Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Grow Your Love Muscle, with Dan Harris!

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

An adrenaline-fueled war reporter, self-medicated with cocaine. The panic attack on live TV that brought him to meditation.   This is a RAW & REVEALING look into how Dan Harris (10% Happier author & podcaster) struggled behind his polished on-screen persona.   What's a better way to celebrate MBB's 200TH EPISODE?!!!   Dan reveals how his reporting from the frontlines of Iraq led to self-medicating his depression with recreational drugs, and how meditation was the ultimate game-changer.   THIS IS A CALL TO ACTION FOR ANYONE WHO THINKS THEY CAN'T MEDITATE!   Learn the practical skills to happiness, how to detach from your narrative through metacognition, and create a buffer between stimulus and reaction.   Mayim shares her personal struggles with meditation and gets practical tips from Dan that could change your perception of meditation forever. Plus, dive into different forms of meditation that enhance concentration, gratitude, and how a lovingkindness meditation practice can reshape your day-to-day life.   Dan also explains how meditation caused him to shift his perception of himself and in relation to others, what our goals with meditation should be, and what his lovingkindness meditation practice looks like today.   Curious about MDMA's therapeutic potential for emotional awareness, adrenaline addiction, or what a coke-fueled panic looks like from the inside? This episode is your front-row seat to a MIND-BLOWING conversation that could very well be the nudge you need to start your own meditation journey.   TUNE IN to help us celebrate 200 episodes of MBB with Dan Harris!    The 10th anniversary edition of  Dan Harris' book, 10% HAPPIER: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/10-happier-10th-anniversary-dan-harris?variant=41074377523234 Dan Harris' Podcast, TEN PERCENT HAPPIER: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast Dan Harris' TEN PERCENT HAPPIER App: https://app.tenpercent.com/link/download Mayim guests on Dan Harris' Podcast, TEN PERCENT HAPPIER: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/mayim-bialik-600  BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Meditation does not require you to clear your mind or to stop thinking or to stop being distracted. That's impossible, as I like to joke, unless you're enlightened or you have died. What we're doing in meditation instead is focusing the mind just for a few seconds, actually a few nanoseconds really, at a time, usually on something simple like the feeling of your breath coming in and going out. And then every time you get distracted, which will happen a million times, you just start again and again and again and again. And this is like a bicep curl for your brain. And people think when they see how distractible they are, that they are uniquely dysfunctional. But actually, the seeing of the distraction is proof that you're meditating correctly.

Why? Because the whole point of this exercise is to get familiar with how fucking crazy you are, with how wild your mind is so that it doesn't own you as much. That's mindfulness. It's my and be all legs break down. She's going to break it down for you. you because you know she knows a thing or two. And now she's going to break down.

It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down. Hi, I'm I'm Bialik. And I'm Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to our breakdown. This is the place where we break things down so you don't have to. Today, we've got someone who is so good at breaking down meditation and making us 10% happier.

We're going to be talking to Dan Harris, author of 10% Happier. He's an author, podcaster, an entrepreneur. He's reported from all over the planet. He's hosted Nightline and he worked on Good Morning America. You probably know him. But he discovered meditation and he wrote 10% Happier. And he has this podcast 10% Happier with Dan Harris. He has an app.

And he has dedicated his life to teaching even the most unlikely among us about meditation. Jonathan, how excited are we to talk to Dan Harris? This is a very exciting episode because you open up in a way that I haven't heard. you open up before. There are controversial topics in this. I think people are going to be excited to hear this. It's a sexy one. It's a very sexy episode about meditation.

Meditation is a bicep curl for your brain, and mime gets a workout. Let's welcome to the breakdown. Dan Harris. Break it down. Dan Harris is really, really exciting to have you here. I've had the pleasure of speaking with you on your podcast, but we're really excited to have you

and have to give a shout out. You changed my ex-husband's life. He wants me to tell you that every time I get to speak to you. So he is a person who read 10% happier and it really, really connected with him and really changed his life. It changed. I mean, he's a daily meditator,

like literally a daily meditator since your book. And I don't, I don't want to say that I think your book changed my life, but I actually, as you were logging on, I decided to go ahead and I downloaded the 10% Happier app. And you should know that I am not a person who, like, downloads apps. I don't really use apps for much of anything. I didn't even tell Jonathan I was doing this, but I just filled out my questionnaire. I would have assumed you didn't know where the app store was.

I found the app store because I went through your book again. It's the fifth anniversary edition that I happen to have. You have the fifth anniversary edition. Oh, I have the fifth anniversary, but there is a 10. Correct. But this is the one that I'm holding. And I also did, I also read meditation for fidgety skeptics

because I don't know that I am a fidgety skeptic, but I'm definitely fidgety. something really clicked for me this time around in going over your life and your journey. So I'm really excited to get to talk to you. I wonder if you would do us a bit of a favor and tell us a bit about where we found you, we as your readers, where we found you when you decided to, embark on this journey of meditation, which really has, I mean, not only changed your life, but the lives of so many, you were a young, a young professional, you were a newscaster. You were in a very coveted place in your life. Can you tell us about what happened, and specifically

this diagnosis you had of depression? Where were we finding you? No, I'm happy to talk about that. I absolutely will. I want to make a mental note. We can talk about it now. We can talk about but later we can talk about it offline. But you said something clicked for you. And I am so curious what it was that clicked. So we want to do that now? Oh, we'll get to it. Okay.

Oh, no, no. You get to visit us here. I got a whole list. It's all in order. I'll get to it. I may not be like Dan Harris, the newscaster, but I have a process here. All right.

But yes, we're going to get to it. I will answer the question you actually asked me. I'll try not to be a hostile witness. I will play along. It's your fault for saying something interesting. Okay, so I, you asked me where, where, where, where, where, where I was found or where we found me. I, I, I, I feel like I've been laughing to myself recently. Like, I, I, there are probably very few people in the, on the meditative path who, who can say that their work started with a Coke fueled, televised panic attack.

Um, but that's where mine did. So proud. Yeah, I was, just to go back to it, let's, I'll start the story at age 28. I arrived at ABC News where I, after working for many years in local television, and I got this call to work at ABC News, which was a huge deal for me. I was a, I'd grown up watching Peter Jennings, who was the main anchor of ABC's World News tonight at that time. And, and shortly after I got to ABC and got this big,

opportunity there, 9-11 happened. And so I ended up spending many years in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, places that are in the news now. I was in Iraq six or seven times, often for months and months and months at a time. And I came home in the summer of 2003 after six months in Iraq. That was just my first trip. And I got depressed, although I didn't actually know I was depressed. And I started to self-medicate. with recreational drugs, including cocaine. And then in the summer of 2000... Wait, I want to stop here.

Because just like... You're looking for some cocaine? You're asking if I got a number? Is that where... No, no, no. You're a little bit older than me, but not a lot. And, you know, I knew the guys who... I mean, many of us knew, like, the guys that did cocaine.

And, you know, there was a definite kind of profile. And I'm not saying you're not that profile, but I was very surprised to learn that you took up cocaine, like, at a point in your life where, like, you were developing a career that was, like, really important and, like, had a lot of demands on you. And you talked in the book about how you were kind of, like, sneaking around. Like, this was, like, you had, like, a legit habit that involved the things that we do when we have addictions. But this was a time in your life. when like you were supposed to have your shit together, Dan.

What happened? I don't have any defense for this. It was toweringly stupid. So if you're looking for me to, you know, justify it, I can't. I think really it was that I got fucked up being overseas. You know, I was in very hairy situations. And I want to be humble about this because the action that I saw was nothing compared to the people who were actually in the list. Right. I was going to say you weren't in combat.

No, I was in combat, but I wasn't actually fighting. I didn't have a gun, yes. But I was seeing a lot, you know, people I know were dying and I was seeing a lot of really gnarly things. And I don't actually think I was traumatized the way we think of trauma now. I think what happened, and I spent a lot of time talking to psychiatrists about this, is that I got addicted to the adrenaline. This is not uncommon among veterans who get way more adrenaline than I ever got. that you, there's a very unhealthy at a thing that can happen, which is that you, life seems

bland when you're not getting shot at. And I think what would happen was I would come home in the, in the, you know, and in an interregnum between tours of duty. And even though my job at baseline was very exciting, national television, you know, covering, I was covering, I covered the 2004 presidential campaign and that was really fun. But it wasn't, there's nothing that can compare to being somewhere you are absolutely not supposed to be and getting on television in the process. You know, it was just, it was really thrilling and it felt very important. And I really was, if it quite, was and I'm quite idealistic about the role of journalists to bear witness at the tip of the spear in what, you know, to what's being done in our name and with our tax dollars. So I,

I believed all of that. And I was frankly, you know, addicted to the adrenaline of all of it. And when I came home, I just couldn't handle it. And I didn't know what to do. And I'd never done hard drugs before. And I was at a party one night. And a friend of mine had a bag of cocaine. And, you know, I grew up during the whole just say, no, this is your brain on drugs.

They're frying an egg in the frying pan. So I was terrified of this stuff. But I really felt like shit. I was having a lot of trouble getting out of bed. and I felt ill all the time. And I had done all of these medical tests to try to figure out what it was and nothing came back.

And so I said, you know what, I'll try a little of this cocaine. And immediately I felt better. This is not a recommendation, by the way, for cocaine. It's terrible, terrible idea. No, and you're actually describing the mechanism of what happens with that kind of drug, especially with the way that you administer it.

It is an instantaneous, it's a rush, and that is a sustained rush. as you describe, you described yourself as having an addictive personality. And, you know, what I think is so interesting when you talk about it, you know, you immediately felt like I need to keep this feeling going. I mean, that is the sort of engine that drives addiction. Absolutely. I mean, and this is the problem. You know way more about this than I do. So you'll just fill in the blanks here where I mess up. But, you know, drugs like Xanax that come on fast and go way fast, that is what is more, That is what is so addictive.

And cocaine comes on really fast and goes away really fast. And so that's why people who are doing Coke are like constantly going to the bathroom for a bump. And that is one of the ways in which this drug can just get its, you know, claws into you. And for me, it really did make me feel better. Of course, in it, I felt awful the next day. It was barely functional. It wasn't worth it. The math didn't work out.

but I, you know, I think we've firmly established that I was being a moron during this period of time. You also had experience with ecstasy, which is a much longer lasting experience, but you describe kind of the depletion. Like there's a neurotransmitter depletion that occurs. Can you talk a little bit about the ways, you know, I'm not asking for sensationalistic reasons. I'm asking because I think it's really interesting that these were the tools. that you were trying to use to quiet, ultimately, the voice in the head. Talk a little bit about ecstasy

and kind of what the differences were in terms of that self-medication. Well, so I'm very down on cocaine. I think it's something people should not do. I'm not here to tell you what to do with your life, but you're playing with fire because it is very addictive. MDMA, which is the active ingredient in what we used to call ecstasy

and what we now either call Molly or MDMA, I actually think is quite a powerful potential medicine for people. And it's being studied quite extensively, especially for veterans with PTSD. And the results from what I've seen are actually quite promising. This is not a quick on, quick off, quick hit drug. It comes on slowly. And then you stay, the effects last from what I can tell, four to six hours. And very meaningful things can happen.

it's a drug that's been used in couples counseling. It really makes you feel a lot of warmth and love. And so I see the potential for MDMA in ways that I don't see for cocaine. And so actually, for me, I don't think it was the MDMA that was screwing me up. I think it was the Coke. And the MDMA actually now, and I don't think I would have said this when the book came out. But I think now I really think that those experiences were onward leading. They were pointing to something that was missing in my life, which was that I've often,

I've been described as like a frosty New Englander. It was natural for me to be an anchorman because I am good at not showing my emotions. And if you look at the video of me having the panic attack, you can, I'm pretty good at keeping my shit together. And MDMA, which does bring you out of your head and relax you and help you to get in touch with your emotions, for me, there was something in those experiences that actually I can come back to now that is valuable. My MBELX breakdown is supported by superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get anything out of the experience that was useful. Maybe they're like, you're fine, drink more water.

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have to go anywhere else. They also have nutritional guidance, tips for lifestyle and behavioral adjustments. You even get your true biological age that you can track over time. Superpower used to cost $499.99. Right now, it's $199 for the full experience, which is much more affordable than anything else out there. Make this the year you stop guessing about your health with superpower. Superpower. Not only did Superpower reduce their price to just $199, but for a limited time, our listeners get an additional $20 off with the code break. Head to superpower.com. Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention my ambiotic breakdown to help support the show. We had Matt Gutman on, and he speaks very, very colorfully about his panic disorder and, you know, his panic disorder and, you know, sort of his long history of that. But the timing of all these things in your life story is what's so fascinating to me. So this panic attack that you had, I mean, also I love that you kept asking your mom for what to do as you were feeling so shitty. And like, I think you said it was the third psychiatrist. you went to who was like, do you do drugs? And you were like, yeah. And he was like, oh, got it.

But this panic attack that you had, this was, you know, on air, you know, you're in this super high stakes, you know, high pressure position. And essentially you had kind of a cumulative depletion, right, of what you were trying to balance out between the depression and the cocaine. And it sort of, I mean, it sort of presented itself in this very public way. What can you tell us? A lot of people have anxiety attacks, a lot of people have panic attacks. They are distinct clinically. I'm that jerk that likes to point that out. Can you describe what those body sensations were? I think it's really important now that you have a little distance from it to describe what does that feel like when you're in that acute situation of having that kind of panic attack?

When you're having a panic. It feels awful. A lot of people report it feels like you're dying. for me it's heart racing mouth dries up palm starts sweating um your vision gets contracted um very a sort of a dizziness heavy feeling in the head um and so those of the physical sensations which i often but depends sometimes i notice those first or sometimes it starts with uh fear-based thinking but then what happens is whether you start with the physical sensations or the thoughts they then get into a noxious partnership and as the thinking of oh my god i'm i'm scared i got to get out of this as it interacts with the bodily sensations they ramp one another up and you know on television for you know i was i was having the physical sensations and then the mind was registering

them and then I was unable to talk, which is inconvenient if you're trying to anchor the news. And then the mind was saying, well, everybody's watching this. Your career is fucked. You know, you are, you're in a lot of trouble here. And then the physical sensations would get worse. And then the mental sensations would ramp up. And that, that for me is, you know, I don't, I don't, that for me is the, is how it goes. I don't know. I think I'm describing something that is pretty close to universal for those who suffer with panic, but, you know, it can take on various, you know, flavors. You end up going on, you know, this incredibly deep, journalistically fueled kind of dive into the world of what is actually going on in Dan's brain and also in Dan's body.

And, you know, in 10% happier, you know, you name a lot of the big names. You know, you name Eckartole and you talk about, you know, Deepak Chopra. And you get to sort of start holding court with these people. And so it's kind of cool, at least this is the way I saw it, you kind of got to do this research as part of your job, but it also ended up being this incredible journey of self-discovery. How many years from that panic attack until this incredible retreat that you ended up going on? So, yeah, the quick chronology is the panic attack. I had two panic attacks actually. First one, the one that's on YouTube, it was 2004. The second one was 2005. That was less visually interesting. So I never like put it out there. But it was after the 2005 one that I went to

a psychiatrist. And then it was it was many years before I got interested in meditation and started meeting people like Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra. And that was 2008, 2009. And then I did my first meditation retreat, which was a 10-day silent death march in 2010. I was very intrigued. And that was really kind of my favorite part of the book in a lot of ways because, you know, it's very convenient that you're a journalist because your mind is, you know, you are primed for detail, for description, and for a level of analysis that's very clinical. But because it's about like kind of the deepest inner work.

of Dan, it's a really thorough and wonderful explanation of everything that happened to you. So what I really identified with, and maybe we'll start there before we kind of get into what ended up happening on day five, which like I'm literally like emotional thinking about your day five experience, even though it didn't happen to me. I wonder if you can talk about, you know, one of the first things you started learning about was the voice in our head. And I think when a lot of people hear about like, you should meditate or you need to calm down. This is a piece that is a critically important part of traditional meditation, the notion of understanding the voice in your head. But it's left out of a lot of conversations. And it's,

it's a difficult one. But can you talk about what it means to start thinking about that voice in your head? Like, that voice in your head, you said, told you to do cocaine. Like, that's seemed like a good idea. But talk in general about sort of from, you know, from the Buddhist perspective in particular, what's that voice? Yeah, there are lots of different, I'm glad you're asking about this, because for me, this was the insight that propelled me forward. I had the panic attack and started going to therapy and that was all very useful. I stopped doing drugs. But it wasn't until many years later that one of my colleagues recommended that I read a book by Eckhart Tolly, who was a best-selling self-help guru.

And I did not want to, I had no interest in self-help, but I was only reading it because I thought maybe he would be a good story because I knew he was beloved by celebrities and things like that. So I started reading the book. I thought initially I thought it was hogwash. And then he started to talk, Tolly did, about what he calls the ego, what you could call the voice in the head, the inner narrator, Buddhists call it the monkey mind. And just the fact that we all have this nonstop conversation that we are having with ourselves, this voice that chases us out of bed in the morning and is yammering at us all day long.

We're constantly like wanting stuff, not wanting stuff, judging people, comparing ourselves to other people, thinking about the past or the future, instead of focusing on what's happening right now. And when you're unaware of this noise, which if we broadcast aloud, you would be locked up. when you're unaware of this cacophony and chaos, it owns you. And when I read that in Toley's book, I thought, oh, well, this is just intuitively true. A, and B, this thesis about the human situation explains why I had a panic attack on national television, because, as you said, the voice in my head sent me off to war zones without

thinking about the consequences for my psyche, came home, got depressed. insufficiently self-aware to know it. Because that's a voice too. Depression is like that's a loop. Well, I think actually in my case, depression definitely is a loop. In my case, it was a weird thing because my body knew I was depressed

and it was trying to send me the signal, but I had a mind that was not ready to receive the package. And so that was a voice of denial or delusion of, of, you know, being insufficiently, you know, aware of my own intuition, what the body's trying to tell you, which can sound a little new agey, but is absolutely true. So I was very interested in what totally had to say.

But when I went and interviewed him, I found him very frustrating because he didn't have, from what I could see, any practical advice for dealing with the voice in the head. He's a little clinical. He's a little sterile. Yeah, I mean, I think he's probably a straight genius. And at the time, I did not, now knowing what I know, 15 years after having met him or whatever,

I actually think he's, he's absolutely for real. He just wasn't speaking my language. And he doesn't really give you stuff to do. And so when I found Buddhism, they do. I mean, meditation, like, that's what you can do about it. And there are very simple ways in which meditation helps you get in touch with the voice in your head and to see it with some non-judgmental remove and then not be so yanked around by it. And that is one of the principal value propositions of the practice. The other thing that I wonder if you can speak to, and I understand that meditation for fidgety skeptics is in particular kind of addressing this.

But, you know, this is one of the things that I hear the most from people is I can't do that. I can't sit still. I can't stop thinking. You call it, well, we call it Schbilkus, where you and I come from and Jonathan as well. But I think in the book, at one point, it's called beans. You got beans, you know? I know that it's, in some ways, it's not your responsibility to fix this for people, but also you are, you know, the voice of understanding for so many aspects of meditation for so many people.

what is the explanation like for spilkis or for beans or for that that fidgetiness that feels like it cannot be satisfied? And what does that mean for the mind? And are those the exact people who need to be meditating? You know, you said it's not my job to fix this for people. Actually, I kind of think, you know, I used to have a different job as an anchorman, which I don't have anymore. I actually think my job is to fix this for people like, because there's a very easy. answer. Well, there's a very comprehensible answer. I don't know if it's easy to do, but it's quite a

simple answer, which is meditation does not require you to clear your mind or to stop thinking or to stop being distracted. That's impossible, as I like to joke, unless you're enlightened or you have died. Clearing your mind is not on the menu. It just, you know, unless you're in a very deep or rare state of meditation. For most of us mortals, it doesn't happen. What we're doing in meditation instead is focusing the mind just for a few seconds, actually a few nanoseconds really at a time, usually on something simple like the feeling of your breath coming in and going out. And then every time you get distracted, which will happen a million times, you just start again and again and again and again. And this is like a bicep curl for your brain. And people think when they see how

distractible they are, that they are uniquely dysfunctional. But actually, the seeing of the distraction is proof that you're meditating correctly. Why? Because the whole point of this exercise is to get familiar with how fucking crazy you are, with how wild your mind is, so that it doesn't own you as much. That's mindfulness. And this is one of the aspects of, again, revisiting, you know, the way you present this information that I think is, critically, it's missing. It's missing for a lot of people because I think that the notion is meditation is going to teach me to be a different person. Like literally, like it's going to make me not be the person that feels so miserable that I'm looking for books on meditation, right?

I don't want to be that person and I want it to go away. We, you know, fall down nine times and get up 10, that literally is, you know, the basis and foundation for this, this kind of practice. The other thing that I was glad you bring up in the book, a lot of people say, I don't need to meditate. Blank is my meditation. And, you know, there's people who are like, gardening is my meditation or, like, drinking is my meditation. And usually it's people kind of deflecting. Like, that's often not a legitimate conversation people want to have. But, you know, I specialize in taking things too seriously. So I wonder if you can speak to, you know, people who kind of want to dismiss it, want to act like, I don't need that. And also, you know, it's not for me to go around and say, like, I think this person

is really messed up and they need to meditate. But what is that in us that has that resistance? Well, I think there are a couple of things. One is, whether we know it or not, we might be scared to look at the stuff that will likely come up when we meditate or do therapy or anything that involves deep contemplation. The other is, and I have a lot of sympathy for all of these, frankly. The other is we're busy and people are looking for reasons not to add something to their to-do list. And I get that. I absolutely get that. I don't want new shit of my to do list either.

I think the good news there is, you know, as you know, my little, I've got these two little slogans. One minute counts. I think all the data around habit formation show that you want to start small. So like one minute. And then daily-ish, you don't have to, if you tell yourself, you're going to do this every day for, you know, in perpetuity, you will inevitably miss a day.

and then the voice in your head will probably tell you you're a failure and then you quit. So you need some elasticity, some flexibility. And again, this is a data-backed assertion that what we know works is to take it easy. So to get back to your question, I think it's at least two things. One is fear, conscious or subconscious. And two, you know, feeling, we already feel overwhelmed. And so many people like resist the idea of adding something new. there's also a difference between something that feels meditative,

something that I'm going to lose myself in, like gardening or like cleaning my car, where I'm not hounded by what might be my other anxiety and actually meditating where you're sitting only with that inner narrative and understanding how it works. Yes. Yeah, I think that's a great point, Jonathan. And I want to be clear,

I'm really not heavy-handed about this. Like gardening, Netflix, drink it with your buddies. I'm for all that stuff. Whatever, you know, as long as it doesn't tip over into addiction, I'm for whatever's feeling good, especially if you're doing it with other people, because that's actually probably the most important variable in human flourishing is social connection. And so I'm not a meditation fundamentalist saying, like, you've got to do this or, you know, you're never going to be happy.

You've got to figure out what works for you. you and some of these other activities that take you out of your morass are really helpful. And by the way, there are forms of meditation that are less oriented toward engineering a collision between you and the voice in your head and are more oriented. I think you know, Jonathan, given your own practice, more oriented toward focusing the mind in ways that can feel quite good. Or in my case, I do a lot of meditation that is actually specifically designed to tune up your capacity for warmth.

That's called loving kindness meditation, which sounds a little cheesy and actually is a little cheesy, but a ton of science to show that this can change your physiology, your psychology, and even your behavior. So there are a lot of flavors on this menu. I want to turn to this retreat that you get into about halfway through 10% happier. And I felt really seen in your description, of first of all, your absolute resistance to going on this retreat at all. And, you know,

your very, very specific descriptions of everything you hated. And in particular, I really enjoyed reading the thoughts that would come to you when you tried to meditate kind of before day five. You know, it was like you were trying to just do in-out, like say in on the in-breath, out on the out-breath. and you know, you said, I can't keep up a volley of more than one or two breaths. And you wrote, in, out, in, holy crap, I think my feet are going to snap off at the ankle. Come on, dude, in.

It feels like a dinosaur has my rib cage in its mouth. Out. I'm hungry. It's really quiet. And I was like, oh, someone literally wrote down what it's like. And it doesn't get better, meaning at first it gets worse. Oh, yeah. Like you literally, you start off like angry, resistant.

and wanting to leave. And it really gets worse. That's how you know it's working. That's right. In-out. I wonder if they'll have more of that fresh bread at dinner. Damn, dude. Did someone actually invent and patent the sneeze guard?

Or like math and language, was it devised in several disconnected civilizations? More or less simultaneously. Idiot, incompetent. Irretrievably, irrevocably, irredeemably stupid. So this was literally what your experience was. And also it was mostly silent. So like you were just kind of, you said it was like a. zombie nation. You're all kind of wandering about. But what really, really, I think for me,

was this missing piece is that on day five, you literally want to go home. Like, you're ready to go home. And you, at some point, you have to speak to different yogis who are there, or you speak to different, like, leaders and teachers. And you end up, you, you, you know, you end up taking a chair. I think it's the first time you sit in a chair as opposed to trying to sit on the floor. And you say that a few minutes in, something just clicked for you.

And what happened is, you call it choiceless awareness is what you think you were tapping into. Once you've built up enough concentration, they say you can drop your obsessive focus on the breath and just open up to whatever is there. So every object that arises in your mind, you say, I focus on with what feels like total ease and clarity until it's replaced by something else. I'm not trying. It's just happening. It's so easy. It feels like I'm cheating. Everything's coming at me and I'm playing it all like jazz and I don't even like jazz. So it's not for me to say this is the moment, but like this feels like the moment. Because while you've gone through ups and downs in your life, The rest of the retreat was not all sunshine and roses.

You experienced a realization in that choiceless awareness that seems to have awakened something in you. Tell us what actually was happening. What did it feel like? What did it mean? I think you're absolutely right that it was the moment. And the word that's coming in mind is a loaded word. Faith.

And in the Buddhist context, faith does not mean what it often means in our culture, like blind belief. In Buddhism, faith, a Buddhism, which was basically designed by a skeptic for skeptics. I mean, the Buddha often said to people, do not take anything I say on faith value. Just check it out in your own mind. His little motto was, come see for yourself. And so faith in this context means confidence, confidence that the technology works. And for me, having this moment of seeing what the, like the gear works of the mind,

that we have this knowing faculty in the mind, this mysterious consciousness or awareness that is knowing what's happening, knowing the sound of my voice right now, knowing the feeling of your body as it sits in whatever chair you're in or moves through space. There's this raw knowing power to the mind that lives separate from all of your racing thoughts, all of your judgments about the things you are knowing. And it is possible to get in touch with that. And this may sound esoteric or weird, but actually it's really important because we get too entangled with, too credulous of, too insorseled by all of our spinning stories, our habitual, narratives, our ancient neuroses injected into us by our parents or by the culture.

And we get very unhappy. And there is a different aspect to your mind. We are classified as a species as homo sapiens sapiens. You can think of that as the one who knows and knows that he knows. In other words, we have this capacity for metacognition to be able to see the, our thoughts with some non-judgmental remove and not be owned by them. And that's what I was getting in touch with. And it's not, you don't have to go on a retreat.

It's just, I'm a hard case. The description that you have, that you just, that you just shared, the notion that it's sort of outside of ourselves in a little way or leaned back. You know, we had a conversation with Michael Singer. And he also describes it as the observer, the observer as this, not outside of ourselves, but not sort of in the front of our head the way we normally operate. And I was lucky enough to do like about 20 sessions of at-home neurofeedback recently. And it's one of those devices that makes, you have to make the item move across the screen.

And if you're in the non-ideal brain state, you're trying too hard, basically the thing stops. And so one of the activities is like a little avatar that's seated and it's floating in the air. and you're like, why will it not keep floating? And actually, the harder I try, the less it floats. And it's only by pulling myself out of thinking that the brain gets into an optimal place. And then whatever the sensor is, realizes, oh, I am not trying so hard. So in your description, what I want to help people know is like, we can actually feel it. Once you get to that place and you know where it is, you can, you can,

almost like lock into it and it becomes easier to access. Yeah, yeah, it becomes easier to access. And I have spent a lot of time and a lot of suffering, trying to quote unquote, get back to the moment. Myam just read to us. And, you know, meditation is like a jacked up video game where you can't move forward if you want to move forward. Desire is a principal hindrance in meditation.

So really what the game is, it's very hard for type A Westerners to get wrap our arms around this. But you have to go back to the faith and confidence. Like, okay, just do this practice. It will unfold on its own. Don't push too hard. What happened for me in those first five days of the retreat is I was clenching too hard, pushing too hard, which is we're bred and raised to do this these days.

And so this is a very counterintuitive activity where, You know, you just, you got to learn by thrashing around and messing it up to take it a little bit easy. And that's when things open up. The way you described it, I just, I can't get enough of it's page 138 and 139. It's like a curtain has been lifted. It's not that anything in the passing show is so amazing in itself. It's the sheer rapidity of it all. The objects arising and passing ricocheting off one another with such speed.

And then you say, it's like I'd spent the past five days being dressed. by my head behind a motorboat, and now all of a sudden I'm up on water skis. And this, like, this description you had is then followed by, you know, subsequent days where you are kind of, you're brought to tears by the stepping back that you're able to do. And it reveals this observation of other people that I think, you know, and like, I'm supposed to be the one who understands the brain, this seems to be what for you is a tremendous example of the physiologically life-changing potential of meditation. Because it's not just the work that you did on yourself. And you said, you got home and it's not that you didn't have arguments with people

or that you and your wife don't have hard times. But the perspective that shifted in the way that you saw yourself, then shifted the perspective with which you saw everyone else. That's the part that I'll be honest, I have not experienced. And I've been trying to meditate. And like, I'm going to start crying because, like, I am in a, I'm in a, I'm in the deepest bind with myself. And when you interviewed me, you said to me, name a diagnosis you haven't had. Like, what? And it's interesting because it caught me so off guard, not that I haven't thought about it before, but as I read this book and especially because I knew I would get to talk to you about it, I realized so many of the diagnoses that I've been given, the pills I've been put on,

you know, the eat this, don't drink that, you know, take this supplement, don't take this medication. So much of that journey has been this fight. it's this fight with the voices in my head, the stories that I was told. And in many cases, the stories that I was conditioned with. And for those of us who experienced the kind of life that I experienced, which I don't, you know, I talk about in some detail, for some of us, those patterns in our brain are, they're so deeply grooved. It is like every piece of information that comes in is just there to confirm the deepest most negative penetrating stories that I will repeat. So when I read this, this was the part that I said, I have not had that. And that is what I need to keep me going back

to sitting again. I think there's a lot to unpack here. So let's just stay in this zone if you're okay with it for a minute. You asked, I really appreciate you saying everything you just And I think this is what you were pointing at earlier when you said, when you talked about something clicking for you. Am I right about that? Mm-hmm. Okay. So I, I mean, mainly that I'm a gigantic loser. I don't have what Dan Harris has and I never will.

Okay, that's a story. I know, I know. I'm kind of getting. Not really, though. This might be a good place to start and then we can get back to the you of it because I'm very interested in this. What was happening there for me? I think there were two things that were happening that are easier to understand than the rather esoteric stuff, Jonathan and I were just talking about consciousness or awareness or the observer. I think there are two very easy things to understand in the moment that you just read to us that I think relate directly, I think relate directly to what's going on with you.

The first was as you build up your powers of concentration in meditation, as you're doing this exercise of trying to focus. on your breath or whatever it is, getting distracted, starting again, getting distracted starting again. After a while, you're, you're, you kind of drag your brain and mind into the present moment and you start to see something that we're all aware of theoretically, but not aware of molecularly, which is that everything is changing all the time. Boom, boom, boom. If you really pay attention to what's happening in your mind right now, it's thought, seeing something, feeling my, tush in the chair, thinking another thing, hearing something in the corner of the room, thinking about what's for dinner based on that. And it's very rapid. The mind is just

we don't see most of it because we're distracted. But you take away all of the distractions and put somebody in the middle of Marin County in August 2010 with nothing else to do. And, you know, surrounded by a bunch of old men who look like wavy gravy, you start to see what the mind is actually doing when undistracted by the stories. So that's the first thing. The second thing is as your mind is pulled out of the self-centered stories and more open to the raw data of your senses, you're less self-centered, you have more bandwidth for other people. And you mentioned my weeping. And that happened during a round of loving kindness meditation, which I had previously dismissed as, you know, inexcusably cheesy.

But here I was envisioning people in my life and sending them good wishes. And I started to weep, which is not a common thing for me. And so I'm saying all of that because I'm wondering whether this combination might be useful for you and for everybody, one, to see how, how. how rapid everything is in your mind and in the world. And when you see that, you can't help but see that all of your stories are impersonal and impermanent and changing all the time too. And then if you can if you can unhook from some of these stories, you have more room, more availability for what's left, which is the world.

Does that, does any of these words land for you? No, no, no. So that's really helpful. And I think also, you know, as a person who for most of my life has been in the public eye, right? Like when people are like, oh, most people don't really care as much about you as you think they do. And I'm like, well, sometimes for some of us, people care disproportionately about what we wear, who we date, what we say, how much weight we gain. So there's this notion that, you know, for me, and I think this kind of came up when I got to speak to. You know, you and when, you know, you sort of, you know, ask me those kinds of questions, like,

I think that there's, there's a real sense, I think, when we look at celebrity in general, of like, gosh, it's such a self-centered culture. And Hollywood is, you know, like, it's a lot about, like, let me talk for an hour about my hairstyle that I'm going to wear for, you know, the Emmys or whatever. It's a very self-centered culture, that kind of celebrity culture. But then I think for for those of us who happen to be very sensitive people, you know, I'm a highly sensitive person, and I have this platform, you know, where I do talk often about things that are going on, there's a real self-consciousness because it does feel very self-indulgent, you know, to say like, oh, I go to therapy and I do this treatment, and I try this modality,

and I'm trying to fix myself, right? And I'm getting to talk about it in this public arena. But I think that that hit on something so important is that we all have that. We all have this self-centeredness, which we often hide as, this is my diagnosis, this is what's wrong with me, you should feel sorry for me, right? It can manifest in so many different ways. But I think that's, I think that is getting more to the root of it is that this kind of meditation and doing it with regularity, because it is, is a muscle. You have to practice it. That is a skill that you then get to learn, which allows

you to take that focus off of yourself, right? I mean, that's the goal. Yes. The, the, there's this, I'm sure my staff has a drinking game on, on this because I say it all the time, but, um, I think it's so beautiful. This is why I say it all the time. In Tibetan, the word for enlightenment roughly translates into the following, a clearing away and a bringing forth. And if you can clear away your stories about yourself, your stories about the people you resent, if you can just start to see those

as ephemeral bursts of energy in the mind, you don't have to attach to them as much. That doesn't mean that they don't have any relationship to the truth, but you can not be so, you can just turn the volume down on them, let's say. Well, then what remains? As a social species, as a species that, you know, natural selection, you know, primed us for connection with other humans because that's how we survive. I think what's left, what's there to be brought forth once you stop thinking about yourself so much is other people.

And, you know, you on this show and me on my show, I on my show, we talk a lot about the ways to get how. happier. But from what I've seen in the data, the number one most reliable way to get happy is to have good relationships with other people in your life. And it is hard to do that if you have your head up your ass. You know, if you're just constantly thinking about yourself. And we can call that ego and often when we use the word ego, we talk about positive stories. But ego can be negative too. It can be a bunch of stories about woe is me or, or I'm broken. I'm not as good as this person. I'm stuck in a comparing mind, which by the way, social media is horrible. out of my head. You can't play that game with me. You know, social media is terrible for all this.

And but I have sympathy, I have not just sympathy, empathy and compassion for this. You know, like I feel have these feelings too. That full human repertoire is available to me just as as it is to you. But so I'm not here to criticize. I'm just saying it's painful to be stuck in these stories. And meditation is one of many ways to get out of it. I just had one last thing to say about daily meditation is incredibly helpful. We have a ton of evidence to show this. And you don't have to go on a meditation retreat if that sounds horrifying for you.

I wonder if you can talk about the concept. You talked about what we can be taught through meditation. And what I'm really kind of moved by is this is not a book about how to get happy. Your platform is not about happiness, right? the notion that we can be 10% happier. The goal of meditation, though, is not, it's not any one particular thing. It's this sort of like evolving process. But you mentioned that happiness is a skill that we can learn.

And that really stuck with me. Like you said, we can teach old dogs new tricks. But it doesn't just come. You have to work at it. Can you talk a little bit about what that. exercise is that you have found through meditation and that things like your app, which, again, just signed up for, what are you actually teaching? Meaning what are we learning that leads us to say this is a skill? Like being happy, being 10% happier is something that I

can learn to get to. Yeah. I mean, I think of happiness. It's such a loaded word. Talk about loaded words. I think of it as like an overarching term that includes everything from calm, connection, generosity, gratitude, equanimity, love. So it's, it's just a catch-all term. It's not to be confused with like the dopamine hit you get from winning the lottery, which is I think what people think of when they think of happiness. But so how to, How does, will you learning through meditation? I think there's, there, it has, it has many different benefits. And one of them is we are so distracted.

And part, you can blame evolution for this because having a racing mind kept you alive and got your DNA into the next generation. We were primed to be looking for threats and food and sexual partners. And, and so we, the mind is kind of flitting all over the place. And that is exacerbated by technology these days. And so meditation, this process of just trying to focus on one thing, usually the breath and then getting distracted and starting again and again and again and again. It changes. It rewires the part of the brain that regulates focus and attention. And so that's one thing you're learning.

The second thing you're learning is I keep using this word mindfulness, which is just like the self-awareness to see what's happening in my head, to see how wild it is in there without acting. on it. And so, you know, I think most of us were just controlled by the malevolent puppeteer of our thoughts. And, you know, we, we have the thought, oh, I should say this clever thing that's going to ruin the next 48 hours of my marriage, or I should eat that sleeve of Oreos. And then we just do it. There's no buffer between the stimulus, like our urge, and then our blind reaction to it. And what I think meditation teaches you is to react, to respond wisely instead of reacting blindly. And that's, a huge skill. And I think if you take these two together, the increased focus and the lowered emotional reactivity, what that also ladders up to is an increased sense of well-being and calm

in your life. And it's not perfect. Like, as you mentioned before, I mean, I have bad days. I still get in a fight with my wife or have business disputes or earlier today. I kind of didn't really snap at somebody, but I expressed some frustration and the point person pointed out, like, you're actually spiraling for no good reason. I was like, oh, yeah, you're right. I am spiraling for no good reason because I hadn't gotten enough sleep or whatever. I think all of that stuff's going to happen. It just happens for me less frequently and I'm much quicker to apologize. And so I think that's just one path that one can go down if you learn to meditate on my app or anywhere.

Here's, since you said it's your job to fix things for people about meditation, I'm going to bring something else up that I'd like you to fix. I mentioned, you know, falling down nine times and getting up 10, which is this lovely notion that, you know, I'd love to say is like, that's the story of my life. But there is something about meditation that I think is really tripping me up. And this came up kind of throughout the book and I kept seeing it over and over. You say with extreme ease, like, oh, if your mind goes elsewhere, you know, don't be judgmental about it. Just bring it back and just start again. There's something about this that like literally makes my stomach feel like it's getting tied in a knot. And it's like it rises up. There's something

about this notion that feels like failure to me. And I think this literally might be the place that that I keep getting stuck. Meaning every time I meditate, every time I'm trying to meditate, it kind of feels like the first time. And I keep doing it. I keep doing it over and over. And I keep saying, like,

just one breath, have one breath where I can follow the in and the out, right? But there is something about this level of, just start again. It's okay. That makes me feel like it's not working. it. I can't do this. I am not whatever benefit is waiting, it is beyond my reach. And I'm reaching and I'm reaching and I'm like, I'm doing vagal breathing while reaching. Like, I'm doing all the

different things. But I think this is a place that you make it sound very easy. And this is not easy for me. I don't think it's easy for anybody. So if I made it sound easy, that's a mistake. It should be simple, but not easy. That's the cliche. But let me get, let's let's get under the hood here. When you, when you say, so when you get distracted in meditation and then you notice the distraction, instead of just blithely going back to your breath or whatever it is that you've chosen to focus on in your meditation, right there, you just start feeling like a huge failure and that causes resistance.

So, right. So I'm going to just, I'm going to pick an arbitrary. You know, you talk about kind of raising that, that, you know, the, the baseline point, right? So let's say, I'm just going to give you a number. Let's say I'm at a 50 when I start, right? Every time I get pulled away, it feels like it's taking me down a notch. And, and I get pulled away so much that it's like I never feel like I'm getting, I'm getting the chance to meditate. It feels like I'm never starting. It feels like it's all. always getting interrupted. And there's likely a story I'm telling myself about that. But I never, this is it. I never feel like I'm returning back to where I started. I've been taken down a notch. And that keeps happening. So then instead of 50, you know, by the end of a five minute meditation, I'm at like 22, you know. Okay. So this, this is a, you're actually doing a public service by asking these questions. So I appreciate it. Let me say a couple of things. And then, you tell me if any of these land. And if they don't, we can find something else.

One is I hear in what you said some expectations about how you want to feel. Me? Expectations. This is very common. So I'm in no way criticizing you. And this is a rabbit hole I've gone down many times. And we were saying before that meditation, like one of the big hindrances is desire, like wanting to feel a certain way. But meditation isn't about trying to feel anyway.

It's about feeling whatever you feel clearly. Say that again. Say it again. Okay. Meditation is not supposed to make you feel a specific way. Mindfulness meditation in particular is not supposed to make you feel. You don't want to go in with a goal of feeling calmer or whatever. You want to go in with the goal of feeling whatever is there.

Why? Because the better you get at just being cool with whatever's happening, the easier your life is going to be. Because the problem in your life is rarely the problem itself. It's your resistance to the problem. And meditation helps you just sit with whatever's happening. And you'll see, like, you don't need a defibrillator. You're okay.

You can feel this thing you don't want to feel. And that is enormously empowering. The second thing is, when you notice the disappointment, the feeling of failure, the judge, instead of getting lost in it, that's just another thing to be mindful of. You can make a little mental note in your mind. This is a, this is a meditation technique. Be paying attention to your breath.

And then every time you get distracted, you can notice, oh my God, I'm really beating the shit on myself. Just make the little mental note in your mind of judgment. Judgment. Just put it to like a little soft as my meditation teacher says, whisper in the mind. That's judgment. And maybe even sit with that for a second. what does judgment feel like?

Is it a sinking feeling in my stomach? Is it my head feel heavy? Oh, let's just sit with this for a second. In so doing, you're not being, you're kind of knocking yourself out of your identification and wallowing in the judgment, and you're actually just journalistically interrogating, what is judgment like?

And then once that passes, you can go back to your breath. And then the third thing to say is, you said, I never feel like I'm getting to the actual meditation. But what you're doing is textbook correct gold star level meditation. That is the practice.

It's humiliation after humiliation, except for I'm saying that jokingly because after a while I won't feel like humiliation. It will just feel like, oh, I'm getting to know my mind better. And that, you are meditating correctly. Olympic level perfect meditation. It should be this process. of just seeing what the mind is like over and over and over again. It dropped the expectations, drop the goals.

It's just being with whatever's happening. And that produces equanimity, a kind of an armor, like a bulletproof calm. It's not, I mean, I'm overstating it because, you know, I've been doing this for a few years and I still lose it sometimes. But it just gives you this resilience in the face of whatever's happening in life that is incredibly valuable. Does it do any of those words make sense? Yeah, I mean, what I hear is, I mean, it's a little bit, it's a little bit circular in that I'm doing it right, but I don't think I'm doing it right. So the actual wrong thing is that I think I'm not doing it right. The wrong thing is the expectation to feel a certain way.

That's what, you're right, that's what I mean. And that's another thing you can note, just note it as desire because that's what it is. you're wanting to feel a certain way. But that is the primary obstacle. And so anything can be co-opted and included in your meditation, whatever you're seeing. Just let's give it a little. My meditation teacher, who's, you mentioned Sharon Salzberg, she, she lives in a house that is connected to another house where my teacher lives, Joseph Goldstein.

And Joseph talks about it like a Dharma shootout, like a little. like a gentle Nerf gun you're firing at all of these neuroses just like judgment wanting and just you're firing off these kind of humorous little notes and the more clearly

you see these things that's the getting up on water skis that we mentioned before. Okay, so that's what I was going to ask you. So let's say I'm able to start quieting some of these expectations, right? I can, and also the sort of psychology term for what's happening is these are all parts, right? Like, in internal family says, these are all the parts of you.

Like, we have a part that's judgmental. We have a part that feels weak. We have a part that feels lonely, right? So once these parts, you know, kind of take a back seat, right, for this period of time, what one would hope happens is that with regularity, meaning with some form of consistency, the app will tell me what I need to do, with some form of consistency. see, what are my goals here, Dan? It's going to get easier, more pleasurable. I'm going to feel better. Like, what am I looking for?

Over time, the mind does get better at staying focused and less distracted. That happens. Okay. And that's just because that's just like a muscle. It's like if you want to lift a heavy weight, you start light, and you consistently work up to it, believe you can do it, do other things that support that, meaning like don't drink, smoke and eat junk food. So, like, that's just going to happen. That, I think, also is something people don't understand. Like, you have to practice it. It's like a muscle. Yes. And then the other

thing that's going to happen is not that it's going to get more pleasurable. I can in no way guarantee you that and wanting that is a problem in and of itself. What I think will happen is you'll get more okay feeling whatever it is your feeling. Also because of practice. Yes. Yes. But that's distinct from, well, it's related to, but not the exact same thing as boosting your powers of non-distraction or concentration. So separately, you will probably also boost your capacity for mindfulness and equanimity, which is seeing clearly what's happening in your mind and being okay with it. And actually, this is not a bad little speaking of Joseph Goldstein. One of his little slogans or mantras that he recommends to people is, it's okay. So you could be sitting there meditating and feeling shame, doubt, self-criticism, frustration.

And then if you can just remember to say, it's okay, I can feel this. I'll be fine. I felt this my whole life. And actually, I've been running from it and self-medicating and with whatever. And I just didn't want to feel this. But like, actually, this radical turning in place and just being with it. is okay. And I think what's going to happen to you over time is if you adopt this attitude and keep up with the practice. By the way, your persistence is admirable. I'm nothing if not persistent.

Jonathan's smiling. If you, if you just stick with this, I think what's going to happen is you're going to get better not only while meditating, but in the rest of your life of just feeling the things you don't want to feel that often propel you to behaviors that are not working for you. Right. I do think it's important because mine paints herself a certain way, and I'm not saying that what she's describing is not true and not her experience. However, as an outside observer observer, I've seen over even the last three years drastic differences in her, in terms of reactivity, in terms of general overall, piece of mind going from someone who definitely was a self-admitted workaholic,

filling every ounce of her day, especially with a TV schedule and then podcasting and parenting, where there was almost no time to have downtime. And she's also one of these people who has an enormous awareness of how she's feeling when she does settle into herself. If you get her in a contemplative moment, her vocabulary about what's happening in her inner world is so vast that I think it's important to just qualify some of her self-deprecating humor with the intensity of work that she has and the awareness that she shows off and off-camera. Yeah.

No, I'm glad you said that because I can be like, I am in that, I can, in a desire, and I think largely a helpful desire to normalize difficult feelings and various diagnoses and conditions in a healthy desire. to do all of that and to get some help for myself, I can talk about my experience and my behavior, my being in the world in ways that are maybe a little too hard on myself. And maybe that's happening with my I'm a little bit too. First of all, thank you.

And I wonder if you can be even one more level of specific for me. And I don't just mean for me, but I mean for someone like me who's struggling with certain aspects. In meditation for fidgety skeptics, there's meditations throughout. Meditations I've never even thought of. You know, they all start with the same kind of basic premise, but there's different, you know, focus for each one. And I was particularly intrigued by the do nothing meditation. And it had never occurred to me that that's a style of meditation. And throughout the book, there's also little icons that I think relate to the app so you can actually pull them up, which I'm really excited to do. But I wonder, I was very interested, well, investigating patterns was

interesting to me, do nothing was interesting to me, surf the urge was interesting to me. Given what I've told you about things that are challenging for me, is there a type of meditation that in your experience might be a good one for someone like me to start with, someone who really struggles to get past the first breath? Yes. I'm glad you're asking this because the thought I've been having all along is actually does go back to loving kindness meditation. Oh, Jesus, Dan. Well, okay. Well, let me, let me give you an alternate way to do it because a lot of people struggle as a result of the fact that traditionally the instructions are start with yourself and send yourself loving kindness. That actually comes from Asian cultures where people don't actually hate themselves

as much generally. In fact, there's a classic story about the Dalai Lama being at. by Sharon Salzberg, what is his advice for self-hatred? And he turned to his translator. He didn't understand the concept. So in the East, it makes sense to start with yourself. But in the West, a great hack is to begin your loving kindness meditation with what's called an easy person. So I would say, so for my own loving kindness meditation, I will sit quietly, close my eyes.

I will bring to mind. I actually do too easy people to start my practice. So I start with, we have a new kitten. His name is Curtis. I start with Curtis. And I envision him. And then maybe like lazing in a sunspot.

And then I repeat the four phrases, may you be happy. May you be safe. May you be healthy. May you live with ease. Then I got a little bit of juice flowing. Then I actually go to my son who's nine and he's hilarious. He loves to make fun of his.

dad and I picture him and may be happy, safe, healthy, live with ease. Then I do a little bait and switch. Then I put myself in. And then I go on with the progression to a mentor, my dad, a neutral person, somebody I might overlook, like a, this is who I see all the time, but I might overlook. And then finally, then two more, a difficult person, best not to pick like Pol Pot or somebody like really, really horrible, like mildly annoying is the right framework for that category. And then finally, all beings everywhere. And there are a couple of reasons why I recommend this.

First is this technique is really good for distractibility. It is classically used as a practice that helps you hone your ability to stay focused, which is. which is one of the frustrations I'm hearing from you in your breath-oriented practice. And so this might be a good on-ramp for you because it's great for concentration. And the second is it's going to, it may be annoying at first. And for me, it's still annoying. But over time, and again, there's been a lot of scientific research into this particular practice that's been shown to change people's physiology, psychology, and even behavior.

Preschoolers who were taught this practice are more likely to give their stickers away to kids they don't like. over time, this will make your inner weather balmier. And so it requires a little faith, a little stick-to-itiveness. But if you're feeling like frustrated and stuck around this meditation practice that you're doing now, I think this would be a great place to start. You don't have to listen to me, but... Oh, I'm going to listen to you. It's nice because it's active.

You know, there's a creative activity there that... involves both the mind and your emotions and the interplay. But sometimes when you just have to sit in silence and try to not think or only focus on the breath, it can feel overwhelming where something like this is a little bit more active. I agree, totally. And one quick thing to say that a transformative piece of advice to have in your head as you go into this practice is, you don't need to feel any specific way. even when you're picturing the easiest person,

and you might find that you feel nothing, that's totally fine. The goal here is not to gin up any specific emotion. It's just to do the practice, let it take care of itself. So don't worry if even if you're like, it's not uncommon for people to do this practice and feel nothing or negative or whatever. That doesn't matter. It's just do it. And over time, it's like you're working.

I was on Nick Cannon's first while TV show a couple months ago. I said, this is a practice that helps you grow your love muscle. And he said that sounded pornographic to him. But you get my point. Yes. Dan, it has been such a pleasure to get to talk to you. And I really appreciate you letting me literally pick your brain and use you as my meditation therapist. If you have not read 10% happier, I have to tell you, it's time.

It is time to read 10% happier. how I tame the voice in my head, reduce stress without losing my edge, and found self-help that actually works a true story. And also meditation for fidgety skeptics is delightful and follows literally a road trip that Dan took to bring his meditation to the masses. And it has all of these incredible, really helpful meditations throughout.

It's really such an honor to get to talk to you more. I appreciate your candor and really allowing us to be so open with you and very vulnerable. I'd like to say that your book taught me to do that. So thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me out. This is super fun.

And I appreciate your candor. Like I, you beat yourself up for this a little bit, but, you know, because I think maybe you think you're whining or something. I have the opposite view. I think that when people have a public platform and they're brave enough to use it to talk about what's going on for them, it gives everybody else permission to be a mess because that's the human condition. And so I see this as a public service on your part.

So it's great to talk to you and Bravo. I did not expect to talk to Dan Harris about the things that I just spoke to Dan Harris about. I treated him like he was my freaking meditation therapist. I had to. You know, when you're talking, because normally I'm your therapist on this show, I heard a lot of expectations and rewriting of narratives that you're bumping up against and you're sitting down, you're meditating. There's no reason why you should,

have to be so hard on yourself. You know, I really, I think, I think we need, I think I'm going to start using the app, and I think we need to start cataloging this because I think it's a journey that I feel, for some reason, when I read this book and revisited it, I was like, I get a thing that's missing and in the gentlest way possible, I'm going to try and do it. I also think we should catalog all the narratives that you have while you're, meditating. Bring them to the podcast. We'll do a short form where I rewrite them for you, and then you have to say them aloud. There'll be a new form of mantra, specifically designed

based on your personal, personal narratives. Jonathan, I think, first of all, that that would be an amazing book that possibly only my mother would purchase. But I also think that it's such a boutique thing. We could have people send us their horrible narratives about themselves. Jonathan and we'll turn them inside out and we'll send it back to you, and we will fix people through meditation one person at a time. I'm so into this. Everything is changing all the time. Just because you believe something one minute doesn't mean that you will believe it the next.

Also, that man's got a great head of hair. I'm really sorry he's not on television anymore. Great head of hair. Great voice. Great head of hair. I mean, I feel like he was three years old and he had that voice. It's like, what else are you going to do in life besides become a newscaster? It's unbelievable.

captivating. If you're not watching this, you didn't notice how he leans in when he's paying attention. Great. Just like the Dalai Lama did when the Dalai Lama met him. We didn't get to ask him what MDMA provided that he was missing, but we'll do a follow-up. Maybe we'll do an Instagram live. No, but he actually, he hinted at it. He hinted at that sense of love, that sense of bigness, that sense of being of service to other people as an act of meditative love. I totally get it. And I also think meditation

is a much more predictable way to get there than ecstasy. But that's just my opinion. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time. It's my ambiolyx breakdown. She's going to break it down for you.

She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fiction. And now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown.