Hi, welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session we're going to talk about acceptance. And as I say that word, notice what your relationship to it is. Acceptance seems to be, uh, an emotionally charged word for many of us. And I think this is because we often associate it with giving up or passively resigning to life as it is.

This is just my plot in life. Just need to accept it. And even as I say that, I feel completely disempowered and uninspired. And so if that's our conceptualization of acceptance, then yeah, it's a, it makes sense why we wouldn't like it, or we wouldn't associate something positive to it. But within the mindfulness space, acceptance is more of a form of wisdom and could be perceived as a power because it's only when we accept our reality as it is when we meet the truth of what is here, that we can positively impact our future.

Otherwise, we have to run from ourselves or we're only partially embodied, or we need to suppress or hide what we're feeling because we haven't come to terms with the reality of our life as it is right now. And that can be a painful process, which is why we often don't want to do it. And so I'd like to just share three simple steps that you can use to start moving toward more acceptance in your life. If you'd like to close your eyes, you may, and I'll guide you through a short practice. But the first is just to think about something that you're struggling with accepting in your life.

It could be something big or something small. And then the Step Two is to notice how you feel when you think about this thing, specifically in your body, what is the body doing in relationship to the thought? Is it clenching? Bracing? Is it agitated? And what we'll do is invite the body to soften. As the body relaxes, it communicates to the mind that we're safe. And it just helps loosen our grip around trying to control so much of our life, specifically this particular experience. And then in the third step, we're just reminding ourselves that we can't change this moment, but we can meet it with grace, which is a form of acceptance.

And can you settle into the experience in such a way that there's a sense of being held by something bigger than yourself? This bigger thing could be connected to your faith or the universe, but it could also just be the recognition of a long lineage of people who have come before you for thousands, hundreds and thousands of years, who have gotten through difficult things that they thought they couldn't accept. So maybe just take a moment to breathe that in. And feel that you're held by something bigger than you. And so this is a practice that you can utilize at the day. If you'd like to open your eyes now, if they've been closed, you're welcome to.

Um, and I wish you well on this, this journey of acceptance, we're here for you through it. So thank you for your practice. And let's now settle in for our meditation.