Hey friends, welcome to

your Daily Mindfulness.

So imagine you do a presentation at

work, and then everyone on your team

has a chance to give you feedback.

If five of those people compliment

your work and one person criticizes

it, which one do you remember later?

Which one could keep you up

at night ruminating about it?

So if you're like most people,

the criticism gets highlighted

in our mind because of what is

known as the negativity bias.

So this bias towards the

negative is completely normal.

As human beings evolved, it was

vitally important to learn from

negative experiences so that we could

outwit predators and avoid dangerous.

So our brains register negative

experiences really quickly and highlights

them and stores them in memory.

So, you know, this helped us remember how

we could avoid future potential threats.

Now we don't live in a world anymore where

there's constant threats and dangers like

the thousands of years gone by, but our

brains still operate in the same way.

And the problem with the negativity bias

for us these days is that over the long

term, we can develop a growing tendency

to be pessimistic, stressed, and negative.

So what can we do to counter

this negativity bias?

Neuropsychologist and author Rick Hanson

teaches, that we can do this through the

deliberate practice of taking in the good.

So you can begin to give this

a try in three basic stages.

First, it's important to deliberately

look for, to be attentive to good

experiences in your life each day.

Now they can be really simple, just,

you know, appreciating the beauty in

the garden or the taste of your tea.

And the second part of taking in

the good is just, you know, when

you do have a good experience in

front of you really relish it.

Stay with the experience for

10 to 20 seconds, if you can.

Open up to the body sensations,

the feelings and all that's

happening in that moment.

Really drinking that good experience,

letting it fill your body and mind.

And then lastly, absorb the experience.

Really take a moment to, uh, appreciate

the fact that you had that experience

and really have a sense of, um, taking

it inside you and storing it in memory.

So today and for the rest of

this week, see if you can focus

on taking in the good like this.

Maybe think now, you know, what are

some good things in your life that

you maybe don't usually notice?

What's beautiful that you can

appreciate, enjoy and savor as

you go about your day today?

And in today's meditation, we're going

to take some time to really grow and

cultivate our capacity to take in the

good and therefore bring more lightness,

happiness and contentment into your days.