Hi, and welcome to your daily mindfulness. Today we're going to talk about easing self-improvement overload. So we're often trying to fix or change every single aspect of ourselves and our lives. And that's tempting to spend almost all of our time relating to life in this way, you know, trying to fix all these different parts of ourselves and our life. If I can just fix my body by doing this plan.

If I get to just fix my personality by employing these techniques. If I can just fix my relationship by applying this particular strategy. So there's this kind of unconscious assumption underneath that once we solve and fix it all, we're going to be finally happy. But what actually tends to happen is that when we get to our goal, our mind just comes up with new problems and changes and fixes that it thinks need to happen for you to be happy. Have you ever noticed that in your own life, it's just kind of like never enough.

The truth is, is that the human mind evolved to help us survive and to do that the mind had to constantly problem solve and fix things. The mind is essentially a problem solving organ. And in the caveman days, life was really difficult and dangerous. So our minds evolved to be kind of constantly problem solving. So always looking for ways to kind of fix or change or plan things because that helped our ancestors survive.

But these days it's really leading many of us to feel constantly deficient. It kind of keeps us on these treadmill of constantly trying to be better and prove ourselves and we just don't let ourselves simply be and relax. So through mindfulness, we're able to step back from and see beyond this habit of the mind. And what we come to realize that life is not a problem to be solved. It's an experience to be lived.

So there's a shift in perception where we see that our experience of life is not determined so much by getting all the parts of our life sorted out, but by changing the lens through which we look at life. So gradually we learn to let go of always trying to fix, solve, improve everything, and instead we learn to cultivate our ability to meet life with acceptance, kindness, and awareness. The paradox is when we let go of what some people call this subtle aggression of self-improvement and embrace more self acceptance, and open-heartedness towards life. The happiness we were seeking often comes rushing into our life like lungs full of fresh air. Of course, this doesn't mean that we can't have goals and move towards them, but rather that we do those things from an inner state of wholeness and ease rather than lack and deficiency.

So we'll be cultivating this ability more and more with every meditation that we do. So on that note, just inviting you to settle in for today's practice and as always thank you for your practice and your presence here with us.