The One You Feed - Dan Harris and Oren Sofer

Episode Date: May 4, 2016

This week we talk to Dan Harris and Oren Sofer aboutmindful communicationOur guests this week are Dan Harris and Oren Sofer. Dan was a previous guest and we discussed his great book, 10%Happier. In addition, Dan is the current anchor on the weekendedition of Good Morning America as well as Nightline. He has begun creating a series of courses based around 10%Happier. One of those courses features Oren Sofer. Oren is a teacher and practitioner of Buddhist meditation,Nonviolent Communication (NVC), and Somatics. Oren is a specialistin the role of mindfulness in creating better conversation. This conversation was recorded in Dan's office in the ABCStudios in New York.  Our Sponsor this Week isCasper MattressVisit casper.com/feed and use the promo code“feed” to get $50 off!! In This Interview, Oren Dan and I Discuss:The One You Feed parableWhy mindfulness is useful in communicationThe10% Happier appLearning to see confrontation as an opportunity to improve therelationshipHow our cultural conditioning teaches us the Win/LoseparadigmHow we have a strong negative conditioning againstconfrontation that becomes hard-wiredHow mindfulness allows us to slow down and monitor ouremotional reactions in conversationThe role of curiosity in communicationHow to become more curiousLearning to ask "What matters here" when listening toothersLearning to say that we don't feel like talking instead of justpretendingThe minor discomfort of being realHow to say things in a way that the other person can hear andunderstandLearning to hold our tongue in certain situationsHow being silent can lead to its own challengesThe importance of timing in choosing when to addressissuesContext sensitive communicationThe two criteria of good communication: does the other personunderstand and does it lead to connectionDan Harris Links10% Happier HomepageTwitterFacebookOren Sofer LinksHomepageSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

tragedies. I don't know what the word is of our society is that we're all so nice. We're all trying to be so nice. Dan's not come work in the news business. Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.

Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction. How they feed their good wolf. hey y'all i'm dr joy harden bradford host of therapy for black girls this january join me for our third annual january jumpstart series starting january 1st we'll have inspiring conversations to give you a hand in kickstarting your personal growth. If you've been holding back or playing small, this is your all-access pass to step fully into the possibilities of the new year. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us.

Our guests this week are Dan harris and orin sofer dan was a previous guest and we discussed his great book 10 happier in addition dan is the current anchor on the weekend edition of good morning america as well as nightline he has begun creating a series of courses based around 10 happier one of those courses features Oren Sofer. Oren is a teacher and practitioner of Buddhist meditation, nonviolent communication, and somatics. He is also a specialist in the role of mindfulness in creating better conversation. Speaking of, this conversation was recorded in Dan's office at the ABC Studios in the UI. Hi, Dan. Hi, Oren. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Eric.

Yeah, great to be here. Thank you. I'm sitting here in Dan Harris's office in New York City, and we are recording a podcast, and we've got Oren J. Sofer from San Francisco area on the call. And Oren and Dan put together a course. It's part of the 10% Happier app that Dan has been working on, and it's called Effective Communication. So today what we'll do is we will just talk through some of the key things in that course, and it really brings together mindfulness along with how to communicate better with the people in our lives. So we'll get to that in just a second, but we'll start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.

One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second. And he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start the show off by asking you, Oren, how that parable applies to you in your life and in the work that you do. Thanks, Eric. Yeah, I've known that parable for many years and uh i always find it kind of moving i think for me it speaks to kind of one of the fundamental facts of the way we're built that allows meditation to work which is that our minds are malleable and and that we're sort of learning machines, and that the way we learn is through repetition.

So whatever we do more of, we're more likely to continue to do. And that's not just on the external plane, but also internally. So the very mind states and thoughts and perceptions that we cultivate and feed by repeating them and thinking them again and again become our character, you know, becomes how we are in the world with ourselves and others. Excellent. Dan, I'm going to start with you by asking you, you've got the 10% Happier app, which you've been partnering with experts in the mindfulness and meditation space to create courses. What made you want to reach out to Oren and start this

course? Well, it started about six to nine months ago when I got a call from a little company, a startup company in Boston. At the time, they were called Change Collective and they were doing mobile behavior change courses. And they wanted me to do one on meditation. I, of course, am not a meditation teacher. So they they had me recruit somebody who actually knows what he's talking about. Joseph Goldstein, who is my meditation teacher. And we did a course, a two week how to meditate course. And it did did quite well.

a two-week how to meditate course and it did did quite well and actually as a result of that the company decided to become a full-time meditation company so we renamed the whole thing 10% happier and started developing relationships with a bunch of teachers on a bunch of topics so Joseph Goldstein is doing a bunch of several courses Sharon Salzberg and then Oren had taught a course that one of my co-founders had taken at the Barry Center for Buddhist Studies, which is in Barry, Massachusetts, and he had loved it. And so we got on the phone and started figuring out, could we do something on communication? At first, I didn't even really know what that meant. But then being on the phone with Oren, it was obvious that mindlessness runs rampant through our communications, and we're constantly saying stupid shit that we regret.

And anybody who's in a relationship knows this, and it happens at work. It happens in almost every arena of life. And so talking to Oren, he really had a very well thought out system for improving this as sort of a training system for it. And also, the more time you spend with him, you realize that he could probably solve Middle East peace. with him, you realize that he could, you know, probably solve Middle East peace. He's just very good at figuring out what is the right thing to say and what is the right time to say it and the way in which to say it. So we developed this course. I mean, I can't say that it has alleviated my propensity for being a schmuck, but it certainly has helped. And I think it can for lots of people.

And the more you do the training, the better you'll be. Oren, we still haven't agreed really on the title for the course, right? We're calling it effective communication, but I think our goal all along has been to find a funnier title, right? Yes, that's right. I still want to do how to argue better, but I think you didn't like that. I'm kind of open to that one. Maybe how to not be a schmuck. That's pretty good too. Yeah, that's pretty good, too. Yeah. I'm talking to a guy here in a few days, Brad Warner. He's a Zen Buddhist teacher, and his new book is called Don't Be a Jerk, all about the teachings of dojin. So, let's start off going into the course a little bit. And, Oren, you talk about there

being a very key shift that happens at the beginning of this process. And that's basically to go from looking at confrontation as a negative thing to recognizing that those differences and disagreements can actually bring us closer together. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Sure. Yeah. It's a very kind of common reaction to difference or conflict or disagreement that we tend to contract inside and get anxious. And that's there for a lot of different reasons, not the least of which are our cultural conditioning and the experiences that we've each had in life.

So our cultural conditioning is that whenever there's a difference, there's only one of two options. Someone's going to get what they want, and someone's not going to get what they want. It's a win-lose paradigm that most of us have grown up with. And then based on that paradigm, we don't learn the tools to actually understand one another and really navigate a situation and find something that works for both people. And really through that process, actually understand one another better or learn something new. So because we are conditioned with this way of seeing things and don't learn the tools to do it differently, then we create experiences that confirm that, you know, from the time that we're very little. And adults maybe intervene and say,

you have to do this, or the other person has to do that. And so we learn very quickly that when our needs are challenged or threatened, that someone's going to win, someone's going to lose, and we know which side of that we want to be on. So that creates a whole conditioning around conflict. And then our nervous system actually gets patterned in that way, where it stops being an idea. And it actually starts being a physiological process that when there's tension, and depending on who that's with, it might be more pronounced, we start to have a whole response inside emotionally, with, it might be more pronounced, we start to have a whole response inside emotionally of however we've learned to meet that situation. So it might be responding with anger, it might be responding with fear or anxiety. So that's kind of the framework that most of us come to

this stuff with. And that there's the possibility, slowly, of having different experiences and realizing that there's a whole other way to relate to those situations that can lead to, like you said, more understanding, more connection, more closeness. which is that I think if we reflect on our lives, most of us have at least a few experiences where we've had a disagreement, we've had some difference of opinion, large or small, with someone that we have a steady relationship with and we work it through and we actually come out the other side closer, stronger, understanding each other better. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I've traditionally been the one who falls into the fear category and the give the other person exactly what they want category just to make the situation go away, which tends, you know, to what you're saying, to always be a losing situation for me. And the times that I have gotten better at being able to engage in a dialogue and

use some of the principles like you've got in this course, I suddenly realized we come out on the other end of that, not only like having solved that problem, but as closer as people. And I'm always sort of surprised by that because it goes so against, like you said, my long-term conditioning. Yeah. And you know, one of the keys is just reflecting on that and recognizing that that's possible. And then as we get some of these tools, one of the things that's sort of the hardest to convince people in learning these tools is to start small. Everyone wants to take just the littlest bit that they understand and apply it to the hardest situation in their life.

And it's not a great way to learn. You know, it's in some ways we want to build up gradually to those really difficult situations where we actually have enough mastery of our own emotions and the communication skills that we can come out of those situations successfully. Otherwise, we end up just feeling defeated or frustrated or, you know, kind of throwing the whole thing out. So the analogy I always use is it's like if you're trying to learn how to swim, you don't jump in the ocean on a stormy day. You go in a pool and you go in the shallow end where you can learn how to actually do the strokes.

And so in the same way, when we learn communication skills, which are really complex, there's a lot going on when we're talking with someone else, that we want to do it in situations that are relatively low stakes, that are safe at first, so we can actually get some facility and ease with the tools. And then slowly, little by little, we apply them to more situations. So what is the role of mindfulness in communication, Dan? How do these things tie together? Mindfulness is just the ability to know what's happening in your head without being carried away by it. And we're constantly beset and besieged by emotions and urges and desires while we're in conversation with other people. The urge might be to check your BlackBerry or to have a sharp, judgmental, critical thing or

not to listen or any number of different factors. And so just to be aware of what's happening in your mind while you're in conversation with somebody is to up the odds that you won't be yanked around by it. We had Kerry Patterson on the show who wrote a book called Crucial Conversations, which is an excellent book. One of the things they say is just be aware that you're in a crucial conversation

and bring the mindfulness and awareness to what's happening and what your reaction is in those situations. Yeah, I mean, I think that's true. Easier said than done, of course. But I mean, Oren, do you think I got that right? Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think that's kind of the foundation, Dan. For me, it goes further than that because, you know, mindfulness, it's one analogy I also use is mindfulness is like a magnifying glass, right? That helps us to see things more clearly. And so in addition to being able to see what's going on in our mind during a conversation, and as you say, not be yanked around by it, it actually gives us a really steady instrument

to examine our conditioning, our patterns. How do we behave in conversations? What are our defaults? And to actually start to tease apart not just the grossest thoughts on the surface that are happening, but how are we feeling? Where is that coming from? What matters to us?

What are we needing in a situation? What do we want to actually have happen next in we're reacting to something and have a different framework for connecting with that. a different framework for connecting with that. So a lot of the students that I work with, we focus on conversations and relationships, but there's a whole segment of the work that's really just about understanding oneself better and having more clarity about what we're feeling and needing and bringing to a situation, whether that involves someone else or not. And here's the rest of the interview with Dan Harris and Oren Sofer. The course that you guys developed, what I noticed is in the practice section where, Oren, you're leading meditations, there's a mindfulness component in the way we maybe are traditionally thought of approaching mindfulness. And then there's a lot of stuff in there about... Hey, y'all. I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls. And I'm thrilled to

invite you to our January Jumpstart series for the third year running. All January, I'll be joined by inspiring guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations. We're talking about topics like building community and creating an inner and outer glow. I always tell people that when you buy a handbag, it doesn't cover a childhood scar. You know, when you buy a jacket, it doesn't reaffirm what you love about the hair you were told not to love.

So when I think about beauty, it's so emotional because it starts to go back into the archives of who we were, how we want to see ourselves, and who we know ourselves to be and who we can be. So a little bit of past, present and future, all in one idea, soothing something from the past. And it doesn't have to be always an insecurity. It can be something that you love. All to help you start 2025 feeling empowered and ready. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really Know Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like... Why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out

if your dog truly loves you, and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stunt man reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us tonight. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park.

Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, No Really. Yeah, Really.

No Really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Becoming more mindful of what's happening inside of us as far as emotions and what we actually want out of situations. Yeah, absolutely. The formal mindfulness practice really helps us to develop the first foundation of any kind of communication or relational skills, which is the ability to be present, the ability to really be here in the moment, know what's happening, stay oriented, and not get lost in our impulses

and reactions. And then as that awareness grows and stabilizes, we can take it and apply it to different areas of our internal experience. And that's the guided practice throughout the two weeks does is it takes us through step by step, building our mindfulness, strengthening the awareness, and then applying it to different components of our experience. way into your course also is around curiosity. You talk about getting into a position of curiosity. What's the role of curiosity in having a better conversation? For me, it's one of the central factors. And it's the outcome of that key shift that we started talking about. You know, curiosity is really an intention. It's about our motivation, right? And to be curious means we have to recognize the possibility that there's something we don't know, you know,

that there's something we could learn here, that there's another way of looking at things. that there's another way of looking at things. And so it's kind of a whole inner orientation to life, really. You know, it's one of the core factors in mindfulness practice is the ability to be interested. And if you don't have curiosity and interest, it's really difficult to practice mindfulness for more than five minutes because things get very, very tedious and boring very quickly. It's like another breath, another thought, another pain in my back, you know? So this is another area in which the two really support each other because we strengthen curiosity through mindfulness practice.

We strengthen curiosity through mindfulness practice. And then we bring that same factor to our conversations. And it's what allows us to actually start to connect with the other person. When someone else really senses that we're genuinely interested in understanding them, it changes the whole space of a conversation. It really aligns us with one another so that we're no longer fighting or trying to one-up each other or be right, but the other person's sense is like, oh, you're really trying to understand me, and then we can start to actually work together. So it's, yeah, go ahead, Dan. I was just going to say, what if you use the,

the factor of interest or curiosity to figure out what is driving the other person so that you can completely vanquish them in the conversation? I would call that a misapplication of the tools. And, uh, you know, the, the thing about human beings is that, um, You know, the thing about human beings is that we're pretty sensitive and sometimes we don't we're not fully conscious of how sensitive we are. But I think we pick things up. And so most people can can tell intuitively, getting curious in order to win, or like you say, vanquish the other person or assert yourself over them and kind of dominate them, uh, that's called manipulation, right? And generally people feel that they feel when that sense of interest isn't genuine, right? isn't genuine right so uh it's likely to not necessarily uh have the the really desired effect and shift in the conversation you know the other the other thing you're pointing to

dan is kind of the whole question of like well if i have the power to get my needs met and win in a conversation why not right um there i think there are a lot of reasons why not um from the uh from sort of the enlightened case for self-interest from from that side of things you know when we use our power uh to dominate get what we want from someone or from a situation in that way there's it comes at a cost and one of the one of the factor of the costs is in the quality of trust and goodwill in the relationship so if it's a relationship that we care about in any way or that So if it's a relationship that we care about in any way or that we need to continue in some way, we're going to lose a certain amount of that person's trust in us. And that makes it harder to work together.

That makes it harder to do things our way without including their input their energy um we lose their sense of intrinsic motivation because they feel like well i don't have a say anyway so you know why try and then you know any anyone who's ever supervised or managed people knows how hard it is to work with others who aren't intrinsically motivated, who don't want to take the initiative and work. Well, a surefire way to create those conditions is to force people to do what you want. You know, very, very quickly, they will stop giving you any energy that they don't have to. And then another cost that's uh that's really key is especially in work situations um but even in personal situations is that we lose a certain amount of creativity any one of us

really can only see things from a certain limited perspective and so the more perspectives we include, the more possibility there is for creating something unexpected and beautiful, you know, sort of more creative that we might not have thought of or seen. When I talk about this stuff, I just really think about where we are kind of on the planet and our society today, the kinds of issues that we're facing and recognizing that, you know, no one person is going to solve the problems we're facing. We need that kind of ability to hear one another and think creatively and collaboratively in new ways. So developing these tools helps us to be able to do that. Right. So is it safe to say, Oren, that you will not be partnering with Dan

on his new course, Manipulation and Mindfulness? I love that course. Manipulation. You know, I might actually have to partner with Dan to make sure that teaching people both sides of the story there. That would be a good one, Dan. Somebody needs to keep an eye on me. I would just say on this issue of curiosity, just brings to mind something interesting that Joseph Goldstein once said to me, that there is, in his mind at least, a difference between curiosity and interest. Curiosity has a sense

of kind of edginess to it, a patina of, or maybe more, of desire, whereas interest has smoother connotations, more quantumist connot and craving, right, in how we're relating to something. I use the term synonymously. And in the realm of communication, I find that curiosity is something that people can kind of understand very quickly and easily. and easily. And it's a good way for people to access that kind of natural interest, because we understand curiosity. We understand sometimes even how to get there. It's like, well, just can I get curious about this? It's a question that people can ask themselves very easily. When we start talking about the refinements of meditation practice where we're dealing with our own mind, then we start to be able to feel those subtle differences, Dan, that I think Joseph's talking about where curiosity is there's this kind of leaning forward

and maybe a little bit of a wanting to get something from it, whereas interest can have that more pure quality of just wanting to come close to an experience and know it for its own sake. I've always been curious about how one generates curiosity or interest because, you know, on the cushion, sometimes shit gets really boring, you know, and so how do you make it interesting? And same, you know And sometimes you're ever in conversation with somebody and it's just irredeemable. So what is your advice there? Sorry to hijack your podcast. No, it's fine.

Or I think to tag on to that, or you're in a conversation with somebody where you've heard them say this same thing a thousand times before. How do you approach that fresh? Become curious about something that you've heard a lot. I love these questions. They're great. So, maybe let's start with the outer, and then we'll work towards the inner. We'll start with the relationship communication question. One of the most kind of general and universally applicable ways to get curious about someone else, something they're saying, a conversation, is to listen for what matters. So to ask yourself in some way, what does this person need? What are they valuing? What matters to them here?

This is based on the fundamental principle of human psychology that we're rational creatures for the most part motivated by meeting our needs. And it's not a way that we usually look at or understand situations. And so just remembering that and holding that question, what matters here is a way that we can get curious, you know? So if someone's saying, you know, we've heard someone say something many, many times, and then we start asking that question, well, what matters here? We start listening in a different way. We start listening for that sense

of like, well, why is this person repeating that? What do they need? You know, and then there's the possibility of us actually responding in a different way. We might actually start to give that person what they need, maybe the kind of empathy that they're longing for or the kind of understanding that they're really wanting. And then something can shift. So there's a caveat here also on the relational side of being in a conversation where we're having trouble continuing to listen. And there's just kind of a whole nother side of that, which is bringing a conversation back to life, right? Because if you think about it, if you were talking to someone and they didn't want to listen, wouldn't you want to know that? Wouldn't you want to stop talking?

It's not very enjoyable or nourishing for us to talk to someone when they don't want to listen. So we can take that and turn it around and go, gee, I really don't want to listen to this person anymore. It's probably not serving them either, if that's the case case and so then finding a way to skillfully interrupt actually and bring the conversation back to life you know to say something like you know i'm just forgive me for interrupting for a second but uh i'm i'm actually i'm having trouble following you a little bit and wonder um what's going on for you right now. Or we could tell them, you know, I'd really like to be able to stay more connected to you while we're talking and I'm just noticing my attention wandering

and wonder if I could just share what's going on for me for a little bit. You know, just kind of change things up in a way. And doing that in a way that we're letting the person know that our motivation is to actually make this situation more enjoyable and alive for both of us. So I just said a lot. Maybe I can pause there and see if the meditation question is still relevant or if either of you want to chime in with anything. I think it is. I want to get to Dan's question, but I want to probe a little further on what you're saying here, because there are times that whether it's that I'm in a bad mood, I'm tired, a variety of different not the time. Or, you know, because I think what a lot of us do is just sort of go into the nod yes mode while the conversation happens and we're somewhere else inside. Yeah. I think it's one of the great, I don't know if it's great, but one of

the kind of endemic tragedies, I don't know what the word is of our society, is that we're all so nice. We're all trying to be so nice. Dan's not come work in the news business. Oh, gosh. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, that kind of nodding and going along with it. It's so draining. Right? It's so draining to our energy. And so just recognizing, again, the cost that that has on us and to really just take a step back and say, okay, why am I not being transparent here? Why am I not speaking up for myself and taking care of what I need, or at least trying to in this moment? And oftentimes it's just that we want to avoid the minor discomfort of being real, you know, because we're not used to it. We're not used to being

really honest and open with one another. And yet when we do, there's so much energy there. There's so much juice there, right? The very kind of conversation that feels so dead as soon as, you know, we're accusing the other person of saying the same thing over and over again and boring us to death, but we're kind of doing the same thing, right? If we're not being real, if we're kind of suppressing what's going on for us. So yes, absolutely. I would say find a way to speak up and be real and say, hey, listen, you know, I'm so sorry about this, but I'm just so exhausted right now. And I'm finding it really hard to stay engaged in the conversation. And that's probably not going to be fun for either of us. Can we just kind of take a break and talk about this later?

I'm worried Dan might say that. He had to get up at 345 this morning. I'm actually just sitting here admiring the creativity with which you address these situations that most of us just let linger because we don't want to brush up against the minor inconvenience of being real. What was the phraseology there? The discomfort. Minor discomfort of being real. I like that phrase. Thank you. we're allergic to discomfort or the other side of it right we're addicted to comfort in our society and that's you know that's another kind of great benefit of mindfulness practice is that it gets uncomfortable you know it's uncomfortable to sit

still for half an hour 45 minutes so we we build up the we increase our tolerance for discomfort we increase our capacity for being able to feel and be balanced with discomfort. And then that translates into our relationships where we can tolerate discomfort long enough to actually come through the other side and find some more useful ways of relating. I find, speaking of discomfort, that it's not so much that I'm saying much more diplomatic or clever things, not clever in the sense of witty, but clever in the sense of non-confrontational things. Or it's that it's that I'm actually not saying the thing I want to say at all, because I have enough mindfulness to know that that thing that I feel like saying is just going to. Hey, y'all. I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls. And I'm thrilled to invite you to our January Jumpstart series for the third year running.

All January, I'll be joined by inspiring guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations. We're talking about topics like building community and creating an inner and outer glow. I always tell people that when you buy a handbag, it doesn't cover a childhood scar. You know, when you buy a jacket, it doesn't reaffirm what you love about the hair you were told not to love. So when I think about beauty, it's so emotional

because it starts to go back into the archives of who we were, how we want to see ourselves, and who we know ourselves to be and who we can be. So a little bit of past, present and future, all in one idea, soothing something from the past. And it doesn't have to be always an insecurity. It can be something that you love. All to help you start 2025 feeling empowered and ready. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. aware of it than I used to be. But because I'm able to see, you know, the storms on the

Doppler radar, as it were, I'm 10% less likely to just pop off. That seems in many ways to be the better part of valor in some percentage of the circumstances. Yeah, completely. I mean, you're pointing to that ability to actually restrain ourselves right from saying something reactively or saying something that's not going to be helpful for either one of us you know then the the communication tools there come in where like it's that sense of when we do want to say something or when we do need to say something then how do we understand what's happening inside of us and say it in a way that's going to help the other person hear it? You know, sometimes even just having that having that frame in mind, how can I say this in such a way that the other person is going to hear it and understand it?

Right. Can go a long way. It's the difference between God, I thought of the best example last night and see if i can remember it um it's the difference between saying like uh you're selfish and i really want some more attention you know it's just like we're saying the same thing in some way but how much more likely is it for for us to get what we want when we speak about our own experience and say, you know, I really want some more attention versus you're being so selfish. So understanding ourselves better and being able to speak in a way that's going to make it easier for the other person to hear and more likely that we're actually going to get what we want or find some sort of understanding. Right. And I want to go into that. You talk about how we say, I feel, and then we throw in an action word. I feel like you're attacking me. But I want to go into that in a second. But I really think this area that we've been poking around in about, you know, not saying certain things or saying certain things is really an interesting one to me.

Because I think maybe differently from Dan, I learned, I think, a while ago to not do the spouting off piece. Like, I learned to just, you know, kind of clamp my mouth shut. Differently from Dan, who only recently learned that. Yeah, that's what he said. I mean, you may be giving me more credit than I deserve. I partially learned it. Episodically learned it. But I found that that creates its own sort of problems, because then what is coming through is some sort of vague blankness and resentment. And so in either of those situations, I think, Oren, what you're suggesting is we have to find some way to communicate that maybe this isn't the right time for us or that we're, you know, how do we let somebody know where we are in that point without being hurtful, without just sort of, you know, biting our tongue the whole time?

Right, it seems like there's a difference between, I was thinking about this as I was saying it before, a difference between restraint and squashing. Right. Unconstructive squashing. I mean, there are two things in what you're saying, Eric. Dan, you're talking to the first, which is that very difference. And recognizing that, you know, I think each of us comes to our adult life with different conditioning around that. And some people tend on the more suppression repression side. And for them, it's more about learning how to speak up, you know, and really how to say what's going on.

And for other people, they're more on the spouting off side. And then there's that the shift is again towards the middle, but that's in the other direction of learning how to hold back and to hold one's tongue and have more choice about what we say. And for each of those types of people and situations, it's equally hard to work against our conditioning and come into the middle. And the middle is the place of mindfulness where we're aware, we know what's going on, and therefore we start to have more choice about do I speak or don't I speak? If I speak, what do I say? If I speak, when do I speak? Is it now?

Do I kind of hold my tongue, wait till the storm passes and then bring it up later? You know, a lot of our communication stuff is also just around timing, recognizing that we don't choose the right time and place to have a conversation. I mean, my partner who I live with, I'm learning finally when she's getting ready for work in the morning, you know, not to bring up logistical questions about what do you want to do this weekend? Because her mind isn't there. You know, it's a small thing. We don't fight about it. But it's just kind of a time and place issue. I lost track of the second part of your question, Eric,

you want to just... I think I lost track of it, too. I think it was really just about that. My experience being the biting my tongue tongue eventually becomes as painful for the other person because then like, where is he? What's going on with him? Right. It's the silent treatment. It's they don't, nobody knows what's really going on inside my brain. And I thought for years that I was, you know, doing pretty good because I wasn't, you know, saying anything mean and realizing that I could be almost as hurtful by just never saying anything. You sound like a troubled man.

Why do you think I'm doing this podcast? I think, you know, one way to kind of summarize that predicament, Eric, is that there, I think there are two values. the way or was that effective communication on my part i would i would say so yeah i think so i think we all understood what you meant and it led to more connection and understanding stop giving me such a break i think the 10 happier segment we want to see is orin watching dan communicate at home for a weekend giving live commentary. Yeah, I know. I think he should have like a, I should have an earpiece. He should be like Cyrano style, like advising me.

Don't say that, Harris. Do say this. Yeah, that would be great. That'd be a great reality show. Anyway, we've cut you off. You were trying to say something constructive. Yeah. Well, then another two things. So when you said, was that effective communication?

You know, you're pointing to something actually pretty important there. When you make that joke, when you make that joke about your joke and say, was that effective communication? You know, you're pointing to something actually pretty important there when you make that joke, when you make that joke about your joke and say, was that effective communication? Which is that what passes for good communication or effective communication? It's not about what we say. It's really not about what we say. You can say F you. And if the other person understands what you mean, and it's connecting rather than disconnecting, then we're using good communication. It's really a very, very context sensitive thing in which we have to look at what's the yardstick that we're using to measure this. And the yardstick

that I use is, does the other person understand? And does it lead to connection? Is it actually bringing us together? And if you can say yes to both of those, then it's working. And it's not so much about the words that you're saying. Yeah, along those lines, my wife and I have this whole shtick of basically, I act like a jerk all the time and completely try to press her buttons constantly. And once in a while, she'll just get up in my ear and whisper, fuck you. Exactly. And that actually is effective communication. Right, right. And you know what she means. She means, Dan, I love you and you're driving me crazy right now. So why don't you take a break? Right. Yeah. But it's so much easier and

simpler to just whisper those words. So I want to get back to this other thing, Eric, that you were saying about, you know, suppressing and the cost or the damage that can do both to ourself and someone else. And for me, it's really important with any of these questions to keep that frame in mind that everything we do, we do for a reason. We're doing to try to meet some need and to not demonize any of our communication patterns, right? I mean, the classic kind of one is someone blowing their top and screaming. Why? Because they're trying to get the other person to understand them, right? It's the most suicidal attempt at understanding, you know, when we scream and yell and raise our voice, the last thing the other person wants to do

is give us empathy and understand where we're coming from. And yet we're desperately trying to do that, you know? So just understanding our actions are there for a reason. So that sense of suppressing or not saying something is an attempt to actually hold the other person with care, right? To not cause harm and to not lose sight of that fact that there's generally some kind of wholesome motivation underneath what we're doing that we can identify. And the two that we're sort of dancing around in this conversation around, well, do you interrupt or do you hold your tongue is one is that sense of care, care and concern. And then the other is being real, being truthful, being honest. And we tend to err on one side or the other. We focus on being honest and truthful,

but we throw the care out the window and blast someone. Or we focus on being caring and kind and concerned, and so we don't speak up. And the sweet spot that we're aiming for is really being able to bring both of those together, where we can be open and honest, and still do that in a way that's caring and kind, and taking the other person into consideration. Great. We're nearing the end, and I want to wrap up with a question that I thought was really good in the book. You talk about, we interpret everything. We tend to just, you know, somebody is doing something, and we tend to interpret it as meaning X. And I'm as guilty of this as anybody. I think we all do it. But you talk about moving

away from that interpretation and moving into thinking about it in the sense of what could actually be caught on film, which I thought was interesting, Dan, because I think in the course, you said, well, that's exactly what you do. Your work is to get to what can actually be caught on film. And so I'm just interested in your guys' take on moving away from the story in our head about what somebody is doing or means and getting back to the more literal what could be caught on film. I'll let you field that, Oren. Sure. It's a very deep training. you field that, Oren? Sure. It's a very deep training, you know. First, just understanding the very concept of the difference between our stories and reality is huge. And just recognizing that we're all telling stories all of the time about anything, you know. Interpreting what we're doing, you know, telling a story, uh, you know, this is a great podcast.

That's a story. That's fact, right? What do you actually mean by that? You know, like, well, I listened to this podcast every week and I really enjoy it. I get a lot out of it. That's closer to what's actually happening. This is a great podcast is a story and interpretation and judgment. So there's nothing wrong with judgments, interpretations, and stories. We use them. They're necessary in life. But where we run into problems is when we don't recognize that that's what we're doing. We're not actually doing it consciously. And so we move up into these higher levels of abstraction, of having a story about something like, you don't value my work, a hot topic for couples, you know, like, you don't care about my family, you know, like, you're not interested in having a relationship

with those are stories, right? It's like, what's actually happening that I'm drawing those conclusions from that we can actually talk about. This is a skill that's essential for meditation practice and that we cultivate in meditation practice, which is being able to observe what's happening directly. So we move from the story of my back hurts. Well, my back is a story it's a concept you know when you actually get into the experience there's just sensation located in different in space and i'm in pain or hurts is another concept another story what's actually happening what's the sensation you know it's hard or tight or twisting or stabbing or burning or aching, you know, something along those lines. So that very skill of being able to differentiate between the conceptual overlay or the story we're

telling to what's actually happening is very, very helpful in our communication and being able to talk about issues in a way that the other person can hear and recognize without taking issue with. So we can bring something up and say, hey, I want to talk about this without immediately getting into a fight because we're able to observe what's happening in a neutral, clear, direct way. So can you give an example of that in communication, a place where I'm interpreting what somebody is doing or I'm inferring a motive? Sure. Yeah, I'll give you an example from something that happened for me this week with a colleague where we were having a meeting and something charged came up and this colleague shared their feelings and needs. And in an email later, I referred to what happened as her sharing her side of things.

Okay. Even that phrase, your side of things, that's a story. It's my interpretation that she was sharing her side of things. That didn't work for her. She said, you know, like, that's not my side of things. There's a lot more going on for me that I didn't even share. I just spoke about my experience and shared some of my feelings. Right.

So that would have been a much clearer observation. When you spoke up and shared your feelings. So and some people listening to this might be like, God, you're splitting hairs. Yeah, in some way I am, but the point is that when I just moved a little bit towards a summary and an interpretation of what had happened, that didn't match their experience and it led to a disagreement and some disconnection.

So the closer we can be in our language to just what happened, rather than the interpretation or the story, the more likely it is that the other person is going to be able to recognize that without taking issue with it. And where it starts to get, you know, more heated and clear is when we have stories like, you don't care about me, or you're ignoring me, or you're a slob, you know, things like that, where there's clearly an overlay of a judgment. And we're not actually talking about the data, like the actual observable data that we're drawing those conclusions from. Right. An example would be, you don't respect me.

And the behavior that was observed was somebody not bringing the trash cans in. Exactly. You know, and jumping all the way from somebody didn't bring the trash can into, you don't, you know, you don't respect me. I think parents and children get into that a lot. That sort of, the parent is thinking that there's some huge charge to their authority or whatever, and the kid is just forgetful and a kid. Well, Dan, Oren, this has been fun. I'm glad we got to do this.

Glad we got to do it in person. Thanks for coming on again, Dan. Oren, thanks for coming on the first time. Sure thing. And we will have links to Oren and Dan's work as well as the 10% Happier course on the website at oneufeed.net. Thanks, guys. Thanks so much, Eric. Thank you. All right. Take care. Bye. you can learn more about Orin Sofer and this podcast at oneufeed.net slash Orin