Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 376: Letting Go of Perfectionism | La Sarmiento

Episode Date: September 6, 2021

In this episode, we’re talking about the difference between kindness and what our guest, La Sarmiento, calls “radical kindness,” how to muster the strength to be kind to annoying people while setting appropriate boundaries, the difference between radical compassion and what the Tibetans call “idiot compassion,” and their experience of learning to accept themselves in a culture that is not always so welcoming. Sarmiento, whose pronouns are they/them, has been practicing Vipassana meditation since the 1990’s. They are a graduate of the Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader Training Program and a mentor in the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program. They serve as the guiding teacher for the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ sanghas at the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, DC, where they are also board president. We are bringing you this Ten Percent Happier podcast series in collaboration with the Apple TV+ Original Series Ted Lasso because kindness is a huge theme in the show, and there are many practical lessons embedded right in the plot. CTA: Watch Season 2 of Ted Lasso on Apple TV+. Subscription required. Apple TV+ and/or select content may not be available in all regions. Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/la-sarmiento-376 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, hey, we all have that person in our lives who drives us nuts or if we're lucky, we have several people like that. You know what I'm talking about?

The person who was created in a lab to press your buttons, no matter how much therapy or meditation you do this person makes you wanna put a pencil through your eye. So how do we handle the obnoxious? My guest today has some deep strategies. Laws are Miento, whose pronouns are they and them has been practicing the Paso de Meditations since the 1990s.

They are a graduate of the Spirits Rock Community Dharma Leader Training Program and a mentor in the mindfulness meditation teacher certification program. They serve as the guiding teacher for the BIPOC and LGBTQ plus sangas at the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, DC, where they are also board president. In this episode, we talk about the difference between garden variety kindness and what

law calls radical kindness. We talk about how to muster the strength to be kind to annoying people while setting appropriate boundaries. We talk about the difference between radical compassion and what the Tibetans call idiot compassion, who also talk about some personal stuff, including law's experience of learning to accept themselves in a culture that is not always so welcoming and the dis-utility of perfection as a coping mechanism. We also talk about why the fictional character Ted Lasso is somebody law considers to be

an avatar of radical kindness. This is the final interview on our Ted Lasso series here on the podcast. By the way, if you haven't checked out Ted Lasso, the TV show, the second season, just dropped on Apple TV. Plus, it's definitely worth a watch. It's very funny. Law and I agree. It also has a lot of lessons about the utility of kindness as opposed to the dis-utility of perfectionism.

Last week, as part of this series, we brought on two expert scientists to share their cutting-edge research on kindness. Today, we've got a first time on the show, Darma Teacher, who's here to provide the Buddhist perspective. If you want more of law, which I suspect is likely to be a common response to this interview, you can join them and me in the Ted Lasso Challenge, which is a collaboration we're doing with

Apple TV+. And it kicks off tomorrow, September 7th. In the 10% happier app, it's a five day challenge. Every day you get a little video from me. I play a little clip from the Ted Lasso TV show. And then we roll straight into a meditation from law designed to help you pound into your neurons, but you've just learned in the video. And important to note here, you can do that challenge and listen to this episode

without ever having watched the show. I think you might want to watch the show because it's very funny, but you don't need to watch the show to follow this interview and you don't need to watch the show to do the challenge. So do it all, if you can, but you don't have to watch the show to follow this interview and you don't need to watch the show to do the challenge. So do it all, if you can, but you don't have to do it all. One last thing to say about the Ted Lasso Challenge, if you wanna join, which I urge you to do, download the 10% happier app right now, wherever you get your apps, and again, it is free.

Okay, let's spend some time now with Las Armiento. Las Armiento, welcome to the show. Thank you, Dan. Great to be here. Thanks for having me. I told you this before we started rolling, but you have a really good voice. Great meditation voice. It's been practicing for a while.

Yes, I know you have. I know you have. So in preparing for this, you've done a lot of chatting with members of the 10% happier team. This is the first time that you and I are meeting, but I got all these prep documents and some notes for my team. One of the things that I know you've been thinking a lot about is the difference between straight up kindness, garden variety, kindness, and radical kindness.

What is the difference? Can you unpack that a little bit for me? Yeah, thanks Dan. Yeah, to me it's like I feel like we all have that capability in us naturally, especially when we're in a good space and we have the capacity for that, whether it be holding a door open, giving directions to a tourist, things like that, just kind gestures. To me, radical kindness takes it kind of a step further. It asks something of ourselves. It could be something that's inconvenient, like if my sister called and said, you know, I need you to come over right now, but I'm in the middle of building a Lego set or something that I'm really enjoying. But knowing that

my sister needs me, it's like, okay, I can do that. I'll make time. And so it really is not something that's necessarily easy to do. And I think that's what makes it radical, is it asks a little bit more, you know, kind of going beyond the call of duty in a way. But it doesn't feel like an obligation because to me that's different than the generosity of kindness. The main headline from me there

is that you're really into Legos? Yes. It's a pandemic hobby that I picked up. You can't see, but they're motioning toward a shelf of, is that Legos behind you? It's all Legos and that's about, I don't know, a third of my collection that I've built since the pandemic. So this kind of high level nursery came on during the pandemic. It was not a pre-existing condition. Now the nertery is still pre-existing, it just manifests in in Legos.

No, it's recently. Okay, back to what you actually wanted to talk about, the difference between kindness, garden variety, kindness, and radical kindness. What you were saying, if I heard you correctly, was that radical kindness requires some real personal sacrifice. It's not as simple as stopping to give a tourist directions, et cetera, et cetera. I wonder outside of the hypothetical interrupting a Lego set to go help out your sister. I wonder what examples you could think of from your own life. I know from studying up on you before this interview that one particularly challenging endeavor that you were engaged in for many years in your life is being in a largely white Buddhist meditation group where you kind of took it upon yourself to do some outreach. Yeah, so I was part of, yeah, and I'm still am part of a

dominated culture, Sangha or meditation group, and because I grew up assimilated into white culture, that's what my immigrant parents go to survival mechanism was just assimilate, you know, with the dominant culture, with white people. When I am in predominantly white spaces or dominant culture spaces, I feel fairly comfortable even at the point of feeling the sense of specialness even in the tokenism. And so because of the incarnation of which I was born as a non-binary person of color, my survival was to be everything everyone else wanted me to be. And so in that, I was very accommodating and wanting to please other people, not rock the boat or anything like that.

And so when my meditation community wanted to dive into diversity, equity, and inclusion issues, and wondering why we didn't reflect, you know, the greater community that we were in, I started the people of color and LGBT, sangas or meditation groups so that folks like myself could have a safe refuge to begin practicing because many folks were finding it difficult to do so in the dominant culture space. And so for me, an act of radical kindness was to continue to engage with the dominant culture folks in conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion that didn't feel comfortable, but I felt was really important and I felt my role as a bridge between my communities to the dominant culture communities. And so I don't even call them microaggressions, I just call them aggressions because that's how it feels.

Even when those occur, I find ways to take care of myself and go to my community and seek refuge there. And then when I have the capacity and generosity, I can come back to the dominant culture and have those conversations. So to me, that's an act of radical kindness. It's interesting, you know, just listening to you talk, you know, my incarnation to use your phraseology

is like four square in every aspect of the dominant culture, you know, male, white, cis, intact family. Straight. Yes, straight. Every box, right? Maybe the slight difference would be being half Jewish, the only real discrimination, which I didn't take seriously,

was, you know, we lived on the back nine of a golf course that didn't let Jewish people in, but I wasn't interested in golf anyway. But everything else in my life has been, you know, super easy in that regard. And I, so I naturally kind of put myself, I'm a little embarrassed about it, but one empathetic leap I make is into the shoes of the people who are doing the microaggressions or you said straight up aggressions.

And I'm curious in the meditation community in which you were trying to act as a bridge, do you think those microaggressions or aggressions were coming from a place of aggression or just ignorance? And definitely it's just much more about ignorance. I don't think anything was malicious or wanting to be hurtful. I just think that folks just didn't realize that what they were saying was harmful or hurtful.

And yet it really was. And so for you, the radical kindness was being able to withstand that, go back and be okay and then reengage. Yeah. So it really is about having compassion for the ignorance, you know, and at the same time, being able to name it and share the impact that that had. To me, you know, and at the same time, being able to name it and share the impact that that had. To me, you know, we are in community to help each other wake up to what causes harm. And in doing so, it's to have compassion for the ignorance, but not to enable or allow it to continue by naming it and calling it in or out, depending on what phrase you like to use around that.

So it's not outside the bounds of radical kindness or basic compassion to point out to somebody when they've done something inadvertently or otherwise that is painful. Exactly. So for me, I usually will respectfully confront someone by saying, you know, here's the impact your action had on me. And given this impact, would you do differently next time? Stepping out of the particulars here, why should anybody do this? And I'm playing skeptic here.

I'm not actually skeptical, but I'd love to hear you make the case. If radical kindness implies or requires inconvenience or perhaps worse, maybe real pain, suffering on the part of the practitioner. Why do it? That's a great question, Dan. I think for me, as I sit with you with that, it's starting to feel a little emotional. To go that extra step is actually what this world really needs. You know, living a world full of negativity and pessimism and cynicism that being able to have the capacity to serve, to be kind, even if it's inconvenient. And if I have the capacity to take care of myself even in the midst of that harm, it actually

feels good. It feels freeing to me. To me, that's why I'm alive. To connect, to support people, to serve in ways that help people also, kind of wake up to their own goodness and their own capacity for that kind of kindness. I respect and appreciate your emotion and a thousand percent agree with everything you said there. And I love that you spoke in a way that the Buddha did too, which is you implicate the pleasure centers of the brain.

It feels good to live this way. It's not saying that it's easy, but first of all, it is what the world needs and it is the way we are wired. And if we can follow what actually makes us feel more alive and more engaged, it is good for us and good for the world. And in there is a virtuous cycle upwards. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

So my vow in this life is to live with an open heart, but it's not like one that's like totally wide open or one that's completely closed. And so as my teacher, Joe Weston, often says, rather than an off and on switch with our hearts, let's upgrade to a dimmer switch. So in certain situations, when I'm with my dogs, it's like 95% open. When I'm listening to the news, it's about 0.1% open.

It's still open, but just not super vulnerable. Right. I'll try not to take that personally as a news anchor, although my days as a news anchor about to announce so it's fine Yeah, no, I think that makes a lot of sense and it does lead to the question which I suspect is on the minds of many listeners which is Okay, you've sold me You law make a very compelling case for living this way. But radical kindness includes the practitioner. You have to be kind to yourself if you're going to live this way. And that

doesn't mean you're just out there taking slings and arrows indefinitely. Yes. Exactly. It definitely requires us to be kinder and gentler and more loving and compassionate towards ourselves first. To me, that is what fuels the capacity to be able to offer that to others. Otherwise, we're just giving it away. And as we all know, then we can burn out compassion fatigue or just feeling exhausted because nothing has filled our cups in that sense. Aside from Legos and Dogs, how do you feel your cup? How do you take care of yourself so that you can give? Yeah, I try to not overwork. I used to get a lot of my sense of self-esteem and worth from proving and being productive

and just being busy all the time because when you're busy people see that you're getting stuff done. And as I get older it's like, wow, that's just too much. And I think with technology now and social media and the internet, et cetera, it's like way beyond the capacity that our bodies are able to handle.

It's just way too much information. Coming at us really fast. And we as human beings, you know, there's a tendency to just want to keep up with everything. And I really am not interested in that anymore. I'd rather just be present in my life. And the most important things in my life are my relationships. And that's what I want to make time for. So my relationships give me a lot of energy,

time alone gives me a lot of energy, time in nature gives me a lot of energy. Yeah, but a lot of it is just being able to just be just spaciousness and a good massage every now and then doesn't hurt your face. Okay. Amen on that. My wife's birthday was,

I took the day off from work to hang out with her and we got massages and man. I had forgot because it was my first since the beginning of the pandemic and that is, that will revive you. Well, I was actually, I don't know if you know, Dan, but I was a massage therapist for 30 years. Oh, I did not know that. Yeah.

So I definitely know the benefits of taking care of oneself in terms of that. Yeah. We can't do it alone, you know, and so for me, it's like being able to receive, because I can't touch myself in that same way, and so to be able to receive that from someone else is really powerful. It's an interesting point, and I think it goes beyond massage or physical touch. I think a lot of us have trouble receiving support from other people, and I would pin that in least in part, at least in part, to the pernicious aspects of Western individualism. In the West, many of us don't conceive of ourselves as entangled.

We conceive of ourselves as atomized, separate isolated beings, sort of navigating fretfully through a world of obstacles as opposed to embedded and willing to receive support from others. Do I sound like I'm full of crap here or am I on something? I wholeheartedly agree with you. Yeah, pioneering survival mode, you know, the individualist and we don't need anyone. We can take care of ourselves and we really can't, you know, we're social beings and we don't need anyone. We can take care of ourselves and we really can't, you know, we're social beings and we actually need each other. But that requires a vulnerability and ability to be able to understand how we're feeling and what it is that we're needing to be

able to articulate that. And also to be able to have a kind of relationship where that's welcome. Meaning we have to make friends or get it to intimate relationships with people who have years and are willing to use them. Yeah, years and also a willingness to give and take of it, the mutuality of it, rather than one person doing it all for somebody else or someone just taking it all in. Yeah. I was listening to you talk before about productivity and this drive to performing, get stuff done, and especially enabled by modern technology.

This is a trap that I have fallen into over and over and over again. And I was reading something you wrote where you talked about a kind of addiction to perfectionism. Would you be willing to say more about how that's played out in your life? Sure. Thanks thanks Dan. Well, I realized when I was five that I didn't want to be in the body that I was in and I also was attracted to other little girls and I didn't feel like a little girl and everything that was modeled around me was not who I was and I didn't have terms for what all that was. I just knew that the basic message I told myself was like, there's something wrong with you. And if people knew exactly who you were,

they would not love you or accept you. And so my survival mechanism for that was to be the perfect kid, get good grades, be a star athlete, never rock the boat, be really funny, and friendly to everyone, I actually was a friend of funniest and friendliest as a super relative in junior high as a way of being acceptable. And so that perfectionism was a way of like, if I'm perfect, you can't call me on anything. And so I will be okay. And so that was kind of my shield, you know, to protect myself from being found out. It sounds exhausting.

It was, did it sure, good many years until I basically found the Dharma and realized I could just be me and who I am is already okay. I don't have to. I mean, there's some improvement necessary, but you know, the sort of the basic entity is totally fine. There's nothing wrong here. I think that notion will sound hard to grok for some people. Can you say more about that that who you are, who we are, is just okay.

I'll just add before I shut up and let you talk. I've had a few moments of, very brief moments of clarity on long-ish meditation retreats where just the nattering voice in my head, the volume goes down far enough where I experience a great deal of sort of peace of mind. And I would say, if I had to describe the common denominator, it would be a feeling of all-rightness. So having said that, I think a lot of people will hear you say, you know, you found the Dharma

and you realize you were okay as you are. What does that really mean? How do we get to that point ourselves? Yeah. So for me, the practice of meditation and mindfulness and especially on those longer retreats where I'm just basically sitting with my mind and being able to observe and watch and listen to like all the messages that run through there constantly. And when I'm able to just be with them and recognize how much harm they're causing me or how much suffering or pain I feel from actually listening to what I am saying to myself all the time that informs my every day,

I was just not willing to continue suffering in that way anymore. And so it's like, why am I doing this to myself? And there are definitely external messages that I internalized. And it's like when I recognize that I actually have a choice in how I can be, I'm aware of what's actually happening.

But in that, I have choice in listening to those same old messages or bringing in some new messages. So the loving kindness practice, the meta practice has been transformational, especially the compassion practice around, like, may I accept myself just as I am? May I know that I'm doing my best in any given moment? And phrases like that. And at first, they were like, wrote.

I'm like, ah, this is f***ing, I have no idea. It's just, you know, but I just was committed to just constantly trying to create a new neuropath way in my mind. Because that was what was gonna be more helpful. And that was what was gonna serve. And I felt better, you know,

I used to teach mindfulness to teenagers. And I'm like, it's all story. Like, and so if we're gonna tell ourselves a story, tell yourself a good one. Like, why do we keep telling ourselves? Stories. And so for me, it was really like recognizing the messages I was telling myself, and then recognizing the impact

those messages had, and then choosing differently. I like it more with every answer. I don't want to encourage perfectionism here. I'm not saying. I don't want to say I want to say the land incorrectly. But I really dig what you're saying here and I'll just try to restate it and you'll tell me if I'm in the neighborhood. It's like this two-part recipe of mindfulness, which just lets you

see this sort of self-awareness that lets you see. Yeah, my mind is serving up garbage, non-stop, this stories. And then loving kindness or compassion meditation where you repeat these phrases, which you're my kind of person at first, it really feels and, treakly, but you repeat these phrases like may I be free from suffering, maybe healthy, may I be safe, et cetera, et cetera. It's an exercise of counter programming where you're just through effort, right?

Effort wise application of effort, reprogramming your inner dialogue. And in that combination of medicines, you can over time vector towards feeling okay no matter what Messages have been sent to you by the larger culture. Yes, exactly and for me it was harder to do like sitting loving kindness practice. For me, it was like walking practice where each step

I would offer myself, you know, a loving kindness phrase. And I really made it so that I'm a very kinesthetic person. So it's really important to actually feel that. And also like, can I get myself to a point where I believe that I'm worthy of that, that that's really, okay, it wasn't necessarily something my parents told me all the time. I knew they loved me, but they more acted it out rather than set it to me. So these phrases, that's why they didn't land so was. They were foreign. It was foreign to me. It was like nobody ever really wishes me that.

And so to really find a way, and for me, it was very physical. It was walking and holding my heart that these phrases really landed. And so I just encourage, you know, your listeners and practitioners to find whatever way works for you. It's having a really cozy blanket and just saying these things to yourself as your sip and tea or whatever it happens to be. There's a way that they will penetrate and it does take a long time. It's not just adwater and stir. That's what we'd like in this culture. For me, it's a dedication to not suffer in this life. I'll take in the pain that life doles out every now and then,

but I don't have to add to it by reinforcing those messages. Would it be safe to say, and I don't know your mind where this is the first time we're meeting, but would it be safe to say that for you this all-rightness, this okayness, this acceptance of who you are, is a practice and that there may be moments if you haven't slept enough or if the messages from the outside world are particularly strong or whatever where you can get off balance. Ashley, you know, these days, and I've been practicing for over 23 years now, Dan, like I'm not wobbly like that anymore.

Wow. It's like there's just this baseline contentment. And even when the world's on fire, it's like I can watch it and, you know, I can have compassion and I can feel it, but I don't go into a rage about it or like, you know, it's like, wow, this is, this is what is. And how can I not, through my own actions and words, not contribute to more harm in the world? How can I actually alleviate some suffering for myself and those around me and in my community. I'm a very like, think globally, act locally kind of person.

I'm not a big picture activist out in the world, but it's like, if I smile at people as I pass them or wish them well, I do a lot of stealth loving kindness, you know, just whenever I pass people or see people in public, I'm just always wishing people well. And it feels good and creates a field of that kindness. I have a story of I lived in DC for many, many years and in DC nobody acknowledges you're out that are on the sidewalk. People just kind of actually avert their gaze and you're walking by.

And so I decided to do an experiment where I would just send loving kindness phrases to them, may you be happy, may you be free from suffering, no matter who I saw. And after about a year, I noticed people started looking at me and smiling at me. And so I asked my partner, I said, you know, sweetie, I've noticed like DC is getting friendlier. Have you noticed that?

And she's like, no. And I said, I'm noticing people are smiling at me and saying, hi more. And she said, it's noticing people are smiling at me and saying, hi, more. And she said, it's because you have a yes face. Like you actually invite that through that field of loving kindness. And I have a no face. I don't want anybody looking at me. You know, and so to me, there's a difference in terms of even just

energetically what we put into the field. People will feel it. I believe that's my experience of it. I always forget his real life name. On 30 Rock, he was either Tracy Jordan or Tracy Morgan in real life, he's the other. Anyway, he once said, I love you, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Mm-hmm. And that sounds like the vibe you're putting out there. Yeah, yeah, because we don't know. Everybody's carrying something in their heart, you know, a burden. And so it's like, how can you know, you know, and maybe this person's behavior, you know, harmful behaviors, because they've got something going on or they had something harm them in a way that they didn't know love or they didn't know what kindness was. And so they'll treat others them in a way that they didn't know love or they didn't know what kindness was. And so they'll treat others in the same way that they were treated. And so if I have the capacity, then might as well share it. But let me go back to your attitude toward yourself.

You told us very moving story of not feeling really from age five onwards, of not feeling really from age five onwards, that you were in a culture where you were being told that you were okay, and your coping mechanism was to be perfect. Just say you have a bad day with your life partner or I don't know, some turbulence with your family. Are you wobbly in terms of how you feel about yourself these days or are you

feel after 23 years of practice that no, you got this? Yeah, so my sister is going through an intense cancer journey right now. And so I've noticed as I sit with myself, there's a lot of equanimity. There's an acceptance like, okay, this is what's happening for my sister. There's a lot of uncertainty of how this is going to unfold in her journey. And I feel there's definitely a sadness about it. There's definitely some frustration and anger of like, you know, why is this happening? But I think the practice and the teachings for me have always pointed to things are the way they are, and the more I can relate to it in a way that is accepting and is being in the present moment about it, like I don't project into the future, like, well, what if she does this therapy or that therapy, but what if she dies, or I don't go

there, I stay very present, and in the present moment, I can savor every moment that I have with her. And it's a very poignant thing too, because, you know, she has a diagnosis. I could die going to the Trader Joe's. You know, I have no idea. And so for me, it's like this life is just so precious. And we don't practice being in the present moment for nothing. It really is about being here now, because that's the only true thing that's in front of us. But we don't live in a culture that fosters that. We live in a culture like, well, what are your plans 10 years from now? It's like, I don't even want to go there.

I'm going to be happy if I wake up tomorrow. And so I really practice staying present and really practice remembering what's most important to me. And then I focus my energy on that rather than what it could have been or should have been or, yeah. I think that invocation of what's important to you brings us back to radical kindness. I took us on a little bit of a detour. I do have some follow-up questions about how to do this radical kindness thing. And again, I'm trying to channel any skepticism or questions that might be coming up in the mind of listeners. One thing that comes to mind is difficult people. People who we think, you know, their behavior is abhorrent, or they're just obnoxious or annoying. It's true too loudly. I don't know. How do you practice this kind

of kindness that comes at some cost to you in those situations? In those immediate situations, I just try to breathe, just try to calm my own nervous system down. And for someone who, this, as I said, again, particular incl the incarnation of body, heart and mind, there's so many preconceptions or judgments about people like me that it's something that I haven't gone through that myself. Like, I don't want to do with other people. So I'm very aware of kind of the immediate sort of knee-jerk response I would have. And then when I can pause and breathe and calm down, it's like, you know what, they're

just a human being too. And they're doing what they do. This is just who they are. And do I have the capacity to accept them for who they are in this moment? If they're causing harm, how can I express to them what is happening because maybe they're not aware that they're causing harm or maybe they are. And I need to step in and stop that. But it's so interesting that term, a difficult person who's difficult for, it's difficult for me. They might think they're fine, but I'm perceiving that they're difficult because I'm feeling challenged in some sort of way.

And then I often think, oh, do I do anything that's annoying? That bothers people probably. And people think this of me. So to me, it's constantly remembering kind of our interconnectedness, our humanity. We just do ourselves. And we're just a bunch of human bodies bumping up and rubbing up against each other.

And what is this situation or this person teaching me right now? Patients, kindness, compassion, acceptance. You know, there's always something to practice with when I'm around people. I just have trouble remembering that all the time. Yeah, understandably. Yeah. For me, it's like when I'm in a difficult situation or dealing with a, quote, unquote, difficult person, I feel it in my body.

It's like, oh, I start to tense up. I'm tight. I'm stressed. And so it's like, oh, I'm suffering right now. So how can I leave it in my suffering in this moment? Can I give this person the benefit of the doubt? Can I create a little bit more space around what I'm holding in my heart? Can I have compassion for myself that I'm thinking hateful thoughts towards this particular person right now?

Back to your dimmer switch analogy. I would imagine Sometimes appropriate boundaries setting might involve leaving the room or turning off the TV Mm-hmm if the annoying person's on TV. Right, whenever Rupert shows up in Ted Lasso. Hahaha. For the uninitiated Rupert, who we're gonna hear from in a minute, is the former owner of the soccer team

for which Ted Lasso is the coach, and he is a pill to put it mildly. So, yes, we'll get to Rupert in a second, but in terms of boundary setting, it doesn't mean you need to be hugging the third rail all the time. Sometimes, if somebody is challenging, the right move is to take a break. Yeah, definitely, definitely. I often say it's like, you can be out of my life, but not out of my heart. So can I still continue to wish you well? May you be free

from your suffering and may you find peace or happiness in your life? And sometimes that doesn't happen immediately, of course, you know, especially if there's a conflict or something really difficult and challenging has happened between me and someone else. But that's my intention. And I think that's really the important thing is the aspiration. It's like, you know, I want to be loving and compassionate towards all beings. Some of them will be actively in my life and some of them won't, but they'll all of them will be in my heart, regardless. All my exes are there. But they're not in a sleep in communication, but I think about them. I learned a lot from those experiences.

So it's always what lesson or teaching is there to learn? Much more of my conversation with La Sarmiento right after this. Like the 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 Add Free on the Amazon Music or Wondering App. You can also listen to ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondering Out. In studying up on you before the interview, I love there's one detail that stuck out to me that you met your current life partner while on retreat and it was a quote unquote vipassana romance where you're in the silent container of the hot house of a meditation retreat and you're making up all these stories about the person sitting across the room, et cetera, et cetera. I love that.

It was a positive romance that actually turned into something real. Right. Yeah. I actually about a year and a quarter later, I answered her personal ad. I didn't know it was her. Oh, I see. So it wasn't like you started shitting in person after the retreat. No, not at all. I just saw her in the retreat and then we went our separate ways and then a year

and a quarter later, I saw this personal ad, I answered it. We showed up at the restaurant for our first date and it was like, wow, you look really familiar to me. Do I know you? And she's like, I don't think so. Got to talking found out that we both meditated and that we were on that same meditation retreat. And so we've been together. It'll be 20 years next year.

Nice. Congratulations. Yeah. Thank you. Back to boundary setting, though, for a second. There's a term that comes out of the Tibetan lineage, idiot compassion. Can you talk about what that is? Yeah. So for me, idiot compassion is

compassion where we're continuing to enable a behavior of someone that's harming themselves or other people. And so, for example, I don't know if a friend of mine was in a relationship that from their descriptions just sounded unhealthy or toxic. My wanting them to feel supported and it's like, oh, you know, maybe they're just having a bad day that it, to me, that's idiot-compassion. You know, where it's like, I don't want to rock the boat or I don't want to hurt my friends' feelings, just kind of being compassionate in that way, basically enables that behavior

of them continuing to be abusive or toxic relationship. So it really takes courage to have true compassion, which is saying, you know, from what you're describing, it doesn't sound really healthy to me or, you know, it's made even sound toxic. And I often will preface that by saying, I'm saying this from a place of love, and I feel very protective of you. And so if you'll hear me out,

this is what I see happening from what you're describing. But idiot compassion would be not being able to do that just being like, oh yeah, why don't you just hang in there and maybe it'll change? Or, you know, so. Radical kindness or true compassion does not entail the erasure of discernment. Exactly. Yeah.

It's risky, you know, because it could impact the relationship if the friend is not open to hearing that in the moment. And I think that's what makes it radical, is that I go, I'm gonna take a risk here of maybe you hating me for a little while if I see this to you. Should we talk about Ted Lasso? Please. So you actually, if I understand this correctly,

you had before we approached you and said, would you work with us on this project? You actually were not familiar with the show. No, not at all. Yeah, I binge watched it because of the project. What did you think? I loved it. You know, it was interesting because I think I saw the trailer last year.

Then I'm like, it looks, you it looks whatever. But it's amazing. I think that Ted is like the Bodhisattva or the awakened being of radical kindness and compassion, this is optimism, his acceptance of himself and acceptance of others, his ability to just invest in everyone. I mean, he just really just tries to find the good in everyone, even the most despicable.

You know, he doesn't shame or blame people. He just holds them and works with them in this just really powerful way. I don't know. I don't watch a lot of TV, but this show is like, I think I told you earlier that I've watched the season one like three times over and over again, because there's just so many nuggets of goodness, of Dharma actually in it. I had been hearing all these people who I respect,

talk about how much they love Ted Lassof in my friend group, but also I sometimes listen to podcasts where they talk about TV shows and movies because I love TV shows and movies. And I had watched an episode or two and it didn't land from me. It felt a little syrupy maybe, but I persevered maybe because it's a pandemic and I was bored. And I fell in love with it too. I mean, it really is very, very funny and also moving. And you like it so much that listeners can't see law, but they're wearing the t-shirt

for the fictional soccer team, which is an act of fandom that I really respect. Yeah. And everyone that lives and touches, I mean, they transform. There's just something about his extension of radical kindness that has people remembering their own innate goodness and their capacity to change. It's a kind of contagion. It's interesting to watch because again, for somebody like me who's, you know, tendency toward judgmental and not necessarily wired for radical kindness, Ted can come off like

a bit of a sucker or maybe just super annoying. And you can see there are characters on the show who that's their response to him. But he doesn't give up, which makes him even more annoying in the short term. But what you see is that because he is so insistent on seeing the best in everybody, it ultimately teases that out of them. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, everybody in the whole stadium calling him a wanker. It's like the whole country of England. It's like, what the hell are you doing here?

And he just keeps trying to like make the team the best thing. And like winning is not super important. You know, what's most important is people getting along. And it's like, wow, that's a, that's so opposite. Like what our culture tells us. How do you beat everybody out? So you can be number one and you can be successful? And he just redefines what success is It's about us being connected to each other This capacity to see the best in other people I Think Ted who again, he's a fictional character, so we don't really know But it seems like he's kind of made that way wired that way

But this is a skill is from what I mean, just in my own life, remembering to do that, particularly in my mentoring relationships, because I might pick up somebody as a mentee and I might however, or some doubts in the back of my mind, as this kid, this person cut it, but just remembering, actually, you know, people tend to rise to the level of expectation. And if I water this plant, interesting things could happen. But I had to kind of rewire myself to do that. How would you recommend we train ourselves to be more like Ted in this regard? Hmm. So it reminds me of a quote from the Buddha that goes just paraphrase a little bit, but we are what we

think with our thoughts we create the world. So if we choose to see goodness in people, we will see goodness in people. If we choose to see the worst in people, we'll see the worst in people. And I've experienced that myself. And so it's that how do we choose will see the worst in people. And I've experienced that myself. And so it's that how do we choose to see the world? And so for me, that helps me pause and remember, oh, going through a difficult situation or this person is behaving in a way that I find annoying or harmful. It's like, okay, can I choose to condemn this person, but can I choose to give them the benefit of the doubt? Be curious about what may have happened to them in their

life that has them being this way in this moment. I don't know, and I don't want to presume that I know, because that would be quite arrogant. And so it's having the humility and also recognizing their humanity and the fact that I've probably done similar things in the past too. And people have forgiven me or have taught me that that's not the best way to be. So giving each other some space to be human. each other some space to be human. I can hear you make that argument and I can agree with it in the moment, but it's easy to forget. I always go back to the fact that mindfulness, one of the initial translations of mindfulness is remembering, remembering to do what we know actually feels good, even if it's counterintuitive, remember to wake up.

And for me, it's been helpful as somebody who's wired toward crankiness. It's helpful for me to do meditation practices that pound it into my neurons in a way that lasts longer than just hearing one really cool person say it on a podcast. In particular, these loving kind of slush compassion practices that you referenced earlier as a self-directed medicine.

Eventually in the practice, we open up and start sending it towards people that are easy, people that are neutral, people that are difficult, and then everybody. And I have found just as an end of one here and one person's experience that doing that on the regular has up the odds that I will transcend in my conditioning and see the best in people rather than just assuming the worst. Does that land for you? Yeah, yeah, definitely. And then we're gonna forget again, right? So the practices of remembering and forgetting and then can we forgive ourselves for forgetting? And so to me, practices of remembering and forgetting, and then can we forgive ourselves for forgetting? And so to me, there's always something in the practice and the teachings that will catch us.

So if we fall off the wagon, we can definitely get back on. And a lot of that is just like, ah, and rather than feeling really bad about the fact that we fell off the wagon, it's like, can we be gentler and compassionate and forgiving of ourselves? And it's like, oh, I love just the phrase begin again. It's just like, in the movies, take three, take four, take five, it's okay. It's just like our minds wander off a million times and we can always come back, start again. You said before that Ted, there's so many sort of lessons that we can learn by watching

Ted behave in the show. There was one scene I know that landed particularly powerfully for you. I would imagine for a couple of reasons and I want to play the audio of that scene for folks and talk about it on the other side, but just to set it up, This is a scene where Ted and the aforementioned Rupert, who's the daddy, the former owner of the soccer team or football club, as they call it over in the UK, where Ted is the head coach. They're in a bar together or a pub and they're playing darts. Rupert, while the former owner is still present enough to make mischief. And the scene, Rupert and Ted are playing a game of darts and the stakes are that Ted

wins, Rupert will not come to the games anymore. So here's the scene and then we'll talk on the other side. Rupert, guys of under estimate me my entire life. And for years, I never understood why. I used to really bother me. Then one day I was driving my little boy to school and I saw this quote by Walt Whitman. It was painted on the wall there. It said, be curious, not judgmental. I like that. So I get back in my car, I'm driving a work. And all of a sudden, it hits me. All them fellas that used to belittle me

and I was single one of them were curious. You know, they thought they had everything all figured out. And so they judged everything. And they judged everyone. And I realized that they're underestimating me. Who I was had nothing to do with it. Because if they were curious, they would ask questions. You know, questions like, have you played a lot of darts, Ted?

Oh! Which I would have answered? Yes, sir. Every Sunday afternoon at a sports bar with my father from age 10 to 16 when he passed away. Barbecue sauce. Barbecue sauce is a bit of an inside joke. We'll just send that aside for a second. But why did that scene land so hard with you? I think it was so powerful, Dan, because I'm an immigrant non-binary person of color.

So much of my life has been dealing with people's judgments about someone like me. And so rather than really getting to know me, being curious, messages that I don't belong or that I'm not worthy of existence, et cetera, were pounded into my young brain as a young child and as a teenager that I internalized and started feeling really bad about myself. So that clip right there, you know, because everyone judged Ted when he came to England to coach a team where he didn't even know how to play the sport, all kinds of judgements and assumptions were made. And so for him to invite curiosity as a way of being with what we don't understand about ourselves or each other, just landed

really powerfully for me. As you've said, there were many aspects of the show that landed powerfully for you so much so that you went out and bought a t-shirt that you're currently wearing. It was a present. Oh, it was a present. Okay. Well, somebody knew you well enough to know that the show really resonated with you. What are the other aspects, storylines, characters of the show that resonated? Yeah. I think my other favorite scene was that of Rebecca apologizing to Ted for all the ways she tried to sabotage his success with the team.

And it was a beautiful example of an apology and I think it caught me by surprise, you know, how quickly he was able to forgive. And he was able to because he saw all along the way she suffered, you know, and had compassion for that. And so when she owned up to the ways that she had harmed him, he was able to understand. And because he was going through a divorce as well, you know, I think the line was like divorce makes people do crazy things. And for her, the crazy thing was hiring him and all the other things that she did to him. So he was able to understand, because he cared about her, loved her even. And I think the line of, you know, if you got a little

love in your heart, you can get through just about anything. And I think it was super transformative for Rebecca to be forgiven with all that she had done. And then how that played out in the rest of the show shows the power of how Ted's radical kindness can transform someone from mean behavior to more compassionate or loving behavior. Just if you haven't seen the show Rebecca is the current owner of the team. She won the team in a divorce from the aforementioned rupert. And her goal is to get back her ex-husband by running the team into the ground. And the mechanism for that is that she hires a football coach from the United States who knows nothing about soccer. So she sets Ted up to fail, eventually apologizes and Ted, who himself is going through a divorce, is

eventually apologizes and Ted, who himself is going through a divorce, is remarkably quick to forgive, which brings me to my question, forgiveness is incredibly hard for most of us. And I wonder if there are practices, meditative practices that can increase the odds that we can do this. we can do this. So a lot of times when we think of forgiveness, it's about some big harm, some heinous act that we had done. So for me, when I offer forgiveness practice, it's about, can we even just start with ourselves, all the judgments that we make about ourselves, as we just get through a day? Oh, I could have gotten up earlier in practice or I didn't show up for work as best as I could or just all these different judgments. It's like, wow, can we cut ourselves a break? Like I said earlier, can we give ourselves some space to be okay, be human, be imperfect, not get it right all the time. Can we be okay that we make mistakes? Because of our humanity,

we do all kinds of wacky things. And so if the goal is to be human and not perfect, why not forgive yourself? And so it's like starting out with little forgiveness, it's another cultivation of the heart to like expand it to include and be gentler and kinder and more open-hearted to whatever happens for ourselves or for each other. So if I can go through my day being a little bit easier on myself for missing a self-imposed deadline or not meditating as much as I thought or lapsing into other lethargy all evening

watching television, then I can use that as a sort of dojo, a practice space where I get better and better at doing that with myself, and then I can extend it to other people. Yeah, it's like, oh, I didn't plan well enough, so I was running late. And, you know, like all these, like, just different things. Life happens, and we live in a culture that is based on this construct of time and how much meaning we've given that. I think this is why the Buddha said, like, this is really hard, they're not going to want to do it. That's when he questioned whether he wanted to teach or not.

It's like, this is going to be really hard because it's going against the stream of the conditioning, the culture. And so it is, it's hard, it's lonely at times, but it's liberating. That's why I do it. This true freedom is not easy to get to. I hear the not yet recovered perfectionists thinking, well, if I'm too easy in myself, then everything's gonna go to hell. Yeah, but it's a story. It's like, oh, if I give myself some slack, if you're a perfectionist, you're not gonna give yourself a lot of slack to begin with. So bottom line, it's just,

can I just be gentler right now in this moment with myself? Just practice with that. And then eventually it'll expand more and more. Doesn't mean not trying to be great at whatever you're doing. It just means can you try to be great without beating the crap out of yourself always? Yeah, yeah. So like what's that edge?

Am I doing this and it feels good and it feels expansive? Or am I doing this and I'm totally stressed out and I just want to crawl on a hole. I was remembered my teacher Eric Colby saying that at the end of retreat, if there are two things you're going to get from a retreat, be it these two things, to practice every day and to notice when you're suffering. And when you notice you're suffering, then there's something we can do about that. Suffering is an interesting feedback mechanism because we tend to notice we're suffering

and then we get all, you know, worked up because we're suffering, or we don't even notice that we're just acting on it blindly. But there's a way in which once you've done a little bit of waking up, a little bit of practice, you can notice that the suffering is an alarm bell to practice again. Yeah, exactly. Sometimes I think you and beings live on this baseline of suffering. Like, we don't even realize we're suffering, but we're suffering. And so it's almost becomes a little bit harder to notice when we're suffering because we're already in the pool of that. And so when we practice and we can get, you know, like you said earlier, that little bit of taste of all rightness, it's like, oh, this is not, there's no suffering here.

There's contentment, there's all rightness, there's like peace. And maybe that can be the baseline. And then anything above that is that alarm that goes off. Engine, engine down. So yeah, or check engine, check yourself. What's going on? We're very lucky to recruit you as the teacher for the upcoming Ted Lasso Challenge, a five day challenge.

It's going to launch on September 7th. And you designed a series of bespoke meditations for this challenge. I don't think we're gonna be able to cover them all right now in order we want to, because we want people to come and do the challenge. But can you give us a sense of what practices, or even just one of the practices

you're gonna have us do and why? Yeah, so we begin basically by offering kindness to ourselves, you know, oftentimes we tend to be really hard on ourselves, expect a lot of ourselves. And so it really is just by allowing ourselves the ability to know that we deserve kindness, that we deserve happiness, that we deserve peace, well-being. Just gives us a little bit more space to then open up and gradually extend that out to those we love, those that might be a little harder to love than everyone. So it all begins with ourselves first, and then that allows us the capacity

than to be able to offer it to others. Sometimes people assume that you can't love anybody unless you love yourself. I think we have plenty of examples of people who are very compassionate in the world and are very mean to themselves. So I don't think it's necessary for you to go, but it's much harder to do it, to be cool to everybody

unless you have some positive relationship with yourself. It's just very hard to do. So I agree, and I think there's a lot of science there to suggest that this is a great place to start and not something that the larger culture is teaching us to do. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, sometimes I question like what we teach our kids in school. You know, it's like how much of what I learned in school do I actually use in my everyday life? And so these skills of developing kindness, empathy, compassion, I mean, it's all,

I think the seeds are there. We just need to water them a lot more because it's the basis of who we are. And we just need to be reminded of that. Is there anything that I should have asked but didn't either about you or about practice or about Ted Lasso? Any malpractice that I committed here? I think you're amazing, Dan. It's just like how you just keep this going on. It's really you've honed your gift in your art. I can't think of anything off the top of my head

in this moment. Appreciate the question. Well, I will receive that even though it is against my conditioning, you're like, die, try to change the subject as quickly as possible. But thank you very much for that. I appreciate that. I mean, I think you're amazing. If people want to learn more about you, get more access to your teachings, obviously the Ted Lasso challenge is one place to do it. But where else? What other resources have you put out in the world that people can go searching

for? Sure. You can check out my website. It's just www.loss or meento.com And I just list what I'm offering there in the world and then I have a bunch of talks and Meditations on dharmac.org if you'd like to look me up there as well Law, it's been a pleasure great meeting you Go Richmond Yes, thank you, Dan Thanks again to law the the light full person. Before we head out, I want to plug again the Ted Lasso Challenge, which will teach you how to practice kindness or radical kindness.

The challenge starts two days September 7th, over on the 10% happier app, download the app wherever you get your apps to join for free. The show is made by Samuel Johns, Gabrielle Zuckerman, DJ Cashmere, Justin Davy, Maria Wartell, and Jen Poehont with Audio Engineering by Ultraviolet Audio. As always, a hardy salute to my ABC News comrades Ryan Kessler and Josh Kohan. We'll see you all on Wednesday for a brand new episode with my friend fascinating, incredibly smart meditation teacher Alexis Santos, who has really changed my meditation practice, made it way more relaxed and we'll bring them on the show to help you perhaps do the same thing Hey, hey prime members, you can listen to 10% happier early and 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 with 1-replus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do

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