Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 518: Get Your Joy On | Bonus Meditation with La Sarmiento

Episode Date: November 4, 2022

Cultivate resilience by choosing to turn towards joy, and transform difficult times into growth opportunities and heartache into gratitude.About La Sarmiento:La Sarmiento is the guiding teacher of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington's BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ Sanghas and a mentor for the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program and Cloud Sangha. They graduated from Spirit Rock Meditation Center's Community Dharma Leader Training Program in 2012. As an immigrant, non-binary, Filipinx-American, La is committed to expanding access to the Dharma. They live in Towson, MD with their life partner Wendy and rescue pups Annabel and Bader.To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Opening to Joy,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=ad5f5edb-d41b-4419-8cdd-cbe4155ef6ae.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 gang, happy Friday, bonus meditation time. As you may remember this week, one of our guests was my old friend and former ABC News colleague, Robin Roberts, longtime co-anchor of Good Morning America.

And one of the things we talked about was her idea of having a joy mindset. And this is something I've always found fascinating. The idea that joy, which can sound a little twee or trieckly, is actually a skill. So today we're going to go into the joy boot camp, the joy Dojo, as it were, with our meditation teacher, DuJour, La Sarmiento, who graduated from spirit rock meditation centers, community, Dharma, leader training program, and is the guiding teacher of the insight meditation community of Washington's BIPOC and LGBTQIA plus soundvis. Here we go now with La Sarmiento.

Hi, this is La. I once heard that life is too important to take seriously. As adults, we can often feel bogged down by so many responsibilities that we forget or take for granted our capacity for joy. The essence of joy is simply the ability to delight in being alive. Let's get our joy on. Find a posture that your body would most enjoy that is both relaxed and alert. Take some fuller breaths as you allow your eyes to close or create a soft gaze downwards. Let your body feel the support of the surface beneath it.

Now take a moment to check in with yourself. How is your body feeling? Whatever emotions or feelings are present for you right now are most welcome here. The beauty of our practice is to recognize whatever is happening with kindness, then to remember that we have choice in how we then show up in the world. One way to cultivate joy is to imagine yourself as a child playing with your favorite toy or with your best friend. If that's difficult to do, perhaps imagine playing with a young child or a pet. How does that feel in your body? What would it look like as an adult to be more playful in your life? In its truest expression, joy can transform difficult times into blessings and turn heart ache into gratitude.

Now, reflect on a time in your life when you've struggled, nothing traumatic, a situation that felt challenging and difficult. Notice what sensations, emotions, feelings, thoughts arise when you remember that situation. emotions, feelings, thoughts arise when you remember that situation. Whatever arises, see if you can offer kindness to it. If it's comfortable for you, you can place your hand over your heart as a gesture of support. As you gently allow this experience to be present, see if it's possible to choose a lens of joy to see it through. This lens of joy can be one of gratitude. What do you notice? Was there a shift in how you see the situation? If not, it's okay.

It takes practice to remember and to choose joy. Take some time now to savor the joy that you've just cultivated. You may want to place your hand over your heart to sense where you may be feeling joy in your body. Thank you. Gently open your eyes if they've been closed and reorient yourself to your space. Thank you for practicing with me. May joy fill all your days. Thank you, Lop. We'll see you right back here on Monday for a brand new episode.

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