Hi, welcome back to

your Daily Mindfulness.

In today's session, we're

going to talk about deep rest.

So one of the things I've found

for people that I've worked with

is that many of us actually need

training in rest and relaxation.

We have certain ideas of

what that would look like.

And usually it comes in the form of

maybe taking a break, having a cup

of coffee, or going on vacation.

But I think what many people find, and

myself included, before getting into

this work is that we can go through those

experiences, but still feel an inner

torment or an inner chaos, agitation.

Think about any time that maybe you've

been on vacation, but your mind is still

at work or your mind still is not giving

yourself permission to really be there.

So, it's one thing to take a

break and it's another thing

to really inhabit deep rest.

The way I like to define deep rest

is letting go of our inner struggle.

Letting go of our inner struggle.

Because we can take time

away from our external world.

We can shift the elements of our external

world to be a little bit more peaceful,

but if we're still creating internal

agitation, if we're still fighting the

emotions that we're experiencing, the

thoughts that are moving through our mind,

the sensations we're feeling in our body

or any aspect of our sensory experience,

that's still a form of tension.

I mean, think about it.

Anything that you have that you put force

against is going to create more tension.

And this is what many of us tend to

do on an ongoing basis, even when we

have the opportunity to take a break.

So the way I like to think about this and

work with this, like how do we actually

let go of this inner struggle, is to

practice curiosity over contraction.

Contraction can happen at the

psychological level, the emotional

level, the physical level.

Psychological being this, this

shouldn't be here, so thoughts.

The emotional level, we get angry

about the experience being there.

The physical level, we actually tense

around an already tense experience.

So instead of contraction, just

practice offering curiosity.

Curiosity, doesn't have an agenda.

It's not trying to get you somewhere.

It's not trying to change the experience.

It's just meeting it with an open hand.

And when we can do that with

our internal experience, even

if there's already tension.

Right?

Think about how you've had tension

perhaps in your life, but then you

get mad that there's tension there.

Well, that's just another form of tension.

So we can meet tension with curiosity.

Oh, what is this like right now?

We can meet stress with curiosity.

What is this like right now?

And in that way, we're creating a

container to hold the experience that's

spacious and allows the experience to

shift, to change, to pass, to complete.

But eventually allows us to drop into

a state of deep rest where we've let

go of some of this inner struggle

that we're so often engaged in.

So something to think about, to

take into your meditation practice.

Thank you for your practice and let's

settle in for today's meditation.