Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 210: Meditation, Therapy, and "Murderous Rage", Dr. Susan Pollak

Episode Date: October 23, 2019

Dr. Susan Pollak found refuge in meditation at a young age, introduced to it by a family member. Describing herself as an anxious and neurotic kid, she noticed how meditation offered her some relief. Pollak has remained fascinated with meditation ever since. She earned degrees in comparative religion and psychology, becoming a psychologist, and for decades she has been integrating the practice of mediation into psychotherapy. In her new book, “Self-Compassion for Parents,” she explains why parents need to care for themselves first in order to provide the best care for their children. For those short on time, she’s created meditation practices that take just a few minutes and she explains how even small moments of mindfulness can make a big difference. Plug Zone The Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy: http://meditationandpsychotherapy.org/ Center for Mindfulness and Compassion: https://www.chacmc.org/ The Art of Now Blog: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-art-now Website: https://www.drsusanpollak.com/ Self-Compassion for Parents: https://www.amazon.com/Self-Compassion-Parents-Nurture-Caring-Yourself/dp/1462533094 Additional Books: https://www.drsusanpollak.com/books.php Addiction-Related Judson Brewer, MD, PhD (Habit Change): https://www.brown.edu/public-health/mindfulness/people/judson-brewer-md-phd G. Alan Marlatt (Addictive Behaviors): http://depts.washington.edu/abrc/marlatt.htm Jessica Morey Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (iBme): https://ibme.com/ Ten Percent Happier Podcast Insiders Feedback Group https://10percenthappier.typeform.com/to/vHz4q4 ***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. For ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey gang, want to start with a quick shout out to the product and engineering team at the 10% happier app. They've just added a new dark mode theme to the app. It's available on your iOS and your Android version that reduces

the brightness so that if you're meditating early in the morning or in your evenings, that makes the experience more soothing for your eyes. I did it for the app and then I did it for my whole phone. I actually really like it. So go check that out and if you haven't tried the app, don't forget we've got a free seven day trial. You can do it anytime. All right, let's get to this week's episode. Our guest is Susan Pollock. She's interesting for so many reasons. She's a psychologist in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She's been meditating and doing yoga for many, many years. She's also the co-founder and a teacher at the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion at Harvard Medical School. There are two big themes here

that we explore. One is the overlap between meditation and therapy and how those two can work in concert. She is a therapist who also talks about and teaches meditation to her patients. And this is the other theme we explore. She is just written a book about self-compassion for parents. I was a little worried about leaning too hard into the parenting angle here because some of you may not be parents, but she goes pretty deep into the fact that her self-compassion practices, which are designed for parents, can be used by anyone. So in some ways, you can think about this episode as a kind of bonus to the ongoing self-compassion series we've

been doing for the past couple of weeks. So, we talk about working with shame as a parent. We talk about working with murderous rage. We talk about what to do when your kids have an attempt to tantrum. We also talk about snowplow parenting. So, a lot here. Here we go. Susan Pollock. All right.

Thanks for doing this. My pleasure. Good to be here. Thank you. As you know, I ask everybody how they got into meditation. I know in your case it started young. Really young. And it's kind of a colorful story. So this was mid-60s. I was in elementary school. And my aunt, Faye, who was an a journalist in New York, was sent on assignment to cover the first

Swami Guru who opened in Ashram, which is a spiritual center in New York. And she went to meditate, learn meditation yoga, and it really spoke to her. So over the summer when she came to visit her sister, my mother, she taught us all to meditate and yoga. And there was something about it that really clicked for me. And as you can imagine, I've spent a lot of time thinking about that, just because as I teach meditation, try to talk to people about meditation, I

think what was it that was powerful for me? And I grew up in a pretty intense environment, a lot of competition, a lot of striving. And as kind of an erotic kid, it's slightly anxious, I had migraines. And what worked for me about meditation was I felt like it was a refuge. I felt like I could relax. I didn't feel sharp journalist was always interested in the next hot story or the next new idea. So every school vacation that I could, I'd go to visit, and there was always some new teacher, guru, and these were some of the really wonderful teachers in the 60s and 70s, who came through town. So I got to sit with Ramdas and Krishna Murdi and study and sit with Zen Masters and Sufi Masters and Sikhs and do retreats. So for me, it was a perfect training to become a scholar

in comparator for religion. So that's what you did before you became a head shrink? A shrink, yeah. Yeah, so I had a degree in comparative religion and then went to our Divinity School continued my interest in comparative religion. There was one course that I really loved that was taught by the theologian Harvey Cox, called comparative monasticism. He took us on retreats in every tradition. So there was a Christian retreat in Benedictine monastery.

There was a Buddhist retreat with Larry Rosenberg, who you were talking about the other day with Narayan. There was a retreat at Shambhava. So we got to experience deep meditation in many different traditions. And I would have gone on to become a scholar, even though I wasn't a very good linguist, I would have forced myself to learn, you know,

the Sanskrit and the German and the Tibetan that I needed. But what pivoted me out of religion other than the fact that there were no jobs. I mean, it's not exactly at the thriving market. When I find fysers, in fact, it's used and I know you really love this and you're good at it. And if you're independently wealthy, great. But if you need to make a living, do something

else. So at that point, I'd gotten myself into therapy for yourself and in some ways following mindfulness meditation that early made me a bit of an outlier. So I remember I don't know if you had show-and-tell in elementary school, but I remember going to doing show-and-tell I think I was in fifth or sixth grade and at that point my aunt had taken me to hear Swami Satchananda And he was this incredibly charismatic teacher long-flowing, air-bearing. And we'd gone into the center, and there was incense,

and people were dancing, and singing. And there was this incredible sense of joy that I certainly didn't get going to temple. And I remember in show and tell talking about this experience and describing the rickety steers and the old building, the incense and the dancing, going to temple with your family, with my family. Okay. Suburban Jewish family. I know the bacon model. Yeah. Yeah. Similar.

So I remember talking about Swami Satcharandandha, and he has a saying that was a very popular poster in the 70s, which is you can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. And it's a picture of the Ramy Sachinanda on a surfboard with a big wave, just still calm and smiling. So anyway, I tell my elementary school class, and one kid turns around, screws up her nose and says, Susan, you are weird. So it kept it very quiet. And it's dramatic actually.

Well, you know, years of therapy. So anyway, I became interested in psychology and also at that point, and this is a longer conversation, there are a number of scandals. And I, as there's still a lot of evidence. Within, and not just within any, I'm almost every spiritual community. And I thought, what is going on here?

And that got me very interested in human psychology. You know, why are these teachers who are supposedly enlightened behaving like this? Well, that's a question I've put to many people who sat in your chair, many podcast guests, many prior guests. Why do allegedly enlightened teachers do such horrible things? It because clearly they're not enlightened or is enlightenment not what we think? Well, no simple answer, and I'm someone who likes evidence. So I have worked with a lot of people who've been abused. I do a lot of trauma work.

But I haven't really sat with a spiritual teacher who's been abusive. So I don't want to answer that without evidence. But one of the things that has guided me, and this was a saying that a friend who was a rabbi told me, and actually he said this was from his grandmother, we were having a conversation about abuse in so many religious circles. And he said, well, you know what my grandmother says? And I said, what? And he said, she says, the bigger the front, the bigger the back.

So anyway, this is a longer conversation, but I think there's so many unmet needs that people have so many wounds. And often people who go on the world stage have something they need to prove. And also I think it's true that absolute power corrupts absolutely and people start abusing their students. Yeah, but if you're enlightened, if you've gone through, if decades of meditation in a cave or anywhere, really, and you've trained your mind not to be so susceptible to greed, hatred, and delusion, that, to me me is what's hard to compute.

Exactly. And I'm totally with you on that. And there are stories about these enlightened monks who've been meditating in a cave for decades and then come up into the stream of life and human longings and human desires. So it may be that it's harder to extinguish greed, hatred, and illusion than we thought. But I'd like to think of that as an open question. I think we really don't know. But it's certainly worth studying. Does it make you think, well, why are we meditating in the first place? Well, I have gone through those periods where I've been in a group, there's been some sort of scandal, and I think, what am I doing? And there've been times when I've taken a sabbatical.

doing, and there have been times when I've taken a sabbatical. And then there's something that brings me back to the practice. And what it is is that we're all so human, we're all fallible, we all make mistakes. And the teachings are good. You know, the teachings are good. You know, the teachings are powerful. And I had not expected after a number of scandals to come back. But there's something so enduring about the wisdom of the teachings that the human behavior didn't ultimately didn't stay with me. There's a school of therapy, I don't know if you've heard of it, called internal family systems. No.

Started by a wonderful therapist named Richard Schwartz. And one of the things he postulates, since this has helped me understand it, is that we all have parts. So rather than the Freudian model of the psyche being like an onion with layers, he speaks of a homie image of a clove of garlic. So we all have different parts. And I'd like to think, well, there are some parts of us that are needy, that are hurt, that need to control others. And there are other parts that aren't like that. And there's a saying, again, that's helped me, which is, I'm

not perfect, but there are parts of me that are excellent. So I've tried to stay with and you know in my early 60s now and this has been a 50-year journey, I've tried to stay with what is excellent about teachers. And I've also been very careful to find teachers who have high ethical standards like Jack Cornfield, Sharon Salzburg, Joseph Goldstein. Yes, many of them are my teachers. I just on the subject of doubt in the practice as a consequence of people who have been practicing for years, acting like complete idiots. I noticed this week, just for a variety of reasons, I was unable to do the amount of practice I normally do

because things got busy for me. this week, just for a variety of reasons, I was unable to do the amount of practice I normally do because things got busy for me. And I don't know if there's a causal relationship between what happened next, which is a few things happened at work, at one of my two jobs that were stressful. And I started, I was having like a 24 to 48 hour period of feeling really anxious. It was just sort of off. And I started, I was having like a 24 to 48 hour period

of feeling really anxious. It was just sort of off. And I sat yesterday for a good 40 minutes and I felt better. Yeah. And I was like, oh yeah, this thing that I'm telling everybody that you should do, it actually works.

It actually does. It's not like magic. It was just where I like, I kind of metabolized the anxiety. Then the issues weren't magically solved is more just like I wasn't feeling as racy as I was going into the session exactly and that I think is the beauty of the practice that you can always start again even if you've gone off track even if you haven't meditated even if you've had a hard day,

you can always come back. And that's what keeps us going. It's like, okay, hard day, no problem. Let me start again. Now in your work as a psychiatrist, psychologist, you worked with, as you said before, people have been traumatized in spiritual communities. Did you work with more garden variety patients as well? Oh, totally garden variety. So, I started with a classical training, which was psychodynamic, psychoanalytic, and then I learned a lot of the newer therapies. And then one of the things I've been doing since the mid-1980s is trying to bring meditation into psychotherapy. Well, that's where I was going with this.

So tell me about that. Does that work? Because I've had an hour of mutual friend on the show, Dr. Mark Epstein, several times. He's written a bunch of books, beautiful books, about the overlap between psychology and Buddhism. But he actually does not usually bring meditation into the therapy room. And in fact, his last book was all about his reticence.

So you, however, actually do do it. And so I'm just interested in, are these two great tastes that taste great together, or are there conflicts? How does it go? Well, again, some people like these two great tastes together, sort of like pretzels and salt, and other people go, nope, nope, not for me, I just want to talk.

So I like to see what people need, but the... This is an interesting story, so because I'd had, when I started graduate school in psychology, at that point, you know, 30, almost 30 years, 25, 30 years of meditation experience, I was sitting with a person and they were depressed or anxious and whatever I did was wrong. So you know you sometimes have those experiences where not only do you feel like an absolute idiot, but the person lets you know that indeed you are an absolute idiot. This happens every time I'm with my son.

Yeah, Exactly. Well, and you know, that's way to you. Way to reason that a lesson. So I was sitting with this person and whatever I did was wrong, whatever I said was wrong. And then I thought, okay, let me take a breath here. What would help? And then I thought, okay, when I'm feeling like this, I turn to this practice of breathing, for example, or just settling or grounding. Let me see if I can try this with my patient. And I tried it, and it worked, and helped. And it shifted the conversation.

So the person was sort of less combative with me, and we were able to work. And I thought, oh, what if I can use these practices that I've been collecting over decades in my meditation practice? And it was almost like I was taking notes as I sat with different teachers and it felt like there was something precious about the practices they were imparting. But,

you know, I'm careful. I didn't want to do anything on ethical. So I asked one of my supervisors, can I talk to you about bringing, at this point we called it meditation, we didn't call it mindfulness, can I talk to you about bringing meditation into my therapy? And we're going to give you my best, snottiest Harvard accent. And she looked at me, basically freezing me with her eyes and said, Susan, you can do anything you want behind closed doors, but I will not supervise you. And I felt like what I was doing was really somewhat taboo.

So again, I got very quiet about what I was doing. And then luckily, I met a group of people who were very interested in doing similar things. And we started talking and working together and holding conferences and writing books. And the first book that came out was a very solid book called Mindfulness and Psychotherapy. It's now in its second edition.

And then with some other colleagues, I really wrote a guide to bringing mindfulness into psychotherapy. And that's called Sitting Together. And well, ostensibly, it's a guide for clinicians. It's really something that anyone can use. And it's a compilation of the practices that I've been collecting since I was in elementary school.

It seems like there are at least two ways one could combine these two great tastes. One is if you've got a shrink who's willing to teach you how to meditate. I don't know how common that is. I think it's increasingly common. The other is to be a person who both goes to therapy and meditates. What about that combination? Well, I've been doing that for decades as well. and I find my own therapy is very helpful in terms of keeping me clear and staying on top of

my greed, my hatred, my delusion, my desires. So I think both combinations are important. I like to work with people, for example, who want to learn mindfulness practices. A lot of people don't, but sometimes people come in and say, oh, I'm really struggling with this issue where my mother has cancer or I'm going through divorce or my teenage kids are driving me crazy. What can I do? And often I like to teach them equanimity practice or maybe some loving kindness if they're very angry with someone or just basic concentration.

So part of it is knowing what practice fits the person and how to tailor it. And often it's trial and error because the research is really new. So sometimes I'll try practice and someone will say, oh, thanks, you know, that was really good. And other times people say, yeah, it didn't work for me. So what I've been trying to do when I have a lot of this in the new book is come up with short practices that are accessible to everyone. So what can you do in three to five minutes when you're having a hard day, when you're sleep deprived,

when you just had a fight with the boss or a fight with your kid or fight with your partner. What can help you get back on track? Well, let's dive into that. So tell us about the new book. So this book is called Self-compassion for Parents, and it's nurture your child by caring for yourself. And I don't think you've had any self-compassion people on the podcast, have you? We haven't posted yet. So, Kristen Neff, who is the sort of grandmother, although she's too young to be a grandmother, grandmother of

self-compassion research at the University of Texas was in here recently and maybe we'll have posted by the time your interview posted. Okay fabulous. So Christian has done extraordinary research and this book really builds on the work of Kristen and Kris Grimer. And together, they've put together this eight-week program on mindful self-compassion. Yeah, Kris Grimer is at Harvard. Yeah, so we're good friends.

You know, before we dive in, I was having a conversation with Joseph Goldstein before my meditation teacher. He and I were talking about the fact that we need a better term than self-compassion It feels like vaguely auto erotic or He didn't say that I say it Or or just maybe a little schmupi a little we gooey. What what can we call this?

I'm I'm with you. So a lot of people don't like it. Dan Seagull. I don't know if you've had him on the show yet It doesn't like it. He's also been on but hasn't we haven't posted it so you're identifying a lot of people don't like it. Dan Siegel, I don't know if you've had him on the show yet. Doesn't like it. He's also been on, but hasn't, we haven't posted it, so you're identifying a lot of the... He likes to use the word inner compassion. That's a little, Ui-Gui. You know, you're gonna laugh, but one thing I think is helpful is talking about being 10% kinder.

Yeah. You know, to yourself. To yourself. And languageing is so important. A lot of people don't like the word compassion. They misunderstand it. And Kristen tells a funny story where she was interviewed by the Times about her new program on self-compassion. And one of the comments was, oh great, just what we need, a nation of whims.

So people misunderstand it. So I agree with you, it has bad PR. Yeah, I mean, it's really just like not being a jerk to yourself. Yeah, not beating yourself up. Not being yourself up in a way that, by the way, makes you not only less happy, but also less effective, less available. Exactly. I have to use the term going easy with the internal cattle prod.

It's not very catchy. Well, or just telling that inner critic to chill out. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's t telling that inner critic to chill out. Yes. Yes. Yes, it's taming the inner critic. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Sometimes I'd like, because a lot of clients, as you can imagine, don't like the term, find it,

ooey gooey. And I say, well, can you tell that inner critic to kind of take a break, chill out, go on vacation? The other way to think of it is maybe putting some daylight between you and the inner critic who's saying, oh, damn, you're such an idiot. You're so stupid. You really screwed that up. I'm working on this book about kindness, as you know, and there's a chapter in there

about self-compassion or whatever it is we're going to call it but I just think about calling the chapter me comma a love story. I just can't find any other way to make fun of the thing. I mean it's really powerful and I think the prerec for actual like outward-facing facing compassion, sustainable out of facing compassion. A sustainable out of a facing compassion But it just that if you if you go in loaded for bear with the self compassion some people can't hear it Exactly. So you use words that people can hear Yes, that's my that's my oh, I have no original ideas. I just Relanguage things mostly using the F-bomb a lot. Yeah. Can I tell you a good story that I use as a guide?

And in some ways, this has been told as a Dharma story I've heard it in meditation circles. So, turns out, and this may be apocryphal, I don't know, but supposedly many years ago, when the Brits colonized India, they wanted to keep their golf courses, because they loved playing golf. But the problem was the monkeys, and they didn't know what to do about the monkeys. The monkeys in India, they will mug you. They will, yeah, they will climb all over you. So they got together and said, okay, what are we going to do about these monkeys? It's making it hard to

play golf. So one person said, okay, I have an idea. Let's build a fence. So they build a fence build a fence. So they build a fence, or well, around the course, and the monkeys climbed over. It says, like, okay, this isn't working. What else do we do? And then someone else said, okay, I have an idea. Let's cart up all the monkeys and bring them to another forest. So they gathered the monkeys, they carted them up, they drove them away. Guess what? The monkeys came back. And then finally they said, okay, what are we gonna do?

We really wanna play golf. And so what said, I have a good idea. Let's play the ball, where the monkey drops it. So I've used that as a metaphor like, okay, how can I be in the moment see where things are, see what's happening rather than the way I want things to be. But I was thinking you were going to say they just decided to feed the monkeys, so they left them alone. That would have been the compassionate way to do it. Well, I love that. That's not how I heard the story, but that's what we call a reframe

of let's feed the monkeys. But the other way to think about it is the monkeys also want to play. Yeah, right. Right. Right. You know, so it could be let's feed the monkeys, let's change the rules, let's let the monkeys play and not be so uptight about it. And an analogous story I heard from a teacher named, I think his name is Matthew Danielle. Oh yeah. I was on a retreat years ago. He's great. He's eight or nine years ago heard him talk. And I don't know him. And he was telling a story, if I hold Matthew a few, or listening, I hope I'm getting this right, that he had a special tent he set up in the backyard

to meditate and did not want to be bothered, but they had cats who were clawing at the tent, driving him crazy, like rolling underneath, and really trying to get in. And he thought it, and thought, and thought it and thought it finally just let the cats in. And what happened when he let the cats in was they curled up on the corner. Right. And maybe fell asleep. In many ways, that's a variation on a classic Buddhist tale.

And you've probably heard the story where there's a Buddhist master and he's trying to meditate. And demons or monsters come into the cave and he tries to get them out and introduce them away and yells at them. It's them. And finally he says, this isn't working. What would happen if I invite them to tea? So that's very much like your story of feeding them.

And that's also a good metaphor for our inner experience, like rather than yelling at ourselves. What would happen if we extend a little kindness toward ourselves? And the metaphor that the image that Christian Net uses is, what would you say to your best friend, who's having a similar situation? Would you say, oh, you are so stupid, you idiot. Keep screwing up your life, what is wrong with you? No, you'd say, oh, I understand that's really hard. And Christian has, Christian and Chris Grimmer, have this practice that I love, which works

for just about everyone in a difficult situation. You don't need to be a parent. It could be any difficult situation, wife. Call it a self-compassion break. And it's basically three steps. It's first step is sort of mindful and as acknowledging that this is hard. The word, the language she uses, this is a moment of suffering.

A lot of the people I work with don't like the word suffering. So again, use a word that works. Like, this is a tough moment. This hurts. You know, this is uncomfortable. And then the second point is really acknowledging what's happening, like, and acknowledging what Christian call common humanity. Yeah, you know, this is the human condition.

I'm not alone in having a difficult job right now, or having a boss who doesn't treat me well, or having a partner who doesn't understand me. So yeah, I'm not alone with this. And often just feeling like there are a million other people right now who are in a very similar situation. It makes you feel like, this is life and then the third point is you know maybe content myself and sometimes people like what we call soothing

touch which is putting a hand on the heart or hand on the heart and belly boy but a lot of people don't like that oh no and I've had people in classes who go no I'm not doing that or I who go, no, I'm not doing that. Or I'm not doing this. Or I'm not doing that. She's hugging herself. You're a hands crossed. You're just touching your face.

Yeah, it's like, no, I'm not going to do that. So again, you find out what works. You find out where has the monkey dropped the ball. What do I need right now? So rather than saying, may I be conned to myself, you can just say, okay, you know, what is it that I need right now? Or what would help right now?

So again, you make the question work for you because a lot of people don't like Uigui. Yeah, you're talking to one of them. I know. It's no problem another phrase that my friend jeff warren is a meditation teacher in canada i wrote a book with him and he he

he's been on the public's many times he's he's a regular uh... he's also on the apple ought to he uses the phrase it's okay uh... that's hard to argue with yeah and other teachers just say, this is it? This is the way things are. Narayan, who you just, who was listening to recently, you, Orion Liebenson, who I've studied with for about 20 years, will often have people say, okay, just be with this, just this,

nothing more, just this. This is the way things are. But that's more mindfulness than self-compassion, right? So just, correct me if I'm wrong here, but so I compare to you, especially in newbie in meditation, but I think of just this as a little phrase that would tune you into whatever's happening right now, which is a mindfulness exercise, but we're talking about self-compassion. So in self-compassion,

it's often about sending phrases of caring, right? So isn't that different than, you know, may I be free from suffering? Well, I like to think of as mindfulness as the foundation of compassion. And that's an analogy that John Kappitzin uses. Like mindfulness is the foundation of compassion. And that's an analogy that John Kabat's in uses. Like, mindfulness is the foundation of the house, and then we build on that. So if there isn't some awareness, it's really hard to add any compassion, like, yeah, okay.

This is hard, you know? And let me be with it. You can add some warmth to that, or this is the way it is. Some people, again, it's nothing works for everyone. Everyone has a different way of taking it in. So I've had some people who get angry with the, okay, this is, this is okay. Because look, oh no, it's not okay. So again, it's finding the words that speak to you. What about you've got this? Some people like you've got this. That tends to be one that

I like. But other people say, no, I don't have it. My life is falling apart. How dare you tell me I have this. You know, my world is hell. So one of the things that is helpful is asking people, what do you need to hear? What are the words that really make you feel grounded and centered that come for you. That could be the equivalent. You don't have to do this. Put your hands on your heart. Or your friends saying, you're a good man. Yeah. I mean, it could be one of the classic, and these are Louis-Louis, but it could be one of the classic, my loving kindness phrases of, you know know may I be free from suffering

yeah because that acknowledges that you are suffering but again it's problematic because some people don't like the word suffering and may I be free from suffering sounds like a little bit like a bizarre world hallmark card so I can see why people wouldn't like that either but yeah I think the bottom line is come up with the phrase theology that works for you and that's one of the things I love about the mindful self-compassion course that Chris and Chris put together on one of the teachers is there's a chance to rather than use the wrote loving-kindness phrases, you know, may be free from danger or may have mental happiness,

may have physical happiness, you know, may love myself completely. If people go, yeah, yeah, yeah, you come up with the phrases that really speak to you. Which is different than the traditional, row, classical phrases, which are wonderful, but again, don't work for everyone. So I'd like to try to make it really accessible. Just as I like the practices to be accessible. So that's one of the practices in the book, which is if you're having a bad moment,

in the context of your book, it's a bad moment with your kid. But if you're having a bad moment in any context for any human being, kidless or apparent, you can do these three steps of first just noticing that something sucks right now, or this is a moment of suffering. Two is to realize like everybody has bad days no matter how golden your life may appear on the outside. And three, which again, the air rates your own stress because you're connecting it to the fact that you're part of a homo sapiens and we all suffer. And you don't feel so victimized. Right or alone at least.

And the third is to give yourself some sort of Sucker, you know, like whether it's if you're up for it, give yourself a hug or Put your hand on your heart or your hand on your face or if you're like me and you're you know, like whether it's if you're up for it, give yourself a hug or put your hand on your heart or your hand on your face, or if you're like me and you're emotionally unavailable in Stinji, you can say something like, it's okay, or this sucks, but you can handle it,

that kind of thing. That's the first, so just recapping where we are. That's the first practice that we're talking about from your book. What are the other practices in your book? Well, the book is full of it and let me just add one more thing on it. One, one other thing I like and you can tell I've worked on variations for years is just saying to yourself, I'm listening. I'm here for you. I have your back. I hear you. Doesn't that feel a little schizophrenic?

I'm here for you. I have your back. I hear you. Doesn't that feel a little schizophrenic? Who's the, who are you talking to if you're talking to yourself? Who's doing the talking? Who's listening? Well, you know, again, we can think of that model of parts, but you can reach out to perhaps the part of you that feels anxious or worried. And just say, look, I'm here for you. It's interesting, you say this, because I've been working with another recent guest on the show named Jerry Kelona, who's a sort of celebrated corporate coach in the tech world mostly. And Jerry's been working with me and some other folks at the 10% happier company and

He's also practicing Buddhist Very interesting guy and he talks about sort of identifying your various inner hob goblins and you know giving them names Which is not he's not the only person who does this Jeff Warren the aforementioned Jeff Warren does this too and Sharon Salisberg Yeah, yes Sharon Salisberg talks about naming your inner critic She fact she hasn't a meditation on the 10% happier app that's all about that. And you know, Jerry's argument, and again, he's not alone. And this, but he's in my head because I talked to him a lot, is you know, hug the hub, gobbling.

You know, like when, in my case, my stern, dismissive stubborn, nasty voice, both internally directed and externally directed is Robert Johnson, my grandfather, who raised his family not far from where you grew up on the North Shore of Massachusetts. It's like, all right, Robert, stand down. Or like, the war is over. You know, I see you, I hear you, here's I-5 for you, you were doing your job, you're trying to protect me in some warped way, but you're not needed right now.

Yeah, and that's exactly right, because in psychological theory, we think of these parts as protectors. So the more you can say, thank you, Grandpa, you're doing your job, you've done it really well. But, you know, you can get a vacation right now, you can chill out, you can stand back. And often just creating that space feels like, oh, thank God. And one of the techniques that they teach is to really acknowledge these difficult protector parts and say, yeah, thank you. You've been trying to help me and protect me, so don't screw up. I see that, thanks.

And then suddenly, it's a little easier. What an area where it's useful for me is that I have a lot of shame around the protector parts, or in particular, Robert Johnson, because I've done some dumbest, meanest stuff when he's taken over the show. So I feel very guilty, defensive, shameful about that. And Jerry's reframing is, look, he was trying to meet some need for you, or you were trying to meet some need when you're in this mode. Yeah.

Some ancient primordial, five-year-old need. He boils it down. You know, psychological circles, you'll know this better than I do. There's Maslow's hierarchy that needs love, safety, and belonging. You could whittle it down to in the five-year-old mind. And so if you if I found it very useful to think oh Robert's just trying to keep me safe. Exactly. And his in his again sort of warped way of keeping me safe. But it's his methods are no longer useful. Exactly. And so seeing them come up don't feel guilty that I't feel guilty that I feel tempted to say some horrible thing.

That doesn't, I don't, that's not a shame, it's not so useful right there. It's more like turning your, actually, the jujitsu move is like high-fiving it. Like, I see what you're trying to do. Yeah. I appreciate it. The impulse is good on some level, but it's not useful now. Right. And maybe you helped when I was five.

Yeah. But, you know, I don't need you anymore. Right. And sometimes it's useful, another technique that I like, is asking this part, how old do you think I am? And sometimes the part will say, well, you're five. And it's like, well, actually, I'm not five anymore. You know, you're outdated.

So I find that a really good touchy move. It's, this phrase has been going through my head recently when it, as it pertains to this touchy stuff, touchy feeling stuff, which is that it's mildly annoying, but deeply useful. Exactly. And if you can get past, I annoying, but deeply useful. Exactly. And if you can get past, I'm talking to myself here. Yeah.

If you can get past the mildly annoying stuff, you get to deeply useful stuff. And again, for anti-sentimentalists such as myself, that's just, you gotta have to do it. Or be unhappy. Or relanguage it so it's not as annoying. And just going back to Shane because that's too good a point to drop. One of the great things about the self-compassion program is it's specifically oriented to working with the shame, at least

in the latter sections. And shame is notoriously hard to work with because we shut down. It's notoriously hard to work with because we shut down. It's so powerful. And this is a way to work effectively with shame. And again, the way of dealing with it is to look at these parts that feel so shamed. Often listen to the story they have to tell about the shame. And I'm just guessing here it may be, you know, when you were five something happened and you were chained and you're being very careful not to do that again. Yes. That's probably true. That's probably true.

You know, and often- Probably many things happen that I'm being careful not to have. Yeah. And shame is a very social emotion. So generally we're shamed in public context and we're shamed because we're not behaving appropriately. And the fear is that we'll somehow be cast off the island, or will be exiled. And that's the last thing we want.

We don't want to be excluded. So that's why it's so powerful. That's why it really has its claws in it. Yeah, well, that is really interesting, because this idea of being cast off the island is not theoretical. We, in evolution, alonely human was probably a dead human. Exactly. You couldn't survive.

Right. So that's a side. This isn't just about needing to be popular. This is actually like you need, if you're lonely this kills people, not only because if you're in an ancient society, then you're going to eat and buy all the animals. Yes, wild animals are the opposite tribe or the opposing tribe, but it actually, this psychological and physiological ramifications of loneliness are quite severe. So shame, those tendrils it has in us are really deep. Well, they're wired so deeply, it's really hard to get at them. Which is why you sort of have to develop your mindfulness and compassion muscles, just

as we train at the gym to get stronger. And then once there's a foundation of some mindfulness and loving kindness compassion, then it's easier to look at the tough stuff. But it's usually wired so deeply and we're so protective that it's hard to get at it. Stay tuned more of our conversation is on the way after this. Life is short and it's full of a lot of interesting questions. What does happiness really mean? How do I get the most out of my time here on Earth? And what really is the best cereal? These are the questions I seek to resolve on my weekly podcast, Life is Short, with Justin Long. If you're looking for the answer to deep philosophical

questions, like, what is the meaning of life? I can't really help you. But I do believe that we really enrich our experience here by learning from others. And that's why in each episode, I like to talk with actors, musicians, artists, scientists, and many more types of people about how they get the most out of life. We explore how they felt during the highs, and sometimes more importantly, the lows of their careers. We discuss how they've been able to stay happy during some of the harder times. But if I'm being honest, it's mostly just fun chats between friends about the important stuff like if you had a sandwich named after you what would be on it follow life is short wherever you get your podcast you can also listen to free on the Amazon music or wonder yeah. So let's talk about other stuff in the book. Sure.

I was wondering and tell me if you, if this would be helpful. Do you want to talk about a situation as a parent that was tough for you? Sure. Makes a thinking of shame. Yeah, I'll give you something from yesterday. Okay, great. He was throwing a hate. And how old is he now?

He's four. He was throwing a hat. And how old is he now? He's four. Okay. Florida temper tantrum. Last night. It was directed at his mother. I was around. But he was just going on and on. It was just going on and on. And he's just the history on it. the theatricality of it was driving me nuts and I found myself kind of laughing a little bit because but that was like covering up the fact that I really wanted to kill him. like this is not a good look. You know, where, why can't, my wife was being so patient with him, and so loving with him, and I was thinking, I don't know if I could do that, if it was me in that position. He doesn't really throw these big temperate tenders directed at me, I've had a few, but mostly he really, just something about her that he directs a lot of this stuff at. When he's with me, it's a little bit more relaxed.

And that is not complimenting myself by saying that. It's just the part of the dynamic. And he spends much more time with her. Anyway, the shame was I wanted to kill him. I didn't have a lot of sympathy or patience for him in that moment and found myself kind of Chuckling it how ridiculous he was being and that didn't feel right. Okay, and then it passed. He had totally found out. He found out and then we were in bed reading bedtime stories. Me, him, the cat, and mommy. So it was all fine.

Nothing there were no bad ramifications, but internally I felt a little, like maybe that's Robert Johnson. Maybe my grandfather's showing up there. Well, and maybe it's human. So two points. One is, in the book, there's a practice for tantrums, especially in tantrums in the grocery stores when your kid melts down. But it sounds like your wife got him under control. What was painful for you was that you had some aggression coming up.

So first story, then a practice. So one of my mentors, when I had my first child, said to me something that I thought was incredibly aggressive. And he said, you know, right now everything everything's lovely, you know, you're sleep deprived, but you're blissed out. Beautiful baby. Mark my words. As things will get, as he gets older, you will have a moment where you want to kill him. And I thought, like, how dare you say this? It's sort of like the witch at the, you know, baby's birth party, you know, giving you charcoal and giving you a curse.

Like how dare you tell me I'm gonna want to murder my child. But he was absolutely right. And he was a Freudian. So he was very in touch with aggression. And then I felt less guilty when I really did experience what the psychoanalyst called murderous rage.

And it was like, oh yeah, that's what he was telling me. You know, we all get really angry with our kids. I feel less guilty as Utah I didn't know this was an established thing in Freudian psychology. Yeah, I feel like I started to think I was uniquely defective No, all the analysts will talk about murderous rage and Winnecode who mark Epstein Loves as well. Yes, Winnecode. Yeah W. Do you tell that away? Yeah famous like a lot of Winnecotic. Yeah, DW. DW. Yeah. Famous. Donald Winnecotic. Talks about it. But let me give you

a mindfulness and compassion practice that helps the next time you want to murder your son. Okay. And this is um, can we call it murderous rage practice? We can call it murderous rage practice. That's pretty good. In fact, I can even add that to my psychology today block. I like it. OK, so let me guide you through this. And again, this doesn't just mean. Oh, we're going to do it now. We're going to just kind of describe it.

We're going to do it. OK. And we're going to do it in about two minutes. But let me just say for those people who are listening who aren't parents, you don't need to do this as a parent. There are times when we have murderous rage for our partners, for our co-workers.

Or as well-driving. Oh, you bet. And Boston drivers are notoriously terrible. Okay, so let's say someone cuts you off. So just sit comfortably, take a deep breath, and just let yourself I'm coming into the present moment. And just if you like, anchor with your breath or the sensations of your body. And just notice what you're feeling, just bringing some mindfulness. And then tune in, ask yourself, where in your body you're feeling this murderous rage might be in your belly, might be in your jaw, might be in your chest. Just tell me where you're noticing it or where you were noticing it last night. I have a sad, I feel no murders rage toward you. That's good.

Probably like a sucking chest wound, like you've been shot right in the like two inches north of your solar plexus. Yeah, okay. So I'm not going to suggest you put your hand there because I know that would be Uikui. I'll do it for you. Okay. I like you. Alright, so if you like just put a hand there and then just say to yourself, ah, this is what murderous rage feels like. Okay, let me pay attention to this. I just let it rise and let it fall. So as we're talking about a few minutes ago,

you can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. One really interesting psychologist named Alan Marlotte had this practice which he called surfing. When Earth surfants just notice it rise, notice it fall, and the research is that no feeling last more than 30 seconds. Just say, okay, this is what it feels like. Let it rise, let it fall. And then if you like just coming back to center, one technique I find very helpful is coming back to the sensations in your body. Luckily the body doesn't ruminate. Body is always in the present moment.

And then just check in. How are you feeling? Just tell me what you're feeling. I was able to visualize my son howling. And so I started to face some of the anger. So I, the feeling in my chest came back. That seems to be like the place where it all registers. But I now feel more interested and curious in it rather than owned by it. Great. And one other, I like sort of little mantras that help get us through the day.

Another one I find helpful if we start going back there again. It's just to say, okay, that was them. This is now. It's not happening now. I don't have to go back there. And if it's not happening now, it's not happening. So we realize how caught we get in those experiences of shame from the past, and how we just keep spinning and spinning and spinning, and one of the great things about mindfulness and compassion is it can break that cycle. Like, oh, okay, no tantrum right now. I'm not a bad dad, I'm not a bad dog, everyone gets angry. It's okay.

But this practice seems to involve or require a certain amount of space and silence and stillness. But what if you're mid-temper tantrum? What do you do then? Am I supposed to put my hand in my chest in the middle of the supermarket? Well, practice is here. In fact, if you want to have a...

She's got her hand on her block. Yeah. In fact, if you want to have a... Got her hand on her, but I guess you're saying that. In fact, if you want to do a link to the practice, it helps. One of the things we teach... We can put those in the show notes. Okay, great. One of the things we teach in the Mindful Self-Compassion course is something called soothing touch. And I know this may sound ooi gooey to you, but it may be worth teaching to Alexander. And you can do it with

a stuffed animal first. Like, okay, so what's his favorite animal, teddy bear or something? Snuggle puppy. Okay, so snuggle puppy. So when snuggle puppy is really upset and angry, where would he like to be hugged? What does Snuggle Puppy need? So you may experiment with him and he's, oh, Snuggle Puppy likes a hand right on his chest. Okay, let's do that. So you have a little prep work and then you're at grocery store and let's say he wants a candy bar and you go no Alexander no

sugar we're not you know no candy bar I want a candy bar I want a candy bar and he's starting to tantrum people come over someone pulls out their phone you think oh my god you know am I gonna be you you know, ridiculed online for not being a good enough dad. Every one of us is losing it. 10% happier losing it. Is losing it. How far do I do?

And one of the things you can do is say, okay, I like Sandra. Now, where would Snuggle Puppy need a soothing touch right now. And it may take him a while to come down. But you may say, okay, this is frustrating. I'm with you. I know you want that candy bar, hang in there and try to move the candy bars back and Gacy's pulled a package down with you

and know that the tantrum will pass. And the more he can begin to have some skills about learning to calm down himself, the better it will be. And then my joke is get out of there and take care of yourself because it's hard for you. So I don't know what would be useful for you. Some people say, okay, I need a drink, I need some wine, I need a double martini.

You may say, okay, I just need to take a walk here. That was really stressful. And I just hope I'm not going to be flamed online for not being able to handle my kids' tantrum. Yeah. Because that's a moment of shame. Yes. Yes. So again, how can you

recover? This is a moment of distress. Every parent has had a kid with a tantrum at many points in their lives. And I don't want to tell you this, but sometimes the tantrums continue as they get older. They don't necessarily stop. And how can I take care of myself for the moment? And taking care of yourself, people misunderstand this as well. It doesn't mean putting yourself first or saying, okay, I need a spa treatment, you know, I need to have a bubble bath, I need me time, I need to go have a facial or whatever. It's just like, okay, how can I include myself in the circle of care? You know, I take care of my kid, I take care of my co-workers, I take care of my wife,

but what do I need? Because your needs count. So just generally, simply, including yourself in that circle of care. So it's not ooey gooey, but it's just like, all right, I matter. And there's a saying from the Buddha I like, and you probably know this as well, that you can search all over the world and not find anyone more deserving. I'm using normal language here of care than you. His wording is sort of the wording we're taught

is compassion. So it's like, yeah, okay, this was tough. Being a parent is tough. Being a boss is tough. Being an anchor's tough. Not that tough, I promise you. being an anchor's tough. Not that tough, I promise you. One of the things that you were saying to me before we started rolling was that these

little practices, these kind of, I call them free-range mindfulness practices or free-range self-compassion. Or I call them stealth practices. Stealth practices, that's good too. On the go practices can be just as impactful as more prolonged formal practices. And you say there's some new research out on this? Yeah, okay, so excuse me, because I'm a research geek.

But Judd Brewer, who you've had on your program. He's a friend. Yeah, he's a terrific guy. Has this, and I can give this to you if you want to put it online, what he was finding, this just came out. And ostensibly, it's about the title of the article, it's mindfulness training for smoking cessation,

moderation of the relationship between craving and cigarette issue. Yes, he's mindfulness training for smoking cessation, moderation of the relationship between craving and cigarette. Yes, he's been studying this for a while. So putting it in English, rather than journalist, what he was finding in this article is that those little moments of mindfulness, stealth mindfulness, have a bigger impact than we thought. So those moments where you will do, you know, mindfulness of washing dishes or mindfulness of changing diapers, which I have in the book, or the rain practice, or mindful walking, though.

Maybe we should just define rain for a second. OK, so that is a practice that was popularized by the meditation teacher, Michelle McDonald. So that's our recognizing, A, acknowledging, I, investigating, and then responding and neutrally, like not taking it personally. Right, non-identification with it. And another way of doing it is, you know, this is going to feel Iggy-Gooey, but responding with some nourishment or nourishing. So those are practices you can do on the go, walking, you can do a driving. Keep your eyes open, of

course. But just acknowledging, recognizing, and that will help it pass. So what Judd was finding was that these practices, these on-the-go practices, I'd like to call the compassion to go, like our coffee to go, make a difference. But the research is still new. We don't know how much of a difference it's going to make. But so far it's trending. It's going the right direction. Are there other practices in the book that you think we should dive into a little bit now? There's so many. I mean there's about 50 practices. So I'd like to focus on need.

So maybe think about practices that you or your colleagues might need on a daily basis or other programs. Burnout. Burnout. Burnout. OK. So one of the things I really like, there are a few practices I really like for burnout.

Compassion practices help, and also the equanimity practices help. And one of the practices that I, well there's two, I'm going to give you two options and you tell me what you're most interested in. One is called this again, be a little gooey for you. The tree of compassionate beings. So you imagine and you can do a link to this as well. You imagine that you're surrounded by people in your life who really care about you. And it's nurturing, you feel much less burnt out. You feel like you have the proverbial village. That's one. The other practice is one that the Dalai Lama taught thousands of

people at Harvard many years ago, and these were people who had no meditation experience. So this may be really good for your listeners. And I've simplified it and called it a still place in a stormy sea. And basically it's dropping down underneath the waves and the stress of life to find a place that's still and calm and nourishing. Do you want me to do that? I can do it in about three minutes. Again, some of these practices is better if you have 45. Most people don't have 45 minutes. So I try to go for what can you do in three to five minutes that's going to make a difference. Okay, so just sit comfortably.

And this is a bit of a visualization. Not all meditation practices or visualization. Some people like it, some don't see how it works for you. Just start grounding, feel your feet on the ground, take a few breaths, just knowing that you're here right now, feeling the sensations of your body, letting yourself be present. And then start by getting an image of a beautiful harbor. And there's a boat in the harbor.

boat and the harbor, the sky is blue, the waters come, great chemilist clouds, and then suddenly the wind shifts. And you feel a storm coming on. And you're watching the water, the clam harbors suddenly full of white caps, wind is strong, there's thunder, there's lightning, there's hail, it's a real storm. And you're looking at this boat in the harbor, maybe even imagining that you're in this boat in the harbor, being lashed by the winds and the waves blown about. And then you imagine, perhaps putting on scuba gear if you like, that you can drop below the winds, below the waves, dropping to where the anchor is.

And feeling like the waves and the wind and the storm is above you. But you're resting in, you're feeling somewhat rejuvenated, you're can get a rest. And just let yourself rest here for a moment or so knowing that the storm will pass. There's nothing you need to do right now. And then just tune into your body noticing where there might be tension and stress. If you like basically doing what John Kabatzen calls the body scan, just noticing where in your body might be holding tension or tightness. And then when you're ready, no rush, you can stay here a little longer if you'd like. Find some movement in your arms and legs. When you're ready to slowly open your eyes. That actually works for me.

Yeah, it's amazing what a few minutes will do. Yeah. And this is what we call an equanimity practice. And again, being a research geek, one of the things we're finding out is that what we call compassion or empathy fatigue may be that we don't have sufficient equanimity. So if we can combine equanimity, we can really mediate against that burnout. Let me ask you one last question. Okay.

You recently wrote a column about snowplow parenting. In psychology today. Yes, so what does that mean? What's wrong with it? Okay, so as you probably remember, there was, you know, a big storm about the admissions scandal. Still going on still going on yeah and

parents really doing everything they could to get kids into schools and often using money power manipulation and ethical means I feel like we're coming full circle now in terms of ethics, to give their kids an unfair advantage. And, Snowplough parents will do anything to get rid of obstacles, but the practice is that the obstacles teach us.

You know, I know, Joseph Goldstein will tell a story But the practice is that the obstacles teach us. I know Joseph Goldstein will tell a story of pulling up a carrot just to check on the carrot to see if it was growing. Other people will say, oh, I tried to help the butterfly get out of the chrysalis. So we didn't have to struggle. But I think if we can see everything as an opportunity, we can let our kids find their way. We don't need to clear the road of all obstacles. But to realize that everything is workable, everything can teach us. You know, just because we think it's a problem doesn't mean that there won't be some silver lining to the struggle. Yeah, my experience and I've had a very privileged life, so it's easy to say this for me.

Most of the quote-unquote disasters have had positive outcomes. Ultimately. Exactly. I mean, I had a panic attack on national television and it worked out okay, et cetera, et cetera. And it led to this. Yes. Now granted, I speak from a position of, and I don't want to sound like too much of a college student here, but privilege.

Sements become a kind of unfortunately a loaded word, but it is what it is I was raised by doctors and Newton Massachusetts. I had a lot of opportunities that a lot of people don't have, but in my, so having said that, in my experience, the struggles have been what have led to the good stuff. A really good stuff. Yeah. And there's actually a practice in the mindful self-compassion book at course that looks at those struggles and then after they're gone, as you look at the silver lining, it's like, oh, okay, what appeared to be a struggle and what appeared to be so difficult was actually useful. So in our efforts to give our

kids every advantage, we often make it harder for them and really don't serve them because they're not developing resilience they're not developing that sense of i can do it i have it uh... johnathan height uh... uh... psychologist at new york university wrote a book controversial book recently but what if i understand his theory in part it was that

we have an epidemic of political correctness on campus a lot of people don't agree with that diagnosis but and i don't know where I stand on it. But his argument is that the political correctness, which is not good for anybody, it's stifling free exploration of ideas, et cetera, et cetera. Again, this is him talking, is the consequence of snowball parenting. The snowplow parenting that we kids have never run up into friction in their lives and are therefore on becoming snowflakes that they're unwilling to deal with contrary ideas. Right.

And if there's less resilience, you know, you hit a moment of anxiety or depression and you don't know what to do with it. So one of the things I love to do is give people, give parents a toolbox of techniques. And so many of them are practices that you can do in three to five minutes. That help you get back on track. My father once said that the most difficult thing about parenting is letting your kids make their own mistakes. I think that's quite wise.

It's painful. Before we go, can you just walk into what we call the Plug Zone? Can you just plug your book? Plug everything you got, social media, other books, wherever we can find you. So, a bunch of things. With a number of friends, we have an organization called Institute for Meditations, like a therapy. We've been around for 30 years, a number of books. We do conferences, we do training, we do lecture series, we do film series, we do film events like, you know, walking meditation, and we stream events. So people can listen or tune in.

The website is meditationpsychotherapy.org. With my friends at Harvard Med School, and this is a great story, but we don't have time for that now. We started a center to bring mindfulness into primary care, because basically it's been siloed to psychiatry. And we also do research. We teach mindfulness-based stress reduction, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy,

mindfulness-self-compassion. I know it's alphabet soup, and also have lots of workshops, but if people want to follow the research or follow us, the initials are CHA, which stands for Cambridge Health Alliance, CMC, which is center for mindfulness and compassion. So that's CHACMC.org. My blog, which you refer to on psychology today, is called The Art of Now. So people can just Google that. I've been writing that for a few years.

There are articles on parents as well as films, as well as art, as well as practices for trauma. So almost every blog post has a practice. And there's also practices for what we call screen apnea. So they're finding that if we spend a lot of time on our phone or email, we stop breathing. 80% of us stop breathing while we're on our screens. And this is just a basic practice to remember to breathe. So a lot of very practical practices, again, three minutes.

And then my website is Dr. Susan Pog. And the new book again. And the new book is self-compassion for parents, nurture your child by caring for yourself, and the first book for professionals and others is called Sitting Together. And that has, as both of them do, many of the practices I've been learning since the mid-60s. All right, well, to be a little cute, sitting together with you was great. So thank you very much.

Well, and sitting together with you was great. Thank you for having me. Big thanks once again to Susan Pollock. I've got a couple of voicemails for you this week. Here's number one. Hi, Dan. My name is MJ. I'm calling from Augusta, Georgia.

I read your book and I love your podcast and I've been using your app for about six months and love it. My question is about how to introduce children to meditations. Your son is much younger than my daughter. My daughter is 11. But I am of course interested in helping her come to this practice way younger than I did so that she can enjoy some of the benefits that I'm already seeing in the short time that I've been doing it. But she's, my initial attempts have been thwarted.

She is not interested. So I'm just curious to hear if there's anything that you're doing with your son to introduce him some meditation or to Buddhism. If that's something you and your wife have discussed, I'd love to hear more about it. Thanks so much for all you do mj have good news for you uh... which is that uh... in his infinite wisdom

one of our ace producers on the show uh... Samuel johns reached out to susan polych to help answer this question so all way in but let me just tell you her response she she saw she listened uh listened to your question and had the following thoughts. First, if you want to introduce mindfulness to kids, her argument is the best way to do it is make it work for them. It's going to be hard probably to get them to sit with their eyes closed

and follow their breath. Oh, some kids may do it, but it might be smart, according to Susan, to try to make it more fun. One way to do that, she says, is to do a sort of stealth mindfulness where you get the kids to do silly walks. Gene Vokes, if you're old enough to remember Monty Python, they had a stick about the ministry of silly walks. And so you can have them walk backwards or on all fours or walk like a crab, and then

bring their attention, have the kids bring their attention to their bodies and feel and notice the sensations. Obviously, as we know, as meditators, using the sensations of the body is a great way to get grounded out of your discursive thought loops. And it's a great object for meditation, then when you get distracted you start again. Another practice Susan recommends is go outside sit on a on the grass in the park or on a bench and look up at the star rather look up at the sky if it's night and you'll see stars and then maybe gently mention to your child that the clouds moving through the sky are like the thoughts in our head or the emotions in our

minds and that they're constantly changing, constantly moving. So that's another technique she recommends. And another is to get kids to listen to sounds and to count them or name them and really pay attention in that way to the world around them. Her final thought, and this is the one I would have said right away, is that given the loaded, frayed nature of parent-child relationships, it might be best to have somebody else teach mindfulness to your kid because kids are wired to reflexively reject a lot of our suggestions. And that's kind of the root I'm taking. I don't know if that's just a lazy root, but it's, I may have said this on the show before, so I'll make it quick, but I have this little stick

about the fact that, you know, I do nothing that my parents told me to do. You know, I wasn't allowed to watch TV, and as I like to joke, I now work inside the box. But I do everything that they modeled. So they were really serious about their careers, really serious about their relationship with one another, very serious about daily exercise. And they never lectured me about any of that stuff.

I just saw them do it. It became normalized for me. As a, that's the route I'm going with Alexander. He's almost five. He knows daddy meditates. He knows I go in meditation retreats. Got a few little tasteful Buddha things around us. He knows that meditates, he knows I go in meditation retreats, got a few little tasteful Buddha things around that, he knows what the Buddha is, but there's no really long lecturing about it, no, no really,

I don't evangelize to him. We have a few children's books that people have sent me that I'll read to him that talk a little bit about the idea of not being owned or carried away by your emotions, but I really don't make it a too big a deal because I don't want to turn him off. I want him to come to it on his own. So that's just my approach. All right, let's do voice mail number two. Hi, Dan. Valerie from Savannah, Georgia.

And I have been working with mindful meditation for many years now. I am so happy that you experience and your podcast to help bring mental health issues into the light. I have listened to mindful parenting, but would like to hear more about mindful parenting of adult children, especially during this time of the opioid crisis, and in general, just dealing with adult children and bad

decision-making how to still be a parent that cares and still hold onto your mental sanity as your adult children go about their life making their decisions which are not necessarily always well thought out. So anything about mindful parenting of adult children would be wonderful. And thank you so much for the work you do. And those that work with you, I really enjoy your podcast. Have a wonderful day. Thanks, Valerie.

Especially thank you for pointing out that there are people who work with me and do most of the work around here. Yeah, this is a great question. Luckily, the brilliance Susan Pollock has provided me with some talking points here. First point she makes is that, you know, to know, if you've got a grown child, especially if they're in their mid to late 20s, that their brains are still developing. And, you know, that can make it highly likely, therefore, that they're going to make all sorts of questionable decisions. So that's just a thing to know.

She points out that I think it just provides some useful context here. You know, also to know that as Karen, she says that, obviously, we all care a lot about our kids, but especially as they get older, we can't make their decisions for them. And so, you know, it brings to mind one of the many wise things I've heard my father say over the years, which is that the hardest part of parenting is letting your kids make their own mistakes. And so therefore, in some ways, the practice of meditation that you want is to boost your own equanimity, your own capacity to be okay in the face of difficult or wrenching stimuli.

And so there are little, you know, we talk about Susan, talked about these, you know, loving kindness phrases, little sappy phrases that we can send to ourselves. You can modify these in any way you want, but she suggested some ones. These are classic phrases like all beings are on their own journey, or I care for you, but I can't control your happiness or unhappiness, or I may wish things to be otherwise, but may I accept this just as it is. So these little phrases you can modify them to make them, you know, less hallmarked E if you want, but the idea of training up your own capacity to be as calm as possible in the face of what can be very frustrating situations involving your grown children.

I think that is a wise piece of advice on her part. And just so you know, we do have equanimity and meditations in the Tempestant Happier app. And finally, you mentioned the opioid crisis. Susan points out that if your child is dealing with addiction, there are a number of excellent programs that help people work with addictions.

In particular, Susan points out and I really, I'm glad she pointed this out that Dr. Judson Brewer, who's at Brown University, is a former guest on this podcast. I think twice is doing some great work here. She also mentioned somebody named G. Allen Marlatt. We'll put more about both of these in the show notes. And finally, she also recommends another program

run by another former guest, Jess Mori. She's been on the show. She has a program called Inward Bound. It's kind of, it's a version of Outward Bound, but they, they, they go on the woods with teenagers and they do a lot of meditations. The group is called Inward Bound or IDME and they work with high school and college-aged children who are struggling or not. Because we're all struggling in one way or another. The final thing I'll say, and again, I apologize if I've said this before, but hopefully I think it bears repeating.

I hear from parents all the time, how do I get my kid to meditate? They're so anxious. And of course, we're in the middle of this, what seems like an epidemic of anxiety and depression and suicide among young people. And I think it's a great idea to get kids to meditate, but as I said before, it's hard for parents to convince children to do anything because

they are so seemingly designed to reject us. So I think if you want to be, if you want mindful kids, I think you really do have to be a mindful parent. And I would rather see you model this stuff rather than, you know, then exhorting all the time because I feel like the success rate for the former strategy is likely to be higher. Thanks again to Susan Pollock for helping me answer these questions with way more wisdom than I would have otherwise mustered. Since I'm taking people, I also want to thank the podcast Insiders, all of you extremely loyal hundreds of extremely loyal listeners who give us weekly

feedback that is insanely useful. Really appreciate that. If you want to sign up to be a podcast insider, I believe there will be a link to that in the show notes. And I want to thank everybody who works really hard to make the show reality. Ryan Kessler, Samuel Johns, Grace Livingston, Brittany's working the audio board today. She's a little sad and tired, but she stayed up late to watch her New York Yankees lose to the Houston Astros last night, but she's a good sport. Also, Lauren Hartsog and Tiffany Oma-Hundro. We'll be back on Wednesday with another episode. See you then. and music is good support. Also, Lauren Hartzog and Tiffany Oma-Hundro.

We'll be back on Wednesday with another episode. See you then. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with 1-replusplus in Apple podcasts.

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