Hi, welcome back to

your Daily Mindfulness.

In today's session, we're going

to talk about why who you are

is bigger than your thoughts.

So let me share one of my favorite things

I get to hear when working with students.

You know, they start meditating

and investigating the mind or

a meditation practice, learning

to watch the mind thinking.

But one of the things that often

comes up is this recognition that

I can watch my thoughts without

thinking about my thoughts.

And that tends to be interesting for

folks, but it inevitably leads to the

question of if I'm watching my thoughts

it must mean that I'm not my thoughts.

And if I'm not my thoughts, then who am I?

And for some, this is a little bit

more than they bargained for when

they were coming to meditation

as a form of stress reduction,

feeling a little bit more peaceful.

All of a sudden we're in this existential

crisis, but it doesn't, I don't think

it has to be that way or a crisis.

I actually think it's a doorway into

a totally new orientation toward our

life and, and what a certain kind of

wellbeing and freedom could look like.

Because most of the time for, you

could say this is an arbitrary number,

but 99% of people, you know, caught

in, in their thoughts, caught in

their ideas, their beliefs, and where

they're going, what they need to do.

And this becomes their life, identity.

And you know, when the, when the

story is good, then life is good.

When the story is bad, then life is bad.

But the particular opportunity we

have here when we get to explore

through mindfulness and meditation

is what is it like to take a bigger

perspective about who you are.

And the very fact that there's a part of

you that can watch your mind thinking.

There's a part of you that can watch this

whole story that we take so seriously,

well, that must mean that who you are

is different or at the very least bigger

than that story and those thoughts.

So we'll go into our meditation

practice in a moment.

But as you go into it, and also as you

navigate the rest of your day, notice

when those thoughts really seem to take

a grip over you and just take a moment to

zoom out and notice that there's a part of

you that can watch all of this happening.

That part of you is more like

the sky than it is the clouds.

The clouds are the thoughts, the sky

is this awareness that just knows

what is happening, but it's vast, it's

spacious and it's inherently grounded.

That's what we want to connect to more.

And that's how we start to expand

the sense of who we are to something

bigger than just the momentary

storyline moving through our mind.

So hopefully this doesn't put you into

an existential crisis and instead serves

as a doorway into an understanding

of who we are in a much bigger way.

Thanks so much for your practice.

Let's settle in for today's meditation.