Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Gratitude for Fidgety Skeptics | Bonus Meditation with Matthew Hepburn

Episode Date: November 26, 2023

Learn the skill of not taking sh*t for granted.About Matthew Hepburn:Matthew is a meditation and dharma teacher with more than a decade of teaching experience and a passion for getting real about what it means to live well. He emphasizes humor, technique, and authentic kindness as a means to free the mind up from unnecessary struggle and leave a healthier impact on the world. Beyond Ten Percent Happier, Matthew has taught in prisons, schools, corporate events and continues to teach across North America in buddhist centers offering intensive silent retreats and dharma for urban daily life. To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Daily Gratitude Booster.”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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Terms apply. It's the 10% happier podcast. I'm your host, Dan Harris. Hello, everybody. Happy Sunday. If you're in the US, it's the Sunday after Thanksgiving. So you've probably been hearing a lot about gratitude and being thankful over the past week. Sometimes I will admit, I will acknowledge that a gratitude practice can feel a little sappy, maybe even irrelevant or unhelpful given everything going on in the world. Our teacher, DuJour, is going to help us thread the needle here and see how gratitude

can be useful no matter what. Matthewppern has taught in prisons, schools, and corporations, he's also in staff at 10% happier. So here we go now with Matthew Heppern. Hey, it's Matthew. Okay, glad you made it here for your daily gratitude booster. Research says it can build hope in hard times, lower stress hormones, and is the single best predictor of emotional well-being and healthy relationships. No joke.

First off, take two deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth, and feel your body relaxing. Go ahead. You can do this practice anytime, anywhere, and if you don't need to keep your eyes open, you can let them close gently. We always start off by taking a moment to pause and acknowledge exactly how you feel. If it's tough, it's tough. If it's enjoyable, enjoy it. But right now, take a moment to acknowledge and really honestly feel how you're about to do will be effective and yield results over time no matter what

mood or emotion is temporarily here in this moment. For the next few minutes, you can give yourself wholeheartedly to this gratitude training session without needing to replace your current emotion with anything else. Bring to mind anything good in the last 48 hours of your life that you didn't earn or create. It could be as extraordinary as winning the lottery, as ordinary as breathing fresh air, or anything in between. Just notice the first good thing that pops into your mind. When you got it, remember all the sensory details of receiving this experience. Sites, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, emotional feelings, use them to make the memory come

alive in this moment. Now, clarify the source of that good thing. Was it a person? Was it nature? Was it something else? When we identify the source, we give gratitude a clear direction. Bring the source of this good thing to the forefront of your mind. Go with what comes easy. Don't overthink it. Now, get in touch with your own authentic sense of thanks and appreciation for this particular

good thing that came for this particular good thing that came from this particular source. Find a set of words that can genuinely express this feeling. For example, I like to keep it simple and just say thank you. Do what works for you. Do what works for you. Say the words out loud under your breath if you can get away with it. This will deeply engage your brain when you feel and hear yourself speaking them. Try it for yourself. Alright, High Five, nice work today. Stick with it and highlight whatever benefits you start noticing for yourself.

Your homework between now and the next time you listen to this meditation is to try to be grateful for one thing while it's happening. If your eyes have been closed, you can open them. Thanks for your practice. See you tomorrow. Thank you to Matthew. You can find more meditations like this one over on the 10% happier app, just download the app wherever you get your apps to get started. If you like 10% happier, I hope you do. You can listen early and add free right now by joining 1-3 Plus in the 1-3 App or on Apple podcasts.

Prime members can listen to-free on Amazon music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondry.com-survey.