Ready to begin or deepen your meditation practice? Join Dan Harris and world-class meditation teachers on the 10% with Dan Harris app here: https://app.danharris.com/membership What does it actually mean to trust life — especially when life is handing you something genuinely terrible? This fan-favorite Meditation Party episode, originally aired in 2024, covers that question and a lot more. Sebene Selassie is a meditation teacher, and author of You Belong. Jeff Warren is a meditation teacher, Dan's co-author on Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, and host of the Mind Bod Adventure Pod. Together they make up Meditation Party — an occasional series on this show that is both substantive and reliably funny. In this episode, they cover: - The "trust life" mantra — what it means, where it came from, and whether it requires buying into a magical view of the universe - Jeff's version: "this is the curriculum" — and why seeing your challenges that way changes everything - Sebene shares openly that her cancer scans were moving in the wrong direction — and how she's working with fear, control, and surrender in real time - Your voicemails: how to code-switch between soft/flow mode and the relentless grind of work and caregiving; what to do when you've run through an obsessive thought 25 times and counting; and whether it's okay to nap instead of meditate (spoiler: yes) - Pop culture recommendations: a fantasy novel steeped in South Asian mythology, clowning as a spiritual practice, the Barbra Streisand memoir, The Greatest Night in Pop, and more This episode originally aired in 2024 and is a rerun. Subscribe to watch more 10% Happier videos: https://www.youtube.com/tenpercenthappier Follow Dan Harris on Social Media: https://www.instagram.com/danharris/ https://www.tiktok.com/@danbharris https://www.facebook.com/DanHarrisABC https://twitter.com/danbharris https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-harris-91ba5716b/ Timestamps: 0:00:00 Introduction and context 0:03:00 Trust life — what does it actually mean? 0:08:00 Does everything happen for a reason? The cosmology debate 0:13:00 Jeff's version: "this is the curriculum" 0:18:00 The three timescales of practice — moment, months, and a whole life 0:24:00 Sebene on applying trust life to a worsening cancer diagnosis 0:28:00 Dan on the last two years: the shitty stuff and the compounding practice 0:30:00 Voicemail: how to balance soft/flow mode with the relentless demands of work and caregiving 0:37:00 Setting intentions as an antidote to self-centeredness 0:41:00 Voicemail: obsessive thinking — what to do when you've been through it 25 times 0:48:00 Voicemail: is it okay to nap instead of meditate? 0:51:00 Pop culture recommendations: books, clowning, Barbra Streisand, We Are the World, and more #meditation #mindfulness #mentalhealth