Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today, I'm going to talk about positive and negative thinking. So for a lot of us, we can hold this idea that we need to always be thinking positive and that negative thinking is something that we really need to get rid of in order to be okay. But the reality is that trying to control all of our thoughts is not only not possible, but doing so can never really free us from the mind. It's awareness that liberates us because it transcends all thoughts, the so-called positive and the so-called negative.

So when I think of this idea, for me, it's a little bit like the weather. Some days it's sunny and calm with a few puffy white clouds and the birds are singing. Now on those days, we might react to that weather with excitement and elation. You know, we like it, so we feel great. We go outdoors, we play and we run.

And then on other days there may be storms that roll through. And for some reason,on those days, it really affects us. You know, we don't like, it brings about a low mood. So we get caught up in, other words, in that kind of resistance to how things are that day. But no matter what the weather is, it really is just simply weather.

There's nothing actually inherently good or bad, positive, or negative about the weather. It's just different kinds of weather. And I think awareness offers us the opportunity to be like the sky. The sky just allows all the different kinds of weather to pass through it, but it remains unchanged, steady, spacious, and unaffected, no matter what happens. The sky doesn't judge the weather as positive or negative and it doesn't react to the weather.

It just allows it all to be and abides as it is. Awareness is like that. It allows us to step back from the thoughts so that we're no longer caught up in them. And there's no longer a sense of clinging of like, I need to have these kinds of thoughts because they make me feel good. And there's no resistance.

There's no sense of, I don't want to have any of these thoughts because they make me feel unpleasant. We can actually just relax all of that, because when we abide in that sky-like mindful awareness, we experience thoughts as simply mental events that pass through the sky of the mind in the same way the weather passes through the sky. So they're simply seen as bits of language that just passthrough. We don't have to buy into them or believe in them. We don't have to obey them.

So in this way, we learn to rest in a sense of wholeness, ease and peace that's beyond or beneath positive and negative thoughts and emotions. And that sense of peace can stay with us no matter what's passing through the moment. So the more we can learn to rest in mindful awareness, the less pulled around we are by all of our thoughts and emotions. And the more we find true freedom and peace of mind. As always, thank you for your practice and your presence here with us.

And just inviting you now to settle in for today's meditation.