Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - A Ridiculous Meditation| Bonus Meditation with Jeff Warren

Episode Date: March 4, 2022

Laughter is the best medicine. Use this practice to provoke a little lightheartedness and remember the beautiful ridiculousness of it all.About Jeff Warren:Jeff is an incredibly gifted meditation teacher. He's trained in multiple traditions, including with renowned teacher Shinzen Young. Jeff is the co-author of NY Times Bestseller "Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics," and the founder of the Consciousness Explorers Club, a meditation adventure group in Toronto. He has a knack for surfacing the exact meditation that will help everyone he meets. "I have a meditation for that" is regularly heard from Jeff, so we've dubbed him the "Meditation MacGyver."To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Keep a Sense of Humor,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=53176e1d-3144-415c-bc61-cdd16dc0d3c1.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, time for a bonus meditation. If you've been listening to the episodes this week, you'd be forgiven for having a little bit of whiplash.

We gave you a climate change episode on Monday and then pivoted to an episode about the connection between humor and happiness on Wednesday. Today, in our bonus meditation, we're going to pick up on the latter subject. If you're new to meditation, or frankly, if you've been added for years You might have noticed that the practice can at times feel straight up ridiculous Today's meditation is guided by my good friend Jeff Warren He's here to tell you to embrace the ridiculousness because sometimes in life It's the smart move not to take things so seriously including meditation and

including yourself. Some quick background on Jeff. He's a frequent guest on the show, an incredibly gifted meditation teacher, and the founder of the Consciousness Explorers Club, a meditation adventure group in Toronto. Oh, and he's also the host of his own podcast, the Mindbod Adventure Pod,

otherwise known as the Consciousness Explorers Podcast. Otherwise known as the consciousness explorer's podcast, you can go find it wherever you get your podcasts. Here is Jeff. Hi, I'm Jeff. So this meditation is about appreciating that sometimes ridiculousness of life. In life, we all have this tendency to get contracted and narrowly concerned with the seriousness

of everything. I think that's one of the reasons actually that we like to watch comedians. It's to be pulled out of ourselves. We like to be shown there's, you know, a kind of absurdity to life sometimes, to how we act, the often arbitraryness of our circumstances. And when we connect to that perspective, it can really be quite liberating. And that's the intention of this practice. It's kind of an experiment.

So just try it and see how it works. So we can start by taking a few deep breaths, closing the eyes, finding your meditation perch, and sit in a way that's comfortable for you. As you breathe in, you can stretch up the spine a little bit, as you breathe out, settling down into your chair or the cushion. So this is an admittedly strange practice. It begins with deliberately trying to cultivate an attitude of gregarious good natured hilarity.

So you're just sitting there with your eyes closed, somewhere on the planet earth. You're listening to my voice pipe in these soothing tones. And you're just feeling yourself to be a little bit ridiculous here. So as you're doing this, you're just maybe beginning to notice your breath. That's one option to pay attention to. Sitting in the stance of bemused hilarity as you're beginning to breathe, each breath filling you up, inflating you like a doll with oxygen, deflating you, and you're sitting

and you're just earnestly giving yourself over to this kind of ridiculous activity of sitting and breathing with your eyes closed. And maybe you're noticing sounds? Sounds. Bird sounds maybe. Little birdie birds going Or maybe it's the sound of someone yelling on the street, someone arguing with a delivery van. You don't really care, you're just sitting there in the mused way listening to life do things form of sound. thoughts you're noticing creeping in right now. Just sitting with your eyes closed in some corner practicing, practicing what? So still and serious with your eyes closed there. Where are you? So still and serious with your eyes closed there. Where are you even going? Trying to get where, to where you already are? It's ridiculous and that's okay.

We just sit here and we meditate anyway. I'm meditating on the breath, on sounds, on the body, smiling through the end of days, one of those oxytocin hormonal surges. This is a deep training, a noble training. We could also just call it having a sense of humor. Okay, when you're ready, open your eyes, as you move back into your day, every once in a while, see if you can channel this excellent to mix of irreverence and generosity.

I hope you enjoyed this admittedly, utterly ridiculous meditation. See you later. Big thanks to Jeff. We'll see you right back here on Monday for a brand new episode on a somewhat related subject to the joys of being insignificant. I guess it's Ron Seagal who'll explain that concept. We'll see you on Monday. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪

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Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just gonna end up on Page Six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellissi. And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wonder E's new podcast, Dis and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud. From the buildup, why it happened, and the repercussions.

What does our obsession with these feud say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Brittany and Jamie Lin Spears. When Brittany's fans form the free Brittany movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other.

And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. Follow Dissentel wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or The Wondery app. Life is short, and it's full of a lot of interesting questions. What does happiness really mean? How do I get the most out of my time, your honor, and what really is the best cereal? These are the questions I seek to resolve on my weekly podcast, Life is Short, with Justin Long. If you're looking for the answer to

deep philosophical questions like, what is the meaning of life? I can't really help you, but I do believe that we really enrich our experience here by learning from others. And that's why in each episode I like to talk with actors, musicians, artists, scientists, and many more types of people about how they get the most out of life. We explore how they felt during the highs and sometimes more importantly, the lows of their careers. We discuss how they've been able to stay happy during some of the harder times, but if I'm being honest, it's mostly just fun chats between friends about the important stuff.

Like, if you had a sandwich named after you, what would be on it? Follow Life is Short, wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen to Add Free on the Amazon Music or Wondering App.