Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - The Delusion of Perfection | Bonus Meditation with Leslie Booker

Episode Date: June 25, 2021

The struggle to keep up in the era of social media is universal. Bring compassion to your inner critic & release the delusion of perfection. About Leslie Booker: Booker brings her heart and wisdom to the intersection of Dharma, Embodied Wisdom, and Social Justice. Much of her work has been supporting incarcerated and vulnerable youth populations. To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Taming Your Inner Critic,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=2789fd7d-8427-4956-9378-0f01d59238c4. 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. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ From ABC, it's the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪

Hey guys, it's Friday, time for a bonus meditation. Over the last couple of weeks, we've spent a lot of time on the show, as you know, talking about anxiety. And one of the many sources of anxiety that we face is what today's meditation teacher calls the delusion of perfection, I like that term. It's very easy to get caught up in the fiction

that everybody else has everything figured out. So, today we've got a meditation specifically designed to help you untangle that delusion. Leslie Booker, who goes by the name Simply Booker, was a guest on the show earlier this week. Booker is an esteemed meditation teacher and one of the lead teachers in our taming anxiety challenge, which is running right now on the 10% happier app. Booker has spent many years bringing meditation and Buddhism to juvenile detention centers,

residential treatment centers, and Reikers Island. And today, she's here for you. Here we go now with Booker. Hey there, dear ones. This is Booker. We're living in a culture that is so heavily influenced by Yelp reviews and like some social media that we may find ourselves constantly striving to that level of perfection

that we believe everyone else is achieving. We may think we're alone in this struggle to keep up, but this is pretty universal. We all feel like we're not going to make the cut in one way or the other. And today's meditation will practice taming the inner critic by remembering that we're all just human and each with our own insecurities and imperfections. We'll be exploring compassion practice today.

You might find it useful to take some of the pressure off of the body by trying a lying down posture. You can lie in your back with your knees bent and the bottoms of your feet resting on the ground. It's helpful to keep the feet wide so that the knees can drop towards each other. Or you can stretch your legs out long if you prefer. The arms can be outstretched to your sides, overhead, or resting on your belly or chest. Begin to find your anchor.

The place in your body where you can feel a sense of ease. The anchor can be found by feeling the stillness, density, and solidity of your body, resting on the ground. The anchor can also be found by feeling the expansion and contraction of the breath breathing itself in and breathing itself out. Keep going at your own pace, feeling the weight of the body or the rhythm of the breath, quieting the nervous system. Now begin to turn towards what's happening right now. Not the experience that you think you should have, but what is present right now? How much of your present moment is in response to external pressures? From the meditation posture you're holding to the thoughts that are writing through your mind, how much is influenced by the outside world? When you peel back the facade of perfection, what you might find is that most folks are struggling

in life with the same things that you are. As you contemplate this, you can allow someone or a series of folks to come to mind. They could be someone you love dearly or the stranger walking by you on the street. Just let yourself get a sense of them, maybe visualizing their face or feeling their presence. The person on the magazine cover, the stranger on the subway, even a dear friend. What would it be like to move to the world knowing that just like me, they're also working with fear, anxiety, and stress in their lives? Just like me, this person feels a desire to limited, and what they deserve compassion and kindness. So take some time to let yourself rest with this sense of connection.

Bringing a hand to your heart or belly, connecting back to yourself, touching back to your anchor whenever you begin to recognize the suffering of another, there might be a feeling of caring that arises. This can feel like an opening, repart if you have been closed off. Take a few moments and see if you notice a sense of caring or warmth. Just like me, this person struggles with being human and longs to be loved and accepted and to feel safe. If you forget what you're doing or feel disconnected from this practice, you can come back to your anchor, knowing the stillness of the body, the movement of the breath, and begin helpful when you get caught up in this delusion of perfection. It's a powerful reminder that being human means being a little messy.

When you catch yourself comparing yourself to others, you can repeat the simple phrase just like me, reminding yourself that you are not alone. When you're ready, you can deepen the breath, perhaps bringing a small smile to the face, remembering that you are only human, like everyone else. Begin to slowly open your eyes if they're closed. And take a moment to check out your environment, orienting yourself back to your space. I hope this practice of remembering that you're not alone in your anxiety will be a benefit to you as you move through your day.

Be well dear ones. Thank you, Booker. We hope you enjoyed that meditation. If you're thinking, you know, I could have kept going for another five or ten minutes. Well I encourage you to check out the 10% happier app where you will find this very same meditation in different lengths to suit your practice. Your subscription costs directly supports our many, many wonderful teachers and really allows them to dedicate their time to teaching these incredible and life-changing skills. We'll see you back here on Monday for a brand new episode with Christen Neff, where to

talk about how self-compassion ain't always soft. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ 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. Like this 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, pure 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 Wondering App.