Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today, we're going to talk about the relationship between thinking and stress. There's a story about this. A psychology professor was teaching a class one day. At one point, she raised a glass of water out to the audience and asked, how heavy is this glass of water? Now the students started shouting out all their guesses and answers, but after a while, she simply replied, "You know, from my perspective, the total weight of this glass, it doesn't really matter.

What does matter is how long I keep holding it. If I hold this glass for a minute or so, it's pretty light. It's pretty easy. But if I hold it for an hour, my arm out like this, that's really going to start to burn. And if I hold this glass for a day, it's going to be agonizing.

At some point, my arm would probably become paralyzed, numb, and I'll smash the glass on the floor. I wouldn't be at a hold it." "Now, the weight of the glass in each scenario of time didn't change. But the longer I hold it, the heavier and harder it feels for me," she said. "This glass of water is like your stressful thoughts. Think about them for awhile.

And that's going to feel okay. Think about them a little bit more, that's going to begin to burn a little. Think about them all day long, every day and you will probably feel consumed by suffering and stress. You could even end up at the point where you crash completely or become so paralyzed by the suffering that you're incapable of getting on with your life until you learn to stop carrying the weight of all those thoughts." This story beautifully illustrates the vital importance of learning how to manage our stressful thoughts. So how can we do this? Well, of course, you know, the most effective way that I know of, that I've ever encountered in my life is through practicing mindfulness.

And practicing meditation regularly really trains in this specific skill of learning how to unhook from thoughts and ground ourselves back in a calm, steady awareness. But in daily life too, one of the simplest ways is just to keep catching yourself whenever your mind is getting caught in stressful thoughts and just mentally noting to yourself in those moments in a really warm and playful tone, just thinking. And then returning your focus to the present moment. So we really want to catch ourselves here. Every time you catch yourself, mentally note and then let go.

You're setting down stress, reclaiming more peace of mind. And as Buddhist teacher, as Ajahn Chah said, "If you let go a little, you'll have a little happiness. If you let go a lot, you'll have a lot of happiness. And if you let go completely, you will be completely happy." So as always, thank you for your practice and your presence here with us. I hope this practice serves you well in daily life.

And now let's settling for our meditation.