Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today, we're going to talk about the mental habit of always bettering ourselves. So as humans, we have a tendency to compare. We compare ourselves to others all the time. But another thing we often do is we create this mental image of how we want to be in the future and then we compare ourselves as we are now to that image.

We, we kind of have this gap that opens up. We ended up feeling that who we are now is not enough yet, not worthy yet, not there yet. So we feel that we need to be better than we are right now constantly. It's a really common mental fixation, you know, to be really focused on bettering, improving, changing something about ourselves rather than accepting ourselves. And so I think when people first come to mindfulness, they have this idea that this is what mindfulness is all about, right? It's about improving ourselves even more.

But mindfulness is not so much about changing yourself or fixing yourself in any way. It's actually more about unwinding from the thoughts that tell us we're not enough yet, we're not there yet, we're not okay yet, that we need to be better. Mindfulness actually teaches us to cultivate self-acceptance and self-love. And with that comes an enormous amount of inner peace, confidence, and freedom. It's a huge relief when we can finally learn to accept ourselves just as we are and let ourselves be.

Now, this doesn't mean that we're never going to do anything to improve our life circumstances, or certainly doesn't mean we're going to give up on our morals or values. Rather, it means unwinding from the stories that tell us where deficient and we need to be fixed so that we can live our lives and make our choices from a place of fullness, wholeness and self-love. It's important to know that when we conjure up this mental image of a better future self, and then we conclude that we're not okay as we are, there's no objective reality to those thoughts. It's just the mind creating thoughts. So you can feel free to treat these thoughts, like any other thoughts.

Simply acknowledge them, letting them go. As long as we stay stuck in this idea that we need to be better before we can be worthy and satisfied, there's always going to be tension in the mind. It's like we're constantly in battle with ourselves, wanting ourselves to be different than we are. So today, here's my invitation to you. Rather than trying to make yourself into something else, see if you can switch the focus today to loving and accepting yourself just as you are right now.

No strings attached, no ifs, buts, or conditions. Each time you catch the inner critic telling you you're not good enough yet, just smiling at the mind and then bring the focus back to acceptance. So when we stop trying to change ourselves, we can end the war within and find a new sense of wholeness, ease and oneness. As Pema Chodron once said, "Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already.

How loving, nourishing, and reassuring is that." As always, thank you for your practice and your presence here. And now let's settle in for today's meditation.