Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today, I'm going to talk about loving back bigger. You know, it's easy to love people and treat them well when they treat you kindly. The real test is when they let you down, treat you badly, and this is when we need to love back bigger. When people treat us badly or hurt us in some way, you know, when we feel angry, wounded, resentful, shocked, sad, or disappointed, in these moments, we often want to lash out, speak badly about the person, punish or hurt them in some way.

Now these urges are really normal .You know? And in a situation where there's a true immediate danger, such as someone trying to physically harm you, these urges are really helpful in mobilizing us to attack back or run to get away. But most of the time when we get caught up in reactive emotions and retaliate beyond whatever is actually helpful, bad things follow. When we say and do things we later regret, the other person fires back and we get caught in vicious cycles of blaming, attacking, punishing. We can end up becoming the worst version of ourselves in these moments when we lose ourselves in vengeful for thoughts, hostility, and hatred. But when we love back bigger, we end the cycles of hostility and restore our own sense of inner calm, presence, and strength.

Now, before I go on, I just want to say that, Hey, in these situations, sometimes we absolutely do need to set boundaries, speak up for what matters, take care of ourselves in effective ways and stand up for ourselves. But we can do these things without slipping into reactivity. We can try, and I say try because this really is a practice. Something I'm working on myself. So how can we practice loving back bigger? Well, first of all, we can remember to see the other as a person, you know, with their own struggles and blind spots and wounds and flaws and weaknesses just like everyone else.

You know, we'll all make mistakes sometimes. When we see people this way, we can let go of blame and we can let go of taking it so personally. And, you know, move towards loving and accepting them beyond ideas of good and bad, right and wrong, beyond our pain or anger or what we want from them. We can just accept them as they are and choose not to hold on to any ill will. Second of all, instead of thinking about getting back at someone or ruminating about what they did or what they do and don't deserve, we can focus on who we want to be in the situation.

You know, if we value being kind, honest, compassionate, and patient, then instead of kind of stooping to somebody else's level of behavior, we can choose our own according to our values. And we can really act from that instead of falling into reactivity. So this is the practice for today and ongoing, to see if you can love back bigger. Even if it's only a little bit, it can make a big difference in bringing you more freedom and peace of mind. So as always, thank you for your practice and your presence here with us.

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