Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 189: Type A Nun, Mindful Parenting, and Natural Awareness, Diana Winston

Episode Date: May 29, 2019

Diana Winston first learned about meditation as a kid, but it wasn’t until she traveled to Asia following college that her practice really took off. She has been practicing mindfulness meditation since 1989, including a year as a Buddhist nun in Burma! Thankfully for us, she has returned to mainstream society where we can learn from her teachings. She’s been called one of the nation’s best-known teachers of mindfulness and has taught mindfulness for 20 years at hospitals, universities, corporations, non-profits, and schools in the US and Asia. Currently she is the Director of Mindfulness Education at UCLA Semel Institute’s Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) and the co-author of Fully Present, the Science, Art and Practice of Mindfulness. She is also the author of Wide Awake for teens, and has published numerous articles on mindfulness. In our conversation, Winston shares stories from her own practice, including her time as a Buddhist nun, as well as what she calls her most challenging and rewarding practice - trying to mindfully parent her nine-year-old daughter. The Plug Zone Website: http://www.dianawinston.com/about_me.html The Little Book of Being: http://www.dianawinston.com/ UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center: www.uclahealth.org/marc Twitter: @dianawinston “Just This” Talk by Diana Winston in the Ten Percent Happier app: https://10percenthappier.app.link/EPje4jnDXW ***VOICEMAILS*** Have a question for Dan? Leave us a voicemail: 646-883-8326 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Before we jump into today's show, many of us want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping our heads up against the same obstacles over and over again. But what if there was a different way to relate to this gap between what you want to do and what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral? Learn how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonical and the Great Meditation Teacher Alexis

Santos to access the course. Just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10% calm. All one word spelled out. Okay on with the show. For ABC, to baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. All right, today on the show we're going to explore what may be an antidote to striving or trying too hard in meditation. It's a common problem.

I struggle with it. Very much still do today. This approach is something called natural awareness. And it has been incredibly helpful for me. But that's all we're going to do on the show today. Our guest, the same guest who's going to talk about natural awareness, is also going to tell an incredible personal story about going from the Ivy League to shaving her head and becoming a nun. The guest, her name is Diana Winston. She did not. It's worth saying stay a nun forever. She's now out here in the real world. She's the director of mindfulness education at UCLA's Semmel Institute's Mindful Awareness Research Center. She's been called by the LA Times, quote,

one of the nation's best known teachers of mindfulness, and that is true. She has taught mindfulness since the 90s in hospitals, university corporations, non-profit schools, both here in the US, and in Asia, and online. And she's now one of our new teachers on the 10% happier app.

And she has a new book called The Little Book of Being Practices and Guidance for Uncovering Your Natural Awareness. This is a fascinating conversation. I loved it. We're going to start with the riveting story of how she went from the Ivy League to a shaved head, none in Burma, and how that led her to emphasize a part of meditation practice about which many beginners don't often hear, and it's called natural awareness, and I think it's incredibly useful. Then we're going to talk about a huge issue for many of you, many listeners,

how to bring meditation into parenting. Diana has a nine-year-old daughter, and she has great insights about meditation and parenting and the limits of the former as it comes to, as it pertains to the latter. And then we're going to talk about a big problem facing the mindfulness world, which is a lack of qualified teachers and what do you do as a meditator if you want to find a teacher. And finally, we're going to take your voice mails together. Before we dive in, one related item of business, this week we are adding, you may have noticed this, we are adding some bonus content into the podcast feed.

So we posted two things. The bonus content is a brief talk directly from Diana Winston. It's called just this. This talk comes from the new Talks section on the 10% happier app. We're super excited about this new feature on the app. It essentially consists of short talks that are designed to be little zaps of wisdom that you can access when you don't have time to meditate. You're walking to work, you're brushing your teeth, often the time when you might be listening to podcasts. So check out Diana's new talk in your podcast feed.

There's also a link to the talk within the show notes. By the way, Diana has other great talks and guided meditations on the 10% happier app. Another talk from her actually launched today in the show notes. By the way, Diana has other great talks and guided meditations on the 10% happier app. Another talk from her actually launched today in the app and it's called Kitchen Cabinet Mindfulness. Alrighty, enough for me. Here is Diana. Great to see you.

Thanks, great to be here. I didn't know, even though we've met before, that you were a nun at one point, a Buddhist nun. So I'm just curious, how did you get into meditation in the first place and how did it get so far as it a good sense as that Yeah, that you became a nun Okay, so Back when I was a child I had a family that was kind of it was the 1970s and they were really into Alternative Eastern spirituality, right?

So it wasn't I wasn't that into it. I mean, I was, you know, kids obviously rebel against their parents. So at one point, my mom got us a TM mantra when we were, I was nine, I think, and my brother was six. And so this is a true story that, you know, if you get a TM mantra, you're told whatever you do, you may not tell a single person about it. So my cousin, who's a little bit older than us, really wanted to know. And my brother sold his mantra for a hot wheels car.

So I had this kind of in my growing up, right? This interest and not maybe meditation per se, but in more like Eastern thought, right? And then after college, I ended up, well, I had some experiences as a child, which were kind of meditative experiences that I didn't really recognize. And but they were amazing, you know, like experiences, the one that I think I wrote about

was about being about 14 years old and lying in this field. And suddenly having the sense of like great vast love overcome me. And I was, you know, it's a teenager. I was like, what is this? And I was thinking, okay, I've got it. I must hate somebody. I can't be loving everybody. I must hate somebody. So I thought about this one kid that I really hated, and I couldn't even feel hate for him. And it was just like this, like, dapse of connection. But then it was sort of that was about it. And then in my, after college,

I was traveling in Asia. And it was kind of an interesting time because it was the 80s and pretty much everybody that I went to college with, had gone to law school or business school. And so it was very weird that I was about 80s and pretty much everybody that I went to college with had gone to law school or business school. And so it was very weird that I was interested in going to Asia. But I had spent a semester abroad in Thailand when I was like a junior in college. So I went to India and I was traveling around and I ended up in Darmsala where the Dalai

Lama is government in exile and I got involved with the activist group and I was very political and I was not into meditation at all. And then I remember like everybody is meditating around you and everybody is into it. It's the whole, it's the scene there. And so I ended up doing, like listening to teachings and I was really skeptical and I would sit in the back of the room with like these big bars of chocolate and open them up and crinkle crinkle crinkle and it was just really I was rude. And and then

something went oh go on a meditation retreat. Okay so I'm like I'm just out of college. I was pretty driven like really very driven in school, always trying to get the A, get success, do well, very, you know, just like a very type A kind of personality. And I sat in this meditation retreat and I had this moment where they were giving a teaching about, you know, it's called the eight-worldly wins or they Changes in the world, right? I mean probably of course know this But it's like praise and praise and blame gain and loss Fame and dishonor and pleasure and pain. Yeah, I actually really love this concept because we get so We we take it personally when you know we're blamed you know we're in a moment where we're

unpopular or something like just check your if you're somebody who's a public figure check your at replies on Twitter or the flip side of that is maybe something nice happens if people tell you some nice things but actually if you can view them like the wind you know these are the eight worldly winds in the Buddhist speak and they have a way of making things sound pretty grandiose. But if you just look at it like the wind and you then it depersonalizes like, I had this happens. This is just something that happens in every life. That's right. Yeah, that's, I mean, such an amazing teaching. And I heard it. And it was, it was the first, like, there was this moment when I went, oh my God, this explains my life.

Like I'm running around seeking the good stuff, trying and mostly praise, trying to get people to love me, trying to get my teachers to think I'm a good student, whatever it was, and I was like seeking that one, running away from the other one, and suffering a lot in the process. And then, so I heard this and something clicked, and then she said, but there is a way out.

And that is to meditate and this quality of equanimity that we can develop as we practice. And I heard that and I went, okay, I'm in. And so I was 22, 21, 22, jumped in and started meditating and stayed at the monastery there in practice went to Thailand because I heard there were cheap meditation retreats free Meditation retreats that you could do. So I went to Thailand in my first Insight meditation retreat robust the Pasna with Ajahn Buddha Dasa who was one of these amazing Meditation masters. I was so lucky to have sat with him in the 80s before he died.

And I just fell in love with it. And so from there, when I was at the monastery practicing, this was just like a tendier retreat. They said, did you like it? I met this nun and she said, do you like it? And I said, yeah, I liked it. And she said, well, there's this place where you can do a three month retreat in Massachusetts.

I said, I'll never do a three month retreat. Are you kidding me? But I ended up a year later doing a three month retreat at IMS, which was just a few hours from my home. Insect Meditation Society. Right. Anyway, that was kind of the beginning of my practice. Because I was young and things were cheaper back then and you didn't have to pay thousands

and thousands of dollars for rent. And you know, you could live as a, I just, I just practiced. And I spent a number of years in and out of meditation retreats and then wait your thing to make money. So I could go on my next retreat. And then I got involved with the Buddhist Peace Fellowship for many years. I was running a program for them bringing activists and the Buddhist practice together. So I had moved out to Berkeley. So I still am not answering your question. But anyway, I got, I became after 10 years. I had been practicing quite a bit with some of your teachers, Joseph Goldstein and others at IMS,

but I had also been a student of Saida Upandita, who was the monk from Burma, who was very influential with our teachers. And he kept saying, come to Burma, come to Burma and become a nun. And I said, yeah, like the same thing. I was like, no, no, no, and then of course I do it. Like I jump in. And so I spent, so in like the late 90s, I went to live in the monastery and I spent a year as a nun. Thinking I would only go for six months, thinking that, okay, I should get everything I want to

accomplish done in six months. What did you want to accomplish? Oh, I was wanting to get enlightened, of course. I think the system that these teachings come out of make it sound as though, OK, enlightenment is just something if you just do this, this, this, enough, boom, enlightenment can happen. And I was driven.

I was still like this very type A person, right? Trying to get my A, but this time I went to get my A in meditation and I think you know I think I was attracted to the I mean I loved meditating like I was it was the most amazing thing as many of us know I mean just noticing my mind and understanding it in the depth of insight and compassion and all that was arising. So I had Holton good intentions, but I think I also was like, and now I've got a succeed at meditation, right? And I'm going to go to the like hardest place I could possibly go to with one of the, he was not like an warm and fuzzy guy. He was a pretty hardcore sort of dismissive, slightly mean teacher. But I wanted to get my A from him.

You know, I was like really driven. So, I keep going into the story. I love it. Okay. So I went, I got there, I started, I was practicing. And this was like on the heels of many years of practice, and to become a nun in that culture, you can do it for a day, you can do it for a week, you can do it for a lifetime. There's no minimum. So I thought, okay, six months, that should be enough to get enlightened,

and then I'll go to the beaches in Thailand and relax and hang out. and then I'll go to the beaches in Thailand and relax and hang out. And then I got there and people had said, okay, this monastery is the place to practice. If you want to get enlightened, this is the place to go. And so I got there and it was under construction and it was like a disaster. It was so noisy. They had jackhammers and tons of people and so much noise and all day long. So I'm meditating in the midst of that. And then I think, okay, it's nighttime.

They're going to be quiet. And then they would pull out the guitars and start playing music all night because they lived on the property. It's the construction workers. The construction workers, yeah. And it was like, there were snakes and spiders and scorpions. And it was insane. I'd never seen these giant snakes and these half lizard snake creatures and lizards and snakes.

There is a name for that, I can't think of it. And mosquitoes and bugs and scorpions and centipedes and then it was hot and I mean like really, it was like you were meditating in a sauna for a year and then it was the food I hated the food and I was always getting sick and so I was like really really unhappy but I was very driven and I still like I had to be there be there. I had to practice. There was something inside me that was so strong. So I practiced for, I kind of got used to it. I got used to it.

And also just to say, when you become a nun, you shave your head, you wear robes and you were supposed to give away your possessions, I just put them into storage. And you don't eat after 12 noon, which is fine at a certain point. You can't sleep in high or luxurious beds, which wasn't an issue because they give you like a slab to sleep on. So I was practicing and I spent, I spent, you know, I was working really, really hard, but I started getting like really over zealous, you know, and I started trying harder and

harder and harder to achieve my goal, you know. And so I started imposing these like really intense practices on myself like, okay, I'm only going to sleep a few hours a night, but I'm going to sleep sitting up, I'm going to meditate for hours and hours of time without moving, and you know, I just started pushing and then this thing, this thing, whatever I thought enlightenment was, and you know, in, I mean, I've heard it talked about in your podcast It's talked about in different ways, but for me, I was waiting for some moment where everything would change. And, and I would be like free from suffering, essentially. And I would get, I just got more and more driven. And the more driven I got, I, well, you can imagine what

happened. I just totally, totally fell apart. Well, the great hindrance in meditation is desire. Right. Oh, I was, I had it in space. Like, I really... And no teacher said to you, I see this hindrance arising for you and you may want to back off. No, they actually encouraged it quite a bit. I mean, it was a different cultural space

and it was, like, they saw that strong energy of desire in me as a positive thing. And I think it was a big miss. I'm sure if I have been practicing in the U.S., I would have had a very different response from my teachers. But it was, you know, it's also different like, they're only seeing you every like three or four days. So you're basically isolated.

I was practicing in this little hut that was, you know, in the middle of the forest. And it was, anyway, I wasn't well supported. Let's put it that way. And then, side of Upandita, my teacher wasn't even in town. Like he was, he was at that time very famous. He was traveling around the world. He would

come back every few months. And so I would have different teachers and they were all not really tracking my practice. So it wasn't ideal conditions. So when you say you fell apart, what did that look like? I stopped. It was suddenly like this huge set of emotions that I'd probably been repressiving to certain degree just kind of overwhelmed me. And I was lost in grief and a sense of failure. And I suddenly couldn't meditate. It was really interesting. It was like I couldn't even be mindful for one second. I would just, my mind was so chaotic. So going from, so you have to imagine, right?

It was at that point about six months of meditation, and my mind was so precise and sharp and concentrated up until this point, because I'd been meditating so thoroughly. And then I hit this moment, and it was like, I couldn't meditate, and I thought, what's wrong with me? And then this shame and moment and it was like, I couldn't meditate. And I thought, what's wrong with me? And then this shame and self-hatred and all of this stuff I was just flooded with.

And it was awful. And there was no psychological support, right? I'm in the middle of this country with kind of Stone Age psychology, right? And I won't say that about the whole country, but at least in this monastery. And so I just kind of like cried and was miserable and decided, okay, now I'm leaving. That's it. What am I going to do? I'm going to go to Thailand now. I'm going to the beach.

And so I went, so after several weeks of that, I went to see Upandita and I said, you know, I'm leaving. And he said, fine, leave. And then he says, but if you do, the afflictions of the mind will overwhelm you. And he said that and I was like, oh, right, wherever you go, there you are. So I went back to my room and I just sort of, like, something shifted. There was something that happened in that interaction with him. And I decided that I would stay. And I would, but I knew that if I was going to stay, I was going to have to practice in an entirely different way.

And there was what was really, okay, so I had been practicing like hardcore Mahasi style. And we've talked about that on other podcasts, but with this this noting practice, right, where you have to be mindful every single every single moment. Sorry, I knocked my drinking my water bottle. Sorry, go ahead. Noting practice. Right. I do this. This is one of the styles of practices I do, where everything that comes up, hearing, smelling, seeing, thinking, you make a soft little mental note in your mind, and it can get, I mean, after a couple of days of doing this, the mind can get very sharp. I can only imagine after six months.

Oh, yeah, exactly. Your mind is just like a laser, right? So I was doing that, you know, he would be like, okay, did you wake up on the in-breath or the out-breath? Wow. Yeah, you were having to ignore it with that granularity. And so it's like, it's a profound and amazing practice.

It's very, very goal driven as you can hear from my story. And it's also, it's like a lot of effort. I mean, you're making so much effort and you can get to these places where it seems like the effort relaxes, but you're really working hard. So as I'm planning to leave or write around that time, there was a quote-unquote library in the monastery, which was basically a book of bookcase, with all these books by Mahasthi Sayada. Who was Upandita's predecessor, who really popularized this noting practice? Exactly. And there was one book on the shelf,

which was not Mahasthi, and it was the Tibetan book of living and dying by Saguya Rinpoche, which, and just to say, I know Saguya Rinpoche is a controversial figure, and that book is quite an amazing book. So I said, can I read that book? And they said, no, because it's not by Mahasi Sayada. And I said, I'm leaving, or I'm planning to leave, can I just read the book? And I said, OK, you can read the book. So I got the book. And I opened it up.

And the book is written from the perspective of Tibetan Buddhist teachings, which are really quite different in a lot of ways from these Southeast Asian teachings that I had been practicing. But much of it that spoke to me was this totally different approach, which is that there's nothing to get. There's nowhere to go. The mind is inherently primordially here present as it is, that there's a goodness and inherent goodness in us,

and that grasping after some kind of awakening is like a mistake, like you're not recognizing the goodness inside you. And I read that and I was like, oh my God, what have I been doing? And now I wanna say, this gets later to how things have evolved with my thinking about meditation, but it was this corrective. It was this major corrective to striving. It wasn't,

it's not like one is better than the other. They're just different ways of practicing. But I needed that at that moment. Then in the book, it was filled with all these compassion practices and then also the practice, the Tibetan practice of Zogchen, right, which is more about resting one's mind and its true nature. And so I started practicing from the book. And it was as though everything began to shift. I started doing compassion practices all day long and then resting my mind.

Did you get in trouble for this? I didn't tell them I was doing it. I would do like five minutes of the Insight Meditation Practice before I would go into my interview and report that. But then they saw this change in me because suddenly there was, they knew how miserable I was and I was happy and joyful and connected and rest and it was like boom. So you gotta imagine that you have a concentrated mind

and then six months of concentration and then you're dropping in this like profound letting go practice and resting the mind and recognizing the inherent awareness that's existing in every moment, right? And so my mind just dropped and it was like, sorry, dropped means nothing. But it just opened to this state of like profound well-being and connection and awareness of awareness itself. And that's where it's

then began to stay for, you know, in and out, but for the next three or four months. I want to keep going with this, but you brought up some concepts that I think are worth unpacking. And this all, of course, plays right into your new book. Awareness of awareness. Unpack that. Okay. So, when we meditate, we can be aware of what we call objects of meditation. Objects of meditation is our breath and our body sensations, thoughts, emotions.

Those are what we call objects of awareness. Another object of awareness that we don't typically pay attention to, especially when people are starting out in meditation, is that, which is the awareness itself, that which is noticing everything. And so you can turn your attention to it, but I mean, I'm going to be really specific. Like, there are three ways that I've noticed with students and with myself that people tend to observe awareness. They have awareness of awareness.

And one is the awareness of that in which everything is contained. So the metaphor here would be our minds are like this guy. The awareness is vast and open and spacious. And all the thoughts are like clouds. You've heard this before passing by. But so the instruction and meditation for awareness of awareness is to notice the sky instead of the clouds. And so it can feel like I'm noticing the vast space in which everything is arising. How do you do that though? It's easy. I mean, it's not easy, easy.

But it's like, if I said, if you were meditating and I just said now, to start to notice the sky, like you could turn your attention to the, to the, here, we could, I mean, we can dry it if you want. Yeah. Okay, so here, let's just do it with space in general. So, so just taking a moment to connect with your body and just being present and the listeners can do that as well. If you're driving, be careful.

Yeah, exactly. And let's start by just expanding a bit. So let's open our attention to sound. So notice the sounds around you. And really let the sounds... tune into the sounds with furthest away sound that you can possibly hear. And then noticing your body as if your body, you can notice the back of your body and let your attention go to the back of your body and then imagine that you could feel out of your body around into the space around your body.

So, it's breathing and sensing and letting your body have a sense of expansiveness. And then include the sounds too. the sounds too. And then if you really want to expand, you could open your eyes and just take in the... See, if you can look kind of peripherally, like opening peripherally. And And just really relax and soften. And as you're doing this, and if your eyes are open, you might notice the space in between things instead of the things themselves. Just let yourself rest here and just remind you that our minds are like this guy. Our awareness is like the sky vast, open, spacious. And all that's arising is just like clouds in this guy. We can just rest here. And he probably should stop because

we're in the middle of a podcast. The one, the way that you've mentioned Joseph Goldstein was my teacher. The way he gets his students, or one of the ways he gets his students to tune into awareness of awareness is to just ask yourself silently a question, what is knowing? Sort of like I'm hearing noises, what is knowing these noises? Who is knowing these noises? And then you start a little kind of gently looking for the knower. Of course, you're not going to find it. And the idea is that in the not finding Something important happens, which is you just you see that there's a kind of up in a positive sense like an emptiness there and that's thrilling and like you For me in my experience you look and it's like right there. You don't have to look too hard. You just notice right away. Yeah, I can't

Hearing a noise and I'm looking for what's knowing it and you might even layer on a question of like, and who's asking the question? And it throws you very quickly if you practice it enough into a space of, of as a kind of a thrilling, vertiginous feeling of, wow, there's really nobody home here. And so this isn't emphasized in the beginning, I know this is actually your point. This idea of natural awareness, which you've written a book about,

or awareness of awareness, isn't emphasized in most beginning meditation instructions. And yet it is very powerful and it can disentangle you from some of the sort of attacking the object like a rabid dog as actually has been instructed by some teachers. You know what? Get on your breath like a rabid dog. You're going to be going to own everything that arises.

You're going to note everything that arises. You're going to be aware of whether you woke up on the in breath or the out breath. This is a much more relaxed practice and is I I agree with you, it's a corrective. You can skillfully switch between the two of them. Absolutely. So, a couple of things in what you're saying, that when we were talking about you were saying, how do you notice awareness of awareness? So, one of the ways is the one we just did awareness that in which it's all contained.

The second one is exactly what you were pointing to, that which knows. So it's the same practice that I'll teach students to kind of look at the know or see if we can find the know or the notice. And then another way people notice awareness of awareness is it's sort of more like of it in two to a sense like you're just here. You're just awareness just is. It's like a sense of like presence that's, it's not going anywhere, it's here. You're just, awareness just is. It's like a sense of like presence that's, it's not going anywhere. It's here.

And we can tune into that awareness that's existing like, we're always aware. Like if I were to say to you, Dan, like for the next second, like don't be aware. Good luck. Try, you wanna try.

Okay, everybody listening, try. Don't be aware. It's like when somebody says, don't think about a polar bear. Exactly. You can't. You can't. I'll say there are three little phrases that I've picked up along the way.

I think from Joseph, you've already used one of them. That can, because I very much, I really resonated with your story about the striving. Because I have, in my daily practice and on retreat, I often get to this point where I'm, I notice as a leaning forward quality to my practice. And so one phrase else sometimes drop in just as, if I sensing that there's like a gritting of teeth happening is just the word effortless. Just, oh yeah, like to know what's happening right now is absolutely effortless. This is the knowing is happening without quote unquote me.

The me is just another thing that is being known. It's just that this sense I have of an inner Dan is just another appearance in consciousness, right? Which is some vast, mysterious, selfless thing that is worthy of investigation. The other little phrase is, this is the one you use, nowhere to go, nothing to do, you know, or nothing to get. And just to remember that, like, I am trying to notice notice I am actually trying to get something here but what's the that's not your job in meditation right it's actually there's a there's a settling back that can happen yeah then the third one is uh forgotten what it'll come to me during the course of the conversation, but these phrases are incredibly useful for me.

And I think drive at what you're saying. Yeah, exactly. And this is kind of how I've developed some of the teachings in the book. I call them glimpsed practices. And what it is it's for you to do at any moment, either in your meditation practice or in your day, to help turn your mind in the direction of a more open, spacious awareness. So you've already mentioned several of that I invite people to do. Just to see it.

I'm creeping from your book. Yeah, you did it. It's like when you have a receptive mind, just drop into the mind. Some phrase that helps turn your attention to this type of awareness. And it can be very powerful, even just, I don't use it specifically the ones you said, but the idea of using a phrase of some sort, like we might say, everything's happening on its own or something. Or one that I often have people do is just when they're, when you're meditating to stop and say, can I be with just this? And then we open to what just this is without resistance and there's a dropping because

really it's about letting go, like it's a profound letting go that can happen when we're resting our awareness. We're not hooked onto anything, you know. So yeah, there's all these little tools that you can use that I call glimpsed practices to turn our mind there. And it's really helpful to have a meditation practice that helps you concentrate your mind. And it's not like these are better than the other, but we need them at different times. That's kind of the point of my book that we can have many different ways of practicing awareness.

I think what's happened, sorry, there's so many things to say, you're kind of getting too excited. You too, I'm excited to go, I love this stuff. So, but carry on. I think, like, in the mindfulness world, and even the way that I was teaching for many, many years, there's an emphasis on focused awareness, right, on bring your attention to your breathing when your attention wanders, bring it back.

And this is a tremendously powerful practice and this is so many of us, our minds are all over the place. This is a way of coming back into the present moment and teaching us the skill of being mindful. And then it doesn't stop there. I mean, as you know, most people, like you learn to open to other things to your thoughts and emotions and to keep coming back in the moment. This is the typical way that mindfulness has been taught.

But there's this whole realm of other practices that is also part of mindfulness. It's just more of the expansive spacious and of mindfulness practice. That's how I view it. And then it seems to me, my own practice, and then working with many, many students, is that people go back and forth among all of them. So I call it a spectrum of awareness practices where you can go from very focused to wide open. And the analogy I often use is like, if you have a camera, a camera can take a picture with a telephoto lens.

It can take a regular old picture. And it could take something with a panoramic lens. And if we're stuck over in one area, we're going to miss lots of ways of taking photographs. So our meditation can get very narrow, but it can be very skillful to open to this more spacious, relaxed side of practice. But I totally agree, and I've seen this so much in my own practice and working with Joseph, knowing there's a real art in knowing when to switch, noticing if you're too fuzzed out and you need to go back to a concentration practice where you're just feeling your breath coming in and going out and every time you get distracted starting again.

Or if you're too locked in on the breath or you're too tight or over efforting, noting knowing, all right, I need to chill out for a second and do a more open practice. There's a real art to that and having guidance from a teacher can be really useful, which is why I wonder what you would say to, I think a lot of my listeners struggle with the idea of, well, do I need a teacher? I don't have access to a teacher locally. So how do I know when to switch among these various practices? What would you say to those folks? Yeah, it's hard when people are remote and don't have access to a teacher. So partially, the suggestion is to see if there are ways to gain access, like

go on a meditation retreat or find a way, you know, remotely to work with people through programs and stuff because that is hard. But if you don't have access, I think ultimately we become our own best teacher. And you start, you have to experiment quite a bit. If I try this, then my mind feels too tight, but I've learned this other type of practice. Maybe I'll try this right now and see what happens. And then they do that. And, oh, okay, this is beneficial.

This is working for me. I'm feeling more connected. I'm feeling more spacious. Oh, my mind is wandering all over the place. Let me come back into the present moment with a more focused attention. So it's a lot of trial and error when you don't have somebody who you can just keep asking questions about. I don't have a great answer for when people don't have access to a teacher because I think

that, like I said, in the long run, down down the road people become their own best teachers and this is really important but you always have to have somebody that you can get some guidance from. One thing I would recommend for if you're a listener and you subscribe to the 10% happier app which by the way is by no means compulsory if you're a listener but if you happen to be a subscriber we have this function that I think is vastly underutilized. The people who use it absolutely love it. They're our most dedicated users.

I think there's correlation causation question there, but the coaching function. So we have these highly trained, very experienced coaches who you can text with. And it's asynchronous, not going to get back to you right away, but they're going to back get back to you quickly and thoughtfully. And you can ask an infinite number of questions, limit. And these people care, I know these coaches, they love to talk to people about their meditation practice. And these are the folks that you can get in touch with and ask any question at any time.

And I really think that would be a way, a workaround if you live in a place where you don't have access to a teacher and don't have the means or the time to go on a meditation retreat, this would be a way to do it. I think it's a great solution and it's amazing that you offer that because not everybody does. And I, you know, one of the frustrations of, for me, speaking personally of having that is that we have these coaches and people do use them. I've been number thousands of our users use the coaches, but not everybody. And I feel like this is an amazing resource that more people should use. I remembered the phrase. The phrase is, I believe the way teachers teach the phrase

is it's already here, meaning awareness is already here. So you're striving to make sure you catch every fluctuation, your belly, and every breath, et cetera, et cetera. But the awareness is already here. You don't need to force it because you're aware all the time. I misheard that as it's all right here, but that both work. You know, like it's everything that's arising

your mind. It's all right here. You don't have to be looking for the next thing or ruminating about the past thing. It's like it's all right here. There's just this incredible sort of unrelating sea of objects right here right now and that's a great reminder for me when I'm greeting my teeth and trying to win at meditation. That's great. So I love these kinds of phrases that we can turn our mind towards a more spacious, relaxed awareness. And that's really what you're doing.

And they're used skillfully. They're used at times when you need them. And so if our mind is kind of spacey and foggy and using something like that may not make the most sense, it may be at that point that you want to just really get a little bit more concentrated with your attention. So it's an art. It's a real, it's an art of meditation, but if you like it, it's kind of like, it's a really fun way to spend your time. Just out of curiosity, what happened at the end of your retreat?

Oh, right. OK, so I spent the next three or four months practicing in this new way. Doing a lot of compassion practices. And the thing that I realized, the thing that was became so obvious to me once I shifted the way I was practicing was that this whole drive that I had to reach enlightenment or some kind of goal, it was because I didn't like myself.

It was because I thought that if I could become enlightened then I would be always kind. Then I would be loving. Then I would be always kind, then I would be loving, then I would be a good person. What I realized that was so incredibly powerful was that, oh, actually what I had to do was learn to just be okay with myself as I was. The practice was not about getting out, it was about a deep embodiment, a going inward and becoming more and more myself and accepting that. And then the more loving and accepting

that I could be the more my mind and my meditation practice, we get to come back to life and to have this sense of this tremendous wonder and awe and connection and it started to be more like that very long ago experience that I talked about when I was a child where there was these these deep moments of love and compassion. So, so I am the last few months of that retreat were extraordinary and I was having a wonderful time practicing and mostly practicing in this way. And then I finally was like,

oh, I've been here a long time. I need to go. So I mean, I got to a point where I felt done, and pretty complete there. Stay tuned more of our conversation is on the way after this. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on page six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellasai. And I'm Sydney Battle. And we're the host of Wunderys New Podcast, Dis and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud.

From the build up, why it happened, and the repercussions? What does our obsession with these feuds say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Brittany and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Brittany's fans form the free Brittany movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar,

which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. Follow Disenthal wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on Amazon music or the wonder app In your bio it says that one of the most challenging practices for you now is Mindfully parenting a nine-year-old is just nine. Yeah So I know this is a subject of great fascination for our listeners. What? What is the challenge for you in parenting as a meditation teacher? You know, there's always a different one every day. Actually, I think as parents, and you're probably experiencing this, you go through phases.

Sometimes it's easier, sometimes it's harder, and right now I feel like things are easy, but she's slowly approaching tween dumb. So I know it's coming. But for me, I would say partially the practice is about staying, like, you know, regulation of my emotions and when I get irritated or frustrated or, you know, and I'm trying to get her to bed and, oh no, no, just five more minutes, just five more minutes, you know, and she, and like the, the staying centered and not going into mean mommy and being loving, even when I don't feel compassionate and, you know, those are kind of like that aspect of practice is really important for me. I mean, you can see it.

You can notice right there, mean mommy is a story you're telling yourself. Oh, yeah. Well, that's true. That is true. And I think that, I mean, but I think there are more, like there are less gulfal and more

skillful ways of responding to our children. And I feel like because of my practice, I have this easy connection back into myself. So that one, I, you know, just like, like, really stupid things. But like, the other day, I was working on a puzzle with her. And I had, it was a big puzzle. We're really into these, like, 500 piece puzzles. And I had spent 20 minutes separating out one area from another area and she kind of, I was sort of into it more than she was. She comes back in the room and she's like, oh, let me help and she takes one of the boxes of puzzle pieces and dumps it into the other one and so completely messes up everything

I had spent the last half an hour doing. And I was, I could just feel, I mean, it was so trivial and so annoying. And I just could feel the rage coming into me. Like, what? I just, this thing you messed it up. And I could, you know, and I knew, and there was like this little tiny voice and like, it's not a big deal, right?

It's just a puzzle. And I could feel it, like, coming through my body. And, and because of my practice, I had a reaction, you know, I wanted to, reaction. I wanted to, I was like, Mira, why did you do this? And then I just, wait, and I paused and I felt in my body and I just practiced what I know to do. And I calmed down within a few seconds or whatever. And it could be more loving. And we just laughed about it because it was absurd. Well, wait, this is a great example.

Walk us, I know for you, you said I practiced what I know to do. I know for you, you know it, so it's in your molecules. Can you get super granular, but what the steps are in a moment like that because I think a lot of us could use the basic blocking and tackling. Okay. Well, so it's so you're right, it is happening use the basic blocking and tackling. Okay. Well, so it's so you're right, it is happening somewhat intuitively. But I think the first thing I did was there was,

I had my reaction, that did not stop. Sometimes people think when you practice a lot, you're going to not react, which sometimes happens, but oftentimes there is a reaction. I could say the irritation and I got really mad. It was a super stupid. It was a puzzle. No judgment here.

You were just turning your type A powers onto your puzzles. There you go. That's it. That's a good outlet. I could feel what was happening in my belly, and it was like this strong sense of like burning, and I could feel it in my chest, and I just turn my attention immediately inward to the sensations. And then I practiced breathing as well.

Like in a just a very simple way, just allowing that to calm down. I recognized that I was right there in the midst of the emotion. And then it just kind of began to calm. So sometimes we teach students to practice stop. That's a great acronym when we're stressed out. It's great for parents because it only takes like 10 seconds or even less to do like and stop is stop take a breath, observe and proceed. So, so and that's essentially what I was doing but mine it was a little more organic but I stopped I took a breath and then I observed what was happening internally and and it's really this the thing that's so important with

the emotions is if we start trying to observe the thinking mind and the figuring out, oh no, I think I'm really mad and I'm so, it doesn't, we get lost. But if we can come into our body and just feel what's happening in the moment, my heart is racing, my stomach is clenched, my jaw is tight, there's a relaxing that can occur, there's a re-regulating of our nervous systems that can happen. And so it can be, that was really what was happening.

I was stopping. And so by the time I got to the pee, stop, take a breath of their proceed, I was pretty relaxed. I wouldn't say very relaxed, but I had regulated, essentially. And so I like, so that's, I mean, we have all these acronyms, like I'm sure you've talked to here about rain, right? The recognize, allow, investigate, and not identify with. All of that is happening quickly

when we're in the heat of the moment. But so let me just go back, stop, I get, take a breath I get observe you see you observe what's happening in your mind and body like about having self-righteous thoughts or I'm you know my chest is buzzing. What is it about the observing that allows you to proceed safely? I think it's a combo of the breathing, the breath that comes us a little bit. And then there's, well, it's interesting. There's this research study that I think is really powerful, which was done by David Croswell a number of years ago when he was at UCLA, where he had people see faces on a screen while their brains were being scanned, right?

And so they wanted to see what brain activity was happening. And so what he saw was that, so he would flash these images of people who were scared, who were disgusted, who were angry. And then what people had to do was label. They had to be mindful of their emotion. So they had to label that emotion. That was, they were seeing on the screen, fear, disgust. And then they were seeing what happened in the brain.

So when the person was activated, they're amygdala lit up. So the amygdala is what we think of as a primitive part of our brain is that small almond shaped piece way in the center of the brain, and it starts to be activated. When people correctly labeled the emotion, the prefrontal cortex came online,

and it calmed the amygdala down, is what the science showed, right? So the prefrontal cortex, it's like what we think of as the CEO of our brain, right? It's responsible for executive functioning, for delayed gratification, working memory, flexible thinking, impulse control. And so it seems like the awareness factor impacts that kind of reactivity. Like that's what that study was showing.

Now it's been replicated a little bit, so it's not like the definitive here, but that might be one answer to the question, like what happens when you bring awareness to what's happening in the moment, definitely over complicating, just being with a puzzle, but. Podcasts are natural zones for over complication. You're in a congenial spot for over complication.

I'm just trying to think about that. I mean, I think on the one hand, I remember I had an aunt say to an aunt say to me once, she was skeptical about mindfulness. She said, I know what I'm mad and I didn't quite know how to respond to that. I think the answer is that if you're observing mindfully, you know that you know you're mad. In other words, it's a meta-awareness, a meta-cognition that allows you to kind of keep the emotion at a distance, not at a dissociative way, but actually in a kind of intimate way, where you're like, oh yeah, this is what anger is really like.

It's the roiling of the stomach, it's the, all of these angry thoughts, the my ears are turning red. You're kind of snuggling up in the thing as opposed to running from it. But the doing of that while it feels terrible allows you not to be so owned by it and react blindly to it.

Is the foregoing accurate in your view? I think that makes a lot of sense to me. And it's that extra piece that your aunt probably doesn't have, which is in your pointing to it, the non-identification part. Like when we can be present with it, and it moves from like anger is like I'm over taken by anger, my anger into oh there's anger in me, like anger is moving

through me, there's more space, there's more, there's, it goes from being my anger to the anger. And that's a very powerful shift. And if we can be mindful, if we can just be mindful of it, even for like one second, there's a little bit more freedom. It is what I've explored in myself and with students. So it's one of, there's one teacher who used to refer to it as disentangled participation. Yeah, I love that. Isn't that a great phrase? I love that. So, it's not like we're dissociating like, oh, I am angry, right? It's not that. We're really fully in it, but with this measure of self-awareness that I think doesn't happen

when you just, I'm angry, you know, you're angry. Disentangled participation. So, if, so there's a way to do stop STOP if your kids freaking you out or anybody's pissing you off or whatever To that's pretty simple, you know, just stopping taking a breath observing you can do that in a cursory way Just observe that your bodies, you know having is a journalized or whatever and then proceed Hopefully with some degree of sanity that you might not otherwise have had. But then there's the next level where the O of stop where the observing has some of the N from rain, which is non-identification where you can see. Oh, yeah, this is just this is the in-imperseable. This is the wind to

flood, to refer back to the eight-worldly winds of anger. And it's blowing on me right now. It's blowing in me right now, but I don't necessarily have to be blown around by it. Yeah, that's great. That's a great analogy. So do you teach your Mira to teach her how to meditate? Yeah, sort of. I mean, I do, but it's better if she learns it

from someone else. See, okay, I'm so glad to hear you say this because at almost every speech I give, I go around and give a lot of speeches and there's, and on the good ones, I get Q and A, in the bad ones, I don't have time for it. Bad, they're not bad. It's just, I much prefer, because I'm sick of hearing my own story, but I really love talking to people about this practice and taking their questions, even though it's dirty little secret.

It's always the same questions. One of the five or six questions I always get is you have a four-year-old do you teach him how to meditate? And my answer is, and I'm cutting you off, so I apologize, but because I actually want to hear what your answer is, I may, but I have this suspicion that it's going to be best if I model the meditative lifestyle, mindfulness, the dedication to the practice, and that he learns it from somebody else rather than me teaching it, which is going to come with a lot of annoying stuff. I thoroughly agree.

I mean, my daughter has found the way to just perfectly make fun of what I do. I mean, she's like, she's like, she'll go, my name is Diana Winston, you know, like making fun of my meditation. And then she, and then my favorite was when she was little, I was like, you know, I was very enthusiastic. I'm gonna teach her how to be, how to meditate.

And so before we go to bed, I was like, oh, I'm gonna bring her loving kindness practice. So we used to, this was like, she was like, maybe three when this happened, maybe four. And so I said, oh, I'm going to bring her loving kindness practice. So we used to, this was like, she was like maybe three when this happened, maybe four. And so I said, and so I said, let's think of all the people we want to send kindness to. How about grandma? How about Papa? How about, you know, so, and so I said, maybe happy grandma, maybe happy dad.

She goes, maybe happy poop. And I was like, okay, this is not working. And so then I realized that it was, I mean, one of my friends jokes and said, she's going to be the anti-mindfulness prophet, you know, which may be true. But there was an interesting thing that happened recently. So you are asking about mindful parenting.

And so I was sharing, we started, we got off on the whole thing about the, you know, working with strong emotions. But one of the biggest areas for me with parenting is around my expectations of her. And I want her to be a certain way. And so I'm like constantly, you know, and it's just, it's like, I can't help it. You know, I, oh, I want her. I love to read. I want her to be a really big reader.

I like the theater or how come she's not, you know, I never get to do dance when I was a kid. Why doesn't she become a dancer? You know, it's like these stories. We have a better kids. And you're giving me this look like, yeah, I know. And so one of my greatest practices, honestly, as a parent, is the like watching those arise and then the dropping them, letting them go, letting them go, because they're constantly

arising. You should be doing this. You should be eating less sugar. I mean, obviously you parent your child and you keep them away from harm and so forth. But the expectations and then the coming back into the reality of who they are and letting them be who they are. So I had this big insight into that actually on a meditation retreat and about how, like the importance of that for letting my daughter be herself. And then I get back and she had created a meditation that she had done herself. And I was like, okay, this is really weird.

So you talked about her making fun of you. So I, my son, I can't remember, I've told these stories on the show already. So I apologize to listeners if I already said this. But recently I was giving him a hard time about something and he looked at me and said, you know, your next book should be 10% poopier. And then the other day we were at taking him, he's got a lot of these little comments. We were at a school carnival and I was he was so tired and we're trying to convince him to leave and I was carrying him from one ride to the next

and he's collapsed in my arms and I actually posted a picture of this moment that my wife took on Instagram and he said I'm not tired. I'm just meditating. Oh, that's okay. I'm not tired. I'm just meditating. Oh, that's okay. So, I mean, he's never meditated, but like, you know, he knows how to use it against us, for sure. One of the things I wanted to ask you about, because you, you, I seem to not brought this note, but I think I'll be able to recreate it hopefully from memory. One of your jobs or your job right now is at the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. And I believe you guys have done some work at looking at whether meditation works with kids.

And I saw something about ADHD and teens and adults and that was a study that was done through your center. Do you have recall of the results of that? Yeah, so our center is the Mindful Awareness Research Center. Although I have to say we are more of an education center than a research center, but we've done about 15 different studies over the last decade on mindfulness.

And the very first one when I got hired at UCLA was to teach on the mindfulness for ADHD for adolescents and adult study that we did. It was very positive. The results were essentially like, yes, people with ADHD can meditate, yes, there are significant improvements in attention that they found. And particularly in what's called conflict attention. So there are three different types of attention orienting, and I forget the second, but the third one is conflict attention.

And that's the ability to stay attentive to one thing when multiple things are distracting you. And so that was the thing that improved the most in the kids and the adults. And I mean, it was very statistically significant so much so that some scientists looked at the data and they said what medication did you put them on? And we said no, replace it with a T, it was meditation. But so that study, again, not sure, I don't think it's been replicated, medication did you put them on and we said no, replace it with a T. It was meditation.

But so that study again, not sure, I don't think it's been replicated, but that was kids and adults. And it was like an eight week mindfulness program that we put them through. Is there other evidence, because this is another question I get asked a lot, is there other evidence to suggest that teaching kids meditation can have saliitary effects? Yes, there is, but I would say it's still early. The research on kids is early. The research with adults, there's a lot, but it's also really early. But the kids it's even smaller.

A lot of the research has been done around behavioral, emotional regulation. There's been some untest taking in mindfulness. There's some on social emotional improvement. There's some on, I'm trying to remember the research here. Most of it's done within the context of a classroom and so there's a lot of behavioral stuff that's positively impacted. So there's much to be done around the children's research and it's all very like a positive direction. Before we wrap this up, one of the things

that I think we talked about doing in advance with you is taking, fielding some calls from our listeners. You okay to do that? Yeah, we can do that. And is there anything else I should have asked you before we do it? Yes. Yes. Okay, what do that. Yeah, we can do that. And is there anything else I should have asked you before we do? Yes. Okay, what is that?

Well, I just wanted to talk a little bit about the Center at UCLA. And then the work with the International Mindfulness Teachers is just excellent. Okay, so I have a Center at UCLA. It's both this research and education and we've been doing, we've been programs and classes for the greater Los Angeles area and and both. I've spoken there. And yes, you have spoken that was great to have you and also a lot

we're really embedded within the university as well. So we're in the medical school in the psychiatry department, but we have a reach throughout the campus. And so we have free meditations for UCLA students all the time. They can come meditate, they can take anything we offer for free, and we teach these classes called maps classes, which are mindful awareness practices. There's six week programs learning mindfulness, and we offer day longs and events. There's a lot going on. It's just been it's been this incredible gift to be able to share mindfulness in this context really in a very thoroughly secular and accessible to anyone of any background. And one of the things

that I've been doing for a long time is teaching teachers, training, mindfulness facilitators. So 10 years ago I started training, people had to teach mindfulness within whatever their context is. So what are the communities that they serve and how can they best embody the mindfulness practice to go out into their communities and teach? And so.

I'm sorry to interrupt you because I just want to put, I want to amplify at this point. This is, I'm sorry to interrupt you because I just want to put, I want to amplify this point. This is a huge issue. We have a supply and demand issue in the mindfulness business, which is that we have a lot of demand for meditation and not a huge supply of trained teachers. And in order to be a trained teacher, you got a really deep, deep teacher.

You got to do stuff like you did in your 20s, shave your head and go off and be a nun or a monk. You don't have to. But I mean, the people, the grandmothers and grandfathers of the people we respect the most in the meditation world have gone off and done a lot of work on silent retreat, whether you go to Asia or not. They've just done a lot of work with their minds.

And so I'm not saying every teacher has to do that in order to be sort of a garden variety teacher or to teach, you know, little kids how to do it, you can do vastly less. But the supply is very limited at the high end there or the deep end of people who can really who have spent a lot of time on retreat. And so the pipeline is being filled slowly over time of a younger generation, but we need also people who, and this is where your work is so important, where you can train people to go teach, you know, their platoon in the army, or teach their kids at school, or teach in their office, et cetera, et cetera. And so I think what you're doing is really important.

Thank you. Yeah, it's a huge issue, what you're doing is really important. Thank you. Yeah, it's a huge issue, what you're saying, the supply and demand issue, and then also the fact that because up until recently, it's been entirely unregulated. So anybody can say that they're a mindfulness teacher. You can take a weekend workshop and say that you're a mindfulness teacher, because it's going to stop you from that. And so that's been a really important focus of a number of years of my work. I've been developing the International Mindfulness Teachers Association that went live about a year ago. And it's a, it is a accreditation board and a credits teacher training programs in mindfulness,

mindfulness teacher training programs, and then it gives a credential to individuals who've gone through those training programs. So you can have it for your professional use. And it's also a membership organization. So if you're a mindfulness teacher, you can join and then there's various benefits, including webinars and conferences and ways of building community around mindfulness practice. This is just so important to so that the quality of the teachers is really, really significant because if you're learning mindfulness from someone who's not that qualified, probably

you're not going to get hurt, but it may not go very far. Anyway, that's a project that I've been involved with for a number of years, and it's been great to do. Anything else I missed? Well, probably, but it's fine. All right, let's do some voicemails. We've got to put our headphones on. Can we hear, can you hear me as I talk?

Okay, our headphones work and Susie's going to play voicemail number one. Hi, Dan. This is Amy calling from Washington, DC. First, I wanted to say thanks for your new year's challenge. I have for a very long time listening to your podcast, read lots of books about meditation, but never actually meditated.

And it wasn't until I did the challenge and completed it that I actually did it for all of those days in a row. And it was great. Of course, I haven't done it since then, but I know that I can do it now. So that really meant a lot. So thank you for that. My question comes from that experience toward the end of the challenge, who was a session with Joseph about emotion. And I found during that session

that I was overcome by emotion. I actually cried the entire time that he spoke, but through his guidance, I was able to watch myself and step back from it and just let it happen. It was a really cool experience. But what I started to wonder was how that would apply in the everyday. It seems to me that emotions are part of what makes us human and make us unique. And if what I'm supposed to learn is how to remove myself from them and just observe my

emotions that maybe I'd become detached or emotionless and really just not fully feeling my life as I live it. So my question is more of a request. Could you talk more about that and how to balance that learning how to observe your emotions but really still living your life and feeling happy, feeling sad, but just not being carried away with those emotions. Thanks so much Dan, I appreciate all that you do. Bye bye.

We actually kind of already talked about this, but I think it's worth because it is a huge issue, so I'll let you hold forth. Yeah, and I do feel like we answered it quite a bit. And I think that it's just to be really clear, it's practicing mindfulness is not to turn you into a zombie. I mean, we're not trying to make you be emotionless. It's what I found is that actually people have more access to their emotions. But in a way that's a healthy way, instead of one in which you're lost in it and feeling

overwhelmed and out of control, or I'll never get through this, which is what we talked about this identification, we can be mindful of our emotions, which means not dissociated, not turning into a zombie, allowing them to move through us, but yet feeling them at the same time, right? So feeling it, but feeling it with awareness. So there's a beautiful, that was when we go back to the disentangled participation. It's a beautiful approach to emotions that's totally doable for people. And it's such an important thing to understand because people often get stuck on this kind

of idea of dissociation becoming a zombie, but that is not what we're talking about. It's as Ram Das has said, you become a connoisseur of your neuroses. You can handle them with much more likeness. All right, so ZeeList, do number two. Hey, Dan. This is Ram. And I have been listening to your podcast and have also taken your challenge.

It's great that you are doing all these great things about meditation. And also, we are of a similar age. So I can relate to you then some of the gurus that are there on the show. And having said that, my question today is that I know we are supposed to focus on the breath. And what I do almost subconsciously is easier for me if I control the breath. Like for example, I would just breathe and okay, this is breath in, breathe out. But I believe we are supposed to observe the breath that already happens,

meaning we don't cast the breath to happen. So it's almost, but what I find is if I, like it is almost difficult for me to figure out the natural bread going on. It's much easier if I just breathe. And is it okay first to do it that way? And if not, do you have tips that I could use to observe the natural bread that is going on? Thank you again for the great things you are doing and good luck and also have a great day. Bye. So many well wishes at the end. What's your answer to that question? So first of all there's many different types of meditation, right? And like there's so many different

meditation techniques. I always think of meditation like sports, big category, there's hundreds of sports, there's many, many, many types of meditation. And so there are meditation practices where you deliberately control the breath. And some of you go into yoga classes and you'll do that ujaya breathing or something where you breathe in in a certain way. In this particular practice that I think we're teaching on the app, it's the emphasis on letting the breath be at its own natural rhythm. And for some people that's hard to do because what I've noticed is that when for some people they try to pay attention to the breath and they start to control the breath,

so there's a couple of things you can try. One is try meditating lying down, because oftentimes our breath is very natural and then it's easier just to tune into that breath when it's kind of, when there's not a lot of tension in your body, so you can try that. Try exploring different places to notice your breathing. So notice your breath at your abdomen, you can try your chest, you can try your nose because maybe that one of those areas there's less trying to control it and it's more

natural. And then the third thing is you don't have to do your breathing as your main focus, as your anchor of meditation. You can do something else like listening to sounds. It's a great one that people often do. And it's a good one to do if you're sick, if it's hard to be with your breath, or for some people because of past trauma

or something being in their bodies, it's hard, but listening to sounds, just letting the sounds come and go, it's a very powerful practice. So I would try a couple of those things, if you would have been. Yeah, and also there's loving kinds of practices, you know, if they're not too wooly-gooey for you, but and they were for me for a while,

but I do them all the time. So there are lots of ways to practice. And if you're getting hung up on your breath, there are alternatives. There's noting. Yeah, exactly, lots to do. Before we go, let's do what I call the Plug Zone. Can you just plug your book, your book's plural.

Tell us where we can find you on the internet. Tell us about where we can learn more about your center at UCLA, et cetera, et cetera. OK. So I have a website, dyanoinstin.com. And my most recent book is called The Little Book of Being, Practices and Guidance for uncovering your natural awareness. That just came out in March. It's available wherever books are sold. And if you're interested

in what we were talking about during the first part of the podcast, the natural awareness, practicing in a way that has more spaciousness and less effort, that's what that book is about. I have another book called Fully Present, The Science Art and Practice of Mindfulness that I co-wrote with a scientist, so that has a lot of the practicalities and the science of mindfulness. And my very first book I wrote a long time ago was called Wide Awake, A Buddhist Guide for Teens, and it's exactly what it sounds like. And then my center at UCLA, the Mindful Awareness Research Center, the website is UCLAhealth.org slash M-A-R-C, Mindful Awareness Research Center.

And then if you're interested in joining, we're getting accredited or credentialed by the International Mindfulness Teachers Association, it's imta.org. I think that's great work on this, really appreciate it. National Mindfulness Teachers Association, it's imta.org. I think that's it. Great work on this, really appreciate it. And also, if you want to learn or get more content from Danny Winston, check out the 10% happier app. All right, that's a good one too. And you can hear the voice that her daughter makes fun of her for.

Thanks again for coming on, really appreciate it. My pleasure has been really fun. She really does have a great voice. You can tell why. Our users love her so much. Thanks again to Diana Winston. Thanks to you for listening. No voice mails of course this week because we just did him with Diana.

But we'll be back next week with another episode just as always really like to thank our podcast Insiders group, the folks who volunteer to give us feedback on every episode. It comes directly to me and I really, really appreciate it. It has a big effect on the work we're doing here. And I want to thank the team that produces the show, Ryan Kessler, Samuel Johns, Grace Livingston, Mike D's on the board today. Thank you Mike, and we'll see you next week. these on the board today, thank you Mike, and we'll see you next week. Hey, hey prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad free on Amazon Music.

Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad free with 1-3-plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.