Attention Copilot with Pranab

I spoke with Kristin Neff about self-compassion, nondual awareness, and her attempt to build a model of awareness and consciousness that maps onto her lived experience.

Timestamps:

0:00 Nondual retreats, concepts, and practice
6:20 Awake awareness, mind-wandering, and creativity
14:22 What changed after 50 meditation retreats
19:02 A model of nondual awareness that fits with science
35:43 “You are not your thoughts” — and what comes next
54:51 Self-compassion through a nondual lens
1:08:27 The inner critic, shame, and the wish to be loved
1:15:54 Fierce self-compassion: acceptance and action
1:20:33 AI, consciousness, and subjective experience
1:28:24 What Kristin is working on now

Kristin Neff is a researcher and author on self-compassion, and was my professor at UT Austin during my final year of college. With Chris Germer, she co-developed the Mindful Self-Compassion programme. Her books include Self-Compassion, Fierce Self-Compassion, and Mindful Self-Compassion for Burnout.

We talk about her recent retreats with Dustin DiPerna and Michael Taft, the difference between mindfulness and awake awareness, and her attempt to build a conceptual model of nonduality that remains compatible with science.

We then connect nondual practice back to Kristin’s work on self-compassion: why advanced practitioners can still struggle with self-judgment, how shame and the inner critic can be understood as protective, and the difference between tender and fierce self-compassion. We finish with AI, consciousness, and whether intelligence requires subjective experience.

Learn more about Kristin’s work, workshops, and community.

This podcast is sponsored by Attention Copilot. You can spend all day working and still avoid the things that would make the biggest difference. Our somatic productivity coaches help you identify, prioritize, and face them. During an 80-minute to three-hour call, you settle in, share your screen, and do your actual work. Your coach helps you work through stress, make decisions, and stay clear-headed. Over time, you can feel more satisfied with your weeks, more confident taking on bigger things, and more at ease in your work.

Kristin links:

• Kristin Neff / Self-Compassion Institute
• Books by Kristin Neff
• Self-Compassion Community
• Guided practices

Resources mentioned:

• Michael Taft / Deconstructing Yourself
• Dustin DiPerna
• Rupert Spira
• Loch Kelly
• Thich Nhat Hanh / Plum Village
• Chris Germer
• Michael Levin / Tufts University
• Qualia Research Institute
• Mahamudra

I spoke with Toby Sola about meditation, effectiveness, and the feedback loops between deep practice and living a meaningful life.

Timestamps:
0:00 Meditation is unnecessary and insufficient
5:35 Meditation and real-world effectiveness
9:39 Deep practice, creativity, and productivity
14:48 Building feedback loops between meditation and life
20:43 Procrastination as sensory experience
28:35 How Shinzen Young still procrastinated
31:57 Why meditation instruction alone isn’t enough
40:38 Discernment as a trainable skill
52:00 Happiness independent of conditions
56:20 Seasons of transcendence and engagement

Toby Sola is the founder of Brightmind, a meditation teacher, and longtime student of Shinzen Young.

We discuss Toby’s view that meditation is neither necessary nor sufficient for becoming effective in the world, but that practice and everyday life can be deliberately connected so that each strengthens the other. Toby calls this “feedback loops”. We talk about ways deeper practice can support creativity and effectiveness, Shinzen Young’s struggles with procrastination, therapy and accountability, developing discernment, and why happiness independent of conditions still needs to sit within a broader engagement with life.

Meditation offers a tractable way to train attention, awareness, and your ability to stay with discomfort. But you can develop deep insight without changing your habits. To become more effective, you need to apply those skills to specific situations, like starting an avoided task and deep listening during a difficult conversation. We also need to seek feedback and support from others. Meditating more isn’t always the missing step. As you build this feedback loop between meditation and action, you also build the self-trust and support to practice more deeply, developing meditation and effectiveness together.

Sponsor: This podcast is sponsored by Attention Copilot (https://attncopilot.com). You can spend all day working and still avoid the things that would make the biggest difference. Our form of executive coaching helps you identify, prioritize, and face them. During an 80-minute to three-hour call, we help you shift your affect, share your screen, and do your actual work. Your coach helps you work through stress, make decisions, and stay clear-headed.

Links:
Brightmind Meditation
Instagram (Tobyornottoby3000)
Shinzen Young — Periodic Table of Happiness Elements (Happiness Grid)

I spoke with Dr. Gena Gorlin about the Builder’s Mindset, self-authorship, and how we can update beliefs and behaviours.

Timestamps:

0:00 Introspection vs rumination
4:28 The Builder’s Mindset and treating life as your central project
17:39 Drill Sergeant, Zen Guru, and the Builder
25:39 Choosing your own ladder and making work meaningful
38:22 Are we naturally builders?
45:27 “Death is the default; default is not destiny”
53:19 From repairing yourself to building your life
1:01:54 How beliefs change
1:08:27 Noisy minds, intrusive thoughts, and OCD
1:14:47 The Builder’s Mindset in relationships

Gena is a psychologist, founder coach, and Clinical Associate Professor at UT Austin. She is writing a forthcoming book with Penguin on the Builder’s Mindset.

We discuss Gena’s Drill Sergeant, Zen Guru, and Builder framework: pushing yourself up inherited ladders, stepping away from them, or deciding what actually matters to you and building from there.

We talk about meaningful work, therapy as repair versus building, parts work, changing entrenched beliefs, intrusive thoughts, and why Gena sees healthy relationships as fundamentally positive-sum.

Learn more through Gena’s newsletter, The Psychology of Ambition.

This podcast is sponsored by Attention Copilot (attncopilot.com). You can spend all day working and still avoid the things that would make the biggest difference. Our coaches help you identify, prioritize, and face them. During an 80-minute to three-hour call, you settle in, share your screen, and do your actual work. Your coach helps you work through stress, make decisions, and stay clear-headed. Over time, you can feel more satisfied with your weeks, more confident taking on bigger things, and more at ease in your work.

Gena links

• Gena Gorlin’s website
• The Psychology of Ambition
• Gena on X
• Founder coaching with Gena

Gena’s forthcoming book is being published with Penguin and is currently projected for fall 2027. Paid subscribers to The Psychology of Ambition can also book a complimentary 30-minute conversation with Gena.

Resources mentioned

• The Hard Thing About Hard Things — Ben Horowitz
• Eternalism, nihilism, and meaningness — David Chapman
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
• Internal Family Systems (IFS)
• The Sovereign Child — Aaron Stupple

I spoke with Maija Haavisto about meditation, dissociation, living with chronic illness, and her severe physical symptoms after a nondual shift.

Timestamps

0:00 Chronic illness, loving-kindness, and discovering meditation
8:55 When meditation helps and harms
18:29 Awakening, suffering, and spirituality as connection
25:18 Two forms of dissociation
32:20 Trauma, parts, and the fiction of personality disorders
39:29 Is society built on dissociation?
46:23 Why you can’t speedrun healing
59:04 Somatic parts work
1:01:57 Nonduality, energy, and physical illness
1:20:05 Bulgaria, intuition, and spiritual practice

Maija Haavisto is a writer, therapist, and author of Loving Awakening and Shattered White-Out.

We discuss meditation’s benefits and risks, how to view all inner and relational dynamics through a "parts model" of the mind, and the function of dissociation.

We also talk about the label of personality disorder, speedrunning healing, somatic work, and Maija’s experience of physical illness following meditation and nondual shifts. We finish with her move to Bulgaria, Balkan music, and her changing relationship to spiritual practice.

This podcast is sponsored by Attention Copilot (attncopilot.com). You can spend all day working and still avoid deep work on the things that would make the biggest difference. Our coaches help you identify, prioritize, and face them. During an 80-minute to three-hour call, your coach helps you work through stress, make decisions, and stay clear-headed as you make progress on actual work. As you build this skill, you can feel more satisfied with your weeks, more confident taking on bigger things, and more at ease in your work.

Maija links

Website

Medium

X

YouTube

Guiding and somatic work
Books and writing

Both Loving Awakening and Shattered White-Out are available to download for free. You can reach out to Maija to explore working with her.

Resources mentioned

• Loving Awakening: A Practical Guide to Embodied Spirituality and Healing with Metta, IFS, the Imaginal and Community — Maija Haavisto

• Shattered White-Out: How Trauma and Dissociation Mold the World, Your Relationships and You — Maija Haavisto

• Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation (TWIM)

• Internal Family Systems (IFS)

• Maija’s guided meditations and hypnosis

• Ken McLeod — Unfettered Mind

I spoke with Dan Grossman about how to take the somatic side of psychedelics and therapy seriously. Along the way, we explore the relationship between compelling narratives, meaningful experiences, and good science.

Dan is a clinical psychology PhD candidate studying the bodily dimensions of psychedelic experiences, including shaking, movement, and vocalization, which many describe as central to their healing work.

People can find these experiences deeply meaningful and healing, and it’s interesting that they seem to show up across different substances. But that doesn’t necessarily confirm the explanations we attach to them. Does the body literally store and release trauma? What evidence supports the idea that animals “shake off” traumatic experiences? And how should we approach frameworks like polyvagal theory when people find them useful, but their scientific claims remain contested?

We also discuss parts work, the role of symbols and imagery in healing, and the relationship between meditation and therapy. Dan describes meditation as a form of “epistemic hygiene”: a way to engage with powerful experiences without taking every interpretation at face value. Throughout, we ask how the worlds of vibes and science might learn from each other.

You can get in contact with Dan via LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-grossman-906873119

This podcast is sponsored by Attention Copilot (attncopilot.com). You can spend all day working and still avoid the things that would make the biggest difference. Our somatic productivity coaches help you identify, prioritize, and face them. During an 80-minute to three-hour call, you settle in, share your screen, and do your actual work. Your coach helps you work through stress, make decisions, and stay clear-headed. Over time, you can feel more satisfied with your weeks, more confident taking on bigger things, and more at ease in your work.

Scott Britton and I explore how ambition and spiritual practice can become one path. We talk about using resistance at work as data, widening the choices we can see, and building a culture where inner development supports meaningful action. Learn more through Scott’s website, his book Conscious Accomplishment, his recruiting firm Conscious Talent, and the EvolutionFM podcast.

0:00 Integrating ambition and spiritual practice
4:22 The limits of “succeed first, wake up later”
8:05 How business coaches make spiritual ideas usable
13:45 The outside-in paradigm behind achievement
19:04 Resistance is data, not proof of misalignment
22:24 How stress hides better options
25:24 Better thinking inside the box versus expanding the box
28:20 Awareness as a practical source of capacity
31:50 Holding truth lightly in disagreement
35:31 Hiring people who already value development
40:24 Self-leadership makes flatter organizations possible
41:52 AI raises the value of small, mature teams
46:53 Pausing work can be the higher-leverage move
48:54 Who Conscious Accomplishment is designed to help
52:46 The inverse journey: from spirituality back to action

Anne-Laure is the author of Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World. She also founded Ness Labs, a learning community for ambitious knowledge workers. You can learn more about her work at https://nesslabs.com

01:30 – Anne-Laure’s shift from Silicon Valley’s default success script
03:30 – Critique of the “follow your passion” fallacy
06:00 – Pranab’s personal experiment in meaningful work
11:20 – Cynicism as emotional self-protection
16:30 – Audience unpredictability and the paradox of online writing
18:30 – Pact method and intentional habit formation
24:00 – Four mindsets model: Cynicism, Escapism, Perfectionism, Experimentalism
45:30 – ADHD, hyper-curiosity, and evolutionary perspectives
53:10 – Mindful productivity and managing emotions in knowledge work
56:00 – Emotional coping strategies, interstitial journaling, and metacognition

Dr. Tucker Peck is a meditation teacher, therapist, and author of "Sanity and Sainthood: Integrating Meditation and Psychotherapy". Check out his website (https://meditatewithtucker.com/) and Twitter (https://x.com/tucker_peck) where you can learn about his upcoming retreats, teachings (eg. Motivational Interviewing course which I highly recommend), and more.

We talk about:
- "content and process" in meditation and therapy, and how to tell when you're imbalanced on either side (hazy vs crazy)
- compassion, warmth, and parts work re: The Mind Illuminated
- where distinctions break down at the deep end of practice (eg. 8th jhana, Awakening vs. Liberation referencing @shamilch's work)

00:41 - Content vs Process: The core distinction between therapy and meditation
03:15 - Common traps: Going too hard in either direction
06:23 - Parts work failure modes: When IFS becomes reactive and narcissistic
09:03 - The role of warmth, compassion, and meta in practice
12:15 - Self-hatred as the "common cold" of globalized mental health
15:17 - View and intention: How dharma can become self-abuse
18:17 - The Mind Illuminated: Control vs acceptance based on individual needs
20:27 - Michael Taft's advice: "Cultivate more dullness"
23:54 - Do-nothing practice: From literal non-action to ego recognition
25:44 - When content and process blend together in advanced states
28:50 - The uncertainty principle: You can't observe both simultaneously
31:33 - Content exists at a "medium lens of analysis"
34:26 - Journey meditation and jhana "junkies"
37:03 - The unfabricated/deathless in Theravada tradition
41:40 - Awakening vs Liberation: Shamil Chandaria's model
45:26 - Going big vs going small: Different paths to awakening
48:12 - Tucker's experience: Big path leading to small path work
51:35 - Skillful refabrication: Buddhism vs New Age worldviews
53:48 - Raw data vs conceptual overlay: The breath example
55:47 - Staying grounded while gaining interpretive flexibility

Peter McEwen is a meditation teacher in Boulder, Colorado. Visit his site (https://thefield.us) or https://x.com/techgnostic to learn more about his work.

00:00:00 Introduction and Upcoming Course on Tummo
00:04:56 Fruitional View and Dzogchen Practice
00:09:15 Self-Improvement vs. Self-Acceptance
00:10:12 Role of Emotions in Teaching
00:10:24 Emotional Healing in Practice
00:13:10 Understanding Tummo Practice
00:14:00 Explanation of Tummo Practice
00:15:11 Trapping Air in Central Channel
00:21:22 Healing Trauma with Tummo
00:24:52 Influences and Trainings
00:29:23 Secrecy in Lineages
00:34:24 Value of Tibetan Lineages
00:34:39 Monastic Safety and Structure
00:41:28 Reflections on Trungpa’s Legacy
00:45:39 Bruce Tift as a Teacher
00:51:58 Unconditional Kindness vs. Relative Behavior
00:56:12 Tolerance for Well-being
00:59:21 Untangling Self-sabotage Patterns
01:06:16 Upcoming Course Details