Matthew Hussey explains how the constant inner voice blocks happiness and introduces a five-minute daily meditation practice to control it. He draws on Dan Harris's 10% Happier, defining mindfulness as noticing thoughts without being carried away by them. The space between stimulus and reaction is where choice lives.
Questions this episode answers
Matthew Hussey
10% Happier by Dan Harris
About five minutes a day
lovelifepodcast.com/retrieve
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Hi, I'm Matthew Hussey. Welcome to Love Life. It's a privilege to be able to offer you bite-sized bits of advice on this podcast that you can use every day. But what if you're ready for a big transformation and you want to do it now? You want to reinvent your career or finally find lasting love or break free from the self-doubt that's holding you back from living the abundant life you were meant to live. If you're saying, Yes, Matt, that's me, I'm going to tell you exactly how to do just that at the end of today's show. So make sure you stay tuned. First, let's get to today's episode. Now, in the last episode, we were talking about the difficulty that people have in enjoying a massage. Now, I really meant this as a kind of metaphor for everything that we do that we find it difficult to enjoy. The reason I liked the idea of not enjoying a massage is because it feels like something we actually do pay to enjoy. We pay to go and relax. And yet, for so many of us, it still feels so difficult. And that is because of what I was talking about before, that voice in your head that speaks to you all the time. They call it your ego. That thing is directing your thoughts and therefore your feelings and your actions the entire time. Now, what we have to get a grip on is how to deal with that voice. In the last episode, I talked about eliminating it, but elimination is not quite the accurate term for it. What we're really doing is getting that voice under control and showing that that voice is our servant and we're the master, not the other way around. A lot of this came about because I was recently reading a book by a guy named Dan Harris. He wrote a book called 10% Happier. And the book was very interesting to me because it was written by a skeptic who was actually the anchor for, or is the anchor, I believe, for ABC News, who couldn't stand the self-help world and wasn't into organized religion. but found that meditation and what is known as mindfulness, which I'll explain in just a second, was very useful. Now let's start with mindfulness because mindfulness gives rise to the need for meditation. Here's how he described mindfulness. The ability to recognize what's going on in your head at any given moment without getting carried away by it. In other words, to recognize what's making you feel a certain way, who's making you angry, what insecurity is giving rise to these feelings of inadequacy that you have. What is it that's happening that's making you feel something? But also understanding that between that stimuli and your reaction to it, there is a space. And in that space, you get to decide how to react. Do I want to react to this anger by becoming more angry and upset or depressed or frustrated or helpless? Or do I want to understand that this anger is something that either isn't real or is just a signal for me to take a different action in my life? Now it takes practice and one of the ways that people practice this is through meditation. Now if you're like Dan Harris and if you're like me, the very word meditation in its raw form can really put you off. But there is a very practical application to meditation. And here's what it is. And this is very, very blindingly simple. All you do is sit down, maybe with your back against the wall, wherever, get comfortable, close your eyes, breathe, focus on your breath, and notice any time that your focus gets distracted by the voice in your head. By the way, it will happen all the time. It will happen every couple of seconds to the extent that you will realize just how much of your life that voice occupies. Now, your decision, do I want to engage with this voice right now or do I want to put it out of mind? This isn't, by the way, about clearing your mind. And this is one of the things that meditators and Dan Harris alike make very clear. This isn't about emptying your mind. You can't empty your mind, as he says, unless you're dead or enlightened. You can't empty your mind. But what you can do is try and get that voice under control and return to the present moment. And the way that you do that is by focusing on your breathing. So anytime you notice that you're going off track with your thoughts, that you're thinking about something you have to do in your day, that you're stressing about something and insecurity comes in, whatever, you return to your breath, snap back and breathe again and return to focusing on that breath. Now, this isn't something you have to do for hours on end. He actually suggests doing it for five minutes a day. And I like this. I actually, for the last week I've been doing this is just for five minutes a day, sitting there, focusing on my breath and practicing coming back to it every time I have a thought. And by the way, having a thought doesn't mean you're failing. That's just the autopilot we've always been on. and continuously returning to the present moment from that thought is a worthwhile endeavor in and of itself. Dan Harris describes it as being like a bicep curl for the brain. That every time your brain goes off track and you return to the present moment, you're doing a bicep curl. You're strengthening your ability to be in the moment and focus on just being happy in the present moment. Now, this will come up, by the way, this will be useful all throughout your day, not just in the five minutes that you meditate for. Because in the rest of your day, when stimuli comes in, when something happens, when someone makes you angry or someone makes you frustrated, something happens, you're in the car, someone cuts you off, in that moment, you will find that you have the ability to distance yourself from the immediate reflex reaction that your voice gives you. that ego gets angry or feels like it's been undermined or disrespected. You're able to distance yourself from that and not identify with it and see that there's a space now for you to take a moment and react differently than your autopilot would have you react and give you a way of coming back to the present. If we can focus on the present, we're going to be much happier people. I'll see you in the next episode, my friends. Join me on Facebook. Coach Matthew Hussey is my Facebook name. Go there, follow me. get all the latest articles, updates and videos and I will see you in the next episode of Love Life. Now if you said earlier, Yes Matt, I'm ready for a big life transformation now, then I want to invite you to apply for my retreat program. Now spots are limited, but if you're accepted onto the program, I'll lead you through a series of powerful coaching sessions and enlightening exercises that will remove every barrier standing in between you and the extraordinary life you deserve. You'll walk away with a practical set of tools to achieve the career, love, balance and fulfillment you've always wanted. To claim your spot for a phone interview with one of my expert mentors, just go to lovelifepodcast.com/retrieve. Take care and I'll speak to you soon.
