Hi, welcome back to

your Daily Mindfulness.

In today's session, I'm going to

share a tip for making hard decisions.

So on a day-to-day basis, in

a moment to moment basis, we

are always making decisions.

Simple benign decisions, such as:

should I have this extra cup of coffee?

Should I go to the

bathroom now or hold it?

Should I take this phone call

or work on emails instead?

Every moment, we're making decisions.

But a lot of times we're

making harder decisions.

Should I move?

Should I take this job?

Should I have this difficult conversation?

Should I be with this person?

And often when we're trying to make

a decision, we're focusing on the

yeses to that decision and the nos to

that decision, the pros and the cons.

And there can be a big emphasis

on why we would want to say yes to

this decision, especially if it's

something that we're we're pulling for.

And we tell ourselves all the

reasons why it's really good,

why we'd be excited about.

Maybe trying to convince ourselves of it.

And then we'll focus on the cons as

well, but might not go fully into

those cons, especially if we feel

like ah that would be, that might

sway us in a direction toward a no.

And we don't really need to go into that.

We don't want to be negative.

Let's focus more on like, why we'd

be excited about this decision.

However, if we don't allow

ourselves to fully embody our nos,

we can't fully embody our yes.

I'll say that again, and

really let this one sink in.

If we don't allow ourselves

to fully embody our nos, we

can't fully embody our yes.

And why is that?

Well, think about the decisions

that you've struggled with.

You, you're telling yourself it's

really good for a certain reason.

You're really caught up in the

story of why it's good, why

you might be excited about.

But there's something in it

that just feels like, I don't

know if this is the right thing.

And you think about maybe the downsides

of it, you kind of touch them but it feels

painful to really go into those downsides.

And it feels like that

might hold a lot of weight.

So instead since I really want

this to work, I just focus more

on the yes, the yes, the yes.

But by not going into the no, and not

really going into the depth of the

fear, it just sort of lingers there.

It remains there, even when we're

caught up in the story of the yes.

That's what keeps this lingering

feeling of, I don't know if

this is the right decision.

The only way to get around that is to

descend into the no, to really go into

that fear and really see, what is this?

What is this that I'm scared of?

What is this that's telling me no?

And let yourself embody it fully, to

feel it fully and to understand it fully.

Once you do, interestingly, what often

happens is we realize, alright, yeah,

there are some concerns here, but

since I've looked at it so clearly, and

I've allowed myself to feel it fully,

I realize I can be okay with that.

If we don't drop into that, it

just remains this subconscious

feeling of, Hmm, maybe this is

something that we should avoid.

And so, if we want to get to a place

of having a really clean yes around

something or a really clean no around

something, we have to very deeply go

into and embody what those cons, what

those nos are first until we can actually

get to some clarity and a clarity that

includes the fullness of us, not just

the story of our mind about why we want

it to work or don't want it to work.

So hope this gives you something to think

about, especially if you are navigating

some hard decisions in your life.

Thank you for your practice.

Let's settle in for today's meditation.