How to Change Your Habits | Katy Milkman

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. Anxiety has long been a massive societal issue that has spiked during the pandemic. In this episode, renowned Buddhist monk Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche talks in detail about how he personally works with anxiety and panic and the practices he draws upon when dealing with these states. Mingyur began doing long retreats in his teens and now teaches all over the world. He's written the books The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness and In Love with the World: A Monk's Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying. He also oversees the Tergar Meditation Community, a global network of Buddhist meditation centers. In this episode we talk about: Working with strong emotions using sound and the breath Deconstructing your reality to make it workable Understanding what awareness is in a Buddhist sense How to make meditation free-range and available to you all times The simple but also tricky advice of, "stop doing and just be" When to take a step back or even take a break from meditation What Mingyur Rinpoche says is the true purpose of the practice. This interview was recorded in person at the TED conference in April of 2022, where both Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche and Dan Harris spoke. Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/yongey-mingyur-rinpoche-472

4 Heinä 202254min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- In this episode, the social justice educator and activist Jacoby Ballard talks about a universal, or near universal, issue: anger. And, he offers us two mental skills that can help channel anger into something even more powerful and effective. Those skills are forgiveness and equanimity. Ballard is a meditation and yoga teacher and the author of a new book called, A Queer Dharma: Yoga and Meditations for Liberation Content Warnings: There are some brief references to sensitive topics, including trauma and suicide. In this episode we talk about: How he went from an activist largely fueled by anger to a dharma teacher with a very different approach The sometimes useful role of anger in activism and the danger of being stuck in anger mode The subtle but powerful move of getting in touch with what is beneath our anger Using annoyance as a jumping off point for inner investigation Ways to work with anger and learning to discharge the energy in our body Forgiveness, including forgiving ourselves Getting over our need to be right Equanimity, or as Jacoby calls it, his "tussle with equanimity" Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jacoby-ballard-470

29 Kesä 20221h 10min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- How, on this planet, did we go from molten lava and shifting tectonic plates to sentient beings? How are you awake and aware right now? Who and where and what exactly is the "you" that is experiencing everything? Guest Anil Seth says that exploring these questions can lead to real and radical changes in your life, including reducing your emotional reactivity. Seth is a Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, Co-Director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science and Editor-in-Chief of Neuroscience of Consciousness. His TED Talk on consciousness has been viewed over 13 million times. Most recently, he is the author of Being You: A New Science of Consciousness. In this episode we talk about: How brains give rise to consciousness The bundle theory of self The comfort in thinking of the self as impermanent A new way to think about emotional states How Seth's personal experience with long COVID has changed his own sense of self The question of whether we have free will Whether machines can be conscious – and whether we should be afraid of artificial intelligence Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/anil-seth-469

27 Kesä 20221h 16min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- One of the most common and insidious complaints of meditators is distraction, which can be a frustrating and difficult obstacle. Even the Buddha himself acknowledged this common problem and laid out some detailed practices for dealing with it. In this episode, Shaila Catherine outlines the Buddha's five strategies to help us tackle distractions, which can be applied to our meditation practice as well as other aspects of our lives. Catherine is a dharma teacher whose latest book is called Beyond Distraction: Five Practical Ways to Focus the Mind. She is also the founder and principal teacher at Insight Meditation South Bay and has 40 years of practice, including nine years, cumulatively, of silent retreat. Her first TPH appearance, which we called How to Focus, aired in May 2021. In this episode we talk about: The Buddha's struggles with distraction Shaila's attempts to make the teachings of the Buddha accessible to contemporary minds The importance of getting to know your own thought patterns The counterintuitive strategy of "avoid it, ignore it, forget it" Replacing seduction with mindfulness Developing a flexibility of mind Why we're vulnerable to our own tendencies when we're not mindful Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/shaila-catherine-467

22 Kesä 20221h 9min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- It seems like a design flaw in our species that we live in a world of constant change yet most of us are not comfortable with uncertainty. In this episode, we talk to Maya Shankar about how to get better at dealing with change and to stop seeking what scientists call "cognitive closure." Shankar is a former Senior Advisor in the Obama White House, where she founded and served as Chair of the White House Behavioral Science Team. She also served as the first Behavioral Science Advisor to the United Nations, and is currently a Senior Director of Behavioral Economics at Google. She is the host of the Pushkin Industries podcast A Slight Change of Plans, which was named Best Show of the Year in 2021 by Apple. In this episode we talk about: Why humans are so uncomfortable with uncertainty and change What a behavioral scientist actually does in the world Why even the host of a podcast about change isn't immune to the uncertainties of life The benefits of cultivating a more malleable sense of self Why humans are such bad forecasters The importance of auditing yourself when you're undergoing a big change How to take advantage of big reset moments The concept of cognitive closure and why encouraging an open mind can make us more resilient Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/maya-shankar-466

20 Kesä 202259min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- "The quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life." These words from the legendary Esther Perel have the power to genuinely change your outlook on life. But while it's easy to hear them and immediately have your mind go to family relationships or romantic relationships, today we're going to talk about friendships. Friendships can be massive contributors to mental health. They can also, when they go pear-shaped, be the source of abundant misery. Today's guest is the legendary Esther Perel. Her resume is beyond impressive: She is a psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author of books such as Mating in Captivity. Her TED talk has attracted more than 30 million views. She is fluent in nine languages. She is the host of the popular podcasts Where Should We Begin? and How's Work? And her latest project is called Where Should We Begin - A Game of Stories with Esther Perel. In this episode we talk about: How the pandemic has impacted our friendships Esther's contention that "love and commitment and intimacy don't just belong to the world of romantic couples" What makes friendship unique, in good ways and tricky ways What to consider when determining whether to confront a difficulty in a friendship How to conduct a self-assessment of yourself as a friend How systematic we should be about cultivating and maintaining our friendships How to reconnect with friends authentically Whether or not we can have platonic friendships across the gender spectrum How to handle friendships when you're in a romantic relationship, including friendships you share, friendships with those with whom your partner doesn't get along, and friendships with exes Content warning: There are some brief references to sensitive topics, including suicide. *Esther Perel invites you and a colleague to apply for a session with her that will be part of the new season of her podcast How's Work? Her team is looking for work pairs, co-founders, colleagues, managers, or any combination to join her for a session to explore the future of work together. Apply here. Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/esther-perel-464

15 Kesä 202250min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Life is filled with all kinds of moral dilemmas— from the mundane to the momentous. Should I lie and tell my friend that I like her ugly shirt? Can I still enjoy great art if it was created by terrible people? How much money should I give to charity? Ultimately, does anything we do even matter? In today's conversation, television writer and producer, Michael Schur helps us to navigate our moral dilemmas and answer some of these difficult questions. Schur is best known for creating and co-creating such shows as Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place, and Rutherford Falls. Additionally, he has worked on shows like The Office, Master of None, The Comeback, and Hacks. He is also the Author of How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question. In this episode we talk about: What got him started on the road to reading philosophy and studying ethics The so-called "trolley problem" Trusting your gut Natural states of virtue The evolutionary advantages of virtue And how white lies can be beneficial in a complicated and messy society This interview was recorded in person at the TED conference in April of 2022, where both Michael Schur and Dan Harris spoke. Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/michael-schur-463

13 Kesä 202255min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- How much would your relationships improve if you could up your emotional intelligence game? That phrase, "emotional intelligence" or EQ, entered the lexicon over 25 years ago, when Daniel Goleman wrote a book by the same name. In this episode, Daniel Goleman talks about the four components of emotional intelligence and how we can develop these skills in our daily lives. Golman is a Harvard-trained psychologist who, along with other contemplative luminaries such as Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg and Jon Kabat-Zinn, went to Asia and discovered meditation in the 1960s— making it a huge part of their lives and careers. In this episode we talk about: The four components of emotional intelligence, how to develop them, and why these skills matter so much during the middle of a pandemic Empathy and relationship management in the age of zoom The "marshmallow test" and impulse control A phenomenon he calls, "amygdala hijacks" Why so many Jewish kids in the sixties and seventies got turned on to Buddhism Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/daniel-goleman-repost

8 Kesä 202257min