Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 198: Meditation And Loss, Dean Valoras

Episode Date: July 31, 2019

On March 19th of last year, Dean Valoras' life changed forever. That is the day he lost his teenage daughter Alexandra to suicide. Alexandra was an intelligent, successful, highly-motivated high school student. Externally she appeared happy and excited for the future, but that did not match how she felt internally. Alexandra kept secret journals where she wrote about feeling like a failure. In this episode, Dean shares the story of Alexandra in hopes of helping others and he discusses his meditation practice and other tools he’s using to help him move forward. Suicide Prevention Resources: http://www.bethe1to.com/ If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one help is available. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 [TALK], or text TALK to 741-741 or visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org - for free confidential emotional support 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Even if it feels like it – you are not alone. If a person says they are considering suicide: Take the person seriously Stay with them Help them remove lethal means Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) Text TALK to 741741 to text with a trained crisis counselor from the Crisis Text Line for free, 24/7 Escort them to mental health services or an emergency room Plug Zone Dean Valoras Blog: https://rocktherisingblue.wordpress.com/ CBS Sunday Morning Special: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-lost-girls-diary-alexandra-valoras/ Ten Percent Happier Meditation Joseph Goldstein's Self Compassion: https://10percenthappier.app.link/rl7xRtFOiX ***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. to baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. 645 March 19th. It's about 15 degrees. I'm on my knees on the Massachusetts Turnpike. And I'm cradling Alexander in my arms. The rush out of traffic is going to work. It's really cold. And it's not necessarily processing, but I think I get it. I lost my daughter right here. She's gone. I can tell she's gone. And then from that point on, it's trying a little bit to make sense of it. That is our guest this week, Dean Valoris. As you can tell from that clip, this is going to be a heavy episode, but it is also, I promise you, aside from being really moving, quite inspirational and reassuring

on some profound levels. Dean is a father of three and an everyday meditator who started practicing back in 2015, as you'll hear. In 2018, he lost his daughter, Alexandra, to suicide. And I heard about Dean's story after I got an email from my friend Jim Axelrod, who's a long time anchor and correspondent over at CBS News. And a friend, he sent me a story he had done on Dean and his family. And mentioned that Dean was a meditator and that he had done on Dean and his family and mentioned that Dean was a

meditator and that he had read my book and did I want to talk to him and not only did I want to talk to him, I thought actually maybe the rest of you would want to hear from Dean. So in this interview we talked to Dean about something I think is incredibly important and really gets the reason why I wanted to have them on. I think really two things actually. One is we're in the middle of a mental health crisis in this country, especially as it pertains to young people where the rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide have escalated quite dramatically. And the other is, I think, Dean is a fantastic example of how meditation can help in really extreme circumstances.

And if he can stick with it and derive value from it in his situation, I think the rest of us can really draw some inspiration from that. Just one thing to say before we get started, which is that on the back end, we're going to have a whole list of resources. If you want to learn more about this subject, but for now, here is Dean Valoris. I always start with the same question, which is how did you start meditating? So what's your story?

I started meditating. I'd say around 2015, early 2015, I stumbled across your book, 10% happier. That was, I think it was inaudible. It sort of pops up as like, hey, you know, try this. And I thought to myself, wow, 11, 1195 or one credit, I think it is if you're an audible subscriber. What the hell wouldn't I want to be? It's been $11 bucks, $12 bucks to be 10% happier, and if I'm wrong I'll have to.

What I found was it took about four or five chapters before I think it was like around the Eckhart Toley aha moment, you know, when you, you kind of hit a point where you're like, oh, and it took me a point where you're like, oh, and it took me a while to get there, but you carried me forward because the, the skeptic that you were, I was already had me at hello. So I had to work my way and I'm like, come on buddy, get there. And then, you know, I started to like, okay, all right, it's about now. You have what does that mean? And then that's been the journey, what do you mean now? I am in the now, or am I?

Oh wait, I'm thinking about tomorrow. What did I do yesterday? You know, whatever I'm spinning on, which is all the time. And that's been sort of that journey of, that was the starting sort of stamp in the ground, and okay, there's something here. Did you actually start meditating at that point? Yeah, I tried it.

I think I downloaded a headspace app because I like, you know, the graphics was so stupid simple. You know, you look at it and says, watch these cars go by. Oh, the cars are your thoughts. Keep watching them go by. Oh yeah, cool. All right, I think I got it visually now.

You settle in and I thought it was a good, so I did that about a I think about a year a year and a half and did it fade at that point or? No, it was I think that launched me into Sam Harris is waking up the book the book. Yeah, which I'm still I'm at the come on my fifth or sixth time and eventually I'll chew through it to actually get the um You know the the essence out of because it's it's it's a lot. It's so funny You say that because I mean Sam as you know as a buddy of mine and met really huge formative force in my life I think because he was one of the people that really got me over the hump to take this thing more this meditation thing more seriously I have read that book to take this meditation thing more seriously, I have read that book at least three times, maybe four times, and every time I get something new out of it, it's a great book.

Right, it's like, it's just a chock full of nuts. You can keep going back to something and put it all in, like, oh yeah, and then you still step back and say, it's still very simple. What is this first line, the mind is all we have. It's all we'll ever have. And I'm like, yeah, I can start there, start there. What can I do today? And then I get caught up in the day, you know, and it's, I'll say from 2015 to now, especially in this past year, I think I've, you know, I've earned, I'll give myself a pat on the back for saying at least it's more present throughout the day. There's moments

within every hour of the day where I say, hey, man, where are you right now? Right? Stay here. You know, what matters in trying to take a breath, performing at work, performing at home, and getting better. Still got a lot. It's definitely a practice. But what I hear there is really good practice. What I hear there is, if you're one of the original, I've been talking about this on the show in recent interviews a lot. One of the original translations of the word mindfulness is recollecting or remembering. And that is, for some reason, it's one of these things I've heard for

10 years and it's never really landed with me, but now it's starting to become more and more powerful for me because Because what you're describing is, it's just you're remembering to wake up every once or twice an hour. Well, that's huge. And that the more you practice it, the better you get. Yeah, in my experience. I will say this, there's a little bit of urgency there

because once you've sort of tasted the waking up portion, you, I go into these sort of spins of what the hell have I been doing for the last 50 years? My gosh! 51. Okay. But you know what? I find that statement to be very powerful. I'm 47 and you're thinking okay you're looking at I don't know how many years left and have I wasted a're looking at, I don't know how many years left, and have I wasted a bunch of time, and I don't know how much time I've left, and I have a little kid, and I don't know how much time my parents have left, and I wanna be here for it.

Right, and the whole thing is, I don't wanna get a tight about it and stress too much about maximizing every moment, because then I'm kinda doing the opposite of how I should be just living and relaxing into it. Well that's a classic hindrance to meditation is desire. And so if you're clamping down too hard, that's just desire for clarity as a control. Yeah. Or just trying to you know have those the feeling of security that you've built over the years, or whatever your definition of success is, and you're trying to just stay with,

keep those knowns known when they're, they're variables. So set the table for me, they should buy graphically on you circa 2015. Yeah, you got three kids, you're living in suburban Boston, what's going on in your life that this idea of being a little bit happier would be attractive to you. I'll say it was probably on my second or why don't we do what we do? Why does the lawn have to be cut at an inch and a half? Because I live in a suburban neighborhood, and it's a nice neighborhood, and I'm very proud to raise my kids there,

and it's a safe neighborhood. And I'm like, but do it, like, is this what I need? Do you need, like an acre? Do you need a house that's, we don't fill up that space? And I just started to question why? Part of that journey as well as, you know, with my children, Alexandra, Emily and Nicholas, Alexandra was my wonderful intellectual beam of, I could just keep pounding those questions at her. I'm like, why do we do that? Let's not put pesticides in the lawn anymore.

Let's enjoy the dandelions. Damn straight, right? And so 2015, for some reason, it was maybe that, you know, this probably, you know, we could have a doctor here telling us like, oh, yes, yes, you're a howl to you, 47 middle aged men go through this a lot with a reevaluate their lives or it could be something along those, you know, along that vein as well. So I just started to say, you know, what can I learn, what can I read? And, you know, Alexander was a part of that journey from, hey, I just read this book, Tempest and Happier. Is that that guy on ABC? You know, and I, hey, I just try, see him Harris, this is first chapter, did the meditation. And Alexander had tried it and I had tried it as well. And she's like,

Dad, this doesn't work. I'm like, why? She goes, well, I was thinking about what's to wear tomorrow. What I'm going to do after school, I got the robotics club, and she had all these things that she was working towards. And I was like, yeah, it's crazy. And then, you know, and it was hard in that sense, because we're trying to be in the stories, but think we're not realizing that you have to step out and say, we are not our thoughts.

You know, but she was, she had been part of that since, you know, 2015, 2016. And then more so me, I think I just continue that because I found value in trying to carve out 15 minutes a day, which is hard when your brain is in high gear. 15 minutes, what's it going to do? All right, just take 15 minutes because you promised yourself, right? And it's been enough to help. I don't know, just maybe keep questioning, thinking

and then breathing, you know, and just trying to, and I feel like it's a live current though, because sometimes I'm good, sometimes I'm bad. Yeah, it's the question, it's interesting what you mean by good or bad. Yeah, or if I go by the old rules, you know, or I feel that it's a little bit of a new me because I have a, I keep trying to relax into the present, you know, and trying to figure out. All right. Can I do this, you know, can I do this at work?

How do I bring this to work and just not be a stress ball? Was it helping? Yeah, I had introduced last fall, when my first day coming back into a billable assignment for a few months off, and I was stressed and I was feeling not as confident as I would have liked to, and I said, you know what? Just bring it, just show up just dress up show up and hey guys

I got a sign. You know I got worked in into a team and sat with the team so let's let's take three breaths Let's just we've got so much stuff to do over the next six months But we already know it's coming, so let's just know we're a team. And let's just start, and so I started my daily standups, we call them for agile methodology.

That's the name of the company. That's the name of the methodology used in the sort of the consulting work that I do. And so it was like, it's been helpful. We do a 10% happier, we have standups. Endup meetings every morning, I do. And so it was like, it's been helpful. We do a 10% happier. We have our, we have standups. Standup meetings every morning, I think. I don't know.

I've got 10, 15 minutes and you just, you know, cover ground, what are you doing today? You know, what have you done? What are you doing tomorrow and anything blocking? Yes. I haven't been to one because our corporate headquarters are in Boston and I'm here, so I'm not part of the standup.

But it, but so it sounds similar to what you're doing. Right. I think what was interesting, I think we probably should, you know, step back and talk a little bit about it. Alexander, right? Yes. And coming back to work, you know, billable that September first was a challenge for me, just mentally getting money, getting sort of back in the game. September first was the day you went back to work. When I went back to work. So now of 2018. 2018. So if we rewind one year, when you know it's a little over a year ago, you know, my wife Alicia Nicholson, we lost. We lost an awesome friend, a daughter, a sister, Alexandra, and we lost her March 19, 2018. And that was a man. That was really quite a shocker because nothing really stood out as

Signs or anything. I mean, 645, March 19th, it's about 15 degrees. I'm on my knees on the Massachusetts Turnpike, and I'm cradling Alexander in my arms. The rush out traffic is going to work. It's really cold. The rush out traffic is going to work. It's really cold. And it's not necessarily processing, but I think I get it. I lost my daughter right here. She's gone. I can tell she's gone. And then from that point on,

it's trying a little bit to make sense of it, not to go crazy about it, but it's hard. I'm trying, I think what we're trying to do is put tools in place that allow, well, honestly, selfishly, me as a human to continue to operate. Your family needs you. Yeah, I mean, you go right down the last, you know, you've got your kids, you've got your, you know, your family. And yeah, but I'm no good. If I can't process this in my mind, yeah, if Alexander couldn't speak up and felt that she was a burden. And felt that that was a solution to her pain. Oh, one, I wish I could have been there and had a conversation.

But two, why come into, well, I don't have to say why doesn't it happen to other people? Because I think we learned from Jennifer Ashton a couple weeks ago that the stats are pretty high. I mean, it's an epidemic. Yeah. And that opened our eyes because then you start looking and reading a little more about the stats. And you're like, oh man, a lot of people are dying by suicide. Forget about suicide for a sec. And you got people who aren't mentally resilient or have that resilient.

So maybe they dance in depression or that anxiety. I know I have felt more, not depression, more anxiety and stress that I'm trying to figure out how to process the heck through so that I don't tighten up all the time. Some days I'm really good at it, some days I'm not so good at it, but I'm trying. Is it anxiety and stress or is it grief? I'm having trouble putting a name on it. I've got to first label it.

So it's grief. I get really, really, really sad. And then I say, and again, to what I learned a couple of weeks ago from just you have in Jennifer Owen. She talked, I think about multiple truths. It's about the end. You can feel sadness, and I can swim in this God awful. This sucks. I miss Alexandra so much. At the same time I'm laughing with my son Nicholas because we're watching the latest Marvel comics Spider-Man. At the same time it's like this. It's like to me maybe the definition of bitter sweet in a

way that this is like two emotions at once. We're like, wow, I'm having a fun time and it's almost not quite guilt, but it's just you feel on the other end and there's no more of these times with Alexandria, of which there are so many. Yeah. All right, be grateful, I'm happy, but you know what?

It also sucks. Of course. Of course, I remember reading a article in the New Yorker by a father who had lost a child to disease. And he said, parent who's lost a child has a new organ whose only job is to secrete sadness. has a new organ whose only job is to secrete sadness. And you don't know when it's pumping out extra juice, it comes when it wants, when it wants to. You know, I could be driving home. Of course you have all the triggers, song triggers, places that you've been. Sure those are going to come. Why wouldn't they? They're such good times. They're such good memories

But they punch you in the face. Well, do you do you have to drive under the bridge? Yeah, well we're drive over that bridge multiple times a day my wife does The kids to practice To just we do and some days or nothing. They're absolutely nothing you just drive over and Then there are times where they just, oh, this is, this is, I'm going to go a different way. Or you drive over and it hits you because you're like, damn, damn, this is all.

It's all happened. It's all happening. You just keep catching yourself. We're like, oh, yeah, Alexander's gone. And it's not like she's gone on vacation. She's gone away. She's gone forever. I don't get to have another conversation with her. Okay, yeah, yeah, that sucks. Because we were good friends. She was a great daughter. She's a really, really good person. A thoughtful kind.

Nice, just fun to be around. Jerry. I want to take a deep dive into how you're doing and what the various techniques you're using to cope, because I think that's inexhaustibly interesting. But I do think it makes sense, maybe, now, to step back and tell us a little bit about Alexandria you just did, but maybe say a little bit more. And also the

events leading up to it was a night, a nighttime, a night. Sure, sure. We'll look 6.45 PM. Oh, that was 6.45 AM. So let me give you an idea. It happened. Yeah, how it happened. So, I have the Google location on for all the kids in the family. So we know where everyone is. In the morning, when we woke up on a normal, otherwise normal Monday morning, right? Alicia got up to wake up the kids. I'm a guy.

I sleep as late as I possibly can. I don't know how got up to wake up the kids. I'm a guy. I sleep as late as I possibly can. I don't know how you can get up in the morning. And Alicia was worried. Alexander's not there. I'm thinking she went out for a run. She went out with some friends. I think and maybe she's broke a rule. Maybe something, but it's just not in the sphere of possibilities. If there's anything that Alexander would have done that seemed out of, I don't know, I don't know, something I wouldn't otherwise be proud of. I don't know how else to say it other than that, so was I worried? No. But by that 6am till 645, You know, we, I'm fine myself on the mass pike. And Alicia's on top of the tractor down through the

self. That not at the time we looked back later to track our events. And thanks, I can probably clarify. So the actually what had actually happened was she left the house that around 12, 45 1 a.m. went to the bridge and took her life. And the mass pike is a major highway and massacres. Right. And how did you locate her? Well, in the morning came, we were just sort of driving around, I had my phone on and you know, telling my wife, I, she must have dropped the phone because I was going up and down North Street, not

realizing I'm driving over the freaking mass pike, not realizing it. You know, that's always another one of those. You know, damn. But anyway, Alicia took Emily to go to school because it was getting late. Blackstone Valley Tech. And On the way there, they sort of tracked the patterns and I don't know if it was Emily or Alicia who saw her boots her water bottle her jacket and her journal, you know, stacked neatly on the pile on on the end of the bridge.

And they pulled over, they called me and I hit it out of the, I got on my car and headed back. And damn, I was by this three, four, five times. So we stood there and then it looked so stupid to be standing on the sign of a bridge, reading your daughter's journal, getting a sense of tread. You know daughter's journal. Getting a sense of tread, you know something's wrong, but I've nothing's processing quite yet other than, well why don't you look? So I leaned over the embankment and I saw Alexandra. All right, so you know I jumped the fence and ran down and I was hoping that maybe it was recent. Maybe she was warm. There was nothing.

So we lost her then. It was just stunned. I mean, Alicia was stunned. Emily was just sitting in the car, not moving, just stunned when I come back up. And we had waited around for, I don't even know how long I was down there. Honestly, it's a blur. Well, we had waited around for, I don't even know how long I was down there. Honestly, it's a blur. I think the thing, one of the things that hits me as I was talking to Nicholas, maybe

a few weeks ago, Nicholas, what were you doing? I mean, when we were at the bridge, this is my son, he's 13 years old. And he said, both the children are younger. Yes, so Emily's 16 now, Nicholas is 13 and Nicholas says, I was waiting for you guys to come home. But he knows the dread. And I mean, he was definitely kind of, I knew something bad had happened. I'm like, Oh, how hard is that? To sit there in an empty house, you're not going to school, you know, you're like, you're just waiting for your parents to come home to find out what happened to your sister, you know, those those are hard. We miss her. So where were we? I guess what was I have a million questions. I just come up in my mind is

like, how impressed I am. I mean, as a father, you know, I worry about this of a sun bad happening in my son all the time. I'm a little embarrassed to admit how often it goes through my head, but it's really frequent. And if I imagine how I would be, if I lost them, I don't think I would be as, you know, you have a bit of light in your eyes, there's brightness in your eyes, you're alive in there, it's very obvious to me sitting here looking at you and you're speaking so well and you're upright and not fetal. And I just don't, I can't imagine how I would be able to do that.

So that was June, July, August, into September of 2000. Yeah, that was that panic attack. That was the things that were just closing in on me of rules change. Things are changing of like, okay, is this how, what does this all mean? How do you lose Alexander who's really smart? You know, just, you know, just dives into the subject, very, you know, she was planning

for MIT. She was really going for, you know, the big schools And what can she do in pushing herself? And I love that about her. I love that self-driving push. We love that. We never saw the double-edged, or we didn't, I didn't even sense that that was a, you know, a one that could cut the other way, meaning I would recommend everybody

and perhaps we'll put it in the show notes. We will put in the show notes. I would recommend everybody watch Jim Axelrods from my friend from CBS his piece, specifically the one that was on CBS Sunday morning. Yeah. The longer version, which is really a love letter to your daughter. And you will see, if phenomenally, ferociously impressive young woman

who's in the robotics club, straight A students my right, and then you talk to one of her teachers, she said, my whole career, she's one or two, number one or number two of the smartest humans I've taught. So, and she, this is just a very impressive person. And you're saying what I just heard you say is something about the double edge

You think there was something in the strive the striving for excellence that by all appearances was was there That she was the the other edge of that was she was cutting herself. I think so I think there's something to that where if when we learned through going through the journals And I haven't gone through every page because it's not constructive for me, I got an idea, I've got lots of help from Jim Axelrod, Wendy Krantz, Mark Arsenal, who was the Globe writer, who took the time to sit with us for six you know, six, seven, eight. I can't even remember all the sitting. So he got to sit with me in a very angry stun state. And we simply build a relationship.

We built a relationship of, he's like, you guys just say, when I'm out of here. This is a Boston Globe reporter. Yeah, and what he gave us was a construction, because we had, we trusted, we decided to trust him. So when you do that, you know, we handed over the journal. And what he gave us was a heartfelt reconstruction of the day hanging out with, or that night going to, with Alexander to a Biffficlyro concert in the paradise in Boston, but that night her writings in the journal was so opposite.

From the fun I thought she had had. It's interesting because it's a video of her that night. I watch in Jim Axler's piece. In his story. Yes. In his story, there's video that I, one of you, maybe you were somebody shot of her at the concert, she looks happy. Yes. But then you see your journal entry from that night, if she said all I want, I just wanted to be by myself.

I just want to be in, she was just in the cover or what she gave us was a sense of, she was having a good time. And again, probably definitely stressed AP courses, junior year in high school, lots going on. But it didn't feel as apparent. At least when I didn't feel it was out of the norm, or it didn't feel like it was extreme. It just felt like, all right, something we just keep muscling through in a way. At least that's the way I felt. And Alicia was working towards, you know,

you know, hey, Alexander, is everything okay, you know, in a sense where more quiet than less quiet and on hindsight, I have about a dozen things where I'm like, oh, Dean, why didn't you see that or why didn't you see this? But honestly, it was nothing that I have to be honest to myself and give myself and my family a little credit and I'm not going to beat the dog myself because I can go down this rat hole of why didn't I do this I do why didn't I do that and I just stop look at that and say okay these again these are

one of my thoughts ready to rip me apart if I want to go there. We have good parents. I know we are. She's an awesome kid. I think she got caught in a little wormhole of thought that was hard to come out of when you don't feel like you want to share it. You know, and you don't want to at least be vulnerable. You said, when you read those, or when you became aware of the contents of the journal, I didn't read all of it, but you really didn't have any visibility into the depths of the

anguish. Yeah. No. No. It was a shocker to find that my daughter would be constructing sentences like you are worthless. You are a burden. You are a burden and it goes and it goes It's the self-loathing that goes really deep. I'm like, oh, I think Emily did a good Emily who's 16 my my second non-challenge she said um She had been sitting looking at the looking at the journal about three days after the event. I as a dad and like, oh, no, I don't want Emily reading. Alexandra's journal says, oh, way too fresh. And I think she just held up her hand and she says, don't just give me a minute, dad. She scans her. I'm like, okay, two minutes.

And then she looks, she closes it and she just pushes it aside. She goes, this is not the Alexandra. This is not Alexandra. This is not my sister. I'm not understanding who I'm reading here. And that helped me to say she was in a different place by the time that journal progressed through the fall into the winter into March.

What would you say to other parents who are listening to this just terrified? Yeah. Hmm. Always a great question. This is usually where my wife, Elise, who will have a more maybe eloquent answer to that. I don't know. The answer is, I don't know. I have to, I don't want to try to throw things out there to say, talk to your kids, you know, open up with your kids more. You know, or you were doing that reading this book. Yeah. We were doing that. This is an

pretty open family. We have great conversations at the dinner table. I mean, all the time. So, if this can get to someone like Alexander, it does scare me because I think it steps back into a mental resilience. And this might, maybe this is a little bit of a segue to where we go, but Maybe this is a little bit of a segue to where we go, but if you can recognize that you're not your thoughts or at least step back to say, look, go. At least have a capacity to say, I'm spinning like crazy. I need help or this doesn't feel right. Then you should at least maybe make it a point to talk to three people. Talk to three people you're close to.

This is where my mind's spinning right now. Actually, I'm thinking that this world doesn't need me. Or if you're thinking like they can get out to have a conversation with someone that you trust. Because if you can't do that, it's going to start from you. The parents are outside going in. It's your mind. It's the person from you. The parents are outside going in. It's your mind. It's the person in the mind. Like, yeah, I think that's,

I would say it starts from within and how do you build them mental resilience from within? And honestly, I would say childhood meditation maybe or starting early enough so a kid says, whoa, look at me go. I'm freaking out right now. All right, I still want to freak out. But they have enough of visibility into their own inter-processes so that they're not sure. So that they recognize, oh, this is this is unusual.

I need to talk to somebody. Yeah, and we're not an expert on like childhood development or when concrete goes to abstract reasoning. I know there's that whole Piaget talks about how you can kind of look at things a little differently in your mind develops. But I've got to think that you can start pretty darn early where a kid can just go. start pretty darn early where a kid can just go. And that has weight to it. That means something as opposed to it doesn't quite have that gravitas today.

Right. I don't feel it in the schools today. That that's that important. We spend more time doing teaching about other things, than getting a good base of operations in our own mind So you think when we are at a Epit we're unprecedented levels of anxiety and depression among young people these days So the answer if I'm hearing you correctly is When we talk about what is become an epidemic of teen suicide as well is less about what is becoming an epidemic of teen suicide as well, is less about what individual parents can do,

especially because kids don't always show signs, but it may be more of a systematic approach to teaching all young people to have some sort of intervisibility, to have some sort of inter-resilience so that they can talk when they need help. Right, right, it might reach to you. Yeah, I think so. So something along those lines, and that becomes more of a program, talk when they need help. Right. It is very easy to do. Yeah, I think so.

Something along those lines, and that becomes more of a program, more of a collective investment. But even if it's just you, you know, mom and dad, and you got two kids, and you think, what can I do to help with depression? Maybe it's something to say, let's start with a little bit of slowing things down in the head. So you have space to observe. You're still going to be anxious. You still made me depressed, but I think that's a starting point. And then you can array the modalities and the tools and all the things you want to build on top of that. But start with an idea that you are not your thoughts. I think that's probably, I don't know, I feel like this is still fairly new to me, but

I'm trying to practice it. Because I don't really have, I don't really feel like there's another option for me anyway. Stay tuned more of our conversation is on the way after this. I don't really feel like there's another option for me anyway. 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 of our freshly honest and insightful take on parenting.

Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown-Oller, we will be your resident not-so-expert 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. So you've been through what I would imagine to be the worst thing anybody could go through. What are you doing to keep yourself upright? Yeah, it's a great question. So first of all, I promised I think I promised my wife that I would stay open. First thing you want to do is close off, you know, a little bit of an F you to the world, a little bit of like,

uh-huh, you know, I've lost control. How did this happen? So then I say, okay, what's the opposite of that? It would be being remaining open and trying new things. So step one is to keep trying new things. You know, you shot me a line to say, you have an interesting story, you want to come down. My first instinct was like, oh, will he's in the stomach? Like, why would I want to put myself out there? And you know, this isn't necessarily my style. And then I say, why not? Why wouldn't I want to try?

And why wouldn't I want to do something that I otherwise? Like, and then that's been sort of my mantra. And that's led me into meditating in the morning. So it doesn't matter I have, I think this morning was all in sofa or in sofa on the 10% happier on the 10% happier at. So that was a 15 minute pull down, get it just and start and I think that was around just calming, you know, just calming from an anxious performance anxiety, stuff like that. Every day, grab something and do it.

So I have the waking up podcast from Sim Harris, I use his. He changed the name of the podcast to making sense. He also has an app that teaches people to meditate, which is called waking up. It will take a year. It will be for you. It gets his channels, right? It's okay. It's hard when he got such a good groove with the waking up. It can be ill. So I use that. And the idea is anything and everything. I tend to need guided because

that keeps me focused as opposed to an unguided. In my pocket, I have three dates for a 10-day retreat, but I'm scared crap to do. But I've just, I've got three dates, a 10-day retreat, maybe I'll try that someday. It's on the docket. I've, gosh, I've entertained meditation with gratitude. That helps because when you think gratitude and from what I've read, if you're feeling it, I'm really happy to be here and think of the joy that we're getting being in New York for the first time as a family.

Yeah, we should say that your wife and children have come down and made the trip. I'm looking on them right now through the glass. Yes. That's something. They're waving back. There's a gratitude like I can sit and I can honestly say, this is cool, right? This is fun. I'm doing something with the family.

All right. And you can feel the grace. So you can take that feeling of gratitude and apply it to as part of my conditioning, whether it's 15 or 20 minutes a day, I'll try to meditate with gratitude. I try to set some, what are they? Marnter's or I'll just say, like, I'm worthy. An intention. My intention. I am enough. I am loved. Boy, those are simple things to say. You know, two

guys. I'm 51, you're 47, yeah. Hey, let's talk over. Let's go get a beer and talk about how you're worthy, how you're loved, and how does that go down, and hanging out with the guys, right? Two guys are growing, sort of, the macho, Boston, right. Situation. But I have to say, it kind of exposed my underbelly of, huh? Maybe there's something to you not feeling worthy that you feel like you've drive, drive, drive, drive, or you aren't

enough that you drive, drive, and you push forward. Okay. Strikes me that those mantras or intentions or slogans, whatever you want to call them, they'll think kind of like the opposite of your daughter's journal. Yeah, I haven't thought about that. I mean, I'm kind of, I don't know if I'm on a selfish journey or I simply feel like if I don't get my game together, I really felt like this past summer, I don't want to repeat the panic attacks. I don't want to.

So I feel like this has been helpful. You were having actual panic attacks. Yeah, I remember crying, waiting to someone would come home, you know, and I remember crying waiting till someone would come home. You know, and I remember doing that a couple times, and it was like, wow, it's pretty strong of not feeling, just feeling very tense and anxious. So getting a regular habit or practice of meditation, making sure you're feeling that, that, that, uh, power, whether you want to think shock rose, whether you want to just take in, you know, energy or grounding or visualizing

a white light or, you know, there's something to taking that in and either turning that into yourself and applying it to where you feel you need it the most or projecting it out to you and just wrapping you up with white light of love. And I'm not practiced at that. I don't have years of that, but I'll show us how to keep that going because it does put me in a state of being more compassionate. I go through the day just a little more, a little more, I don't know, tooled up with, with, I don't know, it's like, all right,

don't worry, anything that comes along your way, just try not to get wrapped up in your thoughts. The chakra white light thing, well, who, where are you getting that from? Yeah, so, so my, so my influence is, Dawson Church has a book mind to matter. Dawson Church. Dawson Church.

I thought that was helpful because that's once I sort of camped out on the meditation, says, okay, 10% happier, my foot's in the door. I'm in the door on this, something. All right. What else would you go from here? It'd be interesting to hear like where your journey is because,

all right, you got five, six, 10, I don't know, about 10 years now. Yeah. You're into it. So how, you know, where are you from that practice? From, from me, I think I, I got a foot in the door and I still need to honor that because I can't ever assume. I am, I don't know, not that, I don't want to assume that I'm stable and I've got everything going because I don't, when I lose it, I lose it and that's okay. I'm trying to process let the grief come, let it wash over me, but don't hold on to it. It's about the impermanence of things. It's about, I think the gentleman by the name of Joe Denarno, you had on it. Yes, yeah, he lost his wife. Lost his wife, but he's working and processing through it. He seemed to have game around meditation in a good place.

Mm-hmm. I don't feel like that. He'd been doing it for decades. Right. And I'm like, ah, I didn't quite feel that. Like, I don't feel like I've been doing it for decades. Right, and I'm like, ah, I didn't quite feel that. Like, I don't feel like I can just camp out and just say, I'm just gonna go meditate now. I'm like, ah, no, no, no. I'm gonna grieve like a mother. I'm gonna grieve hard, and I'm gonna say that's okay. In grieving hard, meaning lately,

it's been writing in a blog, and a friend suggested, put it out there. Exp expose your underbelly, but you know, just if it feels right let it go. So that's been another method I've been using. It's just writing it down. My friend gave me a link to WordPress, which is a way to blog. So I'm kind of new to this too. And I just created this thing called a Facebook account. I had promised Alexander we'd never go there. We'd never go to the dark side. But I did create it.

And because I wanted to send that link, so someone could look up my name, Dean Baluris on Facebook. And I'm readily going to accept it. And I'm not doing it necessarily for personal connections. I've already agreed and set my intentions that I would like to share my stories because there's other people out there who are feeling what I'm feeling and through that you can get a link to the WordPress. The proper URL will be in the show notes for this podcast. So would you say, you know, you're talking before about impermanence in like some another thing I've been thinking about recently is that impermanence can be deeply

inconvenient and then incredibly convenient. It's deeply inconvenient when you realize that you and everybody you know we're all impermanent and that's hard. Right. And then the convenient side is when you're drowning in a hard emotion, if you can wake up in the middle of and say, if I lean into this thing, or not a thing at all, actually, if I lean into this set of feelings, they will pass. And that is really convenient. And here's how I think I know what you just said is true. I'm drawing a blank from where I read this from, but it's really hard.

It might be Sam. Sam Harris keeps coming up. He's hard to sustain your anger. Like if I'm angry at something, or whether I'm really sad or I'm thinking about Alexander, I can stay there if it's a little bit easier, I think, with Alexander, but just on the surface if you're angry at something you almost Drift away from that after three five minutes and then it's like, oh, why was I pissed? God cut me off almost took off my front bumper. What the hell was he thinking? People travel like crap these days and then I you know, I'm just working back into that state of whatever it is. So like getting, you know, just whatever worked me up,

you know, I just, I get the spoon and I just stare at that pot. I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna get out of here. Hold on. This is, I just want to, let's just talk about how bad this is. Yeah, that sucks too for you. Yeah, it sucks for me too. Do you ever get, yeah, yeah. And, you, and we do that. Sam, I think the riff you're referring to, and I love this thing, he said, which is that the half-life of anger or of any emotion is like two minutes, right?

So, but the problem is we re-upp it voluntarily. We take the spoon as it is to use your analogy and we stir it up because we don't know any better. And so anger gets extended from two minutes to an hour to a lifetime. And his argument, and I love this, is that the difference between the amount of damage you can do in an hour of anger or grief or whatever it is or jealous here, whatever it is, and two minutes, well, that difference, the delta there is incalculable. Yes, and I apply that. So that's sort of like something that I had read 2015, 2016, whatever. And it still holds true. So when I'm driving home and I have

a trigger and it seems to happen at different, I never know when something reminds me of Alexandra That hits me and hits me. It's usually a song that we loved or even like you know a new album comes out that we would have shared I can't share it with her and then I can't really really sad and I'm okay. You're gonna cry All right, you're gonna ball. All right. You're gonna probably punch the dashboard All right, put're gonna probably punch the dashboard. All right, put your blinker on, get over, and sometimes lately I've been blocking,

or I'm not necessarily blocking, I'm just writing down in notes, exactly what I'm feeling, how hard is it, go there, go there. And let it rip. The one thing I can say that I'll argue Sam's half-life of two minutes when you're in this sadness is so. Like I, it's actually a gravitational pull, but there still is a half-life.

So I know it may not be too. And for the example, I'm thinking of in Westboro Center going home from work where I pulled over to write down I think it was my sunny reflections vlog. It was 15 minutes of pure balling crying and then something It I don't know if it evaporates or just distance where I say, you know, it is time for dinner You know You do have Nicholas to bring till across at 730, or you do have, I'm like, okay,

and then you can choose to feel guilty and say, and look at you, forgetting how important Alexander was, and you should live in this. You should star that part. Damn it. I miss our, I miss this. But what's the damage I'm doing, right? What's that damage I'm doing? And so there's a tool, there's a tool to say,

you know, I'm not my thoughts, it's just a good one. I have so many things to say, but this is incredible practice. Because when Sam's talking about the Half Life of Vanger, he's talking about Garden Var garden variety annoyance, right? You're talking about something asoonami, right? Asoonami. It's not in the ballpark. And so the ability to wake up out of that, I can't imagine it. I can't imagine it, but it sounds to me, to my ears, unbelievably impressive.

It's a practice though. Of course. Because, you know, it doesn't necessarily come naturally, but it's coming up more than not to say, hey, hey Dean, you feel like stepping back from this one because you're about to go deep and, you know, you know, where this this might go. It's just it's just and it gets to an ugly place I'm like, yeah, I think I want to dance there a little bit. I think I want to be a little bit ugly right?

And it's something trying to say give myself permission but boy It's a can feel feel the slippery slope of sadness of like, okay, let me just make sure I keep trying to carve some lines there. Because again, I have to negotiate this in my mind, right? Oh gosh, I don't even want to talk about my sadness for Jeremy Richmond. Just another tangent. Boy, when I heard about his passing,

Jeremy, I think he was heading up the Arial Foundation. Yeah, Arial, his daughter, Jeremy, Jeremy's daughter Arial, Arial, he called her a died in the massacre in Newtown. He was on the show, he was in that chair. He was on this show. And he was an incredible human being. We met him. You met him. And we got to this scene. We got to see Brunei Brown's daring greatly. He gave us VIP tickets and send. I can't imagine what you went through. Yeah, he can. He lost his daughter. It's just as bad. I get and he was he was he was

I didn't eat hook up with you guys. My wife reached out. She reached out to the Avell foundation and they responded and they said come on down Keep going keep going try new things come on if there's a talk that you think might help get on out So we drove down on a Tuesday night. I thought he was the coat guy I was in two hours for a car. I had to go to the bathroom and he's like, hi, how are you? I'm great. You know, as the food over there, I need something. And I kind of, I feel like a, I feel like a, I feel like a dank. My wife, of course, you know, how wives can be. Hi, Jeremy, this is my husband Dean. I'm like, Oh, Jeremy, I still didn't adorn her, man. I'm like, okay, so she knows the guy's name.

And then through the course of that night, I got to see a dad who stood up on stage, who didn't look like a guy who would stand up on stage, who spoke very well, who spoke with a passion about something he believes in. And I had just finished Bernabé Brown's during Great Lee. In our new book, Daring to Lead, we're reading now, my wife and I. But I was so impressed with Jeremy in his courage look at him after six years.

So, let's go back to the slippery slope. Who do I do with that? Right? I as a guy who I thought was negotiating it as a dad, as someone who's trying to negotiate his way through this thicket of all right. Well, and he's gone. He chose as a solution or a way to end his pain to take his own life. Yeah, very recently. And we in our little 10% world here that obviously threw us for a loop and not can only imagine what has done to his family and the people in his immediate circle. And yes, so which is you mentioned Jen Ashton recently my colleague, Dr. Jen Ashton, medical course monitor here, because he knew we had her on to kind of help us process that

because she lost her husband to suicide. She's very helpful. Yes, she is very helpful. So I don't know what to, I still don't know what to make of it. It's hard. So we're hard. So you can start each day. I start each day trying to find the time to just give a little pause because the day's

going to get ahead of me, work and stuff and then say, how you doing today? What's my mind like? All right. I want to be here. I know I want to be here. What are the things I can do? And what, you know, what keep moving forward. So I'm trying things like doing things I've never done before or just saying yes.

It's a little bit more in that Brunei Brown daring greatly, which is being vulnerable, leaning into your fears. I mean, leaning into them. And okay, all right, it's kind of hard when you have the stress and anxiety that's rising, but I'm like, okay, let that come. Let it come and see if you can do this. And each time I do, I'm finding that I'm surprising myself. Would you say to people listening to this who have gone through horrible things or know

that life we all go through horrible things and are worried about folks may be worried about their own ability to handle it. It sounds like your overall message is actually maybe we're stronger than we think we are. I hope so. I guess what I've been getting, or when you lose a data to suicide, you hear a lot of stories. I think people need to share. A lot of times you find yourself listening. And it's not necessarily about your story, Alexandria, about it's about a person sharing

what they've gone through. And I think everyone has a story. I'm learning very quickly that everyone's got a story. What I'm not so sure about, and I hope I'm wrong, but what's resonating is I see a lot of fear. I see a lot of fear. I see a lot of people who are nervous and not sure how to carry forward other than by being tight. You got to hold it together, Dean. You got a family there.

Come on, bud. We're kind of on you. I know how hard it can be. Toughen up. Toughen up. That's worked for like 49 years. Throw anything at me. I'm gonna come back at you twice as hard.

Something's changed. The tools of saying toughening, toughening up, muscle through it. I can handle anything or I'm thinking of parenting. This is how it is. I don't know. I think if you slow down and have a little bit of faith, I don't know how to use that word in the sense that I'm using. It's like leaning into things you otherwise wouldn't have tried. I think we after free as we get a little, do we do less and less and less.

We get more and more slow. We get a nice good chair to watch our show on. Make sure I can recline. And where do I put my drink? And all right, hello 85. Maybe I can make it that long and just sort of settle into him. Let me put on the you know the news, the channels that work for me. And I actually think we need to turn all of that on its head. And if one you're not listening to, again, you can listen to whatever amount of news you want, but it should be from all sources. It has to be from all sources. You should talk to people you don't agree with. You should do all these things, and it's real easy to know what you don't want to do because you know when you start

chying away from it. It starts by a lock of eye contact, put your head down. I don't want to have a conversation with someone. It starts when my son Nicholas tells me, hey dad, it's parents night if you want to play bass, seventh grade basketball. Of course he tells me it's 722 on a 730 practice, but I've got my gym bag in the back seat. I drop him off and I drive away. I don't want to make him look bad. I don't know if I can still dribble a bass or it's been 12, 15 years.

I mean, I think I have the capacity to run up and down the court. This is all as I'm driving away. But oh, look at me. I'm smart enough to put on that Brunei Brown audiobook. I'm like, oh, and then it just hits me. I'm like, ah, dude, stop. Why not?

Why not try something? Do things. Keep breaking out. Keep testing the edges. So I turned around went back in played basketball, hopefully showed him and his friends I got a little game. We're looking at him. He's not giving you too much. It was a great night, but everything I thought about that night, from that 722 to 730, those 8 minutes, was not a

positive thought. It was like, oh, only how I could screw it up, or only how I could maybe not look cool as a dad to a seventh grader with his friends. Now I'm thinking, just go play. Just go play. So these are examples. I'm like, what I would say to a parent is do something, think of love, be creative, be open, screw what everyone thinks, lean into it and try something and help me down, right? Who cares what people think because you already started from a good

place. Who cares what people think because you already started from a good place? I love that. And it seems to me where you're saying, in the wake of this disaster, where you could have done what I would imagine the instinctual move from most of us would be fetal, curl up into a ball, create a shell. Find a local pub for the next 40 years to get, you know, to own. Yes, to anesthetize yourself. And you're saying, no, no, I'm going to do the counter intuitive thing and I'm just going to open up to the whole world. People who disagree with me, people who agree with me, experiences that scare me, etc., etc.,

that's your counter intuitive approach to this horrible event. Yeah, and it doesn't come naturally because you want to go you want to stick with your safety's and comforts And I still do but that's okay. I know right? He knows it and say it's okay for now You don't have to be out there all the time But question it every time and if I'm not at least Maybe my rule now is I don't even know once a week every couple days. I'm not saying yes I'm not responding yes. I'm not responding to I'm probably more social than I've ever been. I don't like to text. I don't

necessarily like to call people on the phones. I'm a little bit like my grandfather, I think, my prepare. I like to just put around in the backyard or just do things and just be a little home body. Then I realize, nah, this is all about networks. It's all about social networks, not in the sense of media, in the sense of connecting with people and community, so that you grow and you have a place and you love and while you're here, you share that and that's as simple as going to breakfast every month with a bunch of guys I go with and

Keeping that up And what you're saying yes to something like sitting and talking on a podcast I'm very glad you did. I think it's bold and important and I value it immensely And before we close, let me just ask you is there anything I should have asked you but fail to Boy No, I would think there's I feel like I have the luxury of listening to you for several years.

And I love what you do because I think what you bring is a sort of a, you're more really acceptable to a larger channel of people who need, I think, especially in today's day and age, needed entrance to a different way to go about things. So I do have thousands of questions, but they come from like previous conversations that you have that would be all out of context. So step one is the reason, you know, well, what I like to say is you got game over Sam

because you are approachable. You know, I think what I would say is that the Jonathan, Jonathan Height reference and the righteous mind of the, you can reason the crap out of everything and really have game and Sam nails it. But it's like he's trying to send all these elephants over to the left and they're just not listening to him because everyone here, we're all going by our intuitions, our guts, our feelings. And that's hard to change. I think the platform that you bring, maybe a little bit of Joe Rogan,

it's a nice entrance, and I don't know what the channels are. But I think what you guys do is, I think more hopefully you see it as you and Jeff Warren and others see it as so important, because I think we're starting to, I think a're starting to, I think a dilution of information. This is, I think, you know, this is today's day and age,

we have more information coming in than we can consume. And we know that. So if you can't consume at all, you have to choose your channels. All right, if you've got to choose your channels, I gotta make sure that one's bringing me the right stuff. I think you're bringing that right stuff. So I would just say thank you for having me on and I do appreciate what you're doing and you've got to keep this going.

I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I that capacity yet. We hear from them all the time and I have a strong sense that people are going to find this incredibly valuable. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great job. All right. Big thanks to Dean for coming in. That's quite brave. Want to give you some resources for dealing with this subject. Before I dive into that, big thanks to one of the producers on this show Grace Livingston, who did a bunch of research. I'm just going to read to you from what she wrote. After the episode, we did a few months ago with Dr. Jen

Ashton, my colleague. We heard from a lot of you that you'd like to hear more practical information about how to relate compassionately to the topic of suicide. So before we head into our voice mail, as it close out the show, we're gonna share some resources and information that should help us all flex our compassion muscles on this incredibly important subject. So the following information came from a few key sources that I would recommend that you check out.

A good place to start is a website called bethewontu.com. So that's B-E-T-H-E, number one, T-O-.com. We'll put this in the show notes. But BeThe12.com. It was created by the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which offers tangible action plans for helping to prevent suicide. You can check out their resources page, which will link you straight to many other sources

for the information we're gonna share here. One jumping off point on this subject is to think about the language we use around suicide. It is best to use the phrase death by suicide or someone died by suicide rather than the phrase committing suicide since the word committing has a sinful stigma that may actually deter somebody from looking for help or for going out and getting help if they in fact are Experiencing suicidal thoughts. So that was a new learning for me and I'm

Making that switch as of now be the one two.com offers a tangible plan for helping prevent suicide with at-risk Individuals, I would recommend you check out the full details yourself, but here's a brief overview. Five steps according to them. Step number one is to ask. So literally asking the question, are you thinking about suicide? Contrary to popular belief, asking an at-risk individual does not increase their likelihood of attempting suicide, but rather open and non-judgmental communication about suicide may in fact decrease suicidal ideation. An important part of this step is also listening to the person's response in a compassionate way. Step 2 is keeping them safe by asking questions, finding out more about their thoughts or plans, taking steps to reduce access to things like firearms.

If they're in immediate danger, this may also include driving them to the ER. Step 3 is be there. If they're in immediate danger, this may also include driving them to the ER. Step 3 is be there. This may include being physically present, talking on the phone, or finding another way to show support. You want to be careful not to over commit, but letting the person know that you're there with them can be a huge source of connection and support. Step 4 is to help them connect.

This might mean ensuring they have access to the lifeline, which is 800-273-8255-800-273-8255. Again, we'll put that in the show notes. Or you might connect them to other support systems within their community. You might also set up a safety plan using the My3 app or our other crisis intervention tools. And the final step, step five, is following up, whether in person by phone or by text, following up after the initial conversation, helps build connection and ongoing support. So again, the website is bethe12.com.

And if you personally are struggling with thoughts of suicide or you've worried about a friend or loved one, There is help available. You can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255-1800-273-TALK, or you can text T-A-L-K-2741-741, or you can visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org. And that's free, confidential, emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So even if it feels like it, you are not alone. Big thanks again to Dean Valores for coming on and for Grace Livingston for putting together that information.

Okay, let's do some voicemails. Here's number one. Hey, Dan. This is Brian Collins from the Center for Iowa. I've been meditating for off and on about two years now. I've had a follow-out while I go and came across your book about two months ago. Ever since then, I've been bingeing out on your podcast by every day. So I appreciate all of that. I had a couple questions for you. First of all, how do you, I'm hoping maybe you can help me on this. I find myself getting more frustrated than I'd like to with my kids. I get a two, four, and eight-year-old.

You know, I try to stay mindful when they push my button. But sometimes my anger gets best at me and I don't say it in my info. And then later on I regret becoming more angry and I like to and really think about how I can jump down things differently. This was wondering if maybe you had some tips on how to handle that, maybe some different medications or maybe a couple of secondary aid or a podcast I can listen to can kind of help me with, I guess, say, parenting.

Second, I'm thinking about going to some meditation classes. I'm not really sure which one I should book into. I know there's a vast variety out there, but I didn't know if maybe you were familiar with Iowa area and maybe you could point in the good direction for that, but I appreciate everything you do. It really has helped me out, so keep up to good work. Thank you. Bye. Thank you.

Great, great set of questions there. I'm going to do the second one first, and I'll just do it really quickly because we've talked about this kind of thing about how to find Meditation resources before but I don't know the Iowa Superwell, but I think if you just search you know insight or mindfulness meditation Iowa on Google You probably you probably should come up you can come up with something and if you're not finding anything locally There are teachers who will teach via Skype also. There are apps, you know That's going to sound a little self-interested since I have one or we have one, but there are many apps out there and to my, just from the noodling around that I've done, they all seem quite good. So, that's that on the stuff about kids. Look, I would give yourself a break, speaking as a parent. It is basically if you're a kid, it's your job to figure out your parents weaknesses

and exploit them relentlessly. So they're going to be pushing your buttons and you're not going to be perfect. I mean, maybe some days and maybe if you're enlightened, you're going to be perfect. But I don't know anybody who's perfect. I'm going to mangle this quote, but Joseph Goldstein, my meditation teacher, once quoted the Dalai Lama to me. So this is a secondhand quote that I'm trying to reproduce from memory. Something about somebody asked the Dalai Lama once, how do you know if you're succeeding in meditation and he said, well, if you lose your temper eight times a day, and now you're losing your temper six times a day, then you're succeeding.

So look, I think that you know, you're going to take it from a pretty good source there. Perfection is not on the menu, and you're going to lose your temper once in a while. Maybe frequently, it's really about marginal improvement over time, in my view. But here's one practice from my friend Diana Winston, the great meditation teacher who was on a few weeks ago. That might be useful in those acute moments when something's going on with your kids. It's a little acronym STOP stop. So I'm gonna try to reproduce this from memory as well.

So the S is for stop. So you just stop and pause for a second. As Diana says, she's got a nine-year-old daughter and limiting TV during the summer is a place of conflict. So when she finds herself frustrated, she finds it stopping and pausing is really powerful. The T is for taking a breath. There's a lot of science that indicates

that deep breathing can have a positive physiological impact of creating calm and reducing emotional reactivity. O is observe, observe what's happening. Is your heart racing, is your stomach churning, are you feeling irritated, angry, et cetera, et cetera? And simply knowing that you have these feelings can help you not be so blindly yanked around by them. And there's research that shows that naming your emotions

can turn down the volume on the fear circuitry in your brain. So this is basic mindfulness. And then P is proceed, hopefully with a little bit more common awareness. And so STOP, you know, at first you're going to forget to do it or when you do it, you're going to struggle to remember what is S in what's T and what's O, but if you just keep added over time, you'll develop the mental muscle memory so that eventually you'll get to a situation where some reasonable percentage of the time you'll be able to put it to use and not blow your stack every time your kids push your buttons, but again, don't aim for perfection because I think that's going to be pretty dispiriting.

Thanks for the questions. Let's do voicemail number two. Hi, Dan. Greetings from George, calling from Athens in Greece. Congratulations. Love your podcast. Love your books. I've been following you ever since very closeles B1, a quick question for you. When it comes down to meditation for non-native

English speakers, do you see a benefit and are there any studies for changing and translating the meditation into our native language? For example, when it comes down to meta, I always find it easier and slightly more effective to translate the meta phrases in Greek, or maybe the same for other pain and any other things that require noting. Are there any studies and what do you think about us? Do we stick to English or other benefits

in going straight to the native language? Thank you. I haven't seen any studies and all I can answer is from my own personal experience and perspective, like what I would do, which is that I would put it in your native tongue. The only reason I say that is it's really not about the power of any specific language. It's the power of what's happening in your own mind.

And so if it's easiest for you to generate the awareness or the feelings of meta or friendliness in your native tongue, then go for it. Why not? Even if the guided meditation you're using is in English, if it's not creating too much cognitive load, then doing the translation and using the words in your native tongue seems to me if I were in your position, I certainly would do that. And that being said, you know, there are little words in Pali, you know, the ancient Indian language that I've been taught over time that are useful for me, like the word proponsha, which means it's technically the imperialistic tendency of mind. When something bad happens to you and all of a sudden you get an email from your boss saying I need to talk to you and then all of a sudden you create this

quickly, quick and horrifying movie in your mind of all the terrible things are about to happen you're going to get fired and live under a bridge and it happens just really quickly your imperialistically sort of colonizing the future with these negative thoughts fantasiesies, imaginings. I find that that word, propuncia is a good mental note

when I notice it happening in my meditation practice, as propuncia, or in my life, noting it, and then that allows me to kind of loosen my grip on it, not be so attached to it, not be so owned by it. So there are times when, obviously, Polly is not my mother tongue using another language can be useful. But don't take what I'm saying as gospel, but for just my gut is that using your mother

tongue would be more useful. So cool to get a call from Greece. That's great. Thank you for following what I've been doing for so long George Appreciate that. I know they're not another George with Greek roots George Stephanopolis previous guest on this show Shout out to George Shout out to Mike D who's running the boards As I record this on a Sunday morning and to the producers of this show the aforementioned Grace Livingston

Samuel Johns and L. Haffee Ryanessler, who is the boss around here. Big thanks to our podcast Insiders who give us feedback every week. We look at it closely and informs how we do what we do. And of course, thanks to everybody who listens to the show. We'll be back next Wednesday with another one. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with 1-3-plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey

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