Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Emotional Awareness | Oren Sofer Bonus Guided Meditation

Episode Date: June 26, 2020

You can find Oren's meditation on emotional awareness and much more on our app. Visit tenpercent.com to download the Ten Percent Happier app and kickstart your meditation practice. Listen to Oren's meditation in the app: https://10percenthappier.app.link/EmotionalAwarenessPod About Oren Oren Jay Sofer teaches mindfulness, meditation and Nonviolent Communication. He has practiced meditation since 1997, beginning his studies in Bodh Gaya, India and is a long-time student of Joseph Goldstein, Michele McDonald, and Ajahn Sucitto, and is a graduate of the IMS/Spirit Rock Teacher Training program. He holds a degree in Comparative Religion from Columbia University and is the author of Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication. 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. Hey y'all, it's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. On my 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 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, a lot of people don't like talking about emotions, especially, and if you'll forgive me the generalization here, especially guys. Here's the deal though. The emotions are non-negotiable. They exist. Full stop.

And either you are aware of them and curious about them and willing to investigate them with some warmth, or they're just going to own you all the time and you're going to engage in just a non-stop parade of dumb decisions. Which brings us to today's bonus. It's Friday, so we're dropping a bonus, and it's a bonus guided meditation from my friend, the great Orin orange jsofer. This, by the way, this meditation is also available in the 10% Happier app. And this meditation is all about bringing awareness to our emotions. These days emotions are for many of us

very powerful. So this is particularly relevant. And Orren's going to guide us through this process of just opening up to whatever's there emotionally and trying the best of our ability to be cool with it, to not fight it or feed it, so that we can kind of surf these waves a little bit more gracefully and be kinder to ourselves and others. So here we go with Orrenesophagus. Hey there, welcome back. Read a book a little while ago about a man named George Dawson. He was born in Texas in the late 1800s, to parents who were former slaves. He lived to be 103, seeing the turn of two centuries. There was one story in the book that really touched me about the power of awareness and acknowledging our experience. When he was about twelve

his family sent him off to work as a farmhand for a white family. During his whole time there, everyone related to him just around work. Do this, do that. Feed the horses, clean out the stable. No one ever related to him as a full human being. He was just there to work. Until one day, the daughter of the family was serving lunch out in the field. When he went to the back of the truck to get his lunch, he was surprised to find her there. She turned to him and said, how are you? He was surprised to find her there. She turned to him and said, how are you? The question startled him. No one had asked him that for so long.

He didn't know how to respond. We all need that kind of acknowledgement and connection in our lives. How often do we go through a day or even through periods of our life where we don't ask ourselves that question? Hey, how am I feeling? How am I? This is the power of bringing awareness to our emotions, of just acknowledging how we feel and creating some space inside for that. By acknowledging and being aware of our emotions, we start to have the ability to relate to them more wisely and make better choices. The first step in any kind of mindfulness practice is being aware, and it's the same

with our emotions. So let's explore this together some. So as we begin our meditation, notice how it feels to just be sitting here, before you even try to start meditating. How is it to recognize that there's nothing you need to perform, achieve anything or produce something for someone else. No one's placing any demands on you or asking anything of you. There's no pressure, no agenda. See if you can let yourself feel the body sitting and just begin to touch into that sense of ease in being here. Can you find a posture that's comfortable? Comfortable?

Yet awake. Could it be enough to just feel your body sitting right now, sitting and knowing that you're I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide.

I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. Next, let's bring your attention to a few key areas that we often hold tension. First, notice your shoulders. Are they contracted or hunched up? If so, see if you can loosen them. Let them sink down a bit. How about your neck? If you let your chin drop just half a degree, you might find the back of your neck lengthen slightly.

Feel your jaw. Are you clenching? Is it tight or hard? What would it be like to loosen or relax the muscles in your jaw? How about the eyes? Softening and relaxing. Any of the muscles around the eyes? The eyebrows and the forehead, even the rest of the face, letting if you can allow your abdomen to release. Finally, let your attention notice the sensations of breathing in and breathing out. No need to breathe in any special way to make it slow or deep. Again, pay a little more attention to the out breath, noticing how it feels in the rest

of your body as you breathe out. Is there any sense of settling a little bit of ease, sinking or release? I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room.

I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next page. I'm going to go to the next page. I'm going to go to the next page. I'm going to go to the next page. I'm going to go to the next page. I'm going to go to the next page. I'm going to go to the next page.

I'm going to go to the next page. I'm going to go to the next page. I'm going to go to the next page. I'm going to go to the next page. I'm going to go to the next page. I'm going to go to the simplicity of feeling the body sitting, feeling the sensations of breathing in and breathing out. Don't worry if the mind wanders off into thoughts that's fine, it's completely normal. When you notice, you just come back to feeling the body sitting in that sense of, oh great, mindfulness is back. Just feeling what it's like to be here. Resting the mind and resting the body. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room.

I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room.

I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room.

I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. When you're ready, you can let your eyes open, taking in the room and your surroundings. So during your day today, in being aware of your emotions, see if you can practice pausing just for a moment or two, creating a little bit of space to recognize what's happening. When we can pause and bring some mindfulness, some awareness to an emotion that we're experiencing, we increase the chances that we'll have more choice about how to respond. Okay, take care out there. Thank you, Warren, and we'll see you on Monday with a fresh episode. Hey, hey, prime members.

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