Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness.

Today, I'm going to talk about the

habit of running from ourselves.

This is an interesting topic

because there's really nowhere we

can go to escape our own minds.

It will be with us wherever we go.

Far better then to sit down, make

friends with the mind, and come to a

mutual place of understanding and care.

So, probably by now, you've already

discovered that you can't outrun yourself.

You know, if we're feeling very

stressed, even if we go on holidays

to a very beautiful place, when we're

there in a different environment,

away from the difficulties of daily

life, the mind still brings the

same thoughts and feelings with us.

Now, if you are on holidays, maybe

after a few days, you feel a little bit

different, but still the mindful follows

us wherever we go and tends to start

up the same patterns again and again.

So soon that same kind of

pattern of stress returns.

And even if you just look at day to

day life, when we try to distract

ourselves, if something's very

difficult, very challenging, we often

try to numb or get away from it.

Maybe we don't really

want to be with ourselves.

You don't want to be with that

feeling, with those thoughts.

So we turn on the TV, we go online or

whatever it might be, but we find ways

to distract ourselves thinking that we're

escaping the thought or the feeling.

But of course, as most of us have found,

at some point we have to turn the TV off,

the distraction is over, and then we find

ourselves back in the same place again.

So through meditation, we create an

environment, a space where we can

sit and learn to get comfortable with

the mind, no matter how it appears.

Happy, sad, busy, quiet,

it doesn't matter.

And through that process of our coming to

understand the mind, we find a place of

peace and ease in the body, in the mind,

where we can be happy and content, no

matter where we find ourselves in life.

So as always, thank you for your

practice and your presence here with us.

And let's now settling

for today's meditation.