How to stay calm in a terrible situation

Inside the mind of Sam Harris at a supremely stressful moment

On the night of Tuesday, January 7th, the podcaster/philosopher/neuroscientist Sam Harris was lying in bed at a friend’s house, having evacuated with his family (and two cats) from their home in Pacific Palisades, where wildfires were raging out of control.

Sam was on his phone, monitoring events, when he received a piece of information that convinced him that the family home was burning down—at that very moment.

As he lay there thinking about everything he was losing and how he would deliver the news the next morning to his wife and daughters, decades of meditation training kicked in. In the face of it all, he experienced equanimity.

How did he stay calm in this deeply shitty situation?

In three ways:

• Mindfulness. He was able to watch his thoughts and emotions come and go in the present moment—without attaching to (or identifying with) them. Meaning, he didn’t let them overwhelm him.

• Contemplating impermanence. The situation woke him up to a truth he’d been actively contemplating since his twenties—that nothing is stable. Or, in his words, “It’s all rented, all subject to entropy.” Anything can change at any time.

• Stoic cognitive reframing. No matter how bad things get, you can always imagine it being worse. Sam realized that he would rather lose his house than lose a limb or get a cancer diagnosis. (Also—he knew they had fire insurance and a place to stay while they figured things out.)

As it turned out, the house didn’t burn down (however, Sam and his family are now living in a rented house and may not be able to return to their neighborhood for a year). But he told me he is acutely aware of how lucky they are, compared to so many others.

In retrospect, being able to handle seemingly catastrophic news in the middle of the night was, in Sam‘s words, “almost perversely satisfying.” This is one of the major goals of meditation practice: to train for the hard stuff.

If you wanna hear more of my conversation with Sam, check out today’s podcast. Subscribers can get it ad-free right here. It’s also available wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.

Also, Sam and I recently teamed up with Joseph Goldstein to record an eight-hour audio series on the Buddha's Eightfold Path. To access it, you can sign up for Sam’s excellent Waking Up app at wakingup.com/tenpercent. If you use that URL to download the app, you’ll get a 30-day free trial. Hope you check it out.

In addition to getting the 10% Happier podcast ad-free, paid subs get a cheatsheet for each episode (with key takeaways, time-coded highlights, and a transcript), can comment on my posts, access my subscriber chats, and join my twice-monthly live video sessions, in which I guide a meditation and take questions.

Our next session is Weds, April 23rd at 5:00PM ET. Join the party.

Episode Cheatsheet

The big takeaway:

Sam Harris delves into the intricate nature of equanimity, compassion, and the illusion of free will. He shares how meditation has equipped him to handle personal and public challenges, emphasizing the timelessness of impermanence and the power of understanding natural human behavior over personalized hatred in polarized times.