PODCASTHappiness Break

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This New Year, affirm the wonderful qualities you already possess with this meditative writing practice with Chris Murchison called "I Am."

How To Do This Practice:

1. Settle your body and breath: Find a comfortable seat. Close your eyes or soften your gaze. Take a few slow, deep breaths. Feeling your belly and lungs expand. Bringing your attention into the present moment.
2. Notice what’s here: Briefly tune in to what’s moving through you right now: thoughts, emotions, sensations in your body, and the space around you. There’s nothing to change—just notice.
3. Begin with “I am…”: Open your eyes and place your pen at the top of the page. Write the words “I am…” and complete the sentence with whatever feels true at this moment.
4. Keep writing continuously for one minute: On each new line, write “I am…” again and complete it. Keep your pen moving for a full minute. Don’t edit, judge, or overthink. Just let the words come.
5. Pause and reflect: Put your pen down. Read what you’ve written. Notice where you started, how your responses shifted, and where you ended. Look for patterns, themes, or surprises.
6. Carry it forward: Take a few mindful breaths. Consider how this clearer sense of your present self might shape how you move into the next moment with more awareness and care.

Today’s Happiness Break Guide:

CHRIS MURCHISON is an artist and meditation teacher.

Check out Chris’s website: https://chrismurchison.com/

Follow Chris on Instagram: https://tinyurl.com/4nyjahj4

Related Happiness Break episodes:

The Healing Power of Your Own Touch: https://tinyurl.com/y4ze59h8

A Self-Compassion Meditation For Burnout: https://tinyurl.com/485y3b4y

How to Be Your Own Best Friend: https://tinyurl.com/y5kbecej

Related Science of Happiness episodes:

How to Stick to Your Resolutions in 2024: https://tinyurl.com/mub9z9z4

How Holding Yourself Can Reduce Stress: https://tinyurl.com/2hvhkwe6

How To Show Up For Yourself: https://tinyurl.com/56ktb9xc

Follow us on Instagram: @ScienceOfHappinessPod

We’d love to hear about your experience with this practice! Share your thoughts at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #happinesspod.

Find us on Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Help us share Happiness Break! Leave a 5-star review and share this link: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Transcription:

DACHER KELTNER: Hi everyone, I’m Dacher Keltner, and this is Happiness Break, where we share practices to cultivate calm, resilience, connection, and joy, all in just a few minutes. Before we start today’s practice, I want to wish you a Happy New Year from all of us here at The Science of Happiness.

If you’re a new listener, welcome, we’re happy you’re here. And if you’ve been with us a while, thank you. We’re so grateful to have had you as a part of our community this past year, and we’re really excited about all the great things we’re creating for you in 2023.

And I know this time of year can be a lot — be it good, bad, or both — so today’s Happiness Break is all about self-affirmation – supporting yourself, in whatever way you need.

We’ll be guided by artist and meditation teacher Chris Murchison, who’ll lead us through a short writing practice called “I Am.”

When we see ourselves clearly, and understand what we’re feeling and doing in the present – it can benefit so many areas of our lives.

It helps us use our emotions in wise ways. It helps us become better decision makers. We communicate more effectively when we know what we’re feeling. And it actually relates to being given higher status as leaders and being afforded more trust within relationships.

We’re going to really tap into our present self, by writing for one minute straight. Taking the extra step to write out our affirmations, has been shown to not only be able to help us better fulfill them, but it also helps us be less anxious in the here and now.

So grab a pen and a piece of paper, whatever you have nearby – you can also pause this Happiness Break if you need a moment to find something to write with. Here’s Chris.

CHRIS MURCHISON: Let’s begin by taking a few mindful breaths. So please close your eyes or avert your glance. Just breathe deeply. A full belly breath, full lung breath, and bring your attention to this moment. To any thoughts passing through your mind, to any feelings or emotions arising to your body and to the space surrounding you.

Now open your eyes and gather your pen and paper. At the top of your piece of paper, complete this sentence, “I am…” And fill in that blank. “I am…”

Now let’s do that again. So just below that sentence, write, “I am…” And fill in the blank. “I am…”

Now I invite you to continue writing this sentence and completing it for the next minute. Keep writing it. “I am…” Fill in the blank.

“I am… I am… I am…” And do that continuously for the next minute and I’ll start counting now.

“I am… I am…” And continue writing.Begin to capture your last one or two sentences. “I am… I am..”

Now pause. Place your pen down. Take a moment to observe what you’ve written. You may have written five, 10, 15 sentences, all capturing some quality about how you are right now.

You might consider, where did you begin? How did you begin answering this question, or stating this question? How did your answers evolve or change? Where did you end?

What might all of these words say about how you were showing up today in this moment, and what has your attention? Take all of that in. Look for the themes, any patterns. Look for just what you notice.

Now take a few more mindful breaths and we’ll close this exercise by considering how what you’ve just written might influence how you enter the next moment and the rest of your day. Thank you.