Mayim Bialik on: Anxiety, Imagination, Manifestation, Faith, and the Best Time of Day to Meditate

Summary

Podcast Summary: Mayim Bialik on: Anxiety, Imagination, Manifestation, Faith, and the Best Time of Day to Meditate

Released on July 27, 2025, "10% Happier with Dan Harris" features a compelling conversation between host Dan Harris and guests Mayim Bialik and Jonathan Cohen. This episode delves deep into topics such as anxiety management, meditation practices, the power of imagination, faith, and the optimal timing for meditation.

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1. Introduction to Guests and Relationship with Dan Harris

The episode kicks off with Mayim Bialik and Jonathan Cohen introducing themselves as friends of Dan Harris who previously collaborated on a Substack platform. They express excitement about collaborating and sharing their insights on mental health and wellness.

• Mayim Bialik: "I'm very nervous. I'm very anxious." (05:30)

2. Understanding and Managing Anxiety

A significant portion of the conversation centers around anxiety, its roots, and strategies to manage it. Mayim shares her personal struggles, highlighting the universal nature of anxiety.

• Dan Harris: "Habit formation is incredibly difficult. [...] Knowing that can allow you to navigate the process with a sense of exploration, play, resilience." (07:15)

3. Meditation: Timing and Consistency

The trio discusses the best time of day to meditate. Jonathan mentions his usual evening practice and experiments with morning sessions to see if it impacts his anxiety levels differently.

• Dan Harris: "I really question that [morning meditation]. I think you should do it when it works for you." (06:24)

Mayim emphasizes the importance of consistency over the specific time of day.

4. The Role of Faith and Imagination in Overcoming Anxiety

The conversation shifts to how imagination and faith play pivotal roles in mental health. Mayim shares her sister's journey with chronic pain and the power of envisioning a life beyond the current suffering.

• Mayim Bialik: "It's powerful as a first step to create a version of ourselves, a sense that something can be different before we've actually moved in that direction." (17:00)

5. Brainspotting and Somatic Experiences

Dan introduces the concept of brainspotting, a therapeutic approach similar to EMDR, which helps uncover deep-seated anxieties by accessing subconscious memories.

• Dan Harris: "Brainspotting basically asks you to look at a spot and then conjure the thing you're terrified of and then let the brain wander." (24:12)

Mayim and Jonathan discuss somatic experiencing, emphasizing how emotions are often stored in the body and the importance of addressing them physically.

6. Trauma vs. Cumulative Stress

A nuanced discussion unfolds distinguishing between severe trauma and ongoing, prolonged stress. Jonathan elaborates on how everyday stresses can accumulate and impact mental health without fitting the clinical definition of trauma.

• Jonathan Cohen: "It's important to acknowledge being human is traumatic. Traumatic things happen all the time." (40:52)

7. The Importance of Relationships and Love

Towards the end of the episode, Dan shares his upcoming book project focusing on love as a fundamental component of human happiness and longevity. He emphasizes that quality relationships are paramount for well-being, often more so than other factors like diet or exercise.

• Dan Harris: "The most important variable for human flourishing, you know, human happiness and longevity, is the quality of your relationships." (45:08)

Mayim and Jonathan agree, discussing how expanding the concept of love beyond romantic relationships can have profound health implications.

8. Conclusion and Future Directions

The episode wraps up with camaraderie among the hosts and guests. They express appreciation for the shared insights and look forward to future collaborations and discussions.

• Jonathan Cohen: "This has been very fun... we just love learning from you and just are so appreciative." (43:31)

• Dan Harris: "If you don't have loving humans, we're gonna be in the situation which we're in right now." (49:24)

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Key Takeaways:

• Anxiety Management: Developing consistent meditation habits tailored to individual lifestyles can significantly aid in managing anxiety.

• Therapeutic Techniques: Brainspotting and somatic experiencing offer pathways to uncover and address deep-seated emotional challenges.

• Power of Imagination and Faith: Visualizing a better future and having faith in positive change are crucial steps in overcoming mental health struggles.

• Importance of Relationships: Quality of relationships stands out as a critical factor for overall happiness and well-being, surpassing other self-optimization efforts.

• Understanding Trauma: Differentiating between clinical trauma and cumulative daily stress helps in addressing mental health more effectively.

This episode offers valuable insights for listeners seeking to understand and improve their mental health through a combination of scientific approaches and ancient wisdom practices.

Transcript

[Dan Harris]

Foreign.

[Mayim Bialik]

This is the 10 Happier podcast.

[Dan Harris]

I'm Dan Harris.

[Mayim Bialik]

Happy Sunday everybody. Dropping into your feed today with a fun little bonus episode with a couple of friends of the show and friends of mine. Just a little background. In April of 2023 we did an episode with the actor, neuroscientist, author and podcast host Mayim Bialik. Turns out Mayim and I have a lot in common. Anxiety for one thing. Also one time game show hosts, although she was a much bigger deal. She hosted Jeopardy. And I hosted a short lived, quickly euthanized primetime game show called 500 Questions. Anyway, since April of 2023, Mayim and I have become friends. Her podcast, just so you know, is called Mayim Bialik's Breakdown. She also focuses quite a bit on mental health issues. And so when Mayim and her podcast co host and also life partner Jonathan Cohen decided to launch their own substack, I wanted to welcome them to the platform with a live video conversation. And today we're going to bring you that chat. It was a wide ranging conversation. Very funny. We talk about anxiety, of course, about creating habits. What's the best time of day to meditate. We even talk a little bit about faith and the power of imagination. I think you're going to enjoy it and also just let it be a nice little gentle provocation for you to check out. Substack. Also I have a substack. Dan harris.com before we get started with the conversation though, if you haven't already heard me rhapsodize about all the new and exciting offerings in the 10% world, let me just quickly take this opportunity to plug we're in month two of offering companion meditations for every full length Monday and Wednesday podcast episode. Each month we have a new Teacher of the Month to shepherd us through. And this month it's meditation teacher extraordinaire, Don Mauricio. These guided meditations are only available for paying subscribers [e-mail], my aforementioned substack. So sign up today and we'll have fresh meditation in your feed tomorrow morning. Okay, my conversation with Mayim Bialik is and Jonathan Cohen right after this.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Time to share this week's wellness wins and healthy habits.

[Mayim Bialik]

Honestly Wendy, I didn't track my goals, but I did switch to T Mobile with their new Family Freedom offer.

[Jonathan Cohen]

That's not part of our wellness journey.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, I'm switching from AT&T and starting a transformation with T Mobile. They paid off my family's four phones up to $3200 and gave us four new phones on the house.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Glow up.

[Wendy]

Introducing Family Freedom. Our lowest cost to switch our biggest family savings all on America's largest 5G network. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com FamilyFreedom up to 800 per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phones via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement eg Apple iPhone 16 128GB8299 Eligible trade in eg iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due if you pay off early or cancel contact T Mobile I'm not.

[Dan Harris]

Into chasing trends, but I am all.

[Mayim Bialik]

About the stuff that fits, right, feels.

[Dan Harris]

Good and actually lasts. That is why I keep coming back to Quints. You guys have heard me talk about quints before. I've had people come up to me in public and ask whether I'm wearing quints. Their lightweight layers and high quality staples have become truly my everyday essentials. In my experience, Quints has the kind.

[Mayim Bialik]

Of stuff that you actually wear on repeat, like breathable flow knit polos, crisp.

[Dan Harris]

Cotton shirts and comfortable lightweight pants that.

[Mayim Bialik]

Somehow work for both weekend hangs and dressed up dinners.

[Dan Harris]

The best part?

[Mayim Bialik]

Everything with Quints is half the cost of similar brands. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen, Quints gives you.

[Dan Harris]

Luxury pieces without the markups.

[Mayim Bialik]

And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. Just yesterday in fact, I was wearing my go to Quint's pants for a.

[Dan Harris]

Situation that was a little bit casual but not too casual. So I couldn't wear sweatpants. I needed some nice pants and I go to Quint's for that.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's not all I have for quints. I got sweaters, I got socks, those little socks that you wear with low top sneakers that you know, like look like you're not wearing socks. Quince makes those too. They've got lots of stuff. Stick to the staples that last with.

[Dan Harris]

Elevated essentials from quints.

[Mayim Bialik]

Go to quints.com happier for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-N-C-E.com happier to get free shipping and 365 day returns.

[Dan Harris]

I even get my underwear from Quince quints.com happier.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Hi everyone, I'm Mayim Bialik. That's Jonathan Cohen and we're so excited to get to talk to Dan Harris, someone we consider a friend. He interviewed me, I interviewed him and then the love affair began.

[Dan Harris]

And here we are the love affair is mutual. Just to say thank you.

[Jonathan Cohen]

So Jonathan and I are new to Substack. We. We kind of, like, announced. Had, like, a soft launch last week, and then we just kind of formally went live. I've been writing up a storm. Jonathan's been writing up a storm. Yeah, we're just sort of learning the landscape. And one of the first people that I ever knew was on Substack was you, Dan. And we figured it would be great to just have a conversation and let our audience see what it's like for us to talk to you and let your audience see what it's like for you to talk to us. I'll start by saying I'm very nervous. I'm very anxious. Which, Dan, you know, from the times that we've spoken, I said to Jonathan, I don't excel in, like, this kind of arena.

[Dan Harris]

I like.

[Unnamed Speaker]

She likes the script. She likes the novel line.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I like a script. I like a list. I like a beginning, middle, and end point. But I'm prepared to handle whatever happens.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Should we do a grounding exercise with you?

[Jonathan Cohen]

No, I. I actually. I did. Dan is actually, you know, a huge part of my journey into trying to not be anxious. I usually do, like, my meditation and my sort of stuff at night, even though everyone says, do it first thing in the morning, and I will do it for a while and then I get out of the practice. But this morning, I did. I tried to see what it was like to feel calm in my body right when I woke up.

[Dan Harris]

Can I just jump in on this, everybody?

[Jonathan Cohen]

You could run the whole thing. Just run the whole thing.

[Dan Harris]

This idea that you should do it first thing in the morning, I really question that. I think you should do it when it works for you. And if it's working for you to do meditation or whatever it is you're doing to soothe your anxiety in the evenings, just stay with that.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Let's have you define, I don't know that it works for me, what I'm doing. So that's why I was trying something new. But how do you sort of define, like, if it works for you?

[Dan Harris]

There are two things I think about when you raise this. There's habit formation. So, like, when is the time you will actually do the damn thing? So that can be. That can be for meditation or exercise or whatever. And so just stepping back. Habit formation is incredibly difficult. And that sounds pessimistic, but actually it should be soothing to you because then you don't feel like you're uniquely dysfunctional because you're Struggling to create a habit. Actually, most people struggle. And just knowing that can allow you to navigate the process with a sense of exploration, play, resilience, so that you can start again when you inevitably fail. So that's one thing I'm thinking about. And on the Habitat, all I heard.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Is you're going to inevitably fail. That's all I heard.

[Dan Harris]

Yes. That's okay. You should feel the permission to start again and to. And to reassess, like, all right, why did it go wrong this time? Because. Because I'm doing it in at the wrong day part, the wrong length, the wrong flavor, whatever it is. So that's one thing I'm thinking about. And the second thing is you're asking, and I'm trying to get to the heart of your question. It could be about, it's working for me in terms of, like, I'm just doing the thing. Or it could be, I'm doing the thing and I'm still anxious. Okay. Okay. So let me just say, say something on that. When it comes to meditation specifically, I think there's a little bit of trust or confidence or even, dare I say, faith involved. Not in a metaphysical sense, just that it takes a while. And it is mysterious how and when these practices kick in and what the benefits are for you and your individual mind. You should just trust that. People have been doing these practices for millennia. They've stood the test of time. And there's all this. And you're a neuroscientist, there's all of this neuroscience to show that it's beneficial. So I kind of relax into it, Just do the thing, see what happens over time.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Okay.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Not to quote Dan from the interview that we did with you quite a while ago, but you've always. What you told us then was that just doing it is success, even if it's broken, even if it's just coming back to the practice, and that it is cumulative.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And one thing I think I see a lot is that people will do something, get some benefit, but are looking for, like, I don't ever feel anxiety again. And so the goalposts move. So, like, you're doing it, you're actually having success in the practice. You're actually someone else outside of you will notice. Hey, wait, there. There are incremental changes, but the person is like, but I'm not 100% better yet. Or, I still have an experience of being human, and I have emotions where it's not working. And so we don't have a sense of what working actually means for anyone.

[Dan Harris]

I mean, I obviously totally agree with that, since you're quoting me back to me. But let me ask you then, Jonathan, are you seeing anxiety reduction?

[Unnamed Speaker]

100%. Okay, 100%. I see a massive, massive change. And from her perspective, she's like, I feel anxious. And I'm like. But it's not different. Examples.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Hold on, Dan, are you asking Jonathan if he can see a change in me?

[Dan Harris]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah. Because you can't.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Wait.

[Unnamed Speaker]

The label from the bottle.

[Jonathan Cohen]

So just because this is how my brain works. Hold on, you said 100%. Are you using that colloquially, like 100%? Yes. Or you see 100% difference in who I am.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Math is not my specialty, so I can't say plot you on a graph, but I. I see significant change that if we use the metaphor, you can't see the label in the bottle. Like, I. I just think it's very, very hard because there's a certain amount of anxiety that just exists in the human condition. And you are someone who's aware of it and has an even. Your. Your experience of a range of emotion is what makes you an amazing human being on both ends. And so you experience things very intensely. And so I think just that is a unique part of you. So it would be hard to say, oh, I don't have any anxiety. So meditation is working. But I've seen a massive change in you through your meditation practice.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Is this live really an intervention that you and Dan are doing to try and keep me meditating?

[Dan Harris]

The conclusion I'm drawing from this live thus far is you've chosen a really good partner. Mine. Success.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Success.

[Jonathan Cohen]

This is not going the way I thought it was going.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Not how it was scripted.

[Jonathan Cohen]

No, this is not in the script. Dan.

[Dan Harris]

I do want to jump in. I just think this expression you're using, you can't judge the label from the bottle. I'm going to steal that. I just think you can't judge the label from inside the bottle.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Can't read the label from inside the bottle.

[Dan Harris]

Yes. Yes. So it's perfect. This is such a huge issue in meditation, but also in self improvement generally. Am I doing it right? Are there benefits? You get into this paralytic doubt around self assessment, and I get it. You know, I've done it. I've had huge periods of doubt, and I think that's part of the process and can be healthy, but it can also be really unhealthy to a certain extent. You need to surrender, especially with meditation practice. And my teacher, Joseph Goldstein, who I love and has said so many Transformative things to me. One of the things he said to me on many an occasion in the midst of like a 10 day meditation retreat where I'm complaining about my progress or lack thereof, he'll say, surrender. Surrender to this process. This practice has been done for 2,600 years. Stop obsessing about your progress. Just sit and walk. Sit in meditation, do walking meditation, eat your meals just to the best of your ability. Drop the self assessment. And I have found that to be hugely useful. So does that land for you, Mayim, as we're talking about this?

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yes. I think that part of what's hard for many of us is shutting off that analytical mind that is constantly not only assessing the process. Right. Is it working? Will it work? Am I doing it right? Am I doing it wrong? But, you know, we've been encouraged to analyze every feeling, every emotion, every, you know, so it's kind of like it's this hyper analysis and what, what I get. And Joseph Goldstein is, through you, one of my favorite people. I mean, like, if I had to choose one person to only listen to about meditation for the rest of my life, it would be Joseph Goldstein. And so, so much of what he talks about when we had Sharon Salzberg on our podcast, like, it is about the slowing down. Right? Slowing down and not judging. Right. Not having judgment. And then I'd say the kind of third component is being kind. Right? That loving kindness notion. So, yeah, those are things. It's very hard for a lot of people to slow down. My therapist yesterday was like, what if you also did a meditation midday? I was like, what? What do you mean midday? It's not like I haven't been told this before. So then I feel like there's like a glitch in the matrix. Like, how many times am I going to hear the same thing and keep forgetting it and keep being reminded that we need to train our bodies throughout the day, all day, to feel that centeredness, that calmness, that kindness, that lack of judgment. For me, I'm just going to be like, I appreciate Jonathan saying he sees a difference. What I'm doing now is not sufficient. Like the right before bed. Because what I'm saying when I'm meditating before bed is the only time I will allow myself to pin myself down and to know where I'm going to be is when I literally am in my PJs under the covers because I'm about to fall asleep. That doesn't feel mindful to me. It feels like I'm slipping on the banana Peel of meditation. And I would like to step over the banana. Peel of meditation.

[Dan Harris]

Okay. I wanna respond to a bunch of things in there. Directionally, I think you're correct that you can increase your practice. I would add a few. From my perspective, a few just flags. One is, I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit for the practice before bed. Okay.

[Unnamed Speaker]

She's very consistent, and it's not easy to implement that consistently.

[Dan Harris]

Yes. So I would give yourself credit for that. And I would play with adding in another session. But I would start very small. One, two, five minutes. You know, whatever works for you. Really. What we know from the research around habit formation is small is really effective to get it up and running. And then the third thing, just from way back at the beginning of your last set of words you said something about shutting down the analytical function of the mind. I just want to tweak that word. It's not shutting. We're not shutting anything down in meditation. We're just seeing it so you can make a little mental note in your mind. Oh, that's judgment. That's self judgment. And it's Joseph does this little thing. He calls it Cow Cowboy Dharma. Where as you're watching the doubt or the self judgment you've got these little Nerf guns you're pulling out of your play holsters. And gently, playfully, without aggression, shooting at the thoughts as they come. Oh, that's. That's judgment. That's doubt. And when you do that, it has the function of helping you not take these habitual, neurotic thoughts so seriously. Got a skeptical look on your face as I say this. So.

[Jonathan Cohen]

No, I was thinking maybe there. Maybe we're popping bubbles, like, with our finger, like holsters, Nerf guns. Like. It just got elaborate for me.

[Unnamed Speaker]

But, yes, I want to touch on something Dan said many chunks of words ago, which is he brought up the idea of faith. And I was just speaking about this. I just released a live about this the other day, which is, you know, my sister had chronic pain for a decade of her life. And she talked about the need to believe in something that is not our current experience, that it can change and how dangerous that can be for some people, but how powerful it is as a first step to create a version of ourselves. A sense that something can be different before we've actually moved in that direction. And I think you were speaking to something similar.

[Dan Harris]

So you're saying just to want to make sure I understand that your sister dealt with chronic pain for a long time and to conjure an Image of a life where that pain was not so salient was powerful for her.

[Unnamed Speaker]

It was almost the very first step in sort of how she imagines any sort of intense disease is that this is not all that there is, that there is a version even before we've experienced it or integrated it as a tool for habit formation. And almost if we go a little bit more metaphysical as a version of ourselves that exists outside of our current condition, we know that physiologically building the mental model will create the physiological change, that we start to move towards that.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, this is.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yeah, sorry, I was just going to say we had Bruce Lipton on who talked about this. Joe Dispenza obviously talks about this. And yeah, I mean, this is even a conversation of like, do other versions of us already exist in a consciousness plane and we just need to kind of slice into it and, you know, grab them? We, when we imagine it, it's, you know, what a lot of people call manifesting. Right. I don't necessarily choose to call it that, but drawing on another version of us that isn't stuck, you know, where we are now is a tool on.

[Dan Harris]

A very simple secular level. Visualization. Athletes do it the night before the game. You're visualizing yourself dunking or whatever it is. That for me, I have. We're talking about anxiety before. I have really persistent claustrophobia that has cropped up over recent years. And I'll sometimes visualize myself getting on the plane and not freaking out, you know, and that can be very helpful.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Sorry, now I need to ask, claustrophobia just on planes or do you mean also in elevators and other spaces?

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, it's elevators, MRIs, planes.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yeah, but the plane, you're like there for hours in that.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, it's not great. No.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Well, that rehearsal has been shown that you're building that mental model. You're rehearsing in that way. And it also is helping your body be like, oh, I can know that I can feel okay in the rehearsal. So that when you're in that space, you're not sort of left to figure it out in that moment.

[Dan Harris]

Yes, exactly. Right. So I work with a, an exposure therapist, great guy, Paul Green. He will have me imagine claustrophobia inducing situations and get the physiological response and see that I can survive it. And then he and I also like, will ride elevators together or fly on airplanes together and it's fun.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I've seen some of your elevator videos. It's pretty amazing.

[Dan Harris]

I'm actually, I'm doing a round trip to D.C. with my wife because I do fly all the time, but for the last couple of years I've been medicated when I fly with.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I was going to say, we just knock you out and just drag you on the plane.

[Dan Harris]

My family has. Is getting really tired of it because I'm very annoying when I'm medicated. So I'm really going hard at dealing with the claustrophobia now because my family's like, running out of patience. And so I took a round trip to D.C. from the airport near my house in White Plains in New York recently. It was literally the hardest thing I've done in my life. And I have covered war, I've been in war zones, and I've never been more terrified than on this planet. Plane unmedicated. So I'm doing it again on Saturday and I'm not looking forward to it.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Not to turn this into Dan's therapy as we explore this, but I'm fascinated. Did this just come on in later?

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, I had had little bits of it early on in my life, but during COVID when I was not on elevators or airplanes for a while, then I got back on a plane to. For a big speech. I was flying out to where you guys live in LA from New York, and I was wearing a mask and I was just getting over Covid, so I was like, run down and. And I was like, I'm panicking. And I got off the flight and that's the work. I understand. It's occasionally, occasionally you do have to remove yourself from a situation, but when you do, I mean, the brain is kind of dumb in. In some ways. So if you teach the brain that a situation is unsafe, it will really get good at associating that situation with danger. You're laughing, Mayim? I don't know.

[Jonathan Cohen]

No, I'm thinking about how good my brain is at associating things with danger.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I could tell she's scanning. She's like, oh, I've made this association.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah. So hopefully after today's unscripted fiesta bonanza rumspring out with me and Jonathan, you'll be less scared of substack lies.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yeah, maybe. I mean, I still. I'm always going to like structure. That's not going to change.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I mean, I'm still sort of fascinated by something in our. Not our younger years coming on like this. That is so intense.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Oh, I'm. Oh, that. That actually was the most interesting thing that Dan said to me because this is like the whack a mole of being a human.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, that's where I go too. I'M like, what is this? And not that we have to intellectualize it and say, oh, this is where it's coming from. But the sort of investigator in me is like, where does something like is it something from somewhere else that's manifesting here? It's like this, you know, this unprocessed anxiety of something that like is under the curtain on that side that is now claustrophobia. You know, I was just looking before this live at your YouTube page, which is awesome. And you had an episode that's titled if it's hysterical, it's historical. Now it may not translate directly to this, but I'm like, where does that come from you if or do you not know?

[Dan Harris]

No, I actually, I can answer this. So again, I'm not speaking as an expert in panic, I'm just speaking as somebody that expert in his own panic. And so my family and I took a trip in February or March to Florida and Costa Rica. So there were a lot of plane rides and therefore a non trivial amount of Klonopin to get me on. And by the end of the year.

[Jonathan Cohen]

You'Re a very expensive partner from what I'm learning.

[Dan Harris]

Expensive in many ways, psychically, financially. So anyway, by the end of this trip my, my wife was like, yo, you need to deal with this. This is unacceptable. So I have gotten very aggressive in the last couple of months in dealing with it. I see it as at least two tracks. There's this sort of dumb brain track exposure therapy, brute force of exposing yourself to the thing that you're terrified of so that the brain learns this is totally fine. And then there's the other sort of creeping around subcortically into your subconscious to figure out like what could be the cause of this. So for that I've been working with something and I'd be curious, Mayim, if you've ever heard of this. It's called brain spotting and it is kind of a successor to emdr.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, Yep.

[Dan Harris]

EMDR I think stands for like eye movement desensitization. Yeah, something. Basic idea, and I'm definitely not an expert in this, is that there's something about the movement of the eyes associated with the right kind of therapy that can rummage around in the sub basement of your mind and figure out like where is all of your current anxiety coming from.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I like the term sub basement, but keep going.

[Dan Harris]

So anyway, brainspotting basically asks you to look at a spot and then conjure the thing you're terrified of and then let the brain wander. And I did this, I did a Bunch of sessions. Speaking of faith, like I just. Nothing happened in the first couple of sessions. A couple of sessions in though, I had this memory, which is. And I'd had this memory before, but it really came up in relation. I was imagining being in an elevator. My friend Zev, one of my best friends, has a coffin like elevator in his New York City brownstone where his apartment is on the fifth floor of this brownstone. And this elevator is like diabolical. And I was imagining getting on this elevator and it getting stuck and I was having to pound at the door. And I got this memory of my mom's first day back to work when I was two years old. I was standing at the front door watching her go to her car and screaming and looking back into the kitchen where our new nanny was moving around in the kitchen with my little brother in a bassinet on the kitchen table.

[Jonathan Cohen]

That's insane.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I mean that's a very specific articulated memory.

[Dan Harris]

Apparently two years old is a little early. Very early.

[Jonathan Cohen]

You're very, very precocious remembering your trauma, Dan.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah. And I talked to my mom about it and she didn't remember it. So it's not like she said things that reconstructed the memory for me anyway. So there's some connection between where I've gone with this is for. There's something about powerlessness and aloneness that is fueling my panic. And I think that is a very human thing. We are. You know, I can conjure an image of early humans, naked apes, shivering, huddled together on the savannah, terrified because we weren't at the top of the food chain at that time. We were a prey animal. And like we owe any safety we've ever felt as an animal has been through connection or the opposite of aloneness. And so to me, I think that's what's coursing through my panic.

[Unnamed Speaker]

That's just a profound memory. And I very much appreciate you sharing that with us because it's interesting to hear you doing the top down and the bottom up at the same time. Dealing with the symptom while also really doing the work of exploring where that's coming from. I mean, em, it kind of makes me want you to explain a little bit about that stored memory that in the body like that. Because so much of. Yeah, because we can do a lot of the. Let's deal with the symptoms. But trying to understand where this is coming from for most people is just a very difficult and time consuming often process to. You know, as you said, it's kind of buried often, you know, you're not getting it in the first session. Potentially, yeah.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I mean, I think that there's also, I mean, there's, there's many aspects of this that also. We are particularly interested in Jonathan, as we talk a lot about consciousness. Right. On our podcast. And it's been kind of a hot topic, like separating mind from brain from body, from kind of like what is consciousness separate from those things? So there's, you know, the brain encodes memory. It's literally, that's what it's doing. Memories that are emotionally complicated tend to get encoded differently and in some cases differentially. But it also doesn't mean that we can access them when we want to, because the brain has a whole other set of mechanisms that seek to protect us from having to process the terror of being a lonely, scared human, which we're all experiencing. The thing about EMDR is they don't really know why it works. And EMDR is not. Even though it's called emdr, you don't always just use eye movements. People do it with paddles that vibrate and you get this bilateral kind of sensory experience. And there is something about, and even the lady who came up with emdr, there's something about this kind of bilateral either distraction or set of stimulation that seems to allow us to go into a state which is not different from a meditative state. Certain aspects of a meditative state where you're having access to different parts of yourself. The thing that's interesting is a lot of people with emdr, and I'm wondering if this happens with brain spotting as well. They're not simply having memories, they're having felt experiences of being in that timeline. Right. So the difference between a memory and a flashback is that a memory is a conscious. I'm today years old and I'm remembering something, I'm thinking about something. And when someone has a flashback, which is usually a very terrifying experience, the timeline is completely contorted, as Jonathan would say, a hundred percent. It's one hundred percent contorted. And you are two year old Dan. You are having the physiological and emotional experience. So when I think of you and when I think of claustrophobia and how you describe it in some ways, like is that, you know, a return to a physiological state, that's not just a memory, it is a body memory that is essentially placing you in a different timeline. Right. The consciousness of Dan is saying, I'm two. Right? I'm two. And the brain is. It's not that big. Of course. There's connections aplenty but it's a redundant, you know, it's a redundant organ. It's gonna keep following the grooves that you follow the most. Right. We talk about a deep record groove and what EMDR is doing. It's trying to kind of lift you out of that. And it sounds like what brain spotting, you know, can do as well. But if it's hysterical, it's historical. Which was, you know, this episode that Jonathan's talking about that you did with Dr. Orna. Like that's literally it. Historical things will become ingrained like that and entrained like that. Positive things as well. But the brain is not preferential for like what good happened yesterday. The brain is preferential for like, am I going to survive today? We don't know that we're sitting on a phone with satellites beaming. We don't know that our bodies are exactly what Dan said. We are programmed to think about belonging, connectedness, but really as a mechanism for survival.

[Unnamed Speaker]

She's the best summarizer that you could possibly get any AI out there.

[Dan Harris]

I was just thinking about that.

[Unnamed Speaker]

That was phenomenal.

[Dan Harris]

That was phenomenal. And can I call you M too? Because that's awesome.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yes, Dan, I want to hear, not to orchestrate, I want to hear sort of your. If. If anything came up and what your note was there that you were making. Because I'm curious what stuck out from Em's summary, but maybe it was about.

[Jonathan Cohen]

That he forgot that he needs mango.

[Dan Harris]

Actually, the note was. I was writing. I was making a note to myself because I was just remembering that I'm going to be out your way in June and I wanted to see if we could all get together. That was literally what the note was.

[Unnamed Speaker]

That's exciting.

[Jonathan Cohen]

He's like, I want more of this in June.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, that is literally what I was thinking. My brain entrained a memory of hanging out with you a couple of weeks ago, Maya, when I was out there. And so yes, the brain wants more of that.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I tend to take some of this stuff and go theoretical. Mine goes very practical, which is helpful for helping us understand sort of our actual experience. And then when I go theoretical, I think about the non linear nature of time. This as the example of that. So, you know, Marvel movies, and I think movies in general are a great reflection of partial truths or aspects of our collective consciousness, what we're thinking about. You know, Marvel movies have utilized this notion of like.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Do you mean like sci fi? Hold on, you mean like sci Fi movies?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, Sci Fi movies and. But Marvel specifically. And there's not parallel Universes, parallel universes, multiple timelines. But I think, you know, if we ground that into an actual reality is that we have all this stored memory and there are parts of ourselves that are living different timelines in the present. So for the claustrophobia, there's like that experience of the two year old and potentially other memories that could be similar to that where these grooves are made and the emo. All we know is the emotional experience that is then going to resurface and come out in these strange ways in the present, which is not really this current timeline. There's probably nothing about Dan in this moment that is. I can't go in an elevator. Like it's kind of this weird expression of this stuff that.

[Jonathan Cohen]

That like we dip in and out of that. Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

That we've encoded. And then if we take it one more theoretical and esoteric level beyond that, if we consider consciousness as a non local entity and all the experiences that consciousness we have either tapped into or been given to us through our ancestry, there are those too that then express themselves. And those memories may be even harder to discern because we may not have the physical embodied experience of them. They're slightly more ephemeral in. In a way that are not grounded in. I was 2 years old versus I have this emotional resonance of some experience that was passed down that. That's all I have to say about this.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I take issue with some of where Jonathan likes to go with this. Not because I'm trying to be contrary, but I think that there's a theoretical physics level and we, you know, that's.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Huge B in my.

[Jonathan Cohen]

That was a huge B. That's not acceptable. It was really big. I don't know if it was that big. But there's this notion of is everything we think a potential consciousness thread that you can pull. And Dan, I really like you share with your Substack subscribers just things that you're into. And one of them we were talking about. You talked about Thunderbolts, which I'm really trying hard not to call Thundercats, because that's the first thing I want to say when I think of the movie. But we were talking about that. Those kinds of movies. Right. They're playing with these sort of more, I don't know, narrative notions of like what if? And sort of like the multiverse. But I don't know. For me, like scientifically speaking I have a harder time pulling all those threads. I don't know that I believe that like two year old me is existing. But I know that there are aspects of that experience that clearly, you know, are being stored. And as we know, they're, you know, often stored in the body. Dan, I don't know if you've ever done. I can't remember if we talked about this. You know, there's certain kinds of somatic work, somatic experiencing, which is like the Peter Levine kind of world. Bessel van der Kolk obviously wrote a book. The body keeps the Score. Many people cannot get what you're getting, let's say, from brain spotting or from emdr. It literally needs to come out of their body. And if you've ever met someone who's like, I can't do yoga because the emotional pain I feel when I sit in child pose. And I remember the first time I heard that, I was like, how could a yoga pose make you cry? What's wrong with you? I was in college. This was many years ago. For some people, pain, emotional pain comes out of certain joints that get rotated, certain energy centers. Right. That get tapped into. Have you ever done any kind of somatic work that way, Dan, to try and see if you can get at.

[Dan Harris]

It also that way, just to give Jonathan his flowers? I definitely. I love tripping out on that stuff too. I don't know as much about it, but I love thinking about it and wondering about it. It feels much more like terra firma to talk about super practical things you can do in this timeline. And so just to pick up on what you just said, this somatic work is very interesting to me. Like you, I've interviewed Peter, Peter Levine and other folks who are interested in the. How we can tap into the south of the neckline intelligence of the human animal is very compelling. I have not done that much of it. My wife has done a lot of this work because she's done a ton of emdr. She's the one who got me brainspotting. Right. I went through, as you know, because you and I have talked about it offline my own. But I went through a pretty tough corporate disentanglement, corporate divorce, where I used to have a meditation app that I'm now no longer a part of. And that was a three year long process, very hard for me. And my wife has been arguing I need to do some sort of somatic trauma based because I think of myself. The three of us were talking before we got on, but I have trouble with the word trauma because I'm just for me, you know, like I have. If you had made a list of all the advantages one can have in life. I got most of Them, except for the tall thing.

[Jonathan Cohen]

You got a good head of hair though, Dan.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah. You know, white, straight, upper middle class, parents, intact family, all that shit. And so the trauma has never felt right, but for me it was. This was a trauma to no longer have this thing that I considered my baby for a long time. And I'm sure it was a trauma for my co founders too. I'm not trying to make a good and bad guy type of situation here. I. But Dr. Mark Epstein, who I, you guys may know of, he's a Buddhist psychiatrist. He's written this whole series of beautiful books about the overlap between psychology and Buddhism. And he has a book called the Trauma of Everyday Life. And just being alive is a kind of trauma because we get the things we don't want and we don't get the things we do want. And that's just in the course of a normal day. And as you said, we're storing a lot of this stuff in either our subconscious or our body or both. And so going below the level of the intellect seems very compelling to me.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I want to just reframe the trauma word because I think what I hear when you're talking is that it's been so overused that it has lost a lot of meaning. And what I, where I take it is like it's just cumulative stress that doesn't get shaken out of the system. And so we're storing. Okay, I know where you're gonna go, but you say it and then I'll. And then I'll.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I was just gonna say that, that I. First of all, I appreciate also the distinction that Dan is making between lowercase T trauma and uppercase T trauma. And in the world of social media and outside of like scientific academia, I get it. Like, it's a useful word. It's easy. It's easier than being like, I grew up in an alcoholic family where there was emotional abuse. And you know, like it's a word, it's trauma. But I also do just want to reserve for people who are in medical fields and scientific fields and research fields, like academically, we do. We have distinctions around physiological processes that we can study, that we call trauma and we call post traumatic stress disorder. And there's clinical diagnostic criteria and all these things. And I do get. Get nervous. And Dan, what you're describing is a very stressful and significant thing. I do get nervous when. And I have young people who live in my house. I have a 16 and 19 year old. The supermarket being out of like your favorite beverage is not traumatizing. And, you know, there's also a range of emotional experiences that many people have that are often interpersonal, that can feel traumatizing, and that places this kind of, like, scepter over it that many people argue is making us feel that we are too delicate. And in particular, I do think it impacts women in particular, you know, to. To have this kind of, like, shroud of delicacy potentially hovering. But I do think it's important for what we're talking about to acknowledge being human is traumatic. Traumatic things happen all the time. And we do get a special designation for people who have capital T trauma, because I do think it's. It is treated different clinically and diagnostically. Kind of like with autism spectrum disorder. It's like, if everybody's autistic, no one's autistic.

[Unnamed Speaker]

So I was right. I knew exactly where you were going. And I agree with everything you just said and actually reinforces my point. But it's important. It's a very important clarification between someone said something that I dislike or the grocery store makes me uncomfortable. We're going to change or separate discomfort from ongoing prolonged stress.

[Dan Harris]

Correct.

[Unnamed Speaker]

As a lowercase trauma. And I kind of reframe it. And don't use the word trauma because of the association or the over association that people have ruined the word a little bit because they've overused it. And, you know, when we think about an animal who, like, I have a dog, he's 16 months, best dog in the world. And when he goes to the park and he's interacting with all these other dogs, you'll get an aggressive dog who, like, plays too rough with him, and then he'll, like, move away from that dog and he'll shake it off. And then he's not re exposed to that dog. He kind of avoids it. But if he's constantly being re exposed to that dog who's playing too rough and causing him physiological stress, and in a business negotiation, especially if you're dealing with ongoing protracted negotiations, they come back with something. You have a physiological reaction over many. Again, it's the prolonged exposure, repeated exposure, that we can't shake off, because as humans, we're like, we got to figure this out, and I got to stay in the. In the dynamic can be the same in relationship dynamics can be.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Or someone. Someone mentioned complex ptsd. What if your home is the traumatizing environment that you cannot escape from? Right.

[Unnamed Speaker]

So in that regard, it may not be that capital T trauma, but it's this ongoing prolonged stress that then we can't actually exercise out of the body no matter what we're doing. And so we're holding it and sort of similar to the brain spotting exercise and somatic work, practitioner can sort of get you reconnected. It could be in a shoulder and it can move around a lot. Kind of like where is that being held and how do we start to move it through? It can be very powerful and something that a lot of people don't really understand because we live so much from our neck up. We'll just stop using the part that is not feeling good.

[Dan Harris]

Yes, totally agree.

[Jonathan Cohen]

We're going to wrap up soon. This has been very fun. I will say this was positive in ways that make me less anxious to do this again or I will never do a live with anyone except Dan Harris. And then I now have a groove. I see what he looks like. I'm remembering all the things and his voice is calming because I listen to it a lot. And so, yeah, we've trained a very safe environment here and I appreciate that.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I have a question for Dan, which is you're on all the different platforms. This is obviously substack. We're new here. How have you found the interaction? Have you found it different here? Are you doing different types of content? What has your experience been? You obviously have an amazing, thriving community. Give us a little bit of advice about what's working for you here.

[Dan Harris]

My sense, and I'm still learning and experimenting, is that substack is about depth, depth of content, longer content and depth of connection to your audience. Really getting in there and interacting with folks through live things or chats. And you can do that on other platforms, but it seems more substantive here. And I, I think another, I mean.

[Jonathan Cohen]

That'S why we, that's honestly why we came here. So, yeah, that's good to hear.

[Dan Harris]

And people are, the people are coming to substack for depth. I mean that you come to substack because initially, you know, the old school substack users like me came because we wanted to read long newsletters from really Smart. And so it's a different use case, I think, for an individual than Instagram or TikTok, both of which I use. But I'm going there for snacks as opposed to a full meal.

[Unnamed Speaker]

That makes, makes a lot of sense in terms of depth. Obviously you've. You shared a lot with us and we're extremely appreciative of the amount that you've opened up here. I, I've been touched. Are there any other sort of big, juicy topics that you're thinking about that are either on your nightstand or in your notepad that you're contemplating.

[Dan Harris]

You know, I've been working on a book for seven and a half years about love, broadly understood not just as romantic love, but as an omnidirectional force that includes how you are with yourself, how you are with the barista, how you are with your colleagues, your friends, your kid, your spouse. It's basically relationships or connections. But I'm using the word love because it is. I think if you use that word in a capacious way, it captures all of it. And it kind of goes back to the shivering humans, early humans on the savannah. You know, there's some real pathos to that, and it's very much operating in our modern lives. But what's interesting is we're in this era of optimization, where people are tracking their sleep and their calories and their steps. But the data is quite clear that the most important variable for human flourishing, you know, human happiness and longevity, is the quality of your relationships. That's not to say sleep and diet don't matter. They. They do. But what matters the most is the quality of your relationships, and nobody is optimizing for that. And I kind of want to push the culture in that direction. So I've been thinking about this a lot, and hopefully the book which does.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Say, how long do we have to wait? Because I'm leaving this information.

[Dan Harris]

Well, I talk about it all the time, you know, so I'm not hiding it. I just. I'm trying to weave it into a memoir, a fun story. And for me, I'm generally a quick writer because I came up in television, so where we had to write things really quickly. But for me, the marrying rollicking narrative to a pedagogical progression is incredibly hard. And so My first book, 10% Happier, took me five years. This book will probably take me seven or eight. And when it's all said and done, and I don't even know if it's going to be any good, but I'm just kind of making this big investment, and we'll see what happens.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I love that. I like the marrying of the two worlds, too, the psychosocial and the optimizing, which I think you're great at, because the love and the relationships actually optimize the things that we're trying to optimize anyway, right? Like it's a flywheel effect where if we're trying to only sleep or eat, but our relationships are in the toilet, it's going to be very Hard to get the motivation to do that correct.

[Dan Harris]

And just like we're talking about habit formation for M, you know, with around meditate, the other M word meditation, actually doing it with you or with your kids or like any activity that you're trying to incorporate into your life, it will be easier to do it with other people. So relationships snake into everything. It's the core of the human condition and we are as a culture overlooking it in massive and deleterious ways.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I like the idea of expanding love as a concept and an energy and an approach to interaction outside of romantic love.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Because so much of our non romantic relationships are not categorized as, as loving. We know you could be like, oh, I'm kind of nice to this person. But like what would it be to understand sharing love in a non romantic way? Just in all of our relationships.

[Dan Harris]

I mean it's a linguistic problem. You know, in English we just have this word love. But in other languages there are many words for different types of relationships. And there's a scientist who has taxonomized all of the different types of relationships that we have. But again, we use this word love for. I said this in my, I gave a TED talk about this. We use the word love to apply to our spouse and our relationship with our spouse.

[Jonathan Cohen]

And I love this screwdriver.

[Dan Harris]

Yes. Or gluten free snickerdoodles or whatever. It's just like, you know, we are, we're abusing the word. Kind of like we abuse the word trauma. And so when I wrote 10% Happier Now 11 years ago, it was a very different time where meditation was not a word that was socially acceptable. And one of my goals was to save that word, to rescue that word. And so one of my goals with this next book is to rescue the word love.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I think it needs rescuing. Imagine the health implications of reimagining this word. Think about the impact on addiction, on depression, on loneliness, on potential suicidality, on, on so many of the conditions that are spiking and plaguing us.

[Dan Harris]

That and massive global issues like climate change and war and economic inequality. Because at the heart of all of the these are problems that need to be worked out by human beings with a non zero sum mentality. And is going to cooperation will be at the heart of all of these issues. And if we don't have loving humans, we're gonna be in the situation which we're in right now.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Not to put global salvation on your shoulders, but you should maybe get the book out.

[Dan Harris]

Thanks buddy. Appreciate that. That was very helpful.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Dan we really, really appreciate getting to talk to you and getting to interact with some of your community and we just really appreciate the love that you have shown us. And yeah, we look forward to so many more conversations and ways to connect and we just love learning from you and just are so appreciative.

[Dan Harris]

Everything you said I could have said to you.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Oh thank you.

[Dan Harris]

Yes, absolutely reciprocated.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Well, thank you and thank you to everyone who's watching and joining and please follow us on Substack. I write Imbialics Breakdown. Jonathan is Jonathan Cohen. And yeah, we look forward to highlighting much more of the incredible work that Dan does also on our space. So just really appreciate getting to do this. So Dan, thank you so much and we hope to see you in June.

[Dan Harris]

My yeah, you will see me in June and my pleasure. And welcome because you wrote it down. Welcome to Substack.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Thank you. Talk to you all later. Bye everybody.

[Dan Harris]

Bye Bye everybody.

[Mayim Bialik]

Thank you to Miami Jonathan for having me. Their podcast is Mayim Bialix Breakdown and they have a substack bialikbreakdown.substack.com I'll put a link in the show notes. They're both amazing. Bianca and I after this conversation, actually did have a dinner with Mayim and Jonathan and it was a delight. Don't forget to check out danharris.com to become a paid subscriber and reap all the many, many benefits of our new offerings, including a growing collection of bespoke companion meditations that come along with this podcast podcast on our full length Monday Wednesday episodes. Check it out. Dan harris.com finally, thank you to everybody who worked so hard to make this 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.