Hey there.

Welcome to the Mindfulness.com

2022 Un-challenge.

My name is Cory Muscara, and I'll

be guiding you through this series.

The theme of this series is

going to be permission to be

human, permission to be you.

And each day for seven days, you'll get a

short video like this and a corresponding

meditation, all with the intention to

help you reconnect, slow down, develop

more self-acceptance and really get

back into alignment with yourself.

We can get so out of alignment when

we're caught up in the buzzing of

our day-to-day, constantly trying

to improve ourselves, better

ourselves, get someplace else.

And while that's all well and good, and

well-intentioned, it can often wind us up.

And that's going to be the

focus of our first day today.

What does it really take to start

unwinding some of this deep seated

tension that can accumulate over days,

months, years, and sometimes even decades?

Well, I'll start by saying

to unwind our deepest tension

requires the deepest stillness.

To unwind our deepest tension

requires the deepest stillness, and

I'm not just talking about stillness

of body, although that can help.

I'm referring more to stillness of

being, that place within you that is

able to observe what is happening without

making it right or wrong, having to do

something about it, improve it, fix it.

That's the usual way

we go about our lives.

We experience something and we

immediately put it in a category

of, oh, this is, this is a good

feeling and this is a bad feeling.

And based on that, we either cling to the

experience or push away the experience.

That cycle of pushing-pulling,

pushing-pulling,

pushing-pulling is exhausting.

I do that when I go to the gym, but

I don't go to the gym for 24 hours

a day, the body would break down.

And yet, if you look at how the mind

is relating to our moment to moment

experience, it's often this cycle

of push-pull, push-pull, push-pull.

And even when we go about our

personal development, you'll often

see that there's this intention

of pushing against our experience.

Even our relaxation strategies, it's

like, all right, had a long day.

Now I need to force myself to relax.

What do I do?

Sit down.

Good posture.

Deep inhale.

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.

Inhale, exhale..

And can you just see how that might

actually reinforce the very mechanisms

of mind that are causing you to want

to relax or unwind in the first place?

That part of you that constantly

needs to be better or get

somewhere else or do something.

It's what Bob Sharples calls the

subtle aggression of self-improvement,

where we're constantly trying to be

someplace else than where we are or

be someone else other than who we are

that, while well-intentioned again,

can actually leave us feeling burnt

out and worse than we were before.

And the claim we're going to make

here is that often you need to

get out of alignment with the

rest of the world in order to get

back into alignment with yourself.

And that involves connecting to that

place within you that actually is

spacious enough to hold all aspects

of who you are without needing to

fix, change, or do something about it.

We're going to dive into that today

in our meditation practice so that you

really have an opportunity to connect

to what that's pointing to, because

it's one thing to think about it.

It's another thing to actually be in it.

So we'll go into that more in a moment,

but as you do go about your day, I

just want you to notice all of the

ways that you find yourself pushing

against experience, your internal

experience, or grasping at experiences.

And what would it be like

to just take a breath?

And just say, "Can I just be in this

moment as it is without immediately

needing to make it different?"

It might be a radical shift, but

that's kind of what we're doing here.

The whole idea of an un-challenge

is a bit against the status quo.

And let's see how it

goes for the seven days.

You might be surprised what

happens on the other side.

So it's great to be here with you.

Let's settle in together for

today's first meditation.