Buddhist Strategies For Reducing Everyday Addictions (To Your Phone, Food, Booze, And More) | Sister Dang Nghiem

29:39culture, but that will only get me so far, which brings us to the next seven steps in the eightfold path, which are the final seven steps and Sister D's 12 steps. So after right view, there's right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Let's walk through these and maybe you can spell out how these can help us be less addicted to whatever we're struggling with? Traditionally, it starts with right view. But through my practice, I see that it starts with right mindfulness. Not everybody will come with right view right away.

30:19So we learn and we also have wrong or right. In this sense, we can also translate as unbeneficial. Because we are all mindful, by the way. But what are we mindful of? We are mindful of what's really going on in us and around us, or we're mindful of more of negativity in us and around us, you see? So it's important what we are aware of and we pay attention to. And when I was reading this book about, it's called Magic Mind by Dr. James Doty. And he talked about the default mode network. So he now braided this circuitry that is an inner critic. It criticizes itself, us. You are ugly, you're worthless, you fail, you're just an addict, you're nobody.

31:18It keeps going like that. If we're aware of that and we feed it, that's also mindfulness, but that's unbeneficial mindfulness. So in our practice, when we have mindfulness, we learn to be aware of what is, not the judgment, aware that I have my eyes. I can still see, aware that my body is still healthy. I can still walk, that I still have loved ones who try to help me, for example. That's right, mindfulness. And as we learn to pay attention to our breathing, to our steps, we are more in touch with our body. That's right mindfulness. You see, it will bring to right concentration. We are constantly bombarded by information.

32:03And in this book, Magic Mind, Dr. Doty, he talked that every second the brain is bombarded by 6 to 10 million bits of information. 6 to 10 million bits of information every second. And yet the brain can only consciously process 50, 5, 0 bits of information. So that goes 99.9995 % of the information that we are bombarded, we are not aware of, you see? But whatever that we are aware, actually, we're aware of the negativity that's going on in our mind. And that's like a lens that we look at the world through that lens of negativity. So to practice right mindfulness and right concentration will help us reduce all of that noise going on inside of us all the time, self-judgment and all.

33:10And to be able to touch life as it is in this moment, their birds singing, their children smiling, laughing, their loved ones around us. And that will bring to right view, right view about interbeing. You see, I'm still alive and that my suffering is not my own, but also the suffering of my parents, of my society, of many people around me. So when I take care of myself, even to sit still, to say loving, you know, to direct love towards myself and encouragement towards myself, I'm also doing that for others in me and around me. So that's right view. When we see that, it will lead us to right thinking.

33:57Right thinking, like instead of thinking I'm ugly, I'm worthless. Say, no, I'm beautiful. I have one, for example, I have this Chinese character too I want to show you. This Chinese character is for enough, okay? You see, this is a mouth or it can represent a head. This straight line down, vertical line can stand for the body. The horizontal line, that's the arm. And then these two legs at the end. Most of us, many of us suffer from this not enoughness, illness. I'm not enough. I don't have enough. That's wrong view. At least the wrong thinking. I'm nobody, you see? But if we are mindful, we have right mindfulness and right concentration.

34:47I ask the teenagers, the children, do you have a head? Yes. Do you have a body? Yes. Do you have an arm? Yes. Do you have two legs? Yes. Then are you enough? And they say, yes. I say louder. They say, yes, I am enough. I have enough. You see? So when we learn to be aware of what we have, not what we have not or what we have lost, but what we still have, we feel, wow, we are so rich. We are so blessed. And that helps us to have the right view and right thinking. More positivity, more encouragement, more positive attitude towards ourselves, about ourselves and others. And that will lead us to right speech instead of saying things like, I'm not good enough, I can't do it, then we can say, I love you.

35:40Thank you for being still alive. I tell that to myself every so often. I use loving speech and deep listening to myself. And I say, thank you. I'm still alive. Thank you for all the efforts you've made all your life. Thank you for being here with Dan Harris. For example, this morning, I wasn't feeling so good. Usually after breakfast, my blood pressure is a bit low. So then after a meal, I feel even more tired. So I just lay down on my bed, scan my body part by part and just say, I love you. I love you. Thank you. Thank you for trying every single day. Thank you. You see? And that's love, that right speech.

36:31right speech to myself. And if I can practice right speech like that, very simple words, thank you, or I'm sorry, I'm sorry I hurt you with my negative thoughts. I'm sorry I hurt you by thinking, behaving, and speaking so harshly, so cruelly to myself. That heals. It heals a lot. The wounded inner child in us heals little by little when we're able to express appreciation and regrets like that. You see? So I just share about right speech. And then the next one, the sixth noble on the A4 path, the sixth one is right action. But when we have the right thinking, the right view, it will lead to right speech, right bodily actions.

37:32Some of us, when we are stressed, when we are in pain, we may practice cutting. Especially young women would cut our wrists, the ankles, or we consume drugs. We just consume different things to numb our pain, to escape our pain. But those actions will accumulate to even more trauma in our life. It cripples us. We cannot function normally in our family, in our relationships, in our society, at work, etc. So when we have the right thinking and right view, it will lead to right action. We will learn to care for ourselves. Simply like instead of sitting there and watching pornography or doing drugs, even if you just go for a walk in your backyard.

38:37So I think we were at right action and you were going to continue with the rest of the Eightfold Path? Yeah, and after the right action, we have the seventh treatment. It's the right livelihood. It's how we, our profession, our work that makes it right livelihood. And a lot of time when we are heavily influenced by our circumstance, by our addiction, it will hurt, it will affect our livelihood. Are we able to hold a job? Are we able to get a job? So in that way, we may compromise and do some other work that actually perpetuate our suffering and addiction because we're not able to find the right kind of work, the right livelihood that will bring about positive support and self-confidence and a meaning in our work.

39:47And I want to add that because in the Noble Eightfold Path, we don't have right living condition. So maybe under the right livelihood, we can add to that. Right living environment is very important, especially for us, for those of us with addictions. For example, just electronic addictions. If our bedroom, you know, we have our computer, our iPhone, our iPad, all of these electronics in our room, we cannot really rest in that room, right? For sleep hygiene in your bedroom, there shouldn't be those electronic gadgets. Should be peaceful, should be non-distracting so that you can just simply rest.

40:36So those cues will make you, oh, you're just lying down and you hear the sound of the notification, you immediately check your iPhone. So then your sleep is really disturbed. So that's a very practical example. But for those of us who do hard drugs, who have others, so living in the ghettos, you know, living in a poor and negative environment, that will just perpetuate our addictions. Even if we have a desire to get out of that hole, you're pushed into that hole again and again by yourself, by your own craving, but also by others around you. They remind you of your addiction. So in that way, to have a positive, a right living environment is also very positive.

41:29And I think that requires a lot of help, a lot of courage from us to ask for help, but also a lot of patience and compassion from our loved ones, but also society need to help. For me, it's so disturbing that we can spend trillions of dollars to support a war so quickly and so easily, promptly. and yet we don't invest enough on much at all to education, to rehabilitation, elevate people who suffer from racial and economic inequalities. And so in that way, they're put in a hole, they're born into that hole and it's so hard for them to find the right living environment. They are not equipped to get the education or to get the good job, to get out of their environment.

42:28And I'm speaking this from my direct experience working at Youth Guidance Center in YGC, Youth Guidance Center in San Francisco. When I was trained as a medical student, I volunteered there. And I knew the kids who were born in the ghettos. This young man, Eric, at nine, he already learned to pump gas, to make money to feed himself and his little sister. And one day he saved$5 and while he was sleeping, his mother stole that$5 from him to get her fix, you see. So very soon when he was 11, he delivered drugs for somebody so he can get more money, you see. And then he did a little more, a little more.

43:16He ended up in Youth Guidance Center since he was 11 or 12 years old. So that is a life that many of us are also condemned to because, of course, the conditions immediate, but also from social conditions that is very hard to get out of. So we need a lot of help from that. So we have the right livelihood, but also right living environment. And the last one is right diligence. And of course, you were saying that right effort. And in our tradition, we translate as right diligence. Again, we are all diligent. Watching movies all day long, that's diligence, but it's very unbeneficial. Checking your iPhone all the time, that's definitely very diligent, but it's so distracting and stress-producing, right?

44:07So how to have beneficial diligence? And in Buddhism, we actually have the four kinds of diligence under this right diligence. The first two deal with positive seeds. If they manifest, try to keep them there. If you feel happy, be aware that you're happy. Look around you, see the conditions of happiness so that you can strengthen that seed of happiness in you, of gratitude in you. And if that seed has not manifested, bring it up. Say, oh, I still have a body and I can still walk. I can still talk. I can still do work. Yeah? So you bring it up. So that's the second kind of diligent. Invite the positive seeds to arise in you.

45:03And the fourth diligence, deal with the negative seeds. If they arise, well, don't water them. bring them back to your store consciousness or your subconscious. For example, if you're watching a movie and you see people doing drugs in the movie or having violent scenes or sexual scenes that trigger you, remove yourself from that environment. Walk out of that room. Walk away from that situation, from that conversation, so you don't water the seed of craving in you, of addiction in you. You see, if you see a negative seed arises in you saying, why try? Because you're going to fail again. Well, breathe and smile.

45:48Let go of that thought and give rise to gratitude. I'm still here and I still want to take good care of myself. You see? So don't water the negative seeds. And the last one is that the negative seeds that have not manifested, Don't invite them up. The things that we do, the things that we expose ourselves to are the billboards, the notifications, the pop-ups. Many of them actually, they carry negative messages of violence, of craving, of fear, of hatred, discrimination. Don't bring them up. Don't water them. And those are the ways to be diligent that can help heal our habits, our addiction, our personality.

46:37Because you see, an action that is rehearsed, it becomes a habit, aka addiction, if it's so entrenched. And that habit or addiction becomes our personality. I'm an addict. That's who I am and the way I behave. and that personality will lead to a destiny. So when we learn to change our behaviors, our thoughts and our views little by little, we can change the addiction at its roots. Our personality, the bright, the shining, the positive person in us, the innocent child in us can shine more and more each day, which will change our destiny. We don't just have to be an addict for the rest of our life.

47:30Coming up, Sister D talks about how exactly these 12 steps can change addiction at its roots. Specific mindfulness practices to help with this and her thoughts on phone addiction.

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50:02How exactly can these 12 steps change the addiction at its roots? That's the phrase you use. You just told us about a lot of steps we can take. How does all of that add up to the uprooting of this craving that so many of us deal with, whether it's shopping or having too many glasses of wine or whatever? Well, all of these steps inter are. They're not separate. Like I was saying, if you have right view, it will lead to right thinking. It will lead to right speech, right actions. and you will find a better environment for yourself. And you will be more diligent in a beneficial way. So, like that.

50:46So, they enter our, first of all, and also how does the practice of mindfulness, and so then it will lead to all these steps in the Noble Eightfold Path, help heal the addiction. Again, the roots of our addiction come from our wrong perceptions, our wrong views about the situation. And from that, we have the negative coping mechanism that is perpetuated over time, you see? So I have right here the Chinese character. I love these when I discover them because they eloquently express the teaching and also in a very succinct way. So this is the Chinese character for perception. and it has three smaller characters.

51:39On the upper one, there's the Chinese character for tree. Next to it is a Chinese character for eye. So you see a tree standing next to the eye. The eye or the eye looks at the tree. That's the sign of a tree, right? So when you look at a tree, the sign is the tree. But underneath these two characters is the character mind or heart, which makes the whole thing perception. Your eye looks at the tree. But if in the past you had a positive experience with this tree, then you say, oh, it's a beautiful tree. How lovely it is. And you have a positive feeling towards that tree. But now in your mind, you remember that there was a branch that fell on your head, almost killed you or somebody.

52:35It hurt somebody in your family. Then when you look at that tree, you think that tree is very dangerous. We should cut it down. You see? So perception is the tree. But one person sees it as a beautiful tree. Another person sees it as a dangerous tree. It's the state of mind will determine what we see, the view about ourselves, our worldview, how to approach life. That state of mind, all the experiences we went through, what we were taught in school by our parents, what we were exposed to, will come to these views. So everything, the foundation of our actions, of our addiction specifically, based on wrong view.

53:29I'm just an addict. I'm unworthy. So when we practice this Noble Eightfold Path, starting with right mindfulness, we start to change that view. We start to see reality more and more as it is. and when a perception is changed, the thoughts, the speech and the bodily actions will change. So this is why we say we change it at the root. And what is the correct view of addiction? So we know wrong view is I'm just an addict. What is right view of addiction? Interbeing. Again, this addiction is the tip of a branch. What is the root of my suffering? What has brought me to this day? What has come to be?

54:21What has fed it? What is perpetuating it? So we see all these causes and conditions entangled, enmeshed, and strengthened over the years. So we need to see these conditions and causes more and more clearly through meditation. through mindfulness and unravel them little by little. And to breathe with them breath by breath, to walk with them mindfully step by step so that we don't rehearse these negative, wrong views. Because the more we rehearse them, the stronger they become. And we literally have neural pathways, neural networks in our brain. When you see something, for example, if I'm a drug addict, I just see a needle, my brain, my mesolimbic circuit will be triggered.

55:23Dopamine will be released instantly and the craving becomes very, very intense. So we have neural pathways in our brain that are very strong and easily activated. So when we learn to see things as they are and we breathe and we avoid the situation, but when we see immediately, we just breathe. Come back, close our eyes, relax the body. May you be well. May you be safe. May you be free and you remove yourself. If you just do a little bit of that every day, you build a new neural pathway, a new neural network. It's more mindful, it's more kind, more true to your aspiration. And if you water, you rehearse these mindful neural pathways more and more, they will become strong.

56:23And if you don't tread the old neural pathways of addiction, then they will also become less strong. Like a trail can become a freeway, you see? So addiction is now a freeway in us. But mindfulness trail can also become a mindfulness freeway and it can override the addiction trail. What I was going to ask and really just builds on what you were saying right now is about specific mindfulness practices we can do to help us follow this eightfold path or the 12 steps inclusive of the Four Noble Truths. In your talk on this, you mentioned things like mindful breathing, body scan meditation, loving kindness meditation.

57:10I don't think we have time to talk about all three, but maybe talk a little bit about, pick one of these practices and talk about how it can help. Right there, we can do enough. I am enough meditation, okay? Do it as often as you can throughout the day. Wherever you are, when you're in a toilet store, driving or lying in bed, just scan through your body. I still have a head. My mind is still clear. I can still think. I can still be aware. I still have eyes. Hello, eyes. I'm grateful for you. Even if I have to wear glasses, I'm grateful for my glasses and for my eyes. You see? Do I have a body?

58:00Yes. I have a body and I'm very grateful. I don't just have one arm. Like in the Chinese character, I have two arms and ten fingers. I have two legs. I am enough. I'm more than enough. because besides that, I have liver, heart, spleen, all the internal organs that are there, still functional. Some may be sick, some are not fully functional, but they're still there doing their best. So I am enough meditation. Actually, I think can be very self-empowering for us and it involves body scanning. And we practice mindful breathing as well. And I love the Chinese character for mindful breathing, for breathing also, because the uppercase is the character for tic, which means from or itself.

59:08And the lower character is mind. The breath, Chinese character for breath, means the breath is from the mind or the breath is the mind itself. So mindful breathing is very scientific because you learn to see that your breathing pattern reflects your emotions, your state of mind. When you're angry, you breathe differently. When you're sad, when you're craving, When you're sick, you have all different breathing patterns that correspond to your state of mind. So when you learn to be aware of your breath, you can be more aware of your mind. Suddenly, you feel you're like you're breathing heavily, you have shorter breath, or you're uncomfortable.

59:57Maybe there are certain social cues or contexts that are triggering, you're activating, you're craving, and you come back to your breath, you look down or close your eyes, you breathe, you can actually calm your mind. You can self-regulate so that instead of being swept away by the craving, you come back and self-regulate, calm down your heart rate, your breathing rate, relax your body, and your mind becomes clear. Then you can walk away from the situation as soon as possible. You see, so mindful breathing helps. Body scanning, you can learn to be more aware of what's going on in your body and take care of it promptly.

1:00:45Because most of us, when we suffer from addiction or from depression or from anxiety, we are not aware, but the body shows everything about our situation. But the thoughts, the craving can be so overwhelming that we are poor under. But if we can focus on the body, that's something more concrete. You see, if you feel you have shortness of breath, you can put your hands on your chest. You feel the rise and fall of your chest or the rise and fall of your abdomen. That's something you can concentrate on and just take your mind away from that craving. that is arising or that is very strong in your mind.

1:01:32Or you can hold your own hand or you can massage your feet, your head. So being more in touch with the body will help remove you from those negative thoughts or thoughts of craving. Another thing you talk about as being helpful in terms of dealing with our many, many addictions is self-compassion. Can you say a little bit more about that? Yes. I have learned to be much kinder, more accepting and loving to myself. Growing up without parents, coming to the U.S., living with foster parents, and I suffer a lot of trauma in my life, verbal abuse, physical abuse, and also sexual abuse. So I had this inner critic in me that always put me down, always thought the worst of myself.

1:02:36But as I learned to be more mindful of what I still have and to be grateful, then now I can confidently say that I never say or think anything negative towards myself. If I do something not so well, I can acknowledge it. Oh, I can do better. I'm sorry I thought that or I did that to somebody or even to myself. I'm sorry. I can do better. That's what I would say. But I would never say, you're stupid. Why did you do that again? You know, just hopeless. I never think like that about myself anymore. You see, I learned to say thank you. I'm sorry. And I love you throughout the day. That's self-compassion, my dear.

1:03:36And every little thing you do to help yourself in that moment, even to hug yourself, to massage your face, to go for a walk, to pray, please help me. to heal, please help me to live a life that I can be at peace with, that I can be proud of. You say that to yourself, the God in you, the Buddha in you, that's compassion right there. And all of that is right view and right thinking, my dear, because I have practiced the past 24 years to heal myself. And you know what? The mother in me who disappeared when I was only 12, who verbally and physically unkind to me when I was a child, she also heals in me.

1:04:32I can think of my mother now with so much gratitude and understanding that I didn't have before. I made peace with my mother, even though she passed away 30-something years ago. So we can make peace with the ghosts in our life. They are in us, and they haunt us, and that's why we do things that are destructive. Somebody hurt us, and now we have become the perpetrators. We continue you to hurt ourselves and our loved ones and many others. Out of pain. Hurt people hurt people. When we are hurt, we hurt others. And if we see that interbeing, we don't judge ourselves harshly or each other so harshly, but we see all their causes and condition, and we do our best to help ourselves and each other.

1:05:29Heal from that. That's compassion, true compassion. And it all comes from again, from that deep understanding of interbeing. This is because that is. This is in that, and that is in this. And this is not because that is not. You see, that is the mother of all Buddha's understanding, insight, wisdom, and it helps free us little by little. It's the guiding light for us to have right thinking, right speech, and right bodily actions. That's beautiful. Let me ask you about one last practical technique for managing our addictions from a Buddhist perspective. And this is very much backed by evidence from modern psychological science as well, and that is the notion of social support.

1:06:22Can you talk about that a little bit, please? Thank you for asking that. We very much believe in the collective energy, social support, community, family. We need that because through the power of interbeing, the energy of interbeing as a community, for example, we sit together. I've been a nun for more than 24 years. But when I sit with the community, that's how I learned to sit also. Actually, I never really practiced meditation before I became a nun. I sat next to my partner, but just to wait for him to finish his meditation session, he was a meditator. Bless you, dear John. I'm grateful for his practice now that he passed away already.

1:07:13But his practice continues to be in me and I continue him, you see. But to be with the community, to sit with the community in mindfulness, to do walking meditation with the community, the energy is strong because we are all energy fields. You see, you walk in a room and if you see somebody peaceful, that person doesn't have to say anything, but you also feel the peace in the room and in the person and you feel more at ease. You walk into a room and you see somebody all red and all, you know, angry. Your nervous system registers that you feel that person's anger in your own body. So we are all energy fields.

1:07:59We very much feel each other's emotions. And that is why each one of us, as we practice, we affect each other. We affect those around us, those who know us and those who don't even know us, who don't even talk to us. Just the way we move, the way we sit, the way we talk can affect each other. I love that the 12-step program have all these meeting groups and friends will go every week or even every day. I know friends will go to alcoholic anonymous groups every single day. For example, that gives us the support, feeling we are not alone because of the nature of interbeing. We're not ever alone.

1:08:44But when we suffer, we always think the wrong view is that I'm all alone. I'm the only person who suffers this. But it's not true. Many, many people suffer very similar situation that we were going through. And also, it's important that that support group has practices so that we can uplift each other. We can look at the problem, but we also see the way out, you see? And that's important. And that brings to my writing, the four books that I've written. Now, I studied in college and I got a degree in creative writing. But as I looked at my writing before, it expressed the suffering more. There were some aspirations, some desires to transform, but I didn't know how.

1:09:35But as I became a nun, I see there are specific practices such as I'm enough meditation, body scanning, deep relaxation of the tension in my body with mindful breathing. Moment to moment, not just once in a while, but I do that throughout the day. You see? So there's healing. So in my writing, now I address the suffering, but I always share about the way out of suffering. As we practice and we see the way out and we do that moment to moment through our speech body, the actions, the behaviors, and the thoughts, we regain the trust and confidence in ourselves. Because for those of us who succumb to a particular addiction or addictions, we feel helpless.

1:10:26And we lose the trust that we can take care of ourselves. That's the worst of all. I cannot be there for myself. That's why I have to escape, try to escape all the time. You see, I'm not worthless. I'm just an addict. Society condemns me and I condemn myself a hundred thousand times more frequently. So we lose that trust and confidence in ourselves. But as we practice mindful breathing, mindful walking, self-reflection, positive speech, loving speech, deep listening towards ourselves, we gain that self-confidence and trust. I can be there for myself. I can breathe through the waves of craving.

1:11:10I can relax my body. I can discern and see a situation and not enter it or walk away from it. I can speak up for myself. I can reach out for help. That is trust and confidence very deep within. That's very empowering and it will help lead to other more positive behaviors. Incredibly helpful, Sister D. You made reference to the fact that you've written four books. I do want to mention that you've got a new book of poetry that's out and we'll put some links in the show notes so that people can go check out your books if they're interested. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention before I let you go here?

1:11:56About electronic addiction. So I learned that an average American spends 91 waking days a year on our smartphones. That's three months of our waking hours because of the 12 years Think about it. We already sleep a third of it, so we have only eight months. And we spend three months on our phones, so then we really have just five months to live. If you think it, are you really, out of that five waking months, a year, how much of that time are you aware, mindful? Are you fully there for your life? If you say half of it, that's a lot of confidence. But actually, we're not mindful half of our time.

1:12:59So that's two and a half months maximum out of 12 months a year. Two months, two and a half months at the maximum. So really, we don't live our life fully. and then, you know, we get lost in these addictions of negative thoughts, negative speech, negative behaviors. So on the one hand, we are so afraid of death. We will grasp for life when we are diagnosed with an illness. When we are at deathbed, we will grasp for life. But really, we are losing life. Every moment, we don't live our lives, so we don't know what it means to live and to die. We all constantly look for ways to escape and to distract ourselves, our mind.

1:13:59This dichotomy of afraid of living, but also being so afraid of death, causes us to really be in this limbo. It's very painful. So for me to be able to live a life of practice, a spiritual life, not religious, I'm not religious in any way. I hope through my sharing you don't see that I'm religious, but I'm a very practical, pragmatic person. But I see that I'm in touch with my life. I learn to live moment to moment as fully as possible. I learned to heal and transform my addictions to suffering, to negativity, so that I can be kinder, more generous, and free in my own life and help others to do that.

1:14:52We all can do that in our own capacity. 10 % happiness, definitely. When you practice as a practitioner, you know how to generate happiness anytime. Just give a thought, I'm still here. Thank you. Thank you. Or you should say, I'm sorry, I didn't know then. That is already a great happiness. When you can say, I'm sorry. Instead of waiting for somebody to say, I love you, and you don't believe it because you don't love yourself. How can you believe somebody who can love you, right? Just say it. Help me to love you, my dear. Help me to heal you, my dear wounded child. I'm here for you. I love you.

1:15:43You are precious. You are beautiful. Learn to do it. Like you do yoga. Like you play basketball. You do it alone many times, you get good at it. Addiction, because you have re-hosted so many times now, it's strong on you. Now do it in a mindful way, in a beneficial way, in a loving, compassionate way, and you will also get good at it. And that 10 % happiness is guaranteed, and it becomes a lot more than just 10%, okay? Every moment you are kind to yourself, encouraging to yourself, it's a moment of happiness. and is long-lasting and self-generating. That's what I really want to share with you, my dear ones.

1:16:31We are all together, okay? Your practice is for all the rest of us, and I practice for you, and I love you, and I believe in you, because I have learned to love myself and to believe in me. So I have that confidence in you. Just do it step by step, okay? One step at a time. Do the 12 steps as diligently as you can, okay? Thank you, Sister D. Thank you for listening to this program, and I hope the Buddhist 12 steps can really help you. And learn more about our practice. We do have many talks online. We have three monasteries in the U.S. that you can find out about our Plum Village tradition. And friends come to our monasteries throughout the year.

1:17:24And you can stay. You can come on a Sunday or you can come for the whole week. So you deserve this investment, my dear. You deserve healing and transformation. And you do need help. So there are many of us out there who are doing that. And so you don't have to do alone. Okay? Thank you. Great job, Sister D. Thank you.

1:17:52I want to thank everybody who worked so hard to make this show. 10 % Happier is produced by Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. Also, one quick ask before I let you go. So head on over, please, to danharris.com to sign up for my weekly newsletter. Every Monday, I drop a little bit of goodness into your inbox. Mondays, especially Monday mornings, can be super stressful.

1:18:28So that is when I drop in one useful nugget that you can operationalize in your life immediately, either from ancient wisdom like Buddhism or from modern science. It's short. It's easy to read. It's worth it. It's free. Sign up at danharris.com.

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