Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Reflecting on Your Life | Bonus Meditation with Sebene Selassie

Episode Date: August 28, 2020

Growing up, Sebene felt like a big weirdo. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and raised in white neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., she was a tomboy Black girl who loved Monty Python and UB40. She never believed she belonged. Thirty years ago, she began studying Buddhism as an undergraduate at McGill University where she majored in Comparative Religious Studies. Now, Sebene is a teacher, author, and speaker who teaches that meditation can help us remember our inherent sense of belonging, that our individual freedom affects absolutely everyone and everything, and that our collective freedom depends on each and every one of us. Sebene is a three-time cancer survivor of Stage III and IV cancer. In the Ten Percent Happier app, you'll find this same meditation in different lengths to suit your practice. Your subscription directly supports our wonderful teachers and allows them to dedicate their time to teaching the life-changing skill of mindfulness. As an added incentive, we've got a special discount for anyone new to the app.  To claim your discount, visit tenpercent.com/bonus 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 guys, we're doing something a little different for the Friday bonus meditation this week. This one's from Sebinée Salassi author of the forthcoming book You Belong and

instead of just doing the traditional mindfulness move of tuning into the breath and the body and there's a little bit of that in here. She's also encouraging us to work on some other trainable skills such as perspective and gratitude. With that said, over to 7a. Hi, this is 7a. As a three-time cancer survivor, I've come to appreciate both the blessings and challenges

of my life. How it's all contributed to the happiness and well-being I have in this moment. In this meditation, you'll be reflecting on your life as a way to cultivate appreciation for the particular roads you've traveled to get here. Let's begin. Find a comfortable seated posture. Your eyes can be open or closed. Sit upright, but make sure your back is not tight or rigid.

Take a few moments to settle into your body, connecting to the breath as a way to anchor and gather your attention. Now, let's spend some time reviewing your life starting with childhood. Bring to mind a happy memory from when you are a kid. We all have them, even if for some of us they're harder to remember. Try and connect to where, when, and how it occurred. See if you can elicit all the sensory recollections of this happy memory. That's just one moment in an entire childhood of sensory memories. All the childhood experiences that got you here. Now let's move on to adolescence. that got you here. Now let's move on to adolescence. Can you remember the energy of that time?

Perhaps they were insecurities or maybe hope about the future neither or both. Bring to mind a memory of a challenge for adolescents. Nothing traumatic, but something you now see with some more perspective. Can you remember how this challenge made you feel? All these moments from adolescence have gotten you to where you are today. Perhaps you can even appreciate them. Now, let's move on to current adult life. Everyone has a mixture of happiness and unhappiness and daily life.

Is there a particular challenge that you're having a hard time accepting right now? Keep this particular challenge in mind and take a few moments to settle into an awareness of the body. Just notice what's going on for you internally. Breathing in, breathing out. You don't need to choose or reject any particular experience. Just know that it's all part of the flow of life you've been witnessing since childhood. As we end this meditation, try extending gratitude for this pretty miraculous life you've led. Each moment has gotten you to where you are today. See if you can bring some appreciation to it all. Great job.

You can open your eyes now and begin to move your hands and feet. Let yourself reconnect to your surroundings as we end this meditation. Thanks for your practice. See you next time. I really hope you enjoyed that meditation. If you're thinking, you know, I really could have kept that going for another five or ten minutes. I encourage you to check out the 10% happier app where you will find this same meditation in different lengths to suit your practice. The price you pay for your subscription supports our wonderful teachers and allows them to dedicate their time to teaching these skills of mindfulness which can be life changing. As an added incentive, we've got a special discount for anybody who's new to the app.

To claim that discount, you can visit 10% dot com slash bonus. That is 10%, one word all spelled out dot com slash bonus. And if you're an existing subscriber, we thank you for your support. If you're a existing subscriber, we thank you for your support. in Apple podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry.com slash survey. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting.

Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown-Oller, we will be your resident not-so-expert experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking. Oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. 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. I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts, you can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app.