A (3:48)

Yeah. One of the first people we talked to was Eddie Stern, and he had this light about him. I loved talking to him. From that podcast, I learned that there are so many small, beautiful things I could be doing. But I will say that we've gone on to shoot so many more after speaking to him and I haven't made those little changes and I'm still feeling this way. So at this point now I want to hear something I can do tomorrow morning, or not even tomorrow morning, as soon as we close down here. What can I do to make today when it's already, what, almost three o' clock here? Is there something I can do to start me off on this path?

B (4:25)

Yeah, let me just step back and say I'm in the business of giving people a menu, not a to do list. So I have done 700 episodes of my podcast and have been in this book writing sphere for 15 years. And so I, you know, I've just been covering this and immersed in it for a long time. And so I don't like to wag my finger and tell people, here's what you should do. I'm not overly prescriptive. I like to give people a sense of what the options are and you choose what works for you. So if we step all the way back, I think about these eight. I call this the pantheon of no brainers. These kind of eight levers you can pull to make your life better. So they include exercise, getting enough sleep, eating well, but eating well, with the asterisk that cookies are fine, you don't want to take that too far. Meditation, access to nature and, or beauty, purpose and meaning in your life. And then finally the most important is the quality of your relationships. And that might include a relationship with a therapist. So there's a lot of to choose from there and then you can make it super, super small. So if you want to choose meditation, one thing you can do is just a minute of sitting quietly. Bring your full attention to your breath. And then every time you get distracted, you start again and again. And in this way you get some visibility into how wild your mind is, into how fucking crazy all of our minds are. And then you're not so owned by all of these self critical thoughts. You can see them with some distance. Here's another little thing you can do. The science around deep breathing is really compelling to me. And this doesn't require some big life change. Every once in a while, get in the habit of taking three really deep breaths in a specific way. There's a practice called straw breathing where you take a really deep inhale and then artificially long exhale three or four times as long as the inhale through pursed lips as if you're blowing through a straw. And this will relax the nervous system. And then my third idea for you, which I think is probably most on point for you, is self compassion. Are you familiar with self compassion as a concept?

A (6:41)

As a concept, yes.

B (6:43)

As a concept, self compassion is really about treating yourself the way you would treat a friend or your kid. We all have the capacity to be really good mentors or parents or friends. And yet we.

A (6:55)

Oh, I give the best advice. I really do.

B (6:58)

So okay, this is the one for you. You give great advice, but you can do that for yourself. You don't need anybody else. There's a thriving field of research called self compassion. It was pioneered by this incredible woman, Kristin Neff, who's a professor at the University of Texas and has shown that people who have the capacity to talk to themselves the way they would talk to a good friend. There's a whole long list of psychological, physiological and even behavioral benefits to this practice. Okay, so how do you do it? Krista Neff has this three part exercise that again, doesn't require you to add something new to your to do list. This is something you can do on the go next time you catch yourself in what you, Christy, have described as a shame spiral, or what my friend Evelyn would call a toilet vortex. The three steps are 1. Notice that is happening. Be mindful of the fact, oh, I'm kicking my own ass right now. Two, call to mind that whatever you're dealing with right now, anxiety, shame, anger, jealousy, millions of other people are dealing with it in this exact moment. Three, put your hand on your heart. Talk to yourself the way you would talk to a good friend. I think actually, you can skip right to step number three. And I do this all the time. I've got lots of. I'm a very anxious person. It's still a big salient feature of my life. My wife will tell me she can tell when I'm worried, especially if we're getting on a plane. I have really bad claustrophobia. Cause she sees me put my hand on my heart, and then silently, I'm just like, bro, you're good. You got this. You're not in any danger. I just say the shit I would say to my son, to myself. And there's a ton of evidence to show this is really helpful.

A (8:39)

That's actually one thing that really has made a big difference is having a daughter. Now that reminds me so much of myself at age 9. The way I talk to her, the way I interact with her, the talks we have at bedtime, like, they're very incredibly meaningful. Like, I. I thrive on them. I love it. And we have had podcasts where I just start, like, broke down sobbing. Because what's changed me the most is, God, I would hate it if she were stuck in this world of talking to herself the way that I do. That makes me incredibly sad to think about.

B (9:13)

Do you think that the way you talk to her at bedtime, you could channel that and talk to yourself that way? 2% of the time?

A (9:22)

I'm very mindful of it at this point. Sometimes I just think what I say to myself doesn't matter because other people don't believe it. So that's where I've found myself lately. And I don't know how to really escape that. But one thing you said earlier that I was gonna say is that I come from a world where I've been told what to do my whole life and how to do it really well. Or even when I wasn't living with my parents anymore and I went on to work, I'm just like a dog, and I look up to people and I'm like, tell me what to do. And so I've lived my whole life being told what to do, and I still really seek that a lot. And as I am getting older, you know, you're being told less and less what to do. Or how to do it. I still want that. I want people to tell me exactly what to say, what to do so I can make it great for them so that I do it right. So that's a hard thing to break through also is wanting to always like be this person and to make these choices for myself. Like, no, Chrissy, get your ass outside. Right there. It's a beautiful balcony. Go meditate for three minutes. It's almost like I do need you to make me a list and tell me exactly what to do. But I also know that that's not gonna be beneficial to me. Like I need to learn how to do things for myself on my own.

B (10:43)

If I was going to make you a list, I think the more I listen to you, the number one thing on the list would be less time on the Internet.

A (10:52)

That's without a doubt. Yeah, I know. I genuinely very much care what Alex 649-414-has to say about me. It's insanity.

B (11:07)

Stay out of the comments section. I mean, I do it too. Like, I'm not criticizing you and there's no judgment here. There's literally only the desire to be helpful. So please know that. But if I was gonna give you a to do list, which is not usually my style, it would be dramatically cutting back on your phone time and probably some formal training in self compassion. Like having you sit and do that three part thing that I talked about with Kristin Neff. And call to mind whatever you're suffering from right now, remember that millions of other people are doing it. And then actively training your mind to talk to yourself the way you would talk to your daughter. That would be my two part to do list. You're going to spend five minutes every day doing this Kristin Neff practice and John's going to take your phone for like at 6 o' clock at night and you're not getting it back until noon the next day.

A (11:58)

And not to drag it out any more than I have already, but I will say that even when I scale back and I really have so much, I've deleted the apps that would feed me news about myself or I truly don't look. I don't go searching for the negative comment now, which was something I did all the time, I would scroll, I'd see beautiful, wonderful, kind people, amazing, amazing. Then I'd get to that bad one and then I would just ruin my night and I don't do that anymore. But now I do this other harsh thing which is wondering if I don't see it. And now I just Wonder what's out there about me because I'm not looking it up. And so it puts me in a different state of fear. I'm like, well, if I'm not reading it, then I'm not hurt by it. But now I'm, like, left wondering what I did wrong or if someone's mad at me.

B (12:53)

Don't you think if there was something truly important that you did wrong, your publicist would tell you?

A (13:02)

Yeah, and when I get that phone call or that number pops up, my whole heart stops. I get hives. I'm kind of always waiting for that call.

B (13:12)

That's a really hard place to live. And I have nothing but compassion for it. And I can't make you do these practices. I would also add loving kindness, meditation, and I would add a third, this ancient Buddhist practice where you just develop the capacity to send warmth to yourself and other people, and which we will do later. And there's a lot of research to show that this can really calm your nervous system, reduce your anxiety, reduce your stress. I think the bad news is you're in the situation you're in. The good news is there are ways out.

A (13:46)

Yeah, okay, let's move on from my bullshit now.

B (13:49)

I don't think it's bullshit, but even the way you just said that speaks to how you speak to yourself.

A (13:54)

Oh, God, it'll never end.

B (13:58)

It's getting better, though.

A (14:00)

I hope this resonates for somebody listening out there. And it's my one story, because I can't wait for the day that I'm better to myself. I can't wait. I'll just say that. What do you tell people like me who say they can't meditate?

B (14:18)

I hear this all the time from people. I can't meditate. You don't understand. And my mind is so busy. I sometimes call this the fallacy of uniqueness, that people think that they're somehow uniquely dysfunctional or uniquely.

A (14:31)

I know. Everybody is a special angel now.

B (14:33)

Yes, exactly.

A (14:35)

Everybody's a special, delicate flower. And. No, no, no. We're all different. And I'm not good at this. Yes, absolutely.

B (14:41)

It's not really your fault if that's the way you feel, because it's really my fault. Or anybody who promotes meditation. We've been selling it to you the wrong way. We have created the impression that in order to meditate, you need to clear your mind. But as I often joke, clearing your mind is impossible unless you're enlightened or you have died. The point of meditation is not to clear your mind, which Again, is impossible. It's to focus your mind for a few nanoseconds, very brief moments of time, to focus your mind on something neutral, like the feeling of your breath coming in and going out, or loving kindness phrases, which we'll talk about, or just the feeling of your body sitting in the chair, lying down, just to focus your mind for a few nanoseconds at a time. And then you inevitably will get distracted and carried away and you start planning a homicide or thinking about what's for lunch or whatever, and that's all fine. And it's at this moment when you notice how distractible you are, that most people assume and start telling themselves the story, and then later tell it to me, that they can't meditate. But actually, it's that moment, the moment where you're telling yourself you're a failure, that is proof of success. Because the whole game in meditation, the whole goal is just to try to focus on one thing. And then when you get distracted, start again, start again, start again. And every time you wake up and start again, two things are happening. One, the brain is getting better at focusing. And this shows up on the brain scans. It changes the part of the brain associated with attention regulation. And then the other and more important thing is that you start to have a different relationship to the voice in your head. Every time you wake up from distraction and see how fucking crazy the mind is, you are not so owned by it. You're like, oh, I'm getting familiar with this ancient pattern, these thoughts that I think are mine, but they're actually just like these impersonal little quantum bursts of energy squirting through the mind. You don't have to take that chaos and cacophony so seriously. So I just like to reframe the thing that people think is proof that they're failing as an example of success.

A (16:52)

When you think back to your first day of meditation to where you are now, would you say it's just an incredibly different experience? Is it a muscle that just grows and you can be so much more focused than you were when you first began? Or are there off days and.

B (17:09)

Yes and no, for sure. I remember that. My first meditation session, I remember it very clearly. And I was much more distractible then. But today I sat to meditate. I was doing 30 minutes, which, by the way, is way longer than anybody needs to do. You can do 2 minutes, 1 minute, 5 minutes, but I was doing 30 minutes. My little alarm on my watch went off at 30 minutes. I was like, whoa, I was just thinking the whole time I was. And I just laughed about it. It's like, all right, today the mind is busy, and that's okay. And it is also true. After 16 years, I think of doing this.

A (17:42)

Wow.

B (17:43)

Yeah. I do a lot of silent meditation retreats, often for 10 days at a time. And there are times when the mind gets really concentrated, and that's great, but the real point is not to get better at the act of meditation. That's almost beside the point. The real point is to get better at life. And so the measurement of the quality of your meditation is not, oh, I'm getting distracted fewer times. I'm less of an asshole to myself and others. That's what matters. And I'll tell you, I love this story. A couple weeks after I started meditating, I was at a cocktail party, and I overheard my wife saying to a friend, dan started meditating, and he's less of a shithead. And she didn't even know I was listening. And that is success.

A (18:27)

Wow. You've done a silent retreat for 10 days.

B (18:31)

I do one a year, usually.

A (18:32)

Oh, my. Where is it? I'm just curious.

B (18:35)

There's a Buddhist center in central Massachusetts called the Insight Meditation Society, and it's where my teacher, Joseph Goldstein, lives and works. And so I will once a year, go up and sit for 10 days with him, and sometimes I'll do more.

A (18:50)

Wow. Would you believe I'm supposed to be Buddhist? My mom is Buddhist. My mom's Thai. I gotta work on being Buddhist.

B (18:57)

There you go again, telling yourself you're not doing a good job.

A (19:00)

It's a positive thing. Do you feel the difference between meditation helping you be less of an asshole, or. How do you know if it's just you being performative because you're meditating now? I'm sure it's a real feeling inside.

B (19:15)

That's a. It's a key question. It's a great question. I want to be clear. When I said less of an asshole, that includes less of an asshole to myself. I'm not so carried away by my thoughts. So when the thought comes into my head, oh, I should say something that's going to ruin the next 48 hours of my marriage, I'm less likely to just pop off and do it.

A (19:36)

Yeah.

B (19:36)

And so it's not like I'm forcing myself to be nicer. That. And this is also a huge. This calls back to our discussion about how there are pretty significant gender dynamics, also racial dynamics, where certain populations are expected to be nice and subservient. This is not that this is not forcing yourself to do anything. It's more like having a more sophisticated, supple relationship to the world, to your internal world and to the external world, so that you're not acting out every neurotic impulse or every powerful emotion you're able to see. Oh, this is anger that's coming up. But I don't want to make a decision based out of this anger. Let me let it come and go. Once the anger subsides, I can make a decision. What's the right thing to do here? Does that make sense to you?

A (20:29)

It does. Yeah. It's the ultimate definition of mindfulness, which is the word thrown around at so many of these therapy sessions and wellness retreats that I go to.

B (20:39)

It is a buzzword, and people use it all the time. It's clear to me when I hear some people use it, they have no idea what the fuck they're talking about. But mindfulness is just the ability to see what's happening in your mind without getting carried away by it. And that is the skill that we develop in meditation, because every time we wake up from distraction, we're getting familiar with how the mind works, and so then we're not so owned by it. That's the point. And so you're not forcing yourself to be kind because society wants you to or because you're worried about what's gonna be on page six. It's more like you're less stuck in your own head. You're not taking your thoughts so seriously. You're more available to other people, and you're doing what the moment calls for.

A (21:21)

Is there something that's actually scientifically happening within your body? When you successfully meditate or become more

B (21:30)

mindful, there's a interconnected set of brain regions known as the default mode network. So we have a default mode, which is, if nothing else is happening, we tend to revert back to this mode of thinking about ourselves, thinking about the past, thinking about the future, judging people, judging earth to sell, judging ourselves. This is the kind of brain region that's operating for your default mode is let me kick the shit out of myself, et cetera, et cetera. So that brain region gets quieter when we're just focused on what's happening right now. Let me just feel this breath, know this breath. And then I get distracted, and I'm back in the default mode. Oh. And then I wake up from it. I see. Oh, yeah. Wow. I'm really kicking my own ass there. Blow that a kiss. Go back to the breath. Breath, get distracted, Start again And when you're in those moments of really being mindful, just feeling the belly rising and falling or the air entering and exiting the nose or whatever it is you've chosen to focus on, the default mode network comes offline, or at least the activity declines. And that is really liberating.

A (22:45)

I never breathe. We talk about on here often, but I so rarely breathe. I'm like a. I don't want to step on any toes. I don't want to be loud. I don't want to be noisy. I am just very. I don't even like my hair and makeup. People even say it all the time. Like, they don't ever smell my breath or do anything because I'm so everything. If anything, I'm just, like, taking in air and swallowing it and letting it seep out of my mouth at all times. But it's very rare that I consciously make the decision to take a real big breath. And sometimes it will have, like, physical effects on me to the point where my lips are tingling, my chest turns red. I. I've done that meditation, the breathing one where you're doing the. You close one nostril and.

B (23:23)

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

A (23:24)

Oh, I. Sometimes I feel like passing out after that. I get terrible headaches to the point where I'm like, oh, I'm not. I'm never breathing. Taking in this much oxygen is actually scary to my body. It's so weird.

B (23:37)

I'm adding a fourth thing to your to do list, since you seem to want a to do list. I do. Is the three deep breaths every once in a while, because it will. It will relax you.

A (23:46)

Is it the nose breathing?

B (23:48)

It's deep breathing in through the nose. Long exhale through the mouth with pursed lips. This is just one form of deep breathing. You can do whatever you want. But this is called straw breathing. And I do it. I'll do three at the beginning or more at the beginning of a meditation session. But even if I'm just freaking out about something, which is not rare because I do have anxiety going way back, I'll just do some deep breathing, and it just resets the nervous system.

A (24:16)

They tell you to do that in addiction as well before you reach for that drink. Like, sometimes it just happens so fast that if you take those three breaths, it can be really. I got all in my head because of that breath book that taught us that we are, like, we're just a bunch of mouth breathers now. And that's definitely me. Did you read that book?

B (24:37)

James Nestor? Yeah, he was on my podcast and I got in my head about it too, but now actually when I notice when I'm mouth breathing and I just close my damn mouth.

A (24:47)

Yeah, I know they do have that mouth tape now. We've just ruined every aspect of being sexual in bed, basically. And now for the toolkit. Each episode, our guests distill their expertise into practical and actionable insights. Today, Dan takes us through a series of meditations aimed at increasing our self compassion.

B (25:25)

Okay, so here's the first thing we're going to do. We're going to do a very basic mindfulness meditation. This is going to be a five minute practice that will will prove to you that even you can meditate, that you do not suck at meditation, even if you tell yourself that you do. Five minutes to sanity here.

A (25:44)

Okay?

B (25:44)

Okay. So I'm gonna set a little timer. So the first step is just to sit comfortably. Any position you want. You can hurl yourself on the ground. It's all good. Whatever works for you. You can lie down, you can stand up if you're worried about falling asleep. Although if you fall asleep, it's not a big deal. Close your eyes. If you're uncomfortable closing your eyes, you can kind of just gaze softly at a neutral spot on the ground. Step two is we're going to pick something to focus on. Many people go with the breath, so just the feeling of the belly rising and falling or the air coming in and out of your nose. It's important to note you don't actually have to breathe in any special way. You're just feeling. The breath as it naturally occurs can also focus on sounds in the environment or whatever colors you're seeing behind your eyes. We're just picking something neutral based in your senses, and we're going to commit to it for a few minutes. Okay, that brings me to step number three, which is the most important. As soon as you try to do this seemingly easy thing, you may notice that your mind is going into mutiny mode. Do I need a haircut? Why am I listening to this washed up anchorman giving me meditation instructions? Whatever. You're just having all these random thoughts. The whole goal is just to notice when you've gotten carried away and to start again and again. So I'm going to shut up for a minute and just let you do this. You're doing great just focusing on your breath or some other neutral sensation like seeing or hearing. And no matter how many times you get distracted, it's not a big deal. Just start again. Many people, as soon as they see how distracted they are, they Tell themselves a whole story about how I can't meditate. Everybody else has their shit together. They can meditate, but I can't. Not true. Waking up from distraction and starting again is proof that you're doing it right. The whole goal here is to get familiar with the wildness and chaos and cacophony of your mind so that it doesn't own you as much. We're almost done. Let's keep going. Okay. When you're ready, you can open your eyes and blink back into the room. How you doing? Do we need a defibrillator?

A (29:13)

Yeah. I have a question, please. Is it cheating if the entire time I filled my brain with something to not think about other things? So I was like, in, in, in, in, in, out, out, out, out.

B (29:31)

Oh, that's perfect.

A (29:32)

Out, out, in, in, in. Is that okay?

B (29:35)

Yeah, yeah. Actually, so I didn't mention that. But what you were doing there is mental, noting a lot of people thinking like, you shouldn't think in meditation if you're thinking you're screwing up. But actually, you can skillfully use thinking to connect the mind to whatever's happening right now, which is the feeling of your breath coming in and going out. You don't maybe need as many in and ins. You can just say in, out. You can also count the breaths. One in breath, two out breath, three. And then you'll get distracted and you start again at zero.

A (30:11)

Okay.

B (30:11)

There are lots of little hacks that you can do.

A (30:15)

Yeah. I felt like I had to fill the silence of my brain with in and in, in, in. But I do feel that, yes, I can get to the point where it's just in, out. But right now, for this first time, it was in, in, in, in, in, out, out, out, out, out. But I know I can be. I know it can be better.

B (30:35)

I don't know about better. It's just like, feeling. Yeah. You'll just. You'll continue to evolve. And five minutes for a first time is a big deal. So sorry to put you through it.

A (30:45)

Actually, it didn't feel like five. I will say it didn't feel that way. In my head, it was going to be so long. I was like, no way. But, no, that was a great start.

B (30:56)

Okay, here we go with loving kindness meditation. Let's start with three deep breaths. Deep inhale through the nose. And then a even longer exhale through the mouth with lips pursed as if you're blowing through a straw. So this is straw breathing. Do three of these on your own time, your own pace. You can really feel the nervous system settle when you do this. So as you wrap that up, we're going to do here is we're going to pick an easy person. It could be an animal or a kid, somebody really easy to love, and bring them to mind. So if you're good at visualization, see if you can create a mental image. If not, you can just. Just create like a felt sense of them in your body. Once you have the person or animal chosen and the image in your mind, we're going to send four phrases their way. We're going to try to connect these phrases to the image. So the first phrase is may you be happy. Just say it in your head. You're imagining your pet or a little kid may be happy. May you be safe. May you be healthy in your body. May you live with ease. Okay, so now we've done the easy person. We're going to do a little bait and switch here. I'm going to bring in yourself. So bring to mind an image of yourself. If you don't want to imagine yourself through imagery, you can just feel yourself in the chair. May I be happy, May I be safe. May I be healthy in this body. May I live with ease in the face of whatever comes up for me. We're going to do a couple more people. The next is a mentor. Be a teacher, parent, relative. If you don't have somebody like that, it can be somebody from history. The Buddha, Jesus, the Dalai Lama, Gandhi. Bring somebody to mind. Martin Luther King. And when you have the image, may you be happy, may you be safe. May you be healthy and strong in your body. May you live with ease. Next is a neutral person, somebody you see often but don't really notice. Could be a barista, somebody at the dry cleaners. And bring them to mind. May you be happy, May you be safe. May you be healthy. May you live with ease. Two more categories. The next one's the trickiest. Let's do a difficult person. Best not to go to the most difficult, like somebody just mildly annoying. So once you have that image in your mind, may be happy. By the way, wishing somebody like this happiness doesn't mean may you continue to be annoying. Happy people tend not to be annoying, may be safe. People who feel safe tend not to be annoying. May you be healthy. Same thing. Healthy people tend to behave well. Truly healthy people. May you live with ease. All right, last. Last category here. We're going to imagine all beings everywhere, basically everybody. So you can picture the planet or you can just have a sense in your body of omnidirectionality. May we all be happy. May we all be safe. May we all be healthy. May we all live with ease. All right, that's beginning loving kindness meditation. How'd that go for you, Chrissy?

A (35:50)

Good. The most beautiful one for me was the person that might go a little unnoticed.

B (35:56)

It's really powerful because I don't. This may not be true for you, but it's true for me that as somebody who has a pronounced tendency towards self absorption, it's very easy to. And also as somebody who comes from a position of privilege, for me, it's easy. And this is humbling to admit, but I noticed by doing this practice that it was easy to overlook people, and this has made me much more sensitive to the people in my environment.

A (36:25)

Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. You've said 10 to 15 things that I know I will not be able to continue on with my day without thinking about just. And they're tiny. They're tiny, but they're little changes and they're impactful. So thank you so much.

B (36:43)

My pleasure. It was so nice to meet you,

A (36:52)

Dan. Thank you so much for joining me today on Self Conscious. Dan Harris's Audible original, Even you can meditate is available now. Until then, tune in, turn on and feel better. This is Chrissy Teigen and you've been listening to Self Conscious, an Audible original podcast. This has been an Audible original produced by Audible, Q Code and Huntley Productions, hosted by Chrissy Teigen, Written and executive produced by Jimmy Jelinek, Executive producers for Q Code, Shen Yun Hu and Alexa Gabrielle Ramirez, executive producer for Huntley Productions, Chrissy Teigen, executive producer for Audible, Stacey Creamer. Recorded and engineered by Ben Milchev. Filmed by Bridger Clements Production coordinator Brian Coulter. Edited, mixed and mastered by Ben Milcheville, Head of creative development at Audible, Kate Navin Chief Content Officer Rachel Giazza. Copyright 2024 by Audible Originals, LLC. Sound recording Copyright 2025 by Audible Original.