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- [00:01]
Elise Hu
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- [01:01]
Tony
G'day America It's Tony and Ryan from the Tony and Ryan Podcast from Down Under.
- [01:06]
Ryan
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Tony
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Ryan
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Tony
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- [01:42]
Sarah Gibson Tuttle
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- [02:50]
Elise Hu
You're listening to TED Talks Daily where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. The concepts of self love and self compassion can feel cliche sometimes, but in today's world, they may be more necessary than ever. In a conversation earlier this year, former news anchor turned meditation advocate Dan Harris sat down with TED curator Whitney Pennington Rogers to discuss the importance of self love and how learning to love ourselves and others better will lead to living better. Coming up.
- [03:27]
Tony
Really excited to have him here today. Please give a warm welcome to Dan Harris.
- [03:31]
Ryan
Thanks for having me. Nice to see you.
- [03:33]
Tony
Yeah, nice to see you too, Dan. Thank you so much for being here. So the title of today's event is Self Love for Skeptics. And for those who follow you, they'll know that your work is really heavily focused around this idea of loving better, living better. And I have tons of questions for you around this along with our member audience. Thank you. To those who have already submitted questions, please continue to share some of those and we'll add them into the conversation. But before we dive into all of that, I'd love to first hear more about how you do this work and why you do this work. So, as I noted, you host the 10% Happier podcast and you wrote a book of the same name. For the uninitiated, what does 10% happier mean? And how does this term capture the ethos of the work that you do that you really dedicated your life to doing?
- [04:24]
Ryan
Well, it kind of started as a joke. I got interested in meditation in the arts a little bit before it became socially acceptable. It was one of the few times in my life I've ever been ahead of a trend. And I was, I think, in. In the summer of 2010, I did my first meditation retreat. And I came back from that, and one of my friends in the office was peppering me with very skeptical questions, basically asking, what's the matter with you? Like, why would you do this? And I was searching for some sort of answ. And I said, you know, it makes me like 10% happier. And I could see that the look on her face transformed from, you know, something approaching contempt to something approaching interest. And I thought, okay, well, that's my shtick, and I like it because Even though it's a bit tongue in cheek, it's a reasonable description of how meditation can improve your life and lots of other modalities, including therapy and improving your relationships, getting better sleep, eating. Well, there are all these things that we know from the science are good for us and, and yet they can sometimes be very difficult to do. And we'll talk about habit formation for sure. And they can also sometimes be sold to us as panaceas. And so one of the things I was trying to do is to counter programming against the sort of reckless hope and hype that is spread in the darker precincts of the self help world. So yeah, I wanted to make a realistic promise and I will, I will add one last thing, which is that like any good investment, the 10% compounds annually that these, you know, this. The radical good news here, and I spent much of my career disseminating bad news as a news anchor. But the radical good news here is that the mind is trainable. That many of the, in fact, I would argue that all of the states of mind that we want, calm, generosity, compassion, happiness, equanimity, these are not unalterable factory settings. They are skills that can be practiced through meditation and other, as, to use a, this word again, other modalities. So that's a, the two minute elevator pitch for 10%.
- [06:47]
Tony
I mean, I, I, the thing I really like about that is that it sort of speaks to this idea of this, of a journey, right, that you're not going to, there's, there aren't things you instantly do to become fully happier that you, it's incremental. It sounds like.
- [06:58]
Ryan
Yeah, I mean, I wish that were the case, but you know, all these people making millions of dollars selling books, promising, you know, overnight success or whatever, they're the only ones profiting, you know, like, and if, if, if it was, if there was an overnight fix, why are they writing multiple books? You know, it doesn't make any sense. This is, you know, learning how to do life better, which is another little, one of the little phrases that I use a lot. Do life better. Learning how to do that is messy, involves messy marginal improvement over time. So the good news is that you can change. The bad news is that it's difficult. And then the good news again is that there are ways to make it easier and, and fun and enjoyable. And all of this has been studied, you know, by people much smarter than me. My, my job essentially in one aspect of my job is to be a kind of gateway drug as a professional communicator who's looked at the scientific research and has spent a decent amount of time studying contemplative traditions, especially Buddhism to be a gateway drug. Who can sum up what I've learned and then hopefully direct you deeper to experts who, who, who know more than I do.
- [08:14]
Tony
Well, to the point of, of today's conversation. In doing this work and having these conversations and being this, this gateway drug, what has the work revealed to you about, about why self love is so hard for so many of us?
- [08:27]
Ryan
Well, let me just say that I, even after I got interested in meditation, I was not particularly interested in love or self love. You know, you said something at the beginning that you Dan, are interested in how to love better. And that is true. And you know, I hear those words and I'm like, does that mean really, you know, I'm like a pretty, you know, stereotypical male in many ways. And so I didn't, you know, when I first started getting interested in meditation and it's, and, and really the, the larger Buddhist context context for meditation you hear a lot about love and compassion. There's this word loving kindness that gets used a lot and I, I really struggle with that. I didn't, it didn't speak to me. However, there, there are lots of ways in here. One of them is that you know, we, we tend to beat ourselves up. It's, I mean I don't, I don't know that there's a definitive answer for why we do that, but I, I think there are a couple of reasonable theories. One, one is that we live in an, in a. You know, I'm not anti capitalist, although I think there are some good questions to be raised about capitalism and some of its impacts on, on the mind. But you know, in a capitalistic individualistic society where you know, advertising has, you know, infiltrated our minds in so many ways, we, we are kind of sold this idea that we're never gon. Unless we make that next purchase. And then you ramp that up through social media where we are are innate tendency to compare ourselves to the people around us and also to experience FOMO when we're not part of something just, just gets, you know, put on, on steroids. As a friend of mine has said, it's a kind of ego itching powder and that that all ladders up to a world in which we spend a lot of time, I think probably more in Western contexts than in Eastern contexts, but we, we spend a lot of time running ourselves down and we, many of us and myself included believe that this is necessary in order to get off the couch and get anything done. However, what the research shows is that that's not true.
- [10:58]
Tony
Well, and I can't wait to get into what is true and sort of how we can think better about this and approach all of this in a better way. And I think this conversation feels especially timely right now. I sort of suggested at the top that we're, you know, a few weeks away from the beginning of the year where everyone's really energized and running headfirst towards these goals. And then also we are just two days shy of the day of love, right, Valentine's Day, where people are giving lots of thought to these things. Do, do you find that during this time of year people maybe struggle more with this idea of self love than other parts of the year?
- [11:35]
Ryan
Well, for sure, you know, it's, it's, it's has not escaped my attention that we start the year, many of us with these lofty ambitions and goals for making all sorts of changes in our lives and then within weeks the vast majority of, majority of us fall off the wagon. And I, the, that suggests there's, there's something, you know, awry here. And then I would say about Valentine's Day, you know, I'm all for romantic love. I'm happily married 17 years and I do think it focuses us on a narrow band of love. You know, in other languages there are many different words for different kinds of love. In our language, as I said in my TED talk, we use the same word to talk about romantic love, familial love, and our feelings for gluten free snickerdoodles. And that creates a lot of confusion when in fact you can, you can taxonomize love into, as I said, familial love, romantic love, unconditional love for all beings, which is actually on offer, believe it or not, not just for saints, friend, friendship, self love. So, and I, I think that if we can get a more capacious, nuanced understanding of love, it will, it will be to our benefit. Especially if we can then understand that all these different types of loves are not to echo the language I used earlier, not unalterable factory settings, but in fact skills. That is where things get, I think really helpful.
- [13:19]
Tony
And I think for a lot of people it seems it makes sense, right? Like the loving yourself is a good place to start for just being a better person. But I imagine that there are barriers that all of us face and that you maybe see some of the same ones again and again. What, I guess, what would you point to as some of the biggest barriers and the big hurdles for people to practice self love.
- [13:42]
Ryan
Well, first of all, it's just cheesy. Let's just be honest. I mean it's, it's. If love is the ultimate cliche, self love is, you know, taking it to the next level. And it's, you know, I think it, the concept can seem like the type of thing that's written into latte foam art and it therefore very annoying to many people. Or maybe I'm just speaking for myself here, but that's one of the turn offs. The other is that as I referenced earlier, I think many of us believe that we need to kick our own ass in order to get anything done. And this is a really deeply held belief. I would say on a deeper level, and this is probably subconscious, I've heard it argued by my friend Tara Brock, who's a great meditation teacher and psychotherapist. That is there's a kind of addiction with self hatred and self loathing and self criticism where it gives us a sense of control in a world that can feel out of our control. So that might, that dynamic might not be conscious one. But it's interesting to investigate whether that's maybe happening self subconsciously for you.
- [14:51]
Tony
Well, obviously if you've joined this conversation, you are bought in to some extent and wanting to try this for yourself, to try to love yourself better. And you maybe are that skeptic that we're referencing in the title here. But I imagine that this is very different for from person to person we all have different experiences and different goals and there are probably different ways that you go about loving yourself. But are there some basic ground rules for self love that really apply to everyone as a starting point?
- [15:22]
Ryan
Well, let me start with the science. So, and this is really for somebody like me who's naturally quite skeptical, this is what kind of gets me in the door. Self compassion is a, a booming field of modern psychological research. The woman who really pioneered this, her name is Kristen Neff, she's a researcher at the University of Texas. And so she does to me is a heroic if not historic figure honestly for coming up with this concept and then leading the research into it. And what it shows is that people who, who let me define what it is and I, with my apologies to Kristen, you know, I might, I might be mangling this but. Or it might be just focusing on one aspect of it. But I think of self compassion as the ability to talk to yourself the way you would talk to a good friend. Most of us use an Inner drill sergeant to drive ourselves. But Kristen would recommend you move to an inner coach. A coach does not let you off the hook. A coach is not overlooking your mistakes. He or she just isn't a jerk about it. And that's the difference. So this is not about, you know, putting yourself in a forever bubble bath or lowering your standards. This is just about a tweak in your inner posture vis a vis yourself. We all have this ability to be a good friend or mentor to our children, people in our work life, wherever. We all have this ability. And what, what, what Kristen's research has shown, among other things, is that you can channel this, this inward. So how, how would you do that? So there's a lot to say about this, but let me just start with what Chris Kristen calls the mindful self compassion break. I call it the NEF3 step named after her. She does not co sign on that, on that nomenclature. Anyway, there are three steps and it's super easy to do. The first is just to notice when you're kicking your own ass just to. That's the first step. Just a mindfulness of the fact that this is happening. Just catching. Oh yeah, I am in a toilet vortex of self recrimination right now. That's the easy first step. The second is to bear, is to bring to mind the fact that you are not alone. Whatever you're criticizing yourself for. So for me, it might be like, I don't like the way I look in the mirror or I said something stupid last night. Both of those, I probably went through both of those cycles today. So that kind of thing, you, you, you notice that that's happening and then you bring to mind the fact that millions of other people are in the same place right now. You are not alone. This is a very common human experience. And then the third step for me is the most important, which is at that point you talk to yourself the way you would talk to a good friend. And a couple of ways to supercharge this one is to put your hand on your heart. And here I will invoke again my conditioning as a straight white male. Putting my hand on my heart was not something that came easily to me. And yet there is data to show that in Kristen's term, you are bringing online what she calls the mammalian care system. You are. We know that appropriate touch with other people can release all sorts of hormones and do good things for the nervous system. You can do this with yourself. So that's one. You can even hug yourself if you're, if nobody's Looking and, and then when you talk to yourself, I'm going to bring in somebody else's research. There's a, there's great researcher named Ethan Cross who I have a lot of admiration for. He's at the University of Michigan and he's studied internal chatter and ways to change your own internal chatter. And one of the things he's shown is that if you use your own name, he calls this distant self talk. If you can use your own name when you're talking to yourself, it gives the, the subsequent words more weight because it's almost as if it's coming from somebody else. And so for me I just say dude. Like dude, I know what you're worried about. Me. I, I, for example, I, I get a lot of claustrophobia. So I worry about if I've got a day in the city where I'm going to take a lot of elevators or I'm going to be on a plane or something. Like dude, I know you're worried, but like you're good. You've been through this a million times. Even if you start to panic, these are physical sensations you've experienced a million times before and you're still alive. You got this, just a little pep talk like that. If you can get over if this strikes you as cheesy, if you can get over yourself to do that, just know that there's a ton of research to show that this is really good for you and that has knock on effects. Like it makes you better able to keep your resolutions or to keep up whatever habit you're trying to establish at any time at New Year's or any other time. So we're, we're at, as you said before, we're at a moment where a lot of people are falling off the wagon with their resolutions. Self compassion has shown to be a key, a key variable in success for habit change. I think of it as like the uber habit, the upstream habit that makes all of the other habits possible. And then the other thing is that self compassion has been shown to increase your level of compassion for other people. And that's meaningful because probably the, the strongest piece of evidence I've seen in the modern psychological research is that the, the, the, the most important variable in human flirt. Sorry, the most important variable in human flourishing or human happiness is the quality of your relationships. So this is not a self indulgent thing. It does, it improves your ability to relate to other people, which then redounds to your benefit, which then makes you better with other people. And that's A nice, as I called it in my TED Talk, a cheesy upward spiral that is really impactful.
- [21:43]
Tony
I love all that. I feel like there's so many, so many things that you just shared there that I, I know I will be applying right away. I'm sure lots of other folks are, are resonating with that. And I want to touch on something you've just shared now. This idea of loving yourself can enable you to love other people better. And I, I think when you hear the term self love, it sort of evokes the sense that this is a solitary practice, that you're doing this on your own. But, but is it really. Are. Is there a component of self love that requires you to have support from other people? And what does that look like?
- [22:17]
Ryan
I'm so glad you pointed this out because earlier you asked me to list some of what I think the blockers are to self love, and I said something like, well, some people think it's cheesy. Other people really believe they need to kick their own ass. Other people might be engaging in self criticism as a kind of subconscious habit that, that keeps them safe in some perverse way. But I. Another one on that list would be it can be understood as a kind of self indulgence, as an egotism. And, and I think in some ways in which, there are ways in which self love can be described in our culture right now that that might actually be fairly criticized as, as self indulgence. But I think properly understood, self love has geopolitical consequences because if you, if your inner weather gets balmier, it will impact the way you treat other people. And that is not nothing. That absolutely is not nothing. We are in an interdependent world. We've always been in an interdependent world, but more so now arguably than ever. And so how you treat people in your orbit matters. And then where things, as I said before, where this gets cool in a kind of, where there's a positive boomerang effect here is as your relationships improve, you will get happier. This we know. I mean, I, I love this study that was, that's ongoing at Harvard has been going on for, I think like 90 years. They've been studying multiple generations of people in the Boston area to get a sense of like, what leads to a long and healthy and happy life. And the variable that comes screaming out of the data is the quality of your relationships. That is what keeps you alive and happy and successful. Why? Because stress generally is what kills us. And positive relationships are the best way to regulate Stress. And this just makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. I know, like, there are a million TED Talks that talk about how we're social animals. But there's a reason why this is a trope that we keep coming back to. We have evolved in. In bands and we got to the, you know, to the top of the food chain. Not because we have wings or talons or teeth, you know, sharp teeth. We got there because we have this unique ability to cooperate and collaborate and communicate. And when you take that out of your repertoire in your life, you will suffer for very clear evolutionary reasons. So, you know, to put it in a more positive term, if you can get better at relating to other people, it will redound to your benefit in really profound ways. So, no, I do not think self love is self indulgent. And I do think that it is. It absolutely is, in an odd way, a team sport.
- [25:11]
Tony
And in your TED Talk, you talk about for your own growth, how you've invited people in your world, both professionally, personally, to sort of help you in identifying the parts of yourself that you can improve upon. And I'm cur. If for others who are really interested in thinking about how they can be critical in ways that are healthy and also are really committed to this journey of loving themselves, is it sort of the same? Would you recommend that they take a similar approach? Maybe not as intense as the one you chose, but to call your mom and say, hey, mom, I'm on a journey to be kinder to myself and I need your support. What does that look like?
- [25:51]
Ryan
Okay, yes, yes, I see where you were going with this. It's a. It's a fair. It's a great question. Just to back up and explain what Whitney's talking about. Probably the most embarrassing, embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me is that I had a. And I talk about this in the TED talk. I had a 360 review. I suspect some of you know what that is. But for those of you who don't, this is a diabolical corporate tool. Generally that it's a kind of an anonymous survey that an executive coach or an executive executive coaching firm will swoop into some sort of work context, identify the target of the360. Usually they've been told they need a360 whatever executives in question here. And then they do an anonymous survey with that executives or individual contributors, bosses, peers, and direct reports. And the idea is to get a kind of holistic sense of your strengths and weaknesses. I. Because I'm a. Although I guess that's not very self compass talk. But I, because I have questionable judgment, sometimes, did a 360 review that included many of my colleagues, but also my wife, my brother, and two of my close friends who are meditation teachers. And this was back in 2018, and the results came back to me in the form of a 39 page report filled with blind quotes. The first 11 pages were the good stuff. The rest of it, the vast majority of it, was devoted to the difficult stuff, including the fact that I was overwhelmed at work, which was making me unpleasant. I was over scheduling myself. I have a tendency to be stubborn and dismissive, especially when it comes to junior employees. And that, that was a surprise to me and something I've spent a lot of time working on and then a sense of that I can be kind of emotionally guarded, hard to read or, or to understand. And so I've spent the last six and a half years really working on the deficiencies identified in this report. So that's the context. The question that Whitney is getting at is should we all be asking people in our lives for feedback? I mean, my short answer is yes, and you want to be careful because if the feedback is, many people don't know how to deliver feedback. And so it can be very painful experience. So for me, what really helped in gathering all of this feedback and incorporating into my life is that I had a great executive coach whose name is Jerry Colonna, just as a shout out and Jerry working with Jerry, and also like my own personal shrink, I've had the great good fortune to be able to have an executive coach and a therapist. And I know not everybody has access to these kinds of resources, but that really helped me integrate this quite harsh feedback into my life in positive ways. Without that, it's possible to kind of coil up into yourself and to, to compartmentalize the feedback or to put it in a drawer or light it on fire or whatever and, and maybe not act on it. So yeah, if you're going to ask for feedback, which I recommend, I think asking for feedback is really important. I, I think it's about picking the right people to ask and seeing if you can get support in your life that will help you integrate it. Does that make sense, Whitney?
- [29:12]
Tony
100%. Yeah. It's first, it sounds like it's do not try this alone at home. It's important to sort of do this with some guardrails, whether that be an executive coach or just going into it, sort of knowing that people can be harsh and preparing yourself for that. But then also it seems like it's really important to get people to kind of buy into the fact that you're on this journey, that you're in a place mentally where you're maybe trying to approach yourself in a different way. And so I guess that's my, my next question is how do you get people to, to buy into it without it sounding to the point you're making, you made earlier that it may feel woo woo to people are sort of out of the realm of like what other people might feel comfortable doing for themselves.
- [29:56]
Ryan
So you're, you're asking like if, how, how can I start integrating self compassion or self love into my life in a way that I'm communicating it clearly to the people around me so that I can have support and buy in.
- [30:12]
Tony
That's right, yeah. So that they sort of, I guess, can be there with you as you're, you're through this journey, acknowledging that you're not going through it in a vacuum and you'll have other people impacted by it.
- [30:24]
Ryan
Well, you know, I'd be curious to see what somebody like Kristen Neff has to say about this. But just off based on my own experience with this, I look, I think it's possible to identify allies in your world. And if that's possible, great. And I also think everybody's on their own thing and not everybody is going to be excited about your personal improvement journey. To use the language of the day. And I, it may be the case that for the vast majority of people, you don't want to say anything because they don't necessarily need to know or they may not care, they may not be supportive. So I would go about this in a reasonably careful way. I do think this is a team sport, but you want to pick your teammates carefully. And so, for example, like, you know, one of the, one of the pitfalls I'm hoping to steer people away from here, I guess, is it is possible for people to get interested in any number of self improvement modalities from meditation to self compassion, to exercise or whatever, and to immediately be a little bit grating to the people in their world. There's a, there's a great cartoon that ran in the New Yorker several years ago and has two women having lunch and one of them says to the other, I've been gluten free for a week and I'm already annoying. And, and I think that that is a very common thing and a pitfall into which I have fallen in the past. Like when I first got interested in meditation in 2009, I got quite evangelical about it around the house, which was not. Did not go down well with my wife who was in her training as a medical fellow at that time. And it was. I just didn't skill and didn't have enough. She didn't have enough time really to meditate and so I didn't skillfully introduce the notion. And so there's a, there's a way in which if you've got some big personal project you're on. Yes, it's great and I think crucial to have allies either people you're paying, like therapists or people you really trust in your world. And I think you want to avoid advertising it to absolutely everybody.
- [32:35]
Tony
That is totally fair. And I, and I, yes, I love the, the cartoon you shared, which I feel like perfectly illustrates what you're saying here. Well, I want to bring in some of our member questions because we have a ton and people are really excited by what you're shar sharing here. Dan. So there's one here that was shared by both Annika B. And Prince Kumar, which great, great name by the way, where they asked can you love yourself too much? Where it turns into being selfish instead of stable and agreeable.
- [33:03]
Ryan
I just don't think that's love. Maybe it's a kind of self obsession if, if in some cases it might be pathological and somebody's on the narcissism spectrum. But I think just a pro. An understanding of, of love just this is my opinion is. Is not one where real love doesn't manifest in an overlooking of a whitewashing of your shortcomings because that's not good for you. So if you're talking about a self love where a person has induced in. In themselves a sense of denial about areas for potential growth, I don't. That to me doesn't feel like real love. And also if it's, if, if it's a kind of self love where you're telling yourself that you should do things that are damaging to other people. I don't think that's real love either because as we established the most important variable probably in human flourishing is the quality of your relationships. And that stance would damage your relationship. So it ultimately wouldn't be in your best interest. So yes, I think it's possible for there be misfirings and misapplications of this notion of self love or self compassion and we're all going to screw it up and, and we're all gonna. This isn't generally speaking. This is. There's a. Just a step back for a second. There was a great tweet a couple of years ago by a Zen master named Roshi Joan Halifax, who I'm an admirer of, and it had this very squiggly line and then the caption was the path. And I love that because this is. There isn't. It's not like some escalator that goes on a glide path toward nirvana all the time. It just, it's much, much bumpier. And so yes, I, I think if you're interested in self compassion or self love or frankly anything like meditation or therapy, you're gonna overcorrect sometimes, you're gonna miss the mark sometimes. And so yes, there may be times where you think you're engaging in self compassion or self love and it actually slips over into self indulgence. And hopefully you have people in your world who can say, whoa, that wasn't cool. And, and you should hopefully. I think a self compassionate stance would allow you to take on board that criticism without catastrophizing, without slipping over into shame, which I kind of think of as a psycho psychic constipation where like nothing can happen when you're in this shame state and you're making it all about what a horrible person you are, instead of the self compassionate stance, which would view difficult feedback as just another opportunity to learn and grow.
- [36:01]
Tony
And I think to this point there's a question from Jonathan R. That when you get to this place, if you're in this sort of shame state, Jonathan R. Sort of refers to this as maybe hitting rock bottom and maybe your development isn't going as you expect. Are there ways you sort of adjust the advice that you're giving when you're in that very, in a very dark place potentially? Like, how do you overcome those moments?
- [36:27]
Ryan
Look, I think this is where we reach the, the limits of my expertise in that I'm not a mental health professional. What I would recommend, and just based on my own experience and my own intuition here, is that if you're in a true rock bottom scenario, you should seek professional guidance if that is accessible to you. I think of self compassion as good for like the, the worried. Well, the, the, the, the people who are not in, necessarily in an acute crisis. I think it, it can be very helpful if you're in an acute crisis as well. But I would also want in the mix there for you to have professional help and not just be trying to freelance and apply these, these, these concepts without oversight. Because if you're in a, an acute mental health crisis or a life crisis, there may be other interventions that are also needed like weekly therapy, perhaps even medication. And, and so I would see this as a, a piece of the puzzle. And generally, I mean, that just kind of ladders up to a larger point, which is that, you know, as we discussed at the beginning, I don't think there are silver bullets. I, I think of self compassion or self love as one aspect of a healthy life, one lever you can pull that will improve your life, but it's one of many. And so to get too fundamentalist about any one thing like meditation or nature or relationships or exercise or sleep is to, is to miss the fact that these are, these, these are all aspects of personal development that kind of work in concert. Does that make sense?
- [38:17]
Tony
Yeah, I think that that makes perfect sense. And it feels like everyone should approach this and sort of assessing for themselves what makes the most sense and only, you know, what you personally need. There's no sort of blanket way to approach this and taking things, some things from here and some things from there feel like it's the, the best way to go. Well, you know, I think in speaking more to this moment, you know, we talked about being a few weeks removed from the beginning of the year and also Valentine's Day being around the corner and obviously we've had a very eventful few weeks in the news, you know, and that whether there are things that make you really happy, things that make you really terrified there, it's just, I feel like a roller coaster of feelings, I'd imagine for many of us watching. And Gordon G. Asks about how we can learn to practice ways to calm yourself in the face of, of the news and things you see happening outside of the world?
- [39:12]
Ryan
Yes, so many. It's like, where to start? And do you want me to give a 20 minute answer? The thing that's coming to my mind and I think this is actually very relevant to everything we've discussed because this is a meditative practice that I'm going to recommend that is directly supportive of love, of self love and, and again, understanding self love within the context of our relationality, the fact that we are these social animals. This is a practice that I actually talked about in, in the TED talk and has, has also been the subject of a lot of research. It's called loving kindness meditation. Loving kindness is the modern translation of a ancient word, meta M E T A Not, not like the mega corporation that dominates so many of our lives. Meta meta M E T T A and I prefer the, the translation friendliness. And I love the idea that friendliness is A skill that you can train through this meditation technique. And the Buddha is said to have invented this, this style of meditation as an antidote to fear. And so it's directly relevant to this current moment, which is creating so much stress, fear and anxiety for so many people. And again, I want to acknowledge, as Whitney did, there are people who love what's happening right now too. And it, where whatever side you're on, and I put that word side in quotes, you there. There really is so much anger and, and fear sort of directed to the other. And this practice can help you no matter what your politics are. So it's yet another practice that for me, given my conditioning, I, I found quite annoying when I first heard about it. But again, what, that, what got me over the hump is that there's a ton of research. So it works like this. You sit quietly. You can actually hurl yourself on the ground if you want. Just assume a comfortable position, close your eyes. And then you start by envisioning an easy person or even an animal. So some being a little kid or a, a cat or a dog, some being that is easy to love. And you bring them to mind either visually or a felt sense in your body, sort of somatically, if that's what you prefer. And then you repeat four phrases. May you be happy, maybe safe, may you be healthy, may you live with ease. Then you move through a progression of being. So you start with an easy person, then you move to yourself. I love that because it's kind of a bait and switch where you get the juices going with, and, you know, your cat or dog. And then you, you know, you switch. Once you're starting to feel some, some warmth, you switch in yourself. And then you move to a new, a mentor, somebody who's helped you out in your life. Could be a teacher, if a parent, an uncle, if you don't have somebody like that, could be a sort of a world figure who you admire, the Dalai Lama, whoever. And then you move to a neutral person, somebody who you see frequently but tend to overlook. And then a difficult person. Probably not easy to, to come up with somebody who fits the bill. I often advise people to go with somebody mildly annoying, not, you know, don't go straight to Pol Pot. And then the final category is all beings, every, everywhere, everybody. And this exercise, this contemplative exercise has been shown to have physiological, psychological, and even behavioral benefits. When you teach preschoolers loving kindness or friendliness meditation, they become more likely to give their stickers away to kids they do not like and so I think this is a great way to relax the nervous system in turbulent political times. So that's just one idea. Like I said, I could go on, but I don't want to flood the zone, so I'll stop there.
- [43:30]
Tony
That's great. And I feel like this idea of giving your stickers away to the kids you don't like is something that's definitely going to stick with me in thinking about how to, to better approach some of these things and how this can help. Well, I guess along some of the same lines and you, you mentioned in explaining meta, not meta, that social media. And there's a question from Edmilson about how social media can also help or hinder our ability to love ourselves. And is there a different, I guess, approach you would take there?
- [44:02]
Ryan
I think social media is really tricky. I'm not a Luddite and so I always, I always feel some reluctance to advise people to opt out of, you know, huge aspects of modern life. Although I, if that's your instinct, I completely support it. But I also want to recognize that for many people that feels like too tall of an order. And yet it is. Social media is really tricky because it does, with extreme prejudice, induce a state of states of comparison, a kind of toxic comparing mind and also fomo. And then there's also a ton of advertisement on there. And again, I'm not like reflexively anti advertisement, but it, but the, the way advertising, advertising often works is to engender a sense of insufficiency so that you make a purchase. Not always, but often. And so social media is a tough spot for the mind. Now I would add one other thing which is that the algorithms appear to reward outrage. So we, what's happened is we, we have this whole group of what, what have been called conflict entrepreneurs who swoop in and take advantage of the way the algorithm is structured to, to enrich themselves and to give themselves clout. And I mean, I think that's a really good thing to keep in mind, which is that there's a lot of money to be made off of making you unhappy, making you hate the people on the other, quote unquote side, making you outraged about all the developments in the news, making you feel like you're not enough. There's a, there, there are huge societal forces that will profit off of this. So what do you do about it? I just, off the top of my head, one thing is just the practice of gratitude to remember, you know, Chris Anderson and I have talked about this on my podcast. Chris, the man who has has been leading TED for quite a while. The. If you, if you don't get suckered by the news industry, which I used to inhabit, and social media platforms that want you to believe everything sucks, the news and social media aren't spending that much time on all of the mundane good things that are happening all around us that doesn't get a lot of coverage. And yet small and large acts of kindness are unfolding all around us all the time. And so gratitude for the good things in your life and the good things in the world is a nice way to counter program even better. And this picks up on a book that Chris wrote, is to be a locus of positivity yourself, in other words, to engage in generosity or compassion. And this can be big things like giving big gifts of, of service or money, or it can be small things. You know, one of the little mental exercises I ask people to do is what is it like in your mind if you're paying attention when you hold the door open for somebody, it feels good. And that feeling is infinitely scalable. And so you can be a node of sanity in an insane world by just being, by just doing a 10 boost in your utility quotient to the people around you. So it doesn't even have to be grandiose in any way. And that I think will help you survive the next time you go on Instagram. And again, I'm not trying to say that Instagram is an unalloyed ill because I don't, I don't believe that I'm on Instagram. So I, I think it is a place where lots of eyeballs are and good things can be done there. And I know it can make a lot of people unhappy. Happy. And so how can you, you know, reduce that? I think gratitude and generosity are two big things. And then finally I would add mindfulness, which is again, this, I don't know if we talked about this, but I think of mindfulness as I don't think we did. Mindfulness is just the ability we have to have the self awareness of our thoughts and emotions so that we're not so carried away by them. And so if you have that self awareness as you're on social media, you might notice when you're on hour eight of doom scrolling and you're starting to type in all caps that maybe it's time to put the phone down. And so that could be a good way to type trait and regulate your social media usage so that you aren't driving yourself nuts.
- [48:48]
Tony
Well, I think one thing that strikes me about what you're sharing here is that it's in many ways an argument for maintaining interaction with real people. Right. That there is in some ways in, in the loneliness epidemic that where we all find ourselves in the, you know, with the rise of, of tech and so many opportunities for you to, to, to stay secluded and just communicate with people digitally doesn't help a journey to being kinder to yourself or loving yourself.
- [49:19]
Ryan
I, I'm so glad you brought that up and I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't say it myself, but thank you for prodding me. I, I think about. I spent the last six, six plus years working on a, a book, a kind of sequel to 10 happier in this Book which I hope comes out next year if I can get my act together. And I'm trying to motivate myself with self compassion. This book really is about love. A kind of. And again I keep quoting the TED talk because the TED talk really is the blueprint for the book. Um, it's a, it's a kind of unified field theory of love which is on the one hand self compassion, self love, these inner skills that improve your inner weather and then what scientists have called on the other hand social fitness. The set of skills for cultivating and deepening and maintaining relationships with other people in all aspects of your life from friendships to work relationships to romantic relationships to your family, to what scientists call micro interactions which can have a real impact. The, the these little interactions you have with a barista or the male, male person that these, these can have a real impact on your psychology. And so thinking about inner management and outer cultivation of relationships and how they work together to create this virtuous upward spiral. And you know, we in an individualistic culture where we are thanks to technology, which technology, you know, has many good aspects to it but one of the negative ones is that we, it's put individualism on steroids where we're kind of self focused, not interacting with other human beings. This I, I think is really at the root of the unprecedented anxiety, depression, suicide, addiction and loneliness we're seeing in our culture right now. And if you can start to focus on not only on self love but on the inexorable, I believe the inexorable outcome of self love which is improved relationships. If you can get more mindful and deliberate about cultivating positive relationships in your life, that's gonna, it will help you inoculate you against the political tumult, against the, some of the more negative aspects of social media. It is just a protective Layer that is, you know, in my view, unquestionable.
- [51:55]
Tony
Well, so much of what you've shared has been sort of grounded in your, your approach to meditation and your use of meditation as a tool in supporting your journey in self love. And we have a question from Josh R. Who also practices meditation. And their question is, did you find as you deepened your meditation practice, there was inflection point where the more self aware you become, the more you realize how neurotic the mind is.
- [52:22]
Ryan
That's actually, that's a great question, Josh. And it's a common bump that people hit early in their meditation practice. You keep bumping up against it, but especially early on, people are interested in mindfulness meditation, which again gives you a kind of a more powerful microscope on your inner life so that you're not so owned by it. So that, that is one of how I would describe the benefits of mindfulness meditation, where you get interested in what's happening between your ears so that whatever neurotic obsession or powerful emotion happens to flit through the mind doesn't lead you to lots of reflexive negative behavior. A lot of people get interested in this because it's been shown to reduce anxiety and depression and stress. And one of the things you see quite quickly, and this can be, this is why the early stages can be so cultish and awkward, is you, you really see, it can feel like, oh wait, this is making me more anxious. And that is not because it's making you more anxious. It's just, see, it's, it's like turning on a black light in a hotel room. You ever see those legendary news reports where they turn a black light on in the hotel room? A friend of mine actually did those stories. You're seeing disgusting stuff. Well, that's just the nature of seeing your own mind. There's a great expression from the writer John Barth, self knowledge is always bad news. I don't think that's always true, but it's true to a large extent. And, but don't, don't be fooled. The seeing it, it is what is empowering. Because as you get more familiar with the chaos and cacophony of your own mind, you're able to ride it in a smoother, more supple way. But, but, but the, the, the process in, in my experience, I've only been meditating for about 15 years and, but I spent a lot of time with people meditating for 50, 60 years from what, in my own experience and from what I've heard from my friends who are really Deep into the pool, meditators is that it is just a process of, of, you know, I'm using this word somewhat tongue in cheek, just ongoing humiliation. You just seeing over time how ridiculous the mind is. And that word, ridiculous. My teacher, Joseph Goldstein, who is this amazing guy who's coming up on 81 and has been meditating since he was 21, he uses that word ridiculous all the time. Because really, when things are going well over time, you start to develop a sense of humor about it. You start to kind of get over yourself in a really deep way. And that's why the Dalai Lama is always laughing. A big part of it is because you can't sit in meditation for decades without seeing how ridiculous this all is. And that's really helpful.
- [55:20]
Tony
It feels like a dose of humor makes such a difference here. Well, Gabby R. Has a question about just your personal journey and whether there was a moment when you felt like you were regressing instead of progressing and how you personally navigated that. And I guess this is post the360review post, the things you already shared, you.
- [55:43]
Ryan
Know, progress and then progression and then regression is just, in my experience is like, that's just part of the deal. You know, you, you learn something useful and you make a few strides and then you just screw it up and think that you're a wretch. And then somebody in your life, either you have to have the inner resources or the outer allies to, you know, talk you off the ledge and, and get back in the game. And so absolutely, I'm just thinking of an example that I've been writing about recently. This happened many years ago, but after I had my 360 in 2018, I ended up meeting this much younger person than me who became my assistant. Her name was Grace. And it turned out that she actually had a lot of experience with self compassion. And she started sending me these like, assignments that made a huge difference to me. And I like, she was helping me integrate self compassion into my life. And so she, she became, she went from being my assistant to really become a kind of teacher for me. And then at one point we got in a big fight because she said something totally innocuous. And it just triggered me. There's a great expression. If it's hysterical, it's historical. And she just said something that triggered some historical stuff for me and I handled it so poorly. And I, I'm just bringing this up because it's an example of regression. And you know, I think one of the, one of the tricks of self improvement for Lack of a better term really is learning how to handle the inevitable mistakes. I don't know if this is entirely apropos, but one of the things I think about is if you're doing self improvement or personal growth or spiritual development, whatever you want to call it, if you're doing it correctly, you should always feel like you have been a complete idiot your whole life up until six weeks ago, that you should just be constantly learning stuff and reevaluating and hopefully in a fun way with other people doing it as a team sport. And to me, this is just a very exciting and interesting way to live.
- [57:58]
Tony
Well, I feel like there's. This conversation has been chock full of just so many thoughtful tips and insights into just how you think about all of this. And you shared that you have this book coming out. Are there any other exciting things on the horizon? Where else can we see you next?
- [58:17]
Ryan
Well, I host a podcast as you, as you reference. That's a huge deal for me. That's a huge part of my work. I also have a little, I've been experimenting on substacks. I have a little community going there. We had our five month anniversary this week, so it's pretty new. Congratulations. And yeah, I would love to have people sign up there. There's a free version and a little paid version if you want to get direct access. Access to me. So I'm just. That's a total experiment. But I'm really excited about it and I also would be very excited to finish this book finally because I have like four other books I want to write after it.
- [58:51]
Tony
Well, and any insight into what those books might be about or what sort of topics you're eager to.
- [58:56]
Ryan
Yes, yes, I have a book. I'm really interested in how to apply all of this at work. Work. And so we have a series we've done on the podcast that's been very popular. It's a kind of occasional series that we bring back once in a while called Sanely Ambitious, where we talk about all of the psychological and contemplative tools that can make you better at work. And so we interview lots of people who've given TED talks, including Adam Grant and many, many other people. And so that's interesting to me to kind of do a, a really practical book about how to get better at work. I talked about Joseph Goldstein, who I have just so much respect and affection for. And he has these little phrases he uses in his teaching. These just pithy little phrases like self knowledge is always bad news. That's one of his things he says a lot. And I I want to write a book where it's like not quite a coffee table book, but a book that goes through all of the phrases and explains them. And it's kind of a backdoor way to really get at deep Dharma, deep Buddhism, but in a very fun, snackable, user friendly way.
- [60:17]
Tony
Well Dan, this has been really a treat. There are so many more questions I could ask. There are so many more questions from our members that we didn't get to, but we have reached our time. Thank you so much for being with us.
- [60:30]
Ryan
Total pleasure. Thank you.
- [60:35]
Elise Hu
That was Dan Harris in conversation with Whitney Pennington Rogers for a TED membership event in 2025. If you're curious about Ted's curation, find out more@ted.com curation guidelines and that's it for today's show. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Greene, Lucy Little, Alejandra Salazar and Tonsika Sarmarnivon. It was mixed by Christopher Faizy Bogan. Additional support from Emma Tobner and Daniela Ballarezzo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.
- [61:21]
Tony
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Ryan
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