Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today I'm going to talk about how we can cultivate true and lasting self-worth. So I think for many of us, when we think about where our sense of self esteem or our sense of self-worth comes from, we often think about external factors. You know, whether this is conscious or notm this is often where our attention is aimed. And so maybe we believe for instance, that if we behave in certain ways that we believe are good or society believes is good, then we can feel good about ourselves.

If we do not behave in that way, then we feel bad about ourselves. We feel unworthy. But is our worthiness really in our behavior? And sometimes we look for our worthiness by comparing ourselves to other people. You know, if we believe that we're less than them in some way, whether it's less good looking, less wealthy, less successful, then we might feel unworthy or inadequate. But is our worthiness really in how we compare to other human beings.

Or you're, perhaps we can feel good about ourselves as long as other people approve of us. So when we get their approval, when we get their love, or when we get a certain number of likes on Facebook, then we allow ourselves to feel good enough, worthy, okay as we are. But if they don't like us, we fall apart. But is our worthiness really truly in what other people think of us? So the reality is, is that all of these different forms of trying to find our sense of self-worth outside of ourselves are both artificial and really unstable. They leave you at the mercy of all these external and ever-changing conditions.

And too often, we use these criteria as our measure of self-worth. And then we always end up falling short, you know, feeling inadequate. So one of the gifts of mindfulness is that it helps us to very, very clearly see that these external factors are not true measures of our worthiness. Mindfulness teaches us to let go of looking outside of ourselves for that feeling of worthiness and to find it and cultivate it inside of ourselves. So through mindfulness we develop the capacity actually to accept and love ourselves just as we are without any conditions.

We don't base our self worth on what other people think of us, how much we weigh, whatever we're wearing or what kind of car we drive. We actually learned to gradually soften and let go of worrying so much about all of that and just learn to befriend ourselves, flaws and all. So through meditation, the ability to feel true and lasting self-worth naturally grows within us, but we can cultivate it in daily life too. So today try paying attention to your feelings of self-worth throughout the day, how they might fluctuate. And be aware of the times when you're judging yourself, comparing yourself or feeling that you're not enough.

And each time you catch that, aach time you get caught up in self judgment or approval seeking, see if you can practice self-acceptance and self-love instead. Because in the words of John Kabat-Zinn, "If you stop trying to make yourself more than you are out of a fear that you're less than you are, then whoever you really are, will be a lot lighter, happier, and easier to live with too." So as always thank you for your practice and your presence here with us and inviting you now to just begin to settle in for today's meditation.