How To Handle 4 AM Worry Spirals | Bart van Melik

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

0:19Hey gang, today we are talking about one of my favorite hobbies, worrying. Our guest is so good at worrying that he calls himself a worry warrior. However, said guest is also a veteran Dharma teacher, which means he also has a bunch of tools for working with worry skillfully. The guest in question is Bart Van Mellick. He's a guiding teacher at the Community Meditation Center in New York. He's also our teacher of the month over on our new app, 10 % with Dan Harris, which means Bart will be creating new meditations and also appearing in some of our weekly live meditation and Q &A sessions. If you want to sign up, head on over to danharris.com.

0:59There's a free 14-day trial if you want to try before you buy. We'll get started with Bart Van Malek in conversation with the executive producer of this show, DJ Kashmir, right after this. Bart Van Malek, welcome back. Thank you, DJ, for having me again. It's a genuine pleasure. Likewise. Thanks. Okay, so I offered you a few different questions to tackle, and you said this one was the one in part because of your own wiring, your own life. So the The question is, you know, we all deal with this sort of everyday run-of-the-mill level of fear, anxiety, worry. And so this question is not about necessarily the sort of biggest fears, but it's just about that sort of everyday, that vigilance, that sense of always looking at what's coming next, worrying that it's going to go wrong, thinking five steps ahead, not being present.

1:57And how do you practice with everyday fear, worry, anxiety? Let me just straight up say that I'm a worrying champion. What was the phrase you used before you started? A worrier warrior? Is that? Yeah, I'm a worrier warrior. I guess it's in the nature of my conditioning to very often have these what-if thoughts. What if this is going to happen? or I'm not sure if what I did, if they liked it. I'm not sure if I prepared enough. Your mind is constantly whispering for stuff that you don't want. It's almost like praying for stuff you don't want, worrying. It has that same kind of almost dedicated quality that your mind has to just think the worst is going to happen.

2:52and maybe there's some evolutionary benefit to it, but what I first always do is to pause and sometimes with a sigh go, here you are again, you're here again. And that already gives me some space. I'm not saying, oh, just do that and you're fine. But I have one line that I really like also that I do often in my meditation and that is to say to myself, this wants to be seen right now. This wants to be seen right now. And the beauty of meditation is you don't need to figure out why it wants to be seen, but just that it wants to be seen. And so that's the first thing that I always do. Oh, this wants to be seen.

3:40And can I name it? Can I feel it in the body? You know how a jolt of worrying thought comes up in Bart? we say in dutch are you saying english curled up toes my toes curl up oh that's that jolt it's a mixture of fear a mixture of the what-if thoughts anxiety and then i can go it depends on what tool i'll take out of my dharma toolbox and sometimes i'll take out mindful breathing but guess what it often doesn't work you're spilling the tea now but oh my there's more then i'll go this line often works for me too and i'll talk about it in the guided meditations what would kindness do right now and that sometimes shifts something too it's as if our 11 year old son comes up to me and talks about how he's afraid of yelling people out on the streets of New York City and the drunken people.

4:49And that you have more of a sense of, let me hold this friend. So that sometimes I can do this for myself as well. But even that one, DJ, sometimes feels like it doesn't work. And you know the reason why it doesn't work? It's because deep down, I want the shitty feeling to go away. hey, I don't want to keep thinking about this stuff. And what I found really helpful is to also check and feel the aversion, the full-blown hatred against my worrying sometimes, especially when it's at 4 a.m. and I just need some sleep. And what I found recently very helpful was to sense into how does the worrying and my hatred towards it feel on the level of just unpleasant feeling?

5:46Let myself feel it completely. And what happened was, at that particular time, this was recent on a retreat, something softened. And the last thing I'll say, and I just want to also hear from you, is talk about it with other people. Don't hold it all to yourself. Sometimes we feel like we all have to manage it ourselves. I'm the worst person to ask for help. When we're in a car and my wife Chantal says, you know, roll the window down and ask that person the direction. I go, no, I don't want to. But talking about it, sharing your fears is huge. Yeah. I mean, that was such a treasure trove of an answer.

6:32I had to start taking notes because there's just so much. No, in the best possible way. I heard in there some phrases, some practice phrases that we can come back to. Addressing the worry directly, here you are again. The phrase, this wants to be seen right now. Asking yourself the question, what would kindness do right now? Mindful breathing, leaning into not the worry necessarily, but the aversion to the worry, feeling that. Asking yourself the kind of somatic question, what does the worry feel like? And what does the aversion to it feel like? Talking about it with other people as an incredibly succinct sort of masterclass.

7:15The question that comes to mind for me is, I can see how depending on the moment, one or more of those tools would be useful. And something we talked about in our last conversation is coming up for me again now, which is all of these are predicated on you knowing that you're worrying. Correct. And can you just say a little bit about how we can more often or more quickly jump from that moment where we're so identified with the worrying that we don't even know that's what we're doing, which in some cases can last hours, to that moment where we've woken up enough to know, oh, this is worry. Because up until the moment it's worry, it's not worry, in my mind at least, it's reality, it's necessity, it's safety, it's protection.

8:07Of course, yeah. Getting from that to this is worry in some ways, for me at least sometimes, feels like the whole ballgame. Yeah. I think what we're doing right now is really helpful, is to talk about it, is to engage it too, and hear from other people so that we will recognize it faster. It's the same thing with doubt. It's hard to recognize doubt. And I remember once I was teaching a, this was a class of middle schoolers, and our topic was fear and worry. And for some reason, what came into our group was, does anyone know the top two fears in America? And I said, I don't know, let's look it up.

8:51This is years ago, and I just googled it at the time. And you know what the top two fears are in America? Two is death. One is public speaking. And then what we did in the group was we all shared our top two fears and what we often worry about. And I think when we actually engage in community, because I think meditation ultimately needs community and friendship. and the voice of another is really helpful in terms of reflecting back on periods of time when fear or worry was strong for you. And so that is one thing that's been really helpful for me when it comes back up again, because I've been reflecting on it with other people.

9:40And I think it's also a great gift that we can offer to our kids to be really frank and honest, because the kids ask me, Bart, what are you afraid of? You know what my top two fears are? Two is throwing up. I hate throwing up. And number one is just losing either Chantal or Lou and being alone. In reflecting on it, I find it really helpful. And then to go back to your question about, but what if you're really stuck in your mind? Everything your mind is saying seems so true. I think that every time when I feel like tension, I'll drop in another question for me, and that is, what is this? What's going on?

10:24What is this? So that you're not just becoming, again, maybe mindful and pause, but also become curious. What's going on? And because if you engage more with this stuff and talk to other people about your worries and your fears, it might help the recognition. oh yeah, I'm just worried about, and you fill in what it is. I love that question, what is this? It's like the lowest possible barrier to entry question, right? So it's not like, how does this aversion feel? It's four steps behind that, right? Before that. Exactly. It's not asking us to have identified anything. It's just asking us to get in the habit of being curious.

11:12And then that curiosity can be onward leading and send us down the path. But just asking, what is this? That's great. Yeah, what is this? And very often, I don't know the answer. So then to go to that second thing that you already know further along in terms of getting it, become familiar with it is this is what not knowing feels like, or like confusion might feel like. Because how often do we really recognize confusion? Not that often, because when we're confused, we don't even know we're confused. And so don't be discouraged when you don't know the answer to that. Just the question in and of itself will snap you out of something.

11:53This point about how infrequently we recognize confusion as confusion, it just brings to mind for me, the Buddha had a million lists, and one of the most important was the three root poisons, the sort of three phenomena that are at the root of all of our suffering, greed, hatred, and delusion. And there's this great, I may have said this at some point on the show before, but there's this great Matthew Brensilver line where he talks about how greed feels like a hole in the heart, anger or hatred feels like a fire in the heart, and delusion feels like the truth. Mm-hmm. Yes. I love the linguistic sleight of hand, but it's also just such a freight train of a sentiment to realize, oh, that one really is the slipperiest and trickiest because what overwhelming percentage of the time that we're in delusion are we walking around thinking that we're in reality?

12:54That's literally what it is. That's the definition. yeah that so resonates with me as well what's coming to my mind is also then how we cling to what the mind is producing the buddha has this teaching around check out these four areas of clinging not just clinging to pleasure but also check out when you're clinging to rites and rituals or norms and conventions. I never thought of exploring that. But he also says, notice when you are clinging to opinions. And very often when we are in that state of worry and confusion or delusion, we're so opinionated. And we believe, we cling to these opinions.

13:45Sometimes when I go, what is this? It's just holding on, it's clinging. And I think that through conversations and through being with other people and hearing these teachings and engaging them, that's what helps us to recognize specifically those difficult ones like confusion and worrying thoughts. There's a through line in your answers here and in the conversation that we aired a few weeks ago, but it's especially resonant in this conversation around the importance of being in dialogue about this kind of stuff with other people, sharing your fears and worries with other people, talking about your practice with other people.

14:27It was such a central element of what the Buddha taught, and obviously it's such a resonant part of your practice and how you move through the world. And in a second, I'll ask you to talk about the community that you lead. But I just want to like really put a fine point on this. So much of what we in the 10 % Happier World are trying to build is connection and sangha virtually across time zones, across countries with teachers like yourself, because we hear from people so often that they can't go on a retreat. They don't have a local sangha. They don't have access to the community that they're looking for.

15:08And so we're doing our best to do our piece of that. I think the reason I want to highlight it is because it gets said so often that I think it can sometimes go unnoticed. It's such a common piece of advice that I think it can sort of like, it has this effect of fading into the background the moment that it's said. And I think it's in part because making a commitment to join a sangha or try out a group or go on a retreat or reach out to other people or even just talk about your feelings with someone, it's just harder to say yes to than I'm going to sit for five minutes tomorrow morning. So I just really, really wanted to give you a chance to, as we wrap up here, just emphasize just how fundamental this thing of like other people is, both to our worry, but also more broadly to our practice, to our lives.

15:58We're so isolated right now. It's so tempting to ignore that part of what's being said. Yeah. I would start by just noticing that tendency. When you have that tendency, maybe there is a thought, who could I reach out to now? And then, no, let's not, let's just, like you said, maybe sit for five minutes. And one of my recent insights is that I don't want to look at the world as or, but and. What if you sit for these five minutes and then revisit the question? there's like this famous story where the monks of the buddha come to the buddha and saying we find ourselves in all these debates and the question is what are the crucial elements to be fully awakened what should we start with and the buddha said start with friendship that's the first prerequisite he so often says that if you really want to have a more wiser kinder view on life It only takes two things, the voice of another and careful attention and mindfulness.

17:01If you're not so inclined to go out like I was in the beginning of my practice, I thought I could do it all by myself, but then I stopped, to be honest with you. This was way before that even there was such a thing as apps. I would strongly suggest to try it out to keep showing up for a group of people and it really works also well online I had eventually and I still have now for like 20 years a weekly connection with the group of people and it could also be just someone that all of a sudden you find out a friend that you keep connecting with I don't see it necessarily as only people who are interested meditation.

17:42But I think it's so important to keep connecting with people and keep talking about your experiences. And so I too have a community that I am the guiding teacher of. And we saw the same thing as you all did, is that we wanted to keep an online community going every Sunday. Our center is called Community Meditation Center. But we also realized that because we're based in New York, Why don't we do it once a month hybrid? So once a month, the people could still be online, but we also have a group of local New Yorkers. And then we have also something during that week. And so that we feel like you don't have to sit with all this alone.

18:25Even just the power of sitting together online with a group of people, knowing that you might see a number of 100 people who are online, it strengthens something. And what it strengthens is, I think, a sense of, I'm not doing this alone. I am breathing right now with so many other people. And so even the next time when you might feel like, nah, let's not do it, go back to how that was supportive. Because doing something in a group, especially even being silent in a group, it lifts something up in a lot of people. and it eventually will empower you because that's what this practice is about. It empowers you to hold fear, to hold anger because it's not going to go away and it doesn't need to.

19:20Because ultimately this practice is about making friends with yourself and your mind. Okay, so for anyone who wants more of this, more of you, more community, We still have a few days left in January. There'll be a couple more meditations coming from you. There'll be another live session on Tuesday afternoon. But beyond that, you've talked about it a little bit, but I just want to give you the chance to plug it very directly, very shamelessly. If after January people want more of you, where should they go? What should they Google? Yeah. So go to the Community Meditation Center in New York. and every Sunday we have a talk and also the possibility to engage as a group and also in small Zoom groups because every month has a theme so that when you practice with us you really get to study a theme of the Buddhist teachings and if you're local to New York you can join in person and on Thursdays we also offer once a month inside dialogue sessions so that you're not just hearing the Dharma, but also engaging it with other people and small groups.

20:36And once every six weeks, we offer a in-person retreat in New York City for a day long. Our vision is to hear the Dharma, engage it, and deepen it. Awesome. We'll put a link in the show notes, and we'll also link to your website so people can see other retreats you're teaching and other ways to connect with you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you again, again, for doing this. Yeah, you too. Thanks for having me.

21:28to everybody who worked so hard to make this show. Our producers are 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.

21:58Thank you.