The One You Feed - Reclaim Your Mind: How to Build a Healthier Relationship with Technology with Jay Vidyarthi

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

In this episode, Jay Vidyarthi discusses how to reclaim your mind and build a healthier relationship with technology. He explores common pitfalls—like avoidance, anxiety, and judgment—and shares practical strategies for using digital tools consciously. Jay emphasizes personal agency, setting boundaries, and the value of both online and offline connections. This conversation challenges the idea that technology is inherently good or bad, instead encouraging listeners to cultivate awareness, compassion, and intentional habits to foster well-being and authentic relationships in a tech-driven world. Exciting News!!!Coming in March 2026, my new book, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life is now available for pre-orders!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Key Takeaways The relationship between technology and mindfulness. The tension between the desire for genuine connection and the allure of digital devices. The concept of technology as neither inherently good nor bad, but shaped by our relationship with it. Strategies for engaging with technology mindfully, as discussed in Jay Viviani's book. The "two wolves" parable and its implications for attention and emotional awareness. The importance of clarity and awareness in managing emotions related to technology use. The role of meditation and mindfulness practices in cultivating a healthier relationship with technology. The impact of societal narratives on perceptions of technology and its users. The significance of personal agency in setting boundaries and making conscious choices regarding technology. The potential for technology to meet emotional and social needs when approached mindfully. For full show notes,⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!⁠ Connect with the show: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow us on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@TheOneYouFeedPod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you enjoyed this conversation with Jay Vidyarthi, please check out these other episodes: The Hidden Costs of Technology and Our Search for Selfhood with Vauhini Vara Distracted or Empowered? Rethinking Our Relationship with Technology with Pete Etchells By purchasing products and/or services from our sponsors, you are helping to support The One You Feed, and we greatly appreciate it. Thank you! This episode is sponsored by: Hungry Root: For a limited time, get 40% off your first box PLUS get a free item in every box for life. Go to www.hungryroot.com/feed  and use code FEED. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Aura Frames⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: For a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AuraFrames.com /FEED ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠to get $35 off Aura’s best-selling Carver Mat frames – named #1 by Wirecutter –  by using promo code FEED at checkout. This deal is exclusive to listeners, and frames sell out fast,  so order yours now to get it in time for the holidays! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Uncommon Goods ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠has something for everyone – you’ll find thousands of new gift ideas that you won’t find anywhere else, and you’ll be supporting artists and small, independent businesses. To get 15% off your next gift, go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠UNCOMMONGOODS.com/FEED⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Post your job for free at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linkedin.com/oneyoufeed⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you start to look at a problematic technology, so in your example, Twitter, you start to look at the way you use it and the line that's being crossed. And if you start to reflect, I'll invite listeners to even do it now to think of a technology that you have a problematic relationship with and say, okay, what is the deeper, healthy emotional need that is driving this? 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. Most days, it feels like the two wolves in that old parable aren't just inside us anymore. They're also living in our phones. One part of us wants depth and presence and real connection. Another part just keeps reaching for the little glowing screen, hoping the next swipe or notification will finally make us feel okay. My guest today, Jay Vivi Arthy, lives right in the middle of that tension. He's a longtime meditation practitioner and a designer who works on building technology mindfully. In his new book, Reclaim Your Minds Seven Strategies to Enjoy Tech Mindfully, he argues that the problem isn't that tech is evil.

It's that our relationship with it is often confused and unconscious. We explore why some apps feel like emotional junk food, while others genuinely support beauty and creativity and rest. We talk about family video game nights and how to meet our real emotional needs, so we're not endlessly snacking on our phones. I'm Eric Zimmer, and this is the one you feed. Hi, Jay, welcome to the show. Nice for having me.

I'm excited to talk about your book, which is, called Reclaim Your Mind, Seven Strategies to Enjoy Tech Mindfully. And one of the reasons I'm really interested in talking with you is that you are both a strong advocate and lover of technology and a strong mindfulness meditation practitioner. And I find when we're able to have a discussion about these things where people aren't unabashedly on one side of that or the other, that it makes for a more fruitful discussion because that's where we all live. We all live between these two tensions. And so I think you did a really nice job in the book and we'll explore it on this topic. But before we do that, we'll start like we always do, which is with the parable. And in the

parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild. And they say 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 grandchild stops. They think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. On the surface level, the first question that comes up for me is like, what are you feeding these wolves? And I think for me the answer is attention. So we've got these kind of dark

shadows in our minds and we've got these beams of light and this natural compassion. And when you pay attention to the dark shadows, they get stronger. And when you pay attention to the light, it gets stronger. If we go a layer deeper, the thing I think I like most about this parable is that it accepts that like both wolves exist. Right. I've been working on this with my six-year-old who like gets so angry that he wants to hit me or wants to, you know, hit one of the kids in his class. And I think it would be a mistake to like make him feel broken because of that, to make him feel bad. Like it's different to say that it's wrong to hit someone versus it's wrong to want to hit someone. We all want to hit someone. And it's really about like, you know, how we relate

to that. But I think a layer even deeper, I think all metaphors break down at some point. And I want to like zoom in on where the metaphor breaks down here for me, which is the part about it that doesn't feel appropriate to me or it doesn't feel like appropriate to my experience is the idea that we're going to starve this dark wolf. I think I've been coming into the realization that like many of the things that allow me to do good in the world are like rooted in shadows and anxieties and challenges that I've had, things from my upbringing. And like for me, I'm kind of wanting to befriend that wolf a little bit more and actually feed it. So it eats what I feed it and it doesn't consume me. So it's like I need to like take that anxiety. For example, if I'm, you know,

I don't feel valuable unless I'm being productive because I was raised on a farm or something and I just was raised to be productive all the time. I wasn't raised on a farm by the way, but just as an example, right? It's sort of like, okay, so I have this shadow. There's lots of great art and literature about this. Like I have this shadow within me that I need to embrace and harness for good and starving it actually leads it to consume me instead of what I feed it. And I think that's where the metaphor breaks down. Agreed.

Yeah, it's a story. I find it sort of ironic also. I've been reflecting on this that somebody who is so profoundly middle-way kind of person who doesn't believe in black and white picked a parable that is completely binary to anchor a show around for 11 years. Like if I was going to do it again,

I don't know that I would use, this would not be how I would start. And yet, I think it's fruitful in many ways. And I like a few of the different things that you said there. I like it. I like thinking of that as attention, because that is sort of the thing we all get when we hear this parable. A good parable, you just immediately get it. And part of what we get is, all right, if we give more attention to this, it's going to grow. We give more attention to that. It's going to grow. The other part that I really love about the parable, and it's not immediately obvious is the thing that you said, which is I think it normalizes is the fact that we all have all these things inside of us.

You know, the grandfather says, you know, we all have. And it's not that we have two things inside of us. We have, at least inside me, there's a whole bunch of motivational complexity that goes on. And then I think the last thing is where I'd like us to spend another minute and go a little bit deeper, which is using these things that arise in us like anxiety. for good. And I'd love to know how you think about this. And I think you're going to understand what I'm going to say

is it's going to take me just a second longer to get to it. I had a certain amount of anxiety, self-consciousness, need to prove myself, don't know what it was in my youth. And as my spiritual development continued to unfold, and as I started to particularly some like ego-shattering kind of moment, I emerged and that stuff didn't really work in the same way anymore. Now, it comes back, it's there and it is something I can work with, but I'm curious how you think about when it's like, all right,

the energy is there, I can harness it to push me in my life forward, and when is it maybe that I need to work on resolving this, say, anxiety, lessening it? You know, how do you think through that question? When you say the word resolving, I sort of imagine a lens focusing. And there's something about that that feels really accurate to me because I think the concept that drives me in this area is clarity. There's something really empowering and something that, like, great meditation teachers have taught me, and I'm honestly in their debt forever, is that like sometimes we just have this insatiable need to, like, solve a problem

or to get away from discomfort or to get more pleasure. And sometimes the thing we actually need is to just see what's happening clearly. And what I found over and over, and I love your share there because it's like what I found over and over is when there's some like hidden under the surface

murky, blurry, shadowy darkness or something that's driving me, I can suffer so hard because I just don't know what's happening and I'm kind of running off, the cliff here, running off the cliff there, burning myself out there, and just getting lost, and I don't know what's happening, and I'm losing meaning, and I'm losing purpose. But interestingly, the moment that I see it clearly, and I have this harmonization between, like, the emotions in my body,

the conceptual framework I have to explain what's happening, and I see what's happening. I see it clearly. What's really magical is the amount of suffering, like, plummets, but I didn't actually solve any problems. Like I didn't, you know, get away from the discomfort. I didn't get more pleasure. I didn't solve the problem. I just saw it clearly and that emancipated me from the blurry, murky confusion that was actually the source of all the challenges I'm facing. I love that. And it's very strange. I was looking down at my notes because every once in a while I pull out this not next to me to take notes. Most of the time I forget. But today I did. And I don't remember where it was. I'm not going to like find it. But one of the lines, and I don't know where

it came from. I don't know why I wrote it down, but was that clarity is a kindness. Just interesting that you mentioned the word clarity. And I think about this a lot, and I've been thinking about this a lot as I've been rereading one of my favorite books, which is by a guy named Rob Berbia called Seeing that Freeze. That's exactly his whole premise. There are ways of seeing that lead to more and more freedom. And I often think of in Zen, we say something along the lines of like greed, hate, and ignorance rise endlessly, right? I vow to abandon them. And that they rise endlessly is a view, right?

It's the view that, like, of course, they just keep coming. But that last part, ignorance I often think about, like, what do we mean? What is ignorance in that context? Because it's always there. It's not just greed, you know, greed and hatred. It's not just clinging in aversion. There's an ignorance. And I think that ignorance can go a ton of levels deep, right?

But one level deep is kind of what you were just saying, which is that it's my way of viewing greed and hatred or clinging in aversion, whatever you want to call it, wanting, it's my way of viewing that as a problem is like the first level of ignorance that I can cut through. It's like, of course I'm relating to the world that way. That's what we are as humans. And by seeing what's happening, it lessens some of the hold it. has just by only seeing. It was beautiful. I was lucky enough to spend some time with a Tibetan Buddhist master

last month. And I'm not a Tibetan Buddhist. I was there in another capacity and kind of a work capacity, but of course, I'm a deep meditation practitioner of all traditions and have started to look into his materials. His name's Mingyurimpoche. He's one of the Tibetan masters of the, yeah, Tibetan tradition in kind of Nepal. Yeah, we had him on the show once. Okay, so yeah, you know Mingyriumbesha. So one of the things, I asked him, just out of curiosity, how does a Tibetan Buddhist master respond to this question? And his answer was actually very similar to what Roburbea wrote about as well. So I asked him, hey, I've been doing a lot of like Rhinzai Zen and modern mindfulness.

And I'm curious, do you think I should switch to the Tibetan Buddhist kind of approach to meditation? Or do you think I should just keep doing Zen? And I'm just curious, like, how does a lineage holder respond to aggression? And his answer, he paused, and he looked at me with these, like, piercing very aware eyes. And he was like, whatever direction frees your awareness, it's all he said. And I was just like, that's it, right? It landed very well for me. It was sort of like, as long as you feel like you are freeing yourself from some of those patterns that are holding you, you're going in the right direction.

And I kind of saw my whole journey where I've been kind of switching from different traditions. And for a while I saw that as a problem. I'm like, oh, I can't commit, right? Yes. But now I realize, like, for whatever reason, this mind-body system has needed different things to find that freedom. Like, I would try a certain approach, and it would lead me to a little bit more freedom, but then it would sort of halt out. And I would continue and maybe push through some adversity, but then I would find some other path

and say, oh, that's actually drawing me to more freedom now. And so I think it's very similar to that where what are you freeing yourself from? Sure, we could call it ignorance, but I like the way you put it. It's like these conceptual views that sometimes are illusory and inaccurate. And when you get that clarity and see it accurately, you feel more freedom somehow. It's magical, mysterious. Well, there are about a hundred things in there I would like to respond to. First, what Renzai Zen? Have you worked with, like, on koans then and with a teacher? Yeah, I worked with a teacher on a kind of two-month retreat. And interestingly, in the one-on-one interviews,

something that happens to me, which is very strange. So I'm a musician, and I kind of when I was younger, used to write songs and play them on stages and stuff, and I still do a little bit. But something that happens to me when I go on a long, silent meditation retreat, I was doing vipasana originally, like, different. But something that happens is my thoughts,

when they start to get quiet, they start to write little poems. And I was sort of like, this is very haiku, right? So I started to, that's what kind of got me into, Zen. I was like, something in my mind is like calling up the Zen aesthetic a little bit. And then I kind of fell in love with that. And so two weeks into my retreat, I kind of had this poem come to me. And so for fun, I went into the one-on-one interview with the teacher. We're having two interviews a day. And I just said the poem. And what he did was sort of turn that back on me

into a kind of co-on. Like he turned my own poem into a column. Like he was just sort of like saying it back to me and inquiring into like where this was coming from and eventually like long story short what that led to is like I first realized the poem I wrote was completely empty and devoid of meaning and then that started to spread to like everything else in my life like it was this wildfire of emptiness which was actually very painful for about 24 48 hours total emptiness of just everything is meaningless nihilism. But then in the ashes of that, I kind of crossed the bridge from nihilism

into saying, wait a minute, if everything is so relative and meaningless, then, like, it's also precious. And I started to rebuild from that place, and that was, like, a huge step change in my practice. So there was a bit of co-on, but a lot of, like, you know, sort of basic zaza and just sit,

Shikantaza, do nothing. Just sort of sit there for hours and just be was a big part of the practice as well. All right, we're not going to go down the emptiness rabbit hole, though I really want to. Sometimes I'm like, I need a separate Zen podcast where I can really just go really deep into the more. esoteric areas, but that's not exactly what we do here. However, what I do think is relevant for everyone more broadly is this thing you said earlier about a particular path. Like, do I just keep doing one thing? Just keep going. Stay with it. Or do I jump around a little bit? And like you,

I have faced this challenge again and again and again in my life. And I think some of it's a casualty of the work that I do because I talk to so many fascinating, interesting people who have paths that I'm like, that one. What about that one? Could be that one. And I think as is almost always the case with me, I end up landing somewhere kind of in the middle, which is like if it's all jumping, which is kind of what the internet, like now take us back to technology, that's what like Instagram Buddhism is like or Instagram psychology is like it's just, you consume a hundred different ideas in an hour, none of which have enough time to do anything value. for you. And then there's the other approach, right? Like, I'm sure you know people. I know people who have

been like, I have been practicing Zen for 40 years? And I'll be like, have you ever considered anything else a different teacher? And they're like, nope. I'm like, okay, I don't understand you at all based on that statement. But that's like the other extreme. And for me, it's, I'm trying to find that middle place where I've got enough time with something, whether it be a psychological idea, whether it be a meditation technique, whether, whatever, I have enough time with it that it actually can work on me

and there seems to be something about my makeup that then calls me elsewhere. And I have a general rule very often of trying to follow things that call me strongly, that I can trust that in myself. Yeah, I really appreciate

that your reflection included this sense of like how you're made up Because I think people are very diverse. 100%. And there are people who are fully devoted to one path. There are people who wonder. There are probably people, and this is where we can get into the tech stuff, who are flitting around the 30-second clips

that are also having a really, really deep experience as well. Okay. And I think what it really sort of depends on is your relationship to the path you're on and the paths you're switching between and whether that comes from a place of awareness. You can look at the 40-year Zen practitioner who's bringing deep awareness to that

and finding more freedom every day and you can look at a 40-year Zen practitioner who's just like, this is the way it is and this is the way it's supposed to be and I'm just sort of like almost like a cult-like devotion to this one approach and I'm not necessarily getting freer and maybe I'm even getting more stressed about it.

Similarly, I think there are probably people that are engaging deeply with the technological world of spirituality and psychology that are maybe just on Instagram, like you mentioned, but are actually drawing a lot of depth from it. And I think there's probably a lot of people who are just scattered and not finding it. One thing I'll say about my path

is my initial deepening of practice came from one of those 10-day Vipasana retreats. And there's no way I would have, like, in my house, chosen to, like, sit there for 10 hours a day for 10 days and meditate, right? So there was a commitment and a container that was required, but then it was a couple years later where I was like, I don't think I'm deepening my freedom of awareness to use Mingyrimpoche's word in this Vipasana Goenka path anymore.

And so I started looking elsewhere. So it's really all about, I think, noticing how you're relating to these different traditions. And I think that gets like dovetails right into what the book is about, which is noticing how you're relating to all these technologies is really the kind of core ingredient to having a healthy, productive, fun, joyful, and even, dare I say, beautiful relationship with all this technology. That's great. And I love that you sort of push back a little bit on that, that the 30 second

Instagram stuff may be the path that does indeed work for some people. And I know that a lot of the work that you've done is designing technology that supports mindfulness. And certainly meditation apps have been a path for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. at this point that have been really effective I remember an old app I wish it still existed maybe you can build it for me this is 10 years ago at least was a meditation app and what it was was it was very interesting because it it was playing like a sound and your job was when the sound disappeared to tap it was training attention in that way like you know how well are you able to sort of notice not something arising

in, which we often do, but something ending. That app was like a real, real anchor for me for a while in building more awareness. And I've never been able to find it since. Do you know of anything like that? A singing bowl is how we usually do that. You ring the singing bowl and you listen to the trail of it. What I think is interesting about technology's role

is you're able to couch all the context and teaching of how to approach that sound in a way that, you would need a teacher to kind of guide you through how to work with a singing bowl. But if you have the experience of doing it, I mean, I would recommend doing it with the singing bowl. Well, I can do it with the singing bowl. I am the one, though, that's instigating. I guess if you had someone else ringing the bell, right? But there was something about this that you just didn't know when it was going.

Like a singing bell, I can sort of be like, I can hear it. It's descending. The volume is descending. It's trailing. It's trailing. It's trailing. I'm following it to the last second. This is more like you're going along and bam.

How tuned in are you to the experience to notice it instantaneously? That's really cool, because it's not necessarily a predictable end is what I'm hearing. So a couple of things come to mind. One is, this isn't exactly what you're looking for, but I do want to shout out. There's a great app called SoundWorks, and it's these incredible sound artists who are also into a sort of like conscious way of being and awareness and mindfulness. and they create these tracks that are designed for meditation and the teacher who also has a, I think maybe like a British or even Scottish accent,

if I remember correctly, which I don't know, I just love listening to. Of course, yes, yes. So, like, good quality microphone, awesome voice accent, and then these, like, beautiful sounds, but, like, before you listen to the track, there's guidance in how to listen to this.

Like, listen and try to notice this, and then you, like, listen in headphones, and it's spatial and it's beautiful. That's amazing. So that's one thing I would recommend. The other thing, one teacher that I've worked with, Shenzhen Young, I'm not sure if you've had him on the show, but Shenzhen has a practice that he teaches called Just Note Gone.

And he actually recommends sitting and doing that practice with sounds in your environment. So you use the label Gone and you just listen to sounds. And whenever you hear a sound ending, whether it's a car driving by or like the plumbing in the house or someone flushing the toilet, it, you try to notice and hone in on just that moment of ending, and then you just, like, label it, gone. I heard that end. And one of the things, so first of all, I've heard him say that that's possibly the most

powerful technique that he teaches. And I kind of believe it, because for me, when I've done that practice, like, you can even do it while listening to my voice right now. So right there when I said so, there was a gone. And then there was another gone when I said gone. And if you really, like, if your listeners really pay close attention to the sound coming out of my mouth, you might notice little gons between the words or between the syllables. You might even notice that some of the gons are in the middle of words and not between words, because English is kind of wild the way we talk. But what this sort of unlocks for me sometimes is like you almost get this like gazing over the edge of like nothingness.

because by paying attention to when things disappear, by definition, you end up paying attention to the absence that's left in the wake of something. And that is like such a deep and powerful practice of emptiness. Hey, friend, before we dive back in, I want you to take a second and think about what you've been listening to. What's one thing that really landed? And what's one tiny action you could take today to live it out? Those little moments of reflection, that's exactly why I started good wolf reminders, short, free text messages that land in your phone once or twice a week. Nearly 5,000 people already get them and say the quick bursts of insight help them shift out of autopilot and stay intentional in their lives. If that sounds like your kind of thing,

head to one you feed.net slash SMS and sign up. It's free, no spam, and easy to opt out of any time. Again, that's one you feed.net slash SMS. Tiny nudges, real change. All right, back to the show. A, sound work sounds awesome because one of the things that all often do with people that I'm working with on meditation who are really struggling is I'll say pick an instrumental track and just try and pick out one instrument and follow it. Because I think that if we're talking about meditation in the sense of where you're trying to at least steady the mind a little bit, which is a starting place for a whole lot of it. If your mind is really, really unsteady, something like the breath may not have nearly enough, I call it stickiness, right? It just may not

be sticky enough for you to really stay tuned in on it. It was for me for years. It wasn't until I found sound meditation, and this is after 15 years of practice. The sound meditation I went. oh, I get it. This is the piece they're talking about during meditation. This is what it means to be steady, you know, that I could never quite get to with the breath, because there was more going on. Now, I know that as you train yourself, you begin to find there's a whole lot going on within a breath, right? But from a beginning perspective, so I'm really interested in the sound works idea is something to give to people because that idea of having something that's a little bit stickier to work with. And then as you get more steady, you can sort of refine what you're paying attention

to. One of the things that I did pull out from your book, and I have here as a note, is the idea of Nata Yoga. Share with us what that is. So Nara Yoga is an ancient yogic practice. It's about sound, and specifically the Nata is defined as like the primordial sound of the universe, which some yogis associate with like the sound ome, but Nata is a descriptor of it. And it's often described in the text as like when everything is really quiet, there's this subtle sound, which they interpreted as the primordial source of the universe. A scientist might interpret it as like the sound of your own body, but like there is some deep audio experience, like where you're listening in a silent environment to the emptiness itself. And that was a really big opening point for

me because, I mean, meditation was something my parents did as a kid. And so I wasn't, it wasn't an esoteric Eastern practice for me. But it was also something I kind of rolled my eyes at because my parents did it and I was a teenager in Canada. I'd been like, no thank you. But when I sort of started to flower as a musician and I started to confront the challenges of daily life, Nata Yoga was a brilliant, as you describe, an access point of something that was like kind of fun and sticky and accessible. And I think SoundWorks is very similar. The other thing about it is we talked about clarity earlier. And I've started to think about beauty. You could define beauty as an experience that almost invites your mind into clarity effortlessly. So like right now, I'm looking at you

and I can bring clarity like as a muscle almost. Like I can start to notice the subtle different colorations on your face. I can see the beautiful art behind you, you know, the way the camera is moving slightly. I can see the different shades. That's like me bringing effort to bring sensory clarity to my experience. You're saying I'm not effortlessly beautiful. I think this is a very, all right, go on, go on. I'm sure. Well, I'm sure you are in person. Okay. All right, all right, all right. But it's like, you know, there's this like, I'm able to bring a, actually, it's funny you say that because I think I probably take less effort for me to do that with you as a fellow human being. as it would be to like a white wall,

which like some of the Zen people do, right? Yeah. Where they're actually working on the effort of clarity. That's kind of why they do that. But then like if I'm climbing over a vista and the sun is setting or whatever, that happens to my sensory experience almost naturally. So there's something about what you're offering

when you ask someone to like listen to an instrument. It's like to pick something beautiful because it will invite you into clarity. And like to bring the technology conversation back in, This is what I think a lot of people are missing. We're all resisting the distraction of technology, and we're just pushing and pushing and confused. But it's getting harder to see, like, where the pockets of joy and meaning and purpose are coming in, and to actually work on bringing more attention and clarity to those beautiful parts of technology.

And you could say the same thing about our thoughts, which goes back to the wolves and, you know, full circle, right? Yeah, it's funny you bring that up. My partner Ginny has been thinking about beauty this week. It's her mother's birthday. Her mother passed coming up on three years ago. But one of the things her mother really instilled in Ginny was a love of beauty and not like surface beauty, but like beauty in all its forms, nature, plants, a well-designed area, color, all that stuff.

And she was reading a quote, and I don't remember exactly what it was, but that beauty is something that just without any effort, which is the common part with what you said, sort of arouses the heart in some way. But I also love the idea that another way of thinking of that is that it invites your mind into clarity naturally. Those are both great ways to think about it. All right, let's turn our attention to the book for a little bit. There's a line that you have about technology, and you're talking about how we can label technology as bad or evil. And you use a different word, and you talk about something to be problematic.

without being evil. And you use the example of cupcakes. Share more. Cupcakes are not evil. I think we can agree. They're delicious. At the same time, it is certainly possible

for large corporations to extract all the nutrition out of it and create an almost meaningless empty calorie that is mass produced in a grocery store that can get us totally hooked, right? Even in that case, though, if it tastes good like having a little bit

of a cupcake is not like a mortal sin, At the same time, if we completely abandon cupcakes and say, you know what, cupcakes are never good for me and I'm never going to even have them, we kind of throw some of the joy of living out the window because, I mean, baked goods are delicious. I mean, I'm personally super into carbs. You're a big advocate for mindfulness technology and baked goods. Maybe that's the next book. Maybe that's the next book, our relationship with baked goods.

Yeah, for the rest of the podcast, I'm going to make an impassioned plea that everyone have more pastries. That's the goal. I think that plea will be well answered. More than your plea to listen to some obscure soundtrack and notice when the sounds disappear, baked goods are definitely going to win this race. Yeah, it's an easy sell. And so is a lot of modern technology, right? Instagram, TikTok, you know, your work email, these are all things that, like, you can get into a flow with and they can make you feel good. They can kind of stress you out. They can bring all kinds of polarizing. to the forefront. There's all kinds of problems. And I think fundamentally, we're all feeling a little bit confused because we love technology, and yet it's also something that is causing all kinds of problems. And so one of the kind of insights that I've had working with this in my own life as both a meditation practitioner, but also someone who loves technology, is that as I pay more attention to my relationship with technology, it's that same idea of the golden mean or the middle

way. I started to see a polarization of this issue where my colleagues in wellness are becoming anti-tech. It's all evil and bad and like these, oh, these kids are stuck on their screens and it's going to ruin their lives. Or AI is going to come and save us and we'll never have to work again and like the singularity is near and the future is here and all that sort of thing. Whereas what I kind of was starting to intuit in a practical sense in my own life is that if I pay close attention to my interactions with different kinds of technology, I can actually draw my own conclusions of like what is supporting my deeper intentions in life and what isn't. And that becomes like a much, much more grounded starting place to say, you know, this is a technology I choose

to include in my life fully. This is a technology I choose with some rituals and some boundaries around it. This is a technology that I should not include in my life. And that also extends to parenting. And I'll give you a really fun, counterintuitive example from my own life. Please. So based on my own life experience and where I'm at and my makeup and my wounds from my childhood and all the things, I can really easily have TikTok on my phone and not overuse it. Like, I can look at it for 10, 15 minutes and then, you know, it's just not something that sticks to me. But I can't have work email on my phone. You and I are wired very similar.

So right away, though, you can see this narrative that like TikTok is the problem is coming from kind of an ignorance to use our previous word of like your own relationship. And so what the book is really doing is it's offering a lot of practical tools to invite people to bring more awareness to their own interactions with technology. No one is saying tech companies don't need to be held accountable. No one is saying we don't need to investigate mental health. No one is saying we shouldn't explore regulation. but in your own life, you are not powerless to bring more awareness into your interactions with technology and make skillful decisions for you and the people around you. And in fact, I want to underline the part where part of that is going to be limiting certain technologies, which you can

hear about all over the place. But the thing that I think is unique about what I've found in my life is I'm like a tech lover. So when these people go on the microphone and they say, tech is bad and evil, I'm like, I love video games. Like, I can't swallow that. I'm a gamer. Like, I'm not going to throw all the technology out. But when you take a more awareness-centered, like a mindfulness-centered approach, I can actually say, hey, Rocket League is a game that just hooks me in a meaningless way. That's not good. But I'm playing this game, Ori and the Will of the Whips right now,

which is a beautiful work of art. It gives me great relaxation. It inspires me, and that's not a problem. And same when I look at the games my kid plays, I can very judiciously orient him towards Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, which is teaching him so much. and away from something really twitchy like Candy Crusher, the equivalent on your phone.

I think the heart of that is this ability to notice what's happening inside of us as a result of technology. And I noticed that years ago when I was on Twitter, I noticed that there was about a 15-minute window. Now, it wasn't always 15 minutes because it would depend on what I was engaging with. But there was a window of time in which I felt intellectually stimulated. I felt like I was somehow connecting and contributing to an important discussion. It was good. And then it would cross a point where it no longer felt good. And coming to my mind is, I don't know if you know the blogger and now author Tim Urban, wait, but why.

He has this post on procrastination, which is just genius across the board. And I had him on the show to talk about it. But there's a concept in it that I love. And he talks about something called the dark playground. And the dark playground is when you're procrastinating and you're doing something that should be fun, but it isn't because you should be doing something else. And by should, I mean you want to be doing something else.

And for me, technology is often that way. It's like I'm on the playground, it's good. And then all of a sudden it's like the sun starts to go down or something. And you're like, whoa, okay, this is not. I don't think I want to be here anymore. but I don't hear those cues if I'm not paying very close attention. Yeah, and even worse, it starts to erupt into guilt and shame, especially with the societal narrative around it.

It's like, you're not paying attention to those cues. And so then you sort of get this narrative in your head that there's this beautiful sun setting, and I'm staring at my phone, and I'm broken, and I'm bad, and I'm addicted, and I'm distracted, or even, you know, the tech companies are evil. Right, there's blame and shame and shame. all over the place. Yeah, that's right.

And with awareness, you can see clearly, oh, there are definitely some challenges with how these technologies are designed that need to be rectified. But frankly, a lot of the people that work at these tech companies are also dealing with their own shadows and dealing with their own dark wolf

that's leading them to create these things. And so fundamentally, there's like a whole plane of this issue. It's like a layer cake. There's a whole plane of this, which is about our fundamental emotional well-being. And one of the things that I've been finding, like, since I've been kind of like touring the book and talking to people about it that's been really connecting with people is when you start to look at a problematic technology. So in your example, Twitter, you start to look at the way you use it and the line that's being crossed. And if you start to reflect and like, I'll invite listeners to even do it now to think of a technology that you have a problematic relationship with and say, okay, what is the deeper, healthy, emotional need that is driving this. Like, I'm on TikTok all the time, let's say, as an example. Why, what, what healthy need? Is it a healthy need for connection? Is it a healthy need for

play? Is it a healthy need for like entertainment and like, you know, inspiration? Like, what content am I looking at? And when you start to see that, you're like, oh, the part of me that is on TikTok all the time is actually trying to take care of me. It's actually trying to like get me something that's missing in my life right now, but maybe it's being trapped in a bit of an illusion. And so how do I kind of like extricate that illusion and find a deeper way to meet that healthy emotional need? And that'll have a double win because on one hand, you'll meet that need more emotionally and kind of improve your well-being. But on the other hand, you'll be able to go on Twitter and never kind of cross that line because you're kind of coming from a healthier

place where that need is already met. And that's like a really different frame than I think the current societal narrative of guilt and shame around our tech. I agree 100% because the term that gets used all the time with technology is addiction or addictive. And I'm a person who has, you know, a long history of thinking about addiction in that word because of having my history of addiction and being in that world for 30 years now, I think about these things a lot. And now even the term an addict or something or being addicted is not even the way that the experts really talk about it anymore, right? We talk about it as a disorder on a spectrum. So we're all somewhere on that spectrum with these different technologies. And your point about them

meeting in need is so critical. To go back to cupcakes, my partner Ginny said this once, and if listeners who've listened for a long time, may have heard this before, but it's just too spot on with both cupcakes and the thing, because she would deal with emotional eating. And she said, when I thought that what I needed was a cupcake, there was only one answer in the world, and it was a cupcake. When I realized that what I needed in that moment might be, I'm bored, I'm lonely, I'm whatever, there's a lot of answers to that. There's a lot of ways to solve boredom.

There's a lot of ways to solve loneliness. There's a lot of ways to do these. And understanding what need is being met is really, really important. Also, because I don't think that we just yank something out of our lives that has become problematic, to use your term, which I really like. I don't think we just yank it out of our lives without a real conscious thought about what we're replacing it with. My technology battles tend to be twofold. The one is so ridiculous that it's almost embarrassing and it's solitaire. I'm glad I don't play Zelda because I might never emerge if I tried anything more.

addictive than solitaire. And so for me, I hit a point for a long time where I was like a little bit of solitaire is fine, you know, whatever. I've hit a point now where I'm like, none, done. I want to extinguish it. But when it comes up, there's a reason. And it comes up at work. And it comes up because I'm feeling frustrated or I feel like I don't know the answer or I'm feeling tired. So I can't make that go away. What I can do is go, oh, you're tired, go take a walk around the block. You're tired. Go lay down and close. your eyes for 15 minutes. You doubt your ability to do this. Take a pause, you know, get your mind right again, and move on. Absolutely. There's so much I want to pick up there. I've been writing

notes down while you've been talking. Let's just hit three points. So first, addiction. So I don't use that word. What I would say is that there's definitely some vast minority of people who are actually addicted to technology. And, you know, there's certainly examples like gambling, and porn. But there's, I think, also in social media and other types of, like, video games and where it's truly meeting the criteria for, like, totally disrupting a life. And I think that's not most of us. I think that's a minority. I think most of us use the word addiction because our relationships to technology do have some parallels, like withdrawal or, like, the involvement of the dopamine pathways. But just because some elements of addiction are involved,

it doesn't make it an addiction. Right. So the word that I use is more the word relationship, and that we have a relationship with technology and all the trappings. We can have a healthy relationship. We can have a secure relationship. We can have an anxious avoidant relationship with technology. We can have a disorganized relationship with technology, right?

So a disorganized relationship is chaotic. An avoidant is like tech is bad, and anyone who uses it is committing a sin. And when I see someone walking down the street looking at their, phone, I judge them, right? And then an anxious relationship with technology is like, if my battery is dying, it's literally an existential crisis. Like, I can't live without my phone. So then it begs the question, what does a secure relationship with technology look like? And as I was starting to, I wrote a chapter about this in the book, and as I was starting to write that section, I realized

that like, we actually don't have a societal script for this, that there isn't like a kind of commonly understood secure relationship with technology. And so I started to really pay attention to my own relationships while I was writing that chapter. And then this thing happened, which I eventually captured in the book that I thought nailed it. I was at a social event and I was standing in a group of people and I realized I had to check my phone because I heard a ding and it could have been the babysitter. And I don't know.

Like it was a new babysitter. It was with my young child. Right. And I'm in the middle of this conversation. And so there's a lot of ways to approach this situation, right? There's the, like, I'm just going to pretend it's not happening and be stuck in this social interaction, wait until it logically, naturally finishes, and then, like, go frantically look at it, which there's kind of a shame to that.

It's like, I don't want to do this, right? Then there's, like, I'm just going to pull it out. And, like, while people are talking to me, I'm just going to be looking at my phone, which is also not ideal. But I think the secure relationship is like, excuse me, folks, I'm sorry to interrupt. I actually have to check my phone because the babysitter has my kid I will be right back and then physically walk out of the circle

take a look and come back and so that's kind of what I did and what I noticed and the reason I noticed it was someone pointed it out after to me that like they felt that was very polite and you know I think even before we started recording today

you said something relevant which is you told me hey if you see me looking down at my notes or at my laptop I'm not like checking my email or something I'm just kind of organized the conversation, which was a very compassionate thing to do and represent both these examples represent

like a secure relationship to technology where it's like I'm going to address it in a compassionate, like, gentle way. So the other thing I wanted to pick up on was you were talking a little bit about, you know, if you're, you know, getting caught in this illusion because you have this deeper emotional need and there's much better ways to meet those needs.

I want to put a fine point on something here, which is very often technology is a great way to meet those needs. And so, like, sometimes people can hear that and think, you know, what Eric and Jay are saying is that we should get off social media. But, like, sometimes social media is giving you social interaction. And, like, I'm an elder millennial, like, for me and for Gen Z especially, we have some of our best relationships online. Like, I have great relationships with people.

I don't even know their name. I just have some pseudonym and I met them online. But they get some part of me that no one in my real life gets. And like if you ask people who are like closeted and gay or you ask people who are like hiding something from their family and they find a community online, I mean, it's a, I think a false dichotomy sometimes that that people are walking around with this implicit idea that physical, real relationships are authentic and digital relationships. But I have plenty of authentic digital relationships. And oof, I definitely have lots of inauthentic physical in person. relationships, right? So I think that's a false dichotomy we should call out. I think that relationship idea is a really good one about, we are in a relationship with it, right? And in many ways,

I think the path of personal growth or whatever is about just learning how to relate to ourselves and our lives in a more useful way. So I agree. I think we're always in relationship with countless things, whether we want to be or not, we just are. And recognizing that. And so I like applying that sort of attachment framework to it. I also really love this idea of what you did of saying, like, hey, I got to check this. It might be the babysitter. Because I've started to realize that I try and do that a lot more now. Like, sometimes I'm running late for a meeting. So I'm trying to get on a call while I'm also trying to answer an email. And, you know, I've just learned to get on and be like, I'm sorry, I'm running about a minute late. Can I just finish this thing over here so that I could

give you my full attention? Or in conversations with, with Ginny. I'm in the middle of looking at something online. I'm doing something with my phone and when she starts talking to either say, hang on a moment, I want to finish this or just put the thing away. But when I get stuck in that middle ground where I'm like trying to respond to her because she just said something, but I'm also kind of half my brain is over here, I get grumpy. Like that's the reaction it causes in me. Multiple stimulus at one time tends to make me grumpy. Yeah. Right. And so I've just learned both for the other people and for my own self, the kinder thing to do is to do exactly what you said there. This show, my whole career is because the internet exists.

My whole career is because there's technology. I have a podcast that I know over the years has helped, you know, at this point probably millions of people. I mean, we've got so many, you know, 40 million downloads or something. So a lot of people over time, and I hear that often. That's all technology. And I've built some communities among people that are almost all digital that are really valuable. And some of those translate then into real life, like they get together, they meet. But to think that any of that is not real or authentic, I am with you. I totally disagree with. And I think we want to mirror those things in actual physical reality, right? Ideally, you've got exactly what you said, right? I've got authentic relationships in both areas. And also the point

you made about how technology can really meet our needs, sometimes. There's nothing wrong with that. It's all about the relationship and the degree of how problematic it is or not. Yeah. And what's interesting is as I've been talking more and more about this to all kinds of communities and people and, you know, on podcasts and things like that, I don't think anyone really has like aggressively disagreed. Like, it feels. feels like one of these things where we're just kind of walking around with some default concepts like tech bad because like of these hot button issues that are really challenging us, but then we're like living our life like tech good. And it's like the minute you start to examine

that a little bit, it starts to break down and it gives you some useful clarity on how to approach this a little bit. And I think that's all we're really talking about. And like I really want to underline. I really do think we need to investigate the scientific consensus is not there yet on whether tech affects your mental health in very problematic ways. It's also a bit of a slippery fish because these big studies will be done on

like quote screen time, but what are you doing on that screen is a really important question? Yes. And so the scientists need to keep that work up. Regulators at some point need to think about whether they're involved. You know, corporate ethics is tech design ethics. Like I'm a designer by trade.

That's a whole other conversation. So I'm not saying necessarily that we don't need any of this and tech is good, I just think one of the concepts that I'm kind of opening up for people I'm realizing is just that you are not powerless. Like a lot of the messages in this space are like, oh, these big companies and forces are pushing us around. I'm like, what can we do about it? But if there's one thing I've learned as a kind of meditator, it's that I'm not powerless. It's that there is something I can control about my relationship and the boundaries and rituals I set around my tech use. And now that I have a child, like my son's,

wife and I, you know, he's got a screen time limit on his Nintendo Switch. Every day, he can play an hour and 15 minutes. He gets to choose when he does it. And he goes and he plays Zelda and, you know, just whatever game he's into. But once a week, we have a family video game party where we all take turns playing our favorite games. I'm playing Ori and the Will of the Whips. My wife is also playing Zelda and my son is playing Zelda. We're all celebrating each other's games. I'm like, high five, you beat that boss. And he's like, wow, what is this cool, complicated game daddy's playing?

And it's like a beautiful, artful family bonding experience. And I want to just take whatever snapshot you have in your head of what our video game party is like with the pizza and the snacks and the games and contrast that to what, unfortunately, a lot of families are doing right now, which is like dumping a ton of shame on their kids

for loving screens while also spending all of our time on screens. And it's just, Like there's got to be a healthier way. And I think change comes from within. And so establishing that healthy relationship that we personally have with technology starts to inspire the people around us and the way we show up as parents and as friends and as family members and coworkers. Like you said, just like the way you show up to that meeting and you're like, just give me five minutes. It's so much more compassionate than like jumping on a Zoom call and someone's clearly

looking at their other screen and typing while you're trying to talk to them. Right. As we wrap up, take one thing from today and ask yourself, how will I practice this before the end of the day? For another gentle nudge, join Good Wolf Reminders text list. It's a short message or two each week, packed with guest wisdom and a soft push towards action. Nearly 5,000 listeners are already loving it. Sign up free at one you feed.net slash SMS. No noise, no spam, just steady encouragement to feed your good. wolf i have more questions and you and i are going to continue in a post-show conversation listeners

if you'd like access to that post-show conversation and all kinds of other great things as well as supporting what we do here one you feed dot net slash join the reason that i'm abruptly wrapping up is i think you just landed the plane perfectly and anything after that is just going to divert us because i think you ended on a really strong message of empowerment hope and possibility about how we relate to these. So thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure. I've been a listener, and so it's real full circle to be here. Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring, or thought-provoking, I'd love for you to share it with a friend. Sharing from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do.

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