On Purpose with Jay Shetty - 5 Types Of Guilt You Are Going Through And 7 Steps To Stop Letting It Drain Your Energy

Episode Date: August 11, 2023

Have you ever been caught in the intricate web of guilt and shame, unable to discern their differences and the profound impact they can have on our lives? It is in the embrace of these complexities that we embark on a journey of self-discovery, unraveling the layers of guilt and shame to illuminate the path towards growth. In this episode, we shall delve into the depths of guilt, examining its many forms and manifestations.  Whether it's the persistent burden of past mistakes, the impact of our actions on those around us, the guilt that stems from unmet expectations and commitments, or the often overlooked sensation of privilege guilt, there are ways to overcome these emotions.  As we go through the different types, we shall emerge with newfound insights and perspectives, better equipped to navigate these complex emotions. Through understanding, reflection, and conscious action, we shall rise above guilt's shadows and embrace the light of self-forgiveness, empowerment, and transformation.  In this episode you'll learn: The difference between guilt and shame The different types of guilt How to deal with the emotional burdens of guilt How to grow from getting stuck in the past This is a journey of emotional growth, healing, and attaining inner peace that you wouldn’t want to miss. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 02:37 Let’s understand the difference between shame and guilt and how to define them 05:03 What are the different types of guilt we experience in life?  12:09 The five types of guilt and how you can grow out of it 13:51 Type #1: Do you often think of a past mistake and still feel guilty about it? 19:27 Type #2: You feel guilty when someone tells you how your action made them feel bad 24:03 Type #3: The guilt of not making time for others or letting someone else down 26:46 Type #4: The guilt of not having pain, of having privilege, or having safety and security    28:12 Type #5: The survival guilt, that guilty feeling when you’ve gotten through something difficult when others didn’t  Want to be a Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach? Get the Digital Guide and Workbook from Jay Shetty https://jayshettypurpose.com/fb-getting-started-as-a-life-coach-podcast/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Jay Shetty and on my podcast on purpose, I've had the honor to sit down with some of the most incredible hearts and minds on the planet. Oprah, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Hart, Louis Hamilton, and many, many more. On this podcast, you get to hear the raw, real-life stories behind their journeys and the tools they used, the books they read, and the people that made a difference in their lives so that they can make a difference in hours. Listen to on purpose with Jay Shetty on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join the journey soon. What if you could tell the whole truth about your life, including all those tender, invisible

things we don't usually talk about? I'm Megan Devine. Host of the podcast, it's okay that you're not okay. Look everyone's at least a little bit not okay these days, and all those things we don't usually talk about, maybe we should. This season, I'm joined by stellar guests like Abbermote, Rachel Cargol, and so many more. It's okay that you're not okay. New episodes each and every Monday, available on the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Hey, everyone. I'm so excited because we're going to be adding a really special offering onto the back of my solo episodes on Fridays. The Daily J is a daily series on calm and it's meant to inspire you while outlining tools and techniques to live a more mindful, stress-free life. We dive into a range of topics and the best part is, each episode is only seven minutes long, so you can incorporate it into your schedule no matter how busy you are. As a dedicated part of the on-purpose community, I wanted to do something special for you this year, so I'll be playing a hand-picked daily J during each of my Friday podcasts. This week, we're diving into strategies for managing your emotions. Of course, if you want to listen to the daily J everyday,

you can subscribe to Khan. So go to calm.com forward slash J for 40% off your membership today. What a great day. What a great day. What a great day. What a great day. What a great day.

What a great day. Hey everyone, welcome back to Unpurpose, the place that you come to become happier, healthier, and more healed. And I am so, so grateful to you for all your incredible reviews on Spotify and on Apple. It's incredible to read through them. Please, please, please make sure you leave a review. It makes the world of a difference. And I wanted to point out some of the incredible expert conversations that we've had this year in case you missed them. We are Dr. Peter Riteer who's a phenomenal expert in longevity, scientific ways to slow down

aging. I highly recommend you listen to that. We also had Dr. Zach Bush on science-based approaches to healing your gut health if that's something that you're struggling with. I also talked to one of your favorites, Dr. Joe Dispenser, in May on the 29th about why stress and overthinking negatively impacts your brain. These are just a few of the experts that we've had so far in the last couple of months. I highly recommend you go back and take a listen.

Now today's episode is about a topic that I deeply value because I know how challenging it is when you're experiencing it in your life, in your mind. I've personally struggled with it for so many different reasons. I know so many people in my life who've struggled with it for so many different reasons. And I believe it was important to address with you today because I know so many of you may be going through it in your own way. Now, of course, I'm talking about shame and guilt.

And we all feel shame and guilt for different things in our life. Today, I'm going to be talking to you about the different types of experience that we have and what are the practical steps we can take to feel better. But first of all, what I want to do is I want to talk about the difference between shame and guilt. Now, Brenne Brown has done some phenomenal work in this space. If you've not read her book, daring greatly, I highly recommend it to understand more about this topic.

In the words of Brenne Brown, shame is I am bad. guilt is I did something bad. She goes on to say how many of you if you did something that was hurtful to me would be willing to say I'm sorry I made a mistake how many of you would be willing to do that. Gilt, I'm sorry, I made a mistake. Shame, I'm sorry, I am a mistake. I love this disconnection because it's so subtle but it's so very important. How many of us know that the voice in our head

makes us the problem? Not that we have a problem but we are the problem. Not that we made a mistake but we are the problem. Not that we have a problem, but we are the problem. Not that we made a mistake, but we are the mistake. How many of us walk around life thinking that not that we did something wrong, but that we are wrong? And it's so subtle that you might just miss it, but the inner critics voice will give you a clue. If you listen closely to the inner critic, you'll be able to very clearly understand whether you say things like, I made a mistake or I am a mistake. Now, I want to go on to share the incredible worlds of Paul Eckman. He also said that the distinction between shaman guilt is very important since these two emotions may tear a person in opposite directions.

He says, Paul Eckman, the wish to relieve guilt may motivate a confession, but the wish to avoid the humiliation of shame may prevent it. How many of you have ever been caught in that mess where you want to tell someone how you feel or you want to tell someone that you know that they're going through something or whatever it may be, but at the same time you're scared of what that comes with. We get caught in the middle and I know so many of us experienced this in so many different ways. Before we dive into the different types of guilt and how to overcome them. I want to talk to you about the different types of guilt that we experience using research

from BiomedCentral.com. So they ranked the percentage of all things people felt guilty about. Number one was telling lies or withholding truth and information. That's the number one thing we feel guilty about. And this comes from the category of feelings of guilt related to misconduct and mistakes being made. Now, the second thing that people felt guilty about, or the most frequently stated reasons for feeling guilty,

was not spending enough time with family members, not taking enough care of family members, and not being there for family members. I think we can all identify with that type of guilt and we will be coming onto this moving forward in this podcast. The reason I'm sharing these with you is always to help you recognize that you're not alone, to help you recognize that we all have these emotions and experiences, that there is no one, including me, who has perfected this,

figured it out, mastered it, and gets everything right. I think it's often our desire for perfection that creates so much of the guilt and shame we experience. Our desire for getting everything to line up, be perfectly balanced, be fully aligned, centered grounded, it doesn't exist. The third thing that we most frequently state that we feel is a reason for being guilty is misbehavior towards someone or thinking bad about someone. And this comes from feelings of guilt related to other people, but this could be anyone

from the person you bumped into on the street all the way through to the person you cut off in the traffic and later on you're thinking, oh, I wish I didn't do that. They didn't deserve that. It's really interesting, right? It could be anything misbehavior towards your bad thinking of someone. Maybe you said something gossipy about a friend. Maybe you said something that you wish you could take back. Maybe you shared someone's private information with someone else.

Right, these are all things we feel guilty for. Rank number four was subjectively perceived responsibility for life situations, events and circumstances, and death circumstances of others not being able to help and support. Right? So this is really interesting because often something bad happens to someone and we blame it on ourselves. We think it must be my fault. Some of our friends from London were visiting LA last year and one of my friends recommended that they park in a specific parking garage, which was safe and recommended. And unfortunately, all of their stuff got stolen from their car from that parking garage. And that friend of mine feels guilty for that reason,

constantly because he takes responsibility for that event happening to those individuals. Now of course, this can become far more extreme when it relates to people passing away, not being there with them, not being in there. You know, a lot of people have this guilt if they've lost a family member that I should have been on the plane with them. I wish I was in the car with them. It wouldn't have happened if I didn't ask them to do this. Right? We all have that guilt. So again, a very

valid and genuine form of guilt. Number five, neglecting someone, not taking enough care of someone, not being there for someone. Another one, not achieving something, sense of failure. The next one, negative self-attributes or flaws. We feel guilty about them because we take responsibility for them. And then there's divorce and break up, cheating, having affairs, problems issues in relationships and marriages. Not spending enough time with children, procrastination and waste of time being unproductive. How many of you have that where you haven't been productive, you haven't

been effective and then you feel guilty about it. You think, oh my gosh, I could have done all of that by now. Could have launched that podcast, I could have written that book, I should have done that, I should have done this, and then it never happens. That's what's really interesting about guilt, is that guilt blocks growth. Guilt can be used as a launch pad. It can be used as a great incentive for change, which I'll come onto in a moment. But at the same time, guilt blocks growth

if we just grow guilt, right? If we keep just growing a sense of guilt, it will block our growth because we get so negative about who we are, what we do, how we behave, and we feel we have missed so much time. We feel we have missed so many opportunities that we now feel that we can't turn it around. It's almost like negative math working against us.

It's like, we're like 10-0, right? We're losing 10-0 in the world of guilt. And now we're like, well, even if I do one thing, it will still be 10-1, I'm so far away. That's what it feels like. You're like 10 goals down. Then it continues with unfavorable health or self-indulgence.

We give ourselves over what we eat. And if we do or don't work out. And it's really interesting, right? Those are the top categories of guilt that we as humans experience. And I think all of us could agree that we've all experienced them at one point or another. So now that we understand the difference between guilt and shame, I want to focus in on the different types of guilt that we experience in our lives, and what we can do about it.

Remember guilt is, I'm sorry, I made a mistake, shame is I'm sorry, I am a mistake, and I want to shift us away from believing that we are a mistake, or that we ourselves as an entity are wrong, are lost. We say things like, I am a failure. No, I have experienced failure.

And that's what I want you to do with the inner critic in your mind. I want you to start making that switch where instead of every time you catch yourself saying, I am a failure, I am a mistake. Start replacing it with, I have experienced failure. I am a mistake. Start replacing it with I have experienced failure. I failed at this. This particular event failed. I think it's important to start disconnecting your identity from an emotion and a statement. Right. The mistake we make

is when we mesh together our identity with the word. We start to identify with that word and that becomes a belief. Once that becomes a belief, it becomes a repetitive habit in our lives. And then it feels like normal. It's almost like when someone says something in your head, you think, well, I'm a loser anyway. So what's the point? Right?

So I want you to start creating that distance. Now, how do you start creating that distance you ask? The first way is to watch your inner dialogue and make that difference. The second is to recognize and go back to when you have felt guilty. Reflect and write down the top three times or even one time that you have experienced guilt and shame. And when it really started leaning into shame and now in hindsight I want you to look back and recognize is it true that you have also been not responsible in certain challenges? Is it true that you've also won as well as lost and failed in different things? Is it true that there is more diversity in your experience than there is consistency? Is it true that if you think you are a mistake, that you've also got certain things right

and done things well and made people feel good. Noticing this discrepancy is what helps you accept that yes, I have made mistakes, but I am not a mistake. And even repeating that, recognizing and accepting, remember, we're not shunning our mistakes. We're not trying to push them away. We're not trying to pretend that they didn't happen. We're not trying to be in denial. We're not trying to pretend that they didn't happen. We're not trying to be in denial.

We're accepting they happened. We're accepting we made them. But we won't accept that we are them. We're not going to accept that we're defined by them because our life shows us that we have a bit of both. We've all one and failed. We've all been stuck and focused. We've all made mistakes and got things right. Please recognize that. Now, the first type of guilt that we experienced that I want to talk about today is guilt over a past mistake. How many of you replay your past mistakes in your mind? Maybe it was in a relationship and you think to yourself,

well, if I didn't do that, they'd still be here. If I did do that, they'd still be here. I ruined that. I messed that up. I had such a good thing going, but maybe if I just didn't open my mouth, maybe if I didn't set those boundaries, maybe if I didn't push so hard, we all experience guilt over past mistakes. And sometimes these guilts get so deep rooted that they start to impact everything. What ends up happening is that when you feel guilt over a past mistake, you now reflect and project that guilt onto new people at work, new people in your relationships, friends, anyone that comes across your way. And so it's so important to address this. It's so important to accept it.

It's so important to focus in on it. If there's a guilt over a past mistake, if you can, if the person is alive and accessible, when you prepare, or when you feel prepared, the best thing you can do is actually reach out and try and solve it. Right? If you have done something that you don't feel proud about. If you feel you've done something that you don't feel represents who you are, and there's a past mistake that is haunting you or lurking there behind you, it's important that you can reach out and set the record straight. And that's a really beautiful thing to be able to do. So now let's say that you are going to reach out.

I think it's really important that you prepare before to do. So now let's say that you are going to reach out. I think it's really important that you prepare before you do. Often we have this knee jerk reaction to just pick up the phone and say, I'm sorry, you know, and we're not thinking about how it may affect the other person. We're not thinking about what it may mean for us. And often if the person is not accessible

or you may actually in your preparation realize, I don't think talking to them directly is going to do any good. It's important to check in with yourself and share that apology. You may share that apology energetically. You may share that apology as a healing practice if you don't feel that person is accessible

or you may not be connected to them anymore. I'm Danny Shapiro, host of Family Secrets. It's hard to believe we're entering our eighth season. And yet, we're constantly discovering new secrets. The depths of them, the variety of them continues to be astonishing. I can't wait to share 10 incredible stories with you, stories of tenacity, resilience,

and the profoundly necessary excavation of long-held family secrets. When I realized this is not just happening to me, this is who and what I am. I needed her to help me. Something was knowing at me that I couldn't put my finger on, that I just felt somehow that there was a piece missing. Why not restart? Look at all the things that were going wrong. I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of Family Secrets.

Listen to season eight of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you'll get your podcasts. In the 1680s, a feisty, opera singer burned down a nunnery and stole away with her secret lover. In 1810, a pirate queen negotiated her cruiseway to total freedom, with all their loot. During World War II, a flirtatious gambling double agent helped keep D-Day a secret from the Germans.

What are these stories having common? A delicious gambling double agent helped keep D-Day a secret from the Germans. What are these stories having common? They're all about real women who were left out of your history books. If you're tired of missing out, check out the Womanica podcast, a daily women's history podcast highlighting women you may not have heard of, but definitely should know about. I'm your host, Jenny Kaplan, and for me, diving into these stories is the best part of my day. I learned something new about women from around the world and leafyling amazed, inspired,

and sometimes shocked. Listen on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And I remember when I was on my tour, I met so many people who would say to me, they haven't spoken to someone they love for years. Now if you remember, if you did come to my tour, and if you didn't, I hope you will come to our next event. But at my tour, I encouraged people to call people that they hadn't spoken to for whatever challenge they had been going through personally.

It could have been a couple of years, it could have been 10 years. And everyone who made that call, it wasn't a fairy tale ending because that wasn't the goal. The goal was that that person had the courage to sit in the discomfort, to share how they truly felt because it was healing to them and they felt the other person needed to hear it too. We had people calling up ex partners saying, I'm sorry for how I dealt with the divorce. I'm not asking for you back, but I want you to know I love and appreciate you.

We had people reaching out and saying, you're my brother, I love you. I'm so sorry that we fell out two years ago. We had people saying, I'm sorry that this event got in the way of our friendship. And whether the person on the other side was amicable or reciprocal, what I found is that the person who shared it

felt the most healed, and the person who received it, found some solace in it. The second thing that you can do with guilt over a past mistake is change your behavior in the future. This is the best remedy for yourself and others. The only way you make yourself feel better about the past is by doing better in the future. Let me

say that again, the only way you make yourself feel better about the past is by doing better in the future. You can't make yourself feel good about the past. If you continue to behave badly in the future, it doesn't work that way. We can't change the past. We can't solve the past. We can't edit the past, but when we edit the present, we create the future that we really want, right? We can't edit the past. And we live in the past just kind of doing mental exercises, trying to figure it out, but it doesn't work that way. And I want you to recognize with all of this guilt and shame that if you experience a sense of guilt,

it just shows that you're reflective. I always feel that way. I experience guilt. And I've started to recognize that. It just shows that I care. It just shows that I'm reflective. just shows that I'm reflective it. It shows that I'm allowing myself to question myself and allowing myself to not think that everything I do is right and perfect and wonderful. And I think that that's a great quality. It's shame that we want to shift away from.

And guilt, if it's not taken care of, will very easily grow into shame. And so while shame is unhealthy, guilt is something we have to deal with. It's showing us what we need to heal, but it's also showing us that we're reflective, introspective being. So I don't want you to guilt yourself for feeling guilt. I want you to feel heard and seen and understood. I don't want you to guilt yourself for feeling that way. The second type of guilt is guilt because of how someone made you feel. Now this may be guilt where you didn't see any involvement, you didn't see or feel any responsibility, but someone came back at you and told you, someone may have told you, hey, you said this to me, it made me feel this way. You did this and it made me feel this way. And now you're feeling guilty because of how they've expressed that to you.

And in this opportunity, it's always important to acknowledge the person's feelings. It's always important to acknowledge that there is some truth in how that person feels, even if that wasn't your intent, even if that's not what you were trying to do. And I think often this guilt can lead to more guilt if we actually shun the other person away. If we act as if it doesn't matter that's not what we were trying to do, we go into defensive mode. What ends up happening is we actually make them feel worse and we make ourselves feel worse in the long run. So acknowledging that there is some truth, there is some reality

to that person's emotions and feelings is important. The second step is recognizing what is your part and what may have been misconstrued by them. I think it's so important to recognize that there are always, always, two sides to that story, right? There are always, we look at everything from our subjective lens, often I'll sit down and think, where do I have this viewpoint from? Why do I have this vantage point? And I'll recognize there's so many biases in why I even said that or got there, right? There's so many biases happening every single day of why I even said something,

why I got to that point, why I made it in the way that I made it, everything else. When you start becoming aware of that, you can actually better explain it. The other day, Radee called me up and she had a really urgent question for me.

And I was really tired. I hadn't eaten all day and I said to her, I said, Radee, if I respond right now, I'm not gonna give you my best answer. Do you mind if I just get something to eat first? I'll tell you straight away. And that was me protecting myself from behaving in a way that I would later feel guilty about.

Or from having her have to tell me that, hey, I didn't like the way you spoke to me. And then I would defend myself and be like, oh, but I was tired, you don't even understand. You didn't even ask how I was. When actually the truth is, by being reflective, I can actually preempt that. Now let's say your situation is a bit more serious than that.

I think it's important that you own your part, but you don't own all of it. You recognize your involvement. You recognize your part, but you accept that there are other reasons as well. Now if you're on the receiving end of that and you're like, well, I want that person to accept all responsibility. I think often that, even if it feels that way, and by the way, there are situations where it is just the other person's action, and it is just the other person's behavior. Like, you don't actually, you weren't old enough, you weren't thoughtful enough, you weren't wise enough, like that is real. And in that situation, you're not taking responsibility for the experience or the event.

You're saying, taking responsibility for the future you want to build. I think this is a really subtle difference I want to point out that if you're not at fault, you never accept responsibility for the fault or the event or whatever happened. You accept responsibility for the future you want to build and create. That's one of the things that coaching focuses on is that coaching is not telling you to take responsibility for the mistakes that happen to you or the issues or the abuse you received or the trauma. That would be so unhealthy to tell someone to do that. That is not what we're saying to do here. What I'm saying is you're saying, I want to live a great life from now

and I went through this, I experienced this, this happened to me, but I'm going to take charge of where I want to go. Another step here is to recognize what parts of it you're willing to take responsibility for as opposed to just feeling guilty because of how they're making you feel. I also want to recommend in all of this process that therapy is such a powerful form I partnered with BetterHelp several times on the podcast. We had some really phenomenal conversations with so many individuals who were dealing with different challenges and showed how therapy can be powerful for that. I highly, highly recommend that because it can be really, really important to do that. Therapy is a great safe space to reflect on these things so that you don't lead to more negative behaviors towards yourself or unhealthy ideas towards yourself at the same time being able to grow. Now, the other guilt that we experience

is what I mentioned earlier, the guilt for not making time for grow. Now, the other guilt that we experience is what I mentioned earlier, the guilt for not making time for others. Right, the guilt or the feeling of letting someone else down. And again, going back to our earlier principle, make time now. Make time now. If you feel guilty about not giving someone time before, make time now, now you may say,

they don't wanna spend time with me anymore, Jay. I lost them, they're not around anymore. Make time for the next person. Make time for other people. Make time for people who've always made time for you. Go out there and make that change. Don't be selfish and just wanna make it for that person that you can't get back.

Make it for another person. And know that you're doing it for that reason. Know and be aware that, hey, I'm making time. Because I recognize that I haven't in the past. I now want to make time for people I care about. This second point is really important. I want you to write this down because I think it's often missed.

Recognize what your priorities were when you didn't make time for the people you wanted to make time for. What's really interesting is once we start living with the benefit we get, we forget why it was our focus. Let me explain to you. Let's say a parent works really hard to put food on the table and provide for their family. Now, when they may not be financially as unstable, they may look back and think, oh my gosh, all those years, I just spent working,

I wish I had spent time with the kids. But the truth is, it wasn't plausible, like it wasn't possible for them to do that. They needed to work hard in order to pay for the bills, in order to take care of their family at that moment in time. And I feel we forget the priorities when we get a result, right? Now that you have the time or now that that parent has the time or has the financial space to have more time with the kids,

they now guilt themselves. But the truth is you didn't before, so it's so important to recognize what your priorities were at the time and why they existed. Because I think for so many people we miss that. We miss that. We don't recognize that actually at that point, if we would have spent time with that person,

then maybe we would have lost it on a lot more or maybe we would have had really bad anxiety or maybe we would have had a lot of other issues. Think about what would have been lost if you completely shifted over, because sometimes we have this nostalgic view in our mind of, oh, I could have been like this, it should have been like this, but we often are being ourselves up when we never deserve that. We don't deserve that. So recognize why you focused on what you focused when you did. The next type of guilt, which is really interesting, is the guilt of not having pain or the guilt

of having privilege or the guilt of safety and security. It's really fascinating to me that people who grew up in wealth or safety often feel guilt for having that. It's real. I've actually sat down and spoken to people who feel guilty that their parents were successful. They feel guilty that they didn't have to think about survival. They feel guilty that they had privilege growing up. And if you've experienced that, it's important to share that with others because again, it's a guilt that you carry that is valid. and often these people don't feel like that guilt is valid

They think oh well, how can I feel guilty because I have everything but then I feel guilty for having it right because I can see that other people don't have it What I've seen people in this space beautifully do is that they try and share it with others they Try and do philanthropic work charity work support others. They try and do philanthropic work, charity work, support work, they try and do healing work. It's so powerful to see people who realize that the privilege they received was to be turned into purpose. The privilege they received was to be taken as a responsibility to help other people

and to share it with as many people as they could. I think it's also important that you build something of your own and people may not perceive it that way, but you try your best to do that. And the final one I wanted to address was guilt from having got through something difficult when others didn't, often known as survival guilt. This can be really, really tough

when you think you got through something and other people didn't, but it's a beautiful opportunity again to help others through their journey, to share your healing, to share your pain. And I think the biggest challenge with guilt is we feel like our guilt is not valid. We feel like somewhere deep inside of us, we shouldn't have that feeling, but the truth is the more we share it, the more we talk to others, the more we express it to therapists, to coaches, to friends, to family members, the more we create safe vulnerable spaces to share these things, the healthier

our society becomes because we realize that everyone is dealing with something, but helping people through their journey, helping someone who's a couple of years behind you on the journey is a beautiful and powerful step to take in your own healing. I really hope that this helps you today. I want to thank you for listening as always. I appreciate you letting me riff on some of these topics that are so important. And I hope there's one insight you take away from today that transforms your relationship with Shaman Gil. Thank you for listening, make sure you leave a review, make sure you share this episode with someone who could use it and I can't wait for you to come back next week or tomorrow or later today for another one.

Thank you so much. Sometimes life feels like a roller coaster. One minute we're rocketing upwards, the next we're heading straight down. But in reality, even roller coasters let us coast sometimes so we can catch our breath. And in life, we can learn to create more of that smooth sailing. It all comes down to finding the middle path. The next seven minutes are about equanimity and the value of returning to center. I'm Jay Shetty, welcome to the Daily J.

I'm Jay Shetty. Welcome to the Daily J. Now let's begin to get centered here by tapping in to the breath. Take a big breath in and release a big breath out. Really filling yourself up and letting it all go. Coming into the present and settling with focus. Just like that. So when I was young, I played a lot of soccer or as I called it back in London, football. And I had this coach who said something I'll never forget. He told us, when you win, celebrate for a night, but then get back to training. And when you lose, cry for a night, but then get back to training. He was a monk and didn't know it. And really, that's how we should

approach all of life. When something amazing happens, it's easy to want to hang out in that space. And we should enjoy it. But too often, we try to cling to that feeling. It's the same when negative things happen and we let ourselves wallow. Instead, we're better off if we find our way back to center. When I studied as a monk, our teachers would emphasize equanimity, which is kind of a fancy way to say, composure and evenness of temper. We were encouraged to experience an emotion, but then come back to a steady state of calm. I like to think of equanimity as the balance point on a seasaw, neither up nor down. But often, we experience life as a series of highs and lows, which can make things feel out of control or unstable.

It's like we're constantly feeling these big swings. One day we're over the moon, the next we're down in the dumps. I've also noticed that many of us feel pressure to be happy all the time. And when we don't feel that way, it's like we're somehow failing. Equinimity helps with both of these issues. First, it allows us to access skillness and withstand the pull of our emotions. When it comes to the rollercoaster of life, we don't have to stay strapped into the ride. We can step back and watch the cargo buy, observing.

We can still feel happiness and sadness, but they're not driving us. And in turn, hopefully, life won't be so unsettled. We can focus on feeling peaceful instead of positive. What I mean is that we can release the pressure to feel joyful all the time. And ironically, that actually results in a more positive feeling. When we learn how to return to center, where karma and less reactive, and while life is swirling around us, we can rest in the eye of the storm. With that in mind, let's work on our equanimity

as we turn to our meditation. First, get a little more comfortable wherever you are, relaxing your body and tuning in to yourself. and tuning in to yourself. Find something to anchor you in the present, whether it's your breath, a sensation in your body, or a point of contact with the ground. See if you can rest gently here, leaning in to this calm center. Remember, the goal here is to be more peaceful and less reactive, to step outside the swirl. Your mind may start to wander. Thoughts or emotions may start to target you. You may even feel like you're getting caught on a roller coaster. If that happens, see if you can get off the ride, watching your thoughts or emotions fly past,

without allowing them to whisk you away. always come back to center. And now let's open this up. As you go through life, do you often oscillate between high and low. Or do you feel pressure to chase positivity? What could you do to embrace equanimity in your day today? Can you make a point of trying to return to center? I know this might not always be easy, so have compassion for yourself whenever you do experience a big swing. You can always come back here to this session to help you find your center again.

Thanks for being here today. I can't wait to see you tomorrow. Hi, I'm Ellie Kemper. And I'm Scott Eckerd. And we're here to talk to you about the things we love on our new podcast Born to Love. I can tell you about something I love this week's got foam rollers. For my own mind, you're not talking pool noodle. Oh my gosh. No. Thank you for clarifying. A new podcast from Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the

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