Resisting What You Don’t Want To Feel Just Makes It Worse. Here’s A Different Strategy. | Ofosu Jones-Quartey and Cara Lai
10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Media, LLC
4.6 • 12.2K Ratings
🗓️ 23 October 2024
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What you resist persists. Buddhist strategies for acceptance and equanimity.
Ofosu Jones-Quartey, 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.
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.
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.
Beyond music, Ofosu is an author. His self-published children’s book “You Are Enough” debuted in 2020 and his next work “Love Your Amazing Self” via Storey Publishing in 2022. Ofosu’s latest book: “Lyrical Dharma: Hip Hop as Mindfulness” will be released in 2025 via Parallax Press. You can pre-order the book here.
Ofosu lives in Rockville, Maryland, with his wife and four children.
Cara Lai has worked as an artist, wilderness guide, social worker, and therapist before becoming a full time meditation teacher. She teaches teens and adults at Spirit Rock, Insight Meditation Society, and Ten Percent Happier.
To find out more about what Cara does, you can go to her website, www.caralai.org – where she’s got some online meditation classes, including one called Meditate Your Face Off. She also has a monthly class for parents, co-led by Ofosu Jones-Quartey.
Speaking of podcasts, Cara also co-hosts a podcast called Adventures in Meditating (For Parents), along with Jess Morey and Jon Roberts.
Cara lives in Vermont with her husband and their 2-year-old son.
Related Episodes:
The Upside of Desire | Cara Lai
Can You Get Fit Without Self-Loathing? | Cara Lai
Rewire How You Talk To Yourself | Ofosu Jones-Quartey
What It’s Like To Do A Year-Long Silent Meditation Retreat—By Yourself | Cara Lai
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Wundry Plus subscribers can listen to 10% happier early and ad free right now. |
| 0:05.0 | Join Wundry Plus in the Wundry app or on Apple Podcasts. |
| 0:10.0 | This is the 10% happier podcast, I'm Dan Harris. Hey, how we doing everybody? It is so natural and understandable our desire to push away what we don't |
| 0:36.6 | want to feel, to resist, to deny, to compartmentalize, believe me, I get it, but as you |
| 0:41.6 | probably know that resistance just makes whatever we don't want to feel stronger |
| 0:46.8 | Hence the old expression what you resist persists |
| 0:50.3 | Today we're going to talk about some Buddhist strategies for acceptance which as you will hear |
| 0:53.9 | definitely does not mean resignation. We're talking to hear about equanimity being okay |
| 0:58.9 | with whatever you're feeling so that you can respond wisely to any situation. |
| 1:04.4 | Speaking of sticky situations, we are recording and releasing this episode in the middle of |
| 1:08.3 | the 2024 U.S. presidential election, but I want to be super clear that the advice here is applicable wherever you find yourself and whenever you find yourself. |
| 1:17.0 | My guests are Karalai and Afosu Jones Corte. Kara has worked as an artist, wilderness guide, social worker, and therapist before becoming a |
| 1:25.0 | full-time meditation teacher. |
| 1:26.6 | Afosu is the male voice over on the Balance Meditation app. |
| 1:29.9 | He's also an author, and a hip-hop artist who records under the name Born I. |
| 1:35.3 | In this conversation we talk about the Buddhist concept of the three root poisons and |
| 1:39.0 | why Kara and a Fosu see these poisons as the cause of all the suffering in the world. |
| 1:43.9 | How to be mindful of these so-called poisons, which include greed, hatred, and delusion |
| 1:48.7 | so that you can handle them in a more sophisticated and supple way. The value of not clinging to your opinions and the freedom |
| 1:55.2 | that can be found in not knowing. Mindful approaches to working with social media |
| 1:59.6 | and why Kara and a Fosu believe mindfulness in itself is a form of activism. |
| 2:05.2 | We'll get started with Carly and Afosu Jones-Korte right after this. |
... |
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