Newsletters – 2019

The most important element for sustaining a meditation practice isn’t what practice to do, or how to do it. It’s how to show up, day after day. It’s structure.

Well, this decade didn’t turn out how we expected.I don’t think any of us, at the start of the 2010s, thought that the decade to come would be defined by so much terrifying news, so much anxiety, and so much division in our society. It’s been a sobering few years.

Most of us are unaware of the extent of the fear that we carry. Fear builds upon itself, or more precisely, fear creates more fear. As a result, our accumulated fear becomes a deep-seated terror that is challenging to uproot. We constantly speak of terrorism in the world, but we don't necessarily acknowledge the terror that has invaded our inner worlds. Many of us are afraid of fear, and afraid of admitting, even to ourselves, that we feel it. We push back the visceral, embodied experience of fear so effectively we think we have eliminated the fear itself.

The gift-giving season is here! And what better way to say “I love you” than to give someone in your life the gift of happiness, sanity, and wisdom? Of course, one way to do that is to buy them all subscriptions to the Ten Percent Happier app. But if you’re looking for a more physically-tangible gift of wisdom, it just so happens that our teachers have published a shelf-ful of new books this year.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, because cultivating gratitude is one of the best ways to increase our own happiness, and consequently that of the people around us.And yet, these days, sometimes gratitude gets a bad rap.One of the most irritating cultural developments in recent years has been the whole #blessed phenomenon -- as if taking a selfie in front of your private jet and posting it online with #blessed is a way to practice gratitude.

We’ve received hundreds of messages asking for “deep end” content in the app, as well as at IRL retreats and events, and we’re hard at work developing that.What’s funny about my own story is that I got into the deep end first.

There’s a cliché out there that mindfulness is self-centered. Which is strange because all contemplative traditions say that one’s ethical conduct, both in our personal relationships and in working to improve the lives of others, is an essential part of the path.At the same time, there is some truth to the cliché. When I started meditating over thirty five years ago, I was consumed with hopes and worries. I spent a lot of time reflecting on what I was doing with my time, judging myself for not being good enough, and worrying that I wouldn’t amount to anything. All thoughts wrapped up in myself.

This may sound weird, but meditation has taught me that you can have joy even when you have pain.In the beginning, most of us start meditating to eliminate our pain. I know I did. I wanted to get rid of my sadness and fear. But meditation doesn’t eliminate pain -- it eliminates suffering.What’s the difference?

My Halloween monsters showed up early this year.It was a few weeks ago, right before the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. My daughter, nearing two years of age, entered a nasty “sleep regression,” which is basically when toddlers forget everything they know about how to sleep and spend the night resisting, howling, fighting, needing attention, and running around like the Energizer bunny on methamphetamine.

It can be hard to have hope these days.On the one hand, we all want to feel hopeful. Hope encourages us to look forward confidently, and we may expect hope itself is necessary for us to get what we desire. Often when someone succeeds despite the odds, admirers say, “She never gave up hope.” In this way, hope is also a refuge, akin to having faith.On the other hand, we live in such difficult times that I have heard from many people that they feel almost frightened or foolish to hope that things in their world will be better.

Human communication is complex. There are a myriad of factors in any interaction. Our emotions, ideas, and beliefs come into play both verbally and nonverbally. We have to negotiate patterns of relating that have been established, whether between two individuals or between the groups and communities to which we belong.Yet, in all of this, there are certain consistent foundations to skillful communication.

When my daughter is upset, anxious, or angry, my job as a parent is to hold her in a loving presence. I don’t have to fix her emotion, give her advice, tell her not to be sad, or take the pain away. My job is simply be there for her.The same is often true in meditation—except for myself.

If you’re into yoga, travel, philosophy, meditation, or any number of other pursuits, you might sometimes get called a “seeker.” A seeker of truth, or experiences, or happiness – but a seeker. Someone looking for something. Which is funny, because when it comes to authentic happiness, you actually have to stop seeking.

No matter how long you’ve been meditating, or even if you’ve never meditated at all, it’s inevitable that you’ll ask, especially at a difficult moment: what’s the point? Why meditate?

Did you know multitasking is the devil? It's true. And there's research to prove it.

One of the most frequent questions we get at Ten Percent Happier is where to meditate. I’m going to answer it.

Can money buy you happiness? If you’re reading this blog, you probably expect me to say no. On the other hand, I suspect that many of us, deep down, think that it can. Certainly, that belief is promoted by our culture. And if not money, then what about a relationship, or success, or achievement?In fact, years of research have shown that none of these provide lasting happiness, in large part due to a powerful force that psychologists call hedonic adaptation.

Here’s the scene: I am standing on top of an overlook in the foothills of the Green Mountains. I can see a 180-degree vista to the West that features the Adirondacks, tinged in pink, as the sun gets ready to set. Vermont’s famous Camel’s Hump sits majestically to the south.My mind, however, is not appreciating this beautiful experience, at least not consistently so, because I am frustrated and disappointed in myself. I want to get some pictures of this awesome scene, but I have forgotten my phone and thus have no camera.

One of my most frequent meditation habits is forcing the breath.You may have experienced something similar. You sit down, you say “okay, time to meditate,” and that translates into taking big breaths, or rapid breaths, or otherwise forced, artificial breaths that are surprisingly easy to follow… only not so surprising, because you’ve made them impossible to miss by faking it.

We are living in difficult times, and this has been a difficult week.Fear and anxiety are always part of life, but these days, people commonly tell me they wake up in a funk, tossed into sleeplessness by a refrain of fear. We fear the violence that we see every day, and in horrifying events like the shootings last week. We fear chaos. We fear being consigned to the category of people in this world who don’t count. We fear the kind of hatred spilling out through Western societies.Increasingly, people tell me they even fear the kind of hatred spilling from their own hearts.

For years, meditation was one more activity I packed into my busy day.It was yet another thing to check off my to-do list, like going to the gym or buying groceries. I would skid into my meditation session, set a timer, and dutifully bring my attention back to my breath, again and again, with a kind of grim determination. It was really not that much fun at all.I was, in other words, bringing my everyday habits to the cushion. My overdrive, my overachieving, my over-everything. Then, a few years ago, I hit a wall.

As of this moment, I still don’t know where my wallet is.I’m pretty sure that by the time you read this, I will have found it. But as I’m writing these words, I have no [expletive] idea where my [expletive] wallet is. Maybe the baby put it somewhere. Maybe I put it somewhere so the baby couldn’t get it. I don’t know. All I know is that I was almost late to my meeting with Dan Harris because I couldn’t get out of the house.

Stress is part of evolution’s brilliance. It motivated us to run away from lions in the jungle. It’s your body’s way of trying to keep you safe.The problem is, in today’s concrete jungle, we’re stressed out not by lions but by traffic jams, overflowing inboxes, and an insufficient number of Instagram likes. All of which our bodies treat as emergencies, What can we do about that?

“You’re not listening!” my friend Jeremy shouted in frustration.We were standing in his kitchen and Jeremy was upset. Though I can’t remember the details, what I do remember is that he was right: I was only half-listening. I was waiting for him to finish so I could explain my perspective. Even though I was completely silent, making eye contact, and hearing every word, Jeremy could sense that I wasn’t really taking it in. I was building my case, preparing to defend myself.

Summertime, especially around the Fourth of July, is a time many of us in North America spend outdoors. It actually can be a hard time to sit indoors and meditate, because it’s so beautiful outside. Fortunately, being in nature can, itself, be a doorway to a valuable and refreshing capacity of mind that I call “natural awareness.”

Pride Month is a funny thing. Of course, its main focus is on sexual and gender minorities; folks who don’t fit into the majority’s boxes of male, female, heterosexual, or cisgender. This week, after all, is the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion, a crucial turning point in the contemporary LGBTQ rights movement. But in recent years, Pride has become a holiday for everyone.

Before I started meditating, I assumed meditation would hinder my ability to compete in the sometimes cut­throat world of TV news. And also that I might be required to wear yoga pants to the office. I have come to believe that, applied correctly, mind­fulness enhances rather than erodes your edge – by which I mean, your ability to take on challenging work at home or in the office with rigor, intelligence, and effectiveness.But I know there are many people who still have similar concerns.

I don’t know what I’d do without a meditation practice. These days, after many years, it’s a regular habit. But it wasn’t always that way. For years I tried to cultivate a regular practice, but I found it hard to stick to a routine. It was easier to hit snooze, or get up off my cushion before the timer went off, or skip the weekly gathering at the Zendo.But I had an incentive: I was a hot mess.

Every week, I hear from students and friends who are deeply fearful, anxious, and angry about global warming. For those informed about the issue, it’s not an abstraction; it threatens the lives our children will be able to lead, not to mention those of folks already caught in natural disasters exacerbated by global climate disruption.If you’ve experienced any of that fear, anxiety, and anger, please read on, because I’ve found mindfulness to be a valuable ally in staying sane, staying engaged, and making a difference -- whatever your political and philosophical opinions.

A friend of mine works with a writer who constantly misses deadlines. In terms of work, it’s actually not that big of a deal, because my friend knows this about the writer, and course-corrects by giving him deadlines that are weeks prior to when my friend actually needs something turned in.The challenges arise not because of the lateness, but because the writer can’t seem to accept this shortcoming about himself. He writes long emails with excuses as to why he’s late again—imaginative stories that my friend knows aren’t true.

When some people hear about meditation, they may imagine that it’s a cool, calm chill-out with no distracting thoughts or feelings disturbing the Zen. And then, since that’s not what anyone actually experiences, lots of people become convinced that they can’t meditate because their minds are so busy and distracted.The truth is, though, distractions happen! Whether out in the world or seated in meditation, the mind will pretty much always find something to do - and it’s not always going to do the thing we might hope. What can you do?

My 48th birthday was last week, and I feel great about it. This might be a feature of middle age. I’m no longer astonished (or embarrassed) at how old I am, like I was a decade ago, when turning 40 seemed like the end of the world. (Hint: it’s not.) Yet I’m still youngish and healthy, surrounded by blessings of family, work, the spiritual life, and love. For years, I’d been wrong about what getting older is actually all about. Twenty years ago, I worried that it meant an unfortunate decline in attractiveness, coolness, and having awesome experiences like spending all night dancing in crowded nightclubs. (God, I’m glad that kind of awesomeness is mostly in the rear-view mirror.)

According to neuroscientific research, you can change your mood simply by changing your body posture.Of course, everyone knows that body posture can reflect our emotions. Picture an Olympic sprinter crossing the finish line with their arms in the air, and head thrown back in celebration. Or picture the audience in a horror movie, instinctively cringing and curling up when something goes bump in the night. But can it also work the other way? Can body posture influence our emotional state, as well as reflect it?

According to neuroscientific research, you can change your mood simply by changing your body posture.Of course, everyone knows that body posture can reflect our emotions. Picture an Olympic sprinter crossing the finish line with their arms in the air, and head thrown back in celebration. Or picture the audience in a horror movie, instinctively cringing and curling up when something goes bump in the night. But can it also work the other way? Can body posture influence our emotional state, as well as reflect it?

Several years ago, I ran into a particularly rough time in my marriage. I’m not talking about the kind where you have a fight, storm off, and then make up. No, this was the kind of rough time that seemed to have no particular cause. Though there was nothing to fight about, we fought about everything. Nothing was bothersome, but everything one of us did bothered the other. We had no particular problems, but everything we tried to do—eat a meal, make the bed, decide what to watch on television—somehow became a huge problem, impossible to navigate without truly pissing each other off. In short: we could not get along.

I’m rushing down the street, despite the pleasant weather and flowers blooming. No one else is on the street—I live in a peaceful, quiet, small city, yet I’m hurrying and stressed; I have somewhere to go. And then I see the old man. He suddenly appears at the end of the block, turns the corner, inches forward as he leans his weight on his walker, lifting one leg slowly, slowly, then the other. My face softens, I immediately slow down, embarrassed by my hurrying.A rush of thoughts and emotions flood me:

Like many of you, I watched in horror as one of the world’s greatest works of art, the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, burned to the ground this week. I find myself reeling.The strength of my reaction surprises me. Although I’d twice visited the cathedral, and studied it in art history class, I have no special connection to Notre-Dame. I’m neither French nor Catholic. And yet I feel personally attacked, like a part of me has been torn out.

Hard to believe, but here's an astounding true fact: For the vast majority of human existence, including all but the last few of the 14,000-plus years since nomadic hunter-gatherer clans coalesced into nascent human civilizations, we didn't carry a fabulous instant camera in our pockets and photograph every single moment of our existence.

Springtime!For folks in most of North America, this is a time of stretching, opening, and awakening. In colder states, it might mean finally putting away those winter coats. In warmer states, it might mean the return of beach weather. Wherever you are, it’s an opportunity to notice how what we think of as “I, me, and mine” is actually… not us at all.

A couple years ago I defended my dissertation. Now, as anyone who has ever defended a dissertation will tell you, the whole process is a stress-inducing imbroglio, a veritable blitzkrieg of queries and provocations hosted by a stone-faced faculty tribunal intent on punching holes in the drywall of your thesis, which you've just spent one or two or three years building up out of a combination of blood, sweat, and far too many obscure academic citations.

Much of my energy can be drained by fear and worry. I’m not talking about big, scary fears of harm or death -- I’m actually not an especially fearful person. Some might even think I am brave. As a young woman, I traveled in foreign countries on my own. I’ve changed jobs often and started multiple careers. I do long silent meditation retreats. I’ve faced cancer three times.

When meditation is depicted visually, it’s almost always in a picture of someone sitting down, usually with eyes closed. And, it’s true, sitting and paying attention to your breath is probably the most common form of meditation today.But sitting has a serious downside: it takes time and space to do it. Whether you’re devoting five minutes or forty-five minutes to meditation, that’s time you’ve got to carve out of your day.

“If you don’t have anything nice to say….”You know the rest, right? Don’t say anything at all.My mom used to tell me that all the time when I was a kid. I guess that’s because I was always saying things that weren’t so nice!

Awareness is a capacity of the human mind. As we ordinarily understand it, it’s the ability to directly know and to perceive, sense, feel, or be cognizant of experience. We might think of awareness simply as the state of being conscious of something.Every sentient being is aware, in this sense of the word. But human beings (and, who knows, maybe some animals) also have an additional capacity: to be aware of awareness, or aware that they are aware.And this is where it gets interesting, because the “awareness of awareness” has been a focus of meditation for hundreds of years.

I know, I know – most people try out meditation in order to reduce stress. And that is totally fine. Meditating will help you calm down and de-stress. It does work.But it’s the tip of the iceberg. The real point is happiness.

I used to see myself as a rebel. I was into my identity as an outsider, and it was a place of safety for me for a long time. One year, however, my grandmother Mimi got sick. Her kids – my dad and his sister – wanted her to move from her home in Brooklyn to assisted living near where they lived, either in Syracuse or Atlanta. Neither option appealed to her, and so she asked if I would be willing to take care of her instead.I remember it so clearly: we were sitting on a wooden bench on Ocean Parkway, and I was feeling these little inward contractions, like, “Oh my God, she’s asking me?” I was thinking about how taking on this responsibility might not necessarily be very convenient.

I love that Marie Kondo – the Japanese guru of “tidying up” – is having her moment. I went through my Kon-Mari phase a few years ago, when her book came out, and now it feels like way more people are busy asking themselves, as they sift through every keepsake and pair of shoes they own: “Does it spark joy?”Meditation is the Marie Kondo of the mind. Like the Kon-Mari method, it is a rigorous practice of calming, seeing, and sifting.

I was lifting weights recently when my left shoulder suddenly shouted at me with a sharp, shooting pain. For the next few weeks, I skipped that particular exercise, but the problem didn’t go away. My physical therapist told me it was likely a rotator cuff injury.To address my persistent pain, he prescribed a few minutes of additional exercises. They were simple, but uncomfortable and inconvenient, and I didn’t want to do them. And yet, I knew that they would work precisely by making me uncomfortable.Just like mindfulness practice.

Vampires don’t exist, right?Actually, they sort of do. You probably have some of them in your life. They may be co-workers, relatives, friends, or fellow parents in the PTA: they’re the people who seem to suck the life out of you, demanding more and more of your mental energy. Unfortunately, these vampires can’t be scared off with garlic. And no, you can’t drive stakes through their hearts either. But there are mindfulness-based tools for minimizing the impact they have on your life. Here are four.

Just a few weeks after my thirtieth birthday, I was diagnosed with late stage ovarian cancer. In an instant, I found myself catapulted into a whirlwind of medical mayhem. Since then, I’ve had major abdominal surgery, completed six rounds of chemotherapy, and spent more time in doctors’ offices in six months than I had in the rest of my life combined.

About a gazillion studies have established that a consistent regime of cardiovascular and weight-bearing exercise is good for just about everything. Weight loss? Check. Chronic health conditions? Yes. Buffering against depression? Absolutely. You may have even resolved to go to the gym more regularly in 2019.But if you're anything like me, working out is a mixed bag.