Hi, welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session, we're going to explore whether you are or aren't what you repeatedly do. So it's not uncommon to hear people say you are what you repeatedly do. And there's a certain truth in this and your habits create a particular expression of you in the world. The more you practice something, the more you become that, whether it's something like mindfulness, gratitude, relaxation.

And it's true with your work as well. If you put a lot of time into something, it's going to become a certain part of your identity and at the very least a skill set that you do have in the world. So we could see the truth in you are what you repeatedly do. But I'd argue that it's not the whole truth because I'm curious, what is your essence when you're not doing something? What was your essence before you started doing things in the world? Who are you in stillness? Who are you when you're not busy? Who are you when you're not pressured to be someone? As humans, we have to balance this. We have the, the, our ego, you could say, our sense of self that we're developing.

That's important, right? This is your, your personality, how you think, and behave in the world, the skill sets that you develop. All of that is necessary if we're living in the world. But you could also say that we're spiritual beings or at the very least we're, we're beings beyond just thought and emotion, sensation. That that's not the whole truth of who we are. And if we're solely identifying with those aspects of us, the things that we do in the world, well, we can really lose connection with the part of us that's much bigger.

And our worth is not contingent upon those variables being manipulated in a certain way. Does that make sense? You know, the variables of, okay, my relationship is in place, my job is in place, all the skillsets that I want to develop, that's in place. Like, okay, when all of that's in place, then I can be happy. Then I'm a good person. It's like, okay.

That can really be some tricky territory, because then the external world always needs to be manipulated in order for us to feel a sense of goodness or a sense of worthiness. But one of the things our meditation practice does start to connect us to is that there's actually an innate wholeness here. There's an innate perfection when we drop beneath all of the thoughts about who we are and where we're going and what we should be doing. And when we connect to that space within us, there's a deep well of nourishment that we can pull on and it can aid us in all of the things that we are doing in the world. So this really is a practice of blending those things.

On some level, yes, you are what you repeatedly do. On another level, no, you're not what you repeatedly do. Our practice is to understand both of those truths and start to integrate them. Thank you for your practice. Let's settle in for today's meditation.