Pod Insights 10% Happier with Dan Harris How To Stop Getting Dragged Around By Your Anxieties, Thought Loops, and Insecurities | Sebene Selassie About this episode Plus: How to find practices that work for you, what "mindfulness" actually means, and a new audiobook out now.
Sebene Selassie http://sebeneselassie.com/ has been meditating for decades, survived cancer three times, and still says the practice isn't a magic bullet. That honesty is kind of the point.
Today we're sharing a sneak preview of Dan's new audiobook, Even You Can Meditate https://audible.com/danharris, co-authored with Sebene. Think of it as a practical rescue plan for anyone who feels too distracted, overwhelmed, or skeptical to start (or restart) a meditation practice.
In this preview, Dan and Seb cover:
Why "mindfulness" is actually a bit of a misnomer — and what the practice is really about
What meditation can and can't do for you (it won't solve everything, but the benefits tend to kick in faster than you'd expect)
How to find the style that works for your specific brain, body, and life — including if sitting still feels impossible
The role of intention, and why getting clear on your "why" can become a surprisingly powerful engine for keeping a practice going
The five hindrances — the predictable challenges that come up for almost every meditator — and how to work with them instead of against them
Even You Can Meditate is out now on Audible. Listen now at audible.com/danharris http://audible.com/danharris.
And mark your calendar: Dan and Seb are running a free five-day meditation challenge March 23–27 on Dan's app, 10% with Dan Harris. Download the app at app.danharris.com http://app.danharris.com/.
Get the 10% with Dan Harris app here https://app.danharris.com/membership
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:04 Dan Harris? This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.
0:18 Dan Harris? Hello, everybody. How we doing? So today, we've got something special. It's a sneak preview of a new audiobook that I worked on with the meditation teacher, Sebene Selassie. It's called Even You Can Meditate, and it's officially out on Audible. You can listen right now by visiting audible.com/danharris to grab a copy of the book, and I will drop that link in the show notes as well. I'm very excited about this audiobook. Seb and I worked really hard on it. You can think of it as a practical rescue plan for anybody who feels too distracted or overwhelmed to start or restart a meditation practice. It guides you through various traditions and techniques to help you find the style that actually will work for you, for your life, for your brain, et cetera, et cetera,
1:01 Dan Harris? so that you can derive all the benefits that come from an abiding meditation habit, like reduced stress and improved sleep. Speaking of habits, by the way, the book comes with tons of practical, evidence-based hacks for booting up a habit that will actually stick. So what you're about to hear in this little preview are two sections from the book. The first is an introduction where Seb and I talk about what we're going to be doing in the book, why intention matters, and how to adapt these practices to work for your particular brain. The second section dives into mindfulness itself, what it is, what it isn't, and why the word is actually kind of a misnomer. We also get into some practical stuff about posture, stillness,
1:43 Dan Harris? and the so-called five hindrances, the very predictable challenges that tend to come up in meditation, like desire, aversion, restlessness, doubt, et cetera. Okay, before we dive in, two quick things. First, just a little bit about my co-author, Sebene Selassie. Many of you, I think, will know who she is. But if you haven't heard of her, she's an author and a teacher and a three-time cancer survivor and a very close friend and an awesome person. Second, and this is very cool, over on my new meditation app, which is called 10% with Dan Harris, we're going to be running a five-day, even-you-can-meditate challenge. It will run from March 23rd through the 27th. Every day will feature a different practice from 7A. These practices will be good for newbies and experienced people alike.
2:28 Dan Harris? And during the course of the challenge, Seb and I will do two live online events where we will guide a meditation and then take your questions. So if you want to join the challenge, all you have to do is download my new app, and you can find that app at danharris.com. All right, we'll get started with 7A Selassie right after this.
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3:47 Dan Harris? Hi, Seb.
3:47 Speaker 01 Hi, Dan.
3:49 Dan Harris? So how did you get into meditation?
3:51 Speaker 01 My brother became a Hare Krishna when I was in high school. And the benefit of that was that I got introduced to eastern philosophy really young. And I started trying out meditation. I actually taught probably a very bad meditation class in high school for my East Asian Studies history class.
4:12 Dan Harris? I'm laughing because I can just see you doing that.
4:16 Speaker 01 Because you know I like to boss people around.
4:18 Dan Harris? Yes, exactly.
4:21 Speaker 01 But that led me to majoring in comparative religious studies in college. And I focused on Hinduism and Buddhism, particularly early Buddhism, which is the foundation of mindfulness teaching. So I've been at it a long time. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm great at it, but I have been studying and practicing for a few decades now.
4:42 Dan Harris? I always get very suspicious when somebody tells me they're good at meditation.
4:46 Speaker 01 That's right.
4:47 Dan Harris? Just for any skeptical, secular listener, or a listener who has a pre-existing religious faith, what can we say about Buddhism that might put them at ease?
4:58 Speaker 01 Well, first of all, it's not a theistic religion. So there's nothing to really believe in. The Buddha taught a set of teachings that, again, are the foundation of mindfulness meditation and many other practices. And so there's a way to enter into this philosophy that doesn't require signing up to any religion.
5:19 Dan Harris? There's an expression I love about Buddhism, which is it's not something to believe in, it's something to do. And can be adopted by people who are like me, you know, agnostic, or by anybody with any religious belief. So how have these practices helped you?
5:35 Speaker 01 Oh, my goodness, how have they not helped me? So I came to them young, as I said, so I was a hot mess, you know, really lost in a lot of ways. I have a certain amount of family trauma, like many of us. I was born in Ethiopia and we came here under challenging circumstances that continued. And so for me, the practices were really a lifeline because I was looking for some kind of relief.
6:00 Dan Harris? You've also had not a few health crises in your life. I'll let you describe what those are. How have the practices helped you navigate all of this stuff?
6:12 Speaker 01 Yeah, so I was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer.
6:17 Speaker 01 20 years ago, at the age of 34, I'm going to be 55 soon, and I've lived with metastatic stage four cancer for 15 years now. So, yes, the practice has also helped me navigate a lot of crises within that. I don't know what I would do without these practices because they are designed to help us deal with pain and suffering in a way that's not just distracting ourselves and trying to get away from the reality of our lives, but actually meet it with some measure of grounding, centering, and really, capacity.
6:53 Dan Harris? My concern going into meditation was that it was going to make me less ambitious or less effective, that I would lose my edge. What do you say to people who harbor that concern?
7:02 Speaker 01 Well, you know, so much of meditation practice, particularly mindfulness practice, is about concentration. And so, we can really talk about how much at peak performance are you really? And how much are you just running on fumes and using adrenaline or, you know, substances to get you going? There's so much proof that meditation actually helps you become more focused, more effective, more efficient.
7:29 Dan Harris? You know, if you look around at the people who are adopting meditation in our culture, they're executives, they're elite athletes, they're prominent entertainers and journalists. Why? Because they want to have more focus, they want to be calmer, they want to be less emotionally reactive, and this is a set of ancient technologies that can really help you get there.
7:49 Speaker 01 And I would add to that, they want to be happier.
7:52 Dan Harris? Is it a panacea? Does it fix everything?
7:54 Speaker 01 Cannot fix everything. We're in human bodies that age, that grow old if we're lucky, that get sick, that die eventually, so it's not a magical bullet for taking away pain.
8:11 Speaker 01 What it can take away is that extra layer of suffering that we add to the pain. The, oh, woe is me, the why me, and really be with things as they are.
8:22 Dan Harris? I would say it can actually pretty instantly make your life better. It just won't solve everything. In my experience, after a couple of weeks of meditating, my life was better. I just saw improvements and those improvements have compounded like a good investment over time. And yet I retain the capacity to be a schmuck in thousands of ways. And so I'm not perfect by any stretch. But I'm so much better than I was 16 years ago when I started meditating. And those benefits did start to accrue quickly.
8:53 Speaker 01 I just like the fact that you admitted for the record that you're not perfect.
9:00 Dan Harris? That's my whole brand.
9:04 Dan Harris? I think it's also worth saying that we all are coming to this from different spots. And we're really going to try to teach as many practices as possible to appeal to whatever your specific set of needs might be.
9:19 Speaker 01 There's no right way to meditate, right? So some of these practices will appeal to you, some of them will not. That's why we have so many of them. You can try different ones out. We have ordered them in a particular way that we hope that you can try because they are, as often referenced, graduated teachings that one builds on the other. So this is a deliberate order that we've created. So we encourage you to try them out in the order that we've given them, but then also to figure out which ones work for you and which don't and find the best way for you.
9:53 Dan Harris? If you don't think you have it in you, at least not right now, to sit still, or if you have physical pain and being in one specific position is uncomfortable for you, like stand up, lie down, like it's cool. There are lots of ways to do this.
10:09 Speaker 01 Some people have this idea that you have to be in full lotus on a cushion or, you know, levitating to be in meditation. But actually, it's called practice for a reason. We're not practicing to become good meditators. We're employing this practice of meditation to help us be more aware, present, and dare I say, free in our lives. So yes, we can sit, but you don't have to be on a cushion. You can be in a chair. We emphasize, you know, sitting up straight or at least having the body open so you're not collapsed because that can affect your breathing. It can affect your sense of alertness. But besides that, we're not saying that you have to be
10:53 Speaker 01 in any particular posture. Standing is a really good option, too. You know, I love to bring my awareness to my feet, partly because they're farthest from my head. It's a way to really feel grounded and actually be in touch with sensations. And then lying down is actually my favorite practice because the body is fully relaxed. Most of the time, we're holding tension in our bodies in order to keep ourselves upright. And so it can be sort of a struggle between paying attention and dealing with tension in the body. But when we're lying down, we can really release and then we can rest our full awareness on the body. And so that's what we'll be doing in one of the practices as well.
11:36 Dan Harris? Over time, I've really come to see the overweening importance of intention. But what do we mean when we use that word?
11:42 Speaker 01 To me, intention is about deciding the best for myself. You know, making the choice that I want to be well, that I want to feel healthy and happy and have less stress, have less suffering. And then, you know, sometimes that is our first step into maybe having a larger intention, right? That we want to be well so that we can be there for others, so that we can find more meaning in our work and find more purpose in our lives. So our intention can actually spread out into well-being for all.
12:24 Dan Harris? I don't think I articulated my intention in my early days of meditating. I think I was just very stressed and looking for some sort of pain relief. But over time, my intention has really become doing anything, doing everything for the benefit of all beings. I think what you're wanting to direct the listener toward is to just explore what is your why for doing this? And track that over time because it can become a really powerful engine and motor for the practice.
12:56 Speaker 01 Even if it starts with that, just taking care of this body and mind and heart. One of the fruits of taking care of the self is that then we actually do have more energy for others.
13:07 Dan Harris? Okay, so that brings us to part one of this audible original, which we're calling mindfulness. What is mindfulness? And why should I do mindfulness meditation? So let me start with the first question for you, Seb. What is mindfulness? Again, the word gets tossed around a lot. What does it mean?
13:23 Speaker 01 Well, so mindfulness is a translation of the Pali word sati, S-A-T-I. So Pali is the ancient Indian language that the Buddhist teachings were written down in hundreds of years after his death. That's neither here nor there, but it's important to understand that it's a translation of a word that has a lot of other connotations. So when we hear the word mindfulness, in English, it means sort of paying attention. But sati, this ancient idea of mindfulness, is really an embodied awareness. It's a way of being attentive to your environment that isn't only about the mind.
14:07 Speaker 01 So it's not just paying attention. It's also having a more global or holistic awareness of what's happening. And in these classical teachings, that includes the body. It includes the mind. It includes the emotions. It includes all of the cascade of things that come from that.
14:27 Dan Harris? One very simple way that I think about what mindfulness is, it's the ability to see what's happening in your mind and in your body. So you can have a sort of nonjudgmental, warm remove that allows you to view your anger or your discomfort in your knee in a way that allows you to sort of surf the waves of your mind and of the world without drowning in them.
14:53 Speaker 01 One of the modern translations of sati as mindfulness comes from John Capetzen, the great mindfulness teacher who created MBSR, mindfulness-based stress reduction.
15:06 Speaker 01 And he says mindfulness is the capacity to pay attention in the present moment without judgment for the purpose of freedom. So mindfulness is not just paying attention. It's paying attention in this way. Again, that's holistic, that's global. Because if we don't do that without judgment, you know, if we're sort of criticizing ourselves all the time, we're just paying attention. Mindfulness has this other quality to it that is nonjudgmental, that is allowing, and that's a huge part of its power. Because it's with that capacity to meet things with more warmth and friendliness that is the transformative power of this practice.
15:48 Dan Harris? Right, so it allows you to be with things you thought you couldn't bear. And the uncomfortable emotion, the painful sensations in the body, which most of us try to avoid through, in my case, self-medicating with recreational drugs, but it can be self-medicating with technology addiction, shopping, gambling, drinking, lots of ways to run and hide. And what we're doing through mindfulness is to be with our stuff in the right way.
16:23 Speaker 01 And that points to another connotation in the etymology of the word. Satie also has this meaning of remembering. And so we're remembering that capacity for freedom, for less suffering, for the ability to be with our experience in a different way than we're used to.
16:42 Dan Harris? I love that.
16:45 Dan Harris? Remembering is so crucial. This is what this this practice is all about, remembering to wake up. That's what we do in the practice itself. We try to focus on one thing, we get distracted, we remember to wake up, and then we try to carry it out into the world. We're in the middle of a temper tantrum or a spree that I've gone on many times of eating an entire sleeve of Oreos and we're like, oh, can I wake up? Can I start again? Over and over and over again.
17:15 Speaker 01 And I love that implicit in that idea of remembering is forgetting.
17:19 Dan Harris? Yes.
17:19 Speaker 01 And that is really helpful before we attempt this practice because we can think that getting lost in thoughts, or getting annoyed, or fidgety, or upset. Is a mistake or a problem, but it's not. It's part of the practice because we remember because we've forgotten. So that moment of coming back to the breath or the body or an awareness of what's happening is the practice of mindfulness.
17:45 Dan Harris? Getting lost and starting again is not a problem. That is correct meditation. You used a big term earlier, freedom. Can you say what you mean by that specifically?
17:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, in Buddhism, there's the larger kind of goal or aspiration of freedom, sometimes referred to as nirvana or nibbana. People might have heard that word, enlightenment. So yes, there's the capital F freedom that I have never experienced directly myself, but maybe others have. There's also the freedom from being hooked and dragged by our anxieties, our worries, our pains, our insecurities, and that can be experienced in a moment. So we may think that we can't get out of these thought loops.
18:37 Speaker 01 And then we suddenly find a moment of peace in the breath, and that moment is freedom.
18:44 Dan Harris? So you mentioned before these different ways of being mindful. You use the term global and holistic. What do you mean by those terms specifically?
18:57 Speaker 01 I think what I'm pointing to there is the misnomer of calling it mindfulness, because by putting mind at the beginning, we think that this is a thought process only. And we're not trying to throw out thoughts or thinking. Thinking can be really helpful for understanding all of these practices and for understanding concepts and teachings and just getting on in our daily lives. But we're a culture that really privileges the mind over everything else, really. And we're conditioned to that from a very young age. We're rewarded for being in our minds. You know, that's what school is all about. So by global and holistic, I'm really pointing to the fact that our awareness is not just
19:40 Speaker 01 about our thoughts in meditation practice. And even though it's called mindfulness, it actually begins with an awareness of the body. Because while the mind can take us to the future or the past, it can keep us in thought loops that are unhelpful and unnecessary, the body is always in the present moment. So it's a really reliable anchor for our awareness.
20:04 Dan Harris? Classically, these are referred to as the four foundations of mindfulness, starting with the body. As we progress through this Audible original, we are going to be exploring several ways of being mindful, or AKA foundations of mindfulness.
20:23 Speaker 01 Yes, and we'll always emphasize the body because most of us can use extra training there because we're so conditioned to be in our minds. So we'll start with the body. The first two practices, we'll focus on that. And we'll always bring in the body by bringing awareness to the breath and to sensations as a way, again, to serve as an anchor so that when our minds, not if, but when our minds get lost in thought and we get distracted during the meditation, coming back to the body is a way to guarantee that we're going to be in the present moment.
21:01 Dan Harris? Thank you to Seb. Don't forget to check out our new Audible book, Even You Can Meditate. You can get it at audible.com/danharris, and there's a link in the show notes. Also, mark your calendar for the upcoming Meditation Challenge, inspired by the book. It will run from March 23rd through the 27th over on my new app, 10% with Dan Harris. Head on over to danharris.com to download the app right now. Finally, I just want to say thank you to everybody who works so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson 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 Cashmere is our executive producer.
21:45 Dan Harris? And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.
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