If you have no time to meditate, there are still ways to incorporate meditation into your daily life. Here are some suggestions:
Take 10-15 seconds throughout the day to practice mindfulness. You can ask yourself what's happening in the moment, notice how your body feels, and observe your emotions without judgment .
Focus on your breath. Take a few moments to synchronize your awareness with your breathing. Pay attention to the sensations of breathing in and out, and let go of any tension or stress on the exhale .
Practice intentional calming. Take a full breath through your nose and exhale through pursed lips. Repeat calming phrases to yourself, such as "Breathing in, I calm the body. Breathing out, I calm the mind" .
Find awe in everyday moments. Take a brief pause to appreciate something you value or find amazing, whether it's observing a pet, enjoying nature, or reflecting on the beauty around you .
Use breaks as mindfulness breaks. Instead of checking social media or getting lost in distractions, take a break to relax your body and bring mindful awareness to your surroundings .
Start with short meditation sessions. Even five minutes a day can be beneficial. Gradually increase the duration if possible, but any amount of time spent on meditation is a good start .
Remember, meditation is a personal practice, and finding what works best for you is key. Don't put too much pressure on yourself and allow for flexibility in your practice .
(someone): Going inwards. Just notice how you feel in this moment. You can ask yourself what's happening right now. How does the body feel? What do you notice in the mind with your emotions? Not changing or trying to fix anything. Just notice without judgment. In a moment, I'm going to invite you to say some phrases to yourself. Just remember, for the next few minutes, you'll be training your capacity for self-compassion. And let's begin that training by considering a major stress in your life right now. Allow yourself to feel it by connecting to it in the body. Notice where it is and how it feels. Now offer yourself these three simple phrases. This is stress. Stress is a part of life. May I find ease. Stay connected to the sensation in the body. Continuing to bring awareness. Repeating these phrases silently to yourself. This is stress. Stress is a part of life. May I find ease. You want to feel better, we all do. Even in the midst of your stress, you've chosen to engage with this meditation. Can you appreciate that about yourself? You can end this meditation by expressing gratitude for your efforts. Great job with this meditation. You can open your eyes now and reconnect with your surroundings. Thank you for your practice, and may you have ease.
Dan Harris: Thank you to Seven A. Always great to meditate with her.
(someone): Let your awareness begin to synchronize with your breathing. paying a little more attention to that feeling of settling and relaxation on the out-breath. Explore this on your own for a bit, tuning in to the rhythmic sensations of breathing. How we pay attention to the breath is very important. If we relate to it with a sense of pressure, intensity, or force, the breath carries those qualities into the body, which begins to feel tight. If we approach the breath with a sense of spaciousness, with a light and easy attention, it carries those qualities into the body, which begins to feel light, open or spacious. Breathing in, receiving, being nourished. Breathing out, relaxing, letting go. As the meditation comes to a close, you can bring your attention back to those simple, steady sensations of contact. Your feet on the floor, your bottom on the chair or cushion. You can allow your eyes to open if they've been closed. Nice work. Thanks for your practice. See you next time.
Dan Harris: Thank you, Oren. We hope you enjoyed this meditation. If you're thinking, you know, I could have kept going there for another five or 10 minutes, I encourage you to check out the 10% Happier app, where you'll find this very same meditation in different lengths. The cost of your subscription directly supports our many amazing teachers and allows them to dedicate their lives to teaching the life changing skill of mindfulness, As an added incentive, we've got a special discount for anyone new to the app to claim your discount visit 10% dot com slash bonus.
Dan Harris: It's just, it's interesting to see that different, I mean, this is obvious on some level, but the different practices bear different fruit.
(someone): Right. And this is also different in that it is so readily available. The benefits are different, and so are the applications. In other words, I can do this in 20 seconds, and I can shift my physiology, I can shift my mood very, very quickly. And that's not true of most of the traditional mindfulness practices.
(someone): One of the things I appreciate about this practice is that it's so portable and on-the-go. You know, like you, Dan, I've been doing a very long-term Buddhist mindfulness practice for almost 30 years and a lot of 10-day retreats as well. And what I love about this is that I don't have to have the conditions of being in a quiet space on a retreat or at my home to practice a deeper dive, I feel like I can really get a significant dose of mindfulness in just 10 to 15 seconds and repeatedly throughout the day and take this wherever I go. I can be at the airport, which for many people is a very stressful place, and I can find a lot of awe looking at people in the line at the TSA checkpoint or in all the architecture of airports, and some of them are just so incredibly beautiful and awe-inspiring, and all of the technology of being on a plane. All around, there's this awe to be held, and I love that this practice is so portable and doesn't require being on the mat, so to speak.
(someone): Let's try it again. Take an easy, full in-breath through the nose. When you're ready, purse your lips and gently, steadily let the out-breath pass through your pursed lips until all the breath is out of your lungs. Great. Continue for a few moments and find your own rhythm. Now we'll add in some intentional calming. This classical meditation technique involves repeating simple phrases on the in and out breath, which will help steady and balance the mind. On the next in and out breath, silently repeat the following. Breathing in, I calm the body. Breathing out, I calm the body. Breathing in, I calm the body. Breathing out, I calm the body. Next, we say the same for the mind. Breathing in, I calm the mind. Breathing out, I calm the mind. Breathing in, I calm the mind. Breathing out, I calm the mind. Don't worry if your breathing and my guidance get out of sync. Stick to your own rhythm of breathing and saying the phrases to yourself, and let the words of guidance come in however they're helpful. Try this at your own pace. Fleeting images or thoughts of worry, stress, or concern may come up. That's fine and totally natural. Just see if you can bring these phrases into the foreground and let those passing, fleeting impressions be in the background.
Dan Harris: So maybe you should lower the bar a little bit and give yourself a break and say, look, some days I'm only going to do two minutes or five minutes or ten minutes, but other days now I'm really going to clear the time to do more. You mentioned this, you knew I was going to say this, but I think free-range daily life meditations, you're already doing it. You said you're doing a car meditation, walking between meetings, etc., etc. You were also talking about meeting with family members who you weren't necessarily relishing that opportunity. But listening to other people, active listening, can be a form of meditation. One little trick that I was taught recently that's really useful to get you to tune in and pay attention is something called reflective listening where you listen to somebody talk and try to reflect back by the end after they've uttered their paragraph or two. to reflect back the nugget of your understanding of what they've just said, that forces you to really listen closely. And then people, even though they may not know it consciously, really appreciate when you reflect back what you believe you've heard from them, because it's just deeply satisfying to be heard. And if they feel like they haven't got it right, They'll say, yeah, but also X, Y, and Z, and then you reflect that too. And I find that that really keeps me engaged in conversations and it requires focus, attention, and mindfulness. And then finally, I don't know what your schedule is, but you said you're not burdened in the way that you have multiple jobs and multiple children. And so I think a real dry-eyed, skillful, holistic look at your schedule might turn up pockets where you actually could be dedicating that time to practice.
Dan Harris: I mean, that's the problem with meditation. You know, if you go exercise, it may feel awful in the moment, but it does feel good afterwards. It's a little bit like that guy, you know, the joke about the guy who's banging his head up against the wall and somebody says, why are you doing that? And he says, because it feels so good when I stop. And that is true with exercise and neurochemically, we get endorphins. But with meditation, especially at the start, There is no feedback like that. It just sucks. And then you stop and it doesn't necessarily feel great because you stopped. It takes, in my experience, in my informal surveying of people, like takes a month of consistent practice before you start to get some intrinsic motivation to do it, because it's not only somewhat enjoyable to do, but you're starting to see the benefits in the real world. Jacob, Michael, does anything we're saying here land with you?
(someone): It lands with me because I'm a terrible meditator. I've never liked it. My wife is a serious meditator. She was a student of Zen for many years, and it's very natural to her. But the longer I meditate, the more irritable I become.
Dan Harris: I think that's what the Buddha had in mind.
Dan Harris: I think that's what the Buddha had in mind.
(someone): It was. She once had me go to a seven-day session, and at the end of it, I just wanted to kill someone. I just couldn't stand it. Weren't allowed to talk the entire week. My mind was going crazy. I felt like I was a complete failure, and I don't know that I've recovered yet.
Dan Harris: Yeah, I mean, as somebody who is a committed meditator and I'm literally about to leave on a 10-day silent meditation retreat soon, I wonder partly whether that might have been just the wrong form for you. Maybe there is a meditation format that's looser. For example, I've gotten into looser style retreats where there's a little bit more talking, there's no schedule, and the rebellion quotient has gone down, like, immeasurably.
(someone): Yeah, I think that maybe like Bianca, I do not like that kind of regimented routine. I feel very restricted and my rebelliousness comes up when I'm told what I have to do and how long I have to do it. So I have meditated, but I've never gotten to the point where I enjoyed it. That's changed as a result of this practice in that somehow practicing our awe method has made me more comfortable doing 10 minute meditations. And I can't tell you exactly why, but I'm much more relaxed now.
Dan Harris: If in your schedule, you're finding that after having gotten enough sleep and doing a little bit of exercise that you don't have an hour to meditate or something like that, I don't see that as a problem. So do what you can. Obviously, to a point, I'm of the view that the more, the better. But if five minutes is honestly what you can sanely fit into your day, then I see nothing to feel badly about there. But you know you may want to see if there are others in the day where you know you're just mindlessly checking Facebook that that that could be a time where you meditate or like right before bed. I actually really have gotten into doing quite a bit right before bed. In fact last night. I'm recording this on a – I'm recording the intro and outro to this episode on a Saturday morning. Last night, I was having trouble going to bed and I meditated for quite a while, got into bed, was tossing and turning, and per Matthew Walker's advice, instead of tossing and turning too long, which can turn the bed into a kind of a crucible, I got back out of bed, put my sweatshirt on, went to the corner of the room and meditated again until I got super sleepy and then I went back to bed and I fell asleep. So that's a place where you could probably fit in quite a bit of meditation. There may be areas where you could sneak it in.
(someone): Going inwards. Just notice how you feel in this moment. You can ask yourself what's happening right now. How does the body feel? What do you notice in the mind with your emotions? Not changing or trying to fix anything. Just notice without judgment. In a moment, I'm going to invite you to say some phrases to yourself. Just remember, for the next few minutes, you'll be training your capacity for self-compassion. And let's begin that training by considering a major stress in your life right now. Allow yourself to feel it by connecting to it in the body. Notice where it is and how it feels. Now offer yourself these three simple phrases. This is stress. Stress is a part of life. May I find ease. Stay connected to the sensation in the body. Continuing to bring awareness. Repeating these phrases silently to yourself. This is stress. Stress is a part of life. May I find ease. You want to feel better, we all do. Even in the midst of your stress, you've chosen to engage with this meditation. Can you appreciate that about yourself? You can end this meditation by expressing gratitude for your efforts. Great job with this meditation. You can open your eyes now and reconnect with your surroundings. Thank you for your practice, and may you have ease.
Dan Harris: Thank you to Seven A. Always great to meditate with her.
Dan Harris: Nothing to do, nothing to control here. I don't want to get ahead of myself though. Let's bring in our teacher du jour to give you all of the instructions. Said teacher is Sharon Salzberg, who just, by the way, celebrated her 70th birthday. Happy birthday to Sharon. As many of you know, Sharon is an eminent meditation teacher and also the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society alongside Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield. Sharon is also a New York Times best-selling author and has written 11 books. Her newest is called Real Change, and she's very busy. She also hosts the Metta Hour podcast. All right, here we go now with Sharon Salzberg.
(someone): Hi, this is Sharon. A classic foundational exercise in meditation is focusing on the feeling of the in and out breath. They say the breath is chosen for many reasons. For one, you don't have to believe anything in order to feel your breath. You don't have to call yourself Buddhist or Hindu or believe in anything in particular. It's also said that the breath is very portable. Anywhere we are breathing, we can be meditating. To begin, you can sit comfortably and relax. It helps if your back can be straight without being strained or overarched. You can close your eyes or not, however you feel comfortable. In this system, the breath that we focus on is the natural flow of the in and out breath. We don't try to make the breath different or deeper.
(someone): Go ahead and just breathe in. Nice even in-breath, natural breath. And then stop at the top. So before you exhale, stop at the top and deliberately pause. And then deliberately breathe out. And stop at the bottom. Pause. And then repeat. Deliberately choose to take an in-breath. Natural breathing in. Pause at the top. Now breathe out. Long exhale. Pause at the bottom. and so on. That's our rhythm. Four parts. The in-breath, the pause, the out-breath, the pause. Take some time to explore this on your own. Now bring your attention back to the bones, to the structure of your body, and see if you can notice how in the background, in the most natural way, the breath just comes in and gently moves the bones, inspires the body, fills it with life, but not in a dramatic way, just this subtle, modest way. See if you can find some appreciation for the breath This is a really good technique. Even just doing it for two or three minutes can create a bit of a state shift in what's happening inside. When you're ready, you can open your eyes and rejoin your day. I hope you enjoyed this practice and found it effective. Thank you. I'm Jeff.
Dan Harris: Thanks again to Jeff. You can find more meditations like this one over on the 10% Happier.
(someone): Yeah, definitely. As someone who's taught mindfulness to people with chronic pain for many years, I've seen exactly what we're all talking about here is that people really struggle with developing a sustained mindfulness practice. And when we go about it from a very formal, regimented method where we're asking people to sit for an extended period of time every day, they really seem to struggle. And then there's this whole, we call it in Buddhism, you know, the second arrow, but there's that effect where people then are beating themselves up because they feel like they failed at it. and then it's even more of a self-defeating process and they really struggle. And that's what I really love about this practice. We had in our studies approximately 300 primary care patients and 200 doctors and nurses in the other study. Many people who had struggled themselves with mindfulness in the past and were able to really develop a comfortable, self-supportive, mindfulness practice, which one of the benefits of this practice is that there is a reward immediately. When we have a moment of awe, when we get to taste that deep sense of peace, relaxation and presence and focus on something that we value, appreciate and find amazing, we feel good instantaneously. And anecdotally, you know, people that have struggled with meditation because maybe they're neurodivergent with ADHD or other really busy racing minds, they're able to do this because we're just asking people to focus their attention for 10 to 15 seconds.
Dan Harris: Again, I want to go deep into the actual practice, but just staying on a higher level for a second.
(someone): We allow experiences to arise and pass away without interfering with them, without getting caught up in them. For example, we might notice that the mind has started thinking, proliferating. At this moment, we can remember the phrase, be simple and easy. Coming back to the breath, knowing that you're sitting, feeling the natural rhythm of the body breathing. As the body breathes in, remember, be simple and easy. As the body breathes out, remember, be simple and easy. Connect with the beginning of each in-breath and sustain the attention for the duration of that breath. Connect with the beginning of the out-breath and sustain the attention for the duration of the out-breath. As soon as you become aware of a thought or an image, you might make a soft mental note of thinking or seeing and remind yourself with a compassionate attitude, be simple and easy. Let it come, let it go, whatever it is that's arising. Is there any discomfort in the body? See if you can relax around it. Aware of sounds, aware of the body sitting, aware of breathing, Be simple and easy. When the thoughts settle, you can come back to the breath, to the body. Sit and know you're sitting. Breathing in, know you're breathing in. Breathing out, know you're breathing out. When you're ready, let the eyes open and take in the room or the space around you. Take a few breaths now with the eyes open, and see if you can bring this orientation of compassion, of being simple and easy, into whatever your next activity is.
(someone): Do you want to add anything to that, Jake?
(someone): I want to go back to something that Dan mentioned when he was talking about traditional mindfulness. And one of the things I observed both in you, Michael, and also when I was part of a Buddhist community for a few years, there's this sort of paradox of the serious meditators taking themselves and their practices seriously. And I always found it amusing because it seemed contradictory with the teachings. And what I notice in our method, the awe method, is there's an opposite tendency where I can't take myself too seriously. I am just so aware of the vastness of everything around me and I feel less significant, but not in a negative way. I just don't take myself as seriously. And I find some great relief in that, as someone who, by the way, tends to be very serious.
Dan Harris: Well, I take what you're saying very well. I mean, I, as Bianca referenced before, I went through a period of time that I can still slide back into it of taking myself and the practice way too seriously and being super, super committed. And I kind of think about this as an intermediate problem. In other words, if you go on a ski slope, you've got the beginners, the intermediate, and then the experts, black diamonds. My experience interviewing hundreds of meditation teachers on this show and interacting with them in real life, the common denominator, and I've said this before publicly, so I'm apologizing now for being repetitive, but the common denominator among the greats is that they do not take themselves seriously.
(someone): Mindfulness of breathing has many benefits. In this meditation, we'll explore how to be naturally aware of your breathing in a way that helps relax the mind and body. This can be useful in and of itself and can also be the starting point for developing a range of qualities like concentration, wisdom, and compassion. So let's get started. Find a comfortable posture, one that feels stable, balanced, and upright. You can let your eyes close or just look down at the ground in front of you, letting your gaze be soft and unfocused. If you like, you can take a few slow, deep breaths, breathing in deeply through your nose, breathing out through your mouth in a thin stream of air, long and slow. As we begin, set an intention to put down any thoughts of the past or future. For right now, all you have to do is be here and relax. The rest can wait. Feel your feet on the floor and the contact with the chair or cushion beneath you. Notice what it feels like there. Is it hard or soft? Can you sense pressure, weight or heaviness? In your own time, begin to notice the rhythm of your breathing. What lets you know that you're breathing? Where do you feel it? As you breathe in, you might notice sensations of swelling, lifting, or expanding. As you breathe out, you may feel a sense of something loosening, releasing, or letting go. Let your awareness begin to synchronize with your breathing. paying a little more attention to that feeling of settling and relaxation on the out-breath.
(someone): But the practice is that simple. It takes anywhere from, I would say 10 to 20 seconds. It's typically one or two breath cycles. And we asked people to do it multiple times a day. That's one of the beauties of this is it's so quick that when we did the study, we had people do it three times a day, but we also saw something called a dose response, which is the more they did it, the more benefit they derived.
Dan Harris: Let me just drill down on the basic blocking and tackling of the practice. So AWE, I start with A, which remind me was attention.
(someone): Attention. You're going to place your attention on something you value.
Dan Harris: Yes. Okay. So I'm looking at our, one of our cats, Ozymandias stretching out in a sunspot. Beautiful. So I'm placing my attention on him, unfurling his belly, so that I've chosen what I'm gonna attend to, that I wait, meaning I just continue to gaze at this scene, and then after a few seconds, I exhale. This does not require a lengthy inhale to proceed it, it's just an exhale based on a natural inhale.
(someone): That's right, that's right. It's funny that you picked the cat because that's actually what I do, except it involves putting my ear on the belly of one of our cats who's a very, he has a very loud purr.
Dan Harris: Before I say more on this subject, I will say that the one thing I've seen increasingly in my own meditation practice is that the depths of my capacity for delusion appear to be bottomless. So I want to just have humility that I may be doing some justification here that is inaccurate. but I really do think that this thing about giving yourself permission to work a little bit on the weekends so that the rest of your week is saner and has the flexibility that I value immensely, the flexibility to meditate, the flexibility to exercise, the flexibility to end the workday early because I want to go see a friend in the city, all the things that I really know lead to a well-rounded life, and also the flexibility to leave, and I know we'll get to this soon, room for error because, as we'll discuss, Nothing ever happens as quickly as we think. Nothing ever gets done as quickly as we think. Final thing I wanted to say now that I'm done with this self-justification, which again, you can, when I finally shut up, you can take pot shots at it. The final thing I wanted to say that's really helped me in terms of, because historically I've been really bad at time management and setting priorities and not burning myself out. It's been a major project of mine to get better at this, not just for my own benefit, but for the benefit of everybody around me. The one other tool that's been really helpful for me in this is self-compassion, and that's a big term. It means a lot of things, there are a lot of practices under self-compassion, but specifically I'm talking about what has been described to me by one of the prime movers in the field of self-compassion research as the quintessential self-compassionate question you should ask yourself on the regular, which is, what do I need right now?
Dan Harris: you end up working smarter and better. This is a lesson that I personally have to learn over and over again. Our teacher du jour is Anushka Fernandopouli, who teaches insight meditation in the San Francisco Bay Area and other parts of the world. She's a member of the Spirit Rock Teachers Council, and has trained in the Theravada Buddhist tradition for 30 years in monasteries in Sri Lanka and India, as well as U.S. urban settings. Anushka has an MBA from Yale and works with organizations as a consultant and with individuals as a leadership coach, which makes her perfect as a contributor for this work-life series. Here we go now with Anushka Fernandopouli.
(someone): Hi, this is Anushka. This is a meditation you can use during a break from any kind of work or school or any time you need a break in your day. People sometimes take a break when they have to drink coffee, but it's also possible to take a break to refresh your ability to be present. Instead of a coffee break, think of it as a mindfulness break. We can use this break to connect with mindfulness of the body and mind in a way that can help us be present for the rest of the day. So let's get started. Try to find a place you can feel relaxed and at ease. Notice the posture you're in and try to feel the body in whatever posture it's in. Feel the sense of your feet touching the ground or your contact with the chair if you're sitting. Feel your hands wherever they're touching. Try to notice if the body is tense in some areas.
Dan Harris: And I have good news and even better news. The good news is I think five to ten minutes a day is a great habit. And from what I can tell from looking at the from talking to neuroscientists, it should be that should be enough to derive many of the advertised benefits. The even better news is if you don't have five to ten minutes a day, I think one minute counts. And I don't think you have to do it every day. I think you can shoot for daily-ish. And so one minute is all it takes. Actually, it just takes one second to wake up from whatever trance you're walking around in and to wake up from the autopilot which governs most of our lives. So I think if you can engineer a collision with a voice in your head over the course of one minute, most days, then you're well onto something. And by the way, once that habit is established, you can scale up and experiment with going to 5, 10, 20, whatever it is you think is the best dosage for you. Ultimately, this is, and I know this may sound like a cop-out, but it is an individual thing. And so you've got to figure out for yourself what works. Unsolicited, but I suspect maybe it'll be useful to some people. Here's the next call.
(someone): Hi Dan, my name is John and I'm calling from Hawaii. The question I have for you is as your meditation practice evolves and you gain insights into our daily experience and some of the sufferings that we have or the people around us have, how do you address those sufferings among the people that you care about, your friends and family, when you see them struggling with things in their lives?
(someone): You know, and I texted you just before we started and I asked you if you're aware, just a simple text, are you aware to you? And now we, you know, you... very honestly wrote back always. So I'm sure there's some truth to that, Dan. You know, but we see how easy it is and, you know, in daily life, which is where we are all living, we can think, you know, how easy it is to get absorbed in the experience that we're having, meaning we lose awareness. And for a lot of folks that start to experience the benefit, let's say, of taking a few minutes of practice, the natural desire to continue to be aware kind of arises, right, on its own. And yet, we see how often it is the mind is doing anything other than being in the present moment, knowing something about what's happening. And so it can be helpful just to be reminded that awareness itself is not hard, but we forget, right? We forget to simply check the mind or to do something that allows awareness to return.
Dan Harris: We've now stated one explicitly and one kind of in passing, two of the primary phrases that Sayadaw uses as his meditation instructions. I'm going to try to describe to people how Sayadaw teaches meditation and then you'll correct me because I'm sure I'm going to say this incorrectly, but my The way I took it from you, which is one step removed, but you've done a lot of study and practice in this style of meditation, the way I understand it is you start out by, he'll say, relax the body, and then ask you to ask yourself a question. What's the attitude in your mind?
Dan Harris: We've got our noses in social media, we're praying to the false god of multitasking, or we're convinced that we are somehow uniquely unable to stay on task. Whatever ails you, we've got a simple antidote today from the great Sharon Salzberg, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society, New York Times bestselling author, and one of the founding teachers on the 10% Happier app. Sharon, over to you.
(someone): Hi, this is Sharon. If you consider how scattered, how distracted, how out of the moment we may ordinarily be, You can see the benefit of gathering that energy, gathering our attention. So even though we take a very simple object, an ordinary object, like the feeling of the breath, it has the effect of really bringing us to a sense of wholeness, a sense of empowerment. It is a very powerful way of beginning our day. You can sit comfortably and relax, Let your attention settle on the feeling of the breath, at the nostrils, at the chest, or the abdomen, wherever it is strongest or clearest for you. Just the normal flow of the in and out breath. We don't try to make the breath deeper or different, just however it's appearing and however it's changing. Because it's so common in the beginning of practice to get quite distracted, one of the fundamental techniques that's used in many traditions is counting the breath. So let's get started. As you breathe in, you can make the silent mental note of in. As you breathe out, You can count the out-breaths, starting with 1 and going up to 10. So let's try it together.
(someone): It might be five minutes when I wake up and pretend I'm still sleeping in the morning before my nieces and nephews come in. It might be offering to wash the dishes and really feeling the sensation of the warm water and looking out the window. So taking those small moments to actually check in with my sensory experience and kind of drop into a little bit of a slower pace helps me find some private space even when in a busy family situation.
Dan Harris: That's great. I want to just, what you said is great. I mean, I want to get you to talk a little even more about it. So if I'm a casual meditator, I'm just trying to put myself in the position of whoever might be listening to this. So if I'm interested in meditation, either I'm listening because I'm aspiring to do it, or I do it sometimes, or even if I'm a committed meditator, That tip that you just gave, which is maybe volunteer to do the dishes or volunteer to do something that may seem menial, but if actually you're paying attention to it, that can be a huge source of refreshment. I probably won't be volunteering to do the dishes, nonetheless. But I think it's a really good idea.
(someone): Well, I think that's part of it. I mean, not that we all have to turn into goody-two-shoes at the holidays, but I think there's something also about taking an opportunity to be of service wherever we are that can be, and maybe it's not a traditional mindfulness practice, or it might be. I just don't know it.