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Writer's pictureMegan Belden

4. Making Room for Mindful Consumption

Updated: Jul 1

This week’s episode of Undimmed features a candid conversation with Dan Harris, former ABC News anchor and creator of the Ten Percent Happier meditation app, podcast, and book. Dan shares his personal journey with cocaine use, sparked by his experiences in war zones and his quest for adrenaline, leading to a panic attack on live television. His path to recovery involved therapy, quitting cocaine, and eventually discovering meditation, which transformed his relationship with his own mind. 


Cecily and Dan delve into the complexities of substance use, including the nuanced differences between various substances like alcohol, cocaine, and MDMA, as well as the societal and personal implications of their use. They also explore mindfulness and meditation as powerful tools for understanding and changing one's relationship to substances and emphasize the importance of self-awareness in overcoming addictive behaviors. 


Follow Dan: @danharris


Please remember to rate, subscribe, review, and share the Undimmed podcast to help this content reach more humans in need of support or inspiration. You can also follow Cecily's @clearlifejourney on Instagram, subscribe to her Substack, or learn more via her website.


Credits:

Composer / Sound Alchemist: Laura Inserra

Audio Engineer: Mateo Schimpf





Key Points

01:15 Introducing Dan Harris: From ABC News to 10% Happier

01:39 Exploring Substance Use and the Path to Clarity

02:54 The Thrill of War Zones to the Lure of Cocaine

04:43 Social Scenes, Cocaine, and the Quest for Adrenaline

07:16 Alcohol, Food, and the Spectrum of Substance Use

14:05 Mindful Consumption: MDMA and Intentional Use

15:14 Buddhism, Mindfulness, and Personal Choices

21:30 The Power of Relationships and Self-Compassion

30:07 Dan Harris's Current Practices and Future Projects

36:30 Closing Thoughts and the Clear Life Movement





Transcript

This transcript is autogenerated.


Dan Harris  00:04

I used to be in Anchorman on ABC News for 21 years. Health News Now one of the world's most commonly prescribed medications may be providing a big bonus. Early on in my career, I had a panic attack on television, researchers report, people who take cholesterol lowering drugs called statins for at least five years may also lower their risk for cancer. But it's too early to prescribe statins slowly for cancer production. That does it for news, we're gonna go back now to robbing Charlie. And that panic attack was the result of many causes and conditions. But one of those was cocaine, which I had started using after spending a lot of time in war zones for work. And I wasn't high on the air when I had the panic attack, but it was my intermittent use of the drug was enough according to the shrink by consultant after the panic attack, to change my brain chemistry and make it more likely for me to freak out. So after I had that conversation with the shrink after the panic attack, I stopped doing okay. And I started seeing that shrink for many years. And through that experience of therapy, I ultimately stumbled into the world of meditation.


Cecily Mak  01:14

You're listening to undimmed, a podcast about living a clearer life without dimmers. I'm Cecily Mac. And that was Dan Harris, you just heard the creator of 10%, happier a meditation app, podcast and a book. And as you heard him say, he was also an anchor for ABC News. On today's episode, Dan, and I talk about drug use and misuse, cultural attitudes surrounding various substances, the power of meditation and living any version of a clear life, and even intentional use of MDMA, despite conscious abstinence from other drugs. You said just now that you started using cocaine, after your experiences in Warzones, is that right?


Dan Harris  02:15

Yeah. So the first time I ever did cocaine was I was 32. I think I had been a social drinker. And occasionally smoked weed, although never really liked it that much all the way through college and my 20s. And it was only when I came home from having spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan and places like that, that I started using, I guess what you might call hard drugs.


Cecily Mak  02:38

And you've done so much work to understand why and grow out of this. What do you see now is the reason for why after Warzone experiences, after years of kind of experimenting, and being a social partier, you end up getting into the hard stuff.


Dan Harris  02:53

I think there's a reasonably simple answer, which is that I'd never been to a war zone until I turned 30. And 911 happened and I was sent to Afghanistan. And then that was the first of many trips to hostile places. And the truth is that I liked that experience. That's not to say that I like violence, don't. But there's something very thrilling about being in a place you're not supposed to be living through it. And getting on television in the process is quite a heady mix. And it felt very important. The work felt adventurous, there was certainly the aspect of ambition that that's in there, too. And then I would come home and even though my life at home was pretty exciting, I was getting to fill in on Good Morning America and cover big stories all over the states. That's not quite the same as getting shot at and I missed the adrenaline. I wasn't aware of that. If I had been aware of I'd had some mindfulness, I probably wouldn't have fallen into this trap. But I think in hindsight, it's pretty clear what what happened was that I, I was getting depressed when I came home because I was withdrawing from the excitement, the adrenaline. So when somebody offered me cocaine, which had happened many times before, I actually tried it. Because I was feeling like shit. I was actually had this whole long period of time where I was consulting all these doctors trying to figure out did I have some sort of physiological problem that was there a gas leak in my apartment, like, I'm just trying everything to figure out why I did not feel well. And somebody offered me some cocaine. I was like, I'll try this. And boom, immediately, I felt better. Not the next day. But in that moment, I felt great. And so it wasn't like I became hardcore addict. I would use it when I would go out and party with friends. So I was never doing it alone. I wasn't doing it during work hours. But once in a while, on the weekends, I would go out super late and do a bunch of cocaine and I really liked it. I had a very


Cecily Mak  04:43

similar experience with cocaine for a number of years. I actually used it to offset some of the heaviness or slowness after a few drinks. So it's very typical to go out to the bars or go see my then how Just been DJ on a Friday night or whatever it was and start with a cocktail have a second be social and that just feel like it's kind of losing my edge partially because I was just tired, frankly. And it was a great way to kind of like pick up and offset the dullness of alcohol feel that buzz and excitement of confidence. And let's go after it again. But you know, this other interesting piece of it, I think that some of us experiences. There's this not only the adrenaline of the high, but the adrenaline of almost completely screwing up your life and not. I got away with that. Again, that's what I hear a little bit in the connection, maybe with the words that experience I remember, I used to be present for quarterly board meetings for billion dollars Silicon Valley startup. And I used to do this thing where I'd have a drink with dinner. And then I would have one last drink before going to bed just enough to feel a little bit buzzed, but try to reach that line of not being hungover at all in the morning. And there was this kind of thrill of I did it again, like I made it again. Did you have anything like this where you were kind of also getting the secondary thrill of not completely screwing up this vibrant career even though you had this more kind of secret? or less visible partying side of you during those big years? For sure.


Dan Harris  06:23

I mean, it's like, I don't know how old you are. But I'm 52 Gen X and cocaine was like the worst drug I was raised on like just say no, and the the ad they fried an egg and in a in a pan and said this is your brain on drugs, etc, etc. And and then there was a famous basketball player from my town from Boston, who's on the Celtics Glenn bias, who died after doing a little bit of cocaine. And so that happened when I was young. And so cocaine was like, the drug you don't do. Yeah. And so doing that it really felt like, yeah, pulling one over on the universe.


Cecily Mak  07:01

Yeah, totally. Got it. I'm 49. Same era, your brain on drugs that? Yeah, no, I need anytime you get to that moment where you know, you're really pushing the envelope on safety. There's that kind of other thrill. And one of the things that we spend quite a bit of time thinking through here is actually this special place that alcohol use actually holds on the spectrum between cocaine, and then something as benign, but that we could easily be addicted to is food. Right. And I know you have your own journey with food. And we all use food in different ways at different times. But it's really easy to say well, okay, cocaine, cocaine is bad. But you can put that in a don't do, it's illegal, it's an illicit drug, it can kill you box. And then over on the other end of the spectrum, there's food, which will we do have to consume every day, but we could certainly abuse it as well in a way to kind of dim out or escape from feelings or whatever monkey business we have going on. And then alcohol is sort of this interesting place in the middle where it's very socially sanctioned. It's everywhere. It's not necessarily terrible to drink on occasion, the way we could frame cocaine. But there's also this real growing awareness around how it may be misused, and it's actually maybe not as healthy or acceptable as we previously believed. What's your experience been with alcohol and all of this? I know cocaine has been kind of the headline of your story. But did you also have a an experience or a shift in how you were drinking in this evolution?


Dan Harris  08:44

You know, I was never that big of a drinker. I mean, I liked it. My parents were big wine drinkers, but I didn't do it that that much. I didn't crave it, per se. And actually, so when I quit doing cocaine, I did not stop drinking. But a couple of years later, I developed I probably allergy is the wrong word, but intolerance so that any form of alcohol as soon as I would sip it, I would feel hungover immediately. So I just stopped drinking. And it was really, really not a problem. So I didn't stop drinking, because I had a problem with it, or that I just approved of it. It just didn't agree with me anymore. And so I stopped, and you don't really miss it other than once in a while when people are having to drink socially, it would be nice, because I always loved the taste of alcohol. It would be nice to have one. But it's really not something I think about much. But back to what you were saying before about our attitudes, culturally toward various substances. I mean, I think it's safe to say that our attitudes as a culture around different substances are totally fucked up and completely contradictory and unhelpful. The fact that weed was illegal for all these years like have you ever seen somebody get into a fight high on weed and alcohol is incredibly addictive and can have all of these It's problematic behavioral consequences. Again, I'm not against alcohol, but like, let's just view things clearly here if I was going to pick which one would be less harmful for the for most people, it would be weed. I think any substance can be used well, and can be misused. And so I would even put cocaine in that category. I am not an absolutist or a fundamentalist or anything like that. If somebody's doing coke, I have friends who've done cocaine recreationally for 30 years, and are extremely healthy once every three months. Do they have a big night? Yeah, do I think that's, it doesn't appear to be a problem to me. I mean, who am I to judge, but I think the conversation around substances is evolving in the right direction. I just, I think it's just been deeply jacked for a long time to say nothing of our attitudes toward psychedelics, which seem, according to the data that have emerged thus far to be extremely helpful, deeply unhelpful. And yet, we're criminalized and demonized, and all sorts of helpful ways. I think you could add on top of this, that the criminal justice implications, especially around weed disproportionately falling on African American men and women. And so I like the way the conversation is evolving. But it's worth pointing out that it's been pretty messed up for a while. Yeah,


Cecily Mak  11:18

I also, I think about this quite a bit, because I feel like the wool was pulled over my eyes for years, at least with regard to alcohol. One of my experiences, since stopping drinking was discovering that I had breast cancer and treating breast cancer successfully. But one of the shocking elements of that journey was finally seeing in black and white from resources like the American Cancer Society, and the World Health Organization and the NIH, that, hey, alcohol is a group one carcinogen, and starting to kind of pull on that thread, and seeing the similarities between how big alcohol is marketed, and how the Big Tobacco playbook went. And it's alarming. What was it like when you discovered you didn't want to drink anymore? Or you couldn't drink anymore? Did it have any impact on your social life or in your family or friends? What was that process like for you?


Dan Harris  12:22

It was uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as quitting drugs. Because I was in a social scene where people did a lot of cocaine and ecstasy, and, and drinking and the fact that I wasn't staying out until nine in the morning anymore, I lost some friendships, or certainly grew away from people. And that was very hard. By the time I quit doing alcohol, I mean, that stuff was already baked into the cake. So I don't think anybody was particularly surprised. But yeah, it's, it's socially awkward. I grew up with parents as well, who were very avid wine drinkers. And so there were definitely some strange conversations when I stopped drinking with them. But it wasn't massively tensor or anything like that. the really hard part was, I don't know if I was physically addicted to cocaine, the doctor I saw for 10 years after I quit, never thought I needed to go to rehab or anything like that. But I was definitely psychologically addicted. And so it was wrenching for me to stop that and had all these social costs that were hard for me.


Cecily Mak  13:22

Did you ever have the thought that, hey, you should be able to moderate like, what why can I just do this sometimes and behave like my friends who kind of dabble with cocaine and feel like they can get away with a night out every once in a while? Why can't I do that? Did you ever gone on that road?


Dan Harris  13:36

Oh, I had that argument countless times with my shrink. A think his point. And I don't remember exactly what his counter argument was. But it was something along the lines of well, this is a very addictive drug. So you are playing with fire. And to you clearly have a delicate brain chemistry. So you're not only playing with fire in terms of addiction, you're playing with fire in terms of your career. And so that I think that argument carried the day. I will say that after I retired two and a half years ago, I didn't start doing cocaine or anything like that. But I do once in a while. Maybe like once a year or twice a year. Sometimes we'll do some MDMA with my friends. But I see MDMA formerly known as ecstasy. I see it as a quite a therapeutic drug. And it definitely comes with costs, like I make sure that there's nothing on my calendar the next day, and I'm not mixing it with anything else. I don't drink or guys we've established but I find those evenings to be what I missed about doing quitting drugs in the first place. What I missed after I quit drugs was the social aspect. And so doing MDMA which does release all this dopamine and serotonin into your brain and probably getting the neurotransmitters wrong, but it does release all these cuddly chemicals into your brain and being up late with my friends now. It really is for me, me meaningful, very meaningful, and I don't think it's a coincidence that MDMA is now increasingly being used in clinical settings with very positive outcomes. And so yeah, I don't I didn't want to come on the show and pretend that I'm somehow a, a teetotaler, I'm kind of influenced deeply influenced by, I'm probably gonna mangle this but attempted attempting to practice Buddhism guy and there are these precepts is kind of like promises you make like, I'm not gonna kill anybody. I'm not going to steal anything. I'm not going to misuse my sexuality. What I like about Buddhism is that these precepts, unlike the commandments are kind of up to you to interpret. And one of the precepts is not misusing intoxicants to the point of heedlessness. And I, again, I might be mangling this, but


Cecily Mak  15:47

you got it. It's the fourth precept, it's not intoxication. But the key


Dan Harris  15:51

to me is like to the point of heedlessness, and so like it is kind of up to you. How, you know, it's up to you, you have to use your mindfulness, in your judgment to figure out like, what is what's the appropriate use, and you said this earlier, there are many things that can be considered intoxicants from food, shark, to gambling to sex, it's anything that the mind is going to cling to. It's just these are very personal decisions are based on your physiology and your history and your your family history and the place you are in your life. And so I've come to my decisions for now. But I don't make judgments about other people unless they're harming other people with their intoxication. Yeah,


Cecily Mak  16:36

we're very similar in that regard. I actually use the word DeMars. Or the word escapist. Sure, yes. How to describe these various things that we might use just to not feel what we want to feel. And I love your share about NDMA. I'll tell you, myself, I had gotten many years without any intoxicant. With the exception of coffee, if you want to go coffee to dogs, again, until just a few months ago, and in a therapeutic setting, actually had my first MDMA experience in ages. And it was an interesting experience to go through that kind of mental exercise of, okay, I'm going to consume something that is going to pardon my French, but really fucked me up, I know, I'm not gonna be able to be in my usual controlling, fully present accountable form as I usually am for at least the next six hours, and as you said, through the next day, and there was almost as much energy around that for me as there was just the experience of taking this pathogen and having the MDMA journey. What was it like when you had your first MDMA experience after all these years of being so committed to not doing, quote, drugs, or kind of emerging from what you had self described as? Not the healthiest relationship with both cocaine and MDMA? Did you have a nervousness going into it? Or like, what was that piece of that first? Experiment like for you?


Dan Harris  18:10

I was totally nervous. Definitely nervous. I did it on my 50th birthday, or there abouts at at my 50th birthday party. I think I was just about to retire from ABC News. But I knew I was stepping down in a month or something like that. My wife was a little nervous, given my history. But it was fucking great. It was hilarious. And I don't actually, the experience of being on the drug to me is not a dimmer, there's a dimmer in the hangover, because for me, I usually take it in the evening and I stay up late and I don't sleep well. And so the next day, it's a little bit like the soul has left the body, but the drug itself is for my brain doing something very valuable. My factory setting is frosty New Englander. And the drug itself is is you called it an M pathogen. I mean, that's, that's what it is. Yeah, I'm sitting in a puddle around a bonfire with my best friends by the ocean and enjoying every nanosecond of it in ways that I will. I can, I can have a great time in those exact same circumstances, no drugs, but I think this particular molecule heightens the enjoyment of all of that, and is a great bonding experience for me. Yeah. And yeah, so I was nervous, but it was awesome.


Cecily Mak  19:29

This is you refer to this as mindful consumption, right? Yes. This is like conscious use of something that is a different experience for everyone. Yes.


Dan Harris  19:39

And humans have been ingesting molecules in ceremonial, very wholesome ways for millennia. So I think it's not uncommon for people who get quote, unquote, clean, to be abstemious and sort of fundamentalist about all quote unquote, intoxicants. And I think for some people, that's What they need for themselves, and I'm all for that, do what is best for you, and do what is best for you. Under the guidance of a skilled mental health professional or sponsors, I'm all for that. But for some people, it's actually a little bit more complicated. And there are ways to use these molecules, these medicines that have been around for millennia, and I don't think we should, for those of us for whom it's healthy, I don't think we need to take it off the table.


Cecily Mak  20:29

Absolutely. Rick Doblin whom you may know, who's the founder of and runs maps, which is going to be the organization we get to thank for making MDMA legal here at pretty darn soon. He describes use of MDMA as similar to surgery, when you need it, you can go have surgery, and it can be enormously helpful. But it's not the kind of thing you want to do every day, every week, or maybe even every month. It's a strike, attack for a specific purpose, really benefit and then move on with your life. So


Dan Harris  21:01

Rick knows way more about this than I do, I probably wouldn't use it the surgery because that maybe makes it a little bit more heightened and grave than I think it's like, I would go do I have never ginned up the courage to go do this, but I would go do an Ayahuasca ceremony, for example, but not because I have some acute need, or it's more like a curiosity, desire for personal growth. And with MDMA, it's more like, it's really the social teas, we as a culture, do not put adequate value on the quality of our relationships. What's interesting is you probably know a lot of people like this. There's so much focus on optimizing your diet and your sleep and your exercise routine. And, and all that's cool. Like, I mean, as long as you don't take it too far, I get it, you want to be healthy, you want to live as long as possible, et cetera, et cetera. I'm totally on board with that. However, if that's your goal, and I think that's the goal for many people, the data seem to suggest that sleep exercise and diet are not the top variables, the top variable is the quality of your relationships. Yeah. And so for me that the interest in MDMA is about that. So it's not like surgery, which I would not look forward to. It's more like about social hygiene and understanding that the quality of my relationships, something I've overlooked for too long, is the the major contributor to the quality of my life. Plus, it's just fun. That's kind of where the MDMA falls for me.


Cecily Mak  22:26

Yeah, I think that brings us to one of the real challenges that I hear people talk about in cutting alcohol out of their lives is that in my journey, I also didn't do an A or recovery or rehab path, I just made a decision. And it was the right decision for me, and here I am. But I do hear people say frequently, that it's not necessarily that they like getting drunk, or that that's even the goal. And frankly, being drunk isn't honestly that fun. It's what happens around it. And we have such a dependency, it seems in this culture, and I imagine, professionally for many people as well, but having a drink to connect us. And it helps us with our inhibitions and our self consciousness. I heard this thing the other day about how one of the first things that happens when you have one drink, particularly as a teenager, if you start in those earlier years, is your I'm gonna use the word mindfulness consciously here, your mindfulness or your awareness of what other people are thinking of you is one of the first things to fall away, which can be so liberating. And I want to kind of get in a little bit on how a mindfulness practice or meditation practice can relate to a commitment or a journey to using things like alcohol, or if it's a food addiction, or cocaine, addiction, whatever it is less. And I know that you came to meditation and mindfulness through the work that followed your public panic attack. But I have a chicken and egg question, which is, after all this research, you've done all the people you've spoken to, does the mindfulness practice, make it easier for people to abuse something less? Or is it the abusing something less, that opens the door to a mindfulness practice?


Dan Harris  24:19

That's a good question. My experience and my hunch is that it's yes, and that they work well together, just the way like mindfulness and therapy work well together. You can think of them as complementary modalities. So reducing harmful substance use is is a path to thing we can do it if to do our lives better. Practicing meditation is also one of those things, and I think they intertwine quite nicely because your capacity to be awake and aware will go up if you're not drunk or hungover. A huge percentage of the time. And again, I haven't had much of a problem with alcohol. But sometimes I struggle with over eating especially cookies, because I'm lonely or bored or hungry or tired or whatever. Having the self awareness that one can generate through meditation can help me see like, why am I going into the second sleeve of Oreos right now like what is going on here, it's like you can kind of wake up. And hopefully, it's, as your zombie hand is reaching for the first bite of food, or whatever it is for the first sleeve of Oreos. And again, I'm not anti Oreos, and I try not to be anti anything, because I don't think with very few exceptions, I don't think it's the substances, whether it's food, or alcohol, or whatever that are, the problem is our relationship to them. And so what meditation can do, I think is, is helping you understand like, Why? Why am I going for this thing right now? And when eating, for example, in my full? Am I still hungry? Am I eating this thing? And not that thing? Because I have some subliminal agenda to look like? Somebody I saw on Instagram recently, what is going on here? What's actually pulling the strings? And so I find meditation is really helpful with that. Does that does it all that makes sense? Yeah,


Cecily Mak  26:11

absolutely. But it also, it helps me get it a question I'm really struggling with right now, maybe you can help, which is whether or not we need some form of a mindfulness or meditation practice to actually overcome some of these impulsive tendencies. And the reason I ask is that, people coming out of habit loops or addictions, there's the stopping the thing, right? We can stop to think sometimes it's a medical reason why we have to stop or there's a professional reason we have to stop there, all these examples. But at some point, we're going to have to take a look at why we were doing it in the first place. It's the deeper work happens. And AAA is a tool for many people. And there are other more creative and fresh approaches to how to get beneath the surface on our why. But I keep coming back to this sense that we do need to have some baseline level of self awareness and mindfulness to observe our minds to see and, and kind of hopefully grok, why we're doing what we're doing. And then from a place of agency and choice, shift the behavior. And there are a lot of people who are still very resistant to meditating. They're very hesitant to embrace any type of a mindfulness practice. And I guess I'm wondering, is that a problem for people who want to transform their relationship with something that's not doing them any favors? Is it a requirement in some form?


Dan Harris  27:48

The short answer is, I don't know, I can give you a longer answer, which is, my suspicion is, it will be helpful for most people. And I'm not sure it's a must. I mean, I've never been to AAA, I have a non trivial amount of friends who are deep in the program. And from what I can tell, from what I've learned about AAA from the outside, is that it's very impressive. And it's not for everybody. But for those who use it. It's a very interesting and kind of brilliant program. And I think you can do a and successfully not abused substances anymore. Without meditation. I think the self awareness that's generated through the meetings where you're talking about your history and hearing about the history of other people, where you have the social support of those meetings, and your sponsor, I think those are all things that have been shown to help people and in a there is prayer and meditation. So it's not necessarily mindfulness meditation can just be figuring out what your higher power is, it could be Jesus, there seems to me as a non expert to be plenty of evidence that you can do this successfully without meditation. And my hunch is as somebody who meditates that it would be very helpful.


Cecily Mak  29:04

I'm with you in that? I think it can go either way, which is why the answers are not linear and simple. And


Dan Harris  29:11

I think what you're hearing a little bit in my evasiveness is first, some true humility about like what I know and don't know, and I'm not an expert in, in addiction. I'm an expert in my own addictions, but not in addiction generally. So that's one thing. And then I think the second thing is this real desire not to be overly prescriptive, to understand that everybody's mind and life is different, and not to inappropriately extrapolate from my own experiences to then preach to other people that you must do X or Y or Z. And I know people who are devout AAA attendees who have no meditation practice, who are very successfully clean and sober for decades. So yeah, I think all of that is is why I'm trying to be careful, too. Sure,


Cecily Mak  30:00

sure, that's really all we can do is have our own experiences share what we feel like might be helpful to others. What is what's your practice, like today with your cushion practice,


Dan Harris  30:11

I try to do like an hour a day, but not necessarily all in one go. The best days, I wake up, I usually go right to writing something like six years into writing the sequel to 10% happier, which is not going to call 20% happier. So I usually spend an hour and a half or two, writing first thing in the morning, and then I will sit again, these are the days where my schedule is the way I like to be. And I usually sit for 45 minutes or something like that, maybe even an hour. And then I will go back and write for another hour and a half, then I'll exercise. And then I'll go back to writing at a usually I get at that point I get it's afternoon and I get sucked into being interviewed or interviewing other people or having meetings or whatever thought a great day is actually just go back to writing and I stay writing all day. And then I will often meditate again, but I do walking meditation before bed, I get really restless, I have a lot of fidget Enos and sometimes that can interrupt my ability to sleep. I think a lot of it's tied to anxiety. And so I find that walking meditation for 1520, sometimes 30 minutes right before bed is really helpful. And if I can't sleep, I get up and do it again until I can.


Cecily Mak  31:29

Do you have any practices that or or habits that you're trying to nurture or evolve beyond maybe consistency and having more days that are by your design than by others?


Dan Harris  31:42

Really, it's the last thing you said is the thing I work on a lot, which is having my David be my design, not others. And I've serially divested myself from many jobs over the last couple of years. And I'm still kind of overloaded, which is my own fault. I have this executive coaches, great guy, Jerry colonna. And he has this question he asks people, how are you complicit in the conditions you say you don't want? And so when I complain about being overloaded, I usually go right back to Yeah, well, whose fucking fault is that? So trying to prioritize not over commit? Yeah, that's a big practice. Getting outside is really helpful. And I like to get outside first thing in the morning. I also like to write first thing in the morning. So it kind of depends where I'm at in the process, if I'm rewriting, and I can take my sheets of paper outside, that's great. But often, I actually need to be at the computer doing something. And so it's hard to do that outside, unless I take a laptop out, but can't really do that in the winter. And so anyway, I'm getting into boring technicalities here. But I would just as a short answer to your question. The other habit that I'm working on, aside from having a schedule that's a little bit less full, and more in my control, is more time outside particularly early in the day. I


Cecily Mak  32:59

love it. And before we let you go, anything you can tell us about what's next for you, or this book that you've been working on for six years. Yeah.


Dan Harris  33:11

So I just put out a revised edition of my first book, just called 10%, happier, a 10th anniversary edition of the book, can't believe it's 10 years old. So I rewrote like a preface and an introduction about like, what's changed in these last 10 years. And then, at the end of the book, I put in a bunch of meditation instructions, very kind of detailed thoughts about how you can get this into your life and how you can do the practice. So that's something I host my own podcast, which is quite a big lift, it's two and sometimes three episodes a week, where we talk to all sorts of interesting people. And then most of what I spend my time doing is writing this next book, which I believe will come out next year at around this time, it kind of depends on how the writing goes from here, but I believe there's some chance he will come out in spring of 25, if not probably fall of 25. But I really am looking forward to being finished with this thing.


Cecily Mak  34:04

Awesome. Any any clues as to what it's about?


Dan Harris  34:08

Yeah, it's about love taken on the small subjects here. It's kind of what we were talking about before that, that if you're interested in being healthy and happy, most of us are looking in the wrong place. And that actually, it's the quality of our relationships. That is the number one variable. And so I use the word love because I find it usefully provocative, but when I use love, I'm not just talking about romantic relationships, I'm talking about everything, family, friends, colleagues, strangers, the so called and this is a scientific term micro interactions that we have all day and then in this is key, your relationship to yourself. So my intuition is that there's been a pretty good body of work. I would like to see more of it. But there's been a pretty good uptake around what's called self compassion or self love, sometimes misunderstood, and then a reasonably good body of work around what's called Social hygiene, the importance of having good relationships. This workbook is really about combining those two, and calling all of that love and adding in the fact that these are all skills. And there are lots of practices you can do that are not complex that you can fit into your life. And this is what is most likely going to help you be happy, successful and healthy. And he's kind of like the or habit, the Uber habit, that if you can get this stuff, right, all the other things you're trying to do in your life will get easier


Cecily Mak  35:33

if it sounds like medicine that the world needs right now. So I'm so grateful you're writing it and I can't wait to read it. This is really what it's all about whether it's what we're seeing from Vivek Murthy, talking about this, what we're seeing kids mental health issues, even in this field, kind of overcoming things we do to escape. It's all relational. It's all about each other and ourselves. So that is just music to my ears. And I appreciate you sharing a little bit of it with us. It's been so nice to speak with you, Dan, thank you for your your candor and your openness and kind of willingness to share a bit about some of the layers of your experience that I hadn't read about or heard about yet. So I feel fortunate for that.


Dan Harris  36:22

Thanks. Thanks for having me on.


Cecily Mak  36:23

Absolutely. Take care, ciao. That was Dan Harris, a best selling author, podcaster, meditator and former news anchor. Dan spent 21 years with ABC News, where he hosted Nightline and the weekend editions of Good Morning America. He also spent years in the field covering combat, natural disasters and presidential campaigns. After having an on air panic attack, he turned to meditation which he always thought was for road gurus and unwashed hippies. In 2014, he published the number one New York Times bestselling book 10% happier. In 2016, he launched the 10% happier podcast, which now has over 600 episodes and regularly ranks among the top 200 shows globally. You've been listening to undimmed I'm Cecily Mac. If you want to be sure to catch future episodes, please subscribe to undimmed on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. undimmed is part of a larger movement called Clear life. It's an exploration of what it means to live clear, without dimmers that can interfere with our intentional present way of being. It's really about tuning in to our truest selves. To learn more about clear life, you can go to my website Cecily mac.com, that's CE ce ILYMAK or subscribe to my substack also under my name undimmed is produced by Joanne Jennings. Matteo shrimps mixed and mastered the show. And the great Laura and Sarah composed and recorded our music. Thank you for joining us, be well.

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