Anxiety Narrows Your Brain. Here's How to Widen It Back Out. | Susa Talan

10% Happier with Dan Harris

10% Media, LLC

Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.6 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2026

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Plus: how to handle discomfort, be more present, and remember to be aware throughout your day.

Most of us spend our days somewhere between the past and the future — technically conscious, but not really there. Meditation teacher Susa Talan takes live questions from practitioners on what it actually means to show up for your own life, and how to do it even when you can't sit still, even when you're crying, even when anxiety has narrowed your whole world down to a single racing heartbeat.

Susa Talan is a meditation teacher trained in the insight tradition. She works one-on-one with students around their meditation practice, and she was the Teacher of the Month for April 2026 for DanHarris.com. You can get more guided meditations from Susa in the 10% with Dan Harris app.

In this live Q&A, Susa Talan shares:

Why awareness isn't hard — what's actually hard is remembering to be aware
The "what else is here?" technique for working with anxiety and heart palpitations
Why you don't need to understand why you cry in meditation — and what to do instead
How to cultivate awareness all day long, not just on the cushion
Why meditation has nothing to do with sitting still — and everything to do with the whole car ride

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.
0:14.1	Hello, everybody. How we doing?
0:20.2	We are so often exhorted, everybody. How are we doing? We are so often exhorted, encouraged to be here now, to be present, to be in the moment. But then, of course, the question, how do you actually do that? And then how do you remember to do that? That is one of the things we're going to be talking about today with an ace meditation
0:39.0	teacher named Susa Talon.
0:41.3	What you're about to hear is a recording of a live session that Susa did with subscribers
0:47.2	to my meditation app, 10% with Dan Harris.
0:50.3	We do these weekly sessions that are only available to subscribers where you can meditate with me and or with one of our teachers and get your questions answered.
0:59.9	So what you're about to hear is the Q&A portion of one of these sessions.
1:03.3	Just a little bit more about Susa before we dive in here.
1:05.5	She's a meditation teacher, an artist and a writer who's been studying for nearly 20 years with her primary teacher,
1:12.6	a Burmese master named Sayada Utejania.
1:15.8	I have known and worked with Suza personally for more than a decade.
1:19.9	She is great, and I think you're really going to enjoy this session.
1:23.7	Real quick, before we dive in, just a rapid plug for my weekly newsletter. I think a lot of you know that I have this weekly newsletter, but if you're not signed up, I'd love you to sign up. You can do so at Dan Harris.com. Every Monday morning, you'll get a little nugget of wisdom for me in your inbox. It's a great way to start the week, especially when your inbox is likely filled with lots of annoying
1:44.5	work and distressing news, missives. But what I do is something very different. I give you just
1:50.3	a little bit of wisdom that you can operationalize in your life immediately. Also, the newsletter
1:55.6	is a great place to stay abreast of all the doings in the wider 10% happier cinematic universe.
2:01.4	It's where I talk about all the new content we're adding to our meditation app
2:05.1	and also give you updates on live events that I'm doing in person.
2:09.7	So Dan Harris.com sign up.
2:12.4	I'd love to have you on our list.
2:14.5	All right.
	...

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