Hey, welcome back to

your Daily Mindfulness.

In today's session, we're going to

talk about a practice that really gets

to the heart of mindfulness, and this

is shifting our what ifs to what is.

Chances are you're very

familiar with the what if mind.

What if this goes wrong?

What if that goes wrong?

What if they don't like me?

What if I mess up?

What if I fail?

What if, what if, what if.

Of course, sometimes the

what if mine can be useful.

They can help us plan for

something that can go wrong.

It might be a reason why we try

and get some sort of insurance.

The what if mind can serve a

useful purpose in our life.

But if you're like me, a lot of times,

the what if mind can just take us off

into an infinite number of directions

that have very little to do with

anything going on right now and it

ends up just causing extra stress

and frustration, anger, sadness.

So the suggestion, when you find

yourself caught in those moments is

to shift your what if to what is.

What is here right now?

You could do it as you're listening.

For me, my feet are on the ground.

I can see a roof over my head.

I feel relatively well fed

and comfortable in my body.

I hear a little bit of

noise outside, but subtle.

And so, you know, this happens to

be a pleasant moment when I tune

into it and I step out of maybe

the chaos of my mind, I do see that

this moment is less of a catastrophe

than my mind is making it out to be.

Now there were other times in life that

are a little bit more stressful and

chaotic, but even then our mind has a

tendency to experience that and then go,

well, what if this lasts for a long time?

What if this keeps going on?

How long am I going to feel this

pain that's in my knee right now?

Right?

What if mind in action.

And what that does, is it doubles,

triples, quadruples the stress

that we're feeling in that moment.

However, if we were to just come into

what is here right now, might be an

uncomfortable sensation, might be a little

bit of noise, might be an upset stomach.

Not necessarily pleasant, but at least

we're not compounding the stress.

And so shifting our what if to what

is, is a great way to attune ourselves

more to the present moment and see

how we tend to make extra stress

out of a, a thought pattern that is

often catastrophizing the moment.

And as I said, you know, sometimes

the mind is accurately thinking

about what's going on, but more

often than not, it is making the

experience worse than it has to be.

So when you find yourself caught

up in that, my suggestion to you is

shift the what if to what is, come

back to what is here right now.

And I think you'll to0 see that this

moment is often less of a catastrophe

than our mind is, is making it out to be.

Thank you for your practice.

I'll talk to you soon and

until then, take care.