Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 119: Yael Shy, Helping College Students Fight Stress and FOMO

Episode Date: January 24, 2018

Yael Shy, the author of "What Now? Meditation for Your Twenties and Beyond," says she came to meditation from "a lot of suffering" as a student at New York University in 2001 -- the same year the World Trade Center towers fell near her New York City dorm during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Today, Shy helps college students tackle stress, anger and FOMO (fear of missing out) around academics, relationships, sex and social media in her role as the senior director of NYU Global Spiritual Life and the founder and director of MindfulNYU. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It kind of blows my mind to consider the fact that we're up to nearly 600 episodes of this podcast, the 10% happier podcast. That's a lot of conversations. I like to think of it as a great compendium of, and I know this is a bit of a grandiose term, but wisdom. The only downside of having this vast library of audio is that it can be hard to know where to start. So we're launching a new feature here, playlists, just like you put together a playlist of your favorite songs.

Back in the day, we used to call those mix tapes. Just like you do that with music, you can do it with podcasts. So if you're looking for episodes about anxiety, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes. Or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes, or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist for that. We've even put together a playlist of some of my personal favorite episodes. That was a hard list to make. Check out our playlists at 10%.com slash playlist. That's 10% all one word spelled out..com slash playlist singular.

Let us know what you think. We're always open to tweaking how we do things and maybe there's a playlist we haven't thought of. Hit me up on Twitter or submit a comment through the website. Hey y'all, it's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. I'm a new podcast, baby, this is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts,

the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad. Where the memes come from. And where's Tom from MySpace? Listen to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or whatever you get your podcast. I think this really is the meditation generation. And we just have to build in more tools and more availability for young people to access these things to counter some of the stuff of the smartphones. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

Take it. So I have a few announcements and then I'll tell you a little story and then we're going to do our guest for this week who is awesome. She really is awesome. It's had a lot of things that are very relevant to what's happening in the news these days with times up and me too. And she also has lots to say about meditation and and how it could be useful for young people who are dealing with what maybe described as an epidemic of anxiety. So we'll get to YL in a moment, but just a few announcements. I've got a few events I'm gonna be doing in New York City, coming up in case you wanna come. One event is on Thursday, the 15th of February at 630

at the Asia Society, which is on Park Avenue in New York City. I'm gonna be doing a live podcast actually with Dr. Thubton Jindpa to be doing a live podcast actually with Dr. Thupten Jindpa who is a previous guest on this podcast. He's one of the, I guess the thing he's most known for is he's been the principal English translator for a guy you may have heard of by the name of the Dalai Lama. And he's just an incredible guy. He, uh, Jimpa, that is, is an incredible guy. And he also teaches, uh, compassion meditation, uh, with Stanford University. So a lot to talk to him about. I'm also going to do something at the Mindful Meditation Studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

That's M-N-D-F-L Mindful, uh, which is, uh, owned or co-owned by a former podcast guest, Lodro Rinsler. So Lodro and I are going to do a thing at Mindful in Williamsburg on February 22nd at 730. If you want to get tickets for that, you can check out MindfulMeditation.com, m-n-d-f-lmeditation.com. Oh, by the way, AsiaSociety.org is where you go

to find out about the Asia Society event. And then the final event, and there are others actually that I'll tell you about later, at a later date, the final event to tell you about this day, though, is something at ABC Home on February 21st. I'm going to be with my friend and another former podcast guest, Daniel Goldman, who co-authored the excellent book in the last 12 months, Altered Traits with Richie Davidson. And that's at ABC Home, which is at 888 Broadway, and at set 7 o'clock. And you can, I saw a listening for that on event bright. So I think if you do a search there, you should be able to find it.

The other announcement I want to make is that we've got a new audio course going up on the 10% happier app. It's on pain, physical pain. One of the more counterintuitive uses of meditation is to help us cope with pain. And that's not to say that pain relief of other varieties, medical pain relief is not of no good, but meditation is a kind of a different way to attack

it. And Sharon Salzberg, who has been on this podcast many times, more than anybody actually, is doing this audio course on the 10% happier app. And I think it's really worth checking out. And it doesn't mean you have to have chronic pain to define this of use. I think we all suffer, especially if you do any meditation of any length, you notice that the body can sometimes be, can turn into what my meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein talks about as a twisted steel. So check it out. All right, story.

I just learned a ton about podcasting because I went to LA with my wife. She came along with me because I was appearing on eight different podcasts as part of my orgy of self promotion around this new book I wrote called Meditation for Figuity Skeptics and I was doing, I went on all these other podcasts and there were, I learned so much about the podcast world. These people are all just really nice. So I wanted to tell you about the podcasts I was on in case you want to go check them out.

Either you don't have to listen to the interview with me. You might want to just check out these other podcasts because we're always looking for new podcasts to enjoy. And also along the way, I had lots of classic LA experiences. So let's see, what did I do? So the first one we did is called Kickass News, which is one of the top podcasts in the world. Really interesting guy who hosts it,

and he's really nice and very, very skeptical about meditation, if he gets great guests. So his name is Ben Mathis. I recommend you check him out. And it's so interesting, but you know, it's one of the top podcasts in the world, and he does it out of just a completely non-descript building in Pasadena

Which is outside of LA and you would think that he would be you know out of some gleaming global headquarters, but nope This the really sort of like I said non-descript Building in Pasadena with green carpeting. Then we went to perhaps my favorite podcast of all time with RuPaul, who is an amazing individual. He's got a podcast called What's the T-E-E, which I think is another word for gossip. Anyway, that just exposes my ignorance about the drag world. But I knew I had met RuPaul because I did a story on him for nightline and then also he was on this podcast.

And I absolutely fell in love with him. He's just so funny. And he insisted that my wife sit next to me for the whole my wife Bianca, who's also been on this podcast. And so we were laughing hysterically the whole time because he's just ridiculously funny. So check out his podcast. After it was over, he actually pulled out his phone and he read he read to us a list of dirty versions of

popular plays including Shakespeare plays and movies dirty versions that he had made up as part of a dirty charades game and We were just buckled the whole time but he has lots of other funny things to say and to sing uh... and so check out uh... check out his podcast then we went this is all happening on monday uh... on a monday uh... we're just who bring around or lifting around uh... la and then we uh... spent some time with

rich roll who's also been on this podcast he's uh... vegan ultra marathon or and a super fun to hang with him. I love him. And then I did four podcasts on this day. The fourth one I did is a guy who's going to be on this podcast soon. His name is Paul Gilmarten. He hosts a show called The Mental Illness Happy Hour, which is kind of a tongue and cheese, a former comedian, but he's suffered from serious mental illness,

depression and anxiety among others, I believe. And he has the show where he just really talks about it and open in an often very funny way. And I think he's doing a lot to destigmatize mental illness so it was cool to meet him. So that was by Monday of the trip. And then on Tuesday, we spent some time with the minimalists who are the great guys and have also been on this podcast.

And actually before I did the Minimalist, I sat down and did a podcast called The Ground Up Podcast with Matt Diavolo, who directed the minimalism documentary, which is unavailable on Netflix. And so I talked to him, his podcast is all about how creative people get their start. And then we did an hour with the minimalists themselves. And then after that, one of the minimalists convinced me, he could not convince my wife, to

do cryotherapy, which is where you get in this tiny little coffin-like thing and you're standing. And they pump in the incredibly cold air vapors. I don't know, I'm probably mangling what it is, but it's ridiculously cold. You're wearing gloves and earmuffs and socks to protect your extremities and underwear. And it's supposed to have some sort of therapeutic benefit. I'm not sure if it actually does, but it's like classic LA experience where you just standing in this room, you get to pick the music. So I picked actually my, this band that I love always. If you want to check them up, by the way, their name is spelled,

A-L-V-V-A-Y-S, but they're pronounced always, I believe, and my son and I listen to their record in the bath every night. So I played that in the little cryotherapy chamber and danced around while this ridiculous cold air jumped in. All I can tell you is that I felt great when it was over, but I think I felt great because it was over. It was like that I've ever heard that joke about the guy who's banging his head up against the wall and somebody says, why are you doing that? And he says, because it feels so good when I stop. Anyway, it was a unique experience. And then that night, Jeff Warren, my co-author on the new book, and we did an event in Pasadena

together, which was amazing with all these folks who came out. And then the final podcast we did was the next day with Joe Rogan, who's maybe the most popular podcaster on Earth in the universe. And I have been texting with him the day before to just make sure I had the right time and location and everything. And he starts telling me on text that he has an isolation tank in his studio,

in his podcast studio. He's got this gigantic like 20,000 square foot setup with a workout area where people can train for mixed martial arts. He's got this video game with an archery thing like a full on, this is crazy setup. He's got, and he's got his little radio podcast studio in there. But he also has an isolation tank, which is, if you don't know anything about this, it's a place, it's filled with salt water. You get in there, you float, and you can't see anything in this,

and you can't hear anything. So all of your senses are gone, and you're floating in this water, and it's, you're like disembodied. And it was another classic. I think there's a little bit more science to suggest that this is good for you than the cryotherapy. I could there's a little bit more science to suggest that this this is good for you than than the cryotherapy. I could be wrong about that but that that was my cursory read indicated and

I told when when Joe said he had an isolation tank and did I want to get in and I said no and then he called me a chicken and then I felt like I had to do it so I did do it and I was terrified to do it and going there for two hours, he was kind of me and only put me in there for an hour. And you float in this water, and I had a moment of being terrified, totally terrified, and like pushing open the door because I wanted to just make sure I knew where the door was, and that I could get out of there. And then I kind of eased into it, and I have to say there's, it's, I can see what, there's something to it.

When you take away all the other stimuli, you are transported mentally and psychologically in some interesting ways. And there are all sorts of fascinating experiences that people have in these tanks, and I'm actually, I want to do more research about, you know, what the science says around it, but I'm intrigued and may try it again. But anyway, in some, here's what I learned, just for my little whirlwind trip around LA. A, it's fun to spend time with my wife, that was fun.

B, LA is actually, I've always been kind of down on LA, but I really like LA, actually. C, the podcast world is filled with as I said at the top really cool people and as you as you heard a lot of these people have been on my podcast and there's a lot of mutual support. Oh by the way I left one of the podcasts out. These two great young women who have a podcast called that so retrograde they're really funny and very smart and they talk about some stuff that goes way beyond the bounds of what we would talk about here because it may be described as woo-woo, but they also talk about stuff that I think you'd find very interesting and useful as

well. And as I said, they're very funny, so we spend time with them. But that all just goes to reinforce my point that there's this kind of mutual support among podcasters as opposed to a sharp elbowed competition and and of all the podcasts that I just listed I think there's a lot there for you to go check out although you should be listening to this one first always. Okay so this week's episode the interview E is Yael Shai who as I mentioned at the beginning is phenomenal. She is her day is, she's the founder and director of the Mindful NYU, which is the largest campus wide meditation initiative in the country. She's also the senior director of the Center for Global Spiritual Life at New York University, and she travels all

over the world talking about meditation. And, you know, we're at a time where young people are really anxious. Anxiety's been on the rise. There are also, I mean, you have to wonder whether the proliferation of mobile phones and social media plays into that. I believe it almost certainly does. And many of you, my listeners may be young and dealing with this or you may have children who are dealing with this. And Yala has a lot to say that is of use.

And if you are neither of those camps, she's still an advanced practitioner with a lot to say that I think can be informative. And I didn't see this coming. We talked about sexual assault on campus and she had some really interesting thoughts about how meditation and mindfulness can play a constructive role

in what is a really important cultural moment. So without further enamoring for me, here she is, Yale Shy. Great to have you here. I think there's a lot of things to talk about with you, especially right now. Let me just open with the familiar question, which is how did you come to meditation? I came to meditation like a lot of people from a lot of suffering. I was in college and I was... Where'd you go to college? NYU where I teach now. I went there, you know, I didn't go there, I went there for one semester to NYU Film School, which was just long enough for me to realize that I suck at making movies. But I have fun memories. I liked my classes, but I had a really hard time. Yeah, I just felt like I was just plunked

in the middle of the city without a lot of money and everybody around me had a ton of money. Yeah. Yeah. Where are you from? I'm originally from LA, but then we moved around a bit, so then New Jersey, Long Island, and then I ended up at NYU. And so you were academically, you were satisfied, but socially, psychologically, struggling? Oh, yeah. It was also during 9.11. And my dorm room was about like 15 minutes from the World Trade Center. All my friends got evacuated. We saw, you know, we saw everything. And I had a lot of PTSD from that. And then just that aside, I was lonely all the time.

And my parents had gotten divorced this one year. My boyfriend broke up with me. And I felt like I was not just stressed. I felt like I was existentially anxious. I felt like I was existentially anxious. I didn't understand what the point of being alive was. I felt like all of our, the president and the leadership were kind of marching us to war. And I was terrified of that.

And you know, just being like this, out what is going on, who's in charge, nobody's in charge. It kind of then directly dovetailed into like nobody's in charge of the world is God real. So I was melting down in many, many ways. I was having like two, three panic attacks a week. Wow. And what context, the just random.

Yeah, they were mostly triggered by crowds, I think, which was like the 9-11 stuff, but I think it just went very deep. I was always an anxious person growing up, and so I think it just hit a high point in college. And there was a moment where I went to a stress reduction meeting at our health center, because I didn't know what else to do. And they sat everyone in a circle and were, you know, telling people, you should, you know, take bubble baths or go for a walk.

If you're stressed about homework, I know homework can be very stressful this time of year. And I left just being like, are you kidding me? Like homework is the least. I'm stressed about existence and what my place is in existence. And so I just felt completely without any tools. And it happened that my mother who is not a meditator, she's a rabbi and conservative rabbi and fairly conservative on her own. And there's a pretty rich history of Jewish meditation. Yes, there is. And so actually, she gave me this flyer for a Jewish meditation retreat, even though she, you know, would never have

gone. But she thought, like, what maybe it could help me. I went on it, and basically my life was changed. It was really, really transformative. I said Jewish meditation, like, I know what I'm talking about, but I don't. So what is Jewish, what is Jewish meditation? So there's many kinds of Jewish meditation and there's a whole realm that I don't go near or touch, not because I think it's bad. It just doesn't exactly appeal to me around mysticism and the Kabbalah and things of that kind. Numerology, right? Oh yeah, it goes, it goes very deep and old, but extremely dense. You're supposed to be

like 40 before you even start delving into that. I could do it. Never a mad at math, but I need the age requirements. You're all supposed to be only a man, but you know. Okay, they got that one too. Right. But my, the kind that I practiced or that I, you know, practiced for years and still teach is more, a lot of the teachers themselves are rabbis

or they're very learned in the tradition, but they're actually pulling quite a lot from Buddhism and from some of the other Darmic traditions and finding both where like in Judaism, there is already quite a lot of mindfulness, present-focused practices, including like the Sabbath, which is pretty much pure mindfulness. What house though?

Because people who observe the Sabbath are the whole idea of the Sabbath is you don't create anything new, you don't spend money, you don't kind of participate in this economic machine. It's basically supposed to be a meditation retreat where all you are is with the world as it is, and being in the world as it is. You know, you can study and you can spend time with family, but it's not supposed to be a time of creating new things. No, but you could spend that time fighting with your family,

which would be not super mindful. Which happens quite a lot. But I think the very idea of the Sabbath is pretty radical. It's an counter-cultural, anti-capitalist idea that is also, I think, very mindful, friendly. So there's so many examples of that. Some of the prayers in the heart of the prayer service that we repeat every single day have those pieces to them that are all about the oneness of all things that are about just who we really are at the core. And so that's the kind of Jewish meditation that I was learning on these retreats and that now I teach is the mindfulness within Judaism and then the connections with Buddhism.

Because I think in some ways, Buddhism has things to offer that Judaism doesn't. The same way that Judaism has things to offer that Buddhism doesn't. So they're not the same. They just compliment each other really well. But just out of curiosity, can you get super or somewhat more granular about like when you go to Jewish meditation retreat,

what do they have you do with your mind? What is the step by step on that? So that is very, it's very similar to I'm told I haven't had any Vipocina retreats, but I've sat a lot as in retreats and I'm told it's very, very similar to Vipocina retreats. I'm going on one soon. Right. Yes, another one. Oh, that's great. Yeah. So basically, it's from the moment you wake up till the moment you go to bed, you're kind of in a silent container rather than chanting you do a Jewish prayer or chant first thing in the morning and then you sit,

walk, sit, walk, basically all day. You eat in silence. So when you're sitting, what are you doing? There's instructions, so sometimes you sit and we'll just watch your breath and sometimes you sit and there's, they all studied in rapassana traditions. This sounds like a rapassana retreat, yeah. That's where they learned it from. Oh, so it's kind of a rapassana retreat with a Jewish overlay. Exactly. And then the talks, they call them Torah talks, but they're Dharma talks.

And then you have one of those every evening. The thing that changes or that's a little bit different is that over Shabbat, you have a little bit of a Torah reading and an incorporation of the Shabbat, prayer of the Sabbath prayers. And that's a little bit, I'm imagining different than of a Pasadena retreat. Otherwise, I think they're really similar. So you were like 18, 19, 20 when you started doing this? I was 19. It was probably the youngest person on the retreat

by 45 years or so. I mean, I was really the only young person there at that time. Things have changed now. But I got there and I was like, what am I doing here? And I thought it was going to be, I never meditated before. I just thought it was going to be like a spa

and that I, you know, maybe they would have massages or like jacuzzi's. And of course, it's nothing like a spa. And so I had several breakdowns on the retreat itself. But at some point I met with the teacher and he kind of just really helped me to shine a light on what was causing all that fear and all of that panic. And once I did that and I realized it was so much about a fear of death, a fear of being

invisible, which is what I was carrying around for so many years, that's what really started to kind of transform the roots of the anxiety that I was feeling and that I thought I would never stop feeling. And did you have you been doing it ever since? Were there breaks? I didn't have a daily practice at first. It took me a long time to have like a regular practice. I would just go on retreats every year and that was my practice and then it took some

time to build up to have it be a real part of my everyday life. But pretty much since then, I haven't stopped completely. And that's now like 16, 17 years. Yeah. And so how did that lead you to your current employment? Yes. Kind of windy because I went to law school and I was interested in criminal justice reform and that was my main work that I was doing. But I never stopped meditating and never stopping really interested in it and I would just go on longer and longer retreats. And at some point I thought, you know, I was working at NYU at a policy center and I thought, you know, I've loved this work, but I'm ready to take it into a more spiritual direction to make that be more of my full life. And I was about to leave and my boss at the time was like, well, actually, there's a new building opening at NYU, dedicated

entirely to spiritual life. What do you think about maybe moving over there? And so I said, like, that would, it would be my dream job. I had already started a meditation group at NYU that was growing and growing with a bunch of students. And so I applied and got the job. And then I became the co-director of the Spiritual Life Center. We moved over the meditation program. And it just grew and grew and grew. And it's now, we believe, the largest mindfulness program of any university in the country.

We have meditations every night of the week. We have an LGBTQ meditation, people of color meditation. We have retreats and programs you've come. And we've had a lot of great guests workshops. And so it's just like the greatest honor and pleasure of my life. What about you though? Are you still, do you still have anxiety?

Does it go away after 16, 17 years of meditation? Yeah, definitely still have anxiety, but it so doesn't control my life anymore. Like I say, I say in my book that there's this one moment I remember I had to go to a graduate student mixer to talk about the meditation program maybe like seven years ago And I had a bunch of like postcards with me and I was about to kind of open the door And I just stopped for a minute and I thought this situation in the past the social anxiety of it would have like Floored me. I wouldn't have been able to go in like I would have hyperventilating and just gone home and hit under my covers

And it's amazing those moments when you realize, I had a little nervousness in my stomach and I went. And just that kind of that's sort of how I live with anxiety. Now I still feel it for sure, but it doesn't most of the time run my life. So it's like, at least for me, I still have the same people asked me this. I was being interviewed earlier today. And the one was interviewing me said, do you still get anxious? And I said, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I still have tendencies towards anxiety and depression, but I just don't go as far down the rabbit hole as I used to. I mean, it still comes up that I'm a little bit better at seeing it and letting it pass. So, you know, sometimes I, it owns me, but it's for a shorter period of time. Exactly. And the deeper the thing, the harder it is to pull myself out, at least for me, like the deeper the root in childhood or say, you know, whatever it is, but it has been so useful to have these practices just to eventually climb your way out of. So tell me about the book.

Yeah, so I, about three years ago, I started writing it and it's a mix of a memoir. It's called What Now, Meditation for Your 20s and Beyond. It's a mix of memoir and instruction. Tell me about the title. What now? I did not come up with it. I wish I did. I think it's cool.

I came up with stuff that they all rejected much faster. But I think that it really works because it's works on the level of like every moment in meditation is just coming back to the now. Yes. But also the time in your 20s and 30s is like a time of almost an ending like, okay, what now? What am I supposed to be doing now? What am I supposed to be doing my life? Am I ever going to meet anyone? Am I lovable? Just, you know, what am I supposed to be doing in this world? And that's definitely how I felt. So I think that the title has worked really well with the book.

I had mode of my ble motor my bleakest depressions right upon graduation from college. I went through some of this stuff that you described. I think my freshman year had a lot of loneliness, homesickness, not knowing my place and where I was going to school, but when I graduated and I was looking down the barrel to rest of my life, I just melted down.

Couldn't deal. Yeah, I think that's really, really common. I had that. I know most of my students have that. And they have it kind of leading up to graduation. You can see the panic on their faces with like the few exceptions that go like right to law school or something. But I have so it was too stupid to have it leading up to graduation.

It was like right at graduation. I was like, oh, wait, what? What now? You just had to really thought about it. No, because I'm a dummy. I just didn't think about it. And then I just was lost. Yeah. Completely lost. So, let's talk about, because I think we do have some listeners in that age cohort and also people who are parents of people in that age cohort. What, how does meditation help with, let's just take down the list of things that people are doing with social anxiety, technology addiction, sexual assault and harassment, loneliness,

homesickness, quarter life crisis. How does it help with these things? Yeah. I think if you would have kind of told me that meditation would, when I was in my 20s, that like one of the perks of meditation is like it actually helps you to know and accept yourself better, or love yourself more, I probably would have been like, I love myself enough. I have good self-esteem, my mom'm a very healthy person is what I thought. And I think what was really revelatory for me, because I was always told meditation is nice to help you calm down, which sure.

But I think where what really those people that practice more and more and deeper and deeper is, and you write about this really beautifully in your book about like it helps you to see the words in your head, the stories you've been told, the influence of your parents, which when you hit about college age and beyond, it's very hard to see all the programming that you walk in with and the ways

that were so mean to ourselves. It took me to tell my first meditation retreat where I was sitting there and then these narratives would come through like every time I shifted, you're ruining everybody else's meditation. Yeah, just really cruel things like you're such a loser. You know, you know, nobody will ever love you. And it takes a lot of just being there and really hearing it to be like, wait, is that true? Where did I learn that?

What is that doing for me? Why is that, how is that limiting me and causing me suffering in the wider world? And so I think for this age group in particular, just starting to open up to what those narratives will be, then provides a path to healing from that and to figuring out how to move forward into a place without such limiting beliefs about ourselves. And that affects loneliness and relationships and that affects job, because when you're still having the voices of your parents or other people in your

head or society in your head, it's really hard to see what's inside you, what's the gift you bring to the world and what your own unique voice is. How's the buy-in on campus? Because are you just, I worry for you that you might be just getting the folks who would normally be interested in susceptible to meditation, but you might not be getting the tougher nuts to crack. Or is the stigma that might have existed when say I was in college gone? It's definitely I find it getting less and less every year. I think we're our numbers are just every year growing and growing and growing and the

less, you know, the less people you would expect. Like when I first started the meditation program, there was a lot of students that, you know, wanted to be, wanted to be named, renamed themselves Rain or, you know, very happy. It's lovely people, but we're that into polodies and yoga and just a very different type like the typical who you would expect to be showing up these days and we have it and why you have a mindfulness in business program and we have very stressed people and we have people who look every which way and what's interesting is that because our center is situated inside a spiritual, our spiritual life center, we have people of every, a very religious people of every different

religion that are coming just to kind of access their own self and their heart and their breath. And so it's, it's a real mix of people. I'm sure there are people that we're still not accessing because I tend to really like these students. And I'm like, do I just get the best students? Maybe they're the ones that are attracted to our center. But I think it's growing and changing, just like in society, who's coming to things

is growing and changing. I went back to my alma mater, Colby College, and made a couple of years ago to give a talk. And I was really surprised. First of all, the room was filled. I learned later that people who came got pee, creditors, and that's probably what the room was filled. But at the end of the talk, this like buff dude got up and said, I'm the president of the Colby

Mindfulness club we meet every week in the chapel come and I was like really you I mean, there's amazing so I mean I do think that especially for younger people and I also just say one other thing This is that that when I when I give talks at high schools or colleges They're the most receptive audiences. So there's something about young people today, I mean, maybe they're uniquely stressed or maybe just the stigma isn't there for them the way it was for me, but they seem to get it. Yes.

I think that's why I love working with them too because when you, and I notice it when I work, go talk to a Dell's audiences or do workshops with a Dell's audiences and you're kind of fighting people. And you just don't fight people that much with calling college students. They're so open. It doesn't mean they don't have like their critical minds and they're really working on their critical minds. But they are just kind of like, yeah, I don't know if it's generational or if it's just the developmental stage they're at because... I wouldn't have been open when I was in college.

No, so I wonder whether it's inherently open mindedness or if it's if it's the fact that they just didn't grow up with the same sort of cultural baggage that we did or if it's because now there's so much stress being younger with technology and all sorts of other stressors. That is definitely true. I think that they're coming because the need is greater than ever before and the amount of addictions to the phone and to social media. Also, just try to figure out who you are when you're constantly being told to brand yourself and to be on social media almost like professionally. It's a good idea for them.

Yeah. Even in college. Yeah. They're told at least at NYU, maybe because it's such a city school, but I think it's more national than that that that millennials and the under millennials that they're called generation Z are being constantly told that it's your job, like your personhood is now a brand, and you're selling yourself to future employers and to businesses and people, I have students that are constantly checking their Instagram numbers to see where they're at or these extensive Snapchat networks.

And I think they find it hard to figure out who's actually there behind the branding. And this is a practice that helps them to do that. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting. Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown-Oller, we will be your resident not-so-expert-expert.

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I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. What about, I mean, the other thing though, but that social media, the other phenomenon, sort of, mmm, pernicious phenomenon that results from social media's fomo, fear of missing out. You just see all your friends at a party

and you're not there. That kind of thing, you hear about that a lot? Yes, there's some of that. And then the other piece in it from a Buddhist perspective that is like insidiously everywhere. And everyone feels this way, but I think because they're on their phone so much, they have this comparing mind problem,

which is that you're constantly comparing yourself to everyone else. And someone's always better looking than you, or perfomor perfectly filtered, or their life looks better than you. And it's brutal. And actually some of the research studies that have come out about happiness related to Facebook

have been saying that that's the piece, that it's both FOMO and it's this piece of comparisons that is what makes people depressed after spending extensive amount of time on social media. Yeah, because everybody's life is edited when you look at social media. Exactly, exactly. And I only recently joined Instagram, I was on Facebook forever, but now all of my students are on Instagram and Snapchat and so I joined it.

And you can be beautiful there. And so that's what they do. You're just selling this beautiful vision of what your life is. And all of your suffering is hit in a way and you feel like you're the only one in the world. Yeah, I just always, on every Instagram post, I just put hashtag blessed. You know, I hate that.

I hate that. I'm ridiculous. I should just only post much of myself. I always just post my kid. Yeah. And that's why I'm on Instagram. I want to see other people's kids. No, I really like that. For vacation pictures or whatever.

Yeah. I do think, I, you know, I'm not anti-social media, but I do think that the reversible camera has opened up a bottomless well of narcissism that I didn't know was there. Yeah. And I always like I'm a little hesitant because I don't want to be that the the person that's like, Oh, kids these days and, you know, them and their their whatever, because some sure people. Not just kids. My friends, I'm old.

My friends are like, I don't understand that what you're having dinner. Why are you posting a selfie when you talk to the person? Right. It's just true. It's like like a it's just a fact of our lives and there are wonderful things about it in ways that we can reach people and connect to people but but there has to be some kind of check and I have a whole section in the book on this like how do we deal with this world of arts as a part of our world that needs the practice more than anything. So what do you say? I say a couple of things. One is to watch the reach, like watch the moments

when you reach for the phone because right there, in that moment, if you can pause it before you go, you can usually learn a lot. Like for me, oftentimes I'm feeling like a little lonely or a little unsure of myself. And I reach all the time. I me, oftentimes I'm feeling a little lonely or a little unsure of myself. I reach all the time. I mean, it's all the time, but to just tap into that moment and to see if you can actually feel what you're feeling before you go online. That's good.

Yes, I think it's really been helpful for me. The second thing is this comparing mind issue. What I've started practicing, which is also hard, but helpful, is to every time you're lost in that sea of like comparison, somebody else is like, we're successful or better looking, you know, better life, to just pause for a minute, and then really close your eyes and imagine,

just for a minute, what if you are completely okay and beautiful and lovable just as you are right now. And sometimes it's hard to even imagine that. So you have to just almost like take a leap of the imagination. Just what if, how would you feel if you were, and it just cuts or breaks that endless feeling of not being enough or not being good enough? I'm going to use that next time I see Anderson Cooper on TV. Aww. That's my hand crush. He's so good.

He was on this podcast a couple weeks ago and the only time my producers who were on the set of this class, we've had all sites, sorts of celebrities on the show. The only time they've asked for pictures with a guest. Aww. But no, I hear you. I mean, I get lost in comparing mine to all the time. no, I hear you. I mean, I get lost in comparing mind all the time.

I'm kidding about Anderson. I mean, I compare myself to Anderson. I know there's really no comparison. But lots of comparing mind, even for somebody like me who's meditating for a while, it is such, I think, use the word before, sort of an insidious psychological phenomenon. Right.

Right. It's really powerful. In meditation, in the meditation world, it's even funnier because I find myself comparing myself to other meditators. Oh yeah. For me too. What is this like?

What is that's not the point? And you know, but it's hard. It's better to see it. Yes, that's the best thing. It's to just see it and realize it's human and forgive yourself for it. But not to put so much stock in it or believe try as much as you can to not believe it's human and forgive yourself for it, but not to put so much stock in it or try as much as you can to not believe it's real because we all know that we're completely interconnected and so you and Anderson are really more connected than you are two separate

beings that can compare against each other anyway. Well, okay, say more about that because that sounds to me and I'm going to be skeptical for a second. I think not, in this case, I'm not just playing a skeptical, actually, okay, say more about that because that sounds to me and I'm gonna be skeptical for a second I think not I'm not in this case. I'm not just playing a skeptic. I actually am skeptical I don't I think what you're saying is in arguably true, but it's hard for me to feel that that that When I hear it, it sounds like a bromide that I can't connect to yeah in terms of it feeling real Yeah, even though I know you're right. Yeah so I even though I know you're right. Yeah, so there's a kind of a Buddhist's idea,

and then not an idea, like a central tenant called the Three Marks of Existence, and one of those is impermanence, and another one that's also connected to this is that there's no separate self, that every time the ego crunches around itself and says like I'm separate, it's a delusion because we know and

scientifically, we know that our minds and our ideas are constantly being influenced by everybody else at the same, you know, by the world, by everyone who's ever lived and ever will live. And so, for me, it's really clear, like, it's a really clear line of suffering when I can feel and I feel it with my whole body, this constriction of, yeah, L needs attention or, you know, I must be better than this person. Or am I better than this? I am worse than this person. That constriction around this separate identity hurts.

It just feels really bad. Even if in this one comparison, I'm winning and I'm like, okay, I'm winning and they're winning. There's a very unstable win. You know, it can be knocked off in any moment. So if instead, I can really be like, try and open that clench around this idea that I'm a separate person, of course, to some amount we are separate people, but on a deeper level, remembering that we're all going to die and we're all going to be part of the same soup again and that we, even now, to some level, were both waves in the ocean and we're made of water. To me, it's really relaxing.

It is, I agree with everything you're saying, but I don't know how it helps me with my Andersen Cooper problem. I'm sorry, I don't mean to pick it up. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yes, yeah. Does it, um, yeah.

You were all, everything you said is quite beautiful and inarguably true in my view. But in those moments when I'm thinking about my career, which is also real, in the Buddhists talk about things in the relative world and the ultimate. So the ultimate truth is what you just described. And the relative truth is the kind of day-to-day reality we live. On a relative term, there are lots of people who sell more books than me. There are lots of people who have more popular podcasts than me.

And there are meditation teachers out there who maybe have some lurking envy for. So, how does it really make you feel better in a relative sense when you think about the ultimate in those moments? Or maybe it doesn't, maybe the point is to just jar you out of relativity and more toward the ultimate. I think it's that. And I think it doesn't work all the time. It's just the times when I can adequately, when I have enough space and I can back out of that. You're mindful. Feeling. Yeah. Yeah, which is not all the time. Well, you just, no, I mean, of course, it's not for a, the, the campy.

The, when you talked about before, quite eloquently about the illusion of separation, just reminded me, and I don't know if that's going to make any sense, but I would just flash back to my last meditation retreat. And I remember I had this month, like standing up outside in one of those moments, like you get five or six days in and you're not embarrassed to stand outside with your eyes closed for,

or even open for a long time, just not doing anything, which is kind of amazing. And I remember thinking, I don't know what the exact word was, but something about the world is flowing through me. Like all the sounds and sights and even the food I eat and everything is just coming through and like I am like a siv. It's beautiful.

But is that jive with what you were talking about in your view? Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And just that it feels sometimes and people even who don't meditate have said that they've had these kinds of experiences And I'm sure we all have some times but it feels

feels very true like it's when you when you feel it you feel like yes, this is always true. It's just it's You know you get clouded again and then those two things happen constantly and so you find that all of this to bring it back to the native gritty of college life or being in your 20s, you find that these kids you're working with can touch this and it can be useful for them when dealing with, say, FOMO or trouble with their personal brand. Yeah, so there's, again, there's like, there are different levels. So just having people pause and like take a break Anyone can do that and that's a different that's like an entry point to the prop and by the way good enough

If that's all that ever happened exactly they think there's you know five minutes a day Amazing great one minute one minute exactly So so yes, there's definitely different levels that of access But I think a lot of the people that come to our meditations, a lot of my students are like I was really looking for something that is talking about the nature of reality. So even though yes, these students are open, one question we get inevitably within the first couple of weeks every single year in our meditation groups and classes is, what is the point of this? What is the ultimate point of it?

How do you answer that? I answer it because I think there is an answer which is to ease suffering and not just your suffering and not just my suffering but all the suffering of the whole world but also your and my suffering. And that's what the Buddha said. That's what we're saying. And that is really the point. It's not about relaxing or doing better on your great, your GPA. It's really about transforming suffering.

And so, and I think that that tends to satisfy. I've been to the classes where the teacher kind of backed away from that, being like, you shouldn't worry about a point. It's all in the journey. And I always just felt like that's not a fair. You know, people need to have something to hold on to. I struggle with that too, the sort of the, I know that you're supposed to talk about it as being goalless, you know, because it can set up striving. But I also think that one of the shining and aspirational propositions of mindfulness practices that the qualities we want, the mental qualities we want,

like focus, compassion, self-awareness, mindfulness, these are trainable skills. And so actually, so that's a goal. It doesn't mean you have to get to a certain point by tomorrow. It just means that you can get marginally better over time, and that is a goal. It is also a goal I describe it as being less of a jerk

to yourself and others. I usually use a word that starts with A and ends with E, but I can't on this podcast because the people behind that glass over there tell me I can't. But, I mean, that's one other way to say it's a little bit flippant. But I mean, I think it's another, it's kind of a loose translation of what the Buddha said when he said life is suffering.

Totally, totally. Yeah, I think that's really right. And depending on who you're talking to, I would say like, to me, really where this all comes back to is just like a greater love in the world and like love for ourselves and love for others and living with like that kind of awakeness. To me, awakeness and love just kind of feel the same way. And of course, it's not like measurable and the striving is can be a problem after a certain period of time. But to get an out the gate,

I think it's just fair to talk about these skills, these goals, these pieces that we have research that says we can get there. It's not super craving, it's not like hey, do this, you'll make $100,000. Right. So let's just talk about some of the other issues that you talk about in your book

and ways that meditation can help. We talked about social media addiction. What about issues about relationships and sex? Yeah. I heard, I know I read an article with like a very prominent Buddhist teacher that I really respect, but it said something along the lines of, I don't think, you know,

I don't think it's a good idea for Buddhist teachers to really talk about sex or something along those lines. And I remember just thinking like, why? I mean, maybe there was a longer story behind that, but I think it's really important, especially for young people, because it is on their minds, relationships and sex. We have the most popular program we've ever held at NYU is not been like a major speaker. Actually, Sebinay Salasi was our speaker who's wonderful. Former guest on this podcast. An amazing person. Amazing, amazing question about it. And she came to talk to NYU and it wasn't just her name, even though she's wonderful. It was a topic called

Mindful Sex. Most popular program we've ever had in a way, we had people crowding the hallways to get in every corner of the room. So people, all young people are curious and most adults are curious of like, if this practice is real, if I'm really going to incorporate this in my life, what can I, how can I bring these practices into my relationships and my sex life and what does that mean? And so there's a whole range of what, how to do that kind of stuff, you know, acting with like ethics is just the beginning. But I think also really, you know, it's like the more you know yourself and you know your

own triggers than the more that you can really be there for someone else. And it's a similar practice of really learning how to take in a full person, who's in front of you, who's not just a projection of what you want them to be, and learning to be continually come back over and over again, to who this real person is in front of you when you're talking about relationships in any way. So I think- What are some of the, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but what are the some of the practices you recommend in your book, as it pertains to relationships?

Yes. So I think a lot of it is, is kind of like the same way that you, we talk about it in meditation where you come back to your breath over and over again or you come back to a strong emotion over and over again. The practice is to click, if you're in a conversation with someone or less, particularly a tension-filled conversation of fight, to actually keep practicing, feeling your own feelings and then also being there with the person. And continuing to realize what's yours and what's really happening in real time.

And that is a hard practice, but I think one worth trying, and I use a lot of examples of times I've failed, I'm miserable with my husband, or had these fights escalate into really bad places, because I was just saying to him, like one of the major things that has plagued us and my relationships has been like my feelings of jealousy. And so I would say like you thought that, you know, I know that you think this

person is prettier than me or whatever it is like over and over again. That's painful for you. It's very painful. And that's talk about being lost inside of a hole. That is a place I get lost in that hole. I get it. And then he is sitting there being like, you're not seeing me, you're not hearing me. I'm talking to a wall here. Is he a meditator too? Since we've met, we've done meditation together. He's a naturally kind of spiritual person,

but that's not his main thing. But so his response sounded like, as the kids say, like something a woke person would say. Sometimes, you know, he has his own things, but in these situations, I think he is able to be like, you're not interacting with me. And I feel really bad. And this is really upsetting to me. And it's very hard to pull yourself out and to be like, you know, because it's almost like two projects.

The project of working with yourself and the pain that you have from, in my case, like from child to being one in a big family and not getting enough attention and just being like, oh poor baby, like you have a lot of pain here. And then there's this other person in the room and that to really see the differences between you is a hard practice, but I think a really powerful one. So do you teach mostly straight up mindfulness? In other words, look at your breath, but then when you get distracted, start again, and then that way you build up kind of a self-awareness that you see that you're having this non-stop

conversation with yourself and then it owns you less. You teach that, but you also teach sort of loving kindness where you, you know, systematically sending good vibes to people. Yes. You do both. And also once I include an entire like section in the book about a rain practice. I don't know if you know that one's recognizing accepting, inquiring and nourishing, which is my favorite word for the end part.

So it's like a way of working with very powerful emotions. And I teach that a lot to students because it's young people are dealing with powerful emotions constantly and don't often have a lot of mechanisms of dealing with it. And so the breath practice is important just to develop a sense of focus, but I think oftentimes that that's really where they need to be at is really processing powerful emotions. So you mentioned rain and you spelled it out, but some of many of the listeners may not

actually know what it is. I think it's actually extremely useful. Can you just walk us through it step by step and how we would do it ourselves? Sure. So the R for rain is for recognized. So the predicate here is you're sitting there either in real life or on the meditation cushion and you're ambushed by a very strong emotion. Yes.

Okay, and then you do rain. Exactly. So you're lost in it. You're feeling let's use jealousy as an example. Yeah. And you're completely lost in it. And you have this narrative in your mind and you say, okay, I'm going to actually sit

and practice instead. So the first thing you do is you say, like, you recognize, okay, I'm feeling jealous. Like, this really hurts. And underneath the jealousy is just this feeling of like not feeling good about myself, feeling really bad about myself. And just naming it sometimes is huge because one of my teachers, Jeff Roth, one time said that between the ages of birth and 30. Anytime he felt a strong emotion that was like between his head and his knees,

he just would register it as hungry and would just eat. And I think a lot of us have that feeling. You skip right over really naming what you're feeling. And so first is that recognition. Then you go into the A for rain, which is allowing or accepting and that's the kind of You try and bring into your body or just I'm not gonna fight this. This is happening This is really happening. It doesn't mean passivity No, because we're working with it, right? And so, and it's just acknowledging the truth,

it's happening. So it's, you could have been trying to fight it for a while and that just causes more suffering on top of the original pain. So it's that sense of being like, all right, we're working with it, it's happening. I'm gonna stop fighting this thing and just feel it in the body.

So yes, I feel jealousy. That's what I feel. I'm gonna just relax the body. So yes, I feel jealousy. That's what I feel. I'm going to just relax, take a few breaths, really feel it. Where do I feel it in the body? This is the inquiry. And then you move into the eye, the inquiry. So then you start really noticing,

like, where do I feel it in the body? What's happening? My shoulders are rising. There's a lot of tension in the chest. There's a feeling in the stomach. I feel like I'm disappearing into a black hole, whatever it is that you're really noticing, feeling, naming it to yourself. And then as you have a little more space, and sometimes you just do recognize, accept,

recognize, accept, if you only have a short period of time, and that can be huge. If you have a little bit of time and space, you can ask yourself this question, what's underneath this? What does, if I was going to ask this jealousy, you know, a question, like, where do you come from? What do you want to teach me? What do you want to tell me? It's that kind of gentle inquiry and you may get an answer, you may not get an answer,

but it's just a very soft and asking those questions and feeling it in the body, asking where it is in the body. And then for N, so there's two different ways that you can go. So one way is saying N is for non-identifying. So that's kind of continually letting go of whatever it is that you're working with. I find that for me personally, and so often times for my students that can look a little like pushing it away. So I try and stick with the other word for N which is what my with terror Brock uses which is called for nourish. And rather than any kind of sense

of like I'm going to push this away because it's there you feel it you know you've been gently working with it and then you can ask yourself this question, what can I do for myself right now? What can be healing? What can I like, soften for myself? How can I nourish myself at that moment? And it couldn't just be sitting there and breathing. It could get a glass of water, take some space. And that's basically the practice. And you find that the kids you work with embrace this are able to operationalize it? Yes. Yes. And I use it specifically. I break down three powerful emotions in the book, anxiety and fear, anger and desire, which I think gets doesn't get enough play either in Buddhist circles, and how to work with those three emotions. Which same word about desire, and how it doesn't get enough play. Yes. So I think there's a very common misunderstanding about Buddhism that basically you become a Buddhist

so that you don't have any more desires or that desire is the root of all pain and suffering. To some degree, I think that that clinging and grasping, yes. But I think there's a difference between the natural human feeling of desire and opening to that desire. Mark Epstein wrote this beautiful book about opening to desire as an emotion. That is not a great book. It's a great book. It's a great book. And I think it's premise is that desire is an incredibly powerful, beautiful emotion

that doesn't, isn't necessarily about suffering. If we can really feel it before it turns into just the grasping, or if we can back out of the grasping and just feel desire is like a wave that can wash over you. And I for years was just so deeply ashamed of all desires. I thought they were just like so ugly and so gross and the way that you're supposed to go around in the world is to just really be like to hide everything that you want or desire and to just wearing only loincloth. Right. Or be above it all.

Yeah, to be above it all. And I think that that is dangerous and painful and was really painful, it was really painful for me. And so I've kind of come full circle on desire. And Mark Epstein talks about this about the connection between anxiety and desire because so often the things that were afraid of and we live in fear all the time It's actually because we really want something and it's easier to live on the fear side than it is to just acknowledge how badly we want something You we talked about

Technology for a while, but I want to come back to it because I realized I had circled on this page in front of me. An article that you forwarded along that I of course didn't read, but the headline is really compelling and I want to hear your take on it. It's from the Atlantic. Have smartphones destroyed a generation? What's your take? The article is very, is somewhat depressing, very depressing. And she's been doing this research for years, this professor who wrote the article and talks really about how this generation, this younger generation that she calls the Igen generation is having what she calls the worst mental health crisis in decades and decades, which is all about loneliness and isolation that smartphones have accelerated.

So I think it's hard to argue with that. Is it the phone or the social media apps on the phone? She actually kind of conflates the two in many ways, but I think it's primarily social media. I think that's where the majority of young people are spending their time. But there's also, I guess, games and emails and stuff, but I think it's mostly social media and just consuming news in general.

But I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to be too pessimistic because again, this is the world we live in. And so I think there's a lot of possibilities and there's a lot of interest. I think this really is the meditation generation. And we just have to build in more tools and more availability for young people to access these things to counter some of the stuff of the smartphones. Um, jumping around a little bit, but there's been so much talk, I think, um, justifiably so about rape, culture, on campus, sexual harassment, sexual assault.

Um, do you think that mindfulness practice has a useful role to play, uh, in terms of mitigating this issue, mitigating this problem? Yes, I do. I think where the place where I see it, the most where it could be so important and so beneficial is in this area of talking about sex and desire, trying to allow people to own their sexual energy and their uncomfortable feelings before it gets completely doused in alcohol and then horrible situations happen. That doesn't take away from people's agency and the importance of educating people about consent.

And we do that to the end to create NYU. We have mandatory consent workshops and things of that kind. But I think until you start to really ask people, and I say, it's primarily young men who are the perpetrators of these crimes, but not exclusively, but primarily, unless you start to really teach young men, I think, how to sit with this incredible place of discomfort is incredibly strong feelings.

The feelings that come when one is rejected, or when you feel you're sitting with shame and a lot of the underlying psychological pieces that go into what rape culture becomes, I think we're continually going to get a problem from just focusing on punishment and consent. Now, I think those things are important or accountability and consent. I don't want to say that I don't think those things are important, but I think we're missing a piece here. Really interesting. And both of us have sons.

You have a one year old, I have a almost three year old, and you have another son on the way. Right. So, this is important for our boys to learn. Right. Right. And it coupled with, of course, understanding about respect and women and things like that. But I think it goes, I just think it goes deeper than that. And this isn't just for college kids.

We're sitting here in the middle of a massive crisis of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace. And the Senate. Yeah. Of course. Right. Right. Pretty much everywhere. So it really does seem like men need to learn how, as you said before, to understand this sort of desire and all of the attendant pathologies coursing through our veins and be able to sit with it mindfully so that we're not controlled by it. And as you say, dows in an alcohol and do something stupid orun's alcohol just doing something stupid because we're just being yanked around by all the stuff that's happening beneath the surface in our own minds. Right. And I see it constantly at NYU in these the major I would say the vast

majority of cases that I'm actually on a sexual assault appeals committee at NYU. And I would say the vast majority of cases we see there are gray area cases where you just feel that a lot of people did a lot of things not smart in these situations and you have to hold someone accountable or not hold them accountable. But you wanna just turn back time and catch them before and just say like, you know, there's got to be a better

way before you get to this point where you're in these murky territory. But you know, my fullness is not a silver bullet. So, you know, I'm an animal, I'm a piker. I'm new to the thing. I'm only about nine years, but I still, these of these say Oreos, you know, my desire can still overtake me and get me to do really stupid things. And so I don't know that if you teach mindfulness to a bunch of young boys that by the time they hit puberty at 13, 14, 15, and on that they're gonna be able to not do stupid stuff. Totally. But it may just reduce the odds. That's the hope. Yeah, just like just like the, you know, consent workshops, maybe Yeah, just like just like the you know consent workshops Maybe they might help just like you know if you just get enough of the right messages and tools and tools exactly

Then we might as well try. I mean we can't change the patriarchy overnight But I think there's there's some possibilities. Yeah, but in some recent weeks, we're seeing a pretty big crack in patriarchy. Yeah, I hope it sticks. I mean, this is my wife and I are basically talking about this exclusively at home. Yeah. Like, all we talk about. Yeah, we talk about a lot of written relationship to your son or just in general. No, because she is just on fire about this issue of sexual harassment in the workplace.

Yeah. And it's just an enormously important cultural moment. It really is. It really is. Yeah, we're talking about it in my home all the time too. I'm sure that's really common right now. And I'm really hopeful, but also who knows. Yeah, well, that's exactly the way I feel.

Let's do some plucking. Tell us, give us the name of the book again. Where can we get it? Where else can we, if we want to learn about you? Anywhere or social media, your website,, you know, give us the name of the book again, where can we get it, where else can we if we want to learn about you, anywhere or social media, your website, just give it a give us. Thank you. Sure. So the book is called What Now Meditation for Your 20s and Beyond. And it's really not just for people in their 20s, it's really for a lot of moments of transition that we're that we're facing at all different times in our life. You can order it from Amazon or wherever you buy your books.

You can find out more. I teach every single week at Mindful in New York City in the village. And DFL, operate owned and operated by Lodro Rinsler, former guest on the show as well, and a friend of mine. It's a wonderful person. Yes, wonderful place, wonderful person.

And so I would love to see you in my classes if you're in the New York area. They have three outposts so you're teaching at the Grants Village one. Correct. Yes. And then you can find out more about other kind of events and programs and places I'm teaching at yellowshy.com. Y-A-E-L-S-H-Y.com.

Correct. You've been great. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. We covered a lot of ground. Yeah. I learned a lot. So did I. Thank you. Bravo. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. We covered a lot of ground. I learned a lot. So did I. Thank you.

Bravo. Thank you. Okay, that does it for another edition of the 10% happier podcast. If you liked it, please take a minute to subscribe. Rate us. Also, if you want to suggest topics, you think we should cover or guests that we should bring in. Hit me up on Twitter at Dan B. Harris.

Importantly, I want to thank the people who produced this podcast, Lauren Efron, Josh Cohen, and the rest of the folks here at ABC, who helped make this thing possible. We have tons of other podcasts. You can check them out at ABCnewspodcast.com. I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Hey, hey, prime members.

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