Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today I'm going to talk about staying in touch with what matters to you most. So what are the most important things to you in life? What matters in your relationships? In your career right now in this moment? So the most important things often get sidelined as we get distracted, rushed, and kind of, they get pushed aside in favor of us ticking off all the things on our to-do list or getting everything done in our busy calendars. And other people's priorities and preferences can pull at us and marketers try to allure us to what they want us to think is important. So if you don't have clarity around what really matters to you and really nurture it and make space for it, it tends to get drowned out by the din of everyday distractions and influences.

So my invitation to you today is to spend time getting really clear, as clear as possible on what really matters to you. If you have time, perhaps even making the time to write some stuff down around this and see if you can whittle the message down about what matters to just a couple of sentences. Or you could simply just use a word or a phrase that's really meaningful to you. Now, I know this might sound a little tricky, little crazy even to try and bring it down to that simplicity, but this kind of simplicity really does give you a clarity of purpose and direction. Now it's okay if you don't get the words quite right at first.

It doesn't matter if it's a bit of a messy process, and you can revise it later. But some examples of these kinds of purpose statements: the Dalai Lama's statement, "My religion is kindness." Or,Gandhi, "Be the change." Or one of my friend's statements is simply, "always do the kindest thing." Maybe yours could simply be a word like adventure, creative expression. Or another friend of mine has a purpose statement that says be brave, have fun, make a dent. So what about you? Just pondering right now what's the most important thing to you in life, to family, community, compassion and kindness, spirituality, fun, creating magic moments. And again, don't worry too much about getting the words just right.

It's kind of like right now, just getting the gist of what are the most important things to you, what matters most. So now that you're a little bit clearer, see if you can hold today, what matters really close to your heart. Let it guide you in your interactions with others, clarify what to say yes or no to, and let it be your North star that points towards what matters most. And again, if you have the time today, see if you can write something down, and then every day going forward, try to remember and reconnect your life's purpose so you can live a more intentional, mindful, and meaningful life. So in today's meditation, we're going to explore intentional living a little bit more.

So I invite you to begin to settle in for that now. And as always, thank you for your practice and your presence here with us.