Hey! Welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. How did it go yesterday? We're slowly building out a tool kit for ways to be in relationship to our stress. In the first two days, we spent some time creating more space around the experience of stress. And also the thoughts that can arise dropping into being an observer of the experience rather than being so sucked into the experience. But we can take a more direct relationship to our stress, meaning how we direct our attention in relationship to it, which could then impact the experience of stress itself.

So what I mean by this is, when it comes to the thoughts and the emotions and all the sensational experiences of stress, we could watch that happen, we could give it space, we can observe it, but we can also direct our attention away from it. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Developing a calm quality of focus so that the mind is not so sucked into the actual content of the stress. So as you sit here, I'm going to invite you to bring your attention to the fact that you're breathing. If it's helpful, you could place one hand on your belly.

When we're in a stressed out state, the mind can get totally swept away by thoughts, ideas, and judgments, and all our perceived demands that we need to take care of. So, if you imagine that as a flashlight with dispersion, what we're doing is making that more of a laser pointer and directing it right to the belly. As the mind wanders off, and then gets caught up in those thoughts. Instead of indulging in them, we're just redirecting the attention right back to this moment, right back to this breath. So just see if you can be aware of three full breaths with full focus, full presence and attention.

We'll try it out together. If you want to close your eyes, you're welcome to. Great job! We're going to expand that awareness so that instead of focusing on the breath, what we're doing is focusing on the moment itself. You can bring your focus to me, to what you hear. But each time you find the mind caught up in thoughts, ideas, things you might be stressed about, just practice settling, settling the attention right back into this moment.

Now, each time we do this, the mind wanders off, we bring it back. It's kind of like a bicep curl for the brain. And what we do see is that bringing the attention back in that way, wandering off, bringing it back, is strengthening the part of your brain that is able to be present and not so consumed with the neurotic, stressful thoughts. So it's a practice. And when you find your mind wandering, see if you can view it as a bicep curl.

Each time you're bringing it back, even though it might feel like a bit of a strain at first, is strengthening that muscle. We're going to do more of this in the meditation. So you'll get some more practice, but see if you can also bring it into your day. As always thank you for your practice. I'll talk to you soon.

Take care.