Hey, welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session, we're going to talk about how stress can help us grow. I remember watching this video on Facebook a couple of years ago about this rabbi professor talking about how lobsters grow. And it was a pretty funny story. And he says a lobster just starts out at this, as this small squishy thing, but it has a protective shell.

And eventually, in its lobster life starts to feel some pressure. Going around, feeling pressure, pressure, pressure. Doesn't like it. So what does it do? Sheds its shell gets another one. Ah, feel some ease.

Then continues on going about its day. It starts to feel more pressure again. Pressure, pressure, stress, stress. What does it do? Sheds the shell, gets another one. Ah, feels ease.

And continues this process for most of its life until it's a full grown adult lobster. Now where it gets funny is he goes on to say, you know, if at any point during that time of feeling pressure and stress, the lobster went to a doctor, got a Valium, made the stress go away, the lobster would never turn into a full-grown lobster. It would just stay small. And I thought this was just a great way for us to think about stress in our own lives. A lot of times when we consider stress, the relationship to it is something that is getting in the way of our wellbeing, hurting our health, getting in the way of our happiness.

And there's truth to that, which is why we do focus on how to reduce stress in this app and through meditation. But we could take a different perspective in relationship to stress that I think can conserve as much better. Now, talking about that story, I do think there's times and places where we do need to actively reduce our stress, where medication might need to be implemented or be useful. So I'm not here to make any claims or arguments about that. But when I think back to some of the points in my life that were the biggest turning points, where I felt the most growth, where I made a change that was extremely necessary.

Almost all of those moments were proceeded by great amounts of stress, doubt, confusion and discomfort. Those moments offered space for reflection, questioning, and a desire to change in a positive way. So an overwhelming amount of stress can feel toxic and should be mitigated. But there are healthier forms of stress. And if we relate to those moments as opportunities for change or growth or reflection, it really can change our perspective and have those moments lead to something positive in our life, rather than taking us in a downward spiral.

So see if you can take this perspective toward the stressful moments in your own life. In addition, in addition to using some of the breathing strategies and ways of relaxing and distress that we talk about, what would it be like to also bring a change in perspective? I'll talk to you in the meditation. Thanks for your practice and take care.