Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session we're going to talk about the relationship between joy and pain. Now, a lot of the time when we think of having more joy in our life, we think about cultivating positive emotions, focusing on what is good and even positive thinking. And yes, there's certainly a big place for these things in the context of cultivating your happiness and your wellbeing. However, that's not always the full story.

And I'd like to say something that may feel a bit controversial, but sometimes the greatest progress you can make toward experiencing joy comes from first making space to experience your pain. So just notice what it's like to hear that. The reason for this is because trying to find more joy in your life without doing some of the deeper healing work, the underlying pain that might be there is sort of like trying to row a boat downstream without untying yourself from the dock. The parts of you that need to be vulnerable and open enough to be touched by joy and to receive it are often subconsciously damming the, the stream of feeling so that you don't have to experience painful emotions. I don't know if you've experienced that before or are going through that, but I certainly know that's been an experience I've had where something feels like it's too painful, so we try to shut down to it.

And we might then not experience the pain, but we also then don't experience the joy. It as if there's an overall numbing that happens in our mind and our body. Joy requires a degree of openness and letting go. And if we're actively closing down to protect ourselves from feeling pain, then we won't be able to let joy in. So as you consider cultivating more joy in your life, check to see what your relationship is for making space to experience and show compassion toward your pain.

This is a big healing journey and today's meditation will help with this. And you could also take time throughout the day to stop, to breathe into any discomfort that may be present and then say to yourself, you're welcome here too. It might be uncomfortable at first, but over time, you'll notice more space and ease arise in your mind and your body. Thank you for your practice. Let's settle in for today's meditation.