Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 451: Don’t Take What Happens in Your Head Personally | Bonus Meditation with Joseph Goldstein

Episode Date: May 20, 2022

Emotions can feel so personal. Joseph helps you get your feet back under you. Remember: your mind doesn't have to push you around.About Joseph Goldstein:Joseph is one of the most respected meditation teachers in the world -- a key architect of the rise of mindfulness in our modern society -- with a sense of humor to boot. In the 1970's, he co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) alongside Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield. Since its founding, thousands of people from around the world have come to IMS to learn mindfulness from leaders in the field. Joseph has been a teacher there since its founding and continues as the resident guiding teacher.To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Releasing Moods & Emotions,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=63bba532-84e7-4dd1-a0df-5f734be86239.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, happy Friday. It's bonus meditation time. We've gone to some pretty heavy places on the show this week, focusing on what it feels

like to lose, losing people, jobs, relationships. We've really been talking about the full spectrum of grief. In the Buddhist tradition, one supremely counterintuitive way to deal with whatever emotions or states of mind are coming up is to not take them seriously. But how to actually do that? We're going to practice today with the Maestro, Joseph Goldstein, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society, and one of the founding teachers on the 10% happier app, Joseph Overdoe.

Hello, this is Joseph. One of the areas we get most identified with is different mind states and emotions. Understanding their essential, insubstantial nature and our own conditioned responses to them opens a doorway to a much greater understanding and ease in our lives. In this session we'll be using the terms mind states and emotions interchangeably.

We'll begin the meditation by settling into the awareness of your body posture. Sit and know you're sitting. Be mindful of your body breathing. Breathing in, know you're breathing in, breathing out, know you're breathing out. Sometimes using a soft mental note of in and out along with each breath. And as you're sitting with the breath or the body, pay attention to any arising mind states or emotions. They might be feelings of boredom or restlessness, irritation or fear. One indication that we're not being mindful of them is when we're feeling some kind of suffering or distress.

Knowing that we're not at ease can be taken as feedback, that we're not accepting of what is arising. All of these emotions in mine states are passing and insubstantial, like clouds in the sky. The mine can also get just as caught up in pleasant mine states, and these two are in substantial and passing. So, as you sit in different emotions or mind states where the pleasant or unpleasant become predominant, you can remind yourself, it's just a mind state and relax back into the flow of your life experience. And becoming mindful of any predominant mind-stater emotion. And remembering their insubstantial and passing nature. Sometimes use the phrase, it's just a mindset to remind you of their empty passing transitory nature. When you're ready, you can open your eyes, reconnecting with the world around you.

This practice is particularly helpful at those times, both in your meditation and in your life, This is particularly helpful at those times, both in your meditation and in your life, when the mind feels caught up in some strong emotional pattern. It helps to open the space for clear seeing and wise discernment. It's good being with you and I look forward to being with you next time. Thanks again to Joseph. We'll be back here on Monday for a brand new episode with Stephanie Fu, who just wrote a memoir about overcoming some truly horrific things in her life and what she learned in her really heroic and systematic mission to address these issues, what she learned I think will be applicable to all of us.

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