Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 448: Your Umbrella in a Sh*t Storm | Bonus Meditation with Matthew Hepburn

Episode Date: May 13, 2022

Learn to find a feeling of protection and trust during a downpour of stressful thoughts or overwhelm.About Matthew Hepburn :Matthew is a meditation and dharma teacher with more than a decade of teaching experience and a passion for getting real about what it means to live well. He emphasizes humor, technique, and authentic kindness as a means to free the mind up from unnecessary struggle and leave a healthier impact on the world.Beyond Ten Percent Happier, Matthew has taught in prisons, schools, corporate events and continues to teach across North America in buddhist centers offering intensive silent retreats and dharma for urban daily life.Matthew is the host of the Twenty Percent Happier podcast, where you'll get to eavesdrop on people getting real about the challenges all of us face, and you’ll hear how through meditation, those challenges are transformed.To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Shelter in a Storm: Finding Refuge,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=8e3f8e99-e4b3-4c54-b46d-f57647b254db.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What does it even mean to live a good life? Is it about happiness, purpose, love, health, or wealth? What really matters in the pursuit of a life well lived? These are the questions award-winning author, founder, and interviewer Jonathan Fields asks his guests on the Top Ranked Good Life Project podcast. Every week, Jonathan sits down with world renowned thinkers and doers, people like Glenn and Doyle, Adam Grant,

Young Pueblo, Jonathan Height, and hundreds more. Start listening right now. Look for the Good Life project on your favorite podcast app. This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey gang, all this week we've been talking about hope here on the show, not as a bromide or as an empty slogan that you might knit onto throw pillows or render as a hashtag, but instead as a practical, trainable skill.

So today we've got a guided meditation designed to help you develop the confidence that you can deal with pretty much anything that is thrown your way. And what is that confidence, if not a form of hope? Our teacher, DuJour, Matthew Hepburn, has been a meditation teacher for more than a decade. He's also one of the more popular teachers on the 10% happier app. And he has taught in prisons, schools, and corporate events,

and continues to offer intensive silent retreats across North America. So here we go now with Matthew. Hey, it's Matthew. Sometimes the stresses of the day pile up so high in your mind you start to lose hope there's any alternative but to fight your way through it. But when you can remember that you're actually a part of something much bigger, it's easier to find the confidence to weather difficult storms, instead of getting swept up and painful self-centered thinking. Take a few moments to get settled in and intentionally relax. You can gently close the eyes.

Take a few long, slow in breaths and let each one out naturally. While you're tuning into your breath and relaxing, imagine for a moment your outside when suddenly a massive downpour of rain opens up from the sky above. You quickly duck under a nearby awning, safe, dry, and protected while the deluge passes. In this meditation, you're going to practice building the muscle memory of ducking out from a downpour of stressful thoughts into a sense of refuge, trust, and ease. To start, we'll bring to mind a reflection that has three attributes. It feels a part of this moment, feels broader than you are, and brings you a sense of trust or peace. Some examples might be calling to mind that you are a small part of the grandness of nature, or remembering your caring community,

or remembering your caring community, or that there are likely millions of people like you who are meditating this very moment. Let yourself get in touch with something that brings you that type of trust, expansiveness, or confidence now. As you hold it in your attention, notice how it impacts you here in this moment. Okay, now the real manoeuvre of taking refuge is to return to this type of attitude and perspective when your stressful thoughts are kicking your butt. Let's practice this move. Bring to mind the current stressors in your life or in your day to day. Let your mind run through its unique pattern of highlighting what's worrisome or painful. Okay, pause, take a breath. Hopefully, you didn't go too far down the rabbit hole. Bring your attention back to the present moment and call up your refuge from earlier. This is the move.

What do you notice? In a given day, our inner thoughts and emotions change just like weather patterns. On a bad day, we simply try to fight through it, but we don't have to endure. When we can trust in something that's beyond our limited sense of ourselves, everything begins to shift. When you're ready, you can slowly open your eyes and take in the space around you. See if you can bring this refuge into the next moments of your day. And if you find yourself in a downpour of painful thoughts, you can always return here as a

place to weather the storm. Take care and see you next time. Next to Matthew, we're going to see right back here on Monday for a brand new episode with the phenomenally preternaturally talented writer Katherine Schultz who's out with a new memoir called Lost and Found is a fascinating conversation all next week. We're going to be talking about loss and grief and we'll be combining Catherine's personal story with a neuroscientist who looks at your brain on grief. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.

Or you can listen early and add free 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. Wondery.com slash survey.