Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Stepping Back From Stress| Bonus Meditation with Alexis Santos

Episode Date: October 15, 2021

Taking a bigger perspective and staying grounded in the body helps us experience life’s inevitable stress without being taken over by it.About Alexis Santos:Alexis has practiced and taught Insight Meditation in both the East and West since 2001. He has been a long-time student of Sayadaw U Tejaniya (a well respected meditation teacher in Burma whose teachings have attracted a global audience), and his teaching emphasizes knowing the mind through a natural and relaxed continuity -- a style of practice that's particularly useful during our crazy lives. Alexis has completed the Spirit Rock/IMS Teacher Training, teaches retreats across the globe, and currently lives in Portland, Maine.To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Stepping Away from Stress,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=6ab4db4d-eeb9-4f7e-baca-14938ce9d57c.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 gang, happy Friday. Time for a bonus meditation. We've got a really good one for you today on a topic that many of us know quite intimately

stress. In today's meditation, Alexis Santos is going to teach us how to take a few steps back from that stress to create some distance to see it for what it is. Alexis, I should say, is a very good friend, a highly skilled meditation teacher. He's been practicing for decades. You may remember his appearance on the show last month during which he and I talked about the fact that he has helped me discover a much more relaxing way to meditate. Alexis is also a beloved teacher over on the 10% happier app where he leads our on-the-go

course and offers a variety of other meditations. One item of business before we get to it with Alexis, one of the things we've heard from you, our listeners, is that even for people who meditate regularly, it can be hard to apply those insights, the ones we sometimes generate during meditation to the annoyances and quandaries of our day-to-day lives. You've been asking for a deeper dive into exactly how meditation can transform your life, and my colleague here at 10% happier, the meditation teacher Matthew Hepburn, has delivered

just that in his brand new podcast. He's got his own show now, which he is cheekily calling 20% happier on the podcast. You'll listen in on an intimate conversation between Matthew and his guests. His guests are not gurus. They meditate, yes, but their daily lives are probably a lot closer to yours than the Dalai Lamas. Matthew helps his guest unpack what's going on in their practice, where they feel stuck, what's working, what's not working, and then lead them to breakthroughs that can transform their lives and maybe yours too as you listen along. So if you want to listen to this new show, 20% happier,

download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps and then tap on the podcasts tab. Okay, without further ado, here's Alexis Santos. Hi, this is Alexis. In this session, we're going to explore one of the more common experiences that we all share, the feeling of stress, and the wisdom that helps to see it more clearly. Let's get started. Find a comfortable place to sit or lie down. Allow your eyes to gently close if you like. To get started, take a couple of deeper breaths to arrive more fully into this moment.

Notice how the body feels. Allow the awareness to sense the general experience of the whole body from the head to the face and shoulders down the torso and belly, the buttocks down to the feet, sensing the whole body. So, in this moment, see if you can appreciate the very simple ability to be aware right now. What is the nature of your experience in the body or your state of mind? Is there attention or tightness in your body somewhere? If feelings of stress are present, see if you can just acknowledge them and notice how they feel. Not pushing them away or trying to change them. being with them as they are.

Stress is often the results of not attending to what is actually happening. It's like we're living slightly out of sync with the direct experience. Either wanting something to be finished sooner, leaning into the future, or resisting what's already here. Notice what's happening in your direct experience. It might be tightness and stress or thoughts. There might be ease. Just notice. You might ask yourself some questions. How does stress feel in my body?

Where do I feel it most? And where is it felt least? Anxiety or stress is just as it is, something that you can step back from and observe, like like you'd watch a storm passing or clouds moving through the sky. As we become less identified with stress as my stress, we can see it as just another changing experience that we can be aware of. Like any sensation, thought or emotion that comes and goes. And it's through this understanding of stress that we can gain more ease, more freedom in our daily lives. When you're ready, you can open your eyes if they have been closed and reconnect in a more

natural way with the space around you. Thanks for listening and wishing you a good rest of the day or evening. Thank you, Alexis. We'll be right back here on Monday with the neuroscientist Amishijah talking about something called peak mind. 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-replus in Apple podcasts.

Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at 1dory.com-survey. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on Page Six or Du Moire or in court. I'm Matt Bellesai. And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wundery's new podcast, Dis and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud from the buildup, why it happened, and the repercussions.

What does our obsession with these feud say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Brittany and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Brittany's fans formed the free Brittany 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. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or The Wondry app. 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 Brownleur, 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.