Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 587: An Antidote to Helplessness | Bonus Meditation with Matthew Hepburn

Episode Date: April 21, 2023

When the world feels like a dumpster fire, it helps to remember that your contributions to improve things matter—even the small ones.About Matthew Hepburn:Matthew is a meditation and dharma teacher with more than a decade of teaching experience and a passion for getting real about what it means to live well. He emphasizes humor, technique, and authentic kindness as a means to free the mind up from unnecessary struggle and leave a healthier impact on the world. Beyond Ten Percent Happier, Matthew has taught in prisons, schools, corporate events and continues to teach across North America in buddhist centers offering intensive silent retreats and dharma for urban daily life. To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Celebrating Small Wins,” or click here: "https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=54fce040-7e26-4a25-a51a-fc73102db5ad".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, I've got a little bit of a cold today, so I'll keep this intro short. Let me just tee it up by pointing out that it's very easy for me, at least, to feel helpless when you watch the news or read the news and look at all the problems in the world. But that feeling is actually not correct and it can all the problems in the world. But that feeling is actually not correct and it can be paralytic in many ways. So this practice we're about to do is designed to help you kind of see through this misleading feeling and take action. Our meditation teacher Du jour is Matthew Hepburn, who's been on staff here at 10% happier for many years and is also a Dharma teacher who's

been in the field for a while. He has more than a decade of teaching experience in prison, schools, corporate events, and at Buddhist centers all over North America. So here we go now with my friend, Matthew Hepburn. Hi, this is Matthew. Sometimes we can get into the mindset that the things we do don't make a difference. We may not be all powerful, but the truth is that everything we do has an impact. However small, and we need to remind ourselves of that fact so we can continue

to work for a better world. We'll do this reflection together now. Settle into an easy posture that feels upright, wakeful and relaxed. If you like, you can let the eyes close gently and release any tension from the face and jaw. You can just recognize and acknowledge it, so it's not running the whole show from behind the scenes. You can say, Hey, what's up, apprehension? I feel that you're here. In the Buddhist traditions where I first learned meditation, the whole practice of mindfulness is founded on the wisdom that every action we take, no matter how small, has influence on us and the world around us.

To begin to get a sense of this, recall something small someone did for you that mattered. Remember how it made you feel. They didn't have to do that, and it made an impression on you. Small actions count. Now bring to mind a moment when you did something good for yourself or someone else. Any single moment of kindness, generosity or virtue. Maybe you stopped the car to let a pedestrian go by, or avoid it stepping on a worm in the rain. Nothing is too big or too small.

Now take a single moment that represents this memory of something you did, and let one image or phrase represent it. Keep it simple. For instance, just imagining the memory of the pedestrian's face, or a short phrase like, Good luck little worm. Let your attention stay with clarifying this image or phrase for just a few moments here. If any positive feelings such as delight, appreciation, or gladness arise, you can enjoy them. You can recognize and acknowledge them, letting them be felt and known as they're experienced. In this training, we recognize that no virtuous action is unworthy of our attention. Consider all the areas in your life where your small actions can make small differences. Even little actions make a difference, and over time, they add up. When you're ready, you can open your eyes if they've been closed and begin to slowly broaden your attention

to include the space around you. Thanks for spreading the good. Take care. Thank you to Matthew. You can catch more meditations like this one over on the 10% happier app. Just download the app wherever you get your apps To get started. We'll see you back here on Monday for a brand new episode with another good friend of mine the great writer Gretchen Rubin who has a new book out about how to get out of your head Getting into your senses the book called the five senses and we'll talk to her about it coming up on Monday.

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