19: The Joy of Being Mindful, with Harvard's Dr. Ellen Langer

Dr. Ellen Langer, a social psychology professor at Harvard University, is widely considered the “mother of mindfulness”, researching the topic since the 70’s. She has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Psychological Association’s Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest, the Liberty Science Center Genius Award, the Distinguished Contributions of Basic Science to Applied Psychology award from the American Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology, the James McKeen Cattel Award, and the Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize. She’s the author of the book that arguably introduced the concept of mindfulness to the public consciousness, Mindfulness, now in its 25th-anniversary edition. In this episode Dr. Langer shares what mindfulness really is, how we can get there, and how it can help us get through this and every moment with more joy.

Key Takeaways

• What mindfulness really is (hint: it’s not a practice or an activity, it’s a state)
• How mindfulness and its attendant benefits to well-being all connect to the ability to exist in the present
• How stress, mood, and life satisfaction are entirely the result of our personal interpretation of experience
• How to enter a state of mindfulness, and condition ourselves to live that way (and why it’s one of the healthiest things we can do)

Favorite Quotes
“All we have is moments. All of our stress is based on the future.”
“Hoping for something has built into it the expectation that it is unlikely.”
“If we just make the moment better, everything will fall into place for us.”
“Information changes depending on context”
“Events don’t cause stress. What causes stress are the views we take of events.”
“When you’re mindful, you’re averting the danger not yet arisen… you’re there so you can take advantage of opportunities to which you’d otherwise be blind.”
“Mindfulness is not a practice. Mindfulness is actively noticing new things.”
“Most of the things we worry about are not worth the time.”

Support
This podcast is made possible by you — our listeners all over the world — from Brazil to Australia, the USA to Singapore. Please support the JOMO(cast) for just $3 a month. Sign up at patreon.com/jomocast.

Go Deeper
Sign Up for 7 Days of JOMO Quests, a free series of science-backed challenges to reclaim joy: experiencejomo.com/free-resources.

Follow @experiencejomo on Instagram, Facebook + Twitter.

Resources
Homepage: www.ellenlanger.com
Book:  Mindfulness -- 25th Anniversary Edition
Ellen speaks on the On Being podcast about mindlessness and mindfulness:  link The Langer Mindfulness Institute
Follow Ellen on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.