Hi, welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session, I want to talk about a strategy you can use for working with fear and taking action. So a lot of times we have an intuitive sense of what would be good for us, something we want to try, something that excites us. But the idea of moving toward it activates the fear part of our being. The thoughts start coming in saying, oh, I don't know if I can do this, or, what would happen if I did or, it feels like a big leap, I'm scared.

So there's a simple strategy by Mel Robbins that I like. And it's called the five second rule, which she suggests is when you have something you know you want to do, like a pattern, a habit, you start counting down from five. So maybe you just want to get out of bed earlier. And so the alarm goes off, your tendency is to hit snooze. As soon as the alarm goes off the first time.

You hit it and turn it off. And then you start going 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And you see what happens once you start counting down? It creates a bit of urgency in the system. It's different than counting one through five, which can be endless. 1, 2, 3, 4.

Something about 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. It's like there's supposed to be a blast off after that. And so it overrides some of that fear response in the brain and just causes us to push into action a little bit. I don't think this strategy is necessary or useful in all contexts. As I've talked about before, there are times where we really need to work with that fear-based part of us.

But if we know there's something that we really want to do and the inner child or that younger part of us is just, it's maybe complaining a little bit, or it's just caught and it's fear and we just need to push through just a little bit to get over that hump, then I think this strategy is useful. And try it out in your day. Something simple that you want to try, that you want to work on, instead of maybe procrastinating and just getting to work when you feel that urge, like I should do this, but then the mind goes, I don't really want to. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And then you just start.

Try it out. Thanks for your practice. Let's settle in for today's meditation.