Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Bonus: Ten Percent Happier Talks “Just This,” Diana Winston

Episode Date: May 29, 2019

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Before we jump into today's show, many of us want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping our heads up against the same obstacles over and over again. But what if there was a different way to relate to this gap between what you want to do and what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral? Learn how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonical and the Great Meditation Teacher Alexis

Santos to access the course. Just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10% calm. All one word spelled out. Okay on with the show. Hey y'all is your'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 the memes come from. And where's Tom from, MySpace? Listen to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer, on Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey guys, this is a bonus to episode 189 with Diana Winston. So if you haven't checked out the actual episode, go do so. The bonus is that we're posting a talk directly from Diana. This talk will also be in the new talks section of the 10% happier app. You can get a link to that directly in the show notes. Just a little bit, but before we dive in with Diana here,

just a little bit about what the Talks section is. Talks are, as the name implies, short talks from teachers on the 10% happier app on the whole variety of topics, like happiness, wisdom, leading a sane or life, dealing with technology, stress, anxiety, all sorts of issues. Some of this has to do directly to do with mindfulness and meditation. Some of it doesn't. The idea is that we just want to be a repository of practical,

approachable wisdom tools that you can use in your life. Also personal stories that are inspiring in one way or another. The whole point is of this section of the app is to be super portable. You can't always meditate everywhere and all the time, but you can listen to these talks when you're driving, walking to work, doing chores around the house, whatever. This is just a great way to insert sanity into your life in all the nooks and crannies of your life. And I found that a huge challenge in being a meditator is remembering, remembering to apply the lessons of meditation in my actual life. And the point of this part of the app, this section of the app, is to help you with that.

So let's check out this talk from Diana. Hi, this is Diana Winston. When I was 14 years old, I spent a summer by the beach as a mother's helper. It was exhausting work chasing around a two-year-old and entertaining a six-year-old and keeping the two of them from clobbering each other? I was up to the task, but I didn't often get a lot of downtime.

I remember one night escaping into the field in front of the beach cottage, lying down on a blanket, and looking up at the vast, star-street night sky. I let myself fully relax. Without any forewarning, I started to experience a combination of awe and love. In a wave that came over me, I had a sense of being both fully inside my body and as spacious as the sky. I didn't quite know what to make of this startling experience. I felt love, basically pure, unconditional love. My mind and body seemed expansive, bright, joyful, and serene, all at the same time.

Wow, I said to myself, I think I love everyone and everything. So I tested myself. Who do I hate? I came up with my friend's older brother, I'll call him Rex, who used to torment his sister in me whenever I visited. I definitely hate Rex, I thought, but in that moment, I couldn't hate him. In that moment, I felt only a sense of love, even for Rex. I lay there for some time. I couldn't tell you how long, but for ultimately getting sleepy and going to bed. In teaching countless students, I've discovered that many people have had experiences like mine.

Frequently, people remember a time in childhood, often when they were in nature, when they felt deep relaxation, peace, connection, love, joy, or ease. Or they talk about flow-like states of absorption, spontaneously arising as they participate in sports, creative activities, or intimacy with another person. My assumption when I hear these stories is that the ability to connect with a sense of just being is a part of what it means to be human. This quality of being is available to us at any time, and it's always been available. It just tends to get obscured. I call this capacity of the human mind, natural awareness.

Ordinary awareness is the ability of the human mind to directly know and to perceive, sense, feel, or be cognizant of experience. We might think of awareness simply as the state of being conscious of something. Everybody is aware, every sentient being is aware in this sense of the word. But human beings, and who knows maybe some animals, they also have an additional capacity to be aware of awareness or aware that they are aware. And this is where it gets interesting

because the awareness of awareness has been a focus for meditation for hundreds of years. This natural awareness, this awareness of awareness is relaxed, effortless, and spacious. Subjectively, natural awareness can feel very powerful. It can feel like a deep sense of peace, joy, love, contentment, serenity, connection, and much more. More importantly, it can become a familiar state accessible in daily life and regularly experienced as you meditate with it over time. Because natural awareness is hard to define, there's not really a word for it. It's primarily

recognized experientially. It can feel like your mind is completely aware and undistracted without you doing anything in particular, or like your mind is wide open like space, and everything in it is just passing by like clouds in the sky. You might notice that your mind feels at rest, even if thoughts pop in and out, you're simply being without agenda. And this beingness creates a feeling of ease and well-being. Since everyone experiences natural awareness in their own way, you might find some of these markers land more for you than others do. That's fine.

Any experiential sense of natural awareness will become a touchstone that you can always return to doing your meditation practice or in life. You don't need to formally meditate to experience this kind of awareness, although our formal meditation practice can really support us in it. For example, one doorway into natural awareness is a simple trace. Just this. Simply turn your attention to whatever is happening in the moment and describe it if you like as just this. Just this could be anything. Thoughts, emotions, sensations, sounds, your breath, the visual field or some combination of these things. Then drop the following question into your mind and see what happens as if you were dropping

a stone into a pond to notice the ripples. Is it okay to be aware of just this? Again, see what lands for you. to be aware of just this. Again, see what lands for you. Natural awareness can be a helpful different way to meditate from classical deliberate mindfulness. I've met many students of classical mindfulness meditation over the years, and I confess I was one of them

who exert massive amounts of energy to keep their attention focused, who try to be aware of every moment and who often feel a disturbing, tightness and tension in their meditation practice. When they begin to relax into a more natural awareness, the struggle ceases, and they find they can continue to practice with much greater ease and spaciousness. They don't have to try so hard to be aware. This might be true for you.

If focusing on your breath is causing you to put a lot of effort in or judge yourself or tighten your awareness in a way that doesn't feel comfortable, natural awareness can be a great counterweight. It can be quite sweet. Sometimes when accessing natural awareness, we feel a lovely sense of compassion, kindness, interconnection, joy, and radiance. Think how your embodiment of these qualities can impact all whom you meet and the world itself. Great talk. Many, many, many more talks on the talks section of the app.

Go check it out, and we'll be back with more podcasts very soon. 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 add free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. Celebrity feuds are high stakes.

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