. And nicer.

And yet, it is easy for skeptics to be turned off by some of the language and practices of self compassion. So today we brought in a guest who puts it in plain English, and is very funny. 

Carla Naumburg PhD is a clinical social worker, author, and mother. She has a lot to say about self compassion, and she does so in a way that skeptics will find appealing. 

One other note about Carla. A lot of her books are directed at parents, especially parents who are self critical. But this episode is aimed at everybody. We do talk a little bit about parenting at the end, but it’s not the main focus. Just so you have it, her books have titles such as: How to Stop Losing Your Sh*t with Your Kids and You Are Not a Sh*tty Parent. It’s common for parents to think they suck. It’s also common for humans to think we suck. That we are somehow terrible people. Sit back, relax, and let Carla disabuse you of that notion.

In this episode we talk about:

• What Carla calls “shitty human syndrome”
• Asking ourselves, what do I need right now?
• How, for skeptics, the data on the effectiveness of compassion practices is a powerful incentive.
• The third arrow of denial and distraction
• The very human problem of not knowing how to deal with our feelings.  
• Using “noticing, connection, curiosity, and kindness” as ways to get super clear about the practice of self-compassion 
• Curiosity as the antidote to judgment
• How loving-kindness ties into the ability to treat ourselves with self-compassion.
• Kinder self-talk
• Practicing self-care by setting boundaries 
• Single tasking as a strategy for decreasing stress
• And, using acronyms like SNAFU and KISS as a simple way to quickly access complicated thoughts

Content Warning: This episode contains explicit language. There is a clean version over on the TPH app and website. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/carla-naumburg-570

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Feel the true strength and happiness that comes from courageous vulnerability, the valuable art of knowing yourself deeply.

About Alexis Santos:

Alexis has practiced and taught Insight Meditation in both the East and West since 2001. He has been a long-time student of Sayadaw U Tejaniya (a well respected meditation teacher in Burma whose teachings have attracted a global audience), and his teaching emphasizes knowing the mind through a natural and relaxed continuity -- a style of practice that's particularly useful during our crazy lives. Alexis has completed the Spirit Rock/IMS Teacher Training, teaches retreats across the globe, and currently lives in Portland, Maine.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Strength from Vulnerability,” or click here.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The human animal doesn’t love paradox. We love a clear, simple story. Us versus them. Good versus evil. But life is rarely like that. This is especially true when it comes to wrestling with history. Our guest today calls it the patriot’s dilemma. How do you love your country while also acknowledging the painful and horrifying stuff that has happened in the past?

Dolly Chugh is a professor at the New York University Stern School of Business where she teaches MBA courses in leadership and management. This is her second time on the show. The last time she came on, she spoke about the concept of being “good-ish.” One of the reasons we get defensive when people criticize us is that we feel like it’s a threat to our precious notion of being a good person. But if you have a good-ish mindset, then there’s always room to grow. Her new book, A More Just Future, encourages us to do that for America.

Content Warning: This episode includes brief mentions of slavery and violence.

In this episode, we talked about:

• Why Dolly was scared to write this book
• What the home team bias is and how it shows up when we think about our past
• What belief grief is
• The “long time ago illusion”
• And, what Dolly calls being a gritty patriot 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dolly-chugh-568

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Usually episodes of this show are organized around one big question, but today’s guest, Jonathan Haidt, is just too interesting for one clear focus. In this episode, we dig into a ton of fascinating topics, including: why it can make you happier to see your own irrationality and hypocrisy, the value of interacting with ideas you do not like, how to navigate social media sanely, how to get ahead at work (and stay happy in the process), the upside of striving, the wisdom of the Stoics, and more. 

Jonathan Haidt is a renowned social psychologist from New York University’s Stern school of business and the author of many books, including: The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, and The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. Since 2018, he’s been studying the contributions of social media to the decline of teen mental health and the rise of political dysfunction. 

One other note: heads up that this conversation includes mentions of self-harm and suicide.

In this episode we talk about:

• Haidt’s elephant and rider metaphor that explains how our minds’ operate
• How to use different techniques from hypnosis to Buddhist and Stoic practices to tame our unconscious
• Why we’ve evolved to be hypocrites and how admitting our flaws can help us come out ahead
• Buddhism as a counterpoint to our success oriented culture
• The deleterious effects of social media on democracy and young people’s mental health 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jonathan-haidt-567

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Go from "seeing red" to seeing the value in anger without being carried away by it and doing or saying things you'll regret later.

About Jessica Morey:

Jess Morey is a lead teacher, cofounder and former executive director of Inward Bound Mindfulness Education which runs in-depth mindfulness programming for youth, and the parents and professionals who support them across the US, and internationally. She began practicing meditation at age 14 on teen retreats offered by the Insight Meditation Society (IMS), and has maintained a consistent commitment to meditation since. 

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Transforming Anger,” or click here: "https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=bf4246e0-89b5-47a2-a359-fbcae2103dbf".

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Very often, when somebody pisses us off, our first instinct might be to plan some sort of revenge even if we rarely, if ever, actually follow through with it. Obviously, the trait of revenge seeking is counterproductive and it happens to also feel terrible. All the great wisdom traditions tell us that we should be forgiving instead and this isn’t just some sort of finger wagging from the morality police; it’s just straight up good advice. It’s in your best interest not to be coiled up inside endless revenge fantasies. Of course, this is all easier said than done.

Today, though, our guest, sujatha baliga, both says it, and does it. She has an extraordinary story: she was horribly abused by a family member, and then, after an encounter with his Holiness the Dalai Lama, learned how to forgive the seemingly unforgivable. What’s more, she now helps other people do that. Perhaps, starting now, even you.

sujatha baliga is a long time Buddhist practitioner and internationally recognized leader in the field of restorative justice. She was named a 2019 MacArthur Fellow and is working on her first book. 

Content Warning: This episode includes multiple references to violent and traumatic experiences, including homicide and incest.

In this episode we talk about:

• Her personal story, including her early experience with sexual assault within her family
• Her life-changing encounter with his Holiness the Dalai Lama, and her experience with learning to forgive with the help of meditation
• Her experience working in the criminal justice system 
• Her definition of restorative justice, why she believes we need it, and the three key questions it asks in each case
• Whether there is evidence that restorative justice works
• The limits of restorative justice
• What happens if someone who is the victim of a crime does want traditional punishment or even revenge
• How you can apply what she’s learned in her life — including her time in the field of restorative justice — to our own lives
• And a specific meditation practice that can help you do it

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/sujatha-baliga-565

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Meditation and mindfulness doesn’t uproot your capacity to be judgmental, but it can help you see the value in being judgmental by learning how to work with the judging mind. 

La Sarmiento has been practicing Vipassana meditation since 1998. La is a mentor for the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program, a teacher with Cloud Sangha, and a contributor to the Ten Percent Happier app.

In this episode we talk about:

• How mindfulness can help us identify when we’re being judgmental
• The difference between discernment and judgment
• How it can be so delicious to be judgmental of others – but why it’s actually harmful to ourselves and others
• The four questions to ask when we notice ourselves going into judgment mode 
• How to operationalize the phrase “am I suffering right now?” 
• Investigating the motivations behind striving for success 
• Why owning up to being a jerk is sometimes the exact right answer

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/la-sarmiento-564

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Learn how to grow your resilience by connecting to a positive attitude, resolve, and allowing yourself to say yes to difficult emotions.

About Sebene Selassie:

Sebene Selassie was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and began studying Buddhism thirty years ago as an undergrad who majored in Comparative Religious Studies. Now, she is a meditation teacher, speaker, and author of the book “You Belong: A Call for Connection.” 

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Resilience.” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=460c0495-7971-4c98-8ed8-bb03a6c23ed0.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the last episode in our four-part series where we’re counter-programming against the way Valentine’s Day is often celebrated, and examining different kinds of relationships including romantic, friendship, and family. 

Today we’re probing a mystery: Why, from an evolutionary standpoint do we take heartbreak and rejection so hard? It can send the body and mind into a vicious spiral. As one genomics researcher has said, “heartbreak is one of the hidden landmines of human existence.“ 

There are countless pieces of art dedicated to heartbreak. Songs, movies, poems, the list is pretty much endless. But what does science say? Why does this happen to us? How exactly does the body react to a bad break up, from a romantic partnership, or a friendship or even a job? And what can we do to get over it?

These are the questions the writer, Florence Williams decided to tackle after her own 25 year marriage fell apart. And the answers are fascinating.

Florence Williams is a science journalist and author, and a contributing editor at Outside Magazine. Her latest book is called, Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey. It is just out in paperback, and has been nominated for the PEN/Wilson Award for Literary Science Writing. 

In this episode we talk about:

• The passage of time as a way to heal all wounds
• The role purpose plays in recovery 
• William’s three part heartbreak recovery toolkit (calming down, connecting to other people and finding purpose)
• The connection between openness and resilience
• How to become more open to a lack of closure
• The good and bad news about heartbreak
• And, rejecting some of the conventional approaches to heartbreak

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/florence-williams-562 

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Did you know that having friends can make you less depressed? One survey found that the average American had not made a new friend in the last five years but 45% of people said they would go out of their way to make a new friend if they only knew how.   

Our guest today, Dr. Marisa G. Franco, has written a bestselling book about how understanding your own psychological makeup and attachment style can help you make and keep friends. Franco is a psychologist and a professor at the University of Maryland. Her book is called Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make–and Keep–Friends.

This is episode three of a four part series in which we are doing some counter programming against the typical Valentine's Day fair. 

In this episode we talk about:

• Why friendship is undervalued in our society (while romantic love is overvalued) and why this is damaging on both a societal and individual level
• The impact of technology on our relationships as explained by something called “displacement theory”
• The biological necessity of social connection and the devastating physiological and psychological impacts of loneliness 
• Attachment style and its relationship to our friendships
• What you can do to make friends, including being open or vulnerable (without oversharing)
• How to reframe social rejection
• The importance of generosity
• How to handle conflict with your friends
• The difference between flaccid safety and dynamic safety in your friendships
• When to walk away from a relationship 
• How to make friends across racial, gender, and socioeconomic lines
• How to deal with social anxiety
• And how our evolutionarily wired negativity bias can impact the process of making friends

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/marisa-g-franco-561

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mindfulness isn't about making your heart open. It's about feeling however you feel, respecting that, and sometimes, saying no.

About Cara Lai:

Cara Lai has worked as an artist, wilderness guide, social worker and psychotherapist. She teaches teens and adults at Inward Bound Mindfulness Education, Spirit Rock, Insight Meditation Society, and UCLA.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Boundaries: Saying Yes to Saying No.”

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If you’re part of a family, you’ve probably experienced some level of drama. Maybe it’s minor annoyances, like an uncle who chews too loudly. Maybe it’s divorce, sibling rivalry, or abuse. There are lots of flavors in this noxious cornucopia.

Nedra Glover Tawwab is a licensed clinical social worker and the author of the new book Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships. She’s here to talk about how to handle family drama of all types.

This is episode two of a four part series in which we are doing some counter programming against the typical Valentine's Day fair. 

Content Warning: There are some brief mentions of rape and incest in this conversation. We also talk about substance abuse, sexual abuse, and domestic abuse.

In this episode we talk about:

• Nedra’s own experiences with family dysfunction
• The terms boundary issues, enmeshment, and codependency
• The uncomfortable realization that you might be (at least part of) the problem
• The limits of compassion
• What to remember if you choose to spend time with a family member with whom you have a difficult relationship
• Why you should not “un-become” yourself just to fit in with your family
• Why shaming people doesn’t make them better–and what does
• The temptation of receding into a victim mentality, and how to avoid it
• When to end a relationship
• What the term “toxic forgiveness” means
• Some of the myths about forgiveness
• And her remedies for various family drama scenarios, including: How do you get your mom to see a therapist?

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/nedra-glover-tawwab-559

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is part one of our four-part series where we’re counter-programming against the way Valentine’s Day is often celebrated, and examining different kinds of relationships including romantic, friendship, and family. 

Today’s guest hews a bit more closely to the traditional Valentine’s Day theme and will do some myth-busting around all the things we tend to get wrong when we talk about romantic relationships. 

Myisha Battle is the author of the book, “This Is Supposed to Be Fun: How To Find Joy in Hooking Up, Settling Down, and Everything in Between.” She also hosts the podcasts Down for Whatever, and Dating White. Much of her public work focuses on the early stages of relationships, but in her private practice, she counsels people at all stages, and in all kinds of relationships. 

Content Warning: Explicit language and conversations about sex. 

In this episode we talk about:

• Five ways to improve intimacy and connection in romantic partnership
• The nuts and bolts of sex, and how we often get intimacy and sex confused in unhelpful ways
• Understanding men’s and women’s cycles to depersonalize issues in sex and relationships
• The myth of finding “the one”
• The orgasm gap
• Bromance
• And if you’re looking, tips on how to make finding a partner easier

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/myisha-battle-558

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sharon expertly guides you through a body scan to help you feel relaxed and at home in your body.

About Sharon Salzberg:

Sharon Salzberg is a meditation pioneer, world-renowned teacher, and New York Times bestselling author. She is one of the first to bring mindfulness and lovingkindness meditation to mainstream American culture over 45 years ago, inspiring generations of meditation teachers and wellness influencers. Sharon is a co-founder of The Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA, and the author of twelve books, including the New York Times bestseller, Real Happiness, now in its second edition, and her seminal work, Lovingkindness. 

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Basic Body Scan” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=c637cfaa-665c-4a37-9c03-af3ef321d17d

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

So many people are interested in their family tree. What kind of lives did our ancestors lead and what do their stories say about us? Today’s guest, Spring Washam, asks us to reckon with the people who have come before us in order to fully understand who we are and why we do the things we do.

Washam is a well-known teacher, author, and visionary leader based in Oakland, California. She is the author of A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Courage and Wisdom in Any Moment and her newest book, The Spirit of Harriet Tubman: Awakening from the Underground. Spring is considered a pioneer in bringing mindfulness-based meditation practices to diverse communities. She is one of the founding teachers at the East Bay Meditation Center, located in downtown Oakland, CA and has practiced and studied Buddhist philosophy in both the Theravada and Tibetan schools of Buddhism since 1999.

In this episode we talk about:

• How Spring came to write about Harriet Tubman’s life
• Her work with plant medicine and the shamanic traditions
• The dream and the “conversations” Spring had with Tubman
• Why we are all so interested in ancestry
• How we can deepen our relationship with our ancestors 
• Family Constellation Therapy as a modality for doing ancestry work 
• Spring’s own family history
• Why she is still processing the experience of writing her book about Harriet Tubman 
• What she means by the “inner underground railroad” and how it is alive today
• And, how, in the inner underground railroad, freedom equates to nirvana 

Content Warning: mentions of suicide

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/spring-washam-556

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There may be a temptation in some circles to dismiss intuition as witchy, folkloric, or unscientific but there’s actually a ton of science around this. Our guest, author, actress and director, Amber Tamblyn will guide us through this. Tamblyn argues that intuition is a trainable skill but that this south-of-the-neck intelligence is often obscured by being too stuck in our heads and out of touch with our bodies. 

Tamblyn has been nominated for Emmy®, Golden Globe, and Independent Spirit Awards. Her work in television spans over two decades including starring roles on House M.D., and Two and a Half Men. On the big screen, she starred in movies such as The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and 127 Hours. She’s written seven books, including her latest, which is called Listening in the Dark: Women Reclaiming the Power of Intuition. 

In this episode we talk about:

• How she defines intuition, and the role it plays as a bridge between the conscious and unconscious parts of our minds
• Why we are conditioned to validate rational intelligence over intuitive intelligence  
• The gut/brain connection, and why the enteric nervous system is known as the “second brain”
• Practical tips for getting better at listening to our bodies
• The role of meditation in boosting intuition
• The scientific research that points towards the importance of having a relationship with nature, and how this can improve our intuition
• The relationship between intuition and creativity
• How we should think about dream life
• What to do when you’re not sure whether you should trust your gut
• How to recognize the difference between anxiety and intuition
• And why our society has downplayed the importance of intuition, which has been a tool used against women and men

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/amber-tamblyn-555

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Instead of fruitlessly trying to control everything in your life, take a lighter approach and throw a party for all that comes your way.

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 meditation that will help everyone he meets. "I have a meditation for that" is regularly heard from Jeff, so we've dubbed him the "Meditation MacGyver."

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Welcome to the Party,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=0a0c8786-37d5-4f61-9fd1-98986a05bc3d.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today’s episode is the first in an experimental new series called Meditation Party. 

Dan takes listener calls with fellow meditators Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren and get candid about their practices and dealing with life

Sebene Selassie is based in Brooklyn and describes herself as a “writer, teacher, and immigrant-weirdo.” She teaches meditation on the Ten Percent Happier app and is the author of a great book called, You Belong. Jeff Warren is based in Toronto and is also a writer and meditation teacher who co-wrote the book, Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics with Dan Harris. Jeff also hosts the Consciousness Explorers podcast.

Call (508) 656-0540 to have your question answered during the Meditation Party!

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/sebene-selassie-jef-warren-553

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The better you understand your brain – and the more effectively you can work with it – the happier and healthier you will be. This is the central contention of today’s extraordinary guest, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor and she makes this assertion based on two levels of deep expertise. First, Dr. Taylor is a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist. Second, back in the ‘90s, she experienced a severe hemorrhage in the left hemisphere of her brain causing her to lose the ability to walk, talk, read, write or recall any of her life. She later recovered, but that experience, which you will hear her describe in riveting detail, gave her incredible insight into how the brain works. 

She wrote a massive best-selling book called, My Stroke of Insight, which she has now followed up with a book called, Whole Brain Living, where she lays out exactly how to understand your brain and how to work with it.

In this episode we talk about:

• Dr. Taylor’s personal story and how her life has changed post-stroke
• The marvels of the human brain
• The differences between the brain’s two hemispheres 
• How our society is skewed towards the left hemisphere and how living too much in the left hemisphere can burn us out
• The brain’s “four characters” and how to work with these characters through a practice she calls “The Brain Huddle” 
• The differences and similarities between “The Brain Huddle” and another practice we’ve talked about before on this show called, “RAIN”
• And she describes a tool for understanding your emotions called, “The 90-Second Rule”

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jill-bolte-taylor-552

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Let’s be real: relationships aren’t always easy. Connect in a more meaningful way to stay engaged and caring with balance and ease.

About Pascal Auclair:

Pascal Auclair has been immersed in Buddhist practice and study since 1997, sitting retreats in Asia and America with revered monastics and lay teachers. He has been mentored by Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Massachusetts and Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California, where he is now enjoying teaching retreats. Pascal teaches in North America and in Europe. He is a co-founder of True North Insight and one of TNI’s Guiding Teachers.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Cultivating Balance in Relationships,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=f87533f5-7cee-4b03-bba3-89e299358936

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It can be difficult to grasp how much power of persuasion we actually have, or how to wield it wisely. 

In today’s episode we look at science-based strategies for observing the effect we have on others, and how to better deal with our fear of rejection, and asking for favors. 

Vanessa Bohns is a social psychologist and a professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University. She is the author of You Have More Influence Than You Think: How We Underestimate Our Power of Persuasion, and Why it Matters.

In this episode we talk about:

• How much we often underestimate our own influence 
• Why it’s so hard to say no
• Why people are paying attention to us more than we think
• The impact of asking for things in-person
• The responsibility that comes with being in a position of power
• What it means to experience your own influence 
• And how we can be more aware of the influence we have

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/vanessa-bohns-550

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We're sharing a preview of another podcast we love, The Happiness Lab. On The Happiness Lab, Dr. Laurie Santos explores all the ways we get our happiness wrong and what we can to do really feel better. She walks through the latest evidence-based strategies for improving your mental health, sharing practical advice on what will really bring more joy. In her latest New Year season of The Happiness Lab, Laurie tackles how to listen to the inner voice of what we really need in the new year. We're often looking into the future... hunting for the "next big thing." We can get so fixated with these events and the happiness we hope they'll deliver, that we forget to look for joy right now.

Actor and author Tony Hale (Veep, The Mysterious Benedict Society, Arrested Development) joins Laurie to discuss how he was always chasing new accomplishments, until he realized he was missing the chance to be happy living in the moment.

You can hear more from The Happiness Lab at https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/thls6?sid=tph/.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today’s guest is the man in charge of the world’s longest scientific study of happiness, a study that has been running since 1938. 

Dr. Robert Waldinger is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development at Massachusetts General Hospital, and co-founder of the Lifespan Research Foundation. He is also a Zen master and teaches meditation in New England and around the world. His TED Talk is one of the most viewed of all time, with over 43 million views. He’s the co-author, along with Dr. Marc Schulz, of The Good Life.

In this episode we talk about: 

• What the Harvard Study of Adult Development is and how it got started
• How much of our happiness is really under our control
• Why you can’t you be happy all the time
• The concept of “social fitness” 
• Why you should “never worry alone” 
• How having best friends at work can make you more productive
• And why, in his words, it’s never too late to be happy

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/robert-waldinger-549

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A busy city is an ideal place to cultivate loving-kindness and powerfully connect to those around you while you’re out and about.

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.  Jay is also 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 secular, Buddhist, and Jewish context for eighteen years.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Loving-Kindness in the City,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=8466115b-afe5-4323-8827-a8296031502d.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

According to guest Adam Grant, excellence does not require perfectionism, and rather than obsessing over the outcome of your work, there are better ways of measuring your own success. 

Adam Grant is a frequent flier on this show and the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 5 books that have sold millions of copies and have been translated into 35 languages: Think Again, Give and Take, Originals, Option B, and Power Moves. He’s an organizational psychologist who has been the top-rated professor at Wharton for seven years. He’s also the host of a newish podcast, called Re:Thinking with Adam Grant, in addition to his other chart-topping podcast, called WorkLife. 

In this conversation, we talked about:

• Adam’s definition of neurotic vs. normal perfectionism
• Why he thinks we’re seeing a rise in perfectionism amongst younger people
• Strategies for managing perfectionism
• A different metric for measuring the quality of our work
• The importance of finding the right judges of our work
• Reimagining our relationship to failure by setting a failure budget
• The difference between procrastination vs. what he personally suffers from: “precrastination”

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/adam-grant-547

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our guest today is one of the most prominent happiness researchers in the world, and he has come to the conclusion that living the good life boils down to one thing: finding awe. We’re going to learn what awe does to your body, how it changes your sense of self and your relationship to the world, and why we evolved to feel awe. We’re also going to get eight simple strategies for mainlining awe into our everyday lives. 

Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the faculty director of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. His new book is called, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life.

In this conversation we talk about:

• What awe is exactly
• How awe is different from other primal emotions like fear and appreciation of beauty
• Why we are awe-starved in our culture right now
• The connection between awe and morality
• How to get something called “moral beauty” into our lives as an alternative to the outrage served up by social media
• The importance of something called “collective effervescence”
• How to use nature, music, and even death as sources of awe 
• How to understand epiphanies
• And how awe has the potential to get us into trouble sometimes

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dacher-keltner-546

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Stressed about the strained economy? You’re not alone. Sebene offers tools to help see the abundance we all have in our lives.

About Sebene Selassie:

Sebene Selassie was 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 Comparative Religious Studies. Now, Sebene is a teacher, author, and speaker who teaches that meditation can help us remember our inherent sense of belonging, that our individual freedom affects absolutely everyone and everything, and that our collective freedom depends on each and every one of us. 

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Money Worries,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=06cd264b-c462-4e87-8a9a-76be4093c7f2.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When we think about Buddhism or the dharma, we probably don’t think about money. 

But when the Buddha laid out guidelines about how to make an ethical livelihood, this didn’t preclude material success. This episode is part two of this week’s series on money, and dives into how we can bring Buddhist principles to an area of our lives that can create so much fear, greed, and dread. 

Spencer Sherman is the founding CEO of Abacus, a values-driven financial firm, and certified mindfulness teacher.  He teaches the Fearless Finance program and The Mastery of Money program for NYU’s Inner MBA program.  He is also the author of The Cure For Money Madness.

In this episode we talk about: 

• How to identify and reframe our potentially harmful beliefs about money
• How to apply the Four Brahma Viharas to having a healthier relationship with our finances
• How to use the RAIN technique when we become anxious about money
• Spencer’s ‘Enough Practice’ designed to give us a sense of equanimity 
• How generosity helps us let go and can create a sense of abundance 
• How mindfulness of money can key us into interconnection
• And whether you can actually be a successful investor if you’re guided by Buddhist values

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/spencer-sherman-544

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Money is often a messy and complicated topic that provokes a lot of anxiety. 

Today’s show is the first episode of a two-part series on managing our relationship to money and understanding what role money really plays when it comes to our happiness. 

Morgan Housel is the author of The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness. Translated into over 50 languages with over two million copies sold, Housel is a two-time winner of the Best in Business Award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, winner of the New York Times Sidney Award, and a two-time finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism. 

In this conversation we talk about: 

• The difference between happiness and contentment
• The difference between being rich and being wealthy
• The elusive but crucial concept of “enough”
• The importance of not moving the goalposts when it comes to enough-ness
• Why financial success is more about behavior than intelligence
• How our lived experiences impact our perspectives on money 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/morgan-housel-543

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What is the Dalai Lama’s own meditation practice like? In this final episode, the Dalai Lama goes into great detail about the whys and wherefores of meditation, taking us way into the deep end. We cover single-pointed versus analytical meditation, gross and subtle levels of the mind, “true cessation,” and how we can use sleep as practice for the moment of death. Dr. Davidson returns to explain key, esoteric terms and to help us understand how we can apply elements of the Dalai Lama’s practice to our everyday lives.

Want more of The Dalai Lama’s Guide to Happiness? Download the Ten Percent Happier app wherever you get your apps.

Full Show Notes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dalai-lama-guide-542

Other Resources Mentioned:

• Healthy Minds Innovations
• Thukdam

Additional Resources:

Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/JoinChallengePod

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

One of the Dalai Lama‘s most challenging teachings, especially for secular western minds, is reincarnation. In this episode, His Holiness describes the Buddhist deity who he believes to be his “boss.” Dan then sits down with Richie again to discuss whether there is any scientific evidence for rebirth. The episode begins and ends with emotional moments, where members of our team respond with tears to being in the presence of the Dalai Lama.

Want more of The Dalai Lama’s Guide to Happiness? Download the Ten Percent Happier app wherever you get your apps.

Full Show Notes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dalai-lama-guide-541

Other Resources Mentioned:

• Healthy Minds Innovations
• UVA research on reincarnation

Additional Resources:

Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/JoinChallengePod

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How can we get better at selfishness? That’s one of many fascinating topics we cover in this episode, in which we play snippets from Dan’s one-on-one interview with His Holiness, and then unpack it all with Dr. Richard Davidson, neuroscientist and founder of the Center for Healthy Minds. We talk to His Holiness about “wise selfishness,” how to handle our enemies, and whether he ever gets angry. Then Richie recounts a time when His Holiness exhibited a rare flash of anger— towards him, in fact.

Want more of The Dalai Lama’s Guide to Happiness? Download the Ten Percent Happier app wherever you get your apps.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dalai-lama-guide-540

Other Resources Mentioned:

• Healthy Minds Innovations

Additional Resources:

• Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/JoinChallengePod

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Dalai Lama makes a risky move. When confronted by a young American woman coping with incredible loss, he does something surprising and counterintuitive. The incident surfaces a question that is more urgent now than ever: As social media, tribalism, individualism, and a global pandemic conspire to keep us separated from each other, how do we maintain what psychologists call “social fitness”?

In conversation with Dr. Richard J. Davidson, world renowned neuroscientist and longtime friend and collaborator of the Dalai Lama, we unpack the scientifically demonstrated benefits of the social connection embodied by His Holiness, and give easily accessible strategies to incorporate this wisdom into your everyday life. Also, Dan has a bit of an identity crisis. 

Want more of The Dalai Lama’s Guide to Happiness? Download the Ten Percent Happier app wherever you get your apps.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dalai-lama-guide-539

Other Resources Mentioned:

• Healthy Minds Innovations
• Compassionate Leadership Summit
• The Wellbeing Project

Additional Resources:

Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/JoinChallengePod

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dan flies to Dharamsala, India to spend two weeks in the orbit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. This is the first installment of a five-part audio documentary series, something we’ve never done before now. Over the course of the episodes, we talk to His Holiness about practical strategies for thorny dilemmas, including: how to get along with difficult people; whether compassion can cut it in an often brutal world; why there is a self-interested case for not being a jerk; and how to create social connection in an era of disconnection. We also get rare insights from the Dalai Lama into everything from the mechanics of reincarnation to His Holiness’s own personal mediation practice. 

In this first installment, Dan watches as a young activist directly challenges His Holiness: In a world plagued by climate change, terrorism, and other existential threats, is the Dalia Lama’s message of compassion practical — or even relevant? 

Full Show Notes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dalai-lama-guide-538

Other Resources Mentioned:

• Healthy Minds Innovations
• Compassionate Leadership Summit

Additional Resources:

Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/JoinChallengePod

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this practice you'll connect with your values and set an intention for how you want to show up today.

About Oren Jay Sofer:

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 McDonald, and Ajahn Sucitto, and a graduate of the IMS - Spirit Rock Vipassana Teacher Training, and current member of the Spirit Rock Teachers Council.

Oren is the author of Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication, a practical guidebook for having more effective, satisfying conversations. 

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “A Fresh Start,” or click here:

"https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=b4a40731-798e-4f9e-87ac-e889dd0298e2"

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Brené Brown has found that most people are only able to identify three emotions: happy, sad and pissed off. 

In this episode we explore how better understanding the full spectrum of your emotions, rather than drowning in them, can become an upward spiral. 

Brené Brown is the author of six #1 New York Times bestsellers. Her latest book is Atlas of the Heart, which is also the name of her HBO Max series. Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston and a visiting professor in management at the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business. She has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. Her TED talk on the Power of Vulnerability is one of the top five most-viewed TED talks in the world, with over 50 million views. 

In this episode we talk about:

• Why she decided to map the 87 key emotions and experiences
• How she was deeply influenced by the Buddhist concept of the “near enemy”
• Why she no longer believes it's possible to read emotions in other people 
• And why meaningful connections require boundaries

Content Warning: This episode contains explicit language, but a clean version of the episode is available at tenpercent.com and on the Ten Percent Happier app. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/brene-brown-436-rerun

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The New Year is approaching and this is a time when many of us think about making and breaking new habits. So today we’re bringing on one of the smartest people when it comes to habits, best-selling author and speaker Gretchen Rubin. Gretchen’s contention is that before you embark on a self-improvement project, it’s crucial to have some self-awareness about what kind of person you are. She has devised a framework called the Four Tendencies, which helps you identify your personality type in order to gain powerful insights into how you make or break habits. 

Rubin is a lawyer by training and began her career clerking for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Gretchen then went on to write a series of books that examine small and doable ways to boost our happiness in everyday life. These include: The Happiness Project, which spent two years on the bestseller list and sold over 3.5 million copies worldwide, and Better Than Before. We initially conducted the interview you’re about to hear back in 2017, when Gretchen released a book called The Four Tendencies. 

In this episode we talk about:

• How and why Gretchen developed the Four Tendencies framework
• How Gretchen’s framework can give each of us a recipe for successful habit change
• Breaking down the Four Tendencies: Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, or Rebels
• How these Four Tendencies are an overlapping Venn diagram 
• What “obliger rebellion” is and how to spot it in your relationships
• The value of forming an accountability group
• And why Gretchen sometimes calls herself a happiness bully  

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/gretchen-rubin-99-rerun

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Develop insight into your cravings and find some freedom by observing your thoughts and physical sensations when you are lost in desire.

About Alexis Santos:

Alexis has practiced and taught Insight Meditation in both the East and West since 2001. He has been a long-time student of Sayadaw U Tejaniya (a well respected meditation teacher in Burma whose teachings have attracted a global audience), and his teaching emphasizes knowing the mind through a natural and relaxed continuity -- a style of practice that's particularly useful during our crazy lives. Alexis has completed the Spirit Rock/IMS Teacher Training, teaches retreats across the globe, and currently lives in Portland, Maine.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Understanding Desire,” or click here: 

"https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=14b7581a-9121-40a8-87a1-11bfbf50c3b3"

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we’re tackling some thorny dharma questions. For example: How do you love someone without attachment? How do you love yourself when the self is allegedly an illusion? 

Kevin Griffin is both a long time Buddhist practitioner and also a 12 step participant, and in another previous episode we talked to him about the nature of craving and addiction. In this popular episode from the archives, Kevin talks about his semi-skeptical take on loving kindness – that venerable if somewhat misunderstood Buddhist concept and practice. His book is being re-released this month, with a slightly new title Living Kindness: Metta Practice for the Whole of Our Lives. 

In this conversation, we talk about:

• Loving kindness versus living kindness
• The dangers of modern loving kindness practice 
• The idea that you don't have to feel love all the time
• And we talk about a Buddhist text called the Metta Sutta. 

Content Warning: The interview includes brief references to addiction and other forms of suffering.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/kevin-griffin-370-rerun

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If you’re tired of the venom, preening, and predatory listening so common on all sides of our various cultural divides, this episode is for you. 

My guest today is Loretta Ross, who believes that “calling out,” which is quite common on social media these days, is adding way too much toxicity to the discourse and alienating people who might otherwise be allies. Instead, she believes in “calling in,” which steadfastly insists on a large measure of grace, and rejects the impulse to dehumanize. 

On today’s show, Loretta offers a compelling mode of engagement that is insistently open-minded and large-hearted, no matter where you stand on the political divide. 

Loretta describes herself as a radical Black feminist, activist, and public intellectual. She’s a visiting Associate Professor at Smith College, and she also teaches an online course called, Calling in the Calling Out Culture. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/loretta-ross-316-rerun

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The delicate practice of self-forgiveness can help undo habits of self-judgment, self-criticism, and help you reclaim greater self-esteem.

About Diana Winston:

Diana Winston is the Director of Mindfulness Education at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center and the author of several books including, The Little Book of Being: Practices and Guidance for Uncovering your Natural Awareness

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Self-Forgiveness,” or click here: "https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=73751265-07b6-4333-b2e6-a9d682e0b213"

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s possible to actually be addicted to self-criticism, especially as a way to keep yourself safe. But evidence shows that’s not true, and today’s episode dives into strategies to deal with your own self-hatred. 

This is part two of a series this week on forgiveness. In our last episode, Jack Kornfield focused on forgiving other people and in today’s episode, Tara Brach talks about forgiving yourself. 

Tara Brach is a meditation teacher, psychologist and author of several books including Radical Acceptance, Radical Compassion and Trusting the Gold. Her weekly podcast is downloaded 3 million times a month. Tara is also the founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington. 

In this episode we talk about:

• Why Tara says self-hatred “divides us from our ourselves”
• The benefits of learning the habit to stop kicking our own asses
• Simple meditations to help us with self-forgiveness
• Questions that can help us understand what really matters to us, and what we really want
• The power of seeing the profundity in mundane experiences 
• A refresher on a fan favorite meditation technique: RAIN
• How to start trusting reality more than we believe the beliefs about ourselves
• Forgiveness vs accountability

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/tara-brach-534

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The allure of resentment, of holding a grudge or nursing your rage can be super powerful. 

In today’s episode, Jack Kornfield, one of the great western meditation masters, talks about Buddhist strategies for not holding grudges and the self-interested case for forgiveness. This episode is the first of a two-part series this week on forgiveness. 

In this conversation we talk about: 

• What forgiveness is and isn’t 
• Whether forgiveness is a single act or an ongoing process
• The cost of not forgiving
• A forgiveness practice you can try in your meditation
• Whether it’s possible to respond to the misdeeds and transgressions of others with force and love at the same time
• Whether there are things that are unforgivable
• And Jack’s contention that forgiveness involves a shift in identity

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jack-kornfield-533

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sebene guides you through using physical touch points to reduce anxiety. This is a great alternative to focusing on breathing.

About Sebene Selassie:

Sebene Selassie was 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 Comparative Religious Studies. Now, Sebene is a teacher, author, and speaker who teaches that meditation can help us remember our inherent sense of belonging, that our individual freedom affects absolutely everyone and everything, and that our collective freedom depends on each and every one of us. 

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Working With Anxiety,” or click here: 

"https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=1fe8c559-04a4-4082-bf7c-e59d573c1252"

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we’re taking a run at something that is simultaneously a contemplative cliché and also a deeply desired psychological outcome: getting out of your head and into your body. So many of us want an escape route from the spinning, looping, fishing narratives and grudges in our head and our guest today has some very practical suggestions to help us do that. 

Kelly Boys is a mindfulness trainer and coach. She has helped design and deliver mindfulness and resilience programs for the UN, Google, and San Quentin State Prison. She is also the author of The Blind Spot Effect: How to Stop Missing What's Right in Front of You 

Today we’re going to talk specifically about a type of meditation that Kelly teaches called Yoga Nidra, which has been shown to help you sleep, improve your working memory, and decrease cravings. 

In this episode we talk about:

• The difference between Yoga Nidra and mindfulness meditation, and how Kelly seeks to combine them
• The value of being able to both observe and high-five your demons 
• Working with our “core beliefs” about ourselves and the world
• The calming power of drawing your attention to the back side of your body throughout the day
• Working with “opposites” as a way to get unstuck in difficult moments
• What Kelly means by the blind spot effect
• Setting intentions

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/kelly-boys-531

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The subject of anxiety never seems to lose its relevance. In this special episode we answer listener voicemails with one of the world’s leading experts on anxiety. 

Dr. Jud Brewer is the Chief Medical Officer at Sharecare and the Director of Research and Innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center. He is also the New York Times best-selling author of Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind and an expert in the field of habit change and the science of self-mastery. 

In this episode we talk about:  

• The current levels of anxiety in our culture
• Why fear and planning can be helpful, but worrying is not
• The role of curiosity and kindness in short circuiting anxiety 
• How to differentiate between anxiety and excitement
• Whether we can try too hard to treat our anxiety
• And why as a society we are moving away from distress tolerance 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/judson-brewer-530

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This simple but profound meditation will help you flip the judgment switch and genuinely welcome whatever your life presents.

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 meditation that will help everyone he meets. "I have a meditation for that" is regularly heard from Jeff, so we've dubbed him the "Meditation MacGyver."

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Welcoming Your Imperfection,” or click here:

"https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=dfa31f5f-cf3e-40a6-ae63-ecf0ee524803"

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We’ve all got parts of our personality or our past that we’re ashamed of. We might refer to these parts of ourselves as our demons, our baggage, or our secrets; no one is immune.

So, how do you want to deal with this situation? Stay coiled in shame and denial? That only makes the demons stronger. An alternative, per my guest Koshin Paley Ellison, is to approach your stuff with “healthy embarrassment.” That allows you to work more skillfully with your baggage so that it doesn’t own you. And once you’re cooler with yourself, that can improve your relationships with other people, which is probably the most important variable for your happiness. And healthy embarrassment is just one of many extremely useful things we are going to talk about today.

Koshin Paley Ellison is an author, Zen teacher, Jungian psychotherapist, and Certified Chaplaincy Educator. He is the co-founder of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, an amazing place which, among other things, trains people to be volunteers in hospice centers. Koshin is the author of a new book called Untangled: Walking the Eightfold Path to Clarity, Courage, and Compassion, which centers on a classic Buddhist list called The Eightfold Path, the Buddha’s recipe for enlightenment or, as Koshin puts it, “the most awesome combo platter.”

In this episode we talk about:

• What is The Eightfold Path and how it fits into another Buddhist list, The Four Noble Truths
• How to use the list to do life better
• The danger of perfectionism in putting the list to use in your life
• How to bridge the gap between what we say we care about and what we’re actually doing with our lives
• How sitting with your pain can lead to freedom
• The utility and pitfalls of gossip
• How we can look at the idea of “killing” in many different ways, including how one can “kill a moment” or “the energy in a room”
• How the concept of “right effort” can help us find the balance between not doing enough and overworking ourselves
• How being uncomfortable is a sign of real engagement with our practice
• And Koshin’s addition of the concept of “mystery” as another aspect of the eightfold path

Full Shownotes: www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/koshin-paley-ellison-528

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we explore the entire dread spectrum with Saleem Reshamwala, who took a deep dive on this very common, very uncomfortable emotion. What is dread, exactly? What evolutionary purpose does it serve? Most importantly, how do we deal with it? What are the antidotes?

Reshamwala has worked for The New York Times, PBS, and also TED, where he hosts a podcast called Far Flung. He is also the host of More Than A Feeling, another podcast here at Ten Percent Happier. Saleem and his team recently launched something called The Dread Project - we shared their first episode kicking off the series last week. It’s a five-day series that investigates dread. Each day of the challenge, listeners tackle dread in a different way. You can sign up for The Dread Project at dreadproject.com.

In this episode we talk about:

• Dread-management techniques, including: journaling, drawing, and welcoming your dread to the party inside your head
• How to face dread when it comes to climate change 
• And the biggest dread of all— death

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/saleem-reshamwala-527

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Setting intentions regularly can be an incredibly effective and deeply satisfying tool to map out how you want to live your life.

About Dawn Mauricio:

Dawn Mauricio discovered the practices of Buddhist meditation in 2005, and from then on, did what any well-intentioned perfectionist would do — plunge in head first! Since then, she's graduated from several teaching programs, including Spirit Rock's four-year Teacher Training. Her teaching style is playful, dynamic, and heartfelt, and she teaches extensively in her home-country of Canada, as well as the US, to teens, people of color, and folks of all backgrounds.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Daily Intention Setting,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=deaecaa8-6b71-43cd-b2f7-a406c93fafd4

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Can gratitude be more than just a platitude? Our guest today argues: yes. 

DaRa Williams is a longtime practitioner and teacher of meditation. She is one of the guiding teachers at Insight Meditation Society, a graduate of the Spirit Rock Insight Meditation Society Teacher Training Program, and also has a clinical mental health private practice in Manhattan. DaRa also says, only semi-facetiously, that she believes gratitude can be considered the fifth Brahma Vihara. 

In this conversation we talk about:

• How to start knitting gratitude into your everyday life
• Whether gratitude is possible when everything sucks
• How to avoid spiritual bypass
• The opportunity that suffering brings for happiness
• How to take our suffering less personally
• The power of reminding yourself that you are nature
• And our unconscious fascination with creating difficulty

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dara-williams-295-rerun

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There are all sorts of ways to struggle with getting things done. Maybe you’re a procrastinator, maybe you’re somebody whose energy flags in the middle of a project, maybe you’re too stubborn and don’t know when to quit, or maybe you’re somebody who sets too many goals and gets burned out. Whatever your situation, we all struggle with motivation. The good news is that there’s a whole crew of scientists who study best practices for getting things done, including today’s guest, Ayelet Fishbach, PhD.

Fishbach is one of the most eminent players in the field. She is the Jeffrey Breakenridge Keller Professor of Behavioral Science and Marketing at the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. She is also the author of Get It Done: Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation. 

In this episode we talk about:

• The crucial first step of setting goals
• How to pick the right goals for you
• Whether it’s more effective to have a goal that is positive – where you’re aiming to achieve something specific – or negative – where you’re aiming to stop doing something
• Whether to-do lists work
• Whether incentives work
• Best practices for monitoring your progress
• The importance of celebrating milestones 
• The importance of negative feedback
• Why the 10,000 steps per day goal makes motivational sense even though it’s been proven to be scientifically arbitrary 
• And how to know when to let go of a goal

Full Shownotes: www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/ayelet-fishbach-525

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bring an open minded curiosity to your big emotions and get to know yourself more fully, developing resilience to deal with all the feels.

About Sharon Salzberg:

A towering figure in the meditation world, Sharon Salzberg is a prominent teacher & New York Times best-selling author. She has played a crucial role bringing mindfulness and lovingkindness practices to the West.

Sharon co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) alongside Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield and is the author of nine books, including Lovingkindness, Real Happiness, and the most recent Real Love. Sharon lives in New York City and teaches around the world.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Being with Big Emotions,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=0606529f-6448-4fa4-8b87-d9c64666f743

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is for anyone who has ever had a tough or tricky moment. In other words, everyone who is currently drawing breath on planet earth right now.

Today’s guests are powerhouse duo Tsoknyi Rinpoche and Daniel Goleman.

Tsoknyi Rinpoche is one of the greatest living Tibetan masters who has a whole toolbox of techniques for dealing with difficult moments, habitual patterns, and common meditation obstacles. He’ll be in conversation with Daniel Goleman, a trained scientist and science writer best known for his landmark book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Together, they have just written a book called Why We Meditate: The Science and Practice of Clarity and Compassion. 

This is the fourth and final installment of our series called, The Art and Science of Keeping Your Sh*t Together. In each episode we bring together a meditative adept or Buddhist scholar and a respected scientist. The idea is to give you the best of both worlds to arm you with both modern and ancient tools for regulating your emotions.

In this episode we talk about:

• The single word that Rinpoche believes captures the most challenging aspect of modern life
• Two of the biggest obstacles for meditators
• What Rinpoche calls the “drop it” practice
• Rinpoche’s term, “beautiful monsters”
• The four steps of the “handshake” practice, which is meant for meeting difficult emotions and being OK with them
• Why reasoning with your feelings doesn’t work
• How to experience a fundamental OK-ness independent of external conditions
• A personal story from Rinpoche about being with one of his own difficult habits
• What Rinpoche calls the “three speed limits”
• And, “belly breathing”

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/tsoknyi-rinpoche-daniel-goleman-523

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Is it possible to learn to spot which state your nervous system is in and move from suboptimal states to much better ones? The subject of how to work with your own nervous system is called Polyvagal Theory and today’s guests Deb Dana & Kaira Jewel Lingo will give us a primer on what that exactly means. They will also talk about how our nervous systems are connected to the nervous systems of other people, and how we can learn to co-regulate our systems for the betterment of others. 

Deb Dana is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, who is a clinician, consultant and author specializing in complex trauma.  Her work is focused on using the lens of Polyvagal Theory to understand and resolve the impact of trauma, and creating ways of working that honor the role of the autonomic nervous system. She has written several books, including Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory. 

Kaira Jewel Lingo is a Dharma teacher with a lifelong interest in spirituality and social justice. After living as an ordained nun for 15 years in Thich Nhat Hanh’s monastic community, Kaira Jewel now teaches internationally in the Zen lineage and the Vipassana tradition, as well as in secular mindfulness, with a focus on activists, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, artists, educators, families, and youth. She is author of We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons for Moving Through Change, Loss, and Disruption. 

This is the third installment of our series called, The Art and Science of Keeping Your Sh*t Together. In each episode we bring together a meditative adept or Buddhist scholar and a respected scientist. The idea is to give you the best of both worlds to arm you with both modern and ancient tools for regulating your emotions.

In this episode we talk about:

• The basics of Polyvagal Theory
• A fascinating and easily graspable concept from Buddhist psychology called, “store consciousness”
• The interconnectedness of our nervous systems and the responsibility that creates for all of us
• How to handle being annoyed
• What happens when we beat ourselves up with “shoulds,” and how to stop doing that
• The value of simply knowing, in the moments when you’re stuck, that those moments are impermanent
• How to allow your suffering to inform your life
• The value of “micro-moments”
• Two ways of caring for painful states without suppressing them
• And the power of action and service in overcoming anxiety

Full Shownotes: www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/deb-dana-kaira-jewel-lingo-522

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The team over at our sister show, More Than a Feeling, are diving deep into an emotion that a lot of us can relate to: dread. And while that may sound unappetizing, they’ve found a way to make this series delightful and useful. 

It’s called “The Dread Project,” and today you’re gonna hear their kick off episode, and then next week, every day, in the More Than a Feeling podcast feed, you’ll find a short episode that will give you a new, short and fun exercise on how to work with your dread.

Sign up for The Dread Project Challenge at dreadproject.com, and you’ll get five days of emails with insights from each day’s episode and the exercise that goes with it.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A common idea in the west is that our feelings or emotions should be viewed with suspicion, superseded or overridden by rational thought, and that your mind is a battleground between emotions and rationality. But on the show today, guests Lisa Feldman Barrett and John Dunne are going to offer a very compelling science backed argument that disputes the notion that thinking and feeling are distinct. Furthermore, they argue that understanding how emotions are actually made can be a life or death matter. 

Lisa Feldman Barrett is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University with appointments at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Barrett is among the top 1% most-cited scientists, having published over 270 peer-reviewed scientific papers.  She has written several books, including How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, and Seven And A Half Lessons About The Brain. Her TED talk has been viewed more than 6.5 million times.

John Dunne holds the Distinguished Chair in Contemplative Humanities at the Center for Healthy Minds of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His work focuses on Buddhist philosophy and contemplative practice, especially in dialog with Cognitive Science and Psychology. He earned his PhD from Harvard. 

This is part two in a series we’re calling The Art and Science of Keeping Your Sh*t Together. In each episode we bring together a meditative adept or Buddhist scholar and a respected scientist. The idea is to give you the best of both worlds to arm you with both modern and ancient tools for regulating your emotions. 

In this episode we talk about:

• Lisa’s scientific definition of emotions
• John’s Buddhist contention that emotions, as a category, do not exist in Buddhism 
• The difference between suffering and discomfort
• What we can do to master our emotions including understanding what Lisa terms as our “body budget” 
• Becoming more emotionally intelligent
• Mastering our feelings in the moment
• Whether or not pain is an emotion and how it works
• How and why to be present in the here and now
• The upside of unpleasant feelings

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/lisa-feldman-barrett-john-dunne-520

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In western culture, there's been a long held view that our ability to reason should be placed above our emotions. But the hard truth is that our emotions are there and they're non-negotiable— and If you don't know how to work with them, they can own you.

The good news is that you can work with them and that there are many systems for doing so. To boot, you can learn a ton by listening to your emotions in the right ways. 

Today’s guests, Shinzen Young and James Gross will help us understand how to work with our emotions and offer both techniques in modern science and ancient wisdom in order to do so. 

Gross is the Ernest R. Hilgard Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, where he directs the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory. Young is an American mindfulness teacher and neuroscience research consultant. He teaches something called Unified Mindfulness, which you will hear him describe in this conversation.

This is part one in a series we’re calling The Art and Science of Keeping Your Sh*t Together. In each episode we bring together a meditative adept or Buddhist scholar and a respected scientist. The idea is to give you the best of both worlds to arm you with both modern and ancient tools for regulating your emotions. 

In this episode we talk about:

• James’s “modal model” for understanding what emotions are and how they work
• James’s five different types of strategies you can use for regulating your emotions
• Shinzen’s contention that emotions have two sides to them
• How we can experience emotions with more fulfillment and less suffering via a mindfulness training he calls “focus factors”
• James’s “process model of emotion regulation” 
• What James believes are the elements that unite science and Buddhism
• Shinzen’s contention that anyone can experience massive benefits of mindfulness training if their meditation practice has four key components

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/shinzen-young-james-gross-519

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Cultivate resilience by choosing to turn towards joy, and transform difficult times into growth opportunities and heartache into gratitude.

About La Sarmiento:

La Sarmiento is 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 Cloud Sangha. They graduated from Spirit Rock Meditation Center's Community Dharma Leader Training Program in 2012. As an immigrant, non-binary, Filipinx-American, La is committed to expanding access to the Dharma. They live in Towson, MD with their life partner Wendy and rescue pups Annabel and Bader.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Opening to Joy,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=ad5f5edb-d41b-4419-8cdd-cbe4155ef6ae.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We’re sharing a very special episode from a frequent guest of the show, Esther Perel. In this episode, “Love in War with Esther Perel: Ukraine,” you’ll hear a couples session led by Esther, between a husband and wife whose family has been torn apart by the war in Ukraine. Through the lens of relationship, you experience both the horrors of war and the relatability of intimate relationships.

Esther Perel is a psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author of many books, including Mating In Captivity. She’s also the host of the podcasts Where Should We Begin? and How’s Work?. 

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It is so easy to be pessimistic and, in fact, we are evolutionarily wired towards it with a built in negativity bias. This bias can be super useful, because it keeps us on guard for threats. But like all biases, it can warp the way we see the world. This is why optimism can be incredibly helpful. We’re not talking about blind optimism here but more about grounded, realistic and reasonable optimism. 

Our guest today, Robin Roberts, has come by this skill the hard way. Not only is she one of the boldest of the boldface names in the news business, where she is forced to confront crime, war, and natural disasters on the regular, but she’s also come through two very serious bouts of cancer.

Roberts is the longtime co-anchor of Good Morning America. She has a new book called, Brighter by the Day: Waking Up to New Hopes and Dreams in which she talks about how she has honed her optimism chops, and how you can, too. 

In this episode we talk about:

• How to strengthen your optimism muscle
• Making “one day, day one”
• Operationalizing your goals
• Robin’s meditation practice
• Napping during meditation
• How she gets enough sleep given her crazy schedule
• Envisioning the victory 
• Flipping the script so that instead of thinking “what could go wrong?” we think, “what could go right?” 

Full Shownotes: www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/robin-roberts-516

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Friendship might not necessarily be something you’ve considered to be an urgent psychological and physiological issue. One thing we explore a lot on the show is that the quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life, and sadly, in many ways, it’s harder than ever to make and keep friends. With loneliness and disconnection on the rise, our society just wasn’t constructed for social connection, and recent data suggests we’re in a friendship crisis, with many of us reporting that we have fewer close friendships than ever.

Our guest today is Robin Dunbar, an Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at Oxford University and the author of numerous books on the development of homo sapiens. Dunbar is perhaps best known for formulating “Dunbar's number,” which is a measurement of the number of relationships our brain is capable of maintaining at any one time. He is a world-renowned expert on human relationships, and has a ton of fascinating research findings and practical tips for upping your friendship game.

In this conversation, we dive into the science behind human relationships, the upsides and downsides of maintaining friendships on social media, the viability of friendships across gender lines, and what science says you can do to compensate if you feel you are currently lacking in close friendships. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/robin-dunbar-372-rerun

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Conflict is inevitable in any relationship. By identifying what really matters to us, we can strengthen our most meaningful connections.

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 McDonald, and Ajahn Sucitto, and a graduate of the IMS - Spirit Rock Vipassana Teacher Training, and current member of the Spirit Rock Teachers Council.

Oren is the author of Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication, a practical guidebook for having more effective, satisfying conversations.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “When We Fight With People We Love,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=4de9fcbb-c18d-44c0-bdca-328c38289a9f.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Relationships can be tricky. Especially if you find yourself upset with someone, and instead of talking it through, you let it fester until one moment you completely lose it and end up having to apologize. If you’ve ever felt like you had friction with the people in your life, or that you’ve been taken for granted, today’s episode offers you solid strategies to cope. 

Sister True Dedication is a Zen Buddhist nun and teacher ordained by the great meditation teacher and author, Thich Nhat Hanh. She edited several of Thich Nhat Hanh’s books, including The Art of Living and Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet. She was born in the United Kingdom, studied history and political thought at Cambridge University, and worked for BBC News before ordaining as a nun at the age of 27.

In this episode we talk about: 

• The six phrases – or mantras – that Thich Nhat Hanh recommended people use in their relationships
• Keeping misunderstandings “dust free”
• Taking action to make sure anger doesn’t fester
• The importance of recognizing that our understanding of the world is always partial
• Bringing mantras to work
• How Sister True Dedication went from journalism to the monastery

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/sister-true-dedication-514

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You may remember hearing a massively viral story from a few years ago about a school in Baltimore that gave students meditation, instead of detention. 

Ali Smith, Atman Smith, and Andres Gonzalez founded the Holistic Life Foundation and are the authors of Let Your Light Shine, which recounts the story of their work helping traumatized children in one of America’s most underserved cities, and how mindfulness tools can help children and communities not only survive, but thrive. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• The story behind their meditation-instead-of-detention initiative
• Their experience asking principals to give them the most challenging students
• What it’s like working in one of the most violent cities in the world
• The results from teaching students yoga and meditation
• How we can apply the lessons they’ve learned to meditation and life

Content Warning: Explicit language. For a clean version of this episode, please listen on the Ten Percent Happier app or at tenpercent.com

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/ali-smith-atman-smith-andres-gonzalez-513

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Instead of letting your inner critic control you, turn it into a caricature so you can find a little space in the relationship.

About Sharon Salzberg:

A towering figure in the meditation world, Sharon Salzberg is a prominent teacher & New York Times best-selling author. She has played a crucial role bringing mindfulness and lovingkindness practices to the West.

Sharon co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) alongside Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield and is the author of nine books, including Lovingkindness, Real Happiness, and the most recent Real Love. Sharon lives in New York City and teaches around the world.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Dressing Up The Inner Critic,” or click here: 

"https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=cadfb39c-1d15-49bf-a628-ee718d84cfe4"

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

One of the great perils and problems of our age is that we sometimes become too entrenched in our views and attached to being right. 

According to guest George Saunders, the antidote is something he calls “holy befuddlement.” 

George Saunders is the author of eleven books, including Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the 2017 Man Booker Prize for best work of fiction in English. His most recent book, Liberation Day, is a collection of short stories that explore the ideas of power, ethics, and justice, cutting to the heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. 

In this episode we talk about:

• How George Saunders creates “holy befuddlement” in himself and in his readers
• How shaving down dogmatism can help us be, in his words, less of a “turd”
• How to deal with heightened expectations we might have of ourselves
• Healthy ways to enjoy praise
• What it looks like to cultivate a relationship with our self, to the extent that the self exists
• The importance of moral ambiguity in his work
• The impact of meditating – or not meditating – on our creative work 
• And forgiveness and coming up short

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/george-saunders-511

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It might be hard to find a more annoying cliché than self-love; it can seem empty and inactionable. And even if you could make it work, I think many of us suspect it would lead to complacent resignation or unbridled narcissism. But there is an enormous amount of evidence that self-love, or as the scientists call it, self-compassion, can make you more effective in reaching your goals as well as lead to better relationships with everybody around you. 

On today’s show, the great meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg will walk us through the idea that love— both self-love and other love— is a skill that can be cultivated with massively positive impacts. 

Salzberg is a meditation pioneer, world-renowned teacher, and New York Times bestselling author. She is one of the first to bring mindfulness and lovingkindness meditation to mainstream American culture over 45 years ago, inspiring generations of meditation teachers and wellness influencers. Sharon is co-founder of The Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA, and the author of twelve books, including the New York Times bestseller, Real Happiness, now in its second edition, and her seminal work, Lovingkindness. Her forthcoming release, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom, is set for release in April of 2023 from Flatiron Books. Her podcast, The Metta Hour, has amassed five million downloads and features interviews with thought leaders from the mindfulness movement and beyond. 

This episode comes out in conjunction with Dan Harris’ recent TED Talk on self-love. You can watch the full talk here.

In this episode we talk about:

• The definition of self-hatred and its predominance in the West
• The real practical benefits of self-compassion
• Whether there is a difference between self-compassion and self-love
• Why many people resist the idea of self-love
• The distinction between empathy and compassion and how they work together in Buddhism
• How to have lovingkindness for somebody who doesn't feel we have the right to exist
• Reclaiming words like love and happiness
• And how generosity makes us more whole

Full Shownotes: www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/sharon-salzberg-510

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Relieve your anxiety by exploring the relationship between stress and thinking while learning to break unhealthy habit loops.

About Jess Morey:

Jess Morey is a lead teacher, cofounder and former executive director of Inward Bound Mindfulness Education which runs in-depth mindfulness programming for youth, and the parents and professionals who support them across the US, and internationally. 

She began practicing meditation at age 14 on teen retreats offered by the Insight Meditation Society (IMS), and has maintained a consistent commitment to meditation since. Diving head first into meditation at such a key developmental stage makes the revelatory perspective of mindfulness & compassion her natural home turf, and gives her an easy, conversational teaching style anyone can relate to.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Soothe Stressful Thoughts,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=eb664bd8-0560-439e-9e57-e5eddb622bfa.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Are you interested in suffering less? Today's guest, Dharma teacher Pascal Auclair, is going to talk about seven very specific and practical ways to train your mind for reduced suffering by exploring a Buddhist list called the seven factors of awakening, which is a part of the fourth foundation of mindfulness. We’ve talked about a bunch of Buddhist lists on the show before, but this is one of the happiest of all the lists to explore. 

Pascal Auclair has been immersed in Buddhist practice and study since 1997, sitting retreats in Asia and America. He has been mentored by Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield, who have both been previous guests on this show. Pascal is now a core teacher at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Massachusetts. He is also a co-founder of True North Insight and one of its guiding teachers. 

This episode is the fifth and final installment of a series we've launched on the four foundations of mindfulness.

In this episode we talk about:

• The movement from difficult states of mind to more beneficial and helpful states of mind
• How the 7 factors can help you create your “best mind”
• The difference between the “energizing” and “calming” factors 
• How to practically apply these factors to your daily life
• And specifically how the seven factors can improve your relationships

Full Shownotes: www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/pascal-auclair-508

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thoughts are not your enemy in meditation. If you’re getting distracted while you meditate, that’s not necessarily a problem. Thoughts are natural. They’re always going to come. The point is not to clear the mind and to magically eradicate all thinking, the point is to have a different relationship to your thoughts. 

When we’re not mindful of our thoughts, they march into the room, tell us what to do, and we act them out, reflexively, habitually and automatically— like puppets on a string. Our guest today, Dharma teacher Tuere Sala, is going to talk about how to cut the strings of what can often be a malevolent puppeteer.

Sala is a Guiding Teacher at Seattle Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock Retreat Center. She’s a former prosecutor who has practiced Vipassana meditation for over 30 years and is especially focused on bringing the dharma to nontraditional places. She is a strong advocate for practitioners living with high stress, past trauma and difficulties sitting still. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• Why we get caught in our thinking
• Understanding that our thoughts are not who we are
• How to direct our attention away from negative thoughts
• How the idea of permanency causes suffering
• Using thinking itself as the object of our meditation
• Noticing mind states
• Relative reality vs. ultimate reality
• The eight states of mind and their felt sense in the body
• And Sala’s definition of true liberation

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/tuere-sala-507

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Let your attention be fueled by interest and discover how meditation can feel more engaging and enjoyable.

About Cara Lai:

Cara Lai spent most of her life trying to figure out how to be happy, or at least avoid total misery, which landed her on a meditation cushion for the majority of her adulthood. Throughout many consciousness adventures including a few mind-bendingly long meditation retreats, she has explored the wilderness of the mind, chronic illness, the importance of pleasure, and a wide range of other things that she might get in trouble for mentioning publicly. 

In the past, Cara has worked as an artist, wilderness guide, social worker and psychotherapist, but at this point she’s given up on being an adult in exchange for an all-out mindfulness rampage. Her teaching is relatable, authentic, funny and sometimes crass, and is accessible for many people. She teaches teens and adults at Inward Bound Mindfulness Education, Spirit Rock, Insight Meditation Society, and UCLA; ultimately hoping to become as good of a show-off as Dan. And to help people be happier.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Undomesticate Your Mind,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=8a578725-d3e5-464a-bcd2-e1789716e3e5.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Buddha was an inveterate list-maker who gave us easy to remember checklists to help us do life better. One of the handiest lists the Buddha made was called the five hindrances, which is a part of the fourth foundation of mindfulness. This list outlines the five things that mess us up when we’re trying to meditate — or, in fact, when we’re trying to do anything. If you’ve got issues right now, odds are pretty high that you are in the throes of one of the hindrances. The excellent news is that the Buddha not only made a taxonomy of the hindrances but also a long list of antidotes. We’re going to run through all of this today with Bonnie Duran, a great dharma teacher who is making her second appearance on the show.

Duran is a teacher and member of the Teachers Council at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and Director of the Center for Indigenous Health Research at the University of Washington’s Indigenous Wellness Research Institute. She combines extensive research and practice of Buddhism with her deep understanding of indigenous spiritual practices.

This episode is the fourth installment of a series we've launched on the four foundations of mindfulness.

In this episode we talk about:

• How the five hindrances manifest in our daily lives
• Using the RAIN technique to investigate the 5 hindrances
• Whether there is any type of desire that is helpful
• Cultivating a sky-like attitude
• How to not water the seeds of negativity 
• The similarities between Indigenous beliefs and what the Buddha taught
• How body scans can be an antidote to sleepiness
• And whether you can ever uproot the hindrances entirely

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/bonnie-duran-505

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Most of us come into the world with the suspicion that we are the center of the universe. This self-preoccupation is natural, but it can often lead to unhappiness in the form of rumination, wallowing, comparison, etc. 

Our guest today, author Karen Armstrong, has a clear proposal for how we can stop living what she calls “artificial” lives and shave down our inborn self-centeredness. Not for nothing, she believes her proposal has the added benefit of perhaps helping to save the planet. 

Armstrong is a former nun who has become one of the world’s leading thinkers on religion (particularly the monotheistic ones). She has written such bestsellers as: A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, The Battle for God, Islam: A Short History, and Buddha. Her latest book is called Sacred Nature: Restoring Our Ancient Bond with the Natural World.

In this episode we talk about:

• Practices you can try for using nature as a way to make yourself happier
• How Armstrong conceives of God at this point in her life
• The benefits of the Confucian practice of “quiet sitting”
• How her time as a nun paradoxically made her more self-preoccupied rather than less
• And her definition of holiness

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/karen-armstrong-504

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bringing awareness to everyday activities can be a taste of freedom to help you move through your day with clarity, energy, and well-being.

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 Happier app, you can search for “While Going About Your Day,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=0a6b880d-a114-4db6-a502-3f70c56e3078.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ever have that experience where you catch yourself in a moment of anger, judgmentalism or fear? And, with a wince, immediately tell yourself a whole story about what kind of person you are? How do you stop this from happening or cut it short once it’s already begun?

The answer? Mindfulness or having the basic self-awareness to see what kind of mental states are arising so that you are not owned them. To use a technical Buddhist term this is called, “mindfulness of mind.” It’s the ability to see your mind states without taking them personally and it comes from one of the Buddha’s most famous lists called the four foundations of mindfulness. 

Today we are going to learn about the whys and wherefores of mindfulness of mind from one of the most esteemed living Buddhist scholars, Bhikkhu Bodhi. Bodhi is a monk, originally from NYC. He is a prolific translator, scholar, and author of books on the Buddha’s teachings. He is also President of the Buddhist Association of the United States and co-founder and Chairperson of the Board of Buddhist Global Relief. 

This episode is the third installment of a series we've launched on the four foundations of mindfulness.

In this episode we talk about:

• The historical backdrop of the four foundations of mindfulness
• What exactly the Buddha meant by “mindfulness of mind”
• How we can know whether or not we are being mindful 
• How not to let our mindfulness become a sort of compulsive internal nanny state
• Practical instructions for the third foundation (given that the Buddha never actually gave them)
• And Bhikkhu Bodhi’s view that we should not be mindfulness zealots

Photo Credit: Hsiao Ying Chang (史曉瑛）

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/bhikkhu-bodhi-502

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we’re talking about an often overlooked source of suffering— housework. There are so many ways in which housework can be a bummer. Maybe we’re feeling guilty about the fact that our place is always a mess. Maybe we’re driving ourselves crazy with obsessive cleaning. Maybe we have relatives who are overly critical about the state of affairs in our home. Maybe gender politics with our spouses and partners is a source of strife. 

Our guest today, KC Davis, helps deconstruct these often rigid and daunting cultural norms that surround the concept of domestic bliss. As a self-styled anti-perfectionist, Davis has garnered a huge audience on TikTok with more than 1 million followers. She has also written the book, How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing. On today’s show, she offers a ton of practical tips that are rooted in self compassion and the dogged determination not to use shame as a motivator when it comes to our domestic lives. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• One of KC’s slogans,“You don’t exist to serve your space, your space exists to serve you” 
• The difference between what’s “normal” and what’s “functional”. For example, why that pile of laundry on the floor is just fine if it works for you
• Why it’s important to think of house work as morally neutral. For example, why doing dishes has nothing to do with you being a good or bad person
• Why she doesn’t believe laziness exists
• The power of what she calls “category cleaning” 
• Breaking the clean/not clean binary
• And achieving equitable division of labor around the house 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/kc-davis-501

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this previously released episode, Malcolm Gladwell responds to backlash he received over his belief that working in an office—and the collaborative creative environment it can offer—is in your best interest (and in the interest of others). We also dive deep into some of the important themes featured in the seventh season of his podcast Revisionist History, including: kindness, generosity, and sacrifice. And, Dan and Gladwell share their biggest mistakes as journalists.

Malcolm Gladwell is the president and co-founder of Pushkin Industries, and the author of six New York Times bestselling books including The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, David and Goliath, and Talking to Strangers. He’s also the host of the new Pushkin podcast Legacy of Speed. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• The backlash Malcolm faced from his work from home comments 
• Pushing the noise aside when it comes to social media 
• Lessons in kindness from a recent Revisionist History episode
• The importance of flow states
• How he personally relaxes 
• Why people should have a lifelong pursuit or practice
• What he thinks now about his famous 10,000 hours argument
• Why we need to engage and investigate the views of others to be morally alert as human beings
• His biggest journalistic mistake

Content Warning: Brief mention of eating disorders. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/malcolm-gladwell-486

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Is it possible to be happy no matter what happens? Today we’re going right to the source of what makes us unhappy to learn how to disarm and disable potential suffering before it owns us. 

Everything that comes up in our mind is either pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. In other words, with everything we experience, we either want it, don’t want it, or we don’t care. In Buddhism, this is called “feeling tones” or “vedana” and it is known as the second foundation of mindfulness in the Buddha’s comprehensive list. So why does this matter? Because if you are unaware of the pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral tones, then you are being controlled by them. Similarly, if you are unaware that certain people or things provoke aversion, then you can unthinkingly avoid or even be aggressive towards them. In this way, we can be like puppets on a string— just yanked around by greed, hatred, and numbness. 

Today’s guest, dharma teacher Christina Feldman, is going to drill down on this embarkation point for our suffering, zap it with mindfulness and help us understand how we don’t have to live like puppets on a string. 

Feldman began teaching in the west in the seventies after spending years in Asia studying Buddhist meditation. She is a co-founder of Gaia House, a retreat center in the UK, and has also served as a guiding teacher at Insight Meditation Society beginning in its early days. More recently, she is a co-founder of Bodhi College, which is dedicated to the study and practice of the early teachings of the Buddha. She is the author of a book called, Boundless Heart: The Buddha's Path of Kindness, Compassion, Joy, and Equanimity, and co-author of Mindfulness: Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Psychology.

This episode is the second installment of a series we've launched on the four foundations of mindfulness.

In this episode we talk about:

• Why vedana is often called, “the ruler of consciousness” or “the king, or the queen of consciousness”
• How to practice with vedana, and the benefits thereof
• Her lovely description of the Buddha as being very focused on understanding “the architecture of distress and unhappiness” 
• Her contention that unhappiness is not a life sentence. 
• Her definition of genuine happiness
• What she means by the power of “giving greater authority to intentionality, rather than to mood or story”
• And her personal practice of setting life intentions every year

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/christina-feldman-500

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jessica Nordell is a science and culture journalist who has written for the Atlantic and the New York Times. She earned a B.A. in physics from Harvard and an M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her new book is called The End of Bias, A Beginning: The Science and Practice of Overcoming Unconscious Bias. 

Photo Credit: Leslie Plesser

In this episode we talk about: 

• Why humans have biases
• What happens physiologically when biases are challenged
• Why some of the most popular personal and institutional strategies for confronting biases do not work 
• The role that mindfulness and loving-kindness can play in reducing bias

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jessica-nordell-rerun

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Try this powerful metta practice where you connect directly with the feelings of loving-kindness in your body and then expand out to others.

About Dawn Mauricio:

Dawn Mauricio discovered the practices of Buddhist meditation in 2005, and from then on, did what any well-intentioned perfectionist would do — plunge in head first! Since then, she's graduated from several teaching programs, including Spirit Rock's four-year Teacher Training. Her teaching style is playful, dynamic, and heartfelt, and she teaches extensively in her home-country of Canada, as well as the US, to teens, people of color, and folks of all backgrounds.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Loving-Kindness in the Body,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=a51646c8-17e1-4f15-abcd-5082f1c5f8e5.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s such a common desire to get out of our heads — to escape the nonstop, mostly self-referential chatter, the habitual storylines, the ancient resentments and the compulsive self-criticism. Many of us take elaborate and even drastic measures in this regard like self-medication, shopping, tech addiction, and so on. But there’s a much healthier option that is readily and perpetually available. In fact, we’re dragging it around with us all the time, the body. 

The Buddha is said to have laid out four ways to be mindful. In other words, to be awake to whatever is happening right now. The first of these four foundations of mindfulness is mindfulness of the body and todays’ guest, meditation teacher Dawn Mauricio, will walk us through the practical applications of this foundation. 

Mauricio has been meditating since 2005 and is a graduate of Spirit Rock’s four-year teacher training program. She is also the author of the book, Mindfulness Meditation for Beginners: 50 Meditations to Practice Awareness, Acceptance, and Peace. Dawn’s been on the show before to talk about how to handle difficult people.

This episode is the first installment of a series we've launched on the four foundations of mindfulness.

In this episode we talk about:

• What it actually means to get out of your head and into your body and all of the practical ways to get there 
• How strong emotions and seductive technology can work against us
• And what to do when being aware of your body might actually not be the best thing for you

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dawn-mauricio-498

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Emotionally immature people (EIP’s) are hard to avoid and most of us, if not all of us, have to deal with them at some point in our lives. These interactions can range from mildly annoying to genuinely traumatic, especially if the emotionally immature people in question are our own parents, which is true for an awful lot of us.

Today’s guest, clinical psychologist Lindsay C. Gibson, gives advice for dealing with emotionally immature people, whether they’re your parents or not. She has written a sleeper hit book on the subject called, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents.

In this episode we talk about:

• The signs of emotional immaturity
• Whether or not I’m emotionally immature
• What happens to children who are raised by emotionally immature parents, including their signature coping strategies
• Why adult children of EIP’s turn to healing fantasies, and how to let them go
• How to cope with emotionally immature parents as an adult
• What role compassion should and should not play in your relationship with EIP’s
• How to heal

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/lindsay-gibson-497

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hope is a skill. Using the phrase ‘let it be’ invites us to be more relaxed with life and lets us envision a better world.

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 Comparative Religious Studies. Now, Sebene is a teacher, author, and speaker who teaches that meditation can help us remember our inherent sense of belonging, that our individual freedom affects absolutely everyone and everything, and that our collective freedom depends on each and every one of us. 

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Learn Acceptance, Spark Hope,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=0c9bda64-63da-44ed-8569-cfb9bd3d38cc.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the last couple of years, many people have been extolling the virtues of something called the "Enneagram" but—what the hell is it? 

On today’s show, longtime dharma teacher, Susan Piver, is here to demystify it. As she explains, the Enneagram is a tool that allows people to figure out their personality type and says it has been one of, if not the most important, tool in her personal development. 

Piver has been a student of Buddhism since 1995, graduated from a Buddhist seminary in 2004 and was authorized to teach meditation in 2005. In 2012, she founded The Open Heart Project— the world’s largest online-only meditation center. She’s written ten books including her latest called The Buddhist Enneagram: Nine Paths to Warriorship. 

In this episode we talk about:

• What the Enneagram is and why Piver finds it so helpful
• What she means by warriorship
• The nine personality types, which she views as maps of our blind spots
• Why, unlike other personality systems, there is no test for the Enneagram (at least in Susan’s view)
• And we talk about why Susan thinks the Enneagram and Buddhism mix so well even though on first blush it would seem to contradict the dharmic emphasis on the self being an illusion

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/susan-piver-495

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Most of us talk all day long. We speak to each other, we type at each other, and of course, we talk to ourselves internally. Talking and listening is a key part of what it means to be human and It’s very hard to be a successful person if you can’t communicate your ideas and listen to and understand other people. 

Today’s guests, Mudita Nisker and Dan Clurman, are here to explain some very simple and easy to understand communication skills that can transform your life. Their new book, Let's Talk: An Essential Guide to Skillful Communication concisely summarizes their teachings and they’re coming on the show today to walk us through some of the key learnings from this book. 

Over the past thirty years Nisker and Clurman have provided communication training to individuals and organizations in the private, public, government, and nonprofit sectors. They have also led workshops, and trained staff at leading mindfulness centers such as Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Clurman is a communication coach and professor in the Ageno School of Business at Golden Gate University in San Francisco. Nisker is a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice. 

In this episode we talk about:

• Talking vs. listening
• Content vs. process 
• The power of saying nothing at all
• Reflective listening 
• The Buddhist concept of Right Speech
• Content goals vs. relationship goals
• “I” language
• Provisional language
• Stating positive intentions
• Framing
• And Flooding vs. chunking

You can read an excerpt of the book, Let's Talk: An Essential Guide to Skillful Communication if you subscribe to our TPH newsletter, which comes out every Sunday. And you can subscribe if you go to: tenpercent.com/newsletter.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dan-clurman-and-mudita-nisker-494

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Being aware of the breath is a foundation of mindfulness. The goal is to gently return, with growing kindness, again and again.

About Sharon Salzberg:

A towering figure in the meditation world, Sharon Salzberg is a prominent teacher & New York Times best-selling author. She has played a crucial role bringing mindfulness and lovingkindness practices to the West.

Sharon co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) alongside Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield and is the author of nine books, including Lovingkindness, Real Happiness, and the most recent Real Love. Sharon lives in New York City and teaches around the world.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Basic Breath Meditation,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=3ff23976-95f1-48fc-8973-fec1210b12dc.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

At times, self-improvement can seem like a never-ending hallway filled with limitless shame and insufficiency. So when something as simple as the breath falls into this category, it seems only natural to meet that news with some resistance. Our guest today, James Nestor argues that many of us, of all things, are breathing incorrectly but that by fixing our breathing, it can help with both physical and psychological ailments. 

Nestor is a science journalist who wrote a book called, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, which spent 18 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was translated into more than 35 languages.

In this episode we talk about: 

• How Nestor got interested in breathing in the first place
• Why we are the worst breathers in the animal kingdom
• The importance of posture
• The deleterious effects of mouth breathing
• Why we need to chew more
• The relationship between breathing and anxiety
• The relationship between breathing and sleep
• And we dive into a variety of breathing exercises 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/james-nestor-492

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Most of us worry about money sometimes, but what if we changed the way we thought about our relationship to finances? Today’s guest, William MacAskill, offers a framework in which to do just that. He calls it effective altruism. One of the core arguments of effective altruism is that we all ought to consider giving away a significant chunk of our income because we know, to a mathematical near certainty, that several thousand dollars could save a life.

Today we’re going to talk about the whys and wherefores of effective altruism. This includes how to get started on a very manageable and doable level (which does not require you to give away most of your income), and the benefits this practice has on both the world and your own psyche.

MacAskill is an associate professor of philosophy at Oxford University and one of the founders of the effective altruism movement. He has a new book out called, What We Owe the Future, where he makes a case for longtermism, a term used to describe developing the mental habit of thinking about the welfare of future generations. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• Effective altruism
• Whether humans are really wired to consider future generations
• Practical tips for thinking and acting on longtermism
• His argument for having children
• And his somewhat surprising take on how good our future could be if we play our cards right

Podcast listeners can get 50% off What We Owe the Future using the code WWOTF50 at Bookshop.org.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/william-macaskill-491

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

After an intense day, try this simple meditation to decompress and de-stress by getting comfy and putting your feet up.

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 meditation that will help everyone he meets. "I have a meditation for that" is regularly heard from Jeff, so we've dubbed him the "Meditation MacGyver."

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “End of Day Decompress: The Porch Sit,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=df063222-15c4-4b4c-b15c-5ce2b6ca8d80.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode from our archives, psychologist Kelly McGonigal dives into her book The Joy of Movement and practical steps on how to develop healthy habits.

Kelly McGonigal, PhD, is a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University, and a leading expert in the new field of “science-help.” She is passionate about translating cutting-edge research from psychology, neuroscience, and medicine into practical strategies for health, happiness, and personal success. She is the author of The Joy of Movement, The Willpower Instinct, and The Upside of Stress.

In this conversation we talk about: 

• Why her book is a love letter to movement and human nature 
• The science behind the runner’s high
• Why she wants to change the conversation around movement 
• Why shame and self-criticism is disempowering and not motivating 
• The value of setting intentions
• How Kelly has used psychology and meditation to relieve her own pain and suffering 
• And what Tonglen meditation is — and its impact on her life 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/kelly-mcgonigal-rerun

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The idea of loving people no matter what— no matter how obnoxious or unacceptable their behavior is can sound simultaneously treacly and downright impossible. 

But today's guest Father Gregory Boyle talks about the practicality of this idea by showing how the concept of loving no matter what can be used as a tool— not to condone bad behavior but to help see people as doing their best, no matter how unskillfully. 

Father Gregory Boyle is a Jesuit priest who founded a remarkable organization called Homeboy Industries, which is the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation, and reentry program in the world. He has a new book out called, The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. 

In this episode we talk about:

• How Homeboy Industries began 34 years ago
• Boyle’s practices for working with stress 
• What he means when he says you have to put death in its place
• Motivating people through joy rather than admonition
• How to catch yourself when you’re about to demonize or be judgmental
• How to set boundaries
• How to dole out consequences without closing the doors to anybody
• And we talk about Father Boyle’s quite expansive and inclusive notion of God

Content warnings: There are mentions of sensitive topics including, sexual trauma, violence, drug abuse and domestic abuse. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/father-gregory-boyle-486

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our busy lives rarely afford us time to reflect on what’s truly important. Remembering what matters most empowers us to engage meaningfully.

About La Sarmiento:

La Sarmiento is 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 Cloud Sangha. They graduated from Spirit Rock Meditation Center's Community Dharma Leader Training Program in 2012. As an immigrant, non-binary, Filipinx-American, La is committed to expanding access to the Dharma. They live in Towson, MD with their life partner Wendy and rescue pups Annabel and Bader.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Finding Purpose: What Matters Most?,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=c83def97-a4b0-420b-b7b2-223636f3546e.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today’s episode looks at one of the hardest Buddhist principles to grasp— the notion that the self is an illusion. Many people get stuck on the misunderstanding that they don’t exist. They look in the mirror and say, “Of course I exist. I’m right there.” And that’s true, you do exist, but just not in the way you think you do. 

Today’s guest, Jay Garfield explores this notion by arguing that you are indeed a person just not a self— a principle that can simultaneously feel both imponderable and liberating. 

Jay Garfield is the Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy, Logic, and Buddhist Studies at Smith College and a visiting professor of Buddhist philosophy at Harvard Divinity School. He is the Author of multiple books, including his latest, which is called, Losing Ourselves: Learning to Live without a Self.

In this episode we talk about: 

• The difference between a person and a self
• The problems with being taken by the illusion of selfhood
• Why he believes the illusion of self is not an evolutionary design flaw
• The many benefits of “losing ourselves”
• How to actually lose ourselves
• The concept of Interconnection
• His definition of real happiness
• The difference between pain and suffering and how to have the former without the latter

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jay-garfield-487

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Since the start of COVID-19, more people are working from home, and with that, more people have strong opinions about whether or not it’s the best route to take.

In today’s episode, Malcolm Gladwell responds to recent backlash over why he believes that working in an office—and the collaborative creative environment it can offer—is in your best interest (and in the interest of others). We also dive deep into some of the important themes featured in the seventh season of his podcast Revisionist History, including: kindness, generosity, and sacrifice. And, Dan and Gladwell share their biggest mistakes as journalists.

Malcolm Gladwell is the president and co-founder of Pushkin Industries, and the author of six New York Times bestselling books including The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, David and Goliath, and Talking to Strangers. He’s also the host of the new Pushkin podcast Legacy of Speed. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• The backlash Malcolm faced from his work from home comments 
• Pushing the noise aside when it comes to social media 
• Lessons in kindness from a recent Revisionist History episode
• The importance of flow states
• How he personally relaxes 
• Why people should have a lifelong pursuit or practice
• What he thinks now about his famous 10,000 hours argument
• Why we need to engage and investigate the views of others to be morally alert as human beings
• His biggest journalistic mistake

Content Warning: Brief mention of eating disorders. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/malcolm-gladwell-486

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bringing mindfulness to walking is an opportunity to build awareness and relax the mind as you move about your day.

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 Happier app, you can search for “Everyday Natural Walking,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=adef9231-650a-4853-ab5b-bcf476ac21a7.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Oftentimes Buddhism can take a tough love, no nonsense approach to happiness by saying, if you want to be happier, sometimes you need to face hard truths. 

In today's episode we’re going to talk about a Buddhist list called The Three Characteristics. These are the three non-negotiable truths about reality, which you have to see and understand in order to be happy. Granted, when looked at from a certain angle, these truths, or characteristics of reality can suck at times. But do you want to see the truth of things or not? Do you want to be happier or not?

Our guide through these three characteristics is the mighty Mushim Patricia Ikeda. Mushim has a background in both monastic and lay Buddhist practice and is a core teacher and community director at the East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, California. This is her second appearance on the show. 

Content Warning: This episode briefly mentions child loss.

In this episode we talk about: 

• The three characteristics, alternatively known as the three Dharma seals
• Our conflicted relationship to change 
• Our brain’s tendency to focus on the negative
• Practices that can help with handling change more effectively
• How not taking your thoughts so personally can build your resilience
• And why Mushim believes that universal non-discriminating love is synonymous with Nirvana

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/mushim-patricia-ikeda-484

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

These days, the word mindfulness has become a buzz phrase but very often people don’t know what the word actually means, much less how to practice it. One simple definition of mindfulness is the ability to see what’s happening in your mind without getting carried away by it. The benefits of doing so are vast and profound— from decreased emotional reactivity to being more awake to what’s actually happening in your life.

Today's guest Joseph Goldstein talks about a classic Buddhist list called the four foundations of mindfulness, which lays out various techniques for developing mindfulness within your practice.

Goldstein is one of the premier western proponents of Mindfulness. He co-founded the legendary Insight Meditation Society alongside Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield. He also wrote a book called Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening.

In this episode we talk about:

• The historical context for the four foundations of mindfulness 
• Why he thinks the Buddha loved lists
• Why the Buddha placed mindfulness of the body first on the list
• The steps to mastering mindfulness of the body
• The meaning of the word embodied and how that’s different from our usual mode of being in the world
• How and why to do walking meditations
• What are feeling tones and why are they important
• Practices for cultivating mindfulness of mind
• And we talk about some of the mantras that Joseph uses when teaching 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/joseph-goldstein-483

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Cultivating what’s good in us helps during times of both abundance and adversity. In fact, it’s when times are hard that we need it the most.

About Kaira Jewel Lingo

Kaira Jewel Lingo was an ordained nun for 15 years in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing. She's now a lay dharma teacher based on Long Island. She graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. and an M.A. in anthropology and social sciences. She’s also the author of the book We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons on Moving Through Change, Loss, and Disruption. 

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Growing the Good,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=5e3aaefe-3a96-40a4-ad6a-1c41c9b9754d.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There are so many benefits to mindfulness with one of the biggest being the cultivation of more self-awareness. This cultivation can lead to identifying the unhelpful mental habits that can develop over the years.

Today we’re going to talk to Carol Wilson who offers very clear and practical ways that Buddhist meditation can help us turn down the volume on our unproductive mental habits and be less reactive.

Wilson is a guiding teacher at the Insight Meditation Society, where for many years she has taught their annual three-month retreat. She began her insight meditation practice in 1971 in India and in the 1980s she spent a year in Thailand as a Buddhist nun. 

In this episode we talk about:

• How to be mindful throughout the day
• The concept of 360 degree awareness
• Noticing when one experiences wanting or aversion 
• Why Wilson believes that the root of suffering comes from making it all about us
• How seeing torment can help us experience freedom from the self
• The benefits of reflecting on your past acts of generosity 
• Bringing awareness to your motivations
• And doing a gratitude practice regularly to change the weather pattern in your mind

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/carol-wilson-481

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Many of us may have a reflexive reaction when we notice we’re feeling down: we want it to go away. Maybe we think something is wrong with us and we automatically self medicate in any number of ways. But how do we square this with the fact that many of us may also really like sad movies and music? And making things even more complex, how do we compute the fact that the universe is constantly handing us opportunities to feel awe, gratitude, and joy, often at the exact same moment that sadness arises?

What’s going on with this complex and conflicted relationship we have with a perfectly normal human emotion?

Our guest today Susan Cain has written a whole book about this called Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole. In this book, she explores how the capacity to tune in to the inherent joy and sadness of the human situation can be a superpower for connection.

In this episode we talk about:

• Whether bittersweetness is a skill you can hone
• The relationship between bittersweetness and the Buddhist concept of impermanence
• Why we feel embarrassed about discussing sorrow and longing 
• How sadness can be transmuted into creativity, and how that creativity can lead us out of sadness
• And how America, a country founded on so much heartache, turned into, in her words, “a culture of normative smiles”

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/susan-cain-480

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sharon teaches you a simple breathing technique to release tension and reduce the intensity of a painful experience.

About Sharon Salzberg:

A towering figure in the meditation world, Sharon Salzberg is a prominent teacher & New York Times best-selling author. She has played a crucial role bringing mindfulness and lovingkindness practices to the West.

Sharon co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) alongside Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield and is the author of nine books, including Lovingkindness, Real Happiness, and the most recent Real Love. Sharon lives in New York City and teaches around the world.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Breathing to Release Pain,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=9a2fee2c-a8ea-443c-bf4f-d4329f2eb2ef.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sit in meditation for a few minutes and you’re likely to experience pain, either physical or psychological. Hang around the meditation scene for very long, and you are likely to hear the expression, “Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.” 

And that’s what this episode is all about— boosting your pain tolerance through meditation. Because pain really is inevitable, but can you reduce your suffering through mindfulness and compassion? 

Our guest today, Christiane Wolf, argues ‘yes’. She is a physician turned mindfulness and compassion teacher and teacher trainer. She is an authorized Buddhist teacher in the Insight (Vipassana) meditation tradition, teaching classes and retreats worldwide, and she’s also the author of ​Outsmart Your Pain: Mindfulness and Self-Compassion to Help You Leave Chronic Pain Behind.

In this episode we talk about:

• Meditation techniques that offer us a better relationship to pain
• How to work with the physicality of pain
• The stories we tell ourselves about our pain
• And seeing pain as an opportunity

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/christiane-wolf-rerun

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We all have long-standing painful patterns of behavior or inner storylines that can cause us to react disproportionately or inappropriately to everyday events.  

Today's guest, Dr. Radhule Weininger, has a term for this. She calls them longstanding recurrent painful patterns or LRPPs. 

Weininger is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, and teacher of Buddhist meditation and Buddhist psychology. She has a new book, Heart Medicine: How to Stop Painful Patterns and Find Peace and Freedom—at Last 

In this episode we talk about:

• How to recognize a problematic pattern or when you’ve been “lrpp-ed”
• Why Dr. Weininger believes that Buddhism and western psychology, when practiced together, can help us deal with these recurring patterns
• Unpacking the word trauma
• The psychological term “mismatch” and how it relates to childhood trauma or hurt
• How to practice meditation in order to tolerate discomfort

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/radhule-weininger-478

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 Comparative Religious Studies. Now, Sebene is a teacher, author, and speaker who teaches that meditation can help us remember our inherent sense of belonging, that our individual freedom affects absolutely everyone and everything, and that our collective freedom depends on each and every one of us. 

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Loosening the Grip of Panic,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=cea1fa4d-882a-4b50-b966-20d97d08d84d.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 to the things we may not want to face.

This is Matthew Brensilver‘s second appearance on the show. He teaches retreats at the Insight Retreat Center, Spirit Rock and other Buddhist centers. Before committing to teach meditation full-time, he spent years doing research on addiction pharmacotherapy at the UCLA Center for Behavioral and Addiction Medicine. Matthew is the co-author of two books about meditation during adolescence and continues to be interested in the unfolding dialogue between Buddhism and science. 

In this episode we talk about:

• What “be present” actually means
• What to do when Buddhist teachings or meditation instructions feel out of reach and when we start compulsively self-assessing against them
• What to do when a memory arises in meditation, especially a difficult memory
• The brain’s tendency toward constant prediction
• The benefits of meditation retreat
• And distinguishing between true alarms and false alarms

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/matthew-brensilver-476

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 are in constant dialogue. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• The story of her concussion and the unusual advice she got from a specialist that became not just a path to recovery, but a sort of personal credo, “run toward the danger”
• What we often do with our stories of childhood shame, and the immense power of talking about it
• How she has come to stop seeing her anxiety as a stop sign
• Her argument that the advice to “listen to your body” is not always the best advice
• The liberating potential of intentionally making uncharacteristic decisions
• Her path to meditation and her current practice
• And the limits of her own “run towards the danger” mantra

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/sarah-polley-475

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 evidence-based Mindful Awareness Practices (MAPS) curriculum and the Training in Mindfulness Facilitation, which trains mindfulness teachers worldwide. She is also a founding board member of the International Mindfulness Teachers Association. 

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Exploring Awareness Three Ways,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=0445dec7-d4dc-4358-ad9f-87a7058eb4a6.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 pathologies. 

Boardman is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, which is also where she went to medical school and did her four year residency program. She later went back and got a Master’s degree in Applied Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She recently put out a book called Everyday Vitality: Turning Stress into Strength

In this episode we talked about:

• The 3 C’s (factors contributing to vitality)
• The notion that our understanding of happiness does not have to be internally oriented
• How not all socializing is created equal
• Why identifying your values is important  
• The value of hobbies
• The flake factor
• And the value of failure 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/samantha-boardman-473

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying. He also oversees the Tergar Meditation Community, a global network of Buddhist meditation centers.  

In this episode we talk about: 

• Working with strong emotions using sound and the breath
• Deconstructing your reality to make it workable
• Understanding what awareness is in a Buddhist sense 
• How to make meditation free-range and available to you all times 
• The simple but also tricky advice of, “stop doing and just be” 
• When to take a step back or even take a break from meditation
• What Mingyur Rinpoche says is the true purpose of the practice.

This interview was recorded in person at the TED conference in April of 2022, where both Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche and Dan Harris spoke.

Full Shownotes: 

https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/yongey-mingyur-rinpoche-472

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 meditation that will help everyone he meets. "I have a meditation for that" is regularly heard from Jeff, so we've dubbed him the "Meditation MacGyver."

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Symphony of Interconnection,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=1255a87a-5d7e-4736-9d6e-750e582f96f8.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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, including trauma and suicide. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• How he went from an activist largely fueled by anger to a dharma teacher with a very different approach
• The sometimes useful role of anger in activism and the danger of being stuck in anger mode
• The subtle but powerful move of getting in touch with what is beneath our anger
• Using annoyance as a jumping off point for inner investigation
• Ways to work with anger and learning to discharge the energy in our body 
• Forgiveness, including forgiving ourselves
• Getting over our need to be right
• Equanimity, or as Jacoby calls it, his “tussle with equanimity”

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jacoby-ballard-470

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 Consciousness Science and Editor-in-Chief of Neuroscience of Consciousness. His TED Talk on consciousness has been viewed over 13 million times. Most recently, he is the author of Being You: A New Science of Consciousness.

In this episode we talk about: 

• How brains give rise to consciousness 
• The bundle theory of self
• The comfort in thinking of the self as impermanent
• A new way to think about emotional states
• How Seth’s personal experience with long COVID has changed his own sense of self
• The question of whether we have free will
• Whether machines can be conscious – and whether we should be afraid of artificial intelligence

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/anil-seth-469

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 Society. 

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for ”Exploring Identity,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=a40fbc27-1341-496e-978a-3e462fce5bc0.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 Beyond Distraction: Five Practical Ways to Focus the Mind. She is also the founder and principal teacher at Insight Meditation South Bay and has 40 years of practice, including nine years, cumulatively, of silent retreat. Her first TPH appearance, which we called How to Focus, aired in May 2021. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• The Buddha’s struggles with distraction
• Shaila’s attempts to make the teachings of the Buddha accessible to contemporary minds
• The importance of getting to know your own thought patterns
• The counterintuitive strategy of “avoid it, ignore it, forget it”
• Replacing seduction with mindfulness
• Developing a flexibility of mind
• Why we’re vulnerable to our own tendencies when we’re not mindful

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/shaila-catherine-467

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 United Nations, and is currently a Senior Director of Behavioral Economics at Google. She is the host of the Pushkin Industries podcast A Slight Change of Plans, which was named Best Show of the Year in 2021 by Apple. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• Why humans are so uncomfortable with uncertainty and change
• What a behavioral scientist actually does in the world
• Why even the host of a podcast about change isn’t immune to the uncertainties of life 
• The benefits of cultivating a more malleable sense of self
• Why humans are such bad forecasters
• The importance of auditing yourself when you’re undergoing a big change
• How to take advantage of big reset moments
• The concept of cognitive closure and why encouraging an open mind can make us more resilient  

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/maya-shankar-466

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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, Filipinx-American, La is committed to expanding access to the Dharma. They live in Towson, MD with their life partner Wendy and rescue pups Annabel and Bader.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Dismantling Perfectionism, Accepting Yourself,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=dd701886-ad66-417a-b466-cdefb92ff5c8.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“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 the legendary Esther Perel. Her resume is beyond impressive: She is a psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author of books such as Mating in Captivity. Her TED talk has attracted more than 30 million views. She is fluent in nine languages.  She is the host of the popular podcasts Where Should We Begin? and How’s Work? And her latest project is called Where Should We Begin - A Game of Stories with Esther Perel. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• How the pandemic has impacted our friendships
• Esther’s contention that “love and commitment and intimacy don’t just belong to the world of romantic couples”
• What makes friendship unique, in good ways and tricky ways
• What to consider when determining whether to confront a difficulty in a friendship
• How to conduct a self-assessment of yourself as a friend
• How systematic we should be about cultivating and maintaining our friendships
• How to reconnect with friends authentically
• Whether or not we can have platonic friendships across the gender spectrum
• How to handle friendships when you’re in a romantic relationship, including friendships you share, friendships with those with whom your partner doesn’t get along, and friendships with exes

Content warning: There are some brief references to sensitive topics, including suicide. 

*Esther Perel invites you and a colleague to apply for a session with her that will be part of the new season of her podcast How's Work? Her team is looking for work pairs, co-founders, colleagues, managers, or any combination to join her for a session to explore the future of work together. Apply here.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/esther-perel-464

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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-creating such shows as Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place, and Rutherford Falls. Additionally, he has worked on shows like The Office, Master of None, The Comeback, and Hacks. He is also the Author of How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• What got him started on the road to reading philosophy and studying ethics
• The so-called “trolley problem”
• Trusting your gut
• Natural states of virtue
• The evolutionary advantages of virtue
• And how white lies can be beneficial in a complicated and messy society

This interview was recorded in person at the TED conference in April of 2022, where both Michael Schur and Dan Harris spoke.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/michael-schur-463

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 McDonald, and Ajahn Sucitto, and a graduate of the IMS - Spirit Rock Vipassana Teacher Training, and current member of the Spirit Rock Teachers Council.

Oren is the author of Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication, a practical guidebook for having more effective, satisfying conversations.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Self Empathy,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=c547f8dc-f150-464a-ba59-3131a4bf6944.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg and Jon Kabat-Zinn, went to Asia and discovered meditation in the 1960s— making it a huge part of their lives and careers. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• The four components of emotional intelligence, how to develop them, and why these skills matter so much during the middle of a pandemic 
• Empathy and relationship management in the age of zoom
• The “marshmallow test” and impulse control
• A phenomenon he calls, “amygdala hijacks”
• Why so many Jewish kids in the sixties and seventies got turned on to Buddhism  

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/daniel-goleman-repost

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• Her definition of emotional agility 
• The four skills of emotional agility
• Why she says our emotions are data, not directives
• How to move skillfully through a world that “conspires against us seeing ourselves”
• How to avoid emotional “fusion”
• The power of tiny tweaks
• And “emotional granularity”— what it is, why it matters and how to practice it 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/susan-david-461

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 Happier app, you can search for “Wake Up With Perspective,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=cb852965-67e4-4b4c-a2d0-c3765c3224bc.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 has been immersed in Buddhist practice and study since 1997. He has been mentored by Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Massachusetts and Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California, where he is now enjoying teaching retreats. Pascal teaches in North America and in Europe. He is a co-founder of True North Insight and one of their guiding teachers.

In this episode we talk about: 

• How the five aggregates got Auclair hooked on Buddhist practice and philosophy
• The five aggregates as a way to work with difficulty
• Living with the non-negotiable prospect of dying
• Paying attention to pleasant, unpleasant and neutral feeling tone
• Meditation training as a way to understand that experiences are conditional

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/pascal-auclair-459

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 Transformative Justice, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds and the co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements and How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office. She is the cohost of the How to Survive the End of the World, Octavia’s Parables and Emergent Strategy podcasts. adrienne is rooted in Detroit.

In this conversation we talked about:

• What is pleasure activism
• The role of sex and drugs
• Why we should say yes more
• How to be in touch with our sense of “enough”
• The role of gratitude 
• The line between commitment and detachment
• How she defines authentic happiness
• Her self-description as “a recovering self-righteous organizer,” and why self-righteousness actually leads to powerlessness

Content Warning: Discussions of sex and drugs. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/adrienne-maree-brown-458

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 secular, Buddhist, and Jewish context for eighteen years.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Procrastination Medication,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=5d0ef603-6af6-4b9d-bc81-7920fbda1efa.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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.” This is Oliver’s second appearance on the show. Burkeman joined us on the show a few years ago to talk about his other book, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking. He also writes a bi-weekly email newsletter called The Imperfectionist.

In this conversation, we talk about: 

• Why accepting mortality is a crucial step in improving our relationship to time
• His conviction that it’s not about being more efficient. It’s about knowing what to neglect
• Patience as a superpower and the impatience spiral
• The benefits of burning bridges
• Becoming a better procrastinator
• The benefits of rest
• What he calls “cosmic insignificance therapy”
• Practical tips, such as the “fixed volume approach to productivity,” the value of serialization, and strategic underachievement. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/oliver-burkeman-456

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 both men and women should combat it.

In this conversation, we talk about: 

• The aforementioned likability trap
• The structural imbalance in feedback for women and men in the workplace
• The things for men to consider as they engage with women in the workplace

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/alicia-menendez-212

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 Mindful Awareness Practices (MAPS) curriculum and the Training in Mindfulness Facilitation, which trains mindfulness teachers worldwide. She is also a founding board member of the International Mindfulness Teachers Association. 

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Unworthiness,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=59c693e4-de4c-4e08-8eee-95fb36296938.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He sees children, youth, adults, and families across the age range and for a variety of issues. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• What Dr. Ham says may be the “most important thing he’s discovered” as a therapist
• Why he shuts down his clients’ attempts to intellectualize their experiences
• Kairos versus kronos 
• Why Dr. Ham says the Incredible Hulk is so important to him
• The concept of mentalization
• What it means to love exquisitely
• And whether or not we have to learn to love ourselves before we can learn to love others

Content Warning: Explicit language.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jacob-ham-453

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 from Complex Trauma. 

Stephanie Foo is a journalist and radio producer. Her previous work includes This American Life, The Cut, Reply All, and 99% Invisible. Her writing has been featured in The New York Times and Vox. 

In this conversation we talk about: 

• The various therapies, meditation styles, and wellness modalities Stephanie explored to help process her trauma
• What actually worked for her, and how it might be relevant to other survivors
• Shame, gratitude, and self-love
• Her transformative work with Dr. Jacob Ham, who will be featured in another episode this week. 

Content Warnings: Discussions of trauma and abuse, references to addiction and mental health challenges. Explicit language. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/stephanie-foo-452

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 have come to IMS to learn mindfulness from leaders in the field. Joseph has been a teacher there since its founding and continues as the resident guiding teacher.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Releasing Moods & Emotions,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=63bba532-84e7-4dd1-a0df-5f734be86239.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 Clinical Training. And she is the author of a book called The Grieving Brain.

In this episode we talk about: 

• The distinction between grief and grieving
• How her Buddhist practice has influenced her understanding of grief
• Whether or not we can ever quote/unquote “get over it”
• Why she argues for “a really big toolkit of coping strategies” 
• How to understand the work of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross today
• What grieving looks like in a pandemic
• What to say to people who are grieving
• The new diagnosis of prolonged grief disorder

Content Warning: Brief mention of suicide. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/mary-frances-oconnor-450

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 grieving
• Why she loves the clichés that remind us to enjoy the moment
• Her broad understanding of the term “loss”
• Why the key word in ‘lost and found’ is “and” 
• What she’s learned about compromising in relationships

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/kathryn-schulz-449

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Learn to find a feeling of protection and trust during a downpour of stressful thoughts or overwhelm.

About Matthew Hepburn :

Matthew is a meditation and dharma teacher with more than a decade of teaching experience and a passion for getting real about what it means to live well. He emphasizes humor, technique, and authentic kindness as a means to free the mind up from unnecessary struggle and leave a healthier impact on the world.

Beyond Ten Percent Happier, Matthew has taught in prisons, schools, corporate events and continues to teach across North America in buddhist centers offering intensive silent retreats and dharma for urban daily life.

Matthew is the host of the Twenty Percent Happier podcast, where you'll get to eavesdrop on people getting real about the challenges all of us face, and you’ll hear how through meditation, those challenges are transformed.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Shelter in a Storm: Finding Refuge,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=8e3f8e99-e4b3-4c54-b46d-f57647b254db.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How does hope work? 

In this episode from the archives, Rutgers University clinical psychologist Dr. Jacqueline Mattis discusses hope from a scientific perspective and how we can cultivate it. 

Dr. Mattis, who is also a Dean of faculty at Rutgers, did not start her career wanting to study hope. She started out studying spirituality and religiosity, specifically concentrating her field work and interviews in African-American and Afri-Caribbean urban communities. She wanted to know why people living under high stress conditions so often choose to be good and compassionate. And that research ultimately led her to hope.

In this episode we talk about: 

• How her family history influenced her relationship to optimism and faith 
• The difference between spirituality and religiosity 
• The benefits of hope and skills to cultivate it
• The ways hope can go wrong
• And the benefits of denial

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jacqueline-mattis-340-repost

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How do you find hope in a lifetime that has experienced more trauma than most? 

Guest Jonathan Van Ness says that the key is to stay curious and focus on happiness and joy, even if it’s just in a tiny corner.

Jonathan Van Ness is a hairstylist by trade and best known as one of the hosts of the Netflix series Queer Eye. He is also the author of Love That Story and the New York Times bestselling memoir Over the Top, and the host of the podcast Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• The universality of processing grief
• What a “window of tolerance” means 
• Getting curious about shame
• Body dysmorphia
• JVN’s complex and contradictory feelings about shopping
• What “parts therapy” or Internal Family Systems therapy is
• Setting boundaries
• Connecting and cultivating joy 

Content Warning: Explicit language and mentions of sexual abuse, substance amuse, body dysmorphia, and references to sex.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jonathan-van-ness-447

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This body scan meditation is designed to be simple and relaxing. It's the perfect bedtime companion for a good night's rest.

About Anushka Fernandopulle:

Anushka teaches meditation, works as an organizational consultant, and does leadership coaching with individuals and teams. She has practiced meditation for over 25 years, including four years in full-time intensive training in monasteries and retreat centers in the US, India and Sri Lanka.

Her work is informed by a BA in anthropology/religion from Harvard University, an MBA from Yale focused on leadership and organizational behavior, and certification in coaching from the Coaches Training Institute.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Bedtime Body Scan,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=33b34fe4-6b04-43f6-b2cd-51a9bb83fce2.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If you’re trying to improve your sleep, thinking about doing so right before you get into bed might not be the best approach. 

Dr. Sara Mednick, is a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of the new book The Power of the Downstate. This episode is part of our month-long “Mental Health Reboot” series to mark Mental Health Awareness Month. 

According to her research, Dr. Mednick says that we need to take a more holistic approach to getting better sleep, and that sleep is just one of the ways that our bodies rest and restore.  

In this conversation, we talk about:

• The nuances of napping
• Dr. Mednick’s definition of the “downstate”
• Whether there are practices that can compensate for poor sleep
• Why heart rate variability is an important measurement of health
• Why sex is so helpful for sleep
• And when to take melatonin to best effect

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/sara-mednick-445

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sleep may be the apex predator of healthy habits, so why are so many of us getting terrible sleep? 

Guest Diane Macedo launched a very detailed personal investigation in order to fix her sleeping habits and joins us for the first episode of a month-long “Mental Health Reboot” series we’re doing to mark Mental Health Awareness Month. 

Diane Macedo is the author of the new book The Sleep Fix: Practical, Proven, and Surprising Solutions for Insomnia, Snoring, Shift Work, and More. As an ABC News anchor and correspondent, she appears on Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and Nightline. She’s also the daytime anchor for ABC News Live. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• Key signs that you’re not getting enough sleep
• Do sleeping pills really work
• When and how to find a sleep specialist
• How to deal with performance anxiety around sleep 
• The difference between sleep deprivation and insomnia
• Mindfulness and sleep
• And the biggest sleep myths

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/diane-macedo-444

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Most of us have gotten at least a little emotional at some point recently.  It’s natural. But why do we have emotions and how much should we pay attention to them on any given day?  Can we learn to skillfully choose which emotions to listen to and which ones to just let move on by?

In More Than A Feeling, the latest podcast from Ten Percent Happier, host Saleem Reshamwala goes on a real life quest to find the answers to these questions. He’ll experiment with neuroscientists, dive into stories with historians and philosophers, and document how musicians, therapists, hairdressers and airplane pilots work with emotions.

About Saleem Reshamwala:

Saleem Reshamwala is the host of More Than A Feeling, Ten Percent Happier's podcast about human emotions. He is an Emmy-nominated producer, for his video work on implicit bias with the New York Times, a winner in the Best Music Video category at Harlem's Hip Hop Film Festival, and a mentor for The Sauce Fellowship, a Southern youth digital storytelling program in conjunction with the New Orleans Video Access Center.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Can you become happier, more balanced, and practice equanimity without losing your edge? 

Guest Kamala Masters was one of the teachers at Dan’s first ever meditation retreat. In this episode she dives into how to develop equanimity and shares her story of learning how to practice meditation during her everyday life while raising three children on her own. 

Kamala Masters has been meditating since the 1970s, first with Anagarika Munindra, who was Joseph Goldstein’s first teacher, and then with the Burmese master Sayadaw U Pandita with whom she twice temporarily ordained as a Buddhist nun. More recently, she’s been training with another Burmese master we’ve talked about here on the show, Sayadaw U Tejaniya. She is a Guiding Teacher at the Insight Meditation Society, and the co-founder of the Vipassana Metta Foundation, which developed the Maui Dharma Sanctuary.

In this conversation we talk about: 

• What is equanimity?
• The most common misconception about equanimity
• The near and far enemies of equanimity 
• The power and limitations of setting intentions

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/kamala-masters-442

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Why is it that many men seem unenthusiastic about discussing body image issues? 

We take a deep dive into this topic with Aaron Flores, a Los Angeles-based registered dietician and nutritionist, and one of the few men very active in the space of intuitive eating. Aaron talks about how capitalism ties our weight to our worthiness, and his notion that “our body is not a project.” 

In this episode we also discuss: 

• What intuitive eating is
• How men experience body image issues, and why they often don’t talk about it 
• The relationship between diet culture and capitalism 
• What “health at every size” means and why it’s sometimes controversial
• Guidelines for parents 
• The role of self-compassion when it comes to food 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/aaron-flores-441

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Collect yourself in the morning to start off on your best foot. If you start collected, you’ll have better luck staying collected.

About Sharon Salzberg:

A towering figure in the meditation world, Sharon Salzberg is a prominent teacher & New York Times best-selling author. She has played a crucial role bringing mindfulness and lovingkindness practices to the West.

Sharon co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) alongside Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield and is the author of nine books, including Lovingkindness, Real Happiness, and the most recent Real Love. Sharon lives in New York City and teaches around the world.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Get Going with Focus,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=3bd1a8a1-84f8-4be9-8f67-14eb4e0ec5fe

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Many of us find our minds flitting all over the place, in meditation and elsewhere. In today’s episode we’re going to learn practical techniques for boosting concentration on and off the cushion. This is the second episode in a two-part series on focus we are airing this week.

Today’s guest is an Olympic-level concentrator who has tons of tips for staying focused. We also talk about one of the more exotic meditation subjects: The altered states of consciousness called the jhanas that are available to advanced meditators who can attain deep states of concentration. 

Shaila Catherine is the founder of Insight Meditation South Bay, a meditation group in Silicon Valley. She has been practicing meditation since 1980 and has more than nine years of accumulated silent retreat experience. She’s the author of Focused and Fearless: A Meditator’s Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity.

In this conversation, we talk about:

• The basic building blocks of concentration in a meditation practice
• Cultivating the right attitude for meditation
• The difference between concentration and mindfulness
• Whether ‘jhana’ states are attainable for regular people

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/shaila-catherine-repost-348

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What is it about modern life that is completely disrupting our ability to focus, and how much of it is our fault? 

Turns out, not a lot. A number of factors from technology to our sleep habits, and even air pollution, play a role in what causes us to have about the same attention regulation skills as a kitten. In this first episode of our two-part series on focus, guest Johann Hari breaks down why our ability to pay attention is collapsing, and what we can do about it. 

Johann Hari is the author of Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention – and How to Think Deeply Again. His first book, Chasing the Scream: the First and Last Days of the War on Drugs was adapted into the Oscar nominated film The United States Vs Billie Holiday as well as a documentary series. 

Johann is also the author of Lost Connections: Uncovering The Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions which was featured in a previous episode. His TED Talks have been viewed more than 80 million times.   

In this episode we talk about: 

• Johann’s notion that there are twelve factors draining our focus
• His argument for the importance of both collective and individual action to reclaim our attention
• What he learned from a self-imposed three-month internet-free experiment
• How this impacts our children, and what we might do about it 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/johann-hari-439

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Returning to the practice of equanimity keeps you both grounded and receptive, especially during times of turmoil and uncertainty.

About Roshi Joan Halifax:

Roshi Joan Halifax is a Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and pioneer in the field of end-of-life care. She is also the Founder, Abbot, and Head teacher of Upaya Institute and Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her books include Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet, and The Fruitful Darkness: A Journey Through Buddhist Practice and Tribal Wisdom. 

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Strong Back, Soft Front,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=4cfcfe2d-f5fb-4142-9bd0-3fb6b2041324.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if one of the keys to happiness is how intentional you are with your time?

Ashley Whillans is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School and author of the book Time Smart. Her groundbreaking research has led her to radically reevaluate how she spends her own time. Her goal is to help you move from time poverty to time affluence.

In this conversation, we talk about: 

• How to do a time audit
• Funding time, finding time, and reframing time
• The surprising extent to which prioritizing time over money predicts happiness–and what to do if you usually do the opposite
• How to handle “time confetti”
• The value of canceling meetings

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/ashley-whillans-repost-318

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Often, we are our own worst critic.

In this episode, Buddhist monk Ajahn Sucitto explores ways to unseat the inner tyrant and make peace with the nagging voice inside of you that seems to always demand perfection, but never offer praise. 

Ajahn Sucitto was raised in the United Kingdom and became a monk in 1975 in the lineage of the Thai forest master, Venerable Ajahn Chah. In 1979, he helped establish Cittaviveka, also known as Chithurst Forest Monastery, in West Sussex, England where he still lives. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• Strategies for addressing our inner critic
• Why we shouldn’t operate at 100% 
• The foolishness of turning our minds into courts of law
• The Buddhist precepts (or ethical guidelines)
• And the essential nature of sangha/community

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/ajahn-sucitto-437

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Brené Brown has found that most people are only able to identify three emotions: happy, sad and pissed off. 

In this episode we explore how better understanding the full spectrum of your emotions, rather than drowning in them, can become an upward spiral. 

Brené Brown is the author of six #1 New York Times bestsellers. Her latest book is Atlas of the Heart, which is also the name of her new HBO Max series. Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston and a visiting professor in management at the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business.She has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. Her TED talk on the Power of Vulnerability is one of the top five most-viewed TED talks in the world, with over 50 million views. 

We Talk About:

• Why she decided to map the 87 key emotions and experiences
• How she was deeply influenced by the Buddhist concept of the “near enemy”
• Why she no longer believes it's possible to read emotions in other people 
• Why meaningful connections require boundaries

Content Warning: This episode contains explicit language, but a clean version of the episode is available at tenpercent.com and on the Ten Percent Happier app. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/brene-brown-436

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode dives into our archives to revisit the notion of communication as a learnable skill. Often some of the most painful situations you encounter are the result of poor communication. The good news is that communication is a skill that can be learned. 

Author and meditation teacher Oren Jay Sofer, a leading figure in the field of interpersonal communication, breaks down how communication can be one of the most powerful levers for creating positive change in your life. 

Oren Jay Sofer is the author of Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication. He also teaches mindfulness, meditation and nonviolent communication in secular and Buddhist contexts. He graduated from Insight Meditation Center’s Spirit Rock Vipassana Teacher Training and is a long-time student of Joseph Goldstein, Michele McDonald, and Ajahn Sucitto.

In this conversation, we also talk about:

• How to become aware of what motivates you to communicate the way you do 
• Strategies for how to have more meaningful conversations
• What it means to lead with presence
• How conflict has the possibility to deepen our relationships and make peace 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/oren-jay-sofer-repost-165

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What role does mindfulness and meditation play when it comes to sex? It may be the key to alleviating sexual distress in your relationships, and in this episode Dr. Lori Brotto talks about scientific evidence that shows how mindfulness can improve your sex life.

Dr. Lori Brotto is a clinical psychologist, the director of the University of British Columbia’s Sexual Health Laboratory, the Canada Research Chair in Women’s Sexual Health; the Executive Director of the Women’s Health Research Institute; and the author of Better Sex through Mindfulness.

We talk about: 

• Mindfulness practices for individuals and couples who want to improve their sex lives
• The number one cause of sexual distress and how it manifests in different genders
• The importance of “interoception” or awareness of our bodily sensations
• Identifying the most common myths about sex

Content Warning: This episode includes conversations about sex.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/lori-brotto-435

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Get comfortable with uncertainty and cultivate trust in life, even in the most turbulent times.

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 Comparative Religious Studies. Now, Sebene is a teacher, author, and speaker who teaches that meditation can help us remember our inherent sense of belonging, that our individual freedom affects absolutely everyone and everything, and that our collective freedom depends on each and every one of us. 

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Trust Yourself and Breathe,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=7d6060b0-8c20-4fb0-860b-ed5fd7ef5914.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode explores a Buddhist tool for resolving conflict and keeping your relationships on the rails. This tool, known as the Beginning Anew practice, was designed by the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, who died back in January, and who we are celebrating this week on the show. On Monday’s episode, we spoke with a long-time student of Thich Nhat Hanh, Brother Phap Dung.

Today’s guest is Kaira Jewel Lingo. She was an ordained nun for 15 years in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing. She's now a lay dharma teacher based on Long Island. She graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. and an M.A. in anthropology and social sciences. She’s also the author of a recent book called, We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons on Moving Through Change, Loss, and Disruption. 

This interview discusses the Beginning Anew practice and: 

• The four steps of the practice. 
• How even skeptics can see the value in the practice. 
• How it can strengthen relationships and resolve conflict. 
• Kaira Jewel's own experience with the practice as both a teacher and a practitioner.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/kaira-jewel-lingo-repost

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In January 2022, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen master, peace activist, poet, and author passed away. He was the founder of the International Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called him “an Apostle of peace and nonviolence” when nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Thousands of people came out for his funeral.   

Brother Pháp Dung is making his second appearance on the show to talk about Thich Nhat Hanh. If you missed it last time he was on, Brother Pháp Dung has an incredible personal story. He was born in Vietnam in 1969 and came to the US at the age of nine. He worked as an architect/designer for four years before becoming a monk. He was very close personally with Thich Nhat Hanh, who he refers to as “Thây,” or teacher, and is now a Dharma teacher himself in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village tradition.

This episode explores:

• The life of Thich Nhat Hanh: his path to Buddhism in the 1960’s and his exile from Vietnam for opposing the war.
• The meaning of “wrong view” or wrong perception. 
• What non-separation and inter-being is. 
• Thich Nhat Hanh’s view that birth and death are only notions.
• Grief, and why learning how to suffer will help you suffer less.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/brother-phap-dung-432

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s super normal to want what feels good and avoid what feels bad. Unlock your unconscious habits to make wiser & more thoughtful choices.

About Dawn Mauricio:

Dawn Mauricio discovered the practices of Buddhist meditation in 2005, and from then on, did what any well-intentioned perfectionist would do — plunge in head first! Since then, she's graduated from several teaching programs, including Spirit Rock's four-year Teacher Training. Her teaching style is playful, dynamic, and heartfelt, and she teaches extensively in her home-country of Canada, as well as the US, to teens, people of color, and folks of all backgrounds.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Making Conscious Choices,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=dbf8b791-9110-4200-b473-54e9e0872fdb.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Many, if not all, of us have a nonstop, ambient thought-track running through our minds of: how am I doing? How do I look? Why did I say that? Am I running behind? What do other people think of me?

How did we get this way? And what do we do about it? Ron Siegel has thought a lot about this, and has plenty of practical answers, including the notion that we should lean into our insignificance. Many of us grew up being told how we were special. But Ron argues that the words, “you’re not special,” constitute extremely good news.

Dr. Ron Siegel is a part-time assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and a board member at the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. In his private clinical practice, he provides mindfulness-oriented psychotherapy. He is also the author of the new book, The The Extraordinary Gift of Being Ordinary: Finding Happiness Right Where You Are.

The episode explores:

• The notion that we didn’t evolve to be happy.
• Why we self-evaluate
• The downsides and upsides of self-assessment.
• Strategies for dealing with this often irrational self-grading criteria, which include mindfulness, self-compassion, and gratitude.
• What it means to “lean our ladder against the right wall.”

Content Warning: This conversation includes brief references to mature topics, including sex and addiction.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/ron-siegel-431

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Venerable Pannavati is a former evangelical pastor who has been ordained in three separate Buddhist traditions: Theravada, Chan, and Mahayana. She’s the co-founder and co-Abbot of Embracing-Simplicity Hermitage and Meditation Center; Co-Director of Heartwood Refuge and President of the Treasure Human Life Foundation. She teaches around the world, was a 2008 recipient of the Outstanding Buddhist Women’s Award, and currently serves as the Vice President of the US Chapter of the Global Buddhist Association.

This episode explores:

• Why many meditators try to jump over important preliminary steps.
• Why Buddhism isn’t necessarily fun or easy. 
• The utility and impact of making vows.
• What Venerable Venerable Pannavati calls healthy shame.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/venerable-pannavati-430

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We’re now entering year three of the pandemic, and even though we’re in a very different stage of the game, there are still so many questions: Is it safe or ethical to return to “normal”? How do you deal with people who have different views on safety and vaccines? What do you do if you’re just bone tired of this whole mess?

Today’s guest is Lama Rod Owens, who was trained in the Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism, holds a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School, and is the author of the book Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger. Lama Rod has been kind enough to come on to the show during moments of crisis. I spoke with him shortly after the murder of George Floyd and also during the 2020 elections. As you’re about to hear, one of the core arguments he will make is that apocalypse (and he has a broad understanding of what that word means) can present an opportunity. 

This episode explores:

• The benefits of having an existing practice in times of heightened anxiety and uncertainty.
• Developing a direct, open relationship with fear.
• Working with regret.
• Why taking care of yourself is not selfish.
• Lama Rod’s take on social media and watching TV as a way to reset. 
• The obstacles to empathy. 
• A more expansive definition of the word violence. 
• A jarring New York Times article that posits that the recent rise in pedestrian deaths could be in part due to social erosion created by the pandemic.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/lama-rod-owens-427

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As we enter year three of the pandemic, the psychology of COVID is no less complex or consequential. This episode features one of the most prominent chroniclers of the pandemic, David Leonhardt from the New York Times, who argues that there is irrationality on all sides when it comes to the pandemic. He would also urge you to consider whether you might be over or underestimating the risks of COVID, based on where you stand politically. 

This episode also explores: the state of play in the pandemic right now and where we may be headed next; why and how attitudes about the pandemic, at least here in the US, have sorted along partisan lines; whether it makes sense to be angry with the unvaccinated; how a rise in vehicle crashes might speak to how COVID accelerated the fraying of America's social fabric; and David’s argument for why history and human decency can be a source of optimism going forward. David will also respond to his vehement critics who argue that his emphasis on lifting COVID restrictions and returning to some semblance of normalcy callously disregards the needs of the immunocompromised and unvaccinated. 

David Leonhardt is a senior writer for The New York Times. He writes The Morning, The Times’s flagship daily newsletter, and also writes for the Sunday Review section. He has worked at The Times since 1999 and has previously been an Op-Ed columnist, Washington bureau chief, co-host of “The Argument” podcast, founding editor of The Upshot section and a staff writer for The Times Magazine. In 2011, he received the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/david-leonhardt-426

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How can we meditate when it seems like the world is falling apart? How do we titrate our news consumption? What do we do with our fears about World War III? How can we do anything constructive to help given how far away many of us are from the action? Why are so many people so upset about Ukraine when they weren’t paying much attention to the wars raging in places like Syria, Yemen, or Ethiopia? 

Today’s guest is uniquely qualified to answer these questions, given his experience in combat. Claude AnShin Thomas is an ordained monk in the Japanese Soto Zen Tradition. At 17, he signed up to fight in Vietnam and spent his tour of duty in the theater of war, surrounded by death and destruction. He came home suffering from an undiagnosed case of PTSD and spent years grappling with addiction and homelessness before he was introduced to Buddhism. He says meditation can help all of us look at the roots of war and violence that we all harbor.

Claude Anshin is now the founder of the Zaltho Foundation, dedicated to addressing the causes and consequences of violence in and among individuals, families, and societies. He has served in war zones, hospitals, schools, and prisons. He has also led meditation retreats at sites of war and suffering, and has worked with gang members, guerillas, and refugees. He is the author of the award-winning book At Hell's Gate: A Soldier's Journey from War to Peace, which has been translated into several languages, and Bringing Meditation to Life.

This episode explores the above questions and additionally:

• The narcotic effect of war.
• How Buddhism helped Claude Anshin be at peace with what he calls his own unpeacefulness, and yet, why, to this day, he has to reckon with his impulse towards violence. 
• Why he doesn’t believe there is such a thing as a “just war.”

Content Warning: There are discussions of war, violence, suicide, and substance abuse throughout this episode.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/claude-anshin-thomas-427

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Self-compassion may appear soft, but it’s actually the very thing that allows us the strength & resilience to meet the challenges we face.

About Alexis Santos:

Alexis has practiced and taught Insight Meditation in both the East and West since 2001. He has been a long-time student of Sayadaw U Tejaniya (a well respected meditation teacher in Burma whose teachings have attracted a global audience), and his teaching emphasizes knowing the mind through a natural and relaxed continuity -- a style of practice that's particularly useful during our crazy lives. Alexis has completed the Spirit Rock/IMS Teacher Training, teaches retreats across the globe, and currently lives in Portland, Maine.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Three Steps to Self-Compassion,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=cdbc03be-f1e7-48b1-bd7f-ec435dc095a8.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dr. Paul Gilbert OBE is a professor of psychology at the University of Derby, Founder and President of The Compassionate Mind Foundation, the founder of Compassion Focused Therapy, and in 2011 was awarded the Officer of the British Empire, or OBE, from Queen Elizabeth II for his continued contribution to mental healthcare. He’s also the author of several books including The Compassionate Mind, Living Like Crazy, Overcoming Depression, and his latest, Compassion Focused Therapy: Clinical Practice and Applications. 

This episode explores:

• What Compassion Focused Therapy actually is.
• Why he says wisdom and courage are key to compassion.
• Some surprising truths about your inner critic.
• How compassion can be used to your advantage, especially if you’re ambitious.
• The relevance of various meditation practices to cultivating compassion.
• How trauma can impact our ability to access compassion, and what we might do about it.
• The importance of the vagus nerve and its relationship to compassion, mindfulness, and friendship.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/paul-gilbert-425

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We don’t think about it this way, but as we move through the day, the various moods we inhabit — excitement, engagement, aggression, fear, dejection — they’re all dictated by, or correlated with, our nervous system, or to be specific, our autonomic nervous system. The guest for this episode explains how you can become an active operator of your own nervous system.

Deb Dana is a licensed clinical social worker, clinician, and consultant who specializes in working with complex trauma — although the advice in this episode can apply to everyone. She is also the author of Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory.

This episode explores:

• What polyvagal theory is.
• The case for understanding our nervous system.
• The practical tools and exercises for changing our nervous system and learning to become more regulated.
• The fact that our nervous systems aren’t simply isolated, self-contained phenomena – they are social structures.
• Our responsibilities for our own nervous system and the nervous systems of others.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/deb-dana-424

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Laughter is the best medicine. Use this practice to provoke a little lightheartedness and remember the beautiful ridiculousness of it all.

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 meditation that will help everyone he meets. "I have a meditation for that" is regularly heard from Jeff, so we've dubbed him the "Meditation MacGyver."

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Keep a Sense of Humor,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=53176e1d-3144-415c-bc61-cdd16dc0d3c1.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A common denominator among all of the great meditation teachers is a sense of humor. They take the teaching seriously, but they don’t take themselves seriously. So perhaps there’s a link between human flourishing and humor. That’s not to say you have to be hilarious in order to be happy, but it clearly helps a great deal not to take yourself so seriously. And it turns out that humor is a skill.

Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas co-teach a course at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, called, “Humor: Serious Business.” They also co-authored a book called, Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life (and How Anyone Can Harness It. Even You.)

Dr. Jennifer Aaker is the General Atlantic Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business whose work has been published in leading scientific journals and featured in The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and Science. Naomi Bagdonas is a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and an executive coach. She trained formally at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, teaches improv in San Francisco’s county jail, and performs in comedy venues.

This episode explores:

• Why Naomi and Jennifer say we’ve fallen off a humor cliff
• The four main humor styles and how to figure out which is yours
• When self-deprecation works, and when it doesn’t
• How to conduct a humor audit
• How to sign off your emails 
• The relationship between humor and status
• The connection between humor and love
• A taxonomy of workplace humor
• The different types of humor fails, and what to do about them

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jennifer-aaker-naomi-bagdonas-423

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today’s guest makes an extremely convincing case that there are many self-interested reasons to look squarely at the reality of climate change. Bhikkhu Anālayo, who is originally from Germany, is a renowned scholar-monk, a faculty member at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and the author of numerous books on meditation and early Buddhism, including Satipatthāna: The Direct Path to Realization, which has been very influential with many of the teachers you’ve heard on this show, including Joseph Goldstein. This episode focuses on another of his books, called Mindfully Facing Climate Change.

This episode explores:

• The four types of meditation Anālayo recommends for mindfully confronting climate change
• Anālayo’s contention that meditation isn’t about ceasing the flow of thoughts, but rather ceasing our belief in the thoughts
• The question of whether individual actions matter in the face of a global crisis
• Anālayo’s compelling case for a kind of practice called death contemplation

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/bhikku-anālayo-422

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Learn to connect with the true home of strength, wisdom, and clarity inside of yourself, a place of safety that no one can take away.

About Kaira Jewel Lingo:

Kaira Jewel Lingo, was an ordained nun of 15 years in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing, and is now a lay Dharma teacher based on Long Island. She graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. and M.A. in Anthropology and Social Sciences. She’s edited a few books by Thich Nhat Hanh, including Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Deeply Accepting Yourself,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=80a32f4a-43bf-4fed-a990-1662eea30848.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It is very easy to think about your meditation practice as being quarantined to those minutes when you’re dutifully sitting down with your eyes closed. But actually the point is to turn your whole life into a practice. Our guest Jeff Warren has a very broad, capacious understanding of the concept of practice. There’s formal meditation practice, but also: movement practice, work practice, relationship practice, sleep practice, art practice, and more. It’s really about the goal, which few of us will ever fully attain, of turning everything you do into something intentional and illuminating.

Jeff Warren is a frequent guest and good friend to the Ten Percent Happier podcast and app. He co-wrote a book with Dan called Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. He’s a longtime meditation teacher, and the founder of the Toronto-based Consciousness Explorers Club. He is also the cohost of an excellent new podcast, called The Consciousness Explorers Podcast. In every episode Jeff, and his co-host Tasha Schumann test out a new practice. Be sure to check it out.

This episode explores: what it might mean to make your whole life a practice; how to connect with your baseline okayness; mindfulness of seeing; Koan practice; running as practice; being your own teacher; how (and why) to make your practice social; and practicing with ADHD, a condition with which Jeff has lived with for many years. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jeff-warren-421

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today’s episode is the culmination of a long search to find a countervailing force: a Buddhist Trump supporter. This search was born out of the Buddhist impulse to find the other side. What is talked about as cultivating non-attachment to views and also called “beginner’s mind.” As you will hear, after a lot of searching, we finally found our person. Christopher Ford is a longtime Republican who worked for Trump (albeit indirectly) at the State Department. Ford wrote a pair of fascinating and provocative articles for the Buddhist magazine Lion’s Roar. One was entitled, Zen and the Moral Courage of Moderation. The other was called, The Elephant in the Meditation Room. 

Christopher Ford is a lay chaplain in the Soto tradition of Zen Buddhism. His teacher is Roshi Joan Halifax, who has been on this show a couple of times and is herself a longtime progressive. From January 2018 until January 2021,he served at the state dept as Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation. He’s also worked at the National Security Council, and as a congressional staffer. 

This episode explores:

• Ford’s argument for a Buddhist conservatism
• Ford’s experience in the Trump administration and his assessment of our current political state
• The personal tools Ford recommends using in day-to-day life, some of which go right to the issue of not being attached to our views 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/christopher-ford-420

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What is real love, without the trappings? In this reflection, you'll learn how to tap into feelings of love while maintaining clarity.

About Sharon Salzberg:

A towering figure in the meditation world, Sharon Salzberg is a prominent teacher & New York Times best-selling author. She has played a crucial role bringing mindfulness and lovingkindness practices to the West.

Sharon co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) alongside Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield and is the author of nine books, including Lovingkindness, Real Happiness, and the most recent Real Love. Sharon lives in New York City and teaches around the world.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Real Love in Relationships,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=e1800e19-afab-43c3-b197-690d74c289d0.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The unavoidable truth is that our skills change as we get older. We invest so much in our professional success, and then at some point, things change. But there’s good news. While certain abilities and mental capacities erode with age, others get stronger. With some foresight, planning, and good habits, you can make the second half of your life way better than the first.

Arthur Brooks is the author of a new book called From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life. Arthur has seen the themes of this book play out in his own life. He started his career as a classical French horn player, then got his PhD in public policy analysis, and went on to run a think tank called the American Enterprise Institute. He then left that to be a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School. He also does work with The Atlantic , where he writes a column and hosts a podcast called How to Build a Happy Life.

This episode explores: success addiction, and how to avoid it while still being successful; what it means to “live like Bach;” fluid intelligence vs. crystallized intelligence; what investments we can make now to increase the likelihood of more happiness later; the four most important habits of the happiest people; a workable definition of happiness; and how he feels about his own shifting capacities, having researched the subject for many years.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/arthur-brooks-419

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If you care about your long term health and happiness, the quality of your relationships is an area you should focus on. And the good news here is that love – as it applies to friends, family, and romantic partners – is not a factory setting, but instead a skill. Drs. John and Julie Gottman are the perfect guests to talk about how to cultivate good relationships in your life. 

World-renowned for his work on marital stability and divorce prediction, Dr. John Gottman has conducted over 40 years of breakthrough research with thousands of couples. He is the co-founder of The Gottman Institute and Affective Software Inc. as well as author of over 200 published academic articles and author or co-author of more than 40 books, including The New York Times bestseller The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. 

Dr. Julie Gottman is the Co-Founder and President of The Gottman Institute and Co-Founder of Affective Software, Inc. A highly respected clinical psychologist and author, she is sought internationally by media and organizations as an expert advisor on marriage, domestic violence, gay and lesbian adoption, same-sex marriage, and parenting issues. She is the co-creator of the immensely popular The Art and Science of Love weekend workshop for couples and she also co-designed the national clinical training program in Gottman Method Couples Therapy. 

This episode explores: how to talk (and listen) to your partner in moments of conflict; what to do before you start trying to solve a problem together; why “there’s no such thing as constructive criticism;” the details of John’s research findings, which have allowed him to predict with stunning accuracy whether a couple will get divorced; how the Gottmans themselves do when it comes to operationalizing their findings/advice; how and why betrayal occurs; when a couple should consider separating; the role mindfulness can play in healthy relationships; and the role of humor in relationships.

Content warning: There are a few mentions of sensitive topics, most notably domestic violence, which Julie discusses for a few minutes towards the end of the interview. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/john-julie-gottman-418

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We all long to be seen and experience connection. Being fully present with your loneliness can actually be a powerful way to feel less alone.

About Oren Jay Sofer:

Oren Jay Sofer teaches mindfulness, meditation and Nonviolent Communication. He has practiced meditation since 1997, beginning his studies in Bodh Gaya, India and is a long-time student of Joseph Goldstein, Michele McDonald, and Ajahn Sucitto, and is a graduate of the IMS/Spirit Rock Teacher Training program. Oren teaches retreats across the country and works as Senior Program Developer at Mindful Schools, teaching and developing curricula for one of the international leaders of mindfulness in education.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Loneliness and Connection,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=de5f07ba-bb54-400a-9fa7-73757ac29c63.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode features Evan Thompson, author of the book Why I Am Not a Buddhist. Evan Thompson is a writer and professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. His work and research focuses on the nature of the mind, the self, and human experience combining cognitive science, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, and cross-cultural philosophy, particularly Asian philosophical traditions. 

This episode explores: Thompson’s beef with what he calls “Buddhist exceptionalism,” “Buddhist modernism,” and “neural Buddhism;” why Buddhism is so attractive in the Western world; our culture’s need for validation of meaning through science; McMindfulness and the Western obsession with individualism; the dialogue between science and Buddhism; what the Buddha meant by the word dukkha, or suffering; and Evan lays out his case for an alternative to Buddhist exceptionalism, which he calls “cosmopolitanism.”

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/evan-thompson-417

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

One of the most consistent requests we get from listeners is to explore non-Buddhist forms of meditation. That’s what we’re going to do with this episode. Our guest is Swami Tyagananda, who has been a Hindu monk since 1976, and is now the Hindu chaplain both at MIT and Harvard.

This conversation explores: the basics of Hinduism, including its history, and its approach to prayer and meditation; letting go; karma; rebirth (and how and why to escape it); the deep connections between the Buddhist and Hindu traditions; Swami Tyagananda’s contention that all prayers are answered; and a recipe for reducing stress and anxiety. Swami Tyagananda also shares his thoughts about how to deal with our sense of not-enoughness or incompleteness and he provides a new way of thinking about the trickiest of all Buddhist concepts: annata, or the idea that the self is an illusion.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/swami-tyagananda-416

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Finding forgiveness can help you feel lighter, freer, and more at peace. Diana says “it's not easy, but powerful, and completely worth it.”

About Diana Winston:

Diana Winston is the Director of Mindfulness Education at UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center where she also teaches mindfulness practices to the general public.

Her easy-on-the-ears west coast style rests on top of a rigorous scientific mind, and a vast amount of teaching experience. She has developed curriculum and taught mindfulness since the early 90’s in a variety of settings including hospitals, universities, corporations, non profits, and schools. She has taught mindful awareness to health professionals, leaders, teachers, activists, seniors, and adolescents in the US and Asia. A published researcher and author, Diana has also written for numerous meditation publications, where her daughter, Mira, often makes an appearance in her examples of bringing mindfulness to daily life.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Forgiveness for Others,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=6e200a0e-c93c-442d-8c9d-bb042d6cac0e.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode, with Matthew Brensilver, explores a compelling Buddhist question: does self-hatred, or self-love, make sense if the self is an illusion? Matthew Brensilver, PhD, is a clinical social worker and experienced teacher of meditation retreats. He also worked at an organization called Mindful Schools, which teaches teachers how to teach meditation. 

This episode also explores: how and why to view your anger with skepticism; the relationship between self-love and personal ethics; what to do if you think you’re a good person but have no interest in changing your behavior to get better; how to handle a nagging sense of moral un-justifiability; and how Matthew has arrived at a place of relative peace with his own mortality.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/matthew-brensilver-415 

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dr. Alison Gopnik is a psychologist at UC Berkeley and one of the world’s leading experts in cognitive development. She is also the author of several books, including The Philosophical Baby and The Gardener and the Carpenter. This episode with Dr. Gopnik explores two big and fascinating themes. 

The first is enlightened self-interest. We all want to be happy. Every sentient being has that in common. One of the most successful, although counterintuitive, strategies for getting happier is to get out of your own head and help other people. Alison argues that caring is a skill that we can all develop, and there are ways to scale it so that we can improve our entire society. 

The second, and related theme, explores what we can all learn about happiness from babies. In this episode Alison discusses: the “learning trap” common to adults that four-year-olds can help us avoid; the potential role of meditation in helping us see the world and solve problems more like children; the difference between our spotlight attention and children’s lantern consciousness; the strategy of solving problems by not trying to solve problems; and her critique of our modern conception of parenting, and what she thinks should replace it.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/alison-gopnik-414

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

All week, we’ve been running  “best of” episodes as part of our Taming Anxiety series – and this is the final episode in that series. 

Leslie Booker (who goes by Booker) is one of America’s leading dharma teachers. She’s worked with incarcerated and vulnerable youth, she’s done mindfulness and cognitive-based therapy work on Rikers Island, and she’s written about best practices for teaching yoga in criminal justice settings. She’s a graduate of three different training programs at Spirit Rock, including their four-year Retreat Teacher Training Program.

In this conversation, Booker makes the case that one of the most important, even life-saving, tools when it comes to dealing with anxiety is our ability to connect with other people. And - like the three characteristics, Booker argues that the experience of anxiety is inherently impermanent, unsatisfactory, and unreliable (or, in Pali, it has the characteristics of anicca, dukkha and anatta). Understanding this fundamental truth, she says, can help us see our anxiety with more clarity, and therefore relate to it more skillfully. Booker also explains why bringing awareness to our bodies can help settle us in our most anxious moments. 

Just a note: this interview was first recorded in May of 2021, so you may hear a few slightly dated references, but the topic of anxiety, for better or worse, is perennially relevant.  

Join Booker next week as we re-launch the Taming Anxiety Challenge, over on the Ten Percent Happier app. To join the Challenge, just download the Ten Percent Happier app today wherever you get your apps or by visiting tenpercent.com. If you already have the app, just open it up and follow the instructions to join!

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/leslie-booker-repost

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, we’re sharing some of the best episodes in our archives about anxiety. Dr. Judson Brewer is a psychiatrist and deep dharma practitioner who argues that anxiety is a habit, and is one that you can unwind. This interview explores: what is anxiety; why Dr. Brewer views anxiety as a habit; how mindfulness can be harnessed to deal with anxiety; and if there is any level of stress or anxiety that is healthy.

Dr. Jud Brewer is the Director of Research and Innovation at the Mindfulness Center at Brown University and author of the New York Times Best Seller, Unwinding Anxiety. He has designed a number of apps that use mindfulness to treat addiction and anxiety, including Eat Right Now, Craving to Quit, and Unwinding Anxiety. You can also find Dr. Brewer on the Ten Percent Happier app where he teaches a mindful eating course.  

Just a note: This episode is a rerun from March 2021. There are some references that might seem a little out of date, but the content remains relevant.

We’re re-launching our ten-day meditation challenge, called the Taming Anxiety Challenge, over on the Ten Percent Happier app. To join the Challenge, just download the Ten Percent Happier app today wherever you get your apps or by visiting tenpercent.com. If you already have the app, just open it up and follow the instructions to join!

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/judson-brewer-repost 

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, we're posting some of our best podcasts from the archives on a dragon many of us face internally – anxiety. The first episode of the series features Sara Bareilles. 

Sara Bareilles is a singer, songwriter, composer, and actor who earned Tony and Grammy Award nominations for her Broadway musical Waitress. She also stars in the show Girls5eva, which is back for a second season this year on Peacock.

Behind all of Sara's artistic and professional successes, there is a meditator who is fearlessly open and public about her struggles with anxiety and depression. In this conversation, she talks about: her history of anxiety and depression; the relationship between suffering and art; whether meditation might defang somebody's creativity; how she works with anger; and her relationship with social media. She’ll also share some of the backstories behind some of her hit songs.

Just a note: This episode is a rerun from June 2021. There are some references that might seem a little out of date, but the content remains relevant. 

Content Warning: This conversation features an exploration of depression and anxiety with one very brief mention of self-harm. 

We’re re-launching our ten-day meditation challenge, called the Taming Anxiety Challenge, over on the Ten Percent Happier app. To join the Challenge, just download the Ten Percent Happier app today wherever you get your apps or by visiting tenpercent.com. If you already have the app, just open it up and follow the instructions to join!

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/sara-bareilles-repost

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Gratitude, like hope, is a skill. Daily cultivation leads to lower stress levels, stronger relationships, and higher emotional resilience.

About Matthew Hepburn:

Matthew Hepburn is a straight shooting, clear thinking, and dedicated meditation teacher. His personal practice caught fire over the course of several extended meditation retreats and volunteering to teach buddhist meditation in prisons in his early twenties. Now he shares his love of contemplative practice with people on intensive silent retreats, through dedicated daily life practice as a core teacher at Cambridge Insight Meditation Center, and as the Editor of Mobile Content for Ten Percent Happier.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Daily Gratitude Booster,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=ab981c0f-d353-4c75-a218-42f3255abe75.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode features one of the world’s leading experts in depression and how meditation can help. Dr. Sona Dimidjian is a professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and the director of the Renée Crown Wellness Institute at the University of Colorado, Boulder. This episode explores the seasonal impacts on depression, the research on how meditation can help depression, and what she calls “behavioral antidepressants.”

Content Warning: There are a number of references to suicide in this conversation. 

Be sure to check out TPH’s newest show, Childproof, available wherever you get your podcasts. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/sona-dimidjian-413

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Psychiatrist Dr. Mark Epstein, discusses his new book The Zen of Therapy, in which he explores how his decades of studying and practicing Buddhism has influenced his work as a therapist. 

In this episode, Dan and Mark discuss: the immense value of developing a clear and warm relationship to your own dysfunction; anger; how much people can actually change; how Buddhism has influenced Mark's practice as a psychotherapist; and Mark’s formative relationship with the legendary spiritual teacher and ex-academic Ram Dass.

This interview was recorded live as part of an online benefit for New York Insight Meditation Center and Cambridge Insight Meditation Center – two great institutions, both worth checking out and supporting. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/mark-epstein-412

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.