Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 498: What "Getting Out of Your Head" Actually Means | Dawn Mauricio

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

It’s such a common desire to get out of our heads — to escape the nonstop, mostly self-referential chatter, the habitual storylines, the ancient resentments and the compulsive self-criticism. Many of us take elaborate and even drastic measures in this regard like self-medication, shopping, tech addiction, and so on. But there’s a much healthier option that is readily and perpetually available. In fact, we’re dragging it around with us all the time, the body. The Buddha is said to have laid out four ways to be mindful. In other words, to be awake to whatever is happening right now. The first of these four foundations of mindfulness is mindfulness of the body and todays’ guest, meditation teacher Dawn Mauricio, will walk us through the practical applications of this foundation. Mauricio has been meditating since 2005 and is a graduate of Spirit Rock’s four-year teacher training program. She is also the author of the book, Mindfulness Meditation for Beginners: 50 Meditations to Practice Awareness, Acceptance, and Peace. Dawn’s been on the show before to talk about how to handle difficult people.This episode is the first installment of a series we've launched on the four foundations of mindfulness.In this episode we talk about:What it actually means to get out of your head and into your body and all of the practical ways to get there How strong emotions and seductive technology can work against usAnd what to do when being aware of your body might actually not be the best thing for youFull Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dawn-mauricio-498See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, team, it is such a common desire to get out of our heads, to escape the nonstop mostly self-referential chatter, the habitual storylines, the ancient resentments, the compulsive self-criticism, many of us take elaborate, even drastic measures in this regard, self-medication, shopping, technology addiction, and so on. But there is, of course, a much healthier option that is readily and perpetually available. In fact, we're dragging it around with us all the time. In one of his signature speeches or discourses,

the Buddha is said to have laid out four ways to be mindful. In other words, four ways to be awake to whatever is happening right now. The first of these four, so-called foundations of mindfulness, is the body. In the intervening millennia since the Buddha passed away. Being in our bodies has become a venerable spiritual cliche. In fact, many teachers of all varieties exhort us to be in our bodies. And for many of us, it can actually make us more stranded in our head, because maybe we start thinking about how rarely we dwell south of the neck and then we engage in self-criticism, or because we're so rarely told how

Actually to get out of our heads which brings me to my guest today who has tons of simple practical and Portable ideas for how to get out of your head Don Mauricio has been meditating since 2005 She's a graduate of spirit rocks four-year teacher training program She's also the author of the book, Mindfulness Meditation for Beginners. Don has been on the show before last year. She and I talked about how to handle difficult people. If you missed that, we put a link in the show notes. This episode is the latest installment of a series

we've launched on the four foundations of mindfulness. Again, that's a seminal discourse of the Buddha, one of his signature lists. A few weeks ago, my main man, Joseph Goldstein, gave us an overview of this classic Buddhist list. And now, starting with Don, we're going to get granular on each of the four foundations. Today, Don and I go deep on the first foundation, which is as previously stated, mindfulness of the body.

In Don's view, and this is interesting, you could spend your whole meditation career just on this first foundation and get very far. In a world that values the intellect over the body, we're going to talk about what it actually means to get out of your head and into your body, and all of the practical ways to get there. We also talk about how strong emotions and seductive technology can work against us. And what to do when being aware of your body might actually not be the best thing for you. All right, we'll get started with Don Marisio right after this. 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 Kelli McGonicle 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 Hey y'all is your girl your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. On my new podcast, Baby This is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts the questions that are in my head.

Like, it's only fans only bad. Where the memes come from. And where's Tom from MySpace? Listen to Baby This is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcast. maybe it would be smart to start with just a bit of an overview from your perspective on what this Buddhist listicle is all about. It is one that whole practice lives and if you believe in more than one life, many lifetimes can be centered around the four foundations of mindfulness. And then even at that, like just one of them as well. And so the first

foundation is mindfulness of the body, and that's what we'll talk about today. And then the second foundation is mindfulness of feeling tone, and the poly word for it. So poly is the language in which the teachings of the Buddha were written, and that is Vedina. And that is just our immediate categorization of pleasant, unpleasant, and neither pleasant nor unpleasant. The third foundation is mindfulness of the mind, and in say retreat settings or in even more secular settings, this can show up as teachings around mindfulness of emotions, mindfulness of thoughts. And when we go deeper into say, but as teachings, it can get more complex, like any of these actually. One distinction I want to make is that the second foundation is mindfulness

of feelings. I just mentioned mindfulness of emotions and those are different and sometimes they get conflated. And then the last is mindfulness of the dama. And so this is often quite complicated and complex because it's so rich and there's so much depth to it. And so a lot of ways we just shorthanded. And then it's like a huge core of the teachings that can be found, but as can be clumped into the fourth foundation. Thank you for that tour through the four foundations of mindfulness.

And just to add a little bit, you talked about the difference between feelings and emotions. The second foundation is one where you are mindful of feeling tones, as you said, where you look at anything that comes up in your mind and is the flavor of feeling tones, as you said, where you look at anything that comes up in your mind and is the flavor of it pleasant, unpleasant, or neither, you know, sort of neutral. And so that is very different from the way in which we often describe our feelings or our emotions. And the common understanding of feelings or emotions, that would fall under the third

foundation of mindfulness. So that was one, just a little note I wanted to put in there. But just back to this list as a whole, I was intrigued by something you said right at the beginning, which is that we don't need to master this whole list. Our whole meditation practice in this life. And if you believe in multiple lives over the course of a bunch of lives, can be dedicated to just one of these. So the idea is that you can use mindfulness of your body and we'll talk more about what that

means and ride that all the way to enlightenment if you think enlightenment is the goal or a real thing. Yeah, exactly. That concept or that understanding I find can be quite freeing. Because like you said, we don't have to master everything, but I would say the doorway in for a lot of people is mindfulness of the breath, but that's not always accessible for people, or even being aware of the body, it's not always accessible for people for different reasons. And so it doesn't mean that all of a sudden

that well, then this practice isn't for you and go look for something else. Instead, there's so many other doorways just within this list that you can try out. So in that sense, for accessibility, it's great. And then on top of it, say mindfulness of the breath is your doorway in. It's not always going to be the thing. Even till now, my go to is mindfulness of the breath because that's how I started. There's a lot of ease with that. And so it's my main practice or one of my main practices. But sometimes, I don't know if I'm really sad or I'm just overwhelmed by something personal or something collective, I might need to do a

lying down practice that is focusing on emotions instead. So the others, we may not become masters at that and I don't know if we ever become at least that's not my experience. I don't feel like I'm a master at anything. But it's just the others can be tools that we use every now and then, depending on the conditions or the circumstances. If you look back at the discourses of the Buddha, he made a lot of lists and this is one of the big ones. It's almost like his goal here in listing these four foundations of mindfulness was to

say, guys, there's a lot of ways to wake up and you can focus on lots of aspects of your own experience in order to stop sleep walking through your life. Exactly. And that's what I love about this practice that any way we show up, for example, for me, I used to think that I needed to be a certain way before I could start practicing. Like I needed to be somewhat calm already or something like that. Or my emotional state or mind state needed to be different. And that's not true because there's so many of these entry points or so many of these touchstones that we could use at any given point of our practice. All right, let's start with the first foundation of mindfulness, the body.

I want to quote you back to you. This is something you said to my colleague, DJ Cashmere, when you guys were chitchatting about what we could talk about in this episode. You said meditation is not just a mental practice. It's also an embodiment practice. Embodiment is a word that gets thrown around a lot in contemplative circles, but what do you mean by it? So, if that is a direct quote, I want to even tweak it a little bit.

Did you type this incorrectly, DJ? I wouldn't want it. I don't want to say that it's also an embodiment practice, which I'll describe in a moment, but I think it is an embodiment practice, the whole of it. It might include the mind, but I think the meat of it is one of the body. And so you're right that embodiment can be a jargonny thing, and I forget that because so many my friends

are practitioners or teachers. My husband just asked me, he was like, what does this mean embodiment? He asked me, I think, just yesterday. And so basically, it's another way to say it, it's connecting to the body. And it's very different from how maybe society, not in a derogatory way, but superficial way, connect to the body. A lot of times, we connect to the body surface level. What looks good on me? Am I hungry? Am I full? Well, I think we actually don't even ask ourselves if we're full, but that's another thing.

But it's very to the the surface and that's a great start and there's so much more that we can access through the body and we do that by reorienting our attention over and over to the body, in a way where we're moving away from say a thought-based reality. So what we might think about the body, what we might think we need as opposed to a sense-based reality, tuning into what the body is telling us and responding in that way. which I recognize, just even this idea, the body speaking to us or sending us messages, can feel weird or jargon-y for some people, especially beginners. But yeah, that's the best way I would describe it.

It's just this connecting to the body in a direct way so that we don't get so caught up in the thoughts, the thoughts about the body in a direct way so that we don't get so caught up in the thoughts, the thoughts about the body, et cetera. Let me try a few utterances here and see if they build on what you're saying in a way that speaks to any skeptics or beginners who are with us now. One is, I think you can think of embodiment as getting out of your head, which obviously the head is part of the body, but in the way we use that term, I think that probably resonates with people. And the other thing to say on this notion of the body sending you signals all the time,

okay, fine, maybe that sounds a little out there to some people, but it's really, I think inarguably true. The body is telling us whether we're hungry, whether we're full, as you poiged out, we've often failed to listen to the second signal. It's telling us if we're nervous, if we're stressed, if we're ready to act, if we need a break, if it's time for bed, if it's time to put down the phone and stop doom scrolling, there are lots of signals that we ignore. So I think that's a really important thing, even if some are tempted to dismiss it. Exactly. And to even build on that saying of get out of the head, I think that's great.

And sometimes people can be like, then what? And then we're doing it. Because we live in a society that it's designed to distract us and keep us overstimulated. But on top of that, it's a society that really places a lot of value on the intellect and not as much on the embodiment piece or being in the body or getting out of the head. And it's not taught in school and often you need to maybe start doing yoga or some movement practice in order to know that this body exists and that there's this whole universe in there. I love that. So I'd love it to see if I can prod you to answer the question that you yourself posed. What next? Yeah. So I mean, I'm going to use words that make it sound

easy and very linear. And I wanted to just say that it is not as easy or linear in the sense, but it's get out of the head. And then as best we can orient our attention to the body, that can be confusing for people who have busy minds because we're still using the mind to train the mind. We're just trying to get it to not spend time and things that aren't wholesome or helpful for us in terms of creating less suffering or discomfort. So we're using the mind to direct it to the body

and a lot of times, a lot of people think with words, let's say. And so we can move from say worrying about something or planning. And then we remember this podcast episode and it's like, oh yeah, Dan and Don said drop into the body. And then someone can turn their attention to the body, but it still might come up as words in their mind, like contraction, heavy breathing, hot, etc. And that is not the problem because I think that could be confusing for some people, but the fact that we're thinking about what we're feeling is not the problem. But it's really just about as best we can orienting to the body, what's happening right now in the body. And then

we might have opinions about what's happening. If we notice hot, it's like, let me take off a layer, let me go put on the AC and then it's like, hold on, come back to the body. Then we might notice pulsation or vibration and then go back to the head. And so it's like this back and forth that happens a lot. And then there's stints where we might be able to be with the body

for longer periods. And in my experience, it's when I'm on retreats or vacation, often when I'm pretty relaxed and not much on my plate. But when I'm in my day-to-day life, it's this back and forth, almost like ping-pong. And that's not wrong. I think aiming for short moments many times has been huge and really, really helpful for me. Yeah, so you're not saying we need to permanently be south of the neck. What you're saying is that this is a two-way conversation we should start engaging in.

Yeah, exactly. The image that just came to mind, I thought of a highway with equal number of lanes on either side. There may be more messages coming from the body heading up to the brain, giving us ideas or messages as opposed to it being an equal to A street, if that makes sense. Yeah, I don't know if I'm going to be mangling what she said, but we did a very popular episode a couple months ago with a woman named Deb Dana who writes a lot about the nervous system and how you can have a sort of operator's manual for your own nervous system.

And that involves learning to listen to it. And I believe her contention was that 80% of the communication was body to mind or body to brain rather than the other way around. Yeah. I said it a moment ago, and I feel like there's no better way to say it, but it's this universe that exists within us. But we're just so conditioned or taught to look outside of our bodies for these messages or these stimuli when it's all within us already. Okay. So, I want to do that annoying thing where I pretty much ask the same question again. How do we do this?

I think you probably have our attention, the listeners attention at this point, and I would imagine there's a bit of an appetite for, okay, what do I do? Okay, great question. I mean, there's so many things we can do. Let's say in a more direct way, one of the things that I like to show people who are curious about meditation, what this is about, and it describes or sometimes described as felt sense. And so felt sense, I recognize like embodiment can be one of those jargons that we take for granted. But the way that I describe felt sense

is feeling from the inside out. And so the sexer size that folks can try maybe, especially if you're driving or in the process of doing something right now, please be safe and come back to this later. But what I often have students do is to take their hand and then to just look at their hand and they could move their fingers, move their wrists,

do whatever they want, but just to notice the thoughts that come up when they look at their hand, it could be something like if there's cracking in the knuckles, there might be like, oh, my arthritis is flaring up or I need a manicure or my hands are so dry or that scars from when my brother pushed me when I was six. So stories and opinions and thoughts will arise and that's really natural. And then as

they continue moving their hand, the invitation becomes to close the eyes and then to keep awareness on the hand, but then to notice all of the things that come up. And it's much different now. Often it's tuning into maybe temperature, or feeling maybe the knuckles get stuck for a moment instead of hearing the crack and jumping into the story of arthritis. It could be pulsing, tingling. So this whole realm of sensation starts opening up. And then even in that exploration, this might sound out there again, but it's like the idea of hand will then fall away because we're just so

absorbed by the sensations or the temperature or whatever it is we're noticing. The felt sense, basically. I just want to have your back on these things that for some people may sound out there. It's so powerful to use the raw data of our sensations to break down these concepts. Obviously, the concept of your hand is really important on some level, but seeing that almost all, maybe flat out all of the concepts we use to navigate the world can be deconstructed in meditation, chose us that there's a deeper level to the world to reality. Does that make sense to you? I 1,000% agree, and I know that's not proper math, but still. Enthusiastically agree. There is a practice that I was guided

through by a teen when I used to teach teen retreats with Jessica Moraine, Loss Hermienta, who I know are part of the T-Page family. And there's a teen on those retreats that guided us through a similar practice, and it was particularly to show us how gender is a construct or race is a construct, just as much as the hand can be a construct, especially if we try to tune in, well, what is, for me, what is Filipino in me, you know, what does that feel like? And I can't point to it in a particular place and then same with gender. So it's really mind blowing when we tune into this direct experience, just like the hand how that can really open up so much.

For me, it's been particularly useful around emotion. So I experience quite a bit of anger and greed or desire to of the, you know, main characters in our inner dramatic person eye for all of us. But if I experience anger and meditation and start to like, okay, what is this consist of? It's a buzzing in my chest, a heaviness in my head, a starburst of self-righteous thoughts, that is breaking it down and it no longer feels like such a juggernaut that is unmanageable. I love that you used anger as an example because I think and you're not saying this but I think just generally speaking folks think anger is bad

and then we avoid it and then it's driving so much of our society, unfortunately, in different variations of anger. But this practice of turning toward anger, we're not trying to mute it or repassionize it as we might sometimes say in vipassana meditation circles. We're not just trying to be mindful of it so that it goes away and then we can carry about our day in this open-hearted, peaceful way. That might happen, but I find that when I turn toward my anger, the fire and the wrath of that anger that just wants to hurt people will subside eventually, depending on what it is I'm angry about.

But what often stays is the lesson of that's not cool. I need to express that to that person that violated a boundary, et cetera. So the lesson sticks or the message of the anger or the body sticks, but not the harmfulness of it. And so to go back to the question of like, well, get out of her head and then what? So as you said, it's not about being in the body, 100% of the time. And it is still this dance, this 80, 20. So then from being in the body, it's like, well, how do I, what action needs to be taken or not taken? And so there's still this active quality of being mindful of the body. It's not just

all receiving and things will be fine, but no, there's still a little bit of this volition or active quality to it. If you think so, I thought you were going to say, and maybe this is what you're saying, that there is some analysis that's happening, some thinking that's happening, vis-a-vis the sensation. So we might identify, oh yeah, anger, we can deconstruct anger or whatever emotion, but that doesn't mean that there isn't something, once we've let it ride over us, that we need to attend to on the back end. Okay, so yes and no. So there is something, a lot of times, using anger, there is at least for me, something that needs tending to afterward. However, it is

not through analysis or thinking that I come to that. It might be really hard to understand if you've never really done this. And so for any listeners who are searching for their phone in their pocket now to end this episode, I would say start small. You might start with like, I don't know, maybe feeling of annoyance. And then it might be these righteous thoughts that you mentioned earlier. However, underneath that when we drop into the body, it might be something more like not feeling seen. And it might come up for some people as words because there are many different ways that people think. For me, it's often as images or sensations. And so,

if say I'm annoyed because we always choose the movies that my husband wants to see, and it could be, you know, the end of that, I could maybe say, we always do what you want to do. But if I tune into my body, or backup, if I remember to tune into my body, because it's not always easy, when I can tune into it, sometimes I'll feel the sensations in my body that are unpleasant, like contraction or sinking feeling.

In addition to that, I could also maybe see an image of when I was younger, and my brother's always left me out of things. And then from there, it's just like, oh, it's really coming from hurt or not feeling seen or wanting to be seen. And then from there, it's like you can express that or not, but it's so helpful to know the root of it

so that I could tend to it. So that if that part of me is feeling wounded, I can be like, it's okay, we'll go watch your romantic comedy by yourself this weekend or something like that as opposed to, I mean, I can tell my partner and I often do, but not in a way where it's like do something about it. Oh, now it's only your responsibility to help me feel seen, but rather, so that I could work on this myself and he could be aware of it as well. So it becomes this reciprocal thing instead of a wedge that gets added to maybe past wedges

between us. Just so I'm clear though, in that process where you see that the dispute over movie selection is based in stuff from childhood or primordial needs that maybe have not been met consistently over time. Is there no thinking and analysis involved in that? Well, yes, fine. I'll succumb to that. You win, Dan. I'm a guest.

This is your podcast. No. But you're maybe mis- mis- perceiving some from our, for our Moral Need on My End to be right. I'm more the primordial need on My End is to understand. Yeah. Yeah. Of course, if we're going to be very, say, technical about it. Yes, I would agree. And the only reason why I'm making that distinction is because we are very much already thinking bodies. And so it's almost like, give them an inch they want to yard. So it's like just to show people

that there's this huge capacity of the body. The mind is involved, of course. And if we transfer some of this curiosity or just some of this power to the body, to allow ourselves to be surprised at what can arise because the body is so wise, it's this amazing thing we take for granted for most of the days and many days in a row. Dolly noted, and I think you're the one who was right. All along, just for the record. Oh, I like that that's reported.

Yeah, so I'll put a loop on my own wife. So, okay, so let's go back to the practical here. So you described to this exercise that we can do with our hands. We all of, I think anybody listening to the show will at least be familiar with the notion of using the breath to meditate, which of course, mindfulness of the body. But if I understand you correctly via the aforementioned DJ, whose notes I use to prepare

for this, if I understand you correctly, you don't view mindfulness of the body solely as being aware of the sensations of this meat sack we drag around with us. It's anything that comes through the scent stores. So mindfulness of the body would also include being mindful of sounds or smells. Exactly. And the only reason why I believe that is because our senses are part of our bodies. And so even though we might hear a sound that is not part of our body,

it's happening a block away or whatever, it's coming into our body through the ear. And of course, that's often not felt. I personally haven't felt vibrations at the ear drum maybe some have, but there's an internal reaction to it. And so often, and I think this is quite funny, I've seen this in myself and in students where if it's something like birds, pleasant sensations arise in my system around it where there's maybe expansion or tingling,

and it's all very nice feeling. And then if it's construction, like drilling or something like that, even though sound is still sound, my perception of it makes it to be unpleasant. So the sensations in my body will be very different from if it's just birds, where there's contraction and maybe I go into strategizing, closing windows, putting noise canceeling earphones in or whatever.

But I believe it's Ajahn Cha or Saida Tijaniya. I forget which one, but they would say to a yogi that was complaining about the sound outside the monastery. They're like, what's the problem? Sound is doing what it's doing. You're the one who's trying to go out to bother the sound. The sound's just being what it is. Anyway, so all that to say is that we feel it in the body.

And so smell as well, whether it's pleasant or unpleasant, like if it's food or garbage on a humid day, there's a different reaction in the body. And then one of the things that I love teaching on is just how to use tech mindfully. And that is often mindfulness of the body using the eyes or ears, you know, depending on how you take in your media or whatever. But for me, it's through the eyes as I scroll through the news or social media. And then I try to remind myself to tune into my body every minute or so. I don't always, but I try to to tune in. And then when there's like a lot of contraction, shortness of breath,

those are clues that this isn't as fun as you might think it is. But often I'm like, I'll find that one real, that is fun. And so I kind of keep going until I tune in again. And then it's more exacerbated, more tight, less breathing, et cetera. So that's what you would recommend to us, because I think scrolling is pretty universal activity these days to get into the habit of checking in with our bodies. And that can include not just the sensations in our thorax, but also that we're taking in data

through the eyes, which is one of our senses. Exactly. And then of course, start small. It could be with emails or something pretty static. And then eventually, you can work your way up to movies. That's how I stopped watching scary movies, actually. I would tune in and then I would recognize that I was in such a state of stress, even though it was entertainment. But I thought, why am I doing this to myself? I could entertain myself in other ways. And so it could be worked up to that. And then eventually brought into conversations. It's a little harder at dinners with a group of people, but you might try it one-on-one, especially heated conversations. It can be quite helpful where

I think back to an argument with my partner and I'll say something like, I'm feeling very hot right now and I might still be quite angry, but just naming it creates a little bit of space so that I don't go into that wanting to hurt or wanting to win mode. Much more of my conversation with Don Mauricio right after this. Life is short and it's full of a lot of interesting questions. What is 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. The problem with doing mindfulness with technology from my perspective is that you're contending

with supercomputers and brilliant designers who are doing their best to make sure you are completely disconnected from your body and just mindlessly scrolling. And so it's a tall order. It really is. And I would like to note though that there are on the flip side folks that have the same skill set, but that are trying to do good in regards to technology because they're just seeing how much damage it's doing to people and young people. But those are certainly harder to find. Or I think when we try to change our relationship to technology, it becomes more effortful because it's not as easy since the flood of ways that is normalized to interact with tech has been made addictive so.

It is possible, but it's not easy. But just to know that it's not easy gives us permission to try it and quote unquote fail and try again and quote unquote fail and I think that's actually helpful just to acknowledge. Yeah, because I think we need to learn how to interact wisely with our tech because it's not going away. It's only going to be more integrated into our lives. And so we learn about these beautiful qualities or cultivate beautiful qualities.

But then when we pick up our devices, there's often that bridge that's missing. And so if we could bridge the two, hopefully, it won't own us. But we can choose more wisely how we want to interact with our devices. And I was just reading about this today. What makes it so hard is that there are both benefits and harmful aspects that exist within this device. And so that makes it really confusing or hard to disengage from.

I want to go back to something you said a minute or so ago about using this kind of checking back in with the body, even when you're in a contentious discussion with some other member of the Homo sapiens. And it reminded me that I believe, in my memory is not awesome, if memory serves, that the Buddha in the discourse on the four foundations of mindfulness, which I believe in Pali, is called the Satyupatana Sutta, in that discourse, he exhorted meditators to be mindful internally of their own bodies, externally of other people's bodies, and both internally and externally. So how are we to begin to practice with this notion of being mindful of other people's

bodies and then both hours and theirs? That's a great question. notion of being mindful of other people's bodies and then both hours and theirs. That's a great question. So if we use that same example of a heated discussion, I could be noticing, and again, I want to emphasize short moments many times. It's not as if mindfulness can stay as strong when I'm emotionally invested in something or proving that I'm right or whatever. So there might be snippets of this where we might notice just the energy we're bringing to the conversation. So I don't tune into the

hurt that I'm feeling when I'm angry yet. I tune into more like I want to hurt the other. That is more obvious to me than tuning into any pain, because I'm still stuck in wanting to be right. So I'm not gonna necessarily admit yet to myself that I'm hurt. Often in a moment of mindfulness, I am just trying to plan what I'm gonna say next to prove them wrong.

But if I'm able to have a moment of mindfulness, I might see how angry they are or how hurt they are or confused they are or something. Like there might be a little bit of seeing that just by maybe their posture or how much their voice is being raised or the expression on their face. And then that internal external piece could be given that information and given what I'm feeling, what do I do now?

And I feel so grateful that I'm in a healthy relationship where if I see pain on my partner's face and I'm feeling angry, that noticing is enough for me to maybe take it down a notch. And then from there, it can start to de-escalate. But I was in a relationship for a long time where it wasn't as easy or healthy. And so it would compound on each other. And then it would be really big fights. So that one wasn't so easy to do

internally and externally. So just wanting to say that once you learn this, it's not like it solves all of your problems. Yeah, wanting to say that like once you learn this, it's not like it solves all of your problems. Yeah, just to say in praise of you that I think it's for me at least quite liberating to hear you describe your foibles openly because it just gives us all permission to be honest about our own and not to expect some dabbling in the meditation space to be, you know, the answer to all of our problems. I heard a phrase recently that I liked cathartic normalization. And that's what I think you're doing.

Thanks. Well, it really comes from on a retreat, I had a panic attack. And then I was just freaking out. And everyone around me was being really quiet and moving slowly. And I was just manic. And I wrote a desperate note to one of the teachers, like, please meet me. I need help kind of thing.

And when we met, that teacher was being like, shit, it's the fan for all of us. And then I thought, well, how come no one talks about it? And her response was, what good would it do if we talked about how we failed or when shit has hit the fan for us? And I thought it would be incredibly helpful because I certainly felt alienated

that I'm on this meditation retreat and I'm freaking out like that is the opposite of what most people would expect would happen. Yeah, so kind of inspired by that moment, I'm just like, I'm going to lay it all out because this is how it's unfolding for me. And over the years of practice, I don't feel like I'm any less worthy to do this practice because I can be a hot mess at times. Do you still experience panic or anxiety and when you do how does mindfulness of the body help if at all? Yeah.

So I don't err in panic zone as much as before, which I'm so grateful for. And I think the reason for that is because of this practice of mindfulness of the body. And I do hang out in anxiety a bunch more than I'd like. I'm such a sucker for when I'm booking flights for teaching gigs and it says, two seats left at this price. I get so anxious, but anyways. And so then what I can do is I feel the anxiety, I feel that it's quite unpleasant.

And so anxiety, maybe it's different for a lot of people, but it's shortness of breath. My main thing is like so tight in the chest. And then my mind starts racing. So those are often my clues. And then what I try to do is step away from whatever it is that is giving me anxiety. And then I might tune into something that I see, something I hear.

So circling through the senses, something I smell, I taste, and I feel in the body. And then that immediacy coming to this moment kind of snatches me from the worrying, the tunnel of worry that anxiety kind of builds around itself. And then it's kind of like I have a little bit of a wider perspective of like, okay, and there's this. And so then when I go back into whatever it is like booking that flight, it's no longer the end of the world. And I'm using that flight because yes, I do sometimes get anxious about that, but of

course it could be anything. You know, it's not the reason of anxiety that is important, but really how we meet that anxiety. So just to restate that because I have no stranger to anxiety myself. When anxiety arises, we can get out of our heads in that moment by cycling through the raw data of our senses. What are my eyes taking in? What's my nose taking in? My ears, what's happening in my body, and that can create some space around the story.

Yeah. I would even say, if we can, look out the window, look up to the sky. I remember after that retreat where I got all those panicking anxiety attacks, I was so nervous about my next retreat. I was just so like, I don't want this to happen again. And I remember speaking to my therapist and we were kind of troubleshooting ways. And one of the things she suggested is if you can, as soon as you can, we might not always be able to extract yourself from a situation, but as soon as we can look up at the sky.

And in the moment, if we can extract ourselves, what I like to do is my hands on my legs, and I kind of squeeze my legs, just to get me, again, as we talked about, say, at the beginning of this, like from my head, so I feel it really above my shoulders, like that's where all the energy is. And then when I squeeze my thighs with my hands, it just reminds me to drop my attention lower into my body. Yeah, because anxiety feeds on itself when you're just stuck with all the bats in the bellfree

and not in any way connected to the tower that's supporting the thing. Yeah, exactly. And I bring up the idea that we can always extract ourselves partly because I saw you maybe a week and a half ago and I saw you replayed your video of when you had your anxiety attack or panic attack on camera and you couldn't just get up mid-sentence and look out the window and plus you were in New York and so I don't know if that would have been resourcing anyway but that's not the case for everyone where we can easily just get up like that so. More of my conversation with Don Mauricio after this. I'm gonna ask a question that's gonna sound like a bit of a non-sequitur, but it's

following up on something you said a while ago about using sound as the object of our meditation instead of focusing on our breath, which is often the way in. You can focus on what are the sounds in your environment and then every time you get distracted or carried up by some story, you just come back to the sounds. You said something like sounds aren't part of our body per se, but of course they're being processed in the body. And it just reminded me of something that I, it was actually quite beautifully described by the writer Robert Wright who wrote a book called Wybladism is True that I'm a big fan of.

I'm probably going to not restate this act really, so, Bob. But he was talking about a moment of being on retreat where he was realizing that he couldn't make much of a distinction between the sensation of his knee and the sound of bird song. That at some level, there was no owner of either of these things. And that seems really deep. So I thought I'd bring it up here and see if it brings something to your mind.

Yeah, if we're talking about out there things, that could be one of those things that falls into that category, that contemplation or realization. And that would be part of the fourth foundation of mindfulness or just this contemplation or mindfulness of the Dhammas. But there's a teaching in that or a list in the Dhammas called the Five Aggregates. And it's really interesting where when we practice with it, we can cycle through how anything that arises, it's not dawn making it happen, it's not happening to dawn, it's simply happening because of how conditions are unfolding in that moment. And I'm not

sure how to explain it, you know, and say, layman terms, but I do remember having an experience on retreat where there was a deer walking by or something like that. And I was actively and ardently working with the five aggregates that whole retreat. So I was like trying to mentally note everything that was happening coming through the senses. And then when that deer rustled or passed by right near me, it was like the spacious knowing I didn't have to mentally note it. It wasn't even a deer, you know, I looked after and I saw that it was a deer, but it was sound simply happening. And I was so excited because for the first time in like say six weeks, there was no dawn, deeply knowing sound. And so when I got back from that retreat and people

would say non-practitioners would say, like, how was your retreat? What was your biggest insight? That's a question I would get a lot. What is the biggest thing you learned? And then I said, the ear hears. And then, and everyone was like, are you okay? No one was impressed with that. But it was just so so liberating. You

know, I think we build these whole universes around ourselves. And then when we drop into the practice, it opens up so much. And it reveals that we're not as important as we are, but we're still very much worthy. You know, I don't want to demean us or our self-love in any way, but just... It's quite liberating, and I actually, it's bringing to mind this street Nizar Gadata quote of, love tells me I am everything, wisdom tells me I am nothing, and between the two my life flows. I feel like there are many paradoxes in this practice, and that is one of them. I'm not sure if that helped clarify anything

for the listeners or just, or just confuse things, but it's just really, really beautiful, the power of this practice. And I think one of the gifts of this practice is that the doorways are quite direct and simple, but the impact of the power is huge. Yeah, I don't know if I'm going to make things better here and maybe we'll just end up

cutting this all out. But to me, the point of that Robert Wright story and the point of what everything you've just said is that it points to what is, when we talk about this a lot on the show, it's perhaps the hardest, Buddhist argument to wrap your head around. The argument that on some really important level, the self is an illusion, and it's very easy to misconstrue that

and to be nihilistic about it. But really, in a moment where you notice, I'm hearing Bird's song and around the same time I'm feeling a sensation in my knee and I don't own either of these. What you're seeing is that everything that's happening in your mind is nature. And it cuts through this illusion that we have that we're separate from everything, that we're isolated, ego-fretfully navigating a world full of hazards. That's not to say there are no hazards in the world,

but we are inextricably part of this world. Dust to dust isn't in the Bible for no reason. And I just think this is a quite down to earth way to see the truth of one of the grandaddies of contemplative cliches. Yeah, I love that, that we are nature. And that is one of the aspects of mindfulness of the body, that we are nature. And there's so many ways we can see that through the practice. And then there's also a very direct way to tune into how we are made of earth, wind, fire, and water.

You know, that's another way to remind ourselves that we are not separate. And then also, like, as part of this, you know, if I'm talking about some of the things that are in this teaching of mindfulness of the body, you mentioned mindfulness of the breath. That's often the doorway in, or that's maybe the most common doorway in, I would say.

But I like to simplify mindfulness of the body as mindfulness of sensations, which you alluded to already where even when we're tuning into the breath We're noticing if the body expands or contracts if it's hot or cold, etc. as it breathes Then there's also like daily life or postures just the postures were in or positions and so The Buddha taught that we could meditate positions. And so the Buddha taught that we could meditate seated, standing, walking, or lying down. And even though meditate and air quotes, people can think of the formal practice. But if we loosen our idea of meditation into being like just as mindful as we can, as much as we can, well, we're in

those four postures pretty much all the time for people who exercise, like running is just really fast walking. And so you could be mindful of that instead of listening to music or whatnot. If you go to the gym and you squat, it's like you're almost seated. So that's one of the postures. And then you go back to standing or it's just this really vibrant or alive practice or it can be mindfulness of the body. Yes, a point and then a final question. The point is we've been talking about a lot of the sort of profound implications of being out of your head and in your body

that it can help you usefully deconstruct your emotions that it can show you that it's all nature and that you're not separate from the rest of the world these can be hard to grasp but I do very very very simple level it can also just give you a break from the swirling stories that chaos and cacophony of the mind and don't discount that discount that. So the final question for me is, well, the final question before I ask my two closing questions that I almost always ask. So the final question before those two is, I know you wanted to talk a little bit about a caveat here for people who've experienced trauma and that for those folks, there may be some things to bear in mind when listening to the body. So I just want to give you an opportunity to talk about that. Yeah, we mentioned it a little bit already throughout this interview or this episode, but

even though mindfulness of the body is the first foundation as we talked about earlier, it's not the only way in, it's not a necessary way in either. So for folks who have a hard time being in the body because of trauma or abuse or whatever the reason to not force ourselves to go there, because that could actually be activating or triggering. And on top of that, we've been talking about just like, oh, there are messages from the body, listen in,

there's a lot of wisdom. And all of that, it's like, oh, there are messages from the body, listen in, there's a lot of wisdom. And all of that, it's like generally speaking, because folks who have had abuse or trauma in their past, and it's somehow, knowingly or unknowingly, in their body still, it's hard to discern the messages just because we might have needed to dissociate from the body in different ways in order to survive or whatnot. And so it can be really hard to trust the body.

And so in those cases, I think little by little, and working with someone, whether it's a meditation mentor or a therapist, a somatic experiencing practitioner, something like that can help shift the relationship to the body. And you may not ever spend time practicing in this way, and that's okay too. You know, so I just don't want folks to think that, okay, I got to do those things, book an appointment with my therapist, try out somatic experiencing. And I mean, you can if you're curious about it, but it is not by any means an obligation. And this is the beauty of this practice. You can totally get all of the benefits

this practice has to offer with any of the other foundations of mindfulness and so many other parts of this practice. And that's maybe the encouragement or disclaimer or however you want to word it. To not let this teaching of mindfulness of the body limit you or your access to this beautiful practice in any way. I'm glad you said that. So here are the two questions I often ask at the end of an interview. One is, is there something I should have asked, but didn't? I feel like the answer is yes, because it's such a deep teaching, but what is that question?

I don't know. So we know you fucked up Harris, but we don't know how. Exactly. Okay, so Faradah, always happy to have my fallibility pointed out. Here's the second question, which is, can you please, for'm always happy to have my fallibility pointed out. Here's the second question, which is, can you please, for people who want to learn more from you, remind us, I know you've written a book, you've got digital assets you've put out into the world, resources, can you please plug all of that?

Okay, all of that. That will be a challenge. So, I mean, easiest place, my website, DonMaricio.com. The book can be found there as well, which is called Mindfulness Meditation for Beginners. And I have started putting up some guided meditations on a podcast, but it's not a podcast in the interview sense. It's really just straight guidance.

And that is mindfulness meditation with Don Mauricio. And on there, you can find this one meditation that's called countdown to ease. And that we refer to a little bit, it's around when we get anxious or when we feel anxious. So it guides us through the senses and how to re embody our re ground in the body. And then because I'm such a fan of this foundation of mindfulness, there are a bunch of body ones on there. And of course, I'm on the TPH app in a few places. And so, yeah, looking forward to have folks have me in their ears.

It's been a pleasure to have you in my years for the last little while. Thank you for being available. Really appreciate it. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for having me back. Thanks again to Don Mauricio. Always great to talk to her. Thanks as well to everybody who works so hard on this show.

10% happier is produced by DJ Kashmir, Gabrielle Zuckerman, Justin Davie and Lauren Smith. Our senior producer is Marissa Schneiderman, Kimmy Regler is our managing producer, and our executive producer is Jen Poient, scoring and mixing by Peter Bonnaventure of Ultraviolet Audio. We'll see you on Friday for a bonus. 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 1-3-plus in Apple Podcasts.

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