Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Concentration 101 | Bonus Meditation with Jeff Warren

Episode Date: May 21, 2021

Concentration is the backbone of meditation. Strengthen your ability to return to the present with this basic, but essential, technique. 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 “Concentration 101,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=9da8efcf-5948-4235-bd95-4c719ef5d964. We want to deeply thank and recognize mental health professionals for your support. For a year's FREE access to the app and hundreds of meditations and resources visit: https://www.tenpercent.com/mentalhealth. 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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Where did 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. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, hey, it's Friday, time for our bonus. And we're dropping a bonus guided meditation this week, which goes right at one of the biggest

challenges many meditators face, which is staying focused or staying concentrated. We've got a great meditation coming at you from Jeff Warren. And this, we're dropping it here now because it really kind of rhymes nicely with the episode we posted a few days ago with the great meditation teacher, Shilah Catherine, who talks all about how to boost your focus and concentration in meditation. So we thought we'd post this guided meditation from Jeff Warren, who has his own ways to help his students set up a practice where there's a base of concentration and focus. I really like Jeff's style. I think you will too if you haven't heard from him or

learned from him in the past. So enough out of me, over now to Jeff. Hi, this is Jeff. So concentration is the foundational skill of meditation. It stabilizes the mind, and eventually it can make things more peaceful inside. Sometimes it's only when we get a break from our endless mental churn of obsessions and exuberances that we realize how completely exhausting

our so-called normal state can be. The mind is constantly finding and making problems. As it settles, there are fewer problems. Sometimes it really is that simple. So, let's explore. Start by taking a couple of deep breaths, closing the eyes, or keeping them open, it's up to you, whichever is most comfortable. On the inhale, stretch up your spine, find a little bit of alertness and composure.

And on the exhale, that's the downward motion. So settling, softening the body. We can do a few deep breaths here, reading in, stretching up, and then a long exhale, reading out, settling the body, settling and softening the worry lines in the forehead, and the cheeks in a jaw. Even on the next exhale, seeing if you can soften your shoulders and soften your hands. So right at the beginning here, we check in with our attitude. Can you sit in a way that's relaxed and open?

This is the quality of equanimity. It's a kind of easy-goingness in the way we hold ourselves. When you're ready, bring your attention to the breath. There's no need to control or interfere with the breath. Just breathe normally. But be curious, what does the breath feel like? It might be the feeling of air at the nostrils, or the feeling of the breath moving into the chest or belly,

or even the continuous flowing sensation of all these together. Whatever jumps out most of you. As you do this, if you can bring an attitude of enjoyment, of enjoying the sensation of breathing, even in the subtlest way, this can really help get us concentrated. For a little support here, you have the option of using a note. This means that you silently note to yourself in when you breathe in and out when you breathe out. A lot of people find noting helps them stay on track. It's the skillful use of thinking to hack thinking. If you don't like working with the breath, no problem. Choose another body sensation.

Maybe the feeling of your hands or the feeling of the contact with the chair or the cushion. You can even use sound if you prefer. Choose one of these and then stay on it as best you can. Yn yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw The mind wanders, you bring it back, committed to this one direction, one breath at a time. Just feeling the breath or some other sensation or sound. As you do, it's totally normal for all kinds of thoughts and sensations to come up. This is what minds do. They like to run with stuff. If you do find that a stealthy thought has come up from below and carried you off into some other planet,

then do one of those cartoon double takes and try to notice what happened. This is the mindfulness part. Where has my mind been? Where has my mind been? Oh, it was planning, blanking, texting, sexting, fantasizing. Now you know. The move in meditation is to good naturally let that stuff play out in the background. Just go back to the breath, or sounds of the feel of the whole body sitting. Whatever you're chosen, object of attention. Yn yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw Concentration is about gentle. If you notice yourself straining in any way, see if you can relax your face and body. It helps here to get very still. The stiller you are, the clear and cleaner the signal. When you're ready, before you open your eyes, maybe just kick back for a few moments, resting, relaxing, letting the work of the meditation integrate. Now, open your eyes and take a few moments to transition out of the meditation practice. Look around the room.

Notice any sounds near and far. Take a couple deep settling breaths. Nice job. Welcome to our meditation cult. Just kidding. Thank you, Jeff. One last thing to say here, as you may know, May is mental health awareness month. Over the past year, mental health professionals have really had a rough go of it. In many cases, not only dealing with the impacts of the pandemic on their own lives, but also helping their clients navigate a world turned upside down.

So for anybody out there who falls into the category of mental health professional, we want to first thank you and recognize all the work you've done. And second, we want to offer a year's free access to the 10% happier meditation app where there are hundreds of meditations and a whole bunch of courses that combine short little video clips with meditations. If you qualify or if you know somebody who qualifies, just go to 10%.com slash mental health. And again, thank you. We'll be back here on Monday with a brand new episode. We're actually going to spend the whole week marking the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd and we've got two excellent, excellent guests to talk about that. That starts on Monday and

continues through Wednesday. We'll see you then. 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 ad-free with 1-3-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-survey. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable.

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