Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - I Don’t Want to Meditate | Bonus Meditation with Matthew Hepburn

Episode Date: February 5, 2021

Is meditation the last thing you want to do right now? This one’s for when closing your eyes and watching your breath sounds like torture. About Matthew Hepburn: Matthew Hepburn is a straightshooting, clear thinking, and dedicated meditation teacher. His personal practice caught fire over the course of several extended meditation retreats in his early twenties, and for the last 5+ years he has been teaching meditation at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center in Boston, MA. Matthew is currently a participant in the four-year Insight Meditation Society Teacher Training Program, where he studies with renowned teachers including Joseph Goldstein. 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,

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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. For ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey there time for the Friday bonus. This week we've got an awesomely entitled meditation. I don't want to meditate. I can relate. Our teacher, DuJour, is Matthew Hepburn, who is one of the teachers at the Cambridge

Insight Meditation Center in Boston, Massachusetts, he also is on staff at 10% happier. He's also not for nothing, a phenomenal human being. So here we go with Matthew Hepburn. Hi, this is Matthew. Thanks for joining me. Sometimes maybe a lot of the time, the last thing you want to do is meditate. Sit in one spot, sit still, pay attention to something inane and boring, like breathing sounds, feeling the belly moving around. Life is full of really important things to do

to think about people, relationships that we care about and sitting in one spot and doing something that we might feel like we're really bad at and that doesn't seem to be serving anybody else. Sometimes doesn't sound like the best use of our time. Well, this next couple of minutes is designed for what to do in exactly these moments. So sit comfortably in a full lotus position or run as fast as you can until you get tired and are panting. But hang with me and we'll see if we can practice mindfulness through whatever mind state you got going. Notice the resistance to the idea of meditating or of appreciating whatever is going on right now.

You can feel it, it probably sucks, but it's here and it's real. It might be worth it just to acknowledge it one moment at a time. So check in, the shoulder's tension, just appreciate it. We don't need to get mushy and try and become a bowl of jello. But we want to see what's going on and what's happening, acknowledging the present moment as it is. As you're aware of this moment checking in with the body, see if there's any circular thinking going on. Particular thoughts that are really compelling. Now, it may be a painful thought or a useless thought. If that's the case, it has some energy behind it, it's going to keep going for a while and eventually it will settle down. So acknowledge it, see that it's happening. The most important thing to remember in meditation is nothing is the wrong way to be.

We could be worked up, we could be anxious, we could be pissed off, and the only goal of meditation to see it, to be with it, to acknowledge it with a sense of interest and curiosity. So, when you're ready, take another breath. Open your eyes. Come back to this moment. Thanks for tuning in. And good luck out there. Big thanks to Matthew.

We'll be back on Monday with a fresh episode with Jetson Ma, Tenson Palmo, an utterly fascinating woman who has an incredible story and an enormous amount of actionable wisdom to share. So we'll see you on Monday for that. 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 ad-free with 1-3-plus in Apple podcasts.

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