Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - A Meditation for Busy People | Bonus Meditation with Jay Michaelson

Episode Date: February 4, 2024

You don’t have to slow down and sit to be mindful. You can be busy and get things done while still growing your mindfulness muscles.About Jay Michaelson:Dr. Jay Michaelson is the author of ten books, including his newest, The Secret That Is Not a Secret. In his “other career,” Jay is a columnist for The Daily Beast, and was a professional LGBTQ activist for ten years. Jay is an ordained rabbi and has taught meditation in secular, Buddhist, and Jewish context for eighteen years.To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Meditate While You’re Busy.”See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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featuring Brendan Fraser and Luke Kirby, or Mistletoe Murders 2, a cozy mystery featuring Kobe Smulders. A first listen is waiting for you when you start your free trial at audible.ca. This is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey everybody, happy Sunday. Time for a bonus meditation. And today's is designed specifically for busy people, which I suspect includes pretty much everyone. A lot of people use busyness or time starvation as an excuse not to meditate. Jay Michelson, however, our teacher, Dujeur,

is gonna encourage you to bring mindfulness to whatever you're doing right now. So he's actually not even gonna ask you to sit down. A little bit more about Jay. He's a great friend, great person. He's a journalist, rabbi, meditation teacher, and professor. He's written 10 books and more than 300 articles. He has a PhD from Hebrew University and a JD from Yale Law School.

He also teaches at the Chicago Theological Seminary and you can hear him frequently on this podcast and over on the 10% Happier app. Here we go now with my man Jay Michelson. Hi, this is Jay. So this guided meditation will be a little different from most other ones. We're not going to settle into a cushion or a chair. We're not going to stop what we're doing because we're too busy to do that. But you can be totally busy and still connected to who you are, to what matters to you, and to the bigger picture. Let's do it.

Wherever you are right now, first thing, let's bring your attention to what you're seeing, hearing, and feeling. We're not going deep, we're scanning our experience. So, seeing. Your eyes are open. What do you see right now? What's in front of you? See if you can notice various objects with an attitude of mindfulness, open, non-judgmental. Just witnessing, noticing, not commenting, not going down little rabbit holes of stories, just this thing, then this thing, then this thing. Now, hearing.

Same thing. Just noticing what you hear. You can name the source of the sound if you want, or just let the sound be a sound. But just notice it, then move on to the next one. And the next one. And the next one, and the weight of your body on your feet. If you're sitting, the weight's on your butt. If you're moving, feel the contact of your feet with the ground.

Notice these physical sensations, then move on to of whatever stories are buzzing around in your head. For example, say you're running late for something, Your brain might be cycling around and around with concern. Just give your brain a break from that by noticing what's happening right now. What is happening right now? Seeing. What's in front of you? Feeling. What are you touching or feeling in your body? Second, there's something intrinsically calming about noticing things in this non-reactive way. What's really happening? This and this and this.

It may seem like a flood of perceptions, but if you can go one at a time, non-judgmentally, just noticing, can feel more like a calm bath. Try it out again now, seeing, hearing, feeling. Keep doing your thing. See you next time. Happening now at Mademy Homes, then now's your time event, offering limited time savings and incentives on new homes in neighborhoods across the GTA and beyond. Contact us today at mademyhomes.com slash now's your time.