← 10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Happier with Dan Harris
Sebene Selassie & Jeff Warren On: How Friendship Helps Your Meditation; Vulnerability vs Oversharing; And Advice for People Pleasers
01:13:04
An often overlooked secret to improving your meditation practice. , an author and meditation teacher. She writes the popular newsletter and her first book is called, . Jeff Warren is also an author and meditation teacher. He writes the popular...
Loading summary
Transcript178 lines
- [00:00]
Dan Harris
Foreign.
- [00:04]
Seb Salassie
This is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello everybody. How we doing? You may have heard me make the point before that friendship is often the missing piece in advancing your meditation practice. This thing was never meant to be done alone. It's much easier in the carpool lane surrounded by other people who take the practice seriously. That said, while friendships can make life magical, they can also be complex. I sometimes joke that we need other people, but other people can be a titanic pain in the ass. So today I'm in conversation with two of my very close friends and meditation buddies, 7A Selassie and Jeff Warren about the perks of meditating with friends, the importance of friendship in chaotic times, generally, how to have difficult conversations, authenticity or vulnerability versus wanton oversharing, working with the thorny stuff that can come up in relationships, advice for people pleasers, and how to build meaningful relationships in the age of social media. A little bit more about my guests before we dive in. I suspect many of you know Seb and Jeff, but here we go anyway. Seb Salassie is an author and meditation teacher. She writes the popular substack newsletter Ancestors to Elements and she wrote a book called you'd Belong. Jeff Warren is also an author and a meditation teacher. He has a substack called Home Base and he is the co author along with me of a book called Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. He's also the co host of his own podcast called the Mindbod Adventure Pod. Two more things to say before we dive in. First, we recorded this conversation live in front of an audience in New York City as part of a fundraiser for the New York Insight Meditation center, an organization I highly recommend. And Seb, Jeff and I are going to be co hosting another in person event, a meditation retreat. A weekend long retreat called Meditation Party. We've been doing this for a couple of years now. Tickets just went on sale for the next one which is coming up in October at the Omega Institute, which is north of New York City. I will put a link in the show notes before we get into all that though, I just want to give you a heads up about a big project we're launching right here in June. As you may know, we run an occasional series on the pod called Get Fit Sanely. It's all about how to take care of your body without losing your mind. This is now our third year of producing this series and this time in June we're gonna go bigger than we've ever gone before. We're spending a whole month on the topic. And we have a great lineup, including a dharma teacher who's an ultra marathoner, a doctor who specializes in gut health without all the snake oil, and a science journalist who's become an expert on the subject of rest. We're gonna cover everything from motivation and habit change to the connection between your muscles and your mental health. And we will have a special kickoff episode coming up at the of the week this Friday, May 30th. And that will lead us into a full slate of programming during the month of June. And this is the extra Cool part for subscribersanharris.com Every episode in the month of June will come with a companion guided meditation from the great Cara Lai, a meditation teacher who's a friend of the show and a friend of mine. You can get all the details on that over@danharris.com all right, we'll get started with Seb and Jeff right after this. Imagine you're a business owner who has to rely on a dozen different software programs to run your company, none of which are connected. And each one is more expensive and more complicated than the last. It can be pretty stressful. Now imagine Odoo. Odoo has all the programs you'll ever need and they are all connected on one simple, easy to use platform, giving you peace of mind that your business is always being taken care of from every angle. Odoo has user friendly open source applications for everything. We're talking CRM, accounting, inventory, manufacturing, marketing, HR and everything in between. Basically, if your business needs it, Odoo's got it. Odoo sounds pretty amazing, right? So stop wasting your time and money on those expensive disconnected platforms and let Odoo harmonize your business with simple, efficient software that can handle everything for a fraction of the price. It doesn't get much better than that. So what are you waiting for? Discover how Odoo can take your business to the next level by visiting odoo.com that's o d o o.com odoo modern management made simple. You've heard me talk about quints before and I'm going to do it again because just the other day, and maybe this is tmi, but I needed some socks and underwear and I went to Quints. Just to be clear, Quint is an advertiser on the show, so sometimes I get free stuff, but other times I go there and pay just because I like their stuff so much. So yeah, I ordered some underwear and some socks. The socks are great, really comfortable. They're the socks that you can wear with like low top Nikes and you don't see the socks, which I know is not the Gen Z thing these days, but I'm a man of a certain age and I like those kinds of socks and the underwear, the boxer briefs. One of the big problems with boxer briefs in my long history of being alive is that they can bunch up on the leg. But somebody over at Quint's figured out new technologies, so that doesn't happen with the underwear I bought over there. Again, I know a little bit of extra information you don't need, but if you're in the market for underwear or if you're not a male and you've got a male in your life who needs some underwear, I highly recommend it. Anyway, they've got stuff for all genders at really low prices. As I mentioned before in the show, there are days when Quince is all I'm wearing head to toe. Quince has all the things you actually want to wear, like organic cotton silk polos, European linen beach shorts, and comfortable pants that work for everything from backyard hangs to nice dinners. The best part, everything from Quint's is priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find at similar brands. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen, Quintz gives you luxury pieces without the crazy markups. And Quints only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing processes and premium fabrics and finishes. Elevate your closet with quince. Go to quint.com happier for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I-N-E.com happier to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quids.com happier.
- [06:52]
Jeff Warren
Okay, so the theme of this evening is spiritual friendship. What? What? What does that even mean?
- [07:03]
Dan Harris
So many of you are probably familiar with the story, some of you may not be, of the Buddha and his faithful attendant Ananda, his cousin, who asked him, is it true that spiritual friendship is half of the holy life? And it's really interesting because the Buddha, when you look at the translation of this text, it has a lot of exclamation points. Because the Buddha says, no, not so, Ananda. Not so. Not so, Ananda. Not so. Spiritual friendship is the whole of holy life. It's a really powerful statement and idea. We're going to explore maybe why the Buddha might have said that and also what that means for us. What is spiritual friendship? We'll start with that emphasis and maybe explore what does that mean for us.
- [08:07]
Jeff Warren
Why do you think Lynch Started on the question of the Buddha, why do you think he made that point?
- [08:11]
Dan Harris
And so emphatically, I think pointing back to the indigenous wisdom, I think it is all relationship. Our whole entire existence is relational. That's relationship with ourselves, with other humans, but also with other than human. If we go to the heart of that indigenous teaching, which these teachings are as well, and it's how are we relating, how are we in the world? It's not just this solipsistic practice internally. It's really this practice with everything.
- [08:51]
Jeff Warren
Sometimes think about how we're kind of stuck in one region of the brain most of our lives, the default mode network, which is the chattering self oriented areas of the brain. And that blocks us from relating to aspects of our personality that may be difficult. It stifles aspects of our personality that may be helpful. It blocks us in our relationships with other people and the world writ large. And what's needed is a kind of escape from what David Foster Wallace calls the skull sized kingdom. And spiritual friendship is a root to that.
- [09:28]
Dan Harris
Yeah, I know the term narcissism gets thrown around a lot and used too loosely in terms of its real clinical definitions. But it is a pretty good term for our general state of being. For many of us that we sort of think that our world is this just what relates to us ourselves.
- [09:52]
Jeff Warren
So friendship, spiritual friendship in this regard doesn't mean necessarily you have to hang out with more Buddhists. It can be that you're just relating to other humans or other beings or the world writ large as a matter of habit, as a matter of practice.
- [10:10]
Dan Harris
Yeah, I mean, maybe we can, you know, I know that we're going to explore kind of all the elements of this, but there is the spiritual part of spiritual friendship. So I think that we can. Or let me speak for myself, I can be a spiritual friend to any and all. But spiritual friendship, I think for me with other humans requires that we are engaged spiritually together as well. Like I maybe have a spiritual orientation to all my friends, but I don't know if I would call every single one of my friends a spiritual friend. Does that make sense?
- [10:49]
Jeff Warren
It does. I kind of bump a little bit on the word spiritual, which.
- [10:53]
Dan Harris
Tell me about that, Dan.
- [10:57]
Jeff Warren
I knew it was going to start backfiring. I didn't know how early. I don't know. What does that even mean? What is spirituality? It's just, it's. I think there are a number of words that get used in our world a lot that irritate me and this is one of them. In part because maybe sometimes get used in. It gets used in ways that I find annoying. And then also there's the lack of specificity around it.
- [11:27]
Dan Harris
Well, I know for me, like, I don't think that it's about, as you were saying, like it has to be a Buddhist conversation or Buddhist relationship in terms of, you know, talking, quoting from scripture. About what spiritual friends. I would say one of my dearest spiritual friends is my best friend Peter, who you've met in Toronto. And he is not a Buddhist. He doesn't meditate regularly, although he's been on retreats. And I find him to be, I know him to be deeply wise to really have an orientation to the world that is holistic in terms of not just thinking about the world and not just having an action oriented relationship to the world, but really being deeply invested in friendship and relationship and spirit in the sense of like we are more than just this meat suit and having a relationship to the elements and to nature. And so I would consider Peter one of my best spiritual friends. And he's not religious and he's certainly not a Buddhist.
- [12:36]
Unknown
So yeah, that's what's so interesting about meditating with friends and being explicit about your practice and talking about the experiences that happen in your practice is that first thing is that it's deeper in the sense potentially. I mean, in a sense of more depth, more material from the subconscious is coming up to the consciousness that you're sharing. So more of your whole being is being shared in that relationship. But of course the direction it leads you to. And I think about so many of the text messages that you and I send each other, Seb, and like the different random memes and things it's. They're all about, they're all things that are pointing us to something that's outside of us, that's situating us in this bigger picture. In that sense, like a spiritual friend is someone who's like, yeah, yeah, get over yourself. Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going to support you, I'm going to encourage you. I'm going to, I'm going to hear the things and we're going to, we can be real and human together. But there's this bigger context here that is kind of explicit in so many of the interactions in the way that you're proceeding. I mean, not just intellectually, ideally over time, through practice, experientially, like you're living more and more that way.
- [13:42]
Jeff Warren
I would say that's a, that's a.
- [13:44]
Unknown
Kind of friendship that I, I appreciate And I want more of.
- [13:49]
Dan Harris
Yeah, yeah. And I love that you're pointing to all the ways it manifests. It's an embodied thing.
- [13:56]
Unknown
Yeah.
- [13:56]
Dan Harris
Like, spiritual friendship sometimes can just be sort of this idea that we have of, you know, the type of person that we want to be friends with, but it's. It's also messy and lived, and it is all the things that we're going to explore in terms of what relationship entails. So does that give a kind of.
- [14:18]
Jeff Warren
A.
- [14:21]
Dan Harris
Good enough outline of spiritual friendship?
- [14:25]
Jeff Warren
I don't know if this is following the prescribed plan, so I'm a little nervous, but I just have this sense, I sometimes joke about how I have this supernatural ability to guess what my audience is thinking. Not necessarily these folks, but the audience listening on the podcast. And I just could imagine people would have the question, well, how do I make friends like that? We live in a time when meeting other people is incredibly difficult. Loneliness, depression, anxiety, it's all skyrocketing. I often say we know that the most important variable for human flourishing is the quality of our relationships. And yet everything about modern life militates against that. And so we're talking about spiritual friendship. Sounds great. I'm sure everybody's bought in, but I don't know anybody who's interested in this stuff. And I barely know anybody at all. So practically.
- [15:24]
Unknown
But you know yourself, you stand in the mirror and go, I am a spiritual friend. I'm a spiritual friend to you and to you. That doesn't happen really, does it?
- [15:35]
Dan Harris
I mean, that gets to our first kind of point that relationships starts with relating to ourselves. So there is a spiritual befriending of ourselves that has to happen also because most of our wounds are relational wounds. So we want to know what our challenges are, what our patterns are so that we're not entering into relationships with all of that mess. We will be entering with that mess, but at least we'll know what our mess is.
- [16:12]
Jeff Warren
Right. So if we just rush out looking for quote unquote, spiritual friends willy nilly, without doing any preliminary work or self inquiry, it's unlikely to be successful.
- [16:27]
Dan Harris
I've experienced that.
- [16:30]
Unknown
Yeah. I mean, the spiritual friend thing was not even one that we were the one like, let's talk about spiritual friendship. I don't think I've ever framed it in that way. I think about friendship and I think friendship is about. That's an inquiry. It's an inquiry into, like, how are you in relationship with people? How do you relate to. Are you willing to see someone for who they are? Are you willing to have a kind of unconditional acceptance? Not saying you wouldn't be critical. Are you interested in the character and their faces? Are you making contact with them? Are you noticing what's in the way of yourself doing that? And then. So what makes it spiritual is more like how you're showing up for yourself and your capacity to show up for them in that way. But, I mean, is that that different than any other kind of just friendship? I don't know. I mean, that's why I think pointing to the bigger picture, I think it almost is more like a special interest. It's like you could be football friends. You're really into football and you're really into good friendship, but you've got this peripheral culture of football that you're really into. A part of the spiritual friendship maybe is just that you're interested in this bigger picture. Other people may live a bigger picture, but you're interested in explicitly thinking about it and talking about it and pointing towards it. And it's kind of like a special interest without having to put. To make it too precious or anything.
- [17:51]
Dan Harris
Yeah. And again, I think it starts with ourselves, though, because if, again, if we're showing up, even if it's a special interest, with all of our relational wounds unchecked, maybe we'll never fully heal them, but we have to at least be able to know what they are.
- [18:08]
Unknown
Otherwise you're just a rolling train wreck of a friend.
- [18:11]
Dan Harris
Yeah. Which I have been. Yes. And. And, you know, there's a lot in there. There's sort of. What kind of energies are we showing up to? Friendship with neediness or maybe walled offness. That there are all of these aspects to relating to others that we can first start to identify and how we relate to our own challenges.
- [18:34]
Unknown
And which is why communities of meditation practice can be so interesting and so promising, because you're part of those communities is bringing that is like being honest about that material when it's coming up. You know, having that being vulnerable enough to. I mean, in communities that I've been part of, there is often an invitation at the end of a sit to talk about. Well, what was that experience like? To kind of try to grope towards some words or some honest representation of what's happening. And, and often it's things that you don't. You wouldn't normally talk about in regular conversation. But now you're primed, you're open, you've had a certain amount of insight, and there's a space that feels safe to do that. So the Expanse of who you can be is bigger in those spaces.
- [19:19]
Jeff Warren
You keep bringing us back to starting with wrestling with some of our own stuff. When you say that, what do you have in mind for us to do?
- [19:30]
Dan Harris
I mean, this is where. Obviously, all of this is practice, but this is where the practice is so powerful. Because a lot of times, especially when we first come to practice, we don't even really know ourselves. Like, we're just sort of acting out of habit and just sitting and being with our own minds and hearts. We start to realize, like, all of these compulsions, all of these thoughts, all of these worries, all of this nattering that's going on. And again, it's mostly relational. Like, most of what's going on in our hearts and minds have to do with our relationships, whether it's our families, our friends, or work dynamics. So right there we start to understand, well, what kind of spiritual friend am I if this is what's showing up?
- [20:14]
Jeff Warren
I have this vivid memory of being on my first meditation retreat quite a while ago and hearing somebody, one of the teachers, say something like, until you do this practice of meditation, you don't know what your life's about because you think your life's about, I don't know, loyalty, professional success, family. But mostly your life's about what's for lunch. You know, I fucking hate that person. And whatever. You know, it's like, that's. Most of you're muttering under your breath.
- [20:45]
Seb Salassie
All the time, and you don't know.
- [20:47]
Jeff Warren
It until you do this thing.
- [20:50]
Dan Harris
And also a lot of comparison, like, in terms of spiritual friendship, you know, a lot of us have this idea of what spiritual friendship should look like or what friendship should look like, but we don't even know ourselves to know. Like, I didn't really understand that I'm really introverted until pretty late. I mean, in adulthood, you know that I need a lot of time by myself. I'm very social. I like to be with people. I have a lot of friends. But I need massive amounts of time by myself. That's not how my life was constructed for my 20s or 30s. Like, I had to learn that later. And I probably turn to meditation retreats just because I needed that time and was finding ways to give it to myself. So even those simple things of understanding whether we're introverted or extroverted or a combination, like, we start to know, okay, then what are my needs then? Like, what are my relational needs based on who I am and how I am?
- [21:49]
Unknown
Yeah, that's why I'm so. I love the Neurodiversity paradigm so much, with its emphasis on unmasking, because it's all about that paradigm basically says that, look, we all have unique brains. We're all neurodivergent in our own ways, but we don't realize it, that we have this sort of. There's a sort of social idea of what normal is that you inherit from your family and your culture, and you're trying to always hold to it. And so when I think about some of my early friendships, so much of it was just about, like, basically like robots trying to relate to robots behind these performances. That was like performing being a human, and they were performing being a human, and that's still friendship. It was still dementedly fun in its own way, but it wasn't really. Could I say that I really knew who these people were or they knew. Really knew who I was. I was just kind of performing what idea. I thought about how you were supposed to be, as were they. And then through the practice, it's been like this process of getting more and more real about yourself means that you can then communicate. That means that that can be met in someone else. And now you're talking about, you know, the space of real, you know, authentic connection and, I guess, friendship, you know?
- [22:56]
Jeff Warren
Yes. I mean, so much, I think, so much of the time in human relationships, it's Persona relating to projection.
- [23:04]
Unknown
Totally.
- [23:04]
Jeff Warren
And. And what this practice can do is chip away at some of the bullshit. And this is an overused term, but authenticity is what can come out sometimes.
- [23:16]
Unknown
Sometimes, yeah.
- [23:17]
Jeff Warren
And that is, I think, what you're saying to precondition for what we're using the term spiritual friendship, you might call.
- [23:22]
Unknown
Like, a real friendship, or what comes out is the mask of the spiritual friend. I am a spiritual friend. Wandering around in your flowing robe and, like, hair. Vidala Sassoon commercial.
- [23:36]
Jeff Warren
I feel so seen just being real. Relational wounds, though, is. That's another term that's been thrown out. We talked a little bit about relational needs, which can be seen through doing the practice. Oh, I'm actually an introvert. That will help me understand about what I need in a relationship and communicate what my edges are. But relational wounds, is that something you recommend we probe through practice, or is that more of a therapy thing?
- [24:05]
Dan Harris
I mean, I think both. Yeah, that's been my experience. That kind of need many tools to tend to myself. And let's say we're not talking about shaming ourselves in any way. That these wounds and these patterns come from our families, ancestrally from society. I always Say, start with blaming the system first. The system stink. And, you know, we don't need to kind of beat ourselves up for these things, but we do need to take responsibility for how they're showing up because they will spill out into our relationships.
- [24:45]
Jeff Warren
I know, Jeff, you had, if I'm understanding you correctly, your thesis is that.
- [24:52]
Unknown
There's no thesis here, Dan, but you.
- [24:58]
Jeff Warren
Can try that through this practice. We could develop, as you call it, like an unconditional positive regard which comes out of the therapy world. It's just the state in which a therapist is ideally in when working with a client or a patient. Can we develop some sort of nonjudgmental remove mindfulness toward all of the contents of consciousness, which allows us to see our patterns with some friendliness and therefore hopefully not be so owned by it. This is a really helpful state from which to relate to other people because we're less known by all of our patterns.
- [25:38]
Unknown
Yeah. And it doesn't mean that you're actually going to show every part of yourself to every kind of person because that just wouldn't be practical or intelligent. And there's such a thing as boundaries. But at least you're aware of what you're showing and what you're not. You know what I mean? You're just in a place of being more aware and so you have more choice.
- [25:57]
Dan Harris
Yeah. And then we can be clear about what our needs are and what our boundaries are, what our likes and dislikes are in terms of relating. Because as you said, there are many people have a lot of challenges with finding friends and making friends. And so with that self awareness, then it's easier to be vulnerable and ask someone out for a coffee date and know that we might get a rejection, but that won't wreck us and have us under the covers for the next two weeks.
- [26:26]
Jeff Warren
Very practically, I think one of the pieces of advice that I've often heard is to volunteer. You can volunteer for a great organization like New York Insight or shout out to New York Insight, that blatant attempt at crowd pleasing on my part. Or could be an animal shelter food pantry. That is a great way to meet other people. And the act of volunteering is in itself ennobling.
- [26:56]
Dan Harris
And then we're still going to have to be vulnerable to opening ourselves to other people and taking the risks of getting to know someone and maybe having them not really connect fully and then trying someone else. And that's as true for platonic friendships and spiritual friendships and dating. And so these are things that all of us have experienced as adults. But when we're talking about these deeper space of spiritual friendship, the stakes can seem even higher. And so it does take that sort of inner knowing and inner strength to do that, to be vulnerable and brave.
- [27:41]
Seb Salassie
Coming up, Seb and Jeff talk about vulnerability, authenticity versus sloppy oversharing and the upside of what is sometimes called spiritual friendship. Don't love that phrase, but do love the reality of it. Imagine you're a business owner who has to rely on a dozen different software programs to run your company, none of which are connected. And each one is more expensive and more complicated than the last. It can be pretty stressful. Now imagine Odoo. Odoo has all the programs you'll ever need and they are all connected on one simple, easy to use platform, giving you peace of mind that your business is always being taken care of from every angle. Odoo has user friendly open source applications for everything. We're talking CRM, accounting, inventory, manufacturing, marketing, HR and everything in between. Basically, if your business needs it, Odoo's got it. Odoo sounds pretty amazing, right? So stop wasting your time and money on those expensive disconnected platforms and let Odoo harmonize your business with simple, efficient software that can handle everything for a fraction of the price. It doesn't get much better than that. So what are you waiting for? Discover how Odoo can take your business to the next level by visiting odoo.com that's o d o o.com odoo modern management made simple. You've heard me talk about quints before and I'm going to do it again because just the other day, and maybe this is tmi, but I needed some socks and underwear and I went to quints. Just to be clear, Quince is an advertiser on the show, so sometimes I get free stuff, but other times I go there and pay just because I like their stuff so much. So yeah, I ordered some underwear and some socks. The socks are great, really comfortable. They're the socks that you can wear with like low top Nikes and you don't see the socks, which I know is not the Gen Z thing these days, but I'm a man of a certain age and I like those kinds of socks and the underwear, the boxer briefs. One of the big problems with boxer briefs in my long history of being alive is that they can bunch up on the leg. But somebody over at Quint's figured out new technologies so that doesn't happen with the underwear I bought over there. Again, I know a little bit of extra information you don't need. But if you're in the market for underwear or if you're not a male and you've got a male in your life who needs some underwear, I highly recommend it anyway. They've got stuff for all genders at really low prices. As I mentioned before on this show, there are days when Quince is all I'm wearing head to toe. Quint has all the things you actually want to wear, like organic cotton silk polos, European linen beach shorts, and comfortable pants that work for everything from backyard hangs to nice dinners. The best part, everything from quince is priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find at similar brands. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen, Quint's gives you luxury pieces without the crazy markups. And Quints only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing processes and premium fabrics and finishes. Elevate your closet with 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 to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com happier.
- [30:59]
Jeff Warren
Do you have a view on how you walk the line between, you know, vulnerabilities become something of a buzzword and we're all exhorted to be more vulnerable, more open, more honest, more real, authentic, et cetera, et cetera. How do you walk the line between that as a goal and like, want and over sharing?
- [31:23]
Dan Harris
Yeah, I mean, we've all talked about this before as teachers, and that's something I at first choose heard from someone, you know, Nadia Bolz Weber pastor, who talked about when she preaches in the pulpit, she always shares from scars, not wounds.
- [31:40]
Unknown
Or tries to.
- [31:41]
Dan Harris
Or tries to. Right. And so I think that's true of, you know, I do share my wounds with you two and with other close friends, but I don't share my wounds with just anyone. You know, and we probably shouldn't be sort of pussing all over other people.
- [31:58]
Unknown
It's like in AA, you know the term two steppers. You know the term two stepper from the world of Alcoholics Anonymous.
- [32:05]
Jeff Warren
So there's 12 steps.
- [32:07]
Unknown
You, you know, you go, you're an alcoholic, you visit Alcoholics Anonymous, and you go through a process of learning to face your alcoholism and the various stages of kind of healing from that. And at the end, there's sort of you feel confident enough to be able to maybe support other people in that journey. The two stepper is someone who shows up for the first meeting is, like, totally on board with the whole thing. They're like, now I'm gonna save everybody else, and then runs around trying to heal everyone from their alcoholism without ever having done the work of really working it out themselves. That's like teaching from your wound, not your scar. You're still inside the thing. You don't even know what you've learned about this thing yet. You're just getting slammed by life. And now you're gonna try to, what, make a sermon about it, but you don't even know what's happening.
- [32:48]
Dan Harris
Yeah. And in the realm of what you're talking about, of trying to make friends, there can be that quality of just, like, oversharing, overextending. And so that it takes some balance. But, yeah, that's part of, I guess, the spiritual maturity in spiritual friendship, I.
- [33:05]
Jeff Warren
Think also, you have to be willing to try and screw it up. I've sometimes heard about. There's an analogy people use when talking about right effort in meditation. Right effort is. I'm sure a lot of you Buddhists already know this, but right effort is, for me, at least one of the trickiest parts of meditation. You know, it requires some meditation, some effort. Meditation does. But if you push too hard, which many of us type A people do, that can be very, very frustrating. And the analogy I sometimes heard is it's like walking into a dark, empty room and trying to find the middle. So you gotta bump into the far wall, and you gotta bump into the close wall, and then over time, you figure it out. I think that learning how to be open and. And real with other people is going to require some experimentation, which is hard to do.
- [33:53]
Dan Harris
Yeah. And in the Zen tradition, they talk about it as rough stones rubbing up against each other and smoothing each other in the process. So you're going to encounter difficulty. It's people. The nature of people is messy at best.
- [34:10]
Unknown
There's a line. Community is the art form of diversity, which I really like. A real community, not necessarily the friends you chose, the people who show up in your community. They're not necessarily the people you would have chosen. So there's a whole learning around how to begin to relate to that real human variety that you're seeing. And just one other thing I just wanted to mention again, from the kind of neurodiversity way of thinking about it, you're allowed to choose the kind of friends that work with the kind of style for you. I like the idea of parallel play a lot in autism circles and Sometimes you hear it in ADHD circles as well, where it's too intense maybe for certain people to have one on one eye contact, hangout conversations. Instead they can just be in this parallel stream of play. Like my son likes to play next to someone else playing. He likes to interact a little bit, but it gets a little overwhelming. He wants to be in this stream here. And that's fine. That's a way in which friendship can happen. But you have to be clear about what it is, what kind of mode you're comfortable in. And you're allowed to do that to articulate that.
- [35:15]
Jeff Warren
What is the. For you? What's the upside of spiritual friendship? Like, what have you gotten out of it?
- [35:22]
Unknown
Oh my God. The upside is that you get to consider yourself as part of this giant magical mystery tour called reality. And who knows how the hell we got here that seems to be teeming with different energies and mysteries, that has certain cultural patterns and biological patterns, but many more patterns inside them. You get to talk about that, you get to express it, you get to play with it. I mean, it's life. And if you're doing it all alone, you're kind of probably going to go crazy. So at least you need friends to kind of keep you a little bit in the center, as you put it, not on the side of the wall going bang, bang, bang. But yeah, you get to inherit all that. And instead what happens most of the time is you're in some kind of droid, narrow cultural context where you're just allowed to be in your cubicle and you're just going to talk to each other about sports and real estate and she's like, bang, bang. And that's fine, that's your thing. But fuck that. That would be my sales pitch for the spiritual friendship.
- [36:21]
Jeff Warren
It was also kind of a sales pitch for the Canadian weed.
- [36:25]
Unknown
True, true.
- [36:27]
I think you can get in New York now.
- [36:31]
Dan Harris
I learned so much about myself through friendship. And not just the easy parts of. Actually mostly not through the easy parts of friendship. There, there's, you know, sometimes in, in Buddhist circles, I know many of you appreciate this. People use skillful to basically just mean, not messy, you know, and they don't really want to go towards the mess. I love the mess you do. Like I learn that you do things.
- [36:55]
Unknown
You do, you do.
- [36:58]
Dan Harris
You are a mess. You like mess because that's where the richness is, you know, Dan and I famously had a conflict challenge in our relationship that we've talked about.
- [37:08]
Unknown
Tell us about that. Oh, do you want to talk about that? Let's hear more about that.
- [37:13]
Dan Harris
Wait, there's a whole podcast section about it and an episode that we did, so you can go back and listen to it. But, you know, you very bravely called me in about something that was, you know, really hard for me to hear, and it was hard for you to tell me. And that took bravery. It took a lot of, I think, patience on my part to, like, listen to it and not just, like, hang up the phone. You know, it was hard because I realized I'd been a bad friend. And I think that's overstated. No, I had. Yeah, I mean, that's basically you were calling me in about something that I had done that hurt you. And so I learned so much, that experience in that conversation. And we have to be willing to be vulnerable in those ways, to have those hard conversations and to grow from them.
- [38:09]
Unknown
Right.
- [38:09]
Dan Harris
And that deepened our friendship greatly.
- [38:11]
Jeff Warren
Yes. I mean, I've seen that over and over again. If you're willing to talk to people, and I say this to somebody who's constitutionally quite a frosty New Englander and, you know, I prefer to, you know, stew in my signature mix of self pity and resentment. And yet if you can do the hard work of, like, bringing it up with somebody, that conflict, hopefully it's healthy. Conflict can change for the better the nature of the relationship over the long term.
- [38:47]
Unknown
That happened with you and me too, actually.
- [38:49]
Jeff Warren
Yeah. This was more.
- [38:50]
Dan Harris
Dan is the common denominator.
- [38:55]
Unknown
This never happens that bad.
- [38:58]
Jeff Warren
You want to tell the story? Now that you brought it up.
- [39:03]
Unknown
What happened? Well, we were writing the book together. Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. And we had a really fun time going back and forth across the U.S. or at least one direction across, and met lots of interesting people. And then you had to do all the work of turning it into an actual book. And Carly and I was just given these little miniature assignments of like writing kind of snappy meditations and talking about a particular area of practice. But instead I would submit these 80 page long disquisitions on the nature of reality and consciousness. And Dan would just send these helpless comments, getting increasingly aggrieved and upset. And I thought I was. We were having a fabulous time. And then meanwhile, the clock was ticking and the book had to be in. In like one month. And I was like writing page 120 of my bullet points of how, you know, anyway. And then Dan finally exploded in patience and didn't realize it was my ADHD kind of going. I didn't. I mean, I was doing the Best I could. I had my own way of doing it, and there were some good little bits there. But anyway, I think it was actually Bianca who said, dan, you should make this part of the story, because this is the truth of what's happening. And as soon as you had that insight, you stopped being so crusty, and I stopped being so feeling guilty or whatever. Not that I was feeling that guilty, but. And then things got better, and it became part of the book, and it's been happier ever after. Now I can't stop getting this stream of heart emojis from Dan. It's like every day I wake up, like, heart emoji, heart emoji, heart emoji. He's never sent a heart emoji, people. I don't think he sends heart emojis to Bianca.
- [40:50]
Dan Harris
Well, I'm curious, because I remember that part in the book, and I was really impressed that you guys kind of made that public and explained the process. But I think when you approached me, you had already started doing your work with your communications coaches. And I've started reading that book because I've been so impressed because I.
- [41:10]
Jeff Warren
Let's talk, isn't it?
- [41:11]
Dan Harris
Yeah. The book is called let's About Talk Talk by Dan Clerman and Mudita Nisker, and it's fabulous. And I've seen you use that method over and over again on us.
- [41:24]
Unknown
And.
- [41:26]
Dan Harris
I think your way of dealing with conflict has changed so much, or just communication in general has changed so much since you started working with them. And that seems like integral to relationship. Good communication. Of course. But could you say a little bit about the methodology?
- [41:44]
Jeff Warren
Yeah, I would say Jeff kind of let me off easy. I would. I look back at that chapter in our friendship and in my, you know, just behavioral repertoire with a certain amount of. Well, if I want to be Buddhist, I'll say wise remorse, but it's more like shame where I just have a. You know, it's in my character, logical makeup to be a frosty New Englander, crusty New Englander, actually be irritable. And also, not incidentally, I had several decades as a network news anchor, and we aren't necessarily trained to have small egos. You don't get into that line of work because you don't like attention or to be the boss or to have other people shut up and listen to you. So that all was in my marrow and I think in some really unhelpful ways. And actually that experience of writing a book under intense pressure. And, Jeff, I think you were too hard on yourself. Yeah, you get excited and have all these ideas. And I was just under too intense a deadline and also just didn't have the skills to communicate clearly and was irritable and I think really unproductive ways. And then I met Dan Clerman and Mudita Nisker, who are two longtime Dharma practitioners who have this very simple protocol for communicating with other humans. And I think it's so interesting that we know that we are, and I say this all the time, find it so interesting that we are this intensely social species. We didn't get to the top of the food chain because we have wings or fangs or size. We got there because of our capacity to cooperate and communicate and collaborate. And yet we're almost never taught how to actually do that. We just walk out into the world being taught by our parents and the culture how to communicate and how to interact with other people. People. And usually those are the lessons that have been imparted to us are unskillful, to use a Buddhist phrase that is often deployed somewhat abusively. And to meet these brilliant Dharma practitioners who break down how to communicate very, very simply. I'll just give you a few examples of their little rules that you can take out into the world and use. One of them is chunking instead of flooding. Most of the time when you talk to people, I don't know if this is true for you specifically, but for many of us when we communicate, we just flood people with paragraphs. And on the other side, they're just waiting for you to shut up so they can say the thing they want to say. So the fact that we can ever get words out of this skull sized kingdom, out of this cranium, into, across this unimaginable chasm, into the brain, the world, the cosmos of somebody else is a fucking miracle. Right? And yet most of the time we're doing this maladroitly, ineptly. We're flooding them with information too much for them to remember. We're framing it in a way that fires off the stress centers of their brain instead of engaging the rational part of the brain. And it goes haywire. I mean, we can just see it on a macro level in the way this culture is interacting with its different constituent parts. And we see it in our relationships all over the world. And to have skills to say, okay, I know when I go into this conversation, instead of flooding you with information, I'm going to chunk it. I'm only going to give you a couple sentences at a time and then make sure at the end, does that make Sense. Are you with me? Just that little. It's not rocket science, but very few people do it. Another example is something I talk about all the time, which is reflective listening. You heard me use it as interpersonal manipulation with these guys throughout this conversation. They say a thing, and then I say, oh, I heard you correctly, or here's what I heard, or you don't have to use that kind of little bit techniquey language at the top. You can just say, oh, so you're saying X, but briefly and in my own language, reflecting back to them what it is they've tried to keep to communicate to me. And I kind of, tongue in cheek, all of this manipulation, but it is manipulation, but of the most benevolent kind. Because what do we want? What does everybody want, whether they're aware of it or not? We want to be seen and heard. That is the fundamental human desire. And you can give that to people all day long. I play a little game where I try to see how many times I can get people to say this word in conversation. Exactly. It's an awesome game, and it will change the complexion of your entire day if you bring this into it. And so I probably needed these tools more than most people, but I recommend them to everybody. And it can be part of your spiritual friendships or regular friendships or your parenting. I use it a lot as a boss. It's massively, massively helpful.
- [47:06]
Dan Harris
It's vital to conflict, for sure, but I've seen you evolve to use it all the time.
- [47:14]
Jeff Warren
One of the things Mudita says is that, and she's trained as a therapist, that you can do all of this work in meditation and therapy to change who you are. And that's great, but you can also start at the tip of the spear, which is how you communicate. And as you change that, it reverse engineers the whole thing. And so you can say I evolved, but I don't feel like, in some ways, it doesn't even feel like that deep of work. I just learned how to be like 75% less schmucky in my utterances. And that had a huge kind of reverse engineering effect.
- [47:52]
Dan Harris
Well, I think, you know, okay, yes. And I think that there's also this capacity for, you know, the classical teachings on mindfulness have this refrain over and over again that we're aware in all these ways of our bodies, of our thoughts, of our emotions, of our reactions to things. But we're aware internally, we're aware externally. We're aware both internally and externally, but we mostly focus on the internally in our meditation practice. But What I see you done is actually pay a lot of attention to the externally and both internally and externally. And that's really what's happening with that kind of listening. Practice is really about attunement and so much of relationship is about attuning to others.
- [48:39]
Jeff Warren
I think the point I was trying to make is that you can talk about, you know, changing your heart, changing, you know, having a, finding yourself, having a fun, all these spiritual cliches or you can just learn some very simple practices, do that. And it has this profound effect because if you had talked to me about attunement a while ago, I probably, I wouldn't have known what that meant. But if you just teach me how to do reflective listening, which is basically interpersonal journalism, right? Somebody says something, I repeat back the headline, it doesn't require some massive amount of internal work on my part, that happens as a consequence, the attunement comes. But if you just give somebody a simple tool, you're almost gamifying it.
- [49:30]
Seb Salassie
Coming up, Seb, Jeff and I talk about the importance of friendship in insane times. And then we take some questions from the audience on tough topics such as what to do if you're a people pleaser, how to have difficult conversations and how to build meaningful relationships in a digital age. Imagine you're a business owner who has to rely on a dozen different software programs to run your company, none of which are connected and each one is more expensive and more complicated than the last. It can be pretty stressful. Now imagine Odoo. Odoo has all the programs you'll ever need and they are all connected on one simple, easy to use platform, giving you peace of mind that your business is always being taken care of from every angle. Odoo has user friendly open source applications for everything. We're talking CRM, accounting, inventory, manufacturing, marketing, HR and everything in between. Basically, if your business needs it, Odoo's got it. Odoo sounds pretty amazing, right? So stop wasting your time and money on those expensive disconnected platforms and let Odoo harmonize your business with simple efficient software that can handle everything for a fraction of the price. It doesn't get much better than that. So what are you waiting for? Discover how Odoo can take your business to the next level by visiting odoo.com that's o d o o.com odoo modern management made simple. You've heard me talk about quints before and I'm going to do it again because just the other day, and maybe this is tmi but I needed some socks and underwear. I went to Quint's. Just to be clear, Quints is an advertiser on the show. So sometimes I get free stuff, but other times I go there and pay just because I like their stuff so much. So, yeah, I ordered some underwear and some socks. The socks are great, really comfortable. They're the socks that you can wear with like low top Nikes. And you don't see the socks, which I know is not the Gen Z thing these days, but I'm a man of a certain age and I like those kinds of socks and the underwear. The boxer briefs. One of the big problems with boxer briefs in my long history of being alive is that they can bunch up on the leg. But somebody over at Quint's figured out new technologies so that doesn't happen with the underwear I bought over there. Again, I know a little bit of extra information you don't need, but if you're in the market for underwear or if you're not a male and you've got a male in your life who needs some underwear, I highly recommend it anyway. They've got stuff for all genders at really low prices. As I mentioned before on this show, there are days when Quince is all I'm wearing head to toe. Quint has all the things you actually want to wear, like organic cotton silk polos, European linen beach shorts, and comfortable pants that work for everything from backyard hangs to nice dinners. The best part, everything from quints is priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find at similar brands. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen, Quints gives you luxury pieces without the crazy markups. And Quints only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing processes and premium fabrics and finishes. Elevate your closet with 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 to get free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com happier.
- [52:49]
Jeff Warren
I was talking before about the kind of dysfunction in our larger culture and I'm just wondering to you guys, what's the role of friendship for surviving insane times?
- [53:03]
Dan Harris
Everything.
- [53:04]
Unknown
Everything.
- [53:04]
Jeff Warren
I agree.
- [53:07]
Unknown
You need to surround yourself with your. You need your culture. You know, I mean, I mean that in the best possible way. You need your people, you need where you can. You want to be able to move outside it, to hear different views. Absolutely. But you need to be able to feel safe and friendship is fundamentally about safety too. Make real friendship. So I think you're going to need your group make you feel a lot less alone. And also that generates energy for wanting to do something and to make change because you can't do it alone.
- [53:44]
Jeff Warren
Yeah.
- [53:44]
Dan Harris
And I think that the role of spiritual friendship is really important here because I'm going to forget his name, but Lama Darwin, I forget his last name. I heard him say once, it's not about taking sides, it's about taking a stand that there are no sides. It's all one planet. And we're talking about real safety and connection and organizing that's going to have to be done. And to be able to do that with people who can hold the paradox and the complexity of the awareness of our inter being and our interconnection at the same time that we're going to have to draw really strong boundaries and have protective practices, that's a hard paradox to hold. A lot of people, including in activist communities, are not grappling with paradox. Our spiritual spaces, our sacred activist spaces, are the places where we can do that work and be our truest selves and be really authentic with understanding the magnitude of this without having to go into this deluded, separative consciousness space.
- [54:56]
Unknown
Yeah. Can you work for justice without there being any enemies?
- [55:01]
Jeff Warren
What I heard you say, there's a little phrase that I love that I probably use too often, but I really love it. And I would just end this part of the conversation with this is never worry alone. And I think it's never been more relevant than right now, perhaps in our lives. So don't do this tumultuous time as a solo endeavor. Make it a team sport. Let's do some Q and A. I would love to hear from. We would love to hear from all of you guys. Raise your hand if you. Here we go. I'll get you.
- [55:40]
Unknown
Hi.
- [55:40]
Jeff Warren
Thank you.
- [55:41]
Unknown
My name is Leanne, and my question is, what advice would you have for people pleasers as they build spiritual friendships?
- [55:48]
Jeff Warren
Thank you. I think the people annoyer probably should not answer that question.
- [56:00]
Dan Harris
Yeah. There's so much we didn't get to and there's so much about intention that we didn't really touch on. And I've had to really look at intention and where my attention goes around people pleasing because it's often about me trying to fill some hole in myself that there's some way in which I'm trying. There's a grasping quality to it that's really not generous. It may look like generosity, but it's not. It's not attuned. Right. It's not really in relation to what that person might need and what I might need in that moment. So there's so much we could have said about a real practice of knowing ourselves, knowing where our intentions are coming from, what we may be missing that we could give to ourselves first. But there's so much about fawning as a trauma response that we could talk about. But it's such a great question and a really important area of attention for many of us.
- [57:11]
Unknown
Can I make a comment on it too? Because it's funny. I remember in the early days of this friendship that I have now, a really good friend of mine, we had dinner together and he said normally he just sort of made a comment that often people. He would get people's bills and he would always pick up the bill and do this thing. And I realized, oh, he has this pleasing thing. And I remember. And he felt comfortable enough to kind of talk about that with me. And so I said to him, I remember saying, you will never pick up my bill. I mean. And what I meant in that time was that I can see that you got this thing going on, and, like, I don't really want to be part of that. I like you just how you are. And it was cool to be, like, talk about it right early on in the friendship. This is like 15 years ago or something. And we've been. We're even closer than we've gotten to be really close. And that paradigm never really. Or that kind of habit never really got any traction between the two of us. That's what I think is interesting about, you know, making your neuroses here, make it public, you know, I mean, in a safe way with your people that you feel comfortable with. But, like, hey, this is the way I am. I'm wired in this weird way. You can help support me in this too.
- [58:24]
Jeff Warren
Who else has got a question? I see somebody right back there.
- [58:27]
Unknown
Hello, my name is Tamzin. One of the things that occurred to me as you were talking was this interplay between the internal work and then getting out and playing the external manifestation of the internal work in your relationships. A few years ago, I was going through a really hard time, and I realized that the three groups of people who I had the best relationships with were Buddhists in communities, were my friends in ethical non monogamy relationships and my friends who are in recovery. And I was thinking about this theme of the internal and then the external. And I like to look for patterns. And I was wondering if There was anything else that I was missing in terms of that. The constant looking in, the looking out, the checking in, the consent and then the back in and the back and the interplay. That's what the. I could keep going, but I'm going to stop.
- [59:23]
Dan Harris
The other thing that comes to mind, Tamsin, from those groupings is some relationship to ethics and ethical guidelines, like all of those communities work with that. And that's so important in kind of the way we're relating what is wise speech, what is wise action, what are real boundaries? And they seem to all address that.
- [59:50]
Jeff Warren
We have a question right there.
- [59:51]
Seb Salassie
Yes.
- [59:51]
Jeff Warren
And we got a microphone right behind you.
- [59:54]
Unknown
I'm Heather. My question is for each of you one or two or three guidelines or agreements you would advise to have a difficult conversation, but not the difficult conversation of the two. You had more of out in the political realm around belief systems. What do you think are important guidelines to engage into those?
- [60:21]
Jeff Warren
A couple rules of thumb for talking about politics. One, never try to change anybody's mind. If somebody gets a sense you're trying to convince them that they're stupid, it's unlikely to go well. That fires off the stress centers of the brain and fails to engage the prefrontal cortex, which is the reasonable part of the brain. And we want to stay here, not here. And so going at somebody in that way is unlikely to be successful. A second thing is to describe your own beliefs instead of characterizing theirs. You don't give a shit about anybody. You don't care if the planet burns, et cetera, et cetera. Again, unlikely to engage this part of the brain, which is where we want to day. And then I would say that reflective listening is incredibly helpful in this regard, that you can actually give the other person what they want, which is to be heard, and then you're relaxing their nervous system enough so that you can be heard. And so a really useful goal, because I've been talking in the negative, a really useful goal. And I got this from this group, the Braver Angels. They bring together reds and blues across the country and have these remarkably successful dialogues. Their goal is accurate disagreement. And I really like that.
- [61:38]
Unknown
It is also the principle of strong manning someone's position versus straw man steel mailing. Steel man steel manning.
- [61:46]
Jeff Warren
Yeah, yeah. It's like, can you in some ways put yourself in the position of advocating for them and reflective listening, actually, the ninja level of that is you're not only reflecting what they've said to you, but you're reflecting their implicit positive intention. This is a dan Clarman who did the Nisker bit of lingo there. What is it that they're not saying that is really what they want. And it's helpful to use words like maybe or perhaps you're saying X and that's. You put yourself in the position of advocating for them. It's delicate in a. In a political disagreement because you don't want to be advocating for things that you find horrendous. But if you probe people's views, often their positive intention, like what. What they want, not in the negative or I hate this person or I hate that person. I want this to go away. Is they want safety or they want belonging or whatever it is. And so you can suss people out in those ways that are. I think brings it to a much more constructive level. And you are, if you're anything like me, likely to screw this up one cycle. And so I would recommend self compassion on top of that of like, all right, give yourself a break.
- [63:01]
Unknown
Hi, Lisa. This has been great sort of a question or a comment. So I have a spiritual friend that I do sound bath meditation and he was one. He didn't train me, but I've been known him for five years and he just lost his job. And I was trained a year ago. And he came to my apartment recently, Saturday and said, can I have your training manual? Because he just got let go of his job. And I said, absolutely not. It's copyrighted. And I paid money for it. And it's not.
- [63:30]
Dan Harris
It's against my ethics.
- [63:31]
Unknown
And then he said to me, it's for the better or good of everybody for you to give this to me. It's like spiritual manipulation. I don't know. Whatever it is. And then because I'm a people pleaser, I'm like, you want to come and do a sound path? Because I'd use different bulls in his. He uses Tibetan and I use crystal tones. So I just kind of. I'm really obviously upset about this and I, you know, I've had conflicts where I've negotiated and it's been better for the friendships, but I really don't know if this is something that I'm not. He's not coming over. Taking that back.
- [64:00]
Jeff Warren
But what comment I'll say something about. I'm kind of interested in hearing from seven this. But not all relationships need to be continued. There's. Yeah. Continued. You don't. You can. You don't have to stay in contact with people who you don't feel. I don't know if I love this word but safe around. I think that word has been sometimes misused but I think nowhere is it written that you have to go to Thanksgiving dinner if you're going to be re traumatized. Nowhere is it written that you have to stay in relationship with somebody where you don't feel comfortable. I think it's great to the best of your ability and using your judgment to maintain relationships if you can. But you know, boundaries are a thing too.
- [64:48]
Dan Harris
Yeah, I mean I've had to, for the sake of my health have very clear boundaries with family members, with certain friends and had to end a spiritual friendship quite recently actually. And yeah, that idea that everything is workable or every friendship has to to be saved, it's just, it's not, it's not fair to us, it's not fair to ourselves.
- [65:17]
Jeff Warren
Yeah, it's definitely sad. Sir, I got you.
- [65:20]
Unknown
Hello, Anthraj. Any commentary on modern friendships? So what I mean is about social media and everyone sort of having a bit of an inauthentic connection with people, you know, friends on social media. I mean whilst meeting here in real life is obviously very nice but any commentary on that specifically because we're in a unique situation. I think.
- [65:40]
I'm not on social media. I'm not on social media so. But I'm on substack now and that's kind of like a social media thing and I'm, I'm. I've been enjoying kind of getting to know the community there and I do a thing on YouTube and like over the years I've got to know all people who leave comments and I also do various zoom things and I like zoom realities because you can kind of turn off the camera if you want, you can go over here. I mean I think it gives you a lot of leeway for lots of different kinds of nervous systems to begin to find their way into communities and connections. So I mean those are some examples of ways. I think that it's positive but I don't have enough insight maybe to speak specifically to the ways. Do you want to say something about the way the messed up parts of social media.
- [66:23]
Dan Harris
I'm no longer on social media so I mean I presence there but I'm yeah, really like get off. But I've actually made friends there. I have some friends in my life now who I've collaborated with and gotten to know who I met through Instagram. So there are possibilities there. I think that we often mistake parasocial relationships and social media relationships for real relationships. Those relationships flourished because we ended up meeting in real life and Then deepening the friendship so there's a true relationship there. And I will say it's not only about in real life. My three best friends have not lived in New York city in over 20 years, and I'm still closer to them than I am to anyone else in my life. And so it's not necessarily distance or the fact of not being in real life. It's the quality of those relationships. And how are we really sharing? I speak to those people almost every week and they know what's going on in my life and we visit each other regularly. And so what are we looking for in social media? That quality of friendship. And how can we advance that if that's where we met someone or if that's where we've gotten to know someone? But not mistaking a social media relationship for a real relationship. There's no way.
- [67:51]
Jeff Warren
I totally agree with everything you guys said. And how old are you? What's your name again?
- [67:55]
Unknown
Fouad.
- [67:56]
It's hard to say.
- [67:56]
Jeff Warren
Fouad.
- [67:57]
Dan Harris
Yeah.
- [67:57]
Jeff Warren
And what's your. Sorry, that was your name. What is your age?
- [68:01]
Unknown
I'm 33.
- [68:02]
Jeff Warren
Okay, so he's young and he's grown up.
- [68:04]
Dan Harris
What are you saying, Pam?
- [68:05]
Jeff Warren
I'm saying we are old and he should be telling us we grew up in an era where we had no choice but to like. I remember calling my friends on a landline saying, can you play? And there was nothing else to do. For what?
- [68:20]
Unknown
Yes.
- [68:21]
Jeff Warren
Has lived in this digital morass his whole life and through no fault of his own, because of the world we created for his generation and my son's generation and your children's generation, there has been this massive degradation of social fitness and social hygiene. And so I understand, or at least what I think your intention underneath the question was like your world and the people, your peers have been handicapped, not to mention that they lived at a very young age through a global pandemic. And I think there's just a lot of distress and a lot of the things that we take for granted because we were socialized in a pre digital era. Those aren't realities for younger people right now. And so, yeah, I do think it's possible to have a healthy relationship with social media, but it is difficult, especially when it's been your reality for most of your sentience. And when you look at your phone, it is you facing off against the most powerful supercomputers on earth, designed by the most brilliant minds on earth, and you are unlikely to win. And so having some set of tools that you can use to Operate with this technology with some degree of sanity is really important. Not everybody can log off at your age. It would probably cut you off from the larger culture and people, you know, in ways that might be really difficult. I don't know all of your circumstances, so I think it's like little hacks. Put your phone away two hours before bed if you can. Try to get into the habit of not bringing your phone to meals with other members of Homo sapiens. Try to meditate with some regularity so that you have self awareness enough that you recognize. Oh, I'm on hour eight of Twitter and I'm typing in all caps. Is it? You're in a difficult situation. I just want to validate that and I think there are little tools you can bring in to turn the volume down on some of that distress and also just to make it a real point to create IRL relationships.
- [70:45]
Dan Harris
So what I'm hearing you say is that we can have a better relationship to social media and fuad.
- [70:55]
Jeff Warren
Yes.
- [70:56]
Dan Harris
Were you asking about that? And also relationships in social media?
- [71:05]
Unknown
I didn't know it was going to go this long.
- [71:09]
Jeff Warren
He's questioning not only his question, but whether he should have come here tonight. And he's realizing that sometimes interacting with live human beings is not all it's cracked up to be, especially old ones.
- [71:26]
Unknown
Hello?
- [71:26]
Yeah, so I'm glad we're having this conversation because I do think you made a very good point about younger. I still remember pre social media. It was 2005. I remember when Facebook came in, but definitely people slightly younger than me, definitely it's even harder for them. But I will say that it is a different world and I think there is a big generational gap and I think that we have to find other tools, maybe sessions like this. Literally why I'm here is one of the reasons I decided not to be online and be here instead. But I will note to other people that it is even awkward for younger people to meet in real life because they're literally not used to it. And the alternative, to be at home and not go outside physically. Plus things are very expensive, so it makes it very hard. And I'm just acknowledging that for this group it is a different world.
- [72:16]
Jeff Warren
Sorry, I'll stop there.
- [72:17]
Seb Salassie
No, you're totally right.
- [72:18]
Dan Harris
Thank you.
- [72:19]
Jeff Warren
To know one of the. I think there are two wellspring, noxious wellsprings of this current anxiety epidemic. There are probably many, but the two that I think are most prominent one is the lack of social connection for a social species. When you take that away from People through a pandemic or through addiction to technology, we are going to get anxious because our source of safety has always been other people, and we've taken that away in many meaningful ways. And then you add on top of that a growing intolerance, an allergy to discomfort. So we've created, again, this is people our age and older creating this world for you. So I'm not blaming you at all. We've created a world for you where every you want, you want a date, you want a meal, you want a flight, you want to ride, it's all a swipe away. And as a consequence, people are just can't handle discomfort. And so you combine these two things, and it's really. I mean, we have a massive mental health epidemic in this country and in this world. So the only thing I would say to you is that actually, I think you are well positioned, given your age and your interests, to do something about this. You should be organizing events.
- [73:40]
Unknown
Meet the new head of New York Insight Meditation. We nominate you, young person. I'd say one quick thing about that, too, that you're like, oh, why did I ever have. We're made of other people, and other people expand who we are as people. I have two young children at home, two and a half and five. And sometimes I feel like I'm in the narrowest little larval cycle of this. Like, I'm like, poop, eat, poop, eat, sleep. Poop, eat, sleep, poop, eat, sleep. And my nose is down here, and it's like I'm like I'm underground, burrowing. And it's like, this is my whole world, you know? And once a month, I will. At first, I would not even that. I would get out and I would see people. I would see my friend. I'd be like, oh, my God. I would remember who I was. I had a life. I would grow new appendages. You know, it's other people that show you that. That's why travel also is so liberating. You got to get out of that larval pattern of just being in the house and just being in the social media cycle. So, yeah, not that I am passionate.
- [74:44]
Dan Harris
About that, but I do.
- [74:45]
Unknown
We actually have a couple more questions.
- [74:47]
Jeff Warren
From Zoom gentlemen in. Then we'll do Zoom.
- [74:49]
Unknown
Cool. Parv. So you had brought up a key point about your meditation habit, right? And I think that's a key point. So what do you guys do to ensure that you guys are doing a daily habit because you're not meditating daily? It doesn't compound. I Feel that unless you go in there every day and sit down and actually do the practice daily, there's this loss and you kind of go back to your original monster self. So what's your strategy?
- [75:19]
Well, actually, I don't think you need to meditate every day in order for it to compound. I think you need to be interested in practicing every day, whether that's on the cushion, whether that's in movement, whether that's in relationship. The way I do that is through I have a kind of skills framework. Or am I being a quantumist? Am I going to go like this towards make this really intense point with you, or am I going to just back off, let the energy be there in a more measured way because I have more space around the. The impulses and the movements? Do I have more clarity? Can I practice clarity about what I want to say and take that pause when I choose my focus? Can I stay with that focus? Whatever it is, is it my work or my creativity? Those are ways to take the meditation practice. Those are the things a seated meditation builds in you, a capacity for that. But you can be practicing that in so many other kinds of contexts. I will say though, a seated, simple practice, this illness is pretty great medicine because it's the place where you won't fool. You're at least likely to fool yourself. You know what I mean?
- [76:23]
Dan Harris
I think in terms of strategy, coming back again to knowing yourself, it's really helpful to know what helps you because some people are really disciplined and if they decide they're gonna do something, they do it. Those people are called annoying. Poor Dan.
- [76:40]
Unknown
Poor Dan.
- [76:43]
Dan Harris
A lot of us need accountability. We need structures. We need meditation partners or take classes or workshops or find ways to build up those habits for ourselves. It's really knowing how you build habits can be really helpful.
- [76:59]
Jeff Warren
I know we're close to time, but let's please, if you'll indulge me, I just want to take a question or two from Zoom.
- [77:05]
Unknown
Thank you so much. This is Tashi. We have a question from the chat that I want to lead off with. She asked me to read it out. What if your main relationship is with someone who is not into meditation nor having these deeper conversations? Any advice? Thank God. I kind of have mean that. I mean, you want to have diversity in your friendships as well. I think if I were only around people who like meditation, I would probably go completely insane. So I'm lucky enough in my life that I have friends that have, you know, know nothing about it and have very little interest in it yet. They're still self aware in their. In their own right. I mean, the issue in a relationship is are they interested in learning about themselves? Are they open to feedback? Are they willing to go into mystery with you? Are they, you know, is there a sense in which there could be growth together? Those seem to be the questions in a relationship. Whether or not that involves a spiritual practice or not is. There's lots of ways to develop in that way.
- [78:10]
Jeff Warren
There's some data to show that a happy marriage actually depends upon having platonic friendships that supplement it. If you're looking to one person for everything, it's a pretty good recipe for disappointment. We'll bring in some zoom questioners. Hi.
- [78:31]
Seb Salassie
Hello.
- [78:32]
Unknown
So great to see all of you. I had a quick question about just the chemistry between the three of you. It's just magic. And I've noticed this both when I'm.
- [78:43]
Dan Harris
Listening to just your voices and when.
- [78:45]
Unknown
I see you on stage. Why do you think that is? And what is it that makes the three of you such great spiritual friends?
- [78:52]
Jeff Warren
Well, Jeff and I do what we're told. I think that's a really north.
- [79:01]
Dan Harris
I really don't know. No, I know I'm the boss, but there is some kind of magic. I mean, Dan and I were friends and then Jeff and Dan became friends around the same time separately. And Jeff and I have only known each other for about three or four years, maybe. Yeah. But we didn't meet in person until about two years ago. And then when the three of us decided to do something together, it just clicked. And, you know, I think that there is a, like, irreverence that is obviously seen and felt here by all of you that, you know, this was called spiritual friendship. Our title is like reckless conviviality or something like that. So maybe that's part of it. What do you guys think?
- [79:51]
Jeff Warren
I agree, Jeff.
- [79:52]
Unknown
I mean, I just like these guys. I like hanging out with them. They both make me laugh. And I learn from both of them. You know, it's that sweet spot of being able to be kind of irreverent and ridiculous together, but also really respecting them and who they are and what they've gone through. And I learn a lot from. From both of you. And I love you both.
- [80:17]
Jeff Warren
Love you, buddy. I want to put a pirate shirt on.
- [80:19]
Unknown
Heart emoji.
- [80:21]
Jeff Warren
Let my hair billow in the wind. Well, there's an expression. We choose our friends by our ability to amuse them. Everybody should support New York Insight Meditation center as much as possible and be as generous as possible. They're amazing.
- [80:44]
Seb Salassie
Thanks again to Seb and Jeff. Don't forget the three of us will be co hosting a weekend long in person retreat called Meditation Party. Tickets just went on sale for the next one which is coming up in October at the Omega Institute. You can buy tickets at the same link which I will put in the show notes. It's always a good time. Don't forget coming up in June we've got this huge Get Fit Sanely series we're launching and if you're a subscriber over@danharris.com you will get guided meditations tailored to each of the episodes. You can get much more information on that over@danharris.com finally, thank you to everybody who worked so hard to make this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our Production manager, Marissa Schneiderman is our Senior producer, DJ Cashmere is our Executive Producer and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.
- [82:02]
Unknown
You might say T Mobile takes the holistic approach to coverage because T Mobile helps keep you connected from the heart of Portland to right where you are on America's largest 5G network switch. Now keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off at the $800 per line via prepaid card. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com KeepAndSwitch up to 4 lines via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualifying unlock device, credit service port in 90 plus days device in eligible carrier and timely redemption required Card has no cash access and expires in six months.