Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - What To Do When When Someone’s Pissed At You | Matthew Brensilver, Vinny Ferraro, Kaira Jewel Lingo

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

How to handle other people's anger—and the anger that their anger might trigger in you.For this episode, Executive Producer DJ Cashmere interviewed a trio of brilliant Dharma teachers to get their advice about how to handle anger. This is the second in a series of 'correspondent' episodes, in which DJ identifies a pain point in his life and meditation practice, then goes out into the world to report on the best ways to address it.Kaira Jewel Lingo is a former nun in the Plum Village tradition started by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. Vinny Ferraro teaches at the Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock, and also in prisons. Matthew Brensilver teaches at many of the same retreat centers, and spent many years working in the field of addiction pharmacotherapy.Related Episodes:Listen to all of DJ’s correspondent episodes here3 Buddhist Strategies for When the News is Overwhelming | Kaira Jewel LingoHow to Keep Your Relationships On the Rails | Kaira Jewel LingoThree Buddhist Practices For Getting Your Sh*t Together | Vinny FerraroWhy Self-Hatred Makes No Sense | Matthew BrensilverHow to Actually Be Present | Matthew BrensilverHow to Speak Clearly, Calmly, and Without Alienating People | Dan Clurman and MuditaBrené Brown Says You're Doing Feelings WrongDolly Chugh, How Good People Fight BiasThe Many Benefits of a “Paradox Mindset” | Dolly ChughAlso, the teachers’ sites:https://vinnyferraro.org/Vinny Ferraro's Course, A Year To Livehttps://www.kairajewel.com/https://www.matthewbrensilver.org/Sign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter hereFollow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTokTen Percent Happier online bookstoreSubscribe to our YouTube ChannelOur favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular EpisodesFull Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/DJ-Anger-2Additional Resources:Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://my.happierapp.com/link/downloadSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to 10% happier early and ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, everybody. How we doing? I got a question for you. How do you handle it when people get pissed at you?

Do you reflexively and profusely apologize, even if you don't mean it? Do you go into a defensive crouch? That's usually my move. One of the things I love about the Buddhists is they've got smart, sane advice for practically every situation, including this one. I once heard Buddhism described as advanced common sense and that strikes me as spot on. Today we've got a trio of Buddhist maestros

on how to handle other people's anger and the anger that their anger might trigger in you. We talk about how to communicate clearly when you're pissed, whether love and anger can coexist, the difference between humility and humiliation, the tricky job of accessing empathy in the heat of the moment, the issue of boundaries, what to do when you mess all this up, and how it all plays out in our meditation practice. Including one insight that I find particularly helpful to remember which is that blissful states in meditation may be overrated

This is the second in a two-part series. We're doing on anger just in time for the 2024 presidential election just to be super clear about this You do not have to have heard the first part in this series in order to listen to this episode But just so you're aware of it I will put a link in the show notes. The structure of this episode is a little different than our usual fare. I have deputized my executive producer, DJ Cashmere,

to go out and investigate this issue of how to handle it when people get pissed at you. He then interviewed the aforementioned trio of Buddhist teachers. And so in this episode, you're gonna hear me in conversation with DJ, who will then play clips of his conversations with said teachers. And so in this episode, you're gonna hear me in conversation with DJ who will then play clips of his conversations with said teachers. The teachers in question are Kyra Jewel-Lingo,

who's a former nun in the Plum Village tradition started by the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, Vinny Ferraro, who teaches at the Insight Meditation Society, Spirit Rock, and also in prisons, and Matthew Brensilver, who teaches at many of those same retreat centers, and also before that, spent many years working in the field of addiction pharmacotherapy. and prisons, and Matthew Brensilver, who teaches at many of those same retreat centers, and also before that, spent many years working in the field of addiction pharmacotherapy.

I really enjoy this format. I'd be curious to hear whether it's working for you. You can hit me up over on danharris.com. DJ Kashmir and our trio of Dharma maestros right after this. Before we get started, I want to remind you that we're doing all sorts of fun and interesting stuff over at danharris.com. These days, we've started a new community through Substack, which involves all kinds of perks for subscribers,

like chats about each episode, video, ask me anything sessions, and even live meditation sessions. Plus, you will get crucial episode takeaways and cheat sheets delivered directly to your inbox. I'm having a lot of fun doing this and I'd love for you to join me. It's eight bucks a month or $80 a year and free for anybody who can't afford it, no questions asked. Just head over to danharris.com.

We'll see you there. Meditation is not just a quick fix for everyday challenges. It's a practice that can change your life. You don't have to be perfect, but you do have to show up. The Happier Meditation app meets you where you are so you can realize more than you thought possible with a flexible approach that grows with you and wisdom from some of the world's most insightful teachers. Happier helps you get more out of meditation so you can give more to every part of your life. Go to happierapp.com and start meditating in a way that fits you.

I personally love Airbnbs. My friend Glenn and I just rented an Airbnb in Fort Lauderdale. We're gonna bring our families down to see Inter Miami play some soccer. Glenn and I both have boys. Our boys really wanna see messy plays. So anyway, I'm really looking forward to all staying

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Listening can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits, and ultimately your overall well-being. Audible has the best selection of audiobooks without exception, along with popular podcasts and exclusive Audible Originals, all in one easy app. Enjoy Audible anytime while doing other things, household chores, exercising on the road, commuting, you name it. My wife, Bianca and I have been listening

to many audiobooks as we drive around for summer vacations. We listen to Life by Keith Richards. Keith, if you're listening, I'd love to have you on the show. We also listen to Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. And Yuval, if you're listening to this, we would'd love to have you on the show. We also listen to Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. And Yuval, if you're listening to this, we would also love to have you on the show. So audiobooks, yes. Audible, yes.

Love it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. Audible.ca. DJ Cashmere, welcome back to the show. audible.ca, audible.ca. DJ Cashmere, welcome back to the show. Thanks, Dan. What are we talking about today?

Always a good question. We're gonna talk about anger again. We did this a couple of weeks ago. Cause you're still pissed. I'm so angry. Yeah, I'm actually not super angry at this exact moment. I just came off a few days of retreat for the first time in a long time. But a couple weeks ago, I came on the show and we did this sort of experiment where I was a correspondent who'd been out in the field reporting a story,

trying to answer a question and coming back to you with what I learned. And the question was, what are we supposed to do when we get angry? So I did some research and interviewed some great Dharma teachers. We played some clips and talked some things through. The idea behind doing all that was, this is a real genuine pain point for me,

but I think for a lot of people. So if I can share what I learn, you know, hopefully it can be of service to the audience. And while I was working on that episode, it was just supposed to be the one episode, but it just slowly became clear that I don't just have a problem with getting angry. I also have a problem with other people getting angry.

It'd be one thing if all I had to do was figure out how to handle my own anger, but that's not how it goes. Other people get angry at me. Maybe my wife or my daughter or my son or another loved one, a colleague, a total stranger like yelled at me on the street the other day. And I've just been thinking about and reading about and talking to Dharma teachers about these two sides of the coin.

What do you do when you get angry? What do you do when other people get angry? And so this episode is an attempt to really hone in on that second question. What do we do when someone else gets angry at us? I mean, I'm curious what happens for you. I know what happens for me is usually, uh, I get defensive, like really defensive. This has been a huge problem for me. Yes. This is something a huge problem for me. Yes.

This is something that we have in common. I've actually started looking more closely and realizing that a lot of times when I'm angry, not nearly all the time, but a lot of times when I'm angry, it started because someone got angry at me and my knee jerk response there. If I had to put it in a nutshell is like, make that person's anger stop immediately. And sometimes I get super defensive. Sometimes I get real angry back. I don't respond well when other people get angry at me.

This doesn't always mean like there's a huge explosion. There's a huge fight, but I don't think there's like a single day that goes by in my little family of four where like there's not some moment of a little bit of anger between two people. A couple weeks ago, my wife and I were getting the kids ready for school in the morning and it had been a long night. I was up with both kids in the middle of the

night. I was exhausted. My wife was really tired. I hadn't meditated yet, which is always it's always dicey to start interacting with the family before I've had a chance to sit. I got in the kids' fed. I got my son dressed, I was getting everybody's water bottles ready, you know, there's just a thousand things on the morning checklist. And my wife was taking care of getting my daughter ready and it was almost time to get out the door. My daughter needed to brush her teeth and she was dragging her feet, like literally dragging her feet, could not have been walking more slowly towards the bathroom. And I kind of caught a glimpse of this and quickly decided this is too slow.

My wife's being far too patient and indulgent. This is not a good reason for everybody to be late. Very, very quickly, I just kind of stepped in and I wasn't mean or explosive. I just was like, we gotta go. We're brushing your teeth. We gotta do it now. We have to move faster.

We can't be late. On the one hand, it worked, she got her teeth brushed a lot faster, but the second I sort of stepped in and kind of overrode the way my wife was handling it, I could just see instantly that my wife was angry at me. Her face, her body language, she just walked away from me. There was this tension that set in.

It was instantaneous, I was like, fuck, she's angry. When that happens, whether someone says something to me in an angry tone or their body tenses up or they walk away or they yell at me or whatever, there's just something about that moment that often sends me straight to anger too. And so when she did that, there were like multiple narratives going in my head.

And one is like, how dare you get angry at me? Are you serious? I'm just trying to get you to work on time. Like you're the one who's going to be late. I have this whole monologue playing out in my head. I have this other thing playing out in my head too, which is damn it. How big of a fight is this going to be? Like how long is this going to go on? How quickly are we going to dig out of this? All these stories going on, all these projections and predictions. And so we got the kids out and in the car and off to school, but we did it in this sort of silent standoff, you know, where we were both unhappy with each other and we kind of skipped

our normal like kiss goodbye, have a good day thing. And it just sucked. Like the whole morning just kind of sucked because I did this thing that was maybe a little unskillful and then she got mad and then I couldn't handle her being mad. And like I said, these sorts of things, these tiny moments, they happen all the time. And when someone gets mad at me, it's like my mind is like mission control. And all of a sudden it's like we have to man every station and it's like push every button, pull every lever, tweak the knobs, do whatever is necessary

to like make the other person's anger stop. And it doesn't work. That's what I set out to try to figure out how to do better. It's so interesting. I mean, I had a similar moment last night with Bianca. We were driving back from a vacation. Everything was fine. And then, but there was just one little interaction in the car that didn't go well. I can't remember the substance of it. Maybe I was a little sharp and then she didn't talk much the rest of the ride. And I don't, we still haven't circled back on it.

I don't even know if she was angry. It was amazing to watch my mind because all of a sudden she was my mortal enemy. Yeah, exactly. It's so, I was just making all the counter arguments. It's just so quick. It's so rapid how that can happen. Yeah. But you said something in the middle of that last exchange where you said,

it's dicey when I interact with my family if I haven't meditated. Can you be very granular there about what is it about meditation that makes interaction with your family or anybody else from the genus of Homo sapiens easier? Yeah, totally. So today I meditated first thing and it was the exact same kind of day. It was like got to wake up early, get the kids off to school, get my wife off to work, the water bottles, all of it. But I meditated first and things still didn't go perfectly, but there was no moment of genuine anger.

It was like the first thing I did was sat down and followed my breath for 10 minutes. And I think there's two things that happen for me when I do that. One is I just send a signal to myself that I'm doing the steps needed to take care of myself. I'm like hitting my marks. And that story helps propel me throughout the day. When I haven't sat, I'm holding a story in the back of my mind that I haven't sat yet. So, so I think some of it is just a, there's maybe a bit of a placebo effect, but it's just like, I did the thing that I said I was going to do to take care of myself.

I'm on the right track. This day started in the right way. So that's part of it. The other part of it is the actual mindfulness, which is you're just slowly building this muscle of being a little bit more aware. And there were still things that didn't go exactly the way I wanted them to today. My son had a hard time being dropped off. My daughter had a hard time being dropped off. They're both usually fine at drop off and they both had a hard time today. I was less reactive than I would have been on another day. I was more instantly reflective

of the things that I could have done better. And I also let myself off the hook a lot faster as I was driving home from both drop-offs, I caught myself running through in my mind, like how I could have done each one better. And then I, this is cheesy, but it happened for real this morning. I like, Talk to myself out loud and talk myself down and reminded myself that I was doing the best I can. And there were a lot of things that went well.

And I put my hand on my heart and I just like slowed the whole thing down. It wasn't like a suffering free morning. You know, it's like Matthew Brunselver said in the last episode, sometimes there's no duke a free way out. Sometimes you just are going to suffer. But it was less because it was all happening a little more slowly with a little more awareness. It was all a little bit more gentle.

Just to put a fine point on that, because I think if anybody's listening is new to meditation, they may want slightly more, maybe I'm just doing my thing of pretending I can inhabit the psyches of our listeners. And even maybe more experienced meditators may want to hear this. Use the word awareness. You said it's helpful when I'm a little bit more aware. I think there's more to say about that. You know, if you sit and watch your breath as you just described for 10 minutes, what inevitably is going to happen a few nanoseconds into it is your mind will wander. And then at some point, maybe a few seconds later, but maybe really a few minutes later, you wake up from that. And that's often the moment when people believe

they have failed at meditation. But that's actually the key moment that proves you're succeeding because you start to understand your own mind. That's the awareness you start to see. I have all these crazy thoughts, but I don't have to be owned by all of these thoughts I was sitting recently with my friend Sam Harris who's been on the show many times and he said something to the effect of unexamined Thoughts Blot out the Sun they take over Thought marches through our mind and we just do it

Examined thoughts are little more than nothing. And that is freedom or kind of freedom or in meditation circles. They often talk about it as spaciousness. It's like the thoughts have space around them. And so I had to experience like a week ago where I was on vacation and I got really mad at something had nothing to do with anybody who was in my immediate vicinity, it was a work thing and I sat really mad at something had nothing to do with anybody who was in my immediate vicinity was a work thing and I sat for a half hour

It wasn't like the anger magically went away or the situation immediately was fixed It was that had more space around the storylines. Mm-hmm. I wasn't as owned by or fooled by All of my thoughts so just being able to see that thoughts as thoughts, I can imagine that would help you, and now back to you, DJ, if you've done a little bit of that in the morning and gotten a little space or awareness or mindfulness or whatever you wanna call it,

then when you have a thought of, like, I'm just gonna say something sharp because it feels right or the thought has entered my mind, you don't actually have to be owned by that thought. And you might do something a little bit more skillful. How does all that long screed land with you? Yeah, really well.

I mean, yeah, it was one of those mornings where the sit wasn't particularly peaceful. I woke up from a lot of different trains of thought and it was not a long enough sit or a peaceful enough sit that I had any moments of blissful concentration or quietude or what have you. But even that, that's like, that's really good data to go into the rest of the morning knowing, you know, busy mind today, a lot of different currents flowing through. Just knowing that that's the starting point is a lot better than not knowing it's the starting point. There was one conversation with my wife where like, this morning, in the midst of all this, the drop off and the drive and everything,

where both of us were pretty unskillful and we both realized it and we were just like, cool, I'll talk to you in a little bit. And then I called her on my way home. Actually, no, she texted me just the word hi, which I think was like a peace offering. So I called her and I'm like, did you just text me hi? And she was like, yeah.

And I was like, okay. And we both kind of exhaled. And I was like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know why I said that thing that way. And she was like, yeah, it's cool. And I was like, you said this other thing. She was like, yeah, I know. And we were like, all right. And it was just like the other thing meditation does is it's like, it said this other thing. And she was like, yeah, I know. And we were like, all right.

And it was just like the other thing meditation does is it's like, it's so much less personal. We've both gotten so much better at being like, sometimes when something comes out sideways, it's not about me and it's not even about you. It's just about causes and conditions. And we just kind of laughed it off. And I think like, if you take the practice away, that laughing it off is not on offer at all exactly to get back to you said I didn't have any blissful

Concentration in my morning meditation. I think that's overrated. Hmm, and I say this is somebody who you know as a former drug abuser loves pleasant states of mind and chases them in meditation all the time, but First of all chasing anything in meditation is a guarantee that you won't get it but I really think it's genuinely is overrated the it's nice and has all sorts of benefits, so I'm not saying it's useless but the Chopping wood of sitting trying to focus on one thing getting distracted starting again getting distracted starting again Like that is a route to calm of a sort. It's just not the kind of press a button and get calm.

It's a deeper calm. I think the Buddhist term would be equanimity where you start to get cool with whatever's happening. That's where the real money is. It's like to get better at not getting yanked around by your thoughts. That has more benefits throughout the rest of my day than 10 minutes of concentration and bliss in the morning. Yeah, a thousand percent.

My experience matches yours in that if I'm grasping for some quote unquote higher level, it's a guarantee that I won't get there. But my experience also matches yours in that I could not have any kind of. Blissful moment or moment of deep serenity or even moment of insight for days or weeks, and that it kind of, in some ways has very little to do with how much it's benefiting me to sit down every day. Okay. So I've taken us down a few tributaries here. Let's get back to your reporting assignment, which was to figure out what to do about it

when somebody is angry at you. You went out and spoke to a bunch of very smart, very wise meditation teachers, Dharma teachers. What did you learn? A lot, thankfully. The first place I started was a book. Thich Nhat Hanh has a book called Anger. And Kyra Juolingo, a Dharma teacher who used to be a monastic in Thich Nhat

Hanh's Plum Village tradition. She was actually the co-editor of Anger. So I'll share just a little bit, Dan, about what I learned in the book specifically. And then I'll bring in Kyra Jual to talk about it some more. There's this one thing in this book, Anger, that I just think is such awesome resource. And we'll link to it in the show notes if people want to take a close look at it. But he has this thing he calls a peace treaty. And it's basically a set of steps that two parties agree to take when anger comes up. You know, if you want, you can literally like print out this peace treaty and you can sign it, but you certainly don't have to take it quite that far.

But part of the treaty is a list of things to do when someone is angry at you. It's six things to do when someone is angry at you. And this is just one of the first times I've ever seen something so succinctly target this exact painful experience that we all have. So I'll just share a little bit about what I read in this treaty and I'm curious what you make of it. Thich Nhat Hanh writes in the treaty, I, the one who has made the other angry, agree to, first, respect the other person's feelings, not ridicule them and allow enough time for

them to calm down. 2. Not press for an immediate discussion. 3. If the other person wants to talk, I'm paraphrasing here a little bit, but if the other person wants to talk about it at some later time, agree to do that with them. 4. If I can apologize, I should do so right away. Five, practice breathing and see

the seeds of unkindness and anger in myself, see the ways that I may have contributed to this person's unhappiness, consider that I may have mistakenly thought that making the other person suffer would relieve my suffering, and acknowledge the ways that making another person suffer makes me suffer and Then last if I haven't yet apologized should apologize as soon as I realize my unskillfulness and lack of mindfulness Without making any attempt to justify myself So there's a lot in there, but this feels like a great place to start, because it's like a kind of North Star. It's like the platonic ideal of how to be with someone else's anger, I think. Right.

Well, you said platonic ideal. I mean, maybe worth saying a little bit more about the fact that this is not, you're not expected to nail all of this now or ever. Yes. Yes. No, no, absolutely not. nail all of this now or ever per se. Yes. Yes. No, no, absolutely not. I mean, there's individual phrases in here that feel like practices in and of themselves.

I mean, for me, that second point on the list, not press for an immediate discussion, that one in particular is really hard for me. Oftentimes, I find that when someone's mad at me, like, I just, I want it to end as quickly as possible, and I often believe that the way to get there is to talk it out instantly. Despite the fact that they're mad, despite the fact that they need a minute or an hour or a day or whatever to process, despite the fact that I'm probably mad too, there's just this hard charging part of me that's like, we're going to fix it and we're going to fix it now. And that has historical roots for me.

And, you know, there were a lot of times growing up that I was like exposed to the idea that that's how you fix things. But if I look at it closely, it's like really hard for me to find a time when an immediate discussion has, has helped in response to another person's anger. So that one pops out at me in particular. But I think taken as a whole, this is just a really helpful blueprint for what a more skillful path might look like.

And I think anyone who looks at this might be able to find places where it's like, oh, that one in particular, that's the exact opposite of what I've been doing. Maybe that's worth considering. So yeah, I personally, I see this list as something less like commandments and more like a North Star. Like I'm under no illusion that I can do this every time, but it feels like a useful starting point. And I wanted to start there, but then I want to go to these

conversations I had with the Dharma teachers because a lot of the reporting I did after finding this was basically like, okay, cool. That's the ideal. What are some really, really practical other things that I can do to handle this when I'm out in the wild? And also like, what if the other person doesn't want to sign this peace treaty? You know, what if they have no interest in handling anger in the way that I would like to handle it?

So yeah, I think that brings us to the first clip. Is that cool? Do it. All right, so think that brings us to the first clip. Is that cool? Do it. All right. So this is Kyra Julingo. I was talking to her about this peace treaty. She knows it well. So I asked her this question. What if the other person won't sign, like literally won't sign it, or more likely figuratively won't sign it? You know, they're just, they're on another planet. They're not even attempting to approach the situation with mindfulness. And here's what she had to say. The key to me is that we stay aware of what's happening in us and also the other person,

right? We should know what's happening in us and we should know what's happening in the other person us and we should know what's happening in the other person. Being mindful of that. So if someone else is basically what you're describing, not able to hold their own emotions, not able to work with them and we are in some kind of relationship with them, it can still be very helpful if we stay present to what's happening in us and stay present to what's happening in them, first of all, so that we don't add to what their, you know, the confusion, the misperception, the strong emotions that they may have, and also so that we can take care of ourselves, right, in those moments, because even if they can't have a compassionate or mutually honoring conversation or reflection on how this conflict arose, how to resolve it,

it's very important that we stay able to do that for ourselves because we're hurt, we're upset by something they've done or said, and we can still care for ourselves if we stay mindful. So that's really important. We don't wanna abandon ourselves just because the other person isn't able to ground doesn't mean we can't stay grounded. It's not pleasant, it's not fun. It can feel stay grounded. It's not pleasant. This is not fun. You know, it feels can feel really difficult. And we can have a lot of blame a lot of judgment. Why can't they practice like we are? Or

why can't they meet us halfway? If they're not doing it, they probably can't do it. So if we can do it, in a sense, we are doing it for both of us. We're doing it for the system that's the relationship between us. And that will have a really beneficial effect, whether or not it's obvious in the other person right away or not. Even if we're really grounded, even some reflecting back to the other person, just like we were talking earlier about turning towards ourself and saying, oh, my dear anger, I see you.

We may be, and it depends on the situation, but if we're really coming from a compassionate place, we can help that other person see what's happening in them. And that can be really helpful for them. So to just say, I hear you that you're really angry or I'm hearing that there's some real suffering here or whatever it is, like helping them touch what's beneath that top fiery layer to touch the hurt

or whatever that is beneath it can be very profound. I'll just share a story here that I heard a person working at a psychiatric ward for teenagers of a father came in ready to pick up his daughter and it turned out something had happened between when he was told to come pick her up and when he got there where she really wasn't ready to be discharged anymore. And the father was livid, was so angry and really aggressive towards this psychiatrist about why he couldn't pick up his daughter. The psychiatrist stayed very present, very calm in their body with their breathing and said, I really hear you. I hear how hard this is for you.

So rather than being defensive or giving anger back, really addressed what he saw was the pain underneath this father's anger. And in a very short time time the father was weeping. That kind of Aikido move of letting the energy just flow past us and coming back with a way to hold that person and help them touch or somehow be held in the bigger emotion that's beneath the fiery one. Even if someone's not willing to sign the peace treaty or do this practice with us, we can still be a very helpful person for ourselves,

protecting ourselves from unnecessary suffering that we might load onto a difficult interaction with them, but also beneficial to them in being like a very kind mirror reflecting back to them. This is what I'm hearing you say in between the words. Is this right? What would be helpful for you? You know what that reminds me of is something I've heard Dan Clermen and Mudita Nisgar say, Dan and Mudita are these communication coaches

who've been on this show. I'll drop a link in the show notes. They're amazing and I work with them personally. And they often say that it only takes one skilled person to make a good conversation. Even if the other person isn't figuratively signing any peace treaty, you can make a pretty successful conversation.

It's not easy, but it's possible with just one person who's got their shit together. Hmm, hmm. I like that. I've seen this play out in my own life. The easy example for me is when I remember to do something like what's being described here with my kids, it works incredibly well. If my daughter is freaking out and I'm not, I'm

genuinely calm and can genuinely remember that this is just a feeling and feelings tend to pass in about 90 seconds and if I can just stay regulated, reflect back to her that she's having a hard time and I'm here for her. The temperature goes down so quickly. There's been so few times when that hasn't worked really well. I am not as good at doing this with adults. And so this is something that I really intend

to keep practicing with. And that's not to undercut her advice or Dan and Mudita's advice. It's just to say it's hard. And Mudita's advice, it's just to say it's hard. And I think for me, it's hard in at least two ways. One is if I'm trying to mirror someone in adult who's maybe made me a little more activated or aggravated than a kid might, I can be pretty good at fooling myself into thinking that

I'm fully grounded and that I'm accessing all of my tools and skills when I'm actually not. I look like I'm doing like a kind mirror kind of thing like she's describing, but really I'm just being impatient or I'm just being condescending or something. Then the other place where I struggle is sometimes I'm just wrong. You know, like Brene Brown was on the show a while back and talked about how we're nowhere near as good at reading other people's emotions as we think we are. And so sometimes I know exactly why someone's pissed or why they're feeling however

they're feeling. There's also a lot of times that I've just I'm wrong about what they're upset about or I'm wrong. They're not actually angry. They're feeling something else. And so yeah, I think this works great when you can do it. And I think it's just a lot easier said than done. There's nothing more annoying than somebody who's like. Pretending to be grounded and together when they're actually not that drives me up a relapse. I think you're a little bit more comfortable. It's funny because I've, I've spent a ton of time in meditation or personal growth,

self-improvement circles, but I think you're more comfortable in those circles with some of the lingo and affectations than I am, but there's nothing, nothing that drives me up a fucking wall more than somebody who's like kind of in that mode, maybe clutching their cup of tea, but being condescending, it drives me nuts. I'd rather just have you be straight up aggro rather than passive aggressive. But having said that, I'm going to actually say something a little bit more helpful, which is it is very hard to be the mirror in the way that Kyra Jewel is talking about.

And you've acknowledged this just now that it's not an easy thing to do to be. Calm in yourself and then have this sort of generosity to kind of take care of the other person in the conversation, especially if they're coming at you with anger directed at you. One technique, and people who've listened to the show may have a drinking game for the amount of times that I bring this up, but one technique that actually really helps is reflective listening, which I picked up from the aforementioned Dan and Udita, which is it's really not complicated. It's like you're listening to somebody speak to you and you kind of listen in a journalistic way. And then when they're done speaking, you repeat back the essence of what they've said to you

in your own words. There are two things that are helpful about this. One is people really like to know that they're heard and understood and actually can really relax them. Uh, and the second is it's a circuit breaker on your own reactivity. You, as the person is doing the reflective

listening, because instead of just popping off and saying whatever you want in the face of whatever has just been said to you, you're inserting this pause of reflecting back to the person what they've said. So you can actually still be pissed while you're doing this. This does not require some supernatural equanimity. It's just a great little tool or tactic that you can use to have more successful conversations. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

I like that. I also like what you just said about you can still be pissed and do something in the vicinity of what we're talking about here. You know, there's variations. One is you really are calm and grounded and you really are able to mirror back. Another is maybe you're still upset, but you reflectively listen and say, all right, this is what I hear you saying. Am I understanding you correctly? There's at least one other option here, which I pulled out the other day and I

was shocked how well it worked, which was my wife and I were driving home, much like it sounds like you were recently. There was a little interaction that went not quite as well as it could have. We were mostly quiet the rest of the way. I was just watching in my mind, like I was so angry. We had actually recently recorded the first anger episode. I was like really trying to like recognize, embrace, look deeply. And I had the recognize and I had the embrace, but like the look deeply it just like wasn't coming.

And I was like spinning, spinning, spinning. It was like maybe 5 p.m. And I just had this thought pop up into my head. I was like, you know what? This anger is like stubborn right now. I'm not gonna be able to force it out. I'm not gonna be able to push it down. And so I just like asked my wife, can we talk for a sec?

And we just like went and kind of huddled away from the kids. I literally, I was like, hey, I need help. I feel really angry and I don't want the rest of the day to suck and I don't know what to do because I'm so angry. I totally meant it like I totally meant that I was still really mad and I didn't want to lie about it and I also totally meant that I needed help and there was something about asking for help and that became kind of a circuit breaker and she went into like help mode and within three minutes we were good and we hugged it out and the rest of the

day went great and I was like shocked. It and we hugged it out and the rest of the day went great And I was like shocked it didn't feel like it should have worked because I went to her still angry But there was just this layer between Me and the anger of at least knowing it was gonna be a problem to be reacting from that place And when I couldn't handle it on my own asking for some Support to her credit like she gave it and we figured it out. Yeah, it doesn't feel like it should work. I mean, I think it's smart, but if I was Christine, I would just key in on the fact that you were angry and then like

make that into a fight. But she's obviously a way better person than I am. But there's so much more to say about how to deal with it when people are angry. Let's pause for a second, take a quick break, and on the back side we're going to hear from the awesome and inimitable meditation teacher Vinny Ferrara. Keep it here. Coming up we talk about the difficulty of accessing empathy in the heat of the moment. And this question, can anger and love co-exist? murders. Kill List is a true story of how I ended up in a race against time to warn those who lives were in danger. Follow Kill List on the Wanderer app or wherever you get your

podcasts. You can listen to Kill List and more exhibit C true crumb shows like Morbid early and ad free right now by joining Wanderer Plus. I'm Afua Hirsch. I'm Peter Frankopan. And in our podcast Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season, we're talking explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season, we're talking about the life of US President JFK. He steered the world through moments of terrifying geopolitical crisis.

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so you can realize more than you thought possible with a flexible approach that grows with you and wisdom from some of the world's most insightful teachers. Happier helps you get more out of meditation so you can give more to every part of your life. Go to happierapp.com and start meditating in a way that fits you. We're back with DJ Kashmir. We're talking about how to deal with it when people are pissed,

especially when they're pissed at you. We've got a whole group of ringers, meditation experts, Buddhist teachers who are helping us with these situations. And next up is Vinny Ferraro. Take it away, DJ. Yeah, so this first clip from Vinny is related to what we were talking about before the break of this idea of trying to track what's happening inside. When someone gets angry at us, also track what's happening with them. Vinny is going to tell a story here about this idea, but there's a bit of a twist. Vinny actually gets some help story here about this idea, but there's a bit of a twist.

Vinny actually gets some help doing this live in the moment. So he'll tell the story and then you'll hear he and I have a little exchange. That'll be the end of the clip and we can unpack it from there. Here's Vinny. I'll share a moment with you I had. I'm living in Oakland.

I am driving a low rider. I have my wife on the bench seat of my 66 Malibu, and we're cruising through Oakland. We're actually on my street and there was a stop sign and I'm kind of rolling. Somebody's coming the other way, directly at me, and they were there first and then without a blinker they tried to turn and I almost hit him. The dude jumps out and starts screaming at me and I'm like, yo, you didn't have your

blinker on. So I'm matching his anger. My sweetheart just kind of put her hand on my knee and she goes, he's just scared. And I realized I was scared too, right? Like not just from hitting him or almost hitting him, but also like whatever this energy, you know, matching his energy, we were basically arguing about who was more afraid. You know what I mean? Like, you know, how dare you scare me? And instantly, there was instantly compassion, empathy, everything that arose within me,

it was immediately diffused with just the understanding. Oh, we're both scared. Yeah. So we want to see, no matter what tone it's delivered in, you know, we hear a lot about tone these days No matter what tone is delivered in can I see what's here for me? You know, can this be in the service of awakening? Am I not seeing something here? and Generally, I can find something in it for me, some sort of seeing more clearly my own

habituated tendencies. Did realizing you were both afraid change the way that that interaction went? 100%. I immediately like got into a calmer space, you know, with just her helping me see what was happening. It was just like, Oh, there was a relief that I wasn't going to have to ratchet this up further. I wasn't going to have to like stand my ground or like prove to her that nobody gets to talk to me like you know what I mean like all that stuff was just like oh dear oh it's okay yeah when it's in the service of awakening so I awoken to that moment with my wife's help part of my own reality that I was not even aware of I wasn't aware that I was afraid. I was so busy being angry. Right?

So it can be like subterfuge. But once there was this acknowledgement that there was this deeper primary emotion there, there was enough alchemy is kind of the word that comes to mind to change into something beautiful. Because it was, it was like, oh, we're both just trying to protect the animal of our body. You thought I was going to smash into you. I thought you were going to smash my fate. Okay. Ooh.

Yeah, I hear that. And I have a little bit of the same feeling I had when I heard about Christine responding to your, I'm pissed, but please help me thing. It's like, yeah, I wish I would, was able to do that, but I just don't know. And the anger I should say is a real point of vulnerability for me. So I just don't know in that situation that I'd be able to see, oh yeah, they're just the dude storming up at me right now who did the wrong thing

and is now accusing me of doing the wrong thing. It's all happening so fast. If I put myself in Vinny's shoes, I just don't know that I get to empathy and compassion the way he did. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It totally makes sense. One of the ways I was thinking about these episodes is just like, just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks, you know? And it's like sometimes you plant a seed and maybe that thing works for you a decade from now and some things might never work for us. Or I think some of us, you know,

we talked about this in the last episode, like our conditioning around anger can vary wildly. And so I think it's like really important to process each of these different suggestions with, through a couple lenses. One is like self-compassion, if that doesn't feel like it might work for you. And another is like always thinking about ways

that you might tweak some version of it for yourself that would work for you. This is something that Christine and I have been working on a lot is like, what are the ways when she gets mad? Maybe like if I see her getting mad at someone who's not me what are the skillful ways that I can signal to her that she might need a breath without making it worse

and vice versa. And it's like, the answers are so bespoke. They're so specific. I think it's like entirely reasonable in that situation that if, if it had been you, Dan, and someone had said, he's just scared. If you had not instantly gone to empathy, I, I don't think that makes you a bad person for what it's worth. I mean, when people tell me, even people I really trust to slow my role, when

I'm angry, that just makes me angry. The other thing to say, I just wanted to, it's become an inside joke that I use this incredibly douchey term a lot, but I'm going to double click on the thing you said about planting seeds. The more I'm in this game in the meditation world and whatever personal development, I don't, I still don't know what to call it, but the more I'm doing this work, the more I see that that really is true.

There is shit that people had said to me 10 years ago that it's only now making sense to me. And so to the listener, I would say, yeah, you're hearing from like the Olympic level, you know, meditation masters, anger wranglers in this episode, just kind of let it wash over you, let it go into you. Some of this stuff may just come back when you need it later. Having said that, I do believe there's more

from Vinny on this score. Yeah, so more super practical tips from him in this next clip, just to contextualize it. The thing he's talking about right when he's going to start talking here, is he's talking specifically about some reasons why it is so, so, so hard for some of us when someone gets angry at us. So he's going to start in that place and then he'll move a little bit towards some other different kinds of tools we can pull out.

So here's Vinny. And for me, the first place the train stops is, somebody's anger bubbles up and it's like, dude, I deal with so much self judgment. It's like, don't gang up on me with me against me. You know what I mean? Like that's not fair, right? You know, when you're dealing with a self judgment, a lot of times it feels very compounded, right?

And then what is it to bear witness to that somebody just doesn't like you, somebody's mad at you, somebody just doesn't agree with you or whatever it is, right? Whatever was the impetus. You know, sometimes that has a certain kind of historical significance, right, that we're gonna get. Love has been withdrawn, right, because we don't believe that anger and love can

coexist or even care. And that's a jump. That's an assumption that we're making. Can I care about someone and be angry with them? I certainly hope so, right? That myth that those things can't coexist, we have to kind of challenge that. And I believe it having roots in this disavowed feeling, it's like, no, if you're ever like that with someone, it's clearly because you don't care about them. It's like, that's not true. You you know how are we supposed to be in conflict well

certainly I don't want to devolve to think that whenever someone is disagreeing with me they're questioning my right to exist right what's clear what's guaranteed is people won't act the way I want them to act. That seems clear. And I remember feeling like if people would just listen to me, everything would be better. I mean, that's the seeds of fascism, DJ. Those are literally the seeds of fascism. If everybody just listened to me, they'd be better. So I have to take some responsibility

for how cherished I hold my own self-image. And then if someone doesn't respect my boundaries, then I have to keep them for both of us. Some people have proven that. So it's like, I can care about someone and not invite them back into my house. Like we get to choose, because boundaries are for me, right? Boundaries are not what I want them to do in the future. It's about like, okay, I have to have a boundary and that is for me to change and to hold.

If we're still in relationship and it hasn't blown up into you know full-blown anger, then maybe they'll be a part of it, but boundaries for me. Can't remember who said it. It was a healthy boundary is the distance between us where I can love us both simultaneously and I like that a lot, you know because that has room enough for both of our between us where I can love us both simultaneously. And I like that a lot, you know, because that has room enough for both of our humanity. So I get to control how close I let people be to my heart. Right?

And so if somebody has proven to me that they don't honor my heart or the boundaries I put around it, then I can still care about them, but I might give them a bit of a wider berth. And I guess one last thing about that is like, can I hear what's being offered here, what's being said, right?

Even if it's an angry tone, can I hear what's being said and still care for myself enough to get out of harm's way. We don't ever want to send any message that it's okay to stay in toxic relationships or abusive relationships, right? That doesn't help. So we got to say, okay, what's in this for me? And am I willing to accept this? Just to say that quote about boundaries being the distance at which I can move both of us simultaneously, that's from a therapist and author named Prentice Hemphill.

So just wanted to shout out Prentice and make sure credit was given. What did you make of that, Dan? Thank you, Prentice. Before I answer that question, I wanna hear from you. In the T up to that, you described it as super practical, that last sound bite from Vinny. What in there seems actionable to you?

Yeah, I think there's two pieces that really helped me. One is a mindset piece more so than a practice and the other is more of a practice. The mindset piece is just, it's been worth asking myself the question, do I believe that anger and love can coexist? What are my deep rooted beliefs about what it means when someone else is angry at me? This is the kind of question that Vinny is really good at pushing people to think about.

Yeah, it's been useful for me personally. This is something you can sit with or journal about or meditate on. What do I think is true about when other people are angry at me? And is there maybe some old beliefs that I'm holding on there that aren't helping me and that are driving some of the ways that I react? The other thing he said that I think is wildly helpful

is that sometimes someone else's anger shows up in a way that really crosses a line. And I said earlier that that peace treaty from Thich Nhat Hanh is kind of like the platonic ideal of what to do when someone else is angry at you. But you know, I might revise that a little bit in light of what Vinny just said. And it was just a really helpful reminder that other people's anger towards us exists on a really wide spectrum. And some of these examples we've been citing of getting into little tiffs with our spouses or whatever,

that's very different from someone that's being abusive. And so just what he had to say about boundaries and the fact that a mindful and skillful response to someone else's anger might include removing yourself from the situation, might include that relationship transforming radically or even ending. I just think the reminder that that's true and the permission to have that on the table too is so important and has definitely been important for me depending on the situation. Yeah, I co-sign on those, on both of those points,

that the ability to understand that it's possible to be angry and to give a shit about somebody at the same time. I think that's really important when somebody's angry at you, because what can be scary is if somebody's angry at you, for some of us, we immediately go to the story that all the love has been withdrawn. And then, of course, I agree with you about boundaries. And that too doesn't mean you're cold-blooded. It can be balance of taking care of yourself and the other person. I hear two other things.

One is about in those situations, if you've got the resources to stay in it and to withstand the anger, to ask yourself what is in here that is worth hearing. It reminds me of that Joseph Goldstein chestnut about, don't side with yourself. Mm-hmm. I like that. And then something he said early on, which I thought was hilarious about, when somebody's angry at you,

don't gang up on me, against me, with me, you know? And that kind of goes to what I was saying early on about why I find it so hard when people are angry at me. It just triggers my defensiveness. It goes to this story that I've been telling myself for a long time that I'm a bad person. So when they get angry at me, it's confirmation of this thing that I don't wanna look at,

but I'm also kind of stewing in all the time. And I think over time, switching the default in my head from the long running story of like, I'm a bad person to, and I love this and we'll drop a link to this episode in the show notes. Well, my friend Dolly Chug, who's a professor at NYU, I believe in her first appearance on the show, she talked about, she's been on twice at least, she talked about this notion of good-ishness. So many of us think we're either a good person or a bad person, but if somebody

criticizes us, we either use it as confirmation that we're a bad person or we get freaked out that maybe we're not a perfectly good person. And so if you can just reframe it all as good ish, then that's a kind of growth mindset that yeah, I'm basically good, but I, you know, I there's room for improvement. You're not in like this state of shock or panic vis-a-vis your identity when somebody gets angry at you. So yeah, I took it to lots of different places. Yeah.

I love all that. The boundaries thing reminded me of something you've said on the show before, which paraphrasing you, but there's something along the lines of love doesn't mean you have to have them over for dinner, you know? Yeah. And that other something, maybe it's just because it's a pithy expression, but everything you just said really landed for me, and there was something in listening to him and listening to you just now

that brought that phrase to mind for me, and I just think it's a good one. Yeah, I stole that from Sharon Salzberg, just for the record. Oh, gotcha. Okay. Credit given. All right. We've learned quite a bit here from Kyra Jewelingo, from Thich Nhat Hanh, her teacher, and from Vinny. Let's take a break and when we come back, we're going to talk to Matthew Brent Silver, the third in our trio of Buddhist aces. Keep it here. the cutest aces. Keep it here. Coming up, we talk about what to do when somebody's anger is really just aversion, masquerading as usefulness or responsiveness, and how we can help ourselves when we mess all of this stuff up.

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So you went to him and said, what do I do about it when somebody gets angry at me? What did he say? So, yeah, Matthew had a lot of really helpful things to say here. He was actually one of the teachers that helped push me in the direction of really going down this line of inquiry in the first place. In this first clip, you'll hear me first asking him about something he said to me the last time he and I spoke about anger, and then you'll hear him respond. So it's me first, and then Matthew. Here's the clip. Last time you and I talked about this, you correctly intuited that my question wasn't just about my anger is also about the anger of the people around me. I'm going to quote you directly here. You said, talking about our defilements, you said they can sometimes quote, resonate with one another like bells resonating

at the same frequency, their anger, my fear, their anger, my anger. And you said that when this happens, we get impulsive, our mind movements get jerky, and that if the pain of the other person, quote, resonates with our wound rather than with our heart, we get spun so easily. And then my compassionate intervention is really just my own intolerance of their suffering masquerading as compassion.

Which was a little close to home, Matthew. I really kind of kind of went for it. Yeah, well, it's intriguing to me to try to understand why the affect of life of loved ones is so evocative for us. Of course, teachers kind of teach what they know, but they kind of teach what they need to hear too. And so at sub-level, dharma talks are pep talks to oneself that are hopefully of use to others. That's a little bit of the dynamic. And so this is a zone for me that is definitely alive.

It struck me that at least historically as a child, somebody growing up, the suffering of a parent or caretaker or something, that is not a cause for compassion. That is an existential threat. The fantasy of infallibility is shattered by the suffering of the other. That is harrowing rather than an opportunity for the heart to arise and open.

And so it almost feels like historically conserved through time in me that the suffering of a loved one represents a threat rather than a cause for compassion. It may be subtle, but that it's evocative in a way that spins me at depth and how to relate. I do find that often there can be some impulse in me just to essentially control their suffering, which is not compassion. That's not compassion. That's blunting the effects of this for my own benefit

rather than engaging their suffering. And what people need more than anything is to be engaged on their own terms. And sometimes we cannot do that. Sometimes it's just more than we can do. In this context, it's very complicated because our love is entangled with a measure of clinging and the love lets go, the clinging seeks control.

The thin line between love and hate from that old R&B song, I don't think it's a thin line between love and hate, but it's a very thin line between clinging and hate, between clinging and a kind of impulsive urgent intervention to make their suffering go away. So say more about why that landed so powerfully for you. No one had ever pointed out to me quite so explicitly

how easy it is for me to trick myself into thinking that I'm having a compassionate response when really I'm just trying to make the other person's suffering go away. You know, it looks like on the surface that I'm trying to help, that I'm trying to de-escalate, but really I'm just pure aversion. It's just pure shut this other person's thing down because it makes me uncomfortable. Right, relate to this. If you're realizing that a lot of what you think is an appropriate response to somebody's anger

is really just aversion masquerading as usefulness or responsiveness, what can you do instead? What's the real move? Yeah, so I'm going to play Matthew's answer to that. He's gonna talk about self-soothing as a first line of defense, as a way to get to a place of groundedness and compassion in the face of someone else's anger.

Just a quick reference point here so that folks are oriented. Early in this clip, he'll make a reference to Thich Nhat Hanh, who we talked about earlier. And what he's referencing specifically in here is another part of Thich Nhat Hanh's peace treaty, another one of the teachings in that peace treaty, which we only touched on briefly earlier. Specifically, it's the suggestion that if you're angry, you set a time, perhaps a few days in the future, perhaps at the end of the week, you set a time to talk things through with the person

that gives you some space to decompress. So anyway, I'm just mentioning that because Matthew will be making a brief reference to that part of the peace treaty in this clip. So here's some of what Matthew has to say about what we can do when someone else's anger activates us in that way. There's a measure of self-soothing that has to happen.

Like, wait a second, this doesn't seem like a big deal at all, but it spins us at a deep level. And before we can probably engage, that may be why Thich Nhat Hanh has the kind of cooling off period. Before we can actually engage, there has to be enough patience, tranquility, sense of refuge, soothing in our own system in order to meet the suffering without the sense

of control and with a sense of love and goodwill and willingness to suffer with them rather than to control their suffering. The compassion, it's not just about grieving, but it's a willingness to grieve the suffering of the other before one suffuses the whole field with love. The love feels good, but the grief is heavy. And sometimes that's more emotional energy than we have. And so I don't want to be idealistic. And every time there's some measure of suffering and the

other that spins us, we sit down and meditate and soothe ourself. We're living lies that happen quickly, but this is part of why we practice as part of why we have a daily practice as part of why we go on retreat. This is part of why we're reminding ourselves of love all the time, all the time, the centrality of it in the project of human happiness. and sometimes it's just more than we can offer and we are humbled by the ways in which we fall short but not humiliated by it. We just leverage that as kind of consolidating our motivation to keep developing our heart, mind, and become reverential about the potency of aversion and the depth at which love and control can become entangled. And maybe this is part of the suffering we consent to

in some of these relationships in a spouse or children, right? We sort of consent at some level. There's no way I will be able to thoroughly untangle the clinging and the love. And I'm willing to do that. I'm willing. I'm willing to suffer in that way. But are there some moves to make here? Is there any degree of space? And I think there's more than we often imagine. That distinction between humility and humiliation seems really important. I've actually, I think there's a little bit about that in my first book.

I don't think I connected it this way in my first book, but I certainly do now. That seems like a recipe for self-compassion, like giving yourself a break, being okay. We just heard all this smart wise advice, being okay with fucking it up like regularly and seeing how deep your conditioning is in the, you know, like not so helpful directions, but being willing to come back to it. That feels like what he's pointing at. Yeah, yeah, I think that's exactly right.

If we have the presence of mind, the time, the space to do some self-soothing in our mind or our body or both, I think that's obviously a great move to make. Sometimes I do have that space. I just go and lay down for two minutes or something. And like he says super clearly, like sometimes you don't. Being humbled when you mess it up instead of being humiliated. I love that.

I came back to that phrase this morning, actually. My aforementioned drive home from the difficult drop-offs. Like, literally talking to myself out loud in the car by myself. Let's try being humbled instead of humiliated. And saying it didn't speak it into existence instantly, but it helped. And I asked Matthew specifically to say a little more about this distinction between being humbled and being humiliated. And so this is the last clip.

That move of being humbled instead being humiliated. And so this is the last clip. That move of being humbled instead of humiliated, are you uniquely wired to do the one over the other or did that take you a good long while to learn? I'm a shame prone person temperamentally in a lot of respects, but got the message of the Dharma quickly in the sense of my pain is not a commentary on who I am at the deepest level. That was sort of discerned fairly quickly. And so that sense of being humbled rather than humiliated,

humiliation is basically entails a measure of self. And whereas humility is just the capacity to appreciate the shortcomings, but appreciate the innocence that underlies them. In other words, to see the complex set of causes and conditions, which is to see innocence. And so that's an important piece because if we're perennially humiliated by these moments where we feel helpless, these moments where practice betrayinging overpowers the love,

then it creates a disincentive to keep growing. And we sort of double down on our own kind of grandiose vision of ourself. And that is not conducive to growth. And so if we're not being humbled on this path, we're probably not practicing sincerely. And so this is just a kind of medicine we come to almost enjoy.

We almost come to enjoy. There's a certain kind of exhilaration almost in seeing our limitations actually. And when the self is much less kind of congealed when these episodes of quote failure do not function as a commentary on oneself, one can be sort of more and more of a kind of reckless adventure of one's own strengths

and limitations because the sense of self is not at stake in the same way. This is a kind of important quality of investigation in the Dharma. I love that if we're not being humbled on the path, we're probably not practicing sincerely. I often say that doing this kind of work means that you're dooming yourself to a life

where you feel like you were a total jackass until six weeks ago, always. And that having a sense of humor about it, that he referenced, the sort of delight you can take in seeing your own idiosyncrasies, your own conditioning. You know, Joseph Goldstein, who is my meditation teacher and a frequent flyer on the show, talks about this a lot. You know, he'll say about his own practice, yeah, I just did three months in silence by

myself and all kinds of stuff came up and this is me imitating him. I always feel like it's better to see it than not to see it. That just seems like the right attitude and probably a good place to close this discussion. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Yeah, when I was in the car this morning, reminding myself after a little bit of a tough morning to be humbled instead of humiliated, I just kind of said, hey, you're obviously trying and a lot of stuff is going well, even

though you're focusing on what's not going well. And in so many ways, it's not really about you. All these stories we have about how we're screwing up, but, you know, as the teachers have said, like, there's just so much, so much self in all of that. And just to acknowledge that it's all way bigger than me and I'm a lot less important than I think I am and If I could go easier on myself, everyone would have a better day If there's maybe just two or three things we come back to again again on the show Week after month after year like self-compassion is at the very top of the list

Indeed. All right. So you're gonna be back in the not- distant future with another one of these episodes what's on the menu Yes, we've got two more of these we're gonna do one about being wrong. How often are we wrong? What kinds of things are we wrong about? What are the impacts of that? How can we be more aware of what Matthew Brent Silver calls the permanent possibility of being wrong? And how can that make us happier? And then the last one is about surrender. This is something that I started getting really interested in at the beginning of the pandemic, back when I was wiping down all the groceries

as they came through the door. How do we surrender without becoming apathetic, without yielding to things that shouldn't be a particular way, without spiraling in negative ways? How can we be more okay with the sort of constant imperfection of all things. So we're going to try out those two and see how they land and I'll put a link for feedback in the show notes and hope people are enjoying the experiment and yeah, big thank you to

you Dan for creating the space to try this out. You're welcome and thank you. It's going great. TJ, great job and we'll see you on the next one. Thanks man, take care. Thanks again to DJ. Also, of course, big thank you to Vinny Ferraro, Matthew Brentsilver and Kyra Juolingo. I will drop some links in the show notes here if you want to go back and listen to their

previous episodes on this show. Don't forget to go over to danharris.com. If you sign up, you'll get cheat sheets that allow you to look back at the major takeaways from this episode and all the other new episodes we're putting out there. We'll have time-coded highlights and a full transcript. Subscribers also get access to a chat

where you can talk to me and my team, and sometimes even a teacher we've interviewed about whatever you learned in the episode. Before I go, I wanna thank everybody who worked so hard to make this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our production manager. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer.

DJ Cashmere is our executive producer, as you know. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. If you like 10% happier, I hope you do. You can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.

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