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The War of the Beetles

Personalized support for learning how to integrate mindfulness into your life. Delivered fresh everyday by our world renowned experts. Choose meditation duration:

Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today, we're going to talk about nurturing inner strength. So on the slope of Bragg's Peak in Northern Canada lies the ruin of a gigantic ancient tree. Scientists say that it's lived there for over 400 years. During the course of its long life, it endured huge storms, gale force winds, seven huge avalanches, and was actually struck by lightning 12 times.

But through all of that, it remained resilient and survived. However, one day an army of tiny beetles began to invade the tree and attack it from the inside. These tiny, weensy, little insects slowly gnawed away inside the tree, destroying its inner strength with their tiny, but ceaseless attacks. This titan of the forest, which storms and winds had not bent, which time had not diminished and lightening in avalanches could not destroy, was at last leveled to the ground by tiny little beetles, so small and fragile that you could just pick one up and crush it between your fingers. This story serves as a great metaphor for what can happen with our mental strength.

In my work with people over the last decade, I've found that most of us can actually summon up the resolve and strength needed to get through times of great crisis when they really have to. It's actually the small, everyday, unhelpful thoughts that eat away at us from the inside out. It's the gnawing negative thoughts, the worries, the ruminations, the self doubt, the resentment, the dissatisfaction, the craving, the fear. This is what pulls us away from our rootedness in the present moment and our wisdom, clarity, and peace of mind and destroys our inner strength. However, what I've also seen is that through mindfulness, we can learn to identify when we're getting stuck in those kinds of unhelpful thoughts.

We can let them go and return our attention to the peace of the present moment, our place of steadiness and mental strength. Every single time we do this, this pattern of noticing unhelpful thoughts, letting them go, returning to the present moment to our strength, every time we do that, we grow resilience, calm, happiness, and strength inside. And that core of strength we can carry with us through all the ups and downs of life. This is why we keep doing this practice. So as always, thank you for being here.

Thank you for your practice and your presence here. Let's settle in now for today's meditation.

Melli O'Brien

4.8

The War of the Beetles

Personalized support for learning how to integrate mindfulness into your life. Delivered fresh everyday by our world renowned experts. Choose meditation duration:

Duration

Your default time is based on your progress and is changed automatically as you practice.

Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today, we're going to talk about nurturing inner strength. So on the slope of Bragg's Peak in Northern Canada lies the ruin of a gigantic ancient tree. Scientists say that it's lived there for over 400 years. During the course of its long life, it endured huge storms, gale force winds, seven huge avalanches, and was actually struck by lightning 12 times.

But through all of that, it remained resilient and survived. However, one day an army of tiny beetles began to invade the tree and attack it from the inside. These tiny, weensy, little insects slowly gnawed away inside the tree, destroying its inner strength with their tiny, but ceaseless attacks. This titan of the forest, which storms and winds had not bent, which time had not diminished and lightening in avalanches could not destroy, was at last leveled to the ground by tiny little beetles, so small and fragile that you could just pick one up and crush it between your fingers. This story serves as a great metaphor for what can happen with our mental strength.

In my work with people over the last decade, I've found that most of us can actually summon up the resolve and strength needed to get through times of great crisis when they really have to. It's actually the small, everyday, unhelpful thoughts that eat away at us from the inside out. It's the gnawing negative thoughts, the worries, the ruminations, the self doubt, the resentment, the dissatisfaction, the craving, the fear. This is what pulls us away from our rootedness in the present moment and our wisdom, clarity, and peace of mind and destroys our inner strength. However, what I've also seen is that through mindfulness, we can learn to identify when we're getting stuck in those kinds of unhelpful thoughts.

We can let them go and return our attention to the peace of the present moment, our place of steadiness and mental strength. Every single time we do this, this pattern of noticing unhelpful thoughts, letting them go, returning to the present moment to our strength, every time we do that, we grow resilience, calm, happiness, and strength inside. And that core of strength we can carry with us through all the ups and downs of life. This is why we keep doing this practice. So as always, thank you for being here.

Thank you for your practice and your presence here. Let's settle in now for today's meditation.

Melli O'Brien

Melli O'Brien

4.8

Duration

Melli O'Brien

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