Hello and welcome to Happy Place with me, Fern Cotton. This is the show that

finds ways to help us heal from the past. Today I get to chat to young

Quebleau. I was oblivious to the pattern. I didn't see it until I hit that

breaking point where whenever I would feel sadness or tension or some

anxiety I would have quickly rolled up another joint or you know make sure

that I'm just sort of intoxicated in some manner or another or that I'm

totally externalized where I'm either just like joking with friends or playing

video games or just doing something so that I'm not paying attention to myself.

It wasn't until I hit that breaking point where I was like I realized okay I

got here because I've been working so hard at lying to myself. I didn't want to

admit that I didn't feel good. Young Quebleau is the pen name of meditator, poet,

and New York Times bestselling author Diego Perez. He's previously written

two books inward and then clarity and connection and now he's written lighter

which I just loved because he shares his personal story from growing up in

poverty to drug abuse as an adult, defining ways to lift all that heaviness. I'll

let him explain how he came to find meditation in just a moment but what I

particularly love about his approach is his acknowledgement that meditation

isn't just a one-time click your fingers and all your problems will go away

solution. What it can do though is have a really powerful effect on how we react

to our problems. That's a really interesting distinction that we can get into

a bit in this chat.

At Miss Aides Benz, we're always finding new ways to do things, new ways to

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