Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - This Will Make You Stronger | Bonus Meditation with Sharon Salzberg

Episode Date: September 3, 2021

Deepen your inner strength and learn to draw boundaries and respond to injustice in this powerful loving-kindness meditation for yourself. Watch Ted Lasso on Apple TV+. Subscription required. Apple TV+ and/or select content may not be available in all regions. To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Kindness for Inner Strength,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=135d547d-18a1-48a6-a562-e325f74ffe40. About Sharon Salzberg: A towering figure in the meditation world, Sharon Salzberg is a prominent teacher & New York Times best-selling author. Sharon co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) alongside Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield and is the author of nine books, including Lovingkindness, Real Happiness, and Real Love. Sharon lives in New York City and teaches around the world. 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. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, there's a common misconception, a pretty pernicious misconception. I think that if you have your own back, if you're too nice to yourself, if you go easy, you will become ineffective for out of control in some way, weak. In fact, and there's data to back

this up, and certainly I've seen this happen in my own mind. Having a friendly attitude toward yourself is the source of immense strength. We've got a bonus meditation today from a person I believe is the premier proponent of friendliness to ourselves and others in the West. And her name is Sharon Salzberg. She's one of the founding teachers on the 10% happier app. She also wrote a book called Loving Kindness, one of her many, many hit books. I did mention that she's one of the primary teachers over on the 10% happier app.

And speaking of the app, we are kicking off a brand new five day meditation challenge on the app next week. It's in collaboration with the good folks over at Apple TV+. Who's critically acclaimed comedy series Ted Lasso is currently airing in its second season. The goal of the challenge is to help you be kind to other people and to yourself. You and many thousands of other meditators can join me in this exploration. Every day I'll drop a video where I play a short clip from the show, and then we roll right

into a guided meditation that helps you put into practice what you've learned in the video. Important to note, while I do recommend the show, I think it's very funny and very interesting and illustrative, really. You don't have to have watched the show in order to get a lot out of this challenge. So join us no matter what. You can get ready for this free challenge by downloading the 10% happier app right now, wherever you get your apps, and then signing up for the challenge, which launches on September 7th.

Okay, let's do today's bonus meditation with Sharon Salzburg. Hi, this is Sharon. Loving kindness meditation for ourselves is a powerful way to deepen our inner strength. If we grow this sense of self-respect to start with, it will allow us to draw boundaries, respond to unfair treatment, and join with others in a sense of common cause. Let's begin. Sit comfortably, relax. You can close your eyes if you feel comfortable. We begin by actively taking delight in our own goodness.

Think of a good quality that is alive within you. It may be a very small thing, but bring it to mind now. We then silently repeat phrases that reflect what we would wish most deeply for ourselves, using traditional phrases like, may I live in safety, may I be safe, may I have mental happiness, which is peace and joy, may I have physical happiness, which means health and freedom from pain, may I live with ease, which is, may the elements of daily life go easily, not be such a struggle. You can use these phrases or any others that are more personally meaningful to you. May I have mental happiness. May I live with ease. Just gather all of your attention behind one phrase at a time and repeat the phrases of loving kindness for yourself. It is said that we can search the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of our love

and affection than we are ourselves and we won't find that person anywhere. So as you receive this energy coming towards you, be in touch with that truth. We deserve to be happy. We deserve to be safe, just as all beings do. May I have mental happiness? May I have physical happiness? Man live with ease. And when you feel ready, you can open your eyes. You can see how developing a greater self-respect and loving kindness toward ourselves is a doorway into deepening our own strength to

care for others and the world. Thank you for your practice. Thanks again to Sharon, it's your giant, I have to say. Before we head out, let me mention again the Ted Lasso Challenge, which will teach you how to practice kindness to yourself as Sharon just did and to other people, including obnoxious people. The challenge starts on Tuesday, September 7th, over on the 10% happier app, just download the app wherever you get your apps to join. If you're really itching to go and you wanna do your homework,

you can get started on watching season two of Ted Lasso, which is airing right now over on Apple TV+. We'll see you back here on Monday with a great meditation teacher. First time on the show, Las Armiento, who will be the teacher for the Ted Lasso challenge. That's coming up on Monday, see you then. [♪ 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. 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. 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, you're 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. 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 Wonder A app.