Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today I'm going to talk about moving from transactional ways of relating to more mindful and heartful ways of relating. So it's often the case that as we go through our lives, a lot of our interactions with other people have this kind of unintentional quality to them, where we're just going through the motions, a bit of a transactional quality to them. So whether it's a person at the checkout at the store, a delivery guy, or maybe a person in a meeting at work, or even a family member, a lot of the time we just kind of bump into people throughout the day and we have these small exchanges of time with them. But in that process, how often do we pause for a few moments just to be truly present with that person, to look them in the eye, to meet them in the moment, to acknowledge a sense of the value, the goodness of the exchange? And what I mean by valuing the goodness of the exchange is, you know, the checkout person is actually providing a really valuable service to you in that moment.

And hopefully they're being, you know, friendly. The delivery guy has brought you something you needed, et cetera. Or maybe you're talking to a family member and organizing something. So here's a little practice for you today, if this resonates with you to try it. In every little interaction with someone else, whether it's an email, a conversation at the checkout, or even in traffic, just try not to be totally transactional.

That is, see if you can let go of being in a mindset of just barely seeing or being with this other person and just kind of getting your stuff done through them. See if instead you can use all of those little moments of interaction as opportunities to be really present. Just aiming to be fully there with this person, to listen to them, to see them, to let them feel your total presence there. And of course, you know, having an attitude of being warm and kind to them. This doesn't have to be a huge change in your behavior.

It's really more of just a shift in attitude and the order of importance of things. So let the most important thing in those moments become just being fully present. So that's the invitation for today. Practice letting go of being transactional and opening to being more heartful, more mindful. I think you'll find that when you do this practice, there'll be more little moments of true connection, fulfillment and meaning getting sprinkled all throughout your day.

So wishing you well with this practice. And as always thank you for your practice and for your presence here in this community. And now let's settle in for today's meditation.