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It's the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, Dan here.
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We're dropping a special experimental episode down the feed today.
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No guest. It's just going to be me yammering at
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you because I know we're in the middle of a
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period of time where some of you I would include
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myself in this category. Some of you are freaking out
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about the presidential election in the United States. And so
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I want to talk about what I'm doing to keep
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it together during this turbulent time. Before I dive into
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my list of practices, let me set the table here
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for a second. I want to acknowledge that this is
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a tricky time. I understand this whole process quite intimately
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from the inside. For 30 years, I was a TV
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news anchorman and correspondent. So I covered many, many presidential campaigns.
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I really understand how turbulent this period of time can be.
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So that's the bad news. But the good news is
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the central plank of my platform, the animating insight of
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my whole post-news career, is that the mind and the
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brain are trainable. That peace of mind, happiness, compassion, gratitude, generosity,
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these are not unalterable factory settings. They're skills that can
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be trained through various modalities. And so I want to
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kind of reframe or at least I've been trying to
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do this for myself, to reframe this presidential election as
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a workout, as a kind of dojo where you get
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to practice these skills that will not only help you
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to deal with all of the mishegas and the larger culture,
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but also help you in the rest of your life.
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So that's going to be the overarching thesis of this episode.
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Before I dive into the list, let me just issue
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a few caveats. The first is I'm not trying to
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make any political points here. The skills I'm going to
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talk about should be useful no matter what side of
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the aisle you're on. And even frankly, if you don't
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live in the United States, this is all designed to
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be universal and evergreen. The second caveat is that I'm
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going to lay out eight strategies that work for me,
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but these are not commandments. The point is not to
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add something to your to-do list that is going to
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further stress you out during a stressful time. Think about
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this as a menu, not a to-do list. So you
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can just pick and choose whatever works for you. And
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speaking of that, that kind of leads to my third
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and very much related caveat, which is these all are
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strategies that work for me, but they may not work
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for you or maybe not all of them work for you.
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I like how the Buddha used to talk about this
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to his followers. He would say, don't take what I
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say at face value, test it out in the laboratory
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of your own mind. I don't think those were his
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exact words, but you catch the drift, I think. All right,
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here are the eight things that have been working for
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me during the selection seasons. Skill number one will be
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of no surprise to anybody who knows me at all. Mindfulness.
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You can think about mindfulness as the ability to see
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what's happening in your mind at any given moment without
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getting carried away by it. It's the ability to see
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with some nonjudgmental remove what's happening behind your eyes, between
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your ears, without acting it out. As my meditation teacher,
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Joseph Goldstein, likes to say, without acting it out like
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it's a tiny dictator. Every thought, every urge, every emotion
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just becomes the thing that you just act upon blindly.
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So for me, the best way to develop this skill
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of mindfulness is mindfulness meditation. I'm not going to make
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you do mindfulness meditation right now, but just so you know,
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I'm going to lay out the basic instructions. There are
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really three steps for beginning mindfulness meditation. Some of you
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have heard me talk about this before, but this is
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like the opposite of airline safety instructions. It actually is
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more useful the more times you hear it. So the
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three steps are find a comfortable position in a reasonably
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quiet place if you want to twist yourself into a
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pretzel on the floor, that's fine. Or you can do
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what I do, which is sit in a chair. You
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can lie down, just get comfortable and close your eyes.
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The second step is to bring your full attention to
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the feeling of your breath coming in and going out.
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Pick one spot, like your nose, your chest, your belly.
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Just feel the raw data of the physical sensations. You
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don't have to breathe in any special way. Just feel
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the breath as it comes and goes. If the breath
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makes you anxious, and that's true for some people, just
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pick something else, like the feeling of your full body
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the feeling of whatever your hands are touching, sounds in
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the environment. And then the third step is the most important.
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Because as soon as you try to do this, as
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soon as you commit to just feeling your breath or
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something like that, your mind is likely to go into
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mutiny mode. You're going to have all sorts of random
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thoughts and urges and emotions, start planning a homicide, whatever
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it is. And the whole goal is just to notice
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when you've become distracted and to start again and again.
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It's funny because a lot of people assume when they
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notice how distractible they are, that's proof that they're a
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failed meditator. But actually, That is proof that you're succeeding.
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The whole goal here is not to clear the mind.
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It's to get familiar with the mind. And in that familiarity,
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once you see how wild the mind is, it doesn't
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own you as much. You can learn to respond wisely
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instead of reacting blindly to stuff. And you can imagine
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how helpful that is in the middle of a turbulent collection.
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There's a ton of science here. This practice, mindfulness meditation,
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has been shown to reduce anxiety and depression, boost your
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immune system, lower your blood pressure. So definitely worth checking out.
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And for me, it's the foundation for everything else that's
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going to follow in this episode. Before I move on
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to skill number two, let me just say that if
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you're interested in trying this for yourself, I've got some
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free guided meditations over on my website, danharris.com. All right,
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enough self-promotion there. Here's skill number two. And this is
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where mindfulness is very helpful, is that I try to
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limit my news consumption. I say this with some degree
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of embarrassment, given that I spent 30 years in the
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news business. But I think it's important to do two
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things at the same time, to be a good citizen
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and stay informed and also not to lose your mind,
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to take care of yourself so that you are not
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absolutely letting this tsunami of news overtake you. And mindfulness
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is very helpful, as I said, because for me, it
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allows me to notice when I'm on hour eight of
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doom scrolling on Twitter or I'm posting in all caps. Actually,
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don't do either of those things, but you get the point.
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It allows me to see when I've taken my news
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consumption or my social media consumption too far, and it's
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time to change the channel. And it's hard to do
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that if you don't have self-awareness. For me, this is
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a very important strategy, limiting my news consumption. Skill number three.
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For me, it's also very important to diversify my news consumption,
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which means I spend a lot of time consuming lots
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of different news sources. from all over the ideological spectrum.
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So I listen to podcasts left, right, and center. I
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read newsletters and subscribe to newsletters from people on the left,
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on the right, and in the middle. I follow people
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on social media I disagree with. I sometimes think about
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this great tweet I saw from Ian Bremmer, who's a
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political scientist who I happen to admire. Ian has this tweet.
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It used to be his pinned tweet. I'm not sure
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it still is. That if you're Only following people on
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this website who you agree with, you're doing it wrong.
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And I agree with that. You might be tempted to
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think that consuming across the ideological spectrum would boost my anxiety,
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but actually, and this may be counterintuitive, I find that
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it calms me down because even if I don't agree
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with some of these people, at least I understand clearly
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what their logic is. I don't buy their logic per se,
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but rather than just hating people blindly, I find it
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oddly soothing to understand where they are coming from. There's
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a lot of science here around the benefits of developing
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an open mind or avoiding what some researchers call epistemic closure.
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Having an open mind has been shown to reduce depression
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and anxiety and increase life satisfaction. This is not necessarily political,
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but if you're in a workplace and open-mindedness is a
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cultural value, it's been shown to mitigate conflict and create
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more highly functioning teams that produce better ideas. Studies have
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also shown that curiosity and openness are the key to
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successful startups and American presidencies. And people have been talking
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about this skill of open-mindedness, the value of having an
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open mind for millennia. I sometimes find it comforting to
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look back at quotes from great minds. Emerson called consistency
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the hobgoblin of small minds. Yeats called said, the best
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lack all conviction. Rumi encouraged us to exchange our cleverness
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for bewilderment. Frank Zappa, the rock musician, said, a mind
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is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it's not open.
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And my guy, the Buddha, has this quote where he says, myself,
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I am not a dogmatist, but an analyst. So anyway,
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long way of saying having an open mind is a
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great skill. It will improve your life. And honestly, I
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think if we could inculcate open-mindedness into the culture writ large,
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it would solve a lot of our problems. Okay, skill
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number four. For me, practicing loving kindness meditation, or meta meditation, M-E-T-T-A,
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really helps me when I'm encountering ideas that I don't
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agree with, or people that I don't agree with. I
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believe strongly that encountering ideas that I don't agree with
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makes me stronger, but it really helps if I do
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some work in my own mind as I'm heading into
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these situations. Okay, so Let me just briefly describe what
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this practice is just for the uninitiated. A little bit
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of history. The Buddha is said to have designed this
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practice as an antidote to fear. Keep that in mind
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as you hear me describe it. One little caveat before
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I dive in. I have made no secret about the
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fact that when this practice was first introduced to me,
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I found it revolting, just like unbelievably cheesy. But there's
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a ton of science to show that it can have
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very powerful physiological benefits, but also psychological and behavioral benefits.
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So there's a lot to this practice. Here it is. Basically,
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what you do is find a comfortable position, close your eyes,
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and you start by bringing to mind an easy person
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to love. It can be a little kid, a great friend,
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a cat or a dog or a pet, and just
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create a mental image. Or if you're not good at that,
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you can just create a felt sense in your body
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of this person or animal. And then you're going to
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silently send four phrases. May you be happy, may you
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be safe, may you be healthy, may you live with ease.
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And then from there, you move from an easy person
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to yourself. It might help to imagine yourself as a kid,
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or you can just feel yourself sitting or lying down,
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whatever position you're in. And then you send the same phrases, happy, safe, healthy,
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live with ease. Then you move to a mentor. So
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somebody who's helped you out in your life, a teacher,
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a parent, an uncle, a good friend, somebody at work
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who's helped you. If there's nobody in real life who
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fits the bill, you can think of a public or
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historical figure who you admire, who has been a sort
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of mentor by proxy. And then repeat the same phrases, happy, safe, healthy,
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live with ease. And then you move to a neutral person,
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somebody you might overlook. It could be a barista, somebody
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at the dry cleaner, somebody who is on the cleaning
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staff somewhere, somebody who might be tempted not to pay
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too much attention to and send that person the phrases.
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Two more categories, a difficult person. as I often say,
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best not to start with the most difficult person, like
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the person you don't want to win the presidential election
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or poll pot or whatever. Just start with something mildly
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annoying and build your way up to the most difficult.
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And then finally, everybody, all beings everywhere, and send the phrases,
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may we all be happy, safe, healthy, live with ease.
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And like I said, I didn't like these instructions when
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I first heard them. I sometimes joke that it felt
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like Valentine's Day with a gun to my head. However,
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if you think about what it would look like if
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you were an alien and you landed on this planet
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and went to a gym, it would look strange that
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people were systematically picking up and putting down heavy things
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or running in place for 45 minutes. They're doing that
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for muscular or cardiovascular health, repetitive motion. And the same
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is true for your mind. This capacity for warmth, you
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might even say love, is not to echo the phraseology
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I used at the top of this episode, is not
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an unalterable factory setting. It's a skill, and that's a
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radical notion. And it really is helpful in the middle
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of a presidential campaign. It can help you put on
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a different set of goggles when you're confronted with or
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thinking about people with whom you disagree. I've got a
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few more quotes that are helpful for me in this regard.
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Longfellow said that if we were to read the secret
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history of our enemy's we would find enough sorrow to
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disarm all hostility. Robert Bly spoke about a metaphorical black
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bag that we all lug around with us, which is
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filled with an ever-expanding load of our past traumas. And
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I like to sometimes, if there's somebody difficult in my environment,
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if I have the wherewithal, if I can remember to
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do this, just to imagine them with their own black bag.
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There's a reason they are this way. And if I
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came out of whatever womb that person came out of,
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I'd probably... believe, and act in the same way in
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which they are. Thich Nhat Hanh, the great Zen master,
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has said, and this is a quote, our real enemy
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is not man. It's not another human being. Our real
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enemy is our ignorance, discrimination, fear, craving, and violence. One
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last quote here that I find hilarious. It's from Sonia
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Renee Taylor, who's been on this show before. Thou shalt
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not judge because thou has fucked up before too. Nothing
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to add. No notes. Perfect. Skill number five, communication skills.
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I find it very helpful not only to have the
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right mindset when I'm confronted with people with whom I disagree,
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but also to have technical skills for communicating that allow
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those interactions to be as successful as possible. You may
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have heard me say this before, but I often think
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about the fact that human beings are intensely social, and
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yet very few of us ever learn basic skills for
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interacting with other human beings. And over the last six
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or so years, I've learned some basic communication skills that
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have revolutionized my interactions with other human beings. So let
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me tell you a brief story and then give you
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three skills that I think will help during the election.
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In 2018, I actually spent some time with a group
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called the Braver Angels. I'll actually drop a link in
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the show notes because I interviewed Bill Daugherty, who was
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a former couples counselor, and he still does that work,
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but he's also involved with Braver Angels. And the mission
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of Braver Angels is, that they bring together reds and blues,
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and Bill is able to orchestrate really healthy conversations between
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people who vote Democrat and people who vote for Trump.
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And I actually went and witnessed this in person, and
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it was stunning how well these folks were getting along.
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And they have three rules that I'm gonna share with
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you that could be helpful in your day-to-day life. Rule
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number one, don't try to change anybody's mind. If the
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person you're talking to feels that you're trying to change
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their mind, It's going to turn off the parts of
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their brain that have the capacity for openness, for hearing,
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because they're going to feel attacked. So if you go
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into a conversation, the best move is not to try
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to get somebody to see things exactly the way you do.
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The best move, according to the folks at Braver Angels,
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and I happen to agree with this, is to just
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understand why they think the way they do. The goal
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at Braver Angels, and this is a term that I love,
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the goal is not ever to to convince somebody. It's
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to arrive at what they call accurate disagreement. Love that.
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Rule number two from Braver Angels, make I statements, the
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letter I, talk about yourself, rather than truth statements. In
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other words, when you're talking about the issues, keep it
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in your own experience. For example, if you're a Democrat,
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you might say, I'm worried that Trump is violating the
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emoluments clause of the Constitution and that that's setting a
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bad precedent rather than making some grand sweeping statement like
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President Trump is irredeemably corrupt and you're a terrible person
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for supporting him. Which formulation do you think is likely
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to go down easier in the ears of the person
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you're talking to? Which leads me to the third rule
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that I picked up from the folks at the Raver Angels,
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which is don't characterize the other person's opinion or the
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other side's opinion. Just characterize your own opinion. If you're
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in favor of President Trump, You might say, I'm worried
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about high taxes damaging the economy instead of saying you
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Democrats just want to feed at the trough of a
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bloated welfare state and you're hopeless socialists or whatever. Again,
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you see the difference here that if you keep things
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in your own personal experience rather than declaring them as
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undisputed facts or characterizing other people, you're much more likely
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to be successful. OK, a few more skills here that
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I'm going to list before I let you go. Skill
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number six that helps me a lot. Actually, a phrase
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that I think is incredibly insightful. And here it is.
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Action absorbs anxiety. Action absorbs anxiety. It's very easy, I find,
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in the middle of a turbulent election or an overseas
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war to feel really helpless, like there's nothing you can do.
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And it may be true that there's very little you
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can do to affect the macro situation, but you have
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an enormous amount of power to take action locally. So volunteer.
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You can volunteer on a political campaign because that would
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be a little bit more relevant to the issue at
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hand during the election. But honestly, I think if you
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volunteered at a local animal shelter or helped out the
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elderly in your neighborhood, that would be enormously empowering for
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you and ennobling to give you a sense that you
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are taking some sort of action that is in accordance
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with your values. And really, if you don't have time
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for this kind of volunteer work, which I think many
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of you may not, just helping out people in your
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family or your friends or at work, getting in the
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habit of being useful can stiffen your spine, or at
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least that's what I find, and be a nice sort
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of counter-programming move against the overwhelming sense of helplessness we
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can get in the face of what's coming at us
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via the news. One other thing to say about this,
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and this kind of goes back to the mindfulness piece,
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which is that for me, when I sit in meditation,
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I can see what is beneath what feels like the
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dominant emotion. In other words, I might be experiencing a
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lot of anger, but if I pay attention and sit
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still in meditation, I might notice what is beneath the anger,
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and often that's fear. But what's beneath the fear is
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often caring, giving a shit. That's really what's at the
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root of a lot of our political opinions and concerns
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and anxiety is that we actually care. You might call
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that love. And if you can tune into that and
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let that be what motivates you rather than fear or anger,
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I find that is a much cleaner burning fuel. and
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will allow you to take more effective action for a
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longer period of time. Again, that's how it's worked for me.
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Just a few more quotes on this one. I love
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this one from the Dalai Lama. If a problem can
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be solved, there's no use worrying about it. If it
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can't be solved, worrying will do no good. Basically, worrying
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never helps or rarely helps. Sometimes a little bit of
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worrying helps. I might disagree slightly with the Dalai Lama
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on that, but generally I agree with the thrust of
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that quote, that tuning into your ability to take some
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action can obviate the need for excessive worrying. And then
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one little catchphrase I recently picked up from Devin Barry
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right here on the show, actually, he's a great meditation teacher.
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And he taught me this phrase that comes right out
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of ancient Buddhism. It may take a second to learn
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how to pronounce this, but it's Tatra Maja Tata. Tatra
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Maja Tata. It's like the Buddhist version of Hakuna Matata,
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except Hakuna Matata is like no worries. There's nothing to
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worry about here. At least that's the way I remember
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it from the Lion King. Tatra Maja Tata is, I
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think it translates roughly into right there in the middle
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of it, standing in the middle of all of the
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chaos and being okay with it. It doesn't deny that
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there are problems. What it does do is emphasize that
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we all have this ability, no matter how bad things are,
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to drop in to your body, to drop into some
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reservoir of calm, to not be so caught up for
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a few nanoseconds. And just invoking that phrase in your
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mind might help. It has for me, even in the
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weeks since I first heard it from Devin, Tatra Maja Tata,
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it's like some sort of incantation or spell that you
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can use on yourself to be like, all right, things
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suck right now. But I have the capacity to breathe.
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I don't need to be swamped 24-7. There is within
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me the ability to be calm for a few seconds.
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Two more skills, and these are pretty quick. Number seven
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is never worry alone. I picked this phrase up from
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Robert Waldinger, who I think got it from somebody else.
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Robert is the head of what's called the Harvard Study
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for Adult Development, which is the longest running study in science,
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I believe. where they've been looking at people, several generations
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of people in the Boston area. And the idea is
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to figure out what leads to a long and healthy life.
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And there's just one data point that comes screaming out
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of this long study, which is that the most important
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variable for long and healthy and happy life is not
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sleep or exercise or achieving ketosis or whatever. It's the
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quality of your relationships. And very few people are selling
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you that on Instagram. But it is the most important variable.
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It is often overlooked. And so in the middle of
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a tough election, I find it incredibly helpful to be
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pretty frequently texting or calling my friends and asking what
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they think. What are they doing? What's their take on this?
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For me, this just gives me a buffer against overwhelming stress.
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And this is borne out in the data. The people
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with the strongest relationships in this Harvard study for adult
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development we're the most immune to stress and stress is
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what kills us. So never worry alone. Finally, number eight, self-compassion.
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You may have heard me say this before, but the
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hardest part of personal growth or personal development, whatever you
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want to call it, is remembering. You can listen to
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a podcast like this. You can read a great book.
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You can go see somebody speak and you hear really
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enlightening things. And then you get sucked right back into
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the habit patterns. But the good news there is that
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you don't need to kick your own ass if you're
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forgetting to apply the advice you're hearing here or anywhere else.
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Understanding is completely natural to fall off the wagon. And
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that's where self-compassion comes in. I probably should have defined it.
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Self-compassion is a field that was really invented and pioneered
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by an incredible researcher named Kristen Neff at the University
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of Texas. And the idea is that many of us
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talk to ourselves like a drill sergeant. We're very hard
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on ourselves. We're unforgiving. We would never talk this way
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to our friends or our kids, or hopefully we wouldn't.
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But if you can learn how to talk to yourself
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the way you would talk to a good friend or
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a little kid, a mentee, that has been shown through
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Kristen's research to make people more effective, to help them
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establish habits, to help them have the resilience to finish
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projects to achieve their goals. Self-compassion is incredibly important in
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the middle of a dumpster fire of a presidential election.
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You can have the goal to pursue some of these
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healthy habits that I've listed. Some days you're going to
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lose your temper or you're not going to meditate or
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whatever it is, and that's cool. Let me leave you
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with one last phrase from the world of self-compassion, the
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preeminent question that proponents of self-compassion And I guess I
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would now consider myself one of them. The preeminent question
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they would like to get you to ask yourself on
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the regular is, what do I need right now? What
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do I need right now? Do I need to keep
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reading Twitter? Do I need to kill myself in order
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to finish this next piece of work? Do I need
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to sit through this annoying conversation with my uncle who
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sees things very differently than I do? What do I
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need right now? If you let this be your North
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Star through these next couple of months, I suspect it
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will make everything much easier. All right. Those are the
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eight things I'm doing to keep my shit together in
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the middle of this presidential election. Again, I want to
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emphasize you don't have to do all or any of
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these things. The point of this podcast is not to
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add things to your to-do list that is going to
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further stress you out. It's to give you some tools
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that you can take or leave. And again, I want
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to encourage you to test them out in the laboratory
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of your own mind. They work for me, but they
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may not work for you or some of them may
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work for you. Others may work better. And speaking of that,
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I want to add that we are going to launch
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very soon a lengthy series of episodes right here on
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the show to help get you through what is coming
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at us through the course of this election. We're going
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to be doing episodes on how to handle anger, including
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your own anger and the anger of other people. the
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dangers of cynicism, the value of intellectual humility, the value
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of equanimity, how to handle conflict. The idea is we're
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going to try to give you not just the eight
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skills that I talked about today, but many more that
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can help you deal with a tricky time. Before I
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let you go, I do want to ask a favor,
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which is this is the first time we've done a
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podcast like this, which is where it's just me, no
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guests talking. I would love some feedback, so you can
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hit me up on Twitter X or on Instagram or
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I'll put a link to an email address where you
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can send feedback to the team. Let us know if
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you want us to do more things like this. Yeah,
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00:26:56.480 --> 00:26:58.269
so thank you for listening. Thanks to the whole team
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who worked so hard on this. Specifically want to shout
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out DJ Kashmir and Tara Anderson who are working on
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this episode. But of course, that applies to everybody on
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the team. Stay safe out there.
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It's the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, Dan here.
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We're dropping a special experimental episode down the feed today.
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No guest. It's just going to be me yammering at
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you because I know we're in the middle of a
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period of time where some of you I would include
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myself in this category. Some of you are freaking out
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about the presidential election in the United States. And so
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I want to talk about what I'm doing to keep
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it together during this turbulent time. Before I dive into
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my list of practices, let me set the table here
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for a second. I want to acknowledge that this is
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a tricky time. I understand this whole process quite intimately
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from the inside. For 30 years, I was a TV
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news anchorman and correspondent. So I covered many, many presidential campaigns.
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I really understand how turbulent this period of time can be.
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So that's the bad news. But the good news is
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the central plank of my platform, the animating insight of
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my whole post-news career, is that the mind and the
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brain are trainable. That peace of mind, happiness, compassion, gratitude, generosity,
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these are not unalterable factory settings. They're skills that can
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be trained through various modalities. And so I want to
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kind of reframe or at least I've been trying to
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do this for myself, to reframe this presidential election as
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a workout, as a kind of dojo where you get
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to practice these skills that will not only help you
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to deal with all of the mishegas and the larger culture,
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but also help you in the rest of your life.
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So that's going to be the overarching thesis of this episode.
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Before I dive into the list, let me just issue
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a few caveats. The first is I'm not trying to
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make any political points here. The skills I'm going to
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talk about should be useful no matter what side of
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the aisle you're on. And even frankly, if you don't
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live in the United States, this is all designed to
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be universal and evergreen. The second caveat is that I'm
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going to lay out eight strategies that work for me,
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but these are not commandments. The point is not to
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add something to your to-do list that is going to
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further stress you out during a stressful time. Think about
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this as a menu, not a to-do list. So you
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can just pick and choose whatever works for you. And
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speaking of that, that kind of leads to my third
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and very much related caveat, which is these all are
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strategies that work for me, but they may not work
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for you or maybe not all of them work for you.
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I like how the Buddha used to talk about this
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to his followers. He would say, don't take what I
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say at face value, test it out in the laboratory
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of your own mind. I don't think those were his
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exact words, but you catch the drift, I think. All right,
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here are the eight things that have been working for
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me during the selection seasons. Skill number one will be
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of no surprise to anybody who knows me at all. Mindfulness.
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You can think about mindfulness as the ability to see
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what's happening in your mind at any given moment without
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getting carried away by it. It's the ability to see
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with some nonjudgmental remove what's happening behind your eyes, between
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your ears, without acting it out. As my meditation teacher,
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Joseph Goldstein, likes to say, without acting it out like
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it's a tiny dictator. Every thought, every urge, every emotion
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just becomes the thing that you just act upon blindly.
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So for me, the best way to develop this skill
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of mindfulness is mindfulness meditation. I'm not going to make
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you do mindfulness meditation right now, but just so you know,
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I'm going to lay out the basic instructions. There are
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really three steps for beginning mindfulness meditation. Some of you
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have heard me talk about this before, but this is
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like the opposite of airline safety instructions. It actually is
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more useful the more times you hear it. So the
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three steps are find a comfortable position in a reasonably
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quiet place if you want to twist yourself into a
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pretzel on the floor, that's fine. Or you can do
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what I do, which is sit in a chair. You
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can lie down, just get comfortable and close your eyes.
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The second step is to bring your full attention to
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the feeling of your breath coming in and going out.
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Pick one spot, like your nose, your chest, your belly.
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Just feel the raw data of the physical sensations. You
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don't have to breathe in any special way. Just feel
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the breath as it comes and goes. If the breath
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makes you anxious, and that's true for some people, just
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pick something else, like the feeling of your full body
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the feeling of whatever your hands are touching, sounds in
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the environment. And then the third step is the most important.
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Because as soon as you try to do this, as
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soon as you commit to just feeling your breath or
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something like that, your mind is likely to go into
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mutiny mode. You're going to have all sorts of random
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thoughts and urges and emotions, start planning a homicide, whatever
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it is. And the whole goal is just to notice
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when you've become distracted and to start again and again.
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It's funny because a lot of people assume when they
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notice how distractible they are, that's proof that they're a
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failed meditator. But actually, That is proof that you're succeeding.
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The whole goal here is not to clear the mind.
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It's to get familiar with the mind. And in that familiarity,
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once you see how wild the mind is, it doesn't
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own you as much. You can learn to respond wisely
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instead of reacting blindly to stuff. And you can imagine
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how helpful that is in the middle of a turbulent collection.
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There's a ton of science here. This practice, mindfulness meditation,
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has been shown to reduce anxiety and depression, boost your
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immune system, lower your blood pressure. So definitely worth checking out.
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And for me, it's the foundation for everything else that's
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going to follow in this episode. Before I move on
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to skill number two, let me just say that if
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you're interested in trying this for yourself, I've got some
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free guided meditations over on my website, danharris.com. All right,
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enough self-promotion there. Here's skill number two. And this is
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where mindfulness is very helpful, is that I try to
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limit my news consumption. I say this with some degree
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of embarrassment, given that I spent 30 years in the
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news business. But I think it's important to do two
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things at the same time, to be a good citizen
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and stay informed and also not to lose your mind,
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to take care of yourself so that you are not
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absolutely letting this tsunami of news overtake you. And mindfulness
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is very helpful, as I said, because for me, it
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allows me to notice when I'm on hour eight of
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doom scrolling on Twitter or I'm posting in all caps. Actually,
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don't do either of those things, but you get the point.
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It allows me to see when I've taken my news
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consumption or my social media consumption too far, and it's
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time to change the channel. And it's hard to do
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that if you don't have self-awareness. For me, this is
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a very important strategy, limiting my news consumption. Skill number three.
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For me, it's also very important to diversify my news consumption,
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which means I spend a lot of time consuming lots
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of different news sources. from all over the ideological spectrum.
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So I listen to podcasts left, right, and center. I
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read newsletters and subscribe to newsletters from people on the left,
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on the right, and in the middle. I follow people
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on social media I disagree with. I sometimes think about
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this great tweet I saw from Ian Bremmer, who's a
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political scientist who I happen to admire. Ian has this tweet.
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It used to be his pinned tweet. I'm not sure
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it still is. That if you're Only following people on
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this website who you agree with, you're doing it wrong.
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And I agree with that. You might be tempted to
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think that consuming across the ideological spectrum would boost my anxiety,
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but actually, and this may be counterintuitive, I find that
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it calms me down because even if I don't agree
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with some of these people, at least I understand clearly
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what their logic is. I don't buy their logic per se,
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but rather than just hating people blindly, I find it
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oddly soothing to understand where they are coming from. There's
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a lot of science here around the benefits of developing
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an open mind or avoiding what some researchers call epistemic closure.
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Having an open mind has been shown to reduce depression
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and anxiety and increase life satisfaction. This is not necessarily political,
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but if you're in a workplace and open-mindedness is a
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cultural value, it's been shown to mitigate conflict and create
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more highly functioning teams that produce better ideas. Studies have
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also shown that curiosity and openness are the key to
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successful startups and American presidencies. And people have been talking
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about this skill of open-mindedness, the value of having an
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open mind for millennia. I sometimes find it comforting to
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look back at quotes from great minds. Emerson called consistency
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the hobgoblin of small minds. Yeats called said, the best
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lack all conviction. Rumi encouraged us to exchange our cleverness
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for bewilderment. Frank Zappa, the rock musician, said, a mind
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is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it's not open.
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And my guy, the Buddha, has this quote where he says, myself,
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I am not a dogmatist, but an analyst. So anyway,
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long way of saying having an open mind is a
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great skill. It will improve your life. And honestly, I
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think if we could inculcate open-mindedness into the culture writ large,
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it would solve a lot of our problems. Okay, skill
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number four. For me, practicing loving kindness meditation, or meta meditation, M-E-T-T-A,
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really helps me when I'm encountering ideas that I don't
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agree with, or people that I don't agree with. I
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believe strongly that encountering ideas that I don't agree with
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makes me stronger, but it really helps if I do
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some work in my own mind as I'm heading into
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these situations. Okay, so Let me just briefly describe what
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this practice is just for the uninitiated. A little bit
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of history. The Buddha is said to have designed this
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practice as an antidote to fear. Keep that in mind
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as you hear me describe it. One little caveat before
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I dive in. I have made no secret about the
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fact that when this practice was first introduced to me,
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I found it revolting, just like unbelievably cheesy. But there's
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a ton of science to show that it can have
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very powerful physiological benefits, but also psychological and behavioral benefits.
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So there's a lot to this practice. Here it is. Basically,
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what you do is find a comfortable position, close your eyes,
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and you start by bringing to mind an easy person
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to love. It can be a little kid, a great friend,
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a cat or a dog or a pet, and just
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create a mental image. Or if you're not good at that,
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you can just create a felt sense in your body
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of this person or animal. And then you're going to
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silently send four phrases. May you be happy, may you
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be safe, may you be healthy, may you live with ease.
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And then from there, you move from an easy person
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to yourself. It might help to imagine yourself as a kid,
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or you can just feel yourself sitting or lying down,
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whatever position you're in. And then you send the same phrases, happy, safe, healthy,
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live with ease. Then you move to a mentor. So
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somebody who's helped you out in your life, a teacher,
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a parent, an uncle, a good friend, somebody at work
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who's helped you. If there's nobody in real life who
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fits the bill, you can think of a public or
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historical figure who you admire, who has been a sort
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of mentor by proxy. And then repeat the same phrases, happy, safe, healthy,
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live with ease. And then you move to a neutral person,
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somebody you might overlook. It could be a barista, somebody
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at the dry cleaner, somebody who is on the cleaning
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staff somewhere, somebody who might be tempted not to pay
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too much attention to and send that person the phrases.
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Two more categories, a difficult person. as I often say,
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best not to start with the most difficult person, like
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the person you don't want to win the presidential election
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or poll pot or whatever. Just start with something mildly
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annoying and build your way up to the most difficult.
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And then finally, everybody, all beings everywhere, and send the phrases,
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may we all be happy, safe, healthy, live with ease.
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And like I said, I didn't like these instructions when
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I first heard them. I sometimes joke that it felt
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like Valentine's Day with a gun to my head. However,
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if you think about what it would look like if
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you were an alien and you landed on this planet
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and went to a gym, it would look strange that
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people were systematically picking up and putting down heavy things
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or running in place for 45 minutes. They're doing that
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for muscular or cardiovascular health, repetitive motion. And the same
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is true for your mind. This capacity for warmth, you
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might even say love, is not to echo the phraseology
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I used at the top of this episode, is not
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an unalterable factory setting. It's a skill, and that's a
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radical notion. And it really is helpful in the middle
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of a presidential campaign. It can help you put on
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a different set of goggles when you're confronted with or
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thinking about people with whom you disagree. I've got a
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few more quotes that are helpful for me in this regard.
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Longfellow said that if we were to read the secret
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history of our enemy's we would find enough sorrow to
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disarm all hostility. Robert Bly spoke about a metaphorical black
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bag that we all lug around with us, which is
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filled with an ever-expanding load of our past traumas. And
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I like to sometimes, if there's somebody difficult in my environment,
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if I have the wherewithal, if I can remember to
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do this, just to imagine them with their own black bag.
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There's a reason they are this way. And if I
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came out of whatever womb that person came out of,
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I'd probably... believe, and act in the same way in
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which they are. Thich Nhat Hanh, the great Zen master,
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has said, and this is a quote, our real enemy
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is not man. It's not another human being. Our real
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enemy is our ignorance, discrimination, fear, craving, and violence. One
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last quote here that I find hilarious. It's from Sonia
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Renee Taylor, who's been on this show before. Thou shalt
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not judge because thou has fucked up before too. Nothing
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to add. No notes. Perfect. Skill number five, communication skills.
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I find it very helpful not only to have the
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right mindset when I'm confronted with people with whom I disagree,
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but also to have technical skills for communicating that allow
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those interactions to be as successful as possible. You may
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have heard me say this before, but I often think
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about the fact that human beings are intensely social, and
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yet very few of us ever learn basic skills for
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interacting with other human beings. And over the last six
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or so years, I've learned some basic communication skills that
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have revolutionized my interactions with other human beings. So let
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me tell you a brief story and then give you
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three skills that I think will help during the election.
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In 2018, I actually spent some time with a group
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called the Braver Angels. I'll actually drop a link in
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the show notes because I interviewed Bill Daugherty, who was
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a former couples counselor, and he still does that work,
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but he's also involved with Braver Angels. And the mission
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of Braver Angels is, that they bring together reds and blues,
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and Bill is able to orchestrate really healthy conversations between
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people who vote Democrat and people who vote for Trump.
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And I actually went and witnessed this in person, and
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it was stunning how well these folks were getting along.
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And they have three rules that I'm gonna share with
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you that could be helpful in your day-to-day life. Rule
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number one, don't try to change anybody's mind. If the
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person you're talking to feels that you're trying to change
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their mind, It's going to turn off the parts of
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their brain that have the capacity for openness, for hearing,
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because they're going to feel attacked. So if you go
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into a conversation, the best move is not to try
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to get somebody to see things exactly the way you do.
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The best move, according to the folks at Braver Angels,
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and I happen to agree with this, is to just
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understand why they think the way they do. The goal
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at Braver Angels, and this is a term that I love,
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the goal is not ever to to convince somebody. It's
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to arrive at what they call accurate disagreement. Love that.
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Rule number two from Braver Angels, make I statements, the
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letter I, talk about yourself, rather than truth statements. In
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other words, when you're talking about the issues, keep it
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in your own experience. For example, if you're a Democrat,
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you might say, I'm worried that Trump is violating the
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emoluments clause of the Constitution and that that's setting a
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bad precedent rather than making some grand sweeping statement like
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President Trump is irredeemably corrupt and you're a terrible person
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for supporting him. Which formulation do you think is likely
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to go down easier in the ears of the person
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you're talking to? Which leads me to the third rule
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that I picked up from the folks at the Raver Angels,
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which is don't characterize the other person's opinion or the
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other side's opinion. Just characterize your own opinion. If you're
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in favor of President Trump, You might say, I'm worried
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about high taxes damaging the economy instead of saying you
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Democrats just want to feed at the trough of a
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bloated welfare state and you're hopeless socialists or whatever. Again,
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you see the difference here that if you keep things
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in your own personal experience rather than declaring them as
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undisputed facts or characterizing other people, you're much more likely
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to be successful. OK, a few more skills here that
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I'm going to list before I let you go. Skill
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number six that helps me a lot. Actually, a phrase
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that I think is incredibly insightful. And here it is.
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Action absorbs anxiety. Action absorbs anxiety. It's very easy, I find,
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in the middle of a turbulent election or an overseas
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war to feel really helpless, like there's nothing you can do.
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And it may be true that there's very little you
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can do to affect the macro situation, but you have
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an enormous amount of power to take action locally. So volunteer.
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You can volunteer on a political campaign because that would
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be a little bit more relevant to the issue at
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hand during the election. But honestly, I think if you
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volunteered at a local animal shelter or helped out the
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elderly in your neighborhood, that would be enormously empowering for
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you and ennobling to give you a sense that you
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are taking some sort of action that is in accordance
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with your values. And really, if you don't have time
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for this kind of volunteer work, which I think many
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of you may not, just helping out people in your
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family or your friends or at work, getting in the
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habit of being useful can stiffen your spine, or at
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least that's what I find, and be a nice sort
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of counter-programming move against the overwhelming sense of helplessness we
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can get in the face of what's coming at us
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via the news. One other thing to say about this,
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and this kind of goes back to the mindfulness piece,
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which is that for me, when I sit in meditation,
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I can see what is beneath what feels like the
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dominant emotion. In other words, I might be experiencing a
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lot of anger, but if I pay attention and sit
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still in meditation, I might notice what is beneath the anger,
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and often that's fear. But what's beneath the fear is
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often caring, giving a shit. That's really what's at the
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root of a lot of our political opinions and concerns
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and anxiety is that we actually care. You might call
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that love. And if you can tune into that and
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let that be what motivates you rather than fear or anger,
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I find that is a much cleaner burning fuel. and
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will allow you to take more effective action for a
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longer period of time. Again, that's how it's worked for me.
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Just a few more quotes on this one. I love
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this one from the Dalai Lama. If a problem can
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be solved, there's no use worrying about it. If it
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can't be solved, worrying will do no good. Basically, worrying
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never helps or rarely helps. Sometimes a little bit of
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worrying helps. I might disagree slightly with the Dalai Lama
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on that, but generally I agree with the thrust of
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that quote, that tuning into your ability to take some
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action can obviate the need for excessive worrying. And then
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one little catchphrase I recently picked up from Devin Barry
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right here on the show, actually, he's a great meditation teacher.
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And he taught me this phrase that comes right out
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of ancient Buddhism. It may take a second to learn
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how to pronounce this, but it's Tatra Maja Tata. Tatra
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Maja Tata. It's like the Buddhist version of Hakuna Matata,
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except Hakuna Matata is like no worries. There's nothing to
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worry about here. At least that's the way I remember
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it from the Lion King. Tatra Maja Tata is, I
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think it translates roughly into right there in the middle
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of it, standing in the middle of all of the
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chaos and being okay with it. It doesn't deny that
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there are problems. What it does do is emphasize that
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we all have this ability, no matter how bad things are,
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to drop in to your body, to drop into some
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reservoir of calm, to not be so caught up for
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a few nanoseconds. And just invoking that phrase in your
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mind might help. It has for me, even in the
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weeks since I first heard it from Devin, Tatra Maja Tata,
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it's like some sort of incantation or spell that you
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can use on yourself to be like, all right, things
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suck right now. But I have the capacity to breathe.
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I don't need to be swamped 24-7. There is within
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me the ability to be calm for a few seconds.
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Two more skills, and these are pretty quick. Number seven
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is never worry alone. I picked this phrase up from
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Robert Waldinger, who I think got it from somebody else.
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Robert is the head of what's called the Harvard Study
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for Adult Development, which is the longest running study in science,
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I believe. where they've been looking at people, several generations
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of people in the Boston area. And the idea is
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to figure out what leads to a long and healthy life.
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And there's just one data point that comes screaming out
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of this long study, which is that the most important
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variable for long and healthy and happy life is not
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sleep or exercise or achieving ketosis or whatever. It's the
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quality of your relationships. And very few people are selling
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you that on Instagram. But it is the most important variable.
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It is often overlooked. And so in the middle of
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a tough election, I find it incredibly helpful to be
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pretty frequently texting or calling my friends and asking what
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they think. What are they doing? What's their take on this?
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For me, this just gives me a buffer against overwhelming stress.
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And this is borne out in the data. The people
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with the strongest relationships in this Harvard study for adult
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development we're the most immune to stress and stress is
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what kills us. So never worry alone. Finally, number eight, self-compassion.
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You may have heard me say this before, but the
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hardest part of personal growth or personal development, whatever you
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want to call it, is remembering. You can listen to
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a podcast like this. You can read a great book.
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You can go see somebody speak and you hear really
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enlightening things. And then you get sucked right back into
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the habit patterns. But the good news there is that
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you don't need to kick your own ass if you're
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forgetting to apply the advice you're hearing here or anywhere else.
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Understanding is completely natural to fall off the wagon. And
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that's where self-compassion comes in. I probably should have defined it.
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Self-compassion is a field that was really invented and pioneered
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by an incredible researcher named Kristen Neff at the University
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of Texas. And the idea is that many of us
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talk to ourselves like a drill sergeant. We're very hard
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on ourselves. We're unforgiving. We would never talk this way
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to our friends or our kids, or hopefully we wouldn't.
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But if you can learn how to talk to yourself
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the way you would talk to a good friend or
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a little kid, a mentee, that has been shown through
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Kristen's research to make people more effective, to help them
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establish habits, to help them have the resilience to finish
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projects to achieve their goals. Self-compassion is incredibly important in
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the middle of a dumpster fire of a presidential election.
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You can have the goal to pursue some of these
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healthy habits that I've listed. Some days you're going to
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lose your temper or you're not going to meditate or
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whatever it is, and that's cool. Let me leave you
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with one last phrase from the world of self-compassion, the
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preeminent question that proponents of self-compassion And I guess I
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would now consider myself one of them. The preeminent question
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they would like to get you to ask yourself on
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the regular is, what do I need right now? What
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do I need right now? Do I need to keep
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reading Twitter? Do I need to kill myself in order
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to finish this next piece of work? Do I need
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to sit through this annoying conversation with my uncle who
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sees things very differently than I do? What do I
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need right now? If you let this be your North
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Star through these next couple of months, I suspect it
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will make everything much easier. All right. Those are the
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eight things I'm doing to keep my shit together in
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the middle of this presidential election. Again, I want to
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emphasize you don't have to do all or any of
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these things. The point of this podcast is not to
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add things to your to-do list that is going to
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further stress you out. It's to give you some tools
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that you can take or leave. And again, I want
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to encourage you to test them out in the laboratory
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of your own mind. They work for me, but they
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may not work for you or some of them may
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work for you. Others may work better. And speaking of that,
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I want to add that we are going to launch
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very soon a lengthy series of episodes right here on
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the show to help get you through what is coming
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at us through the course of this election. We're going
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to be doing episodes on how to handle anger, including
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your own anger and the anger of other people. the
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00:26:18.289 --> 00:26:22.410
dangers of cynicism, the value of intellectual humility, the value
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of equanimity, how to handle conflict. The idea is we're
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going to try to give you not just the eight
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skills that I talked about today, but many more that
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can help you deal with a tricky time. Before I
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let you go, I do want to ask a favor,
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which is this is the first time we've done a
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00:26:39.809 --> 00:26:42.029
podcast like this, which is where it's just me, no
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00:26:42.069 --> 00:26:44.630
guests talking. I would love some feedback, so you can
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00:26:44.849 --> 00:26:47.509
hit me up on Twitter X or on Instagram or
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00:26:48.220 --> 00:26:49.980
I'll put a link to an email address where you
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00:26:50.019 --> 00:26:53.079
can send feedback to the team. Let us know if
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you want us to do more things like this. Yeah,
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00:26:56.480 --> 00:26:58.269
so thank you for listening. Thanks to the whole team
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00:26:58.309 --> 00:27:00.430
who worked so hard on this. Specifically want to shout
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00:27:00.490 --> 00:27:04.970
out DJ Kashmir and Tara Anderson who are working on
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00:27:05.009 --> 00:27:07.309
this episode. But of course, that applies to everybody on
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00:27:07.329 --> 00:27:08.890
the team. Stay safe out there.
