Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness.

Today I'd like to address one of

the most common questions that I get

asked when I teach retreats and that

is, will I lose my motivation to

reach my goals if I meditate a lot?

Will I lose my edge, my passion for life?

So, often when I ask people questions

about why they think that that might

happen, what I hear is that the concern

is, is that if we're always bringing

our attention back to the present moment

that we're going to somehow totally lose

touch with our goals, our dreams, our

values, and our visions for the future.

Or that meditating will lead to a state

where we're kind of checked out of life,

so those things weren't really matter

anymore and they're afraid to go there.

So neither of these is the case.

Absolutely not the case.

So when we allow ourselves to be fully

present in the moment we're not forgetting

about or deleting our past, are we?

It doesn't vanish.

It's always available to us.

It's always a part of us and we

can recall it whenever we need it.

In the same way, we're also

definitely not abandoning the future.

We're simply making our primary

focus, inhabiting our actual moment

to moment experience instead of

being lost in our wandering thoughts.

So we're not negating or denying

our visions for the future at all.

On the contrary, we can still

plan for our future whilst

being fully present in the now.

And when we do that, we do it with

much more clarity and discernment.

The difference is that we're not

lost in thoughts about the future,

and we're not clinging to them.

We're fully aware of what

we're doing in the moment.

We are, we can be aware that

we're planning for the future.

So in other words, when we're

fully present, we can use our

mind instead of being lost in it.

So I'll also add that if anything,

mindfulness actually gives you more of

an edge and more passion and motivation

because you get very, very clear on

what matters to you deep in your heart.

You get very connected to what you

care about, and that makes you very

passionate and motivated to be engaged

in the things that matter to you.

Whether it's raising your kids,

serving people at work, building

a business, or doing a hobby.

Essentially mindfulness

is really about waking up.

And that means being more engaged

with life, more alive to it

all, more present for it all.

This kind of wakefulness and engagement in

life was summed up really beautifully by

Jon Kabat-Zinn when he said, "Ultimately,

I've come to see that meditation is

nothing short of a love affair with life."

So I would say that mindfulness does the

exact opposite, and this is true in my

experience, of making you lose your edge

and engagement in life, because when

you're not so lost in your wandering

thoughts all the time, when you're

not lost on autopilot mode, you can

get back in the driver's seat of your

life, live it with more intention and

clarity and be more fully awake for the

whole moment by moment adventure of it.

So as always, thank you for

your practice and your presence

here with us in this community.

And let's settle in now

for today's meditation.