Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, everybody, how we doing? Today, I'm gonna take your questions on a whole range of juicy subjects. AI anxiety, specifically what to do when you're really worried that AI is gonna take your job. We talk about coping with an impending MRI when you're claustrophobic, and I'm gonna be embarrassingly honest about my own experience with that.
We get into a technique from the meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein, for breaking out of mental loops that you've been in a thousand times. There's a great question about the need for external approval, which as a former anchorman, I have a lot of feelings about.
And we wrap up with something I think is actually very profound, which is why we need to hear the same things over and over before they sink in. So what you're about to hear is a recording of a live session I did with some subscribers to my newish meditation app, which is called 10% with Dan Harris. We do these sessions every Tuesday afternoon.
It's a great chance to meditate together, to get your questions answered, and really to experience the power of the carpool lane, which accelerates learning, growth, and happiness. The Buddha knew this, and so do modern psychologists who call it social support. Speaking of my app, very quickly, I just want to tell you we've got something very cool coming up this summer.
As you may know, the Buddha came up with a kind of cookbook to help you lead a happy life. It's called The Eightfold Path. It's one of his foundational lists. And this summer, over on the 10% app, Sharon Salzberg, the amazing meditation teacher, will be leading an eight-part series on The Eightfold Path.
Every Sunday, starting on July 12th, she's going to do a live session where she will guide a meditation and talk about one aspect of the Eightfold Path from maintaining focus and mindfulness to communicating successfully with other human beings. So go to danharris.com to get the app and join the party. This is going to be an amazing series.
All right, we're talking AI anxiety, breaking out of mental loops, and much more after this quick break. Laura, often the source of a good question weighs in.
How can you decide when to say dead end, like Joseph says?
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Chapter 2: What is AI anxiety and how can we manage it?
Sincerely, someone who is obsessing and scared AI is wiping out my career. Dude, I've been thinking a ton about this AI thing. My friend Sam Harris, some of you may have mixed feelings about because he can be a little controversial, but he's still my guy. He had a great episode a couple of days ago with Tristan Harris, who was related to neither
Me as Dan Harris or Sam as Sam Harris, just another Harris guy.
Chapter 3: How can meditation help during an MRI?
He runs something, I believe it's called the Center for Humane Technology. And listening to that episode definitely escalated my alarm about AI, not only in its economic impacts, but also just in its overall impacts on us as a species. Tristan is very good, though, when it comes to helping us engage with action as a way to absorb anxiety.
So that, you know, there are things we can do, including voting for people who take this issue seriously, AI safety, that is, informing ourselves and informing others. There's a new documentary I have not seen. It's in theaters. It's called AI Doc. I'm very interested in it. It's the type of thing where you might be able to organize a screening for you and your friends.
Chapter 4: What is Joseph Goldstein's 'dead end' technique?
Or if you've got a kid in school, you can organize a screening for kids. the parents. You can set up a chat group on text or whatever with your friends to talk about issues in AI. You can go check out the Center for Humane Technology and get involved if you want. I think Action, whether it's small or large, incremental or super ambitious, is really a great way to reduce concern.
Specifically, your concern, Laura, is about AI wiping out your job. And yeah, I feel you on that.
Chapter 5: Why is certainty not an indicator of truth?
I don't know that anybody in the long term is safe in this regard. I want to emphasize, I genuinely don't know. And it's that uncertainty that we humans are just not wired for. We're not wired to handle it. And it is really a design flaw because we live in a world, as we all know, characterized by relentless impermanence, ceaseless change, and yet we don't like it.
Chapter 6: What is the Buddhist perspective on alcohol consumption?
That's a bug that we need to figure out how to deal with. There are a couple of things that help me. One is this practice where you really start to get more comfortable in a, or more aware of in a visceral way, not just an intellectual or conceptual way with the nature of change.
As you're doing a body scan and you're moving from the sensations at the head to the forehead and onwards, you can just notice how the sensations you are being mindful of are just constantly in flux. You can really tune into that change just as a little way to get an experiential, visceral sense of impermanence as opposed to just knowing theoretically that everything changes.
So that's one thing that's very helpful. Another thing that's really helpful in dealing with uncertainty I've already mentioned, which is the concept of action-absorbing anxiety. The Dalai Lama has this thing that I've often found a little cute, but it is, I think it's true nonetheless.
Chapter 7: How can we stop seeking external approval?
I'm not going to be able to replicate the exact words of the quote, but the general sentiment is if there's something you can do about a problem, there's no point worrying. You should just do the thing. And if there's nothing you can do, there's also no point worrying because there's nothing you can do. I think that kind of
unintentionally makes those of us who are wired for worry feel bad because I can't help it. I'm just going to worry, especially when there's nothing I can do. But there are very few issues, I think, where there's nothing we can do. And that's why I think it's worth thinking about, okay, if your job feels vulnerable to automation,
Chapter 8: What does mindfulness mean in the context of remembering?
what's in your control what are the steps you can take oddly enough talking to ai about this can be useful but what are the moves you can take to protect yourself are there ways within your current organization that you might be the thought leader on ai being becoming the person who helps everybody else in the organization and therefore creating value around you as that person
We have somebody in our organization, shout out to Ben, who is playing that role. I think it's a really smart move. It's also a public service. So other ways that you might be able to deal with this uncertainty, I would add one other thing. So we talked at the beginning about meditation as step number one or one item on the menu. Two, action absorbs anxiety. Do what you can.
Three, never worry alone. So showing up here and talking about it with us, very helpful. At least it is for me. But talking to your friends, I think I mentioned this earlier, creating a chat group where you're all in it together. I think that's very helpful. And it obviously comports with how we are wired as a species, which is to be in community. Okay. Long answer to Laura's question.
Joni writes, help, please, Dan. I have to have an MRI soon. Any coping hints would be appreciated. Okay, so I'm going to be honest with you about this because my panic disorder and claustrophobia is so intense. The last time I needed an MRI, I had them knock me out. I'm like embarrassed to admit that because I feel like I'm Mr. Meditation.
I should have been able to be mindful throughout the thing, but it's just... Panic disorders, if you have it, it is really, really, really powerful. I wish I could say that after all my years of meditation, I've just conquered it, but I haven't. I hope that you don't have panic disorder and you have more like garden variety discomfort with the claustrophobia associated with an MRI.
So if that's you, let me say a little bit about some coping mechanisms that I think might be useful. One is you can bring your meditation practice into the MRI, of course, and be mindful of the sensations of discomfort, tightness in the chest, racing thoughts, rumbling in the belly. in the being mindful of those sensations, you are definitionally not owned by them.
Any moment of mindfulness of the sensations brings you out of the fear center of the brain, the amygdala, and into the more rational part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex. that, and I might be screwing up my brain, my neuroscience here. So I'm sure there are other parts of the brain that come online when we're mindful.
Sorry that I don't know all of them, but anyway, it is a great way to not be swamped by the feelings of discomfort. And so that's something that I find helpful in situations where I'm not in full on panic, but I'm
anxious nonetheless like i was in some elevators yesterday and in the city and i was using that using mindfulness another thing to do is and this you should do a consultation with your doctor because i don't want to be recommending i don't want to give you medical advice i am not a physician and what i'm about to say is a little dicey because medication for anxiety
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