Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 226: The Dharma of Instagram | Yung Pueblo

Episode Date: February 12, 2020

Yung Pueblo (Diego Perez) grew up in poverty after his family immigrated from Ecuador to Boston, Massachusetts. He fell into heavy drugs in his college years, consumed in misery and sadness, before going on his first Vipassana meditation retreat. There, he learned how to accept and embrace change in one’s self, be present in the moment and find joy in both the ups and downs of life. Now a well-known meditator, writer and public speaker, Yung Pueblo uses a plethora of social media platforms to help others on their own journeys towards a free life. Plug Zone Website: http://yungpueblo.com/ Book - Inward: https://www.amazon.com/Inward-Yung-Pueblo/dp/1449495753 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yung_pueblo Twitter: https://twitter.com/YungPueblo Ten Percent Happier Podcast Insiders Feedback Group: https://10percenthappier.typeform.com/to/vHz4q4 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. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey guys, social media does not at least the first blush seem like a hospitable environment for meditation, mindfulness, dharma, sanity, whatever you want to call it. There's at least some evidence to suggest that the more time you spend on social media, the less happy you will be.

However, our guest this week, Diego Perez, has been able to build a massive following for what is essentially Dharma Buddhist content on Instagram. He's got last I checked more than 600,000 followers on Instagram. He's got last I checked more than 600,000 followers on Instagram. Every day he puts out a post based on his experiences as a person in the world who's using this sort of ancient technology to improve his own life and clearly, clearly a lot of people want to hear it. So I'll keep this introduction very brief because he's a great storyteller and the way he came to the practice is quite interesting, but I just do want to highlight that going in two things. One is we've had a lot of people request that we talk about the experience of being on a meditation retreat in this show. Diego does that for us.

And I also want to point out that toward the end of the interview, you're going to hear two of my colleagues, Laura Coburn and Chris Rios from Nightline asked some questions to Diego because we're doing a story on him for Nightline and they were in the studio with their cameras recording as we recorded this interview for the podcast. I forgot to mention, by the way, that his name is Diego Perez, but the way the world knows him is young Pueblo, which is the name of his Instagram account and You'll hear him explain why he came to that name. All right enough from me. Here we go young Pueblo Well nice to meet you nice to meet you too. I would love to hear your backstory. How did you get into meditation in the first place? well, it was back in July of 2012 when I did my first course in the summer.

And I had just overcome, it was a pretty serious year. Like that 2011 to 2012, I was basically pulling my life back together. I had gone pretty deep into just using pleasure and intoxicants like drugs and alcohol to get as far away from myself as possible. And I kind of hit rock bottom in that summer of 2011 and basically almost died. Felt like my body was just like full of drugs and I was on the floor basically trying to pray myself back into life because I felt like I was having a heart attack. And you know I was 23 at the time, like I had to push my body that having a heart attack. And I was 23 at the time.

Like I had to push my body that far to the edge. And literally just because I didn't know how to deal with my anxiety and my sadness. And from that moment, when I was on the ground, they're really realizing that I could have really wasted my life. This is not how I want to go. I don't want to let my parents down, especially because my parents, you know, we immigrated

from Ecuador when I was very young and my parents made such a giant sacrifice for me to even be in this country and have this opportunity. But in some ways, I was like, if I die now, I would have wasted every, you know, all of their efforts. And that sort of gave me a lot of courage to just stop doing all the hard drugs and start this like slow walk into being healthy again because I was like so overweight, so unhealthy, so sad and was constantly only thinking about what's the next pleasure that I could have so that I don't have to feel like this.

The sad is the underlying emotions that you were trying to get away from, were they just part of your wiring or were they connected to life experiences that had been traumatic? Yeah, besides the trauma of poverty, we grew up really poor, but I was always kind of wired that way. Even when I was really little, I always felt I was very ext extroverted had a lot of friends but just this like underlying sadness that kind of compounded over time and it just grew and grew to the point where it became unmanageable and really destructive. Where did you grow up? So I grew up in Boston after we so I was born in Waikid, Ecuador and when I we moved to Boston when I was four and a half,

and then I was there until I was 18 when I went to college. In Boston proper? Yeah, yeah, in Jamaica plain. And what were your folks doing to get by? It was tough. I mean, we were so, we were broke. Like, my mom was cleaning houses, and my dad was working in a supermarket.

And luckily, we were able to live in Boston because my aunt who had moved from Ecuador in the 60s she and her husband had bought like a triple decker and they were renting it really cheap one of the floors to us for like you know very very cheap and so you went off to college at 18 and then at 23, you're on the floor of your apartment. Yeah. What, how bad did, what did it look like your, the drug abuse, the drinking, what did it, how bad did it get?

It was so consistent. Not every day, it was kind of like a Monday to, no, sorry, from Wednesday to Monday. I think like two days were off. And, but even on two days, that still be like smoking a lot of weed. And, but the weekend was very long. We got there, like the school that I went to,

especially at that time. I don't know what the culture is like there now, but Wesleyan University. I was just, that'd be a great prestigious school. Yeah, no, it was great. And I learned a ton when I was there, and I love the experience that I had, but I definitely just sought out having fun, or what I thought was fun, way too much, and it became so consistent and like a norm that I didn't think anything was wrong.

And then when I left there, I saw that I still had that like constant urge and craving to just continue that, and I wasn't in that environment that constant urge and craving to just continue that. I wasn't in that environment that could produce it, so I had to make situations to continue having this fun. Just got really heavy into cocaine and to the point where I just felt like I couldn't even walk very far without my heart feeling like it was going to explode. Yeah. Yeah, if I've had my own experiences with that drug, get produced a panic attack

from me on national television, which wasn't. Oh, yeah, yeah. So you've taken us through what appears to be a pretty hard bottom on the floor, trying to pry yourself back to some sense of normalcy. How did that land you on a meditation retreat? It sounds like a year later. It was exactly, I was almost exactly a year later. So I stopped the really hard drugs and I started exercising and taking in super foods. I remember like the one of the first things I did

was like buy this tub of spirit of barley grass and started consuming that because like I just never knew how to eat well. And I slowly started feeling better and better. Like you know, having a relatively good diet helps balance the mind out a bit. So that was helping me see things a little more clearly. And then a friend of mine had been traveling in India and he did a 10 day Vipassana course.

And he, when he came, so this is also one of the people that I used to party with a ton You know do all the same drugs within everything and he wrote an email after his experience And it was all about love compassion and goodwill so to me I was like what the hell happens like who like this person who I love you know I was like one of my brothers Why is he talking about love now like what you know how how is this experience so powerful that it made him write this email? So I immediately signed up and did one a few months later. And it was like dramatically changed my life.

All right, I want to dive deeply into that. Just for clarity of terms, Vipassana can be a confusing term on a number of levels. One of the levels is that, Posinna is a kind of meditation practiced in many different ways. And in many different ways. In the meditation world, when people say, I'm going on a Posinna retreat,

they often mean I'm going on a retreat at a center established by a legendary teacher by the name of S.N. Goenka, who was an Indian businessman who learned how to meditate while doing business in Burma. Yeah, exactly. And he then started creating meditation centers for lay people. And now they're all over the way you were telling me this one like 300, before we started a role.

It's about 300, before we started a world. It's about 300 damn around the world. And so the Pasinah is an ancient form of meditation. It's also called insight meditation taught outside of the Goenka schools such as it is such as it is. But somehow in the meditation vernacular nowadays when people say I'm going out of the Pasinah retreat they generally mean a Goenka retreat. Yeah definitely. I think the Pasinah globally is sort of like the silent giant.

Like there's so many Vipassana centers around the world and people practice it to different degrees. And I think that's what, yeah, what people think about. They think about Goenka in Vipassana. What is a goenka retreat like? And why was it such a big deal for you? It's a serious situation. So when you go into a goenka retreat,

it's, you know, it's, you, you, first, you's a serious situation. So when you go into a go-and-go retreat, it's, you know, it's, you, you, first, you take a Val morality. So you're gonna, you're, not only are you taking noble silence, like you won't speak for 10 days, but you are also, you know, you promise not to kill or steal or lie or have any, you know, no sexual activity, and you're not gonna take any intoxicants. So these like five hard rules that you're taking there and you're not speaking unless you're asking a teacher a question because you know outside of Gwanka there's also teachers there who are helping you through the course.

Going himself has passed away but he does is teaching through audio and video tips. Yeah exactly. He does his teaching through video to yeah exactly but then while you're there there are teachers who Who've been meditating for long periods of time and who are there to support you and answer your questions But you first start with developing your concentration. You know you work with on a panna for three and a half Three and a half four days and define on a panna. It's awareness of the breath. Okay. Yeah, and I thought you started with awareness of the I thought they were doing body scans for the first go. That's what comes next. So you want to develop some some degree of awareness and develop that concentration. So then you move to, you know, scanning the body and just seeing what's there. So you start by just feeling the breath coming in and going out usually in the go intocut tradition I've never been on a go-and-cut retreat is it at the abdomen? No, no. So we actually focus right at the knees, like in this area of the nose. So is it specifically right on right at the top of the nostril?

So for new students, the instructions change over the three days. It becomes a really big area and slowly gets winded down to that little spot. A little spot at the top of your lip right where it hits the bottom of the nose. I have found when I've done that before, it's a little bit like one time I was on a retreat and I was kind of freaking out, but not doing well and I was doing more of an open awareness practice, just noting whatever arises. And my teacher, Joseph Goldstein said, you know, I want you to kind of sit at the where your lip meets your nose and just feel, you don't have to do anything, you know, I want you to kind of sit at the where your lip meets your nose.

And just feel, you know, if the doing just feel it's happening on its own, just feel the and it was like being prescribed the darmic version of valium. It really, really relaxed me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Relaxation and concentration go hand in hand, especially it's like you get more and more concentrated You tend to get incredibly relaxed So the first three days you're focusing on the breath

You're just calming down the mind and then after that you start observing things as they are to really gain that insight by Observing the body systematically. Let me break that down. So when you say When you move into so does it the rest of the retreat where you're doing body scans? Yeah for about seven days. And so I think it's pretty, it's a pretty particular practice, can you walk us through how it actually goes? Yeah, so you just, you move down from head to feet through the body and later on you move from feet to head as well.

And you know, you work in different ways, but you're essentially just trying to take different areas of the body and see what natural bodily sensations you're feeling and, you know, and from that gain insight into impermanence and misery and, you know, no self. So that doesn't sound fun, or just the way you describe it. It's not fun at all. It's not, it's not like, you know, it's such a serious endeavor. Like you're literally there, the reason you go there is to deal with your mental patterns or those sort of like underlying impurities that have been accumulated over time.

Like all of this conditioning that has been making you quite delusional and you're there to release all that leg literally, just burn it all away. I know the answer to this because I've done retreats myself many times, but I suspect for the uninitiated, they may be thinking, how is it that watching your breath come and go and then systematically focusing on different parts of the body and feeling whatever sensations arise there? How would that confront you with your habitual thought patterns and acquaint you and why would I want to be acquainted with something called misery or otherwise

in this suffering? Yeah, it's interesting when you're dealing with, when you're working at the level of sensations on the body, you know, the example that I like most is when you're sleeping at night, your conscious mind is totally asleep, but your subconscious mind is still awake and you can know like if you get,

if your bedroom gets really hot, you take the covers up, you wake up with no covers on, gets really cold, you like wrap yourself up or if there's a mosquito, you're, you know, swatting in a way, even while you're asleep. And that demonstrates that your, the sensations on the body are connected to your subconscious. So when you're working with them, you can start releasing those underlying patterns that are there. I mean, I would say, it was, that all sounds spot on to me, but I would also say that another sort of much more,

perhaps much more easily graspable answer to that is as soon as you try to focus on one thing, your breath or the sensations in your body, you're gonna notice that you're thinking a lot, you're distracting, you're thinking, you're nursing grudges, you're planning lunch, you're hating the teachers, you're wondering why you're here, you're wanting a Snickers bar, whatever. And it is that it is the consistent practice of bumping up against these habitual thought patterns, recognizing them, letting them go and then going back to the breast, or to the sensations of the body. Constantly coming back.

Absolutely. That's how you're starting to see, oh my god, wow, I'm crazy. Yeah, because you're whole, and it's so funny, because that experience, especially those first three days, they give you the simplest task. Like try to just be aware of your breath continuously for one minute.

Impossible. It's almost impossible. And then you start figuring out that, oh, you thought you were so smart, you can't even do this thing. You're constantly jumping into the future, constantly jumping into the past, and it's funny because our conditioning pushes us away from the present, and you're literally throughout that whole process. You're developing this new faculty of the mind where you're literally just trying to accept reality as it is. Let me just be here right now. So you're on your first retreat, you're a year clean,

it seems like. Yeah, yeah. And what's it like for you? It was terrible. It was the, by far the hardest thing I've ever done. I was thinking about leaving every day and I realized finally around this seventh day, sixth day that it would be impossible for me to leave

because it was 2012. It was the era before Uber. Like, I don't know when Uber exactly came out, but I didn't know about it. And I was in, I had been in Portland, Oregon at the time learning how to farm. And I was spending three months on this farm. So I ended up catching a ride in our north to where the Meditation Center was in Washington state. And there was no way for

me to get back. You know, I didn't know, when we were in the middle, nowhere Washington. So I just knew that there was just no way for me to, I have to be here so I can get a ride back. And that's when I started really trying and working because it just felt, it was literally just so painful, like having to deal with myself and just at a whole deeper level and just see, you know, that I was so incredibly miserable. But after I did that course, I was able to practice at least, you

know, at a very low level, I was able to practice. And even at that level, when I left, I felt like I had lost 100 pounds. Like I probably lost like four or five pounds, you know, but I lost like so much mental heaviness and I ended up writing to my friends and talking to them and letting them know. Like I honestly, I feel like I learned more in 10 days than in the four years of college that I just did. What did you learn? I just learned about change, about impermanence. That was a big thing just that if you deal with

change as your enemy, you're never going to be peaceful. You have to just understand that there are always going to be ups and downs and you can enjoy when things are good, but don't become attached to them. Don't try to recreate them constantly. Just be with what's happening in that moment and then when things pass and things become, you know, difficult and tough, also try to be as, you know, have a balanced mind as you can, but that's also going to pass. How does watching your breath or the sensations in your body confront you

with impermanence and change? Well, you literally feel, especially when you're working with a sensation in the body, you can start feeling like, you know, these itches come and go, it's tingling come and go, and you just feel these naturally bodily sensations, just constantly arising and passing. And that may sound superficial, but if your whole life is directed towards just watching the way your, the physical sensations and then all the little thoughts that are uninvited

that are flitting through and all your habitual thought patterns coming up and going. After a while, you start to see, this is all just changing so fast that, well, a number of insights come out of that. One is grasping onto anything, pushing anything away, is going to make me unhappy, otherwise known as misery or suffering. And there's nobody, this is all happening so fast. There's nobody in here. I can call me. You know, I can't, I'm not in control of this. I'm not inviting all of this. I love that you've gotten that far because a lot of people sort of, they love the idea of me. They love the idea of I and some people really push against that. But when you start meditating really deeply, you start really feeling that what's happening right now

is just because of speed, because of movement that's happening so fast, it's just mental and physical phenomena that are coming together, there's such rapid speeds that it makes the appearance of me, but if I go down and start feeling the sensations, like which one of these things that I'm feeling is actually me, especially when the moment that I feel it passes away. I mean, this is one of the most confusing things about Buddhism because people are like, what do you mean? You're telling me that the self is an illusion, I'm not really real, et cetera, et cetera.

But I mean, it's, the Buddhists have a way of describing this actually starts to make much more sense and become much more graspable. There are two levels of reality. It's conventional truth and ultimate truth. There you go. Conventional truth, ultimate truth. Right, like I'm here, you're there. We're talking. I put my truth and ultimate truth. There you go. Conventional truth, ultimate truth. I'm here. You're there.

We're talking. I put my pants on this morning. I mean, we're having fun, but at the ultimate level, I'm just a series of rapidly moving subatomic particles. And that's okay. And people, it's new for most people to hear that about themselves, but it's not new. I mean, we're sitting at a table, which I'm pounding right now. It's not going to, most people wouldn't argue that this table on some level is a table, but on a really important fundamental level is also spinning

subatomic particles. So the same thing can be said in a way of the self of you. And when you loosen your idea or your identity of what you think is you, the reality becomes much more easier to manage. Like when you have this like set way and you really don't allow yourself to change and to grow and to become a better version of you, I remember when I was growing up, one of the things people used to pride themselves on was, I never changed. Like, I'm always going to be the same. And now, finally, that's shifting.

And it's like, yeah, I'm growing, I'm changing. And who I was five years ago, I hope that's not the person that you're engaging with today. So you did that first retreat and then what happened next? I was in shock and awe by how much more I could feel, how much more in touch I was one of my emotions. Before that retreat, I couldn't even cry. Like I was just, like I was so blocked up. I was one of my emotions before that retreat. Like I couldn't even cry. Like I was just like I was so blocked up.

I remember that one of the first things when I got back to Portland, Oregon, I was with a friend in a car and he played this song and it was so beautiful. Like I just started crying. I was like, this is, you know, I was so far away from myself and finally that distance was closing. And then I think about a week later, I signed up for another course, and so I ended up doing my second 10-day course

two months later. Wow, okay, that's that's because I did my first retreat in 2010 and was not eager to do it. Oh, that was one of the most powerful things I'd ever done, and I didn't want to do it again. And it's so intense. I know, and I really was asking myself, like, do I really want to put myself through this again?

Because that was so hard, I know, and I really was asking myself, like, do I really want to put myself through this again? Because that was so hard, so incredibly, such a big uphill battle, but I couldn't deny that I felt better. And I knew that I needed to keep going to really like overcome these issues. It's been seven years now. How often do you go to retreat now? It changes every year. It depends on the workload. But normally, what I do is at least like a month-long retreat once a year and then a series of different retreats where I serve or sit. Serve or sit.

So serving is, you know, when you go to a meditation center and there are people meditating who are sitting the course, actually meditating those 10 hours a day, and there are also people who are serving who are just doing whatever the meditators need so that they can only focus on meditating. So we're cooking their meals, making sure that the environment is just totally set up for them to be able to only focus on meditating. So when you go and you serve, you're literally going into a situation where you're practicing selfless service and you're just, you know, you're volunteering, you're not going to get anything for besides the qualities that you develop while you're there to support other people. I realize we kind of skipped something because I know

I didn't ask this basic question because I know too much about retreats but most people would want to know the following which is you just said meditating 10 hours a day so can you run through what the schedule is like on a day of retreat. Yeah, you wake up, the bell rings at about one bell rings at four in the morning, another one rings at four, 20, and you should be in the hall by like four, 30 in the morning, and your first, you know, two hours or four, 30 in the morning to six, 30, then you have breakfast, you have a break in. It's a two hour rock block, first thing in the morning. Yeah, but you're allowed to like, you know

You're moving at your pace. So you're this is what's recommended and then you do your best You you can take a break, you know go for a quick walk come back and you Yeah, you take your first break from six thirty to eight you have breakfast and then from eight to 11 you're again sitting for another block. And then at the end of each hour sit, you take a break for like five minutes,

and then you come back and keep going. Then 11, you have another lunch thing you have a break until 1, and then from 1 to 5, another bigger block of meditating. And then from 5 to six, T-time, you relax for an hour, six to seven, another sit, then seven to like about eight, 30 is a discourse, about more about the dharma, the dharma.

And that's the videotape of Senghor. Yeah, Glanka, yeah. And all throughout the day, you can ask questions to the teachers and after that as well. And then there's like a last block of about like 30, 40 minutes of meditating and you go to bed at 9 p.m. Okay. Yeah.

I mean, I'm familiar with it, although I would say mercifully in the retreats, I go to, they meditate, they rotate sitting meditation with walking meditation. So that's why it's moving more, not so at a go-in-co-retreat. No, yeah, I think that's, those are the difference between, because you're practicing Mahasi. Mahasi style. Well, the inside meditation community is kind of founded here in the states by Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salisbury, and Jack Cornfield.

There are lots of little flavors within that group. And many of those folks sharing, at least I know Sharon and Joseph, I don't know if Jack did too, but I think so. Trained with Goenka as well. They all trained with many teachers in the insight or Vipassana community over in India

and Nepal back in the six, seven, seven, seven, seven, and then brought the practice here. So there's Mahasi style, which is a strict Burmese style, then there's Utejiania, which is sort of a less strict. There's the Thai forest tradition. There are all these little sub-genres. Like what you said, so Burmese styles generally can be characterized as strict. So we do, like, so. So the, the, what, what SN Gwenka was taught was by his teacher, Sayaji Ubakan, who was a Burmese man. And it's totally a Burmese style. So you're, you know, you're doing your best, or you're trying your best. So like

for example, my first course at the best that I can do was probably meditate between five to six hours that day. The rest of the time, I was kind of like hiding out in my bedroom, trying to like, you know, just dealing with this intensity of what it was coming out from within me. But then over time I was able to, you know, grow and be able to do the 10 hours a day. And so now you're spending months a year on retreat, depending on the workload? Yeah, yeah. It just, it just really works. So what I feel is, you know, I don't have any kids right now. It's just my wife and I. 31. 31, I don't have any kids right now.

It's just my wife and I. 31. 31. I don't have any kids. So just my wife and I, she's totally supportive. She also meditates. She just did her first 30 day course this summer. And now's the time to hit it.

Now's the time, especially if I end up having kids later on. I won't be able to go over treats as often. So when you say it really works, unpack that. You know, you can just deal with life on a level that is so much more creative. You have such a stronger ability to problem solve. You can deal with actually having equanimity, which is a faculty that the mind has, but you can absolutely strengthen that equanimity being the ability to be objective, to not react, you know, and not have any craving towards whatever is happening, not have any aversion towards it,

but really just try your best to see things as they are. Because real objectivity is very difficult, but at least trying to have some equanimity towards things is incredibly helpful in life, especially because everything's constantly changing. And what I found is just so much more inner peace and an ability to just, you know, accept my emotions as they are. Like, as I still, you know, I'll sometimes I'll wake up with sadness or I'll wake up with some degree of mental turbulence, but because I've cultivated greater self-awareness, I can feel that and also accept it and not allow it to make my actions harsh towards other people.

Because that was the thing before, is like I was oblivious to what I was feeling and then I would just be a jerk, you know? So being able to be like, oh right, I don't feel very good right now. Let me be gentle with my words. So you still have, it sounds like you still have bad days,

but you're less owned by the difficulty most. Totally, it's just another thing that's just passing. Like this morning was hectic, like you're less owned by the difficulty most. Totally. It's just another thing. It's just passing. Like this morning was hectic. Like I think I might have lost my passport. And I need to fly to San Diego on Saturday morning. So who knows? You know, maybe I lost it. Maybe I didn't. But um, but just, you know, I accepted that fact. And I was like, all right, well, we'll figure it out. Hopefully I get there. 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.

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You can also listen to ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Tell me about the birth of the young Pueblo. Yeah, so young Pueblo, when he come to existence, um, like 2014, so it's a name that just came to me and it sort of like brings together my, you know, my Ecuadorianness and my Americanness. Like so, an Ecuador, there's this, the word poivolo is like commonly used to refer to the masses of people, specifically impoverished people. And when I started meditating, I started seeing that humanity is very

young, like, especially if we start. So a lot of people think young people is my name. It's not, it's more so it's the name that I write under as social commentary. It's really meant to show that humanity as a collective, like we have a lot of growing up to do. And what I like to bring people back to is remember when we were first going to school and kindergarten or whatnot.

Your teachers were trying to teach you literally the simplest things to be honest, to clean up after yourself, to not hit each other, and to generally be kind to one another. And some of us may be able to do that as individuals, but as a human collective, we don't know how to do those things at all.

So to me, the century that we're living in, it's filled with vast challenges. And to be able to overcome those, humanity's really going to have to grow up. So I try to focus my work on the transformation of the individual, because I really think that transformation of the individual is the secret to a global piece. I think if people really can get themselves to a point where they at least understand that it's to their benefit to not harm others, then we'll definitely be able to use it as a foundation to build a better world.

So I'm just trying to, I'm curious about your thought process here. You got, so it's 2014, you've been meditating for a couple of years, it's having a big impact, and you said, well, the career move, and the spiritual move here is to start an Instagram page in which I write poetry based on my meditative experiences. Yeah, yeah, so I definitely didn't think it was like the career move. I was like, let me try this and see if this works.

What were you doing for work at that time? I was doing consulting for a nonprofit that was helping. It was called a design studio for social intervention. So my background has always been in organizing and activism work. Like that's what I had, you know, I started in the world of organizing when I was about 15. And I really got to see how powerful people are when they come together around a common cause. But I saw that even though we were victorious, you know, campaign after campaign, we would win. Campaign for what?

We would campaign for like making different improvements in schools, making sure schools had, you know, campaign after campaign, we would win campaign for what? We would campaign for like making different improvements in schools, making sure schools had, you know, the adequate computers that they needed or changing guidance counselor guidelines all across Boston Public Schools. There were just different things that we would ask ourselves as a community. What would be what would be better? And I remember at the time there was was this, a lot of us fell, especially as people of color. We were, our guidance counselors had no high hopes for us.

They just, you know, we would tell them what we wanted, or what schools we wanted to go to, and they'd be like, nope, that's not going to happen. You should just aim as low as you can. So we sort of forced Boston Public Schools to like recognize that issue. We even got to train some guidance counselors, but in their like charter about guidance counselors, we made sure that they were, you know, trying to help you for really support you in your goals.

So you're post college, well pre college during college, post college, pre, yeah, pre youngyoung, getting bottom, pre-meditation, that your, the through line was active. Yeah, different forms of activism throughout. And college, I just focused on college because I felt like I was in a brand new environment. Like I came from a really, really poor community

that was very diverse. And then all of a sudden, I was with like, the children of the richest people in the country. So to me, that was like so mind blowing, that I was like, children of the richest people in the country. So to me, that was so mind blowing that I was like, let me just figure out what's going on. But after that, yeah, I jumped back into that activism world. And what I found as I was meditating

was that these things can support each other. Because people have always wanted to change the world for a better place. There's histories of that. A lot of the things we have like the weekend, people have fought for these things and made them come true. But one thing that I've found in myself

is that if you don't deal with your internal issues, then at some point you're gonna end up reproducing the thing that you're fighting against. So if we can not only combine, right, this is pushing forward and trying to create a better world, but simultaneously, use the tools that are now widely available globally to heal ourselves, to actually do something about, you know, not only just like, you know, the internal, like, patriarchy racism or, you know, sexism, the things that are happening inside you, but going

even deeper than that, and start dealing with your personal craving, your aversion, or anything that might push you into harming yourself or another human being, that is going to be foundational to, I mean, it's going to just make all of our movements have such a bigger impact. Do you ever hear from people in the activism world, you know, I'm going to get too happy, too complacent, too, I'm not going to be effective if I don't, if I meditate. Yeah, that's a common thing. And I think even outside of activism, people are scared to lose their edge. But really, I think love is like a very active force. And there is, when you start dealing with your patterns, what arises is a new love, a new form of creativity, a new form of problem solving, and a new energy for life.

But love is very active. And love can also take hard actions. It's not just about making everything soft and quiet, but you can stand up for yourself. Draw the line between what you do in meditation as you described it, paying attention to the passing sensations of the breath and the body to love. that a lot of what we think is human nature or what we've been taught in a Western world is that human nature is greedy, fearful, you know, totally self-interested. But when I started meditating, I started seeing that a lot of that stuff is sort of patterned in over time, whether it's through our own lives or evolutionarily. And when you start dealing with that conditioning and decreasing it, what naturally emerges is love, compassion, and goodwill, and you start being able to live through this new lens, and to me, that's actually human nature, and what we thought was human nature is actually human habit, like greed and all that, that's human habit.

We've been conditioned that way, and love is actually real human nature, but it's in there. You just got to get all the crap out. Love is a loaded word. It's a really loaded term. So when you say love, you couple it with good will. What do you mean specifically when you talk about love? Because I think most of us, we hear that and then we picture scenes from Gone with the Wind. Yeah, you should more so picture scenes from Martin Luther King's life. He was able to change the, you know, make such an impact in history, but it was his love for people that made that happen. So it's not just romantic love or love between friends, but the love that can help you change the world. There's a phrase that I quote a lot on the show that one of our earliest guests taught

me. that I quote a lot on the show that one of our earliest guests taught me she was a she is a Tibetan lama although she's a western woman one of the first women especially western women to become a lama and she was telling me that the Tibetan enlightenment in Tibetan the word roughly translates into a clearing away and a bringing forth. Oh, that's good. Yeah, that's great. It's basically what you just described. Yeah, and then I think it's funny because I found that process happening within my own being, but when I examine historical

figures like the Buddha, like Jesus, or just even the people that I'm meditating with, we're all going through the same process where we still feel the tenses of greed and aversion and all of that, but they're decreasing over time. And just like this like floodgate opens up and you are able to just be so much more gentler with life. That's one of the things that I actively try to cultivate is when I look back at my past self, I was so harsh.

I was always really harsh with my words or mean to people and now I try to live in a gentle way. You ever find yourself being harsh still? Not as much, but for sure. But there's degrees to it. So I can notice things in my words for sure. I have a lot of things to work on. What do you all do? for sure. I mean, I have a lot of things to work on. We'll do. So I kind of d railed us a little bit when we're talking about the birth of young

Waibolo. So this is 2014. The idea was, okay, this is my pen name and I'm going to start posting on Instagram. Yeah, so it's my pen name and I, you know, my whole thing is like, I'm not trying to specifically talk about meditation. I'm also just want to talk about what helps a human being transform and the possibility of transformation. Because to me, it was such a shock. I grew up in a time where, and I think that time has definitely changed now, especially in this decade that's ending. But I felt like if you have some type of mental health issue or anything like that, you're

just going to have to deal with it for the rest of your life. Like nothing is going to be able to actually heal it. So the fact that I was feeling like real healing was happening inside me, just, I found that be well, be well doing. So I started just writing about the fact that you could go from one place to another, you know, and over time, it just became clear and clear and just talking about how to engage with your anxiety and how to set down goals and how to work towards them without craving and just different things that could be sort of universal, even if you were a meditator or

not a meditator, you could find some use in helping these things make you think in different ways. You have hundreds of thousands of followers. What do you think accounts for that? Instagram's algorithm. Instagram has a algorithm and many people don't have any followers. Yeah, no, I think the message is definitely resonating with people. I also think we're sort of shifting it. Sorry, just to interrupt you one second. You're not posting pictures.

All your posting is black text on white background. I know. So it's not super Instagram friendly. I'm taking hyper minimalism. I'm taking minimalism to a whole other level. I really wanted to make it so simple that it would either really help you digest that quickly or you would either not want it and you would just go somewhere else. So it was funny because I was speaking with one of the first

hundred people who worked at Instagram and he was like we had no idea that people would share words on Instagram. We literally thought it was just going to be pictures but we're so happy that it worked out that way. I mean it's like I think of your work as people are scrolling through I mean, it's like I think of your work as people are scrolling through getting this huge dose of FOMO and You know seeing people pose in front of their private jets with the hashtag And it's just a miserable experience and then boom your your thumb stops on like a bomb of wisdom from you Yeah, and that's what I'm hoping for, because I really wanna help people

just like develop a new intellectual framework to see themselves in, because right, like meditating is something that happens at the level of experience. Like you're literally experiencing these things as opposed to intellectually digesting everything. Like you may do that after the retreat, but really the healing,

liberation work happens through feeling and experiencing. But to me it still seems worthwhile to just develop a new framework to think inside of. And I'm hoping that I can support people and seeing themselves as beings that change or as beings that could actually grow or see what it feels like to be on the end before the healing and what it feels like after. But you could have chosen any medium, any platform, but you decided to go to social media. Yeah, I went to Instagram because that's just where everyone was hanging out. Like, that's, it had just become popular and I was like, okay, let me just put things up here and see how it goes.

But what was part of you thinking, well, this is a place where a lot of negative emotions are generating. Let's see if I can counteract that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I definitely was aware of like Instagram's abilities to just make people depressed if you hang out too long or depending on who you're following, it can definitely be a place that brings you down. But I think it'll also be a place that amplifies who you want to be and who you want to grow into.

I think that's something that people are, you know, they're using it more like that now, hopefully. Well, I think you're a big part of that. You're really on the vanguard of using social media for something, to wholesome. Can we just start looking at some of your posts and deconstructing them? I don't have a phone handy, do you have a phone handy?

On my phone. Let me see. All right, so can we, can I pick a few of these? Yeah, sure. All right, I'm just, can I pick a few of these? Yeah, sure. All right, I'm just picking at random here. Do you want to read it? I'll read it. You're a bit better in your voice.

So the one Dan just picked is, never forget the ones who saw greatness in you, even in your darkest moments. So I wrote that one because I remember there were friends who in that period right before I had my like real rock bottom there were friends who To him particular my friend Karina and my friend Shaka they would call me periodically and I don't know if they knew that I was in a really dark moment, but they always They knew that I could be some I could I could do something good in my life because they had seen me I grew up with them

They were the people that I used to organize with when I was younger and when we were together You know, we had so much power together and they just knew that I you know could be someone Like who is also continuing to help people and all of that but That's really important not forget those people who saw you and you consider what you do poetry, right? Yeah kind of I mean sometimes it's poetry. Sometimes it's just like a quote or it's an essay. But I really like, I don't care too much about like how I define these things. I'm just writing.

And were you, did you have a history of writing? No, not at all. I majored in economics. So something moved in you that you were like, all right, I'm going to start Instagram feed of literally like the mind was so rocky. And I think like three retreats into it. I was like, wait, I think I could write a poem. And but literally like that density of the mind was decreased and all of a sudden all

this creativity started flowing out. It's so I had never I had never planned to be I thought I was going to be an investment banker. But that moment of the moment I think I thought I was going to be an investment banker. But that moment of the moment I think a good right of poem is like a bad cliche. Yeah. And yeah, it's, the result is really good. Yeah. All right, let's keep going with some, just pick them at random and read whatever you want. A really short one that I like is, observe, accept, release, transform, observe, accept, release, transform. Observe, accept, release, transform.

That actually sounds like basic meditation instructions. I was trying to really grasp what it requires to let go. And I think whether you're in therapy, whether you're meditating, whether you're doing some type of somatic practice, or like some type of healing modality, what you're doing is like you have some degree of observing, you have to be able to just accept it and you know when you let go the transformation happens and you become a new you. So let go is a, people can get hung up on what that actually means, how do you define that?

Let it go, it's tough because it's not just an intellectual process and more so, for me, at least, when I'm meditating, letting go is all happening through feeling and through being objective. Let me just see what's happening there in the moment that you're seeing just what's there, all the things that used to be tied up inside of you just start releasing very quickly. But it's different for different practices, so I can't completely define it. I think a lot of people, sometimes, that's probably the number one question that I get, is how do you let go? And what I tell people is you have to find a practice that can take you into your subconscious,

because in your subconscious are all those underlying patterns that are forcing you to behave in a certain way. And if you're able to deal with those patterns, then the real work of letting go Go is happening. So you can that can be through meditation or whatever. You know, I often will ask probably like once a month, I'll ask what is helping you let go. And people comment so many different things. And I think it's amazing because there's much more techniques than I'm aware of out there. Let me talk about Letting Go and see if this resonates with you because I got hung up on this term when I first started getting Interested in meditation. It struck me as it struck me as

Resignation letting you know, I'm an ambitious guy. I've got things I want to do letting go seemed like the opposite of what I was looking to do So another way to say it is actually just letting be which also doesn't mean much But I can make that mean more. So letting be in meditation is something comes up that's really difficult. Pain, for me, it's a lot of like, restlessness, like I want to get the hell out of here. I hate this. I hate every time around me blah, blah, blah. And then you just try to watch that non-judgmentally. One might even say journalistically.

Yeah. Explore, like, was it feel like to be restless and that act of just being non-judgmentally aware, mindful of whatever is happening, allowing it to be is freeing in and of itself, because then you're no longer caught up in it, you're just observing it from a distance. That, to me, is the sort of simplest operationalizable definition of letting go. I just heard, I love that, and I wanted to add to it, like I just heard from someone that I look up to.

He was telling me a story about one of his friends who was talking to a meditation teacher that he really looked up to within the same tradition. And he, so this man asks this teacher, you know, how do I, how do I deepen my practice? And the teacher looks at him and he says, just accept, like just accept, accept whatever's happening inside you. Like, don't, don't try to change what's happening, just accept it. And then all that process of letting go happens rather quickly. Yeah, I've heard the term self-liberate. It self-liberates. Yeah.

There's something healing about just looking at things without being owned by them. And, and that is not a resignation It's for all of your activist friends Accepting letting be letting go doesn't mean you say yeah, I'm gonna let Greedy people walk all over me. I mean you're gonna accept whatever's happening in your own mind right now So that when you take action it comes from a place of trying to genuinely be helpful instead of anger or hatred. Right.

I want to read another piece about letting go that might expound on me even further, but I want to we should also talk about goals versus craving because that's really important. So letting go does not mean you have given up and it does not mean you no longer care. It just means that you are releasing the attachments of the past that keep getting in the way of your happiness and mental clarity. Letting go is the unbinding and disentangling of old behavior patterns that keep pulling you into unnecessary mental tension and worry. When you can be okay with things not having gone a certain way, life begins again. Making peace with the past opens you up to love, adventures, and allows you to apply

the lessons you have learned with a new calmness. Yeah, because spending too much time stuck in the past, blindly stuck in the past, is stale, and you're disconnected from the potential to actually do something fresh right now. And that, yeah, so that makes complete sense. And in no way contradicts having the desire to make social change or to build a profitable business or whatever it is your desires in the world may be.

Yeah, one of the things that really struck me as I kept meditating was realizing how much my, like, you know, this sort of emotional history that we all carry. Like it leaves imprints. Like you think you feel an emotion and then it passes, but it actually left an imprint on your subconscious. And all of that that's been imprinted over time is pushing you to behave and think and act in certain ways.

So the past is continuously resurfing itself and pushing against all of your actions in the present moment. And it's tough because then you get caught in a cycle where you're just constantly recreating the past. Goals versus craving. So important. That's, I think one of the biggest things is learning how to work in a detached way. Like it's absolutely fine to have goals. Like a lot of people think that once you're meditating, you become a hermit, you become a monk, and then you kind of give everything up.

And that's totally like, you know, monks are real. There's tons of them out there, and that's a way to live. But if you're a householder, you're a layperson, you gotta have goals. You have responsibilities to take care of. And it's fine to have goals and to pursue things, but you wanna make sure that your goal isn't so tied up with craving because if you're not able to achieve what you want, then immediately you fall into misery,

that's how you know that your goal was actually a craving. And if you're able to, you know, work and you see, okay, I'm not getting what I want, and you're able to figure out, okay, how can I do this in a better way? Then you know that your goal was just a goal because you keep sort of moving forward without feeling that intensity of mental tension and worry and, you know, being disappointed in yourself. Motivation is such a tricky issue. Sometimes I spend a lot time thinking about, like, at least what I'm trying to communicate is exactly in line with what you're saying. We can want to do things for really good,

positive reasons, but if we look carefully, sometimes there's, well, I'll speak for myself, but I look carefully, there's a lot of ego in there. I wanna have more people listen to this podcast. I wanna have more followers on social media. I want more subscribers to my app. I want more have more people listen to this podcast. I want to have more followers on social media. I want more subscribers to my app. I want more people to buy my books. I want I want I want. I want. And what meditation I found, you tip one area of utility for meditation is it helps you kind of see some of that and let it go. the seeing, the seeing of it makes it easier to let go so that you can act on sort of your

better angels can be more up at the fore as opposed to all of your ugliness. Yeah, it's one of the tough things because my hope is to continue moving in a direction where I can just create more and more selflessly because I definitely have the same things come up. It's like, okay, how can I reach people in a way that all of this continues growing and growing? But now I've realized that young poivlo is really just an opportunity to serve people. It's an opportunity to make something useful. And let me just focus on actually making things that are useful for people as opposed to worrying about, you know, is this post gonna be popular and get X amount of thousands of likes and whatnot?

But you got bills to pay? I do, but they're getting paid. But I can't become obsessed with like, oh, now I have this much money, but now I need to double that, triple that. If my responsibilities are taken care of, then that should be good. One more question for me,

and then I wanna let some of the other folks in the room ask some questions. A common and I think totally reasonable critique of the modern meditation movement in the United States is that it's very white. One little riff that often go on in my public speeches is that we, the stereotype around meditation is that it's for people who live on the Upper West side and shop at Whole Foods and go to Soul Cycle. And I don't say that with any hatred because I'm all of those things. And yet meditation was invented millennia ago by people in the Indian subcontinent and it is designed to help everybody

with a mind, generate qualities that we care about, just like exercise is for anybody with a body to work on muscles we have. So what's your take on this critique? I think it's sound, you know, that there's a certain degree of opportunity cost to going to a retreat, like if you're not in an economic situation where you can actually take 10 days of work off, and like that's a lot of pay that you're not receiving. And to do that, you know, it does require some type of like financial security or, you know, being young and you don't have that many responsibilities that people take care of. But I think in regards to accessibility, meditation and a lot of these healing

techniques still have a way to go because either they're too expensive or they're so much time. But I think it's not to change everything because I think it's absolutely fine to be able to meditate for 10 days. It's something very special and we should try to support people in doing that. But there are, like in India itself, I've been hearing about how the different local governments have seen such a positive impact that the pasta has, that there are, like, different businesses and governments will be, they'll, like, give you whatever money that you were going to earn in those 10 days and you can go and meditate and you'll still, you know, so like in terms of like supporting mental health,

that's like a huge thing that we can do. And if you support mental health and people, you know, can feel better, if people feel better and are more self-aware, then of course they're going to hurt each other less. And so, you know, that money that you're spending will be decreased and like police and, you know, jails and all that stuff. So this is an unusual episode of the podcast because this is both a podcast and we're doing an interview that will run parts of which we'll run on a little show. We do a ABC News called Nightline. So we have two Nightline producers in the room Chris Rios and Laura Coburn, both amazing. I know they have questions. So Chris, can you speak loudly? Can you come closer to Diego's mic? Yeah, so it's actually similar or it's related

to the last question you asked, Dan. There's a lot of what you're saying that, I'm a person of color, my parent to Puerto Rican, is a lot of what you've been saying that speaks to me. And I'm just curious to know, maybe I should give some context. I recently have, I started to go to therapy, you know, just to take care of my mental health. You know, we work in a very high, high stress, you know, industry. And I mentioned it to my father and who's someone who actually does practice meditation and is in tune with the

spirituality, but that to him seemed like crazy. He was like, why? And I just wonder when you talk to your family or the people in your community, what is their perception of what you do and what you've done and just sort of this practice of mindfulness and this practice of just taking care of your mental health? Yeah, I think especially for like the Latinx communities,

it's just a whole new world. My mom and dad understand what I'm doing because I've talked to them so much about it, but I think generally my family, they don't really get what I'm doing. Like they get like the young pueblo stuff and all that growing and all that's fine, but when I go to retreats and meditate, that is just, they can't conceptualize it that well, but what they do know is that

I feel better, I'm happier, I smile more often, and I'm generally very kind to them. So they're not opposed to it because I'm moving in a good direction. What should Chris say to his skeptical dad? I mean, there's different ways to work with the mind. And I think people just need to work with the mind in a way that meets them where they're at. And if like, you know, his dad meditates great, that's working for him, fantastic.

But if he doesn't feel like he wants to meditate and wants to use a therapist, that's fantastic. As long as he continues developing into a direction that fulfills his goals and makes him a gentle, good person. Also, I say this as a parent, we don't have to tell our parents everything. Yeah, but I definitely get it because that is, you know, it's sort of like exploded from India out into the world and it's just now like in the past few decades, like reaching the Western world.

So for a lot of us, like, whether you're Latinx or not, like this is very new stuff. And we're all trying to grapple with it and understand it and, you know, through our own conditioning. L.C., you get a question. I am curious what your audience is like going off of that. I mean, do you have what is your audience like and are you able to connect with people from all different backgrounds and walks of life? Yeah, it helps that we all have minds. So the structure of the mind is essentially the same, but the content of the mind are different according to our own personal histories.

But we all have anxiety, we all have stress, we all have some degree of dissatisfaction or suffering, and being able to connect on the fact that, the people who come, they all understand that, they're not gonna buy their way to happiness. So some degree of internal work has to happen for them to just get to a better place inside of themselves. And the, you know, the, I mean, depends on where I go,

you know, like when I went to London, it was like a very, very white, but also pretty diverse at the same time. And in different places I don't know the audiences primarily women and probably about 70% women over time more men have been coming Which has been great too. It's balanced out a little bit But it's generally pretty diverse. Where do you see all this going and how do you plan for the future without Lapsing into too much craving? I

See myself writing a few more books, and then I think I'm gonna take a break. I'm probably take a break for a few years to just keep deepening my own meditation work. I really see things like, I mean, things are continuing to grow. Probably grow by like a thousand, the two thousand followers a day,

and that's great, and that's fine. But I don't know where it's all going to go to be honest. I feel like what I'm doing right now feels good. And if I ever see that it's becoming so you know it's not how big it gets but how I'm reacting to it is what matters. And if I find that I'm reacting to it too much and that I'm making more mental tension and I'm digressing or sort of moving backwards then Then I'll have to put everything on a serious pause because I'm my main my number one goal is my personal growth and my personal freedom and not freedom in the sense of like doing whatever Whatever you want and buying whatever you want, but like freedom in my mind, you know freedom from

doing whatever you want and buying, whatever you want, but like freedom in my mind, you know, freedom from worry, stress, and mental tension. And not, you know, life is going to continue giving difficult things that you could be worried towards, but it's my reaction that's making that worry actually happening. And if I find that I can have objective feelings towards things and just, you know,

if I'm reacting too much, then something's not quite right. The final thing I do on every show is, I sort of semi-facitiously call it the plug zone. So I want you to plug everything you do, and I also just want to point out for people, you have a book, and you will talk about it in a second, but you don't advertise on Instagram, you don't make any money there. Oh yeah, I'm like, The way people want to support you is buying the book.

Yeah, no, if you want to read more and depth about, you know, the things that I've been talking about and reading about, you can get my book inward. I end W-A-R-D by young people, by Young Pueblo YUNG, PUE BLO. I've had many Barnes & Ombnobles or bookstore around the world, and you can also buy it on Amazon Online. And if you want to follow along on Instagram, I'm at Young Pueblo YUNG underscore PUE BLO. And yeah, if you want to hang out there, let's cool to.

Anything I should have asked but didn't? No, but I'll have to save that for the next interview. You're welcome back. You're doing great work. It's a pleasure to meet you. Yeah, no, this has been fantastic. Thank you for having me. All right. Diego slash young Pueblo really appreciate the time. He's doing fascinating things in the world. So it's fun to meet him so good news for you uh... the the voice mail this week will not be answered by me they're going to be answered by our uh... are ace

ray houseman who is uh... and extremely experienced meditation teacher and she runs our coaching team at the ten percent happier app those of the folks who answer questions from users night or day and uh... here we go here VoiceMail number one from Kate after which you'll hear Ray's response. Hi, I'm just Kate and I am a big fan of the app and the podcast. I say thank you so much for providing those resources for people who are looking to improve their mindfulness habits. I am a mom of a gorgeous 16-month old, and I'm sure that as a parent you're very aware of the effect that I can have on mindfulness habit. But my question is, most of the time my real meditation happened after she's gone to bed at night. When do you recommend introducing mindfulness habits to kids?

And are there any good resources for doing that? I know that she's pretty young at this point, but we're just kind of trying to be planning ahead and thinking about the types of skills we want to be teaching her. So if we could have some kind of idea and some way to prepare for introducing those habits in whatever way is appropriate for age as soon as possible, that would be great. Thank you so much and it's for your response and thanks again for everything that you and your team are doing. Hi, it's Ray. Thanks so much for reaching out Kate. It's really fun to hear that you and your team are doing. Hi, it's Ray. Thanks so much for reaching out, Kate. It's really fun to hear that you're a big fan

of the app and the podcast. And congratulations on being a mom. I don't personally have any recommendations on when it's best to introduce mindfulness to kids, but I've certainly heard anecdotes that illustrate its benefits. These days, there are some great resources available and I'm happy to share some with you. First there's a book called, Sitting Still Like a Frog, Mindfulness Exercises for Kids and their Parents by Eline Snell, which I've heard some good things about.

I encourage you to check that out. There's a set of texts by Sumi Kim, who is one of the contributors of the talk section on the app, which is called, sitting together, a family-centered curriculum on meditation and Buddhist teachings. Teachers and parents alike might benefit from James Barra's and Michelle Lillianna's collaborative work on a book called, Awakening Joy for Kids.

I encourage you to check that out. I'll also name that there's a great Australian website which offers meditation resources for kids. It's called Smiling Mind. There's plenty more out there, and if you do a search for mindfulness on kids on the internet, you'll come up with more options. But I hope this gives you a good start. All right, thank you Ray.

Thank you Kate. Here's the next voicemail from Dan in Austin, Texas. Hey, I've been on this kind of rebuilding path, if you will. Last year I started getting into meditation. I did some talk therapy last year. I've suffered from depression, anxiety. I've just, I've been a very anxious person my whole year. I've suffered from depression, anxiety. I've been a very anxious person my whole life and have really never been present.

I've led with my ego through most of my life, whether it be, you know, being in sports and, you know, becoming a teacher eventually to where I was up in front of parents and showcasing and showing off and talking and talking, which is not a bad thing. But as I started last year to really, after going through some personal matters to kind of regate where I'm at and what I could do to better my life, I realized that I need to have a total one-on-one and a switch for myself so that I could go ahead and focus on what really is holding me back.

And I figure up to now that my ego is a big part of it. So that all said, as I become more present, more aware, and meditating consistently, and I'm breathing more, all those things that help me, I'm becoming more aware with people around me as well, my family in particular. And it's a struggle for me because my family is in no way like that. They don't do debriefing. They all didn't go to college, so it's tough to get to in the weeds about, you know, studious topics.

They have anger issues. There are things like that that I really want to help them through, but they don't want to help with. They don't want to change. So my struggle is now that I'm more aware and I want to avoid those sorts of behaviors myself, I'm finding it difficult to just communicate with those people that I love so much, because now I feel as mentally, I'm in such a different place. And this is after I moved across the country three years ago with my wife.

So that makes it even harder because we had been together my whole life. So that's kind of where I'm at. And I guess I'm just hoping to hear from you and see if you've maybe had a similar experience or heard of this or might know someone that would have a bit of advice on this topic. But I appreciate everything you do for the community here. I'm a daily listener or at least want a new episode drops

and I'm always a fan of yours. So thank you for everything you're doing and have a great new year. Thanks a lot. Hi, it's Ray. Thanks for reaching out, Dan. It's fun to hear that you're such a big fan of the podcast. I'm sure many people can relate to the experience you're having. It can be challenging to maintain relationships with people from our past, even people we love, when our perspective and orientation to life changes as a result of our engagement with a practice. I know this to be true for myself.

And if we're able to find ways to meet our relational needs outside of these past or familial relationships, then it's possible that our presence or just our simple being alone can be a resource for these folks. So I really want to emphasize that it's not about teaching people to be different or trying to have them learn something new, trying to get them to engage with the practice. It's really a simple offering of our loving presence that we're aiming for. In order to offer that type of loving presence, it's important for us to have a clear sense of our own needs. It's very likely that, especially in familial relationships, our own relational

needs will arise. Some example of these needs might be, so for example for me, I have a need to be seen or I may have a need to feel understood or be understood. So we want to develop an awareness of these needs and see if we can offer ourselves some sense of meeting them so that we aren't reacting to these people in our lives from the past or our families from a desire for them to offer us something or to be someone that they aren't able to. The practice supports us in accepting things just as they are, and part of what might be in the mix here is the pain that arises in the loss of what we thought

our relationships would offer us. So we get to feel into the pain of that recognition. At least for right now, these people are not able to engage in the type of relationship or dialogues that we are ultimately interested in having. And in feeling this pain and letting it move through, it's possible you may notice that there's more flexibility in your ability to be with people right where they're at. Of course, these processes are never linear. And we have to take care and be honest throughout as new layers of reconciling with these differences arise. I hope this is helpful.

I wish you the best. Thank you, Ray. Really appreciate you kicking in and participating. We're gonna do much more from Ray and other meditation teachers on the voicemail section of this show going forward, although I'll occasionally still jump in. If and other meditation teachers on the voicemail section of this show going forward Although I'll occasionally still jump in if you want to leave us questions via voicemail give us a call The number is 646883 8366468838326

Big thanks to our team The people who do a ton of work making this show happen Ryan Kesslerler, Samuel Johns, Grace Livingston, Lauren Hartzog, Tiffany O'Mahundro, Layton is working the boards today as I record this. We'll be back next week with another amazing episode. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today. Or you can listen early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early in Add Free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself

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