Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 545: Is It Ever Enough? | Bonus Meditation with Sebene Selassie

Episode Date: January 13, 2023

Stressed about the strained economy? You’re not alone. Sebene offers tools to help see the abundance we all have in our lives.About Sebene Selassie:Sebene Selassie was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and raised in white neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., she was a tomboy Black girl who loved Monty Python and UB40. She never believed she belonged. Thirty years ago, she began studying Buddhism as an undergraduate at McGill University where she majored in Comparative Religious Studies. Now, Sebene is a teacher, author, and speaker who teaches that meditation can help us remember our inherent sense of belonging, that our individual freedom affects absolutely everyone and everything, and that our collective freedom depends on each and every one of us. To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Money Worries,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=06cd264b-c462-4e87-8a9a-76be4093c7f2.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, everybody. Happy Friday. We've been talking about money all week on the show and one of our guests mentioned a

great quote from the Pluto crat. John D. Rockefeller, who back in the day was once asked, how much is enough? And his answer was just a little bit more. That pretty much sums it up. Given how insatiable we are and don't blame yourself for this, you can blame evolution. The feeling of enoughness can seem very much out of reach, but it is achievable little by little. And we're going to train this feeling or maybe this world view up today with one of my favorite humans on the planet, Sebenei Salassi.

Sebenei is a core teacher on the 10% happier app and a frequent guest right here on this podcast. In fact, we've got an episode with her coming up soon. She was born in Ethiopia and raised in Washington, DC, and she started studying Buddhism three decades ago. She also wrote a great book called You Belong. Okay, here we go now with Seven A. Hi, this is Seven A. Money is a source of stress for many of us.

Whether it seems like we have a lot of it or a little of it, in our culture, we project a lot of fear and anxiety onto money. And we're not alone in this experience. People from various classes and backgrounds have money worries. Today we'll be exploring how in this moment we are taken care of and use our practice as a way to cultivate gratitude for all that we have. Let's start. Start by bringing awareness to your posture. Making sure your back is upright,

your chest is open, so your breath is not constricted. You also want to make sure that you feel a sense of relaxation and ease. You can close your eyes or keep them open. Let's begin by spending a few minutes gathering our awareness and allowing the mind to settle. As you rest your awareness on the body, you can connect to sensations as a way to anchor and gather your attention. See if you can connect with your body. Feel your butt in the seat or your feet on the floor.

Wherever it's easiest for you to feel your body making contact with the ground, can you feel that? No need to make anything happen. Just bring awareness to whatever is arising in the body. Let's start our gratitude practice right here, giving thanks for this body. You are alive, and that is enough. No matter how your body is feeling today, can the fact of your aliveness be enough for just right now? Take a moment on your own to connect to gratitude for your life. Often, our money worries arise from comparison. We see what others have or what is considered worthwhile to have by society, and suddenly what we have doesn't seem like enough.

Especially when I still carried school and credit card debt, money worries created a ton of stress. My primary anxiety was of not having enough. One of the inquiries I began to ask myself was, when have I ever not been taken care of? When I realized that the answer was never, I knew that my anxiety and the reality were not aligned. I realized I've always had enough. Of course, some of us do experience desperate circumstances, but most of us do have enough.

We have a roof over our head, food and our bellies, and people who care about us. Try that inquiry for yourself and see what comes. As we end this meditation, allow yourself to release any idea about what is enough, and know that in this moment you have everything you need. You have your body, you have this breath, and this one. Meditation practice can be an opportunity to recognize the richness of our lives, a richness that's not based on our account balance, but in the very fact of our aliveness. You can open your eyes now. Great job.

Thank you for your practice and see you next time. Thank you again to 7A. We'll see you right back here on Monday for a brand new episode. We're going to do a bunch of episodes on the science of happiness. And we're starting with the science of awe, AWE. It's not an emotion we've talked about a ton on this show, but we've got Dacker Keltner, the great happiness researcher who argues it may be the most important emotion when it comes to happiness. So we'll see you on Monday for that. 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. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at 1dory.com slash survey. short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.