Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 297: Dealing with Uncertainty, Anxiety, and Anger | Special Post-Election Edition | Lama Rod Owens

Episode Date: November 4, 2020

In the wee hours of election night, we consult Lama Rod Owens on uncertainty, anxiety, rage, and self-care. Join Dan and Rev. angel Kyodo williams today, Wednesday, November 4 at 3 PM for a live conversation (and guided meditation) on the Ten Percent Happier YouTube channel. https://youtu.be/INrdKfw8YrU Full shownotes for this Special Post-Election episode: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/lama-rod-owens-297 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 MBC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey guys, we're posting this on the Wednesday after the election as we record in the middle of the night, it's starting to look like we're not going to know the outcome for a while. So I imagine many of you are squirming with some level of discomfort here. So we've brought on an ace to help us deal with uncertainty, anxiety, rage, self-care.

And his name is Lamarad Owens. He's a Buddhist teacher based in Boston and also the author of a book called Love and Rage. And we'll get to him in just one moment before we dive in with Lamarad. I also want to say that we hear a 10% happier thinking a lot about how we can be of service at this tender moment in American and global history. So we're also doing a live event today and by today, I mean Wednesday, November 4th at three Eastern. We're gonna be talking to, I will be talking to the Reverend Angel,

Kyoto Williams, we'll be doing some meditation and taking your questions, and that will be on the 10% happier YouTube channel. I'll put a link in the show notes. So that's this afternoon, meanwhile, let's dive in now on this morning after with Lomarado and Sue, a great to stay up. Unreasonably late with us to do this episode.

Lomarado, thank you for doing this, really appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. I'm happy to. So let me just start by asking how you are. It's been a long, long night and it looks like there's a lot more to go for this country. Absolutely. You know, I'm okay. I'm exhausted, but this has been an exhausting year. And tonight is just a continuation of something that we're just struggling to make sense of and struggling to figure out how to take care of ourselves around. Taking care of ourselves, let me pick up on that. You've been, I've been kind of monitoring your pre-election utterances, what you've been

saying at various places in the days running up to the election. And you have talked a bit about taking care of ourselves, which I think for some of us is counterintuitive, just by looking at Twitter tonight, the amount of references to heavy drinking and binge eating to cope with the stress of watching the returns come in. Yeah, it's just striking. So what is the role of taking care of ourselves at a moment like this? Right. Well, taking care means that we are trying to reduce the discomfort, we're trying to reduce harm for ourselves and for others around us.

And I think sometimes we get into the habit of kind of getting lost and swallowed in these overwhelming emotions that come up, the anxiety, the fear, the disappointment, the sadness, all of that. These are emotional expressions that are quite depressing. So we feel really drained, we feel heavy, we feel weighed down. And so we try to regulate those experiences by turning to something that's pleasurable, particularly something that offers quick pleasure, like drugs and the eating and so forth.

But when I think about self-care and caring for ourselves in this moment, I'm thinking more about foundational long-term, really healthy ways of managing how I'm feeling. So I'm thinking about rest. I'm thinking about reducing my consumption of media. I'm thinking about something that's not so much about producing short-term pleasure, but something that I can engage in

that produces maybe a long-term effect that I can come back to over and over again that doesn't feel so expensive, you know, in terms of the impact that has on my system, you know, so, you know, it's not for me to like get drunk tonight, you know, but maybe turning towards something like just going to bed or, you know, watching a show, you know, having like, you know, a bowl of ice cream, you know, and then turning towards resting, you know, and kind of, you know, turning off the news and the media, you know, and that way that gives my like nervous system a break, right? You know, that's, I think that's what we're really ultimately looking for is a break for a nervous system. a break for a nervous system.

Self-care has become a bit of an annoying trope. It's like a millennial cliche up there with avocado toast. But I think in the most substantial way, if you think about it in the most sort of... In the deepest possible way, self-care is actually, I used the term before counterintuitive, maybe some people are thinking, to the barricades, and I need to fight it out in every possible venue on social media, in the streets, et cetera, and I'm not telling anybody what to do, but you know, you kind of want to make sure you're

taking care of yourself so you can be maximally effective. I was looking at a website today that the Ministry of NAP. Yeah. NAP Ministry. NAP Ministry. So it's like her, the pastor who founded that talks about talks about naps as an active resistance. Yeah. Yeah.

Absolutely. And that comes out of Audrey Lloyd's work where Audrey Lloyd, many years ago, when she was struggling with cancer, talked about self-care being, self-preservation, self-care being, self-preservation, and self-preservation is an act of local warfare. So this self-preservation isn't self-indulgence. So self-indulgence is something that we do that takes us away from important work and we get kind of wrapped up in an activity with no intent of returning back to the work at hand, right?

But self-care and the form of self-preservation is really about asking ourselves, you know, and discerning if we actually need to take a break, you know, and taking a break only to experience some restoration, some care, in order to return back to the work. That's important. So when I think about self-care right now, self-care as self-preservation in this moment, it means that I am realizing that the work is going to be long term. You know, and so if I am overwhelmed and exhausted now, then I take a break. You know, knowing that ultimately I will want to come back, I will be coming back to do the work of whatever the work looks like for us. You know, if it's political, if it's social, whatever it may be,

you know, but I can political, if it's social, whatever it may be, you know, but I can't do the work unless I am feeling a sense of restoration, you know, and that kind of self preservation, right, where I'm checking in with myself and asking myself what I need, that helps me to be sustainable, you know, for the long run. You know, so I think people look at tonight and they're like, okay, how can I possibly go on after tonight? No matter what the result end up being, you know, and I think that that indicates that we, no matter what, we should take a break. You know, we should take a break and go into practices of self-care, self-preservation,

and then come back and ask ourselves, okay, what else needs to be done now? And doing that periodically, I think is really effective in terms of long-term work, organizing, living in general. So self-care, again, easily dismissed as a cliche, but I think you and I agree on a deep level, very important. I think that's, I think it's a great, I'm glad we covered that.

I think I want to move on though to another issue that I think that's, I think it's a great, I'm glad we covered that. I think I want to move on though to another issue that I think many people, whatever side you're on, we're dealing with uncertainty. And what we know about the human animal is that we are not wired to cope with uncertainty very well. So, from your background, and after all these years of Buddhist practice, what do you recommend in terms of how we deal with this seemingly non-negotiable uncertainty? Yeah. I just feel as if so much as always uncertain, you know,, like for instance, I have no idea what I'm going to die. That is a big question mark, you know, for me. And it has been for the duration of

my practice. So I've learned to work with that uncertainty in a way where I just say, you know what, whatever happens happens, you know, whatever happens happens, whatever comes comes, you know, and whatever arises, I trust myself to meet whatever arises with the support of my practice. So it's not necessarily me really getting lost in anxiety about the future, but it's more about me coming back into the moment and just really showing up as open-hearted as possible and saying, you know what, I'm going to hold space for whatever arises in this moment. You know, I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but you know what, I know what's

happening right now, right? I know what's happening with my breath, I know what's happening with my body, I know what's happening with my breath. I know what's happening with my body. I know what's happening with my mind Right, you know and holding space for me means that I recognize and notice everything arising in my experience and I Don't react to it. I let it just rise. I let it be there and as I let it be, I enter into this really profound space of experiencing what's arising from me. That experience actually opens up the door to space within my mind, right? The space for me is just this, this, this, this, I don't know, this experience of having a lot of freedom, a lot of movement, right?

I don't feel swallowed up by the content of the contents of my mind. I feel this incredible sense of, well, this incredible capacity to make choices, right? You know, and to turn my attention, you know, to experiences in my mind that are restorative, right? You know, so instead of fixating on the anxiety, actually, within spaciousness can actually turn my mind, my intention, to gratitude, which is what I've been practicing. Tonight, you know, look at all the things that are still going well. You know, look at what we still have, right? Look at, you know, look at all the incredible effort that people have been putting in to creating a future. You know, that's equitable for as many of us as possible.

Look at that effort. You know, and most importantly for me, my gratitude is about the, about is about realizing that like, yes, I still am committed to a better future, you know, for myself and for others around me. Like, I haven't, I haven't given up no matter what happens, I'm not giving up. I'm grateful for that that I'm not burned out. Even though my work is so much about holding space for folks in incredible ways, holding space for the trauma, the anxiety, the worry. Really, I've been with several groups today,

helping folks really move through the anxiety, the fear, the terror, the trauma that's coming up, I'm for folks. I'm happy to be able to do that. I'm grateful for having the capacity to do that. You know, and I can still have that gratitude and also be really realistic about where we're at in this moment. We go back to what you were describing in the first half of your answer to my

question about uncertainty. By the way, big plus one on gratitude. I'm glad you brought that up. But I want to make sure I get you to unpack a little bit more about this idea of sort of my words, not yours, and maybe not the right words, but sort of falling back on what's happening right now when we're tempted to be, and now I'm back in your language, swallowed up by whatever uncertainty and the anxiety that results from it as we look at, if we obsessively refresh Twitter or the New York Times or ABC News. You said something about just, I don't know what's gonna happen in the future,

but I do know what's happening right now. And it sounds like zeroing in on what's happening right now, either through your meditation practice on the cushion or in a more free range way, is a portal to something more easeful. Can you say a little bit more, like give us the blocking and tackling on how you do that?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think first of all, it's a certain mentality that we're choosing, and this mentality is choosing the discomfort. So many of us are already uncomfortable right now in this moment. Absolutely. So instead of resisting that, how do we say, you know what, you're here. I welcome you. Yes. To the discomfort.

Yes. To the discomfort, to the anxiety, the fear, whatever is coming up for you. And then that invites us, you know, that's an invitation to turn our attention into the discomfort with a lot less resistance. You know, I am uncomfortable, therefore I'm going to choose this discomfort. And that, for me, opens up a lot of space around that experience. You know, there's a layer of suffering that kind of drops when I start resisting. What's happening? You know, there's an acceptance.

You know, I am accepting that this is happening. Great. There doesn't mean I'm condoning anything. It doesn't mean I'm giving in. None of that. It means that like I am doing this really basic work of acknowledging what's happening for me in this moment. I can't do anything productive are important if I don't allow myself to touch into the moment of how I'm feeling.

And once I touch into this moment then I can make a choice to say, okay, what next? What am I going to do now? You know, and maybe that next choice is, okay, I am going to take a break because maybe this moment is maybe a little too much for me to hold in my practice. And so maybe I should go and rely on other forms of care right now that can help me regulate what I'm experiencing and once I feel more balanced then I have the space to come back and say okay, maybe I can start thinking about what my choices are now moving forward you know so we you know we go to sleep we get up and we say okay okay, and this morning, okay, I have some space.

Now, what am I going to do? And on a practice level, this kind of counterintuitive move, because our habitual response to anxiety is, well, habitually, I think we're wired to do one of at least three things. Feed it, you know, just get swallowed up in it, fight it, or numb out. Right. Right. Holly Pharmacy, alcohol, whatever. And this is sort of an inviting it in and getting curious about it. And I knew you're from the Tibetan school. I only know sort of inviting it in and getting curious about it. And I knew you're from the Tibetan school. I only know sort of how we practice

in the either secular mindfulness or teravata old school Buddhism. But the way I would do it would be I'm sitting on the cushion or even if I'm just walking down the street, is to maybe even use some little mental noting. Oh yeah, where's the show enough in my body and like, oh yeah, buzzing in my chest or throbbing in my temples, et cetera, et cetera.

Is that in line with how you would practice? Yes, yes, absolutely. And let me just say how much I loved that you said, old school Buddhism, when talking about teravada Buddhism, I'm gonna have to use that now. Yeah, you know, it's just being in my, just being in whatever experience I am in the moment and just stopping and checking in and saying, okay, where am I feeling this thing? You know, I feel the mental experience of anxiety, right?

Where is it feel, where is it showing up in my body? You know, and this is gonna be different for everyone. You know, like everyone experiences different, kind of corresponding physical sensations, you know. And in their bodies and so for me, it's like, yes, always really interesting where this shows up for me in my body. So I get really curious and interested in that, you know, absolutely. But you know, we also have to be very careful about especially now being really sensitive to trauma, and getting really triggered when we kind of drop in

to the physicality of our experience. And I'm really interested in, I think there are many folks, maybe many folks listening to this podcast who maybe don't identify as folks who struggle with trauma, but I think these experiences of trauma will become much more common. And I think they have become much more common this year.

And so I think we have to really start developing a lot of care around how we're looking deeply in two physical sensations. You know, and make sure we have a lot of support, you know, in that part of our practice. What do you do if you start to, you know, I'm gonna be a good meditator and I'm gonna invite in all of these crappy feelings and what do you do if you think you might be, you know, in tilt? Yeah, yeah, you know, I think one of the things we do

is to spend the practice, right? And we should. To spend it. Yeah, just stop it, stop it. And just like shift our attention to something that's really grounded, really solid, really neutral. You know, so that means like for me, my go-to is filling the weight of my body on a seat, or filling my feet flat on the floor, or like filling my hands,

my feet flat on the floor are like feeling my hands, are shifting your attention to another part of your body that feels really neutral. If you're someone who is getting triggered like that, shifting away from the breath is always a good idea. You know, I think for many of us, the breath, since it tends to be like a foundation, but I think right now, just something a little more solid, more tangible and holding would be much, much more beneficial for us. I do a lot of what I call earth grounding meditation.

So I just really, you know, I encourage people to go lie down on the floor and just feeling the weight of the body being held by the floor, you know, I think it's so restorative, you know, just to get close to the ground, close to the earth right now is such a fantastic practice. But when I hear you say that, I, I mean, I love it. I think I actually do. I've mentioned this on the show before. Sometimes if I'm, I'm been writing this book, it's quite painful, the, yeah, some of them content. And sometimes I get overwhelmed. I just lie down on the floor and practice that way. But when I hear you talk about that, that doesn't sound to me like a suspension

of the practice. That's still a meditative technique, whereas I could imagine, you know, I just got off the phone with a very close old friend, Willie. Shout out to Willie if he's listening. And he decided he's a committed meditator, but he said, look tonight, I am not watching TV. I know what's going on look tonight i am not watching tv i i know what's going on but i'm not watching tv and put my phone down and as we're speaking he was getting into the bath and he was going to watch john wick and and i you know that i i blessed that as a self-care uh... absolutely uh... yeah so that that to me seems like a suspension of the practice. Yeah. Yeah. Well I think when I talk about suspending I mean suspending whatever you're trying to do in that moment

Producing the spaciousness that you're looking for got you. You know, so so maybe it's it's Suspending that one thing it but transitioning into another form of practice, you know that one thing, but transitioning into another form of practice. You know, I think that's what we should always be doing. Anyway, I think that we should be, as we're engaging in whatever practice we're engaging in, we should always be really aware of the data that we're getting back about the practice and making adjustments in the moment.

You know, and that level of aggressiveness that sometimes come about the practice and making adjustments in the moment. That level of aggressiveness that sometimes comes about and are practiced, that can really create a lot of harm for us. So always in my practice, for instance, there's a lot of openness, a lot of ease, a lot of ease, a lot of like adapting and shifting. You know, I'm very, I'm very sensitive to the ways in which I reproduce, reproduce aggression and the practice by forcing things to happen.

My basic energy is allowing and watching and noticing. You know, particularly in my mindfulness practice, an meditation practice allowing, is the practice of non-doing. But we have so many people who are goal oriented in the practice. Mindfulness can often be presented as this goal-oriented thing. And if we don't hit the goal, then we're just like horrible bad people. If we don't hit the goal, then we're just like horrible, bad people. You know, and that's just, that doesn't fulfill the ultimate aims of a meditation practice, which is to experience more openness and ease and softness and gentleness, you know,

more clarity. You know, you know, meditation practice isn't something we're trying to conquer, it's just something that we're trying to allow, to open up into. And this is the hardest thing to do right now. It's to allow, because when we are opening up, you know, you have to open up to the discomfort. You have to open up to the anxiety, right? And it's not supposed to be initially comfortable, you know. So for those of, you know, for those folks who are listening to this podcast and if you're just starting a practice,

then you're going to have a lot of discomfort to work with right now. And that's okay. Right? Because initially we're just tuning in to the material that sometimes we have been avoiding or running away from. We're not creating discomfort, we're just noticing it. from, you know, we're not creating discomfort, we're just noticing it. And you know, that's something to celebrate actually that you're finally becoming aware of the things you're always running away from. That's fantastic. Now we move into the practice of leaning into that, you know, and unpacking that and that's where we all have to be right now. And theoretically, yes, we all should be there, right? But not all of us are going to actually be in the space where we're going to be really holding the space for the discomfort.

Because a fair amount of us are going to continue running away by passing, discomfort, but to move forward right now, it means that we individually have to do our fair share of holding our own discomfort, and then working together in groups and collectives to collectively do this holding together, you know, because we have to we have to mourn now. No, it's no matter what happens in this election, we are in a really rough place right now as a nation. We're in a very divided country, you know, and I think a lot of that division comes from a lot of unprocessed pain, you know, a lot of that division comes from a lot of unprocessed pain. A lot of discomfort that we're not dealing with until we deal with it, we will continue to see this division and everything else is coming from this division, the hate, right?

You know, the violence, you know, the further targeting of marginalized communities, which will increase now. But we have to bring our practice into the heart of both our individual and collective hurt and woundiness. To be clear, when you say allowing, well, first of all, just to say, I love what you talk about how like we should, and this is a mistake I made for a long time and continue to make on when I'm not on my game.

This idea of turning meditation into something you need to conquer, and it becomes another cudgel that you use on yourself to, you know, to, to, you know, self-lacerate. To me, that sort of easing up has been a huge, you're still doing the practice, but you're not, you're kind of letting it do you and a little bit more. But I can hear some type A folks listening to this saying, well, he's talking about allowing. That sounds like passivity or resignation to me, but that is not what you're saying. Right. Absolutely. We always have to question all the ways in which we're addicted to control. You know, because that control doesn't allow us to be vulnerable.

And what this accepting is really about is vulnerability. Right. You know, it's about opening to all these parts of who and what we are that we're just always running away from. And so that makes us feel like vulnerability really can initially make us feel really weak and passive. Because we actually are not, well, we're not trained enough to be in a right relationship with vulnerability.

You know, in order have we ever been encouraged to be really vulnerable in our culture. But for me, when I really started working with vulnerability, I found an incredible amount of agency. because I just began to discover and experience really figuring out who I was for the first time and I felt really powerful as I was moving through that experience. You know, I would say, oh, this is who I am. This is what excites me.

Like, this is what I'm grateful for. This is where the pain is, right? He was a narrative about something else that I can work with. I just felt so I mean, it was just like a revelation to experience that. And so therefore, I was able to move back into the world, move back into relationships and situations where I was able to be more direct and open because I had done all this work and practicing in this space of vulnerability. And so, yeah, I control and aggressiveness. Yeah, those are just qualities that we're, you know, we're, you know, there's a lot of support for us to be really aggressive and controlling, right?

And I think that the most powerful experience for me is when I've let go of that control over myself and how that letting go has placed me in a much more honest relationship with people around me. And I realized I'm not interested in controlling people necessarily. Like even yeah, like there are a lot of issues in the world and sometimes I sit and think, Oh, I wish I had magic abilities that can just like brainwash everyone into like, you know, believing the things that I believe, right? That's all by the way that's already happening. This is why this election is happening the way that it is, right? You

know, but and then I take a step back and I say, you know what? I don't want to brainwash people. Like I want people to be their most authentic self, but I want people also to realize how they may create harm and violence for themselves and for others around them based upon the things that they believe and adhere to. And we can't get there if we're not practicing vulnerability in our practice. If we're not being supported in the work of vulnerability. Yeah, and just to put a fine point on it, I mean, this, what I hear Lamarad talking about here is something we talk about in the show

all the time. He had used a slightly different language, but the vulnerability leading to agency is just another way of talk of as I hear it, what we in 10% happier land talk about a lot of respond not react the ability to see what's going on for yourself gives you an enormous amount that is not passivity gives you an enormous and it's deeply empowering because then you're not so yanked around by these subrosa emotions and urges and narratives but instead you can have some space there you can see them clearly and then you can respond wisely instead of reacting blindly. So but Lomrod stand by for one second because I need to sneak in a little break here and when we come back I want to talk to you about rage and anger which I suspect not a few people listening are struggling with right now. So we'll be right back with much more of my conversation with Lama Rado and right 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 podcasts. You can also listen to ad free on the Amazon music or wonder. Yeah. All right, we're back with Lamerado and Lamerado. You wrote a book called Love and Rage. Great title.

And it's fascinating combination. I wonder how do you recommend, I suspect many people are more on the rage side of the ledger right now, again, wherever you sit politically, there's a lot to be upset about, and a lot to be squirming about, in the aftermath here.

What do you recommend in terms of dealing with anger or rage if we're feeling it? Yeah, right now. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I think that's a really dominant emotional state for many of us. You know, again, it's using the techniques that we've been talking about, you know, which is how do we allow ourselves to notice a name, anger for ourselves, right? And then let it be there because what many of us are doing it is just reacting to it. That kind of reacting

is quite draining for us. The energy of anger is already really depleting and then we started reacting to it in ways where we have no spaciousness around it, then it just further depletes us, right? And so again, I, you know, I, you know, in love and rage, I, I really talk about how do we tend to the wound in this beneath the anger, like, how do we go and notice that? You know, like, I, I want to sit and just admit to myself that like, I'm just, I'm hurt, you know, and my hurt may feel like fear, it may feel like anxiety, it may feel like trauma, it may feel like sadness or sorrow, but that's what I'm feeling beneath the anger. And without a practice of vulnerability, it's hard for me to touch into that,

that woundiness. And touching into that woundiness is really important because taking care of that woundiness is going to give me the space to be in a much more balanced relationship with the anger. And the anger isn't something that I'm just reacting to anymore, but with space, anger becomes something that's informing how I can possibly use this energy of anger to create benefit for myself and for others not to just create more horror and much escalated violence. You know, But anger is telling me that something's wrong, something's off, it's telling me that I've been hurt, right?

And I think also, anger is asking for us to use it in a really scuffle way, to get things done, to help folks, right? To help ourselves, not just go and create more harm for people, to try to get back at folks who've heard us. Like, yeah, I'm angry, right? And I can allow that anger to drift into narratives about how they're half of this country, right, are just whatever. You know, but I also know that because of the work that I've done with the wound and

it's beneath my anger, I have this space around my anger that also helps me to understand that, yeah, you know, and there are still people who are also struggling to be in a relationship with their anger and with their hurt. And they're trying to do the best that they know how to do as well. You know, and I can allow there to be a lot of compassion um, and my kind of consideration of people who I think are just opposed to, you know, the people who have different beliefs than I do. Um,

who have different beliefs than I do. But I can also say, you know what, yeah, there are people who are trying to do the best that they can, you know, with their wound and is their anger, but also still have a right to set boundaries and to say, you know what what I can't be in relationship with certain people. You know, if they hold certain views that, you know, that manifests as policies or violence against, you know, myself and those within the communities that I identify with. I get that we need to have boundaries. Let me just go back, though, to I think you use the term skillful use or of anger. I'm just trying to figure out what that would look like, because for me, it feels like,

I mean, I can't do this because I'm a journalist, but pressing caps lock and sending some ill-advised tweets or I don't know, you know, punching a hole in the wall or whatever it is. That doesn't seem particularly useful. So what is the move, you know, on a really basic level if we're feeling it upwelling of rage. Right. You know, again, for me, it's turning my attention to the hurt that becomes a grounding experience for me. And I think about all the other people in the world at this very same moment who's also

experiencing this overwhelming rage and anger and all the hurt that they must experience beneath an anger and rage as well. And that sense of like expanding into empathy, it really creates a lot of support for us, right? It creates this kind of, I don't know, it creates the spaciousness that helps me to not feel so overwhelmed by the anger, you know. But also there's something that has to be said about experiencing the anger as well You know when I have space around the anger After tending to the wound in this then I also again enter into the space of experiencing and what does my anger feel like Most of us have no idea what anger feels like we just say, oh it feels powerful strong

You know, but like do we sit and really experience anger? Do we experience the mental experience? Do we experience the physical experience of anger? You know, and many of us believe it's too strong to experience. You know, and I think that we have to put in the work to develop the capacity to really experience anger. And I've had to do that. Like I didn't start my practice

being able to experience a lot, but over the years, I've been able to experience the full kind of expression of anger for me, right? And being able to experience really actually takes an edge off of the energy. And again, if we're finding that if we're trying to do this, let's invite the anger in and be with it, and it's not going well,

there are other things we can do like lying on the ground or watching John Wick in the bath or whatever it is. There are other wise ways to deal with this aside from acting out. Right. You manage it. You consciously manage it. So if this is overwhelming, then I consciously choose something else to do.

And it's completely valid to do that. You know, if there's nothing else that's working, you know, like I'm going to tune out, right? You know, this is too much, this is too much going on. I'm going to go, I'm going to turn everything off and go watch the golden girls, you know, or I'm going to do, I'm going to take a bath or whatever it is, take a walk. You know, that's managing it. And over time, we develop this capacity through those skills that actually feeds back into the basic practice of experiencing. Like all of that helps me to experience the anger.

And that's ultimately what I'm trying to go for. I want to experience everything. You know, everything. Everything has to be experienced for me. In my practice, that's my goal. And for those of us who are not as far along in the practice as you, it's about sort of moving gingerly, carefully, wisely, so that we don't overwhelm ourselves. And so then we can suspend the practice, as you say. And, you know, it's the golden girls. But let me ask about the love side of this,

because it's love and rage in your formulation. I heard some, what I suspect are the sort of love aspect. I heard, you know, sort of tapping into what anger sometimes describes as a secondary emotion. Usually, I've heard it described by people in the mental health arenas, a secondary emotion. Usually, there's some sort of hurt beneath it. So you can tune compassionately into what's going on for you beneath the anger you can. And then I also heard you talking about expanding that to all the other people who may be feeling that kind of hurt right now. But what about, and you end feel free to say more about that if you want, but what about feeling? Is it too much to ask to feel love or empathy or even just basic somewhere north of neutrality

for people with whom we disagree, given that we all got to live together in this country? Right. Right. I mean, that is a tough place to start. I actually don't recommend people starting there. Don't set the bars too high at the beginning. And maybe not right after, Dealok. Right. When we start these kinds of, call them loving kindness practices,

always start with the people you love first. You know, and then move to neutral people. And then you kind of start gradually moving up to people. Maybe you kind of slightly don't like, and then you get stronger and stronger, then the people you hate, you know, that's like the pinnacle of the practice, right? But we don't start with the people we hate at all.

You know, for me, you is like really wanting people to be safe, wanting people to have what they need to be well. You know, and I really, I don't, you know, this isn't me bragging like anything like that. Like it's just like that's something that for the most part I really, really want for a lot of people, even the folks that like, I don't like. I don't have to like you to love you. You know, I just, I know what it's like not to have what I need. I know what it's like to be a victim of violence. I know what it's like to be afraid. And I just don't want other people to have to go through that, even if I think you deserve it. Right?

Like that, no one deserves the suffering that we get. But so I take that basic empathy that I have for myself. No one deserves the suffering that we get, you know, but So I take that basic empathy that half of myself, you know, I'm just trying to apply to everyone, you know It's like yeah, I don't like you we have completely opposite views But I still want you to have what you need to be well, you know because Maybe if you had everything that you need to be well, maybe like you would live, you would have a different life. Something that maybe is more conducive, you know, to happiness or whatever. I'm not saying that people who have opposite views in me are unhappy. But, you know, what I'm saying is that like, I think that a lot of us are struggling to be happy.

And I want more of us to be happy because I think that's going to directly result in a reduction of violence and harm. You know, truly authentic people don't create that much harm in the world. And when I say happy, I mean contentment, I mean like a connection to like what's a rising for us in our minds, like being really honest and clear and direct with what we're filling and how we're filling, that basic practice is where happiness arises for me. I think a lot of folks are happy based upon the enjoyment that they get from material, from

materialism, from the money, from the cars, whatever it may be, right? But not the basic happiness from being content and experiencing everything that comes you know everything that comes up for them their rises for them You know, and I think that a lot of folks are They've never ever been comfortable or they've never ever known how to really Practice that deep level of vulnerability with themselves You know, and I see people, I see people, you know, committing these, you know, the violence, you know, and I look at

them and I go, okay, like, you're afraid of yourself. You know, there's a fundamental fear there that's turning into violence. And I can notice that I can, I can say, yeah, I see that. And I love you and I want you to suffer less. But I'm not going to be anywhere near you. Right. We're not going to be friends. You know, I still want you to be free from suffering. As we record this, it's 136 in the morning. You've very gamely stayed up late on these coasts and all the pundits are saying we may, we're looking at possibly days before we have a result.

And as you and I wind down our time here together, I just wonder whether you've got any sort of closing thoughts, given this excruciatingly uncomfortable position, we're all in now, again, no matter where we sit politically. Yeah, yeah. You know, this is a period where, I mean, we have to lean into the discomfort. We have to show up to it. We have to get curious, we have to notice it. You know, and the closer we get to the discomfort, the more we understand that that discomfort is just like all these minor experiences coming together. And we'll never understand that if we're always running away from it.

But even having said that, like, yes, in these coming days, like turn your attention to the things that are restorative and supportive for you, turn back into the relationships that are really good for you, you know, turn back into the relationships. They're really good for you. You know, don't do things that you don't have to do. You know, I've given that advice already today, like, don't, don't do, just do what you need to do. You know, take a break if you can. You know, Understand that this work is really about longevity and sustainability. It's about, for me, it's about understanding that I may not see the changes that I most want to see in my life. But I'm doing what I can now so that those coming after us will have a better,

you know, a better situation, you know, to come into. In the same way my ancestors did for me, you know. So it's a very indigenous based, you know, kind of view, right? But I think that's really incredible. It's a really important for us to embrace that. That we're preparing the ground for the future. You know, just like the ancestors prepare the ground for what we're experiencing. You know, and we are

experiencing, I think we're experiencing an evolution. I think something really important is happening, but you have to go through the pain. To get there, it's we're in labor in a way, you know, and really it's about holding your breath and pushing. You know, you have to push through this. And we're all going to be uncomfortable. There's no one who's not going to be uncomfortable. I am agnostic on the issue of rebirth and multiple lives, et cetera, et cetera. But there is, you know, I've heard the Dalai Lama talk about the notion that, you know, if you think about it from that perspective, just as you said, the fruit of your actions right now, we may not see them, we may not see them within our lifetime, but we can see them, but potentially they will,

you know, the fruit will come. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Well, I'm Rod. I'm grateful to you for staying up so late. Really appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. Let me say a few words in closing here. I mentioned this at the beginning, but you can join me in the Reverend Angel Kyoto Williams

today. By today, I mean Wednesday, November 4th at 3pm Eastern for a live conversation and guided meditation. On the 10% happier YouTube channel Eastern for a live conversation and guided meditation. On the 10% happier YouTube channel, we'll take your questions about meditation and do some meditation. And I think it's going to be good. You can check it out on our YouTube channel. There'll be a link in the show notes. And if you don't get it live, you can see it on demand as it were. Thanks again to Lama Rod. And I also just want to point out that if you want more expert guidance on how to stay cool in these unpredictable days, check out the election sanity topic in

the 10% happier app, there are free meditations right there for you, designed to help you weather the storm. And finally, want to thank everybody who's worked so hard to put this special edition of the show together. Samuel Johns is our senior producer, Marissa Schneiderman is our producer, our sound designer is Matt Boynton of Ultraviolet Audio, Maria Wartel's our production coordinator.

We get enormous amount of help from our TPH colleagues, including Jen Point, Nate Toby, Ben Rubin, and Liz Levin. And finally, as always, a hearty salute to Ryan Kessler and Josh Cohan, my ABC News Comrades. We'll be back on Friday with a bonus meditation and a fresh episode again on Monday. Thanks everybody, hang in there. We'll see you soon. 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 Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.