Peak Performance at Any Age | Christiane Wolf (Dharma Teacher/Doctor/Ultramarathoner)

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Peak Performance at Any Age | Christiane Wolf (Dharma Teacher/Doctor/Ultramarathoner)"

10% Happier with Dan Harris
Release Date: June 2, 2025

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Introduction and Guest Background

In this episode of the "10% Happier" podcast, host Dan Harris welcomes Dr. Christiana Wolf—a Dharma teacher, former physician with both an MD and PhD, co-author of "A Clinician's Guide to Teaching Mindfulness," and author of "Outsmart Your Pain." Dr. Wolf is also a senior teacher at Insight LA and an accomplished ultramarathoner in her late 50s, exemplifying a powerful synergy between modern scientific understanding and ancient mindfulness practices.

Notable Quote:
"This is the second appearance on the pod by Dr. Christiana Wolf. She no longer practices medicine, but she has both an MD and a PhD." ([00:04])

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Interoception: Listening to Your Body

A central theme of the conversation is interoception—the scientific term for "listening to your body." Dr. Wolf explains interoception as the body's internal communication system, constantly sending signals like hunger, discomfort, and tension to maintain homeostasis. Developing interoception enhances one's ability to understand and respond to these signals, leading to better overall health and decision-making.

Notable Quote:
"The body has a wealth of information and is trying to communicate with us all the time. We just haven't learned to listen to it and to trust what the body is saying." ([16:20])

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Achieving Peak Performance at Any Age

Dr. Wolf shares her inspiring journey as an ultramarathoner, highlighting her participation in a recent 50-mile race in the Santa Monica Mountains. She emphasizes that peak performance is attainable at any age through gradual, mindful training and a deep connection with one's body. Dr. Wolf discusses the importance of trail running over road running for longevity and reduced injury risk.

Notable Quote:
"I love exertion. There's just something that feels very, very satisfying for me to work out and sweat and do hard things." ([06:28])

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Developing Interoception through Meditation

The discussion delves into practical methods for enhancing interoception, particularly through meditation techniques like body scans. Dr. Wolf explains that regular mindfulness practices help individuals become more attuned to their bodily sensations, fostering a deeper connection and awareness of their physical state.

Notable Quote:
"Interoception is always there already. And for people who are interested in meditation, we do a lot of body scans." ([36:33])

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Motivation and Overcoming Resistance to Exercise

Dan and Dr. Wolf explore common barriers to exercise, including lack of habitual energy, shame, inconsistency, and the desire to avoid bodily sensations. Dr. Wolf suggests that building small, manageable exercise habits is more effective than relying on fleeting motivation. She advocates for replacing shame-based motivation with self-compassion to encourage sustainable exercise routines.

Notable Quote:
"Self compassion is really, self compassion wants you to change too, just like shame does, but it doesn't hurt you doing it." ([65:40])

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Relationship Between Discipline and Self-Compassion

The conversation contrasts discipline with self-compassion. While discipline often involves self-imposed rigidity and can lead to burnout, self-compassion fosters a kind and supportive internal dialogue. Dr. Wolf explains that self-compassion allows for persistence without judgment, making it a more sustainable approach to maintaining exercise habits and overall well-being.

Notable Quote:
"Self compassion can say, like, we don't want to become really sick. We are doing this now." ([66:16])

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Dealing with Injuries and Learning from Them

Dr. Wolf addresses the role of injuries in athletic pursuits, framing them as opportunities for learning and growth. She explains that injuries often signal the need to adjust one's training approach, such as improving form or allowing for adequate rest. By paying attention to bodily signals, athletes can prevent future injuries and maintain long-term health.

Notable Quote:
"Injuries can be fruitful because you learn better form to prevent injuries going forward." ([78:14])

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Healthy Relationship with the Body: Buddhist Perspectives

Drawing from Buddhist teachings, Dr. Wolf discusses the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, particularly mindfulness of the body. This practice encourages viewing the body as a functional entity rather than an object of aesthetic concern. By adopting this perspective, individuals can reduce suffering related to body image and develop a more appreciative and less judgmental relationship with their physical selves.

Notable Quote:
"We are often so obsessed with certain body parts, what they look like or what they do, and we take it personally." ([44:31])

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Sources of Reluctance to Exercise

The conversation identifies four primary sources of reluctance to exercise:

1. Habit Energy: The difficulty in breaking existing habits and establishing new ones, given the brain's resistance to conserving energy.
2. Shame Energy: Using shame as a motivator can backfire, leading to resistance rather than sustainable behavior.
3. History of Inconsistency: Past failures in maintaining exercise routines lead to self-defeating beliefs that hinder future efforts.
4. Desire Not to Feel the Body: Avoidance of uncomfortable physical sensations associated with exercise, often linked to past traumas or stress responses.

Notable Quote:
"Habit energy is just something that we are more likely to do what we have done before than to do something new." ([61:57])

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Difference Between Discipline and Self-Compassion

Dan and Dr. Wolf delve deeper into how discipline and self-compassion function as motivators. Discipline can be demanding and harsh, driven by external or extrinsic motivations, whereas self-compassion fosters a supportive internal dialogue that encourages consistent, guilt-free effort towards goals.

Notable Quote:
"What is my why? Why am I doing this or want to do this? And how am I talking to myself." ([67:16])

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Dysfunction Among Overexercisers

Dr. Wolf explains that overexercising or a "hustling" mindset can be a sign of underlying trauma, where individuals feel compelled to constantly push themselves to avoid feelings of laziness or inadequacy. This perpetual drive can lead to burnout, injuries, and a disconnected relationship with the body.

Notable Quote:
"People get hurt running because they don't know when their body says no, this will hurt us over." ([28:57])

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Learning from Injuries

Dan shares personal experiences with injuries, discussing how they inform his approach to exercise and reflect on the importance of listening to bodily signals. Dr. Wolf reinforces that injuries should be viewed as messages from the body to adjust one's practices, promoting a more mindful and adaptive approach to physical activity.

Notable Quote:
"I want to hold on that for a second because later in this conversation we're going to talk about your Thoughts both for people who are not exercising but want to or feel badly about not doing it." ([12:34])

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Developing a Healthy Relationship with the Body

The conversation emphasizes the importance of developing a healthy, non-attached, and appreciative relationship with one's body. This involves being grateful for what the body can do, accepting its natural processes, and reducing societal pressures related to appearance.

Notable Quote:
"Can be grateful for the body while recognizing there's a lot going on here that is not for public consumption and maybe not beautiful." ([54:36])

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Practical Applications and Recommendations

To cultivate interoception and a healthy relationship with the body, Dr. Wolf recommends:

• Regular Meditation Practices: Including body scans and mindful movement exercises like yoga or tai chi.

• Small Habit Formation: Starting with manageable exercise routines to build consistency.

• Self-Compassion: Replacing shame-based motivation with kind self-talk to encourage sustainable behavior.

• Listening to Bodily Signals: Respecting and responding to the body's needs to prevent injuries and burnout.

Notable Quote:
"If you have to make a decision about anything, you will decide that based on the felt sense, unless you're really just doing an intellectual assessment." ([40:51])

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Conclusion and Additional Resources

The episode concludes with information about Dr. Wolf's books, "A Clinician's Guide to Teaching Mindfulness" and "Outsmart Your Pain," along with her website christianawolf.com for listeners seeking further information. Additionally, listeners are reminded of the upcoming "Get Fit Sanely" series, dedicated to maintaining physical health without compromising mental well-being, featuring guided meditations from Kara Lai for subscribers.

Notable Quote:
"These practices, including the body scan practice and the 32 parts of the body practice, can, over time, really change our relationship to our body." ([60:34])

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This comprehensive summary captures all key points, discussions, insights, and conclusions from the podcast episode, incorporating notable quotes with proper attribution and timestamps. It provides a clear and engaging overview for those who haven't listened to the episode, while omitting advertisements, intros, outros, and non-content sections as per the guidelines.

Transcript

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Foreign.

[Dan Harris]

This is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey gang. Today we're going to tackle one of the most venerable and in the wrong hands, annoying contemplative cliches. Listening to your body. There's actually a scientific word for this. And my guest today, who's awesome and is a triple threat, she's a Dharma teacher, a doctor, and an ultra marathoner, is gonna talk about both the benefits of interoception or listening to your body and how to do it, how to actually operationalize the cliche. I love this conversation. Actually, we cover a lot of ground here. As mentioned, we talk about listening to your body, including some meditation techniques that can help you hone this skill. But we also talk about how to achieve PE peak performance at any age. She's an ultra marathoner in her late 50s, which I found incredibly inspiring. We talk about why some people don't exercise and how those folks can get motivated. How for those of us who do exercise, it can often come from a place of trauma based hustling, which rang a bell for me. How to deal with injuries and what you can learn from injuries, discipline versus self, compassion, indifference versus equanimity, how to have a healthy overall relationship to your body and much more. This is the second appearance on the pod by Dr. Christiana Wolf. She no longer practices medicine, but she has both an MD and a PhD. She now spends most of her time teaching meditation and writing books. She's the author of two books, Outsmart yout Pain, which she came on the show to discuss several years ago. And she's also the co author of A Clinician's Guide to Teaching Mindfulness. And she's a senior teacher at Insight LA in Los Angeles. And as mentioned, in her spare time she runs ultramarathons, which she will talk about and I found incredibly cool. This episode by the way, kicks off a month long series called Get Fit Sanely where we talk about how to take care of your body without losing your mind. We've run this series a couple times on the show, but we're back now with our biggest and most ambitious version yet. One extra cool aspect of this series is that we're now integrating the episodes here on the show in a very deep way with our subscription program [e-mail] specifically we will be posting guided meditations that accompany each episode. These bespoke meditations are led by friend of the POD and friend of mine and one of my favorite meditation teachers, Kara Lai. Kara is both deeply wise and very funny. For example, in the companion meditation for today's episode, which is a body scan meditation, by the way, she warns you, the listener, if your chakra's open and you have a full body orgasm, not my fault. If you want more of this wisdom wrapped in humor, you can become a subscriber [e-mail] we will get started with Dr. Christiana Wolf right after this. Tell me if you've ever had this happen. You put on a suit or something formal for an important meeting date or event, and when you look yourself in the mirror, you feel more confident. There's actually a psychological reason for this. It's called enclosed cognition. What we wear actually impacts how we feel and in turn, behave. That's why I'm such a big fan of figs. Their scrubs are tailored, durable, stylish, and designed to help healthcare professionals perform at their best. I'm married to a doctor. My parents are doctors. I have many friends, friends in the medical world, and the reviews I've heard are very positive. In fact, our producer, Tara Anderson, her husband wears figs, like, every day and loves them. I totally believe that this is all related to the idea of enclosed cognition. When you wear scrubs that look professional and have all the functionality you need to do your job, like multiple pockets, antimicrobial fabric, and layering essentials, you're really going to feel more confident. And in healthcare, that confidence really matters because we want the these folks to do a good job for us and the people we love. So visit wherefigs.com today and use code FIGS RX for 15% off your first order. That's wherefigs.com and promo code F I G S R X at checkout for 15% off your first order. Okay, so the other day, I was over at my friend's house, David and Christy. I was taking a walk with David, and on the way out the door, Christy said, david, don't forget to go to Wayfair and and order that hose handle that we want. You know, those things that you nail into the side of your house and then you sort of wrap your hose around it? She said, I need you to go to Wayfair and get a hose handle. I found one that looks really good. Go buy it. And I thought to myself, oh, Wayfair is a sponsor of the show. I'm going to tell that story on the air. I did get David and Christie's permission before I did that. Anyway, long way of saying Wayfair is great. There's just something about a beautiful outdoor space. That is so satisfying. It's like your backyard oasis. I love that about having a backyard. Wayfair's got everything you need to level up your outdoor space. They have patio sets and lounge chairs, outdoor bars and hot tubs, fire pits, gazebos, and of course, string lights. It's so easy to have a one stop shop where you can make over your entire space with a resort feel without the resort price tag. David and Christie ordered the hose thingamajig. I've been looking at fire pits from Wayfair. Also some outdoor lighting and heating options. Great stuff. So don't wait. Make your outdoor space your dream oasis today with Wayfair and enjoy it all summer long. Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop a huge outdoor selection. That's W A Y-F A I R.com Wayfair Every style, every home. Christiana Wolf hello. Welcome back to the show.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Thank you so much.

[Dan Harris]

It's so nice to do this in person.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

It is, isn't it? Yeah. Makes such a difference.

[Dan Harris]

And we actually got to have dinner together last night. Yes. It's a long warm up period. You're like the perfect person for this series that we do occasionally on the show. Get fit sanely. It's not entirely Buddhist. It's kind of a Buddhist plus modern psychological approach to holistic fitness. You're interesting because you're a physician and also very into fitness. Am I right that you're an ultra marathoner?

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

I am.

[Dan Harris]

Okay.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

So can you just tell me, like I get why somebody would want to become a doctor, but why? Why do you want to be an ultra marathoner?

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah, that's a really good question. So maybe we'd just start with an explanation what an ultra marathoner is. So an ultra marathoner is somebody who runs more than a marathon distance. So that's one. And the second is we run on trails, so we are out in nature and we are running up and down mountains. And that is actually the biggest appeal for me. I got really fed up with road running. It's harder on the body. I don't want to like to be in the city all the time. So actually to be able to get out in nature and then I love exertion. There's just something that feels very, very satisfying for me to work out and sweat and do hard things. Not too hard, but to not too hard.

[Dan Harris]

What do you mean more than a marathon up and down a mountain.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

So I mean, one thing that people really need to realize is you don't start as an ultra marathoner When I started running in my late 20s, I literally started walking one minute and running one minute because that was all I could do. And then over time, you just do more. How I got into ultra running was actually during the pandemic because that was the only sports that were still available. Right. So getting out and going out on the trails and then having all this time, my husband jokes, is like that I used to run away from him and the kids every day and then I would come back and I just needed to be away for a few hours every day or would go like steer crazy with three teenagers at home.

[Dan Harris]

So out of curiosity, how old are you?

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

56.

[Dan Harris]

56. I mean, that's incredibly impressive that you're running. I mean it's impressive to run more than a marathon up and down mountains on trails at any age. But 56, I say this as a 53 year old, that's really impressive. And also I find it really encouraging.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Beautiful. I love that. I actually ran this last Saturday. I ran a 50 mile race. People go like 1, 5, like no, 5, 0 in the Santa Monica Mountains here. And it was hard and beautiful.

[Dan Harris]

You know, I've been making fun of you for this ultra marathoning thing over the last two minutes, but I actually have to say I feel, what I actually feel is envy because I also really like exertion and I love to run on trails and my body does not love it. I get a lot of knee and hip pain and honestly, if where my head's going is, I gotta figure out how I could do that. Even honestly, 5, 10 miles would be incredible for me. Running on a trail is for me incredibly exhilarating. I love doing it.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah. So one thing that people also don't really realize around trail running or ultramarathons is I hike a lot. I'm mid of the pack runner. Right. And so people are like in front of the pack, they might run up mountains. I don't, I hike them up and just that is so you use actually a lot more muscles so you can go a lot longer instead of if you would run the whole distance, like on a flat surface. Yeah. And so I often say like after, when I run like so typical shorter ultramarathon distance is 50k, 50km, which is 32 miles. I feel less exhausted after doing that than when I run a road marathon. And that says a lot. And so I'm thinking like for you so often what happens is that people build too fast. What they say is that the body of like an ultra marathoner is built over many years. And I can really see that. So my body is really different than it was when I started five years ago. It looks different, it feels different, and it's really something. So I think a lot about longevity and what brings longevity. And of course there are studies saying like, oh, you can actually run too much. But I don't think that those studies have actually been done with ultramarathoners. So I think there's a way how to we train our bodies. And that includes strength training, actually. So I usually try to do like two strength training sessions a week so that the whole system is built up. And I think that is often where runners get injured is because they don't do strength training. So the whole system that is supporting the muscles that are running, you don't just need those muscles, but actually your entire body. So you need core strength and you need upper back strength, you need. Need arm strength. And that is often something that's really overlooked.

[Dan Harris]

I have a million questions. I'll get to some of them later. Some of them are quite selfish. Just staying on you and your psychological makeup here. You love exertion. That's been established. And you are, and I think this is the way you've described it, fascinated with the human body. As a physician.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Totally fascinated with the human body. Yeah. And with endurance and what keeps us healthy. And as I said, with longevity. So I really. My goal is with this. I'm in it for the long run. And so I'm very careful that I don't get injured. And at times I work with a coach. And for me, it's really important to work with a coach who knows the aging body. I'm not 30 anymore. Yeah. And so I can't put effort into my body in a way that I could have done it. I mean, I didn't do it when I was 30. I was running the family raising marathon back then. But there is an art form to that. And I feel like not all coaches really know about that. So I see some of my friends who are about the same age getting injured. And partly it is because their coaches are too ambitious. That's an interesting thing. Right? So how can we keep an aging body fit and at full capacity without overdoing it and getting injured?

[Dan Harris]

Injury is a huge issue for me personally because I am quite a dedicated worker outer. I get hurt a lot. I'm hurt right now, actually, and it's a bummer. And I want to hold on that for a second because later in this conversation we're going to talk about your Thoughts both for people who are not exercising but want to or feel badly about not doing it, and for people who are exercising but like me, maybe have the wrong approach and they're pushing their bodies too hard. I've seen myself not so much now, but especially in the past, a kind of mindset issue around exercise where you're. The goal is actually to look a certain way, which is not the. I don't think it didn't work out well. So I want to hold on that and stay at a high level here around this term interoception, which is our ability to feel the body, to be in touch with our bodies. And I actually think so much about modern life militates against being in touch with your body.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

[Dan Harris]

I. I've heard one dharma teacher describe us as like Macy's Day parade floats. Like all head.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes.

[Dan Harris]

Floating through the world with these little strings attaching you to the ground. But we're not in touch with the body. Can you talk a little bit about this?

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Oh, yeah, I can talk for days about that. I think our culture, it is this weird thing. On one hand, we are so obsessed with the body, but we're not obsessed with actually listening to our bodies. We're obsessed with what the body looks like or what the body can do. So it's like very performance oriented. So what we have learned, I mean, like Descartes and everything is just like to value our intellect and whatever is in the body is not valuable. It's sinful, gets us in trouble. Right. So you look at like stoicism, for example, like, emotions are bad, better not to have any or never be guided by emotions. There's like, we have this long tradition of not being embodied. And then of course, because also we have a history, like, of big traumas everywhere with like war and oppression and misogyny, all of that. And that makes us not feel safe in the body. So that's like how we're coming into this. But the fact is, like, the body and the mind is 1:1. It's not. Here's the body and there's the mind. Even though it can feel that way, the body has a wealth of information and is trying to communicate with us all the time. We just haven't learned to listen to it and to trust what the body is saying. So we're having like, often like a really mistrustful relationship to the body. And so interoception and maybe I just say so the term isn't really well known. People are probably more familiar with the Term exteroception and extra reception is whatever comes in through the senses. What I hear, what I see, what I smell, what I touch, what I taste. Exteroception and then interoception. And it is such a huge catch all term because it is all information that comes from the bottom up and communicates with the brain. And that is everything. Yeah. So that is like the body is trying to be in what we call homeostasis all the time. So it tries to balance the ph system, your blood pressure, your heart rate. Like, it is constantly adapting and adjusting. And it does that, thank goodness, most of it, like, kind of under the radar. Yeah. So we don't have to be aware of it. But then also the body talks to us. It says, like, I'm hungry or I need to go to the bathroom or I'm uncomfortable or my neck is tense. Right. So that is also all interoception and. But what the part of interoception that is really that I'm fascinated with is what we call the felt sense. And the felt sense is how we feel in our bodies. Do we feel at home in our bodies? Are we in a constant communication with the body? Yeah. So are we listening and really trusting what the body is communicating with us? And I think we can learn so much in that area. And for me, as a dharma teacher and as a mind mindfulness teacher and somebody who works with stress reduction a lot, this is what I do all the time. Yeah. Because stress manifests in the body, we're often. If we haven't learned to listen to that, then we're missing signals. And I can't tell you how often I hear people. I also work a lot with people with chronic pain. Right. So then I said, well, your body is. Might try to communicate with you. And then people say, like, oh, yeah. And I only started listening once the body was screaming at me. Yeah. Often people will say, oh, when I. Now look back, the body was already trying to get my attention years before. And I didn't listen. I just kept going. I kept adding on more stress until one day the body says, like, you know what? Try to do it without me. Right. And then you're forced to listen. And I think, or I wish that more people could prevent having to go there.

[Dan Harris]

Just to put a fine point on it, you've hit some of these. But can we just be very direct about the benefits of developing this skill? We will eventually talk about how to develop the skill of interoception. But based on what you said, one benefit is if you're not listening to your body, that's how you get into burnout, injury, breakdown.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes.

[Dan Harris]

Another thing is we have an epidemic of overeating. I'm very pro eating all kinds of foods. I think that's very healthy. And I think it's unhealthy to be obsessed with getting your body into a specific shape. I sometimes think about the term getting in shape. Who decide who dictates what the shape is.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Absolutely.

[Dan Harris]

I think we need to be red pilled around that. Yes.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

Having said that, we, myself included, we sometimes eat for reasons that have nothing to do with often, very often with the cues from the body. So that's another benefit. I just listed two. What am I missing?

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah. So one thing is, so if your body is in discomfort, you want to know that. And there is not always that you want to do something about it or need to do something about it. Right. But so for me, like I remember so when I was in my residency, during my residency as a gynecologist, there was so like sometimes this is like we don't have time to go to the bathroom. So you just suppress that urge to go to bath. I mean like people dying around you. Right. So like there is no time to take care of your basic needs or you don't eat. The fact is you need to go to the bathroom and you need to eat, otherwise you can't keep going. Sometimes very basic things are people like, do you know when you're tired? Do you know when you're full with eating? Like if we're using that example. Right. So that is one area. But the really like the area that I'm so fascinated with is we can feel really at home, at ease and very pleasant in the body. Right. And then so when we're talking about, so why do so many people have a hard time being in their bodies in a meditation, why is it so hard to sit still? Not because it feels so nice and calm and at ease. So of course, if I'm crawling out of my skin or I have pain or I can't feel my body at all, then it's really hard to be in the body. But if the body was just a really comfortable home, wouldn't you want to be there? And wouldn't you want to be there instead of just being gone in the past or the future all the time? And I think often what we do. So either we don't feel the body at all or the sensations that we feel in the body are negative or they feel overwhelming or they feel weird. Or strange. We know, like, about trauma and what trauma does to the nervous system, what stress does to the nervous system. And part of it is numbing out, and part is just like, giving too much sensations. And I think our practice is really. And then mindfulness is, like, a wonderful tool, but not the only tool, of course, is to bring us back. To bring us back home, really. And then what we learn. And then the other thing is something that is also, I think, that people really underestimate is, like, how pleasurable it can feel to be in your body. And then why would you go anywhere else?

[Dan Harris]

There's a meditation teacher who is also a close friend of mine, a guy I really love, Jeff Warren. And in some of his guided meditations, he talks about, like, tuning into the creaturely feeling of being in your body. And sometimes he'll recommend sprawl out on the ground. You know, don't assume the lotus position.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

No. Oh, my God, go for it.

[Dan Harris]

Lie on the ground. There is something luxurious about just inhabiting this thing.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes.

[Dan Harris]

That being said, as you indicated, for people with trauma, it can be terrifying to get into the body.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes, yes, absolutely. Where I like to start is just, do you know what state your nervous system is in right now? A very simple way to say that or to assess that is, is your nervous system in green, in yellow, or in red right now? And then, because everybody understands that what I will often do, like, when I teach a class is like, we do, like, crowdsourcing. Say, what does it feel like when your nervous system is in green? What does it feel like when it's in yellow? What does it feel like when it's in red? Right. Everybody knows that red is, like, high stress. And people say, like, oh, a lot of people say, like, I'm in dark yellow most of the time. And then what we're learning is, so what helps us to downregulate more into green or downregulate out of red into orange? And that is so individual. And so I think, like, what we're really seeing, like, in the meditation or the mindfulness world is, like, we're really moving away from the old box of, like, you sit in this position, you close your eyes, you don't move. Right. And if you can't do this, well, that's on you. Instead of saying, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second. So that closing your eyes, being still not moving, is really triggering for some bodies. And so what are ways how we can feel more safe before we meditate or when we're in a meditation? We're Noticing, like, I'm crawling out of my skin. That is the fine line, which, like, for me, also comes back to ultra endurance sports is the fine line of do I stay or do I go?

[Dan Harris]

Right.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Right, yes. Do I just sit with this and say, like, this is just uncomfortable, but I'm okay with that, or is that what I'm doing here right now is actually unkind and reinforcing a trauma pattern and not helpful at all?

[Dan Harris]

I've had these conversations with Joseph Goldstein, you and I have sat meditation retreats with Joseph, because I deal with a lot of physical restlessness on the cushion, like, overwhelming restlessness. Actually, it's a problem for my sleep, too. Or sometimes I'm just in physical pain. And he says something that really rhymes with what you just said, which is, see how far you can push it without hurting yourself. At some point, even with the restlessness, you're not gonna get hurt, but sitting with it is excruciating. It's like continually just pushing the envelope, gently seeing how far you can go. When I found that to be very helpful. The other thing I'd say for people with restlessness or people who are just too squirmy or ADHD or they've got some trauma is walking meditation. I think this form of meditation does not get nearly enough airtime. I'm all for taking a walk in nature, but this is different than that. This is often at a bit of a slower pace, and you're really bringing all of your attention to the sensations in the body. And then every time you get distracted, start again and again. And I find this to be a. In fact, in some ways, the walking meditation is a great way to build interoception because.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Absolutely.

[Dan Harris]

The sensations in the body are the object of the meditation.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes. Yeah. I mean, you can argue that in most of our meditations, interoception is the object of our awareness. Yeah. So when we are, like, doing breath meditation, we're feeling the breath.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

When we do sound meditation, let's extra reception. Right. It's like, still we are connected with the senses, so really, like, getting out of our head and choosing an anchor. And I think one thing that's really important is that we have an anchor that feels safe enough.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

And we know now, which we didn't know, like, even, like, 15 years ago. I didn't know that, and I didn't get instructions that for some people, focusing on the breath does not feel safe. It actually makes them more anxious and more restless. And then they're sitting there saying, like, what's wrong with me. Here's another thing I can't do. Instead of saying, like, oh, it was never about the breath. It was about finding an anchor that you can sense in your body that feels safe enough.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

And it could be your hands, could be your feet, could be sounds. Often people say, well, I feel so, like, oh, I can't be in my body. It's, like, too overwhelming. But I can totally track sounds.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

That feels so much less threatening than anything that goes on in my body in that moment.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah. When I guide meditation, I really try to give a long menu of potential objects.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Awesome. Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

My wife really likes to meditate on the visuals of her. What she sees when her eyes are closed.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Oh. Oh. What she sees when her eyes are closed. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. Visual. Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

Before I forget, I think for me, another big benefit of interoception has come at work. I come from the very puritanical strain of the American experience and also was raised professionally, raised in an environment where burnout was celebrated as a journalist and.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yep.

[Dan Harris]

And we are pushing. I remember, and I may have told this story before, so I apologize to any listeners who's going to be annoyed by that. I remember once covering the 2004 presidential election. During the primaries, there was a candidate named Howard Dean before John Kerry ultimately got the Democratic nomination. But Howard Dean was all the kids. He was kind of like the Bernie Sanders before Bernie Sanders. And I covered his campaign. And the night the campaign ended was he got up on stage and had this very weird scream. And it just kind of reinforced the backstory of him being weird in some way. Anyway, that night, my bosses made me stand out in the freezing rain to do a live shot. And they wanted it to be outside because they had a cool bus they had decorated with the ABC News logo. And I was like, it's raining. It's freezing rain out. Can we do this inside? They said, no, we want the bus in the shot. So I had to do a live shot that night in freezing rain. I got more sick than I've perhaps ever been. And I had to stay in Iowa for several days and go to the hospital. When I got home, one of my bosses said, you getting sick? Like, that wasn't a good look. Oh, shoot. Yes. So my point is, at work, I come from a. Both genetically and professionally, from the standpoint of push, push, push, push. And in later years, I've learned to listen to when I'm exhausted and take breaks. And I have a lot of breaks built in throughout my day now. And I find that I'm way more productive.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

You still have a part that feels guilty about that.

[Dan Harris]

Yes, a little.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Right?

[Dan Harris]

Yeah.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Right. Those habits are so deeply ingrained. I can so relate to that. It's just like, yeah, overachieving, go getter, going hard. Right. People joke about my ultramarathons. Right. It's like, oh, now you're just channeling it in something new. Like you chose a new addiction. It's just there might be something to it, but there's something for me, I really learn to be softer and to. It's hard to say, yeah, I just ran 50 miles. So, like, I do less, I push less hard. And what I find is actually my being able to communicate with my body better actually allows me often to do more, if that makes sense.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Because the problem really. And to come back to really like the body and to know that's a language, it's like learning a language. And I see again, I see so many people getting hurt running. And I think a lot of them, they don't know when their body says, like, no, this will hurt us over. Just like, oh, this is hard. I don't want to do this. Right. So the body whining or the mind whining, that's a really tricky but for me, so deeply fascinating area of exploration.

[Dan Harris]

I want to talk about the how of interoception in a second. But just to say on this point that you made a second ago about how in some ways you do less or you push yourself less hard and yet you're still running 50 miles at age 56. I was recently re reading the transcript of an interview I did many years ago with a person for whom I have a ton of respect, Kristin Neff, who's been the pioneer of self compassion. And she was saying to me, I think in the interview, a man needs to write a book about how tenderness is strength. Oh, yes, I have seen this. The older I've gotten that, the gentler I am with myself in so many ways, the more I can achieve.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes. And that is hard to believe until you experience that. Yeah. And so, like, people really ask me, they say, like, so how does like ultra marathoning and self compassion? Because that's. I teach Kristen Neff's class. How does it go together? And it goes together perfectly because I can trust myself and my body more, that I won't hurt myself, but that I will stop if I need to. But because I'm in this constant conversation with my body, I feel I can actually, actually push myself more. And the thing is, like, we know the body is capable of just amazing physical feats and that we leave so much on the table. Yeah. So if you've ever like read David Goggins work, it's just like, so basically by the time your mind and body is saying like, we're done, we can't do anything more, you have to use 30% or something. What you actually can do. And that is something also like where for me, me running these long distances makes it really fascinating because at some point it is more the mental game that you're playing and not your body, because you trained your body to go that distance. But the mind gets tired. Yeah. And when we have this term called the pain cave, the pain cave is of course not just like in ultra endurance sports, but we know this like the mind can just like drop into the really dark place where it feels, I can't go anymore, I can't do it anymore. I'm not talking about depression here. That's a little bit different. But then something shifts and then, I don't know, just an hour later you're totally fine again. So that's like a very common experience that people have in ultra. In endurance. And it's so helpful, honestly for everyday life, this experience that you know, even though why it might feel like I can't keep doing what I'm doing right now. I know. And this is of course like Buddhism 101. It's impermanence. The way that you feel about something right now won't stay that way. It feels like. And it might even feel like this will go on forever like this, but it won't. And so to remember that when we're in it is just very helpful practice.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

And scalable to all of life, as you said.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

Coming up, Dr. Christiana Wolf talks about how to develop and hone interoception, how to do practices like a body scan, and how helpful these practices can be. How to shift how you relate to your body, the four foundations of mindfulness. One of the crucial discourses of the Buddha. What a healthy relationship to the body looking like translating monastic practices to your modern life. How to reduce stress and suffering in the body and the difference between indifference and equanimity. This June, right here on the 10% Happier podcast, we will be running a month long series dedicated to one of our most popular recurring franchises which we call Get Fit Sanely. As you know, your mental and physical health are inextricably intertwined. But is there a reasonable way to act on this understanding without becoming either an insane gym rat or a checked out couch potato. Get Fit Sanely is really centered around a pressing question. How do you take care of your body without losing your mind? We've got a great lineup of experts to help you separate signal from noise this June. The lineup features some conversations on fitness, gut, health, muscle motivation, stress. Guests include vegan, ultra endurance athlete and podcast host Rich roll, integrative gastroenterologist Dr. Robin Chutkan, the host of NPR's Life Kit podcast Marielle Segada, the CEO of Commune and the author of a book called Good Stress, Jeff Krasno also authors Bonnie Soy and Claudia Hammond and the great Dharma teacher slash physician slash ultramarathoner Christiana Wolf this is our longest and most ambitious Get Fit Sanely series to date. Every episode is gonna have a bespoke companion meditation available to paying subscribers over on danharris.com, which is our thriving community on Substack. Go sign up if you want those bespoke guided meditations. Either way, we're dedicating June to helping you take care of your body without losing your mind One of the strangest developments in my recent life is that I have, after a lifetime of not really caring about small sports, become a reasonably avid sports fan. Largely if not solely because I have a 10 year old son who's obsessed with sports, specifically the NFL. And my son also has an uncle. My brother in law, the Amazing Jack, is a scout on the Washington Commander. So we're now rabid Washington commanders fans. Which brings me to the point of all of this, which is that the Commanders are playing a game in Middle Madrid, Spain this fall. As you may know, the NFL has been playing more games overseas in recent years and so we are now very seriously considering going to Spain and maybe bringing Jack along and maybe Jack's girlfriend and maybe even Jack's mom. My mother in law, in other words. We're thinking about making a big trip over to Spain to see a football game, and I am very strongly leaning toward getting an Airbnb instead of staying in a hotel. I love hotels, but it's so much more intimate and fun, in my opinion, to stay in an Airbnb because you're not quarantined off in your own room and there are common spaces for mixing and mingling and cooking meals together. It's really a deeper way to travel with people. And here's the cool thing about Airbnb. You can put your home on Airbnb and make some extra cash while you're away, which feels like a smart thing to do your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how [e-mail] host okay, so how can we develop interoception?

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah, so first of all, interoception is always there already. And then for people who are interested in meditation, we do a lot of body scans. And body scans is just anything from like 5 minutes or 45 minutes. The full length is we are just paying attention to different parts of the body and just checking in and seeing if there are any sensations. Yeah. So right now when I'm saying, like, bring the attention to your feet. So then people will say, like, I'm not really feeling anything. But then I'm saying, like, are your feet warm or cold? Of course you can answer that. Yeah. As long as the nerves are okay. And then can you feel whether what your feet are resting on is soft or hard? Yes, you can do that. You can probably feel like I can feel my shoes a little bit. Yeah. So those are all sensations. But until I asked that question, we weren't aware of it. Yeah. So that means there's again like so much under the threshold of awareness, which makes sense. I can't not feel my feet the entire time, but when I know that that is available, then I could, for example, like you, when you walked from here back to your car. Right. Coming back to the walking meditation. That's what we do in walking meditation. Right. You feel your feet, which is in many cases way more preferable over what goes on in your mind right now, where you go, oh my God, I'm late for this. And I have. And the mind is just like. And then we feel that pressure, that anxiety in our body instead of saying, like, right now there's nothing I need to do but feel my feet. And that is not threatening if you don't have pain, obviously. So that is a way. And then we just train that. Just like we train anything. We just keep doing that over and over again and we can bring that awareness to other areas of the body and there are areas we can feel. So most people, when they start out with body scans, like lower legs, I guess I have lower legs, but I'm not sure right now. Right. Because I can feel them. But we know with everything what we pay more attention to, that becomes stronger in our awareness. In mindfulness practice, we do body scans regularly, short, just checking in. We kind of turn up the volume on these so called neutral sensations so that they become more. I'm not aware of my body all of the time, but most of the time as I'M moving through the day. I feel my body and I feel my body in a nice way. Yeah. I also, I mean, I have to say, I knock on wood. I don't have chronic condition or chronic pain, which is, of course, very helpful. But I have to say, these trainings or teachings around interoceptions are super helpful with chronic pain as well.

[Dan Harris]

And to say you wrote a whole.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Book on working with chronic pain.

[Dan Harris]

Yes. And we did a whole podcast. And I will drop a link to that in the show notes, but just to make sure that I've got this for you. The listener interoception isn't. It's happening anyway. The body is communicating with the brain.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes.

[Dan Harris]

The brain is obviously part of the body, but the rest of the body is communicating with the brain. But whether you're aware of it or not, that skill can be trained.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes.

[Dan Harris]

And you're saying that meditation, pretty much any kind of meditation, but specifically body scans will hone our sensitivity.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes. But also things like tai chi or qigong or yoga, when you're really paying attention to the sensations in the body. So any practice that brings you back to feeling the sensations will help increase that over time then, because what we are aware is just a small fraction. And then what we are developing is what's called, like either body awareness or the felt sense. So the felt sense is something that's quite fascinating, and the felt sense sense is something. So if you have to make a decision about anything, you will decide that based on the felt sense, unless you're really just doing an intellectual assessment. So where you want to go for dinner tonight? What do you want to eat? What kind of socks do you want to put on? It's actually quite fascinating that if we cannot feel anything, we can't make decisions, because how do you know there's that.

[Dan Harris]

Expression, the full body. Yes.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes, exactly. Yeah. Hell, yes. Hell no. Hell no. Right. That's interoception. Imagine you didn't have that. Wouldn't that be sad?

[Dan Harris]

Yes. And I think many of us don't have it. Well, we have it, but it's been atrophied.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes.

[Dan Harris]

Through lack of use. Yes. It's buried. I don't love this for. One of my little problems is that a lot of the traditional phraseology in the meditation community rubs me the wrong way, honestly. Probably because of. Of culturally ingrained sexism. Because a lot of the language codes as feminine. And this phrase, I think, fits into that bucket perfectly. And it is listen to your heart.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Oh, yes. I totally get you on that. 1.

[Dan Harris]

And I don't like it. Right? No. And I'll get.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

I'll.

[Dan Harris]

I'll cop to the fact that there may be some obnoxious reasons for not liking it, but I don't like it. And I feel like other people either wouldn't like it for the same reasons me, or they just don't know what it means because it's kind of nonspecific, or it's a cliche and therefore it doesn't land because it doesn't mean anything anymore. And yet this is what you're talking about, I think, which is once you hone the ability to receive the signals from the body, then you can listen to the intelligence that lives below the neckline that it can inform your decision.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Absolutely. Yeah. It's not making the decision for you that's really important. Right. But you want to have especially like for the big decisions in life, but even for small decisions. Right. So is your body saying yes? Is your body saying no? And it's often very subtle, but it's like for me, it's just like sometimes when the body says no, we have a very subtle stress reaction. So it means like we're tightening up a little bit, our breath gets more shallow. Right. So that kind of thing. And it's something we can feel. There's no magic in there. There's no woo woo in there. On the other hand, if something is really like wonderful and appealing, it can either be like a sense of a relaxation that goes more into green, what I said earlier. Right.

[Dan Harris]

Or.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Or it can be an excitement, the flutter of excitement. You go like, oh, yes, I want to do that. We can actually train that to feel that more and to really. And get more information. And I honestly think we're making better decisions when we do that.

[Dan Harris]

And again, the training can be as simple as meditation. Specifically body scans.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

To take this to a kind of maybe this wasn't part of the plan, but it's just on my mind, listening to, talking. This might not have been in our plan for this conversation, but there is a deeper level to feeling the sensations from the body. And our mutual friend Joseph talks about this a lot, which is that there is no such sensation as hand. You said feel your hand, but if you're really paying attention, actually you don't even have to pay attention that hard. There may be vibration, there may be tingling, there may be hard or soft. Those all exist. But there's nothing called hand that is happening for you. And that's really interesting because it starts to put this solid Sense of I am through a cheese grater. That can be very helpful. And healing.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

It can. Especially when our attitude is very clingy or very obsessive about the body or very negative. So to feel like, oh, those are just sensations arising and passing away in that moment, and I can be aware of it can be very helpful. And it can be very scary, too. Yeah. Because what does that mean if there is no such thing as a hand or my hand? And this is actually something we also teach. So there is a section in the Four Foundations. So Four Foundations of Mindfulness is like one of the core teachings that we teach from in our tradition. And the first foundation of mindfulness is mindfulness of the body. Mindfulness of the body, not mindfulness of my body. And that is a really important, very interesting, fascinating thing. Right. So as I said, we're often so obsessed with certain body parts, what they look like or what they do, what they can't do, all of that. And we take it personally. We think this is who we are, this is what defines us. But then when we're just doing the body scans, we're just going to, this is what feet feel like, this is what knees feel like, this is what thighs feel like. I don't know. It's nothing me about that. And that can be very helpful so that we can actually get a different relationship to the body instead of whatever we like or don't like about our body parts. Just remembering that through evolution, every body part evolved for a function, not for what it looks like.

[Dan Harris]

You mentioned the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. Just for the uninitiated, that's one of the crucial discourses of the Buddha. He gave a talk, apparently that was transcribed and now codified in the Buddhist texts. It's a little hard to know what he did and didn't say because we don't know. He allegedly said it hundreds of years before they wrote it down, and then it was preserved in the oral tradition and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, the Four foundations of mindfulness, the Buddha is talking about basically four ways to establish mindfulness. And the first is the body, if memory serves, and I am no Buddhist scholar. Somewhere in the Four Foundations, there's this idea that we should meditate on these sort of unlovely parts of the body.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes.

[Dan Harris]

The. The mucus, the spit, the blood again, as a way to get us to not take this thing so personally, not to cling to it.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes.

[Dan Harris]

And also some people don't love that. This exercise.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah, it is, but it is, again, like, this is exactly. I'M actually teaching a retreat every year on those. It's called the 32 parts of the Body. I mean, obviously we have a lot more parts, but it kind of is a doorway in and it makes us really reflect on what's our relationship to that. Yeah. And what's funny is, so the first, what this list starts with, and we get to the mucus and the urine and all these things, but the first is head hair. Body hair, nails, teeth, skin. So just think about those five and think about how obsessed we are with head hair, body, hair, nails, teeth, skin. How much money have you or have I spent on just those? How much pain has been inflicted on just those five? It's mind blowing. And what are they? Head hair is just like these thin, flexible shafts of hardened cells. That's it. They were supposed to keep us warm at some point. Right. It's crazy. And so when we are practicing that, we can have these moments of going like, oh, my goodness, I don't need to have that relationship to that body part. And we're all sharing that. Yes. So we all have our history with head hair, body hair, nails, teeth, skin, and then all the other things. And maybe we can change that. We can let go of some of that. And we can also really grieve, really, the amount of pain that has been inflicted on us and other people based on totally random characteristics.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah. I think a lot about the interpersonal and intrapersonal violence that's done around.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Oh, my goodness.

[Dan Harris]

As I was saying before, aesthetic standards around how a body should look from a Buddhist perspective, given everything we're talking about here with the 32 parts of the body, what would a healthy relationship to the body look like?

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Look, so this body is 56 years old. Do I like that I have wrinkles? No. But what's wrong with wrinkles? That's just a natural thing that happens to your body that has reached that age. And I'm being aware that is just what happens to your body at that age. And I'm also aware that, like, the pressure that has been put by society on saying, like, this is not desirable or aging is not desirable, but this is really cultural and it is random. We know there are cultures on the earth that actually really value age and they value people who look really old and wrinkled because they are. Because they are the wisdom carriers. Yeah. And we're just obsessed basically with teenagers in underwear. And we think that's the pinnacle of human humanness. Right.

[Dan Harris]

You and I are doing this interview on the Sunset Strip in la.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Oh, yes.

[Dan Harris]

And there Are lots of billboards of.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Teenagers in underground aware, Right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's what sells. And that is what we think, what we should look like. And it's heartbreaking. And the practice just invites us very gently back to say, like, what can you feel? Because if you think about it, I can't feel wrinkles. Can you feel wrinkles?

[Dan Harris]

No.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Right. So if I close my eyes, coming back to interoception, just like, oh, I can let go of that. It's a construct, one that is painful and that I have learned to identify with. And I think it's really just an invitation for us. I mean, like, all these teachings around, is what I'm doing helpful or not? Is that increasing suffering or is that diminishing suffering for us? And of course, for all beings.

[Dan Harris]

Some people don't like this whole meditate on the pus and the poop and blood and the urine and the mucus. But what are the Buddhists really pointing at there with? It strikes me, and maybe this is the wrong way to look at it. They're trying to cultivate a healthy sense of disgust.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Okay, I'll say a little bit about that. So one thing we have to keep in mind that most of the Buddhist texts. So who has transmitted those texts into the next generation?

[Dan Harris]

Probably not the women.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Not the women. Not lay people, householders. Right. And you have to think about. So you have mainly male group of young people who you have to keep celibate. What kind of relationship do you want them to have towards other bodies?

[Dan Harris]

There's that great moment from the texts where a monk is wandering through the woods and a man comes by who's beautiful young wife has run away. He says to the monk, did you see my beautiful young wife run by? And he says, I saw a bag of bones run by.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah. So he was trained well. Right. So that was actually helpful for him. But for us as laypeople, what we are focusing on, because the way that there is a word in that sutta that has traditionally been translated as disgusting, but the actual translation, when you look at that word, so it's suba and asuba, the word is not beautiful, meaning not something you need to obsess over, which is very different from disgusting, isn't it?

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

So the point is just saying, like, you have a human body, and as part of the human body, we don't like to think about it, but you actually have like blood and sweat and pus and stool and feces in you. So do I. Our listeners might go like, ew, I don't want to hear that, but it's just the truth. And you can be happy that you have that because that means you have a normal functioning body that's actually good. It's really good that your body is able to build pus when there's an infection because that helps you to heal. So that's great. When we look at it in that way, then it becomes like more neutral ground and not something. It's either disgusting or it's something we have to obsess over like about the way it looks. So it's really more like, yeah, we have a body and we need a body. And we can be very, very grateful that we have a body and we can focus on what works well in this body. Coming back to like, all these things were made for function. And am I grateful that my feet and my knees and my legs work the way they do? So even if they are not looking perfect. Right. Or if they don't meet the whatever beauty standard of whatever or whoever, we can again reduce suffering or stress so much when we can just really boil it back down to the basics in that way.

[Dan Harris]

So let me see if I can say a few words and you tell me if I'm in the right neighborhood in terms of understanding how a Buddhist would describe a healthy relationship to the body. A lot of people get hung up on non attachment because that is a big Buddhist word. But you're talking about, can you be grateful for the body.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

How can you be grateful if you're not attached? And we're supposed to be contemplating the unlovely parts of the body as a way to help us cling less. And one of the ways I've heard this described is if you can think about holding something in the palm of your hand, it's still important to you, but you're not balling your fist up around it. And so we can be grateful for our body while recognizing there's a lot going on here that is not for public consumption and maybe not beautiful. And also, it's a process in many ways. We have no control over it. As Joseph says, it's unfolding lawfully, but we don't make the laws and we're going to die at some point. So it's a. It's a very impermanent. The Buddhists really keep it real. The this is an impermanent permanent compound structure that we are renting. And so there can be gratitude without clinging.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes. And there's something which can be helpful to distinguish between indifference and equanimity. Equanimity or serenity or peace of mind is actually a loving quality. It has the quality of loving kindness of metta in it. And we care. We call this the near enemy. And the near enemy is something that disguises as that quality which for equanimity is indifference. I don't give a shit. And so to I think that it can be very helpful to see like what's your relationship with your body? Is it one more of exactly what you described? Right. I'm very grateful for this and I really appreciate it and I care a lot and I know it will change, it will get old, it will get sick and it will die at some point. So have more space around that and not clinging to like, oh, I don't want to get older. Good luck with that. Yeah. But it's not indifference. And I think we often get confused there because we want to. The body is painful or our relationship, we don't like ourselves, we hate the body. And then we try to make move because that is so painful, move into indifference. I don't care anymore. Yeah. And that is also something that in a weird way I do see in the athletes community, right. That some people really don't treat their bodies nice, but they're almost using exercise as a punishment.

[Dan Harris]

Classic middle way stuff you're describing. There is the attitude between overly clinging to something over being indifferent or being aversive even.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes.

[Dan Harris]

Coming up, Christiana talks about some helpful questions to ask yourself if you're in the market for creating a healthier relationship to your body. The four sources of reluctance or resistance when it comes to exercise. The key difference between discipline and self compassion. We also unpack the dysfunction among people who over exercise exercise. And we talk about what you can learn from injuries. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. It's so interesting to me how public attitudes about therapy have really changed in recent years. Maybe it was Tony Soprano talking to his therapist back in the aughts, maybe that played a role. Maybe it's just the fact that mental health awareness is growing. But there's still a ton of progress that needs to be made and more destigmatization that needs to happen. 26% of Americans who participated in a recent survey say they've avoided seeking mental health support due to a fear of judgment. When people hesitate to get help, it doesn't just affect them. It impacts their families, their workplaces, and really the entire communities. We might feel like we're solo actors here, but everything we do ripples out. This mental health awareness month, let's encourage everybody to take care of their well being and break the stigma. The world is better, of course, when people are healthy and happy. I've been seeing therapists for well over 40 years now. I started seeing therapists when I was a kid and was worried about nuclear war and then of course was pretty consistent about seeing a therapist after I had a panic attack on television, some substance abuse issues and that was incredibly helpful. I'm in very frequent contact with two therapists now to help me with my claustrophobia and panic disorder which shows up on airplanes. So I am incredibly supportive of therapy. Better help has over 10 years of experience matching people with the right therapist from their diverse network of more than 30,000 licensed therapists with a wide range of specialties. BetterHelp is fully online making therapy affordable and convenient, serving over 5 million people worldwide. You can easily, easily switch your therapist anytime at no cost. We are all better with help. Visit betterhelp.com happier to get 10 off your first month. That's betterhelp h e-l p.com happier I'm not big on trends. I'm not, you know, following the latest from the runways in Paris. But I am big on clothes that feel good and last. That's why I keep coming back to Quints. They're lightweight, layers and high quality staples have become my everyday essentials. Quince has all the things you actually want to wear this summer, like organic cotton silk polos, European linen beach shorts and comfortable pants that work for everything from backyard hangs to nice dinners. I can attest to that because I have, I think, four pairs of comfortable pants from Quint's and I can wear them when I go to a fancy pants restaurant or when I'm just chilling with friends in the backyard here. The best part? Everything from Quints is half the cost of similar brands. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen, Quints gives you luxury pieces without the markups and Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. I use this stuff and you should too. Yes, it's true that Quint is a sponsor of of the show and they have sent me some free stuff, but I actually go to Quint's and order more stuff because I like it. And maybe this is tmi, but I'm quite into their boxer briefs and their socks. I also have tons of sweaters from them. It's good stuff. Stick to the staples that last with elevated essentials from quince. Go to quince.com happier for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U-I-N-C E.com happier Q U.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

I.

[Dan Harris]

Happier to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com happier. Just to pick up on what you said there that you recommend, we ask ourselves some questions as a kind of thought exercise. What's my relationship to my body? Do I love and respect it? Do I listen to it? Do I speak its language? How do I know? Can you just build on that a little bit?

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah, I think those questions can just be very helpful. And, like, even when you just read them, can imagine that some of the listeners feel almost a little bit guilty saying, like, oh, no, I don't, or I don't have a relationship, or I'm not really appreciating my body. And it just really comes back to what we talked about before, is this is something we can change. And these practices, including the body scan practice and the 32 parts of the body practice, they can, over time, really change our relationship to our body.

[Dan Harris]

They can change your relationship to your body. And it starts by hearing the signals in the first place.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah. And starting in a safe place. Really important. Starting with, like, what we said about, like, a safe anchor. When we practice meditation, notice is what you're doing actually helping you to stay more present. If you can't stay present, try something else. Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

Very important. Let's get back to exercise. You and Marissa Schneiderman, one of the ace producers on this show, you put together a little memo for me in preparation. And in that memo, you listed some of the reasons why we don't exercise. I'm gonna list your list back to you, and then maybe you can say some words about it on the other side. Habit energy, shame energy, A history of inconsistency or desire not to feel the body at all.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

So let's start with habit energy.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah, Habit energy is just something that we are more likely to do what we have done before than to do something new. And so there is like, this little little mountain or big mountain that we have to overcome. And we can overcome that with motivation just for a very brief amount of time. Yeah. Because motivation actually is not a reliable exercise partner because we'll all get to the point where, like, we just don't feel motivated and we have to find something else and we do it anyway. So that's really important. We know that we have to do things repeatedly over and over again, but then also knowing that our body is actually trying to conserve energy so if you make it expend energy either through exercise or even like mental exercise or doing something new, doing something new costs energy, which is one of the reasons why our brain is so resistant to try something new. Because it's expensive. Yeah. So our brain is the organ that needs the most energy in the body. If I remember correctly, it needs like 30% of all the energy gets to the brain. And brain is pretty small compared to the rest of the body. So in building new pathways, just like if you built new streets costs money. And so you have to have really good reasons to put in that money and that effort. And your brain goes like, what we're doing right now, we're surviving that. That works well. Like, why would I try something new? So there's often some resistance over just doing something new, period.

[Dan Harris]

And one of the ways to surmount that is. I think you were talking to Marissa about the work of BJ Fogg and taking these tiny little steps.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

I love that. So the tiny habits can be so helpful. Because one thing that I also see, we see that at the beginning of every year, New Year's resolutions, people go like, oh, go to the gym every day now. And I haven't been to the gym in the last nine months. Right. And then they go to the gym and they work out. I see it with runners all the time. Right. So they haven't run at all. And then they go out and they run like 5k or they run for an hour. Right. And then they're so sore and so terrible that they're not doing it again. So instead of. And I know this takes more patience, like what I said in the beginning, how I. Running is like, you walk for a minute and then you run for a minute and you walk for a minute. And of course, you don't want your friends to see you doing that. Right. There's like the whole, like, the pride thing, like, because I'm strong and I'm working out and that at the gym. But start small. Start so small that it's almost ridiculous of not doing it.

[Dan Harris]

Working through our list here of four sources of reluctance or resistance to exercise. The first was habit energy. The next is shame energy. What's that about?

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah, shame it is. Sometimes we use shame to motivate ourselves. So coming back to. So Kristin Neff and Chris Germer, who, like, talk about self compassion, they teach about that quite a lot so that we basically have some internal self talk. So you're on the couch and then what do you say to yourself in order to get you out of the door. And it's often not nice, not pretty. Then there's a part in there, in us that goes like, make me right. Right. Doesn't it sometimes feel like that struggle? Right. And especially when shame is involved, shame feels so icky to us that then we're shutting off completely. Yeah. So that sometimes I can see that, that people try to shame themselves into exercising and that backfires.

[Dan Harris]

Is this where you would say self compassion is an antidote?

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes. And that feels so counterintuitive because the people who I say that will work with self compassion, they say, oh, if I'm kind to myself, I will never ever get off the couch again. But self compassion is really. Self compassion wants you to change too, just like shame does, but it doesn't hurt you doing it. So it would say more something like, okay, sweetheart, can you just put on your shoes? Can we do that and see how that goes?

[Dan Harris]

I prefer dude to sweetheart.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Gotcha.

[Dan Harris]

That being said, there are, as Kristen talks about at least two types of self compassion. There's the tender type that you just described. Okay, sweetheart, let's do this. And then there's the fierce kind, which can also get you off the couch. It can definitely get you off the couch.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

It can get you off the couch. So like an example of fierce compassion to get you off the couch is to, let's say you've been to the doctor and the doctor told you you're pre diabetic. And if you don't start exercising regularly, you will be diabetic on medication within a year. And so then self compassion can say, like, we don't want to become really sick. We are doing this now. And it's not like the sweet, like, woo woo. Right, the flowers. But it's just something they are your shoes. Put your shoes on.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, it's like the energy that it takes to pull a kid out of oncoming traffic.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

[Dan Harris]

How would you describe the difference between discipline and self compassion? Because a lot of us feel we need discipline.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes. I love the term. Because like, yeah, discipline is like, we need discipline meditation. We need discipline in anything as parents. As if we're working out. If we want to accomplish anything, we need discipline. But again, to see, like, so what is my why? Why am I doing this or want to do this? And how am I talking to myself? And I have realized that my inner self talk has changed so much since I've really started working with the Kristin Neffs material, which is really interesting because I have been a Buddhist practitioner and mindfulness Practitioner for many, many years before. But I was tough, right? I was going hard. I was doing it all right. And I didn't even realize because it felt so normal and so natural to me how hard, harsh and mean I was to myself.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, Teutonic efficiency comes with a price.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

It does. And we can change that.

[Dan Harris]

This kind of goes back to tenderness as strength. That discipline, which I think for many of us comes from a weird extrinsic place. Like I'm doing this because I gotta be like David Goggins, you know, the ultra performance athlete or whatever. It runs out of road. Eventually you start internally rebelling against the discipline that you're. The quote, unquote discipline you're applying upon yourself. Whereas self compassion, it's a cleaner burning fuel, it's more abiding in its power because you've figured out why you're doing it and you have a clearer purpose.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes. And you can really with awareness, practice. And this is why mindfulness is so helpful. You start to see more. When do you become mean to yourself? Right. It's not about heart. I think heart is important and hard is important for us to explore edges. Sometimes it's actually really hard to do less. So that's something that I'm working with. It's really like scary to do less for me. But it's like, where's the growth? And then what I experience is like I start to get rigid. Rigidity is a sign for me that I'm moving into self critic, harsh, mean. And then to see like, oof. And this comes back to. I can feel getting more rigid. That's interoception. And then what I actually really do is sometimes I will then just invite a little bit of movement and take a deeper breath. Right. Because I know when I'm getting more rigid, then my breathing slows down. Right. My shoulders go up, my jaw set. So all the, all the things of just like, oh, I just moved from green into yellow or into red.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, we have a lot in common. Let's just keep, keep going through these list of four reasons why we don't exercise. I think then because I kind of badly want to get to the people who do exercise because that's me and, and, and some of the rigidity that I see in myself. One of the other reasons you say that people don't exercise is a history of inconsistency.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah. And that is basically they're defeating themselves. It's again, a lot about the self talk and it's a self fulfilling prophecy. So we're Debating, do I get off the couch right now? Do I go to the gym? Do I go out for a run? And you say, like, you know, last time it lasted a week. That before you were able to keep it on for a month, why bother? So we're kind of pulling out the budding energy of wanting to do it right out from under us.

[Dan Harris]

I was interviewing yesterday, although I don't even know if this interview will have posted by the time this interview posts. But yesterday I was interviewing our mutual friend Trudy Goodman, who's a legendary Buddhist meditation teacher and psychologist and secular mindfulness teacher. Lots of things. She was saying that one of her teachers used to say, it's never too late. And I like that. And the other expression that I was mentioning to her is that I read it somewhere recently. What's the best time to plant a tree 20 years ago? What's the second best time today?

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Love that. I totally love that. Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

Fourth on your list. We've already kind of touched on this a little bit. But the fourth reason that you list for people not wanting to exercise or not exercising at all is that they don't want to feel the body.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes. And that is something I think is not actually really that well known. Known. So when we have either a lot of anxiety in our bodies or we have a lot of discomfort in the body, or when we're very stressed or we have a history of adverse events or trauma, then an activated nervous system, including a higher heart rate, is very scary to us. And I think what happens, and that was actually an experience that or an insight that I had at some point. Point is like, I really don't like to go to this day, and it might be different reasons too, but I don't like to go to my max heart rate going all the way out, which of course, so healthy, like the VO2 Max. Right. And for longevity and blah, blah, blah. I don't like that because it reminds me of panic. So if my heart rate goes into the red, my system goes like, this is unsafe. This is unsafe. We can do this. We can do this. And I would really be curious. I don't know any data around this. It's just something that I kind of put together in my own experience. And then talking to people who are trauma specialists about it, it's just something like sometimes those sensations that are coming up when we work out, including a higher heart rate, including sweat, because what we do is we activate our nervous system is totally threatening, unpleasant, and overwhelming. And we're not aware of that because we Go. Oh, this is so good for us. Right. But we have parts in our system that go like, hell, no. This is not safe. Whenever we felt this before, it was really, really scary and overwhelming. Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

This is another thing we have in common. Generally speaking, exertion feels really good to me. But the going into the red or high intensity interval training, I do do it. But if I go all out to, like, all out, I can't go any harder. I have panic disorder.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

And so when it makes total sense. Makes total sense. Right?

[Dan Harris]

Like it.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah, yeah. I don't do that either. I'm not a sprinter for that reason. The thing is, like, when I did, like, the endurance. Endurance isn't asking us to go into zone four. That's a different kind of sport. And I don't like that. I don't like that level of exertion because that feels very, very unpleasant in my body. So I try to avoid that.

[Dan Harris]

Okay, let's talk about people. From a Dharma and modern psychology standpoint, some of the dysfunction among people who do exercise or over exercise. One of the things you said to Marissa that I really took note of is that hustling. These are your words. Hustling can be a trauma symptom.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

Can you say more about this and maybe it has to do with your fear of doing less, too, that you referenced earlier.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes, yes. So what I'm seeing really, again, in myself, in a lot of people around me, is when they stop doing or going hard, they get completely restless. They go crazy. They need to do something. Right.

[Dan Harris]

Oh, that's me.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah. And we know a lot of people, other people who have that, and it is something. What is very interesting is I think that there is an inability to actually feel safe with the body resting. And that can have all kinds of different reasons. One can be that we always gotten the message when you're not doing something right. So what's. Idle hands are the devil's playground. I think that's a common American proverb. Something like that is. So we have gotten a message that. And I definitely have that with my German background. Right. Is like, doing nothing is not acceptable. That is lazy. That is not acceptable. So you always have to work hard. And that means when you work hard, you get to be part of the tribe. And if you're not, you're out. So I have, like, very deeply rooted guilt attacks around doing nothing or I have parts that feel they have to earn doing nothing. Yeah. Which is, like, very interesting again, to look like, why do I do ultra endurance. Yeah. So right now I'm really enjoying my recovery phase after the ultra marathon. And now I actually enjoy it. Via. And other times I might feel like the old ugly voices of, you're just lazy. Just get out and move your body. Those are going so deep, those traits. If you look at our society, our society, and especially the American society is all around hustling. There is no time for rest. If you think about it. And if you think about, like how nature works. Nature works in seasons. We have spring, we have summer, we have fall, and we have winter. And there's a break where we don't do anything. We're just noodling around and we wait for the seasons to change again. We don't have that in our work culture. It's always like spring, summer, maybe a little bit of fall, and then we'd go right into spring again. That is not sustainable. And so no wonder we have these huge amounts of burnout. And I think that definitely comes out in everything we do, honestly. Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

So overworking out and overwork.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes. Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

Can be coming from the same source.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes. Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

I think they are for me.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Right. Does that resonate?

[Dan Harris]

Yes, very much.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

I was just thinking back to the top of this conversation when we were talking about ultramarathoning. And my external response was to make fun of you, but my internal response was, I want to do that. I'm sure there's a healthy part of me that wants to do it. And I think there's also an unhealthy.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Part of me that wants to do it. I think we always have these different parts within us. And what I find really interesting is because from the outside, we can't see what is driving it is just something that we know from the inside. Yeah. And so we can look at other athletes, for example, and we see what they do. And sometimes. So, like when I look at my athlete friends that get injured constantly, I'm thinking like, you're not practicing self compassion. You don't know how to listen to your body. And I wish you would want to learn that. Right. But often there isn't even the awareness that. Because the inner drive is so overwhelming.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

Well, let's talk about injury. I signaled at the beginning that I wanted to get to this. I deal with it with injuries a lot. Sometimes I think it's because I'm pushing myself too hard. Unquestionably. Sometimes I think it's just a matter of poor form. Sometimes it's aging. I heard it. Interesting. I've been going to this chiropractor which I Always had a funny feeling about chiropractors, but my brother was going to see this guy and he got me in there. He doesn't actually. He's never done any of the classic chiropractor moves on me. It's mostly just like deep tissue, very painful fascia release for the tendonitis that I have in my biceps. What he was saying is that actually injuries can be fruitful because you learn better form to prevent injuries going forward.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dan Harris]

And yet I do struggle in these periods because I can make the injuries worse because I'm unwilling to rest. I go into a little bit of a spiral around injury.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah, of course. Because they are. Feel like an insult, don't they?

[Dan Harris]

They feel like an insult. And more than that, it's if I then can't exercise, then I feel awful about myself.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes. Which is also interesting. Right, so the spiral then. And then to listen to yourself when you don't exercise, what's the inner self talk?

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, yeah, you're. You're a lazy pile of shit.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah, something like that. Right. Which is again, like we have to remember also those parts are really trying to be helpful.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

And try to motivate us. So we don't want to be angry at them, but we become more aware. And so basically what's very interesting. So when you look at the way that the nervous system works and how chronic illness is actually statistically quite highly related to the amount of cumulative stress that we've had over a lifetime, we can see in quite a number of chronic conditions that they are exacerbated by stress. That can also be stress. That is not something that you do physically, but it feels sometimes. And people say that that is their experience. It's like physical symptoms can be the body's way to slow you down or to pause you. That can show up as a physical injury. But sometimes you're overworking in your work. The injury might not actually have anything to do with your workout. It is just that it might be a weak spot where you don't have enough muscle support or whatever. But sometimes people tell me stories of like the coincidence of like a super high work stress and then they go out for a run and then they fall and trip. So the body basically pulls a plug. Because you can think about when we have chronic pain or we have a chronic condition, we are forced to slow down.

[Dan Harris]

So my bicep tendinitis could be my body telling me you need to take more days off maybe.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

I don't know what happens in you when you hear that. And the cynic steps aside, I don't.

[Dan Harris]

Want to do it.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

I literally was thinking this morning about how in the coming weeks I have a vacation, which I'm looking forward to. My family and I are going to Costa Rica. But I was thinking, like, I might do a little writing in the morning. Yeah, right, right. Because I feel behind on this book and I've actually had some momentum going and I don't really want to. What else would I be doing in the morning?

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah, right. What else could you possibly be doing in the morning in Costa Rica on vacation? Right.

[Dan Harris]

Who cares with the sloths, you know, like, why do I need to see those sloths?

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah. And when your family's still sleeping, because you get up two hours before them anyways, what are you going to do Right. After you've done your meditation and your workout, you still have, like a couple of hours left.

[Dan Harris]

Exactly. I feel seen.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

It takes one to see one, right?

[Dan Harris]

Exactly. So, again, I mean, who knows why I have the tendonitis and a couple of annoying spots in the body, but I should be open to the possibility that the body is telling me to slow down. Slow down.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

Okay. Well, we covered a lot in this.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

We covered a lot of ground.

[Dan Harris]

Do you feel like there was something that we should have talked about that we haven't?

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

No. I think that was quite sorrow. Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

Will you do me the favor? Can you tell everybody what the names of the two books are?

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Yes. So the first book is a classic instruction manual for teaching mindfulness, and it's called A clinician's guide to teaching Mindfulness. And I co wrote that with my friend and colleague at the va, where we have implemented a national mindfulness facilitator training, and his name is Greg Serper. And then I wrote a second book called Outsmart your Pain, which is a little bit tricky topic, but it's a catchy title. So. And this is really how we can use mindfulness to work with chronic health conditions.

[Dan Harris]

And do you have a website?

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

I do have a website, which is my name, so.

[Dan Harris]

Christianawolf.com I'll put a link in the show notes so people can get it. Awesome. Thank you for doing this.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Thank you.

[Dan Harris]

Really fun.

[Dr. Christiana Wolf]

Thank you.

[Dan Harris]

Thanks again to Christiana Wolf. Always great to talk to her. She's a star. Don't forget to check out her previous appearance on this show. I will drop a link in the show notes. That conversation really centers on how to mindfully deal with pain. Also, don't forget that this episode comes with a bespoke guided meditation, a body scan from the Great Dharma Teacher Karaoke July. Paying subscribers specifically can access that meditation over on danharris.com and we will be doing guided meditations from Cara for every Get Fit Sanely episode that is coming out in the month of June. If this works, you'll see a lot more of this over on danharris.com oh, and don't forget, Cara and I are going to do a live video session on Substack together where Cara will guide a meditation and then we will take your questions together. This is happening on June 3rd at 3:30 Eastern, so come join us. Finally, just want to thank everybody who worked so hard on 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 production manager, Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer, DJ Cashmere is our executive producer and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.