Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 201: Doing "The Work," Byron Katie

Episode Date: August 21, 2019

At 43 years old, Byron Katie was unhappily married, suffered from depression and agoraphobia and was addicted to codeine and alcohol. In fact, she felt so much self-hatred, she slept on the floor believing she did not deserve a bed. Yet in the midst of her crisis, she awoke one morning in a halfway house, with a sense of pure joy. A switch had been flipped and all her suffering disappeared. It had become evident to her that her thoughts were causing all her emotional pain and she had finally broken free. Katie believes she has been given a gift and now spends her life trying to help end suffering for others. Plug Zone The Work of Byron Katie: https://thework.com/ Books: https://www.amazon.com/Byron-Katie/e/B001H6S8B4 Twitter: @ByronKatie Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theworkofbyronkatie/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8dvufocK9zM6KnkronGbzA The Work App: https://thework.com/the-work-app/ ***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. One day as I lay sleeping on the floor because I was so filled with self-hatred. I didn't believe I deserved a bed to sleep in. So as I lay sleeping actually a cockroach crawled over my foot. I opened my eyes just the way we all do every morning. And in that moment in time, I was shown how my world was created. It was like, I woke up so quickly and so startled that there was no identity there. The mind had not had time to catch up. And I saw in that moment the cause of all suffering. I was shown, you know, it was like there was no story.

That's Byron Katie, our guest this week talking about the moment involving a cockroach that she says changed her life. And she has for many subsequent years been trying to share that insight with tens of thousands of people through something she calls the work. Now I actually didn't know anything about Byron Katie really, nothing. But when I heard she was coming on the show, I emailed my friend and colleague, Jay Michael

Sinjay. You may have heard of him. He's been on the show a couple of times. He's a great meditation teacher along with also being a rabbi in a lgbtq activist and a journalist and many many other things and he also uh... works at ten percent happier where he runs the yet

talks section of the app and writes our weekly newsletter anyway smart guy i emailed him because i knew he was a fan of biring katey which is why I had said yesterday in the first place. And I said, hey, she's coming on the show tomorrow. I know it's short notice. Any advice? And he, well, he said a couple of things. One thing he said, and I'm reading from his email, I've met a crap ton of spiritual teachers and only a small minority are as realized and real as Katie is. Katie is absolutely the real deal in my experience.

He continued a hundred percent happier. He also had some advice about how I should conduct the interview and he said I should jettison my usual technique of asking people for their backstory instead dive right into what she calls the work and have her do the work with me. So we will get into her backstory. You just heard a snippet of it and it's fascinating, quite dramatic, even more dramatic

than that little clip would indicate. But we're going to start with her diving into this process that she's used on so many people and it's called the work. Jay specifically told me, don't do any research on it. Let her just do it on you in real time. So that's what I did and I'm not going to tell you much about it either. She's going to describe it. Just one item of business, which is keep an eye on this feed because we're going to put

up a bonus meditation from Sharon Salzburg soon. So be on the lookout for that. Before we get into Biring Katie, here is her bio just so you know it. Byron, Kathleen Mitchell, better known as Byron Katie is an American speaker and author who teaches a method of self inquiry known as the work of Byron Katie or simply the work. She's the founder of Byron Katie International and organization that includes the school for the work and turn around House in Ohio, California. Time magazine described here as a spiritual innovator for the 21st century. Here we go, Byron Katie. Okay, so Dan. Hi. Dan Dan. Hi. Hi. It's a joy to just kind of hang out in your,'re what office this morning. I wouldn't say this is my office. This is a radio studio at ABC News. Yeah, yeah.

Look, it's nice. The conversation is really nice. And so Dan, what I bring to meditation is how to get still and identify what you're thinking and believing. And to do that, for example, if someone said, by RnKT, I don't like you. And my feelings were really hurt. Okay? So, and it's bothering me, it's bothering me, or maybe it's Facebook. You know, whatever I go back to that situation that's bothering me, and I get still, I find my favorite chair, and I get really still, and I anchor my mind in that situation. And I began to identify what I was thinking

and believing in that situation about that situation, that person, about me, about the world. I just listened and I write my judgments down. The judgments I was experiencing then. So you can see why this takes stillness. So what was I thinking and being leaving that brought on so much stress? And that's easy. It's easy for me to do when I consider that what I was thinking and believing is the cause of my suffering.

In fact, it's the cause of all suffering. So it's worth identifying and questioning. So let's say I wrote down, for example, he doesn't care about me. Okay? So I would question it. So what I bring is inquiry. Four questions.

And then a way of meditating in opposites, which doesn't make a lot of sense when I tell you now, but it will when we get there. So the first question is, he doesn't care about me. The first question is, is it true? No, I'm not going to answer out of that yes that took me to the... that I came in to inquiry with. I'm going to just sit and see as I am anchored in that situation where that person says, I don't like you. Anchored there and I'm going to with my eyes closed. I see me standing there. I see him standing there.

I see the look on his face, I can hear the words that were spoken, so this really is a fearless set. So is it true? He doesn't like me, is it true? So I'm really scoping it out in that silence, anchored in that moment in time. And then I'm shown anchored in that moment in time. And then I'm shown through images and mind. What I was thinking and believing in the past and my reaction and his reaction, he doesn't care about me, is it true. So the answer is one syllable, it's either yes or no. So we, I just stay still until I'm shown. And then the second question is, if my answer is no, and yes or no are always equal because it's the truth we're looking for. So if the answer is yes, I move to question two. And if it's no, I just skipped a three.

So can I absolutely know that it's true he doesn't care about me. So I'm not going to guess. It's the truth that sets us free. I'm going to continue to anchor there and give yes and no equal opportunity. No guessing. Okay, so then what I'm showing that, so you can see, Dan, that no one can do this for us. This is really personal.

Now the third question, how do I react? What happens when I believe the thought? So now I'm anchored in that situation, in that time and place, and I began to get in touch with the emotions that I felt. And I give them an opportunity to show me, to, and I experience through those emotions. How do I react? What happens when I believe in the thought where emotions? Now I'm going to get in touch with those images of past future I was experiencing. When I believed or thought he doesn't care about me. And I can see clearly the tendencies that occur on my face.

Did I give him the look? Did I become, what identity did I shift into protective? Did I make a joke? Did I, you know, how did I react? What happens when I believe the thought? He doesn't care about me. I witnessed that. And then I move to the fourth question. You know, going back to that third, it's showing

me the mind, the cause of my suffering, and how I react when mind happens. Okay. And the cause of mean mind, didn't it?, it's like how do I act? Did I attack him? Did I belittle him? Did I insult him? I'm witnessing. I really want to know. Okay, so then the fourth question.

In that situation, who or what would I be without thought? He doesn't care about me. So I take that post it off of him, and what I was believing, the judge when I believed on to him, I take that post it off, and I witness me, him, the situation without the thought, he doesn't care about me. Now, I was sudden, I'm a better listener. I can hear now what I couldn't hear then, what I heard, but couldn't acknowledge.

My mind was overriding it. So I'm really in reality. And I love that fourth question, I'm safe, other than what I'm thinking and believing. It's really pleasant to be with him, and I'm learning a lot about myself in this process of how I react when I believe the thought he doesn't care about me. Okay, so I continue in this meditative state to sit in those questions, those four questions,

and then I move to what I call the turnarounds or opposites. He doesn't care about me. He does care about me. That's an opposite. Now I'm not trading a negative belief for a positive. It's just not going to work for me. It's not going to work. I'm going to meditate in that work. I'm going to meditate in that as I continue to anchor in that space where I believed he didn't care about me in that situation with him. I see it clearly. I continue to be there. He does care about me. Now I'm looking at, you know, is there something I missed? Words spoken. The way, the words he was speaking and what I believed into those words are onto those words. You know, I get to see the difference.

You don't care about me. And maybe I can see something else. Now I'm not ever going to force this. I've got to have the real deal because that's all that's going to set me free. Okay. So, he does care about me. Now this is something I try on. You know, when I talk about trading negative or positive, I'm just going to try it on. He does care about me. So that's what I'm doing

as I sit in silence, meditating in that situation. So it's like a pair of shoes. I'm in the shoes store and I love these shoes. I'm going to try them on. I'm not going to walk out with shoes that I can't walk comfortably in. So I'm just trying that turnaround on. And if I can see something he does care about me, then there it is. And if I can't, that's okay. There it's not.

Okay? So another opposite, he doesn't care about me, I don't care about him. Okay. In that situation with him, where is it? And where did it show and how did it feel? I don't like him. How did I let him know that? If I did it all, so I'm trying it on like that new pair of shoes. I don't care about him.

Now, maybe I see something there that I need to, maybe I'd ring in and admit my wrong. Maybe I insulted him. It met my wrong and then make it right where I can. And for me, that's what my lifetime is about, making right, my wrongs. It's a beautiful way to live. And it's a silent way of living too. No one ever has to know. I'm the one that benefits, and the people around me often

let me know they benefit as well. He doesn't care about me. Okay, is there another turnaround? I've tried that one on. I've tried two of them on. They don't care. He doesn't care about me. I can't find another opposite. And maybe your listeners will find another opposite that I missed. And so you can see I'm not manipulating the judgment, just doing direct turnarounds and continuing to meditate in that. And so that is what I call the work. is what I call the work, live there's suffering and life, there's discontent, and there's a reason for this suffering, and that reason is what we're thinking and believing,

cause of all suffering, and there's a way out of that suffering, and I discovered that about 30 years ago, and it's never failed me, and it hasn't failed millions of people today. And there's a way out of suffering, and I hope that I have done well describing that process of inquiry. I'd like to say the work is judge your neighbor, write it down, ask for questions, turn it around and begin again.

I had a lot of questions that came up in my mind as you were speaking. I held back because I thought I'd probably start to understand more once we got into it. For real. Yeah, I like for real. So any of those questions you recall? One of them was you said, I'm examining whether he cares about me and you're waiting for an answer to arise during meditation, yes or no.

But how can you trust that answer given that you're waiting for an answer to arise during meditation, yes or no. But how can you trust that answer given that you're? I can't. I can't. He does. He does care about me. I'm just witnessing that situation just to see what I missed. And like a new pair of shoes, maybe it doesn't fit. Those turn-arounds don't always fit. But I'm open to what they can show me one way or the other. I think I'll understand more if we try to do, if we try to do some work together.

Okay, so what a stress you out lately. Okay, I have a, there are a couple of things I could say. So I'll just pick one and I'll tell you and then if you think that's not a good thing to work on, we can work on something else. Okay. For better or worse, I have a reasonable list. One thing that's stressing me out for months, if not more, not longer, is, and I've spent an embarrassing amount of time, embarrassing and soul-sucking amount of time,

obsessing about my looks. In that two aspects of it. One is, I feel like the visible ab muscles I have when I was in my thirties have gone away and are irretrievable fashion. No matter how much working out I do, I can't get them back. My pants are tight as I sit here right now. And the other is that I find that when I look at myself in any, if I pass any reflective surface, the, on the way here, walking for my apartment to work, I pass the Starbucks and I happen to look in the window and I could see myself. I feel like I look old.

And I'm approaching 50 and when I look at myself in the mirror or when I look at pictures of myself, I see my dad. Yeah. And that's not the way I think of myself. And yet I'm confronted with reality a lot. Yeah. So you look old. And so, when we look at you, that's what we're seeing.

That's what you really mean, right? Like, the way the world sees you. Yes, in part. Okay. So, you look old. Is that true? Now the situation is, you're passing the Starbucks window. You see that image on the glass.

So you see that in your mind's eye. That's a situation we're going to anchor in. Okay. All the answers are going to come out of that. You look old. Is it true? Now look at the reflection. Really look at that.

Look old. Is it true? Is it true? This is what I was struggling with. What exactly do you mean by is it true? This is what I was struggling with. What exactly do you mean by is it true in that context? I mean, look again. You know, yet the answer yes and no are equal. There's nothing tricky about this.

It really takes illness. Look at that image on the glass, in the glass. You look old. Is it true? I feel like it's true. Okay, one syllable. Yes. Okay, so just feel that.

So you look old, look again, close your eyes, you look old. Can you really know that it's true you look old? No. Okay, now some of us jump to that no because we can't really know anything. But contemplate this. And maybe your answers still yes, but it deserves time. Anything that would upset you this long and to that extent deserves looking at. I still...

So it's still a yes? No, I still think I can't. I feel when I look at, when I conjure that image of the frumpy, nearly 48-year-old guy with the dead bud walking down the street, I feel, yeah, that guy looks old, but when you ask, you know, is it verifiably that's not the word you use? No, that's not it. Can you really know? Can I really know that you look old?

Right. I can't. I can't remember where the world looking at you. Yes. You see, you look that way and it's so we see you that way. So it's, you know, this is, this is vast. Sit in. I can. And I hear you're still at Eats. Yeah. So it's, you know, this is, this is vast to sit in.

And I hear you're still at E.S. Yeah. Well, I'm at E.S. for I feel I look old, but I can't say for sure that that's the way the world sees me. Okay, so stay with you then. Okay. Because it's your quarry.

So can you absolutely know that it's true you look old? This is an interesting judgment to question. I can ask, I'm gonna get a little legalistic with you. Okay, don't say more than yes or no. Well, that's why this, you know, we're meditating, we're meditating in a moment in time, a moment in time. A moment in time that's we're looking at, it brings stress into your life.

Yes. So now notice, eyes close, witness, experience. How do you react? What happens when you believe the thought I look old. So start with emotions. There's a sense of being under attack. It's not like being chased by a saber-toothed tiger because I am the saber-toothed tiger and the person who's being chased. So there's a sense of attacking myself.

Yeah, but the feeling, Dan. Fear. Is it fear? Yeah, it takes time to identify the feelings. So fear? The fear, I think, is related to death, probably. Okay, and this is all going on as you look at a reflection. Yes. Yeah.

Okay, how do you react emotionally when you think the thought? I look old. I feel bad about myself. And where do you feel that? Chess. Chess. Chess. And how far reaching feel that? Chesa. Chesa. Chesa. And how far reaching is that?

Take your time. How much of your body does it take over from your chest up to your neck, your shoulders, your hand, your facial expression? Maybe it goes down as far as your stomach, your upper legs. Just get in touch with the emotion. Chest, maybe two or three inches above the solar plexus, and a circular area of tension, not super deep right now, and then maybe some tension above the nose between the eyes.

Good, good. So just allow that. Emotions are, we fear them. And in that third question, we learn to understand more about emotions. We disregard them so easily, so quickly. Now, as you experience the emotions, what was going on in your head? What images of past and future? As you pass that window, you look at that image in the window. What images of past future

occurred to you? What do you see? What did you see in that situation? Past was more vivid. I just saw tiny little shards of images of myself as a younger, fitter dude. Yes, so you see that, and then the future. What occurred? We hear the images of the past, the image of the future. I didn't get any images of the future. I didn't get any images of the future. I have one I heard you say. You want me to share it with you? Yes. You see images in your mind's eye of your father. Not at Starbucks this morning, but I do frequently in those moments. Well, in that situation. Yes, I do. Now you compare that young past image with the future image

of you in your mind's eye. future image of you in your mind's eye. Looking like your dad in some ways. And you compare those two. Now, this is what's meant, Dan, by life as a dream. Those images of past future, and then what you're believing onto them are the cause of your emotions. It's a movie. It is the dream world. It's like who are you? You know the the question who am I? Are you the one of the future? Is that Dan? Are you the one of the past? Is that Dan? The one

walking down the street? I mean there are three selves there. Now who would you be without the thought? I would just be the Dan walking down the street. Present? Yes. Get home in yourself. Comfortable? I wouldn't have anything to compare it to no So look at the image

Walk you're walking by just the way you did look at the image without Projecting on to them past future You okay, Mm-hmm. It was hard not to do it without the projection. So notice that. You're witnessing the cause of all suffering. It's not your body, it can never be. It's what we believe about our bodies that is the cause of suffering, of being uncomfortable in the world. You know, if we took our mind to the gym, as often as we take our body to the gym or give it that much attention, just imagine the health in this country. So, I'm old.

What is the opposite of I'm old. What is the opposite of, I'm old? I'm young. Okay. So just try that pair of shoes. Just try that shoe on. I'm old. So what are you experiencing?

If I'm trying on the I'm young shoe. Uh-huh. Walking down the street, seeing the reflection in the glass, I'm young. Feels like a stretch. Okay, so just experience it. Now experience yourself in that fourth question, who you are without the thought,

without those false selves running in your head of past future. I'm young. How does your body feel without the thought? How does it feel physically? You described it to us already. In the fourth question. How does the body in the mental image feel?

Or how does my body right now feel as I think about this? Walking down the street, just the way you did, as you witnessed that now, and look at that past self, that self, without his story. I'm old, turned around, I'm young, try it on. It just feels, there's nothing in particular going on, it just feels like I feel the weight of my body just as it is. Yeah. Catching up to reality, few people do because, simply because we don't know how. But to me, without my story, I'm weightless, I'm ageless. I'm doing this work with you, and it's what I'm able to live, because that question

is it true? I've allowed it space in my life, and it's a part of my mind. So how would this work? We've just gone through the steps. Well, let's just continue. Okay, there's more. I'm old, turned around, I'm young. Yeah, I don't see another turnaround.

I could sit in this a while and I would find, I would find, you know, possibly find another one. What I learned in this Dan is that image in the glass, that's not real, that's not you. I'm old, is it true? I'm looking at a glass, and that's not me. That's crazy. No one has even seen their face. We look in the mirror, in the morning, brushing our teeth, and we believe onto the image in the mirror. And we're too old, too fat, too lazy. Our abs aren't right. It's, you know, what Einstein said, imagination is everything. He didn't say almost everything, everything, everything. And Socrates said, a mind, a life unquestioned is not worth living.

And how many of us can identify the judgment when we experience those emotions you were describing? And we look to where the judgments were experiencing. That's the cause of emotion. It's the cause of everything. So it's, it, what's the cause of everything. So it's what's crazy is we haven't been in touch with the simplest thing, which is how to question, identify the judgments and question them and get still in them. So we just went through that and yet I have, maybe this is just another story, a reasonably high conviction that the next time I look in a mirror, the same thoughts are going to come back. Could happen. It's just unfinished business. Now, we have worked with one concept on

ByronKady.com. it's simple, 100% free. You just go there. And what we have set together in this morning, it's all there, how to do it, what to do when nothing else works. That's really what we're talking about here. There's a judge your neighbor worksheet. And all the instructions are there.

It's nothing more than a way of identifying what we were thinking and believing in any given moment. And so you could write a whole worksheet. There are six questions on it about just seeing the image in the glass. So we worked with one concept and that Judge J. Nippell worksheet, as it came to me, it included everything. I saw how the mind worked, I want, I need, you should, I shouldn't. You know, it's just, they're just about six things we think that are just, we want to our lives are boring. You know, we're just, I'm too fat, I'm too fat, I'm too old, I'm too old, I'm too old, I'm too old, just over and over and over.

And it's not a little thing that we're discussing here this morning. So this work that we just did inquiry, inquiry. Am I correct? And because I didn't do, I was on orders, I didn't do a ton of research going into this discussion. Are you saying we would, I would repeat this exercise, add infinitum until there's 100% freedom as you. And until you understand what's really going on as you pass a reflection on the glass. I mean, it's our freedom as our birthright. You know, politics can give us that freedom as our birthright. Only we can give us that. And this is taking full responsibility

for what I'm thinking and believing. That's, it is a responsibility. Until then, the way I react is I accuse people. My mind is full of, nanananananana and self-judgment. And it's not a great place to live. You're actually describing my mind, but just to get clear on this, one word or I would repeat this exercise, is that correct? As needed.

And it's nothing you have to do. It's just, you know, you want to be free or not. You know, it's just, and I really did. You know, we talked earlier about panic attacks. Before we started rolling, we were talking about panic attacks. I just don't, you know, if I just want anyone to have to suffer when you and I have experienced in that. Stay tuned more of our conversation is on the way after this. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on page 6 or Du Moir or in court.

I'm Matt Bellasai. And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wonder Woman's new podcast, Diss and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud. From the build-up, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feud say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Britney's fans form the free Brittany movement dedicated to

fring her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. Follow Dissentel wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on Amazon Music or The Wondery App. I was just reading before I was told not to do any research. I did get one, somebody sent me a page from your most recent book, which describes the most

recent book is called A Mind at Home with Itself. And this page describes some of your personal history. It sounded like you went through a really rough patch. Can you describe that? You know, just for more than a decade, I was so depressed and agoraphobic. I could, it was so difficult, those last two years of that, to even leave my bedroom. How old were you at this time? I was 43.

And you were a mom? A mom of a three. For kids, back to six. For kids. For kids. And trying to raise my children and, and, uh, agoraphobic, um, panic attacks, horrible, horrible. It's, it's, uh, I don't want anyone to have to suffer that way.

Substance abuse? Pardon? Substance abuse? Were you using substance? You know, it was substance abuse. It was alcohol. My husband at the time was having, like he was into, like his fourth heart attack. The doctor said, if you smoke, you know, it's going to kill you. And he was still smoking. And so, you know, I was living in a lot of tear raising those children and supporting the family at the same time, just somehow even just doing it by phone.

But we didn't have internet in those days. What was your profession at the time? Mother. I was just good at making money. And I didn't know it at the time. I was terrified. You know, the amount of money never mattered. I was just terrified of not having enough. Did you have any exposure to meditation at this point?

Oh, zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. That was for those people. Other people. Yeah. And I read you two weird people. You ended up in a halfway house and they put you in the attic.

For eating disorder. And because my insurance wouldn't cover what I thought I needed. That is the only thing they would cover. And so I said, yes, I was really desperate and somehow got there. And yes, in the attic, because, oh boy, this is, I don't know, the words seem to, like, I'm stumbling around, but, you know, basically, there were two or three other people there when I arrived, and they were, they were afraid of me. I have no idea why they told me this much later. Did I hear you had a gun or something like that? Well, that was at home in bed just a gun under my pillow. It just sounds crazy, but of course I was crazy. So the mailman was a large brick home, And the mailman was a large brick home, and where he dropped the mail into the house was a brass mail slot.

So he would pick it up, drop the mail in, and then it would fall against the brass, the brass, and I could hear it upstairs. And it would terrify me. It's like he touched my house. I mean, I'm done. I was really wet. So I'm so suicidal. It was difficult to even take a breath.

I'd wake up in the mornings and I just think, oh my God. It's like waking up into hell. And so they said they go along with me being there if they put me in the attic. There was a little room up there. So one day as I lay sleeping on the floor because I was so filled with self-hatred. I didn't believe I deserved a bed to sleep in. So, make perfect sense that I belonged on the floor to me. So, as I lay sleeping actually a cockroach called over my foot, I open my eyes just the way we all do every morning.

I open my eyes and in that moment in time I was shown how my world was created, what created it. And I was, it's like at the time there was no identity. It was like, I woke up so quickly and so startled that there was no identity there. The mind had not had time to catch up with the waking eyes, let's say. And I saw in that moment the caus of all suffering, I was shown. You know, it was like there was no story. I saw, I saw like a ceiling and walls, but I also saw that prior to me, the mind naming that, that basically they didn't exist. We have to name things before we can believe them into being. And I saw sky and window and ceiling and floor and this body was as impersonal as anything

that I was looking at. And so the work, these four questions, an opposite, came out of that moment. I would try to, people wanted to see, you know, they wanted to know what was this radical shift, because even my children didn't recognize me. It was the same body, but I was just unrecognizable to my family. And the shift was just so radical. So they would say, you know, people would say, what happened? And how do I tell something like this? I'm still having difficulty with it. And but I saw how suffering was created and how to end it. And my beliefs, like yours walking by the window,

my beliefs were so ingrained that I use these questions myself to stay awake. And I know there are meditators, there are people in the world that have, you know, just amazing experiences of enlightenment, let's say, of freedom. And but the mind overrides it until we're not in touch with the realization we were in touch with. It's like it's what we're believing over it keeps us from the awareness. But what we become aware of is we do this work. It's always there. So I question anything that overrides it and in this process that you and I looked at. So eventually people began to want to go back a moment.

People would say, you know, what is this? What have you done? And I couldn't tell it. I had no words for it. Words not only diminished it. As you can see now, it confuses even the issue. But I learned to offer people this inquiry and they're taking it in. You know, they're actually using it. And it doesn't take people on a spiritual path. Just anyone whose mind is open to a question can do this work. And so, you know, I know my job. It was given and I'm grateful.

Did you ever have formal meditation training? No. Still to this day. Still to this day. But this work is meditation. That's what it takes. So, yeah. And, you know, Dan, I don't think I've, I don't think I've been out of that meditative state for over 30 years. It's the cockroach. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think it matters.

It's just that on, on, I think that people have a right to know the possibilities of a freer life. So there are two parts of the story that are, I think, at least two parts worth examining. One is the moment with a cockroach on the floor of a halfway house for eating disorders. I know you said words can only confuse it further. So I apologize in advance for trying to elicit more words. But I sat and interviewed Eckhart Toley, the great best-selling spiritual teacher and author. And he told me a similar story of being in distress,

in his apartment, I think, in London, and after years and years of depression and anxiety, and he just had a moment where he had what he calls a spiritual awakening, and then afterwards, he was living on park benches in a state of bliss. And I, as a secular Western materialist, hear a story like that, and I get pretty skeptical. Well, you know, rightfully so. You know, it means we have to wait a lifetime for it and then on our deathbed say, ah, it's not fair, I didn't get it, you know. But that's what I love about this work.

It's for everyone whose mind is open to it. And we're just dealing with our own lives and taking responsibility for the cause of our suffering. We don't need a cockroach. We don't need a cockroach. We don't need a cockroach, mom. Absolutely not. No one has to get as sick as I am on is really my message as I was.

And so really it's, and this was the second part of the question, in your life after that moment, so you had this big moment, you sustained the realization through the continuous use of these questions. It's the true. It's the true. And noticing how I react, what happens when I believe the thought and who I am in that situation without the thought and then try on opposites and it's really just that. It's, it's, it's, you know, when I say, have you ever eaten, have you ever seen a banana, you see, you see an image of that banana in your mind's eye. Yeah. You see an image of that banana in your mind's eye.

So anyone who thinks they've ever seen a banana can do this work. It's just that simple. And it's a way to cut through, tell me if what I'm saying is accurate. It's a way to cut through the stories we're constantly telling ourselves, which are the source of our suffer. And what I would say is a way of understanding the mind. It's how the mind can question itself, how the mind comes to understand itself,

and can rest in itself, and live fearlessly what needs to be lived out. I'm just trying to think if I understand that. Could you say more about what you just said? When I believe my thoughts I suffer, when I question them, I notice I don't, and if I do, I just simply become responsible enough to take care of my own life and the cause of any stress in that. And so getting practical, let's go back to my pretty embarrassing little body dysmorphic factor.

You're describing the world when you're describing the world, you're talking about all of us. And I can have these thoughts about my body, you were talking about your abs. I can have that thought about my, about this body, my body, it just doesn't bother me. It's like a comedy show. So the, the, the, the, the, the mail arrives, but there's nobody taking delivery of it.

Yeah, I'm not attached to it. And that doesn't mean I don't disregard it. The extreme opposite, I honor every thought that wants to happen. I haven't, more than 30 years, I haven't met a thought I haven't loved. How do we love something? We get connected to it. I mean, to understand the cause of the entire of one's entire world is, it's not a little thing and it's a privilege. We can do it.

So, back to the, my, my stuff about the dual self-flodulation around looking old and having a belly, it's when I see that happening the move is to run in that moment to run through the forefaces. No, no, just later on. Oh, yeah. And if you have a specific time that you've set aside for, let's say in the mornings to sit for 10 or 20 minutes, your judgments are written down. And with the form on your website. Yes, that's really helpful. Also, there's a one belief at a time worksheet that walks people through what you and I

just walk through with your body image in the glass. So I can take my 10, 15 minutes of meditation and go through this. Oh, absolutely. Or even part of it. There's no, there's no question here that, that isn't, that doesn't give just radical insight to an open mind. So you talked before about a hundred percent freedom. That is a big claim. Well, I could only claim that in the moment. I mean, what else is there? It's not a hundred percent freedom in every moment going forward.

You know, I could say so far so good for you. Uh-huh. But I can't note the future. For all I know, something's going to completely stress me out. I'm wide open to it, just unfinished business. But for the rest of us, 100% freedom, is that really on the menu? You know, it's nothing I suggest. I just say start with what hurts and it helps us ease up enough to change the diapers without stress and do the dishes.

And all it takes to start moving down this road is the 10 to 15 minutes a day of working of sitting in an open mind with these questions. You know, I find it very intriguing. Before we we close, because I'm sensitive to your time, can you have this new book, A Mind At Home With Itself? What is there stuff in there that we haven't covered in this discussion? Yes, there's a lot of what people refer to as, I don't know, I think it's really far out for a beginner, and I have to share it because it's my experience. So there's the book, but I think for a beginner, loving what is my first book.

Okay, so you would recommend for a beginner to go back to that, but loving what is. And even before that, I would honestly recommend my website sitting with you today, but it's so, you know, I've been able to put it in writing so simply, so clearly that that's what I suggest. So if I was your publisher, I'd be annoyed at you, but basically what you're saying is go print these worksheets out from your website for free and just do that. Well, you know, my job is the end of suffering. I've been given a gift and that's priority and that's my job here. Not selling books.

You know, selling books is great, you know, but you know, this is a funny topic. I hope my publisher well understood before they published the book, what my job is. And in fact, before publishing, I said with everyone in that publishing house to the executives from the top to the bottom, maybe 12, 16 people there, and everyone had to do the work. And the publisher did the work himself before I sold the book. And I don't sell my books to publishers that don't understand it. My last publisher for a mind at home, this was not for him.

We did the work on his father, actually, and blew his mind. But he had a judge and neighbor worksheet prepared. And I think that was the in the mirror and any difference that you do experience, because the mind would tell us, you know, I'm going to believe the same thing when I pass. But, you know, who knows? Is there anything I should have asked you but didn't? You know, also, I'm on YouTube. I'm trying to think, you know, what is... And I have an app, I think it's 99 cents or $1.99 or something,

that it's nothing more than the judge or neighbor worksheet and and one belief at a time worksheet and my voice supporting people all the way through as we've done today. Let's just kind of walking through walking people through the work. What's the name of the app? The work. Okay. I really appreciate you doing the work with me and I'm telling you right now I will give it a shot and a more extended way because it seems like that is important. Well, I certainly invite you to it. That's that's that's for sure. It's a joy to sit with you this morning. Thank you. Thanks again to Byron Katie. I just want to make a quick announcement before we get to the voicemails. You are going to notice an aesthetic change on this podcast pretty soon. We are changing our icon. We're going to be using some of the look and feel of the new color palette and imagery on the 10% happier app. And we're going to start spelling the name of the podcast differently so we're

going to spell it out as TEN, PR, CNT instead of using 1,0 percent sign. So that's coming up in a couple of weeks. I just don't want you to be shocked when you see it. All right, let's do some voicemails. Hi Dan, this is Amelia from New Zealand. Festival thank you for TEMpercy and Tep happier. It's really helped me on my meditation journey. Secondly, I actually just had something I was wondering about really is you talked about in the book how you had, when you went to a retreat, this amazing experience.

It seemed like you were euphoric after meditation and you're wondering around seeing theories and unicorns basically. And I wondered, is that happened again? And when can I speak this to happen to me? Okay, thanks a lot, bye. Okay, and there were no, just to be clear, no fairies, no unicorns.

I did, however, have an amazing experience, use the word euphoric. And I think that's probably in the right neighborhood. I have a lot to say about your question. Let me just buy, if, for those of you are unfamiliar with what she's referencing. In the book, 10% happier, I wrote about my first meditation retreat.

It was a 10-day silent meditation retreat out in California. And I hated it intensely. Really hated it for days. And was really struggling against all of it. Thought I was wasting my time. I hated everybody around me. I thought I was getting nowhere, doing it wrong, a lot of physical pain, a lot of boredom.

And the four or five days in, I kind of gave up and stopped trying so hard, and that's when the practice really opened up for me and I was able to really click in to the present moment. I think I described it as the first couple of days of the retreat was kind of like I was being dragged by a motorboat by my head. And then on day four or five, when I had a little bit of a breakthrough, it was like I got up on water skis. And it was really incredible.

It was kind of dragged kicking and screaming into the right now. And yeah, it was, as I wrote, it was accompanied by a big blast of serotonin. It just felt great. And I realized how much of my life I'm walking around in autopilot, stuck in projection or rumination, and instead I was really enjoying things as they were, which it turns out is extraordinarily pleasing when done in the right circumstances and in the right way. So, yeah, that was quite dramatic.

And you asked, when can I expect that to happen to me? I think that it's close to a verbatim repetition of what you said. I know for sure you use the word expect. And let me say this, expectations I have learned the hard way are the most noxious thing you can bring to the meditation party. Expectation is just another way of saying the word desire or wanting something to be a certain way. And that is a right there in the words of the Buddha, a hindrance to meditation. Meditation is like this weird video game where you can't move forward if you want to move forward. You have to kind of put yourself into this kind of position of neutral in order to make

quote unquote progress, but you can't trick yourself or fake it into neutrality. And now here, by the way, I'm talking mostly about meditation in the context of a retreat, although it is true off retreat too, but many of us get on retreat myself included and we really want something to happen. I have a friend one of my colleagues at 10% happier, Duran, one of our engineers, super smart guy, and he just finishes first 10 day meditation retreat. I'm fully debriefed with him on how it went, but going in he was really worried that nothing was going to happen. And I was explaining to him that that's a little bit of a recipe for trouble, although also kind of unavoidable. We are many of us type A folks and we want to win at meditation. And I have found over and over on retreat that the only way for that to happen

is for me to go through the cycle of wanting it so badly and then finally giving up. Or as my meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein has said to me many times at key moments in retreat on retreat rather surrender. And by which he doesn't mean, you know, like surrender all of my money to him, he just means stop trying so hard. And it is always after that four or five days of me punching myself out and just running myself ragged that when I give up for real that I have had many times very interesting experiences. So the good news is those experiences are there to be had as far as I can tell. The bad news is expecting them to happen seems to rule them out. Yeah, so hope that answers the question. I hope that doesn't sway you from going deeper into meditation.

I found that as painful as this cycle is, it's 1,000% worth it. Let's do voicemail number two. Hi, Dan. This is Linda in Washington, DC. I am a teacher, and I teach elementary school and I teach mindfulness and conflict resolution and social-emotional learning. And I have been very successful in teaching loving kindness or I call it school heartfulness with my elementary school students.

But I've just recently gotten a request to write a curriculum for a new middle school. And as much as I want to include loving kindness in the curriculum, I'm nervous about how to present the, not some of the concepts, but the language to kids in middle school. These are going to be mostly kids of color and some English language learners, mostly lower income.

And I know from talking to teachers that culturally this whole thing is going to be a little bit foreign to most of the kids and to many of the teachers. So the usual kind of may you be happy, language I think is maybe going to be off-putting. And I know that you have been writing about this and thinking about this I guess for your next book. And I'm just wondering if you had come across language that was more relatable and more comfortable, maybe for older kids or for adults who like you I I guess, are a bit allergic to the heart talk. I would love to hear any thoughts you had on that. And as always, I thank you so much for everything you mean so much to me and your work has

helped me enormously and helped me to help a lot of kids too. Thank you. Bye. Thank you so much. And good on you for doing the work you're doing. I think you're probably making a massive difference in the lives of these children. I don't know that I have a silver bullet for you. Let me just say a bunch of stuff and hopefully somewhere in there is a somewhat useful nugget.

I also have some input from my colleague Ray Hausman, who's much more highly trained meditation teacher than I am. So, it's often said, you know, in meta-meditation or loving-kindness meditation, classically, we repeat these phrases like, may you be happy, may you be safe, may you be healthy, may you live with ease. It's often been said that you can make up your own phrases. I don't I've never heard anybody come up I've never heard any different phraseology that that doesn't mean there isn't It just means that I have never heard it myself But I think you can start to play around with that perhaps and maybe even work with the kids to come up with

different ways to language The this kind of well-wishing You might want to go back and listen to, I've had George Mumford on the show before, and he's had a lot of luck teaching meditation and compassion to athletes, including folks in the NBA, and Sharon Salzburg once asked him, how do you talk to NBA stars about compassion? And his answer was, I just say, don't be Hayton. So that's just, you know, he's somebody that might be worth investigation. But the real answer in my mind is not so much to tweak the phrases, but to tweak the way you're teeing the whole thing up. Because what worked for me personally,

in terms of adopting this, of adopting this practice that I found to be deeply off-putting and annoying and saccharine was to have it explained that it works, that there is science behind this and that people I respect do this on the regular and get a lot out of it. And so it might be worth researching practitioners of meta or loving kindness to whom your students can relate, which will allow them to have an open mind when you get down to the practice. That's just a thought that comes to mind as I consider your conundrum. I think it's also useful to let you hear a little

bit of what my colleague Ray Hausman had to say about this. Her point was that it's first of all it's great that you're getting curious about making this practice accessible to people in different communities. But her thought was that we might have to be careful about assuming that so-called heart-centric language will be off-putting to folks. And in terms of a resource, she recommended, and I wish I had thought of this, the Holistic Life Foundation, which is based in Baltimore, Maryland, Oli Smith, who is one of the co-founders of HLF, has been on the show. She can go back and listen to him. He and his brother, Atman and their friend Andy founded HLF

and the brief story is that they, many years ago, went into some of the toughest schools in a very tough city, Baltimore, and said, give us your most problematic children. And they then taught those kids how to do yoga and meditation. And they have had extraordinary results. And what's very powerful now is that, as that program has scaled to many, many more schools, the people doing the teaching are the children

who took the course initially. And so it's very powerful to have Ray makes this point. It's very powerful for students to be learning from people who look and sound like them. So I think that's an excellent point. And I think the HLF might be a good place for you to investigate for ways to approach this kind of practice. And one other point that Ray makes that I agree with is that what HLF does that is particularly useful is they combine the yoga. You may already be doing this, but having some movement in there can be useful.

All right, I hope something in there was useful for you. Again, good on you for doing this work. It's super important. Big thanks to everybody involved in putting this show together, Ryan Kessler, my ace producer, also Samuel Johns, and Grace Livingston, and our podcast insiders who every week shower us with useful, and sometimes tough feedback, but also always useful. And thanks to you for listening. We'll be back soon with a guided meditation from Sharon Salisberg that we're going to post in the podcast feed and of course a new episode every Wednesday. Talk to you soon. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon Music app today,

or you can listen early in at 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.