Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness.

Today I'm going to talk about

mindfulness and conflict.

So I think something that we often

misunderstand about practicing

mindfulness is, you know, in the

beginning we might practice mindfulness

and feel like it's going to help us

rise above all the challenges and

all the messiness of everyday life.

So the thinking kind of is that you can

generate so much of a feeling of bliss

in the mind, permanent kind of state of

bliss and that will mean that we will

never again be confronted with difficult

situations and you'll be so at peace

that he'll never again, argue with anyone

or experienced conflict with anyone.

The reality is, is that conflict is

really a part of life in the sense that

people will have different opinions

to yours, people will probably still

be triggered by you and you buy them.

Other people will probably let

you down, disappoint you and

disagree with you and vice versa.

And know, no matter how much inner

peace we generate, the conflict in the

world is also still going to be there.

And you'll probably still feel a

bit of tension at some point during

Christmas dinner every year, you know.

There's an old saying actually, um, If

you want to know if you're enlightened

go home and live with your parents.

I think it was Ram Dass who said this.

So I guess what he's pointing to

here is the fact that mindfulness

cannot magically remove all the

conflict and difficulty in your life.

It's still going to be there.

And for most of us, it would be there if

we went home and lived with our parents.

But what we can do, what mindfulness

does offer, is the ability to

change how you respond to conflict

when it inevitably does arise.

So mindfulness helps us become less

reactive so that we don't immediately

get pulled into our old conditioning, our

old reactive patterns and go ahead and

say, or do things that we later regret.

It does help us respond with

greater wisdom, greater compassion

and greater self awareness.

So very often in a moment of

conflict, we can get taken over by

our old automatic reactions, right?

We've all been there.

Maybe we shut down.

Maybe we walk out.

Maybe we become angry and annoyed.

Mindfulness can help us in those

moments when we feel ourselves

slipping into that reactivity, because

it allows us to pause for a moment.

And in that pause, we can

choose to shift our behavior.

In that way millisecond of a pause

of awareness, when we can become

present, we can choose to shift the

energy of the conversation to one

grounded in non-judgment, curiosity,

open-mindedness and kindness.

You might not end up agreeing with

each other, but no matter which way

the conversation goes, you'll be

more able to stay centered, calm,

and composed, and then feel much

better about the interaction later.

So whenever conflict does come your way,

see it not as something that shouldn't

be happening, but as an opportunity

to learn, evolve, and to make the

choice to bring greater connection

and unconditional acceptance into

your relationships and into your life.

So as always thank you for your

practice and your presence here

with us, and now inviting you to

settle in for today's meditation.