What To Do When Life Won't Let Up | Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren
This Meditation Party episode features Dan Harris, Sebene Selassie, and Jeff Warren discussing "trusting life" through challenges, philosophical stances, and daily practice. They also answer listener questions on rumination, work-life balance, and meditation versus napping.
Deep Dive Analysis
10 Topic Outline
Introduction to Meditation Party and Guests
Exploring "Trust Life" Mantra
Metaphysical vs. Practical Trusting Life
“This Is The Curriculum” Mindset
Three Time Scales of Practice
Applying "Trust Life" to Health Challenges
Listener Question: Work-Life Balance
Listener Question: Obsessive Thinking
Listener Question: Napping vs. Meditation
Cultural Recommendations
5 Key Concepts
Trust Life
A mantra or guiding philosophy, appropriated by Sebene Selassie, that involves allowing what is happening with flexibility, meeting challenges without denial, and moving towards freedom, joy, and love, even amidst difficulties. It's not about denying challenges but seeing balancing forces and responding sanely.
This Is The Curriculum
Jeff Warren's personal mantra, an attitude of accepting whatever life presents in the moment as the necessary lesson or challenge. It encourages viewing difficulties as opportunities to build resources and capacity for future challenges, leading to increased intelligence in response.
Three Time Scales of Practice
A framework describing the effects of meditation practice across different durations. It includes immediate effects (in the moment shifts), medium-term effects (habit change over months/years), and long-term effects (spiritual integration with the whole arc of one's life and existence).
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
A popular psychology approach that emphasizes accepting difficult thoughts and feelings rather than fighting them, while committing to actions aligned with one's values. It suggests that unhappiness is a normal part of life, and the "happiness trap" is believing one must always be happy.
I Ching
An ancient Chinese divination system, sometimes referred to as the first computer, that provides pithy, wise framings or reframings of situations. It is used as a ritual to interrupt rumination and provide a sense of finality to obsessive thinking, allowing one to move on.
6 Questions Answered
It means allowing what's happening with flexibility, meeting challenges without denying them, and actively moving towards freedom, joy, and love, recognizing balancing forces even amidst difficulties.
Accept that there will be times of being overwhelmed and unhappy, and in those moments, commit to moving towards your values by reframing challenges as opportunities for growth or social action.
Try "stirring and stilling" by engaging in physical activity (like dancing or jumping) to release energy before meditating, or use a ritual like consulting the I Ching to provide a sense of finality to the thoughts.
If you're genuinely tired, take the nap, potentially starting with a body scan to bring mindfulness to the experience, as most people are underslept. However, also try to find time to practice meditation when you are alert to fully benefit from it.
Sebene Selassie believes there can be, informed by systems like astrology, suggesting a coherence and logic to life's events. Jeff Warren views it primarily as an attitude but acknowledges that over time, one might perceive a mystical coherence in their life's arc.
By taking the challenging experiences in your life and transforming them into something you can pass on or use to help others, such as creating a support group or advocating for a cause, which gives your life's arc more meaning.
9 Actionable Insights
1. Embrace “This Is The Curriculum”
View life’s challenges as the curriculum you need to learn from, fostering an attitude of acceptance rather than contention, which can lead to increased capacity to respond intelligently.
2. Choose Beliefs for Happiness
Recognize that you have the freedom to choose what you believe, as your beliefs profoundly affect your happiness and capacity to help others, rather than solely focusing on objective truth.
3. Transform Suffering into Meaning
Take life’s challenges and suffering, especially personal ones, and transform them into something you can pass on or use to help others, creating deeper meaning and coherence in your life’s arc.
4. Practice Surrender to Counter Fear
When fear manifests as a need for control, actively practice surrender and lessen your grip on trying to plan and manage everything, allowing for more ease and focus on positive aspects of life.
5. Set Daily Intentions for Broader View
Before starting activities, set an intention, such as dedicating the benefit of your actions to all beings, to shift from self-centeredness and rumination to a broader, more helpful perspective.
6. Sing Repetitive Thoughts Aloud
When plagued by repetitive or obsessive thoughts, try singing them out loud to yourself to reduce their seriousness and gain distance from them.
7. Ask “Is This Useful?” for Overthinking
When caught in cycles of overthinking, pause and ask yourself, “Is this useful?” to evaluate the productivity of your repetitive thoughts and potentially disengage from unhelpful rumination.
8. Integrate Mindfulness into Napping
If you feel tired and need a nap, allow yourself to take one, potentially starting with a body scan to bring mindfulness into the experience, recognizing that rest is often necessary.
9. Practice Walking Meditation for Alertness
If you find yourself falling asleep during seated meditation due to tiredness, try walking meditation, which can help maintain alertness while still engaging in practice.
7 Key Quotes
Trust life allows me to be with, and this is the practice, right? Be with what's happening with some measure of allowing, having the flexibility to move with the challenges.
Sebene Selassie
This is the curriculum because this is the curriculum that life is giving us right now. And so when we accept that this is here, that, you know, obviously the, the follow through is that it can lead to an increased capacity to respond in more intelligent ways.
Jeff Warren
The longer I live, the more there's a sense of coherence to that. The more certain things that have happened in the past challenges that I've had to work with, they make sense now from this place of more maturity and more integration.
Jeff Warren
When I choose to believe in a more interactive reality filled with mystery and wonder in which I'm like, I'm playing inside it, my life is vastly more pleasurable. It's more, I have more capacity to help others.
Jeff Warren
The end of suffering doesn't mean pain goes away, but you have a relationship to it that's more easeful.
Sebene Selassie
The view is so much better when you pull your head out of your ass. And that is the head out of ass removal mechanism for me on the regular.
Dan Harris
Sleep is the best meditation.
Dalai Lama (attributed)
2 Protocols
Stirring and Stilling Practice for Strong Emotions
Sebene Selassie- When strong rumination or emotion arises, engage in a physical activity like dancing or jumping on a trampoline to "stir" the energy.
- After stirring, transition to sitting meditation to "still" and be with the feelings in a more spacious way.
I Ching Ritual for Obsessive Thinking
Jeff Warren- When caught in obsessive thinking, consult the I Ching (or a similar divination system like tarot).
- Accept the framing or wisdom provided by the I Ching as the "answer" to stop the rumination.
- Recognize that the goal is to stop the energy of repetitive thought and move on, rather than finding a definitive "right" answer.