The Case for "Doing Nothing" in a Time of Crisis | Sebene Selassie & Jeff Warren
In this special episode, meditation teachers Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren join Dan Harris to address listener questions on navigating social anxiety, mind wandering, and depression amidst global chaos. They discuss the profound value of 'doing nothing' through meditation and introduce the free 21-day Summer Sanity Challenge.
Deep Dive Analysis
11 Topic Outline
Value of Meditation in Times of Chaos
Addressing Social Anxiety Post-Isolation
Using Breath Techniques for Anxiety
Meditation and Racial Reckoning: Unconscious Bias
Working with a Wandering Mind During Meditation
Strategies for Being Mindfully Depressed
Handling Powerful Emotions Like Grief
Guided vs. Unguided Meditation: A Comparison
Overcoming Striving and Frustration in Meditation
Navigating Challenges with Breath Meditation
Importance of Self-Compassion and Education
5 Key Concepts
Doing Nothing
In meditation, 'doing nothing' is actually an active process of creating space, allowing for reset and clarity. It helps clean out interference from daily activity, enabling more appropriate responses when re-engaging with life.
Unconscious Bias
This refers to the deep-seated patterns and conditioning acquired from our environment and culture, often operating below conscious awareness. Meditation helps us see these patterns clearly, recognizing they are not inherently 'us' but rather learned behaviors that can be released.
Naturalizing Downs
This is a strategy for dealing with depressive or low moods by recognizing them as a natural, normal response of the body attempting to rest and get quiet. Instead of fighting the feeling or creating a storyline of suffering, one stays with the physical sensations, reframing it as the body taking care of itself.
Equanimity Muscle
The practice of sitting and opening to experience, even uncomfortable ones, builds an 'equanimity muscle.' This refers to the capacity to remain balanced and calm in the face of varying experiences, recognizing that every meditation contributes to this skill development.
Clearing Away and Bringing Forth
This Tibetan phrase for enlightenment describes a dual process. It involves clearing away ignorance and conditioning, while simultaneously bringing forth an understanding of the inherent dignity and beauty in every individual, fostering both clarity and deep compassion.
10 Questions Answered
Meditation can profoundly support individuals through challenges by providing guidance, structure, and a sense of community, helping to establish, reboot, or reinvigorate a practice and offer a break from daily navigation.
Mindfulness helps by first bringing awareness to the anxiety without judgment, and then by clarifying specific worries. Identifying precise concerns allows for proactive measures, like communicating boundaries with friends, to alleviate the anxiety.
Beyond simply paying attention to the breath, one can intentionally relax the body using deep belly breathing, long inhales and exhales, or even sighing, to bring ease and calm when anxiety arises.
Meditation helps by making us aware of unconscious conditioning and biases, recognizing that these patterns are not inherently 'us' but rather learned. This awareness allows us to see these patterns clearly and begin to release them, rather than being owned by them.
A wandering mind is normal; the goal is not to stop it but to bring awareness to it without judgment. Recognizing that you are aware means you are not lost in the wandering, and you can even meditate on the thoughts themselves or notice the gaps between them.
Mindfully approaching depression involves naturalizing the experience by recognizing it as the body's attempt to rest and get quiet, separating the physical sensations from negative storylines. It also involves being aware of external factors like news intake or isolation that affect mood and seeking professional support if the depression becomes chronic.
Mindfulness builds the capacity to be with strong emotions, meeting them with kindness and without judgment, which allows them to release and resolve. While meditation can help process grief, it's important to recognize that complex grief may also require therapeutic or community ritual processes beyond formal practice.
Neither is inherently inferior; they are different and both have advantages. Guided meditations can provide structure, introduce new techniques, and prevent excessive mind-wandering, while unguided practice helps develop self-reliance in applying meditative skills to daily life.
This striving is often cultural; the practice is about doing nothing and continually allowing oneself to release and relax. It's helpful to view meditation as a skills-based approach where every sit, regardless of length or comfort, builds equanimity, clarity, and concentration, meaning every meditation is progress.
If the breath is triggering, one can choose a different meditation object like sound or posture. If controlling the breath is an issue, don't make it a problem; simply observe the breath and the act of controlling it without judgment, which can lead to its natural release or insight into interference. Constriction in breathing can be a rich exploration, as it may relate to trauma or anxiety patterns, and deliberately breathing into the belly can help address this.
29 Actionable Insights
1. Join Summer Sanity Challenge
Sign up for the free 21-day Summer Sanity Challenge, starting July 27th, to establish, reboot, or reinvigorate your meditation habit through daily guided meditations and videos, either solo or with friends and family.
2. Embrace “Doing Nothing”
Engage in meditation, even when it feels counterintuitive, as there is immense value in “doing nothing” to create space, reset, and return to actions with more clarity, presence, and appropriate responses.
3. Dedicate 10 Minutes Daily
Dedicate 10 minutes a day to sit still, relax the body, and ease the mind, as this structured practice can lead to transformation.
4. View Meditation as Skill-Building
Adopt a skills-based approach to meditation, recognizing that every session, regardless of length or comfort, builds equanimity, clarity, and concentration, making every meditation a form of progress.
5. Balance Effort and Relaxation
Continuously find ways to release, relax, and let go during practice, balancing effort like tuning a stringed instrument—not too tight to snap, nor too loose to be ineffective.
6. Meet Emotions with Kindness
When strong emotions arise, use mindfulness to be with the experience, paying attention and meeting it with kindness or non-judgment, allowing the emotion to release and resolve.
7. Acknowledge All Emotions
Acknowledge that emotions are non-negotiable and ever-present; pretending they don’t exist will lead to them controlling your behavior blindly.
8. Naturalize Depression Symptoms
When experiencing depression or feeling down, naturalize the physical sensations (e.g., achiness, low energy) as your body’s attempt to rest, separating them from mental storylines of suffering to make the experience more manageable.
9. Reframe “Downs” as Care
Reframe periods of feeling down as beautiful, healthy, and caring actions by your body, which can change the entire experience of those moments.
10. Assess Mood Triggers
Use your mindfulness practice to become aware of what affects your mood (e.g., news intake, social media, types of conversations) and consider mitigating or eliminating those factors to support your well-being.
11. Observe Unconscious Bias
Use meditation to see unconscious biases and cultural conditioning clearly, understanding they are patterns, not your inherent self, which allows you to release their hold rather than be owned by them.
12. Mindfully Accept Anxiety
When experiencing anxiety, bring awareness to what’s happening with a quality of allowing and acceptance, avoiding judgment or tension, and instead, bring kindness to yourself.
13. Clarify Specific Anxieties
When feeling anxious, use mindfulness to clarify the specific worry, then take concrete action to address it, such as communicating boundaries or protocols with others.
14. Ask “Is This Useful?”
When caught in repetitive rumination or worrying, ask yourself “Is this useful?” to jar your mind out of the loop.
15. Practice Deep Belly Breathing
To ease anxiety, practice deep belly breathing with long inhales and long exhales, or even sigh, to bring calm and ease to the body.
16. Relax into Mind Wandering
When your mind wanders during meditation, relax and recognize that your awareness of the wandering means you are not lost in it; allow it to be there without judgment.
17. Meditate on Thoughts
When the mind wanders, try meditating on the thoughts themselves by noticing their auditory or visual aspects and observing them with curiosity, which can sometimes cause them to subside.
18. Notice Gaps Between Thoughts
During meditation, notice the gaps or pauses between thoughts, as this practice can reveal more mental space and expand your awareness of these spaces in other contexts.
19. Allow Grief in Practice
Use your meditation practice as a space to allow strong emotions of grief to arise, recognizing and allowing them, and exploring what’s going on underneath.
20. Seek Professional Mental Health Support
If you find yourself in a deep, chronic mental health loop and feel unresourced, seek extra support from specialists like trauma therapists who can provide frameworks for working through it.
21. Seek External Grief Support
Recognize that grief is complex and may require more than just formal meditation; seek therapeutic processes or community rituals for processing it.
22. Practice Both Guided & Unguided Meditation
Practice both guided and unguided meditations to develop a versatile skill set; guided practices offer structure and new techniques, while unguided practice builds self-reliance in applying meditative skills to daily life.
23. Approach Challenges with Balance
When undertaking a challenge, use its structure and impetus for motivation, but maintain a relaxed attitude and perspective, allowing for missed days without getting discouraged.
24. Choose Alternative Meditation Objects
If focusing on the breath is triggering or challenging, choose an alternative meditation object such as sound, sensations in the hands, or the overall posture of sitting.
25. Observe Breath Control Without Judgment
If you find yourself controlling your breath during meditation, don’t make it a problem; simply observe both the breath and your act of controlling it without judgment.
26. Deliberately Breathe into Belly
To address anxiety and open up breath capacity, deliberately practice breathing more into the belly.
27. Try Lying Down for Meditation
To promote greater body and breath relaxation, try meditating while lying down, as this posture can reduce physical constriction often held when sitting upright.
28. Cultivate Compassion Through Learning
Cultivate compassion and self-compassion not only through meditation but also by reading narratives, learning, and hearing people’s stories, which expands insight and understanding.
29. Remember Inherent Human Dignity
When encountering biases, remember the core understanding that every human possesses an indelible, dignified, and beautiful essence, obscured by ignorance, and hold this compassionate view alongside clarity.
5 Key Quotes
You're not thinking your thoughts. You're thinking the culture's thoughts.
Sebene Selassie (quoting Krishnamurti)
Welcome to the human condition. Your mind wanders. That's what minds do. It's the glorious, beautiful, creative thing that is a mind.
Jeff Warren
Every human being is an unprecedented miracle. One tries to treat them as the miracles they are, while trying to protect oneself against the disasters they've become.
Jeff Warren (quoting James Baldwin)
The power of mindfulness is in this practice and building this capacity to be with our experience, to pay attention, but also to meet it with kindness or at least not with judgment.
Sebene Selassie
The whole point of meditation is eventually it becomes a set of skills that bleeds out into every part of your life.
Jeff Warren