Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - How Not to Feel Like You Suck at Meditation | Bonus Meditation with Joseph Goldstein

Episode Date: December 31, 2021

The three most important words in mindfulness are "simply begin again." This meditation focuses on the key to all meditation techniques.About Joseph Goldstein:Joseph is one of the most respected meditation teachers in the world -- a key architect of the rise of mindfulness in our modern society -- with a sense of humor to boot. In the 1970's, he co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) alongside Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield. Since its founding, thousands of people from around the world have come to IMS to learn mindfulness from leaders in the field. Joseph has been a teacher there since its founding and continues as the resident guiding teacher.To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Simply Begin Again,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=fa2ec8eb-0480-4328-b0bd-0cbedbd86c0b.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. This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, everybody. Happy Friday. If you've been listening this week, you know that we are

midway through our special two week series, which we're calling Getting on Stuck, which is designed to help you head into the new year with some tools for breaking through whatever inertia might be holding you back to that end. We've got a super simple stuckness, busting meditation for you today, led by my friend and teacher Joseph Goldstein. In today's practice, Joseph is going to share three of the most useful words in meditation. They are simply begin again. No matter how many times you get distracted in meditation, or no matter how many times you get stuck in your life, you can always start again. As I like to say,

it's like a golf game with a million Mulligans. Joseph needs no introduction, but I'll give you a little one anyway. In the 1970s, he co-founded the Insight Meditation Society alongside Sharon Salisburg and Jack Cornfield. He continues at IMS today as the resident guiding teacher. He's also my meditation teacher and a guiding teacher on the 10% happier app. Speaking of the app, one quick order of business here. Next week in the app, we're kicking off our annual New Year's Meditation Challenge, which this year we are calling the Getting Unstuck Challenge.

It's a free 14 day challenge, which will feature daily videos and guided meditations designed to help you deepen your learnings from right here on the podcast. As you know, we often pursue a kind of lecture lab model here. The lecture is the podcast and the lab where you can try this stuff out is the app. Your home base for the getting unstuck challenge is the 10% happier app, download the app wherever you get your apps, to join the getting unstuck challenge for free. Okay, enough out of me. Let's get started here with Joseph. The most important words in mindfulness meditation are simply begin again. You give the mind a simple object of meditation, like the breath. Then we find before too long, our mind gets lost in thoughts, fantasies, or daydreams.

This is not an unusual phenomenon. We hop on these trains of association. And often we don't know that we've hopped on the train, we have no idea where the train is going. And then sometime later it may be a minute or two, it may be five minutes, maybe ten minutes, we wake up to the fact that we're thinking, because if we hop off the train,

in that moment of becoming a weather we lost, we can actually delight in that moment of awareness of remembering rather than judge ourselves for having been lost. And in that moment, we recollect the breath and simply begin again. We'll begin this meditation by again, sitting in an upright posture, the back erect, but not stiff or tense, gently closing the eyes, softening and relaxing the eyes, relaxing the shoulders, softening the belly, settling into the awareness of the body and the body posture, to sit and to know that we're sitting. And as we're aware of the body posture as we've settled into the body, you will become aware of the sensations of

the body breathing. Connect with the sensations of the breath and whatever place in the body you feel it most clearly. Again, it might be the sensations of the breath at the nostrils, or the sensations of the movement passing the nostrils, you can use a soft mental Out, in, out. If you're feeling the sensations of the breath in the rise and fall of the abdomen or the chest, you can make the soft mental note of rising, falling, rising, falling. If you've noticed that the mind has hopped on trains of association, gotten lost in a train of thought, as soon as you become aware, the mind is thinking, notice that, reconnect Reconnect with the breath and begin again. Staying aware of the body posture, and become aware of the sensations of your body breathing.

Feeling the sensations of the air passing the nostrils or the sensation of the movement, the chest or abdomen, breathing in, know your breathing in, breathing out, know your breathing out. When you notice that the mind has wandered, it will gotten lost in a thought. Simply reconnect with the feeling of the breath and begin again. And when you're ready, you can slowly open your eyes and reconnect with the world around you. In this meditation, we've practiced the art of mental noting. This is using a soft word in the mind, a soft mental label, to acknowledge what the present

moment experiences. So for example, if we're being mindful of the breath, we might make a soft mental note along with each breath in, out, in, out. The note should be done very softly. It's almost like a whisper in the mind. But the note can help to frame the object so that we can be mindful of it more clearly. Many people have found this tool extremely helpful to strengthen the continuity of mindfulness moment to moment. Others may find that the simple awareness without the note serves just as well. Thanks again to Joseph. We'll be right back here on Monday with a brand new episode with the great Tara Brock.

In the meantime, happy new year. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free 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.

Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on Page Six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellissi. And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wonder E's new podcast, Dis and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud, from the build up, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feuds say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out

in personal as Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Britney's fans formed the free Britney movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans. A lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. Follow Dissentel wherever you get your podcasts.

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We'll talk about what went right and wrong. What would we do differently? And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app.