Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness.

Today I'm going to share with you what I

like to call my mantra of understanding.

So adopting this mantra and

this way of seeing and being has

radically changed my relationship

to not only myself, but to others.

And the mantra is this: Everyone

is doing the best they can

with the resources they have.

Everyone is doing the best they

can with the resources they have.

So at first, this might be

a hard concept to swallow.

You know, we might think about the

parent or partner who hurt us in the

past, the friend of ours who continues

with self-destructive behavior.We

might think about the rude person

at work, or we might even think

about our own mistakes and regrets.

And it's really easy to think that we

could have, or we should have done a

lot better than we did or they should

have or could have done a lot better.

In other words, it's really easy to

get into this habit of criticizing,

fault-finding judging, putting

people down for not coping with

life in the same way that we do.

And when people behave in ways that

we feel really hurt by, it's easy to

demonize them and, you know, become really

resentful and bitter and judgemental.

We all do this from time to time.

But here's the thing, truly,

none of us wants to suffer.

We all want to be happy.

And I think we've all experienced times

when we wished that we could have done

better, but we just didn't know how,

or we couldn't break free of our old

conditioning or reactivity or old habits.

And being judged or criticized

for it wouldn't have helped.

And we've all made mistakes,

we all get reactive sometimes,

we all have our own conditioned

patterns that we have to deal with.

And we all deal with things really

unskillfully sometimes, not because of

an intent to harm, but just because we

got caught up in our own stuff, you know.

And many people have never had a chance

to learn skills to deal with their

wounds, their fears and their flaws.

They might not know how to be less

reactive, how to be less angry,

how to be less afraid, how to be

less anxious, how to be more nice.

You know, thinking that they should

know better when they don't, only

breeds disconnection, tension, stress,

both within ourselves and without.

But really everyone really

is doing the best they can

with the resources they have.

And I know for myself, when I remember

that fact that life is better.

You know I'm more able to step out of

blame, judgment, anger, and step into self

compassion, forgiveness and understanding,

not only with others, but with myself too.

It also gives me the clarity of

mind and heart to really clearly

communicate my needs, my boundaries

and my feelings instead of getting

caught up in negativity and judgment.

So the invitation today, is to see

if you can remember the mantra of

understanding in the days ahead

and just experiment with this and

see what it brings into your life.

So I hope it really serves you

well, and thank you for your

practice and your presence here.

And let's settle in

for today's meditation.