Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today I'm going to talk about shedding the past. So as we travel through life, we tend to accumulate lots of conditioning and beliefs along the way, and we carry it with us. We tend to wake up each day and pick up our past - wounds, regrets, limiting beliefs, self-judgment, resentments, and grievances, and our whole personal story. And we carry all of that with us into the day.

So we tend to, in a way, kind of recreate the world each day that is based on the blueprint of the past. But just like a snake sheds its skin, mindfulness offers the possibility of shedding the past and being reborn into this brand new day and this brand new moment, fresh and new. So my invitation and my prayer for us today is let's shed the past. Let's shed the past and let's embark on the adventure of today with the beginner's mind. And that means letting go of the mental baggage we often carry - our expectations, our rigid rules, our attachment to outcomes.

Shedding it all and meeting the world around us with curiosity, open-heartedness and wonder. Let us appreciate this day. Let us lean in, light up, learn and discover what's here to be known and felt and seen and heard and touched. Let us be filled with the energies of gratitude and vitality as our hearts beat and our lungs breathe and the tides flow and the planets spin and the stars shine. Let us pause long enough to let the appropriate sense of awe set into our being.

Let's co-create this day. Let us choose to show up and not shut down, to share a piece of our hearts instead of piece of our mind. And let's share our kindness, our courage, our care, our creativity, and all of the colors of our true self. Let's share it with each other and let's share it with the world. Let us love this day.

Let's remember to lead with our hearts and let go of hostility, judgment, hate, and the armor around our hearts, embracing kindness, compassion and bravery. Let's see past our differences and connect, care and commune. And let us play today. And let us rest. And let's remember that life isn't as serious as the mind makes it out to be and that laughter is good medicine.

And so is silliness and so is cloud watching and so is doing nothing at all. This new day and this new moment, right now, is full of possibility, potential and aliveness. So let's hold this intention to shed the past, breathe into this day and step into the mystery and wonder of this day, this day, that will never be lived again. So let's live it with our hearts and our minds wide open. That's the invitation and the prayer for us today.

It's an honor to share this moment with you today. Thank you for your practice. And now let's settle in for today's meditation.