Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness.

Today, I'm going to talk about

allowing yourself to let go.

So in meditation, we want to practice

letting go of being caught up in the

mind and learn to rest in awareness.

Now while they sounds really

simple, it's not always that easy.

And that's because we tend to have a

very strong tendency to keep replaying

over and over again, in our mind,

our problems, our resentments, our

worries, our cravings, our to-do list.

And we kind of keep the mind

chewing on all of this stuff

like a dog chewing a bone.

And it actually takes quite a bit of

mental effort and energy to keep replaying

these thinking patterns over and over.

It actually is a very tiring

and draining experience.

Sometimes a very stressful experience,

when you really pay attention.

So how do we really unwind this habit of

being caught up in all of that thinking

so that we can tap into peace of mind?

Ultimately, it's actually very simple.

There are really only two steps here.

The first is to notice that you're

chewing on something in the mind.

So you, you want to recognize

that you're caught up.

Now, the mind will always try to

convince you that you really need

to solve this problem, or think

about this concern right now.

It has a bit of a gravitational

pull to it, allure to it.

But if you can remind yourself in that

moment that whatever it is that the

mind is chewing on, it really can wait.

Then you can move to step two, which

is a simply allow yourself to let go.

And letting go is really

not that complicated.

How do you go have a piece

of coal in your hand?

You simply open your hand and let it go.

So in this case, you simply open your

attention so you unhook from the thought

and bring it back to your meditation.

So if you were doing a breath

meditation, you simply bring your

attention back to feeling your breath.

Sometimes when it's really tricky, it

can be kind of helpful to mentally say

to yourself, it's, it's safe to let go.

Because sometimes the mind is

really trying to, you have to remind

the mind that it doesn't have to

work so hard to look out for you.

It doesn't have to keep

chewing on this thing.

You just remind the mind it's safe to

let go, invite the mind to let go, and

bring it back to the focus of attention.

So in today's meditation, we'll practice

this some more so that you can really

get a feel for this ability to let go.

So let's begin to settle in for that.

And as always, thank you for your practice

and your presence here in this community.