Hi, and welcome back to Day Six of this seven day meditation challenge on coming home to yourself. I hope you enjoyed yesterday's session with Cory, where he explored how to awaken joy. I hope that really helps you to feel uplifted and strengthened after what may have been a very difficult year. In today's session, we're going to explore how to challenge the status quo so you can be more authentically yourself and follow what really authentically makes you happy. So there's a fairy tale about this actually.

The fairy tale goes that there were two con men who pretended to be weavers and they convinced the emperor of this land that they had a magical suit that could only be seen by those who are intelligent and brave. It could not be seen by fools. So after a week, the emperor sends two of his men to check on the weavers work to see how this suit is coming along. And when each man realizes that he can't see anything, he doesn't want to appear to be a fool, so each man lied to the emperor saying how wonderful the suit is looking. Then the suit is brought to the emperor on the day of his grand parade.

The emperor too sees nothing, but didn't want to seem like a fool, so he agrees that the suit is wonderful. And so he puts it on and then does a royal parade through town. And everyone in the kingdom sees the emperor naked, but they don't want to appear to be fools, so they speak to one another about how magnificent he looks. But finally, a child yells out the emperor isn't wearing any clothes. And then everyone in the kingdom realizes what's actually true and starts giggling.

And the emperor, poor emperor then found himself standing in the middle of the parade wearing nothing but his pride. So we can all probably relate to this story, right? Because we all share a common challenge. The way that our minds have evolved means we're always going to feel a strong pull to fit in and be part of the pack. We're always going to feel drawn to conform rather than risk rejection, but that internal pressure to conform means that we can sometimes deny our own feelings instead of listening to them, it means that we might hold off on challenging the status quo even if something doesn't feel right to us. And sometimes we might make decisions and take actions with little reason other than the fact that everybody else is doing it and that can lead to all kinds of unwise and harmful scenarios for ourselves and others.

So part of the invitation of mindful living is to cultivate more self-trust and authenticity. In other words, mindfulness helps us to get more in touch with ourselves and it teaches us to trust our own or authority and our own direct experience rather than always relying solely on the opinions, the expectations and the experiences of others. It also helps us to act from our own integrity and authenticity, even when it's challenging to do so. So today, I invite you to ponder in what ways might you need to challenge the status quo in your life this year? Do you need to speak up or stand up to change things where something actually doesn't feel right for you? And instead of trying to fit in or be liked, how can you show up more this year as your true self, you know, both today and in the whole year ahead? So I invite you to make a pact with yourself today, not to be defined by other people's expectations of you or your desire to fit in. But instead to see if you can be brave, be authentic, speak out on the things that matter, and most importantly share the real you with the world.

So thank you for your practice and your presence here with us. And now inviting you to settle in for today's meditation.