Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Guided Meditation: 'Driving'

Episode Date: October 28, 2016

It can be tough to carve out time for meditation. That's why we recruited Alexis Santos to teach us how to apply mindfulness 'On The Go.' In this meditation, Alexis Santos guides you in a mindfulness practice while driving (eyes open, of course). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It kind of blows my mind to consider the fact that we're up to nearly 600 episodes of this podcast, the 10% happier podcast. That's a lot of conversations. I like to think of it as a great compendium of, and I know this is a bit of a grandiose term, but wisdom. The only downside of having this vast library of audio is that it can be hard to know where to start. So we're launching a new feature here, playlists, just like you put together a playlist of your favorite songs.

Back in the day, we used to call those mix tapes. Just like you do that with music, you can do it with podcasts. So if you're looking for episodes about anxiety, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes. Or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes, or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist for that. We've even put together a playlist of some of my personal favorite episodes. That was a hard list to make. Check out our playlists at 10%.com slash playlist. That's 10% all one word spelled out. dot com slash playlist singular.

Let us know what you think. We're always open to tweaking how we do things and maybe there's a playlist we haven't thought of. Hit me up on Twitter or submit a comment through the website. Okay, we've got another free guided meditation for you. Generally, we do not recommend you formally meditate while driving a motor vehicle, but there are ways to meditate while driving

that are safe, keeping your eyes open. And Alexis Santos, one of the meditation teachers with whom we work on the 10% happier app, has a great way to meditate while you're driving and you should try it out. Here it is. This meditation is designed to be used while driving. First thing to remember is we have to drive in a natural way. So please don't close your eyes during this practice. Turn this on before you start. Let's get underway.

So I invite you to settle into your seat, feeling the body sitting, and just simply driving using the accelerator and the brake and the steering wheel. Noticing that the activity of the body is usually quite simple. to accelerate and the steering wheel to turn the car. So noticing how the chair is supporting you, you can simply let the body rest in the chair, feeling the back, the back that's being supported, instead of focusing 100% outward in funer

view, perhaps allowing the mind to take a more broad perspective of the full body experience as if it's a 360 degree awareness rather than toppling out through the eyes focused on going forward, getting to where you're trying to times to your hands holding the steering wheel. What's the actual texture of the steering wheel? Is it rough or smooth? Are you gripping it? Let's see a amount of pressure you're using to hold the wheel. One of the predominant experiences while driving is a sense of getting some place. The tendency when we have a goal in mind is to focus on the goal, and we lose an awareness of what's actually happening in the moment. Instead of following the urge of trying to reach our goal, noticing that experience of rushing forward, you might do a quick scan in the body to see if the body is tense and

contracted. Oftentimes when we are rushing and toppling forward. The body gets tight and tense. You might again allow the body to relax, let it go of any extra tensions that are not needed to drive. The car is really doing the work. Remember that everyone that's driving right now is somewhat attending to what they're seeing. That's how they're able to avoid the other cars. What really distinguishes someone that is meditating from someone that isn't, is they remember the activity in the present moment.

They remember that seeing is happening. They remember an emotion as simply an emotion of agitation, of frustration, or sense of ease and calm. There's a recognition that this is what's happening. You might see a car passing you rather than focusing on the objects of experience, the objects of experience, just simply, lightly remembering that you're seeing. Staying connected The most important thing while driving while while being mindful, is to be safe. When you're being mindful, you're able to take in more information. We want to reach where we're going safely, without harming ourselves or others. So that will be the most important part of this period of practice together. How does it feel to be driving right now? Checking again what your state of mind is.

Are you still aware? It is a little difficult to be mindful while also driving? How hard is it to remember that you're breathing? Are you able to feel the body and the seat, the different pressure points, the different places of contact in the cars at times. You might drop in the reminder that they too have places to go. They might be dealing with a lot of stress. They might be under time pressures of getting to where they're needing to go. That might also be late. When we're caught in our own reactive patterns of feeling frustrated and anxious, our vision tends to narrow. We get solely focused on what it is that we're needing. Let's see if it's possible to simply enjoy the experience of the car moving.

The car is doing most of the work. What this body is doing is it's sitting. The hands might be doing some work with the stealing wheel, and the foot is pressing the different pedals. It's actually not much the body needs to do in this way, can actually give the body a lot of rest. The body is relaxing. And if we're being mindful of the mind, does the need to be over agitated. Simply knowing where we're going, doing the best that we can do to drive safely. I'm going to add a little bit of the little bit of the little bit of the

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Anytime you're behind the wheel, noticing the difference of moments of being aware, noticing what's happening, and times that you've been lost, caught in the rush to get places. So sit back, relax, enjoy the ride, and most importantly be safe. Big thanks to Alexis Santos, and in fact, he just recently launched a whole course with us on the 10% happier app that explores ways in which you can integrate meditation

into all of your daily activities, including using your smartphone, which is counterintuitive, but actually a pretty radical and effective piece of advice from him, because the whole point of practicing formal meditation when you're sitting with your eyes closed or maybe you keep them open a little bit,

the whole point of doing formal meditation is so that it impacts the rest of your life. This shouldn't be something quarantine to your several minutes on the cushion, so to speak. So check out the course and we'll be back with more free guided meditations and interviews very soon. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon Music. soon. all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com-survey. Hey there listeners! While we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders

behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduka Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Kodopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together they discussed their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to

learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty. So if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wondery app.