How To Cut Yourself Some Slack | Meditation with Vinny Ferraro

Guess what: you don't have to fix yourself. All this month, we're sharing custom guided meditations from our teacher of the month, Vinny Ferraro, exclusively available at DanHarris.com http://danharris.com/. Like any good drug dealer, the first taste is free – so today, we're giving you a sample of what you can expect for the rest of the month. Related Episodes: You Can't Hate Yourself Into Becoming a Better Person | Vinny Ferraro https://www.danharris.com/p/you-cant-hate-yourself-into-becoming?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 at eomega.org/workshops/meditation-party-2025 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.

• 0:05Dan Harris?

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

• 0:19Dan Harris?

  Hello there. Happy Sunday. Hope you're having a good weekend. Today, we've got a guided meditation for people who kick their own ass, which is probably everybody. It comes from Vinny Ferraro, who's our teacher of the month over at danharris.com. That means he is creating custom guided meditations for all of our Monday and Wednesday episodes on the podcast, but only for paid subscribers. Also, for paid subscribers, he'll be doing in the month of September, live guided meditation and Q and A sessions, some of them with me. If you sign up, you'll get all of that stuff. However, today, we're giving you a little teaser. This is one of the meditations he produced for the episodes that we have put behind the paywall, but actually, we're going to take this one here and drop it for free, hopefully as a way to

• 1:04Dan Harris?

  entice you to join us over at danharris.com. Before we jump into the meditation, I just want to quickly say that if you want to meditate with me in person, I've got a couple of events coming up. One is on September 21st at the New York Insight Meditation Center. It's a half-day thing. The other is a weekend-long thing at the end of October. It's called Meditation Party. I don't want to say too much right now because I want to let you start meditating, but I put some links in the show notes if you want to sign up for either or both. Okay, we'll get started with Vinny Ferraro right after this.

• 1:37Speaker 01

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• 2:38Speaker 03

  I think many of us are taught to improve ourselves, fix ourselves, or at the very least hide the parts that feel too messy, too needy, too much.

• 2:56Speaker 03

  But this practice isn't about self-improvement. It's about self-inclusion.

• 3:03Speaker 03

  So today, we're going to try to meet ourselves with kindness.

• 3:08Speaker 03

  Not because we earned it, not because we did something spectacular,

• 3:15Speaker 03

  but because we can be so hard on ourselves.

• 3:22Speaker 03

  Sometimes it can feel like, "Don't gang up on me, with me, against me." You know that feeling?

• 3:31Speaker 03

  So we have to balance that out a bit.

• 3:36Speaker 03

  And let me just say, you don't have to feel any great surge of love.

• 3:43Speaker 03

  You don't have to fake anything.

• 3:47Speaker 03

  You just have to be willing to turn toward yourself with even a little less judgment and a little more care.

• 4:00Speaker 03

  Okay, let's begin.

• 4:04Speaker 03

  Find the position that allows your body to feel supported and grounded,

• 4:13Speaker 03

  relaxed but alert.

• 4:19Speaker 03

  And if it feels okay, you may close your eyes. It can help you turn your attention inward,

• 4:27Speaker 03

  or maybe just soften your gaze.

• 4:39Speaker 03

  And as you welcome yourself to the present moment,

• 4:45Speaker 03

  see if you can ease any demand you have on this being a certain way.

• 4:59Speaker 03

  And allow the breath to find its natural rhythm.

• 5:20Speaker 03

  And you don't have to do this, right? There's no role to play here. There's no version of you to live up to.

• 5:31Speaker 03

  Let's just rest in this living, breathing presence.

• 5:51Speaker 03

  And we start with the body.

• 6:00Speaker 03

  Feeling all the points of contact. The chair, the cushion, the floor.

• 6:26Speaker 03

  The body, in many ways, is our home base.

• 6:49Speaker 03

  Bring to mind the part of yourself you usually overlook.

• 6:54Speaker 03

  Maybe it's something small, something quiet.

• 7:01Speaker 03

  Or some part of you that doesn't get thanked.

• 7:08Speaker 03

  A part that's just doing its best.

• 7:19Speaker 03

  Maybe it's your feet, or your breath, maybe your perseverance.

• 7:32Speaker 03

  Offer that part a little appreciation.

• 7:49Speaker 03

  A little thank you for holding you this whole time.

• 8:07Speaker 03

  Again, it doesn't have to feel like a flood of love. Just a gesture of kindness.

• 8:30Speaker 03

  You've made it through things no one else may fully know.

• 8:39Speaker 03

  You've kept going.

• 8:43Speaker 03

  You've grown, you've cared.

• 8:54Speaker 03

  Let yourself receive that acknowledgement.

• 9:08Speaker 03

  This isn't self-indulgence nor ego.

• 9:15Speaker 03

  This is honesty.

• 9:27Speaker 03

  This is the heart recognizing the beauty of its own effort.

• 9:46Speaker 03

  Because we're still here.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  So without forcing it, offer your nervous system a new message.

• 10:09Speaker 03

  Thank you, body, for carrying me.

• 10:22Speaker 03

  Thank you, heart, for caring so much.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  Thank you, breath, for always bringing me back.

• 10:54Speaker 03

  And maybe you can feel the warmth of that appreciation in your chest.

• 11:14Speaker 03

  Let it spread outward

• 11:22Speaker 03

  into the shoulders, the arms, the belly.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  Sometimes we can't really feel that much, or there's parts of us that may resist it.

• 11:56Speaker 03

  They think maybe you don't deserve kindness or gratitude.

• 12:02Speaker 03

  That's okay.

• 12:05Speaker 03

  You don't have to force it.

• 12:11Speaker 03

  You're just offering an invitation.

• 12:35Speaker 03

  We allow ourselves a new message. It's okay to be kind to myself.

• 12:49Speaker 03

  It's okay to recognize there's goodness here.

• 13:03Speaker 03

  Or let the breath move through you

• 13:07Speaker 03

  into all the corners of your being

• 13:12Speaker 03

  that may feel forgotten or tense.

• 13:23Speaker 03

  Bringing that warmth there.

• 13:40Speaker 03

  每次呼吸都有一个奉献

• 13:48Speaker 03

  这已经足够了

• 13:55Speaker 03

  我不需要比我现在更优秀

• 14:09Speaker 03

  我很高兴能在这里

• 14:24Speaker 03

  让自己在那句话中休息 即使只是几口气

• 14:43Speaker 03

  什么也推不走 什么也修不正

• 14:50Speaker 03

  只有在这里与自己在一起的甜美的感觉

• 15:08Speaker 03

  活着

• 15:13Speaker 03

  醒着

• 15:19Speaker 03

  而值得感激

• 15:33Speaker 03

  不是为你而做的，而是为你而做的 正如你所是，现在

• 15:54Speaker 03

  See if you can notice even the tiniest shift.

• 16:04Speaker 03

  Maybe something softens.

• 16:25Speaker 03

  Sometimes it's just appreciating yourself for showing up today.

• 16:45Speaker 03

  So when the critic shows up again, and it will, you get to remember, there's another voice in here too.

• 16:57Speaker 03

  One that doesn't need you to be more, better, or different.

• 17:17Speaker 03

  And slowly,

• 17:20Speaker 03

  start to come out of the meditation.

• 17:25Speaker 03

  Let your eyes crack if you had them closed.

• 17:32Speaker 03

  And as you move through your day, see if you can walk with that voice beside you.

• 17:43Speaker 03

  As you feel the breath in your chest, let it remind you that you're here.

• 17:53Speaker 03

  Kind, caring, on your side.

• 18:04Speaker 03

  Thank you for your practice.

• 18:09Dan Harris?

  Thank you to Vinnie. Thank you for meditating with us today. You can get more great meditations from Vinnie that are linked to our podcast episodes over on danharris.com. And you can, if you sign up, get access to our weekly live video guided meditation and Q and A sessions. We do them on Tuesdays at 4 o'clock Eastern. The next one is on Tuesday, September 16th with Vinnie. And as I mentioned earlier, I've got some in-person events coming up. One is at the New York Insight Meditation Center on September 21st. The other is at the Omega Institute in upstate New York the weekend of October 24th. Links in the show notes.

• 18:51Dan Harris?

  And finally, as always, a big thank you to everybody who works so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our production manager. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.