Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 195: Inveterate Fretter, Accidental Buddhist, Sylvia Boorstein

Episode Date: July 10, 2019

If there was such a thing as a mind-ectomy or a mind transplant, our guest this week, Sylvia Boorstein, tells us she would have had it, confiding, "I need a mind that doesn't make up worries about something that didn't even happen yet." She calls herself "a life-long worrier, an inveterate fretter." Yet this very same person is an accomplished author, psychotherapist, Buddhist teacher, co-founding teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and a senior teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. Years ago, on her first meditation retreat, she received news that her father had been diagnosed with a form of cancer. She remembers feeling devastated, but not hysterical or overwhelmed. It was in that moment she realized how meditation had prepared her to deal with life's challenges differently. Through her captivating story-telling, Boorstein explains how she has achieved “poise of mind” and is able to manage life more gracefully. Plug Zone Website: http://www.sylviaboorstein.com/ About: http://www.sylviaboorstein.com/about Books: http://www.sylviaboorstein.com/books ***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 is super fitting that Sylvia Borestein once wrote a book called That's Funny. You don't look like a Buddhist. That's because she is not your stereotypical meditation master. She's a like five-foot nothing 83-year-old Jewish grandmother, but do not be fooled. She is a compact missile of wisdom. She also has a hilarious

infectious laugh. She likes to teach in stories and she has a ton of great stories and you're about to hear a bunch of them. In this episode, we talk about practicing mindfulness in every part of your life and how practically you can do that. We talk about how meditation can help somebody like her who self describes as a quote, Invederate Fredr. And we take your voicemails together at the end. So short intro this week, let's dive right in. Here's Sylvia Borsning.

I'm just curious, how did you first get involved in the meditation game? I like to tell people I'm an accidental Buddhist. It was in 1970s, and people were going to meditation retreats. It was in. If you go to a weekend, every other weekend, someone else was giving an enlightenment weekend somewhere. And my husband, much more than I was very gung-ho about going to them. We would have a conversation where he would, in his way, which is more philosophical than mine, he'd say,

I really want to understand life. And I would say, no, no, not me. I really just want to be able to stand it. And I would, in any event, he went off on a bunch of weekends and he'd come home and say, still, this is it. And I did lots of things and I got initiated into lots of things and nothing was bad for me. Meanwhile, I was a social worker. I had a full-time job. I had four children. I was busy in my life and I wasn't looking for a spiritual practice.

I had just became the era of cartoons of people going up, bound stops, the Oscars, what's the meaning of life. And I was really too busy having a life. If someone had said, do you want to become in light and go on this retreat? Or they just said, it was just what everybody was doing. I didn't have a clear idea of what enlightenment meant, or what it was that I wanted.

But I went. He went on a two week mindfulness retreat, and he said, still, this is really it. So you'd have to do this. So I went off and I did that. And actually there's a great story about that. I went on retreat for two weeks with very little information about what was going on there. I went up to a place in Toledo, Washington and all of a sudden, all day long, sitting, walking, sitting, walking, sitting, walking, which I know you know about. So imagine I wasn't surprised. Jack Cornfield and two other people no longer teaching in the scene.

But that was where I met Jack Cornfield, who is my lifelong now friend and colleague. He's actually never been on the show, we should fix that, but for those who don't know, he is legendary meditation teacher, legendary. And he's a great friend, he's a very good person. So he became friends, although in that particular retreat,

I remember when I went to see him from my periodic interviews, I'd say something like, I have such a terrible headache. What my husband did not tell me about that retreat. I didn't mind about the sitting and walking, sitting and walking, or not reading. I knew all about that. He didn't tell me no caffeine. And I got there and no caffeine and I had a Terrible caffeine withdrawal headache the first several days. That's changed because there's caffeine now At the retreat centers that Jack has co-founded. No, I am the co-founder of that very retreat center There's caffeinated tea caffeinated tea, but what there is not is coffee

But they're even as coffee then now, because people bring it in their own private stash, bring the coffee, bottle of coffee powder to them. I am lobbying always for the change of that. I think it's a relic, and the tea has caffeine, so it's silly. I should just quickly say the retreat center that you co-founded with Jack is called Spirit Rock meditation center. It's in Woodaker, California. And the and you can google it at spiritrockmeditationcenter.org. I did my first retreat there with Joseph Goldstein. I know. I remember reading in your book. You are very funny.

I made funny you guys a lot. You did. I know immediately you didn't even have to say it was Kamala. Well, I'm happy to tell you I do not talk. Well, you've just heard me. I didn't sound anxious or overly malifluous. Did I? Well, we should say for the listeners, we might not know this.

Before we started the podcast, you got me in meditation and we're going to post that somewhere. And no, you speak, you really do just speak like a normal person. Like a regular person. That's because I, one of my hallmarks is a perfectly normal person. I'm an old grandmother with seven, with four children and seven grandchildren and one great grandchild. So I'm a regular person. You're not that old.

I'm 83. Okay, 83 is a good number. I wouldn't have guessed that. I would not have guessed that. Oh, good. I'll tell you another piece of news. Ego does not go away. I'm thrilled.

I must say I took some pains when I dressed myself. That's more your face. You don't look, I mean, I don't know what an average 83 year old should look like, but I didn't, I didn't say, oh, this person's in her 80s. I am in my 80s. Well, you wear it well. Thank you very much. And we had now lifelong friends, at least you are.

I should just say Kamala, the Kamala master. It's a wonderful teacher. It was one of the teachers on that retreat. And I did name her, but I did kind of make fun of her a little bit. It was another teacher I did name, who I made fun of a lot, named Spring Washam, who has gone on to become a teacher of mine and a really good friend who's been on this show twice now, who I have had an

enormous and abiding respect for. No, that's, of course, and I have a respect for them as well. Everybody has a style. I have a style. If we talk long enough, I'll probably laugh a lot in Giggle because I have a Giggle. And that people tell me it's not what you say, it's that you Giggle. It's kind of like a cackel that I inherited from my mother and two of my four children have it. And one of my grandchildren, it's a gene. Anyway, so back to the retreat center in Washington.

This is the magic story. I stayed there for 10 days or two weeks. My knees stopped hurting. I could sit on the floor. I could walk. I could sit. I could walk. I had to go in a way. But I would have said at the end of the two weeks that nothing particularly changed. I would say my senses were cleansed, that I could smell the smell of the oatmeal way down the hall when I was still down at the other end of the hallway that led to the dining room. So you think, well, must a big deal about smelling oatmeal or something, big of a deal? Or I could tell whether the lunch was going to be a Thai lunch or a Mexican lunch by the smell that came down the hall. That's the whole

thing. I could also see that the leaves outside were greener and the edges of the leaves. Is it like being a little bit stoned, really, that all the senses are heightened. But I would say not much happened. And then on the last evening of the retreat, when, as you know, from your retreat experience, the decision to have silence, the fact that we all take to keep silence is ended so that people can socialize a little and meet each other and talk to each other. And I used that talking time to call my husband who was back in California. And I remember standing in that time, it's 1977, I was standing in a phone booth in the

middle of a hallway where people walked up and down. And I phoned and we said a few things about what Plain I was coming on that he was going to meet. And I said, has my dad? Because my father had a few years previous to that, moved to California, lived down the street from us. I saw him all the time. He isn't only child, wasn't only child, and I'm an only child.

We were very close. He was't only child, wasn't only child, and I'm an only child. We were very close, very close to my children. He and I used to run 10K races together. He was in his 60s, I was in my 40s, he was quite well, and he had told me as I was leaving that he felt he could, he was going to go to the doctor. And Simor said, well, I have bad news for you, your father has multiple myeloma. But Simu said, well, I have bad news for you. Your father has multiple myeloma. And in those days, not now, but in those days, that was really a fatal illness, always. And he said to the doctors, I've said that he has about two years with his treatment. He has about two years.

And I remember that moment standing in that phone booth and I'm at some pains always to explain to people that I felt really terrible about it. I love my father very much. We were very dear to each other and it was terrible news. I didn't hear it as anything but terrible news. And I also knew in that moment that I didn't fall through the floor. You know, I've had experiences with people of college and said, there's been a plane crash or this or that. People have died. I've always had the feeling that the floor falls out of the Monday. Well, you can't hear it. You become, you can't make out the words because the body just blocks it out.

And I realized that I heard it. I did not feel, I felt very sad without feeling hysterical. I didn't feel overwhelmed. I said, okay, I'll be home tomorrow. And he and I will do it together. And I remember thinking afterwards, wow. I was walking down the hall way, going back to my room. And I saw people sitting in the dining room all chatting away and eating popcorn, which is often a great treat that served at the end of the retreat. I felt to myself, how can I go in and have popcorn? I just heard that my father was dying.

Then I thought, well, I'm also a little hungry. And so I went in, and I said, I didn't talk to people, I didn't feel in the talking mood. But I ate the popcorn. I thought, wow, my father's dying. And I went back. And I did go through my father's dying with him over the years. It took, I'm happy to say more than two years. And they had enough medicines to keep them going fairly well. But when I looked back, people said, did you have any great insight on your first retreat?

And at the time, I just noticed it. I didn't have a big insight. But later on, I would have said, that was my first experience of having a mind that met experience in a different way. And, oh, I was going to tell you a whole different story. Before we started the interview and I was sitting here alone for a few minutes, I thought I should tell a story about the woman on the beach in Guam, as that's when I knew that I could have my mind in a different way.

But this other one came up instead. Oh, now I want to hear the woman on the beach. People laugh at the woman on the beach. So at some time, around that time, must have been after my, I don't know, when it was ever above my father. But some more and I went down to Guamus, to a beach resort.

Where's Guamus? Guamus is in Mexico. Okay. It's on the west coast of the mainland of Mexico. Your Alcapoco? Above Alcapoco, north of Alcapoco. And we went there in the summer because the water in the ocean right there in the summer is like a bathtub, it really is, and it's lovely to go in, because it's just lovely to go in.

So we went down there and we took piles of books that both of us were at the time reading and interested in, and we figured we'll stay in the air condition hotel and we'll snorkel in the ocean outside, which is what we did. The other thing that we did is we took little walks along the shore and found right next to the hotel. There was a caravan park where people had driven caravans down to this Mexican beach and park there. And we're in the middle of the summer. So it's got all these caravans.

And there was a woman there, a young woman, with two children. And when I tell people now this story, I see as I tell it, their eyes get wider and wider, particularly older women, women who are mothers themselves, or grandmothers better. Say there was a woman on the beach in a caravan. She had two children with her. One of them was four and the other one was a baby and he was crawling but not yet walking which puts him under a year. And we began to visit with her and she said yes she comes down for the whole summer. She lives in LA but she likes to be out of LA in the summer. She comes down. Her husband drives her down with this caravan and then he comes down for further visits. He comes every weekend. She said in his private plane, he fries

a face, he's got a small airport and he gives flying lessons and he flies down every weekend and she's there alone in this caravan park. So as people are listening, I can see already people are looking a little alarmed, a woman alone on a beach in Mexico who doesn't speak Spanish, it turns out, who is there by herself, that's already four issues to be nervous about if you're a nervous person. And our husband is flying back and forth in a small plane by himself every weekend. That's two more issues every weekend. And if your person like me who's an inveterate, a fredder, I don't know her or her children, but there are so many things

to worry about. And I began to like, what will she do if they get sick? Weasen, nearest pediatrician, does she have a refrigerator in there? How is she keeping food refrigerator? There's a thousand things to worry about. And so I tell the story up to that. And then I say to the people in the room, who here so far is worried. Everybody puts their hands up. So everything's going fine.

We say hello to the woman every day. One night it's the middle of the summer. It doesn't rain in the cenora desert in the summer. But it did then. They have one of the flash floods. I get up by from the sleep in the thunder and lightning. I look across the sky. It's really lit up from one end to the other with lightning. And winds howling around the building, rain lashing down. And I'm worried about the woman in the caravan. The following morning we get up and it's all sunny and we go down we walk right away over the

caravan park and there she is. Caravan park is a mess. Outdoor furniture is thrown all around everything is thrown around and she's hiding up outside her little place and she looks fine and say how are you fine? How was the storm? She said, oh, it was amazing. She said, she said, it was exciting. She said, I woke, the baby slept right through it. She said, and I woke John up, love for you. I woke John up because I didn't want him to miss it. I thought to myself, I need another mind. I need her mind. I need a mind that doesn't make up worries about something that didn't even happen yet. And that meets scary things. Like their, wake up, Johnny shouldn't miss it. And I thought, if it was such a thing as a mind act to me, I would have had or a mind

transplant, I would have had it. But there isn't. But I thought, I want that mind. So then people right away thinking, so did you get that mind? You're doing this now for 40 years, did you get that mind? No, I didn't get that mind. But what I got is a mind that quite clearly recognizes that the habit of my mind is to create threat,

when and doubt create threat. Anything is not just exactly as I've always known it. It's, oh, what could be? I tell people when I'm in the airport and they say, um, ladies and gentlemen, my heavier attention. And it's going to be definitely followed up by, please keep your luggage next to you, because that's what they always say. There's a lady in the dome and my heavier attention. I think, oh, the plane I'm waiting for is just crashed. It's going to be a bad news. In that nanosecond in between, but what I've gotten really clear about is that that's the voice, that's the neurology I've been born with. It frets when in doubt. So what I have now is the

thought, uh-oh, but I have sufficiently closely behind at the thought. So, you're doing a story again, it's not true, it's not going to happen. And enough so that it subverts most of the time the adrenaline rush, so that I have the same thoughts, but they don't frighten me, and I don't believe them, which is a huge, which is a huge change.? So I think that's one of my Senses of how I have changed. I would agree with you. That sounds huge. That's a huge. I'd like a mind-ectomy with you You're very dear. You want the giggle No, it's not good for It's not good for a radio person. You have to keep yourself.

I can, no, no, this is a podcast. We can be as giggly as we want. Yeah, no, no, no. But if in your other life is another podcast. Oh, yes, as a TV newsman. I giggle once in a while, but I try to keep it in check. No, I easily giggle. I am, I am, I think of my general demeanor as my mood as being, I'm an easily cheered melancholic. I often think of what could happen bad.

I'm very moved easily more than when I started by the pain of the world, by the pain that everybody shares just by being in a life. And that didn't go away. I actually think that's one of the things that is as far as I think is the desired purpose of mindfulness practice. But I think a lot of people would hear that part. There's a lot to pick a part there because being an inveterate fredder

where I can see that would be closely tied to having a lot of empathy and compassion is a different thing. So it sounds like these were co-morbid attributes for you. And it sounds like the fretting hasn't gone away, but it's been followed up by like picturing the person who runs behind an elephant sweeps away the poop. And there's a different voice that comes in and says, Sylvia, that's just a story. But then there's the other thing which is feeling deeply for other people.

And it sounds like that actually not only has not gotten away, but has gotten even more deep. I think that's more deep. Here's another story about... Can I ask you a quick question though? Yeah. Because I want to hear the story. Promise I want to hear the story.

But I could imagine some people hearing... I ask you a quick question though. Yeah. Because I want to hear the story. Yeah. I promise I want to hear the story. But I could imagine some people hearing this kind of walking vulnerability where you feel more deeply for people around you, which is a, I could hear people saying, well, that sounds painful. Yeah. I can hear them saying, that sounds painful. Even more vulnerable than I would like to be. This is a very important question.

I'll take another story instead. You could remind me of that other. The story in a very short, I overheard teachers talking one day, as it, when I was on a retreat, having a teacher meeting in the next room, just talking to each other. And I heard the teacher that I very much admired Joseph Goldstein in the... My teacher. Yes. Responding to the question, why do you practice? I heard the teacher that I very most admire Joseph Goldstein. And in each. My teacher. Yes.

Responding to the question, why do you practice? Continue to practice. And he said, I want to have a deeper understanding of suffering. And I, from, from 40 years ago, mind in the next room, I thought, hey, I came on this retreat to stop suffering so much. So I don't want to be deeper. Don't tell me deeper view of suffering. But I have, I think, come to value, seeing clearly not that life, every minute of life is suffering, but that embedded in the fabric of life is the experience of pain and disappointment.

And that people suffer from that to varying degrees, which is really what the Buddha is teaching. It's that we use pain and suffering as interchangeable words, but the Buddha's definition of pain is, it's a thing that happens to people. Life comes with pain and with disappointment. And suffering is what happens

when we don't handle the pain or the disappointment. Suffering is the add-on when we can't say, okay, this is happening. What should I do now? I think that's the crucial, crucial piece of Dharma learning that it's not just to be in the moment, that's the half of the definition. I hear people say sometimes, oh, I know about mindfulness, it's to be here now. That's the beginning of it, to know what's happening and what's arising in you in response to it, in order to, and that seems to me the crucial piece, in order to see clearly what

action on my part will create suffering or alleviate suffering and take that path because that's going to make me feel happier. That's I think the crucial inside of it. Be here now is not enough. So but I did I not answer your question about people are going to think that this is about becoming more melancholy. I don't think so. It's about becoming more compassionate.

And it has a certain edge on it. I would agree with you on that. I'm an easily cheered melancholic. But maybe I think that this is the difference that when I was really overburdened by being a fredder, I didn't think of other people's troubles. difference, that when I was really overburdened by being a fredder, I didn't think of other people's troubles. Because when I'm over, when anybody's overwhelmed with their own stuff, they don't think about the whole world at all, that

you need to be actually somewhat having enough poise of mind. I've looked at word, I just started this year, to use the word poise of mind. And instead of the mind leaping up and doing the impulsive thing, it's poised to do something, but it has that little break of mindfulness in there that says, OK, what should I do now that's going to make these things better? That whatever I thought about what I was going to learn in practice, or whatever I intuitive from my earliest experiences that somehow my mind would get different.

I often tell it, at some point I ask my husband, I said, well, you know, I've been doing this for about 35, 40 years. Why do you think it's changed? I'm very curious to hear what you're saying. No, he asked me. What do you think has changed? So you've been doing all this stuff for 25, 30, 40 years now. What's changed?

I think he probably ran out of conversation because I mean, I don't know. He asked it. And I said, I became kind. And he said, you are always kind. And I said, I became kind, er. And that's really true. And I became kind, er, not because I became more convinced that kind is a noble thing to be. But I became less self preoccupied and more available to notice who around me was suffering. And that life is really fraught with possibilities for suddenly being either bereaved in your body of its former health or bereaved in your mind of something you love. And that everybody walks around that vulnerable all the time. And you never know what's going to happen.

Some thoughts are coming through my mind. I don't want to just say them and you can tell me if I'm on point. There's often confusion about the difference between empathy and compassion. So when people hear you say, as you said before, that you feel more deeply the pain of the world, and I said, well, I would imagine some people would say that and would hear that and say, well, that that sounds awful. But there's a difference between simply feeling the pain, empathy and compassion, which is an empowering, empowering, in no bold state where you feel the pain, plus are poised

to act. That is a key, it seems to me a key difference. It is and and and first of all the first of all in those situations that are actually face-to-face where you can act to take care of people you know one of the things that's become Alas, but normally part of my life now is my friends are dying, or they're sick and limited. And one of the things that I'm discovering and feeling glad about is that I can revisit them without being afraid. They are, you know, one step ahead of me in dying.

So sometimes people don't like to go be with sick people. I don't know what to say with sick people. But I am actually happy about being comfortable, being with my friends, or even people that I am meeting who are not my friends, I meet on retreat, who have some really difficult thing. And I know at the same time I can feel really a kind of love for them without needing to fix them. You know, I can't fix them.

But I can really... That's, I think, of really a empathy. You know what? It's probably connected to then. It helps me these days not be mad at people. It maybe takes it into another domain, but it was too big of a leap not to have the in-between places. I'll tell you a story which will lead back into where my mind leaped over. Some point in my career of teaching, I said that mindfulness was one of my friends who were mindfulness teachers, for instance, or practitioners.

They didn't become able to do superhuman things like walk on water or tell the future or whatever. But I said, I am managing my life more gracefully than I did. And I'm alright. I'm my friends. I'm managing gracefully. And when we pass each other in the supermarket and we say to each other, how are you? They say, five, thanks. The other person says, five, thanks. To interpret that not as everything is wonderful, fantastic, but it means I'm managing. I am coping with my life with its difficulties and it's not difficulties, I'm managing. And then I thought that I said that in class one day. Maybe we should have a secret class identity. So when you meet someone and you say I'm fine

and they find, they find, it's like a secret handshake from Phi Beta Kappa or something. You know that you met them in my class or something. I met them or they know me. And somebody else whose name was Gwen, I remember because it's Gwen's line, Gwen said, I never say I'm fine. She said, I always say, I couldn't be better. And then if you think about it for a minute, nobody could. Nobody could. The deepest understanding that I have is that everybody is manifesting in each moment as a result of everything that ever happened to them,

whether parents or in their life or how they got there or in their genetics. And it allows me to not be angry in the way that I used to feel angry at particular people. that I used to feel angry at particular people. And it does not take away from me my political views or my determination to be a social activist or my ability to speak out about the values that I hold dear, but I don't have to have an embittered mind. That has been for me in the last several years. The most freeing thing. If I look at a person where I hear a person saying something that I think this is terrible, this is awful. I can think to myself instead of thinking, hmm, things about them, I can think

they couldn't be out there. And from that I feel certain amount of compassion because I figure if that's how they live, if that's their mind, they've got to be really uncomfortable. Is that how I up when I said, to go from there to what will sound perfectly silly, if I write another book, which I really am thinking about doing. And I just, I'm starting to have titles in my mind. One of the titles I'm thinking is I want my mind to be Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. Because I do. And I think it could be. And I think that's the message of practice. You could meet life as a friend. But I have my views. I have views. I have my views, I have views.

But if I can't meet my life as a friend, then my mind will be completely riled up. Say more about Mr. Rogers' neighborhood and how that could be ported over into my life. Well, the main thing is about Mr. Rogers' neighborhood, which you... I grew up with it. Yeah. Well, but everybody feels comfortable.

Well, here's even a better way to start that sense. Everybody who saw the film that was around last year, which you may or may not have seen. I did see it. I thought it was beautiful. It was beautiful. And everyone that I met that thought said that was beautiful, grown people.

So it wasn't what you come out from feeling at the end of that time is good. That there's such goodness in the world. Mr. Rogers lets everybody into his neighborhood. He is kind to everybody, his neighborhood. He's not ruffled by anybody in his neighborhood. When we make it very formal, when we make it loving kindness practice, make this one, maybe that one, maybe other. But really, loving kindness seems to be like a mysterious thing, but welcome in my neighborhood. Or I'm not having a problem with you, because of the stories and the opinions that I heard about you. Whether the opinions I made up based on the stories I heard about you, I can think

to myself, poor person, woman, poor woman, poor whatever, and I don't have to be angry at them. And the only people who suffer if I get angry at them is me. I think about Alan Gopnik used this word in a book years ago. The word was biterocity. He said his daughter in some conversation said about her imaginary playmate that he died and her doting parents who were interested in her imaginary companions said what did he die of? The child responded, he died of biterocity.

So I don't want to die of biterocity. And I want to live without it. And it certainly does not mean I am not dressed in my proper hat and going to the rallies and carrying the placards and speaking out. Mr. Rogers spoke up. Yeah He did there's that wonderful scene in the movie where he gives his testimony for I guess it was for public radio funding for public television, I believe probably television and he got it. Yes. Yeah, he also spoke out about You know after 9-11 he he spoke out about violence and he spoke

out about treating people about being inclusive, and he was kind of subtly and subversively sending lots of messages about inclusion on his show at a time when the society was less inclusive than it is now. Of course, we have work to do. The scene in which he invites the mailman to take off his shoes and sit with his feet in that kitty pool is fantastic. So I want to mind like his, mind that spacious and expecting the good and inclusive and not so easily frightened. Let me just go back to the difference that I was stating, my understanding of the difference between empathy and compassion, and you were saying, you indicated that you agreed with what I was saying,

but then you followed up by saying, if I recall, when I can help, you know, empathy is just feeling other people's pain, compassion is feeling other people's pain, pain plus being poised to help. But you can't always help. You can't always help. So what do you do in those situations? When you turn on the news and see some genocide somewhere or I don't know, you're sitting with somebody, you can't help them etc. No, this is a perfect question Dan, thank you very much. Because I think that what we don't talk about enough in teaching mindfulness as a meditation and as a skill to people is mindful of, in addition to what is the angst of the moment,

or the pain of the moment to make the scene bigger. You know when the camera goes back, this backs up like the end of a Follini movie. So you're not only see this, but the whole thing that you get that when my mind backs up and goes outside and sees, ah, the moon is full. Tonight is the absolute full moon. I'm actually, and I can, it's been predictably full at this time. It's the exact right day for it to be full. Or I call a friend and I talk to a friend and I establish

some loving connection. Or I turn on the Mozart Horn concerto in my car as I drive home, that there is beauty in this world, and there is the awesomeness of the cosmos, and there is the always sucker of sustenance giving, of connecting with a friend, with love, that I look something to pick up my mind. At one point, I was teaching so much about that. I said, you have to do that because how can you really look with clear eyes at the suffering in the world and understand it and respond to it with compassion. For as I thought this is my current phrase, I want to replace contention in my mind and compassion.

How can we respond with compassion, not contention? So I say to people, I think you have to make a bigger frame. This is part of this what's going on in my life right now. I used to use the analogy of the television sets that I first saw in sports bars where you'd see here is the big television where it's showing the Army Navy game, because you're interested in the channel of showing that but then with a flick of this

Of the remote the bartender and those boards for us can put over the USC Notre Dame game Over on a small little incertitude picture picture a picture within the picture. I Think I'm always looking at a picture within a picture. I'm looking at Sylvia faces life over here And then I'm looking at life is happening. So it's not a form of denial to say okay I've just seen this horrible images of suffering. Let me call a friend and talk about something else No, no, no, I call a friend not to talk about something else

But if I feel overwhelmed I call a friend say what are you doing? I, but if I feel overwhelmed, I call a friend. What are you doing? Or I listen to the Mozart-Horcon's genre. Or I look at, I think about the fact that my life also has this and that. And it's contextualizing that moment's response. What are my daughters? This is the most weird memory, is that I'm wedding one time and one of my daughters, adult daughters, way on the other side of the room, came around to talk to me and she said, what's the matter with you? Your face looks

so unhappy. I said, well, can you imagine? Cousin so and so just came by and she said, da da da da da da da da da da da da to me. And it just got me so much. My mind got caught in it. This is the meditation teacher of somewhat renowned. Whose daughter has come around her room to mom with her. So I said, it's cousin so and so, said, da da da da da da da. My daughter said, mom, it's 15 seconds out of a life.

Could you let it go? So it's just that. When something grabs your mind all of a sudden, you have to remember to do something else with it. And either there's a bar with somebody just got married. Somebody just had a bar with it. Whatever event I was at, there's a bar of somebody just got married. Somebody just had a bar of muscle, whatever event I was at. There's a bigger around it.

I hope I can do that when I'm dying. There's a bigger around that I'm dying, and people have to me and people care about me. This is just an event that's happening in the big event of the cosmos as I'm folding. There's a bigger story than my story. 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, and Kurt Brownleur, we will be your resident not so expert experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking. Oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. We'll talk about what went right and wrong.

What would we do differently? And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, 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 said before that you can show up for your friends who are sick and dying and not be afraid.

Are you afraid yourself of dying? I'm not. I think. I don't know. I have to be up there to find out, but I don't think so. I don't think so because I don't think so. I cannot imagine a life more blessed than mine. I have a big family and lots of things have happened to everybody in them, but lots of things have happened to everybody in them, but lots of things have happened to everybody. And here we are.

And I have the phenomenal good luck of being 83 years old and able to think and talk and teach and move around on my own. And remember, which is a big deal by the time you're 83 so I feel very blessed in my life. And I know enough about modern medicine to think that I probably won't be uncomfortable because there are ways. I've been able enough of my friends to know that they don't need to be uncomfortable. And I hope I'm not frightened at the end of my life.

You know, there's a Zen story, a Zen story, which I've been teaching a lot recently, because I think it's really valuable. There's a certain monk, a certain unspecified time who is walking along at the edge of a jungle minding his business quietly, walking along. And all of a sudden hearing something behind him turns around and sees that there's a tiger coming after him.

You heard the tiger after the monk's story? I don't think so. Okay, so it's a very wonderful story. So he picks up a pace, and the tiger picks up a pace, and he runs more, and the tiger runs more. And finally, he comes to the edge of a precipice. In fact, he can't go anymore. It's a cliff, and at the bottom of the cliff, the chasm,

and at the bottom is a roaring river over rocks. And he has no possibility of escaping the tiger except by leaping over the cliff and he sees, fortunately for him, there's a very thick vine hanging over the cliff, so he jumps off and holds on to the vine, okay. So, holding on to the vine, he looks up, tiger roaring down on over the cliff at him, and he looks down and water rushing along over rocks way down below him sees his situation and at that moment from in a crevice in the rock comes out a mouse and starts to know on his mind. Mm. That's generally what people say at that point in the story.

Mouse know on the vine. At that point, he looks over here, and he sees from another crevice. There's a little vine sticking out, and it's got a strawberry on it. And strawberry's ripe. And he picks it, and he eats it. And he says that was a really good strawberry.

That's end of the story. So should I ask you a teacher question? Like, what do you think? Sure. Okay. What do you think? Even when there's plenty of data to suggest that you're in a dire situation, you can still enjoy a strawberry.

That's perfect. And the corollary to that is we are all of us all the time hanging on a vine. That's really the question. So you might as well enjoy this, Dr. So you might as well enjoy this, if I don't use as a title, I want to mind like Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. I'll use eat every strawberry. You could also use the phrase before, couldn't be better. It couldn't be better.

That that's not a bad title either. Couldn't be better. Oh, thank you very much. You're right. The because that thing, that particular phrase, I don't want to do any political analogies, particularly, but at times when I've been really dismayed at hearing some political utterance in certain situations, I've said to myself, this person couldn't be better. That's, they are not to blame.

They're not to blame. They couldn't be better. If I don't make villains, then I don't feel victimized. It's also a thing you can say about yourself. That's exactly. And I do not, not as a villain thing, you know. I think the same thing about this person had parents, and they had parents, and they had other parents and other circumstances.

I do it with myself. If I go someplace and I teach very well, for instance, and every story and everything comes, every remark I want to make comes out perfectly and in the right order. I don't get too pumped up about it. I think to myself, well, that was good, but, you know, by this time for sure, it should have been. And it was a good morning or a good afternoon. My committee showed up is what I think. My committee showed up, my committee of Jack and Joseph and Sharon, all the other teachers I've had, all the other

teachers and other traditions that I've had. My parents who were really nice, people, my good fortune, to have been born into a family that I was at the time I was and at the education I was, and the experiences I had. When I go somewhere and I'm tongue tied or I leave out the important stories, I don't say it right. Afterwards, I say to myself, the committee didn't show up. Maybe the committee did, and maybe for whatever thing, I certainly prepare for things and I think about them, but sometimes the whole committee doesn't show up the same way as it does another time. And that can prevent you from going into certain sort of spiral of useless self-legilation?

Yeah, so I don't. I tell myself the truth. That was not the best use of you time, so it happens. The committee is showing up today just for the record. I'm so glad. Let me ask you one last question before we take some questions from our listeners. I do this thing where I let people call in and leave a voicemail and I answer their questions to the best of my ability. So I think now that I have somebody here who's got a larger committee and a more experienced community in the mind, be fun to take some questions together. Before I ask that, your way through your books and through your teaching is to tell stories.

Do you have a favorite story? I do. I do. I'll tell you my favorite current story. I've had stories that have been in the favorite play number one spot for a long time. The woman on the beach was my first number one story. I told that a lot. This is my this is my current favorite story. The pre-story to the story is it's part of Buddhist lore to tell about a time that the Buddha was traveling and someone met him on the road and knowing he was a Buddha said to him,

are you a god? And the Buddha said, no, I'm not. Are you a regular person? No, I'm not. He said, what are you then? He said, I'm awake. You have to know that story first now some years ago I was one of the people at a conference for several days in Santa Barbara and I went to Santa Barbara and They the several days and on the morning that the conference ended,

I was in a van going to the LA airport from Santa Barbara. And it was a very early morning. And there were maybe six or seven of us going. And it was not dawn yet. And I asked the driver if I could sit up in the front with him, because it's my preferred seat in a van. And so everybody else is in the back and I'm driving up. I'm sitting up with the driver and we start out.

And it's not only dark, but it's a misty morning. It's really not raining, but it's foggy. And we're riding along. And I realized that the driver is the same driver that had driven me down to Santa Barbara three days earlier. But we're just driving along. And at some point, he says, do you suppose your friends would be all right with my pulling off the highway to a roadside restaurant to get some coffee a little sleepy? So I say, yeah, not my friends will be fine with them. My friends are going to be just fine with that. We feel free. And now I'm completely awake as I turn to face him. And I said, you need me to drive. I can do it. Anyway, he's

in a normal right. But now I'm facing him sitting up in the van and I'm determined to make conversation with him to keep him awake. So I turned toward him and I said, so Mohammed, I knew him from before. So I said, Mohammed, you're a Muslim, right? I've used up by that time. I had used up on the ride up when I was alone with him. I'd used up all the beginning conversation. I knew his name was Mohammed and I knew he had a family in India and I knew he had come three years previously with his cousin. They were going to start an Indian restaurant in Los Angeles and they did and it didn't make a go of it. So now they don't have the restaurant and now they're both

thriving vans and he's hoping to save up his money to bring his family from India. So now they don't have the restaurant and now they're both driving vans and he's hoping to save up his money to bring his family from India. So I had used up all of the questions. So now I'm okay. So Mohammed, you're a Muslim, right? He said, yeah, I am. I said, do you pray every day? He said, yes, of course. I said, how many times? I know the answer to that question. I said, how many times? Because I want him talking. He says, I said, what do you say when you pray? He said, I'm not praying in English. I said, that's all right. I'd like to hear it anyway. So he goes ahead and says some prayer lines. So I say to him, Mohammed, when you pray, do you pray long or short? He said, well, it doesn't matter. When you pray, if you pray long or short,

you could pray long or something, you play short, but some people, it doesn't matter if you pray long or short, because what matters is if you pray, if you connect with your heart to what you're praying for. Is that how do you connect with your heart to what you're praying for. Is that he can connect with your heart, my mother? Any waves his heart is arm towards the window which is still he can't see anything it's all fog out there and it's just barely getting light. He says if you just look around you on any day, if you look around, everybody's out there. Nobody, everybody has been thrown

into an ocean and nobody knows how to swim. When you remember that nobody knows how to swim, you pray from your heart. And at that point I could see a Wendy's coming up on the side. I say, oh, how many you want to pull off for the Wendy's? He said, no, I'm awake. That's my best card story. Yeah, I mean, we're all here. We didn't ask to be born.

We don't know when we're going to die, most of us, and we're just trying to figure out what to do in between those two events. And we often don't get good information about what to do with your emotions. From our parents, from society. From anything. Or how to have opinions. Yeah. About having opinions and all the opinions

you have that have to get erased. Now in that second that I said that, I just understood for the first time a story that I've told a million times let's see if I can tell it very briefly. I was on retreat once, 20, 30 years ago when I was young. And I was very vigorous in Gangho, and not only was I sitting all day, but I'm walking, but I was getting up early, two o'clock in the morning and thinking, okay, I'll sneak out of bed quietly, you know, wake my roommates, and I'll go start sitting now, two o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the morning. And I'd go in the meditation hall and start saying,

get dressed, tiptoe to the meditation hall. And I'd sit two minutes and I'd be sleepy. I wake up and say, okay, I'm gonna walk a little bit back and forth and I'd walk a little bit back and forth. I said, okay, I can sit now and I'd sit down. Two minutes later, I'd be sleepy. I had an interview one day with a monk, a Sri Lankan monk named Usevali, who was visiting that retreat and just stayed

a few days, and I had one interview with him during which we had this exchange. I told him, you know, sometimes I wake up two, three in the morning and I go to the meditational. And then I have Siddhi, I want the fall asleep, get up, fall asleep, get up, fall asleep, get up. I said, maybe I shouldn't do that, maybe I should just stay in bed, maybe I should forget about it. He said, don't forget about it. Go to the hall and walk, sit, walk, and sit. Even if you have to change every two minutes, he said every moment of mindfulness, he races a moment of conditioning. And just when I said what I previously said to you, and I said something about the opinion

said, bring conditioned in, I suddenly hit on Lucie Velis' comment, which I knew was important and I've told the story so many times in connection with keep your zealup but not in conviction. Oh, he said he raises all conditioning and I thought to myself that brought in my mind the vision I had of blackboards in New York City when I was going to school as a child with an eraser and I was thinking I'm a racing conditioning. And I remember having the thought at that time, I better erase fast because I'm probably conditioning as fast as I'm a racing. This moment I understood it better. I think we keep understanding the

same stuff better and better and better. That's why basic meditation instructions never run out of style. That's it. We don't have any advanced mindfulness. That's it. Pay attention. When people say to me, how long should I practice every day? I say to myself, I think of mindfulness as of all day long practice that I think of mindfulness meditation as a time set aside if you have it to really work on focusing the attention and soothing the mind from the stresses of life. But all day long in the world to be attentive to what's happening in this moment, how am I responding to it? And what's the action that's most going to my own mind and keep me awake awake and what's going to be good for other people because then I'll feel happier about it. And then it's all day long and the elevators in the subway wherever you are. Am I in this moment contributing to my own contentment and equanimity and happiness by staying awake and also sharing some of it as I can just by saying

have a good day to people in the elevator. Shall we take some questions from let's put our headphones on. Okay. I see Ryan poised. Ryan producer of the show. Poised to play us some voice-mails. Can you hear? Yes. All right. Ryan, let's do number one. Hi, Dan. My name is Angie. I am calling about loving kindness meditation, but for some loving kindness for you, your crusade, your evangelism of meditation has been such a blessing for me. of meditation has been such a blessing for me. So thank you so much for doing everything that you do. But my question is I sometimes laugh at myself and of course that's judging myself and of course I note that during meditation and it goes on and on. But when I'm practicing loving kindness meditation in my mind.

I'm, you know, may you be happy, may you be safe, but I'm doing it with my breath. So I'm, you know, in breath, you know, may you be happy, out press, may you be safe, out press. And it's like I'm doing this sort of on this rhythmic progression. And I'm wondering, you know, is that, does that happen to a lot of people? Is it, is it odd?

Am I, you know, is there something different that I can do to sort of just sort of let it flow more naturally or is that the natural way it should or will flow or, know so hopefully that is is clear enough and yeah I'd love to know what your thoughts on that in your experience are. Thank you so much. My initial thought is thank God Sylvia is here because I don't know the answer to that question. Well I think I can make a try at that answer. First of all Angie thank you very much for asking you just in the way that you did, which is very good.

Often we give instructions when we teach mindfulness, meta-meditation, to say phrases of well-wishing on the breath, kind of using the breath as a metronome so that we move from one to the other. To the other, some people use two phrases, some people use four. May I feel happy, may I feel peaceful, may I feel strong, may I live with ease, whatever the four phrases are that a person has chosen or two phrases.

And the point of saying them with the breath is very helpful, especially in some time set aside for meditation, as I think is implied in your question, where you're using the time to really dedicate the mind to learning in the marrow of its bones, in the tone of its neurons, what that actually means, may I feel happy, may you feel happy, may I feel strong, you feel strong, whatever the dedications are that you're doing. And what I try very much to do is to actually feel that, I tried to say it, maybe not so much on the breath or even on the breath, and feel, well, give it a. So it's not so much road, but may I feel happy? Ah, happy. I particularly like starting my met-up phrases with may I feel safe?

May I feel safe? May I feel safe? And I really try to wait to hear the echo of the safe in my body. There's a way that your body, your mind understands what safe means. You don't have to conjure up situations in which you feel safe. Say to the body safe, and it is, may I feel happy? Body knows, might knows what happy feels like, and it's a different feeling in the body from safe. It's dedicated on, it's predicated on safe, but it's a different feeling.

And all of those keep you more interested in the mind, and may I feel strong? And that's a different feeling in my body. Sometimes people give the instruction, say one intention and then go to the next and go to the next and go to the next and go to the next. I'm a little more liberal in my interpretation of how you should say it one after another or on every other breath or how you should say it. Say it in a way that begins to be really meaningful to you. If I say to myself, may I feel safe and it feels wonderful.

I don't mind saying that a few more times for myself. that if I say to myself, may I feel safe and it feels wonderful. I don't mind saying that a few more times for myself. I'll have plenty of time to go on to the next one. And really, I feel like I am rehearsing those feelings in my neurons so that there'll be more of the substrate of how I'll feel in my daily life as I go about. And apart from being in your meditation time, which is probably what you're talking about, in my daily life as I go around from place to place, I often think in a moment of mind-flurry because something isn't going exactly the way I plan.

I say to myself, may I feel safe? May I feel happy? May I feel strong, may I live with ease, and I'm so used to saying that in longer situations in my mind, that my body and my mind respond immediately, even if it's a two or three minute event. So it's not so much whether we're saying the phrases time to our breath as a metronome or not, it's do the phrases land. It's do the phrases land, do the phrases land, and it doesn't happen in the very first time. It's really experimenting around to find to find what exactly is going to land in a way that works. Early on I asked my teacher Sharon

Saliswerk who was my initiator into meta practice and is my friend and teacher till now. I said to her, you know Sharon when I'm practicing, I fool around a lot. I change the words or I stay ten times on each word or I do whatever things I could find to do to keep myself really interested in it. I said, am I really tinkering around too much? She said, no, no, no, it's like tinkering to open a lock. She said, we are tinkering around with whatever will open the heart so that it can be there to quiver with connection with the rest of our lives and with ourselves. Let's do one more

voice mail. Okay. Hey Dan, this is Adam, calling from on Angeles. First of all, love your podcast, love your books, love everything you've given. I've been practicing mindfulness meditation for about two and a half years and I've recently come up against a certain kind of conflict which has come up in a couple of your recent podcasts particularly with Ruth King and Dolly Chug. That has to do with what feels to me like a conflict between engagement with the non-attachment in mindfulness meditation, cultivating non-attachment, having an objective relationship to my thoughts and emotions, on the one hand and on the other hand engaging actively with social justice issues and also environmental issues.

So I've been working a lot more in the last few months trying to bring my biases into awareness and to relate to them differently and reveal my blind spots to become a better person, simply put, and make them hold a better place. And on the other hand, also with the climate crisis trying to reconcile that cost for non-attachment, that I guess need for non-attachment, that I guess need for non-attachment within mindfulness and the need for certain kind of attachment to these really important projects. This kind of activism. So I know you're writing a book about kindness and that suggests that you've probably faced this conflict

or I won't say irreconcilability but I'm struggling with reconciling those two things because the social justice and climate justice issues caused me a lot of anxiety and stress and it's hard for me to feel non-attachment from those emotions because they're such important issues for me and for the world, I think. So I'm very curious as to how you have thought about this question of reconciling non-attachment of mindfulness and the kind of engagement and activism of social justice and climate justice. And I really look forward to hearing your answer.

I hope I do. And you know, it's not. No hard feelings, but I'll keep listening. I promise. Anyway, I hope you're well, and thanks a lot for everything. Bye. No hard feelings needed because we're going to answer the question. Even better, Sylvia is going to answer the question.

Well, I will make a try at it, because I know this question at them, and I welcome you or answering it and it has always seemed to me very clear that in order to be as much of a social activist as I am, I need to rely on my contemplative practice and really on my mindfulness practice, really on my Dharma practice, to keep me from being embittered or running out of energy to continue to do what we all need to do, to take care of not only our communities, but really the whole planet. So I really, very much, really value how you put it out. I just don't think that it needs to be such a conflict in your mind. I think it may be a way that we differently interpret what an attachment means,

that I don't need to be assured that what I am advocating for is going to come to pass in order for me to continue to fervently want to do things in the direction of it happening. And to feel at least, I wouldn't say sooth, but I feel okay, gratified to feel that I have stepped up and worked as hard as I could for making the world as kind as it could be, and that we'll leave the succeed or not succeed in the endeavor. But if we end up not succeeding with the endeavor, I want to spend my time with all the people who were on with me trying to heal and to bring peace to the world.

I want to be among the consolers. I want to be among the people who believe passionately that peace is possible between us and that somehow there could be some way to bring enough illumination to the minds of enough people in the world so that we could stop this course of really killing each other and killing the planet. I thought a while ago in the time of the Arab Spring, which did not work out as well as we all It would, it would, that I watched the Tahrir Square and Ankara where millions of people were peacefully gathered to advocate for a different government. And I thought maybe this will be the beginning of the whole world peacefully advocating to stop the kind of politics that don't really

support the world. And then it didn't work out that way. I kept thinking, however, they all had cell phones in their hands, and they were communicating with each other. And in this era of everyone having a cell phone, just as you're listening to this, the podcast probably or maybe not. But however you are listening to Dan as podcast, maybe there'll be an ultimate podcast or

an ultimate edict, maybe the Desmond Tutu in the Dalai Lama and the Pope and Oprah will all get together at the same time and make a podcast that says, look around, everybody is just like you. They want to go home tonight and have a family and feed them and get up in the morning, not feeling menaced and not fleeing for their lives. Everybody wants the same thing. Everybody ready to go. Let's disarm.

Let's invite our neighbors to dinner. Let's make a different world. Maybe we are in an era where we have the technology to tell everybody that message at the same time, with people who have enough heft to carry it. I have to believe that the message itself is the right message, and I can't really imagine that I would be happy not advocating for it with all my heart. I think sometimes people get hung up on the difference between non-attachment, which is a neologist, a western Buddhist neologism made of word and detachment.

I think that that's what happens. I care passionately. I'm not unattached I mean I care passionately that the planet feed itself and take care of itself and I don't I don't see any problem with caring passionally about that and Advocating with passion but advocating with kindness and understanding that you're you can't snap your fingers through your advocacy and make everything you want to happen. That's right. And if I let myself become angry, if I make everybody my enemy, then my mind is clouded

and I won't advocate in a way that's profitable, low-workable, I need to advocate for peace by making myself a representative of peace. I think that people admire the people like his holiness, for instance, who I remember saying to an answer to a question about, what would you do? He said something they'd like to retire as Dalai Lama. When I'm old, and they ask me, where do you want to retire? And he said, I'd like to go to China. They have some very nice old monasteries in China. And imagine the Dalai Lama.

But to not have any place or anything as your enemy is being, I think, a proper representation of his mind. I'd like a mind like that that doesn't need to be angry. And it doesn't need to be as waged in discomfort. The people who say, if I give up my edge, how will I advocate? My father used to say that to me. My father was passionate for social justice as I am.

And he would say to me, when he heard me teach, he'd say, so, you know, if I, how will I fuel my advocacy if I'm not enraged and indignant? I think you'll do it better, dad, because if I'm not enraged and indignant I think you'll do it better dad because he won't be enraged and indignant and you'll do it out of love and care and that's the only way that it becomes sustainable anyway I think that's a great place to end it let me just say I feel wiser having met you. Oh, thank you very much.

I feel happier having met you at least 10%. Now much better as I had a really wonderful time. Thank you so much for inviting me to. Thank you, appreciate it. Big thanks to Sylvia Borsin. She's delightful. That was really fun. Big thanks to Sylvia Borsin, she's delightful. That was really fun. Big thanks also to the folks who make this podcast possible,

Ryan Kestler here at ABC News, and then a pair of 10% happier ringers who also help Samuel Johns and Grace Livingston. The guy named Mike D is recording this in the radio studio as I record my intros and outros today. Thank you, Mike. Also, big thanks to our podcast Insiders and to everybody who listens. We'll be back next week.

See you then. 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 add free with Wondery 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. you