Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - A Meditation For When You’re Melting Down | Bonus Meditation with Sebene Selassie

Episode Date: August 2, 2024

When you’re spiraling with intense emotions, here’s a practice to help pick you up off the bathroom floor. About Sebene Selassie:Growing up, Sebene felt like a big weirdo. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and raised in white neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., she was a tomboy Black girl who loved Monty Python and UB40. She never believed she belonged. Thirty years ago, she began studying Buddhism as an undergraduate at McGill University where she majored in Comparative Religious Studies. Now, Sebene is a teacher, author, and speaker who teaches that meditation can help us remember our inherent sense of belonging, that our individual freedom affects absolutely everyone and everything, and that our collective freedom depends on each and every one of us. Sebene is a three-time cancer survivor of Stage III and IV cancer.To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Meltdown.”See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, happy Friday everybody. Time for a bonus meditation. This practice could be filed under the category of break glass in case of emergency. This is a meditation specifically for when you're freaking out or melting down. Our meditation teacher du jour is my great friend, Semené Selassie, who as you will hear, if you haven't already heard from listening to her on past episodes, has a very soothing voice. A little bit more about Semené before we dive in.

She's trained as a meditation teacher, an integral coach, and an indigenous focusing-oriented therapy for complex trauma practitioner. Her first book is called You Belong, which I highly recommend. Semenai and I, along with our mutual friend Jeff Warren, will be teaching a meditation party retreat at the Omega Institute coming up in October. I'll put a link in the show notes if you want to come check that out. For now though, I'm going to shut up and let Sebenay guide you. Hi, it's Sebenay.

How are you, friend? Are you on the bathroom floor? You did choose a meditation about having a meltdown. Don't worry, I've been there. We're going to meet ourselves exactly where we are, and we'll do it with awareness and kindness. Let's get started. Let yourself relax into how your body is in this moment.

You can close your eyes or keep them open. Take a gentle deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth, sighing as you release. One more time, in through the nose and out through the mouth. Now allow your breath to come to a natural rhythm. However your breathing is just right. Let's bring some relaxation to different parts of the body

to help calm the nervous system. Relax your mouth, your cheeks. Relax the entire face. Soften your shoulders. You can roll them up and back. Soften the front of your body. And if you feel any tension in the hips or legs, let those relax. You might have come to this meditation because something in your life feels really wrong. In this moment, can you also sense that everything is okay? You are breathing.

You are breathing, you are sensing, there is life and vibrancy within you. Keep connecting to the body, to the breath, and take a moment to feel that you are alive. Also, there is life and energy surrounding you. Maybe you can hear or see or know that there are people, animals, and plants nearby. Let yourself feel that for a moment. I know that whatever it is that brought you to this particular meditation is probably intense, but you are going to tap into your inner wisdom to understand what you might need in this moment. What can support you now? Maybe there's a specific person or being or place that would feel nurturing to Take some time to see what comes up for you intuitively. How would it feel to receive this support?

Allow yourself to fully sense the aid or encouragement being offered. If we give ourselves even a little bit of space and time, we can reconnect to our body in the sense that everything will be okay. Maybe not perfect or solved, but okay. And that can be enough to make all the difference. Now let yourself reconnect to your surroundings. Open your eyes. Stretch your body. Take good care of yourself. And bye for now. Take good care of yourself and bye for now. 10% happier app, just download the app wherever you get your apps to get started.