Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 191: Can Meditation Improve Politics? Chris Ruane and Jamie Bristow

Episode Date: June 12, 2019

Chris Ruane has been a member of the British Parliament for more than 20 years. As a meditation and mindfulness practitioner, he wanted to share the benefits of these practices with his colleagues in government. In 2013, he set up free mindfulness classes in the UK Parliament. Since then, more than 150 British Members of Parliament and peers have received mindfulness training, along with 250 members of their staff. Jamie Bristow serves as Director of The Mindfulness Initiative, which was founded in 2013 to support British politicians in forming the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Mindfulness (MAPPG), a cross party group dedicated to developing public policy on mindfulness in health, education, criminal justice and the workplace. Ruane and Bristow have joined forces to bring mindfulness techniques to legislators around the world, hoping it will lead to more thoughtful decision-making and constructive dialogues between opposing political parties. Plug Zone Chris Ruane Bio: http://oxfordmindfulness.org/people/chris-ruane/ Chris Ruane Email Address: [e-mail] Chris Ruane Twitter: https://twitter.com/Chris_RuaneMP Jamie Bristow Twitter: https://twitter.com/jamiebristow The Mindfulness Initiative: https://www.themindfulnessinitiative.org/ Ten Percent Happier Meditation - Jeff Warren's Training the Mind: https://10percenthappier.app.link/Sx7HisBOiX ***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. Hey guys, I think it's safe to say that even a casual observer of the United States Congress would likely conclude that the atmosphere, the interpersonal atmosphere there, is not awesome, pretty deeply suboptimal. It seems like the two parties are constantly at each other's throat, the personal relationships that you repeatedly used to exist across the aisle seem to have dissipated if not just simply disappeared.

So this week we're going to take you inside a really interesting experiment That's going on across the pond in the British Parliament 150 members of parliament there have taken mindfulness training programs many of them also sit regularly and private Confidential groups where they meet across party lines and apparently create real friendships and shares and pretty deep stuff Obviously, this is not created some sort of Brigadouin. The whole Brexit situation is clearly pretty choppy to say the least. But this experiment has apparently made a real difference. So we have two guests this week.

One of them is Chris Roanne, who's a member of Parliament from Wales. He's been serving since 1997. He says, and you'll hear him say this, he used to be the kind of guy who would scream and shout on the floor of parliament. And that had that he has subsequently post meditation undergone a real personal transformation. So his story's fascinating. The other guest is Jamie Bristo, who runs a think tank that emerged that grew out of these efforts to teach mindfulness

to parliament. It's called the mindfulness initiative and they research how mindfulness can change public policy and healthcare and incarceration, et cetera, et cetera. So that's coming up first. A very quick item of business is very quick. I just want to quickly highlight one of our favorite meditations. In the 10% happier app, it's called Training the Mind, or more specifically, Jeff Warren's Training the Mind.

Jeff Warren is a very good friend, an amazing meditation teacher. If he was a personal trainer, this meditation session would be kind of his full body workout. He takes you through five mental qualities that he believes are important for a well-rounded meditation practice. If you want to go check that meditation out, you can just click on the link in the show notes, or if you are a subscriber to the app, just go in the advanced and unguided section of the singles tab.

All right, go check that out. Now though, here's Chris Ruane and Jamie Bristo. We talk about, you're gonna hear us talk about how mindfulness can boost positive relationships and communication in high stakes adversarial situations, how it can reduce unconscious bias. We talk about the difference, and this is really from Chris when he gets very personal, the difference between living based on intrinsic values versus extrinsic values. So when you're living based on what's meaningful to you, as opposed to what's meaningful to

the culture or somebody else like your parents. And we talk about whether this kind of mindfulness experiment could be imported here to the US. So here we go, here's Chris Auran and Jamie Bristo. Nice to see both of you. It's good to be here now. Let's just start with some biography. I'd be curious to hear how each of you

got interested in meditation. And by the way, give me the proper title. How should I address you? Chris. Chris, just to say what's that? Absolutely, yeah. I'm Chris Ruan, the member of Parliament for the Vale of Clued, which is in wonderful Wales.

I'm a Welsh MP in the United Kingdom Parliament. And I got into meditation, not mindful, as 32 years ago. I was a primary schoolteacher for 15 years, and then an MP on and off for 22 years. Mae'n gweithio'r meddutau yn gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r 15 oedd yn ymwyr i'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r

gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r and she taught us tension and relaxation throughout the body and to use the breath. And I got so much out of that that I wanted to use it with the children in my care. So I started meditating with 48 and 9-year-old children and doing the breath and doing visualizations and it just worked for me. It worked for them. Yeah, and you stuck with it over time? No, I practiced it for about four or five years with the children. And then I came across mindfulness about 12 years ago when I was helping my daughter set in which is Welsh for star in this guy

with her with her homework, comparative religions, came across Buddhism. I didn't realize the centrality of mindfulness meditation to Buddhism. So I downloaded some podcasts from Spirit Rock in California. I say, so it ended up to be about 300 podcasts. Wow. You went to about 12 years ago. And I've listened to them on the journey on the train down to London, two and a half hours on the way back and from your district. From my district on the in Wales. Yeah. And we should say Spirit Rock is a venerable meditation retreat center in Marin County. That's right. And Gil Fronstel was, I mean, they had visiting artists on the podcast, but Gil Fronstel was

kind of the kind of anchorman who I listened to for six years and practice meditations. And I got so much out of it that in 2013, I thought, or 2012, in fact, I thought Parliament could benefit with this. We just come through the expenses issue where the expenses scandal, where lots of people were burnt out. Expensive scandal, we should just say that there were members of Parliament who were basically busted, spending government dollars for personal a'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r

gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r like three, four years later, a little stress now. So I thought I should have introduced it at the time, but about two or three years afterwards, I thought I'll take it to Parliament. And I contacted Professor Richard Leard, who wrote a wonderful book, Happiness in New Science, and The Good Childhood. Richard is a professor at the London School of Economics, and a Labour Lord.

And I knew he was well connected in the wellbeing world. So I approached him, and he put his in contact with the Oxford Mindfulness Centre Professor Mark Williams. Mark came down with a wonderful teacher, Chris Cullen, and we introduced our lessons in January 2030, and over the past six, six and a half years, 250 parliamentarians and 350 members of their staff have had mindfulness training. All right, I want to go deep into that, but first let me just Jamie, let me get your background

real quick. So I came into this story anyway when I was working a headspace in 2012. There are little known meditation applications. Little known meditation applications. Well, they went it alone back in the day anyway. You're not little known now. We're all, all of us in the meditation game are standing on your shoulders figuratively,

because you guys were the first meditation app. Yeah, and then back in those days, there was about nine people in the organization and five desks in a small business center in North London, and now, of course, they have hundreds of staff in California somewhere. So I was, let me rewind and just talk about where I got into mindfulness and meditation. First off, so I was lucky enough to come across it when I was in university. There was a meditation society, so I joined the Ultimate Frisbee Club and the Football Club and the meditation club.

And by football you mean soccer. Oh, I mean soccer, of course. Proper football. And so just one of those things I picked up and tried and I did it for a few months. It came and went and it was just another experience. And then I graduated, I got into a, like a big creative agency, advertising agency in London, like a global network. I was working too hard, you know, I was working long hours. And the culture there was like drinking every night, and then drinking too much coffee the next day to get over the night before. And surprise, surprise, I couldn't concentrate for whatever it is, crazy 10, 12 hour days I was trying to do.

And so I came back to meditation in order to be a better advertiser in order to focus better. But with that self-regulation benefit that a lot of people come into this stuff for, I also then moved on to self-expiration, realized there was more to me and to the world than I originally thought there was. And that led me to really question what I was doing there, whether advertising

was right for me, or whether advertising was right for the world. And changed my life and ended up in a climate change campaign. So when we went from selling Nissan's, Nissan's, I think they can make a comment. They'll be like, yeah, and Nissan. Sending four by fours, and then a few years later, talking about how we desperately need to reduce our carbon emissions to the survival of our society. So that just lit a fire underneath me really. That was, I realized that mindfulness

was what sort of changed my perspective on things. And so I thought, well, maybe if more people knew about this, then they would also sort of be more sensitive to the information that's out there and change their perspective also. So that led me to try to get a job at Headspace to end up and say, hey, do you want to take me on? That led to being a volunteer with the Parliamentary Initiative that kicked off in 2014.

So the politicians had already been practicing for a year or so on this eight-week mind from this course. And they started to become interested in the science behind what they'd been learning and the policy implications in health and education, criminal justice system. And so I was one of 15 to 20 volunteers and experts who showed up to help them to create a cross-party group and all-party parliamentary group on mindfulness, which is like it's kind of like a student society actually for back bench MPs, so those who aren't in government, who to help them come together on an issue of mutual interest, to inquire into that area and make recommendations for government. So I was actually enlisted on the criminal justice strand of that inquiry,

and we had eight events in Parliament eight hearings over 12 months and I'm pulled together the mindful nation UK report. And so I was just one person on the team there but then I was asked to take over as director. So I've been running the charity, an education charity, a policy institute, which supports this group of politicians, helping them do what they do. That's a mindfulness initiative. If the mindfulness initiative, we all have a great deal to it. Answer Jamie as well.

Good luck. So let's go back to the beginning of this mindfulness initiative that you provoked, Chris. What was the reaction from your colleagues, the MPs the other members of parliament we've had on this show before Tim Ryan Democrat from Ohio who's now running for president absolutely and he Is the very public meditator and he started what's called the quiet time caucus in the United States Congress and to my knowledge time caucus in the united states congress and to my knowledge he's gotten zero actual members of congress to meditate a lot of member a lot of staffers but no last time i spoke to him no members of congress were publicly talking about this

uh... least i think maybe some of them had talked about it but they weren't doing it with hand so anyway not a huge buy-in well i did you did people smirk it you when you started talking about meditation within a political context? Yeah, well, initially, yes. But we had 22 members of parliament and members of the House of Lords, peers on the first class in January 2013.

So there was some buy-in, and I was the recruits insurgent, and I would pitch it differently to different MPs. MPs that I knew were struggling. Mae'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r o fydd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn ffordd oedd yn fford i'w i'r brif, helpu i'r cremynol justu. Mae'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw ministers underneath that cabinet member for that department and there will be a shadow of that for the opposition. So the opposition if there's an education, it's a secretary of state for education, there'll be a shadow, a secretary of state for education.

Gotcha. So they shadow each other. So I would try. What party are you in? I'm in a Labour Labour MP. And were you only recruiting from your own party? No, not at all. We took a cross-party approach left and right. Sometimes extreme left, extreme right, extreme centre. MPs and peers would come together. They'd leave the politics at the door and we'd sit and meditate. Sometimes in silence and sometimes guided

and we'd have discussions afterwards. And we'd express our vulnerability in those oak paneled select committee rooms where we delivered our mindfulness practice. And nobody was leaking in Vermont. Nobody was leaking. And we've had no leak for six and a half years. And some people have spoken about their alcoholism, and neglect as children. a'r ff6.5 yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n ff1r yw'n And it is beginning to change the dynamic of discourse, the Parliament, Tim Lawton, who's under Labour culture, Tim Lawton MP is the conservative culture,

and he speaks, what's the terminology he uses? He says that there is an affinity amongst those who've been on this mindfulness course, and a rather more considered approach to exchanges of differing views. In other words, politicians are starting to report that they disagree better and they can have better dialogue. But it's not all rainbows and unicorns.

No, absolutely. It's not the age of Aquarius, absolutely. You guys had something called Brexit. Brexit? And it had something. We've still got it. Yeah, you still suffering from it for decades to come. Well, you can't figure out how to actually do the exit part. No, absolutely.

And it's, you know, life's about ups and downs and political life is about political ups and political downs and it just feels like we've had a three political down where all we've talked about is Brexit. We've made virtually no process, no progress. And some of i'n gweithio'r gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithioithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn g, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i'n gweithio'r ymwch, i' as so on the wind, and we are now reaping the whirlwind, and now more than ever, we need a practice and intervention that can help us stay balanced in these turbulent times. Do you think if you didn't have this, that the Brexit conversations would be even worse? I think it's still a real minority of people who have been on the course, and particularly those who have really committed to the practice over time. What would you say the percentages of members of Parliament who have done the course? Right. Members of Parliament are the main houses.

And then there's that house. They go shading this, yeah exactly. So there's about 150 members of Parliament have been on the course of that right Chris? Yeah, so about 100 peers from the house. And that's how 600 plus. No, that's how 650 MPs and 700, 800 P is now. So the numbers sound big, 200 P. Here's our members of the House of Lords. Here's our members of the House of Lords, yeah.

So the numbers sound big and impressive, 250, but that's out of a total population in Parliament of something like 1400 members of the Lords and members of the Commons. So we've got this small group that's starting to say, well, only a few years ago they started to say this could be impactful on political culture. And then they started to say, it has been, I have different relationships, I find that I talk differently to people, different tone, bringing other things, bring more of myself into the conversations I have in this house. And then in the last six months or eight months or so, we've actually seen demonstrations of that in the chamber itself.

So there was an intervention just before Christmas where Tim Lawton really took the heat out of the room. There was people were kind of bang for blood almost, and now infamous exchange during Prime Minister's questions, which is our kind of weekly punch and judy question answer with the Prime Minister. And he just called it an amazing spectacle, by the way. Before you tell the story about Tim Lotton, for those of you who don't follow British politics, you're forgiven, except from maybe by the two people on top of it right now, but by me, you're forgiven. They do this thing once a week, right? Where the Prime Minister comes in and just fields you're forgiven, except for maybe by the two people I'm talking about right now, but I mean, you're forgiven. They do this thing once a week, right, where the Prime Minister comes in and just fields

questions from a whole group of the members of parliament and now it's right there on the floor of the House of Commons. And it gets, it's pretty hard, courts, I can press conference, but you know, these, it's from fellow politicians, not journalists, and they're screaming. Yeah. And the design of the chamber in the House of Commons is, it's, and they're screaming. Yeah, and the design of the chamber in the House of Commons is, it's designed like a bear pit. It's not circular, it's not in an arc, it's directly about four or five paces away from each other. So, and the banked seats going up five or six rows, and it

is like a bear pit, and you have them. What's a bear pit? A bear pit is where they used to pitch two bears to fight against each other. And you've got the you've got the different parties on each side on these banks. The bank and I used to be one of the worst defenders but Really? I have a hard time imagine. So you would scream and shout? On occasions and I asked the prime minister, the As you kingdom, a question about mindfulness in February of this year, I'll show you if you can get the clip, but I asked the Prime Minister a question, and she answered very knowledgeably about mindfulness.

And then the Speaker of the House of Commons, intervened and said the honorable member used to be very kind of Boy stress and loud louder the chamber and he has changed these behaviors. I got a pat on the head From the speaker of the House of Commons, so it must work it Okay, so back to Tim Lahn again is he's the conservative co-chair of the mindfulness. Yeah, so there's practice group empowerment and then there's also the policy initiative. So we're not kind of assuming that everyone who practices is interested in how this might be applied across society, but some of them are, and so we have this all-party group which

has two co-chairs, conservative and labor, to inquire into how this has been applied across society. And that's where I come in. I don't do the teaching of people in Parliament by talking about mindfulness in society. So yeah, back to Parliamentary questions. And there was, yeah, a lot of heat in the chamber. And Tim stood up to ask a question and his colleagues were going like, go on Tim, he gone to like ramp it up basically and instead he just took a pause, took a breath and just said calm in a really like big way and the whole sort of yeah the fever pitch dropped a few degrees and then just you know went on to ask what he wanted to ask about education funding.

And it's only, you know, these are tiny things, but I think they're like baby steps or green shoots. And we shouldn't overstate what individual mindfulness practice can do on a group level without some kind of group dialogue about how we want to change the culture together towards something that is more mindful and more considered and more responsive rather than blindly reactive. I hope that will come when more politicians have got that personal understanding. But when we've had like in the member of the House of Laws there was a debate, a month or so before that, and we had three different political parties represented where people

said there should be more mindfulness in our international relations was the first intervention. Second one was there should be more mindfulness in the way that we work with the cabinet. And then someone else said there should be more mindfulness in this house. And give a really good definition of it and said that we should have more of a mindful approach in the House of Lords. So yeah, it it's quite recent, it's developed, but it's becoming part of the public record that politicians are calling for a different type of discourse. Can you genuinely forecast a near future where you have a much higher level of buy-in

and where you do see the kind of behavioral changes on the floor of the houses that you would like to see? Another tipping point we've seen recently is around mental health more broadly. And so in the last four years, the public discourse around mental health, we should all talk about it, we should all find treatment when we need it and we've got problems and we should be doing preventive things to bolster our mental health. In the UK at least shifted a huge amount and that's because the royal family, the young royals have come out and campaigned about mental health, we have grimes, stars, rappers, sportsmen, politicians, all saying iPad issues and so that's been enormously helpful, it's just shown as how quickly you can have cultural change. I think we're starting to get critical mass, both in parliament and in society, because the numbers we're seeing, and this is reflected in the US, I believe, is that the number of people who have meditated

is getting towards, like, 15, 16% of the population. And if you look at how new technologies and new trends are taken up, that's the kind of point where it jumps into a mainstream conversation. I mean, I think you have two trends in both countries simultaneously and probably interrelated. You've got, and maybe more than two trends, but you've got a growing embrace of meditation and you've got record levels of anxiety, depression, suicide. And you've also got this introduction of technology, which does enable the dissemination of meditation, but it also, at a more prodigious level,

enabling people to be more isolated, cut off, stuck in social media, called the sacks where they're comparing themselves to other people and feeling lesser, et cetera, et cetera. So, a lot going on, these interrelated, self-reinforcing trends that some of them negative, but I think the meditation part of it is really riding on some of this, and I think could be a positive force.

I'm not probably, I'm not sort of polyanna about this, but I do think it could be positive. And there's a tsunami of mental ill health that's sweeping on Friday and the UN or the World Health Organization says that by 2030 the biggest health burden on the whole of the planet will be depression. I'm not mental health per se, just depression. Wait, say that again to exact that's worth it. The World Health Organization says that by 2030, mae'n gwaithio'r yw 2030'n gwaithio'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'odd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn ddodd yn d Mae'n ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch ymwch y than 1991. Take a nice? No. Well, if anything, our happiness and our well-being has gone down over that, and I think people are looking for something that's natural, something that's innate, something that's human, and are finding it increasingly in meditation.

Professor Mark Williams, a professor who taught from Oxford University, mindfulness centre, the man who taught as mindfulness in the House of Commons. He is the one of three professors, including Zindl Ziegel from Toronto University and John T. Stale from Cambridge University. In 2004, they produced the science that was accepted by the National Health Service in the United Kingdom for mindfulness to be used for repeat episode depression. So the Service in the United Kingdom for mindfulness to be used for repeat episode depression. So the science in the United Kingdom has been proven and accepted and freely available since 2004. The take-up has been minimal. We need to look at the reasons for that, the lack of number of... It's a company made by and from regular people.

By and from regular people? That's so much by and from regular people. The by and from regular people? And that's so much by and from regular people, as it's the health services, not providing it where they should be. And then there has been changes there in terms of the national health service trying to address that. But it's more difficult to set up a mind

from a training program with the quality of training... To hand out health. You need to hand out that up. So, just go back to this statistic from the World Health Organization. By the 2030, they think depression will be the biggest health burden on the planet. Yes. What do they think is driving that and what do they think the burden will look like? I don't know if there's been any scientific analysis as to what is bringing this about. I've got my own theories and there's what is bringing this about. I've got my own theories and there's a wonderful American sociologist Robert Putnam who I think had the book. He wrote a book called Bullying

Alone. He chronicled the declining community and the rise in atomization and alienation. There is a wonderful British journalist and psychiatrist called Oliver James who wrote the book Afloenza. He maintains that it is advertising that this is the main reason. The purpose of an advert is to make you unhappy with what you've got so that you'll purchase something else to make you happier. There are whole slew of theories about the impact Mae'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r fwy'r selechn fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy'n fwy' to depressants or psychological therapies or mindfulness, but we need to get behind what's causing this, and as politicians especially, we shouldn't be sacrificing our kids on the ulter of profitability. I think there's an opportunity for mindfulness training to not just address the symptoms.

I think it addresses the causes more deeply in our own lives, but there's an opportunity for it to address the systemic societal context as well. So rather than saying that let's have a look on this training course about how there are nourishing and depleting things in your life, which is a common component of mindfulness-based stress reduction, which John Cavazin developed and has had most of the evidence-based behind it. So some teachers have already been including the context of people's lives within the container of that environment, bringing it into the inquiry about the causes of distress and happiness and how we can change things to make more of one and less of the other. But there are lots of innovators now looking at how we can actually ramp that up. And as Chris says, that could be really where the more profound shift comes from longer

tone. Stay tuned more of our conversation is on the way after this. 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,

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listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. You've been, I was looking through some of your materials before we talked. And one of the, you've got a publication coming up. I hope I have this right. It's called Living on Purpose. And it's about, which you know, I'm just'm just to my listeners may sound like a little vague, but what does that actually mean, but you're actually talking about, and this is your term a crisis of values, which I think goes at this whole putnam theory of bowling alone community has dissipated. We are kind of atomized individuals stuck in our curated Instagram feeds, looking at other people's curated Instagram feeds, feeling inferior, not having our mirror neurons activated by actual face-to-face communications with other members of homo sapiens. And a deeper part of this, a previous guest on this podcast has referred to something called junk values. We're taught this myth of Western individualism that we need to just build up our cells all

the time and that if we're stuck in this kind of self-wing mode, and it's aggravated through what has been referred to as ego-itching powder powder of That's not my term. It's a great term of again a previous guest that we're we're going to be unhappy and it's because we've been taught These junk values like junk food and that it appears to me that you're working on what you call a crisis of value So are you are we talking about the same thing here? I think that's Jamie's terminology to join us speaking up Yeah, so, um, he's going to clear his throat before he drops his wisdom. Yeah, are you ready? Um, yeah, so we, um, uh, I might just mention another part of the story here in terms of the, the, um, mindfulness in politics.

Yeah. So in 2013, teaching started him in the UK Parliament. It also started in a couple of other parliaments like in Sweden. Then, Christian, his colleagues helped launch it in some other places like the Netherlands. And since then, we've helped politicians to start my own from this training in about 10 other national legislatures. So France and Ireland and Iceland. Kevin, correct. I want to talk about that.

We're going to invite the separate program. It's a hard case. You need a special machinery. I think there's an opportunity at state level. If we get invited to come and speak to the state legislators, then we'd be happy. You're a shrew in in California. I'll say. Yeah, so over the years we've been visiting these different places last year,

we went to seven parliaments alone. Back in 2017, we pulled together this national congress, not national, international congress, of mindful politicians or politicians in practice. And we had 40 from 14 countries and we had a day and a half led by John Cabazin in Westminster. And it was really interesting in that session how politicians are talking about the role of this in their lives. One Italian MP said that a member of parliament said that one of the issues is that we do things because just because there's pressure and we do things that are out of alignment with what we really want to achieve because the momentum and the fierceness of that environment.

And another Dutch MP, Esther Oehans, said that she finds that mindfulness helps to stay more in touch with what's most important to her, her values and act in line with that. And Chris has been talking about this as well. I'm sure Tim Ryan has for years. So it was really these anecdotes that made us think like what is going on here that's drilled into drilling into this a little bit more more deeply. And so yes, we've, we've spent a year or so at this, the organization that I run, which is like a policy institute think tank, researching, interviewing people and pulling together what we think is is a case for, for my own, it's not as an isolated or like a siloed intervention for, for addiction or for depression or for anxiety, but instead a fundamental capacity that could help us in society be more in tune with what

is most important to us, what is going to serve us and act in line with that. And critically it comes back to this responding creatively not reacting blindly and so or reacting out of conditioning or habit. There's so much like the momentum, the stream of of our culture is going in one direction and many of us are kind of waking up and feeling that that's not there's not right but it's so difficult to turn against that stream and act in a different way. So yeah mindfulness training people are reporting helps them to do that. But on this crisis of values thing, it kind of stuck out to me, what's, what's, give me the download on that. Yeah, so, so there's an organization in the UK called Common Cause, which looks at how we are motivated by different value sets. So roughly speaking, there's the intrinsic value set and the extrinsic value set.

Intrinsic is like, I want to invest in community and love and relationships and meaning of purpose and generativity, building stuff. And extrinsic values tend to be those things that you are referencing there. So fame, material wealth, and status. And it looks like from the research that these inhibit each other. So the more we boost one, the other goes down. And so advertising, potentially, is really spent,

a lot of dollars are going into boosting the extrinsic value set. However, if you ask people, what is most important to you, what do you try and go over in your life through? 75% of people will say the intrinsic values are more important to me, that's what I want to live in line with. However, they think that everybody else is extrinsically motivated. So you ask them the question, how do other people live their lives, and they say, well, they're all extrinsic motivated. About the same, 75%. So it's kind of like a prisoner's dilemma.

It's like, I want these things, but everyone houses out for themselves. We kind of need to have a different conversation about what it means to be human and what we really want in life. And so the challenge is that it is going in the wrong direction and it's from my point of view. We are getting more extrinsically motivated over time.

So I think we have a conversation about, and then surface what we really want, have a conversation about values, make it explicit, rather than letting the algorithm designers to dictate it for us. And then this is not new. Robert Kennedy was talking about measuring things a'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gweithio'r rhw i'n gweithio'r rhwb i'n gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r

gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r a fwy hynny, fwy hynny, fwy hynny, fwy hynny. A yw'n fwy hynny, a fwy hynny, a fwy hynny, a fwy hynny. A'r yw'n fwy hynny, a fwy hynny, a fwy hynny, a fwy hynny, a fwy hynny. A fwy hynny, a fwy hynny, a fwy hynny, a fwy hynny, a fwy hynny. A fwy hynny, a fwy hynny, a fwy hynny, a fwy hynny. A fwy hynny, a fwy hynny, a fwy hynny, a fwy hynny.

A fwy hynny, a fwy hynny, a fwy hynny. A fwy hynny, a fwy hynny, a fwy hynny. A fwy hynny, a fwy hynny. A fwy hynny, a fwy hynny. A fwy hynny, a fwy hynny. A fwy hynnyures and it's about reconnecting. And for me, mindfulness, you're supposed to say what is your intention every time you go into mindfulness. And for me, it's about connection. It's about connection with myself. It's about connection with the people around me, the ones I love, the ones I'm indifferent to, and the ones I don't

like. And it's about connection, indeed, to the planet. Well, that was sounding too fluffy to the universe. You know, I am made of the same stuff as Meetiers, Commets and Stars, and I think sometimes we are so focused downwards on, I've got to have this, I've got to have that, I've got to get here, I've got to get there, that we forget to look upwards and realise, you know, there's big things going on out there. We are a speck on a piece of dust in the cosmos. And I think that appreciation, that there are bigger things than ourselves and our egos, needs to be felt by individuals, the seven billion people on this planet,

because it's the only way we're going to rescue it. Three things come to mind listening to you, Top 1, is there is a quote that I think I used in a book, I don't remember where I got it from, that if you're always looking around, you're never looking up. Or if you're never looking up, you're always looking around. Yep.

So, and based on that, I was just gonna say, there is some research that I can't cite chapter in verse, but it shows that the feeling of awe, A-W-E-E, can lead to better behavior and happiness. So the sense of being a spec in the cosmos, or there's an incredible picture, that's the wallpaper on my home computer, which is called Pale Blue Dot,

and it's a picture of Earth from outer space, and all it is is a Pale Blue Dot, and we really get a sense of all of our, I think it was Carl Sagan talks of rapsodizes about this picture, but all of our dramas, everything in human history has played out in what is at best a pale blue dot to most of the rest of the universe, probably invisible to the rest of it really. The third thing I want to say though is all of this sounds good in theory but yeah i just think about my own life

i'm a tv newsman you know i have to have some public footprint i have to have a social media profile i have to i write books i want them to sell etc etc so you're a politician you got a run for re-election in a democracy you have got to say vote for me yes i'm a good that guy look over here i'm here and i raised this issue because it was worrying me for a number of years, with Professor Mark Williams. And I said, in a democracy, we have to project ourselves,

we have to say, my party's better than that party. I'm a good person in my party. That involves ego. That involves projecting yourself. He said, and it always comes down to this. It's about intention. Why are you doing that? And if it's just about your ego, if it's not about wanting to create a better you, a better community, a better society, a better world, and perhaps your ego is out of control.

So it's about intention. So there's nothing wrong with ego. There's nothing wrong with anger. So, there's nothing wrong with ego. There's nothing wrong with anger. Really, it's how we direct it. For the purpose and the intention of our ego, or our anger, and many of the other values that we think could be potentially. If you think it's a politician, I'll go first. I'll say, for me as a public figure,

my meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein, talks about motivation, in other word, for intention, I think, although the Buddhists are pretty pristinicated about language, maybe some difference in there, but motivation runs along a spectrum. So, you know, there's, it's gonna be messy, so it's gonna run from the high-minded to the class. And so, for me, as I think about why I do what I do, what I do, what I have a podcast, why I have a podcast, why are I writing more books, why do I, you know, maniacally go on television

where makeup and all this other stuff, why do I do, why do I give speeches, why I do all that? On the high-minded end of it is, you know, I do, I do think it meant, you know, journalism and mindfulness, my two professional pursuits, can be healing forces on the planet. But am I, do I also like money and attention? Yes.

And that hasn't gone away just because I've started doing meditation. So I ask you, as a politician, has that stuff, has the sort of negative aspects of the ego gone away? Or is your intention pure now after all this meditation? The more imbalance that then, you know, I spoke of the United Nations. When I was 12 years old, I drew a project on the United Nations and I drew a lovely picture of the UN building and I started my speech on Friday about that. Do you just spoke of the United Nations? I've just

spoken of the United Nations. I'm here in New York because you just spoke of the United Nations. On Friday and I introduced my speech with that and it was my ego had been stroked out during this picture 48 years ago and 48 years later I'm speaking at the United Nations and I did feel something special and I can't lie about that but it's it's the purpose for what you're always there and that if we can get the United Nations as a representative of 193 countries around the world sort of explore mindfulness and use it as an intervention to benefit the world that then that for me is a noble cause and I get a buzz out of it. I can't do that.

So the buzz is there and I'll let you jump into seconds because Jamie looks like he's going to clear his throat and drop some more words. But so the buzz is there. I'm asking these questions for completely self-interested purposes and trying to feel better about my ego. So just to be open. The buzz is there, and it doesn't mean you can't want the attention or the votes or whatever it is, but it's more in balance with what really matters. Yes, absolutely.

And in politics, you can see, and most people, virtually everybody goes into politics for the right reasons to improve the world. But you can sometimes think, you get taken along by it. And power is a tactic. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts. Absolutely. Is that Lord Acton said?

But sometimes you can see people who have come in as decent people, but they start to go ahead by treading on the heads of their colleagues. And getting a promotion becomes, you know, the great thing. But there's nothing as exes in expolitician. You know, and one minute you can be up, and I know, because I lost my seat in 2015, after 18 years as a member of parliament, I lost my seat, and you can be a prime minister, and then you're gone. Did you win it back? I won it back, yes. The prime minister, Theresa May, who had a majority in parliament, decided that she wanted a bigger majority.

She's a conservative MP, so she called an election to increase the size of majority. She lost the majority and I got back in. So what was that like for you after it was amazing? No, no, what was it like the bad part? The bad part. Well, John Cabin is in 2012, so to me, he's one of my heroes on the planet. We should just say who he is, because I think most people know he is, but in listen to this podcast, but he's a former MIT microbiologist

who basically invented what's called mindfulness-based stress reduction, MBSR, which allowed meditation to get into board rooms and locker rooms and prisons and all that because he secularized Buddhist meditation. I think he is, well, he's a friend, so take with a grand thought, salt, but I think he is a friend, so take with a grand thought, salt, but I think he's a historical figure.

And this development of MbSR, I think, could be a positive turning point in human relations. Absolutely. And I think he's worthy of a Nobel Prize for the work that he's done, the pioneering work he's done. And interesting, you should say that there's a British historian called Toinby who said, when we look back on the 20th century, the greatest thing that we will see is when Eastern wisdom is being met by Western science. And I think we're living in that moment now. So the point was, the question was, which is this was what was that like? John's in said something to you so John Cabbage in said to me 2012 13 Chris a word of advice work on your parachute Before you need to open it

And I like that that and I had been working on my parachute for six years and When I lost in 2015 he's such a big-hearted man He emailed me said Chris sorry to see, sorry, you see, you've laughed your seats, how are you getting on? And I emailed him back, and I said, John, I took you advice, I worked on my parachute, I've opened it, and it works, and it worked for me in 2015, I thought I'd be thrown completely off balance. And I wasn't. I was absolutely amazed. Of course, I took the knock, a few sleepless nights, but then I got on with my life.

If anything, when I look back on that two-year period when it was out, that gave me a new life, a new lease of life, to visit the Australian Parliament, the French Parliament three times, the Irish Parliament, and to help spread mindfulness in those legislatures around the world. That's who you're paid. It is one of the highlights of my life.

So, out of badness came good. Jamie Clearyth wrote. I'm tracking back a bit here. I just wanted to clarify that I wasn't setting up a binary thing between the intrinsic and the extrinsic motivations. So it's not like we have good people and bad people, or we have selfish people or altruistic people, that we have both of these forces in our lives. It's just that people will select which ones are on the whole more important. A lot of great, beautiful things have been done in the name of wanting recognition.

It's just that recognition could be for stuff, which is positive for the community, positive for the society, rather than just look at me, I have more stuff than you. Yeah, no, that's what I'll say, that's well said, it's about balance. It's about balance. Let me ask you about the United States. So was I promised to do this earlier and I really want to do it?

I know you're, I assume you're both familiar with the fact that we have a Congress here. Otherwise, we would be a colony of yours. And our Congress and our politics generally is quite nasty right now. I find it very disturbing personally as an American, the level of discourse, both in the polity at large, but also specifically in the Congress. And it's not new. I mean, we've been at each other's throat sinceats since the 1776, but it's at a I would say another sort of low ebb and so you look at our Congress. Do you think there's any way you can get a camel's nose under the tent here and get some mindfulness in and is there any way to do better than my friend Tim Ryan has been able to do?

to do better than my friend Tim Ryan has been able to do. Well, Tim Ryan wrote a marvelous book called Mindful Nation, which I think has been changed now to Healing Nation. Healing America. Healing America. Healing America. His campaign manifesto. Absolutely. Absolutely.

I don't know. And that book at the end of each chapter, and it deals with Mindfulness and Education, Mindfulness and Health, Mindfulness and the the prisons. He lists eight things that the reader could do to promote mindfulness. So I would say, you know, mindfulness doesn't have to come from the top, it doesn't have to come from a parliament or a congress, it can come from below as well. And I think the very fact that Jamie said 15% of Americans meditate, 35% of them practice yoga. There is'n yw'r ysgwch i'r fwy'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch i'r ysgwch and act upon that and ask their governor if they will come and sit and meditate with a class of eight and nine-year-olds and feel some peace. So it doesn't have to come from the top. It could come from state level, it could come from city level and there are three projects now to create

mindfulness, mindful cities in the US. So it hasn't gone to come from them, those are Jamie, in the US. So it hasn't gone to come from them, those are Jamie, the three cities. Well, two of them aren't public yet. Oh, sorry. Yes, it was, they recently launched the French-Mitrogen. My thoughts, they're from Michigan, yes. Yeah. Yeah, so even if I'm gathering, you're telling me, even if the Congress is hopeless hopeless it can happen in many ways. It can and maybe if there's a lack of interest from the right in congress, we can bring over some politicians from other countries. Well, actually, I know people on the right, I don't know if it's public, but I know people on the right who are interested in this stuff.

I don't know if it's partisan as much as it is just not wanting to be seen as looking weird or just not being interested full stop. Maybe there's an idea that it's going to reduce your edge. I don't know what it is, but it doesn't appear to have taken hold. Yeah, but it has in other areas of the globe. And in some countries, it's been led by the right. The first parliament to introduce mindfulness practice was a Swedish parliament, and it was'n gwybod ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdynyn y So these are human gifts that ever appeal to across the spectrum. They're in there in every wisdom tradition that's ever existed, in native practices, in the Maurees, or the Aborigines, or the Native Americans.

It's there. People can feel it, and they want it. So we're talking about partisan, we kind of made a glancing blow there at partisanship and that it reminds me of something I also came across in the briefing materials that we're given to be before I sat down with you guys, which is that in Wales, a mindfulness course has been developed specifically to help policymakers

consider their own objectivity and biases. So I'm really interested in that because I think a lot of what's going on, a lot of what's wrong with our culture here domestically in the US, but globally as well, is the other rising of people, based on pigmentation, political beliefs, gender, etc., etc. So I think in turn, if we're trying to engender better behavior, getting people to be okay, understand that they have biases and not so owned by them is a very intriguing idea. So how's it going in Wales? Well, that's a, let's say, a research called Rachel Lilly from Aberystwyth University and she's been taking top flight

Welsh civil servants on a course, using mindfulness to spot their bias and to compensate for that bias, ac yn ymwch i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd ind i'n mynd i'n mynd ind i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n my policy makers. And I've visited Rachel Lillie myself and Becca Crayne, who's from the Banga, Bat Banga Mindfulness Centre, went to see the Prime Minister of Wales about this. And he's interested. So there's big hope there. And what we hope is that we're best practice emerges, whether it be in Wales with civil servants, whether it be with the Marines, mindfulness in the Marines in America, or the American Penal System where mindfulness has been introduced, that we can spot this best practice and give it to politicians who practice mindfulness around the world, so that they can look at the science the best practice and roll it out in their own country. I think the program in Wales offers a bit of hope for the US Congress as well because

we're framing mindfulness training in the context of decision making of performance as leaders. So rather than coming in and saying, here's a well-being course or here's some sort of stillness to help you deal with stuff. It's like here's how we can all be better politicians and better leaders. So some of the members of parliament in London talk about how mindfulness is really helpful for public speaking, or helpful for getting over an interview, didn't go so well,

and sort of forgiving yourself, and getting on with the business of the day. And so there are ways in which we can target it to the job of governance to there are ways in which we can target it to that, the job of governance to help frame it in a way that might connect with them. Some of the other frameings or some of the other benefits that have emerged, I think from your research or qualitative research of talking to members of parliament, is they're better at focusing, given the sort of, you know, the amount of briefing papers and tweets and whatever coming

their way impulse control, kindness, meta cognition, meaning, you know, perspective of being aware that they have emotions, therefore they don't have to be so owned by them. So it sounds like the people who are taking this course are getting a lot out of it. Exactly. who are taking this course are getting a lot out of it. Exactly, and we have those stories now. We can come and tell people, Chris can tell his colleagues in other countries, look, this is having a really tangible impact on our working lives. One of the things that's just really touched me is how difficult politicians jobs were. I didn, I didn't get into politics or into, in, in to

policy making because it's been a long time ambition found myself here because I care so much about widening access to the mindfulness training. And just been meeting so many politicians, feeling how, how difficult a role that they have in the UK. anyway, it's a really toxic relationship between public and public and politicians. And so seeing how mindfulness training helps them to deal with just unbelievable information they have to absorb and do their jobs in order to have that kind of thick skin, has just seen their humanity and

seeing how tough it has been a really important part of this. The thing amongst those benefits I'd like to pick up on though is this idea of metacognition of having a bit of perspective on our thoughts and emotions. So if we are our ideas, then if that idea is challenged, then we see it as a personal offense and a personal attack. If we can separate ourselves a little bit from that idea, you and I can critique it from a bit of distance, so it's not me you're attacking, it's the idea itself.

I think that's one of the kind of the longer term hopes, really, is that we have a bit of maturity around discourse, and that could be the mechanism that underpins this disagreeing better effect which has been reported. John Cumberjinn, one of his many lines, he said that man is homo sapian, sapian, the man who is aware that he is aware. I use that line all the time. I don't give him any credit, but I use it all the time. But maybe it may not have been John's.

No, it's what I heard. It's the first time I've heard from it. And we should recognize that. What I was saying here, in essence, is, these are, this has been about being human, about being true to all roots. That's a beautiful place to leave it. Thank you for both for doing this.

Thank you for behaving. I know you like to yell at me. I'm glad that Chris didn't count the table. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As we say in Parliament. Before we go, just to we do this thing at the end of the show, which is a plug zone. So can you list off, if you want to get information on either of you individually or on the work you're doing, where can they go?

So the Mindfulness Initiative has a website where you can find out about the politicians, the old party group, and about our broader work. And the URL for that is themindfulnessinitiative.org. And you can download the Mindfulness UK report. Our workplace-focused document, built in the case of mindfulness in the workplace, as well as find links to the academic paper that reviews a lot of those benefits that you mentioned that politicians are reporting. Gentlemen, thank you very much. A pleasure to say with you. Yeah, very good. Thank you.

Again, big thanks to Chris and Jamie. I do want to say just as a quick little fact here that Chris, he gave out his email address. He contacted me later to say he gave up not the exact right one. So here's the right one. If you've got a pen, we'll put this in the show notes too. Ru and C. So that's R-U-A-N-E-C at parliament.uk. R-U-A-N-E-C at parliament.uk. Always, I see to give your email address out publicly, but I respect them for doing it.

That was a fun episode. Let's do some voicemails here. Number one. It's Tim from Lieuten, Ontario Caz. Love the app, love that, love to have your love, the podcast. My question specifically is when I'm meditating and I'm focusing on the breath. I get caught in a train and I keep coming back to the breath. Lots of times I'll switch focus to my hands as a focal point for example and just be really concentrating on that, get caught in a train, come back to my hands, you talk to the train,

come back to my hands. So my question is, is that good? Is that right? Is that proper meditation form or should I I just in my switching, in my cheating when I do this way? Is it better for me just to come back to my breath? On a side note, love the app, love everything about it. I'm married to have a 16 year old and I'm teaching how to drive and you come back from a stressful driving experience. Neither one of us were very happy. And my wife said, you know what, you got to switch

from meditation, you got to take yoga, you got to get better at this. And it was funny because I walked away smiling to myself thinking, this must be working a little bit. I must be 10% better for somebody to be noticing and suggesting something that would make me even better than what I am right now. And regardless, I know that I enjoy it, I know that I feel better. It's part of my habit every morning. And I thank you for it. And for packing a little bit of boat

around good morning, America. So, come plug in. Hope you guys are all having a great day. Thanks a lot. Enjoy. Take care. Bye. Really appreciate it, Tim.

Thank you very much, Glad, to hear it's working for you. So let me get to your question. Absolutely, it's fine. Using the sensations in your hands as an objective meditation is totally kosher. I have a couple more things to say about it. One is that, and this note comes from Ray Hausman, who is the chief of our coaching unit. I don't know if I'm giving her the right title, but anyway, that's essentially her function. She's the boss of our coaches.

And now, even many users of the app are unaware that we have these coaches who you can text with through, right through your app, and they will answer your questions as long as you want. These are experienced meditators, not this is not a chat bot. Experience meditators who love taking questions from our users, and they will answer any question you have.

So Ray is actually going to help me start answering some of these questions and she's brilliant. So that's good for me and for anybody who listens to me. And her point when she heard you ask this question about focusing on the hands is that over time you may want to extend that beyond the hands to the whole body, because that can give you a more panoramic awareness of even less sensitive areas of the body, where it's harder to feel the sensations at least at first.

This can just boost your ability to pay attention, especially as you move through the day and subtly painful things in your body can impact your behavior sometimes subconsciously. The other thing I'd like to say is that I think it makes sense to do some switching in meditation between, you know, if you're trying to stay with a breath and you're having trouble with that and you might want to move to your hands or you might want to move to an open awareness. But I would, and this I'm just cribbing from my teacher Joseph Coltsonine who said things like this to me, you might want to be careful of switching too rapidly because that can create a kind of, I don't know, a sense of a lack of orderliness in your meditation. So I think when you do it, you want to be doing it with some kind of, in a somewhat stately fashion

so that you're not all over the place. But so that's the long answer. The short answer is what you're doing is great. The long answer is that over time, you may want to move beyond the hands and develop awareness all over your body and just keep an eye on how rapidly you're switching between the breath and the hands slash body. Thanks again Tim, really appreciate it. Let's go to the second voicemail.

Hi, Dan. This is Amy from Montana. I have a question regarding decision-making and types of meditation. If you're really struggling with a big life decision, is there a certain type of meditation or a way of meditation that can really help you get in touch with your inner guide or your inner answer? Anything you have to offer would be great. Thanks much for all you do down have a great day i do have something to say as usual this is stolen from somebody else that probably makes it better and whatever i would make up i was talking about this very issue with joseph goldstein who's a obviously a big big teacher on the ten percent happier app and a big figure in my life and he mentioned a process that i haven't actually tried that much because I'm a horrible

student clearly, but I would pass it along to you as something you might try, which is that if you've got something you're trying to figure out a creative issue you're working on or a decision in your life or if you're trying to discern, in my case sometimes I was trying to think like, what are my real motives for an act action I'm considering. At the beginning of a meditation, per Joseph, maybe just seed your mind with the question. Why am I about to do this? Should I do this next thing? Seed your mind with the question. But then, and this is tricky, drop the question, and meditate as you normally would. If you're on your breath, you're watching your breath come in and go out every time you get distracted, start again. This is not a contemplation exercise where you're sitting and mulling over the decision. You are purely just meditating, so you're putting your mind in a meditative space, which is all about endeavoring gently to focus on one thing at

a time, and then when you get distracted in a friendly way, bringing your attention back to whatever it is, you're trying to focus on your breath, the feeling of your hands, whatever, whatever. So again, you are not sitting there affirmatively deciding to think about the decision, it's just that you have put it into your mind stream in a general way and then you go about your meditation. And Joseph's theory is, and I assume this is based on his own personal experience, that doing this may put you into a space where you can make connections that you wouldn't be able to make if you were sort of pacing around actively

thinking about something. Which by the way, we're not rolling out, you can and should do that too. But this is another way to kind of put your mind into a different kind of zone that might allow for the emergence of new and different thoughts. The aforementioned Ray Hausman weighed on this, weighed in on this too, that there's, her argument is that there's a real power to not knowing. This, we don't like this feeling of not knowing something, we kind of, we rush to an answer.

But if you can sit with that ambiguity, it can lead to, as she says, a deeper discernment. And I agree with that, that if you can be okay with the tension of not knowing and just sit with it for a little while, sometimes an answer will emerge. It may not be the answer you want. It may not happen on your timetable. It may not work at all, but these are all things to play with. So thanks for that question. Two great questions this week. Really appreciate it. Big thanks to all the folks who make this podcast possible, Ryan Kessler, Samuel Johns, Grace Livingston, Mike's working the boards today, Mike D. Big

thanks, of course, as always, seriously to the podcast insiders, those are the podcast listeners who give us feedback every week. I really love that and I'm very grateful. And we will be back next Wednesday with another show for you. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about

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