← 10% Happier with Dan Harris
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Foreign. This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, everybody. How we doing today? I'm going to take your questions on a whole range of juicy subjects. AI anxiety, specifically, what to do when you're really worried that AI is going to take your job. We talk about coping with an impending MRI when you're claustrophobic, and I'm going to be embarrassingly honest about my own experience with that. We get into a technique from the meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein, for breaking out of mental loops that you've been in a thousand times. There's a great question about the need for external approval, which, as a former anchorman, I have a lot of feelings about. And we wrap up with something I think is is actually very profound, which is why we need to hear the same things over and over before they sink in. So what you're about to hear is a recording of a live session I did with some subscribers to my newish meditation app, which is called 10% with Dan Harris. We do these sessions every Tuesday afternoon. It's a great chance to meditate together to get your questions answered and really to experience the power of the carpool lane, which accelerates learning, growth, and happiness. The Buddha knew this, and so do modern psychologists who call it social support. Speaking of my app, very quickly, I just want to tell you we've got something very cool coming up this summer. As you may know, the Buddha came up with a kind of cookbook to help you lead a happy life. It's called the Eightfold Path. It's one of his foundational lists. And this summer, over on the 10% app, Sharon Salzberg, the amazing meditation teacher, will be leading an eight part series on the Eightfold Path. Every Sunday, starting on July 12, she's going to do a live session where she will guide a meditation and talk about one aspect of the Eightfold Path, from maintaining focus and mindfulness to communicating successfully with other human beings. So go to danharris.com to get the app and join the party. This is going to be an amazing series. All right. We're talking AI anxiety, breaking out of mental loops, and much more after this quick break. Lately, I've been trying to be a little bit more intentional about what I wear every day, leaning into pieces that feel easy, comfortable, and still put together. It just makes getting dressed simpler. Quint's has been a big go to for me in this regard. The fabrics feel elevated, the fits are clean, and everything just works without needing to overthink it. Quince has all the wardrobe staples for spring think 100% European linen shorts and shirts from $34 lightweight, breathable and comfortable, but still looking put together and clean. 100% Pima cotton tees with a softness that has to be felt. Their pants also hit that same balance. Relaxed and comfortable, but still polished enough to wear pretty much anywhere. 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Like Joseph says, Sincerely, someone who is obsessing and scared AI is wiping out my career. Dude, I've been thinking a ton about this AI thing. My friend Sam Harris some of you may have mixed feelings about because he can be a little controversial, but he's still my guy. He had a great episode a couple days ago with Tristan Harris, who was related to neither me as Dan Harris or Sam as Sam Harris, just another Harris guy. He runs something I believe it's called the center for Humane Technology, and listening to that episode definitely escalated my alarm about AI not only in its economic impacts, but also just in its overall impacts on us as a species. Tristan is very good though, when it comes to helping us engage with action as a way to absorb anxiety so that you know there are things we can do, including voting for people who take this issue seriously. AI safety that is informing ourselves and informing others. There's a new documentary I have not seen. It's in theaters. It's called AI Doc. I'm very interested in it. It's the type of thing where you might be able to organize a screening for you and your friends. Or if you've got a kid in school, you can organize a Screening for the parents. You can set up a chat group on text or whatever with your friends to talk about issues in AI. You can go check out the center for Humane Technology and get involved if you want. I think action, whether it's small or large, incremental or super ambitious, is really a great way to reduce concern. Specifically your concern, Laura, is about AI wiping out your job. And yeah, I feel you on that. I don't know that anybody you know in the long term is safe in this regard. I want to emphasize I. I genuinely don't know. And it's that uncertainty that we humans are just not wired for. We're not wired to handle it. And it is really a design flaw because we live in a world, as we all know, characterized by relentless impermanence, ceaseless change, and yet we don't like it. That's a bug that we need to figure out how to deal with. There are a couple things that help me. One is this practice where you really start to get more comfortable in a. Or more aware of in a visceral way, not just an intellectual or conceptual way, with the nature of change. As you're doing a body scan and you're moving from the sensations at the head to the. To the forehead and onwards, you can just notice how the sensations you are being mindful of are just constantly in flux. You can really tune into that change just as a little way to get an experiential, visceral sense of impermanence as opposed to just knowing, theoretically, that everything changes. So that's one thing that's very helpful. Another thing that's really helpful in dealing with uncertainty I've already mentioned, which is the concept of action absorbing anxiety. The Dalai Lama has this thing that I've often found a little cute, but it is, I think it's true, nonetheless. I'm not going to be able to replicate the exact words of the quote, but the general sentiment is if there's something you can do about a problem, there's no point worrying. You should just do the thing. And if there's nothing you can do, there's also no point worrying because there's nothing you can do. I think that kind of unintentionally makes those of us who are wired for worry feel bad, because I can't help it, I'm just gonna worry, especially when there's nothing I can do. But there are very few issues, I think, where there's nothing we can do. And that's why I think it's worth thinking about. Okay, if your job Feels vulnerable to automation. What's in your control? What are the steps you can take? Oddly enough, talking to AI about this can be useful. But what are the moves you can take to protect yourself? Are there ways within your current organization that you might be the thought leader on AI being becoming the person who helps everybody else in the organization and therefore creating value around you as that person? We have somebody in our organization shout out to Ben, who is playing that role. I think it's a really smart move. It's also a public service. So other ways that you might be able to deal with this uncertainty. I would add one other thing. So we talked at the beginning about meditation as step number one or one item on the menu. Two, action absorbs anxiety. Do what you can. Three, never worry alone. So showing up here and talking about it with us, very helpful. At least it is for me. But talking to your friends, I think I mentioned this earlier, creating a chat group where you're all in it together. I think that's very helpful. And it obviously comports with how we are wired as a species, which is to be in community. Okay, long answer to Laura's question. Joanie writes, help, please, Dan. I have to have an MRI soon. Any coping hints would be appreciated. Okay, so I. I'm gonna be honest with you about this because my panic disorder and claustrophobia is so intense, the last time I needed an mri, I had them knock me out. I'm, like, embarrassed to admit that because I feel like I'm Mr. Meditation. I should have been able to be mindful throughout the thing, but it's just panic disorders. If you have it, it is really, really, really powerful. I wish I could say that after all my years of meditation, I've just conquered it, but I haven't. I hope that you don't have panic disorder and you have more like garden variety discomfort with the claustrophobia associated with an mri. So if that's you, let me say a little bit about some coping mechanisms that I think might be useful. One is you can bring your meditation practice into the mri, of course. And be mindful of the sensations of discomfort. Tightness in the chest, racing thoughts, rumbling in the belly. In the being mindful of those sensations, you are definitionally not owned by them. Any moment of mindfulness of the sensations brings you out of the fear center of the brain, the amygdala, and into the more rational part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex. So that. And I might be screwing up my brain, my neuroscience here. So I'm sure there are Other parts of the brain that come online when we're mindful. Sorry that I don't know all of them. But anyway, it is a great way to not be swamped by the feelings of discomfort. And so that's something that I find helpful in situations where I'm not in full on panic, but I'm anxious nonetheless. Like I was in some elevators yesterday and in the city and I was using that, using mindfulness. Another thing to do is, and this you should do in consultation with your doctor because I don't want to be recommending, I don't want to give you medical advice. I am not a physician. And what I'm about to say is a little dicey because medication for anxiety also has lots of dependency issues. That that stuff can be addictive. But if your doctor thinks you can handle it and are a good candidate for some sort of sedation that is not as intense as what I had to do, maybe that's something to consider. Bringing somebody with you to sit while you wait so that you're not, you know, that the run up to the experience isn't as lonely and isolating. That can also be helpful. I will say my cousin Deb, who like me, has claustrophobia, I was supposed to bring her to an MRI recently because she wanted to take some sedation, like mild sedation. Sedation. Not again, not what I had to do. But she needed somebody to drive her. And so I said, yeah, of course I'll drive you. But then it turned out the scheduling thing got screwed up and she wanted to go at a time I couldn't go. And so she just did it. She just white knuckled it. And she, I believe, and I apologize to Deb if I'm getting this wrong, but she was talking to herself out loud in the machine and she was like, I don't care if the guy operating the machine thought I was crazy. And I think there's a lot to this because we know, and you've heard me say this before, that you really can relax your nervous system by talking to yourself the way you would talk to a friend who is experiencing distress. And so just doing that out loud or internally while you're experiencing the sensations of discomfort in the MRI can really help because the truth is you are not in any danger. And so just reminding yourself of that is a great way to get you out of the amygdala or fear center of the brain and into the prefrontal cortex. So that's another suggestion. See, Heidi says, and this is more of a comment, but a good one than a question. It's really interesting when you say that about all that stuff about the stories in our heads as I've realized since I've been meditating that I don't see the world as it is but as I am. That is a nice restatement of the Anais Nin quote that we don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are. I'm trying to see things from different perspectives and not just mine. I think this is super helpful. People don't love when I say this, but I think it's really helpful in a political context these days to open yourself to other points of view. That is not meant to argue that you should drop your values. There's a difference between your opinions and your values. The values don't have to change, but your opinions might change if you open yourself up to other points of view in this topsy turvy political environment. I find that very helpful. Doesn't mean you have to do it, but it's definitely helpful outside of politics and just in your life. As Joseph says, he has two great little expressions on open mindedness. One is don't side with yourself. You have to be careful because that doesn't mean don't stick up for yourself and doesn't mean be a doormat. But just when you're in. When you feel yourself locked into your pov, maybe ask yourself like why does the other person or other people believe what they believe? Another little expression from him is certainty is not an indicator of truth. Just because you feel certain does not mean you are right. And I just find that very helpful. As a person who tends toward dogmatism and certainty, Kelly says, I really like the guided body scan meditations, but I feel like I get much more distracted when I'm trying to do it on my own. I think this is because my mind is moving versus one focus like, like the breath. Any suggestions? Well, I think the first thing to say is Kelly, often even in my own practice when I'm doing like a loving kindness practice or a body scan, I am more distractible when I'm not guiding somebody else. If I'm just on my own, it's I think this is very natural for there to be more distraction when you're on your own. And I wouldn't beat yourself up for it. Just part of the deal. I'm really behind on these comments. Okay Sarah. Sarah says we will euthanize our elderly cat tomorrow and I would love some thoughts on being peaceful and supportive during his transition. I'm so sorry. That sucks. Two things coming to mind. One, the difference between empathy and compassion. When we're in empathy, which is a natural human mind state of feeling the pain of somebody else, animal or human, that can be overwhelming. But compassion is empathy plus the desire to help. And so just tuning into the love you feel and the desire to help your cat, I think that's just a different, more empowering mind space. Yeah. So I would try that. And then another thing. And again, I'm quoting Joseph Goldstein, but heard him when he talks about grief, which I think you are probably justifiably feeling preemptive grief. And you will maybe feel even more grief when your little man is gone. Just because the person we loved or the animal we loved is no longer with us does not mean that the love is no longer with us that is unchanged. So this is a horrible thing you're having to do, and I feel really badly for you. And this is. I once heard a local news anchor in New York City, actually I was at a ASPCA fundraiser and one of the local news anchors in New York City was a spokesperson for them. And he got up and said something really beautiful, which is that animals teach us about loss because their lifespans are so much shorter than ours. Taking in an animal really teaches us about loss. So it's a really tough thing you're having to do, Sarah. And my condolences and my compassion go to you. And I hope some of these suggestions are useful. None of that is meant to minimize the pain of it. Let's see. Oh, right. So somebody asked about dead end, and I didn't answer it. Thank you, Danny, for reminding me. So let me just give some context, Joseph. One of his little mantras is dead end, which is when you find yourself going down the same rabbit hole again and again. It could be seductive fantasies. It could be negative toxic projections into the future about AI, which is something I do, or anything else. It could be practicing some glorious expletive filled speech you're going to give to the whatever bad guy or bad person in your life who you're pissed at. When you're noticing repetitive and really not useful thought patterns arise, one little thing you can say to yourself is dead end just dead end? It doesn't mean it won't come back again, but it's a. It's a dead end. And using that mantra, using that phrase can help shut it down. And you may have to do it many times, but that's okay. It's just a signal to Yourself that, like, okay, I get it. This is. There's no utility here. And so the question I believe earlier was like, how do you know when to use that? You know, when is it fair? And what is it unfair to labels a particular thought stream a dead end? Well, first in meditation, we're not really following our. Our trains of thought, so I think you can be pretty liberal with dead end in meditation. You don't want to do it in a hostile way. That's the key here. There should be some lightness to your touch. The more we're resisting something, the more likely we are to empower it. But when you're not meditating, it can be very helpful to label something a dead end. As you all know, I used to have a meditation app I separated from my co founders. I experienced a lot of anger during the course of that. That's not to say that I was always in the right. I've made tons of mistakes, but I was experiencing anger nonetheless. And dead end was very helpful for me in that experience and to this day, because there's still vestigial stuff that comes up in the mind. But of course, there are some times, again, now I'm talking about off the cushion, when you're not meditating, when some thought streams are worth pursuing and it's more art than science. Just deciding, like, using your common sense. Is this just some habitual, neurotic pattern that I'm in that there's really, like, I've thought this all the way through. That is definitely true for me with my corporate divorce, there's no new insights on offer for me. So when I see it come up, it's like, yo, dead end again. No. No hostility to the best of my ability toward myself. In fact, it's just the opposite of hostility. It's self compassion. Like, there's nothing good for you down here, so you don't need to go in that direction. So it's up to you to figure out, is this a new and useful thought about my mother, or is it just the ego vomiting up more nonsense? And you don't need to go down that route. So check it out. Follow your innate wisdom on that. All right, let me get to some of the. There are like so many comments in here and I can't keep up. But I do want to be fair to those of you who were on your game and submitting questions in advance, so I do want to answer some of those. Lynn, in a recent podcast, you mentioned having resting bitch face. Me too. Any thoughts or strategies for appearing more Friendly or open and less bitchy. It's exhausting to keep telling myself to smile, and doing so feels disingenuous. I definitely don't think you should, like, fix your face. I'm not a fan of that, especially when that advice is given to women who are generally socialized to be people pleasers. So I don't think you need to, like, worry. I don't spend a lot of time worrying about, like, my face. It's just, it is what it is. However, conversational strategies you can use that verbally signal to people you are A listening and B, not hostile. So one of them, I'll just give you a couple of these, by the way, come from my friends Dan Clearman and Mudita Nisker, communications coaches who've been on the podcast multiple times. I talk about them all the time and we are producing a course from them that will be out in a few months. But one of them is very simple. They call it looping. So when you're in a conversation, try to get into the habit of staying in the loop with the other person by asking simple questions like, did that make sense? Are we on the same page? So don't just assume that whatever you've said has been comprehended. Check. Stay in the loop with them. And that, I think, is a really reassuring signal to send to people. Another, and a related technique is to do reflective listening. You've heard me talk about this a million times, so I won't dwell on it too much. But when you're in a conversation with somebody and they've said a bunch of words to you, try to listen journalistically so that you can report back to them the headline of what they've said. And people find this to be massively, massively satisfying, even if they don't know what it is, what kind of voodoo you're doing to them. They love it. And again, this is, I think, a much more winning strategy and a more fair strategy to you than to get you to be compulsively thinking about, you know, what your face is doing at any given moment. So, yeah, hopefully that helps. Lynn, Keith asks a question here. To what extent do you think alcohol consumption conflicts with a mindful life? I know a lot of modern lay Buddhists who drink, and I'm curious that if that falls into not ideal, but we all have our imperfect tools, or if you think there's not really a conflict here. No judgment on drinkers. Just curious. As someone who's relatively new, less than five years to both meditation and being alcohol free, congratulations on your meditation practice and your you didn't use the word sobriety, but either way, I'm glad you've made a choice that's helpful or that I'm assuming is helpful to you. My view on alcohol, not super judgmental. I try not to be super judgmental about anything unless you're just like straight up being a dick to somebody. But alcohol, the way I think about it is in the Buddhists. And again, you don't have to be a Buddha. You can take or leave this. But I find this very helpful framing in the Buddhist precepts. You know, they have these five precepts, don't kill, don't steal, that type of stuff. One of them is don't use intoxicants to the point of heedlessness. And I like that because there's an elasticity here, there's room for interpretation. And I know plenty of very prominent meditation teachers who love to have a glass of wine once in a while. And I have no problem with that. But are they getting shit faced and being unkind? But that I would have a problem with and I would argue that they should get help. I've never seen a meditation teacher do any of those things. But so to the point of heedlessness, I think is the real thing to keep in mind. And we're all wired differently in this regard. So some of us, you know, I come, I have a lot of alcoholism in my family. Mercifully for me, I, I, I developed a kind of allergy to alcohol in the late aughts. And so I just don't drink. I don't even drink coffee because of my panic disorder. Makes me too jittery. Definitely don't do cocaine. If I have a flight or something like that, I might need to take a sedative. But I do this in very strict consultation with my physicians because I'm always worried about addiction. Once or twice a year I will, I haven't done it in a while though, so it's probably not once or twice a year. But I will do MDMA with my friends. To me, like that is in the zone of a spiritual practice. And I think we all know that MDMA can be used therapeutically. And I think the early scientific results on this are really compelling. Specifically PTSD among veterans. I'm not obviously doing it therapeutically, but I love my friends. Friendship is a huge part of my life. And once in a while bonding in that way is really fun and we have deep conversations and connect. We do that without mdma, of course. But there's a reason why MDMA was used in couples counseling, I believe, for many years. It really can lower the ego walls. Yeah. So that's my take on it. But what I like about the Buddhist take is that it's really up to you. And. Yeah, so you should do you. I'm being open and forthright with you, but not to present myself as any kind of model. Other than that, you should do what works for you. All right, let me do one more question. All right. This one is something that I've struggled with. This is from Neff Neff999. Any suggestions for practices to acknowledge and work through? My need for external approval. Side note, you don't become an anchorman if you don't need external approval. Or I guess what I am now, I guess some sort of, like, influencer or whatever. I am. So, like, I feel you on that. I was feeling good about my recent increase in meditation and then realized I was hoping to hear from people about how different I seemed. Psy. Like, I think embedded in your question is the answer. There is a. A lightness and a humor and a humility. And that, to me, is a huge part of mindfulness. Can you just be aware with a half smile on your face of, like, how ridiculous the mind is? That, for me, is how you defang the ego. I mean, the ego is just serving up shitty, pernicious ideas all the time. Most of them about, like, how to, you know, aggrandize itself, the self. To see it with some lightness, I find, is a great way to defang it. I'm not presenting myself as somebody who has overcome the need for external validation. Definitely not. But another thing that I find helpful, other than a sort of ongoing humorous mindfulness of my own penchant for grandiosity. Another thing I find really helpful is repeatedly being in touch with my actual values, which, of course, are connected to my value as a human. It's why I have this tattoo on my wrist and that I can't show it. I think many of you know about it anyway. It's just an acronym, ftboab, for the Benefit of all beings. And it just reminds me throughout the day every time I look at my watch. Yeah, like, what's my job? My job is, you know, when I'm not so worried about, like, how well did my latest Instagram post do? Or, you know, like, how many people subscribe to this app? Which I, you know, of course I do all those things. And some of it is necessary. Right. Because I'm running A business. And if I don't do a good job with this business, I can't do things like this, you know, because we'll be out of business. But what is my real job? My real job is to be. Yeah, to be a beacon, to be useful. And doesn't matter what anybody else thinks of me in that context. Like, there are no existential. There are no egoic stakes when I'm in that zone. I was talking to my son the other night. We went out to Father Son dinner Sunday night. I was talking about for the benefit of all beings. And he was like, well, some things I do just for me, like going to sleep or whatever. And I said, no, but you actually can think about and dedicate everything you do your whole life, from going to sleep, from going to school to playing video games, whatever, you can reframe it. As I'm doing this to take care of myself so that I can be useful to other people. It was one of the first times I've ever lectured my son. He hates when I lecture him, so I don't. I really try not to, but it was one of the first time I've ever been in teacher mode with him where I saw the light go on in his eye, like, oh, yeah, my dad is not a complete idiot. I think he thinks I'm mostly an idiot. But that point landed for him. And it's really been helpful for me late in life to really start to reframe everything I do all day long when I can remember as being a benefit. There is one other question, because it gets to this point about remembering. Okay, this is from Sarah. Sarah L. I'm fascinated by the fact that I've been listening to you and other teachers for over a year, and I often hear the same phrases, ideas, and answers to questions. And yet I still seem to need these reminders, even though I've heard them repeatedly. Sometimes I'm able to predict what you, Dan, are going to answer to a particular question before you say it. But it doesn't bother me. It just makes me laugh. I'm a longtime yoga practitioner, over 20 years, and it's reminding me of doing the same poses over and over with the same instructions and still learning something new or applying to new contexts. I'm not sure what my question is other than what's going on here. Why do we need these phrases, answers, approaches repeated over and over again in order to actually integrate them? Is this a forever kind of learning? Yeah, yeah, that's the deal. Yeah. You landed on a really important insight that it's the benefit of these sessions. It's the benefit of listening to a great podcast or reading a great book. Like, once in a while, you'll hear something totally new, but often you're just going to hear me say the same shit I said two weeks ago, but you forgot it. Why? Because the life pulls us back into our habit patterns, has us focused on our individualistic needs or distracted by cat videos on Tick Tock, whatever. Like, life is constantly pulling us back into the stream of the mainstream. And that's why the Buddha talked about his teachings as being against the stream. And what you need in this context is to be reminded over and over and over again. And as you've heard me say before, but the original translation of the term that we now translate as mindfulness, the word is sati in Pali, the ancient language that was, I think, probably spoken around the time of the Buddha, or at least that's the language in which his teachings were written down in that language, Pali sati. We now translate it as mindfulness. But one of the original translations is remembering. So take solace in that. Like, we are just programmed for denial and forgetting, and we just need to be reminded to wake up all the time. And I love it because it gives me permission to say the same over and over again, but also, like, we need to do that. The other day, I called Joseph, like, because I was feeling a little depressed about something. And I will own that that is a very lucky position that I'm in that I can call Joseph Goldstein when I'm feeling depressed. But, you know, he said a bunch of things to me. Not one of them was new. I'd heard him say everything he said to me, but I just needed to hear it again, and I needed them to be tailored to my current situation. All right, now I'm going to step down from my pedestal. My soapbox. Always so fun to be with you guys. Yeah. Thanks for taking time to do this. I know I've said this before, but it really is a community service to take care of your own mind in this way. And so I hope you feel like it tees you up to deal with whatever's going on in your own life and in the world more effectively, because that's the goal. Thank you again for your time. Love you guys. Thanks for being part of this. Peace. Okay. Thank you for listening today. Before I leave you, if you sign up for my new Ish meditation app, it's a great way to support teachers because we. We pay them to create meditations for our growing Library and also to create courses like the upcoming Eightfold Path course with Sharon Salzberg. It's also a great way to support me and my team. You can go to danharris.com to get the app and there's a free 14 day trial if you want to check it out. I just want to end by saying thank you to everybody who works so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson 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 Kashmir is our Executive producer and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. Save on Family Essentials at Safeway and Albertsons this week at Safeway and Albertsons enjoy eight piece double breaded famous chicken fried or baked dark meat featuring four legs and four thighs for just $5.99 each. 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