Hi, welcome back to

your Daily Mindfulness.

In today's session, I'm going to

share three steps to change patterns.

I talk a lot about

patterns of conditioning.

These scripts that we can get caught

up in, the same actions that we take,

the thought patterns that trigger

emotions that trigger behaviors.

And the question then becomes, how

do we work with those patterns?

There are a lot of different strategies,

but from a mindfulness perspective,

there's something really powerful

to just settling into the momentum

of that pattern as it's arising so

that it doesn't complete itself.

A big part of changing patterns

is not letting them continue

to reinforce themselves.

So here are three steps you can use

in those moments where you feel the

energy, the momentum of a pattern moving

through you, pushing you to react in a

certain way, to respond in a certain way

and what you can do to work with that.

The first step is just to simply meet it.

This might seem obvious, but there's

something to bring presence to

the experience that can already

stop the pattern in its track.

It's no longer operating subconsciously

in the background of our awareness.

We're seeing it more clearly.

So we just meet it.

What does that look like?

It couldn't look like feeling it,

noticing the thoughts moving through your

mind and just a general sense of that

energetic momentum moving through your

body that's saying, I need to do this.

So we meet it.

The next step.

Another simple one.

Just breathe.

Take a deep breath.

The reason I use that so often and

the reason I say it for so many

different things is because it works.

It settles the nervous system.

It, it helps also disperse

some of that localized energy.

And when I say localized energy, I

mean like, think about if you wanted a

cookie or something, you would feel that

energy in your hands, or maybe in your

mouth, like you really want that thing.

When we take a deep breath, it allows that

to spread out throughout the body so that

it's, now we're a little less reactive.

So we meet it.

We take a breath.

And then the last step is to soften.

Again, this one might feel obvious

as well, but also really important.

When we're caught in a pattern,

it's often a form of tension.

We're gripping around something.

There's, there's something moving through

us that is saying you need to do this.

And do you feel the tension that comes

with that mentality of, I need to do this?

So even after we've met it, we breathe,

there may still be some form of tension

showing up in the body, the shoulders,

the jaw, the hands, and for that, we

just invite all of that to soften.

And what that will do it will

also make us comfortable in that

space of being with the pattern.

We'll no longer feel some of the

intensity, the emotional charge that the

pattern is bringing up and it allows us

to move through us in a more spacious way.

So three steps: meet

it, breathe, and soften.

Try this out when you find yourself caught

up in some of these patterns and at the

very least this should help stop them

in their tracks and not allow them to

reinforce themselves in a way that wants

to then create itself again in the future.

Thank you for your practice.

Let's settle in for today's meditation.