<p><em>New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.</em></p> <p>---</p> <p>Buddhist strategies for taming that nagging voice in your head.</p> <p><br /></p> <p><a href="https://bornimusic.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Ofosu Jones-Quartey</a>, a meditation teacher, author, and musician hailing from the Washington DC area brings over 17 years of experience in sharing mindfulness, meditation and self-compassion practices with the world. Holding a bachelor's degree from American University and certified by the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program, Ofosu is a graduate of the Teleos Coaching Institute and is the male voice on the Balance meditation app, reaching over 10 million subscribers. </p> <p><br /></p> <p>Ofosu leads meditation classes and retreats nationwide, having taught and led retreats at the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, The Insight Meditation Society, Spirit Rock, Brooklyn Zen Center, Cleveland Insight, Inward Bound Mindfulness and more.</p> <p><br /></p> <p>As an accomplished hip hop artist under the name "Born I," Ofosu released the mindfulness-themed album "In This Moment" in 2021. His most recent album is "AMIDA", a spiritual, Lo-Fi Hip Hop album exploring life, death and his Buddhist faith.</p> <p><br /></p> <p>Beyond music, Ofosu is an author, releasing his self-published children's book "You Are Enough" in 2020 and "Love Your Amazing Self" via Storey Publishing in 2022. He lives in Rockville, Maryland, with his wife and four children.</p> <p><br /></p> <p><strong>In this episode we talk about:</strong></p> <ul> <li>The relationship between self-compassion and a successful meditation practice</li> <li>All the reasons people resist self-compassion, and his rebuttals</li> <li>Whether self-compassion is selfish</li> <li>How to do self-compassion off the cushion, including practices like journaling, written reminders, establishing accountability partners, and simple questions you can drop into your mind when all else fails</li> <li>How to do self-compassion on the cushion, including practices like body scans, <em>metta,</em> and a check-in practice you can use at the very start of your sits</li> <li>And how to teach self-compassion to children</li> </ul> <p><br /></p> <p><br /></p> <p><strong>Related Episodes:</strong></p> <p><a href="https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/ethan-kross-365" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Voice in Your Head | Ethan Kross</a></p> <p><br /></p> <p><br /></p> <p><strong>Sign up for Dan's weekly newsletter</strong> <a href="https://bit.ly/3QtGRqJ" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>here</strong></a></p> <p><strong>Follow Dan on social:</strong> <a href="https://bit.ly/3tGigG5" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Instagram</strong></a><strong>,</strong> <a href="https://bit.ly/3FOA84J" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>TikTok</strong></a></p> <p><strong>Ten Percent Happier online</strong> <a href="https://bit.ly/46TZglY" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>bookstore</strong></a></p> <p><strong>Subscribe to our</strong> <a href="https://bit.ly/3FybRzD" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>YouTube Channel</strong></a></p> <p><strong>Our favorite playlists on:</strong> <a href="https://spoti.fi/3Qa8kMT" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Anxiety</strong></a><strong>,</strong> <a href="https://spoti.fi/3MjtMxF" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Sleep</strong></a><strong>,</strong> <a href="https://spoti.fi/3QvyA5J" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Relationships</strong></a><strong>,</strong> <a href="https://spoti.fi/3QxZASc" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Most Popular Episodes</strong></a></p> <p><br /></p> <p><strong>Full Shownotes:</strong> <a href="https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/ofosu-jones-quartey" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/ofosu-jones-quartey</a></p> <p><br /></p> <p><br /></p> <p><strong>Additional Resources:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: <a href="https://10percenthappier.app.link/install" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://10percenthappier.app.link/install</a></li> </ul> <p><br /></p>
Actionable Insights
1. Prioritize Self-Compassion as Foundation
Make self-compassion a foundational practice in your life, as it is essential for sustained well-being, resilience, and navigating life’s challenges, pulling you out of difficulties and preventing deeper falls.
2. Relate to Yourself as Friend
Cultivate a relationship with yourself akin to how you’d treat a best friend, offering the same care, understanding, and support you would to a loved one.
3. Integrate Mindfulness with Compassion
Move beyond mere mindful observation by actively responding to your inner experiences with kindness and warmth, rather than a ‘clinical and cold’ detachment, to make your practice whole.
4. Self-Kindness Fuels Your Journey
Recognize that kindness, gentleness, and patience towards yourself are essential fuel for sustaining your efforts and seeing your life’s path through to the end.
5. Grant Yourself Grace
Give yourself grace and avoid holding yourself to unreasonable standards, acknowledging the inherent difficulty and mystery of the human experience.
6. Address Harsh Inner Dialogue
Become aware of and actively work to change your harsh inner dialogue, as it degrades resilience, leads to burnout, and negatively impacts relationships.
7. Self-Compassion Boosts Effectiveness
Understand that self-compassion is a fuel for sustained effort and goal achievement, not an excuse for self-delusion; it makes you more efficient and effective, not less.
8. Embrace Discomfort for Growth
Recognize that self-compassion sometimes involves choosing uncomfortable actions, like rigorous training or facing fears, when they are ultimately in your best long-term interest.
9. Counter Unworthiness with Child Image
When feeling unworthy, imagine yourself as a child or a loved one and extend the same unconditional compassion, understanding, and care to yourself that you would to them.
10. Self-Compassion Liberates the Self
Practice self-compassion to heal and clarify your conventional self, bringing awareness to all parts of your experience, which ultimately supports liberation from suffering and attachment to a fixed self.
11. Self-Compassion Benefits All
Recognize that addressing your own suffering through self-compassion is not selfish; it contributes to healing your personal lineage and making the world a safer, more habitable place for others.
12. Daily Mind-Body-Emotion Check-in
Regularly check in with your mental, emotional, and physical state, then respond to yourself with the same kindness and words of support you’d offer a friend in a similar situation.
13. Start with ‘Baby Steps’ Kindness
Begin practicing self-compassion by acknowledging and giving yourself a ‘shout-out’ for completing even the most basic daily tasks, allowing the positive feeling to outweigh initial awkwardness.
14. Journal for Self-Support
Engage in journaling by writing short letters to yourself, recognizing your efforts and challenges, and offering words of support to create a healthy self-feedback loop.
15. Place Written Reminders
Place written affirmations or gratitude reminders in visible locations like mirrors or refrigerators to interrupt negative thought patterns and create moments of self-compassion and pause.
16. Utilize Accountability Partners
Partner with someone on your self-compassion journey, checking in periodically about your self-talk and practice to gain community support and maintain consistency without self-shame.
17. Practice Distance Self-Talk
Address yourself by your own name during self-talk (e.g., ‘Dan, you can do this’) to create psychological distance, which helps you access and heed your wiser inner voice.
18. Ask ‘What If I Wasn’t So Hard?’
When your inner critic is active, pause and ask yourself, ‘What if I wasn’t so hard on myself right now?’ or ‘Is it possible to approach this with more grace?’ to shift your self-talk.
19. Challenge Thoughts: ‘Is This True?’
Challenge anxious or negative thoughts by asking, ‘Is this really true?’ to methodically examine the reality of your thoughts versus the actual situation.
20. Practice Body Scan with Gratitude
During meditation, move your awareness through your body, appreciating each region’s function, collecting tension on the in-breath, releasing it on the out-breath, and offering a mental ’thank you’.
21. Metta for Inner Child/Needs
In loving-kindness practice, visualize yourself as a small child or identify your current needs, then offer specific words of kindness, reassurance, or wishes (e.g., ‘May I feel safe,’ ‘May I relax’) to yourself.
22. Formal Mind-Body-Heart Reflection
Begin formal meditation by checking in with your mind, body, and emotions; then, imagine a loved one feeling the same way and extend that same compassionate response and heartfelt attention to yourself.
23. Teach Children Self-Compassion
Plant seeds of self-compassion in children by consistently asking them, ‘How would you treat a friend who was going through the same thing?’ to help them extend kindness to themselves.