How Mindfulness Improves Our Life

Hi, welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session, we're going to talk about all the different ways that mindfulness can enhance our life. Now, when we think of mindfulness, we often think of attuning more to the present moment, attuning more to our life, sensitizing ourselves to our life. And well, in the early stages of thinking about that, we tend to primarily think about sensitizing ourselves to the good things in life. The joy, the pleasures that we were unaware of, the sight of flowers on the sidewalk that we might've typically just passed by.

Or even good moments of, of celebrating something that happened to us that typically we just pass through and go to the next thing. However, mindfulness has sensitized me to my life, but that includes the bad and the good. And I want to speak to the benefits of both, because sometimes we, we recognize like, Oh, mindfulness may sensitize me to the bad in my life and I don't know if I'm up for that. Well, from the perspective of feeling happy, I, I do appreciate being sensitized to the good in my life. It's definitely brought more, more joy to me and excitement and love and all the things that I typically passed by.

I'm more appreciative of, I'm able to linger there and enjoy those moments that I wasn't able to before. But from the perspective of developing things like empathy and compassion and understanding, I actually most appreciate mindfulness for sensitizing me to the bad in my life. The things that are uncomfortable that I might've tried to avoid, the world conversations or the pains in the world that I might typically go, ah, I don't want to pay attention to that. By leaning into that with presence and curiosity, something in me has expanded, my heart has opened. And it allowed it, for me, it's allowed me to be a more useful human being in the world, to have more empathy, to have more compassion and to actually feel more connected to my fellow humans and fellow beings on this planet.

So I believe mindfulness nourishes the many dimensions of who we are, and sometimes it might attune us to things that are uncomfortable, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. That gives us the opportunity to, to open something else within us, to expand our heart, to deepen our empathy and to deepen our compassion. And that itself is a beautiful thing. So thanks for walking the journey. Thanks for your practice.

And let's settle in for today's meditation.