Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness.

Today I'm going to talk about a

really simple way that you can let

go of the habit of overthinking.

So letting go, for example, of getting

stuck in rumination about a problem or

getting stuck in anxieties and worries.

So I'm going to offer you a

little bit of a metaphor here.

Professors at universities, they hold

office hours once, maybe twice a week.

What they don't do is give that

students 24 hour access to them,

because if they did that, it'd pretty

quickly become totally overwhelming

and probably debilitating.

They'd never be able to

get any other work done.

Likewise, if we give our worries and

our ruminations and our self-doubts

24 hour access to our attention,

it's going to be just as debilitating

and actually quite destructive.

It's hard to focus properly on

anything if we're really overwhelmed

by all of that, you know.

We become stressed and kind of negative.

So, what if like those professors,

we set up office hours for our

worrying or our problem solving?

What if we were to make like a deal

with ourselves to set aside a brief

amount of time each day, or maybe each

week to do some focused thinking about

what could happen in the future and

some constructive problem solving?

Now after the office hours, we let it go.

If we can do that, then whenever we

start ruminating or worrying outside

office hours, we can simply give

ourselves permission to leave it for

now, knowing that we either already

dealt with it yesterday, or there's a

designated time and space to deal with

it later today, or maybe tomorrow.

So by giving ourselves office hours like

this, we can really let go of that habit

of always overthinking and then we can

find more ease and calm in everyday life.

Also, we can deal with life's

challenges in a much more

clear-headed, calm, and effective way.

So I invite you to take up office

hours for the rest of this week and

just play with it, experiment with

it and see how it goes for you.

Of course, the ultimate training for our

minds to become clear and focused ongoing

is through the practice of meditation.

So on that note, if you care

to, let's just begin to settle

in for today's practice.

And of course, as always,

thank you for your practice

and your presence here with us.