How Meditation Can Help You Handle Injured Feelings and Injured Muscles | Dawn Mauricio

0:04This is the 10 % Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

0:19Hello, how we doing? I find it inexhaustibly interesting to hear how meditation teachers handle life's inevitable vexations. It's so easy to look at or listen to meditation teachers with their calm demeanors and soothing voices and conclude that they are somehow imperturbable. But obviously, they're human beings subject to all the same infirmities and indignities as the rest of us. So seeing how they handle that shit can be incredibly instructive. It may be the highest form of meditation teaching. We've got something new for you today, A little context before I explain it to you. We're in the middle of an exciting evolution here in 10 % Happier World.

0:59This show has been going on for about eight years, and I've long wanted to make it more actionable to really help you operationalize all the game-changing ideas you hear on this podcast. So in June, we started creating guided meditations to accompany each full-length episode of the show, the Monday, Wednesday episodes. And those guided meditations are available to paying subscribers over on danharris.com. That offering in June went over so well that we're going to keep it going for the month of July So every new full-length episode will come with a bespoke meditation from our Teacher of the Month Don Mauricio, who's a teacher in the Insight Meditation tradition Who my team and I love And that brings me back to today's episode We wanted to give you a chance to get to know your Teacher of the Month a little bit So I asked DJ Kashmir, who's our Head of Content and who you've probably heard before on the show to conduct a short interview with Don about how she became a meditation teacher in the first place and what she hopes you will learn during your month of practice with her.

2:00Don Mauricio, right after this. Hey, it's Dan. I just want to tell you about something I'm really proud of, the new community we are building over on my new app, which is called 10 % with Dan Harris. Here's something I believe with no reservation. Taking care of your own mind is not selfish. It's actually essential if you want to show up for the world, if you want to deal with the various emergencies on the planet right now. There is, in fact, a geopolitical case for you to get your shit together. In other words, taking care of your own mind is good citizenship. I think about it like an upward spiral.

2:35You train your mind. That makes you happier and less reactive because you're steadier. That improves your relationships with everybody around you. And because relationships are crucial to human happiness, you get even happier, then your relationships get even better and up you go. Our mission over at this new app is to guide you through this process with a growing library of meditations from world-class teachers like Seben A. Selassie and Joseph Goldstein and on and on. Also, add free access to our full podcast archive, exclusive live stream events where we guide meditations and take your questions.

3:08We do those every week and much more. Head on over to danharris.com. You can try it for two weeks free. And if you cannot afford a subscription, we'll give you one. No questions asked. We had a little pool party yesterday with some family friends. They were about, I would say, about 10 kids in the pool at the same time. And they were all playing with these great toys, many of which we got from our sponsor today, Wayfair, including an awesome floating basketball net that my son has been dunking on on the regular. There's also, I don't know how to describe it. It's this floating thing with holes in it and you can throw a football into it.

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4:37Don Mauricio, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me. It's good to be back. It's so good to have you back. I'm really excited that you're doing this with us. So this is a cool opportunity. We are going to be teeing you up to lead our practice all month long. We've got these new meditations coming from you every Monday and Wednesday throughout July. and we were talking behind the scenes about, you know, what are the things we can do to really prop up this new teacher of the month offering and get people really excited about this new direction that we're going on the show. And my boss, Tony Magyar had this great idea, which was, you know, what if one of the things we did was just get to know the teacher a little bit.

5:24And so in that spirit, I'm curious, how did you become a meditation teacher? Where does that story begin? I feel like when I'm asked this question, the more hindsight I have, I feel like the further back it began almost. But I would say, you know, maybe the shorter story of the variations is that I was backpacking. My first solo trip ever was during my quarter life crisis, and it was backpacking through Southeast Asia. And it was just like all of the signs, more than just being in a Buddhist country, because I feel like there's so many ways that one can travel those countries. But there were so many signs that I was receiving about doing a meditation retreat on a monastery.

6:15There's one time I was like so homesick and there's someone I was sitting next to on the bus and she was crying because she had just left an orphanage and want to adopt a child but couldn't. And then I saw her weeks later and she seemed fine while I was still pretty homesick. And I asked her like, what changed? And then all she said was Vipassana, like Vipassana meditation. And then I don't know if she said much more than that. And then months later, I pit stopped in Bangkok and I was at this hotel or hostel pool and I just grabbed something to read. And it was a yoga journal. And in it was an article about some guy leaving his tech job so that he could just pursue meditation.

7:01And then later that same day, the only person I talked to at that pool was someone who just came out of a retreat. And I was like, OK, I hear you. I'm going to do this. And so that was now about 20 years ago. So that was my first exposure to meditation formally, which was a 10-day retreat on a monastery. It was the hardest thing I had done in my life up until that point. But I just somehow knew that it was going to stay in my life too, even though it was incredibly challenging. When you heard that word Vipassana, I think some of our listeners will know what that means and some won't. Did you know what that word meant?

7:42And can you talk about it a bit? So Vipassana, I think I knew only because I was in Thailand. So this Buddhist country where there are monks every morning, if you wake up early enough or stay up late enough, I guess, to see the monks line up in the mornings and whatnot. And so I was familiar with it. But basically, vipassana is a style of meditation that is often translated to mean seeing clearly, seeing in a new way, insight meditation. And for the folks who know maybe more the mindfulness meditation world, I would say that the roots of mindfulness come from vipassana meditation. And so they're like cousins in a way, or they're relatives for sure.

8:28So you do this 10-day retreat. You said it's the hardest thing you've ever done in your life. I mean, I know you'd only lived a quarter of your life at that point, but still hardest. That's quite the superlative. What was so hard about it? You know, it's so funny when I said that a few moments ago, I thought, oh, the hardest things I've done in my life are all meditation retreat related, actually. Even now, 20 years later from that. But I think at that time, it was a few things. It's not really knowing what to expect. And I think even now, years out of having done retreats and whatnot, I feel like even though we might know a schedule of how the day will unfold, we still never really know what to expect on a retreat.

9:11Even more so then because it was my absolute first time. And so it was the whole not reading, not listening to music, not exercising, not dancing. So basically anything that I might have turned toward if I was feeling uncomfortable as, say, a distraction or a crutch or something like that was now no longer an option. No writing, no talking. And even on monasteries, they don't eat after noon, 12 p.m. So it's not even emotional eating. So everything was removed as an option. And so then what was left was like just being with my mind. and I hadn't done that ever before. Yeah, and then what came to the surface was like big emotions.

9:58I remember one day there was like big sadness, but it wasn't really because of any one specific thing. It was just maybe all built up inside but never had a space to come up before. And then another day I remember there was like a lot of anger and same thing, not because of any one thing. And so every day was like a ride for sure. But then on top of it being so far from home, And on retreats, there's no easy access to calling home anyway, but even more so from there. And home for you at the time was in Montreal? Yeah, Montreal, where I'm still based. Got it. Got it. So I also went on a retreat in my 20s, and it was very transformative.

10:40But I did not then become a meditation teacher. So what then ensued that made this from just a thing that you did into now your life's work? Yeah, that's a great question because my path was I eventually became a meditation teacher. So I didn't realize that there are other options. But basically, I came home from that trip. And before that, I was actually I have my bachelor's in marketing. And for a year, I was actually working in a public relations firm. But for nine months, every Sunday night, I'd cry. and that was part of what led to the quarter life crisis and the trip. When I got home I thought let's go back to what I was doing before so like treating the trip almost like this blip in time nice to have done it but not more than that but I think something happened with that retreat where I was just so much more in touch with like my inner landscape and I think the fact that the last thing I did on that trip that was four months long was my retreat and then I came home So it was pretty fresh in my system.

11:49And so I was going on these interviews and I was getting the jobs, but I was like still crying after these interviews, even though they went well. And so it became really hard to ignore all the signs my body was throwing at me, basically. And so I remember I told myself, okay, just quote unquote, meditate on it, which is I think comical now because we can't necessarily meditate our way to a solution. But I remember thinking, okay, so if it's not going to be marketing, what am I going to do? Like, oh my God, my mom's going to get so mad at me or something like that. And so I remember I meditated and just it was so clear to me, all of the stories I was telling myself that pegged me to continue pursuing marketing jobs, which were like, what will your mom think?

12:40What will people think? What a waste of your degree, like all of these stories. But it was so clear that they were just external stories, basically. I was hoping actually that I would come out of that meditation with a job title and a to-do list on how to get there. But all that was really clear was not marketing. But it came from a place that felt like deep and like a trustworthy place, even though it was like the first time I really ever tuned into that. And so I just went for it. And it wasn't like, okay, then I became a meditation teacher. It was, I went back to being a hair salon receptionist until something popped up and then it was doing a yoga teacher training.

13:24And then it was while being a yoga teacher, still studying meditation. And then whenever I got asked to teach a workshop or something, I often pitch mindfulness or meditation stuff. And then it grew from there. But I would say it was like a 10-year process to become a full-time meditation teacher. But it was like, yeah, that trustworthy place that I don't think I would have been able to hear otherwise if it wasn't for my retreat. I'm curious about how you see yourself now. You know, we have so many meditation teachers on the show, and many of them share a lot in common. They're all singing from the same hymnal, but they've got these different flavors that are shot through the lens of their own experience, you know?

14:09So when Vinny Ferraro comes on the show, he just talks about the Dharma differently than Kaira Juolingo does. And I'm curious how you see yourself. Like, what flavor of meditation teacher are you? How do you orient and focus? What lights you up about the Dharma? Okay, I love this. I don't know why when you said flavor, I thought about these, like, cookies that I really like that are gochujang caramel cookies. So I'm like, I'm a little maybe spicy, a little bit sweet, but I don't think that's what you were asking. No, that's great. And those sound delicious. But basically what I am really passionate about is just I love these teachings.

14:52I think they have provided such a refuge, such a solace in my life that I often don't know how anybody navigates their life, whether it's just all that's going on collectively, all that they're holding personally, without these teachings. And so I love them so much. And I also recognize that they can seem a little bit inaccessible for some folks. And so I'm really passionate about making these teachings accessible, partly so that more people would get curious about them. I also love, if you haven't picked up on it already, just like being playful with these teachings. I think for me, that's what has kept it all really interesting and exciting and something that I actually want to turn toward on a regular basis versus if I thought it was something like I had to do, where then it's just like a little bit of a downer to spend so much time turning toward.

15:48I think that's my approach, partly because I feel like the more people we can get practicing these things, then the more people can feel into these benefits. And then the more we'll be motivated to construct a life where even more people in our communities can access the benefits of this practice that include calm and freedom from suffering and easefulness and loving kindness and compassion. So I feel like there's no harm in having more of these qualities show up in the world, whether in our lives or the lives around us, given just what I see in the news where it's very not emphasized at all. Yeah.

16:32I'm curious, you just described all these sort of wholesome qualities that can arise from practicing. And, you know, over the last five-ish years working on the show, I've had a chance to meet a lot of teachers. And it's just always interesting to see how they are when they're off mic, how they are on email, how they are during a tech check, like the different ways that their practice manifests in their personalities and in how they handle stressful moments. and I always just find myself, you know, there's like a part of me, maybe this is like a voyeuristic part of me, but there's a part of me that just wants to be a fly on the wall in a meditation teacher's life for 24 hours.

17:09Like, but are you really happy? You know, so you talked a few minutes ago about this quarter-life crisis. You're crying at the end of every weekend because you have to go back to this marketing job that you hate. Is it working for you? Are you in a different place than you were then? Yeah. I would say yes. And I also would say that if you were the fly on the wall, I'm very curious what you'd think, basically, because I think I'm just like, one of the things that I love about this practice, and it's very much part of my approach, is that it all belongs. Like we all belong on this practice path and all of the ways we show up also belong.

17:53And that's partly because I felt, oh, I have too much energy. So I'm like a bad meditator, especially on retreats when everyone's like slow and looking down and looking serious. And so being smiley, oh, OK, I don't belong here. I have anxiety. But then does that exclude me from being able to access this practice? I don't think so. all of the ways we can show up it belongs and so if you were a fly on the wall of my home I think you'd be like oh okay so she does have moments of like anxiety and maybe neuroticism or whatever it might be and I think I'm okay with that if you were to see that partly because again it all belongs.

18:40But to go back to your question about like, do I feel a difference? I think so. For example, one of the things I'm navigating right now that you're aware of is that I tore my Achilles. It was like a grade three or severely torn Achilles just a few weeks ago. And so I'm mostly bed bound. It's the first time I have a serious injury in my life. I live on the fourth floor with no elevator. So it's like very complicated right now, my life. And it's been about a month And I'm proud to say I've only had one breakdown. Not that I'm avoiding breakdowns, but I think it's my mindfulness practice has helped me tune into all of the gifts that this injury has provided me.

19:23For example, like I've always loved my friends, but the way that my community is stepping up to care for me and their creativity in their care has been phenomenal. And I think that if I wasn't maybe mindful or paying attention enough, I wouldn't maybe notice all of the ways they're showing up for me. If it wasn't for my study of these ancient teachings of Buddhism and the teachings of generosity, I don't know if I would have been attuned to all of the nuances generosity can show up. So it's just like being able to be present in short moments. It's not like I'm 24-7 present, but to be able to be present enough to notice these things have completely been bolstering my morale at what could be a very challenging time otherwise.

20:10And that's just one thing, this injury that's taking up a lot of attention right now. I'd like to think that another way it shows up is that I feel like I still feel bigly, like big emotions. And all of that is okay. And it's like, I feel like I have a capacity to be with it, not be afraid of it, know that it'll pass, have access to tools that can help me be with it. And then how that helps me in, say, my life or my community is that if someone else is going through something big and they're feeling big things, instead of just rushing to give them solutions and Kleenex to mute it, it's like I'm able to hold the space for them to feel their big emotions too.

20:54So I like to say that things have changed. But again, I don't know how life would be for me if I didn't have this practice. yeah just listening to you talk there I was reminded of something Matthew Brentsilver talks about he talks about suffering and freedom and how suffering sort of looks the same on everybody to some degree anger and fear and anxiety and blame and shame but that freedom can show up in very different ways like freedom is a magnification of people's personalities and I I'm just thinking back to all of the many sort of behind the scenes conversations I've had with different teachers over the years and the way that you show up so differently than Sabine shows up so differently than Joseph or the list goes on.

21:42One of the many things you have in common, which I know Dan has pointed out before too, is that there's a sense of humor and a lightness and just an ability to swim through whatever the currents might be. And I just, I have to say like, it has meant a lot to me behind the scenes all these years, meeting all these teachers and overwhelmingly finding that they do show up as seemingly free versions of themselves. And if it had been otherwise, it might have been hard to keep doing this job. If you and Joseph and Jeff Warren were all just nightmares behind the scenes, that would have been hard. You talked about like how we show up during tech checks and emails, but you didn't really allude to more than that.

22:22So anyways, I'm glad to hear that. part. I'm often not just impressed by my interactions, but I learn a lot from watching the way that you and other folks in the teacher community navigate. And it's interesting to hear you talk about, and I think helpful, really helpful, normalizing to hear you talk about the fact that, yes, you've been practicing for all these years. And yes, your practice is showing up in all these ways. And that doesn't mean that anxiety doesn't show up. If anything, it just means anxiety shows up and you're welcoming it in a different way as opposed to pushing it away. I think you said it all belongs.

23:01I feel like I've heard that a hundred times, but every time I hear it, it feels like the first time. So I appreciate you saying it again. Yeah, my pleasure. So before I let you go here, I just am excited about these nine meditations, all new coming from you that are tied to all of our new Monday, Wednesday episodes throughout the month of July. And they touch on everything from grounding in the body to metta to noting practice. It's a really wide range of practices. And this is still a relatively new offering for us, this idea of a teacher of the month that's really going to help our audience practice what's being preached in our episodes.

23:40And I was just wondering if there's anything you wanted to say about this batch of meditations and how you hope that people receive it? Because there's going to be, you know, many, many thousands of us will have you in our ears throughout the month this month. I'm honored to be in so many ears. It was a joy to write these meditations. Again, something that might not have been possible if it had not been for my injury. So another silver lining there. And yeah, just generally around how to receive these meditations, I think the way that I look at practice in general, because there's so many ways we can practice, is to treat them as an experiment, not to take them too seriously, just to try them on and check in with their hearts and minds and bodies.

24:26Did that feel like it did something good? Was it onward leading is what we would say sometimes in like the Buddhist way. Did it do something good? Was it onward leading? Was it helpful, basically? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. And it doesn't mean that any of these meditations then are forever written off for you, but it's just maybe at that moment, it wasn't the right time. So just to, yeah, keep playing with them, keep them in your back pocket beyond the month of July even, but generally consider them as an experiment, looking down the microscope into your inner world, but also as something to play with.

25:06Awesome. It's nice that you ended there, something to play with. You mentioned earlier this orientation towards joy with the practice. I very much do associate that with you, and I hope that our many listeners and members of our virtual sangha will get a taste of that joy throughout the month. Yeah, that would be, if there's one thing to take away, and I know that this is maybe risky to say, but if there's one thing to say about all of the meditations as a takeaway, it's that there is some sense of that joy because the joy is what keeps us coming back. It is what helps us hold the hard. It's not a way to bypass or avoid, but really it's, at least for me, this vehicle that helps me be with what is even more.

25:54The joy helps us hold the hard. Beautiful. Thank you so much for doing this, for doing the meditations, for talking to us today. Really excited for folks to get to know you more and have you be a guiding light in their practice this month. And yeah, just appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. So happy to be a part of this.

26:17Thank you to Don. Thank you as well to DJ Kashmir. has mentioned. Dawn is our Teacher of the Month for July, and you can hear her all-new companion meditations throughout the month if you are a paid subscriber over at danharris.com. And stay tuned for more bonus content on Sundays from Dawn. We've got a lot of content coming your way. Before I let you go, I just want to thank everybody who worked so hard to make this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great people over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer.

26:51Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.