Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Performance Anxiety | Bonus Meditation with Oren Jay Sofer

Episode Date: July 24, 2020

On July 27, we're launching the Summer Sanity Challenge: a free 21 day meditation challenge. The goal here is to help you build resilience so that you are less buffeted by circumstances you can’t control -- and are therefore calmer, happier, and better prepared to show up the way you want to for your family and your communities. To join the challenge, you can visit tenpercent.com/challenge. About Oren Jay Sofer: Oren Jay Sofer teaches mindfulness, meditation and Nonviolent Communication. He has practiced meditation since 1997, beginning his studies in Bodh Gaya, India and is a long-time student of Joseph Goldstein, Michele McDonald, and Ajahn Sucitto, and is a graduate of the IMS/Spirit Rock Teacher Training program. He holds a degree in Comparative Religion from Columbia University and is the author of Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication.    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. Hey y'all, it's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. On my new podcast, Baby This is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad.

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. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey everybody, Friday bonus time. On Wednesday, as you may recall, we dropped a big episode with coach Pete Carroll from the Seattle Seahawks and Michael Jurveh, a performance coach, and it was all about upping your game when life circumstances are suboptimal. And I think we all know that circumstances are deeply suboptimal right now. And so we wanted to drop a guided meditation that is in line with this theme. So this one is from Orange Aso for who's a teacher on the 10% happier meditation app. And it's all about performance

anxiety and how to work with it. Here we go. Hey there, this is Orin. I think we all know what it's like to be super nervous before a big event. Our stomachs and knots, our breathing's short, it's awful. When I look back on those moments in my life, I wish I'd known about mindfulness. We all have times in our life where we need to be on a presentation at work, a job interview, giving a speech at a conference, fear and anxiety don't need to stop you. In fact, it can help you to be on top of your game if you know how to use it. So let's take a closer look.

First, I invite you to look around the room or space wherever you are, orienting visually to your surroundings. Try it out. Let your eyes look all around. Above, below, to either side. Notice anything that catches your eye and looks interesting. Connecting with our environment like this is one simple way to begin to calm and soothe our nervous system because it takes us out of our thoughts and brings us into the moment now. Fear and anxiety are generally about the future. When we connect to the present, they can start to ease.

present, they can start to ease. Then whenever you're ready, go ahead and close your eyes or just let your gaze be still. Feel your body sitting. Notice the weight, the heaviness of your body, and any places where it touches the chair, cushion or ground. As you feel the steady, firm contact there, begin to take some slow, deep breaths. Breathe in through your nose, and then you do, notice any effect on your mind You can let your breathing return to normal and continue to feel the weight and heaviness of your body before or during a big event. Your breathing might change, your heart rate might increase, you might even feel strong unpleasant sensations in your body, in your gut, or your chest or throat. These are all completely natural. There are a few ways of handling these feelings. We've already been exploring one,

finding some solid ground in your body, and beginning to calm the energy with your breath or by attending to simple sensations like your hands. If you like, take a few more moments to just be with these sensations of sitting, feeling your hands and your breathing. And notice if that has any effect. Another method is to change your perception or understanding of what's happening. Instead of thinking of these sensations as fear or as a problem, what if they were a form of healthy stress? Instead of trying to take you down, what if they were your body's natural way of rising to meet a challenge, preparing you to be

completely and totally alert. What happens as you hear this? Does anything shift? What would it be like if this were a kind of anticipation gathering all of your energy for a big effort? You know, if this event is really that important, you need total access to all of your energy. Well, what if that's all that were happening? Lots of energy available.

Take a few moments to explore this idea and see if it shifts anything for you. The last method is to get some perspective by using your imagination to play with time. Whatever this event is, however important it seems right now, imagine yourself six months from now. Where will this day be? It'll be a memory. Try to picture yourself even further in the future. A year, five years out. And now, I invite you to look some perspective by taking the long view. Whatever you're hung up on now, it's all going to unfold in its own way, according to so many conditions that are outside of your control. And what would it be like to relax a bit into the flow of life? You might want to touch into feeling the ground again as you contemplate this. sitting, it's weight. Notice your breath. Feel the strength or alignment of your back. As you contemplate, letting ahead and let your eyes open.

If you like, take one more deep breath. Good luck. I've got faith in you. Big thanks to Orn before we go. I just want to remind you that we're launching the summer sanity challenge on July 27th. That's a meditation challenge that is free. And you can go to 10% dot com slash challenge to sign up. Here's how it works. For 21 days, we serve you up a short piece of video that

sort of gives you some useful content around the various challenges that come up for people in meditation. And then that is followed by a short guided meditation. We've carefully curated the flow of ideas here, the flow of techniques that we're introducing to you. And the goal of the challenge really is to help you boot up a meditation practice, or if you've got a meditation practice, but you fall off the wagon, the goal is to help you sort of get back on the tracks. And if you're an abiding meditator, the goal is really to help you kind of reinvigorate the whole thing.

And you can do this just by yourself, or you can do it with friends and family and track everybody's progress. It's really going to be great. It starts on the 27th and it is free, as I said, and you can sign up at 10% dot com slash challenge. The link is in the show notes. That's enough for me. I'll see you back here on Monday with a fresh episode. 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 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. Life is short and it's full of a lot of interesting questions. What does happiness really mean? How do I get the most out of my time here on Earth? And what really is the best cereal?

These are the questions I seek to resolve on my weekly podcast, Life is short with Justin Long. If you're looking for the answer to deep philosophical questions like, what is the meaning of life? I can't really help you, but I do believe that we really enrich our experience here by learning from others. And that's why in each episode, I like to talk with actors, musicians, artists, scientists, and many more types of people about how they get the most out of life. We explore how they felt during the highs and sometimes more importantly, the lows of their careers. We discuss how they've been able to stay happy during some of the harder times. But if I'm being honest, it's mostly just fun chats between friends about the important

stuff. Like, if you had a sandwich named after you, what would be on it? Follow Life is short wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen to Add Free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. which named after you, what would be on it? Follow Life is short wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen to Add Free on the Amazon Music or Wondering App.