Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Everything You Wanted to Know About Self-Love But Were Afraid to Ask | Bonus Q&A with Jeff Warren and Susan Piver

Episode Date: January 22, 2021

Today, expert meditation teachers Jeff Warren and Susan Piver return to respond directly to the questions that you, our listeners, have been submitting to us about self-compassion. It’s a tricky concept, so it’s no surprise that you’ve sent in more than a few humdingers. So strap yourself in as Jeff and Susan bring on the wisdom to help you make sustainable, healthy change in your life.   Take a few minutes to help us out by answering a survey about your experience with this podcast! The team here is always looking for ways to improve, and we’d love to hear from all of you, but we’d particularly like to hear from those of you who listen to the podcast and do not use our companion app. Please visit https://www.tenpercent.com/survey to take the survey. Thank you.   About Jeff Warren: Jeff is an incredibly gifted meditation teacher. He has 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.   About Susan Piver: Susan Piver is the New York Times bestselling author of nine books, including The Hard Questions, the award-winning How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life, The Wisdom of a Broken Heart, and Start Here Now: An Open-Hearted Guide to the Path and Practice of Meditation. Her newest book is The Four Noble Truths of Love: Buddhist Wisdom for Modern Relationships. 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 gang, it's Friday. That means it's bonus time. And this is a really unusual bonus.

We are bringing back two of our wisest and most popular guests for a Q&A session. You may remember expert meditation teachers, Jeff Warren and Susan Piver from Episode 1 in our New Year series, or you may recognize them from their excellent work as guides in our New Year's meditation challenge on the 10% happier app. Today, Jeff and Susan are back on the podcast and they're here to respond directly to questions from you, our listeners. People have been submitting us questions

about self-love and self-compassion. It's a tricky concept. It's no surprise that you've sent in more than a few humdingers. So strap yourself in. Jeff and Susan are gonna bring back their wisdom to help you make some sustainable, healthy change in your life as we kick off a new year here. One thing to say before we dive in, we would appreciate it if you could take a few minutes

to help us out by answering a survey, about your experience with this podcast. We're always looking for ways to get better. We'd love to hear from you. In particular, we'd like to hear from anybody who listens to this show, but doesn't use the 10% happier app, but really we'd like to hear from everybody. So go to 10%.com forward slash survey 10%.com forward slash survey. Thank you for that. All right.

Let's dive in now with Jeff Warren and Susan Piver. Susan and Jeff, thanks for doing this. Glad to be here. Happy to be here. Let's dive in with some voice mail. You know how this is going to go. We're going to be playing voice mail that listeners left us with questions about self-love and self-compassion and meditation. Before I play you that though, I want to play you a clip of you guys talking because after we recorded an episode a few weeks ago, we caught you guys talking in ways that revealed your own inner critics. So let me just play that to you.

I'll just say quickly, feel free to trim whatever you want. I've already took a little bit to not to be self-critical, but it took a little while to kind of meet or warm up. So I think I kind of rambled a bit off the top. So I will not be offended if you decide to take big chunks of that out. Okay. I know that this is none of my business, but I did not hear rambling and I felt the same as you.

So Jeff, let me start with you. Clearly, even after having spent the whole episode, which we posted a few weeks ago, in which we talked about managing the inner critic, yours is not vanquished. Yeah, thanks for busting me. I am outing me as a human. Is true.

Yeah, no, I mean, it's an ongoing feature of my life, actually, even during recording something like that, you know, there's a part of me that wants to do the best job I can. So I'm thinking about that and I do a good job and I can recognize when I'm more on point and when I'm not. Now, if I were more, more, as, as, I would know that it would sort of all wash out in the end, It would be fine, but because I'm not totally, because part of me locates, you know, acceptance for myself in others in some way, I still get hooked. So for sure, you know, that's why I do this freaking practice. That's why I could so relate to the whole self-compassion thing, because, you know, I need it. Yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about. Sorry.

No, I realized this was early when we were recording the other day. You played a clip of me talking. Inside, I noticed I was just cringing. I was like, oh, God. I don't want to listen to my own voice. And at the end, I said something like, well, that Susan Piverr sounds like a no-it-all. And the second I said it, I was like, oh crap. I just did it. I just dist myself.

And I did feel uncomfortable hearing my voice. And all I heard in it was, well, she sounds quite holler than thou. And I don't know how it sounded to anyone else. And I don't know if I'd heard it on a different day. I would have heard something else. But yeah, that's not gone, that's not gone. But what does seem more present

in addition to the just like self-owning constantly is seeing that I'm self-owning. I was gonna say where are these elusion fields of perfect mental health who has them exactly. Here, you look around. I mean, actually, even when you spend time with people who've been meditating for a long time, senior teachers, their human foibles are right there.

And I think that maybe there's some people who really have zero suffering in their life. I mean, how would you know? I am skeptical. Super skeptical. Yeah. Dan, at one point in a past conversation, you and I talked about this. I went through a period in my life

where I had a lot of panic attacks. And if I would tell someone about it, they would say, well, you're a meditation teacher. Shouldn't you just be able to meditate? And I would be it, they would say, well, you're a meditation teacher. Shouldn't you just be able to meditate? And I'd be like, no, it doesn't change the truth of being a beautiful, messy, crazy, awesome human. And what meditation does enable you to do it, what appears to experience it more fully with a more open heart.

This is such an important conversation, the conversation of sort of like, what can you change in your life and what can't you change? You know, for me personally, it's, I haven't diagnosis an ADD. I have a diagnosis in bipolar. I have this kind of tortured inner situation for many years of my life. And I thought meditation was going to cure me of that tortured inner situation that it was going to bring my attention in. So it was less shooting off in all directions that it would bring my emotional life in, which has a natural up and down that can be quite wild. And it's been a very, very, very, very long process of realizing that it's not going to do that, or rather it does sort of, but not in the ways you think, that in coming

into accepting the weird way you're configured, so in my case, this particular sensitivity that's going to create a sort of volatility in my attention and my mood, incoming to accept that, then it shaves off all the suffering in the system that's amplifying those signals. That's making you more volatile than mood. It's making your attention more strung out and desperate to find some place to land. So in other words, I had to learn to accept

this complicated messy person in order to really receive the gifts of that configuration. And I think that's what every one of us is facing in our life in a way. I love that you use the word volatility several times. And I don't know if anyone's ever read anything about alchemy, the ancient art or the modern art or any form of alchemy, but in the ancient art of alchemy, the first step in transforming something base into something precious is to introduce that substance into a state of

volatility, which I have always found fascinating because it's sort of only when something becomes volatile, can you actually reform it? So there's something uncomfortable and also powerful in your states of volatility. They're not something to be ashamed of. They're a base material that's ready to reform in some way. Beautiful. Thank you. I've never heard that. I'll take it.

Cheers. I really appreciate this conversation because I think it's very useful for people to hear that even though your meditation teachers, you're not avatars of perfection and as opposed to being demotivating, I think it's just the opposite, that this practice can take you very far, but you're still struggling with things and in fact that struggle can be helpful in helping other people. So kudos to you guys. Speaking of other people, let's start bringing in some voicemails. Without further ado, here's voicemail number one.

I have a good idea. This is Jane. The question I have with self-love, how is the possible to do that when there's things in your life you can't even forgive yourself for. Thanks, bye. Woof, I relate to that. Susan, let's start with you. Yeah, things that you can't forgive yourself for.

It's just, Jane, I wish I could just look at you or hug you right now, because that is extremely painful when you can't forgive yourself. So the first thing that I would suggest is stop trying to forgive yourself, because then you can't forgive yourself for not forgiving yourself, and it turns into this very painful endless loop.

So stop trying to forgive yourself. It doesn't mean let yourself off the hook. You can if you want, but that's not what I'm suggesting. Feel what it feels like to be someone who can't forgive themselves. And tune into that. Where is it in your body? Where is it in the environment? But the important thing is not the story of why you can't forgive yourself. Because I said this, I did that. All of that in this particular moment can wait. That's not that that's unimportant, it's important. But for now, just tune into what it's like

to be someone who can't forgive themselves. And if you're anything like me, my guess is some, maybe even small degree of self-compassion might also enter the picture. And that little softening agent can initiate a process of forgiveness that otherwise goes missing when you just are beating yourself up constantly. I mean, I could not agree more.

This is this sort of paradox, you know, we get in these states of suffering and challenge, and of course we want to get out of them. And yet the medicine is to completely accept that you're in the state of unforgivableness or you're in a state of depression or you're in a state of whatever it is that you don't try to, it's so counterintuitive, you don't try to get out of it. You just let yourself be there. And in the letting of yourself being there, I would say almost always this sense of the humanity of it emerges. The humanity of the heartbreak of being human, it just naturally happens that you begin to realize that other people are in this place too. There's that kind of common humanity here. And compassion just often spontaneously arises.

And then, of course, the paradox, you can then move more quickly through that, because from the place of acceptance, all the drivenness that was keeping its stuck starts to lift, and then the system can begin to move on its own. Thanks, guys. Let's go to the next voicemail. and begin to move on its own. Next, guys, let's go to the next voicemail. Hey, Dan and your whole team. Thank you for everything you do. This is Jennifer calling from Iowa City, Iowa.

It's really easy for me to look back at myself at different points in my life and have a high degree of compassion for myself and to find myself beautiful and to really see how I was doing the best I could do given the circumstances. But I have a harder time finding all of that for myself in the given moment. And one of my questions is like, why is that? Like I'm clearly capable of it because I manage to build it up for myself even like looking back at myself one to two years ago. But then again, it's harder for me to do that like right now because I'm always thinking

of like, oh, I could lose a few pounds or there's that project I want to finish that I haven't finished and why haven't I and etc. So I can't wait to see what you do with all this. Take care. I appreciate that question very much. Jeff, let's start with you this time. Well, I'd say you're getting there. You know, it's sort of like self-compassion by degrees. I mean, I don't know why it's the case, but it's hard, why it's easier to like an earlier version of yourself, but if I had to guess, because that earlier version of yourself

doesn't exist anymore, it's an idea. So it's easier to have kind of compassion for an idea than for the true, messy, complicated disaster of who we are now. So what I would say is that you're doing great, keep going. That's actually a place where a lot of people start with self compassion is like an early version of themselves, themselves as a little kid, this obvious innocence and vulnerability that we can find some caring for. And then you can kind of march your way up through the different years until you work up to the person you are now. The person we are now, all the ways we kind of

disappoint ourselves, is intense. It's sort of triggering. So it is the hardest place you could say to begin from, but that's what the practice is. Yeah, it's interesting that you say, Jeff, that the person that you are having compassion for who was in the past doesn't exist anymore. That's really interesting.

What is this time like that happens with compassion? Why could I do it for who I used to be, but not for who I am? Many of us have become wired to think that if I'm not constantly working or donening myself or criticizing myself or pushing myself, the whole damn thing's going to fall apart. The glue that's holding it together is my self-aggression for lack of a better phrase. And is that true? I would encourage myself and everyone else to examine my PS, it's not. everyone else to examine my PS, it's not. And then just like with Jane who couldn't forgive herself, it's a good place to start is you forgive yourself for not being able to forgive yourself.

And when you can't have compassion for yourself, you could start with having compassion for yourself for not being able to have compassion for yourself because that's what's happening now and that's always a good place to start with what is happening right now. Guys are doing great, completely unsurprisingly. Let's move to the next voicemail. Hi Dan, I hope you're doing well. I'm calling for some perspective on self-compassion and kindness. After years of working in the corporate world

and now starting a new business and reflecting on how I was successful in that corporate world through my meditation practice and through talking with coaches, I realized I really had a perspective of continuous improvement. And what that meant was I focused on what could be improved, what could change what was going wrong first.

That's how I was successful in the corporate world. Now that I'm starting a new business, I really want a foundation for self-compassion. And I want to be able to celebrate when first. And look at what is working first and only changing, maybe one or two things that that is working. And I'm having a really hard time enrolling myself in this idea. I think I'm still stuck on the idea that I need to hone in on what's not working in order to improve in order to meet those same levels of success that I had in the corporate world. I would love your perspective on this. And I should know I am very positive,

generally, and very positive with those around me. So this is really something that I do to myself. Thanks so much for all you do and looking forward to hearing the new challenge. It's not uncommon, I think, to be positive with people around you and brutal with yourself. Susan, I don't know me, just see if I can take a shot at what she said and then see if it lands with you.

But it strikes me that I just wonder whether there's a false dichotomy she's set up. We do a lot of, on my team, various teams I'm working on with 10% happier. We do a lot of what we call post mortems after a project. And we do both. We look at what went well and what didn't go well. And I feel like celebrating the wins and looking at the misses can work very well in concert. You don't need to pick one or the other, but I don't know.

Maybe I misheard her question. Maybe I'm taking it in the wrong direction. What do you think? Yeah, no, I don't think I don't think you misheard her and it is really valuable to look at what went well and what went poorly and a key part of what you said is as part of a team So that's situates the conversation in a different ballpark and When you started your own business and I speak from personal experience here is having what from having my own business Especially when it's new, it's so friggin' vulnerable. It's just so vulnerable, and you're as good as your last email exchange. Someone said, they like what you're doing.

Oh, this is gonna work. Someone didn't respond. I was never gonna work. So I think a place to start with self-compassion is to recognize that when you start your own business, whatever the content is, you're telling the world who you are. And you're stepping out from behind a corporate screen, a team screen, any of the screens. And it just carries with it a very intense sense of vulnerability. And to apply, I want to be different. I don't want to feel vulnerable. I don't want to feel the things I am feeling is like distances you from what you are seeking, which is a way of feeling comfortable in your skin, in your new business. And it's just not comfortable right now. And so can you get comfortable with that in the sense of accept it, feel it, become curious about it,

before you try to change it. And I know that meditation can help because it teaches you how to ride waves, not how to dictate waves or change waves into other kinds of waves. So, and also I'll just close by saying, I feel you and kudos to you for being willing to step out in this way and it's a big deal.

Thank you Susan, let's move to the next voicemail. Hi Dan, this is Teresa from Connecticut. From Parison is the thief of joy. It is this quote from Teddy Roosevelt that I used to frequently remind myself not to compare myself to others whenever possible. This is one act of self love that I often turn to in addition to granting myself some solitude time every day. That time is used for self care activities such as my daily meditation practice, my yoga practice, I walk outside the fluffing, journaling, and reading.

My question to you is, are the things we do for self-care the same as self-love, or is the latter a much deeper concept to consider? And how so? Thanks for offering this opportunity. Have a great day. That's such a great question. And I'm glad we have people who are smarter than me here to answer it.

Jeff, what's your take? Yeah, I mean, I think it's not like these concepts live as these indelible things that are, you know, that everyone's going to agree on. But I guess I would say when I subjectively think about self-care versus self-love, the self-love for me is really about acceptance. Like, who you are is good. You are is okay, the ups and downs, the whole nine yards.

It's like, it's to sort of this baseline place of working to accept myself. The self-care is more noticing what I'm having a hard time and then being intelligent about implementing a strategy that works. Just like if you noticed your friend having a hard time, you might help them or want them to find a strategy that's going to work for them. So it's like that more active piece is the, for me, the, I guess, the self-care piece. Susan, what's your take?

Yeah. I would add with self-love, I just think of all loves, other love and self-love. It's a relationship and it has ups and downs and it's useful to stay in the relationship and ride the waves when you feel good about yourself, not good about yourself. All of that can count as self-love. And I agree with what Jeff is saying that self-care is a more like boots on the ground.

What do I need right now? Can I supply it for myself? And underneath that is self-love, certainly, but self-love is an umbrella that can embrace self-care and more. You know, we talked about this when we did the full episode recently on the show. At least for me, I can get hung up on the word love. And I think it's useful sometimes to dial down the grandiosity and think of it just as, Jeff, I think has referred to it. He used the different word than the word I'm about to use, but I'm not yet allowed to use swear words on the show, but giving a crap about yourself. He used a word that starts with the letter S.

And if you can just take it down to that, then of course every shift in your chair, as the great Mingur Rinpoche has said, every shift in your chair, everything you do has that aspect of care in it. And this to say something about the living dynamic process of that care, you know, when you walk around with an attitude of basic care for the world for yourself, it, when you walk around with an attitude of basic care for the world for

yourself, it changes how you walk. It changes how you exercise. Like, oh, am I, am I pushing myself too hard? Am I just like, am I going to just run over some limit? That's actually going to hurt me. You know, there's this sense in which you start to just have this friendly caring concern about, you know, every party your experience starts to come out. And that just is a more intelligent and interesting place to live. You know, I can speak personally for myself, it's been a more interesting and intelligent place

to live inside that than it was previously just unconsciously shooting towards my goals and dragging my mind and body behind me like it was just being, you know, drag behind a pickup truck. If that makes sense, maybe it doesn't, I might have been a bunch of strange words, but that's your inner critic, but it actually did make sense. So guys really appreciate you doing this as always. Excellent work. And thank you.

Such a pleasure. Let's do this every day. It would boost my mood. So great to hang out with you guys. Thanks again to Jeff and Susan. Thanks to everybody who joined the New Year's meditation challenge and the 10% happier app. It was great. I'm sure we'll be circling back to this practice of self-compassion a lot going forward and I'm sure we'll be doing more challenges. We'll see you back here on Monday for a fresh episode. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO 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. Hey, I'm Aresha, and I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wondery's podcast, Even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about drag icon RuPaul Charles. After a childhood of being ignored by his absentee father, Ru goes out searching for love and acceptance.

But the road to success is a rocky one. Substance abuse and mental health struggles threaten to veer Rue off course. In our series, Rue Paul born naked. We'll show you how Rue Paul overcame his demons and carved out a place for himself as one of the world's top entertainers, opening the doors for aspiring queens everywhere. Follow even the rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app. Queens everywhere. Follow even the rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can

listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app.