Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness.

Today I'm going to talk

about how seeing is freeing.

So if we train in awareness, which is

what mindfulness is all about, then

were becoming more aware of everything.

We're becoming more aware of our

thoughts, our feelings, our impulses,

our urges and the effects of our actions.

So we become more aware of not only

the things we like, the pleasant

things, but also stuff that we don't

like, the, the unpleasant things.

So while it might seem a little bit

counterintuitive to become more aware

of things we don't like, it's actually

this awareness that sets us free.

The seeing is freeing.

And when we start out with mindfulness,

we tend to often be so identified with

our thoughts, so caught up in them,

we don't even know where caught up.

It's almost like a bit of

a trance or a hypnosis.

And when we're in that unawareness,

our thoughts completely hook us

and we tend to get kind of pulled

around into emotional reactivity,

old habits and limited thinking.

Once we've learned to step back from

thoughts and into a greater awareness,

life will never be the same again because

we're waking up out of that hypnotic

effect that the thoughts can have over us.

And once that process begins,

there really is no going back.

That's because I think, you know, once

we understand that our thoughts are

simply stories in the mind and we get a

taste of the freedom and inner wellbeing

that comes from that understanding,

the common, natural response is to

want more of that freedom and ease.

It's kind of the same with our

emotions, our impulses, our

habits, our old conditioning.

The more awareness we have of them,

the less we get pulled around by them,

the less we get hijacked by them, the

more we're able to respond instead of

reacting, the more we're able to choose

deliberately who we want to be and

how we want to be in any given moment.

Awareness wakes us up to new levels

of clarity, wisdom, and inner freedom.

And that's a really powerful thing.

Sometimes we can be tempted to want

to run away from seeing or being

with certain aspects of ourselves.

Sometimes we're afraid to, but just

remember that, even though it's

sometimes a little uncomfortable,

this process of waking up, it does

free us from being overwhelmed by our

emotions and urges, and eventually

can completely and radically transform

the mind and therefore our lives.

So the simple invitation for today

is simply to remember, that no

matter what arises to remember

that the seeing is freeing.

So as always thank you for your

practice and your presence here with us.

And now let's settle in

for today's meditation.