Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - On Not Holding Grudges | Bonus Meditation with Diana Winston

Episode Date: February 4, 2022

Finding forgiveness can help you feel lighter, freer, and more at peace. Diana says “it's not easy, but powerful, and completely worth it.”About Diana Winston:Diana Winston is the Director of Mindfulness Education at UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center where she also teaches mindfulness practices to the general public.Her easy-on-the-ears west coast style rests on top of a rigorous scientific mind, and a vast amount of teaching experience. She has developed curriculum and taught mindfulness since the early 90’s in a variety of settings including hospitals, universities, corporations, non profits, and schools. She has taught mindful awareness to health professionals, leaders, teachers, activists, seniors, and adolescents in the US and Asia. A published researcher and author, Diana has also written for numerous meditation publications, where her daughter, Mira, often makes an appearance in her examples of bringing mindfulness to daily life.To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Forgiveness for Others,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=6e200a0e-c93c-442d-8c9d-bb042d6cac0e.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. It's Friday, time for a bonus guided meditation. We're tackling a big subject, holding grudges.

Is it possible to drop your grudges? Is it possible to forgive, maybe even forgive yourself? For some of us, this can feel almost insurmountable, maybe straight up impossible. But forgiveness is a skill, something you can practice. And we're gonna do it today, via the meditation teacher, Diana Winston. She's been teaching mindfulness since 1999. She's the director of mindfulness education at UCLA's

Mindful Awareness Research Center. She's written a bunch of books, including the little book of being, practices, and guidance for uncovering your natural awareness. She's also a popular teacher over on the 10% happier app. So here we go now with Diana Winston. Hi, this is Diana, and this is a meditation for when you want to try to forgive another person. Forgiveness is a process, so we really need to keep this in mind, and it definitely doesn't happen overnight. Sometimes people have done things that have been very harmful to us, and there are very

good reasons why we haven't forgiven them. But there may be a time in your life where you feel like you want to forgive. So you can use this meditation, but take it very slowly and gently, really listening into your body and mind as you do it. Don't pick the hardest person in your life to practice with. Start with a relatively easy or moderate situation or person and then go from there. This is really important. So let's get started. Find yourself in a comfortable position for meditation. And close your eyes or keep them open as you wish, back upright, but not rigid or tight.

It's helpful to start with a few breaths to get us settled. Notice what's happening in your mind as you consider doing this meditation. Are you feeling nervous? Feeling interested, curious? Just notice whatever is here. And see if there's someone who's popped into your mind. Someone you'd really like to practice forgiveness with. Remember not the hardest person. As you bring them to mind, you can recall the thing that they did that may have hurt you or hurt people you care about. Remember what it was they did and notice how you're feeling inside as you think of that. Remember that forgiving someone doesn't mean forgetting what they did, and it definitely doesn't mean condoning their actions.

It also doesn't mean passivity. You would never knowingly allow this to happen again if you had the ability. Let's try some phrases. May I open to forgiving you. May I one day one day forgiving you. May I forgive you. So you can repeat these phrases, find the ones that make sense to you, the ones you connect This meditation can be intense, so please give yourself whatever space you need to decompress as we bring it to a close. We can always come back to this practice again and again.

Remember forgiveness is a process. It's not easy. It takes time, but it's absolutely powerful, completely worth it. And ever you're ready to go broth or two and open your eyes or end the meditation. Thanks for practicing with me. See you again. Thanks to Diana. We'll be right back here on Monday. We're going to do something a little different, very interesting. We're going to get a kind of Hinduism 101. We talk about Buddhism a lot on this show, but haven't done much Hinduism. So that's coming up on Monday.

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