You Can't Hate Yourself Into Becoming a Better Person | Vinny Ferraro

We're in the midst of an exciting evolution of the overall 10% Happier project. In our quest to make this podcast more actionable – to help you operationalize all the game-changing ideas you encounter on this pod – we're now offering guided meditations to accompany each full episode of the show, available to paid subscribers at DanHarris.com http://danharris.com/. For the month of September, those meditations will come from Vinny Ferraro https://vinnyferraro.org/, a Buddhist teacher in the Insight Meditation tradition. In this bonus episode, you'll hear our head of content, DJ Cashmere, in conversation with Vinny, who shares his backstory: a tough kid from Brooklyn who found the Buddhist tradition to be the most helpful thing in his life. Related Episodes: A Radical Buddhist Approach To Making This The Best Year Of Your Life | Vinny Ferraro https://www.danharris.com/p/a-radical-buddhist-approach-to-making-610?r=4o5o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false Three Buddhist Practices For Getting Your Sh*t Together | Vinny Ferraro https://www.danharris.com/p/three-buddhist-practices-for-getting-233?r=4o5o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false On Sunday, September 21st from 1-5pm ET, join Dan and Leslie Booker at the New York Insight Meditation Center in NYC as they lead a workshop titled, "Heavily Meditated – The Dharma of Depression + Anxiety." This event is both in-person and online. Sign up here https://www.nyimc.org/event/heavily-meditated/! Get ready for another Meditation Party at Omega Institute! This in-person workshop brings together Dan with his friends and meditation teachers, Sebene Selassie, Jeff Warren, and for the first time, Ofosu Jones-Quartey. The event runs October 24th-26th. Sign up and learn more here http://eomega.org/workshops/meditation-party-2025! Join Dan's online community here http://www.danharris.com/ Follow Dan on social: Instagram https://bit.ly/3tGigG5, TikTok https://bit.ly/3FOA84J Subscribe to our YouTube Channel https://bit.ly/3FybRzD To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Dan Harris?

  This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

• 0:18Dan Harris?

  Hey, hey, how we doing? Okay, here's the deal. I was just gonna give it to you straight. We all have demons. The question is, are you gonna find a way to work with your difficult parts, the difficult aspects of your inner repertoire, or are you gonna let your demons own you? Your call. That's up to you. Today, you're gonna hear from a guy who has learned this lesson the hard way, and in the process, has become a beloved Buddhist teacher. Vinny Ferraro leads the Big Heart City Sangha, which is part of the Insight Meditation tradition. He's also our Teacher of the Month over on danharris.com, which means he'll be producing guided meditations throughout September to go with all of our Monday, Wednesday episodes. The idea is that you can listen to the episode, learn a ton, and then Vinny will help you,

• 1:02Dan Harris?

  as I like to say, pound the wisdom into your neurons with a guided meditation. These meditations are only for paid subscribers over at danharris.com. Paid subscribers also now get weekly live meditation and Q&A sessions. I had been doing these intermittently, but now we're gonna systematize and do them every week, every Tuesday at 4 Eastern, so you can put that shit in your calendar. The next one is Tuesday, September 2nd. It will feature both me and Vinny. Okay, so that brings me to today's episode. It's a brief interview between Vinny and my executive producer, DJ Kashmir. And in this conversation, you'll hear Vinny talk about his extraordinary life story, how he came to meditation after a truly chaotic adolescence, and much more. Please enjoy.

• 1:44Dan Harris?

  If you care about supporting independent media, and if you care about being a node of sanity in an insane world, there are a few quick, easy, and free ways that you can support me and my team, which I would be really grateful for. One way to do it is to sign up for my newsletter, which comes out on Monday mornings. It's a little dose of sanity in your inbox at the beginning of a busy week. The second way to do it is to follow and subscribe to the show. Wherever you're listening or watching right now, that really helps. Three, share your favorite episode with a friend. This is a great and low stakes way to connect with somebody in your orbit. And not for nothing, it also helps us grow. And all of these things take about 30 seconds and they really do help. You will be supporting me and my team and our mission.

• 2:29Dan Harris?

  And I, as I said, would be immensely grateful. You can find everything we do at danharris.com. It's all right there. Thank you. I mean that seriously. We'll be right back with more show. If you care about supporting independent media and if you care about being a node of sanity in an insane world, there are a few quick, easy and free ways that you can support me and my team, which I would be really grateful for. One way to do it is to sign up for my newsletter, which comes out on Monday mornings. It's a little dose of sanity in your inbox at the beginning of a busy week. The second way to do it is to follow and subscribe to the show wherever you're listening or watching right now, that really helps. Three, share your favorite episode with a friend.

• 3:12Dan Harris?

  This is a great and low stakes way to connect with somebody in your orbit. And not for nothing, it also helps us grow. And all of these things take about 30 seconds and they really do help. You will be supporting me and my team and our mission. And I, as I said, would be immensely grateful. You can find everything we do at danharris.com. It's all right there. Thank you. I mean that seriously. We'll be right back with more show.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  Vinny Ferraro, welcome back to the show.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  Thank you so much. Good to see you, DJ.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  It's so good to see you. I've been looking forward to this for a minute now. Let's dive right in. Been asking everyone the same questions, so I'll put it to you. When we think about the story of how you became a meditation teacher, what is that story? Where should we start?

• 3:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess a little boy trying to accommodate reality, you know? There's a lot to accommodate in my young life. Complicated house, lots of yelling and lots of fear in my body, you know? And so I was kind of like the quiet kid because I was slightly walking on eggshells, I would say. Yeah. And you know, as you get older, you know, the stakes increase. The dangerous behaviors start coming out. And by the time I was maybe 10 years old, I was on probation, you know? I was a juvenile delinquent. And they had all these words for kids like us, you know? They would group us together.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  No matter what our houses looked like, the behavior that they were seeing was worrisome. Yeah. Yeah, as a teenager, you know, like I said, the stakes continued to increase. So now it was hard for me to bear my own presence. You know, I had so many feelings going on inside me. I would say I was a sensitive kid, but I wasn't raised in a sensitive world or in a sensitive home. So there wasn't a lot of room for that. So I ended up medicating a lot, mostly through, you know, drinking and drugs. But some of it through dangerous behaviors.

• 5:28Speaker 02

  And finding any escape from my world became my world. Yeah. Yeah. That just complicated things. Because then I was in this cycle of doing things I wasn't proud of, feeling bad about that as a sensitive person, and then needing to get away from that feeling again. So it was like a loop that I was caught in, doing things I wasn't proud of, feeling ashamed, not being able to bear that feeling and doing more things I wasn't proud of. So it just kept like escalating into felonies, into me calling my mom or dad

• 6:13Speaker 02

  from the police department, you know? And having another charge and another court date and another three years probation. And it just kind of continued like this, yeah? Yeah, so I had a lot to get away from internally.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  Then maybe by the time I was 20 years old, things had shifted for me. I had hit another bottom. You know, I didn't know that I had another bottom in me, but I kept finding new bottoms. And it was just like, wow, man, something has to change here. Yeah, I think I was about 110 pounds at 20 years old.

• 6:58Speaker 02

  Truthfully, I,

• 7:01Speaker 02

  it was the hardest point in my life. And I felt, okay, I'm willing to try anything. And that's when something shifted. And my pops ended up coming and finding me and bringing me to a 12-step meeting. And that really changed my life. I wasn't sure why I was going down the stairs of this church basement. And it was, you know, moist and dank. And I saw lots of people milling around and hugging. And I was just like, what the hell is this? You know, has it really come to this? You know what I mean? Like, I had so much judgment

• 7:45Speaker 02

  because I just wasn't used to seeing people show love like that. Yeah. And I saw some people I knew from the street. And I was like, bro, I thought you were locked up. I didn't know where you've been. And he's like, bro, I've been sober. And I'm like, holy shit. Okay, all right, what are y'all doing here? You know, and they introduced me to that culture. And I said, okay, I'll try. You know, and I went home and I flushed my little package down the toilet. And I, you know, I went to a meeting every day for at least a couple of years. You know, and I made coffee and I swept. And I was a door greeter and all these different positions. And I just felt like, okay, I'm gonna really give this an honest shot

• 8:26Speaker 02

  because there wasn't anything else I had to live for. You know what I mean? It didn't feel like there was any other way I could continue doing what I was doing. So it was out of desperation. You know, I'm reading these books, you know, the 12-step books. And they talked about through prayer and meditation. And I was like, through prayer and meditation?

• 8:53Speaker 02

  What is that word? What does that mean? You know what I mean? And I, I didn't have any concept of what that word actually meant. All I knew was the TV version from David Carradine and Kung Fu. And you know what I mean? Like that kind of like exoticism. And I was like, let me find out what this is. And I started like buying some books. And this is, you know, the early 90s. And soon I needed to just get out of my neighborhood just because even though I was sober, I didn't see anything that I wanted to be. You know, everybody I knew were kind of like criminals and outlaws and still in the game. And I just felt like, okay, I gotta get out of here.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  I gotta just go drive across the country or something crazy like that. And so I jumped in my state trooper car. I have, you know, a used state trooper car and I had a Harley. And I put it on a trailer and I drove out to California with a really good friend of mine. And we ended up landing in Santa Cruz. And I was like, wow, I'd never seen surfers and day glow and dolphins jumping out of the water. And I was just like, what the hell? These, I felt so far from my neighborhood. I didn't recognize anything. I was like, this looks perfect. And basically landing here in Santa Cruz in 1990, I met some folks that were involved in the Dharma. You know, involved in meditation.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  And, and I started meditating. Yeah, 92, 93, I started getting more serious about it. And by 95, I felt like, okay, this is my, this is what I'm into. This is really where I want to go with my life. And that was a pivot point in my life that changed everything. Everything that came after that was due to that decision. It was a long decision. Like I said, it was over a couple of years that I was kicking tires and different meditation circles. And really what we wanted to do more than anything else was to bring The tools of meditation to people that were suffering in the ways that we understood.

• 11:07Speaker 02

  The suffering of being homeless, or strung out, or in jail, like that's the kind of suffering we knew about. So that's what really spoke to my heart was like, okay, how do we translate this to this demographic? Because that's the world I know. That became very exciting, bringing this to people that needed it the most. Yeah.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Would it be right to say that meditation was so transformational for you that you then felt like you had no other choice but to pass that on?

• 11:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I think that's fair to say, you know, when you find something that actually helps, right? And you know, the pain of the suffering, and then you're feeling some sort of relief, of course, you want to share that with the world. To tell you the truth, I'll give you a little confession, man. This is a strange moment, but I don't know, evangelical is not the right word, but I was so excited about the practice that some of my older friends from the neighborhood were calling me Vinnie Swagger, instead of Jimmy Swagger. Because they were just like, dude, you were the worst of us, and now you're like, standing

• 12:27Speaker 02

  at this pulpit. And I was like, yeah, bro, I can't tell you what this transformation has done for me, like internally, you know? And so, yeah, it was pretty exciting to share it with people that knew, not only where I came from, but people that knew about that life, you know, and know the suffering within it. Yeah.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  It sounds like if I'm hearing you right, the first thing that really helped you dig out was finding this 12-step meeting. And then meditation came along and helped you access something even beyond what you'd been able to access in the 12-step meeting. Am I hearing that right? And if so, can you say a little more about it?

• 13:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, there was a line in that big book of AA that said, you know, spirituality was the cornerstone of our recovery. And I was just like, okay, I'm interested in this thing. Okay, spirituality, meditation, but what does that actually mean? You know what I mean? Like, I didn't grow up in the church. I didn't grow up, you know, in that religious way. So I didn't really know what those words meant. But I was around people that were spacious enough to let me figure it out for myself. Like I said, I was kicking a lot of tires in these different spiritual circles. You know, I was chanting with the Hare Krishnas.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  I went and sat with the Jesuit priests and I, you know, I went to all these different kind of Sufi gatherings. And I was just like trying to find what resonated with my heart. And I could find some little pieces in each one of these. And then when I came to meditation, and in particular, the Buddha Dharma, it was like, oh, this is firing on all cylinders. This is a complete path for me. There's nothing here that I have to swallow that doesn't resonate with my heart. And I think it was because there's so much structure to it. You know, the Eightfold Path, all these different ways of understanding how to live in a way

• 14:43Speaker 02

  that felt whole and not just trying to be good or trying to be anything in particular beside whole. So finally, there was enough room for all these different parts of me. And so that's what meditation represented for me. It's okay, finally, there's enough space for all of you.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  You talked about realizing you needed to get out of the neighborhood.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  You know, driving 3,000 miles and seeing dolphins, seeking all these different paths. And I guess it raises a question for me of like, in that time, were you running from something? And if so, are you still running?

• 15:27Speaker 02

  I think I was still kind of on the move. You know, I still held this kind of belief that I was fundamentally broken or flawed. Yeah, that followed me, yeah, probably into my 30s, that feeling or that doubt, you know, of my own wholeness or goodness. And then you start learning more about the Dharma and Mara, these negative aspects, or at least for me, I stopped taking it so personally, like it was some personal failing that I had these fears or this anger, whatever it was, right? I could understand it through

• 16:11Speaker 02

  the lens of, yeah, Mara, a lot easier than trying to figure out, okay, why do I feel this way? And why do I want to do these things? Or, you know, taking life very personally was a huge part of my suffering. Why am I like this? As though I didn't come by it honestly, you know, naturally, right? Yeah.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  So if Mara is, you know, from the ancient Buddhist texts, is this sort of demon haunting the thoughts of the Buddha, right? Even after the Buddha becomes enlightened and we all have our versions of this, our fears, our anxieties, our hatreds, our greed. And it sounds like if I'm hearing you right, it was sort of like when you first started to really look into meditation, it felt like maybe this is a place where I can be whole, where no part of me has to be left out or disavowed. But even after that, it still took a while to really understand one of these core teachings, which is just this idea that these things that are haunting us. Are not ours. They're not unique to us. We didn't create them. We didn't ask for them.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  They don't say something about our innate worth, like that, that whole. And I guess I'm relating to that in the sense that I too, when I came to meditation and went on my first retreat, it started in part because I had also been looking at different paths and it felt like the only one where there wasn't too much to push back against. But it certainly was not an overnight sense of like, okay, I went on my first retreat and now I don't have to hate myself anymore. That's still a work in progress.

• 17:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'm, I'm probably a slow learner and a quick forgetter. Because it took me at least 10 years to realize that I can't hate myself into becoming a better person. It just is not gonna work. If it was gonna work, it would have already. You know what I mean? So it took me a while of meditating and sitting these kind of long retreats and many hours of just wrestling with these internal energies, you know, and I like YAMARA as an acronym, like Mind Appearing Real Again. You know, and it's just like over and over, you start waking up to these energies that are just coursing through

• 18:33Speaker 02

  my body. And I was like, wow, this is really helpful to, to give it a name and to understand it's not mine and have space for it. And now I can see that, you know, I started to see then that there was two aspects that dictated my experience. One is like, how did I respond to the presence of these energies? And then what do I align myself with, right? Do I align myself? Am I attached to that identity or that energy? And then where does that lead? And that kind of leads to, you know, more Mara.

• 19:12Speaker 02

  More of that energy. But when I responded to that energy with some heart quality, some care, some sort of, yeah, care is the best word I have for it. But yeah, can I care for this feeling that's hard to bear? Without making it mine, without taking it personally, without disavowing it, as you said. But can I just be here as like an empathetic witness to this soft animal of my body that's feeling this way? And so that was very helpful to me, the heart qualities, to be able to respond and then say, okay, and what do I align myself here with?

• 19:53Speaker 02

  And I didn't need to align myself 100% with this, you know, love or kindness or even compassion. It's just a little bit more than what's being whispered in the shadows, you know? That was a real defining point for me is understanding that Mara doesn't have to disappear. There can be all kinds of space for even doubt to stay there. But what are you gonna align yourself with? And it's just a little bit more than what Mara's offering.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  I mean, you said slow learner, but it strikes me that starting to learn that about 10 years in, I don't know, it could be worse.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  Always, always, always, always. You know, but when I think about it, you know, it's like, oh yeah, okay. So by 95, I'd call myself a Buddhist, okay? And then how many years did I really kind of like marinate in that feeling and not yet see these obstacles are actually doorways? So it took me a while because all I wanted to do was feel better. And a lot of times, you know, you meditate and it's not that you feel better. It's not, you know, some quick fix. It's, you know, it's not instant like so many medications are, right? Like you can take something and all of a sudden you feel different. Meditation was a much slower path for me.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  And because I had this past of always running from myself, I think I was looking for, yeah, a quicker fix. You know, and so it felt like it took a really long time, you know, at least compared to my earlier life. Yeah, but it was way more sustainable, you know, and I wasn't leaving or didn't feel like I was leaving like a path of destruction behind me either. So it became easier to look in the mirror, it became easier to bear my presence, became easier to share what was going on inside me because it wasn't all my fault. Yeah.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  I'd never heard Mara reimagined as an acronym. You said mind appearing real again. And I, just to explore that for a moment, I've been watching this happen with my daughter, who's about to turn six. There are moments when I will correct her behavior in some way. And if my tone is, you know, somewhere between neutral and loving, and if she's had enough sleep and water and food, and I've had enough sleep and water and food, and the thing that I'm correcting doesn't feel like something I've already said 50 times that day, et cetera.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  There are conditions where that correction just, it's just the easiest thing in the world, you know? Please don't do that. Okay, you know? And then there are other times when not all of those conditions are in place, and she just melts, she just wilts. And we've talked about it, and I think what's happening for her in that moment is she's registering the negative input, or the critical input, or the correction, as essentially just a message that she's bad. And of course, I can relate to this. So something I've been working on with both her and myself is just this thing of like, that you don't have to believe that thought, that you're bad, right? Like, all of your feelings are real and valid,

• 23:25Speaker 01

  but not all of your thoughts are true and helpful. And I've been trying to find ways in my own mind, and also in relationship with her, to kind of interrupt this cycle of her mind appearing real to her in that moment, you know? Because...

• 23:43Speaker 01

  I've just noticed that if I don't do that, it just doesn't take that many instances for her to start to build up a whole story about herself. And I feel like I'm about to turn 40 in the not-too-distant future, and I'm still trying to unlearn those stories, you know? Still trying to wake up to the fact that this is another moment where my mind is appearing real to me, but it's not the same thing as a moment where the story's true.

• 24:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, it's well said, man. Yeah.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  The 10 years of practice that it took you to start to get to that point, I wonder if part of what was happening was just you're building that skill of waking up, coming back to the breath, waking up, noting what's happening, waking up, waking up, coming back to the present moment. And as you start to do that, maybe the tally of moments where the mental notice like self-criticism, self-criticism, self-criticism like starts to go up, right? Like you start to notice what you're doing to yourself.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  And creating some distance between that story and your reality.

• 24:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you definitely begin to see your own contributions to your suffering, right? It's like, oh, part of the path is just taking that ultimate responsibility, right? That says, okay, it's really my response here, right? Not what's arising, right? What's arising is what's arising, not much influence over that. But how can this be in the service of awakening? And so when we start asking ourselves that question, no matter what the conditions are, that's when our practice becomes all-terrain, right? That's when we could, you know, whether we're walking through a funeral parlor, a prison, a birthing room, it's like, how can this be in the service of awakening?

• 25:33Speaker 02

  Becomes a very, yeah, a very sturdy way to engage the world and the self, you know, and all of these different conditions. It feels unconditional to me, that question, because then it doesn't matter if it's good, if it's bad, if it's just an average day. It's like, okay, and how can this be in the service of awakening? And so that question, over and over, began to sprout all kinds of beautiful blossoms. Yeah.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  So if you're in a moment where you're like really beating yourself up, like, I'm gonna have to go apologize, like, damn it. I can't believe I still have a temper after all these years, whatever the story is. When you catch it, is that your immediate next move? Oh, story again, how can that be in the service of awakening? Is that like literally what you're doing in the middle of your afternoon with your kid?

• 26:28Speaker 02

  Let me see if I can, yeah, come to that moment for a minute. And then see, how does the heart respond? I don't have to go too far back, I can tell you that, BJ.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  I mean, as I was telling that story, I realized I might be projecting slightly, but... Totally fair for you to say you don't have those moments anymore. But it sounds like that's not where we're at.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, we could say that. Yeah, I think it's from the Tao and it says liberated is the soul, which sees all human behavior as either an act of love or a call for love. So sometimes when I'm like in this, you know, moving through the world and something catches my eye or somebody's frustrated or Val's just, yeah, my son Valentino is just on one. It's like, okay, is this a call for love or an act of love? You know what I mean? And it's like, okay, can, can I meet him in that? What does he really want right now, you know? It's slowing it all down.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  Sometimes I've crossed the threshold already and I have to go sit with him and hold his hand and look in his eyes and tell him that I'm sorry, you know? That's a tender place because most of us never got that. Most of us never got that from our parents, right? So it's like, oh, this is a chance to break a cycle. So instead of doubling down and like getting more angry and him getting more scared or whatever's happening for him, we take a more tender route that says, okay, how can I interrupt this cycle of identification or attachment to my role? And say, okay, what's really being called for here?

• 28:28Speaker 02

  Can I get really tender with this, you know? And I've seen great results in that tenderness, you know? Even if it's just him seeing me give him my full attention and calming down, it shows him that we can move through these emotions. We can always choose a more vulnerable way to be with each other. Instead of escalating and stuff like some kind of power struggle, there is just a tenderness that is very palpable and transformative for both of us. Yeah, yeah.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  And sometimes, you know, it doesn't always just work wonders, but I know what I am aligning myself with. And I could see that he's getting something from this, you know? So it's not always, like I say, immediately transformative of his behavior, but I can see something happening in both of us that's moving in the right direction.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  I took clothes in a minute by just touching briefly on these meditations you're gonna offer starting tomorrow. But I have one more question to close out this, this piece of the conversation. I'm thinking back to some of what you said about

• 29:55Speaker 01

  your early days and how much you were navigating and running from and...

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Trying to make sense of, and I continue to be interested in this notion that you've pointed to in this conversation and also in other appearances on the show of living in a world where there's no part of you that's beyond redemption, where it really is about wholeness, where everything you are is welcome. And I guess I'm just, I'm curious for myself and for, for folks who are listening. I imagine most, if not all of us, have some version of hurts that we're carrying, especially from our formative years and pieces of ourselves that we're not sure whether they belong or not.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  And so I guess I'm curious to get a postcard from where you're at. Do you feel that you've arrived at a point where it all belongs and all that turmoil and trauma feels healed? Is that an endpoint? Is it an ongoing thing? Just, you know, asking for a friend?

• 31:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know. I don't know that there's an endpoint, you know? But I can tell you that I suffer much less around these things. Let me put it this way. I'm not as stubborn when it comes to holding on to my suffering. I used to be very stubborn. I used to be, no, this is bullshit. And, you know, dig my heels in and be like, no, I am not gonna, this, you know, and just feel like I was fighting for my salvation when it was really my servitude, right? Like I'm literally putting the yoke back on because I'm not going to yield to this.

• 31:55Speaker 02

  And now I don't have as much of that. And I'm not sure that I figured anything out or I got to some endpoint, as you said. I'm not sure why that is, why I'm not as stubborn around holding on to my suffering, so loyal to my suffering.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  I don't know if I figured something out or if I've just run out of steam. I'm not sure. I'm not sure, but it's the same result, which is like a lot less tightness internally, a lot less corrosive feelings. You know, these things can arise. There's these energies run through me, just like everyone. But they don't stick around for very long and they usually inspire some heart quality. You know, even when it's super hard to bear, compassion is always there for me. When I stop trying to figure out whose fault it is and who's to blame. And it's just like, nah, dude, this just hurts, bro. And it's okay. And it's okay that it hurts.

• 33:01Speaker 02

  And you can be with that hurt like you would anyone you love. You know, Valentino has been a great

• 33:10Speaker 02

  addition to my life because he shows me that I'm capable of unconditional love and care, you know? This is something that he has a great gift that he offers me. Just looking at him and seeing like, there's nothing in the world I love more than my son. And so how would I be with him if he was suffering like this? And, you know, I get to react to these internal energies in that same beautiful and welcoming way.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  The other night I was having trouble falling asleep. My head went spinning out and there was a few nights of that in a row. And I don't know, at some point, all this meditation and all this working on the show, like something, maybe you, I don't know, but something kicked in and I just, you know, put my hand on my heart and told myself internally silently like, yeah, this is hard. It's okay. I got you. And I, I don't know, I fell asleep, so there's something in it.

• 34:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. You know, these folks that have been through trauma, you know, they always talk about like, well,

• 34:23Speaker 02

  Well, it happens with the absence of an empathetic witness. And so what does it mean to be there for ourselves? You know, if we could just hold ourselves like we would anyone we love, what happens? And something calms down because we don't have to exile that part of ourselves. We don't have to push it out of existence. We don't have to destroy it. You know, we get to tend to it with this caring heart that it's so, it's just got so much transformative power that anger and shame and guilt and hate, they don't have that capacity to transform.

• 35:05Speaker 02

  I feel so lucky and blessed to know that now internally. You know what I mean? So that there is always a place that I can return to as a refuge that says, however you are right now, you're welcome. You know? And so that's a very spacious way meditation offers us.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  All right, so speaking of meditation and in the spirit of doing the thing that my colleague Hayden, who's recording this conversation, has been wanting me to do for at least 10 minutes now. Just to say, you know, your guided meditations are gonna start releasing alongside all of our new Monday and Wednesday episodes, starting tomorrow. And you're also gonna be leading our live Sangha, our live group meditation in two days from now on Tuesday, as well as several more Tuesdays throughout the month of September. And, you know, I'm lucky enough to get a sneak peek at some of what you've been working on, meditations around resetting our relationship to stress, resetting our relationship to ourselves.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  I was wondering if we could just close with just a word or two from you about how you're orienting towards being our teacher of the month this month and what people might look forward to as they sit with you and have you in their ears in the coming weeks.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a really big honor to be asked. So, thank you for being part of the team that invited me to do this. And yeah, it's a really big honor for me.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 36:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, to be able to be with people over the course of a month and in a steady way. Yeah, it feels like a great gift, so thank you.

• 36:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, around the stress piece, it's like, okay, this is an energy that comes to, I think, all beings, you know? Like, we all know stress, you know? And it's not all bad, there's good stress, you know? But how do we make friends with this thing? Instead of just trying to get away from it, what is there beneath that energy? You know, what is it actually pointing at? What's it trying to bring my attention to? You know, a big part of the path is just a curiosity that we have. Instead of just stamping something, anxiety, stress, pain. It's like, no, what is this thing?

• 37:38Speaker 02

  You know, and it's a constellation, right? It's a, there's emotions, there's energy, there's sensations in the body. So for me, I'm just interested in stress and how to work with it when it arises. So I'm glad that's the first one we're doing because I have lots of experience with that.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  Fair enough, fair enough, yeah. Awesome. Well, you know, just to say, you said thank you and you're very welcome. It was a total no-brainer. Audience has been clamoring to hear from you more and I get why. And yeah, I'm personally excited to have you helming my practice for the next month. I'm always, always feel like I'm in good hands when I'm in your hands. And so, thanks for doing it and thanks for coming back on.

• 38:33Dan Harris?

  Thank you to Vinnie and DJ. Great conversation. I just want to remind you, head on over to danharris.com to become a paid subscriber. You'll get to hear all of Vinnie's guided meditations that he'll be producing to go with our Monday, Wednesday episodes here on the pod. And also, you'll get weekly live meditation and Q and A sessions. It really is a great way to get into the carpool or HOV lane with your meditation practice. Ton of evidence to show that meditating together is a great way to keep the practice going or to deepen it. The next one's on Tuesday, September 2nd at 4 Eastern. We're doing all of these Tuesdays now at 4 Eastern, and Vinnie and I will be doing this one together. And don't forget, if you want to take your meditation practice offline, I'm doing a couple of IRL events. One's at the New York

• 39:16Dan Harris?

  Insight Meditation Center on September 21st. The other is at the Omega Institute the weekend of October 24th. I'll put links in the show notes. Finally, thank you so much to everybody who works so hard on this show. Our producers are Kara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vassili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kazimir is our executive producer, and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.