Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 506: Undomesticate Your Mind | Bonus Meditation with Cara Lai

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

Let your attention be fueled by interest and discover how meditation can feel more engaging and enjoyable.About Cara Lai:Cara Lai spent most of her life trying to figure out how to be happy, or at least avoid total misery, which landed her on a meditation cushion for the majority of her adulthood. Throughout many consciousness adventures including a few mind-bendingly long meditation retreats, she has explored the wilderness of the mind, chronic illness, the importance of pleasure, and a wide range of other things that she might get in trouble for mentioning publicly. In the past, Cara has worked as an artist, wilderness guide, social worker and psychotherapist, but at this point she’s given up on being an adult in exchange for an all-out mindfulness rampage. Her teaching is relatable, authentic, funny and sometimes crass, and is accessible for many people. She teaches teens and adults at Inward Bound Mindfulness Education, Spirit Rock, Insight Meditation Society, and UCLA; ultimately hoping to become as good of a show-off as Dan. And to help people be happier.To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Undomesticate Your Mind,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=8a578725-d3e5-464a-bcd2-e1789716e3e5.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 gang, time for a bonus meditation. This week on the show, we talked about self-preoccupation, along with some of the other things that mess us up when we try to sit down and meditate, also known as the five hindrances. Definitely give those episodes a listen if you haven't. Anyway, speaking of hindrances, today's meditation is brought to you by Kara Lai, and it's

all about how even though our minds might sometimes feel like wild animals, it's worth taking note of where our attention is naturally gravitating and kind of listening to or honoring your interests as a way to focus. Instead of trying to force yourself to focus on something that your mind doesn't want to focus on. A little bit about Kara here. She's a fascinating person. She's worked as an artist, a wilderness guide, a social worker, and a psychotherapist. She now teaches teens and adults at Inwardbound Mindfulness Education, at Spirit Rock, and mindfulness education at spirit rock and at the insight meditation society also at UCLA so she's kind of a lot going on and she does a lot of work with us

at TPH as well so here we go now with Kara lie. Hey there it's Kara. Let's all be honest here our minds are wild animals that if left to their own devices would run a muck in every direction, like excessively caffeinated squirrels. But when we meditate, we have the idea that we can somehow force that wild beast into a box and make it stay there without tearing its way out. Today, we're going to let our minds run free, like the wild animals that they are. We'll get curious about what actually interests us, what we want to be paying attention to. So let's begin. Find a comfortable position that feels alert and relaxed. Start to let your attention wander.

See if you can get interested in where it wants to go. What feels compelling? It might be the breath, maybe it's the sound of my voice, or a thought that's coming through, or maybe there's some emotion that feels interesting to be attention? And then let your mind go there. Let your attention go where it naturally wants to go. Stay there as long as it feels interesting, being open to whether a shift needs to happen. Maybe the attention wants to stay with this one thing, or maybe it wants to move around to different things. And maybe whatever your attention is gravitating towards doesn't feel good to stay with. If that's the case, ask yourself what you'd rather be focusing on and allow your attention or to try to control it. Instead just be curious about where your attention naturally goes.

The goal is to honor your interests and to bring a sense of kindness to whatever you notice. Try this on your own for a while. You don't need to judge or change what your attention does. In fact, if you offer a little more permission to gravitate naturally towards your interests, then you can stop fighting with your mind and use what actually feels compelling as inspiration for your meditation. Where is the attention now? And when you're ready, if your eyes are closed, you can open them and gently return to the world around you. And you can thank your mind for being such a lovable, wild, little animal. See you next time.

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