Transmissions from the Northern Outpost

Tag: podcasts

  • How not to let the news overwhelm you

    Today, I listened to the following episode from the 10% Happier podcast with Dan Harris:

    In the episode, Harris talks with Claudia Hammond, an award-winning writer and broadcaster. She is Visiting Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Sussex and is the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s All in the Mind. Her latest book is Overwhelmed: Ways to Take the Pressure Off.

    Here’s another link to the website of Dan Harris with the podcast, including a transcript of the conversation.

    To me, the most relevant part of the conversation between them was about how to not let the news overwhelm you. That part of the conversation begins at 30:44 and ends at 40:56.

    For me, the key takeaways were these:

    • No news alerts on phone unless it’s for your job.
    • When does news affect you? Morning or evening? What’s best time for you to get or seek updates?
    • Choose one site or source reliable for you and fixed times.
    • Include a longer read. That way, you won’t be left with “panicked headlines” as Hammond calls them.

    Myself, I absolutely do not have alerts. In fact, I have limited notifications and use an app called minimalist phone that assists greatly with that. As for when news affects me, it’s moreso the late afternoon and evening where I get especially stressed by the news. So, I think Harris’s idea to put the phone away after dinner or at night might work for me.

    How do you not get overwhelmed by the news? What strategies work for you?

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  • What’s getting me through at the end of this week

    I’m catching up on some of my my favorite podcasts today and I thought I’d share with you what I’m listening to. As I am posting this, I only have listened to the first one and am in the midst of the second one. These two are for me useful. I can’t speak if the others will be or not yet. Feel free to listen to what might help you in your own journey.

    When To Pivot

    Freedom from Inner and Outer Tyranny: The Path of Spiritual Warriors

    Addendum: I am pivoting and not listening to all of these today because I’m already into second one and it’s a lot to contemplate. It’s not bad, but it’s a lot.

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  • The Five Remembrances

    Last week I planned on listening to a podcast episode each day Monday to Friday to help set me up for the new year. I got to two of them, the first of which I commented on last Monday here on the blog. The second one was from Dan Harris in conversation with meditation teacher Vinny Ferraro on the 10% Happier podcast: A Radical Buddhist Approach to Making This The Best Year of Our Life (warning for explicit language as Vinny isn’t your typical meditation teacher).

    The focus of the episode was on The Five Remembrances that the Buddha related in his discourse called Upajjhatthana Sutta or Subjects of Contemplation. They are, as translated by the late Thich Nhat Hanh:

    1. I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
    2. I am of the nature to have ill-health. There is no way to escape having ill-health.
    3. I am of the nature to die.
      There is no way to escape death.
    4. All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.
    5. My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand.

    Admittedly, these seem to be a downer to start the year on: you are going to grow old, be sick, and die. You are going to be separated from those you know and love and oh, you are responsible for what you do in this life. Have a happy new year now!

    But on the flip side, they really can be “vitalizing and enlivening,” as Harris mentioned in the conversation.

    It pulls you out of the dream. It pulls you out of The Matrix. It pulls you out of the autopilot.

    Vinny later adds:

    We have to get uncomfortable with uncertainty, because this whole life is uncertain. None of it is guaranteed…

    …if we’re alive long enough and looking around, wow, there’s a lot to let in, then the fact that there’s no one that is not in this situation. If that’s not a cause for compassion, that it’s not about us…you are of the same nature as I am… It’s never not true. There’s something about it that seems equalizing. There is an incomprehensible preciousness when you see this playing out in people’s lives.

    And also when you see it playing out in your own life and especially of those you know and love, it makes you/me appreciate, and be grateful for, every moment. To remember to be here now.

    From the cover of Be Here Now by Ram Dass, which also in on a sweatshirt I have been trying to remember to wear every day when I go out the door.

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