Dan Harris - 10% Happier - How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works—A True Story

Spring, who appears to be in her thirties, is the embodiment of everything that most bothers me about the meditation world. She’s really working that speaking-softly thing. Every s is sibilant. Every word is overenunciated. She wears shawls. She’s probably really militant about recycling.

She says we’re going to do metta or loving-kindness meditation, which sounds like it will fall foursquare into the category of Things I Will Definitely Hate. Here’s how it works: we are supposed to picture a series of people in our minds and then, one by one, send them well wishes. You start with yourself, then move to a “mentor,” a “dear friend,” a “neutral person,” a “difficult person,” and then “all beings.” Interestingly, she says not to pick someone to whom you’re attracted. “Too complicated,” she says. So I guess Bianca will not be on the receiving end of the good vibes.

I am immediately convinced that this exercise will never, ever have any meaning for me. Even Saccharine Spring acknowledges it might feel a little forced, although she insists it has the potential to “change your life.”

The one good thing about metta meditation is that, since we’re supposed to be physically comfortable while generating these good vibes, we’re allowed to lie on the floor. I would treat this as a free period, except I really did promise myself to play full-on. I lie down and prepare to love hard.

We start with ourselves. Spring instructs us to generate a vivid mental picture of ourselves, and then repeat four phrases. As she says them aloud, her speaking style elevates to an entirely new level of cloying. She draws out the last syllable of every word in an almost Valley Girl–esque drawl.

May you be happy.

May you be safe and protected from harm.

May you be healthy and strong.

May you live with ease.

I get that, just like regular meditation is designed to build our mindfulness muscle, metta is supposed to boost our capacity for compassion, but all this exercise is doing for me is generating feelings of boredom, disdain, and insufficiency. It makes me question my generosity of spirit. If I was a good person, wouldn’t I be suffused with love right now? If I was a good husband, wouldn’t I be on the beach with Bianca? Thank you for that, Spring.

Today is my thirty-ninth birthday. I am confident it will be the worst birthday ever.

The morning meditation is an epic battle with sleepiness. I can feel fatigue oozing down my forehead. I am overcome by the desire to burrow into this fuzzy oblivion.

The next sitting is a festival of pain, saliva, coughing, and fidgeting. My heart pounds. I feel shame and anger as I swallow, snort, and shift in my chair. Heat rushes to my cheeks. I must be driving the people near me crazy. I try to be mindful of it all, but I’m starting to forget what mindfulness even means. Straight torture, son.

Off the cushion, my misery is also intensifying. Most of my thoughts center on how I can possibly survive six more days here. I recognize that part of the goal of a retreat is to systematically strip away all of the things we use—sex, work, email, food, TV—to avoid a confrontation with what’s been called “the wound of existence.” The only way to make it through this thing is to reach some sort of armistice with the present moment, to drop our habit of constantly leaning forward into the next thing on our agenda. I just can’t seem to do it, though.

I wonder if the others can tell that I’m struggling. Everyone else here seems so serene. I mean, there are some ostentatiously mindful people here. There’s one guy staying on my floor who I have literally never seen moving in anything but slow motion.

I really thought it would be easier by now. This is way worse than jet lag. I’m starting to worry that I’m going to have to come home and tell everyone—Bianca, Mark, Sam—that I failed.

I do the last walking meditation session of the night in the upstairs area, above the meditation hall. I’m struggling to stay focused on lifting, moving, placing , with my mind wandering variously to thoughts of watching TV, eating cookies, and sleeping. At the end of one back-and-forth, I look up and see a statue of the Buddha. Silently, I send him the following message: Fuck you.

I wake up desperate.

I’m drowning in doubt, genuinely considering quitting and going home. I seriously don’t know if I can make it another day. I need to talk to someone. I need help. But I don’t have an interview scheduled with Goldstein today. The only lifeline available to me is Dreaded Spring.

Since she is still technically an apprentice teacher, Spring is not assigned to directly oversee any of the yogis throughout the retreat. She has, however, posted a sign-up sheet on the message board for anyone who wants to come see her for an interview. With no small amount of hesitation, I sign up.

When my time comes, I enter the little office where she’s receiving people. She’s seated, smiling, with her shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She looks impossibly smug to me. I’m not even sure we are equipped to communicate with each other. We’re two different species. This is going to be like a lizard trying to talk to a goat.

But whatever—I dive right in to my cri de coeur. “I’m giving this everything I have,” I tell her, “but I’m not getting anywhere. I don’t know if I can hack this. I’m really struggling here.”

When she answers, she’s no longer using her funny voice. She’s talking like a normal person. “You’re trying too hard,” she tells me. The diagnosis is delivered frankly and firmly. This is a classic problem on the first retreat, she explains. She advises me to just do my best, expect nothing, and “be with” whatever comes up in my mind. “It’s the total opposite of daily life,” she says, “where we do something and expect a result. Here, it’s just sitting with whatever is there.”

She goes on to say that she’s received a whole series of distraught retreatants, many of them in tears. This produces a very un-mettalike feeling in me: a satisfying rush of Schadenfreude. Well, well: some of these zombies aren’t as blissed-out as they seem, after all.

I look back at Spring, sitting there with her curly locks spread out over her shawl, and I realize this nice woman was a victim of another one of my rushes to judgment. Spring is actually very cool; I’m the dumbass. She’s right: it’s not complicated; I’m just trying too hard. I feel so grateful I could cry.

For the next sitting, I decide to take a chair from my bedroom and put it out on the balcony at the end of the hallway in my dorm. I tell myself I’m going to lower the volume, to stop straining so much. I’ll just sit here and “be with” whatever happens.

I can hear the others in the distance, walking back into the meditation hall for the start of the session. Then it gets really quiet. I sit, casually feeling my breath. No big deal. Whatever, man.

A few minutes in, something clicks. There’s no string music, no white light. It’s more like, after days of trying to tune into a specific radio frequency, I finally find the right setting. I just start letting my focus fall on whatever is the most prominent thing in my field of consciousness.

Neck pain.

Knee pain.

Airplane overhead.

Birdsong.

Sizzle of rustling leaves.

Breeze on my forearm.

I’m really enjoying putting cashews and raisins in my oatmeal at breakfast.

Neck. Knee. Neck. Neck. Knee, knee, knee.

Hunger pang. Neck. Knee. Hands numb. Bird. Knee. Bird, bird, bird.