Ep.07: Dr. Shauna Shapiro - Self Love and Compassion

Live Your Love - The Alisha Das Show

Dr. Shauna Shapiro is the radiant best selling author of Good Morning I Love You. Her Ted Talk has millions of views. She is just full of love and so uplifting.

We talk about the neuroscience of self-loving and compassion in a way that is accessible, uplifting and convincing to the part of us that is not exactly thrilled with the idea of...changing (even for the better).
With tips, resources and encouragement to jump into the arms of loving always waiting to embrace us if we would but open our heart just 5% more.

The weekend before our interview, I watched a delightful documentary with the Dalai Llama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, called Mission Joy. I so recommend it! This incredible love between the head of Buddhism and the one of the heads of Christianity two supposedly at odds religions will make you laugh, cry and hug anyone (hopefully yourself) in your vicinity.

I was moved by the story of how the Dalia Llama had to flee his country as a teenager on horseback, facing imminent capture, almost freezing to death and knowing he was likely seeing his beloved homeland for the last time. Employing a beautiful Buddhist technique of reframing (most of us are familiar with it but did not know the roots of it!), looking for the good in seeming tragedy. By the time he arrived in India he had decided the exile was a good thing! Those who received him were stunned to see how calm he was after such a harrowing journey.

Shauna has met and worked with His Holiness and I asked her about her experience with him which she generously shared. As expected, his presence was transformative for her. Not because he is a god (somedays he does not want to be the Dalai Llama) but because he PRACTICES what he wants to increase-loving, compassion, joy, for hours a day.

Shauna shared her story of coming to mindfulness and meditation originally, like most of us, to get out of pain. It worked and with it gave her a lifelong tool for joy and passion to share her good practices (and fortune). She then shared how knowing the science behind rewiring our brain, both explains and encourages us to practice what we want to experience.

We think we are at the effect of our world but we are much more at the effect of our neurons. Though we are born with a 'happiness set point' (the point at which we return after a life changing event) that is determined by our genetics and conditioning, thanks to neuroplasticity, we can change it.

As Shauna talked about, what we practice becomes stronger, our repeated experience shapes our brain. If we want more positivity we have got to practice it so that instead of positivity being a path we need to forge with machetes to get to joy, it becomes a superhighway and the momentum caries us that way. This is good news!
So HOW can we get better? Shauna gives a brilliant tip on changing just 5%.

I shared a deeply vulnerable experience I had had a few nights before our talk. My life seems to track the themes of my radio shows just a bit with cosmic synchronicity. I've learned to love and almost expect these 'signs' now. The bottom line of my experience was that I saw my body, fragile after surgery, with such deep self-love from a spiritual point of view.
We ended with a meditation in which I endeavored to give you an experience of all of this. You tell me if I was successful.

With love ❤️

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