How To Handle Exhaustion, Disconnection, and Physical Pain | Meditation with Bart van Melik

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

0:19Hello, everybody. Today, we've got a short guided meditation for my friend Bart Van Melleck, who is our Teacher of the Month for January over on the 10 % app or meditation app. Fair warning, nothing dramatic is going to happen here. you're not aiming for bliss or insight or an upgrade of your personality. The practice we're going to do today is simple. It's about just noticing the body as it is, finding one small place that feels okay. Not great, just okay. And then we're going to see what happens when you can relate to that experience with just a little bit of kindness. So there's no fixing, no forcing, no pressure here.

0:58This is a low-key meditation. Just a little bit more about Bart. He's a meditation teacher and psychotherapist who comes at all this stuff in a very practical way. He has trained in insight meditation and Buddhist psychology, and he's worked in clinical settings with people dealing with stress, anxiety, and a lot of harsh self-talk. If you want to get more meditations from Bart and many of the other amazing teachers we work with, check out my new meditation app, 10 % with Dan Harris. You also get this podcast with no ads and weekly live meditation and Q &A sessions with me and many of the aforementioned teachers.

1:37Come join us. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with Bart's meditation. And take a slow, gentle breath in.

1:52And as you exhale, feel the body landing wherever it is.

1:59And let gravity do its work. And pause.

2:17Noticing the weight of the body being supported by the chair, the floor, the bed.

2:29Feeling the contact points. And maybe there's warmth or pressure, tingling. Maybe there's nothing much at all. That's okay.

2:50Even here, just by being, the body's already doing so much.

3:01the heart is beating

3:06the lungs are moving

3:13pause

3:34see if you can find one small area that feels okay right now not amazing not blissful just okay maybe it's the hands or the feet or the face

4:00Perhaps it's the shoulder or the belly.

4:11Letting awareness rest there.

4:27Letting kind awareness rest there.

4:36And feel what it's like to let something be good enough.

5:02And can you let that small pocket of ease spread just a little?

5:14Imagine it moving like sunlight across the skin, or like a soft hand resting on the lap.

5:28Pause. Relax.

6:00Now bringing to mind this question, what would kindness do right now?

6:15If kindness were breathing this breath, how would it breathe?

6:31If kindness were sitting in this body, how would it sit?

6:48If kindness were looking at this body, what tone of voice would it use?

7:05What would kindness do right now?

7:39There's nothing to fix, nothing to attain, nothing to push through. Only curiosity. Only care.

8:03Just this kind of awareness that knows the body is alive right now.

8:40What happens to your experience of the body when you meet it with kindness and awareness?

8:51is there a release or a softening perhaps a judgment can all be known right here right now

9:32What would kindness do right now? You're resting in this reflection.

9:56knowing the body is right here with you. It's real.

10:06Can you offer it kindness, appreciation, or gratitude? Not because it looks or performs in a certain way, but because it lets you be here.

10:39Take one more slow, kind breath.

10:47Feel the whole body as a single living field. Messy, tender, miraculous.

10:58When you're ready, opening your eyes or lift your gaze.

11:07Don't have to move or stretch or run. Just notice that you are embodied.

11:21Big thank you to Bart. Again, don't forget to sign up for my new meditation app, 10 % with Dan Harris. You can get it at danharris.com or wherever you get your apps. There's a free 14-day trial if you want to try before you buy. Lots of great stuff over there, guided meditations. This podcast ad-free and weekly live video guided meditations and Q &A sessions with me and many of the other teachers. Really, it's a great way, this app is, to do meditation as a team sport, to do it in the carpool lane with me and the meditation teachers and all of the other members. It's just a super supportive community, which the research shows is a great way to create an abiding habit.

12:04Join the party. And thank you to 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.