A Buddhist Secret for Calm, Energy, and Handling Obnoxious People | Trudy Goodman

Summary

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10% Happier with Dan Harris

Episode: A Buddhist Secret for Calm, Energy, and Handling Obnoxious People

Guest: Trudy Goodman, Ph.D.
Date: October 1, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this insightful episode, Dan Harris sits down with eminent Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist Trudy Goodman to explore the "trainable skill" of trusting yourself. The conversation traverses ancient Buddhist wisdom and modern psychological insight, with a focus on cultivating calm, energy, equanimity—and navigating the challenges of self-doubt, harsh self-judgment, and relationships with difficult people. Trudy offers practical advice, memorable stories, and a free-ranging guided meditation, all delivered with warmth and humor.

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Main Discussion Themes

1. The Meaning and Importance of Trusting Yourself

• Why this topic? Trudy shares her personal journey as a woman in a male-dominated field and how learning to trust her own perceptions was both liberating and necessary.
  • “Learning to trust myself and my perceptions was really important, both professionally and personally.” (06:09)
• Trusting yourself is fundamental to living your best life and “waking up to be able to use all of who we are in the service of that life.” (06:54)
• Discussion of societal factors (sexism, social media, bodily disconnection) that disrupt intuition and self-trust.

Notable Quote

“For women, those three [Buddhist defilements] should be more like low self-esteem, anxiety, self-doubt.” – Trudy Goodman (07:25)

2. Buddhist Context: Mindfulness, Present Awareness, and Awakening

• Mindfulness as remedy: Trudy and Dan agree that basic mindful awareness—being present with one’s body and mind—is non-negotiable for trusting oneself.
• Enlightenment vs. Awakening: Trudy prefers the term awakening as it’s less fraught and more accessible than “enlightenment.”
  • “Trusting that who you are and your life in this moment has all the ingredients you need to be fully awake, that's another piece of it.” (13:16)
• Misconceptions: Enlightenment isn’t about absence of negative emotions, but about not being caught by them.

Notable Quote

“The sense of me is not going to go away. Is that always in charge…? I’m not trying to annihilate myself.” – Trudy (28:21)

3. The Role of Tenderness, Self-Love, and Boundaries

• Citing Pope Francis’ call for a "revolution of tenderness" (20:16), Trudy emphasizes the need for kindness, love, and compassion—directed both inward and outward.
• Self-love ≠ narcissism or toxic altruism; it’s intimately connected to self-respect and healthy boundaries.
• Discussion of a Buddhist story: “There is no one on this earth more worthy of your love than you yourself.” (25:18)

Notable Quote

“Self-love does not look like being self-referential… Self-respect is probably a better word.” – Trudy (27:03)

4. Practical Strategies for Uncertain Times: Joy and Calm

• Steadying the heart through intentionally cultivating moments of joy, gratitude, and everyday pleasure (e.g., “the non-toothache”).
• The story of Thich Nhat Hanh’s teaching: if one person on a perilous boat can stay calm, it helps everyone survive. (30:09)

Notable Quote

“Be joyful, even though you’ve considered all the facts.” – Trudy quoting Wendell Berry (29:37)

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Key Insights & Memorable Moments

Intuition and Listening to Yourself

• Intuition and disasters: Trudy shares powerful personal stories—how ignoring her intuition led to a broken back, but listening to it quite literally saved her life.
  • “Every time I override my intuition, it’s a disaster… for your intuition to talk to you, you need to trust your perceptions and be listening a little bit.” (34:51)
• Discerning intuition from fear: Sometimes intuition appears as fear and is protective, but not every fearful thought is trustworthy intuition.
• Bias and intuition: The risk that “intuition” can mask bias or bigotry—underscoring the importance of community and dialogue.

The Power of Community

• Community as a mirror, support, and safeguard for self-trust.
• “Community is power. We’re very vulnerable and powerless without each other.” (41:58)
• Good communities both call out your “bullshit” and help you loosen the grip of ego.

Curiosity, Dialogue, and Getting Out of Bubbles

• Trudy’s personal experiment in listening to opposing political viewpoints (Tucker Carlson) as part of challenging her own opinions and empathizing with those outside her bubble.
• Dan’s experience as a journalist striving for even-handedness, recognizing the difference between opinions and core values.
• Importance of curiosity—“the only way we’re going to make peace in this world.”

Notable Exchange

Dan: “How do you retain your curiosity about people with whom you disagree without taking off the table your right to say this is wrong?” (51:12)
Trudy: “You need to have… a foundation of self trust before you venture into those waters. Absolutely.” (51:25)

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Practical Guidance & Guided Meditation

Timestamp: 54:56

Trudy leads a free-range guided meditation (54:56–60:09) you can do anywhere:

• Three deep breaths—relax your body.
• Name and acknowledge feelings (sadness, worry, grief, joy) and make room for them.
• Imagine your breath as a “most loving, faithful companion.”
• Inhale caring; exhale connection and compassion for yourself and others.
• Recall a moment of joy or uplift—a smile, sunrise, laughter.
• Conclusion: “Joy and love are always here, even though they may get so buried by our distress.”

Notable Quote

“When we make room for us to feel our feelings fully, they will change; they inevitably change because everything does.” – Trudy (54:56)

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Further Reflections

On Forgiveness and Self-Trust

• The connection: True forgiveness is only possible when you trust yourself enough to fully feel and acknowledge your own anger, betrayal, or hurt before moving on.
• Caution against forced or premature forgiveness—“Then you’re gaslighting yourself.” (64:12)

Trudy’s Journey and Practice

• At nearly 80, Trudy attests that the practice “works if you work it”—her self-doubt is vastly diminished, and negative spirals are shorter and less powerful.
  • “The practice works. And… it works if you work it.” (67:36)

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Notable Quotes (chronological, with timestamps)

• “Never say too late.” – Suzuki Roshi, via Trudy (05:36)
• “One of the most overlooked gifts that we have is this gift of consciousness.” – Trudy (15:19)
• “Self-love is not about being selfless to the point of self-erasure.” (24:35)
• “We need each other for so many things. Community is power.” (41:58)
• “Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts.” (29:37)
• “When we make room for us to feel our feelings fully, they will change…” (54:56)
• “Joy and love, they are always here, even though they may get so buried by our distress.” (59:42)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 05:16 — Trudy’s introduction, theme of trusting yourself
• 06:09 — Why trust? Trudy’s personal and professional experience
• 09:39 — Zen teaching: “This is great faith.”
• 13:16 — Enlightenment vs. awakening and present-moment trust
• 20:16 — Infusing awareness with tenderness/“revolution of tenderness”
• 25:18 — Buddhist story: King Pasanadi Kosola and self-love
• 29:37 — Cultivating joy despite the facts (Wendell Berry quote)
• 30:09 — Thich Nhat Hanh story: calm in the lifeboat
• 34:51 — Intuition, stories of trusting (or not) herself
• 41:58 — The essential role of community for self-trust
• 43:28 — Dialoguing across divides, loosening grip on opinions
• 54:56 — Guided meditation (open, accessible, practical)
• 64:12 — On forgiveness: feel before you forgive
• 66:58 — Trudy’s progress in self-trust at 79¾

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Additional Resources & Plugs

• Trudy Goodman’s website: trudygoodman.com (includes calendar, free meditations, blogs)
• Insight LA: Mindfulness and meditation trainings (Trudy is founder)
• Course on relationships: With Jack Kornfield (see their respective websites)
• Book project: Forthcoming (details TBA)

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Conclusion

Trudy Goodman brings wisdom, warmth, and deep experience to the candid exploration of trusting yourself in a disorienting world. Key takeaways include the necessity of basic mindful awareness, the value of intuition and community, the importance of healthy self-love, and the power of staying curious and joyful—even in difficult times.

For anyone grappling with self-doubt, difficult relationships, or societal division, this episode provides both practical tools and hope: “Joy and love are always here, even though they may get so buried by our distress.”

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To go deeper:

• Listen to the full episode for the meditation and nuanced discussion on forgiveness, biases, and spiritual pitfalls.
• Visit trudygoodman.com and InsightLA for more.
• Try the accompanying guided meditation from 7A Selassie, available to paid subscribers on danharris.com.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

I also want to say about Trudy.

[A]

That she's somebody I've gotten to know.

[B]

A little bit personally in the last couple of years and she's just fucking awesome.

[A]

In this conversation we talk about how to trust yourself. Why to trust yourself, why Trudy is interested in this subject. Why she doesn't love the word enlightenment, but she does want to make the concept more accessible, which I'm here for. What self love does and does not look like, especially in a Buddhist context how to stay steady in uncertain times. The role of intuition, the importance of getting out of your own bubble and differentiating between your opinions and your values. The connection between forgiveness and trusting yourself and much more. And check this out. If you want to practice the skill.

[B]

Of trusting yourself, which is a subtle.

[A]

Art if you want to practice it, this episode comes with a bespoke a custom guided meditation called how to Listen to Yourself. It is guided by 7A Salassi, who's our Teacher of the Month over on.

[B]

Dan Harris.com which means that she will be doing custom meditations to go along.

[A]

With all of our Monday Wednesday episodes this month. She'll also be doing some live guided meditation and Q and A sessions only for paid subscribers. We do those every Tuesday at 4 Eastern. So head on over to Dan Harris.com and sign up. Psych. And this is cool if you want to meditate with me and with Seb in person. We will be at the Omega Institute on the weekend of October 24th. There's a link for you in the show notes.

[B]

You should come to that.

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

Know, like I'll order three sizes of.

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

Trudy Goodman, welcome to the show.

[C]

Thank you, Dan. Glad to be here.

[B]

I consider it a form of malpractice that you have not been on until now. I Have no idea why that is, but I'm happy to be remedying it now.

[C]

Better late than never, right? Right.

[B]

I heard something recently like, what's the best time to plant a tree? And the answer is 20 years ago. But the second best time is today, Right?

[C]

Right. That's great. My friend Yvonne Rand, who had a zendo in Muir beach, she had some calligraphies from Suzuki Roshi, a Zen master of the last century who founded Tassahara and the San Francisco Zen Center. And it says, never say too late.

[B]

Mm, I like that.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Well, when you were talking to one of my ace producers, Marisa Schneiderman, about what we were gonna talk about today, your answer was trusting yourself. And so I'm curious why that.

[C]

I picked that because for me, as a woman of my generation, coming to really trust myself in a world that didn't necessarily celebrate me and my accomplishments the same as some of my male colleagues at the time, learning to trust myself and my perceptions was really important, both professionally and personally. One of the things that I've been writing about is what happens when you don't trust your perceptions. Like in my last marriage, that came up as an issue where I listened to my beloved instead of to my own intuition, when I should have trusted my intuition. So trusting yourself feels central also to the project of living the best life that we can and waking up to be able to use all of who we are in the service of that life. I guess I just was very unconfident when I was young. I know that you are interested in Buddhist practice, and we talk about the strategies of disconnection from experience, being greed and hate and delusion or ignorance. Not in the sense of not having knowledge, but in the sense of ignoring what's actually happening. But I feel that for women, those three things should be more like low self esteem, anxiety, self doubt. These are the things that over really working with thousands of people over the last decades, I've seen in myself and in many of the people who come.

[B]

It may be more prominent among women, but I see myself in every single one of those. You do alternative defilements that you just listed.

[C]

Alternative defilements. We have so many to choose from.

[B]

Yes, exactly. The menu is vast. I mean, anxiety is a huge feature of my life. Self doubt, low self esteem at times, for sure. So I am in no way questioning the role of sexism in our culture in making that more acute among women. It seems unisex on some level.

[C]

Well, I think that we're humans together.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

And one of the benefits I think of beginning to trust yourself and trust your perceptions is you can start to see that commonality of human experience and not be so identified with your particular circumstances, situation, moment, all of those things. And also I feel like for meditation practitioners, people who really want to learn to meditate, trust is really important. Trust in what you see, hear, taste, smell, touch. My first teacher was a Korean Zen teacher named Venerable Sung Sanim, we used to call him. And we were, you know, in a gathering where he gave a talk and then people asked him questions and somebody. He was always teaching us to have great faith. And somebody asked him, what is great faith? And he held up his pinky and he said, do you see this? Do you see this, Dan?

[B]

I do.

[C]

This is great faith. So that's a very Zen condensed way of saying, trust what you see, trust what you hear. And it's also good meditation practice because then you ground yourself in this moment. What you see, hear, taste, smell, touch, think, feel right now. And that's the most trustworthy and powerful. This moment, this day is the most powerful one. We know this because the future is a dream. It hasn't happened yet, you know, and the past, very dreamlike. We travel a lot these days. And when I think of, you know, two nights ago, where I was and who I was with, this wonderful teacher colleague of mine that I've been blessed to teach with, Anam Tuptan, I think, was that only two days, you know, he has a dreamlike quality. And one of the great meditation instructions that I think is useful for. For all of us to begin to develop some equanimity about our experience is just think of all of it as a dream. Because tomorrow, this, our being together, which feels so clear and vivid right now, it's gonna feel dreamlike.

[B]

Your husband Jack used to have a auto signature on his email, but it's from the Diamond Sutra that you should think of all of life as a flickering lamp and a dream.

[C]

And so you should view this fleeting world. A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flickering lamp, a phantom and a dream. Yeah, that's the end of the Diamond Sutra.

[A]

And so what you're saying, I think.

[B]

Is that given that there's so many aspects of modern life that militate against intuition and trusting ourselves, because we are thrown into a state of toxicity comparison to other people via social media, because some of us, depending on what type of body we occupy, the culture is telling us that we may be hysterical or wrong, or because we are disconnected from our bodies, because most of the time we're in our phone. There are many ways in which we are not listening to the rhythm and music of being alive, to our bodies, to the world around us. If I'm defining the problem correctly, if I'm hearing you correctly, one of the remedies is basic mindfulness. Mindful awareness. Trusting the reality of what's happening right now, the sensations in your body, the activity in your mind.

[C]

Yes, thank you. You said that much faster than I did.

[B]

It's much easier to sum up than to articulate in the first place, just to be clear.

[C]

And also, you know, when you look at what is the point? You know, people talk about enlightenment or awakening and what is that too? I mean, is that some story about the future, that I'll be there someday? Or is that something that only special other people get to experience? So trusting that who you are and your life in this moment has all the ingredients you need to be fully awake, that's another piece of it. That's a maybe deeper dive into what trust can be. That we just let all those things that, what did you call it? The menu of defilements? The things that get in our way, let them just loosen their grip a little bit and dissolve a little bit so that we're not constantly looking at everything through the lens of me. How is this going to benefit me? How is this threaten me? How is this going to advance all of that? It's like looking at the sky through a straw. So I think trusting that the contents of this right now, us here together, are the contents of our awakening. Where else would it be happening?

[B]

Okay, so I'm hearing two things. I just want to make sure I.

[C]

I'm enjoying your summing up.

[B]

It's really because I think one of the reasons why, in my opinion, one of the reasons why I've had some success as an interviewer is I'm a little bit dumb. I need to make sure I understand things for myself.

[C]

Well, it's a kindness to your listeners too.

[B]

Yes, well, there's them too.

[C]

I mean, they're here with us too.

[B]

They are, they are asynchronously, but they are definitely here with us. Okay, so there's not trusting yourself in the, let's call it conventional term of I'm disconnected from, and I use this term poetically, my heart listening to my body listening to my intuitions.

[C]

Your feelings, your emotions. Exactly, yeah.

[B]

And so mindful awareness, present moment awareness, just basic understanding of what's happening right now is a non negotiable building block toward learning how to trust yourself. But you're also saying that on a deeper level, if we want to get enlightened, and I'm not sure how many listeners are even entertaining that notion, but if. If we want to have some sort of profound spiritual progression, even in that word, progression is where we get mixed up. It feels like we're building to something. But if you're going to get enlightened, it's always going to be now. Yes.

[C]

It's only ever going to be here.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And I think I just am trying to, in a sense, make a little more accessible the idea of enlightenment or awakening, or that this is not something that people should assume is only for other people. Because we all have the innate capacity for awareness. We have this. It's. We're born with the ability to be conscious. And that is an amazing gift. Maybe one of the most overlooked gifts that we have is this just gift of consciousness that we get to have perceptions and be awake and alive and conscious. And the other thing that I think is also. Is one of our overlooked human superpowers, is that we can direct our attention wherever we want. We're not really taught about that, how to do that. It's not part of our training. Wasn't part of our parents or grandparents training to teach us how to do that. But that's also really important, especially when things are hard.

[B]

Let me just stay with enlightenment for a second. In the Buddhist sense, to the extent that I understand it, enlightenment is often defined as the uprooting of greed, hatred and delusion. You're just no longer experiencing negative emotions. And wait, you're making a face like, I might have put a floor.

[C]

Well, I would just stop right there. It's not that you don't experience negative emotions.

[B]

Ah, right, right. You're not identified with them, you're not clinging to them.

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

Thank you. So we think of an enlightened person as she or he is floating through the world, pixie dust trailing from their rear end. And we think, well, that's not something that I can achieve. And what I think you're saying is actually, right now, if you are in your body, pleasant or unpleasant or otherwise, you are not in the spinning stories of your head, which are.

[C]

They may be spinning, but you're not caught in them.

[B]

You're not caught in them. And that's an awakening right there.

[C]

Yes, it is. I know. As far as that fantasy of tripping through the tulips, pixie dust, all of that I've had the pleasure of studying with some of the most revered meditation. We don't say masters anymore, meditation teachers in the world. And they're not like that. None of them. They're just not. I've met people who really are very awakened, and the ones that I love are very honest about their experience, that they're still human. They have humanness. Somebody asked a late, great Japanese, Roshi, Maizumi Roshi. He was giving a talk, and a man was in the audience who was just very, very drunk. He was very provocative. And he said, so, Roshi, what's it like to be enlightened? And Roshi looked at him and said, very depressing. And I love this story because in that moment, he was looking at somebody quite troubled, and it was sad. Do you see what I'm saying?

[B]

My wife has a tattoo on her left arm that says, right now it's like this.

[C]

Yes, exactly. So in that moment, that's what it was like.

[B]

And so in any moment, if we're in touch with what it's like, that's a form of enlightenment.

[C]

I like to use the word awakening because it's less fraught than enlightenment. Enlightenment has this once and for all quality, and some of the texts seem to promise that, and it can be really confusing. Jack gives a talk called Enlightenments.

[B]

Plural. Yes, I've heard that talk. Yeah, I've read the essay, actually.

[C]

So, you know, that to me, makes more sense. So I like to say awakening because the whole point is to stay awake. And nobody, maybe outside of retreat, protected circumstances, could say that they really awake 24 7, that they never get distracted and unmindful, even for a moment. I certainly can't say that.

[B]

I can't say it either.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Let's just go back to the beginning of this discussion. We were talking about trusting yourself, and you talked about your history of not trusting yourself. We established that the first step on this path is to hone your capacity just to be awake. I'm wondering, is that necessary but not sufficient? What is required after you've learned how to wake up a little bit in your life? What else might be required in order to have trust and confidence in yourself?

[C]

I think to be more ecumenical about it, Pope Francis gave a ted talk in 2017, and in that, I was so struck by it that I actually took some notes of it. He said, what we really need is a revolution of tenderness in the world. We have to talk sequentially because we live in linear time, but it would ideally be together. That next step that you talk about to me would be infusing awareness with some tenderness or kindness or love. And if you really practice staying awake. It will come naturally. Because what you begin to see is, as I was talking about earlier, the humanness that we're humans together, shared humanity. And those things that get in the way of our realizing our shared humanity, they tend to fall away somewhat. And when you start to be able to see that, you naturally feel a kind of. I don't know, it is like a kind of compassion. Like, look, we're in this together. We were born in these bodies, and we live in these bodies, and we're vulnerable in these bodies. So we're in this together. And I'm at a stage of life where you say our bodies age. I could look in the mirror today and say, fine, let's stop right here. I'm good.

[A]

I'm good.

[B]

Meaning I don't want to keep changing or, I'm good.

[C]

Yeah, I'm fine. I don't need to get older. I'm fine right here.

[B]

I'm as old as I want to be.

[C]

I'm as old as I want to be. I'm old enough to have a little experience of life, little wisdom, a little tenderness. I'm good right here. But it's kind of like saying, I really want to keep my baby teeth. They're so cute. I don't want those serrated, permanent teeth to come in.

[B]

The word that Stephen Batchelor, the Buddhist writer, who I believe studied with the same Korean Zen master that you referenced earlier. The word he sometimes uses in this regard is poignancy.

[C]

It's a beautiful expression. I love that word. And I love where he uses it in that Intimations of the Sublime chapter. And I forget the name of his book.

[B]

Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist.

[C]

No.

[B]

Or Buddhism Without Beliefs.

[C]

No. It's even another one after the Buddha.

[B]

Those are the three books by him that I read.

[C]

They're all good. They're all good. It'll come back after.

[B]

Buddhism is actually one of his books by.

[C]

It was before that one. But I think poignancy is a beautiful word to describe the bittersweetness of our existence as humans together. And I have this quote that I want to read because it has to do again, with this sense of what is awakening. What does it mean? This is a quote from Helen Prejeant, and she is the one who. The movie Dead Man Walking was made about her.

[B]

She was a nun.

[C]

Yes, she was a nun. And she said. And I love this. She said, my whole faith now is making love present in the world and letting love be in my life. What counts now is being with People, especially those people who are most excluded, death row inmates and their families. That was her mission, to work with the most excluded, feared, maybe hated people. When I was talking earlier about just letting the self as a point of reference loosen up a little bit, I think of that. I think of, oh, how can I? You know, Sharon Salzberg wrote a book with the most beautiful titles. It was called A Heart as Wide as the World. Like, how can I just embrace more and more and more of the good, the bad, the ugly? Hold all of it in my heart with some tenderness. I feel like that's a really beautiful way to live.

[B]

But I could see a potential misunderstanding and perhaps even a potential pitfall in here. Because if you're saying that one way to trust and confidence in yourself is through increasing your love quotient, people who have low self esteem can fall into sort of ruinous, toxic altruism where they're people pleasing as opposed to having a.

[C]

Healthy relationship, well, that's a huge pitfall, is imagining that you're supposed to love other people more than yourself, put other people first. And a lot of spiritual teachings do actually encourage that. Having healthy boundaries and knowing what is my limit. Where am I going to start to feel I'm over giving and resenting it? I mean, this is an issue for every parent certainly to consider. I'm coming back to a story from the Buddhist scriptures, the teachings, and this is a story, you probably know it, about King Pasanadi Kosola and his wife, Queen Malika. I think Malika asks him first. It was kind of like, I don't know, it's a little bit of Snow White too, like, who do you love the most in the world? Who do you love the most? And he says, I think myself. And then he says, well, your majesty, how about you? You know, who do you think is the dearest one to you? And she reflects and she said, I would have to say myself. They're a little bit, maybe a little freaked out because it's not very romantic. And they go and they talk to the Buddha and the Buddha says, there is no one on this earth more worthy of your love than you yourself. He's not saying there's anyone less worthy. He's really saying it's okay to take care of yourself. It's not only okay, it's really the foundation, like trusting yourself. So when I talk about love, I don't just mean being selfless. And that can devolve into being a doormat or over giving, which I certainly have done in my life. And there's a lot of the spiritual teachings that kind of condition you to do that. And that's where I think Western psychology has a huge contribution to make, where we really learn about how to be a healthy self.

[B]

What does self love look like to you? Because speaking of pitfalls, one pitfall or misunderstanding when it comes to self love could be narcissism, of course.

[C]

Of course. Self love does not look like being self referential in the way that I was talking about earlier, where you just all roads lead to yourself. Basically, you tell me something and I'll just link it right back to me and my experience. You know, what's that joke? How are you doing? How are you feeling about me? Or I forget it. Something like that, okay? It can devolve into things like that. In some of the texts they talk about self cherishing as a really bad thing because they're really talking about being selfish and only thinking more always about yourself instead of about yourself and the other yourself in a relational context, context of whether it's family or group or community or country or planet world, but yourself in a relational context. And I think of self love as respect. Self respect is probably a better word, having self respect. Because if you really have self respect, you're not going to be harming yourself so easily. For example, people who fall into addiction. Self respect is a helpful way out among 12 step and many other supports for getting sober.

[B]

The self in the Buddhist context is such a tricky notion.

[C]

It is so tricky. And everybody gets their knickers in a twist about that one. Because self, subject, object, they're kind of one thing at a certain point with perception. But this is getting into the weeds. I don't think we have to worry about it. The sense of me is not going to go away. It's just, is that always in charge of everything I do? I'm not trying to annihilate myself. Does that make sense?

[B]

It does make sense. And I think that is a. This is becoming a theme. Another pitfall or misunderstanding of the Dharma is a self annihilation. It becomes a kind of self hatred. It can become that.

[C]

And listen again. One of the things I've worked with thousands of people, both as a psychotherapist and a meditation teacher. Because at this age, you know, I've been doing this for 50 years and so practicing and studying and then later teaching, if there's one thread, it's people are so hard on themselves and self hatred is always a possibility. That's where I think the loving kindness practices and the Joy practices, you know, really deliberately cultivating joy. What is it Wendell Berry said? Be joyful, even though you've considered all the facts.

[B]

I love that. That's really good. I'm writing that down.

[C]

Yeah, it's from, I think, the mad farmer. He says, put your faith in the 2 inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years. Hear the songs that are yet to come. This is my favorite part. Expect the end of the world. Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts, and I think that's one of the ways that we can steady our hearts in uncertain times, is to cultivate joy. These little moments, the moments of laughter together, the moments that Thich Nhat Hanh called the non toothache. How many times are we grateful and happy that we don't have a toothache? Right? And then he also said another important thing in terms of steadying the heart in uncertain times. One of our Insight LA teachers. Insight LA is the nonprofit that I founded here in Los Angeles. One of our teachers, Lien Chi Tran, is Vietnamese, and she came on a very traumatic boat to escape from Vietnam. And Thich Nhat Hanh always said about the people who had to escape in those boats and pirates and storms and very vulnerable and overcrowded. And he always said, if one person in that boat could stay calm, everybody in that boat had a better chance of survival. Our boat is small here in this world, but if we can just stay calm and appreciate the non toothache moments and cultivate joy, I do believe we're really helping the world.

[A]

Coming up, Trudy Goodman talks about intuition, how to know if you're listening to yourself, the power and importance of community and the importance of getting out of your own bubble and differentiating between your opinions and your values. Few things feel better than knowing someone's looking out for you. That is the spirit behind the AT&T guarantee. Staying connected matters. That's why AT&T has connectivity you can depend on or they will proactively make it right. That's the AT&T guarantee, because connection should be dependable, essentially, especially in the moments that matter most. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.comguarantee for details. AT&T connecting changes everything. I was talking to my doctor the.

[B]

Other day about this long time issue.

[A]

I've had with nighttime restlessness. And we're trying to figure out what's going on. And I was able to mention to her, hey, I got these blood tests through function reaction recently and it showed that I'm low in this one thing, and that could be a contributor. And actually, we're now in the middle of chasing that lead down. I chose function because it's the only health platform that gives me data most people never get and the insights to start doing something about it. Inside function, you get access to test over 100 biomarkers, from hormones to toxins to markers of heart health, inflammation and stress. It's a near 360 view and to better see what's happening inside your body. For many of us, there's nothing that the voice in our head obsesses over like health. But with over 100 lab tests and insights, function can help answer questions like why am I so tired all the time? How do I get better sleep? Should I be taking supplements? How do I know if my heart is healthy? Does my work stress affect it? These are all questions I personally have. Function is the key to getting some answers and understanding your body better. A function membership gives you a comprehensive health check with results tracked over time. Getting blood work done through function is the first step toward finding out what you're made of, helping you understand what it takes to live a longer, healthier life. Learn more and join Using my link, Function is in your 360 view to see what's happening inside your body. And my first 1000 listeners get a $100 credit toward their membership. Visit www.functionhealth.com SL Happier or just use the gift code Happier100@signup to own your health.

[B]

I'm curious about how that redounds to trusting yourself. Would the mechanism be there that if you're calm, you have a regular IV drip of joy, that you're less caught up in the culture's messages to you about how you shouldn't trust yourself?

[C]

Yes, yes. And you're better able to discern what's actually going on and you're less distracted? I wanted to talk a little bit about intuition because that's very linked to trusting yourself. And I was at a gym, in a class, the teacher said, let's go. We were going to do these sideways leaps, like preparing for snowboarding. I mean, I was already 75. I was not going to go snowboarding, but I loved the class.

[B]

Just to say, you don't look 75.

[C]

Well, I'm not anymore. I know I'm 79 and three quarters. You know, the older you get by. I mean, who knows? By the time people listen to this, I might even be 80. But it's like kids, the older you get, you start counting three quarters. So she took Us outside on a cement sidewalk to do these leaps. And as we went outside, I heard a distinct voice in my head that said, let's skip this one. And I wanted to do it. And I was going really fast, and my foot caught in a little crack in the sidewalk, and I slammed down and broke my back. Every time I override my intuition. It's a disaster for your intuition to talk to you. You need to trust your perceptions and be listening a little bit. By listening, I just mean being present because I was distracted by, oh, yeah, let's go. I mean, it was not a subtle message. I do not always hear voices. That was maybe one of the only times, a few times in my life. But there was another time. And I'm telling this story because when I emerged from my last divorce, and yes, I have had more than one. When I emerged from my last divorce from somebody I adored, a wonderful Zen teacher. We were co teachers. Our lives were completely entwined. But there were problems toward the end of our marriage, and I had intuitions about them. But when I would talk to him, you know, he would look me in the eye and talk to me, and he was so clear. And I loved him. And it didn't cross my mind that he was lying to me, but he was. He felt he needed to. I'm not judging or explaining or excusing. That's not the point of the story. The point of the story is I overrode my intuition. And so when we came apart, when we went apart, I thought, how am I ever gonna trust myself again? Over and over, I just steamrolled over my trusting my intuition, and how am I gonna choose a partner ever again? Certainly, this is the end of my love life, blah, blah, blah. My mind telling me all these very sad stories. And I'm sharing this because I think a lot of people might wonder, how do you discern that inner voice from fear? Is it the voice of fear or is it trustworthy intuition? What I did was I started to just listen. And if it meant suddenly veering off my path to stop at a coffee shop because I had that random idea, I did it. I listened. I had a dream about some cousins that I hadn't seen forever. And I thought I called them, I visited them. I think we were all wondering why I was there. But the point was to listen to that impulse, because it wasn't a fearful one. It was just my way of signaling. And other people, you can try this signaling, I'm here and I'm listening to the messages that are appearing in My consciousness. And not long afterwards I was a visiting teacher, a resident teacher for the Santa Fe Insight Meditation community. And I was invited to teach co teach with my beloved colleague Phil Arenow, with whom I founded this institute for meditation and psychotherapy, the first one in the world. And we really were close to the conference was in Marco Island, Florida. And you had to fly into Fort Myers. So I was at that time living in New Mexico. We met, he was from Boston, we met in Fort Myers, we drove down together, we taught for the week with a couple of colleagues. And then it was time to drive back to the airport. And I didn't want to get in the car. I didn't have a premonition, you know, I just had this feeling. But because I was doing this practice of listening to my body, which my body didn't want to get in the car. I didn't get in. And you may have guessed the end of this story, which is really tragic. I had to drive back with another colleague. It was inconvenient. He said, well, I'll go with Phil, you take my rental car. I said, I can't, I'm not on the contract. So he grudgingly stayed with me. I think I just made up. I just said, well, I want to go for one more swim before we go back to winter. And Phil was killed in a head on collision on the way to the airport. I would have been sitting right next to him. A truck crossed the median and just plowed into the oncoming traffic driven by a 15 year old without a license. So I feel like trusting my intuition literally saved my life. And I think that's maybe to come right around the beginning of this conversation. Maybe that's why I place so much emphasis on trust.

[B]

A moment ago you talked about the fact that some people get hung up on like how do you know if you're listening to yourself? How do you know you're not just listening to the fear voice?

[A]

I haven't read it, but there's a.

[B]

Book called the Gift of Fear that some female friends of mine have referenced to me because apparently in this book it talks about the fact that sometimes our bodies are trying to.

[C]

Oh, listen, fear is our friend. Okay, sure. And part intuition can reveal itself as fear too. You know, if I'm. I don't know. I mean, what is the classic example? In a dark alley, alone, and I feel fear. I need to look behind me, I need to look around. Right. It's our warning system. So I'm not saying don't have fear. I'm just saying sometimes the messages that we might be hearing might be fearful thoughts as opposed to trustworthy intuitions.

[B]

Right.

[C]

That's the distinction that I was meaning to make.

[B]

Just to complicate this even further, sometimes what may seem like intuition is in fact bias and bigotry.

[C]

Yes, it is. And that's again where I think these practices of awareness come in, so that we can begin to notice when we have those kinds of biases. And sometimes we can't. They're invisible to us because of the way we were brought up or our conditioning in different ways. And that's why we need community. That's why we need each other. I need you to say to me, you know, I think that thought or what you're saying is biased. I think you're expressing a certain kind of bias here or prejudice or judgment or something that might not be so wise. We need each other. We need each other for so many things. Community is power. We're very vulnerable and powerless without each other.

[B]

I think what I'm hearing you say to bring it back to the central theme of this conversation is that in an interesting way, this is a bit of a bank shot, but in an interesting way, having a good community, a healthy community, can help you trust yourself.

[C]

Absolutely.

[B]

Because they're calling bullshit on you.

[C]

Yes, exactly. Once again, you've said it faster and probably clearer. But listen, Dan, I really appreciate you because I have intense add. Mind is like a fountain of ideas. And so to have somebody corral me and sum it up is the big fat gift.

[B]

Oh, we should do more of this. This is like the only skill I have. So we're a good match in this.

[C]

I need to keep you with me every time I have to give it to.

[B]

I do actually want to go back to something you said a while ago. And it's kind of linked to community. And I'm not sure I'm going to recapitulate it accurately, but it was something about how being loving, having good relationships can loosen the grip of self in a way which I totally agree with.

[A]

And then I was thinking, okay, well.

[B]

That actually could help with trusting yourself because you're loosening a grip on the sort of less healthy aspects of self and better able to hear the sort of truer, more honest aspects of yourself. Am I in the neighborhood of accuracy?

[C]

Okay, definitely. And one of the things I wish is that as a community of humans, that we would be more not just calling each other on our bullshit, but listening to each other and being curious. Why do you believe this bullshit? I Think it's bullshit? You really believe it? I'd like to know more about that, what it means to you. Because without dialogue and conversation, I don't see how we're going to make peace in this world. And we need to. We kind of urgently need to. So I feel that's also really important. And it's one of the factors of awakening. You know, we have these seven factors of awakening. Mindfulness is the fulcrum. And then there's these sort of energizing aliveness ones on one side, which would be joy and effort and investigation is one. Curiosity, right? Interest, joy. And then they're the calming ones, you know, tranquility and calm. And equanimity. And equanimity contains wisdom. Because equanimity, I mean the root meaning of equanimity is looking upon that bit of space between the skull and the brain where you're. You can observe your experience. Witness. And that witness consciousness, we sometimes call mindful awareness, loving awareness. Different traditions have different names for it. But it's really key to being able to catch ourselves and also be honest. So that if you call me out on some bullshit of mine, instead of getting defensive, I have a choice. I could actually get curious and say, maybe that's true. Maybe he's right, and then look into my own mind and see, could that be true? Could that be right? It's just another way that I feel being present and awake and helps us be in relationship with each other. And certainly having some kindness or being disposed towards some tenderness also helps because I'm not ready to pounce on you when you say something I don't like.

[B]

You pounced when I started misstating the truth of enlightenment awakening earlier.

[C]

Did I pounce?

[B]

No, you didn't really pounce.

[C]

I didn't really pounce in your.

[B]

In your defense. You're taking us somewhere maybe a little counterintuitive and maybe even somewhat discomforting for some listeners. I think that's where you're taking us, because we're talking about trusting yourself and we live to state a truism in divided and polarized times. It seems like partly what you're advising us to do as part of trusting ourselves is to reexamine our opinions and views.

[C]

Well, to have the confidence to be curious about someone else whose opinions and views differ from ours and whose opinions and views we might hate or strongly disagree with. I was at a neighbor's house. I had listened to a political commentator that I don't agree with at all.

[B]

You willing to say who this person is, okay.

[C]

So I was listening to Tucker Carlson and I then was so interested in what he was saying that I subscribed to his newsletter thing because I thought, I never hear people in my bubble due to the algorithms and the social connections. I never hear people believing the things that Tucker Carlson believes. So I said to my neighbor, have you ever listened to Tucker Carlson? And she said, why would I do that? With a kind of sneer, which could have been me another time. But I thought, we need to actually get curious and try to claw our way out of the silo. The algorithms put us in to hear what other people are saying and even if it sounds outlandish to us to realize, okay, a lot of people believe this. And then can I talk to some of them? Can I listen? Can I be open? I know that if we exchanged pictures of our kids or if we talked about what it was like to lose someone we loved, we would be completely on the same page. So how do we drift so far apart? Or more importantly, how do we get back together?

[B]

Right. I've had a sort of round trip on this same issue just to tell a little story of myself.

[C]

Please.

[B]

I really fancied myself to be a quite even handed and fair minded journalist and spent a lot of time in interviewing everybody from cult leaders to terrorists to murderers to people who are on the completely different side of the many.

[C]

People you disagree with.

[B]

Yes. And I thought, I think with some justification that I treated everybody fairly. I think that's not totally untrue. And. But Trump undid me. And I realized when Trump appeared on the scene that I was. I had lost. I think objectivity is an unattainable standard, but I had lost some sort of balance.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So I really, I went on a mission in around 2016, 17, 18, 19 to just. I never really got into Tucker Carlson, but I started listening to. One example would be Ben Shapiro, who's a very popular right wing podcaster. I in fact, got so interested in him, I went and interviewed him and I still to this day retain this practice of listening across the spectrum.

[C]

But great.

[B]

At first it was really disorienting. I felt like a kind of self gaslighting.

[C]

That's a great expression. I like that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that's really what it felt like. And it was bumpy.

[C]

That's ignorance, delusion. Self gaslighting would be part of that.

[B]

Yes, yes.

[C]

But I want to hear the story.

[B]

Well, there's not that much more to.

[A]

It other than that.

[B]

Eventually what I came to see is there's a difference between your opinions and your values. And so I got much looser around my opinions on the issues du jour, but much more confident in my, like, nobody's going to talk me out of my view that cruelty is uncool.

[C]

Same here. Nobody's going to talk me out of the idea that, you know, a drug addict shouldn't be in charge of the treasury. I believe that and I'm not going to unbelieve that. But I still want to learn, I still want to. It's a life co on. Right now, it's really a huge question. How do we come back together and relate to each other when cruelty is happening?

[B]

Yes. And even more sort of acutely for this discussion, a life co on is how do you retain your curiosity about people with whom you disagree without taking off the table your right to say this is wrong. Yeah, this is. I'm not down with this.

[C]

What happened.

[B]

Yes. In some ways, to take it back to trust and self trust and self confidence, like this is a bit of an advanced practice I think is like you need to have a little bit of a foundation of self trust before.

[C]

You, before you venture into those waters. Absolutely.

[B]

Before you start ingesting a bunch of.

[C]

Absolutely. Because it's very convincing. And again, this has very much to do with the algorithms and what we see. People say, well, I've done my research, but the research that they did is flawed. This is where science is really important and scientific method is really important. We have the ability today to merge the practices of the heart and awareness with science because lots of things are being known about the brain and learned about the brain. Those are real things. For example, we know that power, a lot of power, damages certain parts of the brain, the empathic centers of the brain. Dr. Cowley, he's proved it behaviorally. And then I have the name, I forget the name of the scientist who's proved it with neuroscience. This is very, I think, important, wonderful research. I also don't want to end this without doing a little bit of practice, practice of some kind, together with people. I know that people who are listening or watching, you know, they might be in their cars, they're going about their day, they're not necessarily going to stop and close their eyes and meditate. But I think I have a practice that people can just do wherever they.

[B]

Are in a free range style. You want to describe it?

[C]

Well, why don't we do it?

[B]

Let's do it.

[A]

Before we do it, though, let's sneak in a quick commercial break after the break. You will hear Trudy lead us in a guided meditation that you can do wherever you are, eyes open or closed. We're also going to talk, by the way, after the break, about the connection between forgiveness and trusting yourself. Few things feel better than knowing someone's looking out for you. That is the spirit behind the AT and T guarantee. Staying connected matters. That's why AT and T has connectivity you can depend on, or they will proactively make it right. That's the AT T guarantee, because connection should be dependable, especially in the moments that matter most. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.comguarantee for details. @ and T connecting Changes Everything Huge savings DELL AI PCs are here, and it's a big deal. Why? Because Dell AI PCs with Intel Core Ultra processors are newly designed to help you do more faster. It's pretty amazing what they can do in a day's work. They can generate code, edit images, multitask without lag, draft emails, summarize documents, create live translations. They can even extend your battery life so you never have to worry about forgetting your charger. It's like having a personal assistant built into your PC to cover the menial tasks so you can focus on what matters. That's the power of Dell AI. With intel inside with deals on Dell AI PCs like the Dell 16 plus starting at $749.99, it's the perfect time to refresh your tech and take back your time. Upgrade your AI PC today by visiting Dell.com deals that's Dell.com deal.

[C]

So first I want to encourage everybody to take just three deep breaths. I'm going to close my eyes and do it. You don't have to close your eyes because I don't know where you are at this moment. I'm just going to relax my body. One, two. I'm just breathing in the aliveness of this moment and breathing out any tension, letting myself relax with that out breath and then taking a moment to just enjoy the feeling of being present and a little bit relaxed and notice if there are feelings of heaviness or tension or any kind of sadness or difficulty that you may be holding in your body to just notice that you can do it. You can do this any way that you are and then see if you can kind of relax around that a little bit and name it. Oh, just gently acknowledging, oh, this is sadness or this is worry or this is grief. This is anger. Just making room for it to be here. Because when we make room for us to feel our feelings fully, they will change. They inevitably change because everything does. And then just for a moment, breathing in some kindness. Imagine your breath as you breathe, don't have to be sitting still like we are, but imagine your breath as your most loving, faithful companion. After all, it's always here for you. And just letting your breath, the ebb and flow of your natural rhythm of breathing, just breathing in that trust that your breath will always be here as long as you're alive. And breathing out that sense of connection, kindness, compassion, maybe sending out your breath to everyone who's suffering at this moment in this life. And if that's you remembering you're not alone in this, and then once again, just breathing in and experiencing the breath as loving you, taking care of you, even gently caressing you a little bit when you can really sense and feel it. So you're breathing in the caring of the breath. You're breathing out some caring for this life, for anyone who's suffering for yourself. And then finally call to mind a moment of joy or pleasure. It can be a little moment. Somebody gave me a kind smile earlier today, I loved it. Could be the sunrise, could be the sound of raindrops, or you heard somebody laughing, children playing, whatever uplifts you, just call that to mind. And just remember joy. Remember joy. Because when we talk about these moments of disconnection with ourselves, with each other, with our country, with our leaders, whatever it might be, I think we're being asked not to turn away in frustration or despair, but to hold each other close, to take this moment can be any moment to just take a deep breath, breathing in the caring, the love that is available to us, if it's only the breath, being our most faithful companion, and then just breathing out, relaxing and opening to connecting with others. That's a practice that I want to offer just to remember that joy and love, they are always here, even though they may get so buried by our distress.

[B]

As I used the word disconnection and thought that came up for me is that like we have like a culture wide separation anxiety that's happening right now. We're disconnected from ourselves, we're disconnected from each other. And given that connection is the sort of apex of what it means to be a human. It is the essence of what it means to be a human that is a recipe for disaster on a micro scale with the epidemic levels of individual anxiety and depression or macro scale and loneliness and a macro scale with the division that we're seeing in the country.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And so with that practice was kind of like a remedy for separation anxiety.

[C]

It's remembering.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

The classic definition of mindfulness is remembering, you know, this and how do we remember? We have to put down our devices for a minute, maybe a few minutes, walk outside, look at the sky, stand under a tree, if it's not too snowy, lie down for a minute on the ground and just feel the energy of the earth. I mean, really, it's our birthright to be part of nature. And nature is an ally. And it doesn't have to be the wilderness. You know, it could be in the city. Just being outside for a few minutes, looking at the sky is usually possible. Even in New York, there's some slivers of sky that you can look at. There's a little something poking out of the sidewalk. Soon there are going to be tulips, you know.

[B]

Duncan Trussell, the comedian who has his own podcast and has been on this show, calls you Trudy the Love Barbarian. What does that mean?

[C]

Okay, so Duncan did something really cool. He took his podcasts with several spiritual teachers and he, in connection with a colleague and Netflix, they made a series called the Midnight Gospel and it's cartoons. Episode four features a character called Trudy the Love Barbarian. She carries a rose in her mouth. And anyway, she can be very fierce. And it's so fun because I got to be the voice of Trudy the Love Barbarian. And the dialogue is from our podcast that we did stuff I said. So, you know, I'm riding along on my horse and then I'm saying these things about forgiveness and then I slice the head off somebody who's an opponent. I mean, it's just fun. It's fun. Some of it's like 14 year old fun, but it's fun. And I have to say, I loved doing it. And I want to put this out because doing voiceover, you don't have to worry about hair or makeup or anything. You go in a booth and you act and they tell you what to do. Scream. No, louder. You just do it. It's so fun. So I want to say to anybody watching or listening, if you need a voiceover artist, I'm here and I would love to do it. And, you know, it's kind of fun, like discovering late in life something that you're good at that you had no idea ever that you would be good at it. It was great.

[B]

I feel guilty. I've never watched it. I do need to watch it.

[C]

Well, I have to feel even guiltier because I didn't watch all of it.

[B]

I just watched your bits.

[C]

Well, I watched up till my bit.

[B]

I see, I see.

[C]

And Then some of the graphics were so graphic, and I just thought, I'll listen to more later.

[B]

Yeah, and then they put out a new show and you started binging that. And there you go. You talked about forgiveness there. And I'm just. This might be a good place to end it, or maybe it's not. What connection, if any, is there between forgiveness and trusting yourself?

[C]

That's a really interesting question. Let's see. Right away, I would say that forgiveness is very tricky. Everybody wants to forgive because it feels good, and it's just more uplifting than having revenge fantasies and grudges and hate and stuff like that. So the tendency is to want to jump to forgiveness because it feels better than feeling the feelings that often come with being hurt or betrayed or feelings of anger and revenge fantasies and all that stuff. So I wanted to say that when you trust yourself, you're going to be able to trust the importance of feeling your feelings fully and not jumping over them to forgive too fast, too soon, before you're ready. You can trust that the anger is there for a reason, like fear, like other emotions. They're not there for no reason trust. They're there for a reason that it's okay to feel them. They're not going to overwhelm, flood, and destroy you. You can feel them. And through the willingness to just let them be there and have their being, they change. They inevitably change. I mean, I could work with you right now and demonstrate that if you want. I don't know if we have time. And then. Then you can ask yourself, am I ready to forgive? Some acts are unforgivable. You can't forgive them. But maybe you can forgive the person who did them because you understand they wouldn't have abused you if they hadn't been abused. And they wouldn't have been abused if their parents. You know, these things cascade down the generations and you can have some empathy or compassion on. But forgiveness, it's tricky. It takes some time and some care to not do it too fast. I know for me, in the past, I wanted to be a spiritual person, and so I wanted to forgive because that's what a spiritual person would do. But that was so toxic because I was enraged. Then you're gaslighting yourself. Actually, to use your great expression, you're.

[B]

79 and 3/4 as we do this interview. How proficient are you at this point in trusting yourself, given your history of not trusting yourself?

[C]

I'm much better at it. I'm much better at it. I also recognize the patterns of self doubt. So much and it came up for me, actually. I wrote an email to somebody where I became vulnerable in the email, and I sent it. And it was somebody I admire and respect a lot. And then afterwards I had this sort of wave of shame of you shouldn't have pressed sin and all that self talk of doubt. But I recognize it. It's so familiar. The feeling is familiar. And I just thought, no, it's okay. Trust yourself. You did it. And sure enough, I got the most loving email back. But that sort of spinning out, it could have lasted for hours before I could have beat up on myself for quite a while. That doesn't happen anymore at all. The practice works. And I'll borrow a phrase from wonderful 12 step programs, it works if you work it. Yeah, we have a responsibility to work it. And I feel we have a responsibility thanks to our human birth. It's very precious to be born a human being and to have this consciousness.

[B]

Another thing that is said, I think, by the Buddha about this practice is that it's good in the beginning, good in the middle, good in the end. So even somebody listening who's just learning how to trust themselves.

[C]

Great. Yes, it's great. And it will bring benefits at any point along the path. It's really great.

[B]

I have two questions I usually ask toward the end. One is, is there something you were hoping that we might get to that we haven't gotten to?

[C]

No. Maybe just how happy I am to be here doing this with you. You know, I didn't know ahead of time what it would be like. And it's really, really nice.

[B]

Thank you. Yeah, likewise. And you had to take an hour and a half Uber to get here.

[C]

I did.

[B]

And we're going to have dinner afterwards. And so I'm grateful to you for dedicating this amount of time to do all this. So thank you.

[C]

Well, I remembered that your talk was the only meditation and mindfulness talk that my grandson ever liked. Am I allowed to say why? Yeah, because you dropped the F bomb in that talk. I can't bring myself to say it when there's a camera. You said fuck and he was 12 and he just loved it.

[B]

It's funny, I have a 10 year old and he hears me swear so much that he doesn't think swearing is cool because Daddy does it.

[C]

Daddy does it. It's embarrassing and it's wrong. But for Owen sitting in the front row and you being up on a stage at UCLA to say it, Liberation, freedom.

[B]

Yes. Well, I'm glad I could give that to Owen.

[C]

So, yes, I Would ride an hour and a half to see you.

[B]

Oh, thank you. Final, final question. Please just plug Inside LA or any other stuff that you're doing in the world or have written or website or whatever.

[A]

People who want to get more from.

[B]

You, how can they do that?

[C]

I have a website, it needs updating. I would like it to eventually just have all my work on it offered for free for everybody to use. And that's my aspiration for it. It's trudygoodman.com at least. It has my calendar and recent things on it and some guided meditations and blogs and stuff like that. I do want to plug Insight la, please.

[B]

It's an amazing organization.

[C]

Wonderful, wonderful place to learn mindfulness and self compassion and meditation retreats they offer. And I have to say I have mentored many of the teachers there and they're wonderful. There was not a bad apple in the lot among the people that I had the honor of teaching and uplifting into their. I always wanted Inside LA to be a platform for other people to grow and become teachers. I didn't ever want to be the queen of it. It's not my nature. I find that embarrassing. So Inside la, my website and working on a book, I don't know, at this rate, it might be published posthumously, but when I say that, Jack gets really mad at me.

[B]

Will you come back on when the book comes out?

[C]

Yes, I'd love to.

[B]

I'm planning to come to your 80th birthday party, which I got invited to. So thank you. Maybe we can. Maybe we can.

[C]

Thank you.

[B]

Do a conversation with me, you and Jack.

[C]

That would be super fun. Okay.

[B]

That would be.

[C]

Yeah. Jack and I just put out, put out a course on relationship. That was fun too.

[B]

Where is that available?

[C]

That would be available on my website and on Jack's website. Jack Corporation, cornfield.com.

[B]

Okay. I'm going to put links to all of these in the show notes for this episode so people listening can go check all of this stuff out.

[C]

Okay. And by the time this comes out, I'll make sure it's on my list.

[B]

Good. This has been a delight. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it.

[C]

Me too. I've enjoyed it so much.

[A]

Thanks again to Trudy. She's amazing.

[B]

Always love talking to Trudy.

[A]

Don't forget that if you're a paid subscriber over on danharris.com, you will get a custom guided meditation with this episode. Today's guided meditation comes from our Teacher of the month 7A Selassie. And it's all about how to cultivate the skill of trusting yourself. The meditation itself is called how to Listen to Yourself. Also only for paid subscribers. Weekly live guided meditations and Q and A Sessions every Tuesday, 4:00 Eastern. The next one is 7A along with DJ Kashmir. I'll be skipping that one, but you'll get 7A. And the executive producer of this show, DJ. By the way, if you want to meditate with me in person and with Seb, come check out Meditation Party the weekend of October 24th at the Omega Institute. Finally, thank you very much to everybody who works so hard on the show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan and Eleanor Vasily. 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, and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.

[C]

Sam.