10% Happier with Dan Harris Folgen

A common idea in the west is that our feelings or emotions should be viewed with suspicion, superseded or overridden by rational thought, and that your mind is a battleground between emotions and rationality. But on the show today, guests Lisa Feldman Barrett and John Dunne are going to offer a very compelling science backed argument that disputes the notion that thinking and feeling are distinct. Furthermore, they argue that understanding how emotions are actually made can be a life or death matter.  Lisa Feldman Barrett is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University with appointments at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Barrett is among the top 1% most-cited scientists, having published over 270 peer-reviewed scientific papers.  She has written several books, including How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, and Seven And A Half Lessons About The Brain. Her TED talk has been viewed more than 6.5 million times. John Dunne holds the Distinguished Chair in Contemplative Humanities at the Center for Healthy Minds of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His work focuses on Buddhist philosophy and contemplative practice, especially in dialog with Cognitive Science and Psychology. He earned his PhD from Harvard.  This is part two in a series we're calling The Art and Science of Keeping Your Sh*t Together. In each episode we bring together a meditative adept or Buddhist scholar and a respected scientist. The idea is to give you the best of both worlds to arm you with both modern and ancient tools for regulating your emotions.  In this episode we talk about: Lisa's scientific definition of emotions John's Buddhist contention that emotions, as a category, do not exist in Buddhism  The difference between suffering and discomfort What we can do to master our emotions including understanding what Lisa terms as our "body budget"  Becoming more emotionally intelligent Mastering our feelings in the moment Whether or not pain is an emotion and how it works How and why to be present in the here and now The upside of unpleasant feelings Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/lisa-feldman-barrett-john-dunne-520

In western culture, there's been a long held view that our ability to reason should be placed above our emotions. But the hard truth is that our emotions are there and they're non-negotiable— and If you don't know how to work with them, they can own you. The good news is that you can work with them and that there are many systems for doing so. To boot, you can learn a ton by listening to your emotions in the right ways.  Today's guests, Shinzen Young and James Gross will help us understand how to work with our emotions and offer both techniques in modern science and ancient wisdom in order to do so.  Gross is the Ernest R. Hilgard Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, where he directs the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory. Young is an American mindfulness teacher and neuroscience research consultant. He teaches something called Unified Mindfulness, which you will hear him describe in this conversation. This is part one in a series we're calling The Art and Science of Keeping Your Sh*t Together. In each episode we bring together a meditative adept or Buddhist scholar and a respected scientist. The idea is to give you the best of both worlds to arm you with both modern and ancient tools for regulating your emotions.  In this episode we talk about: James's "modal model" for understanding what emotions are and how they work James's five different types of strategies you can use for regulating your emotions Shinzen's contention that emotions have two sides to them How we can experience emotions with more fulfillment and less suffering via a mindfulness training he calls "focus factors" James's "process model of emotion regulation"  What James believes are the elements that unite science and Buddhism Shinzen's contention that anyone can experience massive benefits of mindfulness training if their meditation practice has four key components Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/shinzen-young-james-gross-519

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Can gratitude be more than just a platitude? Our guest today argues: yes.  DaRa Williams is a longtime practitioner and teacher of meditation. She is one of the guiding teachers at Insight Meditation Society, a graduate of the Spirit Rock Insight Meditation Society Teacher Training Program, and also has a clinical mental health private practice in Manhattan. DaRa also says, only semi-facetiously, that she believes gratitude can be considered the fifth Brahma Vihara.  In this conversation we talk about: How to start knitting gratitude into your everyday life Whether gratitude is possible when everything sucks How to avoid spiritual bypass The opportunity that suffering brings for happiness How to take our suffering less personally The power of reminding yourself that you are nature And our unconscious fascination with creating difficulty Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dara-williams-295-rerun