Welcome to your sixth day of meditation.
You're doing this.
In just a few minutes a day,
You're training your mind and body to be still.
You're offering a counterbalance to the threatening chatter and thoughts that hound you in most every moment.
You're slowly but surely loosening the grip of your story and the stress of your life.
Mindfulness and meditation are about something simple.
Allowing you to show up more often in the present moment.
This is a big deal.
When you're in the present moment,
You're not thinking about the past or the future.
All of our dissatisfaction,
Unhappiness,
Anxiety,
As well as a good portion of our physical discomfort,
Pain,
And disease comes from wishing something had been different in the past or how it could be different in the future.
We miss the present.
So here's the formula for letting go of all of that.
All suffering comes from wanting things to be different than they are.
Think about that through your day.
All suffering comes from wanting things to be different than they are.
One sentence encompasses all of suffering.
It doesn't take away your pain,
Only your suffering.
It doesn't make the world any different,
But it lets the world be as it is.
Just for a moment.
It doesn't pay the bills or get your work done.
But it acknowledges that our current state,
Our lives,
Our work,
Our world is the way that it is in this moment.
Because that's how it is.
It couldn't be any other way.
You might argue,
But it's logic.
You couldn't have made different choices in the past so that things would be better now.
How can I know that?
Because you didn't do it.
So here we are.
The moment we resist or argue with reality,
We suffer.
So what's the treatment?
It's called radical acceptance.
Radical acceptance is the total,
Unconditional agreement that your current moment is the way that it is.
Stop there and soak it in.
We say it all the time,
It is what it is.
It is what it is.
We usually say it as a way to shrug off something that we would still prefer to be different.
I challenge you to start saying it as a way to accept everything as it is right now.
Just in this moment.
You'll get back to enhancing your life and changing the world soon.
But for now,
Full acceptance of the moment will relax your nervous system,
Turn off the fight or flight response,
And let your body and mind rest quietly.
In this quiet,
The mystery can move through you.
Your song can play into this world.
The story of you can pause.
And then what's real within you can be revealed.
This is a powerful practice and I encourage you to take it up daily.
Radical acceptance of the moment that we're in.
Because this is the moment that we're in.
Let's meditate on that.
Sitting comfortably.
Back straight.
Feet on the floor or sitting cross-legged.
Taking a breath into your belly.
Breathing out.
Feeling into your body.
Breathing yourself into the body.
Noticing the feelings in your body.
Noticing any tension.
Noticing the feeling of your body.
Noticing any tension.
And letting as much as possible drift away.
Focusing on your breath.
Breathing deeply into your belly.
Focusing away from your thinking into your body.
Feeling a breath.
Hearing a breath.
Imagining a breath coming in and going out.
Recognizing that we're in this moment together.
Sitting in meditation with nothing else to do right now.
The moment that we're in could not be any different than it is.
It's the very moment that we have to be in.
The one moment that there is.
Everything in your life has led up to this moment.
Nothing will change.
This moment.
And being just as it is.
Breathing into your body.
Allowing that moment to be.
Letting your nervous system relax.
Letting your muscles relax.
There's nothing that will change.
Letting your muscles relax.
There's nothing to fight in this moment.
Feeling into the stress and the tension in the neck and the shoulders.
Allowing that to relax and release.
Deeply dropping into this moment.
Allowing yourself to sit.
Allowing yourself not to do and accomplish.
Allowing yourself to simply be where you are.
Radical acceptance is about letting everything be just as it is.
It's agreeing with reality.
That right now everything is the way it is.
It is.
If you'd like,
Everything is the way it is meant to be.
Because it could not be any other way.
Breathing into your body.
Breathing out.
Allowing your lower back to relax and release.
Allowing the tension in your jaw to relax and release.
Noticing all of the energy between your eyebrows.
From furrowing your brow and rejecting reality.
Let that relax.
Breathing in and breathing out.
This is the basis for your meditation.
Basis for allowing yourself to feel deeply,
Physically connected to your body.
Away from your thinking and judgments and into this moment.
I congratulate you on another day of meditation.
And I encourage you to spend another five minutes or so sitting and meditating on this moment.
I want to ask you a question.
What is the value of meditation?
What is the value of meditation?
I want to ask you a question.
What are the benefits of meditation?
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