How Mindfulness Can Change Your Brain and Your News-Related Stress (with Dan Harris)
After a brief check-in on the rising wave of Covid-19 cases, we talk to Dan Harris, who you may know from weekend Good Morning America or Ten Percent Happier, the book/app/podcast that teach the value of meditation and mindfulness.
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Transcript
Dan Harris: [00:00:00] If you find yourself wound up feeling, you know, dogmatic, really convinced you're right. It could be in any context. I just noticed when that happens to me that there's a pain there, there's a sort of subtle pain of shutting out any other point of view, really trying to convince myself or work myself up into something when some part of my brain knows, well, maybe there's another way to look at this.
Sarah: [00:00:29] This is Sarah
Beth: [00:00:30] and Beth.
Sarah: [00:00:30] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics,
Beth: [00:00:33] The home of grace-filled political conversations.
Sarah: [00:00:54] Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Pantsuit Politics. We are happy to be with you here today, even though we acknowledges incredibly difficult time. As we record on Thursday, America has passed 250,000 deaths from COVID-19 and the coronavirus continues to rage all but completely uncontrolled across the country as we enter Thanksgiving season and the holiday season, and also the end of the pandemic with so many treatments and testing and vaccines right on the horizon.
But we are having to call on deep reserves to get to that finish line. And we know that is an incredibly difficult ask right now. So
Beth: [00:01:36] We wanted to spend just a few minutes processing some new restrictions in Kentucky and where we are with the pandemic before we transitioned to a conversation with ABC's Dan Harris. Dan Harris is also the creator of 10% Happier, writer of a book, creator of a podcast and an app that we both use regularly.
And so we're excited to share that conversation with you today as well.
Sarah: [00:01:57] So our state has, like several other States across the country, heightened restrictions. There is no more indoor dining or bars. Um, High schools and middle schools are shut down through the end of the year. Elementary schools can open back if the County is no longer in the red, that's not on their horizon in my County anytime soon.
And it's just, you know, it's getting more personal it's every day and where I live, someone else has COVID or someone else I know has died from COVID. It feels like this spring, but also so much course
Beth: [00:02:34] We were notified today that we will not go back to school until January if then, which I know is a very hard call and no one wants that. And I also appreciate the certainty of knowing what life's going to be like for a month instead of the kind of week to week approach that we've been taking. There are a lot of feelings about our governor's new orders and what frustrates me the most about all those feelings is that I don't see people making a good faith effort to put forth a better idea.
I continue to see us locked in this space of a binary. Well, we just accept that everybody's going to get it until there's a vaccine and keep everything open because the economy is more important or we lock everything down and there's no room for discussion about what we do next. And the truth is our governor is not in that second mind frame.
You know, the administration has appropriated as much money as it can get together on its own to try to support people through three weeks of some very serious economic restrictions. But our state is not able to do that on its own. And I am feeling Sarah. I'm an interested to talk with you about this increasingly frustrated with the United States Congress and the fact that it seems everyone in the United States, Congress with very few exceptions agrees that at least a trillion dollars is urgently needed and has been urgently needed since the summer to help deal with the fallout from COVID-19. And because we can't get to exactly the number that Democrats want or a number that's a little higher than Republicans want, we're getting nothing.
When everyone knows we need at least $1 trillion dollars. I don't understand why we can't make some progress here.
Sarah: [00:04:29] Frustrated that every governor is out there on their own. I'm frustrated with the governors who for months tell people they could just make their own individual choices and now expect people to listen to them.
I'm frustrated that our president is just totally and completely AWOL during what is looking to be the most difficult time in modern American history over the next few weeks. I'm frustrated that that binary is presented when we can literally watch what they're doing in Europe. Their cases are going down, it's working and the option was not shut it down or let it fly.
They pay people to stay home. They use the powers of their government and the funding to ease this transition. They're taking a different approach to lockdown than they took in the spring. The schools are open in most of Europe, it's just, it's infuriating. It's infuriating to watch this play out and know it's not going to work.
It's going to cost people their lives. It's going to cost people their livelihoods. And everybody's just staying around being like, well, I don't know what we can do. Well, I don't. I do. We can watch Europe and see how that works. We can replicate what's going on there. And it's just, it's, it's maddening. It's maddening.
Beth: [00:05:51] Another thing that I have strong feelings about. I don't think that it makes sense that Congress just elected the same leadership when we can't get anything done. I don't think I have a lot of respect for speaker Pelosi. I think that the Democrats should have gone a different direction.
And I think the Republicans should have to, I don't think Kevin McCarthy deserves his job when we haven't been able to get this funding through Congress. And when it's not only that, but the federal government is going to run out of money in a matter of days. And we still don't have a budget for next year. I mean, I just, I'm really disappointed in what's happening at a federal level right now. Well,
Sarah: [00:06:30] And I think what makes me even angrier is it's not like we're, we are living through a disaster that was completely, um, predictable and preventable. And we are watching another disaster that is also completely predictable and preventablen be built from the ground up right now with the transition. We have vaccines on the horizon and the Trump administration will not move forward with the transition, which is going to prevent, it's going to prevent that vaccine from getting after the, all of us to all of us. That's what's happening right now, they are refusing to transition, which is going to slow down the distribution of the vaccine and the end of this pandemic.
So not only are we living through a lack of leadership that we all saw for months was going to bring us to this point, but we are, it's not going to end here. It's not going to end here. It's I don't have any words. I don't have any words. I don't have any words to watch this play out and to watch what it's going to cost and know that we could be doing something different and that we're not, and that he in particular, you know, I am furious with Congress.
I think you're right. The list of things that are going to run out soon is long. It is long, but to watch him not have any events on his public schedule day after day, to golf, to be obsessed with his own election loss in the middle of this and know that like, I'm not even asking you to do something, I'm just allowing you to let them do something.
Just let them get ready. If you don't want to do the work anymore and being president fine, whatever, I can't make you do the job. Obviously, no one can. But can you least let someone else do it? Can you at least let the Biden transition team step up and get ready so that they can hit the ground running so that this can come to an end.
I mean, that quote the anonymous quote of we're just setting so many fires so that they can't put them in out. This is our country. Like this is where we all live. This is where our children will live for generations. And the idea that like, we're just trying to start fires to slow down their success. It's criminal.
Beth: [00:08:51] I do wish that anyone could take a posture of first do no harm right now. The restrictions that have been put in place in Kentucky do seem to me to be awfully broad. And I have some questions about them. But people in the Republican party in Kentucky have been in such denial about COVID, that there isn't this ability to have a good faith discussion where everybody says, Hey, we all were on the same team.
What everybody wants is to minimize cases. Because we want to minimize the burden on our healthcare system. We want to minimize the suffering and death of our fellow Kentuckians. We're all on the same team about that. Now, how do we get there? If that conversation were playing out in Kentucky, across the United States, we would be in a totally different position right now.
Totally different. That's that is the infuriating thing. I think so much about what people experienced in New York and in Portland and parts of California, back in March, you know how frustrating it has to be to look across America and, and watch very predictable suffering play out. Just completely predictable because we've been in such denial about this.
I think governor Beshear has been right for a couple of months, as he said, we have the right guidance in place. If people will follow it, we can stay where we are and keep most things open. And here we are, as we go into the holidays, when we didn't follow that guidance and now things are having to tighten up even more and there are enormous trade-offs and again, I wish we could sit at the table and say, no one wants school to have to take place over Google meet. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants children not to be fed enough and loved enough. Nobody wants children to be neglected or abused.
Nobody wants small businesses to close. No one wants those things. How can we come together and work on a plan? That's all I want to hear from anyone right now. And the fact that Congress, all it needs to do is write some checks, right? They don't even have to have that philosophy about everything. Just write some checks.
The hard stuff is happening at the County and state level, and they won't even do that. I'm just, I'm very sad. I'm very embarrassed and I feel an enormous sense of grief for where we are right now.
Sarah: [00:11:18] As we're all facing these incredibly difficult weeks ahead. And as we are all facing the wide range of emotion that comes with hard times, we really wanted to share this conversation with Dan Harris.
You know, as you'll hear me say in our interview, I read his book in 2014. It really changed my attitude towards meditation and mindfulness and his app and the teachers that he shares his platform with have really changed my life. And I think that an approach of mindfulness as we move towards an incredibly difficult few weeks is essential.
And I think I particularly appreciate Dan because he's, he straddles both worlds, you, right. He works for ABC news and he runs a meditation app. And I love that. And I think that he has a lot of wisdom and insight to offer.
Beth: [00:12:07] And if you hear the words, mindfulness and meditation and think, Nope, not for me.
Let me just encourage you to hang in through this conversation because we really get to the heart of many questions that we're hearing from our audience all the time. How do I stay in relationship with other people? What does cancel culture mean? There are some really substantive discussions that we have here through the lens of what Dan provides to the world, which I think is an incredibly valuable offering as you'll hear in the conversation.
But if you don't think that offering is for you, don't let it prevent you from really jumping into this conversation. He's such a thoughtful guy and I really needed this discussion when we had it. And I hope that you will too.
Sarah: [00:13:00] We are thrilled to be here with Dan Harris, the host of the 10% Happier podcast. But as we were talking about before we started recording, we are both huge fans of your work. I read your book 10% happier back in 2014, we both use your meditation app and you also work in the news business. So you're really, I feel like straddling the word worlds that we started out we'll often, which is news, consciousness, grace in a world where there is not a lot to go around. We're so thrilled to have you though. Thank you for coming.
Dan Harris: [00:13:32] Thanks for having me. I will assure you or warn you that I straddle those worlds inperfectly
Sarah: [00:13:38] As we do we all. Now first, the most important question. Is Joseph Goldstein in some sort of hermetically sealed situation so that he is protected at all costs?
Dan Harris: [00:13:48] Just for the uninitiated Joseph Goldstein is the, my meditation teacher and really great friend and the founding teacher on the 10% Happier app, uh, 76 years old and a living a treasure. He doesn't like when I praise him too much, he doesn't like that at all, but so I'm hoping he doesn't listen to this. So I completely understand the spirit in which you've asked that question and yes, he's taking very good care of himself.
I actually saw him recently. He's in his home and central Massachusetts not venturing out too often. So, uh, yeah, he all is well with Joseph.
Sarah: [00:14:21] Good. That's that's was, I was listening to the meditation at this morning, uh, Joseph Goldstein and I was like, well, this is what I'm going to ask first, because we need to make sure that he's very, very safe.
Now you came in, for the people for the further initiative and initiated, where you tell people how you came into this space as a reporter into the meditation space as a reporter.
Dan Harris: [00:14:40] Yeah, super skeptically, not, I was not interested in meditation, um, at all. Uh, Pretty, uh, hostile to it. But, um, the short short version is that I had a panic attack on, on the air in, uh, in 2004 on Good Morning, America.
Uh, I work, I've worked at ABC news now for about 20 years. Uh, but I was relatively new back then. And, um, it kinda set me off on this weird and winding journey, which I wrote about in a book called 10% Happier and yeah. That journey kind of ultimately landed me on meditation and I was really skeptical about it, but, um, ended up noticing that there was a lot of science that really strongly suggests that meditation is very good for you and that it can lower your blood pressure and boost your immune system and rewire key parts of your brain.
You know, literally change your brain. It's almost as if you're performing neurosurgery on yourself. And that was compelling to me. My parents are both scientists. My wife is a scientist. I am not good at math, so I'm not a scientist. I work talk to television cameras for a living. Um, but, uh, I was really compelled.
Then I also, you know, had plenty of struggles in my own life with depression, anxiety, substance abuse, found it to be really helpful. Um, it's not a panacea. That's why I kind of semi facetiously called my book 10% Happier. Um, and that's the name I've slapped on everything I've done subsequently from the meditation app for the podcast. Brand continuity.
It's very important. Um, so I, I became a convert and, and, and really have kind of dedicated most of my life subsequently to, you know, trying to spread the good news. How
Beth: [00:16:26] does this greater level of consciousness and the intentional focus that you've put on meditation changed the way that you take in information in the news space?
Dan Harris: [00:16:38] One of the things that allowed me to do meditation, even though I was, as I said before, hostile, um, meditation is that word is a little bit like sports, but the, you know, so there, there you say the word sports is, you know, there's, there's a big difference between hockey and field hockey. Um, a big difference between water polo and badminton.
And so the type of one I'm talking about meditation, Um, I'm talking about mindfulness meditation, which is derived from Buddhism, but thoroughly stripped of any religious lingo or metaphysical claims. It's, it's a kind of secular exercise for your brain. And it's very simple. The first step is to kind of sit in a comfortable position, close your eyes.
Second step is to bring your full attention to the feeling of your breath coming in and going out like pick one spot where you feel your breath most prominently. And the third step is, is the most important, which is as soon as you try to do this, seemingly simple thing of just feeling your breath, your mind is going to go nuts.
You're going to start having all these random thoughts and urges and emotions, and you may be planning a homicide or some sort of, um, uh, you know, uh,
Sarah: [00:17:48] political coup
Dan Harris: [00:17:49] yeah, political coup or some sort of, uh, you know, expletive laden speech you're going to deliver to your boss or whatever. And the whole goal is just to notice whenever you've gotten carried away and to start again and again and again, and that noticing the distraction and starting again is meditation.
You are not supposed to clear your mind. That's impossible unless you're enlightened or dead. The whole goal again is just to notice how wild the mind is and starting again and again and again. And that act is like a bicep curl for your brain. And that that's what changes the brain. And we should see it in the brain scans of meditators.
So how does this help in, in when you're, you know, consuming the chaos that we're all viewing on the political scene? In a number of ways, w. I think most prominently, uh, what it does is it gives you a kind of self-awareness. This deliberate collision with the voice in your head, the noise in your head allows you to not be so owned by it.
So for example, if you're checking Twitter and then seven hours later, you have not lifted your head, your nose out of your phone, and you're. Um, you know, typing in all caps, uh, at your voluble uncle, um, maybe, uh, six hours and 45 minutes earlier, you would have noticed, Oh yeah, I'm, I'm getting stuck.
I'm getting overtaken by my anger. I'm going to make a decision to put the phone down and that can work in con you know, you, you can scale this into almost every aspect of your life. You might decide that you're not going to say something that's going to ruin the next 48 hours of your marriage. You're going to, you might decide I'm not going to eat the 78th Oreo.
It's all about this self-awareness that allows you to reduce your emotional activity, to reduce your, um, urge, you know, you're acting uncontrollably on your urges and that's incredibly useful in, you know, in a tumultuous time. I
Sarah: [00:19:47] think that self-awareness is what I've definitely noticed in my own life, particularly with the doom scrolling, but not just the actions I'm taking with news and politics, but the thought processes that I can see myself sort of cycling through.
We were talking about it on an episode recently. And I said, I do struggle sometimes because it's because it's the bicep curl gets you to a point where like, You can notice you're doing the doomsrowling and still feel powerless to turn off Twitter. I've been in so many spots where I'm like laying in my bed and I can feel myself going back to the same places over and over and over again, even though I just checked them and still like noticing it and being like, Oh God, just put it down. It's still really difficult.
Dan Harris: [00:20:33] Well, I think you got to give yourself a break because I'll go back to my whole 10% shtick. Perfection is not on offer here, here. You're not going to, I have a strong suspicion and I can't prove this because we can't. You know, we're not in that Gweneth Paltrow movie, Sliding Doors.
We can't, um, I can't run your life in two, uh, parallel tracks and show you the difference. But I have a strong suspicion that if you've been meditating for any significant period of time, you're doing less of the behavior you just described than you would have otherwise done. And that is the proposition here, not perfection, but slow, steady improvement.
And really just to say that another way. The mental skills we want, you know, like patience, uh, lowered emotional reactivity, calm less B less, a greater ability not to be yanked around by urges to check Twitter or to, or read or whatever. All of those things are skills. They're not factory settings. And you can work on them.
And so you are working on them and yes, of course, you're going to, you're not going to be perfect, but you can also get better at re lowering the volume on the self laceration around your mistakes and all of this, you know, you might notice, you might wake up an hour into a doom scrolling and notice, Oh yeah, I'm unhappy. Maybe this isn't, maybe there are better uses of my time. And then you might notice like, uh, uh, bucket buckets and buckets of self criticism as a consequence of having done wasted an hour. Or you can notice that too, and just drop in like dry and, you know, let that go. And so the skill, the skill of mindfulness, or self-awareness just gets deeper and deeper.
Beth: [00:22:26] Dan, how do you respond to criticisms around this conversation that it is, uh, centered in privilege or that it creates a level of denial or space from crises that prevent us from action? I mean, my own experience is that maybe sometimes if you dip your toe into a meditation practice, you can. You can say things like, well, I just have to turn off the news because it's not good for me, but then when you get deeper into it, it actually brings you in closer connection to the world's problems and your place in constructively contributing to solutions. But I wonder if that's been your experience or how you talk about those types of critiques?
Dan Harris: [00:23:09] Well, this is a great question and I'm glad you asked it. First of all. I mean, just to note, there is a lot of privilege. In part because the aforementioned good news around meditation seems to, and for lack of trying on my end and, uh, although I I'm an imperfect messenger, uh, um, it seems to be sort of, um, largely circulated in upper middle class, white communities, you know?
So the there's a pretty big overlap between people who are interested in meditation and, you know, people who go to SoulCycle and shop at Whole Foods. And I don't say that with any hate in my heart. I mean, I am, I am that person, um, back before the pandemic, at least. Um, but these skills that I'm describing.
First of all, were not invented by white people. They were invented 2,600 years ago in the Indian sub-continent and they are human capacities that are your birthright, no matter your pigmentation or socioeconomic status. And so what we need is to get the word out in a more broad fashion. And that means we need, you know, and I've been really focused on this finding people who can speak to different communities because based on the womb I came out of, my appeal is going to be limited.
Um, And so I try on my podcast to give the mic to people of all different backgrounds and, um, socioeconomic status and race and gender and sexual orientation. And so that's really, really important. The second thing to say, though, is for sure, I think, uh, uh, a misunderstanding or even a misapplication of, of mindfulness and meditation might lead to uh, a numbing out, but that is not the proposition here.
They're probably w when I say don't get, I'm not saying never checked Twitter. I'm definitely not saying, never checked the news. I'm I I'm a newsman. I think the, the key is a and, uh, and, uh, the type of engagement that will allow you to stay engaged and do meaningful work without losing your mind.
And that's where meditation comes in. So, uh, I it's really not about disengagement or detachment. It's about sort of leaning in, in a way that allows you to stay leaned in and focused on the things that matter rather than wasting your time and energy in ways that reduce your resilience.
Sarah: [00:25:48] I'm fascinated when I think back when you were saying, well, I've been with ABC news since 2004, you wrote this book in 2014, and since then you've grown in the podcast and the app, you know, I'm just fascinated by the prospect of you and one area of your life and the news space and the political space watching this emotional reactivity, just grow and grow and grow culturally societaly while simultaneously being in this, this consciousness space.
And when you're really advocating for a different type of approach and experiencing the results of that in your personal life, like how have you navigated that without, you know, feeling ripped into, by these two spaces that seemingly have nothing in common and have been going in different directions? Because I do feel like there's a growing consciousness in this one subset, but it does seem difficult to build the bridge and this other societal space of news and politics, which seemed to be the consciousness seems to be decreasing.
Dan Harris: [00:26:56] I guess I would say three things that come to mind based on that question. One is it's definitely frustrating and sad to watch the ripping apart of our social fabric. Um, and I really, I noticed that I re have anger, frustration, despair when I check the news sometimes, or when I give them sometimes, um, But I, I go back to what I was just saying, which is I, and this, the second point I was going to make is I actually really feel more fortified and resourced to engage calmly and more effectively now that I have this mental exercise in my life, that l that I know is changing my brain and by extension my mind.
Um, Allowing me to not be so owned by my emotions, even as it seemed pretty clear that many, many other people are owned by their emotions and in ways that I think are pretty unhealthy. Um, so I'm really grateful that I have this in my life.
Otherwise, I, I worry that I might be part of the problem. And then I guess the, the final thing I'd say is that I've been running a little bit of an experiment that I'll just mention. I don't know if you get, I haven't really talked about it that much publicly, but you can see what you guys think is just for myself for the last four years, really trying to truly vary my media diet.
So I mean, the news and the, you know, I get a ton of my news just by, you know, reading the internal, ABC news emails because we get the news first and then we're talking about it internally. And so traditionally, that's basically been where I got most of my news just being in the job and also, you know, reading, let's just say The Times, a few other news outlets, but I really, over the last four years tried to do a much better job at consuming left, right, center.
So sample, for example, I'll listen to Pod Save America, but I'll also listen to Ben Shapiro or the Commentary Podcast, the, on the right, um, I'll listen to the so-called intellectual dark web figures like Sam Harris, who happens to be a friend or a Glen Lowry who's sort of not, well that well-known, but should be who's an African-American, um, economics professor at Brown who has, uh, who he's a sort of center right and has a podcasts that he does called the Glenn Show.
And so I I'll, I really, and then I'll read newsletters and read, uh, and, and follow a whole variety of people across the spectrum on Twitter. And I found initially when I was doing that, that it would be head spinning because some, a big event would happen in the news.
And I would process it by listening to Morning Joe, or, uh, reading the Times or whatever. And then I listened to a completely different point of view from Ben Shapiro or the commentary guys. And, um, and I'll be so confused, but what I've found is that confusion is I feel healthy. Um, it's like I'm gaslighting myself, but in a good way, because I'm, it's knocking me off my B it's so easy to fall into a kind of, uh, an information bubble or sort of blind dogmatism.
Whereas if I'm having my own viewpoints challenged regularly, it puts me into what the Buddhists call beginner's mind. And it doesn't knock me off of my core values, but it does mean that, um, I'm, I'm really opening up to many different points of view. And I, I feel like that strikes at the heart of the problem that we're facing in this country, which is that since we're, most of us are tailoring our own information, bubbles on Facebook or Twitter or wherever, um, or just reading the times or just watching Fox news or, um, we're not getting, we're not, we don't understand how other people think. And then the temptation to vilified is really powerful and maybe, maybe even irresistible. And I wish more of us were doing that. It reminds me of a tweet I saw that said if you're only following people, you agree with, you're doing it wrong.
Beth: [00:31:23] Something I think about a lot, is that that sense of equanimity does not mean that you believe all things are equal or that you lack passion or emotion about anything right. It's just more about decision-making in the process. And so when I look at that disparate treatment of an issue across media, I feel the same way.
I like to take in a lot of different voices on a specific subject. I find that less head spinning at this point than just the pace of new information developing, and I'm really working on myself at saying, I'm not ready to talk about this yet.
I'm not ready to make a podcast about this yet. I'm not ready to have an opinion about it. I need more information and I need some time for that information to sink in. I have that luxury because we make an independent podcast. I'm interested in whether that comes up for you and how you deal with that in an environment like ABC, where the speed really does matter in terms of how you communicate with viewers, listeners, et cetera.
Dan Harris: [00:32:25] Well, the beauty and freedom of working at a place like ABC news is we are not taking sides. No, we certainly get criticized from both left and right. But generally speaking, you know, our, our motto is straight forward.
Um, generally speaking, we are really in my opinion, and obviously I'm super biased here, so you should take what I say with a grain of salt, but I think having worked at ABC news for 20 years, that we do a really good job of just kind of delivering the facts. Um, and so I don't really feel like I need to come in with a point of view.
I do come in with questions and I do try to take, always take my time to understand what the raw data is, but generally we're, I mean, we're in the business of giving you the, the information. Um, rather than having a hot take on the information. So I think that's an easier job than say working at Vox or, um, having a Twitter feed where I'm commenting on every jot and tittle of the, of the news, uh, cycle.
But just to go back to what you said about equanimity, um, I think there's exactly right. There's a difference between equanimity and um, a complete numbing out and the proposition of mindfulness is not that you should be sort of blissed out and neutral and bovine, but instead that you should be able to respond wisely to all of the stimuli in your life rather than reacting blindly.
And again, you're not going to get perfect at this, but you can develop that capacity over time, systematically through meditation and other, other, uh, there are other modalities for sure, but meditation for me has been the most helpful. And so I really want to, you know, I know you're helping me with this, but to emphasize this is not about you know, having the luxury to tune out it's about staying engaged without burning out.
Sarah: [00:34:25] You know, I'm also intrigued by these two worlds where you work for a very or more traditional media source. And while you're simultaneously building a podcast and app and in a very new media source, and I'm wondering as you're taking in all these voices and you're hearing the you know, wide variety of approaches to media and the approaches to really just, I mean, I hate to use the word consumer, but I guess it's the right word.
Just consumer outreach, where you see this space going, what you've learned from living in both of these two worlds and, you know, When you can, when you can have that, beginner's mind. I mean, I feel like being a podcaster, um, I'm forced in a way to have a beginner's mind about the industry and I don't love it, Dan. I don't, I don't love it. So I'm wondering if you could offer any insight.
Dan Harris: [00:35:18] So when you say industry, just to clarify, are you talking about the news industry generally or the podcast industry?
Sarah: [00:35:24] I mean, how can we separate those anymore? Right, right. If you're a newsman and you're saying I'm taking in all these different sources, particularly from podcasts. And I mean, I let's listen, I listen to ABC news this podcast every morning we start here. So it's just like, I think that's where that's, what's so hard.
Right? It's like we really can't compartmentalize them anymore. And I think what's so interesting is to see you have these sort of simul- parallel tracks. And I'm just wondering as you, because you have, I would say you've built that muscle of beginner's mind and equanimity when you see how fast things are changing and how they're starting to intersect in real ways and the way people interact with news and the way people enter even, you know, meditation.
I mean, I think five years ago, if you'd said meditation app is the future. You know, like people have been like what. I think it's just, it's all changing so rapidly and I think sometimes it feels like we're, we're staying in that beginner's mind space is, is destabilizing, which I guess is the point.
Dan Harris: [00:36:27] Yeah, for me, it's the point. Well, you know, I'll tell you one thing as I look out at the landscape, That I, that I feel a yearning for and I feel like I, maybe you can recommend a show where this has done, but, um, I noticed that in listening to, or watching or reading people across the spectrum, one thing I haven't seen much of is them talking to each other.
You know, I know on the Sunday shows, you'll, you'll have people who are, uh, have different opinions, but it's all pretty fast. I kind of yearn for a podcast where you're getting people together who genuinely disagree, but can talk about it without screaming. Um, and because what I find frustrating at times is I'm trying to hold two different facts sets in my mind in any given moment, on any given issue. And then of course, in the Trump era, the issue is du jour, I mean, it's literally du jour, tomorrow it's a completely new thing and that I'm having to learn about. And, and I forgotten everything that happened the day before. There are a thousand controversies I can't even remember anymore.
Um, and so I, it would be nice to have a space where you could have people in conversation. Uh, hear each other out at, rather than trying to score points. I haven't found that
Sarah: [00:37:55] well, can we recommend our show, Dan? I mean, I think
Dan Harris: [00:38:00] that's
Sarah: [00:38:01] definitely what we try to do here. And I think because I think the, the, the, the reason you don't see that in the model runs up against each other is what we always tell people is you have to build trust and that takes time.
And so switching people out every time is hard. You know, there's a lot of political podcasts that I think are pretty good interview shows. But, you know, I think the power of our show is we don't, you know, you're here for an interview, but we don't do interviews a ton because what we're trying to show is what takes place over time inside one relationship where you're discussing your differing worldviews and you're working on each other and you're building that trust and you're building that connection.
And that's not, that's not what you're going to see if you're switching out the panelists constantly, right. Or like you're saying, if they're just coming into, I mean, that's definitely why we started our show. We didn't want to just be, we're not professional pundits. We're not journalists. We're just at the time, you know, when we started was two moms from Kentucky and we, we would have conversations about politics that we felt like weren't taking place anywhere else.
And where was an ongoing conversation. And I think that's, what's hard is it's even the new media environment doesn't give a lot of space for that ongoing conversation. I don't know. What do you think, Beth?
Beth: [00:39:13] Well, I think that connection I would draw between this discussion and the mindfulness conversation is that our brains are trained to hear disagreement one way as well.
And so for a lot of listeners who come into pantsuit politics with the expectation that we're going to disagree, in their minds, that means we should disagree all the time on everything and it should sound like disagreement and disagreement has a certain tenor and so we don't meet that expectation. So people say, we hear from people what you're saying all the time.
I want to show where people genuinely disagree. And it sounds like they mean on every single topic through the rubric of the talking points that I hear on maybe the Sunday shows, but just at a different volume. And I'm not sure that that can exist because I think what Sarah was saying is right. There has to be a trusting relationship.
And trust is only built when you can see the points that you agree on, or you say like, actually we don't break down differently on this issue. It's so fundamental that we're aligned on it.
Dan Harris: [00:40:13] Well, good on you guys.
Sarah: [00:40:14] We're trying, we're trying over here. We do our own thing. That's why we had you on here because we love the idea that there's a space for mindfulness and everything, but particularly in the news and politics space.
I mean, we've all come through an incredibly difficult time. We're still in it as far as the pandemic. And hopefully we'll be at the end of it soon with the election. And I think anything where we can show that. Politics is about how we live together in community. And the news is what's happening in our communities and how we take in that information as individuals can.
It doesn't just have to zap us, like you said, like it doesn't have to be something that is constantly depleting our energy. You know, I, people always ask, well, how do you talk about the news every week? And I'm like, well, I'm sitting down with a close friend and processing it, that's how. I'm not just taking it in, shoving it in a box in my mind and try not to look at the box.
Right. I'm actually processing what's giving me anxiety and thinking through my emotional reactions and bringing that mindfulness to it. And listen again thank you because your work has been an essential part of that in my life.
Dan Harris: [00:41:30] Let me ask you guys a question, because there's a debate that I've been following that I find really interesting. There have I've seen this play out on Twitter a couple of times now, where you see, um, Kind of center left or just center folks from the center saying something to the effect of, Hey, everybody in the left, we should try to understand why 70 million people voted for Trump or.
Or, uh, there was a Sewell Chan who was the editor of the LA times opinion page posted that they turned the whole page over to Trump voters to write letters to the editor. And then they basically the, they filled the whole opinion page with that. And there's been an enormous amount of pushback from the left saying we we've heard enough.
And the call for empathy and understanding is a privileged one because your lives, aren't at stake the way ours are. Um, and so I find myself on the one hand, you know, as somebody who is incredibly privileged, uh, throwing back into my chair by that and like, cause it, it, yeah, I can see how, and oftentimes when people point out privilege, I it's a moment of, for me to go into self-awareness and at the same time, this fear that, you know, we, we are living in the same country and we have to try to get along and understand one another. And so I'm just curious where you guys fall on in this debate.
Beth: [00:43:06] I just don't think there has to be one call and that the problem with Twitter is that it often feels like there is a right answer. And if we all just work on the problem long enough, we get to what the right response is.
I think there's a different call to people of privilege sometimes in political engagement than people who are marginalized by our systems and by humans that they share space with. And so to me it's not right or wrong for a newspaper to devote that space to a viewpoint and it's not right or wrong for people to point out that there's a lot of privilege around that and that some of us don't need that information.
That for some of us, the time for empathy has expired, but I always feel as a white person and a person who's in the middle-class and I'm safe everywhere I go for the most part, that it is my job to build those bridges and understand people who think very differently about the world than I do. And it's also my job to hear out the voices who say enough of that put me in the center and not that person and that living in that tension is part of the responsibility that I have as a person of privilege.
Sarah: [00:44:13] I've been thinking about this a lot. When you mentioned Vox, I've been sort of obsessed with Matt Yglesias decision to leave Vox and his writings about that. I have enormous respect for him. I think he's so smart. And you see this more and more, and I think what, you know, mindfulness and equanimity is powerful here.
And what it's taught me is that exactly what Beth was articulating. Like there's a forced binary here. And I think that we. You use, um, particularly, I'm going to say the left a lot, the. The political space to moralize. And let me be clear. I think there's a space for moralizing. I really think it's important to say this is right and this is wrong, but sometimes, you know, political Twitter is not the space to do that.
Sometimes politics is not the space to do that. Um, and I think we just, we, you know, we wrote about this in our book, that we've just put everything in that box. We just put identity and moral and ethical values and how we're going to run the sewer system. I mean, everything along that entire spectrum in this one box, and I just don't think it's built to hold it.
And I think you're seeing that struggle inside journalism right now in particular that I feel, you know, that's what I hear and maybe I'm projecting, but sometimes what I'm hearing from people like Matt Yglesias is like, you're asking me to do things that aren't my job and. I think that's really hard.
And I don't think there's an easy answer. And like I said, I'm not sure there, there is one answer. We need to reach one. But, you know, she said once on our podcasts, I don't ever want to turn away from more information. And so I think that there is a tension between saying, you know, learning is learning and being curious about our fellow citizens is important and making sure we don't elevate that above other important and essential and historically marginalized perspectives, but, you know, no one's asking and we certainly aren't any way asking, you know, just random strangers to walk up to trump voters and try to figure it out.
Like there's spaces in which that can be done either because you have a personal connection to that person and you can, and you can continue the hard work of influencing them, because you are a journalist and it's your job to report on all aspects of the electorate.
And I, I feel like we're at, like she said, like, we're just, there's a sense on Twitter. Like, well, we have to decide the right way. And not only do we not have to decide that, but Twitter is just about the worst place to work that out.
Dan Harris: [00:46:41] Yeah, such an interesting responses. I actually pose the same question to Laurie Santos the other day, who has a, who was the host of a really popular podcast called The Happiness Lab, she's a professor at Yale who studies human wellbeing.
And, um, she said a very similar thing to what Beth said of, uh, if we feel like we have the resources and the capacity and the privilege, frankly, to, you know, reach out and try to understand people with whom we disagree then. Great. But if you feel like you don't, you shouldn't be forced to.
Sarah: [00:47:12] Right. But who's forcing you to, if they put it on the LA opinion page.
Dan Harris: [00:47:17] Yeah. I th I mean, th this is, you know, this is what you're bringing up, kind of just comes, brings to mind like the, one of the, uh, primary conundrum of the age, which is, there's always another good point.
Sarah: [00:47:34] Right? Right. And that's where, again, not to steal your point, but that's where mindfulness, I think is helpful.
And I think it's been really, you know, we tell people all the time, you just, it's a, it's a country of 300 million people. There's going to be tension and complexity and we're just going to have to hold it. Sometimes we're going to have to say, I don't know. Sometimes we're going to have to say, I think you're both, right.
Like I see both of your points and I, you know, that's hard. And I think that that bicep curl of noticing I I feel pulled or I feel that tension of a space in which there is not an easy binary yes or yes or no right or wrong answer is really the most valuable, at least for me personally, in this, in this current historical moment in the political space, in the new space.
Dan Harris: [00:48:23] Can I give you, um, can I give you two little mantras from, uh, Joseph Goldstein,
Yes
Beth: [00:48:30] please.
Sarah: [00:48:31] Always.
Dan Harris: [00:48:32] I say these gingerly, because if you're feeling taxed, these are challenging practices so, you know, just go at your own pace or decide not to do it. Um, one of them is don't side with yourself and that's just really useful personally and politically it's just, uh, just, uh, if you find yourself wound up, feeling, you know, dogmatic really convinced you're right. It could be in any context.
I just noticed when that happens to me that there's a pain there, there's a sort of subtle pain of shutting out any other point of view, uh, really trying to convince myself or work myself up into something when some part of my brain knows what, maybe there's another way to look at this.
And just in those moments, if I can remember don't side with yourself, it's pretty useful. And then the other is, and this is going to sound for ASIC, for me as a guy who's, you know, really tried to make his bones as somebody who doesn't lapse into too much sentimentality so sounded a little off-brand, but I like it anyway.
Um, it's a, love no matter what. And again, this is challenging and I'm not saying everybody should do it. Um, and, but it is useful personally and politically, and it's like, um, yeah, well, I'm going to remain unshakably convinced of the fact that no matter how much we disagree, we are fundamentally connected simply by dent of the fact that we're both drawing air on the same planet, drawing breath on the same planet.
And, um, Love no matter what means there's no backdoor. Yeah. Uh, and so I have applied this incredibly inperfectly, and I usually just forget to even try, but in the moments where I try, it's interesting. So I just toss it out there for consideration.
Sarah: [00:50:38] I think all the time about hearing Sharon Salzberg on being.
She's another one of your meditation teachers. I love her dearly and she was on there and she was saying that people think love is passive. People hear love, and they think it's some sort of either romantic or schmaltzy or a passive act. And she's like, it's not, it's powerful. It's an action. Um, think about that all the time.
Beth: [00:51:03] What helps me with this kind of dilemma. So I think about the Tom Cotton op-ed as a good illustration of what we were just talking about, that I feel that the times was both justified in running it and that the criticisms of running it were fair. I go to the Pema Chödrön's story about tigers above and tigers below.
And this is just the condition of your life that there is always, there's always peril and tension. And that we're basically always caught in a moment where we have a decision to make about how we meet the moment. And that helps me understand that it is not my task to resolve that tension as much as to just see it for what it is, and then make a decision about how I can act constructively.
And I think that's where the sort of love always and, and anyway, and in spite of is really helpful. Could
Dan Harris: [00:51:58] you, I wonder if people listening to this will think, okay, take the Tom cotton thing. If you're going to hold both sides, where are you? Are you just left with a sort of mushy nothingness? What would you say to that?
Beth: [00:52:14] I feel more grounded when I can hold onto both sides than when I try to sit in one or the other, because it doesn't mean that I don't have a perspective. So if I were a decision maker about the Tom cotton op-ed, I would have run it. That to me rests on the principle that I don't ever want to be afraid of information.
And I would rather know where people stand than where they then speculate about it. So it doesn't feel like mushy nothingness. It just feels like an acceptance. It feels like a radical acceptance of what is that. I don't like this viewpoint and exist. That some people will feel attacked by this viewpoint, but surfacing it makes it less powerful to me than if it is unsurfaced it just, it just feels like I'm putting my feet on the ground.
And this is where I sit with the 70 million people who voted for Donald Trump when I did not and can't fathom how 70 million people did. There is a moment of just accepting, well, they did. And so Donald Trump's presidency was not a fluke and these are dynamics that are going to persist in American life.
And I feel less mushy when I can just acknowledge all of that. And then ask the question, who do I want to be in that reality?
Sarah: [00:53:26] Well, and for me, One of the things that we find so hard to convey. And I'm sure that you do too, is often when we're saying this is our approach and this is what it means to us. Like we can't say it. You have to feel it. You have to experience. Like you can talk about meditation, but there is a certain amount of the impact of mindfulness that you have to feel.
And I think for me, what I've realized doing this podcast and learning to think and talk about politics in a different way and just living through the last five years in our country is it's not a mushy nothingness of no right and wrong. I think when people say that what they're confronting is a lack of control. I think what the undercurrent and so many of these conversations is about control. I think that there is when we say there's a right thing to do and we should do it.
What we're saying is I think there's a way to be in control of this environment and, or I think there's a way for me to assert personal or individual control in a way that makes me feel more comfortable in this environment. I mean, I think that that need to control and to assert your individual like authority or or empowerment. I don't know the right word I want, but it is what is what happened so much on Twitter.
It's we want to feel better. We want to feel like we've done something and we have some control in this space because there's a right thing to do. And we tweeted about it and that's it. And I think, you know, for me in my life with, with particularly with mindfulness, but with sort of those teachings around equanimity and how often that, that train of thought or that keyboard or an engine or whatever it was, it wasn't a, you know, some fear of nothingness.
It was a fear of my own lack of personal control and just, you know, fighting at every chance for the, for the feeling that I had some control over the environment. And it's so hard to convey to people that if you can let go of that, that it actually is empowering.
And it's not that you see, you have control. It's just that you see you're not alone. And that you see that there is, um, comfort in that connection and that, that grounding of realizing like this is the human condition and you're not alone in it. And all that, all those illusions of control were just that, they were just illusions and it felt scary to drop them.
But once you did drop them that the, the connection to other people was way more rewarding than any individual's sense of control or righteousness or moral authority.
Dan Harris: [00:56:00] We don't live in easy times.
Beth: [00:56:03] Well, we've kept you longer than we asked for so thank you so much for spending time with us. Before we let you go, can you just tell people where they should connect with you?
Dan Harris: [00:56:13] So, um, I have a podcast called 10% Happier. Check that out. We talked to meditation teachers, researchers who are, who are, who have jetted developed expertise in various areas of, you know, psychology and the human condition. We talk to occasionally, we'll talk to, uh, somebody famous who is doing good work on his or her own mind, and also have a meditation app, which Sarah and Beth, I now know both use, which I'm really grateful for.
It's also called 10% Happier. And I'm on ABC news. I'm a one of the co-hosts of weekend Good Morning, America. So that's probably more than enough, Dan Harris.
Beth: [00:56:51] Well, we're so glad that we got some Dan Harris here. Thank you very much for your time today.
Dan Harris: [00:56:55] Yeah. Great questions. You got me thinking and, um, yeah, I appreciate you having me on. Thank you.
Beth: [00:57:00] It was lots of fun.
Sarah: [00:57:02] So thank you to Dan for joining us. Thank you to every single one of you who choose to share your precious time with us every week. We will be back in your ears on Tuesday and until then, keep it Nuanced, y'all.
Beth: [00:57:23] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D podcast production.
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