Speaker 1: In case you're just recently joining us, or however long
Speaker 1: you've been a listener of the show, you may not
Speaker 1: realize we have years and years of incredible episodes in
Speaker 1: our archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that we've
Speaker 1: decided to handpick one of our favorites that may be
Speaker 1: new to you, but if not, it's definitely worth another listen.
Speaker 1: We hope you'll enjoy this episode with Shauna Shapiro. When
Speaker 1: we shame ourselves, the centers of the brain that have
Speaker 1: to do with learning shut down, so we literally paralyze ourselves.
Speaker 1: We keep ourselves stuck in the very habits we want
Speaker 1: to change. Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time,
Speaker 1: great tinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we
Speaker 1: have quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are
Speaker 1: what you think ring true. And yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is doctor
Speaker 1: Shauna Shapiro, a professor, author, an internationally recognized expert in
Speaker 1: mindfulness and compassion. Shauna has published over one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty journal articles and three critically acclaimed books translated into
Speaker 1: sixteen languages. On this episode, Eric and Shauna discuss her
Speaker 1: book Good Morning, I Love You Mindfulness and Self Compassion
Speaker 1: Practices to rewire your brain for calm, clarity and joy.
Speaker 1: Hi Seana, welcome to the show. Thank you, delighted to
Speaker 1: be here. I'm excited to have you on. We are
Speaker 1: going to discuss your book, Good Morning, I Love You
Speaker 1: Mindfulness and Self Compassion Practices to rewire your brain for calm,
Speaker 1: clarity and joy. But before we get into the book,
Speaker 1: let's start like we always do, with a parable. There's
Speaker 1: a grandmother who's talking with her grandson and she says,
Speaker 1: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 1: are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love and the
Speaker 1: other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 1: and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops. He thinks
Speaker 1: about it for a second, and he looks up at
Speaker 1: his grandmother and he says, well, grandmother, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 1: like to start off by asking you what that Paraul
Speaker 1: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 1: that you do. Well. First of all, I love that
Speaker 1: my dad told me that Parable was a little girl,
Speaker 1: and what it has always meant to me, even before
Speaker 1: I became a scientist and really understood the science behind it,
Speaker 1: is that where we put our attention, where we put
Speaker 1: our energy, as what we grow. And if we are
Speaker 1: practicing negativity or fear or anger, that's what we're growing.
Speaker 1: And if we're practicing kindness and generosity, that's what we're growing.
Speaker 1: That's what we're feeding. As the grandmother said, And I
Speaker 1: think what we know now from neuroplasticity is that whatever
Speaker 1: we are practicing grow stronger. And so what really matters
Speaker 1: in life is focusing on what you want to grow,
Speaker 1: what you want to feed. And I think the other
Speaker 1: thing I love about that Parable is It reminds us
Speaker 1: that none of us are perfect. We all have good
Speaker 1: and bad inside of us, and that's normal, that's natural,
Speaker 1: and it really is about choice and having the freedom
Speaker 1: to choose what parts of ourselves we want to strengthen. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love that part of the Parable too, that I
Speaker 1: don't think people talk about that much, which is the
Speaker 1: normalization that the human condition is a struggle and that
Speaker 1: we have all the stuff going on inside of us.
Speaker 1: I love the way the Parable sort of described as
Speaker 1: it sounds like it's a pretty close battle, you know,
Speaker 1: it sounds which we just you know, really reinforces that
Speaker 1: this just goes on. So I love that idea. And
Speaker 1: you know what you said there about what we practice
Speaker 1: grows is one of the real key messages in your book,
Speaker 1: which is what we practice grows stronger. And also how
Speaker 1: we practice, which is something we're really going to get
Speaker 1: into here in a minute. But I thought I would
Speaker 1: start by asking you to tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about what led you into your initial encounters with mindfulness. Well,
Speaker 1: I was introduced to mindfulness at one of the lowest
Speaker 1: points in my life. I was about seventeen, and I
Speaker 1: had just had spinal fusion, surgery, so I had a
Speaker 1: metal rot put in my spine for scoliosis. It was
Speaker 1: very unexpected, and so I went from this healthy, active teenager,
Speaker 1: kind of starved my volleyball team and my whole life
Speaker 1: cenator on my physicality, to lying in a hospital bed,
Speaker 1: unable to walk. And I remember during that time the
Speaker 1: physical pain was significant, but it was really my mind
Speaker 1: that tortured me most. It was the fear of the future,
Speaker 1: what I ever recover, and the incredible sense of loss,
Speaker 1: and I just didn't have the tools to cope. And
Speaker 1: it was at that time that my father introduced me
Speaker 1: to mindfulness. And it was one of those moments where
Speaker 1: I can't explain it, but it's like you just know,
Speaker 1: there's a deep knowing. And when I started reading this
Speaker 1: book he gave me Wherever you go, there you Are
Speaker 1: by John cabot Zinn. The first line said, whatever has
Speaker 1: happened to you, it's already happened. The real question is
Speaker 1: now what? And there was this sense of hope, like
Speaker 1: there was a path forward that I perhaps could be
Speaker 1: happy again. And that journey led me some years later
Speaker 1: to Thailand and Nepal to a monastery to actually study
Speaker 1: and practice meditation, and it was there that I experienced
Speaker 1: for the first time this sense of freedom from the
Speaker 1: pain in my body and a sense that there was
Speaker 1: the power of the mind to actually shift both our
Speaker 1: physical health and our mental wellbeing. And that really led
Speaker 1: to the last twenty five years of my life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you mentioned that sort of instant recognition. I was introduced
Speaker 1: to Zen Buddhism in high school by a teacher, and
Speaker 1: I just remember there was this almost instant like draw,
Speaker 1: and I think the draw was similar to what you're describing,
Speaker 1: because it was basically saying, you know what, outside of
Speaker 1: you can be chaos and pain and suffering. And I
Speaker 1: was a serious young man as a high schooler, and
Speaker 1: so I'm reading all these novels and I know that
Speaker 1: the world lots of bad things can happen, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, this thing comes along and says, but
Speaker 1: even in the midst of that, there's a way to
Speaker 1: be okay. And I just immediately was like that, that's
Speaker 1: what I want. And that's what was so extraordinary about
Speaker 1: the monastery was I remember as I was leaving, feeling
Speaker 1: the sense of well being, the sense of happiness, and
Speaker 1: reflecting on the fact that nothing much had changed in
Speaker 1: my life, right, I hadn't many I didn't all of
Speaker 1: a sudden have a boyfriend. My spine still had its
Speaker 1: metal rod and scars on my body. But there was
Speaker 1: this sense of happiness, and I realized that it wasn't
Speaker 1: our external circumstances that determined our happiness. It was really
Speaker 1: this interior landscape, and that we have some control over that. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you were at the monastery and you're describing a
Speaker 1: little bit about how, you know, you had some initial
Speaker 1: glimpses of mindfulness that were really positive, but then you
Speaker 1: got into sort of being there and it was a
Speaker 1: real struggle. And one of the struggles was that the
Speaker 1: monks that didn't really speak much English. So you had
Speaker 1: an English speaking monk finally show up and you guys
Speaker 1: kind of get into a conversation about out your struggles
Speaker 1: and we gave you some pretty important ideas. Yes, it
Speaker 1: was really extraordinary because before going to the monastery, I
Speaker 1: had had this one experience with meditation where there was
Speaker 1: this infinite peace and bliss, and by the time I
Speaker 1: got to the monastery, I had this expectation that meditation
Speaker 1: was going to be peaceful and joyful, and easy, And
Speaker 1: when I started practicing, it was the exact opposite. It
Speaker 1: was my mind going all over the place and just
Speaker 1: kind of feeling more and more frustrated and impatient and struggling.
Speaker 1: And when this monk arrived who spoke English, I shared
Speaker 1: with him my struggles and he looked at me and
Speaker 1: he said, oh, dear, you're not practicing mindfulness. You're practicing impatience, frustration, judgment.
Speaker 1: And then he said these five words that I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: What you practice grows stronger. Exactly what we were talking
Speaker 1: about with the parable is whatever we practice grows stronger.
Speaker 1: And we know this now with neuroplasticity, our repeated thoughts, emotions, behaviors,
Speaker 1: they shape our brain. They actually change the physical architecture
Speaker 1: of our brain. And so he explained to me that
Speaker 1: if I was meditating with judgment, I was growing judgment.
Speaker 1: Meditating with frustration, I'm growing frustration. So he helped me
Speaker 1: understand that mindfulness isn't just about paying attention, which is
Speaker 1: what we normally think. It's just about being present. It's
Speaker 1: about how you pay attention. Your attitude is what is
Speaker 1: really essential. I wish I had learned that lesson twenty
Speaker 1: years earlier, because and listeners have heard this story. I
Speaker 1: was an on again, off again meditator for a long time,
Speaker 1: and there are a variety of reasons for that, but
Speaker 1: certainly one of them was the fact that I always
Speaker 1: felt like I was doing it wrong. You know. It
Speaker 1: was this constant like, all right, I'm supposed to keep
Speaker 1: my mind on the breath, and I can't do that,
Speaker 1: so I'm not doing it right now? Gone it? And frustration.
Speaker 1: Who wants to do something you feel like you're failing
Speaker 1: at every five seconds? And so I know that the
Speaker 1: books I was reading we're telling me come back non
Speaker 1: judgmentally too, But I almost feel like it has to
Speaker 1: be stated, at least in my case, in almost over
Speaker 1: the top language about how kind I approach this, because
Speaker 1: there is something built into the way we even the
Speaker 1: basic meditation instructions that I don't think anybody can come
Speaker 1: to them anymore without preconceived notions, and the preconceived notion
Speaker 1: of oh, my mind should be quiet, which is nobody's
Speaker 1: mind when they start. And so, you know, I think
Speaker 1: that that's one of the key pieces that's so important
Speaker 1: about what you're talking about here, And you talk about
Speaker 1: three pillars of mindfulness, but you say, you know a
Speaker 1: really big one, and the one that's most neglected is
Speaker 1: this one about our attitude exactly. And what you're saying
Speaker 1: is so important and so universal. When I came back
Speaker 1: from the monastery, I started my PhD program, became a
Speaker 1: scientist and clinical psychologist, and I started working with people
Speaker 1: teaching them mindfulness. And every single person I worked with
Speaker 1: had the exact experience you did, whether they were women
Speaker 1: with breast cancer or high level CEOs or stressed out
Speaker 1: college students, every single person had this tremendous self judgment.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just about the meditation. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: like I'm doing the meditation wrong. It's like I'm doing
Speaker 1: life wrong. There's something wrong with me. What happens when
Speaker 1: we judge ourselves. What happens when we shame ourselves. And
Speaker 1: so I started studying shame, and what I learned is
Speaker 1: that shame doesn't work. It doesn't make you a better parent,
Speaker 1: it doesn't help you become a better meditator, it doesn't
Speaker 1: help you lose weight. When we shame ourselves, the centers
Speaker 1: of the brain that have to do with learning shut down.
Speaker 1: So we literally paralyze ourselves. We keep ourselves stuck in
Speaker 1: the very habits we want to change. And that's why
Speaker 1: I started focusing on this attitude of kindness, that this
Speaker 1: is a pillar of mindfulness, and if we're not practicing kindness,
Speaker 1: we're not practicing mindfulness, and we certainly aren't going to
Speaker 1: heal and change and grow. There's so many things you
Speaker 1: said in there that I think we should spend time
Speaker 1: on because it's so fundamental. There's a Stanford researcher BJ
Speaker 1: Fogg who's written a lot about habit change, and he's
Speaker 1: got a line in his latest book that sort of
Speaker 1: summarizes what we're saying here, which is that people change
Speaker 1: better by feeling good than feeling bad. It just works
Speaker 1: way better. And yet there's a sense if we're really
Speaker 1: hard on ourselves. You know, we had Kristinneffon not too
Speaker 1: long ago. We've had her on a couple times, this
Speaker 1: idea of this compassion and kindness. And I always say,
Speaker 1: when I'm working with coaching clients, I say, it's not
Speaker 1: just that it feels better and that's good, Like feeling
Speaker 1: better is a really good thing. Being kind to yourself
Speaker 1: actually makes your internal landscape more hospitable and habitable. But
Speaker 1: more than that, it's that it works way better. And
Speaker 1: that's what you're talking about here exactly. Well. I usually
Speaker 1: say the opposite to people. I say, if beating yourself
Speaker 1: up work, I'd say go ahead and do it. It
Speaker 1: just doesn't work, right. That's really the key to this
Speaker 1: idea of kindness and compassion is that they not only
Speaker 1: feel better to us, which is lovely, but they actually
Speaker 1: are effective. What happens when we're kind and compassionate is
Speaker 1: we release dopamine into our system. We turn on the
Speaker 1: learning centers of the brain, and we turn on the
Speaker 1: motivation centers. So this attitude actually gives us the resources
Speaker 1: we need to change, and I think that's so important.
Speaker 1: What we know now is that change is something that
Speaker 1: we actually can learn to do. You know. It's another
Speaker 1: core thing that I talk with coaching clients about. People
Speaker 1: think I just can't I'm lazy. It's not you, it's
Speaker 1: your approach. And so we know so much about change,
Speaker 1: and so much of making successful change is about learning.
Speaker 1: You know, there are people now who are starting to
Speaker 1: say that they think addiction is largely a learning disorder.
Speaker 1: It's an inability to learn and so what you're saying
Speaker 1: is so critical because any kind of change we want
Speaker 1: to make, we have to be able to learn. And
Speaker 1: yet when we shame ourselves, we shut down the ability
Speaker 1: to learn. So let's talk a little bit more about
Speaker 1: the neuroscience. So there, what's happening when we're shaming ourselves.
Speaker 1: When we shame ourselves, the amygdala triggers this cascade of
Speaker 1: nor pronepherin, and cortisol. It floods our system. It shuts
Speaker 1: down the learning centers of the brain, and it shuttles
Speaker 1: all of our resources to survival pathways. We literally go
Speaker 1: into a fight or flight freeze response because of our
Speaker 1: own attack. We're attacking ourselves, but the body doesn't know that,
Speaker 1: and so it literally robs us of the resources we
Speaker 1: need to do the work of changing. And I agree
Speaker 1: with you about addiction, because one of the hallmarks of
Speaker 1: addiction is shamed, right, and shame keeps people stuff. And
Speaker 1: that's why for me, my work in the world is
Speaker 1: to help people change. And I'm very interested in the
Speaker 1: processes of learning. And what I've found as a professor
Speaker 1: is that mindfulness is foundational to learning. It creates this
Speaker 1: environment that actually is conducive to learning. And so in
Speaker 1: all my classes, whether or not we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about mindfulness, we begin with mindfulness practice just to prepare
Speaker 1: the mind for learning. And in what ways does mindfulness
Speaker 1: prepare the mind for learning? Or what sort of mindfulness
Speaker 1: practices prepare the mind for learning? Answer that either way,
Speaker 1: I guess yeah, it's a great question. So there are
Speaker 1: many different mindfulness practices, and for me, the most important
Speaker 1: thing for people to understand is that mindfulness is separate
Speaker 1: from meditation. Mindfulness is a way of being. It's a
Speaker 1: way of living moment by moment, and meditation is kind
Speaker 1: of the exercise, the workout, like going to the gym
Speaker 1: that strengthens your ability to be mindful through your day.
Speaker 1: And so mindfulness is defined as these three key elements,
Speaker 1: attention and attitude. And so I'll have my students practice
Speaker 1: those three elements in different ways, but those are the
Speaker 1: core of mindfulness, and I'll just talk about each. The
Speaker 1: first is intention, and that's simply knowing why am I
Speaker 1: paying attention? Right? What is the most important thing to me?
Speaker 1: Your intention is your values, what you care about. So
Speaker 1: I like to say your intention sets the compass of
Speaker 1: your heart. Says this is the direction I want to go. This,
Speaker 1: like the grandmother said, this is the wolf I want
Speaker 1: to feed. That's your intention. The second element is, of course,
Speaker 1: your attention, and this is about learning how to train
Speaker 1: our attention in the present moment. And what we've learned
Speaker 1: is that the mind has a really hard time staying focused.
Speaker 1: In fact, the mind wanders forty seven percent of the
Speaker 1: time on average, So that's about half of our life
Speaker 1: that we're not here. We're lost in the future or
Speaker 1: sucked into the past, and we miss this moment. And
Speaker 1: if you think about it, you know, people say that
Speaker 1: time is our most valuable resource. They're wrong. It's our
Speaker 1: attention that is our most valuable resource. So mindful trains
Speaker 1: our attention. And then the final element, the third element,
Speaker 1: is our attitude, which is what we've been talking about,
Speaker 1: having this attitude of kindness and curiosity. And so we
Speaker 1: want to be practicing all three, zeroing in on what's
Speaker 1: most important, capturing, stabilizing our attention, and then attending with
Speaker 1: kindness and that practice of mindfulness, which can be done
Speaker 1: when we're listening, when we're eating, when we're dancing, when
Speaker 1: we're walking, when we're making love, and when we're meditating.
Speaker 1: That practice creates this host environment of learning, of evolving,
Speaker 1: and of growth. One of the things that I think
Speaker 1: is the biggest challenge to mindfulness and one of the
Speaker 1: biggest challenges I would say to spiritual practice in general.
Speaker 1: And I know that we could say mindfulness is or
Speaker 1: isn't a spiritual practice. I don't want to go down
Speaker 1: that rabbit hole, but is forgetting. It's like we get up,
Speaker 1: maybe I do your good morning, I love you practice,
Speaker 1: I get myself out on the right foot. Maybe I meditate,
Speaker 1: and then I walk out the door. And the next
Speaker 1: time I think about any of that stuff is like
Speaker 1: ten at night, I'm laying down, going how is my day?
Speaker 1: So I'm kind of curious from your perspective, what are
Speaker 1: some ways that we can weave mindfulness in through more
Speaker 1: of our lives. I've got a program called Spiritual Habits,
Speaker 1: and that's the whole goals. It takes, you know, behavioral
Speaker 1: science and spiritual principles. So I have some of my
Speaker 1: own ideas, but I would love to hear your thoughts
Speaker 1: on how we can bring more of this to our
Speaker 1: day to day life, particularly around the problem of forgetting
Speaker 1: Yes beautiful. So what's interesting is the word mindfulness in
Speaker 1: Polly means to remember. So it's this process of forgetting
Speaker 1: and remembering and forgetting and remembering, and that is what
Speaker 1: I believe is the whole of spiritual practice, right yeah,
Speaker 1: is we forget who we truly are and then we
Speaker 1: remember and so as we go through the day. I
Speaker 1: love what you've just said about having habits, and it's
Speaker 1: really building in habits throughout our day that help us remember.
Speaker 1: So with my students, we create different habits, different practice
Speaker 1: is that will support them through the day. And as
Speaker 1: you start to grow these muscles of awareness of mindfulness,
Speaker 1: they become more natural. So for example, like you said,
Speaker 1: when you wake up in the morning, I think when
Speaker 1: you wake up in the morning and when you go
Speaker 1: to bed at night, those are the most important times
Speaker 1: to practice. And that's what most spiritual traditions say right
Speaker 1: morning and evening. But there's actually research that came out
Speaker 1: of you see San Francisco last year showing that your
Speaker 1: mood in the morning and your mood in the evening
Speaker 1: are the best predictors of your physiological health and longevity.
Speaker 1: Your mitochondria are the health of your mitochondria predictive of
Speaker 1: whether or not you're in a good or bad mood
Speaker 1: in the morning and evening, and the length of your telomeres,
Speaker 1: which are the best predictor we have of how long
Speaker 1: someone's going to live. So anchoring yourself in these practices
Speaker 1: in the morning and the evening is really beneficial. But
Speaker 1: like you said, there's this whole day in between, and
Speaker 1: so it's important to kind of create pauses to schedule
Speaker 1: time in your day. And it doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: to meditate. It could be pausing to write down what
Speaker 1: you're grateful for. It could be going out in nature,
Speaker 1: you know, doing what Daker Keltner calls an awe walk,
Speaker 1: where you walk in nature and you look for the
Speaker 1: beauty and the good. So much of our day is
Speaker 1: focused on the negative. You know, there's something in psychology
Speaker 1: called the negativity bias, and it's really important to start
Speaker 1: to balance that by specifically orienting or priming the mind
Speaker 1: to look for the good. So one practice I wrote
Speaker 1: about this in the book is when I wake up,
Speaker 1: I say, I wonder what surprising and magical thing is
Speaker 1: going to happen today. And what that does is it
Speaker 1: primes my mind to look for the good, to look
Speaker 1: for the surprising. Instead of to scan for danger, I'm
Speaker 1: actually looking for the good. And as I practice this
Speaker 1: over and over again, it grows stronger. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: that's one of the ways that a formal gratitude practice
Speaker 1: this helps me, is that if I'm doing one regularly,
Speaker 1: and I like to think of it as gratitude slash appreciation,
Speaker 1: Like gratitude could be like, oh, I've got a home
Speaker 1: to live in, but appreciation could be this cup of
Speaker 1: tea or the way the light shines on that leaf.
Speaker 1: By trying to recount what those are, it does what
Speaker 1: you're describing, which is sort of gets me on the lookout.
Speaker 1: It's the same way like having like a photo a
Speaker 1: day goal gets my mind sort of looking at what's
Speaker 1: beautiful around me. It is a priming of the mind.
Speaker 1: I like that. So I want to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about mindfulness in general. You've sort of devoted your
Speaker 1: adult life to it. It's undergone some stunning growth over
Speaker 1: the last five years, you know, I would say, and
Speaker 1: you talk about one of the concerns is that you say,
Speaker 1: the recent interests often led to its oversimplification and over commodification,
Speaker 1: and it can quickly turn into a character of itself
Speaker 1: that loses its transformational powers. So talk to me about
Speaker 1: what ways does mindfulness lose its transformative power. What are
Speaker 1: some of the things we want to be on the
Speaker 1: lookout for. So one of I think the greatest pitfalls
Speaker 1: of mindfulness is that it can turn into a self
Speaker 1: improvement project where we're using the practice as one more
Speaker 1: way to beat ourselves up when we don't measure up
Speaker 1: to this kind of gold standard of perfection. And so
Speaker 1: for me, a huge realization was recognizing that this practice
Speaker 1: isn't about self improvement, it's about self liberation. And what
Speaker 1: I mean by that is this liberation from our constant
Speaker 1: self judgment, our constant comparing mind Am I good enough?
Speaker 1: Am I? Measuring up into a sense of freedom and
Speaker 1: a sense of relating to ourselves and to life with
Speaker 1: greater kindness, greater openness, and greater flexibility where there's not
Speaker 1: such control or trying to get certainty. But there's a
Speaker 1: way that we can flow and move with life with
Speaker 1: greater trust and faith both in ourselves and in life itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I loved that line from the book that you know,
Speaker 1: we've got to change our mindset from one of self
Speaker 1: improvement to one of self liberation. I think that's such
Speaker 1: a great way of saying it. I used to ask
Speaker 1: this question a lot on the show early on, and
Speaker 1: the question I would ask is, how do we balance
Speaker 1: this desire to improve ourselves and by that I just
Speaker 1: mean to be better, happier people. How do we balance
Speaker 1: that with the very fact that that striving gets in
Speaker 1: the way. It's endemic to all spiritual practice, I think
Speaker 1: to a certain degree, at least I know for me,
Speaker 1: it's when I let go of wanting anything to be
Speaker 1: different that I experience my greatest spiritual freedom. And yet
Speaker 1: there's an engine that pushes me forward to engage in
Speaker 1: spiritual practice. And so I love that improvement versus liberation.
Speaker 1: But talk more about that. Yeah, well, there's this exquisite paradox.
Speaker 1: And I think this is where our intention becomes very powerful,
Speaker 1: because our intention really sets the stage for what is possible. Right.
Speaker 1: It reminds us again and again of why we're practicing,
Speaker 1: why we're engaging in these practices. And yet our intention
Speaker 1: is a direction, it's not a destination. And so again
Speaker 1: and again we reset our compass. We say this is
Speaker 1: the direction I want to head, But we don't get
Speaker 1: fixated on a destination, and we don't get fixated on
Speaker 1: some idea of perfection. I think that's the greatest problem
Speaker 1: is when you think there's some end goal that you're
Speaker 1: going to get to. Perfection doesn't exist. In fact, the
Speaker 1: only time it exists is you know, when you're dead,
Speaker 1: right we think about it. Perfection is the antithesis of evolution.
Speaker 1: We're always throwing, we're always changed. Once you reach perfection
Speaker 1: is over. So the goal is not the end. The
Speaker 1: goal is the living and the evolving. And what mindfulness
Speaker 1: does for me is this liberation where every moment becomes
Speaker 1: precious and every moment is in a sense, an end
Speaker 1: to itself. And if I take care of this moment,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be preparing myself for the next moment.
Speaker 1: I love that. Yeah, Audiashanti said to me once, if
Speaker 1: you want a perfect spiritual teacher, find a dead one,
Speaker 1: you know, because because the living ones are gonna disappoint
Speaker 1: you if you get to know them well enough, like
Speaker 1: they just will, they're human. I love that idea. You
Speaker 1: say that perfection isn't possible what transformation is, and then
Speaker 1: also that change is a direction, not a destination exactly,
Speaker 1: and that it happens in small increments if you think
Speaker 1: about it. Change doesn't happen overnight. And I think that
Speaker 1: is where most people lose hope, is they give like
Speaker 1: a big push and then it doesn't change overnight and
Speaker 1: they give up. But I write about in the book
Speaker 1: is something called the five percent principle. And I love
Speaker 1: this and I use it every day in my life.
Speaker 1: Is can I just be five percent kinder? Or can
Speaker 1: I just exercise five percent more? And it was really
Speaker 1: interesting because my son was having his midterm exams and
Speaker 1: he's in high school as he's a freshman, so it's
Speaker 1: like the first time he's ever had a real exam,
Speaker 1: and he said, I just can't study for it. It's
Speaker 1: just too much. And I said, well, let's just do
Speaker 1: five percent, like you don't have to deal a hundred percent.
Speaker 1: Let's just take a little five percent. And you could
Speaker 1: see how it softened and opened him where there wasn't
Speaker 1: so much pressure and so much urgency. And I think
Speaker 1: all of us, our children especially, are living with so
Speaker 1: much urgency and pressure. And what the five percent principle
Speaker 1: says is let's just go in that direction. We don't
Speaker 1: need to do it perfectly Yeah, It's one of the
Speaker 1: biggest teachings on this show over all the years, is
Speaker 1: just those baby steps, just little steps at a time.
Speaker 1: I'm working on a sort of a dharma talk for
Speaker 1: a Zen center that I'm doing later this week, and
Speaker 1: I was talking about that very thing, you know, comparing
Speaker 1: like these Hollywood ideas of these big moments. You know,
Speaker 1: I've had a couple in my life, like the moment
Speaker 1: I real I'll die if I don't go into treatment,
Speaker 1: Like it's a big moment, but it's not really that
Speaker 1: much bigger than the twenty seven thousand others after that
Speaker 1: that I chose to go to a meeting, call my sponsor,
Speaker 1: stay sober, Like those all are so important. And there's
Speaker 1: the idea of the marginal gains. There's the story of
Speaker 1: the British cycling coach who you know, he didn't even
Speaker 1: do five percent. He was like, if we get one
Speaker 1: percent improvement in lots of different areas, it adds up
Speaker 1: to this really big change, exactly. And so it's again
Speaker 1: just like which wolf are you going to feed? You
Speaker 1: have to feed them on a daily basis, right, And
Speaker 1: so it's just this little bits of am I moving
Speaker 1: in the direction that's an alignment with my heart, that's
Speaker 1: an alignment with my soul. That is my deepest desire.
Speaker 1: And I think that idea of remembering because we forget
Speaker 1: so easily, right, we forget. So what's important, and that's
Speaker 1: what these practices are about, is remembering. Because the way
Speaker 1: people get off course is not because they just all
Speaker 1: of a sudden veer off the cliff. It's like these
Speaker 1: little minor or broken commitments and these minor errors that
Speaker 1: are one percent in judgment. And you know, if you're
Speaker 1: one percent off and you're driving from California, Texas, you're
Speaker 1: not going to get there right. You're a different direction.
Speaker 1: And so what we're trying to do is just recourse
Speaker 1: correct every day. Am I in alignment? Am I living
Speaker 1: the life I'm supposed to live? Yeah? I love that idea.
Speaker 1: I think you're speaking my language. Let's go back to
Speaker 1: intention for a second, because one of the things about
Speaker 1: intention is when do you set intentions? Do you set
Speaker 1: an intention for the day? Do you set an intention
Speaker 1: when you sit down to meditate? Do you set an
Speaker 1: intention for the hour? Do you like? What are your
Speaker 1: thoughts on what are the places to set intention? And
Speaker 1: how important is it to keep one intention, or to
Speaker 1: change your intentions, or let's just talk more about the
Speaker 1: practical implementation of intention. Absolutely, it's a great question. So
Speaker 1: our intentions are evolving, they're always changing. So you don't
Speaker 1: just set an intention like a New year resolution and
Speaker 1: that's it for the year. And so the way I
Speaker 1: work with intention is when I sit to meditate, I
Speaker 1: always begin with an intention just to make the meditation alive.
Speaker 1: So it's not just like, Okay, now it's time to meditate,
Speaker 1: and I'm doing it again. So I'll set my intention
Speaker 1: then and they change. You know. Sometimes it's just made
Speaker 1: this be of benefit in my life and in the world.
Speaker 1: There's this kind of sense of an offering a dedication.
Speaker 1: But sometimes the intentions are more specific. And I'll give
Speaker 1: you an example. Some years ago, I was away teaching
Speaker 1: in Europe, and I was gone for about two weeks,
Speaker 1: and my son at the time was nine years old,
Speaker 1: and it was the longest we'd ever been apart. And
Speaker 1: I distinctly remember flying back from Copenhagen and I was
Speaker 1: kind of in the coach middle seat, kind of squished up,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden almost having an anxiety attack
Speaker 1: because I was so worried that I had ruined my
Speaker 1: relationship with my son, that I had been gone too long,
Speaker 1: I had broken our attachment bonds. I made the wrong choice.
Speaker 1: And instead of spiraling into shame and guilt and out,
Speaker 1: I set a clear intention when I get home, the
Speaker 1: most important thing is to reconnect with my son. And
Speaker 1: so when I got home, I made a commitment for
Speaker 1: twenty four hours not to unpack, not to check mail,
Speaker 1: not to do email, and this very clear intention. And
Speaker 1: I said to my son, we live in California. I said,
Speaker 1: do you want to go to the beach because something
Speaker 1: we both loved? He said sure. So I start packing
Speaker 1: up the perfect picnic and all his perfect foods and
Speaker 1: his gear, and I'm ready to go to the beach
Speaker 1: and wave into the neighbors saying like, look what a
Speaker 1: good mom I am. And I go back inside and
Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, Jackson, you're ready to go? And he's like, nah,
Speaker 1: I don't feel like it. I'm like, what, We're gonna
Speaker 1: go to the beach and I'm gonna show you how
Speaker 1: much I love you, damn it. So he gets on
Speaker 1: a swimshrugs and I'm out at the car and I'm
Speaker 1: ready to go, and I'm in agenda mode, like I
Speaker 1: want to get to the beach to the perfect sunlight
Speaker 1: and the perfect time for our picnic. And he's sitting
Speaker 1: on our front porch and I'm like, hey, let's go,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't even look up at me, and I
Speaker 1: start getting impatient and I'm about to kind of just
Speaker 1: be like, get in the car, when all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I remember my intention. What's the most important thing? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: all I want to do is reconnect with my son.
Speaker 1: I don't care if we go to the beach. And
Speaker 1: I walked back over to where he was sitting, and
Speaker 1: he was watching these ants and I sit down next
Speaker 1: to him and we're watching the ants together, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I feel his little body begin to soften,
Speaker 1: and I feel his shoulder lean into my shoulder, the
Speaker 1: sun on our backs, and that was it, That was
Speaker 1: the most important thing. But we forget, and so our
Speaker 1: intentions they remind us, They remind us of what do
Speaker 1: I really care about? Yeah, And so we can have
Speaker 1: an intention for a day, but we can also have
Speaker 1: an intention for a situation, a meeting, a conversation, a dinner.
Speaker 1: What's my intention at dinner tonight with the family. My
Speaker 1: intention is to be present. My intention is to be kind,
Speaker 1: and it changes the whole trajectory when you go into
Speaker 1: a board meeting, when you even for this podcast that
Speaker 1: we're recording. Before we started recording, I set a really
Speaker 1: clear intention that it be of benefit, and there's a
Speaker 1: way in which it shifts the entire direction of what's
Speaker 1: happening because you get back in alignment with what's important.
Speaker 1: It's just like saying grace before dinner that it changes
Speaker 1: the feeling. Instead of everyone rushing in and you know,
Speaker 1: everyone's on their phone and whatnot, to actually have that
Speaker 1: pause and remind yourself this is a special time. I
Speaker 1: think that that intention before meditation is a really important
Speaker 1: piece that again, another thing that I spent most of
Speaker 1: my life not doing. I I still do it. Sometimes.
Speaker 1: I just sit down and I write in and I
Speaker 1: just find that by stopping and thinking about why I'm
Speaker 1: doing it makes a big difference. It's essential, and I
Speaker 1: believe it's essential to keep this practice up to keep
Speaker 1: up your motivation, because otherwise you forget about why you're
Speaker 1: doing it and it becomes one more chore meditation. Lauren Roche,
Speaker 1: who's one of my dear friends and teachers. He says,
Speaker 1: it's a love affair with life that you sit down
Speaker 1: and you reconnect with your deepest truths, with your deepest
Speaker 1: felt sense, and to set that intention right, May this
Speaker 1: liberate me, May this help me be more compassionate, May
Speaker 1: this help me be more present? So I'm not missing
Speaker 1: my life. And there's a way in which sometimes I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I'm a scientist, so
Speaker 1: I do it. Sometimes I'll sit down there and I'll
Speaker 1: be like, oh my god, I really should be writing
Speaker 1: another book chapter or helping our kids with their homework.
Speaker 1: And I'll just say, no, no no, no, right now, I'm
Speaker 1: strengthening immune system and I'm improving my sleep quality and
Speaker 1: decreasing cords all and I'll just kind of remind myself
Speaker 1: of all the benefits, just to kind of remotivate myself, saying, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm taking care of myself by doing this, that is
Speaker 1: my intention. Yeah, let's go through some of those benefits.
Speaker 1: What are some of the benefits to a regular meditation
Speaker 1: practice or a regular mindfulness practice. Well, what's truly extraordinary
Speaker 1: is that there's such a wide range of benefits that
Speaker 1: not only does it reduce stress, reduce cord as all,
Speaker 1: lower blood pressure, strength in our immune system, it also
Speaker 1: helps with cognitive capacities, so it increases our attention and focus,
Speaker 1: but it also increases our memory, our ability to learn,
Speaker 1: our ability to innovate and create. And then some of
Speaker 1: the things I'm most interested in is meditation increases our
Speaker 1: empathy and compassion. It increases our self compassion, it increases
Speaker 1: our happiness levels, It increases our ability to shift perspectives.
Speaker 1: We have more cognitive flexibility, we don't get stuck in
Speaker 1: these rigid thought patterns, and it reduces our cultural bias.
Speaker 1: It allows us to see each other clearly. And I think,
Speaker 1: more than anything, this is what our world needs is
Speaker 1: greater compassion, greater clarity, and greater capacity to sense our
Speaker 1: inner connection. When you instruct somebody in a basic meditation practice,
Speaker 1: what are your basic instructions? Well, you can try it
Speaker 1: right now. I'll guide us through a very short one.
Speaker 1: All right, listening, If you'd like, you can let your
Speaker 1: eyes close, and if you don't like to close your eyes,
Speaker 1: it's fine to keep them open. You can just focus
Speaker 1: on one point and then just begin by reflecting on
Speaker 1: your intention. So your intention right now might just to
Speaker 1: be present and curious, open, and then gathering your attention
Speaker 1: into your body and watch your mind's going to want
Speaker 1: to wander off. It's like, oh, this is my break,
Speaker 1: it's not your break. Come back. Feel your body, wiggle
Speaker 1: your toes, feel your feet. Practicing these neural pathways of presence,
Speaker 1: of attention, feel your breath, and then infusing this with kindness.
Speaker 1: So maybe soften the body five percent more, bring five
Speaker 1: percent more openness, curiosity, and just practicing for another moment
Speaker 1: your intention, attention, attitude. You can take another breath in
Speaker 1: and out, notice how you feel, and if your eyes
Speaker 1: are closed, you can let some light back into them. Good. Simple.
Speaker 1: And so as that practice goes on, do you encourage
Speaker 1: people to stay with the breath, the sensations of the body,
Speaker 1: the intention, or all the above? Exactly, it's all of
Speaker 1: the above. It's this kind of mindfulness. Is this synergistic
Speaker 1: co arising of these three elements. And so there's this
Speaker 1: sense of because if I just focus on my attention,
Speaker 1: it starts getting a little bit tight and I start
Speaker 1: getting a little bit like rigid, and so then I
Speaker 1: infuse it with kindness. With openness, with curiosity, with gentleness,
Speaker 1: and if I'm sitting there and I'm getting a little spacey,
Speaker 1: It's like, why am I doing this in the first place?
Speaker 1: What's my intention? And so we're softening opening at the
Speaker 1: same time that we're heightening our attention. And there's this
Speaker 1: really interesting combination of this laser like clarity and this
Speaker 1: total ease. And it's not often in more life that
Speaker 1: we feel this in life. You know, maybe athletes, you know,
Speaker 1: they describe that flow experience, and it's for me very
Speaker 1: similar to that of this flow within myself and with life,
Speaker 1: where I'm not spaced out, I'm perfectly clear, and yet
Speaker 1: I'm at ease. I love that. I think that's a
Speaker 1: beautiful description of it. We're nearing the end of our time.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to ask you briefly about your practice.
Speaker 1: That the title of the book called good Morning, I
Speaker 1: Love You, So let's talk about the good Morning, I
Speaker 1: Love You practice. It's the title of my book in
Speaker 1: the United States. However, in the United Kidd it was
Speaker 1: titled Rewire your Mind, because good Morning, I Love You
Speaker 1: did not translate into British. I'm teasing a little bit,
Speaker 1: but it was re titled Rewire your Mind, but good Morning,
Speaker 1: I Love You is really the essence of the book.
Speaker 1: And I know it's a bit of a hokey title,
Speaker 1: and as a scientist, they said, no, people aren't going
Speaker 1: to take you seriously. But this practice is the most
Speaker 1: powerful practice I know. It completely changed my life. And
Speaker 1: I learned it about ten years ago when I was
Speaker 1: going through a very difficult divorce and I was waking
Speaker 1: up every morning with this pit of despair and shame
Speaker 1: and judgment, and no matter how hard I tried, you know,
Speaker 1: to shoot those negative thoughts away, they kept coming back.
Speaker 1: And my meditation teacher suggested I start practicing some self
Speaker 1: compassion and kindness. And she said, I want you to
Speaker 1: say I love you Shanna every day. And I said,
Speaker 1: no way. It felt so inauthentic and contrived. And she said,
Speaker 1: how about just saying good morning when you wake up?
Speaker 1: She said, put your hand on your heart. It releases oxytocin.
Speaker 1: It's good for you. She knew the science would get
Speaker 1: me and say good morning, Shawna. So the next morning
Speaker 1: I woke up, put my hand on my heart, took
Speaker 1: a breath, and said good morning, Shawna. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of nice right instead of the avalanche of shame. I
Speaker 1: felt this flash of kindness, and I kept practicing, and
Speaker 1: as I practiced, I noticed a little bit more kindness,
Speaker 1: a little less harshness. And a few months later, it
Speaker 1: was my birthday and I was down at a place
Speaker 1: called Escelin and Big Sur, one of the most magical
Speaker 1: places on earth, and I was all alone. I was
Speaker 1: my first time away from my husband and my son
Speaker 1: on my birthday. And I woke up and I went
Speaker 1: down to these mineral hot springs and I slid in.
Speaker 1: It was before the sun was rising, and I put
Speaker 1: my hand on my heart to do my good morning practice,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, this image of my grandmother
Speaker 1: came to me, and before I knew it, I said,
Speaker 1: good morning, I love you, Shana, Happy birthday. And it
Speaker 1: was as if the damn around my heart burst, and
Speaker 1: this love just poured in my grandmother's love, my mother's love,
Speaker 1: my own self love. And I wish I could tell
Speaker 1: everyone that every day since then has been this bubble
Speaker 1: of self love, and I've never felt judgment or shame again.
Speaker 1: And that's not true. But what is true is is
Speaker 1: this pathway of kindness was established, and every morning I
Speaker 1: feed it with this practice of good morning, I love you,
Speaker 1: And some days it feels awkward and lonely, and some
Speaker 1: days I feel profound love. And what I know is
Speaker 1: the most important thing is I keep practicing. And so
Speaker 1: I invite everyone who's listening to practice. Tomorrow morning, wake up,
Speaker 1: put your hand on your heart. In fact, maybe just
Speaker 1: put your hand on your heart. Now. It's this really
Speaker 1: interesting sensation of self care. You know, this gesture of kindness.
Speaker 1: And for some people when you do it, it feels
Speaker 1: really uncomfortable, that's okay, And for some people it feels
Speaker 1: really soothing. That's okay. But to bring five percent more kindness,
Speaker 1: to bring five percent more care to yourself, you can
Speaker 1: put your hand back in your lap. But I invite
Speaker 1: you to try it tomorrow morning and to actually add
Speaker 1: the words good morning and your own name, or if
Speaker 1: you're brave, good morning, I love you. Wonderful. Well, you
Speaker 1: and I are going to continue talking in the post
Speaker 1: show conversation. I want to talk about something you said
Speaker 1: in your book, that it's possible to change our happiness
Speaker 1: set point, which is really news to me. So I
Speaker 1: would love to explore that further and some other ideas
Speaker 1: in the postal conversation listeners. If you'd like access to
Speaker 1: that and many episodes, add free episodes and support the show,
Speaker 1: you can go to one you Feed dot net slash join.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much Seana for coming on. It's
Speaker 1: been such a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you.
Speaker 1: If what you just heard was helpful to you, please
Speaker 1: consider making a monthly donation to support the One You
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