Rabbit Hole

Healing and growth, self-regulation and self-understanding — these are too idiosyncratic, too personal, too fundamental to depend on specialists-only. We also need to depend on ourselves and one another. In my mind, nothing will accelerate this more than recasting “teaching” as a creative social activity that any informed person can engage in.

If a practice is important to us, if it’s deepening our engagement with the world, if it’s teaching us about who we are, then you can be sure many of these basic skills are present and probably increasing. Understanding the skills is central to being your own life teacher, and to sharing practice with others.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the word “practice”. Both established practices lots of people do – yoga, tennis, active listening – and weird customized practices people invent – visualizing success, pretending to be a tree, or darning moth holes while listening to Amy Winehouse. 

From the Evryman Podcast: “You don’t need to run to the science, the science is cool but go to your own experience, do the experiment and see what’s there.”

This week’s guest is Writer and mediation teacher Jeff Warren. If there is such a thing as a rockstar meditation teacher, Jeff is certainly in the conversation.

The most important element for sustaining a meditation practice isn’t what practice to do, or how to do it, it’s how to show up, day after day. It’s structure.

From the Running for Real podcast: “What if I told you that you could meditate at any time of day, doing any activity? Would you be more likely to try it? You may be thinking that meditation is only for those people that already have their life together, or for people without children, or less-demanding jobs. But that isn’t true! Meditation is for everyone, and today you will find out how it can work for you”.

Far from being passive, I see meditation as a kind of activism, one that, right now, is sweeping the culture. If you’re reading this, you are part of that movement, a movement of sanity and community and genuine caring for others.

Last year, at a mood disorders clinic in Toronto, I was diagnosed bipolar. Whether or not I accepted the label, it was an accurate description of my symptoms. It had taken me so long to notice because mostly my moods were up. How could that be a problem? Being high is awesome, isn’t it?

A podcast about the science and practice of living well

From the 2019 Mindful Parenting Summit, with the ebullient Dr. Stacy Thomas. We discuss mindfulness as a general skillset for parents, how to craft meditation practices for kids, the importance of meeting kids where they’re at and the power of imagination

From The Soulspace Podcast: “In this episode, we decided to take a stab at some “deep end” questions that relate to practice. Jeff shares his personal vision for the future of mental health. At the very end, he leaves us with a beautiful 10 minute guided meditation.”

From the Astral Hustle podcast: “This podcast was a trip. Several times Jeff and I had to stop and scratch our heads because of the similarity of our experiences. We had fun and got into a deep talk about our paths and the far reaches of consciousness”.

Being human takes practice. From the Pausefully Podcast: “Jeff Warren talks about exploring consciousness from the perspective of how to live a more fulfilled life… approaching this exploration with a spirit of adventure.”    

From the Human 2.0 | Mind Upgrade Podcast : “Too busy to meditate? Can’t turn off your brain? Curious about mindfulness but more comfortable in the gym? This episode with Jeff Warren is for you.

Imagine a post-Apocalyptic landscape filled with careening hot rods, all kitted out with various high performance stylings, and all of them moving in the same direction. In this metaphor, our armada of vehicles represent the world’s contemplative and personal growth practices. They are beautiful in their freakish diversity.

From the Unmistakable Creative podcast: “Meditation can accomplish many things for many different people, and Jeff Warren has experienced that firsthand. Despite having attention issues, Jeff has been able to use meditation effectively and has studied it and its affects on people for years”.

Many of us are at war with ourselves. We’re divided, we have mixed feelings. We’re of two minds, of four minds, of eight minds. How many minds do we have in there?

Book blurb: “In Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, Dan Harris and his friend Jeff Warren, a masterful teacher and “Meditation MacGyver,” embark on a cross-country quest to tackle the myths, misconceptions, and self-deceptions that stop people from meditating.” Click to read book’s marketing description, plus my commentary.

Almost any domain or activity in life can be approached as an intentional practice, and the people who specialize in these domains have learned important things about being human. How can we draw this wisdom out? Introducing the Consciousness Explorers Club’s new pluralistic practice paradigm :)

Twice-born temperaments, on the other hand, are a little more complicated. They can’t wave away the world’s manifestly unfair distribution of hardship, and they’re generally unable to accept so-called “unseen realities” on faith alone. Their journey into spiritual feeling is more hard-won, the result of a lot of agonized fumbling and confusion.