Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 454: A Meditation for Self-Criticism| Bonus Meditation with Diana Winston

Episode Date: May 27, 2022

Tune in mindfully to help alleviate the pain of feeling unworthy and cultivate more compassion and joy for yourself.About Diana Winston:Diana Winston is the Director of Mindfulness Education at UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center and the other of The Little Book of Being: Practices and Guidance for Uncovering Your Natural Awareness. She has taught mindfulness since 1999 at hospitals, universities, corporations, nonprofits, and schools in the US and Asia. She developed the evidence-based Mindful Awareness Practices (MAPS) curriculum and the Training in Mindfulness Facilitation, which trains mindfulness teachers worldwide. She is also a founding board member of the International Mindfulness Teachers Association. To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Unworthiness,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=59c693e4-de4c-4e08-8eee-95fb36296938.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, hey, happy Friday, bonus meditation time. Today we're taking aim at self-criticism, self-judgment, kicking your own butt, telling yourself all kinds of stories about how worthy you are, et cetera.

Our teacher, Du jour, is Diana Winston, the director of mindfulness education at UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center and the author of a book called The Little Book of Being. Here we go now with Diana. Hi, this is Diana, and this is a meditation to explore how to work with thoughts and feelings of unworthiness. Most of my students and really everyone I know suffers from self-critical thoughts and deeper feelings of unworthiness.

The good news is that you're not alone and mindfulness can offer helpful tools to work with these very normal types of thoughts or feelings. We typically work mindfully with the thoughts connected to unworthiness, self-criticism and self-judgment, as well as cultivate more compassion for ourselves and the recognition of our shared humanity. So let's give it a try. We can begin by settling back into a comfortable, relaxed position. Your back can be upright, but not rigid or tight.

Hands resting wherever they're comfortable. Feel free to close your eyes or keep them open looking downward as you wish. Let's begin with some simple practice to get us focused. You can start with bringing your attention to your breathing, the natural breath as you feel it in your abdomen, chest or nose. Just notice the sensations of your breath rising, falling in, out. Keeping your attention on your breathing, and some people prefer to listen to sounds coming and going, either as fine. Now choose one area to focus on, the breath in your abdomen, chest or nose, or listening to sounds.

When your attention wanders off, gently return to the sound. As you do this, notice how you feel about yourself. Are you kind to yourself, or are they judging or comparing thoughts coming up? Are you comparing this meditation experience to another one, or some idea of what meditation should be? Maybe there's not a particular judgment of your meditation, but maybe there are critical voices inside about something else, perhaps something in your life where you feel unworthy, not seen, not respected, lesser than. See where your goes to when I say this. Does a story or example come up? Now see if you can notice some place in your body that feels easeful or good like your hands or feet. Let your attention stay where it feels pleasant, good, this now. Now what do you notice in your body? Be really gentle here as you explore. Notice how you're feeling having done this.

What's happened to those thoughts or feelings of unworthiness? They may have shifted a bit, so notice if there's a little more ease here, maybe a bit of compassion for yourself. Whenever you're ready, you can open your eyes or end the meditation. See you next time. Thank you Diana, we'll see you right back here on Monday for a brand new episode. 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.

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