From ABC, this is the 10 percent happier podcast, Dan Harris.

Hey, hey, time for our Friday bonus, and this is this is a good one. This is a bonus meditation from from my friend Jeff Warren, who's one of the teachers in the ongoing New Year's meditation challenge that we're running through the 10 percent happier app.

One of the most stressful mind states that I personally have experienced is what meditation teachers often refer to as the comparing mind when we're comparing ourselves to other people or comparing ourselves to the way we used to be. We're comparing this moment to a moment in the past. It pulls us out of the present. It it can be the source of a lot of suffering. Again, I'm speaking from personal experience right now. Theodore Roosevelt once referred to comparison as the thief of joy.

So in this guided meditation, we're going to learn how to make a citizen's arrest, if you will, on this thief. Before we dive in, just a quick ask.

We would appreciate it immensely if you would take a few minutes to help us out by answering a survey about your experience with this podcast. We're always looking for ways to improve these surveys. Help us a lot in particular for this one. We'd like to hear from people who listen to the podcast a lot, but do not use the companion app. So if you want to hook us up, go to 10 percent dotcom survey, 10 percent dotcom survey. This is for anybody.

We have a particular interest in people who use the podcast, but not the app. But we'd like to hear from anybody and everybody. So thank you for that. Here we go now with Jeff Warren. Hello, I'm Jeff. The human mind compares the present with the past in order to make better predictions about the future. That's how it works and it has a lot of benefits. But it also has at least one big downside. It can prevent us from seeing the value of what's right in front of us.

So let's explore this. Eyes closed or downcast, looking at the ground in front of you. You can start with taking a few deep breaths. So taking a big breath in and as you take that breath, you stretch up and find a little bit of alertness in the way you're holding yourself. And then the exhale is the downward motion. The settling. Softening the eyes and the jaw and the cheeks. Softening the shoulders, so nice, long exhale here to kind of get us in in the zone.

So we can start by choosing something to lightly pay attention to, like the sensation of the breath say. Well, maybe the sensation of some other part of the body, maybe the hands or the belly or the feet. Just noticing how this is in the moment. And as we do this, we try to find something of an easygoing attitude. Taking this opportunity to relax, to enjoy this break. So it can happen even in meditation, that in some subtle way we start to compare our present experience with a former experience or an ideal.

And then we start to feel a bit dissatisfied with how things are now. Maybe we had a kind of idea of how this could go, but it's not really measuring up and we're a little bit put out by this. So see if you can notice this dynamic happening in any way could be super obvious or might be really, really subtle, more in the background. The antidote to comparing mind is to practice really, truly being in the now. Can you open up to how things are right now?

Without having any kind of bias baked in. And the attitude we're bringing is like we've just been born into this moment, like we're waking up just now. Into a moment. That's exactly right. This moment right now. Exactly right. This moment right now. Exactly right. There is nothing to compare this moment to because it's completely unique. Can you notice this freshness? Keep exploring with this attitude. OK, good. When you're ready, if your eyes were closed, you can open them.

I'm Jeff Selter. Big thanks to Jeff, and we'll be back on Monday with a fresh episode, I give you one definition of an unusual couple.

Oh, I don't think that was ever in question. Marvel Studios first series has arrived on Disney Plus. You ventures your talents to the universe. He's expanding Juanda. And you really wonder, welcome home, Marvel Studios, one division. I think we handled that well. First two episodes now streaming exclusively on Disney plus.