Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Don't Take on Others' Stress | Bonus Meditation with Jeff Warren

Episode Date: April 10, 2020

Stress doesn't have to be contagious. This session will guide you through staying boundaried, calm, and kind when stress is in the air. Meditation Available on Ten Percent Happier: https://10percenthappier.app.link/Umgwk77ly5 Jeff Warren on Ten Percent Happier: https://10percenthappier.app.link/jeff-warren About Jeff Warren Website: https://jeffwarren.org/ 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." 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 guys, dropping a bonus meditation into the feed today from my friend. I really love this guy, Jeff Warren. I've written a book with him before and he's just been the source of a lot of inspiration and humor in my life. As I say this, I'm reminded we should get Jeff on the podcast soon.

Anyway, Jeff's got a great meditation today, specifically aimed at helping you not take on other people's stress during this pandemic. I suspect that's a habit many of us have sadly fallen into and Jeff's here to help with that. So, here we go, Jeff Warren, and we'll be back with a fresh episode on Monday. Hi, this is Jeff. Have you noticed how being around stress people can itself be kind and stressful? Our shoulders can get tense, our hackles go up,

often we want to get as far as possible from the person in front of us. Welcome to emotional contagion, the social transmission of our emotional states. Here's a simple practice for working with this. It can be done after you've been around someone who stressed, or it can be done in the moment with them in front of you, or you know, working at the adjoining desk or simply nearby. Let's try it. Start by taking a few settling breaths.

So breathing in, stretching up a bit on the inhale, and then as you breathe out, that's the downward motion, the softening and relaxing. You can have your eyes open and half-mast, if you like, or closed. Take another nice long exhale. And as you breathe out, deliberately soften your forehead and soften the eyes and the cheeks and the jaw. In the next exhale, softening the shoulders and the belly.

So see if you can find some anchor in your experience. That is something to pay attention to. That feels comfortable or solid. So maybe it's the sensation of the breath or of your feet on the ground. Maybe it's the solid feeling of your whole body. Take a few moments to that anchor. This practice has two steps. The first is to be clear about your own stress reaction, and the second is to override that

reaction by finding some presence and compassion for the other person. So often we're in a stress reaction without really knowing it's happening. We react unconsciously to the situation. So first let's work on our own clarity. Do a little investigation of your mind and body. Starting at the head and then moving down through the neck and core. And as you go, ask yourself, how do I know when stress is happening to me? What are the tell-tale signs?

Where does it show up in my body? Explore this. Maybe there's tension in your head or racing thoughts. Maybe your shoulders are hunched or there's a contraction in your chest or maybe a sour feeling in the belly. What are your body's ways of letting you know you're inside a stress response? It's super useful to learn about this. So keep feeling into it a little bit. If at any point the stress feels like it's too much, then let go of the investigation and

go back to your anchor. The ability to notice where we hold our stress is the first step in managing it. As we get more space around it, we're less likely to act unconsciously from it. Okay, so we can let go of this exploring now. Take a few moments to go back to your anchor. Nice long exhale, relaxing your shoulders, relaxing even your belly a bit. Now let's move into part two, which is to generate some compassion and presence for the person who stressed you out in the first place. The idea is that instead of being emotionally swamped by their vibes, we're going to practice generating an active state of caring for them.

Start by thinking about this person. Bring them into your mind's eye. Imagine their face, their body presence. The idea is to connect to a sincere desire for the stress they feel to ease up. A desire for them to have more space around it and approve the ability to hold and manage it. So a short phrase can help here, something like, maybe well. Choose a sentence or a word that works for you and sort of repeat it to yourself for a bit with this person in mind. Try this. The exact sentence doesn't matter so much.

What matters is you've noticed this person is stressed, and you're connecting to your own very reasonable desire for them to feel better. The emphasis is really on connecting to your own sense of solidity and presence. There may even be a sense of boundary presence where you can see their stress, not take it on and still tap into some compassion for how hard it is for them right now. May you be well. May you feel settled. As you repeat your phrase or your words,

see if you can feel your own solid mode here, not thinking about how you can fix this person or their stress or their stressful situation. Just holding space for them. May you be well. The active stance of this response, feeling your own body's solidity in presence can override your own stressful feelings. So feel into this solidity while you repeat your phrase. Present, solid, holding your ground as you wish this person well. The idea is that you're connecting to your own solidity here and you're holding it down,

noticing both your autonomy and presence, but also any caring that you may have for the other person. They can both be there. Nice, so let's wind down here. Notice how you feel now compared to where you began. If things do feel a little more settled, then this could be a good practice for you to return to. You can do this meditation after you've been around someone who's stressed and you want to reset yourself, or you can do it in the moment with that person nearby or in front

of you. It's all about overriding our own stress response with this deliberate sense of presence and caring for the other person. When you're ready, you can open your eyes. It's a nice job practicing this social stress buster. Thank you for your practice. Hey, hey, prime members.

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