Can You Be Kind Without Becoming Boring And/Or Weak? | A Question From "Mean Aunt Kate"

We're going to give you a taste of the so-called "renegade sangha" sessions on DanHarris.com https://www.danharris.com, which is powered by Substack. In those sessions, Dan usually guides a meditation and then takes questions. In this brief episode, you're going to hear one of the best, funniest, most relatable questions we have received to date. Sign up for Dan's newsletter here http://www.danharris.com Follow Dan on social: Instagram https://bit.ly/3tGigG5, TikTok https://bit.ly/3FOA84J Ten Percent Happier online bookstore https://bit.ly/46TZglY Subscribe to our YouTube Channel https://bit.ly/3FybRzD Our favorite playlists on: Anxiety https://spoti.fi/3Qa8kMT, Sleep https://spoti.fi/3MjtMxF, Relationships https://spoti.fi/3QvyA5J, Most Popular Episodes https://spoti.fi/3QxZASc

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• 0:04Dan Harris?

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

• 0:19Dan Harris?

  Hey, hey. Today, we've got a short, targeted episode that tackles one very common question. Here's the question. If, as the Buddhists recommend, if you endeavor to train your mind for increased kindness, will that make you soft, edgeless, humorless, or even weak or a doormat? As many of you know, we're in the middle of doing a lot of experimentation with our Friday episodes. We're trying tons of stuff. We're doing guided meditations, behind-the-scenes interviews with my producers, celebrity interviews, and little snippets from the Q&A sessions that I do with our subscribers over at danharris.com. And that is what we're gonna try today. We're gonna give you a taste of one of these so-called

• 1:04Dan Harris?

  Renegade Sangha sessions that I've been doing over on Substack. In these sessions, I usually start by guiding a meditation, and then I take a bunch of questions. So in this brief episode, you're gonna hear one of the best, funniest, and most relatable questions I have received in these sessions to date. Just a couple of notes before we dive in here. You're gonna hear me mention the questioner, Kate. You'll also hear me mention another listener who made a comment. That latter comment was coming in, in real time, on Substack during the session, which leads me to point out that these sessions are a lot of fun. And if you want to join them, you can become a subscriber and ask me questions either in advance or in real time.

• 1:46Dan Harris?

  Also, one more thing to say here before we dive in. We, my team and I, are fully aware that the sound quality on this is not terrific. We will improve that going forward. 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 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.

• 2:30Dan Harris?

  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. 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.

• 3:12Dan Harris?

  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. 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. Okay, let's dive in now on this question from Kate. Kate asks, I attended the Insight event in New York City earlier this week.

• 3:55Dan Harris?

  So I did an event with Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren at the New York Insight Meditation Center. It was a benefit for them and Kate was there. I'm glad you came, Kate. Kate continues, I wanted to ask this question, but I couldn't get it to cohere into words at the time. So here goes. I'm a Gen Xer and my family nickname is Mean Aunt Kate.

• 4:17Dan Harris?

  It's mostly a joke, but I struggle with compassion for myself and others. I want more softness, but my default mode is suck it up buttercup. Phrases like safe space trigger eye rolls, but who doesn't want safety? So is there a practice to aid my discernment between tolerating everything or nothing at all? Thank you for this space. Heart emoji. I suspect Kate, it took a lot for you to drop that heart emoji in there. It would for me. This story makes me love you. Mean Aunt Kate is awesome. I have a friend the other day who I was having breakfast with. Within the last year or so, she's had three grandchildren and she refers to herself as bad grandma because she's got a lot of mixed emotions. She loves her children and grandchildren.

• 5:00Dan Harris?

  And some of the things that stereotypically a grandma does, she doesn't like doing. And she has some guilt about that. But look, first of all, I relate to both bad grandma and mean Aunt Katie deeply. As I've often joked, my default mode is frosty New Englander. And the good news is that, well, first of all, I don't think you should feel bad about your conditioning. And let's adopt a growth mindset, and I think you've done this here in this question, that change is possible. I mean, that's one of the fundamental promises of the Dharma or modern psychology, that we can change. I don't know that you're going to become Aunt Care Bear overnight,

• 5:42Dan Harris?

  but you can slowly and systematically and in pretty messy ways, change your default mode. And I've found this for myself as somebody who's struggled to show emotion or affection to the people in my lives. And I think part of my conditioning is not only being from New England, although I know plenty of warm people from New England, but also being a dude. Because we're not exactly rewarded for, at least when I was coming up, we weren't rewarded for displaying emotion. But this is where meditation practice is so fucking helpful. For me, doing a loving kindness practice, which I get, might Jab at the same part of your brain that doesn't like terms such as safe spaces. And I don't like terms like that either.

• 6:26Dan Harris?

  And then, of course, I kind of hate myself for not liking it because, as you say, who doesn't want safety? We all have tastes and for some of us, loving kindness is not going to be to our liking initially. And of course, you don't have to do this, but for me, as somebody who rejected it initially, first seeing all the science that shows that it can be profound in its psychological, physiological and behavioral impacts. And then also just talking myself into doing protracted, high dose periods of practice, meaning that I've gone on some loving kind of meditation retreats. And then I've also tried to get it into my daily practice in a pretty prominent way. I've just seen real changes over time where my default mode is warmer.

• 7:09Dan Harris?

  And, you know, I'm not trailing pixie dust behind me all the time. I'm still, you know, as my staff sometimes tell me, I have a resting bitch face and I can be a little scary and a little cranky sometimes. And that's the truth of my conditioning and I'm working to slowly improve over time. And I think that's possible for any of us. What I want to try to disabuse you of is this idea, Kate, that it's going to lead you to tolerating everything, that it's going to make you a doormat or resigned. That's a misunderstanding and maybe even a misfiring of compassion or empathy or kindness. I often talk about this little tattoo I have here that says, for the benefit of all beings,

• 7:52Dan Harris?

  also off brand for Gen Xers who like nihilistic sarcasm. But the second to last letter, A, for the benefit of all beings. And I have an acronym on my wrist here, F T P O A B. But that A stands for all, all beings and you're a part of that. And so that doesn't mean you should tolerate people being mean to you or that you should invite somebody who's been inappropriate over for dinner. Discernment is absolutely part of the deal and having compassion, empathy, even love for yourself means that you sometimes need to draw a line, set a boundary. There's a great story about.

• 8:34Dan Harris?

  I think it was Sharon Salzberg or somebody asking a guru in India back in the 70s or 60s about compassion and what do you do if somebody's trying to mug you? And the answer was something like, you should compassionately smack them with your umbrella. And so I don't think this leads to tolerating being intolerable just because you're trying to be more kind and compassionate. Just see a quick note here from Ally who says, I totally appreciate this question and I also have a real appreciation for Mean Aunt Kate and those like her. My sister is like this and she's a wonderful balance to my sometimes overly pixie dust, safe space attitude. Yes, bad grandma and Mean Aunt Kate, it's hilarious. My friend, the bad grandma, I met her years ago when she was not a grandma yet.

• 9:17Dan Harris?

  And one of the first things I liked about her was that she was so tough. So, and I don't want you to think, Kate, that you need to shave off all of your edges. I think you can do a little bit of this practice that might make you easier on yourself and easier with others. And of course, as your relationships with others improve, your inner weather is likely to improve. And that's the cheesy upward spiral that I like to get people on. But that doesn't mean you can't say fuck. It doesn't mean you can't make wise ass comments. And it doesn't mean you have to walk around extolling the virtues of a safe space, even if we all agree on the value of safety. Thank you to Mean Aunt Kate. Best name ever. Don't forget to sign up at danharris.com.

• 10:02Dan Harris?

  Subscribers get a regular IV drip of wisdom from me in your inbox. You get ad free versions of this podcast. You get transcripts of every podcast along with a cheat sheet that sums up the key learnings. And you get the twice monthly live sessions where I guide to meditation and take your questions. And I think probably most importantly, you get to be part of a really cool community of people who take this stuff seriously. So come check out what we're doing. Before I go, I just want to thank everybody who worked so hard to make 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.

• 10:45Dan Harris?

  DJ Cashmere is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.

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