Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 87: Rep. Tim Ryan, Teaching Congress to Meditate

Episode Date: July 5, 2017

In another installment from the "10% Happier" road trip, Dan Harris and meditation teacher Jeff Warren sat down with Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, at the congressman's office on Capitol Hill in January shortly after President Trump's inauguration. Ryan, who has been meditating for years, talks about bringing in teachers to host meditation sessions for members of Congress and their staffs, and why he believes meditation should be taught in public schools. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It kind of blows my mind to consider the fact that we're up to nearly 600 episodes of this podcast, the 10% happier podcast. That's a lot of conversations. I like to think of it as a great compendium of, and I know this is a bit of a grandiose term, but wisdom. The only downside of having this vast library of audio is that it can be hard to know where to start. So we're launching a new feature here, playlists, just like you put together a playlist of your favorite songs.

Back in the day, we used to call those mix tapes. Just like you do that with music, you can do it with podcasts. So if you're looking for episodes about anxiety, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes. Or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes, or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist for that. We've even put together a playlist of some of my personal favorite episodes. That was a hard list to make. Check out our playlists at 10%.com slash playlist. That's 10% all one word spelled out..com slash playlist singular.

Let us know what you think. We're always open to tweaking how we do things and maybe there's a playlist we haven't thought of. Hit me up on Twitter or submit a comment through the website. Hey y'all, it's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. I'm a new podcast, baby, this is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts,

the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad. Where did come from. And where's Tom from MySpace? Listen to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. I guess this week has been in the news a lot of late because you may have heard that there's been a lot of talk of restive Democrats, meditating to get a new leader, to replace Nancy Pelosi, who some Democrats believe is hurting their chances of retaking the House of Representatives.

Anyway, one of the key players in this push is a guy named Representative Tim Ryan, who's a Democrat from Ohio. And I happened to talk to Tim for this podcast back in January shortly after the inauguration of Donald J. Trump and Tim is a long-time meditator in fact wrote a whole book about it called A Mindful Nation and we talked to Tim as part of our 10% happier meditation tour where we went across the country and talked to all sorts of people about meditation while riding and a ridiculous orange bus

And you'll hear in this episode my co-host my co-questioner is the amazing meditation teacher Jeff Warren and Funny little backstory. We were actually supposed to on the day where we stopped to see Tim back in January We were supposed to be talking to park rangers with a national park service, but they canceled on us. So I happened to have known Tim for a while, so I emailed him and said, we're coming through time, can we talk to him instead? And he said, yes. So we went and showed up in his office and we had the following conversation, which was

really awesome and thought provoking. And he is, I think particularly germane, because you're going to hear him talk about using meditation at a time of political polarization and stress, how he uses it for himself, how he thinks it can be useful for the country. And one last thing I want to say before we get started, speaking of political polarization, we at the 10% happier app are very much aware that this is a huge issue. So we've just posted a whole bunch of meditation specifically designed for people who are freaking out about the state of the union.

And these are available for free. On the 10% happier app, just download it, put it on your phone if you have an iPhone. And if you don't have an iPhone or an Apple device, you can go to 10%happier.com. So check them out there. And they're nonpartisan. So if you're left, right, center, socialist, libertarian, republican, democrat, pro-Trump, anti-Trump,

whatever, we all have minds. They all need to be tended to. So these meditations are free and and nonpartisan and check them out. Anyway, long free, ample. Here's Tim Wright. non-pars and check them out. Anyway, long preamble, here's Tim Wright. For ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. These must be interesting times in your world. Yeah, very stressful. Everybody in uncharted waters at this point.

I'm kind of embracing the whole thing. You know, I don't know. It's been so bad in the last six years, like total gridlock that let's see what happens. Does being a meditator help you in uncertain times? immensely. Really? Yeah. I mean, just embracing the uncertainty of things has, when you take it off the cushion or take it out of your practice, I mean, there's no better place to really embrace uncertainty, to practice embracing uncertainty than the United States Congress. Because, and especially now, I mean, whether through the election, everything was so uncertain. It always is, but it seemed more so now.

And then now, and we're moving into the actual governing of the country, complete uncertainty. From cabinet picks to what legislation is going to come forward to executive orders, completely up in the air. Nobody has a clue of what direction it will go in. I want to talk a lot more about the current state of play, but can you just give us your back story? How did you get into meditation in the first place? Back when I was a kid, I grew up Catholic.

My grandparents and mom prayed to Rosary a lot. There was that little value put on meditation. I would see my football coaches at Mass or my football coaches at the Catholic School. I went to kind of sneak into the chapel that was in the school and they would go in there and pray and meditate, but they had like, there was some quiet time for them every day. Men, role models for a boy. And that stuck with me. The more I get into it, the more I realize what an impact

those role models had on me that I didn't probably notice at the time I just thought it was interesting. Red Phil Jackson's book, Sacred Hoops, as a young guy. Coach of the LA Lakers and Chicago Bulls when they won their championships. So that was an, what's this stuff he's doing with his players? What's Michael Jordan doing? Because as a young kid growing up, you think, I'm going to be like them.

And I heard about it. And then as I moved on in my life, how do you kind of take that practice into your normal life? Anyway, I remember watching videos and then eventually getting a book and when he wrote it and that kind of jived with my coaches and everything. You were a football player. I played football, basketball, but you know, just sports guy, North East Ohio.

And that always kind of stuck with me. And I read that book and I remember, he had books that influenced him that he put in Sacred Hoops book. And it was Zen Minds Beginners Mine. So I went out and got that and he had a couple others in there that I went out and then bought those and started reading those and it just evolved. I had a priest teach me centering prayer which is a Catholic tradition, pretty much mantra-based, like the Odevena, they take a word or phrase out of

the Bible and you say that over and over and over. So it's very much monque. When you say it to yourself over and over, your discursive thinking tends to slow down and it feels good. Yeah, but it's also a surrendering practice. It's letting go, surrendering, surrendering, surrendering. It's equanimity. Equanimity, equanimity. Not struggling with your reality.

Yeah. So it paid off. Then later when I learned other practices, but it was kind of the same thing. You notice you're thinking about something and you go back to your phrase or your word or your breath or your body or whatever. So, floored it on and off with a bunch of stuff throughout my life. You know, read a lot of Deepak Chopra stuff, Wayne Dyer stuff, getting into the gap, those kind of meditations, and then got to Congress kind of floored it on and on. You know, same as anybody, probably what we'll talk about here today.

You do it for a day and you go, oh my god, this meditation thing is so great. And then you don't do it for two years. In those two years, you beat yourself up like, why don't I meditate every day, why don't I mean? So I was here, it was 2008, I was really getting to the point where I was almost burned out. I wasn't burned out, I was really getting to the point where I was almost burned out. I wasn't burned out, but I was getting to the point.

Elections, Ohio, fundraising, we became into the majority, Democrats did in Congress, and I was just like, I got to do something. So I went on a five-day retreat, which John Cavitz in. And legendary teacher of basically, he doesn't like this term, but secular mindfulness. We have meditation without any religious overlay. Yeah, and that's what appealed to me. I didn't have to give up my religion.

I didn't have to like join some group or put on a robe or like do anything funky. I could just like go and sit and anyway. Would you consider yourself a practice of Catholic? Yeah, my son was baptized. go and sit and anyway, we can see yourself practicing Catholic. Yeah, my son was baptized. I'm my oldest son's confirmation sponsor, so we're in it. And that five days, it started off with small periods of silence for an hour or two out, whatever. And then more and more silence throughout the week.

And then like a day and a half of silence towards the end of the retreat and that's when just, you know, top flipped off my head. You know, it was just like, this is unbelievable. You can start really seeing your thoughts come really understanding what was going,

you know, you become aware of why you have high blood pressure. Like I keep thinking these negative thoughts over and over and over again and you wonder why you're high blood pressure. Like I keep thinking these negative thoughts over and over and over again, and you wonder why you're stressed out. Of stuff that's years gone by, or hasn't even happened. You mean you're having all these thought loops, anxiety loops, that you're not even clearly aware of,

but they're stressing you on at some sort of sub-class level. And here you are in your first experience of silence and you're seeing it clearly for the first time. Yeah. It's like the person who has road rage, like you pull in front of them because you need to change lanes and they go ballistic. I mean obviously it's not just about you pulling in front of them. There's got to be layers and layers and layers of stuff that happened that day, that week, that month, that year, that lifetime, that get expressed in that moment. When you stop and call your mind down, you start seeing those things, you start to respond

better. You also start metabolizing those things. That's the amazing thing. You can start to work some of that stuff out, cools out, cools out. You can actually get rid of some of that reactive patterns. It's not just that you're going to neutral. You can actually start to work down. Yeah.

I see why you bring him along. Exactly. Good stuff. So anyway, it affected me and then I wrote a mindful nation. A mindful nation came out with 2012, 13, 10, 11. 10, 11, OK. And it was basically, if I recall, you talked from the position of a conversation about

areas in which mindfulness could be embedded into our government policy, having to do with care for veterans, education, healthcare, and there were a few other, a. And prisons? Prisons, training, defense, you know, no more high-stressable situation, and patrolling a village in a far-off country that's very dangerous. And it's not to make better killers, but we have a lot of accidents that happen, a lot of unnecessary collateral damage, so to have someone who can train their mind to be present in those situations, I think reduces a lot of mishaps from happening. And what's the great challenge today, raising kids? I mean, you're a baby is young, but as they get older, they get a device, they get a phone, they start playing on their attention span.

There's so much information, so much distraction today that I think we need to look at education differently. Like we need to concentrate on having teachers and a system that cultivates awareness, promotes focus and concentration for extended periods of time. Unfortunately, that needs to be a part of the program today. Don't like it, but I want my son and daughter

and kids to be able to look in the eye, shake your hand, pay attention to you when you talk, you know, not get in a conversation and you're like looking for your phone or you know, I feel it buzz and I'm that just, that's the road we're going down right now and you know, I worry about that that we've got to figure out strategies and I think starting in schools, starting in health care, saying stress levels, the money we spend on high blood pressure, Alzheimer's, all of the anxiety medication.

And I worry about that in the politics today because it seems like that's ramping everybody up and we're all, so there's just stress all around us. So you've been actually teaching it here in the capital for a couple years to staffers, right? Well, I provide the space. We bring in teachers. I see, so you're not teaching what you're doing. I mean, I know a lot about it, but I don't think I'm a teacher.

I can give you the basics. Like I've seen videos of you teaching people the basics. Yes, so I'll give you the basics. That's why I bring, I bring the basics. Exactly, I mean, I- Weaponized meditation. Well done. From Canada.

Yeah, right, yes. Important art. So we create the space. We bring in teachers every few weeks to teach different kinds because I don't want to be like, well, this is the right kind. It's like the kind that's right is the kind that works for you. Exactly. And I'd like to just introduce everybody to different forms.

So of people come in who do work with veterans, people who do work in healthcare, education, lendiland theories, been here, and just deep ox been here. And they do their sessions. We had Andrew Wilde come here and do a breathing. His, you know, his 4, 7, 8, breath technique, or whatever it is. And how does that go down around here? I would imagine that this is a pretty, you know,

type A crew in the, you know, the, some of the most powerful square miles in the world, how does it go down to introduce meditation? You know, I had a bunch of people grab me just this year saying, I think we need to start coming to your thing. They do, you know, do your stuff. We're going to come to your thing. Like people don't even know what the necessarily call it But they know it's like stress reduction stuff and

More and more people are looking to be a part of it But again, it's hard the man's you fly in right before votes and you stack your schedule with meetings And then you fly out soon as you can so carving out the time and really making it a priority is tougher people. And that's why I think the staff stuff is really important because you can still work your way into an office where someone's starting to change the dynamics of the office. So there are two layers here you're talking about, can you get the actual politicians to do, the actual members of the House of Representatives, senators, and then there's their staff. And you're working on both levels.

And wherever you have seen more success. Staff. Okay. Staff. I mean, when the members of Congress are out of town, there is more downtime here. People don't wear suit and tie. You come in in jeans in a shirt.

You come in a half hour later. You leave a half hour earlier. It's a little more downtime because of the days we're here. They're in early and we can be in session till midnight sometimes. So it's a little easier for them to find some chill time on those days. So the number one obstacle for these folks is what? Time and stigma probably, like you're slacking, if you're going to do this. So part of it is you've got to say, Ray Dahlio. You've got to say Phil Jackson.

You've got to say, Kobe Bryant did this, you know, not exactly slackers. But they found it as a performance enhancer. And my view is, if that's the entry point for you to taste this, you'll have, yeah, we'll enhance your performance, but it'll also do a lot of other things that will just be, that will happen anyway. What about, like, you've taken a little bit of guff for being a meditator.

Do people worry about that? You know, some people have made fun of you for being a meditator to people worry about that you know some people have made fun of you for being a meditator i think uh... in your defense and with full disclosure we know each other for well in our for quite friendly i think in your defense a little bit unfairly uh... if not entirely unfairly but nonetheless you've had to deal with a little bit of this so i do you think that's what is maybe

an obstacle at least for some of your fellow members of Congress? I think so. Totally. Like, you have enough bullshit to have to deal with throughout the course of your political life that answering a question about a practicing mindfulness or something like that isn't like on their agenda. It's like not the cost-benefit analysis, maybe just isn't worth it for them, which I totally get.

Because if you have an experience that I think, like I have, you don't talk about it, like I have. Like if you're just kind of, like I didn't, quote unquote, come out until after, like I really had this experience of, like this is really helpful to me as a father and husband and son and your congressman. So you want some stressed out crazy person running around. Well I guess

I guess that's not a good question now is it? But I just don't think ultimately that's what people want and if they see it helps me they don't really care what it is you know and So as some people might guess I want to let Jeff ask a few questions But that as some people might guess from that last comment you are a Democrat as you look at the roster of staff members You are coming to your quiet time Is it bipartisan or is it mostly Democrats by partisan really sure? Oh absolutely and I it's it's great Because I'll be in the cafeteria and not have a staffer grab me. It's like I'm from a, you know, Sonsos office.

And thank you for doing this. It's been great for me. And what I try to say is, like, conservative values are embodied in this practice. It's about taking care of yourself. It's about understanding yourself. It's about making you healthier with being

fiscally conservative, because it doesn't cost a lot of money. And there are a lot of side effects that you have to clean up. So it's very much conservative in so many ways. Probably more so than it would be perceived in the general perception of the stereotypes, more so than being liberal. You know, if you think about it. But what it's helped in the craziness,

like I look at Trump and I think, okay, it is what it is. He won, amazingly. He did a great job. Okay, how do we respect them? He won, the people put him in place. What can I sit and listen and find something that we can work on together?

Without judgment, without some of the other crazy stuff that I will be very critical of, is there something in there that because he is who he is, and he's different, that maybe there is an opportunity for us to rebuild the country and get broadband in every community like mine that we work so hard to try to get. Maybe there's something in there. Hey, I'm Ericia and I'm Brooke and we're the hosts of Wunderys Podcasts Even the Rich

where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about drag icon RuPaul Charles. After a childhood of being ignored by his absentee father, Ru goes out searching for love and acceptance. But the road to success is a rocky one. Substance abuse and mental health struggles threatened to veer Ru off course. In our series RuPaul, Born Naked, we'll show you how Rue Paul overcame his demons and

carved out a place for himself as one of the world's top entertainers, opening the doors for aspiring queens everywhere. Follow even the rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app. And you think meditation actually could help you work better with Donald Trump Well being in the opposition give yeah by being open to Like seeing through all of the tweets and delusion and What's what's the new one about alternative facts?

Like okay seeing through all that okay. What's he really trying to do with X, Y, or Z? And can we actually get something done for the American people? You know, there's an interesting, I think it was Corey Lewandowski, one of his campaign managers, somebody in the Trump's camp said something interesting that reporters and liberals took and take Trump literally, but they don't take them seriously. But the people vote for him, don't take them literally. They see through all the stuff that you're talking about, but they do take them seriously.

And I thought it was a very astute. I don't know if it was Cory who said it, but somebody who said it was pro-Trump. And I think it was kind of an astute observation. And perhaps that is on some, you're talking about as a cousin to that in some way. Totally, totally. And I, just in the last couple days,

he brings the union guys in, talk to them, he brings the heads of these corporations in who have outsourced a lot of jobs from communities like mine. And he's saying, guys, parties over, we gotta start reinvesting back in the country. Now, I don't know what he's gonna tweet in the next two hours,

but I know what everyone in Youngstown will howard. Union guys were in there talking about rebuild in the country, and he had the auto-execs and they're about reinvesting back in the United States. So he could tweet about whatever he wants. They're off to the kid soccer game. But they heard what they, what's important to them.

And I think you have stories of past presidents who have done so many different things, personally and publicly that American people are over it to a some extent. What are you going to do for me and my family? The bottom 90% have not seen income gains in the last 20 years. I'm over here, you know? I don't care what you do. Someone talked to these CEOs and told them they got to reinvest back in my country.

And that's what he's doing. So I don't have to like them, I don't have to go drink beer with them, I don't have to play golf with them. But if he has something that's going to help my constituents, I hope I can ratchet my own stuff down to be able to do that. I mean it's my obligation. Yeah, basically, and to be able to do that. I mean, it's my obligation. Yeah, basically, and to be able to do that, you have to be able to have a certain amount of non-reactivity.

Because if you're just, you know, fighting the whole thing, then you're not going to be able to find that signal of sanity in the center of it all. Yeah. And it doesn't mean you can't push back on things that you feel are going to hurt your constituents are in humane or irresponsible. There's no way to talk to people or make someone feel an outcast. You can do both. So since you wrote your book, more schools, embracing mindfulness, more hospitals, more companies.

I mean, you're seeing the applications starting to emerge in all different places. It must make you feel, I mean, I'm just curious how it will take us on that landscape. And even in the past five years, five, six years. I mean, I love it because I think it's the, I think it's a fundamental part of changing society, changing these institutions. But there's a lot of work to be done. So I still see a lot of schools that they're giving kids bad food. It's very chaotic.

There's still a ton of distraction. So a lot of work to do. But it's good to know that we're going in the right directions because then you have more examples to point to as far as this is working. It's interesting when we're trying to figure out what it's preventing people from meditating. And there are sometimes there are internal reasons, and lots of them reasons why they're getting hung up

and there's things you can say and do to reorient them in different ways. But there's a lot of external reasons. And that's that the culture doesn't support taking time out in that way. So you realize that some of those solutions are actually gonna come from policy. They're going to come from the top,

as opposed to the things that are always, because we dependant on all happening from the bottom right now. That's an interesting way to think about it. What can we put in place in terms of policy that can make these things easier? I mean, you must think about that as a legislation. Well, I think it's easier if it's being taught, you know, one of the reasons, because there

was obviously a calculation about knowing this stuff and John Kabat's in saying, go talk to Richie Davidson, go talk to Linda Lanter, go talk to Judd, you know, go talk to these folks who are doing the research and doing all this good stuff. And then saying, well, I want to put my name on a book and talk about it publicly. It's like a big discussion to have. But the reality of it is, these are the things that need to be taught.

And if I have this knowledge and you have the knowledge and you have the knowledge, why is it just like wealthy people who can afford to go on a retreat should have this? To me, this is a social justice issue. You know, why wouldn't the kid in Youngstown have the opportunity to learn this that can transform their ability to get themselves educated, to deal with more stress and violence in their own lives than any of us would ever dream of having nightmare about living in and under.

Why aren't we teaching? So when we talk about putting it into a system, it's about how to educate, how to get doctors, teaching patients, how to get teachers first in body at themselves, and then be able to teach it to the kids. To me, that's how you transform. I'd imagine every Marine who has a mind fitness training as a part of their basic training. So the average day for a Marine in the Marines is five or six years.

So these people are going back to communities and becoming teachers and nurses and coaches. So they can bring that and slowly build it out in society. So you're changing the system by promoting this stuff internally for them to that. You've had some pushback even right in your own district, right, of parents and public schools where mindfulness was being taught saying, I don't like this, it feels like it's against my religion.

Yeah, how do you deal with that? Well, it was in, it was having great effects in Canton just outside of my district outside of Canton, Ohio and you know Christian group came in and they were interested in putting a chapel in the school and having it be very Christian-based Which obviously is a Catholic student I don't mind, but just can't be public school and and so they ended up spooking the the school board that principal ended up spooking the school board, the principal, ended up taking it out, which was real shame.

And I think you just gotta let it happen. That's why I think having a broad agenda that says, look, we all know what's going on here. We all know that there's too much distraction. We all know there's too much information. There's no quiet time. There's no silence. People aren't working on farms.

It's just all noise now. And we all know something needs to be done about it. And I'm not telling you what to do. Local school board can figure out what to do. But I think it needs to go down this road of quiet time. Knowing there are practices that can help you train your mind to focus in the present moment and to cultivate your awareness of both what's going on inside of you and

around you social and emotional learning critical in the 21st century So you figured out locally and you don't need Washington to tell you but I'm trying to create a umbrella and Some cover for people to say look there are people who are doing it. Like it's science. Like look at the brain research. Don't listen to me or don't, you know, and no one has to give up any religion that they believe.

But look at the science. We want to help your kid develop their brain. And in 2017, if we know this stuff, why is it not getting down to the kids in my district? That's unfair. That's unfair for my kids. I like how you think of it as a social justice issue because that is so important. Because a lot of people see it as some kind of self-indulgent. They associate with the wellness movement that's just about you and what you need. Not realizing that it's like, it's all one system.

If you don't address the mental health issues of everybody, then you're not going to be able to address all the other issues, because they're all secondary issues that come from that. So it is absolutely a social justice issue. What does your own practice look like? And what if any challenges you encounter in either getting your butt on the cushion or actually once you're there?

I tried to do it in the morning, and then I tried to have a little window in the afternoon evening. How much are you doing in the afternoon? 25 minutes nowadays. And what does that look like feeling your breath coming in going out? Would you get lost? You start again? Yeah, pretty much.

More mindfulness-based, awareness-based practice. I do still do some centering prayer. Just kind of to tail end, I do a little, I guess it's surrendering. And I like that. And then a little bit later in the day, just kind of calming my body down, because I can notice that how tense I get throughout the course of the day. I can't understand why. Yeah.

So you're tracking that at all times. You kind of just got to, you're just aware of it. I've gotten better at it. Yeah. I'll go an hour and not think of it and then go. Think, you know, look how to tench your, just kind of. Take a couple deep breaths. Take a couple deep breaths. And it's more about checking in now days

than it is about, you know, sitting on the cushion for 45 minutes. Like I did when I first started. But it's also I got a family and dogs and like, you know, you try to meditate at home and the dog wants to go and like, you know, you try to meditate at home and the dog wants to go out and you know, you're seven minutes in and the dog wants back in. I mean, this guy did not get the memo about my meditation, but it's literally.

It sounds like it's the mind. But what John, where John Kabatzen really helped me is that that's part of the practice. Like that becomes part, like you're gonna kick the dog now on the meditator. You know, like I kick the dog now, Mr. Meditator You know like I kicked the dog because I got to get back to my meditation, you know I so you just kind of make it part and then have having a baby as you know you know to And a half year old and

And then traveling a lot that's kind of the challenge Is it finding the time to do it? Sometimes you know because then you know get home, the kids get home, and, you know, our daughter is like cheer and dance and nations and baseball and ski club, you know, whatever the case may be, your Brady baby wants attention, you know, and so I've actually found a little window now at home at night, you know. Like I'll literally go up to bed with my wife, lay in bed, heard an abbey bill fall asleep, and I'll get up and I'll go downstairs and sit.

Like it just, in the last couple weeks, it kind of like evolved into like, okay, she goes to bed really early, and I don't, but I'll go up, she likes, like, so I'm here a lot, we don't get to spend a ton of time together. Like go up to bed together. And that's what she likes.

I'm like, why am I resisting this? Let's go up, laying bed. They'll fall asleep. And then I don't tell my wife I do this. I think she gets real evil. You know what I'm saying? We can do a practice around you. Because what you're saying is really smart.

That a big part of your practice is actually find the easy goingness in transitions. Because it's in transitions when something changes from one thing to another, everyone just loses their stuff. But it sounds like you're very conscious about kind of being smooth in the transitions. And that is an amazing equanimity practice. That's kind of the essence of really a lot of what it's about.

And it's like, you're just describing that. It's very interesting. That's what I'm doing here. I don't know. Yeah, it's always that smooth. No, it's the way it is. That's the way it is. It's nothing's ever that's, you know,

it's like you've identified where the bottlenecks are and you're working on that. Like, there's a bottleneck when your dog wants to go out and come back in in the middle of your pristine meditation time, okay, well, let's co-op that and turn it into an opportunity for mindfulness. Your wife proposes that you change your idealized schedule

and you're like, probably resist it for a little while and then you're like, oh, actually, I see how I can make this work. And I would imagine, just speaking from my own experience of looking at this kind of stuff in my own life, that that is where meditation helps you make that stuff smoother, allows you to see that they're your creating problems, and then you could use meditation as a way

to even address it. So they helped you on both ends. Totally. Totally. Only took me three years to figure that out. Also, it was another word, maturity. Yeah. When people ask me, you know, why do, why, you know,

what do you think has gone on in your life that has made you happier, nicer, person over time? The first thing I say is that I retain the capacity to be a complete idiot. Then I would say that it's probably three words with eminent. I would say it's marriage, meditation, and maturity. Get a older, having married very well, and meditation is like a huge part of it too.

Yeah. I think actually it's not helpful to say, everything that's good in your life is because of meditation. If you meditate, you're going to solve all your problems. I actually think that puts too much heat around the thing. Yeah. Well, that makes you think all the problems are going to go away.

You know, unicorn rainbows, if you have everybody sits on a cushion, it's just not going to happen. Or I got to pretend like I'm not angry or pretend like I'm not fearful. I think it's really helpful emotions that can inform you when you're why am I afraid, why am I angry, what's going on underneath, doesn't mean you still don't get angry and you still tell people something,

maybe a little forcefully that needs to be said, but with a little less anger and maybe a little more reflection like, well, this needs to be said. And maybe it needs to be said that they know that it's a listening to certain feelings from me. So you have to, so it's all good. I grew up playing sports and I just love when I think of Phil Jackson or I think of Kobe Bryant or others that practice this and play in that arena that's so intense. It's like you are in the game, buddy. Okay?

Phil Jackson is stomping his feet and screaming the alnay goes over and sits back down and you can see him kind of collect himself. But there's a fierceness to playing the game of life. Like in a shouldn't you can't this is not going to suck all the fun out of it or all the juice out of it. It's the complete opposite. You're just there for it and hope it informs you in a way that you make better decisions in the heat of the battle. You start the shift. I've long said, I think you are one of, if not the very best communicators about this stuff. So, and you just gave us a great example of it. I'm very sensitive to the fact that you've got another meeting coming up, but before we let you go, where can people learn more about you? What are the names of your books?

Do you have a website? So my political website, you can just Google me. I have a campaign one and an official one, and then a mindful nation. It's a book I wrote about mindfulness meditation in schools and health care. And then I wrote a book a couple years ago called the Real Food Revolution. As I was doing the research about mindfulness, it was very much about how stress affected the body, diabetes, high blood pressure,

Alzheimer's, all of these things. But every time I was looking at an article, it wasn't just stress, it was also diet. So then the next kind of evolution was the book on food called the Real Food Revolution. And that's about how we shift our food system to more locally sourced fresh foods. I don't try to get in any big political debates, but just how do we build out a new food system that isn't just completely subsidizing big agriculture to make fake food that ends

up in boxes of whatever that's not even real. Franken food is what Mark Heiming calls it. It's just so highly processed. It's soy oil, it's corn oil, it's high-froc toast corn syrup, and it's leading to a lot of these problems that we're having. So again, a social justice issue. It kind of gets back to my grandparents in my own minds.

They had a garden, healthy, fresh food, locally sourced, homemade stuff, whether it was hot peppers or wine or a lot of it was homemade, and then time for contemplation and meditation and relaxation. Like that's how they lived. They're both gone now. They lived to be 90 and they had pretty rich and full lives, but it's like get back to the fundamentals and then everything else will kind of

Take care of itself from there Congressman, I'm so glad you're here. I'm glad you're here Well, wait, I know what you say. This is how cool this guy is I emailed him yesterday and said hey Can we come see you and he was like yeah cool. So thank you. I only have 13 things on my I know I know I know I know that work I love what you're doing I just think it's so important and I didn't know you had a sidekick to travel with. I'm a little jealous.

I'm not in a bus with you. He considers me the sidekick, you know. Probably for good reason. But I appreciate, I think what you did with 10% is amazing. And I think it's really important. And guys like you, I mean, I remember sitting in Boston, which is funny because that's where you're from, and you were doing an interview about your book,

and I was there for doing a fundraiser or something, and I was at a restaurant and I look up on TV and you're doing an interview with the local affiliate that you used to work for. And I said, well, that's some auspiciousness. That's what they call it in a business, right? But I just think it's great. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Your whole journey is very powerful. OK, that does it for another edition of the 10% Happier Podcast. If you liked it, please take a minute to subscribe, rate us. Also, if you want to suggest topics, you think we should cover or guests that we should bring in, hit me up on Twitter at Dan B. Harris.

Importantly, I want to thank the people who produced this podcast, Lauren Efron, Josh Cohan, and the rest of the folks here at ABC, who helped make this thing possible. We have tons of other podcasts. You can check them out at ABCnewspodcasts.com. I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad free on Amazon Music.

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