Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 503: Free Range Meditation | Bonus Meditation with Alexis Santos

Episode Date: September 30, 2022

Bringing awareness to everyday activities can be a taste of freedom to help you move through your day with clarity, energy, and well-being.About Alexis Santos:Alexis Santos is a featured teacher on the Ten Percent Happier app and has been in the field of mindfulness and meditation since 2001. He has been a long-time student of Sayadaw U Tejaniya, with whom he ordained as a Buddhist monk, and has taught at retreat centers around the globe.To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “While Going About Your Day,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=0a6b880d-a114-4db6-a502-3f70c56e3078.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. Happy Friday everybody. It's time for a bonus meditation. And today's meditation is meant to be consumed on the go while you're going about doing whatever you're doing. It's a kind

of free range meditation. If you tune in this week, our episode on Monday with Casey Davis was about developing a more compassionate approach to housework. So I'd like to thank that in our endless quest for domestic bliss, we can also bring a sense of mindfulness to all the little tasks that are called for. Our teacher, DuJour is my great friend, Alexis Santos, who is a featured teacher on the 10% happier app. Alexis is a long-time student of the Burmese master, Saida Uttejania, with whom he ordained for a while as a monk. Here we go now with Alexis Santos.

Hi, this is Alexis. Happy to be with you today. When our emotions go unnoticed, it's a lot like carrying around heavy bags. Reactivity and tension can build, and the burden of that weight can leave us feeling exhausted. Bringing awareness to our inner world, to our state of mind and emotions,

is like putting down the burden of something heavy, allowing you to move through your day with more clarity, energy, and well-being. Let's get started. This session is meant to be listened to on the go. So just continue doing whatever it is you are doing. There's no need to slow down, or act any differently. Awareness can be a part of any activity. So as we get started, you might take a couple of fuller breaths, bringing awareness to the experience of your breathing.

Feel the breath as it comes in, and as it goes out. Notice the relative ease of being aware of course, is breathing all day long. But how often are we actually being mindful of the experience of breathing? So even though it's not difficult to be aware of the breath in any given moment, most of us don't have the habit of bringing awareness into our daily routines. We simply lose awareness. While the breath in itself may not be so significant, knowing our state of mind clearly makes a difference. So take a moment to check in in a broader way with how you are. You could use the question, how am I right now? Just getting a general sense of simply noticing and allowing. The heart, the emotional experience, has a huge range.

It may be nothing much is happening, or feeling heavy, burdened. Feeling it through the body can support a sense of opening and listening to what's here, rather than getting caught up in the emotional content, and getting pulled into the story of what's happening. Take some time now to notice how the body feels in relation to your emotional experience, One helpful question to ask from time to time as you go about the day is to ask, do I feel tense or relaxed? Notice how you're feeling. As you continue to go about your next moments,

try including an awareness of how you're feeling, of acknowledging it, and notice the difference this makes for you and most likely for those around you as well. See you next time. Thank you to Alexis. We'll see you right back here on Monday for a brand new episode with the great Karen Armstrong. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.

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