Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today I'm going to talk about seeing the root causes of our suffering. So when we go through internal struggles, we often focus on what may have initially triggered out difficult emotions in the external environment. For instance, maybe someone said something or did something that hurt or angered us, or maybe we experienced a big setback or a loss or a disappointment. And so the tendency that we all have is to focus on the person or the situation and blame that situation for how we're feeling.

But as long as we continue to ruminate, to place blame by thinking about the situation over and over again, we only continue to kind of throw more fuel on the fire of our suffering and inner turmoil. But if we can learn to gently reorient our focus from looking outwards to looking inwards, if we can become present to what we're feeling in our own body and what's going on in our own mind, then we can start to discover the root sources of our ongoing suffering and also the way to more freedom and peace within. So when we look within, for instance, we might start to see that it's not actually the evental person that is the true problem right now, but rather it's our own mental reaction to it. As Greek philosopher, Epictetus, once observed," We're not so much disturbed by what happens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens to us." And this is really true, much of the time. So while the initial event may have set off our emotional turbulence, the rest of the harm we tend to do to ourselves through thinking, you know, thinking about how we've been wronged, thinking about what should or shouldn't have happened, blaming, resisting, telling ourselves stories about our failures, our brokenness, and maybe how someone's a victim or a villain.

So if we can see how certain thoughts generate suffering and stress, then we have the power to let them go so we can stop kind of consuming that suffering in the same way that we would stop consuming a food that makes us feel really sick. Right? We simply choose to stop indulging. We see that these thoughts are simply thoughts. They're not necessarily reality. And we see that to keep buying into them and playing them out and playing them over and over again, just hurts.

So this week's invitation is to see if you can be alert to when inner turmoil is arising and when it does, tune into what's going on in the mind with a kindly curiosity. So without judging yourself in any way, just notice if the mind is thinking thoughts that are creating more suffering. And whenever you notice this, see if you can simply let go of the stories in the mind by bringing your full awareness back into the peace, fullness and wholeness of the present moment, making the present moment your refuge. In today's meditation I'm going to share a practice with you called mental noting, which can be incredibly helpful in letting go of unhelpful thinking. So inviting you to settle in for that now, and I'll guide you through.

And as always, thank you for your practice and your presence here with us.